Page 6144 – Christianity Today (2024)

Current Religious Thought

Now and then i have an impish resolve to produce an article on “The Intolerance of Liberalism,” usually when some particularly chuckleheaded views are trotted out masquerading as honest opinion. No one can be more intolerant than the liberal in his attitude to those less liberal theologically than he—many of us can testify feelingly to the fact. His criticisms often tend to be criticisms of an evangelicalism of yesteryear, or of extreme examples (assiduously sought out) of an obtuseness that could find parallels in other traditions. The fallacious process generally continues with good liberals being contrasted with bad evangelicals. Somewhere along the line that blessed word “fundamentalism” is flung in for good measure—a law should be passed decreeing that all such terms must be scrupulously defined—and all evangelicals are expediently lumped together under that dubious banner. No account is taken, for example, of the fact that not all of us are such militant Protestants as the lady who noted with black disapproval that a Roman Catholic bishop entered my office a few months ago. When he came out half an hour later, she discharged her bounden duty by saying to me: “I hope you had a good go at him.” Thirty golden minutes of lost opportunity, and I call myself an evangelical!

When a beguiling ecumenical tune is piped to us, some of us don’t dance, tiresome children that we are, and so another batch of wrong conclusions is glibly drawn and we are dismissed as incorrigible. We went through it all in Britain after the Faith and Order Conference at Nottingham last fall; now we’re getting it again because of evangelical opposition to the Anglican-Methodist merger proposals approved this summer by British Methodists (see “Plymouth: Scrutiny of Unity,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, July 30, 1965). The unionists have spent a lot of time trying to convince evangelical dissentients that unity matters. It is not always realized that the evangelical appreciates that fact so much that he is always out in front asking two questions: unity on what basis? unity to what end? Such a consideration of structure and purpose is seen to be vital, to avoid emulation of Edward Lear’s impetuous characters who, disregarding bad weather and good friends, went to sea in a sieve.

The proposed Service of Reconciliation came under renewed attack at the Plymouth conference. Both the nature and the effect of this service are obscure. Lord Fisher of Lambeth, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says it does not involve episcopal ordination of Methodist ministers; so does Dr. Harold Roberts, chairman of the Methodist negotiating committee. The Bishops of Exeter and Ripon take the contrary view, as does the influential Church Times. Many approve what they regard as studied ambiguity in the procedure to be followed, thus: “Then shall the Bishop lay his hands on the head of each of the Methodist ministers in silence. After he has laid hands upon all of them the Bishop shall say: ‘We receive you into the fellowship of the ministry in the Church of England. Take authority to exercise the office of priest, to preach the Word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments among us as need shall arise and you shall be licensed to do.’”

In an open letter to the archbishops and bishops some time ago, thirty-nine leading evangelicals described the suggested service as unacceptable in its present form and averred that they could not with a good conscience participate in it, because it implied “the ordination to a priesthood not hitherto exercised of Methodist ministers who are already true ministers of God’s word and sacraments.” The writers called for mutual recognition of ministries, with episcopal ordination the regular practice thereafter, as in the Church of South India. To this end they requested that full communion with the CSI be at once established. Nothing came of the open letter; the CSI is still on the wrong side of the ecclesiastical Iron Curtain with not a single Anglican province in communion with it.

Apart from the opposition of a large majority of Anglican evangelicals, the report generally has been attacked by the Voice of Methodism movement, the Methodist Revival Fellowship, the Anglo-Catholic Church Union, the Anglo-Roman Society of the Holy Cross, and many prominent individuals with no “party allegiance.” Professor Franz Hildebrandt of Drew University, one of the Methodist observers at the Second Vatican Council, has written in a widely distributed Church of England parish supplement: “If the scheme is accepted, the Methodist ministry (at Stage I, before full organic union) will be divided into newly-made priests, in communion with the Church of England, and inferior non-priests who refused to submit. The split in our ranks is already evident; we are headed for a new open schism.”

Needless to say, during all the discussions much has been made of that durable question-begger, the need for concerted action against the menace of atheism and materialism. The implication is, of course, that the formation of a great united church would not only present a formidable front against such forces but would also necessarily produce an increased quality of Christian witness. It may be true that nothing so unites people as a common enemy, but as Professor Norman Snaith once said, “A union that comes from the need to ‘close one’s ranks’ means a retraction of evangelistic effort, and a generation of consolidation.” The call for a closing of ranks might be not irrelevant also to the fact that the Methodist Church in Britain (present membership about 700,000) has lost 150,000 members since 1932.

Two years ago the then president of the Methodist Conference wrote in the Church Times that for proposals that “deeply affect the life of our two Churches we need the good will of a substantial majority of our members and especially (in the case of Methodism) of our synods and quarterly meetings.” Such a majority was not obtained, according to figures reported to the conference this year. In synods where votes were reported, 5,090 voted to give the “general approval” sought, 2,848 were against, and 117 were neutral. The respective figures for quarterly meetings were 26,440, 22,236, and 1,835. These statistics from the real core of Methodism should be set against the widely publicized 78 per cent majority vote of the members of this year’s conference. Final acceptance of the report is still made dependent on the solution of many difficulties. When the latter were listed, it was evident that we yet await the solution of a single basic problem between the two churches. Everything that is fundamental has been shelved for the moment. I disagree with the London vicar who wrote knowingly, “The devil is presumably very angry about the Anglican-Methodist Report.” Instead of making the devil a party to the transaction, I’d rather go to Lewis Carroll for the mot juste on the present state of the parties: “Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say. It saves time.”

Twentieth-century man is a pawn in a colossal struggle for the human soul

More than any other modern ideology, atheistic Communism is responsible for an all-out assault on the Christian faith. Communist tyrants have forcibly imposed their godless ideology upon multitudes of men and seek consciously to build a civilization upon the rejection of theism and the acceptance of dialectical materialism.

To neutralize and capture the modern mind, the Communists rely upon scientism. The modern man knows science, it is stressed, and whoever truly knows science—so the propaganda runs—cannot believe in the supernatural (least of all, presumably, in miraculous Christianity). The net effect of this propaganda upon young Soviet minds is electrifying. In the universities they are schooled in dialectical materialism and injected with the dogma that economic determinism is the hinge of history.

The Red philosophy gains power as young intellectuals are impressed by the practical achievements of science and then exposed to the Communist world-view. Marxists are not “born” such, nor when they are “reborn” do they remain such; but they are predictably manufactured. The unswerving submission of mind and spirit to certain controlling ideas severs men from their metaphysical roots (from “the old rags of Christianity” and any interest in “religious” experience) until they think and act differently from other men. The problems of human nature that have vexed the great thinkers of the world in all ages—such as the soul, original sin, guilt, immortality—are smothered by this reductionist technique. The Marxist-Leninist ideational system simply ignores them.

Because of its pragmatic and anti-theoretical temper, the Anglo-Saxon world tends to view Communism as an activistic program of political-economic adjustment, and thereby underrates the fundamental importance of Communist theory. For the grip of Communism on young intellectuals lies in its emphatic insistence on unity of theory and practice; the avalanche of social revolution depends upon the conviction that even the most trivial tasks have world-historical consequences. This failure to take seriously the undergirding rationale of Communism has been partly encouraged by the pragmatic tendency of American Protestantism to shun metaphysics and to neglect a reasoned view of faith. In this respect, as in others, the Church has conformed to the popular mood, rather than transformed it.

R. N. Carew Hunt notes the penalties of this prevalent dedication to deed alongside disinterest in doctrine. “As a study of theory is normally uncongenial to our national temperament, it is commonly argued that the present Russian rulers are hard-headed realists who believe in nothing, that they are simply engaged in ‘power politics’.… In this event we need only be concerned with their practice, and we may regard their theories as no more important than ex post facto rationalizations. Yet there is no doubt that Communists do believe that they are applying to political situations a theory which they fervently accept and which they hold to be scientific” (The Theory and Practice of Communism, New York: Macmillan, 1954, p. v). Communism is “a Weltanschauung based upon a closely articulated body of doctrine—philosophic, economic, political and social—which claims alone to provide the scientific explanation of the world” (ibid., p. 7).

There are many vulnerable chinks in the Communist intellectual armor, but they are hardly evident to a contender who is unaware that twentieth-century man is a pawn in a colossal struggle for the human mind and soul.

One telling thrust at Communist dogma may be struck squarely against the cliché that science disproves the supernatural. The fact that Communists overwork this dogma of itself betrays its inner weakness; such emphatic repetition tends to secure its acceptance despite a lack of logic. The bias against the supernatural, without which the Marxist theory of the relativity of truth and morals could not survive, is rationalized by a subtle but illicit appeal to science. The way this rationalization victimizes even the scientific mentality is evident in the naïve comment of Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Stepanovich Titov: “In my travels around the earth I saw no God or angels.” If Titov spent any of his time or energy in outer space maintaining a lookout, he was surely engaged—as the American cosmonaut Colonel John Glenn implied—in trying to strain the whole of reality through the wrong sieve. “The God I pray to,” said Glenn, “is not so small that I expected to see him in space.”

The Christian believer has nothing to fear from science, although scientism has a great deal to fear from the searching scrutiny of objective criticism. With Charles Malik, former president of the United Nations General Assembly, the man of faith can remain firm in assurance that not economic determinism but “Jesus Christ is the hinge of history” (cf. “A Civilization at Bay,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Nov. 24, 1961, p. 4).

A popular Chinese fable tells of a woman so lazy she would do nothing to help herself, so that her husband had to care for her in everything. The time came when he had to make a long journey. Fearing that she might suffer in his absence, he made a huge flat piece of bread, several feet in diameter, and cut a hole in the center. Then he placed the bread over his wife’s head, resting it on her shoulders. When the man returned home, he found that his wife had died of starvation. She had eaten the bread directly in front of her mouth but had been too lazy to turn her head for more.

The fables that originate in Marxist lands these days have found a lodging in the empty hearts of multitudes of men. It would be the most shameful death imaginable for civilization in our times if, having escaped the fable of Communism, we should die in the myth that man can live—even for a day—on bread alone.

Faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel is the necessary axis for life that is truly life

Modern science has shaped a new earth—so it sometimes seems—and promises next to transform the heavens. Beyond many of the fondest dreams of the past, science and technology have changed man’s existence physically, socially, and intellectually.

For some reason, the explosion of scientific knowledge seems to have blasted God out of the world of learning. Since many university professors seem reticent to speak of God as an omnicompetent Person, their students understandably wonder whether the mountains of data accumulated through scientific and technological advances imply the irrelevance if not the unreality of God. In the words of Dr. Elmer W. Engstrom, president of Radio Corporation of America—himself largely responsible for the organization and management of a research and development program that led to practical television service—“We live in an age when the results of science and engineering exercise the controlling influence in all walks of life.”

Yet Dr. Engstrom does not stop there. Remarkably enough, while multitudes of twentieth-century men and women are tempted to look upon Science as a new god, and on the God of the Bible as outmoded, an impressive number of scientists—Engstrom among them—insist that it is science that is forever changing, while the God of creation is the same “yesterday, today, and forever.” Says Engstrom: “I accept as real God’s ruling in the affairs of men and in all aspects of his creation, and I accept the validity of a scientific understanding of material things and the happenings of nature.”

It is not “the scientists” as such, contrary to a widespread impression, who are debunking the supernatural; their authority as a class cannot be invoked against miracle or faith in the deity of Jesus Christ. Their formulations of Christian faith may contain turns of phrase less technical (and therefore sometimes more intelligible) than the vocabulary of the theologians and philosophers. But of the evangelical loyalties of a galaxy of scientists in many lands and in all races there can be no doubt.

Yet the accelerating changes worked by science seem to a science-oriented generation to imply the displacement of all past beliefs. As Dr. Richard D. Campbell, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Iowa, sees it, “With half of the working force engaged in occupations that did not exist a generation ago, a strange new world with new values and a new way of life underline man’s sense of estrangement. Sensitivity to human and moral values is threatened with detachment, and mankind faces a cultural crisis with dire social and moral implications.” But Professor Campbell is not himself caught in this maelstrom of ethical relativity. “The moral and human values intended for man by his Creator are revealed for man in many ways,” he says, “but the highest revelation is in Jesus Christ. The future direction of our world turns upon our individual pertinent and personal commitment to Jesus Christ.”

That science changes but God abides is a note struck also by Dr. Ross Alan Douglas, associate professor of nuclear physics at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Professor Douglas, who is Canadian-born but holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, points to the recent discovery of the non-conservation of parity in the weak interactions as an example of the “profound changes in scientific concepts produced by current research.” He stresses, moreover, that such changes are the price science must pay for progress. But he points to Jesus Christ as the fixed point of reference in the life of the spiritual man whose knowledge of Him increases through Bible study and personal communion.

While some philosophers—notably, naturalists in the free world as well as dialectical materialists in the Communist world—contend that the scientific way of knowing disproves and discredits a supernatural faith, some of the leading men of science have stepped forward to expose the impropriety of such claims. In a recent essay, Dr. Vannevar Bush, honorary board chairman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, declares that the time has come to emphasize the limits of science as fully as its power.

Modern science has made wonderful changes in our lives, comments Dr. James H. Shaw, associate professor of biological chemistry at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. But these very benefits “obscure the amorality and impersonality of science. The user’s motives dictate its application for good or ill. No standard for morals, no universal concern for one’s neighbor, no satisfaction for the yearning human heart can spring from any amoral, impersonal body of knowledge. Science has no answer to man’s dilemma.”

“For me,” Dr. Shaw continues, “the answer is a personal relationship with God freely given by him in response to faith in and commitment to the claims of Jesus Christ. Science can never displace Jehovah God of the Bible as lawgiver and Jesus Christ, his Son, as Saviour and Mediator between God and sinful man.” Dr. Shaw adds that in this dimension of faith, life as a scientist takes on “the new purpose, meaning, and direction that God intended in the unfolding of the works of his hands hidden in his creation.”

Have science and technology solved man’s basic problems: the quest for ultimate truth by which to live and to die, the problems of moral and intellectual corruption, of crime, war, and suffering? So asks Dr. Bodo Volkman, professor of mathematics at the Institute of Technology, Stuttgart, Germany. His reply is pointed: “It is evident that mere scientific knowledge, however valuable, can never accomplish this. Nor do I think that religious efforts will ever suffice.” It takes, he says, “something different from just adhering to some ethical principles or believing in some anthropocentric god. Rather do I believe in the God of the Bible as a Person, and faith in him to me means commitment to Jesus as the Christ. Actual communication with him changes man’s life from within; it is here that the answer is waiting.”

A British professor registers the same spiritual conviction. True manhood can be found only in response to Jesus Christ, to his claims and to his commands—so asserts Dr. James M. Houston, fellow of Hertford College and lecturer at Oxford University. “Faith in the omnipotence of science … makes man no more than a thinking machine,” he states. “Without religion, right and wrong are meaningless, are terms only of relative convenience. Without God, man is alone in the universe, and without him man cannot conceive of his own nature and destiny. I seek to be a practicing Christian, convinced personally as well as mentally in the authority of the Bible, because I believe that only in Jesus Christ can genuine, authentic manhood be seen and realized. To me, Jesus Christ is the norm of humanity, and to know and love him is to know and love God personally.”

An Indian scientist, Professor H. Enock, retired head of the department of zoology at the University of Madras, South India, emphasizes that science has “no explanation for the origin of matter and only speculations for the origin of life. The theories established in one generation are often contradicted by another. After more than thirty years of teaching, I have had no occasion to change my view of the spiritual realm or of the mission of Jesus Christ. I have come to the settled conviction that no established fact of science contradicts the Bible.”

Dr. Walter R. Hearn, associate professor of biochemistry at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, notes that scientists are persons and that science is a personal activity, requiring “a sense of values and dedication to purpose that cannot be derived from science itself. Science tells us what we can do, but it cannot tell us what we ought to do.” Where, then, are the moral absolutes to be found? “In my own life,” Professor Hearn comments, “ultimate personal questions find their solution in my relationship to God through the person of Jesus Christ. We Christians believe that we can come into such direct contact with our Maker and Redeemer that his wisdom can be applied to our deepest problems and his love can flow through us to touch others as well.”

The inability of science to explain the presence of features that make science itself possible is stressed also by Dr. Walter Rollier Thorson, associate professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Man today is finding,” Dr. Thorson says, “that science as such offers no explanation of the facts of human self-consciousness and of the freedom of choice experienced in human personality, which itself is the reason for man’s interest in scientific knowledge or indeed in any kind of truth.” It is Dr. Thorson’s opinion that “the question of a relationship to God is in the end more important than many of the terrible and urgent needs of our time. It affects human destiny as a whole, and has done so in the past. I expect it will in the future as well.”

The emphasis on two ways of knowing, and the necessary restriction of scientific method to relativities, characterizes the approach of Dr. Armando Vivante, professor of general ethnology and general ethnography at the National University of La Plata, Argentina. “Science with its sense of the historical relativity of truth, with its destiny of working toward the limitless approximation of a true asymptote, depending in the last analysis upon epistemological criteria—which is not science but philosophy—has nothing to do with faith. Faith is moved by grace, a concept full of biblical connotations. Science is moved by its peculiar causalist logic and the incessant and precarious accumulation of data that is temporal and conventionally true.”

Alongside an emphasis on the limits of science, many leaders assert that science itself could not have arisen in a vacuum—that it requires among its presuppositions a context of intelligibility. It was Dr. Alfred North Whitehead who declared that there seems but one source for the “inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles.… It must come from the medieval insistence [Professor Whitehead might have said, the Judeo-Christian revelation] on the rationality of God” (Science and the Modern World, Macmillan, 1946, p. 18). Professor Harold H. Johnson of the mathematics department of the University of Washington asserts: “The emergence of science in a Christian society is more than historical accident, I believe. Science and Christianity share objectivity. Scientists study the outside world, Christians seek truth outwardly in God’s revelation of himself. This method is in contrast to the Greek introspection or Hindu and Buddhist contemplation. Man’s first task was scientific: to name (analyze, understand) things in the world about him. Yet science is rapidly making life impossible. The physicists who built the first atom bomb felt science had sinned. Today any industrialized nation can destroy civilization. Soon every petty ruler in the world will have such power, and who knows what more deadly devices will come out of the laboratories? Even in the pure air of science we suddenly face ourselves as sinners. No trite humanistic platitudes can save the world. Let each escape by the only means available—the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Dr. Henry S. Darling, a native of Northern Ireland who is director of the Institute for Agricultural Research of Ahmadu Bello University in Northern Nigeria, speaks of “the superiority of heavenly morals over earthly science and technology.” Solomon acknowledged that authority through all time in the affirmation, “The reverent respect of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7), says Professor Darling, “and this superiority has in no way been lessened by the vast accumulation of scientific data in recent years or by the extension of technology into every field of human activity. Science and technology have greatly enriched mankind in material things, not least in agriculture, where more and more food can be grown by the efforts of fewer and fewer workers. For these material blessings we must ever be devoutly thankful. But they have not helped us to solve the great and pressing problem of our race—how to find peace with God. To this I can find only one answer, given by Christ himself: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’”

A similar note is sounded by Dr. Donald S. Kerlee, chairman of the physics department at Seattle Pacific College. In discussing the effect of science on religious-moral issues, he says, we would do well “to remember that the science of today arose, not from Communism, but out of the religious culture of the Western world. Indeed, it is well known that much of early science was developed by men of the Church.” These Christians, like science itself, he adds, presupposed an underlying rationality in the study of the universe. “Science is essentially a religious activity, in that it is a search for intelligible truth.”

What then of the widely trumpeted conflict between science and religion, and the bold claim of Anglo-Saxon naturalists and Communist atheists that belief in the supernatural is akin to faith in the pagan myths? This is not only an exaggeration and oversimplification—it is also a patent falsehood, and some scientists are saying so today with a directness that contrasts with the timidity even of some theologians.

The difficulty arises, says Professor Kerlee, when “it is assumed that all knowledge is essentially scientific in nature. A Christian view of science recognizes the excellence of science in its description of the physical world. Beyond the scope of science, however, the Christian recognizes parameters of experience not measured by units of length, mass, or time, nor easily expressed in units derived therefrom. There are many of these parameters; they cannot be ordered in the mathematical sense, nor can a quantized scale be assigned as in physics. Yet they describe many of the experiences of life, going far beyond the mere description of the scientific variables. A Christian view of science admits the revelation of God in nature through his creation, as well as through special revelation, the holy Scriptures.”

Whether one is or is not a scientist has no decisive bearing on personal faith in God, for decision for or against Jesus Christ is not made on the basis of peculiarly scientific data. So asserts Dr. George W. Andrews, geologist with the United States Department of the Interior in Washington: “Some scientists have adopted an impersonal view toward the universe; others like myself find satisfaction in the belief that a Supreme Being not only is responsible for our existence but also takes an interest in our activities. Faith in a personal God and in the redeeming work of Christ is a decision that can only be made by the individual, scientist and non-scientist alike. Science in no sense compels one to have a personal faith in God, but neither does it prohibit or restrict such a faith.”

British scientist Malcolm Dixon, who is reader in enzyme biochemistry at Cambridge University, from which he holds both the Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees, thinks the time long overdue to “dispel the harmful idea that science is anti-Christian.” He declares: “For over forty years I have been engaged in scientific research and teaching at the advanced level in Cambridge University, and I have found no reason to think that there is any incompatibility between science and Christianity. Many of the greatest scientists have been Christian believers, and I should judge that there is now in this country about the same proportion of such believers among scientists as among non-scientists.”

Another British scientist, Dr. Claude Rimington, also holder of Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees, and professor of chemical pathology in the University of London, issues a sober reminder regarding the alternative between faith and unbelief. “It is the duty of a scientist to question and investigate, to draw deductions, and in his search for truth to set up hypotheses which he then attempts to refute by further investigation. A hypothesis can only be assumed to have a high probability of correctness in so far as attempts to refute it have failed. The so-called laws of nature are of this character. Within a given set of circ*mstances, these laws may appear always to be obeyed, as in Newtonian mechanics, but they may be found inadequate or fallacious if the reference system is altered. Science must beware of dogma! It must be clearly aware of its own limitations imposed by the procedure which it uses, namely, to exclude as many variables as possible, save that under scrutiny. The process is one of exclusion and is highly selective, from which it follows that the picture of existence which science provides must be limited and incomplete. Bearing this in mind, I see no incompatibility in outlook between the scientist and the Christian. A Christian can be a scientist in the strictest sense of the word while believing in God the Creator and in the divinity of Christ, in whose person God projected himself into the existence of our world in space and time.”

Professor Rimington remarks that “a large section of the human race faces today the dilemma that it would reject religion as undemonstrable and therefore illusory but in its place must assert the supremacy of matter, an intellectual concept repugnant to a physicist! The choice carries the gravest political and social implications—as Belsen and Auschwitz remind us—apart from its supreme relevance to the ultimate intellectual and spiritual development of man.”

Not the incredulity of the man of sound religious faith so much as the naïveté of the naturalistic mentality established “the great divide” between Christian belief and unbelief, emphasizes Dr. John A. McIntyre, distinguished professor of physics at Texas A. and M. University. In Professor McIntyre’s words: “The most distinctive characteristic of our times is the sophisticated knowledge of people in scientific and technical matters and their simultaneous ignorance and naïveté concerning religious things. The general opinion seems to be that science has replaced religion as the source of answers for human questions so that religious ignorance is to be encouraged. Yet, how can science explain the terrible wars and persecutions of this century among the civilized nations, the lostness and boredom spreading rapidly through our materialistically affluent society, and the recent disintegration of the American family?” He continues: “As a scientist who discovered the Christian message as an adult, I can testify to the profundity and appeal of the Christian explanation of these facts: that man is estranged from God and that his life is empty and incomplete until he returns to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Further, I know of no scientific facts which contradict this view.”

Dr. Harvey Omar Olney, professor of biology at Gordon College, Massachusetts, puts the matter pointedly: “Modern scholars divest God of his dignity through yielding to the scientific Zeitgeist.”

This emphatic belief in the realities of revealed religion by competent scientists in the Western world obviously contradicts and indicts the Communist dogma that no educated modern man, and least of all a scientist, has a rational basis for faith in the living God.

“It is man’s relation to God, and nothing more, that determines man’s destiny.” So states Professor Roberto Dominguez Agurcia, an Indo-Spaniard who holds a dual post in Honduras, serving as professor in the physics department in Centro Universitario de Estudios Generales and as professor of structural analysis and structural design in the school of engineering in Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras. Such a relation (and not “property” or other socio-economic issues), he emphasizes, “is the real substratum of material life, of spiritual life, of the fate of humanity. The crisis of our scientific culture lies in the fact that science searches much into the mysteries of the atom, relating everything to matter, but cares not for the moral law that links behavior to destiny. Giant telescopes, powerful microscopes, accelerators, computers, rockets, spaceships, and so many other wonders of modern science are good—but not enough! Only reconciliation with the Infinite Master, God, through repentance and close friendship with Christ, can lead us to the grace of salvation and perfection.” Professor Agurcia issues a sober warning: “The world does not seem to know or to care about Nineveh’s lesson. The culture adored by the nations beholds not the ‘sign of Jonas’ given by our Lord Jesus Christ. Personally I thank God, the God of the Bible, the only God, because notwithstanding my insignificance he took me out of vain human doctrines, far from misleading ecologic ‘ethics,’ and led me to my beloved Saviour, his Son Jesus Christ. On the decision to accept Christ rests the destiny of humankind! Before it is too late, universities and scholars should learn humbly and teach this moral truth on which the Word of God is centered and which conditions the destiny of man.”

Dr. Russell L. Mixter, professor of zoology at Wheaton College, Illinois, and editor of a symposium of thirteen scientists and theologians on Evolution and Christian Thought Today (Eerdmans, 1959), recalls that evolutionary theory offered as a covering explanation of all reality and life at first seemed credible, but that as a university student he became convinced of its failure to account as adequately as Christianity for all the facts. “For me, faith began with parental instruction and pastoral guidance. In graduate school the disturbing influence of evolutionary theory was balanced by competent literature showing its inadequacy to explain the origin and complexity of all living things, and detailed study of anatomy and genetics has revealed the well-ordered intricacy characteristic of organisms whether surveyed intimately under the electron microscope or by the unaided eye. So my study of biology has harmonized with my early faith. But a knowledge of Scripture was necessary to make personal the relationship of divine truth to me. Hence the conviction of personal sin and the need of the salvation provided by our Lord Jesus Christ came not from science but from a conviction based on God’s Word. This conviction is needed by all men, for without it one’s destiny in eternity is dark indeed.”

Against naturalistic and materialistic theories of consciousness, Professor Thorson, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says, “The assertion that the reality behind the development of man is an impersonal force is a little strange, in view of the fact that it has led to the development of personality. Against this position Judaism and Christianity bear witness to a God who is at least personal, and indeed still greater than merely a person. This God has spoken to men and continues to speak, in the dimension of man’s personal life as well as in history. As a man who works in science, I do not find Christianity in any sense outmoded. On the contrary, my experience is that a personal relationship to Jesus Christ as God incarnate in man, a relationship of trust and love, is both possible in and relevant to daily life.”

Dr. Elbert H. Hadley, professor of chemistry at Southern Illinois University, puts the issue bluntly: “I believe that one’s belief in God and faith in Jesus Christ is a fundamental decision on which all human destiny turns. Will people become non-religious or pseudo-religious materialists or will they become practical, practicing Christians?”

The case for the reality of the supernatural and for the enduring relevance of the Christian religion is not supported only by “Western” scientists from Europe and America. In Africa and Asia as well, some leaders in scientific interests are speaking about the decisive importance of spiritual and moral priorities. Dr. Philip Saber Saif, an Egyptian researcher in the Ministry of Education in Cairo, pinpoints the crucial decision facing contemporary man this way: “In this age, when nuclear experiments threaten the world with final destruction, the only hope for humanity lies in Christianity. Our Bible does not teach scientific theory, but theological and eternal truths. God who has created man has also created science. I believe that no man of science has a proper reason for not becoming a Christian on the grounds of his science.” He continues: “As Jesus refused to pursue the young man (Matt. 19:16–22) and make other terms, so today the gospel terms cannot be lessened, cheapened, or altered. Therefore, if a scientist comes to God he must come the same way as any other man. He must repent, confess his sin to God, and believe in Jesus Christ with all his heart.”

Dr. D. A. Jonah, lecturer in applied mathematics at the University College of Sierra Leone, states the decision facing the modern scientist as inclusive of a verdict on Jesus Christ. “The more I study the Gospels, the more convinced I become of the rightness of the first of the following three choices which inevitably face one: (1) Christ is what he claimed to be; (2) he was a deluded fanatic; or (3) he was a deliberate imposter. His purity, nobility, greatness, and keen insight into human nature strike me too forcibly to permit any other conclusion. In the final analysis, however, my conviction is the result of that assurance which comes to the honest seeker through the Holy Spirit, and my personal experience of him through prayer. This makes it possible for me to live with the many ‘inexplicables’ in the Christian faith. As a scientist I have the highest regard for the scientific method and all its spectacular achievements; it has, however, not given meaning, purpose, or a sense of direction to my life. All these I have found in Christianity.”

Dr. Yajiro Morita, associate professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, points out that disbelief in God turns on bias rather than on lack of evidence. “Some nonbelievers today argue that if they could actually see something supernatural or miraculous,” he comments, “they would believe in God. I cannot but doubt this. If they saw, they would probably run and see a psychiatrist … showing they believe neither in God nor in themselves.” Professor Morita looks upon spiritual experience as “a confirmation of what I have believed in Jesus Christ. I accept the truth as it stands, and with gladness of heart.”

Another Japanese professor, Dr. Takeo Hama, who is dean of general education and professor of biology and philosophy of science at Meiji-Gakuin University, contrasts the limitations of the scientific method, which deals only with natural phenomena, with the larger avenue of spiritual knowledge. “The way of science is to know and experience natural phenomena through sense organs,” he says. “But science cannot inquire into spirit, values, right and wrong—as these fall outside its realm. God is not a natural phenomenon, but is Spirit; he can be known only by faith. Through the study of nature one cannot explain why matter exists, or why plants, animals, and mankind live. All these are miracles; the Bible tells us that God created them. This I accept. I have been believing God from my childhood—more than fifty years—and never have I been betrayed.”

Dr. D. J. Harris, professor of electrical engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, Northern Nigeria, points out that scientists are “basically religious men—forced to look beyond the pattern revealed by their work to the Creator of that pattern, or else to turn deliberately away from such a quest. The God of the Christian Gospel is far more than just a Creator; recording the revelation that came through Christ, Scripture shows us a God of infinite love, who is not only knowing but also knowable. This hypothesis can be tested experimentally by all who will venture along the path prepared by Christ, accepting his sacrifice for the remission of their sins, and it is a hypothesis that is found to be true. This has been my experience, and it is the experience of countless others, scientists and non-scientists alike.”

Professor Coralie W. Rendle-Short, who formerly was head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of East Africa Medical School in Kampala, Uganda, and is now on the Faculty of Medicine at Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, notes that the Christian believer finds a reminder of the unique miracle of the Incarnation even in the birth of a baby. “Every day my work brings me into the mysteries of birth and reproduction, and its complexities never cease to amaze me. I often think, Is God interested in me as an individual? Things have happened in my life that convince me that he cares for me personally. God as Christ chose to come into this world as a baby, and to live here so that he could show us that he knew what it is like to be a man, and more than that—to die on a Cross to take the punishment for man’s sins. I do not think this is an impossible thing to believe. The more we find out about the universe, the more amazing it becomes, and surely such an amazing God could implant such instincts in ourselves that we may seek after him. He loves us personally, but he will never compel us to be loyal. We have the dignity of free choice.”

The role of the scientific men of Christian faith in the present cultural conflict is outlined by Dr. Dewey K. Carpenter, assistant professor of chemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology. “Today’s world is the scene of the indiscriminate application of science with little regard to clear-cut patterns of morality. The resulting moral tensions cause many to cry out for some clear word of guidance. The Christian Church can serve a useful function in this respect by establishing guidelines moored in the rich biblical tradition from which it speaks. The Church bears a message that transcends this merely functional role: of a seeking God who mercifully allows rebellious men to approach him through personal commitment to the Mediator, Jesus Christ. This message possesses a relevance beyond the alleviation of those tensions that are peculiar to society today. A society permeated with men who know the forgiveness of sin as a personal gift is the only realistic basis for the prevention of the exploitation of human labor (such as science) or the eradication of mankind (through the application of science to military objectives).”

Dr. John De Vries, professor of chemistry at Calvin College and consultant to the National Science Foundation, emphasizes the enduring relevance of God’s twofold revelation—in the world and in the Word. “We live in an age which is inclined to worship the discoveries of science to the extent that it ignores the true source of knowledge. The Bible teaches, and the Church has always recognized the fact, that God revealed himself to man in two ways. God revealed himself first in nature when he created the universe and its inhabitants; and then, after man fell, God gave us his Word to show us the way back to him. It is foolish to think that God revealed himself only in his Word; it is equally foolish to think that he revealed himself only in nature. Both revelations are legitimate sources of knowledge, and we should not hope to gain, much less to ask, from science the knowledge which it can never give, nor seek from the Bible the science which it does not intend to teach. The two revelations, given to us by the same author, do not oppose but complete each other. Together they form the whole revelation of God to man, even though we can see God in nature only after we have learned to know him from his Word.”

Dr. Miguel Angel Zandrino, professor of anthropology at Victor Mercante College, Cordoba, Argentina, comments on the fascinating vistas that research presents to the man of faith. “We Christians love science as an activity of the spirit in which man perfects himself and shows something of the glory of the image of God within him. The sinner who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit partakes of ‘the mind of Jesus Christ,’ and is able to use the discoveries of science as an aid to a more complete understanding of the message of revelation. Faith needs the whole truth.”

A scientist plans his investigations and correlates his data on the basis of certain assumptions or presuppositions concerning both himself and the universe in which he lives. So observes Dr. J. Frank Cassel, professor of zoology at North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science, noting further what he calls “St. Paul’s summary of the position of the Christian scientist”: “He [Christ] is both the first principle and the upholding principle of the whole scheme of Creation” (Col. 1:17, Phillips). As a Christian I am led by my faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ to presuppositions which include: (1) God is; (2) God is self-revealing; (3) God has revealed himself in (a) Jesus Christ, (b) the Bible, (c) the Universe—his creation. Therefore, I ask not if God created the universe but rather, ‘How did he do it?’ I ask not if God controls his universe but rather, ‘How does he maintain it?’ And I ask not if the Bible is God’s Word but rather, ‘What does he say?’ When properly correlated, such data as my investigations produce in whatever area serve to give me a better understanding and appreciation of God as well as of the universe.”?

Besides making friends, modern theology also has a knack for collecting critics

LET’S BE RELEVANT

The current summer volume of Horizon is given over largely to “Dante, Giotto, and the Future.” The timeless message of Dante’s poetry and Giotto’s art is set plainly before us. In terms of the “future,” however, it is more timely than timeless. Alvin Toffler, in a startling article, “The Future as a Way of Life,” sounds more like what we are getting used to in 1965. The editors in introducing this piece of “summer reading” say this: “Alvin Toffler suggests that the changing conditions of life we are now experiencing are so profound that they represent a break in historical continuity comparable in importance only to the shift from barbarism to civilization.… We are urged “to prepare for, and brace ourselves against, the shock of a future way of life which is arriving with such distressing speed that it could eliminate us from our most cultural traditions.” What ought we to do in preparing for a day for which we cannot possibly prepare?

Put over against this a quotation from Wilhelm Windelband’s A History of Philosophy (Vol. I, p. 264). He is describing the impact of Augustine in a day when civilization was falling apart: “… whole worlds of the intellectual life sank to the depths from which they could only be drawn forth again long after by toil and conflict. The church had grown to its great task of becoming the educator of the European nations.… Amid the dissolution of political life [it] presented itself as the only power that was firm and sure of itself.… In her inner life she had proceeded with the same certainty amid numerous deviating paths, and had attained the goal of a unified and completed system of doctrine.… She was presented with the sum-total of her convictions, worked out into the form of a thorough scientific system by a mind of the first order—Augustine.”

For snakebite, something more is demanded than a pleasant bedside manner.

TODAY’S THEOLOGY

What splendor of illumination shone from the July 16 editorial, “Modern Theology at the End of Its Tether,” and Dr. Bernard Ramm’s article, “The Labyrinth of Contemporary Theology”! It is on the highest intellectual levels that this crucial struggle is joined; there it will be settled, and there you have given us this Spirit-moved writing.…

Memphis, Tenn. ROBERT M. METCALF, JR.

Upon returning home from the Open Theological Conference on “Worship in a Secular Age” at the American Baptist Assembly in Green Lake, Wisconsin, I was pleased to find in my mail the July 16, 1965, issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. After wading for a week through a plethora of modern theological opinion based for the most part upon the death of traditional transcendence and even the death of God himself for some, it was quite refreshing to read your editorial … and Bernard Ramm’s [article]. It seems quite clear to me that to try to theologize apart from the knowledge of God given in Sacred Scripture is not only ludicrous but is indeed an exercise in the vanity of vanities.… MYRON R. CHARTIER

Baptist Campus Minister

Fort Hays Kansas State College

Hays, Kan.

Congratulations on that editorial, “Modern Theology at the End of Its Tether”.… You struck some much-needed blows.

United Press International LOUIS CASSELS

Washington, D. C.

May I say how valuable and much needed is your editorial.… I would like to add my testimony to the barrenness of modern theology. I was converted five years ago and for two years lived a rather shallow Christian life. Then through circ*mstances I was jogged out of my complacency and felt led to proclaim Christ as my Saviour in believer’s baptism. It was from this point that I had a great hunger to discover what the Bible was all about and how relevant it was to life. I had certain ill-conceived ideas what was meant to be “evangelical” and “fundamentalist” and decided that I had better read some of the modern theologians. Surely, I reasoned, they know what the Bible is all about.

So I read—bits of Tillich, second-hand Barth, Bultmann, and Bonhoeffer, on through Honest to God and finally on to Van Buren’s The Secular Meaning of the Gospel. I confess I never got much more than halfway through the latter, for I am convinced that God through his Spirit was working in my heart and mind. I was becoming increasingly sickened by what I read—strangely enough since I didn’t know why or where to turn.

It was becoming clear that if these men were right, then the Gospel wasn’t a simple thing that “anyone” could believe in—salvation could only come to someone with a degree in philosophy, at very least! Well I haven’t got such a degree, and yet I was certain that Christ had died for my sins and lived in my heart by faith. Clearly then these men, for all their learning, hadn’t the answer.

In desperation I turned, at last, to the Bible itself and, having been recommended to a copy of the Revised Standard Version, I read First Corinthians, especially chapters one and two. Here in a God-illumined way was the answer—“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing … for the foolishness of God is wiser than men.…” As for the truths of God, “God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything.…”

It was a long painful struggle with my objections being met at every point by God. I was forced to the conclusion that if God has revealed anything to man, then he has revealed all to us in his Word. Anything short of an authoritative source of God’s revelation leaves us floating on the quicksands of “the wisdom of this world.”

Then in January of this year I “discovered” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, and I would like to express my gratitude, under God, for the way in which it has helped to build up my scanty knowledge and belief in his Word. It has been tremendously helpful to discover a magazine which is not afraid to discuss the broad spectrum of “modern theology” and yet makes it very clear where it believes that the source and touchstone of truth is to be found. R. E. IRELAND

Scraptoft, Leicester, England

At hand is the July 16 issue, with it reversion to a worn-out contention between two dead causes, fundamentalism and modernism.… Fundamentalists base their entire theological position in the accurateness and reliability of logical philosophy. And since life cannot even begin to have any part in logical philosophy, then obviously fundamentalism has nothing to do with life. Modernists based their theological position naïvely in scientism and had regarded themselves as superior to any philosophical view of life. This is where they had their most serious fault that was summed up succinctly in the main difference between modernism and fundamentalism: Modernists were lacking in clarity, and fundamentalists were lacking in charity. That is why both are defunct today, even though there are attempts by some so-called evangelicals to revive fundamentalism, and some liberals persist in defending modernism.

As for the neo-theologians, they are not looking for an infallible theology even as they are not looking for an infallible Bible. For that reason they aren’t concerned at all about the impossible differences among them, nor about logical coherency of their own positions. If after thorough examination they find their position to be untenable or impracticable, they feel no compunction at abandoning it and seeking for a more certain position.… The subject of analytical philosophy is raised in the editorial, the search for meaning and for clarification. But the neo-theologians are more intrigued with the ambiguity of their assertions than they are with any clarity of what they mean by what they say. Thus the neo-ists have the same fault as the former modernists, and haven’t settled anything.… A reader who is not dependent on logical tethers but only on faith in God can venture beyond those who are bound and witness to the truth of life as it is, and not as it is distorted in dead and dusty theologies that never were vital.

THOMAS D. HERSEY

The Methodist Church

Kellerton, Iowa

• Whoever wants a religion that abandons reason and logic can have it; biblical Christianity has no use for it.—ED.

Bernard Ramm has discerned the times and penetrated deep into the ills of contemporary theology in “The Labyrinth of Contemporary Theology.” This is no “uncertain sound” but rather a clarion call to a return to the “Holy Scriptures as the infallible source and norm of Christian theology.” West New York, N. J. MARY L. LYONS

Is it not the case that he wants to get out of intellectual perplexity, to escape from the labyrinth, and does he fail to consider the possibility that perhaps the assurance that we are meant to have is not the assurance that we know the answers?…

It seems clear to me that we do not know and cannot know ultimate answers about man, nature or God.… PHIL W. PETTY

Prestwick, Ayrshire, Scotland

Much of the abstract writing that pours off the presses as theology today is dead before the ink is dry. I suppose that much of this nit-picking in metaphysics and epistemology, etc., in graduate schools must be done, but one wonders whether the results impress either the Church or the world. Too much of it is like a vapor that vanishes almost as quickly as it appears.…

Euclid Avenue Methodist Church

Oak Park, Ill.

CHRIST AND THE NEW CONFESSION

The debate on the Confession of 1967, when it was presented for the first time to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (UPUSA) at Columbus in May, centered mainly around the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures as expressed in the new confession. Our historic creeds have referred to the Bible as the Word of God. The new confession reserves the use of that phrase, “the Word of God,” to Jesus Christ in his person. The Bible is spoken of merely as a “normative witness” to the revelation of God in Christ.

Whether, in the end, the witness of the Bible be declared “normative” or authoritative,” as some propose, the end result will be about the same. In either case the Bible will no longer be referred to as “the Word of God.” and its “authority” will be human and fallible.

Important as this is, the implications of the new confession about the person of Christ may be even more serious. Yet this matter received scant, if any, mention in the debate. Here are some basic questions that need to be asked:

1. If, as the preface of the Confession of 1967 states, “the Trinity and the Person of Christ are not redefined, but are recognized as forming the basis and determining the structure of the Christian faith,” why does Part I. Section I, Paragraph A, contain a long essay entitled “Jesus Christ”?

2. Why does the language of this section then paint a picture of Christ utterly different from the historic doctrines of the Church?

3. Since the humanity of Jesus is so strongly emphasized—as, for instance, in the first two sentences: “In Jesus of Nazareth true humanity was realized once for all. Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, lived among his own people and shared their needs, temptations, joys, and sorrows”—why is there not some equally clear statement as to his deity?

4. Why is the phrase “the Son of God” so studiously avoided? It is never used in the new confession.

5. Would there be objection also to the mention of the pre-existence of Christ, quite clearly taught in the New Testament and in all the ancient creeds?

6. Such recognition as there is in the confession of the uniqueness of Jesus seems to be connected entirely with the resurrection, where it uses the phrase, “vindicating him as Messiah and Lord.” Is it not implied that his “complete obedience” earned for him such recognition by God?

7. If the new confession even went so far as to call Jesus the Son of God, does it not leave the way completely open for an “adoptionist” view?

8. Why is there nothing in this confession to which a convinced Unitarian could object?

HOWARD CARSON BLAKE.

The First Presbyterian Church

Weslaco, Tex.

REGISTERED BY LETTER

It was annoying to find that my review of Father von Balthasar’s Word and Revelation (July 2 issue) had been deprived of any reference to the fact that it is a translation (by A. V. Littledale and A. Dru) of a volume originally entitled Verbum Caro. Since this omission disturbs the sense of what I say about the book, let the fact at least be registered by means of this letter. East Boston, Mass.

FRANKLIN VAN HALSEMA

MAY OUR READERS TAKE NOTE

You were right when you reported that as editor of Operation Understanding I had said I believed CHRISTIANITY TODAY most reliably reflected the opinions of the majority of American Protestants (Editorial, June 18 issue).

You were wrong when you said I “tempered the tribute” by adding I thought the Christian Century and Christianity and Crisis were more influential. There was no tempering of the tribute intended, only a recognition of some facts that, I believe, should concern the editors and readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

There are few libraries in the nation that do not subscribe to the Christian Century. Far fewer subscribe to CHRISTIANITY TODAY. The Christian Century and Christianity and Crisis reach many of our nation’s editors of daily newspapers, many of our legislators.

May I suggest that CHRISTIANITY TODAY would be much more influential if its subscribers made certain that their own public libraries subscribed and that local editors were on the mailing list.

Such an action by the readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY would make this publication more influential, because to be influential it must reach the general public and especially the opinion-makers of the nation.

As a Roman Catholic, I sincerely hope for an increase in dialogue between the evangelicals and our church. We hold so many important things in common that it would be wrong for us not to communicate with one another. In Christian love we may discover that many barriers that seem to exist do not really exist, and with charity we may discover that barriers that do exist may not be as insurmountable as they now seem. Our Sunday Visitor

Huntington, Ind.

Editor

‘PLAYBOY,’ DISCORD, SHAME, FEAR

Thank you for your excellent editorial on the subject of “The ‘New Morality’ and Premarital Sex” (July 2 issue). I consider it to be the best capsule statement of the Christian response to the question of premarital sex that I have read to date.… Playboy has little appeal to many of us who have seen the tragic results of premarital pregnancy and the discord and hurt it brings to homes.… Suddenly the fun is gone, and the rationalization of such permissiveness fades away with tears of shame and fear.…

Wesley Methodist Church

Dallas, Texas

THINKING MAN’S FILTER?

Why do you have to be always carping and criticizing the liberals in theology? They are as good Christians as fundamentalists and more needed in the world today where most people think for themselves.…

First Presbyterian Church

Clifton, Ariz.

I differ profoundly from you in my religious point of view, and just for that reason I read your columns the more carefully. Nothing is so deadening to the intellect and constricting to the personality as reading and listening exclusively to those with whom one already agrees. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge so well said: Until you understand a man’s ignorance, consider yourself ignorant of his understanding.…

East Falls, Pa.

The earthly history of Jesus ends in the sorrow, black as night, of the Cross. To this succeeds the dawn, bright with hope, of the Easter Resurrection. Cross and Resurrection go together, in the apostolic Gospel, as inseparable parts of human salvation. “Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Yet both, on different grounds, are centers of challenge by the modern spirit.

There is no disputing, naturally, the fact of the Crucifixion. As bare, historical occurrence, that stands unchallengeable by the severest skepticism. To Jew and Greek, from the first, Jesus was the object of reviling and scorn as “the Crucified.” It is not the fact of the Crucifixion, but its significance—the meaning with which it is clothed in the apostolic writings—which is put in question. The sympathy and indignation with which every right-thinking mind must contemplate the Cross as the instrument of a righteous man’s martyrdom, is far removed from the exultation in the Cross as the means of a world’s redemption which animated the mind of a Paul (Gal. 6:14).

In the case of the Resurrection, on the other hand, it is not simply the significance, but the fact itself, which is denied. The event we call the Resurrection, it is said, never happened. The disciples doubtless believed it did; they even founded the Christian Church on the preaching of this belief. But they were mistaken. It did not happen, for the reason that, as is strenuously affirmed, it could not happen. “There is no resurrection of the dead,” the Corinthian skeptics long ago protested (1 Cor. 15:12). It would be a “miracle” if Christ rose from the dead, and this, as Hume said, is something that “has never been observed in any age or country.” It must therefore be dismissed by intellectually minded people as incredible. The disciples only thought they had seen the Risen Christ. They had “visions,” which later tradition magnified into the stories of the Resurrection in the Gospels. But the body of Jesus never left the tomb. It lay there, or wherever else it had been put, and “saw corruption.” The spirit of Jesus may have survived, may now live with God. That depends on whether we have good reasons for believing in immortality. But this has nothing to do with the resurrection of the body.

The Cross and Resurrection go together in the Epistles, and the same is found when we consider their relation in the Gospels. In the same breath in which he foretold his approaching sufferings and death, Jesus predicted his rising again from the dead (Matt. 16:21; 17:23; 22:19, etc.). It could not be otherwise. If Jesus was what he claimed to be, death could not hold him.

If he was truly Redeemer, he must rise again. If his work of reconciliation was complete, this must be shown by manifest victory over death. If he died by voluntary act—his work accomplished—by voluntary act his life must be resumed (John 10:17, 18).

There can be no question, therefore, as to the importance of the place of the Resurrection in the Christian Gospel. The disproof of it, if such a thing were conceivable, would be the overthrow of Christianity itself (cf. 1 Cor. 15:14, 17). Despite apostolic belief, however, the Resurrection is challenged, and the evidence for it declared to be of no account. Searching criticism is applied to the gospel testimonies, and these are held to be so late in origin, so legendary in character, so varying in detail, that no reliance can be placed upon them. A counter-explanation must be sought—in self-deception, in mental hallucination, in Oriental myths, perhaps in part in fraud (Joseph of Arimathaea, or some other, hid the body!).

The answer to all this, briefly, is—that the witness to the Resurrection is that of the whole apostolic body and the whole apostolic Church, and, in the circ*mstances, these could not be mistaken in the grounds of their belief. The Church began, within a few weeks of the Crucifixion, at Jerusalem, and there was not a doubt in a single mind that the Lord had risen. They knew well all the facts of the Crucifixion and the events of the Easter morning, and bore steady and unshaken public testimony to what they had seen and known. A list of the chief appearances of Jesus to the Apostles and to five hundred brethren at once, the genuineness of which is beyond all dispute, is given by Paul in First Corinthians 15:3–8. This is supplemented by the more detailed narration in the Gospels of the early morning visit of the women to the tomb, their finding of the grave empty, and the message they received; then of the subsequent appearances to the disciples. Not once or twice, but repeatedly, under conditions that made hallucination impossible, Jesus is recorded to have manifested himself bodily to his disciples, conversed with them, eaten and drunk with them, given them his commands. This is what is testified, and the closest scrutiny of the narratives fails to break down their witness in its essential points.

Is there no confirmation? The Apostles believed that they received such at Pentecost (Acts 2), and the living Church since has had hourly experience of the presence, power, and working of a Holy Spirit which attests the divine source from which it comes. Christ in men, the hope of glory, is a continuous witness to the truth of Christ Risen and Exalted.—JAMES ORR

One of the most successful pastors I have known once told me that years ago an old seminary professor frequently said to his class, “In your sermons always have some word of comfort; there are broken hearts in every congregation.”

Another minister, who was at the time undergoing great sorrow and testing, said to me, “If God is not sufficient for me in this situation, then I have no right to preach, for I have been preaching his sufficiency for everything.”

Nothing turns us to the promises of God faster than sorrow. The psalmist wrote, “This is my comfort in my affliction that thy promise gives me life” (Ps. 119:50, RSV).

The treasures of earth are gaudy baubles when compared with the promises of God. Those passing through deep waters have claimed these promises and found them true. The “comfort of the Scriptures” is available to all God’s children.

When difficulties or sorrow lead us to a new and simple faith in the promises of God, only good can come. It can be affirmed that for every sorrow there is a promise, for every problem there is an answer.

The Bible makes clear distinctions between sorrows that are a part of human existence and those that stem from our own disobedience and sinfulness. Some people express sorrow because they have been caught in their evil acts. Others experience deep anguish of soul because they have offended a loving God and broken his holy laws. The Apostle Paul clearly differentiates between the two: “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death” (2 Cor. 7:10).

For the moment we are chiefly concerned with the sorrows which are an inevitable part of life and from which no Christian can hope to be completely exempt.

Death of loved ones and close friends always brings sorrow, but for that sorrow there is comfort. The resurrection triumph and the certainty of our Lord’s return prompted the Apostle Paul to write the Christians in Thessalonica, “We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For … through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.… Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thes. 4:13, 14, 18).

Although death is inevitable, there is the ever-present comfort of knowing that Christ has triumphed over it, removing its sting, and that he has promised the glories of eternity to his own.

Probably one of life’s greatest sorrows is to be found in distressing situations over which we have no control and for which we are not reponsible—the actions of others, their trials and problems that we share with them. It is often in hours of seemingly helpless agony that we find the answer and the comfort to be had in the promises of God’s Word.

Let those who will, scoff at our “lifting out” God’s promises from their “context” and, claiming them for our own. We have good precedent for so doing: the New Testament writers, and even our Lord, seem repeatedly to “take out of context” some part of the Old Testament Scriptures and apply it to the circ*mstance of the moment (Mark 12:10, 11, 36; Luke 4:21; 24:27, 44, 45, to cite a few instances).

The writer would stoutly affirm that for every sorrow there is a promise. We do not believe that the sorrows of life just happen; God permits them for his own holy purposes. Sorrows that stem from overt sin are intended to lead men to the One who cleanses and forgives. Sorrows that are an inevitable part of living in a dying world are intended to turn our eyes and hopes to the One who says, “I have overcome the world.”

Some of God’s greatest saints are to be found among those who have suffered most from life’s buffetings. Why? Because they have been driven to the One who alone can comfort and heal.

No one knew more than David the anguish that follows grievous sins. No one knew more than he the depressing sense of danger and frustration. No one had more cause to sorrow because of the waywardness of those dear to his heart. But David wrote: “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Ps. 34:17–19).

This is a statement of fact, a promise we can claim. It does not mean that our sorrows will be relieved as we might want them to be; it does mean that God works out his perfect will for those who trust him completely, and that some day we will be able to look back and say with Paul, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

In claiming God’s promises, we must balance the claim with faith. God gave Abraham a promise, but as time went on it seemed impossible, humanly speaking, for the promise to be fulfilled. Yet Abraham’s faith has been a challenge to every succeeding generation.

Once we are fully convinced that the promises of God find their “Yes” in Jesus Christ, we can and should claim them in his Name.

The Apostle Peter wrote to Christians experiencing multiplied trials that he did not look on the trials as burdens so much as means of grace. Speaking of the resurrection hope he says, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:6, 7).

Faced with sorrow, a Christian must recognize the love, mercy, and power of God. If repentance is needed, he must repent. If the issues are too complex for him to understand, he must trust in the sovereign wisdom of God. The Prophet Isaiah tells of man’s hope in God: “Thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isa. 57:15).

Sorrow is also one of the means by which God “disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:10, 11).

For the Christian there is always hope in sorrow. “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Ps. 30:5b).

The Christian can afford to wait for the morning, for Christ is also the Lord of that morning.

L. NELSON BELL

While the Communist sphere is officially committed to evolutionary atheism, the non-Communist world is notably uncommitted to anything

The late twentieth-century warfare of ideas aligns Christian theism and modern atheistic naturalism as the decisive alternatives; intermediary options maintain unstable and impermanent lines of battle. The Communist sphere is officially committed to evolutionary atheism. Meanwhile, the non-Communist world is notably uncommitted to anything; its ruling conviction is neither revelational theism nor dialectical materialism but rather an expanding skepticism. Devotion to the values of empirical science, brotherhood, and justice is affirmed in the loose context of a great variety of speculative views, both naturalistic and supernaturalistic.

The Soviet world regards Christian supernaturalism as an opiate of the masses, that is, as restrictive of revolutionary social change, perhaps largely in view of the role of Russian Orthodoxy in the past, although tactically it tolerates Christianity for its potentiality as a secular social solvent. The Western world, meanwhile, relates itself to Christianity sentimentally rather than merely tactically. While its universities neglect traditional Christian theism, most intellectuals are unable wholly to free themselves from its influence, and their world-life view tends to modify rather than entirely displace the inherited religious tradition. This Western welcome for isolated aspects of the biblical theism and retention of remnants of the traditional faith, even within the framework of naturalism, fails to impress Soviet philosophers; they consider, for example, the religious humanists’ appeal to agape as a moral absolute, a needless encumbrance on the achievement of revolutionary objectives.

Since the emergence of nineteenth-century Protestant liberalism, no feature of modern theology has been so obvious on the Continent and throughout the English-speaking world as its instability; the contemporary alternatives to historic Christian theology are predictably short-lived. The dialectical and the existential revisions proposed by modern European theologians have failed to attract permanent attention.

Anglo-Saxon theologians are already tracking new positions in a number of speculative orbits, and vocal spokesmen for the newer alternatives deliberately resist and reject recent dialectical-existential approaches. Neo-liberals are reviving the tradition of speculative metaphysics on a rationalistic base, linguistic theologians relocate the function of religious language to vindicate a role for affirmation about the supernatural, and religious naturalists abandon transcendent reality to concentrate on secular concerns, especially the social value of agape exemplified by Jesus. This reorientation of contemporary religious perspectives presages, in America and England at least, an imminent struggle between evangelical theologians supporting historic Christian theism and a new field of increasingly aggressive competitors.

While linguistic theologians surrender a literal affirmation of the transcendent aspects of religion in order to emphasize instead the therapeutic value of Christianity, neo-liberals promoting the revival of metaphysics stress a universal or general supernatural revelation with Jesus of Nazareth at the zenith. Orthodox Protestants meanwhile stress not only general revelation but also special revelation as a divine confrontation of fallen and sinful man, and over against recent anti-intellectualism they insist upon the rationality of supernatural revelation.

In this intensifying debate, the crucial issue is man’s conceptual knowledge of transcendent Being in an age that relies increasingly upon empirical science to validate its judgments. Despite historic Christianity’s bold insistence on man’s possession of authentic knowledge of the supernatural world, the claim to universally valid religious truths (even on the basis of special revelation) was openly forfeited by Protestant liberalism; post-Kantian thinkers like Ritschl and Herrmann and post-Hegelian thinkers like Schleiermacher were influential in defining the Christian faith in terms of trust independently of revealed truths. This surrender of the role of conceptual reasoning in man’s relationship to transcendent Being was carried forward in the past two generations by dialectical theology (Kierkegaard, Barth, and Brunner) and by existential theology (Bultmann and the post-Bultmannians). Dialectical and existential theologians protested the scientific reduction of man to an impersonal object and the explanation of concrete human existence in abstract scientific terms, outside any climate of enduring meaning and value. To vindicate man’s transcendence of the natural order, dialectical theologians emphasized the special supernatural confrontation of man as an individual person, while existential theologians stressed that the scientific concentration on sense experience ignores man’s volitional, emotional, and subconscious experience, especially the area of personal decision. Despite their fabrication of anti-intellectual theories of divine confrontation aimed to salvage non-cognitive faith from doubt and unbelief, the desperate attempt of dialectical and existential theologians to vindicate the supernatural has crumbled under the weight of conflicting claims, and has failed to earn wide public attention because of its disavowal of universally valid religious truth.

Neither the dialectical insistence on non-propositional revelation nor the existentialist emphasis on individual confrontation could long postpone a full surrender of the supernatural in the absence of objective knowledge of God valid for all men in all times and places irrespective of their personal feelings and response.

The modernist-dialectical-existential failure to insist upon man’s conceptual knowledge of any transcendent reality has, in fact, encouraged some religious thinkers to abandon entirely the case for the supernatural and to insist that scientific empiricism alone supplies valid knowledge. This is the standpoint of the “death of God” school, which brushes aside all interest in transcendent reality; it declares Christian theism outmoded and promotes a secular version of the inherited religion. Thus the modernist loss of biblical theism, and its substitution of radical trust in God for objective knowledge of God, has moved half-circle to the affirmation of religious naturalism, a form of atheism that escapes the harsh features of a thoroughly materialistic view of life only through its lingering attachment to the moral ideals of Jesus. Given the incompetence of reason to know transcendent Being, liberal theology has been increasingly vulnerable to analytical philosophy, which now dominates the philosophy departments in many if not most of the large universities in the United States, England, and Sweden. Its net effect is to make empirical verifiability the criterion of meaning.

The currents of atheism and agnosticism in modern thought flow from an underlying skepticism that has swept over much of Western thought during the past two centuries. The exaltation of the scientific method of gaining knowledge has been accompanied by a parallel distrust of man’s capacity to know God. If this skepticism is not to issue, in turn, in a pervasive nihilism and the loss of all meaning, modern man will need once again to recognize the possibility of knowing transcendent Reality. If beyond his remarkable but revisable insights into how things work (or seem to) he still desires to know anything truly, he will need once more to rise simultaneously to the knowledge of both nature and nature’s God.

Neither Moses, nor Isaiah, nor Paul—and surely not Jesus of Nazareth—would have conceded to the philosophers of our century, or of any other, that man has no rational knowledge or conceptual experience of the Living God. The first Christian apostles went out to face the pagan world of their day in the sure confidence of the knowledge of God; in fact, while the Greek philosophers contrasted faith and knowledge, the Apostle John boldly and repeatedly declared: “We know that we know.”?

Earlier this year freshmen at Ohio University were forecasting the changes likely to occur before their graduation in 1968. The population of the United States will surpass 200 million. Scientists will have landed a man on the moon and drilled a hole to the center of the earth. Distilled sea water will turn deserts into farmlands, and hurricanes and tornadoes will obey the commands of weather satellites.

President Vernon R. Alden of Ohio University noted that the biggest change will be in what men know. In a single day modern man now undertakes enough research to fill seven complete sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Robert Oppenheimer estimates that half of all the knowledge we have today was acquired over a period of ten thousand years. The remaining half has been acquired in the last fifteen—and this acquisition may be doubled in the next four or five years.

If American college students no longer view 1970 as a target date for Communist takeover and if, despite the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, they fully expect to live out most of their lives in the twenty-first century, there remains one development whose outcome is wholly predictable. Western intellectuals are losing God from their storehouse of knowledge through neglect of the most precious aspect of their heritage. This loss of an articulate relationship to transcendent reality—including changeless truth and fixed values—is stripping human life of a sense of durable meaning, purpose, and destiny. Scientists are spending millions trying to simulate the origin of life, while their fellow human beings still cannot govern the life they already have; immorality seems to escalate as scientific knowledge expands. Neither an infinity of sex nor leisure nor affluence compensates for the gnawing emptiness and dull monotony of sensual gratification. The quest for assurance that human life makes sense, that it has a goal beyond the round of daily cares, that the things that seem to matter more than bread and pleasure are not illusions—this uneasy search is the hallmark of modern living.

The great tragedy of the West is that the universities are not filling this vacuum. Philosophy departments are dominated by teachers who, if their devotion to the ultimacy of the scientific method is sound, ought in the quest for truth to be replaced by scientists. Even some theologians who seem often to be on speaking terms only with themselves (and surely not with God or the laity) are busy burying the Bible. College students are in search of a flag to fly, and long to be conquered by a commanding cause. But if the Christian heritage retains any meaningful challenge in the face of modern problems, few of their campus professors offer the slightest hint that this is so. All the more remarkable, therefore, is the fact that scientists themselves are speaking out as men of devout faith at a moment when a host of non-scientists tend to make science the pretext for their unbelief, and thereby show themselves naïve victims of scientism.

The campus revolution in America today carries ominous overtones. There is evidence that students are sometimes manipulated from outside, as well as confused inside the academic sphere. The serious implications of this manipulation have prompted former Congressman Walter H. Judd to comment that the Viet Nam crisis has brought to light a frightening public evidence of the highly organized apparatus “ready for the day of take-over.” One day 16,000 students showed up in Washington, paraded in protest, then melted away and went home. The promoters had felt the Viet Nam situation was threatening enough to take the risk of surfacing their effectiveness for the purpose of demonstrating. An army general who has been entrusted with the movement of thousands of men was shocked in disbelief over the efficient manipulation of student participants. “The very logistics of such an operation,” he said, “are fantastic.”

The professional agitators are obviously in our midst—smart, devious, and persistent. They capitalize on unrest in many areas of life, and those who become their unknowing dupes become the unwitting agents of national disintegration.

Why have some of our institutions of higher learning, once the very bulwark of the nation, become obstacles to patriotism and national preparedness and defense? Surely there is a connection between this and the fact that most of these institutions, once founded on Christian principles, have now lost their commitment to unchanging truth and fixed values. Deny God his rightful place and the life of the nation is soon destroyed. Ignore God and we shall most certainly find ourselves ignored by him when judgment comes.

Contempt for discipline in the home, in the university, and in the streets is but an elongated shadow of this separation from God.

When one adds the specter of men who manipulate the natural idealism of youth and who organize this into a revolt against virtues on which the nation was founded and by which it became great, he sees that we have reached a time of unquestioned peril. In times like these, institutions of higher learning are needed where God is given his rightful place in every area of life. Unless the student world finds Christ, it may soon discover that it has lost its freedom as well as its faith, and that its forecast of the future would have been sounder had students read the Bible as well as the Communist Manifesto.

It is noteworthy that the student body president at the University of California, Berkeley, made his personal commitment to Christ during the restless days of riot and revolution on the West Coast campus. He has, in fact, now joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ, to carry the good news of true freedom in Christ to other university students in America.

With Religious Liberty For All

The World Council of Churches is to be commended for the strong and clear position on religious liberty adopted by the Executive Committee of its Commission of the Churches on International Affairs at its annual session in New York. The resolution lists seven “essential requirements” of religious liberty. The first asserts that while there is a distinctively Christian basis of religious freedom, there is a civil freedom of religion that Christians not only claim for themselves but recognize as rightfully belonging to all men—of whatever religion or faith, or of none at all. Such freedom, the resolution urges, includes the right to manifest one’s religion in teaching, preaching, worship, and everyday private and public practice. No legal restrictions should be imposed upon this except such as are “solely in the interest of public order.”

The formulated statement is presented as the basis for the development of an international standard of religious liberty. It appeals to the nations of the world to alter their constitutions and their laws wherever necessary so that religious freedom will be a right enjoyed by all men.

The universal granting of religious freedom would be no more than a recognition of every man’s elemental right. This right of a man to be what he chooses before God would also pay rich dividends in the removal of internal causes of national political tensions that often break out into strife and bloodshed.

Adoption of a universal standard of religious liberty would also serve a reconciling purpose between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The WCC’s resolution indicates that members of the Executive Committee of its CCIA “at various times had expressed concern about situations in which Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion.” The action is doubtless intended as a friendly nudge in the ribs of the Second Vatican Council, which last session failed to vote on its own resolution on religious liberty because of differences of opinion over the theological basis of such liberty. The Vatican would do better to speak out on religious liberty even before it can find its theological basis, than by Its silence to undercut what—as late as 1965—it cannot yet theologically justify. Here too it holds true that justice delayed is justice denied.

Confessional Troubles

Many Protestant denominations are re-evaluating their traditional doctrinal positions. The multiplicity of confessional statements from all corners of Christendom seems to equal that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the denominational boundary lines were drawn dividing Romanist, Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed. While the older statements had teeth in them and were accompanied by the traditional damnamus as a warning to those who dared to disagree, the newer ones have a more friendly tone in their attempt to be more embracing. Conventions adopting the newer statements of faith bend over backwards explaining that there is only a minimum of obligatory nature in them. The lack of any serious confessional commitment is seen in that members of certain denominations are given a choice on which statement of faith will be the norm of their faith—even if such statements are so different as to be obviously contradictory.

A clue to Christendom’s confessional troubles has been given by Dr. Peter Brunner, professor on the Protestant Faculty at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Dr. Brunner claims that confessional troubles are really rooted in a denomination’s attitude to the Scriptures.

In a lecture first given before the Theological Commission of the Lutheran World Federation and later printed in a collection of theological writings in 1963 (Das Bekenntnis im Leben der Kirche), he makes the rather blunt statement that Protestant Christianity already “has lost the concrete authority of the Scriptures.” Because of this fact, it is impossible for the Church to arrive at any consensus on the content of the Gospel. He goes on to say that since the Scriptures are unclear to most Protestants, a binding commitment to any sort of confession is senseless.

Speaking of the situation in Germany, Dr. Brunner points out that the Lutheran churches at the time of the Reformation acceped the christological and trinitarian formulations of the early Church for the sake of the Holy Scriptures. They wanted no new confession but desired only to assent to the true ecumenical tradition of the Church. This confessional commitment, as they understood it, deterred them from uniting with either the Roman Catholics or the Anabaptists.

To correct the present situation within the Church, Dr. Brunner calls upon Christendom to do away with what he calls the “paralysis” of the last two hundred years, during which a rationalistic attitude toward Scripture has degraded confessional statements of the past to mere historical documents. In a rather stern warning that contains its own damnamus, Dr. Brunner says: “If the Lutheran church does not dare to assert the central content of the Gospel in an obligatory way according to the church’s obligatory witness to this apostolic Gospel as it is found on every single page of her Confessions, then she has renounced the Spirit of God, who is looking for an expression of our faithfulness to the apostolic Gospel right here and now in our own historical situation. If we cannot do this, then we have no other choice but to beseech the Spirit of God for His mercy.”

In the inner sanctum of high ecumenical meetings, lack of communication has often been made the scapegoat for confessional difficulties within various denominations. Dr. Brunner puts the blame squarely on the attitude toward Scripture. Confessional confusion and the lack of confessional unity can be traced back to a lack of unity on the Bible. Before another denomination writes and adopts still another “confessional” statement updating or replacing the older traditional ones, perhaps it would be best for member congregations to see whether confessional change is really only symptomatic of deeper problems involving the heart of the Gospel and the authority of Scripture.

Uneasy Doubts In A Free Society

While most Americans stand solidly behind President Johnson’s determination to deter Communist aggression in Viet Nam, it is true also that uneasiness is increasingly evident over both foreign and domestic affairs. The fate of freedom in our time is a mounting concern.

In foreign affairs many Americans feel the present stalemate in Viet Nam is due largely to an inherited national policy of “too little and too late” response to Communist initiative. There is complaint, also, over a disposition in high places to withhold information that the public—in a free society—thinks it has a right to know. Assurances about the duration and success of the Vietnamese struggle have been so frequently altered as to cast doubt upon the reliability of official pronouncements. Most Americans want to get out of Viet Nam as soon as possible. But many are convinced that any withdrawal that yields an inch to Communist control is too soon. They are distressed, moreover, over reports that Russia’s debt to the United Nations may be placed on a voluntary basis while other nations remain obliged to meet their bills.

On the domestic scene anxieties are equally conspicuous. While political leaders commendably wave the flag of freedom in the face of Communist ambition abroad, and commendably secure equal voting rights for all citizens at home, they are too responsive to vested political interests, too alert to propaganda benefits, too one-sidedly sensitive to minority ambitions.

The insistent question is this: Is America canceling the legitimate rights of some to advance the legitimate rights of others? Do politicians face the issues of freedom in a sufficiently broad context?

It is disturbing that the voting rights bill in penalizing irresponsibility in voter registration may override constitutionally guaranteed rights of states to determine the qualification of voters. The week the voting rights bill became law, moreover, the House of Representatives voted to destroy state “right to work” laws. Even the editorially liberal Washington Post spoke against the proposed repeal of Section 14 (b): “We doubt that the time is now ripe, and the vehicle being rushed through Congress is far from being an appropriate one.” While labor leaders retain a stifling grip on workers, and their powerful unions remain free from controls imposed on other corporations, the time may in truth never be ripe.

Freedom of conscience is a precious facet of a free society, which dissolves its own will to win where men must fight abroad for what they fear is not being adequately preserved at home.

Mission Or Omission?

“The Church is mission.” This seemingly harmless, if enigmatical, cliché has become a cornerstone for some and a stumbling block for others. It epitomizes a new philosophy of the Church’s nature and task, a philosophy that shifts emphasis in theology from content to context, and in preaching from individual salvation through faith to social reform through action.

Conceived by leaders within the National Council of Churches, this philosophy is now being implemented by many denominational leaders already sold on its validity. Yet in almost every major denomination there is growing alarm as the implications of this new concept become clear. “Mission, the Christian’s Calling”—the slogan for this year—shelves the historic concept of world missions and personal evangelism in favor of social interest in environmental change. The recommended film for this year deals with race relations; that for next year stresses the implications of poverty in the midst of affluence. This emphasis simply coincides at many points with President Johnson’s vision of the Great Society, and its “gospel” scarcely retains any recognizable connection with apostolic evangelism.

Many sincere Christians long for the Church to recapture the warmth of her first love so that she shall preach, teach, and live Jesus Christ as man’s one hope. Evangelical Protestants are not indifferent to the embodiment of moral values in social structures, but they resist ecclesiastical efforts to make the Church an agency of political power that imposes Christian values by legislative compulsion. Renewed emphasis on the spiritual mission of the Church will inevitably activate the sense of social responsibility among individual Christians. Moreover, it will confute the adolescent notion that unregenerate men are the stuff of which a great society can be fabricated.

Questions, But No Answers

Twenty years after Hiroshima, Pope Paul has voiced the sentiments of most of humanity in decrying the terror and depredation of the first atomic bombing. He described it as an “infernal massacre” and an “outrage against civilization,” and added: “We pray that the world may never again see such a wretched day as that of Hiroshima; that never again may men put their confidence, their calculation and their prestige into such disastrous and dishonorable weapons.”

Pope Paul here raises several important and historic questions which he apparently makes no attempt to answer:

1. Was the horror of the bombing such that it proved terribly mistaken President Truman’s decision—with which Winston Churchill concurred—to use the bomb to end the war?

2. Is the Pope refining the just-war theory traditionally held by Roman Catholics by distinguishing between honorable and dishonorable weapons?

3. Is Pope Paul forgetting that, regrettable as it is, the present “peace” is the result of a “balance of terror” and that in maintaining this peace the world’s leading diplomats are even now putting their “prestige” and “calculation” in “such disastrous and dishonorable weapons”?

Everyone should feel the horror of the devastation and human suffering that have become synonymous with Hiroshima. But this can be expressed in most poignant terms without the accompaniment of a myopic vision of present and painful political realities.

Presbyterian Worship: Its Meaning and Method, by Donald Macleod (John Knox, 1965, 152 pp., $3.25), is reviewed by Edward L. R. Elson, minister, The National Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C.

This book arises out of two pressing needs: first, the need of an adequate textbook for theological education (the last one being C. W. Baird’s Presbyterian Liturgies, published in 1851), and second, the need of parish ministers for a convenient reference manual. Dr. Macleod’s book admirably meets both requirements. On the whole, the book is historically, theologically, liturgically, and functionally authentic.

At the outset the author properly points out that the Presbyterian or Reformed church, when true to itself, is a liturgical church: “The issue in Presbyterian churches is not, nor can it ever be, a matter of liturgical versus a non-liturgical service. The problem has been bad liturgy—shapeless and formless—and the search for proper means by which it might be reformed and improved” (p. 11). Accordingly, Dr. Macleod takes note of the corruption and distortions that have come into Presbyterian worship from non-Presbyterian sources as the Presbyterian Order of the Holy Catholic Church has moved through the centuries since the great sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation.

In his first chapter, which has to do with “meaning” in worship, the author outlines the theological basis of common worship as being anchored to the creeds and confersions of the Presbyterian Church. He emphasizes the teachings and practices of the Great Reformers, especially John Calvin, Diebold Schwarz, and Martin Bucer. Common worship is the “one distinctive and essential task of the Church,” the high occasion for the people who are the body of Christ.

Based upon the intention of the Great Reformers, Presbyterian worship is catholic in origin and evangelical in spirit. The Church is the whole family of God’s people, redeemed by Christ, gathered around the table over which the living Christ presides as host and feeds his people by Word and sacrament. In this worship, the Word of God from Scriptures and the Word mediated to the people by the sermon are relieved of the medieval practice of prayers to saints, exultation of the Virgin, and the mass as a sacrifice. Presbyterian worship restores both the sermon and the spirit and practice of the Upper Room. John Calvin and other Great Reformers of the sixteenth century doubtless would be appalled at what they might observe on entering some contemporary churches. For What they might observe is not what they intended—one holy catholic and apostolic church reformed. Dr. Macleod recovers the Presbyterian heritage, interprets its meaning, and points the way for valid Reformed worship today.

The second chapter outlines worship as including preparation, the liturgy of the Word, the response by offering and sacrament, the prayers, the benediction, and reverent withdrawal. The author enhances this discussion with many practical suggestions. Another chapter has to do with the sacrament of baptism as the symbolic act of the new life in Christ and the admission badge for a member of the church. Dr. Macleod’s chapter on the Lord’s Supper is one of his chief contributions. The actions by minister and people are seen in proper sequence, and the practical suggestions for ruling elders and musicians are very helpful. We wish there could be a renewal of the practice of the preparatory service, which in its own way was the Protestant equivalent of the confessional.

There are chapters on weddings and funerals which, though in part elemental, contain many profitable instructions for the elimination of non-ecclesiastical procedures. Throughout the book the author touches upon many overlooked little items that can add to the refinement of the minister and the people at worship.

The discussion of the minister’s vestments is helpful. In the Reformation, sacerdotal and eucharistic vestments were discarded and the cassock retained as the basic dress, along with the “Geneva gown” for the service. This was an essential part of the Reformation. Dr. Macleod’s comments on the use of stole, scarf, or tippet need further clarification.

The book contains a glossary of terms that is sufficiently inclusive for Presbyterian churches, and an ample bibliography. The author is familiar with the vast number of works on various aspects of worship, and he draws upon his bibliography in almost every paragraph. Indeed, though he writes precisely and clearly, Dr. Macleod’s book would read more easily with more of Macleod and less of his sources.

This book is thorough in concept, structure, movement, and expression. There are inspiring passages for the active pastor. Let us hope that it will be used to improve both the understanding and the practice of worship where it is lax or defective, and to bring deepened appreciation where Presbyterian worship is already authentic. Its title, Presbyterian Worship, will not limit its usefulness to that family of churches. It ought to and will appear in the studies of pastors and teachers in many denominations.

Trimmed To Fit The Task

The Office of Bishop in Methodism: Its History and Development, by Gerald F. Moede (Abingdon, 1964, 250 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Gerald Kennedy, Bishop of the Los Angeles Area, The Methodist Church, Los Angeles, California.

When Methodism was founded as an independent church in America, it separated from John Wesley’s control. It established general superintendents with power to direct and supervise the ministers and their work. These men soon came to be called “bishops,” and the Methodist episcopacy was established and became, in many ways, a unique office. While Wesley was to all intent and purposes a bishop, he shied away from the title, probably because of some unfortunate experiences with bishops in the Church of England. In a letter to Francis Asbury, the first Methodist bishop in America, he wrote: “Men may call me a knave or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never by my consent call me Bishop!” That is plain enough.

Gerald F. Moede has written a history of the development and changes in this office from the beginning to the present. It is a good, scholarly job that will please students of church history. Yet its style is easy enough to carry the interest not only of specialists and experts in the field but also of serious-minded laymen. And in discussing one office in the Methodist Church, the author tells the wider story of Methodism. For the episcopacy has been the center of the church’s life, and in the conflicts around it, the main advances and modifications of Methodism are apparent.

There is, for one thing, the power struggle and the decisions concerning final authority. Over the years the principle was established that the General Conference is the ultimate authority in the Methodist Church and that the bishops are subject to its directions and restrictions. This was done gradually and in a sense naturally, as the church adjusted its life to the new land. It is quite clear that the practical nature of Wesley carried over into the life of his spiritual children who separated themselves from him. The main thing was to get the job done, and because Methodist bishops were important for this accomplishment, their office has grown and been trimmed to fit this main task. The Methodist doctrine of the itineracy has left the appointment of ministers in the hands of the bishops.

It is significant that the episcopal office was at the center of the church’s growing recognition of itself as a world church. The concept of “missionary” bishops proved inadequate, and Moede shows how the polity was adapted to recognize Methodists in all countries as of equal status. Methodist bishops find their equal status affirmed by membership in the Council of Bishops with the privilege of voting on all matters affecting all parts of the church. Moede calls one of the sections of his book “A True International Methodist Episcopacy.”

But the place toward where all of this is pointing, according to the author, is union with the Anglicans. He believes that this is God’s will and that the episcopacy is the first hurdle that must be leaped. I got the impression that nothing is important enough to stand in the way and that Methodists ought to yield gladly to the Anglican doctrine of “apostolic succession.” While both traditions would benefit from union, it is plain enough that the adjustment would be pretty much on the Methodist side. Personally, I would find it very easy to accept consecration or ordination from any other tradition, if it would help the others to receive me as a brother. I remember that the late Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam said the same thing to an Anglican bishop one time. But the answer was that he not only must go through the ceremony but also must believe that something important has happened. This is where I would find the difficulty, because, like Wesley. I do not believe it has ever been proved, and, even if it were proved, I do not think it is very important. Certainly it is not essential.

Indeed, I think it may be true that the Methodist doctrine of the episcopacy may be nearer the New Testament thought and practice than the later doctrine of “apostolic succession.” But this young man is zealous for the cause of union, and he wants Methodists to put no stumbling block in the way. I do not find myself quite so anxious to discard something that works for a new arrangement that is theoretically enticing but still untried.

GERALD KENNEDY

She Returned To Tell

Beyond All Reason, by Morag Coate (Lippincott, 1964, 227 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Ralph Heynen, hospital pastor, Pine Rest Christian Hospital, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

This is an autobiography of a person who, having faced and overcome the frightening experience of schizophrenia, is now able to tell in a graphic way of the struggles of her soul. Many of us have observed persons with delusions and hallucinations, but it is particularly valuable to have a first-hand account of such experiences.

In the second half of the book the author interprets many of her feelings and thoughts, laying special emphasis on the spiritual factors in her illness. She had moved away from the “safer realms of organized religion” and gradually drifted off into rationalism. At the onset of her first attack she felt that she was given special powers to commune with God, and even with the spirits of the dead. But she had a problem of communication: God did not speak to her. She then lost the solace of her childhood faith and moved through spiritual doubts to an open denial of the existence of God.

She had five schizophrenic breaks in fourteen years. During the last hospitalization she established a very warm therapeutic relationship with her psychiatrist and gradually was led back to sanity. When she recovered, she found a strange existential view of religion. “I may convince myself that I do not believe there is a God, but I find that I love him still.”

There are many books on schizophrenia, but few so well describe the terrifying feelings and thoughts that are part of a schizophrenic break. Miss Coate’s constructive comments on psychiatrists, psychologists, hospital chaplains, nurses, and mental hospitals show the deep desire of a patient to be treated as a real person.

This absorbing and well-written book should interest all pastors, as well as psychiatrists, psychologists, and others concerned with mental health. Although we would not agree with her conclusions on religion, the author makes an important contribution to the subject of the relation between religion and psychiatry.

RALPH HEYNEN

Feel The Winds Blow

Journal of a Soul, by Pope John XXIII (G. Chapman, 1964, 453 pp., 42s. [also by McGraw-Hill, $7.95]), is reviewed by Angus W. Morrison, minister, St. Ninian’s Priory Church, Whithorn, Scotland.

This is a good book, well illustrated, well translated, well compiled. It is neither an autobiography nor a balanced collection of material for a biography. The “Journal” is two-thirds of the book, and this is a spiritual diary sometimes full, sometimes scanty. Half of it covers the years of formation, 1895–1904, and the other half the long working life, 1905–63. The last third of the book contains spiritual testaments, considerations, maxims, and, above all, prayers. There is a full chronology. The book is a model of its kind, but the impression Pope John has made on the world will give it wider range.

The whole volume is alive with invocations, to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, to his “Fathers in God.” Without them, and without the warm sunshine and shade, the yoke of the seminarist would have been heavy indeed. “Sic decet …” said the decree of Trent, in establishing the system of clergy training: “Thus it is fitting in every way that clergy … should so order their lives and habits that in their dress, gestures, gait, conversation and all other matters they show nothing that is not grave, controlled and full of religious feeling; and let them also avoid minor faults which in them would be very great.…” Obedience does not always bring peace, in its fullest sense, to men under discipline; but the conjunction “Obedientia et Pax” can be seen from these pages to have been a rightly chosen motto of life. With obedience to the rule came obedience to military service, to “monotonous years” at apostolic delegations, to old age, to “allowing others to dress me.”

There are few references to world events. In 1903 he is at Rome when King Edward VII and Emperor William have papal audiences within days of each other; to say that the latter was “willy-nilly” a source of distraction may be the translator’s joke, though in the Johannine spirit. But the echoes of war are for the reader to supply. One might catch a change of note when we reach the years after the Second World War in France; perhaps he feels exposed to a colder wind within the church than among the Muslims and schismatics of the East. Those same winds were blowing in industrial Milan: may all the successors to the “Chair of Peter” feel them also!

If we are grateful for the inspiration that brought the Second Vatican Council to birth, we might reasonably include this spiritual diary in our background reading. Its author, looking on his first writings some sixty years after “as if they had been written by someone else,” blessed the Lord for them.

ANGUS W. MORRISON

Good Critique

Toward a Theology of History, by J. V. Langmead Casserley (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965, 238 pp., $6), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, professor of history, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina.

The neo-orthodox and existentialist emphasis on history and its meaning has called forth a more general quest for the answer to the meaning of history. Many of these efforts are of little value because they proceed on the assumption that the meaning of history is to be found within the stream of human events; that is, that history supplies its own meaning. Dr. Casserley is to be commended for repudiating this assumption and for looking for the meaning of the human past in theology. He rightly sees all these other approaches as misleading and futile.

He takes the positivists and the behaviorists to task for their failure to interpret the facts of history, and he also rejects the approach of Bultmann and his school because they fail to give an adequate historical foundation for biblical revelation. Although he pays high tribute to Toynbee’s Study of History as the best approach to the problem of the meaning of history since Augustine’s City of God, he also criticizes him for sharing some of the weaknesses of Spengler and for leaning too heavily on the position assumed by the comparative religionists. Casserley is at his best in his careful criticisms of the various contemporary schools of historical interpretation.

Although the author rightly sees that the real key to the understanding of history is to be found in the theological approach, it is at this very point that his own weaknesses begin to appear. The basic weakness is apparent in the first pages, where we find a denial of the orthodox view of revelation and of the inspiration of the Scriptures. Insisting that his view of revelation is not that of neo-orthodoxy, he nevertheless holds that the Scriptures do not teach doctrines but only present the revealing acts of God by which he becomes known to man. On the other hand he rejects the favorite cliché of the neo-orthodox school that revelation is non-propositional in form and prefers the term “non-oracular” to describe his view of revelation, asserting that the idea of an oracular revelation from God is a scandal.

This nebulous view of the authority of the Scriptures allows Casserley quite a bit of freedom in his interpretation of the content of the biblical message, and he uses this freedom to reject the orthodox doctrine of creation in favor of the theory of evolution and the idea that the account of Adam and Eve is a myth (despite his insistence elsewhere that revelation must take place through historical events).

The author does set forth a theology of history (particularly on pages 152 to 185), which he builds around the concepts of sin, eschatology, time and eternity, and freedom. But it leaves much to be desired and will be quite unacceptable to evangelicals in general. In his theology he fails to do justice to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, and he falls far short of the biblical position on the sovereignty of God, human sin, election, and the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The real value of this work lies in its criticisms of contemporary approaches to the meaning of history apart from the Scriptures. This reviewer could wish that the author had built upon the sure foundation of the inspired Scriptures in his effort to correct current philosophies of history which he rightly regards as false.

C. GREGG SINGER

Preaching Is Bifocal

Preaching To Be Understood: The Warrack Lectures on Preaching, Church of Scotland, by James T. Cleland (Abingdon, 1965, 128 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by James D. Robertson, professor of preaching, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

The 1964 Warrack Lectures on Preaching came from a Scot who is currently professor of preaching and dean of the chapel at Duke University. Here is a stimulating treatment of problems of vital interest to the contemporary pulpit. In our age of many voices, the writer in an opening chapter places strong emphasis on the Word as the activity of the living, personal Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer made known in the Bible, in the Spirit, and in the tradition of the Church. Not everyone, however, will agree with the statement, “The Bible is not the Word of God, but the Bible contains the Word of God” (p. 16). The chapter dealing with sound principles of biblical interpretation is interlaced With witty but conscience-smiting examples of the homiletical sin of eisegesis.

Perhaps the richest part of this slender volume is that which discusses the need for the minister to realize that contemporary preaching is bifocal—it concerns itself with both the historic faith and the people in the pew. Together these constitute the Word. “The Word of God is constantly, in the biblical records, the linking of revelation with a Contemporary Situation” (p. 43). The preacher must understand that his immediate job is to relate the sermon to the hearer, with a conscious purpose in mind. A final chapter seeks to show that communication is possible only when pulpit and pew are aware that each depends on the other. If thorough preparation of the sermon is the sine qua non of the pulpit, earnest, cooperative listening is the responsibility of the pew.

Drawing on his experiences in pastorate and classroom, Dr. Cleland stays close to the daily experiences of today’s minister. Not least commendable in these lectures is his fertility of imagination and wit, which again and again conspire to kindle truth into a flame.

JAMES D. ROBERTSON

End Of The Line?

Hume, Newton and the Design Argument, by Robert H. Hurlbutt, III (University of Nebraska, 1965, 221 pp., $5), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor,CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The author’s penetrating thesis is that natural theology and its prime support, the design argument, have reached the end of the line as a logical proof for the traditional supernaturalistic God. He concedes that theology and religion in general do not share the fate of the design argument, since they may be defended on other grounds. Misled, however, by neo-orthodoxy’s skepticism concerning the role of reason in its appeal to revelation, and by linguistic philosophy’s surrender of a cognitive basis for theology, he excludes reason as one of biblical religion’s resources, since the only cognitive justification he allows is empirical and scientific.

CARL F. H. HENRY

A Miss

The Reformation of the Church, edited by Iain Murray (Banner of Truth Trust, 1965, 414 pp., 15s., paperback), is reviewed by Geoffrey S. R. Cox, vicar of Gorsley with Clifford’s Mesne, Gloucestershire, England.

One is sometimes disappointed by the contrast between the promise of a title and its fulfillment. An instance of this is The Reformation of the Church. The blurb boasts such scriptural writers as Martin Luther, William Cunningham, Charles Hodge, and John Owen, and hopes are further raised by the claim that “among the subjects dealt with [my italics] are: The Regulative Principle and Things Indifferent … Episcopacy … New Testament Church Government, etc.” Alas for such hopes!

This “collection of Reformed and Puritan documents on Church issues” purports to be based on “the principle that Scripture is a sufficient and perfect rule for the ordering of the Church of Christ”—the regulative principle of Scripture—but in fact it never submits the question fully to the test of Scripture. It is therefore weak on what should have been its strongest point, the scriptural evidence; and, although intended primarily for the English situation, it never grasps the heart of the English problem. GEOFFREY S. R. COX

How To Serve

Servant of God’s Servants: The Work of a Christian Minister, by Paul M. Miller (Herald Press, 1964, 236 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Gordon J. Spykman, associate professor of Bible, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

This book is not laboriously academic but prevailingly practical. Its claim upon the reading public rests not upon intensive research but upon its broad scope of commentary upon parish service. It is not, however, shallowly pragmatic. The author explores pastoral problems within a sustained biblical-theological framework.

This book’s emphasis is quite consistent with its title, and it is a proper one: the minister is a servant to all God’s servants. Miller’s concept of Christian “servanthood” is, however, free of any syncretistic sell-out of congregational conviction to “worldly” accommodation. Ministerialism is neither jovial fraternalism, nor stuffy professionalism, nor aloof clericalism. The pastor’s calling is to help those servants of God whom he serves to help themselves in the fulfillment of their callings.

Miller reflects a vital awareness of the congregation as a community, a worshiping, serving community. The book is not strong in relating the life of the Christian community to the affairs of the community that surrounds it. But Miller’s organic view of the structures of the Christian Church offers a healthful antidote to the religious individualism all too characteristic of large segments of American Christianity.

This book on pastoral theology grew out of the Conrad Graebel Lectures of 1963. The author introduces himself frankly as a Mennonite, and he orients himself generally to Mennonite church life; yet his perspective is applicable to other communions as well. Many critical readers will question such points as the author’s views on infant innocence and on the universal atonement of Christ, the exclusion of infant baptism, the depreciation of the eucharistic presence of Christ, the view of man as “soul,” the tendency to ecclesiasticize Christian life, and the easy reference to “worldly” culture as secular.

No serious reader will fail, however, to benefit from the many keen biblical-pastoral insights, the pointed exposure of uncritically adopted patterns of parish practice, and the sane advice on the work of the minister.

As a starter or refresher, Miller’s book should prove to be a helpful servant to the servant of God’s servants.

GORDON J. SPYKMAN

Witness At Second

The Bobby Richardson Story, by Bobby Richardson (Revell, 1965, 159 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by L. Nelson Bell, executive editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Now and then there appears on the sports scene an outstanding athlete who is also an outstanding Christian. Such is Bobby Richardson, star second-sacker of the New York Yankees.

The highest tribute that can be paid any Christian comes from those who live with him and see in his daily living the Gospel he professes. This book is a testimony to what Christianity made of Bobby Richardson, a man his associates highly admire.

Ralph Houk, general manager of the Yankees, says: “He is the best second-baseman I have known. In short, he is the type of person I think all fathers would like to see their sons grow up to be.”

Tom Tresh, star outfielder of the Yankees, says, “He is an example of everything fine, not only as an athlete, but as a person.”

Richardson is an unashamed and articulate Christian, blessed with a fine Christian wife and four children. The frankness of his Christian testimony makes this book refreshing and inspiring. L. NELSON BELL

Tears Down Idols

The Greeks and the Gospel, by J. B. Skemp (Carey-Kingsgate Press, 1964, 123 pp., 25s.), is reviewed by J. Neville Birdsall, lecturer in theology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England.

This book presents in publication dress the W. T. Whitley Lectures for 1962. These lectures were founded in 1949 to “encourage Baptist scholarship, primarily in Great Britain.” The first four lectures, which form the first four chapters, were delivered to student audiences; the last chapter, an epilogue, has been specially written for the published work. From this history arise two features of the book: it is written in as simple and unpretentious a way as its subject matter allows, and it is frequently concerned with contemporary and denominational questions in the ecumenical setting. It may very well be that these two inevitable facets will detract from the book’s reputation in circles of pure learning. It will be a pity if this prediction is justified, for the book is founded on the secure scholarship which the tenure of a chair of Greek by the author implies.

If the reviewer has one major complaint and regret, it is that in this book Skemp has not subjected his fellow students of classical antiquity and the Bible to bibliographical bombardment and to the impact of argument in the language and full accouterments of scholarship. It is a book that demands further pursuit of the questions which it raises or reraises. I venture to think that not only the professional scholar will suffer from this defect but that the student still learning the rudiments may also suffer, because his tendency is to accept the printed word rather than to be challenged to examine again the matters under discussion. It should be added that the absence of such features may derive from economic publishing reasons rather than from the desire of the author.

The four lecture chapters deal with the subject primarily in the historical perspective. In the first chapter, the author takes issue with the fashionable dismissal of the Greek dress of the New Testament and the heritage of Greek thought and culture in the Church, forcibly arguing that while the Gospel is evidently not Greek, neither is it Jewish, for both Jew and Greek when encountered in the New Testament have as Christians been baptized into Christ. In the second chapter, he traces the contacts of the “ordinary Greek” with the Gospel, suggesting that he brought to the Church a valuable political awareness and that his often rehearsed vices were offset by some neglected virtues.

The third chapter deals with the “intellectual” Greek and rightly emphasizes the importance of speculative thought in the growth and maintenance of Christian understanding. “If we regard as perversions the Greek influences … we have to deny that the very language and forms of thought in which the New Testament writers wrote are a sufficient vehicle for the word of God” (p. 56). Chapter four deals with the “religious Greek” and is significant for its discussion of resurrection and immortality and of the meaning of baptism in the light of the mysteries. The final chapter summarizes the preceding and urges, though guardedly, the value of Plato for the Christian thinker. One is also refreshed to see emphasis on the Greek heritage of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

In all, Professor Skemp, true to the heritage of learning, is not afraid to challenge shibboleths and to tear down idols, and this he does to open his readers’ eyes to the truth—historical, philosophical, theological, spiritual. In this his book will succeed, and he is to be thanked for it.

J. NEVILLE BIRDSALL

Book Briefs

Two-by-Fours, by Charles M. Schulz and Kenneth F. Hall (Warner, 1965, 40 pp., $1). Whimsical counsel to adults dealing with children in the two-four age group, particularly in relation to church; fortified by two dozen cartoons with captions like: “Just when I was getting strong enough to defend myself, they start telling me about sharing!”

Great Heresies and Church Councils, by Jean Guitton (Harper and Row, 1965, 101 pp., $4). A Roman Catholic philosopher muses over seven crises in the Roman church (the sixth is the Reformation; the seventh, the present day), seeing in all of them a similarity that in the flow of history tightens and concentrates. He detects a receding of the negative element in every heresy, and a converging of the affirmative elements which, under God, may surprise most of us. A kindly spirit and keenly perceptive mind provide provocative reading. A book that is utter delight for the thinking Christian.

A Synoptic Philosophy of Education, by Arthur W. Munk (Abingdon, 1965, 276 pp., $4.50). Dr. Munk’s book is partially described by its title and does not fully live up to its subtitle, A Unified and Adequate Philosophy of Education for Our Times. Eclecticism, particularly when advocated by one so deeply committed to theological liberalism as Dr. Munk, is not the answer to the desperate need for a consistent God-centered and biblically oriented philosophy of education.

Write the Vision!: A Biography of J. Edwin Orr, by A. J. Appasamy (Christian Literature Crusade, 1964, 254 pp., $2). The informative story of thirty years of evangelistic itinerating by the evangelist who left Belfast to purvey the Gospel by bicycle, train, and jet in 140 countries.

Paperbacks

Of Sex and Saints, by Donald F. Tweedie, Jr. (Baker, 1965, 73 pp., $1). The author says much more with much less fuss than most.

The Church of the 21st Century: Prospects and Proposals, by Richard Sommerfeld (Concordia, 1965, 103 pp., $1.50). A critique of the Church by one who loves it. Good reading, especially for laymen.

Declaration of Dependence: Sermons for National Holidays, by John H. Baumgaertner (Concordia, 1965, 135 pp., $2). Good sermons in a category where good sermons come hard.

The Epistle to the Colossians: A Study Manual, by Charles N. Pickell (Baker, 1965, 70 pp., $1.50).

The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, by Samuel Bolton (Banner of Truth Trust, 1964, 230 pp., 4s. 6d.). A discussion of the place of Law in the Christian life. Though first published in 1645, it is remarkably relevant in the current climate of opinion about Law.

A Christian Introduction to Religions of the World, by Johannes G. Vos (Baker, 1965, 79 pp., $1.50). Brief, lucid; good for church study groups.

Anti-Semite and Jew, by Jean-Paul Sartre (Schocken Books, 1965, 153 pp., $1.45). First published in 1946.

The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, by P. T. Forsyth (Eerdmans, 1964, 357 pp., $2.25). Almost a Christian classic.

Invasion Alert: Rising Tides of Aliens in Our Midst, by Mary Barclay Erb (Goetz Company Press, 1965, 100 pp., $1.50). “Documented exposé of the army of aliens and foreign born in our midst.”

Outlines for Preaching, by Walter L. Moore (Broadman, 1965, 80 pp., $1.50). A preacher who profited much from the sermon outlines of others gives some of his own.

Stewardship Illustrations, edited by T. K. Thompson (Prentice-Hall, 1965, 112 pp., $1.50).

The Body of Christ: A New Testament Image of the Church, by Alan Cole; Called to Serve: Ministry and Ministers in the Church, by Michael Green; and Confess Your Sins: The Way of Reconciliation, by John R. W. Stott (Westminster, 1965; 90, 95, and 94 pp.; $1.25 each). Scholarly and biblical. Good reading for both ministers and laymen.

What is religion’s role in ‘Great Society’ program for labor, welfare, education?

A legislative blitzkrieg hit the Capitol this summer. It pleased many churchmen who support welfare causes, but long-range implications of government’s increasing involvement were disquieting to others.

Bills approved—or likely to be—covered voting rights, public housing, Medicare, immigration, poverty-program extension, and aid to higher education.

When the dust had settled, one casualty was the Senate attempt to block reapportionment of state legislatures on the “one man, one vote” principle. The National Council of Churches had testified against the bill.

Another casualty, in the House, was a religious exemption in the repeal of the “right to work” law. But the Senate labor subcommittee voted August 12 to include such an exemption in its version of the bill.

With the new federal thrusts, Baptists are pondering what to do about college aid, and Lutherans are asking aloud whether churches still belong in welfare work at all.

And strict church-state separationists are going to court in Kansas City, challenging use of Catholic schools for pre-school training under the anti-poverty program.

That project, however, is paled by a $7 million blockbuster in Mississippi, described by Director R. Sargent Shriver of the Office of Economic Opportunity as the “boldest” project yet. A non-profit corporation formed by the Catholic Diocese of Natchez-Jackson plans to train 25,000 adults now considered unemployable.

About 100 religious organizations already have enlisted in the war on poverty. John J. Adams, lawyer in the Kansas City suit for Americans United for Separation of Church and State,¹The agency is separating the “Protestants and Other” from the front of its name. said the poverty bill was rushed through without proper scrutiny of church-state issues.

Rep. John H. Buchanan (R.-Ala.), a Southern Baptist minister, sought unsuccessfully to get an amendment to the law barring religious groups from grants.

The House’s blanket right-to-work repeal would affect many Seventh-day Adventists and others whose faith forbids union membership. Rep. Edith Green (D.-Ore.), a strong labor supporter, sponsored the exemption and told the House that national legislation is needed because Adventists “often run up against a stone wall” when negotiating with locals. Under her plan, and the Senate proposal, objectors would contribute to non-religious charities in lieu of dues.

A furor developed when the three-man First Presidency of the Latter-Day Saints wrote Mormon congressmen asking votes against repeal because it violated man’s “right to free agency.” But the legislators asserted their own free agency and protested the Presidency’s move.

In contrast to House action on “right to work,” the Medicare bill signed by President Johnson included careful safeguards for minorities. Christian Scientists will get virtually the same coverage in their sanitoria as is provided for conventional institutions. Old Order Amish and other sects that believe insurance shows lack of faith are now freed from all Social Security assessments.

The bill also reopened until next April 1 the deadline for ministers to elect coverage. And it included a “living in sin” amendment that allows widows to keep Social Security benefits if they remarry. Previously, many couples had cohabited without marriage to keep the payments rolling in.

Growing dimensions of church-state interaction are dramatized in a study by the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs that shows aid is available to churches under at least 115 current federal programs.

Nearly half of these involve education, and Dr. C. Emanuel Carlson, committee director, said Baptists are rethinking not just aid as such, but whether distinctly Baptist schools should assume broader functions. He noted that the proposed higher education bill views colleges as wide-ranging community service centers.

For Lutherans, welfare is the problem. Missouri Synod leaders will confer in Chicago September 16–17 to consider the church’s role in the light of the poverty, housing and medical care programs. Synod self-examination is spurred also by plans to merge welfare efforts with other Lutheran groups.

Dr. Henry F. Wind, executive secretary of Missouri Synod’s welfare board, said this month that “churches are beginning to wonder whether they still have a place in the welfare field,” especially administration. If members don’t provide money, says James C. Cross, Wind’s assistant, “we are driving our agencies into the arms of the government.”

Crime And Cigarettes

President Johnson has declared another war—on crime. He named a national crime commission to spend eighteen months deciding what to do about the growing problem. The nineteen-member panel, headed by Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, includes no clergymen.

The commission was established the same day the FBI reported that major crimes increased 13 per cent during 1964. The study is to consider prevention and rehabilitation as well as enforcement.

The President also signed a bill requiring all cigarette packs, after January 1, to warn that “cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.”

The measure is not considered a major blow to tobacco interests, since they could have fared worse if regulation had been left to the Federal Trade Commission.

The Unsettling War

Viet Nam dominated August’s news. As President Johnson sent 50,000 more soldiers to Viet Nam with his right hand and floated a new peace balloon with his left, the war bothered Protestant leaders.

The National Council of Churches, paying its customary attention to headlines, formed a committee to work up a new policy statement on Viet Nam. The study group is headed by President Arthur S. Flemming of the University of Oregon, NCC vice-president and former secretary of health, education, and welfare in the Eisenhower Cabinet.

NCC President Reuben H. Mueller said August 11 as he appointed the committee, “There is no real consensus on Viet Nam among American Christians.”

The difficulties of Christian ministry in the midst of battle were highlighted by the murder last month of a young native pastor in the resettlement town of Le Thanh, near South Viet Nam’s border with Cambodia. The town was “turned over” to the Viet Cong as too difficult to defend. The pastor, unwilling to leave his flock, was slain by Red terrorists.

But there is a brighter side. A month-long series of tent meetings in the university town of Hue repeatedly drew overflow crowds. The location was strategic—right in the center of a city just 100 kilometers from the seventeenth parallel—as was the time, the traditional celebration of Buddha’s birthday.

The Rev. Gordon Cathey, minister of Saigon’s International Protestant Church, returning to the United States after his first year there, expressed cautious optimism. Cathey, who hitched a ride across the Pacific with retiring Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, said the war has created new spiritual introspection among the Vietnamese and the American soldiers who are filling the capital city to overflowing. Many Vietnamese now view both Buddhism and Roman Catholicism as political movements, he said, which has left a new opening for Protestant advance.

The NCC’s special study committee probably won’t be ready to formulate a new policy statement on the war until sometime this fall.

The council’s current position—a general endorsem*nt of America’s hopes for negotiations with United Nations assistance—necessitated profuse disclaimers when the NCC hosted five Japanese pacifists last month. The five, claiming to speak for the bulk of Japanese Protestants, visited several cities to pray with U. S. Protestants and to present their views on foreign relations.

In the opinion of this delegation, oriented to the Socialist view of Red China as a benign tigress, America should stop bombing North Viet Nam immediately, negotiate with the Viet Cong and pull out all troops.

The quintet landed in Washington the day President Johnson doubled the draft call and dispatched the new troops to Viet Nam. Nevertheless, in visits to the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department, the Japanese thought the Americans seemed more flexible than before, according to Professor Yoshiaki Iizaka, political scientist who was spokesman for the team.

Stars, Stripes, and Evangelism

That American flag flanking Albert Tompkins as he shouts the Gospel to his transient congregation on Times Square is no patriotic ploy. City rules have required it since some asphalt preachers were locked up for losing control of their crowds several years ago. The local Civil Liberties Union, backstopping a Socialist who broke the flag rule, hopes to get it revoked. Some of the evangelists also consider it a rein on their freedom. But Tompkins, a 71-year-old Baptist layman, thinks that “if you don’t have such a requirement, every Communist, every atheist, every Tom, Dick and Harry will get up and preach.” (Photo by Sam Tamashiro)

Iizaka told an audience in Washington that Americans suffer from “self-imposed ignorance about Communism.”

Dr. Vernon L. Ferwerda, head of the NCC’s office in Washington, was agitated by what he considered the Japanese’ naïveté about Communism’s designs in Southeast Asia. But he thought talks with such policy spokesmen as Walter W. Rostow had at least exposed them to an accurate view of American policy. “American pacifists had given them the worst possible view of our policy,” said Ferwerda, who is also a political scientist.

Other members of the Japanese group were Dr. Isamu Omura, moderator of the United Church of Christ; the Rev. Sekikazu Nishimura, a Methodist who is a member of the Japanese Diet and who talked with Ho Chi Minh earlier this year; Professor Kosaku Yamaguchi; and Mrs. Hatsue Nonomiya, peace chairman of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. (War is as big a concern to the Japanese WCTU as liquor, she said.)

No Need To Say It Twice

Colleagues predicted a great future for Edward Heath when for six hundred days, from January, 1948, to October of the following year, he worked as news editor of the Church Times, an influential Anglican weekly. Heath was remembered as one who easily digested facts and figures and who never had to be told anything twice. His coverage of the Anglo-Catholic Congress of 1948 indicated, moreover, he had an understanding of high theological arguments.

Heath, who last month became leader of the British Conservative Party, did have some problems on the Church Times. Ecclesiastical terminology sometimes baffled him, and he was even more bewildered by the schism caused by the creation of the Church of South India. Rival definitions of priest and presbyter caused him some consternation, too.

Speeches he planned to help him on in the political world were often prepared in the office of the Church Times, and on occasion Heath became irritated at being sent on assignments when there were, to him at least, more important matters needing his attention.

Eclipsing the hint of ruthlessness in his makeup were his friendliness, fairness, and generosity. But colleagues of those journalistic days have been puzzled by Heath’s reluctance to mention his stay with them in Who’s Who.

DAVID M. COOMES