Fulfilling God’s Cultural Mandate

And God said, as he blessed man and woman: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it …” (Gen. 1:28). Mankind has prospered, and filled the earth. But now, as he is loosing the bonds that hold him to this planet, there is serious concern that he also has abused the legacy of God’s goodness bestowed at the Creation.

Among the alarmed are scientists, many of whom, speaking from a non-biblical view, assert that runaway technology, population, pollution, and consumption, if left uncontrolled, could spell the extinction of the human race. Soon.

“I suppose we have between thirty-five and one hundred years before the end of life on earth,” said a leading European biologist in answer to a question about how seriously we should take the new public concern about environment. “It’s not too late—but almost,” declares Dr. Barry Commoner, director of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Washington University in St. Louis and author of Science and Survival. He believes the United States is approaching the point of no return in its disruption of nature’s chemical balances and has about one generation left in which to reverse its suicidal course.

Other experts are even less optimistic. The United States now has six to twelve months to “make it” in the field of managing its environment, insists Dr. John B. Sheaffer, research associate at the University of Chicago’s Center for Urban Studies. Otherwise, he feels, public opinion to muster drastic measures to counteract the environmental crisis will lose momentum.

Clatter, clutter, and the signs of death already are upon us. Even as a suit was filed in Chicago recently to force twelve national and international airlines that fly in and out of the city to equip their planes with antipollution devices, eleven Chicagoans—nine of them infants—died of tracheal bronchitis in the seven-day period after sulphur dioxide pollution in the city’s air rose to critical levels.

One day, suddenly, billions of creatures may literally be struggling for a last breath. People and engines are using up oxygen at an alarming rate: one trans-Atlantic jet burns thirty-five tons. And some scientists are predicting that competition for food and raw materials will grow ever more savage as populations grow and natural resources shrink. The age of affluence has very much been an age of waste. The National Research Council warns that the planet Earth is running out of gas—natural gas. Already some substances essential to society—mercury, tin, tungsten—are short. In another fifty years petroleum and natural gas may be 90 per cent depleted, forebodes the council’s report.

Then there is the problem of disposing of mankind’s waste products. The National Academy of Science disclosed that American motorists drop an average of 1,304 pieces of litter each month for every mile in the vast network of U. S. highways. It is a sobering thought to realize that many young people today have never known unpolluted rivers or smogless skies. Water and air contamination are matched by another threat—“noise pollution.” Sonic booms, traffic noise, and rock music are credited with causing numerous ailments. Dr. Lester W. Sontag, director of the Fels Research Institute in Yellow Springs, Ohio, thinks noise even disturbs unborn children.

Consider the vitiating effect of encroaching civilization on recreation and wilderness areas. Campgrounds become more crowded annually, even as the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation and other agencies strain to set aside and purchase more recreation land. Naturalists warn that eighty-nine species of wildlife and fish are on the brink of extinction. Men who killed passenger pigeons, bison herds, or whooping cranes a century or so ago might be excused; today those who thoughtlessly destroy the God-ordained balance of nature are guilty of sin.

Beyond its scientific, biological, and political ramifications, our environmental problem is basically theological and religious. Religious groups such as the National Council of Churches’ new Environmental Stewardship Action Team are coming to grips with the moral and ethical aspects of ecology. Dale Francis of the Catholic magazine Twin Circle has coined a word, theoecology, which he uses to refer to the responsibilities given to man by God to have dominion over the earth.

A panel of scientists and theologians under the auspices of a national ecological organization last fall called for use of “the deepest religious and ethical insight and the most advanced scientific studies” in solving ecological problems. Specifically, they said:

Population size and consumption levels must be proportional to the carrying capacity of the environment.… Social policies [should include] the price of preventing pollution in the cost of production.… A world community [should be developed] in which the conservation of natural resources, the systems of production and consumption, and the aims of economic activity are directed toward real human needs and are pursued in manners which support man’s continuing survival and well-being.

We agree with their statement, but for the evangelical Christian, the issue is at root biblical. The “cultural mandate” in Genesis 1:26 is often quoted as the justification for man’s subjugation of the earth and everything in it: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

God does admonish man in this text to multiply and to subdue the earth. As the doughty David Brower, former head of the Sierra Club and now president of the Friends of the Earth, puts it: “We have now done that, and the question is what do we do for an encore?”

There is another text in Isaiah: “Woe unto them that build house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth” (Isa. 5:8). That’s where we are now.

It should be noted that the Scripture tells man to subdue the earth—not exploit it. And to “be fruitful” means more than perpetrating an endless round of reproduction. Nothing can be fruitful unless there is a livable environment. The word “replenish” (Hebrew male) means not only to “fill with persons or animals”; it means to “perfect,” “to make good,” and to “fill with a source of inspiration or power.”

The Christian must remember that he is entrusted with the stewardship of all God’s earthly creation (Ps. 8:6–8), but that it remains God’s: “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine” (Ps. 50:10, 11).

Recently a new business called Ecology, Incorporated, announced the sale of 300,000 shares of common stock. The new venture proposes to convert urban solid wastes into fertilizer. “These shares involve a high degree of risk,” the prospectus says. But think of the peril to mankind if we fail to do everything possible to secure a poison-free environment. As God’s stewards, we can do no less than to work for that goal.

President Nixon is to be commended for his announced determination to salvage our environment. The task will require many billions of dollars, and public funds should be appropriated for this cause. Let us not deceive ourselves, however, as we have done so many times before, into thinking that money alone will solve the problem. Partisan politics should be kept out of it. We face many hard decisions in the fight against pollution, and to win we may have to sacrifice more than a few conveniences.

When God looked upon what he had made, he called it very good. The physical world is good. And even though we believe Christ will return before man can utterly destroy himself, future generations have as much right to enjoy this world—and make it fruitful—as we. Christians must ensure this right and so fulfill the biblical commission to subdue and replenish the earth.

Witnessing At Its Best

Friendship encourages us to endure things that are in themselves dull. Friendship leads us to moderate our words in matters controversial. And, in the wise planning of God, friendship brought many of us to commit our lives in faith to Christ.

It was Ruth who said, “Where you go I will go and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.” But it was the relatively unsung Naomi whose friendship led Ruth to this magnificent confession.

The sequence of the confession seems significant. Before Ruth accepted God she accepted the people of Judah, and before she accepted Judah as a whole she accepted Naomi as an individual.

Behind even the most dramatically “instantaneous” conversion there is usually a Christian whose acceptance in friendship paved the way for the realization of God’s acceptance in Christ.

Would-be witnesses must realize that to the outsider they are in a sense the message as well as the medium. Need we be reminded that it is rather transparently hypocritical to invite a neighbor to church if we’ve never even bothered to invite him into our home?

The Christian witnesses best when he lives an attractive life, when others choose his friendship and, discovering Christ to be its source, choose Him.

The Orthodox Merger

The recent announcement of the formation of an Orthodox Church of America from two groups of Russian background (see News, page 37) serves as a reminder to evangelicals that they are not the only Christians who think of themselves as orthodox. Millions of Americans, chiefly of East European and Middle Eastern ancestry, actually call themselves Orthodox Christians with a capital O. Although there are as many Orthodox as there are Jews, evangelicals and other Americans know very little about them. To the great displeasure of the Orthodox, they have often been lumped with Roman Catholics by Protestants and with Protestants by the government. Only in recent years, for example, have Orthodox soldiers been allowed that designation on their dog tags.

Scores of evangelical organizations have long been involved in ministry among Jews, but few have worked among those of Orthodox persuasion. The result is little real knowledge about Orthodoxy and little recognition that within its ranks are those who have genuine saving faith in Christ. Nor is much known about how to approach Orthodox Christians whose religion appears nominal with the hopes of introducing them to the joy of salvation. The elaborate ritualism of Orthodoxy and its emphasis on priests and bishops and tradition seems alien to much of evangelical Christianity. More efforts should be made to understand the history and meaning of living Orthodox tradition.

A Greater Threat Than Celibacy

Pope Paul VI has said no plainly, unequivocally, and repeatedly to the Dutch Catholic bishops’ and Pastoral Council’s request for an end to mandatory celibacy within the Latin, or Western, rites of the church (see News, page 39). While priests are burning to marry, Rome’s voice against changing the celibacy rule grows more shrill.

In asking all priests under his jurisdiction to publicly reaffirm their vows of celibacy every Maundy Thursday, the pontiff revealed his anxiety over the celibacy issue. It is clearly an overt threat to his authority, and he doubtless fears that national or regional churches will soon challenge the Holy See on other matters.

The celibacy issue is a key—if not the chief—reason for a dramatic decline in the number of seminarians training for the priesthood. The Vatican has reported that at the end of 1968, there were 146,966 men studying for the priesthood in forty-one European and other Western nations, compared with more than 166,000 in 1965, a sharp drop of about 20,000 in three years. At the same time, the number of Roman Catholics in the world reportedly rose by about 13 million in 1969 to an estimated total of 507 million.

Rather than reaffirming vows of celibacy, the Reverend Patrick O’Malley, head of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils in the United States, suggested that it would be far more meaningful if priests and bishops would, on Holy Thursday, “publicly and explicitly rededicate themselves to the gospel of service to people.”

More to the point would be a rededication to Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture, upon which true Christian service to mankind is based. The greatest threat to Catholicism is not the danger of a married clergy. It is the undermining of the Gospel by radical spokesmen who would subvert the church into a voice for the political left, and transform its Lord into little more than a guerrilla fighter.

Evangelism And Heresy

A group of Christians, including Carl F. H. Henry and Leighton Ford, have called for 1973 to be a year of special evangelistic emphasis. Growing out of the “Key Bridge” meetings, the group has called Christian organizations “to confront every person in North America more fully and more forcefully with the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to make disciples and thereby carry out the Great Commission.”

Recently the trustees of the United Christian Missionary Society, major program unit of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), decided to delay their decision on whether to adopt this emphasis for 1973, as recommended by the society’s Department of Evangelism. Apparently it was the objections of a prominent pastor, Dr. Albert M. Pennybacker (who served as first vicemoderator of the denomination in 1968–69), that caused the trustees to postpone the decision till March. Even though the Disciples would be free to plan the evangelistic emphasis to suit themselves, Dr. Pennybacker felt it would be too closely linked to the Billy Graham style of evangelism, which in his opinion is “egocentric” because it is “rooted in a man saving his own soul.” This he termed a “biblical heresy.”

We appreciate Dr. Pennybacker’s concern that evangelism be biblically grounded. Too often the appeal for “new style evangelism” rests on an extra-biblical basis. However, we take issue with Dr. Pennybacker’s interpretation that concern for personal salvation is selfish. Evangelicals above all others insist that salvation entails the forsaking of selfish interests. This is symbolized by the immersion in water of the professing believer, which Disciples have always practiced. It is not egocentric but Christocentric. Christ dealt this way with people, one by one. It is not a matter of trying to save our souls; we could do nothing if we tried. God alone does the saving.

Dr. Pennybacker also deserves credit for recognizing that there is such a thing as heresy. Many a modern churchman would be hard put to acknowledge its existence. But the burden is now on him to show from the Bible how evangelicals err and further to demonstrate positively the kind of evangelism that he considers biblically orthodox.

Our suggestion is that the Disciples examine any such demonstration with care. They might end up having to begin posthumous excommunication proceedings against Alexander Campbell.

We suspect that much of the anxiety of the type voiced by Dr. Pennybacker grows out of the assumption that evangelicals are indifferent to social ills. The U. S. Congress on Evangelism in Minneapolis last fall went a long way toward dispelling this misapprehension. Objective reports from such leading media as Time, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times came away from that meeting clearly convinced that evangelicals do indeed have a social conscience. Those who still doubt might well review the media coverage.

The Sound Of Revival

In some not so vagrant thoughts, we’ve contemplated what sounds (to our human ears) like silence from the Holy Spirit. Religion—or something that goes by that name—is not mute: astrology, witchcraft, the occult flourish; college and university religion courses overflow. Yet we can’t shake the nagging notion that those religious notes echo rarely or not at all from the Spirit of God.

So it is refreshing, even heartening, to hear the wind of the Spirit blowing in Wilmore, Kentucky (see News, page 36). The revival at Asbury College and Seminary rings with love and honesty, with the harmony between man and God and man and man that begins with commitment to Jesus Christ.

Asbury’s revival has swelled from collegians to adults, from Kentucky to Canada. We pray that reformation will reverberate around the world, with resounding effects for men and nations. We pray for ears to hear.

Exit 540 Hymns

Within about three years Westminster Press will publish a combination hymnal and worship book. The new work is a joint project of United, Southern, and Cumberland Presbyterians, and its appearance will disappoint many. Many of the best-loved hymns are being omitted.

Hymnals presently in use in United Presbyterian churches have some 540 hymns that will not appear in the new book, according to the Presbyterian Layman. About 100 of the 300 hymns in the new book are not in the present ones. Some who have made comparisons complain that a number of familiar hymns stressing personal relationship with God are being replaced with songs that nobody knows. Some, moreover, sense a trend to standardize the liturgy of the Church.

One of the newcomers is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Among the casualties are “Rock of Ages,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” “Nearer, My God to Thee,” “Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “Just As I Am, Without One Plea,” and “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

February’S Frankness

If February had feelings, he (or would it be she?) could certainly claim inequal opportunity. How, he might protest, can he accomplish with only twenty-eight—or even twenty-nine—days what other months do with thirty or more? And his grievance, he’d surely demonstrate, has gone unassuaged for a long time—since February, 1582, in fact, when Pope Gregory VIII established the modern calendar.

As if to prove that the second must try harder, February displays an array of firsts, many for others with similar complaints. For instance, February, 1870, saw the first Negro senator and the first female justice of the peace take office. The Fifteenth Amendment provided suffrage for blacks in February, 1869, thanks largely to Abraham Lincoln, born in February, 1809, who was one of the most ill-used U. S. presidents (a suffering minority, to be sure).

A few February firsts—like the weather bureau (1870) and income tax (1913)—seem to inaugurate as much as assuage grief. The first post office was patented in February, 1692, and the first commercial railroad dates its charter to February, 1827; both services have since suffered abuse. This February holds a special hardship for people with treiskaidekaphobia: the first Friday the thirteenth of 1970.

Perhaps miserable February needs the company; more likely it’s truth that assembles those sufferers. The newborn year with its fresh promise is a month old now and losing its initial luster. After the fleeting novelty of newness, February’s frankness may be a more mature setting for reassessing griefs and goals.

Bertrand Russell

Many a modern man entertains the fallacy that intellectual satisfaction begins with the rejection of Christian tenets. Bertrand Russell, the titan of thought who died this month at the age of 97, was one of the most articulately outspoken of such men. A search for knowledge divorced from the insights of Christian revelation was one of the overwhelming passions of his life. Late in life, in admirable deference to honesty, he was obliged to observe that in his search for knowledge he had achieved “a little of this, but not much.…”

A marked peculiarity of this great British humanist philosopher and mathematician was his curious application of epistemological criteria. He threw out centuries of accumulated evidence to be able to say, “Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all.…” Yet he said he was assured of something as highly tenuous (even to an objective observer) as the allegation that the United States was involved in the Viet Nam conflict out of sinister economic and political motives and an itching for war with China.

Wit seems to have carried him across gaps where rationality could not. Of the appeal of his prose there can be little doubt. It won him attention and respect. One Christian author suggests that Russell’s History of Western Philosophy “is perhaps the only history of the subject that can be read in bed with pleasure.”

Given Russell’s atheism and his hostility toward biblical morality, something can nevertheless be said for his integrity. Many contemporary thinkers who espouse views similar to Russell’s still seek a place under the Christian umbrella. Some even tried to claim Russell for the Christian faith, and he would have none of it:

There has been a rumor in recent years to the effect that I have become less opposed to religious or orthodoxy than I formerly was. This rumor is totally without foundation. I think all the great religions of the world—Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism—both untrue and harmful.

How did Russell get this way? His parents died when he was tiny, and atheists were his guardians at first, but Russell was eventually raised by a Christian grandmother. The pessimistic strain in his thinking goes back to when he was six years old and chose as his favorite hymn, “Weary of Earth and Laden with My Sin.” Russell recalled that he became an atheist when he was eighteen after reading the autobiography of John Stuart Mill.

The great pity of Russell is that, having lived so long and gained so much experience, he had relatively little to say about the things that matter most. Even his admiring biographer, Alan Wood, pointed out that Russell could never work out a coherent approach to knowledge. Truth, after all, seemed a blind alley. All he could do was to counsel courage in the face of inevitable defeat. “I have to read at least one detective book a day,” he said, “to drug myself against the nuclear threat.”

A Cordial Welcome—If You’Re White

Outside the First Presbyterian Church in Sumter, South Carolina, there is a sign that says, “We extend a cordial welcome to you.” Several weeks ago two black students at Sumter’s Morris College made the mistake of taking that welcome seriously. As they attempted to enter the sanctuary, the way was blocked by some of the members of the congregation, one of whom reportedly said, “No niggers can come in here.”

The black students, well dressed and carrying Bibles, then tried to force their way into the church, only to be arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, fined $100, and sentenced to thirty days in jail. One church member denied that entry was refused because of race; he explained that they were kept out because “their participation would have created an emotional disturbance.” However, one senses that the fear of an “emotional disturbance” was not totally unrelated to the fact that the two students happened to have black skin. The students, both ministers’ sons, were released on an appeals bond and were later admitted to services at the church.

This incident brings to mind a similar well-publicized happening at Macon, Georgia’s Tattnall Square Baptist Church in September, 1966. A black Mercer University student was physically prohibited from entering the church for worship. A special touch of irony in this situation was that the student was an African who had been led to Christ by missionaries sent out by Tattnall Square Church! Subsequently the three ministers of the church who took their stand against this unchristian act were dismissed from their jobs. In the recently published book Ashes for Breakfast (Judson), Thomas J. Holmes, the ousted senior minister, records the whole dismal story.

These two scenes speak for themselves—and they say that there are those within the Church who harbor in their hearts attitudes that are totally foreign to the Christ they claim to follow and to the Scriptures they claim to believe. In many churches the barrier of race has been broken down, and this is honoring to God. But as incidents like these—and the attitudes that lurk behind them—are allowed to continue, the Gospel of Christ is blasphemed.

Did God Really Say So?

The first recorded utterance of Satan sought to bring God’s word into question, and the enemy has been employing similar tactics ever since. The serpent’s initial statement to Eve (Gen. 3:1) was interrogative. As the Jerusalem Bible translates it, the question was, “Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?”

The adversary, of course, knew only too well what God had said. Satan was not content to raise doubt about whether God had spoken at all, nor even whether he had said what he did. Satan asked Eve whether God had stated something that he hadn’t stated.

Confused? That’s exactly the object of the gam̅e. To this point, however, Eve refused to be swayed, and Satan was forced to take up a new tactic, that of actually countering what God had said. Then Eve capitulated.

Refusal to take God at his word was a sin that plagued the Jewish people all through their history up until the time of Christ. During the last two thousand years, men have introduced all kinds of heresies imaginable by disputing or questioning God’s word.

The importance of plenary inspiration to orthodox theology cannot be underestimated. There are three aspects of this principle:

The divine Word is expressed objectively. The Bible as originally given was not simply some rough approximation of broad concepts or subjective truths. Men spoke the words of God as they were moved by his Spirit. The extent to which they were influenced by their cultures was used by God to convey the meaning he desired.

God also spoke propositionally, that is, in verbal language that is intelligible, in statements that can be believed or denied or ignored. With all due respect for the scholarship of Archbishop William Temple, his alternative to propositional revelation is an unwarranted concession to naturalism. Temple argued that revelation is limited to inspired appreciation of special divine events, and excludes interpretation. Revelation in the orthodox sense is cognitive; it imparts information in a reasonably ordered fashion.

Surely then it can be said that God spoke absolutely. He hasn’t declared himself on every conceivable subject, but he has disclosed enough for our life and salvation, and he has done so with finality. To posit of God anything less is to demean his greatness.

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