Ethical Ambivalence

EDITORIALS

Contemporary American society exhibits a curious combination of greater moral sensitivity and increasing immoral behavior. It is good to see concern for the rights of minorities, the wrongs against the environment, the improvement of the lot of the poor, and the propriety of the conduct of the Viet Nam war. But no one need take these concerns as harbingers of an impending millennium, for along with them has come an increase in vandalism, shop-lifting, cheating in schools, crime in the streets, and so-called white-collar crime. Tax evasion and political corruption persist at appallingly high levels. Shoddiness in manufacturing and in service, deception in advertising and in salesmanship, absenteeism and laziness on the job, drunkdriving and, perhaps even worse, the continued toleration of it, marital infidelity and break-ups—these are but a few of the signs of the essential and pervasive wickedness of men.

We rejoice that God in his common grace permits men to rise above the basest levels of behavior on specific issues at certain times. But those who are concerned with destruction in Viet Nam often seem heedless of the destruction of the environment at home. How else explain the immense amount of litter they leave in their wake after assembling to protest or the air- and lung-polluting smoke to which their discarded cigarette butts give testimony? (At least the Army teaches you how to “field-strip” a cigarette!)

It is good that so many in our society are concerned with obedience to the law, but it is distressing that, for example, when the law was enforced against Lieutenant Calley, countless Americans rose up to revile the conscientious jurors and argue that in war anything goes, even the killing of unresisting prisoners. Many of the people who were quick to deny Calley’s responsibility on the grounds of background considerations are just as quick to ignore background factors that help to explain why many men become street criminals or drug addicts.

On the other hand, some Christians need to be reminded that things are not so bad as they could be. (If they were, we wouldn’t be around to talk about it!) Neither are conditions worse now than they have ever been. Almost two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul wrote that men are “filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Rom. 1:29–31).

What has taken place since Paul wrote those words is a gradual, uneven, and often superficial penetration of the Christian ethic throughout the Western world. Respect for others, for work, for authority was inculcated though often violated. There developed a sense of accountability to God for one’s behavior. This influence has been present even though true disciples of Christ and more or less faithful practitioners of New Testament ethics have always been a small minority. But now, especially with the declining sense of future judgment by God, much of this Christian influence is receding, and some Christians talk as if this means the end of the world. Like its advance, the retreat of Christian influence is uneven. The greater moral sensitivities of our time are without substantial parallel in lands with little Christian heritage. What evidence is there, for example, of North Vietnamese concern over atrocities committed by their troops and their Viet Cong allies?

The retreat in many areas of Christian influence on the ethics of Western men should not cause despair. For one thing, our goal should never have been that of making people practice as much of Christian ethics as we could. Christian influence upon behavior apart from a personal relationship to Jesus Christ does indeed contribute to a more just and pleasant society and should certainly not be discouraged, but it counts for little when compared to the leading of men to saving faith in Christ. Our goal is men with a changed relationship to God, which issues in changed behavior. We are not aiming simply for better behavior in itself.

Another reason why we should not despair over the present moral retrogression is that the early Church did not despair even though—hard to believe as it may be—its society was much more vicious and corrupt than ours by almost any measure. What we should do is what the early Church did: live as lights in the midst of a dark world, contrasting consistently good deeds with the works of wrong-doers and of those whose good is partial and inconsistent. We should at the same time hold forth the good news of salvation to all men, even though experience tells us that only a small percentage will respond.

Although the possibility of stemming the tide of immorality should have no effect upon how faithfully we fulfill our Lord’s command to do good and to spread the good news, we can take heart by what has happened before. The early Church prevailed over its enemies and in at least some aspects profoundly influenced the behavior of Western man. Likewise, at a time when the truth was obscured by those who claimed to be its guardians, the Reformation occurred, bringing forth, among other things, a new zeal for the Gospel and for obedience to divinely revealed ethical standards. Perhaps in our own time of decline, God may grant a new resurgence of the truth. But even if he does not, we are to continue our mission in full confidence that ultimately, with the return of Christ, God will prevail.

Shall The Christian Colleges Die?

So serious is the plight of the Christian colleges today that nothing short of a great outpouring of support can save numbers of them from extinction. The situation described in the first essay in this issue compels not only attention but action. Colleges and schools—for secondary as well as higher Christian education is in jeopardy—that are fighting for survival cannot wait for increased government aid, which may, if it comes, be too little and too late. They must have help now and in immediately succeeding years.

According to an estimate by Dr. John A. Mackay (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, May 27, 1966), a quarter to a third of the members of conciliar churches are conservative evangelicals. These millions of Christians are no strangers to God’s material blessings. They have their share of the national wealth; they can, if they respond prayerfully and sacrificially, help Christian education weather the present storm.

The Bible speaks to every age and every situation. A word from God for the educational crisis comes from Haggai 1:3—“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” In the prophet’s day, God’s people after returning to Jerusalem from exile had been building luxurious homes for themselves instead of rebuilding the temple. God challenged them on the issue of priority. And today the evangelical public must reorder its priorities in respect to Christian education.

We speak with admiration and reverence of our Pilgrim forebears. When they came to New England they had their priorities right; one of the things they did early in the history of the colony was to begin a college for training an educated ministry.

If we let our colleges and schools wither and die, the whole Christian enterprise will suffer calamitously. Without question evangelical private education has been the major source of personnel for missions abroad and for God’s work at home. And much of the Christian leadership among laymen has come from the same source. No Christian may contemplate with equanimity the possible demise of a sizable portion of the evangelical colleges and schools in America.

For God’s people, a need constitutes a call. Our colleges and schools are in great need. Let our answer combine prayer with open-handed giving.

Sex In The College Dorm

The college crisis is not only financial; it is also moral. Nowhere may this be seen more clearly than in the movement toward twenty-four-hour unrestricted visiting privileges in dormitories. Many secular schools quickly capitulated to student demands for “no hours,” and some students in Christian colleges have caught the disease and pressed for relaxed restrictions or none at all.

A survey that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor found that in some colleges (Bennington and Connecticut were cited) male visitors have become “permanent guests” of girls in the dorms. At Yale, which now admits women, Dr. Philip Sarrel operates the Sex Counseling Service. He and his wife, a social worker, when asked by students for their opinion on premarital sex, reply: “It’s just as O.K. not to have it as it is to have it.” Dr. Sarrel notes that his counseling service has helped to keep the pregnancy rate low on the Yale campus. If pregnancy does occur, abortion is available to take care of that problem.

In view of the innate and God-given sexual impulse, for an institution to permit twenty-four-hour visitation is tantamount to approving premarital sex. Surely no thoughtful Christian parent would permit men to visit his daughter in his home and in her bedroom on a twenty-four-hour basis. Nor would he wish for his daughter to live in a dormitory situation that might seriously impair her morals.

Scripture specifically bans (a nasty word in a permissive age) fornication as well as adultery, and includes it in the list of sins that, if unforgiven, keep men out of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9, 10). A. T. Robertson in his Word Pictures (IV, 119) pithily states about this passage (“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God”): “It is a solemn roll call of the damned even if some of their names are on the church roll in Corinth whether officers or ordinary members.”

Back in the eighteenth century Jonathan Edwards preached a powerful sermon about an event that had occurred almost twenty centuries earlier. The sons of Eli the high priest had sunk so low into degeneracy that they were engaged in illicit relations with the women who served “at the entrance of the tent of meeting” (1 Sam. 2:22). God put an end to the house of Eli and pronounced judgment on him “because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them” (1 Sam. 3:13). Eli did reprove his sons; but as Edwards put it, “he reproved them but restrained them not.”

The Bible makes it clear that fornication is wrong. In this decadent age, every Christian college needs to maintain parietal standards that will help to restrain young people from succumbing to sexual temptation. One of the prime contributions of Christian schools is that of helping to form Christian character. And this process can only succeed where there are some “don’t’s” as well as some “do’s.”

Memorial Day Musing

There is no paradox so deep as death. We were born to life, yet live to die. Sometimes through a mother’s death her child gains life. Soldiers, whom we honor at this month’s end, may be called upon to die for the lives of others. Martyrs and heroes may give life to some by relinquishing their own. Christ sacrificed his life, and took it up again, to give our death-filled existences life in the full. But to receive this life we must die to self and live, born anew, in Christ. As Emily Dickinson said:

A death-blow is a life-blow to some

Who, till they died, did not alive become;

Who, had they lived, had died, but when

They died, vitality begun.

Another Demonstration?

Evangelist Billy Graham suggested recently that it might be high time for committed Christians to march on Washington in a demonstration of spiritual concern for the nation (see News, page 40).

“[We would] tell the nation that we believe in God, that Christ is our Saviour, that we believe in love of neighbor, and that the only solution to our national ills is Jesus Christ, that we are concerned about race, war, and pollution—but that our greatest concern is for the spiritual welfare of America and the world,” he declared.

“Suppose a million evangelicals marched down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he conjectured. “It could be a turning point in our generation. Maybe we ought to do it, and make it a positive demonstration.”

The suggestion should not be lightly dismissed or viewed with dismay. Young evangelicals have already led the way with a dozen witness marches in various cities in the past year, and there are probably enough turned-on-to-Jesus young people right now to pull off the largest mass demonstration in American history.

Such an event of positive proclamation would transmit a note of hope to young Americans bogged down in the negativism and dreary pessimism of protest. Graham correctly observes: “Millions are rejecting the materialism, the secularism, and the agnosticism of their elders. They are on a gigantic search for reality, purpose, and meaning.” Jesus Christ alone can satisfy that quest, and evangelicals ought to say so—and show so!

The Christian-witness marches to date have been marked by a discernible, almost tangible presence of love, joy, and unity among participants. Such an outpouring of genuine oneness among one million believers in the shadow of Congress would offer living proof to the nation that Christ succeeds on vital fronts where politics and social action utterly fail. Mass prayer meetings outside the headquarters of government agencies, the Supreme Court, and legislative office buildings would help point up a tragic void in national life.

This gathering would not endorse political positions other than the declaration that Jesus Christ is King of kings. It is regrettable when radio preacher Carl McIntire, for instance, organizes a group of Christians and non-Christians to march on Washington calling, in the name of Christ, for escalation of the war in Indochina. Equally disconcerting are the actions of liberal church leaders who use the Church as a front for their own political projections. Who will, as ambassadors of Christ, declare convincingly that only a turning to him will stop war, whether it be among nations or inside the home down the street?

The huge demonstration Graham proposes would yield important by-products for evangelical Christianity.

It would encourage the cause of biblical unity by providing the occasion for disparate participants to meet one another and to be “one in the Spirit.” Our younger brothers and sisters in the faith, while theologically straight, are not as inclined toward denominational fragmentation and doctrinal fractiousness as their forebears. They would rather make agape than war. Thus the event would stir up a refreshing pan-institutional breeze of the Spirit that might just blow down some of the scandalous walls that now separate evangelicals.

It would provide an outlet and objective for youthful activism. Today’s younger generation wants to stand up and be counted, to be involved, to do something that will help change the world for good. That activist spirit needs to be cultivated and channeled, not condemned.

Some young Christians have already taken to the streets for Christ in another way; a good example is those who conducted witness ministries to demonstrators in the recent wave of anti-war protests (see News, page 41). They have been set aflame Acts-style, boldly and effectively proclaiming Christ where the action is. An evangelical march on Washington could similarly turn on and provide proper group identity for prospective participants now stagnating in churches or otherwise log-jamming the Gospel. It would in essence liberate Jesus from church captivity.

Evangelicals have been conducting Sunday sit-ins for years. Now perhaps it’s time to march. The first steps can be next door or to the desk across the aisle—or even to searchers already in the streets—with the message of life and peace in Jesus. But someday—Washington?

Shutting Down The Government

During the first week of this month Washington experienced a major confrontation in the continuing battle by some members of the younger generation to halt the war in Viet Nam. Shortly before this, approximately 200,000 people had gathered around the Washington Monument to express their dissent peacefully. The attempt to shut down the government was quite different. What is the evangelical to think about all this?

It is evident that the majority of Americans earnestly desire to see the war ended, and that most young people are motivated by good will and genuine idealism. But the Mayday disruption went a good deal beyond all this. To many observers it was apparent that this small percentage of young people are undeniably radical. Many of them are hardbitten Maoists or Trotskyites concerned about Viet Nam not because of the loss of life but because they see there an episode in the historic struggle between communism and capitalism. They would like to see the United States government overthrown. They did not hesitate to use force, fly Viet Cong flags, and make clear what their true ideology is. The success of the authorities in keeping the streets open and the traffic moving shows that such efforts can be contained. But the fact remains that radicals like these are termites eating away at the vital structures of American life and democracy.

Maoists and Trotskyites are anti-God, anti-Christ, and anti-Church. Evangelicals should distinguish clearly between the larger group of young people who are non-violent, well-meaning, and constructive, and this group that is dangerous, dissident, and destructive.

Evangelicals should raise their voices against non-peaceful dissent; they should penetrate the strongholds of the radicals with the Gospel that can transform them; and they should pray earnestly that God will overrule to prevent the radicals from fulfilling unlawful objectives.

Christians who love their country have a twofold responsibility in a chaotic age. One is to reinforce the foundation on which our government is founded. Ours is a government of laws, not of men, and this needs to be affirmed again and again. The other is to be salt and light to the nation, to help to weld it together more firmly, more consistently, and more harmoniously, so that it may endure.

Priming The Top 40

“Put your hand in the hand of the man from Gaililee” is good evangelistic advice reaching millions of people today, with advertisers footing the bill. And Judy Collins sings “Amazing Grace” the same way it’s been sung in churches throughout the land for years, only now it’s a hit tune on rock radio too. It was even recorded in a church so it would have the right effect, we’re told.

Other songs with a Christian message have likewise made the Top 40 hit tune lists. More are coming. Ralph Carmichael’s “Love Is Surrender” is increasingly in demand. New converts in the professional music ranks are beginning to write and sing out for Christ. One snag, however, is listeners’ lack of knowledge of what gospel-message releases are currently available. Thus audience influence is not readily exerted on the ratings.

The Fellowship of Christian Composers has come up with an idea to remedy that information gap—and to keep the Gospel in the Top 40. The group aims to enlist 10,000 young people in a write-in and call-in campaign requesting pop songs with a Christian message. That many kids contacting disc jockeys two or three times a week, it is estimated, will make for the same influence as millions of listeners otherwise. The Sheet, a free monthly containing the words of current heavy-God songs, will keep the young Gospel-pushers cued in to new releases.

It sounds like a good idea to us. The Sheet is available from P.O. Box 6181, Fort Worth, Texas 76115.

Discipleship Plus Forgiveness

Jesus’ standards for discipleship are high. Multitudes then, as now, were eager to make “decisions” for him, but he knew that, regrettably, many of these “commitments” were superficial. On one occasion he startled the crowds around him by saying that no one could be his disciple unless he hated his parents and children and brothers, and even his own life (Luke 14:25–27). In the context of our Lord’s life and his other teachings, it is clear that what he meant was that in the case of conflict between pleasing Christ and pleasing others or oneself, Christ must, without hesitancy, come first. He went on to state that in the eyes of the world, following him was equivalent to bearing a cross like a condemned man on the way to execution.

It is especially noteworthy that immediately after this emphasis on the rigors of discipleship, our Lord stresses the searching and forgiving love of God through the parables of the one (out of 100) lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son (Luke 15:1–23). Each parable in its own way demonstrates that the holiness of God is fully compatible with his mercy, and shows his strenuous activity to draw rebellious men into his family.

As they see multitudes responding to Christ, many of them probably superficially, some supposedly more mature Christians are keen to stress the rigors of discipleship but not so quick to demonstrate eagerness to draw others into the family. As we all so often do, they manifest one or the other of two attitudes when God wants both. The parable of the prodigal son was occasioned by the murmuring of the Pharisees and scribes at the response of the tax collectors and sinners to Christ. To the Pharisees, the main point was not the profligacy of the younger brother or the forgiveness of the father but the hard-heartedness of the outwardly faithful but inwardly unforgiving older brother. In our legitimate concern for discipleship, let us not be or seem to be unforgiving.

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