Although no Christian is able absolutely to analyse the whole course of events, nevertheless even the most casual student of human affairs is forced by the drama of one age succeeding another in man’s story to conclude that there is a rhythm to history. This is not the cyclical interpretation of history ridiculed centuries ago by Augustine of Hippo, but rather what one might call a historical undulation. History seems at times to reach a high point from which it descends rapidly or slowly to its nadir and thence again it rises to another high point. What some might term the “high point” someone else might term a low point. But that divisions or ages appear in man’s story most would accept, and it would seem that the processes through which each age goes are similar enough to suggest parallels between them.
If this be the case, the natural question which arises is: where do we stand in our own age? We in our day are probably witnessing some of the most important events which man has seen in his whole history. What is their significance? What do they indicate concerning our place in history? If we are to understand our own age and day it is important that we should make an attempt to grasp the significance of the point of time in which we stand.
To resolve this mystery, or at least to attempt a resolution of it, about our only resource is to turn back the pages of history to see if there are any historical parallels to our own day. In doing this, however, a personal, subjective element always enters in which, coupled with superficiality in our judgment, may well lead us astray. An adequate delineation, covering every avenue of approach, would require a multi-volume work similar to Toynbee’s Study of History. Space and knowledge limit our comments to two or three examples in an endeavor to interpret the historical position of our own day and age: one biblical, the period ending at the Tower of Babel; one ancient, reaching its climax in the Roman Empire; and the Renaissance which closed the Middle Ages.
When mention was made above of the “high point” of an age, it was thought of primarily in cultural terms. That is, the high point is a time when an historical culture reaches its climax technically and sociologically. The man of the age has both reached a point of mechanical proficiency, particularly in building techniques, never before attained by his predecessors, and has also organized his social and political relationships in such a way that society has gained greater efficiency in the distribution of the benefits of the material advance. Along with this we usually find a considerable increase in human assurance, confidence and anticipation of the glories of the days to come. In general, these seem to be the characteristics of an age’s climax.
At the same time, however, each age seems to have been characterized by fundamental spiritual weakness. Whether one talks in terms of Genesis, of imperial Rome, or of the Renaissance, there was relatively little humility in the presence of God. Rather, the characteristic point of view seems to have been that of self-confident rationalism and aggressive materialism which produced a breakdown of individual and social ethics. Concomitantly we see a deep underlying sense of insecurity which belied the apparent self-assertiveness, and which forced men to seek their security in a multitude of gods which were projections of themselves.
As one looks at this state of affairs at the time of a cultural peak, one naturally wishes to know how a civilization comes to this position. It would seem, generally speaking, that at the beginning of an age when the material and societal conditions are difficult, men are deeply conscious of their relationship to God. The sense of God, as Calvin calls it, is very strong. The result is a conception of a covenant relationship with the deity, whatever that deity may be, which gives man a sense of calling and purpose in life. The outcome of this is hard work, concentration and frugality usually resulting in an improved standard of living, both materially and socially, which leads to cultural expansion. But as the culture rises towards its high point it tends to discard its “spiritual values.” The covenant concept disappears in an overflow of rationalism and materialism.
Then comes judgment. This was the story of Babel, and this was Augustine’s basic interpretation of the collapse of the Roman Empire under the blows of the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vandals and others. When man attempts to exalt himself to the position of God, God brings him crashing to the ground. This judgment he accomplishes through and by history, in changing the language, in the onslaught of barbarian hordes, or by some other means. Thus condemnation comes upon the pride and the self-exaltation of man.
The downfall of the culture may be rapid or it may take centuries, but eventually it comes. The basic religious beliefs disintegrating, social unity and integration break down. Internecine conflicts then develop as a result of the struggle for an increasing portion of this world’s goods. With this comes a loss of other cultural gains, particularly in the sphere of the technical and mechanical arts. Knowledge contracts drastically resulting in barbarism and leading into a time of “Dark Ages.” As man loses the idea of the basic covenant with his god and with his fellow man, the one sure result is other widespread cultural disintegration.
What historians for the past four hundred years have been pleased to call the Middle Ages were apparently headed in this direction. If one makes any study of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries one will quickly realize that secularism, particularly in Italy, was largely gaining the day. The church was riddled with a purely materialistic point of view, amoral political programs found their exponent in a Machiavelli and their executors in a Louis XI of France or a Henry VII of England. Art, literature, economic activity, and social relations generally seem to have all succumbed to the same forces. And yet this secularist movement seems to have suddenly slowed, if not actually come to full stop.
The reason for this sudden change would seem to have been the eruption in western European society of what is called the Protestant Reformation. With its renewed stress upon man’s covenant relationship to God through Jesus Christ, and to his fellow man, it gave new direction to the thought of the day. The shock of its appearance even forced the very much secularized medieval church to attempt some drastic reforms. The result was that humanistic rationalism and materialism received a temporary setback which probably saved Western civilization of that day from collapse.
During the past four hundred years, however, the tide of secularism has gradually moved in again upon the beach of our culture. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries rationalism with its trust in man’s brains became the dominant philosophy. But at this point rationalism could not stop, for its presuppositions pushed it on into a scientific materialism which eventuated in Marx, Communist Russia, and the materialistic Western world. The result today is that never have men been prouder of their accomplishments, never have men cared less for the supernatural, and never have they been more afraid of the future. In these circumstances is it not relevant to ask: have we reached the high point of our age?
As we look at the world today, there would seem to be little prospect before us of anything but atomic destruction. Man has now reached the point where, if he starts a fight with his fellow man, the weapons he uses may well be as dangerous to himself as to his foe. The consequences, therefore, of another major international conflict would seem to be inevitable destruction of both sides, and with them even those who would remain neutral. At the same time tensions between East and West seem to be increasing at such a rate that there is today little hope of anything like peace for more than a few years, if even that. Here is man’s fear. Here is his insecurity.
In the face of this situation, many seem to think that this is the end. To the Christian, however, history is not mechanical, for God still reigns and rules. This is the Christian’s hope. The sixteenth century saw a mighty change take place over a large part of Europe as a result of the liberating power of the Christian Gospel, and it might well be that if Christ tarries this is the answer in our own day and generation. The Reformation called men back to the covenant God in whom is peace and truth. If men by God’s grace in this century follow the same course there is ever the likelihood that we would see a revolution in contemporary thought and attitude which would presage a new age for mankind.
But if we are thus standing at the threshold of a new age either of darkness or of greater light, what is the Christian’s responsibility? Some would say that he has none for he is not of the world and must await Christ’s return. This would hardly seem to be the biblical answer. Even in the days of the Roman Empire, the Church was given two fundamental pieces of work. It was first of all to pray for all classes of men including even pagan rulers, that peace might prevail (1 Tim. 2:1 ff.). Then it was to witness with all its power and strength to the sovereign call of God to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:19). The same responsibility remains today, and if Christians will redouble their efforts as intercessors for and witnesses to, men, it may well be that God in his grace will counteract the evil which we seem determined to bring upon ourselves.
Are we approaching the end of an age? It may well be. What this new age will bring forth may well depend as fully upon the faithfulness of God’s people in the present time as upon the promise and prospect of the Lord’s return.
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The Dangers Of Social Engineering
Thoughtful Christian citizens need to consider more seriously the modern phenomenon of “social engineering” which proposes to remake human society.
This little-known social movement utilizes the new science of “sociometry” to achieve its ends. Sociometry compounds a variety of techniques and concepts from psychology, social and cultural anthropology, psychiatry and biology in planning programs which manipulate individuals and groups to accept certain predetermined conclusions. Key words in the social engineer’s vocabulary are “sociogram,” “sociodrama,” “psychotherapy,” “psychodrama,” “telephonomena” and “inter-personal relations.”
In its “mental health” phase sociometry equates certain political and religious opinions with sanity and right thinking. Dr. H. A. Overstreet, in his The Great Enterprise—Relating Ourselves to Our World, says:
A man, for example, may be angrily against racial equality, public housing, the TVA, financial and technical aid to backward countries, organized labor, and the preaching of social rather than salvational religion.… Such people may appear normal in the sense that they are able to hold a job and otherwise maintain their status as members of society; but they are, we now recognize, well along the road to mental illness.
If its apparent dangers be real, sociometry could, in the hands of humanist or Communist social engineers, undermine our Judeo-Christian moral code and make it a crime to be a Christian without ever raising the question of the rightness or the wrongness of our beliefs. Our convictions would merely be branded as neuroses inconvenient to society and government. No one would blame us for being Christians, no one would hate us. We would simply have to submit to therapy as persons ideologically unsound. Should we fail to respond satisfactorily to treatment, we might vanish overnight into institutions for the detention of incurables. Men would be considered mentally incompetent if they champion the great traditions of free enterprise, and if they resist the encroachments of collectivistic political theory.
At present there is little accurate data upon which to determine the effectiveness of the new “science” in “brainwashing” the American people, but enough has been written and said to make it clear that its ideologies should be ruthlessly scrutinized.
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The Ncc General Board And Protestant Commitments
The deluge of mail since the World Order Study Conference (CHRISTIANITY TODAY received some 1400 letters and cards) reflects widespread criticism and uneasiness over NCC political commitments at Cleveland. By the time this issue reaches our readers, NCC’s General Board will have held its February meetings. It may be hoped that this Protestant leadership has candidly acknowledged the impropriety and indefensibility of the Cleveland formula of Christian imperatives.
Participating World Order Conference delegates still insist doggedly that their action (including U.S. recognition and U.N. admission of Red China) articulates Christian duty. Yet it may be asked wherein the ecumenical affirmation that “Jesus Christ is Divine Saviour and Lord” requires political deference to Communist China as a divine imperative. Some delegates now contend the Cleveland conference urged “eventual” rather than “prompt” recognition and admission, implying thereby that the advocated positions somehow gain appropriateness from temporal more than spiritual considerations. Others emphasize that unanimity in Cleveland was more parliamentary than actual—an interpretation difficult to reconcile with the notion that Cleveland really achieved a divine sense of things. The fact is that delegates now offer such diverse appraisals of the significance of study conference agreements as to suggest that their common action was ventured for conflicting reasons.
Many delegates chafe privately under the NCC General Board’s disavowal of any official NCC commitment in the Cleveland Message to the Churches. Since the World Order Conference was convened by NCC mandate, with delegates presumably representing NCC constituent denominations, and since many NCC leaders attended and participated, and NCC’s public relations staff publicized the conference to the world, to announce that the conference did not speak for the NCC seemed like a kiss of death.
Certain implications of the General Board’s attitude toward Cleveland, consistently applied, seemed plain enough. Hereafter any major conference, although convened by NCC mandate, attended by NCC leaders, publicized by NCC press agents, and approved privately and publicly by some NCC spokesmen, does not on that account carry official significance. Though issuing in a unanimity of hundreds of denominational delegates, it remains simply a marginal dialogue. Only the hierarchy of the General Board is to be recognized and respected as the official voice of NCC. NCC official positions on world order, or on anything else, are to be defined not by the voice of delegates attending conferences officially convened by NCC mandate, but simply by the centralized hegomony of the General Board, which can withhold approval of the unanimous commitments by its study conferences. Centralization of ecumenical power has here advanced to determinative levels; the General Board in effect is the NCC.
But if the General Board has this power, it was in a position to reject the Cleveland recommendations. But this it failed to do. Some leaders even expressed public approval. Consequently the study conference, although not “official,” remained an effective propaganda force, a sounding board by which radical leadership advanced its positions while immune from official rebuke. The past record of both the Federal Council and National Council makes the reason clear; pronouncements in the realm of social action have consistently looked left whether at the commission or the General Board level.
Denominational groups unaffiliated with NCC lost little time in repudiating Cleveland commitments. Southern Baptist leaders acknowledged their “shock” over World Order positions and repudiated them. Southern Presbyterian leaders deplored the actions. Many leaders in NCC-affiliated denominations also spoke out in criticism, and presbyteries, local churches and other groups took official action that reflected widespread dissent.
That Cleveland delegates supported positions contrary to the convictions of the vast majority of their constituencies is evident from independent surveys in which opinion at the local levels ran 7 to 1 and 8 to 1 against the delegates’ views. Yet NCC-affiliated denominational leaders maintained public silence or, at most, curiously emphasized that the conference did not speak for NCC, while ignoring the question whether the delegates authentically represented their respective denominations. This was less than fair to the rising tide of local indignation over the Cleveland commitments.
NCC’s General Board defended the delegates’ right to speak on the issues, but sidestepped a public stand on what they said. Hence it left to denominations which the delegates professed to represent the approval or disapproval of Cleveland actions. In this climate of affairs, denominational silence will inevitably be taken for acceptance.
The National Council of Churches is a creature of its affiliated denominations. Denominations dissatisfied with its actions, or with the pronouncements of conferences it convenes, are free to accept or to repudiate those actions. The Cleveland Message, commended to the 144,000 NCC churches for study by the NCC General Board, calls for more than evasive silence. Representative principles will be best guarded if the convictions of these constituencies are not left in doubt.
Profaning God’S Name On Sunday Television
A threefold profanation of the name of God smudged “The Third Commandment,” a play written by Ben Hecht for NBC’s Sunday afternoon series “Kaleidoscope,” with Charles Van Doren, permanent presider. The first profanation was the plot itself, portraying a drunken gag-writer who crashes a revival meeting and makes a cynical speech about the evil of riches. Over a hundred “conversions” from this impromptu “sermon” convince the hero that by commercialized revivalism he can obtain wealth. The pseudo evangelist uses God’s name as a vehicle to make himself rich, while expressing bitterness and contempt for religion.
The second profanation resounded in the overtones of the play. The actor’s gestures, intonations, and sentence structure suggested to the viewer the clear image of Billy Graham. Both actor and author thereby implanted the contemptible suggestion that Graham’s evangelism is of this commercial variety. When scribes attributed the miracles of Jesus to Satan, Christ spoke of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. False judgments concerning the ministry of sincere evangelists profane the name of God. Later in the play the fraudulent evangelist emerges as a faith healer, and many viewers detected a thinly disguised portrayal of Oral Roberts.
A more shocking profanation of God’s name emerged at the conclusion of the play in the discussion between Van Doren and Hecht. The author said that the sin of the pseudo evangelist was infinitesimally small and “if it was wrong, it was wrong only to himself.” Van Doren appeared shocked and expressed his judgment that it was “a great sin.” The most appalling profanation was Hecht’s statement: “God is a man’s character.… God is a human being.” Can one imagine a greater insult to the living God, creator of heaven and earth?
RCA has recorded an evangelistic message by Billy Graham and the gospel music of his associates, and has advanced the modern interest in great hymns. Why it has employed an author of known atheistic leaning to flaunt the Third Commandment is a mystery. Christians would do well to protest this profanation of the name of their God.
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Free World’S Top Diplomat Incapacitated As Cancer Recurs
The shift of major diplomatic duties to other hands following the serious illness of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles will in time reveal this great statesman’s realistic appraisal of Communist aims and his courageous resistance to them.
Mr. Dulles has repeatedly shown an uncanny ability to see through Communist proposals and to recognize them for what they are. The full magnitude of their danger has not always been sensed throughout the country, not even by some leaders in Washington, and at times he has stood quite alone. Awareness of the Communist rejection of objective morality and truth, alongside an espousal of naturalistic social theories, has sped him on exhausting missions around the globe.
As Secretary of State, Mr. Dulles has been propelled into a role of world leadership. Firmly committed to a just peace, he has carried to his task a measure of Christian idealism difficult to implement in non-Christian surroundings. Christians will pray that Mr. Dulles’ enforced and greatly needed rest will bring healing if it be God’s will. They need to pray also that those to whom some of his responsibilities will be entrusted may undertake them in the sure service and strength of the Lord. Diplomacy without the vision of God is folly. Should spiritual indifference mark America’s approach to world affairs, we would further demean the motto “In God We Trust” still imprinted on our foreign aid currency.
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