In a cooperative effort,CHRISTIANITY TODAY, The Sunday School Times, and Eternity sent Alan M. Fletcher, managing editor of the Times, on a fact-finding tour of British Guiana, which many believe offers the Communists a toe-hold on the continent of South America. Fletcher was chosen for the task because of the knowledge he gained of the country in previous visits. Here is his report:

My visit last month to the lush jungle land of British Guiana convinced me anew that it deserves the attention of Christians everywhere. This Idaho-sized colony on the northeast coast of South America abounds in natural beauty, including waterfalls four times taller than Niagara, but its current ideological inclinations are of far greater import. In elections held on August 21, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) gained a substantial majority of legislative seats under a strong new constitution that guarantees absolute control of British Guiana’s internal affairs. The PPP and its premier, 43-year-old Dr. Cheddi Bharatt Jagan, an American-educated dentist, have been widely accused of Communist orientation. The religious implication is that British Guiana could become the first nominally Protestant country to go into the Communist orbit.

The refined-appearing Jagan was scheduled to visit the United States this month in a hid for aid. He is a mahogany-skinned East Indian, a native of British Guiana. (Nearly 50 per cent of the population are East Indians, who were brought in when the British abolished slavery in 1834; another 35 per cent are Negroes.) He is married to the former Janet Rosenberg, a known Communist whom he met in Chicago. His early education in Anglican and Church of Scotland schools apparently had little spiritual effect on him for he took his oath of office on a Hindu holy book.

British Guiana’s first attempt at self-government ended in December, 1953, when the Royal Welsh Fusiliers marched in to enforce Britain’s suspension of the infant constitution after a drift to communism had become all too evident.

Jagan’s PPP was the ruling party at that time. It is the ruling party today, under the new constitution, with complete independence perhaps only a year away.

British Guiana is in the center of an area originally called Guiana, discovered by Columbus and explored by Sir Walter Raleigh. Here was sought El Dorado, the city of gold, now thought to be a fabrication of the Spanish aimed at keeping European powers out of richer territories. The portion of Guiana now known as British Guiana changed hands between the Dutch and the English several times in its early history.

Since 1803 it has been the property of Great Britain.

Four-fifths of British Guiana is forest. About 95 per cent of the population lives in a 10-mile-wide strip of coast line. Most of the interior is inaccessible. Georgetown, the principal city and capital, has a population of 125,000. The colony’s welfare is linked with two agricultural crops: sugar and rice. Chief mineral exports are bauxite and manganese.

In addition to the PPP, there are two other political parties in English-speaking British Guiana, the People’s National Congress (PNC) and the United Force. All are divided very closely along racial lines, the PPP being the party of the East Indians, the PNC drawing its support from Negroes, with minority nationality groups such as American Indians, Europeans, and Chinese backing the United Force. The PPP and the PNC are both socialist, with similar platforms. The United Force is democratic, supporting the free enterprise system.

Members of both the PPP and PNC at times sound suspiciously communistic, but the people of British Guiana are neither Communist or socialist. The working people know little of any ideology, despite a literacy rate which is rather high for an underdeveloped country (one source says 70 per cent).

When a middle-class housewife asked her East Indian maid if she planned to vote for Jagan’s party, the maid replied, “Yes, mistress.”

“But don’t you know that Mrs. Jagan is a Communist?”

“Oh, no, mistress,” said the maid. “She are no common woman.”

The close racial nature of the PPP and the PNC has created an ugly tension between the East Indian and Negro population. A recently-organized “African Society for Racial Equality,” led by two school teachers, sees the future for Negroes one of subjection to the more business-minded East Indians. Rallies under the motto “Equality or Partition” are enjoying enthusiastic support.

The PPP has been the majority party continuously since 1957. Its manifesto calls the plantation system under which sugar is produced “anachronistic and … it should be the subject of reform.”

The PPP plans to allow “importation from any source so that the country can benefit from purchasing in the cheapest market.” “Control of prices is essential.”

I heard Jagan say, “So far as I am concerned, so long as any individual is willing to come and work with us, and live with us, we will welcome him with open arms.”

The government plans to establish industries, apparently in some cases in competition with private enterprise. Jagan’s party has already established its own newspaper, with printing plant, and has announced plans to establish its own radio station.

In international affairs, the PPP says it “will pursue a neutralist policy of friendship with all countries and will not permit our country to be used as a military base by any nation.”

British Guiana has always been free picking for all kinds of religious groups. The net effect has been to make the majority of the citizenry fall somewhere within the Protestant spectrum. The Saturday church directories of Georgetown’s newspapers list several Anglican churches, three Presbyterian, several Congregational, and many Methodist. There are also churches and chapels which are Canadian Presbyterian, Lutheran, Moravian, Salvation Army, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, Pilgrim Holiness, Church of God, Christian Catholic, Christadelphian, Christian Science, Bahai, Seventh-day Adventist, Plymouth Brethren, plus the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Unevangelized Fields Mission has several churches and does extensive work among primitive tribes in the interior. The Christian Literature Crusade sponsors an attractive book store in Georgetown. Gideons also are represented.

In discussions with many Protestant leaders I learned that many churches are nominally orthodox, but I saw little evidence of zeal. Churches are well attended, but the motive seems to be largely status rather than spiritual strength.

Sober estimates indicated that within 10 to 15 years the “Christian” population will become the minority, for three reasons: The sluggish churches are scarcely holding their own, the predominantly pagan East Indian population has a growth rate far greater than the rest of the population, and the rise in racial feeling has caused increased interest in Hinduism and Islam.

Education of the colony’s children has always been the domain of the churches, which operate some 300 schools, but clergy leaders are worried. Through the years the government has subsidized the schools, paid teacher salaries, and often picked up the tab for construction of educational buildings. Shortly before the August elections, the government seized 51 church schools that had been bought and built with government funds. Church leaders have been protesting vigorously, but to no avail.

Education, says the PPP manifesto, is “the greatest liberating force in the struggle against ignorance, reaction, bigotry, superstition, and economic exploitation.… The system of dual control of schools whereby denominational bodies control the appointment and promotion of teachers on a denominational basis, while the government pays the salaries of the teachers and makes large grants to these schools will be eventually abolished.”

One thing is sure: Guiana needs revival. A Billy Graham crusade could kindle the flame. Graham is already well known in British Guiana through his radio broadcast, and nearly all the ministers with whom I spoke are eager to have him pay a visit.

Christian leaders in British Guiana urge that no additional religious groups from the United States establish permanent work. Some observers feel that missionary personnel from India would be the most welcome of any foreigners and would command the greatest audience for the Gospel.

It there is, among the distinctive articles of the Christian faith, one which is bask to all the others, it is this: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man for our salvation. This is the affirmation that we have in mind when we speak of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

While “incarnation” (a term of Latin origin, meaning “becoming-in-flesh”) is not itself a biblical word, it conveys a biblical truth—the truth which finds classic expression in John 1:14, “the Word became flesh.”

The incarnation of Christ implies his deity and humanity alike. To assert that any of us “became flesh” or “came in the flesh” would be a truism; it is no mere truism that John voices when he insists that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” and makes this confession the crucial test of truth (1 John 4:2). He means rather that one who had His being eternally within the unity of the Godhead became man at a point in time, without relinquishing His oneness with God. And by the word “flesh” he does not mean a physical body only, but a complete human personality.

Nor is John the only New Testament writer so to speak. Paul speaks of God as “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3)—where “likeness” does not suggest that his manhood was less than real, but that his human nature was like our sinful nature except that his nature was unstained by sin. Again, in the early Christian confession reproduced in 1 Timothy 3:16, the “mystery of our religion” (that is, Christ himself, the “mystery of God,” as he is called in Col. 2:2) is said to have been “manifested in the flesh.” The writer to the Hebrews bears the same witness when he says of the Son of God, through whom the worlds were made (Heb. 1:2), that since those whom He came to deliver “are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same”—in order that he might accomplish his saving purpose through death, which he could not otherwise have undergone (Heb. 2:14 ff.).

The doctrine of our Lord’s incarnation, then, is broadly based throughout the New Testament. When John, Paul, and the writer to the Hebrews present such agreement as this, it is usually safe to trace their agreement back to a germinal principle in the life and teaching of Christ.

The Fact of the Incarnation. That Jesus of Nazareth was a real man none of his companions doubted. But sometimes it came home to them with special force that there was something extra-ordinary about him: “Who then is this?” they asked when he stilled the tempest with a word (Mark 4:41). Even when they came to acclaim him as the Messiah, they did not immediately appreciate all that was involved in Messiahship as he accepted and fulfilled it. Fuller apprehension followed his death and exaltation, however, and nothing is more eloquent in this regard than the spontaneous and unself-conscious way in which New Testament writers take Old Testament passages which refer to the God of Israel and apply them to Jesus, whom they all knew to be a real man. In Jesus, they claimed, God had drawn near to man for his redemption; in Him, indeed, God had become man. “The Word became flesh”; in the man Christ Jesus they recognized the crowning revelation of God.

These simple affirmations, however, called for more precise definition. The relation of Christ as Son to God the Father raised questions to which conflicting answers were given; so did the relation of Christ’s divine Sonship to his manhood. Some answers offered to these questions might seem adequate at first blush, but they were quickly seen to create more difficulties than they claimed to solve, if indeed they did not positively undermine the Christian faith. There was the problem of vocabulary, too. Greek and Latin terms had to be used in new and specialized senses to fit a set of data with which these languages had not been called upon to deal before. And one thinker might use a term in a completely adequate sense while another would use it in a sense which did much less than justice to the data of biblical revelation and Christian experience.

In the first three or four centuries the major obstacle in the way of doing full justice to these data was the dualistic presupposition of much contemporary Gentile thought. This dualism involved a complete antinomy between spirit and matter, spirit being essentially good and matter essentially evil. This meant that any direct contact between the spirit world and the material world was impossible. In consequence, people whose thinking was based on this kind of dualism could not accept in its proper sense the biblical doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God, nor yet the biblical account of his death and resurrection. They had to present alternative interpretations of these events. One of these interpretations, which began to emerge as early as the apostolic age (for New Testament writers are at pains to refute it), was Docetism, which considered our Lord’s humanity to be only apparent and not real. A later interpretation was Arianism, which thought of him as neither fully God nor fully man, but as a being of intermediate status. It is a matter of more than historical interest that such knowledge of Christianity as Muhammad had was derived from one of these defective interpretations. This accounts for those statements in the Koran which deny that he was the Son of God and also that he was really crucified.

It was only slowly and painstakingly that the early Church achieved a statement of our Lord’s incarnation which has commended itself ever since as satisfying all the data. Before this happened, we can watch the tripartite baptismal confessions of the first three Christian centuries (tripartite because they affirmed faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) having their central section—that which affirmed faith in the Son—expanded so as to make a fuller statement of the doctrine of Christ. The familiar Apostles’ and Nicene creeds provide sufficient examples of this. But the statement which the historic Church has adopted as definitive is that approved by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. This statement acknowledges “one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin.…”

The wording of this Chalcedonian definition may seem remote from the modes of expression with which we are familiar today. Yet, according to so able a theologian as B. B. Warfield, it has well deserved to remain the authoritative statement of the Church’s Christology (although it does not mitigate the difficulty of the conception to which it gives expression) because it “does justice at once to the data of Scripture, to the implicates of an Incarnation, to the needs of Redemption, to the demands of the religious emotions, and to the logic of a tenable doctrine of our Lord’s Person” (The Person and Work of Christ, p. 189).

We have in our day a vocabulary for expressing the various concepts and problems associated with personality which was not available in the fifth century. It would be an exciting and rewarding task to use this vocabulary to restate the doctrine of the Incarnation in a form which would correct defective views held today as defective views of an earlier age were corrected at Chalcedon. But such a restatement ought to pass the same stringent tests as Warfield applied to the Chalcedonian statement.

The Means of the Incarnation. The Church’s confession, as we trace it back to primitive times, sets alongside the fact of our Lord’s incarnation the claim that he became incarnate through being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

There are those, indeed, who acknowledge our Lord’s incarnation without believing in his virgin birth, just as others (Muslims, for example) believe in his virgin birth but not in his incarnation. But it is undeniable that his incarnation and virgin birth are intimately bound together in the historic faith of the Church. Nor is this surprising. The Incarnation was a supernatural event—an unprecedented and unrepeated act of God. The more we appreciate the uniqueness of the Incarnation, the more may we recognize how fitting—indeed, how inevitable—it is that the means by which it was brought about should also be unique. Our Lord’s virginal conception must certainly be understood as a pure miracle; attempts to explain it by analogies drawn from parthenogenesis in lower forms of life are worse than useless.

Only two New Testament writers, Matthew and Luke, record the virgin birth of Christ; but they are the only two who record his birth at all. Their birth narratives are independent of each other; all the more impressive, therefore, are the features on which they agree: not only that Christ was born in Bethlehem, the son of Mary, who was affianced to Joseph, a descendant of David; but more particularly that Mary conceived him by the Spirit of God while she was still a virgin. One of these two birth narratives, moreover (Luke’s), has claims to be regarded as one of the most archaic elements in the New Testament.

These two narratives do not exhaust the evidence for the Virgin Birth, although they command the special respect due to their canonical status. Ignatius (c. A.D. 115) also bears testimony to the Virgin Birth, which to some extent reflects a distinct tradition—preserved probably in the church of Antioch.

Whether other New Testament writers knew anything about the Virgin Birth or not, they say nothing to contradict it. Indeed, in one or two places some of them seem to betray some acquaintance with it. However, these are not definite enough to have evidential value.

The argument that, if the chief characters in the birth narratives had known about the Virgin Birth, they would not have acted or spoken as they did on certain later occasions, makes insufficient allowance for the changing moods of human beings; besides, how can we make confident generalizations about the psychological effects of a unique event? The argument that our Lord would not have been perfectly man had be been virgin-born is hypothetical and undemonstrable; that he was indeed perfectly man is certain in any case.

The fact that he was publicly known as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45) is irrelevant to the question of his virgin birth. There are other expressions in the Gospels which have been supposed to be inconsistent with it, but these are commoner in the two Gospels which exclude any misunderstanding by recording his virgin birth at the outset. Thus Luke, towards the end of his infancy narrative, refers to Jesus’ “father and mother” or his “parents” (Luke 2:33, 41), and reports his mother as saying to Him, “thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing” (v. 48). But the earlier part of his narrative shows how these expressions are to be understood. Later he reports the people of Nazareth as saying, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary?” (Matt. 13:55). Whether these Nazarenes knew anything of the circumstances of his birth is doubtful; but the reader of Matthew and Luke is already acquainted with the real circumstances and is not misled by their question. Mark, on the other hand, who has no nativity narrative, reports them as saving: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mark 6:3).

The conception and birth of Christ could not and cannot be susceptible to the laws of evidence in the same way as his resurrection, for which eyewitnesses were not lacking. But God did a new thing in the earth when his Son became incarnate, and the virginal conception was part and parcel of that new thing. In this way, for once, the entail of sin was broken within the human family. No one will suspect Dr. W. R. Matthews of obscurantism, but there is substance in his statement that, “though we may still believe in the Incarnation without the Virgin Birth, it will not be precisely the same kind of Incarnation, and the conception of God’s act of redemption in Christ will be subtly but definitely changed” (Essays in Construction, pp. 128 f.).

Riches for Poverty. In the light of the further revelation of the New Testament, this Old Testament affirmation acquires a deeper significance. It is because God made man in His own image that He could accurately reveal Himself in a human life. So when, in the fullness of time, “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman,” it was in the form of man that he sent him—the form which he had from the beginning intended man to have. Thus the Son of God became partaker of our nature so that we in Him might become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).

He deigns in flesh to appear,

Widest extremes to join,

To bring our vileness near,

And make us all divine;

And we the life of God shall know,

Since God is manifest below.

(C. Wesley)

Bibliography: C. Gore, The Incarnation of the Son of God; E. H. Gifford, The Incarnation; W. Sanday, Christologies Ancient and Modern; J. G. Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ; D. M. Baillie, God Was in Christ; H. E. W. Turner, Jesus, Master and Lord; O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament.

Rylands Professor of Biblical

Criticism and Exegesis

University of Manchester

Manchester, England

SEVEN DEVILS

“These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination to him.”

In our relationship with others we go out of our way to do the things our loved ones like and avoid the things which offend them.

How much more sensitive should we be when we are specifically told there are certain things which God “hates.”

Furthermore, we should understand that God hates, not as men hate, but that his is a holy hatred, a reaction to and recoiling against those things which are evil.

We all know that God loves sinners while at the same time he hates their sins. It was this hatred of sin, in its performance and its results, that caused him to send his Son to redeem men.

Christians, of all people, should exemplify the transforming power of Christ and the new life to be found in him. That we live on the right side of justification is not enough, for he has sent the Holy Spirit to continue his work of transformation. This work of sanctification, never perfected in any of us, should have its roots in those things which are pleasing to God and its guard up against the things which displease him.

What then are the seven things which God “hates”? What are these seven devils against which all of us must do battle?

“A proud look,” or “haughty eyes.”

How many are the Christians whose usefulness in the work of God’s kingdom has foundered on pride. That God resists the proud is an ominous fact. That he hates pride should make every one of us go to our knees, asking that we may be divested of every iota of self-esteem and conceit.

And how foolish is pride! We have nothing that we have not received at God’s hand and our only hope is in him. Pride then becomes an interposing of ourselves between us and God. In a sense it is idolatry in its worst form and it is human folly at its peak.

“A lying tongue.”

God is truth. Satan is a liar and the father of lies. The lying tongue is a trademark of unregenerate heart and an offense so serious that the Bible repeatedly warns against its consequences.

Some jokingly refer to “white lies,” but there is no evidence that God regards the perversion of the truth for anything other than what it is—an offense against Him.

“Hands that shed innocent blood.”

We live in a time when violence is rampant and when acts of violence provide much to be seen on TV programs after the supper hour.

But the innocent blood of many a fellow Christian has been figuratively shed by the critical tongue of another Christian. Some seem determined to build up their own positions by tearing down the good reputations of others.

The lying tongue can shed innocent blood where no knife is used nor shot fired.

Undoubtedly the writer of this portion of the Proverbs was speaking against murderers, but we who are Christians should also regard it in the sense that we can slay the reputations of the righteous by an evil and slanderous tongue.

“A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations.”

Not long ago the writer went into one of the nation’s most famous newsstands to buy a book. In the few weeks interval since he had visited that particular store, it had been openly converted into a purvevor of lewd books and magazines, now displayed at the front of the store and shamelessly designed to attract and ensnare any and all.

No one enjoys a good detective story more than the writer. No one has greater enjoyment for an occasional good novel than he does.

But the books and magazines which are now flooding our newsstands and book stores are the products of diseased minds, minds so obsessed by evil and the exploitation of evil for personal profit that the world has never known such flouting of all that is decent and clean.

That God hates such wicked imaginations is a fact. That he will visit judgment on those who produce such filth and those who feed on it is a fearful thing.

The writer to the Hebrews affirms: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and a little later in the book he says: “For our God is a consuming fire.”

If there were not a hell, God would have to make one for those who wilfully engage in traffic with the souls of men!

“Feet that be swift in running to mischief.”

“Mischief” is any evil work; anything which is contrary: to the law, will, and purpose of a holy God. How easy it is to walk the ways of the world—which are the ways of death! How easy it is to follow the crowd to do evil! How often we partake of other men’s sins by joining them in something we know in our hearts to be wrong!

Evil besets us on every hand. That we have security in the whole armour of God should be sufficient. That we adventure out without that armour is one of the great tragedies of life.

“A false witness that speaketh lies.”

Perjury is an offense against the laws of the land hut unknown and unrecorded except at the courts of heaven are those times when we have borne false witness against our neighbor—yes, our own familiar friend!

Gossip can be the bearing of false witness. Backbiting is a form of false witness. Criticism is often little less than a lie couched in terms of outraged piousness.

Many is the Christian who has suffered just such injury from the lying tongue of a self-righteous gossip.

“He that soweth discord among brethren.”

It is natural that there should be discord in the unregenerate world, for these are men vying for advantage and recognition. Attacks on others is as natural as the snarling and fighting of dogs in a pack.

But what is really distressing is that sowing discord among brethren is not unknown in Christian circles, in fact it is a sin so common that many of us engage in it without any regard for its sinfulness or its consequences.

As Christians we stand in need of a searching of our own souls. Who is not guilty of things which God hates? Who can say he has had no part in the things which God hates—which are an abomination to him?

This being true, how great is our need! Too many of us take a very superficial attitude towards Christ’s redemptive work. For too many of us the blood of Calvary has little meaning.

But it was because of the wickedness of our hearts and lives that Christ died. Our sole hope is in his cleansing power.

These seven “devils” which so often manifest themselves in our lives need to be driven out by the One who alone can save. Our need is great but God’s remedy is effective and all-sufficient.

The theological construction of Rudolph Bultmann, the ‘old master’ of a modern group of existentialist theologians within German Protestantism, has exercised a bewitching influence. Bultmann is the champion of “a new way” in theology that would pre-empt such absoluteness for his teaching that all other conceptions should be swept aside as useless. Bultmann’s theology stresses its capacity for a “deeper understanding” and a “more penetrating renewal” of the real import of the Reformation. Many of his followers actually believe that Bultmann gives the “sola fide,” the dominating Reformation principle of “faith alone,” the exclusive significance it deserves.

Currently there are some indications that the radical existentialism of Bultmann is on the wane and that many disciples of Bultmann have decided to strike out on their own in a way which deviates from the course set by the “master.” But the consequential reaction set off by Bultmann’s theological and philosophical construction is still as indisputable now as it was before. Thus the question, “Dare we follow Bultmann?” is certainly justified. We must subject his theses to an exacting examination in order to discern whether the tasks that Bultmann sets for theology are valid and justified.

Background For Bultmann

The disturbance engendered by Bultmann’s thought is healthy in that it has sparked renewed self-reflection in theology and the Church. What we are concerned with here touches the very theological foundation of the Church and its message; it deals with our understanding of the decisive, fundamental questions of Christian theology.

From the standpoint of the history of ideas and in connection with the theological development denoted by the movement proceeding from Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and Herrmann, Bultmann’s teacher, one can trace that tendency of Bultmann’s theology which is bent upon accommodating the Christian truth to modern man in a new conceptualization. In this endeavor three facets of Bultmann’s thinking stand out:

1. It is impossible to harmonize present-day “cosmology” with the so-called “mythical cosmology” of the Bible. The framework, concepts, and images of biblical thought are declared antiquated; to modern man they appear “incredible,” “meaningless,” and “impossible.”

2. Then there is the matter of radical historical-critical research. This approach is consciously affirmed by Bultmann and carried out to its logical conclusions. Bultmann is prepared to surrender the entire New Testament tradition to dissolution and destruction, and to allow its “incineration” in the crematory of criticism.

3. Finally, the acceptance of the existentialist philosophy of Martin Heidegger as an integral part of his theological construction provides Bultmann an escape from the difficulties and negations standing in the way of an effective proclamation of the Christian message. Reflection on “Being,” on modern man’s “self-understanding,” becomes the key for Bultmann in his apprehension of the Christian truth and, in the language of existentialism, for making this truth understandable to modern man.

Critical Counter-Questions

Are these allegedly manifest premises, submitted by Bultmann, tenable and theologically legitimate?

What is the real state of affairs in regard to Bultmann’s conception of “cosmology?” It is quite amazing to discover that Bultmann confuses the term “Weltbild” [cosmology] with “Weltanschauung” [world-view]. “Weltbild” is always in a process of transformation as a result of the ever-advancing scientific knowledge. “Weltbild” is both the object and product of rational knowledge. “Weltanschauung” is a matter of religious or philosophical interpretation. “Weltbild,” which one could say is a phenomenon related to the “horizontal plane,” can never contradict the meaning given to it through religion, philosophy, or faith, which are all related to the “vertical dimension.” All cosmologies, whether primitive, geocentric, or that of modern atomic physics, can be interpreted materialistic-atheistic, idealistic-religious, or in the Christian understanding of creation. Even in the Bible the mythical attachment of faith to space and time is broken. Bultmann thus is involved in a serious error in his treatment of the confrontation of cosmology and faith (cf. Ps. 139; 1 Kings 8:27; Jer. 23:24; Acts 27:28; Heb. 4:14; 7:26). Consequently it is plain nonsense when Bultmann emphasizes that, in view of all the modern technical advances, it is impossible for the man of today, who listens to the radio and uses electricity to uphold “the faith which reckons with angels, demons, and miracles.”

It is impossible to be any less critical of Bultmann’s fundamental historical skepticism. Even Bultmann’s followers have renewed the concern over knowledge about “the historical Jesus.” It is certainly true that the New Testament witness does not present an historical report; but as confession to Jesus Christ it always contains historical statements at the same time and without any doubt also possesses “historic” source value.

Finally, one must also ask the critical question: Is the language of existential philosophy adequate to express the message of biblical revelation? True as it is that the task of translating represents a theoretical obligation, nevertheless the modern way of interpretation dare not becloud and distort the biblical message. The danger with Bultmann is that his philosophical position leads him not to a modern interpretation of the theological substance but rather to a reconstruction or even destruction of it.

What Does Bultmann Teach?

In accordance with his existentialist maxim Bultmann develops the following new interpretations of the Christian tradition. Since the material of the primitive Christian tradition assertedly bears the stamp of “the contemporary mythology of Jewish Apocalyptic,” as well as the mark of “the redemption myths of Gnosticism,” in seeking to uncover the real Christian self-understanding, everything hinges upon “Demythologization.” Through this existentialist “purification-process,” all the miracle accounts, the “Son of Man” words and exalted titles of Jesus, the concept of preexistence, just like “the doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction through the death of Christ,” and the utterances over “the high priestly office” of the exalted Christ are to be discarded. For Bultmann only the “Existentialist Interpretation” of the mythological language of the New Testament, which sets forth the genuine existential connection and thus mediates a new understanding of Being, is decisive. This goal is entirely independent of historical factuality; for, according to Bultmann, one must make a sharp distinction between “historical facts” and “historic encounter.” The Christian kerygma of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, however, has for him nothing to do with facts which may have happened between A.D. 1 and 30, but with the “kerygmatic Christ” who, in “the Word,” calls men “here and now” to the decision of faith. “Revelation is an event which places me in a new situation” so that I can attain salvation, that is, achieve the real purpose of my existence. Only in the word of actual proclamation is Christ manifest. Thus this kerygma “for me” itself represents the event of salvation which justifies me the sinner and leads me from death to life. Faith is not to be understood as faith in the personal Saviour but means “emancipation from the past,” “to be open for the future.”

Here again serious critical questions must be directed to Bultmann. Does not the rejection of every form of ontological thinking lead to a hopeless subjectivism? Isn’t the existentialist thought-scheme far too narrow to present the fullness of saving revelation in an adequate manner? The existentialism of Bultmann is nothing more than a modern variation of that anthropocentrism which, beginning with the Enlightenment, has continued to plague theology, and according to which the standard of validity is seen in existential significance.

The position of Bultmann becomes even more dubious and questionable when attention is focused upon the disorder, evident in his use of concepts, and caused by his new terminology. It is certain that through his contemporaneous, coeval interpretation of history, with utter disregard for historical factuality of the past, Bultmann basically misses the central concern of the Christian kerygma, which specifically proclaims a revealing action of God that is bound to history. Thereby the uniqueness of the biblical witness is reduced to the level of the usual and robbed of its historic basis and specific meaning. This is a repetition of that well-known process of classical idealism represented by Kant, Hegel, and Fichte whereby, indeed, Christian words are used, but through which an entirely different content is offered. Thus Bultmann’s existentialist theology means the opposite of biblical clarity and only serves to add to “the confusion of spirits” in these troubled times.

Why Must We Oppose Bultmann?

In effect, the new direction in theology taken by Bultmann amounts to a total conceptual metamorphosis. This process of transforming or modifying the central concepts of Christianity carries with it some disastrous features. The following examples are cited in confirmation of this contention:

Bultmann’s dreology is a “Kerygma-theology” whereby kerygma, the actual address of the message of Christ, is understood as the formal event of the call to the decision of faith. Only in this moment of proclamation is Christ real; only in this moment does salvation occur. According to the New Testament, however, kerygma is primarily and essentially the report of a completed event of salvation; it is the report of the perfected whole of the revelation of Christ which, indeed, happened “for the world” but which also happened “objectively,” and that means beyond the boundaries of human relationships.

For Bultmann there is no Incarnation. I he eternal “Logos,” “Word,” did not take human flesh, for the “pre-existent Son” becomes a mythological concept. It is impossible to make any statements about the “historical Jesus” of Nazareth. Doubt about his existence is indeed “unfounded,” “but not of essential importance.” Over his life it is impossible to make any biographical assertions or to give any chronological data. Thus the person of the historical Jesus shrivels up to an imaginary point, to an X, for only the formal “that” of his coming is important.

In the same way, under Bultmann’s interpretation, the fundamental importance of the cross of Jesus evaporates to the position of being a mere sign for the fact that it is worthwhile to bear one’s own suffering willingly. The message of a vicarious, sacrificial death is a myth.

The Resurrection, the fundamental event of salvation, is reduced by Bultmann to the mere knowledge of the “meaning of the cross.” The Easter reports are dismissed as legends and, so far as faith is concerned, the appearances of the Resurrected are dispensable and unessential. Here also the only norm is the existentialist understanding of “man’s rising with [Christ] as a present event.” With these theses the very heart is extracted from the original Christian kerygma.

Consistently with this distorted method of interpretation, it is inevitable that Christian eschatology must also be demolished. Bultmann stresses: “Awaiting the coming of the Son of Man is over,” for, as he sees it, the expectation of the parousia of the Early Church has been shown to be an error. But also the Christian hope in a “unique transportation into a heavenly world of Light” is for Bultmann rationally inconceivable” and “insignificant.” The concept of the “final day of judgment” is merely a mythological way of speaking.

In summary, we must conclude that for Bultmann the name “Jesus Christ” represents not a personal living reality of God’s saving revelation in the sphere of history but merely a concept, an ideogram, a symbol or a principle for the event of contemporary preaching. For this purpose, however, no importance is attached to the message of the event of salvation that the historical Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and died for the world and was raised by God and exalted to Lord, since this content merely reflects the language of mythology. Nothing but the formal existentialist claim of the kerygma understood in this way possesses theological validity.

“Dare we follow Bultmann?” This question is clearly answered with the observations of our investigation. The norm for the theologically tenable and necessary “Yes” or “No” to Bultmann’s theology is posited in the original Christian witness itself. Measured by this the following insights become evident:

All the theologically-decisive results of Bultmann’s construction stand in irreconcilable contradiction to the central message of the New Testament and to all ecumenical confessions of the Christian Church. Bultmann’s theological proposal is, in the real sense of the word, no theology at all, but it is rather a philosophical wisdom in Christian garb. In existentialist categories, “revelation” of God becomes a synonymous concept for the attainment of a new self-understanding; but in no way does it mean the reality of an actual intervention of God in the historical world of space and time. The reality of God’s revelation did not take place in Jesus Christ. The “new” is not the fact of world redemption completed in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. It is only existence becoming open for God. Since Christ is not the living Lord, and represents nothing more than a symbol for the kerygma, it is also impossible for faith to represent a personal bond of trust in Jesus Christ. Thus faith is merely to be identified with the actualization of the new understanding of existence. Therefore it appears somewhat absurd to describe Bultmann as an executor of the last will and testament of the Lutheran Reformation on the basis of his philosophical elocution.

Bultmann’s endeavor to accommodate the Christian message to the problems and needs of modern man is doomed to failure because he is able to offer nothing more than anthropological solutions without any real knowledge of revelation. Bultmann’s theology is a pseudo-theology for it lacks the only enduring and all-sufficient foundation, Jesus Christ, who is none other than the historic man and at the same time the resurrected and transcendent Lord. With Bultmann’s kerygma, robber of its substance, it is impossible to preach, to comfort, or to carry on the work of missions. The same very serious question which in sharpest intolerance Paul directed to the congregation in Galatia must also be asked here: Is it a matter of another gospel? (Gal. 1:6).

The pretentious way to which Bultmann directs us shows itself to be a wrong way of dangerous heresy. In solid opposition to the way Bultmann would have us go stands the entirely other, genuine, apostolic kerygma: “that … which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled … that declare we unto you” (1 John 1:1, 3).

Not long ago Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, former president of the National Council of Churches, made a startling statement: “In view of their favored tax positions, with reasonably prudent management America’s churches ought to be able to control the whole economy of the nation within the predictable future” (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Aug. 3, 1959, issue).

Dr. Blake and many other churchmen—Protestant, Catholic and Jewish—are seriously concerned about the rising number of tax-free church business enterprises that have nothing to do with religion. There is good reason for their concern.

In a nation-wide study I found that many religious denominations and their subordinate agencies have gone into competitive profit-making businesses on a large scale. Churches own radio stations, hotels, office buildings, parking lots, bakeries, warehouses. They do contract printing, invest in stocks and bonds, and speculate in real estate. They have investments in stocks and bonds that for some major denominations run into millions of dollars.

The federal government and all the states specifically exempt places of worship, whatever their name or faith, from taxes of all kinds—33 of the states by their constitutions. Churches pay no property taxes. They pay no federal income taxes, even if they derive profits from unrelated business enterprises. Estate and gift taxes cannot be levied on them.

Tax exemption for churches and their related activities rests upon two historic American principles: complete freedom of conscience and worship, and recognition of the benefits of organized religion to society.

American tradition solidly upholds exemption for all nonprofit religious organizations, and few would ever question that religious worship and teaching add a moral strength to the nation incalculable in money.

But when churches and agencies under their control step over into business enterprises, unrelated to their religious and sacerdotal functions, they raise pressing questions as to the justice of their favored tax position.

Today those questions are acute. Churches and their agencies have increased their business activities tremendously in the last decade, and at the same time all levels of government have been forced to find more and more revenue. Many tax officials have told me during this research: “Something has to give!”

Churches In Unrelated Business

Thirty years ago, about 12 per cent of real property in the United States was tax-exempt; today, about 30 per cent pays no taxes. Biggest exemption goes to government property, such as post offices, parks, military posts, state universities, city halls, and public schools. Next come churches and other religious organizations, accounting for about one third of all exempt properties. While exemption from property taxes for religious organizations is not a great burden on any community, the rub comes when a church with its favored tax status embarks upon business for profit.

“I buy all my gas at a filling station on a lot owned by my church,” a prominent Methodist layman in Washington, D. C., told me. “An oil company leases the lot, with an agreement that the church will receive one cent a gallon on all gas sold.”

“And your church pays no tax on such business income?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he replied.

A realtor in Missouri, prominent in his Presbyterian church, drove me to an expanding residential area. “My church owns that tract adjoining mine,” he said, pointing it out. “When the church sells its tract, it will pay no capital gains tax. When I sell mine, I’ll pay the tax. Thus my church presents unfair competition to every real-estate firm in town.”

Many churches own and operate retail stores, industrial plants, and cattle ranches—all free of taxes on sales and profits. A large farm in Nebraska was recently taken over by a church organization, which meant that it was taken off the tax rolls.

Does your church conduct bingo games for profit? It pays no income or amusement taxes. Does your church organization operate a cafeteria primarily for its employees? Again, no tax. Proceeds of athletic contests, motion pictures and other paid entertainments, given to a church, are exempt from admissions tax.

Does your minister, priest, or rabbi live in a manse owned by your church officials or congregation? In most states, the property is not taxed. A Church of Christ minister informed me that when he purchased his latest automobile the salesman suggested: “Why don’t you buy this car through your church? That would save you the state sales tax.” The minister related further: “I told the agent that would not be right, and he assured me that many preachers do it that way.”

From its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Mormon church operates numerous business enterprises to help support its missionary and welfare activities. These include a newspaper, radio and TV station, apartment houses, hotels, mercantile and banking establishments. In October, 1960, Mormon President David O. McKay announced a large building project for Salt Lake City, to cost more than $40,000,000 and to include construction of a 28-story office building and the addition of 17 stories to the church-owned Hotel Utah. More recently this church purchased 786 acres of land and 14 industrial buildings in an expanding area of the city, to be held for investment and development purposes. Noted for its program of self-help for its members, the Mormon church owns and operates hundreds of “welfare farms.” One of the largest is in Florida, with 740,000 acres and 100,000 cattle.

Some Mormons business enterprises are administered by Zion Securities Corporation, which pays property taxes on all holdings not used for religious purposes, and pays both state and federal corporate income taxes. The church pays no income taxes upon dividends it receives from its vast unrelated profit-making activities.

Three churches of Bloomington, Illinois—First Christian, First Baptist, and Second Presbyterian—own the Biltmore Hotel of Dayton, Ohio, purchased in 1954 for $3,300,000. Eight business men, members of these churches, borrowed $200,000 for the down payment; mortgages took care of the rest. The property was leased to the Hilton hotel chain. An agent corporation assumed liability for the Hilton payments, and also for any damage suits that might arise in the hotel management. One of the laymen in the transaction told me:

“This type of business arrangement is especially profitable for churches. We leased out the hotel for a substantially lower figure than could a company not exempt from federal income taxes. From rentals, we have already paid off the amount we borrowed. Each church is now receiving about $2,500 annually, and will get more when the mortgages are liquidated. It’s a perpetual tax-free endowment.”

Office buildings are sources of business income for many congregations. The First Methodist Church of Chicago owns and worships in the Chicago Temple, a 22-story structure in the downtown area, completed in 1924 and valued today at about $6,000,000. The congregation pays property taxes, amounting to about $155,000 per year, assessed upon the offices rented out for commercial purposes, but pays no income taxes upon its receipts from office rentals, which gross about $250,000. Income from this business enterprise is used to support ministerial aid and other church welfare projects.

In downtown Los Angeles, the Temple Baptist Church owns the entire stock of the Auditorium Company, which owns the Auditorium Office Building and the Philharmonic Auditorium, valued at several million dollars. The company pays property taxes upon the offices and auditorium leased to the city’s philharmonic orchestra, the civic opera, and other commercial enterprises, but pays no state or federal income taxes because as a church it is exempt.

Station WWL in New Orleans, radio and television, is owned and operated by the Jesuits of Loyola University. It takes commercial advertising, yet the Internal Revenue Commission ruled the station tax-exempt as an integral part of a church.

Bread And Wine

In addition to spiritual food, numerous church organizations turn out cheese, bread, cakes, preserves, and packed meat. St. John’s bread is produced under franchises sold by a church organization in Minnesota, and is made by a formula brought to America by monks from Bavaria many years ago. Tax-free profits from this bread are used chiefly for education. The monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Massachusetts derive income from their business in high-grade jellies, distributed through a commercial firm.

Seventh-day Adventist churches have long specialized in the production and sale of vegetarian foods. One of the largest such operations is the Loma Linda Food Company of California, owned by the Pacific Union Conference of this denomination. Sales of the Loma Linda products total several million dollars a year, income-tax exempt. A large part of the profits goes to carry on research in nutrition.

Fastest growing of the profit-making activities for churches is the “sale and lease-back” enterprise. Churches have discovered that they can make up to 20 per cent on their money by this device. It works this way:

A business firm sells its physical properties to a religious organization, then leases them back, keeping the same management, personnel and production as before, and agreeing to pay all taxes, insurance, and other overhead expenses. The firm can write off the rentals and other expenses against its profits in greater amounts than would be permitted through depreciation if it still owned the plant—thus effecting savings in income taxes. The church group can almost always recover the entire cost of the property, plus interest, in 20 years, since it is exempt from the taxes a private business would have to pay. Then it holds what amounts to a tax-free endowment.

Under such an arrangement, the owners of the Yankee Stadium in New York sold this property to a Chicago broker for $6,900,000. This broker sold the land of the stadium to the Knights of Columbus and leased it back at $182,000 annual rent for 24 years. Then he leased the stadium and the land to the original owners. Here was a triple play that knocked Internal Revenue out of a 24-year inning! Is this legitimate tax exemption for religious reasons? Or is it, as it seems, a tax dodge for business purposes?

The Southern Baptist Annuity Board in 1959 purchased a property of Burlington Mills at Cheraw, South Carolina, for $2,900,000, and leased back the property to the firm. In 20 years’ time, rentals from the mills will liquidate the purchase and pay interest on the investment. “Our board has the advantage of paying no corporate taxes on the rentals from the property, while the company has the advantage of using the purchase money for other purposes,” Fred W. Noe, treasurer of this church agency, told me.

A growing variation of the lease-back plan is possible through a federal tax provision that permits nonprofit institutions to take over profit-making industries for five years tax free. Generally the purchase is made with small payments spread out over many years, which permits the business firm to pay capital gains taxes on the amounts each year rather than continue paying the higher income taxes. Of course the institution employs the former owner to keep running the business, and pays him a “salary.” At the end of the five-year period, the tax-exempt institution sells the property to a church group which can own and profit from the business indefinitely—tax free.

In 1954, Methodist-related Wesleyan University in Illinois purchased two California hotels for $10,000,000; it paid only $200,000 cash and carried the rest through mortgages. Five years later the institution had all its cash investment back, plus tax-free profits, and sold the hotels to the St. Andrew Catholic diocese of Chicago, which can carry them indefinitely as sources of tax-exempt income.

Concern By Church Leaders

Under existing laws such transactions are entirely legal. And income from church-owned businesses uniformly goes to support worthy causes, namely, missions, seminaries, colleges, community welfare, and religious programs. Is this not reason enough for exemption?

Most church leaders say no. They are concerned by the frequent charge that tax exemptions are poorly-concealed forms of tax support for organized religion. They reflect that it was the ever-increasing wealth of churches that led to revolutionary expropriations of church property in England in the sixteenth century, in France in the eighteenth century, in Italy in the nineteenth century, and in Mexico as late as 1942. They are aware that when the funds entrusted to them by their churches are invested in profit-making ventures, they enter the field of unfair competition with taxpaying citizens.

“It has been my observation that where churches have been supported by business enterprises there is the loss of the spirit of voluntary giving on the part of church members: this has the effect of deadening the spiritual life of the church,” says Dr. Billy Graham, noted evangelist.

Church leaders seem agreed that the deductions allowed on income taxes for contributions to churches and related organizations should be retained, as proper incentives to support religious causes. Many insist that in any sweeping reform of taxation policies, fairness demands that all nonprofit tax-exempt groups and foundations should be reviewed along with religious groups, and none should receive preferential treatment. “Still, our churches should take the lead in proposing and adopting rules that will be fair to both the churches and to our government,” comments C. Stanton Gallup, Connecticut businessman and former president of the American Baptist Convention.

Several official rulings point the way to a fair solution of the tangled problem. In Nashville, Tennessee, two major denominations, the Southern Baptist Convention and The Methodist Church, have large publishing houses to produce their religious literature. In 1959 for the first time the municipality assessed all the properties of these two church agencies.

Both church groups appealed to the state tax authority. That official agency ruled for the Baptists in striking out the taxes on the ground that their properties are used “either exclusively for religious purposes or for purposes so close thereto as to come within the tax exempt status provided by Tennessee law.” The Baptist position was strengthened by the fact that taxes have always been paid upon property owned by its board not used for religious purposes. The tax authority ruled against the Methodist Publishing House on the ground that a portion of its activities was secular and therefore outside its own denominational needs.

In the Napa Valley of California, Christian Brothers Winery, operating as the De LaSalle Institute, in a modern seven-million-dollar plant, turns out more than a million cases a year of high-grade wines and brandies. For several years the winery has contested assessments of federal income taxes on the ground that its organization is church-related. In August, 1961, a federal court ruled that this business enterprise was not an integral part of a church and therefore taxes must be paid on its profits.

A Pennsylvania court ruled that tax exemption for church property applies only to that used for actual worship, plus whatever land is needed for access. New York courts have held that occasional suppers, bazaars, and entertainments to raise money for church purposes are not taxable, while a cafeteria under church ownership, open to the public, is taxable.

Ending Tax Abuses

These and similar rulings form a pattern for a tax policy that meets the approval of spokesmen for many churches. This is their consensus: churches should not be taxed by any level of government for facilities and services related to their religious functions, and this historic policy should be maintained inviolate; on the other hand, churches should be taxed when they engage in business enterprises for business profit.

What is “related” and what is not? “If it is an integral part of its church organization, essential to the effective pursuit of its religious programs and not a device for financial profit from an outside enterprise, it is related,” says an active layman engaged in government tax affairs.

Following this rule, the use to which church-owned realty is devoted would determine whether it is taxed. Along with sanctuaries of worship, exemption from taxes would apply to auxiliary buildings used exclusively for religious instruction and training, offices for administration of religious activities and parking lots for the convenience of worshipers or church workers. Schools and welfare facilities owned or controlled by churches would be exempt as both religious and nonprofit institutions.

All facilities not used exclusively for church purposes, and particularly those that produce business income, would bear their fair share of taxes. A church-owned office building would be taxed for any proportion rented out commercially. Property owned by churches for future use or speculation, whether vacant or improved, would go on the tax rolls; as soon as the church began using it for church purposes, the property would of course attain tax-free status.

In the matter of income taxes, the source of the income should determine the tax liability. Some state and federal courts dealing with questions of taxation as applied to religious groups have followed the rule that the use to which the income is put is the proper test to determine tax exemption. But widespread support has been given the policy expressed a year ago by the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs: “Earnings from businesses that have no direct connection with the religious purposes of the church should pay income taxes, regardless of how that income is used; the basic criterion should be the source from which the income is derived, rather than the use to which it is put.”

Following that rule, profits from the lease-back and other commercial ventures would pay corporate income taxes. Profits from publishing literature used by the church would not be taxed; profits from outside contracts would be taxed.

Numerous actions and statements by church groups indicate the concern felt over the widespread intrusion of religious organizations into profit-making businesses. The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. on June 2, 1958, requested its foundation “to make no investment in unrelated business where such income tax exemptions are allowable.” The National Association of Evangelicals takes the stand that profit-making by churches and their related organizations constitutes an unlawful subsidy forbidden by the first amendment to the Constitution.

The trustees of many churches, bequeathed income properties such as apartment houses and business blocks, have requested that all taxes be continued as before. Churches of many faiths insist upon collecting and remitting sales taxes on all items from their bookstores open to the public, paying property taxes on parking lots leased out for commercial use during the week, and accepting no subsidies by special interest rates on public loans for their institutions.

Some observers contend that uniform state laws should provide that all tax-exempt real property should be listed on the tax rolls, with a notice as to its value and reason for exemption. D. D. Cameron of Tulsa, a Protestant layman and assistant county attorney, comments that Oklahoma has just such a law—entirely ignored by public officials, presumably for fear of offending the countless members and friends of nonprofit organizations. Most churchmen and tax officials agree that such a provision would create better understanding of the reasons for fair tax exemptions, as well as place under scrutiny some practices that take unfair advantage of exemptions.

The attitude of the vast majority of American churchmen was summarized by the Rev. Robert E. Van Deusen of Washington, D. C., prominent Lutheran: “While we of the churches insist upon tax exemption for our exclusively religious activities, we should willingly pay our share of taxes when we get into profitable businesses, and thus render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

John 3:3

THE PREACHER:

Born in Cedarville, New Jersey, Frank Bateman Stanger was ordained by The Methodist Church in 1938, and served Methodist churches in his home state until, in 1959, he became executive vice president of Asbury Theological Seminary. Fie holds the B.A. degree from Asbury College, Th.B. from Princeton Theological Seminary, S.T.M. and S.T.D. from Temple University, and the honorary D.D. from Philathea College. He is author of the volume A Workman That Needeth Not To Be Ashamed. In denominational posts he has served as president of the New Jersey Conference Historical Society, Northeastern Judisdictional Methodist Historical Society, and as a member of the executive committee of the American Association of Methodist Historical Societies. He has also been a delegate to four World Methodist conferences.

THE TEXT:

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.

It was a memorable interview between Nicodemus, one of the chief Pharisees, and Jesus Christ. The very circumstances surrounding it speak with eloquence. A man stood in the presence of God. A ruler of the Jews was seeking entrance into another kingdom, the kingdom of God. A teacher came seeking information from the Great Teacher. Moreover, it was night—a vivid figure of any soul outside the kingdom of God. But the wind was stirring, a spiritual symbol of the working of the Spirit of God.

Little wonder that this interview between Nicodemus and Jesus continues to be of vital significance. It is representative, on the one hand, of the continuing divine purposefulness in establishing the kingdom of God and, on the other, of man’s persistent quest to enter into that realm of spiritual experience which the Kingdom represents. So men in all centuries, and contemporary man is no exception, have sought the way into the Kingdom.

The kingdom of God is the master thought in the teaching of our Lord. Mark records: “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel.” The teachings of Jesus reveal the Kingdom to be that domain of life, personal or corporate, in which the will of God is done. In the “Lord’s Prayer” the Kingdom is equated with the will of God: “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” In the light of New Testament teaching and experience, the Kingdom is that realm of life in which there is deliverance from sin, power to live righteously, and delight in doing God’s will.

That man has ever sought to gain entrance into this kind of spiritual existence is not difficult to understand. For the kingdom of God is realism. Jesus makes himself and the Kingdom synonymous with life. He declares that living works satisfactorily only in the Kingdom way. “The kingdom of God,” He points out, “is within you.” It is built into the very structure of the self. The Kingdom is our “real” nature. The laws of the Kingdom are actually the laws of our being. Life will work in God’s way and in no other. Only as we co-operate with the nature of the universe do we live in accordance with our true nature. When we default against the Kingdom we default against ourselves. Sin is actually an attempt to live against the laws of one’s own created being and get away with it.

Even unregenerate man, living under the influence of an inherited sinful nature, recognizes his inalienable right, by divine creation, to attain such a level of existence as that expressed by the Kingdom.

For Nicodemus as a person, and as the representative of spiritually concerned individuals, the kingdom of God is tar more than a traditionally nationalistic issue. How often Nicodemus’ forbears and contemporaries had asked: “Wilt Thou restore the Kingdom to Israel?” But for him the issue was intensely personal: “How may I gain entrance into the kingdom of God?” Man in his patriotism may covet the Kingdom in a nationalistic sense. But man in the depths of his created being lias a longing for the Kingdom in a personal, spiritual sense.

Here, then, we discover the essential characteristic of the universal spiritual quest of mankind. Man, realizing that the kingdom of God and life are synonymous for him, knows that in his sinful state he is not a citizen of that Kingdom. So, conscious of the crucial conflict, he becomes desperately intent upon the resolving of this spiritual tension. This universal pursuit is the crux of the story of religion. Man is seeking continually to transform Paradise Lost into Paradise Regained. He is looking persistently for the Gate into the Kingdom.

Because of his sinful nature, man has attempted to follow wrong ways into the Kingdom. Nicodemus was a learned man, deeply religious, sincerely ethical, a leader in spiritual matters. Even so, the longings of his soul remained unsatisfied, and the result was spiritual death. He must find yet another way, the right way.

The kingdom of God is not entered along the way of special privilege. The gospel narrative tells of the mother of James and John seeking for her sons the promise of a place of privilege in the Kingdom. Here is our Lord’s response: “Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?… Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.”

Neither does the way of mere formal orthodoxy lead into the Kingdom. When one of the scribes, a paragon of orthodoxy, commended Jesus for His correct recital of the two great commandments, the Master replied: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” “Not far”—but not in it. To sanctimonius Pharisees Jesus spoke in the same vein: “You shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.”

Nor does he who follows the way of material security gain entrance into the kingdom of God. Because he had great possessions the rich young ruler turned sorrowfully away from Jesus. And Christ’s wistful comment was: “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”

Moreover, the way of good works does not lead into the Kinodom. The words of our Master in this regard were stern and decisive: “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees were religionists of works: they held fast the traditions, they worshiped, they observed the ceremonial enactments, they tithed, they evangelized. But their righteousness was a formal, mechanical, legalistic, lifeless thing. Their works could not save them.

What, then, is the right way, the only way, into the Kingdom? Christ’s own answer to this question leaves us with no doubt: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” A new spiritual mood is demanded. There must be a spiritual transformation as radical as birth. A new birth, through the Spirit of God, is the only way into the Kingdom.

In 1752 Whitefield wrote to Benjamin Franklin: “As I find you growing more and more famous in the world of letters I recommend to your unprejudiced study the mystery of the New Birth. It is a most important study and if mastered will abundantly repay you. I bid you, dear friend, remember that He before whose bar we must both soon appear has solemnly declared that without it we shall in no wise see His Kingdom.”

The New Birth has been described in various, yet suggestive ways. It has been spoken of as “that inward happy crisis by which human life is transformed and an issue opened up toward the ideal life.” Or, to use more theological language, “the New Birth is that great change which God works in the soul, when he brings it into life: when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by the Almighty Spirit of God, when it is created anew in Christ Jesus.”

The Apostle Paul declares: “If anyone is in union with Christ he is a new being; the old state of things has passed away; there is a new state of things” (Goodspeed). Commenting on this Pauline declaration, Paul Tillich says: “The New Being is not something that simply replaces the old. It is a RENEWAL of the old which has been corrupted, distorted, split, almost destroyed—but not wholly destroyed. Salvation does not destroy creation; it transforms the old creation into a new one.”

The spiritual decisiveness of the New Birth can be understood more fully by noting three of its characteristic elements: repentance, regeneration, and conversion. Repentance is a change of mind concerning sin, a changed mind which results in the confession and forsaking of sin. This is man’s responsibility, and is a prerequisite for the exercise of the faith that saves.

Regeneration is a change in nature, solely a divine work. To use the words of E. Stanley Jones, “This New Birth, John (1:13) says, is ‘not of blood’—it cannot be inherited from the bloodstreams of our parents; nor of the will of the flesh’—you cannot get it by the efforts of the will, lifting yourself by the bootstraps; nor of the will of man’—no man can give it to you, neither pastor nor priest nor pope; ‘but of God.’ It is direct from God or not at all.”

Conversion, the inevitable response to both repentance and regeneration, manifests itself in a continuing change of life. This is effected through an active spiritual co-operation between God and man. Such a converted life is the essence of Christian discipleship. Even after we have been initially converted through the divine act of regeneration, we are only “Christians-in-the-making” in relation to the many areas of our lives which must be transformed into the likeness of Christ. Hence, we “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord.” Thus conversion is seen also as the process of spiritual maturity: we become more and more like Christ through his power which works within us.

In his description of Pilgrim after his conversion, John Bunyan makes clear what happens when a person becomes a Christian. Three “shining ones” appeared to Pilgrim. The voice of one spoke: “Thy sins be forgiven.” This is the forgiveness of sins. The second gave him beautiful raiment for the rags of sin. This is the beauty of Christ’s righteousness in one’s life. The third placed a mark on his forehead. This signifies his adoption into the family of God.

The steps along the way into the kingdom of God are well marked and decisive. First, there must be an intense personal desire: “I want to be a Christian.” Second, desire is manifest in confession: “I am sorry for my sins. I confess my sins to God.” Third, there is personal acceptance through faith: “I believe that Jesus Christ died for me. By faith I accept him as my Saviour now.” Then inevitably there results a wholehearted dedication: “I belong to Christ forever—I am his and he is mine.”

Human experience has revealed a paradox in this matter of entering the Kingdom. On the one hand, to those who are spiritually sincere and intensely desirous, who renounce all hope of salvation save in Christ, it is a simple way. But to those who persist in holding on to any self-efforts or who place any confidence in things other than the salvation Christ offers, it continues to be an imposing, foreboding, difficult way. Such individuals experience the probing meaning of Jesus’ words: “How difficult it is for those who trust in riches (or in other things) to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Comment On The Sermon

The sermon “The Way into the Kingdom” was nominated forCHRISTIANITY TODAY’SSelect Sermon Series by Dr. James D. Robertson, Professor of Preaching in Asbury Theological Seminary. Dr. Robertson’s overcomment follows:

This sermon has much to commend it. It deals with a great theme, the New Birth—the foundation and genesis of Christianity. It breathes a bracing evangelical spirit: the Kingdom is real, it is here, it’s for you; life can be meaningful now. This is a redemptive preaching of a high standard. It is grounded in the Word. It speaks with authority—authority, one feels, girded by the preacher’s first-hand knowledge of what he is talking about. It is, moreover, anchored in the stream of life—today’s life. Christ appears not one whit less vocal today than in the long ago; he is our great contemporary. Adaptation of the truth of the text is accomplished with verve and freshness. The preacher does not hesitate to express his orthodoxy in current terms. The oral style of the message has the marks of straightforward speech. Sentences are clear, correct, often forceful. The number and variety of extra-biblical materials suggests breadth of reading interests. Illustrations and quotations are well integrated into the sermon and are a vital source of illumination and power.

Psychologically, the sermon moves from a troubled insecurity, through sober reflection, into joyous hope. Early, the sense of personal involvement is aroused. The problem is aggravated by the exposure of “wrong ways” men follow in their search for the Kingdom. The description of the “right way” helps scatter the gloom which, for the serious seeker, may well be dispelled altogether in the great conversion hymn that concludes the whole.

If a discourse is to be intellectually respectable its content must be structurally clear. In this instance the idea unfolds in the light of the preacher’s aim. The sense of advance and the prospect of arrival significantly fashion the thrust of the message. It gets off to a dynamic start in the terse, suggestive description of the night meeting, in which Nicodemus’ role shadows forth our own restless seeking after the kingdom of God. The aim of the sermon is at once made clear: to help man find the way into the Kingdom. But first it must be made plain just what Everyman, in the person of Nicodemus, is really seeking, and why he is seeking. The Kingdom is explained in terms of life lived in God’s way through Christ possessing us, and man is seen as so constituted that he cannot live his life satisfactorily in any other way. But man, conscious of the gulf between his present sinful state and his attainment of Kingdom status, has ever sought to initiate on his own a way into the Kingdom. Here follows a brief treatment of “wrong ways.” Till now, all has been preparatory to the setting forth of “the right way”—the way of the New Birth. The New Birth is emphasized as a “Divine Must”; it is defined from several standpoints; it is further explained by breaking it down into its elements; then the steps necessary to its attainment are presented. Before his final word, the preacher takes his truth and, setting it squarely in the midst of our times, makes us face up to it. It is the one thing needful in our generation. It bears a message of perpetual relevance. The sermon ends on a high note—a poem in which a greatly beloved Christian describes exultingly his own conversion experience. This is a God-exalting, triumphant, resounding appeal—altogether a forthright and effective sermon.

J. D. R.

The contemporary relevance of the New Birth must ever be kept in mind. What Jesus said to Nicodemus centuries ago he continues to say to “John Smith” and to “Mary Jones.” The words of our Master which filled that moonlight-flooded conference room still constitute the pertinent spiritual message of sanctuary and chapel, of mission hall and private oratory. As Paul Tillich has said, “If I were asked to sum up the Christian message for our times in two words, I would say with Paul, it is the message of a ‘new creation.’ ”

Modern psychology says that a man must be “born again.” For life is shattered and broken. Life is fragmentary and has gone to pieces. Life needs to be reintegrated into a satisfying unity. But psychology, apart from the reality of Christian experience, cannot provide the means of reintegration. For purposes of scientific experiment Carney Landis of Columbia University once submitted himself to a full psychoanalysis. In the course of the experiment he asked his analyst, “What is normality?”

“I don’t know,” replied the analyst, “I never deal with normal people.”

“But suppose a really normal person came to you?” Landis asked.

“Even though he were normal at the beginning of the analysis the analytical procedure would create a neurosis,” the analyst admitted.

The experience of the New Birth brings spiritual unity to the personality. The soul, previously in conflict because of sinful desires, and disoriented toward God, receives a new nature which manifests itself in a new sense of direction. The life, formerly tied up inwardly and stunted, receives release and incentive through spiritual conversion. A prominent man in India said of E. Stanley Jones, “We always know where Dr. Jones in his messages is coming out. Even if he begins with the binomial theorem he will come out at conversion.” Upon hearing this, Jones commented, “Most assuredly I come out at conversion, for life comes out there.”

“Except a man be born again” he cannot enter the kingdom of God. “Except a man be born again” he cannot enjoy the kingdom of God. “Except a man be born again” he is not in possession of the spiritual power to live as a citizen of that Kingdom. “Except a man be born again” he will not see the kingdom of God in its consummated glory.

How expressively, in his conversion hymn, Charles Wesley has described the experience of the New Birth! The “poet of the Methodist Revival” was ill at the time, in the home of a brazier named Bray, on Little Britain Street in London. Like his brother John, Charles had been seeking earnestly the rest that comes from vital, personal faith. It was on Whitsunday, May 21, 1738, three days before his brother’s Aldersgate experience, that he entered into the kingdom of God and found his spiritual rest. The following morning he penned this moving description of his spiritual conversion:

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Saviour’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

For me, who Him to death pursued

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light:

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread,

Jesus, with all in Him, is mine;

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th’ eternal throne,

And claim the crown, thro’ Christ my own.

In the life of every man, the kingdom of God can become a glorious reality when Christ’s words are taken seriously; “Except a man be born again.…”

Jehovah-Jireh

Who set the morning stars to singing

And caused their light-years to commence?

Who packed the atom’s annihilative power

In such minute circumference?

Who gave the earth to its diurnal spinning

With a divinely cosmic shove?

Who brought the moon to bear upon the tides

And ranged the firmament above?

He is the holy just Jehovah

And we His creatures sin-defiled.

Nor can we by finite endeavor

Our ruined souls make reconciled.

But Deity divinely loving

Purposed before the world’s foundation

His Son to be our sin atonement

And reconcile His lost creation.

Now I can face Jehovah-Jireh

When space and time in Him are ending,

And with His universe triumphant sing

Redeemed creation’s song ascending.

JOAN WISE JESURUN

THE EDITOR

Third in a Series (Part 1)

Through all the dark hours of Israel’s history the promised and longed-for messianic redemption was “the one prop and stay” of the Hebrew community.

Various expectations concerning the Messiah of Old Testament promise determined acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ. Jewish religious leaders in the first century looked for a supernaturally-endowed ruler who would restore the nation to socio-political greatness. Until his very ascension even Jesus’ disciples harbored this hope of an immediate earthly manifestation of the divine Kingdom (Acts 1:6).

In view of Revelation 20 many Christians still expect an earthly millennium to consummate the divine plan of redemption. And in view of Romans 9–11 they insist that in the crowning days of the Christian era the Jew will play a significant role in relation to the Church.

Except for a small remnant, modern orthodox Israelis regard the return of the Jews to Palestine and the revival of the State as a spiritual event that relates somehow to a coming divine era of justice and peace on earth. In at least one significant respect, however, these Israelis differ from New Testament Jews. First century Hebrews like Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, Paul, and many thousands more (Acts 21:20) believed that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of Old Testament promise. This conviction prevailed even though inquiry about the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel yielded no information about “the ‘times’ or the ‘seasons’ ” (recall the clue to the mystery of the “end of days” in Daniel, the one canonized apocalyptic tract). These early believers rejoiced in their newfound Messiah. And they recognized the relationship between the unbelief of the Jewish nation and the divine founding of the Church as a primarily spiritual rather than earthly body. By contrast, while modern orthodox Israelis see providence at work in the Jews’ return from dispersion and in restoration of the nation, they are uncertain about the messianic concept.

In New Testament times both believing and unbelieving Jew’s referred the messianic promises to a person (John 1:19 f.; Acts 8:34). Today the Natorei Karta, a small cluster of some 5,000 Orthodox Jew’s in Jerusalem, consider the State of Israel a profane development because it is “Messiahless.” They believe that messianic redemption will accompany the promised return of the dispersed Jew; they therefore dismiss the Zionist movement as an effort of self-redemption. Most strictly Orthodox Jews now look for an ideal messianic leader who is spectacular in his exploits but not supernatural in essence. They are unsure, however, just how to link this expectation to the already inaugurated state. Besides those who await a personal reigning Messiah are 200–300 Messianic Jews or Christian Hebrews who look to the supernatural and glorious return of Jesus of Nazareth to inaugurate the messianic age. For them the recent regathering of the Jews even in their present “preliminary state of unbelief” in the Christian Messiah is a spiritual sign. Most Israelis, however, have no expectation of a personal Messiah.

The Messiah In Judaism

Modern confusion over the messianic concept results from the confluence of biblical and philosophic influences. Already in New Testament times Jewish hope of national socio-political deliverance overshadowed the importance of personal spiritual-moral redemption. And in modern times further deference to religious philosophers, especially to the medieval codifier Moses Maimonides (A.D. 1135–1204), has complicated the messianic hope still more.

In the Old Testament, Messiah (the Anointed) appears first as a designation for the anointed King Saul (at a time when David resists the temptation to kill him). Here Messiah 1. is a man in the flesh and 2. fills a special office in an exalted spirit. At this stage this office does not necessarily uniquely qualify the nature of the exalted one. Appearance of the Messiah in flesh and blood was never realized in Old Testament times. Jewish thinkers recognize that Christianity, by contrast, spread because Christians worshiped Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah who unites humanity to both a divine office and nature.

It is noteworthy that in most statements idealizing King David, the Talmud exonerates David of the very sins which the Bible attributes to him. A distinguished traditional Jew, Professor Ernst Simon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, comments on this fact. He explains David’s exoneration from fault by inability of the Jews of the Diaspora any longer to withstand thorough prophetic self-criticism, and by their widening preoccupation with the ideal David who was to come.

Later tradition, however, dimmed this expectation of a personal Messiah. In the third century A.D. one rabbinic authority, Samuel, declared: “There is no difference between the times of the Messiah and our times today, except that the yoke of the foreign kingdoms on us will be broken.” This view virtually reduces messianic hope to the expectation of an era of peace that Israel will attain in connection with universal freedom.

A third tradition—which combines the vision of an era of national and international justice and peace with the expectation of a personal Messiah—reaches back both to the Old Testament prophets and to the Talmud.

Today’s typical Jew, however, gains spiritual inspiration less from the Old Testament itself than from rabbinical interpretation in respect to messianic expectation. It is significant, therefore, that Maimonides, one of the great rabbinical ‘deciders,’ offered decisions not on practical problems alone but on questions of theology and philosophy as well. Maimonides’ Review of the Torah ends with an exposition of “The Messianic Era” (Yale Library of Judaica recently published this work under the title The Book of Kings). Here Maimonides differentiates between 1. the days of the Messiah and 2. eschatology (the last days). With certain reservations he adopts the “political” interpretation of the former. The Messiah-King who liberates the Jews from their yoke must have moral perfections—unlike Bar Kochba (leader of an ill-fated rebellion in the second century A.D.) who died in the fulness of his sins. For Maimonides the messianic reference has also a second stage: “the last days” in which Isaiah’s prophecy will come true, and God’s word will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

An illuminating treatment of the messianic movements and so-called false messiahs studding Hebrew history is Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver’s book, A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (Macmillan, 1927). Silver indicates that messianic stirring quickens in times of international crisis when the map of the earth is subject to swift change, and that the messianic spokesmen have consistently pledged the restoration of the Jews of Palestine.

What Of Messiah?

During my 11 days in Israel this summer, I spoke with hundreds of Israelis—taxi drivers, tour guides, government leaders, university professors, religious leaders, and many others “at my side.” In these conversations, I invariably posed one question: “And who or what is Messiah, as you see it?” Their answers were remarkably illuminating.

Although here and there the reality of God is energetically rejected, there is little open philosophical atheism in Israel and the number of vocal atheists is small. “Once I believed, but the Jews’ sufferings under Hitler put an end to that,” said one of our drivers. By and large, Western European Jews drifted much farther from Orthodoxy than Yemenite, Iraqi, and other Jewish immigrants. Agnostics may be found in government posts, university faculties, and among the common people. But even Jews who reject supernaturalism as well as “practical atheists” retain overtones of religious idealism through the restoration of the Jewish State which attracts a socio-political content to the messianic-idea. Virtually all Jews are messianists (that is, they expect Messiah) even if they are unsure whether Messiah is a person, an outpouring of the Spirit, or an ideal of political justice. “Messiah is not a person,” said a staff member of the Foreign Office (giving his personal view), but rather “an ideal State, and Israel will lead the nations in establishing it.” But another Foreign Office staff member expressed his view in this way: “Messiah is an ideal of justice, peace, and good will. This ideal holds universal significance; its realization is not suspended on Israel as the bearer of political redemption.”

Unbelief in Messiah as a person leads to a wide diversity of views, but widespread retention of the messianic-idea. Many Hebrew rabbis contend that the messianic concept is “deliberately vague” in Jewish theology, that the element of biblical faith animates people in many ways. Intellectuals may complicate the subject by looking for “dialectical development” of the messianic idea. “The messianic concept,” such spokesmen argue, “doesn’t begin and end with Isaiah, nor the Talmud, nor the medieval mystics.” Rabbi Bernard Casper, dean of students of the Hebrew University, says Messiah is a “forward-looking” concept which links the Hebrews and their ingathering to the Holy Land. Many rabbis therefore refer the messianic concept to an era, not to a person. It includes also the condition of peace and co-operation between all peoples as a national outlook for Israel, and as a universal development that enlists and preserves other nationalities as well. The late Dr. Leo Kohn, political advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented that “there are many, many interpretations,” but recalled especially Maimonides’ view of a coming age of freedom and universal peace. “This age will be not simply another pax Romana when all were subject to the (Roman) emperor. Instead it will fulfill the vision of Isaiah 2: all nations will be equal before God, and all will come to his holy mountain.” But, added Dr. Kohn, there may be more to the messianic concept than an era: Messiah could be an ideal King—a man—who rules the earth.

It is interesting that in Jaffa, where he ministers at a “synagogue” for Bulgarian Jews, “Rabbi” Zion—no longer a ‘recognized’ rabbi among Jews—affirms that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, in fact, he may be the very Son of God. Zion (sometimes misrepresented in the American religious press as a convert to orthodox Christianity) thus represents a mediating view. He personally acknowledges difficulties with the doctrine of the Trinity.

Blocs Of Messianic Opinion

About 200–300 Christian Jews along with many Christian Arabs in Israel worship Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah of the Old Testament promise and look for his return in power to usher in the millennial era.

But the majority of Israelites reflect other lines of thought and speculation. While messianic vision remains, expectation of the Messiah has waned. Ben-Gurion has said, “Whereas two centuries ago a Jew would have described himself as “a descendant of Abraham, who obeys the commandments and hopes for the coming of the Messiah,” this definition no longer satisfies “a large part of our people, perhaps the greater part. Ever since the Emancipation, the Jewish religion has ceased to be the force which joins and unites us. Nor is the bond with the Jewish nation now common to all Jews, and there are not many Jews in our time who hope for the coming of the Messiah.” But he added: “The Messianic vision of redemption … fills the very air of Jewish history … and … in our own day has led to a revolution in the history of our people.”

Some 35 to 40 per cent of the population is reportedly indifferent to the question of Messiah and disinterested in its precise definition and exposition. On the other hand only a small proportion deliberately dismiss the messianic question. Such persons usually assimilate whatever spiritual nourishment the idea of messianic mission provides but insist that because it “produced” the messianic vision Judaism is therefore not ultimately dependent on it. For some, covenant replaces messianism as the central concept. For others neither the Hebrew vision of redemption in our times, nor attachment to the Holy Land or to the Hebrew language rests on devout attachment to Hebrew religious law and tradition.

While the support for differing major positions is difficult to gauge, a long-time Israeli resident on the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem distinguishes them as follows:

1. Messiah is a man (supernatural in office but not in being), an ideal ruler. This is now the Orthodox Jewish view held by 25 to 30 per cent of Israeli Jews (mainly immigrants from Oriental lands and elderly Jews), and taught in the Orthodox religious schools.

2. Messiah is a personal outpouring of the divine Spirit upon individuals. About 10 per cent of the Israeli Jews, mainly liberal intellectuals and some socialist youth and (as our informant put it) some other “nice vague people,” hold this theory.

3. Messiah is the moral ideal of justice and peace wholly transcendent to present history, but to be manifested historically in the “messianic era.” Only a small percentage, mainly “real intellectuals,” believe this interpretation. Its advocates equate messianism with the idea of socio-political-spiritual fulfillment or perfection, a condition as yet completely outside present reality.

4. Messiah is the socio-political ideal of justice and peace gradually being realized in the Israeli State. Perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the people follow this view. Professor Mordecai Kaplan declares that Hebrews live no longer in the age of “the coming” of Messiah, but in the days of the Messiah himself. Dispersed Jews now live in freedom, hence are redeemed, he says, even if this “salvation” is, as it were, a kindness of the Gentiles, while the State of Israel is Messiah for the others. (Kaplan’s view has been criticized because it no longer stresses “the ingathering of the exiles,” one of the chief historic tenets of the messianic concept. Zionists oppose the tendency to equate the experiences of the Diaspora and those of immigrants regathered from exile.)

5. Messiah is the state of Israel in its ideal development. Ten to fifteen per cent of the people follow this concept. They represent many “primitive” citizens as well as Ben-Gurion and others who speak of “the messianic character of the movement of the State.” In Ben-Gurion’s words the prophets of Israel not only preached righteousness, loving-kindness, and mercy, but also foretold “material and political redemption for their people.… After the rise of the State and even after the ingathering of the exiles … we … shall not have reached the end of the vision … a vision that is both Jewish and universal … comprising all man’s supreme aspirations and values. This is possible only in the Messianic vision.… The vision of redemption of the prophets of Israel … was not confined to the Jewish people, although the redemption of Israel was a basic and inseparable part of the vision.

… Together with the redemption of Israel our prophets foretold the redemption of all the nations, the whole world.… The miracle that has taken place in our generation is that there has been established an instrument for the implementation and realization of the vision of redemption—and the instrument is the State of Israel, in other words the sovereign people in Israel.” The messianic vision, Ben-Gurion contends, assumes different forms in different periods. In our time he identifies the “inner kernel” of the messianic vision with the national sovereignty of the Jew. This inner kernel has “germinated in the State of Israel,” an event which signals national redemption of the Jew in the promised land. Ben-Gurion considers the state, however, not just an end in itself, but an instrument for a mission. The renewal of national sovereignty in a moral state assertedly constitutes the Jewish people once more a chosen people whose mission promises human redemption by replacing tyranny and cruelty with international peace, justice, and equality.

Messianism And State Policy

Many Hebrew writers do not hesitate to personify the State as redeemer of the people. One writer, for example, asserts that the new State “redeemed hundreds of thousands of Jews from poverty and degeneration in exile, and transformed them into proud, creative Jews … it poured new hope into the hearts.…” By restoring “as in the days of the Bible, a complete unity of existence and experience, which embraces in a Jewish framework all the contents of the life of man and people …” the State has delivered the Jew in Israel from the Diaspora’s divided allegiance to Gentile rule in political-economic affairs and to Jewish authority in their restricted community of Mosaic faith.

Precisely this tendency to reduce messianism to state policy by elevating the political factor has brought criticism from scholars like Dr. Martin Buber. He agrees that the messianic vision imposes a unique divine demand upon nations to realize Messiah’s Kingdom and thus to participate in the world’s redemption. But he considers today’s tendency to secularize messianism quite unjustifiable. Many, Buber protests, think only in “the narrow naturalistic form which is restricted to the Ingathering of the Exiles,” and thereby eliminate belief in the coming of the kingdom of God. “A Messianic idea without the yearning for the redemption of mankind and without the desire to take part in its realization is no longer identical with the Messianic visions of the prophets of Israel.”

This widespread tendency to merge the biblical vision of an ideal messianic society with the new State of Israel elicits sharp fire from American critics of Ben-Gurion’s Zionism. Hebrews, of course, have long linked the messianic hope of redemption with their national existence and destiny. Zionism, therefore, gives religious significance to the current politico-historical events that established the new state, and regards the new state as the national center of “the whole house of Israel.” Some dispersed Jews, especially in America, criticize the Zionist movement because it seems to advance a nationalistic political thrust behind a façade of Judaism. In this respect American nonorthodox Jews criticize the new state as severely as the orthodox Naturei Karta, although from a different perspective than personal messianic expectation. They argue that since 1900 the Zionist movement has been essentially political, despite some religious elements and motivations. They call it a well-financed national political mechanism that exploits the traditional messianic hope to gain the support of those who profess Judaism. Critics of Zionism note the tendency to identify movements toward independence as modern revival; to designate new social ideals and opportunities as integral to the vision of messianic redemption. These critics trace establishment of the Jewish state not to God but to the Hebrew’s self-confidence in his own ability to shape a new destiny. Nowhere does the newborn state’s Proclamation of Independence mention God’s name except for figurative reference to the “Rock of Israel.” Motivation for establishing the state, it is contended, was not religious (an impulse from the Torah) but rather patriotic—an achievement of Jews weary of persecution, exile, and foreign rule. The new state therefore assertedly rests on secular, and not on messianic foundations, and stems from human organization rather than from divine providence.

Clearly, T. S. Eliot is the most influential poet writing in English in our time. There is probably no living writer about whose work there has grown up such a body of critical commentary. So great has been his reputation that a few years ago an American university had to move the site of a lecture by the poet from its largest auditorium to the football stadium (in the manner of a Billy Graham rally) to accommodate the 14,000 people who wished to hear him, a phenomenon surely unique in the current neglect of poetry.

Eliot’s work, both poetry and prose, although the poetry alone can be considered here, has a peculiar significance for the Christian, whether he be theologian, preacher, or layman, for Eliot has diagnosed and described with the most acute perception the spiritual malaise of our time. He has portrayed the lost inhabitants of “the Waste Land” with an irony that is at once pitiless and compassionate. He has shaped phrases that are unforgettable and has fashioned rhythms that, once heard, haunt the ear forever. He has fused the past and the present, ugliness and beauty, the majestic and the tawdry, the timely and the timeless, in poetry which is (according to his own unrivaled definition) “thought felt.” And in some of his work, he has lifted a prophetic voice that has echoes of the great voices of the past in an idiom that is uniquely his own.

While his name is known everywhere since he was awarded the Nobel prize in 1947, and while his greatness as an artist and his importance as a critic are generally acknowledged, the Christian implications of his work are probably not widely recognized. Surely if the history of literature teaches us anything, it is the power of great poetry to survive “the rude wasting of old Time.” Whether Eliot’s poetry has this quality of enduring greatness, or whether it is likely to be limited to the age which gave it birth, we cannot say. But it is a voice crying in the wilderness of our Waste Land.

In his earlier work the almost innumerable literary allusions in several languages, combined with the abruptness and discontinuity of his juxtapositions, weave patterns so complex as to be almost incomprehensible to some intelligent readers; but, unlike the work of many of his imitators, his patterns, in spite of their apparent fragmentation, their unusual syntax, do yield up meaning upon study and analysis. And the riches, once discovered, are certainly worth the strenuous effort they demand.

One may compass a small and simple chapel in a brief inspection, but the great cathedral requires time and study for its appreciation. So the true poet demands and deserves our study and reflection. No mere “reading” will yield up his riches. Nor will a smattering of anthology selections give any idea of such a poet’s stature, nor any proper understanding of his work, for it is a whole and rises structurally out of the vision of a lifetime.

The Pre-Christian Mood

Eliot’s work ranges the modern world from the time of the First World War. It falls basically into three stages. There is the first period of the early poems, prior to his conversion to Christianity, a period characterized by a revulsion from the spiritual aridity and moral decadence he saw making a waste land of our Western culture.

In this stage, his work is chiefly negative, beginning with the pathetic portrait in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” of a self-conscious, indecisive and futile middle-aged bachelor of the Boston Brahmin class who is afraid of life, afraid of its demands, its responsibilities, its mystery. Trivial decisions and enervating indecision beset him, compass him about, drown him in frustration.

Eliot can move from this refined and inhibited type of character, who “measures out his life with coffee spoons,” to the man of excess vitality and little intelligence, “Apeneck Sweeney.” With his incomparable gift for irony, Eliot pictures him “among the nightingales” that are singing near the Convent of the Sacred Heart where he is ashore in some low dive about to be “rolled.” The vulgarity of the scene with the drunken “person” who tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees, is sharply juxtaposed against the singing of the nightingales which bring to mind the night of Agammemnon’s murder by his wife. So, as frequently in other poems, the noble and tragic chords of the past are played against the ignoble and strident dissonances of the present.

In “Gerontion” there is an old man in a dry month waiting for rain and for death without having really lived:

I was neither at the hot gates

Nor fought in the warm rain

Nor knee deep in the salt march, heaving a cutlass,

Bitten by flies, fought.

My house is a decayed house …

In this poem there is also a sense of imminent judgment.

In the juvescence of the year

Came Christ the tiger …

No longer is He the Lamb of the paschal feast, of the Holy Communion,

To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk

Among whispers …

Now He is the Lion, the tiger. “Us he devours.”

The poem is an almost terrifying compression of the horror of the spiritually purposeless and unredeemed life. “Vacant shuttles weave the wind.” It is a modern version of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes. All is vanity, and age is a slow dwindling to dust.

In all these early portraits of Eliot’s gallery there is an almost surgical objectivity. His people are like patients “etherized upon a table.” They are dead while they live.

It is this aspect of our society that preoccupies him at this time and horrifies him. It is the spiritual emptiness of “the hollow men,” sterile, impotent, without purpose, drifting in a sort of limbo like Dante’s, a valley of shadows, of dry bones, a cactus land, where they ‘grope together and avoid speech,” where “lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone,” unable to complete even an incantation of the Lord’s Prayer. They can only dance around the prickly pear in a sort of nursery ritual awaiting the end of the world. They are not “lost, violent souls,” but only hollow men.

His most famous poem of this period, “The Waste Land,” is an extremely concentrated and cryptic analysis of our Western civilization, without God, and therefore without faith, without hope, without genuine love. The perversions and travesties of love are revealed at all levels of the social scale and are sharply juxtaposed to hone the incisive irony of the sketches.

There is first, in the section entitled “A Game of Chess,” the portrait of a lady in her boudoir, and the description of the sybaritic setting not only parodies but rivals in beauty the famous description of the barge of Cleopatra which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of his Enobarbus. The unnamed woman here is clearly distraught, nervous, neurotic.

“What shall we do tomorrow? What shall we ever do?” she cries finally, and the masculine voice of resigned ennui replies

The hot water at ten.

And if it rains, a closed car at four.

And we shall play a game of chess,

Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

Directly from this scene among the upper class, we are taken to a pub at closing time where two women are talking over their beer about a third who is trying to prevent the birth of a child, her sixth. (She is only thirty-one.) Love at both levels has been twisted, debased, its growth inhibited, and its proper fulfillment denied.

The third scene, mediating between these two, is curiously placed in the third section. Here we find the same denial of genuine love. A young typist “home at teatime” submits passively, morally and spiritually apathetic, without any real desire, to the utterly selfish approach of “the young man carbuncular.” When he has gone, she rises, “hardly aware of her departed lover”

Paces about her room again, alone,

She smooths her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone.

The poem ends with a kind of wistful hope. There is a sound of thunder. Perhaps there will be rain in the desolate land. At least the speaker, the mutilated and impotent ruler (symbolic of fallen man’s spiritual heritage and moral incapacity?), can attempt to set his own lands in order. There is here at least the recognition of man’s need of grace, the life-giving water on a thirsty land.

One can detect in the poems of this early period Eliot’s increasing revulsion as he contemplated life at its various levels without God and without hope.

Spiritual Affirmation

Eventually, in 1927, after a growing interest in the English church and state, he united with the Anglican church and became a British subject. Exactly what motivated or advanced his conversion to Christianity we cannot say, for he has not told us explicitly. But his reading of Lancelot Andrewes, the great Elizabethan Christian and scholar, and the metaphysical poets, chiefly Donne, and particularly his reading of Dante, were undoubtedly factors. And the very great influence of the critic, T. E. Hulme, is also notable. At any rate, the change becomes apparent in his poetry and critical essays.

The second stage in Eliot’s development is characterized by a turning toward and statement of spiritual affirmations. At the beginning of this period there are two specifically Christian poems, biblical in their source and both related to the Incarnation, a concept which is to become central in his thinking. There is “Journey of the Magi,” based on a Christmas sermon by Lancelot Andrewes, and suggesting the Birth that was “hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.” The dramatic voice, one of the Magi, says that they returned to their places, their Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

“A Song for Simeon” speaks in a similar voice, but here the old man speaking has come from the Chosen People who have been anticipating and longing for the appearing of their Messiah. Now the aged prophet can die in peace, having seen His salvation.

Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and

unspoken Word,

Grant Israel’s consolation

To one who has eighty years and no tomorrow.

But the most famous poem of this period of turning to positive Christian themes and values is undoubtedly “Ash-Wednesday.” It is a poem of conversion, and one of the central symbols in it is the purgatorial spiral stair, the turning, the moral struggle, and recovery. This poem most clearly suggests the influence of Dante and is full of echoes of his work, especially the Vita Nuova and the Purgatorio. But there are biblical allusions also, from Song of Songs, Ezekiel, the Revelation, and the Gospels. It begins with the death of hope, with the existential despair of self. There is a rejection of carnal love as incapable of satisfying the thirsty soul, but still there is the persistence of desire.

Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,

Lilac and brown hair …

And there is echoed the word of the centurion in Luke, “Lord, I am not worthy.” Then from this Everlasting No, and from the Center of Indifference, which Carlyle a century earlier had so vividly depicted, the poet moves to the Everlasting Yea, to resurgent faith, to the lost vision of Light. But the Word still escapes, is beyond reach. There is the need for grace, there is the prayer for humility, and there is the final surrender in the phrase of Dante’s, “Our peace in His will.”

The images in this poem, as its title would suggest, are essentially Catholic, but, beneath the images, a spiritual experience is shared which is very similar to any genuine turning, whether Catholic or Protestant, a turning to God the Saviour from the false gloria mundi. The thoughtful evangelical Christian can recognize here the spiritual ascent essential to the growing experience of the grace of God in the work of the Spirit in sanctification. It is no accident, although it is a curious observation missed by many, that the two most widely separated extremes of the Christian faith—the hierarchical and liturgical Roman Catholic and the free, almost formless Society of Friends—meet at the point of the mystical experience of God in self-surrender and self-abnegation, and the need for grace and redemption. Actually, Eliot’s work combines in a mysterious fashion strands from the Puritan and Calvinist as well as the Catholic traditions. Undoubtedly he is eclectic, but not in the amorphous manner of Emerson. All that he has gathered from the literatures of the world, from anthropology and modern psychology, from Greek and Oriental thought, he has woven in some way into a basically Christian design.

Eliot moves from these earlier “Christian” poems in the “third voice” to a group of poems of the highest order of contemplative and philosophical verse. The group, now known as “Four Quartets,” begun with “Burnt Norton” in 1934, was not completed until the third stage of his development in 1943, although this group is essentially of the second.

It would be impossible in a short essay to deal at all adequately with the closely-woven texture of these poems. They contain the finest distillation of his thought. Not only are they structurally and musically supreme works of art, but they carry a very heavy burden. They evolve and whirl like galaxies of light out of the mysteries of Time, not only out of “the pastness of the past,” as he says, but out of its presence. As Matthiessen suggests in his perceptive analysis, The Achievement of T. S. Eliot, here is

the difficult paradoxical Christian view of how man lives both ‘in and out of time,’ how he is immersed in the flux and yet can penetrate to the eternal by apprehending timeless existence within time and above it. But even for the Christian the moments of release from the pressures of the flux are rare, though they alone redeem the sad wastage of otherwise unillumined existence.

And in the same essay, commenting on “The Dry Salvages,” the third of the quartets, Matthiessen says further,

The doctrine of Incarnation is the pivotal point on which Eliot’s thought has swung away from the nineteenth century’s romantic heresies of Deification. The distinction between thinking of God become man through the Saviour, or of man becoming God through his own divine potentialities, can be at the root of political as well as religious belief. Eliot has long affirmed that Deification, the reckless doctrine of every great man as a Messiah, has led ineluctably to Dictatorship. What he has urged in his Idea of a Christian Society is a reestablished social order in which both governors and governed find their completion in their common humility before God.

The Quartets have rightly become the most intensively studied and the most extensively expounded of his poems. They best represent the ripeness of his wisdom and the intricate complexity of his thought.

But his most explicit statement of Christian themes is to be found in the choruses from The Rock, a pageant performed in 1934, which he helped to write on behalf of a fund for the repair of old churches in the London diocese.

The chorus opens with the famous passage on the “endless cycle of idea and action,” modern man’s whirling activity and expansive knowledge which bring him no nearer to God.

Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The weakened plight of the Church is graphically set forth, with the excuses men offer for its neglect in city and suburb.

We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor

To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.

If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.

Against this indifference, against the shoddy house of plaster and corrugated roofing erected for worship, “filled with a litter of Sunday newspapers,” the voice of the poet is lifted like the voice of a prophet of old declaiming against the sins of his people. Not only the rhythms and accent, but the very words beat with the indignant intensity of one who speaks his divine burden:

The Word of the Lord came unto me, saying:

O miserable cities of designing men …

The Word goes unheard in the cities

And the wind shall say, ‘Here were decent godless people:

Their only monument the asphalt road

And a thousand lost golf balls.’

The Choruses mount from invective and denunciation, through passionate and heart-broken appeal, to surrender and the ultimate vision of Light, celebrated in a hymn to Light that rivals Milton’s.

This work not only epitomizes the affirmations of the second stage in Eliot’s development, but strangely leads into the third, characterized by ambiguous analyses and tentative proposals. Made aware, by this first venture into dramatic poetry for the theater, of the possibilities in the more direct use of the “third voice” to reach the unchurched. Eliot has since devoted his writing almost wholly to the dramatic form. He has done more probably than any other writer to quicken the revival of religious drama in our time.

The Third Stage

Murder in the Cathedral, written for the Canterbury festival in 1935, was his first full-length drama. This dramatization of the murder of Thomas á Becket in 1170 (projected in a more recent version by Jean Anouilh), had a number of themes: the spiritual testing of a martyr facing death; the spiritual training of people witnessing his sacrifice; and the conflict between Church and State, becoming in our time again a live issue with the rise of Hitler’s Germany and the spread of communism. The play is full of significant insights and memorable lines.

However, Eliot soon abandoned the historical setting for his poetic dramas and attempted a much more difficult thing, to write poetic drama out of contemporary material with contemporary characters.

In this third stage, the Christian reader or spectator at first will be puzzled and disappointed by the almost total absence of any specific Christian reference. But the later plays have been concerned with people in need of Christian grace and discovering in one way or another their need.

Of the four contemporary plays produced since 1939, The Cocktail Party probably suggests more of the Christian message than the others. Instead of a clergyman, there is the now familiar psychiatrist. No specifically Christian solutions are offered to the dilemmas of the characters, but indirectly they are forced toward them.

The young girl Celia, who had been in love with the married protagonist, Edward Chamberlayne, shares her problem with the psychiatrist. There are two symptoms, she says, that disturb her. One is the feeling of the lack of real communication in the noises people make when they talk to each other. The second, she hesitates to express. Reilly, the psychiatrist, persuades her to share it.

Celia: It sounds ridiculous—but the only word for it That I can find, is a sense of sin.

Reilly: You suffer from a sense of sin, Miss Copplestone? This is most unusual.

Celia: It seemed to me abnormal.

So sharp is Eliot’s irony.

Celia eventually abandons the attempt to find peace in merely human love, and gives herself to the divine. She goes to Africa as a missionary nurse. And we learn at a later cocktail party among the same, although changed, characters with whom the play began, that she has been killed by the natives there. Her death, and the shocking manner of it, affect differently all who hear of it.

This is the method of the plays—by indirections to find directions out. They will not satisfy at all the one who desires a more explicit statement of Christian themes. But in his plays, Eliot thinks of himself as a sort of Virgil, preparing men for the Advent, making them aware of their need. And surely there is a place for such a contribution.

It is only as one studies and reflects upon the total work of a great poet that he can come into any adequate perception of his total vision. C. S. Lewis has spoken directly in Christian terms to the unbelieving sophis treated minds of our day. It has been Eliot’s more difficult task to speak obliquely to them, to steal upon them unawares, to haunt with images that stir memoir and desire, to waylay with hopes and aspirations not wholly dead, to surprise the unbeliever with gleams of faith that will not leave him at ease in the desiccated charade of his existence.

The Christian witness, be he minister or layman, will be better equipped to communicate with the intelligent unbeliever in our time if he knows the work of this significant poet.