A fortnightly report of developments in religion

The greatest achievement ever made in the cause of human progress is the total and final separation of church and state. If we had nothing else to boast of, we could lay claim with justice that first among the nations we of this country made it an article of organic law that the relations between man and his Maker were a private concern, into which other men have no right to intrude.

—David Dudley Field

Governmentally composed prayers are ordinarily dismissed as an affront to the U. S. conscience. But in the emotional context of a historic Supreme Court decision last month they implicitly drew considerable support, creating thereby a major new church-state controversy which rivalled in intensity the reaction to President Truman’s proposal to send an ambassador to the Vatican and the religious issue of President Kennedy’s 1960 election campaign. Although the specific issue was narrow, the ensuing debate ranged far and wide, and some of the most ardent champions of church-state separation felt the court had gone too far. The American experiment in church-state separation, so often credited with fostering religious activity by keeping government out of it, had fallen upon lean times.

“It is a matter of history,” said Justice Hugo L. Black in delivering the majority opinion, “that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America.”

What the Supreme Court did on June 25 was to rule by a six-to-one majority that a 22-word interfaith prayer originating in the New York Board of Regents and recommended for daily recitation in state public schools was a violation of the Constitution.

Black declared that “it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.”

Justice Potter vigorously dissented. Justice Felix Frankfurter, who is ill, took no part in consideration of the case, nor did newly-appointed Justice Byron White.

The wave of indignation over the court’s decision was bathed in the fear that it had opened a new precedent toward secularization of American culture. The reaction was probably intensified by a separate concurring opinion issued by Justice William O. Douglas, who cast suspicion on the constitutionality of a long list of religious activities exercised by the government, including service chaplains and the coin inscription “In God We Trust.”

Most informed Washington observers were convinced, however, that none of the other eight justices share the extreme separation view held by Douglas. These observers noted that the nation’s highest court has yet to rule on pending appeals concerning the practice of daily Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in schools of Pennsylvania and Maryland. The court did not rule on these cases because they were filed so late in the spring term that respondents did not have a chance to file their replies. The court reconvenes in October, by which time it may have still another such appeal from Florida.

Several other factors in addition to the extreme position taken by Douglas were behind the intense public reaction to the Supreme Court prayer decision:

—On the same day the court handed down decisions which permit magazines for homosexuals to use the U. S. mails and which throw out California legislation providing for imprisonment of narcotics addicts.

—The reaction was conditioned by a long series of unpopular decisions by the Supreme Court.

—The litigants who originally brought suit against the Regents’ school prayer are outside the Protestant-Catholic tradition. Two are Jewish, one belongs to the Ethical Culture Society, one is a Unitarian, and one is a non-believer.

Perhaps significantly, the court’s explanation of its decision did not defend the rights of the irreligious. Black’s majority opinion implicitly took the position that the decision serves the religious cause. Lawyer William J. Butler, who argued for the five litigants, echoed the view:

“In this country, with its many different faiths, religion has flourished because we have steadfastly adhered to the principle of separation of church and state.”

Evangelicals were divided in their opinion of the court ruling. Many feared a degrading precedent. Others said that the court’s only other alternative—to approve the Regents’ prayer—would have opened the way to much less inclusive prayers in other areas where one faith or another predominates. Some observers took a more neutral, positive stance and expressed hope that the widespread public discussion of the ramifications of the American church-state principles would have a wholesome long-range effect, one of the most immediate of which might be an impetus for Christian day schools. Still others were glad to see the New York prayer struck down because they said it promoted a highly-diluted religion-in-general and tended to reduce religion to mere form.

What The Supreme Court Said

Majority Opinion by Justice Black

… The Petitioners contend among other things that the state laws requiring or permitting use of the Regents’ prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause because that prayer was composed by governmental officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs. For this reason, petitioners argue, the State’s use of the Regents’ prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State. We agree with that contention since we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.

It is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America. The Book of Common Prayer … set out in minute detail the accepted form and content of prayer and other religious ceremonies to be used in the established, tax-supported Church of England. The controversies over the Book and what should be its content repeatedly threatened to disrupt the peace of that country as the accepted forms of prayer in the established church changed with the views of the particular ruler that happened to be in control at the time. Powerful groups representing some of the varying religious views of the people struggled among themselves to impress their particular views upon the Government and obtain amendments of the Book more suitable to their respective notions of how religious services should be conducted in order that the official religious establishment would advance their particular religious beliefs.…

It is an unfortunate fact of history that when some of the very groups which had most strenuously opposed the established Church of England found themselves sufficiently in control of colonial governments in this country to write their own prayers into law, they passed laws making their own religion the official religion of their respective colonies.… But the successful Revolution against English political domination was shortly followed by intensive opposition to the practice of establishing religion by law.…

It has been argued that to apply the Constitution in such a way as to prohibit state laws respecting an establishment of religious services in public schools is to indicate a hostility toward religion or toward prayer. Nothing, of course, could be more wrong. The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion. And perhaps it is not too much to say that since the beginning of that history many people have devoutly believed that “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” It was doubtless largely due to men who believed this that there grew up a sentiment that caused men to leave the cross-currents of officially established state religions and religious persecution in Europe and come to this country filled with the hope that they could find a place in which they could pray when they pleased to the God of their faith in the language they chose. And there were men of this same faith in the power of prayer who led the fight for adoption of our Constitution and also for our Bill of Rights with the very guarantees of religious freedom that forbid the sort of governmental activity which New York has attempted here. These men knew that the First Amendment, which tried to put an end to governmental control of religion and of prayer, was not written to destroy either. They knew rather that it was written to quiet well-justified fears which nearly all of them felt arising out of an awareness that governments of the past had shackled men’s tongues to make them speak only the religious thoughts that government wanted them to speak and to pray only to the God that government wanted them to pray to.

.… To those who may subscribe to the view that because the Regents’ official prayer is so brief and general there can be no danger to religious freedom in its governmental establishment, however, it may be appropriate to say in the words of James Madison, the author of the First Amendment:

“It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.… Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”

The judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Justice Stewart’s Dissent

… With all respect, I think the Court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how an “official religion” is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation.

The Court’s historical review of the quarrels over the Book of Common Prayer in England throws no light for me on the issue before us in this case. England had then and has now an established church. Equally unenlightening, I think, is the history of the early establishment and later rejection of an official church in our own States. For we deal here not with the establishment of a state church … but with whether school childrn wo want to begin their day by joining in prayer must be prohibited from doing so.

… I think that the Court’s task, in this as in all areas of constitutional adjudication, is not responsibly aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the “wall of separation,” a phrase nowhere to be found in the Constitution. What is relevant to the issue here is not the history of an established church in sixteenth century England or in eighteenth century America, but the history of the religious traditions of our people, reflected in countless practices of the institutions and officials of our government.…

At the opening of each day’s Session of this Court we stand, while one of our officials invokes the protection of God. Since the days of John Marshall our Crier has said, “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.” Both the Senate and the House of Representatives open their daily Sessions with prayer. Each of our Presidents, from George Washington to John F. Kennedy, has upon assuming his Office asked the protection and help of God.

The Court today says that the state and federal governments are without constitutional power to prescribe any particular form of words to be recited by any group of the American people on any subject touching religion. The third stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” made our National Anthem by … Congress … contains these verses:

“Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land

Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto ‘In God is our Trust.’ ”

In 1954 Congress added a phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag so that it now contains the words “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” In 1952 Congress enacted legislation calling upon the President each year to proclaim a National Day of Prayer. Since 1865 the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” have been impressed on our coins.

Countless similar examples could be listed, but there is no need to belabor the obvious. It was all summed up by this Court just ten years ago in a single sentence: “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 313.

I do not believe that this Court, or the Congress, or the President has by the actions and practices I have mentioned established an “official religion” in violation of the Constitution. And I do not believe the State of New York has done so in this case. What each has done has been to recognize and to follow the deeply entrenched and highly cherished spiritual traditions of our Nation—traditions which come down to us from those who almost two hundred years ago avowed their “firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence” when they proclaimed the freedom and independence of this brave new world.

I dissent.

Concurring Opinion by Justice Douglas

… The point for decision is whether the Government can constitutionally finance a religious exercise. Our system at the federal and state levels is presently honeycombed with such financing. [Footnote cites numerous government ‘aids’ to religion.] Nevertheless, I think it is an unconstitutional undertaking whatever form it takes.

.… I cannot say that to authorize this prayer is to establish a religion in the strictly historic meaning of those words. A religion is not established in the usual sense merely by letting those who chose to do so say the prayer that the public school teacher leads. Yet once government finances a religious exercise it inserts a divisive influence into our communities.

.… Under our Bill of Rights free play is given for making religion an active force in our lives. But “if a religious leaven is to be worked into the affairs of our people, it is to be done by individuals and groups, not by the Government.” McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420,563 (dissenting opinion) …

In a televised news conference, President Kennedy observed that “we have in this case a very easy remedy, and that is to pray ourselves. And I would think that it would be a welcome reminder to every American family that we can pray a good deal more at home, we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity, and we can make the true meaning of prayer much more important in the lives of all of our children. That power is very much open to us. And I would hope that, as a result of this decision, that all American parents will intensify their efforts at home.”

Kennedy also stressed the importance of supporting Supreme Court decisions “even when we may not agree with them.”

Asked about bills before Congress providing federal aid to higher education, the President did not indicate whether he preferred loans (Senate version) or grants (House), nor did he comment on possible effects upon such legislation by the Supreme Court church-state decision.

Reaction to the decision ran the full range from strong criticism uttered by evangelist Billy Graham and Cardinal Spellman to a defense by Dr. C. Emanuel Carlson, executive secretary of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, to non-committal comment from National Council of Churches President J. Irwin Miller and General Secretary Roy G. Ross. (For detailed comments, see page 46.)

Miller and Ross noted that “no one can speak officially” for the NCC. The National Association of Evangelicals did not immediately issue a representative statement.

The Detroit News said it was not excited, adding, “If our religious faith is weakened by lack of a public school prayer, it is already on the road to extinction.”

Generally, Roman Catholic leaders appeared to be critical of the decision. Protestants were divided. Jewish leaders were largely in favor of it.

Catholic reaction was largely predictable, for the hierarchy has never shown enthusiasm for the principle of separation of church and state.

Officials of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State said they would bring legal suits seeking a review of the Everson decision (see chart). They said they detected a change in the court’s thinking as to the location of the “money line” which separates church and state. In another statement, POAU criticized Kennedy’s support of federal aid to church-related colleges, now before Congress.

The New York school prayer litigation was filed with the state supreme court on January 22, 1959, by five parents of children in the public schools of New Hyde Park, Long Island. The local school board had voted the use of the Regents’ prayer:

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.”

The parents contended that the prayer conflicted with their religious beliefs. The case has since borne the name of one of the parents, Steven I. Engel, and of William J. Vitale, Jr., who voted in favor of using the prayer when he was president of the local school board (the Regents left the decision on whether to use the prayer with the individual school boards).

The New York court rejected the protest of the parents by a vote of five to two.

When the U. S. Supreme Court reversed the New York ruling last month, a series of moves were proposed to overcome the decision. Dozens of resolutions were offered in Congress aimed at a Constitutional amendment and early public hearings were promised. The Governors Conference appealed to Congress for such an amendment.

The furor failed to settle the question of where the line of separation between church and state should be drawn. The late Justice Robert H. Jackson aptly illustrated the complexity of the question:

“It is idle to pretend that this task is one for which we can find in the Constitution one word to help us as judges decide where the secular ends and the sectarian begins in education. Nor can we find guidance in any other legal source. It is a matter on which we can find no law but our own prepossessions. If … are to take up and decide every variation of this controversy.… we are likely to make the legal ‘wall of separation between church and state’ as winding as the famous serpentine wall designed by Mr. Jefferson for the University he founded.”

Protestant Panorama

• The New York Presbytery’s ouster of the minister and session of Broadway Presbyterian Church was upheld this month by the judicial commission of the Synod of New York state. Dr. Stuart H. Merriam, the ousted pastor, said he would probably appeal to the General Assembly. Merriam also is being tried by the New York Presbytery on charges of “untruthfulness” and “talebearing.” The trial has been adjourned until September 22.

• Two Canadian Baptist pastors are planning to visit Russia in response to invitations from the Baptist Union of the USSR. They are the Rev. Leland Gregory, general secretary of the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, and the Rev. R. F. Bullen, general secretary-treasurer of the Baptist Federation of Canada.

• A replica of the six-sided study used by Alexander Campbell was dedicated last month in Washington. The $225, 000 shrine is known as the Earle Wilfley Memorial Wayside Prayer Chapel and stands beside the National City Christian Church. It is named after a former minister of the church. Building was financed by gifts from Mrs. Grace Phillips Johnson of New Castle, Pennsylvania.

• The Pocket Testament League will conduct an all-out Christian witness at the Communist-sponsored World Youth Festival, which begins July 28 in Helsinki, Finland. More than 200,000 copies of the New Testament in 22 different languages will be distributed. International Students, Inc. will aid in follow-up work.

• Nyack (New York) Missionary College won accreditation this month from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The 80-year-old school is the first of the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s four colleges to gain regional accreditation.

• Melrose Baptist Church of Oakland, California, voted last month to withdraw its affiliation from the American Baptist Convention. Supporters of the move charged the ABC with being too liberal in its theology and with becoming too involved in relations with non-Baptist bodies, according to Religious News Service. The vote to withdraw was 232 to 56.… The Kansas Supreme Court, meanwhile, refused an application from a re-hearing on its ruling that the First Baptist Church of Wichita may not withdraw from the ABC.

Lutheran Merger In Detroit

Meeting in Detroit, stronghold of unionism and home of mass production, four Lutheran denominations quit their separate ways and united in a new, massive “Lutheran Church in America” with a total membership of 3,200,000.

Each of the four churches met separately to conduct its final closing-out business prior to the constituting convention, June 28-July 1. The Augustana Lutheran Church (630,000) ordained 46 theological graduates to the ministry and brought its 102 years of existence to a dramatic end by singing the hymn “Rise, ye children of salvation.” The American Evangelical Lutheran Church (25,000) paid tribute to its pioneer Danish pastors as it terminated its 84 years. The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Suomi Synod) (36,000) concluded its separate history and in its final convention decided that the pectoral cross worn by its presidents should be placed in the archives of Suomi College. The United Lutheran Church in America (2, 500,000), the largest of the four, whose origin goes back to colonial times, in a concluding action presented its president, Dr. Franklin Clark Fry with a new automobile in recognition of his 18 years of service as president.

These four churches in a constituting convention at Detroit’s Cobo Hall on June 28 merged into a single church bearing the name Lutheran Church in America. In an hour of business and pageantry a crowd estimated at 7,000 witnessed the largest Lutheran merger ever consummated in America. A three-foot-high, 12-inch-thick, quartered candle was used to symbolize the union of the four churches. Its separate lights were joined by four acolytes into a single flame and the union was then celebrated by a communion service.

The new Lutheran Church of America, sixth largest Protestant denomination in America, chose Dr. Fry as its first president. He was elected on the second ballot by the 1,000 delegates of the convention’s first business session in Cobo Hall. Dr. Malvin H. Lundeen’s election as secretary took only a single ballot.

The four churches, the United Lutheran (German), the Augustana (Swedish), the Suomi (Finnish) and the American Evangelical (Danish) united on a common acceptance of the Apostles, Nicene, and Anthansion creeds as “true declarations of the faith,” of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and Luther’s Small Catechism as “true witnesses to the Gospel,” and of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, Luther’s Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord as “valid interpretations of the confession of the Church.”

Painfully aware, as Dr. P. O. Bersell of Minneapolis pointed out, that the new union “represents only a little more than a third of the Lutheran membership in America,” the delegates were reminded that the goal remains to achieve “the unification of all Lutherans” in America. A resolution was approved by the delegates to invite the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to appoint delegates to a joint commission to study the revolutionary proposal that would permit baptized children to receive Holy Communion before they are confirmed. The provocative proposal was presented to the LCA by its Joint Commission on Confirmation. The commission spoke in sharp criticism of the popular idea of confirmation which raises it above the sacraments. “Baptism is a sacrament,” it urged, “confirmation is not.” For the asserted “purpose of stimulating discussion,” the commission suggested that children of 10 years be permitted to receive Communion.” The invitation extended to the Missouri Synod and the American Lutheran Church to face this question with the new LCA, will confront these churches with a crucial ecumenical question.

The LCA went on record as being in favor of a new inclusive inter-Lutheran agency to succeed the National Lutheran Council. The delegates of the LCA constitution convention voted unanimously to authorize negotiations with the American Lutheran Church and the Missouri Synod for the formation of the new association. The Missouri Synod earlier in the same week voted to participate in such a cooperative agency. The ALC will have opportunity to vote on this when it meets in Milwaukee in October.

The National Lutheran Council was organized in 1918. Because of mergers its membership has decreased in the past two years from eight to three, and will likely be further reduced to two by the end of the year by the expected acceptance of the membership of the Lutheran Free Church by the ALC. This would reduce membership of the National Lutheran Council to the ALC and the LCA.

“Cordial greetings and hearty felicitations” were extended to the new denomination by the Rev. John W. Behnken whose own denomination, the Missouri Synod, is supplanted by the Lutheran Church in America as the largest body in American Lutheranism. Urging that his church “has ever considered the issue of the Biblical doctrine and Scriptural practice of paramount importance,” he declared, “This is what we Lutherans in America and Lutherans throughout the world need most of all!” He thanked the Cobo gathering for being “so very kind and gracious as to invite me to your wonderful meeting,” and asserted that “it may please God to bring about union on the solid basis of true unity.” Dr. Behnken retired that very day from the presidency of Missouri Synod.

In other actions the new Lutheran Church in America adopted a combined over-all budget of $58, 641,332 for the first biennium of its history, and refused to adopt a floor resolution critical of the U. S. Supreme Court decision on prayer in public schools.

J. D.

Convention Circuit

Cleveland—As limousine proceeds from airport to city center, visitors to Cleveland pass the Bultman Coal Company. This (spelling and all) seemed to be about as close to neoorthodoxy as some 800 clerical and lay delegates of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod wished to go, as they assembled on the shores of Lake Erie, June 20–29, for their church’s 45th convention.

In the three years since the last meeting of the theologically conservative syn od, internal charges of doctrinal disloyalty to the standards of the church had been hurled. These seemed chiefly to center around the person of Dr. Martin Scharlemann, professor of New Testament interpretation at Concordia Semi nary, St. Louis, Missouri, and the key issue was the inspiration of Scripture. Two days of specially scheduled open hearings on doctrine and inter-church relations immediately prior to the convention, though helpful, did not dissolve tensions—Scharlemann objected to calling the Bible inerrant. And to the convention proper came a memorial asking that he be removed from office for having “publicly expressed teachings contrary to the clear doctrine of Scripture” and for failure to make a “clear-cut and decisive correction of these errors.”

In an hour of high drama, Scharlemann personally confronted the convention. In a soft voice he solemnly read a prepared statement: “By the grace of God, I am—as I have been in the past—fully committed to the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures. I hold these Scriptures to be the Word of God in their totality and in all their parts and to be utterly truthful, infallible and completely without error.” He confessed that some of his essays had created confusion because of inadequate formulation. He proceeded to “withdraw” four essays “in their entirety,” and asked forgiveness for his contribution to “the present unrest.” Then, hat in hand, he walked off the stage and out of the auditorium to depart for St. Louis.

After extended debate—Missouri Synod is traditionally reluctant to cut short debate on doctrinal matters—the delegates voted overwhelmingly, 650 to 17, to forgive. Not all so voting were satisfied that the incident was closed, for some of these yet wished a “retraction of false doctrine.”

In response to a number of memorials concerning the doctrine of Scripture, the convention itself left no doubt as to where it stood: “We reaffirm our belief in the plenary, verbal inspiration of Scripture, and that Scripture is in all its words and parts the very Word of God, as taught in the Scripture itself … and in the Lutheran Confessions.” The voice vote was seemingly unanimous for this resolution and virtually so for two others which dated back to the 1959 convention in San Francisco. There delegates had passed a resolution which declared that the synod’s pastors, teachers, and professors are held to teach and act in harmony with every doctrinal statement of a confessional nature adopted by synod as a true exposition of Scripture. This year’s convention ruled the 1959 action unconstitutional on the ground that it had the effect of amending the confessional basis of the synod’s constitution without having followed prescribed procedure for such action. Doctrine was assertedly not being questioned.

A follow-up resolution reaffirmed the Synod’s confessional basis to consist of acceptance of Scripture “as the written Word of God and the only rule and norm of faith and practice,” and acceptance of the sixteenth-century “symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a true and unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word of God.” As for later synodically-adopted doctrinal statements, the convention urged all members to uphold their doctrinal content and called for a study of their status in the church. Spokesmen interpreted the act as a refusal on the part of the synod to accept further doctrinal restrictions which would make difficult its witness to other Christians, Lutherans in particular.

The old Missouri Synod isolationism is being replaced by an emphasis on the need for spreading the denomination’s conservative doctrinal witness. Interchurch relationships are now becoming a weighty concern, most widely publicized of which has been the proposal for a new Lutheran inter-church agency, toward which all U. S. Lutheran bodies are to be invited to join in conversations. National Lutheran Council officials had agreed to a Missouri Synod suggestion that theological and confessional discussions should be given priority. So to this convention came a resolution authorizing appointment of a committee to enter into the conversations. As delegates settled back in their seats for what was expected to be a lengthy and spirited debate, the silence was startling. Not a single delegate spoke; the resolution passed unanimously; and some thought they could hear a sigh of relief from Detroit. The Missouri Synod decision on whether to join the proposed agency is expected at the next convention three years hence. Dr. Oswald C. J. Hoffmann, Director of the Department of Public Relations who doubles as the dynamic radio preacher of The Lutheran Hour, pointed out that the area of cooperation, if the agency materialized, would be limited and would not, for example, extend to pulpit exchange, missionary work, or student work.

Heated debate was reserved for the next resolution on the agenda, which recommended no action in response to several memorials requesting severance of relations with the National and World Councils of Churches. The resolution pointed out that though the synod is not a member of these organizations, various of its departments have found it advantageous to use certain NCC and WCC services, and this was declared not “to violate the Scriptural principles of fellowship.” Controversy centered on the NCC, the leadership of which was charged with being “shot through with subversives and fellow travelers.” But delegates were assured that use of certain NCC services did not thus identify their church with the council or its program. On a voice vote, supporters of the status quo seemed to prevail by three to one.

The convention heard Dr. Fred Kramer, Concordia Seminary professor, in a special essay praise the WCC for its refugee work and dismiss fears that it would become a super-church. But he presented two obstacles to synod membership: (1) some WCC churches minimize the doctrine of original sin and thus forfeit the purity of the Gospel; (2) some of its churches displace the biblical Gospel with a social Gospel and thus arrive at a false gospel.

Delegates voted to send official observers to future conventions of the World Council of Churches, the International Council of Churches, and other church federations, at the discretion of its presidium, and approval was given for continuation of doctrinal discussions between Lutherans and Presbyterians.

Turning to inter-church matters closer to home, the convention expressed its desire to re-establish doctrinal discussions with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, both formerly in fellowship with the Missouri Synod in the Synodical Conference. The first two Synods had severed relations with the Missouri Synod, which action the latter attributes to the extension of its theological witness to all Lutherans and others desiring to “talk biblical theology.”

Delegates also called for organization of an International Synodical Conference of Lutherans, based upon the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confession.

For the big-shouldered, fast-growing Missouri Synod (2,544,544 members), this convention marked the end of an era. Its president for 27 years, Dr. John W. Behnken, was now 78 years old, and he asked the delegates not to consider him again for the office he had held for a precedent-shattering nine successive three-year terms. He had been first elected here in Cleveland in 1935, when pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas. His successor at Trinity now became his successor as president: popular, forthright Dr. Oliver W. Harms, who had served in St. Louis since 1959 as synod first vice president. He told the press he foresaw no change in synod policies under the new admintration. Closing his acceptance speech, he quoted the synod handbook: “I pray that God may keep me loyal to the Holy Scriptures as the inspired and inerrant Word of God and the Symbolical Books of the Lutheran Church as a true exposition of the Scriptures.”

Though handing over his gavel, the eloquent Behnken, who has been aptly described as a towering figure of twentieth-century Lutheranism, was named the synod’s honorary president. An able parliamentarian, he would long be remembered with smiling gratitude by ear-weary delegates for his soft-spoken but inexorable counsel whenever a leather-lunged enthusiast would start shouting into a microphone: “Would you step back a little from the microphone, please.”

F. F.

Grand. Rapids, Michigan—Plans for calling the fifth world-wide Reformed Ecumenical Synod were completed by the Christian Reformed Synod, which met in Grand Rapids, June 13–23. Organized in 1946 in Grand Rapids, the RES has met in the Netherlands, Scotland, and South Africa, and will hold its 1963 meeting on the Calvin College campus in Grand Rapids. Only selected Reformed churches chosen by the Ecumenical Synod are eligible for membership.

Delegates who wondered why the Reformed Church of America was not invited were informed that ecclesiastical relationships did not yet warrant an invitation. The Christian Reformed Church owes its origins to a separation from the Reformed Church in the Netherlands and to a later separation from the Reformed Church of America.

Theologically conservative, and traditionally of strong doctrinal concern, the CRC has had a long history of small sympathy for the ecumenical movement. In 1924 it withdrew from the Federal Council of Churches declaring that “ecclesiastical alliances between orthodox and liberals are contrary to God’s Word.” It is not a member of the World Council of Churches, and in 1958 decided that no consistory or congregation should affiliate with any local arm of the National Council of Churches. A committee recommendation that the Synod of 1962 send a warning to its sister church, the Gereformeerde Kerken of the Netherlands, urging it not to join the WCC was rejected as an “affront to our sister church.”

Dr. Hendrik Bergema, professor of missions, member of the Indonesian parliament, and fraternal delegate from the Gereformeerde Kerken, spoke to the synod of the lively interest in his churches, and in other churches of the RES, for affiliation with the WCC. He also reported that his churches are astir over possible reunion with the Netherlands Reformed Church (Holland’s former State Church).

The most controversial issue found on the synod’s agenda was the reappointment of Dr. John Kromminga to the presidency of Calvin Seminary. The center of a small tempest last year over scriptural infallibility, Kromminga was reappointed by an overwhelming vote. Attempts to substitute a rotating rectorship for the office of president was defeated (by 12 votes) when the synod decided to give President Kromminga life tenure. Dr. Louis Praamsma of Toronto was elected professor of church history in the church’s seminary. The Rev. Bernard E. Pekelder was given a two-year appointment as student pastor for Calvin College. This is the first time the college has had an official college pastor for student counseling.

The synod moved to take option on an additional 105 acres of land adjacent to the recently-acquired new Knollcrest campus. Resolutions were adopted to proceed with the drawing of plans for additional new buildings on the new campus. The freshman class of 1962–63 will be the first to occupy the new college facilities. The church is attempting to sell its present campus.

In what may prove to be of far-reaching significance was the adoption of a new method of financing Calvin College. In the past each family in the denomination was under quota for an equal number of dollars for the support of the college. Last year the amount per family was $17. The new plan divides the denomination into seven geographical areas. The amount of assessment in any given area per family is determined by the number of students attending Calvin from that area. The new varying quota will range from about $ 11 for the Iowa and Canadian areas, to $24 for the Grand Rapids area.

This “pay according to service received” plan was regarded by some observers as the first step toward setting the college free from denominational ownership and control. Though committed by theological conviction and long tradition to free, non-parochial schools, the church, for practical reasons, has made Calvin College an exception. If these observers are correct, the new plan of regional payment according to services received may well precipitate new practical considerations which could drive the church back to the non-parochial principle for Calvin College.

The new method of financing Calvin was prompted by a demand for relief for such areas as Chicago and Iowa which have Christian colleges of their own but receive no support from denominational quotas.

Three other decisions indicate the ambiguities in which the church is caught because of divergence between principle and practice. It rejected an overture from Classis Alberta North “to change the status of Calvin College to conform to the principle that the church do not own a college.” In two other decisions the synod approved the decisions of Classis Sioux Center that the Rev. B. J. Haan could retain his ministerial status as president of Dordt College, and also approved the decision of Classis Chicago South that the Rev. Harold Dekker could not retain his ministerial status as president of Trinity College.

With the synodical approval of the ordination of Scott Redhouse, the denomination acquired its first Navajo minister. The church has carried on mission work among the American Indians of the Southwest for many decades. Authorization was granted to expand the church’s mission staffs in Formosa and Southern Argentina, and to take over new fields on Guam and the Philippine Islands.

Because of its covenantal theology the church counts itself in terms of families, of which it has some 54,000. Adopting an all-time high denominational budget of $4,351,000, the synod adopted a quota of $77 for each of its families. Of this $39 is earmarked for missions.

The synod rejected a call from one of its classes to issue a pronouncement on capital punishment.

J.D.

Detroit—At the annual meeting of the Conservative Baptist Association of America, more than 2,000 delegates witnessed an acute debate in which one amendment to the constitution of the association was defeated and another referred back to the CBA board for further clarification. The amendments would have tightened the requirements for churches wishing to affiliate with the CBA and redefined the purpose of the association along more separatist lines.

Submitted for debate by the members of the board, in a movement opposed in resolutions of the Eastern and Western regional conferences last fall, was an amendment to delete the phrase “without regard to other affiliations” from a statement regarding autonomous Baptist churches wishing to associate with the Conservative Baptists by affiliation. Exclusion of this phrase from the constitution would have made the outside associations of these churches a factor in discussion of proposals for their affiliation. A number of churches are associated with the Conservative Baptists while retaining their membership in other national bodies. After considerable discussion, the amendment was referred back to the board for reconsideration and will be submitted again at the next annual meeting scheduled for Atlantic City next May.

A second proposal sought to make the purpose of the association more explicit. It read in part, “The Conservative Bapist Association of America has been brought into existence to provide a fellowship of churches and individuals upon a thoroughly biblical and historically Baptist basis, unmixed with liberalism and those who are content to walk in fellowship with unbelief and inclusivism.” This proposal, cited by Dr. Rufus Jones, director of the Home Mission Society, as “the heart of controversy” at the Detroit meeting, failed to receive the required two-thirds vote.

Dr. Arno Weniger then countered with the proposal that the statement be adopted as a resolution, but this motion was also overrulled. According to association by-laws, a resolution requires only a majority vote of the assembled “messengers.” Commenting upon the rejection of both proposals to amend the constitution, Dr. Vincent Brushwyler, director of the Foreign Mission Society, expressed pleasure that motions which would have brought the CBA closer to the policies of the General Association of Registered Baptists had been defeated. “They would have made the Conservative Baptists more separatist,” he noted.

Further debate upon the floor of Cobo Hall centered around the application for membership of an independent Baptist church in Everett, Massachusetts. It ended inconclusively. In an action initiated two years ago, the Everett church had applied for membership in the CBA by a vote of 4 to 3 with 20 of those present at the meeting abstaining on doctrinal grounds. Both those abstaining and those voting against the application had reportedly done so because of the requirement in the CBA constitution that associated churches subscribe to a pre-millenial theology. When it became known that the action of the Everett church was two years old, a motion was passed to return the application to the church for reconsideration.

Three other resolutions were adopted at the final business meeting. One of these opposed the use of public funds for parochial schools; another expressed concern over two recent court cases in which the majority memberships of churches had lost their church property to minority groups. A third proposal, submitted by the laymen, was enthusiastically passed, overriding the objections of those who had opposed it on procedural grounds. It called for “a year of prayer for revival and spiritual unity among the conservative Baptists.”

No official action was taken at the convention regarding the new and widely controversial new mission society. At a series of pre-convention meetings held in the Joy Road Baptist Church in Chicago, however, the new World Conservative Baptist Mission elected officers and adopted policies for the society. Elected were Dr. Bryce B. Augsburger of the Marquette Manor Baptist Church, Chicago, as president; Dr. Ernest Pickering of Minneapolis, vice-president; Dr. Kenton Be-shore of Denver, secretary; and Rev. Henry Sorenson of Pekin, Illinois, treasurer. The new society did not have a booth at the convention nor did it distribute literature.

Nearly all the association’s officers were reelected.

Ocean Grove, New Jersey—Dr. Andrew W. Cordier, for 16 years an assistant secretary general of the United Nations, was honored at a testimonial dinner held in connection with the 176th annual conference of the Church of the Brethren. Cordier, an ordained minister in the historic “peace church,” left his U. N. post July 1 to become dean of the Graduate School of International Affairs at Columbia University.

In presenting an award to Cordier, Brethren moderator Dr. Nevin Zuck praised him for his “long, sustained, brilliant and dedicated services to the causes of international peace and justice.”

Some 6,000 church members who were on hand for the six-day conference voted to send an observer to the Consultation on Church Union to be held next year at Oberlin, Ohio. The consultation is made up of representatives to the Methodist, Episcopal, and United Presbyterian churches and the United Church of Christ who are discussing the possibilities of merger.

The conference was climaxed with a trip to Washington by 500 of the Brethren for a “peace walk.” Their vigil took them to the White House, the State Department, and to Capitol Hill. The demonstration, similiar to those conducted by those who object to nuclear weapons tests, was the first to be sponsored officially by the national leadership of a Protestant denomination.

Brooks Hays, special assistant to the President, conferred with the peace walkers in behalf of President Kennedy to receive their statement of belief that “war is sin” and that “evil is overcome by good.”

The Rev. Ralph E. Smeltzer, director of peace and social education for the Brethren, emphasized that the demonstration was a “witness” and not a “protest.”

Smeltzer says that as one step to help reconcile East-West tensions, the Brethren propose to carry out an exchange of its leaders with the Russian Orthodox Church. Moreover, they seek also to send an international delegation of Brethren into Communist China. The Brethren support membership of all nations in the United Nations, including Communist China, “in order to provide a forum for the discussion of the issues which divide mankind.”

Little Rock, Arkansas—Public apologies marked the 132nd General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Dr. Glen W. Harris, fraternal delegate from the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., said his denomination bears a great deal of the blame for the split which led to the formation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Cumberland Presbyterians replied to the apology with a plea for forgiveness of their own sins and a pledge of future cooperation.

The Cumberland Presbyterians withdrew from the parent body in 1810 in a dispute over extending the church to the frontier west of the Appalachian Mountains. During 1906 and 1907 about two-thirds of the Cumberland Presbyterians rejoined the main Presbyterian body, which was then the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., but a series of law suits over property followed the reunion.

Said Harris: “Though we believe we were legally correct 55 years ago, it is clear that we in the larger church should recognize and repent what we did to these Christian brethren.”

“We are conscious,” he added, “that 55 years ago and in the years immediately following, our church appeared to be more interested in church property and legal rights than in Christian love and witness. For this, too, we ask your forgiveness.”

In an unprecedented gesture, the audience rose to its feet as Harris finished his speech.

In their reply, Cumberland Presbyterians observed that “it is much easier for both of us to confess the sins of those who have gone before us than it is to recognize our own failures and ask for personal pardon … But we reply in the same spirit of confession of our personal sins and a plea for pardon and future cooperation in our own day.”

“In our effort to maintain our right to be different,” the reply added, “and to fulfill what we consider a distinct mission, we have sometimes felt inclined to magnify our differences and to oppose those with whom we differ more than to recognize our common witness and to fulfill our mission.”

Later the assembly named a Permanent Committee on Inter-Church Relations to work for a closer relationship between Cumberland Presbyterians and other Presbyterian and Reformed groups. Some observers saw the move as a first step toward eventual reunion. The United Presbyterians number some 3,000,000, Cumberland Presbyterians about 100,000.

In other action the assembly voted to move the denomination’s theological seminary from McKenzie, Tennessee, to Memphis some time after 1964.

Also approved was the use of the Covenent Life Curriculum, a program presently being developed by the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. When the educational curriculum is introduced in October, 1963, five denominations will begin using it: the Southern Presbyterians, the Reformed Church in America, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Moravian Church in America, and the Cumberland Presbyterians.

During the Cumberland Presbyterian assembly a tract of land eight miles north of Little Rock was presented to Rose City Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It will provide for a log cabin shrine on the site where the first sermon was preached by a denominational minister in the Arkansas Territory in 1812. The City of North Little Rock gave the church a 50-year lease on the land for a token payment of one dollar.

Texarkana, Arkansas—A resolution supporting “all those in any Baptist group endeavoring to hold the line against infiltration of modernism into its ranks” was adopted by the American Baptist Association at its national convention.

The resolution charged that in recent years there has been a “departure from the historic Baptist position on the part of some of the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention.” It commended the efforts of some Southern Baptists to “weed infidelity” out of the convention.

The ABA, organized in 1905, comprises some 3,000 independent missionary Baptist churches, mainly in the south. A new headquarters building in Texarkana was dedicated in connection with the convention.

About 3,500 delegates and visitors at the meeting were greeted by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, who contended that Americans are being given “the false philosophy of reward for idleness and sinfulness.”

“The welfare state, which we are seeing today, encourages young people to do wrong, and the honest and industrious are being taxed to give to people for sin and idleness.” he said.

Beer For The Boys

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Michael Ramsey, sent for a nine-gallon barrel of best bitter from the local pub for the refreshment of his guests. He was entertaining 35 shipyard workers on their annual outing from Sunderland, an industrial town in the north of England. “When I was Bishop of Durham,” said Dr. Ramsey, “I used to visit the shipyards and got to know the workmen. I know what they like and I know what I like—and I shall be having the same as them, of course.”

J. D. D.

Democracy In Action

Demonstrations against nuclear weapons are now a familiar part of British life, and the number of people arrested so far this year runs into thousands. In Scotland most of the protests are centered around the American Polaris submarine base in the Holy Loch on the Firth of Clyde. The nearest town is Dunoon which, because of the number of lochs which cut deeply into the country at this point, is most conveniently reached by sea from Greenock, on the north shore of the Clyde. This naturally creates difficulties of transportation for large numbers, but the demonstrators solved it easily in arranging the latest protest. From British Railways, a nationalized concern, they hired a special train from Glasgow to Greenock, and a special steamer from Greenock to Dunoon. British Railways regarded it as a purely business transaction, but one might think it a significant boost for democracy that a government is prepared to supply transport for the purpose of making demonstrations against itself.

Among the 140 arrested on this occasion was the Rev. Ian McDonald Tweedlie, 33, American-born minister of St. Ninian’s Church, Cumnock, who was given the choice of a fine or going to prison for two months. Tweedlie asked if he could be sent to prison at once, but the judge refused—said that he would have to wait until the expiry of the 14 days officially allowed for payment of the fine.

J. D. D.

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Franklin J. Clark, 88, former secretary of the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church; in Flourtown, Pennsylvania … Dr. Gilbert Q. LeSourd, 75, noted Methodist minister and former assistant secretary of the John Milton Society; in Schenectady, New York … Dr. Eugene M. Austin, 52, American Baptist minister and president of Colby Junior College; in Hanover, New Hampshire … William R. Barbour, 77, president of the Fleming H. Revell Company; in New York.

Retirements: As editor of the Mennonite Gospel Herald, Dr. Paul Erb … as executive secretary of the Colorado Baptist General Convention, Willis J. Ray.

Elections: As bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, the Rev. Albert A. Chambers … as moderator of the Church of the Brethren, Dr. Harry K. Zeller, Jr. … as moderator of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Eugene Warren … as president of the Christian Reformed Church, the Rev. John C. Verbrugge … as moderator of the Evangelical Free Church of America, the Rev. Andrew Johnson … as president of the Association of Council Secretaries, the Rev. Robert L. Kincheloe … as president of the National Conference of Quaker Men, George Castle.

Appointments: As professor of practical theology and dean of field education at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Arthur M. Adams … as dean of students at Taylor University, Henry W. Nelson … as professor of pastoral theology at the University of Chicago, Dr. Charles Roy Stinnette, Jr. … as professor of English Bible at the San Francisco Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Charles A. Hauser, Jr. … as general secretary of the Student Christian Movement of Great Britain and (Honorary) Assistant Bishop of London, Dr. Ambrose Reeves.

Award: To William E. Rowley, religious news editor of The Knickerbocker News, Albany, New York, the 1962 James O. Supple Memorial Award “for excellence in reporting the news of religion in the secular press” by the Religious Newswriters Association.

Nomination: As Chief of Army Chaplains, Methodist Chaplain (Colonel) Charles E. Brown, Jr., effective November 1.

The apparent freedom of Christian churches in Communist countries tends to disarm many Western observers. Churches are open; worship services are undisturbed; and most people are free to exercise their religion.

While the previously dominant position of the large established churches (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Calvinist and Lutheran) has been curtailed, smaller denominations (Baptist, Methodist, Brethren, Pentecostal) have lost comparatively little of their former freedom. Sometimes, in fact, Communist governments favor the latter more than the historic established groups.

Governments are even giving some financial help. After the Hungarian uprising in 1956, for example, the government helped churches to repair their damaged buildings. And in Budapest the First Baptist Church received substantial gifts of money to rebuild its organ.

But there is another side to this picture. Churches are not permitted to teach Sunday school classes or young people’s groups. While worship is unrestricted, ministers are not. They can preach only with permission from the state. The required license must be validated periodically. In some cases these preaching permits are revoked. Although prayer meetings and other smaller meetings may be conducted by any member deputized by the local pastor, only authorized people can occupy the pulpit and conduct services.

Denominational literature, moreover, must serve the state by alloting much space to the so-called Communist peace movement and by supporting government actions. Editors are government-picked fellow travelers or party members. That is the price exacted for government permission to publish materials.

While some Christian leaders are allowed to leave the country for short periods, they must have dependents, and these dependents must stay at home. Such leaders will be under surveillance during their absence and on their return must make a report. They know they can say only favorable things about their government.

The Communist press sharply criticizes any free country which restricts the churches, and the limited or qualified freedom granted to churches behind the Iron Curtain is well advertised all over the free world. When Communists temporarily relax their harsh methods for the sake of expediency they get quite a benevolent treatment in the free world press.

Deep Hatred of Religion

The whole picture is puzzling indeed when one recalls the tenets of Marxism, the announcements of Communist leaders like Lenin, the antireligious propaganda of the Communist government, and the inhuman persecutions of early Bolshevism. During those years, many Russian churches were transformed into museums, culture houses, and storage places. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Christian workers of different denominations were banished to Siberia to die of starvation, cold, and exhaustion.

The ruthlessness of Russian Communism in the first two decades is quite understandable for it regards religion, next to capitalism, as the greatest enemy of “socialist” progress. So the Communists proposed to right both simultaneously. But despite their inflection of cruel persecutions the Russians discovered that although they could confiscate or destroy church edifices, disorganize churches, disseminate antireligious propaganda, and even exile or kill religious leaders, they could not eradicate religion itself. They discovered what the free world knows: that man is incurably religious.

Communists, of course, are not yet ready to admit defeat in the battle between Communism and religion. Unwittingly, however, they have admitted losing the first round. The fact that they have changed their tactics from a policy of cruel persecution of the Christians to one of strict control of the churches proves this admission. What actually happened can be stated in that popular American sentence: “If you can’t lick him, join him.” Communists are students not only of mathematics but also of history. And so they have discovered that if they cannot destroy the churches, they can at least utilize them for their own purposes.

This uilization of the churches has many precedents in the history of Christendom. Recall the great age of absolute monarchies after the decline of feudalism. Kings were regarded as divinely appointed and endowed. Even biblical scholars defended the divine right of kings—among them the eloquent Bishop Bossuet who championed especially the cause of Louis XIV. Those who opposed Bossuet’s thesis that God ordains kings to rule and therefore endows them with peculiar gifts for the task were considered political rebels, heretics, and blasphemers. This story of Louis XIV had its parallels in English history. James I, II, and Charles I, II, enjoyed the ecclesiactical help of learned divines whose writings supported the theory of the divine right of kings. In reading church history, therefore, the Russians have taken special note of such developments and maneuvers.

This report was prepared forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. Bela Udvarnoki who from 1939–47 was president of the Baptist Theological Seminary in Budapest, Hungary, a post in which he succeeded his father. A native Hungarian, he attended Southern Baptist Seminary, receiving the Ph.D. degree in New Testament Greek under the late Dr. A. T. Robertson. Dr. Udvarnoki also taught Theology and New Testament in Budapest from 1931–39. Presently, he is chairman, social science department, Chowan College, Murfreesboro, North Carolina.

At times the Christian church became an obedient servant of nationalism. Said Frederick Engels, the colaborer of Marx, in his work on Historical Materialism: “Lutheranism became a willing tool in the hands of princes.” Communists read Engels as well as Marx, and thus are learning.

For Christians, Engels is not, of course, an authority on religion. But there are those of us who remember the first World War. We remember how churches in Hungary held special services to invoke God for Austrian-Hungarian victory. Protestant and Catholic clergymen alike blessed the arms and soldiers. Doubtless, the assistance of churches helped the morale of all the nations at war, thereby prolonging the bloody struggle and indirectly causing the death of countless thousands.

Today materialistic capitalism likewise is invading some of our organized churches. Quite a few even owe their existence to the capitalist system. Think of those churches that depend on income from large office and apartment buildings and hotels. What would happen if a socialist government “nationalized” these properties? What would such churches do? Disband? Does it not then appear more sensible to fight for the divine right of possession? It sounds plausible enough: Christianity and capitalism go well together, atheism and communism match well, too. But this is poor logic. Admittedly, Christianity defends human responsibilities and rights, including that of private property as a divine stewardship. But as a personal conviction, a way of life, a spiritual movement and a transforming power, Christianity in no way depends on kings, nations, or capital. For that reason it should in no way be expropriated by any earthly interest.

Is it true, then, that communism has come to terms with Christianity? This is unbelievable. Communism can no more be reconciled to spiritual Christianity than Christianity can be reconciled to atheistic Marxism. These two forces forever exclude each other. What then accounts for the present seemingly peaceful coexistence of the two forces inside Communist frontiers? Simply this: Communists are utilizing the forces of organized Christianity as tools for their own purposes.

The Bait of World Peace

The arsenal of Communist chicaneries is foisting another grand deception upon the world. At one and the same time the Russian bear blows hot and cold; it wants free men to feel only the lukewarm breeze.

This method is simple and plain. First, Communism finds an alluring or acceptable idea around which to gather the church leaders. If they cooperate peacefully, fine. But whoever questions the situation, or objects to it, is promptly replaced. In every denomination, unfortunately, will be those who for money, or prestige or power, are more willing to serve.

The Russian peace movement is one of the baits. After all, who would not work for peace? Is true Christianity not a message of peace? So a number of “peace” priests and “peace” ministers are stationed in Communist lands. But it is no secret that the impressive and lovely title of “peace priest” is nothing more than mere euphemism for “fellow traveler.”

It would be wrong to assume that all church leaders behind the Iron Curtain are red or even pink. I know personally a Calvinist bishop, a Baptist Convention president, and a very prominent university professor and lay church leader, all of whom have genuine reasons for painting a very favorable picture of the Communist system in Hungary. Bishop Berecky is sincere when he states that the changes made by the new regime in Hungary had a salutary effect upon the life of Hungarian Protestantism. Hromadka, the Czech theologian, says the same thing of his country.

One must remember the prewar condition of the Calvinist and Lutheran churches in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. As established churches they enjoyed the privilege of collecting religious taxes and of legally registering newborn babies on the rolls of the church where their parents were members. It is quite obvious that the Calvinist or Lutheran, even the Unitarian churches did not need to proselyte or even to evangelize. Churches grew with the birthrate. Moreover, there was little financial worry because the churches were supported by compulsory taxation. The soul-withering and spirit-killing effect of this system is apparent, and Berecky rejoices that this is now eliminated. There is no more church tax, no automatic legal registration of babies as church members. A new life, a deeper, spiritual atmosphere, prevails in the churches. And for these blessings praise goes to the Communist government!

The president of the Baptist Union in Russia and the president of the Baptist Convention in Hungary state in effect: “Under Communist rule we have achieved an equality with other denominations that before this system we could never have expected to see.” In Russia the dominant Orthodox church had despised the Baptists; Hungary had discriminated between the historic or established churches (Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, Unitarian) and groups like the Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Brethren, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. This situation no longer exists—thanks to the new government! Praise and gratitude are understandably genuine.

A Modern Trojan Horse?

An effective and impressive show window to the world is the First Baptist Church of Moscow. With Russian devotion its several thousand members always crowd the services. State authorities see to it that visitors and tourists notice this church and photograph the throng of worshipers. It should be noted, however, that this is probably the only Baptist church in this city of four or five million people. Surely more Baptist churches would function in Moscow, if there were proper freedom to do so. A strange pattern of one-sided thinking characterizes the Baptist leaders in Russia. While they miss no opportunity to prove their freedom they dare not speak about the past, about the martyrdom of many Christians including Baptists who suffered and died at Communist hands. No one can really blame the Russian brethren for this silence, for it represents part of the price they must pay for today’s meager freedom.

In their hearts certain leaders feel that this Communist variety of liberty is not what they hoped for. Many nurture a deep-seated distrust of Communist leniency, and some are paying but lip service to the government. Although the Communist government does not and cannot trust ecclesiastics, it knows nevertheless that by bribing clerics with position, and power, or by severe or cruel controls it can use the churches for the time being for its advantage.

Some of the Christian leaders secretly hope that Communist authority will cease. At the same time Communist leaders hope that they can weaken the churches and finally do away with religion. Letters from Communist countries betray the uneasy, perhaps temporary, truce of this present hypocritical situation. Each side hopes the other will expire first. But for the time being it is important that hundreds of millions of Buddhists and Hindus in Asia, of Moslems in the Near East and Africa, and even of Christians in Italy or in South America, hear that Communism is no enemy of religion! Do not churches enjoy freedom of worship? Just the mention of God’s name by Khrushchev during his visit to America was enough to make him an angel of light for some pious Americans.

The aims and plans of Communists in regard to Christianity are clear enough: they are using the churches as a means of gaining world domination. In this respect Christianity may become a modern Trojan horse. Definite danger lurks in this Communist softness toward the churches. By strictly controlling the churches and by carefully regulating the education of the clergy, the Communists inject the younger ministers with enough Marxism that they and their churches become harmless. By placing restrictions upon religious life and by means of intensive atheistic propaganda the Communists hope to deflect young people from religion so that in time churches will simply die out. This scheme fits Communist ideology very well.

Some Encouraging Factors

One can take courage from at least two facts, however, that the Communists seem to ignore. Being irreligious, Marxists do not know the essence of Christianity. They do not realize that Christianity is not merely the result of education or indoctrination. Therefore, Christianity does not depend ultimately on priests or ministers—a fact which is not always clear to Christians either.

Dr. A. T. Robertson once said—not without a touch of humor—that God’s kingdom will prevail in the hearts of men despite the preachers. Communists approach Christianity within the presuppositions of their own irreligion. Since Communists evaluate Christian conviction as mere indoctrination, they believe that by controlling the indoctrinators they will be able to exterminate religion!

Another fact unrealized by Communists is the difference between external oganized Christianity and internal spiritual belief of Christians as individuals. Communists actually believe that Christianity will be vanquished with the destruction of church buildings or organizations. Nothing, of course, is further from the truth. Were they to raze every church building; to close every theological school; to suppress the publication of Christian literature; were they to banish Christians to the far reaches of the earth and allocate only one real Christian per square mile, Marx would nonetheless lose the battle to spiritual forces behind the Iron Curtain.

By manipulating ecclesiastical organizations Communists believe they have Christianity under control.

Herein lies a grave warning and an important lesson. Modern Christians seem to major in organization. Denominational papers feature so-called “since I came” articles that extol the visible results of the minister’s work. Money, buildings, statistics! Only the Lord knows how strong the Church really is. Yes, Communists can and do use the organized church for their purposes; but they are totally helpless before the spiritual power of Christian believers.

The greatest mission field today is right within the local church. Organization may be the enemy’s tool of death-dealing operation, but through the indwelling Christ millions of transformed Christians will live forever to the glory of their Saviour and Lord.

BELA UDVARNOKI

Murfreesboro, North Carolina

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are by Christ’s own appointment means whereby his grace is imparted to the members of his body—the one, relating to entrance through union with Christ in his death and resurrection into newness of life and the fellowship of the church; the other relating to the nourishment of that life through believing participation in the elements of bread and wine as showing forth the Lord’s death till he come. But there are, apart from the two sacraments, other means whereby God’s grace is imparted to men. As Charles Hodge says, “A work of grace is the work of the Holy Spirit; the means of grace are the means by which, or in connection with which, the influence of the Spirit is conveyed or exercised” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 654). Thus the sacraments or ordinances, although unique in their institution, are not the only agencies through which divine grace is received. For both Scripture and life bear witness to the fact that the Holy Spirit influences men in many different ways.

So manifold are these other means of grace that to discuss them within the compass of a brief essay imposes a problem of selection. But the problem may be solved, in part at least, by considering first those means which, although different from the sacraments or ordinances, are in particular relation to them—namely, the Word of God, prayer, and fellowship (communion of the saints)—and then by considering some of the many means that come through common grace.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper do not stand in isolation. They are intimately related within the Church to the Word of God. Thus Calvin declared, “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists” (Institutes, ed. by J. T. McNeill, Vol. II, p. 1023). And, as R. S. Wallace shows (Calvin’s Doctrine of The Word and Sacrament), much of the great Reformer’s thought rests upon this indissoluble relationship of Scripture and sacrament.

The Word of God. Foremost, then, among the other means of grace is the Word of God, not only in its true preaching and faithful hearing but also in its daily use by the individual believer. Church history from apostolic times (1 Cor. 1:17, 21, 23, 24) down through the ages testifies to the preached Word as a means of grace unto the salvation and nourishment of souls. If the first-century Church “continued stedfastly … in breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42), the same text tells us that it did so in conjunction with “the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship” and “in prayers.” Indeed, the book of Acts is in large part a record of the apostolic preaching of the Word (Acts 2:14–35; 3:12–26; 4:31; 7:2–53; 8:4, 35; 10:34–43; 13:16–41; etc.). Following the pattern established in Acts, God has made faithful preaching and obedient hearing of the Word a blessing to his people. Therefore, the integrity of Scripture is crucial for the life of the Church, and to impugn the authority of the Word is to call in question one of God’s chief means of grace.

But it is not just in its public preaching and hearing that Scripture is a means of grace; in its private use the Bible is no less an instrument of the Spirit. Recall the relation of the Word of God to some of the loci classici of Christian experience—Augustine in the garden at Rome, hearing the childish voice repeating, “Tolle, lege,” and going into the house to find deliverance through reading Romans 13:13, 14; Luther in the Black Monastery at Wittenberg, converted through meditation on Romans 1:16, 17; Bunyan finding spiritual peace through 1 Corinthians 1:30. What happened to these men has been paralleled countless times by the experience of Christians in all ages and among all peoples. Moreover, along with this function in God’s gracious work of regeneration (Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23), Scripture is also daily food whereby the believer is nourished. The exhortation, “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18), goes hand in hand with the injunction, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Pet. 2:2, 3). Daily reading of the Word is beyond question a continuing means of grace for untold multitudes of God’s people.

Fellowship, Prayer, Worship. Turning again to the record in Acts, we observe that fellowship and prayer accompanied teaching and the sacrament: “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and prayer” (Acts 2:42). Surely the most inclusive of the other means of grace is that of fellowship (koinonia). Samuel Rutherford quaintly said, “Many coals make a good fire and this is part of the communion of saints” (Letters, ed. by A. Bonar, #286). The worshiping, serving fellowship of the church is surely among the other means of grace. It is significant that in the new translation of Calvin’s Institutes (ed. by J. T. McNeill) the original title of Book IV, which deals with the church, is for the page headings shortened from “The External Means or Aids by Which God Invites Us Into the Society of Christ and Holds Us Therein” to “Means of Grace: the Holy Catholic Church.” In the comprehensive sense the Church is indeed a chief means for the Spirit’s influence upon men. Proper recognition of this fact is a corrective to the extremes of individualism into which certain forms of evangelicalism may possibly lapse.

Again, prayer, public as well as private, is a means of grace. For while prayer offered, as our Lord instructed, behind the shut door is the most intensely personal of spiritual exercises, no believer anywhere prays only as an individual but always as a member of the body of Christ. Nor does he pray apart from the Word of God. The promises of Scripture constitute the warp and woof of prayer. Feeding the soul on the Bible leads to prayer and prayer leads to the Bible. From the perfect prayer life of our Lord on through the intercessions of the great saints of Scripture, among them Abraham, Moses, David and the other psalmists, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Jonah, Ezra, Peter, Paul, Scripture is the book of prayer. Nor is it answered prayer alone that is a means of grace but rather the act of praying in the sense of adoration of God, praise to God, communion with God, which also brings blessing to the soul.

At this point, special mention should be made of corporate worship, including as it does the preaching and hearing of the Word of God, and public prayer. For this too is a means of grace, and a great one. In the words of Calvin, “Believers have no greater help than public worship, for by it God raises his own folk upward step by step” (Institutes, Vol. II, p. 1019).

However, to subject these other means of grace to strict analysis is difficult if not impossible. Just as in man the physical, mental, and spiritual components are united, so these agencies of the Spirit’s working are interrelated and interdependent. The Word of God is spiritual seed and spiritual food; prayer is made according to its promises and teaching; the sacraments are administered as it directs; and all this is under Him who is at the center of the Word and who is the great Head of the Church in which believers find gracious fellowship.

Additional Means in Relation to Common Grace. God also confers his benefits to men through common grace, by which is meant the “general influences of the Holy Spirit which to a greater or lesser degree are shared by all men” (L. Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, p. 179; cf. also C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 654–675; and M. E. Osterhaven, “Common Grace,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, VI, No. 8 [1962], 374 f.). Included in these influences of the Spirit are not only the blessings of the natural order, epitomized in our Lord’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45b); but also the talents God bestows upon men, whether artistic as typified by Bezaleel (Exod. 31:2–4) or administrative as in the case of Moses and Joshua and David, or in the many other kinds of human ability. Thus considered, all human progress intellectually and culturally, science not excepted, stems from common grace. In this fact lies the answer to the parochialism of judging a work of literature or art by the life of its human creator, or of relegating scientific advances wholly to the secular realm. For if God gives ability, then the products of that ability, provided that it is used in the integrity of the truth, are to be accepted as gifts of God’s grace. As Justin Martyr put it, “All that has been well said belongs to us Christians” (Second Apology, p. 13). Therefore, music not simply in conjunction with sacred words but in its own right may be, under common grace, an uplifting and ennobling influence. Likewise with the other arts. For the title of C. G. Osgood’s little book, Poetry As a Means of Grace, is more than figurative and points to the spiritual use of culture as a whole.

Nature. But while the arts and sciences are necessarily subject to limitations of opportunity and ability, there are even more spacious areas of common grace that are open to all regardless of education and culture. In the forefront of these are the works of God in nature. To go down to the sea in ships and to behold the wonders of the deep (Ps. 107:23, 24); to lift up one’s eyes unto the hills (Ps. 121:1, 2; Ps. 36:6); to consider the heavens, the moon and the stars which God has ordained (Ps. 8:3)—these and experiences like them are also, in their wordless but eloquent communication of the greatness of the living God, means of grace.

Work and Service. Of great importance among the agencies of common grace is work. Faithful doing of the daily task brings satisfaction gained in no other way, while even the humblest work done for the glory of God may become a pathway to lofty Christian experience, as with Brother Lawrence (cf. The Practice of the Presence of God). But especially work in the form of selfless service for others, done out of love and compassion, is a means of blessing both to doer and recipient. If some forms of present-day evangelicalism lack social concern, the remedy lies in renewed sensitivity to human need. Said our Lord to those who gave food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, sheltered the stranger, clothed the destitute, and visited the sick and imprisoned, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40). And James, the brother of the Lord, wrote, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (Jas. 1:27). After describing how a group of British officers who, having suffered unspeakable degradation in the notorious Japanese prison camp at Chungkai, shared food and water with destitute Japanese casualties and bound up the wounds of these their enemies, Ernest Gordon declares, “We had experienced a moment of grace.… God had broken through the barriers of our prejudice and had given us the will to obey His command, ‘Thou shalt love’ ” (Through the Valley of the Kwai, p. 222).

Special Human Relationships. Other means of grace include the wide range of human relationships. The sacred union of husband and wife, bearing the precious analogy of the union of Christ with his Church (Eph. 5:22–33), surely conveys a special measure of grace to those who live within it in the fear of the Lord. And additional relationships, such as that of parent and child, friend and friend, employer and employee, doctor and patient, teacher and pupil, citizen and civil authority—all of these may be used by the Spirit to bring blessing to men.

The fact is that the breadth of divine grace is immeasurable. In his sovereignty God is able to make any circumstance a vehicle of good for his children (Rom. 8:28). Even the bitter experiences of life—disappointment and misunderstanding, sorrow and tragedy—may become means of grace through him who is able to sanctify to us our deepest distress. There is no limit to the wideness of God’s mercy. His grace has infinite horizons and the agencies through which it is conveyed are as varied and multiform as life itself.

Use of the Other Means of Grace. A final comment is in order regarding use of the other means of grace. Here the reference, although including the special nonsacramental means, such as the Word of God and prayer, which are no more to be neglected than the sacrament, cannot be restricted to these special means. Clearly there is for Christians the continuing obligation to use talents, to do work, to serve others, to enjoy the beauty and fruits of creation, to live with others, and to experience every contingency of life as unto the Lord. Only by the unremitting practice of Paul’s advice, “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Col. 3:17), can believers use as they should the other means of grace.

Bibliography: L. Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination; J. Calvin, Institutes; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. II; Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God; M. E. Osterhaven, “Common Grace,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, VI (January 19, 1962), 374 f.; R. S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament.

Headmaster

The Stony Brook School

Stony Brook, L. I., New York.

There are times when one is impelled to write with directness and great urgency. This is such a time, for there has been borne in on my soul the tragic need for more love between Christians.

On every hand one comes in contact with frictions, jealousies, back-biting, gossip, and just plain bad manners, on the part of some Christians in their attitudes and dealings with other Christians.

There is not one of us who has not been guilty of this in some measure, so there is no need to point the finger of accusation at others unless we search our own hearts and recognize and confess this great sin ourselves.

An unloving and critical spirit is clear evidence that there is something wrong inside. We see things in others which we do not like. We forget that we are all responsible to the same God and that God is looking into our hearts and seeing there many things grievous in his sight. Lovelessness eats as a canker in our souls, taking away joy, power in witnessing and a sense of the presence of Christ. It grieves his heart and tarnishes our spirits.

Only a few days ago two Christians came to us separately. They live in different cities but have occasion for repeated contacts with each other. From each there came a tale of criticism. They were utterly miserable and did not know why. Each was cherishing a grudge against the other. Each thought he had been wronged. Each was bitter in his criticism of the other.

As we listened we were sick at heart. We know both of these individuals well. They are unquestionably Christians and God has used them, each in his own sphere. But here one sensed a spirit which dishonors the Lord and greatly lessens their influence as Christians. This situation can be duplicated so frequently that it may be considered commonplace within the Christian community. Brethren, these things ought not so to be.

Often there is the clash of personalities. One considers himself better than the other, or, the peculiarities of one individual “get on the nerves” of another and he breaks forth in words of resentment and criticism. How easy it is to magnify the peculiarities of others while at the same time we forget that our own idiosyncracies are often even more offensive!

Again our anger smoulders as we imagine the wrongs someone has done to us! Many times these wrongs are the fruits of our own imagination. Again they may be real and we proceed to forget that forgiveness is a Christian virtue, based on God’s forgiveness to us. Who are we to cherish resentments when God has forgiven us for so much?

Only too often we clash with others because we are determined to have our own way. Willfulness and self-assertiveness are often signs of our own immaturity or of our own ignorance. Many times the writer has been sure of his own judgment and sought to carry it out only to find that some one else had a much wiser solution.

Many times the failure to exhibit Christian love is a case of just plain bad manners. Christians should, of all people, exhibit love and consideration of others but they often fail miserably. A little girl is reported to have prayed: “Oh Lord, make more people Christians, and then make more Christians nice.” There is more than an implied joke in this prayer, for there is great need that more of us Christians shall be “nice.”

That there should be secret scheming by Christians against other Christians seems unthinkable, but if we search our own hearts we know that many of us have been guilty of this sin.

Again, petty revenge ever lurks in the wings, anxious to assert itself in the guise of righteous indignation, or contending for the faith, or any one of a number of pious-sounding but nonetheless hypocritical attitudes.

How many of us love to gossip! We hear a tidbit of scandal, or supposed scandal, or backsliding by a fellow Christian and we can hardly wait to tell someone else. And in the telling the story grows and becomes distorted to the injury of our brother and the scarring of our own souls. Somewhere along the way Satan attached the word “harmless” to gossip. What a trap!

In all of this harshness and lack of Christian love the solution rests with the individual Christian and his Lord. God will give the grace to overcome this sin and he will give us Christian love through his Spirit. But we must practice this grace, and with it comes a wonderful change in attitude to others and peace in one’s heart.

Our Lord spoke of the priority of reconciliation over acts of worship. He tells us to first be reconciled to our brother, then come to him in worship. This is not easy, for it requires the grace of humility, but what peace and joy it brings to the one who is so reconciled!

Basic to such love is a realization of God’s love for us in Christ. He did not come to die for saints, but for sinners such as we are. This love of both the Father and the Son is reflected in our hearts by the indwelling Spirit.

Paul tells us that God will teach us to love others, even the most unlovely (1 Thess. 4:9). In Galatians 5:13, 14 he says: “… but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (RSV).

The definition of Christian love is one we should study repeatedly. It involves patience, kindness without either jealousy or boastfulness. It does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.

How impossible to live in that relationship with others without the presence and power of the indwelling Spirit!

If one will study the realm of Christian relations one will find how far most of us come short of God’s standard in this matter. Unbelievers look at us and scoff. Believers consider and mourn.

Paul, speaking of the works of the flesh numbers far more sins of the spirit than of the body—“enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissention, party spirit, envy,” 8 of the 15 specific sins mentioned in Galatians 5:20 (RSV) have to do with our personal relationships with others.

The Kingdom of God is being retarded because so many of us who name the name of Christ exhibit so little evidence of Christian love in our hearts.

But where such love is found, how winsome and refreshing! The healing balm of love is desperately needed in a world where Satan tempts us to the very opposite. Faith abides because it is a reaction of man to God’s offer of salvation. Hope is a result of our faith in the saving and keeping power of Christ. But it is love which demonstrates to others that our faith and hope are genuine.

God, enable us to love our brothers for Thy glory!

John 1:16

THE PREACHER:

Charles S. Duthie has been since 1944 Principal and Professor of Systematic Theology, Scottish Congregational College, Edinburgh. After a distinguished career at Aberdeen University, where he graduated in Arts and Divinity, he was ordained in 1936. Army chaplain during most of World War II, he is a leading supporter of the Tell Scotland movement and was the First President of the Scottish Pastoral Association. Dr. Duthie has written God in His World, on the theology of evangelism.

THE TEXT:

And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace (KJV).

And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace (RSV).

THE SERIES

This is the sixth sermon in our 1962 series in which CHRISTIANITY TODAY presents messages from preachers in Great Britain and the Continent. Future issues will include sermons by Dr. A. Skevington Wood, Minister of Southlands Methodist Church, York; the Rev. William R. Mackay, Hospital Chaplain in Scotland; and President Jean Cadier, of the Reformed Faculty at Montpellier, France.

This might be called an old text with a new meaning-thanks to our recent translations of the New Testament. It is true that the rendering of the King James Version can still be made to yield its measure of truth. “Grace for grace” or “grace in exchange for grace” would refer to the fact that the life of the Christian is rooted in God’s grace from its beginning to its end, one grace being exchanged for another as that life continues. But the original word translated “for” can quite legitimately be rendered “upon” or “after” to give this significant alternative: “From his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace, grace after grace—grace succeeding grace, grace heaped on grace, grace without end.” God’s grace is both superabundant and unfailing.

Let us put the thought of the apostle into a simple picture. In summer many of us go to the seaside to find renewal of body and spirit. However active we may be, there are moments when we desire nothing better than to sit or lie still and watch the tide move in upon the shore, magic moments when the rolling waters hold us fast as in a spell. As we gaze, we see the waves thrusting forward to the beach, wave surmounting and succeeding wave, endlessly. So John seems to say, from the boundless ocean fullness of God’s grace in Christ we have all received and we now receive and we shall go on receiving wave after wave of grace. The source from which this grace streams is inexhaustible.

The Wonder Of Grace

Grace is a lovely and indispensable Christian word because it describes something very wonderful. It is a decisive event in any man’s life when he discovers for himself what the word means. I recall being present once at a committee where candidates for the Christian ministry were being examined. One man who had done well in the written work and who was known to be rather shy was making heavy weather of the oral. We put the usual questions to him but he appeared to be confused and overwhelmed by the occasion. Then Dr. J. D. Jones, the celebrated Bournemouth preacher, who was in the chair, leaned forward and said, “My boy, what we really want to know is this: do you know anything about what the New Testament calls the grace of God?” A hush came over the committee. Then the young man lifted up his head, looked Dr. Jones in the eye and said with quiet confidence, “Yes, sir, I do and I know it from my own experience.” We knew then that he had the “root of the matter” in him. He had broken through to the living heart of New Testament faith. He had discovered grace.

What a wealth and world of meaning there is in this word grace! The goodness of God and the power of God and the holiness of God are all in it. And to that we must add the loveliness and the love of God. P. T. Forsyth who has been called “a theologian of grace” puts it like this: “By grace is not here meant either God’s general benignity, or His particular kindness to our failure or pity for our pain. I mean his undeserved and unbought pardon and redemption of us in the face of our sin, in the face of the world-sin, under such moral conditions as are prescribed by His revelation of His holy love in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Grace is the free, unmerited, uncalculating, outflowing and overflowing love of God in Christ meeting and matching our indifference and defiance. Grace is the first word in the Christian vocabulary for Christianity in distinction from all other religions is preeminently the religion of grace, with God the great giver and man the humble receiver. This is what makes “the Christian message” a “Gospel,” the power of God issuing in salvation for all who believe. For this reason the Christian is essentially a man who lives by the assurance of grace.

Strange how long it takes some men to grasp the fact that God is the God of grace, giving himself in Christ to the limit, accepting us as we are, pardoning us freely and pouring his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit! Spurgeon had a favorite story about an old woman who was so poor that she often lay in bed for a large part of the day in order to keep warm. One day her minister called with a gift of money for her. He knocked several times at the door but received no answer. Several days later he met her in the street and told her of his visit. “Ah!” she said, “I was in bed. The door was locked. I did not get up to open the door. You see, I had no money and I thought it was the landlord come to collect his rent.” It is possible to go through life thinking that God is at the other end of a heavy demand that we cannot possibly meet. And indeed God makes the greatest of all demands: He asks for ourselves, because he knows that there can be no enduring satisfaction for us apart from fellowship with him. But he asks everything of us because he has already given everything for us in his Son. The demand presupposes the gift: the gift makes it possible for us to answer the demand. God is indeed the “God of all grace” (1 Pet. 5:10).

Endless Resources

Our text makes the direct suggestion that this astonishing grace of God comes to us from a source which can never be exhausted. That source is God himself whose limitless “fullness” has been made available to us in his beloved Son.

What new dimensions are added to our Christian discipleship when we realize that God’s resources cannot come to an end! One Christian thinker speaks of the “stupendously rich reality of God.” That is but an echo of Paul’s great phrase “the exceeding riches of his grace” (Eph. 2:7). This is a recurring theme of the hymns of the Wesley brothers:

Its streams the whole creation reach

So plenteous is the store

Enough for all, enough for each

Enough for evermore.

In every age Christians bear witness to the fact that when they go to God he never turns them empty away and that however much they may have received, he has still more to give.

Is it possible that our Christian lives are so deficient in power to attract and heal because we do not pause often enough to realize that God’s grace is inexhaustible? As a boy in the twenties I recall vividly the grey days of depression and unemployment. I remember seeing a paragraph in a newspaper describing how an undernourished urchin from the slums was taken into one of our large hospitals. They gave him a big glass of milk to drink. He gazed at it as if he had never seen the like before. Then he turned to the nurse and asked: “How far down may I drink, miss?” The spectre of insufficient supplies still haunted him. This is the kind of fear we never need to entertain with regard to God’s resources. They are always adequate because they are more than adequate. When we are grappling with a temptation that threatens to squeeze the life out of us, when we are faced with a sudden emergency that almost unmans us, when we have to carry for years a burden we did not deserve or when life tumbles in upon us, crushing our hopes into the ground we can open our ears to hear and appropriate the assurance given to Paul—“My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. 12:9). Here, too, lies the way of hope for the Church. She needs constantly to lift her eyes beyond the paralyzing bigness of the Christian task and the frailty of her own faith to the God whose renewing energies cannot fail. In an age of revolution, war and threatening destruction a Church constrained and made compassionate by grace can tell men everywhere that in God a limitless power to build up the world is available as they repent and return to him, their Heavenly Father.

While our text tells us that the grace of God comes from an inexhaustible source, it implies that this grace is only given to us as we need it, for the day, the hour, the moment. Because God is a God who gives and goes on giving “grace upon grace, grace after grace,” we must go on receiving, again and again and again.

One of the perils of the Christian life is that we may come to think that we have a spiritual capital of our own, from which we can draw at will when we require it. Perhaps our parents started it for us and we have added to it by years of Christian faithfulness. Certainly we do receive from the Christian past and from our own previous Christian experience. If we have genuinely striven to follow Christ throughout the years, recognizing our own weakness and pressing that weakness close to his strength, we stand a better chance of riding out the storm than the man who has only paid lip service to Christ and his Church. But which of us, however long we have been on the Christian road, will dare to say that he has spiritual resources of his own and in himself on which he can fall back? Samuel Rutherford put it vividly in his quaint way in his famous Letters: “Every man thinketh that he is rich enough in grace till he take out his purse and tell his money, and then he findeth his pack but poor and light in the day of a heavy trial. I found I had not (enough) to bear my expenses, and should have fainted if want and penury had not chased me to the storehouse of all.” Samuel Rutherford was right. The spiritual capital is not in us, not even in our acquired Christian wisdom, but in God. We can only draw from that capital by renewing our personal relationship with him through Christ, in trust and dependence. God gives. We must always be ready to receive.

Our openness to God’s grace and our utter dependence upon it is vital in every area of the Christian life. We need God’s grace for the inner life of the spirit. We are such fickle people that we can tell ourselves that because we prayed yesterday and will pray tomorrow we do not require to pray today. We need God’s grace for our personal relationships—at home, in the Church, in our work. We cannot be good parents, good sons or daughters, good employers or workers, good students or teachers without grace. It is grace that prevents us from using others for our own ends and enables us to accept people anew each day with a sense of wonder. We need grace if we are to play our part in the world, if we are to help rather than hinder, heal rather than hurt. The human heart is so perverse that we can make personal faith and the enjoyment of God’s gifts a form of self-preoccupation. We can grow callous to the needs of others, shutting our ears to the cries of the hungry and the dispossessed, avoiding the troublesome, missing the Christ who comes to be served by us in the least of his brothers and sisters. Grace and grace alone can thrust us out from our stagnant backwater to the wide ocean of human need until our deepest concern is for the salvation of a world and not simply for our own.

If we are truly open to this grace, God gives it to us in the fullest measure. The hymn often sung in missions and crusades

Just as I am, without one plea

But that Thy blood was shed for me

applies not only to the beginning of the Christian life. It is valid for that life in its continuance. We live by grace. And living by grace means coming to God again and again just as we are, presenting ourselves to him with our sins, our doubts, our fears and our disloyalties and relying on his willingness to accept us in that condition. The wonder is that he not only accepts us—he unites us with himself by his Spirit, he enters into us, he changes us into the likeness of his Son.

Grace For Every Christian

Let us notice too that this grace which is inexhaustible and which we must humbly receive from God as we need for it is for every Christian without exception.

It is not without reason that John writes: “From his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.” At the time when these words were written it is probable that a sect was springing up within the Church which distinguished Christians into various classes—the beginners, the more advanced, and the spiritual élite. John goes out of his way to make it clear that all who have received Christ may draw from the fullness of his grace—the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate, the freeman and the slave. There may be differing levels of spiritual apprehension, but it is dangerous to think that we are on the higher levels. Every Christian ought to be able to say

It reaches me, it reaches me

Wondrous grace, it reaches me

Pure, exhaustless, ever-flowing

Wondrous grace, it reaches me.

That verse puts the truth of our text in a simple and graphic form. “From his fullness have we all received”—that refers to something that has happened in the past in virtue of which we are Christians now. “Grace upon grace”—that indicates that we are in living touch with God the source of our new life. “It reaches me”—that bears witness to the fact that God’s grand initiative continues, that at this very instant I am linked with the God of grace, that I have the assurance of grace and am depending on grace alone.

But what is the grace of God? It is God himself in his gracious presence in Jesus Christ pardoning, reconciling, renewing, transforming. Grace is inexhaustible because God is inexhaustible. Grace is to be received again and again because God is to be so received. Grace in full measure is for every Christian because God is for every Christian.

“Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” wrote Paul to the Corinthians, “that, although he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). As we look at our Lord throughout his whole life spending himself for all sorts of men and women and giving himself supremely on the Cross we know that such self-giving is the costliest thing in the world. The wonder of grace is the wonder of a God who suffers for us and with us.

We cannot die for the world as Christ died; but we can be caught up by him through the Spirit into the passion of his “dying love” and work that love out in saving and serving men. The “power of his resurrection” is not given apart from the “fellowship of his sufferings.” And as we are privileged to enter into this fellowship in the duties and demands of every day, in our work, in our relationships with others and perhaps in some special task which God has assigned to us, God’s grace becomes more real and more wonderful. So may we live “to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6)! Amen.

English literature is much used in certain evangelical circles on the continent. Publications of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship or of Billy Graham, for example, are often translated or adapted in the different languages.

French literature is very limited. Europe has only two million French-speaking Protestants. Among those available are books on Barthian theology, translations of Barth himself, Brunner and other modern theologians, and reprints of Calvin and Luther. In the evangelical field about 850 titles are obtainable. The Davis Bible Dictionary, considerably revised and enlarged, has now been published in French. We have no one-volume Bible commentary and hardly any conservative biblical or theological text books. Authors are few in many subjects. There is a number of small publishing houses, but their efforts are scattered.

In German literature one finds everywhere the theology of Barth, Brunner and Bultmann. Critical theories have influenced even some independent groups. Excellent positive impact has been made by the Bible Dictionary and other publications issued by R. Brockhaus; Pastor Rienecker’s series of Bible commentaries; Scripture Union literature; and works by Erich Sauer, Dr. H. Bürki and Dr. G. Wasserzug.

In Italian literature the list of evangelical works is very small (there are only 100,000 Protestants in Italy’s population of 50 million). About 30 titles have been published by Biginelli in Rome; others are made available by the Waldensian church, and by the Conservative Baptists in Naples. Books in English and French are utilized by Christian workers.

Spanish and Portuguese literature from Latin America is often used by the tiny evangelical minorities of Spain and Portugal. In Spain it is virtually forbidden to print or import evangelical works; stocks are sometimes seized and the printer prosecuted.

Dutch literature is plentiful and freely available, and is characterized by the orthodox Calvinist teaching found in the works of G. C. Berkouwer and others.

Evangelical literature in Europe needs a series of key books which will present the Gospel powerfully and intelligently. May God send authors, funds, bookstores and colporteurs for this urgent task.

[René Pache is President of Emmaus Institute in Lausanne.]

In a population of over 600 million on the European continent it is estimated that there are 100 million radio receivers. Unhappily for Gospel broadcasting, most of the radio stations are under government control, involving a limited amount of free time more or less proportional to the number of Protestants in the population being granted to the “official” Protestant groups. In France (2 per cent Protestant) a 30-minute religious service is broadcast on Sundays at 8:30 a.m. In Belgium (1 per cent) a 15-minute broadcast is allowed on Monday evenings at 6:30, and a 30-minute morning service four times a year on special occasions such as Christmas. In Italy (0.2 per cent) a 15-minute Sunday service at 7:45 a.m. is broadcast. Spain, Portugal and Greece allow no Protestant broadcasting. Switzerland, roughly 50 per cent Protestant, has a one-hour Sunday service at 10 a.m.

The pioneer evangelical broadcaster in French was Rev. F. Durrleman, founder of “La Cause.” He and his colleagues broadcast once a week on three stations: Radio Luxembourg, Radio Paris, and the “Poste Parisien,” between 1928 and 1939. These were then all commercial stations, but at present the only European stations on which time may be bought for Gospel radio are Radio Luxembourg, Radio Europe No. 1, and Trans World Radio (short wave only).

The first paid French Gospel broadcast after World War II was produced by the writer of this article and European colaborers in 1946, and this has continued on Radio Luxembourg until now. This station carries also a daily French program on its two transmitters, at 5:40 and 6:40 a.m. respectively. Radio Europe No. I also has a daily (except Sunday) Protestant broadcast in French at 5:45 a.m. Unfortunately, certain sects are also using these facilities. Trans World Radio now broadcasts some 44 hours a week in 18 languages, mostly in the late afternoon and evening. Radio Luxembourg II carries 1½ hours of Gospel broadcasting in German each morning from 5:30. In largely Protestant Sweden the government radio gives the various religious groups 30 minutes each morning.

Europe’s greatest need is a strong Christian station, operating in the broadcast band.

[Miner B. Steams is Executive Director of Global Gospel Broadcasts, based in Brussels. He holds degrees in Science and Theology (including the Th.D).]

Is Europe a mission field? A number of evangelical Christians firmly believe that it is. They point out that the continent which launched the great world missionary movement of the nineteenth century now needs to hear the gospel message from missionaries from other lands. This conviction, though not shared by all, is strong and growing. Consequently a spirit of missionary activity has come to Europe since the Second World War.

Many discerning evangelicals in Europe welcome this new emphasis. Dr. René Pache of Switzerland, a leading Bible expositor and educator in French-speaking Europe, says “Europe needs missionaries and we Europeans will do what we can to help them. I cannot list all the American missions and groups that are successfully working in Europe, but we appreciate them. Missionaries should know the Word of God thoroughly, be able to teach it, and be willing to lose sight of the fact that they are from North America. European Christians will generally accept foreign missionaries on this basis.”

Another European leader who sees his continent in missionary terms is Bishop Hans Lilje of the Evangelical Church of Germany, a former president of the World Lutheran Federation. “The era when Europe was a Christian continent lies behind us,” Lilje says. “Europe cannot remain what it was if the drift away from Christianity continues.” Lilje prophesies that in the future “church membership will become more a matter of personal choice than social custom. It is no longer a question of which church one wishes to belong to, but whether he wants church at all.”

These are strong words coming from a church leader in the land of Luther and of the Bible. He knows that today less than five per cent of the Protestants of Germany attend services regularly, and that in the larger cities average attendance falls as low as two per cent. Further, almost half the people of the Federal Republic now profess to be Catholic. Is there a trend here? Though many would dispute his opinion, Pastor Martin Niemöller candidly prophesies the victory of Rome in free Germany. Already the Catholics are politically dominant, with a much larger youth movement and a high morale.

Robert P. Evans is founder and European Director of the Greater Europe Mission, the largest foreign mission on the Continent. He received a B.A. at Wheaton College and a B.D. at Eastern Baptist Seminary, and was a Navy chaplain in Europe during World War II. Mr. Evans founded the European Bible Institute and has lived in Paris for 14 years.

Conditions such as these convince men like Kenneth Scott Latourette of Yale that the last 50 years have changed the spiritual picture in Europe, where, he says, “The trend is toward the de-Christianization of a predominantly nominal Christian population.”

The return of Roman Catholicism to power and influence in formerly Protestant strongholds is especially significant. Almost half of Holland’s population is now claimed by Rome, which has a political edge here as in Germany. In Switzerland today 41 per cent of the people profess to be Catholic. Taken as a whole, less than a quarter of the inhabitants of free, western Europe now remain actively Protestant.

An Unevangelized Nation

French Protestants, who number hardly two per cent of the population, worry about the shortage of pastors to supply parishes in the 2,000 towns where they are at work. Protestants in France have about the same slim ratio to the population as the Quakers do in America. But what about the 36,000 towns and cities in France which have no Protestant church at all? Second to India, France probably has more unevangelized towns than any single country in the free world.

The challenge of Europe’s unevangelized towns has sobered mission leaders in America and impelled much of the new interest in this continent. Spain’s tiny minority of about 16,000 Protestants makes little impression upon a nation of 30 million. More than 20,000 Spanish towns (5, 000 with no roads leading to them) are still untouched by the Gospel. Italy counts 29,000 such towns, and less than half of one per cent of its people are Protestant. When we add the 10,000 unreached towns in Portugal and Austria and those of Greece, Belgium, Ireland and Protestant Europe we reach an astounding total. The number of churchless towns in free Europe, based on a recent study of Protestant church directories, is now estimated at 250,000.

How has this challenge been met by missionaries during the last 50 years? Of course, some from outside Europe served there with distinction during the nineteenth century, but no real movement in this direction gained momentum. The Edinburgh missionary convention of 1910 did not even refer to Europe as part of the missionary world. Before 1912 some work had been started in Latin Europe, but on a very small basis.

During the interval between the two world wars, which did so much harm to church life, American Christians became more concerned. But in response the churches of North America sent only about 50 missionaries to Europe before World War II.

After the armistice of 1945 the success of grim new enemies of the Gospel led some across the Atlantic to rethink missionary strategy for this continent. Larger denominations decided to supplement their massive post-war programs with some missionary manpower. The Presbyterians called theirs in Portugal “fraternal workers,” tactfully stating that they were there to serve under the national church which had invited them. The Southern Baptists, long at work in Italy and Spain, now opened seminaries in Switzerland and Italy and increased the number of their minority groups in the Latin countries.

The new nondenominational missions, lacking a constituency on the continent, were primarily interested in the masses which had no contact with Protestantism. In early post-war years the emphasis of these societies was on direct evangelism in which the missionary himself played the key role. But many workers came increasingly to realize the importance of trained nationals and spent more time readying potential church members in the Bible classes or launching Bible-teaching institutions.

Since 1945 more than 400 missionaries have gone to Europe—an increase of about 450 per cent since 1939. At least a score of missionary societies and special agencies have been created especially for service in Europe. The achievements of their workers, who constitute less than two per cent of the North American missionary body, have been little recognized.

Some Pioneer Efforts

For one thing they have pioneered gospel broadcasting in Europe. Dr. Miner B. Stearns of Brussels has aired programs regularly since 1946 in French and Spanish on Radio Luxemburg and other stations. The European Evangelistic Crusade and the Greater Europe Mission have had sustaining programs on these large commercial stations in several languages. Such efforts have stirred Swiss and German evangelicals to enter the commercial broadcast field for themselves. Then Trans World Radio transferred its short-wave broadcasting from Tangier to Monaco in 1961, leasing a large transmitter and several antennae owned by Radio Monte Carlo. The main efforts of this organization were directed toward captive eastern Europe. Meanwhile the World Radio Missionary Fellowship continues efforts to establish a medium and long wave station for reaching the masses in free Europe.

In the wake of the many successful Billy Graham crusades in Europe came a new interest in mass evangelism. The American, Eugene Boyer, in France, and the Canadian, Leo Janz, in German-speaking Europe, have consistently outdrawn even national evangelists in their large preaching missions. Through their efforts a multitude have turned to the Saviour. Europeans who have observed the long-term results of all these crusades report much lasting fruit despite the few evangelical churches in which to place converts.

In the training realm much help has come from abroad. Six Bible institutes and two theological seminaries have been founded by missionaries in free Europe since the Second World War. Twelve other such schools, some directed by Europeans, get either permanent or periodic missionary teaching help from foreigners and much financial aid from North America. The Greater Europe Mission has opened three schools. In the first, the European Bible Institute near Paris, students from 21 nations have been trained in two language sections. This mission maintains also the German Bible Institute in Seeheim and the Italian Bible Institute in Rome. In Brussels the Belgian Bible Institute has taught many of the pastors of Belgium. Its sponsor, the Belgian Gospel Mission, is the largest evangelical body in the country. In Portugal the Conservative Baptist Seminary of Leiria is the advanced Protestant training school in the land.

Europe still has fewer foreign missionaries than the city of Hong Kong or the island of Haiti. There is every evidence, though, of quickening concern about this strategic area called the “overlooked continent” by missions at work there.

Including the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

The past 50 years represent a most important period for Greece. Four wars, the absorption of 1½ million refugees by a small country of poor means, a disastrous enemy occupation and an internecine guerrilla war which followed hard on the heels of World War II, have all contributed to the great changes in the size, the population, the face, and the soul of the country. Signs of these changes are easily seen in the religious outlook of the people, as well as in the new potentialities for the evangelization of the country.

The vast majority of the population belongs nominally to the Greek Orthodox Church, though church attendance, according to the official statistics, does not exceed one and one half per cent on normal Sundays. There is a small Roman Catholic minority which is strongest in the islands of the Aegean Sea—a relic of the Venetian occupation of the country—and there is an even smaller Protestant body, the oldest and largest part of which, the Greek Evangelical Church, is Presbyterian. The whole Protestant community in Greece does not exceed 30,000 out of more than eight million.

One must, however, go beyond dry statistics and try to gauge the influence of Protestant bodies on the Orthodox church. This influence can be detected, for example, in the Sunday school. This was introduced into Greece by the Evangelical church, and for many years the leaders of the Orthodox church fought hard against it. But the Evangelical church persevered, and today statistics show that 2,170 Sunday schools operate within the Greek Orthodox Church.

More important was the matter of the Bible in the vernacular tongue. In November 1901 there was bloodshed in the streets of Athens, leading eventually to the resignation of both the Government and the Archbishop of Athens. This all began when the pious Queen Olga inspired and encouraged the publication of a translation of the New Testament into modern Greek. The fact that the New Testament was originally written in Greek has always filled the leaders of the Established Church with an inordinate national pride, and they have consistently refused to permit a translation of the sacred text into the modern tongue—the only one understood by most Greeks. To mark the complete victory of this reactionary party in 1901, a copy of Queen Olga’s translation was burnt in a ceremony held, fittingly enough, in the square occupied by the ruins of the pagan Olympian Jupiter. The Greek Evangelical Church, however, convinced that the key to the evangelization of the country lay in making the Word of God accessible to the people, maintained consistent efforts to this end. And what a wonderful change has gradually and painfully emerged within the last 50 years! Today, although the constitutional law still prohibits the rendering of the original text of the New Testament into modern Greek, there are hundreds of priests, and a few bishops, of the Established Church who use all their influence to encourage the ever-increasing circulation of the Bible in the tongue of the people.

Preaching is another sphere in which one can recognize the influence of the small church in the life of the big one. For many years there was nothing but the Mass in the Greek service. Pitton de Tournefort, a Frenchman who visited Greece in the sevententh century, said that the pulpit no longer existed in the majority of the churches, not even as a piece of furniture, “for the custom of preaching had been abolished.” This sad state of things prevailed long after Tournefort’s time. It was the Evangelical church which brought the pulpit into its own, and preaching gradually infiltrated into the practice of the national church, some of whose priests now sound a positive evangelical note.

There is also the promise of still greater developments. Besides work done for many decades by the British and Foreign, and the American Bible Societies, special mention should be made of the attractive editions of single Gospels and Scripture booklets issued in large numbers by the Scripture Gift Mission of London. During the first five years of their ministry in Greece (1953–58), the Gideons placed 150,000 Bibles in hotels, prisons, and ships, and now have entrance to many hospitals and schools.

The sowing of the Word in the land which heard Paul preach has been plentiful; there are signs that the imminent harvest will be commensurately rich.