Universalism is nothing new. As a church the first Universalist congregation in America was founded in Gloucester in 1779. Eleven years later the Universalists meeting in Philadelphia prepared their first declaration of faith and plan of government.

As time progressed the liberalism of the Universalist church increased until in 1942 the charter was changed to read: “To promote harmony among adherents of all religious faiths, whether Christian or otherwise.”

Finally, in May of 1960, Universalists and Unitarians merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association.

At no time have the major evangelical denominations recognized these churches as a part of the Protestant tradition, nor has either of them been admitted to membership in cooperative church groups.

Evangelical Christianity is now confronted by a different form of Universalism, all the more dangerous because it insidiously distorts the Gospel and opens the door of salvation to all, not on the basis of faith in Christ but on the basis of inherited participation in God’s redemptive love. As the “perfect pedagogue” His salvation must be effective for all men, we are told.

That the Unitarian-Universalist concept has a deadening effect on its believers is easily demonstrated. After nearly two centuries there are only a few hundred congregations with a total membership of less than 200,000. Missionary purpose and evangelistic zeal are naturally lacking—why preach to a need which does not exist?

The Universalism which the major denominations find in their midst today may not involve crass Unitarianism, nor the frank syncretism of Universalism, but this increases its danger for there is, on the surface, an apparent attempt to magnify the redemptive work of Christ which is appealingly deceptive.

Strange to say, those who espouse this new Universalism avidly try to bolster their position by a method they only too often try to deny to others, the quoting of “proof texts.” At the same time they find it necessary to reject the total revelation to be found in the Scriptures and to pass over other statements in the Bible which completely refute their position.

True, some theologians admit the possibility that some people may be lost while they reject the biblical affirmation that some men are lost.

The argument frequently heard from laymen is that, “God is too good to condemn anyone.” Apparently they do not know that man is already condemned by his sins and that God’s love is evidenced by his provision for man’s redemption through the death of his Son.

Because of its importance to and effect on individuals and the Church, we should examine this matter carefully. Among the Bible verses quoted to support this new Universalism are John 12:22; 1 Cor. 15:22; 1 Tim. 2:4; and Phil. 2:10, 11.

Let us examine these verses.

In John 12:32 we read, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Jesus was speaking to Jews and he was telling them that his crucifixion would draw “all men,” Gentiles as well as Jews. His was a universal offer of salvation and men from every tribe and nation would respond.

Again, 1 Corinthians 15:22 says: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” All men are born dead “in Adam” but by the new birth we are “in Christ” so that the death inherent in the old man and his deeds is lost in the new life we have in Christ.

Paul, in 1 Timothy 2:4 says, “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Unquestionably it is God’s will that all men should come to the knowledge of the truth. Unfortunately many reject that truth and God’s loving concern for them is defeated by their own willfulness.

In Philippians 2:10, 11 we read: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Here, as in all Scripture, we must take care not to interpret any one verse in a way which refutes Scripture as a whole. The logical interpretation would seem to be that some day every creature will acknowledge the sovereignty of God, some in his holy presence and some in the shades of eternal separation, between which there is “a great gulf fixed.”

The universalist position does violence to the total revelation of God, as found in the Scriptures, and to specific statements of our Lord and others.

In Matthew 25:46 our Lord says: “And they shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”

In John 3:36 we read: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

In Malachi 3:18 God warns against confusing the righteous and the wicked in these prophetic words: “Then once more you shall distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”

And, to make even clearer this distinction He goes on to say: “For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch” (Mal. 4:1).

Paul describes the awful reckoning for unrepentant sinners in these words: “… when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess. 1:7b–9).

How can we preach the love of God without the backdrop of his righteous anger against sin? How can we proclaim the mercy of the Cross without telling of that which made the Cross necessary?

Thank God for his love! It was this love which sent his Son into the world, and it was this love which made necessary his death. But Jesus tells us that the object was to change the destiny of man: “should not perish, but have everlasting life”: a universal offer to be received by faith. To proclaim the Love of God is the good news. To accept that love through faith in God’s Son is eternal life.

The universal offer, “whosoever believeth” does not mean universal salvation, but salvation to those who accept him by faith. To cry, “Peace, Peace,” when there is no peace for the wicked is a grievous distortion of the Gospel.

The watchword of the Reformation was, “The just shall live by his faith.” God forbid that we should subvert this to a new slogan, “All men are saved, our task is merely to tell them so.”

Rna

Eutychus Associates had just finished setting up a task force on teaching machines and programmed learning when the whole thing was undercut by worms. Our research consultant who reads the newsmagazines now informs us that teaching machines have been up-staged by RNA. That’s where the worms come in.

RNA is ribonucleic acid, a chemical alleged to be in short supply among elder folks who forget where they put their glasses, but said to be abundant in educated flatworms. According to the article, injections of artificial RNA improved the memory of the oldsters. The worms enjoyed their RNA raw. Unconditioned flatworms were given a diet of other flatworms who had been trained to react to a flashing light. Eating this educated meat enabled them to learn the same trick twice as fast as worms who ate only the usual underprivileged fish bait.

If faulty memory makes you lose job opportunities, if you forget the boss’s name when you’re asking for a raise, if nobody loves you—then go out to the lab and eat worms. You may then thrill to a new skill, and cringe like a worm whenever a light is turned on.

Wait till the breakfast food people get this. We can expect brands like TOTAL RECALL and DOUBLECHECKS, perhaps even SHREDDED WORMS.

But suppose you want to be smarter than the average worm. Can digestible data be stored on tapeworms? Or must our diet include something a bit brighter? One scientist is credited with a flight of fancy. If memory is edible, he reasons, why waste all the knowledge a distinguished professor has accumulated at retirement age?

Should we assume that he is describing 1984, or joking? At any rate, absent-minded professors are safe. The Ph. D. may remain, but the RNA is exhausted.

Before you invest in RNA chemicals, stop to consider the market. For every researcher who wants to remember something, there must be ten who would rather forget something. For a happy birthday our culture chooses tranquilizers over memorizers ten to one.

Soon the magic pills of science will make us as adjustable as Alice in Wonderland: big or little, bright or dull—chemically conditioned. Yet somehow no one promises a chemical to give meaning to this flexible existence. For that a man must eat of the Bread from Heaven.

EUTYCHUS

Arrivederci, Barbarians

I imagine Charles Lowry, “Perspective on the Power Struggle” (May 11 issue), translated to Roman Christendom of the fifth century. As the barbarians over-run Europe, I hear him counsel …:

“There is an unprecedented struggle in our world between pagan barbarians and Christian Romans. The barbarians, in violation of religion and civilization, threaten to remake the world in an image of terror. We Romans are potentially much the stronger. Unfortunately, at the moment our leaders are not as pious as the commoners, religion is excluded from public life, and materialism and modernistic notions are corrupting the fabric of our common life.

“Only if we take our Christianity seriously can the tide be turned.… If we capture any barbarians we should be kind to them. If we meet any … on the street or in business, we should be civil and courteous. If we must kill them, we must do so with love.… Above all, we must match power with power. If necessary, we will fight with every weapon we have, and not only kill all of their warriors, but destroy their women and children and level their villages and camps. We should not even pause at having our own populace annihilated and our own civilization destroyed. As long as we think of our force as dedicated to God and truly controlled by love and justice, we have to use all possible force. Of course we do this as Christian citizens and not as Christian individuals.

“As Christian believers we are still idealistic—but again not so publicly that the barbarians might notice it. We are to go on praying and hoping … that we won’t have to use force or, that if we must, God and anybody left to judge will see … that we really only meant it with the very best of intentions. If the worst should befall us, we shall have destroyed barbarians and Romans in the service of law and order and to the glory of the Christian God.

“If we are intelligent, better Christians, and willing to sacrifice, these seeming contradictions may work out. In fact, the best thing might be to train Christian missionaries who will be able to show barbarian leaders that Christian Rome is really not so divided, impious, and materialistic as we know it to be. If they simply will not be convinced that way, then we are always ready to wipe out the whole lot of them just to prove our superior religion and way of life once and for all.”

NORMAN K. GOTTWALD

Professor of Old Testament

Andover Newton Theological School

Newton Centre, Mass.

Does Dr. Lowry actually dare to say that “authentic Christianity” has this glorious (!) witness—namely (p. 5), “far from declaring, in accordance with some theologians in their most recent pronouncements, that we will never initiate nuclear war in any form, that is just what under present circumstances we must be willing to do” (my italics)? Is this, Sir, the witness of Christianity? How does it differ from the sinister expediency of Khrushchev himself? How strangely it sounds on the lips of Jesus—whose followers I thought somehow we are. Even firebrand Reinhold Niebuhr is less militaristic than you on this!

BEN W. FUSON

Kansas Wesleyan University

Salina, Kan.

Dr. Lowry has only words of condemnation for communism chiefly because it does not believe in God or any hereafter. He criticizes communists because they wish to “build Heaven on earth.” That would not seem to be anything very heinous. Jesus had the same idea and “went about doing good” to accomplish just that, and spending much of his time healing people of their sicknesses. If Marx and Lenin had the deep desire to improve the condition of the mass of the people—as they did—and free them from their slavery under the rule of the capitalist, that surely should not be to their discredit, though we rightly abhor the many cruelties by which the Kremlin pursued its course in trying to seize all economic and political power and extirpate religion.…

GEORGE L. PAINE

Cambridge, Mass.

A Mailman’S Medley

I have received a goodly number of very interesting letters in connection with my recent article (“Ecumenical Merger and Missions,” Mar. 30 issue). Most of the mail was favorable and even those letters which raised questions were irenic in spirit and tone. Some arguments advanced in these letters are interesting indeed.

Several people argued that it was not fair to judge the missionary effort simply on the basis of the number of foreign missionaries and the increase or decrease of the field staff. It was in connection with this argument that one eminent Presbyterian indicated that the United Presbyterian Church is sending fewer missionaries but placing more emphasis upon financial support of national churches. It is interesting to observe that over a period of many years from 4 to 8 per cent of the total amount of money received by all of the churches in the Presbyterian Church was spent for foreign missions. Today slightly more than 3½ per cent of the total income is spent for foreign missions. This means that there has been a proportionate decline financially as well as in the number of missionaries.

Another Presbyterian suggested that in Latin America the idea “Yankee, go home” might be useful and that perhaps the national church would be served better if the missionaries in Latin America were to go home. I have no objection whatever to the redistribution of missionary forces. Some places where missionary strategy dictates that the missionaries should be removed, this could be done, but with a thousand tongues in which no portion of the Word of God has ever been translated there should be plenty of room for “displaced” missionaries to go and for hundreds of others who have not gone yet!

A key missionary expert from the United Church of Canada felt that since approximately one-half of the missionary work of the United Church was concentrated in China that it was unfair, in view of the cataclysm in China and the exodus of the missionaries, to assume that what I said was representative of the United Church. However, there were other churches who were equally committed in China, but who have not only recovered from the China debacle but have doubled, tripled and quadrupled their missionary forces. This is likewise true of some faith mission groups that are not denominationally oriented.

One of the most interesting comments came in a letter which expressed the writer’s unhappiness with the substantial rise of the faith missionaries and stated that this posed a threat to the ecumenical movement. Of this there can be no doubt. What the outcome will be, so far as the faith missionary impulse is related to the ecumenical movement, I do not know. And I suspect that no one else knows either. But that it will have a tremendous effect upon the ecumenical movement overseas admits of no doubt.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Vice-President

Fuller Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

Air Power

Dr. Goppelt succeeds well in bursting Bultmann’s bubble (Apr. 27 issue). He also lets a quantity of air out of Barth’s balloon. But he doesn’t succeed too well in getting his own theological craft off the ground.…

E. ARNOLD SITZ

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Tucson, Ariz.

Evaluation Of Evaluation

Walter R. Martin’s review of Herbert Bird’s Theology of Seventh-day Adventism (Mar. 2 issue) is, in my judgment, grossly unfair. Martin charges Bird with using “outdated quotations, particularly on the nature of Christ.” To be sure, Bird does use the “infamous Wilcox statement.” He mentions, however, in a footnote, that some Adventist leaders with whom he has worked “have not heard of its having been disqualified as denominational material, and have sought to defend it …” (p. 65). Bird further observes that he has not found this statement referred to in Questions on Doctrine, where one would expect the denomination officially to repudiate it. Other statements on the nature of Christ are drawn by Mr. Bird from Wm. Branson’s Drama of the Ages (written in 1950, and therefore hardly an “outdated source”) and from Questions on Doctrine, the most recent authoritative statement of SDA beliefs (1957). From the latter volume Bird even quotes a statement by Mrs. White, the inspired prophetess of the movement, to the effect that Christ “took upon His sinless nature our sinful nature” (p. 69); he clearly indicates the difficulties he has with the way the nature of Christ is described in this latest official volume of SDA teachings. It is therefore most unfair to assert that Mr. Bird, in discussing the nature of Christ, relies chiefly upon outdated quotations.

Mr. Martin’s objection to Bird’s statement that there can be regenerate people among the SDA’s as inconsistent with the charge of Galatianism overlooks the fact that even the Apostle Paul, who rebuked the Galatians for having begun to follow the errors of Galatianism, still addresses them as brethren (Gal. 1:11, 3:15, 5:13, etc.). It is one thing to attack the teachings of a group as unscriptural; it is quite another thing, however, to say that because of this fact there cannot be regenerate persons among them!

Mr. Martin accuses Bird of having ignored research work which tends to disprove his main thesis: viz., that SDA is a revival of the Galatian heresy. It is, to be sure, unfortunate that Mr. Bird makes no reference anywhere to Martin’s own recent work on the subject, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventism. However, Mr. Bird bases his charges on research of his own, done with primary sources. In the chapter dealing with SDA and salvation, Mr. Bird quotes from Froom, White, Branson (all SDA authors) and Questions on Doctrine. He fully recognizes that in Questions on Doctrine SDA’s affirm that they believe in salvation by grace alone, but his contention is that their teachings on the investigative judgment (with respect to which Martin admits that Bird has done a good job) are not consistent with that claim! For the main burden of the investigative judgment doctrine is that what really determines whether a man is saved is his obedience to the law and his unfailing confession of every single sin! Furthermore, Bird finds evidence for “Galatianism” in SDA teaching on the Sabbath Day (p. 113) and in their rules about the avoidance of certain types of food (p. 125). He culls their teachings about these last-named matters largely from Questions on Doctrine and from Arthur Lickey’s God Speaks to Modern Man, written in 1952, and therefore hardly to be considered an “outdated source.” (Incidentally, both Lickey’s book and Branson’s Drama of the Ages are found among the “Representative Adventist Literature” listed in the back pages of Questions on Doctrine.)

I conclude that Mr. Martin has not given us a fair evaluation of what I consider to be a competent treatment of SDA theology.

ANTHONY A. HOEKEMA

Dept. of Systematic Theology

Calvin Theological Seminary

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Among its ministers the church numbers a group of problem preachers, those middle-aged and older men who are just biding their time until they can draw retirement checks from Pension Boards and Social Security. Meantime they contribute little to local congregations and to the overall work of the church.

Perhaps the church can learn from large secular corporations. Listen to Mr. Johnston, for example, the personnel vice-president of a corporation as he talks to Mr. Hill, consultant from an outside management firm: “Here’s my problem. We have four division managers—all from 50 to 57 years of age—who are one level below vice-presidential rank. Top management has decided these men aren’t qualified to handle vice-presidential assignments, so they won’t be promoted.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Johnston continued, “it’s significant that the men themselves seem to have reached the same decision. On the way up to their present positions they were good performers. Until recently, they were effective division managers. But now they have begun to coast. We’ll have to make other promotions around these men. In doing this we anticipate some trouble and friction. We also see problems in letting these division managers stay just to coast along eight or more years to retirement. We don’t want to discharge them, because each man has given the company some 30 years of loyal and effective service. What can we do?”

“What do you pay these men?” Hill asked.

“An average of $25,000 a year.”

“Then if they stay with you until retirement, the company actually faces a bill of at least a million dollars for what you fear will be increasingly unsatisfactory performance.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Johnston, “but you’re right. And when you nail the figure down this way, the prospect is very disturbing.”

Every corporation head has several managers or even vice-presidents who present a similar problem. Every company of medium or larger size has its share of older executives who seem to have exhausted their potential. They have stopped growing. They are just resting on their oars, and waiting for retirement.

Likewise, every bishop, synod president, or executive secretary knows ministers who have sloughed off in the work both in local congregations and in the wider outreach of the church. While their congregations may meet benevolence goals, these men no longer manifest any buoyancy in their work for the Lord.

The problem is widespread and serious at a time when shortage of pastors is a critical threat to successful church work. Yet it has not received adequate attention. Most of the interest in developing and assisting pastors has centered on recently ordained men or on those assigned to mission churches. This concentration of attention on younger men is understandable, of course, in the effort to discover particularly promising ministers early in their careers. Enthusiasm for developing capable young pastors, however, should not blind the church to the tragic waste of experience and maturity that comes from allowing older men to just drift out their remaining years.

Besides this waste of valuable talent, moreover, the church faces an even greater danger. Everyone knows that usually the most powerful and potentially most constructive influence on a congregation is its pastor. A minister who has stopped growing is not likely to inspire his people very much, either personally or through his sermons. A corrosive weakening of the spirit of the people may penetrate the congregation. No congregation is so strong that it can afford to accept stultifying influences for even a few years.

What’S The Answer?

Those church executives who have begun to recognize the problem in its full dimensions have also begun to explore ways of meeting it. From their experience, as well as from research in the dynamics of human performance, some tentative answers are emerging.

The first point to remember, of course, is that one may be wrong in concluding that a pastor has reached his top potential. After marking a rise for many years, a pastor’s curve of development may level out for various reasons. He may be bored by lack of challenge. He may be resentful over policies of church advancement. He may be disturbed over his own aging. He may not properly appreciate his great value to the congregation as a prime influence for its constructive growth.

Thus an older pastor may allow himself to barely hold his own or even to deteriorate at a time when, with proper incentives and opportunities, he could still show further and important growth. And even if he seems to have reached his peak of pastoral effectiveness, he surely need not decline from that level.

The problem is to find the causes for apparent cessation of growth, and then to find the incentives that will release unused abilities. Solving the problem is well worth the effort on the part of church executives, for it can help the present older pastors, and also prevent younger men from developing troubles later on.

Discovering and developing superior pastoral talent in young ministers is neither easy, nor necessarily always successful. Mature pastors who have reached a plateau, on the evidence of previous performance, at least show above-average creativity, ability, and initiative. Their accumulated experience should not be wasted. The time spent refreshing older pastors will yield at least as good a return as time spent in training younger but untried men.

What is known about an older person’s capacity for development? Psychologists would probably say, “Not much.” But adding the tentative thinking of psychologists with the observations of executives in industry may still provide valuable help.

Psychology Of Pastoral Achievement

In younger pastors, the desire to achieve—for Christ, for the church, and for themselves—is a powerful motivation. This desire also reveals personal needs and wants and family responsibilities. The passage of time lessens those considerations. Pastors have realized at least some of their objectives, discharged some of their family commitments, and have come to accept their limitations or lack of personal capabilities. Some limitations they ascribe to misfortune. Psychologists tell us that when achievement falls short of aspiration people are likely to adjust their goals downward.

As one 59-year-old rector put it: “When I was a young man in the church, I had it firmly fixed in my mind that I was going to be a bishop. Well, you learn as you grow older. Somewhere along the line, I began to recognize that only one man could be bishop in our diocese at a time. Many outstanding men do not get to that level. I learned some other things, too, some about the church and some about myself. I discovered that it was not only ability that got you to a bishopric, but circumstances had a great deal to do with it—for instance, the circumstance that consists in being at the right place at the right time and properly visible.

“I also discovered that you pay a high price for advancement to the top. You take on tremendous responsibilities. You work under heavy tension. You are called upon to sacrifice your cherished family life to your work. You see little of your wife and children and have little energy left for them when you do see them.

“I also learned that there are other things in life besides position—things that I value highly, such as being with the children as they grow up. I do not know exactly when it happened, but along through the years, somewhere, I lost sight of the bishopric. I made a kind of easy agreement with myself to settle for the church where I was and still am. Even though I’m now more than satisfied with this parish, I surely do not have to be ashamed of my achievement.”

This is a good statement of what the psychologist means by “downward adjustment of the level of aspiration.” And as this rector expressed it, such adjustment often results from combining a clearer view of the facts with alternative goals.

Lessening of physical vigor may also contribute directly or indirectly to a weakened drive for achievement. For one thing the aging process often dictates a slower pace of work. Or a lower energy level may make it easier for a pastor to prefer less demanding objectives. Or the same aging process may see a man, in the interests of security, replace some of his risk-seeking and risk-taking attitudes with those that show greater conformity to usual procedures. Young pastors are eager to establish a reputation; older men show concern over losing it.

Along with the downward adjustment to objectives, ministers sometimes develop a sour attitude toward the church’s treatment of the pastor. One pastor near retirement said, for example, “I’m glad that I’m at the end of my ministry, instead of the beginning, in these days of instability, lack of respect for the ministry, and change.” Indeed, while this approach was realistic, it was also somewhat cynical.

Many church executives would have to echo what one pastor expressed: “You have to get used to some pretty inequitable treatment in the church. Even outstanding accomplishment in a congregation is not rewarded and recognized as it should be. The church lets you sit where you are while the fellow with connections, influence, and the right background gets the opportunities for the outstanding call.”

These foregoing observations give us clues for remedial action. For one thing, if a man’s personal and pastoral growth is to continue, the diminishing drive for achievement must be replaced by some other positive motivation. This substitute motivation must be one that fully recognizes an individual’s changing life circumstances and the attitudes that grow therefrom. Moreover, to be fully effective, this fresh motivation must relate to actual performance and must not issue from mere policy statements and exhortation.

A business organization was planning a comprehensive internal development program for a group of managers immediately below the vice-presidential level. Some doubt was expressed about the value or wisdom of permitting older managers to participate. In confidential interviews, some of these older men had already shown skepticism about the development program and little interest in participating. After considerable delay, the decision to participate was left to each man.

Only a few older executives elected to attend the first sessions. No pressure was applied to have them change their minds. As time passed and increasing numbers of managers took part in the course and reported favorably on their experiences, attendance by the older managers began to pick up. In the end, practically every one of the older managers had chosen to attend the course, even men within two or three years of retirement age. With rare exceptions, the reaction of the older executives was positive, often enthusiastic.

One man told his boss, “This is the finest thing that the company has ever done for its managers. I didn’t want to attend the course. I arrived with a chip on my shoulder. I really volunteered to go just so that I could criticize the show. But by the time I finished the three weeks, I was ready to tell anybody in my position that if he did not attend, he was missing the greatest experience of his life in this organization. I already see a dozen ways in which I can improve my influence on the fellows that I supervise and help them to build their abilities for the future. My only regret is that this didn’t happen to me 20 years ago.”

Another man said, “I have four years to go to retirement. My mind was fixed on that target and I was simply resting on my oars. Now I see at least three major problems that I want to tackle that will result in a big improvement in the performance of my department. What I’m worried about now is that the time left to me is so short that I don’t see how I can carry out what I want to do.”

Some of the younger managers in attendance had comments like this: “One of the real smart things done by those who organize this conference was to let the old boys attend. We young fellows have learned a lot from them. And many of us have solid proof that the company recognizes that even a man who isn’t going any higher and in nearing retirement has a lot to contribute and is worth investing in.”

These examples from business management suggest that certainly part of the secret for sustaining the spirit and drive of older pastors is found in how the church treats them. If a pastor always has before him a well-defined picture of his importance to the congregation, to the church-at-large, and in the end to the Lord himself; if he is aware that the church values these contributions, he will make renewed personal efforts to maintain continuing personal development. Church groups that do more than merely talk about the problem can allay the often erroneous impression of older pastors that their congregations have lost interest in them.

Even a new board or committee assignment may reactivate a pastor who is succumbing to the sporific effects of a too familiar parish routine.

Older pastors need to realize, and be assured that they are the single most powerful influence on their congregations, that their people look to them for constructive leadership. Beyond this, pastors need specific proof that their contribution is essential for the continuing health of the local congregation and for the church-at-large. This can come, at least in part, by entrusting older pastors with an active role in the church’s teaching program. While younger pastors may make better leaders in certain phases of activity such as summer camps, here, too, pastors have much to contribute of maturity and understanding.

The upshot of our discussion is simple and direct. Too many churches are guilty of bypassing the valuable resources represented by older pastors. This waste of talent and experience is not only unnecessary, but it may be eliminated with great benefit both to the Lord’s church and to his kingdom.

Special Announcement

Universalism with its profoundly unbiblical thesis that all men are already saved is sweeping Protestantism.

To arouse active concern over this distorted “gospel” which cuts the nerve both of evangelism and of missions, CHRISTIANTY TODAY announces a stimulating venture. More than $1,000 will be awarded for relevant sermons (abridged to 2,500 words in written form) that 1. expose the fallacies of this contemporary movement and 2. faithfully expound the biblical revelation of man’s final destiny and the ground and conditions of his redemption. Selection of the winners will be by CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s editorial readers, whose decisions will be final. First, second and third place awards of $500, $250, and $125, respectively, will be paid upon publication of the sermons. The Editors reserve the right to publish two additional manuscripts selected for fourth and fifth place awards of $75 each. All rights to winning manuscripts become magazine property.

All entries in this competition must be original sermons actually preached to a congregation sometime during 1962. Two typewritten, double-spaced copies of each submitted sermon should be postmarked to the Washington office of CHRISTIANITY TODAY no later than December 31, 1962. No manuscript will be returned unless a self-addressed, stamped envelope accompanies the entry. Attached to each sermon (both copies) should be a cover page giving the contributor’s name, address, and present station of service.

A recent survey of American Protestant clergymen by CHRISTIANITY TODAY showed, in representative sampling interviews, the following results: 93 per cent of the fundamentalists, and 76 per cent of the conservatives, maintain that the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ is essential and should be preached; 26 per cent of the neoorthodox ministers consider the doctrine essential; and only 30 per cent of the liberal clergymen held that it should be preached. All in all 26 per cent of the clergymen interviewed did not think that the doctrine of the Second Advent of Christ was essential to their teaching or preaching. When a convocation of church delegates from around the world met in Evanston, Illinois, a few years ago, Life magazine reported that only 10 per cent of the American Protestant clergymen questioned found any significance in the doctrine of the Second Advent.

We once interviewed a minister who had gained some reputation as an authority on the Second Advent of Christ. He recalled that for ten years he hadn’t preached on that theme from his pulpit. He had heard too many preachers who knew more about Antichrist than they did about Jesus Christ, who knew more about “the great tribulation” than they did about regeneration. Some premillennialists caused him to lean toward postmillennialism; some post’s made him favor the pre’s! Finally he became something of a “panmillennialist”—everything would “pan out” all right when God was through in history! But, forced to face the fact of his cowardly position, during the years when he eschewed eschatology in his pulpit he engaged in a serious study of the subject, discovering that a vast body of Scripture spoke definitely of the Second Advent of the Lord.

“If the Scriptures say anything at all with clearcut, ringing force,” said the clergyman, “they say that Christ will one time return to the earth that crucified him. To efficiently complete man’s redemption he must invade history again as certainly as he invaded it once. Once the far left-wingers tried to make out that the disciples put in Jesus’ mouth those things which he himself speaks about his own return. But lately we don’t hear so much about that. To those who accept as authentic the sayings reported to Jesus in the Gospels the promise is clear—‘and then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’ (Luke 21:27) and ‘For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be’ (Matt. 24:27).”

Jesus And His Disciples

The Gospel of Matthew gives a vivid account of the disciples putting a plain question to Jesus; what was to be the sign of his coming, and of the end of the world (Matt. 24:3)? Jesus might have answered this question with one of the enigmatic statements he was capable of; but he replied to it with sincerity and simplicity. Perhaps, after all, he felt that his followers were justifiably interested in such a vast subject! Why should he be unwilling to offer information on it?

So Jesus answered them. As far as we can discover he gave a more extended reply to this question than to any other the disciples asked him. The reply has many points. Many things will happen in connection with his coming. People will be misled by false teachers. There will be fraudulent christs. Wars will come, and rumors of wars. Nations shall attack nations; famines and earthquakes will take their toll. Christians will be persecuted. The hatred of nations will fall on believers. Faith will dwindle. Perfidious prophets will arise. Wickedness will spread to worldwide proportions. Some strange “abomination of desolation,” predicted by the prophet Daniel, will occur. A vast tribulation will shake the earth, worse than any before it, worse than any to come after it. There will be some sort of solar disturbance. The sign of the Son of man will appear in the heavens. A trumpet will sound. Angels will appear and gather God’s chosen ones from the four winds. Men will be as oblivious of the approaching doom as men in Noah’s day were unaware of the coming flood.

An article in Redbook magazine (August 1961) asserted that only one per cent of the ministerial students interviewed in several well-known American seminaries are convinced there will be a second coming of Christ. Although these young seminarians do not find the return of Christ a paramount theme, Jesus, when questioned about it by his followers, gave them an impressive sermon on it. To be sure it has been argued that Jesus was talking about the collapse of Israel and the fall of Jerusalem rather than the end of the world; but it is difficult for some of us to understand how this was the “end” to which he referred—seeing as how the Gospel was to be “preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations” before that “end” came (Matt. 24:21)!

Consider also Jesus’ words: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.…” Obviously such a global cataclysm could not be comprehended in the destruction of one ancient city! Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw tribulation as great, if not greater, than Jerusalem when it fell to Rome. Indeed, confronted by this mind-staggering picture which Jesus drew in response to his disciples’ query regarding his Second Coming we seem forced to decide that he was wrong about the whole thing—or else what he predicted is yet future.

Modern Man’S Unbelief

Naturally Christ’s reappearance seems an absurd idea to many in this age of automation. But is the idea more irrational to science than the doctrine of justification by faith to the mind of the philosopher? What could be more irrational than the idea of a holy God loving unholy men, and his justifying the ungodly? Is this not unreasonable in the light of human wisdom? It disturbs our system of a moral accounting; it jars our neat plan for punishing the guilty and rewarding the just. Is it not, in the hard light of “reality,” something of a theologian’s dream? Even the Bible scribes had to admit that it was “marvelous”; but it was the Lord’s doing! Even so shall the completion of our redemption, at the coming of Christ, be the Lord’s doing.

When we asked one minister what he thought of the Second Coming of Christ he said, “Such a phenomenon, making God a mighty Magician, is fit only for dreamers!” Still, God might have appeared as something of a cosmic Thaumaturgist had we been on hand to witness Creation! And the resurrection of Christ from the tomb may seem rather “magical” if we try to encompass it with test tubes and slide rules.

One man, after hearing a sermon on Christ’s second advent, cried, “Only a child could believe that God would indulge in such fantastic goings-on!” But it was Jesus who said that unless a man be converted and become as a little child he could not come to realize God’s kingdom. God’s “fantastic goings-on” have never been too easy for the dedicated earthling to accept! “Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus once prayed, “… thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25).

The doctrine of Christ’s return is not, of course, for those who put the ideas of the naturalists above the Word of God. It is only for those who are yet naive enough to believe the Scriptures, which Jesus said could not be broken. And it is interesting to observe that these same unbreakable Scriptures predict that men generally will not believe in the Lord’s return. “… there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3:3–4).

Still, a considerable host of men, even in this day when the SAC-eagles roar and our rockets are tilted at the stars, with the necessary theological naïvete, agree with the staggering unsophistication of the Scriptures: “… unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time” (Heb. 9:28).

They believe, with Jesus, that the Scriptures cannot be broken, and that he will come again as certainly as he came the first time. The Scriptures were right about him once; they will be right about him once more. He came the first time in humiliation; he will come again in exaltation. Once he had not where to lay his head; the next time he will have crowns to give his own. He came once and was judged by men; he shall come again and be the judge of men.

There was a Babe in Bethlehem; a Teacher on the mount; a Saviour on a Cross; a Lord triumphant over the tomb. There shall be a King on the eternal Throne. Multitudes are looking, as multitudes have always looked, for the King’s appearance. They wait for him, unshaken by communism, unstaggered by pragmatism or existentialism, undaunted by Bultmannism. Two hundred decades of time away from the closing cry of the Church’s mighty Book, believers take it up still—“Even so, come, Lord, Jesus!”

At the Tomb

Why do you look among the dead

for him? Whom death cannot destroy

you seek in vain where mourners tread;

why do you look among the dead?

The tomb is bare, the guards are fled,

and earth has lost despair to joy.

Why do you look among the dead

for him whom death cannot destroy?

TERENCE Y. MULLINS

Matthew 11:15–19

The Preacher:

Ermanno Rostan has been since 1958 Moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy. After studying at Rome and Edinburgh, he was ordained in 1933 and served as pastor in the Waldensian Valleys. From 1940 to 1943 he was the only Protestant chaplain in the Italian army. He holds a doctorate in law from Turin University, and an honorary D.D. from Moravian Theological College, Bethlehem, Pa. Dr. Rostan is the author of two evangelical books in Italian, and has edited Protestant religious journals.

The Text:

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,

And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

During his earthly life Jesus liked to watch children at play in the village squares in the peaceful Palestine countryside. He would notice children and watch them at length, not from mere curiosity, but because their behavior had a special meaning for him, about which he wanted to speak to the adults of his generation.

In Matthew’s Gospel we have preserved a vivid and realistic impression of those children’s games as well as Jesus Christ’s motive in speaking of them to his contemporaries, to make them face up to their responsibilities. Since Christ’s word is pronounced with the accents of truth and eternity, it will not be difficult for us today to recognize in it a message for all of us—both as churches and as individuals.

A Meaningful Game

The game of which the Gospel speaks is a very simple one but it involves active responsible participation in order to be played properly and meaningfully.

The children would be divided into two groups, one seated, the other standing. First a marriage would be enacted, then a funeral. The children seated in the square would play a dance tune on a flute. The game required dancing and festivity, but it would happen often enough that the children remained motionless in their places for who knows what reason, moodiness or indifference. Then there would be a change of scene, if the marriage game had not succeeded well, and they would sing dirges, as at a funeral. This time also however, the actors remained unmoved as if the matter had nothing to do with them or displeased them. In each case it was at once obvious why the children refused to respond: it was their lack of interest in the game, or lack of concern for it to go well; and so their behavior provoked their fellows’ rebuke: We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

In such terms, common as they seem, Jesus spoke to his contemporaries, pointing out to them their spiritual make-up so childishly uninvolved in the great crisis of faith and the clamant necessity for Christian action to bring about the plans to God. Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

Why this bitter, scourging, comment of Christ with all its overtones of severe condemnation?

The men and women of that day had been present at two great spectacles and had heard two tremendous messages: those of John the Baptist and of Jesus. John the Baptist—so the Gospel says—came “neither eating nor drinking”; his personality was marked by moral austerity and a vigorous prophetic preaching, whose characteristic was the coming of the wrath of God: O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:7, 8). But his contemporaries considered him on the one hand, too demanding, and on the other too lacking in sociability and humanity. His language was harsh even for the ears of the religious so that they said: “He hath a devil” and preferred not to listen.

But Jesus had also come, the Son of Man, clad in Messianic dignity, according to prophecy and, as prophecy had said, not, using his powers for himself but putting them at the disposition of the poor and the lowly: Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

Jesus Christ had come “eating and drinking”; he had entered the homes of Zaccheus and Levi, though he was Emmanuel—God with us. Yet his contemporaries, mostly unconscious of that miraculous presence of the Godhead in the reality of human flesh, made light of him and, unfavorably impressed by the way Christ sat so loosely to the rigid formalism of official religion, said of him: Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans, and sinners.

Both alike, the men and the children in the streets, in Jesus’ time refused to take the stage and act in God’s plan with a sense of concern and responsibility.

The Modern Parallel

Today the game goes on, and history repeats itself. The situation is no less disturbing because our generation—at least in the West—does not withhold official respect from Jesus Christ and has no desire to rate him as a “gluttonous and a winebibber.” Yet it is perhaps more serious for our generation, for ours is a civilization that, for several reasons, calls itself Christian. Many are content to use Christianity’s external wrapping which they believe in, or say they believe in, merely to promote their private or national interests under specious excuses that drain the Gospel of its content and life. Thank God, there are men who repent like Zaccheus or go in search of the Master like Nicodemus: yet the Christian conscience is not deeply moved by the message of Christ which is ever a message of judgment and of grace. The number of churches and church organizations multiply; yet so does the number of those who sit as dull, apathetic spectators of world scene through which Christ passes every day, and where every day we can respond with the obedience of faith or with lack of concern.

When we talk like this it is easy to think of other people, of men far removed from our religious spheres. There is always the temptation to draw a hard and fast line between church and world, between sacred and profane, between “religious” people and those not so (or at least not seemingly so, even if, at times, they have hearts not as hard as our own). We speak easily of West and East, of Christianity and materialism, of belief and unbelief, as if God’s judgment was for but a part of humanity, especially the part not officially Christian. But Christ’s presence on the stage of human history is a disturbing presence for all, even for the Christian churches, amongst whom is no lack of lookers-on who cannot clearly make out the message of Christ, and do not feel the urgency of that interior response—the decision born of faith in Christ.

One hardly knows any more how to speak to such superficial Christians, perpetually turned aside by other issues. Give them a serious word and they do not want it because it lacks the note of joy. Give them a glad word, full of hope, and they reject it because they miss in it the notes of severity or solemnity. However the Gospel of Christ is presented, they always find a way of side-stepping the need of self-involvement. What they want, even they do not know: but what they do not want is quite clear. They want nothing that would compel them to stop and enter into themselves in the presence of God: nothing that would oblige them to take up the cross and follow Jesus. As long as religion keeps to the realm of a discourse of an academic or a social nature, they are willing to show interest. But let religion become that serious demanding thing it was on the lips of the Baptist and even more so in the preaching of Jesus, then they decide that is not the game they want. They change the subject, they talk of work, of affairs, of national or international situations as if Christ were not present in our generation with us, or with the problems of our day. So, today, many remain apathetic and bored in the presence of the Lord, though they are far from being indifferent towards all that concerns their material well-being and their political and ideological convictions. Should we play at weddings or not? Then someone will have to dance! Do you want to play at funerals? Then someone will have to weep! Too many Christians, alas, stand still and only play the “bagpipes.”

The Need For Commitment

Now, should you ask me where such Christians are to be found, I have to reply that one cannot easily make a map of Christendom. One thing I do know, and that is no one can be quite certain of himself or of his own Christian denomination. None is quite immune from the Satanic suggestiveness of apathy and conformism in religion. We are often impressed by the scientific achievements of our epoch and yet we do not manage to grasp the idea of Christ being here on our earth, inside our life and inside the destiny of men. All too often we exchange essentials for what is of minor importance and condemned to perish. For that reason the Gospel recalls us to personal commitment and a clear sense of responsibility.

Commitment to Christ is the negation of apathy, and of that Christian rhetoric so much more dangerous than worldly rhetoric. It is that intimate act of decision made by man before his God: the “yes” of faith in Christ; a yes to be repeated day after day in a world that is changing and where other lords seek to reign over us.

Commitment to Christ does not mean getting Christ on our side, making him keep step with us or forcing him to walk in our ways. He walks down all the ways of the world, even those where we would prefer he did not go lest he disturb our ecclesiastical or national projects. His word alone is worthy of our trust for life and for death. Only let us be willing to follow him without complaint, without a nostalgia for dead things, without fear in the face of disasters that threaten the earth. It is he who gives a new direction to our being, it is through him that we have life: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent (John 17:3).

Commitment to Jesus Christ opens the path for us to responsible Christian living. The finest of theological formulae remain a dead letter unless translated into action and living witness. Jesus has come into the world as an actor with full responsibility for effectuating God’s plan for the redemption of humanity. He wants us to be his fellow workers, not mere spectators of his coming, or profiteers of his kingdom. The command “Do thou follow me” is for one and all of us, and calls for a humble response from us. The brief time of our earthly life, the Today in which he speaks to us, is the time for us to decide and to serve.

Perhaps this will entail humiliation or fatigue. Faith is indeed a battle to be constantly sustained, not a quiet and fixed possession. What is essential is to be able to discern in all the confused voices of the world the voice of him who is still calling men into his service. Can we but listen to that voice in our corporate and individual existences, I believe we shall be able to say with the apostle: For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe (1 Tim. 4:10).

Certainly we must pray every day that this become our experience.

It is senseless to divide our citizens who make up the loyal, active, dependable supporters of the nation, by using invectives and bitter criticisms, just because a few become overzealous, and sometimes say things that cannot be proved about some namby-pamby political leadership, and soft-peddling on atheistic Communism.

The newspapers, a little time ago, quoted a state leader as being vociferous in his damnation of what he calls the “rightist groups,” and said, “These are more dangerous than the Communists.” That is just nonsense.

These political “straddlers” and “moral inbetweeners,” and “religious no-man’s-landers” surely know that the Communists have no “middle ground” in their ideology. All men of all nations are, to them, either Communists or anti-Communists. We all know where the Communists stand. They are not afraid to declare themselves. They glory in it. However, they also know, if by use of smears and innuendos, they can get Americans divided by the neutralists, then the “in-betweeners” are actually aiding their Communist conspiracy. We can destroy ourselves without Communist atomic bombs. Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me and he who gathers not with me scatters abroad.” That is pretty clear-cut thinking. That is the kind of thinking, loyal Americans, whether rightist or not, expect from the Capitol at Washington down to the humblest cottage.

This is exactly the day when all Americans, whether Christian or otherwise, should let each other know where they stand on the truth about our enemies, and atheistic Communists, and also on materialistic Socialism and the American free way of life. The best way to combat extremes, whether they be called rightists or leftists, is for all of us to let all other Americans, and even our enemies, know where we stand on all moral, economic, political, sociological, yes, religious loyalties.

The Americans who advocate coexistence, free fellowship, and companionship with professed enemies of Christian freedom and the true free way of life, seem always more ready to defend the so-called rights of these enemies than they do of their patriotic American brothers. We believe there can be no “in-betweenism” in matters of life and death, right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies.… We want our leaders, political, social, educational, religious, to let everyone, even our enemies, know where they stand, just as did Luther when he said, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” or like Patrick Henry, when he declared, “I know not what others may do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” There was no equivocation or secret evasion there. There must be none in our political, economic, social, religious leadership in America, against atheistic Communism—the world’s great conspiracy.

America could, and would, change for the better, the whole complexion of political and moral confusion in a few weeks, if all elected and appointed leaders in all national agencies would declare themselves as dedicated Americans, unable to be bought by any group except for the welfare of all Americans, and also, that they would demonstrate by their actions and by their votes that they will stop the waste in government, and practice sacrificial living and spending themselves, instead of just demanding the sacrifice be made by the people who elect them, and moreover, that they will practice Christian ethics at home and abroad.

Christian patriots must be known as men of the right, because they are dedicated to God’s truth, to the whole truth. They must endeavor to be truth-tellers because they are truth-lovers, and therefore, truth-livers. “Speaking the truth in love,” is the finest formula for the cultivation of goodwill and friendship in cooperative living, whether personal or national or international. No one need to be ashamed to be called a rightist, if he thinks right, speaks right, and lives right. This is the day to come out of the grey into the white, to come out of the dark into the light, to come out of the left into the right.—DR. GORDON PALMER, former president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, in a radio broadcast on the Christian Patriotism Hour.

Recently a Sunday supplement in our Nation’s capital carried excerpts from a sermon entitled “Why I Know There Is A God.” The sermon had been delivered on Layman’s Sunday last year in an Arlington, Virginia, church. It was a message in simple terms of belief in God and in Christian principles. It concluded with the thought that man is placed on earth as a free agent. He is given freedom of choice and only he can make the decision as to whether he will or will not live by the guidelines which Christ followed throughout his days on earth.

The parishioner who delivered that sermon on Laymen’s Sunday was American Astronaut John Glenn. The rugged and unshakable faith expressed in the title by the author of the sermon permeated the whole.

Scarcely more than a month later, in the course of a tour of the United States, Soviet Cosmonaut Gherman Titov reportedly was asked if his journey into space had had any effect upon his philosophy of life. According to the press, the cosmonaut said flatly, “I don’t believe in God.”

The statement was carried in an article under the heading, “Titov Puts Belief in Man Alone.”

Dividing Two Worlds

Perhaps nothing could dramatize more fully the gulf between philosophies of the noncommunist and communist world—the spiritual versus the material—than the words of these spacemen. Nor could any words point up more clearly the truth in the statement attributed to William Penn: “Those people who are not governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”

If one is indeed to believe in “Man Alone,” what are the guidelines to be followed except power? Belief in a version of the perfectibility of man through forcible self-assertion led to the Hitlerian holocaust. What can a philosophy which denies God—which depends upon man alone—lead to except an even more terrible holocaust?

Through the ages thinking man has looked out beyond himself. Cicero expressed his thought thus:

There is something in the nature of things which the mind of man, which reason, which human power cannot effect, and certainly that which produces this must be better than man. What can this be but God?

Many years later, the man whose great faith held a tiny army in being at Valley Forge and won for us the freedom we enjoy today asserted his belief that: “It is impossible to govern the world without God.…”

The Inroads Of Atheism

Today, almost half the world is under the tyrannical rule of men who deny God. Here at home, alien forces strive to destroy the faith which forms the foundation of individual freedom. The sickness of secularism permeates large areas of our society. The Ten Commandments are ignored; the teachings of Christ dismissed. To many people, the word principle-fixed, immutable, unchanging—is simply a word and nothing else. Scores of pseudo-sophisticates today imply that it is not possible to adhere to a creed and remain intellectually free. These fervent worshipers of unbelief apparently are unable to comprehend man as a spiritual creature. They have no moral guidelines by which they may steer their own course of action. As a consequence, they are unable to supply effective guidelines for their children. Indeed, there are those who do not wish to expose their children to any training of any type which might be labeled spiritual. Such parents allegedly propose to “let them grow up and make their own choice of religion when they are sixteen or seventeen.” These so-called broadminded individuals have never planted a garden or they would know that a plant cannot grow and flourish until a seed has been germinated and the subsequent shoots are adequately watered, nourished and cultivated.

The spiritual side of the human creature similarly requires care if it is to flourish and develop. The guidelines given the child at the earliest age are vital to his future. Human beings need rules to live by, and self-rule is possible only as self-discipline is practiced. A world without moral disciplines inevitably must degenerate into a world without legal disciplines. When this happens, the word justice becomes a meaningless mockery.

The Empire Of Evil

We are witnessing this degeneration on a world scale as atheistic materialism advances like an icecap, smothering all opposition, destroying freedom, “remaking” the human creature into a soulless “communist man.” We are witnessing this degeneration on a national scale as atheistic materialism expresses itself in lawless terrorism on city streets and rural byways. We cannot ignore the increase in youth crime in the course of the past several years. The problem is not confined to any state or group of states. It is national in scope. Since 1948, police arrests of juveniles have more than doubled, while the population of our young people has increased by less than one half. In the course of this period, arrests of young people have increased six times as fast as arrests of individuals who have reached their eighteenth birthday.

It is true, of course, that these crime figures relate to only three or four per cent of our young people, yet our youth is contributing an ever-increasing portion of the total police arrests in this country. Youths represent 14 per cent of all arrests in the city and 15 per cent of all arrests in rural areas. Young people account for 61 per cent of all auto thefts, 49 per cent of all burglaries, 47 per cent of all larcenies and 26 per cent of all robberies.

Tolerance Of The Illegal

As moral disciplines decline, citizens become more and more willing to condone what may appear to be minor illegalities but which actually feed and keep alive the hydra-headed monster of organized crime. Illegal gambling may seem relatively harmless, yet it, together with prostitution, the sale of narcotics and obscene material, and a variety of rackets, supports a virtual empire of crime. Investigations have revealed that the underworld exerts its sinister influence in astonishing places. Almost every area of American life is touched in some manner by the organized empire of evil. It becomes visible in some instances in the corruption of public officials. It infiltrates labor unions. It buys its way into, or otherwise gains control of, legitimate businesses in numerous fields. Yet the overlords of crime do not look the part. To the uninitiated, many of the leading racketeers appear to lead lives above reproach. Some take part in community projects, help in charity drives, and even may play a role in religious activities. They wear no brand marked “hoodlum” and, unfortunately, scores of private citizens who think of themselves as basically honest continue to support them. This is so because a vast percentage of the money placed daily with illegal gamblers flows into the hands of the criminal overlords. This cash provides the capital by means of which vice, crime and corruption spread in ever-widening circles.

When civilizations die, they do so unobtrusively. The dry rot of spiritual decay sets in and the values which form the binding cement of national greatness become honeycombed and hollow. Cynicism, apathy and self-indulgence weaken the foundations of freedom. Failure to accept full responsibility as citizens in lower echelons of government cannot help but be destructive to self-government. Woodrow Wilson, speaking on Constitutional Government in the United States, touched the heart of the matter:

It is this spontaneity and variety, this independent and irrepressible life of its communities, that has given our system its extraordinary elasticity, which has preserved it from the paralysis which has sooner or later fallen upon every people who have looked to their central government to patronize and nurture them.

Guarding Civilization’S Future

We need to make sure that guidelines which served us so well in creating sturdy, self-respecting, self-reliant and God-fearing citizens in the past are not discarded. We need to follow those guidelines closely and make sure that youthful Americans today understand the necessity of holding to them. Faith and determination formed the solid basis of the great dream out of which grew the house of freedom we live in today. Faith in God formed the foundation of that house. Faith in man transformed the vision into reality.

I do not believe that we can begin too early to instill in America’s children a dedication to the morality and decency which derive from sound Christian training. I believe that such training is a very real antidote to the spiritual indifference which so often results in youthful crime. I repeat what I have said on many occasions: The bulwark of religious training is vital if the line is to be held against the forces of corruption, crime and disloyalty. I believe that men imbued with spiritual values do not betray their country. I believe that children reared in homes in which morality is taught and lived rarely become delinquents.

There are spiritual fountains from which free people draw their strength. The guidelines leading to those fountains must be made available to our children if the spiritual ropes which bind men’s souls in strength and courage and dignity are to hold fast when these same children become men and women.

The priority of Scripture over tradition ought not to blind us to the genuine value of tradition. Tradition, as Herman Bavinck was fond of saying binds generation to generation, keeping each from falling into spiritual individualism. But tradition always seems to give rise to misunderstandings and tensions within the Church, especially when respect for tradition gives way to suspicion of everything new.

There are strong tradition-oriented elements in the Church which remind us that our strength lies in holding fast to what has been ever true. These elements usually express fear that the Church is in danger of losing what it has received. The voices are loud when the Church seems to be passing through uncertain and strange times and ways. The finger of warning is raised then, and the spector of Daniel’s great outlaw is seen, the one who “thinks to change times and laws.” Falling away is to be observed in many places, and the Church is ready to fall victim to apostasy. So it is to the traditionalist.

From another camp we are likely to hear that the signs of change are really tokens of renewal. The dynamic of life is held at a premium, as it shapes, forms, creates new paths that lead us into new forms of work and worship. This camp does not accept change as impoverishment, but as enrichment. It dare to accept the challenge of a new day.

These two tendencies can easily lead their representatives into opposition. Estrangement can then be caused between men who ought to be united in a common task. In the tension between traditionalism and progressivism, men often fail to come together, to understand, sometimes even to speak with each other. Now and then tension breaks the Church apart. As both sides speak from a sense of responsibility to the Church, it is especially tragic when their differences cause schism in the Church. We have seen what the forming of two camps, the conservatives and the progressives, can do to the Church.

The harm that such group forming has done and can do to the Church is strange and tragic when we consider that the very dilemma is an utterly unreal one as far as the Gospel is concerned. One can recall many texts of Scripture which put the dilemma aside. Paul exhorts Timothy to “keep that which is committed to thy trust” (1 Tim. 6:20). But the arrival of the Kingdom of Christ is such a new thing that we are warned not to try to “put new wine in old bottles” (Mark 2:22). The New Testament is wholly taken up with the radically new, but it never forgets God’s old ways. The former ways of God were directed at nothing other than the coming of this new age. Surely in the light of God’s ways, the dilemma between the progressive and the traditional is a false one.

Our trouble is that we are not personally in such a spiritual and intellectual frame as to grasp the scriptural harmony between accepting the new and preserving the old. This is why the dilemma has had such perverse power in the Church. We lose sight of the biblical wholeness in which both old and new have a part. The Gospel not only has room for both camps: it corrects and reforms them both, pointing the way for both to walk and work together in the fellowship and task of the Church universal.

According to the Gospel we may also say that the phrase “conservative theology” has no significance in itself. The expression stems from the Church’s historic polemic against modernism. Conservatism still has meaning, then, as a reminder that We are to keep our trust in the face of attacks against the Gospel. But a biblically defined theology cannot be described in terms of conservatism. For it is and must be progressive. The Gospel must be allowed to lead us into whatever new and surprising paths it has for us.

We cannot assume that we have exhausted the biblical resources for our understanding of the truth. Consider such mysteries as that of the Word of God coming through the word of man, of God’s electing grace, of our eschatological hope, and many other biblical themes. We have not yet come into the inheritance of complete understanding.

The dangers in conservatism lie in its temptation to forget that the riches of the Word of God are inexhaustible. When it yields to this temptation, it fails to do justice to the Scriptures it seeks to defend. For when one assumes that all has been known and said in the past, he closes the door on new truth that God has yet in store for us. And he shuts the window to the breezes of self-reformation.

Only as we realize that faithfulness to old truths open up new doors of truth to us can we keep the false contradiction between conservatism and progressivism from haunting us. The message is too great for this dilemma and our task is too urgent for us to let it hamper our fulfilling it. There will be need for keeping our eyes open to the dangers that lurk in new and strange paths. We shall have to warn and correct each other. Perhaps just now, in the face of the rich field of biblical studies that has opened new questions and new opportunities, the need for watching closely is especially real.

We may dare hope that God will spare us from the burden of having to accept either progressivism or conservatism as such. We do not have to make a choice between them. Indeed, we shall do the Church a distinct service by refusing to accept the banner of either camp. The future of a rich and fruitful theological effort depends in great measure on our being able to steer clear of the brand-mark of either conservatism or progressivism. We must work, not as progressives or conservatives, but as students of the Word of God.

In this way, theology shall be in a state to serve the pulpit. As long as theologians listen, confident that there is still something to hear, they can be of fruitful service. If they understand something of Job’s feelings, expressed, indeed, while he stood amazed at the wonderful works of God in nature, but relevant also to theology, they will be on the right path. “Lo, these are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?” (Job 26:14). G. C. BERKOUWEH

To prevent A slump in church attendance next summer, begin now to make ready for sermons from Philippians. Keynote, “In Christ.” Commentaries: J. B. Lightfoot; H. C. G. Moule. Read the letter through every day. Study it by paragraphs. On file keep careful notes. Good housekeeping!

The opening sermon may show the lay reader what to look for at home: The joys of an elderly believer (ch. 1); of church people (2); of Christian progress (3); of Christlike living (4). What a letter for devotions and family prayers!

“Being a Gentleman toward God” (1:3). Christlike joy comes through praying for others. Or else, “The Christian Secret of Perseverance” (1:6). Joy comes through relying on God when things look black (12–18), and through living in hope (19–30). To be happy, keep looking up, “in Christ.”

Church people should rejoice because of Christian habits, ideals, and leaders (ch. 2). “What It Means to be Christians” (2:5). A difficult paragraph about the Incarnation, but clear ideals for believers: humility, service, sacrifice. “O Joy that seekest me through pain!” “Christian Joy through Work” (2:12–13c). As in oldtime bread making, work out only what is first worked in. For a believer all labor should be joyous, “in Christ.”

Chapter 3 speaks to the young in heart. Christian progress here appeals to imagination. Business: “The Inventory of One’s Soul” (3:7–8). Long distance running: “The Gospel of the Forward Look” (3:13–4). A locomotive needs a powerful headlight, only a little light in the rear. Another topic, borrowed, “The Christian’s Point of No Return.” Government: “The Ideal Church for This Community” (3:20a). “We are a colony of heaven” (Moffatt). To Philippi, a colony, Rome sent a band of soldiers to “Romanize” the city. On a similar basis Paul established churches all around the Mediterranean. What an ideal for missions today, and for a church!

In pastoral work and preaching some of us use Chapter 4 repeatedly. In counseling from the pulpit, or at a bedside, the meaning of Christian joy in personal relations, through Christ. “Women as Church Workers” (4:3). What a text for Mothers’ Day! “Christ’s Cure for Anxiety,” formerly known as worry (4:6–7). “Troubled about nothing, prayerful about everything, thankful about anything.” A wise churchman says: “My Lord taught me long ago to live without worry, work without hurry, and look forward without fear.”

“The Christian Secret of Contentment” (4:11b). Paul here uses three Greek verbs, in this order: “I have learned as a lesson”; “I have seen in others”; “I have been initiated into the secret.” Who can wonder that while in prison, elderly, penniless, and facing death, he had heavenly joy? “The Christian Source of Power” (4:13). Writing from Rome, where people worshiped power, he testifies to power that God releases to faith. By learning the will of God for his life work, and by doing that will gladly, he could accomplish all that God desired. In history, who else has done so much, with so little, and for so many? Like other golden texts, this one calls for two main stresses: the Fulness of spiritual power; and the Source. If you believe, God releases power.

“The Basis of Christian Security” (4:19). The promises of our God—the riches of his bounty—the grace of the Living Christ. What a testimony from a saint who had suffered second only to his Lord, and was living on money from the friends to whom he sent the letter of joy! For examples, turn to the life of Mary Slessor in Calabar, or David Livingstone in Central Africa, but first to Paul in the Acts of the Holy Spirit. So the epistle ends with “The Simplest of Benedictions” (4:23). What a text!

Minister of Christ’s joy, live with this letter until you know it as a whole and in every part. Linger with the difficult paragraph until you enter into its secret of joy. Then with words as simple and beautiful as those of John Bunyan lead many a lay hearer to “have this mind” that was in the Christ of Calvary.

Lay reader, you wish the pastor to be a happy preacher of the Good News, which he himself most enjoys. So pray for him without ceasing. Then do all in your power to set him free from countless details that the Lord intends other servants to handle (Ex. 18:13–26).

Thus by the grace of God may the pastor give himself to prayer and the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4), all “in Christ,” and with apostolic power.

In later years, through his Expositions (17 volumes), this man became known as “The Prince of Expositors.” Earlier volumes also excelled, notably The Secret of Power (1882), from which the present sermon is abridged.

Only let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ (Phil. 1:27a).

Philippi was a “colony.” The connection between a colony and Rome was a great deal closer than that between an English colony and London. A colony was a bit of Rome on foreign soil. The colonists were Roman citizens. To Paul those Philippians were citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. In that outlying colony of earth he would stimulate their loyalty to heaven.

I. Keep Fresh the Sense of Belonging to the Mother City. Paul was writing from Rome. The idea of being a Roman gave dignity to a man, and became almost a religion.

A. This is a great part of Christian discipline. We speak of the future life, and forget that it is also the present life, “ready to be revealed.” It is so close, so real, so solemn that it is worthwhile to feel its nearness.

B. There is a present connection between all Christian men and that heavenly city. As Philippi was to Rome, so is earth to heaven, the colony on the outskirts of the empire, ringed about by barbarians, and separated by sounding seas, but keeping open its communications, and one in citizenship.

C. So let us set our thoughts and affections on things above.

D. Nor need the feeling of detachment from the present sadden our spirit, or weaken our interest in the things around us here.

II. Live by the Laws of That City.

A. The Good News of God is to be believed, and obeyed.

B. That law is all-sufficient. In Christ we have all the helps that our weakness needs.

C. So “live worthy of the Gospel.” All duties are capable of reduction to this one. Nor is such an all-comprehensive precept a toothless generality. The combination of great principles and small duties is the secret of all noble and calm life.

D. It is also an exclusive commandment. Let us take the Gospel for our Supreme law, and so labor that we may be “well pleasing to Him.”

III. Fight for the Advance of the City’s Dominions.

A. Christian men are set down in some Philippi to be citizen-soldiers, who hold their homesteads on a military tenure, and are to “strive together for the faith of the Gospel.”

B. Stand fast! Defend the faith, and like the frontier guard, push the conquests of the empire, to win more ground for the King.

C. Such warfare against evil has never been more needed than now. When material comfort and worldly prosperity are dazzlingly attractive to many, win hearts to the love of Him whom to imitate is perfection, and whom to serve is freedom.

IV. Be Sure of Final Victory for God.

A. We have no reason to fear our adversaries. No reason to fear for the ark of God, or the growth of Christianity in the world. Why preach in words that sound more like an apology than a creed?

B. Such Christian courage is based on a sure hope, and is a prophecy of victory. “Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus as Saviour.”

The little outlying colony in this far-off edge of the Empire is ringed about with foes. The watchers from the ramparts might well be dismayed if they had to depend only on their own resources. But they know that in His progress the Emperor will come to this sorely beset outpost, and their eyes are fixed on the pass in the hills where they expect to see the coming of their King. When he comes he will raise the siege and scatter all his enemies as the chaff of the threshing floor. Then the colonists who have held their posts will go with him into the land which they have never seen, but which is to be their home. There with the Victor they will sweep “through the gates into the city.”

Never be anxious, but always make your requests to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving; so shall God’s peace, that surpasses all our dreams, keep guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6–7, Moffatt).

The first part of the message deals with anxiety, with a number of cases from life. When Paul says, “Never be anxious,” is he mocking? Not when he brings God into the scene, with prayers of supplication. (A case—Allan Gardiner—a missionary in Patagonia.) Release from anxiety comes along three lines:

I. Prayer Sets Things in True Perspective. Like an artist at work on a canvas, stand back and look at your life in the healing silence that is the presence of God. Prayer steadies the jaded nerves, lifts the fevered spirit into a purer air, and brings a blessed silence into the din of life’s conflict. Thus prayer makes firm the staggering soul.

II. Prayer Brings Our Will into Line with God’s Will. At a time of civil war within, we say what Jesus said in Gethsemane: “Not what I will, but what Thou wilt!” To do that may call for some kind of Gethsemane, but after such prayers we shall always find release, with serenity that the world can not destroy.

III. Prayer Liberates within Us New Sources of Power to handle the difficult business of living. In true prayer you connect yourself with the source of creative power. From the unseen world flow into your life boundless energies so that you can confront the hardest task, the most difficult situation, with grateful knowledge of God’s adequacy.

The latter part of the message has to do with God’s mysterious peace, which “stands sentry” over your soul. This peace of God is to be recaptured every day, by a new surrender of self to God.

“Paul closes with the words, ‘in Christ Jesus.’ There is the ultimate secret … the transforming influence of a friendship with the noblest, strongest, most understanding Friend in all the world. If only we would start each day with Jesus, reaching out from the dust and darkness of this low earth to clasp the hand of our Friend, the ever-old, ever-new miracle would happen once again, and our restless hearts would find rest and healing in the invincible peace of God.”—Abridged from The Strong Name, pp. 169–176, by pennission of Chas. Scribner’s Sons.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).

Every believer in Christ wants to become more like his Lord. In writing to a sports-minded city Paul shares his own secret of spiritual growth, “in Christ.” By faith put your trust in Christ. This refers to the Holy Spirit—Christ’s Spirit. Through his Spirit have him ever in your heart. What here follows has to do with time, and with running a long-distance race. In terms of athletics, being a Christian has to do with far more than making a right start.

I. A Christian View of the Past. Get right with God. Then largely forget yesterday’s shortcomings, failures, and sins. Also, at times, the successes. To think much about past mistakes tends to make a person morbid. About past failures, despondent. Let the dead past bury its dead. How otherwise can a person expect to have the sort of joy that the apostle shows in this letter?

Most of all, forget your sins. If God forgives what a person has done his best to make right, why should he keep on asking forgiveness for the same old sins?

As for past successes, much thinking makes a man proud, and pride is the worst of the seven deadly sins. If ever a man had need to learn the Gospel of the forward look, that man was Saul of Tarsus, for much the same reason that a runner ought seldom to look back. If the apostle had not learned to voice his faith in other than past tenses, he could not have written this letter of joy “in Christ.”

II. A Christian View of the Future. Christianity makes much of the future. The goal of the Christian life is perfection. The prize is the favor of God. The pathway is chosen of him: “every man’s life a plan of God.” “I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.” For a living example of what this means in the noblest of men, see in Paul a practical person who looked ahead. But remember that he never let thoughts of coming glory interfere with what he was doing for God at the moment. Where in history can you find such a noble example of a Christian idealist? Thank God for such an elderly optimist!

III. A Christian View of the Present. “One thing I do”: resolve to be daily more like the Lord. With the apostle keep straining forward, eager to be still more useful. And be sure to have his kind of apostolic optimism. Like Grenfell in Labrador, when someone pitied him because of his hardships, smile and say: “Don’t pity me; I am having the time of my life!” But remember that with Grenfell as with Paul, abounding joy came by engaging in Christian service, all because he was ever “in the Lord.”

The secret of Christian progress is to be “in Christ.” In his service the past is secure; the future, glorious; the present, full of glorious opportunity. But first be sure of a personal experience of Christ and his transforming Cross. If so, rest assured that the One who started the good work in you will bring it to completion by the Day of Christ Jesus. (By permission of Pulpit Digest, December, 1953.)

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5; read 2:1–11).

These words introduce one of the most difficult paragraphs in the New Testament, and one of the most sublime. They represent the Gospel in terms of mystery and wonder. In the Bible a mystery has to do with a truth that we mortals can never discover for ourselves, a truth that we accept by faith, because revealed in God’s Book.

I. The Christ Before Christmas. All through eternity before New Testament times our Lord lived in glory as one with the Father. To the Son the saints and angels bowed down to adore, and stood up to sing his praises. Then as now, the wisest and best of all created beings worshiped no one but “very God of very God.” To this hour believers in Christ render him homage because of his Deity, which is a mystery, a “mystery of light.”

II. The Christ of the Cross. At God’s appointed time the Lord Jesus “emptied” himself of his divine glory, and was born in lowly Bethlehem. As a babe and a boy, a man and a carpenter, he did the will of God, perfectly and gladly; also later as Healer, Teacher and Preacher. But all the while he had come to earth to die as our Redeemer. Thus the mystery and the wonder deepen. Today with saints and angels we can only bow down and adore the Redeemer who once died for us men and our salvation.

III. The Christ of the Crown. The drama of our redemption leads us to look beyond the Cross to the Crown. After our Lord had completed his mission on earth he returned to heaven, and there resumed his place at the right hand of his Father. There he rules, and receives the adoration of all the redeemed, both on earth and in heaven.

In the face of this threefold mystery we redeemed sinners can only give thanks to God, while we gladly accept these saving truths that we can not begin to comprehend. In trying to make clear and luminous these mighty truths of redemption we can not turn to human experience for examples about the Incarnation as a mystery.

How then can we of today “have this mind” that was in the Christ of the Gospel? First of all, let every unsaved hearer accept him as Redeemer and Lord. Then the believer will trust the Lord Jesus to reveal by his Spirit how to make the mystery of the Incarnation the ideal and the pattern of everyday living for the Redeemer of men.

SERMONS ABRIDGED BY DR. ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD

ALEXANDER MACLAREN’SCitizens of Heaven

JAMES S. STEWART’SWhen God’s Peace Guards the Door

Outlines of Dr. Blackwood’s Own Sermons:

The Christian Secret of Progress and

The Mystery of the Incarnation

The experiences of life move in varied patterns of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, love and loneliness. The ingredients that combine to make our lives significant or meaningful are often unrecognized or at least unacknowledged.

I have just returned from eight weeks of travel throughout Asia. During my trip I served on the staff of the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches and therefore had the unique experience of listening in on the heart of the Christian world as it contemplated the next epoch in Christian history.

From the conference rooms in New Delhi to villages for untouchables in South India, a school in Punjab, and redevelopment centers in Hong Kong, a variety of impressions stamped themselves on my heart and mind. One impression particularly emblazoned itself so deeply upon me that I am compelled to do nothing less than invite you to join me in a march of death.

That is right. I invite you to walk with me to death. Everything, even death, we are told, has its appointed time. Perhaps now is the time, then, for the Christian Church to face realistically the challenge of the present world situation. Are we willing to sacrifice all we have to make the Gospel known throughout the world? How much are we willing to sacrifice to bring healing to minds and bodies in India, Hong Kong, or Africa?

The impression which overwhelmed me at the Assembly and during my trip was the urgent need for Christians to purify their witness. The time has come either to stand with the Cross or forever to retreat into the background. The day of playing church has passed. We must put away our little systems and idiosyncrasies and grasp the depth of the reconciliation which Christ brought to the world, and seek to share this reconciliation with all men everywhere.

The urgency of our times is vividly illustrated by the rapid changes occurring in Asia, Africa, and even in North America. Old patterns of life are crumbling under the emergence of new nations, new ideas, and new modes of thought. Everywhere we see society strained to the limit by the dynamic forces that impinge upon mankind. My purpose is neither to comment on these social forces nor even to describe them. One need only read current articles and books on Asia and Africa to grasp the upheavals that are in process.

My purpose, rather, is to focus for you and for me the greatest challenge that the Church is facing today. This challenge is summarized by the word “integrity.” This is what the world is looking for as it seeks to find a sense of direction. Who speaks for the truth? Can we believe what Christians say? Is there an authentic witness to the Christian message? Where can we turn for an illustration and example thereof?

We in America must squarely face a fundamental decision at this point. We are caught up in a building boom in our own country which threatens to throw our sense of values out of balance. We spend $100,000 to $250,000 for educational buildings which are used one or two hours, at best but several days, a week. Our philanthropic giving is perhaps 20 to 30 per cent of our budgets. Yet the Gospel tells us we must be willing to give all we have in order to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord. All is not just 20 to 30 per cent, or some other amount that satisfies our conscience. All would seem to imply an amount sufficiently large to threaten our economic survival! We borrow a great deal of money to build our fine buildings here at home, but I have yet to hear of a church that has borrowed $250,000 to build a school in India, or a hospital in Punjab, or a recreation center in Hong Kong.

In fact, it appears that right now the Church is more concerned about its physical accommodations than about the spiritual situation in the world. Christ has called us to give all we have. The world with its hand outstretched, a world desperately in need of the healing only Christ can bring, is crying and pleading for help. Unfortunately, we do not have 15 or 20 years to meet the needs that are before us today. The world cannot wait for us to finish our building program before we can launch a new missionary outreach. In the next several years the world will make some basic and strategic choices. God help us if we fail to give the people the truth revealed in Jesus Christ.

Undoubtedly many will stand and proudly say, “Here is our fine $750,000 church with all of the latest in Christian education facilities.” But, I ask you, what good will be that fine facility if in the next ten years we are unable to meet the challenge of education, technical help, and medical assistance so desperately needed around the world? Should the Church boast over its buildings of so many new churches, or should it instead repent for its failure to sacrifice for the far-flung cause of Christ?

I know not a single church that has ever given all it could for the work of Christ in Asia or Africa. In fact, most of the time we give as little as we can and yet appear respectable, and give as much as we can without curtailing our current program.

If only the world could wait for us to mature spiritually! But the force of the population explosion will not let us remain static. Either we will catch a new vision of the cross of Christ and with joyous abandon give ourselves and all we have to insure that the world hears the glorious news of Christ, the darkness-dispelling Light, or men will turn to those who deny God and speak for materialism.

I invite you to join me in a march to death. Let us give ourselves without and beyond limit to extol Jesus Christ above the turbulent tensions of our world as the Light and Saviour of all mankind.—JAMES R. HIPKINS, Pastor, Church of the Saviour (Methodist), Cincinnati, Ohio.

MISSION TO THE WORLD—Two months ago an American touring company, sponsored by the State Department and paid for by your tax dollars, presented one of Tennessee Williams’ more depraved offerings to an audience in Rio de Janeiro. The audience hooted in disgust and walked out. And where did it walk to? Right across the street where a Russian ballet company was putting on a beautiful performance for the glory of Russia! How dumb can we get?—JENKIN LLOYD JONES, Editor, The Tulsa Tribune, in an address, “Who Is Tampering With the Soul of America?”

Counseling With A Plus

A Theology of Pastoral Care, by Eduard Thurneysen (John Knox, 1962, 343 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Carl Kromminga, Associate Professor of Practical Theology, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The appearance of Eduard Thurneysen’s Die Lehre von der Seelsorge in English translation is a welcome event. In our time the Protestant minister is increasingly finding the role of psychological counselor thrust upon him, or he is increasingly assuming this role in a frantic effort to insure his relevance in modern society. A Theology of Pastoral Care is a notable attempt to set forth clearly the unique aim of pastoral care and to delineate sharply its distinction from counseling in general.

Thurneysen reminds us that pastoral care is inseparably related to, but neither replaces nor competes with the Word and Sacraments. It accompanies them as a secondary, nonsacramental sign. Pastoral care is a “specific communication to the individual of the message proclaimed in general … in the sermon to the congregation” (p. 15). Pietism, by shifting the emphasis from the objective Word of God to subjective piety, rendered individual care suspect. But even those pastors and theologians who stressed the centrality of the Word preached and the Sacraments could not be brought to repudiate pastoral care of individuals entirely.

Thurneysen maintains that individual pastoral care must be seen in the perspective of church discipline, but church discipline understood in this way: “The church sees to it that the power proceeding from the Word and sacrament actually becomes effective in the members of the church. It cannot simply look on, when Word and sacrament exist without evidence of the life which should proceed from them” (p. 37). The church cannot effect repentance and sanctification. But the church “cross-questions” its members in the light of its proclamation because it honors the Word which it proclaims and is concerned to see it come to fruition in life. In pursuit of this goal the church engages in individual admonition.

True pastoral conversation is always characterized by a breach. In the development of the conversation it becomes apparent that the pastor is concerned with a message which transcends the human judgment and evaluation, the human problems and presuppositions which come to light in the process of discussion. A struggle emerges in which the pastor strives to make plain that all human evaluation and judgment come under the sentence of God’s gracious judgment in the Word. A pastoral conversation in which this breach does not occur may produce some kind of psychological counseling, but in terms of the pastoral purpose it is a failure.

The core of pastoral conversation is identical with the core of the church’s proclamation. Pastoral conversation seeks to communicate the message of the forgiveness of sins, a forgiveness grounded in the fact that all sin is completely cancelled in Jesus Christ. Psychology and psychotherapy can illuminate the condition of the counselee in the pastoral situation. But the goal of the pastoral conversation is totally different from psychological self-understanding and psychic healing. Psychology and psychotherapy can aid the pastoral conversation, but they can never do its work. And especially with respect to psychotherapy, the pastor must be aware of immanentist presuppositions which are inimical to pastoral care. The removal of psychic conflicts does not guarantee the forgiveness of sins. But the forgiveness of sins has great significance for the achievement of psychic healing.

The view of Scripture in this book is the “neoorthodox” view. Scripture is a record of and a witness to encounter with the Word which never exists except as an act. Yet this theoretical view of Scripture is significantly overcome at points where Thurneysen appeals to biblical propositions to establish his thesis.

God has had mercy on all men unconditionally in Christ. Thurneysen consistently refuses to discuss the possibility of the ultimate failure of the pastoral conversation. But do not such failures occur? And, when they occur, do they signify only the self-condemning refusal of man to appropriate his already real forgiveness? Does not this refusal point beyond itself to a sovereign withholding of the efficacy of Christ’s work by the electing God? Difficult as it may be to come to this conclusion, a refusal to do so raises serious questions concerning the ultimate power of the grace of God.

Thurneysen sees a recurrence of Roman Catholicism in Question 85 of the Heidelberg Catechism which teaches that God honors the judgment of the church in excommunication with an act of exclusion from the Kingdom of God. But the Catechism is only concerned to declare that God stands by his Word and that, when the church acts according to the Word, God himself will not put Word and act in question by some arbitrary circumvention of his own revealed will.

The English translation is remarkably smooth. But on page 249 “Augen” has apparently been read for “Glauben” and the result is confusing.

This book modestly presents a, not the, theology of pastoral care. Pastors and professors with a biblically responsible theology will find this work of great value. It can serve as a guide to the formation of a clear, distinct, and articulate theology of pastoral care, which is so greatly needed at a time when pastoral care is struggling to keep its identity.

CARL KROMMINGA

The New Look

Twelve New Testament Studies, by John A. T. Robinson (SCM, 1962, 180 pp., 13s. 6d.), is reviewed by F. F. Bruce, Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis, University of Manchester, Manchester, England.

Dr. John Robinson, formerly Dean of Clare College, Cambridge, is now Bishop of Woolwich. He has a lively and brilliant mind, and one of his studies, “Elijah, John and Jesus,” is aptly subtitled by himself “An Essay in Detection.” But it is no mere jeu d’ esprit; it raises questions which demand some satisfactory solution, whether Dr. Robinson’s solution or someone else’s. The most important studies in this volume, however, deal with John’s Gospel. “The New Look on the Fourth Gospel” challenges five of the most generally agreed presuppositions of the last 50 years, and ventilates the suggestion that this Gospel may preserve “a real continuity, … in the life on an ongoing community, with the earliest days of Christianity” (p. 106). In “The Destination and Purpose of St. John’s Gospel” he argues that it was addressed to Greek-speaking Jews of the dispersion to win them to the faith. The Johannine Epistles, too, he believes to have been written to correct gnosticizing tendencies in that same environment. “The Baptism of John and the Qumran Community” shows, among other things, how the Fourth Evangelist’s portrayal of John the Baptist and his ministry takes on new significance against the background of the Qumran Manual of Discipline. Another essay argues that the “others” who had “labored” in Samaria, according to John 4:38 were not (as Professor Cullmann has said) the Hellenists of Acts 8, but John the Baptist and his followers—an argument rendered the more probable by Professor Albright’s recent studies in the place-names of John 3:23. In “The Parable of the Shepherd” the methods which Professor Jeremias has applied to the Synoptic parables are applied to John 10:1–5, and lead to conclusions about the historical value of this typically Johannine section which compare favorably with any of the Synoptic material.

F. F. BRUCE

Not For The Attic

The Acts of the Apostles (The Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, text based on the American Standard Version), by Charles W. Carter and Ralph Earle (Zondervan, 1959,451 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Pastor, Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, New York.

Some good books I have reviewed went promptly to the attic. This will stay in my study. Lucid, lively, stimulating, scholarly, it should captivate evangelical laymen, ministers and theologians alike.

Errors in Acts 7? Words quoted in Scripture are not always God’s (p. 96). “One is not required to defend the accuracy of Stephen’s statements” (p. 99). Yet, laudably and with considerable success, this commentary attempts just that.

Eschewing the Septuagint and Josephus, however, it is no “difficult problem” to harmonize the 400 Egyptian years with the 430 from Covenant to Exodus (Gal. 3:17), for the promise was renewed to Jacob (Gen. 46:3, 4). Is 45 (v. 14) a “round number”? Genesis 46:26 contains the clue. Samuel Davidson unriddled this in 1843. (See Haley, Alleged Discrepancies, p. 389.)

“Printed in Holland” may explain some typographical blunders. But such things are mere specks on brilliant pages packed with learning. E. P. SCHULZE

Must Reading

Through the Valley of the Kwai, by Ernest Gordon (Harper, 1962, 257 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by L. Nelson Bell, Executive Editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

This is a rare book, rare for a number of reasons. Where, for instance, can one find a story combining the raw and harrowing experience of war along with a gradual change—through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit—from agnosticism to glorious faith in Jesus Christ?

Dr. Gordon, now Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University, entered the war as a captain in the 93rd Argyll Highlanders. Subsequent events culminated in a Japanese prison camp deep in the Thailand jungles, the prison of the famous “railroad builders of the Kwai.” Even if read only from the standpoint of adventure, danger and the very nadir of human misery and degradation the book is a classic.

Reading for Perspective

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

* The Minister’s Law Handbook, by G. Stanley Joslin (Channel Press, $4.95). Here is help for the pastor who is frequently requested to give legal advice on many matters, but is often unequipped to give it.

* Frontiers of the Christian World Mission, edited by Wilbur C. Harr (Harper, $5). An up-to-date report on development and changes in the missionary situation since World War II in key areas of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.

* The Treasury of Religious Verse, compiled by Donald T. Kauffman (Revell, $4.95). An unusually fine collection of 600 religious poems from poets ranging from Charles Wesley to T. S. Eliot, Fanny Crosby to Francis Thompson and John Donne.

But here we have much more, for out of human misery and unbelievable stories of man’s inhumanity to man there emerged a group of men with the love of Christ in their hearts, a love which transformed them as persons and which went out to fellow prisoners with amazing results.

Here one will find raw paganism (in captives and captors), humor, selfishness and selflessness, heroism and new men in Christ, emerging the one from the other with a convincing reality which leaves one amazed at the depths to which men may fall and the heights to which they may be raised by the transforming Christ.

This is a book you must read, then pass on for others to read.

L. NELSON BELL

The Devotional Life

Anglican Devotion: Studies in the Spiritual Life of the Church of England between the Reformation and the Oxford Movement, by C. J. Stranks (SCM Press, 1961, 296 pp., 30s.), is reviewed by Donald Robinson, Vice-principal, Moore Theological College, Sydney.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY recently posed the question, “Can we recover the devotional life?” This book describes what “the devotional life” meant for many in the Church of England before the era of conventions and Bible schools. Stranks selects for study a number of books which, in some cases for centuries, helped to nourish the spiritual life of Anglicans.

Bishop Bayle’s The Practice of Piety was one of two books possessed by John Bunyan’s wife at the time of their marriage, though they were “as poor as poor might be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us.” It was a manual of devotion “which exactly fulfilled all the requirements of those who accepted Calvin’s theology without his church order.” (Issued in 1612, 58th edition in 1734, last appeared in 1842.) In 1650 Jeremy Taylor wrote Holy Living “to sustain afflicted members of the Church of England” in days of confusion for church and state. It profoundly influenced John Wesley in the 18th century and John Keble in the 19th. (It is among the 100 Select Devotional Books, now in print, listed with the article referred to at the beginning of this review.) The restoration of the Prayer Book in 1662 produced a crop of devotional books based on an exposition of this book (Nicholl, Wheatley, Sparrow, Comber, Nelson’s Festivals and Fasts, etc.). The Whole Duty of Man (author unknown), of the same period, reached its 28th edition by 1790. Wesley and Charles Simeon were both stirred by it in their student days, though Evangelicals generally found it moralistic and arid, and Henry Venn wrote The Complete Duty of Man “to ground morality upon a sounder theological foundation.” William Law, the non-juror, wrote A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life in 1729, and William Wilberforce, the Evangelical, produced A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians etc. in 1797.

In the past century Evangelicalism and Tractarianism have each tended to produce a devotional literature of its own, but there is still much to be gained from a study of the older, common inheritance. Here, in the main, is a sound biblical piety, in which “no emotion, however exalted, can take the place of belief, prayer and practice” (p. 285).

DONALD ROBINSON

Biblical Breakthrough?

Grace, by R. W. Gleason, S.J. (Sheed & Ward, 1962, 240 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by G. W. Bromiley, Professor of Church History, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

This new book on grace by the chairman of the Theology Department at Fordham University is written primarily not as a major critical or constructive contribution to dogmatics, but for the instruction of theological students and the laity.

It has several admirable qualities. Stylistically, its combination of clarity with a solid content of material fits the author’s purpose admirably. In content, it includes an excellent, though brief, presentation of the biblical basis, a useful review of post-biblical development, and a valuable statement of the developed Roman Catholic position. The spirit of the author is good, especially in his attempt to be fair to the Lutheran position and to recognize what he would allow to be the many elements of truth in it.

Yet the weaknesses of the work are no less evident than the admirable qualities. Even in form it suffers from the lack of an index and bibliography—surely essential in a book of this type. Academically the most striking feature is the failure to follow up the biblical material and to exploit it in the presentation of a doctrine that could with truth claim to be apostolic and catholic. The historical survey betrays a similar weakness. Thus the work of Torrance—here an “English” scholar!—is used in exposition, but no account is taken of his acute criticism of post-apostolic doctrine in terms of the biblical norm.

This leads us to the ultimate dogmatic weakness; the Bible is not allowed to exercise its normative function, Aristotelian philosophy is canonized as well as Scripture, and the true doctrine of grace is sought in the Scholastic synthesis and its Tridentine codification. In this respect the work does not even represent what is best and most dynamic in modern Roman Catholic theology. Alert, informed, lucid and charitable though it is, it never faces up to the basic issue and, therefore, it has little to offer in the contemporary situation beyond teaching Roman Catholics what they are bound to believe, and giving Protestants a clearer picture of what this belief is.

Yet this is not perhaps quite the end of the story. For the biblical data are in fact present. The book contains such vital statements as “Christ is our grace,” and “the gift of God to men in Christ’s sacrifice of the cross … is the very heart of the meaning of the created gift of grace.” Perhaps after all the Bible is beginning to assert itself in a new way even in what finally turns out to be an exercise in standard Roman Catholic dogma.

G. W. BROMILEY

Aid For St. Augustine?

The Ministry and Mental Health, ed. by Hans Hofmann (Association, 1961, 256 pp., $5) is reviewed by Orville S. Walters, Director of Health Services and Lecturer in Psychiatry, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois.

The broad, nondescriptive title of this symposium is necessary to comprehend the diverse and uneven assortment of papers that make it up. The volume begins with essays dealing with the impact of the new sciences of man upon theology, then tapers off through a series of chapters by several leaders of the pastoral training movement into a description of catalog offerings in the field at Union Seminary.

A republished article by Paul Tillich declares that the most important insight of psychotherapy for theology is an undercutting of contemporary Pelagianism, and a reaffirmation both of the hidden grip of sin and the unconditional power of God’s grace. In Tillich’s view, the psychology of the unconscious reinforces the Augustinian-Reformation theology and opposes the Roman-legalistic and the Protestant-moralistic views.

Talcott Parsons views personality as the product of social interaction that emerges from the erotic childhood relationships delineated by Freud. He sees spiritual malaise as growing out of the individual’s involvement in problems of meaning and value. The place of the psychiatrist, the clergyman and the church are examined in this light.

David McClelland, an experimental psychologist, discusses the religious overtones in psychoanalysis. He sees Freud’s system as the product of revolt against a legalistic Judaism which has been popular among American intellectuals as a revolt against Christian orthodoxy while retaining belief in a determinism and an innate depravity reminiscent of Calvinism. Psychoanalysis, he believes, had its roots in Jewish mysticism and has continued to function as a secular religious movement that fulfills religious functions not being met by the church.

In a notable treatment of “Psychology and a Ministry of Faith,” James Dittes of Yale Divinity School deprecates the current popularity of the pastoral counseling movement as a ministry of good works rather than a ministry of faith. The clergyman’s attempts to justify his vocation by efforts to probe, analyze, control and manipulate, communicate his own anxiety and deny the faith he represents. Divine resources for healing may flow more effectively through the minister’s basic confidence in these resources than through his self-conscious efforts.

The remaining chapters deal largely with the training of seminary students in pastoral care, the screening of students for seminary training and the problems growing out of work with emotionally disturbed persons.

ORVILLE S. WALTERS, M.D.

A Narrow Province

Jesus of Nazareth: The Hidden Years, by Robert Aron, tr. by Frances Frenaye (Morrow, 1962, 253 pp., $4); is reviewed by Ralph A. Gwinn, Associate Professor of Religion, Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tennessee.

A distinguished French historian has given us a book, written from within a Jewish framework, which will give the Christian a finer appreciation of the backgrounds of his own faith. One of the tantalizing ideas with which the author works is the impact upon Jesus of the conflict between “a tradition, an invasion … that is, a land historically impregnated by God, and a group of men from another country who temporarily occupied it” (p. 39). The author declares that many interpretive faults with reference to Scripture spring from a lack of knowledge of the basic differences between Hebrew and western languages. His explanation of “an eye for an eye” and “vanity of vanities” illustrates his point. Even more than this, Aron insists that Hebrew syntax and the Hebrew view of man cannot be separated. The author shows that Jesus’ teaching was essentially Jewish, and then near the end of the book suggests two principal innovations which Jesus brought. The approach throughout is naturalistic. “Anything supernatural is outside our province” (p. 225).

This book is, in a real sense, an apologia for Judaism. It also gives the Christian a better understanding of the rock from which he is hewn, and some suggestive insights into the early years of his Lord.

RALPH A. GWINN

Book Versus Title

The Philosophy of Judaism, by Zwi Cahn (Macmillan, 1962, 524 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Jacob Jocz, Professor of Systematic Theology, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Canada.

It is no small venture to write yet another book on Judaism. There is a large literature on the subject both of scholarly and popular works and it is not easy to make a genuine contribution. Unfortunately, the present work belongs to neither category. It is not a scholarly work for it lacks accuracy of fact and precision of language, and reveals anything but an unbiased approach. Nor is it a popular work, with its 500 odd pages, its misleading title, and profusion of names and dates.

The book is well printed, well produced and has a reputable publishing house behind it. The greater is the disappointment when the reader comes to the text:

(1) The author’s contradictions are numerous, specially on the subject of Jewish doctrine. We are told with great emphasis that Judaism has no “dogma.” The author asks whether a Jew need even believe in God. We are told that Judaism is devoid of “basic principles,” but he then proceeds quite happily to elucidate the basic principles underlying the views of Jewish religious writers. He does this by a curious distinction between “fundamentals” and “Articles of Faith.”

(2) The many inaccuracies make it impossible to take the book seriously: The Ten Tribes did not return because “they had not been too fond of their fatherland”; “the Jewish religion as such never feared assimilationist tendencies”; the apostles called the Pharisees hypocrites “but the apostles were not born until about 100 or 150 years after the founder of “Christianity,” so they knew nothing about the Pharisees. (That the Talmud calls some Pharisees hypocrites the author apparently does not know.) “Two Jewish scribes wrote down the Koran” at Mohammed’s dictation.

(3) Though the book is called The Philosophy of Judaism, we are never really told what that philosophy is. It seems that anything written by Jews constitutes “Jewish” philosophy even when this is done in obvious dependence upon non-Jewish thought. Spinoza is thus credited with inaugurating a new era of Jewish philosophy. Henri Bergson is claimed to be a “Jewish” philosopher and is placed side by side with Hermann Cohen and Franz Rosenzweig. In fact, the author tells us that he detects in all three of them “an undercurrent of Jewish nationalism.”

(4) The author’s greatest bias is against Hebrew Christians: they are all traitors, renegates and Jew-baiters. But surprisingly enough they are in good company. Spinoza, the most harmless and gentle of men, is described as a hater of Judaism and of Jews. Is it because he quoted “John the Baptist” to the effect that “we are in God and God is in us”? One wonders whether Dr. Zwi Cahn has ever read the New Testament.

Dr. Cahn goes out of his way to assure the reader that Bergson was buried in a Jewish cemetery. Is it possible that he never heard of the fact that the philosopher died a professing Christian and was given Christian burial although he was not baptized?

It is not usual for this reviewer to be so critical, but he is left with a sense of disappointment. The book’s appearance and grandiose title promise much more than is warranted by the content.

JACOB JOCZ

Book Briefs

The Beatitudes of Jesus, by William Fitch (Eerdmans, 1961, 132 pp., $3). A good discussion of those spiritual qualities that mark the Lord’s portrait of the Christian man.

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, by Edgar Jones (Macmillan, 1962, 349 pp., $4.25). Torch Bible Commentaries’ interpretation of the “canticles of scepticism” and the “pawky Proverbs.”

New Men for New Times, by Beatrice Avalos (Sheed & Ward, 1962, 182 pp., $3.75). Author contends that today’s teachers teach as though they lived in the nineteenth century, and that it is time they realized their students live in a time of fragmentation and isolation and should be taught accordingly.

Martin is Baptized, by Jean and David Head (Macmillan, 1962, 74 pp., $1.50). Parents, some for and some against, discuss the meaning of child baptism. Simple but informative dialogue.

Sign Posts on the Christian Way, by Patrick Hankey (Scribners, 1962, 152 pp., $2.95). Religiously, sensitive guide for him who travels the paths of devotion.

Basic Sources of the Judaeo-Christian Tradition, by Fred Berthold, Jr., Allan Carlsten, Klaus Penzel, and James F. Ross (Prentice-Hall, 1962, 322 pp., $10.60). Selections from the writings of men whose thought and actions created the basis of our Western religious heritage. The historical survey includes a date-line graph, brief introductory sketches and historical essays which provide the setting of each reading selection. Writers range from Moses to Augustine and Anselm, Warfield to Barth, from Popes to Fosdick.

God in My Unbelief, by J. W. Stevenson (Collins, 1962, 159 pp., $2.75). An absorbing self-told story of Scottish minister in an upland parish reflecting his religious and sometimes costly involvement in the life of his people. First American printing.

Massacre at Montségur, by Zoé Oldenbourg, tr. by Peter Green (Pantheon, 1961, 420 pp., $6.95). A distinguished historical novelist shows her marked ability as a straight historian in this tragic account of the twelfth-thirteenth-century Albigensians.

A fortnightly report of developments in religion

The right of local presbyteries to “receive, dismiss, ordain, install, remove, and judge ministers” was upheld last month by the 174th annual General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. meeting in Denver.

The General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission overruled two synodical decisions. A commission statement approved by the assembly declared:

“We are deciding that in our church’s system of constitutional government the presbyteries, now and historically, bear the heavy and primary responsibility of determining the qualifications of our ministers within the framework of our constitutional documents.”

The assembly thus reversed a ruling of the Synod of New Jersey that barred Professor John Harwood Hick of Princeton Theological Seminary from membership in the Presbytery of New Brunswick because he refused to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth.

Commissioners also upheld the Presbytery of Cincinnati, which has suspended the Rev. Maurice McCracken, a pacifist who served a six-month prison term for his refusal to pay income taxes, which, he said, would be used for military purposes.

In the Hick case, the assembly commission criticized the New Jersey Synod’s commission for irregularities in handling. Among other things, the assembly commission called the use of a round-robin letter instead of a formal meeting of the synod commission a grave error.

The main basis for the decision, however, was that of the presbytery’s rights. But the commission also called attention to the “principle of toleration” in the United Presbyterian Church, which permits a variety of theological viewpoints. It said that overturning Hick’s acceptance by the presbytery would only revive the fundamentalist-modernist controversy which shook the church earlier in the twentieth century.

Some observers interpreted the assembly decision as an indication that Dr. Stuart H. Merriam would have little chance of regaining his pulpit at Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York City (see adjoining story, “The Battle for Broadway”).

In other action, the assembly deferred action on a controversial report defining its position on church-state relations. Commissioners voted to distribute the 21,000-word report to the denomination’s local churches, presbyteries, and synods for their study and opinions. The comments are to be transmitted back to the committee which drafted the report, and it will resubmit a possibly revised report to next year’s assembly.

The Battle For Broadway

As the minister stepped to the pulpit to deliver his sermon, most of the congregation promptly rose and filed slowly out of the rear exits. The address was Broadway, New York City, but this was no musical comedy. The songs were hymns, and the people had been singing of the Church: “By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.…” On the way out, their faces reflected awareness that they were passing through a solemn hour in which the life of their church seemed to be hanging in the balances. The silence was broken by a call from the pulpit for the narthex to be cleared. A young blond minister who had watched from the rear told reporters: “It appears to me that Dr. Merriam had led some of his people to worship him instead of Jesus Christ. In the church we think of this as idolatry.”

The observer was the Rev. Edward White, the church was Broadway Presbyterian, and he had been appointed by the New York Presbytery as head of a special commission to administer the affairs of the church, from whose pulpit the presbytery had removed Dr. Stuart H. Merriam (see News Section, May 25 issue.)

The 275 members who walked out re-assembled in the basement for prayer. Of the scattered 125 who remained upstairs to sing, “Where Cross the Crowded Ways,” most were visitors. They listened to a message by Dr. J. Carter Swaim, a National Council of Churches official, and then heard the Rev. Graydon McClellan, chief administrative officer of the presbytery, read a long “Statement to the Congregation.”

The report opposes Bible reading, prayer, and religious holiday observances in public schools. In addition, it said government support of parochial schools and legislation which prohibits the distribution of birth control information are inconsistent with the principle of church-state separation. It also called for the ending of exemption from military service for ministerial candidates and ordained clergymen.

Debate on the report, however, did not deal specifically with these provisions but centered on the use of the word “secular” in the document. Some commissioners argued that this would be interpreted to mean a Godless state. An agreement was finally reached to remove the word “secular” from the report being submitted to the church.

Commissioners urged President Kennedy to end the use of federal funds for the construction of segregated housing. The assembly also called upon Presbyterians to accept the burden of maintaining a balance of power with the Communist world, but to work through nonmilitary means to achieve peace.

Turning to the liquor question, it was obvious that Presbyterians had been stung by harsh criticism which greeted last year’s assembly statement, which while encouraging voluntary abstinence, recognized that many church members in honesty and sincerity drink moderately, and called for mutual respect between those who so drink and those that abstain. The assembly reaffirmed last year’s statement, which it regarded as upholding the “historic position of voluntary abstinence” but it also went on to criticize social drinking as the frequent introduction to, and context of, problem drinking, as well as being the principal influence in attracting new drinkers.

Dr. Marshall L. Scott of Chicago, pioneer leader in church work in urban and industrial areas, was elected moderator. He was elected on the first ballot, receiving 574 out of a total of 979 votes cast, gaining the required simple majority. Two other candidates for the office were Dr. Elmer C. Elsea of Denver, who received 287 votes, and Dr. Floyd E. McGuire of Larchmont, New York, who received 118 votes.

The assembly also voted to provide “responsible” sex education for its members following adoption of a special committee report on marriage and parenthood in a changing world.

The report, which approved the medical practice of artificial insemination with certain safeguards, was endorsed overwhelmingly.

In calling for sex education, the church’s board of education was asked to develop programs for young people and adults that would “best communicate in a Christian context concepts of responsible sexuality and the basic value standards—spiritual, economic, and emotional—upon which a sound marriage can be built.”

Prefaced by the words, “this is a hard moment …,” the statement reviewed the action of the presbytery in ousting Merriam and the church session (board of elders). In a general assessment, the presbytery had noted some positive factors in the current condition of Broadway Church. Sunday morning worship attendance had tripled in the one year Merriam had been there, and so had missionary giving. Young people were being attracted and minority groups welcomed, three or four Negroes joining in one month. Merriam’s leadership talents were acknowledged, evidenced in the warm support of his congregation in the present crisis, as well as in the large amount of volunteer labor which has considerably improved the church property.

All this was reminiscent of Merriam’s Southern Presbyterian pastorate in Portsmouth, Virginia, where he doubled the church’s property within four years, while speaking out against segregation.

But the New York Presbytery had gone on to charge Merriam with impulsiveness and poor judgment, citing the minister’s introduction of his dog from the pulpit, and also his intercession with the State Department for an Iranian scholar who had charged his native government with corruption.

Historic Broadway Church, founded in 1825 and always a stronghold of theological conservatism, lies close to Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. The New York Presbytery tends toward liberalism, and though denying that “a particular theology” was an issue in its case against Merriam, it asserted he was not “adapted” to a ministry “that would be of interest and value to the university and professional community.” It spoke of his “theological inflexibility” and his criticism of “neoorthodox theologians, such as Brunner, Tillich, and Niebuhr.” His “rigid approach to theological matters is unsuitable for such work with university students and faculty members.… He appears to be absorbed with the psychology of sudden conversion to a degree that makes him impatient with the kind of disciplined thinking that is so necessary in reaching the searching student. This applies also to his preaching.”

The session was charged with being seemingly unaware of the seriousness of the foregoing “deficiencies.” The presbytery would “consider recommending Dr. Merriam for further pastorates only after he has sought the help of a professional counselor acceptable to the Committee on Ministerial Relations.” Merriam’s income would be continued up to a year’s time if he remained without a call or other employment and if he did “not interfere with Presbytery’s right to conduct the affairs” of Broadway. The congregation would be permitted to select a successor to Dr. Merriam “when the Presbytery feels that the congregation is ready to do so.”

The presbytery’s choice of an interim stated supply was not without a touch of whimsy. He was Dr. Paul Franklin Hudson, 47, who had been minister of Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis for only a little over a year when he and ten members of the session were ousted by the Indianapolis Presbytery at the end of 1961. Second Church reportedly had been fragmented by gossip and bitterness.

On May 20, the Sunday following the Broadway Church’s walkout, Dr. Hudson interpreted his as a “ministry of reconciliation.” But he preached largely to visitors, for most of the members were again downstairs for a prayer service. The New York Times described Hudson’s sermon as neoorthodox, and quoted a leading elder who told the basement throng that their church had had “137 years of evangelical gospel preaching” and wanted it restored and continued.

Merriam, 38-year-old bachelor, had been asked to remove his personal belongings from and cease attending the church which had called him with the presbytery’s approval after a two-year search for a minister. He had never been installed, however, the delay having resulted from the death of his father and subsequent illness of his mother. His predecessor at Broadway, Dr. John McComb, had been a strong fundamentalist separatist. Merriam told reporters, “I am no fighting fundamentalist, but I am a conservative evangelical, and am still eager to cooperate on all hands. I remain a convinced, loyal Presbyterian.”

His training indeed was “pure Presbyterian,” having taken him to Davidson College in North Carolina, Princeton Seminary, Toronto’s Knox College, and New College, Edinburgh, where he earned a doctorate in church history.

Merriam said that he had opposed the walkout and had intended to absent himself. But he was overrulled by mounting pressures partly brought to bear by an eminent Presbyterian clergyman who thought the situation required a dramatic protest.

The presbytery and conservative Broadway Church had been at odds for 60 years. A former moderator of presbytery has said, “We should have done this long ago.” But John Sutherland Bonnell, minister emeritus of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, called this exercise of the presbytery’s power over a congregation “disturbing to ministers and elders of the Presbyterian Church at large.”

Top legal counsel rallied to Merriam’s cause, including Dr. Edward Burns Shaw, co-author with United Presbyterian Stated Clerk Eugene Carson Blake of Presbyterian Law. The presbytery’s action is being appealed to the New York Synod.

The minister and officers of Manhattan’s Rutgers Presbyterian Church denounced the presbytery and offered Merriam the use of their church on Sunday evenings. The respected minister, the Rev. George Nicholson, had argued strongly on behalf of Merriam before the presbytery, but to no avail:

“Dr. Merriam inherited a feud. If the Archangel Gabriel himself had gone into Broadway Church he would have been in trouble. He would have had to walk a tight rope between what Presbytery thinks and wants and intends to have done in Broadway Church, and what Broadway Church wants—and perhaps rightly wants.…

“Moderator, in all honesty, is it not true that everybody knows that what Dr. Merriam did or did not do is utterly irrelevant to the real issue? He is a mere pawn in this game of power—this machine control. You know, Moderator, much better than I, that this is a plan to make Broadway Church subservient. It has been again and again cynically stated at meetings, although omitted from minutes. What Presbytery wants in Broadway is a willing ‘yes’ man. Everybody knows it but nobody says it, at least, not openly!

“Good men everywhere in this Presbytery are weary of this interminable scheming and plotting—and all of it, God help us—in the name of Christ and always after a perfunctory prayer.… Here is a young man at the beginning of his ministry and he is told of his sudden removal and this after ‘long and prayerful consideration’ (perhaps the most pious and lethal phrase in the ecclesiastical vocabulary).”

Jubilee Juncture

Along the sandy, palm-studded shores of Biscayne Bay last month, two globegirdling paths converged. The Christian and Missionary Alliance, whose task force of 860 missionaries is among the largest in Protestantism, marked its 75 th anniversary General Council in Miami by approving a merger with the smaller Missionary Church Association.

The two-thirds majority necessary for approval came easily in a secret ballot (673 for, 146 against) after delegates by a standing vote had defeated a compromise amendment which would have invited the MCA to join the CMA. Final CMA ratification of the merger plan is expected at next year’s council. A referendum will be conducted, meanwhile, among the 115 local congregations of the MCA if a basis for union is approved by its biennial General Conference. If a merger is consummated, the new organization will be known as The Missionary Alliance. It will embrace some 80,000 members in North America and nearly twice that many overseas.

The paths of the merging groups have crossed before. They had similar nineteenth-century roots characterized by emphasis on (1) missionary outreach and (2) the Spirit-filled life. MCA founders had considered uniting with the CMA back in 1898, but abandoned the plan because the nature of the CMA was considered “undenominational and without intention for organizing local churches.” The two groups have nonetheless cooperated for many years, particularly in missionary effort. Curiously enough, although the CMA now has some 1,200 churches across North America, some constituents still insist that it is not a denomination but an interdenominational missionary society.

Delegates to the six-day jubilee CMA council assembled even as war clouds hung low over two of their key mission regions, Southeast Asia and New Guinea (more than a third of overseas resources are currently committed there). The delegates called for a special day of prayer for the crisis.

Held in conjunction with the council was a week-long evangelistic campaign with Dr. Merv Rosell, who said he was grieved that military expeditions seemed to ba outpacing the evangelical missionary enterprise.

“Helicopters are carrying our guns where men have never met our God,” he declared. “We stand red-faced before people who have seen our trinkets but not our tracts, our generals but not our evangelists, our Red Cross but not the old-rugged Cross.”

Equally provocative observations on the Christian home front were voiced by Dr. A. W. Tozer, who was described by Miami Herald Religion Editor Adon Taft as “the man with perhaps the most vivid pen in the American church.” Tozer told Taft in an interview that the biggest contemporary problem in the American church is the hiatus between creed and worldliness of conduct within orthodox Christianity.

“We have religious schizophrenia today,” said Tozer, editor of the Alliance Witness and author of nearly a dozen books. “We are orthodox in creed and heterodox in conduct.”

He predicted that small groups of Christians may rise to protect the present condition of the church and bring on more divisions in Christianity.

Four days after Tozer’s remarks appeared in print, there was a sobering illustration of the disparity between preachment and practice in the council sessions themselves. A Monday morning prayer session attracted only six of the 1,460 delegates at the appointed hour, despite repeated pleas during the preceding days for intercession and dedication of life in behalf of the missionary enterprise.

CMA President Nathan Bailey said the need for a broader base for society efforts was a must.

“There are numberless opportunities for enlarging our home work,” he observed, cautioning that “the motivation must never be the by-product of the missionary dollar.”

Bailey added, “Our outreach must be for the purpose of bringing lost men to salvation and leading believers into their privileges in Christ. It is true that God-touched and God-filled men will become the source of new missionary prayer and financial support.”

The CMA has always been characterized by a pioneering faith. Latest expression is an unprecedented 15 per cent budgetary increase—to $4,500,000 for the current year—despite a domestic membership gain of less than one person per church during 1961. Last year brought the society its most serious financial crisis in recent years, but a correspondingly amazing recovery as well. The net result was the largest overseas expansion of any one year in society history. Nearly 10,000 baptisms were counted.

Back in 1882, pioneering faith was exercised in the founding of the CMA movement by Canadian-born Dr. A. B. Simpson, minister of the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church of New York City. The movement began with a meeting of seven people, and a few weeks later the work was organized with 3 5 members. Simpson’s early text was Zechariah 4:10: “For who hath despised the day of small things?” His theology was “the four-fold Gospel” exalting Christ as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. As a result, CMA churches traditionally stress the baptism of the Holy Spirit as “a second definite work of grace.” Anointing the sick has been widely practiced, and many healings have been recorded. The emphasis on the work of the Spirit stops short of speaking in tongues, and the CMA generally does not consider itself aligned with either the holiness or the Pentecostal movements.

The CMA originally functioned as two distinct organizations, the Christian Alliance and the Evangelical Missionary Alliance, subsequently designated the International Missionary Alliance. In 1897 the two were consolidated into the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

Simpson’s associates in the early days included Henry Wilson, an Episcopalian; Kelso Carter, a Salvationist; Stephen Merritt, a Methodist; and Albert Funk, a Mennonite who subsequently became the first president of the Missionary Church Association.

By the time Simpson died in 1919 the CMA had some 340 missionaries. Today there are 860 who serve in 24 fields and preach in 180 languages. They publish about 91,000,000 pieces of literature a year and conduct 162 radio broadcasts per week in 16 languages. Most are graduates of one of CMA schools: Nyack (New York) Missionary College, St. Paul (Minnesota) Bible College, Simpson Bible College in San Francisco, and Canadian Bible College in Regina, Saskatchewan. Toccoa Falls (Georgia) Institute and Bible College also maintains links with the CMA.

The CMA is currently upgrading its schools and is working toward establishment of a graduate school of theology.

Council delegates, wary of degree mills, turned down a committee recommendation that CMA schools be empowered to grant honorary doctorates.

The MCA has only one school—Fort Wayne (Indiana) Bible College. It has always considered itself a denomination.

If it merges with the CMA it will lose its collective membership in the National Association of Evangelicals. Some CMA pastors and congregations are NAE members but the society as a whole has refused to join, although its leaders are now believed to be reconsidering.

The MCA has had merger negotiations in the past with the United Missionary Church. However, no talks are currently pending.

‘Without Compromise’

The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches at its annual meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts, last month went on record as disassociating itself “from all those who would sacrifice our historic Baptist faith” to participate in church mergers.

A resolution reaffirmed the GARB stand “as orthodox Bible-believing Baptists without compromise at all.” It said the association will maintain its “positive and unyielding loyalty to the Word of God as our absolute and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.”

A resolution on “patriotism” declared that “many people who have been jealous of our country are scorned and ridiculed for their expressed loyalties, being designated as extreme rights and superpatriots.”

The association said it was committed to no organization or movement “in the field of open support of our government,” except the American Council of Christian Churches.

Nuclear Morals

A resolution defending U. S. nuclear testing was adopted by the American Council of Christian Churches at its 20th annual spring conference in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The resolution stated that this country “has a moral obligation to its citizens and to the free world to continue nuclear testing.”

Another resolution declared that the council is “unalterably opposed” to providing U. S. wheat for Communist China.

The Presbyterian Church, U.S., practiced ground-root ecumenicity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, May 10–15. The 102nd General Assembly opened sessions in the First Baptist Church, took meals in the Centenary Methodist and Calvary Moravian churches, held regular sessions in the First Presbyterian Church, and conducted a Sunday morning Communion worship service in the Carolina Theater.

Four fraternal delegates conveyed greetings to the 452 commissioners of the assembly from their respective churches: the Reformed Church of America, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Each urged expansion of the ecumenical conversation and expressed hope for its ultimate fulfillment.

Recalling that Presbyterians had split at the time of the Civil War into “Northern” and “Southern,” Dr. William A. Morrison of the United Presbyterian Church (Northern) warned each church to “avoid a pathological fascination with the past.” He also expressed hope that none of the current conversations each church is carrying on with others, would hinder the efforts to heal the Civil War breach. Many sources, however, feel that the enthusiasm for merger between the two Presbyterian churches has been chilled by the United Church’s interest in the Episcopalian aspect of the Blake proposal. The assembly defeated a proposal looking to unite with the United Presbyterian Church by a vote of 192 to 154.

The Rev. Marion De Velder, fraternal delegate from the Reformed Church, reminded the assembly that their two churches had already adopted a Plan of Cooperation in 1874. Later the assembly unanimously adopted a new plan formulated by a joint committee of the two denominations. The plan lists 14 areas of “common concern” for study and exploration that the two churches may “seek together a fuller expression of unity in faith and action.”

In the assembly’s opening session, the Rev. Wallace M. Alston, retiring moderator, urged his denomination to thrust vigorously forward into a future whose dimensions are as large as the God who enters it with them. He called on his church to break from provincial and sectional limitations and strike out boldly into the nation and the world. The sin against the future is to measure the future with a small-guage faith. If we would keep up with God, we must run at full speed, he cried. The church, he added, needs “a fresh, first-hand experience of God’s power and presence.”

Evidence of the Southern Presbyterians’ restless energy and determination was the assembly’s adoption of a $12,000,000 capital funds campaign. This is only the fourth, but also the largest such campaign in the denomination’s 101-year history. Some $5,000,000 is earmarked for the Board of World Missions.

The assembly adopted a benevolence budget of $9,650,180. Although this is the highest in the denomination’s history, it represents only a third of one per cent increase ($33,000) over 1962—the smallest increase in the denomination’s history.

A proposal to establish a central treasury for all the assembly’s boards and agencies set off an extended debate. The announced purpose of a central treasury was to insure that each agency receive its proportionate share of the church’s total contributions. After considerable discussion the assembly voted to refer the proposal to an ad interim committee for study and report to the next assembly.

A layman, Dr. Edward Donald Grant, chemical manufacturer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was chosen as moderator. Grant came to this country as a Scottish orphan-emigrant 53 years ago. He became the church’s twelfth ruling elder to be chosen for the honor of top post in the General Assembly.

The only other nominee was Dr. Warner L. Hall, minister of the Covenant Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, North Carolina.

In other action the assembly instructed the Permanent Committee on Christian Relations to make another study of racial relations and report back to next year’s assembly. This decision was touched off by Lamar Williamson, Jr., a missionary in the Congo who asked what had been done in this area in the past year and learned that the church had not made an official pronouncement on racial matters since 1954.

The perennial battle over withdrawal from the National Council of Churches ended after a four-hour floor debate in a 294–91 vote to continue affiliation.

Another prolonged debate developed over the Layman’s Bible Commentary, published by the John Knox Press, the church’s official publishing house. An overture from the Asheville Presbytery requesting “stronger editorial safeguards” charged that the commentaries disparaged the historical accuracy and the editorial integrity of Scripture by assigning to it legends, fabrications, falsehoods, epic sagas, erroneous teaching about God, and the doctrine that all men shall be saved whether in Christ or out of Christ. The validity of the criticism was not denied, the last mentioned attracted no comment whatever, and the overture of Asheville was defeated by a vote of 323 to 74. Many analysts felt that the vote was not truly indicative of the theological position of the commissioners.

A resolution was adopted which decried the “steady barrage of blatant filth” in pornography and which urged the pastoral responsibility of providing pre-marital counseling.

The assembly also went on record as opposed to federal aid either in the form of grants or loans to private or parochial schools for any purpose.

The commissioners instructed the Permanent Judicial Commission to submit recommendations to the 1963 General Assembly for such changes in the Book of Church Order as would, with the advice and consent of the various presbyteries, allow women to be ordained to office, including that of the ministry. The decision was adopted by a 251–105 vote.

Action on a resolution which opposed the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere was postponed. It was referred to a committee for further study.

J.D.

Grass-Roots Ecumenism?

Plans were announced last month for a merger of Presbyterian and Methodist congregations in Pennsylvania. Religious News Service called it “a sort of grassroots approach” to possible merger.

Congregations of both churches, at the local level, will be encouraged to consolidate wherever they are floundering because of inadequate budgets, small memberships, and needless competition.

Officials of the two groups insist that the merger plan is “not a mandate” but at the same time there were strong indications that it would be pushed when necessary—perhaps even to the extent of denying the assigning of a pastor to a reluctant congregation.

Methodist Bishop W. Vernon Middleton and Dr. Douglas S. Vance of the United Presbyterian Church jointly announced the merger proposal.

Evanston Merger

The Evanston Institute for Ecumenical Studies, founded in 1957 to train clergy and laymen for ecumenical leadership, was merged last month with the Church Federation of Greater Chicago. A spokesman said negotiations were being conducted to have the Rev. Joseph Mathews, of the controversial Faith and Life Associates of Austin, Texas, serve as new director.

Protestant Panorama

• Fifteen Episcopal ministers were cleared last month of breach-of-peace charges in Jackson, Mississippi, where they were arrested last September in an anti-segregation demonstration. A county court judge ruled that the prosecution had not proven charges against the biracial ministers’ group.

• The National Evangelical Film Foundation cited “Dark Valley,” a motion picture produced by Gospel Films, as the best film of 1961.

• The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has become the largest Lutheran body in America, but not for long. Its 2,544,544 members now outnumber the 2,495,763 of the United Lutheran Church in America, which held the lead for 44 years. The new Lutheran Church in America, representing a merger of four churches, will have over 3,200,000 members. Its constituting convention is scheduled in Detroit June 28-July 1.

• Salaries of professors in accredited seminaries have increased some nine per cent in the last two years, according to a report of the American Association of Theological Schools. The range was given as from $5,770 to $19,318, with a median maximum of $10,350 and a median minimum of $9,120.

• The Disciples of Christ plan to establish a four-year liberal arts college in conjunction with Brevard Engineering College at Melbourne, Florida.

• An official delegation of Japanese Christian leaders visited Korea last month. It was the first group of Japanese churchmen admitted to Korea since World War II.

• The American Bible Society distributed last year 24,000,000 Bibles and Scripture portions, an all-time record, among 100 countries.

Upholding The Minority

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled last month that the First Baptist Church of Wichita may not be withdrawn from the American Baptist Convention even though a majority of the congregation voted for such an action.

Reversing a decision of a state district court, the Supreme Court declared that “not even in an autonomous Baptist church may the denomination of the church be changed by a mere majority vote.”

Two years ago the congregation, then the largest in the denomination, voted 739 to 294 to withdraw from the American Baptist Convention, the Kansas Baptist Convention, and the Wichita Association of Baptist Churches to protest the denomination’s affiliation with the National Council of Churches.

Settling The Issue

Evangelist Billy Graham says he supports a proposal for a national referendum on an amendment to the federal Constitution which would permit Bible reading and prayer recitations in public schools.

The referendum proposal originated with Dr. J. Calvin Rose, pastor of Miami Shores (Florida) Presbyterian Church.

Graham, during a visit to Miami on the eve of a major crusade in Chicago, endorsed Rose’s proposal.

“It’s a good thing,” said the evangelist. “Then we will have a majority opinion and I believe the majority has a right to be heard.”

Graham was reported to be confident that in such a referendum the U. S. citizenry would uphold the practice of Bible reading and prayer in the public schools.

Graham was slated to launch his Chicago campaign on Memorial Day. The impact of the crusade is being extended throughout North America by use of television. Five hour-long telecasts from Chicago are being carried on successive nights by stations from coast to coast.

Furor At The Fair

A controversy is being waged at the Christian Witness Pavilion of the Seattle World’s Fair over a 10-minute “Sound and Light” film dealing with the biblical themes of creation, redemption, and hope in abstract photography and symbolism.

The pavilion’s sponsors have named a three-man committee to make editorial revisions in the film, which was produced by Sacred Design Associates of Minneapolis.

Consensus of those opposing the film is that it is mystifying and confusing, instead of enlightening, according to Religious News Service.

The pavilion was visited by some 105,000 people during the fair’s first three weeks. The sponsoring organization represents 23 denominations and 19 church-related agencies.

The Washington Scene

Church colleges and other private agencies are eligible for financial aid under a newly-enacted federal program to assist educational television.

A bill passed by Congress a few weeks ago and subsequently signed by the President permits grants to tax-supported educational agencies or to nonprofit agencies “organized primarily to engage in or encourage educational television” and meeting the Federal Communications Commission regulations.

The original Senate bill called for $51,000,000 for a five-year program of grants to the states. The House version provided for a four-year program of matching grants totaling some $25,000,000. A compromise was worked out which authorizes $32,000,000 over a five-year period for federal matching grants.

Other developments in Washington:

—The Supreme Court rejected a plea that it consider the constitutionality of tax exemptions granted by the state on church properties. Its refusal allows to stand a decision of the Rhode Island Supreme Court which held that such exemptions are within the exclusive authority of the state legislature.

—President Kennedy led a tribute to Bishop Angus Dun upon his retirement as head of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Washington. Kennedy entertained Bishop and Mrs. Dun at a White House luncheon.

—Kennedy’s Memorial Day proclamation urged Americans to observe the day “by invoking the blessing of God on those who have died in defense of our country,” a phrase interpreted by many Protestants as tantamount to prayers for the dead.

—A study of the top thousand jobs in the current administration shows no religious favoritism, according to a report made by Protestant and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State. A POAU statement, however, expressed “certain areas of apprehension.” Another study “in much greater depth” was recommended in about 18 months “when the current administration shall have attained greater maturity and its trends can be more clearly ascertained.”

Act Of Reconciliation

The verger of the English village church at Great Barton, Suffolk, hanged himself in the bell tower last month. The church was immediately closed until a curious and unusual service had taken place. From the Middle Ages it has been held that blood shed in a church causes a breach between God and the worshipers, and that this can be healed only by “an act of reconciliation.” The Bishop of Dunwich conducted the necessary service at which the Archdeacon of Sudbury explained that he considered the procedure binding, and the church was reopened for worship.

Toward Interdependency

The Congregational Union of England and Wales is a somewhat loose confederation of 2,000 churches. At its annual assembly last month, the union took an important step toward becoming in fact “The Congregational Church” when it decided that a draft constitution should be considered at next year’s meeting.

The move was seen as an indication that the traditional “independency” had become “interdependency” in that Congregationalists were tending to speak with one voice on most major issues.

Good From The Gallows

His experience with a man condemned to execution for “a particularly beastly murder” was recounted by the Bishop of Durham, Dr. M. H. Harland, when last month’s Convocation of York debated a motion to abolish capital punishment. “I went to the condemned cell,” said the bishop, “and asked to be locked in with the man. He sat back smoking, looking supercilious, his feet on the table. I read to him and said he need not listen. Divine inspiration led me to read about the prodigal son. The man broke down, sobbing. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I’m a murderer.’ Then began, within a week, the most wonderful reclamation and conversion I have ever seen. Never have I been so conscious of the work of the Lord. I confirmed him, and the night before he died I was with him. He said, ‘I want no dope. I want to pay.’ He had his Communion. If ever I have seen a man fit for his maker and for eternity, that was the man.”

Dr. Harland said he wished deeply that he could vote for the motion, but because of such circumstances, where life and death and God and the next world became a reality to a condemned man, he found it very difficult to vote against capital punishment. He concluded that the hardest task he had was breaking the news to two men who had been reprieved, for they then had the task of making good again. Despite Dr. Harland’s appeal, the motion was carried by an overwhelming majority.

The London Sunday Telegraph, commenting that the Bishop of Durham was supplying an excellent theological reason for hanging everybody, said that the whole debate was “a first class illustration of the muddle that ensues when complicated social and political questions to which Christianity affords no conclusive answers are treated as though they could be settled by a straight appeal to the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount.”

Since the 1957 English-Scottish Interchurch Relations Report the Church of England has been giving special consideration to the place of laity in the church. The Bishop of Chichester, Dr. R. P. Wilson, referred to this in the Canterbury Convocation when he pointed to the weight of opinion in favor of the laity’s greater participation in church government. He suggested that there was no intrinsic difficulty about proposals which had been made to achieve this.

Strong dissent came from Canon J. Brierley of Lichfield. It was not right, he asserted, “to take away from the ordained officers of the Church the power of final veto in all matters, including the most detailed questions of theology.” Similar objections were made in the York Convocation where one speaker said that the proposals minimized the essential difference between the function of the clergy and the layman. Recommendations on the subject by the church’s committees will be fully debated at the fall convocations.

J.D.D.

Where Stands Scotland?

At a press conference in Edinburgh, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly, Dr. Nevile Davidson, cited two “long-term” subjects: his hope for the ultimate reunion of Christendom and the question of revising the Westminster Confession of Faith. Dr. Davidson, minister of Glasgow Cathedral, has been actively connected with the recent Church of Scotland-Roman Catholic meetings (see “Review of Current Religious Thought,” May 25 issue), and is a strong critic of the traditional Scottish Sabbath. Referring to the dissent by the Church and Nation Committee from the Westminster Confession’s view of Sunday observance, he said: “I think this is one of the first occasions on which the General Assembly is to be asked to depart from one of the sections of the Westminster Confession.” On the doctrine of predestination and election, among other issues, Dr. Davidson considered that the Church of Scotland had departed from the position laid down in the Confession. He added: “There have been numerous changes in the last 100 years, and a document which is adequate in the twentieth century should be different from one which was adequate in the seventeenth century.”

Commenting on the point, a former Moderator and Principal of New College, Edinburgh, Dr. Hugh Watt, said: “My personal feeling is that if the thing is to be rewritten it is not for the Church of Scotland—it is for the whole Presbyterian world.” This raises interesting features, for even at home both the Free Church of Scotland and the Free Presbyterian Church (which wield substantial influence in the Highlands and Islands) regard themselves as jealous guardians of the 316-year-old Confession, and would vigorously oppose any suggested emendation.

J.D.D.

The Second Phase

A joint commission to study differences between Anglican and Orthodox churches was agreed upon last month when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Arthur Michael Ramsey, visited the Ecumencial Patriarch Athenagoras I in Istanbul.

The commission will continue discussions opened by a similar commission in the 1930s and ended because of the war.

Seminarian Strike

A special committee set up by the Greek Ministry of Worship is studying problems involved in the prolonged strike of theological students at the Universities of Athens and Salonika.

The students walked out last February to protest a new education program which drastically cuts the number of hours devoted to religious instruction in the schools. They say the strike was called “to protect their professional interest” and “to defend Orthodoxy.” They call it a “religious renaissance” in Greece.

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. John W. Beardslee, 82, retired president of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary; in New Brunswick, New Jersey … Dr. Edward Graham Gammon, 77, president emeritus of Hampden-Sydney College and a prominent Presbyterian clergyman; in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia … Dr. Raymond T. Stamm, 68, retired professor of New Testament at the Lutheran Theological Seminary; in Allenwood, Pennsylvania … the Rev. Charles Stephen Conway Williams, 55, noted biblical commentator and Augustinian scholar; at Oxford, England … the Rev. Andrew W. Gottschall, 70, a well-known Disciples of Christ minister and a regional official of the National Conference of Christians and Jews; in Philadelphia … the Rev. Herbert E. Eberhardt, 70, superintendent of the Central Union Mission, Washington, D. C.

Appointments: As president of Grace Theological Seminary and College, Dr. Herman Hoyt … as president of William Jewell College, Dr. H. Guy Moore … as professor of biblical languages at Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Henry R. Moeller … as academic dean at Buffalo Bible Institute, the Rev. Gerald Winkleman … as an associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. T. Paul Verghese, a priest of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Malabar, India … as first primate of an independent Church of England in Australia, Dr. H. R. Gough … as Anglican Bishop of Sheffield, England, the Rev. Frederick John Taylor … as professor of Old Testament languages, literature, and theology at New College, Edinburgh, Dr. G. W. Anderson … as chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, Dr. John Marsh.

Citation: To Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr., the first annual Citizenship Award of the Military Chaplains Association.

Elections: As president-designate of the Council of Bishops of The Methodist Church, Bishop Paul Neff Garber of Richmond, Virginia … as Anglican Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, Pakistan, and Burma, Dr. Hiyanirindu Lakdasa Jacob de Mel.

Nomination: As moderator of the General Assembly of the United Church of North India, Dr. William Stewart.