A new mystic has burst upon the contemporary consciousness in the person of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French savant who died some half-dozen years ago but whose writing are only now being translated into English. Besides being a Jesuit priest, de Chardin was a paleontologist of distinction who spent many years in China. The last four years of his life were lived in New York. The translation of his book The Phenomenon of Man, which appeared in 1959, has already gained for him a remarkable posthumous reputation in the English-speaking world, despite the difficulty and novelty of much of its thought and language. In it he presented an evolutionistic perspective of man as developing into a new species, the category of which has been defined by the Incarnation.

It is evident that in setting before himself the task of reconciling the concepts of evolution and incarnation de Chardin has been faced with the necessity for breaking with the classical mystic concept of matter as an impediment to the soul and of bringing about some kind of reconciliation between the categories of “nature” and “grace” which for so long have been divorced in the theology of Roman Catholicism. This he has attempted to achieve through the development of a kind of “materialistic” mysticism which sees God everywhere—“in all that is most hidden, most solid, and most ultimate in the world.” The meaning and method of this mysticism, which is central to the thought of de Chardin, are expounded in his book Le Milieu Divin. An English translation has appeared under the same (untranslated) title.

In the first place, de Chardin calls for the “divinization” of our activities. Viewing the universe as a single whole, the centre and sun of which is Christ in whom all things consist, he conceives the power of the Incarnate Word not only as animating the higher reaches of existence but even as penetrating matter itself. “Nine out of ten practising Christians feel that man’s work is always at the level of a ‘spiritual encumbrance’ … that time spent at the office or the studio, in the fields or in the factory, is time taken away from prayer and adoration,” with the consequence that they lead a “double or crippled life in practice.” The Christian, however, should experience the “sur-animating” power of God in his daily activity which enables him to collaborate in building the Pleroma and thus to “bring to Christ a little fulfillment.” Moreover, his work should be to him “the very path to sanctity” and “a manifold instrument of detachment,” so that, through the divinization of his actions in Jesus Christ, it is not selfish ends but “God alone whom he pursues through the reality of created things.”

The next stage on this spiritual journey is described as “the divinization of our passivities,” that is, of the things which we endure or undergo. There are “passivities of growth,” such as the life force within man, and there are “passivities of diminishment,” such as misfortunes suffered outwardly and, in the inward sphere, “natural failings, physical defects, intellectual or moral weaknesses, as a result of which the field of our activities, of our enjoyment, of our vision, has been pitilessly limited since birth.” There is, too, the inescapable deterioration of old age. Death, finally, is “the sum and consummation of all our diminishments.” But we must welcome death by finding God in it, by embracing it as our “excentration,” as our “reversion to God” and the step “that makes us lose all foothold within ourselves.”

A consideration of de Chardin’s doctrine of matter in relation to the mystic’s ascent to the contemplation of God in his essence indicates, however, that it is not radically different from ancient Pythagoreanism, even though he avoids the crude dualism of the latter by placing matter within an evolutionary process that leads to an ultimate spiritual state. He is, indeed, able to speak of “holy matter,” redeemed by the act of the Incarnation and informed with a spiritual power. Matter, for him, is not so much a weight as a slope, up which we may “climb towards the light, passing through, so as to attain God, a given series of created things which are not exactly obstacles but rather foot-holds”; and he maintains that “the soul can only rejoin God after having traversed a specific path through matter.” De Chardin would have been quite at home with Socrates!

But it is not only the soul that is to achieve this spiritual fulfillment: the world itself, by means of progressive sublimation, is to attain its consummation in Christ Jesus, so that de Chardin is able to speak of “the general ‘drift’ of matter towards spirit,” until “one day the whole divinizable substance of matter will have passed into the souls of men; all the chosen dynamisms will have been recovered: and then our world will be ready for the Parousia.” His, however, is still the age-old objective of mysticism, namely, to escape from the world. Thus he writes: “The pagan loves the earth in order to enjoy it and confines himself within it; the Christian in order to make it purer and draw from it the strength to escape from it.”

What de Chardin envisages is, in fact, nothing less than the transubstantiation of the universe, brought about by “the omnipresence of christification,” the dynamism of the divine milieu. “The eucharistic transformation,” he says, “goes beyond and completes the transubstantiation of the bread on the altar. Step by step it irresistibly invades the universe.… In a secondary and generalized sense, but in a true sense, the sacramental Species are formed by the totality of the world, and the duration of the creation is the time needed for consecration.”

De Chardin’s writing is beautiful and calmly passionate. But it is gnostic rather than distinctively scriptural. His philosophy is incarnational in the sense of an evolution which gradually incorporates all into the Incarnation. His theology would seem to leave aside the Cross except as significant of a divine participation in the sufferings of his creation. It will be a great day when at last a Roman Catholic thinker breaks free from the tyranny of the analogia entis.

Major Contribution To Bible Study

The Layman’s Bible Commentary, 25 vols. (John Knox Press, 1959 and 1960, about 135 pp. ea., $1.75 or $2 ea., in any combination of four titles), are reviewed by G. Aiken Taylor, Editor, The Presbyterian Journal.

The Layman’s Bible Commentary is the major contribution of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., to the field of Bible study. It is being published at the rate of four volumes each October. Volumes 1 (Introduction), 2 (Genesis), 14 (Hosea thru Jonah), 18 (Luke), and 22 (Galatians thru Colossians) appeared in 1959. Volumes 9 (Psalms), 12 (Jeremiah, Lamentations), 20 (Acts), and 25 (I John thru Revelation) were released in October, 1960.

Faithfully reflecting the spiritual temperament of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., the commentary takes a position which can generally be characterized as evangelical, or conservative. However, it does so with overtones of critical and radical theological interest reflecting the beachheads of liberal thought that have been established within the Presbyterian Church, U.S.

Thus, readers of the latest set of four volumes will notice that Jeremiah actually wrote Jeremiah, John actually wrote the Revelation, and “there is reason to believe that David composed some of the psalms.” The constituency of the sponsoring denomination—mostly conservative—is satisfied.

But the “Word of the Lord” to Jeremiah is to be understood only as a “presentiment”; the Revelation is only one of a large body of apocalyptic literature written to the early Church and in every essential respect alike (although most of it somehow did not get into the Canon); and in Psalms the reader encounters this: “The prophetic thought in vv. 3–6 is too clear to allow a Davidic authorship of Psalm 24.” (David didn’t write Psalm 23 either.) The liberal is not offended.

The actual exposition of the biblical text is generally satisfying to the evangelical seeking enlightenment. Although not a detailed treatment (allowing the author to skip over occasionally difficult verses), the biblical train of thought is rather faithfully reproduced. Some of the volumes (Acts, in the latest set) deal respectfully of the miraculous and reverently of the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, the supernatural implications traditionally recognized in many familiar passages of Scripture are pointedly avoided. The result (Psalms and Revelation, in the latest set) is often incongruous, sometimes incredible.

For instance, Psalm 110 is interpreted without the prophetic elements inferred from it by the Book of Hebrews. The reference to Melchizedek is treated thus: “The psalmist is saying that each Davidic king stands in a long succession of priest-kings who have reigned in Jerusalem and whose most illustrious representative is Melchizedek.” Not only does the reference to a “long succession of priest-kings” suggest a very late date for the psalm; the “priest-king” dual role is a rather novel thought for the period; and the comparison of Melchizedek with David’s line contradicts Hebrews which finds significance precisely in the fact that Melchizedek was without ancestry and without descendants—and a type of Aaron, not David.

The problem, of course, is created by the alleged need to offer an interpretation which does not depend upon any “futuristic” or “prophetic” elements in the biblical text. The resulting effect pops up time and again throughout the commentary, which is not often inclined to allow an interpretation of any passage implying a revelation not ordinarly available to human “presentiment.”

The treatment of the Revelation affords the best example of this weakness, of course. The Revelation is interpreted as “apocalyptic literature,” meaning a style of writing in the sense that poetry is a style, that the fable is a style, or that the parable is a style. Authors of “apocalyptic literature” employed symbols and veiled figures in order to convey hidden meaning to those who knew how to unravel the mystery of the writing. But the “future” perspective in any “apocalyptic literature” is a sort of farsighted attitude of mind with which one faces the present. The result is a philosophy of history such as Augustine’s “City of God.” Says the commentary: “This book contains nothing essentially new to the other portions of our New Testament.”

Bible students seeking a suggestive interpretation of the Psalms, a graphic reproduction of the message of the prophets, a Christian ethic, and a Christian philosophy of history—as well as a discreet and restrained treatment of the Gospel—will find these in the Layman’s Bible Commentary.

On the other hand, Bible students seeking a treatment of history and of prophecy in which the supernatural element is measurably greater than in contemporary human experience will often be disappointed.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Interpreting Jude

A Commentary on the Epistle of Jude, by Richard Wolff (Zondervan, 1960, 150 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by E. Earle Ellis, Visiting Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Bethel Theological Seminary.

A native of Germany, Wolff entered the United States in 1951 and is now associated with the Back to the Bible broadcast. He finds the literary relation of Jude and Second Peter difficult but finally decides for the priority of the latter. The Enoch quotation is a genuine strand of extra-canonical tradition. Likewise, the devil’s contending for the body of Moses must not be regarded as an illustrative argument from a well-known story but an affirmation of an historic reality (p. 38). Despite an occasional slip (e.g., p. 59, 80) the style is lucid and sometimes moving. This is a scholarly effort which evidences a wide acquaintance with the literature. One might have wished, however, for a greater interaction with the twentieth century commentators.

E. EARLE ELLIS

History Of The Bible

The Bible in the Making, by Geddes MacGregor (J. B. Lippincott, 1959, 448 pp., $6) is reviewed by A. Berkeley Mickelsen, Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Wheaton College Graduate School.

Here is a readable, fresh, and living history of the Bible from the time of the composition of the books to the present day. In terms of authorship, background, and composition of the books, the author would be in general agreement with the late R. H. Pfeiffer and James Moffatt.

Most of the book is spent not on the Bible “in the making” but on the Bible in the historical process of being copied and disseminated. The Bible before the age of printing and from Gutenberg to the present occupies the author’s attention. No aspect is neglected. Four chapters are devoted to the King James Version. Particularly outstanding is chapter 13, “The King James Version in Production,” and chapter 12, “The Makers of the King James Version.” What people do not know about the King James Version is astonishing. In an admirable way, MacGregor removes such ignorance with fact coupled with human interest.

The book has 14 appendices. These alone are worth the price of the book. Appendix III is superb: “Modern Languages into which the Bible Has Been Translated (pp. 331–383). The history of the Bible is inherently a fascinating theme. MacGregor’s The Bible in the Making has made actual what was inherently potential.

A. BERKELEY MICKELSON

Dark Atomic Age

The Future of Mankind, by Karl Jaspers, translated from the German by E. B. Ashton (University of Chicago Press, 1961, 342 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, Professor of History, Catawba College.

This is a book that should be read by every liberal who has lost contact with the grim reality of an atomic age, and does not see the crisis which the West faces, and by every evangelical who seeks to keep abreast of the intellectual trends of the day. The liberal will be brought face to face with the utter shallowness of the basic assumptions of that liberalism with which he has been blinded, and the utter futility of his optimistic view of man in belief and progress as it is usually defined. On the other hand, the evangelical will gain a new insight into the stark pessimism which threatens to overwhelm the modern mind.

Writing against a backdrop of the very real possibility of atomic warfare, and his belief that such a conflict would bring only complete ruin to civilization as we know it, and perhaps, the extinction of the race, Karl Jaspers examines the usually accepted proposals for averting such catastrophe and finds them all insufficient in that they offer little or no hope to modern man. His criticisms are marked with great insight and keenness and in these chapters he is at his best. He finds the commonly accepted idea of the soldier and warfare of the past as totally inadequate in the present emergency. In his discussion of neutrality (not to be confused with political neutralism), he recognizes that it can no longer retain its old meaning which it still possessed as late as 1914. “Neutrality means the self-preservation of freedom, and the mere existence of such a political condition irritated totalitarianism” (p. 138). This new neutrality must arm for its own defense, but at the same time such a neutral state “might come to symbolize the possibility of peace for all” (p. 139). But Jaspers does not indicate just how it might become such a symbol. Particularly pertinent in the light of the present situation are his comments on the United Nations. He insists that this organization “resembles a stage on which an incidental interlude is presented” (p. 155), while the great powers make their plans. “It is the sham communications in which they hide their purposes by placing themselves among some eighty major and minor states and recognizing the equality of all” (p. 155). He feels that the United Nations Organization offers little or no hope for permanent peace and should not be relied upon to any great extent. “The UN of today is the ambiguous structure that promotes chaos and wants to bring order out of it at the same time” (p. 159).

Jaspers, almost overwhelmed by the enormity of the crisis confronting humanity, is hard pressed to find a solution. Neither existing institutions, nor science or theology are adequate for the task. The future of mankind does not lie with either Christianity or the Church. They can help, but philosophy is needed, and he defines it as “the thinking that enables man to ascertain what exists and what he wants, to grasp his meaning and to find himself from the source” (p. 196). Thus, the only remedy to be found is an existential approach. There are frequent references to human freedom, which is never adequately defined, and to a rationalism which is existentialist in character. The book displays, with a dismaying clarity, the bankruptcy of “the post modern mind” as it staggers under the load of persistent problems for which it has no answers.

C. GREGG SINGER

Advice For Travelers

Assignment: Overseas, by John Rosengrant and others (Crowell, 1960, 152 pp., $1.95), is reviewed by L. Nelson Bell.

Every pastor should be aware of this book and see that a copy is placed in the hands of any of his parishioners who is to take up residence abroad.

There are Americans who give offense to peoples of lands they visit because they are themselves crude and indifferent to the feelings of others.

There are others who give offense through sheer ignorance of cultures, customs, and the mores in the lands to which they may be assigned. These people want to know how to meet new situations and are anxious to avoid the mistakes which make for resentment and misunderstanding.

Assignment: Overseas is a comprehensive book with a wealth of information and sound advice, written by a number of men with broad experience in the field about which they write.

Business firms with branch offices abroad; our own government with its multiplied representatives scattered around the world; the traveler; even the casual tourist would profit greatly to get this book and read it carefully before leaving our shores.

By so doing they can avoid embarrassment and misunderstanding and at the same time prove worthier representatives of the best America has to offer.

L. NELSON BELL

Spiritual Guidance

My Answer, by Billy Graham (Doubleday, 1960, 259 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by J. D. Grey, Pastor, First Baptist Church, New Orleans, Louisiana.

“Can you tell me this?” is the introductory statement of sincere appeals for help constantly heard by pastors, Christian workers, and others. In My Answer, Billy Graham answers hundreds of questions that have been propounded to him and answered by him over the years in his syndicated column carried by over 150 newspapers five days a week.

These questions show the perplexing problems people face today and the deep distress in which many of them find themselves. Out of his vast experience, study, and observation, Dr. Graham answers these questions in a sympathetic, warm-hearted, Bible-centered manner. The book will prove most helpful to people in all walks of life who have their own problems. It will also prove indispensable in its aid to ministers, teachers, counselors, and other Christians seeking to deal with the disturbed and perplexed soul of many who come to them for spiritual guidance. The great heart and compassionate, sympathetic, understanding spirit of the noted evangelist emerges in glorious fashion as spiritual guidance is given in My Answer.

J. D. GREY

Unique Apologetic

Symbolism in the Bible and in the Church, by Gilbert Cope (Philosophical Library, 1959, 276 pp., $10), is reviewed by Bernard Ramm, Professor of Systematic Theology, California Baptist Theological Seminary.

In the author’s own words, “The general thesis of this book is that the imagery and symbolism of the Bible and the Church are valid and effective still—perhaps even more so now than the rational analysis of human consciousness and natural environment has disclosed such a vast realm of mystery and ineffability” (p. 12). Later he discusses Jung’s theory of psychological archetypes and cites with favor an author who sees in these archetypes “an enormous inexhaustible store of ancient knowledge concerning the most profound relations between God, man, and the cosmos” (p. 87). Then the author says: “It is in this spirit that the remainder of this book is written. It is an attempt to apply some of these ideas to the study of the Scriptures and of Christian worship in the hope that we may be helped to find a way out of the present impasse in religion” (pp. 87–88).

The book is, then, a kind of apologetic, but a very unique one. The Bible is currently rejected by scholars, critics, and scientists, but if the symbols of the Bible are approached through our knowledge of symbolism gained from anthropological research, and if religious experience is interpreted through the Jungian archetypes, then Christianity will become relevant to modern man. This new apologetic must be concretely applied to church architecture.

The author is widely read in certain areas only, but he is very literate. We are taken upon an unusually odd, unusually bizarre, and exceedingly confusing ride. Apparently the only two options Cope reckons with are: (1) orthodoxy of all kinds which takes the teachings of the Bible literally and thus manages to make a supercolossal mess of it; and (2) a strange synthesis of typological hermeneutics of sorts, a theological symbolism derived from a rather extensive cultural survey of symbols, and Jungian psychological archetypes. One example of this bizarre procedure is that he can readily agree that Joseph is Jesus’ father, and that Mary is the holy virgin Mary. Biologically, Joseph is the father of Jesus; but in the rich symbolism of femininity Mary is to the Church the Great Mother and Holy Virgin! This interpretation of the Virgin Birth, Cope tells us, will offend strict orthodox people and atheists (p. 153).

There are three serious weaknesses to the work. First, it is personal to the finger tips. It makes for interesting, fascinating, and unusual reading in spots, but serious theological exposition must be more than a registry of highly personal opinions. Secondly, the root of the problem of the book is theological methodology. Before the author can meaningfully talk about symbolism, it seems to me he must first settle the big problems of theological methodology. He needs to spend many hours with such authors as Paterson, Brunner, Lecerf, Barth, Warfield, Kuyper, and Weber who debate the deep and profound issues in theological methodology. Without fundamental work in theological methodology, the theses of Cope really hang in mid-air.

Thirdly, such a work on symbolism can only come to maturity when it is further based upon studies in linguistics, semantics (the philosophy of language), and logic (the rules of thought). The book suffers immensely in the mind of this reviewer, from a real grounding in any of these three.

BERNARD RAMM

Survey Of Religions

Religions of the East, by Joseph M. Kitagawa (Westminster, 1960, 319 pp. $4.50), is reviewed by Samuel H. Moffett, Professor, Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Seoul, Korea.

This useful and informative survey could be called “The Doctrine of the Church in the Religions of the East.” Kitagawa, who is now at the University of Chicago, has focused short studies of Asia’s major faiths around their varying concepts of the “holy community”: Confucianism and the family, Hinduism and caste, Buddhism and the Samgha, Islam and the Ummah.

The ecclesiastical structures of Hinduism and Confucianism, he points out, are adaptations of already existing social units—family and caste. Buddhism, on the other hand (like Christianity), created its own. Its Samgha originally included laymen as well as priests but was gradually narrowed down to the monastic orders, and only in recent years has Buddhism’s “ecumenical movement,” as Kitagawa puts its, begun to “glimpse … the Samgha Universal in the midst of the brokenness of the empirical Buddhist Community.” The Ummah of Islam is both a holy community and a body politic, a theocratic state which had no priesthood or special holy community apart from society.

Contributing to the value of the studies is a short and useful historical sketch of each religion with special reference to its modern developments.

Comparisons of religion too often fail in their labored claims of likeness or uniqueness. A strength of Kitagawa’s work is that, except in an introductory chapter, he contents himself with description and analysis and avoids misleading comparisons to Christianity.

SAMUEL H. MOFFETT

Lion At Bay

In the Arena, by Isobel Kuhn (C.I.M., 1959, 192 pp., cloth 8s. 6d., paper 6s. 6d.), is reviewed by John Job, Lecturer, Rawdon Methodist College, Leeds, England.

The editor of a Christian magazine recently said he did not altogether blame his readers if they found missionary writing distasteful. That one can sympathize with such a remark is a sad reflection on the missionary works of the last few years. Everybody has noted that Isobel Kuhn’s books are like an oasis in a literary desert. What is it about them? The obvious thing is that they welcome the reader. They do not repel him by giving the impression that a first-class Christian is addressing second-raters in whom missionary interest is a wan and flickering light. They are written with an honesty and genuine humility that gives to the problems she faced in remote lands a spiritual proximity to those faced by the housewife at home. Physical hardship, separation from husband or child, and danger of war heighten the colors, but the underlying picture is the same.

This book is not only an instinctive account of a missionary’s life in China, but also the testimony of one who found that God’s Word was indeed a light unto her feet—even in the darkest corners.

JOHN JOB

Revival In Wales

When He is Come, by Eifion Evans (Evangelical Trust of Wales, 1959, 108 pp., 4s. 6d.), is reviewed by the Reverend J. Gwyn-Thomas, Rector of Illogan, Cornwall.

The centenary of the great religious movements of 1859 has inspired the writing of new books partly to commemorate those movements and partly because there is a turning to God for a fresh outpouring of his Spirit in view of our contemporary religious situation, as desperate a condition as ever was in the past century. Dr. Eifion Evans has placed us in his debt by giving us this valuable study of the situation in Wales during the years 1858–60. This small book is well documented, chiefly from contemporary periodicals and books. The most useful feature of the work it that it is written from a theological standpoint; we are given a glimpse of what was preached by the leaders of this movement of the Spirit. The emphasis is not on technique but on doctrine.

Moreover, interwoven with the factual accounts there runs a constant theme on the place of prayer in the life of the churches affected by the Revival. These two factors alone make this book both valuable and timely. We strongly recommend this work of Dr. Evans to all readers who are seeking a fresh outpouring of the spirit and to that end are concerned with breaking the soil.

JOHN GWYN-THOMAS

Evangelistic Preaching

The Rich Man and Lazarus, by Brownlow North (Banner of Truth, 1960, 125 pp., 2s.6d.), is reviewed by H. M. Carson, Vicar of St. Paul’s, Cambridge.

This exposition of the parable was originally delivered as a series of addresses in the open air during the 1859 revival in Northern Ireland. In view of the great blessing which attended the ministry of Brownlow North, they will repay study in a day far removed from that flood tide.

The parables are notoriously difficult to expound. Shall we insist on one central lesson or shall we indulge in excessive allegorizing? Christ’s own exegesis of the Sower would seem to point the way, for in it he combines the emphasis on the central theme, with an exposition of the details, all of which bear on the theme. Judged by this standard North’s exegesis would stand. It is true that he expounds in detail the story; but his detailed exposition constantly converges on the main word of warning. Of course North himself took it as history, though he does seem to leave the question an open one as to whether it is history or parable.

Throughout there runs a strong vein of warning together with an urgent call to repentance. It is powerful evangelistic preaching; and one is forced to ask if this preaching of hell is not one of the forgotten dimensions in contemporary preaching. In this, as in so many things, even evangelicals tend to feel that we are wiser than our fathers. But a glance at the state of the church today compared with 1859, or the eighteenth century, might lead to second thoughts on the matter.

H. M. CARSON

Triune Truth

Stand Up in Praise to God, by Paul S. Rees (Eerdmans, 1960, 117 pp., $2), is reviewed by Richard Allen Bodey, Pastor, Third Presbyterian Church, North Tonawanda, New York.

Here is proof that doctrinal preaching, even when soaring through the highest orbits of Christian truth, need not be dull, pedantic, or irrelevant. These ten messages by the former pastor of the First Covenant Church of Minneapolis, three on each Person of the Godhead, and one on the Trinity, will clarify difficult points for the laymen, and spur the preacher on to feeding his flock with the strong meat of the Word.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Adventist Literature

The Seventh-day: The Story of the Seventh-day Adventists, by Booton Herndon (McGraw-Hill, 1960, 267 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Walter R. Martin, Director, Christian Research Institute.

Following in the footsteps of its predecessor (Seventh-day Adventist—“Faith in Action,” by David Mitchell), The Seventh-day is a sympathetic portrait carrying the Nihil Obstat of the Adventist denomination. Advertisements for the book describe it as an “authorized” publication, so its goal at the outset is clear. Mr. Herndon is a non-Adventist, but the book is to all intents and purposes an Adventist book. It catalogs in narrative and travelogue form some of the admirable accomplishments of Adventist missionaries with a sprinkling of humor and an enthusiasm that is catching. The value underscores missions and the zeal of Adventists in propagating their beliefs. It is interesting and informative, but objectivity suffers greatly especially in the area of history and theology.

The general tenor of the book is best summed up in Mr. Herndon’s own words: “If … the primary desire … is security … then the Seventh-day Adventist must surely be content for his security is assured. They are as positive in their own minds as mortal men can be that, if they meet the conditions of personal righteousness, their lives not only extend to the grave, but far beyond it, forever and ever, in the steady and constant unimaginable joy.… In America at least, they contribute four times as much money to their church on a percapita basis than the national average of the other denominations.”

It is unfortunate that Mr. Herndon glosses over Ellen G. White and apparently was unaware of the fact that the very “reform dress” which she advocated and for which he lauds her was in reality a fiasco which exploded in her face and caused her no end of embarrassment. He also fails to mention Dr. Kellogg’s side of his disagreement with the Adventist church and Dr. Kellogg’s denouncement of James and Ellen White. These and other things make The Seventh-day an extremely one-sided volume.

In recent years the publishing field has been flooded with vanity books which capitalize upon a virtually captive audience (“The Cross and The Crown”—Christian Science; “Faith on the March” and “The New World Society”—Jehovah’s Witnesses; “Faith in Action”—Seventh-day Adventism). They provide a ready money market; and their sales are, to say the least, rewarding. Unfortunately they all betray a basic lack of research and acquaintance with primary data, and they are all notoriously prejudiced in favor of the subject.

The Seventh-day is also guilty of this in a lesser degree, although it must be viewed as propaganda for Seventh-day Adventism.

WALTER R. MARTIN

Book Briefs

Building a Christian Home, by Henry R. Brandt, and Homer E. Dowdy (Scripture Press, 1960, 158 pp., $3). A Christian “how” book written out of experience in scientific and practical marriage counselling.

Jesus Says to You, by Daniel A. Poling (McGraw-Hill, 1961, 119 pp., $2.95). 40 spirit-lifting devotional essays based on the sayings of Christ.

Hear Our Prayer, by Roy Pearson (McGraw-Hill, 1961, 174 pp., $3.75). Prayers for public worship on all occasions by the dean of Andover Newton.

Interpreting the New Testament, by H. E. Dana and R. E. Glaze, Jr. (Broadman, 1961, 165 pp., $3.25). A new edition of Dana’s Southern Baptist classic, Searching the Scriptures. Helpful studies in the history and techniques of Bible interpretation.

My Hand in His, by Herman W. Gockel (Concordia, 1961, 229 pp., $2.75). 110 vivid and inspiring modern parables which high-light Bible truth.

Love So Amazing, by D. Reginald Thomas (Revell, 1961, 127 pp., $2.50). Expository preaching that comes to grips with modern life.

When the Sinaitic Covenant was renewed to the hosts of Israel, poised in the plains of Moab for the conquest of Canaan, the ancient promises of blessing were repeated; but so too were the curses that must follow upon rebellion against the covenant Lord. The warning was also cast in the form of a prophetic song (Deut. 32) which Moses taught Israel that it might be in their own mouths as God’s witness against them in the latter days when many evils should befall them for their sins (cf. Deut. 31:19–21). Lamentations is the covenant congregation’s antiphony to the Mosaic song of witness.

Israelite history had run true to the pattern foretold in that song. When Jeshurun waxed fat, he lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation and provoked God to jealousy with strange gods, until he hid his face in wrath. The ensuing destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of her children occurred not as a single stroke but, like Job’s sufferings, as a succession of calamities. The years 605, 597, and 587 were all years of catastrophe, of siege and deportation. The beginning of the end might be traced to 608, the year king Josiah was slain in the valley of Megiddo, “and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations” (2 Chron. 35:24c, 25). Soon the passage of the unhappy years would be marked by the mournful fasts of the fourth month, and of the fifth and seventh and tenth months (cf. Zech. 7:3, 5; 8:19)—fasts memorializing major disasters in the protracted agony of Jerusalem’s fall. This was the generation of lamentations in Israel. And amid the funeral wailing and doleful dirges of these dark days, the canonical Lamentations came into being.

Form-critical investigations have identified three literary types in Lamentations: the funeral dirge in chapters 1; 2, and 4; the individual lament in chapter 3; and the communal lament in chapter 5. For an example of another communal lament over a city, see the Sumerian lamentation composed in the first half of the second millennium B.C., a bewailing of the fall of Ur III to the Elamites and Subarians (cf. J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 1950, pp. 455–463). Among various interesting parallels to the biblical Lamentations is the interpretation of the destruction of Ur due to divine abandonment.

Actually two or more of the designated literary types are interwoven in some chapters of Lamentations and all the types, even the individual lament of chapter 3, are expressive of the common tragedy of the whole covenant community. Such an employment of the individual form of lament and dirge was natural; for the eyewitnesses who was recreating the historic tragedy experienced it as a tragedy compounded of many personal tragedies—his own, his kinsmen’s, his neighbors.’

Spontaneous as is the emotion that pulses through these poems, they are a work of conscious art. That is evidenced in the strophic rhythm but especially in the alphabetic structure of the several laments. Taken together they constitute the most elaborate acrostic composition in the Old Testament. Each of the first four poems is a complete acrostic. The fifth poem contains 22 lines corresponding to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, although they do not begin with the successive letters of the alphabet. In chapter 3, not only the first but all three lines of each strophe begin with the appropriate letter of the alphabet (cf. Ps. 119). An odd detail is that, except in the first poem, the ayin-pe sequence is reversed.

For a summary of suggested explananations of the adoption of so artificial a form as the acrostic for the expression of such obviously spontaneous emotion, see Norman K. Gottwald’s stimulating Studies in the Book of Lamentations (London, 1954, pp. 23 ff.). He concludes that while memorization may have been one factor, the most significant “function of the acrostic was to encourage completeness in the expression of grief, the confession of sin and the instilling of hope” (p. 28) so that the laments might serve as an effective emotional-spiritual catharsis.

Whether or not the eyewitness-author was the prophet Jeremiah, we cannot be certain. In the Hebrew text the book does not explicitly claim Jeremianic authorship. Moreover, even though the sufferings of the individual who speaks in the first person as the representative of the nation in chapter 3 be regarded as reminiscent of the personal experiences of Jeremiah, a writer other than Jeremiah might have assumed that character as a literary device, similar to the speaking of personified Zion in the first person (cf., e.g., 1:12 ff.). However, earliest tradition, Jewish and Christian, is unanimously in support of Jeremianic authorship. The Septuagint translation is prefaced (though not in all extant nor probably in its earliest manuscripts) with the words: “And it came to pass, after Israel was led into captivity and Jerusalem laid waste, that Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem and said.” This tradition possibly existed still earlier in Hebrew manuscript, for the Septuagint statement seems to be a translation from Hebrew. The considerable measure of resemblance between Lamentations and Jeremiah’s prophecy in literary figure and phrase, in temper and tone, as well as in historiographical perspective lends strong support to the early tradition.

Modern literary criticism, however, with few exceptions rejects not only the theory of Jeremianic authorship but even the theory of a single author. The unity of the poems is judged to be rather that of common theme and common cultic function. The provenance of these poems is identified by some scholars as both Palestine and Babylonia, and the completion of the anthology has been dated up to two or three centuries after the exile of Judah. A thorough recent defence of a moderate form of this point of view is offered by Theophilus Meek in the introduction to Lamentations in The Interpreter’s Bible. No single objection of Meek to the Jeremianic authorship is decisive nor is his case as a whole convincing. Meek finds evidence of an early tradition of non-Jeremianic authorship in the presence of Lamentations among the writings. He contends that if the book had been regarded as Jeremianic when the prophets were canonized, it would have been included in the second division of the canon. That contention rests on an erroneous approach to the whole question of the canon of Scripture. On the other hand, those who eventually adopted the three-fold arrangement of Old Testament books which is found in Hebrew editions possibly did base that division on the official theocratic status of the authors. But if so, we still could not be certain that they applied this primary criterion with thoroughgoing consistency (cf., Ps. 90).

Lamentations is one of those biblical songs occasioned by the fall of great cities. Some of these are taunt songs such as Isaiah prophetically uttered over Babylon (Isa. 47) or Ezekiel over Tyre (Ezek. 27; 28) or the New Testament Apocalypse over the harlot “Babylon” (Rev. 18). But because the beginning of judgment is at the house of God, Lamentations must be heard in the covenant community, mourning the judgment of the city of God, before the taunt song, except prophetically, over the fallen city of the world.

The weeping of Lamentations over the captivity of Jerusalem is fraught with the mystery of the ways of him who takes no delight in the death of the wicked (cf. 3:33), yet has not elected to life even all those who frequent his sanctuary; of him who wept over the condemned Jerusalem which he would have gathered unto himself, the light of life, and they would not. Still the captivity of Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day was not yet the final catastrophe which Jesus lamented. The tears of Israel, carried captive in the sixth century B.C. from her paradise land of milk and honey, were more like the tears Adam and Eve might have shed as they were driven into exile out of the garden of God. The threatened curse had come; but there remained the prospect of restoration.

The redemptive omnipotence of the Lord is magnified when Israel exults over Pharaoh’s drowned hosts in the Song of the Sea (Exod. 15) and again at last when the Church, which has gotten the victory over the beast, stands by the sea of glass and sings the triumphant Song of Moses and of the Lamb (Rev. 15:3). But the vindication of the Gospel as God’s power in putting enmity between the elect and Satan and thereby in transforming them into steadfast friends of God is even more eloquently voiced in the doxology of a Job sung while he is still crushed in the serpent’s coils (Job 1:21; 2:10). Such is the praise which ascends from the covenant remnant to the heavenly Throne in Lamentations. At the nadir of theocratic history, while Satan is beguiling the nations into interpreting Jerusalem’s captivity as proof of Yahweh’s impotence and of the failure of his saving purposes, God raises a witness out of the mouth of the travailing remnant which was obliged to share in the judgment woes of faithless Jerusalem—a convincing witness to the redeeming and sanctifying efficacy of the Word and Spirit in their lives.

The victory of the Spirit of God in the hearts of his elect appears in Lamentations in the very fact that sorrow is expressed here not alone in soliloquy and rhetorical address to the passers-by, but ever anew in importunate prayer. Moreover, for the poet to interpret the judgment of the city of God as the judgment foretold in the covenant curse and to apprehend in the hour of judgment the hope of restoration presented in the word of covenant blessing was a triumph of faith and, therefore, of grace.

As for the fall of Jerusalem, Lamentations does not answer the Satanic attack on Yahweh’s sovereignty by attempting to isolate the tragedy somehow from the will of God. The problem of theodicy may not be solved at the expense of theology. The lamenting remnant rather stands in faith under God’s revelation through the prophets and fundamentally through the Book of the Covenant, and they declare their “Amen” to Moses’ Song of Witness against Israel.

Gottwald’s conclusion that the situational key to the theology of Lamentations is found “in the tension between Deuteronomic faith and historical adversity” (op. cit., p. 53) represents a radical misinterpretation of Deuteronomy. Our lamenting poet saw no such tension but rather affirmed Jerusalem’s recent history to be a faithful execution of the terms, in particular the curses, of the Deuteronomic document of covenant renewal (cf. Deut. 27:14 ff.; 28:15 ff.). “The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old” (2:17). In every poem Israel’s covenant-breaking is confessed and Yahweh is recognized as himself the righteous author of Zion’s fierce affliction (see especially chap. 2). And, of course, the hope of renewed divine mercies, most graphically expressed in the anticipation of divine vengeance upon Israel’s gloating enemies (cf. e.g., 1:21, 22; 3:59 ff.; 4:21 ff), is faith’s response to the promise of Israel’s restoration which was presented in the Deuteronomic Covenant as the prospect of true Israel beyond the curse of Exile (cf. Deut. 30:1–10; 32:36, 43).

As incorporated into the canon of Scripture, Lamentations serves a purpose not unlike the Psalms. It is a pattern of piety for the devout; a call to repentance and prayer (cf. 3:40, 41). In particular, it instructs the children of God in the nature of godly sorrowing before their heavenly Father. Here is the manner of mourning when God pours upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications and they look upon Him whom they have pierced and there is great mourning like that for Josiah in the valley of Megiddo (cf. Zech. 12:10, 11). Here is the tenor of prayer when evil days befall God’s kingdom, when the bitter root of apostasy introduced by false prophets in revolt against the Word of Christ (cf. 2:14; 4:13) has produced a wild harvest of wormwood and gall.

The godly, while they need not suppress their soul’s deepest groanings, are not to grieve with the abandon of those who have no hope. Even the acrostic form of the poems serves to enhance the expression of emotion which is under the discipline of faith—a faith which recognizes history as the orderly outworking of God’s whole counsel from Aleph to Taw. The ebb and flow of emotion through the five poems is also instructive. The flood of lament is allowed to increase continually in the first two poems, but when in the climactic third chapter it threatens to become overwhelming, faith and hope take control drawing strength from the memory of the sovereign goodness of God: “I called upon thy name O Lord, out of the lowest dungeon; thou heardest my voice … thou hast redeemed my life” (3:55, 58). Once and again in the last two laments by reason of the present evil waves of sorrow wash over the soul. But the force of the tempest is now clearly abated. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen has successfully assuaged the flood of despair. This godly lament, being like all true prayer faith’s response to God’s covenant Word, presently transcends the threatening storm with a confession of the certain realization of God’s revealed purpose: “The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins” (4:22).

If Lamentations is like the Psalms in providing a model of prayer, it is like the book of Job in addressing itself to the righteous in their sufferings. Its closing note, while consistent with the composure achieved through confidence in the mercy of Israel’s eternal Lord, reminds us that we do not prematurely escape the groaning and travail of this world (cf. 5:19–22). But like Job, Lamentations summons the people of God, whatever the mystery of providence and however long God seems to forget them, to abide in the way of the covenant which is the way of the obedience, patience, and hope of faith.

Assistant Professor of Old Testament

Westminster Theological Seminary

The controversy over federal aid to education, particularly whether parochial schools ought to be included, promises to command special attention at approaching church conventions.

Most Protestants are strongly opposed to use of public monies by sectarian schools, and many fear federal educational financing of any kind. Thus convening churchmen can be expected to produce an abundance of resolutions calling upon the government to hold the line. And the resolutions will be issued in rapid succession, for spring is the favorite time of year for Protestant church conventions.

Ecumenical proposals are due for more debate this year, too. Much interest will focus on a four-way denominational merger plan advanced by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. The plan is aimed at organizationally uniting his own church with the Protestant Episcopal, Methodist, and United (Congregational Christian—Evangelical and Reformed) churches.

Blake declared this month that some 27 presbyteries have adopted resolutions or overtures favoring his plan.

There has been considerable dissent as well, which probably spells a long debate at the United Presbyterian General Assembly in Buffalo, New York, May 17–24.

The Blake merger plan has drawn comment both from churchmen whom it would encompass and others.

Bishop Gerald Kennedy, President of the Council of Bishops of The Methodist Church, says U. S. pluralism may be “not our weakness but our strength.”

“It may be,” Kennedy said in an article in The Christian Century last month, “that some will claim that organic union is an end in itself without any reference to the problems it raises or to the question as to whether it would produce more results. That position I repudiate, for winning people to Christ will always be more important to me than the method we use.” Kennedy made no direct reference to Blake’s plan.

Observed General Secretary Edwin H. Tuller of the American Baptist Convention: “American Baptists were not included in the list of four denominations which would merge.… The omission was deliberate, since no emphasis was given … to the necessity for believers’ baptism and the establishment of a personal and vital relationship to God through Christ as a prerequisite to church membership.”

Three overtures have been reported for discussing the Blake plan on the floor of the centennial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern), to be held in the Highland Park Presbyterian Church of Dallas, the denomination’s largest, April 27-May 2. Another report due for presentation calls for a new approach to predestination, proposing a variation without rewriting the confession of faith.

The controversial film, “Operation Abolition,” probably will prompt considerable debate. Last month the 112-year-old First Baptist Church of San Francisco withdrew support from the National Council of Churches and severed all ties with local councils; Pastor Curtis Nims cited the film and added that “too many statements and actions” have been adopted by the NCC without the knowledge of whether even a majority of its member church bodies were in agreement.

A denomination organizational program will be reviewed at annual sessions of the American Baptist Convention to be held in Portland, Oregon, June 14–18.

A Southern Baptist spokesman said his own convention, scheduled for St. Louis May 23–26, “promises to be peaceful as far as the agenda is concerned,” but emphasized that any delegate could bring up a highly controversial topic with no advance notice.

Theme for the National Association of Evangelicals meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 10–14, is “Thy Word Is Truth.” It is understood that there may be some discussion as to what posture the NAE should take toward the ecumenical movement.

Other forthcoming church conventions: General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, April 3–6; National Holiness Association, Chicago, April 4–6; Independent Fundamental Churches of America, Chicago, April 20–25; American Council of Christian Churches, Phoenix, April 26–28; Christian and Missionary Alliance, Columbus, Ohio, May 17–22; Conservative Baptist, Portland, Oregon, May 25–30.

The Catholic Lobby

The U. S. Roman Catholic hierarchy demonstrated this month, as perhaps never before, the lobby power of its National Catholic Welfare Conference, which has headquarters along Washington’s fashionable Massachusetts Avenue. Unprecedented determination marked the hierarchy’s bid to have parochial schools included in federal aid-to-education measures. Priests regularly marched up to Capitol Hill to be heard at House and Senate committee hearings.

Caught in the middle was America’s first Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, whose stand against federal grants to parochial schools put him at odds with the hierarchy. Some observers thought it a bad omen that the first big issue in the Kennedy administration was a Church-State conflict.

Kennedy himself indicated that he could not understand why current educational measures have raised “this major public encounter” in 1961 inasmuch as educational measures have been sent to Congress in previous years without such intense debates.

Administration bills in the House and Senate provide federal grants and loans to public schools only. Kennedy, who questions the constitutionality of federal loans to parochial schools, wants separate legislation for such loans. He says grants to parochial schools would be unconstitutional. He does not want to jeopardize a public-school grants bill by tacking on provisions for loans or grants to parochial schools.

Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt, director of the education department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, insists on keeping all provisions in the same bill. He says that some Catholics have fears about federal aid to education. He also declares, however, that if any aid is to be given, Catholic schools should share it.

Hochwalt was asked at a committee hearing how the nearly 100 Roman Catholic Congressmen would be expected to vote. He replied that “no one will try to persuade them against their own conscience.” He made it clear, however, that Romanist leaders will continue pressure for their stand.

A National Council of Churches spokesman testified in support of federal aid to public schools, but against such aid to private schools. He said NCC had formulated no position on loans.

Protestants and Other Americans United gave no position on federal aid to public schools, but registered strong opposition to grants and loans to parochials.

A spokesman for the National Association of Evangelicals indicated compromised constituency opposition to federal aid to public education as a principle. He joined in opposing loans and grants to parochial schools.

The Citizens for Educational Freedom organization is campaigning for federal funds to be given parents of children to be used for tuition in either public or non-public schools, ostensibly avoiding direct grants for sectarian use. Support of this was attributed also to the National Union of Christian Schools.

A compromise plan would allow parents to make their children’s tuition an income tax deduction.

The controversy had many overtones. Some observers say the parochial-school aspect serves as a smokescreen for federal aid to public education, which itself has never been universally recognized as desirable, but is more and more accepted as an inevitable political phenomenon. Others fear that parochial school aid would result in every little congregation in the country sporting its own little schoolhouse. Archbishop William O. Brady of St. Paul, Minnesota, said that since public funds are denied their schools, Roman Catholics should consider whether it is time “for another Tea Party,” apparently a reference to early American history when colonists, crying “no taxation without representation,” dumped British tea into the Boston harbor. The Rev. O. James Remington, pastor of the Lincoln Park Baptist Church in Newton, Massachusetts, said he would refuse to pay his federal income tax if Congress grants aid to parochial schools.

Peace Corps

President Kennedy’s Peace Corps is being likened by many to the Christian foreign missions enterprise.

It is “the governmental equivalent of the Southern Baptist Convention’s foreign mission program,” said Assistant State Secretary Brooks Hays, former SBC president.

“It’s virtually the same thing we have been doing for 12 years,” said Dr. James W. Sells, Methodist official in Atlanta.

Some churchmen are concerned over the image the Peace Corps volunteers will take to their foreign posts.

“These young people must have a moral and spiritual philosophy undergirding their efforts or it will be one of the most miserable flops in history,” said Evangelist Billy Graham.

“Unless these young people are deeply dedicated to Christianity, the Communists will make mincemeat of them. They could possibly do more harm than good.”

President Kennedy has named to the leadership of the Peace Corps a recent graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Rev. William D. Moyers. When organization of Peace Corps headquarters is completed, Moyers, 26, will be Associate Director for Public Affairs. He had been serving as a special assistant to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Moyers was asked whether young ministers might be accepted for Peace Corps service. He said that the opportunities would be open to all, but that selection would depend on the need.

He emphasized that the Peace Corps will not be a channel for religious service, but added that it “will give us a chance to take the work of the church to the world.”

The New English Bible: What The Critics Say

The long awaited New Testament portion of The New English Bible was reported to have become a best seller almost immediately upon release in some areas.

Here are comments from critics and reviewers:

“The New English Bible has done what it set out to do,” says Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein in Christian Herald. “With clarity and simplicity it has put the Greek of the New Testament into plain English. And it has done this with distinguished avoidance of the trivial.”

Cecil Northcott says in The Christian Century, “What the New English Bible asserts without saying is that the Bible is born in every generation, to every age, to every man. It is universal yet personal, timeless yet contemporary, and on these grounds the New English Bible takes its place as a treasure to be discovered and loved.”

In The New York Times Book Review, Martin E. Marty says that the New Testament “is an achievement of first quality.” “This translation,” he declares, “is likely to be greeted with nearly unanimous enthusiasm within religious circles, just as it is likely to meet with the usual resistance from museum keepers.”

Day Thorpe, book critic of the Washington Star, calls the archaisms of the King James Version “only theoretical” (“it no longer sounds archaic in the cultivated ear”). “Furthermore,” says Thorpe, “how fatuous it is to think that one can extract the ‘meaning’ of the Bible from the coat of many colors of its language, and by presenting it in the prose of journalism make it available to anybody with five minutes to spare to it! The meaning and the language are inseparable, and the Bible is a difficult book. But if nobody has ever been able to pluck out the heart of its mystery, few have thought the effort to do so not worthwhile.”

Another Unity Group?

A new form of church association, halfway between organic unity and a church council, was proposed this month by Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Van Dusen made public his proposal in a Washington address at the installation of the Rev. Virgil E. Lowder as executive secretary of the Council of Churches, National Capital Area.

The seminary president advanced the idea of a “confederation,” an organization resulting from the “pooling of resources” of member churches and “conscription of the ablest leadership out of every church.”

“Here,” he said, “is Christ’s imperative for his churches in this generation.”

The proposal bears a resemblance to Dr. E. Stanley Jones’ long-advocated “Federal Plan” for church union.

Autonomy Affirmed

Local churches affiliated with the new United Church of Christ have autonomy in the ownership and control of their properties, according to a ruling handed down last month by the Dade County Circuit Court in Miami, Florida.

Judge Ray Pearson’s interpretation of the denomination’s “Basis of Union” sees the document as granting “rights of immunity and freedom in congregational ownership and control” of a local church’s property.

The judge ruled for the Miami First Hungarian United Church of Christ whose property was sought by the Magyar Synod of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. His decision was believed to be the first of its kind involving the merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church with the Congregational Christian General Council. The two merged in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ, but legal consolidation is yet to be realized. Separate litigation is pending in New York City.

The Florida judge ruled that the “Basis of Union,” under which the merged denomination has been operating pending formal adoption of a constitution, clearly shows that the United Church is congregational in government and form.

Foes of the merger have pointed to the document to argue that Congregational churches would sacrifice their traditional local church autonomy in blending with the E & R denomination, which has a modified presbyterial form of government.

The First Hungarian church was formed in 1948 and became a member of the E & R Magyar Synod. In 1959 the congregation broke away from the denomination in a dispute over finances and property ownership. Then the E & R Church filed suit claiming the Miami congregation’s property now worth about $125,000.

Bible Anniversary

Democratic Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota is sponsoring a joint congressional resolution to authorize and request President Kennedy to proclaim 1961 as “Bible Anniversary Year.”

The resolution introduced by Humphrey points out that the Rheims-Douay version of the Bible, used by Roman Catholics, was issued in 1610 and the King James Version, used by Protestants, appeared early in 1611.

He said the 350th anniversary of these English Bibles should be an occasion for rededication to Bible reading.

A proclamation which the Minnesota senator proposes would “urge all Americans to join in rereading the great spiritual truths contained in both the Old and New Testaments.” It would also “invite the churches of every denomination, as well as the agencies of communication, to cooperate and assist in carrying out appropriate observances and ceremonies during such year.”

The proposal for a Bible Anniversary Year was initially advanced by William I. Nichols, editor and publisher of This Week magazine, in an open letter to Kennedy last Christmas. A spokesman for the magazine said this month, “So far we have received no official reply”; he added, however, that the proposal has “awakened interest among both laymen and the clergy.”

Television Crusade

An hour-long film of Billy Graham’s crusade in Miami may become the most widely-seen religious telecast in history.

Some 140 stations with a potential viewing audience of 165 million persons scheduled a Palm Sunday showing. The scheduling coincides with the climax of a three-week evangelistic series in Miami Beach Convention Hall.

This week the evangelist was slated for a rally at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. Hundreds of technicians from the nearby missile launching site at Cape Canaveral were expected to be on hand.

Church versus State

Climaxing a four-year battle against organized vice, the Ministerial Association of Newport, Kentucky, asked this month for ouster proceedings against eight public officials.

In a 31-page affidavit delivered to Governor Bert Combs, the association accused the following of failing to do their sworn duty in suppressing gambling, prostitution, and illegal liquor sales:

Mayor Ralph Mussman, Police Chief George Gugel and Chief of Detectives Leroy Fredericks of Newport, Circuit Judge Ray L. Murphy, Campbell County Judge A. J. Holly, County Police Chief Harry Stuart, Sheriff Norbert Roll, and District Detective Gardner Reed.

Freud in Social Work

The increasing disposition of American religious bodies to venture into “partnership” with government in the social welfare field is prompting church bodies to step up their recruitment of social workers for health and welfare activities.

Simultaneously, the prevalent concept of professional social work in both public and private agencies is being challenged. Raymond R. Herje of Minneapolis, a juvenile probation officer for Hennepin County, Minnesota, has scored the link to psychoanalysis that characterizes professional social work in America. He warns of the “threatening implications” of the fact that, in the next decade, more than 20,000 professionally trained workers—the great majority indoctrinated in a naturalistic outlook—will go from the nation’s 60 graduate schools of social work into key positions in welfare agencies.

Herje, a Congregationalist who has completed course work for his M.A. degree in the graduate School of Theology in Oberlin College, insists that the time has obviously come for a close look at the policies and practices of American public and private welfare agencies.

“The philosophico-metaphysical principle of contemporary social work,” he writes, “is … a form of naturalism. For the naturalist the real is only that which can be experienced by the senses, and this reality is totally describable in terms of spacial-temporal entities and their causal interrelations.… This naturalistic metaphysical principle is operative both in terms of thought and temper throughout social work literature.” Since naturalism denies the existence of “mindistic or supernatural entities,” the consequences of social work conducted on this premise for the inherited religious outlook are apparent. Indeed, “it negates in terms of its beliefs and attitude those views which are held by the majority of people in American society.”

Protestant Panorama

• The Judicial Council, U. S. Methodism’s “Supreme Court,” ruled last month that Jurisdictional Conferences alone have the right to choose their representatives on the general boards of The Methodist Church. The ruling upsets 1960 General Conference legislation in connection with the Board of Pensions providing that “the required number of members from each Jurisdiction shall be elected quad-rennially by the General Conference on nomination of the College of Bishops of that Jurisdiction.”

• St. Petersburg will become the first locality in Florida to have an American Baptist Convention church. A congregation is now being organized, according to William B. Hill, church extension pastor for American Baptist mission societies.

• A merger plan for four New Zealand denominations took a step forward this month with appointment of a special commission by the Anglican church’s triennial General Synod. The six clergymen who make up the new commission were instructed to “continue conversations” with the Joint Standing Committee on Church Union, a group representing the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches as well as the Associated Churches of Christ.

• The Methodist Council of Bishops is calling on its 40,000 U.S. churches to take a special offering for Africa on Sunday, April 30.

• Biola College of La Mirada, California, was admitted to membership in the Western College Association last month. The recognition carries full academic accreditation.

• Dr. Ermanno Rostan, moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy, said to be the world’s oldest Protestant body dating back to the twelfth century, is touring the United States.

• Evangelist Merv Rosell saw nearly 1,000 decisions made for Christ at a youth banquet in Seattle last month.

• Members of the Suomi Synod favor a proposed merger with three other Lutheran churches by a margin of more than three to one, according to the results of a congregational referendum announced last month.

• The Cumberland Presbyterian Church plans to develop a 160-acre site near Lake Maumelle, Arkansas, for national conference grounds.

• World Radio Missionary Fellowship, which operates radio station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, plans to begin broadcasting from a newly-acquired long-wave station in Montevideo, Uruguay, early in 1962.

• Danish and Malayalam editions are being added by The Upper Room, daily devotional guide published by the Methodist Board of Evangelism. With the additions, it will be appearing in 32 languages (total circulation: 3,250,000).

• The Southern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists will sponsor a program of public low-cost polio and tetanus clinics at many of its churches, denominational schools and other institutions in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

• The University of Chicago is initiating two graduate-level courses in theology by mail. “Introduction to Religious Existentialism” and “Tragedy, Comedy, and Human Existence.”

• A $7,500,000 Presbyterian Hospital will be built in North Dallas, Texas, in 1962. A public fund drive is planned to raise $4,000,000.

• The Christian Reformed Church is recruiting 100 youth for its 1961 Summer Workshop in Missions, which will take them to scattered parts of the country for evangelistic work. A pilot project last year saw 10 Iowa young people spend five weeks in Salt Lake City, conducting street meetings and personal work, visiting the aged and infirm, and even holding services in prisons.

• A tornado struck the Friendship Baptist Church of West Plains, Missouri, during a service Sunday, March 12. One woman was killed and 11 other persons were injured. The building was destroyed.

In a critical analysis of theoretical foundations of contemporary professional work, projected for publication, Herje contends not only that the psychoanalytic tradition tremendously influences social work, but also that “the objectives of professional education are designed to indoctrinate this viewpoint concerning human nature and behavior.” In recent years, he asserts, “psychoanalytic thought has penetrated every area of case work thought, from child guidance to the problem of the aged; from adoption and foster home placement to family counseling.”

Herje contends that the entire social work curriculum has been systematically permeated by the educational conception of “a carefully planned behavior-changing process” heavily indebted to the Freudian tradition. The objectives and methods of social work education are designed, he holds, “not only to enable the student to understand the Freudian outlook, but also to enable him to accept it and apply it.” In addition, “unanimity in outlook” is secured, he contends, through a discriminatory selection of pre-professional candidates by social work educators who “counsel out” those inclined toward alternate views. Social work journals are largely closed to critical essays.

Some observers think that the time is ripe for a “first class intellectual attack” on “psychoanalytical inspired social work,” and sense mounting opposition. University of Wisconsin is reportedly one center where a multiple approach to human behavior problems is gradually taking form, largely through the influence of Arthur Miles, recent chairman of the School of Social Work.

The negation of the Hebrew-Christian view of man by the prevalent social work theory is prodding some church leaders to scrutinize the training and presuppositions of church-related welfare activity. The Freudian tradition treats the knowledge claims of evangelical Protestant religion “as irrelevant or as nonsense,” writes Herje. “Theology becomes nothing but a projective system of the immature man.” Since Protestant liberalism tends to be agnostic in metaphysics, this tension does not exist. “The more liberal Protestants feel there is no inherent conflict,” he writes, whereas “the conservatives are clear that there is a conflict, and that basis of conflict is philosophical in nature.”

C.F.H.H.

Church Day

The presidium of the German Evangelical Church Day (Kirchentag or DEKT) organization announced this month that its 1961 congress would be held in Berlin as originally scheduled.

The presidium said its decision was made after failure of prolonged negotiations with the Soviet Zone government on the possibility of holding an all-German congress in Leipzig. The negotiations were undertaken after the East German regime banned all DEKT celebrations in East Berlin on the ground that they had a “political character” and menaced the “internal order” of the Soviet Zone.

The East German government, said the presidium, failed to give sufficient guarantees that all West German church leaders would be granted entry permits for the DEKT events, which will take place July 19–23.

Church officials pointed out that, in view of the East German ban, all public meetings in connection with the DEKT congress will have to be held in West Berlin. They said that the only events in East Berlin will be observances in churches and church-owned buildings.

Norwegian Debate

Should arguments against association with the World Council of Churches also apply to the Lutheran World Federation?

Norwegian mission authorities are debating the question while trying to decide whether to have a consultative tie with the WCC after it is integrated with the International Missionary Council.

Norwegian opponents of ties with the WCC have charged that it:

—fails to limit itself to a biblical basis, but opens its doors to liberal theology on the one side and Orthodox and Coptic churches on the other;

—tends to become a powerful super-church;

—short-circuits the mission lines by which older Western churches and their “daughter” churches have traditionally been related.

Some leading churchmen have charged that to take up such arguments would be to commit them to a similar position regarding the LWF or be inconsistent.

Danish Design

The Danish Ministry of Church Affairs is conducting a world-wide contest for architects, sculptors, and painters. Their assignment: to design a Lutheran church in the industrial quarter of a modern metropolis. The final design should be the result of the combined efforts of architect, sculptor, and artist with particular emphasis on an artistic general impression.

First prize will amount to “at least 50,000” crowns (about $7,250). Other prizes will total an additional 50,000 crowns.

The jury will be appointed by the Ministry of Church affairs in conjunction with international organizations of artists, architects, and sculptors. Entries must be submitted by September 1.

Eutychus Extra

Eutychus, whose irresistible urge to write a letter to the editor is well-known toCHRISTIANITY TODAYreaders, greets Easter with an unusually intricate piece (page 13), its eye on the modern myth-makers for whom the Resurrection is simply the up-beat of devout music. But Eutychus also has a word for the masses, for whom the Easter theme is a concern of rabbits and ribbons more than Resurrection. His stanzas on “Dreaming,” sent primarily for the editor’s enjoyment, are herewith shared with you, the reader, as a “Eutychus Extra”:

Dreaming

I dreamed that I was preaching

With homiletical perfection

To pews of chocolate rabbits,

A congregational confection.

They sat in solid silence,

Their ears erect in my direction,

To show that Easter bunnies,

Of course, endorse the Resurrection.

Their heads were gay with ribbons;

The slender wore metallic sheath,

And those that were not hollow

Were filled with coconut beneath.

A curious reaction

Came over me; I never felt

So thrilled on Easter morning—

To think my audience might melt!

EUTYCHUS

Exclusive Rights

The Dead Sea Scrolls housed at the Palestine Museum in Jerusalem will be turned over to an unnamed Dutch scientific institution for the exclusive right to study and publish, according to a proposal said to have been accepted in principle by Jordan Education Minister Sheikh Shankeeti.

Old City sources say the plan involves a payment of $56,000 and is conditioned on the scrolls remaining in the country as the property of Jordan.

It is believed that the proposal came from the Vitus Testamentum (Old Testament Institute) of Leyden University in Holland, which recently intensified its archaeological activities in Jordan.

After 40 Years

After 40 years of wandering in a “modern” wilderness, 48 refugee families who still speak Christ’s native language of Aramaic will be given new, permanent homes this summer by the World Council of Churches.

The building project, to begin next month, will cost $50,000, to be provided by funds raised mainly in Britain from World Refugee Year efforts.

The community that will be benefited numbers about 195 men, women, and children. They are a group of refugees from Armenia whose wanderings have taken them through Iraq, Syria, and now Lebanon, where the homes are to be built.

Terror in the Congo

A new reign of terror affecting missionaries was reported in the Congo in mid-March.

U. S. missions executives, many of them anxious since last summer for the safety of their personnel, were hoping that the newly-organized federation of Congo states would bring stability to the political situation.

An unidentified American woman missionary was raped and beaten by Congolese soldiers. Roman Catholic priests were clubbed and nuns stripped and abused by Congolese troops in Kivu province. Two Protestant missionary families belonging to the Worldwide Grace Testimony Church were reported unable to leave the Kivu region.

Executive Director J. Raymond Knighton of the Christian Medical Society, just returned from a five-week tour of Africa, reported a dire need for doctors throughout the continent. He said whereas at the time of independence there were 750 medical doctors in the Congo, now there are approximately 200, only about 50 of whom are working in rural areas. Knighton’s tour covered 11 countries; he was accompanied by Dr. C. Everett Koop, professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. G. A. Hemwall, a Chicago surgeon.

Egyptian Protest

Strong protests by leaders of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt followed reports last month that the Jordan government had seized the Dayr-as-Saltan Egyptian Coptic monastery in the Old City of Jerusalem and handed it over to Ethiopian Coptic monks.

When news of the seizure reached Cairo, the Holy Synod was immediately convened under the chairmanship of Patriarch Kyrillos VI of Alexandria, head of the Egyptian Coptic Church, with 18 archbishops and bishops present.

The synod unanimously voted to ban Coptic pilgrims in Egypt from visiting Jerusalem this year as a gesture of protest. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was asked to return the Jerusalem monastery to its Egyptian owners.

Anglicans and Apartheid

Dr. Richard Ambrose Reeves resigned as Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg this month. He had been deported from South Africa last September for protesting government apartheid policy.

His resignation, according to Religious News Service, moreover reveals differences with the outspoken Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, Dr. Joost de Blank, on what should be the church’s attitude toward retaining segregationist South Africa in the British Commonwealth.

(South African Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd subsequently withdrew his country’s application for readmission to the commonwealth after she becomes a republic May 31.)

De Blank now feels that the vast majority of the colored and black peoples of South Africa wish to stay within the commonwealth. He spelled out his view in a letter to The Times of London.

The day following the announcement of Reeves’ resignation, The Times published his rebuttal to de Blank’s remarks.

“The crux of the issue,” wrote Reeves, “is found in the archbishop’s belief that a day will come when the evils of apartheid will end, because it is on this ground that he chiefly pleads for the retention of South Africa.

“His Grace does not indicate the way in which this will happen. Unless sufficient pressure can be brought to bear on the South Africa government to change its present racial policies, chances are that this new day will only come after a titanic clash between the government and the non-whites.”

He added that “to retain South Africa within the commonwealth may well help to precipitate such a conflict and be the first step, incidentally, in the dissolution of the commonwealth itself.”

Buddhism For Burma

Prime Minister U Nu reaffirmed last month his determination to see Buddhism become the state religion of Burma, but he added that constitutional protection will be given minority religious groups.

The prime minister told 13 bishops of the Anglican Council of Southeast Asia:

“It is the intention of the government to ensure that the protection now afforded by our constitution to all our religious groups will in no way be affected by the formal adoption of Buddhism as the state religion of Burma.”

“Indeed,” he said, “it is our determination that the harmonious relationship existing between the Buddhists and the followers of other religions will be perpetuated for all time, and that neither persecution nor discrimination on religious grounds will ever be permitted to blacken our history.”

He called upon all to “work together for the common good” of Burma.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Right Rev. Richard Bland Mitchell, 73, Protestant Episcopal bishop of Arkansas from 1938 to 1956; in Sewanee, Tennessee.… Dr. Alexander MacMillan, 96, noted minister of the United Church of Canada; in Toronto.… Dr. A. C. Snead, 76, for 35 years the foreign secretary of the Christian and Missionary Alliance; in Orlando, Florida.… Miss S. Ruth Barrett, 62, noted for her work in the American Bible Society in making the Bible available to the blind; in Englewood, New Jersey.

Citation: As Religious Heritage of America’s Clergy Churchman of the Year, Dr. C. Oscar Johnson; as Lay Churchman of the Year, Dr. Robert Gerald Storey.

Elections: As president of the Protestant Church-owned Publishers’ Association, Walter L. Seaman … as Anglican archbishop of Wellington and primate of New Zealand, Dr. Norman Alfred Lesser.

Appointments: As executive director of the Augustana Lutheran Church’s Board of World Missions, the Rev. Rudolph C. Burke … as professor of homiletics at Southern California School of Theology, Dr. K. Morgan Edwards … as dean of students and associate professor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York, the Rev. James Mase Ault … as minister of New York’s Broadway Presbyterian Church, Dr. Stuart H. Merriam.

Nehru’s Faith

India is buzzing with speculation that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru now believes in God, according to Religious News Service.

Long known as one of the world’s most articulate agnostics, Nehru has repeatedly attacked religion in general and Hinduism in particular, declaring in his book, The Discovery of India, that “India must … lessen her religiosity and turn to science.”

But in The Mind of Mr. Nehru, a new book on the Indian market, Nehru is quoted in an entirely different vein. The book, published by George Allen and Unwin, London, contains the transcript of tape-recorded conversations between the Prime Minister and R. K. Karanjia, editor of Blitz, a Bombay weekly.

In it Nehru refers to the need for spiritual solutions of some problems and Mr. Karanjia asks him: “Isn’t it unlike the Jawaharlal of yesterday to talk in terms of ethical solutions? What you say raises visions of Mr. Nehru in search of God in the evening of his life.”

Nehru replies: “Yes, I have changed. The emphasis on ethical and spiritual solutions is not unconscious; it is deliberate.… I believe the human mind is hungry for something deeper in terms of moral and spiritual development without which all the material advance may not be worthwhile.… The old Hindu idea that there is a divine essence in the world, and that every individual possesses something of it and can develop it, appeals to me.”

When Charles Darwin began his historic voyage on the Beagle in 1831, many scientists and others of that day believed that the account of man’s creation recorded in Genesis was literally true. The idea that man might have evolved from animal life was not new, but the biblical statement describing man’s origin was generally judged to be reasonable, historically reliable, and consistent with the design which was apparent in nature.

The scientific quest for the origin of man has since led the modern world to accept the theory of evolution. First clearly formulated by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species (1859), this theory is now believed to account for the origin of all living things. So many scientists in so many disciplines have committed themselves to the evolutionary concept, that the theory today dominates the thinking of our age.

Kinds and Species

Although biblical language speaks of the creation of different kinds of living things, the idea of special creation was soon conjoined with belief in a special creative act for each species. Darwin thought this to be unreasonable. Observing the tremendous number of species in the world, he subscribed to the theory that all species were derived from previous species over a long course of time. To explain this he developed the principles of variation and natural selection which are still the basis for evolutionary theory. Variation is observable, and Darwin recognized that here was a process which might account for evolution. In the reproduction of almost all living things, far more individuals are produced than ever survive. Perhaps some small variation enables certain individuals in a given plant or animal population to adapt successfully to a given environment. These individuals, the product of natural selection, in their reproduction enhance or develop that difference until eventually a new variety, species, or kind of living things, evolves.

However, plants and animals apparently are designed for their particular environment and way of life, and scientists are still perplexed in seeking to account for these specializations by mechanisms of internal change and environmental selection (cf. C. L. Prosser, American Scientist, vol. 47, p. 536 [1959]; J. B. S. Haldane, Nature, vol. 183, p. 713 [1959]; C. H. Waddington, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 2, p. 379 [1959]). Biologists have not really proposed any adequate explanation for the apparent design and purpose in nature.

Geology and Fossils

The common belief (recall Bishop Ussher’s chronology of 1654) in the mid-nineteenth century was that the earth was but 6000 years old. Yet it is clear that the majestic statement in Genesis 1:1 which says that “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” is chronologically unrelated to that which follows. Before long, however, scientific study attested a much greater antiquity for the earth. It was affirmed that evolution must be a very slow process, requiring much more time than a 6000-year-old earth would permit. Once it was persuasively argued that the earth was at least several million years old, the theory of evolution became far more reasonable. Geologists have long been aware that the earth’s crust may be described in terms of layers which provide evidence for many long periods of time in the earth’s history. Attention was turned to the study of fossils as well as to living things in order to support Darwinism with experimental evidence. The discovery of fossils in these layers, their identification, and studies of their age have provided the definitive data for the theory of evolution.

The search for fossils had begun long before Darwin’s time, and the general nature of geological strata was well known. The earliest fossiliferous period had been characterized as the Cambrian—an approximately 500 million-year-old stratum representing about 80 million years. In it had been found what was then the earliest fossil evidence for living things, and it was recognized that here all known plant and invertebrate animal phyla appeared suddenly and contemporaneously, and differentiated into classes and orders. Although now there does appear to be evidence of Precambrian life, there is still lacking rational evidence to account for the origin of these admittedly highly developed kinds of living things. It was also known that in the Silurian layer—an approximately 350 million-year-old stratum representing about 30 million years—the vertebrate phyla appeared suddenly and fully developed with no fossil evidence to account for their origin (cf. A. H. Clark, Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 3, p. 523 [1928]; A. S. Romer, ibid., vol. 21, p. 33 [1946]). Darwin recognized in his day that this was serious evidence against his theory. Today, 100 years later, the paleontological evidence which a concept of “total evolution” requires is absent, although we do have convincing evidence that development has indeed taken place but possibly only within restricted limits.

The classical example of evolution, and one of the few which is documented with fossil evidence, is that of the horse. If the modern horse has evolved as the evidence indicates, a question which needs to be answered is, “Do we have evidence that the horse has developed from something other than a kind of horse, or is this only evidence that evolution has occurred within this particular kind of living thing?”

The geological dating techniques which have been used in order to assign ages to fossils, involve stratigraphy and paleontology (cf. A. Knopf, Scientific Monthly, vol. 85, p. 225 [1957]). These procedures attempt to establish relative geological sequences and assign to them their proper ages. The dating of rocks by radioactive techniques, such as the determination of the U238/Pb206 isotope ratio, has provided data which to a very large extent has confirmed the ages which have been assigned to various geologic eras. Such evidence compels us to reckon with the fact that life upon the earth is not “recent” (e.g. 6000 years). Our exegesis of Genesis must take this into account.

However, this radioactive dating procedure has not lent itself to the study of man’s ancestry since this search involves the paleontology of the Pleistocene period which is too recent for the uranium series of transformations to give useful information.

Dating of Early Man

In the study of early man one has had to rely upon standard geological dating methods until the carbon-14 radioactive method was developed by Dr. Libby. It is generally agreed that this new method is extremely reliable and is capable of determining ages of organic matter up to 60,000 years old with a high degree of probability. But for the most part the dates which have been given to the various examples of early man have been assigned without benefit of this method. In recent years the carbon-14 method has been used in an attempt to verify these earlier assignments, and it has become apparent that serious errors have been made in standard geological dating.

In Dr. Libby’s study of late-Pleistocene geology and archeology, it became clear that the dating which had been done was inaccurate, and the resulting chronology was quite insecure (cf. W. F. Libby, Radioactive Dating, [University of Chicago Press, 1952], p. 101). The dating of early man in North America is related to the Mankato glaciation in Wisconsin which was previously dated at 25,000 years ago. This has now been radiocarbon-dated at 11,000 years ago (ibid., p. 105). The cranium of Piltdown man (after the discovery of the hoax in 1953) was estimated to be 50,000 years old but is now reported to be 620 years old (cf. H. deVries and K. P. Oakley, Nature, vol. 184, p. 224 [1959]). The striking paintings of the Lascaux caves, considered to be the art of primitive man, were assigned an age of about 60,000 years but recent carbon-14 analyses indicates an age of about 15,000 years (Lascaux Caves: The Grotto of Lascaux, by Jean Taralon, Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques, Grand Palais, Cours La Reine, Paris VIII). The discovery of a complete but apparently ancient skeleton in Australia a few years ago led to an assignment of 125,000 years old but was subsequently dated as 6000 years old by carbon-14.

An Obscure Search

The search for primitive man was perhaps first rewarded with the discovery of Neanderthal man near the Neander River in Germany in 1856. Dated geologically to be 60,000 years old, Neanderthal man is said to represent an early stone age culture in Europe and is often called the first cave dweller. The original 14 bones were reconstructed by Boule into a hunched-back creature with head thrust forward, knees bent, and flat feet. In 1957, Neanderthal man was rereconstructed and found to be posturally identical to modern man and in other respects essentially human (cf. L. Eiseley, Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 32, p. 323 [1957]; F. C. Howell, ibid., p. 330; W. L. Straus, Jr., and A. J. E. Cave, ibid., p. 348). Subsequently the assignment of separate species status for many fossil hominids which, like Neanderthal man were considered to be distinctly outside the known limits of human variation, has been questioned (cf. W. E. LeGros Clark, American Scientist, vol. 47, p. 299 [1959]). The recent studies of Australopithecus, the southern ape-man of Africa, have resulted in controversy over its meaning and importance in the problem of man’s origin (cf. Nature, vol. 183, p. 159 [1959]). The discovery of Zinjanthropus in Kenya by Dr. Leakey similarly provides evidence used to support the concept of the animal origin of man. In each case, however, it is clear that the ages which have been assigned are uncertain. Until reliable dating is done, it cannot really be known whether these fossils represent possible evolutionary intermediates. Without this information a logical sequence of fossils cannot be constructed. It is therefore not surprising that the scientific search for the course of man’s origin remains obscure. (cf. W. L. Straus, Jr., Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 24, p. 200 [1949]; F. C. Howell, Science, vol. 130, p. 831 [1959]).

God and the Enigma

The biblical statement of the creation of different kinds of living things does not rule out the development of new varieties or species. It is not unreasonable biologically or biblically to consider that God gave to living things the capacity to change, to develop variety, and to adapt successfully to differing environments. However, we have no record of any living thing changing suddenly or gradually into an entirely different kind of living thing. It would appear therefore that, within certain limits, development has taken place and does still occur. We may not be able to define these limits biologically, but they could be considered to be the kinds of life to which Genesis refers. Such a view is consistent with all that we know at the present time.

Scripture indicates that God created Adam, and then Eve, and that they were the product of a creation that was distinctly separate from that of the animal kingdom. When this occurred, and how they might have differed from us, we do not know. But it is not irrational or unreasonable in the light of present scientific knowledge to believe that the Genesis account of the origin of man is divinely inspired recorded history.

Sterling Winthrop Research Institute

Rensselaer, New York