A good deal of discussion was aroused in Europe recently by the apparent change of mind in the Basel theologian, Fritz Buri. Professor Buri had written a book in which the tones of Reformation faith were distinctly audible. This was coupled with a wide-spread rumor that Buri had undergone a spiritual conversion under the influence of Karl Barth. What made the situation fascinating is the fact that this particular theologian was well known as a representative of an extreme liberal school of theology. His previous publications had established him in that position. He was a disciple of the thought world of Albert Schweitzer, particularly in regard to New Testament eschatology. He held that the New Testament was consistently eschatological and that its eschatological hopes had proven unfounded. This position has found defenders among such men as Martin Werner as well as Buri himself. Furthermore, Buri had been occupied in writing a dogmatics which was profoundly permeated with philosophical existentialism.

What interests us is the fact that Buri’s book has awakened a certain distrust among readers. Reading Buri’s book, one cannot escape the impression that a real and radical change has come over this Swiss theologian. But it is also apparent that among those discussing the book many feel it almost impossible that a genuinely liberal theologian could possibly become converted to orthodoxy. This suspicion is what concerns me here.

We encounter a conversion from Protestantism to Rome occasionally as well as from Rome to Protestantism. But a conversion from liberalism to evangelical orthodoxy sometimes seems too much for us to expect. We hardly count on such things taking place anymore. We speak rather glibly about the self-evidence of the Gospel; we talk about the sword of the Spirit. But we do not entertain the expectation that something is actually going to happen by the power of the Spirit. In this instance, many hardly dare trust Buri’s interest in the Reformation faith. They speak as though the lines are irretrievably drawn. I also have the impression that our theological discussions are often rendered fruitless simply by the prevalence among us of a similar attitude of hopelessness.

Should we not rather, in our theological discussions, count on the possibility of changes in men’s thinking through the power of the Word of God? Do we still believe in the usefulness of our theological labors? Do we still believe in Paul’s insistence that the Word of God is not bound (2 Tim. 2:9)? I cannot help recalling the time of the Reformation when there was a stringently worked out theological system (scholasticism); the position within it was heavily fortified with logic and authority. But the renewed study of Holy Scripture brought about a great change, one that recreated the whole situation in Europe. Is our polemic with liberal theology only a game we are playing? Is it carried on with expectation that something wonderful can happen, that profound changes can take place? Or do we work with the silent assumption that the theological fronts will remain unchanged until the coming of Jesus Christ?

I do not mean to imply that readers of such books as the new one of Buri should not subject them to keen analysis. I know that writings of theologians have sometimes worn the word clothing of orthodoxy while the content was still liberal. But if we meet every evidence of change of mind with suspicion, we ought to ask ourselves if we still believe in the power of the Word of God. If we always suspect that nothing is really changed, it may be that we have lost faith in the clarity of Scripture. Do we really believe in the power of the truth?

Our times are charged with spiritual struggle in theological matters as well as in others. Everything seems to have become part of a crisis; nothing seems to be certain. Orthodox theology surely is part of the critical picture. On the other hand, there is a strong interest manifest in the Word of God. We cannot discount the possibilities resident in this interest. Whenever God’s Word is being studied, the results are unpredictable. We must not rule out the possibility of surprises in the area of theology. I am personally convinced that we all need a rebirth of faith in the possibilities that lie within the power and self-evidential character of the Gospel. This does not mean we should be uncritical, quickly rushing to the conclusion that every change in manner of expression is a return to the Gospel. But we must not count out the working of the Holy Spirit. Where we lose this faith, our theological work is empty and useless. It serves only to express something of what we believe and think.

Consider, for example, the imperatives of our conflict with Rome. Often we carry on this conflict as though we were simply letting the other side know what we are thinking about rather than as though we were carrying on a discussion with profoundly significant issues at stake. This comes about because we really do not expect our polemic to issue in anything fruitful. We hardly dare believe that Rome can change.

Is it impossible to suppose that new avenues of thought can be opened by the Spirit? Is it not right to suppose that once men interest themselves in the Bible they are no longer left to themselves, that they may be in the powerful guidance of the Word which still is sharper than any two-edged sword? I think that we may believe that it is right to count on the power of the Word. This is why we should be critical of every change that seems to make itself manifest in men’s thinking, but also why we should never be distrustful.

In theology we are not dealing with something that arose in a dark corner somewhere, but with a Gospel full of grace and power. Those prophets who prophesy for bread are able to be absolutely sure of the future. But the true prophet is full of expectation, throws himself into the conflict, and then runs to the window to see what God shall bring about.

Orthodox Judaism

This is My God, by Herman Wouk (Doubleday, 1959, 356 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Edward John Carnell, Professor of Apologetics, Fuller Theological Seminary.

With the publication of this book, Herman Wouk may justly be called the C. S. Lewis of orthodox Judaism. He is a literary craftsman of the first water. Just feel his power as he describes the delights of Palestine: “Best of all I like the city of Haifa, white and busy on green slopes around a saucer of purple Mediterranean; then Jerusalem, the solemn magic of which I cannot write down, but its old hills in the dawn will draw me back year after year; and then the mysterious peaks of Galilee, with vistas down to the far blue sea of Kinneret which give you the illusion that Israel must be the world’s largest land instead of one of the smallest” (p. 268).

Many people picture orthodox Jews as an eccentric society, bearded, with their backs to progress and their faces to the Wailing Wall. Wouk pictures them as a religious aristocracy commissioned by God to bear the torch of piety and learning until the very end of time. The darkest hours of Jewish persecution are turned into the brightness of meridian sunlight. The law of Moses “prophesied that the glories would be temporary, that the people in their prosperity would lose their hold on the law and on their land, and would scatter into exile; and it ordained that the nation should go on observing the festivals wherever they dwelt, to all time. And so we do. Our people have lived for thousands of years in the faith that in God’s good time he will restore the nation to its soil, and that the festivals will take on, in the latter days, their ancient force and beauty” (p. 80). It is striking that Protestant dispensationalism would heartily agree with this interpretation of Israel’s future.

Wouk is really trying to persuade “assimilated Jews” that a dissolution of Jewish distinctives would be a catastrophe. “We are nothing at all, or we are a people apart, marked by history for a fate embracing the heights and the depths of the human experience” (p. 283). It is only by courtesy that Christians are allowed to overhear this solemn conversation.

Christians who listen carefully may be surprised by what they hear. Wouk not only defends the divine authority of the Mosaic law, but he supports his defense by a dexterous use of religious symbolism, logic, moral institution, and the latest discoveries of archaeology. His command of Jewish sources is impressive, but he never overwhelms the mind with a cascade of sheer information. He writes with an authentic sense of dedication.

If Christians think that orthodox Jews are on the verge of a great evangelical awakening, they are indulging in wishful thinking. With the founding of Israel as a state, orthodox Jews are all the more persuaded that God has destined them to remain a distinct people forever. “… I believe the survival of the Jewish people looks like the hand of Providence in history.… I believe it is our lot to live and to serve in our old identity, until the promised day when the Lord will be one and his name one in all the earth” (p. 20). This view of Providence is rather like that of Roman Catholicism.

After Christians manage to catch their breath, they may rightly inquire how orthodox Jews can rest their hope on a law that was designed as an instrument of death, not life. Wouk gives us the answer, though not by design.

Modern Jews take refuge in the same chambers of authority that sheltered the chief priests and Pharisees in the days of Jesus Christ. Judaism credits Moses with supreme authority, but in practice it vests this authority in the common law as set forth in the Talmud and later commentaries on the Torah. “Moses in his wisdom marked off only a few things in life that would endure. The rest he left to change. He did not freeze Jewish manners for all time in the cast of Egypt or of the desert” (p. 234). The elders of Israel may amend the law to meet the needs of the times and the abilities of the people. “The enabling clause for amendment is a passage in Deuteronomy [Wouk does not cite the passage] which instructs Israel to abide by the Torah as taught to them by their sages” (p. 202).

According to the New Testament, the purpose of the law is to reveal man’s wretched estate, that man may turn to God for grace and forgiveness. Wouk gives the impression that keeping the law is really not an unpleasant thing at all. If the Jews were to turn aside from the law, they would forfeit the happy calendar of ceremonies that gives depth to the religious year.

The Gospel is the good news that God put the curse of the law on his Son, Jesus Christ. Orthodox Jews void the Gospel by evacuating the law of its severity. The law is reduced to a manageable code of conduct. This code serves as a status symbol for a people who reject Christ’s Messianic claims, but who suffer no twinges of remorse for doing so.

This raises a very disconcerting point. The apostle Paul says that “salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous” (Rom. 11:11). Now, just how jealous are orthodox Jews? If Wouk represents their attitudes correctly, they are not jealous at all. In fact, their cup is full and running over. Thunders Wouk: “What is absurd in Judaism? The Torah is there. Its heroes are human. Its history is accurate. Its religious imagery is immortal. Its disciplines are understandable. Moses is as persuasive a lawgiver as any that ever lived. The Prophets are apostles of the social justice that the whole world seeks today. Is it absurd to look for God? It is just as absurd not to look for him, life today being what it is” (p. 337).

Another thing: orthodox Jews have a long memory. They recall the dreadful anti-Semitic movements which have grown on Christian soil. These movements persuade pious Jews that Christianity is a sect which has lost the true glory of God by separating from the traditions of the elders.

Nor is this the end of the matter. When a student of church history compares the sweet fellowship of the primitive church with later religious wars and institutional struggles for primacy, he does not need a great deal of discernment to understand why orthodox Jews are not jealous of the Christian church.

Gentiles are all too quick to charge Jews with clannish mannerisms, compromising business practices, and odd religious ceremonies. These charges root the Jews all the more deeply in their own traditions.

The issue remains the same today as it did in the time of the apostles. Did Moses look to the coming of Jesus Christ, or did he not? Christians say he did. “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; it is Moses who accuses you, on whom you set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me” (John 5:45–46).

Wouk adds some very nice touches to his book. He not only provides a working bibliography and glossary of terms, but he jots down interesting notes for friends who want to linger for coffee and fellowship.

The title of Wouk’s book is taken from Exodus 15:2. All royalties are being given to charity.

This book has humbled my own heart, for I must confess that Wouk has done a remarkable job in defending orthodox Judaism. I wish I knew Wouk personally. He must be a pleasant man to be around.

I guess this leaves only one thing to be said. When orthodox Jews manage to outlive and outthink orthodox Christians, we need not be surprised if Israel continues to set her hope on the traditions of the elders and not on Jesus Christ.

EDWARD JOHN CARNELL

Historical Background

The Mind of St. Paul, by William Barclay (Harper, 1958, 256 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by W. Boyd Hunt, Professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Seminary.

Barclay’s reputation as a gifted interpreter of the New Testament has already been clearly established by his earlier volumes, such as: A New Testament Wordbook, More New Testament Words, and Letters to the Seven Churches. His writing reflects his competence in the dual roles of scholar and preacher. On the one hand his work is marked by his ability to illumine profoundly the very heart of complex issues. He skillfully utilizes his keen knowledge of such background matters as gnosticism, Marcionism, neoplatonism, docetism, rabbinics, Greek philosophy, Roman custom, and Greek lexicography to clarify the meaning of the Pauline writings. This appreciation of historical context is really his forte, and so it is strange to read his claim: “I have simply gone direct to the Pauline letters.” On the contrary, and to the reader’s immeasurable gain, Barclay goes direct to the historical background of the topic under discussion.

One half of the chapter on “The Second Coming in the Thought of Paul,” for instance, is taken up by an invaluable treatment of Old Testament and Jewish eschatology. But Barclay’s discussion always moves along swiftly. He makes no painful attempts to impress his readers with his scholarship. Nor does he need to. It is evident that the price of his depth of insight and facility of expression is the high cost of his many years of disciplined investigation of materials.

On the other hand, Barclay strives for popular appeal. He indicates that “these chapters originally appeared as a series of weekly articles in the pages of The British Weekly.” As a result there is a certain unevenness and lack of total perspective. There are unnecessary repetitions. There is a tendency to approach each successive topic as though it were the central idea in the thought of Paul. The three chapters on God suffer no little by comparison with the scintillating chapter on faith. After suggesting that Paul uses six great metaphors to describe the work of Christ, only five are mentioned in the immediate context. And because a popular readership is in view, when sources are cited, which is seldom (although the book is replete with freshly worked citations of Scriptures), the reference is enclosed in parentheses, without the luxury of full footnoting. The book is also very brief, when one considers the size and number of the pages. The publisher’s blurb on the dust jacket claims that this is a “complete guide to the beliefs of Christ’s greatest witness,” but this is denied by Barclay who says that “these chapters do not in any way claim to be an exhaustive and complete Theology of Paul.” There are no indexes and no bibliography.

The result is a book which, though a valuable contribution to wider understanding of Pauline thought, is of limited usefulness. There are incisive analyses and careful definitions to excite the technician. But Barclay repeatedly plays his appeal to the heart as against an appeal to the mind. He seems overanxious “to put it simply.”

Some quotations will illustrate Barclay’s oversimplification and lack of precision. He solves the difficulty of interpreting biblical apocalyptic with the suggestion: “When we confess our ignorance, an ignorance which even Jesus shared, of dates and times; when we abandon all the Jewish imagery and pictures, which by this time have become only fantastic; when we strip the doctrine of the Second Coming down to its bare essentials, we are left with this tremendous truth—the Doctrine of the Second Coming is the final guarantee that life can never be a road that leads to nowhere, it is a road which leads to Christ” (pp. 229–30). Surely he sometimes confuses theology with philosophy (pp. 54 and 139). He writes off the Old Testament doctrine of God with the statement that “the fact is that until Jesus came into the world men had a wrong idea of God” (p. 74). Sometimes Jewish means Old Testament (pp. 208 ff.) and sometimes it means Rabbinic (p. 214). Nowhere is there evidence that Barclay has been significantly influenced by the recent rediscovery of the validity of Old Testament theology. Whatever his view of the Trinity may be, his stress is always on the unity of God: “Never at any time did Paul identify Jesus Christ and God. He never equated Jesus Christ and God” (p. 56). Again we read: “We believe that Jesus is so closely identified with God, if you like to put it so, that Jesus knows God so well, that we can only call Him the Son of God” (p. 142). He believes that it does not matter whether we interpret the Cross as the paying of penalty or as the demonstration of love (p. 89).

But it would be wrong to end a review of this volume on a negative note. The chapters on “The Work of Christ,” “In Christ,” and “The Mind of Paul Concerning the Church,” are surpassingly rich. Barclay sees clearly that justification is a right relationship to God (p. 79), that to justify means not to make a person something but to account a man as being something (p. 76). He carefully guards the interpretation of the phrase “in Christ” against mystical reductions. Nor will he allow the identification of the church with the risen Christ.

Despite its structural and theological weaknesses, no preacher planning a series of sermons on Paul can afford to neglect this volume.

W. BOYD HUNT

Political Convert

The Evolution of a Conservative, by William Henry Chamberlin (Henry Regnery Co., Chicago, 1959, 295 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Irving E. Howard, Assistant Editor of Christian Economics.

“I had gone to Russia expecting to witness the evolution of a great act of revolutionary liberation. When I left Russia twelve years later, I was convinced that the absolutist Soviet state is a power of darkness and evil, with a few parallels in history,” writes William Henry Chamberlin in his autobiographical book, The Evolution of a Conservative. Chamberlin’s reaction against communism carried him from radicalism to conservatism. He identifies political conservatism with the thought of Edmund Burke, John Adams, John C. Calhoun, Alexis de Tocqueville, and The Federalist.

For some time evangelicals have contended that religious liberalism is intellectually bankrupt, but Chamberlin declares the same to be true of political liberalism. He points out that in England political liberalism has become confused and irrelevant. Once it dominated British politics, but now that field is ruled by the Conservatives and Laborites. In America, Chamberlin finds a worse situation. Here political liberalism has changed its coat. Instead of championing the free individual, as it did in the nineteenth century, modern American liberalism espouses government intervention and statism which inevitably destroys individual rights.

It is strange that this author and journalist of exceptional educational advantages had to live half a life and travel around the world and back again to discover the wisdom of “The American Idea” which he elaborates upon in a chapter by that title. Explaining his own belated appreciation of the political philosophy that came out of the American Revolution, he laments the omission of the insights of The Federalist and the founding fathers from our public school system.

Whether the average American knows it or not, and evidence seems to indicate that he does not know it, there is an intellectually respectable political philosophy behind the structure of our Constitution. It was fashioned by men (like John Adams) who believed in the depravity of human nature, and men (like James Madison) who also believed in man’s capacity for self-government. The tension between these two ideas produced a system of checks and balances designed to limit a government which could not be trusted with too much power, but yet must have the power to act. Consequently, it is not an exaggeration to say that the United States Constitution is the most marvelously constructed and delicately balanced political document in history. It has been belittled by a president of the United States, ignored by the Supreme Court, and forgotten by the common people, but it remains the bulwark of American liberty.

The increasing number of books like this which have appeared in recent months give grounds for hope that Americans will rediscover their birthright.

IRVING E. HOWARD

World Brotherhood

The Spirit is Willing, by David Soper (Westminster Press, 1958, 142 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by Edwin H. Palmer, Editor of The Encyclopedia of Christianity.

The author, who is chairman of the Department of Religion at Beloit College, sets forth his thoughts in a lively fashion. The book abounds in delightful epigrams, wit, and puns.

Ostensibly the book is about the “Holy Spirit,” and aims to give “a concrete definition of the elusive doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” In reality, however, any similarity to the classical Christian definition of the Holy Spirit is coincidental. The main theme of this book is not the Holy Spirit but the desirability of the formation of an ethical world community that transcends all languages, nationalisms, and religions. This world brotherhood, according to Dr. Soper, would be the result of the “forward thrust” of love or what he calls the “Holy Spirit.”

In his pursuit of world brotherhood, however, the author loses sight of the distinctiveness of Christianity. Thus he calls the whole of humanity “the body of God” (p. 117). The church, he writes, “is the world of our churches, our fragments of the future, whether Greek, Russian, Roman, Lutheran, Calvinist, or Anglican (whether Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem, or Jew)” (p. 127). Through all our fragments “God is now creating one church, one fellowship, one brotherhood including all religions, all races, all philosophies, all sciences, all governments—a universal fellowship of love, a classless society, the image of God” (p. 126). In this respect Soper has missed the “forward thrust” of the Bible. For the Bible teaches the uniqueness of Christianity when, for example, Jesus says: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me.”

The author, however, would call such a statement “dogmatic” and “the rigor mortis of the mind” (p. 107). Those under the forward thrust, he asserts, are intellectually humble and recognize that “no knowledge, now in hand, is absolute” (p. 107) and that our truth and “God’s truth are not, and cannot be, exactly identical” (p. 105). Orthodoxy should recognize that “its partial truth” is not “total, final, and infallible” (p. 101). Thus, on the author’s premise, it is impossible to assert that the Bible is verbally inerrant, for that would mean that we have final and infallible truth. It is intolerance, he holds, to say as Paul did: “Charge some that they teach no other doctrine.… If any man teach otherwise … he is proud, knowing nothing.” “Fortunately for us,” says Professor Soper, “James, Peter, and John taught differently” and even “Paul, like the rest of us, had his better moments” (p. 105).

Abstractly, it may seem commendable that the author advocates intellectual humility. Yet the most fundamental humility that a man can show is not the assertion that “no knowledge, now in hand, is absolute,” but rather the confession that biblical truths are identical with God’s truths. Refusal to accept the Bible as God’s infallible revelation is not humility but instead a proud exaltation of the mind over God.

When one denies the absoluteness and uniqueness of the Bible, consistency will eventually lead one to deny the absoluteness and uniqueness of Christianity too, just as is evidenced in this book.

EDWIN H. PALMER

Apologetic

By What Standard?, by Rousas J. Rushdoony (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1959, 209 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by William Young, Minister of Bloor East Presbyterian Church, Toronto.

The significance of the title is explained by the author in an appendix, also entitled, “By What Standard?”, in which he tells how the book of Job made clear to him that the whole of life must be measured in terms of the purpose of the sovereign God. The content of the book is described in a sub-title as “An Analysis of the Philosophy of Cornelius Van Til.” In Rushdoony’s judgment, Van Til’s thought represents “a consistent Christianity which significantly and effectively challenges not only the non-Christian philosophies of our time, but lays bare the failure of all ostensibly Christian thought which attempts to gain Christian fruit out of alien roots, which begins with any pre-supposition other than the self-contained and triune God of Scripture …” (pp. 6 f.).

Although the book contains one reference to Wittgenstein (p. 16), it does not contain one sentence of philosophical analysis in the style of the contemporary linguistic school. The idealistic type of metaphysical language that dominates the argument will have no appeal to the advanced philosophers of our generation. Rushdoony has not provided an analysis of Van Til’s philosophy in the sense of a restatement of what is truly important and challenging in it, but he has given rather a glowing exposition of Van Til’s remarkable attempt to develop an apologetic for the doctrine of sovereign grace which will not be in conflict with the faith it professes to defend. This is theology in a philosophical idiom rather than philosophy.

A fuller account of Van Til’s original work on the subject of common grace would be desirable. The same observation may be made in relation to the topic of the incomprehensibility of God, where the unclear notion of “content of knowledge” is introduced without explanation (p. 162).

In view of the obscure nature of the subject matter, Rushdoony is to be congratulated for having produced a highly readable book on a topic of vital interest for intelligent evangelicals.

WILLIAM YOUNG

Serving The Lord

Light in the Jungle, by Leo B. Halliwell (McKay, New York, 1959, 269 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Horace L. Fenton, Jr., Associate Director, Latin America Mission.

One of the chapters of Adventurers for God, Clarence W. Hall’s recent book of missionary biographies, is devoted to the story of Leo and Jessie Halliwell, a Seventh-day Adventist couple who spent 30 years in the jungles of Brazil. In Light in the Jungle, that story receives book-length, first-person-singular treatment, as Halliwell himself recounts the trials and the triumphs of those years.

The author, an electrical engineer, and his wife, a nurse, have devoted their lives to a medical ministry, and have brought to the “green hell” of the Amazon a warm-hearted, self-sacrificing witness and love for needy people. Those of us who disagree with their theological position may nonetheless learn much from this well-told story of 30 years given to the healing of men’s bodies, and to the establishment of Seventh-day Adventist groups and churches in regions that apparently had long been neglected by other churches and mission boards.

Mr. Halliwell tells his story in a lively way and crams it full with incidents, sometimes pathetic in their revelation of human need, sometimes humorous in the picture they give of the reaction of the native people to missionaries. The author makes little of the hardships which his wife and he have endured; his stress is rather on the great privileges they have enjoyed in this ministry. When the Halliwells retired recently, they had the satisfaction of seeing their work recognized by the Brazilian government which honored them and also contributed generously toward an increased medical work in these areas. But it is evident that the greater satisfaction came to this missionary couple from the knowledge that their message had been received in many places, and that their work would be carried on by many others—both missionaries and nationals.

HORACE L. FENTON, JR.

Rich Diet

The Christian in Complete Armour, by William Gurnall (The Sovereign Grace Book Club, 1958, 603 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by John K. Mickelsen, Minister of Canoga Presbyterian Church, Seneca Falls, N.Y.

This reprint is an abridgment of the author’s 877-page treatment of Ephesians 6:10–17.

The exposition derives its wealth from the written Word. William Gurnall treats the topics suggested by each phrase of the passage in the light of the whole counsel of God. He draws richly on the teaching of Scripture to give content and depth to his comments.

The value of Gurnall’s exposition is enhanced by its practical emphasis, for he continually guides his reader into a deeper understanding and experience of God’s grace in the Christian’s warfare. Like the apostle, he both sets forth and applies his teachings. This book will reward the study required to master it.

The teachings concerning spiritual sins (pp. 142–162), perseverance (pp. 186–200), peace (pp. 343–396) and the Word of God (pp. 525–603) will serve as rich morsels to introduce the reader to the spiritual meat of this commentary.

The table of contents mars this otherwise invaluable reprint in two ways. It contains a somewhat arbitrary selection of the topics which Gurnall treats. This fails to acquaint the reader with the basic structure of Gurnall’s analysis of Scripture. (I believe topics deserve inclusion, but in an index.) And secondly, through some oversight, all the page numbers have been omitted from the table of contents.

JOHN K. MICKELSEN

Protestants in Poland stand to gain from frequent clashes between the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Communist regime. Wladyslaw Gomulka’s government indicates it is tired of such “hysteria” as was being brought on this month, for example, by reports of a Madonna-like vision over the steeple of St. Augustine’s Church in Warsaw. If there is to be religion in Poland (now some 95 per cent Roman Catholic), Red officials apparently prefer that it take on the form of quieter Protestantism.

Protestant pastors report more freedom to minister, according to the Rev. Earl S. Poysti, who made a 26-day, 3,000-mile preaching tour through Poland last spring.

Poysti, now working for the Gospel Furtherance Society in West Germany, was born in Siberia of Scandinavian parents, came to America in 1935 and subsequently took U. S. citizenship and a degree from New York University.

“Believers seem to take the spiritual life much more seriously than we do in the prosperous West,” says Poysti, who spoke in 25 churches across Poland before congregations of up to 200.

Unlike other Red satellite regimes, the Polish government allows churches to conduct Sunday Schools. “A goodly percentage of the Christians I found were young people,” Poysti observes.

He had gone to Poland under an invitation from the United Evangelical Church of Poland, which with about 100 churches represents the country’s largest Protestant body.

Poysti added that Polish Protestant pastors must be careful not to touch on political issues. “One never hears any criticism of the government in the pulpits,” he said. “Each church is registered with the government which keeps close watch over its activities and growth.”

Most Protestant congregations seem to worship in buildings which are other than church edifices. The government gave financial aid to reconstruct churches destroyed during World War II, but Poysti says he found none in eastern Poland—closest to the Russian border.

‘Light and Life’

Radio preacher Myron F. Boyd marked his 25th year of broadcasting by reporting on a three-week tour of Russia.

“I am a better American for having been in Russia,” said Boyd, speaker on the “Light and Life Hour,” international broadcast of the Free Methodist Church. He had already been on the air 10 years with a broadcast of his own when the “Light and Life Hour” was launched in October of 1944. The program is now being heard in three languages in more than 65 countries.

Boyd travelled through Moscow, Brest, Minsk, Smolensk, Kalinin, Novgorod, Leningrad, and Vyborg. He said his hosts reported that they were picking up his program, which when beamed to the Soviet Union features Russian speakers and musicians.

“I believe things are ripening for a revival in Russia,” Boyd said on his return last month to America. “The great mass of Russian people know nothing of spiritual things.”

Soviet Concern

“A remarkable reawakening in religion” among the Soviet people, reports a group of Russian scholars, is being accompanied by “ineffectual attempts on the part of the Communist Party Central Committee to suppress it.”

The Soviet scholars aired their concern last month while doing research on their homeland at the “Institute for the Study of the U. S. S. R.” in Munich, Germany. They cited an increasing number of Soviet press reports to the effect that religious beliefs are spreading.

Efforts to suppress religion in Russia have grown consistently more difficult, they say, especially after the publication of the Communist Party Central Committee’s decision of November 10, 1954, which halted punitive measures against religion.

Challenging Communism

Bishop Otto Dibelius incurred anew the wrath of the East German regime last month, then openly defied threats to ban him from the Soviet sector of Berlin.

Dibelius, whose office as chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany makes him spiritual leader of both East and West Germans, has often challenged Red authorities.

In a recent booklet, he denied that either the East German Republic or any other totalitarian state constitutes a “supreme authority” to which Christians owe allegiance. Publication of the booklet occasioned wide controversy climaxed by a discussion over West Berlin radio in which Dibelius and Bishop Hans Lilje were participants. Both agreed that a Christian has the right to offer resistance if a state oversteps its limits by forcing citizens to subject even their thinking to a state ideology. They also affirmed that it is Christian duty, on the other hand, to obey and respect the state’s “outer order.” Lilje opposed, however, a Dibelius suggestion, in reference to the state, to change the phrase “supreme authority” in Luther’s translation of the Bible into “higher powers.”

East German authorities then reaffirmed earlier, unenforced, threats to bar Dibelius from the Soviet sector. The bishop nevertheless drove unhampered past border guards at Brandenburg Gate to make his scheduled once-a-month appearance at St. Mary’s Church, East Berlin. He found the 2,000-seat church filled to capacity.

His Reformation Sunday text? “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Does conservative Christianity face up to contemporary intellectual issues?

In the following report, Dr. Arthur F. Holmes of Wheaton College presents evidence of Biblical philosophers meeting new theories head-on:

That evangelical scholars are increasingly alert to the intellectual issues of the day is plainly attested by the professional conferences in which they periodically convene. The Sixth Annual Philosophy Conference of Wheaton College, meeting November 6–7, attracted evangelical thinkers from some 20 secular and Christian institutions.

The conference theme—“Recent Process Philosophies”—was posed in the light of the centennials of Alexander, Bergson, and Dewey, as well as of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Much of the time was devoted to discussion of metaphysical problems arising from the dominance of the new process theories over the Greek and Cartesian concept of unchanging substances.

From the outset, general appreciation was expressed for some positive values found in process philosophy. Professor John W. Sanderson of Westminster Theological Seminary noted that it provided a welcome counteraction to the exclusive concern of some philosophers with linguistic and logical analysis. Both he and others were happy also for the renewed emphasis on the unitary character of man, as against the caricature of the soul as a prisoner in a cave or a ghost in a machine. Said Dr. Carl Bangs of Olivet Nazarene College, Kankakee, Illinois, “It is his [Whitehead’s] account of the unity of man which has attracted the attention of some recent theologians who find in his anthropology a suggestive framework for expressing a non-idealist, Biblical point of view.”

Some philosophers ascribed much more weight than others to specific contributions of process metaphysics. Some regarded the notion of unchanging substances as largely passé. Dr. Jerome Ficek of Trinity Seminary, Chicago, asked whether the Trinitarian formulae might need to be re-expressed in the language of process metaphysics, rather than perpetuating the hypostasis and ousia of the Greeks. Others felt that regardless of the applicability of process categories to the created world, they could hardly be referred to the immutable and transcendent Creator. Still others regarded process metaphysics as necessarily and inevitably naturalistic. “Show me one of these writers with a transcendent God,” one conference participant demanded.

The concept of causality became the focus of attention when Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff of Calvin College presented a paper treating Whitehead’s notion of causal efficacy as a possible answer to David Hume. He pointed out that if man does in fact have non-sensory perceptions of causes, then Hume can no longer object that causality is merely a generalization from the regular succession of impressions. It became apparent that while Hume viewed causality as an external relation between disconnected substances, process philosophy asserts rather the connectedness of all events, and therefore both the immanence and the transcendence of causal forces. In any case, it was agreed, some defensible notion of efficient causation seems essential in giving meaning to the Christian doctrines of creation and providence.

Traditional substance metaphysics, as interpreted by Locke and Berkeley, preceded the scepticism of David Hume. At the Wheaton conference, Sanderson argued that process metaphysics also produces scepticism—or, at the best, solipsism. A changing reality can yield changing man no fixed knowledge—so Plato and Aristotle had argued against the process philosophers of their day. Here the conferees differed. Some defended the possibility of making truth-judgments about changing objects. Others preferred to fight off Hume from within the epistemological dualism of substance metaphysics. Others avoided the empiricist’s dilemma by using Augustine’s rationes aeternae as the basis of certainty. But all agreed on the necessity of a clearly formulated and defensible epistemology.

Discussion at the conference moved from these issues to questions about the nature of metaphysics. Do process categories represent anything more than an attempt to describe things in terms of certain root-metaphors? Or do they represent also an attempt to explain and interpret what is described? Some felt that the descriptive powers of process categories render them useful tools for the Christian philosopher. Others felt that the interpretative element is so inseparably interwoven as to largely invalidate process categories.

Dr. Cornelius Van Til pressed this still further. From an assertion on which all Christian thinkers must agree, that the universe is intelligible to man only because of its God-given structure, he argued that the universe is intelligible to a man only if that individual explicitly confesses that its structure is God-given. Some objected that the structure of the universe is intelligible to man created in God’s image, and intelligible to such an extent as to provide empirical evidence for the existence of God.

The conference was permeated by a reverent recognition of the premises which give direction to Christian thought. As one participant remarked, it gave eloquent expression to Wheaton’s centennial theme, “Dedication in Education.”

Australian Ecumenism

More than 450 ecclesiastics, representing all major Protestant denominations in Australia, are expected at a conference in Melbourne called by the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches February 2–11, 1960.

While not directly a conference on church union, leaders anticipate that the program will include informal ecumenical discussions. Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches already have initiated talks with a view to eventual unity, and the conference will doubtless stimulate such discussions preparatory to decisions in the churches.

The conference will begin with an outdoor rally. Dr. Alan C. Watson, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Australia, will preside.

Religious News Service reported that the conference will be divided into five “commissions,” each assigned a specific study topic: “1. The authority for the Word of God. 2. The Australian Churches’ evangelistic responsibility, including recognition of partnership with the Churches of Asia. 3. Ethical problems of economic and technical assistance by governments. 4. The Church in an industrial community, with special attention to the appointment of industrial chaplains and the effect of automation and greater leisure. 5. The local congregation and whether it is meeting 20th century needs or has become too much of a secluded club.”

Among conference speakers: Bishop Leslie Newbigin of the Church of South India and chairman of the International Missionary Council last year; M. M. Thomas, a sociologist from the Mar Thoma Church in India; Miss Renuka Mukerji, principal of the Women’s Christian College, Madras; Masao Takenaka, professor of social ethics at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, and Bishop Enrique C. Sobrepena of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines and chairman of the East Asia Christian Conference.

This year’s Thanksgiving season finds an estimated 20 million people hungry. Not since World War II has there been so much suffering in the world.

Storms, floods, droughts and earthquakes have taken a staggering toll. Political crises have added to the misery. In Hong Kong alone there are said to be some 1,000,000 refugees. An estimated 5,568,000 have fled Communist countries of eastern Europe since World War II.

In contrast, the U. S. horn of plenty was running over, despite more than 3,000,000 unemployed (strikers excluded). A record crop of 82 million turkeys is bringing farmers more than 320 million dollars during 1959.

As a representative national gesture of gratitude, and to perpetuate a tradition far older than the country itself, President Eisenhower issued the annual Thanksgiving proclamation. The first such proclamation to set aside the last Thursday of November was issued in 1863, one of the darkest years in U. S. history. Actual observance of a day of thanks dates back to an order handed down by Governor Bradford of Plymouth colony in 1621 and affirmed by George Washington in 1789.

“The time of harvest turns our thoughts once again to our national festival of Thanksgiving,” began the President’s proclamation for 1959, “and the bounties of nature remind us again of our dependence upon the generous hand of Providence.”

Here is the remainder of the proclamation:

“In this sesquicentennial year of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, it is fitting and proper that we should use his words contained in the historic proclamation of 1863, establishing this annual observance, to express anew our gratitude for America’s ‘fruitful fields,’ for our national ‘strength and vigor,’ and for all our ‘singular deliverances and blessings.’

“The present year has been one of progress and heightened promise for the way of life to which we, the people, and the Government of the United States of America, are dedicated. We rejoice in the productivity of farm and factory, but even more so in the prospect of improvement of relations among men and among nations. We earnestly hope that forbearance, understanding, and conciliation will hold increasing sway among us and among all peoples everywhere.

“In the enjoyment of our good life, let us not forget the birthright by which we reap the fruits of life and labor in this fair land. Let us stand fast by the principles of our republic enunciated in word and deed by the statesmen, teachers, and prophets to whom we owe our beginnings. Let us be thankful that we have been spared the consequences of human frailty and error in our exercise of power and freedom. As a token of our gratitude for God’s gracious gift of abundance, let us share generously with those less fortunate than we at home and abroad. Let us at this season of Thanksgiving perform deeds of thanksgiving; and, throughout the year, let us fulfill those obligations of citizenship and humanity which spring from grateful hearts.

“Now, therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved December 26, 1941 … designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 26, 1959, as a day of national thanksgiving. On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes devoted to family sharing and community service, to express our gratitude for the inestimable blessings of God; and let us earnestly pray that He continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished task of achieving peace among men and nations.”

Eisenhower normally sets the example for the nation by attending a church service Thanksgiving morning.

Across the land, many churches scheduled Thanksgiving services and ministers sought to rouse a greater sense of appreciation for the U. S. abundance. Christians will be asked to search their attitudes: Are these attitudes mere pious sentiment? To what extent do they epitomize the high ideals expressed in the President’s proclamation?

The phrase, “We have a lot to be thankful for,” has deteriorated into a cliché in America, but clergy the country over will resort to its key premise in contrasting their parishoners’ prosperity with sobering deprivations in other lands.

CHRISTIANITY TODAYpinpointed areas of need in a global survey, which revealed that these were among the hardest hit in recent months (casualties represent authoritative estimates):

MEXICO: As many as 2,000 were feared dead in floods and storms which swept Pacific coast states last month. Ten communities were wiped out. In one village, survivors were attacked by swarms of scorpions and tarantulas whose nests had been unearthed by a landslide.

JAPAN: Typhoon Vera left 1,500,000 homeless. Some 100,000 homes were destroyed, 5,000 persons killed, and another 15,000 injured. There was an alarming spread of disease.

KOREA: Typhoon Sarah drove 625,000 from their homes.

INDIA: Floods caused some 5,000,000 to flee their homes.

FORMOSA: Three days of rain and the resultant flooding, effects of Typhoon Ellen, left 240,000 homeless. The government instituted food rationing to meet the emergency.

PAKISTAN: Approximately 5,000 square miles were inundated as floods, an annual occurrence in Pakistan, came early this year.

CEYLON: With the assassination of Premier S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the country’s Buddhists were asking crucial questions about their religious leaders. Widespread public revulsion is reported as corruption in the Buddhist clergy becomes more apparent. The premier was shot by a bona fide Buddhist clergyman even as he was in the very act of bowing to the saffron-robed visitor.

MADAGASCAR: A cyclone, perhaps the worst natural disaster ever to hit the country, left 3,000 dead.

NORTH AFRICA: Civil strife has prompted an estimated 120,000 Algerians to flee to Tunisia, another 200,000 to Morocco, and more than 1,000,000 have been displaced from their homes in Algeria.

GREECE: A series of earthquakes left 90 villages destroyed.

JORDAN: The country’s worst drought, which ended last year, was followed by violent snowstorms. About one-half of all grazing animals perished.

SCANDINAVIA: A summer drought left severe water shortages in a number of communities. Crops were affected.

POLAND: Droughts brought on a shortage of feed grains and a meat shortage was feared.

HAITI: A famine precipitated by prolonged droughts, particularly in the northwest part of the island, threatens to take the lives of thousands.

CUBA: Fighting in Oriente province left 52,000 in need of food, clothing, and shelter. At least 200 were executed after trials by the Castro government.

URUGUAY: Floods last spring drove 50,000 from their homes.

BRAZIL: Widespread flooding deprived some 60,000 of their homes. Destruction of property resulted in a wave of unemployment.

COLOMBIA: This country, scene of much Protestant persecution, is also plagued by internal strife and banditry. Within the last 10 years, 100,000 are said to have been killed in bandit raids.

To alleviate suffering caused by the recent “constellation of disasters” (so characterized by Executive Director R. Norris Wilson of Church World Service), Protestant relief organizations are stepping up campaigns for funds, food and clothing.

In launching a Thanksgiving season drive in behalf of the “Share Our Surplus” program, Wilson said $865,210 was needed immediately to offset depleted stocks of relief materials.

An equally urgent appeal came from Wendell L. Rockey, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals’ World Relief Commission.¹Church World Service, a National Council of Churches agency, uses local churches as pickup points. The NAE World Relief Commission has headquarters at 12–19 Jackson Ave., Long Island City, New York. Relief materials can also be sent in care of the World Relief Commission to Brethren Service Centers at Nappanee, lndiana, or 919 Emerald Ave., Modesto, California. Rockey cited the need for large amounts of “clean, wearable clothing.”

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Walter Freytag, 60, vice chairman of the International Missionary Council, in Hamburg, Germany … the Rev. Noel O. Lyons, home director of Greater Europe Mission.

Appointments: As president of Taylor University, Dr. B. Joseph Martin … as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas, the Rev. Buckner Fanning, widely-known evangelist … as preacher to the Avenue Road Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Toronto, Dr. A. W. Tozer (a somewhat unique appointment which does not entail pastoral responsibilities) … as editor of Youth for Christ Magazine, Warren Wiersbe … as director of immigration services of Church World Service, James MacCracken.

Elections: As Primate of Australia, Anglican Archbishop Hugh Rowlands Gough … as president of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational Christian), Mrs. Douglas Horton.

Nomination: As moderator-designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dr. John H. S. Burleigh.

Award: To Dr. Theodore F. Adams, president of the Baptist World Alliance, the 1960 Upper Room citation.

The Roman ‘Summit’

The first “summit conference” of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Western Hemisphere took place on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D. C., this month.

Twenty-two bishops, representing 220 million Catholics in North and Latin America, assembled for three days of closed door talks.

Comparatively little was released on the nature of the discussion, but many regarded the occasion as a very important strategy conference.

The Bureau of Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference issued a statement which said that Latin American problems occupied much of the bishops’ time. The Roman Catholic church is known to have been sustaining serious losses in South America.

Protestant Panorama

• Billy Graham’s month-long crusade in Indianapolis drew an aggregate attendance of 350,000, with 9,320 individuals making decisions for Christ.

• U. S. temperance forces lost a key proponent in the death November 8 of Senator William Langer of North Dakota. Langer several times sponsored Congressional legislation aimed at banning liquor advertising.

• The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod says it is ready to meet with the National Lutheran Council to explore relationships between the two groups which represent about 90 per cent of the Lutherans in North America.

• The pilot of the Piedmont Airlines DC-3 which crashed near Charlottesville, Virginia, October 30, was a member of the Cherrydale Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia. George Lavrinc, 32, among the 26 victims, had also edited a monthly paper for Northern Virginia Youth for Christ.

• At an annual meeting in Chicago last month, the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges gave full accreditation to Western Baptist Bible College, El Cerrito, California; Bethany Bible College, Santa Cruz, California; London (Ontario) Bible Institute; Berkshire Christian College, Lenox, Massachusetts; Lee College, Cleveland, Tennessee; and Midwest Bible College, St. Louis.

• All 85 performances of the world-famous Oberammergau Passion Play in 1960 are sold out.

• The Methodist Publishing House reports net sales, rentals, and advertising for the past fiscal year of $25,616,249. Net income: $1,174,059.

• The Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society plans to send missionaries to western Borneo.

• WNEW-TV sponsored the first New York City television showing of the “Martin Luther” film on Sunday evening, November 1.

• The General Council of the American Baptist Convention voted last month to receive into membership churches from the South. The move was obviously a counter-measure taken to offset northern inroads of the aggressive Southern Baptist Convention.

• Four Presbyterian missionaries and one representing the Reformed Church in America are back at their posts in Iraq after an absence of several months following political disturbances in the country.

• A petition signed by more than 14,000 Protestants “and other Colombians” was presented to the House of Representatives at Bogotá last month. The petition called upon the government to make effective the religious liberty guaranteed in the country’s constitution.

• Providence-Barrington Bible College is changing its name to Barrington College. The school’s 110-acre campus is located in a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island.

• “Facing the Unfinished Task” will be the theme of the Congress on World Missions to be held in Chicago December 4–11, 1960. The Congress will be sponsored by the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association. The group, which includes 42 societies with 8,000 missionaries, held its annual convention in Racine, Wisconsin, last month.

• An exhibit of the Arkansas Child Evangelism Fellowship at last month’s state Livestock Exposition in Little Rock was tabbed “the best on the show grounds” by teen-agers.

• Church property valued at $18,166,000 was destroyed by fire during the past year, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Though the total of 4,200 fires in U. S. churches showed an increase of 1,100 over the previous year, total monetary loss dropped by about $2,500,000.

• The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada voted at a convention last month to cooperate with Western Regular Baptists in “a programme of united action in areas of (a) home missions, (b) publications, and (c) evangelism.”

Vatican Postponement

The Vatican announced last month that the ecumenical council summoned by Pope John XXIII will not be held until the end of 1962 or the beginning of 1963.

Originally, the council had been expect had to meet late next year or early in 1961.

A Vatican source said it will take a minimum of three years to process suggestions for topics of discussion which are coming in from cardinals, archbishops, bishops and religious superiors around the world.

President and Pope

President Eisenhower’s scheduled meeting with Pope John XXIII on Sunday, December 6, will make him the second U. S. chief executive to be received in audience by a Roman Catholic pontiff. The only other was Woodrow Wilson, who visited Pope Benedict XV on January 4, 1919, prior to the Paris Peace Conference. Like President Eisenhower, Wilson was a Presbyterian.

President Theodore Roosevelt, after he had retired from the White House, scheduled a meeting with Pope Pius X while on a trip abroad in 1910. Roosevelt never did see the pope, however, because of an incident involving Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks. Fairbanks, a Methodist, was visiting Rome shortly before Roosevelt was due and arranged a meeting of his own with the pope. But Fairbanks wanted to visit Methodist headquarters in Rome, too. Pius declared the visit would have to be exclusive. Fairbanks refused to accept the condition and Roosevelt followed suit.

Crucial Omission

Recent controversy among Unitarians over whether to consider themselves Christian came to a head in Syracuse, New York, where delegates of the 110,000-member American Unitarian Association met October 31-November 2 with representatives of the 75,000-member Universalist Church of America to vote on a constitution uniting the two bodies as the “Unitarian Universalist Association.” The merger carried overwhelmingly, but the constitution gave scant comfort to those who considered themselves somewhat Christian-oriented.

The document which was presented to some 1,000 delegates by the 12-member joint merger commission stated this aim: “To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition immemorially summarized in their essence as love to God and love to man.” Previous documents of the two church bodies have singled out Jesus as a major prophet and teacher.

An amendment inserting mention of Jesus and the Judeo-Christian tradition in the above statement was defeated. Its sponsor, Dr. Walter D. Kring of All Souls Unitarian Church, New York, said he found himself in a meeting “where Jesus is anathematized.” It was suggested that the issue was important enough to make some Unitarians and Universalists desert to the Congregational Christian churches. The merger must still be ratified by the autonomous local churches and assemblies of both denominations by next May, with final union scheduled for May, 1961.

Amid secession rumblings came a dramatic last-minute reversal. First the Universalists and then the Unitarians in separate sessions voted to substitute the words “the Judeo-Christian heritage” for “their essence.” Universalist spokesmen said the change was made for unity and to avoid offense. But one Unitarian delegate resented “being steamrollered by the Universalists,” and a woman charged she was “browbeaten” and had her “arm twisted” in an effort to change her vote.

Some evangelicals see evidence of the “offense of the cross” in the continued refusal to name the name of Jesus. Yet delegates expressed dissatisfaction with the “exclusiveness” involved in singling out any one teacher for special mention. “Let’s hope to include everybody,” said one. But orthodox Protestants point to the excruciating confines of an exclusiveness which expels the Christian God. They see in the current debate an illustration of the toboggan slide of Unitarianism from its early convictions as exemplified in such as William Ellery Channing, who believed in the preexistence (not Godhead), miracles, and physical resurrection of Jesus.

Following merger approval, denominational heads issued this statement: “We do not disavow our Judeo-Christian heritage but affirm the universality of real religion and recall the words of Jesus: ‘Not he that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my Father shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ ” But on the content of the Father’s will, Unitarians and Universalists confess crucial differences with Jesus Christ.

F.F.

Missionary Heroine

As the end of her four-month U. S. tour drew near, missionary heroine Gladys Aylward was appealing for concentrated Christian witness in the Far East during the next two years.

Miss Aylward, whose articulate and dynamic British delivery challenged church audiences from coast to coast, fears that current missionary opportunity among Orientals may not last.

She vigorously opposes recognition of the Chinese Communist regime by the United States and the United Nations.

Her challenge to American Christians was that they develop a vital, personal concern for the witness abroad. Collecting money for a select few and bidding them, “Off you go,” falls short of true evangelical responsibility, she said.

Miss Aylward plans to return next month to Formosa, where she operates orphanages and preaches regularly. (Formosa currently has some 180,000 Protestants and 145,000 Roman Catholics. Buddhists number about 1,000,000.)

Born near London nearly 60 years ago, she was converted while in her twenties. “I was not only saved, but the Lord shook me,” she recalls.

With no training in language or missionary techniques, she set out across Asia and finally settled in a mountain town in Northwest China. There she founded an inn which later doubled as a missions station. Her great work was in a ministry to children.

Miss Aylward says she does not know what became of the inn when Communists moved in. She estimated that half her converts have been executed.

Her trip to the United States and her speaking tour of churches was sponsored by World Vision. Her exploits are described in The Small Woman, written by Alan Burgess, and in the film, “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.”

FOR MAN TO SEE

Determination of drift is made, not by comparisons between those who are drifting, or the boat in which one is riding, but with some fixed object on the shore.

The apostle Paul warns against the mistake of false comparisons: “but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12).

For the Christian there is a fixed object to which we can look and by which we can determine our own position, and that object is Christ.

In national life also comparisons need to be made. Have we as a people drifted from that course which under the hand of God’s blessing has made our nation great? There is every reason to think that we have drifted far.

Within the framework of our Constitution and those instruments of freedom and protection which together bring blessing to the greatest proportion of the citizens of any nation in history, there are found certain principles which had their origin in the Christian faith. It is to these principles that we speak.

The men who drew up the Constitution never envisioned its use as a protective device for those who would be its avowed enemies. Nor was it ever contemplated that the document should become a cloak under which the destruction of our government might be planned.

That the freedoms guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution have become license for traitors is a matter of record.

But one particular menace demands our attention now. There is an alarming tendency on the part of some to surrender the sovereignty of our government to international agencies and in so doing to erode away not only the rights of American citizens but also to lose for our own land the prestige and power that can best be wielded by people who operate according to tried and true principles.

Arnold Toynbee, sensing the trend toward world government, with its recession from basic Christian ideals, says in his book, An Historian’s Approach to Religion: “We can, however, foresee that, when world government does come, the need for it will have become so desperate that Mankind will not only be ready to accept it even at the most exorbitantly high price in terms of loss of liberty, but will deify it and its human embodiments, as an excruciated Graeco-Roman World once deified Rome and Augustus. The virtual worship that has already been paid to Napoleon, Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler and Mao indicates the degree of idolization that would be the reward of an American or Russian Caesar who did succeed in giving the World a stable peace at any price; and in this baleful light it looks as if the ecumenical welfare state may be the next idol that will be erected in a still discarded Christianity’s place” (p. 219).

These are the words of a sober observer, one of the world’s great historians.

Toynbee sees the drift of our times. He sees the desire for peace at any price. He recognizes that the welfare state is man’s attempt to produce a utopia by governmental power rather than by human character.

Furthermore Toynbee foresees the very thing predicted in Holy Scripture—the emergence on the world scene of a superman who will offer “world peace”—the peace of death.

With these trends for all to see what should be the Christian’s attitude? How can he stand forth against the things that are contributing to the downfall of the nation?

Strange as it may seem, there is a powerful element in the Church which has fostered and continues to support every step toward a welfare state. Envisioning for the Church the status of ultimate world domination (rather than that of a witness in the midst of unbelief), this segment of the Church caters to the concept of big government and the controls of big government.

At the heart of the matter is the philosophy of spending and yet more spending. The present devaluation of our own currency to a 47¢ dollar, the unending spiral of inflation, the astronomical national debt, and the continuing unbalanced budget of the nation are all part of a trend which, without any other factors, can destroy America.

Scattered throughout both the Senate and House of Representatives are men who repeatedly advocate the expenditure of funds which the government does not have and who with eyes wide open are willing to see the nation go further and further in debt. That they thereby buy the votes of selfish and misguided constituents is a poor excuse for hastening the day of national economic collapse.

Christians should oppose every candidate for office who shows himself either ignorant of the laws of economics or callous to the welfare of the nation. They can speak out and do so with great power and effect.

There was once a time when the basic principles of Christianity were clearly reflected in public life. That day is rapidly fading. Few indeed are the men who will take a stand for the right regardless of political, social, or economic consequences. In the last 25 years expediency has become increasingly the watch-word; righteousness has become relative.

Wherever possible, Christians ought to be offering themselves for public office, not on a basis of partisan politics but out of a motive for the good of the whole. In many cases this will mean personal sacrifice and a difficult life for those that are elected.

But unless something is done at this level the present trends cannot be stopped.

A new generation has emerged, a generation which values security more than freedom, ease more than hard work, pleasure more than application, entertainment more than enterprise. Worst of all we live in a time when millions think the government owes them a living—one of the most damning philosophies men ever had.

Without question, the government owes to all fairness and equality of opportunity. But that the government should be both umpire and play along with one of the teams is a different thing.

The cry that times have changed and our industrialized society needs big government to control big business is an unconvincing argument. That which is wrong for the individual or groups of individuals is also wrong for the government. The same laws of economics which hold for the man on Main Street are valid for the government in Washington. The greatest good of society is to be found where good principles are practiced by and for all concerned.

The ecumenical welfare state which Toynbee foresees is but part of a world government where God is gradually replaced by man, and the whole structure is foredoomed to destruction.

L. NELSON BELL

It may well be that no book of the Bible is less read as a whole than Chronicles—in Hebrew manuscripts I and II Chronicles are one book, though the printed editions of the Hebrew Bible follow our division into two. It is a safe guess that certain of its chapters are read virtually only by those that find themselves committed to it by some scheme of Bible reading, and we may hazard the suggestion that they all too often skimp their task here. When we hear someone repeating the old saying, “All Scripture is inspired, but some parts are more inspiring than others,” it is fairly certain he is thinking of some of the lists of names of Chronicles.

The reason for all this lies less in the book itself and more in our wrong approach to it. Already in the Septuagint, the Greek translation made before the time of our Lord, it is called Paraleipomena (a name that lives on in the Vulgate), meaning things omitted. The name implies that here we have the bits and pieces for which no room could be found in Samuel and Kings. That is how we all too often read it, almost intuitively comparing and contrasting its information with that of the other books. To get the full value out of Chronicles we must discover why it was written and read it accordingly.

AUTHORSHIP, DATE AND SOURCES

Like all the other historical books it is anonymous. The closing verses of II Chronicles make it clear that it must have been written after the return from the Babylonian exile. If the almost universal modern view is correct that Ezra and Nehemiah were originally part of Chronicles, then it cannot be earlier than Ezra. Young, while rejecting this view, puts the book in the same general period as Ezra. Jewish Talmudic tradition seems to attribute it to Ezra, but The Jewish Encyclopedia maintains that it is merely affirming that he collected the opening genealogies. Delitzsch suggested that Ezra was the collector of much of the material, while Albright argues for Ezra’s authorship. It seems best to respect the anonymity the Holy Spirit has given the book and simply call the author the Chronicler. We can date it with reasonable confidence around 400 B.C. and link it with Ezra’s religious settlement.

Quite apart from his obvious use of earlier canonical books the Chronicler mentions 20 sources (seven in I Chronicles) from which he has drawn his information. There is no doubt that some are alternative titles for the same work, and we cannot be sure whether some of the others still existed in their own right or whether they had been incorporated into a larger work. What is important is his way of handling them. Where he covers the same ground as Samuel and Kings he normally quotes verbatim. What differences there are, apart from occasional abbreviation, may be due for the most part to his access to the authorities used by the earlier works or to a larger edition of them. All the other matter has been transformed and appears in the Chronicler’s own typical style. This can only mean that he is openly recognizing Samuel and Kings as authoritative and is inviting the reader to interpret his work in their light. It is a commonplace in modern scholarship to speak of the Chronicler’s “distortion” of history, but this is unreasonable in the light of his constant reference to an earlier norm.

If any think this argument too far-fetched, let them consider 1 Chronicles 10. Apart from Saul’s genealogy this is all we are told of him. Any intelligent reader would immediately want to know more, and indeed 10:13 is a clear indication that there is a source where his interest can be satisfied. Equally the passing references to David’s years of flight are intelligible only if the reader is expected to know the story from another source, for example, 11:2; 12:1, 8, 17, 19; 20:5. Just as the abbreviated genealogies of chapter 1 presuppose a knowledge of Genesis, so the narratives assume familiarity with Samuel and Kings.

ADDITIONS AND OMISSIONS

The outstanding feature of Chronicles is its large number of additions and omissions. Most of the former are linked with the Temple and its worship, though some are meant to enhance the glory of the monarchy. The omissions are almost entirely of matter which is derogatory to or expressive of opposition to the Davidic dynasty. In I Chronicles the reign of Saul (all but his death) and the early years of David are passed over in silence. The same is true of almost all in 2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1; 2. To suggest that this was because the stories were derogatory to David is foolish. Not only is very much that is altogether to David’s credit omitted, but he did not hesitate to tell the story of the census (chap. 21). It has long been recognized that in II Samuel we have two more or less parallel histories, chapters 2–8 dealing with David as king, and chapters 9–20 portraying him as a man. It is precisely these latter chapters that have been omitted except for a few verses, for it was with the king that the Chronicler was particularly interested.

REVELATION OF GOD

In the Hebrew Bible Samuel and Kings are reckoned among the Former Prophets, not because they may have been written by the prophets, but because they reveal how history can be a revelation of God. They are interested less in the history of Israel and more in how it reveals God, his will, and his dealings with men. Chronicles, which is the last book in the writings and in the Hebrew Bible, is also not particularly interested in the history of Israel as such; it is concerned with the revelation of God in two institutions: the Davidic monarchy and the Temple. In spite of the promise of 1 Chronicles 17:11–14 the monarchy was in abeyance, but the rebuilding of the Temple in spite of all difficulties was the guarantee of the monarchy’s restoration as well. Though we live after the King has come, we live in an age where we must trust His promise of coming again. We have, however, the continuation of the Temple, one not made with hands, the Church, as the visible demonstration that our hope is not an empty one. So for us Chronicles has a message even as it had for the generation for which it was written.

GENEALOGIES

In this message the genealogies of chapters 1–9 have a very important part to play. Those in chapter 1 assure us of the principle of continuity. The “dispensations” are not sudden changes in God’s activity, creating a sudden break with what had gone before, but are steps in the working out of a purpose which existed before the foundation of the world. The mention of Ishmael’s and Esau’s descendants are the affirmation that God’s election does not involve the rejection of those He did not elect. In the chapters that follow, probably all the tribes are mentioned, for I consider the modern view almost certainly correct that in the difficult Benjamite genealogy of 7:6–12 are hidden through textual corruption those of Zebulon and Dan. But though none were omitted, how different is their treatment!

The Bible student who is prepared to consider each set of names, in spite of the often very difficult text, in the totality of the information given us elsewhere can easily see the mingled rebuke and praise, sympathy and depreciation implied. The sudden, otherwise unknown pieces of historical information tell us that however much has been omitted from Scripture for reasons that seemed good to the Holy Spirit, there is a greater chronicle where all man’s acts are recorded; God does not forget when he selects. The genealogies of Benjamin (chap. 8) are given at special length because of his loyalty to the Davidic monarchy. Those who returned after the exile have their mention too (9:1–34), not so much as an honor as a guarantee that they were playing as essential a part in God’s purposes as the great names that had gone before them.

The high-priestly list is carried down only to the Exile (6:15), because it is continued in Nehemiah 12:10, 11 with the first six post-exilic high priests. On the other hand the Davidic line is continued apparently for six generations from Zerubbabel (3:19–24), though many reckon only two and the Septuagint finds eleven. In neither case do these lists provide any clue to the time of writing, for they could easily have been kept up to date by scribes.

Saul is introduced by his genealogy (9:35–44) and is dismissed by his death (chap. 10) lest any should think that David was merely the man who made good and was therefore approved of by God. God had shown by his rejection of Saul what He did not approve of before he set his divine promise on David’s house (17:11–14). For the same reason we are not given details of David’s young manhood nor of his great sin. His dynasty was based neither on his nobility of character nor on God’s grace to him in his fall, but on its being the institution of God’s choice. It is worth noting that the two sins that led to Saul’s rejection (1 Sam. 13:8–14; 15:8, 9) both represented attempts to exceed his royal authority. It is quite natural that a list of those who were conspicuously loyal to or who welcomed the setting up of the monarchy of God’s choice should be mentioned in chapter 12.

In chapters 13–20 the Chronicler follows the acts of David the king as given in II Samuel but gives special stress and priority to the bringing of the ark to Jerusalem. In chapter 21 he uses the story of the plague that followed the census as a transition to the preparations for the building of the Temple.

We know from I Kings that Solomon’s accession was linked with a sordid court intrigue. 1 Chronicles 29:22 shows the Chronicler’s knowledge of it, but in chapters 23–27 we see a well-organized country being handed over to Solomon’s rule by due process of law (chaps. 28; 29). It is evident that the shock of Adonijah’s intrigue stirred David out of the senile indolence into which he had allowed himself to slip after the heartbreak of Absalom’s revolt.

Modern commentaries are normally at their poorest in dealing with a book like Chronicles. There has been little of value written from the conservative standpoint since Keil’s and Zockler’s commentaries in the last quarter of the last century.

H. L. ELLISON

Wallington, Surrey, England

THE MAN WITH THE BOOK

Now I saw in my dream, as Christian went on his way toward the City, reading from the Book, that he came upon a toll gate at the entrance to a great highway, and there he beheld a marvelous chariot which dazzled his eyes. And in the chariot sat a man in strange garments with his head shorn.

DR. IVY: Hop in, Dad; want a lift to the city?

CHRISTIAN: What manner of words are these? And whither.…

IVY: Just sit down. I’m in a bit of a rush. What’s the matter? Too fast? This Jag has a lot of soup. Where are you from? Destruction? Can’t say I ever heard of it. Sounds like a good place to be from! What’s the book you’re carrying?

CHRISTIAN: Sir, this is the Book that leads me in the path of righteousness. Because of what I have read in it I am journeying to the City. Are you bound thither at this fearful rate, or is this the broad highway that leadeth to destruction?

IVY: Not a bad term for this pike; it does lead the nation in traffic deaths. But don’t be alarmed; I’ll get you to the city. I’m glad you read the Bible, but isn’t it a bit ostentatious to carry it in your hands that way? It suggests Fundamentalist bibliolatry.

CHRISTIAN: I know not who these are whom you scorn, but did not Moses bear the Words of God in his hand as he came down from the mount?

IVY: To be sure, but you can scarcely conform your daily behavior to the myths of Heilsgeschichte, however meaningful they may be as witnesses to redemptive action. You don’t follow me? After all, we know nothing about Moses. The Sinai tradition was Israel’s way of historicizing the Babylonian New Year mythology. What is significant is the philosophy of history that arose in Israel in which Israel’s past was related in mythological language to the act of God.

CHRISTIAN: But did not the King say, Moses wrote of me?

IVY: No doubt Jesus accepted the traditions of his day as to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; but we must distinguish between the man Jesus and the Christ-event.… DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR! I’m stopping!

Now I saw in my dream that Christian picked himself up from the ditch, and with great haste fled away from the highway, holding both his ears as he ran.

EUTYCHUS

DURABLE DEBATE

To my way of thinking this is one of the finest and greatest and most informing issues you have published (Oct. 12 issue). I started reading and could not quit until I had finished. That “Debate over Divine Election” is a most interesting conversation by great and well-informed thinkers.

WM. B. EERDMANS

Grand Rapids, Mich.

You and your associates have done a magnificent job in your treatment of Divine Election (Oct. 12 issue).… Your debate shows that when the evangelical—be he Calvinist, Arminian or Barthian—contemplates divine election he bewails his own helplessness, magnifies God’s saving grace, and entrusts himself afresh to Christ his righteousness.

May the writer offer one question? Is the treatment of Calvinists and of Calvinistic interpretation offered in the name of Barth quite true of Calvin himself? For example, Calvin repeatedly asserts: “No man is loved by God but in Christ; he is the beloved Son in whom the love of God perpetually rests, and then diffuses itself to us: so that we are accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:6, Institutes III.ii.32; III.xxiv.5; II.xvi.4). Thus he insists that “we shall find no assurance of our election in ourselves; nor even in God the Father, considered alone, abstractly from the Son”; rather our eyes must be directed to Christ, because it was impossible for the Father to love us except in him. Here for Calvin as for Luther, Christ the Mediator is the mirror of election (III.xxiv.5); for Calvin, as later for Barth, Christ as God the Son is the Author of election (III.xxii.7); and for Calvin, following Augustine, Christ as a mortal man of the seed of David is the brightest example of gratuitous election (III.xxii.1).

As Berkouwer (Faith and Justification, pp. 164, 168, 165) shows, “the Reformers, no less than Barth, willed every believer bound to Christ and every path that turned away from him rejected as speculation.” In that God’s mercy comes to us in history, we are guarded against speculation. “For confronting us is the mirror of our election, Jesus Christ” which is “the deepest intent of the thought of both Luther and Calvin.”

Again thanking you and every one of your notable panel for their scholarly and evangelical testimony.

WM. C. ROBINSON

Columbia Seminary

Decatur, Ga.

How much there was said in that debate, but how little of importance.

HERMAN D. MIERINS

Chatham, N. J.

Excellent … issue, particularly the interview on divine election.

WILBURN C. CAMPBELL

The Diocese of West Virginia

Charleston, W. Va.

The brethren … have sufficiently muddied the theological waters so as to have left the layman and the average cleric at sea.… With respect to man, God predestined character and nothing else.

G. C. MCCRILLIS

Bisbee, Ariz.

If one picture is worth a thousand words, surely one debate such as the one over divine election is worth at least a dozen treatises on the same subject.

GARY M. HIGBEE

The Alliance Church (C.&M.A.)

Hood River, Ore.

The participants waded around in the shallows of traditional theologies and at no time did they get beyond their depth. Therefore the traditional obscurities were stirred up and no aspect of the debate was settled.… In biblical theology of the New Testament there are frequent examples of the will of God being conditioned by the will of man …, indicating … that salvation is possible.

THOMAS D. HERSEY

Methodist Church

Popejoy, Iowa

Just about the most stimulating thing I have read in a long time. Any time a Baptist, an Anglican and a Nazarene can get together to discuss one of the doctrines generally considered a Presbyterian exclusive, you have ecumenicity of a sort that organic church unions can never breed.

LOREN V. WATSON

First Presbyterian Church

Appalachia, Va.

This is as clear a presentation of the issues as I have seen in recent literature. It is also a singularly fair and objective discussion. I feel that this article will go a long way toward establishing the belief on both sides that there are actually evangelical Christians in the Arminian as well as in the Calvinistic camp. Thank you for rendering this service to the English-speaking world.

DONALD E. DEMARAY

Dean

School of Religion

Seattle Pacific College

Seattle, Wash.

Wonderful.… As an evangelical Arminian institution we have been hoping for some top-level discussion such as this.

KENNETH R. MAURER

Dean

Evangelical Congregational

School of Theology

Myerstown, Pa.

Reminded me of the dangers in Calvinism and strengthened my Arminian convictions. Surely if God loves, he loves all men and desires their salvation.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has been a great blessing to my ministry. Many of my Methodist preacher brethren find inspiration in its pages to continue in the evangelical tradition.

EDMUND W. ROBB, JR.

First Methodist Church

Hamlin, Tex.

Dr. Wiley so ably presents the viewpoint of the Arminian position that one cannot help but see its support in the Holy Scriptures.

S. L. NUSSBAUM

Allen Street Methodist Church

Centralia, Mo.

Dr. Wiley … and Dr. Bromiley together revealed the affinities between Arminius and Barth.… Arminius … was clear on one central point …, that Christ is really the object of the divine election.

CARL BANGS

Olivet Nazarene College

Kankakee, Ill.

It is probably true that Arminianism as a theological system more so than Calvinism often has lapsed into humanism, but this fact does not incriminate true Arminianism as such.… The fact that Arminianism makes such a delicate, but nevertheless careful, scriptural distinction at the point of divine sovereignty and human freedom does mean that the greatest of diligence is necessary to safeguard the exegesis. Of course, anytime human opinion usurps the authority which belongs only to the Sovereign Word of God, Arminianism like Calvinism becomes an easy prey to the egocentric schemes of liberalism.… I rejoice in the Arminian faith which declares the absolute Sovereignty of God, the utter lostness of man, but the inexhaustable possibilities of redemption through the Gospel of grace in Jesus Christ our Lord. Moreover, it would seem to me that this is the practical faith of most Calvinists in the front line of evangelism—in fact, I suspect on the whole our Calvinist brethren today are better Arminians than most Methodists although I don’t expect them to admit it.

ROBERT E. COLEMAN

Asbury Seminary

Wilmore, Ky.

I have the feeling that it illustrates with some degree of persuasiveness that the purely biblical point of view must somehow accept both positions, admitting meanwhile, the impossibility of complete reconciliation.… Our activity in obedience to the requirements of the Gospel must be governed by both positions. We must preach to men’s wills, and we must depend on the Holy Spirit’s sovereign operation.

SIGURD F. WESTBERG

Chicago, Ill.

To my surprise nothing was said concerning Emil Brunner’s attempt to wrestle with this problem in his Dogmatics.

FRED L. HOLDER

Iowa City, Iowa

I consider it very unfortunate that a Lutheran theologian was not included in this conversation. There is a unique Lutheran stand on this subject, quite distinct from the Calvinist-Arminian tug-o’-war, as a glance at the Book of Concord will reveal.

DON BARON

Bethesda Evangelical Lutheran Church

Newark, N. J.

I find that nearly all of our evangelical Calvinistic preachers and evangelists very definitely step over into the Arminian realm when they minister to believers—Calvin for birth; Arminius for growth and service.

MILES J. STANFORD

Warrenville, Ill.

I read with relish.… Could you get together a group of scholars who would debate with the major premise being: “The Scripture says” rather than “I believe” or “so-and-so has said.” On that basis we would have an answer to the Scripture where it says, “The spirit quickens.” Or “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” Also, sticking close to the Scripture it’s quite obvious that Judas had no alternative but he wanted none. While he may be called a robot on that basis the fact yet remains that he had no choice in those innate factors of life with which he was born by which he was the type of man who willingly served as the instrument of God in doing what God had ordained. Accepting the fact of Scripture, God is the author of evil, remembering Job, or there is another force greater than God who has control over evil? In that event, of what value is God?

W. L. MARGARD

Calvary Evangelical and Reformed

Crestline, Ohio

Calvinists know that the biblical fact of the fall makes necessary individual election if any fallen son is to be saved; but do the Arminians?

LONNIE L. RICHARDSON

Roanoke, Va.

Since when does a sinner deserve mercy? Therefore, what has “justice” to do with the selective exercise of God’s sovereign mercy to sinners? That is to insert into the Gospel of Grace the error of French egalitarianism, which Communism seeks to implement materially.

Since it is the nature of men to believe, why may not God hold men responsible to believe simply on the objective reality of the Cross and Resurrection? “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar.” Has the revelation of God’s redemptive love toward a lost world relieved men of the responsibility to believe Him? (St. Jno. 3:18).

How can there be a “class” of the elect, apart from individuals elected?…

Election to redemption (Rom. 8:29), that God may, despite the moral incapacity of men to believe Him, fulfill His Purpose to reconstitute the universe, nowhere in Scripture implies reprobation as an act of the Divine Will.

God’s wish that all men might be saved may not be used to contradict the sovereign exercise of the Divine Mercy by which, through His election of some, He implements His Purpose to bring into being a New Heaven and a New Earth: the salvation of the universe, but not the universal salvation of all men.

ELBERT D. RIDDICK

Portland, Ore.

THE SYNOPTICS

This whole discussion on the Synoptic Gospels and the … “Mark-theory” (Sept. 14, 28 issues) seems to me to reflect on the inspiration of the gospel writers and on the integrity and native ability of the authors of the three Gospels. Since all three had full access to the oral tradition, and had had firsthand experience either with Christ himself in the days of his flesh, or with those who had, why should any one of them be dependent on the writings of either of the others?

WALTER MCCARROLL

Lomita, Calif.

Having made a very intensive study of the modern theories regarding Matthew during the past twenty years I have come more and more to the conclusion that the apostolic authorship of the First Gospel is unassailable. Only an eyewitness like the former taxgatherer Levi (alias Matthew) could have written the First Gospel. Linguistic resemblances between this Gospel and Mark can be explained in many possible ways without sacrificing the acceptance of the apostolic authorship of the Gospel of Matthew.…

I feel that evangelical scholars who follow the Streeter line of thought regarding the supposed dependance of Matthew on Mark do not realize the serious implications of such a standpoint. The recent article (George E. Ladd, Mar. 2 issue) … pleading for the priority of Mark proves no more than that Luke used Mark and definitely does not prove that Matthew used Mark.… Through an intensive study of Huck’s Synopsis one can see how impossible it is to accept the theories of Streeter cumsuis regarding the use Matthew is supposed to have made of Mark.

J. NORVAL GELDENHUYS

Capetown, South Africa

These … articles … should help dispel the notion that an evangelical faith must reject the critical method.

LEE GALLMAN

Jackson, Miss.

FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING

As the moderator of the General Conference Mennonite Church, I … want to say we appreciate the contents of the article … “Mennonites Reaffirm Biblicism and Pacifism” (Sept. 28 issue).… There is general agreement on our Seminary campus that you did a fine job … and have thus made a significant contribution toward better understanding among evangelical Christian groups.

ERLAND WALTNER

Mennonite Biblical Seminary President

Elkhart, Ind.

I want to express … my appreciation for your fine story on the two Mennonite General Conferences. I think you did an exceptional job of sensing what happened, and we appreciate very much your intelligent and fair description.

PAUL ERB

Executive Secretary

Mennonite General Conference

Scottdale, Pa.

A LOST WORLD

It was with interest and sorrowful affirmation that I read “The Campus: A Lost World?” (Sept. 14 issue). Having just come from a summer school session, and having lived for 25 years on the campus of a large university as a faculty wife, I can underscore the truth of what [Harnish] has written.

MRS. LESTER HORN

Cicero, Ill.

I wonder if the campus is as much a “lost world” as the pastors who are unwilling to change their vocabulary.… If Pastor Harnish felt frustrated by his “tradition-laden vocabulary,” why didn’t he lash out at us preachers to bring our preaching and teaching up to date and be prophets that can be understood by our own generation—especially if it is a generation of higher learning and higher standards.

If Dr. Harnish thought these nice fellows seem clean-cut because they don’t smoke, he should pop in at a Friday dinner and hear what they sing. I know. I lived with them. Remember the Greeks—they used masks in their drama. There are some masks on the campus too, along with a drama of which magnitude the church can only begin to realize.

RICHARD E. MAGNUSON

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

Salem, Ore.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

I have read every issue of your paper since it first came out, but I believe …, to me, the August 31 issue was the most meaningful and enjoyable one of all. It contains few words I shall not, in some way, try to get across to my people.

O. E. SANDEN

Warrendale Presbyterian Church

St. Paul, Minn.

Your articles on Christian education are terrific. I plan to reread them and then share my magazine with the church school superintendent … and the chairman of the department of Christian education.

LEWIS L. CORPORON

Minister of Christian Education

Central Christian Church

Enid, Okla.

The fact that you have devoted so much space … to Christian education is most encouraging to me personally and I pray it will find acceptance with many of your readers.

As a pastor please accept from me these suggestions: First, the Christian education program of every local church must always be the responsibility of the entire church, and never of the pastor alone.… Second, the Sunday school can never succeed in being anything other than an appendage, as long as it is considered, as per your editorial, as “an agency (along with other agencies) in the Church.” It is or must become THE CHURCH in its teaching task.… “Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you.…” Too many Sunday schools have become “agencies” using the same facilities and competing, often unfairly, for the loyalty and attendance of the same people.… Third, the Church must awaken to the fact that no Sunday school teacher however consecrated, well-trained and fortified with the best lesson materials can “make disciples” of people they see only once a week, even for two or five hours. Christian nurture begins, must continue, but must not end, in the home. All the Sunday school can hope to do is to supplement what the parents are inspired by the Holy Spirit to do, by way of example as well as precept. This is where the minister must put his best efforts, as pastor and preacher. He cannot hope to do all the details you lay on his back.…

W. FREDERICK WILLS

First Presbyterian Church

Santa Barbara, Calif.

This is the first time in 25 years that I have written any magazine. However, I can’t resist complimenting you on the thorough job you are doing. Having read each issue since the first one …, as a layman, I especially enjoy the regular feature by Dr. Bell, but this letter is prompted particularly by the excellent piece by Prof. Doll, “Shall We Close the Sunday Schools?” By all means, let’s have additional articles from his perceptive mind.…

FRED R. ESTY

Summit, N. J.

Dr. Bell’s “Teaching the Bible” is a truly fine and powerful page!

L. V. CLEVELAND

Canterbury, Conn.

It seems that [Dr. Bell’s] objection to the discussion method of teaching is far too strong. No one will justify [it] when it is a pooling of ignorance, but competent leaders in the field of Christian education point out that the learning process is heightened when the pupil is active in that process.… Discussion: enables the student to direct questions to the teacher regarding areas … where the teacher is not clear …; helps the pupil to verbalize what has been taught …; enables the pupil to share related experiences …; opens [new] areas of thought …; enables the teacher to be more certain that the lesson truly has been learned.…

Apart from this rather mild criticism, I feel that the article was quite to the point, and its message ought to be pondered by every … teacher in our church schools.

WILLIAM S. SMYTHE, JR.

Centre Presbyterian Church

Maxton, N. C.

The fathers of compulsory education over a century ago claimed that compulsory “education” will eliminate vice. They were mistaken. Education is blind without schooling and schooling is empty without education, in our century. Schooling and education had to be separated and brought in a synthesis on a higher level. On the American scene where school and church are separated, the church can play the most decisive role by relating the function expressed by school marks and the firmness of a sequence of [character] traits. This method is eminent in the prevention of delinquency.… Education, as well as preaching, begins when we can state in simple terms of faith—“God exists!” When this supreme truth begins to grow clear in a mind, then obedience becomes operative. God must be given the focal point in a mind.

EUGENE F. MOLNAR

St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church

Bathurst, New Brunswick

DISCIPLE DISAGREEMENT

I would like to voice strong disagreement with Brother Murch’s report of the Christian Church convention (Sept. 14 issue), in which he says that the United Christian Missionary Society receives little or no support from Bible-centered churches. While some liberal churches do support this society, my experience in the Christian Churches as minister for 13 years indicates that most of the churches supporting the UCMS are “Bible-centered.” … Cooperation does not eliminate the possibility of being “Bible-centered.”

TOM PEAKE, JR.

Highlands Christian Church

Dallas, Tex.

All Disciples, whether they support a cooperative program or go it alone as “independents,” hold to a firm belief in Jesus Christ (our only real test of fellowship) as revealed in the Scriptures.

JAMES L. MERRELL

Indianapolis, Ind.

The purpose of Resolution 52 … was to try to do something to face up to this problem [of] … a small but vocal group who seem called upon to try to disrupt … churches by methods which are anything but Christian.

GENE ROBINSON

First Christian Church

Billings, Mont.

I wish to thank you for your succinct and discriminating report of the Denver Convention …, reprinted in Christian Standard for October 3. Such efforts, I believe, go a long way in encouraging those in all groups who hope to see again something like real unity in our brotherhood.

LOUIS COCHRAN

Santa Monica, Calif.

ALTERNATIVES

With reference to [Mr. Rasmusson’s] letter (August 31 issue), I venture to submit the following:

“The only alternative to His Virgin Birth would be a natural birth. If He had been thus born, He would have had a sinful nature, as all mankind. If He had had a sinful nature, He would have been a sinner. If He had been a sinner, He would have needed a Saviour, and could not have been the Saviour of other sinners. No sinner can atone for the sins of others.” (Author unknown.)

HAROLD H. COOK

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

THE FORGOTTEN MAN

“Japan: A New Christian Hope,” by Dr. C. F. H. Henry (Aug. 3 issue), points up one more distressing fact about Japan, beyond those mentioned by the author. The additional fact is that the country evangelist is the forgotten man of Japan’s missionary community.… Has any visitor ever visited Shikoku, the least known island of Japan? Presbyterian missions began on this island, and churches are seen in many smaller towns.… There are approximately nine churches in the city of Kochi alone, a city of 190,000.

Dr. Henry’s analysis of the frustrations and encouraging signs is good. Let’s just not become more frustrated by letting every visitor visit Tokyo alone. Welcome to Gifu!

HAROLD BORCHERT

Gifu City, Japan

The Gospel has always progressed to a pattern of plan and circumstance. Sometimes a plan has been laid which circumstances, whether of opposition or opportunity, have molded: “Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth” was the plan the Saviour gave; yet it was persecution that first sent witnesses out to Judaea and Samaria “preaching the Word.” Sometimes it has been the other way around. An opportunity has been seen and plans have been molded to seize it; then much has depended on the Church’s response.

It was so in the earliest days when the apostles moved across the ancient world. It was so in the great periods of expansion of the Christian Church. Perhaps Pope Gregory’s remark “Not Angles but angels,” leading to Augustine’s mission to England, is a famous medieval example of opportunity seen and taken with careful planning and, as a result, the establishment of a church in new territory. In more modern times, the American Baptists in Burma switched their main emphasis from the unresponsive Burmans to the Karens on discovering the Karen belief that a white man with a book would come to teach the truth. The Karen church is now one of the strongest in South East Asia.

Christians today have greater facilities than ever to focus prayer and support on any new opportunity. Only the Holy Spirit can create a church, but every good means should be concentrated for His use, even as a country at war mobilizes its resources for its commander-in-chief. Unfortunately the man in the pew often believes that no virgin soil is left, that the churches have merely to expand in non-Christian parts already occupied, however thinly, and thus he fails to mobilize his personal and spiritual resources.

Recently, in the course of an unhurried tour which I am now making through the Asian mission fields, I found myself in the position of St. Luke, that is, a writer witnessing the first impact of the Gospel on an entirely untouched area.

Laos is a newly independent country, little known, and formerly a component of French and Indochina. In the lowlands are the Lao, a race closely connected with the Thai, who are Buddhists and among whom missions have operated for 50 years. The more mountainous area to the north and east is inhabited by primitive tribesmen, animists living in very real dread of evil spirits. They were scarcely disturbed by the French colonial government, and the whole province which we visited was prohibited to foreigners until independence. No Christian work, not even French Roman Catholic, has ever been done there.

Soon after its independence, a Gospel Recordings team penetrated to the Lao valley centers where the tribes come into market and made recordings of Gospel messages in several tribal languages. The team’s report led to a survey in Southern Laos as a result of which the overseas missionary fellowship of the China Inland Mission began an approach to the tribes late in 1957.

The first move was to form lowland bases in cooperation with the Swiss Brethren; and the second, during 1958, was to form three forward bases from which reconnaissance and evangelistic treks are being made on foot into the surrounding tribes. The intention is eventually to live right up in the tribal villages as response comes. The Lao authorities at first were fearful for the missionaries’ safety, but in fact only one tribe practices occasional human sacrifices.

It was with the team of the forward base at Attopeu, two young Americans, Mr. John Davis of Everett, Washington, and Mr. David Henricksen of Antioch, Illinois, that my wife and I trekked, knowing that we were out on no mere aimless fling but the early stages of a carefully planned strategy. As an indication of the remoteness of the place, we endured three days’ bus travel from the railhead, the last being 11 hours to cover 135 atrocious miles, before even reaching Mr. Davis’ house at Attopeu.

From there we walked. Only two tribesmen, in a large party, could be found to carry packs for us, so we had to carry them ourselves. These two were typical: small, naked except for G-string, teeth filed short (they do it when drunk), ears stretched and holed to carry heavy ivory bobs curiously similar to those of the South American Aucas pictured in Mrs. Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor. Though so little clothed, the tribe was modest. When they bathed the men covered themselves with their hands, and no child after puberty was allowed to run about naked. But married women often wore nothing above the waist except beads. One was seen to suckle her baby and then a puppy!

We ferried across a river, did three stages and slept in the forest, walked all the next day at an easy pace because of the women and children (it was very different two days later), and reached a large village by another river just before dusk. Civilization we discovered had already crept in—an army post, government officer, doctor, and schoolmaster. It would have been more romantic otherwise, but this emphasized the urgency. For in order to Laoize them fully, the government hoped to turn the tribes Buddhist. It is significant, therefore, that our meeting that night, though largely attended, made little impact.

The following day we walked deeper into the hills. The villagers we came to meet in a cluster of raised bamboo houses near a stream had never before had a white woman visitor. And Christ’s name had never been spoken there.

We sat outside the house of the headman or village father, who smelled of rancid meat, and ate with our fingers rice and a succulent chicken which they presented to us. Then John Davis set up the little portable gramophone and played Gospel records in their own tongue. As I watched those raw tribespeople, tattooed, brightly beaded, puffing at their stubby pipes, while a tiny puppy slept on the warm ashes at my feet and chickens wandered at will, I saw their close attention and believed that this revolutionary development of Gospel Recordings Incorporated of Los Angeles should be deserving of widest support.

John next brought out the Wordless Book, that old friend of evangelists to illiterates which, by means of colored pages, pictures man’s sin and judgment (black) the blood of Christ (red), the cleansed heart (white), and gold for heaven. Using Lao, which this tribe but not all the local tribes can speak, he took them through it. The first time they looked dumb. The second time they could explain it back. I noted that an unashamed, unadulterated biblical Gospel was taught of a Saviour crucified as man’s substitute and risen from the dead to be his Friend. Humanism would leave these men in their ignorance and desperate need.

John turned to the headman, who wore a G-string, a light blue necklace and a worried expression. “How about the village father,” he asked. “Do you want to go to hell or to heaven?” “I want to go to heaven,” the headman replied. “I want to escape from sin.” “There’s only one way you can get to heaven and that’s by having Jesus wash away your sins. Would you like him to do that?” “Yes!” “How many would?” The headman said: “I don’t know, I can’t speak for the village but only for myself.”

“Do you realize what it means?” John then warned this spirit-worshipper, “You can’t walk two trails at once.” He saw that, and spoke to his neighbors in their own language and then, in Lao to John, “I want to go the Jesus trail, only one trail.” “That means you’ll have to leave the old trail.” “I don’t understand,” said the headman, backing a bit and bringing up a little Buddhism. “What kind of work do you have to do?” “You don’t have to do anything,” replied John. “When you want to know where to make your rice fields, you don’t kill a chicken and ask the spirits, you ask Jesus to lead you. Jesus doesn’t eat chickens and pigs and buffalo. When you’re sick, don’t kill sacrifices, just pray. When you go into the forest, you needn’t propitiate the spirits with a pig, just ask Jesus to keep you safe.”

The headman said, “Why, if this is true it is the best thing in all the world! But we don’t quite understand.… I think we’ll go on as before but when we sacrifice, instead of calling on the spirits we will call on Jesus.” “That will never do,” said John. “They are enemies. Jesus would not be pleased. If you want to believe in Jesus you will have to throw over the spirits and burn all this,” waving his hand at the demon altar.

A long silence followed. Beads of perspiration appeared on the headman’s forehead as he thought of the awful risk. All his life he had dreaded the spirits. Could he dare throw them over? A handsome, smiling younger man began to suck at the potent rice wine (they use long thin bamboos from a common pitcher) which had been put aside at John’s insistence. “We don’t know these words yet,” the youth temporized.

“You don’t need to study first,” urged John. He asked for one of their pipes. “If I give you this pipe, my giving is of no use unless you reach out and take hold of it. God offers you a home in heaven, but his offering is of no use unless you take it.” They began to chatter in their own tongue. John sensed that they had gone off at a tangent. They turned to him. “We hear you saw a wild elephant on your way here.…”

John has already seen men burn their demon altars and “call on the name of the Lord.” It would have been fine had this episode ended like that.

But perhaps this was not permitted in order that my description should be left in the air as a standing challenge to the churches to focus prayer on this field. For a glance at the map will show that a strong church in the mountains of Laos could influence several surrounding countries. And who that knows of the mighty movement of the Spirit among the Nagas in Assam, the Karen in Burma, the Lisu in China can doubt that God can move the pagan tribes of Laos?

John C. Pollock, author of The Cambridge Seven and Way to Glory, is former Rector of Horsington, Somerset, England. He is touring Asia, and preparing a missions book for the Macmillan Company (New York) and Hodder and Stoughton.