On July 1, 1858, papers were read to the Linnean Society of London by A. R. Wallace and Charles Darwin on the subject of natural selection. These lectures were followed by the publication on November 24, 1859, of the first edition of Darwin’s monumental work, The Origin of Species.

This forthcoming centenary is the subject of a paper by Dr. A. J. Friend, senior lecturer in chemistry of the University of Tasmania, in The Reformed Theological Review (June, 1958).

Dr. Friend is a graduate of Sydney, Australia, and Cambridge, England, and he was organizing secretary of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Australia prior to his present appointment. He is an able scientist and a competent theologian.

He points out that Darwin’s doctrine that “species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms” was not original. What Darwin did was to describe a plausible mechanism, that of natural selection, supported by much evidence, to show how the changes might have taken place. Writers, such as Lamarck, had adopted the hypothesis that acquired characteristics were transmitted.

At first, opposition came largely from scientists, notably Richard Owen and Adam Sedgewick. The attitude of clerics was not unsympathetic and T. H. Huxley was forced to confess himself “pleasantly disappointed; there has been far less virulence and much more just appreciation of the weight of scientific evidence than I expected.”

The situation, however, soon altered. Many scientists and philosophers (e.g., Huxley and Herbert Spencer) carried Darwinism further, and erected a complete world view which had no need of a Creator. (It is no coincidence that in the U.S.S.R. Darwinism and Marxism are taught together as one of the foundations of its philosophy.) On the other hand, many Christians adopted an attitude of uncompromising hostility to any view which departed from the doctrine of the fixity of species. (And yet this view was only developed in the eighteenth century by Linnaeus.)

It is not clear just what Darwin’s own understanding of the Christian faith was. Dr. Friend makes Darwin’s position clear:

“He has been represented as a sincere Christian, and also as a man to whom Christianity meant little in his later life.

It is known from his own words that much of his earlier religious belief deserted him towards the end of his life; but it is another question whether he was deliberately seeking to undermine the teachings of the Scriptures as they were accepted. He certainly added many passages to later editions of ‘The Origin of Species’ which gave the impression that he was a believer in what has come to be called ‘theistic evolution.’ … He was never as anti-clerical as Huxley, who was very conscious of the low regard in which scientists were held by the community as a whole compared with the clergy, and could never resist an opportunity for a jibe at what he considered the absurd teaching of the Old Testament.”

This whole question was the theme of an important conference recently arranged by the graduate fellowship of the I.V.F., at which a paper was read by F. I. Andersen (before his departure for America). In this paper he points out the dangers of a “negative apologetic.” For example, he cites those who would discredit and “debunk” all scientific investigation by saying “after all, they are only theories,” “they are not proved,” etc. Andersen comments: “An apologetic of this kind is well-suited to counteract the less cautious spokesman of science who makes inflated claims about the sure conclusions which contradict Christianity, but more often this criticism is aimed at discrediting science as a whole, and making what are solid achievements appear very uncertain.”

Over against this “negative apologetic,” Andersen points out the value of a more positive approach:

“Much good would be done if Christians were to shake off a feeling of inferiority and hostility towards science, and seek to use it positively in the interests of evangelism.… Instead of looking upon science as hostile territory to be attacked, it should be regarded as one of God’s realms, to be rightfully claimed for His lordship. Instead of regarding the scientist as an enemy, we should look on him as a servant of God, obeying (usually unwittingly) the primaeval command to subdue the earth.” Nevertheless, there are dangers arising from the “tentative and transitory nature of most scientific theory.” Andersen concludes by making certain observations: “We may note this basic difference between the attitude of the Bible and the attitude of positive science to the universe. Biblical descriptions of nature are phenomenonological, whereas those of science are ordered in the light of some hypothesis. Hence biblical descriptions are permanently true, and universally and directly understandable. For example, the statement that the sun rises in the east is true, and will always be true for all men, in spite of the overthrow of Ptolemaic astronomy.

“On a more metaphysical level we find another important distinction. Biblical descriptions of nature explain most things immediately by the ultimate cause—the will of God. He makes the wind blow, the grass grow, etc. Positive science, on the other hand, is wholly occupied with secondary causes, or to speak more precisely, with those antecedent circumstances which habitually precede (and are presumed to cause) phenomena. Hence the two points of view are largely mutually exclusive. No statement about secondary causes can be turned into a denial of the operation of the will of God as an ultimate cause. The Bible is not concerned with the processes God uses to govern nature, whereas science is wholly concerned with such processes. Hence its discoveries make no difference to the truths of the Bible unless scientists overstretch the bounds of their subject and move into metaphysical questions, as in the argument that since science postulates universal regularity in nature, therefore irregularities (miracles) never occur, or in the inference that since science studies proximate causes, an ultimate superphenomenal cause has no reality.

“Finally, on a positive note, the point must be most emphatically made that only a vigorous biblical faith can afford a stable basis for sound science and that therefore Christianity and Science should be the closest of friends.”

He says, in conclusion, that the Bible gives a specific charter for Science. “Man was created to be a scientist! Man was placed in charge of this work (Ps. 8), as lord of all creatures (Gen. 1). He was instructed to subdue the earth, and at the very first exercised that power of identifying, distinguishing, classifying and naming objects, that is the basis of all science.”

Power Ethics

The Organization Man, by William H. Whyte (Doubleday, 1956, 456 pp., $1.45), is reviewed by R. Richard Searle, assistant minister of First Presbyterian Church, River Forest, Illinois.

The panorama of the ages is designed to show that man, individually and collectively, is inadequate to his predicament as a sinner. Supernatural aid is prerequisite to the effecting of any salvation of the soul or of society. It is the purpose of God to make himself experimentally indispensable to righteousness. He says, “Come unto me all ye that labor …” But man will not heed. He hears other voices beguiling him into a pseudo-security. They are all more dangerous to his soul when they pose as economic or social systems benevolent to his welfare. In fact they are really horizontal religions. Modern man is currently caught in the throes of one of these redemptive systems. His predicament is quite thoroughly analyzed in the 1957 non-fiction best seller by William H. Whyte, Jr., entitled The Organization Man.

The organization man is identified as the man in the middle. He is married to his job and the ideology thereof. But like most systems its adherents appreciate its pragmatic value more than its theoretical intricacies. The junior executive, the corporation “dog-face,” the collectivized man lives in the context of an otherwise free environment. The business trainee, the seminary student, the Ph.D. on the science lab team, the clinical physician are each representative of his clan. He may talk in terms of the rat race, the treadmill commuter, laughing at the description because he’s afraid not to. For the organization man is theoretically unable to control his economic destiny, and is therefore forced to believe in the ultimate harmony between the organization and where it is going and his own destiny as irresistibly swept along by it. At least this is what he is led to think through company “retreats” and seminars.

Whyte’s thesis is a critique of the attitudes which have generated a deification of this modern system as utopian though it sacrifices the rights of the individual. To believe that society is the soul of the individual and not in basic conflict with him is utter delusion according to the author. He affirms that it can’t bring the “peace of mind” that it seems to offer, although he conceded that it may be a necessary step to that which ultimately will do so.

Organization man, then, is the victim of his material environment. But he is also the spiritual victim of a naturalistic fatalism which is a philosophy of life for the here and now. How did this come about?

To understand the historical perspective Mr. Whyte outlines certain basic economic principles which are identified as the Protestant Ethic. Included are free, individual enterprise in which survive only those best fitted by the rigors of competition; hard work, by which one inevitably achieves that economic and social stature which he so richly deserves; and thrift, through which the individual by sheer power of the fact that “money talks” is able to control his circumstances.

This Protestant Ethic “produced” that which the author identifies as the Social Ethic, the present system in which organization man lives and moves and has his being. Mr. Whythe is not clear, however, in pointing up that it was not the logical evolvement of the Protestant Ethic but the illogical denials of its basic tenets that produced the Social Ethic. When the “breaks” were handed out to the favorite rather than to the worthy, the fawner rather than the fittest, when it mattered more whom one knew than what one knew, a major shift in the economic climate was inevitable.

Organization man had to live with himself and with his family. He had to explain in a plausible manner the reason why he did not make the next rung on the ladder. The shift then, is marked by an escapism—a shifting of the responsibility from the individual and his free will to the society as the imposing source of his destiny. When hard work no longer brought its recognition and rewards, man would continue the Edenic pattern of passing the blame to another.

The curious phenomenon of the day is that our economic leaders talk about the new regime in terms of the old. Whyte states, “Few talents are so sought after as the knack of describing departures from the Protestant Ethic as reaffirmations of it” (p. 19).

To point out the basic parallel in the religious realm, we see that the old-fashioned Gospel is indicted as the sire of a new, social gospel, not for adhering to its principles but for neglecting them. Now that the strictly liberal approach must be redefined in conservative terms, churches, too, strive for that pastor who has the knack of describing departures from the faith as reaffirmation of it. The shift from emphasis on man’s free will to the sovereignty of Another is also in keeping with the whole cultural trend.

The tenor of our times is characterized by group pressure, frustrated creativity, and the anonymity of accomplishment. Mr. Whyte raises the question: Are these virtues or vices? Can the individual live with himself under these circumstances? If so, he must have certain basic underlying assumptions as a framework or a rationale that will justify the individual’s self-surrender. The author points out three axioms of the new “faith,” the inevitable hand-maiden of organization man’s social ethic.

The first is scientism. It is assumed that an exact science of man can be achieved. The behavior pattern of men can be calculated by formula. Hence, personality tests are used to determine who shall go up the ladder of success. (Whyte tells how to cheat on these tests in a later chapter. Actually, he analyzes what is wanted from these tests—the ascertaining of an adaptability index.) Who will fit into the picture of success? By a process of social engineering modern man will be ushered into a redeemed utopia. But what about the moral norms of such a society? These, say the experts, are to be scientifically determined by the concept of “equilibrium”—we’re all in the same boat so don’t rock it. But who determines what this state of equilibrium is? A group leader, a peace planner, an integration therapist, a social diagnostician? Whyte states, he is to be “a person empowered to dominate society, but so disciplined by a scientific code of ethics from using his knowledge in any but good ways” (p. 33).

Hence, the real impact of scientism is on our values. The point at bay is that we in the U.S.A. are not in danger of being dominated by values imposed upon us by the state, but we are in danger of being dominated by values to which we have wittingly or unwittingly unreservedly surrendered ourselves. The scientists really are afraid it can work.

Belongingness is the term applied to the state of emotional security to be derived from total integration within the group into which so-called skilled leaders will guide us. Since man has an incurable urge to belong, and since he wants this group solidarity even though he doesn’t realize it, the organization man must be willing to make sacrifices by adjustment to his environment so that there will come to him the ability to enjoy it. The goal, then is an adaptive society in which there are no maladjusted people, a group purged of conflict.

The third element of this economic ideology is togetherness. Whyte on page 52 says, “He is erecting what is almost a secular religion.” Togetherness is that which can give coherence to the system. It is a theory widely believed but only tentatively proved that the group is superior to the individual, the totality of society greater than the sum of all its parts.

RICHARD SEARLE

Record Of Salvation Army

The House of My Pilgrimage, by Albert Orsborn (Salvation Army, London, 1958, 294 pp., 15s.) is reviewed by Frank Houghton, Bishop at St. Marks, Warwicks.

This is the autobiography of the sixth General of the Salvation Army. The title, taken from Psalm 119:54, “Thy statues have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage,” is particularly appropriate because General Orsborn has been a prolific writer of “songs” which are sung by the Salvation Army throughout the world, and at least one chorus which is current among evangelical Christians of all denominations—“Let the Beauty of Jesus be Seen in Me.”

Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe the book as the General himself describes it—“some of my memories of Salvation Army service and leadership in the first half of this century”—rather than as an autobiography. For while we are given fascinating details of his early life, they are not so much personal as typical of the upbringing of thousands of children who were born and reared in the Army. His parents were Salvation Army officers. “Ten times,” he says, “I had to change schools,” because his father was posted elsewhere—and all this between the ages of four and thirteen. After that he began to earn the equivalent of one dollar a week. It was in a Sunday night meeting “following a resounding open-air attack and a lively singing and shouting march to the citadel” that he was saved. It was a vital experience which “has stood the test of over half a century of strenuous living.”

The second important experience—God’s call to join the Salvation Army—came to him in a crowded suburban train. He had a vision of “struggling, suffering humanity, parting and dividing into two turgid streams, one trying to get into the light and the other going hopelessly into the darkness.” From that moment it has been his one increasing purpose to help men “get into the light,” and his story becomes more and more an impersonal record of men of note in the Salvation Army, beginning with General Booth and his son Bramwell (who is clearly his hero), and then of notable people whom he met after his appointment as General in 1946. There are stories, and in some cases pictures, of his interviews with Pandit Nehru, President Truman, King Haakon of Norway, Queen Juliana of Holland, King George VI of England, and others.

But General Orsborn is at pains to explain that these contacts came solely through his position in the Salvation Anny, apart from which he himself “would be relatively unimportant.” For all who wish to arrive at a correct appraisal of the world-wide work of the Army today, which is striving (as it always has) to justify its title while engaging also in social work on a vast scale, this book provides valuable material. The “authentic purpose and passion” for the souls of men which was so marked a characteristic of William Booth has been transmitted to each of the succeeding Generals of this great organization.

FRANK HOUGHTON

God’S Revelation

The Study of Old Testament Theology Today, by Edward J. Young (Clarke, 1958, 112 pp. 10s. 6d.), is reviewed by David W. Kerr, Professor of Old Testament, Gordon Divinity School.

The opening chapter of this little book might well be read by those who study Jacob’s Theology. Young indicates that the Old Testament presents itself as a revelation of God to men, rather than a record of what men thought about God. To some this may be a distinction without a difference, a matter of semantics. The author validates his point, however, in his discussion of the nature of Old Testament theology. As a study, it must do justice to the historical and progressive character of revelation. It may not evaporate the revelation into the atmosphere of today’s secular culture.

As for the content of Old Testament theology, the relationship of Israel to her God was convenantal from the beginning, and the covenant is regulative of God’s dealings with his people. It is impossible to do justice to the Old Testament without recognizing this fact.

Because the four chapters of the book are four lectures given at the London Bible College, they are of necessity not as detailed as certain literary studies might be. Some may feel that an attempt has been made to annihilate the Goliath of form critical theology with a somewhat doctrinaire pebble. The reviewer, however, feels that the truth is on Young’s side and that be has emphasized the points where many modern discussions of Old Testament theology are weakest.

DAVID W. KERR

The Apostolic Idea

Preaching to Meet the People’s Needs, by Charles N. Pickell (Exposition Press, New York, 1958, Bibliographies, 82 ff., $3.00) is reviewed by Andrew W. Blackwood, author of Leading in Public Prayer.

The sub-title, “The Meaning of the Arts as a Guide for Preaching Today,” accurately describes the contents and the purpose of this little book. It opens up a field that has been strangely neglected. Preaching bulks large in the Book of Acts, but there is in print no adequate discussion of the preaching by Peter or Paul, as an example of what to preach today, as well as how and why.

The author has read the appropriate literature by C. H. Dodd and others. The book reaches sound conclusions about the preachers and the preaching of apostolic times as ideals for today. In his Boston ministry, according to my friends there, this young man’s pulpit work follows these ideals. His book will serve any student or class as a suitable guide for a fresh and rewarding way of dealing with the Acts. The subject deserves fuller development and discussion of the good ideas in this book.

ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD

An Eternal Excellency

Shadow of the Almighty, by Elisabeth Elliot (Harper, 1958, 249 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Marian J. Caine, Editorial Assistant of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Shadow of the Almighty is a good deal more penetrating than a popular devotional book; it is even more uncommon than a first rank piece of literature. I would suggest that in God’s providence it might be His conspicuous answer to a prayer which one young missionary martyr prayed about nine years before his death. His words were, “Lord, make my way prosperous not that I achieve high station, but that my life may be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.”

For this reviewer, this life of Jim Elliot is eminently that exhibit. Elisabeth lets her husband speak for himself here in letters and diaries which she has edited into a story—a depiction, that is, of a man in his relation to the Almighty. It is a poignant presentation, different from Through Gates of Splendor because of its more personal and less dramatic nature. But what it is not in drama, it is even more in profundity. Isaiah speaks of a trusting child of God as “a spring of water whose waters fail not.” There seems to be a clear likeness of this image to Jim Elliot, and one remembers the words of the Almighty that he makes of such saints “an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.”

He was tall, well-built, and amazingly energetic with a personality that fairly pulsated with animation. To him Christianity was no conservative way of living. It meant a life sold out to Christ—a venture every bit as radical, fragrant, and exciting for the twentieth century as it was for the first. “The world cannot hate us,” he said once, “we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous.”

At Wheaton College he earned top honors with a Greek major, and along with that he proved himself a champion wrestler, as well as one who could captivate audiences with his speaking. He wrote unusually well, even poetically as one sees in these journals. But the book, as an exhibit, reveals simply and forcefully a young man who was intensely honest with himself before his Bible in the presence of the Almighty. Indeed, a powerful transparency of soul in the face of God is what marks the genius of this whole biography. Jim valued nothing whatever aside from getting to know’ God and walking in obedience to Elis will. “Not a long life,” he would pray, “but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.” And a full life embraced a many-sided personality “lived to the hilt” for the eternal glory of God.

It was his desire to reach the Auca savages of Ecuador with the Gospel when he first learned of them in college. And many of his personal records at that time, and shortly before he reached the mission field, were frankly prophetic of his early death. For instance, he wrote, “Father, if Thou wilt let me go to South America to labor with Thee and to die, I pray that Thou wilt let me go soon.” At another time he said, “Father, take my life, yea, my blood if Thou wilt … I would not save it, for it is not mine to save. Have it Lord, have it all. Pour out

my life as an oblation for the world. Blood is only of value as it flows before Thine altar.”

Often he would remind himself that one “is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” And about five years before his death he said, “I have had all that a young man can have, at least all this young man can have. I am ready to meet Jesus.”

As Elisabeth observes in the preface: “Some who pick up this book may make no claim to know God. Others may make the claim but be victims of self-delusion [profession without obedience] … Yet others may know Him, obey Him, but wonder sometimes at the value of this knowledge and this obedience.” In the reviewer’s mind, there is a compelling testament here to the heart situation of any reader in these three categories. And it should prove an awakening to cynics that genuine Christianity, as gloriously Real and surpassing the temporary lusts and pride of life, is actually lived in the world today. In the life of Jim Elliot, one is brought face to face with “the salt of the earth.”

MARIAN J. CAINE

Valuable Contribution

Egypt in Biblical Prophecy, by Wilbur M. Smith (W. A. Wilde Company, Boston, 1957, 256 pp., $3.50) is reviewed by Horace L. Fenton, Jr., associate general director of the Latin America Mission.

With the thoroughness so characteristic of his writings, Dr. Smith here sets forth the prophetic teaching of the Word concerning Egypt. He tells how he turned to this study at the time (1956) when that land was so constantly in the headlines, and he admits that six months before making his investigation, he would have failed to pass an examination on this prophetic subject, “even if the questions were not of a technical nature” (p. 5).

The result of Dr. Smith’s research represents a valuable contribution to biblical literature, and doubly so because this theme has so largely been neglected by other scholars. He finds in the Book three great collections of prophecies concerning the nations, and as he gives himself to a careful study of these portions, he discovers much of interest and value. The author does not dodge the difficult passages, and does not hesitate to point out that in areas of prophecy which he examines, earnest students of the Word have not been able to come to agreement. Neither does he withhold the expression of his own opinion concerning these passages, albeit given with a refreshing lack of dogmatism.

While God’s dealings with Egypt in history (both biblical and secular) are of interest, readers will undoubtedly enjoy especially the chapters which deal with prophecies yet to be fulfilled. The idea that God will cause a second exodus of Jews from Egypt at the end of the age may well stimulate further study, and the prophecies of Egypt’s ultimate blessedness will also challenge the thinking of many readers.

Dr. Smith’s work has been well done, and it is documented with the care and exhaustiveness which we have come to expect of him.

HORACE L. FENTON, JR.

Theism And Science

The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe, by John Clover Monsma (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1958, $3.75), is reviewed by Stuart C. Hackett, Professor of Philosophy, Louisiana College.

The overwhelming impact of this compilation of testimony from 40 American scientists is that belief in theism (in many cases specifically Christian biblical theism) is in no way incompatible with a whole-hearted commitment to the genuine implications of mathematical and empirical science, but that, if anything, scientific considerations definitely tend to support such a theistic faith. This sort of insight is by no means new: but it is always relevant in an age dominated by excessive preoccupation with scientific progress.

In asserting the reality of God within the context of scientific data, our authors embody certain recurring emphases in their attempt to draw a line of continuity from such data to theistic belief. The most frequent appeal is to the teleological argument for the existence of God: an argument which urges that the order and design of the known universe are so intricately complex and so well-adapted to the fulfilment of significant functions or ends that a chance explanation of the universe is virtually unthinkable and that therefore the ultimate ground of such an ordered world must be a Supreme Intelligence. Again, this argument is an ancient one: but the present work is of particular value because it supplies a wide exemplification of the types of intelligent adaptation throughout the whole natural order in areas ranging all the way from chemistry and physics to astronomy.

The next most frequent appeal is to the cosmological or causal argument which insists that the mere existence of a finite space-time universe, because it is characterized by change and process and therefore must have had a beginning, requires an infinite and transcendent First Cause for its adequate explanation. In this causal appeal, the numerous writers emphasize especially the principle of entropy (and in particular, the second law of thermodynamics) according to which the amount of available energy in the universe is constantly diminishing so that the universe could not have had an eternal past, since in such an infinite time all available energy would long since have been expended. Less frequent appeals are made to personal spiritual experience (encounter with God), special revelation in the Bible, and even the universality of belief in an ultimate Being.

While such an array supports the basic intention of the book as explained by the editor (p. 12)—namely, the documentation of the fact that science and theistic religion are compatible; there seem to be certain inadequacies that in part detract from the positive impact of the discussion. The most serious defect is the absence of any adequate discussion of the whole relation between science and philosophy (or theology) from an epistemological standpoint. On the one hand, for example, there are recognitions of the limitations of science in dealing with ultimate questions such as the existence of God (p. 31, 63, 71, 87, 207–208); on the other hand, the editor himself, as a spokesman for a different emphasis, asserts that “science can establish, by the observed facts of Nature and intellectual argumentation, that a super-human Power exists” (p. 12). Tensions of this sort extend through the whole book; and the question of the epistemological basis of the entire discussion should therefore receive extended treatment in such a work.

Several other criticisms deserve brief mention: first, a number of the appeals to detailed scientific data would be nearly unintelligible to a scientific amateur (see p. 39, 101, for examples)—a definite weakness in a work intended for the general public. Again, the inferences from scientific observations to an ultimate Intelligence or First Cause are frequently not explained with any degree of clarity or detail (see p. 53, 88, 104–105)—only persons already thoroughly familiar with the theistic arguments would be in a position to follow the inferences. Finally, there frequently appears in the articles the implicit assumption that a scientific explanation of certain effects, in terms of proximate or secondary causes, would render appeal to an ultimate Cause unnecessary (e.g., p. 89—though this idea is also opposed, but far less frequently: p. 123, 124). This assumption, so frequent in naturalistic literature (and therefore questionable in the present context), seems to me to be utterly false—the understanding of intermediate causes (even if exhaustive and complete—which is never the case in empirical science) in no way eliminates the necessity for an ultimate cause. If, for example, the theory of creative biological evolution were a completely adequate explanation of the origin of the various forms of life (a point which we need here neither grant nor deny), that would not eliminate the necessity for appealing to an ultimate Intelligence: evolutionary process itself would involve a complexity of means in the achievement of ends and would still be ultimately explicable only by appeal to Intelligence. It is not the unknown and scientifically inexplicable that provides evidence for theism: instead, it is precisely the known and understood evidence that requires such a conclusion.

These criticisms, nevertheless, should not deprive us of the main thrust of the book with its implication of the validity of natural theology (an implication which I fully accept): however understood and interpreted, the conviction that theism and science can mutually and intelligently grant each other their full weight, is a welcome emphasis in an age which has still not recovered from “the warfare between science and Christendom.” In an age dominated by an emphasis on scientific progress, the testimony to Christian theism fills a definite need.

STUART C. HACKETT

Unfulfilled Prophecy

The Alpha and the Omega, by Paul Erb (Herald Press, 1955, 153 pp., $2.50) is reviewed by Robert Strong, Minister of the First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia.

The 1955 Grebel lectures, delivered to Mennonite gatherings, are embodied in this book. Dr. Erb is a bible believer and, therefore, insists that the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth in person and power. He is mildly premillennial but lays his main emphasis upon the eternal order that Christ our King will usher in at last. There is value here for the layman who seeks an easy introduction to the study of unfulfilled prophecy.

ROBERT STRONG

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

South Amercia

Wild animals, germs, and tribal war threats are only a few of the problems faced by two women missionaries who have chosen to live with the Auca Indians. Yet, after more than a month in the jungles of eastern Ecuador, Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot and Miss Rachel Saint have learned much to facilitate Christian witness. They have also discovered more about the Aucas’ massacre of five young missionaries nearly three years ago.

Living in a clearing on the banks of the Tiwaenu River with Mrs. Elliot and Miss Saint are Valerie, Mrs. Elliot’s four-year-old daughter, and Dayuma, an Auca woman who fled the tribe 12 years ago and subsequently professed salvation in Christ.

‘Will you pray for Dayuma,” asks Miss Saint, “as she gathers the whole group together every Sunday under one of the thatched roofs, instructs them not to laugh, and then teaches them little by little about God, the Creator, and his Son, Jesus?”

Mrs. Elliot has with her a camera, tape recorder, and tranceiver. Supplies are dropped from planes, which also lower buckets by rope for pickups.

Below are excerpts from a letter written by Mrs. Elliot to Mrs. Marjorie Saint and Mrs. Marilou McCully. All three are wives of the Auca martyrs. Miss Saint is a sister-in-law of Mrs. Saint.

Dearest Marj and Marilou:

It’s a rainy day and there’s no one here except Dayuma, Rachel, Val, and one couple (Kimu and Dawa).

… I have now met four of the seven men who killed our husbands. It is a very strange thing thus to find oneself between two very remote sides of a story. To us, it meant everything in life and continues to mean that. To these simple, laughing, carefree forest people, lulling five men was little more than routine and they had probably forgotten about it.

The story as I have managed to get it thus far is that the men were all on the beach. The Aucas leaped suddenly out of the forest from behind the tree house and killed them immediately. I suppose they jumped back in to the water (the fellows) hoping to evade the sudden shower of spears.

[Presently] there are certainly real problems which I had hoped to avoid in the initial stages of introducing what it means to be a follower of Christ. But for this too, I can trust and believe that the prayers of thousands are yet to be answered in the way God wants it.

I wish you could hear the singing at night! When the Quechua men were still here, we all sat on the logs under the stars and took turns—first Aucas, then Quechuas singing! The Auca men sit with solemn gaze, hands clasped in front of chest, and chant in three parts—a single minor chord, unvaried through literally hundreds of repetitions of a seven-beat phrase. The words may change every 40 times or so, but not the rhythm or the music. It is fantastically hypnotic.…

October 11

Yesterday the plane came over bringing the meat, fish, cheese, candy, toasted was, canned meats, etc. that I guess you two sent. Thanks so very much for all your thoughtfulness and for your letters and prayers and understanding. You see things rightly when you realize that the problems are not all solved with an apparently successful entrance into the tribe. The problems are new ones now, and the testings of a different nature, but the tempter has the same object as has the Deliverer. That is, the former’s is to make disciples for himself, as the latter’s is to make us like Himself. New situations are only new arenas for faith to be proved. Pray that my faith rest firmly in the Pioneer and Perfecter.

I wish you could see this gang eat.… The sound effects (smacking, sucking, tearing, munching) are fantastic. It’s all over in about three minutes. The men rise from their haunches, the women lick up whatever remains, and they scatter into the twilight. No one has said a word—“help yourself” or “thank you” or anything. Then the fires are fanned, showing up the ragged silhouettes of leaf huts, hammocks are strung and quiet settles in. The toads and frogs, crickets, and cicadas start in with the occasional horn-like call of a munditi (the black bird like they gave Ed and Marilou) or owl, and once according to Dayuma, the panting of a nearby puma.

October 18

Breakfast this morning besides certain civilized blessings sent by you two (1 presume) was the forearm and a clenched fist (with drawn white skin and black nails) of a monkey. Not bad, except for the very penetrating flavor of burnt hair. Last night Gikita and two sons brought in five monkeys and two birds—caught with blowguns and poison darts. We all sat around while Mankamu thrust the hopeless animals one after another into the fire, till the thick fur burned itself into sizzling, popping balls, the limbs curled up in paroxysms (it seemed) of pain and the dead, human faces gaped in agony. Then into the pot they went along with yuca and plantains and we all sucked and tore away. (It is quite impossible to bite monkey flesh—you simply clamp your incisors on it and tear.) It is a comfort to know that the meat is easily digested even if not chewed!

Yesterday afternoon, Watu gave me two of my favorite fish—a descendant, I understand, of an armored prehistoric species. For the first time I discovered why Indians regard the head as choice. I found it delectable—especially the brain and eyes. The latter I had somehow mistakenly assumed were very bitter.

There is a horde of kids around which keeps Val happy. She is, of course, in her element in an Indian environment—would rather drink their stringy, lumpy banana drink than milk; seems to sleep every bit as soundly on bamboo as on a mattress. She plays in the river whenever anyone goes down to fish, bathe, or wash pots. She hacks away at trees with a machete, fans fires, strings beads, twists fibers, and generally makes an Auca of herself except for the language.

There are now 10 houses—all of them tiny (about 6’ x 8’) leaf shacks except for those which Gikita and Kimu are in process of building. Rachel sleeps under the roof Gikita put up. Val and I have our own “private” house. So far there hasn’t been a real rain. We shall see how this roof takes it. There are of course no walls or floors—plenty of fresh air. Weather is ideal, not hot as I had expected and no mosquitoes. Plenty of gnats between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

October 25

Day before yesterday, Dabu arrived. He is the only one of the present group of men (except Munga, who is from down-river) who had no part in killing the five. He, you remember, cried when he heard about it.…

Exploit Reaction

Comments below indicate how the Auca exploit looks to Christian leaders.

Dr. Philip E. Howard Jr., president and editor of The Sunday School Times and father of Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot:

“I believe the recent developments have come about through the sovereignty of God and because of His love for the Auca Indians, and because of a great volume of prayer which has gone up on their behalf from believers all over the world.

“I think, too, that God is honoring the faith and perseverance of Rachel Saint, Dayuma, Betty Elliot, Dr. and Mrs. Wilfred Tid-marsh, the pilots of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship, and other missionaries in Ecuador who are behind the scenes, so to speak.

“Mrs. Howard and I are profoundly thankful that God has made it possible for Rachel, Dayuma, Betty, and her little girl, Valerie, to carry the Gospel into the Auca Territory.”

Dr. V. Raymond Edman, president of Wheaton College who baptized Dayuma, first Auca convert to Christianity.

“The Aucas of the Ecuadorian jungles are among the most savage and brutal people in the world. The martyrdom of five young missionaries seeking to reach them is the most stirring missionary account of this century. The courageous return of Dayuma, the Christian Auca, to her people, which made possible the going of Rachel Saint, Betty Howard Elliot and her little Valerie to the Aucas is the greatest adventure in this missionary epic.”

On Thursday night, we were all sitting or swinging in hammocks by the fire in Gikita and Mankamu’s house when the dogs began to bark. Of course, this could mean only two things: a tiger, or the downriver killers. So, supposing it to be the latter, Mankamu (who I now observe to be the matriarch of the tribe) went out and perched up on a log and sermonized for about half an hour. She told them we are all living well now, we don’t kill, we’ll be glad to receive them if they will come out without spears, etc. I guess they didn’t like the terms—at least, no one appeared!…

October 26

Another mail and food drop yesterday. Word that they’ll make a bucket drop on Tuesday or Wednesday, so I’ll wind up these pages soon and get them ready to send out.

I don’t think I told you that the first day we arrived, Val just sat down on the log which Kimu was squatting on and stared and stared. Then she said “Mama, who is that? Is that my daddy? He looks like a daddy.” Somehow, in her child mind, she had associated Aucas and daddy—though I’d never told her till a few days ago that the Aucas had killed her daddy. I waited till she had met five of the men and then I told her that those men had killed daddy. She said, “Oh.” She prays for them and for the others she knows by name.

Please pray especially now for the down-river group. I feel about them now as I once did about this group—“impossible to reach.” But “it is God who will tread down our enemies” and bring them into subjection to himself. These people, including Dayuma fear them exceedingly and expect a retaliation any day. (It is their turn now to kill someone up here). But there are several down-river people here in this group now—perhaps God will use them to bridge the gap.

Very much love, Betty

October 28—P.S. On Sunday night the last of the men, Nimunga, arrived with his wife and baby. Now they have all been here (all 7 of them) at one time or another.

Last night Dayuma was telling me more of the thrillers that are routine small-talk in this outfit. It seems that when Nimunga went to finish off George, he didn’t do a very thorough job. George, knowing he wouldn’t pull through, went to his own grave under his own locomotion, got in, demanded that his kids be strangled and thrown in with him (only one child was) and then asked to go ahead and cover him up. His two wives (Delilah and Ipa) stood and watched while they fixed the split palm boards over the body (this makes quite an ample space, so the victim probably breathes and writhes for a good long time) and then they watched them tamp the earth “tight so he won’t come out” and listened to the faint groans from underground. These are the men and women with whom we live and eat.

[Background information on this latest Auca missionary endeavor appears in CHRISTIANITY TODAY for October 27 and November 10.]

Church And State

The Tempter’S Snares

Now you can expect to be tempted by shapely models daintily fingering cocktail glasses. The Distilled Spirits Institute says women may appear in hard liquor ads if they do so in a dignified manner.

Only a few weeks ago, a noted temperance leader won time for a weekly network radio broadcast. “This is a break for temperance,” said Dr. Sam Morris. He attributed the “breakthrough” to recent hearings in Washington on a bill to outlaw liquor advertising.

Then the “breaks” started to go the other way. In quick succession two radio stations defied an industry code which has always forbid the selling of whiskey via the air waves. In line with the trend, the Distilled Spirits Institute decided it would be acceptable to serve up hard liquor ads with cheesecake.

The developments probably will encourage temperance leaders and some churchmen to plead even more strongly before the next Congress for a law against liquor advertising.

Congress may also hear new demands for stricter laws governing obscenity. But the Post Office Department, in the meantime, initiated legal action against Playboy on grounds that the magazine’s November number is obscene. The Churchmen’s Commission for Decent Publications has protested Playboy’s accounts many times. The Commission denounced the magazine for a “scurrilous attack” on Dr. Albert Schweitzer in its November issue, adding that the attack “is couched in the most vulgar profanity imaginable in as sordid a piece of fiction as has ever appeared in print in any publication.”

Pornography and alcohol are not the only areas which find government standing between Christian principles and decaying public morality. These were among other developments this fall which at least hint of church-state tensions:

—Oregon has no juvenile code. As a result legal problems of juvenile delinquency are not handled uniformly. The State legislature and the National Probation and Parole Association are appraising conditions and expect to come up with proposals for dealing with an ominous situation.

—Protestants and Other Americans United charged that U. S. cardinals voting in a papal election violate American law. Not a “political election,” replied the State Department.

—Anxieties were expressed over official U. S. delegations on hand in Rome for the funeral of Pope Pius XII and the coronation of Pope John XXIII. Presidential Press Secretary James C. Hagerty said the coronation delegation was according the pope recognition “as head of the Roman Catholic church” and not as chief of state of Vatican City.

—The U. S. Court of Appeals ruled that award of a commercial channel to Loyola University in New Orleans does not fall within the federal ban on alien control of television stations. The argument against the award had cited the fact that Loyola is a school of the Jesuit order, which has headquarters in Rome.

—The National Association of Evangelicals asked the Navy to correct a series of posters omitting what most Protestants have traditionally considered the second commandment, which prohibits the making and worshipping of graven images.

—Justice and Post Office Department officials discussed legal means of combating the flow of “hate sheets” in the mails, but indicated that constitutional restrictions made this action difficult. (The American Council of Christian Churches objected to any move against the mailing of hate literature with the statement that it would be a “distinct step toward suppression of Americans’ traditional rights to freedom of speech and expression.”)

—The Ohio attorney general ruled that Roman Catholic nuns may teach in the state’s public schools while wearing religious garb.

—Principals of five public schools in Syosset, New York, were warned by their district superintendent against the “expression of faith or worship” in Christmas observances.

—The Canadian Protestant League condemned a government order which required flags to be flown at half-mast on public-owned buildings after the death of Pope Pius XII.

—In the remote village of Killaloe, County Clare, in Ireland, three Protestant evangelists were attacked while trying to hold a street meeting. Three men who pleaded guilty to the attack were given the benefit of the Probation of Offenders Act (technically a conviction, but no penalty) by the local court. Said Justice Gordon Hurley: “Religion is above courts, the main business of which is to preserve peace. When men come into an Irish village and provoke the people by foisting their views on them they are abusing whatever rights they have under the Constitution which guarantees freedom of religious worship.”

Bringing The Bacon

The 1958 national elections may well go down in history as important milestones in the rise of Roman Catholic power in America.

California and Pennsylvania, second and third largest states in the Union, elected their first Catholic governors. Maine and Minnesota elected their first Catholic senators.

Catholic Democratic candidates, moreover, ran ahead on their tickets in a big majority of cases.

“You can even argue,” said columnist Joseph Alsop, “that the pattern foreshadows what can be called a strong ‘Demo-Christian’ trend. Of course the word, in its European context, has a meaning that it could never have here. But in many states, after this election, the Democrats will certainly tend to prefer Catholic candidates, simply because Catholic candidates are plainly more likely to bring home the bacon.”

The editorially-influential Washington Post and Times Herald saw it this way: “Viewed in retrospect, the most heartening aspect of last week’s election may be the unmistakable way that the voters laid to rest some old nostrums about Catholicism in American politics.”

In speaking of Catholic Eugene McCarthy’s victory in the race for the U. S. Senate in Minnesota, columnist Drew Pearson said, “Religion was raised by some voters privately, but when the votes were counted, the majority had put religion on the sidelines.”

Thus did the nation’s press largely dismiss the view that perhaps a man’s faith has something to do with his ability to hold office after all, that perhaps his religious convictions do influence to some extent at least his loyalties and character as a lawmaker.

Among other election results:

—The city of New York and the state of Colorado voted to legalize bingo games sponsored by religious and fraternal organizations. In New York, the margin was two to one. In Colorado, out of some 156,000 votes cast, the measure won by about 20,000.

—California voters by a two-to-one margin defeated “Proposition No. 16,” which would have denied property tax exemption to nonprofit, nonpublic schools below college level, except those for the handicapped.

—Two men who have admitted to holding Quaker-type, pacifist views that make them conscientiously opposed to participation in war were elected to Congress. They are Representative William H. Meyer, a Quaker who will become the first Democrat to represent Vermont in Congress since 1852, and Representative Bryon Johnson of Colorado, a Congregationalist who won a seat that has been Republican for 20 years.

THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

So philosophy calls it, but the Word of God uses simpler and clearer language. “It was necessary,” Paul told the Jews at Antioch, “that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you.” That is, as if he were to say, “I can’t help myself; it is a categorical imperative!”

The imperative lies inherently in the very nature of the case. The natural procedure is to start any Gospel program with the Jew. Sentiment calls for it; gratitude requires it; and, above all, God commands it! So powerfully was this conviction born in upon the conscience of Paul, and so important did he consider Jewish conversion, that he cried out, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Chirst for my brethren … who are Israelites!”

Dear child of God! Will you not ask Him to let you see Israel as He sees her? And when you do, a new joy ana a new blessing will come to you. Try it. We feel that some day you will thank us that you did.

Our work merits your every confidence. It is a program of word-wide testimony to the Jews. Your fellowship is always welcomed and appreciated. THE CHOSEN PEOPLE magazine is sent to all contributors.

Protestant Panorama

• A resolution deploring “centralized authority and the depersonalizing of the individual” was adopted by the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches at its fourth annual meeting in Detroit. The association, which estimates its constituency at 70,000, aims to provide “a continuing fellowship for those churches which intend to remain Congregational.” Its churches have bolted the union of the Congregational Christian General Council with the Evangelical and Reformed Church.

• Evangelist Tom Rees is touring the United Kingdom. He expects by spring he will have visited every county. The inaugural rally was held in Central Hall, Westminster … The Egypt General Mission, celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, is advancing into the Red Sea province of Eritrea.

• Religious News Service quotes a U. S. Department of Agriculture report predicting for 1958 a record consumption of 425 billion cigarettes (16 billion over last year, a rate of 3,528 cigarettes per capita for the U. S. population 15 years of age or over).

• To the great surprise of authorities, the Soviet ambassador to Great Britain, M. Malik, attended a special mass in London’s Westminster Cathedral … The fall meeting of the British Council of Churches resulted in adoption of a resolution urging the English government to support any NATO measures for an amicable solution of the Cyprus problem.

• The Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. secured a $5,000,000 loan from the New York Life Insurance Company this month to aid synods, presbyteries, and congregations lacking adequate facilities.

• Korean Methodists extended a warm welcome to the Rev. Kim Chong Peel as their new bishop after watching with mounting excitement a closely contested election which extended through 32 ballotings and three days before the necessary majority vote was achieved … Korean President Syngman Rhee awarded a special medal to Bishop Richard C. Raines of the American Methodist Church and Dr. Edward Adams, newly-elected president of Keimyong Christian College, missionary of the United Presbyterian Church. The award cited “cultural” achievement.

• A controversy among Soviet Zone pastors and laymen over biblical and scientific explanations of man’s origin was climaxed in Berlin last month when the management of the Evangelical Church of Berlin and Brandenburg issued a statement saying that no “certain standpoint” on the issue was binding.

• Reformation Day services drew many thousands of Protestants. Some 12,000 gathered at Madison Square Garden for a “Protestant Reformation Festival” sponsored by the Protestant Council of the City of New York. In Louisville, Kentucky, an estimated 17,000 turned out. Even in Allentown, Pa., a council of churches mass meeting attracted 3100.

• The Free Methodist Church of North America last month approved a merger with the Holiness Movement Church in Canada, which has already endorsed the union.

• Three thousand delegates to the third National Methodist Conference on Family Life went on record in favor of regional profession counseling programs on marital problems, total abstinence from all intoxicants and narcotics, and support of world law and strengthening the United Nations.

• The Church Assembly, legislative organ of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, postponed action on the question of women in the ministry until 1963 … A debate on ecumenism proved the most spirited item on the agenda of the second Conference of Presbyterian Churches in Latin America. Present were 65 official and fraternal delegates representing approximately 350,000 Presbyterians from eight Latin American countries. Also represented were three mission boards and five organized missions. A number of top Presbyterian church officials from the United States were on hand as well.

Theological Education

Protestant seminary enrollments may have hit a new high this fall, a survey made by CHRISTIANITY TODAY indicates.

Member institutions of two religious school accrediting agencies were asked for student enrollment totals of the fall term, 1958, as compared with those of the last academic year. The tabulation below represents member schools which responded to this publication’s request for data (United States and Canada).

When totalled, the seminary figures for this fall come slightly short of the aggregate for last year. However, some schools have compared this fall’s enrollment with a cumulative total for 1957–58 which takes in two or more semesters. When these figures are accurately adjusted and remaining schools report, the total may exceed the record of 20,910 set in 1956–57 by member schools of the American Association of Theological Schools.

The American Association of Theological Schools is composed of 127 “theological seminaries engaged in educating and training for the Christian ministry.” The Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges recognizes schools on an undergraduate level (its membership criteria, however, exclude many Christian liberal arts colleges).

Order of listing: Name of school; denominational affiliation (if any); enrollment last year; enrollment this year.

Abbreviations: B., Bible or Biblical; C., College; D., Divinity; I., Institute; R., Religion; S., School; Sem., Seminary; T., Theology or Theological; U., University.

American Association Of Theological Schools

Anderson C. S. of T.; Church of God; 83; 82

Andover Newton T.S.; A. Bao.-Cong. Ch.; 204; 238

Asbury T. Sem.; 205; 205

Augustana T. Sem.; Augustana Luth.; 218; 204

Austin Presb. T. Sem.; Presb. U.S.; 116–147

Bangor T. Sem.; 104; 96

Berkeley Baptist D. S.; Am. Bap.; 276; 199

Berkeley D. S.; Prot. Epis.; 114; 99

Bethel T. Sem; Bap. Genl. Conf.; 111; 108

Bexley Hall; Prot. Epis.; 45; 46

Biblical Seminary in N. Y.; 144; 141

Bloomfield T. Sem.; U. Presb. U.S.A.; 23; 23

Calvin T. Sem.; Christian Reformed; 125; 104

Candler S. of T.; Methodist; 399; 419

Central Bap. T. Sem.; Am. Bap.; 159; 117

Central Luth. T. Sem.; ULCA; 42; 48

Chicago Luth. T. Sem.; ULCA; 165; 167

Chicago T. Sem.; Cong.; 131; 128

Chicago, U. of D. S.; 212; 197

Christian T. Sem.; Disciples of Ch.; 442; 462

Colgate Rochester D. S.; Bap.; 130; 134

College of the B.; Dis. of Ch.; 196; 151

Columbia T. Sem.; Pres. U. S.; 247; 258

Concordia T. Sem.; Mo. Luth.; 375; 427

Crane T. S., Tufts U.; 23; 21

Crozer T. Sem.; Baptist; 65; 63

Cumberland Presb. T. Sem.; Presb.; 53; 49

Disciples D. House; Disciples of Ch.; 19; 24

Drew U. S. of T.; Methodist; 300; 319

Dubuque, U. of, T. Sem.; Presb.; 118; 139

Duke U., D.S.; 275; 270

Eastern Bap, T. Sem.; Am. Bap.; 180; 202

Eden T. Sem.; Evang. & Reformed; 158; 155

Episcopal T. S.; Prot. Epis.; 102; 109

Episcopal T. Sem. of Southwest; Epis.; 90; 84

Erskine T. Sem.; Ass. Reformed Presby.; 24; 32

Evang. & Reformed Ch., T. Sem.; 87; 96

Evangelical Luth. T. Sem.; Am. Luth.; 232; 245

Fuller T. Sem.; 236; 237

Garrett B. I.; Meth.; 716; 728

General T. Sem.; Episcopal; 215; 210

Golden Gate Bap. T. Sem.; Bap.; 333; 314

Goshen C. B. Sem.; Mennonite; 35; 40

Harvard D. S.; 230; 242

Howard U., S. of R.; 50; 56

Iliff S. of T.; Methodist; 125; 147

Knox C.; Presb. Church in Canada; 49; 49

Louisville Presb. T. Sem.; Presb.; 173; 149

I.uther T. Sem.; Ev. Luth.; 513; 569

Luth. T. Sem., Gettysburg; Luth.; 144; 156

Luth. T. Sem., Phila.; ULCA; 156; 156

McCormick T. Sem.; Presb.; 290; 308

McMaster D. C.; Bap.; 34; 32

Meadville T. S.; Unit.-Univ.; 19; 24

Mission House T. Sem.; Evang. & Reformed; 30; 28

Moravian T. Sem.; Moravian; 29; 34

Nazarene T. Sem.; Ch. of Nazarene; 189; 170

New Brunswick T. Sem.; Ref. Ch. in Am.; 60; 57

New Orleans Bap. T. Sem.; S. Bap.; 797; 798

North Park T. Sem.; Evang. Cov. Ch. of Am.; 89; 86

Northwestern Lutheran T. Sem.; ULCA; 69; 72

Oberlin C., Graduate S. of T.; 160–167

Pacific S. of R.; 150; 137

Payne T. Sem.; African Meth. Epis.; 20; 15

Perkins S. of T.; Methodist; 407; 417

Pittsburgh-Xenia T. Sem.; Presb.; 247; 227

Presbyterian C.; Presb.; 27, 25

Princeton T. Sem.; Piesb.; 500; 485

Protestant Epis. Ch., D. S. in Phila.; 72; 63

Protestant Epis. T. Sem.; Epis.; 181; 187

Queen’s T. C.; United Ch. of Can.; 41; 37

St. Lawrence U., T. S. of; Univ.; 11; 15

St. Stephen’s C.; United Ch. of Can.; 27; 30

San Francisco T. Sem.; Presb.; 272; 245

Seabury Western T. Sem.; Epis.; 56; 68

South, S. of T. of U. of the; Epis.; 80; 79

Southeastern Bap. T. Sem.; Bap.; 652; 713

Southern Bap. T. Sem.; Bap.; 1548; 1308

Southwestern Bap. T. Sem.; Bap.; 2005; 1928

Trinity T. Sem.; Lutheran; 16; 20

Union T. Sem., New York; 660; 668

Union T. Sem. in Va.; Presb.; 288; 282

United T. Sem.; E. U. B.; 198; 191

Vanderbilt U. D. S.; 195; 190

Virginia Union U. Grad. S. of R.; Bap.; 40–35

Wartburg T. Sem.; Am. Luth.; 214; 210

Western T. Sem.; Reformed Ch. in Am. 95; 81

Western T. Sem.; Presb.; 118; 133

Wycliffe C.; Anglican; 30; 40

Yale U. D. S.; 375; 411

Accrediting Association Of Bible Colleges

Bethany B. C.; Essys. of God; 217; 238

Biola College; 499; 592

Chicago Evangelistic I.; 69; 85

Columbia B. C.; 383; 362

Detroit B. I.; 143; 131

Eastern B. I.; Assemblies of God; 201; 189

Eastern Pilgrim C.; Pilgrim Holiness Ch.; 297; 213

Fort Wayne B. C.; Mis. Ch. Assn.; 340; 329

Free Will Bap. B.C.; Free Will Bap.; 197; 196

Friends B. C.; Friends; 73; 77

Grace B. I.; Mennonite; 245; 296

Kansas City B.C.; 98; 127

London B. I. & T. Sem.; 120; 92

Manhattan B. C.; Christian Ch.; 83; 65

Mennonite Brethren B. C.; 115; 137

Minnesota B. C.; Christian Ch.; 184; 206

Moody B. I.; 988; 1004

North Central B. C.; Assys. of God; 331; 350

Northeastern B.I; 127; 112

Northwest B.C.; Assys. of God; 190; 229

Nyack Missionary C.; C&MA; 530; 518

Multnomah S. of the B.; 344; 366

Philadelphia C. of the B.; 286; 354

Piedmont B. C.; Baptist; 158; 175

Providence-Barrington B. C.; 455; 437

Reformed B.I.; Chr. Ref. & Ref. Ch. of Am.; 96; 101

Simpson B. C.; C&MA; 181; 208

South-Eastern B. C.; Assy. of God; 256; 258

Southwestern B. I.; Assys. of God; 498; 508

So. Calif. B. C.; Assembly of God; 169; 204

Washington B. C.; 89; 98

Telivised Bible Study

More than 1400 persons in metropolitan Washington are enrolled in the first college course in Bible study ever offered via television. Of these, 100 will write term papers and take final examinations for credit from American University.

The National Capital Area Council of Churches is cooperating with station WMAL-TV and American University in offering the course.

The weekly television class is being taught on Saturdays by Dr. Edward W. Bauman, chaplain at American.

Continental Europe

The Trumpet Sound

“As one close observer commented, the Protestant exhibit was lovely, but it didn’t really challenge anybody. If a trumpet gives forth an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for battle—or to meet his God.”

So writes John C. Winston, former Roman Catholic who now helps direct the Belgian Gospel Mission. Winston was referring to the Protestant Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair. Here he tells of evangelical witness at the fair:

“Since the chorus of humanistic and materialistic voices at the fair would drown out any but the clearest sounds, many evangelical Christians in Belgium felt the necessity of proclaiming as forcefully as possible the essentials of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Their opportunity came in helping the Belgian Bible Society set up a huge open Bible pavilion on a nearby hill. Far into the night Scripture verses in German, English, French, Russian, Flemish, and Spanish were spelled out by luminous letters moving across its pages. Backed mainly by the Belgian Gospel Mission, the Open Brethren, the Darby Brethren, and the Mennonite Mission, the Scripture Gift Mission of London, the Belgian Bible Society was able to finance and fully staff this pavilion.

“Small, yet dignified, it sheltered many thoughtful visitors as they came to realize the importance of the Bible in the life of people around the world, from being the book first printed to the most widely read book today. Along the whole back wall of the stand, a half dozen huge photos forcefully depicted the essential message of the Scriptures, the bliss of life in Eden, the heartbreak of sin and its bondage, glorious deliverance at the cross (here a large wooden cross and a broken chain stood out from the photo), and finally a fork in the road reminding each spectator quietly but unmistakably that there is a choice to be made. Clear answers were given to visitors’ questions by a carefully selected staff of guides at the pavilion.

“Besides Scriptures distributed at the American Pavilion and to Russians throughout the fair grounds, the Belgian Bible Society sold 7280 Bibles, New Testaments, and Gospels in 170 languages at the luminous Bible, and at its little booth under the exhibition hall of the Protestant Churches Pavilion.

“From these two centers and the stand of Protestant Missions in the Congo Palace, some 567,300 Scripture portions and tracts were given out. This means that of the 40 million people who passed through the gates, one out of eighty received a piece of free literature.

“Some people we know of who live just a few miles from the Atomium are reading the Bible they bought at the fair and are finding the One who gave Himself that men everywhere—in 1958—might be saved.”

Pope John Xxiii

“The election of Cardinal Roncalli to the supreme office of the Roman church stirs new hopes in those who look for a renewal inside the Catholic body,” writes CHRISTIANITY TODAY correspondent Renato Tulli in a news report from Italy.

“It appears that John XXIII is a man of large and modern views, free from any tie with those traditionalist courses which in some instances have imposed limits to papal initiatives. We know also that the new pope is deeply acquainted with the spiritual and material needs of the people and that he has above all fostered in the clergy depending on him the care for souls and charity as the main duties and paramount tasks of a minister of God.

“Seemingly, Roncalli is the type of pontiff that most people wished for in Italy—a religious more than a political pope. It is good to take account, by the way, that it is believed he was a candidate of the French Episcopate, which is progressive and supported the ‘priest workers’ opposed by Pius XII. It is interesting to note also that Roncalli refused a post in the Roman See in order to devote himself to religious and social work in the Venice Patriarchate.

“On the other hand, in his motto ‘Oboedientia et Pax’ (Obedience and Peace) some quarters see revealed, the firm purpose of John XXIII not to detach himself from some definite theological traditions. In fact, in his first message broadcast to the Catholic world the day

after his election, he invited all ‘separated’ Christians to turn back to the Roman church—which he defined the ‘House of the Common Father’—so that there may be only ‘one flock and one shepherd.’

“However, two circumstances give to Protestants here cause for expecting favorable developments. Firstly, the fact that the new pope has chosen the name of John, which was the name of the Apostle of love. The selection of this name—which was the first act of his pontificate—indicates a some such intention to break with the tradition of Pius and Leos and certainly was not casual. Moreover, the last Pope named John XXII, having reigned from 1316 to 1334, that is before the Counter-Reformation when the Western Christian Church still formed one body, may point toward an ecumenical objective. Secondly, it is thought in many circles that the new pope will proceed to structural changes inside the Roman See, with the aim of restoring a democratic system in Church administration, which was upset by the centralizing methods of the late Pius XII.

“Of course, one thing is a program and another thing is the realization of it. All depends on the grace of God and on following the leading of the Spirit.

PREACHER’S MATHEMATICS

From our Preacher’s Vademecum

And Almanac for Clerics,

We bring this jingled guide to

Rhetorical numerics.

For every pulpit speaker

Must know the spell of number;

If arguments are weak, or

The nodding hearers slumber,

No study of linguistics,

Patristics, or the mystics,

Has half of one per cent of

The power of statistics.

Through mastery of digits,

Geometry, and Trig., yours

Must be the added duty

Of proving it with figures.

Percentages are potent,

And who can bring objection

To sociometric survey

With I.B.M. projection?

In analyzing factors,

No room for question lingers;

If you would make your points, sir,

Just count them on your fingers.

The graphs in paragraphs of

Your exponential preaching

Will plot a soaring orbit

Of influence far-reaching.

Yet numbers without nuance

Do little to incline us;

Your phrasing must assign them

A value, plus or minus.

A cold and empty zero

Is void if so you take it;

If vacuous, inane,

And uninformed you make it.

But verbal mathematics

Emotionally spoken

Creates a zero plus, all

Unprejudiced and open!

One minus—monolithic,

Undifferentiated,

Alone and solipsistic,

When differently stated

May lose the insularity

Of single isolation.

Becoming solidarity

In union with our nation.

“The schizophrenic splittings

Of deviating schism”

Are proper verbal fittings

For wicked dualism,

While twoness that we relish

Is favorably rated—

To praise togethernesses

Our verbs are conjugated.

If one is undecided

Which dual scheme to mention,

A polar dialectic

Will furnish both in tension

Rhetorical numerics

Adds benefits uncounted

But just be sure your numbers

Are colorfully mounted!

—EUTYCHUS

THE MILLENNIUM

I have … read Professor Ladd’s article on the millennium (Sept. 1 issue) and was impressed by the excellent attempt to prove the millennium in other places beside Revelation 20.… But if it were not for Revelation 20 raising the necessity for the birth of such an interpretation, it would never have been devised or “read into” the rest of the New Testament.

Blaney Memorial Baptist Church

Dorchester, Mass.

In … “Dispensational Premillennialism” (Sept. 15 issue) … Walvoord makes the statement, “Though dispensationalists have tended to contrast Israel and the Church, it is false that they alone make this distinction, as is frequently alleged. Postmillenarians like Charles Hodge and amillenarians like William Hendriksen, though not dispensationalists, also believe that Israel has special promises that belong only to those who are in the racial seed of Jacob, and do not equate Israel and the Church.”

In Theodore Graebner’s book, War in the Light of Prophecy (pp. 34–35), we find a long quotation from Charles Hodge, which in our opinion proves just the opposite of what Walvoord contends.… “The idea that the Jews are to be restored to their own land and there constitute a distinct nation in the Christian Church is inconsistent not only with the distinct assertion of the Scriptures, but also with its plainest and most important doctrines. It is asserted (in the New Testament) over and over again that the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile has been broken down; that God has made of the two one; that Gentile believers are fellow-citizens of the saints and members of the household of God; that they are built up together with the Jews into one temple: all this is plain from the entire teaching of the New Testament on this matter.” Where is the distinction, according to this? In our study of dispensationalism, we have come to the conclusion that this system of biblical interpretation is a jumble of contradictions, inconsistencies, misconceptions, and misinterpretations.

Poulsbo, Wash.

The writer of this article speaks of “the charge … that dispensational teaching tends to minimize the cross or declare it unnecessary,” which charge he states is “entirely unjustified” … Recently at camp meetings I have heard some ministers taking the position that if Israel had accepted Christ as their Messiah … the world could have been saved without the death of Christ.

Covina, Calif.

The five tests proposed by God to measure man’s faith before he gave the gospel, really amount to five different approaches to salvation, and as such they are confusing. And the more they are diminished (being subordinated to faith) the less significant the dispensational principles become.

[As to] the … contribution by I. M. Rainey (Eutychus)—the average working pastor puts from 65 to 90 hours a week into his work and his vacation is a matter of economic wisdom. It is an opportunity for him to catch up on his necessary reading, and to revitalize his nervous force.… The … reference to bingo is certainly very regrettable as referring to Protestant ministers. I have never heard of a Protestant church where bingo is made use of.

Browns Mills, N. J.

As a missionary from India I am in complete disagreement with Dr. Boettner that “pagan religions have had their day and are disintegrating” (Sept. 29 issue). As one of the major pagan religions, Hinduism is an integral part of those things which foster India’s strong nationalist spirit, and as such is gaining recognition hitherto unknown. From the visit of St. Thomas in the first century to this twentieth century we find the vast population of India proper still only one per cent Christian, and hardly the “marvelous progress” of which Dr. Boettner speaks. Nor is India’s case an exception. Witness North Africa which was once a stronghold for Christianity now almost 100 per cent Moslem, and the recent revival of Shintoism in Japan. If the pagan religions temporarily disintegrate, it will be through the combined efforts of scientific humanism, materialism, and the subversive tactics of communism, not the “open competition of Christianity.” No, I am not a defeatist, just a premillenialist.

The Boys’ Christian Home Mission

Dhond, India

I was struck with the shallowness of the paragraph, “Literal and Spiritual.” The implication of this section seems to be that if the Jews had not followed a literal interpretation of Messianic prophecy, there wouldn’t have been the “fearful consequences” of Christ’s crucifixion. If this be true then Dr. Boettner and the rest of us can be very thankful that the Jews were not able to frustrate the eternal purposes of God in redemption by being spiritual in their interpretation of Messianic prophecy. Or was the fault of the Jew rather … that they were not literal consistently enough? Were they literal in that prophecy for which they desired literal fulfillment—spiritual where they did not desire the literal? They looked for literal fulfillment of prophecies concerning the Kingdom but they could not, would not, see a literal death for the King.

First Baptist Church

Port Washington, N. Y.

If our Lord is not to return until after the millennium, there seems no point in Scripture’s exhortations “to watch” nor any fear of his return “as a thief in the night.” We could hardly pray, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” since we look first for the millennium.

La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland

This perfect nonsense of “amillenialism” is so ridiculous that I cannot understand how you could print it in your otherwise good magazine (Oct. 13 issue). To teach that this church age is the age of Christ’s reign on earth for a thousand years is so ridiculous that even an unbeliever knows better.

Millville, N. J.

PACIFIST QUESTION

Does Mr. Pollard really think that ethics endanger the Christian story? (Oct. 13 issue).… Why need one choose between Christian ethics and Christian doctrine? They go together very well. Does Mr. Pollard know that there is a biblical as well as a humanistic pacifism?

Mennonite General Conference Secy.

Scottdale, Pa.

To … the non-resistant Christian …, proclaiming the gospel of peace to all men and preparing or engaging in war are separate functions which have nothing in common.

Editor

Missionary Bulletin (Mennonite)

Altha, Fla.

Watered-down Christianity.

New Bloomfield, Mo.

It is true that Christianity is not ethical idealism, but it is certainly a reversal of truth to claim, therefore, that a Christian is not required to work for the realization of Christian ideals.

Dept. of Rel.

The St. Lawrence Univ.

Canton, New York.

It seems to me that some people have a misconception of the basic purpose of the church. Certainly, social, political and economic reforms are necessary, but are they the concern of the organization we call the church? Are they not rather the concern of the church through its individual members living the Christ-centered life in their chosen fields. Christ himself seems to have resisted the efforts of the disciples and others to put him in a position where he was actively and directly campaigning for reforms in man’s interrelational activities. Christ was interested in reforming men.

It is true that the church as a pressure group has power and can agitate effectively for reform, and there is no question that the business of the church is to convert souls. I firmly believe, however, that the soul-saving business is the only legitimate business of the church and when it gets involved in other do-good schemes, the church suffers. As a consequence it loses the esteem of clear-thinking persons and it aggravates the already serious ministerial shortage. The soul-saving job also is slighted and suffers accordingly. The church can best bring about reforms by tending to its own business, the divinely-appointed task of soul-winning. When the souls of men are converted and are thereby properly oriented in their relationships to God and man, the desired reforms will come about automatically. I think we may properly apply Matthew 6:31–34 (“Seek ye first the kingdom of God.…”) to this matter.

Evangelical United Brethren

Bloomsburg, Pa.

Thank you.… This timely Christian study gives valuable insights and guidelines for the understanding of the momentous issues of our time sub specie aeternitatis. Dr. Pollard performs a difficult ask in delineating the place and motives of present day secular moralists. The relationship of these men and organizations to the faith and life of the church has often been a perplexing problem. [Pollard] shows clearly that present-day social secularism is really a manifestation of the fleshly turn “from faith to works,” as Martin Luther would put it.

First St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran

Chicago, Ill

“The Christian and Atomic Crisis” is outstanding. I am deeply convinced the so-called Christian pacifism in alliance with the humanitarian pacifism will allure eventually the Communists to aggress and so lead to World War III.

I sent Dr. Pollard’s article today to the German ambassador in Washington.…

New York City

CHRISTIANITY AND LAW

I read with interest your article on the conference of “Christianity and Law” (Sept. 29 issue). I want to express … my … appreciation for the complete and thorough nature of the report. Your article was by all odds the best of any that I have seen on the conference.

Chicago, Ill.

SCIENCE AND THE MOON

The scholarly reaction to the “Moon Shot” (Oct. 13 issue) reminds me of the reaction of the scholars Tacitus, Pliny and others to the Christian movement. There is a deep gap between the thinking of scholars and existential Christianity. Have we two religions in Protestantism—the religion of scholars and the religion of the churchgoers?… In almost every encounter with science, religion has retreated according to history.… Name one thing that religion has done as miraculous as radio or any other applied scientific wonder in the last 100 years.

Calvary Baptist

Chester, Pa.

One must understand [the] great spiritual truth of man’s and Satan’s mad compulsion to emulate God before he can truly grasp the significance of the devilish impasse to which science, both theoretical and technological, has brought man’s world.

Miami, Fla.

I really cannot recall ever having seen before such a collection of truisms accorded the dignity of publication.

Metropolitan United Church

Toronto, Ont.

You can’t imagine how delighted I was with the article.…

Kewanna, Ind.

RELIGION AND HYPOCRISY

I was … astounded by … your editorial … “Compulsory Chapel Attendance at our Military Academies” (Oct. 13 issue).… To have any attend … compulsorily is but to make them hypocrites … if they are not freely so minded.…

Monterey Park, Calif.

Religious tyranny.… I would be very tempted to start another Civil War if anyone presumed to tell me that I had to attend my own church. Military cadets are still citizens of this country—or are they? The denial of religious freedom is the denial of a basic right.… Military service is a privilege reserved for citizens without reference to their religious beliefs.

Trinity Lutheran Church

Okmulgee, Okla.

THE GRAHAM TEAM

There was a time when I took a rather dim view of the Billy Graham evangelistic effort, but it was my privilege to join the Graham team for the closing weeks of the San Francisco Crusade, and to remain through the crusade in Sacramento, … as a result of which this attitude has been completely changed.

The team is made up of men and women whose devotion to Jesus Christ and his Word no one has a right to question.…

A close observer will be forced to acknowledge that the spirit of humility and the spirit of oneness that are so outstanding could only be produced by the Spirit of God.…

That mistakes are made is both obvious and inevitable. The remarkable thing is that so few are made, and perhaps even more remarkable is this—the team is as open with its mistakes as with its successes.…

Critics of Billy Graham have drastically overstepped themselves in charging him with failure to preach the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. Though he does not lay claim to the title of “theologian,” even the most exacting theological mind would have to credit him with preaching the great truths that have been regarded as basic and proclaimed with zeal by ardent “fundamentalists.” The deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the blood atonement, the resurrection, the second coming of Christ, judgment, hell, heaven, the authority of the Bible, are all clearly presented with the point of emphasis always being salvation by grace through faith.…

That there could be and probably are in each crusade some committee members who do not agree with Billy Graham in regard to important or even essential doctrines no one attempts to deny. Such would be true in any enterprise involving so many people from so many branches of the Christian church. However, the charge that known modernists are given places of responsibility and are allowed to exercise control over team and crusade operations is absolutely false.…

It should be a matter of grave concern to every Christian that there should continue to be so much caustic and unjustifiable criticism of Billy Graham and his ministry. Such is not furthering the cause of Christ. In discussing this with Billy Graham it became quite apparent that he does not mind, but rather welcomes the attacks made by extreme liberal and modernist elements, but that he is grieved by the assaults of those with whose views and ministries he would be in basic accord. However, in no instance, though the criticisms and critics were freely discussed, did Billy Graham utter an unkind word concerning any one of them.

Having had the privilege of “joining” the team for a brief period has made me a team supporter forever.

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10, 11).

The message of the angel, though concise, was comprehensive and full. It contained, (1) the fact, “Unto you is born this day,” (2) the place, “In the city of David,” that is, in Bethlehem, so called, because David likewise had been born there, (3) the office of the Messiah, “A Saviour,” (4) His name, honour, and character, “Christ the Lord.”

Fear Not

The fright that came upon the shepherds as poor mortal men thus coming in contact with the Lord’s glory and his angels in the dead of night is to cease, for it is blessing, yea, the absolute supreme blessing for mortal men that is thus revealed to these shepherds. The Gospel for sinners always must begin with “fear not,” for it removes sin and fear. With “for” the angel justifies the command, and with “behold” exclaims at the greatness of this justification. But he first states the effect, and then the cause, first the joy, then the birth that produces the joy.

R. C. H. LENSKI

While it is natural that man should be afraid when the invisible, the unknown, suddenly becomes visible to him, the angel, now that Christ has been born, comes with the words “Fear not!” He does not, however, leave it at that, but gives the reason why they need have no fear. He brings to them the glorious tidings that in Bethlehem, the city of David, on that day, the promised Messiah has at length been born. The hope of the centuries has been fulfilled. For this reason the tidings are joyful to them and to all the people.

NORVAL GELDENHUYS

Joyful Tidings

What are these joyful tidings? What was the content of this report? Why, “This day is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord.” It is only this, “A Saviour is born; a way of escape is provided,” and farther they do not proceed. Yet this they say is a matter of great joy; as it was indeed. It is so to every burdened, convinced sinner, a matter of unspeakable joy and rejoicing. Oh, blessed words! “A Saviour is born!” This gives life to a sinner, and opens “a door of hope in the valley of Achor,” the first rescue of a sin-distressed soul.

JOHN OWEN

It is still proclaimed in our ears that to us is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord. These should be glad tidings to all, for in them all our hopes centre, and from them all our comforts flow. What an auspicious mom was that which brought so great a blessing to mankind! What a joyful day is that which first conveys the sound of the gospel to our ears! But most happy for us is that hour in which we are enabled to believe in Christ for the salvation of our souls. If real Christians deem it proper to commemorate the birth of Christ at a season set apart for that purpose, they will not do it with revellings and feastings, but with abundant thanksgivings to God, and liberality to their poorer brethren.

COMMENTARY OF HENRY AND SCOTT

Lord And Saviour

Christ Jesus, the only Son of God, is our Lord in three ways: first, by creation, in that he made us of nothing when we were not; second, he is our Lord by the right of redemption; third, he is the head of the Church (as the husband is the head of the wife) to rule and govern the same by his word and spirit.

M. W. PERKINS

Our Saviour is called in the Old Testament the Messiah, and in the New Testament the Christ; and both words import that he was the Anointed One. This designation is given to him, in allusion to the rite by which persons were consecrated to their offices under the former dispensation, namely, by being anointed with oil. This rite was observed in the case of the three offices which were most celebrated, those of prophet, priest, and king.

JOHN DICK

Hear that message of the angel in the world as it was, a world lacking joy, that had heard no good tidings for a generation, that was afraid in its heart of the tyranny of oppression. Then … there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. Saviour—confronting all the sin of the world with regal authority, based upon redeeming power. Christ—confronting all the chaos of the world, the Messiah, who will be able to realize the true hegemony, the Kingdom of God. Lord—the One who confronts all eternity and all ages, and He is born.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN

Like Matthew 1:21, this passage clearly indicates that to the circle in which Jesus moved his coming as the Messiah was connected with the great series of prophecies which promised the advent of Jehovah for the redemption of his people, as truly as with those which predicted the coming of the Davidic King. The terms, “a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord,” are, indeed, an express combination of the two lines of prophecy, and import that the Child who was born in the city of David was both the promised Redeemer of Israel and the Anointed King that was to come.… This Child is at once a Saviour, the promised Messiah, and Sovereign Lord of men and angels—for it is an angel who speaks these words.… There is here a declaration that in this Child born in the city of David, the functions of Redemption, Messiahship and Supreme Lordship are united.

B. B. WARFIELD

To All People

Though the angel addresses the shepherds alone, yet he plainly states, that the message of salvation which he brings is of wider extent, so that not only they, in their private capacity, may hear it, but that others may also hear. For God had promised Christ, not to one person or to another, but to the whole seed of Abraham. If the Jews were deprived, for the most part, of the joy that was offered to them, it arose from their unbelief; just as, at the present day, God invites all indiscriminately to salvation through the Gospel, but the ingratitude of the world is the reason why this grace, which is equally offered to all, is enjoyed by few. Although this joy is confined to a few persons, yet, in respect to God, it is said to be common. When the angel says that this joy shall be to all people, he speaks of the chosen people only; but now that “the middle wall of partition” (Eph. 2:14) has been thrown down, the same message has reference to the whole human race. For Christ proclaims peace, not only “to them that are nigh,” but to them that are “far off” (Eph. 2:17), to “strangers” (Eph. 2:12) equally with citizens.

JOHN CALVIN

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

With these words the Apostle Paul makes a distinction which should be in the mind of every Christian.

One of the privileges of the believer is an assured hope, something which reaches beyond present circumstances and rises above the buffetings which are an inevitable part of life.

It is because we Christians so often look at our immediate circumstances with the astigmatic lenses of the worldling that we fail to bear clear testimony to the grace of God.

Only the Christian knows his present position and his ultimate destiny. Only the Christian has the answers to this life and to that which is to come, dim as his understanding may be. The Christian can look at the world and think of all its uncertainties and yet reverently say, “So what!” for he knows in his heart that the sovereign God of the universe is his own loving heavenly Father.

This in no way justifies an unconcern with needy men in a needy world, however; it increases this concern, for the comfort and hope which are a part of the Christian’s heritage are blessings to be passed on and not kept in selfish seclusion. Yet, a clear distinction should be made between the by-products of the Christian faith and those things which constitute that faith.

There is often an alarming tendency to interpret Christianity in terms of peace, joy, hope, psychological adjustment, social awareness and other lovely, desirable things. When this is done, without an adequate presentation of the Gospel itself, Christianity is not advanced, but made confusing.

Christianity we know is not a panacea for life’s problems but the acquiring of a new life through faith in the atoning and transforming work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And through him who died for our sins, who rose again for our justification and who is living today, praying for us and giving us the companionship of his Holy Spirit, we come to look at our position in terms of the Christ who dwells in us and not as a detour around problems.

How true it is that Christ never promised exemption from life’s pressures; but he did promise grace sufficient to meet those pressures, a grace which enables us to rejoice in hope, and to be patient in tribulation.

The Christian’s failure to appropriate the privileges and blessings that are his is what causes so much unhappiness and covers the joy of salvation with a gloom of temporal sorrows.

Almost all of us have known persons to whom life seemed to have dealt far more than one individual’s share of suffering and sorrow, and we have seen those people demonstrate an inner source of peace and joy that the world can only marvel at, but not understand. This has been demonstrated in the sick room, at the grave side, and where the sins and failures of others have brought suffering and disgrace to the innocent; for standing beside those afflicted souls has been the One who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Why is it, then, that so few of us who name Christ as Saviour rise to the privileges and live by the blessings which he is so anxious that we should appropriate?

Is not the answer to be found in our failure to realize that relationship with Christ is a personal matter, and He is not separated from us by some great and ethereal distance but is closer to us even than breathing itself?

Furthermore, only too often our supposedly Christian joy has been predicated on some immediate personal success or material advantage. Such experiences can and do pass, but true Christian joy and hope have their root in things which are not subject to change or decay.

Christian hope is a firm assurance and expectation of the goodness of God, and it comes from our participation in the fullness of his blessings through our relationship with the Son. This hope is a wellspring of spiritual water, relieving the thirsty soul and bringing never-ending refreshment to the parched deserts of a sinful world.

This hope must be distinguished from the fading things of a material world, not only by the nature of that for which we hope but also by its eternal quality. Let the imagination run riot and conjure up a vision of obtaining everything this world has to offer, not only in things material but also in the intangibles of achievement which bring honor and power. Unless such were to be sanctified and blessed by God, they would prove as transient and unsatisfying as the world of which they are a part.

The Christian’s hope, being fixed and eternal, should carry with it a definite reaction in outlook, personality, and action. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Like Peter we look at the waves rather than to the Ruler of the waves. Like Martha we may be burdened with much serving, losing sight of the Lord of Glory whom it is our privilege to serve. Like Thomas we magnify doubts rather than exercise that faith which dissolves them into the assurance of things not seen.

The Christian’s hope is also a foundation which remains unmoved because that foundation is Christ. In a day when a search for security is almost a fetish, it is the Christian alone who enjoys the stability of eternal verities.

There is also a cleansing power in this hope. “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure,” for the object of his faith is altogether pure and lovely. Instead of accepting the standards of the world, he looks to those standards which have their source in the perfections of Christ.

The very heart of our hope as Christians rests on the person and work of our Saviour. We have the fullest kind of assurance because we know that he is the eternal Son of God. We have absolute confidence because we know that he has redeemed us for time and eternity. Although still living in the flesh we know that we even now have eternal life, and that which is not yet seen will some day become a glorious reality.

The Apostle Paul, who as much as anyone and more than most, suffered for his Lord, lived a life of continuing hope in the sureness of his position as a Christian. In the midst of overwhelming odds he said: “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

The Lord that Paul knew is our Lord. And the hope which was his is ours. Here there is no enduring situation, but there is one to come which will be based not on our present circumstances or frustrations but on the promise of our God.

This is the Christian’s hope and it should transform our daily lives.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing.” Thus David sang, and through the ages that call to devotion in Israel has not gone ignored in the Christian Church.

Unfortunately today, however, in the ministry of music, there is too often the pagan rhythm of modern jazz, in place of the highest praise of which the Church is capable. Yet no medium, aside from the preaching of the Word of God, has greater potential value in presenting the Gospel.

Throughout the centuries, the Bible and the hymnal have ministered to the spiritual needs of man and have assisted him in his worship. But just as the Church has suffered periodic declines in spiritual power, so has church music. There are evidences of such decline today.

In many areas, provincialism has invaded the Church and has muted the effectiveness of Christian music by substituting the light frothy song for the great devotional or worship hymn. Tin-pan-alley musical settings to skimmed-milk tests, delivered with flagrant exhibitionism by a keyboard personality or a “blues” singer, reveal a startling lack of reverence.

More than one minister, deploring the trend in church music today, would say with the words of Dr. Vernon McGee, pastor of the Church of the Open Door, Los Angeles:

The spiritual level of the church today is recorded in the type of music and the character of the songs that are sung. If that’s true, then the present-day church has hit a new low. Today the catchy tune is the thing which is popular, and frankly you can dance to some present-day church music. On the radio you can’t always be sure whether it’s a ballad, boogie, bebop, or the latest chorus of the church. Several song writers are getting rich writing this low type of music, a type which appeals to the flesh. It’s like taking dope, the more you hear it, the more you want to hear it until you become addicted to it.

How this demoralization creeps into the church and what it does to it has been described by Bishop James A. Pike, formerly dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, and now head of the Episcopal Church in California:

When a juke box or TV gets us off to a somewhat less than reverent start, the result is a vulgarizing of holy things. Perchance these songs will lift up some to the living God. But for many more it downgrades Him to the commonplace. It is an ersatz religion, without awe, without mystery, without reverence, without judgment, and in the end, without reality.

But the condemnation of such music does not come only from ministers. Secular musicologists are alarmed by the trend and are saying so. In an article entitled “Popular Tunes Help Corrupt the Child,” Irving Sablosky, recent Chicago Daily News critic, writes:

Popular music is helping to corrupt the youth of America. I’m not accusing the lyrics, I’m accusing the music itself of lowering the whole moral character of our growing generation.… The mind can work both ways: if it is trained to think on a high level, it will have no use for banalities; if it is given spiritual nourishment to begin with, it won’t tolerate emptiness.

Where Christianity ought to be worshiped in the highest sense of the word, it has too often fallen far short of the glory of God through the failure of its music. Where entertainment becomes the goal, it is no mystery why we have a perverted expression of the Christian faith, for the goal of the entertainer and the goal of God’s messenger are inherently different. With one, it is what the people want; with the other, it is what they need. We are as guilty in our singing as in our preaching if we declare not the whole counsel of God.

A Godly Standard For Singing

We may ask, “Since standards of church music vary and everyone seems to be setting the standard for himself, is there a Christian basis for determining a standard for singing?” Scripture gives one basic principle which certainly applies. We are to “walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” (Rom. 8:1). We therefore are not to render music in the power of the flesh, but in the power of the spirit, not to give a carnal thrill, but a spiritual impact.

If we keep it well in mind that music in the church is not an end, but a means to an end, we will have less difficulty in charting our path. The end sought is the glory of God, and not the glory of the performer or of his music. Music as a choral setting can open the door of our understanding so that the message of God enters our intellect without hindrance and captures our wills with its power and beauty. Music without textual association can, when properly selected, be a blessing to the worshiper and enhance his communion with God, for often it enables him to reach out to God for the fulfillment of his own personal need.

To be consonant with God’s standards, church music must be dedicated to the highest possible cultural plane. Pity the man who, having developed complicated esthetic sensibilities, hungers for a message of God in praise and finds it clothed in undignified musical rags. He is the forgotten man in much of today’s evangelism.

The loftiest sentiments of the Christian faith have found expression in the great hymns of the Church, and we have spiritual fellowship with those who have walked with God in centuries past. Great testimonies to saving grace have been set to music, outstanding devotional verse has been united with distinguished hymn tunes, and the scriptural passages have been interpreted for us in music by masters.

But not all of Christendom benefits from this heritage largely because true worship has been ignored. And worship we must have. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God.” Our evangelical hymnals do not contain a sufficient number of devotional hymns to give scope and depth in worship. So many are filled with songs that fail to lift us above ourselves and our own religious experience. This is not to say that a gospel hymn, properly chosen, has no place, for it does. But certainly believers in the church who overemphasize the subjective experience are in danger of worshiping experience and not God.

It is a real mistake for a church to confine itself solely to the Gospel song. Unfortunately, for some that seems to be the only one with a “message” in it, for any other fails to give the “subjective kick.” But this attitude ignores man’s obligation to worship God.

We note that the Psalmist expresses a great deal of subjectivity, but it is always linked with the objective source of the blessing. “He is my rock and my salvation.… My soul thirsteth for God.… I will bless the Lord at all times.”

Some churches have lost the great hymns because they left them behind in their denominational hymnals at the time they became independent. They took with them only the Gospel songbook that had been used in the Sunday school room. But there are encouraging signs today that some are returning to the great hymns of the Church, and some publishers are including them in the new hymnals.

Where provincialism has barred us from the great hymns, let us rediscover those that are a witness of our faith. Our satisfaction in that experience will eliminate unworthy hymns. Expression of our faith in hymnody should keep pace with our spiritual growth. That song which is light and joyous does express the faith and joy of a new Christian, but if he is alive, he will grow, and if he grows, it will be reflected in his praise.

Christians should live up to their spiritual capabilities, and we are not doing that if we choose hymns on a level below our spiritual understanding. Why must it be that we sing a type of song typified by “I’m So Happy and Here’s the Reason Why,” when we ought to be singing “Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts.”

And too often we are exhorted to sing loudly. For instance, young people sing the rhythmic Gospel choruses on their outings when it would be wise to sing secular fun songs, saving devotional singing for more appropriate occasions. Jesus himself pointed out the danger of mere noisiness: “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me” (Matt. 15:8–9). The Apostle Paul expressed an attitude for our conduct: “I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also” (1 Cor. 14:15).

Musical Reformation Needed

What is the remedy? We must give intelligent leadership to the coming generation. In his book, The Pattern of God’s Truth (pp. 80–81), Dr. Frank Gaebelein offers this solution:

The call is for Christian education to lead the way to higher things. But that call will not be fully answered until our schools, colleges, and seminaries espouse a philosophy of music befitting the Gospel. So long as the lower levels of an art so closely linked to man’s emotions are cultivated at the expense of the best, we shall continue to have Christian leaders, many of whom are deaf to the nobler elements of spiritual song. Evangelicalism is due for a musical reformation. The reformation will come only when Christian education, having set its face against the cheap in this greatest of the arts, seeks to develop in its students response to a level of music worthy of the deep things of God. Here, as in so much else, we do well to listen to Martin Luther, who called music “a noble gift of God next to theology,” and even went so far as to say: “We must teach music in schools; a schoolmaster ought to have skill in music … neither should we ordain young men as preachers unless they have been well exercised in music.”

The musical practice of evangelicalism needs to be examined in terms of textual content, musical setting, and method if the members of the Church are to grow in spiritual power. An example must be set not only for youth in churches, Sunday Schools, and colleges, but also for those who are being trained to lead our spiritual enterprises. The trend toward spiritually vigorous church music is already evident in many churches. Let us be certain that the glory of God is the foremost objective in the music of the faith.

END

Edward A. Cording is Executive Director of the Conservatory of Music and Chairman of the Division of Fine Arts at Wheaton College. He is a former president, was one of the founders, and for five years was secretary of the National Church Music Fellowship, a movement whose membership includes representatives of evangelical schools and churches.

The Fourth Gospel emphasizes that the destiny of Jesus of Nazareth was bound up with the figure of John the Baptist (cf. John 1:15, 26–28, 29–34). By John he found his first disciples (John 1:35–39). For a time his work paralleled that of the Baptist, perhaps in somewhat of a strained relation to some of John’s followers (cf. John 3:22–30). According to the witness of John, he was the Lamb of God whom the Father chose, as once before in the story of Abraham and his son (cf. Gen. 22:8; John 3:16).

The Synoptic Gospels have not narrated the activity of Jesus in the Jordan valley, because for them his ministry in Galilee and Jerusalem was decisive. The work of Jesus in the Jordan valley was evidently unaccompanied by any miracle, even as John also accomplished his work without miracles (cf. John 10:41). According to all the Gospels, the ministry of Jesus was confirmed by miracles first in Galilee. It is important to hold to this point on which the Gospels concur.

Perhaps Jesus’ zeal for the purity of the Temple (cf. John 2:12–22) is a Hasidic and Zealotic trait. For sure, his unique, insistent and sharp attack upon the priestly society in Jerusalem does not reflect the secluded protest of Qumran. Jesus acted to confront the whole people with a decision. His change of water into wine (cf. John 2:1–11) revealed the Messiah who was reviving the powers of ancient time, even as once Elisha cleansed the water in Jericho (cf. 2 Kings 2:19–22). To adduce Hellenistic and heathen parallels, as speculative research is wont to do, does not fit the action of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth evinces no Hellenistic traits. He rose from a movement which was antithetical to Hellenism. His miracles in feeding the multitude, changing the water, and raising the dead recall the time of Moses and Elijah, and signify that ancient, old-Israelite motives became historic in Jesus of Nazareth.

Although the preaching and teaching of Jesus, his thought and fundamental eschatological-apocalyptic view, suggest many a point of contact with the Qumran scriptures, no one should regard him as an Essene. His miracles, his conflict with the Law, his seeking out of sinners, all exhibit a sharp contrast to Qumran theology. Jesus and his disciples were directly related to the movement of John the Baptist, but very soon developed their own idea of purity, holiness, and atonement.

Historical Evidence

All the Gospels are historical and doctrinal commentaries on the history of Jesus. They not only give witness for faith, but also historical information which is relevant to scholarly discussion. To resort to the history of tradition, to form criticism, to literary criticism, and to the work of redaction, does not release us from the primary question: what actually happened? At the beginning stood the history of Jesus, not a theological construction.

Exegetical criticism has disputed most of all the historical worth of the Fourth Gospel. Since F. Christian Baur, one has seen its actual significance in the sphere of Spirit, Doctrine, and Symbol, but not in history. We hear today that the older historical and miracle tradition was reconstituted under the influence of gnostic-colored sayings and words of that time so that faith, upon which the gospel of John lays decisive importance, becomes a new existential understanding of man. But the biblical-Hebraic faith, which centers in the sending of Jesus (cf. John 20:31) loses its stability and reality when one detaches it in this modern sense from its roots. At the basis of the Fourth Gospel is the earlier historical and miracle tradition, only elucidated by the corresponding tradition of word and saying. Both materials form an inner unity and should not be divorced from one another. The Qumran Find pertains in a special way to the Fourth Gospel. It is now possible to compare Iranian dualism, late Jewish apocalyptic, Qumran sectarianism, and Johannine theology with each other. The Fourth Gospel knows a definite, fundamental Palestinian-Jewish stratum, from which it then passes over to a general, oriental-Hellenistic thought-form. There is good reason to be cautious in leaning upon the diverse concept of “Gnosis.”

Yet it has also been recognized that precisely the Fourth Gospel ascribes importance to historical associations, and does not look upon them only as illustrative material.

1. The activity of Jesus is arranged fundamentally into three geographical periods which also differ in their substance: At first Jesus was connected with the Baptist in the Jordan valley of Judaea (cf. John 3:22; 4:3). Then follows the ministry of miracle and teaching in Galilee and the surrounding area (cf. John 2:1 ff.; 4:43 ff.). Finally, a coherent grouping begins with the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem (cf. John 7:1–13; 10:22–39). This last sojourn in Jerusalem was at times interrupted (cf. John 10:40–42). The Johannine outline appears capable of taking in the Synoptic material, but not vice versa.

2. Small chronological notices should not be overlooked. We read in John 2:20: “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” This precise number is congruous with the historical interval if fitted into the Jewish computation of time, by which, in this instance, only the actual years of building were counted. To that number must be added the Sabbath years in which the work of building was suspended. Also the Johannine dating of the death of Jesus on Friday, the 14th of Nisan, should be credited as accurate.

3. The prominence given to Cana in Galilee (John 2:11) is fully justified: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory.” Cana, eight miles north of Nazareth, was closely related geographically and historically with the home city of Jesus. It is understandable that the presence of his mother was mentioned at the marriage feast. It was after that that Jesus removed with his mother, brethren and disciples to Capernaum, which belonged to another area of geography and territorial history (cf. John 2:12). We may well see in that removal a connection with adverse pressure upon the family of Jesus in Nazareth (cf. Luke 4:30 f.).

4. According to more recent geological investigations in Palestine, the gospel of John is thoroughly right when it takes the water from Jacob’s well to be well water and not cistern water (cf. John 4:6 ff.). The water flows under the earth from below Mount Gerizim.

5. Archaeological discovery has confirmed the location of the Pool of Bethesda near the Sheep Gate (cf. John 5:2). From the ruin it is possible to trace the trapezoid form of a double pool, constructed in the Hellenistic era, which had special significance for Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. The remains of strong and high columns point to the Herodianic period. Of late, French excavations have been resumed with success.

6. Occasional reference to sites in the Fourth Gospel, as Bethany “beyond the Jordan” (1:28), “Aenon near Salim” (3:23), Ephraim (11:54), go back to exact knowledge of their location by the Evangelist; they are not to be symbolically or allegorically understood. The region of Aenon by Salim lies southeast of Nablus and Shechem (cf. W. F. Albright). Most likely the Samaritan highland was accessible to John the Baptist.

7. The Evangelist took special care to identify sites in the Passion history: the brook Kidron (18:1), the garden in which Jesus and his disciples tarried (18:1), the court of the high priest Annas (18:15), the Praetorium (18:28,33; 19:9), the Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha (19:13), Golgotha (19:17), and the garden in which the new tomb lay (19:41). All these sites indicate his accurate knowledge of the topography of Jerusalem. Above all, the tomb of Jesus was a holy site for the Evangelist as it bore testimony to the Resurrection (cf. 20:1–18).

8. The Gospel gives a clear picture of the Jewish custom of burial, of mourning, and of comforting the survivors. It mentions the binding of the body “in linen clothes” (19:40), which protected but did not hinder the individual parts. Both the binding and the cloth wrapped about the face belonged to preparation for burial, in the case of Lazarus as well as in that of Jesus (cf. 11:44; 20:7). If at all possible, the body was washed, prepared, and buried on the day of death. Then the procession of mourners went back, and it lay upon the friends to comfort the survivors. Jesus appears at first in John 11:17 ff. as a friend who has the task of comforting the two sisters. Then he lays aside that role, does not go into the house of mourning, but waits near the grave of Lazarus in prayer to God.

Excavations In Palestine

In a recent article, W. F. Albright has pointed out how drastically the Jewish revolt, between 66 and 70 A.D., desolated Palestine and altered the relations of men to each other. His excavations in Geba and Bethel have uncovered traces of Roman occupation where it was engaged in a radical process of destruction. Of a certainty the relations between Jews and Christians were disrupted at this time, for Christians were decried as traitors by the Jews, and on the contrary as Jews by the Romans. In these years there was many an exodus and flight of Christians so that Palestinian traditions had to be collected elsewhere. In the opinion of Albright this happened to the Johannine tradition, which was then edited in Asia Minor.

On the one hand, the Johannine tradition thinks entirely theologically, and refers the source of thought and being to God himself, but has at the same time quite definite historical and earthly interests which should not be underestimated. The Fourth Gospel must be carefully read and understood, because it contains valuable material which helps to delineate the “Jesus of History.”

END

Otto Michel is Professor of New Testament at University of Tuebingen, Germany. From his earlier days at Halle he has maintained a stalwart witness for the Gospel against various forms of liberalism. In addition to being a stimulating lecturer, he is well-known through his contributions on both Romans and Hebrews in the H. A. W. Meyer Commentary series.

Just a few days ago I walked out into the scrub pine “woods,” northeast of the airport on Nantucket, to view the wreckage of an airliner. Having refused what was at one point the last open seat on that ill-starred flight, I saw before me an amazing sight. The path of the plane’s three sets of wheels could be traced for a long distance. First, one of the wings had clipped off the top of a fence post, slicing off a “No Trespassing” sign, but leaving the bottom half intact. Then a ridge had tipped the plane, causing wreckage to fly. Straight ahead it cut a path through the low-growing tree tops, and beyond that, twisted metal and burst-open traveling bags were scattered abroad over the ground. In front of me was a large chunk of fuselage—a grisly, fire-gutted death-trap.

Numbered stakes had been driven into the ground and numbered tags had been tied to pieces everywhere. Critical surveyors had mapped the entire scene. Many of the details, of course, would never be known. But what was here was unmistakably clear. One could locate the open space where there had been a perfect three-point landing, and the spot where the first jolt had scattered wreckage; and one could also reconstruct other events of those few dread seconds in which so much had happened.

For 13 years the writer has been driving numbered stakes and hanging numbered tags over the field of the history of gospel criticism. It has been slow work, involving the study of inaccessible books, usually in German or Latin, with only a little help from English books. Source criticism was introduced into England as a fait accompli nearly 30 years after it had received rather final definition on the Continent. It was more admired in England than investigated or understood. To be sure, many things will never be known about the course of modern gospel study. But much can be unmistakably known if the history of such study is critically surveyed.

Our purpose in this article is to point out significant weaknesses in the development of the dominant form of modern critical study of the Gospels. The facts were obtained as follows:

Starting from form criticism, the popular view of the Gospels today, the writer began to work backwards. A single critical question was asked again and again at each of many points of investigation. Stated in its actual, inelegant form, the question was: “How did this fellow get this way?” Such inquiry resolved itself into three specific questions, namely: (1) How did things stand before this theory under study was propounded? (2) Where did this theory come from? (3) What reasons were given for accepting it? It is absolutely necessary to learn the answers to these three questions if one would understand a given theory or form a truly independent judgment on any view of the Gospels. Otherwise one remains shut up to acceptance or rejection of a given view simply because someone else accepts or rejects it.

Form Criticism Questioned

Now, if we start from form criticism in any of its forms (Bultmann’s, Dibelius’, Albertz’s, or Taylor’s), and work backwards, we discover that despite its present popularity, which seems to be growing into virtual idolatry, form criticism is a very delicate blossom. In fact, four distinct questions are critical for its continued existence.

The first is whether the method itself is valid. The essence of that method is literary analysis. Component parts of the Gospels are analyzed and classified according to literary forms. They are also assumed to have been produced originally in a purely literary activity. This means, for example, that just as one asks why someone should have written a certain fairy story, so a form critic asks why anyone should have written (that is, invented) a story about Jesus healing a blind man. Such is the initial question we must consider regarding form criticism: “Is its methods valid?”

Three additional questions remain, all closely connected with the Mark theory. These will prove either vital or fatal for form criticism because they concern its foundations. They concern not merely the petals of form criticism but its very roots.

The second question is this: “Has the work of analysis been applied to the right document?” The only way to be assured is to determine our earliest Gospel. If Mark was earliest, and was subsequently used by the compilers of Matthew and Luke, then doubtless the form critics have been digging in the right place. But if Mark is not the earliest Gospel and therefore not actually the primary source used by the writers of Matthew and Luke, then the conclusion is inescapable that scholars have applied a prodigious amount of ingenuity to the wrong document. If the Mark theory be not true, they ought instead to have been analyzing Matthew or Luke, whichever proved to be earliest.

Manipulation Of Scripture

The third question relates to the validity of two dissections of Mark (by W. Wrede and K. L. Schmidt) on which form criticism is based. Waiving the question whether Wrede and Schmidt dissected the wrong document, we here face the additional question: “Is a specific pre-form-critical literary analysis of Mark valid?” The analysis is based on a theory that Jesus never thought of himself as the Christ, and also on a theory that the editor-compiler of Mark invented a scheme according to which Jesus gradually revealed the secret of his Christhood. Then the writer, it is claimed, made that scheme the outline of our second Gospel. In other words, Wrede and Schmidt nailed over Mark’s Gospel a big sign reading: “No History Here!” Can this preliminary manipulation (manhandling) of Mark be justified?

A fourth question would remain were form critics successfully to run the gantlet of the first three. Scholars writing in favor of the Mark theory about a century ago were extolling the features of Mark which seemed explicable only as statements of an eyewitness of the events narrated. The supposed lack of eyewitness qualities in Matthew and the alleged abundance of them in Mark originally led scholars to claim greater originality and priority for Mark. Then form critics come along. They deny the validity of the concept of eyewitness accounts in the Gospels. In so doing, they have also denied the foundation of the “proof” that Mark is our earliest Gospel. Yet they proceed to analyze Mark, which they would not be analyzing at all but for the fact that an earlier generation of scholars had “proved” Mark earliest by claiming that indubitable signs of its originality and priority lay in the eyewitness qualities of its narratives. The question, therefore, is: Do logic and scientific integrity give the form critics any right to use their method on Mark, assuming it to be our one primary source, before they have established its priority on a new and different basis? Though one were to grant the validity of their method, and its use on the right document, and their propriety of building on the work of Wrede and Schmidt, this fourth question remains.

The Mortal Blow

An adverse answer to any of the four questions would deal a mortal blow to form criticism. Three of the questions are so dependent upon the Mark theory that should that theory ever come to be rejected, then a triple wound would accrue to form criticism. Enough has been said to show the critical importance of the Mark theory. Following its general adoption, nearly all later scholarship has been built upon it; most of the earlier study preceding it will be found to culminate in it. Most important for any historian or theologian, therefore, is its truth or falsity. The minister who cares about the factual undergirdings of his message will also have a vital interest in settling this question correctly.

Misleading statements have become widespread in many published works. For example, T. W. Manson says: “Nine-tenths of Mark is transcribed in Matthew.…” My own investigations had shown 40.6 per cent of the words of Mark to be the same as those in Matthew, with no indication whether they had been copied by the writer of Matthew, or had found their way from Matthew into Mark. From 40 per cent to 90 per cent makes quite a discrepancy! It is common today to find published statements which begin: “Since nine-tenths of Mark had been incorporated into Matthew,” and so forth. My investigation showed that Manson had quoted Streeter, using the latter’s statement loosely and carelessly. But that was not all. Streeter got his information from Hawkins, whom he misunderstood. Indeed, he drew a demonstrably impossible conclusion from Hawkin’s statements; Hawkin’s statistics could never yield Streeter’s conclusions. In this way a jump from 40 to 90 per cent of Mark was alleged to be incorporated into Matthew.

Even so, why did everyone insist that Mark had been taken up into Matthew, instead of vice versa? This situation led me carefully to investigate the Mark theory.

Origin Of The Theory

When was the Mark theory originated? Who first propounded and advocated it? The earliest origin usually claimed in 1835. By 1865 it appeared assured of its present dominant position. Investigation of the intervening 30 years enables one to discover and study the circumstances in which it became dominant and the reasons alleged for the probability of its validity.

When I asked: “What converted scholars to the Mark theory?” I expected in my naivete to find that someone had studied the data exhaustively and had written a thorough book, which had convinced others and produced virtual unanimity in favor of the Mark hypothesis. Instead, I discovered that the question had been settled during the late fifties and early sixties of the last century, in a controversy where the real issues had never received consideration.

Advocates And Propagation

Space limits preclude a detailed tracing of the factors that brought Mark into favor, from Koppe and Storrs through Lachmann, Wilke, and Weisse, and thence down to the times of Holtzmann, Meyer, Ritschl, Weiss, and others. I can only give some principal facts. First, who advocated the Mark theory? Add or subtract a few names, and the answer is: Lachmann, Weisse, Wilke, Ewald, Reuss, Thiersch, Tobler, Ritschl, Meyer, Plitt, Weiss, Wittichen, Holtzmann, Mitzig, B. Bauer, Volkmar. Some helped originate and launch the view; others were influential in turning the tide in its favor. Two almost alone secured its wide and abiding propagation into the future, namely, Holtzmann and Meyer. Meyer’s influence worked through his famed commentaries, circulated in a fabulous number of editions and translations up to the present day—when the English translation will soon be reprinted. Holtzmann’s influence worked through widely circulated books and through his long eminence and high repute as a teacher. His first book (1863) was especially convincing. E. A. Abbott, in the 9th edition (1879) of Encyclopaedia Britannica, wrote: “the work which most approximates to a proof of the originality of the tradition contained in Mark is Holtzmann’s Die Synoptischen Evangelien, &c., 1863.…” As late as 1893 and after, young Albert Schweitzer at Strasbourg University was awed by the great scientific scholar who had established the Mark hypothesis, and he instinctively singled him out as the one teacher whom it would be impertinent to disagree with openly. B. Weiss was also a potent influence through long years, both in his own right and as Meyer’s posthumous editor. The critical years seem to have been 1861–1865, when Meyer had just swung over to the Mark theory, Holtzmann’s book appeared, and Weiss was vigorously advocating the new view.

The victory of the Mark theory arose in the historical context of a specific controversy. The view then dominant was that of Baur and the Tubingen School. They had adopted Griesbach’s old theory that Mark was the latest of the three Gospels, patched together out of alternating phrases and scraps of words drawn from Matthew and Luke. The question at issue was strictly in relation to Mark. Was it last or first? The reader must not suppose that this was a general question, defective merely because it ignored the possibility that Mark may have been the second earliest Gospel. This defect was grave enough. But the real fault lay in an assumption that the discrediting of Griesbach’s artificial theory would automatically establish the Mark theory. The earliest “proof” of the Mark theory in the English language is not a proof of that theory at all. It is a short discussion, three pages long, which shows the absurd suppositions of the Griesbach theory.

The context and terms of the debate against Baur’s modification of the Griesbach theory quite positively insured the defeat of the old view and the automatic victory of the Mark theory regardless of its real merits or defects. For example, Matthew never stood a chance. It was simply taken for granted by advocates of the Mark theory that Matthew was not authentic, nor apostolic, nor early. Holtzmann tells us that he assumes this and takes it e concessu, that is, as something everybody concedes. Meyer tells us that Matthew being ruled out, and Luke never being considered a real possibility, Mark, therefore, by simple elimination, must be considered the earliest. Now it is true that the other side, the Tubingen School, defended Matthew as the earliest Gospel. But they also roundly denied that it had any value. They dated it between 130 and 134 A.D., 100 years after the ascension. It was certainly unauthentic, and written long after the death of Matthew the tax-collector. If we had asked them what historical value Matthew had, they would have replied: “As history it is valueless, except as it testifies to Jewish tendencies current in some churches 90 or 100 years after the death of Jesus.” Investigation discloses no genuine effort to determine the relative merits and rights of Matthew and Mark to consideration as our earliest Gospel.

Actually, the advocates of the Mark theory were taking away three authentic Gospels from the churches and giving them one in return. But in the specific context of the struggle, which made their theory dominant, the impression arose that they were presenting the churches with one genuine Gospel in place of three unauthentic ones.

Plagiarism Assumed

In trying to ascertain the real mind of the scholars, I first sensed vaguely, and soon recognized unmistakably, that all the writers involved took for granted that the only possible explanation of similarities in the three Gospels was due to borrowing or copying in Greek. This assumption was openly confessed and given an appropriate name: the plagiarism hypothesis (Benutzungshypothese). Now this means that we are not really dealing with basic studies of the synoptic problem at all. On purely theoretical grounds, numerous possibilities were ruled out. What of the possibility of an Aramaic original of Matthew, which nearly all ancient writers mention? Why rule out the possibility of kinds and degrees of interdependence which would not require a denial of the authenticity of the Gospels—that is, which would acknowledge the Gospels as three sufficiently independent, and therefore independently attested and authenticated, accounts of Jesus’ works and words by the real Matthew, Mark, and Luke?

The plagiarism theory has imposed an unduly constricted set of limitations on the study of the Gospels. Actually, the theory of copying in Greek is positively detrimental. For when tested by the concrete data, it hinders us from seeing the full extent and range of the facts of agreement. Specifically, Matthew and Mark have 1,500 odd items of inexact agreement and synonymous resemblance. Such data create problems for the theory of copying in Greek. On it they must be explained as differences. However, on a theory that an Aramaic Matthew was in Peter’s hands at Rome we can very well account for everything. The Greek agreements would arise when the Aramaic Matthew was translated into Greek by someone, and when Peter’s preaching based on Matthew was rendered into Greek in Mark. The average exact agreement in Greek is even less than two and one-half words long. Such exact agreements do not require a theory of copying in Greek. As soon as we give up the plagiarism theory, while the extent of resemblance between Matthew and Mark is actually enlarged by 1,500 odd items, we also secure the immense theoretical advantage of not having to explain 1,500 items as changes deliberately introduced into a Greek text.

The general view just advanced has the advantage of being capable of being tested by analogy. We can compare the entire range of data from a synopsis of Matthew and Mark with the data from a synopsis of the A and B texts of Greek Judges, representing apparently two independent translations from Hebrew. Such comparison justifies rejection of the theory of copying in Greek. At the same time, it shows that Matthew and Mark do not exhibit the same strict adherence to an original document as do the A and B texts of Judges when compared to a Hebrew text. The data in some respects are strictly comparable, and in others radically divergent. Matthew and Mark show close correspondences other than the kind produced in the A and B texts of Judges by extreme loyalty to an original written document.

A bare statement of the data is given in the following table:

So much for the Mark theory and its undergirding plagiarism hypothesis.

As to the “Q” theory, it is a “sputnik,” a man-made satellite which the Mark theory hurls into orbit. No agreement has ever been reached on the original language of “Q,” or on its contents or on the arrangement, or on any specific feature of its provenance, time, place, or authorship. Unless and until the Mark theory has been first adopted, there exists no “problem” that requires “Q.” Reject the Mark theory, regard Matthew as the first Gospel produced, and the need for a “Q” hypothesis vanishes. The synoptic data do not create the problem that “Q” is intended to solve; the Mark theory creates it by its own inability to explain the data.

E. A. Abbott, the famed British scholar, has given an excellent evaluation of gospel studies prior to 1879:

The work of Dr. Holtzmann … is of great value; and so are Dr. Weiss’s Marcusevangelivm (1872) and Matthausevangelium (1876); but it is truly lamentable that nearly a century has passed in the accomplishment of so little. The reason is perhaps to be looked for (1) in the amount of personality that has been introduced into discussions of this kind; (2) in the haste with which theories have been erected upon the basis of single causes; (3) in the general absence of an attempt to classify and concentrate evidence; (4) in the failure to recognize the distinction between probabilities and certainties, and the amount of labor necessary to attain certainty; (5) most of all, in the absence of mechanical helps” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed.).

Certain it is that the scholars who agreed in the general result, and who thus made the Mark theory dominant, could not agree on the means and reasoning by which they reached their conclusion. Holtzman spells this out in detail. And it is further certain that only one or two scholars considered it possible that our present Mark could have been used by the writers of Matthew and Luke. Nearly all, when they said “Mark,” meant another writing significantly different from our Mark. It is often said that we have Mark but we don’t have “Q.” Investigate the actual waitings of those who established the Mark theory. You will find that we don’t have Mark either.

The writer agrees fully with Abbott’s evaluation. He thinks that gospel studies have been on a flight that has landed in the woods, missing both the landing-strip and the airport as well. A new, comprehensive study of the Gospels is urgently needed. The really scientific study of the synoptic problem is ahead of us. Indeed, the preliminary isolation and statement of the data of the problem have yet to be achieved. On the positive side, study and work, in God’s providence, can lead to renewed conviction (on more solid foundations than ever) of the genuineness, authenticity, and early dates of our Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

END

Preacher In The Red

PARTING OF THE WAYS

The congregation of the Foursquare Church in Shelton, Wash., was listening attentively to the announcements. I was urging all to attend the evening service, the sermon being on Jesus’ parable concerning the rich fool.

After a very brief preview of the content of the message I announced the topic: “A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted!”

Then in the next breath I said, “Will the ushers please come forward and receive the offering.”—The Rev. RAYMOND L. Cox, Corvallis, Oregon.

ARE YOU A FATHER?

A Protestant minister with a parish among a Roman Catholic population spends an exciting life, I can assure you.

One day the phone rang and a female voice said;

“Are you a father?”

“Of course I am; I have three kids.”

“Whaaat?!”

“Yes, three children.”

“Are you married?”

“Naturally.”

“Let me get it straight: you have three children, you are married and you are a father?”

“Right.”

“Shame on you!”

And bang! Down goes the receiver.—The Rev. NUNZIO TESTA, Grace Presbyterian Church, New York, N. Y.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Letters should be addressed to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1014 Washington Building, Washington 5, D. C.

John H. Ludlum, Jr, is Minister of the Community Church on Hudson Avenue, Englewood, N. J. He holds the B.A. from Rutgers University, the B.D. from New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and the Ph. D. from Yale University (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures). His doctoral studies included Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, as well as the Literature and Criticism of the Old and New Testaments.