The first national institute on Religious Freedom and Public Affairs, held November 18–21 in Washington, D.C., brought together a hundred representatives of the elements composing the American religious scene. Sponsored by The National Conference of Christians and Jews, the institute was designed to encourage the freest discussion of the relation of the diversities of American religious pluralism to public order.

Four major groups were represented at the institute: Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and exponents of secularism (these regarding themselves as exponents of “the Open Society”). Each of these appealed to its own understanding of the American Tradition.

Religious pluralism was accepted as a working basis for American religious expression, and “voluntaryism” (the principle that both church membership and church support rest upon the uncoerced choice of the individual) was agreed to be a primary quality of religious adherence in America. With this broad basis of agreement as a launching pad, the institute moved into the workshop stage.

Most participants were delighted that the honeymoon period of the conference was short and that highly charged issues were brought out into the open. Ground rules preclude quotation in the absence of the explicit permission of those speaking. It may be instructive, however, to note some of the “lines of fracture” which the sessions traced.

With respect to the bearing of religion upon American voting behavior, detailed studies indicate that religious loyalties exert a profound influence upon voting. This factor was consciously tested in the national elections of 1960. It seems that for several decades presidential elections will reckon heavily with the factor of the religious affiliation of the candidates. Participants in the discussions, of whatever religious faith, did not regard this as an unmixed blessing.

With reference to public policy concerning the issues of aid for Roman Catholic parochial schools, public programs for family limitation, and legislative strictures upon gambling and upon Sunday commerce, only the broadest type of consensus emerged. Roman Catholics saw neither public injustice in a policy of tax-support for their schools, nor any justification for opposition to such support. With respect to public support of programs for family planning, particularly among the indigent who may wish such assistance, Jewish and Protestant representatives felt that the interests of public prudence and proper social concern conjoin with responsible religious policy here, so that no application of the advances in medical science may be considered illicit in itself. Roman Catholic delegates opposed, upon the bases of Catholic dogma and Natural Law, any form of artificial family limitation, and any program by which institutions or agencies supported by public funds furnish such information, whether desired by the recipient or not.

The discussions of gambling and of Sunday closing were less animated. Both questions were explored ably, and the hidden factors in the public concern for them were exposed. They were discussed by men in public life who were directly subject to the conflicting pressures of public opinion at both of these points. The participants seemed willing to deal with these issues on a two-fold basis: partly upon pragmatic grounds, and partly in accordance with the legal requirements of the First Amendment.

The question of the relation of religious groups to political pressure came in for careful treatment. It was recognized on all hands that non-involvement is impossible here. The discussion revolved around the question of what form of involvement is legitimate and prudent. It emerged from the discussion that when religious group-pressures lead to a stylizing of slates of candidates (so as to include typically a Protestant, a Roman Catholic, and a Jew), then the quality of candidates stands to be lowered.

The question of the meaning and the broad implications of religious liberty occupied the last half of the institute. Presentations were made, as noted previously, by four groups: Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and secularists. The spokesmen for these “faiths” sought to present their cases in terms of contemporary theory and contemporary legislation, rather than in terms of some norm in the historical past. There was basic agreement at the point of what religious liberty means in terms of cultic practice. Problems and divergences appeared chiefly over situations in which religious faith leads men to a given course of action.

Involved here is a vast range of questions: religious instruction in the organs of general education, the observance of religious holidays, the use of religious formulae in public life, the maintenance of military chaplains, and so on. Opinions seemed to polarize around two centers: Roman Catholics and (perhaps to a less marked degree) Protestants were concerned to maintain a liberty for some type of public expression of religious faith, while Jews and secularists preferred a minimum of public expression and a broader range of personal discretion in such matters.

It is to be expected that the relationship of American law to our public policy would be subjected to careful analysis in such a discussion as this. The institute was favored by the presence of several men skilled in legal matters, so that the over-simplification to which exponents of religion are tempted was overcome. It was shown that some religious practices (e.g., polygamy in Utah) are regulated regardless of the First Amendment; that the legislative power is limited by the courts, even in cases in which the exercise of such power might avoid many nuisance-situations in religious practice; and that in some cases, religious freedom is spelled out by direct legislative action.

The net result of this discussion was that many issues formerly left dangling were brought into orderly perspective. This highlights the major contribution of this First National Institute on Religious Freedom and Public Affairs.

A final trend may be noted as emerging from the discussions. Clergymen, who made up a considerable share of the participants in the institute, were at times embarrassingly aware that in numerous situations, laymen and secularists have been more forthright in their advocacy of religious freedom and equality than have been those who might be expected to lead their people in such matters. The institute emphasized that it is not merely a question of clergy or laity, nor, within the context of the clergy, whether action should be priestly or prophetic. It was rather a question of the manner of the clergy’s implementing their responsibility by constructive and far-seeing participation in public affairs.

Jesus christ was concerned about persons with a variety of special needs, including the mentally ill (Matt. 4:23, 24). So was Paul. Commenting on 1 Thessalonians 5:14 (RSV), The Interpreter’s Bible suggests that which is basic to the Church’s ministry to the mentally ill: “To help was to attach oneself to, and to sustain, by giving one’s strength to support another.… Encouragement must be given to those who have lost their courage.” The lack of courage in the form of self-confidence is a common symptom of the mentally ill and the emotionally disturbed. A prominent European psychiatrist, Dr. André Liengme, claims that lack of self-confidence afflicts the mentally ill more than anything else.

According to Dr. Gerald I. Gingrich, Associate Secretary of the Division of Institutional Ministries of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, “more than thirty million Americans spend time in some institution each year.… No single group of people receives such inadequate ministry from the Church. True, some service is rendered by parish clergymen. The great responsibility, however, is with the institutional chaplains. But there are only 1200 full-time chaplaincy appointees to serve 24 million Protestants. This means one chaplain for every twenty thousand! Quite a parish for any minister! The standards of the American Psychiatric Association and the Association of Mental Hospital Chaplains call for a chaplain for every five hundred patients. The need for more qualified men and women is thus apparent and urgent, if these standards are to be met. However, specialized training—clinical training, beyond that required for the parish ministry—is necessary’ ” (“The Challenge of the Institutional Chaplaincy,” Concern, Jan.-Feb., 1962, pp. 4–5). Mrs. Fern Babcock Grant in Ministries of Mercy notes that “the contribution that churches make to the treatment of the mentally ill is in sharp contrast to that which they make to persons who are physically sick” (New York: Friendship Press, 1962, p. 91).

A number of recent events may be considered as aids to a more effective mission by the Church to the mentally ill. In 1961 the American Medical Association established a new Department of Medicine and Religion. Its head, Dr. Paul B. McCleave, a clergyman, says that its chief concern is “to provide better health care for ‘the whole man.’ ” The department will encourage closer relations between pastors and physician members of their churches to discuss health and spiritual programs and the preparation of articles and editorials for the medical and religious press. Establishment of the section on Psychiatry and Religion by the American Psychiatric Association and organization of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health have also facilitated access by the Church to the mentally ill. In addition, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association promote research in the area of religion.

Leaders in psychiatry, psychology, and theology seem to agree that healthy religion is ultimately an aid, not a hindrance, in the treatment of the mentally ill. There is new awareness, moreover, of the healing quality of interpersonal relationships rooted in love.

Specifically, the Church must help the mentally ill cope with their aloneness. The Christian community must eliminate antiquated notions of mental illness with attendant consequences of stigma, isolation, rejection, and fear.

Essential to an effective Christian ministry of witness to the mentally ill is the integration of sound psychological and psychiatric findings with our native rootedness in the Word of God. We would do well, however, to heed the caution spoken by Dr. Reuel L. Howe: “Christian theological thinking needs to beware of abdicating to the disciplines and authority of psychology. There is much that we can learn from the psychological sciences, and we need their contribution to our thought and practice. But we must remember that they have only begun to scratch the surface of the truth about man that is there to be uncovered, and that they subject what they have discovered to many confused and contradictory interpretations” (“The Psychological Sciences,” New Frontiers of Christianity, Ralph C. Raughley, Jr., Editor, New York: Association Press, 1962, p. 44).

The Church has various open avenues to a more effective ministry to the mentally ill. More clergymen need to enter the ministry of institutional chaplaincy. This requires a positive recruitment policy in which the institutional chaplain’s image within the church fellowship is not inferior to that of the parish minister. The Church ought to provide scholarships for clinical pastoral training of theological students and clergymen seeking to qualify as institutional chaplains. The Church should educate its constituency with accurate information on mental health and mental illness. The Church could break down barriers of ignorance, suspicion, fear, and isolation which prevent the mentally ill from receiving the healing ministry of the Church.

By careful research the Church discovers the inner dynamics of personal religion which promote mental health. By vocational guidance the Church can encourage youth to consider vocations needful of a Christian witness. The work of psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric social worker, and psychiatric nurse, as well as chaplain, all deals with troubled persons, and thus may be considered church-related. The Christian influence of therapists who deal with the inner core of human personality is paramount.

The Church should establish church-related hospitals which treat persons suffering from mental diseases and emotional disorders. In view of increasing recognition of the significance of healthy religion as a therapeutic agent, the Church should establish half-way houses and other counseling units for the convalescent in order to promote rehabilitation. Those churches which operate general hospitals can assist the mentally ill by establishing psychiatric wards for the treatment of the acutely emotionally disturbed. Churches which sponsor rest homes and nursing homes for the aged ought to improve their facilities so that they can more adequately care for the senile and arteriosclerotic among their aged.—Chaplain WILLIAM L. HIEMSTRA, Pine Rest Christian Hospital, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

TOGETHERNESS THAT LASTS—Families that fish together, stay together.—Congressman MIKE KIRWAN (Dem.-Ohio), in remarks in support of a bill authorizing a $10 million aquarium for the District of Columbia.

The Church: A New Basis Of Certainty?

The Church and the Reality of Christ, by John Knox (Harper & Row, 1962, 158 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by L. B. Smedes, Associate Professor of Bible, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

When you accept the conclusions of radical historical criticism, do you lose hold of the reality of Jesus Christ? Dr. John Knox thinks not, and tells us why in his latest book. One can know the objective reality of Christ, he argues, if he is willing to recognize the priority of the Church. His basic thesis is that the mighty act of God for man’s redemption, the salvation Event, is the bringing into being of the Church. This is the basis on which he attempts a reconstruction of the divine reality of Jesus Christ within the apparent vacuum left by a demythologized Gospel. It is a challenging, sometimes brilliant, but frustrated effort at a post-Bultmann revision.

The reality of Jesus is found, first of all, not in some isolated historical facts which are at best meagre, but in the memory that the Church has of Jesus. The reality of Jesus must be defined in terms of what is real for the Church, not in terms of what is real for the historian. What is real for the Church is its memory. Whether this memory coincides with historically verifiable facts is beside the point. The memory of a person, certainly of this Person, is far richer and more meaningful than mere facts about his birth, life, and death could possibly be. Not only is the memory all we have, it is all we need to have. Provided we are part of the agapic fellowship which shares this memory, we have in it the Jesus of the past.

But the memory of Jesus past arises and becomes powerful only as we share in the reality of Christ present. That is to say, we share the memory of Jesus only as we live in the reality of the Church. Dr. Knox’s thesis that the Church is prior to the memory and the affirmation of Jesus Christ works itself out to the thesis that the Church is Christ in the most literal sense possible. The incarnation, for example, is not something that happened to Jesus prior to the Church. It is the Church, for the Church is “the historical locus, the ‘embodiment’ of God’s saving action in the temporal order.” The Church remembers Jesus as a good man living among ordinary men; the Church knows the “Word become flesh” in its own existence. The atonement is not to be pinpointed on the calendar at one particular moment of the past. The atonement is the divine work of reconciliation that takes place in and through the Church. The Church remembers a man dying on a Roman cross; the Church becomes the atoning Event when it begins to exist as the community of reconciliation. The resurrection—the one event, according to Dr. Knox, without which the Church is inconceivable—is not to be identified with a corpse coming to life. The resurrection is the Church’s experience of the Spirit of God as the presence of Jesus in its midst. The Church remembers the indestructible personality of Jesus. The Church becomes the risen, living body of the Christ through its possession of the Spirit whom it identifies as the mysterious presence of Christ. In this way, then, the believer shares in the reality of Christ when he shares the spiritual reality of the Church.

The great miracle, then, is the creation of the Church. All that one has perhaps thought was necessarily real about Christ in His own unique right is sucked into the greater reality of the Church. Anything miraculous about Jesus is superfluous and irrelevant in the light of the far greater miracle of the rise of the Church as the saving Event in history. If anyone should suggest to the author that he tends to subjectivize the reality of Christ, the author would insist that his intent has been lamentably misunderstood. We need not question his intent to present an objectively real Christ. But what about his success?

Dr. Knox’s effort is fatally hurt by a nagging ambiguity. He consciously refuses to consider seriously the difference between the memory and affirmation of a past event and the occurrence of that past event. When he says that the Church remembers and affirms Jesus Christ only because the present reality of the Church exists, he is saying something to which we need not object. But the question is what did the Church affirm? Did not the Church affirm in all seriousness that an event took place prior to anyone’s believing it, prior to anyone’s experiencing it, and prior to anyone’s affirming it? Peter would not have proclaimed what he did, probably, had not the Spirit come into the midst of the company, but what he proclaimed had to do with something that really did happen on a particular Sunday to one particular Person, apart from and prior to Pentecost and the experience of the Spirit. Dr. Knox reminds us of something true when he says that the reality of Christ must not be isolated in one particular moment of history. But he is surely wrong when he asks us to understand that the Church itself, at its own creation, did not look backward to one particular event, as a sine qua non.

The important question that Knox lays on the table is so big that it needs an incalculably greater argumentation than is possible in a brief review. Indeed, it is probably the question that the next generation will still be busy with. But the entire enterprise must be gotten at, not in Dr. Knox’s way, on the basis of what is real about Christ after the critics have had their say, but by examining what the early Church itself, with its apostles, meant by proclaiming the Event of redemption in Christ. The author presents his argument in this book, as in his others, in a most able and disarmingly gracious manner. He also serves us with a reminder that we must include the wonder of the Church’s rise into existence in our consideration of the reality of Jesus Christ. But in the end, one must ask whether Dr. Knox’s major premise that the reality of the Church defines the reality of Christ is the premise made by the early Church itself when it proclaimed that Jesus Christ—not the Church—is the Word made flesh, that it is he who, risen on the third day, is Lord over the Church in his own concrete reality.

L. B. SMEDES

Justice And The Neighbor

The South and Christian Ethics, by James Sellers (Association, 1962, 190 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by T. B. Maston, Professor of Christian Ethics, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

The author of this book is the Southern-born, -reared, and -trained Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Theology at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. His book is not a study of Christian ethics in general but of race as the major ethical issue of the South. There are other ethical problems in the South, but the author suggests that more of an impact will be made if he concentrates on just one. One thing can be learned from the social gospel; it concentrated on one issue (the evils of an industrial society).

Professor Sellers suggests also that the social gospel was effective because of its close relation to the theological movement that spoke the language of its day and to the cultural situation of a particular area at a particular time. Similarly, if an ethic for the South is to speak effectively to the South, it must be related to the theological climate of the day and to the culture of its area with its distinctive problem. The author’s theological perspective is neoorthodox. He fails to recognize that traditional orthodoxy, still very prevalent in the South, speaks some language in common with neoorthodoxy, and is in general more acceptable than neoorthodoxy to the people of the South.

The main purpose of the book is to say something helpful about how men “of the next generation” may become better neighbors, how men on both sides—white and Negro—can learn “to treat each other as human beings” (p. 9). Professor Sellers suggests that so far the white people of the South have simply co-existed with the Negro; they have not lived with him, for that would mean recognizing his humanity. He believes that men cannot be real neighbors across the high fence of segregation, but the elimination of the fence will not automatically mean the achievement of meaningful neighborliness. The former is the work of justice, “but justice alone is never enough.” It is at most “a forerunner of neighborliness … a setting of outer conditions for the inner growth of charity” or love (p. 166). The Church’s chief concern is “more than objective justice; it is for fellowship” (p. 175). This should be the chief concern of the Church, not only after desegregation but also during the struggle to achieve it.

T. B. MASTON

Communism And Conduct

Communism: Its Faith and Fallacies, by James D. Bales (Baker, 1962, 214 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Lester DeKoster, Librarian, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mr. Bales, who is professor of Bible at Harding College, has written a generally sober and well-informed book which can be read with profit.

The author is at his best in dealing with the phenomenology of Communism, its dominant characteristics and results, and its impact on modern life. He points up the practical implications for the life of Everyman which are implied in the doctrines of the Marxists and embodied in the practice of Communist Russia and Communist China.

Probably his discussion of Marxist atheism—a subject upon which Professor Bales has written before—is the strongest theoretical section of the book. However, though atheism is, as the author says, fundamental to Marxism and constitutive of its whole orientation to man and to history, the disproportionate space allotted to its discussion in this volume produces some imbalance in the structure of the whole. This fact illustrates the want of an organic development in Mr. Bales’s treatment which leaves him generally confined to a treatment of successive phenomena of Communism.

Reading for Perspective

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

★ The Reformation: A Rediscovery of Grace, by William Childs Robinson (Eerdmans, $5). With an eye on ecumenical dreams of union with non-Reformed churches, the author uncovers the centralities of Reformation theology.

★ The New Delhi Report, edited by W. A. Visser ’t Hooft (Association, $6.50). Basic documents, discussions, decisions of the World Council of Churches’ meeting at New Delhi, with day-by-day account by S. McCrea Cavert.

★ The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, edited by Charles F. Pfeiffer and Everett F. Harrison (Moody, $11.95). Entirely new, one-volume, phrase-by-phrase exposition of the entire Bible by 49 American conservatives.

The reader will appreciate the scores of references to Communist and other literature, including useful quotations from Chinese Communist writers. It must be added, though, that in a semi-popular exposition like this one, the large number of footnotes may dismay the readers for whom the volume is chiefly intended; and the notes frequently tend to confuse an otherwise easily readable and usefully subdivided typography. Moreover, the reader will do well to discriminate, so far as he can, the gradations of authority represented by the extensive and varied sources employed.

In these days of flamboyant and irresponsible anti-Communism, it is refreshing to find so serious and thoughtful an attempt as Mr. Bales has made to deal constructively with the clash between Marxism and Christianity. That the author gives here more of his attention to Communism as conduct rather than as ideology is but an indication that he might want to shift that emphasis in a companion study. Until then, however, the reader who wishes even to begin to investigate the leads opened here by Mr. Bales’s wide reading will be usefully employed.

LESTER DEKOSTER

Windows On Churchmanship

Worship and Theology in England: From Newman to Martineau, 1850–1900, by Horton Davies (Princeton University Press, 1962, 404 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Philip E. Hughes, Editor, The Churchman, London, England.

Like its predecessor, which covered the period 1680–1850, this superbly produced volume is full of fascination and instruction, providing an engagingly portrayed perspective of churchmanship in its great variety of forms—Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, Roman Catholic, Non-conformist, Unitarian—as manifested in England during the Victorian era. The trends of ecclesiastical architecture, particularly the theologically significant abandonment of the Grecian for the neo-Gothic style, are described and illustrated. The age was one of outstanding personalities—such men as Newman, Dale, Spurgeon, and Robertson, whose preaching is carefully analyzed and assessed with respect to style as well as content, and, not least, Edward Irving, the wayward one-time assistant to Thomas Chalmers and one of the founders of the Catholic Apostolic Church (the adherents of which were also known as “Irvingites”).

Of course a book of this nature is necessarily selective, which means that it would not be difficult for different persons to complain of gaps and deficiencies according to their particular predilections. There are certain places, however, where the author’s qualities of discernment seem to fail him. He shows, for instance, an inadequate understanding of the truly Reformed nature of the worship of the Book of Common Prayer; and Congregationalist though he is, he evinces a surprisingly uncritical admiration for the worship of Roman Catholicism. There is also a tendency to repetitiousness: for example, the epigrammatic but not original inversion “the holiness of beauty” crops up three times; a story told on page 229 is rehashed on page 289; the Gorham case is explained twice, on pages 116 and 202; and a saying of Forsyth’s given on page 83 is repeated on pages 203 f. Repetitions are not crimes, only irritations, but they should have been noticed and removed at least at the proofreading stage. It should be pointed out, incidentally, that the mixing of water with the wine at Communion is not “intinction” (p. 125).

This, however, is a book to please and inform all who respond to a cultured mind and have a feeling for the pattern of history.

PHILIP E. HUGHES

Rediscovery Of Love

On the Love of God, by John McIntyre (Harper, 1962, 255 pp., $4), is reviewed by James Daane, Editorial Associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The word “love” has been debased in modern usage. For the serial-story writer, love is a sickly saccharin; for the realistic novel writer who has forgotten “that the function of the Id is to remain hid,” love means behavior unseemly even in a bedroom. For some psychologists it is merely a glandular-induced physical disturbance, while for some theologians love is merely one of many characteristics attributable to God.

In view of the popular debasement of the word, how shall the Church effectively communicate that love of God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ which, says McIntyre, is the sum and substance of the Gospel? How shall the preacher of Christ convey the truth that “in love we were created; by love we were redeemed; through love will we be ultimately sanctified”?

The answer, asserts McIntyre, is to free the term of its modern encrustations and spell out the meaning of divine love anew. He himself does so in terms of God’s concern, commitment, communication, community, involvement, and identification. Wearing his learning lightly and moving with ease in critical appraisal of various theological positions, McIntyre defines God’s love by each of these terms, shows how each term leads on to the next and how the whole series has its fulfillment and actualization in God’s redemptive love in Jesus Christ.

He then begins at the end of the series and, moving toward the beginning, spells out the nature of the Christian’s response and responsibility to God’s love in Christ. Here too he shows, in reverse order, that each term involves the succeeding one and that all of them taken together spell out the meaning of man’s love for the God who first loved him.

Let none think this nothing but a contrived, pat little scheme. The author’s treatment has the body of theological substance, the warmth of a personal confession of faith; it is studded with relevant applications to modern personal and social problems, and freighted with ideas that beg to become sermons. The book issues from a consciously possessed theological position and perspective. It will help the minister and the student who have only fragments of unrelated theological commitments to achieve a consciously held theological standpoint of their own, and thus enable them to preach out of a definitive theological commitment.

No reader will agree with everything McIntyre asserts, but none will go away empty handed. My only real criticism of his treatment as a whole is that he is all but silent on the consequences that follow upon a man’s rejection of God’s love. This is a deficiency in a treatment of the love of God by an author acutely aware that divine love can so easily be reduced to a divine sentimentality that knows nothing of the “wrath of the Lamb.”

This is one of the finest up-to-date treatments of the love of God.

JAMES DAANE

One Last Word

Christian Devotion, by John Baille (Scribner’s, 1962, 119 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by David A. Redding, Minister, Glendale Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.

One might expect Christian Devotion to be the bottom of Baille’s barrel, scraped together by the publisher to squeeze the last penny from the fans of the famous author of A Diary of Private Prayer. Surprisingly, this little volume of sermons shows Baille at his best. Bonus: the book is introduced by a charming and intimate little biography.

I heard John Baille speak shortly after I left seminary, and I was completely disarmed. That inspiration sent me immediately to the bookstore to get everything else he had written. Our Knowledge of God, The Belief in Progress, What is Christian Civilization, And The Life Everlasting still stand on my shelf as a landmark in my Christian upbringing. I know that for many the name Baille means Donald, John’s brother. I do not wish to deny Donald the distinction he has won, but while reading Christian Devotion I was struck once again with John Baille’s extraordinary insight into the modern temper, and the pains he took, and the great mind he had to make the Gospel so gentle and yet so gripping. His cousin sheds some light on this by saying, “He was an adoring father, but even against small Ian his study door was locked from nine to one each day.” But Baille was broad as he was deep, ecumenicist as well as Scots student. As Hugh Montefiore wrote about Donald, he “was not just a Presbyterian Divine: Like all the Saints he belongs to the whole Church of God.”

DAVID A. REDDING

The Generating Situation

The Birth of the New Testament, by C. F. D. Moule (Harper and Row, 1962, 252 pp., $5.00), is reviewed by Robert C. Stone, Professor of Classical Languages, North Park College, Chicago, Illinois.

The publishers have designed this volume “as a general introduction to Harper’s New Testament Commentaries,” and it admirably fulfills this function. Departing from the usual format of the “introduction,” the writer seeks to explain the content of the New Testament in relation to the needs of the early Church, both internally and externally. The result is a very readable account which will appeal to scholar and layman alike.

Moule adopts the general standpoint of “form criticism” in that “it is to the circumstances and needs of the worshipping, working, suffering community that one must look if one is to explain the genesis of Christian literature.” He is careful to point out, however, that he discards or qualifies many of the assumptions that usually go with it. He makes it very clear that the guidance of God was operative in the production of the material itself and in the process by which it was collected into Christian scriptures. He insists on the “primacy of the divine initiative.” Throughout the book there appears a reverent regard for the Word of God.

Readers at one extreme of the theological spectrum will no doubt feel that Moule has conceded too much to the divine initiative. Readers at the other extreme will insist that he makes the New Testament too much a human product. In reality the broad thesis of the book can certainly be fitted into the framework of a conviction that the New Testament is an inspired book, the very Word of God, and at the same time serve as a corrective to the view held at least tacitly by some, that in some mysterious way the documents of the New Testament appeared ex nihilo and almost in vacuo. It gives the impression that here were real people with real problems which they confronted with humble dependence on God’s Spirit. The fact that there are concessions throughout the volume to the liberal point of view does not destroy the value of the book in this respect.

Of special interest are chapters IX and X, dealing respectively with “Variety and Uniformity in the Church” and “Collecting and Sifting the Documents.” The former impresses the reader with the extraordinary unity of the Church in spite of the real differences of doctrinal emphasis and practice encountered in the various communities. The latter is a succinct account of the problem of the Canon which the serious student of the New Testament will appreciate.

For those who wish to probe more deeply into some of the more technical problems involved in the subject, there are four excellent excursuses at the end of the book.

ROBERT C. STONE

For Greater Discussion

Ethics and Business, by William A. Spurrier (Scribner’s, 1962, 179 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Sherwood E. Wirt, Co-editor, Decision.

As the author of Power for Action Spurrier made a contribution to Christian ethics from the neoorthodox perspective. In this latest book he invades a field most ministers avoid like the plague: the business world. It is a work designed for easy reading by laymen, and is structured as a series of letters to merchants and businessmen on such problems as price decisions, public relations, labor-management, advertising, and production goals.

The book—certain to stimulate animated discussion—raises two serious questions to this reviewer.

First, I am disturbed by a feeling of insecurity that pervades the work. The author determines to be realistic, but in doing so gives away much of the ground he stands on. When he speaks about the Church, he prefaces it by saying, “Let me begin by acknowledging all the weaknesses of the Church.… For every weakness the outsider can mention, we who are on the inside can name ten more.” Not a very businesslike approach! What about the Church’s strength? One yearns here for a sharp, clear denunciation of the evils of commerce in the tradition of Amos, and in the name of the Lord. Again, we are told that a Christian is not permitted the luxury of an easy conscience. In that case the New Testament would never have been written. Jesus Christ either frees a man from sin and guilt or he does not. I say he does, and that he even saves us from our ambiguities.

My second concern is harder to express, since I also am a clergyman. I have a feeling that the Christian printers, paper salesmen, and other businessmen whom I meet daily would find some of these pages naïve in spite of the well-rounded discussions of moral and ethical problems in the mercantile world. They do not agonize hourly over the question, “Am I doing the right thing?” They are men whose integrity is based on personal behavior, whether in business or out of it. To them a dirty deal is a dirty deal—and they shun it accordingly. But “Am I giving my customer what he wants? Am I doing the best job I can for him?”—these are relevant questions of business ethics they ask themselves every day.

For them the business world is not a playground or a Sunday school; it is a rough and brutal field in which anything can happen. The way to bring moral principles to bear on it, they would say, is to get people of common interests to draw up their own self-enforced codes and rules. Ministerial advice is gratuitous, church pronouncements by and large superfluous; but Christian laymen, indoctrinated in the Bible, can and should establish ethical principles to cover the whole business field, and make them work.

If this book stimulates discussion to that end it will have served a useful purpose.

SHERWOOD E. WIRT

Barth In The Balances

Christianity and Barthianism, by Cornelius Van Til (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962, 450 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, Editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Dr. Van Til remains as implacable a foe as ever of the theology of Karl Barth. The judgment Van Til pronounced against the theology of crisis in his earlier The New Modernism is in fact reinforced and deepened in this latest work. For, says Van Til in Christianity and Barthianism, the Barthian theology is simply “a higher humanism,” or “a man-made religion … using the language of Reformation theology” (p. 446). Barth’s modifications of his position are considered quite inconsequential.

Now if one wishes—as Dr. Van Til apparently does—to take liberties with the definition of humanism (so as to include some advocates of supernaturalism, special revelation and redemption, and a unique divine incarnation in Christ), that is perhaps his prerogative. But those who have switched theological sympathies to Barthianism (whatever its serious defects) seem to us rather to be in revolt against humanism and liberalism (in the generally understood sense of those terms)—although they are not on the basis of such revolt entitled to capture and appropriate the term “evangelical theology.”

Doubtless intentionally, the title of Van Til’s book recalls the earlier work by J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism—which seems to us superior for its orderly and logical demolition of the liberal viewpoint. Van Til’s work, on the other hand, is difficult reading, in part because the sustained commentary approach sometimes obscures for the moment just who is speaking. The appraisal tends still to read Barth in terms of the consistent outcome of his presuppositions even where Barth vulnerably prefers inconsistency.

Yet the fact remains that Van Til strikes hard against vulnerable and non-evangelical elements in Barth’s dogmatics—his refusal to identify any history, and the Scriptures, and Jesus Christ, directly with revelation; his dismissal of divine wrath as a mode of grace; his espousal of a doctrine of grace that implies universalism (his notion that Jesus Christ is the only elect man and that all men are elect in him); his ambiguous connection of Christ’s revelation and history.

Van Til concedes that “no more basic criticism of Barth’s theology can be made” than G. C. Berkouwer’s, that it permits “no transition from wrath to grace in history” (p. 113). One of the most useful sections of Van Til’s study is the survey of criticisms of Barth’s views made by a number of Reformed theologians—G. C. Berkouwer, Klaas Runia, Klaas Schilder, A. D. R. Polman, among them—and by several Christian philosophers. A good subject index would enhance the value of the work.

Van Til’s basic complaint is that Barth’s theology is “dialectical rather than biblical in character” and hence is “essentially a speculative theology” (p. 203). Its informing principles are therefore apostate, and it is more deeply speculative than Romanism (p. 239).

The work skips lightly (pp. 341–43) over what in this reviewer’s opinion must remain a basic issue in assessing Barth: whether Barth’s claim that faith seeks understanding—that is, genuine knowledge of the Religious Object—is worked out by Barth so as to assure knowledge that is universally valid apart from subjective decision. Van Til is sure Barth does not succeed, but Barth’s argument (particularly its professed larger scope for reason) needs to be dismantled (and it can be).

Hence one must at least share Van Til’s conviction that Barth’s announced intention of “achieving an evangelical theology which can stand worthily against Roman Catholicism which I hold to be the great heresy” (in Theologische Blätter, 1932) remains unfulfilled. One may be forgiven, however, for refusing to say with Van Til that “in the last analysis, one must take his idea of revelation in Christ from Scripture as the direct expression of that revelation or one has to project his Christ from his own self-sufficient self-consciousness” (p. 135). It is just possible—and, in fact, is often the case in theological development—that powerful thinkers blend the two motifs. Even if men thereby sacrifice an objective, authoritative theology, the surviving biblical elements in their thought should be recognized for what they are, and should be welcomed and reinforced in the light of scriptural truth.

CARL F. H. HENRY

Paul In Context

St. Paul and His Letters, by Frank W. Beare (Abingdon, 1962, 142 pages, $2.75), is reviewed by E. Earle Ellis, Visiting Professor of New Testament, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

This publication is an elaboration of radio talks given in Canada in the spring of 1961. It summarizes each of the letters, giving a sympathetic portrayal of the apostle’s battles, burdens, and joys, with appropriate quotations of the most significant passages. Readable throughout, it is not infrequently enlivened by a sparkling comment: “An exaggerated asceticism may impress people as a superior piety, but it is really an inverted worldliness” (p. 107).

The critical tone of the book is reminiscent of the old Chicago school. Ephesians and the Pastorals are omitted as non-Pauline, and the former is (cautiously) suggested to be a later introduction to the Pauline collection. On the other hand, Acts is used as a frame for Paul’s life, and the traditional Roman dateline for the prison letters is accepted. The author takes a developmental view of Paul’s eschatology in which the resurrection of the body at length loses its relevance (P. 84).

The book is strongest in making Paul’s letters live within their historical setting. It is here that the general reader, for whom the book is intended, will find the comment most helpful. Negatively, one could wish that Professor Beare had made his readers more aware of critical conclusions differing from his own. (The Pastorals and especially Ephesians have better Pauline title than his cursory dismissal of them would suggest. Nor is an emerging Platonism the most likely understanding of Paul’s eschatology.) But this is a liability under which all popular presentations must labor, and Professor Beare has labored better than most.

E. EARLE ELLIS

Critical And Devotional

Song of the Vineyard, by B. Davie Napier (Harper, 1962, 387 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by David A. Hubbard, Chairman, Division of Biblical Studies and Philosophy, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

In this “Theological Introduction to the Old Testament” Professor Napier (Yale Divinity School) surveys the writings under four headings: (1) Creation: Order Out of Chaos (the Pentateuch and Jonah); (2) Rebellion: Chaos Out of Order (Judges—II Kings); (3) Positive Judgment (the pre-Exilic prophets); (4) Existence: The Meaning of Yahwism (post-Exilic prophets and wisdom writings).

In a vigorous and graphic literary style that at times borders on the racy, the author expounds the theological ideas of the biblical writers against their historical backgrounds. He packs a great deal of helpful insight into his pages because he assumes his reader has read the relevant passages. His handling of the Old Testament is both critical (e.g. Esther is Maccabean) and devotional. If at times he does not put sufficient emphasis on the historicity of the biblical accounts, at least he reminds us that they are seen through the eyes of faith—they are a record not only of what happened but of devout men’s interpretation of these happenings. Though conservatives will take exception to many statements, few books will give a more gripping presentation of the teachings of the Old Testament and the trail they blaze for the New.

DAVID A. HUBBARD

Book Briefs

Printer’s Devil from Wittenberg, by T. J. Kleinhans (Augsburg, 1962, 207 pp., $3.95). A novel for teen-agers; the story of a young man caught up in the religious struggle of Luther’s Wittenberg.

To Know Christ Jesus, by F. J. Sheed (Sheed & Ward, 1962, 377 pp., $5). A running presentation of the life of Christ by a Roman Catholic “for the great mass of people … who … barely know him.”

Papyrus Bodmer XVIII (Deuteronomy I–X, 7), edited by Rodolphe Kasser (Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland, 1962, 228 pp. and 49 plates, 65 Swiss francs). Part of the most important manuscript discovery of the century.

The Epistles of John, by Lehman Strauss (Loizeaux Brothers, 1962, 188 pp., $3). Competent devotional studies. He who can read can understand.

The Sacrament of Penance, by Paul Anciaux (Sheed & Ward, 1962, 190 pp., $3.50). For those who desire to understand the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance. First published in French.

The Shape of the Past, by John Warwick Montgomery (Edwards Brothers, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1962, 382 pp., $5). An introduction to philosophical historiography in which the author seeks to present a view of history from the Christian perspective. First of a projected five-volume series.

These, Too, Were Unshackled!, by Faith Coxe Bailey (Zondervan, 1962, 127 pp., $1.95). Fifteen dramatic stories of men and women freed by the power of the Gospel in the Pacific Garden Mission. Adapted from the radio scripts of “Unshackled.”

The Lady General, by Charles Ludwig (Baker, 1962, 93 pp., $1.50). A story of Evangeline Booth of Salvation Army fame; written for children.

I Believe in the American Way, by James H. Jauncey (Zondervan, 1962, 128 pp., $1.95). An American minister, Australian born, declares his happy faith in the land of Old Glory.

Flesh and Spirit, by William Barclay (Abingdon, 1962, 127 pp., $2). An examination of the fruits of the spirit and those of the flesh in terms of the Greek word for each. Detailed, substantial study of Galatians 5:19–23.

A History of Christianity, Volume I, edited by Ray C. Petry (Prentice-Hall, 1962, 561 pp., $8.50). Readings in the history of the early and medieval Church; first in a two-volume endeavor.

Luther: Early Theological Works, Volume XVI of The Library of Christian Classics, edited by James Atkinson (Westminster, 1962, 400 pp., $6.50). In addition to Luther’s commentary on Hebrews, the book includes also his “The Disputation Against Scholastic Theology,” “The Heidelberg Disputation,” and “The Reply to Latomus.”

Fundamentals of Voluntary Health Care, edited by George B. de Huszar (Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1962, 457 pp., $6). Physicians and others present a symposium critical of compulsory health care and positive about the methods and contributions of voluntary health care.

Essential Christianity, by Walter R. Martin (Zondervan, 1962, 114 pp., $1.95). A handbook of basic Christian doctrines; brief, readable treatments.

Prayer, by Olive Wyon (Muhlenberg, 1962, 68 pp., $1). Brief, refreshing, highly readable essays on the practice and value of prayer.

Philippians (New Testament Commentary), by William Hendriksen (Baker, 1962, 218 pp., $5.95). A good evangelical commentary which just misses excellence through occasional muffling of exegesis by theological commitments.

Who Was Who in Church History, by Elgin S. Moyer (Moody, 1962, 452 pp., $5.95). Approximately 1,750 entries about people who played a role in the history of the Church. Especially good for those wanting bits of biographical information.

The Gifts of Christmas, by Rachel Hartman (Channel, 1962, 125 pp., $2). Lyrical and joyful ways and means of celebrating Christmas this year.

Paperbacks

Sermons of the Great Ejection, Introduction by Iain Murray (Banner of Truth Trust, 1962, 220 pp., 3s. 6d.). Two thousand ministers of the Church of England were driven from their livings in 1662 for conscience’s sake. A good introduction to Puritan character and thought.

Reinhold Niebuhr, essays in tribute by Paul Tillich, John C. Bennett, and Hans J. Morgenthau (Seabury, 1962, 126 pp., $2). Brief papers, questions, and discussions on the thought of R. Niebuhr by friends gathered in his honor. A candid close-up of the men and the issues.

1001 Sentences Sermons, by Croft M. Pentz (Zondervan, 1962, 61 pp., $1). Modern proverbs for fillers. Scarcely “sermons”; some will fill space but little else. Sample: “Easy street is a blind alley.”

Seeds in the Wind, by Frank S. Cook (World Radio Missionary Fellowship, Box 691, Miami, Fla., 1961, 187 pp., $1). The story of the radio Voice of the Andes and its 30 years of mission effort.

The Mastery of Sex, by Leslie D. Weatherhead (Abingdon, 1962, 192 pp., $1). A sane, candid, comprehensive discussion of the direction and control of sexuality. First printed in 1959.

The Problem of Pain, by C. S. Lewis (Macmillan, 1962, 160 pp., $.95). An examination of human pain by the well-known writer of popular theology. First printed in 1940.

The Suburban Captivity of the Churches, by Gibson Winter (Macmillan, 1962, 255 pp., $1.45). An analysis of Protestantism’s severance from and responsibility to the expanding, sprawling metropolis.

Letters and Papers from Prison, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Macmillan, 1962, 254 pp., $1.45). Smuggled from prison, these last works throw a candid light on the person and thought of a disturbing theological mind. First printed in 1953.

A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology, by William Hordern (Macmillan, 1962, 222 pp., $1.45). A lucid introduction to the developments which led to modern-day theology. First printed in 1955.

The Ethics of Paul, by Morton Scott Enslin (Abingdon, 1962, 335 pp., $2.25). An analysis of Paul’s ethics which seeks to answer the question of his debt to Judaism, Stoicism, and Oriental mysteries. First printed over 30 years ago.

Christmas: An American Annual of Christmas Literature and Art, Volume 32, edited by Randolph E. Haugan (Augsburg, 1962, 68 pp., $3.50). An artistic production with stories, poetry, music, and art from home and abroad. A nice Christmas gift.

How To Organize Your Church Library, by Alice Straughan (Revell, 1962, 64 pp., $1). Just what the title claims.

CHRIST ON THE MOUNTAIN—Sculptor Lincoln Borglum says his 175-foot statue of Christ will be the largest ever built by man. It will rest atop Spearfish Mountain, South Dakota, and may be completed in two or three years if sufficient funds become available. Idea for the mountain-top monument was conceived by the late U. S. Senator Francis Case, son of a Methodist minister.

PROTESTANT PANORAMA—Methodist observance of 1963 as “Aldersgate Year” will begin with watch night services and round-the-clock prayer vigils on New Year’s Day. Church officials urge “special emphasis on Christian experience and evangelism” and a “soul-searching study” of Romans for each Methodist congregation.

Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Schleswig-Holstein became the second member body to dissociate itself from the World Council of Churches’ statement on the Cuban crisis, charging that the statement was biased. Earlier, the American Lutheran Church disowned the statement which voiced “grave concern and regret” over the U. S. blockade of Cuba. At still another synod meeting in Hanover Bishop Hanns Lilje, a member of the WCC Central Committee, said that the majority of the churches of the West could not support the WCC statement because it was only as the result of “the firm attitude of the USA” in the Cuba conflict that war had been averted.

Latest timetable for union negotiations between New Zealand’s Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Associated Churches of Christ calls for members of the local churches to vote on the merger plan in 1965.

Church attendance gains were reported by the superintendent of Southern Baptist missionary work in Cuba, Herbert Caudill, in a statement read at a home mission board meeting in Atlanta.

Church of the Nazarene claims two construction firsts during 1962: a $100,000 church at Nazareth, first Protestant church to be built in the reconstituted state of Israel, and another in Brasilia, the first to be dedicated in the new inland capital of Brazil.

Should legal penalties be incurred by women who undergo abortions for pregnancies induced by rape? No, said a statement issued last month by the Association of Protestant Women in the Rhineland, Germany. The declaration said that “it must be left to the free personal decision of the woman concerned whether she wishes to complete a pregnancy forced upon her against her will.”

Disciples of Christ dedicated $2,000,000 addition to their St. Louis publishing house.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION—A program to broaden Methodist work among college students and faculty members was introduced at the biennial meeting of the Association of Wesley Foundations in Nashville. The meeting marked the 50th anniversary of the first Wesley Foundation organized at the University of Illinois.

The Church Federation of Greater Chicago is studying a plan to create a mass communications center designed to train seminary students for broadcast ministries. The proposal would also establish religious radio and television stations for Chicago and a program syndication center.

Taylor University trustees will seek to affiliate the school with the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Church.

MISCELLANY—An angry mob destroyed a Protestant chapel under construction at Colorado, in the Colombian province of Bolivar. Missionary News Service reported that the mob also descended upon the manse and forced the national pastor to flee. The chapel is related to the Inter-American Mission, the Latin American branch of the Oriental Missionary Society.

The Second Assembly of the East Asia Christian Conference has beeen scheduled for February 26-March 5, 1964.

California’s ban against the use of peyote, a drug producing hallucinations taken by some Indians during religious ceremonies, was upheld in a ruling by San Bernardino court. Three Navajos were found guilty of violating the California Narcotics Law for participating in a peyote ceremony. They were given a suspended sentence of two to ten years and placed on probation for two years. An appeal is expected.

A total of 700,000 copies of the Gospel of John have been sent to Cuba within the last two years by World Gospel Crusades. The demand for the Scriptures reportedly remains greater than the supply.

American Friends Service Committee is launching a two-year study of non-violent action and its application to international conflicts. The Rev. James E. Bristol, a Lutheran, will conduct the study. About $15,000 has been appropriated.

PERSONALIA—Dr. Martin Cole elected president of Texas Lutheran College.

Dr. Donald Willard Cole named dean of students and associate professor of counseling and psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Dr. Henry Endress resigned as stewardship director of the Lutheran Church in America to be vice president of Waterloo (Ontario) Lutheran University.

Publication of Young Life, a monthly circulated by the Christian youth organization of the same name, was temporarily suspended following resignation of editor Joan Weathers.

Reserve Officers Association will bestow its annual “Chaplain of the Year” award for 1963 on Army Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) Maurice S. Kleinberg, Jewish. He is cited for “outstanding leadership, efficiency, and professional skill.”

Governor-elect George Romney of Michigan is relinquishing duties as president of the Detroit Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). He said there was no conflict of interest but that he would find it “difficult and impractical” to continue his Detroit work from the state capital at Lansing.

Moma Markovic, a Yugoslav government official and Communist party member, named president of the federal Commission for Religious Affairs, an agency which mediates church-state problems. Markovic will replace Dobrivoje Rabosaljevic, who has held the post for more than 12 years. No reason was given for the change.

Paul A. Hopkins, former secretary of the Evangelical Foundation, Inc., of Philadelphia, elected secretary for Africa by the American Bible Society.

WORTH QUOTING—“We need a reinstatement of the possibilities of single-blessedness, a climate of opinion where dedication to the single life, whether religious or secular, can be protected and given honors.”—Dr. Gwenyth Hubble, World Council of Churches executive.

“The King James Version is still the most glorious collection of good strong English there is.”—Dr. Rudolf Flesch, readability expert, in How To Be Brief.

“Queen Wilhelmina’s death is a great loss to not only the citizens of her own country but to the world. She was truly a great leader and a noble woman.”—U. S. Senator Frank Carlson, president of the International Council for Christian Leadership (the late queen was honorary president of ICCL).

Deaths

DR. JOHANNES SANDEGREN, 78, leading Swedish missionary figure and retired Lutheran bishop of Tranquebar, India; in Uppsala, Sweden.

DR. FRANCIS CARR STIFLER, 78, retired editor for American Bible Society; in Summit, New Jersey.

DR. CLIFTON E. OLMSTEAD, 36, chairman of Department of Religion, George Washington University, and author of History of Religion in the United States; in Washington, D.C.

BERNICE LIND, 37, missionary to Brazil, fatally injured in crash of single-engine plane at Juazeiro do Norte. Also killed were four-year-old son and three-month-old daughter of the Rev. and Mrs. Harold Reiner. All served under Baptist Mid-Missions.

Christian history may single out 1962 as the year in which the alarm was sounded.

It was the year in which concern over lack of virility in the Church broke into the secular press.

In a lead article in the September Reader’s Digest Dr. Norman Vincent Peale charged that “Protestantism is losing ground” in spiritual effectiveness.

Peale cited a Gallup poll which showed church attendance on the wane and which reported that the number of people who feel that religious influence is declining had more than doubled in the past five years.

In November, the Saturday Evening Post carried a provocative article by an anonymous writer who said he quit the ministry because of frustrations encountered in dealing with the laity of the church he pastored. A sub-heading asserted that there is an acute shortage of clergymen.

Look magazine, at about the same time, also reported that the shortage of clergymen is critical and that recruits are scarce.

Nine leading Protestant officials¹Dr. Theodore F. Adams, Dr. Edwin H. Dahlderg, Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, Dr. Ben Mohr Herbster, Dr. James A. Jones, the Rt. Rev. Arthur Lichtenberger, Bishop John Wesley Lord, Dr. Theophilus M. Taylor, and Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen. subsequently issued a joint statement disputing the seriousness of the problem of ministerial retention. They declared that there is “no evidence whatever of unprecedented resignations from the Protestant ministry.”

A few days later the Massachusetts Council of Churches got into the controversy with a startling report based on a poll conducted among 1,620 clergymen in the state. The poll indicated, said a council news release, that “nearly one out of every two Protestant ministers in the state may be retiring soon from the pastoral ministry.”

Public Relations Director James L. Hofford hastily cautioned against any “misinterpretation” of the findings: “We sincerely request that the keyline for any of this copy used not state that nearly one out of two ministers in Massachusetts will soon quit the ministry itself. Our information only indicates that nearly one out of every two will soon leave the pastoral ministry … i. e., positions as local church pastors … and in all probability, the majority of those resigning will be taking positions in some other phase of the ministry or actually retiring.”

Doubtless many more similar polls will be taken in coming weeks and months as church leaders face up to major anxieties. Interest of the mass media reflects a growing secular sense that something is amiss, even though reporters and writers may be statistically wrong. A broad look at the religious scene in America indeed indicates that institutionally the Church may be losing ground. Back of generalized apprehensions is a long list of deficiencies which are taking their toll.

Among the most subtle obstacles to the advance of the Gospel is Christendom’s increasing preoccupation with ecumenicity and church-state problems. This preoccupation becomes so intense at times as to be a decoy. Even legitimate concerns become illegitimate when they wrest priority from proclamation of the Word. Inclusivists channel all available forces into promotion of political pronouncements. The far-right with its intense hatred of Communism and Communists does battle not simply for the sake of battle, but to combat left-wing aggression.

NEWS / A fortnightly report of developments in religion

THE VOICES OF CONCERN

A troubled clergy aired assorted concerns at a quickening pace during the last few weeks.

The most dramatic expression of anxiety came from Finland, where the distinguished theologian Osmo Tiililä broke with the national Lutheran church in protest against modern trends which he says are leading the church away from its central purpose.

The 58-year-old Tiililä, professor of systematic theology at the University of Helsinki, resigned from the ordained ministry of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church more than a year ago. This fall he gave up all church committee posts.

His decision, he said, had been brought to a head by the treatment given by the church press to an evangelistic rally in Helsinki last month. Tiililä, speaker at the rally, criticized new methods of church work aimed at reaching and understanding modern man without primarily seeking his conversion from sin. He said he wanted to stress that “the greatest danger to the church is the neglect of the message of eternal life.”

In the United States, the noted Quaker scholar Dr. Elton Trueblood observed that “the scoffing outside world does not object to our cozy Sunday meetings, because they are quite sure these won’t make any difference in politics or business or society. They’ll let us alone as long as we stay in our little organizations, and bother nobody.”

Trueblood, in an address to the Men’s Convention of the Reformed Church in America, declared:

“Jesus Christ did not come to this world just to build an organization, just to hold meetings and raise budgets. He came to build a hard core of committed men in a labor force.”

Dr. Elwyn Allen Smith, professor of church history at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said church people, not Supreme Court decisions, are dulling the impact of religion.

“If there is secularism in this country,” Smith declared at a seminar in Niagara Falls, New York, “it is because of what is happening inside our churches.”

Evangelicals in particular were served a mild rebuke by the departing pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, Dr. Alan Redpath.

Redpath, who is returning to the pastoral ministry in his native Great Britain after ten years in the United States, said that “failure to preach the entire message, which includes not only forgiveness of sins but deliverance from the power of the sin principle, has produced a generation of independent evangelical Christians who simply have not progressed with God.”

Redpath’s remarks, which appeared in the Sunday School Times, charged that “the separatist movement has become involved in a Phariseeism in its fellowship which I believe is grieving to the Holy Spirit.”

The vivid irony of current church problems is that religious leaders are aware of them all too well. Often they speak in generalized self-criticism. But when adverse particulars are cited, particularly in cases touching upon narrow loyalties, churchmen abruptly shift to the defensive and repudiate analyses which set their own groups in a bad light.

Evangelicals can still lay claim to the largest area of interdenominational theological agreement (see statement by British evangelicals on the nature of the Church, page 34) and the broadest representation of any world view found in non-Catholic Christendom. Yet evangelicals overlook their spiritual unity in bickerings and disputings which often are mere misunderstandings. Friction saps their combined strength.

Notwithstanding the theological unity which does exist, the evangelical community is being confronted increasingly with the problem of what to do with school faculty personnel who no longer insist upon the inerrancy of the Scriptures but a more liberal view.

In trying to reach the uncommitted world, Christians can trace their ineffectiveness largely to forefeiture of cultural impact, including the mass media void. Observers are hard pressed to pinpoint any creative Christian literary work, movie, painting, or telecast which has had general popular appeal. C. S. Lewis is an outstanding exception, but his latest works have not counted as much. Christians by and large are talking to themselves. Even Barth, Brunner, and Tillich register their views more on those within the Christian community than on the outsiders.

The Madison Avenue publishing house of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, however, spoke of a “resurgence of theological power in biblical Christianity” in America in its decision to publish in book form the Basic Christian Doctrines from CHRISTIANITY TODAY as one of its two year-end religious volumes (the other: a compilation of Barth’s American lectures).

To cite another principle needing attention, the field of Christian social concerns is punctuated by tremendous gaps. Even liberals, who take pride in their brotherhood programs, have all but neglected the role of moral responsibility in traffic safety. Christians seem wholly unconcerned that as many as 100 Americans die on the highways daily; yet careless, inconsiderate Christians must share the blame.

The link between smoking and cancer is another major concern overlooked by the churches. President Benjamin Browne of the American Baptist Convention this month called on Christians to rally to the support of Leroy Collins, an Episcopal layman who was in danger of losing his job as president of the National Association of Broadcasters because he dared to urge restrictions in tobacco advertising. Browne said that “it is rather humiliating to have a layman speak out on the safeguarding of the health of young people at a point where the church has remained silent.”

Perhaps as a revolt against the ineffectiveness of the Church and its preoccupation with secondary issues, there seems to be a rising anticlericalism. Among the laity, in turn, is found an ever-widening range of committal. Thousands of regular churchgoers remain spiritual illiterates. Others are outpacing the clergy in education and even in spiritual insight. Most are somewhere in between, including some who are so intensely groping for spiritual truth that the charismata are taking on dramatic new appeal.

Modern life with its bent toward materialism and comfortable luxury is giving rise to new problems for the local church. The outsider becomes more difficult to reach as he takes to the high-rise apartments, sealed from church visitation efforts. Lay responsibility in local congregations is evaded by weekend wanderers—the growing tribe of motorized nomads who abandon their homes from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening “to go visiting” or “just for a drive.”

In weighing all the adverse trends, the discouraged Christian invariably asks: Why?

Scores of reasons could be offered, but one of the most glaring is that for years Protestant churches have not taken their educational programs seriously enough. The vast majority of Christian parents are satisfied that one hour out of every 168 in the week is given over to spiritual instruction in the Sunday school. And to a large extent they are apathetic to the fact that even that one hour may be made up of shoddy instruction. Christian day schools are popping up everywhere, but most are limited to children under ten, and some have only segregationist inspiration.

Local church facilities in the United States and Canada have a combined tax-free value of 100 billion dollars or more. The plight of the churches is easily understood when one realizes that most of these facilities lay idle for 6½ days of the week. Dr. James DeForest Murch has aptly underscored the alternative in the title of his 1962 book, Teach or Perish.

Religious Review

Here is a brief resume of significant religious developments during 1961:

EVANGELISM: Billy Graham conducted major crusades in Latin America; Chicago; Fresno, California; and El Paso, Texas.

THEOLOGY: Southern Baptist Convention was rocked by a controversy over biblical interpretation. At issue was The Message of Genesis, a book written by Professor Ralph H. Elliott of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and published by the Southern Baptist book house.… Theologian Karl Barth made his first visit to America for lecture series at University of Chicago and Princeton Theological Seminary.

MISSIONS: Anti-Christian uprisings killed 20 Roman Catholic priests in the Congo and more than 80 Baptist believers in New Guinea.

ECUMENICITY: The Roman Catholic Church opened its renewal-oriented Second Vatican Council with a two-month session.… The new Lutheran Church in America was formally inaugurated in a merger of four Lutheran denominations.

EDUCATION: Gross-roots enthusiasim was building up for the shared time concept of child education whereby students’ time is divided between public and Christian day schools.

MORALITY: Astronaut John Glenn won admiration from millions as a devout Presbyterian layman.

CHURCH-STATE: A U. S. Supreme Court ruling which forbid use of governmentally-composed prayers gave rise to the biggest religious news story of the year in America.… Disputes over federal aid to parochial schools continued.… Protests were voiced when the U. S. government’s Agency for International Development disclosed it was entering into contracts with religious organizations abroad.

SOCIAL ACTION: Desegregation of Roman Catholic schools in New Orleans prompted a major controversy climaxed in the excommunication of three persons from the church.

On the world-wide scene, oppression of religious minorities continued in many countries.… The total Christian community—Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox—approached the one billion figure as world population moved past the three billion mark.… In the United States. Southern Baptists were displacing Methodists as the largest denomination. Both groups number approximately 10,000,000.

Evangelism Under Fire

The barrel of his sub-machine gun was still warm when Guatemalan President Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes drove into the capital city’s Olympic Stadium. Some 30,000 of his countrymen stood and cheered while the determined, 67-year-old chief executive climbed out of his black Cadillac in the unmistakable image of an all-time hero for the Protestant minority in Latin America. Rifle fire which still crackled in the distance lent a seemingly incongruous backdrop to the biggest Protestant event in the country’s history. But Ydígoras, confident he had crushed a military revolt which had almost taken his life a few hours before, took a seat in the stands and witnessed the entire service.

Such was the dramatic climax to a year-long “evangelism-in-depth” movement in Guatemala spearheaded by Latin America Mission. The movement, an evangelistic saturation program which embraced virtually every Protestant church group and missions board, was almost obliged to forego its grand thrust because of the revolt on Sunday, November 25.

Ydígoras is a nominal Roman Catholic, but he has been outspoken in promoting the cause of religious freedom. His sympathy toward the evangelism-in-depth movement became openly evident when he turned up for the opening service of a four-week evangelistic series. Dr. Kenneth Strachan, international coordinator of the evangelism-in-depth project, understood it to be the first time in history that a Latin American president had spoken at a Protestant evangelistic meeting. Last month, Protestant church leaders set up a banquet at which Ydígoras was honored guest.

It was uncertain whether the goodwill gestures toward Protestants had anything to do with the outbreak of the rebellion on the closing day of the campaign.

The revolt was staged by elements of the Guatemalan air force at Guatemala City. Several American-built aircraft of World War II vintage strafed the president’s home and army barracks. Two civilians were reported killed, and some 30 persons were injured. One of the planes was shot down. Ydígoras was said to have personally led the ground forces in subduing the air-force units.

By noon the government reported that it had the situation under control, and it was not a minute too soon as far as Protestants were concerned. They immediately started to assemble in a downtown area for a parade to the stadium. Some 12,000 persons marched for three miles carrying banners and singing hymns. A chilly drizzle did not discourage them.

Ydígoras arrived at the stadium still carrying a sub-machine gun. He was dressed in a black hat and black coat over a sport shirt and turtle neck sweater. Some 30 bodyguards accompanied him.

The speaker for the rally was evangelist Fernando Vangioni of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Approximately 100 persons stepped forward at the close of the service to commit their lives to Christ.

Among those who witnessed the service was a delegation of 30 pastors and laymen from the United States, including Editor James W. Reapsome of The Sunday School Times.

“It was a tremendous boost,” said Reapsome, “to the morale of Latin American Protestants. It will have the effect of increasing recognition for the evangelical movement in Latin America.”

A Baptist Protest

Dr. Stanley I. Stuber, an American Baptist who has been a guest observer at the Second Vatican Council, criticized the Baptist World Alliance this month for not sending official delegate-observers to the meeting in Rome.

Stuber, former public relations director for the American Baptist Convention who now serves as executive director of the Missouri Council of Churches, charged the BWA executive committee with a “closing the door action” which is “embarrassing to national Baptist denominations” and places “many Baptists in an entirely false light.”

Roman Recess

The Second Vatican Council began a nine-month recess this month.

The 2,600-odd conciliar fathers headed home for Christmas following adjournment of the proceedings in Rome. They will reassemble again next September 8.

It had been announced previously that the second session would last from May 12 to June 29, but “the Holy Father, in response to the wishes of many Council Fathers, especially those living a great distance from Rome, and taking into account reasons of a pastoral character,” cancelled the spring dates.

There was no immediate announcement as to how long the second session would run. The first lasted for two months.

In an open letter to the executive committee he called for a reconsideration of representation at the Vatican.

Stuber was invited to attend the Roman Catholic Council as a “Guest of the Secretariat [for Promoting Christian Unity].” Such guests of the secretariat have all the privileges of official delegate-observers, but have been given a different designation because they were not chosen by their churches.

Another Baptist leader who attended the council as a guest was Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Inc., and a vice president of the Baptist World Alliance.

Note To Khrushchev

Forty-six Christian and Jewish religious leaders, educators, and editors assailed anti-Semitism in Russia this month and called on Premier Khrushchev to end the government’s “extraordinary disabilities” against Jews in the country. (For a comprehensive report on Jewish-Christian tensions, see page 36.)

The plea was made in a message to the Soviet Premier delivered to the Russian Embassy in New York. It also appeared as an advertisement in four metropolitan New York dailies as a cooperative undertaking of the signers and the American Jewish Committee.

The message sharply criticized “blanket restraints” against all religions in the Soviet Union, but noted that Judaism had been placed outside even the “narrow framework of permissible religious practice” in Russia.

Those making the appeal did so as individuals and not as representatives of organizations. They included: Dr. John C. Bennett, dean of Union Theological Seminary; Dr. Fredrik A. Schiotz, president of the American Lutheran Church; Catholic Archbishop Karl J. Alter of Cincinnati; Rabbi Julius Mark, president of the Synagogue Council of America; Archbishop Iakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America; and Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike of California.

The message pointed out the sharp contrast between Russia’s constitution, in which equality of citizens is guaranteed, and the Soviet government’s “persistent enmity to religion.” It stressed that devout members of any religion “suffer harassment” in the country.

While most other faiths are permitted “bare necessities” needed for religious practice, the message declared, nearly 3,000,000 Jews in Russia “are denied minimal rights conceded to adherents of other creeds.”

“Hard pressed as they are by blanket restraints,” it continued, “none of the other major religions of the Soviet people, neither the Orthodox, Armenian, Catholic or Protestant Churches, neither Buddhism nor Islam, have been subjected to the extraordinary disabilities inflicted on Judaism and its followers.”

It asked the Soviet government to conform its behavior “to its own professed principles,” and to the standards of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the constitutions of other countries which affirm that “freedom of conscience and expression is vested unconditionally in every human being.”

Among others signing the appeal were Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion; Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY; Dr. Harold E. Fey, editor of the Christian Century; Dr. George L. Ford, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals; Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., president of Notre Dame University; Methodist Bishop Edgar A. Love of Baltimore; Catholic Archbishop Patrick A. O’Boyle of Washington, D.C.; and Dr. Daniel A. Poling, editor of Christian Herald.

The Vatican In Washington

A high-rise apartment project planned for the nation’s capital by an Italian real estate investment corporation is the target of a nation-wide letter-writing campaign, according to Federal government officials, because of allegations that it has received zoning favoritism due to “influence from the Vatican.”

The apartment and office building project, known as the Watergate Towne, will overlook the Lincoln Memorial and the proposed National Cultural Center which is to be built nearby.

It is being financed by the Societe Generale d’lmmobilaire of Rome, a corporation in which, opponents of the project claim, the Holy See reportedly has a large investment.

The letter-writing campaign, which brought more than 2,000 communications in less than a month to the Senate District of Columbia Committee headed by Democratic Senator Alan Bible of Nevada and about 1,500 letters to the White House, has been urged by Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Dr. C. Stanley Lowell, associate executive secretary of POAU, said, “The request of sponsors of the project for realization of the 90-foot limit on height in this area to 130 feet would have gotten nowhere, if it had not been for the Vatican money involved.”

There is a limitation on the height of buildings erected within the District of Columbia so that they do not overshadow the United States Capitol and other national monuments. In most areas near Federal buildings, the limit is 90 feet, which allows for 8 or 9 stories; while no building anywhere in the city may be higher than the Capitol dome, 130 feet, which permits 12 or 13 floors.

The higher a building goes, the cheaper is the over-all construction cost per square foot, and the more profitable it becomes, a District of Columbia official explained, and the limitations on height are constantly under pressure from builders.

A letter which has been sent to many Protestant organizations and other groups concerned with separation of Church and State from POAU contains a sketch of the apartment project and contends that “laws protecting the beauty of the nation’s capital are being bypassed so that owners of Watergate Towne can have taller buildings and a better return on their investment.”

The letter expressed concern that “a Vatican-created corporation mounted such pressure that the Government has yielded.”

In asking that letters be sent to President Kennedy, as well as the congressional committees for the District of Columbia, POAU claimed it has learned from reliable sources that the President has “doubts about allowing the building code to be waived” on behalf of this project and expressed belief that letters from the public would “strengthen his hand” in intervening in the controversy.

Biblical Breakthrough

Evangelist Billy Graham reports that a “significant breakthrough” is taking place all over the world in opportunities for winning men to Christ through evangelism.

As an example, he cites an invitation extended to the Rev. Howard Jones, Negro evangelist on the Graham team, to hold non-segregated meetings in the Union of South Africa.

“To my knowledge,” said Graham, “this is the first time in history such an invitation has been extended.”

Graham issued the report followed several days of meetings with his team and directors of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association at Airlie House in the famous Virginia hunt country 40 miles from Washington.

“We are going away from this ‘mountain-top’ to tell the whole world that Jesus Christ is the answer to the human dilemma of 1963, and that he is the Saviour of all men regardless of place, color, or origin,” the evangelist said.

Earlier he disclosed plans to spend a third of his time on college campuses.

It was also announced that BGEA would erect an exhibit building at the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair.

Nature Of The Church

A list of signatories that reads like a “who’s who” in current British evangelical circles has been appended to a statement on the nature of the Church.

After taking a long look at ecumenical trends, Britain’s Evangelical Alliance assigned priority to the nature of the Church and asked a small theological study group to prepare a statement on doctrines that cannot be compromised. Evangelicals from a number of divergent communions contributed their signatures.

The statement was issued in the backdrop of the current British controversy over intercommunion. The Evangelical Alliance plans a gigantic ecumenical communion service in Royal Albert Hall on January 10.

Here is the complete text of the statement:

“The Church of God consists of His elect of every land and every age, who have been united to Christ by His grace through faith, and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This union with Christ, signified by baptism though not created by it, finds visible expression when believers meet together for worship and the ministry of the Word, and at the Lord’s Table.

“This spiritual unity is further expressed when Christians of varying traditions participate together in the Lord’s Supper, unhindered by differences on secondary matters. The existence of this God-given unity does not, however, absolve Christians from endeavouring to understand the differing viewpoints held on these secondary matters, such as forms of worship, systems of government, and orders of ministry.

“Nevertheless, there are certain essential doctrines on which no compromise is possible, such as the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the deity of Christ; the sole sufficiency of His atoning work for the salvation of men; the supreme authority of Holy Scripture in all matters of faith and practice; the justification of the sinner by the grace of God through faith alone, and the priesthood of the whole Church whereby every believer has direct access to God the Father through the one Mediator, Jesus Christ. To the extent to which churches (whether in membership of the World Council of Churches or not) fail to express these truths, to that extent they fall short of being churches in the New Testament sense, though individuals within them may be true believers.”

A Dubious Doxology

Intolerance is not a feature of the Church of England. In its chief diocese of Canterbury, for example, one will find an archbishop who expects to see atheists in heaven, and a dean who is something of a hero in the annals of Russian and Chinese Communism. Now into the limelight has come the Rev. Alec Vidler, whose carefully cultivated beard, black shirt, and white tie still startle his starchier colleagues.

A certain unconventionality was again conspicuous one Sunday evening last month when Vidler, since 1956 the dean of historic King’s College, Cambridge, took part with two laymen in a BBC TV discussion which concluded that “the Church of England is in a pretty good muddle.” This in itself would not have upset the customers, less than 7 per cent of whom are regular churchgoers. But in the process Vidler launched a sweeping attack on the clergy and their “endless chatter,” and on “all this business about religion and these ghastly hymns and all these things that go on in church.” He particularly lamented what he called the “suppression of real, deep thought and intellectual alertness and integrity in the Church.”

Most significant of all in a program which purports to deal with teen-age problems was the dean’s treatment of a direct question about whether fornication was “all right.” His answer was so phrased that many listeners got the impression that he did regard fornication as “all right” under certain circumstances. “A good, objective discussion without bias, which brought out many important points,” commented Canon Roy McKay, head of BBC’s religious broadcasting.

A storm of protest arose which may have persuaded the canon to think again. Strong criticism of the BBC and of Vidler was made in the Church Assembly that week. (“Things must be bad,” dryly remarked an English Churchman editorial, “if the Church Assembly complains.”) Letters of protest poured in. Said one clergyman: “He smears the image of Christ’s Church before a world which will gladly misunderstand further all that has been said.”

Retorted Vidler: “I did not say anything about fornication being all right. In fact, I don’t think I used the word fornication at all.”

It may be a curious coincidence that the same subject came up in Soundings, a volume of essays from Cambridge edited by Vidler and published a few months ago. In one of the essays, the Rev. H. A. Williams, dean of Trinity College, discusses two current movies in which acts of fornication are interpreted as having a healing agency in two specific cases. On the first Williams comments, “What is seen is an act of charity which proclaims the glory of God”; on the second, “The appropriate response is—Glory to God in the Highest.”

The script of the offending broadcast was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps even the Church of England’s tolerance has its limits.

J. D. D.

Crossfire On The Legal Frontier

Tensions between Christian and Jew stretched tautly from the United States to Israel this month. But inter-faith debate was happily set in the context of law and discussion rather than of violence and ill-will.

—In the United States, opinion differed increasingly over whether the Supreme Court’s decision against recitation of the Regents’ prayer in New York schools should be interpreted “narrowly” or “broadly.” The “narrow” view holds the court prohibited government-approved prayers; the “broad” view makes the court rule against any prayers whatever in the schools.

Proponents of the latter view were mainly spokesmen of Jewish or of atheistic persuasions, who insist that juridical consistency will require the Supreme Court to rule against Bible reading in the Pennsylvania and Maryland cases (on which a decision is due within the next six months).

Supporters of the narrow interpretation argue that the court did not disapprove prayer, but ruled against government-prescribed prayer. While insisting that prayers in the public schools are not legally unconstitutional, as long as politically unprescribed, they differ for other reasons (educational or religious) over the desirability or propriety of religious exercises in the public schools. Some insist, however, that objective discussion of religious truth must not be suppressed from the academic arena.

—Protests of the Jewish community against public school Christmas observances, which atheists also find offensive, supply another issue. Jewish spokesmen claim that such observances are harmful religiously (because they are institutional rather than voluntary), that the psychological pressures are harmful to children of alien views, and increasingly insist these observances are constitutionally wrong. One rabbi noted that when Jewish children cooperatively participate in nativity plays they are as likely to end up in the role of wise men bringing gifts to Jesus as in any other (though discreet teachers often assign them as “props” aides). In Washington, D.C., where Jewish leaders seek an end to Christmas observances in the schools, the non-sectarian Jewish Foundation for Retarded Children observes the Jewish holidays and not Christmas.

When a Christian layman at a recent meeting of National Conference of Christians and Jews remarked on the incongruity of Jewish protests against Christmas carols in the schools while Jewish merchants seeking Christmas shoppers blare the same carols from their shops, a rabbi quickly responded: “That’s not strange at all. Jewish merchants play the carols for the same reason as many Gentile merchants—not as a religious act, but as a concession to the holiday mood of the community.”

—The frequent conjunction of Jewish and atheist protests against religious observances led Editor Carl F. H. Henry of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, in remarks to the First National Institute of NCCJ, to prod the Jewish community to distinguish its concern for the protection of the rights of the atheist, from that “special” protection which enables a militant minority to dissolve the majority milieu and to reshape public institutions serviceable to minority desires. Jewish leaders replied that because of centuries-long persecution, the Jew sees his own image in every minority whose rights are in jeopardy, and his spirited defense of minority rights must not be construed as promotive of irreligion and atheism.

—Meanwhile tensions between the Christian minority in Israel and the Jewish state were placed in a new light when a Catholic monk, son of Jewish parents, began legal action to gain Israeli citizenship. Father Daniel, a 40-year-old Carmelite who came to the Haifa Carmelite monastery three years ago from Poland, has thus reraised the provocative question, “Who is a Jew?”

The Supreme Court of Israel ruled that Father Daniel was not entitled to automatic citizenship under the 1950 Law of Return. The alternative open to him was to seek citizenship through naturalization proceedings.

In answering the question of who is a Jew, the Israelis say in practice:

1. The Orthodox Jew is a first-rate Jew (legally) and a good Jew (religiously). (There is discrimination in Israel by the religious authorities against non-Orthodox Jewry.)

2. The non-Orthodox Jew, whether an atheist or Reform Jew, is a first-rate Jew (legally) but not a good Jew (religiously).

3. The Christian Hebrew is neither a first-rate Jew (legally) nor a good Jew (religiously). Hence he is clearly discriminated against on the basis of his religion more than in the case of the non-Orthodox non-Christian Jew; he is, in fact, treated as if he has ceased to be a Jew, as not entitled to the legal rights of a Jew. Therefore, the atheist Jew is viewed legally as preferable to a Christian Jew.

But in theory, the Israelis say that anybody is a Jew whose mother is a Jew. Hence Father Daniel’s suit for citizenship put this whole controversy to a legal test.

It is insisted that the tactical union of church and state in Israel is such that religious liberty is guaranteed only to Orthodox Jews, and that all others (including Reform Jews) are viewed as dissidents. Not uncommonly liberal Jews in America will say that Christians have more religious liberty in Israel than Reform Jews. But if the Reform Jew is scorned for his “bad religion” he is nonetheless honored legally as a first-rate Jew. In fact, even the Jewish atheist is legally considered a first-rate Jew, and his legal rights are protected. But the Hebrew-Christian is twice-rejected: he is disowned because he is a Christian, and on this ground is viewed further as legally not a first-rate Jew.

In Israel, the Christian gets little if any of that special protection which the Jew in America wants for atheists on the ground that religious liberty must at all odds be preserved, and that the Jew sees his own image in any person who is being denied his rights. Instead of special protection, the Christian complains that he gets special discrimination.

Other developments in Israel:

—Relief from an Israeli law requiring religious ceremonies in marriage was sought from the High Court of Justice by Yisrael Schlesinger, an Israeli Jew who was wed to a Christian Belgian woman in a civil ceremony in Cyprus. Because Jewish religious authorities refuse to marry any couple unless both are of the Jewish faith, Schlesinger cannot obtain legal sanction for his marriage.

—Opposition to a projected Christian settlement at Ness Anim in Western Galilee came from the Council of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, which denounced the plan as “proselytizing.” Leaders deny they intend to proselytize. They stress that they wish to identify with Israel and serve as an example of Christian life. Settlement sponsors include Dr. Jacob Blum, a Presbyterian minister of Jewish origin; Dr. R. Bakker of Rotterdam; Dr. J. J. Pilon, a Dutch doctor; and Dr. Hans Bernard, a Swiss physician.

—Some 3,000 Israeli Protestants and Roman Catholics sought permission from Jordan to make the traditional Christmas pilgrimage to Bethlehem. The number exceeds by 25 per cent the total of permits granted last year.

The agony of soul presently experienced within the Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk) of South Africa about racism is generally unknown or underestimated. As an American from the South, I have throughout my adult life been concerned with this problem, and have closely observed the South African scene, being personally acquainted with all the theologians mentioned in this article. I can affirm that, comparatively, their spiritual agony has produced more biblical and theological probing than has emerged from our southland over the same period and crisis. And in spite of the present apartheid policy of their Nationalist government, they have advanced considererably in their thinking on Christian race relations.

It is not so much what is said—although the general direction of their statements is good—but that they are saying it at all, and the redemptive manner in which they are saying it, that is significant. Even slight examination will disclose how far they have come since Professor J. du Plessis wrote in his History of Christian Missions in South Africa at the beginning of the century, “No responsible missionary today would venture to preach or to practice the doctrine of social equality between the White and the Colored races” or since the (1951) Twenty-second Synod of the DRC of South Africa which declared “that it will not be unchristian for Christians of different races to mix at international congresses, but in social life where national customs and habits are at stake, everyone should maintain his national identity by withdrawing to his own separate circle.”

Within the past year, the majority church of South Africa, which has embarrassed world Christianity with such official policies as the foregoing, has produced some nation-shaking departures from these positions. In June Dr. W. D. Jonker, the official adviser on church law to the Synod of Transvaal, issued a document advising the white missionary “even in South Africa to become a member of the church he serves, subject to the discipline and supervision of their synod (African).”

The Assault on Apartheid

Within the decade there has been a radical reversal pertaining to the justification of apartheid based on the Bible; this started with a commendable openness to listening to the Word of God afresh, as stated by the advance commission reporting to the Federal Council of all the branches of the Reformed Church in South Africa (1956), and developed into the present virtually unanimous repudiation of finding support for apartheid in the Bible. The commission advised: “To an increasing degree the Christian Church is becoming aware of the danger of acquiescing in race relationships which may perhaps not be in accord with the Word of God. Consequently the DRC too is listening afresh to what the Word of God has to say to us on the above-mentioned matter, in the light of the present situation.” Dr. Ben Marais summarizes the change of climate in the epochal symposium of the new mood, Delayed Action (1961): “Only ten years ago a responsible ecclesiastical body in South Africa could put it in writing that separate Churches for Whites and non-Whites were not only permissible but, according to God’s Word, imperative. I know of no responsible theologian in South Africa who would today subscribe to such a doctrine.”

Moreover, since the aggravating adamancy of the DRC in the ecumenical councils, including the 1954 Evanston Assembly, there has been a growing willingness within the church to be open to the brotherly advice of world Christians on this matter. Official committees of 25 members from the Cape and Transvaal Synods concurred in the now-famous Cottesloe Consultation of December, 1960, called by the World Council of Churches and including all denominations of South Africa. And even though the die-hards in the hierarchy have subsequently succeeded in repudiating Cottesloe, even to withdrawing from the World Council, those findings are generally admitted to be the true opinions of many and testify that ecclesiastical power cannot forever hold back the tide of the converted conscience. Included in the final Cottesloe Statement was this affirmation (No. 6): “No one who believes in Jesus Christ may be excluded from any church on the grounds of color or race. The spiritual unity among all men who are in Christ must find visible expression in acts of common worship and witness, and in fellowship and consultation on matters of common concern.”

But far more important for the understanding of the soul-agony of the DRC are the growing ranks of the prophetic minority who have risked the wrath and repudiation of their fellow churchmen to plant the seed which would eventually split the rock wall of apartheid. From the two theological seminaries, at the professorial level, came the first trumpet sounds. At Pretoria Dr. Ben Marais published his historical survey, The Color Problem and the West (1954). However it is generally conceded that Professor B. B. Keet, who was then dean of Stellenbosch Theological School, in Whither South Africa? (1956), was the first theological voice of public protest. Since then others on his faculty have joined him: Professor Jack Muller, Professor P. A. Verhoef, and now, most recently, Professor J. C. G. Kotze (Principle and Practice in Race Relations [1962]). Two of the aforementioned, Marais and Keet, were joined by three others—namely, Professor G. C. Oosthuizen of Ft. Hare University, Professor J. Alex van Wyk of Turfloop Theological School (for Africans), and Dr. G. J. Swart, pastor in Johannesburg—in publishing, with six other persons from the other branches of the Reformed Church in South Africa, an arresting tract for the times, Delayed Action (1961). The courage required for their open stand is indicated in the Preface: “The writers do not expect immediate and complete agreement. They have written in the full knowledge that pioneers also in the realm of Christianity, very often and for a long time stand alone. All the same they realize beforehand with deep gratitude that their work will be welcomed because it has put into words a sense of urgency which has been felt by many for a long time.”

In addition these eight leaders have been joined by others, especially younger men in missions and parishes. For instance, in July of this year a highly successful suburban pastor in Johannesburg relinquished his comfortable living to launch a new and independent “Christian Monthly for South Africa” called Pro Veritate, and he (Dr. C. F. B. Naudé) and his supporters are thinking of staging continuous spiritual consultations on the subject throughout South Africa.

Let no one think these churchmen find it easy to take their stand with Christ. All of these mentioned and many others have had their hardships. Of the 11 writers of Delayed Action, one professor has been tried and found guilty of “theological heresy,” a pastor was obliged to resign, and another was forced to explain his article before the church session. In other words, the soul-agony within the South African DRC has been written publicly in blood—in church trials, in enforced resignations, in demotions, in censored press—and all have been under the fire of culture pressure. Yet, as the Preface of Delayed Action makes clear, they were spiritually prepared for this beforehand: “For church people reflection means asking with faith and listening in prayer to the will of God made known through His word. This takes time. The formulating of an answer to His Word requires courage. For church people courage in certain circumstances means to conquer and renounce the self. This too takes time.” But they eventually brought forth, spreading a beacon light in the darkness of their nation’s race tensions. They may not have said all the things we would want them to say, and there are some questionable tenets in what they have written. Sometimes they appear to have been overly cautious amidst the rapid social change of our world, but invariably they have been open and constructive, never rigid and avengeful.

Two Births

Pain and travail

Overtake a woman,

Crimson drops

Usher a new life

Into the shallow mercy

Of Time.

A child is born.

He grows

In wisdom and knowledge

And one day,

He beholds himself

In the mirror

Of Holy writ,

And sees

A whited sepulchre.

He gazes on a cross,

Where, again,

There is travail and pain,

God of agony,

Who is not willing

To send us a cross

He cannot bear

Himself,

A thorn-crowned God,

Suffering

The innocent,

For the guilty.

Crimson drops

Usher a new life.

A man

Enters the womb

The second time,

By the Spirit.

He is born again

Into the unchangeable

Mercy

Of eternity

In Christ.

ROMAYNE ALLEN

Criticism of Race Codes

A short review of the latest and perhaps the best book written by these courageous voices will summarize the advanced thinking of all. Professor Kotze’s Principle and Practice in Race Relations According to Scripture was published in English this year but first appeared in 1961 in Afrikaans as Ras, Volk en Nasie [Race, Folk and Nation] in terme van die Skrif. Generally speaking, it can be said that he underscores the criticisms of prevailing South African race codes made by all the persons mentioned: (1) that the Bible nowhere supports racism; (2) that thoroughgoing apartheid is both impractical and sinful; (3) that the church does not uncritically support government policy; (4) that racism is the greatest hindrance to missionary outreach in Africa; (5) that the extra division of a racist church further defies the ecumenical unity of the Church; and (6) that racism as presently defended in South Africa greatly embarrasses any defense of so-called “white western Christian civilization” on the continent.

His lucid and forthright statements reinforce what his colleagues have said in this united DRC front against racism. As a theological-school professor formerly in the chair of missions, he can be expected to speak urgently on the relationship of missions and race. “Next to mission work, her [the Church’s] most difficult task is the building up of Christian race relations.… The task of the church in human relations! We shall succeed in our mission work according as we progress in this respect” (p. 20). Racism at home has a boomerang effect on missions abroad. “We are, alas, today witnessing the painful situation that racial tensions tend to close many hearts and doors to the missionary message” (p. 123). And unfortunately “you find whites who display great zeal for missions while at the same time they are extremely inhuman and unchristian in their race relations” (p. 77). Finally he states the case bluntly: “In South Africa it is precisely our race-relations and colour situation with its whole background which hampers the practice of our Christian principle of unity” (p. 101).

He writes from a thoroughly biblical and theological stance, and apparently would not have taken the public platform had he thought that his fellow DRC churchmen were stating the case fairly without rationalizing the Bible and theology. With this sense of urgency he enters the controversy, and writes on the flyleaf of his book: “We in South Africa are more intensely concerned with this problem than any other country in the world.” Once entering the fray he makes the strongest positive suggestions to date. These focus around the dialogue in his country over the terms “apartheid,” “differentiation,” and “indigenous” churches. Regarding the first, he thinks there can be no apartheid in the Lord’s house: “But colour and racial type must not play a discriminating or excluding role here. This in no way accords with Christian thought and brotherhood. Nobody must ever be excluded from the exercise of corporate worship with other believers solely because of his colour” (p. 94).

Most significant is the fact that since the publication of his book six African ministers from Nyasaland participated in Holy Communion with the white congregation of the Central (Student) Church, Stellenbosch, of which the Rev. Kosie Gericke is pastor. In spite of the open criticism, the Synod of the Cape DRC, which was then in session, passed an epochal resolution—a resolution said by observers to be “far more significant than its resolutions passed on to Cottesloe.” What follows is a translation: “This meeting has noted with approval the efforts of several congregations of our church to establish closer contact between ministers, church councils, congregations and church organizations of our mother church and mission churches. The Synod would therefore encourage all congregations of our church to seek, with due care and Christian love, ways by which we as Christians and members of the same confession could learn to know one another better, could learn to work together better, and could learn to pray together more often in the interests of the Kingdom of God. The Synod regards this task as urgent in view of the increasingly difficult times which, according to the Scriptures, await the Christian Church in the World.”

In regard to the second term, he refutes the defenders of “differentiation” (who interpret race as a fact of God’s creation in order to justify separation) by substituting the more proper concept, “homogeneous.” “In the sight of God all men as contrasted with the rest of creation are homogeneous; they are human beings, they are His creation in His image and likeness” (p. 65). In two ways, theologically speaking, they “still remain similar to the rest in spite of the highest achievements in human life. They are all fallen sinners, dependent on the grace of God alone” (p. 76). While this doctrinal awareness may not seem to have many social and political results, for Dr. Kotze it has tremendous bearing on practical life. “The realization that we are all equal in sin before God ought to save us from this offensive superiority” (p. 77). Developed further, it means, contrary to the usual rationale of apartheid, that the concepts “race,” “folk,” and “nation” are not interchangeable (p. 48) or rooted in the Bible; and that Christian brotherhood transcends any attempts to legalize such spurious divisions of “homogeneous” mankind.

The Christian Fellowship

Furthermore, this central theological concept means that “indigeneity” must not hamper koinonia. “When, however, the church in the name of diversity organises the indigenous church ‘apart,’ on the ground of ethnic differences with their peculiar culture, in such a way that spontaneous Christian contact and fellowship are made impossible or are hampered, the principle of Scripture for the church of Christ is neglected.… Then it is no longer an indigenous church, but a church ‘apart,’ with the purpose of bringing about separation” (p. 93). The historic decision of the Synod of 1857 which allowed for “indigenous churches” “because,” in its original wording, “of the weakness of some,” is not to be interpreted as supporting permanent apartheid. “There was never any question of the exclusion of non-white believers,” he points out (p. 83). Moreover, “homogeneity” as opposed to “differentiation” allows for no depreciation of the cultures of other ethnic groups. All men need each other for mankind’s corporate maturity. There can be no talk of second-rate cultures. “In spite of the cardinal differences, we have to do here with homogeneous beings who must be accepted and treated as human beings no matter how much they may differ mutually. The White people must also bear in mind that the Bantu’s culture—call it primitive if you like—is not necessarily of a poor quality and unacceptable because it does not accord with the Western pattern and standards” (p. 51). On the contrary, he affirms that “we would have made much more headway in the sphere of race relations if we had clearly realized, and adhered to it, that backwardness is not necessarily identical with colour or race” (p. 73).

Moreover, if racial groupings are to have any meaning in human relations, they must never be rigid but must be understood as dynamic. “With the right Scriptural philosophy of life relevant to racial affairs, we shall gradually develop realistically according to norm. On the one hand, we shall regard and treat all people, irrespective of ethnic differences, as fellowmen; on the other hand, we shall realize that cultural differences in equality are not static or connected with colour” (p. 75). Within this norm, he allows for a minimal self-preservation of each culture group, but only if maintained on the superior principle of eternal righteousness (p. 148).

Finally, besides taking his nation to task for its pretentious talk of “guardianship”—not unlike colonialism’s pretentions about “the white man’s burden,” the Central African Federation’s policy of “partnership,” and the United States South’s “separate but equal”—he reinterprets the concept of guardianship positively. “Whoever takes maturity for the non-white to be less than for the white, solely on the ground of race or colour, does not exercise a Christian guardianship” (p. 128). For him guardianship implies three principles: (1) “in the process of education towards maturity, the ward must be guided and treated in such a way that he becomes innerly free and mature” (p. 127); (2) the ward must be encouraged by keeping alive within him the promise of the concrete termination of the guardianship; (3) there must be a present acknowledgment on the part of the guardian as well as the ward that the termination date based on the “human state of maturity ought eventually to include for the non-white exactly what it includes for the white” (ibid.).

In the light of the evidence presented, who can affirm that the Spirit of God is not moving redemptively on the troubled waters of South Africa?

G. MCLEOD BRYAN

Professor of Christian Ethics

Wake Forest College

Winston-Salem, N. C.