One characteristic of mid-century evangelical Christianity is its greater conversation with non-evangelical viewpoints. We say “conversation” to indicate an exchange of opinion and serious discussion based thereupon. We do not say greatest “rapport,” which would indicate that this conversation is necessarily congenial. There are some evangelicals who are calling this willingness even to converse, the “new evangelicalism,” and therefore distrust it. They suspect it in an implicit abandonment of true evangelicalism. Those who participate in and encourage this conversation, as this magazine does, do not intend thereby to yield any evangelical ground either explicitly or implicitly.

This willingness to discuss has been noted by non-evangelicals some of whom cordially welcome the evidence of it in our ranks. Some of these men have thought, somewhat unfairly, of evangelicals as being unwilling to discuss vital issues with dispassionate academic objectivity. There is no denying that some evangelicals, more so in the past than in the present, have provided some basis for this charge. Our tradition has known some in its fellowship to be obscurantist in their outlook, to produce little literature or speech of solid character, and to be addicted to impugning the motives of non-evangelicals. While we do not admit that this has characterized evangelicals universally, we do acknowledge, with shame, that it has been all too much with us and in each of us.

It is interesting to see some of the signs that non-conservatives (or persons associated with non-conservative institutions) are recognizing this willingness and ability of evangelicals to speak to the modern situation. A few straws in the wind may be noted. When Religion in Life (Winter 1955–56) ran a feature article entitled “Where Do We Go From Here in Theology,” one of the invited contributors was Dr. Cornelius Van Til representing distinctly conservative theology. In a more recent article in The Christian Scholar (June 1958), “Contemporary Theology and Christian Higher Education,” Nels F. S. Ferré presents a serious consideration of “fundamentalism.” He dismisses it, to be sure, as an inadequate view for reasons which this writer does not find compelling. But, the point is that he first gives it fair and respectful evaluation. Incidentally, Ferré comments:

A few years ago even mention of this position might have seemed quite irrelevant to the problems of higher education both because of Fundamentalism’s external standard of authority and because of its belonging to a bygone era.

Dr. Sydney Ahlstrom of Yale University (Church History, September 1958) states this on “Fundamentalism”:

[This is a] term I wish to limit strictly to those large areas of America’s church-membership which for economic, social, and ecclesiastical reasons in general and an exaggerated emphasis on revivalism in particular became almost totally estranged from the ongoing intellectual enterprise of the Atlantic community during the nineteenth century. (Without this estrangement and ignorance and its attendant insecurity and hostility, there is no ‘Fundamentalism’ by my definition of the word.)

In a footnote he continues:

Obviously no term like ‘Fundamentalist’ ever has a single, definite, invariable, agreed-upon, meaning. Because this term is so often used with pejorative connotations, however, I have purposely delimited its application. My sharply restricted use of the name reflects a conviction that the Fundamentalist movement should be understood as the historically-rooted obverse of the Liberal-Modernist movement and that no form of theological ‘conservatism’ is ipso facto ‘Fundamentalist.’ Accordingly I exclude Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, and J. Gresham Machen as well as contemporary theologians like Van Til, Berkouwer, Carnell et al who are frequently referred to as Fundamentalists, or even so refer to themselves. To my mind, a person is not a Fundamentalist if he speaks to the issues, is aware of the problems, is well-informed, and is in communication with those from whom he dissents. I recognize that nobody can legislate the meaning of such a word; I merely wish to emphasize an important qualitative distinction between two types of conservatism.

It seems to us that there are many advantages in academic conversation by persons of profound differences of opinion. From the evangelical viewpoint it spells nothing less than an evangelistic opportunity. Academic matters have to do with truth and truth has to do with salvation. Believing that evangelical truth is nothing less than the truth which justifies and redeems, we covet every occasion to proclaim it. Speaking this truth in the language of the scholar is a distinct duty and high privilege which we must not forfeit by incompetence. Secondly, reaching the scholars in a theoretical way is of the greatest conceivable practical value. The masses are ultimately far more affected by the scholars than by the masses. This effect may be very indirect but it is very real. Third, for evangelicals this interchange of debate and friendly argument has great intrinsic value. It subjects our thought to thorough, unreserved, devastating, competent criticism. This may not be at all pleasant but it is undoubtedly salutary. Like the judgment of God (which it may well be) these academic rods of his anger may well humble and purify the weak and halting presentation we make of the Word of God. Whatever may be the positions, or even the motives, of our opponents, the method of frank criticism is nothing less than a blessing of God.

But, there are formidable dangers in candid academic give-and-take. How have the mighty fallen in intellectual combat. If you debate at all, you must debate honestly. If you debate honestly you run the risk of losing. The truth, of course, will never lose to error; but the defender of truth may lose to the defender of error. That is to say, one man may put forth a better case for a worse cause; another man a worse case for a better cause. This tends to detract from truth itself in the eyes of many. The poor defender of a good cause may himself lose confidence in truth because his own defense of it has been justly exposed. Or, to put it another way, a person may hold a right conclusion on wrong premises. These premises may be exposed in this interchange, and the person may suppose that the very Gospel has been intellectually tried and found wanting. Another hazard is that Christians may be driven into an intellectual underground which they call “faith,” and wrongly think of it as opposed to all thought. And even when Christians emerge successfully from scholarly encounter, they may, while refuting most, still be infected by some error.

Theological Education Today

Theological Education in America: (1) “The Situation in 1958,” by Charles L. Taylor; (2) “Training for the Parish Ministry,” by Paul W. Hoon; (3) “Training of Teachers of Religion for College and University,” by Robert Michaelsen; (4) “The Cosmos and the Ego,” by Keith Bridston, Religion In Life (Winter, 1958–59), are reviewed by Ned B. Stonehouse, Dean of Faculty, Westminster Theological Seminary.

The significance of the publication of these articles on theological education does not lie, in the first place at any rate, in the novelty of the ideas presented or in the disclosure of earnest concern for the present state of such education on the part of these leaders in the field. Professional concern for theological education has found noteworthy recent expression in the books, The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry, by H. R. Niebuhr (1956), The Ministry in Historical Perspectives, edited by H. R. Niebuhr and D. D. Williams (1956), and The Advancement of Theological Education, by H. R. Niebuhr, D. D. Williams and J. M. Gustafson (1957). And to a substantial extent the thoughts and perspectives of these articles reflect the ideas and point of view of these volumes. But these articles are significant, as the editors of Religion in Life say in introducing them, because “the interest in theological education is no longer confined to an inner circle. The wider public has come to realize how deeply the future of the whole Christian movement depends on the quality of training of its leadership.”

All four articles are well written, informative, challenging and provocative, and thus fulfill rather well the purpose which the editors had in view. As will be pointed out below, their common viewpoint will not commend itself to every reader. Nevertheless, they contain many admirable features. There is little or no complacency among these writers. Thus Dr. Taylor, Executive Director of the American Association of Theological Schools, calls for “rigorous self-criticism” as the order of the day. And he includes in his analysis of the goals of theological education the following:

“The theological schools must become centers of learning summoning all Christian people to serve the Lord better with all their minds. The faculties of these schools must be thoroughly equipped for their positions and adequately supported in them. The professors must be given

opportunity through writing and speaking to educate not only a group of students but through them and beyond them a whole church. Isolation must be overcome, but proper withdrawal from restless coming and going also provided. Standards must be recognized and goals far beyond these standards constantly kept in view: standards of prior preparation for theological students, standards of faculty load and responsibility, standards for libraries and finances, standards of sabbatical leaves and academic freedom” (p. 10). In similar vein Dr. Hoon says: “It is heartening that one does not find much boasting among the more sensitive theological educators; one finds rather sober, honest, steady-eyed concern” (p. 19).

Even if we feel called upon to differ from these writers in some basic respects, we should not make this an occasion for vaunting self-congratulation and complacency. Theological education conducted by evangelicals contains no built-in guarantee of the presence and realization of adequate goals and standards. And it must be admitted that our own efforts at self-criticism may be fruitfully stimulated if, from time to time, we receive the benefit of criticism of others.

Among the various aspects of theological education touched upon in these articles, the problem of the curriculum appropriately comes in for its share of attention. There remains continuing concern with such traditional features as biblical studies, church history, and theology, and in many quarters this concern has received new impetus in recent years. But for many a day there has been a strong tendency to multiply courses of a “practical” nature—not only courses in worship, education, counseling, and evangelism, but also many others including religious drama and the ecumenical movement. A widely recognized consequence is that the curriculum has been overloaded, studies in the “classical” fields have been sharply reduced, and a tragic dualism between the “theoretical” and the “practical” disciplines has often resulted. Moreover, there has understandably been a desire to integrate theological education with education in general, and thus the curriculum is often expanded to include courses in psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other studies intended to give the student a comprehensive insight into the world of which he is a part and to which he is called upon to minister. Finally, seminaries find it difficult to restrict their program to the traditional function of training preachers and pastors. Missionaries, chaplains, and especially teachers of Bible and religion in colleges and universities cannot be blamed if they charge that the traditional theological curriculum has not kept their special tasks sufficiently in view. On all sides, therefore, there must be a recognition of the need of adjusting the curriculum to the modern situation. Even in such a seminary as that in which I serve, in which in the interest of maintaining unity of direction the traditional Bible-centered curriculum is still basically maintained, there is constant concern with the question of modification and expansion of the curriculum to meet more fully the needs of the day.

Questions concerning curriculum and faculty, however urgent and pressing they are, are not the key to the advancement of theological education. For prior to such questions, and indispensable to genuine progress in solving them, is the question of theology itself. Will theological education be actually theological? Will it be God-centered and so discover its basic subject matter in divine revelation? Or will it be essentially concerned with an understanding of human existence from within human experience, and thus be occupied with anthropology rather than theology? Or again will it attempt a synthesis of the gospel and the “modern minds,” the latter being interpreted in terms of the ultimacy and autonomy of man?

The theological issue is not in the foreground in the articles, but it is touched upon. In the main, I regret to say, this issue is not faced in a thoroughly incisive way. From time to time there are echoes of Dr. Niebuhr’s polemic against the idea of “handing down the truth” (The Advancement of Theological Education, p. 136). Thus Dr. Taylor, apparently reflecting an essentially liberal theological point of view, sets up a sharp disjunction between “loyalty to a person” and “conformity to fixed ideas and set codes.” Loyalty to Christ he further describes as finding expression where “the fresh winds of the unbound Spirit are blowing through not a few theological halls” (p. 8).

The essentially liberal slant of these articles is also found in their common insistence that theological education must be ecumenical. Dr. Hoon speaks boldly of “the coming great ecumenical church as providing part of the broader perspectives that are needed” (p. 23). A plaintive note is heard at times to the effect that the ecumenical ideal is threatened by “the resurgence of denominational loyalties.” And the final article by Dr. Bridston treats the ecumenical question in a happily forthright and critical manner. Theological education in both denominational and interdenominational seminaries, he says, “are still largely determined by pre-ecumenical categories” (p. 36). One encounters refreshing frankness as this writer castigates “the fuzzy religiosity which identifies the ecumenical movement with sentimental togetherness, or even with jet-propelled church leaders clutching well-filled brief cases” (p. 40). The true ecumenical ideal, he maintains, is that of wholeness. He expresses the fear that the ecumenical movement “may ‘jell’ prematurely; that it may, reflecting the consolidating and centripetal trend of our age, become a movement of uniformity rather than unity, of conformity rather than cohesive diversity” (p. 44). His plea is for concern with truth rather than primarily with ecumenism, and he calls for a genuine theological encounter among the spokesmen for various theological points of view. This should result eventually in “a new dogmatics.” This frank appraisal is encouraging.

Dr. Bridston’s eloquent and hard-hitting article is accordingly of exceptional interest and importance for the understanding of the ecumenical approach to theological education. Much of what he says is worthy of more than passing mention and reflection. I find room for only one criticism, but that is a basic one. Truth is indeed a unifying factor; but since men, as individuals and in community are finite, imperfect, and evil, truth may also be a divisive factor in the relationship of men. Church history gives witness of the divisiveness of truth, as comprehended by fallible men. Being greatly concerned for the truth demands that one shall also be greatly opposed to error. In any case, apart from clarity and unity in understanding the Lordship of Jesus Christ as coming to expression in the Holy Scriptures, there can be no theological wholeness and no lasting assurance of advancement in theological education.

NED B. STONEHOUSE

Sustaining Grace

The Hour Had Come, by Go Puan Seng (Douma Publications, Grand Rapids, 1958, 228 pp.), is reviewed by Horace L. Fenton, Jr., Associate General Director of Latin America Mission, Inc.

Early in December, 1941, the “Fookien Times,” largest and most widely-circulated Chinese newspaper in the Philippines, carried a banner headline: “One Hundred Japanese Warships Heading for Philippine Waters, Rome Reports.” When the editor of the paper, Go Puan Seng, saw this report, it seemed fantastic to him, too fantastic to be worthy of belief. A few days later the incredible had happened, and Mr. Go, long an outspoken opponent of Japan’s plans for aggression, was himself a fugitive from the advancing Nipponese forces.

His book tells the story of the long years that followed—of hiding in the jungle, of near-capture on several occasions, of separation from family and friends, and of hardship and suffering almost without limit. But the emphasis here is not on what he endured, but on the sustaining grace and matchless goodness of God to him through this long period.

The author is a converted Buddhist, whose faith in the Son of God was inestimably deepened and strengthened through the long months that he lived like a hunted beast. The story is one of turning again and again to the Word of God in moments of great despair, and of finding just the message for which his needy heart was crying out. His relationship to the Lord was a sweet, intimate one, as in the occasion when, racked by sickness, he collapsed while brushing his teeth: “Dear God, even my knees refuse to support me,” was his simple prayer (p. 134), and somehow, strength came to him in his weakness.

The book is studded with Bible verses and hymns which, to this harassed man and his family, were intensely meaningful. Some of these verses are so familiar that they almost lose their meaning for many believers; not so, however, for these who went through the furnace of affliction. “ ‘What we need is a word from God,’ my wife said calmly. ‘So long as we have a divine promise to cling to, we need not be frightened’ ” (p. 149). For three years, they proved the literal truth of our Saviour’s assurance that man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

There is plenty of heroism in this story and an abundance of exciting detail. But the record is above all what the author most wanted it to be—a moving testimony to the faithfulness of God. As such, it should refresh and bless many.

HORACE L. FENTON, JR.

Regional History

The Presbyterian Valley, by William W. McKinney (Davis and Warde, Inc., Pittsburgh, 1958, 639 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Richard L. James, Minister of Riverside Ave. Christian Church, Jacksonville, Fla.

Here is a regional history of Presbyterianism published by the Presbyterian Historical Society, an auxiliary of the Historical Society of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

Assisting William W. McKinney with various sections of the book are Dwight W. Guthrie, Edward B. Welsh, Daniel J. Yolton, Walter L. Moser, George F. Swetnam, and Frank D. McCloy.

The authors trace the development of Presbyterian influence from its beginnings in the vicinity of Pittsburgh and later along the Upper Ohio River Valley. This is “The Presbyterian Valley.”

There are three chronological sections: “The Foundation Years, 1758–1802,” “The Years of Growth, 1802–1870” and “The Years of Fruitage, 1870–1958.” Under the above sections the spread of Presbyterian churches through western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio is described. In addition to the formation of churches, the development of auxiliary organizations and equipment is explained. Colleges, women’s groups, theological seminaries, hospitals and libraries have their place in the story presented in this work.

The book was intended to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Presbyterianism in the Upper Ohio Valley, a year (1958) which saw the union of two branches of Presbyterians in the ceremonies at Pittsburgh in May.

While interesting, both in design and style of writing, its value is more for the student of church history than to the general reader. It presents in graphic form the story of a great religious movement in one section of our nation.

RICHARD L. JAMES

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

Roman Catholicism

Aged Pope John XXIII continues to make the early designation of “caretaker pope” look very premature. In his announced intention of calling an “ecumenical council,” he continues to gamer tremendous publicity for Roman Catholicism, giving the Soviets a run for their headlines, Lunik and Mikoyan notwithstanding.

Since 1563 there has been only one such gathering, the Vatican Council of 1869–70, and it created in Christendom a universal stir which prompted publication of a multitude of books and pamphlets even before the council’s assemblage. And the forthcoming council may not convene until 1961, due to the vast preparations demanded. But when it does occur, presumably in Rome, it will be big and exceedingly colorful with more than 3,500 ecclesiastics expected to attend. Apparently their chief consideration will be means of bringing about unity between their own church and other Christian communities.

There was a day when popes avoided church councils like the plague, for they regarded them as rivals to their own authority. But the Vatican Council changed this by absolutizing the pope’s power and thus making councils practically superfluous.

Early ecumenical councils were very different. Current papal domination was unknown. Such dangerous heresies as Arianism and Pelagianism, among others, were condemned. Of the twenty councils considered ecumenical by the Roman Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox church accepts the first seven, and Anglicans have recognized as ecumenical the first four—sometimes the first six. The Trinitarian definitions of the first four councils are common property of Roman, Orthodox and Protestant alike.

The two most important and definitive councils for modern Romanism were the Vatican Council and the Council of Trent, the latter meeting intermittently from 1545 to 1563. Necessitated by the Protestant Reformation, it was called to settle doctrinal controversies and reform church discipline. Theologically, the character of exclusive Romanism was here engraved upon medieval Catholicism.

Pope Paul III reluctantly opened Trent under pressure from Emperor Charles V, but once in session it was under papal domination. At Charles’ urging, Protestants were invited, but in answer the evangelical princes and divines pointed out that the council would be “neither free nor Christian, nor ecumenical, nor ruled by the Word of God.”

Despite the claim of ecumenicity, the council was really a Roman synod. The Eastern church was never invited; the Protestants were anathematized without a hearing.

What Trent did to the Protestants, the nineteenth-century Vatican Council was called to do to modern liberalism and rationalism. Orthodox and Protestant representatives were invited by the pope. The Eastern Patriarchs considered this an insult to their avowed equality with the Bishop of Rome, while the evangelicals chose to ignore or decline the offer.

Papal control of a council was never greater. Gallicanism fell before Ultramontanism, with the crushing of the Episcopate’s independence. Papal absolutism was completed in the proclamation of the pope’s infallibility. This led some to believe that any improbable future council would simply be an empty ritualistic extravagance.

And now there is to be another.… This one seems aimed at church unity and perhaps against communism.

Seemingly overlooked was the fact that such Roman overtures to Orthodox and Protestant as are being predicted are not new. In fact, the Roman hope for the Vatican Council was that it might become a general feast of reconciliation of divided Christendom.

Also neglected was the fact that councils have often been more creative of division than unity. The early ecumenical councils produced Eastern schisms which exist to this day. The Council of Basel, Ferrara, and Florence (1431–45) failed to solve Latin and Greek differences. The Trent and Vatican Councils, with their hardening of Roman dogma and the pronouncement of papal infallibility, have only widened the breach between Rome, on the one hand, and Constantinople, Canterbury, Wittenberg, and Geneva, on the other. Indeed, the Vatican Council gave rise to the Old Catholic Church, formed by some of Rome’s ablest divines who saw in the papal infallibility dogma a false innovation but who were outnumbered and outmaneuvered in council proceedings.

Orthodox and Protestant reaction has this time been friendlier than it was to some previous Roman proposals. But this was mingled with marked caution and much skepticism. How ecumenical would the council be and on what basis would it be called? These were oft-repeated questions voiced to the press by ecclesiastics who had not yet received their invitations.

Reunion with Eastern Orthodox bodies appeared to be the primary goal of Pope John, who has seen years of service in Eastern territories. But major obstacles exist, chief among them being papal supremacy (versus conciliar supremacy) and the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit (being, according to Eastern Orthodoxy, from the Father only and not Father and Son as taught by the Western churches).

Orthodoxy has known many sorrows under the domination of Mohammed and Marx. She would be seriously handicapped at a council with Rome if the Soviets stood in the way of attendance, for the bulk of her some 150 million members is behind the Iron Curtain.

Anglican efforts toward reunion with Rome have been rebuffed by Roman refusal to recognize the validity of Anglican episcopal consecration. What status then would Anglicans have in a council with Rome?

Romanism regards the Orthodox churches as schismatic but the Protestant churches as heretical, which makes participation by the latter in the proposed council very dubious. Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, president of the National Council of Churches and no hater of ecumenism, has insisted in effect that the Protestants be treated as equals. Protestant agreement on this point thus far would appear to make an International Council of Churches prediction of departure of Protestant apostates for Rome unrealistic (though some observers sense the possibility of Protestant defections).

For the pope has made it clear that his supremacy is not to be questioned, that Rome is “in possession of the truth.” Concessions could be made only in the realm of canon law, liturgy, and discipline—certainly not in infallible dogma. Only the week before, special prayers had been said the world over for return of non-Romans to the authority of the pope. But Pope John said, “Let us reunite; let us end discussions.”

Somehow this all was strangely reminiscent of Rome’s foe Mikoyan, whose smile seemed to promise so much, but who could concede so little because of prior commitments. The Roman frown was still to be seen in Spain and Colombia, where there were reminders that Foxe once wrote a Book of Martyrs.

As one leaves the church in Trent where the council sat, he looks up to see a comely row of hills. He wishes the delegates of old had looked, as the Psalmist, to these and beyond for their help and guidance rather than to Rome and down musty Vatican corridors of heretical accretions. The Tridentine errors loom large across the face of Christendom.

F.F.

Protestant Panorama

• Danish archaeologists working in the British protectorate of Bahrain claim to have found the site of the biblical Garden of Eden.

• An elderly couple donated last month some 17,280 acres of West Texas farmland to Wayland Baptist College. The land, valued at more than two million dollars, represents one of the largest individual gifts ever made to Christian education.

• The Mississippi Baptist Convention board plans to use property which once was the site of the U. S. Maritime Academy for a year-round assembly ground. The site was purchased at auction last month for $455,000.

• An assembly of the Rhode Island Council of Churches rejected last month an amendment to its constitutional preamble which would have excluded from membership Protestant churches not accepting Christ as “Divine Saviour and Lord.” The present constitution states belief in the deity of Christ but does not bar opposition.

• The Canadian Baptist, official organ of the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec and the Baptist Union of Western Canada, is observing its 100th anniversary of continuous publication under its present name.

• The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a four-to-three vote last month that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cannot be prosecuted under the Lord’s Day Act for broadcasting on Sunday.

• Churches in the United States have received about $410,000,000 in financing from life insurance companies, according to a survey by the Institute of Life Insurance.

• In Milwaukee, the Concordia College Conference of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod approved church-sponsored social dancing “under careful supervision and guidance.” Missouri Lutherans traditionally have opposed social dancing, but this was the second synod group to liberalize its stand in recent months. In November, the St. Louis Lutheran Pastoral Conference stated that social dancing would be permissible if properly supervised.

• At its 64th annual convention, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles voted unanimously to accept a goal of $1,300,000 as its share in a four-million-dollar capital funds drive for additional buildings at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California.

• Plans were announced this month for a one-million-dollar expansion of church work in urban renewal by the Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

• Dallas Theological Seminary held a ground-breaking service February 8 for a $325,000 library building.

• Religion in American Life, which campaigns for regular church attendance, received space and radio-television time valued at more than eight million dollars last year.

• A new adoption agency and family counselling service has been instituted in New York state as an affiliate of the National Association of Evangelicals. Pending issuance of a charter, the Evangelical Child and Family Welfare Service is limiting activities other than adoptions.

• His magazine, edited by Joseph Bayly, was named “Periodical of the Year” by judges at an annual meeting of the Evangelical Press Association.

• A “stay-at-home-and-enjoy-your-family night” was held by the Young Married Peoples Society of Concordia Lutheran Church in suburban St. Louis. The special “night” was prompted by concern over an increasing number of religious and other types of meetings. Participation was checked by telephone calls.

• A 17-man military contingent at the South Pole dedicated a 16-foot-square chapel last month. “Now it can truly be said the earth turns on a point of faith,” said naval Lieutenant Sidney Tolchin, officer-in-charge.

Nation’S Capital

Catholics In Congress

Official inquiries by the Library of Congress reveal that Roman Catholics are the most numerous in some two dozen religious categories represented in the Senate and House this year.

The Library of Congress reports that 103 members of Congress, 91 in the House and 12 in the Senate, list membership in the Roman Catholic church. In both houses Protestants as a group still outnumber those of other faiths, but the 1959 totals represent an increase of eight Catholics when compared to tabulations for the 85th Congress. Back in 1937 Catholics in Congress numbered 110, but it was not certain whether they held a plurality.

The present Catholic representation bears nearly the same proportion to the total membership of Congress as the total of baptized Catholics bears to the whole U. S. population.

The 86th Congress has three ordained ministers, all Democrats: Representatives Merwin Coad of Iowa (Disciples of Christ), Walter H. Moeller of Ohio (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod), and Adam Clayton Powell of New York (Abyssinian Baptist).

Here is a summary of religious affiliations or preferences expressed by members of Congress in response to the Library of Congress inquiry:

Supreme Court Survey

The U. S. Supreme Court bench has three Presbyterians, two Baptists, an Episcopalian, a Methodist, a Jew, and a Roman Catholic.

Chief Justice Earl Warren comes from a Methodist family background, but now attends a Baptist church.

Justices William O. Douglas, John Marshall Harlan, and Tom C. Clark are Presbyterians.

Justice Hugo L. Black retains membership in a Baptist church in his home state of Alabama, although he often attends a Unitarian church in Washington.

Justice Felix Frankfurter is Jewish and Justice William J. Brennan Jr., Catholic.

Justice Charles Evans Whittaker is a Methodist and the newest member of the court, Justice Potter Stewart, is an Episcopalian.

Graham On Television

North Americans will be able to witness the Australian crusade of evangelist Billy Graham via television beginning Saturday night, February 28.

The initial telecast will be an hour-long film of one of the nightly meetings scheduled to begin in Melbourne, February 15. It will be beamed over the American Broadcasting Company television network at 10 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. Some stations will schedule the telecast for a later time.

Drys Try Again

Among some 5,000 bills introduced in the first three weeks of the 86th Congress was a proposal which would ban liquor advertising in interstate commerce. The bill sponsored by Democratic Representative Eugene Siler of Kentucky is similar to a number which have been introduced in recent years. Such a measure has yet to come out of a Congressional committee. Last year an anti-liquor advertising bill sponsored by Republican Senator William Langer of North Dakota created a stir in public hearings but died in committee. Langer was expected to re-introduce the bill.

Other bills already introduced would:

—Create a “Medical Advisory Committee on Alcoholism” within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

—Allow income tax credit for tuition paid for higher education in public and private schools.

—Make the bombing of churches, synagogues, and schools a federal offense.

—Eliminate civilian chaplains for the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.

—Exempt from the Social Security program members of the Old Order Amish Mennonites who object to it.

—Among resolutions proposed in Congress are measures which would (1) amend the U. S. Constitution to recognize “the authority and law of Jesus Christ, Saviour and Ruler of Nations”, (2) establish “National Prayer for Peace Day” and “National Family Day.”

A so-called “Christian Amendment” has been introduced by various sponsors in the last three Congresses but it never has gone beyond a public hearing.

In The Public Interest

Resolutions approving compulsory radio and television time “in the public interest” and condemning “liquor advertising” were passed unanimously by National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., in their annual convention at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel, January 21–22.

Some 150 broadcasts are represented in the 16-year-old body, including such programs as the “Lutheran Hour,” the “Hour of Decision” and the “Old Fashioned Revival Hour.” They spend an estimated 12 to 15 million dollars annually in broadcasting the evangelical gospel message. They reach multiplied millions of listeners and viewers in America and around the world.

Three years ago NRB took a strong stand for the sale and purchase of radio and television time for the broadcasting of religion and achieved a notable victory. This year a more subtle attack on the principle had been made in a proposal of T. A. M. Craven, Federal Communications Commissioner. Under the present code, licenses to operate stations stipulate that time must be given to programs “in the public interest” (involving religion, art, music, education, public welfare, politics, etc.). Mr. Craven, backed by a considerable sector of the industry, proposed that this public interest license requirement be eliminated and that the Federal Communications Commission refrain from checking station programming practices. The Washington meeting of NRB went on record as strongly opposing the Craven plan. Evangelicals believe that American air waves belong to the American people, that the public has authority through its duly constituted FCC to protect the rights and the freedoms of broadcasters of religion.

Speaking personnel at Washington were indicative of the esteem in which NRB is held. Mr. Harold Fellows, president of the industry’s National Association of Broadcasters, spoke in the opening session. Mr. John Charles Doerfer, FCC chairman, addressed a noon-day luncheon. Dr. William J. Millard gave a series of technical addresses. Network notables participated.

Vice President Richard M. Nixon received a citation and bronze plaque for his contribution to world peace. Other citations went to Mr. Fellows and to Dr. Billy Graham, whose “Hour of Decision” broadcast was recognized as the outstanding religious program of 1958.

Forward steps taken by NRB at Washington included (1) authorization of the immediate opening of a national office in the capital, (2) inauguration of a series of workshops for the improvement of broadcasting techniques, and (3) promotion of better station-management relations.

The convention closed on an international note with addresses by the Rev. Ralph Freed of the Voice of Tangier, Tangier, Morocco and the Rev. William J. Roberts of the Far East Broadcasting Company in Manila. It was disclosed that evangelical broadcasters now belt the globe with gospel messages in more than 100 languages and dialects. Remarkable evangelistic results are being achieved even in Iron Curtain and Bamboo Curtain countries.

J. D. M.

Clergy Vs. Conscription

The National Council of Churches reiterated its stand opposing a peacetime draft when a representative joined a number of other Protestant churchmen in protesting continued conscription before a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

Testifying in behalf of the council last month—against a four-year extension of the military draft—was Dr. Henry C. Koch, president of the National Capital Area Council of Churches.

New York

Death At The River

Three clergy members of the Methodist Radio and Film Commission were listed among victims in the crash of an American Airlines plane early this month. A Lutheran pastor also was killed when the craft, a new Lockheed Electra bound from Chicago, plunged into the East River while approaching LaGuardia Airport.

The Methodist ministers were en route to the annual meeting of the commission in New York. All were from Nashville, Tennessee. They had attended another meeting in Chicago. They were identified as the Rev. William A. Meadows, 39, the Rev. W. C. Walton Jr., 41, and the Rev. Royer H. Woodburn, 46.

One of the first bodies recovered from the river was that of the Rev. Francis C. McGrath, pastor of the Bethany Lutheran Church at Elmhurst, Long Island, New York. McGrath, 31, was returning from a visit to Concordia Teachers College, River Forest, Illinois, where he was to teach a two-week course in audio-visual aids next summer. He had been working on a doctor’s degree at Columbia University.

Communist China

Crippling Unity

All Protestant denominations on the Chinese mainland are being merged into a single church body and the majority of local churches are being forced to close, according to reports received by the China Committee of the National Council of Churches. Dr. Wallace C. Merwin, executive secretary of the committee, said last month that 16 long-established denominations in China are involved in the merger.

Typical of the closing of churches was the shutdown of all but 12 of 200 Protestant churches in Shanghai and all but four of 65 in Peiping, he said. Closed churches are being turned over to the government as “patriotic gifts,” he added.

These crippling blows to Protestant Christianity are being carried out by constituents of the Three Self Love Country committee, the only Protestant agency recognized by the Red Chinese government, Merwin said.

“By leaving the churches little choice except to join the committee,” he said, “the Chinese authorities are succeeding in maintaining closer controls over the churches and their members.”

In addition to churches, the committee has acquired Protestant schools, hospitals and other institutions. Merwin said that as a result “it is not so much a persecuted church as a captive church.”

The reports from China indicated that during the first six months of 1958 church workers underwent an intensive course in “education for socialism” as part of a general “thought-rectification” campaign.

Congregations are constantly urged to carry out self-reform and to take an active part in China’s “giant leap forward,” Merwin said. Church leaders everywhere were reported pledging obedience to the government and the Three Self group.

“Today Chinese Protestants are told that church division and denominational names are ‘vestiges of Western colonialism aimed to divide and rule,’ ” Merwin said. “It is also the first time that Protestant congregations have had to surrender their properties and funds on such a large scale,” he added.

Merwin collected his data from personal letters which have come out of Red China and from material which appeared in a Communist periodical.

Another view behind the Bamboo Curtain is supplied by David H. Adeney, who previously worked on the mainland, first for the China Inland Mission then for Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

“The persecution of Christians never comes directly from the government,” says Adeney, who now lives in Hong Kong and who regularly talks with refugees from Communist-held territory. “It is always from the Communist elements from within the church.”

In the March issue of His magazine, Adeney notes a complacent attitude toward the 600 million living under the Peking regime:

“It is only a few miles to the border of China, yet the Christians in Hong Kong and in Western countries seem to stand on the sidelines, almost unmoved by the spiritual battle which does not affect them. We know so little of sacrifice in our own daily lives and we often fail to realize that the Lord is … calling us to cast off the lethargy and love of ease.”

Reader Poll

Results of a CHRISTIANITY TODAY reader poll, which showed opposition to U. S. recognition of Communist China by more than an eight-to-one margin, have been formally submitted to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles as a matter of information.

An aide said the information would be brought to the personal attention of Dulles, who at the time was preparing to go to Europe for talks on the Berlin Crisis.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY instituted the poll in its December 22nd issue, which contained an editorial criticizing suggestions advanced by the National Council of Churches World Order Conference last November. A coupon was printed and readers were invited to mail in their own views before January 10.

A total of 1212 replies expressed opposition to U. S. diplomatic recognition of Red China while 145 were in favor of such recognition.

On the question of whether or not to admit the Peking regime into the United Nations, 1,221 said they would oppose such action while 146 said they would favor it.

Great Britain

New Translation

Top British scholars are turning out a new translation of the Bible. They are working from original texts, rendering them into contemporary English.

The New Testament, to be published jointly by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, is expected to appear early in 1961. The Old Testament will require several more years to complete. Work got under way in 1947 with formation of the Joint Committee on New Translation of the Bible.

General director of the translation is Dr. C. H. Dodd. Represented on the committee are the Churches of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, plus the Methodist church, the Congregational Union, Baptist Union, Presbyterian Church in England, Society of Friends, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Bible Society of Scotland.

West Germany

Slander Charge

West German church leader Martin Niemoeller, long a campaigner against nuclear arms, was formally charged with insulting the Bonn army last month.

The president of the Evangelical Church of Hesse and Nassau had been quoted as stating at a pacifist meeting in Kassel that “the training of soldiers and the training for leading positions in the military command posts must be regarded as a higher school for professional criminals.” He denied the statement. He claimed he had merely said that the training of commando units of the former German army was a school for potential war criminals.

Belgian Congo

Escape For Protestants

Protestant missions and missionaries in the Belgian Congo were reported operating normally despite a month of rioting and demonstrations.

Part of the rioting, which killed 175 early in January, was directed against Roman Catholic property, apparently because the uprising was in protest against the Belgian colonial government and most Catholic missionaries in the Congo are Belgian citizens.

Confused by tribal rivalries, political aspirations of small minority groups, and the undercurrent of growing nationalism, Congolese at Leopoldville saw across the river at Brazzaville a new and unexpected freedom from French colonialism. Dormant feelings erupted with tragic results in the Congo capital.

Belgian authorities were unprepared for the uprisings, first at Leopoldville and

later at Matadi. Panicky police fired prematurely, some observers said, and orderly demonstrations turned into bloody fighting.

The original riots were blamed on the Abako movement, headed by a former Roman Catholic seminarian who was subsequently charged with violation of state security and inciting racial hatred.

The outbursts were not limited to religious properties. Commercial and government establishments were attacked with resulting damages estimated in millions of dollars.

Continent Of Australia

Saturation Evangelism

A four-point program of “saturation evangelism” was projected for Australia on the eve of the scheduled opening of Billy Graham’s Melbourne crusade. It was the most thorough and well-integrated plan ever advanced for a Graham campaign.

Coordinator of the program is the Rev. Leslie Green, formerly associate minister at the First Christian Church, Fort Worth, Texas.

Green, now ministering in a Sydney church, is “federal director of visitation evangelism” under a continent-wide liaison committee of churchmen cooperating with the Graham team.

Elements of the program:

1. Utilization of crusade counsellors and other volunteers in door-to-door visitation prior to the crusade. (Goal is to reach every home with a personal invitation to attend the crusade.)

2. The witness of the mass meetings (with “Operation Andrew” transit pools).

3. Personal counseling of inquirers.

4. Follow-up, to include another door-to-door visitation project.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Lutheran Bishop Eivind Berggrav, 74, formerly a president of the World Council of Churches and Primate of the Norwegian state church, in Oslo … Cecil B. DeMille, 77, outstanding producer-director of Bible films, in Hollywood … Methodist Bishop John W. Branscomb, 53, in Orlando, Florida … Professor Wilhelm Neuser, 70, retired head of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Lippe, Germany, in Detmold … the Rev. Jacob R. Perkins, 79, retired minister, author, and former warden of the Iowa penitentiary, best known as co-author of the Rotary International code of ethics, in Council Bluffs, Iowa … Dr. George L. Robinson, 94, retired professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary, in Chicago … Dr. R. A. Forrest, founder and president emeritus of Toccoa Falls Bible Institute … Melvin Loptson, 28, American missionary to Lebanon under the Christian and Missionary Alliance, in an airliner crash near Amman, Jordan … the Rev. Andrew H. Argue, 90, evangelist of the Penetcostal Assemblies of Canada, in Willowdale, Ontario … Mrs. Robert S. Denny, 44, wife of the associate secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, in Washington.

Elections: As Episcopal Bishop of Washington, the Rev. William F. Creighton … as president of the Men’s Council of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., J. W. Baldwin … as president of the National Association of Schools and Colleges of the Methodist Church, Dr. Edward W. Seay.

Appointments: As first Lutheran bishop of Southern Rhodesia, the Rev. Dean A. H. Albrektson … as pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, New York, the Rev. Stephen F. Olford, for the past five years pastor of the Duke Street Baptist Church in London, England … as president of St. Paul Bible College, the Rev. Harry T. Hardwick.

MORE FORTNIGHT BOOKS

In enthusiastic response to our Book of the Fortnight plan (see Eutychus, Jan. 19), offers of books from authors and publishers are outnumbering subscriptions ten to one. We are happy to review a selection of the latest offerings. Look for our seal of inspection, the coveted FB brand.

KirKit, prepared by the Interchurch Service Consultants, Hybrid, Nebraska. This amazing complete idea file has everything the busy pastor or church worker needs. Sermons, mid-week talks, dinner speeches are furnished in three forms: (1) manuscript, typed on three-ring notebook stock (with penciled annotations for authentic appearance), (2) outline notes, punched to fit loose-leaf Bible, (3) audio tape to be played on our new stereo-pillow system. No other service relieves you of all preparation. KirKit makes a master sermon part of you while you sleep! Also supplied: programs for the church year, menus for church suppers (our stocked freezer plan is extra), gala parties and hilarious ice-breakers, pastor’s salary suggestions for the board of trustees, etc. Sparkling sermon titles do double duty as bulletin board aphorisms. Example: “Whoever lives it up must live it down!”

Mgkykyii Returns, by S. S. Peters-Smith. Mgkykyii, the mysterious witch doctor, appears again on the upper Congo. Can Nkrubezi and Mwawa find Bwana Schultz before jungle drums summon the tribes? If you can’t guess the answer, this book is a must.

Inspirational Recipes, compiled by Manse Kitchens, Inc. Intriguing old-fashioned recipes are concealed in bright, sunshiny meditations. Hours of fun in discovering and testing the hidden formulas. For example: “From the lion’s carcass of slain fears, dip a spoon of sweetness”=take one teaspoon of honey. Printed on indesructible miracle-foil; may be machine-washed or roasted.

Ghost Nations of the Bible, by J. Z. Obermacht. A scholarly study of the fabulous peoples mentioned in the Old Testament. Like the “Rephaim” of the patriarchal narrative (the word means “shades”), these shadowy nations had no historical existence, concludes Dr. Obermacht. This edition is an unabridged reprint of the original translation from the German in 1868. Invaluable for O. T. criticism. (Dr. Obermacht’s demonstration of the non-existence of the Hittites may require slight modification in view of excavation of Hattusas the Hittite capital, and the growth of modern Hittitology. Similarly, the Rephaim seem to be mentioned in administrative texts from Ugarit.) Librarians will welcome this definitive work, long out of print.

The Tweeter Twins in Dead Man’s Gulch, by J. D. Wrangler. To quote a comment from the sparkling dialogue of the Tweeters, “Ain’t dis neat, Pete?” Peter and Skeeter Tweeter run out of gas in the historic dry gulch when they borrow a parked car to investigate the strange behavior of the ranch foreman. Thrills, chills, no frills, with an outstanding message (in bold-face type). Drawings by a teenager. J. D. Wrangler is a leading juvenile author.

THE CHRISTIAN YEAR

“The Revival of the Christian Year” (Jan. 5 issue) is strongly advocated by F. R. Webber, who lists four advantages in his closing paragraph, which he alleges are gained by following the pericopes. I wonder if all these advantages may not be recaptured by use of the verse-by-verse plan of preaching, which is suggested by Harold John Ockenga (“How to Prepare a Sermon,” Oct. 13 issue). Ulrich Zwingli was a biblical preacher, departing from the traditional selections and pursuing the consecutive Greek text. He doubted that the Bible prescribes fasting during Lent, etc., and so just preached the whole counsel of God.

I am continually thankful for your publication, which is a long-awaited boon to the considerable, yet often unvocal, out-flanked, and disheartened conservatives of the English-speaking world.

The Pearl Presbyterian Church

Jackson, Miss.

I do not so much wonder how I became one of the “slaves to a series of unrelated free texts,” i.e. the Bible in its entirety, as I do how Mr. Webber has fallen back to the observance of times and seasons every bit as binding and contrary to the spiritual worship of the Church as the observances which Paul forbade (Gal. 4:9, 10). There is something radically wrong when nominal Christians will misappropriate the Christian Sabbath and yet be utterly horrified at the thought of not observing Christmas or Easter. It is imperative for the health of Christians, the Church, and the nation that we return to diligent observance of the one day in seven which is commanded to the exclusion of times and seasons which are not commanded.

By the way, surely Missouri Synod Lutheran Webber knows better than to juxtapose these two statements: “Today Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics observe the full Christian Year as they have been doing for centuries,” and “It is almost impossible to hear anything but Christ-centered preaching in churches where the Christian Year is followed.” Doesn’t he observe Reformation Day?

Philadelphia, Pa.

The minister who follows a Christian year pattern slavishly may know what he is going to preach, but he will never bother to find out what the Holy Ghost would have him to preach. Personally as a minister some of my most precious moments with the Lord in prayer have been those times when “I” did not know what to preach.

Calvary Baptist

Paynesville, Minn.

I am a United Lutheran clergyman and therefore one who follows the church calendar consistently, 52 Sundays out of all 52. However, I think Mr. Webber overlooks the vital fact that an occasional departure from the calendar enhances one’s appreciation of its features far more than the type of legalistic adherence to it that he seems to advocate. Many times I must treat texts or topics immediately relevant to the life of my people, yet not provided for at all by the appointed texts and prayers of the specific Sunday in question.

Dongola Lutheran Parish

Dongola, Ill.

Fine article.… I felt … the impression was left that the principle or chief worship service in a Lutheran parish was only that of a “preaching” service. While the sermon in the Lutheran Church certainly is important … the focus in classical Lutheranism is not only the sermon.… The Lutheran Service, or the Lutheran Mass, finds expression in Word and Sacrament. The Word is never separated from the Sacrament in Lutheran thought.

Saint John’s Lutheran Church

Antioch, Calif.

It is good to note that more and more of Protestantism is recognizing the need for a Christian year.… It wasn’t only the Puritan movement that curtailed the use of the Church year in many churches in America, but also the rise of Pietism.… In the central part of the Atlantic coast in the rise of early Protestantism the movement of Piety curtailed the liturgical movement and the pericope.… The criticism that the … Christian year does not lend itself to the Old Testament isn’t altogether true. Each Sunday has secondary lessons which include one Old Testament lesson.

Brownback’s Evangelical and Reformed

Spring City, Pa.

Very informative and interesting. The article contained ideas and information that were new to me.

Ridgeway, Mo.

SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURE

As editor of a recent symposium by 40 American scientists (The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe, 1958, Putnam) I was naturally profoundly interested in Dr. Panay’s remarks on science and evolution (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Dec. 22 issue). Dr. Panay approves the thought processes of a considerable group of present day scientists and scientist-philosophers. I shall not discuss the larger part of his comments [but] comment on his very last paragraph. On the subject dealt with in that paragraph Dr. Panay and our 40 scientist-writers sound a different note. Here is the final Panay paragraph: “One who believes in scriptural authority should be careful not to construe the text, under pretext of interpretation, as having a meaning not derived from the text with certainty; an interpretation should not be presented as the exclusively possible one, when it is only probable, and other probable interpretations have been or can be advanced as well.”

That is all Dr. Panay says under the head of scriptural authority. But that “all” is not enough. My objection to the paragraph (and I think I am speaking for all the writers of “The Evidence of God,” including many prominent physicists) has to do with its incompleteness, its tentativeness, its lack of express distinction between exegetically controversial and non-controversial Scripture passages. The great variety of Scripture texts related to Dr. Panay’s subject should be so divided; namely under the heads of controversial and non-controversial, so far as interpretation is concerned. An illustration of the former is the very text Dr. Panay refers to in his comments, Ecclesiastes 3:11. The English translation of that verse is poor, unprecise. Translations of it vary. So do interpretations. An illustration of the latter (non-controversial) is the very first verse of the Bible. There it stands, in serene majesty. No Bible exegete worth his salt has ever tampered with it.

For another illustration of non-controversial texts I refer to Romans 1:20, a non plus ultra among scriptural untouchables. Here the Holy Spirit states, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they (unbelievers) are without excuse.” No exegetical capers, no philosophical fancies, no scientific ignoramus ignorabimus, can impair or in any way affect the Apostle’s straight-from-the-shoulder words. This Gibraltar rock rises sheer, unperturbed, age after age, from the turbulent waters of the strait, until the blessed amalgam is reached of knowledge “in part” and knowledge illimitable. Many of our science students long, with a really pathetic longing, to have the firmness and massiveness of that rock under their feet.

It may console and really help them to know that even today we have with us many first-rank scientists whose view of scriptural authority is clear, positive, and unqualified.

Grand Rapids, Mich.

A WOODEN HORSE

Cogently and concisely you have raised the voice of alarm in your editorial … on Government Intrusion Widens in American Education (Dec. 8 issue). Education is not the province of the federal government. In the division of powers set up by the Constitution the field of education was left to the states and to private institutions and individuals. That allocation of responsibility has been amply justified in these past 170 years. Education is fostered and furthered at the local level. Federal bureaucracy will prove a blight and not a blessing. Federal aid is an illusion since it is merely a return of taxes taken from the states less the staggering cost of bureaucracy. Federal aid decreases state and personal reesponsibility. No sensible American decries the need for national defense, but that program does not need federal funds for education. In this case, national defense is the wooden horse to achieve federal control of education, public and private, and thoughtful Americans should oppose such tactics.

President

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

SUGGESTING A DANGER

Thank you very much for J. D. Murch’s judicious article, “The Church and Civil Defense” (Dec. 22 issue), an excellent contribution to a relevant but under-discussed issue. I agree with Mr. Murch that, all things considered, there is probably no critical danger to our principle of separation of church and state in an eyes-wide-open cooperation with the OCDM program as currently envisioned.

I suggest that the real, and present, danger is the very rationale which the OCDM has put forth as a basis for the whole program itself. It treads dangerously near … using religion as a means for government ends; it has hints of an idolatrous identification of patriotism and our religious faith; and it eliminates completely from our faith any notion of God’s judgment.…

Chicago, Ill.

THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM

I have just finished reading, underlining, and thanking God for … “New Light on the Synoptic Problem” (Nov. 10, 24 issues). I wish every seminary student would think it through before swallowing whole “the assured results of higher criticism.”

Mt. Pleasant Christian Church

Bedford, Ind.

I do not believe that he has solid understanding of Form Criticism. He, for example, seems to judge that Form Criticism is rather exclusively concerned with Mark. He also seems to identify the Markan Hypothesis simply with the idea of the priority of Mark. He is far from taking account adequately of the arguments which have been presented on behalf of the priority of Mark, seeming to say that it is largely a matter of words used, whereas the argument is based upon many other considerations including especially subject matter and order of materials. His contention that the theory is strongly astray in terms of percentages is incorrect since the assertion is not that 90 per cent of the words of Mark are found in Matthew but rather that 90 per cent of the subject matter of Mark is found in Matthew. My impression also is that the appeal to manuscripts of Judges overlooks the fact that we have to do with essentially different situations when, in one case, scribes copy a manuscript or even translate a manuscript and so might use many of the same words and, in the other case, authors are understood as making substantial use of another work. The use of the term “plagiarism” seems to me to be out of place in this situation.

Westminster Theological Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

I found “New Light on the Synoptic Problem” … all the more refreshing since I have arrived at the conclusion that the traditional Christian view, which also Dr. Ludlum favors, is still the most satisfactory.

Concordia Seminary

St. Louis, Mo.

I was greatly pleased with the courage shown by the author.…

Medina, Ohio

• In an early issue, an article by George E. Ladd on “More Light on the Synoptic Problem” will appear.—ED.

BATTLE FOR A HERITAGE

Dr. Cording’s article on “Music Worthy of God” (Nov. 24 issue) makes me hope that you will be interested in the Wesley Hymnbook which is shortly to be published. Part of our battle for the recovery of the Wesley heritage in modern Methodism is precisely on the lines which he suggests: for the solid good hymns against the cheap “gospel song” variety. And those of us who have parishes as well as chairs realize that it is a very tough battle indeed. We have to wage it on our own—the Wesley Hymnbook had to be published privately. But we are convinced that Charles Wesley belongs to the whole Church and therefore concerned that this book should reach the church public beyond the confines of Methodism. It contains 154 hymns, mainly Charles Wesley’s, with different tunes for each (music and words interlined) and suggestions of familiar alternatives. The price is one dollar per copy, plus postage, and the first limited edition will be distributed from Drew University with the help of student volunteers. The publication date will be some time towards the end of February, and orders should be placed with Mr. Max Tow, Box 275, Drew University, Madison, N. J.

The Wesley Society

President

Madison, N. J.

ROME

In 1941, Archbishop Jos. Rummel of New Orleans estimated that “4,000,000 Catholics in the United States are drifting towards religious indifference and that approximately as many lose their faith annually. Against this figure we can boast only of an annual increase through conversions to the Catholic Church of between 60,000 and 70,000 persons.” … The figures for the past 50 years do not show any appreciable change in Roman Catholic percentage of the total U. S. Population; nor do they in Canada.… Your contributor (Lowell, Oct. 27 issue) has overlooked the tremendous leakage from the Roman Catholic church through efforts of evangelical groups mainly, and from disillusionment of tens of thousands of others—mainly migrants from Europe.

Toronto, Ont.

The Catholic Church encourages each family to have a Bible, especially during the annual “Catholic Bible Week.” The Church grants indulgences for reading Holy Scripture for, at least, fifteen minutes each day.

De Mazenod Scholasticate

San Antonio, Tex.

We are living in days when the very foundations of our freedom are being challenged as never before in … America.

Philadelphia, Pa.

An incident is mentioned in connection with … Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Rome (“Eutychus,” Dec. 8 issue). Dr. Walter Lowrie was the rector of St. Paul’s American (Episcopal) Church from 1908 and not minister of the American Methodist Church.

Crisfield, Md.

The … discussion … prompts me to add … notes written by … very wise men:

“You have no right to attack others upon a matter with regard to which you think yourself to be anassailed”—Abelard; “The man who says to me, ‘Believe as I do, or God will damn you,’ will presently say, ‘Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you.’ By what right could a being created free, force another to think like himself?”—Voltaire.

It seems that the freedom of expression is for us Americans our greatest right. This is one right which the Roman church demands for itself in the name of democracy but denies to others in the name of the church.

Ames, Iowa

Just before the election here in Indianapolis, a local independent Baptist minister and several others called a meeting at the World War Memorial in this city at which time Joseph Zachello, a former Roman Catholic priest, was the main speaker. At this meeting his tracts were distributed. The Baptist minister subsequently printed a list of all political candidates including their religious affiliations. The local press latched on to it and made a great thing of it, calling the ministers involved bigots.… The Baptist minister, Mr. van Gilder of Devington Baptist Church, realized his mistake of printing this information on his church’s stationery. He apologized to his church board after a great furor. Things settled down somewhat until last week. Warren Frederick Mathis, minister of the Fountain Square Christian Church, and I obtained permission from CHRISTIANITY TODAY to reprint [Dr. Lowell’s] article in our church papers.… The Fountain Square paper came out first and fell into the hands of Mr. Irving Leibowitz, a local columnist for the Indianapolis Times. In his column of Tuesday, December 2, he said, “I am surprised that the Warren Frederick Mathis of the Fountain Square Christian Church has taken it upon himself to revive an anti-Catholic Campaign in his church’s official publication.” The reaction surprised Mr. Leibowitz, who is a Jew. Many letters have been pouring in this week criticizing his statement and commending the article as it was reprinted. Even a local official of the Church Federation called Mr. Mathis to commend him, to encourage him, and to assure him of his personal backing. Many other persons are requesting copies of the article for reading and distribution.

East 49th Street Christian Church

Indianapolis, Ind.

CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

Thank you for mentioning in “Protestant Panorama” (Nov. 24 issue) the annual meeting of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches.… So far as I have learned, CHRISTIANITY TODAY is the only religious journal apart from the National Association’s own publication “The Congregationalist” so much as to recognize the existence of the National Association. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence both in the religious press and in the religious columns of the secular press, intended to keep the public ignorant of the fact that not all Congregational Christian Churches are giving up their heritage to get aboard the ecumenical bandwagon.

Editor

The Congregationalist

Melrose, Mass.

THE THREE BRANCHES

Nonconformists are by their teaching and doctrine heretical, having neither valid orders nor apostolic authority, yet presuming to do the work of a priest even to attempting to administer the most holy sacrament.… The Holy Roman Church, to give it its proper name, does possess all the “marks” of the true Catholic faith and is a part of The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. There are three divisions of this—The Holy Church: Roman, Anglican, and Byzantine. There can be no Oecumenical Council until these three branches of the One Holy Church are united. Nonconformism must, by its very nature, always remain outside.… Since [Wesley’s] day Methodism has cut itself off from the Church altogether and has lapsed into a yearly diminishing sect.

Swallow Rectory

Lincoln, England

Most of us [Anglicans] look to our Oxford Movement as the great spiritual liberation of our church, asserting her divine commission to preach the gospel. To such of us your stand for the gospel doctrines is heartening.

The Vicarage

Caistor, Lincoln, England

As an Anglican priest, in a Catholic-minded diocese, I shunned what I reckoned was an “evangelistic, interdenominational, Protestant” magazine. One day the Holy Spirit led me to give one edition serious study. As a result, I recognize this paper of yours to be of unimpeachable orthodoxy, and showing forth a theology pure and historic of our holy Christian faith. I’ve experienced new vigor in my priestly work, which I knew only study in the Word of God would give and by using the Bible with your guiding articles have set about that study. The Vicarage

Booval, Queensland, Australia

NINETEEN HUNDRED YEARS have passed since the early apostles went out into a hostile world with a Gospel that transformed men and influenced nations.

It would be impossible to make many valid comparisons between the world of that time and the one in which we live. The age of the plodding donkey and the ship wind-driven has been engulfed by the atom and the jet plane. And these fantastic achievements of our day will probably be supplanted by yet more fantastic discoveries in later years.

But the hearts of men have not changed. The sins and temptations of Jerusalem, Corinth, and Rome of the past are the sins of London, New York, and Tokyo today. The needs of the human heart are identical in view of man’s separation from God through sin.

Have we, in our sophistication, equated scientific achievement with spiritual advancement? Are we again in danger of substituting another gospel because we fail to appreciate the relevance of the gospel of Jesus Christ for every age?

Study of the book of the Acts is always a rewarding experience. Here we have a stirring record of the beginnings of the early Church. Here are the stories of men who ventured everything for the sake of Christ and his gospel, most of whom eventually paid for their faith even to death itself.

The lives of these men cannot be duplicated any more than can the world and the conditions in which they worked. But do not the underlying truths and principles remain valid for us today? As we Christians look at the Church and search our own hearts, do we not sense that we have lost something infinitely precious, something of their convictions, their message and their power?

Certain definite elements in the ministry of the early apostles are desperately needed today—and they are available.

The apostles went out with spiritual power. But first they were commanded to tarry at Jerusalem until endued with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. The only power whereby the Gospel may be successfully preached and lived is that of the Holy Spirit. Do we trust primarily in him, or do we look to organizations, programs, collective action, personality, education and other desirable but secondary things? How often we go forth to do the Lord’s work in the arm of the flesh, and then wonder why the work, zeal, and enthusiasm expended bring such meager returns.

The perturbed and resentfully ecclesiastical leaders of that day had to take note of the fact that these men had been with Jesus. Their experience with the living Christ was so vital and transforming that men lacking in social, educational and religious backgrounds had become compelling and effective witnesses to a message which had a stunning effect on those who heard and believed.

How many of us who are engaged in the work of God’s kingdom have had a personal experience of salvation? Can men see and know by our words and lives that we too have been with Christ? Do we always preach Christ, or do we at times preach ourselves or something else?

The early apostles were men of conviction. There was a certainty about their preaching which had its own inevitable effect on those who heard. They were convinced of the source, the authority, and the absolute necessity of the message they were called to preach.

Do we have similar convictions today? Have we been robbed of authority in our preaching through presuppositions and deductions at the human level, all of which change as men and times change?

These early apostles showed an utter disregard for personal comfort or danger. Threatened, they prayed for more courage. Beaten, they thanked God for the privilege of suffering for him. Imprisoned, they sang songs at midnight. Brought before rulers, they confirmed the charges leveled at them by preaching Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead. Ultimately they sealed their faith with their blood.

Are we willing to endure even minor inconveniences for Christ? Are we not in grave danger of making personal comfort, or monetary gain, a major consideration in what we do for the Lord? How can we account for the alarming lack of interest in world missions? Admitting a lost sense of the primacy and urgency of evangelism, are there not also elements of selfishness in our lack of interest?

One of the characteristics of the early Church was mutual love and concern of Christians, one for the other. In fact this Christian love caused unbelievers almost universally to exclaim and wonder.

How different today! One of the tragedies of Christendom now is the unreasoning and unreasoned attacks of Christians upon Christians. They confuse contending for personal interpretations or pet schemes with contending for the faith. There is only too often a contentiousness and lovelessness which cause the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme and Christians to sorrow.

When these early apostles went out to preach the Gospel, they realized that they were a small minority in an alien world. There was no attempt to compromise with the world. The distinctiveness and exclusiveness of the Gospel were magnified, not minimized. Nor did they despise the day of small things. Believing that the saving power of Jesus Christ begins at the personal level, they preached to individuals for personal decisions. Believing that Christians become the salt and light of the society of which they are a part, they confidently expected their faith in Christ to transform them into these witnessing and preserving forces for righteousness.

Cannot we learn from this? Believing in the corporate witness of the Church, should we not always remember that the Gospel must first reach the individual for Christ before he can become a useful member of the Church?

There are many other lessons in the Acts of the Apostles which are relevant for our times. Then, as now, God calls certain individuals to specific tasks, and as they heed that call he prepares and empowers them for that work. In this there are found great diversities of gifts but a similarity in the fruits of the Spirit.

The apostles never deviated from either the nature or content of their message: it was Jesus Christ and him crucified. It was of a risen and living Saviour who fulfilled the prophetic visions of the past and made the salvation God has prepared for his own from the counsels of eternity.

Faced with despotism, they preached Christ before whom despots must fall.

Surrounded by slavery, they preached Christ who makes men free.

Confronted with vice and paganism at their worst, they preached Christ who cleanses men from sin.

The targets of hostile secular and ecclesiastical powers, they preached Christ, rendering to Caesar his just due while giving all honor and glory to God.

As we consider these men of old, we may well ask ourselves: “Who follows in their train?”

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

(2 Timothy 3:16).

I acknowledge that the apostle must be understood to speak only of the Jewish Scriptures, which Timothy had known from his childhood, for when he was a child no part of the Christian Scriptures had been published; but if the inspiration of the former is established, that of the latter will be readily conceded.… It was their inspiration which made them profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.

God-Breathed

In order to uphold the authority of the Scripture, he declares that it is divinely inspired; for if it be so, it is beyond all controversy that men ought to receive it with reverence. This is a principle which distinguishes our religion from all others, that we know that God hath spoken to us, and are fully convinced that the prophets did not speak at their own suggestion, but that, being organs of the Holy Spirit, they only uttered what they had been commissioned from heaven to declare. Whoever then wishes to profit in the Scriptures, let him, first of all, lay down this as a settled point, that the Law and the Prophets are not a doctrine delivered according to the will and pleasure of men, but dictated by the Holy Spirit.

JOHN CALVIN

What it says of Scripture is, not that it is “breathed into by God” or is the product of the Divine “inbreathing” into its human authors, but that it is breathed out by God, “God-breathed,” the product of the creative breath of God. In a word, what is declared by this fundamental passage is simply that the Scriptures are a Divine product, without any indication of how God has operated in producing them. No term could have been chosen, however, which would have more emphatically asserted the Divine production of Scripture than that which is here employed. The “breath of God” is in Scripture just the symbol of his almighty power, the bearer of his creative word. “By the word of Jehovah,” we read in the significant parallel of Psalm 33:6, “were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.”

B. B. WARFIELD

As to the meaning of “inspiration,” it is often said that the quality expressed in the word “is primarily and strictly applicable only to men” and only in a secondary sense to the writings themselves. Such an explanation is far from being warranted. Writing with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, Paul applies the term directly to the Scriptures themselves, and it must be interpreted in a way that admits of this reference. Literally “inspired of God” is “God-breathed”; and since the breath of God is everywhere identified with His presence, the epithet as applied to the Scriptures can only mean that, written by holy men of old borne on by the Holy Spirit, every Scripture has the presence and operation of God indissolubly associated with it.

J. P. LILLEY

This enthronement of the Holy Scriptures (primarily, but not exclusively, the Old Testament) in the seat of authority is so insistent and prolific of consequences that we cannot wonder that the modern spirit of license rises in revolt against it or labors to dilute its significance. First of all we have the declaration that the sacred graphe, the invariable meaning of the word, whether singular or plural, in the New Testament, re-echoing the hiera grammata of the preceding verse, God-breathed in quality, has the seal of divine truth stamped upon it throughout. The imprimatur of Deity countersigns these scripts, instrumentally the work of human minds, working in keeping with their native faculties, yet prompted by an unseen power. That fact sets them apart from other writings. In that capacity they should be received as replete with instruction.

E. K. SIMPSON

Profitable

The quadruplex usus of the Sacred Scripture of the Old Covenant, is confirmed by the Apostle’s own example, who, in his writings, often employs the Old Testament for all these different ends. For doctrine, he makes use, e.g., of the history of Abraham (Gen. 15:6), in the discussion of the doctrine of justification, Romans 4. For reproof, as often as he puts to shame his opponents by citations from the Old Testament, e.g., Romans 9–11. For correction, e.g., 1 Corinthians 10:1–10. For instruction (Comp. Heb. 12:7), Romans 15:4.

J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE

Let us not be stupefied by hearing Scriptures which we do not understand; but let it be to us according to our faith, by which also we believe that every Scripture because it is theopneustic is profitable. For you must needs admit one of two things regarding these Scriptures: either that they are not theopneustic since they are not profitable, as the unbeliever takes it; or, as a believer, you must admit that since they are theopneustic, they are profitable.

ORIGEN

And, first of all, he mentions doctrine, which ranks above all the rest; for it will be to no purpose that you exhort or reprove, if you have not previously instructed. But because “instruction,” taken by itself, is often of little avail, he adds reproof and correction.… Instruction in righteousness means the rule of a good and holy life.

JOHN CALVIN

This is a classical place to prove the perfection of the Scriptures against Papists, and whatsoever adversaries, who argue it of insufficiency, accounting traditions or revelations to be the touchstone of doctrine and foundation of faith. If the Scriptures be profitable for all these purposes, and able to make a minister perfect, who can say less of it than that it is the soul’s food, as Athanasius calleth it; the invariable rule of truth, as Irenaeus: the touchstone of errors, the aphorisms of Christ, the library of the Holy Ghost, the circle of all divine arts, the wisdom of the cross, the cubit of the sanctuary.

JOHN TRAPP

For correction. The word here used occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means properly, a setting to rights, reparation, restoration, and here means, the leading to a correction or amendment of life—a reformation. The meaning is, that the Scriptures are a powerful means of reformation, or of putting men into the proper condition in regard to morals. After all the means which have been employed to reform mankind; all the appeals which are made to them on the score of health, happiness, respectability, property, and long life, the word of God is still the most powerful and the most effectual means of recovering those who have fallen into vice. No reformation can be permanent which is not based on the principles of the word of God.

ALBERT BARNES

The question of moral values in modern literature is one which confronts many earnest Christians who wish to keep abreast of contemporary art. All too often such people are left with furtive, semiapologetic feelings about their reading interests. That there is some value in contemporary fiction, poetry, or drama they may not doubt; but often the values remain only half-formulated or completely hazy. The problem, then, of a Christian approach to modern literature is worthy of consideration.

For example, suppose a Christian, knowing that William Faulkner is considered one of America’s greatest literary artists, desires to read, say, The Sound and the Fury. Beginning the book, he notices first of all a rather difficult style (this alone, unfortunately, is enough to stop many would-be readers of the modern authors). Persevering, he discovers coarse words and themes of sex, incest and lust. Often the result is either that he throws the book aside in disgust, or that he goes on reading because he is fascinated in spite of himself. Either result is lamentable. The usual remark, heard sometimes in academic, highly cultured Christian circles, runs something like this: “Faulkner certainly is brilliant stylistically; it’s just too bad he chose these poor subjects.”

Such readers obviously forget that the distinction between style and content is largely an artificial one; form and content are in essence inseparable.

If form is content, the position of praising the style of Faulkner and other moderns, particularly the naturalists, while deprecating their content, seems to need rethinking.

What, then, are some principles that should guide a Christian reader in his approach to modern literature?

In the first place, every book, poem, or play deserves to be judged on the basis of its author’s purpose. This is of prime importance in distinguishing the worthy and the unworthy in recent literature—or in any literature, for that matter. Potboilers, written for immediate sale and often catering to the lower nature simply to attract hosts of buyers, are ordinarily almost worthless. But often a writer of integrity must picture human violence and depravity to carry out his theme, to express his ideas. This concept should not be foreign to the Christian who is familiar with the Old Testament stories of violence, told not for the sake of violence but to illustrate man’s degradation and God’s righteousness.

To return to the case of William Faulkner, a large part of his purpose in The Sound and the Fury and other novels is to reveal the degradation of the Old South—and of modern society—through materialism. Furthermore, according to Faulkner’s 1949 Stockholm Address, all his writing is an attempt to show “the human heart in conflict with itself … to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.” In the view of many critical readers, these purposes could not be achieved without the inclusion of much sordid material. In fact, Faulkner believes that mature man must learn to accept evil as well as good in the harmony of the world—and this part of his religious perception should not be too strange to one who realizes that without a knowledge of sin there can be no salvation.

We should not, therefore, be too quick to accuse an author of “wallowing in filth.” Although this charge is brought most often against recent writers, it is actually connected with literature of any age; the same charge has been leveled at Jonathan Swift of the eighteenth century and Geoffrey Chaucer of the fourteenth. The only solution is to learn to judge a man’s work by his purposes, his motives, and how well he achieves his goals with the material he uses.

Second, it is wise to approach a work of modern literature seeking actively for the values it can impart. And, as in the case of true art in any period, these are many—but they are rendered possibly more immediate because they are the contribution of great minds living in our own century, our own world climate.

For one thing, modern literature can bring an awareness of world views that oppose our own. This is valuable for obvious reasons; we need to break out of our insularity, to understand the concepts which large minds are thinking beyond the boundaries of our own ideological environment, however excellent that environment may be (cf. Acts 7:22: “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians …”). This is not to say, however, that we should accept these opposing world views—or that we should become dulled in our rejection of the low moral standards we may read about. As T. S. Eliot points out in Religion and Literature, “So long as we are conscious of the gulf fixed between ourselves and the greater part of contemporary literature (i.e., that which does not admit of a Christian supernatural order) we are more or less protected from being harmed by it, and are in a position to extract from it what good it has to offer us.”

Another value one may well seek in recent literature is a widening of his human sympathies. In The Sound and the Fury, for instance, Faulkner gives the stream of consciousness of Benjy, an idiot. Whether or not Faulkner is completely correct in his surmises about what goes on in an undeveloped mind, certainly this sympathetic insight tends to soften one’s attitude toward such members of the human race. There is also the confused stream of consciousness of a man about to commit suicide. In other words, life in other emotional climates is opened up. Certainly this deepening of human sympathy, the extension of our ability to “feel in” with others, is a part of maturation.

This heightened perception of human emotions often leads, furthermore, to the solution of one’s own personal problems and to a better self-understanding.

Another result of the intelligent reading of contemporary literature is a sharpening of the analytical powers. One reason for Faulkner’s difficult style—run-together sentences, abrupt gaps and jumps in the chronology—is to force the reader to participate in the story, to keep wrestling with the ideas until they come clear. This is true also in the symbolism of novelists like Ernest Hemingway and poets like T. S. Eliot. The same techniques of intensive, thoughtful reading are extremely valuable in Bible study, leading us to become aware of allusions and subtle shades of meaning.

All these values will, however, be received only through reading books commonly recognized as works of art. How can one tell, before he invests his time and money in a book, whether it is worthwhile? One can certainly not tell a book by its cover, and even dependence on the author’s reputation may at times be deceiving. The best answer is probably reliance on the critic. Although twentieth-century “classics” are still fluid and it is dangerous to foretell which works will stand the test of time—we lack the perspective for that—the critics and reviewers in reputable newspapers or magazines are usually well enough trained and widely enough read to guide us through the deluge of printed matter to that which is of particular interest to us, and that which is worth our while.

END

Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Associate Professor of English at Shelton College, holds the M.A. degree from Temple University. She has done some radio script writing and has published short stories integrating biblical and literary themes.

Milton’s Paradise Lost is one of the four great epic works of the Western world, vying with Virgil’s Aeneid, Dante’s Inferno, and Goethe’s Faust for the supremacy. Only these four in European literature have taken the universe as their field of discourse.

Contrary to what we consider to be normal procedure, Milton chose his medium of expression before he chose his subject. It was one of his long cherished desires to leave a great epic poem behind him, one that would stand as an enduring monument. Later, as he sought for the proper subject matter, he decided that no less a stage than the universe and no less than the drama of the ages would suffice in magnitude for his proposed work. The work became universal in its scope, reaching from the beginning to the end of history and penetrating to the highest reach of heaven and the lowest pit of hell.

The Greatest Tragedy

In making his poem embrace all time, from scenes in heaven to the consummation of all things, Milton forced himself to grapple with some knotty problems.

As Buxton writes, “The poet who makes the Universe the subject of his poem, undertakes a work so supremely difficult and complicated that without an extraordinary, an apparently miraculous combination of powers and sympathies, he must ignominiously fail” (Prophets of Heaven and Hell, p. 3). But Milton was seeking a solemn and edifying subject for his epic, and his spirit revolted from the frivolous and untrue. His mind naturally turned to the greatest tragedy of all time, the fall of the angels and of man. What was more real and dramatic than the fall of man, and what better medium was there for his moral purposes and the justification of the ways of God to man? With masterful arrangement and seductive style, Milton causes the reader to view with him the drama of Satan’s fall and his cunning schemes. One’s eyes also see the portrayal of man’s pristine beauty and grandeur, his ruinous fall, and finally a preview of the history of his redemption.

Satan’s fall is so extensively treated that some have called him the hero of the epic. He is shown to be an angel, highly endowed by his Creator. But because of his lust for greater glory, he rebels against the rightful lordship of God. Hence he must be cast from heaven and suffer torment in hell, bearing the fruits of disturbing the order of creation which God had ordained. In his plight we do not find him repentant, however. He and his followers only plot how they may further war against God. Though he sees his fortunes changed, he boasts of “the unconquerable will, the study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield” (Paradise Lost, book I, ll. 106–108).

Yet there is the problem of making hell a livable place. Satan consoles himself with the thought, “Here at last we shall be free” (book I, l. 258), and takes a subjective view of punishment in his words, “The mind is its own place and in itself can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n” (book I, ll. 254–255). Then he and his followers consult with one another and plan their strategy. Their deliberations, however, only reveal further the scope of their tragedy, for they reveal the successive depths of satanic predicament. The freedom in which they boast is really no freedom at all; instead, their actions are self-frustrating. Their parley serves to disclose how much they are bound, as the result of their rebellious spirit. From holding counsel to wage open war against God, they are reduced to the doubtful glory of trying to seduce others to suffer the same fate.

Satan’S Sophistry

The whole situation of Satan and his host is filled with grim humor. Satan is certain that there will be no faction or strife in hell, for none will wish to claim precedence in being tormented. To escape the lordship of God, Satan gladly submits himself to an idea of fate. He consoles himself with the idea that he can make a heaven out of hell; but as he comes to the garden of Eden, it is said of him, “… within him Hell he brings … nor from Hell one step, no more than from himself, can fly …” (book IV, l. 2022). And Satan admits, “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell” (book IV, l. 75). The one who sought freedom from God and his order finds himself bound as he never was before. There is a comic ring in Milton’s portrayal. He wishes to characterize a Satan who is not simply pitiable, but ludicrous and contemptible.

Some have accused Milton of making his devils too gentlemanly, and they have been compared unfavorably to those more directly fiendish powers in the Divine Comedy. But if Milton were to have made his devils mere brute powers that buffeted man, he would have lost much. Their brute character would have destroyed that blending of logic and illogic, reason and insanity, which makes for irony in the persons of sinful creatures. As it is, he is able to portray the self-defeating character of rebellion from God and the subtlety and apparent reasonableness of the great Tempter. Besides, some of the most devilish sins are committed by “gentlemen” and some of the worst sins are “refined.”

Source Of Tragedy

The situation is similar in Milton’s portrayal of the fall of Adam and Eve. Their idyllic condition before the fall is painted in glowing colors, and it is contrasted vividly with the degradation and misery of their fallen estate. Harmony is changed to discord, and joy is replaced by pain. Their efforts, too, are self-frustrating. Wishing to know, they learn only the sin and misery which disobedience brings. Wishing to be free, they are enslaved. Adam shows his “love” for Eve by eating the fruit with her; then they fall to hating one another and bickering. They spurn the worship of God, yet turn to the worship of the tree and its fruit.

Though the central theme of the poem is the origin of human tragedy in willful rebellion against God, there is some sort of organic connection between the will of man and the course of nature. When Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, “Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat, sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, that all was lost” (book IX, ll. 782–784). When Adam ate, “Earth trembled from her entrails, as gain in pangs and Nature gave a second groan” (book IX, ll. 1000–1001).

We see, therefore, that the ultimate source of tragedy, whether in angel, man, or nature, is one. The source of tragedy is not blind accident or fate; tragedy is fundamentally derived from conscious choice. There was no tragedy before the first disobedience. The deepest source of all tragedy, therefore, is personal. The rebellions of Satan and of man are rebellions of will against a beneficent God, albeit it a God who demands reverence and obedience from his creatures.

It is true, however, that the original decisions led Satan and man into a play of necessities. They are now at the mercy of powers set awry by their disobedience. Furthermore, they can never undo what they have brought about. We see this plainly in the case of Satan. It is assumed that Satan’s decision is irrevocable, and that he will never be reinstated into God’s favor. Though it is never said that a necessity outside his own proud and stubborn will prevents him from turning again to God, the practical issue of his rebellion is considered to be sure. He will continue to think it better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

Satan And Greek Heroes

Some have thought that the character of Satan and his Promethean rebellion from God is at the center of the drama. As Milton’s hero, Satan is supposed to resemble greatly the heroes of Greek drama. But there are some prominent differences between Milton’s Satan and the Greek heroes. We gain the impression from reading Greek drama that the heroes were justified at least in part for their rebellion against their fate. Prometheus brings fire to men, and for this deed of kindness he is bound to a rock by the angry Zeus. The attempt is made by the dramatist to make the audience feel admiration for the nobility of Prometheus, and finally the chorus is moved to suffer his fate with him. Here there is the possibility of questioning the goodness of Zeus; but in Paradise Lost there is no occasion given to doubt the beneficence of God, and Satan is shown to be the epitome of sin.

Furthermore, in Greek tragedy there is proper cause for the heroes to rebel against their fate because it is a prophecy of doom apart from their real wishes. In Oedipus Rex, for instance, the hero’s fate is foretold apart from his conscious desire, and the tragic situation is precipitated by trivial incidents. But in Paradise Lost the rebellion is against the just and wise God.

Concept Of Freedom

The picture Milton portrays of Satan can stand only if we consider it a proper claim of God to have dominion over his creatures. One suspects that those who sympathize with Satan feel that all reality is based on a democratic political platform. But the concept of freedom can be applied too abstractly. That is what Satan tried to do, but he found that he could not carry through his case.

We have noticed that Milton represented Satan as being self-frustrating and unable to maintain a consistent position. This makes his open rebellion not only tragic but comic, and makes his violent acts not simply a pitiable but a ludicrous spectacle. But the comic in Satan would disappear if we were not given the impression that his tragic situation ultimately depended upon his own will. The tragic in Milton is therefore not stark; tragic situations are not ultimately brute, just there, apart from their original source in a choice against the all-wise and good God. Only for this reason can Milton lead us not simply to pity Satan and man in their rebellion, but also to feel derision.

How did Milton wish his solemn epic to be taken? Was it to be read literally or was it a typical representation of the struggles and failures of the human soul? Buxton inclines to a view that regards Milton’s work as an epic of man in general. It is required of a cosmic story, he says, that it have a central figure, human enough “to be imagined as representative of mankind in its strivings and failures” (Op. cit., p. 38). On the basis of this judgment, he makes a criticism of Milton’s Adam: “It is perhaps the one inherent weakness of Milton’s myth that Adam, in his perfect innocence before the Fall, is a figure so remote from all our experience that it is well-nigh impossible to invest him with real interest” (Ibid.). But we cannot think of Milton’s purpose as being identical with that of Goethe in Faust, to portray a symbolic figure representing humanity in the abstract. What Milton first of all wished was to describe a unique history which he accepted on the basis of his belief in the authority of Scripture. Adam is not so much the symbol of humanity as he is its head, plunging it into sin. The remoteness or nearness of the prelapsarian Adam could not have been the first question then before Milton’s mind. His aim was to base his epic in the main on sober history.

The foregoing implies that Milton was writing something he regarded not merely to be a story but to be a fact. It is true that Milton embellished his writing with all sorts of imagery drawn from historical sources and his own imagination. The personifications of Death and Sin are imaginary, for instance. But Milton’s living in a rationalistic age did not influence him basically. As Willey says, “… his work is much like an isolated volcano thrusting up through the philosophic plains, and drawing its fire from deeper and older levels of spiritual energy” (The Seventeenth Century Background, p. 226). There are, in Milton’s work, many purely imaginative elements and much symbolic meaning which he wished to be taken as such. But Willey is closer to the truth than Buxton when he says: “On the whole I think we must conclude that whereas the pagan myths were to him but husks from which truth could be winnowed … the biblical events, if allegorical at all, were the deliberate allegories of God himself; and when God allegorizes he does not merely write or inspire parables, he also causes to happen the events which can be allegorically interpreted” (Ibid., p. 239).

Milton’s thoughts do not stop at Paradise Lost. Like the biblical record itself, Milton’s work looks forward to a paradise regained. By the seed of the woman, man is to be saved from sin. Tragedy is not just there; it can be overcome, and it will be overcome finally in Christ,

“… for then the Earth Shall be a Paradise, far happier place Than this of Eden, and far happier daies” (book XII, ll. 463–465).

END

Robert D. Knudsen is Instructor in Philosophy at Westminster Theological Seminary. He holds the Ph.D. from the Free University of Amsterdam. He is author of The Idea of Transcendence in the Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (Kok, 1958).

Calvinism, properly speaking, is a term which belongs to the Continent rather than to Great Britain. At the same time as John Calvin was leading the work of the Reformation in Switzerland and France, men like Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer were doing the same in England, and John Knox in Scotland. Of course there were contacts and communications between the British Reformers and Calvin, and interactions of thought and theology. But there was a spontaneousness in the flowering of the Reformation in these different spheres which contradicts any notion of radical interdependence and, by the same token, magnifies the sovereignty and exuberance of the Holy Spirit in his working. As a matter of terminology, therefore, the term “Calvinistic” is applicable to the Continent rather than to Great Britain, where the correspondingly appropriate adjective is “Reformed.” This distinction, however, does not at all imply any kind of cleavage or disharmony in theology. But it is sometimes necessary discreetly to remind friends across the Channel or on the other side of the Atlantic that in the sixteenth century Great Britain had her own Reformation and her own Reformers, though, unlike Luther and Calvin on the Continent, the names of Knox and Cranmer had the good fortune not to become compounded or associated with particular “isms.”

Common Ground

A comparison of the teaching of Calvin with the Westminster Confession of Faith and with the Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England will show how in all essentials of doctrine and worship the respective reforming movements of Geneva, Edinburgh, and Canterbury were at one with each other. The explanation of this identity of conviction was, to all intents and purposes, the simultaneous rediscovery of the Bible as the authoritative Word of God to man (sola scriptura), and with it the apprehension of the evangelical truths that it is by grace alone (sola gratis) that man is offered redemption in Christ and that it is by faith alone (sola fide), not by any supposed human merit, that this all-sufficient salvation is appropriated by man.

Calvinism, then, may be understood in two different ways: either as indicating the distinctive school of Calvin and his disciples in successive generations, or as a synonym for the main and characteristic doctrines of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, in whatever land and under whatever leaders they came to expression. This year, no doubt, as we commemorate the 450th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth and the 400th anniversary of the publication of the final edition of his incomparable Institutes of the Christian Religion, attention will very fittingly be concentrated on the life and labors of the great Continental Reformer; but a just portrayal of the British scene requires that “Calvinism” should be taken into account in both senses.

New Interest In Calvin

There are clear signs that Calvin, after a period of unjust neglect, is today becoming increasingly known and appreciated in Great Britain. Contemporary interpretations of particular themes and aspects of his theology (such as have come from the pens of T. F. Torrance in Scotland and T. H. L. Parker in England), though very much a second best when compared with the reading of Calvin’s own writings, have served to bring the Reformer’s name and in some measure his thought to the serious notice of persons who through ignorance or prejudice might not be disposed to turn to his works. Studies of this kind provide stepping-stones to the reading of Calvin at first hand, which is much more to be desired. It is over a hundred years since the Calvin Translation Society performed a notable service by producing the great Reformer’s works (Institutes, Commentaries, and Tracts) in an English translation of some fifty volumes. These volumes have now been long out of print, and a new edition, preferably a new translation, would be certain to be widely welcomed. The reprinting, since the war, of an existing English translation of the Institutes has met with an eager response—a sure token of the present mounting interest in John Calvin and his theology. A publication on a smaller scale has been that of a new translation (by T. H. L. Parker) of Calvin’s Sermons on Isaiah LIII.

In the strictly Calvinistic tradition, mention may be made of English translations of two works by contemporary Frenchmen: Auguste Lecerf’s Introduction to Reformed Dogmatics (translated by Stephen Leigh-Hunt, 1949—both author and translator are now deceased) and Pierre Marcel’s Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism (translated by the author of this article, 1953), both of which have been widely studied. A British edition of David Gelzer’s translation of the outstanding biographical study of Calvin by the distinguished contemporary Swiss man of letters, Emanuel Stickelberger, shortly to be published in London, will help further to stimulate intelligent interest here in Great Britain in the personality and work of the eminent Continental Reformer.

Taking “Calvinism” in its broader and less precise sense of Reformed theology in general, however, there is much more that can be added to the picture, for, despite the prevailing climate of theological liberalism and, in certain quarters, of Anglo-medievalism, a pronounced revival of interest in the men and writings of the Reformation is discernible—not least among younger men in scholarly and ministerial circles, which, for those who are active in the cause of advancing the vital principles of the Reformed faith, is a source of much encouragement. In the University of Cambridge, for example, there are large attendances at the meetings of the Cranmer Society, the declared aim of which is “to provide members of the University with instruction in ‘those wholesome and spiritual doctrines of the Reformation’ contained in the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Homilies, and the Common Book of Prayer of the Church of England”; at Oxford the Bishop Jewel Society, with similar objectives, is also flourishing; and a Puritan Studies Conference, numerously and enthusiastically supported, is held annually in London for the purpose of studying the writings and character of the Puritan divines of the seventeenth century, who so solidly and devoutly developed and applied the great doctrines of the Reformation.

Study Of Luther

Another factor to be taken into account is the growing interest in Martin Luther. This is shown, for instance, in the approving reception which has been accorded to Gordon Rupp’s scholarly writings on the German Reformer and to the British edition of Roland H. Bainton’s biography, Here I Stand. Recent years have also seen the appearance of a new and revised edition of Luther’s famous commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians in English (edited by P. S. Watson, 1953), a completely new translation of his Bondage of the Will (by J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, 1957), and the selection and translation by Bertram Lee Woolf of some of his main Reformation writings (in two volumes, 1952 and 1956). In the Library of Christian Classics series, now in process of production, no less than 10 volumes out of a projected total of 26, covering the first 15 centuries of the Christian Church, are being devoted to new translations of selected works from the pens of Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Bucer, Zwingli, Bullinger, and the English Reformers. Another book that has been favourably received is Marcus Loane’s Masters of the English Reformation (1954).

Among other publications which might be mentioned, the volumes currently being produced by The Banner of Truth Trust are deserving of special notice, for they represent the fruits of a most laudable venture. These are, for the most part, reprints of religious works in the best Reformed tradition, ranging from the seventeenth up to our own twentieth century, and classifiable, according to their contents, within the categories of Dogmatics, Pastoral Theology, and the Exegesis of Holy Scripture. Subsidized by The Banner of Truth Trust, these books are being priced at figures which place them within the reach of every pocket. That they will contribute effectively to the realization of the Trust’s object of inducing a revival of solid biblical learning is scarcely a matter of doubt. Of the two dozen volumes already projected, more than half have so far been published—and the Trust came into existence only a little more than a year ago! Over the next few years a substantial augmentation of the Calvinistic literature available in Great Britain can be anticipated, thanks to the vision of those loyal and generous men who formed this Trust.

The Printed Page

Unfortunately, like the volumes of the Calvin Translation Society, the splendid sets of the fathers and early writers of the Reformed Churches of England and Scotland, published in the middle of last century by the Parker Society and the Wodrow Society respectively, are now out of print and difficult to come by in secondhand bookshops. Perhaps it is not too much to hope that the example of the Calvinistic Society of France in producing, as it is now doing with the aid of the International Association for Reformed Faith and Action, a new edition of Calvin’s Institutes and commentaries in modernized French will stimulate the undertaking of a similar service for the writings of our British Reformers. These champions and witnesses of evangelical truth have a message for our generation, and they must not be silenced by careless neglect.

Evangelical Preaching

The reader would be correct to infer that the degree of change in the theological climate of Great Britain, involving a return to the distinctive doctrines of the Reformation, is resulting very largely from the distribution of the printed page. Evangelical preaching, however, still leaves much to be desired, especially in that there is a deficiency of emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of Almighty God, as Creator, Redeemer, and Judge, over all the affairs of our world. This means also a concomitant deficiency in the view of man and his ability. But it is only reasonable to expect that as the majestic scriptural perspectives of the Reformation are absorbed through the printed page, so they will begin once more to find an integral place in the message proclaimed from the pulpit, and thence in the hearts and minds of the men and women in the pews of our British churches.

There is, indeed, another factor which is by no means unimportant. I refer to the impact which is continually being made on worshipers in the Church of England by the services of the Book of Common Prayer, that treasury of scriptural worship and teaching inherited from the English Reformation. And this is particularly true of the services most frequently celebrated, namely, Morning and Evening Prayer and the Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper, which for beauty and balance, dignity of worship, and soundness of doctrine are unsurpassed in the whole of Christendom. They represent “Calvinism” at its best. Beyond doubt, the liturgical and doctrinal structure of the Book of Common Prayer provides the perfect setting for strongly Reformed preaching from the pulpit. Here in England, a fresh, vital union of Reformed liturgy and Reformed preaching could, more probably than anything else, lead to a genuine transformation of the present deplorable situation.

International Congress

Finally, a word must be said about the international aspect. The Reformed faith is a faith for the world—not for one country or one denomination. The realization of this truth lies behind the formation a mere five or six years ago of the International Association for Reformed Faith and Action with its threefold aim of strengthening and advancing the Reformed cause throughout the world, encouraging fellowship between Reformed Christians of every land, and facilitating the interchange of Reformed thought and experience. This new movement, so young and hopeful, has already organized three major international congresses and has an impressive program for the production and dissemination of Reformed literature, both classical and contemporary, especially in those lands where the Reformed faith is weak and struggling. National branches have already been formed in every quarter of the globe, including Great Britain. And it is planned to hold the next international congress in England in the summer of 1961.

The most recent development is the publication of a new magazine, The International Reformed Bulletin, which is produced twice yearly and of which I have the honor to be the Editor. Here too, then, within the great world-wide perspective, Great Britain is beginning to feel in a fresh and vital way the impact of the Reformed faith, or, if you will, of Calvinism. This faith, let us always remember, is not an outmoded construction of 400 years ago, but the pristine faith of the New Testament, which can never be static or retrogressive, but constantly the one dynamic reforming faith for our own and every generation. May God graciously enable us, in the light of Holy Scripture and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to apply it to our present circumstances, to contend earnestly for it, and to propagate it in our world today, raising high the banner: soli Deo glorial

END

Philip E. Hughes is Lecturer of Mortlake Parish, London, and Editor of the International Reformed Bulletin. He is Vice-President of the International Association for Reformed Faith and Action; formerly Secretary of the Church Society of London. He is also Vice-Principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol.