Educators Endorse Institute Plan

Action committee named to project Institute for Advanced Christian Studies

Proposals for an Institute for Advanced Christian Studies got solid support recently during an important Consultation on Higher Christian Education held on the campus of Indiana University. The two-day meeting, sponsored by the Lilly Endowment and the Indiana University Foundation, was attended by more than a dozen faculty members from prestigious secular institutions as well as academic representatives of various evangelical institutions.¹

The educators discussed a variety of proposals for the strengthening of present Christian scholarly resources and also for the evangelical correction of the secular academic situation. This issue contains abridgments of presentations by Dean John W. Snyder of Indiana University in behalf of the Christian college on a secular campus and by Editor Carl F. H. Henry in behalf of a Christian university. Other proposals were for a cooperative national Christian university, by President Hudson Armerding of Wheaton College, and for a currently operative research institute, by President Roger Voskuyl of Westmont College.

Almost all the discussion leaders were careful to stress that their proposals should not be thought to exclude an Institute for Advanced Christian Studies, and it was this project that the consultation supported, without a dissenting vote, as both academically necessary and financially feasible. An action committee was named to draw up a proposal for such an institute in the hope of encouraging a response from both foundations and individuals.

Since this institute was first proposed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, hundreds of readers have sent in a total of $685—mostly in one-dollar gifts—as a sign of their interest in the project. This money is on deposit in the American Security and Trust Company of Washington, D. C. At this stage, contributions are not tax-deductible. As CHRISTIANITY TODAY has already pointed out, however, if many of the thirty-five to forty million evangelical Christians in the United States were to give a dollar each, the project could be brought into existence almost overnight.

Various emphases stirred the Indiana University consultation to the urgent predicament of American education. In welcoming the participants, Dean of Faculties Joseph L. Sutton characterized the student world as one of “affluence, turmoil, and dread,” in great need of “a new system of morality.” Others noted that Christian higher education faces fierce, complex problems. Ominous statistics show that evangelical institutions now serve only about 5 per cent of America’s college students, and that even if Christian colleges were ideologically free to accept federal aid, they may already have drifted beyond the possibility of development adequate to the needs of the expanding student world. But instead of planning for dramatic enlargement, some are still struggling for survival. Heavy teaching loads, low salaries that necessitate double employment (or wives’ working), lack of adequate laboratory and library facilities—these problems not only threaten to deplete faculty ranks but often force less able instructors to carry the added burdens left behind by their mobile colleagues.

Those who met at Indiana were well aware, therefore, that something more is needed than palliatives for the plight of Christian higher education. In the current ideological conflict, Christian scholars must update the Christian world-and-life view for the greatest relevance at the frontiers of modern learning. And they must meet the need both for a workable morality and for a strong rationale to undergird it.

Participating scholars sometimes took differing approaches as they considered the challenges that confront any effort to work out a fresh statement of the Christian view of God, man, and the world. Dr. Paul Holmer of Yale Divinity School not only emphasized the serious philosophical problems underlying the current malaise in Christian higher education in the university world but also insisted—not without dissent—that all current theology lacks viable conceptual tools.

In giving support to the idea of an Institute for Advanced Christian Studies—without prejudice to additional and alternative proposals—the consultation took note of Dr. Calvin D. Linton’s pointed comment that a failure to meet the present challenge will indirectly contribute to the training of barbarians.

Named to the action committee—which is now sketching various aspects of the proposed institute, including location and necessary funds—were the following: Dean Snyder of Indiana University (chairman), Dr. Orville Walters of the University of Illinois, and Editor Henry; they are empowered to add three more members. Dr. Gordon J. Van Wylen of the University of Michigan has become a fourth member, and Dr. Martin J. Buerger, former head of the School of Advanced Studies of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the fifth. The committee is to examine current institutes for research and advanced studies, consider the specific recommendations growing out of the Indiana consultation, and decide what step should be taken next.

A Word About Advertisements

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is dedicated to the affirmation and defense of the great Christian truths. We also aim to keep readers abreast of developments in the world of religion. One way to do this is to accept advertisements of current religious books. Often the books advertised in this magazine present non-evangelical views, and readers sometimes Wonder whether we endorse such books.

In point of fact, CHRISTIANITY TODAY carries advertisements of books of various theological persuasions not alone for advertising income but because we believe thinking Christians need to be informed about the ongoing religious discussion. A sentence on the contents page states: “Book advertising in CHRISTIANITY TODAY does not necessarily imply editorial endorsement.” We ask only that the books be published by reputable publishers and that advertising copy accurately represent the contents. We reserve the right to review all volumes critically in our book-review section.

A case in point is the Anchor Bible advertisement in this issue. Our reviews have been quite critical of some aspects of this series; nevertheless, we think that serious Bible students should be aware of such scholarly works.

Readers desiring editorial recommendations of especially meritorious volumes that advance the evangelical viewpoint will find them in our annual list of choice evangelical books, published in the spring book issue.

War And Peace In Viet Nam

The chronic Viet Nam war, now enlisting more than 400,000 American servicemen, burdens many hearts to pray for a swift and honorable end to the conflict.

Some 2,000 churchmen traveled to Washington for a public display at the White House of their opposition to the present conduct of the war. Then they marched to Capitol Hill to impress congressmen that something is morally askew in American policy. Since these clergymen obviously want an end to bombing of North Viet Nam and a unilateral American peace policy, their plea gives enormous comfort to Communist aggressors.

On television, 2,000 demonstrative clergymen can easily create a misimpression that they speak also for 258,000 others who, back home, are ministering to their parishes. Ecumenical protest provoked anti-ecumenical counter-protest by others who called for continuing military confrontation of North Vietnamese hostility but seemed also to make bombs the answer to Communism.

Our message to the demonstrative clergy would be: “Resist Aggressors/Don’t Trust in Bombs/Preachers and Politicians: Pray Together, Respect God’s Law, Echo Christ’s Gospel.”

Most American policy-makers are members in good standing of ecumenically aligned denominations. Are these churches now so ineffectual that clergy must demonstrate against church members at their jobs?

The counter-demonstrators’ constituency is so small that it includes few if any leaders in government. But this group should learn that Communism isn’t the only devil Christianity confronts, and that the Great Commission defines the Church’s real business.

In a day when the political clergy rush to congressmen with sacred advice on how to conduct secular affairs, let us be grateful that the wobbling wall between state and church has not yet collapsed.

A Vision Of Conquest

Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee were men whose lives were dominated by the vision of a future conquest. As the prime crew scheduled to pilot America’s Apollo I space rocket, the astronauts dedicated themselves to the task of placing a man on the moon. And for their dedication, they gave their lives as fire engulfed their space capsule at Cape Kennedy.

These three astronauts along with the rest of the United States space team have inspired countless numbers of young Americans by their insatiable curiosity, their applied intelligence, their rigorous discipline, and their unrelenting drive to achieve a goal that until two decades ago was only a dream of ardent visionaries. While many observers have lamented the decline in the American character, these men have demonstrated qualities of life reminiscent of the spirit of our greatest pioneers and nation-builders. They challenge all of us to live lives shaped by man’s highest aspirations. From the deep wells of faith in God and the lively springs of human achievement, the fallen astronauts drew motivation and devotion to duty that distinguished them.

The Bible sets before the eyes of every Christian, not the limited vision of man’s conquest of outer space, but the unlimited vision of Christ’s triumph over the entire cosmos. If these heroic astronauts were willing to dedicate their lives to man’s mastery of space, should not we as Christians live unreservedly for the living Christ by whom all things were created.

Demonism On The March

Demonism is a growing phenomenon throughout the world. The news media report its rapid spread in England. We have been told that Germany now has more witches, wizards, and necromancers than full-time Christian workers. An American pastor with a German-born wife recently described the case of two demon-possessed, black-attired girls “baptized to Satan.” Their parents are demon-worshipers.

In San Francisco last month, Anton Szander LaVey, “minister” of the First Church of Satan, joined a young couple in “unholy” wedlock (see News, p. 49). His “church,” which has sixty regular members, is one of a number of Satan-worshiping congregations in the United States. They seek legal status as the “Church of the Trapezoid” (occultdom’s symbol of evil is the trapezoid).

Is all this a publicity stunt? We do not think so. Rather, it offers further proof of the growth of demonism in our culture.

The Bible forthrightly condemns all forms of demonism and black magic. God warned Israel to avoid “anyone who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augurer, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer” (Deut. 18:10b, 11). The Book of the Revelation consigns sorcerers to “the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (21:8).

Demonism today is a further manifestation of man’s revolt against God. Believers everywhere should have no part in such spiritually dangerous practices.

Sinning By Defection

Some Protestants still suspect that the only really big sin a Catholic can commit is to leave the Roman church. Their suspicion has seldom found more support than in a recent question-and-answer feature by the Rev. Winfrid Herbst, S. D. S., for the ecumenical Catholic weekly, Our Sunday Visitor. Responding to a reader’s question about a Catholic’s conversion to Protestantism, Father Herbst terms defection by a Catholic to a Protestant church “a very big sin indeed,” signifying “apostasy from the Faith.” One who commits it deserves “excommunication” by the Holy See. Significantly enough, the same feature dismisses the biblical narrative of the flood and the story of Jonah as “didactic fiction” and asserts that the biblical writers took for their theological emphases “traditions that often had almost no historical value.”

Apparently, for Father Herbst biblical history is dispensable but the Roman church is not. In fact, Christ’s views may be dispensable, too. For by a strange coincidence Herbst manages to heave overboard two of the Old Testament incidents that Jesus himself clearly regarded as historical (Matt. 12:39–41; 24:37–39) and thereby suggests that the imprimatur of Jesus counts little when weighed against the fiat of Rome’s priests.

Moreover, lest Protestants be tempted to regard Herbst’s outlook as a rare case of priestly myopia, the same week’s secular papers reported a conflict within the diocese of Rome over the desire of some Catholics to join with Protestants in their churches in prayers for Christian unity. The original verdict by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith banned Catholic participation within the diocese. And although a decision from Pope Paul VI at month’s end reversed the pronouncement, the reversal came too late for a previously scheduled service at the American Episcopal Church of St. Paul’s. As one observer noted, there are still authorities in Rome who “cannot yet bear the thought of Catholics going into a Protestant church or any sign of equality with the Protestants as would be indicated in the … services.”

Father Herbst and others of his cloth should read Jonah before he is thrown to a mythological whale. For this is no fish story. It affirms on the level of history that God values repentance and obedience to his word above all ethnic and institutional affiliations and will punish pride and disobedience in his ministers as well as in anyone else. And the story of the deluge is a reminder that not all escape the flood.

An Incredible Ruling

The United States Supreme Court has, by a 5 to 4 vote, recently ruled unconstitutional a New York law that made membership in the Communist Party sufficient grounds for dismissing—or for not hiring—any public employee. To many, such a ruling is unthinkable; but it has happened.

The State of New York is now powerless to dismiss teachers or other public servants who are Communists. This ruling opens the way for those who are part of an apparatus designed to destroy the American form of government, and who deny and defy Almighty God, to teach our young people. Because of this one action, states will now find it almost impossible to classify Communists as subversives. Meanwhile, the Communist system will continue to strengthen its forces and infiltrate further into the life of the nation.

Justice Tom Clark, one of the four judges who strongly dissented, said, “No court has ever reached out so far to destroy so much with so little.”

Speaking for the majority of the court, Mr. Justice Brennan spoke of being “deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern to the first amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.”

Do these Supreme Court justices really believe that the first amendment to the Constitution was designed thus to protect the enemies of this country? Do they so value “academic freedom” that they are willing to grant protection to Communism? Do they consider resistance to enemies of our government a “pall of orthodoxy” that must be destroyed?

Apparently they do, and they have so ruled.

This is far more than a political issue. It has deep ethical and spiritual implications. The Supreme Court has granted haven and comfort to those who, in every nation where they have gained full power, have gone about to persecute and ostracize Christians and to destroy the Christian Church.