Recasting the Ecumenical Posture

When evangelicals evaluate ecumenical endeavors, the importance of “unity in truth” seems always to challenge a bare “unity in Christ.” Evangelicals have constantly asserted that Christian unity without doctrinal unity is a sort of doubletalk. And this is true. Any new searching of Scripture in respect to the doctrine of the Church demands also a new searching of Scripture in respect to her Saviour and her Lord.

But evangelical failure to delineate Christian unity in a positive way should trouble our conscience and provoke evangelicals to exemplary leadership. If unity based on theological concession is undesirable, disunity alongside theological agreement is inexcusable. Evangelicals suffer from divisive internal competitions. To deplore the theological inclusivism that tries to overcome the fragmentation of Protestantism as a whole without earnestly seeking to overcome the proliferated witness of the evangelical segment is to remain spiritually vulnerable. It is time for evangelicals to find their ecumenical posture, and to set forth a doctrine of biblical unity which will preserve the vitality of the Gospel without compromising the witness of the Church.

Where would such an effort begin? In the first place, it would begin by a reaffirmation of the New Testament emphasis upon the essentially spiritual nature of the Church’s unity. In the fourth chapter of Ephesians Paul’s expression of Christian unity proceeds against the conspicuous background, not of identification with some earthly organization, but of his spiritual union with Christ. The Church is identified by the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s exposition of spiritual unity, therefore, is primarily concerned, not with organizational cohesion, but with “the unity of the Spirit,” that is, a unity authored by the Spirit of God. As Christians are individually united to Christ, so are they to be united in positive communion with God and to each other by the Spirit.

One of the unfortunate aspects of the competition among the National Council of Churches, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the American Council of Christian Churches is the extent to which organizational identification is made a test of personal devotion to Christ. It is shameful and sinful when Christians answer the question “Is he one of us?” by any other reference than to the body of regenerate believers of whom Christ is Saviour and Lord.

Secondly, the unity of which Paul speaks is not only a future prospect; it is a present reality. It is true that our Lord’s most specific utterance on unity was spoken in the form of a prayer (John 17), but Pentecost stands between that prayer and the Christian church. Paul does not say, “Let there he one body”; for the grammatical construction would then require, “Let there be one Lord … one God … one faith.” No, there is one Lord. And under his lordship the true Church is one and has always been one. It is no coincidence that Christianity has been strongest when its leaders have preferred to be martyrs rather than to allow an encroachment on this lordship of Christ.

In spite of a real and essential unity, however, the immense practical problem of realizing the unity remains. The unity of believers is indeed God’s gift, but believers can threaten or deny this unity in Christ. In some respects, all our contemporary ecumenical expressions are reactionary compromises against the modern ecclesiastical predicament that threatens this essential oneness.

This practical consideration throws light on the ecumenical problem itself. The ecumenical task is not one of simply relating presently existing denominations, because these denominations are themselves torn by theological divergencies. In point of fact, the existing proliferation into separate and competing movements, each of which virtually claims authentic identification as the true body of Christ, is as much if not more of a scandal as the denominational divisions. If Christians are to discover authentic, lasting unity in any practical sense, the ecumenical endeavor must begin with the ecumenical problem itself—in the egoistic and divisive appetites of the human heart.

What can be done to recast creatively the current ecumenical posture? The frankest way ṭo show our eagerness to overcome the endless Western distinctions within the Christian church is to concede the temporary, parochial, and quasi-reactionary character of the ACCC, the NAE, the NCC, the WCC, the WEF, the ICCC, and all the other existing ecumenical expressions. None of them adequately overcomes the embarrassment of the competitive structurings of the modern Christian witness. Why not then urge Protestants simply to use the one term Christian: the Fifth Avenue Christian Church, the Tenth Christian Church, and so on. The New Testament reflects no single church polity. Why then should the twentieth-century Christian church be embarrassed by plurality of polity? And if a parenthetical denominational suffix such as (Presbyterian) or (Anglican) is dispensable, let us not insist that a replacement like (NCC-related) or (NAE-related) or (ICCC-related) is indispensable.

Can we make headway in eliminating features of the present proliferation which all recognize to be undesirable and yet remain true to the biblical revelation? We cannot speak for one another’s constituencies. But we can each resolve to bring our own parochial or limited expressions of Christian unity continually under the scrutiny of the biblical norm and to prod believers on the local level to conscientious and creative effort to seek the Spirit’s fullness in the fellowship of believers.

Whatever the cost in terms of denominational prestige, service opportunities, or organizational promotion, we can be ready to debate the issue of Christian unity in terms of first-century priorities rather than of the latest twentieth-century proposals. The important point is that we hear what the Spirit has actually said and is saying today and that we do not let our modern prejudices or our favorite proposals obstruct the recovery of the biblical orientation of the Church in the world.

We are confronted today by an inescapable conviction that this generation of history demands a new posture from us all. The sincere hope is that the evangelical Christian witness might yet recover more of its unanimity, and by God’s Spirit play an active role in shaping a new day.

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The Unresolved Issue: Federal Versus State Powers

For much of the nation the tumult in Mississippi had faded into history. News headlines swiftly yielded the riots in Oxford to the Giants-Dodgers National League pennant playoff, the orbiting astronaut Walter Schirra, the World Series, and lesser concerns through which most Americans evade sustained thought about those basic beliefs decisive for national destiny.

To all who thought things through, it remained clear that whoever deprives another person of equal rights before the law helps shape a world in which he himself soon may be deprived of rights he now enjoys—because of similar discrimination based on status or color. Respect for transcendent law and objective justice is not a matter only of Christian conscience but of conscience—although Christian enlightenment should heighten this respect.

Debate over admission of a Negro to the University of Mississippi was complicated because it joined Southern concern for States’ rights with Federal concern for the Negro’s equality before the law. The weakness of seeking James Meredith’s exclusion on the ground of the states’ power to govern their own affairs, particularly in the realm of education, lay in this: unless public education has something inherently to do with color, a student’s skin is in no wise of academic importance. Because of the widening concern for universal human rights, the linking of the fight for States’ rights to the segregation issue blunted the force of the arguments that the validity of the Fourteenth Amendment remains in doubt, and that the Supreme Court exceeds its authority when it goes beyond ruling on cases to the making of law.

Use of Federal troops and consequent mob violence in Oxford meant costly victory as well as costly defeat, which might have been avoided by settlement in the deliberative atmosphere of the courts. Who will say race relations are better in Mississippi as a consequence of Federal force, or that bitterness has not been added to prejudice? Nobody has demonstrated that tear gas and bayonets can force men to love each other, especially when those involved are unpersuaded that force is being employed on the side of justice.

Happily, the Southern attitude toward the Negro is steadily changing. Anyone unaware that a new day is dawning in many Southland pulpits should read the sermon on “The White Man’s Dilemma” elsewhere in this issue. But the South’s concern over growing Federal encroachment on States’ rights remains a legitimate concern. The indubitable fact of sprawling Federal power, and the national government’s growing intrusion into the educational arena, helped to sharpen the Mississippi controversy. Nonetheless, two aspects of that controversy were particularly regrettable. Unfortunately the Southern pressure for States’ rights was compounded with clamor for rejection of a Negro, in a section of the nation where segregationist sentiment runs deepest, and where political fortunes are tied to segregation. Moreover, the Washington pressure for upholding the Supreme Court’s authority was compounded with clamor for acceptance of a Negro by politicians on the side of Big Government and not above exploiting racial integration for its overall political potential at the polls. Yet President Kennedy’s victory was vulnerable in many respects. Southern politicians contrasted the 15,000 Federal troops (outnumbering the American garrison in West Berlin) sent against Mississippi with the President’s refusal to follow through with the Cuban invasion sent against Castro. What happened in Mississippi seemed to magnify rather than to minimize the Cuban crisis. Clare Boothe Luce ventured to say: “In concealing the extent of our present dilemma from the American people, the President is denying them the right of a free people.… What is at stake … in Cuba is the question not only of American prestige but of American survival.”

Amid the hectic razzle-dazzle of swift-changing frontiers, the tear gas of Oxford has not hidden from view the long-range concern over Federal versus state powers. Most Americans breathe a sigh of relief that public education in Mississippi no longer walks a color line. But many Americans also hope that, in the strange providence of God, education in Mississippi might someday, as a dividend to the nation, supply both black and white leaders who will draw a clearer line between the legitimate powers of Federal and state government than Washington seems able to do.

Lincoln declared that the nation could not endure half slave and half free. The crucial term is “endure.” The wisdom of Lincoln’s insight lay in the recognition that he who denies the dignity and worth of another destroys the basis of his own. The sub-human conduct the world watched in Mississippi painfully demonstrates that he who denies the value and dignity of another’s humanity dries up the sources of his own.

In Christian thought man is valuable because of his place in God’s thought and concern; he is of worth because he is the object of God’s creative and redemptive activity. The source of man’s worth and dignity lies in God, not in himself.

Tragic, dehumanizing consequences stem from every effort to plot the resources of man’s humanity in things that cannot sustain the value. German Nazism plotted man’s humanitas in “soil and blood,” and the insufficiency of the resource revealed itself—not only in the destruction of Nazi Germany, but particularly in the suicide of those who were its chief incarnation. Americans had utter contempt for National Socialism’s deification of “soil and blood.’ Yet today some pay a similar respect to color. In the spectrum of Oxford behavior it appeared that human dignity and value are not pure white, and that mere color is an insufficient basis for sustaining their continuation and enjoyment. May Americans have ears to hear that truth about our humanity which it is not given for the eye to see.

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New Curriculum Gets Scrutiny By Denominational Leaders

Within the major denominations a New Curriculum for Christian education is gradually emerging, covering the entire area of church school instruction. This new project is supervised by the National Council of Churches and implemented by representatives of the Boards of Christian Education of the cooperating denominations. The broad outlines of study present a comprehensive view not only of Christian truth but also of Christian social responsibility, interpreted from childhood on into the adult life of the Christian.

In some denominations enthusiasts have demanded acceptance of the materials before they were even made available. In others there has been concern that denominational distinctives were being loosely handled. For many, the greatest concerns are over biblical doctrine, particularly the integrity of the Scriptures, and the direction of the underlying philosophy of social duty.

Only if new “interpretations” do not (under the guise of modern scholarship) actually deny clearly stated truths is the new curriculum likely to be universally welcomed and wisely accepted.

When Government Involvement In Religion Seems Not To Matter

In the clamor over recent court decisions on religious matters in public schools, one protest is almost drowned out—the complaint that government usually seems to take the side of minorities and of irreligion.

A bald new instance is the endorsement given the dogma of biological evolution. A Wonder Book, Primitive Man, published in New York, presents man’s evolutionary origin as an unquestioned datum, something to which religion will have to adjust. Page one reads: “Edited under the supervision of Dr. Paul E. Blackwood, Specialist for Elementary Science, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C.” Blackwood also wrote the Introduction for the book, sold in supermarkets. This loaning of official government endorsement and prestige to an anti-Christian tenet has scarcely raised a whimper. But government involvement is as large, even larger than in the prayer issue. The government should be bombarded with protests—from both sides.

God Loves A Cheerful Giver: Don’T Bet On It—Count On It!

The church attended by President Kennedy when he was a Senator made news recently when Washington police, acting on a Methodist divinity student’s complaint, requested the discontinuance of unlawful wheel-of-chance and dice games at its annual bazaar.

Kenneth C. Hamrick, Wesley Theological Seminary middler, told authorities that he opposes all gambling, and believes that laws against it “should not be flouted by churches or other organizations.”

The Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown was holding the bazaar to pay for building repairs. A church spokesman, quoted by The Washington Post, said that the police “told us of the complaint in a very nice way, and we closed down rather than have any misunderstanding.” He added that nobody was aware that the “prizes” violated the law.

It shouldn’t be necessary for a Christian steward to get a chance on a car or on a bundle of cash in exchange for money given in the name of Christ, and for his service. Stewardship from grateful hearts is never a gamble, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Former President Truman now advocates a lottery to pay the national debt: “When the Federal government gets behind it … it isn’t gambling.” We refer to our readers to “Gambling is a Moral Crime” (p. 17).

Alliance For Progress Funds Aid Catholic-Controlled Schools

Despite public denials, Alliance for Progress funds have been used recently for the construction of “public” schools in what is known as Colombian “Mission territory” where the total educational system is under the direct control and direction of Roman Catholic bishops. Several Protestant children were expelled last month from a “public” school in Colombia for refusing to attend Mass.

We can understand why the Agency for International Development or the State Department is impaled on the horns of a dilemma. Colombia’s school needs are so desperate that to withhold aid on almost any condition seems inhuman. Illiteracy is actually said to be increasing there.

But we can’t help believing that U.S. diplomacy could call upon the Colombian government to reopen more than 200 Protestant schools of varying sizes which have been closed by Colombian officials under clerical pressure during the past eight years, only a few of which have been permitted to reopen.

Surely this one small victory in the spirit of the Vatican Council and under its shadow could be won for literacy, education, democracy, and Christianity.

Widen Youth Ministry To Reduce Delinquency

The fragmentary approach of many communities to the youth problem is one reason why their efforts to reduce juvenile delinquency have had little success. Because religion is a fundamental force in all of life, churches should cooperate closely with other community agencies in expanding and coordinating programs to meet the needs of young people. For secular groups to overlook, and for churches to withhold, the regenerative and redemptive powers inherent in Christian experience deprives the younger generation of those spiritual resources which best meet and overcome the social and moral pitfalls of our time.

Ways in which religious bodies can assume a larger role in assisting American youth have been offered by various individual and organizational spokesmen to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. Many of these recommendations merit consideration.

1. The church must participate in delinquency prevention on more days than just on Sunday if it is to realize its potential in this area of influence. Weekday and Sunday school activities must be so planned and provided that the church has greater contact with delinquents or potential delinquents.

2. Churches could establish certain valuable services. Parents’ discussion groups, for example, could bring about better understanding of the home and of family relationships. And through properly administered remedial instruction churches may help juveniles gain facility in such basic skills as reading as well as in other areas of deficiency. Every church should keep ready and up-to-date information about local clinics and social agencies, doctors and psychiatrists. Names of useful publications and other literature on delinquency should also be on hand for those who need or desire such materials.

3. The church can be an important force in child guidance through extensive and active counseling. Competent counselors have many opportunities to guide young people in matters pertaining to vocation, personal morality, social relationships, sex and marriage, the military service, and so on.

4. Churches should take a lively interest in family and juvenile courts; in abolishing slums; in opposing the incarceration of youthful offenders with hardened adult prisoners; in discouraging irresponsible publicity about matters of juvenile delinquency.

5. More church and Sunday school members should become sponsors for juveniles detained in institutions. Such interest would encourage the successful rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents.

6. Since parishioners frequently call upon pastors for advice and counsel concerning the activities of young people, ministers should equip themselves as adequately as possible to give the proper help. Both academic courses in pastoral counseling and pertinent reading can be great aids to the alert clergyman.

7. Churches should express greater interest in sponsoring boys’ clubs that provide recreational activities as well as moral and spiritual direction in communities where such service is lacking. Such clubs could well be included in the church budget.

8. Church people should show proper concern for juvenile parolees or those on probation. Religious influence can be an important factor in properly reestablishing a juvenile in society. Juveniles on conditional release are often tragic victims of inadequate or deficient supervision. The percentage of recidivism or relapse into delinquency indicates, at least in part, that not enough coordination exists between detention services, parole authorities, and religious agencies. Churches could also have programs to assist those just released from correctional institutions to find employment. A committee representing the church and Sunday school would meet with the boy or girl before release to plan for his or her return to society and to assure the young person of practical and spiritual interest and support.

9. Besides their efforts to prevent juvenile delinquency, churches can also cooperate with local authorities to rehabilitate delinquents. One expression of such concern is to arrange church or Sunday school sessions in the detention homes.

Numerous churches and religious groups have implemented some or all of these suggestions. Often their efforts have functioned independently of each other or of secular programs, however, because of divergent concepts of society and of social action. In view of the increasing tragedy of juvenile delinquency, perhaps it is time for all agencies concerned to learn and to respect one another’s particular strengths, and wherever possible, to mesh forces in building the lives of our young people for constructive—and we would add Christian—citizenship.

Is Khrushchev Using Our Shovel To Dig A Grave For The West?

On November 18, 1956, Nikita Khrushchev made a statement that will never be forgotten by the American press and public: “We will bury you!” While touring the United States in 1960, he explained its meaning to reporters—his economic system would bury ours.

Whatever type of interment this entomber of liberty had in mind, Americans should realize how heavily they have contributed to the nation which now makes this unforgettable threat. More than $11 billion in lend-lease materials went to the Soviet Union during the latter part of World War II. On an individual basis, this was the equivalent of a $90 assessment on every American man, woman, and child living during those years, to cover the cost of war equipment and material delivered to the Russian Communists in their hour of need.

Probably few of the 7,000 tanks, 14,000 airplanes, 15 million pairs of boots, and similar items are still usable. Nevertheless, some of the $1 billion worth of machinery, the 400 war and merchant ships, the 2,000 locomotives and 10,000 freight cars are still boosting the Soviet war machine and economy. And our staggering national debt is still with us, a major item in the Communist timetable of world domination to be followed by godless rule. If there is anything worse than being buried alive, it is being buried alive unwittingly in a casket of one’s own manufacture.

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