That I should devote a page of Current Religious Thought to the subject of traffic needs explanation, and the fact that it needs explanation needs explanation. In the first place, my devoting the page to this subject needs explanation, so I feel, because the matter seems to be neither especially current, especially religious, or especially of the nature of thought. That that explanation needs explanation is because traffic really is current, religious, and of the nature of thought; therefore, it is surprising that anyone should think it necessary to apologize for treating this subject under the heading of current religious thought. But I think that my attitude, which I am here criticizing, is rather common and therefore significant. If it is as common as I think that it is, then the shallowness of our thinking is revealed in our thinking that this subject is shallow.

To show how common this attitude actually is let me relate an experience. Not too long ago in the company of some learned men a moral issue—an obviously moral issue—was being discussed. One member of this company, in the context of discussing that particular moral issue, took occasion to appeal to an analogy in the area of behavior, or rather, misbehavior, on the highways. Immediately another member of this learned company protested the irrelevancy of the remark on the ground that the analogy had to do with traffic and that had nothing to do with morals.

The first topic that comes to mind is religion and speed. Can one conclude from the miles per hour that a driver is a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Christian Scientist, a Romanist, or a pagan? Unfortunately, no. Alas for the vast majority, the Bible and speed limits have no relation to each other. There was a time when the minister we know best of any would regularly drive 70 miles an hour to conduct a prayer meeting or communion. Frequently when we rose to preach on the duty of keeping the law, we would have broken the law of the road in order to reach the pulpit. Many people who knew us only before our reform will be saying: Aha, look who is talking on the sin of speeding! For years we, who would not think of cheating in an exam or on an income tax return, would defy any speed limit if we saw no trooper behind a clump of trees or in our mirror (which we used to watch conscientiously). This is a confession, you are right. It was years before we broke under the relentless logic of Romans 13: if the powers that be are to be obeyed for God’s sake, and the powers that be make traffic regulations, then their regulations are to be obeyed for God’s sake. Now, since I have been enlightened, I could not be a Christian and drive 70 on a highway in Pennsylvania (except in the case of dire emergency for which I could conscientiously request a police escort if that were feasible). This is a confession, all right; but I make it not for myself alone, but for all those sinners who see no correlation between driving and duty. And their name is legion.

It is remarkable how many persons who, as pedestrians, are quite courteous Christian gentlemen and gentlewomen, but undergo a transformation (not unlike Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) when they get behind a wheel. While they would not think of pushing and shoving on the sidewalk or in a corridor, they do the equivalent of it in a line of cars without batting an eye of their conscience. They tip their hats to ladies on the street and hold the door for elderly folk, but seated in a super eight they are not distinguishers of persons. Polite as the most refined and genteel in the drawing room, they are uncivilized savages when on Route 6.

There was an old Latin saying: in vino veritas—in wine there is truth. Inebriation gives vent to some uninhibited expressions. Is it possible that for many persons driving is a sober man’s alcohol under the influence of which he takes leave of his usual restraints and feels no moral inhibitions? We are reminded of the little boy who once asked his mother why it was that when father drove the car all the “pigs”, “vermin”, “dogs” and “toads” came out on the highway.

Speaking of traffic, consider this well-known slogan: “Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own.” Now the writer of that motto at least recognizes that the matter of driving is a moral matter. He appeals to a basal moral law of self-preservation. He seems to be arguing that we ought to be careful on the roads because we ought to preserve our lives as long as possible. While no one wishes to quarrel with the law of self-preservation or the morality of the same, this bald statement seems to us to be fundamentally nonmoral, if not immoral. To appeal to me to be careful for the sake of me with no consideration whatever given to the possible innocent victim of my otherwise careless driving seems like the crassest hedonism. While there may be nothing wrong in appealing to self-interest as one motive along with and subordinate to others, to appeal to self-interest disregarding all others’ interest seems unethical. Society may be better off if I am a careful driver. But, if I am a careful driver for no other reason than my own preservation, then society owes me no thanks. Somehow I cannot imagine our Lord, if he were in the business of writing highway slogans, penning such a motto. It would be easier for me to imagine him saying: “Drive carefully—the life you save may not only be your own but someone else’s.” Loving your neighbor as well as yourself applies to your fellow driver. The ethics of the Sermon on the Mount apply on the highway as well as elsewhere. Christian morality goes beyond the preservation of self.

But, then I can hear the cynic remark: What an anticlimax that would be. To which I suspect our Lord would say: What an unethical sentiment your remark is. After all, what does it profit a man, even on the highway, if he save his life but lose his soul? And does the immoral person not lose his soul, no matter how effectively he preserves his life—from traffic hazards or whatever?

A minister friend of mine recently put an article in his church bulletin on the morals of highway driving. Apparently there are many who need to be shown the relation between their Christianity and their motoring. How can a person be a Christian in the living room and not on the road? What kind of moral dichotomy is that which permits a man to be a saint behind a desk and a sinner behind a wheel? To be sure, Isaiah was not predicting modern travel when he spoke of a “highway for our God.” But may we not adapt his expression and call for a modern highway for our God? As a matter of fact, must not those who are on Isaiah’s highway, prove it by behaving as a Christian on ours? Is modern driving an irrelevancy in the realm of current religious thought? I think not.

What Is Orthodoxy?

The Case for a New Reformation Theology, by William Hordern (Westminster Press, 1959, 173 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Robert D. Knudsen, Instructor in Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Westminster Press is currently sponsoring an interesting discussion between what it feels are the three major options in Protestant theology. The first volume presents the orthodox position: The Case for Orthodox Theology, by E. J. Carnell. The next volume presents the liberal position: The Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective, by L. H. DeWolf. The volume before us deals with the so-called neo-orthodox or kerygmatic theology. The discussion is the more interesting because the discussants did not know each other’s identity. They were only acquainted with the general plan of the series, and they were left to develop their arguments alone.

William Hordern is well qualified to represent the kerygmatic position. Over a period of years he has been in close contact with it. He is also the author of at least one other book on contemporary theology, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology.

At the center of his treatment is what he considers to be the major contribution of neo-orthodoxy, its idea of revelation. After a short review of the background of the newer theology, he proceeds to a discussion of faith and reason, of the nature of revelation, and of how we can know revelation is revelation. The second part of the book broadly treats the scope of theology under the headings of God, sin, and salvation. After a conclusion, the author presents a short bibliography of writings from the kerygmatic standpoint.

Hordern’s discussion is able. His presentation is clear, to the point, and helpful. There are many things in the book with which the orthodox Christian can agree, at least formally. He ought, for instance, to welcome the author’s emphasis upon the sovereignty of God, the idea that God’s revelation is self-authenticating, and the strong plea for the Reformation emphasis upon a theology of grace. Further, I am also ready with Hordern to ask orthodox theologians, who say that God’s revelation must pass the test at the bar of human reason, whether this demand does not set up a standard which is higher than God himself and does not injure the biblical idea of the sovereignty of God. We can also agree with Hordern that neo-orthodox theology is an attempt to pass between orthodoxy and liberalism. For an orthodox thinker, however, the question must always arise whether such a third position is really possible.

The neo-orthodox theology claims that it is a new reformation theology. In making this claim, however, neo-orthodoxy has sought to drive a wedge between the Reformers and orthodoxy, and center its attack on the theology of the seventeenth century. The Reformers are supposed to have seen the Word of God as a living confrontation; the orthodox are supposed to have corrupted the Reformers’ view by seeing revelation as a communication of information and viewing faith as belief in doctrine. We need not deny that there is some difference between the original Reformers and their seventeenth century followers; however, one who is orthodox feels too much at home with the Reformers to accept the neo-orthodox position concerning them. Our questions increase when we discover that neo-orthodoxy finds such supposed corruption in the Bible itself. Even the late books of the New Testament are supposed to have departed from the biblical view of revelation and are supposed to have overemphasized belief in doctrine. Our misgivings increase even further when we find that this neo-orthodox distinction even invades the authority of Jesus Christ. The orthodox claim that Jesus Christ was infallible is called docetism, the heresy which does not give due place to the humanity and to the historical nature of Christ. Hordern claims that nothing in the Bible is an infallible statement, not even the proposition that God is love; because even this idea is subject to misunderstanding (p. 64).

According to neo-orthodoxy, it is useless to speak of an infallible book, the Bible, which is gradually understood more deeply. Moreover, it is useless to speak of an objective revelation—out there—apart from the one who receives it. According to neo-orthodoxy, revelation is an event, a personal encounter between God and man. It is an event that leaves no canonical teaching behind. It is characteristic of the neo-orthodox theologies that they distinguish sharply between the revelation of a person and the revelation of information. The biblical revelation is supposed to be personal revelation, while orthodoxy is supposed to have corrupted the biblical notion in thinking of revelation as the revelation of information.

Orthodoxy has never claimed that the Bible revelation is simply a revelation of information, or that faith is merely assent to this information. Undoubtedly many persons have confused mere assent to propositions taken from the Bible with true faith. But orthodoxy has always called such assent “historical faith.” This historical faith has always been sharply distinguished from saving faith. While orthodoxy says that revelation is not merely the impartation of information, it must say nevertheless that revelation involves such impartation. In this teaching orthodoxy is in line with the Reformation and with the Bible. We can note an example from the writings of the Apostle Paul, who objected strenuously to the false teachers who had said that the resurrection was past already and had overthrown the faith of some (2 Tim. 2:18). Clearly for Paul faith involved a belief in certain divinely-given information.

To support the neo-orthodox view of the Bible, Hordern uses the illustration of the telescope (p. 70). When one uses a telescope, his attention is not on the telescope itself. The telescope is to see through. Likewise the Bible is to see through, to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Yet, what Hordern is asking us to do is to see the image of God clearly through a telescope with a cracked lens. Perhaps this is not even strong enough. Hordern quotes Barth, that the biblical writers have been at fault in every word (p. 67). The miracle of revelation is that God is able to use the human, incorrect statements of the Bible as a medium of his revelation. Perhaps it would be even truer to say that Hordern expects us to see the image of God clearly through a telescope with no lens at all!

As in his former book, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology, Hordern shows an openness. Even though he rejects orthodoxy, it is for him a live option. Nevertheless, he sees the issue sharply. For him the opposition between neo-orthodoxy and orthodoxy is not a minor one; it is a strife between two basically antagonistic positions. It is not surprising, therefore, that the conservative Christian must with regret set himself against neo-orthodoxy as well as the old modernism. For him neo-orthodoxy appears as a new form of modernism and not as a faithful interpretation of the Reformation theology.

That the conservative must take such a basic stand against neo-orthodoxy does not mean that he cannot benefit from reading such a volume as Hordern has written. Here in a short compass he can gain a clear and fresh insight into this new theology, presented by one who is fully abreast of the current discussions.

ROBERT D. KNUDSEN

Anabaptism Evaluated

The Free Church, by Franklin Hamlin Littell (Starr King Press, Boston, 1957, 171 pp., $6), is reviewed by Andrew K. Rule of the department of Church History and Apologetics, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

This book is a vigorous, often impassioned, plea for the “restitution” to the Church of the “practice of Christian Community,” which is defined as the practice of arriving at “consensus” within the Christian community by recognizing the freedom of all members to participate in discussion, and their obligation to be guided by the result. This, the author maintains, was the basic characteristic of “the Free Church” of Reformation times, which he seems to identify closely, if not exclusively, with the Anabaptist Mennonite movement. The theme and the plea are timely both in view of the recent re-evaluation of Anabaptism and in view of the contemporary stirring among “the laity” in various denominations.

The modern re-evaluation of Anabaptism here finds expression in the separation of “the radicals” and “the spiritualizers” from the main body of left-wing sixteenth century Protestantism, and the identification of Anabaptism with the latter. When this is done, the Anabaptists receive a much more favorable evaluation than was formally characteristic; and this happens with scholars who are not, like the author of this book, crusading Methodists addressing a Mennonite audience. Such a re-evaluation of them is probably just; but care must be taken in the process—and such care is not always taken—to be just to the major Reformers, the Roman Catholic leaders, and the secular rulers of the sixteenth century who saw Anabaptism in a very different light and treated it accordingly. The fact that it has since proved possible, step by step, to grant all the demands of the Anabaptists, without any dire consequences, does not prove that their advocacy of them as “a package deal” was not socially dangerous at that time. Dr. Littell has not sufficiently guarded himself from this historical injustice; and in particular, by lumping Calvin so consistently with the other Reformers, he has failed to discover, in that expression of the Reformation, the highly successful embodiment of free church principles for which he looks, with less success, to the Mennonites.

It is difficult also to find in this book any clear and consistently applied definition, connotative or denotative, of a “Free Church.” One finds it distinguished from the “territorial” church, the “established” church, the “clergy-centered establishments,” from the church of the Reformers, and from “American religion,” but no one of these terms is clearly defined nor are distinctions within them recognized. The thinking here is too much like the pinning on of labels, and some of it sounds like “ranting.” This is a shame, for the author in each case has a good cause and is obviously capable of more factually restrained judgments.

In spite of these criticisms, the reviewer regards this as a useful book. The very points of criticism are useful in stimulating thinking; and the main theme of the book is a challenge to a re-evaluation of the church—something that is vitally necessary in regard to the ecumenical movement.

ANDREW K. RULE

Contemporary Faith

Know Your Faith Series: I Believe in Immortality, by John Sutherland Bonnell (Abingdon, 1958, 83 pp., $1.25), Invitation to Commune, by Charles Ray Goff (88 pp., $1.75), and I Believe in Jesus Christ, by Walter Russell Bowie (69 pp., $1.25), are reviewed by Robert B. Dempsey, Minister of the Congregational Church of Carlisle, Massachusetts.

The first book is excellent and worth its price. Its appealing style will keep one reading to the end.

Bonnell presents the case for immortality convincingly and rightly distinguishes vague ideas about endless existence from the Bible’s rich concept of eternal life. The skeptic is viewed as one whose bleak life has no real anchor in the face of death.

For Bonnell, man has a soul which is incomplete without a body. When this house of clay is laid aside, there is a body waiting for us in a heaven that is nearby and not in distant spaces.

Evangelicals will agree with his presentation of the bodily resurrection of Christ and its meaning for triumphant living.

There are three weaknesses in the book. The author is explicit about Christ’s resurrection but leaves unanswered the question of the believer’s resurrection. Once he hints that the Christ of faith is not the Jesus of history, and thus much of what he says is negated. The greatest weakness is his failure to link significantly eternal life with the Atonement.

The second book is a devotional study on the Methodist communion liturgy and proper attitudes for a profitable participation in the Lord’s Supper. All will agree with the author that certain attitudes are essential. Two of these are provocatively expressed. Goff is best in his chapters on repentance and comfort. Those on love, faith, consecration, and confession are less effective. The chapter on reconciliation is undercut by the assumption of universalism that appears in the book.

Although he seeks to avoid the weaknesses of liberalism, Goff does not escape one of the most serious of these. His approach to communion is subjectivistic, with ultimately no right and wrong in its observance. It is repeatedly called the Way of Wonder, and its mystical qualities are emphasized. The worship aspects are completely in the realm of emotion and lacking in necessary doctrinal content. References to such topics as the Atonement and propitiation are unsatisfactory.

Of the three books, this last is the least rewarding. Bowie rightly presents a Christ whose life and principles possessed a certain sternness, but who was nonetheless gentle. While his insights into the humanity of Jesus present him as a figure of virility and strength with a zest for life and nature, there is little appreciation for the person and work of Christ. Death for his teachings was merely something he suspected would happen early in his ministry. However, he faced the tragedy bravely, and died the martyr’s death.

Bowie seeks to raise the Cross above meaninglessness, but does not succeed. A sense of sin comes not from the Substitute under the judgment of God but from the wickedness of His slayers. Love is not in the reconciliation through the blood but in the willingness of Christ to die so that men might have an ideal. The victory of the Cross was not over death but in “the great moral triumph of the great soul which had gone straight into the darkness of death without surrendering” (p. 53).

The author’s treatment of Christ’s resurrection and deity leave a great deal to be desired.

ROBERT B. DEMPSEY

Courage Of Conviction

Thomas Ken: Bishop and Non-Juror, by H. A. L. Rice (Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, London, 230 pp., 25s), is reviewed by G. C. B. Davies, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Trinity College, Dublin.

Few occupants of the English episcopal bench are more worthy of the adjective “saintly” than the subject of this book, Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Though the troublous times in which Ken lived form a necessary background to his life and work, we scarcely ever find them ruffling the serenity of his mind, so clear was his vision of the things unseen and eternal.

Yet we are not to imagine that Ken was spared personal concern with the trials which oppressed England during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Chaplain to the Princess Anne at the Hague, to King Charles II, and to the naval expedition of 1683 concerned with the demolition of Tangier; on the scaffold with Monmouth; making efforts to better the lot of the wretched rebels suffering under the ruthless Kirke and Jeffreys; one of the seven bishops in the Tower—Ken spent himself in the conscientious discharge of his priestly and episcopal duties. But with the arrival of “Dutch Williams” (to whom the author is scarcely fair), Ken’s implacable conscience forbad him to take an oath of allegiance to a de facto sovereign in the lifetime of another to whom he had previously sworn fealty in virtually the same words. On this point Ken was quite clear, despite the urgent persuasions of some of his friends.

In 1691 he was deprived of his bishopric, together with eight other bishops, all convinced of the same moral duty. Because of this, a great spiritual force departed from the church leaving open the field to those Latitudinarian influences which so sorely weakened her moral prestige in the ensuing century. For the last 20 years of his life, Ken found sanctuary at Longleat, the magnificent mansion between Frome and Warminster, home of his friend Lord Weymouth, and now the residence of the Marquess of Bath. To occupy his mind in retirement, he wrote verse of no outstanding merit, though his morning and evening hymns are familiar to many. Shortly before his death he ceded his bishopric to his friend of university days, George Hooper, in whose safe hands he was confident to leave his beloved flock.

We are indebted to the author for this finely written study which was obviously a labor of love. Mr. Rice at times makes little secret of his own sympathies. When pointing a moral from the days of Ken to our own times, he castigates the “pale pink intellectuals of a State-pampered age,” and ruefully comments that today Sabbath worship is “a mild and comparatively rare eccentricity.” Though bringing to light no new material, Mr. Rice has done well to set once more before us a figure to whom principle was all and expediency nothing. His verdict on Ken and the Non-Jurors carries a lesson of lasting significance. “However mistaken the twentieth century may adjudge to be the motives which led the Non-Jurors into the wilderness of privation, obscurity and neglect, it may well pay the passing tribute of a sigh in deference to men who had the courage of their own convictions and who were prepared to face whatever came their way of hardship, suspicion, and material loss.”

G. C. B. DAVIES

Twice-Born Men

Crusade at the Golden Gate, by Sherwood Eliot Wirt (Harper, 1959, 176 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, Dean of Faculty, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Crusade at the Golden Gate is a fascinating book. One cannot remain untouched as he reads the stirring story of Billy Graham’s Cow Palace Crusade in San Francisco. The spiritual diaries of men and women whose lives were changed reminds one of Twice-Born Men.

The author stands midway between antipodal poles—between those who can see no wrong in Billy Graham and those who can see no good. He realistically evaluates the Cow Palace campaign, and does so against the backdrop of San Francisco’s peculiar inheritance. No wild claims are advanced, no superlatives carelessly dropped. In measured yet moving terms he balances the benefits of the campaign over against the anticipated but unachieved results.

This is undoubtedly the best account of any of the Graham campaigns. Whatever be one’s personal viewpoint, he will not put this book down until he has read the last page. Nor can anyone help but be blessed if he comes to it with an open mind. For it is not really the story of Billy Graham, but of God working through Mr. Graham.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Itinerant Preacher

Seventy Years a Preacher, the Life Story of the Rev. William H. Moser, Ph.D., Militant Methodist Preacher, as told to Chester A. Smith (The Historical Society of the New York Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, Peekskill, N. Y., 1959, 110 pp., published by subscription), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, New York.

Books about preachers have a fascination for other preachers. This one, told briefly and well, is the story of a parson who itinerated a good deal, as Methodist ministers used to do. His duties were mainly in the Hudson valley, and everywhere he went he seems to have made an influence. President Eisenhower, as the title page of this book points out, said, “I like to see militant preachers.” Likely enough, Moser is a man whom Eisenhower would have admired. Interested in social reform, he fought the liquor traffic and Sunday moving pictures. Of a practical turn of mind, he gave some of his attention successfully to debt reduction and fund raising for church improvement. He saved some of his poorer congregations considerable sums by repairing their pipe organs for them. In one community he paved the way for municipal street lighting by installing lights on poles from the downtown area to his church.

Deeply spiritual, Moser conducted numerous revivals, held Wednesday evening prayer meetings, taught indoctrination courses, and led Bible classes. He visited his members faithfully, read the Bible to them, and prayed with them. He preached the Christian faith and life without manuscript and with power. Now, at 89 years of age, he is living in retirement with his wife and son at Ridgewood, New Jersey.

The volume abounds with anecdotes. Once his son, then not yet five years old, insisted on speaking at a prayer meeting. When given permission, he said (for he had listened well): “I have served the Lord for 40 years. Please pray for me that I may be faithful to the end.” One Christmas eve, in the early days of radio, his boys put the earphones of a primitive battery set on his head as he lay in bed. Broadcasting was sporadic in those days; the radio was silent, and Moser fell asleep. Suddenly he awoke in the dark room to hear the thrilling strains of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” The incident made a deep impression on him, and in time, he says, it became more than an impression. “It became a prophecy of the time when I shall fall asleep on earth for the last time, to be awakened by the angel choir in heaven.”

The contents of this book were related to Chester A. Smith, a well-known Methodist layman, himself a preacher and author.

The present volume is commended to all who wish to learn what it was like to be a Methodist pastor in the days of itinerancy, and to all who enjoy perusing the biographies of clergymen.

E. P. SCHULZE

Credo

I Believe in Man, by Frederick Keller Stamm (Abingdon, 1959, 77 pp., $1.50), and I Believe in the Church, by Elmer G. Homrighausen (Abingdon, 1959, 108 pp., $1.50), are reviewed by G. Aiken Taylor, Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, Louisiana.

These two books finish up the “Know Your Faith” series to which Gerald Kennedy, Joseph R. Sizoo and others have contributed. I Believe in Man is an affirmation of man’s innate capacity for good. The author writes of Creation: “… (God) made man well and he endowed him with basic goodness.” To have endowed man with an evil nature, believes Dr. Stamm, would have been to create evil. In other words, if there was a Fall, the author never heard of it. And if he ever read Niebuhr, it was evidently with disapproval. As the dust jacket confides, “Dr. Stamm’s view of man is an optimistic one.” Add to this optimistic view a liberal view of Christ and a psychologist’s view of religious experience and you have this book. The viewpoint is one that died of old age and was given a decent burial long ago.

I Believe in the Church covers a less controversial subject. Very few people of whatever persuasion would find fault as the author argues that Christianity is not a solitary experience; that the Church, the body of Christ, exhibits God’s purpose for man and for history; that the Church is “necessary and integral (?) to God, to the Christian, and to the world.” Dr. Homrighausen writes warmly of these things and of the Holy Spirit who brings to believers the “inner quality” of Pentecost, thus uniting them to Christ and to his community, the Church, until Christ comes again. This book is a refreshing antidote to the other.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Stimulative And Suggestive

Sermon Substance, by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker Book House, 1958, 224 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by H. C. Brown, Jr., Professor of Preaching, Southwestern Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

Sermon Substance, by the author of Jonathan Edwards the Preacher and other books, deals suggestively and creatively with 100 ideas for a year’s preaching ministry.

In his introduction the author gives the clue to the purpose for his book: “The task of sermon preparation is a delight when the busy pastor knows what to prepare. But there are days when there is no stirring of the wind, and he feels like a ship becalmed. What then? Is it a denial of faith to lift a top sail in the hope and expectation that the wind will blow again? Here it is that sermon substance has a place of stimulus and suggestion [italics added].”

In the event that the author’s purpose is properly understood and correctly carried out, this book has value. But in the event that the author’s purpose is perverted by “too” busy preachers using the potentially useful substance as a “crutch,” then the book renders a disservice to the ministry. It is hoped that all who read will profit by the author’s lucid thoughts, ideas, illustrations, arrangements, and analyses of Scripture without one preacher resorting to the use of these materials as a substitute for prayer, meditation, study, exegesis, and hard sermonic labors. Let the volume be used to stimulate and to suggest meaningful messages to your mind.

H. C. BROWN, JR.

Nature’S Lessons

Thoughts Afield, by Harold E. Kohn (Eerdmans, 1959, 171 pages, 63 drawings, $3.75), is reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby, Chairman, Department of English, Wheaton College.

I usually mark up rather badly the books which I review, but in this instance I refrained. The book is too lovely. It is hard for me to know which I like best—the charming pen-and-ink drawings, the essays themselves, or the fine general layout of the book.

The author’s method is to describe some colorful aspect of natural life in the woods of northern Michigan and then suggest its moral and spiritual implications. Because he loves nature and really knows valuable things about it, his depiction of it does not become a mere crutch to sermonizing. He is interested in the giant trees of the forest but equally excited about the trillium or even an almost microscopic particle of green called the duckweed. It is interesting to notice that he thinks nature is benevolent and that the preying of one animal on another is wholly free from hatred and therefore without the ferocity which human beings sometimes ascribe to it.

The book is lavish in anecdotes and the sort of remarks one likes to quote. “Take any shadow you please and trace it far enough and you will see that it is the dark side of a bright object, pain being the shadow of our wondrous capacity to feel, mistakes being the dark side of our glorious freedom to make choices.” “Selfishness that is blessed with the name of religion is selfishness still.” “The perfectionist can never enjoy anything on earth completely because the things of earth come with built-in blemishes.” To some people “prayer is a matter of mastering the right vocabulary, learning the magical formula that will assault God at His weakest points and make Him give in to their whims.… Prayer is resting for awhile in God’s greatness.” “Nothing in human experience is more attractive and winsome than a noble thought or emotion in the process of becoming a deed.” “One of the most pitiable sights on the face of the earth is lopsided virtue.” “No king ever made a man a knight. The best a king could do was to recognize the knighthood already present in the man.” There are many other such remarks.

The author is preacher, writer, and artist, and in each capacity does a worthy piece of work.

CLYDE S. KILBY

From the ends of Malaya, 315 missionaries and national workers (about 60 per cent of the Christian leadership) gathered July 7–10 for the All-Malaya Christian Workers Conference sponsored by World Vision, the Malayan Christian Council and the Central Malaya Christian Churches. Although Malaya is one of Asia’s oldest centers of Christian activity, after a century of modern missions its Protestant church membership lags at only 30,000.

Only one in 18,000 is a convert. The deepest problem facing the Christian witness in Malaya was dramatized by the absence from the Port Dickson conference of all Malays, who number more than 3 million of the 6,250,000 population. The religious fate of the Malays was virtually sealed, and Christian penetration ruled out, when the British empire, as a price for its colonial foothold, promised protection of Malay religion and custom, intrinsically Moslem. Although Malaya is in the United Nations, national punishment by fine or imprisonment for distribution of non-Moslem literature precludes signing the UN Declaration of Human Rights which stipulates religious freedom. Moslems dominate the government, and some observers regard their pressures “from the right” politically as potentially explosive in Southeast Asia as communist pressures. Religiously, Malayan Moslemism is not virile, often blending with animism and Hinduism. But it remains politically powerful. Any convert to Christianity would be cut off by family and friends, would be disinherited and his life might be endangered. A foreign missionary baptizing such a convert faces deportation by the government.

Under these circumstances Malayan Christians minister effectively only to the large population of aliens. The 200 Protestant missionaries face 2,300,000 Chinese, 750,000 Indians and Pakistanis, and 95,000 others. Among Chinese, the educated speak Mandarin, but other dialects are also widespread. In religion, they are Confucians, Taoists and Buddhists, although Chinese Christian churches and communities were planted by immigrants at the turn of the century. World Vision discussion groups were caried on in Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien as well as in English, which most Indian workers use as well as their own tongue.

Malaya’s fine network of highways, a heritage from British rule, enabled carloads and busloads of workers to attend from distant parts. Malaya is Methodism’s biggest educational field, and the Methodist Church accounts for 50 per cent of the churches, more than half of which are said to be evangelical. In Wesley Methodist Church of Kuala Lumpur, the Rev. Harry Haines, preaching to the largest congregation in the Malayan Federation (which does not include Singapore) addresses 650 persons Sunday mornings and 350 at night. In the past year his church added 150 converts. The church includes 10 nationalities, and the chairman of its board is the only Japanese permitted to remain in Malaya after World War II. The Anglican church accounts for 20 per cent of Malaya’s churches, with Presbyterians and Plymouth Brethren active among the many smaller efforts. Malayan Christian Council represents 92 per cent of the Christian work in Malaya.

World Vision subsidized the Malayan pastors’ conference with a minimal travel allowance, lodging and food. One Indian worker walked 50 miles to attend, while others borrowed automobiles. To quicken evangelistic passion, evangelical devotion and spiritual unity, among Christian workers, the movement’s leader, Dr. Bob Pierce, brought a team of American and Asian leaders. “We are gathered so God may interfere with our lives,” he said, “and do his sovereign work in us.”

Bishop E. Sobrepena of the Philippines, president of the East Asia Christian Conference, pleaded for a revival of evangelistic dedication by ministers and laymen, and told workers: “We fear most the imperialism or enslavement of sin, and we know that Jesus Christ can make us free.” Dr. Kyung Chik Han of Korea, who led his congregation from North to South Korea ahead of the Communist invasion, and now preaches to 4,000 persons in two Sunday morning services in Seoul, called for a courageous Christian witness in the segment of Asia containing half the world’s population. “Two voices are now calling to these multitudes,” he said. “Both welcome Western science. But one insists that Asian religions are best; it promotes a resurgence of the non-Christian religions. The other, atheistic materialism, declares that all religion is superstition. God has placed the Christian minority in Asia for a courageous testimony to the redemption that is in Christ.”

Dr. Paul Rees stressed the need of stewardship, Dr. Richard Halverson the importance of private devotional life and personal dedication, and Dr. Carl F. H. Henry led morning Bible studies. Dr. William Van Valin, California surgeon, accompanied the party.

As workers dispersed, some to Singapore 180 miles south, others fanning through the Federation from the Strait of Malacca to the South China Sea, they recalled Bishop Sobrepena’s bursting plea to “West and East, North and South, white and brown and yellow and black, to enter with new dedication upon the completion of the Christian task.”

Before separating, workers took up an offering to assist the poorer nationals in Burma in attending a similar conference, after discouraged and lonely students, Bible distributors, pastors and missionaries voiced new-found encouragement for the evangelistic task. Depleted by his Osaka crusade, Dr. Pierce did not continue to Burma with his team.

Three in four members of the Malayan churches are under 25. When older missionaries failed to return after World War II, some began in a new way to sense their own missionary duty. Most of Malaya’s missionary force is today scattered throughout the new villages established by the government when Communist terrorists established mountain strongholds, and reserve workers are lacking. A Malayan missionary crusade may not be in early prospect, but evangelical unity in prayer is widening and the sense of evangelistic urgency is being sharpened.

Oriental Tour

Editor Carl F. H. Henry is on a five-week tour of the Orient with World Vision.

On these adjoining pages are dispatches from the scene in which Henry assesses Christian progress in Japan and Malaya.

In his report on Japan, the Editor discusses reasons why missionaries there have not seen as many conversions as are reported from other mission fields.

The Malaya report tells how the Moslem religion is protected by law and how Christian evangelism is virtually limited to work among the large alien population.

Henry’s itinerary is also taking him to Formosa, the Philippines, Thailand, Burma, and Hong Kong. He is part of a World Vision team which is holding pastors’ conferences at strategic points throughout the Orient. He is due back in the United States August 10.

Foreign Missions

Broadcast Ban

Missionary radio leaders are asking the government of Morocco to reconsider an order to prohibit private broadcasting as of the end of the year. Unless the directive is rescinded, missionary broadcasts from Tangier will be forced off the air. Among stations affected is the Voice of Tangier, which uses three towers to beam 750 Gospel-centered programs a month throughout Europe and the Middle East. Officials of the Voice of Tangier say the station provides for many behind the Iron Curtain the only source of spiritual food.

Report From Ecuador

Ecuador’s Auca Indian tribe continued to demonstrate friendliness toward white missionary women last month.

In June, the Aucas welcomed two new-comers: Mrs. Marjorie Saint, wife of one of five missionary men slain by the Aucas 31/2 years ago, and Miss Mardelle Senseny of the Gospel Missionary Union both spent several days with the jungle tribe. They were led down the trail by Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot and her four-year-old daughter. Mrs. Elliot, wife of another of the martyrs, planned to stay with the tribe for several months.

At the same time, Miss Rachel Saint, sister-in-law to Mrs. Saint, came out of the jungle after four months of studying the Auca language.

Roman Catholics

The Bible And Rome

The first encyclical (letter) of Pope John XXIII is a 10,000-word Latin document punctuated with some 49 biblical references. No new policies are apparent.

Said to be entirely the Pope’s own work, the encyclical covers a range of subjects from theology (“There are quite a number of points which the Catholic Church leaves to the discussion of the theologians”) to television and other mass communication media (“they can be the source of enticement to loose morals”). The Pope pleads for peace, condemns communism, and warns against unemployment. He makes a new overture “to those who are separated from the Apostolic See”: “we lovingly invite you to the unity of the Church.”

The encyclical’s first biblical reference uses Isaiah 11:12 to support an assertion that the Roman church is “set up a standard unto the nations.” (The “standard” is from the Douay; the King James and Revised Standard versions say “ensign.”) In a “concluding exhortation,” he says: “If anyone … has wandered far from the Divine Redeemer because of sins committed, let him return—we entreat him—to the one who is ‘the way, the Truth, and the Life’ (John XIV, 6).”

Church And State

Selecting Sides

Lady Chatterley’s Lover appeared last month to be lining up clergymen in support of Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield who had banned the unexpurgated edition of the book from the mails, while drawing out their criticism of the U. S. Supreme Court, which ruled that a New York state ban on the movie version was unconstitutional.

A U. S. District Court in New York subsequently upset Summerfield’s ban and declared the novel mailable. The Post Office Department was expected to appeal. Summerfield calls Lady Chatterley’s Lover “obscene and filthy.”

The Supreme Court ruling on the movie said the First Amendment to the Constitution “protects advocacy of the opinion that adultery may sometimes be proper.”

A constitutional amendment was subsequently introduced before Congress aimed at overruling the court decision.

The Protestant clergy is believed to be largely in favor of a ban on Lady Chatterley’s Lover, though opinions doubtless are tempered by questions such as these: Will a precedent be established which could lead to undesirable censorship? Should decisions on what constitutes obscenity rest with post office administrators? Is obscenity adequately defined? (For a guide on where to draw the line, see “Demoralization of Youth: Open Germs and Hidden Viruses” in the July 6, 1959 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.) If the public chooses to accept obscenity, should churches—having failed to win support for a voluntary standard of morality-resort to legislation?

In view of questions raised and considering that the unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover has not been widely read, many religious leaders still prefer to address themselves to the problem of obscenity as a whole rather than censuring the novel by name. Nonetheless, a majority probably feel that a sweeping campaign against smut is long overdue.

Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, president of the National Council of Churches, said he “would be interested in cleaning up” literature intended “to arouse the prurient interest.” He urged, however, that “we safeguard ourselves on literature in which mention of sex is incidental.” He said he felt that the courts of the land had made clear a distinction.

Dahlberg spoke only for himself. An NCC spokesman said that its General Board has never taken an official position regarding the current obscene literature problem.

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, secretary for public affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, said “it will be a sorry day for the people of the United States if their government has no recourse but to allow the mails to become the channel of morally infectious literature.”

“It appears that the post office, attempting to protect the moral integrity of our society, has become the victim of a few judicial officials who have a proper regard for freedom of the press but who have lost their bearings in the moral aspects of public welfare,” Taylor added.

The Presidency

President Eisenhower told a news conference last month that “there is no reason” why a Catholic should not be elected to the U. S. presidency. He called it “a perfectly extraneous question.”

As to whether a Catholic could be elected President, Eisenhower said he had no opinion.

A few days later, a similar query was put to Democratic National Chairman Paul M. Butler: Would a Catholic presidential candidate be handicapped because of his religion?

“As a Catholic,” replied Butler, “and one who has been in politics 33 years, I certainly do believe that would be true, sadly enough.”

Ecumenical Movement

Getting Acquainted

“Observers” from the Russian Orthodox Church are expected to attend this month’s meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches on the Greek island of Rhodes. Two representatives from the church’s Moscow Patriarchate recently completed a month-long “get acquainted” visit to WCC headquarters in Geneva. The church originally refused to join the WCC, but leaders are believed to be reconsidering. Leaders of the ecumenical movement may soon announce a new invitation.

Special Report

While Christians planned to observe the centennial of Christian missions in Japan—where Protestant effort has enlisted only one-third of one per cent of the population—the Osaka crusade launched by Dr. Bob Pierce and World Vision emerged as the nation’s spectacular evangelistic development of the year. A July 4 converts’ rally in Festival Hall, a month after the three-week campaign, not only drew hundreds of young converts for additional instruction, but resulted in hundreds of conversions of their friends escorted to the meeting.

Pierce, who had travelled 15,000 miles in preaching missions in the intervening weeks, was greeted by a capacity 4,300 persons and an overflow of 2,500 lining the Dojima River. Almost one in three had not attended a meeting previously. A call for Christian commitment drew 300 seekers indoors and 284 outdoors. “Find a Bible-preaching church,” Pierce urged the converts, “and get to work there.”

The events in Osaka gained drama from the fact that, after a century of missions, Christian results are meager. Of Japan’s 91 million people, crowded into a land area the size of Montana, less than 400,000 are members of Protestant churches. The total membership of all Christian communions is 550,000. Population is growing by one million a year, so that the annual birth rate is virtually double the present Christian population. Thus the Christian percentage dwindles.

The Protestant missionary complement numbers about 1,700. Almost 400 are identified with the United Church of Japan (Kyodan) and the National Christian Council, with a constituency of about 300,000, but the remainder, the great majority, are unaffiliated evangelical missionaries representing more than 100,000 believers. Perhaps as nowhere else these missionaries are concentrated in the two metropolitan areas of Tokyo, where a population now of more than 8,500,000 presumably constitutes the world’s largest city, and Osaka, with about five million inhabitants.

Why Witness Withered

During the past generation, some of the large denominations were prone to turn conservative missionaries to Korea and liberal missionaries to Japan. Many Japanese pulpits were given over to scholarly addresses with little vital contact with the people and life; visitation lagged, and the role of the laity in the churches minimized. Evangelical missionaries, by contrast, were concerned for soul-winning but usually lacked impressive academic credentials. “Japanese missionaries are either educated liberals or uneducated holiness evangelists” ran one cliché, which survives because it mingled overstatement with a certain measure of truth. The evangelicals, moreover, were sadly fragmented; more than 200 shades of evangelical effort compete for Japanese converts.

Buddhism holds some 42,500,000 followers through its 170 sects, with 90,210 temples and 128,763 priests. Shintoism’s two major expressions (Shrine and Sect) have 142 sects, 192,000 priests, 116,000 shrines and 89,250,000 believers. The post-war period has seen the rise of 120 new religions or cults, many being an amalgam of Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism, and Christianity. During General MacArthur’s occupation, large masses responded emotionally to some missionary appeals, but the lasting fruits were meager, and a spiritual vacuum remains in Japanese life. The Japan Bible Society has distributed more than 20 million Bible portions since the war, and estimates that one in five Japanese has read some segment of the Scriptures.

A Frustrating Field

Although evangelical Christianity is the one message that cuts squarely across the inherited religions, missionaries have found Japan a frustrating and discouraging field. The largest congregation in the nation numbers 400; the average is 40 members. The writer drove across Tokyo three times without detecting a single church. Visitors can tour the city for an entire week and never see a church building. The missionary casualty list is high. Atmospheric conditions take a physical toll; the rainy seasons and sudden shift from winter to summer leave many workers suffering from “Japan head.” Strain and overexertion compound physical with mental pressures, and there are ten mental breakdowns to one physical, with dedicated wives not unfrequently suffering nervous and physical disorders. One of the frustrations is the difficulty of language learning. Some missionaries have come and returned, unable to learn the language. Some of these problems doubtless could be met by more adequate screening of candidates in the evangelical acceptance process. The remoteness of the Japanese to foreigners is another factor, worsened by the indifference of many young missionaries to guidance from older missionaries in matters of Japanese life and culture. Conditions of immorality, including long years of licensed vice, shape a distressing social climate. In these circumstances the missionary’s devotional life sags easily, especially in the face of evangelical divisions and intramural criticism. And amid such adversity, evangelism has lacked the vitality to keep pace with the population increase.

Encouraging Signs

The Osaka crusade lent a new surge of evangelistic hope to the Christian cause in Japan. Ironically, mass evangelism was almost blockaded by the divisions among evangelical missionaries in Tokyo, who had asked Billy Graham to delay a visit to that city. Distressed national workers then implored Bob Pierce to come to Japan’s second city for the Osaka crusade. From the north to the south of Japan 1800 prayer meetings turned the eyes of the Christian remnant to Osaka, and many of these meetings still carry on. Saturday night telecasts presented Christianity to the nation at a constructive evangelistic level. The remarkable response by hundreds of seekers—a total of 3,175 actually professed salvation—quickened the passion for the lost. National pastors visited more than half of the 7,502 seekers within three weeks. By the end of the crusade 1,867 had attended church services in 435 churches. One church received so many new members it is already engaged in a building program. Pastors’ conferences led by Dr. Paul Rees sharpened evangelistic concern, and encouraged new boldness in witness and visitation employing lay workers.

Conflict Sharpened

The Osaka thrust has set evangelism in new focus in the church life of Japan. The most responsive group falls into the 15–21 age bracket. It should be recalled, however, that 55 per cent of the Japanese population is under 25 years of age. Most of those attracted to the Osaka meetings were clerks, high school and college students and businessmen. All were reminded, in Dr. Pierce’s words, “you cannot put Jesus Christ on your ‘god shelf’ alongside the other idols. He is the one Saviour and Lord, the only Mediator between man and God.” In these dimensions the conflict between Christianity and the non-biblical religions is being sharpened with new depth and urgency in the life of modern Japan.

C.F.H.H.

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

The thunderstorm swept across the flat Ohio countryside and enveloped a college field house. The church folk inside sang, “Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,” and recited a new statement of faith. As flashes of lightning seemed even to dart their way into the building, one observer murmured jocularly, “I don’t think the Lord likes that statement.” Then amidst the crash of thunder, and through a crackling microphone, Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, president of the National Council of Churches, portrayed the horrors of the atomic age.

Such was the apocalyptic setting provided the second General Synod of the United Church of Christ for the convocation of its four-day meeting at Oberlin College. Two years before in neighboring Cleveland, the organization was begun with acceptance of a plan for union by the General Council of the 1,401,565-member Congregational Christian Churches and the 807,280-member Evangelical and Reformed Church. The traveler often finds it hard to get from Cleveland to Oberlin but this trip had been more difficult than most.

Behind the 700 delegates (and apparently ahead as well) was a road strewn with bitter recriminations and even lawsuits, as many Congregationalists had reaffirmed faithfulness to historic autonomous polity and shied away from compromise with presbyterian or pyramidal government of the E & R Church.

But now the delegates felt history was walking beside them. And if history faltered somewhat at this convention and delegates went away disappointed at the slackening of momentum of this “most daring leap of faith into the ecumenical church in our modern times,” it had to be conceded their task was difficult despite assured absence of merger opponents.

Meeting in Finney Chapel, named for the nineteenth-century evangelist, this synod was expected to approve a constitution and a statement of faith. As if in partial vindication of the European portrayal of the activist United States as rather a theologically barren land, the synod bogged down before the constitutional barrier but vaulted easily into theological agreement. In fact, delegates were called upon in their convocation to recite the new confession of their supposed convictions on the deepest things in life, even before the Commission to Prepare a Statement of Faith had presented it to them for discussion, possible revision, and adoption. But as it turned out, most suggested changes were more editorial than theological, and the statement passed unanimously with only minor revision.

The commission had been given no easy assignment, though it did not aim at a substitute for older confessions and explicitly designated its work a “testimony” and not a “test.” No congregation is required to subscribe to the statement and whether it will be used to any great extent is unknown.

Attractive in its poetic form, the statement makes some admirable declarations. But it seems to favor a doctrine of continuous creation over preservation, and historically the former doctrine has tended to veer toward pantheism. But here nothing more serious may be involved than desire to maintain consistency in use of the present tense. The past tense was used only when describing the work of Christ, witnessing to its uniqueness.

But here was the point of greatest criticism. And it dealt more with omissions in the statement than with what was actually said. A commission member had named nationalism and racialism as dangerous heresies of our time in contrast to the Arianism of old. But some delegates were troubled at the lack of a clear-cut declaration of the deity of Christ. One feared negative impact upon the mission work of the church, although another was heard whispering approval of the statement because it “doesn’t make Christ equal with God.”

Indeed, the statement does not rise to the level of the World Council of Churches’ proclamation that Jesus is God, let alone come near to the unambiguous phrases of Nicaea.

But then the commission members represented a wide variety of theological views. Among them: Chairman Elmer J. F. Arndt, John C. Bennett, Walter M. Horton, Bela Vassady, Roger L. Shinn, Richard R. Niebuhr, Douglas Horton, Daniel D. Williams, Roger Hazelton, and Nels F. S. Ferré.

Famed theologian Ferré’s highly unorthodox Christological views are well known (they have been described as halfway between a dynamic monarchianism and a dynamic adoptionism). But by that curious twentieth-century phenomenon of modernist diluting and spiritualizing of theological language (some have called it counterfeiting), even an unreconstructed liberal could approve this statement of faith.

One delegate felt the Incarnation had been glided over lightly and wanted to know how God had come in Christ. The Virgin Birth appears not to have been a live issue with the commission. Dr. Arndt felt that mention of it would mitigate against proper emphasis upon Jesus’ manhood, a rather unique fear as one studies historic creeds and reads the exposition of the statement of faith by theologian Vassady, who sees the Virgin Birth as an indication of Christ’s “true manhood.”

Other objections voiced from the floor criticized these omissions: any mention of the Scriptures, reference to the Fall, a definitive view of the atonement, a radical treatment of Christ’s resurrection and of any future resurrection, and any reference to Christ’s return. One asked for less reaction against the old liberalism and thus more ethical content, while another pleaded for room for modern prophets and apostles like Kagawa and Schweitzer alongside biblical prophets and apostles.

Commission members boasted of a more extensive treatment of the Christian life than found in most creeds (though in an “existential age” there is always danger of Christian-centered, rather than Christ-centered, affirmations). One could wish there had been affirmation of the mystical union, so basic to Christian life.

To a suggestion that the statement sided with Eastern Orthodoxy on the filioque controversy, chairman Arndt replied that it does not take a position one way or the other on the matter and that the committee did not desire a “definition of doctrinal positions in the document.” If this policy gives little encouragement to theology, it does offer a bright prospect to those committed to a doctrinally undefined ecumenism.

Not all ecumenically-minded persons are enthused about merging of churches of unlike doctrine and polity, for the ultimate goal of many such folk is cooperation rather than organic union. Perhaps a curiosity of modern ecclesiastical history will be the E & R move toward unity with Congregationalists rather than with one of the many Presbyterian groups. Twentieth-century lessening of interest in historic Christian doctrine will possibly be adduced as a prime cause.

Congregationalist roots are found in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England and then in colonial New England, the churches later uniting with some Disciples of Christ churches. The E & R Church, its greatest strength in Pennsylvania, itself results from a merger of a Reformed church originating in Zwingli’s Zurich and the Rhineland and the Evangelical Church, which was an American transplanting of the effort of the Emperor of Prussia in 1817 to bring together for political reasons Lutheran and Reformed churches.

As for the current merger, leaders seem unsure of its present exact legal status, but they do boast about its oneness in fellowship. A New York federal court case against the merging bodies contains no request for injunction, and delegates to this year’s General Synod came expecting to approve the proposed constitution. Then if two-thirds of the E & R synods and two-thirds of the local Congregational churches (of those voting) approved, the way would be clear for the biennial General Syond of 1961 to put it in force. But delegates had only received copies of the constitution three weeks before synod began, hardly time for proper study. Some expressed shock and disappointment at leaders’ recommendations for delay (which would amount to two years) to avoid possible embarrassments resulting from hasty action. So the synod decided to buy a year’s time (maximum estimate: $75,000) by reconvening in special session in 1960 to vote on the constitution, thus leaving a year for local church and synod ratification.

Perhaps to blunt charges that this year’s synod was a “do-nothing body” in respect to the constitution, a resolution proposed by Yale Divinity School’s Liston Pope approving the proposed constitution as “an excellent working document” was passed. And considerable time was given for discussion of the draft.

It represents an ambitious attempt to synthesize Presbyterian and Congregational polities. Described as Presbyterian at the top and Congregational at the local level, it has been attacked by Congregationalists as promising local autonomy only to see it denied in the by-laws, where, for example, conferences and associations are given controls over clergy. Local Congregational churches, once in the United Church, will have no vote on future constitutional amendments or future church mergers. The latter point was raised on the floor but excited no discussion.

But no sooner had church leaders predicted smooth sailing through the entire convention, than an undercurrent of Congregationalist dissatisfaction erupted on the last evening. Speakers rose and asked an honest airing of issues which had been troubling delegates. After some veiled efforts toward this end, it developed that Congregationalists were unhappy over the constitutional provision for what they look upon as fragmented or compartmentalized boards which report directly to General Synod, as distinguished from the old inclusive Congregational boards. Part of the agitation was said to have been caused by the constitutional disposition under the Board for Home Missions of an association concerned with the denomination’s Negro colleges, a move which seemed to some a rigid perpetuation of a case of segregation with which they are uncomfortable. But it is a difficult situation complicated by legal necessities in regard to college financial arrangements.

In any case leaders confess to some deep differences of opinion in this area along denominational lines. These may never be fully resolved. But apparently there had been a gentlemen’s agreement to confine discussion of such matters to committees, and E & R President James E. Wagner (also co-president of the United Church with Congregationalist Fred Hoskins, both being reelected at this synod) was deeply cut. With a grim smile he spoke of this “unfortunate sequence of events” which had violated the hope that such matters would be wrestled with “in smaller meetings.” “The E & R Church” (very few of whose delegates had spoken on the constitution) “has been deeply affronted by the advantage taken here tonight,” but would not “return like for like.”

Up popped eminent Congregationalist Helen Kenyon to deny there had been any “affronts or unseemly events.” Another rose to say that extended debate had improved morale, but it was agreed any further arguments be put in writing.

Dr. Stephen Szabo, president of the E & R Magyar Synod, asked that the constitution be changed to allow the continued identity of his synod as heretofore. Others objected to the provisions for the practice of social pronouncements being made by a council in the name of the entire church.

But the general feeling of the leaders seems to be that of obedience to an overpowering concept of union—that any alternative could not conceivably be the will of God—that merger opponents are largely to be explained in terms of timidity of spirit or perhaps captiousness.

For this is not only a “united” church but a “uniting” church, and subsequent mergers are hopefully anticipated with this constitution as a guide. With a synthesis which may have given Hegel trouble, leaders have at times found it difficult to sound statesmanlike as they have sought to define the resulting polity. One E & R leader differentiated it from Presbyterianism by identifying the latter with an “unwonted and arbitrary exercise of authority.” Many ask, “Can a true Congregationalism come out of such synthesis, and what of those who still desire true Congregationalism?”

As one observes the merging body, he may find himself musing over the variety of important names to be found in the grand heritage of the components: Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Oecolampadius, Bullinger, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, and so on. Among these were giants who changed the face of Europe and mightily influenced the history of America. For the serious student of church history who does not believe that twentieth century insights have cancelled those of the previous 1,900 years, the question will not down whether the issues which divided these luminaries have been fairly met. Some may ask whether we have bred a latter-day race of giants who have resolved the differences of the earlier ones. Or were those old issues relatively unimportant?

A high official in the United Church of Canada has warned united churches of the need to preserve for the present “their historical confessional roots as one means of averting any easy inclination toward a watered-down, syncretistic form of the great Christian tradition.” When insights of past church titans are trimmed to match those of others, the trimmer’s criteria for cutting are vital. Will he cut so deeply as to deny himself in the end the depth of Christian fellowship he so earnestly desires?

‘Let Freedom Ring’

The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches held its sixth annual meeting in Los Angeles June 30-July 2 and elected as its moderator Gordon W. Kingsbury, associate professor emeritus from Wayne State University.

Some 400 ministers and laymen attended the meeting, representing 67 churches and 23 states.

The association, which seeks to preserve local church autonomy in Congregationalism, took as its convention theme the slogan, “Let Freedom Ring.” NACCC leaders are opposed to the United Church of Christ plan to require constituent churches to submit to a constitution.

The NACCC missionary society voted $100,000 in aid for Jordan, to be administered through the Near East Foundation of New York.

E & R Synod

Both parties to the United Church of Christ merger are continuing some functions separately during the transition period. Though the United Church has now held its second consolidated synod, both the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church still continue separate conventions as well. The latest E & R meeting, the church’s 11th triennial General Synod, was held at Oberlin during the five days immediately preceding the United Church synod.

One of the actions of the E & R synod was to approve a constitutional amendment to hold biennial instead of triennial sessions in order to conform with the biennial meetings of the United Church. A record $5,625,300 budget for the next two years was adopted by the synod, an amount which was $525,300 higher than expenditures during the last three years.

In other actions, delegates adopted resolutions opposing “right-to-work” laws, which bar compulsory unionism; called for recognition of Communist China by the United States and the United Nations; and hailed the investigation work of the Senate rackets committee.

Also approved were plans to launch a $2,000,000 fund campaign for three E & R seminaries: Lancaster Theological Seminary, Eden Theological Seminary and Mission House Seminary.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. J. S. Ladd Thomas, 84, dean emeritus of the Temple University School of Theology, in Philadelphia … the Rev. Ernest C. Pye, 77, author and Congregational Christian educator, in Winter Park, Florida.

Elections: As president of the International Society of Christian Endeavor, Dr. Clyde Meadows … as president of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain, Dr. Eric Baker … as president of the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, the Rev. H. W. Lang … as president of Grand Canyon College, Dr. Eugene N. Patterson … as dean of the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church, Dr. Fred C. Kuehner … as president of North Park College and Theological Seminary, Dr. Karl A. Olsson … as moderator of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Murray W. Griffith … as bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada’s Caledonia, B. C., diocese, Archdeacon Eric Munn.

Appointments: By the National Council of Churches: as director of faith and order studies (an office which parallels on a national scale the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches), the Rev. William A. Norgren; as secretary of promotion of the Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature, Dr. Leslie C. Sayre; as director of program promotion and station relations of the Broadcasting and Film Commission, Carl Cannon … as chairman of the division of fine arts at Taylor University, Dr. Marvin G. Dean … as professor of canon law and pastoral theology at the University of Thessaloniki School of Theology, Archimandrite Jerome Kotsonis, chaplain at the Greek Royal Palace … as co-director of Christ’s Mission, the Rev. Stuart P. Garver.

Statement Of Faith

Here is the amended “Statement of Faith” approved by last month’s United Church of Christ General Synod. (For earlier version, see April 13, 1959, issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY):

We believe in God, the Eternal Spirit, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father, and to his deeds we testify:

He calls the worlds into being, creates man in his own image and sets before him the ways of life and death.

He seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.

He judges men and nations by his righteous will declared through prophets and apostles.

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, he has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to himself.

He bestows upon us his Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the Church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.

He calls us into his Church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be his servants in the service of men, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ’s baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

He promises to all who trust him forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, his presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in his kingdom which has no end.

Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto him. Amen.

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).

“The quality of mercy is not strained:

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed—

It blesses him that gives, and him that takes.

’Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown.…

It is an attribute to God himself.

How shall thou hope for mercy, rendering none?”

Mercy is in complete harmony with justice, if not identical with that attribute. It is true there may be instances when the human mind will be perplexed, and the human heart distressed, by an apparent discrepancy,—pity drawing one way, and a strong sense of duty urging the other. In such cases, however, there need be no irreparable breach, if the mercy be true mercy, and the justice pure justice. Still, these qualities may become so alloyed in conventional forms, and so confused to our conceptions, that there will be a seeming conflict. But, essentially, absolutely, they are at one, and become antagonistic only when this or that parts with something of its true character. We may be assured that unmerciful justice is unjust, and unjust mercy unmerciful.

Mercy In Action

Some have to labor hard with their niggardliness in order to be kind; but the blessing lies not only in doing a merciful act, but in being merciful in disposition. Followers of Jesus must be men of mercy; for they have found mercy; and mercy has found them.

CHARLES SPURGEON

The mere passive quality of mercy, inactive and inoperative, does not reach the full meaning of the passage. The translation might well be, the actively benevolent, not exclusively in alms-giving, although that is embraced in the sense, but generally in doing all in their power to promote the happiness and welfare of others. The highest type of Christian virtue is found in that spirit of self-consecration which surrenders all to the cause of the Redeemer, and labors with unremitted zeal for the spiritual welfare of immortal souls. Such shall obtain mercy. They cared for the happiness of others, their own happiness shall be cared for by their heavenly Father.

JOHN J. OWEN

That the end why God shows mercy to you more than others, it is that you might do good to others; why would God have some poor, some rich, but that he might crown patience in others, and mercy in another.

JEREMIAH BURROUGHS

They must be not only well-disposed towards their enemies, but must be merciful to them just as their heavenly Father is merciful—and must take pity on all people.… As a further expression of mercy, we must give to everyone who is needy, and we must do so in conformity with the highest demands of love, so that it may be to the honor of God and profitable to the one who is in need. To the generous giver will be liberally given—in full in eternity, but even in measure in this life, as God so ordains it. All the blessings which a person receives here and will receive hereafter are gifts of grace from God, not founded upon man’s merits. But nevertheless, the Lord also teaches that there will be conformity between the measure of “reward” and the faithfulness of the person concerned (cf. Matt. 25:31–46).

NORVAL GELDENHUYS

Mercy’S Reward

The mercies of God are dispensed out of the treasury of his goodness, wrought by the art of his wisdom, effected by the arm of his power.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK

The most successful and distinguished in the kingdoms of this world are too often the revengeful and implacable, the clement and forgiving being, as it were, disqualified for such distinction by this very disposition. But in my kingdom it shall not be so. Happy, already, in the prospect of its prompt erection, are the merciful, the very class so shamefully neglected in all other kingdoms, but in mine to be treated according to their nature.

J. A. ALEXANDER

Thou art sought, and thou seekest. As thou dealest with thy seeker, even so will God deal with his. Thou art both empty and full. Fill thou the empty out of thy fulness, that out of the fulness of God thine emptiness may be filled.

ST. AUGUSTINE

All mercies have their duration and perpetuity from Christ; all christless persons hold their mercies upon the great contingencies and terms of uncertainty; if they be continued during this life, that is all: there is not one drop of mercy after death. But the mercies of the saints are continued to eternity; the end of their mercies on earth, is the beginning of their better mercies in heaven. There is a twofold end of mercies, one perfective, another destructive; the death of the saints perfects and completes their mercies; the death of the wicked destroys and cuts off their mercies.

JOHN FLAVEL

Now it is believed, and rightly so, that all mankind will be presented before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive the things according as he has done in the body, whether good or bad. Therefore I may perhaps say something bold: if what is ineffable and invisible be capable of being apprehended by thought, then one can even now perceive the blessed reward of the merciful. For the gratitude of souls who have received kindness towards those who have shown them mercy surely remains beyond this life in life eternal. What then is likely to happen in the hour of reckoning, when those who have received kindness will recognize their benefactor? What will his soul feel when grateful voices joyfully reclaim him before the God of all creation? Will he need any other beatitude added, who in so great a theatre is applauded for all that is best?

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA

Divine mercy is free sovereign mercy; it is not purchased at all; not purchased even by Christ’s work, far less by our own. Christ’s mediation is not the price of mercy: it is the channel through which mercy finds its way to the sinner in consistency with justice. And faith is not the price of mercy either; it is the appointed way in which the sinner enters on the enjoyment of mercy.

JOHN BROWN

To put it bluntly: too few of us who profess to be Christians live and act consistently with our profession.

That there is so often a wide gap between a knowledge of doctrine and the outworking of it reflects badly on us who ought to be living epistles, “known and read of men.”

To many of us Christian doctrine is a matter of greatest importance, for doctrine consists of those things we believe about Christ—who he is and what he has done for us.

But unless that which we believe is translated into a life consistent with our beliefs, the depth and reality of our professed faith necessarily becomes suspect.

This is not to imply that genuine faith in Christ eventuates in perfection in this life—far from it. But our desires, aspirations and most important of all, our love centers in Christ, and as “new creatures” in him we should live in a way which honors not dishonors him.

Many years ago a small Negro boy was brought into court in Richmond under the charge of theft. It was judge Crutchfield who asked the boy, “Son, did you steal that box?” “No sir, Judge, that would be sin,” the boy replied.

“What is sin”? asked the judge. Earnestly the boy said: “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God.” He had learned this at the 17th Street mission and it was implanted in his heart.

The judge immediately dismissed the case and the boy went free.

Here was doctrine in the heart and honesty in action. Such behavior should characterize every Christian, but how often it does not!

In the realm of God’s moral law what effect has Christ’s fulfilling that law had on our behavior?

We might ask ourselves these questions: Owing God primary and final allegiance, do I have any other gods before him?

Is God first in my life? Do I honestly try to put the interests of God and his Kingdom before everything else?

Knowing that God abhors idols, do I worship money, position, attainments, sex, anything? Even in our worship are not some of us in danger of transgressing his holy command with pictures, candles, music and the like?

Although we know that God will not hold the offender guiltless, do we nonetheless take his name in vain, or, stand mutely by while others profane that name?

From the very beginning of time God set aside one day in seven as a day of rest. How often we make it a holiday instead of a day dedicated to worship and Christian service!

Concern and making provision for our parents is a divine injunction. While we may give them material things, are they conscious of our love and appreciation of that which they have done for us through the years?

We may not kill those with whom we disagree, but how often is there hatred in our hearts—sin in God’s sight?

We may not commit the overt act of adultery, but who would be willing to have the innermost thoughts of his heart made public? In these days how often do we look with complacency on the moral debauchery all about us and in so many phases of American life?

Some wag has said that income tax laws have made thieves of us all. This may not be true, but unless we are careful there is an unending tendency to try to get the best of others in our business dealings.

Bearing false witness against our neighbors is now so common, even in Christian circles, that some individuals and institutions seem to think they are honoring the Lord when they lie about someone with whom they do not agree. In fact some do this in “defending the faith.” May God have mercy on such zealots!

An old priest is reported to have said that in all the confessions he had ever heard, not a person had confessed to covetousness. Yet the desire to possess that which is not our own is too prevalent in Christian circles.

We who name the name of Christ, and then dishonor him in the most flagrant ways, reveal our disgraceful irreverence for the moral code that God has ordained.

The Apostle James warned the early Christians, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

One of the besetting sins of Christians is backbiting and criticism. It is embarrassing to read: “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.”

Knowing the sinfulness of the human heart and the deception for which we are all subject, Christ said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father in heaven.”

James’ succinct statement, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also,” is a truth the unbelieving world grasps readily. It is when we Christians translate the things we believe into the things we do that our Christian profession becomes a reality to those around us.

As profession without action is a sham, so are good deeds without concern for the spiritual welfare either of ourselves or others. Our Lord made it plain that our lives are to show forth righteousness unto the glory of our heavenly Father. How often we try to steal God’s glory to take it for ourselves.

What is the arbiter of Christian living? Where can we find those precepts by which we know God’s will for our lives? How can we understand the meaning of righteous conduct towards God and our fellow man? Strange as it may seem to those of the world and even to the nominal Christian, we find these answers in the Bible.

Not only is the Bible the source of doctrine, and of those things we are to know and believe about God and his Son, but it is the chart for daily living.

Centuries before our Lord came to this earth, his people Israel had sinned and departed from his commandments. A copy of the law was discovered and brought to King Josiah and read before him. He listened in astonishment and then with consternation. “And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.” This was an act caused by deep conviction of sin. He exclaimed: “… great is the wrath of the Lord … because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book.”

Here we see the terror of the law, but in Christ we see the mercy and grace of a loving God.

If Christians are to live like Christians, their feet must walk firmly up on the truths which have to do with Christ—his person and his work. Their faith must show the reality of his transforming graces which proceed from the Spirit of the living Christ. Then only will we show Christianity as faith in action.

IFD

Our neighbors in Cloverleaf Vista are back from vacation. They were having a post-mortem at our barbecue. Everything went wrong again this year: it rained, the fish didn’t bite, the flies did, the twins had the mumps, the car side-swiped a frozen custard truck when the trailer hitch broke.

Peter Peiper, who will be a junior at Mortarford College, ventured to explain that this was just a case of IFD. General semantics, he said, shows that we escape from reality by symbolic thinking. The American vacation is an example of idealization. All winter we dream of vacation bliss. Comes the vacation reality and the discrepancy fills us with frustration. The cycle is Idealization, Frustration, Disintegration. Unrealistic ideals always end in despair.

About half way through these observations it began to rain; in the regrouping on the porch, only Mrs. Peiper, Pastor Peterson, and I remained in Peter’s seminar.

The pastor remarked that we suffer from a bankruptcy of ideals rather than an overstock. He took issue with the view that ideals were only carrots to be dangled at a calculated distance from the donkey’s nose. The cynical philosophy that makes all ideals adjustable is disillusionment made permanent. If the way out of despair were the reduction of our hopes, Buddhism would hold the key to mental health; kill off desire and find bliss in unconsciousness!

Peter protested that semantics recognizes the usefulness of realistic ideals, but Pastor Peterson was now in full sermonic form. “Usefulness of ideals!” he snorted. “An ideal isn’t a technique, it’s a standard. We need to know that we must be holy, in the image of God. That drives us to total despair, but there is the gate of repentance and faith.”

It developed that the pastor had heard of IFD before, when a university lecturer had charged Billy Graham with offering escape from reality in religious symbols. The pastor promptly began to crusade for DRF: Despair, Repentance, Faith. The Gospel begins with real despair and leads to real bliss. Instead of counseling adjustment to a scaled down reduction of the broken hopes of a sinner, it lifts up his eyes to the heights of Zion, and then lifts him there too, in Christ’s triumph.

VACUUM ONLY APPARENT

John H. Gerstner’s June 8 column reflects a degree of appreciation and understanding of pacifist thought which is rare for your journal. If Mr. Gerstner is interested, he will find that the vacuum of pacifist literature is only apparent. The Church Peace Mission at 1133 Broadway, Room 1601, New York 10, can furnish bibliography and study papers.

I must comment on the uncritical assumption of so many conservative Christians that Christian pacifism means “peace at any price” or, in present-day terms, selling out to the Russians. We pacifists underline Gerstner’s words: “If Christianity be true and God be a fact, then obedience to His truth at the cost of extinction is a cheap price to pay.” This is the testimony of pre-Constantinian Christians and of the Anabaptist martyrs, among others.

But does obedience to God’s truth mean that we exterminate our national enemies? The irony of our international situation is that, barring divine intervention or an unparalleled movement of genuine faith, both East and West will be equipped for automatic mutual annihilation in just a few years, thus forcing a choice between co-existence or extinction. Pacifists agree that survival may not be the ultimate good, but by what twist can the Christian gospel be made to support the vengeful assertion that “if we’ve got to die, they’ll all die, too”?

Second Mennonite

Philadelphia, Pa.

While I would expect … popular, sensational magazines to glorify war and the god of American nationalism, I thought that CHRISTIANITY TODAY would extol the pacifism exemplified by Christ more than it has.

Mt. Union, Pa.

I am continuing to read and enjoy CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I am glad to see that logic has not been thrown to the winds or left to die in a philosophy class. Just as in his classroom, Dr. Gerstner’s logic and keen perception makes pacifism look sick with only untried emotionalism to undergird its precepts.

My disgust with the church’s over-emphasis on the diplomatic problem concerning Red China and the forgetfulness concerning the spiritual needs of the Chinese of the Orient and our lands led me to “scratch out” the following lines:

Old Fourth Church did not sit at ease

Concerning the fate of the Red Chinese,

For at its socials and frequent teas

The congregation lamented the diplomatic squeeze.

“It isn’t fair,” boomed Deacon Brown,

Wearing that usual committee frown,

“To keep away official recognition

From such a large significant nation,

For it has grown from the wreck

Left by dictatorial Chiang Kai-shek.”

Yet strange as life itself can be

A block away lived poor Chun Lee,

But he never heard anyone tell

The story of Jesus and the gospel.

His boys, hungry and unusually small,

Played at war along Old Fourth’s wall:

But no one ever was heard to say,

“What would be Jesus’ main interest today?”

London, Ont.

I see no choice but to recognize a government that is ruling the lives of over 500 million people, no matter what our opinions be on the philosophy and the aims under which this government operates.… Let me ask of the bitter critics of such a move, “Where were you when the government leaders of Iraq were killed and dragged in the streets, and within 48 hours our government recognized the rebel government?” It would appear to me that the big difference in this case is that Iraq has many oil wells involving substantial American interests while no such comparable economic tie exists in Red China.

Associate Pastor

First Presbyterian Church

San Fernando, Calif.

My summer holiday has afforded me time to reread one of the significant books by the late Secretary Dulles who was a friend and colleague of mine.… I would respectfully suggest that you publish the following from Mr. Dulles’ book War or Peace (page 190):

I have now come to believe that the United Nations will best serve the cause of peace if its Assembly is representative of what the world actually is, and not merely representative of the parts we like. Therefore, we ought to be willing that all nations should be members without attempting to appraise closely those which are ‘good’ and those which are ‘bad.’ Already that distinction is obliterated by the present membership of the United Nations.

He added:

If the Communist government of China in fact proves its ability to govern China without serious domestic resistance, then it, too, should be admitted to the United Nations. However, a regime that claims to have become the government of a country through civil war should not be recognized until it has been tested over a reasonable period of time”.…

Why assume that those who continue to think now what he thought nine years ago (even though he changed his mind about it afterwards when Secretary of State) are “leftish”?

South Strafford, Vt.

In the April 13 issue (Eutychus), Paul A. Remick states: “Not to recognize Red China is like refusing to recognize a change of administration in our own country.” … Diplomatic recognition is far more than calling a spade a spade.… If my memory serves me well, there was but one time in the history of our nation that a change of administration was not recognized—namely the secession of the Confederacy. The Union did not recognize it, did not approve. Rather, it fought what is often termed the bloodiest war in history to force the “rebels” back into the Union. We today are faced with the same issue: “Can any person be allowed to trample another underfoot?” Communist brand slavery is a far worse terror than that seen in our country so many years ago. It cannot, it must not be recognized by those who name the Name of Christ!

Reformed Episcopal

Ventnor, N. J.

THE OLD AND THE NEW BARTH

What possibly could be of less importance than whether or not the old Barth is a ‘New Barth,’ or the differences between Barthianism vs. Bultmannism? I read, and re-read, Prof. Van Til’s article (June 8 issue) and couldn’t make sense of it.… This type of contribution … is hard for the ordinary layman to digest and also … 99.44 per cent of the clergy. The world is steeped in sin and there is a simple remedy, which needs neither a Barth nor a Bultmann to explain or explain away.

Toronto, Ont.

Van Til’s critique of “the New Barth” … is typical of a certain ultra-Calvinistic crowd who think that they are doing God a favour by trampling on his ‘enemies.’ What a shock it will be to them when they discover who the enemies of God really are!

United Church of Canada

Cedar Springs, Ont.

Writing of Karl Barth, Dr. Van Til touches the two important points that Barth still maintains biblical errancy and seems not to relate the Resurrection adequately to the objective accomplishment of Atonement. Development of these could have given a valuable article. But instead we then move on to several misconceptions.… Thus, no serious student would find a new Barth in 1952, but none could dispute the critical change culminating in 1931–2. As regards the useful German distinction between history as what happens (Geschichte) and as the record of what happens (Historie), Barth emphatically and rightly will not say what he is virtually made to say, namely, that because an event is not or cannot be recorded, it did not really happen. In miracles, he sees an element which is historisch, i.e., can be recorded in scientific terms, but for him the real happening, e.g., God’s actual raising of Jesus, is beyond the terms of reference of scientific depiction. Yet this neither negates nor reduces its factuality. Why should it? Only subjective rationalism could think so. The context of most of Dr. Van Til’s quotations (in IV, 1) demands notice, namely, Barth’s relating of the Resurrection to the prophetic work of Christ, Himself present to proclaim and apply the message of Atonement by the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 28:20; John 14:16–18; Heb. 13:8 and Rev. 1:18). In this setting, the statements presume a factual Resurrection and bear no conceivable relation to the subjectivizing of Bultmann. The final tour de force which makes Barth the exact opposite of his own intention … hampers the serious and fruitful criticism demanded of evangelicals by the Dogmatics.

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

I have read your article on the United Church of Christ and think that you have correctly analyzed the situation. Communications from all over the United States come to my desk revealing an uneasiness with the merger, or definite hostility to it. Many are determined to maintain a truly Congregational association of churches.

I think you are right in surmising that the framework of the United Church of Christ has been set up contrary to the desires of a large segment of the Congregational churches in order to make the framework for the merger of many Protestant denominations. You are doing a great service in thus analyzing these aspects of the ecumenical movement.

Park Street Church

Boston, Mass.

DISAPPEARING DILEMMA

Pastor McCrae’s dilemma (Eutychus, May 25 issue) resolves itself in his fine expression: “entire relinquishment of the sick one to God.” If he will do so and teach others, he will be in no danger of turning about and telling God precisely what He should do, which seems to be implied by those “positive and expectant prayers.” In sickness I look to Him who is powerful to heal me, who loves me as His own dear child in Christ, and I ask Him to heal me (and others) “if it be Thy will.” My prayer is both positive and expectant. I know He hears and will answer in His own way and at His own time. What more could His child want than this? If we but let God be God and refrain from every temptation to instruct Him, the dilemma disappears.

The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer

Sheboygan, Wisc.

My faith in the love and rightness of God’s will in every matter gives me all the confidence I need to ask him for his highest and best gifts for both myself and others. Then I serenely and eagerly trust his holy, healing will to reveal himself in the yielded human mind, body and spirit.

… How I am comforted by the adoring thought, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; Blessed be the Name of the Lord!”

North Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

FAILURE OF MISSIONS

Carlsen’s article on missions should be put into the hands—and hearts—of every evangelical missionary and mission board executive in our country. He has pointed up the basic reason for the obvious failure of Christian missions to evangelize effectively the world. And, as a former missionary, I know that what he describes is all too true.

Clymer, N. Y.

BACK INTO SERVICE

May I ask your readers in many parts of the world … if there is any person who could assist one who is struggling to master a new language. There are no doubt many amongst your readers who were missionaries in China and who used the Hokkien Dialect. My wife and I want to obtain a copy of “Chinese-English Dictionary of the vernacular or spoken language of Amoy” by the Reverend Carstairs Douglas and the supplement by the Reverend Thomas Barclay. These have been out of print for many years but there are doubtless many copies still extant and these could be brought back into service for the Lord and could also make our study considerably simpler. If several copies are thus found it will also assist several friends who are also searching for these dictionaries.

Overseas Missionary Fellowship

B 100, Tapah Road

Perak, Malaya

A FLAME AND A BRIDGEHEAD

We here have just had the privilege of a “Billy Graham” Crusade, and it has unquestionably lit a very real “spiritual flame” in this land, such as could finally transform the face of the whole nation. I witnessed the “London Crusade” also, but Sydney has far surpassed it. Whilst “decisions” are an indication, they do not really measure the magnitude of the impact, in changed attitudes and the many unseen conversions. I feel a real bridgehead has been made, and it will be our own fault if it is not secured and expanded.

Royal Australian Air Force

Richmond, N.S.W., Australia

PREACHING THE BIBLE

The answer to Maurice Mahler (Eutychus, May 25 issue) and his hosts of friends who find that many of our seminaries do not instruct young seminarians how to preach the Bible and its passages to our people with emphasis upon what the real meaning of the text is, I believe, is found in the Bible Institute.

The three years, thought by many of my friends to be “wasted,” were the most fruitful of my theological training from the standpoint of preaching the Word with emphasis upon the context.

Baptist Missionary Church

La Porte, Ind.

MAJESTIC VIEW

“Relativity” (L. Nelson Bell, Sept. 15 issue) … brings out a … majestic … viewpoint! It should be particularly useful in college and Unitarian communities.

Boston, Mass.

Too long I have thought of Jesus the Christ as having begun with his birth by the Virgin Mary. You made it clear to me that creation was in the hands of Christ, the eternal Son of God.…

Boston, Mass.

THE WIDE GULF

Thanks for your brief news report (April 13 issue, p. 30) about the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.… Many of the new logia are obviously late or of little interest to any but specialists in Gnosticism. But those sayings that parallel synoptic sayings may throw real light upon the working of oral tradition. Perhaps one of the greatest values of the discovery of the Gnostic library is that it clearly demonstrates the wide gulf between the thought of the New Testament and that of the Gnostics. These writings show that although some of the terminology may have coincided, Gnostic influence could never have found any place in the minds of the New Testament writers.

St. Mary’s College

St. Andrews, Scotland

PRE-PUBLICATION NOTICE

The writer wishes to announce the imminent appearance of the Reviled-Slandered Perversion of the Bible, a boon to that clergyman who rejoices in the progress of Christianity from its Humble Beginnings to its Present-Role-and-Status.

Embarrassed for years by claims of authority benighted dodderers have advanced on behalf of the Bible, yet a bit timid about replacing the old tome with a culling from Rousseau, Paine, Hegel, the Tübingen School, Schweitzer, Fosdick, and Wieman, the modern Marcion has felt somewhat sheepish about marching under a cellophane banner. Yet a real moral issue is involved. It would be a sacrifice of honor to expediency if one claimed to have faith in the Scriptures when one did not—something no honest liberal would do; therefore the happy solution suggests itself that the Scripture can be changed, in such a way that they may become a Manifesto of the Liberal Faith. After all, “if the patient isn’t doing well, change the medicine” seems considerably more sensible than “if the medicine isn’t doing well, change the patient.” Our experience is that such patients seldom can be changed.

One example may suggest our approach. Where RSV has for John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” R-SP reads the same verse (PPE 1:1—PPE—Probably Presbyter of Ephesus), “The archetypal logos originates from and participates in the summum bonum.” This is especially nice for showing the harmony between or, on a sunny day, the identity of Jungian analysis and Christian theology.

Other features of our Bible include these: 1. all miracles printed in italics to signify they are “faith events” rather than historical happenings; 2. all dogmatic statements introduced by the phrase, “It seems to me that …,” except when made by Christ: in such cases introduced by the phrase, “The second and third generation of the early Church thought that Christ said that …”; 3. all attributions of authorship followed by a question mark, sic: The Book of Hosea (?); 4. all statements reflecting mercy printed in red and all statements reflecting judgment printed in light grey.

Your cooperation is requested concerning one factor before the final galley proofs are sent to the printer. We are conducting a public opinion survey to see which three books of the Bible we should leave out altogether. Please send in your suggestions.

We are hoping for a big sale of R-SP. It should do even better than some of our earlier publications, such as Where Liberal Protestants Stand (a study of the architecture of a Unitarian Church with no pews); Building a Vital Theology (a do-it-yourself kit); and Authority in Liberalism Today (an exposition of non-directive counselling techniques).

If you wish to place an advance order for R-SP, just make out a check for ten dollars and send it on to us. Our address can be found in any standard study of witchcraft.

Lake Forest, Ill.