An unprecedented symposium of thirty evangelical scholars the last four days of August decided birth control—“artificial” and otherwise—is neither forbidden nor sinful. Though scheduled long ago, the meeting came on the heels of Pope Paul’s decree against artificial methods and in the midst of continuing Catholic ferment on the issue (see story below).

The Symposium on the Control of Human Reproduction, co-sponsored by CHRISTIANITY TODAY and the Christian Medical Society, did not rule out sterilization on principle, but urged caution because this means of birth control “is usually irreversible.”

The scholars agreed that some therapeutic abortions are necessary, though some insisted nevertheless that all abortions are sinful. The group generally endorsed abortion guidelines approved in May by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But it said abortion is a last resort, should not be a general means of population control, and should be permitted in individual cases only after careful consideration. Indiana University sociologist John Scanzoni had argued in one of twenty-two papers presented at the symposium that abortion should be a means of general birth control.

Stomping Out Catholic Dissent

The running battle over Pope Paul’s birth-control encyclical raged about Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle, archbishop of Washington, D. C., this month as he tried to stomp out rampant dissent among his priests.

Acting on three fronts, O’Boyle emerged among the world’s Catholic bishops as one of the few to take an absolutist position against those who cannot accept Paul’s continued ban on artificial birth control.

The 71-year-old prelate:

• Called a board meeting at Catholic University to seek action against eighteen CU theologians who have spearheaded national criticism of the encyclical. In a compromise move, trustees ordered an inquiry into whether the theologians had violated their responsibilities to the university by their public dissent.

• Fired the Rev. T. Joseph O’Donoghue, an assistant parish priest and a leading proponent of married couples’ right of individual conscience regarding the use of contraceptives. He is believed to be the first U. S. priest removed for criticism of the encyclical.

• Threatened to fire about fifty more parish priests, all O’Donoghue supporters, unless they recant. They said they would not back down, but O’Boyle gave them until September 14 to send him individual statements of position on birth control. Days before the deadline, executives of the federation of 120 local priests’ associations and senates urged O’Boyle to recognize due process, reconsider the O’Donoghue suspension, and name an impartial panel to decide the case. Many members of O’Donoghue’s parish also issued an appeal.

While the board’s decision avoided a crisis, Catholic University promises to be a hot point in the controversy. Its dissenting professors are led by the Rev. Charles A. Curran, a moral theologian whose firing from the university last year led to student-faculty protests that closed down the school for six days, until Curran was rehired.

Looming over the situation is O’Boyle, who stated flatly that if a priest could not follow the Pope’s teaching, “he ought to be his own pope and get himself a church.” But O’Donoghue challenged O’Boyle to call a meeting with West German and Belgian cardinals who have upheld the encyclical but also honored the rights of individual consciences on the matter. O’Donoghue asked if birth control was “virtuous in Europe but sinful in America?”

Many theologians predicted the controversy would lead to a reinterpretation of papal authority in the church.

Rumblings of dissatisfaction continued to be heard around the country. Seven of eighteen faculty members at the major seminary of the Buffalo (New York) diocese were transferred because of their dissent. And a Los Angeles priest, Father Russell Karl, claimed that he was relieved of his priestly duties by James Francis Cardinal McIntyre because he disagreed with the encyclical and the church policy of priestly celibacy.

BARBARA H. KUEHN

The symposium, held at a beachfront resort in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, assembled evangelicals from medicine and psychiatry, with seven theologians and three sociologists. The legal framework for discussions was provided by former Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, who spoke on “The Law as It Governs Decisions Today,” and Thomas E. Lambert, Jr., editor of the journal of the American Trial Lawyers Association, who gave a brilliant address on legal rights of the fetus.

Discussions were chaired by the Rev. Dr. Harold John Ockenga, minister of Boston’s Park Street Church, and the Rev. Dr. Harold Lindsell, new editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Representatives of the CMS included Dr. Walter O. Spitzer, general director, and Carlyle L. Saylor, arrangements chairman.

In contrast to the Pope’s encyclical, the evangelicals’ 1,000-word declaration says that “each man is ultimately responsible before God for his own actions, and he cannot relinquish this responsibility to others.” Where the Bible is unclear, it says, Christians can not speak with “binding authority,” and those seeking to follow Scripture may reach different conclusions.

Birth-control decisions may be based on such factors as psychological debility, family size, and finances, the declaration says. As for the various methods, the evangelicals said this is not a religious issue but a scientific one, to be determined in consultation with a physician.

The declaration begins with a strong affirmation of the holiness of sex that implicitly rejects negative views that have characterized some conservative Protestants, as well as early Church Fathers. It says that “coitus was intended by God to include the dual purposes of companionship and fulfillment, as well as procreation.” Although the Bible sees procreation as one purpose of marriage, the statement says, God also intended sexual intercourse to be enjoyed even when procreation is impossible. “Therefore procreation need not be the immediate intention of husband and wife in the sex act, which may be simply the expression of love and of a desire for the mutual fulfillment of normal human needs.”

The evangelical statement opposes situation ethics and condemns intercourse outside marriage.

On abortion, the scholars concluded that:

1. The fetus is “an actual, or at the least, a potential developing human life,” and therefore regard for the “value and sacredness of human life” requires “great caution” in prescribing an abortion.

2. Induced abortion should be used “only to safeguard greater values sanctioned by Scripture,” either “individual, familial, or societal.”

3. From the moment of birth the infant is a human being, with all the rights required by the Bible, and “infanticide under any name should be condemned.”

The Rev. Dr. Bruce K. Waltke of Dallas Theological Seminary, argued that no Bible text forbids therapeutic abortion, and that under Old Testament law the fetus was not regarded as a soul, for the death penalty was not imposed for destroying a fetus (as in Exodus 21:22–24).

MISCELLANY

The head of the International Rescue Committee said church and other refugee agencies in Western Europe are preparing to deal with the estimated 100,000 touring citizens who may decide not to return to Czechoslovakia.

Time says one of Czechoslovakia’s last uncensored radio programs was a forty-five-minute reading on Fifteenth-century Reformer Jan Huss, who was betrayed while traveling on a safe-conduct pass. The script said that under torture Huss refused to deny “his truth” and went to the stake saying, “Jesus, our Saviour, have mercy on me and my country.”

Charging “irresponsible administration” of the freewheeling Catholic Liturgical Conference (see September 13 issue, page 50), five board members resigned, including a bishop and the head of Helicon Press.

North Viet Nam is making propaganda capital out of U. S. bombing of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Vinh.

The Harris Poll says 78 per cent of Americans think the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong to ban public-school prayers.

Colorado reports more than half the 338 legal abortions performed in the first fourteen months under a new liberal law were for “mental health” reasons. Some 100 have been done on out-of-staters.

PROTESTANT PANORAMA

The 100 top state and national executives of the United Church of Christ said they would schedule no more meetings in Chicago until the right of assembly is guaranteed, and hoped this protest against police actions during the Democratic convention would be joined by other church groups. The Chicago-based home mission staffers of the Lutheran Church in America protested “undue harshness.”

In and around its protests over “brutality” by Chicago police during the Democratic National Convention, the United Church of Christ announced officially at a conference in nearby South Bend, Indiana, that since February it has cooperated in Christian-education planning with the United Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches.

After two years of talks, the three major U. S. Lutheran denominations announced a joint pre-service training program for their missionaries.

The United Methodist Church has half as many pre-ministerial students in its colleges and universities as it had in 1960.

Methodist women’s societies last year contributed a record $14.3 million to missions and related causes.

The new Southern Baptist TV cartoon series “JOT” is drawing more than 1,000 fan letters daily. Newsweek calls it “the first genuinely entertaining—and effective—use of television for preaching morality to pre-teen children.”

BACK TO SCHOOL

For the first time, Louisville public schools are providing teachers for all science classes at a Catholic high school. The Catholic school has no control over course content or teachers assigned.

Ohio Valley College (Churches of Christ) in West Virginia is raising $76,000 to pay back a federal construction grant because the government would not allow chapels or Bible classes in the building.

Three years ago Shelton College, Cape May, New Jersey, lost its president, dean, and half the faculty. Since then President Carl McIntire has gone through one more dean and two administrative assistants. Only a dozen students graduated in June and local bus ads say the school is “open to all.” But the college said it expects more than 200 students at this month’s registration.

Deaths

ARTHUR LICHTENBERGER, 68, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church 1958–64; in Bethel, Vermont.

JOHN GORDON MEIN, 54, U. S. ambassador to Guatemala and son of Southern Baptist missionaries to Brazil; machine-gunned on a Guatemala City street by terrorists.

Concordia Seminary (Missouri Synod Lutheran) in St. Louis set up a course-sharing plan with Catholic St. Louis University’s seminary. The Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is sharing its campus facilities with the Jesuits’ Weston College School of Theology.

PERSONALIA

The Rev. Clifford H. Brewton resigned his $9,000-a-year job as speechwriter for Georgia Governor Lester Maddox to take the pulpit of First Christian Church, Hampton, Georgia, but will continue as head of the governor’s tobacco-alcohol commission. Brewton previously had led his Savannah congregation out of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.

The Rev. Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference began a third-party race for a Georgia state House seat.

The first Negro teacher at Oklahoma Baptist University is a former community-action director, Walter O. Mason, Jr. He will direct the school’s Upward Bound program.

Seventh-day Adventist Paul Arct, fired from a postal job in Laguna Beach, California, because he wouldn’t work Saturdays, was reinstated.

Americans United is appealing to the U. S. Supreme Court the littering conviction of Baptist pastor Vernon C. Lyons for handing out copies of the Book of Acts in a Chicago parking lot.

The Family of Man dinner, which raises money for New York City’s Protestant Council, will give its award next month to John D. Rockefeller III, chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Executive Secretary William H. Rhoades of the sometimes criticized home-mission office of the American Baptist Convention is retiring next April 1.

The Rev. Abel Muzorewa, 43, was elected to four years as bishop of the 28,000 Methodists in Rhodesia, succeeding retiring missionary Bishop Ralph E. Dodge, 61, who was elected a bishop for life.

John Cogley, former New York Times religion editor and Catholic lay theologian, abandoned his weekly column in protest against support for the Pope’s birth-control decree by the diocesan weeklies that carried the column.

Most pavilions at HemisFair—San Antonio’s 250th birthday celebration, which closes next week—spend at least a little space spelling out the influence of religion in charting the courses of the American continents.

Original plans had called for a major joint effort by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. As blueprints materialized, however, participants decided the cost was too great and dropped the idea. The inter-religious committee toyed with thoughts of religious folk dance and art exhibits, but plans finally dwindled to a small chaplain’s office near the first-aid station for emergencies.

After collapse of these plans, officials approved the “Alive” pavilion, operated by an interdenominational group of evangelical businessmen, and “Man’s Search for Happiness,” run by the Mormons. By late summer both had surpassed projected attendance goals. In contrast, attendance at the miniature world’s fair as a whole is running some 600,000 short of the 7.2 million goal. The first months were dampened by spring rains and by civil strife following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Across the ninety-two acres of the delightful HemisFair, religion slips into secular pavilions mainly through the people, big and small, who converged on these American continents.

The $10 million Institute of Texan Cultures uses priceless heirlooms to describe two dozen ethnic groups that converged on the Lone Star State and ushered it into the twentieth century. Religious aspects are integral to each. The Polish area singles out young Father Leopold Moczygemba, who brought over 100 families and established the first Polish Catholic Church and Polish settlement in America.

Belgium’s exhibit spotlights Volumes 1 and 2 of the “Plantyn” Polyglot Bible and Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana by Belgian-born Fray Pedro de Gante—the first book printed in the New World.

The exhibit on Mexico begins with pre-Columbian and colonial-era gods, then moves to art from the early Christian period. The Frito/Pepsi exhibit features Mexico’s well-known Flying Indians performing a 400-year-old religious ritual. The Totonacs believed climbing a pole brought them nearer to the God of the heavens. The reproduction of the pole ascent, the rain dance on top, and the descent, is authentic—down to the bare-breasted maiden who is “sacrificed” five times daily.

Alexander H. Girard’s “El Encanto de un Pueblo” (The Magic of a People), a HemisFair highlight, collects folk art and toys to depict life in Southwest and South America. Religious pageants, parades, and churches are featured aspects.

A kind of religious comment is provided by Francis Thompson’s controversial film US in the $6.5 million United States pavilion. It displays the grandeur of wilderness areas, then graphically portrays prejudice, poverty, pollution, and over-population, commenting: “We have pinned our hopes on our machines.… The marvelous machines we have made obey us, and couldn’t care less for the consequences. Nothing good or evil can happen to them. If we want it that way, they will lay waste the earth.… On each of us depends what sort of judgment waits for you, for me, our friends, and these United States.”

Evangelist Billy Graham, who held a brief fair crusade in June, said the film “speaks to our consciences, and I think it meets its objectives. It’s worth coming to HemisFair just to see this film.” He said that if he were doing the film, he would add more about needed spiritual strength.

“Alive” and the Mormon pavilion, the most frequented of the religious exhibits, are near the Flying Indians, next door to the adults-only “Les Poupees de Paris,” and across from the Lone Star Brewing Company.

Extra chairs were installed to enlarge Alive’s 126-seat auditorium and two 37-seat rooms where a follow-up film is shown to those interested in hearing more about the Christian message. By next week’s closing, 475,000 persons are expected to have seen the Moody “Sermons from Science” films, also shown at Montreal, New York, and Seattle. By mid-August, 2,500 Christian decisions had been registered, with 100 persons a day signing up for Bible correspondence courses. A Navigators team and volunteers from all over Texas act as counselors and staff.

One of the first converts at Alive was from the Flying Indian troupe. He found he could get closer to God by accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour than by climbing a 114-foot pole.

Next door, the Mormons show a film in both English and Spanish. The native-stone structure features a nine-foot gold statue of Moroni, the angel Mormons believe brought Christ’s Gospel to America. As at New York, the Mormons emphasize their belief that Jesus actually visited the Western Hemisphere. No responses have been recorded from the half-million-plus visitors. “We are merely whetting the appetite,” explains publicist Hank Jacobson.

Off HemisFair’s beaten path, A1 Kidwell’s sculpture “Man’s Search for God” introduces visitors to the Baptist pavilion. The work, using discarded portions of old churches, features a torso formed from English stained-glass windows. It depicts a lion in the bowels, an angel in the heart. The outdoor courtyard, with songs and witness by young Southern Baptists from around the nation, probably has attracted more visitors than the main pavilion, which is housed nearby in the renovated Eager House, built in 1866 as a wedding gift to the first Anglo-American born in San Antonio.

More than 200,000 persons, 90 per cent church people (as expected), have visited the house and seen a movie that presents today’s man as seen by an archaeologist several centuries hence. From such idols as junk yards, Coke machines, and distorted sculptures, the archaeologist decides man has examined himself and found himself lacking: “He searched for truth where it is never found.… Primitive man found truth, not meaning.” It concludes that man does not find God; God reveals himself to man through Jesus Christ.

No records of decisions are kept here, either. After the film, visitors are encouraged to talk over any questions with counselors. Numerous young people have discussed purpose in life, and their elders, rededication. Director Charles Stewart thinks the exhibit is well worth the $105,000 paid by national, state, and city Baptists.

SOUL SEARCH IN THE STEEL CITY

For the third time this year a Billy Graham crusade will be televised across the United States and into several foreign countries. Color videotapes made this month of three meetings at Graham’s Pittsburgh crusade probably will be broadcast just before the U. S. elections.

Normally Graham plans two television series a year—one at the beginning of summer, the other at the close. Shown in dozens of cities in prime evening time, the series cost more than a million dollars each. Graham’s crusades in Portland, Oregon, and San Antonio, Texas, have already been shown in 1968.

Pittsburgh was added “primarily because of the urgency of the hour,” said George M. Wilson, Graham association treasurer. But because of the problems of fitting in a special series at mid-season, not as many stations will be lined up.

The ten-day Pittsburgh crusade¹A significant corollary was the latest and biggest in a series of schools of evangelism. Some 1,200 persons from forty denominations were enrolled. The effort, underwritten by a California industrialist, brought seminarians and young pastors from all over the country. was held in the 57,000-seat Pitt Stadium. Total attendance was 280,000. More than 12,000 persons made public new commitments to Christ by stepping down to the turf where many of pro football’s great heroes have performed.

The crusade touched the steel capital as probably no religious event ever had. From the opening prayer by Cliff Barrows to the closing benediction by new Methodist Bishop Roy Nichols, the spirit of Christian renewal lay over the once-sooty metropolis now known as the Renaissance City. Graham was in great form, preaching vigorously despite a kidney infection held down by doses of streptomycin.

Pittsburgh has been a predominantly Roman Catholic city for at least four decades. Hard-working European immigrants manned the furnaces during the week and filled the pews on Sundays. Their diversion was trying to strike it rich through the illegal daily numbers games (a penny would get you $5 to $7 on a “hit”). A succession of local administrations condoned the flourishing rackets.

Though greatly outnumbered by the Catholics, evangelical Protestants also have been something of a force in the city, thanks primarily to vigorous Presbyterians. The best known was the late Clarence Edward Macartney, whose reputation as one of America’s great preachers was built on soundly biblical sermons that always ended with an appeal for Christian commitment. The Rev. Robert J. Lamont, Macartney’s able successor at the historic, immaculately maintained First Presbyterian Church in the heart of the Golden Triangle, was a vice-chairman of the Graham crusade. The United Presbyterian school formerly known as Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary was long a fountainhead of evangelical scholarship.

Pittsburgh’s rise from the smoke has been remarkable. Zealous publicists understandably overlook the scores of grime-laden structures that still make up much of the downtown area, but the rebuilding continues. Fifth Avenue, the city’s main shopping thoroughfare, is still a narrow, cobblestoned street.

This kind of environment may be the price Pittsburghers are obliged to pay for serving as a focal point of American technological output. Black and gold have been the traditional colors of the city.

Graham was in Pittsburgh for six weeks in 1952, and most meetings were held in an old armory that held 10,000. This year crusade planners took their chances with the weather to gain the space benefits of the outdoors.

The stadium is perched on a steep hill overlooking the University of Pittsburgh and its medical cluster, where polio was conquered by development of the Salk vaccine. The slope is sometimes referred to as “Cardiac Hill” by those who must puff their way up, and there were happy allusions to that term during the crusade: Pittsburgh evangelicals rejoiced at the number of “hearts” won to Christ among those who responded to the evangelist’s invitation; and during the week of the crusade the world’s thirty-seventh recorded heart transplant took place at the nearby University-Presbyterian Hospital.

The crusade was favored by an unusually large assortment of musical talent led by George Beverly Shea, easily the world’s most popular gospel soloist. Shea is in his twenty-first year with the Graham team. Graham said in Pittsburgh, “I don’t think I could preach unless Bev Shea sang first. He’s been with me almost from the very beginning of my ministry.” Shea recounts his career in Then Sings My Soul, a warm autobiography just published by Revell.

Adding to the music of the crusade was the World Vision Korean Children’s Choir, currently on a concert tour of the United States. The tots have a repertoire of 150 songs memorized in English. Unscheduled “music” was provided by the stadium’s chirping crickets.

The most memorable of the meetings was held in a driving rain with 16,000 persons huddled under umbrellas and plastic raincoats. A visitor that night was Democratic Mayor Joseph M. Barr of Pittsburgh, a Roman Catholic and an influential figure in national party politics. Another prominent Roman Catholic who attended crusade meetings was State Supreme Court Judge Michael A. Musmanno, who presided at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials.

Among guests at the closing service were Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon and his wife. Nixon, who is an old friend of Graham, got a generous tribute from the evangelist. The meeting was attended by 47,500, largest crowd of the crusade.

DAVID E. KUCHARSKY

In a churchyard overlooking Lake Ontario, local laymen served barbecued steak to hungry delegates to the biennial national convention of Canada’s largest Protestant denomination. It was about the only time during the twenty-third General Council of the United Church of Canada that anyone bit into tough fare. Back on the convention floor, there were plenty of meaty issues, but the delegates—half clergy, half lay—passed most of them on to the professionals at United Church headquarters in Toronto.

Included in the 408-page agenda for the nine-day meeting was consideration of a new creed and of whether to appoint “bishops.” What bugged delegates the most, however, was a problem the United Church shares with a number of North American denominations, which have not yet faced up to it. It is diplomatically described as “the crisis in the ministry,” and it ranges in severity from the indignation felt by a rural pastor who must crank the mimeo and mow the lawn to the loneliness and frustration of suburban ministers unable to cope with the deep-seated problems of affluent parishioners. Alarms have been sounded over the number of men leaving the ministry for such reasons.

“The crisis of the Church today is the crisis of the ministry,” said the Rev. A. L. Griffith of Toronto in a floor debate.

A wide range of therapy has been suggested. Manitoba churchmen petitioned “that the current Manse Furnishing Policy be changed so that the minister shall provide all of the Living Room Furniture and all of the Bedroom Furniture,” and “that the Pastoral Charge provide a TV antenna for the manse if one is needed for that particular area.” At a deeper level, a Commission of the Church’s Ministry in the Twentieth Century, formed four years ago to study the problem, came through this year with twenty-nine pages of findings and recommendations. Only two proposals were adopted. The rest were held over for consideration by an executive committee and a future General Council.

One effect of the portion adopted will be to broaden the concept of the ministry and pastoral charges. Certified “lay supply” will have the right to perform sacraments. On the educational level, the United Church will reduce the number of its theological colleges from eight to five. Each remaining school is admonished to “move as quickly as possible into an ecumenical approach to theological education.”

The commission had also recommended new recruitment procedures and a revised method of bringing church and pastor together (present call procedures were said to be leading to “wasteful mismanagement of ministerial potential that is both frustrating and unjust”). United Church polity currently follows rather closely that of Presbyterians in the United States. Authority to call ministers rests with local congregations, but their choices must be ratified at a higher level.¹Climaxing the latest dispute in the procedure, the council ordered the Rev. J. Berkley Reynolds inducted as minister of the 900-member West Ellesmere United Church, Toronto. The local presbytery had sought to bar the transfer of Reynolds, an outspoken evangelical, from Newfoundland.

The United Church of Canada was formed in 1925 out of a union of Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches, and is now engaged in merger talks with the Anglican Church of Canada. Thus the denomination is something of a prototype of the super-denomination envisioned for the United States by the Consultation on Church Union. United Church membership hit a high of 1,064,033 in 1965 and has been declining since. The latest tally, for 1967, showed 1,060,335. In the late fifties and early sixties, more than 40,000 new members were being received each year on profession of faith. Last year, despite a climbing Canadian population, only 26,000 new members were taken in.

As a possible prelude to merger with the Anglicans, the United Church has been toying with the idea of appointing “bishops.” The official proposal left the impression that the appointees to the new office would be something less than bishops in the Anglican sense. Even at that, council delegates rebelled and politely shelved the issue by referring it for study to the joint Anglican-United Church commission that is engineering the amalgamation of the two churches.

A proposed new creed devised by the Committee on Christian Faith for “experimental use” provoked sharp criticism on the convention floor. Principal George Johnston of United Theological College, Montreal, said it was “basically a non-Christian creed.” Other delegates lamented the omission of key doctrines in the ninety-word statement. The committee was directed to revise the creed and to clear it with a group of church executives who run the United Church between meetings of the General Council. The statement is eventually to appear in a service book along with the longer creed of the United Church of Christ in the United States and the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

The brief, new creed in its unrevised form went like this:

Man is not alone; he lives in God’s world.

We believe in God:

who created and is creating,

who has come in the true Man,

Jesus, to reconcile and renew,

who works within us

and among us by his Spirit.

We trust him.

He calls us to be his Church:

to celebrate his presence,

to love and serve others,

to seek justice and resist evil.

We proclaim his Kingdom.

In life, in death, in life

beyond death, he is with us.

We are not alone; we believe in God.

The council, meeting in the small Ontario city of Kingston, where the St. Lawrence begins its long trek northeastward to the sea, bestowed its ultimate award upon one of the church’s veteran medical missionaries. Elected to a two-year term as moderator was Dr. Robert Baird McClure, 68, who served in China and India as well as in the Near East. McClure did not distinguish himself as a parliamentarian in initial appearances before the council, but he kept secular newsmen happy with a succession of blunt quotes. He described himself as a “terrific liberal” in theology and indicated he believed neither in the historicity of Christ’s resurrection nor in hell. McClure defeated Norman Bruce McLeod, a colorful young minister from Hamilton who some thought might emerge as the Pierre Elliott Trudeau of the United Church.

In another important election, delegates chose the Rev. Charles H. Forsyth as secretary of the key Board of Evangelism and Social Service. Forsyth, 42, has been serving as an aide to the premier of New Brunswick province.

UNREST AMONG NATIONAL BAPTISTS

In this era of unrest the National Baptist Convention Incorporated was thoroughly at home during this month’s meeting in Atlanta. The 15,000 delegates heard a minority group charge that the world’s biggest Negro organization was not as involved in social action as it ought to be, elected a regional vice-president who was not the favorite of some board members, and listened as their veteran president declared that the civil-rights fight as originally planned has been lost.

The denomination quietly took action purchasing Natchez (Mississippi) College, passed enabling legislation for the convention to sponsor a $9 million housing development for low- and middle-income groups, and found a middle ground between strong pressures to endorse a candidate for U. S. president and to remain aloof from all political emphasis.

Prior to the convention’s opening, a group called Concerned Clergy presented the board a list of proposed resolutions, urging that the convention “help our own hungry people in Mississippi, support the Poor People’s Movement and Operation Breadbasket, and give aid to the starving children in Biafra.” The board refused to accept the list on a variety of grounds ranging from infringement on Baptist autonomy to the fact that many officials felt they were already meaningfully engaged in social action.

In some confusion, the dissidents insisted on open discussion of the issues after the annual address by President loseph H. Jackson. But after Jackson’s re-election by acclamation, the western regional vice-president, who was presiding, ruled the session adjourned. Two days later, at the time assigned for such issues, none of the dissidents took the opportunity.

Most exciting was election of a new northeast regional vice-president. The chief candidates were the Rev. Julian Taylor of New Haven, Connecticut, and the Rev. Sandy Ray of Brooklyn, New York. Both have long been active in NBC affairs but Ray was the better known among delegates because of his wide-ranging preaching missions and his ministry at the Cornerstone Baptist Church. After two hours of speeches and meticulous vote-counting, Taylor moved to make the election unanimous for Ray.

On civil rights, Jackson declared that the struggle as originally planned had been lost. In this he did not fault President Johnson, whom he praised warmly, but he decried those who have lost faith in the nation. He also criticized people who “now believe that civil disobedience is a more powerful and dependable weapon for achieving civil rights than are the just laws and courts of the land.”

He did suggest, however, that the convention appoint a committee to set up guidelines to help members in their local areas participate in politics and make sound judgments. This group may endorse a national ticket next month.

As has been NBC custom, Jackson called on local officials to appear at the convention with words of welcome. Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen came, with warm words, but Governor Lester Maddox didn’t. After a busy week the convention adjourned to meet next year in Kansas City, Missouri.

LAWRENCE T. SLAGHT

BLACK SEPARATISM—FOR NOW

Black separatism won qualified support this month from a leader of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, further sharpening the convention’s social-action image among black Baptist groups.

The Rev. Gardner Taylor of Brooklyn declared at the annual PNBC meeting that Jesus, who called his disciples apart, “must have seen that every group must at some time or other get with itself, find itself. I have come to see that a church needs to separate from the world every so often.… The same applies to a race such as ours.”

Taylor, outgoing PNBC president, said Jesus separated the disciples to cleanse, restore, and empower them for their return into the world. So black Christians “must return to the nation bearing in Christ’s name the gifts of our blackness.” He urged the PNBC “not to abandon the dream of an integrated society … but to catch the words of truth being uttered in the excessive rhetoric of violence of so many of our best young minds.”

Taylor’s words evoked strong praise from youth representatives within the PNBC, which claims more success in keeping touch with young militants than other black church groups.

The convention, which left the National Baptist Convention Inc. (story above) in 1961, endorsed “law and order” when it stands for “social justice,” and rejected it when used as a “cloak” for racism or “violence of the far white right.”

A resolution at the Washington, D. C., meeting asking churches to give money to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference reflected uncertainty about the direction of that organization since the death of founder Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a PNBC member. The Baptists said it would be “traumatic” if the SCLC “became weak or defunct because of inadequate support … We must not let King’s dream of yesterday become a nightmare of tomorrow.”

The convention also called for a U. S. president who would heed black Americans’ cries for social justice but refused to endorse Humphrey or Nixon; urged an immediate halt to bombing of North Viet Nam; and asked its members to join the SCLC’s boycott against A&P food stores.

Executive Secretary L. Venchael Booth said PNBC congregations total 800, up 100 in one year, with membership at about half a million. The national budget is $ 180,000. New president is the Rev. Emery Searcy, 56, a soft-spoken Atlantan.

BARBARA H. KUEHN

THEN THERE WERE 700,000

What with a 15 per cent increase in members at home and a merger with the 100,000-member Bethel Full Gospel Church in Indonesia, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) landed in Dallas for last month’s assembly with a world constituency of 700,000.

In view of such progress, the 18,000 Pentecostal delegates were extremely cautious on key agenda items. A proposal to cut levies on local churches by nearly half met heated opposition. Re-elected General Overseer Charles Conn warned it could “severely alter” the program, and executives proposed reductions staggered over twenty years. The issue went to another committee for more study until the 1970 assembly. At present, congregations send 25 per cent of their tithe receipts to headquarters each month.

Also postponed were controversial bans on facial makeup, theater attendance, and dancing—at present banned only in unwritten policy. Prohibition of mixed swimming and bobbed hair for women in the official “Church of God Teachings” as well as the denomination’s Minutes was also delayed two years.

The assembly clarified the membership restriction on divorced and remarried persons. A committee recommended no discrimination against “divorcees and/or those who have been involved in multiple marriages.” Previously, only “innocent parties” in cases of divorce for adultery could join local churches. Divorced and remarried persons will continue to be excluded from the ministry.

Conn spoke about the need for a seminary, and delegates later set up a board to coordinate and advise Lee College and the church’s three Bible colleges. Accredited liberal-arts programs for the latter may be recommended. The assembly also approved a $170,000 addition to a $2 million headquarters building which had been dedicated earlier this year.

JAMES S. TINNEY

A ‘PLAN’ FOR ASSEMBLIES

The Assemblies of God launched a “Five Year Plan of Advance” at an unusual four-day national evangelism council in St. Louis. Enthusiasm of the council’s 6,000 participants for the plan—scheduled to begin in January—shifts the denomination “from a defensive holding action to a dynamic offensive outreach,” said Thomas F. Zimmerman, general superintendent of the nation’s largest Pentecostal group.

Publicist Warren McPherson said the first year’s focus will be on self-study and revival in member churches, though the overall plan is three-pronged—a ministry “unto the Lord, unto believers, and unto the lost.” He said plans for the next four years will be firmed up at the denomination’s business meeting in Dallas next August.

‘39 ARTICLES’ ON THE WAY OUT?

The venerable Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England may be on the way out as the theological norm of Anglicanism. In one of the last actions at last month’s Lambeth Conference of the world’s 490 Anglican bishops, a resolution said ordination assent to the Articles should be required “only in the context of a statement which gives the full range of our inheritance of faith and sets the Articles in their historical context.”

By a large majority, the London conference asked each member church to “consider whether the Articles need be bound up with its Prayer Book.”

The resolution stemmed directly from the report on the Thirty-Nine Articles by a special English study commission headed by Bishop Ian Ramsey. It favored retention of the Articles with a shorter form of assent and an explanatory preface, and an end to any public reading of the Articles. Archbishop of Canterbury A. Michael Ramsey said he was glad the bishops had endorsed the earlier study and. in fact, had taken “a rather more radical line than the report did.” …

Carl Henry In Cambridge

The train trundled from London to the ancient English university town of Cambridge. On board were seven suitcases, miscellaneous parcels, and one of the world’s foremost evangelical thinkers. In Cambridge he settled in a modest flat, opened a bank account, and registered with police as an alien. And on September 5 at age 55, the Rev. Dr. Carl F. H. Henry began a new era in his life.

After a dozen years as the founding editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Henry is returning—not without mixed feelings—to the academic life. But instead of again becoming a seminary teacher, a role he filled for fifteen years, he returns as a free-lance theologian. He has had several invitations to return to the campus, but for at least the next year he plans to write. On the eve of his departure he told the Washington Star that since John Robinson developed his honest-to-God views and James A. Pike got “plugged into spiritism” in the placid town of Cambridge, it just might also be a good place for some evangelical thinking. One possible project: a text on the doctrine of God with broad reader appeal.

Henry’s brilliance of intellect makes him a standout in the evangelical movement, despite his attempts to raise standards of scholarship in this amorphous yet remarkable force in Protestantism. His fervent loyalty to the evangelical cause has not precluded sharp candor in tongue and pen, dating at least from his 1948 book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, which was a major factor in the renaissance of evangelical social conscience.

Henry’s brilliance and fearlessness were key factors in CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S unusual rise, in a matter of years, to prominence among the hundreds of religious magazines. Besides an intellect nourished by two doctorates, Henry brought to his task an unusual sensitivity to the need for fresh, current comment and to the importance of a comprehensive news section in informing a journal’s readers. This sensitivity traces back to the days before he became a Christian and went to college, when Henry was a 20-year-old weekly newspaper editor on Long Island and a stringer for the downtown dailies.

Some of Henry’s ambiguity about “going into journalistic exile,” as he put it in an editor’s note, may stem from a career-long ambivalence. On the one hand he deplores the paucity of first-rate evangelical theological scholarship. On the other, he senses the critical need for spreading the evangelical message through the mass media.

Thus Henry has always tried to cram twenty-five hours into a day. While teaching at Fuller Seminary, he headed up the Rose Bowl Easter Sunrise Service for seven years. AT CHRISTIANITY TODAY, while building it into the most influential journal of conservative Protestantism, he also managed to counsel other top evangelical leaders, spark the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies, moderate a TV series, deliver hundreds of lectures, and chair the precedent-setting 1966 World Congress on Evangelism.

His wife, Helga, the daughter of German Baptist missionaries to Africa, says that “every time we go on vacation, he takes a dozen books along and tries to write another.” Henry’s books now total two dozen, but most of them during his years at the magazine were journalistic writings or anthologies of various authors. Now, with help from his wife—an editor and educator in her own right—he will tackle some more major projects. To round out the picture of scholarship, the Henrys’ two children are both completing work on doctors’ degrees: Paul, in political science from Duke, and Carol, in musicology from Indiana University.

The Lambeth action was in an amendment by Canada’s Bishop George Luxton, who said assent to the Articles constituted “theological smog.”

LATIN CATHOLICISM: OLD AND NEW

Caught between the old and the new, Roman Catholic bishops in Latin America paradoxically endorsed the Pope’s ban on artificial birth control but upheld violent revolution in extreme instances. The statements were issued from the second general assembly of Latin bishops in Medellion, Colombia, which began with a visit by Pope Paul (see September 13 issue).

Led by progressives, the bishops also condemned military spending at the expense of health and education programs. They said that exploitation by foreign businesses threatened social justice in their countries. And they pointed toward internal church reform by recommending greater lay and clerical participation in diocese work.

The Colombian bishops, considered the most conservative in Latin America, issued separate declarations.

The conference was held behind closed doors and comparatively little has been made public of what was discussed and decided. Protestant disappointment over the conference has centered on its apparent failure—and that of the Pope—to concede how badly non-Catholics have been treated in Colombia in the past. Some bishops, however, sensed this need for a repentant spirit, and more.

One Mexican bishop is described as seeing the task of the church “to evangelize the baptized, bringing the personal reformation and conversion of the man.” Bishop Samual Puiz Garcia stated, “the content of the kerygma … is not substantially different for Catholics and our separated brethren. Only the teaching of catechism following the conversion establishes the differences. Would it be utopian to imagine the possibility of an ecumenical proclamation …?”

VULGARITY IN THE MOUNTAINS

General Conference Mennonites faced some strong words at their recent triennial meeting at a YMCA camp in the Colorado mountains. The Revelators, a youth group from a church in South-side Chicago, offered a pageant called “The Blackness of Blackness.” Its strong critique of white racism met little resistance, but officials forbade the script’s use of one phrase more commonly heard in military latrines than in church conferences. The offended youths felt their candor crimped, however, and eventually the show went on—phrase and all—with an explanatory note on the program.

Fear of centralized power lengthened the debate on a new constitution, in process for six years. The approved document puts the missions, social-service, and education agencies under a conference-elected board.

A resolution approved Project Equality, a national pact to buy from equal-opportunity employers. A statement on hunger urged Mennonites to make “radical adjustments” in their styles of life so more foreign aid will be available. Henry Poettcker, head of Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg, was elected the conference’s first Canadian president.

Focal Point: Resurrection

Jesus—God and Man, by Wolfhart Pannenberg (Westminster, 1968, 415 pp., $10), is reviewed by Leon Morris, principal, Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia,

For some years now Rudolf Bultmann and his disciples have dominated the theological scene. Bultmann’s demand for “demythologizing” first captured the attention, but his school of thought has retained its influence on other grounds. It has made popular the view that the Gospels tell us little about Jesus of Nazareth, though much about the faith of the early Church.

Now, however, the Bultmannian approach is being challenged. Wolfhart Pannenberg, a noteworthy thinker, rejects categorically many of the typical Bultmannian. positions.

For instance, Bultmann regards the resurrection as a legend, but Pannenberg does not hesitate to call it a historical event. He points out that the resurrection appearances and the empty tomb are independent of each other. After examining the evidence for both, he concludes that both should be accepted. He is firmly convinced that the Church’s belief in the resurrection of Jesus is very well founded.

Indeed, so well founded does he find this belief that he makes the resurrection the center of his understanding of Jesus. It is only on the basis of the resurrection that he can perceive the divinity of Jesus. As the title of the book indicates, Pannenberg sees Jesus as God. But he never regards this as self-evident. Nor does he see it as something that could have been discerned up to the time of the crucifixion. It is the resurrection that shows Jesus to be divine.

Pannenberg makes a good deal of the thought that the resurrection is retroactive. Jesus’ union with God is decided retroactively only from the resurrection. The whole of his life is to be seen in the light of the resurrection. Pannenberg accepts the sinlessness of Jesus but characteristically relates this, too, to the resurrection:

As in the light of his resurrection Jesus is the Son of God in the whole of his existence, so, too, he is sinless, precisely because with the flesh he also took upon himself the sin of humanity and submitted to the death that set the purity of his mission free from all ambiguity.

This emphasis on the factuality of the resurrection is refreshing. And it is interesting to see the substitutionary character of Jesus’ death strongly affirmed. Pannenberg’s view of Christ’s death as vicarious penal suffering is unusual these days.

But it must not be thought that the professor from Mainz is simply returning to a conservative point of view. He insists over and over again that the virgin birth is a legend. And he goes along with Bultmann and his followers in asserting that the titles that express Jesus’ divinity were originated by the early Church and read back on to the lips of Jesus. Moreover, it is doubtful whether by “substitution” he means what conservatives have usually meant. Pannenberg is just as critical in his methods as Bultmann—which makes his firm upholding of the historicity of the resurrection all the more impressive.

This is a very important book. Although a good deal in it is speculative, and much must be rejected by those who take the biblical revelation seriously, there is also much that is soundly based. Pannenberg has made it exceedingly difficult for any modern critic to retain the Bultmann skepticism toward the resurrection, and this is a great gain.

Untangling A Tangled World

Into the World: The Need and Limits of Christian Involvement, by J. N. D. Anderson (Falcon, 1968, 112 pp., 9s. 6d), is reviewed by Sherwood E. Wirt, editor, “Decision,” Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In April, 1967, the National Evangelical Anglican Congress, meeting in Keele, England, issued the following declaration: “We believe that our evangelical doctrines have important ethical implications. But we confess to our shame that we have not thought sufficiently deeply or radically about the problems of our society. We are therefore resolved to give ourselves to more study of these crucial issues in future.”

In this spirit, with emphasis upon study rather than programs for immediate action, J. N. D. Anderson, dean of the faculty of law at the University of London, has brought forth the first post-Keele monograph on the question: should evangelicals do something about the tangled world in which they live? It is an excellent study and properly concludes that involvement is mandatory for the Christian. When a learned and dedicated British Christian turns his attention to a particular field, as a rule the reader is in for a treat; and this investigation is no exception.

While the ground covered matches some of what I treated in The Social Conscience of the Evangelical (our books appeared within a month of each other), there are important differences. As some reviewers have suggested, these differences stem from transoceanic differences in perspective. For example, he tends to have a permissive attitude toward homosexuality, in keeping with recent British legislation; whereas we American evangelicals in the main have reacted unfavorably toward moves in that direction, on the basis of Romans 1.

On a deeper level, Professor Anderson feels that “the Bible approaches questions of social responsibility primarily in terms of the doctrine of creation, and not primarily in terms of incarnation [and] redemption.” In America, the doctrine of creation or “creationism theology” has been widely used to undergird the “new morality” through an insistence that, as a general principle, whatever is to be found in the world must be good. (One is reminded of the drunken Indian who interrupted John Eliot during an early Massachusetts Bible class, shouting, “Who made sack, Mister Eliot? Who made sack?”) The result has been that certain of our seminaries appear more Epicurean or Falstaffian in moral outlook than Christian in the traditional sense. Professor Anderson makes it clear, of course, that man’s capacity as a rational and moral being has been affected by the fall—but in a more limited context, perhaps, than most evangelicals would say that Scripture teaches.

In various chapters the author looks at work and leisure, culture and learning, international relations, and the welfare state, not as an expert, but as a concerned Christian who believes that these are areas in which evangelicals ought to be thinking and acting. He is at home and at his best in the field of social justice and the law. With considerable acuity he discusses the command of Christ, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” pointing out that it implies the duty “not only to give passive obedience but actively to participate—to some degree, at least—in the processes of government and lawmaking.” Scores of equally fruitful insights are scattered through the book.

Although Americans will wish that the author were a bit more decisive in some of his conclusions, they cannot deny that he is courageously breaking new ground for evangelicals. Yet he does so with attractive reticence, acknowledging his unfamiliarity with some of the issues under consideration. His book will be widely studied and may well prove to be a watershed in years to come, not only among Anglicans, but among those everywhere who love their Lord and are just beginning to realize what it means to follow him.

Don’T Put Out The Fire

Spirit of the Living God, by Dale Moody (Westminster, 1968, 239 pp., $6), is reviewed by J. Murray Marshall, pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Flushing, New York.

Will there be renewal within the Church? This question arises with ever greater frequency and urgency, stimulated by the evidence of decreasing church membership, decreasing interest among remaining members, and a demoralized ministry. Meanwhile the Church at large divides over such issues as activism in social affairs, ecumenism, and the charismatic movement. But still there are signs of hope, signs of renewal.

Both individuals and congregations continue to tell of their discovery of new, dynamic life in Christ. The persistent interest in the charismatic movement, especially within the major denominations (the United Presbyterians at their 1968 General Assembly ordered a major study on glossolalia), indicates both an awareness that something is happening and a hunger for something presently unrealized. All this points to the place of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And when the Church begins to inquire about the Holy Spirit, it is driven inevitably to the Scriptures. Hence the timeliness of Dale Moody’s book, Spirit of the Living God.

Reading For Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

• A Place for You, by Paul Tournier (Harper & Row, $4.95). The Swiss psychiatrist writes to help people find “a place” that will dispel loneliness, re-establish lost security, and be a base for launching new spiritual pilgrimages.

• The Pattern of New Testament Truth, by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans, $3.75). Contending for the unity of New Testament theology, this professor shows that the Synoptic writers, John, and Paul share a common view of God.

• Black and Free, by Tom Skinner (Zondervan, $2.95). Negro evangelical Skinner relates his rise from gang leader of the Harlem Lords to his calling as a Christian evangelist and offers candid comments on black power, Dr. King, Negro evangelicals, and the curses of racism.

Dr. Moody senses the urgency of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He observes, “So much modern religion is just more go-go with no glow in it at all. As artificial logs, twirling with the twinkle of a low-watt bulb, are substituted for hickory logs giving forth real warmth and light, so now the ‘planned program’ takes the place of the spiritual glow that creates zeal and hope.” “Protestantism” he says, “is in a state of ‘deadness due to a taboo of the Spirit.’ ”

His approach, however, is not to bemoan the present lack but to work as the careful scholar, collecting, examining, cataloguing, and interpreting the biblical data. He has done his work well. This is a balanced book that neither confines the Spirit as a topic for scholarly speculation nor ignores the need of the Church for the touch of the Spirit’s presence. Indeed, Moody says that “careful scholarship and the charismatic community can be united.”

This balanced evaluation is seen in the parts of the book as well as in the whole. The author makes it plain that the Holy Spirit works not only in individuals but also through the Church as an institution. He cautions church leaders not to “pour cold water on charismatic fires” but then adds immediately, “This does not mean that the church is to accept all claims of inspiration.” He seems also to have a balanced view of polity, seeing in the New Testament more than a congregational polity. (He has been pastor of Baptist churches and now occupies a chair in systematic theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.) His conclusion is that “the great majority of references in the New Testament use church to mean all the Christians in a city, even though they meet in many places.”

Moody covers the entire Bible in this survey, giving one chapter to the Old Testament, and seven to the New. Eâch section is analyzed and cleverly outlined, but never is the text strained to fit an outline. The book will be of help to preachers determined to make their preaching biblical as well as timely. To be sure, some will challenge specific points of interpretation, such as the textual criticism of John 3:5; but these small matters in no wise detract from the value of the book as a whole.

It is clear beyond question that the Spirit of the Living God was active in the program of redemption; Moody demonstrates this from each section of the Scripture. The proper deduction is that the Spirit is at work today, and woe unto twentieth-century Christians if the Spirit be quenched. Christians will find in this study of the work of the Spirit in Scripture both an incentive to wait upon the Spirit to work now and a benevolent corrective for renewal attempts already under way.

Collision Course In Africa

A Leopard Tamed, by Eleanor C. Vandevort (Harper & Row, 1968, 218 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Thomas Howard, teacher of English, St. Bernard’s School, New York, New York.

One of the questions to be asked about a narrative is whether it is, in its own terms, a paradigm of human experience—that is, whether the events, people, conflicts, and movement of the story describe a “case in point” of what is true for all of us. If they do, then it does not really matter whether the scene is Troy (The Iliad) or Logres (Arthur) or a whaling ship (Moby Dick) or Yoknapatawpa County (The Sound and the Fury). We may have no experience at all of the geography, customs, or time of the narrative. But if the tale is told well, we see into the special world in question with the eyes of the storyteller; and if the storyteller is truly a poet, these are eyes that see more than the subjects themselves. For they see the string of events that the subjects enact, not as mere hap, but as part of a pattern that can be superimposed on common human experience, and that elicits significance from that experience. This is what we mean when we say we “identify” with the hero: his struggles remind us of our own. When we read about Odysseus sailing past the Sirens, the story is much more to us than merely an account of events that took place in the Mediterranean some eons ago. We say to ourselves, “How terribly true that is.” And we find that our own capacity both to appreciate and to cope with experience is enlarged to the extent that we have a new way of uttering it: we can speak of temptation as a “siren-song,” and the figure suggests to us a whole world of intensity and subtlety that no analytic description could equal.

Such a story is A Leopard Tamed. For it does the two things that the narrative must do if it is to rise about mere diversion. First, it beguiles us by creating a world and by leading us into it; and second, it sees in that particular world questions that must be asked of our own.

First, then, it creates a world. To be sure, the events take place on the same planet where we live. But the similarity ends there. Despite colonial empires and commerce and literacy programs and radios, there are peoples on this planet whose consciousness seems hardly to have changed at all during the centuries in which Western man has placed himself increasingly in thrall to the things he invents. The Nuer tribe in the southern Sudan is like this. They are quaint subjects for anthropological studies, and natural objects for missionary attention. To this tribe there went a woman, like thousands of other women, as a Christian missionary. This was a woman whose allegiance, like that of her missionary colleagues of all time, was to the God announced in the Christian Gospel. But, with her Gospel, she also took the eye of the seer and the curiosity of a heart that approaches other people, not as objects, but as fellow beings. She spent thirteen years in their grasslands with this stork-like, coal-blue, pastoral people, and she has told us a story about it. She leads us into a world that has little to do with our own—wet seasons and dry seasons (we have umbrellas and irrigation), cattle (we have bank accounts), clay pots (we have Tupperware), superstition (we belong to the Enlightenment), initiation (we do have Bar Mitzvah and baptism), birth and death (we have them, but we disguise them). But this is not one more breathless account of How Fascinating Life in Africa Is. The tale is told with a delicacy and perspicacity that reminds one of that great bard and sorceress Isak Dinesen, who wrote of Kenya. If it were nothing more than Miss Vandevort’s description of Nuer life, we would be enchanted.

But it is more. It is a tale of microcosm of the macrocosmic African-Western collision, and more, of the animist-Christian collision. The Westerner believes that there are ways of doing things that are better than other ways, and he is prepared to insist that Western man has discovered the better way, and to disseminate the knowledge of that way to all tribes, willing and unwilling. Similarly, the Christian believes that there is a Way that is the Way for all men, and that it ought to be promulgated. He has, apparently, the promises of his God that success will follow this promulgation. What, then, if no such thing occurs? What if this Way makes no more sense to a people than television and macadam and polyethylene? What if the response is at best an amiable blankness? We are familiar with tales of success. A Leopard Tamed is not one. The Leopard in question is a young Nuer man named Kuac (Leopard) who becomes a Christian, and finally a minister. The conflicts that arise between his Nuer-hood and his faith are staggering, and we are not comforted with a happy ending. The last thing in the book is a letter written to the author, who was deported and, along with the other Christian missionaries, declared persona non grata by the Arab government of the Sudan, by Kuac, who is himself in exile: “Our country is full of rumors and troubles. Plead with God for us as you did when you lived here, my sister.”

But the story is more even than a highly intelligent and sensitive probing of the anthropological and religious collision. It is the account of a faith that has, like Job’s, been asked to sustain the collapse of all the props with which faith is ordinarily shored up. There is a certain pique among American Christians now about various books that do not seem to take for their slogan “On the Victory Side.” And yet, a careful reader of these books (in this case, of A Leopard Tamed) will discover an affirmation of faith that is far, far more substantial than the sort of thing that commonly gushes from our pulpits and journals.

A noteworthy feature of the book is the extraordinarily arresting pen-and-ink sketching by James Howard.

Freudian View Of Religion

A Dynamic Psychology of Religion, by Paul W. Pruyser (Harper & Row, 1968, 367 pp., $10), is reviewed by R. S. Brinkerhoff, special instructor in psychology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

This book by Paul W. Pruyser will be of interest to CHRISTIANITY TODAY readers: (1) his main focus is on Protestantism, in particular American and conservative forms; (2) the work reflects knowledge of both classical and current theological sources; (3) he shows a wide and sensitive appreciation of the Bible; (4) his whole discussion is from a psychoanalytic and/or Freudian perspective.

The psychoanalytic view emphasizes human needs and the conflicts that arise between these needs. Conflicts typically involve parents and “loved ones.” Pruyser attempts to show how particular religious (especially Christian) doctrines and practices help a person handle these intrapsychic conflicts. In this discussion his interpretation of the theories of the Atonement is central, but he also deals with such matters as the significance of particular hymns and the psychological meaning of constantly volunteering to wash dishes at church. Yet he does not reduce religion to a psychological mechanism: he gives extensive attention to the concepts of Rudolph Otto and argues that “something more” (the Deity) is really there.

Although the book is not aimed at the lay audience, Pruyser writes clearly, without unnecessary technical jargon, and uses excellent illustrations. He speaks from a particular perspective within psychology (psychoanalytic) and does not do justice to the varied perspectives of the field (no mention is made of Mowrer on guilt, of Kohlberg on moral development, of Frankl on man’s search for meaning). A number of types of religious behavior (e.g., speaking in tongues and demon possession) are treated very briefly. Yet all in all the book is an excellent systematic introduction to the psychology of religion.

How Mass Media Affect You

Morality and the Mass Media, by Kyle Haselden (Broadman, 1968, 192 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr., producer-director, Valley Forge Films, Inc., Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.

This is the most important book yet written on the subject. Reading it will be a valuable and exhilarating experience for ministers, writers, teachers, and others whose stock in trade is communication and whose concern is people.

Haselden works thoroughly. He knows that to discuss morality properly he first must provide us with a look at the genuine article. But morality is not all that visible on the surface of society today. So for two chapters he digs, scraping away encrustations of legalism and the clay of situation ethics until he uncovers what he calls “authentic morality.” In “Morality and the Sense of God’s Presence” he summarizes: “Authentic morality has its focus in people, its objective in the transforming of people into persons, its habitat in freedom, its criterion and energy in love, and its source in God.”

He performs a similar service in showing what the mass media of communications are and how they function and affect us. His background material, surveys, studies, and daily contact with the subject as editor of the Christian Century provide him a significant vantage point from which to view the history and current state of both the mass media and morality.

The first part of the book is an excellent primer on the subject. He liberally quotes other explorers in the territory; he names names and places; he takes on McLuhan, Playboy, the FCC, censors, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and a host of others.

The book is chock-full of ideas that will interest the theoretician, the sidelines enthusiast, and the day-to-day practitioner of the arts and wiles of mass media. An example is his opinion that “the more important the subject is to the consumer, the more likely it is that his opinion will be changed by indirection rather than by direction, by impression than by preaching.…” He doubts that the appearances of Martin Luther King (whom he admired) on television changed many racial attitudes or racial behavior, but he believes that “Negro actor and humorist Bill Cosby, in his heroic and highly sympathetic role in TV’s ‘I Spy,’ in which he has a free and easy relation with a white companion and other whites, will gradually change many racial prejudices.”

The philosophy of the book is so valuable and enriching that we can afford to overlook Haselden’s occasional lapse into vitriol in certain matters about which he has prejudice. He convinces us that a free, open, uncensored society is best, but then he blows his cool and seeks to restrain the rights of some members of our society to tell it like they think it is. Yet he proves his humanity in these passages and convincingly reinforces the argument for freedom of expression and interchange that he so brilliantly presents in his ethical thesis.

Each reader, no matter what his place on the theological or political spectrum, will find ideas in this book to make him cheer and to make him hiss. That’s the kind of book it is and that’s the kind of subject it is. Haselden has contributed a fascinating book on a powerful topic the Church must consider.

Book Briefs

William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond, edited by John Henrik Clarke (Beacon, 1968, 120 pp., $4.95). A collection of stirring essays from the black intellectual community contradicting Styron’s depiction of Nat Turner in his dramatic novel.

The Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude, by Michael Green (Eerdmans, 1968, 192 pp., $3.95). This new volume in the “Tyndale New Testament Commentaries” stresses the “faith once delivered to the saints” as the pertinent message of these two epistles. Helpful outlines and sound exegesis make this a profitable book for study.

Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, by Ethelbert W. Bullinger (Baker, 1968, 1,104 pp., $14.95). This extensive study, first published in 1898, adds depth to the meaning of the Word through detailed explanations of figures of speech that are “the key to the interpretation and elucidation of the Scriptures.”

Ephesians, The Mystery of the Church, by William MacDonald (Shaw, 1968, 144 pp., $3.50). Each chapter of Ephesians is thoroughly considered to reveal a “wonderful truth”—the unity of believers in Christ.

Beggar to King, by Walter Duckat (Doubleday, 1968, 327 pp., $5.95). This fascinating survey of more than 200 occupations—from prophet and procurator to pawnbroker and prostitute—mentioned in the Bible offers a glimpse of the social, economic, and cultural life in ancient days in the Holy Land.

John XXIII and American Protestants, by Eugene C. Bianchi (Corpus, 1968, 287 pp., $6.95). A reminder of Protestantism’s response to renewal of the Roman Catholic Church under John XXIII and a survey of current efforts toward Christian unity.

The Experience of Love, by Jules J. Toner (Corpus, 1968, 219 pp., $5.95). Philosophical thought pointing to spontaneous response as the unifying element in the total human experience of love.

Paperbacks

Christ Manifested, by John Fletcher (Rule, 1968, 96 pp., $.80). The letters of a leader in the eighteenth-century “Evangelical Awakening” illustrate the reality of divine revelation through man’s personal encounter with God.

The Inescapable Calling, by R. K. Strachan (Eerdmans, 1968, 127 pp., $1.65). An entry in the “Christian World Missions” series that emphasizes evangelism as a crucial responsibility of the Church in its community.

Do You Hear Me, God?, by Ruth and Arthayer Sanborn (Judson, 1968, 80 pp., $1.95). A powerful and expressive series of prayers revealing man’s search for meaningful life and for communication with God through prayer.

All Loves Excelling, by R. Pierce Beaver (Eerdmans, 1968, 227 pp., $2.95). Describes the dedication and influence of American Protestant women in mission service.

Help … I’m a Camp Counselor, by Norman Wright (Regal, 1968, 228 pp., $.95). Along with aspirin, mosquito repellent, and fagots to throw on campfires, this book should be stashed in a camp counselor’s pack.

Dear Prudes about Nudes:

The style of life in 1968 is pretty well epitomized by the ubiquitous mini-skirt on the maxi-mum. Americans today seem obsessed by the desire to view or reveal as many curved inches of skin as the occasion will allow. In any major city, skin-flicks formerly shown clandestinely at stag parties now are big box office at “art” theaters. Lurid still shots lure customers in to see such epics as The Nudies Meet the Nasties. In countless cabarets, bottomless ecdysiasts now draw the leering lechers formerly titillated by the artistry of strictly topless performers.

In such a culture it is hardly surprising that churchmen who get their inspiration from observing humanity’s endeavors to be truly human should produce a film like Another Pilgrim, a forty-minute experimental feature recently screened at New York’s Judson Memorial Church. Its climax comes when a minister totally disrobes at the close of a service. The Rev. Al Carmines, who produced the film for the World Council of Churches, explained that the disrobing had a symbolic significance. Standing nude before his congregation, the minister in the film, it seems, dramatically demonstrates the need for absolute honesty.

Now I’m not exactly against honesty, and I enthusiastically endorse the human body—especially the female—as God’s greatest work of art. But I must protest the unrestrained exploitation of nudity for any cause—moral or lascivious. When will people learn to leave a good thing alone? To glut the market with nudity is to diminish its mystery and lessen our appreciation of it. Any woman realizes that sexual attraction depends more on charming concealment than blatant exposure. And many men know that after you’ve seen so many, they all look alike. Well, almost. Entrepreneurs of nudity seem to forget that after the bottomless, little can be done for an encore. There’s nothing left to show in such show business.

Far-out churchmen with scatological eschatological doctrine have a penchant for “shocking” all us “prudes” with gimmicks like the disrobing scene. We can be thankful at least that they have not introduced prostitutes into their temples for “religious” purposes. Yet. But then our modern La Dolce Vita has not run its course.

Your observant sexpert,

EUTYCHUS III

A THIRD APPROACH

I rejoicingly agree with Dr. Gaebelein (“Toward a Biblical View of Aesthetics,” Aug. 30) that “for a Christian aesthetic the primary source is Scripture.” But there is an approach to the Bible as a basis for a Christian aesthetic other than “references to art” and “biblical doctrine” (cf. Auerbach’s Mimesis). That third approach is via reverent examination of the God-in-spired scriptural literature of narration, history, biography, parable, epistle; of devotion, penitence, comfort, edification, festivity, and adoration—and the sovereign Triune God is the Subject in each genre and tonal expression. These Scriptures are our perfect models as well as (in their totality) the fount of our entire redeemed life by the Holy Spirit in Christ our Lord and King.

MERLE MEETER

Sioux Center, Iowa

SHOULD BE SHOUTED

I have read with deep interest the article entitled “Christ in the Classroom,” by James Kallas (Aug. 30).

As a Roman Catholic, I am anxious to tell you that, in my opinion, the views expressed by Dr. James Kallas are so overwhelmingly sound that his message should be shouted from the housetops. I strongly suspect that the scenes that I witnessed on television … from the streets of Chicago depicted many of the results that come from the false doctrine of no indoctrination of any kind, whether it involves Christianity, good morals, good citizenship, or good manners. Christian education, as explained by Dr. Kallas, leads, as a rule, to self-discipline, which I believe is the key to personal happiness.

C. ELLIS HENICAN

New Orleans, La.

Dr. Kallas’s article implies what is perhaps the best case against Christian education, namely, the ever-present danger of its elevation to a status which is all out of proportion to that given it by our Lord or the Scriptures generally.… Christ said nothing about education; he said a very great deal about piety, if by piety we mean holiness.

RICHARD A. RIESEN

Claremont, Calif.

THE BIBLICAL BASIS

One must agree that the proposed creed for the United Chuch of Canada (“A Creed for Canadians?,” editorial, Aug. 30) is lamentably lax. It is a patent “accommodation to the temper of the times”.…

The editorial’s most trenchant criticism came in the closing paragraph: “Where is the biblical basis for a creed that neglects vital factors …?” Indeed! Where is the biblical basis for any human creed?

DAN ANDERS

Church of Christ

El Monte, Calif.

TO BE ONE

“Negative Thoughts About Ecumenism” (Aug. 30) also contained some anti-biblical thoughts about the unity of the Church. If the Bible is to be truly taken as the only guide, then it matters nothing what “we have to give to each other,” but what we are able to find together in Christ.… “To be one,” truly, does not necessitate uniformity in all matters; but to therefore conclude that the present denominational divisions are permissible, even laudable, shows a lack of reading of First Corinthians 1:10–13 and Galatians 5:20. The New Testament Church, God’s Church, was one Church, one body, and no rationalizing can support any improvements on God’s design.

TERRY PACE

Christ’s Church at Remmel

Newport, Ark.

BOLD SATELLITE

While Skyline Christian Institute begins a twelve-month countdown before it launches its satellite campus (News, Aug. 30), Messiah College has already launched such a campus in cooperation with Temple University.…

The Messiah College-Temple University program is a bold attempt to provide relevant education for Christian young people through broad curricular opportunities, rich cultural advantages, and direct confrontation with the ghetto problems of urban America. Students will complete two years of work in the suburban setting of the Grantham campus. They may then study at the Temple campus for one or two years. During their study at Temple, all students will engage in a team-taught general-education course. This course on Christianity and culture will examine current problems of our society, including such topics as war and peace, the urban crisis, and racial relations. In studying these present problems, constant attention will be given to such underlying themes as the nature of man, the role of the church, and the nature of the just society.

DANIEL R. CHAMBERLAIN

Dean

Messiah College

Grantham, Pa.

ANSWER TO ATHEISM

Congratulations to Harold B. Kuhn for his article, “Atheism: The Old and the New” (Current Religious Thought, Aug. 30). He managed to cut through the plethoric body of environmental, psychological, and theological conclusions which gave rise to “Christian atheism” and present a succinct, understandable summary of that “cancer.” Would to God he or someone else could do the same in rebuttal to this newer atheism. Evangelical theology is admirable, desirable, and soul-satisfying, but it seems unable to equal modern theology in satisfying the intellect. Perhaps Mr. Kuhn should expand the last two paragraphs of his article to give us laymen the answers to the problems he identified in the first thirteen. I wonder how many semi-informed evangelical Christians give spiritual assent to their faith but secretly agree with many of the “findings” of the newer atheism?

MARVIN OWENS

Waltham, Mass.

WISH FOR LAYMEN

As a layman I want to thank you for the very fine article, “Babel or Pentecost?,” by L. Nelson Bell (“A Layman and His Faith,” Aug. 16). I wish that every layman in the country who is concerned about his Church and its message to the world could have an opportunity to read this provocative article calling attention to the causes of a gradual apostasy in the pulpit and in the churches.

TOM F. BURR

Houston, Tex.

NO HANGUPS

You did it! And I can hardly believe it, for most of the time those who write feature articles on the Bible in your magazine have too many hangups. But thanks to Klaas Runia for his accurate and aggressive and encompassing article (Aug. 16). “The Modern Debate Around the Bible.” Let’s have more like it.

DENNIS E. GLAD

South Park Covenant Church

Rockford, Ill.

HOPE FOR HARMONY

Acts XXIX (News, Aug. 16) is not the result of a “stormy chapter in the history of Campus Crusade for Christ.” Those of us who left Campus Crusade are still more than convinced that Campus Crusade is an outstanding organization accomplishing a great ministry.… We desire and expect a harmonious relationship with Campus Crusade as well as all churches and groups involved in the work of Christ.

JON E. BRAUN

Acts XXIX Fellowship

Blue Jay, Calif.

IN BOOK FORM

This is to thank you for the “Fundamentals of the Faith” booklets which have been bound in with the several issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Now that the series of thirteen is complete, may I enter a plea, in which others will join, I am sure, that the entire series be bound together in a paperback. It would provide a splendid study book for adult classes looking for elective courses and would, I am sure, find many other uses.

JOHN OLDMAN, JR.

Pittsburgh, Pa.

• The essays on “Fundamentals of the Faith” will appear cloth-bound in 1969 in the series of “Contemporary Evangelical Thought” volumes edited by Dr. Carl F. H. Henry.—ED.

In an article last year, Dr. Stephen W. Paine, president of Houghton College, reported that a committee of fifteen evangelical scholars had begun work on a new English translation of the Bible. Many of these scholars, including Dr. Paine, are well known in conservative circles. They will be advised by a large board consisting of officers of national Christian organizations and denominations, school men, and other Christian leaders.

In this article (“Why We Need Another Translation,” United Evangelical Action, October, 1967), Dr. Paine discusses the reasons for this project. The King James Version is losing its long-held ascendancy because of the public demand for a Bible in modern language. The Revised Standard Version, now the only strong alternative to the King James, is, in the opinion of a number of evangelical scholars, “quite unacceptable to Bible-believing people.” “Its most serious defect,” says Paine, is “an apparent design to minimize and annihilate what we call the unity of Scripture, its cohesiveness and harmony, particularly as between the Old and New Testaments.” In contrast, he says, a faithful translation will be marked by consistency between the Old and New Testaments. “Those who believe that God through human instrumentality authored both Old and New Testaments will expect to find them harmonious. In making word choices in translation they will naturally choose the words which recognize rather than destroy this harmony.”

The devotion and sincerity of members of this Committee on Bible Translation can only be commended. But some of their assertions and assumptions must be respectfully challenged.

Alleged Mistranslations

Paine points out three sets of RSV passages that he feels show mistranslation.

1. Psalm 45:6—Hebrews 1:8. In the King James Version, Psalm 45:6 reads, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.…” Paine notes that the writer of Hebrews regarded this as a prophetic reference to Christ: “But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Heb. 1:8, KJV). The RSV translators are then criticized for rendering the line in Psalm 45, “Your divine throne endures for ever and ever.” In doing this the RSV “seemingly snuffs out any logical or probably Messianic implications of the statement” by eliminating the “thy” referring to the deity; the “divine throne,” says Paine, could refer to that of any king.

This is quite misleading. Psalm 45 is addressed to the king of Israel or Judah (v. 1). To translate the line as “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” is to imply that the king was thought to be divine. In the Ancient Near East, kings of some countries, such as Egypt, were often considered divine. But most scholars believe that evidence is generally against a widespread belief in the deity of a Hebrew king.

Now if the verse is not intended to make the king divine, then it must be said to embody hyperbole or exaggerated language. And if this is so, then the RSV translators legitimately render the verse, “Your divine throne endures for ever.” They thereby retain the idea of divine approval but avoid the notion of divine kingship for a ruler of Judah. At the same time they note in the margin that the Hebrew syntax allows for other renderings, including the KJV one.

For philological and contextual reasons, the reading of the RSV is perfectly legimate. And many evangelicals feel it is the preferred reading. In this instance as in many others, the New Testament goes beyond the Old Testament. It adds something new. It does not agree exactly with the Old Testament; to insist that it must is to pervert the first intention of the Old Testament writer.

2. Isaiah 7:14—Matthew 1:22, 23. Paine cites the much discussed passage in Isaiah 7 as a “standard” RSV handling of the text. As is well known, the RSV translates verse 14, “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” In a footnote “virgin” is listed as an alternative reading. The New Testament (Matt. 1:22, 23) uses this sentence to refer to the virgin birth of Christ. The Greek word parthenos definitely denotes a virgin, not merely a young woman, and it was this word that was used in the Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14 made about the third or second century before Christ. Consequently, some evangelicals have long inveighed against the translators of the RSV for mistreating the Old Testament text.

But that is not the whole story. The direct reference in Isaiah 7:14 is to a boy to be born, at most, within fifteen years from the time of the prophecy, and probably sooner. The mother of the boy is a contemporary of Isaiah. Moreover, despite Paine’s assertion that “no one questions that ’almah [the Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14] could properly be translated ‘virgin,’ but somehow the RSV committee thought it better the other way,” there are many scholars who question whether ’almah should ever be translated “virgin.” There is certainly no definite evidence that it must be translated that way. And most scholars, including various evangelicals, think that the word should be translated “young woman” in Isaiah 7, even if it can sometimes mean “virgin.” They note that Hebrew has another word, bethulah, that explicitly means “virgin.”

In using the prophetic statement to refer to Christ, Matthew goes beyond the Old Testament just as the writer of Hebrews does. He adds something new. It is a travesty to deprive the Old Testament of its direct intention and to insist that an indirect usage in the New Testament must be imposed upon the Old Testament.

3. Genesis 12:3; 22:18—Galatians 3:8, 16. The other example of alleged mistreatment of the text by the RSV translators is in Genesis 12:3. As Paine notes, in the King James Version and the American Standard Version the verse is translated, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” These versions also use the passive verb form for Genesis 22:18, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Paine then observes that in Galatians 3:8 Paul uses the Abrahamic blessing as a prophecy of Christ: “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed” (KJV). This too is a passive construction. One should note also Galatians 3:16, where Paul says, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many; but, referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ which is Christ” (RSV).

Paine now takes issue with the RSV translators for rendering Genesis 22:18 (the article says 12:3), “By your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves.” Again there is no reference to the footnote in the RSV giving “be blessed” as an alternative rendering. The author claims that by using the plural, “descendants,” the translation excludes the one, Christ. Using “bless themselves” rather than “be blessed” changes the picture, we are told from one of Christ bringing blessing to the nations to one of having the nations bless themselves through Abraham or his descendants.

In reply, one may say that the RSV translation has good reason behind it. “Seed” in reference to offspring is not used in modern speech, and “descendant(s)” is a much more appropriate translation. Moreover, the Hebrew word for “seed” (zera’) is simply not used in the plural form. The singular form commonly has a plural meaning.

More importantly, the contexts of the blessing statements in Genesis support the plural reading. Let the impartial reader look at all the “your seed” promises addressed to the patriarchs. For orientation let him begin with Genesis 15:13–21 and then proceed to Genesis 12:6–7; 13:14–17; 17:1–22; 21:12, 13; 22:15–18; 24:7, 60; 26:1–5, 24; 28:1–4, 10, 15; 32:9–12; 35:9–12; and 48:3–21. Even in the King James Version, the plural connotation of “seed” is generally inescapable.

The reflexive translation of Genesis 22:18, “And by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves,” is also in full accord with the Hebrew verbal construction. The passive translation, “be blessed,” would be equally possible if one were to look at this verse alone. But the same construction is also found in Genesis 26:4; Deuteronomy 29:19; Isaiah 65:16; Jeremiah 4:2, and Psalm 72:17. In Genesis, Isaiah, and the Psalms the meaning of the verb is ambiguous, either reflexive or passive. But the context in Deuteronomy 29:19 and the parallelism in Jeremiah 4:2 show that a reflexive translation is preferable. Interestingly enough, even the translators of the King James Version used the reflexive in these passages. The RSV translation of Genesis 22:18 and corresponding passages is, therefore, based on the evidence of the Hebrew texts themselves.

The RSV use of “bless themselves” in Genesis 12:3 is less certain. This verbal form is found in only three places (cf. Gen. 18:18 and 28:14). Hence, little evidence is available to indicate whether a reflexive or a passive translation is preferable. To argue that the RSV translators made a mistake in choosing the reflexive here would be incorrect. On the other hand, to use the passive in these three places would be perfectly acceptable also. Paul no doubt followed a Greek reading like that of the Septuagint, which has “seed” in the singular and “blessed” in the passive. Aside from these few uncertain instances, the Old Testament evidence corroborates the RSV translations of the promises of blessing in Genesis.

Examination of alleged mistranslations in the RSV often shows that they are not mistranslations at all but are faithful renderings of the Hebrew texts. About 90 to 95 per cent of the supposed mistranslations in the RSV can be defended. And most of the other “errors” are possible or probable as alternative translations.

In some evangelical circles the Revised Standard Version has too long been spanked like a naughty boy. Probably there are a few points at which theological bias has caused a less preferable reading in the RSV text, but these are rare. And in many ways the RSV is an excellent translation. It is dignified, yet idiomatic and contemporary, and it is powerful in its representation of Old Testament poetry.

The most disturbing thing about the proposed translation is the apparent contention that, if a translation is to be reliable, the Old Testament must agree exactly with the New Testament. This contention is especially associated with prophecy and fulfillment.

From time to time someone will argue something like this: “There are at least seventy-five direct prophecies about details of Christ’s life made at least four hundred years before he was born.” But this approach is grossly oversimplified. Actually, most of the “prophecies” are not at all direct. They are indirect and are based only on one or more points of correspondence. And having a point of correspondence is not the same as being equivalent. In numerous places where the New Testament uses the Old, there is either a modification of the text or a shift of application or both.

This does not mean that the New Testament use of the Old Testament is necessarily inappropriate. To Christians, the language of the Old Testament often finds its completion and greatest meaning in Christ, even when the first intention or meaning of that language was somewhat different. The unity of the Bible cannot be based on a literal interpretation of the Old Testament by New Testament writers or on an exact equivalence in meaning and translation. Rather, the unity is based on the great over-arching themes that span the two testaments, God’s continued work among his people, and the actual realization of some hopes and prophecies.

New Translation Unnecessary

The RSV is not the only modern version available to English readers. The American Standard Version, the Jerusalem Bible, the Berkeley Version, and a number of other translations and paraphrases are helpful. Moreover, other translations are forthcoming, including the New English Bible translation of the Old Testament.

It is questionable, then, whether a new evangelical translation is needed, even if it were to be based on the soundest principles. Could not the thousands of dollars and thousands of man-hours to be spent on this new version be better invested elsewhere? And because the new translation is to be based in part on the highly questionable premises described in this article, the translation is more than unnecessary. Despite the good intentions of the translators, it is also inadvisable.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

The Revised Standard Version of the Bible has been used now for over fifteen years and has won many friends and suffered much attack. Even yet it is perhaps too early to gauge accurately its total influence on the Church. Obviously it has attractive features. It reads well. The translation is carefully prepared and dignified. And it embodies current scholarship. Why ask for another translation?

The answer is that the RSV also has serious faults.

First, it is clear that the RSV represents modern critical scholarship. Higher criticism does not accept the doctrine of the full trustworthiness of Scripture, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. Nor does it believe that truly predictive prophecy is possible. These views are noticeable in the resulting translation.

Another problem is that the RSV is more than a translation. On many of the pages of the Old Testament there are footnotes, marked by Cn, correcting the Hebrew text on the basis of the translators’ ideas of what the text should have said. Often the Greek, Syriac, or Targumic readings are chosen over the Hebrew, but with no discernible regularity or definite principle. Many times the evidence is bypassed and the Hebrew is corrected according to the translators’ judgment. Doubtless some of these changes in the text may be justified. To conservative scholars, however, many of them seem quite unnecessary, and some seem entirely unwarranted and even prejudicial to the teachings of the Bible.

Here is the main problem in the RSV. Any version will have mistakes, but many of what the conservative sees as problems in the RSV seem tendential. They introduce unnecessary conflicts between Old Testament and New Testament and between one book and another. These conflicts become particularly numerous and important in the field of Messianic prophecy. The full force of this treatment can only be to weaken respect for the full truthfulness of the Bible and for the evidential value of Old Testament prediction.

Conjectures and Mistranslations

In the general field of conjecture it is of interest to test the authors of the RSV in the Book of Isaiah. About thirty conjectured textual alterations are noted in the footnotes of the RSV Isaiah, in addition to the places where the translators chose the Greek or another version over the Hebrew. Twenty-six of these corrections had been suggested thirty years ago in the footnotes of the third edition of Kittel’s Hebrew Bible, which is of critical slant. While the RSV was in preparation, the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah was discovered and published. It is interesting to note that not one of these thirty scholastic conjectures is supported by the Isaiah scroll (about 150 B.C.). Possibly a few of them are justified. In most of these places, however, it seems likely that critical scholarship has done an injustice to the Hebrew text simply in order to obtain an easier and smoother reading.

A further troublesome matter in these corrections is that the footnotes, which claim to give the reading of the Hebrew as it stands, are not always sound. It is not clear which words of the text replace which words of the Hebrew as given in the footnote. And often the footnotes translate the Hebrew with such wooden, word-for-word equivalence that the rejected reading looks far more impossible than it really is. The net result is unfair to the Hebrew text.

Also of interest are passages where conservative scholars have alleged that there are mistranslations.

In Leviticus 16:8, 10, the RSV states that on the day of atonement two goats shall be taken for a sin offering for the congregation. One shall be sacrificed to the Lord; the other shall be “sent away into the wilderness to Azazel” (the ASV rendering is similar). Azazel is not explained here, but in standard dictionaries it is defined as a Jewish demon of the wilderness mentioned in Enoch and other apocryphal literature. The translation implies that the high priest was to placate both the Lord and the demons, thereby suggesting that Israel’s religion had low origins indeed. But this translation is quite unnecessary. The name can well be taken as a compound, “the goat of going out,” or “escape goat” (so the Septuagint), thus symbolizing the removal as well as the expiation of sin. No alternative reading is suggested by the RSV.

In Deuteronomy 1:2; 4:46, the RSV (like the ASV) refers to Moses’ final addresses as given “beyond the Jordan.” This is in accord with long-standing critical opinion that Deuteronomy was written not by Moses but by some later author living west of the Jordan river. However, concordance study will show that the phrase is applicable to both shores of the Jordan regardless of the author’s standpoint. In Numbers 32:19 it is even used of both east and west banks in the same verse, the second instance being translated by the RSV as “on this side of the Jordan.”

In Joshua 9:1, Joshua in Palestine refers to the west bank using this phrase. The KJV rightly translates it “on this side Jordan.” The RSV has the Palestinian author of Joshua 9:1 refer to Palestine as “beyond Jordan,” which is manifestly wrong. Like Deuteronomy 1:2, it is a misunderstanding of the Hebrew phrase.

In Psalm 29:1 the RSV translates “sons of the mighty” as “heavenly beings” with a footnote that the Hebrew actually says “sons of gods.” This reading derives from parallels between this psalm and Ugaritic poetry and from a critical interpretation of a somewhat similar phrase in Genesis 6:4. The claim is made that Genesis 6:4 embodies the myth of illicit unions of heavily beings with humans. These views neglect the comparison with Psalm 96:7–9, where the words of Psalm 29:1, 2 are quoted verbatim except that the phrase “sons of the mighty” is given an equivalent expression “families of the peoples.” The Hebrews themselves evidently did not take the phrase to mean “heavenly beings.”

Messianic Passages

The greatest harm in such unwarranted translations occurs when Old Testament Messianic passages are altered in line with critical theory. Almost half the usual Messianic passages suffer in the RSV.

The Septuagint version (200 B.C.) of Psalm 45:6 is quoted in Hebrews 1:8 as a proof of the deity of Christ. This verse has long been considered a sign that Christ’s deity was taught in the Old Testament, too. But the RSV without warrant renders the noun “God” as an adjective, “your divine throne,” with the KJV reading given as an alternative in the footnote. The present writer is convinced that the Septuagint, the New Testament, the KJV, and the ASV are correct in their translations. The psalm is one of the royal psalms. It derives its imagery from the promise to David that his descendants would include the Messianic King. True, this King is described in a wedding song. But the symbolism of a wedding need not render the psalm non-Messianic in intent. Plain translation of the Hebrew requires the view that the psalm is directly applicable to the Messianic King.

A somewhat similar problem in another Messianic prophecy is found in Psalm 16:10. The word shachath is translated “Pit” in the RSV, “corruption” in the KJV, and the verb tenses are rendered present in the RSV instead of future. The translation suggests that the psalm was written concerning one of David’s many escapes and was not applied to Christ until the New Testament. There is no footnote to indicate a possible alternative translation.

The heart of the problem is the word shachath. Most critical scholars derive it from shûach (“dig”) and claim that it can mean only “pit.” But the word can also be derived from shāchath (“to go to ruin”) and rendered “corruption” (other very similar words have a double derivation; cf. nachath, meaning both “rest” and “descent”). The Septuagint many times translated shachath as “corruption” long before the New Testament was written. It seems proper and preferable to interpret verse 10 as a promise of resurrection and verse 11 as a reference to heavenly glory. The future tenses of the KJV are also the most natural rendering.

The New Testament follows the Septuagint translation here and also informs us of David’s own faith. Peter reminds us that David was a prophet and that he understood God’s promise to raise up Christ from his royal line; knowing this, David predicted Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 2:29–31). Paul also says the verse cannot refer to David, for his flesh “saw corruption, but he whom God raised again saw no corruption” (Acts 13:36, 37). In the face of these apostolic testimonies, it is strange to see the translation “Pit” when the etymology of the word concerned allows “corruption” and the context demands it. Unfortunately, critical scholarship does not believe that David could have predicted Christ’s resurrection.

A brief word should be said about Isaiah 7:14. Reference even to Young’s Concordance will show that the disputed word ’almah (“virgin”) never refers to a married woman in the Old Testament. It is used of unmarried women and was translated “virgin” by the Septuagint long before Christ came.

Moreover, the claim that the birth was to occur during the time of King Ahaz is disputable. The child of Isaiah mentioned in Isaiah 8:1–4 was indeed contemporary to Ahaz in his struggle with Israel and Syria, and the fulfillment of Isaiah 8:4 came in the Assyrian invasion of Galilee in 733 B.C. But another child, a divine child, is spoken of in Isaiah 9:6, 7, and he is definitely not Isaiah’s son. Nor could he have been Ahaz’ son, Hezekiah, who was already a grown boy and not essentially different from other princes. The child of Isaiah 9:6, 7 had to be David’s greater Son, who would be of David’s line and would rule in an eternal, righteous reign.

Likewise, in Isaiah 7:14–17 the date of the coming of the child is not given. It is said that before the child is born and weaned, Israel will be overthrown and Judah will be depopulated by the Assyrians. But this did not all happen until years later, probably not till Sennacherib’s invasion in 701 B.C. Neither Isaiah nor Ahaz knew when the threat would be accomplished, only that it would be before the coming of the wonderful child, Immanuel. The situation reminds us of Christ’s warning in Matthew 25:13, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of man cometh.” The judgment came years later, the wonderful birth many years after that.

Textual Criticism

We spoke at the beginning of alterations of the text in the interests of critical theory. This process can be dangerous indeed. Unfortunately, however, there has been some irresponsible criticism of the RSV at this point in its treatment of the New Testament text. The science of New Testament textual criticism has been studied well by both critical scholars and conservatives, and there is great agreement. Hence, the basic Greek text of the RSV New Testament does not seem to be a question of doctrinal argument, although, of course, there is room for difference on details, and doctrine is occasionally involved.

It is quite otherwise with the Old Testament. All our Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts known before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls are in very close agreement. They are not early; they date after A.D. 900. But the Hebrew text used by the RSV was no better than that used by the KJV except for the Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah and Habakkuk. And from these, correctly enough, only a very few new readings were adopted. The new thing the RSV did was to adopt many readings from the Greek Septuagint, the Syriac, the Latin, and Jewish Targums. Unfortunately, it seems almost as if the RSV translators chose whichever text made a smooth reading regardless of its inherent value. Surely many times they might better have chosen the harder reading.

Perhaps the strangest example is in Psalm 2:11, 12. The footnote says that the Hebrew is uncertain. But, there is no uncertainty in the Hebrew at all, except that critical scholars have refused for years to admit that the Aramaic word for “son” occurs here. The RSV takes two letters from a word in verse 11, jumps them over three words, and attaches them to the word bar (“son”) in verse 12, thus making a new word, “feet.” There is not the slightest warrant for this in any Hebrew manuscript or version. It may be noted, however, that after this scholastic legerdemain the verses lose their Messianic import. No longer is there an exhortation to trust in the “son”; he has been removed. How can a person who does not read Hebrew himself trust a translation that alters the text so greatly?

Less violent but also objectionable is the treatment of Psalm 49:12 and 20. These two verses are identical in the Hebrew except for one letter. “Abide” is līn; “understand” is bīn. Perhaps the difference is deliberate, and original. However, it is hard to avoid the view that the Septuagint is correct in taking both verses to read like verse 20. This makes the passage not a denial of immortality but an exhortation to wisdom. The RSV takes the opposite tack and translates both verses like verse 12, thereby suggesting a pessimism rather contradicted by the context (vs. 15). Moreover, although on this very page of the RSV the old versions are referred to five times in various footnotes, there is no footnote at all to indicate that verse 20 has been translated against the Greek, against the parallel in verse 12, and also against many of the Hebrew manuscripts (some of which say “abide” and some “understand”).

A Constructive Version

Both translation and text problems are less numerous in the New Testament than in the Old. And there are a number of New Testament translations in modern English that can be studied and compared. In the Old Testament field, however, there is still a crying need for a modern translation that is dignified, plain, and attractive, and above all, true to the message that God spoke through holy men of God moved by the Holy Ghost. It is not that evangelicals want an evangelical translation; they have always held that every translation must be tested and controlled by the text of the original languages. But evangelicals want a contemporary version that does not damage the text and meaning of Scripture by embodying destructive critical ideas.

It is probably too much to hope that a version can now be produced that will satisfy all scholars. The KJV was the climax of several attempts. But no effort should be spared to achieve for our day something of what the KJV translators did for theirs.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Therapeutic abortion is to some a blessing, to others murder. Most people see it as the conclusion to a highly unfortunate situation in which two lives appear to compete with each other. What guidelines are there for prescribing—or not prescribing—this drastic step?

In the past, most therapeutic abortions were performed to preserve the life of a pregnant woman; but gains in the prevention and control of severe illnesses have decreased the number of abortions performed for that reason. Today, however, psychiatric disturbances and the possibility of damage to the fetus by such conditions in the mother as German measles maintain the abortion rate.

No federal law forbids abortion, but each state has a prohibitory law with an exception for therapeutic abortion. Although these exceptions lack uniformity, most states permit abortion to save the mother’s life. Abortion laws date back to 1803, when abortion became a statutory felony in England. The first state law was enacted by Connecticut in 1821, and other states soon followed. Until 1967 there were no significant changes in these laws. Theoretically, most states still do not allow the physician to decide about abortion by exercising his best professional judgment in keeping with the medical ethics of his community. In practice, however, abortion laws are interpreted by the medical profession without interference from the courts. This means that therapeutic abortions are done in all fifty states in order to preserve maternal health as well as life. Modernization of abortion laws is necessary so that a physician, after proper consultation with specialists, can treat his patient without violating existing laws.

In the American Law Institute’s proposed Model Penal Code, medical ethics and legal opinion would permit abortion in three situations:

1. When it is needed to prevent grave impairment of the physical or mental health of the mother;

2. When there is substantial risk the child will be born with a grave physical or mental defect;

3. When the pregnancy results from rape or incest and there is authoritative certification.

The 1967 laws enacted in Colorado, North Carolina, and California, and the proposed new laws in several other states, are patterned after this code.

Although the Bible does not comment directly on abortion, the early Christian Church greatly influenced the development of present attitudes toward abortion. As early as A.D. 120–160, the Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) said that abortion was murder: “And this is the second commandment of the teaching. Thou shalt do no murder.… Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion, or kill them when born.”

This condemnation of abortion in the early Christian Church was based on the simple thesis that abortion is murder and the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” forbids murder. However, in spite of this seemingly simple solution to the problem, sixteen centuries of debate by scholarly leaders of the Church have failed to settle the question whether abortion is always murder, or sometimes murder and sometimes not murder. About A.D. 240, the Roman theologian Tertullian said that abortion was murder only after the fetus had reached the point in its development when, according to Tertullian, it became human. But St. Basil, who also lived in the third century, maintained that abortion at any stage of fetal development was murder. And St. Augustine, in the early fifth century, distinguished between a “formed” and “non-formed” fetus as well as between a “living” and “not-yet living” fetus. Later, much discussion was given to whether the fetus was “animated” or “non-animated,” that is, infused with a soul or not. Gratian, a twelfth-century Italian canonist, stated, “He is not yet a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is infused into the body.”

Just when the fetus was infused with a soul, therefore, became a major subject of theological discussion. Each of the three points of view that evolved in some way influenced present attitudes and laws.

The Catholic Church settled the animation issue by maintaining that the soul entered the embryo at the moment of conception and that the embryo became at that moment a human person with full human rights. Therefore, Pope Sixtus V, in 1588, specifically stated that all abortions at any period of fetal development were murder, punishable by excommunication.

The second position—that animation occurred with the first fetal movement—dates back to the thirteenth century, when Thomas Aquinas defined motion as a principle of life. Thus in England after the fifteenth century, when common law declared that life began at the moment of quickening, abortion was a criminal offense only if after the fetus was quick. This position has influenced present laws, which require a birth certificate only after the fetus is twenty weeks old.

The third theory said the human soul was infused at the time of birth. The fetus was recognized not as a living human being but as part of the mother’s organs and only a potential person. This attitude lifted abortion out of the category of murder or homicide and formed the basis for present laws, which do not consider abortion homicide, since the subject of homicide must be a living human being.

Before the attempt is made to derive ethical guidelines for therapeutic abortion, some definitions are needed. In medical terms, abortion is the termination of a pregnancy at any time before the fetus has attained the age of viability, which varies from fetal weight of 400 grams (14 oz.) and twenty weeks’ gestation to a fetal weight of 1,000 grams (2 lb. 4 oz.) and twenty-eight weeks’ gestation. The most accepted standard for viability is fetal weight above 500 grams (1 lb. 2 oz.) or a gestation period longer than twenty weeks. It is at this mid-point in pregnancy when most women become aware of fetal movement (quickening).

To define the subject further, several questions should be considered:

1. When does life begin?

2. When does one become an individual human being with full human rights?

3. What are the rights of the non-viable fetus and the viable fetus?

4. What are the rights of the mother?

5. What happens when the rights of the mother are in conflict with those of the fetus?

On some of the questions there seems to be a consensus. Life begins with conception, more specifically at the time of fertilization, when the sperm and the egg unite. Then there is a period during which the fetus develops a body, mind, and soul. This phase of development has an obvious definable endpoint at birth, when the fetus becomes a human being with full human rights. The non-viable fetus, as well as the viable fetus, has certain rights; but in view of the dependence of the fetus on the mother, its rights should be considered and evaluated in relation to the mother’s rights.

Present-day observations and practices support these statements. Psychiatrists say the pregnant woman usually does not develop any specific feeling or attachment toward the fetus until after viability. Until she feels the fetus move, the pregnancy is an impression or figment of her imagination that she will either accept or reject. Later, however, the fetus becomes real to the mother, and she starts relating to it more specifically.

When there is a spontaneous abortion, the aborted products of conception, including the dead fetus, are considered surgical specimens and after proper medical examination are disposed of as such. Likewise, the non-viable fetus is not baptized or given a burial. After the fetus has attained viability, it is usually treated differently. It may be baptized, and the parents have the choice of a burial or scientific disposal of the fetus, whether it is born dead or alive. If carcinoma of the cervix is diagnosed in the first three months of pregnancy, the mother is usually treated with radiation or surgery without delay and without regard for the rights of the fetus. However, if the diagnosis is made in the last three or four months of pregnancy, the fetus is allowed to continue to the point where it can be delivered and have a chance of survival before the beginning of therapy. These are a few examples of situations in which the viable fetus is held in greater esteem than the non-viable fetus.

Thus, in medical, legal, and traditional religious practices, a distinction is usually made between a developing embryo or non-viable fetus and a viable fetus. Forbidding all abortions assumes that a human being came into existence at the time of conception; forbidding abortion of a viable fetus expresses the assumption that the prenatal process is one of becoming a human being. The corollary of the latter assumption is that the embryo, which is in the process of becoming a human being, under certain circumstances does not have the same rights as a viable fetus or the mother herself. However, this conclusion should not obscure the fact that the embryo is a human life and therefore is sacred.

The problem of therapeutic abortion has been receiving much publicity, and one can expect the issue to confront him more frequently in the future, requiring him to make decisions. In view of the Christian’s concern for the sanctity of life, what should his attitude be? Medical, legal, and traditional points of view should no doubt have some influence on this decision, but does the Bible offer more specific direction? As with other ethical problems where Scripture is not explicit, the Christian should seek God’s will in general guidelines for personal and corporate conduct. Those guidelines incorporate two elements: the character of Jesus described in the Gospels and the Christian attributes outlined in Galatians 5:22, 23.

Within the Christian Church today there are several approaches to ethical problems such as this. Which one establishes moral guidelines that are rooted in biblical ethics and are of practical value to the physician and clergyman?

A common approach to moral problems is the “existential” one, in which man is alone in the universe and free to act as he sees fit. He lives for himself and establishes values as situations arise. The nearest thing to an existential guideline would be freedom. Decisions are not right or wrong; they are only authentically free or not free. Man should do just what is right, decided solely by his feelings. Such an attitude would consider therapeutic abortion a problem of personal freedom. Anyone who would dictate a certain action or in any way interfere with a woman’s right to decide whether she will bear a child is unreasonably interfering with her fundamental right to personal freedom.

Another approach is the “situation ethics” code of conduct, for which the only guideline is love. Out of human love and concern for a woman’s social predicament, a doctor may decide that she needs an abortion.

These two approaches to abortion do not take into consideration any rights of the fetus as a human life. In addition, they do not recognize any absolutes on which to base decisions. They classify all God-revealed laws and principles as mere traditions and conclude that no specific rules can be applied to a problem apart from the nature of the particular situation itself.

A third approach tries to make hard and fast biblical rules for everything and often makes absolutes of things that are relative. It insists that the commandment “thou shalt not kill” is the absolute rule by which to judge abortion and thus forbids any direct interruption of a pregnancy at any stage of development. This seems to be a hyperlegalistic distortion of true Christian ethics.

Furthermore, “Thou shalt not kill” is usually interpreted “Thou shalt not murder.” The malicious, premeditated killing of one human being by another shows hostility, hatred, perhaps a desire for vengeance, and a complete absence of love. But the circumstances that lead to a therapeutic abortion are usually entirely different. There is no personal hostility expressed toward the non-viable fetus. The abortion is done not in the absence of love but out of a concern for the unfortunate circumstances that the woman faces. It is not an individual decision but usually involves a group, including several consulting doctors and a therapeutic-abortion committee. Often a minister or counselor is consulted also. The final decision of the group is based primarily on medical evidence and a concern for the persons involved. Still, when the physician destroys the life of the non-viable fetus, it is not his proudest moment.

Scriptural ethics, especially as summarized by Christ, accepts love as the guiding principle of conduct. Yet man is not always rational; without guidelines for love he can talk himself into many unloving things in the name of love. Thus, although love is the primary guiding principle of conduct, it must relate to the commandments and other biblical guidelines. Scripture declares that love and law are not opposites but rather are supplements of each other. Just as love motivated God to give laws for man’s welfare, so the person who truly loves God tries to keep these commandments. Love subjectively experienced and humanly interpreted, though superior to cold law, is inferior to divine love objectively revealed through Christ and the Word.

Of all the ethical approaches, only the scriptural one seems to provide the freedom, law, and love that the others seek. With God’s love and other scriptural guidelines to define the larger boundaries of personal conduct, decisions about the specific demands of love must be resolved out of a relationship to Jesus Christ and with a personal regard for individual situations.

Medical ethics as expressed by the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code and the scriptural approach to therapeutic abortion complement each other very well. Proper consultation with other physicians, counselors, and a therapeutic-abortion committee can document the medical reason for the abortion. Prayer, Scripture, and the Holy Spirit can help the physician and his patient understand what God’s love demands. Such an approach does not condone abortion for unwanted pregnancies where there is an absence of love and concern for the fetus, for population control, or for failures in family planning. With these guidelines, the Christian should be able to decide responsibly.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Just as Harvey Cox celebrates the freedom and discipline of the secular city, so I celebrate that of the secular university. If I, like Cox, seem over-optimistic, it is not that I do not see the dangers. Bishop Lesslie New-bigin in Honest Religion for Secular Man strikes the right balance when he points out the inevitability of secularization as well as the ambiguities in the notion of a secular society. He writes: “The more one explores the idea of a secular society, the more clear does it become that such a society could be maintained only by the participation of men and women in whom commitment to Christ is a living, personal, religious reality.” In such a context secularization need not be anti-Christian, and the Christian need not fear it. It may even be beneficial to Christianity and to the dissemination of Christian thought. A secular society may well give the Christian a better opportunity to serve God and share the Gospel than a religious, even a Christian, society. On the secular campus Christian students can learn to serve God today and prepare to be leaders in tomorrow’s secular society.

The secular campus provides every sort of opportunity for discussing the basic questions about life, and one hopes that Christian answers are offered along with others. With the anti-Viet Nam students I know—and with love-hippies, too, I imagine—one can have a field day in discussion. If one listens a lot, one begins to understand their concern and then will in turn be listened to. As the various standard objections to Christian faith are trotted out, one has a splendid teaching opportunity. While helping recently in a student mission I ran into objections having to do with the problem of evil, the character of God, sin, love, the past behavior and present attitude of the Christian Church, freedom, justice, the empirical basis of the Christian faith, hell and damnation, Christian teachings on sex, and the notion that science and evolution are disposing of the need for God.

There are a number of identifiable sources for the objections one meets.

1. Many result from ignorance. As ignorance of Christian teaching is increasing, we cannot say Christian things to students in Christian language and expect them to understand. Pre-evangelism will become increasingly important.

2. Other misconceptions are not simply the result of ignorance. Some may be traceable to faulty Christian teaching, others to the inadequacy of some traditional Christian conceptions.

3. Hosts of obstacles are generated by unexamined presuppositions. For example, lots of questions about why God permits evil arise from tacit assumptions about the character of God, or his relation to the universe. Ignorance of the presuppositions of science is a fruitful source. Many a student will start off, “Wouldn’t it be more rational …,” and then proceed with a mechanistic explanation. If I then help him to look for the starting points of his reasoning, he will generally agree after examining them that they too are based on faith. As a university teacher I believe I render the student a service if I help him to be critical of his presuppositions, even if I cannot help him to Christian faith.

4. One family of difficulties that arises for Christians and non-Christians alike stems, I believe, from employing a wrong model of the universe. Since the common use of a faulty mechanistic model weakens Christian apologetic, I shall elaborate this point later.

5. As civilization progresses, new situations arise that cause new problems for Christian understanding. A current example bears the tag, “man come of age.” We must let the non-Christian see that though we have no ready answers we are not afraid to face the issues.

6. The last source of obstacles to belief is the content of the Christian faith itself. Although one may be able to show the coherence of the facts of the faith, one cannot answer the question, “Why should it be this way?” One can only bear witness, and worship.

A Faulty Model of the Universe

Quite often I am asked to speak on science or evolution in relation to Christian faith. In discussing problems in these areas with Christians of all sorts, I early became aware that for them Creation was an event that happened a long time ago, and nothing much has happened since. Things go on by themselves; matter is eternal. Thus while few of us accept consciously the deist position that the Creator is no longer involved with the world he fashioned, important elements of that crippling view linger still.

When people discuss the sovereignty of God, human responsibility, and free will, their notion of God’s relation to his creation often seems mechanical. Christians who talk of being “in” or “out” of God’s will make it sound like a railway track, and they may wonder fruitlessly how, when they have got off the track, they can get back on. A mechanical image such as this seems to conflict with the concept of forgiveness of sins. We entertain such static notions of God! To many, heaven seems a boring place, because nothing ever happens or if anything does happen it is dreadfully repetitive, like “harpers harping on their harps,” to quote an Anglican hymn.

All the points I have mentioned cluster in my thinking around two words, “machine (or mechanism)” and “blueprint”—both completely static concepts. In my mind, “blueprint connects with metaphysical statements about God, the God of the philosophers, who can be clearly defined and who is quite unlike the God of the Hebrews whom we meet in the Old Testament. You cannot guess, much less predict, what Jehovah will do. St. Paul speaks of the mystery of the Gospel—a secret revealed, not a theorem latent in a set of axioms.

In the first part of The Secular City, Cox points out correctly that God the Lord is known through history and that history knows no blueprint. Science, of course, is an enterprise whose main goal is to discover or reconstruct a blueprint describing the universe as science knows it. That science deals in blueprints is not surprising, because one of its basic assumptions is the uniformity of nature, which means that the passage of time is irrelevant, that the behavior of the universe does not change. If time is irrelevant, then all that science can discover is an unchanging set of relationships that can be schematized one way or another, even in a blueprint. In short, it can only discover what it assumed—an unchanging, static pattern. I am told that the Greeks, to whom in part we are indebted for science, had no concept of history. For them the passage of events was circular (“the ever-encircling years”), not linear; that is, it did not move from a beginning to an end as in biblical thought. The Greek notion of the passage of events is compatible with the blueprint idea and with the idea of a machine, because all depend upon the view that reality is unchanging, static.

One of the qualities of machines is that they are independent of their makers, and of their designers. It is because we normally think that the universe is a machine, that matter is eternal, and that nothing ever really happens, that we no longer effectively believe in God as a Creator and Sustainer. If the universe were indeed a machine, then the current scientific theory of evolution would dispose of the need for God. But if instead the scientists assured us that every kind of living thing had existed in the universe as far back as anyone could go, we would still, if the universe is a machine, have no need of God. We would just need a different blueprint.

Since in a machine universe nothing every really happens, human work has no real meaning apart from its usefulness in providing the means of living. I think it is because most Christians still believe in a mechanical universe that they have so little positive thought on the subject of work and culture to offer the world.

I have no quarrel with the scientist for likening the universe to a machine. The utterly remarkable thing is that he can get away with it. There really are points of similarity between the nature of the universe and that of a machine. No one yet knows how far the similarity goes. For the purposes of science, the scientist can properly regard the universe as a machine. The Christian ought to know better than carry the image beyond this. The Lord revealed himself in history, in ways that defy blueprinting. The whole of creation, then, cannot be adequately modeled on a machine or a blueprint.

An Unfinished Novel

I want to suggest that if we liken God, in relation to his creation, to an author writing a partly finished novel, we have a much better model to guide our thinking and stimulate our intuition. In a good novel the characters have a surprising degree of freedom, within the giveness of their natures and environment. Moreover, their actions and choices seem to flow naturally from their natures and circumstances. At the same time we know that, without forcing his characters, the skillful writer is in control of the situation and knows the end from the beginning. Is it too much to claim that the author and his characters cooperate in creating the ongoing tangle of events and relationships that make the novel?

Such a model is rich enough to contain the complex personal interactions that we know are part of human life but that, probably because of their complexity, are not dealt with by the reigning priesthood, the scientists. It also easily contains the machine-like aspects of the inanimate universe. Within this model, a discussion of predestination and human freedom presents much less difficulty than it does within a mechanistic and hence deterministic model. I think the model also helps us grasp more clearly the utter freedom of God to create what he wanted, plus his lack of freedom in changing the ground rules once he started.

Like all comparisons, this one will not match reality perfectly. Before acccepting it wholeheartedly we should test its explanatory power more thoroughly.

The Old Testament is readily understood on the basis of the novel model. People have certainly used the expression “the drama of the Bible” often enough, but they do not seem to have applied the concept to reality and then asked what sense it makes of the Old Testament. Put simply, the Old Testament brings together the most significant events and ideas in the whole history of the human race. From it we learn that the Author of the novel loves his characters and intends to have a special relationship with them that the Hebrews called “knowing him.” In the twentieth century we can best liken it to an intimate, personal relationship like marriage. The writers of the Old Testament books were men who believed in God and so could infer his character from his deeds and from his words through the prophets. By faith they understood, and by faith they grasped the beginning and the distant end of the story. Thus they were able to select intelligently the significant events for inclusion in what Bishop Newbigin calls an “outline of world history,” and in another place simply “universal history.”

In this kind of model, “things happen.” Hence we can readily cope with ideas of development and progress that are in no sense mechanical or automatic, such as the ordinary Hebrew’s growth in understanding the character of the Lord and the rather general growth one can trace throughout history in moral discipline and care of the other fellow.

I find the model particularly attractive when I think of Christ as the Logos or Word, the Self-Expression of God. No word of wide human use can serve as a tool of communication out of context. What do I mean if I simply utter the word “love”? Nothing, It must be spoken in context. Similarly, the author of the universe took a long time in history to prepare an adequate context in which he could utter his Word and then be understood. This is why I believe the Old Testament to be a most important book.

In discarding the mechanical model and opting for the novel model of the universe, we break out of a closed system of thought and move toward an open one: we are freed from a metaphysical bondage. An important result is that our thinking can become at once more biblical (see Ps. 104 for the LORD’s involvement in the everyday) and more like that of our contemporaries in this empirical, secular age.

Benefits of Secularism

Secularization is the process in which human government and laws and human thought are removed from religious control. It seems to stem from a realization that we can neither get nor compel human agreement on ultimate questions, whether of government, morals, or faith. The enterprise we call modern science prospered when men ceased to concern themselves directly with ultimate causes and investigated the local causes of phenomena instead. Some scientists have great hopes for human welfare from the application of genetic knowledge for the improvement of human heredity. But all such schemes founder upon the lack of agreement by the planners (and the planned for!) as to what are desirable long-range goals.

In the symposium Man and His Future, P. B. Medawar concluded that we must limit our aims to “doing good in small particulars.” I like that phrase. It expresses well what I think may lie behind the process of secularization—a becoming humility.

What are some examples of the process of secularization? An obvious one in the United States is the separation of church and state. Another is a refusal to consider a person’s religion in assessing his suitability for employment. The ruling that prayers and Bible reading should not take place in public schools is another instance of the apparently irresistible logic of secularization. Protestants generally object when Roman Catholics support certain laws because of their teachings on birth control, when the Protestants do not agree with those laws. Simple justice, then, prevents us from imposing our wills on other people for purely religious reasons. The modern state of India is another example of secularization. In contrast, Burma has declared itself a Buddhist nation and is opposing secularization. One predictable consequence of this is that they are excluding Christian missionaries.

From what I have said about secularization, it should be clear that the end result, a secular society, is a pluralistic society in which one is free to believe as one chooses and free to win others by persuasion. A secular society would be a very different thing from a secularist or materialist society, or indeed from Christendom as we have known it in the past. In a materialistic society one would not be free to be a Christian or a Buddhist or anything else, because the government of that society would be committed to a certain philosophy or world view—to a religion, one might say.

Do I think secularization is a good thing? The scientist in me reacts to that question by observing that the process is occurring whether I like it or not. Personally I feel it is inevitable. Why? Because I am very aware, as a Christian, that whatever freedom I want for myself I must work to obtain for the other fellow also. It is clear that the underdeveloped countries think that industrialization, technology, and science are good things, because countries that have these facilities and skills have a comfortable material life. It is quite clear that these things historically have gone along with secularization, and that if one wants these, secularization follows along, if for no other reason than that to get industrialization is to become part of Western civilization, where the process of secularization is occurring. It is not arrogance to say that in order to industrialize, nations will have to abandon or seriously modify their traditional cultures and religions. This, after all, is what has happened to Christendom.

What makes it hard for Christians to cope with secularization is that our religion is the source both of the process and of the cultural and institutional features of our society which the process is destroying or modifying. The Western attitude toward nature—namely, that man is superior to nature—makes possible technology and science, and it is widely recognized that this attitude derives from Christian faith. The empirical approach so characteristic of modern society echoes a biblical attitude and accords with the fundamental Christian assumption of the contingent nature of the universe, a nature, therefore, that we can know only by discovery and not by reasoning alone. The same insight that moved the Pilgrim fathers to reject the divine right of kings also enabled Moses to confront Pharaoh and, I believe, informs the struggle for civil rights. The God of Abraham and Jesus, whom Christians worship, is greater than any government, even a Christian one, and is not to be identified with any. Obviously his will is not to be identified with any set of social customs, however gracious. This prophetic, biblical conviction lies behind the process of secularization and means that the status quo is under continual judgment.

I see all secular activity, and secularization in particular, in relation to the revealed purposes of God. When I read the prologue of John’s Gospel, I learn of the activity of Christ, the Logos. I learn that he was active in creation (v. 3), that all men live because of his life (v. 4), and that men’s reason, moral and intellectual (v. 4, 9) comes from him. I learn that he is opposed but that the enshrouding darkness has not overcome his light (v. 5). No human activity occurs apart from God.

God, in giving man dominion over the universe, made him, in a limited sense, co-creator with Himself. In telling man to be fruitful and multiply, the Lord God set him free to make society; in giving him dominion, he made man his agent for the development of civilization—technology, science, the arts, social institutions. While I think it likely that God limited man’s choices, it is abundantly clear that he ratified what man chose to do, for good or for evil.

Secularization as a process involving human choices could, of course, be evil, basically contrary to God’s intention; but this would have to be squared with the fact that it has its historical roots in the acts and words of God as we have them in the Old Testament.

At all times our task as Christians is to seek to understand what God is about and to declare this to all men as the basis of their self-understanding. As I have considered our ways of thinking about the universe, and the sources and features of the process of secularization, I have begun to discern God at work today in social change. His actions have a historical continuity with the Bible and display the same style as seen there. As we Christians cooperate with God in creation, talk about it, and share our insights widely in today’s empirical, secular style of thought (which is so like the biblical), we shall raise fewer obstacles to faith on the secular campus, and shall prepare a good background against which the Gospel of redemption will be intelligible and profoundly significant.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Former editor Carl F. H. Henry, longtime friend and college classmate as well as colleague on two seminary faculties, has now begun a year of research and writing in England. The debt owed him by myself, the Board of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, and the readers of the magazine is great. An editorial and a news story carry details of his activity and our appraisal of his long and honored ministry (see pp. 28, 37). His ready pen will again be featured in this magazine six months from now. Dr. Henry will have a column under his own byline every other issue so that readers can continue to enjoy his perceptive insights as he shares the fruits of his research and reflection with us.

I have on my desk a statement by Joseph Pulitzer of newspaper fame, who had for his maxim, “Put it before [men] briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.” This maxim I hope to observe.

We welcome to our office Dr. Richard Love, whose coming was announced previously. He will be assistant editor. Miss Barbara H. Kuehn (B.S. in journalism, Northwestern University, 1966, and reporter on the Milwaukee Sentinel for a year and a half) joins us as news intern as part of her program with the Washington Journalism Center. For information on this program see page 70.

Harold Lindsell