NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

“The Church on the Offensive in the War of Ideas” is the challenge of World Missionary Literature Sunday to be observed October 12 in churches across America. Sponsored by Evangelical Literature Overseas (ELO), cooperative missionary literature ministry, this first annual observance focuses attention on an urgent need for world-wide Christian missionary literature offensives.

“Today approximately half the world’s population can read,” according to Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse in a recent article in the ELO Bulletin. “Present estimates,” he reports, “indicate that one million people are learning to read every week. But what will they read? The answer is simple—whatever is available—everything, anything.”

Helping place the printed Gospel message in hungry hands has been the work of ELO since its founding six years ago. ELO, literature arm of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association and the Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association, has encouraged the holding of intermission literature conferences to bring about closer cooperation of already existing missionary agencies on the field.

New African Magazine Published

Dramatic evidence of the success of such cooperation is the launching this month of Our Africa, eleventh mass-appeal Christian magazine originated in the last six years. Sponsored by the South Africa General Mission, Our Africa is directed to the 55 per cent of the South African population who can read English. In this day of emphasis on the indigenous church, it is significant that under missionary Don Smith, SAGM literature secretary, nationals are being trained to take over the responsibility of writing, producing, and distributing the magazine.

Pioneer of the mass-appeal Christian magazines is African Challenge, published in Nigeria under the Sudan Interior Mission. Printed in English, Challenge reaches thousands of newly literate Africans with simply written self-help material and the Gospel of Christ.

Before the end of the year two more new magazines will appear, both in the Belgian Congo. Sponsored by the Africa Literature Society, Oyebi will be published in the Lingala language; Sikama, in Kikongo.

Other evidences of evangelical cooperation are the score of literature fellowships now active in strategic areas. Pioneer is LEAL, the Latin American Fellowship. In the Belgian Congo alone six fellowships are now active in as many language areas. In India, ELFI (Evangelical Literature Fellowship of India) has been instrumental in the founding of Kiran, mass-appeal magazine in Telegu, sponsored by International Missions.

Recent progress was reported by the Rev. Harold B. Street, executive secretary of ELO, following a trip to the simmering Near East, North Africa, and Europe. In Beirut, heart of the Arabic-speaking world, 38 delegates from 27 mission boards and national churches, representing 11 countries, made plans to set up what will become the nineteenth cooperative literature organization.

A Unique Opportunity

The Beirut conference pinpointed the unique opportunity of developing Christian literature beamed to the 100 million Arabic-speaking people of the Near East and North Africa—almost 100 per cent Moslem. In meeting this regional need, a basic literature, suitable for adaptation in other languages, can be provided for the whole Moslem world of 500 million souls, largest single religious body in the world.

“Because more and more of the peoples of the world can read this life-giving message, of Christ’s coming to give men new life,” Barnhouse emphasizes, “we must tell it with the printed page. To meet the urgency of the hour there must be a literature program that will concentrate on communicating the love of Christ to a divided world, and that will identify itself with the people it seeks to serve.”

Antecedent to this task of communicating the love of God to man is the basic need of teaching the world’s illiterates to read.

A “breakthrough” on the literacy front has been scored these past two years in the literacy-by-TV program in Memphis, Tennessee. This pilot project of a community educational TV program, using the Laubach literacy system, has successfully taught over 2,000 adults to read. To share the Memphis plan, the local Chamber of Commerce recently invited representative national leaders to a two-day Conference on World Literacy by Television. Response was encouraging.

Veteran literacy expert Dr. Frank Laubach, in his keynote address, pointed out that America might lose the cold war to communism in Asia and Africa if we fall behind in the literacy race.

Laubach retired recently from the Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature, but the committee—known as Lit-Lit—continues his work. A unit of the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches of Christ, the committee works with NCC members and nonmembers alike in stepping up world-wide lit-lit programs.

“Nine people out of ten in South Asia and Africa are illiterate,” reported Dr. Laubach at the Memphis conference. “That area is the world’s question mark.… These people are destitute because they are illiterate. They want to come up out of their ignorance more than anything else in the whole world.”

“People fear,” said Laubach, “that if we teach illiterates to read, they will read Communist literature. But we must provide them with what they ought to read.… If we mobilize our writing talents to win friends and influence people in Asia and Africa, we would have nothing to fear from the Communists. Their writings are cheap, and they are as dull as a government bulletin.

“But teaching a billion illiterates to read is a gigantic and costly task.… We need a mass medium which will teach these billion to read as swiftly as the totalitarian methods of the Communists are doing in Russia and China.”

He listed television and motion pictures as two great potential teachers, then added, “This vast world enterprise would require a third program—training an army of specialists to install the equipment, to direct the teaching, and to organize villages into literacy campaigns.…

“Where is the money to be found?… Under Public Law 480 our government has sold about three billion dollars worth of our surpluses to 25 backward countries. Because they could not pay us in dollars, we allowed them to deposit that money in their own currency in their own banks. Congress has now passed an amendment to this bill permitting the use of that money for education and literacy. Moreover, many farsighted men and women in business and philanthropy are keenly aware that we cannot save Asia and Africa unless we lift their unbearable load of ignorance and poverty.”

North Vs. South

Officialdoms of Northern and Southern Presbyterianism split along a familiar front this month: race relations.

“Enforcing (the Supreme Court desegregation decision) with troops and tanks if necessary, is a lesser evil—however undesirable—than the alternative of buying temporary peace,” read a statement from the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Signers were Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk, and Dr. Theophilus M. Taylor, moderator.

“I must heartily disagree,” countered Philip F. Howerton, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. “Force can accomplish nothing but chaos.”

A few days later, ministers of the Washburn Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. took a stand of their own which set them at odds with Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus. The Little Rock area clergymen in a resolution urged the governor to countermand his proclamation refusing to open the city’s four high schools.

In ill-tempered words, Faubus said “some Presbyterian ministers have been brainwashed” by “Communists and left-wingers.”

The ministers denied the charges and demanded an apology.

The race issue failed to slow a move by the Northern and Southern Presbyterian churches to operate Austin Theological Seminary jointly. The Texas synod of the Northern church voted to buy a half-interest in the seminary. Southern Presbyterians have already approved the plan. Northern Presbyterians will pass on the proposal at their General Assembly next year. The Texas seminary has been integrated for more than 10 years.

Divine Promotions

E. Arthur Bonney was a guided missile expert at the Johns Hopkins Applied Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland. Several years ago he heard God’s call to the ministry. “Last year,” he recalls, “the calling grew so strong I couldn’t refuse.”

This month Bonney, 40, enrolled at Gordon Divinity School in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, for theological training. With him went his wife and three children. They were starting all over in obedience to the Great Commission and divine beckoning.

Robert T. Yonkman of Grand Rapids, Michigan, also knows what it means to pull up occupational stakes, middle-age notwithstanding. Married and the father of a seven-year-old girl, he gave up work as an electrical manufacturer’s agent to enroll at Bexley Hall Seminary of Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. That was three years ago. This summer Yonkman was ordained and became rector of Christ Episcopal Church of Charlevoix, a small town in northern Michigan.

Theological Center

A Sealantic Fund grant of $1,500,000 will make possible immediate construction of buildings for the new Interdenominational Theological Center of Atlanta, Georgia.

The center will combine educational functions of Gammon Theological Seminary (Methodist), the graduate faculty of religion at Morris Brown College (African Methodist Episcopal), the graduate program in religion at Morehouse College (Baptist), and the Phillips School of Theology at Jackson, Tennessee (Christian Methodist Episcopal). Classes are expected to begin next fall.

Ministerial Problems

What bothers clergymen in the United States?

The Ministers Life and Casualty Union of Minneapolis sponsored a survey to find out. The poll revealed that ministers worry most about how to handle demands on their time, especially burdensome details of administration.

Clergymen also are troubled by church finances and by their own inadequate salaries as well as by church members’ lack of interest in spiritual things.

Some 44 per cent of the 1,405 ministers polled said they felt their salaries inadequate. About 52 per cent reported salaries (excluding parsonages) of between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. Another 28 per cent are paid reportedly from $5,000 to $7,000. Less than one-half of one per cent said they received more than $10,000. Ten per cent reported salaries under $3,000.

Nearly one-fourth of the responding clergymen said their churches expect too little of them in the way of counseling.

Most of the ministers (63 per cent) complained of not enough time for leisure activities, although most (65 per cent) were satisfied with their vacation time.

The Negro Baptists

For America’s two big Negro Baptist groups, the Supreme Court’s latest integration ruling could not have been timelier. Conventions of both were in session when the nation’s highest tribunal ordered Little Rock to proceed with integration. The two groups met simultaneously (September 9–14), the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., in Chicago; the National Baptist Convention of America in Detroit.

At Chicago Coliseum, some 10,000 delegates greeted the announcement with shouts of “Thank you, God” and “Yes, Lord.” The assembly sang “Rock of Ages.” Many delegates cried openly.

Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, who was unanimously reelected president of the incorporated body, had urged delegates to accept the court’s order in a “spirit of meekness and worship and not cheers.”

The announcement was made immediately following an address to the convention by Democratic Representative Brooks Hays of Arkansas, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Hays cited the need for Christian brotherhood.

In Detroit, 8,000 delegates met at King Solomon Baptist Church. Their reaction to the Supreme Court decision was equally subdued.

“There was no demonstration,” said the Rev. G. Goings Daniels, recording secretary. “We took the matter quietly as a matter of course.”

Keynote speaker for the unincorporated Baptists was the Rev. Martin Luther King of Montgomery, Alabama.

The National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., is America’s third largest Protestant denomination with more than 4½ million members. The National Baptist Convention of America is sixth largest with more than 2½ million members.

Church Effectiveness

Churches today “are not very effective either in changing society or even in making clear what it means to be a Christian,” according to Dr. Winthrop S. Hudson, professor of church history at Colgate Rochester Divinity School.

“The church is failing,” he told a Baptist student assembly, “because it is confused within itself on the nature of the Christian faith, the nature of the Christian church, and the Christian vocation.”

“A student’s first job is to draw together small groups for Bible study and theological discussions to clarify his thinking on the basic nature of his faith,” Hudson said. “The current spirit of easy tolerance which says that one religion is as good as another is a death-blow to evangelism.”

A student’s second task as a church member, he said, is to “rediscover the nature of the church as the household of God.” He warned against thinking of the church building as the church. “These buildings are little more than monuments to ourselves—the product of our own pride rather than of our devotion to God,” he said.

The professor’s remarks were addressed to 500 delegates attending the sixth annual Baptist Student Conference at Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Baptists In Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh Baptist Church is a new venture of Southern Baptists in western Pennsylvania. The work began some three months ago as a mission of the Evangel Baptist Church of nearby Weirton, West Virginia. Now the church has 26 members, all formerly from the South. A recent Sunday service drew 60 worshipers (some were Northern Baptists).

The congregation represents the first Southern Baptist work in the Pittsburgh area. Services are held at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in the Steel City’s civic center.

Said a Northern Baptist official: “We will be courteous and Christian in our attitude and will want to work with them in the same cooperative spirit that we share with other denominations.”

C.N.W.

The “Y” Program

Spiritual priorities were plainly on the margin at a meeting of YMCA general secretaries in Pasadena, California, last month. The “Y” administrators were largely preoccupied with extension of present programs.

Commenting on the plea of CHRISTIANITY TODAY for a larger spiritual thrust, Randolph E. Myers of Washington told the secretaries that the spiritual thrust is uppermost in the capital.

Chairman Harper Glezen of Minneapolis called the problem of expanding services into new suburbs one of the most pressing.

Recruitment and training of YMCA secretaries was an acknowledged problem. A national commission is at work on it. Currently the “Y” gets half its secretaries from George Williams College, Chicago, and Springfield College, Springfield, Massachusetts. Both are traditional training grounds. The next largest group comes from seminaries, church-related liberal arts colleges and schools which train social workers.

Christian faith must translate itself into works. It is not sufficient to lend mental assent to a Christian creed. It is necessary for one’s destiny that the details of life be committed to the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, faith translates itself into Christian experience and action.

Christian faith consists of a body of truth as taught in the New Testament, as expressed in the commonly accepted creeds, and as believed by those who call themselves Christian. Christian faith becomes experience when the individual commits his life to Jesus Christ and acknowledges him to be the Lord of life. Faith is then expressed in life.

Paul And James

In speaking of faith, St. Paul used Abraham as an illustration of one who believed and whose faith was counted unto him for righteousness. He declared that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works. This righteousness was equated with salvation. “By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourself; it is the gift of God; not of works lest any man should boast.” On the other hand, James used Abraham as an illustration of one who was saved by works. He declared, “Faith without work is dead. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, by works was faith made perfect.”

Some have attempted to create a conflict between Paul and James on this subject of salvation by faith or by works and faith. The harmony comes in recognizing that faith is the root and works are the fruit of the matter. Whoever has a justifying faith in God gives evidence of this by obedience. Faith produces love and love is the fulfilling of the law. It is impossible to divorce Christian life from Christian faith.

Hence we are warned to beware of historical faith, or dead faith. This is the kind of faith which the demons have. James said, “The demons also believe, and tremble.” Historical or intellectual faith is that which accepts the Bible, the Gospel and Christ as one accepts history. It is possible for one to believe that Jesus

Christ died by crucifixion outside of Jerusalem in the spring of 29 A.D. and not have it affect his life. This is one of the great dangers which face the Christian church. Historical faith must become experimental faith or it has no value.

Life By Faith

The Bible says, “The just shall live by faith.” This text, found in Habakkuk 2:4 is quoted three times in the New Testament. The first time is in Romans 1:17 where Paul is concerned with the subject of righteousness. Thus, he uses it to prove that man shall become righteous by faith in the propitiation of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. The book of Romans declares that all men are sinners, whether profligate heathen, moral persons, or adherents of religion. He goes on to declare that they cannot be made righteous by any works of the law, but only through justification by faith, a faith that believes that Jesus Christ was sent forth by God to be a propitiation for sin through faith in his blood.

The second time this Old Testament text is quoted in the New Testament is in Galatians 3:11 where Paul is emphasizing the subject of faith over against works. He declares that it is not by works, whether of character, of morality or of religion that men become right with God but only through faith.

The third place where it is quoted is in Hebrews 10:38 where the writer is emphasizing that the just shall live by faith. He then goes on to give in Hebrews 11 many illustrations of walking by faith. The first was Abel who believed God’s word that man could be accepted in His sight only by bringing a blood sacrifice which typified the coming of the suffering Messiah.

The Adventure Of Obedience

When faith is translated into obedience, it provides a sense of adventure, it reveals our trust in the Word of God and it puts a thrill into living. It is this obedience of faith which has marked the lives of missionaries who have gone to the ends of the earth, of reformers who have stood upon God’s word over against the tide of opposition and persecution, and of witnesses who have been faithful unto the Lord’s command,

Harold John Ockenga has ministered to historic Park Street (Congregational) Church in Boston for over 20 years.

(Ardent apologies to Hans Christian Andersen)

Many years ago King Visible Church received royal garments woven out of the revealed truths of Scripture. His delight was to display them to all who would behold. The royal garments were of such beauty that people came from the ends of the earth to see them. Many became so entranced by their glory that they remained to become citizens of the realm over which the King reigned.

Among the hosts of strangers that came to visit the King were two designers who disdained the traditional royal garments and gave themselves out as weavers. They claimed that they knew how to weave the most beautiful fabrics imaginable. Not only were the colors and patterns unusually fine and existential, but the garments that were made of this cloth had the peculiar quality of becoming invisible to every person who was unworthy or who was lacking in the latest scientific knowledge.

The King was greatly disturbed when he heard snatches of their conversation. He would hear them say to others that his royal garb was “out-worn,” “out-dated,” “old-fashioned,” “affront to the intelligentsia,” “lacking in critical scholarship,” “not philosophically respectful,” and many more of like nature. This greatly embarrassed the King. Perhaps he needed the renovations they had to offer. “Those must be splendid garments,” mused the King. “By wearing them I would be able to discover which men in my kingdom are unfitted for their ecclesiastical positions. I shall distinguish the scholars from the fools. Yes, I certainly must commission these wise men to weave some garments for me.” The King commanded that all the venerable institutions of his realm be opened to the weavers and that they be accorded all honor and respect.

So they put up two paradoxical looms and began to weave dialetically with tillichian and bultmannian shuttles. On and on they worked far into the night.

“I should like to know how those weavers are getting on with their fabric,” thought the King, but he hesitated when he reflected that anyone who was unscholarly or unfit for his post would not be able to see it. “I will send my faithful old theological weaver,” thought the King. “He will be able to see how the cloth looks for he is not an obscurantist and no one fulfills his ecclesiastical duties better than he does.”

So the good and trusted weaver went into the room where the two strangers sat working at their paradoxical looms.

“Heaven help me,” thought the old theologian. “Why, I can’t see a thing!” But he took care not to say so.

The two designers begged him to step a little nearer and asked him if he did not think it was a good Christian pattern and beautiful coloring. They pointed to what they declared to be a beautiful piece of cloth woven with dialectical skill with the tillichian shuttle and consisting of the lost dimension:

The answer is given by the awareness that we have lost the decisive dimension of life, the dimension of depth, and there is no easy way of getting it back. Such awareness is in itself a state of being grasped by that which is symbolized in the term, dimension of depth. He who realizes that he is separated from the ultimate source of meaning shows by this realization that he is not only separated but also reunited.

“Good heavens,” thought the old and trusted weaver. “I must be way behind the time. I had not thought so, but to hear dialectical language makes me wonder if I am intelligible to young theolog weavers. It will never do to say I cannot understand this.” So when the old theological weaver returned to the King, he informed him that the use of the tillichian shuttle would produce the most profound, constructive, apologetical theological fabric ever made in the kingdom. At last sophisticated intellectuals may obtain a sense of meaning by the realization that he is separated from the ultimate source of meaning. The tillichian shuttle would enable man to make the profound discovery that the very knowledge that he is actually separated from the source of meaning would indicate that he is also reunited.

The King soon sent another faithful ecclesiastical official to see how the garment was getting on. The same thing happened to him as to the old and trusted weaver. He looked and looked, but he could see no authentically Christian fabric in the loom.

“Is not this a beautiful piece of Christian cloth?” asked the two designers. “Notice how the bultmannian shuttle gives intellectual and scientific depth to the Apostles’ Creed.”

I believe in Jesus Christ, not the only Son of God, (yet) our Lord: who was not conceived by the Holy Ghost, not born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: he did not descend into hell; the third day he is (thought to have) risen again from the dead; he did not ascend into heaven; and sitteth not at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall not come to judge the quick and the dead.

The two foreign designers pointed to what they purported to be another colorful piece of the same Christian cloth woven with the bultmannian shuttle:

The man who understands his historicity radically, that is, the man who radically understands himself as someone future, or in other words, who understands his genuine self as an ever-future one, has to know that his genuine self can only be offered to him as a gift by the future.

The poor ecclesiast could see no resemblance whatever to revealed Christianity. He could not conceive of himself unworthy of his post, so he concluded that he was theologically ignorant. This he did not dare to confess, however, so he praised the stuff he did not see, and assured them of his delight in the beautiful colors and the originality of the design. Then he reported to the King that the cloth was truly the primitive kerygma properly demythologized and intelligible to the modern man.

Now the King thought he would like to see it while it was still on the loom. So, accompanied by the two faithful officials, he went to see the crafty designers who were working away at the empty looms.

This time it was not necessary for the designers to make any explanations, for the two officials pointed out the lost dimension in the design and how the very fact that it was lost meant that it was found. “It is magnificent,” they said, each thinking no doubt the other could see what he could not see. “Only look at the beauty of the primitive kerygma from which is stripped all that would appear ugly and unscientific to the modern mind.”

“What?” thought the King. “I see nothing at all. This is terrible. Am I a fool? Am I not fit to be King?” “Oh, it is beautiful,” he said. “It has my highest approval.” Nothing would induce him to say that he saw no authentic Christianity in the looms. As a matter of fact he immediately ordered that the designers receive the highest honorary degrees in the kingdom.

Then the day arrived for the fitting and for the procession to which all within the kingdom were invited. The fame of the foreign weavers had spread throughout the land. All people were aware of the magic power the new existential garments possessed to reveal the unworthiness or ignorance of anyone. While some had a measure of trepidation in heart yet none dared to absent himself from viewing the procession.

First of all the weavers stripped from the King all the traditional garments which had attracted people from the ends of the earth. These they declared to be out-worn, out-moded and out-dated. With gloved hands they removed dogmas, creeds, and all that smacked of the supernatural.

Then they placed upon him what purported to be a kierkegaardian paradoxical under-garment. This, they explained, could not be grasped by the mind but only by a faith-leap. Those who did not ignore logical contradictions had no faith. The poor King saw nothing and concluded he had no faith. The outer garments, they elucidated, were purely symbolical. They fastened on his waist what they declared to be a bultmannian train from which the vertical had been almost removed and the horizontal extended to show its historical continuity to the first century.

The King looked into the mirror and saw nothing but his nakedness. “What beauty! How modern! How scholarly and scientific!” cried all his couriers round.

“The canopy is waiting outside which is to be carried over Your Majesty in the procession,” said the stated clerk who had charge over all ecclesiastical functions to see that they operated smoothly and efficiently. Nothing must be done to upset the carefully planned schedule of events.

“Well, I am quite ready,” said the King. “The clothes certainly do fit well.” Then he turned round and round in front of the mirror, so that he should seem to be looking at his grand and new fabric. The faithful old theological weaver and the ecclesiast were given the honor of holding up the train. With dignity they pretended to lift it from the ground with both hands, and they walked along with their hands in the air. They dared not let it appear that they could not see anything.

Then the King walked along in the procession under a gorgeous ecclesiastical canopy, and everybody in the streets and at the windows exclaimed, “How beautiful is the King’s new existential garment! What a splendid train! And it fits to perfection!” Nobody would confess that he could see nothing lest he be considered ignorant or unworthy.

“But he has got nothing on,” said a little child.

“Oh, listen to the innocent,” said its father. And one person whispered to the other what the child had said. “He has nothing on—a child says he has nothing on!”

“But he has nothing on!” at last cried all the people.

The King writhed, for he knew it was true. But he thought, “The procession must go on now.” So he held himself stiffer than ever, and the ecclesiastical dignitaries lifted with their hands the invisible train.

When we speak of postmillennialism, we mean that view of the last things which holds that the kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the Gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit, that the world eventually is to be Christianized, and that the return of Christ will occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace, commonly called the millennium.

This view is to be distinguished from that optimistic, but false, view of human progress and betterment which holds that the kingdom of God on earth will be achieved through a natural, rather than a supernatural, process by which mankind will be improved and social institutions will be reformed and brought to a higher level of culture and efficiency. The latter view regards the kingdom of God as the product of natural laws in an evolutionary process and represents only a spurious or pseudo postmillennialism.

The word millennium, a thousand years, is found just six times in Scripture, all in the first seven verses in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. Some Bible students take the word literally and hold that Christ will set up a Kingdom on earth which will continue for precisely that length of time. We believe, however, that the word is to be understood figuratively, as meaning an indefinitely long period.

Outstanding theologians who have held the postmillennial position are: David Brown, whose book, The Second Advent (1849), was for many years the standard work on the subject, Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, Robert L. Dabney, Augustus H. Strong and Benjamin B. Warfield. James H. Snowden’s book, The Return of the Lord (1919), is an able presentation of the postmillennial system.

This system has been much neglected during the past third of a century, but the other systems too have had their periods of neglect and decline. For nearly a thousand years between the time of Augustine and the Protestant Reformation, premillennialism was in almost total eclipse; and amillennialism as a system has received its fullest expression only in comparatively recent times.

Evangelical Agreement

The essential presuppositions of the three systems are similar, and each has been held by men of unquestioned sincerity and ability. Each holds to the full inspiration and authority of Scripture. Each holds to the same general concept of the death of Christ as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and as the only ground for the salvation of souls. Each holds that there will be a future, glorious, visible, personal coming of Christ. Each system is, therefore, consistently evangelical.

The differences between these systems arise not out of any conscious or intended disloyalty to Scripture, but primarily out of the distinctive method employed by each in the interpretation of Scripture; and they relate chiefly to the time and purpose of Christ’s second coming and to the kind of kingdom that is being set up or will be set up at his coming. Premillennialists insist on literal interpretation as the only means by which the true meaning of Scripture can be set forth, while post- and amillennialists readily accept a figurative interpretation where that seems preferable.

Literal And Spiritual

But while, as postmillennialists, we spiritualize some prophecies or other statements of the Bible, that does not mean that we explain them away. Sometimes their true meaning is to be found only in the unseen spiritual world. We hold that to literalize and materialize those prophecies is to keep them on an earthly level and so to miss their true and deeper meaning. That was the method followed by the Jews in their interpretation of Messianic prophecy. They looked for literal fulfillments with a political ruler and an earthly kingdom, and as a result, they missed the redemptive element so completely that when the Messiah came they did not recognize him, but instead rejected and crucified him. The fearful consequences of literalistic interpretation as it related to the first coming should put us on guard against making the same mistake for the second.

The millennium to which the postmillennialist looks forward is a golden age of spiritual prosperity embraced in the larger Church age. We hold that the present age gradually merges into the millennial age as an increasingly larger proportion of the world’s inhabitants are converted to Christianity. We do not hold that every person will be a Christian, nor that sin will be completely eliminated, but only that sin will be reduced to a minimum. Sinless perfection belongs only to the heavenly state. The earth during the present age can never become paradise regained. But a Christianized world can afford a foretaste of heaven, an earnest of the good things that God has in store for those who love him.

World Will Get Better

As the millennium becomes a reality, Christian principles of belief and conduct will be the accepted standard for nations and individuals. Figuratively, the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together when people and forces formerly antagonistic and hateful to each other are so changed that they work together in one harmonious purpose. The desert shall blossom as the rose, literally, as economic and scientific advances lead to generally prosperous conditions the world over; and figuratively, as moral and spiritual conditions are improved. Health and education will be the rule, and wealth will be vastly more abundant and more widely shared.

Life at that time will compare with life in the world today in much the same way that life in a truly Christian community compared with that in a pagan or irreligious community. The millennium embodies, therefore, not a political world power kingdom of Jewish supremacy continuing for an exact one thousand years, but a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men, of which the Church will continue to be then as now the outward and visible manifestation. It closes with the second coming of Christ, the general resurrection and judgment.

What The Scripture Says

But the important question is, What do the Scriptures say about a future golden age? Do they warrant such an expectation? In both the Old and New Testaments we find an abundance of evidence to that effect, although lack of space prevents us from giving more than a small portion of that evidence. Isaiah tells us that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea” (11:9). Jeremiah gives the promise that the time is coming when it no longer will be necessary for a man to teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, “Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (31:34).

Speaking through the psalmist, God says, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (2:8); and again, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee” (22:27). The last book of the Old Testament contains a promise that “from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles” (Mal. 1:11). These great and precious promises are so far reaching and expansive that they stagger the imagination.

In the New Testament we find the same clear teaching. Strong emphasis is placed on the fact that it is the world that is the object of Christ’s redemption. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). “For God sent not the Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). The parable of the leaven teaches the universal extension and triumph of the Gospel as society is transformed by the Kingdom influences.

Victory Certain

The redemption of the world, then, is a long, slow process, extending through the centuries, yet surely approaching an appointed goal. We live in the day of advancing victory and see the conquest taking place. From the human viewpoint there are many apparent setbacks, and it often looks as though the forces of evil are about to gain the upper hand. But as one age succeeds another, there is progress. Looking back across the nearly 2,000 years that have elapsed since the coming of Christ, we see that there has been marvelous progress. All over the world, pagan religions have had their day and are disintegrating. None of them can stand the open competition of Christianity. They await only the coup de grace of an aroused and energetic Christianity to send them into oblivion.

We have been commanded by our Lord to go and make disciples of all the nations. We are engaged in a mighty struggle that rages through the centuries; there can be no compromise. The Church must conquer the world, or the world will destroy the Church. Christianity is the system of truth, the only one that through the ages has had the blessing of God upon it. We shall not expect the final fruition within our lifetime, nor within this century. But the goal is certain and the outcome is sure. The future is as bright as the promises of God. The great requirement is faith that the Great Commission of Christ will be fulfilled through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and preaching of the everlasting Gospel.

Loraine Boettner is author of a number of books, among them The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Studies in Theology, Immortality, and The Millennium. He holds the B.S. degree from Tarkio College, Missouri, which conferred upon him the honorary D.D. and Litt.D.; and the Th.B. and Th.M. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary. From 1929–37 he served as Professor of Bible in Pikeville College, Kentucky. He contributes the third of the essays on the subject of the millennium, presenting the viewpoint of postmillennialism.

What does the Holy Communion mean to you?” a divinity student once asked me in Trinity College, Dublin. In a moment I recognized that one’s views on this subject both epitomize and express one’s whole spiritual outlook.

“It means five things,” I replied. “It is an outward sign of the Gospel. It is a remembrance of the Lord’s death. It is a feeding of the soul on him. It is a sign of the unity of all true believers in him. It is a reminder of his return.”

Later I began to wonder whether my impromptu answer to so important a question was accurate and adequate. Was any major thought omitted? I think perhaps there was one—to which I shall refer later. Meanwhile, consider these other points.

“As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup,” says St. Paul, “ye do shew the Lord’s death.” “You proclaim the Lord’s death” is the Revised Standard Version. The partaking of bread and wine is a sign of the Gospel.

Children love to see as well as to hear. What they see enforces and illustrates what they hear. Christ has been pleased to provide for God’s children, in the most impressive manner possible, an outward sign of the central truth of their faith. The language is charming in its simplicity—food and drink, the oldest language in the world—and employs the three senses: sight, taste and touch. The breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine typify the wounding of the body and the shedding of the blood of Jesus. Hence the title: the breaking of bread. When Christians break the bread and pour out the wine, God proclaims to them and they proclaim to others the sacrifice of Christ by which they have been saved.

The symbols, moreover, proclaim, not the fact of his death only, but also its significance. It was in connection with the Jewish feast of the Passover that the Lord instituted the Supper. The Passover was in memory of God’s deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage under which they had existed in Egypt, and from the power of the destroying angel which he had sent in judgment to destroy all the first-born in the land. Prior to that critical night, God had commanded the Israelites to take a lamb on their last evening in Egypt; to gather in households to eat it roasted, with unleavened bread; and to sprinkle its blood over the lintel and two side posts of the doors of their houses; and had added the promise: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” That night the Israelites became a nation by a covenant God made with them: he would be their God and they would be his people. The feast of the Passover was instituted by God as an annual reminder of this covenant, and as an object lesson that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Now, in the institution of the Supper, the Lord so connected his words and actions with the Passover as to give to his death a twofold significance: it was to inaugurate and seal a new covenant; and it was to be for the remission of sins. This is the heart of the Gospel.

The new covenant—that all who believed in him should have forgiveness of sins, everlasting life, and the law of God written in their hearts—was made between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world. Jesus Christ came in order to mediate this covenant to man and seal it with his own blood, of which the blood sprinkled in Old Testament sacrifices was both a picture and a promise. In the Passover the words were used: “This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate when they came out of Egypt.” In instituting the Supper the Lord broke bread and said: “Take, eat: this is my body which is broken for you.” Similarly, after supper, he took one of the cups of wine used in the Passover feast, and said: “Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament [“covenant,” Revised Version], which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Thus the Passover and the Lord’s Supper each acknowledged that blood was to be shed for the remission of sins; each recognized a covenant relationship between God and his people; each was divinely instituted as an outward sign of spiritual realities.

Remembrance Of His Sacrifice

As the partaking of the bread and wine is a proclamation, so is it also a remembrance of the Lord’s death. “This do in remembrance of me,” he said, no doubt with special reference to his death. Christ instituted the Supper in order to recall frequently to the minds of his followers their deliverance by his death from the condemnation and bondage of sin. How closely memory is connected with the spiritual life! It is a very early and forceful activity of the mind; plays a large part in conviction of sin and in repentance; is intimately connected with imagination, association, suggestion, reasoning, and the growth of our moral nature. No wonder, then, that it should have pleased the Lord Jesus to make the Holy Supper an institution appealing to memory. “This do in remembrance of me.”

It is noteworthy, however, that the Lord never made the Supper a renewal of his death. The words “This is my body” and “This is my blood” can no more be taken literally than the words in the Passover: “This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate when they came out of Egypt.” Had he chosen, the Lord could have ordained that the bread and wine should be offered afresh to God as a renewal of his eternal sacrifice for sin; but the records are entirely lacking in any clear indication of such an intention. Rather, the New Testament emphasizes that his sacrifice—in contrast to those of the Old Testament—was perfect, all-sufficient and made once and forever, and that the Supper is a proclamation of his completed work and a memorial of himself.

Feeding On His Life

The partaking of the bread and wine is also a feeding of the soul on Jesus Christ. “The cup of blessing which we bless,” says St. Paul, “is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” Hence the term The Holy Communion, communion meaning literally participation in. Eating and drinking are the most significant physical acts of life: what we eat and drink becomes part of ourselves. Bread must be eaten in order to nourish, and wine drunk that it may refresh. The relationship of the believer to Christ is equally intimate: his spiritual life is nourished by feeding on Christ in his heart by faith, that is, appropriating the fruits of his sacrifice and daily depending on him for strength and help. In accepting the bread and wine, the communicant publicly proclaims to the Church and to the world that Christ is one with him and he is one with Christ.

Not that this feeding on Christ takes place only at the Lord’s Supper; the Christian is continually dependent upon him for his soul’s strength. Those who lay exclusive or even primary emphasis on the Lord’s Supper as the means by which the soul is fed should ponder over the fact that there are only about half a dozen references to the Supper in the whole New Testament, including the three records of its institution.

Indeed, the figurative language of eating and drinking had been used by Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum over a year before he instituted the Supper. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.… If any man will eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.… Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

When his words puzzled and offended some of his disciples, Jesus went on to explain: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life,” and he did not mean them literally. By his death, eternal life was to be made available to all. Just as food and drink must be consumed in order to bring physical benefit, so must the fruit of his death be personally appropriated in order to give spiritual life. By so appropriating the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice, the believer would be mysteriously united with him—even as he is with his Father—in a lifegiving relationship.

Sign Of Our Unity

“We being many are one bread and one body,” says St. Paul, “for we are all partakers of that one bread.” The Supper has its social significance. It is a sign of the unity of all believers in Christ. The eating of the one loaf and drinking of the one cup are symbolic of the holy bond which unites in one body—the Church—all who partake of the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice. Thus the Supper is the supreme symbol of fellowship. “Take this and divide it among yourselves,” said the Lord, after he had taken the cup and given thanks. By eating and drinking together, the children of God declare they are one family in the Church of Jesus Christ; they enjoy hallowed affection and brotherly love, with all fellow-pilgrims to the heavenly home and fellow-heirs of future glory.

Consequently, it is a sign also of separation. The Egyptians had no part in the Passover, unless any of them were to adopt Jehovah as their God. The scribes and Pharisees were not invited to the Lord’s Supper. Judas, so far as we can judge, left the supper room before the Supper was instituted. True Christians alone have any right to the holy table; that is why churches should require certain qualifications for attendance.

Though all true Christians have a right to the Lord’s table, even they must take heed to partake worthily. Owing to its connection with the agape, or love-feast—a social gathering of Christians—the Lord’s Supper in the Corinthian Church had become corrupted by divisions, pride, selfishness and irreverence. “Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily,” wrote St. Paul to them, “shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body.” The word “judgment” in this Revised Version and “damnation” in the Authorized means “chastening,” as is indicated in the apostle’s later words: “But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” These are solemn words. Any Christian who approaches the Lord’s Supper in a spirit of levity draws his Father’s chastening hand upon himself.

Not that we can ever be worthy of Christ or free from all sin. What he requires is that we should trust him as our Saviour, recognize him as our Life, yield ourselves to him as our Lord, and confess him before men. This relation to him must be deeply sincere. The Passover was to be eaten with unleavened bread; and leaven, being a kind of corruption, was an emblem of insincerity and falsehood. The faith which saves is not the outward profession of those who deceive themselves or others, but that of the sincere heart. It would be inconsistent, moreover, to employ the sign of unity with one another without a corresponding reality. Christians should, therefore, seek to repair any quarreling among themselves before partaking together.

Reminder Of His Return

The Supper is also a reminder of the Lord’s return. “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine,” said Jesus at the institution, “until that day when I drink it new in my Father’s kingdom.” “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup,” says St. Paul, “ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” The sacred feast is limited in duration and purpose. During this age the people of God walk by faith in an invisible, ascended Lord. How precious, sacred and significant to them are the symbols which he ordained! But memory not only recalls the past; it enlarges expectation. The Christian looks forward to the joy of sharing in his marriage supper. In that glorious day, faith shall give place to sight; hope to realization; promise to fulfillment. With the Lord himself in the midst, the sacred symbols shall vanish away.

A Means Of Grace

I said at the beginning that there was one other import in the Supper. It includes and depends on all the other points. The Supper is a means of grace by which God works in the hearts of the faithful. As the Lord’s people proclaim him, recall him, thank him, feed on him, acknowledge their unity with one another in him, and expect his return from heaven, they cannot but be blessed. They may feel refreshed and uplifted; they may not. But God has repaired and renewed the innermost springs of their spiritual life. And in his strength they go on their way rejoicing.

Gordon Harman serves four churches out of Cheadle Rectory in Cheshire, England After receiving his M.A. degree from Queen’s College, Cambridge, he attended London College of Divinity and was ordained by the Church of England in 1937.

An illuminating article has recently appeared in The Twentieth Century on the attitudes and values of university students in America. The article is entitled “Sex, Success and Sympathy” (Feb. 1957, pp. 116ff.). It is written by an English university lecturer, Malcolm Bradbury, who was on an exchange lectureship in the United States. He says that American university students are desperately anxious to abide by the values of their social group, to do the right thing, to conform to social patterns, and to achieve future success. Most students, in this connection, think that religion is a “good thing”; they think that it gives a person poise and self-assurance; that it enables a person to become adjusted—what is generally described as “a well-rounded personality.” One American freshman says: “Religious qualities and high moral character are essential to success.” The implication is that it pays to be good. Religion is a good business investment. Another student says: “The warmth derived from spiritual satisfaction is a prime requisite in success. Religion and business serve one another.”

It is worth noting the reasons advanced for the practice of religion. It is not that religion is true; it is simply that religion makes you feel good. One student speaks of the importance of feeling contented, and the business value of plentiful smiling; and he says: “In one of Dale Carnegie’s books he gives six ways to make people like you. One thing he stressed was a ready smile. It not only makes you feel better, but helps your appearance.” Now the question is: Is religion simply a matter of self-interest, a technique of self-improvement, a road to success? Is it true to say (as one student does say): “Jesus Christ was the greatest success of all time”?

Using God For Our Ends

Jesus—in the days of his earthly ministry—rebuked the insincerity of Jews who sought him not because he was the truth but because their bellies were filled (John 6:25). We are often guilty of the same sin. We do the right thing for the wrong reason; we seek God, not for his own sake, but for our own. We forget that God cannot be exploited; he may only be worshiped. When we seek to use him as an instrument of our wills, for our own selfish purposes, we are guilty of the blasphemy of turning the Creator into a creature, and we thereby invite his judgment upon our insipid insincerities.

We are all exposed to this temptation. It is specious and insidious. Again and again we are urged to proclaim the Christian faith in Asia and Africa: it is, we are told, our only defense against the ongoing march of communism. According to Dr. Frank Buchman: “We need to find an ideology that is big enough and complete enough to outmarch any of the other great ideologies.… Today we see three ideologies battling for control. There is fascism, and communism, and then there is that great other ideology which is the centre of Christian democracy—Moral Re-Armament” (Remaking the World, Washington, D. C., 1947, p. 167). But Christianity must be proclaimed, not for its consequences, but for itself; not because it pays, but because it is true. We dare not treat Christianity as a cement for Western democracy; as a means towards an end. We must proclaim Christianity for itself alone (cf. Sydney Cave: “The Christian message is not to be commended because it meets … the needs of modern man. Were it merely useful, it would soon cease to be of use. It demands attention not because it may be helpful, but because it is true, and it speaks not of comfort only but of judgment” [The Christian Way, London, 1949, p. 22]).

Again, in the personal realm as in the political, there is often the same crude appeal to self-interest: such as, “Come to church, and cure your stomach ulcer.” Of course, it is true that the person who comes to church is less likely to suffer from stomach ulcers than the person who absents himself; of course, it is true that the service of God gives serenity of mind, a feeling of tranquility, a sense of inner peace. But this is not the motive which should inspire our worship.

Jesus was well aware that men would be tempted to seek him for the wrong reasons. That is why he refused to win the allegiance of men by any appeal other than the appeal of love. In the wilderness he refused the temptation of the Evil One to win men by the offer of bread, or the display of miracles, or the power of the sword. Again, after the feeding of the five thousand, when the crowd attempted to take him by force to make him a king, he immediately withdrew himself. He was aware of the material and economic considerations which moved them; he understood only too well the secret and hidden desires of their hearts. He refused to be a party to their selfish purposes.

Jesus steadfastly refused to satisfy the idle curiosity of men or to become a party to their private ends. On the Cross he was urged to prove his claims by exercising his divine power. “If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross.” They mocked him: “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (Matt. 27:40 ff.). Their taunts were unheeded: Jesus would win men by nothing save his Cross: and he would offer to men nothing save a cross. “If any man will come after me,” he said, “let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).

Searchlight On Motives

What are our motives for professing Christianity? Are they selfish and prudential? How despicable to serve God for gain; to seek him for personal profit; to pursue him for rewards; to treat the Sovereign Lord of the universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, as a magic charm or a lucky mascot!

The only adequate reason for the service of God is gratitude. We are debtors to God. We owe him an infinite debt of gratitude: a debt we can never pay. Jesus died for us! He endured buffeting and spitting, scourging and torture, excruciating agony and lingering death; and the recollection of this fact should move us to grateful and adoring love.

The central fact of the Christian faith is to be found in the Cross. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation”—the atonement—“for our sins” (1 John 4:10). God incarnate—a naked figure upon the gallows—that is the measure of God’s self-giving love. The only adequate response to such a love is an answering love. That is why the Apostle John exclaims: “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

In the Nuremburg War-Crime Trials, a witness appeared who had lived for some time in a Jewish cemetery in Wilna, Poland. He had miraculously escaped from the gas chamber; the cemetery was the only place in which he could hide in safety. There were also others hiding there for safety. One day, in a grave nearby, a woman gave birth to an infant boy. The old Jewish grave digger, aged 80 years, assisted at the birth. When the newborn baby uttered his first cry, the devout old grave digger said, “Good God, hast thou finally sent the Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah himself can be born in a grave?” But after three days the witness said that he saw the baby sucking his mother’s tears because she had no milk for the child (quoted from Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, London, 1949, p. 165).

It is a story of profound poignancy, of moving emotional power. And yet we forget that the Son of God—the Messiah himself—was born in an animal’s feeding trough, in the stench of an Eastern stable, and that he died in loneliness and dereliction on a cross, having drunk to the bitter dregs the cup of human tears. The prophet Isaiah states the truth in immortal words:

He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him.… He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away … they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth (Isa. 53:5–9).

The remembrance of this fact should humble our pride and subdue our selfishness. It should move us to penitence. It was our sins which nailed him to the Cross; it was in our place that he bore the penalty. And it is the recollection of this fact—this fact above everything else—that should evoke our gratitude and win our love and inspire our service.

My God, I love Thee; not because

I hope for heaven thereby,

Nor yet because who love Thee not

Are lost eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me

Upon the Cross embrace;

For me didst bear the nails, and spear,

And manifold disgrace.

And griefs and torments numberless,

And sweat and agony;

Yea, death itself; and all for me

Who was Thine enemy.

Then why, O Blessed Jesus Christ,

Should I not love Thee well?

Not for the sake of winning heaven,

Nor of escaping hell;

Not from the hope of gaining aught,

Not seeking a reward;

But as Thyself hast loved me,

O ever-loving Lord.

So would I love Thee, dearest Lord,

And in Thy praise will sing;

Solely because Thou art my God,

And my most loving King.

(Translated by Caswall from a 17th century Latin hymn.)

S. Barton Babbage is Principal of Ridley College and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia. Previously he was Dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney. Among his published works are Puritanism and Richard Bancroft and Man in Nature and Grace. His sermons appear in several important compilations. Periodically he contributes an essay to this magazine’s “Review of Current Religious Thought.”

The renewal of the crisis over school integration in the South raises issues which go to the heart of the relations between the Gospel, the Church and the world. The Christian commitment to brotherhood and love is as much at stake as the central idea of democracy—the dignity of the individual.

The crisis makes us ask again some ancient questions. What is the role of the Church of Christ in a democratic society? If it be granted that the Gospel requires us to seek to have its truth applied to the social situation, are we to declare principles only, or programs for action? In any case, is it the organized church or individual Christians acting in their capacity as citizens who must bear this witness?

Such questions as these lie subordinate to another one whose significance the worldling often fails to see. It is this: can Christians speak or act unlovingly to gain the ends of brotherhood and love? Dare we compromise the means to reach the goals? Surely, our answer here is no.

The Slavery Crisis

All these issues resemble closely those which the slavery crisis raised among evangelical Christians a hundred years ago. Then, as now, an institution of long social and legal standing came to seem contrary to both God’s law and democratic principle. Then, as now, churchmen debated whether the Christian witness against social evil was the task of the regenerate citizen or the believing community. The unity of both church and nation seem to be at stake. And the same law of love which condemned the Negro’s bondage held Christian men back from direct action to strike away his chains.

The tensions of that crisis of long ago found resolution at last in the outbreak of a tragic civil war. In time, antislavery churchmen who had not wanted nor expected war came to see the bloody conflict as a work of divine judgment upon both North and South. Julia Ward Howe set this thought to unforgettable words and music in her famous “battle hymn.” An awakened generation had learned at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville a new conception of the Coming of the Lord. The wine of liberty was to flow blood-red from the sword of his wrath. Likewise Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural, reminded a sorrowing nation that the judgments of the Lord were true and righteous altogether.

What are evangelical Christians to do in the social crisis of our times, therefore, when they remember the involvement of their spiritual forbears—Charles G. Finney, William E. Boardman, Dwight L. Moody, and Gilbert Haven—with the conflict of that age?

The question comes with particular force when we realize that today’s trouble arises from an evil expressly forbidden in God’s Word, whereas slavery itself is not so condemned. The antislavery preachers had to establish the point that the Bible enjoined upon both masters and servants such commitment to personal respect, to brotherhood and mutual acceptance in the fellowship of the Gospel, as to make slavery in the long course of Christian history unthinkable.

How, then, can today’s Bible-believing Christian justify any permanent status for the racial injustices of our time? The essence of discrimination is a rejection of persons and a violence to the spirits of men which Christ and the Apostles clearly condemned. The Sermon on the Mount is very explicit at this point. Murder you have been taught to abhor, Jesus said. “But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca [of which a free translation might read, ‘you nigger’], shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Ought we not to ask ourselves in the light of these words what happens to the spirit of a sensitive Negro youth when he sees the sign “white only” over the cleaner drinking fountain, the more decent rest room, the more respectable tourist court and restaurant? Can we escape responsibility for the wounding of minds and hearts which goes on every day when bright young Negro couples try to escape the crowded colored districts of New York, Chicago and Detroit?

Is not the murder of the spirits of men which goes on every day, in my native Southland as well as in the North, a more literal contradition of the Word of God than chattel slavery ever was?

To say this does not of course alter very much the roots of emotion and feeling which lie beneath every southerner’s struggle with his conscience on this issue. This is especially true for someone reared among the small-farmer class of southern whites. Nor does seeing the reality of the evil resolve our dilemma concerning what we may do about it.

However, it is good to ask ourselves what courses of action or expression evangelical Christians, North and South, might follow in this crisis.

Courses Of Action

Let us begin with first things. In whatever we say or do, we dare not violate the spirit of love and brotherhood into whose rich enjoyment we wish the Negro to be brought. The Kingdom of love cannot be enlarged through deeds of violence. For this great lesson’s recent underlining we must be grateful to the colored population of Montgomery, Alabama.

A second mutual resolve seems open to us, namely, that we shall not allow ourselves to become partners in a conspiracy of silence. The editor of The Arkansas Gazette has said recently that the conflicts over the Supreme Court decision on school integration have turned the clock back 50 years, and undermined completely the freedom of “moderate” southerners to speak on this issue. If this be so, Christian men can have no business bowing to it. When in the history of Christ’s church have men of piety had license to be silent in the face of evil?

There are ways in which we can speak lovingly. Agitation may not be the Christian’s task, but intercession and witness ever are. In our public prayers, frequently in our sermons, in our Sunday School classes, and in the things we write and publish, we can find quiet but effective ways to say again and again that there is unfinished business at hand, that a great evil in our midst is not yet forsaken.

We must speak. Often enough for our hearers not to forget our concern and their duty. Lovingly enough for the world not to forget the crying compassion of a crucified Lord.

Absolutizing A Program

Yet a third common stand invites us. Ought we not to forswear putting the Church of Christ in bondage to a particular program of reform? Confronted with the mystery of God’s will and man’s perverseness, can we presume to declare in Christ’s name a specific solution to a social problem?

We can know the principles upon which the right answer may be based. We can believe that the Gospel must judge in truth and love all solutions which fall short of those principles. As individuals, we can and must seek and support practical programs which we believe will accomplish ours and the Saviour’s ends. But the task of the Christian community is not agitation. We are commissioned to reach men’s hearts with a saving gospel, and to prepare them for a better world.

The citizens of this country, and especially of the southern part, are the ones who must find the way to real progress toward a Christian and a democratic brotherhood. If they fail, and if the evangelical Christians within the citizen body contribute to that failure, the judgments of the Lord will again turn out to be true and righteous altogether. In any case, the Church itself must not seek to force a program of reconciliation on unwilling men nor assume the moral responsibility which lies upon the nation as a whole.

The Christian Fellowship

One final suggestion to believing Christians seems worthwhile here. The regulation of the inner life and fellowship of the Church is indeed the clear responsibility of the Christian community. The New Testament speaks very plainly about it, particularly on the point of respect of persons. Ought we not, then, prayerfully to consider the segregated condition of the Church in the light of the Scriptures and a burning world? If we can not transcend it now must we not set our course toward a point where we can?

The writer is aware of the thousand and one problems which consideration of this problem calls up. Sometimes, it is true, the integration of congregations has turned out to be a way in which a company of Negro Christians, however unintentionally, have secured a building for their use at no cost to themselves. Moreover, as many will readily remember, the separated church was one of the chief desires of the enslaved Negroes, and one of their first and most permanent achievements after emancipation.

But the fact is that today the pressure to keep the church officially segregated is coming from the white people. In all too many cases, this pressure is part of the widespread campaign to prevent desegregation of the public schools. Wherever churches have gone further and promised the use of their buildings for schools organized solely to resist integration, they have brought shame to their fellow Christians.

It is no doubt true that only a small minority of Negroes actually wish to worship with other than their friends and fellows. However, the one who feels most keenly the rejection of closed pews, the one who senses when he cannot see the sign “white only” over the church doors, is the very person who most deeply needs the compassionate love of his white friends. The Negro preacher in his town may not be able to reach him at all, because of the wounds of conflict over race.

There was no segregated church in the first century. There was no segregated church in pre-Civil War America. Dare we commit ourselves for the long run now to an organization of church fellowship which requires men to be excluded from association with others in the house of God because of their skin?

What makes all these questions absorbing is their portent for the fate of both Christianity and democracy in the world beyond our borders. A hundred years ago, evangelical leaders believed that our nation’s destiny was to nurture both Christianity and liberty for the benefit of the whole world. Then, as now, patriotism and piety flourished side by side. But its thrust was outward, rather than inward. The modern missionary movement was borne forward on its strength.

Again, today, human destiny hangs largely on the willingness and ability of America to remain a beacon of faith and liberty in a world of lawlessness and totalitarianism. Let judgment begin at the house of God. And the day may come, if Christ our Lord tarries, when the power of an awakened Christian conscience will stir the conscience of the nation and the world.

And so may we in that day see our children praying, with greater assurance than we now have, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.”

Timothy L. Smith is the author of Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth Century America, which won the Frank S. Brewer Prize for 1955 from the American Society of Church History. A graduate of the University of Virginia, he received the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard. A minister in the Church of the Nazarene, he is currently serving as chairman of the history department at East Texas State College.

Recently Dr. Yigael Yadin of Jerusalem gave a lecture in London on the subject of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Epistle to the Hebrews (now published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem). In it he propounds in a stimulating manner the view that the epistle to the Hebrews was written for the express purpose of counteracting some of the distinctive doctrines of the Dead Sea Scrolls Sect. To begin with, he draws attention to the fact that hitherto there has been much confusion among New Testament scholars as to the identity of those to whom this epistle was addressed. Some have held firmly that it was intended for Gentile Christians; others, no less firmly, that it was intended for Jewish Christians; others again that it was addressed neither to Gentile nor to Jewish Christians, but simply to Christians as such. Dr. Yadin attributes this confusion to “the fact that the only type of Judaism of which we have had any thorough knowledge up till now was the so-called normative Judaism,” which would help to explain the verdict of a scholar of the standing of James Moffatt that the situation which called forth the epistle to the Hebrews “had nothing to do with any movement in contemporary Judaism.”

In the opinion of Dr. Yadin, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has opened up an entirely new perspective, which has led him to the conclusion that those to whom the epistle to the Hebrews was addressed “must have been a group of Jews originally belonging to the DSS Sect who were converted to Christianity, carrying with them some previous beliefs.” The epistle to the Hebrews, Dr. Yadin points out, is concerned to show the superiority of Jesus (1) over the prophets, (2) over the angels, (3) over Moses, and (4) over Aaron. Thus the epistle opens by affirming that God, who of old spoke by the prophets, has spoken by a Son “in these days at the end,” thereby indicating that no further prophet is to be expected. The DSS Sect, however, looked for the coming of an eschatological prophet who would be a personage quite distinct and separate from any Messianic figure. This expectation was linked with the well-known promise of God to Moses that he would raise up for the people a prophet like unto him (Deut. 18:18).

The New Testament, so far from dissociating this figure from the Messiah, identifies him with Christ (cf. Act. 3:22 ff), and the writer of Hebrews is careful to display the superiority of Jesus to Moses by speaking of Him as “the Mediator of a new covenant” (9:15; 12:24) which is also “a better covenant,” implying therefore that His is a more excellent ministry than that of Moses (8:6 ff.).

In their Messianic doctrine the Sect expected the advent of two Messiahs—a lay or royal Messiah and a priestly Messiah of the house of Aaron. To the angels, however, they assigned a role and status so exalted that “the Angel of Light (that is, the Archangel Michael) with his heavenly subordinates is, in addition to his decisive eschatological functions, to have control over the world to come, far above the control which might be exercised by both the human Messiahs.” But the author of Hebrews reminds his readers that to no angel did God ever say, “Thou art My son; today I have become thy Father” (1:5), and that the world to come, of which he is speaking, has not been placed by God under the control of angels (2:5).

Of the two Messiahs expected by the Sect, the priestly is to be superior to the royal Messiah and will reinstitute the sacrificial ritual of the Mosaic dispensation. In contrast to such teaching, the epistle to the Hebrews explains at length and with great care that the one and only eschatological High Priest is Christ, that his priesthood is not of the order of Aaron (or Levi) but of the order of Melchizedek, to which the former has now given place, and that his sacrifice of himself was offered once for all, so that there can now be no further sacrifice or succession of sacrifices as was previously the case under the Levitical priesthood.

As Dr. Yadin observes, Hebrews is “full of quotations and references to Pentateuch material, mainly in connection with the sojourn in the wilderness and the Tabernacle”; and this he believes is best explained in the light of the literature of the Sect, which would seem to indicate that it “organized itself in as exact as possible a replica of the life of the tribes of Israel in the wilderness,” its members even calling themselves the “Exiles of the Wilderness.” It is suggested that “there could be no stronger appeal to the hearts and minds of people descending from the DSS Sect than in those metaphors which are abundant and characteristic in Hebrews.”

Dr. Yadin’s thesis is certainly one of the most suggestive and constructive so far to have emerged from the welter of scholarship and theorizing with which the Dead Sea Scrolls have become surrounded, and it deserves to be taken into serious account. We can do little more than draw attention to the main points. The more technical questions involved will receive critical consideration in a suitable publication. Indeed, Dr. Yadin, with commendable humility, expresses it as his “sincere hope that more competent students in the field of New Testament studies will either refute (his) suggestion or, if they agree to it—wholly or partially—will submit more data.”

Meanwhile, though some of his interpretations are likely to be disputed, we are indebted to him for putting forward a thoughtful theory which is in many ways attractive. It is a natural temptation for every father of a theory to overwork it by attempting to explain too much, and it may be felt that Dr. Yadin has not entirely avoided this danger. For example, would it not be true to say that what the author of Hebrews writes concerning the Mosaic dispensation, and the annulment of the Levitical system of priesthood and sacrifice in view of the once-for-all perfection of Christ, must have been full of significance to all converts from Judaism, whether or not they had previously been associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls Sect—and even more so if the epistle was written after the conclusion of the 40 years which intervened between the event of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension and the destruction of Jerusalem with its temple and sacrifices in 70 A.D.

Dr. Yadin’s hypothesis is perhaps most illuminating at the point where it is related to the eschatological role assigned by the Sect to the angels, for there can be no doubt that one of the aims of the epistle was to combat a doctrine of angels which currently threatened the supreme position of Christ as the unique Son of God. The author of the epistle may well have had in mind the necessity for counteracting this and other distinctive teachings of the Sect, while his over-all purpose was more general, namely, to demonstrate how the old dispensation had been consummated in the new age inaugurated by Christ, and superseded by it.