In December 1861, in the First Presbyterian Church of Augusta, Georgia, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern) was constituted. Although slavery was the issue of that day, the particular action which precipitated a rupture within the National Church was a resolution, voted by the united assembly a few months before, requiring a pledge of allegiance of ministers and churches to the Federal government.

The Centennial General Assembly of America’s second largest Presbyterian body convened one hundred years later, April 28, 1960, in the Riverside Church, Jacksonville, Florida. Still shy of political entanglements, the highest court of the church refused to oppose the nomination of a Roman Catholic for President and defeated, in a 3 to 1 vote, a move to recognize U. S. responsibility for the first use of atomic weapons in war.

Confronting the 100th assembly were reports and overtures providing opportunity for definitive and historic pronouncements in such major areas of interest as world missions, inter-church relations, education, and race relations. But the Southern Presbyterian church is seriously divided, internally, and its behavior is not always predictable. The assembly seemed to drift—first one way, then another.

Obviously mindful of its responsibility in the area of race relations, the assembly urged its colleges and other institutions to speed processes of desegregation. Equally mindful of theological as well as social tensions, it rejected almost unanimously moves to reopen union negotiations with the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

Apprehensive of increasing centralization in administration, it defeated a resolution by Dr. E. T. Thompson, retiring moderator, which would, in effect, have made its Committee on the Minister and his Work a stronger watch-dog in the affairs of ministers who find themselves in difficulty for “speaking the mind of the Assembly in love”—an obvious reference to the racial situation in the South.

But it took steps which some observers felt would lead to increasing centralization in the sensitive area of stewardship by approving the preparation of a plan establishing a central treasurer’s office and “more equitable distribution of benevolent funds.” (It is understood that some home agencies have been operating short of funds while others, such as the Board of World Missions, have been more liberally supported.)

The 521 commissioners from the 19 states and the District of Columbia rejected a strong bid, through several overtures, to change the basis of the church’s relations with national churches overseas—specifically the Presbyterian Church of Mexico. A further request to reevaluate the denomination’s entire missions philosophy was also defeated, although the Board of World Missions was encouraged to initiate a more intensive study of its own policies overseas. (The Presbyterian Church U.S. is one of the few larger denominations which has not turned over full control and operation of its missions work to the various national churches. It nonetheless recognizes these churches as independent and autonomous.)

The denomination’s relation to the National Council of Churches came in for considerable attention. A resolution asking for an investigation of recent charges against the NCC was referred to the church’s representatives on the NCC itself while another resolution, to re-examine the constitutional validity of the church’s membership in the NCC, was rejected. In its report adopted by the assembly, the Standing Committee handling these matters deplored the “unmerited attacks” made against that ecumenical body.

Easily the most controversial report brought before the 521 delegates was that of the Standing Committee on Christian Relations, containing references to atomic warfare, to the United Nations, to desegregation and to capital punishment. It was understood that opinions represented on the Standing Committee had been rather lopsidedly in favor of strong action in all of these areas and that the work of committee had consisted mostly in deciding just how strong to make its report.

When the committee’s report reached the floor, however, unexpected opposition appeared to a paragraph which said that “although seemingly the [Second World] war’s outcome was not in doubt, we dropped the bomb on two Japanese cities, immediately killing more than 100,000 men, women and children and adversely affecting thousands of others including unborn generations … and we continued to endanger others by continued tests.”

The opposition, which exploded all over the assembly, urged the church to stay out of the realm of military science and tactics, deploring the pacifistic flavor of the paragraph. The assembly rejected a move to soften the language of the paragraph and, in a three-to-one vote, finally struck it out altogether.

Next, the body changed a reference to the United Nations as “the agency now in existence that holds the greatest promise of progress toward disarmament in a more peaceful world,” to “an agency which holds promise.…”

The sensitive problem of race relations came up in the form of a recommendation that the trustees of the church’s institutions be reminded of the action of 1954 assembly (taken before the Supreme Court decision) urging the opening of the doors of those institutions to qualified students “without regard to social distinctions.” After efforts were defeated to modify or to soften the language of the recommendation, it was passed, by a vote of 208 to 186.

New Officers

Dr. Marion A. Boggs, new moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. and Dr. James A. Millard, Jr., inducted as stated clerk, are both graduates of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia.

Boggs, 65, is minister of the Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was described by a nominator as a “symbol of reconciliation whereby the Christian leader speaks the truth in love to a troubled community.” Boggs favors integration, but has nonetheless held the respect of many in Little Rock who differ with him on the race issue. The mayor of Little Rock and the chairman of the school board are elders in his church.

Boggs was elected on the second ballot, when he received 260 votes to 251 for Dr. R. Matthew Lynn of Midland, Texas.

Millard, 48, was elected stated clerk in 1958 and assumed his duties last summer. He had been professor of homiletics and director of field work at Austin (Texas) Presbyterian Seminary and had served for a year as acting dean. From 1947 until 1952 he was minister at the First Presbyterian Church of Hot Springs, Arkansas, which Boggs has also pastored (from 1930 until 1939).

Boggs is a native of South Carolina, Millard of Tennessee.

Capital punishment has been under study by a committee of the assembly for the past year. The committee, however, was unable to agree on a report in time for this meeting. It was continued, to report to the 1961 meeting, as was another committee which has been studying the “feasibility” of amending the Confession of Faith so as to strike out references to the “negative” aspects of the church’s historic doctrine of predestination-references to divine election, to reprobation as well as to salvation.

In other actions, the Presbyterians: approved elaborate plans for centennial celebrations throughout 1961 featuring evangelistic “cavalcades” in 80 cities; recognized planned parenthood as a personal matter before God; instructed a committee to study spiritual implications of the use of tobacco and tranquilizing drugs; appointed another committee to “study” such evangelical movements as Youth for Christ, Young Life, Navigators, etc.; and sent to its presbyteries for approval a new Book of Church Order and Directory for Worship.

Also adopted was a resolution which “viewed with dismay the continued persecution of Protestants in the Republic of Colombia.”

The assembly declined to participate, with the UPUSA Church, in plans for the joint development of a $20,000,000 national Presbyterian cathedral in Washington, D. C., declaring that the “creation and construction of a ‘National’ church would be contrary to the nature and mission of the Church, which nature and mission are to be fulfilled through service and not through status.”

Elected to moderate the historic meeting was Dr. Marion A. Boggs, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Little Rock, Arkansas, and brother of Dr. Wade Boggs, moderator of the 1954 assembly. This is the first time that brothers have been elected to the moderatorship.

Inducted into office during the meeting was Dr. James A. Millard, Jr., new stated clerk replacing Dr. E. C. Scott, who retired after occupying the office for 25 years.

The next meeting of the General Assembly will be held in the Highland Park Presbyterian Church of Dallas, largest in the denomination.

SPIRITUAL POLIO

I consider the Christian ministry to be the highest of all callings. My only son and two sons-in-law are ministers, and many of my ancestors have stood in that great procession of men who have preached the gospel of Christ.

We are deeply sensitive to the influence and reputation of ministers, particularly at a time when so many disruptive, distracting, and degrading influences are abroad.

Our deep conviction is that the minister’s spiritual power is directly related to his faith in, understanding, and effective use of the Holy Scriptures. Anything, therefore, which tends to diminish this faith in the Bible is of the deepest concern, not only to the Church but also to the unbelieving world.

That there is an unceasing attack on the authority and integrity of the Word of God is widely known. That much of the criticism is adroit, sophisticated, and destructive is not always so clearly understood. The “assured conclusions” of one group may be diametrically opposed to the equally firm “consensus of scholarly opinion” of another, but the views seem not to deter a united attack on the Scriptures by those who carry the philosophical bias that the Bible is often in error and that it is their duty to demonstrate the error.

I have just read a rather extensive newspaper report of a pastoral conference in Berkeley, California.

Insisting that man must be freed from biblical authority, one speaker made his main thesis the well-known neo-orthodox concept that only as the Bible speaks to a man does it become relevant. “Unless the Word of God is heard by us, that Word has no actual authority over us.” To be sure, Scripture becomes relevant to us as we respond to it; but is it only wrong to kill if I accept the divine order: “Thou shalt not kill”? Is adultery wrong only if I submit to the divine concept of purity?

Is not God’s Written Word valid regardless of what man may think of it? Ignorance of or indifference to divine truth in no way invalidates that truth. There are absolutes ordained of God which cannot be rationalized away and over which man stumbles to his own doom.

According to the same newspaper account, “Dr.… told his class … that the Bible is not the Word of God but merely of itself.”

How then does one know that God is speaking? he was asked. “You don’t,” he replied.

Little wonder that neo-orthodoxy has yet to produce a great soul winner! Wherever faith in the authority and integrity of the Scriptures is destroyed by injection of human interpretation denying clear affirmations of Scripture, the nerve of spiritual power is cut. One may exhibit a high degree of scholarship and intellectual attainment, but the one thing necessary is lacking.

From a practical standpoint, what is the layman to do with his Bible? According to the destructive thesis, he is told to view it only as a compilation of narratives written by men in the limitations of the flesh and bound by traditions and misunderstanding. Out of their efforts has come a book which he should study with the eye of a critic and from which he can receive blessing only as he sees in it divine truth for himself.

This is not a matter of minor importance. The world desperately needs the affirmations and absolutes of Holy Scripture. We as sinners need an authority which says “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not.” We need that which the Bible is—a divine revelation of truth which man could never discover for himself; a revelation which is objectively true and valid regardless of what man may think of it.

Many of us accept the Bible at face value because of our presupposition that God has spoken and that he has spoken clearly and factually through human agents. We believe that the writers were guided by the Holy Spirit so that they wrote in honesty and in truthfulness. That they may have but dimly perceived the full implication of what they wrote may of course be true. But to deny the truth of it through the presupposition that human fallibility exceeded divine inspiration is to destroy the message itself and thus allow “interpretations” that amount to presumptuous denials of truth.

If we approach the Bible with the presupposition that here we have a fallible human document through which God tries to speak to man but finds himself handicapped by the agents of his message, we immediately find ourselves trying to sift the chaff from the wheat and, through our own limitations, rejecting the kernels of divine truth in favor of the chaff of human speculation.

Were one to transfer the situation to the realm of modern medicine, the result would be chaos. In the study of medicine there are certain basic sciences which one is required to learn. The student is not permitted to pass off his own opinions or interpretations about anatomy, embryology, chemistry, or physiology. The whole scheme of modern medicine and surgery is built upon the acceptance of known factors. To be sure there is research, but only proven hypotheses are carried over into the realm of practice.

How different has the situation become in the realm of some modern theology! Clearly-stated doctrines of the Christian faith may no longer constitute the basis of either theology or preaching. Students and those long since graduated into the pulpit are now being presented with a multiplicity of opinions and deductions none of which have power to win men to Christ or lead men to godly living. Little wonder that we who sit in the pew are so often puzzled, and the hungry go away unsatisfied having received a stone instead of bread! Never has the world needed truly biblical preaching more than now. Never have men needed to be confronted with their lost condition and Christ’s redemptive work more than now.

How can one wage successful warfare with a Sword which one considers defective? How can one preach with authority when such authority never reaches higher than “I believe” or “I think”?

Rejection of the basic tenets of the Christian faith includes also a substitution of ideas and values. Satan to many is no longer a personality; hell is either a byword or never mentioned; conversion is no longer a work of the Spirit but a matter of personality and psychological adjustment, and the Gospel is reduced to a set of ethical and social values which are only dimly related to a new life in Christ.

Perhaps I have overstated the case and taken offense where no offense should have been taken. If so, I do regret it and apologize. But if the contention is right, and if this new approach to the Bible is cutting at the very heart of the Church’s message to a sinning and lost world, then the indictments ought to be made.

L. NELSON BELL

KEY TO ECCLESIAN

Many readers will be vacationing in areas where High Ecclesian is spoken in metropolitan pulpits, and a brisk refresher will make it possible to distinguish the language from ecclesiastical Latin or political English. (Ecclesian has much more affinity with the latter.)

Earlier approaches to Ecclesian through rhythm analysis have been abandoned. Compare the following examples:

“The dynamic relevance of this climactic event, which illuminates by its essential brilliance the peaks and vales of history’s horizon, burns also in your confrontation with the mystery of existence.”

“You exist. Now. In the event. The world event. The you event.”

These sentences mean roughly the same thing and provide some impression of the stylistic flexibility of Ecclesian. The sense in which Ecclesian is a tonal language is more debatable. Many masters of the tongue use decided falling inflections. Ecclesian has characteristic pronunciations of “static,” “scholastic,” and “creedal.” The cultivated pronunciation of “factual” creates an image of a contemptible little brute, deplorably dense and useless.

Less gifted speakers, however, may also use Ecclesian. Its secret lies in the classic statement of Humpty Dumpty to Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Ecclesian impenetrability vanishes when Humpty Dumpty’s principle is understood. (The learned egghead defines impenetrability in that same passage, by the way.)

Occasionally a speaker of Ecclesian will say right out what he chooses to mean, which is appallingly bad form, but helps us get the hang of it. In a recent sermon the preacher chose to distinguish between “event” and “sheer event.” Only the second actually happened, but the first is “true history.” Can what didn’t happen be true history? Certainly, because history is the meaning of sheer events, and truth is expressed in fiction.

As Humpty said about his use of words, “The question is, which is to be the master—that’s all.”

EUTYCHUS

RIGHT TO WORK

Your editorial on Right To Work laws (Apr.25 issue) is fair and objective. Right to Work does not often receive this treatment in church publications. As a union member who was once fired for refusing to join a union, I strongly oppose the position of the Methodist Board of Social and Economic Relations on this issue. They take the position that the rights of the union are more important than the rights of its members.

Anyone desiring more information about this should write to the National Right To Work Committee, 1025 Connecticut Avenue, Washington 6, D. C.

L. A. HOOSER

Indianapolis, Ind.

I wrote an article endorsing the principle of voluntary unionism and sent it to our denominational magazine: Presbyterian Life. They have refused to publish the article. If the “yellow dog” contract was morally wrong, then so is compulsory unionism. I personally believe it is that simple.

… Voluntary unionism [is] a principle which every freedom loving individual should endorse.

FREDERICK CURTIS FOWLER

The First Presbyterian Church

Duluth, Minn.

SUITING THE PULPIT

Mr. Petrie (Mar. 14 issue) points up a telling fact that with so many parishioners in evangelical denominations the acceptance of Unitarian preaching is because it is unrecognized. While this may be said for parishioners, I do not think it can be said for pastors and church administrators. The inroad of Unitarianism into denominations that are historically and officially evangelical is due to the knowing approval of those administrators, educators and ministers who manifest their approval either by overt promotion or by craven silence.

One thing Mr. Petrie’s article has done for me: it has substantially raised my estimation of those Unitarian ministers who have chosen to seek Unitarian pulpits.

C. GORDON CLEWS

Williamsport Methodist Church

Williamsport, Md.

I enjoy receiving CHRISTIANITY TODAY and feel rather flattered that a magazine of such size and stature would spend so much time, space, and concern on Unitarianism, relatively a tiny denomination.

CLARKE D. WELLS

St. John’s Unitarian Church

Cincinnati, Ohio

MARX AND DARWIN

Regarding the relationship between Marx and Darwin, mentioned by Dr. C. G. Singer (Mar. 14 issue), I enclose my translation of passages from the December, 1959, issue of Russia’s popular science monthly, Priroda. Almost every Russian periodical had an issue and a full page portrait dedicated to Darwin during 1959, the 100th anniversary of the appearance of Origin of Species.

“As to The Origin of Species Marx wrote Engels: ‘While the exposition is obscure and in English, this book provides a natural scientific basis for our doctrines.’ Vladimir Ilyich Lenin held Darwin’s doctrine in high esteem as having laid the groundwork for a beginning, and as having established the mutability of species and (their) interrelated lines of descent” (p. 10).

“In the Russia of the Soviets, Darwin’s doctrine found its second fatherland” (p. 11).

LEON H. KELSO

Washington, D. C.

I believe that God in history is going to halt the pending takeover of the U.S.A. by Communism. I believe this will follow the same “history curve” as the waning of Assyria before Jerusalem. From the human side I believe this involves both a wave of personal return to Christ and a revival of the principles of Christian scholarship. Hence what electrified me in the March 14 issue: … the breakthrough against Marx and Hegel … especially.

SAMUEL WOLFE

Santa Barbara, Calif.

CHURCH AND KINGDOM

Since Dr. McClain’s letter to the editor (Feb. 15 issue) involves not only a refutation of my review of his book (Oct. 12 issue) but the charge of “carelessness in handling the facts” at three points, a response is called for.

First, I wonder if Dr. McClain would repudiate Dr. Chafer’s classic definition of Dispensationalism alluded to in my review: “The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved, which is Judaism; while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity” (Dispensationalism: Dallas Seminary Press, 1936, p. 107). Although McClain does not use this terminology, this is the pattern of his theology, as the quotation in my review proves. McClain does indeed assert that the church will share in God’s theocratic (earthly) purpose; but the point of my criticism is that he has failed to show by what kind of theological logic or necessity this can be.

Second, my review quoted Dr. McClain to the effect that the church now enjoys the spiritual blessings of the future mediatorial (earthly) kingdom. However, critical theology must not only list facts and make statements; it must explain the internal coherence of its facts. This I believe McClain, and all dispensationalists, have failed to do. If the Kingdom by definition is the future earthly Davidic Kingdom, how can its blessings be experienced in advance by the church? A different definition of the Kingdom is called for to include this datum.

Third, McClain does not meet the main issue about the relation of the Cross to the Kingdom. Before the rejection of the Kingdom by Israel, the “few allusions to His death and resurrection … had been indirect, not much more than veiled intimations which could be read with understanding only in the clear light of the accomplished facts” (The Greatness of the Kingdom, p. 330). “If the ‘gospel of the kingdom’ (Mark 1:14) as preached by our Lord and His chosen disciples early in His ministry, is identical with the Gospel proclaimed after the Resurrection, why was the Cross not proclaimed as its central feature from the beginning?” (ibid., p. 332). [Note: I do not think the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel after the Resurrection are “identical” in form; but they do embody essentially the same redemptive reality although expressed in different forms.] McClain does indeed assert that there would be no final Kingdom apart from the death of Christ; this I freely recognize. My criticism is that his discussion on pages 330–334 relates the death of Christ to the Church rather than to the Kingdom. His statement is quite clear: “The objector [to the idea of a Kingdom without a Cross] might well be reminded, however, that there was once in Old Testament history a Theocratic Kingdom on earth before Messiah died, and therefor the possibility need not be rejected on a priori grounds” (p. 333). Certainly in the Old Testament, the death of Christ was implicit in the sacrificial system. Dispensationalists have not defended themselves against the criticism that the Cross is not an integral element of the Kingdom of God.

The central issue remains untouched: are we to interpret the Old Testament au pied de la lettre and fit the New Testament teaching into the Old Testament pattern (Dispensationalism), or are we to reinterpret the Old Testament by the New Testament teaching on the Kingdom of God (classical theology)? Dr. McClain is to be commended that he does not define the issue in terms of the authority of Scripture as some Dispensationalists recently have done. It is a question of hermeneutics, not the authority of Scripture.

GEORGE ELDON LADD

Fuller Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

HAPPINESS AND THE SAINTS

The Christian Church has virtually taken over the doctrine of hedonism from John Stuart Mill. “Only if you come to Christ will you experience real happiness.” Both evangelistic campaigns and church services have become dominated by an endeavour to sell conversion on the basis that it is the sole means of being guaranteed happiness.

But has the Christian really got this divine right? Maybe it is just a lot of sales talk attempting to cash in on modern misery. The dictionary definition of happiness is “contented with one’s lot.” … Could it conceivably be argued that a Christian should be this?

The desire to feel good inside has almost become a universal compulsive neurosis. Desperate attempts are made to attain this state by dramatic witnessing to strangers and by self-denial as well as by rededication. When, inevitably, the “feel good inside” experience passes there is the inevitable spiritual reaction and in some cases eventual cynicism. The search for happiness is replacing the leading of a disciplined Christian life. It is becoming the touchstone for the validity of Christian truth. The supreme irony is that the best way to get happiness, on any level, is to forget it. Happiness as the critics of the hedonist have continually pointed out, is a by-product and never can successfully be pursued as an end in itself.…

We are promised in the Bible both joy and peace.… This is a peace coming from a restored relationship, the result of repentance and faith.… The joy of the New Testament believer … is a joy that at times may parallel emotional misery as it must surely have done in the occasion of Gethsemane. It is essentially the joy of knowing that we belong to Christ.

Our Lord was not always happy. It is not suggested that he was chronically unhappy. He would not then have been the welcome guest at banquets and other celebrations.… Yet there is no question that on a number of occasions he was greatly troubled. This is true of his relationship to his disciples, it was equally true in his lament over Jerusalem and of his condition arising from the death of Lazarus.… He knew extreme and utter agony.… Paul went through similar experiences. Are we today any different?… How could a Christian today be happy in the normal sense of the word in our present situation. The Lord’s work is in such great need and the church is so divided. The world is tragically determined in its sin and ungodliness. Few of us but have unconverted loved ones. Are we to be contented with our lot when we know this?… We will he able to overcome despair and defeat anxiety. But we will certainly have to meet sorrow, worry, depression, frustration and many other perfectly normal emotions. They are part of the lot of every mature adult. Our great strength as Christians is that we shall face them with Christ who knew them himself.… The honesty of such an approach may not be superficially attractive but as it is the New Testament message it will be more eternally effective.

ROY D. BELL

West Lane United Baptist Church

Moncton, New Brunswick

LUTHER, CALVIN AND KNOX

Calderwood’s letter (Jan. 18 issue) represents a new low among non-Romans. The way in which this man grovels before the figure of the Roman pope is enough to turn the stomach of a Luther or a Calvin.

JAMES P. COOKE

First Presbyterian Church

Morrill, Neb.

To think that a Presbyterian would express such sentiments would make John Knox turn over in his grave.

DOUGLAS W. J. NOBLE

Wayside Evangelistic Church

San Pablo, Calif.

The Second Book of Chronicles has no real independent existence. It was the translators of the Septuagint who divided the original Book of Chronicles into two to make it more easily adaptable to the standard papyrus scrolls of the time. They did the same to Samuel and Kings. That their action was a wise one is shown by the Jewish adoption of their division when the Hebrew Old Testament was printed. In fact it is probable that even earlier, though for a different reason, Palestinian scribes had detached Ezra-Nehemiah (one book in Hebrew) from the end of Chronicles. It follows that anyone wishing to understand II Chronicles must grasp the main concepts running right through from I Chronicles to Nehemiah.

The Former Prophets, that is, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, have shown us how God revealed himself in Israel’s history. These books exist primarily for the revelation they give of God and not for satisfying our curiosity about Israel’s history. There is nothing surprising in the fact that Chronicles can tell us much that is not in Samuel and Kings, or that archaeology has discovered facts not mentioned at all in the Bible, for example, Ahab’s part in the battle of Qarqar against Shalmaneser III, and Jehu’s submission to the same king (cf. Wiseman: Illustrations from Biblical Archaeology, p. 56).

After the Babylonian exile, the Jewish community centered on Jerusalem, had ceased to be a nation in the full sense of the word and was rather a religious community with a fair amount of local autonomy, a position that continued until the Maccabean priest-kings achieved political freedom in the later years of the second century B.C. The book of Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah was intended to make this community understand its role better. Chronicles was designed to show that the real meaning of Israel’s history, once the period of the Judges was over, was to be found in the Davidic monarchy and the Jerusalem temple. It was meant less as a revelation of God’s character and more of the part to be played in his purposes by the institutions of his creating. The post-exilic community had been shorn of all the pomp and glory of the monarchy, but the restoration of the Temple and the purification of worship and national life (the chief topic of Ezra-Nehemiah) guaranteed that it was still the people of God, and thus the community had courage to carry out its task until the Messianic king should restore the monarchy once again. To the Church, the temple of God on earth, which awaits the coming of her Lord and King in glory, Chronicles has many messages to give.

There seems little to be gained in inquiring after the identity of the author of Chronicles. The Holy Spirit has left us as much in the dark as he has with the authors of the Former Prophets. Strong but not conclusive arguments have been brought forward in favor of Ezra. Jewish traditions, which have been quoted in his favor, may, even if they are reliable, mean no more than that he was responsible for the genealogies in I Chronicles. There seems little doubt, however, that if it was not written by Ezra, then some younger contemporary of his wrote it. Perhaps it is best to leave it at that and respect the silence of the Holy Spirit.

There is a strong tendency among moderns to belittle Chronicles as history, though there has been a reaction from the somewhat earlier tendency to regard everything peculiar in Chronicles as the invention of its author. Here again archaeology has tended to restrain undue scepticism. The usual reasons advanced today for belittling Chronicles are that in various ways it gives a false conception of the history of Israel. No one should doubt that the picture given by Chronicles is often markedly different to that presented by Samuel and Kings, but this in itself means little. Two works on history dealing with the same period are often very different because of differing approach and purpose. If we can show that the author of Chronicles did not want to contradict Samuel and Kings but to draw a different set of lessons from the same historical material, the usual liberal accusation of distortion falls to the ground.

The Chronicler has obviously used Samuel and Kings; this is doubted by none. In addition he has mentioned 20 other sources (14 in II Chronicles) from which he has derived information. (It seems certain that some of these are alternative titles for the same work.) We cannot know whether he had access to them all, or whether in some cases he was using a larger work into which some of the sources had already been incorporated. In any case he had a considerable number of sources at his disposal, but all of them he rewrote in his own marked style. How different was his use of Samuel and Kings! Though he has not hesitated to make occasional abbreviations and expansions or explanations, he has normally followed the canonical works with closest accuracy so that the modern textual critic is constantly appealing to Chronicles when scribal errors are suspected in earlier books. This can be explained in only one way. The Chronicler obviously regarded the Former Prophets as authoritative and probably canonical, and by his marked difference in his use of sources he was inviting his readers to study his work in the light of the earlier books. This does away with grounds for the charge of distortion. Most of the others are not based on Chronicles but on that reinterpretation of Old Testament history generally associated with the name of Wellhausen. In fact the increasing respect being shown today by many for Chronicles is one of the influences undermining the reputation of the Wellhausen theory.

The main differences between II Chronicles and Kings are of the same type as those between I Chronicles and Samuel. They will be best understood if we look at them in order.

In the story of Solomon (chaps. 1–9) the incident of Adonijah and the fate of Joab, Abiathar, and Shimei linked with it (1 Kings 1; 2), and also the account of Solomon’s sin and troubles (1 Kings 11) have completely vanished, though knowledge of the former is revealed by 1 Chronicles 29:22. These omissions may be compared with the silence on David’s sin and Absalom’s rebellion in I Chronicles. We are more concerned with the Davidic monarchy as a God-established institution than with the kings as individuals. As a result both the intrigue to prevent the true king from coming to the throne and the story of his later failure remain unmentioned.

There are also considerable abbreviations in the account of Solomon’s secular glory and in that of the Temple, though there are some small additions here as well. The former calls for no comment, but the latter is instructive. For the most part the abbreviations in the account of the Temple concern its ornamentation and other details which were not represented in Zerubbabel’s temple. This latter, however lowly, when compared with the glories of Solomon’s building, was Jehovah’s temple in which he would glorify himself (cf. Hag. 2:9). Hence the Chronicler omits these essentially secondary details lest his readers should belittle the house in which they worshiped.

When we pass on to the history of the divided kingdoms, we immediately meet the most striking feature in II Chronicles, namely, its silence about the Northern Kingdom except where the history of Judah is directly impinged. Not even the fall of Samaria is mentioned. Jeroboam had rejected not merely the Davidic monarchy, for which there was some justification, but also the Jerusalem temple, for which there was none. By so doing he had cut himself and his kingdom off from the main stream of God’s purposes. God continued to show his grace to Israel until there was no hope left, but this had no place in the working out of his purposes of redemption for the world; and so in II Chronicles the Northern Kingdom has no place except as some of its members from time to time link up with God’s people in the south. A fascinating example of the working out of this principle is given by a comparison of 2 Kings 8:25–9:28 with 2 Chronicles 22:1–9. These omissions are balanced by various additional information.

There are three stories of outstanding deliverances (13:3–20; 14:9–15; 20:1–30). They are often treated as stories of outstanding faith, but their true significance lies in their stress on the inviolability of God’s people whenever they put their assurance completely in him.

There is no suggestion that the inviolability is automatic, and so we have a number of other additions which enlarge on the sufferings of Judah and its kings when they forsook the Lord. These were Rehoboam (12:1–12), Jehoram (21:4–20), Joash (24:17–22), Uzziah (26:16–21), Ahaz (28:5–19), and Manasseh (33:11–13). The addition in the case of Ahaz should be specially noted. The main disaster, we are told, was caused by apostate Israel, yet there were in Israel people with a truer understanding of God’s demands than that possessed by most of the people of Judah. The same stress on conditional inviolability is found in chapter 36:11–21 where the reasons for the destruction of the Temple and the exile are given in unsparing terms. There is no nationalistic chauvinism in Chronicles. Judah is not exalted above Israel; the one difference is the electing grace of God.

Another group of additions is connected with the great religious reformations in Judah, namely Asa’s (15:1–15), Jehoshaphat’s (17:1–9; 19:1–11), Hezekiah’s (29:2–31:21), and Josiah’s (35:1–19). Except for Josiah’s reformation, these are only briefly mentioned in Kings because the prophetic writer saw their essentially external character. In this regard we note also Isaiah’s silence about Hezekiah’s reformation, and Jeremiah’s almost complete ignoring of Josiah’s. The purpose of Chronicles is a description of externals rather than a judgment on inner motives, and so much fuller descriptions are given.

Many have found some of the large numbers recorded in Chronicles a stumbling block. An example like that in chapter 14:9 with its “three hundred chariots” shows that we have not to do with mere exaggeration or phantasy. Some of the largest, like the million men of the same verse, arc to be understood merely as meaning a very large number. In other cases, for example in Jehoshaphat’s army (17:14–18), there are signs of scribal corruption. Until we know more of the history of writing numbers in the Inter-Testamental period, it would be dangerous to build any theory on an occasional difficult group of figures.

Modern commentaries are normally at their poorest when dealing with a book like Chronicles, except for linguistic technicalities. There has been little of value written from the conservative standpoint since Keil’s and Zöckler’s in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Wallington, Surrey, England

At the age of 11 I marched forward from the rear of an assembly to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. I was responding to an invitation extended by a bishop of the then Church of the United Brethren in Christ in a series of nightly meetings many years ago in Caba, La Union, Philippines. Three or four years earlier, my father had become one of the charter members of the first Protestant church organized in that section of the Philippines. For some time my mother remained faithful to the old Roman Catholic church, while I attended the children’s Sunday School and the Junior Christian Endeavor society meetings of my father’s church. I nonetheless joined mother in many religious observances of her church. Then within two years of my own decision for Christ, mother also espoused the new faith.

Pulpit evangelism had no doubt been the principal means by which our family of three had been brought into the evangelical church, although in my case Christian education had also played an important role in preparing my young mind and heart to respond to the Gospel when it was proclaimed (albeit in a foreign language I could hardly comprehend) and communicated through faulty translation into our native tongue. Evangelism, therefore, although distinguished from Christian religious education and other specialized functions of the Church, cannot be separated from them. It is the crux of all conversations in the Church. It lies at the core, even as it is at the very heart, of all the Church’s ministry to man and the world.

WHAT EVANGELISM IS

When discussing evangelism it is good and helpful to recall afresh its implications and to clarify its involvements. Real evangelism deals with the issue of life and death. It is concerned not with man’s wishes and hopes but with proclaiming the Gospel, the revealed, redemptive truth, the “faith once delivered to the saints,” in contemporary meanings and symbols, without secularization. Evangelism is the high and holy activity of bringing persons by the power of the Gospel into crucial encounter with God-in-Christ. It prepares the way for the Holy Spirit to lead men lost in sin and destined for destruction to find their way back to God for life’s renewal in Christ the Lord. It is, as Archbishop Temple put it, “the winning of men to knowledge of Christ as their Saviour and King, so that they give themselves to his services in the fellowship of his Church.” It aims at conversion, “at turning man from the way of ruin to the way of life.” It confronts man with the light of God’s truth and grace whereby man is constrained and compelled to do something about it. Its aim, as the Fourth Gospel declares, is that men “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name” (John 20:31). The Gospel offers its own health and peace to the souls of men, and its own resources for the transformation of society.

A CONTINUING REQUIREMENT

Evangelism remains an unfinished task after it has gained the sinner’s assent to a statement of faith and his baptism into church membership. Indeed, the task of evangelism is never really finished. As evangelism is concerned with “leading nonbelievers to a living faith in Jesus Christ and into the fellowship of the Church through the power of the living word,” it is equally concerned with making believers “witnesses … unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” Evangelism must unceasingly thrust forth disciples as witnesses of “the Gospel to the whole of creation.”

As a young man graduating from an American college I was confronted with a crucial issue in my life. I had been preparing for the study of law and a political career. Suggestions from a missionary, a pastor, and others, that I give myself to Christian work, were long unheeded. Furthermore, in the Philippines, at a time when Protestantism was definitely a new thing, the call to Christian service in a Protestant church seemed like an invitation to obscurity, ridicule, and deprivation. Moreover, the desire of my fiancee, and also of my mother was that I should prepare for the legal profession.

But one night I experienced another confrontation with the Gospel. The crucial issue that sleepless night was: Should I not rather give myself to the Christian ministry wherein the need was great, and for which I felt a divine call, instead of to a career into which many were crowding and for which only human desires had been expressed? After hours of earnest thought and prayer, I experienced renewal and a new sense of commitment to the Lord, and decided forthwith and firmly to follow his bidding. Evangelism had kept its hold on me. It drew me at the age of 11 to give my heart to God; it drew me during young manhood to “give of my best to the Master,” and to devote my whole strength to his cause. While no visible preacher prompted me or convinced me to make this decision, the unseen Evangelist, who is the Evangel, brought forth this radical change in my life’s outlook and vocation.

Thus evangelism operates to convert and transform, to call forth and to hold for God. It seeks to make disciples of children and youth and men and women, and in the inspiration of the Gospel to raise them up and make them mature through the ministries of the church for service in the cause of Christ.

TASK OF THE WHOLE CHURCH

This primary, crucial, and continuing task of evangelism must be faithfully discharged by the Church, the whole Church. The very formation of the Church was involved in a witness; its beginnings, in a testimony. To Peter’s declaration of belief regarding Jesus: “You are Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus answered: “… on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” By its very nature the Church must be missionary and evangelistic.

This task has been undertaken by prophets and preachers, by apostles and pastors, by evangelists and teachers. Constrained by a vision splendid or impelled by a sense of mission, men and women have gone to call on people to repent and turn to God. It was and is today being done by individuals acting on their own initiative. As in the apostolic times, however, the task has been more effectively undertaken as a collective effort in which the whole Christian brotherhood participate, with preachers going forth to preach the Gospel at the behest and support of the people of God, the Church. “For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:13–15, RSV). Arthur C. Archibald. in his book New Testament Evangelism, says: “The New Testament knows nothing of evangelism apart from the church. Everything goes out of the churches, and draws back into the churches.… The early church far surpassed us in this, and they were, as churches, centers of organized evangelistic activity. The whole life of the church pushed out into evangelistic fervor and soul-winning persuasion and they were organized for such endeavor.”

The Church today should not forget or fail to employ another New Testament pattern which depends not solely upon ordained apostles or evangelists, utilizing the pulpit and platform, but calls upon the laity to render their apostolate. Someone has described it this way: “Evangelism is the participation of the total Christian community in Christ’s mission in the world.” The clergy and the laity who make up the Christian community may differ in office but not in vocation. After first sending the Twelve in teams of two, Christ later sent the Seventy in similar teams into all parts of the earth to confront people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only were they organized in that fashion but the entire Church was mobilized, as we see when, following Pentecost, the whole Church was scattered abroad and the rank and file bore their witness.

It must be remembered again and again that “only the whole body of Christ can fulfill the purpose of Christ.” The world coming to believe in Christ as Lord and Saviour is premised upon the unity of God’s people, upon the unitedness of all members of Christ’s body, the Church. For this reason, the Church of clergy and laity, of West and East, and South and North, of white and brown and black, must sense more than ever before her need of “wholeness” and turn to Christ in repentance for a new dedication to the unfinished task of winning the whole world to him.

A DIVINE COMPULSION

Why must we as a Church give ourselves to such a task? First of all, because we have been called and commissioned by our Lord for such a task. We cannot be real disciples of Christ unless in glad and faithful obedience we enter upon the task.

Furthermore, because the Church and those in it have a great story to tell. Great historical, human events cannot be kept unknown. Here was the unprecedented action of God centering in Jesus Christ in and through which he inaugurated a new era in history. God-in-Christ visited his people, identified himself with them, bore their tragic condition, shared their frustrations and death, and he at the same time triumphed over the forces of sin and evil, rose from the grave, opened up heavenly possibilities for men, and “actualized” the kingdom of God in history! Who would and could withhold the story of such a momentous fact? Those involved in these events and those who came to learn of them could not remain silent. They must tell the story and release the news. What could keep the Good News from being spread? How could those who received it, who found new hope and new life in it, keep quiet? In the very words of Jesus himself, replying to the Pharisees who asked him to silence his disciples: “I will tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” So the Church faces her calling to evangelism because “we have a story to tell to the nations.”

THE FACT OF REDEMPTION

Not only is it a story that we have to tell; we have an experience of redeeming love to share. The Church is in possession of a mighty fact in history; it is also in possession of a tremendous fact of experience. Evangelism rests upon the “inwardness” of the pentecostal experience by which the Jesus of history becomes the indwelling Christ of faith. J. B. Phillips, in his Introduction to Letters to Young Churches, states: “Mere moral reformation will hardly explain the transformation and the exuberant vitality of these men’s lives.… We are practically driven to accept their own explanation, which is that their little human lives had, through Christ, been linked up with the very Life of God.”

Precisely for this reason the Church across the years and faithful Christians in every generation could not be contained even at the sacrifice of their lives from sharing the glow and warmth of so wonderful an experience to a world and to human lives bereft of the unsearchable riches of his grace. It was so with Paul. “The love of God constraineth me,” he declared. “Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). It was so with Latimer and Ridley who “lit a candle in England which never went out” because of their unwavering faith that Jesus was “Everyman’s Saviour.” It was so with John Knox who cried out, “Give me Scotland, or I die.” It is so with our pioneer Filipino missionaries, with Leones, Estoye, and Quismundo who dared to venture into dangerous situations for the Gospel because in no other than Christ could they find peace. It is so with us. The Church faces her calling to evangelism and missions because she has an experience of infinite love to share.

From ancient days to the present time the Word of God has constrained reluctant men to say, “Here am I, Lord, send me.” It has impelled men and women to go forth to proclaim that God omnipotent reigneth and Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour. And so the Church works and obeys in response to the Master’s call. Facing the calling to evangelism is integral to her very nature. The Church is most truly the Church when she is giving her utmost to the task of man’s redemption from sin and reconciliation to God.

To this end the call of the Head of the Church comes to us anew in our time, even at this hour. And if we who make up the Church are alive and faithful, we shall be earnest and quick to appropriate God’s fullness, and we and our sons and daughters with new power will confront the whole man with the whole Gospel to win the whole world to Christ. For such a task we may feel ourselves to be inadequate and insufficient. But we have One who is sufficient. It is he who has called us; it is he who goes before us; it is he who meets us every day. It is he who declared: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations … whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Therefore, “Lead on O King Eternal, The day of march has come.”

God’s Man

God’s man is more than a moral soul

Who lives a life that his friends extol,

Who pays his debts when his debts are due,

Whose wife will vow that he’s not untrue.

God’s man is more than a man who stands

Saluting the Lord and His great commands,

Who reads the Bible and kneels to pray

And goes to church on the holy day.

God’s man is the man whom Christ has freed

From sin and guilt and the grip of greed;

Who counts as gain all the earthly loss

Which he must suffer to gain the Cross

He knows that he at a precious price

Was bought by Calvary’s sacrifice;

Who knows, therefore, he is not his own,

But bound by blood to the Lord’s high Throne.

So live he must for the Christ above,

Who gave His all and whose name is Love.

The world that watches him as he goes

Will see no Christ but the one he shows.

Christ has no way to redeem the race

Save through the men that are saved by grace.

God’s man knows well that his life must count

For Him who spoke on the ancient Mount;

God’s man is witness, by deed and word,

That God is love and that Christ is Lord;

He sets a light in the field and mart

And leaves the Truth in his neighbor’s heart;

He walks with men on the common road,

And lives for them while he lives for God.

LON WOODRUM

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

Second in a Series

The post-modern mind, we suggested, holds that Reality consists of the Self and the Unpatterned Cosmos. In such a world, no objective standards are real (for the Self creates truth, structure, meaning, and values; and, further, the Unpatterned is beyond-values, beyond-truth, beyond-structure).

THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY

How then should we act? One possible answer is: act so that the Self gains security.

One way to this is to act so that the Self is accepted by a Group and therefore feels emotionally secure (or is enabled to create emotional security for itself). If this version of the post-modern mind is influencing large numbers of people (particularly the post-war generation), we would expect a behavior pattern dedicated to Group conformity. For in terms of the post-modern mind’s definition of Reality, such behavior makes “good sense.”

From the point of view of someone holding to the modern mind (with its Patterned Universe and Rational Goals)—or, indeed, to someone holding that Reality is, ultimately, the Triune God—such behavior does not make good sense, but is both puzzling and alarming. For if we act to conform (for the sake of emotional security), and this alone is how and why we act, then many goals and aims and interests of the modern mind (and no less of the Christian mind) become irrelevant. Why should the post-modern Conformist be interested in political freedom, or in politics in general, or in learning, or in romance? All these imply a different view of Reality, and indeed thus become difficult for the post-modern mind to understand. One recalls Arthur Koestler’s picture of Europe’s teen-agers: “Their typical gesture is a great silent shrug” (Time, Oct. 5, 1959).

THE WORLD OF SEX

Consider romance, or rather the whole relationship between the sexes. For the post-modern Conformist, the whole realm (if our suggestion is correct) becomes a means to emotional security through approval by the Group. Some recent news items and evaluations are pertinent.

Charles Cole, President of Amherst, speaks of “a revolution which has dramatically altered the folkways of American youth and created a new and strange chasm between my generation and the next.… Going steady is a stylized relationship … the new ways may also be related to the search for security. The boy or girl who goes steady is secure” (Harper’s Magazine, March, 1957).

Professor J. A. Gengerelli, University of California, asserts: “Adjustment … takes many forms, but among college students in recent years … the general business of going steady … is considered a sign of emotional security and indicates that you are psychologically okay.… Thus we witness the frequent spectacle of the marriage of two persons motivated not by romance or passion, but by sheer orthodoxy” (Saturday Review, Mar. 23, 1957).

In a 1951 survey of “The Younger Generation,” Time Magazine (Nov. 5, 1951) reports: “Youth’s ambitions have shrunk.… There is the feeling that it is neither desirable nor practical to do things that are different from what the other fellow is doing … (as one girl put it) ‘the individual is almost dead today, but the young people are unaware of it … they are not individuals but parts of groups. They are unhappy outside of groups. They date in foursomes and sixsomes.’ ”

About half of the women getting married today, current figures show, are teen-agers. Sociologist Kingsley Davis comments that the trend shows a “widespread movement towards anti-intellectualism and anti-effort (emphasizing) group conformity rather than individual initiative, security rather than achievement” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept. 18, 1958).

The number of married students in Dallas high schools is seven times what it was in 1953. Two thirds of them are below 18. The total is nearly 500, and present high-schoolers now have 72 children (Time Magazine, May 25, 1959).

Dr. R. E. Lentz, addressing the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches, warned that clergymen must be prepared to cope with eight and nine-year-olds going steady (Cleveland Plain Dealer, Feb. 11, 1958).

VANISHING POLITICAL IDEALS

Or, consider political ideals and even interest in politics. For the post-modern Conformist, politics becomes simply a means towards emotional security. Any government the Group approves would fulfill this role; beyond that, no reason for interest remains. The modern mind’s sustained interest in politics and political ideals would be enigmatic to the post-modern temperament.

A French Institute of Public Opinion poll revealed that a majority of young people (18–30) were not sure whether a Communist regime would change their personal lives. Only 20 per cent thought that they had any real influence on events (New York Times, Dec. 9, 1957).

A questionnaire revealed that 55 per cent of 359 students at a large southern university could not identify Woodrow Wilson (New Republic, Aug. 12, 1957).

Nearly two thirds of teen-agers polled in West Germany said they have no interest in politics (Time Magazine, Oct. 5, 1959).

Reports from a meeting of 25 West Berlin religious and political leaders which was held to consider recent anti-Semitic outbreaks in West Germany say that there was “despair” about democracy as a way of life, because the younger generation is “completely indifferent” to politics (New York Times, Jan. 30, 1960).

A poll at the (Communist) University of Warsaw, Poland, showed that most students believe vaguely in some sort of socialism and in Catholicism. Asked to identify the highest moral authority, 347 out of 387 said their own consciences, 14 said religion, and only six said socialism (New York Times, Oct. 6, 1958).

Political Scientist M. Klain, after extensive polling, characterized the attitudes of Western Reserve students towards politics as “decidedly cold” and “fortified by ignorance” (Antioch Review, 1957).

THE YEN FOR CONFORMITY

A summary of general attitudes is given by William H. Whyte, an editor of Fortune, who characterizes the emerging outlook in this manner:

The New Illiteracy is nourished by several simple articles of faith. The essence of them is this: First, the individual exists only as a member of a group. He fulfills himself only as he works with others: of himself he is nothing. His tensions, his frustrations … are penalties for his failure at adjustment, and they should be excused.… Above all, he must get along (with people).… The belief is growing that the health of our society depends on increasing adjustment of the individual to the consensus of the group; and this is not simply an unwitting yen for conformity, but a philosophy, a philosophy advocated by a sizeable proportion of the leadership in each sector of society.… Their doctrine is now orthodoxy (Saturday Review, Oct. 31, 1953).

Or, to quote a review of Whyte’s book, The Organization Man: the new outlook’s “major propositions are three: a belief in the group as the source of creativity; a belief in ‘belongingness’ as the ultimate need of the individual; and a belief in the application of science to achieve the belongingness” (Time Magazine, Jan. 21, 1957; cf. New York Times, Dec. 14, 1956). A similar analysis is given by David Riesman in The Lonely Crowd. Time summarizes Riesman’s views:

The new middle class—bureaucrats, salaried business employees—is largely other-directed.… Youngsters rate many popular entertainers as ‘sincere,’ which evades the issue of whether their performance was good or bad; the child is afraid to make a judgment that will turn out wrong (i.e., unpopular).… They will be tolerant because they do not much care, not because they understand the value of difference and individuality.… They will be compulsively gregarious—and lonely. Their play will be deadened by compulsive groupness.… The younger generation contains many new-style indifferents, who know enough about politics to reject it … enough about their political responsibilities to evade them (Time Magazine, Sept. 27, 1954).

SOCIOLOGICAL SUPPORT

Sociological investigations through polls and interviews give some support to this analysis. A five year “depth study” by T. W. Adorno and other University of California sociologists produced the appraisal of a general population cross-section (not confined specifically to the post-war generation):

It can be said that about 10 per cent of the population of the United States consists of ‘authoritarian’ men and women, while as many as another 20 per cent have within them the seeds.… The Authoritarian Man conforms to the nth degree to middle class ideas and ideals, and to authority. But conforming is no voluntary act for him; it is compulsive and irrational. It is an attempt to find security by merging into the herd (New York Times Magazine, Apr. 23, 1950).

The study in depth supervised by Sociologist S. A. Stouffer of Harvard, to determine how much attachment remains to the ideal of freedom (one of the key ideals of the modern mind), disclosed that nearly a third of the sample interviewed would deny freedom of speech to anyone favoring government ownership of big industry, and nearly two-thirds would deny it to atheists (Look, Apr. 15, 1955). Another set of experiments was conducted by S. E. Asch and other Harvard psychologists, their subjects being 123 students from five different colleges. Each subject was put into a controlled experimental situation involving a group of six to eight helpers who have been tipped off beforehand. The subject was asked to tell, during a series of trials, which of three lines was the longest. The “group” (the helpers) consistently and unanimously gave wrong answers. The subject was less and less sure of his (correct) answer, and as the trials proceeded, 38.6 per cent conformed to the majority, despite the clear evidence of their senses (Scientific American, Nov., 1955).

A lengthy report on college students, written for the American Council on Education by Dr. W. M. Wise of Columbia University, reports that students are interested in “the grades that will give them an advantage on the job market. Some of them are even prepared to cheat.… They want to enter upon a business or professional career, and they want to find security.… (They fear) rejection by the group.… (They feel) that everyone is entitled to his opinion, and even that one opinion is probably as valid as another.… (There is) little belief that by joining political groups he can change things” (Time, Sept. 12, 1958).

We Quote:

MAN-MADE RELIGION: “The Book of Proverbs describes the risk of private opinion in spiritual matters: ‘There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death’ (Prov. 16:25). The religion of the man who ‘thinks for himself’ is usually filled with subtle assumptions: that there is no exclusive way for a man to get his eternal reward; that all avenues plotted at any time in the course of human history are potentially valid.… Latent in the phrase, ‘I believe that every man should think for himself,’ is the notion that a different way exists for each individual.… The next step is: ‘I believe that every man should think for himself—as a god.’ … The religion of the freethinker may be sincere, but it is also subtle and subjective.… The way he takes is right in his own eyes, but not in the eyes of God. And the divine verdict upon such man-made religion is inevitable: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord’ (Isa. 55).… It was the Lord Jesus who affirmed: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ ”—The Rev. R. RICHARD SEARLE, Oak Park, Illinois, in a message on “The Religion of the Man Who Thinks for Himself.”

THE VIEW OF REALITY

If our evaluation is correct, such attitudes reflect a view of Reality characteristic of the post-modern mind, and if this view of Reality is correct, the attitudes are eminently sensible. From the viewpoint of the modern mind (or indeed the Christian mind), such attitudes are unrealistic.

An illuminating example of the confrontation between modern mind and post-modern mind turns up in a survey of college teachers on 16 campuses recently conducted by the Nation (Mar. 9, 1957). Its purpose was to learn what literary and artistic influences predominate among today’s students. But the side remarks were so striking that the original purpose was sidetracked. Here is the modern mind looking at the post-modern mind.

Queens College, New York: “The mass of college students live lives of quiet enervation.… They come to college because a degree increases earning power and enhances social prestige.… Barely literate … wanting above all to buy security for themselves in the full knowledge that the price is conformity.”

Stanford University: “Many acknowledge no heroes, profess only lukewarm admirations, shun causes … flinch from commitments.… (The attitude) has its own moral basis, which comes less from single leaders than from the Zeitgeist.”

Yale: “Skeptical … indifferent … solemn … most of them are company men.”

University of Minnesota: “Today’s students sit and listen … less animated … detached … only a tiny fraction subject to intellectual influences of any kind.”

University of the South: “The real influences … are the makers and sponsors of such mass media as TV and the weekly slicks.… Accommodating.… Standardized.…”

University of Washington: “Strong intellectual or aesthetic allegiances scarcely exist among the present college generation here. The first interest … is to get on with their technical training.… Conformism and timidity.”

University of Michigan: “Touching submissiveness.… Eager to break into the accepted social pattern of marriage and a career. Since these are the accepted social patterns, he naturally believes they are the right ones.… Hardly any background.… Find simple prose almost illegible.… General conformity.… Earnest but dull.”

University of Louisville: “Existentialism is the philosophy they trust most. Freud … is the psychologist—a guide to adjustment that is not mere acquiescence.”

University of Nebraska: “Brainwashed generation.… Passivity.… Chamber of Commerce morality.… Their minds are as quiet as mice.… The blood runs cold.… Indifference.”

University of California: “Timid, unadventurous and conforming.… Accept the opinions of their professors.”

University of Denver: “Dull.… World-weary … skeptical … unimaginative.”

University of Rochester: “They whisper their hopes.… Temporizing.… Low-pressure doubt.… They want to learn how men learn to care.… They are suspicious of the lack of conviction in themselves.”

Wayne University: “Dull conformity.… Indifferent.… Bound together by their aloneness.… The majority come to college because it is the only thing to do … accepting what their teachers tell them.… Unenthusiastic … pepless lives of cynicism and tolerance.”

Columbia University: “Conservative and conformist.… Curious mixture of rebellion and conventionalism.”

Centenary College: “Not particularly interested.… Comfortably patterned.…”

Princeton: “Wait-and-see.… Conservative … sensitive to the accusation they are conformists.”

DENIAL OF BASIC IDEALS

So far, we have covered the post-modern Conformist who conforms to the “values” of a Group, which still holds to many of the forms of modern society, while denying the ideas which lie behind these forms. The Cheshire Cat slowly disappears; only his smile lingers on, the body having vanished.

There might be, however, a Group also which increasingly denies even the forms of modern society, and which is even more alien to the modern mind. And, as we shall see, there is some evidence that such may exist.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

The Africa of tomorrow is just beyond the horizon and the role of the Church more important than at any stage in the history of the once “dark” continent. In world history the pace of Africa has been the pace of the camel, the ox, or the canoe. The emergence of our continent and its indigenous peoples has been slow. A land of promise during the early years of Christianity, Africa was cut off from the cultural streams and especially the religious development of “Christian” Europe for so many centuries that the twentieth century dawned almost wholly pagan or Moslem. This pattern was broken only by the groups of Copts in Egypt and Ethiopia and small and far-flung Christian communities, the result of nineteenth century missions, in other parts of this vast continent.

Politically Africa was hardly a factor in world affairs. But all that is rapidly changing. Africa is on the move. The role of the Church must now be seen against the background of the Africa of today and the Africa of tomorrow. Else our vision will be out of perspective.

In any evaluation of the future role of the Church, its opportunities, its tasks, and possibilities—we must begin with a realistic look at Africa as it is and try to discover the basic movements of the human spirit on this continent. The Church never exists in a vacuum. It is and must be rooted in some actual human situation. And if we take a long look at Africa, what do we see?

THE SPLINTERING PATTERNS

We see age-long patterns of life breaking up all over Africa. A “new look” is emerging about everything. Yesterday is dead. Tomorrow is only beginning to take shape. We may be entering into one of the most chaotic eras in the history of this continent.

Vast changes may come more suddenly than many of us now deem possible. On the other hand, old institutions may prove to be extremely stubborn. Much will depend on outside factors and on how African nationalism develops.

If leaders in different parts of Africa succeed in molding the emerging national sentiments of the different African groups into one all-inclusive African nationalism, the political face of Africa may change very radically and at a quite unexpected tempo. Our knowledge of human groups, however, leads us to regard this as fairly unlikely. Rivalries and inter-group hostilities seem bound to occur among the self-conscious African leaders and groups. But even if African nationalism breaks up into a few fairly inclusive federal patterns or smaller group nationalisms, it might still be a factor of very great importance and compel radical changes in vast areas of our continent.

The following factors will probably shape the new Africa: 1. Western technology; 2. Islam; 3. Communism; 4. Nationalism; and 5. Christianity.

Of these, the first influence is in one sense the most obvious. Even a superficial observer of Africa must be struck by the ever-growing role of Western technology throughout this continent. Wherever one turns, mills, factories, or processing plants are being built, mines developed, roads laid out, and cities planned. Oil wells are sunk, vast conservation schemes started, and transportation developed. Western technology is opening up the African continent and is laying bare its resources. The bush is converted into fertile land, and schemes like Kariba, the Volta, Aswan and Inga Falls projects must affect the future of the continent.

In the wake of Western technology, old Africa and its way of life are doomed. They must and will change—with increasing momentum. The process, once begun, can never be arrested, but runs its course. An accepted principle among anthropologists is termed “the irreversibility of culture.” A human group can never recapture a cultural phase gone by. New ways of doing things come to stay; new ideas displace outmoded ways of thought. This fact must have a very sobering effect on people who talk overmuch about safeguarding or “re-establishing” African tribal life or institutions. The attempt could at best have only very limited success. The factors of change are too real and too all-embracing.

ONE IN THREE A MUSLIM

Then there is the force of Islam. We in the deep South of Africa are not always aware of the power of Islam, which has anything between 70 and 80 million adherents in Africa. One out of every three people in Africa is a Muslim. The whole Mediterranean seaboard of Africa is a solid Muslim stronghold. Only the Coptic kingdom of Emperor Haile Selassie is half Christian. Probably 90 per cent of the total population of Africa north of the equator is Muslim.

It is important to note that the front of Islam has persistently moved south during the last decades. It has crossed the equator at several points. Islam has launched a full-scale missionary crusade. The Koran is being translated into African languages, even into Afrikaans.

But, from the vantage point of the West, Islam may be viewed as a potential ally in forestalling communism in Africa. This factor is rarely appreciated. Of all known groups it is most difficult to influence Muslims or change their basic loyalties. They have been called by Christian missionaries le bloc inconvertible. When people glibly talk of the Muslim world “turning Communist,” they have little historical insight. If it should happen it would be against all historical precedent. I believe the next decades will prove that Russia may have no more success with Muslims than the Christian Church has had through all these centuries. The Islamitic states of North Africa may instead prove to be a very real bulwark against the Communist penetration of Africa.

EXPOSURE TO COMMUNISM

The next great force in the development of the new Africa is communism.

I am convinced that there is great danger of infiltration by communism in Central and West Africa. On the whole, these peoples are not bound together by a fierce religious nationalism like that of the Islamic groups of North Africa. Whereas these groups are closely bound to the greater Moslem world, the Central and West African groups are not rooted in a great world religion. They are more “open” to foreign influences and also to communism. The great physical barrier of the Sahara is no longer as important as it was. Modern communications have broken through all the old barriers behind which any human group could live in isolation. Moscow is aware that all Africa can be reached by radio, and we can expect the Kremlin to intensify its onslaught upon Africa over the air.

At the present moment communism is not a great force in Africa. But we may be sure that Moscow will grasp every opportunity to exploit trouble-situations, to stir up Africa nationalism for its own ends and against the interests of Western powers in Africa.

CONFLICTING NATIONALISMS

The next great factor in the New Africa is nationalism in all its varied forms, from Afrikaans nationalism in the far South to different indigenous African or Islamic nationalisms in Central, West, or North Africa. The battle for Africa will in some sense be a battle of conflicting nationalisms.

There is a rising tide of nationalism from Algiers to Cape Town. But it occurs in different forms, springing from different historical backgrounds and even having different “spiritual” content. (Compare President Nasser’s Egyptian Islamic nationalism with Dr. Verwoerd’s Afrikaans Christian nationalism and Dr. Nkrumah’s West African form of nationalism.)

All these nationalisms, however, have one element in common: they all seek absolute goals. Nationalism never halts halfway. It goes the full mile. It may be pacified into accepting interim goals for a short time. But ultimately it is never satisfied without accomplishing final goals. Aggressive nationalism despises “wise” counsel, and compromise is branded as weakness.

Thus if African nationalism once becomes unified and on the move, Africa faces tremendous hazards. South Africa especially, with all the signs of a violent clash of nationalisms, may face upheaval. Genuine leaders will arise among African groups, but so will many dangerous political adventurers.

Much will depend on whether African nationalism will be “black,” that is, with as strong a color bias as our own “white” nationalism. If that should happen, relations between the different racial groups will progressively worsen. Against the background of our history, the Africans may be gravely tempted to follow this course. It may spell disaster for all concerned.

Much will depend on the role of the Church in this turbulent era in Africa’s history. It faces tremendous responsibilities. On the one hand, it will have to be realistic in taking account of actual historical situations. On the other hand, it will have to guard against becoming a tool of nationalism, either “white” or African.

Relatively few Africans, assuredly, belong to the Christian Church in this emerging new Africa. It would be a safe guess to place the number of Christians in Africa at around 33 million, about one-seventh of the African population. This includes Roman Catholics, Copts, and evangelicals. This means that Moslems outnumber Christians more than two to one. Moreover, Christians are more divided than the Moslems. Apart from South Africa and the Federation, there are, outside colonial possessions, no “Christian” states except Coptic Ethiopia.

On the other hand, members of the Christian Church are generally more literate than other groups and have relatively greater influence. The educational programs of the Christian churches and missions have done a great work. Furthermore, the Christian churches have progressed at an inspiring pace in the last three or four decades. Some churches have really become rooted in African communities. The Christian Church can count on many friends and champions for her cause among Africans.

THE RELIGIOUS TENSIONS

Yet we must not be overoptimistic. In an era of rising nationalism the Church may experience many shocks and disappointments. Many African Christians may be thrown off center by the tides of nationalism sweeping their countries. They may become nationalists first and Christians second. This must not surprise us. Christians in other countries or continents have succumbed to this temptation in periods of great nationalist upheaval. We need only remind ourselves of Germany during the heyday of national socialism! Even a man like Dr. Hastings Banda of Nyasaland, popularly linked with many sinister aspects of the Nyasaland revolt, is a Christian and used to be an elder of the Kirk of Scotland! How many of our own “white” Christians make decisions not primarily on Christian grounds but according to group interests? We must face the possibility, nay, the likelihood that many African Christians will do the same.

Add to this the fact that nationalism characteristically seeks inspiration in the cultural or religious past of the group. Religious heritage is extoled and a bias projected against all “foreign” influence. African nationalism may thus extol paganism at the expense of Christianity.

THE CHRISTIAN THRUST

But the Christian Church has a great role to play. She holds the key to better relations between the different racial groups. But to accomplish this, she must not herself be a “color or cast ridden” community.

Governments in different parts of Africa are struggling—up till now with few signs of success—to find a key to racial peace. I believe the Church of Jesus Christ remains the decisive factor. If the Church fails, the future of Africa is dark indeed.

The task of the Church in Africa seems to me to center around these basic points:

First, the Church will have to witness, to evangelize, and win the African masses for Christ.

Then the Church will have to stand for social justice. The Church will have to take a vital interest in the legitimate rights of the Africans. The Church cannot win the respect and loyalty of the Africans if she fails to take a vital interest also in their material needs. To stand aloof or to side automatically with the white groups would be fatal. The Africans would reject the Church as a white man’s or imperialistic institution. Of course, the Church will have to act with great responsibility and wisdom and will have to guard against the tendency in some quarters to champion any wild African aspiration merely because it is “African.”

The Church can also play a vital role in training African leaders. Although some countries have taken over the educational task of the Church, in most countries the doors are wide open for such leadership training.

Finally, the Church will have to create real community between the different racial groups within her own ranks. I do not mean that the Church must condemn all separate churches for different racial groups along cultural, linguistic, or other lines. But the Church must rid herself completely of any and all attempts at exclusion of any believer from any church or service on any of these grounds.

If the Christian Church in Africa merely tries to perpetuate the status quo in race relations or racial patterns, she will fail to meet the needs and realities of a new day in Africa in which nationalism and race consciousness and sensitiveness are very marked. This to my mind is the problem of the Church in the present world situation and in the emerging Africa.

Great new non-Christian or anti-Christian forces are on the march, and we see their shadows falling across all the horizons of our Western world. A divided Church faces this new world. As millions are freed from illiteracy and the power of old pagan gods and fears, what has the Christian Church to offer these temporarily uprooted millions?

One of their basic needs is a sense of communion. Can and will the Christian Church be a new home to them? The Christian Church will have to face tremendous competition in her quest for the hearts and minds of the millions of Africa. We must face the sober fact that 70 million Africans have already been drawn into the communion of the Moslem faith. What hope has a deeply divided and caste-or-color-ridden Christian Church in a life-and-death struggle against Islam for the soul of Africa? Humanly speaking, victory is a remote prospect unless the Christian Church creates a sense of real and deep community among all in her fold. I do not base my idea of Christian brotherhood on any vague philosophical or humanistic conception of the brotherhood of all men, but I base it on the clear and specific Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of all believers in Christ Jesus.

Apart from Islam, we have to face the challenge of communism, with its stress on community. Though we may condemn the community created by the Communist ideology as pseudo-community, the Christian Church will, in her struggle against communism, have to prove that her own genius for creating the deepest possible community among men is real and not pseudo or an idle boast. If the Christian Church in Africa fails to create real community she is doomed. If she fails to become a new “home” to the millions of uprooted pilgrims moving out of their old paganisms and outmoded securities, these pilgrims will fall prey to some other faith or ideology, and find another home far from the cross of Christ, like some extreme form of African nationalism, communism, or Islam.

Let me state clearly that the problem is not, in the first instance, the propriety of separate churches for different national or racial groups in different countries or even the same country, city, or town (whether German, English, Dutch, or African churches for countries or areas where people belong to these language or racial groups). That is normal and natural. I raise no objection so long as these churches do not bar their doors against fellow believers of another language, race, or ethnic group. This sort of thing becomes forced segregation within the Church, within the community of God’s people, and that is an evil thing and must be combatted by all Christians, even if it is camouflaged by high sounding concepts like “the need for autogenous development.”

This is the Africa we face. The Church can be the great pioneer, the bridge builder par excellence between widely different peoples. She can teach them to value their own heritage while initiating them into their great new home—the Church and the greater family circle of the people of God.

The Church, by being true to her own character as the communion of the saints, the people of God, will have to make Christian brotherhood and fellowship for all racial groups real. Otherwise Christianity will lose all hope of moral and spiritual leadership in the emerging Africa.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

Deep within the corridors of the mysterious Protestant citadels known as “denominational headquarters,” a storm is brewing whose gusts will shortly be felt in many a rustic chapel and reinforced concrete cathedral throughout the land. The storm is not due to unpredictable movements in the heavenlies; on the contrary, it is being deliberately kicked up by a talented group of young ministers who may be on the way to becoming the ecclesiastical spokesmen of the next generation in our country.

The cause of the storm is their dissatisfaction over traditional forms and programs of evangelism. Many of them are in positions of importance in the departments of evangelism in their denominations, so that their discontent is no mere protest from the outside. They are determined to retool the evangelistic strategy of the churches and thus make it “more relevant to this generation.” They believe that the Church has a redemptive message to give the world, but that since the world does not appear to be listening, the message needs to be set in a new context. They realize that what they are doing is foreordained to arouse controversy. Some have already run the gauntlet of suspicion or have encountered entrenched opposition. Others are biding their time, confident that the future is on their side, that one day the world will hear them gladly.

These young men already have a name; at some point along the line they have dubbed themselves “The Young Turks.” Even though they are scattered through the different denominations, many of them know each other quite well. George E. Sweazey, now a pastor in Webster Groves, Missouri, but at one time head of the Presbyterian (USA) division of evangelism, has described them in these terms: “They are fascinated with the novel in evangelism because they are most concerned with the penetration of the Gospel into unentered cultural areas. They lean heavily on the latest popularizers of social studies, and look on what is being done now in evangelism from the point of view of culture-critics, crying disdainfully, ‘This is outmoded!’ They have no patience with those ways by which the greater number of people are each year turned from no interest in Jesus Christ to a daily concern for Him.”

The purpose of this article is not to “expose,” censure, or condemn the young men, but to evaluate their point of view in the full light of the Gospel, and to seek out whatever strains of health may be found in their challenge to the Church. First it should be noted that they are dissatisfied with the classic definition of evangelism formulated by Archbishop William Temple: “Evangelism is so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their Saviour, and serve Him as their King in the fellowship of His Church.” In slightly altered form, this definition has won wide acceptance throughout the World Council of Churches.

A NEW DEFINITION

Charles Templeton, a “Young Turk” who abandoned the ministry but whose views are still influential, broadened the meaning of the term considerably in his definition: “Anything the Church may do which has as its ultimate end the winning of men and women to Christ and the winning of Christians to deepened commitment is evangelism.” Thus evangelism has been made to seem, in the words of another, “one of those omnibus categories of Christendom that expands and contracts with theological insights and the exigencies of culture.” Or to use a phrase increasingly popular in the old-line denominations, “Everything a church does is evangelism.”

To understand how the centuries-old task of winning converts to Jesus Christ is being transmuted into a dialogue between Church and culture, it is necessary to understand parallel developments in theological thought. First, there is a new concept among many of the young men about the nature of sin, which is informed partly by the fact that they received their seminary diplomas in the atomic age. Thus one of them defines sin as estrangement, following Paul Tillich: estrangement from self, from one’s neighbor and from God. Other words often heard are “alienation” and “enmity.” As Poet Amos Wilder expresses it, “Men are more dominated by a sense of being caught in a sinful situation than of being heinously guilty of particular sins.… The modern man sees himself not as Promethean rebel or self-accusing scapegrace but as a relatively helpless and wistful prisoner in a system of huge social and cultural authorities and compulsions.” The stern Hebrew concept of sin as disobedience to God’s command seems to have been replaced by the fatalistic Greek view of sin as tragedy. Modern man, therefore, sins because he cannot help it, just as did the ancient heroes of Aeschylus. But now it is not the “fates” that make his sin inevitable, it is the pressures of “organizational living.” Such a man is to be pitied rather than warned of the fires of hell. It would be unfair (they would say) to condemn a man to eternal torment for an adultery he could not help, or for an unbelief that became his lot simply because he could not hear the Gospel in the roar of traffic.

The “Young Turks” have a genuine compassion for their fellow man. They yearn to offer him a salvation that is practical, and since a “decision for Christ” seems such a weak and futile gesture in the face of the total situation, they lean more to liturgy and the sacraments as offering genuine help in distress, and therefore as a sound goal of evangelism.

CRITIQUE OF THE CHURCH

A second major premise of the “Young Turks” is their critique of the Church’s pretension to moral rectitude. So aware are they of the secular man’s indifference to the Church, of the mistakes the Church has made in the past, and of the present cultural mood which treats all moral principles and standards of value as relative, that they are ready to rip to shreds every effort to equate Christianity with middle-class respectability or “religiosity.” The late Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose words carry added weight because he was one of Himmler’s final victims, sounds the keynote: “There is the Godlessness in religious and Christian clothing which we have called a hopeless Godlessness, but there is also a Godlessness which is full of promise, a Godlessness which speaks against religion and against the Church. It is the protest against the pious Godlessness insofar as this has corrupted the churches, and thus in a certain sense, if only negatively, it defends the heritage of a genuine faith in God and of a genuine Church.”

The “Young Turks” feel a spiritual kinship to the man who believes but who scorns to come to church because he has an abhorrence for its genteel institutional life. They agree with Bonhoeffer that he may prove to be more godly than the faithful communicant. They warm to the surgically sharp honesty of an atheist like the existentialist Albert Camus, whose hero (in The Fall) gave up his prominent legal practice in Paris and his life as a model citizen to become an alcoholic because, as he expressed it, “I realized, as a result of delving in my memory, that modesty helped me to shine, humility to conquer, and virtue to oppress.” In the face of such candid revelation of truth, they reason, how can the Church feel that she is discharging the Great Commission simply by handing out packets of home visitation materials at an evangelism supper?

In short, they hold that the Church should cease proclaiming her message to the world with so much assurance, and should spend more time listening to the world, seeking to understand it, and then asking significant questions that might somehow make a difference in the way the world seeks to resolve its problems. Thus Theodore A. Gill declares that the Church “must now find other than traditional ways to state the gospel’s constant relevance, ways less concerned with giving the superlatively informed world answers about itself, more concerned with asking the world questions about the shadowed context of its brilliant competence.”

This is evangelism “in depth,” we are told. It is “a positive thrust forward into the complex structure of life and society.” It is the “spire” speaking to the “town” rather than for the “town”, and speaking of Christian goals rather than of cultural values. Adding members to the church roll, say the “Young Turks,” means little enough if the person added is the usual type of stable citizen who is already “pretty well conditioned toward participation in a committee-run organization with religious aims.” D. T. Niles, in fact, shocked the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland last year by declaring that “the primary task of the Church today in evangelism is discovering what are the successful methods of evangelism that must be discarded because they are not faithful to the gospel.”

On one point all are agreed: there are “no easy answers, no immediate, streamlined programs available” to renew the Church so that it is “alert and alive to the movements of history and sensitively aware of the birthpangs of a new age.” And the more daring will add, “We must not be intimidated by those who mistake obsolete theology for loyalty to the Gospel, or who regard obedience to Christ as synonymous with a narrow, inadequate interpretation of the Scriptures, and who conceive of evangelism as being synonymous solely with some particular method.”

DOCTRINE OF CREATION

A third theological emphasis made by some “Young Turks” is that the Church’s voice is only one voice among many that speak for God. There is no suggestion of belittling the deity of Jesus Christ; on the contrary, most “Young Turks” uniformly hold an incarnationist Christology (albeit sans virgin birth). Their attitude toward the world, however, is oriented more to the doctrine of Creation than to the Incarnation. God made the world, and is continually providing new dynamic for his creation and working out his purposes in it. What conclusions are drawn from this? First, that regardless of the fall, not everything that happens in the world is “necessarily bad.” Second, the concept that “the Church is the only instrument through which God works in the world for the salvation of men and the transformation of society” is held to be false and unbiblical. The Church is not some “desperate bridgehead” God has established in the world in order to convert people out of it. On the contrary the Church is a “colony of heaven” which seeks to identify itself with the world and to participate in the life of the world, even to “going native” in everything except faith and morals.

“So when in the course of their normal duties,” a “Young Turk” explains, “the ministers of the parish have to do with various social agencies and political organizations which affect the life of the community, they do not seek to make them ‘more religious’ or feel concerned that it is not the Church that is working in all these ways for the full benefit of the people, but rather they seek to make use of them as they fulfill their proper function, recognizing the hand of God in anything that brings wholeness and meaning into the lives of the people.”

THE EVALUATION

It is clear, as Sweazey points out, that “these young Turks are getting at something that business as usual in evangelism is missing.” The fact that so many of them are in key positions, and are preparing materials and conducting seminars on evangelism for the pastors and lay leaders of their denominations, suggests that the churches may be facing a re-thinking of evangelism even more drastic that that which took place during the recent liberal era. It was common enough in the early years of the century for a Church to turn its back on Billy Sunday’s mass evangelism, but some leaders of the new generation are prepared to go further. They are willing to subordinate all specific evangelistic activity, of whatever kind, to the making of a “total impact” of the Gospel on the “world” of work, the “world” of leisure, the “world” of education and government, and even the “world” of ecclesiastical institutionalism. Such is the meaning of the phrase, “The Whole Gospel for the Whole World.” The impact will be made by witness, but not necessarily by verbalized witness. For the word “witness” is also being re-tooled, and the cup of cold water is not merely the expression of Christian love but is becoming the maximal evangelistic testimony as well.

In behalf of the young “re-thinkers” of evangelism, certain points must be emphasized. It is no sin to “think fearlessly and plan daringly,” as one of them expresses it, nor to bring “the total task of evangelism under the most searching judgment and agonizing reappraisal in the light of the best insights of the New Testament and contemporary human need.” Just because an idea appears new, moreover, it is not necessarily dangerous or wrong; it is well that older ecclesiastical secretaries are forced to think out their positions afresh. Further, it is a healthy sign when the Church can produce young leaders who are more interested in furthering the cause of Christ than in “playing it safe,” following the denominational “party line,” and padding their futures.

Having said this, however, we must point out certain weaknesses in the “Young Turks” movement that seem to strike not only at the cause of evangelism but at the Church herself.

There is a touch of unreality, as Sweazey remarks, in the whole approach. It is primarily armchair evangelism, and makes good conversation in the seminary coffee shop and thoughtful oratory in the evangelism seminar, but it has little enough to do with the making of Christians.

Its “solving” of the sin problem by excusing it, and by putting everyone “in the same boat,” is a far cry from the New Testament concept of the Church as a “called-out body” of “holy ones” whose sins have been removed by the washing of regeneration. More than that, it does not really grip everyday life. The average sin-laden American looks to the Church neither for condemnation nor commiseration. He can get the latter at the nearest bar, and the former he gets without asking for it, everywhere he goes. If he looks to the Church at all, it is for truth that will help him and that may even save him. Yet the “Young Turks” who soften the note of individual moral responsibility in the Gospel in favor of social sympathy are the ones who threaten to make the Church irrelevant. It takes more than formal ecumenical worship per se to get rid of what one of them calls “my radical me-ness.” Or as a realistic Methodist layman put it, “The Church offered me the right hand of fellowship when what I needed was a kick in the pants.” No one knows the joy of the Resurrection until he has been to the Cross with his own sin.

Further, by minimizing the value of traditional evangelism, the “Young Turks” betray an exasperation that is ultimately directed at the Holy Spirit. Why, they ask in effect, does God persist in using such “frontier methods” in our century? The next step is to doubt that God is in fact using them. The dialogue of God with man is then reduced to a dialogue between the Church and culture, and evangelism becomes a combination of “confrontation” and critique instead of a passion for souls.

If the “Young Turks” but knew it, they themselves may be the key to the situation. Were one of their number to make the astonishing discovery that God is sovereign over all of human life; that he is truly Redeemer from sin as well as Creator; that he determines through his Spirit and through his Word how men shall come to him; that he reigns even over the “organizational rat race”; that he overcomes all estrangement, imparts power to transcend every modern pressure; that he can lift twentieth century burdens as easily as he lifted those of other centuries; that he can purify even the man in the gray flannel suit; that he can use every kind of evangelism, no matter how clumsy, so long as the evangelist’s message is that Jesus Christ saves men from their sins, but that he will never bless a message if it is downgraded into a proliferation of verbosity or a hassle over authority; then we could hope and pray for the Holy Spirit to bring revival right into the midst of the departments of evangelism of the great denominations.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

Dostoevski once remarked that “if God does not exist, everything is permissible.” Atheism, according to Dostoevski, cannot provide for morality. The French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir recently recalled this statement and tried to answer it. She took the remarks rightly as a challenge to atheistic existentialism in regard to its ethic. De Beauvoir tries to show that Dostoevski is wrong, that there is a morality in atheism. She argues, indeed, that the absence of God is exactly the requirement for genuine morality. Human acts, she says, become truly serious only if there is no God.

If God exists, de Beauvoir reasons, there is always the possibility of forgiveness; a man may always figure that God may overlook or forgive his evil acts. But if there is no God and no possibility of forgiveness, our acts become irrevocable; nothing can undo or atone for our evil. Atheism makes us totally responsible.

With no God in heaven, our deeds are terribly serious; they make an indelible mark on history. Existentialism, then, is the only philosophy that makes man’s behavior an absolutely earnest matter. Only a philosophy rendering man’s deeds ultimately serious can have a real ethic. With God out of the picture, we can warn men that their deeds are absolute and ultimate. Man’s deeds are the end.

Humanism has always had trouble in finding a basis for ethics. This is not because humanists were personally less moral than theists. It is that morality always has associations with an imperative or command which men are called to obey. When men no longer believed in the divine imperative, they were faced with the question of the basis or reason for morality. Morality implies responsibility. Humanistic morality implies responsibility to fellow men. But since we speak of responsibility, we must ask to whom one must give final response for his behavior. Commonly, the humanist pointed to the inherent value of man. Anything which devalued man was immoral. But what I want to note here is that the self-evident truth about the value of man reflects a biblical thought.

But now, in modern existentialistic atheism, we are told that atheism alone can point the way to a genuine ethic. In de Beauvoir’s attempt to show this, she completely secularizes the biblical word “forgiveness.” She assumes that the possibility of forgiveness takes the edge off human responsibility. The biblical treatment of forgiveness gives no hint that this is so. From the human side of the picture, sin is utterly irrevocable. Where forgiveness enters the picture it comes as a divine mystery. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins” (Isa. 44:22). Mlle. de Beauvoir insists that forgiveness renders human acts less than serious, since the man sinning can always count on the possibility of forgiveness. His sin will not seem quite so terrible if he thinks God might disregard it.

One notices in de Beauvoir how completely some of modern thought has become estranged from the central concepts of the Bible. To her forgiveness is an idea which posits a simple possibility of escape from consequences. This is secularization of a biblical concept. Secularization is not something that happens only to society and the dynamics of human life. The biblical world of thought can also be secularized. When men no longer have any sense for the elementary thought world of the Bible, but still speak of the words of the Bible, they secularize the thought of the Bible. This does not happen because women like de Beauvoir are less than rigorous intellects. Secularization of thought occurs when men work with and argue about such concepts as “forgiveness” wholly apart from its biblical sense.

Mlle. de Beauvoir, for instance, seems to have no notion that biblical speech about forgiveness is never disassociated from biblical speech about the wrath of God and divine judgment. She has no knowledge that the biblical notion of forgiveness is utterly repugnant to the notion that human deeds are less than terribly serious. In the Bible, the possibility that men should consider their acts less than earnest in view of divine forgiveness is unthinkable. I discern in de Beauvoir a striking estrangement from biblical thinking. She argues against the possibility of forgiveness but uses the term in a sense wholly foreign to its Christian meaning.

This defense of atheistic ethics over against Dostoevski’s statement is a cheap defense. Dostoevski is not here to speak for himself, but if he were he would, I think, brand this argument as ridiculous. Dostoevski demanded to know to whom men would be responsible if there were no God. De Beauvoir says that man is responsible to himself and adds that this fact makes his acts serious. Thus, existentialism alone can provide a basis for morality. But actually de Beauvoir only exposes how tense and hopeless life without God is.

There can be no talk here of genuine obedience. Man can only listen to and answer to himself. When the Christian reads such arguments, he can only recall himself to his own position under God to whom he is ever responsible; and he must tell himself that he will never in his own way corrupt the word forgiveness as de Beauvoir does. No Christian may ever take de Beauvoir’s suggestion that he can play with sin in view of the possibility of forgiveness.

When one plays with the divine command and takes less than seriously the following of Christ, he does fall into a secularization of biblical life and thought. When he does, he fails to live the Christian life. He can offer no witness against the secularization of the Gospel, for he has also forgotten the seriousness of sin in the light of forgiveness. It is forgiveness that called for the one most serious of all acts—the death of Jesus Christ.