The Biblical Certainty of Christ’s Return

Although the Second Coming is specially associated in the church year with Advent, it is actually one of the least seasonal of the great doctrines about Christ. The very words that the Lord used of his return, “Watch,” and “Be ye ready,” point beyond an observance confined to a particular season to the daily expectation of an event that, as Archbishop Trench said, is “possible any day, impossible no day.” The Gospel is not only, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16); it is also, “He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained …” (Acts 17:31).

It has been said that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is mentioned 318 times in the 260 chapters of the New Testament and that this teaching occupies one in every twenty-five verses from Matthew to Revelation. It was upon some such evidence as this that Dr. Alexander MacLaren declared, “The primitive church thought a great deal more about the coming of Jesus Christ than about death; thought a great deal more about His coming than about Heaven.” And why not? If we attribute any authority to the words of Jesus, if we deal sincerely with the New Testament, then we must at least agree that Jesus and those who knew him best believed in his return.

From the abundance of New Testament teaching, the fact of his coming again is clearly established. Over and over the Master spoke words like these: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3). “The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works” (Matt. 16:27). Shall we not accept what he reiterated?

Paul, writing out of his pastoral heart, said, “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself” (Phil. 3:20, 21). Peter added his words of understanding: he cautioned ministers to be faithful shepherds, for “when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Pet. 5:4). James, writing in a most practical manner, said, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7a). Out of the richness of his personal suffering and loving heart, John wrote, “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28). Even the unknown author of Hebrews, addressing a hounded, persecuted, and disheartened group of believers, could say, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb. 9:28).

No wonder that Dr. James Denney, speaking out of a lifetime of scholarship, declared that we cannot “call in question what stands so plainly in the pages of the New Testament, what filled so exclusively the minds of the first Christians—the idea of a personal return of Christ at the end of the age. If we are to retain any relation to the New Testament at all, we must assert the personal return of Christ as Judge of all.”

The hope of the Second Coming of our Lord gave urgency to the life and witness of the early Church. But, as might be expected, it was accompanied by certain abuses and misunderstandings. In Thessalonica, erroneous application of the possibility of the Lord’s soon coming led many to stop working for a livelihood and to spend their days in idleness. It was unnecessary, they thought, to sacrifice for the essentials of life if the Lord were to come next week or next year. So Paul wrote and bluntly corrected their misunderstanding. As the New English Bible vividly translates his words, “For even during our stay with you we laid down the rule: the man who will not work shall not eat. We mention this because we hear that some of your number are idling their time away, minding everybody’s business but their own. To all such we give these orders, and we appeal to them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly for their living” (2 Thess. 3:11–13).

Even more serious was another misconception. The Christians of Thessalonica expected the Lord to return in their lifetime. But the years took their toll, and one by one they died, not having received the fulfillment of the promise. Loving hearts worried about those who had gone before and would not be present at the coming of the Lord. These were thought to be at a great disadvantage. Therefore Paul wrote to set the record straight: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Answering The Scoffers

Naturally the early Christians preached the coming again of Jesus Christ. They could do no less than be true to the hope that was within their hearts. Then as the years passed and Christ did not return, the pagan world, which had ridiculed the idea from the beginning, began to scoff and mock. To encourage those humble believers who were being scoffed at and to remind them that they had been warned, Peter told them this: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3:3,4). But what were Christians to say, what answer were they to make to the scoffer? Peter gave them the answer in these words: “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night …” (2 Pet. 3:8–10).

The hour of the coming is determined, Peter was saying, but it is hidden in order to give every man an opportunity to turn to God in repentance. Humanly speaking, the continued postponement of Christ’s return year after year, generation after generation, must have been for the early Church a bitter disappointment. Nevertheless, they strengthened themselves with the assurance that “He is not slack concerning his promise.”

A Persistent Hope

What a miracle it is that the Church has never given up the blessed hope—a hope that thrives on disappointment and becomes more confident of Christ’s promised return as the years go by. Today, in every land and in almost every creed, Christians in their worship reaffirm the truth of the Second Coming. The Apostles’ Creed declares that Christ “ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” The Nicene Creed affirms that Christ “sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.” In the Athanasian Creed, the confession is similar: “Christ sitteth on the right hand of the Father from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” Those who follow the Westminster Catechism are taught to say, “We pray that Christ would hasten the time of His Second Coming.”

In addition to the creedal statements, there is melodious witness in the hymnody of the Church. When Christians rise to sing the Te Deum, they make this affirmation: “We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge.” These stanzas from the Russian Church Hymn beautifully express the lyrical testimony of the Church Universal:

The King shall come when morning dawns,

And light triumphant breaks;

When beauty gilds the eastern hills,

And life to joy awakes.

O brighter than that glorious morn

Shall this fair morning be,

When Christ, our King, in beauty comes

And we His face shall see!

During more than nineteen centuries, the promise of Christ’s return in glory to fully establish the Kingdom of God has given purpose, perspective, and power to the Christian Church. It has, as John said, ever been the incentive for holy living, for “every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). One of the categorical imperatives of the Christian life is this other Johannine word, “Little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may … not be ashamed before him …” (1 John 2:28).

Paul located the motivation for Christian service in the hope of Christ’s return. Notice his solemn exhortation to Timothy: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Tim. 4:1, 2). Why? Because Christ will come.

The return of our Lord is also a great comfort for the sorrowing. To the disciples in their brokenness, Jesus said, “I will come again” (John 14:3). To those who mourned over their dead, Paul wrote, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:18). What words? Those of Christ’s promised return.

Christ’s Second Coming means the death of death. The last enemy to be destroyed is death; and Paul, in First Corinthians 15, connected this with the coming of the Lord. It is “at his coming” that “this corruption shall put on incorruption.” It is “at his coming” that “this mortal shall put on immortality.” It is “at his coming” that “there shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ”

The hope of his coming also produced patience and rejoicing under trial. Paul said that he gloried in the Christians at Thessalonica “for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure … that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer” (2 Thess. 1:4, 5). For Peter also this was the way suffering was to be understood; speaking of the believer’s future deliverance, he wrote, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith … might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:6, 7).

Constantly the Word of God exhorts Christians to be alert. “Let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober,” for “the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:6 and 2). In all of this Paul was only repeating the words of his Lord, who said, “Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching” (Luke 12:37a).

So we live in 1964 as the early Church lived—in the expectation of an opened heaven and in the power of that blessed hope.

Robert J. Lamont is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he succeeded Dr. Clarence E. Macartney. He holds the A.B. degree from Maryville College, the B.D. from Princeton Seminary, the M.Th. from Mt. Airy Lutheran Seminary, and the D.D. from Maryville College. He has been on the General Council of the United Presbyterian Church.

The Parable Of The Restless Shepherd

Behold, a certain shepherd looked upon his flock on a Sabbath morning and lo, they were few in numbers. And he said within himself, “These many years have I laboured in vain. I have sown the seed but there is no fruit to harvest.” Then reasoned he within himself and said, “I will write many epistles to many shepherdless flocks and I will entreat them to come and hear my word. Perchance they may entreat me to become the shepherd of a larger fold.” And he did even as he had said. But lo, the restless shepherd then had many misgivings, for his house was not in order. He then hastened to make ready for his guests. He put a new robe upon himself and did blacken the shoes of his feet. And he did diligently train his psalm-singers with many vain repetitions, that they might sing well in the house of the Lord. Yet had he other misgivings. “For,” he said within himself, “what if they come from the far corners of the earth to sit at my feet but are displeased with the barrenness of my words?” He then hied himself to his barrel. But there was much confusion. It was not yet Saturday night and he had not been wont to make haste with his labours. Yet laboured he diligently, for he sought great reward. And again on the morrow laboured he more; and again on the morrow. Then on the Lord’s Day was he much pleased, for he spoke with great authority. And his hearers who gathered in small numbers were also much pleased. And the evening and morning were of the first Sabbath, but there were no stewards from other fields. Yet there went out a saying to the members of his own fold that their shepherd had spoken with great power. And on the following Sabbath they gathered in greater numbers and again each Sabbath, and they were much pleased. And they continued to gather in greater numbers. Even the ungodly did come, to hear the word of the Lord.

Finally the evening and morning were of the seventh Sabbath, but there were no stewards from other fields. And he said, “I will write more epistles. I will speak with greater praise concerning myself. I will constrain them to come.” But the stewards came not. Then the restless shepherd prayed a prayer of despair, “Lord, I have served thee faithfully for these many years,” but his voice choked within himself. And he prayed again. “Lord, I have served thee faithfully and well these past seven weeks, but thou hast not sent stewards so that I may labour in larger fields.” And as he was praying, behold immediately there was a knock at the door. But there were no stewards. But sheep of his own fold did enter with great rejoicing and with much obeisance. And they said, “Come, thou and thy household, and make merry with us. There is a great multitude that awaits thee at the temple. They would make merry with thee, for this their shepherd was spiritually dead and he is alive again.” And he and his family did go and made merry with them and there was great rejoicing. Then prayed he a prayer within himself: “Lord, I thank thee that thou didst hear the prayer of thy servant; but, O Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”

The Rev. DOWIE G. DEBOER, First Congregational Church, Brimfield, Massachusetts.

- More from Robert J. Lamont

Billy Graham at Princeton: A Student’s View

Peter Marshall

Last November, the students and faculty of Princeton Seminary were privileged to have Dr. Billy Graham as a guest speaker. In introducing his thirty-minute talk, Dr. Graham stated that the Church finds itself today in a “period of world Christian revolution.” He said there is much talk of renewal in the Church because Christians are failing to make a profound spiritual impact on society: we are beginning to lose power over the conscience and tone of America. Addressing us as seminary students preparing for the ministry, he sketched six areas in which the Church needs renewal, and the relation of the ministry to these areas.

First, we need “a renewal of authoritative proclamation.” Our seminaries are turning out men who are good at counseling and administration, but they are failing to turn out men who can preach, which is still the “major job of the preacher.” In a country full of people crying out to hear what the Bible has to say—people hungry for expository preaching—we are preaching over the heads of those in the pews. In our search for a new terminology (which may really disguise an attempt to impress each other), we are creating a vocabulary more difficult for the laymen to understand than the Bible itself. The thing that we do not realize is that “God will take his own Word and apply it by the Holy Spirit far more effectively than our own weak logic.” Dr. Graham observed that we have much clever preaching these days (of the kind that Paul deliberately turned away from—cf. 1 Cor. 1:17–25), and yet we forget that even the illiterate people understood Jesus.

Secondly, we need a “renewal of experimental faith,” an emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit. The new emphasis on daily living with the Holy Spirit, the Bible study and prayer groups that are springing up all over the country—these are suggesting to the Church that there is much of the depth of Christian life that we have not yet experienced. The apostles were witnesses to what they had seen and what they had heard, “but we haven’t seen and heard very much sometimes.” How can we expect to introduce people to Jesus Christ in a way in which we ourselves have not met him? It is tragic that many ministers themselves do not know Christ personally. We must make our own “soul commitment” to him, so that Christ becomes a reality in our hearts and not just in our minds.

The third area in which there is a need for renewal is that of “disciplined living.” We are fond of referring to our fear of “legalism,” but perhaps we should be even more afraid of no discipline at all. The minister needs discipline in prayer and study. Also, we need discipline in the Church. Everyone would like very much to see a Christian, but sometimes it is easier to join a church than it is to join the local country club. Furthermore, once “you get in, there’s no way out of the church unless you die.”

Fourthly, the Church needs a renewed sense of “spiritual expectancy and excitement.” Dr. Graham said that we of the older denominations definitely have something to learn from the Pentecostal-type groups—“we need to catch some fire.” On the Day of Pentecost, observers thought the apostles were drunk. (At this point Dr. Graham quipped: “How many Presbyterian churches have you been in lately where you thought the people were drunk?”) The Communists sound like the early Church when they say, “We’re going to change the world”—and they mean it! Yet often our people are accused of over-emotionalism if they shed tears or laugh in church services.

Turning to a theological need, Dr. Graham suggested as his fifth point that there is a need for “a renewal of an eschatological emphasis.” The hope of history is the return of Christ to earth, and we need to proclaim it. Again, the Communists say that they are going to build a kingdom on earth; they have an eschatological purpose for history, a plan. Naturally this has great appeal for people. Dr. Graham believes that our prayer “Thy kingdom come” will some day be fully answered. We need to proclaim God’s intervention in history in Christ as past, present, and future.

Finally, Dr. Graham said that the Church is in desperate need of men of courage. We are often as guilty of conformity as those to whom we preach. The Church has need of men “who will courageously give their message and let the chips fall where they may.”

In trying to analyze the response to Dr. Graham’s talk, I do not pretend to speak for the seminary, or for any group within the seminary, but rather will make some observations of my own. The general response seems to have been quite favorable. A number of students, including myself, feel that Dr. Graham struck at the very heart of the needs of the ministry in the modern Church.

Among those critical of Dr. Graham’s presentation, the question most often asked was whether he is not reducing preaching to a far too simple “telling of the story of Jesus.” In this view, the critics claim that Dr. Graham is not taking into consideration the problems of relating the ambiguities of the New Testament to the complexities of modern society. However, I wonder if this same criticism would not also be leveled at the crude fisherman whom Christ named Peter. Peter saw his primary task as a proclamation of the Christ whom he had come to know, not as some sort of “demythologizing” of Christ so that he could be “fitted in” to the complexities of life.

Perhaps the New Testament witnesses had learned something we need to know, that God is perfectly capable of making his Son relevant to anyone through the operation of the Holy Spirit—if those who preach in his name will allow him to do so. This does not mean that we should stop earnestly grappling with the deep meanings of the Bible or the deep problems of our civilization—far from it. Rather, let us not lose sight of the source of everything we do in the ministry: the power of God operating in us and through us.

Those of us whom God has called to positions of responsibility among his people must realize that the success of a ministry does not depend on how well we exercise all the human “tools of the trade”; it depends upon how open a channel we are for the operation of God’s grace. The Church is built, not by man’s hands, but by the power of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we need to be gently reminded that Peter and James and John did not have the benefit of a seminary education, yet the situation in the average congregation is a far cry from the exuberance, vitality, and wonder-working power about which we read in the New Testament.

Perhaps Dr. Graham has discovered that the proper focus for our attention is not the theological intricacies of Scripture but the person of Christ. Is it not possible that the most important thing Dr. Graham has to teach ministers in this age is that God has called us, not to make Christ relevant, but to be the channels through whom God himself will make Christ relevant?

Peter Marshall, who holds the B.A. from Yale University, is a senior at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he is president of the student body. He is the son of Dr. Peter Marshall, the late pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church of Washington, D.C.

Jephthah’s Daughter

Tomorrow ends the measured mourning time

My father Jephthah has allotted me.

Once more, my maidens, let us wander forth

To gaze once more upon these hills I love.

The rocky paths, the gleaming sun, the winds

That whisper softly to the listening trees,

All these I leave.

Nay, maidens, weep no more—

Or weep for him, my father, who will live

Now childless through his own rash vow,

Yea, weep for him. The years have bruised his heart

With pelting stones of sorrow and disgrace.

Conceived in wickedness, a harlot’s son,

He knew from earliest breath the taunt, the sneer,

The poisoned barb of malice, hurled in hate.

Has he not told me how his father’s sons

Thrust him with loathing from their common hearth

And how he skulked in Tob with outcast men,

Himself more outcast than them all? Yea, weep

For scorn-fed Jephthah—and for every man

Who feeds on hatred’s meal he did not cook

Nor cause.

Tomorrow, maidens, must I die.

Incredulous, I touch that fact again

On every side, but fingers glide along

Its sloping sides, still uninformed. To die:

What can it mean?

Nay, maidens, speak no more

Of the virginity we have bewailed

For these two solemn months. I shall not know

Husband’s embrace, nor nestling infant arms,

Nor shall I see tall sons beside my chair

Nor in a daughter’s face renew my own.

But look, my life is now Jehovah God’s.

Bride am I, bride of great Omnipotence.

I cannot mourn—could any Hebrew maid?—

That my life is the fee our Israel pays

For victory over Ammon, Israel’s foe.

Come, maidens, let us walk a little higher

Above that nearer clump of olive trees.

Here in the heights I utter yet a word

Before the sacrificial knife shall still my voice

Tomorrow from your ears: to me is given

(Through Jephthah’s heedless vow) to be a lamb

Slain for my people, like another Lamb

Whom one day God will send. Nay, ask me not,

For all His meaning is obscure to me.

Perchance tomorrow I shall understand.

ELVA McALLASTER

- More from Peter Marshall

Books

The Kingdom of God in Recent Writing

Ralph P. Martin

It is not often that two books are launched with the same title. Yet this has happened with two that, under the title The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus, have made their appearance within a few weeks of each other. The one is by Dr. Norman Perrin (S.C.M. Press) and the other by Bishop Gösta Lundström, whose work, originally made available in Swedish in 1947, has been brought up to date by a postscript written specially for this English translation (Oliver and Boyd). The two books are concerned chiefly with what German scholars label Forschungsbericht; that is, they seek to state the progress of research in biblical scholarship and science. For that reason names and theories feature largely in their treatment of a common theme, and we are introduced to a host of past and present scholars and to a bewildering variety of suggestion and (it must be confessed!) speculation.

The following is a brief summary of what these books contain in voluminous detail, in the hope that readers will gain a nodding acquaintance with the way in which the Kingdom of God has been understood in the last half century. A question mark is placed against some of the modern conclusions, with a view to provoking further thought on this important biblical topic. At this point mention should be made of the recent issue, in English translation, of Dr. Herman Ridderbos’s massive The Coming of the Kingdom (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.), which is a conservative contribution to the current debate, offering a breathtakingly comprehensive survey of the scriptural evidence and of recent (mainly Continental) discussion. The subject was treated briefly by Dr. Ridderbos in his article “Kingdom of God” in the New Bible Dictionary (Inter-Varsity Fellowship).

Although the subject before us has to do mainly with the past half century or so, we must go back to the middle and the latter half of the nineteenth century for our true perspective. The name of Albrecht Ritschl (1822–89) has proved influential in Christian theology. In his view of Christ’s Kingdom, all is explained on the assumption that Jesus came to establish on earth a fellowship of people who, accepting his moral code as the inspiration of their lives, were pledged to carry on the work of Jesus and themselves set up that Kingdom in human society. It is a formula of ethical action that is deceptively attractive and simple, with all the niceties of theology ironed out—or conveniently forgotten. The Kingdom becomes the equivalent of the Church as a people “standing under ethical laws,” to use the phrase of Kant, to whom Ritschl owed his inspiration. It is certain that he did not owe that inspiration to the New Testament.

With Ritschl’s successor Harnack, the idea of the Kingdom was seen and interpreted through the spectacles of liberalism. True, it was the New Testament that Harnack was anxious to interpret; but his philosophical outlook clouded his vision of the text, and all he could see was the ideal of the spiritual communion of an individual soul and God. This preoccupation with the individual quite naturally provoked a reaction, especially in America, and Christian thought flew to the opposite extreme. This was responsible for the so-called social gospel, which transposed the biblical message of the Kingdom of God into a political and economic manifesto.

A new beginning was made with Johannes Weiss, whose work has had an incalculable influence. For him, the term “Kingdom of God” is altogether a religious one and stands in a theological frame of reference. Moreover, so far from being a cipher for an earthly, this-worldly community, it stands for something transcendent and miraculous. It does not evolve out of the existing social order but breaks into this world order from outside. The simile which describes it is that of an overpowering divine storm which erupts upon the world’s historical scene and changes it completely. It is God’s Kingdom, moreover, which man can neither bring in nor bow out. According to Weiss, Jesus came as the herald and proclaimer of this supernatural Rule of God which he announced as “at hand,” that is, just around the corner (Mark 1:15). He called upon his hearers to repent and prepare themselves for this divine inbreaking; his ethical teaching is geared to a dramatic, catastrophic event which God is about to accomplish, and men are bidden to “get ready.” This idea became known as “ethics of the Interval,” i.e., the breathing space which God has allowed before his Kingdom crashes in and history, as we know it, is wound up.

Focus On The Scriptures

The great merit of Weiss’s interpretation was that it turned attention to the actual text of the Scripture and sought to do justice to the undoubted element of crisis and warning which sounds through our Lord’s teaching. It refused to see him through nineteenth-century glasses, and tried to set him in the context of his times and in the setting of the apocalyptic literature (notably the literature associated with the name of Enoch) which supposedly influenced him. The desire to take the Scripture seriously was admirable; but like many pioneers Weiss overplayed his hand. Keeping our metaphor of spectacles, we may say that he looked at the evidence in part by using only the top section of his bifocal lens. He viewed Jesus as one whose gaze was always set to the future scene, as He announced that the Kingdom was on the way. But much of the Lord’s teaching assumes that the Kingdom has actually arrived and is operative in the present. He claimed to be the Son of Man in person, and not, as Weiss declared, the Son of Man designate.

Weiss’s views would possibly have gone unsung had it not been for the Alsatian scholar-musician-medical missionary who came under their spell and popularized them in a most attractive way. Albert Schweitzer’s famous Quest of the Historical Jesus gave us a picture of Jesus which had, for a while, tremendous vogue in spite of its startling novelty. Jesus was depicted as a strange, imperious figure obsessed by an apocalyptic dream in which he envisaged the imminent end of the age. This is the plain sense of Matthew 10:23, Schweitzer averred. But the Kingdom did not come, and Jesus became convinced that the dream would come true only by his death. He marched on Jerusalem, therefore, in the full expectation that the Kingdom would come by what he was about to do. At the price of his life he would “constrain” God to bring it in, “like a chess player who sacrifices his queen to get a mate” (T. W. Manson). But this was his “fate,” for the Kingdom still did not come, and he died in dereliction. Yet that was precisely his victory and his reign—and his Kingdom.

It is not difficult to fault Schweitzer’s reconstruction. All the evidence is pressed into the straitjacket of Matthew 10:23. Schweitzer turns a Nelson’s eye to those texts which speak of the Kingdom as a present reality in the ministry of Jesus, whom he makes the victim of a fixed eschatological program which holds him in its iron grip. And just as serious is the criticism that this theory is superimposed upon the scriptural data. It “sprang out of his head, already full grown,” commented Jülicher.

A similar charge that a theory can be championed only at the expense of ignoring conflicting evidence has been laid against the once popular “realized eschatology,” associated with C. H. Dodd. Many ministers today have been reared and nurtured in this particular school, so it is well that we inspect it with a critical eye. In its pristine form it said simply: “The Kingdom of God is not something yet to come. It came with Jesus Christ.… The hidden rule of God has been revealed, the Age to come has come.” Now Dodd’s case for the assertion that the Kingdom has actually arrived in the present ministry of Jesus in Galilee seems a convincing one, and such verses as Luke 11:20; 10:23 f. (= Matthew 13:16 f.), and 17:20, 21 (NEB) give some support. In much of what he affirms Dodd commands our assent, but in what he denies he compels us to leave him, for “he loses sight of the futuristic aspect of the Kingdom” (Lundström). Indeed, this looking through only the lower part of the bifocal spectacles and seeing only the present aspect of the Kingdom’s power is the major criticism which many scholars, like W. G. Kümmel, fasten upon him.

But there is an equally vital objection. If the Kingdom came in Galilee, why did the Lord go to Jerusalem and to his death for sinners? Does not this view destroy what R. H. Fuller has called “the cruciality of the cross”? It should be noticed that the phrase “realized eschatology” is being more and more abandoned as a simple solution to Gospel eschatology; and Dodd himself would accept a modification in terms of “eschatology in the process of realization.” But a label like “inaugurated eschatology” seems better. Recent scholars are agreed that the two strands of a present reality (perhaps in an anticipatory form) and a future hope lie side by side in the teaching of Jesus on the Kingdom. In some sense the Kingdom appeared on the scene with his presence, his miracles, his exorcisms, his offer of forgiveness; yet he unmistakably looked to the future for a consummation and perfecting of what was inaugurated in his earthly life. “The Kingdom of God is among you,” and “upon you,” he declared; and yet he bade his disciples pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” and spoke of the coming of the Son of Man in his Kingdom.

Wrestling With The Paradox

Those scholars who have come under the impetus of Bultmann’s work are wrestling with the ways in which this paradox of present-future may be resolved. There is reluctance to follow Bultmann himself, who denied that Jesus regarded the Kingdom as a present actuality and who sought to impose an existentialist philosophy upon the New Testament message. Dr. Perrin’s book contains a valuable account of recent trends within the Bultmann school. New directions are being pointed; and in each instance the starting place is the way in which the Lord spoke and acted decisively, as though he saw his life and ministry as heralding a new age in God’s dealings with the world. Nothing seems clearer than the insistence which Jesus makes plain that with him there is “a shift of the aeons”; that is, the old order, represented by John the Baptist, is closed, and the new age of messianic salvation, foretold by prophets and seers, has begun. So far, so good. Yet two observations are called forth by a reading of Dr. Perrin’s stimulating final chapter.

First, when he writes that “there is no single element in the teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom as present which does not explicitly or implicitly relate directly and solely to the experience of the individual” (p. 186, my italics), has he not overlooked the mission of Jesus to call disciples to himself as his followers, to band them together as the messianic flock under the messianic Shepherd, as the Kingdom in a nutshell? And his overlooking of part of our Lord’s task makes him interpret Mark 10:15 as having a future reference (p. 192)—most improbably so. If Jesus spoke—and the saying is above critical suspicion—of men “receiving” and “entering into” the Kingdom, it seems clear that he had in view the gathering together, on the basis of allegiance to himself, of the nucleus of his Church, the ecclesia of God. This is not to equate the Kingdom and the Church, as the Roman Catholics and some popular studies do. At this point, Dr. Ridderbos writes a perceptive chapter on “The Coming of the Kingdom and the Church,” and shows that “the ekklesia is the community of those who, as the true people of God, receive the gifts of the kingdom of heaven provisionally now already since the Messiah has come, and one day in the state of perfection at the parousia (the Second Coming) of the Son of Man” (p. 354).

The second disquieting omission in modern discussion is the failure to give any explanation of the place of the Cross in the Kingdom teaching of the New Testament. Any doctrine of the Kingdom of God must address itself to the crucial question: Why did Jesus, who subordinated all his activity (proclamation, teaching, and signs) to his overriding conviction of the impending advent of the Kingdom of God, expose himself to crucifixion at Jerusalem? R. H. Fuller, who asks this in his book, The Mission and Achievement of Jesus (p. 77), criticizes both Bultmann and Dodd for failure to deal with this central issue, and supplies the answer in his demonstration that Jesus related the Kingdom, both present and to come, to his vocation as the sin-bearing Servant of Isaiah’s prophecy. His earthly ministry is full of tokens of the redemption which his Cross will accomplish and by which alone the Kingdom can come—and indeed did come in the apostolic preaching of the Cross and the Resurrection. Likewise, the Servant is promised a final vindication and dominion; Jesus thus looks beyond the trial, the death, and the grave to that final consummation of his redeeming work when “the Son of Man shall come in His glory.”

It is at the Last Supper that all these notes are sounded; and it is at the Lord’s table today that we learn the mysteries of the Kingdom which came in Christ, was ratified by his blood at Calvary, is shared as we know his living presence in the midst of his assembled people, and is awaited as we do break the bread “until he comes.”

Ralph P. Martin is lecturer in theology at the London Bible College. A graduate of the University of Manchester, he has the Ph.D. degree from the University of London. His writings include An Early Christian Confession: Philippians 2:5–11 in Recent Interpretation.

- More from Ralph P. Martin

Missions and Prejudice

Ross Coggins

Today’s missionary navigates his faith in strange waters, crowded with other craft. It taxes all his powers to contend with the swift currents of nationalism, superstition, Communist subversion, and resurgent indigenous religion. He requires—and profoundly deserves—the total support of his homeland constituency.

Missionaries are painfully aware of their vulnerability in these changing times. Perhaps the most damaging area of this vulnerability is at the point of racial relations. That Christians in America would tolerate, even justify, the enormities of racism is an enigma which is at once the dismay of the missionary and the delight of his adversaries. Racial prejudice today is a liability we cannot afford. It perverts our Gospel, challenges our sincerity, dissipates our witness, and gives “great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” (2 Sam. 12:14).

Racial prejudice is, first of all, the missionary’s personal problem. This may offend the widespread angelic fallacy believers cherish toward all foreign missionaries, but it is a note of realism clearly indicated. It is altogether possible for a Christian to arrive on foreign shores and discover that any effective ministry must be deferred until he solves his own race problem. Contingent upon the solution of this problem is an entire lifetime of usefulness.

Every missionary realizes that true camaraderie with nationals is slow to congeal, quick to melt. The faintest hint of racial prejudice in a missionary’s attitude cannot be concealed from nationals; it is almost as if they can smell it. It is regrettable in the extreme when any missionary gives the impression, “The Lord has led me out here to help you people; kindly keep out of my way while I do it.” Latent prejudice is exposed by an imperious tone, by the tendency to pauperize nationals through a readiness to give and a reluctance to receive in return, by obvious resentment at working under national supervision, by the habitual choice of white people for social companionship, by a disregard of opinions of nationals, and particularly by the God-is-an-American-and-his-skin-is-white-like-mine attitude. This last confuses Christianizing with Americanizing, superimposing upon the people programs that have about as much relevance to their culture as bird tracks on the moon. Far too often, missionaries have tenaciously resisted any adaptation of the presentation of the Gospel to indigenous cultural patterns.

The very name “missionary” is a handicap in some parts of the world where it has been associated with the superior-inferior relations of colonial days. The so-called “Great White Father” image of the missionary is dangerously anachronistic in modern times. Happy is that missionary who can walk among his people as an equal and a brother, maintaining a careful distinction between his timeless Gospel and his Western cultural trappings.

Despite its origin in the Middle East, Christianity is universally regarded as a Western religion. Until fairly recent times, mission work was done largely in lands under colonial rule. As a result, missionaries inevitably came to be identified with a system under which the control of “natives” was deemed “the white man’s burden.” As T. S. Eliot has stated so well, “Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe.… For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence” (T. S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock,” The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909–1950 [New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1952]). Colonial governments, usually from so-called Christian countries, sometimes incurred such hatred as can be understood only as a reaction to the indignities of race prejudice, not just as bitterness over economic exploitation. “No Natives or Dogs Allowed,” said the sign in a Dutch restaurant in Djakarta in earlier days. Christian missionaries could not avoid being associated with the general aura of white paternalism and superiority. This explains why some national leaders consider Christian missions as vestigial colonialism, an intolerable reminder of the past.

Since World War II a universal declaration of independence has taken place that has seen nearly fifty new nations emerge. These young nations are often unable to cope with their problems because the colonial governments did not consider them worthy of educational preparation (with notable exceptions). For instance, when thirteen million Congolese were freed by the Belgians, there were only sixteen college graduates among them. In 1940, Indonesia had only 157 students in colleges and universities, out of a population of over seventy million.

Is it difficult to understand the distrust of these people toward all white men, the missionaries included? “Christianity is the religion of the white man,” said a Muslim leader in Indonesia. “Shun it.”

Soon after arriving in Indonesia we noticed our household helpers customarily knelt when they served us refreshments. It seemed a degrading and unnecessary thing, and we discontinued it against the advice of our Dutch neighbor. “They enjoy it,” he confided. On one occasion this same neighbor overheard me address the Indonesian postman as Tuan, the Indonesian equivalent of “Mister.” “You simply must not treat these people as equals,” he insisted. We felt, however, that the Christian thing to do was always to Tuan to others as we would have them Tuan to us. If that is poor humor, it is good religion. It is only through dissociating himself from the embarrassing heritage of colonialism that the modern missionary can gain an entrance into the hearts of people.

Preachment Vs. Practice

One of the most appalling stigmata of our time is the great gulf fixed between our Gospel and our conduct in the eyes of the world. Early missionaries could observe a discreet silence about racial prejudice in their homelands, but this is impossible in today’s world. We cannot hide the abysmal disparity between our preachment and our practice.

In times of swift communication,

Nation cannot hide from nation

What it does. Within brief hours

Headlines shout how hatred’s powers

Close love’s doors with jarring thud

Because of race, because of blood.

Racial tension in your home town exerts a seismic effect on world missions. Our missionaries around the world describe our racial discrimination as a veritable millstone around the neck of Christian missions.

Consider some questions your missionaries are compelled to answer every day. Why are churches in America segregated? How can Christianity and racial discrimination be reconciled? Why am I refused admittance into a Baptist school in America when I am welcome in a Russian university? How can you explain German bestiality during the war in the light of their Christian heritage? And perhaps the worst question of all: Why do you believe Christianity will do so much more for my country than it has for yours?

There are some answers to questions like these, but they sound very hollow half-a-world away from home. The fact is, we have unfortunately permitted our race failures to neutralize the effectiveness of our missionaries. They are at the forefront of our struggle against the powers of evil, and we have weakened their hands. On mission fields this struggle has Darwinian overtones, for only the fittest can survive. Will we continue to supply weapons for the enemy’s hands?

An East-West Encounter

On the day after the Russians orbited their first astronaut, I happened to be in the airlines office in Bandung. Standing just behind me at the counter was a tall Russian who was in Bandung to attend an Asia-Africa conference of some kind. The lobby was crowded with delegates from the various countries, each of whom embraced the Russian and congratulated him upon the splendid achievement in outer space. I was frankly jealous for my own country.

The Russian and I fell into a lengthy conversation which was frequently interrupted by these jovial salutations from passing delegates. I, too, congratulated the Russian and then asked him about the conference. “The most satisfying reports,” he said, “have come from the new nations in Africa. These people at last are throwing off the shackles of colonialism and imperialism.”

I replied that my own country warmly approved every step forward these people were taking, and I expressed disappointment that an American voice could not declare this to the conference.

“They would not listen,” declared the Russian. “They would feel you had no right to speak.”

I knew what he was getting at, but I had a morbid desire to hear him say it. I asked him to explain.

He replied with ill-concealed satisfaction, “Many of these African delegates have been to your country. They have met your Mr. Jim Crow—I believe that is his name.” Then he tapped me on the chest with his forefinger and concluded, “This Jim Crow is your delegate to our conference. He is your number one ambassador to these people.”

In a day when Marxists are calling every man comrade, let us not refuse to call any man brother.

It is difficult to say anything on the race problem that is not repetitious or platitudinous. Our dilemma stems not from lack of words, however, but from lack of action. It is astounding how often and how well this issue is addressed. The time has come for Christian action to turn the oughts to shalls.

There is no denying that our continued toleration of an oppressive status quo stems from a timorous disinclination to translate into action the New Testament revelation of God’s love.

What does it mean that all men are equally the objects of God’s love? It means that all the ways we separate or humiliate others are an offense to God. It means that every child has the right to grow up with a sense of dignity and worth. It means that no man must live out his days indentured to “his place.” It means that all our strategems of evasion are intolerable to God.

More specifically, the love of God means that we should treat every man as a human being. We should throw open our hospital doors to any man seeking healing. We should open our educational institutions to any man seeking knowledge. There should be no racially imposed barriers to equal citizenship, employment opportunity, or access to public recreation facilities. Above all, let every church abide by the sign placed in front of so many churches: Everybody Welcome. Paul expressed this concept with eloquent simplicity when he wrote to Philemon concerning the runaway slave, Onesimus: “Receive him … as … a brother.”

I am not suggesting that we should lightly cast aside our national traditions; I am suggesting that we throw them aside with great force wherever they violate the spirit and teaching of the New Testament. We must obey God rather than men.

What profound dichotomy has enabled many Christians to believe in world missions abroad and racial discrimination at home? Many of our failures obviously stem from a lack of information about the relation of racism to missionary outreach. Racial prejudice and foreign missions are mutually exclusive, for missions simply means sharing the Gospel with all races; it is the Gospel in world perspective.

Missionaries believe they have a right to expect this note to be sounded with courage from pulpits here in America. Needless to say, they are often bitterly disappointed. Their courage in going to the ends of the earth is often unmatched by Christian leaders at home who blandly ignore the existence of a problem. In the chaotic world of today, can the bland lead the bland?

Ross Coggins is a graduate of Baylor University (A.B.) and of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (B.D.). Director of communications for the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, he is the author of Missions Today, published in 1963.

- More from Ross Coggins

News

About This Issue: January 03, 1964

Readers will find a new sequence of contents in this first issue for 1964. Our News section now appears on the last pages, following rather than preceding Books in Review and the Minister’s Workshop. Featured in the News section are a preview of the Pope’s trip to the Holy Land and a report on the sixth triennial assembly of the National Council of Churches held in Philadelphia.

A chemist from a Lutheran college weighs the theological implications of the attempts of scientists to produce a living cell in a laboratory test tube (p. 3).

“God reveals God,” say the confrontationalists. “But,” says a Baptist theologian, “no pronouncements backed by reddened necks and dilated eyes should deter us from inquiring whether this is all that the term revelation carries for Christians” (p. 8).

Prospects of a Christian Summit

Dick Ostling

“It would be truly a work of divine providence if, during this pious pilgrimage of Paul VI, all the heads of the churches of the East and West could meet in the Holy City of Zion. There in common fervent prayer and in the spiritual recollection of the Christian spirit, on their knees, tears in their eyes, and in a spirit of unity, on Golgotha which was wet with the most holy blood of Christ and before the Sepulcher whence sprang reconciliation and forgiveness, they could, for the glory of the holy name of Christ and for the profit of all humanity, open the way to the complete reestablishment of Christian unity according to the sacred will of the Saviour.”

With these words Athenagoras I, the supreme leader of Eastern Orthodoxy, reacted to the news that Pope Paul VI was planning an early January visit to Israel and Jordan.

In effect, Patriarch Athenagoras was suggesting a Christian summit. Champions of ecumenicity the world over at first hailed the idea. Archbishop Iakovos, Primate of the Creek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, said it was “the greatest news of my life” and a portent of “the greatest moment of modern church history.”

The prospect that the meeting could embrace Protestants evoked encouraging comments from leading U. S. churchmen attending the triennial General Assembly of the National Council of Churches in Philadelphia. Said Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.:

“My response would be that if His Holiness (Athenagoras) and the Pope invited my Church to be present we would be there.”

Following the initial flurry of enthusiasm, however, it became obvious that neither leader was in any hurry to extend invitations. Indeed, observers began to wonder just who would take the initiative for such an unprecedented conference.

Two weeks after the proposal broke into the news it was still unclear whether a face-to-face meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch would take place. There was some speculation that the Pope had replied to the proposal of the Patriarch, who resides in Istanbul, but the contents of the message was not made public. One account suggested that what was envisioned was a common prayer in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The first authoritative report that a definite meeting would take place came from Patriarch Theodosious VI, head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the Orient, who declared that the conference would be one of “courtesy” rather than of formality.

Some thought it significant that the Pope’s visit would extend through January 6—which is Christmas Day for some Eastern Orthodox churches under the old Julian calendar.

One informed prelate said that a meeting between Paul and Athenagoras might quite profitably revolve on the care of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches share responsibility for maintaining the two structures. Meanwhile, however, an agreement was signed in Jerusalem between the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Franciscan Custodian of the Holy Land on certain rights and privileges pertaining to the Church of the Nativity.

Both of the Holy Land shrines have a history of disputes behind them, and priests still argue over precedence when holy days coincide.

The majority of the bishops of the Orthodox Church of Greece—the only non-Communist Orthodox country—reacted negatively to the summit proposal on grounds that the time is not ripe for such a meeting. The Primate of the Church of Greece, Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens, who is strongly opposed to the summit, adjourned the Holy Synod until January 10.

Pope Paul will travel to the Holy Land via an American-built (by Douglas) DC-8 four-engine jet operated by Alitalia, an Italian airline. Airline sources said a red carpet would be laid in the first-class compartment and that all the standard seats would be removed. A red damask bearing the papal seal is to cover the wall, and special armchairs are to be installed. A Vatican flag is to be painted on the outside of the fuselage. Stewards are to be on board in place of stewardesses.

The Pope will fly from Rome to Amman, a distance of approximately 1,500 miles or about a three-hour flight. He is expected to leave Rome early Saturday morning, January 4, and to return the following Monday evening.

Where Was The Pope?

A U. S. Eastern Orthodox church theologian said last month that the Second Vatican Council did not fulfill the expectations of his church and that a “true dialogue” between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism still does not exist.

The Very Rev. Alexander Schmemann, dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, and a “guest” observer at the council, called for restoration of the episcopacy to the position “we think belongs to it.” Schmemann made the remarks at a talk in Montreal.

His greatest personal disappointment, he added, was the “absence of the Pope from the deliberations.”

He declared: “The body of the church—that impressive body of 2,400 bishops—was there, but the head was not. I think this revealed the papacy as an irrational and mystical reality.”

A Catholic RSV

A Roman Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible will be published in Great Britain next year.

Dr. Luther A. Weigle, dean emeritus of Yale Divinity School, who headed the 22-year project of translating and publishing the RSV, made the announcement at a session of the National Council of Churches’ Division of Christian Education assembly, held in Philadelphia last month in conjunction with the NCC’s triennial General Assembly.

Weigle said the special edition, to be published by Thomas Nelson and Sons in Edinburgh, Scotland, “is sponsored by the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain and will bear the imprimatur of approval by Catholic authority.”

The Catholic adaptation of the RSV, first approved Catholic Bible in English translated from original Hebrew and Greek texts, has been in preparation for several years by an editing committee of the British Catholic Biblical Association, Weigle said.

He declared that the version will employ some British spellings and word usage. “Catholic usage is followed by placing the Deutero-Canonical books (most of the Apocrypha) where they appear in the Old Testament of the Vulgate. In the New Testament a few readings of the Vulgate are used, certain footnotes added, and a few minor alterations made in the English rendering, all in the interest of Catholic usage.”

He said no list of the changes will be made public before publication of the New Testament, in the next six months, or publication of the complete Bible by the end of 1964.

The RSV was first published eleven years ago by Thomas Nelson and Sons of New York. The NCC Division of Christian Education holds the copyright.

The Singing Nun

Songs are supposed to be ballyhooed to fame, but America’s current favorite composer-lyricist-singer agreed to record only it she would never appear in public and her real name wouldn’t be used. She is a young, guitar-strumming nun tucked away in a Belgian convent.

But her songs were too good to be locked behind walls. An album, “The Singing Nun,” and a hit single record, “Dominique,” have each sold nearly a million copies. The publicity cloister will break January 5 when Soeur Sourire (Sister Luc-Gabrielle’s pseudonym) performs on videotape for the Ed Sullivan television show.

In Hit Parade circles, female singers are uncommon, a nun unique. And in a list of teen-steeped love dirges, the sister won first place by telling of a cheerful missionary monk who begged his way across Europe at the turn of the thirteenth century and founded the Dominicans. Since the record is in French, these lyrics probably have as little impact as those of “Drip Drop” or “Loddy Lo.”

An Overdose Of Ritual

The “eternal flame” at the grave of President Kennedy was accidentally extinguished by a group of school children last month. The youngsters, ranging in age from eight to eleven, were taking turns sprinkling the grave with specially blessed water from a bottle. Suddenly the cap came off the bottle and the whole contents was dumped onto the flame at once. An attendant at Arlington National Cemetery restarted the flame with a match a few moments later.

The use of “holy water” as a form of blessing dates back to the eighth and ninth centuries. Although commonly practiced within the Roman Catholic Church, it is not a part of official dogma. Sprinkling of graves assumes that the dead person is in purgatory for a period of purification. It is a common pious belief, says one Catholic source, that such an act “affords a means of relief to the deceased soul.”

Monks have been making bread and wine to support their orders for a long time, but nuns probably began using pop music for profit only four years ago. The pioneer, seventeen-voice Jesus and Mary Choir of Hyattsville, Maryland, now has five albums out. While Soeur Sourire holds the spotlight, nuns at Mt. St. Mary’s College, Newburgh, New York, have quietly earned $100,000 with an LP of Broadway-type fare titled “Joy.”

Soeur Sourire turns out catchy folksongs full of rhythm and personal touches, but they are religious songs, though quite a break from liturgical tradition. Her melodies (and guitar accompaniment) have the touch of honest simplicity that makes good folk music ring. Her voice, though untrained, is crystalline, on pitch, and expressive. Her words show the most talent and, at least in the translations included with the album, give hardly a nod to anything specifically Catholic.

The spirit of the songs is usually chipper. Even a “Lament” predicts, “You will go radiantly to labor in the workshop of noble human efforts.” Occasionally, she creates a haunting mood, as in the gently shifting tonalities of “Little boat upon the water, float, my soul, toward the Most-High.”

Theology sometimes drowns in the flood of joy. One song promises, “All the roads of this world lead you to heaven.” In her witty version of the resurrection of the dead, reporters rush around to interview the famous; Archimedes, in his bathtub, “overflows with emotion”; Boy Scouts sell Eskimo Pies to starving Alaskans as their good deed; and (was the convent spared of the movie’s infamy?) Anthony and Cleopatra “meet ‘nose to nose’ … in their immortal lovemaking.”

The messages and morals are usually autobiographical. The album’s only secular song tells of her buying her guitar, Adele, just before entering the convent after forsaking the life of an art student. Another tells how “by chance, in my wanderings, I met my God one summer eve, entrusted him with my loneliness, and his grace was my salvation.” Like the Protestant gospel songs, they speak to the individual: “The day that God redeemed you, on that day, the day he made you his child forever, the day when he made his dwelling in your heart, blessed be that day.”

The sister is now studying advanced catechism and will soon be a missionary in an underdeveloped land. If Adele goes along, then the nun’s delicate wish will continue:

I would like to be the guitar

With a singing heart …

Like a guitar that thou mayest fill

With thy song.

DICK OSTLING

- More from Dick Ostling

Current Religious Thught: January 3, 1964

G. C. Berkouwer

Observations from the second session of the Second Vatican Council.

The editor of Christianity Today asked me to say something about my observations at the second session of the Second Vatican Council. Although it is not possible to capture all of one’s responses to this great event within a single article, I will note at least a couple of matters that have struck me as of special importance. It is not true that this second session has been less productive than the first one. Many far-reaching subjects have been on the agenda. One of these was the question of the power of the episcopate. Another was that of the church as the people of God. Still another was the question of Mary’s place in respect to the church. This last question is one that asks whether Mary should be viewed within the framework of the church or in a special category, apart from the church. Does Mary belong within or above the church? One can immediately sense the importance of this question to the entire Mariological problem. This question is of such intense interest to the Roman theologians and is of such complexity that we shall have to devote a special article to it in the near future.

Related to the subject of Mary is the so-called triumphalism (an attitude toward the history of the church that sees it as a great and obvious success). I have observed a strong current within the council against the “triumphalistic” view of the church, indeed a crusade against it. Even in the first session, a speech against the hard-set clericalism within the juridical approach to the church was accompanied by an attack against “triumphalism.” Since this speech, the anti-triumphalistic voices have increased in volume.

Prior to the council, Heinrich Fries wrote that the church was obliged to take a more modest view of itself. Is the church on earth to serve or to rule? Does the church understand that it is here as a pilgrim? Does the church reflect Christ’s kind of glory, the glory of humble service? Is the Pope indeed a servant of the servants of God? Has it been evident in the church’s posture that she reflects the words of John 3:17: “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved”? The church, it was said, must acknowledge that it is not identical with the Kingdom of God, that it is only an instrument in the service of the Kingdom. The warning that the church must drop all pride, all self-glorification, has sounded again and again through the vast halls. Those who sound it insist that they wish no revolution in the church, but only self-criticism and renewal, a willingness to be tested by the Touchstone.

Only in this way, it is argued, will the church be worthy of belief. This credibility of the church, as Hans Küng has argued, is not a self-evident and natural credibility. To be believable the church must submit itself constantly to the criticism of the Lord. It can be a believable institution only as it declines to be an instrument of power and accepts its station as servant. When the Church says of itself: “I am rich … and I need nothing” (Rev. 3:17), it loses its credibility. It is worthy of belief only as it makes clear to the world that it is here to dispense the mercy of Christ to the needy.

If this anti triumphalism wins the day, the attitude of the Roman church to the “separated brethren” must also be affected. The old categories (heathen and Jews, heretics and schismatics) can no longer easily be used, argues Fries. The ecumenical conversation cannot be entered by Rome with a demand for unconditional surrender, the insistence that return to Rome is the only and simple solution to the ecumenical problem. When the church acknowledges that it too has sinned and it too bears a burden of guilt, the ecumenical question suddenly becomes more complicated than it seemed to be.

All these matters are playing a vital role in the movement that is now loose within the Roman Catholic Church. They thrust themselves into almost every discussion at the council. This apparent movement is not merely an abstract theological concern. It is a matter of a different attitude. People want the church to be shed of the caricature of a conquering ruler, and to take on the image of service and suffering for the sake of the world. The spokesmen for the new tendency want the church again to be clearly and unambiguously the church of the Lord who came “not to be served, but to serve.”

This is not the first time in the history of this church that such a voice has been heard. But today it is coming from all sides. And, we must note, from all ages. This is not a matter of a new generation pitted against an old one. Hans Küng is young, but Karl Rahner and Han Urs van Balthazar are both fifty-nine, and Yves Congar is still older. The younger and the older men are finding each other in a consciousness that what they feel is really a primitive Christian pathos, a new personal discovery of the New Testament.

The questions of anti-Semitism and freedom of religion are also closely related to the changed vision of the church. Back of all this hangs the question, as everyone knows, of the changeable or unchangeable character of the church, of the ecclesia Romana. But the crusade against triumphalism is a truly remarkable phenomenon in this communion. No one is able to predict what will come of it.

This fortnightly review is contributed in sequence by J. D. Douglas, British editorial director, CHRISTIANITY TODAY; Philip E. Hughes, editor, The Churchman, London; Harold B. Kuhn, professor of philosophy of religion, Asbury Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky; G. C. Berkouwer, professor of dogmatics, Free University of Amsterdam; and Addison H. Leitch, professor of philosophy and religion, Tarkio College, Tarkio, Missouri.—ED.

- More from G. C. Berkouwer

A Big Bill

A $1.2 billion program of federal aid to higher education was enacted last month over protests that it disregards the principle of separation of church and state. The bill, a compromise of a measure proposed by the administration of the late President Kennedy, was passed by the Senate by a vote of 54 to 27. It had cleared the House several weeks before.

The Senate originally tacked on to the measure an amendment providing for a court test of the constitutionality of loans and grants to religiously affiliated colleges and universities. The House refused to add any such amendment, and a House-Senate conference likewise declined to include it. Subsequently the Senate passed the bill without the amendment.

Two days after Senate passage the board of trustees of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a warning against an “apparent disposition on the part of the nation’s leaders to disregard constitutional provisions which have traditionally separated state and church in the matter of public assistance for church institutions.”

“It would appear that this unprecedented legislation providing direct federal grants to church institutions can only lead to more and more legislation of the same kind,” the POAU statement said.

The bill is intended to help build classrooms, laboratories, and libraries for public as well as private colleges and universities (see editorial on p. 22).

President Johnson praised the action of the Senate, saying that “this Congress is well on its way to doing more for education than any Congress since the Land Grant College Act was passed 100 years ago.” “Members of the House and Senate Education Committees—Republicans and Democrats alike—are to be congratulated on this major step forward.”

In signing the measure into law, Johnson declared that “this is the most significant education bill passed by the Congress in the history of the republic.”

Separate legislation has been introduced in Congress providing for judicial review of the constitutionality of bills involving aid to sectarian institutions. Veteran Capitol Hill observers doubt, however, that a judicial review measure would pass the House. Such a judicial review may reach the U. S. Supreme Court on its own steam via a test case now pending in Maryland.

Protestant Panorama

American Lutheran Church Council approved a report on glossolalia following a two-year study. ALC President Fredrik A. Schiotz says it “calls our attention to the wisdom of St. Paul, who saw fit to permit, not promote the practice.”

Baptist Press challenged the propriety of secular news media references to the Apostle Peter as the first pope. The references occurred in the context of the announcement that Pope Paul VI would visit the Holy Land.

Protestant Council of the City of New York commended the broadcasting industry for its coverage of events relating to President Kennedy’s assassination and funeral.

Deaths

CANON DAVID E. GIBSON, 97, founder and director of the Cathedral Shelter, Protestant Episcopal welfare agency on Chicago’s West Side; in Chicago.

The RT. REV. ARTHUR BAILLIE LUMSDAINE KARNEY, 89, former Anglican bishop of Johannesburg; in Lewes, England.

BISHOP JOHN MCKENDREE SPRINGER, 89, retired Methodist missionary to Africa; in Penney Farms, Florida.

PKRRY G. E. MILLER, 58, historian and biographer of Jonathan Edwards and Roger Williams; in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

DR. ERNEST W. WADSWORTH, 86, general director of the Great Commission Prayer League; in Wheaton, Illinois.

Protestant Episcopal Church National Council endorsed a proposal to give complete autonomy to the Brazilian Episcopal Church. A request for independence was voted by the Brazilian body’s House of Bishops last November.

Miscellany

Accreditation to Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, was granted last month by the American Association of Theological Schools. Action regarding Gordon Divinity School was deferred.

A resolution memorializing the U. S. Congress “to restore the Word of God to the schools” was adopted unanimously by the State Senate of Kentucky.

The Rev. Haywood Scott, pastor of First Methodist Church of Union Springs, Alabama, was relieved of his ministerial duties by Bishop Paul Hardin, Jr., after Scott’s congregation voted to withdraw from the Alabama-West Florida Conference of The Methodist Church. In leaving the conference the congregation charged that Methodist denominational leadership “had been infiltrated by liberals.” Meanwhile, a controversy has developed between the congregation and the conference over ownership of the church property.

A Last Look At 1963

“If these deep emotional commitments and ties occasionally lead to sexual intercourse, surely even that is more healthy than the situation a generation ago when ‘nice girls’ were dated under largely artificial circumstances and sexual needs were gratified at a brothel.”—From a report by a committee of the Harvard University Council of Undergraduate Affairs asking for an extension of the time allotted to women for visiting male dormitories.

“Now, for every kid in America who can’t decide between candy and ice cream—Candi-Creme Good Humor (It has both).”—Advertisement.

“A pastor, a janitor, and a secretary—in that order—are the first three staff members to be employed by a typical church, according to a survey to which 638 Southern Baptist Churches replied. The fourth staff person to be employed is someone to direct music.”—The Survey Bulletin.

“It would be awfully convenient if he, Ruby, represented the right wing, but I’m afraid it just wasn’t that way.”—Rabbi Hillel E. Silverman, clergyman of the imprisoned Jack Ruby, slayer of accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

The Cardinal

James Daane

An Irish-Bostonian’s rise from lowly parish priest to high office in the Roman Catholic Church—this is the story of Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal. Based on the novel of the same name by Henry Morton Robinson, the film deals with many of the problems that arise within the Catholic Church: integration in the South, mixed religious marriage, and the let-nature-take-its-course ethic that allows a mother to die to save an unborn child.

The story covers the time span of the two world wars. Created over a stretch of 5,000 miles and employing over 4,000 actors, the film has a width not equaled by its depth. The scenery is superb, the acting good: yet The Cardinal suggests neither the crises of the period, nor the anguished religious struggles it seeks to portray within the Catholic soul. Though the treatment is reverential, it lacks spiritual fiber.

Tom Tryon is a good actor, but he lacks that suggestion of strength, depth of personality, and resonance of character his role requires. He is most equal to his role when he banks his romantic feelings for Annemarie (Romy Schneider), the girl in his Vienna life. Neither Irish nor Catholic, his appearance as he greys with age elicits the image of Bishop Sheen, with none of Sheen’s mystique. He gives the impression of a good boy who makes good in the big church; but viewers will find themselves wishing that John Huston, who plays another role in the film, had been cast as the Cardinal.

Most of all the film lacks religious strength and authenticity. One would imagine that in making such a film cardinal efforts would be put forth to get the proper religious slant of the Catholic Church. But ten minutes’ reading in the Council of Trent would have taught Preminger more catechism than he apparently knows. His Roman version of Christianity turns out to be nothing more than a respectable morality and a conflict between democratic political freedom and totalitarianism. The film concludes with a speech about man’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: “That is America’s creed.” Maybe so. “That is the gospel of The Church.” This is not so, as any altar boy knows.

When Robinson’s novel first appeared a number of years ago, it evoked some sharp criticism from Roman Catholic leaders. The film, however, can hardly be construed as representative of any significantly adverse reflections on the Roman church. The film opened in New York to mixed notices. Comments ranged from “banality, tastelessness” to “a picture of great stature.”

‘Lucia’

An attractive young mother from Buenos Aires watched her life story unfold on ninety minutes of Eastman Color film last month. Mrs. Nelly Fideleff, converted to Christ a year ago, made special guest appearances at the U. S. and Canadian premieres of Lucia, the screen drama based on her wayward quest for peace of mind. First showings of the film were on the West Coast, in Pennsylvania, and in Toronto. The Latin American premiere was held in Montivideo, Uruguay.

Produced by World Wide Pictures, the film arm of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Lucia includes scenes taken during evangelist Graham’s Buenos Aires crusade in October, 1962. It was during that time that Mrs. Fideleff and her husband, a prominent physician, committed their lives to Christ.

The plot of Lucia follows rather closely the events that led to the conversion of Mrs. Fideleff, including a clandestine romance with a gallivanting American businessman. The film was produced in Argentina with a Spanish-speaking cast, but the version available for rental to churches and other organizations in English-speaking countries has an English soundtrack. The leading role is played by actress Fernanda Mistral, who represented Argentina at one of the famous Cannes film festivals.

- More from James Daane

NCC Pleads for Racial Justice

Frank Farrell

The sixth General Assembly of the National Council of Churches met December 1–7 in Philadelphia, but its eye was on Washington, D. C. A long shadow cast over the Quaker City’s Convention Hall by the memory of a vacated White House chair seemed to impel the delegates toward the seats of power on Capitol Hill in a search for solution of the nation’s racial crisis, easily the dominant issue of the convention.

The high point of the assembly was to have been a televised address by John F. Kennedy, scheduled to be the first President and first Roman Catholic national leader to speak to an NCC general meeting. Instead of his projected address on “Our Liberties, One and Indivisible,” a memorial service was held for him, in which United Presbyterian Stated Clerk Eugene Carson Blake said: “John Kennedy by his actions as President demonstrated that he was indeed a good Catholic, but more—that his kind of Christianity was a strength rather than a handicap to his serving the whole people of the whole nation under the Constitution and under God.” Bishop George W. Baber of the African Methodist Episcopal Church prayed: “In this hour of our national and world sorrow, we pause to thank Thee for John Fitzgerald Kennedy who now moves with Thee in glorious realms of eternal light; and for the impact of his dedicated personality upon the lives of so many, great and small, known and unknown, of all creeds and colors.” Pennsylvania’s Governor William W. Scranton paralleled the assassination with that of Lincoln, and asserted: “America will survive so long as we have leaders of the people who use as their guidelines the people’s common sense. While politicians and lawyers discuss the legalistic fine points of civil rights legislation, the tyranny of prejudice is doomed because the American people in their deep common sense realize it is wrong.”

Again and again throughout the course of the assembly, speakers pointed to the plight of the dispossessed Negro, and called for Christian action. The newly elected NCC president, Bishop Reuben H. Mueller of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (see News section, Dec. 20 issue), declared Negroes have come to the conclusion that “a threat to profit or property can move a white Protestant a lot faster than an appeal to spiritual ideals.” Methodist church historian Franklin H. Littell said that those who argued during Hitler’s reign that the function of churches was to undergird the “German way of life” have their counterpart in those who today maintain that churches exist to support “the American way of life” or the “Southern way of life.” Dr. W. A. Visser t Hooft, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, spoke of “courageous Christians” in South Africa who are fighting racial estrangement, and said: “You in the American churches can help them more effectively by solving your own race problem than in any other way.” Sierra Leone’s minister of external affairs. John Karefa-Smart, offered some exegesis that startled some: “I wonder if we are far wrong in suggesting that the famous ride into Jerusalem on the donkey was perhaps our Lord’s way of protesting, both to the Jews and to the Romans, for the rights of the masses of his fellow citizens.” Dr. Robert W. Spike, executive director of the NCC’s Commission on Religion and Race, said that the racial issue provides an area where the validity of all lay movements can be tested: “I do not wish to imply that only Negro freedom fighters qualify for the Christian mission in this crucial hour.… Heroic white Christians … keep their trust as well.”

Assembly delegates responded to the repeated platform appeals by: (1) Approving a message to the churches that stressed racial brotherhood. It said: “At the point of race the Christian church must now profess or deny Christ.” (2) Adopting a pronouncement on human rights that said that particular attention “should be given to the denial of rights on the basis of race or color and to the correcting” of such injustices. (3) Taking the strongest stand on civil rights in NCC history by urging all churches and Christians to initiate specific action toward complete elimination of racial discrimination in their organizations, agencies, and institutions. A call was made for pulpits to be opened to all qualified ministers regardless of race, and for “investment portfolios” to be examined to determine if funds are invested in enterprises that practice racial discrimination, such investments to be removed if discrimination is not ceased. (4) Calling upon Congress to “take every step necessary to insure the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1963, including the immediate use of a discharge petition which will enable the House of Representatives to take action on the bill,” and calling upon all Christians “to urge their Representatives in Congress to sign such a petition when it is presented.”

To suit action to their words, some 100 clergymen and laymen contacted congressmen in Washington to urge them to sign the discharge petition. Two charter busloads of General Assembly consultants took a day off from the Philadelphia meeting for this purpose. If signed by the necessary 218 House members, the petition would bring the civil rights bill immediately to the House floor for a vote on the next discharge date (second and fourth Mondays of the month—if the House is in session). Dr. Spike indicated that such lobbying “would have been unheard of” a year ago.

Five NCC leaders met with President Lyndon Johnson at his request. They expressed concern for prompt passage of the civil rights bill, commended the President for his “very vigorous” record on civil rights, and discussed how churches can best support racial justice in the future.

The stance of the NCC leadership on the race issue seemed clear. But the key to the program would be grass-roots response. As the Philadelphia assembly drew to a close, a minister reported for thirty workshops that had discussed race during the week: “… the lack of church initiative does not come from an absence of official statements and positions; … our failure arises from the churches’ concentration on themselves.” But the workshops had one specific proposal: that the NCC, which employs many nonwhites in non-executive positions, would promote qualified minority-group members to executive positions.

Other assembly actions included:

• Reaffirmation of opposition to legalized gambling.

• Adoption of a revised constitution, effective January 1, 1965, and authorization of the policy-making NCC General Board to draft and implement new by-laws (see News section, Nov. 8 issue). Though this has been termed a “sweeping reorganization” of the NCC’s structure and though there have been warnings voiced previously by General Board members against the resulting increase of centralization which could, it was said, result in loss of council membership, the action was voted with scarcely a murmur from delegates.

Church Membership Tally

U. S. Protestant church membership gains continue to fall slightly shy of the country’s population increase, according to National Council of Churches statisticians. But a 2.3 per cent growth reported by Roman Catholics enables the new Yearbook of American Churches to again list overall church membership as 63.4 per cent of total population. That is the same figure as last year.

The church membership increase and the country’s population growth are both given as 1.6 per cent.

In actual figures, the Yearbook’s 1964 edition records that 117,946,002 Americans are members of churches, synagogues, or other places of worship. That includes 64,929,941 Protestants and 43,847,938 Roman Catholics.

The Yearbook, just out, is compiled by the NCC Bureau of Research and Survey and is based on reports by official statisticians of 252 religious bodies for the fifty states and the District of Columbia. The latest figures are said to be “mainly” for the calendar year 1962 or for a fiscal year ending in 1962.

Protestant Sunday school enrollment is showing a slow but apparently steady decline. It is now given as 40,096,624, compared with 40,239,020 a year ago, and 40,241,650 two years ago.

Here are the ten largest Protestant denominations in the United States as reported in the Yearbook:

Secular observers were struck by two negative aspects of the assembly: the almost inaudible responses during voting, though there were more than 800 voting delegates present (along with some 2,500 consultants and accredited visitors); and the widespread delegate absenteeism during the final sessions when most of the important votes were taken.

Paucity of debate on many important issues was attributed by some to trust in and/or awe of the professional leadership.

Electronics helped determine the political complexion of the delegates, consultants, and accredited visitors. An IBM machine reported that of 575 persons polled, 46 per cent were Republican—25 per cent of these self-described as liberal, 19 per cent moderate, and only 2 per cent conservative. Democrats comprised 36 per cent—26 per cent liberal, 10 per cent moderate, and less than 1 per cent conservative.

Top Evangelical News

A group of evangelical editors picked the Supreme Court decision on public school devotions as their most significant news event of 1963.

The Roman Catholic “thaw,” the race question, Billy Graham’s Southern California crusade, and the charismatic revival, were also cited, in that order.

A total of thirteen Christian publications participated in the selection of “the five most important news stories in the evangelical religious world in 1963.” The survey was conducted by News Editor Phil Landrum of Moody Monthly for a special article that appears in the publication’s January issue.

The Idea Of A University

Southern Baptists can hardly talk about higher education without bringing up Wake Forest College. The campus at Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a leading center for the training of Southern Baptist young people, and it has had more than its share of controversy. Latest furor is over a proposal by the Wake Forest administration to include non-Baptists and out-of-state residents among its trustees.

The idea grew out of a study made of Wake Forest’s graduate program by a group of educators who analyzed the aim of the school to achieve university status. They recommended a “diversified board of trustees with ability to cultivate potential sources of financial support.” As a result. Dr. Harold W. Tribble, Wake Forest president, undertook a campaign to change the method of electing trustees, now handled solely within the North Carolina Baptist Convention.

Meanwhile, a special committee studying relations between the college and the convention reported concern over a decline in the percentage of Baptist students and faculty members. They supported Tribble’s contention, however, that the new trustee proposal was not designed to wrest a measure of control from the convention.

A petition was circulated among Baptist ministers in the state opposing the change, and scores of them signed it. The petition said the move would “tend to widen the gap between Wake Forest and the convention instead of bringing the two together.”

The trustee plan was introduced at the annual meeting of the convention held in November in the coastal town of Wilmington. It never made it to the floor. A compromise plan also fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority for passage (the vote was 1,628 for and 1,106 against).

“Anything we have to say we will bring up at the next convention,” Tribble declared. “We will not give up. Next year we can carry it at the convention.”

The 1964 North Carolina Baptist Convention will meet in Greensboro, a neighbor city to Winston-Salem.

Tribble’s bid to make Wake Forest a university involves an expansion program that will cost an estimated $69 million. Included are plans for a $4 million Graduate School of Religion, which, in Tribble’s words, “would be distinctly graduate work in terms of university graduate studies rather than professional in terms of theological education.”

An Evening At The White House

Evangelist Billy Graham, in Annapolis for a Sunday morning preaching engagement at the U. S. Naval Academy Chapel, was called to the telephone for a message from the White House. Said the voice at the other end:

“Billy, this is Lyndon.”

The President of the United States expressed regret that he would not be there to hear the sermon, but said he was immediately dispatching daughter Lucy from Washington to Annapolis.

“God bless you as you preach,” added President Johnson.

The following evening Graham spent five hours at the White House at Johnson’s request. The two talked privately for half an hour, then went swimming in the White House pool with presidential assistant Bill Moyers and Graham’s close friend, Grady Wilson. The President asked Graham to lead the group in a session of prayer and later to return thanks prior to a dinner with executives of the New York Herald Tribune.

Surprise Citations

The late Pope John XXIII was among thirty-three distinguished persons honored last month with the U. S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. The names of thirty-one of the group had been announced in advance, but the awards to Pope John and the late President Kennedy came as a surprise. This was the citation to the pontiff:

“His Holiness Pope John XXIII—dedicated servant of God. He brought to all citizens of the planet a heightened sense of the dignity of the individual, of the brotherhood of man, and of the common duty to build an environment of peace for all human kind.”

- More from Frank Farrell

Give Today

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Answering The Scoffers

A Persistent Hope

The Parable Of The Restless Shepherd

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Jephthah’s Daughter

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Focus On The Scriptures

Wrestling With The Paradox

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Preachment Vs. Practice

An East-West Encounter

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Where Was The Pope?

A Catholic RSV

The Singing Nun

An Overdose Of Ritual

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Protestant Panorama

Deaths

Miscellany

A Last Look At 1963

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‘Lucia’

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Church Membership Tally

Top Evangelical News

The Idea Of A University

An Evening At The White House

Surprise Citations

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