One of the first important acts of Angelo Poncalli, after being elected Pope on October 28, 1958, was the calling of a general council. Almost everyone surmised, when he did so, that he was thinking about the Eastern Orthodox and Western Protestant churches and their separation from Rome. What did the calling of the council signify? Did its proclamation hint at a change, perhaps a softer policy in Rome toward the other churches? Pope John had been referred to in the press as a modern pope, a man of profound humility along with a genuine realism, a human pontiff whose piety was open-hearted and touched with humor. If his predecessor had been an aristocratic pope, John was a pope of the people. What was now to be expected when such a pope calls a general council?

An official answer to this question is not wanting. The pope has published his first encyclical, Ad Cathedram Petri. It has to do with unity and peace through love. If we wondered whether this encyclical would reveal anything significantly different from previous encyclicals dealing with the unity of the Church, we now know that it does not. Most of what Pope John says in his first papal letter could be found, in other forms, in many other encyclicals of previous popes. In regard to the general council, the pope himself says that it is not concerned first of all with other communities, but with the Roman church itself. But he adds that the very fact of the council would provide a stimulus and challenge to other churches to strive anew for unity.

The reunion of the churches is one of the new pope’s favorite themes. He likes to emphasize the high-priestly prayer of our Lord, and often repeats the phrase, “one flock and one shepherd.” The pope affirms his faith in the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer that “they all may be one that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me.” Indeed, his faith in its fulfillment, he says, led him to call the council. Here, all the world would send its bishops to gather in consideration of divine matters. The council, he asserts, would be a holy display of truth, unity, and love. Through such a display, it is said, all other groups would feel themselves urged to seek the realization of the unity for which our Lord prayed.

Behind this faith lies the pope’s confidence that sympathy for the faith and the institution of the Roman church is growing in the world at large. Love for the truth, he claims, will continue to sweep away prejudice against the Catholic church. The visibly imposing unity of the general council ought to be a sign to the “erring brothers” that it is time for them to return to the unity of the one Church. The Pope speaks in pastoral tones. Note well, he says, that we are calling you brothers, for we long for you as brothers. Come back, he calls, and we will welcome you home with fatherly love. Thus, the pope calls us all back, not to a stranger’s dwelling, but to our own home, to the home of our one Father.

Augustine once said of schismatics: “Whether they will it or not, they are our brothers.” Pope John recalls these words in his letter. As pope, he says, he does not speak out of any merit of his own, but from the position to which God in his incomprehensible will has raised him. But he speaks as Joseph to his erring kinsman: “I am Joseph, your brother.”

A careful reading of this encyclical reveals no essential difference from Rome’s previous attempts at unity. A bit of reflection beforehand would have told us that it would not be otherwise. Rome’s position over against Protestantism does not rest with the personal disposition of a given pope. It is defined by the structure of the church itself. It is impossible for any pope to speak about unity without the background of the pretentions of Rome as the Catholic, the one and only Church. Herein lies the only really interesting part of the present pope’s encyclical. The personal zeal and warmth of the man is backed by the familiar summons to the rest of us to return. The visible display of unity at a general council is a call for conversion and repentance; it is not an invitation to discussion. The way back to the “father’s house” is the path of repentance. For this reason the coming council ought not to be seen as signifying a change in Rome. When a genuine change comes it will mean that the issues are laid on the table for both parties to see; the pretentions of Rome itself will have to be put in the scales.

One thing is clear: this possibility does not lie within the intention of the present pope. Pope John is not a romantic. The lines are as clearly drawn as ever. The continuity of this encyclical with all previous ones on the same subject is evidence for this. Protestants should read the encyclical itself, if only because the public press has unwarrantedly speculated about a change in the attitude of Rome. More important, we need to be reminded that the one Shepherd of the one flock is the same who pointed to his Word as the guide of the Church.

Pope John is not the first to acknowledge us to be “brothers.” Previous encyclicals expressly said that we were not being called unbelievers, but brothers who have strayed from the fold. As lost brothers, we were being called home. Rome has been and still is willing to put out her hand and welcome us home as brothers. But she insists that it is we, the lost ones, who are returning to the unity of home which was never lost. In her desire for unity, Rome feels no need for a search on her own part. She has and is the unity; the rest of us, if we desire unity, must come humbly and penitently to her. Then we shall be received as brothers.

The encyclical ought to be a challenge to us for searching our own hearts. Have we understood the meaning of the Lord’s prayer for unity on our part? Have we understood that the power of the Word as the Sceptor of the one Shepherd is also a power for unity under that Shepherd?

Study Of Prophetism

Vision and Prophecy in Amos, by John D. Watts (Eerdmans, 1958, 89 pp., $3), is reviewed by Edward J. Young, Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary.

Who were the prophets? What manner of men were they, and whence did they derive their messages? The present volume considers Amos as a prophet, and deals with his background, religious experience, prophetic functions, and relation to the cult and message. It consists of scholarly lectures delivered in 1955 at the Swiss Baptist Theological Seminary.

The author thinks that the prophets themselves were practically ignored until the eighteenth century brought them to light. Previously, the Church had been interested mainly in Messianic references. Like most generalizations, however, this one cannot be pressed too far. It might surprise some modern scholars, who are eager to keep up with “the latest,” to discover how much interest was devoted to the prophets as men before the eighteenth century.

According to Watts, prophetic study has come into its own in the twentieth century (p. 2). But nothing written in this century, to the knowledge of this reviewer, can compare with the profound studies of Isaiah, for example, made by Drechsler, Delitzsch, Alexander, or even Gesenius. Because of its absolute refusal to come to grips with the question of special revelation (and the present book is no exception), twentieth century study of prophetism has not really brought us closer to understanding the prophets than did Luther and Calvin. In fact, the Reformers seemed to have a deeper insight into the messages of the prophets than much of the writing of this century.

Amos, we are told, was more than a shepherd. He probably “owned, raised, cared for, and dealt in sheep” (p. 7), and was also one who had to do with “sycamore figs” (p. 8). His basic character and religious outlook were shaped by Tekoa, a “rural Judean village” and by the “broadening influence of travel” (p. 8). He had certain convictions: Jahweh was Lord and Master of all. Jahweh had elected Israel, but this election was “ethically conditioned”.

Amos was conscious of being directed by a higher will, and felt himself “possessed” (p. 10). His reply to Amaziah should be translated, “No prophet did I choose to be! (I did not choose or seek the status of nabi [sic!]. Nor did I seek to become one of the prophetic guild. For I (had chosen to be) a herdsman and a tender of sycamores, when Jahweh took me from following the flock (the place of my choice). But it is Jahweh who said to me, Go! Be a prophet to my people Israel!” (p. 12). An interesting translation indeed! Whether it is an accurate rendering of the Hebrew is another question.

Amos was God’s messenger, speaking His words to Israel, words which were proclaimed at the New Year’s Festival in one of the great sanctuaries (p. 14). But Amos also had great experiences with God which he presents in visions and formative experiences. And Amos was a cultic prophet.

Watts is at his best in his analysis of Amos’ visions, and what he writes will repay careful study. He tells us that these visions of the last three chapters were gathered at some southern sanctuary, whereas the “words” of the first six chapters were copied down in the north. There were thus two books of Amos. But why may not Amos himself have written down all his messages?

Interesting is the chapter which deals with the preservation of three fragments of an old hymn, namely Amos 4:13; 5:8 and 9:5–6. But the author is too free with textual emendations, and we cannot accept the conclusion which Watts says is “impossible to escape” that “their (i.e., the hymn fragments) preservation was determined at the time that the speeches of Amos were being collected to put in a fixed form either oral or written” (p. 67).

A concluding chapter deals seriously with the question of the Day of the Lord. “The Day of Jahweh was to be the time when that which the cult pictured would find realization or fulfillment in historical reality” (p. 83). It was to be the end of the northern kingdom’s claim to the Covenant, and the coming of Jahweh to remove all that obstructed the accomplishment of his purposes.

Recently von Rad has sought to account for the origin of the concept of the Day of the Lord in the old wars of Jehovah. Serious attempts to account for the origin of such an idea will always be welcomed, but no serious attempt will be satisfied if we regard such a concept as only a stage in the unaided development of a prophet’s thought. If we are to omit all reference to special revelation, we shall not arrive at the truth.

And that brings us to the heart of the matter. The present book tries to do the impossible; it seeks to explain Amos and his work apart from special revelation. There is much in the book that is good, particularly the refutation of some of Mowinckel’s ideas, but on the whole the book presents us with a picture of Amos that must be rejected. The author is widely read in modern literature, but the giants of yesterday are not mentioned.

Some strange statements are made about Hebrew syntax (p. 58). The Bible should not be emended on the basis of a misunderstanding of Hebrew. And the transliteration of Hebrew words is frightening. On page 6, for example, we have noqdim. This should certainly be corrected for a subsequent edition.

While we are grateful for what is good in this book, we feel that true progress in prophetic study will be made only when we consider the prophetical writings as the holy Word of God and the prophets themselves as men who received a message from God and faithfully delivered that message.

EDWARD J. YOUNG

Gubaru?

Darius the Mede, by John C. Whitcomb, Jr. (Eerdmans, 1959, 84 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by R. K. Harrison, Hellmuth Professor of Old Testament at Huron College, London, Ontario.

This scholarly monograph investigates the problems associated with the identity of Darius the Mede both from the standpoint of the book of Daniel and that of critical scholarship generally. The author marshals his evidence for the contention that Darius the Mede is to be identified with Gubaru, the governor of Babylon under Cyrus. During his discussion he examines the view, recently propounded by Dr. Wiseman of the British Museum, that Darius the Mede was merely an alternative name for Cyrus the Persian.

In identifying Darius with Gubaru, Dr. Whitcomb takes vigorous issue with the views of H. H. Rowley and demonstrates convincingly that the latter thought of Darius in terms of a confusion of conflated traditions. He adduces cuneiform evidence to show that the Nabonidus Chronicle speaks of two distinct personages, Ugbaru and Gubaru, whereas most scholars have failed to make this distinction in their discussions of the identity of Darius the Mede.

The monograph, a publication of the Evangelical Theological Society, is a careful study, erudite and objective. The fair-minded reader will find it difficult to resist the conclusion that new light has been thrown on this difficult problem, and that the historicity of Darius can be postulated seriously once again.

R. K. HARRISON

Ecclesiastical Freedom

The Free Church Through the Ages, by Gunnar Westin, translated by Virgil A. Olsen (Boardman Press, Nashville, 1958, 380 pp., $4.75), is reviewed by Andrew K. Rule of the department of Church History and Apologetics, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

The author of this book is the great Swedish Baptist historian. His competence is evidenced in the book’s comprehensiveness, the amazingly detailed research that shows through every page, and the scholarly restraint that refuses to claim more than evidence will justify. The study begins in dealing with eight pre-Reformation movements of the free church type; but, while the possibility of some continuity between them and later developments of a similar kind, is intriguing, the author clearly recognizes that no sufficient evidence is now available to support such a contention.

There follows a full account of the rise and spread of Anabaptism in and around Zurich. The author’s sympathies are quite obviously with these people, both because they were champions of a “free” church and because they were cruelly persecuted. But that does not prevent him, both as historian and Baptist, from frankly acknowledging the weaknesses of the movement at this stage, and that the fear which was engendered in the hearts of the Reformers and of the civil authorities had some justification. The reviewer would suggest that such fear had an even stronger justification than the author allows. When it is noticed, as the author does, that such gentle and concessive people as Melanchthon, Bucer, and Philip of Hesse, and such a broad-minded statesman as Calvin shared that fear and were driven to active resistance, it should be realized that under the social conditions then obtaining even the more sober expression of Anabaptism was a definite threat to social stability.

The author’s account makes clear that it was everywhere taken for granted, except by the Anabaptists, that the civil government had responsibility for and perhaps control over the activities carried on in the name of religion. But while he approves a “positive” attitude towards government and towards social and cultural affairs as against the “negative” attitude of most of the Anabaptists, he seems to assume that a church cannot be really free if it accepts any formal establishment by the state. Perhaps this is the main reason why, in recounting the sixteenth century struggle for a free church, he fails to take account of Calvin’s long and almost completely successful struggle for ecclesiastical freedom as against the effort of the Genevan councils to impose Bernese customs. The reviewer cannot accept this assumption. He would maintain that the present situation of the Church of Scotland assures it of all the freedom that a church can use while still recognizing a legitimate legal relation to the State.

The author then gives an excellent account of the more successful struggle for ecclesiastical freedom, mainly in the English-speaking world, first in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and finally in the last century and a half.

On the whole this is a competent account of a thrilling struggle. It is a challenging contribution to the contemporary ecumenical discussion of the nature of the Church and of the perennial problem of the relations of Church and State. An evangelical cannot but feel sympathy with the basic effort here of submitting to the authority of Scripture; though he may judge, as I do, that in this case it took the form of an effort to confine the Church to the pattern of its embryonic state.

ANDREW K. RULE

Solving A Social Problem

Understanding and Preventing Juvenile Delinquency, by Haskell M. Miller (Abingdon, 1958, 191 pp., $1.25), is reviewed by Charles Craig, social worker, Nutley, N. J.

In his Understanding and Preventing Juvenile Delinquency, Haskell M. Miller, head of the Department of Social Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary (Washington, D. C.), has compiled an informative and practical weapon against one of the foremost problems of our generation. Although the book is indicative of professional competence in the field, the author writes in nontechnical language which the layman can understand. It is a comprehensive study which not only deals with the nature of delinquents and their delinquencies, but also outlines preventive and corrective treatment. Special attention is given to proper Christian attitudes and to what Christians and their churches can and should do in this connection. “Questions for Discussion” and “Project Suggestions” comprise a feature of the book which increases its value for discussion groups and church committees attempting to deal with the problem. These are found at the end of each chapter.

From the evangelical standpoint the author’s analysis of and remedies for juvenile delinquency will fall short of being genuinely helpful since the role of original sin is neglected. Nor is there any adequate notice of the facts which make the Christian ethic meaningful and logical. In other words, the role of the Church, effecting spiritual regeneration through the work of the Holy Spirit, is ignored. However, the book abounds with many practical suggestions as to how churches and their members may better fulfill their role of Good Samaritans in recognition of the biblical teaching that all men are our neighbors.

CHARLES CRAIG

Reaching The Unsaved

Group Dynamics in Evangelism, by Paul M. Miller (Herald Press, 1958, 202 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Faris D. Whitesell, Professor of Practical Theology, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The professor of practical theology at Goshen Biblical Seminary has given us a needed study. His book is well Written and thoroughly evangelical. He has mastered the popular subject of group dynamics and has applied it practically to the field of evangelism. While concentrating on this particular approach to evangelism, he has not discredited or cast out other methods of evangelism.

A group is a number of persons communicating “with one another over a span of time, and who are few enough so that each person is able to communicate with all the others, not at second hand nor through other people, but face to face” (p. 53). For best results groups should not run over 12 people and should have a resourceful and respected leader.

Group dynamics evangelism “means throwing Christian friendship and fellowship around unchurched people through the group life of the church, believing that every man is basically lonely and longing for the realities which the Christian group embodies and has to offer” (p. 176). It “offers a way by which all members can share in soul-winning. Many Christians are too timid ever to engage in ‘salesman evangelism,’ but all who are sincere can join in a group deliberately setting out to love unsaved persons into the Kingdom. The approach to the unsaved person is not as frontal or as intense in its demands as is the case in ‘salesman evangelism’ or ‘visitation evangelism.’ A timid Christian should certainly be able to give a warm invitation to attend his group meeting, even though he may not be able to confront an unsaved person with Christ’s immediate call to decision or lead the person into a meaningful act of commitment” (p. 179).

Pastors, church groups, and theological students should study Dr. Miller’s book, for it will lead them into an area of evangelism not too well known or too much used. It pioneers in a new field.

One weakness is that the author fails to give enough examples of this method in operation. He presents it too idealistically, not telling exactly how to implement this evangelism, or how to keep from interfering with groups for other purposes, or how to get the unsaved into the group dynamics situation.

FARIS D. WHITESELL

Practical Devotions

New Frontiers for Spiritual Living, by Charles A. Behnke (Concordia, 1959, 120 pp., $2), is reviewed by the Rev. E. P. Schulze, Minister of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, New York.

This is a volume of Christian devotions for “people who are growing spiritually with the years. It contains more than 40 devotional readings, each based upon a text of Scripture and accompanied by references for collateral Bible reading and concluded with a brief prayer. In addition there are prayers for every morning and evening of the week, half a dozen prayers for special contingencies in the life of a Christian, and ten “hymns that never grow old.”

The author, a clergyman of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, is pastor of a congregation in Rochester, New York. His excellent and practical devotions are evidently born of a consecrated spirit that has been richly nurtured by the Word and cultivated by many years of personal and ministerial experience. Although easy to read, these devotions are deep in thought.

E. P. SCHULZE

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

NEWS

Menno Simons shook off attentions of the painted woman, turned from the Roman church, and set his face toward the barns and hedges where he would minister to Anabaptists, who were persecuted by Romanist and Reformer alike.

Some 4,000 Mennonites, heirs of the tragic story of the “Reformation’s left wing,” sat watching this and other portions of their history re-enacted last month in this, the 400th anniversary (by some datings) of the death of Menno, the converted Dutch priest who was to lend his name to the “rebaptizers.” The pageant had been written for the centennial of the 52,014-member General Conference Mennonite Church, meeting for its 35th triennial conference at Blulffton (Ohio) College. Five days later another Mennonite college town, nearby Goshen, Indiana, played host to the other of the two largest Mennonite bodies—the 83,204-member Mennonite Church (often called “Old Mennonite”), assembled for its 31st biennial general conference.

Bluffton, in contrast to Goshen, saw several vigorous debates—on such matters as capital punishment and biblical inspiration. Much discussion but less debate preceded adoption of a statement calling for a permanent U.S. ban on nuclear bomb tests and equating them, along with war, with sin, inasmuch as “they belong to the war preparations scheme.”

One speaker pointed out that manufacture of rifles could as well be included on such grounds. For Mennonites are generally pacifists, and as one of the historic peace churches, they suffer from the iniquitous, but common, identification of pacifism with modernism. Mennonites have largely remained evangelical and express weariness with the pragmatic drifting of liberal social ethics toward and away from pacifism, contingent upon political currents of the day. In contrast, they plead for a biblically and theologically based doctrine of nonresistance. Generally they desire a more “pacifistic pacifism” than that of secular pacifists who seek physically to interfere with government military preparation.

The large Mennonite bodies belong to no interdenominational council of churches, though they have studied the possibility. It is hard to find councils which couple conservative theology with a pacifist ethic. Yet Mennonites are not fond of socialist tendencies of liberal ethics, usually being loathe to see big government intrusion into the area of the church’s social responsibility. There is no wholehearted endorsement of the labor union movement, due in part to its failure to practice nonresistance. One Mennonite workers’ association, for example, regards arbitration as the final resort and renounces the strike.

Not surprising was the introduction at the Bluffton meeting of a resolution condemning capital punishment. What was surprising was the amount of opposition it received. Debate revealed sharply divergent views as to exactly what the Anabaptist forefathers taught on this subject. Those favoring the resolution spoke of death as removing the possibility for conversion. Their opponents cited Moses, Jesus, Peter, Paul and the Anabaptists in support of capital punishment. (Mennonites and other peace churches have been accused of slighting the Old Testament and Epistles in favor of the Gospels, particularly the Sermon on the Mount.) Delegates finally voted to refer the resolution back to committee.

The almost all-white church also voted to request each congregation to welcome members of all races. Asking the question, “Have we wrapped around ourselves a robe of self-righteousness, afraid lest a free Christian brotherhood of love dilute our Mennonite customs and culture?” delegates asserted the relevance of the “peace witness” to racial warring.

From the floor came a resolution calling for a centennial reaffirmation of faith in the Scriptures as infallible and inerrant in their autographs. After keen debate on both sides of the question, delegates voted to authorize a study conference to examine the matter. Capable Erland Waltner, re-elected as general conference president, took the occasion to reassert the historic conference stand on biblical infallibility.

In Goshen, such matters constituted the biggest single issue of the general conference of the “Old Mennonites.” Conference theme was “The Word of God to the Church of Today,” and delegates heard seven major addresses on this topic in two days. Key address was that of Dean Harold S. Bender, church historian at Goshen College Biblical Seminary, on “Biblical Revelation and Inspiration.” Displaying sensitivity to neo-orthodox conceptions of revelation, Bender said revelational activity included “acts, interpretation, and writing.” Defending propositional revelation, he described the Bible as “more than just a record of revelation”: it is “a necessary integral part of revelation.” Mennonites are a “biblicist church,” not a “theologians’ church.” If they lose the authority of the Bible, the “only real authority,” they “are lost” and will “disappear in the stream of history.” He defended the concepts of verbal and plenary inspiration when properly distinguished from mechanical and dictation views and from the claim that all Scripture is of equal value. “Inspiration is not based on inerrancy of fact.” Bender concluded by warning against modernism, liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, and all who “deny the Bible as the authoritative norm,” as well as cautioning against the extreme varieties of Calvinism, fundamentalism, and dispensationalism, which “impose theories upon the Bible without adequate biblical foundations.” (Mennonites often criticize dispensationalists: the tendency to relegate the relevance of the Sermon on the Mount to the millenium would obviously be unpopular; further, many Mennonites are amillenialists.)

One conference leader remarked that Mennonites have only talked about verbal inspiration in recent years, the Bible “not giving a precise description of inspiration.” Mennonites draw back, he indicated, from the doctrine of inerrancy of the autographs, for this “tends to get too theological” rather than biblical. “We are not strong on theology” (Menno Simons did not hold a purely orthodox Christology), “though there are times when we must clarify our differences with neo-orthodoxy and hyper-fundamentalism. We are Arminian and our practical emphasis is akin to Wesleyanism.”

A resolutions committee presented a statement on the Scriptures, describing them as “fully trustworthy and authoritative.” Criticisms were heard concerning lack of affirmation of propositional revelation and the historical accuracy of the Bible, though the statement was adopted unanimously subject to certain revisions along the suggested lines.

The conference also voted unanimously to send a letter to President Eisenhower asking him to do all in his power “to secure the abolition, first, of nuclear tests and then of all present stocks of weapons of massive retaliation.” “We would prefer facing the risk of possible totalitarian domination to assuming responsibility for a nuclear holocaust bringing certain annihilation of whole peoples.…” Mennonites have practiced migrating from totalitarian regimes in the past. This time, they realize, there would be no place to go.

Sending such a letter is a departure from the ancient Mennonite custom of having nothing to do with the State. In Germany they were called “the quiet people.” They love freedom but will not fight to defend it. They refuse to differentiate between a corporate ethic and Jesus’ commandments to individual followers. Said one eminent churchman, “We believe in the function of government, and we never say, as the Quakers, that a country should have no army or police. But we believe a Christian should not serve in any of these fields. This paradox is the most difficult thing we face—our point of greatest vulnerability. Yet we must obey Christ.”

But Mennonites throw their energies into an extensive relief program. Their record in this area is outstanding. Goshen delegates voted “support in principle” of measures before Congress which “would make greater use of agricultural surpluses in feeding and clothing the hungry.…” Mennonite young men classified as conscientious objectors may spend their two years in alternative service “for the promotion of the national welfare both at home and abroad.” Most Mennonite bodies cooperate in the Mennonite Central Committee which coordinates relief and emergency services, refugee rehabilitation, and peace activities.

Apart from this organization, Mennonite groups (some 13 in the U.S.) tend to be exclusivist at home and on the foreign mission field. But despite objections, the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church have in recent years been cooperating in publication projects such as the newly completed Mennonite Encyclopedia and graded Sunday school materials, and also in theological education. Goshen College Biblical Seminary and neighboring Elkhart’s Mennonite Biblical Seminary (both housed in handsome new buildings) now cooperate under the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries’ program. Traditional Mennonite disapproval of a paid and trained ministry is weakening as are anti-theological sentiments. However, emphasis upon pacifism as the primary Mennonite distinctive and the tendency to read sanctification in terms of nonresistance pose the recognized threat of ethics assuming primacy over theology on the road to moralism. Such an ethical emphasis, said one leader, tends to be schismatic as well.

“Old Mennonites” and General Conference Mennonites are said to have no real theological differences. The latter group is reportedly enjoying a swing back from an incursion of liberalism in the 1920s and 1930s. But there is practically no talk of merger. Polities differ and the former body maintains certain distinctions in dress and customs (e.g. foot washing and the holy kiss) and practices stricter discipline over members’ personal habits. (“Old Mennonites” are not to be confused with their Amish cousins, some of whom are regarded by Mennonites as holding a religion of tradition and externals and as in need of evangelization.)

Some point to strict Mennonite ethical standards as impeding growth. The 156,000 U.S. Mennonites constitute roughly half the world-wide number. Others point to heavy persecutions which deprived the scattered flocks of their leadership. Said one spokesman, “Until about 1900, we had lost our missionary passion. Then we discovered the persecutions were over.” (Swiss Mennonites are even yet reluctant to take a church census for fear some hostile government might one day use it against them.)

The population drift to the cities is disrupting the closely knit Mennonite rural fellowship (members in areas where there is not a Mennonite church are called “dispersed” or “displaced”). Some call for a return of all Mennonites from the cities to their own communities to preserve their way of life. But their fellow evangelicals in other communions are glad to see many Mennonites facing up to their evangelistic responsibilities in the cities of their “dispersion.” In the past, Mennonites have migrated from one country to another simply to maintain the practice of educating their children in a mother tongue. A healthier and more biblical migration is into the highways and byways of the land of their residence with their sturdy evangelical witness.

Menno’s heirs no longer move untouched by the theological and ecclesiastical currents of non-Mennonite Christendom. But they steer their own middle course, seeking still to be true to the lights of their fathers.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. James S. West, 84, Baptist minister who conducted the funeral of President Warren Harding in 1923, in Tampa, Florida … Dr. Arthur C. Boyce, 75, retired Presbyterian missionary educator to Iran, in Duarte, California.

Elections: As president of the International Convention of Christian Churches, Dr. Loren E. Lair … as general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, the Rev. Thomas F. Zimmerman.

Appointments: As editor of The Presbyterian Journal, Dr. G. Aiken Taylor … as executive secretary of the National Association of Free Will Baptists, the Rev.B.A. Melvin.

Protestant Panorama

• Wesley Methodist Church in Highwood, Illinois, has merged with the Bethany Evangelical United Brethren Church in Highland Park. The congregation reportedly plans a loyalty to both the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches.

• Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, operated by the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern), hopes to be the first theological seminary in the nation to go into commercial broadcasting. The school, which now has a non-profit, non-commercial educational FM station with a power of 10,000 watts, has asked the Federal Communications Commission to change its license to commerical and to increase power to 16,100 watts.

• Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, which maintains a nine-hole miniature golf course on the third floor of its education building, now plans to install a driving range in the gymnasium.

• The Rev. Rice Alforth Harris, 72-year-old Anglican priest who is admittedly “pro-Roman,” was dismissed from his London church where he had served for 33 years for using Roman Catholic rites in parish services.

• Representatives of seven Lutheran bodies, at a meeting in Winnipeg this month, voted to suspend temporarily exploratory conversations looking toward a single Lutheran church for the Dominion. They decided upon the delay pending the outcome of current proposals in the United States.

• Industry’s two million “problem drinkers” cause a loss of 36,000,000 man-days and $1,000,000,000 annually, according to an estimate released this month by the Methodist Board of Temperance.

• Mormons plan to erect a $ 100,000 shrine to their founder, Joseph Smith, in Liberty, Missouri.

• President Kubitschek of Brazil attended a special service of thanksgiving last month in the First Presbyterian Church of Rio de Janeiro. It reportedly marked the first time in Brazilian history that a chief executive attended a Protestant worship service. Brazilian Presbyterians are commemorating a centennial.

• The Pittsburgh Catholic, official diocesan weekly, suggested possible taxation of large private universities and foundations as alternatives to a proposal that churches eventually give up their tax-free status. The weekly was commenting on an article by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., which appeared in the August 3 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

• Theodosios VI of Damascus, head of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the Orient, held conversations this month with leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church aimed at promoting closer cooperation between the two Eastern Orthodox bodies.

• A teacher placement agency to serve evangelical higher education has been organized with headquarters at Fort Wayne, Indiana (Box 2512). Dean John H. Fadenrecht of Wheaton College is president of the group, known as “Evangelical Teacher Placement Agency.” Dr. S. A. Witmer is director.

• Improved relations between the Italian government and non-Catholics were reported as the year’s highlight to delegates attending the annual Synod of the Waldensian Church at Torre pellice, Italy, this month.

• A study of Roman Catholicism won for Professor Jaroslav Pelikan, 35-year-old Lutheran minister who teaches at the University of Chicago, a $12,500 prize in book-writing competition sponsored by Abingdon Press.

• Ground was broken this month for a new YMCA building in Nazareth, where Jesus Christ spent his youth.

• September 30 is the publication date for the Revised Standard Version Concordance Reference Bible, which includes with its RSV text 75,000 center column references, 12 maps, and a 192-page abridged concordance.

The Ninth Primate

In an Alberta police barracks was born 56 years ago the man who this month became ninth Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Bishop Howard Hewlett Clark of Edmonton.

Clark, son of a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman, was elected spiritual leader of some 1,300,000 Canadian Anglicans while riding what Religious News Service described as a “wave of tremendous personal popularity” after an eloquent “low pressure” presentation of the first thoroughly Canadian revision of the church’s Book of Common Prayer.

Clark’s presentation—and his election—came during the triennial General Synod of Canadian Anglicans held at Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec. He headed a committee responsible for the revision.

The 330 delegates quickly approved the revision, which now goes into permissive use throughout the church until the next General Synod in 1962 gives final and absolute approval.

Reportedly, the revision does not change Anglican doctrine, but is said to eliminate archaisms, incorrect translations and words whose meaning has changed. It eliminates the word “obey” from the marriage service.

At a press conference following his election, Clark commented that “in some ways, the new prayer book is the new primate.”

He gave strong approval to discussions leading toward possible union between Anglicans and the United Church of Canada and said he would be praying for the “success” of the Ecumenical Council to be convened by Pope John XXIII.

“I don’t know what His Holiness has in mind,” the primate said, “but I shall pray for him to know the will of God.”

In a resolution, delegates endorsed an invitation to the Presbyterian Church in Canada to consider renewing conversations between the two groups looking toward eventual union.

In another action, the synod decided that “once a priest always a priest” and amended its canon law on the abandonment or relinquishment of the ministry to read “abandonment or relinquishment of the exercise of it.”

The synod also changed another canon law to permit a deaconess to retain her status after marriage.

Bishop G. P. Gower reported that confirmations in the church last year hit the highest total ever recorded—33,963, but that marriages showed a decline of 22.3 per cent to 11,574.

“Is the church wedding going out of favor among our people?” he asked. “Are mixed marriages taking their tolls of weak Anglicans?”

Assemblies’ Advance

Assemblies of God established an average of six new churches every week during the past five years.

According to a report released at its 28th biennial General Council, the world’s largest Pentecostal body now has more than 1,113,000 members in 71 countries, including 505,500 in the United States in 9,000 congregations.

Some 12,000 delegates were on hand for the council, held last month in San Antonio, Texas.

They voted to establish a chaplaincy commission. For the past eight years the church has worked through the chaplaincy commission of the National Association of Evangelicals. Eighteen Assemblies of God chaplains are currently on active duty with the U. S. armed forces.

Nightly public services in San Antonio’s Municipal Auditorium highlighted spiritual aspects of the council. Hundreds of persons professed salvation.

Delegates also adopted a resolution creating a special committee to study the assemblies’ fundamental beliefs “with possible amplification in view.”

An appeal was made to local churches and pastors to make greater use of the denomination’s official name and emblem.

Assemblies of God sponsor a weekly half-hour evangelistic radio program, “Revivaltime,” heard over some 376 stations. The denomination has its headquarters in Springfield, Missouri.

Seventh-Day Baptists

More than 700 delegates gathered at Salem, West Virginia, last month for the 147th meeting of the Seventh-day Baptist General Conference. They called for continued “vigilance and opposition to any legislation which specifies a particular day for rest and worship.”

Founded at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1671, the denomination currently has some 6,000 members in 60 congregations. Its headquarters are in Plainfield, New Jersey. Seventh-day Baptists observe Saturday as their Sabbath.

Men Of The Chapel

Protestant Men of the Chapel, newly-organized association for service men in Korea, held its first retreat for members of the United Nations Command in Seoul last month.

The Korea group is a chapter of the Protestant Men of the Chapel organization founded in Heidelberg in 1953.

‘Theological Discussions’

Ten representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and an equal number from Eastern Orthodox churches will convene in Venice, Italy, next year for “theological discussions of interest to both churches,” according to a Vatican Radio broadcast reported by Religious News Service.

Student Inauguration

A dedication service in Oberlin, Ohio, marked the inauguration of the interdenominational National Student Christian Federation this month.

Merging to form the federation were the United Student Christian Council, the Student Volunteer Movement and the Iiiterseminary Movement.

Chruch And State

Ncc And Peace

More than 100 top-ranking denominational officials assembled in Washington September 9 in behalf of the National Council of Churches’ year-long “Nationwide Program for Peace.”

First stop was the White House and a meeting with President Eisenhower.

“We would like you to know,” said Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, NCC president, “that during the year from now to next summer the members of our churches will be making a special study of the issues which face our nation and the world, through a Nationwide Program of Education for Peace, so that they may act with increasing responsibility as Christian citizens.”

In a 1,000-word statement in reply, Eisenhower said he was appreciative.

The White House gathering, according to Dahlberg, was “the largest and most representative” body of Protestant churchmen ever to call on a President of the United States.

From there the church dignitaries went to a Mayflower Hotel luncheon to hear speeches by Democratic Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, head of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, and Dr. Kenneth L. Maxwell, executive director of the Department of International Affairs. An “off-the-record” briefing at the State Department followed.

The NCC’s peace program consists largely of seminars across the country, plus literature distribution. Ostensibly a “study” program, its application involves churches in political affairs historically considered outside the religious province under church-state separation principles.

The peace program is being conducted by the NCC’s Department of International Affairs, which last fall sponsored the Fifth World Order Study Conference in Cleveland. The conference’s conclusions, sharply critical of U. S. foreign policy, are being distributed as part of the literature of the peace program.

With Khrushchev

David E. Kucharsky, News Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, was one of 250 correspondents accredited to tour the United States with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Special firsthand reports are scheduled for the October 12 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, which will begin the magazine’s fourth year of publication.

Mass Evangelism

Indianapolis Crusade

Evangelist Billy Graham’s next major crusade is scheduled to begin in Indianapolis October 6. Meetings will be held at the Indiana

State Fairgrounds

Coliseum, which seats 13,000. The crusade, which was taking on aspects of a state-wide effort, was slated to run through November 1.

About 100 churches were participating in a two-week pre-crusade visitation program. Cottage prayer meetings began September 1. Almost 2,000 attended training classes during the first week in five different locations.

Graham’s plans for Indianapolis came after an eight-day crusade in Wheaton, Illinois.

Earlier in the month, he held a two-meeting week-end series in Little Rock, Arkansas, where a total of some 1,400 recorded decisions for Christ. The two meetings drew an aggregate of almost 50,000 persons. While in Little Rock, Graham visited the jail where four men accused of setting off a series of Labor Day explosions were being held.

Headquarters Dedicated

The National Sunday School Association dedicated its recently purchased four-story headquarters building in downtown Chicago, September 13. Rev. Bert Webb, NSSA president delivered the dedicatory address. The Association is an interdenominational agency serving in the field of Christian education and is related to the National Association of Evangelicals.

THAT THE CHRISTIAN FAITH rests on foundations of truth is axiomatic. It is impossible to affirm faith in that which is nebulous. And there can be no true concept of Christianity aside from the person and work of Christ. This entails an unending struggle.

In our own time we are confronted with an astute and exceedingly dangerous philosophy having to do with the nature and source of divine revelation. In an age of amazing new discoveries, it is assumed by some that there are open to us new and changing revelations of the divine will and plan which make those of the past irrelevant and obsolete.

Strange to say, those who hold to the historic Christian faith are at times accused of dealing in “seventeenth century shibboleths.” Actually we are affirming the facts of first century Christianity—facts which sent the apostles forth to teach and preach in the presence and by the power of the Holy Spirit—facts which centered in the person and work of the risen Christ, the Christ of Holy Scripture.

To assume that God now speaks to individuals as he did to those of whom it was said: “… but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” would be to equate modern scholars with the recipients of divine revelation in the past, and in turn to subject revelation itself to the vagaries of confused and confusing thinkers.

God never contradicts himself. Truths that were found valid for men of the first century are equally valid for our own. The primary needs of the human heart are the same today as they were milleniums ago. The Park Avenue matron and the Congolese woman are sisters-in-need under the skin. The learned professor on the university campus has basic problems identical with those of the Auca Indians.

The great foundation truths of Christianity are revealed in the Bible. There one finds a marvelous unity of revelation and purpose—a revelation of the sinfulness of man and of divine intervention on his behalf. Contrasted to this one finds confusion, disunity, and conflict wherever the opinions of men have full play. Novel interpretations may challenge the imagination and comfort the ego, but they can also lead to disastrous attacks on the foundations of the Christian faith.

Unquestionably the Holy Spirit is the great Teacher. He takes of the things of Christ and glorifies Him and his work. In the Scriptures he brings to one such a depth and breadth of spiritual truths that one can never exhaust them. But when human reason, working on the premise of presuppositions, begins to deny or substitute private interpretations for the clear affirmations of the Bible, then Christians should take warning. “There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord,” is still valid. God does not deny himself, nor does he deny his word. The foundations remain unmoved.

What then is the layman to do? What can he believe in the face of novel and divergent views having to do with God, man, redemption, heaven, hell, and so forth? How can he distinguish between that which is true and that which is false; that which proceeds from Babel, and that which is in the Spirit of Pentecost?

In Isaiah we read: “… should not the people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! Surely for this word which they speak there is no dawn.” Our source of truth is God, not man, and in the “teaching and the testimony” of his written Word.

The Berean Jews, confronted with the preaching of that greatest of missionaries and theologians, found themselves in a quandry. They turned to the Old Testament Scriptures, and we are told: “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so.”

For us there is yet a fuller revelation of divine truth, for we also have the New Testament which with the Old gives us the story of God’s redemptive plan. Thus the Bible is an unfailing source of wisdom which comes from above and which enables us to ascertain whether the voices clamoring for our attention are merely those of man or whether they are led by the Spirit.

But in adhering to the foundations of the Christian faith there are also deadly dangers.

Good people can confuse ignorance with piety, prejudice with conviction, and limited understanding with finality. It is possible to do grave injustice to some whose concern is as great as our own but who have a wider knowledge than we, or who approach a problem from a different perspective.

Strong convictions are truly Christian only as they are fixed in those things which are eternal. In an age when change is seen on every hand there are verities which remain: a Foundation which is already laid, a Rock which stands secure.

One of the tragedies of contemporary Christianity is its failures before an unbelieving world. On the one hand there is unloving rigidity which repels the outsider, and at the other extreme one sees a lack of conviction and finality with regard to the content of the Christian faith and a preoccupation with things that are of secondary importance.

These are days of change, but in the midst of change there are some things which remain the same.

We can know the unchanging Christ of whom Paul could affirm, “I know whom I have believed.”

We have the written Word which “is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable” to all who, upon reading it, find not only a revelation of divine truths but also an unfailing source of help and comfort.

We have the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts by faith and who makes Christ and his Word living realities to us.

We have the Church, the Bride of Christ, of which we are a part and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

And we have the sacraments which, to believers, are the holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, of which we are partakers.

Yes, there are foundations which move not, and they bring security in the midst of chaos, peace in the midst of conflict, and hope in darkness.

These foundations have their source in God the Father, are made effective through Christ, his Son, and made operative and real through the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

For the Christian there are these glorious words of comfort: “God’s solid foundation still stands, however, with this double inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who belong to him” and ‘Let every true Christian have no dealings with evil’” (2 Tim. 2:19, Phillips).

GALBUS IN PERPETUUM

Time quotes this profound observation by a reflective British bureaucrat: “Progress depends on whether there is a red light or a green light. What is important is that the lights should not be set forever at amber.”

The remark assumes a British respect for law, and would not be intelligible to the hot-rodder to whom yellow only signals a burst of speed. Properly understood, however, this contemporary logion could provide our chief ecclesiastical motto. I have approached a church goods manufacturer about issuing a blinker lamp for committee rooms with an etched inscription, “Forever Amber.” (He suggested that for church use it might be better to Latinize the phrase; I think it was Galbus in Perpetuum.)

Committees are essential to our society as centers of indecision. The allegation that a camel is a horse put together by a committee is a manifest fabrication, since no committee could formulate anything less compromising than a swoose.

Unhappily, Christianity is often understood as the religion of committeemen. Caution, mediation, and compromise are made the Christian virtues. To the amber-minded, it is most unchristian to say that anybody or anything is wrong. No final attitude should be expressed on any question from communism to church carpeting. Everything is fluid in the ongoing conversation on all subjects. But the fluid has the highest viscosity, and nothing goes on with any speed.

Sometimes a red or green light shines from the pulpit, but usually the amber is timidly blinking. The preacher is neither modernist nor fundamentalist, but is dialectically hovering somewhere between a conservative liberal and a liberal conservative. Following the amber gleam, the church can move toward the sublime uncertainties of better adjustment.

The Gospel was not arrived at in committee, and the prophets denounce those who halt between two opinions. Christ detests lukewarm disciples. To be hot or cold is better, individually or in committee. Even a committee can seek first the Kingdom, instead of a working formula.

WASHINGTON AND ROME

Congratulations on the fine article “Protestants, Catholics and Politics” by C. Stanley Lowell (July 20 issue). The statement of facts deserves and commands serious consideration of all thoughtful Protestant Christians.…

First Church of the Nazarene

Mansfield, Ohio.

To claim as Mr. Lowell does that a high percentage of Roman Catholics might support any Catholic candidate is certainly open to serious question. Politicians are learning as the United States becomes more mature politically that they cannot appeal to racial, religious, and national prejudices as they once did.… Personally, I have faith that our Roman Catholic friends are equally committed to basic American concepts, including the separation of Church and State, so as to prevent domination by one group or oppression of minority groups.

Newport Methodist Church

Newport, Del.

In Canada there was a Roman Catholic prime minister … 1948–1957, the Rt. Hon. Louis St. Laurent. During his tenure of office, the country did not suffer as a result of his religious position—nor did Mr. St. Laurent appoint “an ambassador to their chief.”

St. Andrew’s Anglican

Scarborough, Ont.

I am astonished that so well informed a person as C. Stanley Lowell should write, “In New York City where 80 per cent of the Catholics regularly vote the Democratic ticket, no Protestant would have a chance to be mayor.” Surely Mr. Lowell has heard of Fiorello La Guardia and surely he must know, as the Roman Catholic Church certainly knew, that the Little Flower was a Protestant.

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

Washington, D. C.

Let’s correct the impression that Senator Kennedy has nothing but two qualifications for office.… I consider an article as this in as bad taste as one in a Catholic publication naming a good Protestant as having only personal charm and $$$.

Naperville, Ill.

I wish it were possible to place this article in the hands of every individual in the United States. For many years the Catholics have declared that their one purpose is to “Make America Catholic.” Protestants in general seem to be blind to the progress that Catholics are making in that direction.… Wherever Catholics gain control of the government Protestants have no more liberty now than they had down through the centuries when and where the Catholics were in control.…

Hendersonville, N. C.

The article is … worth the price of the paper many times over.

Spruce Pine, N. C.

The article … recalls the Jewish clamor for … proportionate rights to public office.… Their … cry worked … on Roosevelt who appointed three Jews to the Supreme Court, a matter of 33 per cent, whereas they could only have been entitled to three per cent, which would be none. “The fellow that talks the loudest often wins the debate.”

Woodbury, N. J.

Very fine and revealing article.… I feel this will do a great deal of good.

Secy.

Dept. of Religious Liberty

Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Glendale, Calif.

French Huguenots were massacred by religionists.… And this kind of … secular … religion has not changed yet.… Socialists and communists are its children.… Its aim is to make our free republic another Spain.…

I spent 14 years in Minnesota as Congregational missionary among the Slavic immigrants and others … in the midst of German and Polish Catholics.… There are farming communities in Minnesota where a Protestant does not have a chance to do any business, or to be on a town council or school board, or to be a principal or teacher in some of the state high schools.

Cleveland, Ohio

With the 1960 elections coming up, and the Jesuit-inspired methods of Roman Catholic political-clericalism, in their efforts to “take over” in America, becoming more evident, the voting public needs to be alerted.…

As to the great world struggle between two totalitarian powers, Moscow and Rome, one author writes, “If the Vatican and the Kremlin want to keep fighting, let them fight alone. We have nothing in common with them and they have nothing to offer to civilization except tyranny and slavery.” “… The Vatican State is now angered and chagrined at the sight of millions of its former faithful deserting its ranks and joining with forces of Moscow after a lifetime of disappointment in the Church. And the Vatican State finds no logical answer when asked to explain why most Catholic countries—that is Italy, France, and Latin America—are also the most ardent supporters of Communism … and why the Protestant countries … are the least ardent supporters of the communistic doctrine.” Let Protestants awaken to the dangers of the hour, and refuse to be tools of any totalitarian political power, whatever the garb!

I noticed in the report by Billy Graham of his trip to Russia that he stressed the fact that the churches there have freedom within a prescribed area. As long as preachers stick to preaching the Bible, they are left alone! Wouldn’t that be something if such a rule could be maintained among Protestant ministers in America? No wonder Billy said that he heard six wonderful sermons!

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church

Jackson, Minn.

I have read several times the news of the approaching movie based on Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry. It seems to me the Protestant church and the Protestant pastors have suffered to the breaking point at the hands of Hollywood and the … motion picture producers. There was little the Protestant clergy and people could do, I suppose, to hinder the publication and sale of the book by Lewis, but to sit back now and let the Devil rip into our ministers through a medium which will reach millions more than the book ever did, is hardly worthy of the strength of our Protestant church. Cannot something be done?… With the presidential election on the horizon … we can expect a flood of anti-Protestant propaganda, ridicule, innuendo, and all types of material aimed at putting the Protestant church in as unfavorable a light as possible.

Orange, Va.

The motive and the purpose of Pope John’s … plan to convoke a so-called, ecumenical council … is not the real reunification of all Christian churches to the glory of God according to Christ’s words: “There shall be one flock, one shepherd.” The goal is to destroy every non-Roman Catholic religious group which is a hindrance to the papacy’s aspiration for absolute power in spiritual matters as well as in political all over the world. The papacy had claimed this power for many centuries before.

The Zion

Pittsburgh, Pa.

I want to express my appreciation for the editorial on current tendencies in Roman Catholic thought. I don’t believe I have ever before seen in conservative evangelical writing a discussion of Roman Catholicism that showed such a balanced good spirit of understanding, appreciation, and criticism.

Fort Bliss, Tex.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Dr. Gregg Singer (your June 22 issue) overlooks the fact that every one of the modern or recent dictatorships arose under a narrow, orthodox type of Christianity devoid of a social gospel or under non-Christian religious systems closely resembling them in important respects. The individualism and otherworldliness of Russian Orthodoxy and German Lutheranism have long been proverbial. Why saddle modern liberalism with responsibility for historic developments totally alien to its spirit?…

Los Angeles, Calif.

The great revivals which swept the country during the opening years of the 19th century show that the earlier influence of Deism and French Infidelity had been comparatively superficial. Alexis de Tocqueville’s estimate of the American point of view when he came here to study the foundations of our freedom about 1835, shows not only that Christian thought was then dominant, but that it has been so during the formative years. He said that Christianity and democracy were two sides of one shield, and that they were so regarded by Americans generally, and by every class in America.

New England Unitarianism was essentially a proud movement, grounded in a motive of intellectual self-sufficiency; but its influence was largely limited to New England, nor was its theological significance too generally appreciated.… My point is that the significance of negative movements is only slowly appreciated, and that the mass of men retain their earlier faith, with no clear appreciation of how deeply it has been challenged.

Brown Mills, N. J.

Most of the opponents of the Revolution were not Christians. Leading Tories were Deists. The Sovereign God is in the writings of many leaders of the Revolution and is not lacking in Jefferson.… The one letter in his old age to Adams is of a different tone from a score before that date. Jefferson also never joined the Unitarians, as did many anti-Democratic leaders. Nature is used as a synonym for God in writings of that day. Jay’s Toryism was economic, not religious. The majority of men who wrote the Constitution were Deists, even though Tories and Federalists, and not evangelical Christians. There is no Biblical tone in their discussions. Prayer was voted down because Alexander Hamilton said this would be “foreign interference.” It was Franklin who proposed prayer, and it was the reactionaries who did not want God in their constitution. Jefferson and his group had Creator and Providence in their Declaration.… And the Jacksonian movement was primarily based on evangelical frontier concepts, while its opponents were often led by Back Bay Unitarians. It was the mark of a Christian in Massachusetts to be a Democrat during the Unitarian controversy.

Booneville, Miss.

It is true that Thomas Jefferson is credited with having written the Declaration of Independence but it is not true that the promotion of the Revolution should be credited to him, or principally to such as him. He was a ready writer and happened to come into the Second Continental Congress to fill a vacancy at a time that made him available for that writing. The Revolution was principally promoted by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians according to George Bancroft, our principal historian of the Colonial period, and the Revolutionary army was predominantly Presbyterian. These facts (with authorities) are set forth on pp. 54, 67–68, 78–80 of [my] book … Central Themes of American Life.… Two-thirds of the population of the colonies were descendants of Calvinists (p. 54).

Presbyterians were the principal architects of the American form of government (pages 44–68). Alexander Hamilton kept the Presbyterian form of government on his study table while he was engaged as the principal formulator of the American Constitution (pp. 24–25, 56). Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, all had Presbyterian background and training, with consequent Calvinistic philosophy. The Pilgrims were Calvinists with Presbyterian form of church government and of civil government.

Newton, Iowa

DUAL EMPHASIS REQUIRED

I refer to your editorial, June 22 issue, “Beyond Christ’s Cross Stands the Resurrection.” All Christians agree that “the Cross cannot properly be divorced from the Resurrection.” The Roman Catholics agree, and so do we Episcopalians who use the Crucifix, the Christus Rex and the empty Cross.

The other side of the question which you have not stated is that there can be no Resurrection without Good Friday. It was on the Cross that our Lord won the victory. Until we have experienced the events of Holy Week, including the Crucifixion, in our individual and corporate lives, we cannot know the joy of the Resurrection.

The greatest danger in the Church today is not the lack of emphasis upon the Resurrection, which all shades of Christians are willing and anxious to accept, but rather the lack of personal commitment to God in Christ which can come only through a realization of what He has done for us on the Cross of Calvary.…

Holy Cross Chapel and St. Philip’s Chapel

Cumberland, Md.

There seems to be a general reluctance upon the part of evangelical Protestants to face up to the suffering and sacrifice of Our Lord upon the cross. Consequently, for all too many, the Easter glory is suffused with a kind of vapid sentimentality.

In my judgment the crucifix should have a place in every Christian Church. It might serve to remind us of the great price which Our Lord had to pay that we might be redeemed. Before the resurrection there was the dread and awful passion. This is exactly what all too many nominal Protestant Christians seem all too willing to forget or obscure.

No, the Cross isn’t nice. Neither are we. That is why we so dreadfully need a Saviour.

St. Andrew’s Memorial Church

Yonkers, N. Y.

I might mention what I consider a truly complete use of the Cross, as is found in many of our Anglican churches: a rood beam with crucifix at the entrance of the chancel, to symbolize the fact that all, including our Lord, must pass through the gateway of death; the triumphant empty cross carried by the crucifer in the procession, denoting the risen Christ under whose banner we fight against the world, the flesh and the devil; and behind the altar, on reredos or tapestry, the Christus Rex, our Lord arrayed in kingly robes with arms outstretched on the Cross, although his arms now enfold all men rather than suffer.

The Christus Rex is naturally placed in the holy of holies, the sanctuary, where the sacrifice of the Mass, uniting us with eternity, is offered up by the priest: it signifies the final triumph over sin and death and the divine lordship of Christ forever.…

Norman, Okla.

PRAYER AND HEALING

With due respect to Mr. McCrae (Eutychus, May 25 issue) … it is Scripturally right and necessary for us to pray expectantly and hopefully. I found that we must not “pray positively for physical healing with the mental reservation that the sick one may not be physically healed but alternatively taken home to ‘be with the Lord.’ ” Mental reservation means doubt—we give God a “way out” so to speak—and healing cannot be accomplished. We should rather pray fervently for healing only for God’s glory, so believing in the fact of healing that our attitude becomes one of having been already healed, as the woman with the issue of blood (Matt. 9:21). It will very soon then be revealed if it is not to his glory to heal, in which event, if we are recklessly surrendered to his will, his peace and assurance will transcend any disappointment or disillusionment which would be humanly natural.

Riverside, Calif.

The proponents of … the belief in healing by religious means claim in their readily available literature of the past and the present, that sick babies and young children too immature to understand anything that is said to them, respond to a spiritual ministry and are quickly restored to health, provided that their elders steadfastly believe that the Christ Spirit heals today as it did in Biblical times. If that claim is adequately substantiated, not only the long suspected “suggestion theory” would be ruled out but a long step would be taken in confirming the reality and the availability of spiritual healing today. Jesus mentioned the hindrance of unbelief by those closely associated with the sick several times. Moreover some medical men in our own day state that negative attitudes upon the part of relatives and others spiritually close to sick persons exert an adverse effect on the sick.

Surely that … claim is a real challenge to clear thinkers and it deserves meticulous studies by a well qualified group of impartial scientists and religionists in the interest of truth and the common good. The least such a study and inquiry could accomplish would be to stress the importance of mankind observing a highly constructive mental hygiene, that should help us to learn how to think and believe constructively; how to avoid hypertensions, nervous breakdowns and mental illnesses which are so costly to mankind in suffering, time and money.

Columbus, Ohio

THE BIBLE AND HISTORY

Dr. Albright notes … that we can treat the Bible from beginning to end as an authentic document of religious history, and yet he does not accept the early chapters of Genesis as either science, history, or religion as the ordinary man understands the matter. Underneath all his comments on the pre-Abrahamic religion is the evolutionary theory of materialism. The three great events of the early history of man and his religion are the creation of man, the Flood and the Tower of Babel with consequent dispersion. Dr. Albright never discusses these events from a scientific standpoint.… [He] always ignores geophysical data.

Bellaire, Tex.

MOSCOW AND LONDON

Two statements recently made by Billy Graham, concerning certain moral conditions in Britain and also in Moscow, may leave on some the impression that in a Communist country the moral standard is higher than in such a country as Britain. This may lead some to think that Communism has a tremendous moral uplift. It is necessary, therefore, to keep in mind several things.

First, Communism denies moral law and maintains that anything is right if it advances the interest of the Party. (V. I. Lenin, The Task of the Youth Leagues, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing Co., 1953, pp. 20–22.) Second, they believe that their interests are in opposition to our interests and therefore, that their moral code is not only different from ours but in opposition to ours. (Howard Selsam: Philosophy in Revolution, New York: International Publishers, 1957, p. 136.) Third, a dictatorship always exercises greater supervision of the people than does a democracy. Thus, Billy Graham saw some things in a park in London which he did not see in Moscow. Fourth, more than one former Communist has testified that Communist leaders have their pick of the Communist girls when they want them. Fifth, Alfred Geduldig wrote of a section of Soviet youth who are for the most part apolitical. Fie wrote: “For all the officially heralded Socialist virtues, I found that illicit love affairs were common among the stilyagi. Though most Soviet girls would never consider holding hands with a boy in public, several girls told me frankly that they would have no compunction about sleeping with boys they liked.” (The New Leader, June 29, 1959, p. 13.) He also spoke of the increasing alcoholism among the entire younger generations in recent years and further, that in Leningrad several people warned him not to wander through certain sections of the city for fear of the “hoods.” Of course, there are a lot of pagans in Britain and with paganism goes the breakdown of morality. On the other hand, in spite of all the efforts of the Communists there are a lot of very religious people in Russia.

Searcy, Ark.

BEFORE THE FLOOD

In “Life, License and Pursuit of Status” (June 22 issue), your editorial ends with a very pertinent statement about fundamental importance for American destiny. The idea that our generation disregards moral codes and seeks to rationalize immorality and expediency in the interests of materialist unconcern for right or wrong is the natural result of the barring of the Bible from public schools at the nonsensical whims of neurotic, semiilliterate egomaniacs and minority groups of atheistic half-civilized, over-educated, unbalanced human beings whose ancestors were probably monkeys or jackasses. The barring of any mention or reference to Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords in the U. S. Constitution and the U. N. is also contributory to the fact that love of liberty has degenerated into license. Materialist-minded masses, literally illiterate of spiritual and moral values, are not much different from the chaotic mess they had obtained before the flood.

Monmouth, Ill.

EXCUSE OF THE IGNORANT

After reading “Fake Degrees in the Pulpit” (May 11 issue) … which is so excellently done, one wonders how any self-respecting or God-fearing person can stoop to commit such an offense. But as a Bible translator, I am wondering if I have not stumbled onto one possible excuse … of the very ignorant.… For Paul apparently in the King James Version says in 1 Timothy 3:13 …, “They that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree.…”

Pasadena, Calif.

The principal character in this small prophecy is Jonah, son of Amittai. We read of him in 2 Kings 14:25, in which the additional information is given that he was from Gath-hepher, in the territory of Zebulon, known today as Khirbet Ez-Zurra. We learn also that Jonah was a servant of the Lord.

The following will serve as a working analysis of the book.

I. Chapter 1:1–3. Jonah receives a commission from the Lord to go to the great Assyrian city of Nineveh and preach against it. Its wickedness, that is, its idolatry and the practical manifestation of that idolatry in sins moral and social, was well known to God.

Jonah refuses to obey God and thinks that he can escape responsibility by taking a ship bound for Tarshish, a city which was probably located on the North African Coast near modern Tunis.

Chapter 1:4–6. In seeking to flee from the presence of the Lord, Jonah does not hold a view of God as a localized deity. Rather, he acts foolishly and unwisely as does every sinner who seeks to flee responsibility. No man can flee from God. The Lord hurls a great wind into the Mediterranean sea, and causes so great a storm that the ship is at the point of breaking. The sailors do not know the origin of the storm, and in their fear, each cries to his god. Although the ship is Phoenician, the sailors are of different backgrounds. Seeking practical means to remedy the situation, they cast overboard the ship’s rigging and cargo. By prayer and by action they seek for an alleviation of their condition. Jonah is lying in deep sleep in the lower deck. The captain cannot bear such indifference, rebukes Jonah, and commands him to call upon his god in the hope that Jonah’s God might keep them from perishing.

Chapter 1:7–16. The sailors believe that such a great storm has arisen only because someone on the ship has done something wicked. To discover who this is, they cast lots and Jonah is indicated. They question Jonah, and he frankly tells them that he is running away from the Lord, “the God of heaven which made the sea and the dry land.” What a tragic witness Jonah is to superstitious sailors! He claims that he believes in God, the Creator, but says that he is running away from that God.

What should the sailors do? Jonah knows that he cannot escape God. Because of him the storm has come, and if the sea is to be calm upon them, they must cast Jonah into the sea. This they seek to avoid, even to the point of calling upon the Lord, the God of Jonah, and rowing hard to bring the ship to shore. It is all in vain, however. When they cast Jonah overboard the storm is abated, and the sailors, deeply impressed by what has transpired, offer a sacrifice to the Lord who can do such wondrous things.

II. Chapter 2:1. Having been thrown into the sea, Jonah could look forward only to drowning, but the Lord, from whom he had sought to flee, has appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and in that fish he remains alive three days.

Chapter 2:2–10. From inside the fish Jonah prays in gratitude for the deliverance of his life. He remembers how close an escape he has had. He nearly drowned, but God has rescued him, and hence he would sacrifice with thanksgiving. His heart bursts forth in a triumphant cry, “Salvation is of the Lord.” Then the great fish, under God’s control, spues Jonah out upon the dry land.

III. Chapter 3:1–4. Again the command comes to Jonah to go to Nineveh and this time he obeys. Nineveh was an extremely large city, a fact that is emphasized by the words, “of three days’ journey.” The precise significance of this phrase is difficult to determine; possibly it implies that three days would be required to visit the principal places in the different quarters of the city. The actual ruins of Nineveh have a circumference of about seven and a half miles. But the description most likely includes not only Nineveh proper but the whole complex mentioned in Genesis 10:12, which would have had a far greater circumference. Entering the city, Jonah begins his message of doom.

Chapter3:5–10. Jonah’s mission is crowned with success. The men who hear believe God, and to show their sincerity, they proclaim a fast and wear sackcloth, rough cloth of goat’s hair. Even the king joins in repentance and proclaims that both man and beast must give the outward sign of repentance by wearing sackcloth. God sees the repentance and so repents of his decision to destroy Nineveh.

IV. Chapter 4:1–4. Instead of rejoicing at Nineveh’s repentance Jonah is displeased. Indeed, he is willing to die and prays to God to take away his life.

Chapter 4:5–11. Jonah, having preached, builds for himself east of the city a small cover of foliage for protection against the hot sun. God then seeks to teach him a lesson. A gourd, prepared by God, grows so that it becomes a shadow of protection. But a worm attacks the gourd so that it withers and Jonah is deprived of its shadow. Exposed to the elements he is again ready to die. Then God teaches his prophet the lesson. If Jonah can have pity on the gourd, which has cost him nothing, should not God have pity on Nineveh in which dwelt so many people that were as helpless as children, as well as cattle?

The Unity Of The Book

There are a number of questions which must be considered if one is to understand properly this remarkable work. Some scholars believe that the song of deliverance contained in the second chapter is not an integral part of the book but that it was added later. The contents of the psalm, so it is alleged, do not fit the context.

In reply it should be noted that if the contents really do not fit the context, it is strange that an editor should have inserted the psalm at this point. On closer examination, however, we note that the psalm does agree with its context. It is not a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from the belly of the fish but of deliverance from drowning. What a wealth of terms Jonah employs to describe the deep; he speaks of the belly of Sheol, the deep, in the midst of the seas, the floods, the billows, the waves, the waters, the depth, the weeds, the bottoms of the mountains, and the earth with her bars.

If we remove this beautiful psalm, the symmetry of the book is destroyed. As it stands, the psalm, when properly interpreted, yields a good sense and joins together the two halves of the book. As it stands Jonah is a literary unity.

How Shall We Interpret Jonah?

If the book is a literary unity, we are faced with a further question: what kind of book is Jonah? Are we dealing with fiction or with fact? Does the book record events which actually took place or are we dealing with a work of legend or fiction designed to teach a lesson?

As we read the book we note that it does not bear the remarks of a parable. The parables of Scripture are usually rather short and to the point, whereas such is not the case here. When Scripture presents a parable it does so for the purpose of teaching a particular truth. An application or lesson is usually drawn from the parable. To take but one example, when Nathan had told David the story of the ewe-lamb (2 Sam. 12:1–6) he immediately applied the story to David and preached to him. Nothing similar is found in the book of Jonah. No moral is given; no application is made. The whole is told as a straightforward narrative and we are left to draw our own conclusions.

The book purports to tell us of something that actually happened, and were it not for the miracle recorded, it is not likely that anyone would question whether the book recorded historical fact. The earmarks of straightforward narrative are at hand, and the presence of the book in Holy Scripture rules out the view that it is mere romance. What settles the question, however, is the usage which Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, makes of Jonah. Our Lord referred to the miracle of Jonah’s being in the fish, to the preaching of Jonah, and to the repentance of the Ninevites as historical facts (cf. Matt. 12:39–41; Luke 11:32). Here is the voice of infallible authority speaking. Jesus Christ says that the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah, and for a Christian there can be no greater authority.

But may we thus appeal to the New Testament for information on Old Testament questions? There are those today who say that such a procedure does not represent true scholarship. If, however, the New Testament is the Word of God, we must turn to it and listen to it whenever it speaks.

The Miracle Of The Fish

There may be readers who will acknowledge readily that Jonah is a literary unit and that it has the earmarks of straightforward history, but who will refuse to believe that Jonah could have been swallowed by a great fish and kept alive therein for three days. There are extant accounts of sailors who have been swallowed by fish and have survived the ordeal. Hence, we are told that the happening with Jonah was physically possible.

But if we have no stronger argument than that, our case is weak indeed. We are told that the Lord had appointed the great fish to swallow Jonah. Within the fish Jonah is not unconscious, but prays in language of beauty, largely derived from the Psalms. And when he is spued out, he is not affected by the fish’s gastric juices so that he no longer resembles a normal man, but is ready to receive a second commission to go to Nineveh and undertake that commission.

All of this points to the fact that we have here the account of a miracle. But can we today believe in miracles? Has not science showed us that miracles are impossible? Or has science told us that in this world where anything can happen there may be a place for miracles? It will be well to ask what a miracle is.

First of all we may note that a miracle is wrought by the supernatural power of God. Much of our difficulties with miracles would vanish if we thought of God as we should. He has all power, even to command the fish of the sea to do his bidding. If God could not perform the miracle of the fish, recorded in Jonah, he would not be omnipotent and hence not worthy of our trust. Satan cannot perform a true miracle, but only lying wonders.

A miracle is not just a display of power, but is intended as a sign or attestation of God’s redemptive plan. In the miracle recorded in Jonah, there was didactic purpose which we shall discuss later. Miracles themselves were a part of redemptive revelation. Through them, the true God of heaven and earth manifested his superiority over the gods of the nations and his full control over his creation.

Repentance

The word repentance occurs in Jonah in two different contexts. In one instance (3:10) it is said that God repented over the evil he had purposed against Nineveh. One who studies the Scriptures will realize that this description does not suggest that God actually changed his mind. We may call to mind Numbers 23:19: “God is no man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent.” We have rather to do with a strong, anthropomorphic expression which, spoken as men speak of one another, makes clear that God withheld judgment from Nineveh.

What, however, should be said about Nineveh’s repentance? Was it genuine? It is probably safe to say that Nineveh’s repentance was not real in the sense of that true repentance given by the Holy Spirit. Nineveh’s repentance is said to have extended even to the beasts. What is meant is probably that there was to an extent a determination to cease from evil ways, such as those recorded of Ahab (1 Kings 21:27–29). Whatever it was, at least Nineveh’s repentance was evidence that God was restraining the power of sin to such an extent that he withheld judgment.

The Purpose Of The Book

If the book is not a parable nor an allegory, but history, what is its purpose? To answer this question, we must consider its place in the history of redemptive revelation. Jonah was a type of Jesus Christ, and was sent to a great nation to preach repentance. He must first learn that he must be in the belly of the fish for three days. If Nineveh is to have life, Jonah must have “death,” represented by his experience. Our Lord thus applied the passage to himself. “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40).

The book of Jonah fits in well with Israel’s history. Because of her sin Israel must be punished, and that punishment God would bring about through an enemy. In order that the enemy may be preserved to carry out its divinely given task, it too must repent. Jonah’s preaching, while it was a rebuke to Israel, also caused the enemy to repent and thus the enemy was preserved. How powerful too was the Word of God among the heathen, and how good God is seen to be in his attitude toward them.

There are secondary lessons. The truth of God is not narrow and nationalistic, but must be preached to those who deserve it not wherever they are. But if men are to be saved, there must be death, even the death of the Son of God. The typical experience of Jonah could not save Nineveh, but the actual death of the eternal Son of God could and does save sinners. God is a God of mercy and extends his mercy widely. He desires not that any should perish, but his saving grace he extends only to those for whom Christ has died.

Literature

Of particular usefulness is a small pamphlet by G. Ch. Aalders: The Problem of the Book of Jonah, 1948, Tyndale Press, London. Another article of great value is that by Robert Dick Wilson: The Authenticity of Jonah, Princeton Theological Review, 1918, pp. 280–298; 430–456. The commentaries of Pusey and Keil are very helpful. In the Introduction to the Old Testament, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1949, the present writer has listed some of the recent literature.

EDWARD J. YOUNG

Professor of Old Testament

Westminster Theological Seminary

Now we must ask: Is it possible to accept the Mark-hypothesis and maintain nonetheless that Matthew is to be considered a genuine and authentic work of the Apostle Matthew? The writer of the essay, “More Light on the Synoptics,” thinks so. He holds that it is not necessary to regard Matthew as unauthentic, even if we accept the theory of Mark’s priority. We heartily sympathize with his desire to defend the genuineness of our first Gospel. But to take his position is not so easy as he seems to think.

He accepts the Mark-theory. He asks, then, if that theory forces him to abandon belief in the authenticity of Matthew. He sees no compelling reason for doing so. And so he affirms both that the Mark-theory is true and also that Matthew is genuine. He thinks this position is unassailable, and implies that to hold that Matthew is unauthentic would be to draw an illogical and unnecessary conclusion.

But when we study the history of the development and triumph of the Mark-theory, we find that leading advocates originally proved it by assuming, as already proved, and as part of their proof of it, that Matthew was unauthentic and unapostolic. And even their opponents, who assumed Matthew had been written first, regarded it as unauthentic and non-apostolic. So that it is, ordinarily, not a question of whether now we are willing to abandon ship. The ship was abandoned long ago. In fact, it was abandoned before the grandfather of the writer of “More Light” was born. And therefore, unless someone comes up with a new and convincing proof of the Mark-hypothesis, a proof differing from the ordinary and the historical one, has he a right to presume that the Mark-theory does not compel him to deny the genuineness of Matthew? For the fact of the matter is that accepting the Mark-hypothesis means, ordinarily, that one accepts the common versions of the proof for it, including the preproved unauthenticity of Matthew. And this may, or it may not, apply to the writer of “More Light,” but one thing I know: many scholars, in this matter, are managing with consummate adroitness and amazing finesse not to let their left hand know what their right hand has done.

But we must recall an additional factor in answering the writer of “More Light.” The critical view today in vogue is not simply the Mark-theory. It consists of that theory plus the “Q”-theory, and perhaps plus a few other theories as well. This means that our canonical Matthew is thought to have been put together out of several documents. Most of its narratives came from Mark on the modern view. If the modern view is held to be right, then we are committed to belief in a process of mangling, chopping, and random supplementing involved in the belief that Mark’s narratives have been reworked so as to produce an impoverished version of them in Matthew. As to the second document (“Q”), we do not even know that it was a document, nor do we know its contents, its arrangement, its purpose, its original language, its author, and so on. As to this second source (and any others), all is guesswork. And hence it is at least intelligible that critical opinion should, under such conditions as these, drop any contention for Matthew’s genuineness and authenticity. In the present writer’s opinion, it is distinctly a credit to their intelligence that they do so.

While, on the other hand, to face facts of this kind of redaction in Matthew and the anonymity and fog-shrouded indefiniteness of “Q” and other sources, and then to try to reaffirm Matthew’s genuineness with a mere array of “may-have-beens” and “could-have-beens” in an unevidenced and purely imaginary reconstruction of “history,” however plausible—this is to take up a very weak and unenviable position. What is required is a vindication of Matthew’s genuineness and authenticity. The greatest single step towards a real rehabilitation and vindication of Matthew would be to get it reinstated in its rightful place as the earliest Gospel. And this can be done without pushing Mark (with its rich supplements) or Luke into the background, and without in any way impugning their genuineness, authenticity, and semi-apostolic authority. But “may-have-beens” and “could-have-beens” are in their very nature weak. They show nothing. They do but cover the absence of evidence and the dearth of probability with a spider’s web of special pleading.

There is, moreover, a further weakness in the special instance of the “may-have-been” apologetic we meet in “More Light.” I may be wrong, and if so, I will cheerfully furnish suitable public retractions, but I have never seen or heard of any external evidence connecting Matthew with Antioch. Everything I have been able to collect on the subject says Matthew (was first written and) was written in Palestine, or in Judea, or in Jerusalem for Jewish converts to Christianity. Until I am better informed, it helps me little to be simply told that Antioch was the place where Matthew wrote the first Gospel. Imaginary scenery is not the same thing as historical truth. It is most doubtful that the defense of Matthew given in “More Light” will be able to gain any followers except those who wish to defend the fame of the Mark-theory more than they wish to see Matthew vindicated and restored to its ancient place of honor in the canon of Holy Writ.

Independent Attestation

One final word. We know that some at least who read the two previous articles by the present writer (“New Light on the Synoptic Gospels”) drew the conclusion that he was contending for totally independent origination of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Not so. Independent origination is one thing. Independent attestation, authentication, validation, is a very different thing. The wording in “New Light” was carefully designed to assert independent validation and not to rule out literary dependence:

Moreover, a way seemed clearly to be opening up, and that a genuinely scholarly and scientific way, whereby the Gospels might be reinstated as authentic compositions of Matthew (the publican), Mark (Peter’s interpreter), and Luke (Paul’s companion): reliable, primary, historical sources; three independently attested accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds.

And again:

Why rule out the possibility of kinds and degrees of interdependence [Note: “interdependence” not “independence”] which would not require a denial of the authenticity of the Gospels—that is, which would acknowledge the Gospels as three sufficiently independent, and therefore independently attested and authenticated accounts of Jesus’ works and words by the real Matthew, Mark, and Luke?

The stress is not on literary independence; indeed, literary dependence is acknowledged by implication. The stress is on independence in attestation. And therefore, the present writer can agree in principle (but not in detail) with most of what is asserted in “More Light” about a common core of tradition, and about a common selection of materials. There was such a core. “New Light” implies that it could easily have come from an Aramaic Matthew in the first instance. But this common core of tradition and common selection of materials only show some kind of literary dependence. They have no force at all, in themselves, for showing whether Matthew or Mark came first. The articles entitled “New Light” did not aim to gun down all forms of literary dependence. They did aim to gun down one special kind of literary dependence in the case of two specified books, namely, Matthew and Mark. The present writer has no intention of giving up these facts of literary connection. For they are dynamite and in a very simple way (which everyone should have thought of, but apparently no one has thought of) they may be used, God willing, to reinstate the first three Gospels in positions the critics would think it no longer possible for them to occupy. And in all this, let the reader be advised, the present writer’s views have not come to light. In “New Light” and in the present reply to “More Light” we have stated propositions which we think cannot be overthrown, but which we think overthrow views in vogue today. In other words, our aim has been to clear the ground. Laying a new foundation is another business. It must wait for another day.

END

Preacher In The Red

WHO IS WHO?

PASTORS SMITH, JONES, HAUGEN, AND I lived in different cities. Each of them knew me, but I falsely assumed they knew one another. When Smith called me and invited me to go with him in his car to a state ministerial conference, I consented gladly. Shortly thereafter, I invited Jones to go with us, but did not think it necessary to notify Smith. Smith meantime telephoned Haugen, whom he knew only by name, and they decided that Haugen would drive his car instead of Smith. Smith, of course, did not think it necessary to notify me of this change.

On the day appointed, Jones and I “bummed” a ride to Seattle for our rendezvous with Smith at the Greyhound depot. When Smith arrived, he assumed that Jones must be Haugen, and said, “Well, we’re all here.” (Addressing Jones) “Where’s your car?” Jones looked startled and replied, “Nobody told me to bring my car.” Smith answered, “But it was our understanding that you would drive your car.” I interrupted, “Smith, you joker, you’re kidding, aren’t you! You told me YOU were going to drive.” Smith replied with earnest sincerity, “No, I’m not kidding.” (Nodding at Jones), “I really expected him to bring his car!” I stared at Smith. Smith looked at his toes. Jones looked first at Smith and then at me as if trying to decide whether we had snapped a mental cable. Just then Haugen breezed in, spotted me, and said, “Hi fellows. Sorry I’m late. Get your bags and let’s go!”—The Rev. WILLIAM C. HUNTER, First Baptist Church, Puyallup, Washington.

John H. Ludlum, Jr., here continues his examination of the critical view that Mark is first of our canonical Gospels.

“… creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:19, RSV).

These are cosmic terms that St. Paul uses in the eighth chapter of the book of Romans. He sees manifold aspects of a cosmic disorder and then rejoices in the certainty of a glorious cosmic hope. Central to his whole thought is the key position of man in relation both to the disorder in the cosmos and to the hope which is set before us; for men are organically related to the whole natural order.

The cosmic disorder is a compound of frustration, corruption, and pain, and it penetrates to every branch of creation. In the human part of creation, there are “the sufferings of this present time”; in the animal and inanimate creation there is subjection to “futility” or frustration and “the bondage of corruption,” and there is “groaning and travailing in pain” everywhere in the physical world, not excluding that part of it represented by the bodies of Christians. Everywhere there is need of redemption.

This revelational light on creation’s insecurities has its counterpart in the scientifically observable facts of the physical universe and in the recurring element of decay in the story of men and nations. Physicists have given us the term “entropy” for the running down of the cosmic clock or “the measure of the unavailable energy in a thermodynamic system” (Webster’s dictionary). According to the second law of thermodynamics the random element in the physical universe has a constant tendency to increase. Then too there is instability in the atomic structure of some elements; and the principle of indeterminacy has been shown to be an integral aspect of the microscopic universe.

Just how much of the knowledge derived from scientific investigation of the physical universe is indicative of an element of disorder in the cosmos, and how much is a discovery of a fraction of the mystery behind the creation, man cannot determine. But concerning man’s everyday experiences in his contacts with animate and inanimate nature there is no doubt in our minds as to the actual mixture existing of a basically good creation with a certain degree of unhappy irregularity. The gardener can be frustrated by pests, the traveller can be discouraged by poisonous plants, mosquitoes, or wild animals, and in the ordinary business of living we are subject to tiredness, decay, and eventually death.

Effect Of The Fall

St. Paul is quite clear as to his own belief that the original germ of disorder and loss in the cosmos is to be traced to the fall of man and to the course which God permitted nature to develop as the aftermath of that fall: “cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you.… In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread …” (Gen. 3:17–19, RSV). The apostle sees man, with all his high potentialities and destiny, as having a solidarity with the rest of the created universe. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Clearly something tragic has happened to the highest or spiritual part of creation. With the rebellion of man against God, there has entered into the story of the universe not only the fact of sin and the tendency to sin in the human race, but also as a consequence of man’s spiritual and moral declension, a corresponding and, as it were, a sympathetic disorder in the whole physical and material universe—man’s environment. As St. Paul puts it: “creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope” (RSV).

In the loving wisdom of our Creator, man was made a free spirit “in the image of God.” God took the risk of leaving the way open for man to take the irrational line of using freedom to rebel against Him and bringing disorder into the warp and woof of the cosmic situation. But only by taking this risk could the highest blessings of creation be made possible. In order to produce a fellowship of men and women who would gladly and freely use their God-like capacities in love and service to God and to one another in God, it was necessary that these same human ‘lords of creation’ be free to experiment with a line of behavior rebellious toward God, inimical toward the rest of creation, or destructive of man’s true self. Love that is not freely, given is not love. Goodness is not goodness that is automatic. So in order to experience the gracious gift of God’s highest and best, the road had to be left open for descent to the lowest and worst. The story of human sin and misery is the story of man’s taking that road despite the clear warning posted at its entrance: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

The lower orders of creation are involved unwillingly in this sad tale. The animal kingdom has suffered and in many parts of the world still suffers because of the unregenerate hardness of man’s heart. Animals have been treated as if they had no feelings, and as if their suffering pain by careless or cruel handling was of no account. Being dumb creatures they have had no recourse but to endure what man appoints. When man behaves as one made “in the image of God,” then the lot of animals is a happy one. But where man’s fallenness is in the ascendant, then animals “groan and travail in pain” waiting for the promised new day when Paradise shall be restored, when man, converted in the spirit of his mind and fully redeemed, shall make possible again the enjoyment by creation of its raison d’être in the whole divine scheme of things.

The Restoration Of Man

So it is that St. Paul shows us how the restoration of man to his proper dignity of a God-like leadership in the created universe is the sine-qua-non of the experience of fulfillment in creation as a whole. Creation therefore is pictured as “straining its neck,” as eager spectators do at an exciting and dramatic competition on the race track, and waiting for the final success of the human experiment, “the manifestation of the sons of God” who, having found and responded to Christ their Redeemer, have also gladly accepted their saving role within their whole creaturely environment and have permitted the blessed answer of God to creation’s cry of pain in a complete remaking of heaven and earth, and the beginning of those promised blessings which “pass man’s understanding.”

The preredemption plight of creation is a temporary one. Hope for the cosmos is here already because the redemptive process is on. The appearance has already begun to be manifested of “the sons of God.” The crucial event has taken place which made both that and the cosmic hope possible. The divine initiative for man’s salvation has happened at a definite and strategic point of human history. The fulfillment of the purpose behind creation now begins to take shape. Now we can begin to expect to see the dissolution of the forces of corruption to which creation has been in bondage on account of man’s fallen condition. New and unheard-of potentialities of things created can be seen on the horizon, in proportion as the corrupted and corrupting element in man is dealt with redemptively. A lost world can become a paradise beyond man’s highest imaginations through the miracle of his spiritual remaking. This miracle takes place in the central citadel of a man’s personality through the application there of the saving grace in the cosmically redemptive victory won by Christ on the Cross and by his Resurrection.

The Key To The Cosmic

So it is again that the human situation is the key to the cosmic. St. Paul speaks of a group of people having the “firstfruits of the Spirit”—as the redemptive nucleus for the whole cosmos. These people share in “the sufferings of this present time.” But they are not submerged by them. Indeed they not only enjoy for themselves the grace of buoyancy, but they serve as distributors to the world of the one optimism which never deludes—the optimism that is based solidly on the cosmic redemption already accomplished at history’s crucial center by the one Person completely qualified for that mighty act. Within Christians there is enough dynamism of hope to spread by chain-reaction to the whole cosmos. Because of “the glory that shall be revealed” in Christians, the whole creation reaches out in eager anticipation of its own redemption and of the blessed fulfillment of a destiny undiscoverable by telescope, microscope, or mathematics but already assigned to it by the omniscient and omnipotent God of all grace.

The presence of Christians in the world therefore acts as a perpetual witness that eternity is an abiding reality which stands over against the changes of time and is not merely the consummation at the end of time. By the mercy of God, Christians are enabled to transmute things temporal so that they serve as the main material for them of things eternal. They can do this because they already “have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” and thus things eternal are already in a measure part of their temporal experience.

At the same time Christians are not exempt from “the sufferings of this present time.” St. Paul says that “we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The sufferings of Christians, patiently borne, have healthy repercussions on the world, for the world catches therefrom a flash of insight into the hope that lies before us. While external decay is a reminder of the internal corruption which was responsible for it, so spiritual triumph reminds those who see it of the redemption that is ahead for the body itself. The redemption of the body is the final victory over sin and its fruits and the glorious achievement of true destiny: it is the final consummation beyond history of Christ’s saving work by the Cross, and in some sense we may anticipate the whole cosmos, transformed and transfigured, to have a share in this expected “glory.”

The Great Consummation

The redemptive conclusion is in sight. The key to the situation on its human side is the attitude of the redemptive nucleus—the “glorious liberty” among Christian people to yield a free and happy self-surrender to God’s service, and to reproduce Christ’s character and love in every segment of their environment.

While then we wait with confidence for the ultimate consummation to come in God’s time and way, the faithful use of our stewardship as having “the firstfruits of the Spirit” already has universe-wide repercussions. One of the miracles of Christian “other-worldliness” is that it is the strongest factor in improving the statistics of the world’s hope—even in that part of the world which tends to limit its horizons to material and temporal values. By making our time serve the constructive purposes of eternity, that is, by so passing through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal, we are far from being spiritually selfish, for we are choosing a course which is as beneficial to the world now and in this time as it is preparatory to a final redemption of cosmic proportions.

END

Teach Us to Pray

By the waters of Babylon we sat down to weep;

Why should our unstrung hearts their measure keep?

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

Drop, slow tears, till the swollen river rise

Spewing sand of Babylon out of my eyes,

And the faith-distressing image of its town

From the smooth surface slip, dissolve and drown.

Undertow of memory plucks me, saying, “Come,

See through salt dimness the wavering shore of home;

(Rest for thy weary limbs, peace after war,

Now a fair tide can carry thee far);

Or seek no landfall, where quiet lies deep,

Breasting the long-limbed swells in sleep.”

Drop, slow tears: such courses are

Still deviation from the pure soul of prayer.

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in our own land?

JOHN TERRY

John W. Duddington is Episcopal chaplain at Stanford University. From 1928–48 he was an Anglican missionary to China. He came to America in 1950, serving Episcopal parishes in California and Manila before going to Stanford University.