As this page is being written, seven thousand delegates are participating in the Golden Anniversary White House Conference on Children and Youth. Three volumes of background material under the title, The Nation’s Children, have been edited by Dr. Eli Ginzberg, the distinguished economist. Published by the Columbia University Press, these volumes present in the main a faithful portrayal of the potentialities, needs, and problems of American youth today. Unlike much current writing on education, many of the chapters attain a refreshing directness and incisiveness of expression. For Christian educators—and this includes pastors who, according to St. Paul are also teachers (Eph. 4:11)—this trilogy is required reading.

Several far-reaching trends are faced in these volumes. Because Christians, whether they like it or not, are to some extent affected by them, these trends give us pause. There is, for example, the change in the American family brought about by the exodus of American mothers from their homes. As Dean Henry David of the New School for Social Research shows, back in the thirties little more than a tenth of all married women were employed; today almost one third of married women living with their husbands work outside the home. Inevitably there has been a shift in balance from the biblically-patterned home to one where, as Prof. Arensberg of Columbia writes, “The father … is not so much a man, a model of adult manhood for his son, as a ‘pal’ and another boy, absent and out of sight in the important, non-familial roles of his work existence,” a fact that “has already worried psychiatrists, especially in our newer, dormitory suburbs, with their enforced segregation of women and children of like age and interests.”

Another revolutionary trend stems from the large amount of leisure and consumer power possessed by the average family in these moneyed days. Americans are fast developing one of the most playful societies history has known. To an extraordinary degree ours is a child-centered culture. As one English visitor remarked, American schools and families seem to be run on the assumption, “The child knows best.” Instead of the scriptural exercise of firm but loving parental authority, we have the “togetherness” of family councils with democratic voting to decide everything from vacation plans to whether, as report has it, mother will have another baby.

Along with this change in family authority combined with more ample leisure and with national income at an unprecedented peak, there has come into our way of life an insistent emphasis on fun. As Nelson N. Foote, Research Consultant in Sociology for the General Electric Company, sympathetically declares, “There is … little recognition of and reliance on the voluntary auspices under which the younger generation wishes to conduct its affairs, its insistence, to put the matter flatly, that work he fun (italics Mr. Foote’s).… Indeed,” he goes on to say, “conducted as fun both work and government are likely to be performed with stronger conscience and higher competence than under pressures of duty and necessity.” Well, for the Christian the only comment is a good big exclamation point! Persuasive talk about “this more playful way of life” and “the more festive aspect of family life today” so that “the position of the child in the home has become very much like that of a guest” cannot obscure the fact that responsible adult life, whether in parenthood, professional practice, or civic authority demands some decisions that are agonizingly hard and that, for persons of conscience and compassion, are not fun.

No sensible Christian would deny children their right to play and adults their need of essential recreation. Nevertheless, so closely has the play motive through endless television viewing, power-boat and sports car crazes, cocktail hours and long week ends gripped us that, as Eric Larrabee of American Heritage says, “Childhood in America is also something that adults experience vicariously.”

But enough has been said to show the way in which these volumes mirror the social context of our youth. Space prevents discussion of such strong chapters as “The Age of Science” by Prof. Zacharias of M. I. T., and the conscience-probing consideration of our Southern Negro youth and our Spanish-speaking children.

The two chapters that relate to religion—“The Place of Religion in American Life” by Msgr. Gallagher, Rabbi Tanenbaum, and Dr. Villaume, and “Religion and Youth” by Benson Y. Landis—demand special comment. To go no further than the least-common-denominator approach of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is unhistorical, because it turns a blind eye to the lofty Christian theology that motivated not only the Pilgrims but also the eighteenth century Calvinists who shared with deists like Jefferson the founding of our democracy. To speak of “pointless differences which now dissipate the strength of religious influence” is to ignore the plain fact that in the particularity of high religion lies its strength. Christ crucified may be an affront to Judaism, the mediatorial place of the Virgin Mary a stumbling block to Protestantism, but these are not “pointless differences.” To turn disagreement founded on conviction into bland conformity is to dissolve religion into mere benevolent moralism. To be sure, Norman Cousins writes in the last chapter with eloquent urgency about the appalling problems of our apocalyptic age and cries out for “conversion skills” needed for man’s survival. Yet he sees as the means for conversion nothing more than education plus “the basic unity of most religions,” a statement based on such well-meant misconceptions as this: “The Islamic faith is as closely related to the Jewish and Christian faiths as the latter two are to each other.”

Let it be said again that these volumes are worth studying. Their able picture of the times in which our youth are growing up emphasizes the need for undergirding every agency from the Christian home on through the Sunday School and Christian youth movements that will put spiritual and moral backbone into our children.

A Continually Developing Theology

The Humanity of God, by Karl Barth (John Knox Press, 1960, 96 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy at Butler University.

When Karl Barth makes retractions, it is news. In these three lectures, delivered between 1953–1957, he admits that the phrases “Wholly Other,” “infinite qualitative distinction,” “tangent,” and so on were unfortunate because they stressed the deity and transcendence of God at the expense of God’s humanity, i.e. “God’s relation to and turning toward man” (p. 37).

Barth does not retract his basic criticism of nineteenth century theology. It was humanistic, anthropocentric; it had nothing to say on the deity of God; it was a “blind alley” (p. 41). Nevertheless, nineteenth century theology is not to be dismissed. With all its limitations, so cruelly brought to light in 1914–1918, those men were great men. “They will not cease to speak to us. And we cannot cease to listen to them” (p. 33). The reviewer gets the impression that Barth looks upon theology as a continuous development, of which Schleiermacher, D. F. Strauss, F. C. Baur, and others are integral parts. When he says, “We cannot cease to listen to them,” he does not mean that we should take them as horrible examples and warnings. On the contrary, it is quite clear that Barth does not admire these men, as we might, merely for their intellectual ingenuity. He confesses to a spiritual affinity. Theologizing, he says, is done in the community of the Church. A theologian “refuses to part company with them not only personally and intellectually, but above all, spiritually” (p. 94–95).

This spiritual solidarity, however, does not seem to harmonize with Barth’s explicit definition of evangelical theology as “informed by the gospel of Christ as heard afresh in the sixteenth century by a direct return to Holy Scripture.” Surely this phrase is inapplicable to Strauss and Baur. They had none of the gospel of Christ and even less of the Scripture. To list them as evangelical theologians is an incorrect categorization. How can a Christian, a man devoted to Christ, take any spiritual pleasure in the views of Strauss and Baur?

In the third lecture Barth retracts his earlier repudiation of ethics as a sickness unto death. He now defends freedom to do righteousness as a gift of God. Well and good. But to do righteousness, one must know what is right and what is wrong. Barth is not clear as to how this can be determined. Ethics cannot be a set of rules, nor should one quote the Bible to determine what to do or what not to be. “To offer ethical norms to man … is to hold out a stone instead of bread” (p. 85).

It is currently popular to deny that biblical ethics is a set of rules. Rules sound Pharisaic. But this view raises three questions: (1) The general question of distinguishing between right and wrong in particular cases; (2) the scriptural question as to the meaning of the Ten Commandments—do they not tell us what not to do?; and (3) the pertinence of Barth’s own insistence on obedience to the “divine imperative.”

Another important point emerges. God apparently gives freedom to all men. “The concept of an unfree man is a contradiction in itself” (p. 76). Combine this universalism with the following assertions: “It would be a strange freedom that would leave a man neutral, able equally to choose, decide, and act rightly or wrongly.… Nor can sin be theoretically justified by this freedom.… Human freedom … does not allow any vague choices between various possibilities” (pp. 76–77). Presumably this cannot mean that all men always do right in this life on earth; but it must at least mean that all eventually become righteous.

On an earlier page Barth had tried to defend universalism: (1) Do not panic before finding out what the word means; (2) Colossians 1:19 says that God will reconcile all things to himself; (3) a critic should not be suspicious and gloomy; and (4) “we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ” (pp. 61–62).

But we do not have a right—the right to set the precise limits that Jesus himself set in his repeated warnings about hell. If the neuter in Colossians 1:19 is made masculine and so brought into contradiction with the teachings of Jesus, then Barth must explain the norm he uses for selecting as the word of God the vaguer statement of Paul instead of the clear statement of Christ. Indeed, this is the greatest question of all: What is revelation and what is the word of God? Has Barth given, even in his Church Dogmatics, a satisfactory answer?

GORDON H. CLARK

Provocative Essays

The World’s Last Night, by C. S. Lewis (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1960, 113 pp., $3), is reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby, Chairman of the English Department, Wheaton College (Illinois).

These seven essays, each formerly published in various periodicals, run all the way from life on other planets to the return of Christ. Many of them accent themes on which C. S. Lewis has spoken before, chiefly his growing concern over degenerating civilization, democratic conformism, sterilized education, and culture hypostatized into a faith. He fears that democracy does not really want great men, and he believes that our schools become increasingly successful in crushing individuality and creating a passive response to environment. Genius becomes less and less possible as students are forced to “adjust” or else be kicked out of schools. Lewis wants more individuality, more rebellion, less “togetherness,” and some place where the “utterly private” can exist. He admonishes against pernicious luxuries and false advertising. He thinks that culture-mongers and the managerial or new ruling class are bringing into existence a dangerous society which he calls Charientocracy.

I suspect that most readers will find the first and fourth essays most valuable. The first is on prayer. “Prayer,” says Lewis, “is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.” Prayer is not advice offered to God, it is not a machine that “works,” and it is not magic. Prayer must not be separated from “the continuous act of God Himself, in which alone all finite causes operate.” He says that invariable “success” in prayer would turn it into an infallible gimmick. In the beginning of this essay Lewis describes the case of “a woman whose thighbone was eaten through with cancer and who had thriving colonies of the disease in many other bones as well,” where physicians had predicted only a few months of life. After a good man laid his hands on her and prayed, she was completely healed. I have no proof but I feel quite confident this was Mrs. Lewis herself.

Best of the essays, I think, is one in which our old friend Screwtape proposes a toast at the annual dinner, in hell, of the Tempters’ Training College for young Devils. Hell, Screwtape tells those present, has increasing abundance of food these days, but that food has little taste or quality. He longs for the old days when men were men and not “residual puddles of what once was soul.” Fearing, however, that such days wall not return, he outlines plans for augmenting the present supply of inferior victuals.

CLYDE S. KILBY

Sundry Problems

The Rule of God, by G. Ernest Wright (Doubleday, 1960, 133 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, Professor of Historical Theology, Columbia Theological Seminary.

In these essays Dr. Wright, now of Harvard, is wrestling with sundry problems of biblical and theological thought, such as the rule of God, the covenant and its great Hebrew word hesed, the place of the biblical community and its vocation. While we have some reservation about the Old Testament higher critical and neo-orthodox position taken, there are many valuable insights.

Certain of the lectures fail to carry through to the fine conclusion the early section promises. For example, the first lecture begins with Isaiah’s faith and leads up to the New Testament revelation only to be deflected into Tillich’s abstractions. Another starts with R. Sohm’s thesis as an antidote to organizational bureaucracy, but this stress upon the Spirit within leads to fanaticism with no adequate emphasis on the Word, sacraments, and apostles without. (The interaction of the two were evident at Pentecost where the coming of the Spirit led to the testimony to the historical Jesus). We particularly commend the treatment of faith, hope, and love which he gives. “Love is an intimate attachment to the gracious and loving One. Faith is trust in and faithfulness to our covenant with the faithful One … and there is hope in the action of the faithful One to provide a future, undeserved and yet one for which we can wait with confidence.”

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON

Helpful Anthology

Readings in the Psychology of Religion, by Orlo Strunk, Jr. (Abingdon, 1959, 288 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Orville S. Walters, Psychiatrist, Urbana, Illinois.

The current resurgence of interest in the psychology of religion, a by-product of contemporary attention to psychiatry, psychology, and the pastoral counseling movement, has emphasized the lack of any definitive history of the subject and the relative unavailability of many earlier writings. This volume was compiled to make such material readily accessible.

Altogether, 49 excerpts from various authors, both early and contemporary, are presented under five headings ranging from history at one end to present-day research at the other. One finds all the well-known early workers represented by extracts from their classical writings—Hall, Starbuck, James, Coe, Leuba, Ames, and Pratt. Among the more recent workers included are Thouless, Wieman, Stoltz, Johnson, Clark, Allport, Boisen, and Oates.

An anthology can be criticized only in two ways: by its omissions and by its inclusions. A reader invariably finds himself saying, “Why was this included?” and “Why was that left out?” Among the older writings, one wonders why Freud’s Future of an Illusion was passed by in favor of some of his less significant pieces. What an opportunity to have presented matched excerpts from Freud’s essay and Pfister’s too-little-known answer, Die Illusion einer Zukunst!

The author’s criteria of selection were (1) originality or provocativeness, and (2) the availability of the material. Norborg’s Varieties of Christian Experience would have qualified eminently on both counts. Recent selections might well have included pieces from the Roman Catholic symposia, The Human Person and Faith, Reason and Modern Psychiatry.

Disagree as one may with the editor’s choices, the volume is composed largely of classic writings in the field, and will find wide acceptance for making these scattered pieces easily available.

ORVILLE S. WALTERS

John Knox Story

Tempest over Scotland, by Norman E. Nygaard (Zondervan, 1960, 183 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by W. Stanford Reid, Associate Professor of History, McGill University, Montreal.

This work is a fictionalized biography of John Knox, and the reviewer must confess to reading it with a good deal of prejudice. As a historian he has always disliked this type of work, and his opinion has not been changed by this example. The rather free handling of historical facts, the lack of real knowledge of Scottish history and geography, what can only be described as the “corny” attempts at a little Scottish accent and the stilted character of much of the dialogue, hardly make the book attractive. On the other hand, the author has obviously read Knox’s writings and does give quite useful summaries of his First Blast and other works. It is a pity that he did not write a straight biography of Knox, rather than an account which seems to miss the mark.

W. STANFORD REID

Practical Answers

Questions People Ask About Religion, by W. E. Sangster (Abingdon, 1959, 142 pp., $2.25), is reviewed by Howard F. Shipps, Professor of Church History at Asbury Theological Seminary.

Dr. Sangster is speaking to the present generation as one of the commanding voices of English Protestantism. Through pulpit and press on both sides of the Atlantic he has directed the attention of multitudes to the reasonableness and the validity of the Christian Gospel. This most recent volume has summarized much of the teaching of his great public ministry.

The book becomes a kind of miniature systematic theology and serves a two-fold purpose: (1) It enables the believer to become more firmly established in his understanding of the Scriptures and in his Christian convictions, and (2) It presents to the mind of the unbeliever the reasonableness of the Word of God and of the Christian position. One hundred questions typical of those which are being asked by the average person are presented for brief discussion and positive answer. These are grouped in eight major sections as follows: (1) Religion in General, (2) Jesus Christ, (3) The Bible, CO Prayer, (5) Providence, (6) The Church, (7) Miscellaneous, (8) What Could Christ Do?

One early insight of the first section is the affirmation that “there are four chief ways to conviction in religion: the way of authority, the way of intuition, the way of reason, and the way of experience.” Again the author indicates that it is only the man of faith who in the time of adversity can speak a sure word about God. Further insights on the section concerning Christ include such statements as these: “As far as humanity can disclose deity, he (Christ) revealed the life of God to men; part of his mission on earth was to show men and women that death is not a blind alley but a highway to life, and he came back from the dead to prove it; only at the Cross can we learn what God is like.” Such observations are typical of this book throughout. It will be of much practical benefit and spiritual blessing to readers. Dr. Sangster concludes with a brief epilogue or the one hundredth question, “So What?” In answering this question he suggests that there are but three ways open to each person as he is confronted with the Christian revelation, namely, materialism, agnosticism, or faith.

HOWARD F. SHIPPS

Devotional Commentary

Ephesians: Pattern for Christian Living, by Ray Summers (Broadman Press, 1960, 152 pp., $3), is reviewed by Fred L. Fisher, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

Do you need help in understanding Ephesians? This book has it for preacher and layman alike. Not scintillating rhetoric, not scholarly discussion, not thorough exegesis but guidance in understanding is offered. The writer, for many years a teacher, writer, and preacher of note among Southern Baptists, is now Professor at Southern Baptist Seminary. He uses the rich resources of his experience to interpret the religious message of Ephesians which he views as a pattern for Christian living. This is a devotional commentary; it ignores many problems the scholar is concerned about; yet one will be a better interpreter of Ephesians for having read it.

FRED L. FISHER

Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology of the New Testament, by Charles Caldwell Ryrie (Moody Press, 1959, 384 pp., $5), is reviewed by M. Eugene Osterhaven, Professor of Systematic Theology, Western Theological Seminary.

An encouraging phenomenon in today’s world of biblico-theological study is the large number of works coming from the press with appreciation for the distinctive character of the Christian message. This book is one of them. It is a work in biblical theology described as a “combination which is partly historical, partly exegetical, partly critical, partly theological, and thereby totally distinctive.” It is interested in why something was written as well as what was written; it examines the procedures and presuppositions of Scripture as well as the product. Noting the confusion of thought regarding definition, the author avers that it is “that branch of theological science which deals systematically with the historically conditioned progress of the self-revelation of God as deposited in the Bible” (p. 12).

The writer sees biblical theology building on an apologetic which “has confirmed, among other things, the case for theism, supernatural miracles, and verbal, plenary inspiration of the Scriptures” (p. 15). Although a minor point in the book, this position, championed by Warfield, for whom this reviewer usually has high admiration, is open to serious objection. Apologetics does not lay the foundation and build the first floor of the house, at least not in Reformation theology.

The author’s method is to seek out the outstanding areas of the thinking of a writer, or the distinctive witness of revelation in a given period. A commendable emphasis is that “theological substructure is just as valid proof of any doctrine as explicit statements” (p. 22).

Except for the author’s premillennialism, his extremely weak arguments for transferring the Sermon on the Mount (in its main emphasis) to the Kingdom age (pp. 79 ff.), and his position on baptism which makes him feel it worth his while to state that “there were sufficient pools in Jerusalem to permit even the immersion of 3,000 converts on the day of Pentecost” (p. 118), this reviewer finds himself in substantial agreement with the author’s evangelical positions. Our criticism of the book is its oversimplification of important problems. Its clear outline may serve to assist some, but it cannot be compared in depth of scholarship or thoroughness of treatment with several other contemporary works in the same field. The author seeks to offer an apology for the evangelical position over against the “liberals,” a term frequently employed, but something more substantial than this work is needed.

In closing we note that it is questionable whether one ought to make the virgin birth of our Lord, as important as that doctrine is, a condition sine qua non for salvation (p. 42), or whether one can build a convincing case that Matthew gives a divinely inspired order of events on the basis of which theology can be constructed.

M. EUGENE OSTERHAVEN

Broad And Eclectic

Religious Education, a Comprehensive Survey, edited by Marvin J. Taylor (Abingdon, 1960, 446 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Ronald C. Doll, Professor of Education, New York University.

For this reviewer, who is an evangelical and a generalist in educational methodology and curriculum, one purpose of Christian education is to make St. Paul more real than Kookie, and to bring the miracles of Pentecost closer to children’s consciousness than the exploits of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Marvin Taylor’s comprehensive, almost encyclopedic compilation serves, in its 37 close-packed chapters, many more purposes than this. Dr. Taylor, a former director of religious education and now a specialist in religious education at the University of Pittsburgh, has viewed his specialty broadly and eclectically in combining within a single volume material prepared by 40 authors whose interests range from theological abstraction to the practicalities of group leadership and audio-visual instruction.

Anyone who is both broadly and intensely interested in religious education has much to gain from the ideas which Dr. Taylor’s authors report and analyze. However, to appreciate most of the book, one must literally be intensely interested in omnibus treatment of religious education, including its history, psychology, philosophy, curriculum, materials, methods, personnel functions, and relationships with other services in our society. College, university, and seminary students will probably constitute Religious Education’s chief reader group. Some clergymen and directors of religious education will use it as a reference source. But the “general reader” whom Dr. Taylor includes among his potential clientele (p. 6) will find most of the book heavy going.

Religious Education has no peer in its field in comprehensiveness, combined with sustained scholarliness. As a study guide, it will make its mark among scholars and advanced students to whom it will open vistas for further investigation by suggesting hypotheses for much-needed research. The practitioner who is concerned with organizing and administering programs of religious education will find in this volume many practical hints and helpful resources.

The evangelical reader should bear in mind the fact that Dr. Taylor has brought together as contributors experts of varied backgrounds and points of view. He pointedly calls his book Religious Education, and includes in it contributions of direct use to non-Christians and pseudo-Christians. However, evangelicals have much to gain from learning how persons of other persuasions conduct their programs of religious education. By doing so, they may place less confidence in their own poverty-stricken literature in the field of Christian education. Evangelicals should read, especially, chapters like those by Ralph D. Heim on “The Use of the Bible in Religious Education” and Raymond S. Moore on “Protestant Full-Time Weekday Schools.” Heim and several other authors are helpful in dispelling the notion that conservatism in educational method must inevitably accompany conservatism in religious belief. They suggest that the eternal verities may be taught more readily and enduringly by using recently-devised methods and materials which take into account a realistic understanding of the learning process than by using the pouring-in procedures that now oppress Christian education.

From the standpoint of this reviewer, Religious Education has three major handicaps:

1. It shows an unevenness in quality which is to be expected when an editor must reconcile and organize into an entity the contributions of 39 persons other than himself.

2. A few of its chapters are based on limited and sometimes second-rate references in a field that enjoys a rich heritage derived not only from scriptural exegesis but also from educational philosophy, psychology, sociology, curriculum, and method.

3. It evades some of the basic, practical questions which professional workers in religious education face constantly in preparing and working with volunteer lay teachers and in adjusting programs to developmental and other differences among students.

Despite these criticisms, Dr. Taylor’s book can have significant effect on the thinking of Christian educators who are willing to read it with prayer and care. In the long run, it will gain respect for having been written at levels of concept and vocabulary which put it in a class well beyond the light novel and the picture magazine that dominate American bedtime reading.

RONALD C. DOLL

Christian Living

Keswick’s Authentic Voice, by Herbert Stevenson (Zondervan, 1959, 528 pp., $5.95) is reviewed by Alan Redpath, Pastor of the Moody Church, Chicago, Illinois.

This book gives a representative number of messages from men, both of this and previous generations, who have had one thing above everything else in common, namely, a great concern for a revival of New Testament standard of Christian living in the setting of life today with its many complexities. Whatever views leaders may have on the subject of holiness, they will not be able to read this book and escape a consciousness of the fire that has been burning in the hearts of men whom God has used in the past to awaken people to the most vital subject of living up to their inheritance in Christ.

I believe this book will offer a most valuable addition to the Christian literature of our day, and will point the way again to the fastest method of world evangelization—namely, through the actual life of a Spirit-filled man of God. To ignore this principle is to succumb to a position which spells disaster within the life of the Church. If only Christian people would live what we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, we would have the answer to the cry of our hearts and we would be like those that dream and our mouth would be filled with laughter and our tongue with singing for the Lord would have then done great things for us.

ALAN REDPATH

The racial crisis in South Africa spilled over onto the ecclesiastical front this month.

The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town demanded a curtailment of ecumenical ties with South Africa’s Dutch Reformed communion unless it repudiates apartheid (racial segregation). Also:

—Two Anglican missionaries were jailed after police broke up a mass demonstration in Johannesburg.

—The Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg fled the country to avoid arrest for his active opposition to the government’s apartheid policy.

Chief targets of criticism from antiapartheid clergy leaders were the Dutch Reformed churches, in the membership of which are many government officials including Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd.

Dr. Joost de Blank, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, charged that many Africans are turning against the Christian church on the grounds it is associated with white oppression.

De Blank singled out the Dutch Reformed churches as chief offenders and called on them to “repudiate the policy of apartheid and its tragic outworkings in the disturbances of March and April.” Otherwise, he said, “it is essential that other churches should no longer be associated with them in any council or federation.”

The archbishop has long been critical of the Dutch Reformed race policies. During a trip to the United States in 1958, he ruffled tempers when, in the course of denouncing the segregationist stand of the Dutch Reformed church in South Africa, he attributed to it “a warped and inaccurate Calvinistic outlook.”

De Blank was to have paid a return visit to the United States this month, but cancelled plans when disorders broke out.

Instead, he sent Archdeacon Cecil T. Wood on a tour of several countries. Wood’s first stop was the World Council of Churches headquarters in Geneva. There, in behalf of South African Anglicans, he asked WCC officials to reaffirm a stand against racial discrimination and to dispatch fact-finders to Africa.

World Council leaders were at first cool toward any direct intervention in the Anglican-Reformed dispute. Their counter-suggestion was that WCC member churches in South Africa set up a panel among themselves to iron out differences. Later, WCC General Secretary W. A. Visser ’t Hooft announced that a high-ranking council official would be sent to South Africa to consult with the panel.

The Religions Of South Africa

The Dutch Reformed church has been the backbone of Christian witness in South Africa ever since whites first settled at Cape Town more than 300 years ago.

When the British arrived in 1795, the Dutch Reformed church composed the only Christian element in South Africa, save for a few Lutherans, Moravians, and French Huguenots.

By the early nineteenth century, Anglican chaplains were ministering to the British garrison. Methodism also came with the British garrison, and Scotch settlers introduced Presbyterianism. Baptists and Congregationalists likewise trace South African origins back to the nineteenth century, as do Salvationists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Roman Catholics.

Most widely known of South African ministers was Andrew Murray (1828–1917), Scotch Presbyterian who preached in Dutch Reformed churches.

Sixty-five per cent of South Africa’s 15,000,000 inhabitants are now said to be Christians of one sort or another. The Dutch Reformed church claims some 15 per cent of the population, the Methodists 11 per cent, the Anglicans 10 per cent, and Roman Catholics five per cent.

Virtually all of the remainder of the population is either Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist or Pagan.

De Blank’s accusations prompted a statement from one Dutch Reformed synod which said that cooperation with the Anglican archbishop had “become impossible.”

The synod declared: “At a time when cooperation between churches is more necessary than ever before and when there is a need for mutual trust, we are compelled—no matter how much against our will—to reply to the challenge of Archbishop de Blank.”

An agreement had been signed last year, the statement recalled, under which the Anglican and Dutch Reformed communions undertook to enlighten each other on policy and action and to make every possible effort “to obviate unfounded conclusions which may be injurious to the interest of the churches.”

This agreement “was broken on various occasions” by the Anglicans, the synod charged.

Dutch Reformed spokesmen also reportedly countered with a charge that Anglicans, while ostensibly decrying apartheid, were themselves practicing segregation in church schools.

The race violence in Johannesburg and other cities, along with the church rift, spelled the gravest crisis in the history of the Union of South Africa, which is observing its 50th Golden Jubilee Year.

Meanwhile, Dr. Richard Ambrose Reeves, Anglican Archbishop of Johannesburg, was reported staying in Rhodesia. An aide predicted Reeves would return upon assurance that he would not be arrested.

Among missionaries arrested by Johannesburg police seeking to quell an uprising were Miss Hannah Stanton, an official of the Tumelong Anglican mission near Pretoria, and the Rev. Mark Nye, head of the Pretoria Anglican mission.

In churches throughout South Africa, many prayers were offered for the recovery of Prime Minister Verwoerd, victim of an assassination attempt.

“It was noticeable that no Anglican spokesman expressed concern over the shooting of Dr. Verwoerd,” said a Religious News Service dispatch from Cape Town.

Verwoerd is a regular Sunday worshipper at the Dutch Reformed church in Rondebosch, a suburb of Cape Town.

There are nine major Dutch Reformed church groups in South Africa. Three of them are members of the WCC, along with several South African Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian communions.

Consistent support of the government’s apartheid policy is not the first firm politico-social stand by the Dutch Reformed church of South Africa. Its clergymen were ardent supporters of the Boer cause in the South African war of 1899–1902.

“Boer nationalism,” observes missionary historian K. S. Latourette, “led to an added devotion to that church.”

Degree Mills

The U. S. government began exposing so-called “degree mills” this month. Many of those initially cited operate with a religious front.

The Health-Education-Welfare Department in Washington made public a list of some 30 institutions which “award degrees without requiring its students to meet educational standards for such degrees established and traditionally followed by reputable national institutions.” The list will be kept current, according to HEW Secretary Arthur S. Flemming, as a warning to gullible persons. Here is the first compilation:

Institute of Metaphysics, Birmingham, Alabama; Church of Light, Los Angeles, California; Burton College and Seminary, Manitou Springs, Colorado; Divine Science Church and College, Denver, Colorado; American Bible School, Chicago, Illinois, and American Divinity School, Pineland, Florida (same school, incorporated as tax exempt in Florida and Illinois); College of Universal Truth, Chicago, Illinois; Kondora Theosophical Seminary, Chicago, Illinois; McKinley-Roosevelt Incorporated, Chicago, Illinois; Pioneer Theological Seminary, Rockford, Illinois; University Extension Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois; Washington National University, Chicago, Illinois; Central School of Religion, Indianapolis, Indiana; College of Divine Metaphysics, Indianapolis, Indiana; Trinity College, Indianapolis, Indiana; Mid-Western University, Incorporated, Arcadia, Missouri; Neotarian Fellowship, Kansas City, Missouri; Four States Cooperative University, Jefferson, Texas; Texas Theological University, Chicago, Illinois; Belin Memorial University, Manassas, Virginia.

Listed as chartered in the United States but active abroad were American International Academy, New York, New York; Chartered University of Huron; Chartered University of Delaware; International University of Delaware; National University of Colorado; International Corporation of Engineers, Delaware; Milton University, Baltimore, Maryland; National University and National Research Institute; and Western University, San Diego, California.

Listed as inactive were Cramwell Institute and Cramwell Research Institute, Adams, Massachusetts; Golden State University, Hollywood, California and Denver, Colorado; Metropolitan University, Glendale, California; and Webster University, Atlanta, Georgia.

Flemming says he will ask the help of religious leaders, in a proposed meeting, to help combat degree mills.

Protestant Panorama

• Protestant ministers in Southern California are raising a storm of protest over plans for a $ 15 million “Bible Storyland” amusement park in Cucamonga. An Episcopal group charged that the prospectus “seriously distorts the sacred history of both Christians and Jews.”

• Southern Baptist Sunday School enrollment has increased nearly 50 per cent in the past six years, according to a report released at the denomination’s first nationwide Sunday School convention, held last month in Fort Worth, Texas, with more than 20,000 delegates on hand.

• The Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. is dispatching an emergency appropriation of $10,000 to provide food and financial help for 30,000 refugees of tribal warfare in the Belgian Congo.

• The Vanderbilt University Divinity School dedicated last month a $1,300,000 edifice which houses a chapel, classrooms, and offices.

• Dr. Philip E. Howard, Jr., 62, long-time editor of The Sunday School Times underwent surgery for a brain tumor March 30. Relatives reported his condition “very good.”

• A statue of John Amos Comenius was dedicated on the campus of Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, March 28, the 368th anniversary of the birth of Comenius, a Moravian bishop and noted educator.

• Salvationists in Paris laid the cornerstone last month for a home to care for unmarried mothers and their children. The site was donated by the Paris municipality.

• A group of students at Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, have formed a “jazz combo,” calling themselves the “Holy Cats.”

• Jewish evangelist Hyman Appelman says meetings he conducted during 1959 netted 47 converts from Judaism to Christianity. Profession of faith and transfers of membership totalled 5,483, he reported.

• A major new translation of the Holy Scriptures, now being prepared in England, will be known as The New English Bible. Virtually every major Protestant denomination in England is represented on the translation committee. Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press will publish the new Bible jointly next spring.

• A luncheon in New York City March 28 honored two Presbyterian moderators, Dr. Ernest Trice Thompson of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., and Dr. Arthur L. Miller of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. United Presbyterians sponsored the luncheon.

• Harry Saulnier marks his 20th year as superintendent of the world-renowned Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago this month. An anniversary service was held in his honor.

• Complete Bibles are now available in 219 languages, entire New Testaments in 271 others and at least one book of the Bible in an additional 661 tongues, according to the American Bible Society.

• Methodist church membership in Costa Rica and Panama is expected to increase about 50 per cent as a result of an evangelistic mission conducted in the two countries, says mission director Leslie J. Ross.

• Ninety-one per cent of Unitarian churches and 79 per cent of Universalist societies have approved merger plans in a plebiscite which ended March 31, according to Dr. William B. Rice, chairman of the Joint Merger Commission.

• Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam says he and his wife will make their home in Scarsdale, New York, following his retirement June 19. The Oxnams have been living in the Methodist Building in Washington, across the street from the U. S. Capitol.

• April 19 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of German reformer Philip Melanchthon, closest co-worker of Martin Luther and a professor at Wittenberg University.

New Seminary

A new, interdenominational seminary will open in Philadelphia this fall.

It will be known as the Conwell School of Theology after the late Dr. Russell H. Conwell, noted Baptist pastor and lecturer and founder of Temple University, but will be incorporated independently of the university.

The new seminary will replace one operated by Temple and closed down last June. At its closing the old seminary had dropped from a peak enrollment of 200 to about 30 as the result of losing accreditation in the American Association of Theological Schools.

Like the former school, the Conwell School of Theology will be for commuters. Centrally located, the seminary will provide diverse opportunities for part-time work in the religious field.

Officials indicated they will seek accreditation standards immediately.

A 30-member board of trustees includes eight Temple University officials. Board officials include Dr. Alexander Mackie, president of the Presbyterian Ministers’ Fund, chairman; Dr. Daniel A. Poling, editor of the Christian Herald, vice chairman; the Rev. Robert W. Bringhurst, Presbyterian minister, secretary; and the Rev. John Craig Roak, an Episcopalian rector, treasurer.

The Religious Issue

“The religious issue” emerged this month as a major factor in the 1960 presidential election campaign.

Examining closely the results of the Wisconsin primary, those who sought to keep religion out of the debate might well ask: Had they preached to the wrong crowd?

Press reports shaped a growing impression that the religious issue had been injected by overwhelming Catholic support for the Catholic candidate more pointedly than by Protestant opposition to him.

As a result, some observers felt, Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts was as close to White House occupancy as any Roman Catholic has ever been since the nomination of Alfred E. Smith in 1928.

In reviewing the role of the candidates’ religion in the Wisconsin primary, The New York Times said: “Evidently it did figure in the voting. Kennedy made his best showing in the three most strongly Catholic districts.”

The Milwaukee Journal’s observations pointed up the religious issue even more conclusively: “Kennedy rolled up almost all of his margin over Humphrey in three congressional districts which are heavily Catholic, two of which are also strongly Republican.”

Both newspapers also stressed that Humphrey carried some strongly Protestant areas. But Kennedy supporters, seeking to minimize the influence of their candidate’s religion, pointed to his vote-pulling power among non-Catholics.

“In Sheboygan,” said an Associated Press dispatch, “where Catholic voters constitute 22 per cent of the total, he had 55.5 per cent of the vote. He took 44.3 per cent in Madison which has 22 per cent Catholics, and 48.3 per cent of the vote in LaCrosse where the Catholic vote is 23 per cent.” It was obvious that many Protestant were voting for Kennedy.

There was no comparable Catholic enthusisam for Humphrey. On the contrary, the Romanist vote appeared in some areas as a bloc in support of Kennedy. The Massachusetts senator carried every one of 17 Wisconsin counties which voted in 1946 to permit public school buses to carry parochial students.

Whereas some prominent Roman Catholic spokesmen freely applied the term “bigotry” to Protestants who had reservations about a Catholic candidate and supported a Protestant, a spokesman for National Catholic Welfare Conference confirmed that no official statement was issued at the hierarchical level urging Catholic voters not to vote along religious lines.

The candidates’ eyes are now fixed on predominantly Protestant West Virginia, where a primary is scheduled May 10. If Senator Kennedy sweeps that state, observers think, his prospects of nomination will be multiplied. Says Washington correspondent Richard L. Strout of The Christian Science Monitor: “Observers suppose that if Mr. Kennedy has an important victory here he will be very difficult to stop in Los Angeles” (site of the Democratic National Convention in July).

What’s Fair in Politics?

A candidate’s religion is relevant to a voter’s decision insofar as it bears on political issues, according to principles laid down this month by a committee of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leaders.

The Fair Campaign Practices Committee issued a 271-word statement following a two-day consultation held in Washington.

“Intelligent, honest, and temperate public discussion of the relation of religious faith to the public issues will, as it has already done, raise the whole level of the campaign,” the statement said.

“No candidate for public office should be opposed or supported because of his particular religious affiliations,” it added, noting, however, that “a candidate may be properly questioned about issues relevant to the office he seeks and about the bearing of his religious faith and conscience on them. A candidate’s religion is relevant to a voter’s decision, but only so far as it bears on such relevant political issues.

“Stirring up, fostering, or tolerating religious animosity, or injecting elements of a candidate’s faith not relevant to the duties of the office he seeks are unfair campaign practices.”

The committee, set up in 1954 at the suggestion of Congress, is headed by Charles P. Taft, former president of the Federal Council of Churches. Participants in this year’s consultation included Msgr. George Higgins of the National Catholic Welfare Conference; Rabbi Bernard Bamberger, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis; Dr. Lewis Webster Jones, president, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which co-sponsored the consultations; Dr. C. Arild Olsen, Executive Secretary of the Department of Christian Life and Work, National Council of Churches; Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY; Dr. C. Emanuel Carlson, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs; Rabbi Uri Miller, vice president of the Synagogue Council of America; Msgr. Francis J. Lally, editor of The Pilot, official weekly of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston; and the Rev. Gustave Weigel, S. J., professor at Woodstock (Maryland) College.

West Virginia: The Big Test?

The results of the West Virginia primary May 10 will indicate strongly, say political observers, the extent to which the religious issue has permeated the 1960 election campaign.

Here are significant facts about the state’s make-up:

Population: 2,000,000.

Voter registration: Latest available figures show 664,000 registered Democrats and 413,000 registered Republicans.

Key cities’ population: Huntington, 86,000; Charleston, 74,000; Wheeling, 59,000; Clarksburg, 32,000; and Parkersburg, 30,000.

Number of counties: 55.

Number of U. S. Congressional districts: Six.

Religious affiliations: More than 94 per cent of West Virginians are nominally Protestants; about half of these are members of churches. Some five per cent of the population is Roman Catholic. Less than one per cent is Jewish.

Two ballots will be issued in the primary. On one the voter lists his preference among presidential candidates, the choice not binding on party convention delegates. The second ballot is for selection of the delegates, who go to the convention free to nominate whomever they wish.

Nixon at the Roosevelt

A visit from Vice President Nixon highlighted a Washington convention this month of 110 leading Protestant editors whose publications are linked to Associated Church Press.

Their traditional call at the White House cancelled in deference to visiting President Lleras of Colombia, the editors were treated instead to an impromptu, hour-long press conference with Nixon at the Roosevelt Hotel.

The Vice President’s appearance was convincing (“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Republican,” quipped one editor privately) and productive of a page-one story in The New York Times:

NIXON WOULD AID NATIONS

ASKING BIRTH-CONTROL DATA

ACP, which meets annually, is a fellowship of some 163 Protestant and Orthodox publications in North America ranging from The Woman’s Pulpit (circulation: 500) to The Upper Room (circulation: 3,235,000). Their current trend is toward less frequent publication and classier format, exemplified by Presbyterian Life, which under Managing Editor Henry L. McCorkle became in 1958 the first Protestant magazine to top 1,000,000 circulation. A close second is the Methodists’ Together, edited by Leland D. Case and noted for lavish use of color.

McCorkle, a life-long Episcopalian, recently came back to his own fold to begin a new family monthly which made its debut this month: The Episcopalian.

Projected for publication next January is a new magazine representative of The American Lutheran Church constituted in a three-way merger April 22–24 and edited by Edward W. Schramm. It will perpetuate the name Lutheran Standard, which dates back to 1842.

President Ben Browne presided over the ACP conclave with assists from Dr. William B. Lipphard, retiring executive secretary of ACP and editor emeritus of the Baptist magazine Missions.

Christian Honors

At special ceremonies in Philadelphia this month, Dr. Harry G. Bristow, president of the National Evangelical Film Foundation, presented awards for outstanding film and record production during 1959. The list of awards:

Best film of the year: “The Power of the Resurrection,” Family Films, Inc.

Best missionary film of the year: “Something to Die For,” Gospel Films, Inc.

Best youth film of the year: “Teen Age Witness,” Family Films, Inc.

Christian faith and life film of the year: “The George Muller Story,” Religious Films, Ltd.

Best children’s film of the year: “The Fish Story,” Moody Institute of Science.

Best sermon film of the year: “Teleo,” Bible Institute of Los Angeles.

Best documentary of the year: “Journey to Understanding,” Iversen Ford Associates.

Best set of filmstrips for the year: “How We Got Our Bible,” Society for Visual Education.

Best single filmstrip of the year: “Geography of the Holy Land,” Family Films, Inc.

Best actor of the year: Richard Kiley in “The Power of the Resurrection.”

Best actress of the year: Cheryl Lee Oppenhuizen in “Teen Age Rock.”

Best director of the year: Harold Schuster for “The Power of the Resurrection.”

Best male vocalist of the year: Dick Goodwin in “I Heard God Today,” Cornerstone Records, Inc.

Best female vocalist of the year: Beth Farnam for Sacred Records, Inc.

Best choral record of the year: Ralph Carmichael Singers in “Garden of My Heart,” Sacred Records, Inc.

Best instrumental record of the year: Paul Mickelson’s “Glory! Glory! Hallelujah,” Word Records, Inc.

Unusual record of the year: “Yesterday’s Voices,” by Paul Harvey, Word Records, Inc.

Best quartet record of the year: “Old Fashioned Revival Hour Quartet,” Christian Faith, Inc.

Best single record of the year: George Beverly Shea’s “How Long Has It Been,” RCA Victor.

‘Church of Tomorrow’

The death of a noted Oklahoma City minister will bring his congregation $400,000 closer to an ultra-modern youth center he had envisioned for his “Church of Tomorrow.”

The Rev. William H. Alexander, 45, was killed in the crash of a light plane near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, this month. Alexander’s wife and the pilot of the plane also died.

He had been insured by his congregation, the First Christian Church of Oklahoma City, for $400,000, with the proceeds dedicated to help erect a million-dollar youth center. Construction on the building had already been slated to begin this summer.

The Disciples of Christ minister came to Oklahoma City in 1942.

Under his leadership the First Christian Church doubled in size to 3,500 persons. In 1946 he dedicated a futuristic house of worship which he called the “Church of Tomorrow.”

The handsome, red-haired minister served as chaplain of the Republican National Committee in 1952 when General Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for president. Two years before that, he was Republican candidate for U. S. Senator from Oklahoma, running against the Democratic incumbent, A. S. “Mike” Monroney. Alexander was defeated, although he did capture Monroney’s own precinct and ward and secured a majority in the Tulsa and Oklahoma City areas.

During World War II, Alexander for a time was a correspondent for the Daily Oklahoman in Europe.

Pasadena Resignation

Dr. Russell V. DeLong, president of Pasadena (California) College, resigned last month.

DeLong said he had been advised by physicians to relieve himself from pressures incumbent upon his work.

Pasadena College is operated by the Church of the Nazarene.

From March 27 to April 2 the nation’s capital was engulfed by spring weather and 7,000 people deeply concerned for the welfare of American youth. President Eisenhower, following a precedent set by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, had convened the sixth, “Golden Anniversary,” White House Conference on Children and Youth. In a welcoming address, the President said the conference aim was to prepare young people to become tomorrow’s leaders.

Participants in the White House conference included social workers, educators, physicians, religious leaders, members of labor unions, civic officials, as well as typical parents and teen-agers. They discussed a myriad of themes relevant to America’s youth problem.

Most conferees manifested a sincere desire to give U.S. youth better opportunities to realize their full potential for a creative life in freedom and dignity. Higher sensibilities of the citizenry were markedly demonstrated.

The 1960 conference’s focus on religion was in sharp contrast to the 1950 conclave. A decade ago many church representatives were so seriously concerned about the “lack of acceptance of God” that they actually dissociated themselves from the conference report. But this year about one-fourth of the discussions were related to religion. Seven of the ten speakers at the five opening theme sessions on Monday were religious leaders. Of 18 scheduled forums, one of the first to draw a capacity crowd featured a discussion on “religious, spiritual and secular beliefs and codes of conduct which affect the development of the young.” Religion and morality were themes injected in almost all discussions, usually by non-professionals cognizant of their basic relevance to the youth problem. Several state delegations indicated that parents and young people are eager at the “grass roots” to explore religious and moral questions frankly, and seek ways and means of applying religion to life.

“Change” was the big word of the parley. Delegates were asked to appraise ideals and values in a changing world, to assess changing economic, social and cultural factors, and to adapt everything and everybody to the changes and innovations of modern society. If the conference leadership favored anything as old as yesterday they said little or nothing about it.

Well-organized chaos might describe the conference. Its lavish structure and broad themes were staggering. Employing the techniques of modern “group dynamics,” delegates met in five simultaneous forums and 210 simultaneous work groups in 80-odd buildings in the Washington area. Many never saw the White House. When findings of work groups were correlated into a general report, confusion was confounded. Leaders finally announced that findings would be mailed.

One had a feeling that the group-dynamic technique which has so often been employed to disseminate propaganda, was serving that purpose in the White House conference. A Kansas juvenile court judge charged that professional social workers were dominating work groups. A religion education specialist from Illinois noted a preponderance of humanist idealism.

Roman Catholic and Jewish influences were strong. Some of the most convincing observations on abiding religious and moral values came from Catholic leaders. The Very Rev. Msgr. Raymond J. Gallagher coordinated Catholic participation. He prepared a rather controversial handbook for guidance of Catholic delegates advising them to “be appropriately aggressive within your work groups so that a fair number of our people will be elected by their group as their recorder and representative in the forum delegations” (where voting on the findings took place). The handbook also contained the Catholic view of the issues confronting delegates. Jewish delegates received a booklet, “Safeguarding Religious Liberty,” which stated a consensus of Jewish opinion on controversial matters.

Protestant contributions to the religious colloquy were notably weak though Protestantism furnished a majority of the leadership personnel. “A Supplemental Resource,” 30-page booklet compiled by a humanist-minded Methodist clergyman, the Rev. Dean M. Kelley, was made available to Protestants “at the request and with the advice of members of the staff of the National Council of Churches.” The NCC played a large part in conference planning. The Rev. Dr. William J. Villaume, executive director of the NCC Department of Social Welfare, was a member not only of the President’s National Committee for the conference but of the Executive Committee, the important Steering Committee, and the Committee on Program. He also directed the Committee on Organization and Arrangements.

Conservative or evangelical Protestantism was virtually ignored in the choice of conference leadership at all levels. Non-NCC agencies were approached about financing the conference as sponsors and scores of them were acknowledged in the official program, but their leaders and specialists were absent on the platforms and at the heads of workshop tables. Many capable persons solicitous for the success of the White House conference, and faithful in attendance and participation, felt that the views of nearly 30,000,000 American Protestant conservatives were disowned at the leadership level.

A wealth of timely notes were sounded in addresses. A mother representing the United Church Women of Minneapolis, Mrs. Wright W. Brooks, said, “It is curious that the need of discipline is accepted in every other field, save that of morals.… If we as parents believe standards are necessary then discipline is certainly needed to attain them.” Rabbi Julius Mark of New York City stressed that “only the secure family, firmly founded on basic spiritual loyalties can rear children who place their confidence in the power of faith and the values of proper ethical conduct.” Dr. Milton J. E. Senn of Yale’s Child Study Center warned that “the nature of religious revival in America seems to be social rather than spiritual” … “people are becoming church members in an effort to gain status and security rather than salvation.” The Very Rev. Laurence J. McGinley, president of Fordham University, said a new national consciousness of values must derive from persons who have “a vital inner stability” gained “not from contemporary mores but from transcendent values personally understood.” He cited these values as “man’s origin, his destiny, God’s providence, His love and His sanctification of this world by His presence in it!” Such views were not representative of the conference as a whole, however.

Loud applause greeted an address by Dr. T. V. Smith, noted humanist philosopher. Dr. Smith asserted that the idea of God is good, but that since there are many ideas of God, little consensus can be reached on the subject. He recognized the values of the current “Judeo-Christian-Greek-Humanist” code of morality in America, but declared that because we are moving into a universal society, we must be prepared to accept values of other cultures and religions which may well be better for the new space age. He also stated that, under certain circumstances, immorality rather than morality might serve good ends. In beautiful, poetically-phrased diction basic Christian beliefs were denied.

For the most part, workshops were disappointing. One concerned with religious values spent the entire allotted time seeking to define “faith.” Said a New Mexico girl, “We young people came here hoping to get some solutions for our problems, but it seems our leaders cannot agree among themselves on principles to say nothing of courses of action. Can’t we get down to something practical?”

Toward the week end forums began to recommend such things as:

—A nation-wide program to stop school drop-outs.

—Representation of childhood and youth experts on the Federal Communications Commission, allocation of additional high-frequency channels for educational television.

—More federal aid to public schools, higher teacher salaries.

—Federal and state action to integrate public schools.

—More liberal public assistance grants, including counselling services.

—Better housing, education and working standards for migrant laborers.

—Stronger community programs, creative work for youth.

—That the home and family be made a central force in democracy.

—Greater youth participation in public affairs through voluntary organizations and political activity.

—Active support of the United Nations and participation in positive material policies for the attainment of peace with justice.

—Religion essential for the strengthening of standards and value systems.

Some 1,600 recommendations came up from the forum level. Many delegates claimed that proposals were “railroaded through.” Others claimed that drafting committees often ignored actions of the forum in their reports. In general, delegates agreed that real efforts had been made by forum leaders, under difficult circumstances, to observe fair practices. Yet there was wide feeling that when the final report of the conference is drafted it will probably reflect the views of its framers more than the general consensus of the conferees.

A strong move is afoot to reconstruct the conference into a permanent government bureau.

Opponents of the idea see it as a move toward a top-heavy bureaucracy and central government interference with concerns which are primarily state and community matters.

“One-worlders” are especially anxious that the committee initiate a world conference on children and youth to translate the “essence of democracy” to other countries.

THE ‘OFFENSE’ OF THE CROSS

To the unregenerate mind the Cross will always be an offense. But for man to bypass that which was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness is to bypass the way of salvation itself.

Wherein lies the offense of the Cross?

The offense of the Cross centers in the fact that the sin with which all men are infected is so serious in nature and in effect that nothing less than the death of the Son of God could have made atonement for that sin.

Paul tells us that the preaching of the Cross, with its full implications, is to those who are perishing folly, but to those who are saved the power of God.

He further tells us that the meaning of the Cross must be preached in simplicity so that the Holy Spirit may take this “foolish” message and lead men to faith in the wisdom and power of God.

When we strip away the unbelievable wordiness of theological controversy today, we find that the burning issue has to do with man’s attempt to bypass the offense of the Cross.

This “offense” is variously translated. In the King James Version we read: “the offense of the cross”; while Phillips speaks of “the hostility which preaching the cross provokes.” The Berkeley Version has it “the offensiveness of the cross.” In the RSV we read: “the stumbling block of the cross”; in the Amplified New Testament, “the cross … a stumbling block”; and Williams translates it “the hindrance done by the cross.” The word used in the Chinese is “t’ao ien”—“disturbing,” “offensive.”

The love of God, as revealed in the Cross, can never be overstated. At the same time this love can never be apprehended until we explore the reason for the Cross, namely, that man’s condition is one of such complete alienation from God because of sin that nothing less than the suffering, blood, and death of God’s Son could provide the remedy.

We rejoice in the wonder of John 3:16. But we are prone to overlook the words should not perish which are a part of that marvelous declaration. For man the alternative to Christ’s atoning death is to perish.

But this has always been offensive to the unregenerate heart. Even within the Church there are those who, stumbling over the Cross, emphasize only one aspect of God’s love and try to lead men to Him without their facing up to the iniquity of their own hearts which separates them from God. This approach only too often leads us to the attitude that we are doing God a favor by joining the Church and sharing in its program.

There needs to be a renewed emphasis on this matter of sin and our salvation from it. I do not imply that any of us can fully perceive our sins as God sees them; but unless the prospective church member is confronted with the reason for the Cross (the enormity of sin and the price of redemption), the condition of his heart, if he is unregenerate, continues as a barrier to God.

There are two “prices” which every man must understand—the price which Christ paid for our salvation, and the price or cost of discipleship. Only as man realizes the first in some measure, can the second become to him a vital reality.

To approach the Cross with philosophical concepts alone makes for problems, for the Cross cannot be explained in these terms. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal the spiritual truths that lie at the heart of this central event of all history. Without the Holy Spirit, the offense of the Cross remains. It is the Spirit-filled witness and the Spirit-directed decision that transforms the folly of the Cross into the most glorious event of time, and is the only way man can stand unashamed in God’s holy presence.

Groups, techniques, study classes, and discussions have eternal relevance only as they cut through the objections, reservations, and evasions of human pride and confront the sinner with his lost condition out of Christ. The temptation to win others to ourselves or our own man-made concepts is a very real one. Our task as Christians is to bring others to the One who alone can make them whole.

There is a theory on the part of some that the Gospel should never be used to produce guilt complexes in people. Why not? It was because of our guilt that Christ died. The Cross can only be explained in terms of guilt and penalty. True, there are some who try to do otherwise, but wherever its offense is explained away, the witness of the Church is thereby weakened.

Not for one moment do we suggest that effective Christian witness consists in dangling sinners over the brink of an eternity separated from God. But to point up man’s lost condition is certainly part of the Christian witness. Without this there is no meaning to the Cross and no Gospel to preach. The love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness of God are indeed constraining influences, but God is also holy and just. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil. Nothing unclean can ever come into his glorious presence.

Unregenerate man is already lost; he is condemned already, and he needs to know it. Then, and only then, can the height and depth of the love of God come into clear relief. Then only can we understand the wonder of the Cross. Only as we understand the depths from which we are saved, can we appreciate the steps God took to make our salvation possible.

David expresses this thought in these words: He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Accept the offense of the Cross and this too becomes our song.

How easy it is to bypass the offense of the Cross in pastoral psychology, counseling, evangelism, and education! How great is the temptation to try to make the way of salvation palatable to man! The danger of ignoring the Cross and the reason for it because it is foolish or offensive is very great.

There is today a rightful emphasis on “identification” as a means of winning men to Christ. This is good, provided the one doing personal work identifies himself as a sinner saved by God’s grace. But identification can become a handicap where unconsciously or otherwise the prospect is won to faith in another individual and not in the living Christ.

It is natural to recoil from hostility. We want to be liked and controversy is unpleasant. In most areas of life hostility and controversy can and should be avoided. But when it comes to the cross of Jesus Christ, both will always be present, for here we have the ever-recurring conflict between darkness and light, between good and evil.

At the cross of Christ man makes a momentous decision; either he accepts and rejoices in the “foolishness of God,” or he rejects that in favor of the wisdom of this world.

L. NELSON BELL

CENSUS

Pastor Peterson was deep in his armchair reading the telephone book. The church register was open beside him. He explained that he was preparing a sermon on Psalm 87. When I looked uncomfortably blank he reminded me that this was the Psalm behind the hymn “Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God.”

The census year had led him to reflect on the numbering of the people of God. Psalm 87 describes the glorious counting of the Gentiles among the citizens of Zion. At the moment, however, he was comparing the mainly Anglo-Saxon names of the church register with the cosmopolitan variety of the phone book. He had been scribbling some verses:

O’Bannon, Shannon,

Maglioni, Gray, Brown

Are names now numbered

In the census count down.

Miss London, Naples,

Mr. Paris, France, Rome

Are all on record

In their U.S.A. home,

Along with others

Somewhat harder to spell,

Onuskanych and

Zyzniewski as well.

Each nose is counted

Every name is spelled out—

The Szuszczewiczes

Are inscribed without doubt.

The rolls of heaven

Must be stranger by far;

His book of mercy

Who has numbered each star

Is filled with names from

Most outlandish places,

The gathered harvest

Of the scattered races.

For Wu and Suki,

Mbuyong, O’Brien

They too are reckoned

With the sons of Zion.

I told the pastor that I rather preferred Newton’s poetry on the psalm, but that I would look forward to the sermon.

EUTYCHUS

THE ONLY IRRELEVANCY

In directing Roman Catholics not to vote for communists in Italian elections, I believe that all Americans will cheer Pope John XXIII, rather than condemn His Holiness, as Dr. Glenn L. Archer attempts to do, by indirection, in his Open Letter to me in your issue of March 14, 1960.

Is Dr. Archer suggesting that the fine Protestant Ministers of our country would fail to instruct their flocks against communism? If so, Dr. Archer does not share my high opinion of the hundreds of Protestant Ministers with whom I have worked in various public causes and services during the last quarter of a century.

For Dr. Archer to read into the Vatican’s opposition to communism—an opposition which all loyal Americans applaud—the mischievous analogy that His Holiness would interfere with Senator John Kennedy, or any other Catholic candidate for high office in our government, is a deplorable exercise in semantics. It will be recognized as such by any thinking American. It will also be recognized as an expression of bigotry designed to split Americans apart, at the exact moment when our nation is face to face with a gigantic communist conspiracy to overthrow it. This is the time when all of us must join together as Americans and resist those who unwittingly serve the communist design of “divide and conquer.”

It was exactly on these grounds that I predicated my column attack on your publication’s “Bigotry or Smear” editorial. When I telephoned my neighbor and friend, the distinguished Dr. Ralph W. Sockman, and read your alarming editorial to him, I expressed my American belief that some leading Protestant clergyman should express an immediate reaction to the bigotry that had been expressed in your editorial.

Not only did Dr. Sockman agree with me, but he dictated these exact words to express his reaction: “We must keep the forthcoming Presidential campaign above religious partisanship and vote for candidates purely on the basis of their proven records as Americans.”

Dr. Archer charges that this cannot be construed as Dr. Sockman’s reaction. That silly answer needs no denial from me. Dr. Sockman read my column, in which I quoted his reaction, and if I had misquoted him, this outstanding Protestant Minister and American instantly would have corrected me.

Dr. Archer says that Senator Kennedy’s war heroism, outlined in my column, is wholly irrelevant. I suggest that in assaying the Americanism of any candidate, the matter of his war record is of vital importance, just as it is reassuring to all of us that Richard Nixon had a fine Navy record in World War II.

Incidentally, Vice President Nixon recently gave us a shining example of American rectitude when he sharply corrected a Republican who suggested that Senator Kennedy would be “soft” on communism. I’m sure every American glowed at that sort of behavior!

The only thing that is irrelevant is the religion of Richard Nixon or the religion of John Kennedy. Let us vote for or against candidates on the basis of their proven loyalty to our form of government, and on their ability to discharge the duties of the office they seek.…

I have never questioned either the religion or the color of any performer, in twelve years of our weekly TV shows. As a Catholic, two of my closest friends among professional performers, who have appeared frequently on our stage, are the fine pianist, Roger Williams, whose Dad is a Protestant Minister, and the delightful southern singer, Betty Johnson, whose brother is a Protestant Minister.

We have a staff of 130 men who work on our show 52 weeks a year. I wish you to believe that I could not, if my life depended on it, identify more than four or five of the total of 130, in terms of the religions they profess. From their names, I imagine that not less than 90% of these 130 men on my show are professed Protestants. Each of them is answerable only in point of ability. I’d discharge anyone on my staff who proposed to ask these men their religious affiliations.

During World War II, when I assembled groups of stars to entertain the wounded in Army, Navy, and Air Force hospitals all over our country, to supply Protestant, Jewish and Catholic chaplains with the monies they needed desperately to service the wounded men of their religions, I also organized at each hospital Chaplains’ Funds. The Protestant chaplains at such hospitals as Halloran, St. Albans, Thomas England General Hospital, and other installations, will tell you that they shared equally in the monies I raised.

In today’s mail, I received a letter from Dr. James Uhlinger, Pastor of the Wesley Methodist Church in Worcester, Massachusetts. I met this fine Minister while we were in Moscow last July, where we represented the United States at the request of our State Department. Pastor Uhlinger told me that in Moscow he had been delighted to meet a Worcester friend, Father Dion, the only Catholic priest stationed in Moscow. The friendship of these two men, one a Methodist Minister and one a Catholic Priest, seemed to me to be the most wonderfully effective expression of America that we could offer to the Communists.

If you saw our TV show from Russia you will recall that I emphasized our elation at the discovery that the anti-God and anti-American propaganda in Russia had fallen flat. It was heartening to discover that the Russian people, as distinguished from the relatively small group within the Communist party in that country, had resisted the bigoted viewpoint of their masters. With the help of God, all of us in America must resist bigotry in any form, and form our judgments of other Americans purely on the basis of their individual abilities and their dedication to the common good.

This was dramatized recently in Baltimore, when Maryland’s Governor J. Millard Tawes, a Mason, presented to me, a Catholic, a Masonic award, before an audience of Shriners who had assembled to pay me the honor which I will never forget.

ED SULLIVAN

New York, N. Y.

THE DIALOGUE

In the interests of fair play, I would like the privilege of equal space to comment on C. Stanley Lowell’s review (February 1 issue) of American Catholics: A Protestant-Jewish View (Sheed and Ward). I am willing to pass over in silence Mr. Lowell’s dislike of the chapters written by the Protestant contributors. It is his privilege to disagree with us, and he has clearly availed himself of it.

What I am not willing to pass over in silence are his disparaging remarks about the Catholic editor of the book. Mr. Lowell, in a remarkable burst of omniscience, says, “It would appear that the editor must have called the writers on the phone and said: ‘Look, will you be a good fellow and give me 3,000 words on what you think of American Catholics? You take history.’ ”

The most impressive thing about this statement is its solid disregard for the facts. I would like to acquaint your readers with a few of them. I first received a full letter from the editor, outlining the project. We had several exchanges before I took on the assignment. I was told about each of the other contributors. I was allowed to read the Catholic “response” before it was published. I was given several opportunities to add to my own manuscript. The editor deliberately decided not to remove repetitions in the various chapters, on the sound conviction that if independently-written chapters stressed similar “fears” about American Catholicism, Catholic readers would realize that there must be some substance to them. If the book therefore seems to Mr. Lowell a “hodgepodge,” he must attribute this to the inadequacies of the Protestant contributors and not to the Catholic sponsors.

But there is a more important point. Mr. Lowell does not simply cast aspersions upon the editorial ability of the Catholic editor, but goes on to impugn his integrity by declaring that participants in the Catholic-Protestant dialogue (of which the book is clearly an example) “must (sic) sign a loyalty oath (sic) to accept as infallible (sic) the Courtney Murray-John Cogley line on what the Roman church teaches in regard to religious liberty.”

This is a pretty categorical statement. Perhaps it is only meant to be cute hyperbole. It is certainly irresponsible hyperbole. And it must be countered with another categorical statement: the editor of the symposium exacted no “loyalty oath” from any contributor. There was no hint, threat or exercise of any censorship. He gave us complete freedom, in a Catholic-sponsored volume, to say whatever we chose about Catholicism—and many things are said that must cause pain to Catholic hearts.

As for the “infallibility” business, let me make three further categorical statements: (1) I do not believe John Courtney Murray is infallible. (2) I do not believe John Cogley is infallible. (3) I do not even believe John XXIII is infallible. Every contributor to the volume, save Father Weigel, accepts these three statements, and even he accepts the first two of them.

It is important that books be critically reviewed, but it is equally important that books be responsibly reviewed. No good purpose is possibly served by the irresponsible and false allegations I have quoted from Mr. Lowell’s review. These can only widen gaps that are already too wide. I found more love of Christ and love of truth in the editor of American Catholics, with whom I naturally disagree about many basic things, than I find in the whole of my fellow-Protestant’s review.

ROBERT MCAFEE BROWN

St. Andrews, Scotland

I do feel that the group centering in Union Theological Seminary represents a segment of Protestantism which is notoriously soft and uncomprehending in its confrontation of the aggressive designs of the Roman Church on our free culture. I feel that the “dialogue” between Protestants and Roman Catholics which is carried on largely under the aegis of this group is carefully rigged in favor of the Roman position on state aid. It is evident that any person advocating strict construction of the Constitution in regard to Catholic subsidies is systematically excluded. In this dialogue facts are consistently sacrificed to the obsession that kind words must always be spoken of the Roman Church.

Those who advocate holding the present money line between the state and the church are simply not invited to these sessions which become a “love feast” where it is assumed that subsidies ought to be provided for church institutions, and the discussion on this subject, when it comes up at all, is likely to be pitched to the proper amount which should go to the Roman Church. Men like Will Herberg, John Cogley, F. Ernest Johnson, John Bennett continually engage in these sessions of mutual congratulation without ever hearing a statement as to the distinctive church-state position which Protestant groups have predominantly followed in this country. The Catholics who appear on these programs like Cogley, Fr. Murray, William Clancy, etc., constitute a rotating panel of men who are used by the Roman Church to make graceful and gracious appearances advertising “what Catholicism is really like.” Fr. Murray and other priests who habitually participate in “the dialogue” have been ordered by their superiors not to participate if persons representing the POAU Supreme Court position on church subsidies are to appear.

This just means that any real dialogue is out of the question since it is rigged and loaded in advance so as to be a monologue. This was the inspiration for my remarks about the “oath of loyalty.” While I did not mean this in a literal sense, of course, I feel that it constituted a sound figure of speech, as also the word “infallible.”

You will be interested to know that William Clancy has even taken the position in Christianity and Crisis that since I insist on quoting papal encyclicals on the subject of religious freedom, I exhibit poor taste and should be barred from the dialogue. Virtually the same position in regard to POAU has been taken by this journal in a number of sharp attacks on POAU.

You ask what can “clear the air.” What can clear the air, it seems to me, is the insistence on a genuine and realistic dialogue if there is to be one. Such a dialogue must rest on the frank recognition that Protestantism confronts Romanism in a classic, unresolved and unresolvable tension. So long as Protestants are what they are and the Roman Church remains the dogmatic monolith it has permitted itself to become, there can be no resolution of the tension. Theologically, the only resolution possible would be in Rome’s renunciation of its false claims and abandonment of its innovations which outrage the Gospel. Useful dialogue can commence only at the point of open and frank acknowledgment of unresolved and unresolvable tension. As Dr. Van Dusen has helpfully suggested, the confrontation of Roman Catholicism should be in the same manner as the confrontation of Judaism—or any other non-Christian faith. As to the political phase, the viewpoint that church institutions and programs should be voluntarily financed and denied state subsidies should no longer be refused a hearing.

Such a dialogue would be real dialogue. It would be an actual confrontation without sham and posturing. Then there would be no more rigging of the rules, no more exclusion of those who “don’t play fair with the Catholics.” When this is achieved—and you can do much to achieve it—the day of the phony dialogue will be over and the genuine dialogue will have begun. If Roman Catholics are ordered out of the dialogue because their terms and control are jeopardized, then its death would be constructive.

C. STANLEY LOWELL

Protestants and Other Americans United

Washington, D. C.

Protestantism has so many forms; it includes so many theologies; it is divided into so many denominations that cannot serve as a guide to lead the contemporary world out of its present confusion. If in Romanism we find a neo-paganism, in Protestantism we discover an unprecedented religious anarchy and scepticism. It seems to me that Protestants and Roman Catholics alike have been engaged in quarrels for the past four centuries to such an extent that they have forgotten the original Ecclesia of Christ, the One, Holy, Orthodox, Catholic and Apostolic Church; the Church of the martyrs and the saints; the Church which has suffered the bloodiest persecutions ever experienced in the history of Christendom, even in the twentieth century, for Christ.

You see, it is not sufficient for a religious denomination or Church to have great names in its theology and letters. A living Church is one which may not include big names but which produces what the Christian Church is supposed to produce! “A tree is known by its fruit” (Mat. 12:33). Probably, it is high time that Protestants and Roman Catholics alike turn to the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church and discover the Christ of the undivided Christian Ecclesia.

DEMETRIOS J. CONSTANTELOS

St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church

Perth Amboy, N. J.

Liberalism is the death rattle of the Church.… We may feel that the Roman Church has placed an unwarranted burden upon her members by making them receive as essential to salvation non-scriptural dogmas but nevertheless in spite of all this the Roman Church has remained true to the historical facts of Christianity and to authentically proclaiming the dogmas of the Incarnation, Atonement and Resurrection.

ROBERT M. COLLINS

St. Thomas Episcopal Church

Morris, Ill.

There has been no mention made of the fact that a President, Catholic or otherwise, has many, many appointments to be made, and many of them are of vital importance. Our late President Roosevelt, by reason of his extended term of office, had the privilege of appointing about 375 out of 525 Federal Judges—making most of them young men in their early 40’s, so that they would be in office for the next 30 years. Any lawyer will tell you that Federal Judges have almost unlimited power, and there are about 50% of the cases that can be determined either way, and ample authority found for it, and once decided, it is very difficult to secure a reversal. Then there are hundreds of other appointments.…

ERNEST H. PENDELL

Tryon, N. Car.

Will you please, please, please tell me why every writer in every religious and every secular publication scrupulously avoids even mentioning the fact that we are, at the same time, electing a Commander-in-Chief of all of our Armed Forces???…

FLORENCE M. STANDISH

San Francisco, Calif.

In terms of wealth and world influence the Vatican ranks with the major powers of the world.… Representation at this crossroads of the world would be extremely advantageous to us in the U. S.… An envoy should be sent to the Vatican. Diplomatic relations should be officially established. All Vatican representatives in the U. S. should be registered (and labeled) as agents for a foreign power.

T. EDSEL WARREN

Arcata, Calif.

My reading of late has included many books and/or treatises to the effect that unless we are very careful:

1. The “sects” are going to take us over. 2. The Baptist Church is out to control all. 3. The Communists just about have us. 4. The Catholics think it is now their time.

At times it seems that any of the above may happen. Then, I remember I am a Christian. That always brings out the best in me.

M. CLARKE GARRISON

Hot Springs, Ark.

ISHTAR IGNORED

In reference to your editorial concerning Lent (Mar. 14 issue), I have not the slightest intention of giving any observance to this pagan practice this year or any year for that matter. You omitted a reference to the goddess Ishtar, which would have pleased a great many of your readers.

WALTER WEAVER

Washington, D. C.

Historically the basic concept of Lent was not “a time of prayer and fasting in memory of our Lord’s passion and death.” It was originally the period of intensive training and instruction (such as is found in the first six chapters of the Didache) for converts from heathenism in preparation for their Baptism at Easter. To such classes for catechumens older Christians were urged to come as a refresher course. All believers looked forward to the glorious day of Easter when the great good news was celebrated.…

MONTGOMERY HUNT THROOP

South Orange, N. J.

The narrative of II Kings spans three troubled centuries from Ahab’s death (c. 853 B.C.) to Jehoiachin’s release from his Babylonian prison (c. 560 B.C.). The importance of this book can scarcely be exaggerated. First, it records the last days of Elijah and the ministry of Elisha (chaps. 1–13); secondly, it describes the fall of Samaria (chap. 17) and Jerusalem (chaps. 24–25); thirdly, it provides a clear picture of the historical and religious context in which the great pre-exilic prophets labored; and fourthly, it furnishes part of the background for the New Testament antipathy between Jews and Samaritans by showing the hybrid nature of the Samaritan people and their worship (chap. 17:24–40).

CHRONOLOGICAL PUZZLE

The problem of harmonizing the various chronological data in II Kings is a major one, especially for the period from 740–716 B.C. For instance, a comparison of 2 Kings 15:27, 30; 16:1–2; 18:1 will result in the discovery that Ahaz was 26 when his 25-year-old son, Hezekiah, began to reign! The difficulties are compounded when an attempt is made to synchronize the history of the divided monarchy with the fixed dates in Assyrian inscriptions, for example, Ahaz’ dealings with Tiglath-pileser III in 734–732 B.C. (2 Kings 16:7 ff.), the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C. (2 Kings 17:6), and Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701 B.C. (2 Kings 18:13 ff.). E. R. Thiele in The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (University of Chicago Press, 1951) has grappled with these and many more problems and has proposed a helpful solution. The culprit was apparently Pekah who in 740/39 usurped the throne of Israel from Menahem’s son Pekahiah (2 Kings 15:25). Perhaps to enhance his prestige, Pekah claimed the regnal years of his two predecessors as his own, thereby crediting himself with 20 years’ rule instead of eight. When the scribes of Judah synchronized the reigns of their kings with those of Israel, they used Pekah’s reckoning. Apparently a later scribe, unacquainted with Pekah’s ambitious claims, edited the synchronisms of 2 Kings 17:1; 18:1, 9, 10 with hazardous results. Thiele’s discovery of “Pattern Twelve-Thirteen”—the addition or subtraction of 12 or 13 years depending on the nature of the synchronism—has proved exceedingly helpful in harmonizing the biblical dates with themselves and with the Assyrian fixed dates. John C. Whitcomb, Jr. has compiled a concise and useful chart of the Old Testament Kings and Prophets (Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana, 1959) by which at a glance one can correlate events in Israel and Judah with Near Eastern history.

CONFLICT OF CULTURES

The period in question was a junction of three ways of life: the ways of the nomadic herdsman, the settled farmer, and the city dweller. Herdsmen lived in close-knit clans, traveling together for mutual protection and roaming from place to place in search of forage. Israelites were encouraged to remember that the patriarchs were herdsmen (cf. Deut. 26:5: “a wandering Aramean was my father”). The conquest of Canaan brought a transition to a more settled way of life in which many of the clan customs were perpetuated. However, as Israelites left their villages to dwell in the Canaanite cities, clan bonds tended to break. The immoral and spiritual corruption of the sophisticated culture plus ruthless commercial practices were an offense to those Israelites who loyally clung to the covenant laws and customs. (There is a helpful description of the cultural tensions in chapter three of R. B. Y. Scott’s Relevance of the Prophets, Macmillan, 1953.)

Naboth’s refusal to sell or barter his vineyard is a graphic illustration of the strong tie between a true Israelite and his land (1 Kings 21:3). Property was not a saleable commodity in ancient Israel but was part of the inheritance passed from father to son. Jezebel’s ruthless scheme to do away with the recalcitrant Naboth typifies the Canaanite contempt for the deeply-ingrained traditions of Israel. Elijah and Elisha, like their successors Amos and Micah, were advocates of the old order, supporters of the covenant, and sought to safeguard the rights of the poor and underprivileged. When Jehu’s bloody coup (2 Kings 9–10) claimed Jezebel among its victims, observers noted that Elijah’s grim prophecy had been fulfilled (2 Kings 9:36–37). Such a fate was worthy recompense for her flagrant disregard of Israel’s ancient laws. Elisha’s sensitivity to these social problems is seen in his concern for the widow whose creditor threatened to enslave her two sons (2 Kings 4:7).

More important than this social tension is the religious conflict—the battle between Baal and Jehovah, symbolized in Elijah’s contest on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). There are good reasons for this conflict. Baal was represented in idolatrous form in a multitude of shrines throughout the land. These idols were so false a representation of deity that the prophets called them “lies” (cf. Amos 2:4). Like the Canaanite god of fertility, Baal was credited with the responsibility for the grain, wine, and oil—the staple products of Palestine (cf. Hos. 2:5, 8). A jealous God could brook no such brazen usurpation of his power and authority as Lord of heaven and earth. The drought predicted by Elijah (1 Kings 17:1), the consuming fire (1 Kings 18:38), the cleansing from leprosy (2 Kings 5), and the floating axe head (2 Kings 6:5) are among the miracles calculated to demonstrate God’s total sovereignty over nature.

Baal tried to compete with God in the arena of history as well. Injured Ahaziah sent messengers to Baal-zebub, god Ekron, to find out if he would recover from his wounds (2 Kings 1). Many of the ancient peoples held that to predict the future was to control its course (cf. Num. 22:6). For this reason all types of divination are sternly opposed in the Mosaic law (Deut. 18:9 ff.). For the prophets of Baal to forecast the outcome of Ahaziah’s injuries would be a seizure of the rights of God to determine the outcome of this and all other historical events; hence Elijah’s trenchant opposition to Ahaziah’s plan.

The practice of sacred prostitution in Canaan is well attested. The yearly cycle of fertility in agriculture was attributed to the sexual union of Baal and his consort, Anath or Ashtart. The worshipper of Baal could aid the productivity of his land by engaging in sexual ceremonies with cult prostitutes. By this act of sympathetic magic he took part in the cosmic intercourse which gave annual birth to crops and flocks. Hosea (4:13–14) informs us that this practice was common in the Northern Kingdom, while 2 Kings 23:7 indicates that the Jerusalem temple sheltered sacred harlots. We need only to add the mention of human sacrifice (cf. 2 Kings 17:17) to complete the awful picture of perverted worship and warped religion which evoked prophetic censure and divine judgment.

The famous Moabite Stone alludes to a series of conflicts between Omri’s dynasty and the Moabite kings, especially Mesha, the author of the inscription. He claims to have triumphed over Israel so thoroughly that “Israel perished forever.” This grossly exaggerated account is possibly to be correlated with 2 Kings 3:4–27 which mentions the retreat of the Israelitish troops who apparently were panicked by the gruesome sight of Mesha’s heir being sacrificed upon the wall. This offering to the god Chemosh (cf. 1 Kings 11:33; 2 Kings 23:13) coincides with the view expressed in the Moabite Stone that Moab’s victories and defeats were dependent on Chemosh’s blessing or wrath.

The revolt of Moab was made possible by the series of battles between the Arameans (Syrians) and Israel, which distracted and weakened the Northern Kingdom (cf. 1 Kings 20; 22) and cost Ahab his life (1 Kings 22:34–35). A detailed account of the turbulent relationships of Israel with the Aramean capital of Damascus is given by M. F. Unger in his Israel and the Arameans of Damascus (Zondervan, 1957). This survey will help to disentangle the perplexing power politics of this period: at times Judah and Israel joined forces against the Arameans (cf. 2 Kings 8:25–29); on occasion the various states allied themselves to withstand the threat of Assyrian invasion (cf. the inscription of Shalmaneser III and 2 Kings 16:5 ff.).

The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III gives a different picture of Jehu from that in II Kings. The hard-driving (2 Kings 9:20), swash-buckling destroyer of the house of Ahab (2 Kings 10) is portrayed kneeling before his Assyrian lord. Shalmaneser has unwittingly helped to illustrate the verdict of 2 Kings 10:31: “But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord … with all his heart.” Assyria, no less than Egypt, was a broken reed, an unworthy substitute for the Lord’s rod and staff (cf. Hos. 5:13; 12:1). Menahem (c. 752–742) and Pekah (c. 740–732) failed to learn from Jehu’s example. Both were forced to capitulate to Tiglath-pileser III (called Pul in 2 Kings 15:19) although Pekah and his ally, Rezin of Damascus, tried to resist. Ahaz of Judah (c. 735–715), fearful of the coalition between Israel and Damascus, ignored Isaiah’s instructions (Isa. 7) and joined the list of kings who contributed to Assyria’s welfare (2 Kings 16:7 ff.) and received credit for their contributions in Tiglath-pileser’s annals.

When Hoshea courted Egypt and withheld tribute from Assyria (2 Kings 17:4), Shalmaneser V laid siege for three years (c. 724–722 B.C.) to Samaria, the last Israelitish stronghold (most of Israel had been conquered earlier by Tiglath-pileser III). Whether it was he or his successor, Sargon II, that took the city is not quite clear. Second Kings makes no mention of Sargon II, whose annals attribute the fall of Samaria to him. Thiele (op. cit. pp. 122 ff.), following A. T. Olmstead, concludes that Shalmaneser V was Samaria’s conqueror and that Sargon’s scribe had incorrectly claimed the victory in order to increase Sargon’s prestige. The mass deportations and importations which help to account for the Jewish hostility toward the Samaritans (2 Kings 17:24 ff; cf. John 4:9) are part of a program by which Tiglath-pileser III and his successors tried to weaken local and national loyalties in an attempt to forge a world empire whose citizens pledged their troth only to Assyria.

The tide of Assyrian aggression did not ebb after the inundation of Israel but flowed south. In 701 B.C. Sennacherib (c. 705–681) ravaged Judah, capturing (according to the Taylor prism) 46 walled cities and numberless villages. Sennacherib’s inscription describes the siege of Jerusalem—Hezekiah, “like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem”—but is silent as to the outcome. Second Kings 19:35 tells why. The angel of the Lord decimated (perhaps by a plague as Herodotus seems to hint) the Assyrian army. Sennacherib’s silence is not surprising: warriors ancient and modern are loathe to chronicle their setbacks. Sennacherib has left a detailed pictorial account of his attack on Lachish (2 Kings 18:14): siege engines are rolled up earthen inclines; archers, slingers, and spearmen follow the engines which are manned by shielded archers.

When Josiah fell at Megiddo (c. 608 B.C.), the last and best hopes of Judah perished with him (2 Kings 23:29). Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, gained his independence from Assyria (c. 626 B.C.), and with help from Medes and Scythians he destroyed Nineveh (612 B.C.). His son, Nebuchadnezzar, defeated the Egyptian army at Carchemish in Syria (605 B.C.), and Judah’s days were numbered. Twice, at the instigation of Egypt, Judah’s kings rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar (despite Jeremiah’s protests; cf. Jer. 27:12 ff.) with devastating results. The city survived the Babylonians’ first punitive attack (c. 597 B.C., cf. 2 Kings 24:1 ff.) in which Ezekiel was captured (Ezek. 1:1–2); but the second onslaught (c. 587–6 B.C., cf. 2 Kings 25:1 ff.) brought the total eclipse of the Southern Kingdom. Zedekiah, blinded, bound, and bereft of his sons (2 Kings 25:7), plodded to Babylon, a tattered remnant of David’s dynasty. D. J. Wiseman’s Chronicles of Chalden Kings, (British Museum, 1956) gives the Babylonian accounts of some of Nebuchadnezzar’s exploits.

THEOLOGICAL EMPHASES

Hilkiah’s discovery of the book of the law (2 Kings 22:8) paved the way for a return to the principle of canonicity. Ruled usually by royal whim and occasionally by prophetic word, the people of Judah led by pious Josiah pledged their loyalty to the ancient covenant contained in the new-found book (2 Kings 23:1–3). The watchword of the great eighth century prophets had been “Back to Moses.” Undoubtedly a remnant had responded. Josiah’s reform, in contrast, was an official act recognizing the binding authority of the Mosaic law. The detailed account of Josiah’s reform (2 Kings 23:4 ff.) is an index of the extent to which corrupt Canaanite practices had infiltrated Israelitish life and worship. Only a wholehearted renewal of the covenant relationship could be a successful antidote for such poison. Both revelation and response were necessary: the book of the law reminded the people of the objective divine authority necessary for their spiritual welfare, and their pledge of homage to the covenant was their only hope of salvation.

But the people had passed the point of no return, though not all would be lost, as a perplexed Habakkuk learned (Hab. 2:4). Josiah’s tragic death was the earnest of pending judgment. The message of II Kings is clear: righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Internal corruption—flagrant and constant—brought in its wake external domination. Assyria and Babylonia were hired razors (Isa. 7:20) wielded by a God whose holiness had been outraged (2 Kings 23:26–27). If II Kings puts more stress upon correct religion than upon moral rectitude, it is because social righteousness best stems from a proper relationship to God. This involved loyalty to the true sanctuary at Jerusalem and sincere use of the means of worship prescribed in the law. Their abject failure left no course but judgment which was thorough but not total. Even in the dark pages that close the books, one detects a faint glimmer of hope: the release of Jehoiachin (2 Kings 25:27 ff.) seems to augur of a better day. The God of the covenant is faithful, though his people prove faithless.

The books of Kings are part of the preparation for the King. Each ruler was judged by the standards expressed in the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7:12–17) and the Royal Psalms (e.g., 2; 20; 21; 45; 72; 110; 132) which clarify the king’s role as God’s anointed ruler and representative. Each king fell short, though Hezekiah and Josiah are singled out for praise (2 Kings 18:3; 22:2). As God’s adopted son, the king was to rule with righteousness and justice, if there were to be internal prosperity and external security. The nation’s judicial, economic, military, and spiritual well-being were all dependent on him; and he, in turn, was to be totally dependent on God. Failure to exercise or even recognize this responsibility brought the fall of the monarchy and heightened the prophetic longing for the King on whose righteous shoulder the government would rest with Messianic majesty.

TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING

In addition to the books mentioned in the article on I Kings (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, July 20, 1959), the following works should prove helpful: N. H. Snaith, I–II Kings in Interpreter’s Bible; James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East—An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Princeton University Press: 1958), a condensation of the more important materials from his two larger works; John Bright, History of Israel (Westminster Press, 1959); D. J. Wiseman, Illustrations front Biblical Archaeology (Eerdmans, 1958), a collection of outstanding pictures with commentary; and W. F. Albright’s classic Archaeology and the Religion of Israel.

DAVID A. HUBBARD

Chairman, Division of Biblical Studies and Philosophy

Westmont College

A recent edition of a leading Methodist journal reports: “Methodist membership is failing even to keep up with the population growth of the United States, and lags far behind the membership gain of the other major Protestant denominations. Methodists are slowly becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the population of the United States.” When one probes the reasons for this condition, he inevitably becomes aware of the widening trend toward ritualism and liturgy within the Methodist Church. The ritualist controversy was one of the major issues at the General Conference in 1952. It may well become so again at the Denver meeting of the 1960 General Conference.

Years ago R. N. Merrill, in the Methodist Review, said of the high church tendencies within Methodism, “We are hardly sure whether we have lulled the Church to sleep or have dressed it for burial.” Even Harry Emerson Fosdick has been quoted as saying, “Throughout the history of the Church, Christians have tried to make their Christianity easy. They have done it by ritualism and sacrament.” Certainly one could draw upon many illustrations to show that when spiritual life and righteousness disintegrate, ritualism is apt to receive more attention. The situation in the Russian Orthodox Church before 1917 was not an accidental development.

PRESENT WEAKNESSES

Roy L. Smith, long-time editor of the Christian Advocate, in his volume Why I Am a Methodist, lists what he considers the 10 present weaknesses of the Methodist Church. Two of the weaknesses are “ease of attaining membership” and “formality of worship services.” He says, “As Nehemiah went back over the history of Judah he came upon a very interesting discovery that Moses had never ordered the observance of elaborate ceremonies.… Two facts are plainly evident to almost any observer of modern Methodism: the increase of ritualism and the need of a new baptism of spiritual power.”

It has been claimed that John Wesley was a high churchman who leaned toward ritual in worship. It is true that Wesley drafted a comparatively simple form of liturgy in his younger days, but it fell into disuse, and there is no allusion to it in records after 1792. None of the great Reformers, not even Luther, placed a heavy emphasis upon form in worship. One of the most significant results of the Reformation, in fact, was the spiritualizing of worship by the drastic elimination of religious formalism. Can it be said of Wesley that he was one who insisted upon vestments, ornaments, candles, lights, incense, gowns, and printed prayers? Were these the stuff out of which he created the class meetings and societies that turned England upside down?

DIFFERENT ORIGINS

There are many fine Christians who enjoy and prefer liturgical forms of worship. Historically there are denominations which have always majored in these forms of worship. Ministers and laymen who prefer such ritual worship are privileged by living in a free country to unite with the denomination of their choice. They should not attempt to ritualize a church whose origins were cradled in a revolt against weak, barren, and empty formal worship. In an article entitled “Shall Methodism Go Gothic?” Bishop Selecman said, “If cathedrals could have saved the country, Europe would have been saved centuries ago.” And if I may quote one more Methodist, Dr. F. C. Hoggorth has pointed out that “the major prophetic protest as heard in Amos and Isaiah was against the turning of religion into a pageant with no connection with life. It is elaborate ritual—apart from life—which has long been the taproot of European tragedy.”

Let the liturgical revival flourish, but let it flourish in its own environment. And let the Methodist Church seek more earnestly to follow Jesus Christ, whose only requirement of worship was that it be “in spirit and in truth.” Let her remember the common people who love their church for what she is, and not try to become something else.

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.