Review of Current Religious Thought: September 11, 1961

Considerable discussion has arisen among the faithful over an article which appeared in the August number of Redbook magazine entitled “The Startling Beliefs of our Future Ministers.” Redbook magazine is pleased to call itself “The Magazine for Young Adults,” and I think we can understand a little of what they have in mind. They want to appeal to that stratum of our society which is alert and aware and nicely sun-tanned, the people who attach their Chris-Crafts to their station wagons and throw their Scuba on the top as three happy healthy children gather up their Indian suits and the Sealyham puppy. Soon they will all be drinking Pepsi-Cola while they “think young.” In the cool of the evening they will charcoal-broil some steaks and eat garlic bread with other young adults and speak knowingly of Jackie Kennedy, The Chapman Report, and Zen Buddism. On religion, they will likely engage in “Interesting Discussions” and someone will probably comment on a friend who is as they say “on a religious kick.” Since Redbook has to sell magazines in order to sell advertising, they have to know what “young adults” like. In the August issue they have “The Startling Beliefs of Our Future Ministers” advertised on the cover along with such young adult interests as “Why Wives Can’t Express Their Love” and “The First Lady’s Favorite Menus and Recipes” and “The Most Beautiful Woman In The World.” One would be tempted to expatiate further on the “image” of young American adulthood that the editors have in mind or wish to create, but we evade this temptation reluctantly and turn to their findings on our future ministers.

The starting place which they choose is the well publicized and already frequently discussed views of Bishop James Pike of California who is alleged to have declared that the virgin birth of Christ is a myth along with the myth of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Since an episcopal bishop can talk like this and get away with it in the Episcopal church the question naturally arises what Episcopalians believe and whether Episcopalian bishops have to believe what Episcopalians officially say they believe. Moreover, if leaders of the church are passing such judgments, how will these positions be reflected in the beliefs of our future ministers? Are we, as Redbook suggests, about to see the rise of a “new clergyman”? This becomes a burden of their research which they turned over to Lewis Harris and Associates, a public opinion research firm who by interview technique sampled divinity students at eight leading theological schools “including Yale Divinity School, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Augsburg College Seminary in Minneapolis.” We are not told who the other seminaries of the eight were but we are told that more than a hundred students were interviewed. The breakdown by denominations gave the Methodists about one third of the total, 15 per cent were Baptists, 11 per cent were Episcopal, ten per cent Presbyterian and six per cent for Congregationalists and Lutherans each. The remaining 22 per cent caught up Pentecostals, Brethren, Church of God and some who were “uncommitted,” and they probably mean uncommitted to any particlar denomination. These percentages do not necessarily follow the percentages of these denominations within Protestanism but this is a minor criticism.

Although the article is supposed to reflect “scientific sampling” the burden of the article has to do with recording particular interview responses rather than percentages. In this way the article is out of balance as a “scientific” sampling because there is no way of knowing from these conversations whether we have a fair representation of viewpoints or whether we do not have rather the more interesting answers from the more interesting students, keeping in mind that a radical answer is usually more interesting than a conservative one especially in a popular magazine for “young adults.” In typical journalese, we hear from “a six-foot-three Episcopalian … a 32-year-old father of three little girls … a slender Cincinnati Baptist peppered with freckles … etc.,” and this hardly makes matters more scientific. This is not the fault of Lewis Harris and Associates but is the fault of statistics which are not usually quite breezy enough.

Such statistics as do appear are worth pondering. We discover in their response to Dean Pike’s comments, for this is the outline more or less followed, that only “44 per cent believe in the virgin birth of Christ. Only 29 per cent believe there is a real heaven and hell, only 46 per cent believe that Jesus ascended physically whole into heaven after his crucifixion.” On the subject of the divinity of Christ, we are told that 89 per cent believe in the divinity of Christ but that many of them want to define the word “divinity” and we are not told what the 11 per cent who do not believe in Christ’s divinity do believe, especially when the definition of the word “divinity” allows considerable latitude verging, I would judge, toward the Unitarian position. Take for example the remark of a Congregationalist: “every man has a spark of divinity in him.… Jesus had more than any man who has yet been born.” And the same student went on to say, “but I believe that all of us are more Godlike than we know,” which is a long way out from our ordinary views of original sin.

If we take these percentages and throw them over against the confessional statements of the denominations represented in the sampling, we face once again what I believe is the most serious problem or perhaps the most widespread confusion, or both, in modern Protestantism. We start with our confessional statements which a certain percentage of people, including theological students, and even theological professors believe as they stand. Then, we discover all kinds of gradations of belief inside the denominations expressing some kind of loyalty to the confessional statement but refusing to be pressured on any particulars in the confession. Then there are those who take positions diametrically opposed to the creedal statements of their own denominations. Any attempt to say “cease and desist” is branded “witch hunting,” and the mere raising of such questions brands one as a “fundy.” Witch hunters and fundies are bad things these days.

In all honesty and in all peace must we not state again what we believe and insist on loyalty? Anything less is confusion and these young divinity students illustrate it.

During CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S sixth publication year, which begins with the October 9 issue, this review will be contributed in sequence by the following: Dr. J. D. Douglas, Dr. G. C. Berkouwer, Dr. Addison H. Leitch, Dr. Philip E. Hughes and Dr. Harold B. Kuhn.—ED.

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