This note is being written in advance of my departure for Singapore to attend the Asia-South Pacific Congress on Evangelism. A thousand delegates from all over Asia will attend, and it is hoped that a vigorous new evangelistic thrust will develop from the congress. Sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, it follows the pattern set by the Berlin congress in 1966. Christians everywhere should pray that God will bless this endeavor and that the Holy Spirit will work powerfully in every heart.

I will return to the States after the election and before Thanksgiving. Voteless because of a change of residence (a feature of our democratic system that needs to be changed), I can only pray that God’s will be done and that the man of his choice be sent to the White House. Whoever is elected needs the prayers of all Christians and a new sense of loyalty to our nation from those who supported him and those who did not. At Thanksgiving time we should rejoice that we still have the right to vote and freedom of speech and assembly.

The new name that appeared recently on our masthead signifies not a new copy editor but a newly married copy editor. We wish Carol Friedley Griffith and her husband God’s best in their marriage pilgrimage.

We welcome to our staff Connely McCray, our new Circulation Manager. Mr. McCray formerly served with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Richard M. Nixon, elected thirty-seventh President of the United States by a whisker, got public support from only two major Protestant leaders. But they were big ones.

After a long personal friendship, and several appearances with Nixon during the campaign, evangelist Billy Graham said in Dallas five days before the election that he had voted for Nixon by absentee ballot. Formal endorsement came from the Rev. Joseph H. Jackson, of the huge National Baptist Convention, Inc., whose opinion was shared by few other Negro leaders (see editorial, p. 25).

Hubert H. Humphrey got a series of endorsements from social-action Protestants, white and black. George C. Wallace won little prestigious support, and drew active opposition from a few church spokesmen who did not endorse either of his opponents.

And some activists sat this one out, disgruntled over the Viet Nam war. This 1968 phenomenon showed how far the war had eclipsed the racial-justice crusade of the earlier sixties. For these clergymen couldn’t rouse enough enthusiasm to back Humphrey or Nixon—or both—against Wallace, who had repudiated the whole church consensus on race.

In the Dallas interview, Graham said “I almost feel sorry for the next president, because he will be heading into the eye of a hurricane. What we really need is a great religious awakening.”

The evangelist, probably the nation’s best-known and most-respected clergyman, said he would make no speeches for Nixon. “I am trying to avoid political involvement. Perhaps I have already said too much, but I am deeply concerned about my country. It is hard to keep quiet at a time like this. I feel like this is going to be the most important election in American history.”

Historians may yet debate what role the evangelist—who had a key role in Nixon’s decision to run—played in the thin victory. On Election Day Graham, in New York City where he planned to visit Nixon, made no comment on his influence.

Graham said he had come out for Eisenhower in 1952. In 1964 “everybody knew by implication that I was for Lyndon Johnson,” he said, recalling that the two went to church together the Sunday before the election. In the two weeks before that election, Graham got 1.2 million telegrams urging him to endorse either Johnson or Barry Goldwater. His 1968 statement drew about 200 complaint letters, compared to about 60,000 letters his office receives daily.

Graham, who voted for Democrats in North Carolina races, said he felt a “personal tug” over the presidential race since “I admire Hubert Humphrey.” He said the Wallace factor “did not enter in at all,” and he had “no comment” on the Alabamian.

The evangelist was amused that some of his liberal critics had now praised him for being “relevant” in supporting a candidate. Though Graham has been critical of much social action by church officialdom, which he believes displaces the Gospel, he believes the nation is in “such serious condition” that “Christians should stand up and be counted on social and political questions.”

Nixon won formal endorsement from Graham’s father-in-law Dr. L. Nelson Bell, well-known Southern Presbyterian layman and executive editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Jackson, president of the 5.5 million Negroes in the NBC, the world’s largest black church body, was joined in his endorsement by a political-action committee authorized at the denomination’s September meeting. The NBC group decided the Democratic Party was “too divided” to unify the nation, and it favored the Republicans’ emphasis on “law and order.”

Since surveys showed 90 per cent of U. S. Negroes were for Humphrey, reaction to the endorsement was not surprising. Concerned Clergy, a group within the NBC, predicted few members of the denomination would vote for Nixon and charged that the Republican “panders to racist theories and has no program which is relevant to the black community.” Signers of the statement, which praised Humphrey’s civil-rights record, included Baptist layman Charles Evers, the Mississippi civil-rights leader.

Humphrey won support from two other denominational presidents who issued endorsements: Culbert Rutenber of the American Baptist Convention, and Dana McLean Greeley of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, endorsed Humphrey while on a get-out-the-vote tour, just eight days before the election. Other prominent Negroes for Humphrey included Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.; Union Seminary sociologist C. Eric Lincoln; and the Rev. M. L. Wilson, board chairman of the National Committee of Black Churchmen (for report on NCBC convention, see page 40).

The major clergy support for Humphrey came in two publicized petitions, one from Boston and another from New York. The 45-name Boston list was headed by theology deans Krister Stendahl of Harvard and Walter Muelder of Boston University.

The New York list, accompanied by a reluctant pro-Humphrey rationale, was led by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Union Seminary President John Bennett. It included editors Alan Geyer of the Christian Century and Wayne Cowan of Christianity and Crisis, and such veteran petition-signers as Harold Bosley, Arnold Come, L. Harold DeWolf, Roger Shinn, and Ralph Sockman.

The vote-for-nobody position, debated in the pages of Cowan’s journal, was represented by Harvey Cox, Tom Faw Driver, and Howard Schomer.

Several voices came out explicitly against Wallace: the Christian Century, the Methodist college magazine motive, and the Jesuit weekly America. The evangelical weekly Christian Times did its bit among pietistic readers by running a page-one photo of Wallace smoking a big, black cigar.

Newly elected Methodist Bishop James Armstrong of North and South Dakota issued a four-page statement asserting that the Christian, no matter how disappointed at the candidates, must refuse to “drop out.” Armstrong saw the Wallace candidacy giving the election special significance. When the nation is divided, he said, “this is hardly the time to encourage a presidential candidate who has promised he would never be ‘out-niggered’ again.”

Despite the bombing halt, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam went ahead with some protest meetings the Sunday before the election, with no apparent impact.

There was some flap late in the campaign when Nixon booster Max Fisher sent a letter to rabbis across the country reporting on Nixon’s friendly meeting with Jewish leaders and asking the rabbis to discuss the material in their sermons. Presidents Levi Olan of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Maurice Eisendrath of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations called it a “crude attempt to manipulate the synagogue and the rabbinate for partisan political advantage.”

In general, there seemed to be no slackening in the trend toward clergy endorsements. In 1952, 1956, and 1960, the Republicans won a substantial number of important clergy endorsements. But in 1964 clergy statements were almost unanimously in favor of the Democrat, Lyndon Johnson. The Democratic edge was retained in 1968 among nationally prominent spokesmen, though the polls showed that at the grass roots level Protestants definitely favored Nixon.

On the perennial issue of aid to parochial schools, there was little difference between the major party nominees. Humphrey sent a message to the U. S. Catholic Conference supporting federal aid to pupils in non-public schools. Nixon announced he would set up a “National Task Force for Religious Affiliated Schools.” He said religious schools often perform “indispensable community services and would seem to merit public support.” He favored federal aid for state-administered payments to private-school pupils.

Incomplete returns showed at least thirty Virginia localities approved, and eight defeated, restaurant sale of liquor by the drink. A similar proposal in Utah, dominated by non-drinking Mormons, lost by nearly two to one.

BOMB HALT REACTIONS

Church leaders sent up expectable sighs of relief as the United States announced it would stop all bombing of North Viet Nam.

General Secretary Eugene Carson Blake of the World Council of Churches noted that the WCC had called for this move since 1966 and said “killing and maiming of the people of North Viet Nam” would be ended. Blake said expansion of the Paris peace talks to include the National Liberation Front and South Viet Nam—later a clouded situation—promised “rapid achievement of a ceasefire throughout the divided nation preliminary to the negotiation of a just and honorable peace.”

WCC international-affairs director O. Frederick Nolde wired President Johnson expressing “gratitude to Almighty God” for the halt. He sent a similar wire to the North Vietnamese government.

Similarly, international-affairs director Robert Bilheimer of the National Council of Churches and department chairman Ernest Gross told the President they pledged “continuing support of your efforts to contribute to a lasting peace in Southeast Asia,” and recalled NCC pressures for a bombing halt.

Vatican Radio said shortly after the announcement that the halt “has aroused hopes on all sides.… It seems that the principal obstacle to concrete negotiations has now been removed.” The broadcast recalled Pope Paul’s tireless efforts for peace. Later, press spokesman Monsignor Fausto Vallainc said the Vatican received the news with “extreme satisfaction.”

The Vatican reaction was gracious, considering that on the eve of the bombing halt, Viet Cong terrorists fired rockets in Saigon that killed nineteen persons and injured sixty-four while they were attending All Saints’ Day Mass in a Catholic church. Among the injured was Father Nguyen Minh Tri, who was reading the Gospel.

North Viet Nam Case Study

While the bombing halt was being planned last month, United Press International sent a reminder of one reason why religious forces in South Viet Nam fear Communist expansion. Reports pieced together from North Viet Nam indicate the Red regime is “slowly eradicating Roman Catholicism and Buddhism from the fabric of North Vietnamese society,” UPI says in an October 27 dispatch from Saigon.

North Vietnamese regimental commander Phan Van Xang, who defected to the South in June, said, “They don’t forbid old people to go to church, but they send small children to beat drums in the streets outside as the service is taking place.” Rather than using harsh methods, he said, the government seeks to destroy religion slowly through education.

Roman Catholics, once a strong force planted by French missionaries, now constitute an estimated 571,000 of the North’s 19 million people. The Vatican has had virtually no contact with the 300 North Vietnamese priests for years. The government confiscated all church land and buildings when the French withdrew in 1954, and it is impossible to tell how many churches now remain open.

UPI says “older Catholic priests apparently are allowed to work relatively unhindered, especially around diplomatic circles, but are closely watched to see that they don’t overstep the party line.” The number of priests is reported dwindling, and seminaries are gradually closing down.

Shortly after the Communist takeover, one account runs, Catholic children were taken to church at midday and shown pictures of Jesus and Ho Chi Minh. They were told to pray to Jesus for food, but after an hour, nothing had happened. When they shifted to praying to Ho, the Pavlovians brought in candy and cake.

As for Buddhists, they have been badly organized in the North, and apparently the faith is fading away. In 1964, when fewer than 100,000 believers were reported, the government decided there were too many temples and began closing them. Some are used for housing and grain storage.

Colombia: An Illegal March

Religious liberty in Colombia, an issue obscured during Pope Paul’s recent visit (September 13 issue, page 49), continues as a matter of concern.

City officials in Medellin, the nation’s second largest city, recently denied permission for evangelicals to hold a parade, traditional culmination of campaigns sponsored by Latin America Mission’s Evangelism-in-Depth. Basis of the denial was that under the concordat with the Vatican, non-Catholic meetings must be in private.

Evangelical leaders, who had been allowed use of the city Coliseum for the meetings, decided to exercise a bit of civil disobedience and went ahead with the parade, which was held without incident.

Medellin is one of the most devoutly Catholic cities in the world. A recent survey showed more than 50 per cent of adults attend Mass at least once a week.

National officials have also been putting a notice on passports of entering Protestant missionaries stating that they are not allowed to work in “mission territory” in which, by pact with the Vatican, Protestant schools and evangelism are forbidden. Ostensibly set up to protect the Indians, these mission tracts cover more than two-thirds of the country, and include good-sized cities and large areas with no Indians.

A spokesman for Bogota’s Apostolic Administrator Anibal Munoz Duque reacted to debate in the national congress over reform of the concordat by claiming that any change must come by direct conversations between the president and the Vatican and that therefore the congress has no say except in ratification of a new treaty.

However, the spokesman said a commission of canon-law specialists will be set up to study possible reforms. He admitted parts of the 1887 concordat may be archaic.

STEPHEN SYWULKA

Turkish Eyes On Jerusalem

The Koran does not credit so much as a single miracle to Muhammad, though the pious say “his whole life is a miracle.” But one tradition gives him extraordinary status: the miraj (ladder). This is the belief that he was elevated into heaven from a point in Jerusalem and returned to earth with the ordinance of praying five times daily.

This highly speculative event at the site marked by the Dome of the Rock is celebrated by an emotional October prayer session by Muslims. In Istanbul, key city of Turkey, this year’s summons to worship said the topic of prayer is revival of the Muslim world and the deliverance of Jerusalem, now fully under Israeli control.

Turkey has never had any dispute with Israel. But its sentimentally susceptible Muslim populace—to whom Islam and Arabism offer a stronger savor than mere Turkish nationalism—is thoroughly unhappy with Israel’s control of all Jerusalem since its victory in the 1967 war.

The paradox is that this right-wing Muslim element is also fanatically anti-communist. But it seems to care little that an Arab victory against Israel (if and when) would have to be executed with Soviet weaponry and that the Soviets could well turn against Jerusalem. Soviet war vessels cruise almost daily through the Straits of Bosporus on their way to friendly Arab ports. The Soviet buildup in the Mediterranean is giving the shivers to many discerning observers in the Middle East.

An editorial in the liberal Istanbul daily Cumhuriyet last month described a recent meeting of Muslim leaders in Cairo that openly declared jihad (holy war) against Israel. The paper, noting that Turkey’s religious-affairs director Lutfi Dogan was in Cairo during the meeting, asked whether he attended it on behalf of the Turkish government and whether he had authority to condone such a statement.

An informed Turkish observer said, “The rightist-religionist element of Turkey seems to be paving a disastrous course for this country.”

Two weeks later, a new committee of Islamic organizations held its first meeting in Amman, Jordan, and called for an Islamic “summit” to work toward “rescuing Jerusalem.”

Armenians: Held By The Bible

Armenian Christians last month celebrated the 1,535th anniversary of translation of the Bible into Armenian, and the Tarkmantchatz, the “Armenian Renaissance,” which started with formulation of an alphabet in A.D. 406 and culminated in the still-significant A.D. 436 Bible translation.

Armenologist Kevork Kherlopian of Haigazian College, Beirut, Lebanon, says the Armenian Renaissance is significant because it came centuries before that of Europe. It was marked by “a back-to-Greek-culture movement, involving translations of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus, and a parallel movement—the idea of education for the masses,” he said. But Bible translation “came first.”

The Armenian Bible is important for scholars since it was one of the first translations and is thus close to the original manuscripts. Although no examples of the fourth-century Bible remain, ninth-century copies of the earlier translation exist.

During the Renaissance, it is said, a school was opened in every village. Whether they were effective in teaching the masses to read is hard to determine, Kherlopian said; but “the people began to believe that whoever keeps a manuscript or orders a manuscript to be written goes to heaven, thus helping promote a love of learning.”

Armenia was a highland region between the Caspian and Black Seas to the north and the Mediterranean to the South. Kherlopian says Armenian culture is so interwoven with religion that it has kept the people from assimilation during repeated invasions from all sides across the centuries. During World War I, the Turks slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians in a massive resettlement plan that led to abandonment in the desert for those few who survived long death marches.

Historians attribute the Armenians’ staying power largely to the fact that translation of the Bible unified their culture and gave them a God in whom to hope.

Today’s Armenian Christians are divided into three groups with general cooperation salted by frequent feelings of opposition: the Armenian Catholic Church (Roman); the Armenian Gregorian or Apostolic Church (Orthodox), the largest group, which was founded at the end of the third century; and the small Armenian Evangelical (or Protestant) Church. The latter group founded Haigazian in 1955 as the only Armenian college outside the Soviet Union.

Soviet Armenia’s population is 2.3 million, with 1.5 million Armenians living elsewhere in the Soviet Union. About 1.4 million Armenians live in other nations, including 400,000 in America.

Fiercely proud, the Armenians have clung to their cultural past, celebrated in Tarkmantchatz and represented by Mount Ararat, the supposed site of which is in the heart of what was originally Armenia. Kherlopian says, “Every Armenian wears Mount Ararat in his heart.”

LILLIAN HARRIS DEAN

Miscellany

The Vatican has agreed to pay a special tax to Italy on its investments there, though still holding the tax unfair and illegal. Informed estimates place annual taxes on the secret securities list at $1.6 million.

The Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission changed its name to the Partnership Mission, and President Rochunga Pudaite says that as many foreign missionaries are asked to leave India, unprecedented opportunities are open to Christian nationals.

A joint Anglican-United Church-Roman Catholic pastoral letter read from thousands of pulpits urged church members to sign petitions against proposals to tax churches in Ontario, Canada.

Far East Broadcasting Company—which has received more letters from mainland China in the last nine months than in the previous thirteen years—has been accused by Hong Kong Communists of anti-Communist propaganda “under the cloak of religion.” FEBC says its programs are not anti-Communist as such but pro-Christian.

The Asian Evangelists Commission recorded 2,000 decisions for Christ during a thirteen-day crusade in Surabaja, Indonesia.

District Court Judge Roy Harper chastised St. Louis Episcopal priest Walter Witte for testifying in favor of the right of black militants to carry guns in public.

The Milwaukee Council of Churches said “we cannot in good conscience condone” the fourteen war protesters who destroyed draft-board records.

Agnes Scott College, a women’s school in Georgia affiliated with the Southern Presbyterian Church, dropped a twenty-year ban on non-Christian teachers.

DEATHS

KENNETH UNDERWOOD, 49, social ethicist at Wesleyan University, previously at Yale; director of the Danforth Foundation study of campus ministries; in New Haven, Connecticut.

RAYMOND BUCK HAYES, 73, of rattlesnake bite during a Holiness Church of God service in Stoney Fork, Kentucky.

JOSEPH LEWIS, 79, president of the Freethinkers of America and atheistic author; in his New York City office.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court unanimously ruled constitutional the state law requiring towns to lend science, math, and language texts to private schools.

Personalia

Victor Orsinger, attorney and prominent Catholic layman in Washington, D. C., was convicted of stealing $1.5 million from the Sisters of the Divine Savior while acting as their financial adviser. He faces a sentence of nine to ninety years or a fine of $9,000.

Mrs. Madelyn Murray O’Hair, crusading atheist, walked out on two meetings at the University of Michigan after complaining that students who expressed views from the floor were “religious fanatics.”

The Southern Baptist home-mission board named Sidney Smith, Jr., 24, to head a new project in Watts, Los Angeles.

United Church of Christ minister Clyde Miller, Jr., a Negro, replaces white Catholic layman Thomas Gibbons, Jr., as national chief of Project Equality.

Robert L. Friedly, onetime New Orleans States-ltem reporter and oil-company personnel specialist, was promoted to director of the Christian Church (Disciples) Office of Interpretation.

The Rev. Donald F. Hetzler, 45, will succeed his boss, the Rev. A. Henry Hetland, as head of the National Lutheran Campus Ministry (LCA-ALC). Hetland recently resigned without explanation.

The Rev. Gary Anderson, 29, a Presbyterian and an Army lieutenant, won the gold medal in free-rifle shooting at the recent Olympic games, with a record score of 1,157.

Cardinal Bea, head of the Vatican’s Christian-unity secretariat, said that despite religious liberty and dialogue, “we should feel impelled to do everything in our power that non-Christians may achieve the fullness of truth, grace, and power in Christ.”

Cardinal Wyszynski, 67, of Poland, banned from travel abroad by the Communist regime for three years, left November 4 for a visit to the Vatican.

Presiding Bishop Zoltan Kaldy of Hungary’s Evangelical Church told a Lutheran meeting: “We are on the side of socialism, and we regard its defense as our task.”

Burma’s former Premier U Nu, 61, released after fifty-five months in prison, has become a preaching Buddhist monk.

John Victor Samuel is the first Pakistani national elected a Methodist bishop.

Church Panorama

The association of seventy-four Southern Baptist churches around Charlotte, North Carolina, continued an immersion only membership rule that bars two congregations. The Houston association also barred a church that does not practice rebaptism.

The Baptist association in Knoxville, Tennessee, rejected a Negro congregation because it is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, Inc., and hence the National Council of Churches, then reversed the decision a day later. A recent Southern Baptist study showed 3,800 of the group’s 34,000 churches would be willing to receive Negro members, and 500 actually have.

Presbyterian Life says that counting an average 15 per cent housing allowance, the typical new United Presbyterian minister makes $7,102 a year, compared to $10,548 for master’s degree holders in non-technical fields and $11,256 in technical occupations.

The Lutheran Church in America is listing 3,088 projects to receive $6.5 million in urban-crisis funds to be raised in the next fifteen months. A United Presbyterian agency announced $1.1 million in ghetto investments.

The 65,000-member General Association of General Baptists voted to revise its statement of faith and to set up permanent church offices in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

Some 1,300 persons attended a rally in support of fifty-one priests who have petitioned the Vatican to fire San Antonio Archbishop Robert Lucey.

The American Council of Christian Churches, meeting in Pennsylvania, attacked the state’s new elective public-school course on “Religions of the West” for “creating an attitude critical of the historic Christian faith.”

A paper discussed last month at the U. S. Episcopal bishops’ meeting but not released advocated that Episcopal seminarians who do not serve in the military be required to serve at least two years with such groups as the Peace Corps, VISTA, or the American Friends Service Committee. Two seminary deans spoke on opposite sides.

Canada’s Anglican bishops voted to permit laymen and women to administer bread and wine at communion. And U. S. Presiding Episcopal Bishop John Hines is even speculating that women someday might be bishops.

Temporary separatism or permanent schism—which road will blacks in mainly-white denominations take?

That critical question stood disturbingly on the horizon at the second annual meeting of the National Committee of Black [changed significantly from Negro] Churchmen, which closed November 1 in St. Louis. White response to black demands for a fair say in church matters will largely dictate the choice, the churchmen said.

“Black churchmen are putting white churches on notice that old paternalistic relationships will not continue. Black people can’t stay in mainly white denominations if those groups can’t begin to deal with racism and distribution of power. Yes, it is still an open question, but if whites don’t answer positively, it could look pretty bad,” said Hayward Henry, president of the Black Unitarian Caucus. His comment hit the crux of issues thrashed over by some 300 committee members in denominational caucuses, workshops, and general sessions, most of which were closed to the press.

The committee had fewer than 100 members at its organizing meeting a year ago as clergymen began to tune into the black-power movement in the aftermath of the 1967 riots. The group still has only 375 members. Though some come from the big all-Negro denominations, most represent the two million Negroes in the white churches.

But black churchmen swing weight far beyond their size, through caucuses formed in every important white-dominated church. Last year blacks in the United Church of Christ got Chicago Negro Joseph H. Evans elected national secretary. This year black Unitarian-Universalists demanded and won $250,000 to spend as they please in ghetto programs. Thus less than 01 per cent of the denomination’s membership got 12 per cent of the budget prescribed for urban projects. Blacks in the American Baptist Convention won creation of a new Negro post, “Associate General Secretary Without Portfolio,” with promises to hire more Negroes in administrative posts and give more say to blacks in ABC ghetto programs.

In St. Louis, committee members evinced heady determination to make further gains in their churches. But a certain defiant cynicism about white responsiveness fringed their comments.

The Black Methodists for Renewal, for example, “must free this great big monster that smothers and strangles us” to give black people participation in their own destinies. If this is not done, “you can forget it, write it all off,” says the Rev. Cecil Williams, of San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church.

Williams said black Methodists had heard of white opposition to the $20 million Fund for Reconciliation pledged by the United Methodist convention. He speculated that “a lot of local churches won’t give money.… If this happens perhaps it will be the best thing. We’ll finally see for the first time where white people stand.”

The delicacy of black caucus-denomination relationships showed in statements the two highest officials of the United Presbyterian Church made to the Black Presbyterians United. Stated Clerk William P. Thompson encouraged the caucus to “go apart from us for a while to seek a greater identity and selfhood; that need is real and you should honor it.” He and Moderator John Coventry Smith said they saw the caucus not as a threat but as an interest group. The caucus—composed of some of the 300 black ministers in the 3.3-million-member denomination—should stay within the church structure because “we need you,” the officials said.

Smith and Thompson came at the invitation of the caucus to receive a list of grievances dealing mainly with what was called the church’s emphasis on “abetting the American middle class at the expense of its ministry to the poor.…”

The Association of Black Lutheran Churchmen issued a statement charging that “racism has created a caste system” that “manifests itself in the oppression of black Lutherans by white Lutherans.” Caucus members, representing all three major Lutheran bodies, voiced intent to be “militant catalysts” for eradication of racism “in this complacent, apathetic church.…” The Rev. Cyril Lucas of Sacramento, California, said the Lutheran church has traditionally been lax in attempting to win black people for Christ for fear that white churchmen would leave.

Many black churchmen said they wanted to continue to work for change within their present church groups. But questions about their potential for effectiveness continued to nag.

Said Charles S. Spivey, Jr., executive director of the National Council of Churches’ social-justice department: “It is hard for a white man to accept defeat to a black man. And white bureaucratic structures can’t even recognize black structures as valid. American Baptists can work with Russian Baptists but not with black Baptists. Methodists can merge with the EUB but not with the three black Methodist churches.”

Ron Karenga, nationally known militant who espouses pagan African religion, hit hardest at blacks in white churches, saying they show “a dependency mentality. You are afraid you can’t make it on your own.” He said the “white church tries to co-opt the black power movements within itself. It finds your community organization, keeps control and co-opts your leaders.… Every black group the white church supports is a front group.… The National Council of Churches is all ready to deal with you. It even has black men in there to deal with you.”

Karenga later denied that he meant black men should leave white denominations. But this ticklish question will continue to plague black churchmen, particularly black executives in white bodies, as they work out the relation of black power to Christian faith.

Much talk at the meeting centered on the idea that churchmen should identify fully with “blackness” and give political as well as spiritual leadership to black people in their quest for “community control.” In fact, a most startling aspect of the convention was the sight of black churchmen, mainly from the middle-class mold, who seemed for the first time to rejoice over their own “blackness.”

A racial confrontation on the eve of adjournment further united the turned-on churchmen. About 100 held a lobby sit-in at the Gateway Hotel, then split for a nearby church without paying their bills, to protest an employee’s calling some members “boys.” After they received a formal apology and a promise to inspect Gateway hiring practices, the churchmen paid their bills.

The confrontation scrubbed some workshops, but one group plans a week-long session next summer on black theology. Race director Gayraud Wilmore of the United Presbyterians said there are questions whether churches rooted in the sixteenth century have anything to say to blacks. The black identity search will include study of the third-century African church, the Coptic church, and other African religions, he said.

A minority of blacks, said Wilmore, favor “a reinterpretation of classical Christianity.” A majority are “searching for a new interpretation which may or may not be Christian, but are not willing to consider themselves heretics.” He added: “Black theology is in a very formative stage right now.”

‘Thinking Black’ In Newark

Philadelphia’s Conwell School of Theology suspended classes the week of October 20 for an experiment in “on-the-job training.” President Stuart Barton Babbage led his faculty and students to the streets of Newark, New Jersey, to learn about the problems of the ghetto community.

Hosting the Conwell group in Newark were two evangelical organizations, the Rev. Bill Iverson’s Cross-Counter ministry and the Greater Newark Tom Skinner Crusade. Iverson’s luncheonette ministry is an established work of witness and counsel to teen-agers in the tense city. Skinner is a black evangelist who has held meetings on the street, in churches, and in Newark’s Symphony Hall, where, in June, almost 90 per cent of those who responded to the Gospel were from the riot-scarred Central Ward.

Babbage stated that the week was “an extraordinary educational experience.” His students learned that the white man can work effectively in the black community if he can “think black.” Iverson led the Conwell group into the ghetto where they met armed Black Muslims, armed white extremists, and a white Protestant businessman proud of his church’s foreignmission program who saw no poverty problems “if a person would only work” (“or,” quipped Babbage, “inherit a factory like he did”).

“Evangelicals tend to contract out our involvement with the world,” says Babbage. He and the Conwell faculty are out to produce a new breed of evangelical, one who can meet people where they are with the Gospel of Christ.

The Conwell men spent their mornings in seminars with Iverson and Skinner on problems of communicating the Gospel to the black, inner-city community. Skinner, a visiting lecturer at Conwell, says the emphasis of that community has “shifted away from riots toward political and economic development.”

He and his associate, the Rev. William Pannell, think that the black community is hungry for the reality of evangelical Christianity but that it “often incorrectly identifies Christianity with the white power structure.”

“It is bad news for the black man if Jesus Christ is a white Republican preacher,” says Pannell. But “if you present Jesus like he was … beard, sandals, non-Western, an angry young man yet packed full of love … you will reach the black American.”

Skinner believes a new affirmation of Christianity can and must emerge from the black community. “The black man cannot think of himself as beautiful until he realizes that Jesus Christ thinks of him as beautiful,” he says. “What’s to prevent the black man from doing to the white man what has been done to him?” “Here,” Skinner states, “is where Christianity can say ‘this will not happen.’ … What white Christianity has not been able to do for the black man and for himself, a new Christianity will be able to accomplish for both.”

To this end, Pannell says, “we preach the same essential Christianity.… We preach the cross, but we dare not ignore the basic social needs and aspirations of black man.”

JOHN EVENSON

Evangelism Congress Statement

After a Halloween day meeeting, leaders of the U. S. Congress on Evangelism approved and released a nine-point Statement of Purpose for the congress and announced a list of nationally prominent members of the sponsoring committee.

The congress, with wide interdenominational support, is one of several regional follow-ups to the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism. It will be held in Minneapolis next September 8–14.

SEQUEL TO THE ONASSIS MARRIAGE

Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston made a big splash with the announcement that he wants to retire at the end of this year because of attacks he has suffered for his defense of Jacqueline Kennedy’s decision to marry Aristotle Onassis.

Many chided the Roman Catholic archbishop, saying officials must be prepared to face criticism without buckling.

But several less publicized facts about Cushing, who has been called the most Protestant of cardinals, suggest that he is not hung up on being a bishop and may have lost interest in the job some time ago.

The 73-year-old prelate has said repeatedly at public gatherings in the past five years that he wants to leave the Boston archdiocese to become a Latin American missionary with the Society of St. James the Apostle, which he founded.

Cushing is known to have submitted his resignation to the Vatican at least twice. Until his latest announcement, he had planned to retire in June, 1970.

Cushing’s comments expressed a frank anti-institutional mood, or at least greater concern for Mrs. Kennedy’s feelings than for church rules. He said suggestions that her marriage to a divorced man made her a “public sinner” were “a lot of nonsense.… Why can’t she marry whomever she wants to marry, and why should I be condemned and why should she be condemned?” he asked. Cushing later said he didn’t mean the marriage was legal in church eyes and he told her so, but he supported her in the decision since she was “already committed.”

In the first Vatican reaction, an official weekly said Mrs. Onassis, under canon law, is “a public sinner” who has, in effect, renounced her faith and is cut off from the sacraments.

Cushing said he acted out of love for Mrs. Kennedy despite questions over the merits of her decision. “I am not a scholar … a theologian. I am simply a humble man trying to practice charity.… My life has been that of caritas … love for all people.”

The text of the Statement of Purpose:

“1. To witness to the central fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ has power to save people in this age, and that faith in Jesus Christ is the way of salvation for all.

“2. To find anew the Biblical basis and strategy for evangelism through the urgent proclamation and teaching of the gospel to each generation by a worshipping, witnessing, and serving church in which all believers once again declare boldly their faith in the risen Lord.

“3. To teach believers how to do evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit.

“4. To experience a spiritual awakening within the church by the power of the Holy Spirit.

“5. To challenge the powers of darkness, spurring the churches to stimulate believers everywhere to mount a vigorous attack upon the forces producing misery, inequity, emptiness, discrimination, and other evils in our society, and to lift, wherever possible, the spiritual and temporal burdens of man.

“6. To encourage the church to develop and use modern and effective means for reaching people with the gospel in all its relevance.

“7. To demonstrate practical Christian unity through witness to the world that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord.

“8. To confess together past failures; to assess together opportunities for evangelism presented by a burgeoning world; and to strengthen one another in the common task of reaching out to that world for Christ.

“9. To reaffirm that Jesus, the Lord of the church, is the Lord of history at whose return ‘every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father’.”

The congress is sponsored by a National Committee consisting of the Co-chairmen Billy Graham and Oswald Hoffman, a Minneapolis area Executive Committee, and thirty-four newly announced members.

Southern Presbyterian Schism?

Suddenly some Southern Presbyterian conservatives are talking about a split in the denomination. And if the current merger with the Reformed Church in America goes through, individual congregations will have a year in which to pull out of the denomination.

In Louisville this month, Kenneth Keyes, 72, president of the conservative lay group Concerned Presbyterians, said a split “is bound to happen within the next few years.” He predicted “there is going to be a continuing Southern Presbyterian Church. It may be known as the Evangelical Presbyterian Church,” and might include 500 to 1,000 of the church’s present 4,000 congregations.

Florida clergyman Daniel Iverson, 79, advocated a split in a recent North Carolina speech, but Dr. L. Nelson Bell, CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s executive editor and a leader in Keyes’s group, said this “would result in chaos.”

Which Methodism Will Win?

The specter of global Methodism haunted a recent symposium on ecumension marking the tenth anniversary of the Methodist Theological School at Delaware, Ohio. It was a challenge and comfort to those who see positive values in denominationalism, and a curse for many who would like to dispense with denominations and get on with merger.

Some 500 pastors and laymen heard the issues discussed by three dozen theologians and church leaders.

Host Bishop F. Gerald Ensley offered little encouragement for Consultation on Church Union activists as he blasted away at the concept of national churches. He argued instead for a Methodist World Church with an international general conference, deriving its unity from a common basis of faith, ministry, membership, and general episcopacy—such as is now being proposed by the United Methodists’ standing Committee On Structure of Methodism OverSeas (COSMOS).

“For the foreseeable future, the real strength of Christianity will continue to be in its confessions,” Ensley said. A world confessional church is “a stage on the way” to a future united church, he said, but prevents identifying ecumenism with national churches. He called “nationalism clad in ecclesiastical vesture … an affront to the universalism of the Gospel.”

Reaction came thick and fast. Perhaps the strongest was from Principal Rupert Davies of Wesley College, England: “I’ve never heard such dangerous doctrine propounded in such a powerful and lucid way!” He said it means continuation of present Methodist “colonialism” with powerful, rich churches controlling the overseas programs. Many theologians agreed with him.

Ensley also argued that the Church must emphasize morality and holiness of life rather than union efforts. “Church union is not an absolute, either in the New Testament or in the history of the Church.” He surmised that John Wesley would have had little interest in ecumenism unless he had thought it could cure such maladies as declining membership and clergy figures, paltry stewardship, and cold worship.

Ensley’s comments were significant, since he is a veteran delegate to COCU sessions, including the tense 1964 meeting where a Methodist report containing many of the themes of the 1968 Ensley clouded the atmosphere. The United Methodist Church constitutes 40 per cent of the constituency of the proposed COCU denomination of 25 million, for which a definite Plan of Union is due by 1970.

Dean Walter Muelder of the Boston University seminary, also a COCU delegate, said Plan-writers “will find that ecumenicity is not high on the priorities of the people of God, not because they have higher priorities of mission, but simply because they could not care less” about renewal.

Yale’s Paul Minear, a United Church of Christ minister, expressed another growing mood: many are tired of union talks, plans, and compromises, and favor secular ecumenism through involvement with social problems. “Where are the sacraments rightly celebrated? On the battle lines, among the sit-ins, in ghetto homes …”

L. DAVID HARRIS

Canadian Anglican Split?

With union plans accelerating between the Anglican and United Churches of Canada, a group of Anglicans is beginning to think in terms of a continuing, separate church.

Their spokesman is the Council for the Faith, an organization of clergy and laymen “who are concerned lest the current negotiations for union should mean that the witness of Anglicanism to Evangelical Truth and Apostolic Order be lost or impaired in this country.”

As the wording implies, the council is not all “high church.” One of the leaders is Professor Donald Masters, an evangelical or “low church” Anglican. His co-chairman is the Rev. Carmino de Catanzaro, former professor at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Illinois and now vicar of St. Barnabas Church, Peterborough, Ontario.

In a newly published statement the council lists four purposes: to promote the Anglican witness in both its Catholic and Evangelical aspects; to labor for unity of all Christians in accordance with Scripture and the witness of the early Church; to combat union plans that tend to subvert the wholeness of the Gospel; and to work for a forceful expression of the gospel witness and for church reforms to ensure it.

The council says it is bound by the solemn declaration the General Synod passed in 1893, which appears in the Prayer Book. A key part of his declaration deals with the ancient creeds.

The council insists on continuing use of the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, while many United Church clergymen couldn’t care less. A new United Church creed was recently presented to the denomination’s highest ruling body, then sent back for revision (see August 30 issue, page 43). It was even too liberal for some of the most liberal minds in the United Church, but a spokesman said he doesn’t expect to see it changed very much. The creed is already in use in some United churches.

The council is being pressured by some Anglicans to begin setting up a separate denomination immediately, but it wants to make sure of its moves and is proceeding carefully.

AUBREY WICE

Rift In Mclntire’S Movement

Carl Mclntire, founder of the fundamentalist American and International Councils of Christian Churches, is accusing colleagues of trying to undercut him.

Things came to a head last month at the ACCC meeting in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, where—among other things—the council voted to set up permanent headquarters at nearby Valley Forge. Mclntire opposed this and other moves, and the discussions consumed most of the three-day meeting.

The apparent issue is the ACCC’s desire to break out of the one-man mold, and some embarrassment over Mclntire’s hard-line methods in his radio and publishing work. ACCC General Secretary John Millheim, one of the anti-McIntire leaders, denies any matters of doctrine are involved.

Millheim, 34, says Mclntire remains “a respected member” of the movement. But in his five years as general secretary “I have never called him up to ask, ‘What should I do today?’ You’re not supposed to do this.” He hopes the ACCC can attract “articulate young men who are hostile to the methods of Dr. Mclntire.”

This echoes behind-the-scenes complaints at the International Council’s August meeting. Its missions arm wrote the council executive committee expressing alarm at Mclntire’s “increasing involvement in political issues,” protest parades, and criticism of the government. “When he speaks in the area of politics, race, and civil rights, this causes irreparable damage to our missionary efforts,” said the letter, signed by outgoing missions executive J. Philip Clark, the new ACCC president.

Mclntire considers Clark, Millheim, and ACCC radio-TV director Donald Waite as leaders of the effort “to undermine me and to have me removed from leadership positions.” Waite, who formerly worked on Mclntire’s radio broadcasts, quit to join the ACCC this year, and Mclntire charges him with distributing anti-McIntire literature. Mclntire is also upset that the ACCC did not provide money for the international meeting or for his drive against the Federal Communications Commission.

Issues And Answers

Religious Issues in American History, edited by Edwin Scott Gaustad (Harper & Row, 1968, 294 pp., $3.50) is reviewed by Robert G. Torbet, executive director, Division of Cooperative Christianity, American Baptist Convention, Valley Forge, Pa.

This volume in the Harper “Forum Books” series is intended to provide a new generation of students with source materials that confront them with the religious roots of American culture and with the relation between beliefs and various areas of life. Dr. Martin E. Marty, of the University of Chicago Divinity School, is general editor of the series, and Edwin Scott Gaustad of the Department of History at the University of California, Riverside, edited this volume. Gaustad’s selection of source materials and his introductory essays to each show the care and judgment of a competent historian and literary analyst. He also brings the insights of a Christian.

In eighteen sets of paired selections, the story of religious conflict in American life is highlighted with sensitivity and historical insight. Gaustad probes into and illustrates the issues that lie behind the clashes and confrontations in America’s religious history. From the traditional review of denominational triumphs and rivalries the reader is led to examine the nature of American religion—its pluralism, its acculturation, its struggle to survive.

Many of the issues have not been fully resolved and continue to demand attention: Was William Penn right in seeking diversity within unity? Or was Thomas Barton correct in warning that religious toleration only breeds “a swarm of sectaries” that threaten an orderly society? In a time of renewal of the church, as the Great Awakening certainly was, Gilbert Tennent’s stress upon a truly converted ministry clashed with John Hancock’s warning not to minimize an educationally qualified ministry. Episcopacy or liberty was an issue that seemed to be purely religious but actually had disturbing implications, since bishops often wielded political powers on behalf of a group that threatened the freedom of other groups in society. The proposal to subsidize the Christian religion so that all denominations could share alike was opposed by James Madison on the grounds that the only way to safeguard freedom of conscience is by separation of church and state. The contrary viewpoints of Thomas Paine, advocate of the supremacy of human reason, and Timothy Dwight, defender of the Word of God against all attacks from the rationalists, remind the reader that history repeats itself. The debate over how to promote revivals by Charles G. Finney and John W. Nevin, the Lutheran theologian who feared the substitution of “feelings” for true “faith,” is echoed today in many circles. The issue of nature or supernature is illustrated by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Horace Bushnell.

The most disturbing issue of all in American history is seen in William Ellery Channing’s attack upon human slavery and James Henley Thornwell’s defense of slavery as a system of labor supply that might be justified by the Christian conscience. Reading these documents forcibly reminds one that the old rationalizations are not all dead.

Other issues include the conflict between science and religion, the question whether souls or systems in society are to be redeemed, and the anti-Catholic fear of Protestants expressed by Josiah Strong and countered by James Cardinal Gibbons’s defense of the rights of Roman Catholic citizens. The book concludes with a number of contemporary topics that reflect the challenge of secularism to Christianity. Among these are the waning of missionary zeal in the churches, the debate over the place of religion in education, and the question whether man has really come of age and can live without religion or belief in God.

For those for whom the discussion of religion must today be oblique rather than direct, this book will provide a helpful approach. The introductory essays are stimulating enough to suggest even to the skeptical reader the values of religion. For those who are convinced Christians, Gaustad’s approach will prove to be a provocative way of looking at complex issues that the churches often tend to over-simplify in our rapidly changing society.

God As Chaos-Order

The Divine Destroyer: A Theology of Good and Evil, by Walter E. Stuermann (Westminster, 1967, 187 pp., $5), is reviewed by Ellis W. Hollon, Jr., associate professor of philosophy, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Walter Stuermann was convinced that “Nature is a Penelopean Web—at times woven in beautiful and orderly designs, but at other times unraveled in ugliness and chaos.” His own tragic death seemed to validate that interpretation: a philosophy teacher who was trained in electrical engineering, he was accidentally killed while working on his radio transmitter a short time after finishing The Divine Destroyer. Ironically, his book is full of equally tragic vignettes—the bursting of the nuclear submarine “Thresher,” the breaking of the Vaiont Dam, the Nazi obliteration of Lidice, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Thus it was at the beginning. Stuermann felt, for “Creation is the birth of degrees of Order from the womb of Chaos.”

But it is one thing to say that Nature is divided against itself; it is quite another thing to project this division onto God himself and to say that “the ground of being is similarly divided against itself.” Stuermann believed that “God is both Chaos and Order” and that “Chaos and Order are coeternal complements in deity.” To him the classical “Theology of the Crystal Cage” has wrongly confined God within the circle of the “perfectly rational, purely good, and everlastingly immutable.” Such a God is only a half-God; if the Incarnation means anything at all, it means that Order is perpetually crucified by Chaos.

“Deity is Chaos-Order, natura crescens et delens,” he writes. Thus, the problem of evil as classically formulated is solved, according to Stuermann. Traditionally, the problem was seen as an attempt to explain the presence of evil in the world in the face of a God who was infinitely powerful and perfectly good. But under the hypothesis of a “whole god advanced by way of limitation,” the problem is different. God is now simply “amoral Chaos-Order”; all events and modes of being in nature are the works of deity since all express its encompassing being and redemptive development.

The problem with Stuermann’s hypothesis is both linguistic and metaphysical. Does it mean anything to say that “God is Chaos-Order”? What is the linguistic verification for this proposition? Nature itself? Then in what way is this different from saying that “Nature is Chaos-Order”? If our observation of tragic events in Nature is our only verification, then what need is there of the God-hypothesis? Stuermann criticizes the “Theology of the Crystal Cage” for its anthropomorphism, but are not anthropomorphic presuppositions lurking behind his own assertion that “God is Chaos-Order”? For example, he says that “all persons are called to creativity by the ground of their being”; but how can the ground of being “call” anyone unless it has personal characteristics? Why take the primacy of personality seriously only for men? And if our verification for this proposition (that “God is Chaos-Order”) is anthropomorphic, then we can claim with some validity that the empirically observable human longing for completeness and perfection at least suggests the possibility that polarity may not be the ultimate criterion for interpreting either man or God.

In the realm of metaphysics, Stuermann’s panentheism faces the same problem that the personalistic advocates of a finite God must face, namely, the possibility of God’s lapse (and therefore of the universe’s lapse) into nothingness. What is to prevent a finite but growing God from dying? Our observation of all finite, growing things (including the universe itself) is that they die; then why not God? Does “God” deserve the name if there is a real possibility that he might someday die? If our guarantee that Order will ultimately triumph over Chaos—or that the two poles will eternally remain in tension—only our empirical assumption that Nature is always in tension? If so, this is little solace, for the more accurate description of Nature is that of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche: “Nature is red in tooth and claw.” Better the Heavenly Father of Jesus Christ than the nebulous God of Chaos-Order!

The Basic Thrust

The Pattern of New Testament Truth, by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans, 1968, 119 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Andrew J. Bandstra, associate professor of New Testament, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Happy is the reviewer whose author succinctly states the central thesis of his book! Professor Ladd says: “Our thesis is that the unity of New Testament theology is found in the fact that the several strata share a common view of God, who visits man in history to effect the salvation of both man, the world, and history; and that diversity exists in the several interpretations of this one redemptive event. In all of the strata of the New Testament this redemptive event is both historical and eschatological in character, and stands in sharp contrast to the Greek dualistic view of man and the world.”

Ladd, professor of New Testament exegesis and theology at Fuller Seminary, emphatically and continuously maintains that the New Testament view of redemption is both historical and eschatological in character and has its roots in the Old Testament (and Jewish) view of redemption. This view of salvation history (or Heilsgeschichte) the author holds to be in sharp contrast to what he calls the Greek view of redemption, characterized by a cosmological and anthropological dualism. Therefore, for the Greeks, redemption was primarily viewed as being saved out of the world, history, and even the body, whereas in the biblical view, man, both body and soul, is saved in history and the world itself is redeemed. Ladd admits there is diversity of interpretation of this redemptive event among the human authors of the New Testament. But precisely within this diversity, the basic unity is seen in the common contention that there is the promise of redemption given in the Old Testament, the (provisional) fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ in history, and the hope of the consummation of the promise at the end of history.

In the first of the four chapters—originally lectures given at North Park Seminary in Chicago—Ladd sets up this basic contrast between the Jewish and Greek views and then works out the unity and diversity of the message found in the Synoptics, in John, and in Paul. Happily this nicely published book is complete with helpful indices.

Two problem areas should be pointed out. In this day when so many scholars speak of the “early Catholicism” of Luke as compared to Matthew and Mark, would it not have been appropriate to say a few words on that subject, even if in a footnote, instead of simply assuming the unity of the Synoptic viewpoint? Second, the antithesis of the Greek and Jewish views (assuming one may properly speak of the Greek view) of redemption, though it provides a fine organizing principle for the lectures, also leads to a “playing down” of what one might call the “spatial” dimensions of salvation history. The “dualism” between God in heaven and the sinner on earth is admitted to be more basic in the Synoptics than even the dualism of present and future, but the importance of “heaven” or “the above” or “the unseen” in Paul does not receive adequate expression. The author could have shown the basic unity of the future salvation and the present “heavenly” life of the Christian more adequately by indicating that the risen and ascended Christ has already realized in himself the powers of the age to come. Explication of the unity between “future” and “heaven above” becomes even more important in presenting the message of the epistle to the Hebrews, a book the author could not deal with in this brief treatment, unfortunately.

All in all, this is a fine little book. It orients the reader toward what the author correctly sees as the basic thrust of the New Testament proclamation.

Expressing The Atonement

The Christian Understanding of Atonement, by F. W. Dillistone (Westminster, 1968, 436 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Herschel H. Hobbs, pastor of the First Baptist Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The author’s stated thesis for this volume is “that there are numerous ranges of comparison by which the meaning of the Death of Christ may be presented to men.” He recognizes that reconciliation can be accomplished only through the Cross of Christ. His aim here is to show how this reconciliation has been expressed through worship, art, and sacrificial living, as well as through sermons and theological works.

Dillistone examines philosophy, history, social customs, myths and legends of ancient peoples, theology, art and music, and the various religions of the world, and attempts to relate these matters to the redemptive purpose of God as seen in the Bible, especially in the New Testament.

This volume is rather heavy reading. Comparisons with primitive pagan religions are sometimes forced. However, it is thorough, its style is clear, and it will prove rewarding to one who reads with discernment. There is no question in the author’s mind that the yearning for reconciliation that is inherent in the heart of man finds its fulfillment in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

Israel’S Rebirth

The Resurrection of Israel, by Anny Latour (World, 1968, 404 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Belden Menkus, editor, author, and management consultant, Bergenfield, New Jersey.

Lots of people won’t like this book. People who believe rather self-righteously that God will punish the Jews eternally. People who believe that all reports of anti-Semitism or persecution of Jews are Communist fabrications. People who care more about the course of prophecy than about the needs of people. People who believe that it is more important to protect Middle East mission institutions than to meet the demands of Christian conscience.

Lots of other people will find this book a strong emotional and spiritual experience. The author does not engage in polemics; her understated approach makes the book even more powerful.

Anny Latour is a social worker and historian. She has written a strikingly lively and authoritative history of the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel. The book shows how television has affected the historian’s craft. Using a minimum of narration, she lets the participants and commentators speak in their own words (by no means are all those quoted pro-Zionist or pro-Israel) and moves abruptly from one view to another in much the manner of the television news documentary. The result is academic professionalism of the highest order that adroitly avoids pedantry.

First, she briefly covers the period from Abraham to the middle of the nineteenth century. She amply shows that Jews never fully left the Land; colonies of the pious remained during the entire period. (I thought I knew the basic subject fairly well, but Dr. Latour has developed much that is new to me. For instance, she presents a segment of Bonaparte’s 1799 call to Jews to resettle the Land.)

The real story of the rebirth of Israel began in 1869, when land for the first agricultural school was purchased in Israel. The first major wave of immigrants came after additional land was acquired in 1882. By 1884, Arabs who had been paid inflated prices for what had been worthless land were attempting to murder the new owners and steal back what they had sold.

This is a rich and complex story. Documentation comes from such varied sources as French Catholic priests and official British records. The author includes excerpts from her 1926 diary of a school-girl walking trip through the Jewish agricultural settlements.

There is so much that evangelicals have ignored or forgotten. Christian Arabs have taken an active part in murder and theft for some fifty years. Arab merchants sold fingers cut from slain Jewish soldiers. Arab leaders supported Germany in two world wars. Arab leaders played an active role in the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Jewish units fought bravely in both world wars, over stiff British opposition. Ex-Nazis fought in Arab forces in the 1948 War. Arabs burned seventy-seven doctors and nurses alive. So much ignored or forgotten. And we wonder why American Jews are so bitter, why Israelis are so willing to fight.

Reading this book will be a revelation for those who really care. Unfortunately the supply of Good Samaritans is terribly short.

Book Briefs

Then Sings My Soul, by George Beverly Shea (Revell, 1968, 176 pp., $3.95). A delightful glimpse into the life of the very warm and humble man whose rich voice has blessed the hearts of millions—truly the world’s beloved gospel singer.

The Progress of the Soul, by Richard E. Hughes (Morrow, 1968, 328 pp., $7.95). A thorough study of the life and writings of John Donne that relates his developing mind and art both to his own day and to the present.

Romans, by Martin H. Franzmann, I and II Samuel, by Ralph D. Gehrke, and Jeremiah, Lamentations, by Norman C. Habel (Concordia, 1968, 289, 397, and 415 pp., $4 each). These three titles introduce “The Concordia Commentary,” a series based on the Revised Standard Version text and directed at the non-specialist.

A Manual of Worship, by John E. Skoglund (Judson, 1968, 315 pp., $3.95). Contains a variety of materials suitable for use in public worship.

Broadman Comments, by Hugh R. Peterson, M. Ray McKay, and others (Broadman, 1968, 410 pp., $3.25). International Sunday School Lessons 1969.

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume V, edited by Gerhard Kittel, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1968, 1,031 pp., $22.50). An eagerly awaited addition to the English translation of this monumental work in New Testament scholarship, covering the words xenos through pachunō.

The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Volume II: Job through Song of Solomon, by Charles W. Carter and others (Eerdmans, 1968, 659 pp., $8.95). Another in the series of commentaries on the Bible by various Wesleyan scholars.

Messengers of the King, by David C. Hill (Augsburg, 1968, 167 pp., $3.95). Biographical sketches of twenty Christian personalities covering a range of eight centuries.

Paperbacks

God, Sex and Youth, by William E. Hulme (Concordia, 1968, 184 pp., $1.75). An experienced and perceptive Christian counselor presents a frank, reverent, and mature discussion of moral decisions in the young person’s life. He points out that God’s structure for man’s life is “the way to real freedom.”

The Heritage of the Reformation, by Wilhelm Pauck (Oxford, 1968, 399 pp., $2.75). A valuable study of the bearing of Reformation thought upon the problems of modern Protestantism. Originally published in 1950 and revised in 1961.

The Christian Witness in a Secular Age, by Donald G. Bloesch (Augsburg, 1968, 160 pp., $2.95). A critical examination of the thought of several important contemporary theologians, including Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Cox, and Altizer. The closing chapter considers the mission of the Church from a biblical point of view.

How to Be Happy Though Married, by Tim LaHaye (Tyndale, 1968, 160 pp., $1.95). Helpful mixture of the practical and the spiritual.

Riots in the Streets, by Richard Wolff (Tyndale, 1968, 156 pp., $1.45). A perceptive analysis of the causes of violence and disorder in American society. Considers both spiritual and material factors and challenges Christians to develop a sense of personal responsibility.

The Preacher’s Heritage, Task, and Resources, by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker, 1968, 178 pp., $2.95). For preachers by a preacher. A useful volume discussing the task of today’s preacher and suggesting available resources.

The election results left little for anyone to cheer about, but a lot for everyone to hope for.

Richard Milhous Nixon won the presidency of the United States the hard way—over two major opponents, one of them an incumbent. But win it he did. Nixon’s victory, climaxing a cataclysmic year, marked the most phenomenal comeback in American political history.

One sad part of the election outcome is the punctures that remain in the national fabric. It will take the greatest kind of leadership to reweave these holes and unite the country once again. To this end the President-elect deserves the support of every American and the prayers of each believer.

Nixon also faces the burden of unprecedented problems at home and abroad. But a great nation, and especially those of its citizens who claim to be Christian, are obligated to look at the future positively, to try to convert their perplexities into opportunities, their liabilities into assets. A new leader offers the chance for a new dynamic in American life. Fresh insight, talent, and energy must be blended in creative ways that offer the prospect not only of peace and plenty but also of righteousness and justice.

It must be said of Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey that though he campaigned vigorously he conducted himself responsibly. Indeed, the whole campaign was carried out on a reasonably high plane, with all contestants setting a fair example of the democratic process. The losers’ pledges of support for the new President capped off the election in the best American tradition. Their continued calls for national unity will help Nixon to be the kind of leader the times demand.

Unfortunately, Nixon did not win a majority vote. And in some ways the balloting left the world to wonder whether Americans really know what they want. Indecision was illustrated, for example, in Arkansas, where the voters supported for the presidency a man on the hawk side of the crucial Viet Nam issue and for senator one of equally intense convictions on the dove side. Checks and balances have a valuable role in the democratic system, but in this context the ambivalence of Arkansas is hard to justify.

Even on the national scale the situation seemed to be that of a populace uneasy about present leadership but uncertain of the direction in which change is warranted. One consolation is that America has been built on diversity and that somehow in the historical process we have been able to cull the best from a multitude of differing traditions.

In view of the domestic strife of recent years, Nixon now faces the delicate task of showing on the one hand a firmness in dealing with lawbreakers and on the other hand enough restraint to ensure justice even for would-be insurgents. We cannot have crime and anarchy running rampant in the country, but neither do we want National Guardsmen being activated every other week to quell some disturbance. Americans owe it to their country to help alleviate the conditions that encourage unrest and are exploited by a few irresponsible demagogues currently on the loose.

One reality Mr. Nixon should confront squarely and immediately is that he has very limited support from the black people of America and other minority groups. His rapport with them seems to be almost nil. Actually, he deserves better. There is nothing in his political or personal record to warrant this alienation.

Mr. Nixon and his running mate for some reason or other did little in the campaign to offset or correct ethnic polarization around Mr. Humphrey. The Vice-President-elect, Spiro T. Agnew, is himself the son of a Greek immigrant and should readily have identified himself with the minorities. But this did not happen. Both men need to get busy immediately to break down the ill will and demonstrate a clear concern for and kinship with the minority elements.

Another group he needs to cultivate in order to achieve a better national unity is the American youth. He seems to sense this need, and even took the trouble to mention it in his brief victory speech. His two young daughters and his prospective son-in-law, David Eisenhower, now take on a special responsibility in this respect. The White House is a fish bowl, and the conduct of the occupants can affect the conduct of many an impressionable young American.

Issues on the home front that received little attention during the campaign include fiscal responsibility and growing centralization of authority. Nixon should take early steps to halt the inflationary trend and increasing size of government. He would also do well to hold the line on tax money for sectarian purposes, even though this principle that has helped both church and state to prosper has received little attention of late.

In regard to problems abroad, all Americans wait with anticipation to see what the new administration will do to end the war in Viet Nam, longest and costliest in American history. Bipartisan support will aid him, but the initiative must be his to pick up the pieces of a bad situation.

The Near East, however, is where Mr. Nixon may get his biggest headaches in the next four years. He has sided with the policy of supplying arms to Israel as a deterrent and balancing factor to the Soviet support of the Arab nations. If the United Nations proves ineffectual and if the Soviets decide that a confrontation will suit their ends, the world is in for a big military showdown.

Czechoslovakia is another spot to keep watching. It is a nation in a dilemma, and it deserves a more sympathetic response from the free world than it has thus far received. It can be pretty well assumed that other Soviet satellites despairing of the Communist system are looking on hopefully. American aloofness strengthens the hand of the oppressor.

Then there is West Berlin with its aging wall and now its internal turmoil, Latin America with its great economic disparity, and Africa with its racial and nationalistic tensions. And does Nixon dare forget the world’s two largest nations, India with its food and population problem and China with its military potential complicating the world’s balance of power?

With all these problems on the horizon, it becomes altogether fitting and proper to underline the conviction that the root of human turmoil is theological. As leader of the free world Nixon will need to exert all due influence to treat the symptoms, and his office of authority is ordained of God to do so. But it is left to the churchmen of America, clerical and lay, to address the spirit of man to the end that he will see his need of divine grace and yield to the will of the Almighty.

What America needs in the wake of the 1968 election is major effort on the part of its citizens toward spiritual renewal. It was heartening to hear Mr. Nixon express on election eve his feeling that the nation needs a “moral revival.” The problems that confront this nation and the challenges that await us demand a well-disciplined citizenry dedicated to Christian ideals. It was only the tightbeltedness, rugged optimism, and biblical rationale of the American Puritan fathers that enabled them to overcome great obstacles and settle the New World. We in the last third of the twentieth century will get by with no less.

The Bomb Halt

Until more facts are in, responsible commentary on the cessation of the American bombing of North Viet Nam should give the greatest benefit of the doubt before assigning a political motive to such a life-and-death matter. One surely hopes that history will confirm compelling non-political reasons, or at least that the politicking was not on the American side.

Americans will be asking with increasing frequency how many lives must be lost before the Viet Nam conflict is brought to an honorable conclusion. Already nearly 30,000 Americans have been killed there. The South Vietnamese have lost more than 72,000, and the enemy dead are listed at well over 400,000.

The Paris peace talks obviously represent the best prospect for a settlement at the present time. The need for a breakthrough is urgent, but a generous measure of patience may be needed before an honorable cease-fire agreement is achieved.

For Youthful Readers

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women are 100 years old this fall but (to the dismay of bigger women) show no signs of age. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are alive and well in the hearts of modern children as they were in earlier generations. Though not a statement of biblical Christianity, the warm and compelling story has its moral lessons. Miss Alcott was greatly influenced by her father, a progressive educator, and his transcendentalist friends, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau.

In this century, C. S. Lewis’s Narnia tales expound, without obvious didacticism, the truths of sin, salvation, and the Christian life. While young children may not grasp the entire significance of the fairy tales, they will enjoy the delightful fantasies. And the truths the stories embody will help mold youthful minds.

A child’s character is largely formed in his imaginative and impressionable early years. But where is evangelically oriented literature to captivate these young minds? The field is wide open.

Harper Valley Hypocrites

One of the hottest items on the current recording scene is a country-style single by a virtual unknown. “Harper Valley PTA” sung by Jeannie C. Riley has sold 3.5 million copies in three months. The satirical song tells the story of a small-town widow, mother of a teen-age daughter, who faces criticism about her miniskirts and accusations about some of her actions. She goes before the local PTA and makes a few accusations of her own that prove embarrassing to the leading citizens of the Peyton Place-type community.

Although Miss Riley says that the song is not necessarily a serious indictment of small-town life, the plot will strike a familiar note for many who have lived in small towns. Perhaps one reason for the record’s success is that it is currently the “in” thing to tee off on the establishment and expose the “hypocrites” who make it up. There is almost a certain virtue in flagrant immorality, it seems, provided one is honest about it.

Although Jesus rigidly opposed hypocrisy and limited the right of stone-throwing to those who were without sin, he did not take immorality lightly even when it was “honest.” In dealing with the adulterous woman he was not only concerned to expose the hypocrisy of her accusers; he was also concerned that her sins be forgiven and that she enter into a new way of life. We don’t want to read too much into “Harper Valley PTA,” but it is important for Christians to avoid the pitfall of tolerating honest immorality while condemning the phoniness of the hypocrite.

Monuments To Human Nature

Memorials are not always marble monuments. Sometimes they are liquid—water from the Jordan River and Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, for example. Others are monetary, like the new Robert F. Kennedy foundation. Still others, as a glance at a drugstore souvenir counter reveals, are plastic gadgets with fake gold lettering or cheap china plates with saccharine portraits of public figures.

Some of those faces arouse sorrowful memories. Five years ago this week, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Since then, a nation that thought such things couldn’t happen here has seen the murder of national civil-rights leaders, a Nazi party head, and the late president’s younger brother.

Human nature is not improving. As a nation and as individual citizens, we have cause for repentance.

Fixing The Blame

Man has always tried to avoid the fact of his own depraved nature. This perennial retreat from reality shows itself in our day in a fatalistic, deterministic, and mechanistic approach toward human motivation and behavior. The September–October issue of Jewish Life puts it this way:

… We live in an age in which the intellectual climate favors and even encourages individual irresponsibility in human behavior. The greatest and most heinous of crimes are justified as being a result of historical circumstances. The tremendous rise in the number of murders and homicides all over the world is attributed not to the decline in the morality of the individual, but rather to the inequities and injustices of society.

The gravity of many of our social problems cannot be minimized, and remedial steps are urgently needed. But a society is only as good as its people. Our opinion leaders—be they preachers, politicians, or publishers—should issue regular reminders that individuals are responsible for what they do. If the Bible makes anything clear, it is that men are accountable for their actions, no matter what their environment.

Happy Moments In Mexico City

It wasn’t Camelot—it was Mexico City—but for one brief moment there was “simply not a more congenial spot.” The occasion was the closing ceremony of the nineteenth Olympiad. The competition was over; the medals had been distributed; the various conflicts that had plagued this year’s games were set aside. Surrounded by a crowd of 80,000 waving miniature sombreros, the athletes gathered on the field of the Estadio Olimpico to bid farewell to one another and to Mexico City.

Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter whether the athletes were from the U.S.A. or the U.S.S.R., whether they were black or white, whether they came from a wealthy nation or a poor one. One could not help viewing this unusual comradeship with at least a tinge of longing. Somehow it was clear that things should really be this way; but at the same time there was the gnawing realization that the bubble of Utopia would quickly burst.

It is encouraging to realize that such an experience is in the realm of reality for the believer in Christ. When Christ comes again and sets up his kingdom, all the barriers that divide and alienate men will be removed. Even now Christians can experience a unique comradeship with others who are “in Christ,” regardless of other factors that tend to keep men apart. Certainly, this is a time for those who have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to demonstrate to a divided world the love and oneness Christ can bring.

Cushing’S Dilemma

Richard Cardinal Cushing has announced his intention to resign as Archbishop of Boston at the end of the year. The reason: the volume of hate mail, some of it “in the language of the gutter,” which he received as a result of his defense of Jacqueline Kennedy.

This raises two questions: Is the reason given adequate to support such a major decision? Are there other factors that might justly call for a resignation?

Every man in the public eye who has ever taken a stand on a controversial matter has experienced the wrath of those he has offended. If he allows hate mail and gutter language to accomplish its goal, he does himself and his cause an injustice. This kind of public opinion is not worthy of anyone’s consideration, and it is surprising that a man of Cardinal Cushing’s stature would decide to quit in the face of such reaction.

On the other hand, it would seem that Cardinal Cushing does have cause to reflect seriously upon the legitimacy of his remaining a cardinal in the church of Rome. It is no wonder that the Vatican was embarrassed by Cushing’s statements after the Kennedy-Onassis wedding. He labeled as “nonsense” the idea that Mrs. Onassis is excommunicated or is a public sinner. There would be general agreement with his contention that “only God knows who is a sinner and who is not,” and he is certainly right in calling for an attitude of Christian charity, However, the fact remains that Mrs. Onassis has publicly entered into a situation the church regards as sinful. Other less prominent persons under the cardinal’s authority apparently have not been granted the same dispensation he advocates for her. Monsignor Fausto Vallainc, official spokesman for the Holy See, stated the problem in these words: “Whoever contravenes the law of the church incurs her sanctions.” As a cardinal in the church, Cushing is morally obligated to support its teaching. If he cannot do so, a resignation is in order.

This conflict of personal views with the teaching of the church is not exclusively the dilemma of a Roman Catholic cardinal. What should a Protestant clergyman do when he finds himself out of accord with a statement of faith to which he committed himself in his ordination vows? Integrity demands that he remove himself from a body whose official teaching he cannot embrace.

Rethinking Reconciliation

The call for “reconciliation” between individuals and races and nations has been a major theme of modern theology. Undoubtedly this is one of the most desperate needs of our day, but it is futile to hope for reconciliation between man and man until there has been reconciliation between man and God. When the Bible speaks of reconciliation, it speaks chiefly of a reconciliation between God and man; out of this grows the healing of other broken relationships.

The need for reconciliation. The concept of reconciliation implies a prior enmity. The enmity between God and man, is the result of two facts repeatedly taught in Scripture: the fact of man’s self-assertion and rebellion against God’s will and the fact of God’s holiness, which demands punishment of the disobedient. Therefore Paul informed the Colossian Christians that before their conversion they were “enemies” of God.

The basis for reconciliation. In a problem of enmity, the cause of contention must be removed if there is to be reconciliation. It is no accident that in discussing reconciliation between God and man Paul twice says that this “peace” was made available by Christ’s death on the cross (Col. 1:20, 22), which removed the cause of the enmity between God and man—sin. Christ took upon himself the sin of mankind and as a substitute for sinful man suffered the penalty for sin demanded by divine justice. Apart from this act there would be no basis for reconciliation, because the root cause of the enmity would remain. This provision for “peace” with God becomes effective only when the individual enters into a personal relationship of faith in and devotion to the person of Jesus Christ.

The results of reconciliation. When a man is reconciled to God on the basis of the work of Christ, he enjoys a change in status before God. He is no longer God’s enemy; the guilt that made him this has been removed and he is now a friend of God, a son of God. There is also a change within him. With God’s help, he begins to behave as one who is God’s friend. And this change becomes the foundation upon which he can build harmonious relationships with other men. Paul speaks of reconciliation between Jew and Gentile and makes it clear that these who were enemies could become one only through the cross of Christ.

Man’s basic problem is his alienation from God. The only hope for reconciliation among men is a prior reconciliation between men and their God though Jesus Christ.

There is an often overlooked but ever recurring theme in the Bible that serves as an explanation and a warning as it shows God and man in true perspective. This is the truth that God is the Creator, the ultimate Source of all things, the One whose power is infinite, the One in whom all wisdom is to be found, the One who has ultimate authority.

Behind and beyond all scientific discovery lies the majestic truth revealed in the words, “In the beginning God.” This truth may be ignored or denied, but without it there can be no satisfactory explanation of anything in this world. This One who was in the beginning created the heavens and the earth—the universe.

Science delves back and back until inevitably it reaches a point beyond which stands the mystery of ultimate source. The Holy Scriptures clearly tell us that this source is God. This truth, with its deep theological implications, also has profound scientific implications that are ignored only at great cost.

In speaking to audiences that had never heard the Gospel (this I did hundreds of times during my twenty-five years in China), I found it well first to rivet attention by going back to the question of ultimate source: “Who made this table?” “A carpenter.” Who built these walls?” “Masons.” “Who made these clothes?” “A tailor.” “Who made the cotton from which this cloth was made?” “It grew out of the ground.” Then, “Who made the ground?” To this the usual reply was, “Tien Lao I” (the heavenly spirit). “Where did you come from?” “From my parents.” “Where did they come from?” “From their parents.” “Keep going back from generation to generation: where did the first man and woman come from?”

At this point there would invariably be active audience participation, with many answering at the same time. This interest made it easy to show them that I was talking about the One who had created all things, seen and unseen.

Next I asked the question, “Do you know any person whose heart is in the middle?” (a perfect person was thought of as one whose heart was in the middle). The reply would come, “No, there are a few people whose hearts are close to the middle, but many are far to one side.”

After this it was not hard to explain that the evil things people say, think, and do are sin—an offense against God the Creator—and that sin separates man from God. This led naturally into the story of the love of God for men, despite the evil in their hearts, the love that caused him to send his Son to save them from the guilt and penalty of their sins.

In my encounters with these people I found that nothing won attention more quickly than an account of one or more of our Lord’s miracles—things that no mere man could have performed, that were his credentials to prove his deity and his heavenly origin.

After this came the account of the cross and the empty tomb—God’s loving means of providing a way out of his righteous judgment, followed by the assurance that all we have to do is accept what God has done for us.

Down in the hearts of men there lurks a persistent feeling that things did not “just happen,” that there is an intelligent, sovereign power who must have been the source of all. Without this concept of God as Creator, the ultimate Source, the truths about Christ would be difficult to understand. And in the Bible we read, from Genesis to Revelation, of God as the Creator—the answer to the riddle of the universe, our world, man’s origin and destiny.

Implicit in this concept of God is the recognition of his infinite power. All that exists, seen and unseen, is included in the majestic statement, “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God” (Ps. 62:11). The risen Lord himself said, “All authority [power] in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). Such power is beyond human comprehension but not beyond belief.

God’s works of creation are a continuing witness to his being: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they [who suppress the truth] are without excuse” (Rom. 1:19, 20).

These works of creation are also a continuing witness to God’s wisdom: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). One has but to look at the stars and accept the fact of the immensity of space to know that behind it all there is a wisdom no man can fathom. Or, turning to the microscope one sees designs and relationships that stagger the mind at the wisdom demonstrated.

An inescapable corollary is that the God of creation is also the God of authority. His is the right to act according to his own righteous will, and none can deny that right. “Woe to him who strives with his Maker, an earthen vessel with the potter!… Will you question me about my children, or command me concerning the work of my hands?” (Isa. 45:9a, 11b).

Perhaps the greatest of theological truths is that the Creator is also the Redeemer. In speaking of Christ’s eternal being John writes, “All things were made through [or by] him, and without him was not anything made that was made,” so that Genesis 1:1 can actually be read: “In the beginning Jesus Christ created the heavens and the earth.” Paul further explains: “He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15–17)

Admit that the Saviour is also the Creator and things fall in place. How fitting becomes the thought of his virgin birth, miracles, atoning death, resurrection, his present ministry in heaven, his future return to earth to reign! This is not a trip into fantasy but the plain teaching of the Bible, and it opens up a new vision of God’s love, grace and mercy. It answers otherwise unanswerable questions and makes comprehensible God’s plan of redemption.

Little wonder that in the Bible we are reminded again and again that the One with whom we have to do is the Creator-Redeemer, and that a final confrontation with him is inevitable unless we have already accepted our Saviour’s confrontation with sin, judgment, and death on our behalf.

It is an awesome truth, and a comforting one.

L. NELSON BELL

Dear Navigators On The Sea Of Matrimony:

The knack of teaching Christians how to apply the wisdom of the Scriptures to the vexing problems of everyday life is one every Christian minister needs. Baptist pastor Dr. C. S. Lovett of the Personal Christianity Chapel in Baldwin Park, California, has this gift in spades. In his new volume, Unequally Yoked Wives, he plots a strategy to help the Christian wife bring her unconverted husband to Christ. He calls his method “The Nutcracker Technique.”

When I read the flyer about his book, I thought perhaps the developer of “The Nutcracker Technique” was himself a nut. But as I read the book, I found that salty C. S. had come up with a biblically sound approach bound to be appreciated by many Christian women experiencing the agonizing trials of such marriages. The two jaws of his nutcraker are light and works. Lovett writes, “The Holy Spirit joins the two together so that you can bear down on those handles and get all the squeeze you want. The nut in the middle is your unsaved husband. Apply enough pressure and his resistance is sure to crack.”

The light the wife is to shine is the Word. Not the word of incessant preaching, but the personal word of giving God credit for the changed life she is living before her husband. The works are evidenced in her proper submission to him and in her desire to please him as she pleases God. Lovett sets forth four principles: (1) use equal force on both nutcracker jaws; (2) squeeze gently at first; (3) make changes in one area of life at a time; (4) start away from yourself—environmental changes before acts of self-denial. In a variety of true-to-life situations he suggests how a wife may influence her husband: when to give in, when and how to hold her ground, when to let her husband leave her, when to take him back, when to separate from him, how to lead him to Christ. Lovett recognizes that marriage is based on bodies (one flesh) and advises the wife to use her sexual role to advance her husband spiritually. She must not merely tolerate him sexually but genuinely seek to satisfy him. States Lovett: “The marriage bed gives her a great ministry in the Holy Spirit.”

I’m not much for pat formulas, but Lovett’s systematic approach for unequally yoked wives makes sense. It shows how practical the Bible’s teaching is in helping Christian women solve one of life’s most rending problems. May they all have great success in their ministries to their husbands!

Happy decks on storm-tossed seas,

Literature, And All That

Thanks to God for a magazine not afraid to recognize that a Christian can use his mind without losing his salvation, and to Mr. Howard for proving that it is possible to write thoughtfully and perceptively about life and be a Christian. You are to be congratulated for printing an article as intelligent and provoking as the one by Thomas Howard on the possibilities of literature in the life of a Christian (Oct. 25).

Los Angeles, Calif.

Thomas Howard asserts truly that “serious literature” addresses the imagination and that the Christian must bring the rewards of such reading to God’s altar. But I question whether all “serious literature” should be recommended as the “noble fictions of the human imagination”.… The imagination (like the reason and the emotions) is a God-gift but sin-affected faculty that the writer exercises in service to his god or to God.

Sioux Center, Iowa

Didn’t men preach better when they were better read? Spurgeon had an enormous library. Wesley’s saddlebag was always full of books.… Many parsonage libraries are as bare as the proverbial cupboard.

United Methodist Church

Minotola, N. J.

Among the insights in this excellent article, the most incisive is the culture-holiness discontinuity.…

The spiritually perceptive allegorical description of the fourteenth century in “Piers Plowman,” like William Law’s “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life,” comes from a man with a global discernment of the mind of God.…

This is the day in which we commiserate with the “cultural shock” experienced by our missionaries abroad—forgetting that the greatest possible cultural shock occurs when a man penetrates the eternity-barrier into the Kingdom of Heaven, and not only becomes a “pilgrim and stranger” to his generation but is called to variance with his own family.

Moorestown, N. J.

To Appreciate Freedom

I appreciate much in your article by H. Daniel Friberg (Oct. 25). But to say “The Law faithfully proclaimed as God’s Word exerts an unlimited power to break the pride of man and to put him in that distress in which the Gospel becomes the sweetest news in the universe” is like saying: “Everybody should be put in a concentration camp so they will appreciate the good life they receive again when they are set free.” Nonsense! Why put men in the concentration camp or under the “law”?… We must proclaim radically the grace of God so that they can be freed from the bondage of sin by acceptance of God’s grace through faith.

First United Methodist Church

Galax, Va.

Goliath And The Ministry

I want to comment … on “Men Wanted” (Oct. 25).… It seems that no one has endeavored to determine why a successful minister changes course in midstream.… No attempt has been made to help the minister who has decided that he is going to leave the ministry.… I am wondering if there isn’t a greater need to help the “man of the cloth” stay in the ministry.… This in turn will result in many more men choosing the ministry.… Most of the material that I read on the above subject points up the need for men of increased stature, causing many churches to search for a “Goliath,” unmindful that the man of God on this occasion was a boy named David!

Community Baptist Church

Aromas, Calif.

The Right Light

Please permit me to thank you for the excellent editorial on the U. S. Congress on Evangelism (Oct. 25). It caught exactly the spirit of the whole enterprise, and put it in just the right light.

St. Louis, Mo. “Lutheran Hour” Speaker

The Third Party

I … was profoundly amazed to see that article on George Wallace (News, Oct. 25).… Wallace is a patriot, a common-sense American, and he is bringing into the open the real issues in this election campaign.…

I … had intended to vote for Nixon.… Nixon will perhaps be elected and will carry on as the “establishment” dictates. Wallace has no such connections; he is independent. Now that you ran such a nasty article against him, I shall vote for Wallace.

San Diego, Calif.

I am no particular fan of Mr. Wallace and do not intend to vote for him (though he will carry the state of Louisiana). But I say to the clergy, especially to the United Methodists, clear your own house before you condemn Mr. Wallace.

New Iberia, La.

I plan to vote for George C. Wallace in November and have been an active supporter of his campaign for about seven months. I can’t hold it against him because he is a Protestant, a Methodist, a fundamentalist, or a Sunday-school teacher. Also, in my thinking it is to his advantage that he sponsored an anti-lottery bill, put tax on liquor, and wants to bring the Bible and prayer back into schools.… In my opinion, if you want to do a good job …, you should get some disgruntled politician or preacher to write articles pointing out the faults of Mr. Nixon and Mr. Humphrey.

Nucla, Colo.

Why publish such a prejudiced article on George Wallace in a religious magazine?…

You mentioned Brooks Hays: Who is he? Be he a congressman or past president of our Southern Baptist Convention, he was not any credit to the Southern Baptist Convention.… Why didn’t you quote the view of Joseph H. Jackson, a Negro and president of the vast National Baptist Convention, Inc.? You know he stands for Wallace.…

I … feel that CHRISTIANITY TODAY should apologize for the distorted photo and article which … debase one of the greatest men our country has produced.

Columbus, Ga.

• Dr. Jackson endorsed NIXON.—ED.

It was amazing the things you have allowed to be printed about Governor George C. Wallace. While personally I do not intend to vote for him, there are many things he stands for that are basic principles which we must return to.…

There isn’t a shred of evidence given to substantiate the views of Mr. Henley, merely assumptions and biased allegations.

Regional Manager

Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company

Columbia, S. C.

Before reading the article … one learns that it is not the clergy on Wallace but … the opinion of one man who works and writes for a newspaper which is considered by many to be liberal, socialistic, and left wing.…

The last paragraph of the report takes the cake. Here a “young minister” “fears” George Wallace because he (Wallace) does not laugh. Millions of thinking, red-blooded Americans feel at this time of crisis in our nation and in the free world that weeping would be more appropriate than laughter.…

I feel that this report is unfair, misleading, offensive, biased, prejudiced and unChristian. I feel it is an insult to the intelligence of Governor Wallace and to millions of Americans of every race, creed, and color. I feel that a retraction and an apology are in order.

Denver, Colo.

I protest the cartoon (Oct. 11) … [as] poor taste and unworthy of your high standards. Not only is Wallace’s stance as a Christian statesman a phony because it masks old-fashioned Southern white racism, but to suggest that any man has “saving power” even remotely comparable to that of Jesus Christ is sacrilege at best, and blasphemy at worst.

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church

Hay Springs, Neb.

I think CHRISTIANITY TODAY dropped to a new low with that clever(?) cartoon.

MRS. ROBERT E. WATSON

Delaware, Ohio.

Who Woos

George Patterson’s “Red China Woos Embittered Christian Tribes” (Oct. 11) may well be more significant than the current Paris peace talks.

Interestingly enough, the tribal leaders in Laos (Tanby) and in Viet Nam (Y Bham) also profess Christ. The latter has pled with our government to be allowed to fight with our boys against the Viet Cong. Some of his men fought within a few miles of Ban Me Thuot in an attempt to protect the missionaries martyred during the Tet offensive. They ran out of ammunition. These tribesmen know the woods and could control the woods. Many American lives could have been spared in the many “Valley” battles in Viet Nam if we had taken in Y Bham. Today he sits in Cambodia waiting. Our government refuses to overrule a reluctant South Vietnamese government. We control much of their government anyhow; it’s strange we won’t assert ourselves where American lives and American tax dollars are on the line. Would you believe that some well-informed people believe the war would be over now had we just started and pursued a right policy with these tribespeople? I think they’re right.

Lombard, Ill.

• Mr. Sawin lived in Viet Nam for fifteen years. He was auxiliary chaplain to the U. S. military forces and pastor of the Protestant International Church (Christian and Missionary Alliance) in Saigon.—ED.

I would like to express my appreciation for your excellent magazine.… One function that I believe has not received adequate recognition is that of presenting the news of the church world. Hats off to you for reporting items of interest and importance.…

As a member of a group whose missionaries are being expelled from an apparently critical area (Assam, India), I thank you especially for the eye-opening report by George Patterson.

Bethel Baptist Church

Marion, Iowa

In St. Louis, a luncheon and all-games party was held in memory of a recently deceased person. Proceeds went to a medical center in California that does research in cancer and heart diseases. At a funeral home in St. Louis, mourners—some wearing mod clothes and wild colors—discussed the stock market. Even at small-town funerals, visitors chatter about relatives and movies and television as if they had just met at the grocery store.

Funerals are attended by fewer people today, says Elwyn Gipson of the National Selected Morticians, and they are becoming depersonalized and shorter. He adds another observation: “Modern ministers are more concerned with comforting the family than with preaching the Gospel.”

A reader writes Ann Landers: “In the large city where I live, a funeral procession passes our office almost every day. I have seen small children make faces at the mourners in the cars. I have seen impatient motorists honk their horns and cut in front of a hearse. No respect. No consideration. No kindness. Are people changing?”

A year-long survey of 3,500 undertakers showed that many Americans are changing their attitude toward funerals. The traditional funeral with public viewing of the body still prevails in rural areas, particularly in the Midwest and the South. But in East and West Coast metropolitan areas, many consider the funeral only a utilitarian necessity and are moving toward simpler, non-religious, and less expensive funerals.

Who is at fault for this secular trend? It is easy to blame “the times,” perhaps correctly. And many blame the morticians.

But I am going to make a bold alternative suggestion: Too many of us who are ministers have retreated from the true function of a Christian funeral, content to go along with the times. A Christian funeral is not a one-day revival. Nor is it an occasion to say a few pretty words or listen to sentimental music. The purpose is Christian worship. The goal is to focus attention on the greatness and goodness and everlasting nature of God. Congregation and mourners alike should be caught up in a worship experience that transcends circumstances, that strengthens and undergirds.

This is easier said than done, but here are some suggestions for accomplishing it:

1. Pastors must arrive at a conviction about what a funeral should be and discuss this with their congregations—before the need arises.

2. A planned worship service is better than a see-saw affair of a song and a Scripture passage and a song and a mini-talk and another song. The pastor should use the great hymns of the Church, as he would at a Sunday service, and involve the congregation and the family in worship through congregational singing, responsive readings, and the saying of the Lord’s Prayer.

Often the family members are shielded in a side room at the funeral home. But why should they be? The family that shares in Christian worship receives much more support than the family that sits passively by, perhaps unable to see the minister or to hear what he says.

3. Music should focus attention on God (“A Mighty Fortress”) rather than on the deceased (“Tell Mother I’ll Be There”). The use of excessively sentimental songs has, I feel, turned many people against funeral music; today some families request that there be no singing at all. In the hour of great need, we ought not to deny ourselves the emotional support of the world’s universal language, music. And if there is ever a time for a Christian to sing, it is in the face of death. To say we cannot stand music at a funeral is to say we have nothing to sing about.

4. Usually the service can be in the church, despite the frequently used excuse that a church funeral is too much “bother.” Bother for whom? The mortician? That’s what he is paid for and what he is equipped to do. There is no need for a long processional or pallbearers. The mortician can move the casket and the flowers to the church the morning of the funeral. Then the family and friends simply gather at the church, rather than at the funeral home. Most ministers feel out of place leading Christian worship in a funeral home, which at best creates an artificial situation. Acoustics are sometimes bad. Not everyone can see the minister. No hymn books are available for use in worship.

5. The family should view the body before the service, perhaps the morning of the funeral, so that the benefits of worship will not be annulled by the emotional strain of a final viewing.

6. The minister should encourage more people to attend the funeral of Christian worship, though no one should attend out of morbid interest in how the family is “taking” the death, or in how many people sent flowers. Sometimes friends spend all their energy preparing food, making telephone calls, and arranging flowers, so that the funeral becomes an eighteen minute anti-climax. In metropolitan areas, the processional to the cemetery may need to be eliminated, except for the immediate family. One does not help members of the family as much by driving an hour through city traffic to and from the cemetery as by standing beside them in the worship service.

7. Ministers should share their ideas freely with local morticians. Most morticians are willing to cooperate with the minister as well as with the family. Often, they make unwise suggestions simply because no one has offered better ones. In turn, the mortician should consult the minister before the time and place is set. Too often the minister is called last, after all details are set.

8. Instead of hiding the pulpit or altar with a bank of flowers, it might be better to arrange the flowers tastefully in hallways, foyer, or narthex of the church. A simple spray can go on the casket at the altar. More and more churches are following the custom of using a funeral pall. And why not? Attention should focus on God and his everlasting arms, not on the number of floral pieces.

In autumn, when the leaves turn a hundred hues, it is death that causes the blinding show of color. But it is a fierce and flaming death. So let our final rites for the Christian dead be a flaming and glorious experience of corporate worship—not a colorless, sentimental ditty.

lambs or tigers

Observe how quickly a wild tiger committed to a zoo becomes docile. Down through history most people, once enslaved, have readily adjusted to their altered situations; their lot becomes the new normalcy, and any break with it is upsetting and prompts resistance. We have so long become accustomed to the powedul d.omination of fuzzy-minded liberal theologians that we have come to accept it as a fact of life. Evangelicals must learn to swim in thick sand. It is time to break the status quo. Every year the problem of theological ambiguity grows larger. It is action, not slogans, that we need, not the profession but the practice of the truth. God is bypassing many of the great denominations today because they refused to maintain a pure testimony to the truth. If we do not wish to see our schools, presses, and buildings, fall into the hands of men who bow to the spirit of our age, then we need to act now.—Dr. CLARK H. PINNOCK, associate professor of theology, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.