One month after the latest book by our board member Billy Graham—Angels—had appeared, 560,000 copies were in print or on order. By this time the figure probably exceeds 750,000. Although it was not written primarily as an evangelistic resource, the book is being used that way by God.

After the International Congress on World Evangelization, a follow-up committee was created. Its first meeting was in Mexico City last January. The second is to convene in Atlanta, Georgia, this coming January. Anyone interested in helping to finance the ongoing work of the congress should send a check to the Lausanne Continuation Committee, c/o Dr. Kenneth Chafin, South Main Baptist Church, 4100 South Main Street, Houston, Texas 77002. All gifts are tax-deductible.

Some years ago in an article entitled “Japan: Three Obstacles to the Gospel” (Christian Century, March 7, 1962), William P Woodard developed the thesis that this Far Eastern land had built-in social and psychological factors that made it essentially non-responsive to the Christian Evangel. This idea—that elements in the psyche of a people either make that people susceptible to the Christian message or cause it to present an indifferent or perhaps hostile face—may be timely for us to consider in relation to the climate of our own nation.

Our Lord commended the builder (mentioned in Luke 14:28) who, if he planned to build a tower, first took note of the cost. The same kind of prudence would suggest to the evangelical that he appraise realistically the climate into which he is to project his message. Such an assessment would not limit the efforts at making Christ known; it does provide guidelines for faith and limits upon expectations.

During the times of protest in our colleges and universities, we heard a great deal about commitment. Youth leaders called upon the rank and file to renounce objectivity and detachment, and to become active in causes—to “get a piece of the action” even if it proved to be costly.

The trend was short-lived. In its place has emerged, in almost cultic fashion, an anti-commitment mood that is creeping over old and young. The rejection of commitment seems to be pervasive enough to be considered a dominant social and intellectual motif. This has to be a source of deep concern to the Christian who takes seriously the central demand of the Lord Christ for total allegiance.

This frame of mind has a certain complexity in that it has roots in both the public psychology and in prevailing philosophical trends. In turn it tends to be reinforced by patterns of societal behavior. When and if such a mood beomes institutionalized, it becomes increasingly visible, and the mood becomes increasingly crucial for the strategy of the Christian Church.

A condition of emotional aridness has crept over our populace, affecting youth most directly but leaving no level of society untouched. The so-called sexual revolution, with its over-emphasis upon emotional experience, has contributed to this. The downgrading of work and of ambition and the resulting mood of “doing one’s own thing” served also to fragment experience, with a consequent sterilization of the inner life.

Contemporary literature, art, and music celebrate random and fragmented episodes and events. Personhood seems no longer to consist in continuity and wholeness. The quest for openness (which is really a flight from commitment) is frequently held to be the only alternative to being exploited. What is not so easily seen is that non-commitment may provide an easy rationalization for the emotional exploitation of others.

We have the media to thank, in good part, for a climate that fosters non-involvement. Having long abandoned our Lord’s dictum, “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses,” the organs of public communication on all hands create artificial appetites and inordinate expectations. When persons without spiritual roots expect more than they can possibly achieve, or when the achievement does not bring satisfaction, they may become frustrated.

As a result, multitudes in our society live in a state of mild anger, toward unidentified threats. Commitment now appears to be a threat to what is considered valid personhood. Part of the reaction against permanence in marriage stems from this fear. Alternatives that offer sensory experience severed from involvement appear attractive.

While staying detached and uncommitted may decrease one’s vulnerability, it also exacts a great price. Significantly, in an era in which commitment is a dirty word, there is among psychotherapists a renewed concern with narcissism. This involves not only an inordinate preoccupation with the ego but also a demand for random sensory satisfaction.

Perhaps enough has been said to suggest that the cult of non-involvement has deep roots in today’s culture and in the response of the human psyche to dominant motifs in that culture. There are also moods and movements in philosophy that tend to undermine the kind of responsibility that supports vital commitment. Philosophies that engage the classrooms do filter down into the public mind. And often it is their less desirable tenets that have the sharpest impact upon public thinking.

This seems clearly true of existential forms of thought, with their downgrading of reason, their built-in introversion, and their preoccupation with subjectivity. The net result of this philosophical mood—for it is more a mood than a system—is the fragmentation of experience, the celebration of the off-beat, and above all the atomization of truth.

The latter enables the candidate for ordination or for a position on the faculty of a confessional college or seminary to pledge loyalty to a statement of faith one day and a week later to espouse views that undercut that statement. Commitment on this basis, such as it is, seems to the existentially trained to be limited to the period of time in which the one so pledging “feels that way about it.” To this way of thinking, long-term allegiances seem like bands that constrict intellectual breathing and close promising options.

Similarly, the philosophical movement that has surfaced in some quarters as process theology has had an impact at the popular level. It reaches the public in the form of a downgrading of biblical authority, an insistence upon relativizing the personality and sovereignty of God, and a demand for total openness to new options. As the process theologians suggest, “God” is maturing with his world and is exhilarated by the complete open-endedness of the cosmic process.

The popular outcome of this form of thinking is a frame of mind that rejects all forms of finality. It has no tolerance for system or systems. It demands a form of non-involvement that works against meaningful commitment.

Far from being a cause for pessimistic inaction, the prevalance of the “cult of non-commitment” should afford a two pronged challenge to the evangelical. It should stimulate the messenger to “preach for a verdict,” pressing the gospel summons to the sinner to repent and to commit himself to Christ. It should also deepen the Christian’s reliance upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit as he seeks to bring men and women to yieldedness and committed discipleship.

HAROLD B. KUHN

During a lull early this month in the fighting between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, mission officials counted heads and tried to assess the damage to date. Only a handful of the several hundred Protestant foreign missionaries serving in Lebanon remained. None had been hurt, and most mission property had escaped major damage. There were reports of casualties among national workers, however, including the death of a Seventh-day Adventist communications employee. Important church-related schools either delayed the start of their fall terms indefinitely or were limping along at a fraction of normal enrollment. For now, the future of Christian work in Lebanon remains clouded, say mission officials.

Many factors figure in Lebanon’s turmoil: political, economic, and class differences, the presence of several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees, involvement of outside powers, even subversion. But the roots of the nation’s troubles go back many centuries, deep into its religious past.

Christianity was present in the area as early as the first century. In the fifth century St. Maron founded what is known today as the Maronite Catholic Church, an Eastern-rite church in submission to Rome. It is the largest of Lebanon’s Christian bodies, claiming perhaps 60 per cent of the Christian community and 30 per cent of the country’s estimated 3.3 million population.¹Population estimates throughout this report are based on conditions earlier in the year, before hundreds of thousands of persons fled from the country to escape the fighting.

The Greek Orthodox Church is the next largest Christian group, with about 13 per cent of the total population. Protestants account for only 1 per cent.

The majority of Lebanese—descendents of the ancient Phoenicians—are Muslims, divided about equally between the Sunni Muslims and the Shi’i Muslims, with a smattering of other Muslim sects. The two main branches of Islam are the result of a split in 657 over the successor to Muhammad. Within each of the major Muslim communities are factions that disagree with one another on fine points of interpretation of the faith. Disputes between them have often erupted into violence.

Islam and the Arabic language date from the ninth century in Lebanon. About 1840, the country came under the domination of the Ottoman Turks. A mandate after World War I placed it under the administration of the French, who had intervened during disorders in the 1860s.

Lebanon, a mountainous country about the size of Connecticut, was given its independence in the early 1940s. To provide for a system of checks and balances between the Muslims and the Christians, a national pact was agreed upon. The Christians outnumbered the Muslims at the time, a calculation based on a census taken in the 1930s—the last time a census has ever been taken. Thus the pact reflected the dominant Christian position. It specified that the president would be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, the speaker of the legislature a Shi’i Muslim, and the commander of the army a Christian. Religious quotas governed the selection of virtually every major governmental, judicial, and military official.

All things considered, the arrangement worked fairly well until after the Six-Day War of 1967, and Lebanon prospered. Beirut became the Wall Street of the Arab world. Business and tourism flourished. The biggest chunk of the prosperity went to the Christians, who tended to have better educations, better jobs, and better connections than the Muslims. Enough of the Sunni Muslims acquired wealth and position to keep the lid on, though. Only occasionally did it threaten to come loose.

One such occasion was in 1958 when Camille Chamoun sought a second term as president, a post he had won six years earlier. Many Muslims opposed his move as a violation of the national pact. In the ensuing disorder Egypt backed the Muslims, and President Eisenhower ordered in thousands of U. S. Marines with the explanation that American citizens needed their protection. Peace was restored, constitutional reforms were enacted, and Chamoun eventually stepped aside in favor of another Maronite acceptable to the Muslims. (Chamoun more recently has been head of the ministry of the interior, another key government post.)

Lebanon’s own small army (fewer than 18,000 troops) has been ineffective. Many officers are Christians, and the majority of enlisted men are Muslims. Therefore there is hesitance on both sides to commit the troops in any internal fracas. Many Muslims are bitter over the army’s failure to repel Israeli reprisals against Palestinian commandos operating out of the refugee camps and villages in southern Lebanon. And they will never forgive the army for dealing more harshly in the past with the Palestinians than with Israel.

A number of political parties have emerged in Lebanon over the years, and these too reflect religious alignment. The largest ones have their own security and militia forces. In the Christian camp, the conservative Phalange Party is the largest.

With the gradual shift in population the Muslims began pressing for more constitutional revisions and reform of the ruling pact. Key provisions of it were never put in writing; they have been observed all these years in a sort of gentlemen’s agreement. The Muslims wanted more of a say in government, more control of the army, more leverage in the marketplace, land reform, and more government support of the Palestinians, among other things. Militants and leftists poured on the fuel. They were supported to come extent by elements in the Beirut-based Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The Christian rightists feared that a shift in power would result in the establishment of a Muslim state and might lead to a destructive war with Israel.

In such an explosive atmosphere relatively minor incidents like a fenderbending auto accident near Tripoli and a street-corner argument in Beirut quickly escalated into bloody national crises. More people were killed in three months of civil strife than in ten years of feuding between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Many business firms relocated elsewhere around the Mediterranean, and tens of thousands of people fled to Syria and Jordan.

The economy is in shambles, bitter feelings run deeper than ever, and some Mideast observers are saying that Lebanon cannot recover with democracy intact. If so, then the future of Christianity in the country may also be at stake.

The largest Protestant body in the country is the Presbyterian-oriented National Evangelical Synod, with more than 10,000 members. The Armenian Evangelical Union has about 7,000 members, and there are substantial communities of Baptists, Anglicans, and independent evangelicals with ties to Britain.

Dozens of Protestant foreign missionary groups have work in Lebanon. The largest missionary force at the beginning of the year belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Most of the four dozen SDA missionaries were engaged in educational work. The United Presbyterian Church had about twelve missionary families there. Operation Mobilization had thirty assigned to work in publications and in direct evangelism. The Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God, and the Lebanon Evangelical Mission (British) also had sizable contingents.

Much Protestant mission work centers on education. The Catholics likewise emphasize education, enrolling about one-fifth of Lebanon’s school children, and operating a number of seminaries and several universities.

DEATH ON PRIME TIME (RATED PG)

Pastor Paul Tinlin of the 250-member Evangel Assembly of God Church in Schaumburg, Illinois, is getting a lot of press attention in the Midwest. It all started when Tinlin, 41, wrote a letter to a local newspaper disagreeing with an editorial that praised the Supreme Court for in effect striking down the death penalty. His letter stirred up sharp reaction, prompting a stiffer stance by Tinlan.

“There should be swift and sure justice for those who kill—and that should be public execution, and the execution should be on prime-time TV,” declared the minister. “We’ve got to start letting society see life for real,” he explained to a Chicago reporter. “Society should know that killing isn’t like on TV shows where the victim gets up and walks away when the show is over, that when real people get killed they are dead, that they are not just non-persons whose names appear in the newspaper and whose lives had no real meaning for the general public.”

Tinlan told his questioning 12-year-old daughter that seeing executions on TV “would probably make me sick, that it would be gruesome.” But, said he, “murder is also gruesome, and society has to start taking it seriously.”

He cited a verse in Genesis: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” Maybe, he said, it’s time for God’s harshest law to be followed.

RISKY BUSINESS

For potential victims of tricks on Halloween, 326-member First Church of the Nazarene in Pekin, Illinois, offered some treats—for a price. Teen-agers went door to door, selling Pranksters Assurance policies for $1. Policy-holders were guaranteed against debris and litter on their property. A clean-up detail of fifty teen-agers and two dozen adults stood by on alert, ready to wash windows and haul away trash. They received only fifteen calls for help.

About 2,000 policies were sold, and the money was donated to the church bus fund, according to pastor John Davis.

Portugal: Christian Climate?

The following account is based on a report filed by London correspondent Roger Day:

For weeks, up to 5,000 refugees, mostly of Portuguese ancestry, poured daily into Lisbon. They were fleeing the fighting in Angola, and most wanted to escape subjugation by the black-dominated government that would assume control upon Angola’s independence from Portugal (see November 7 issue, page 57). They now number several hundred thousand, and they pose special problems—both economic and political—for Portugal.

Relief efforts are under way to help care for the refugees. One operation is being administered by a team of Portuguese evangelicals. Team members include Baptists, Brethren, Pentecostals, and Salvation Army workers. Food, medicine, supplies, and cash are flowing in from national alliances of evangelicals throughout Europe in response to a call from President Jaime Vieira of the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance.

In commenting on the political situation, Vieira says the refugees could endanger “the revolution.” Strongly antileftist and having lost everything, they could be used by high rightist officials to thwart the nation’s liberalization campaign, and they could provoke attacks by extreme leftists that might lead to all-out civil war.

Despite the unrest and threats, Portugal’s people in general are happier now than they were in the repressive past, states Vieira. As for religious affairs, he says there is growing optimism that the new spirit of freedom afforded to Protestants (see March 14 issue, page 59) is likely to continue. A constitutional provision was passed in July stating that Catholicism is no longer the official religion and that all churches would not be treated in the same way.

Vieira says the new freedom means much to the estimated 45,000 believers in the 600 churches associated with the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance. There is complete freedom to worship as one pleases, churches can be organized without the official opposition that was formerly encountered, and Christians are free to evangelize, even in public street meetings. Evangelistic rallies have been held in theaters and sports pavilions, something impossible a year ago. Conscientious objectors on religious grounds no longer need fear imprisonment or flee to another country; they can apply for alternate service.

Most of the country’s evangelicals “did not believe in the dictatorship we had in the past,” affirms Vieira. “We believe in freedom and democracy, and we have practiced democracy in our churches.” He adds: “We now have more freedom than ever, and we believe we should use it to spread the Gospel.”

Christians aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the new climate. Marxists of various persuasions, from mild-eyed socialists to acid-tongued Maoists, are in the streets daily, trying to attract followers. Pornography is flourishing.

To Vieira and other Portuguese evangelicals, it all simply means that the times are ripe for a spiritual harvest.

In some cases there have been nearconfrontations. Baptists in Portugal have been engaged in a nationwide evangelistic campaign. Church members put up posters advertising the theme, “Reconciliation through Jesus Christ.” But the posters disappeared one recent Monday in Cacem. They were torn down by people, reportedly Communist-inspired, who even came into the churchyard to remove the posters on the church building. A group claiming Communist affiliation had also been at the entrance of the church on the preceding Sunday night, trying to persuade people not to attend the special campaign services, according to European Baptist Press Service. The church hall was filled for both the Sunday and Monday night meetings, reported an observer.

The Cacem church had been without a pastor for several years. The new pastor is Sergio Felizardo, one of five pastors among Baptist refugees from Angola.

Wycliffe Opposed

Evangelical groups are under government pressure in Colombia. The Summer Institute of Linguistics, also known as Wycliffe Bible Translators,²Wycliffe is in Colombia officially as a cultural rather than a religious mission, under the Summer Institute of Linguistics name. is now the focus of a public debate in the Colombian legislature. The organization is in a delicate position. It is opposed by the conservative right, which wishes to maintain a Roman Catholic monopoly on missions to the Indians; opposed by liberals and anthropologists who frown upon the “cultural imperialism” of any kind of missions to the Indians; and opposed by the far left because it originated in North America and because it has given linguistic information to the Colombian government.

In a recent meeting with a large group of Indians of various tribes, President Lopez—a liberal—proposed gradually replacing Wycliffe linguists with Colombian linguists. It remains to be seen whether Lopez’s proposal was merely rhetoric. It does imply a recognition of the value of Wycliffe’s linguistic work.

More extreme opponents have spread a strident rumor that a secret American missile base is located on a remote plateau, presumably with Wycliffe collusion. Official sources emphatically deny the rumor. The defense minister, speaking in the House of Representatives, attributed it to “fantasies originating in the suspicions of the Catholic missions.”

Other evangelical groups apparently are being scrutinized by the government too. The Confederation of Evangelical Churches of Colombia recently alerted its members that it “obtained information that the national government is studying and reviewing the incorporation (that is, the legal standing) of some evangelical churches, missions, and institutions.” The committee expressed concern and called a meeting to deal with the question.

LEROY BIRNEY

Religion In Transit

After a ninety-minute debate over whether to remove President Ford’s name as a recipient of one of its annual “Family of Man” awards, the board of directors of the New York City Council of Churches voted overwhelmingly to give it to him as originally planned. But the board also voted to advise Ford of the criticism from clergy and laity opposed to giving him the award because of his stance against federal aid for the financially ailing city.

Trinity (Episcopal) parish in New York City, the United Methodist board of global ministries, and Church World Service (CWS), the relief arm of the National Council of Churches, each gave $5,000 to help air on nationwide television a controversial film about South Africa. A United Church of Christ agency donated $2,000, and an NCC unit chipped in $500. In addition, the Methodist board also helped with production costs. The film, Last Grave in Dimbaza, conveys a strong indictment of apartheid, but knowledgeable persons who saw the film say it contains distortions and inaccuracies.

The five-hour “I Care” television special aired by the fledgling Manhattan Church of the Nazarene over Channel 11 in New York last month brought in almost $300,000 in pledges from some 3,800 viewers.

END-ZONE ENDING

Footballer Mike Rohrbach of the University of Washington made three trips into the end zone against Stanford—two for touchdowns and one to pray. At the close of the game Rohrbach and about a dozen other players from both teams knelt in the end zone and, according to Rohrbach, “thanked the Lord that we got a chance to compete and see each other as friends.”

Thousands of fans who watched the game in Palo Alto, California, probably still are wondering what that post-game huddle was all about. Rohrbach, a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, suggests that fans there and elsewhere might be seeing more of that kind of activity this season.

World Scene

The 25-year-old Word of Life Press, a publishing house in Tokyo, staffed by 130 Japanese workers and related to The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM), last month released the New Testament of the Living Bible in Japanese. Although it is not a translation of the popular English paraphrase, it employs similar techniques. TEAM missionary Roger McVety, founder and director of the Press, is working with Living Bibles International to produce modern translations in thirty-seven Asian languages.

MIK, the only evangelical publishing house in Pakistan, sold 45,000 Christian books and 200,000 tracts last year.

On the afternoon of October 30, exactly seven months after the fall of Saigon, a Royal Air Lao twin-engine DC-3 landed at Bangkok, Thailand. Aboard were fourteen persons, including seven missionaries and one of their children, who had been held captive by the Vietnamese Communists since the second week of March. They were accompanied on the flight from Hanoi by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin Khan of Pakistan. Khan and his aides had spent months negotiating their release.

Standing in a light drizzle to greet them were a dozen friends, mission officials, and 17-year old Geraldine Mitchell, daughter of Mrs. Betty Mitchell, one of the returning missionaries. Mrs. Mitchell’s husband Archie, a Christian and Missionary Alliance hospital administrator, had been taken captive with two other missionary workers in 1962, and he has not been heard from since then.

Also on hand were a number of embassy officials, including the ambassadors of the United States, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia, plus a bevy of newsmen.

There were shouts of greeting, hugs, and kisses when the released captives, looking a bit undernourished, deplaned. Mrs. Mitchell broke into tears on being reunited with her daughter (see photo, this page). She told reporters she had been unable to learn anything about, the fate of her husband.

The other missionaries in the group were Richard Phillips and his wife Lillian, John and Carolyn Miller and their six-year-old daughter LuAnne (see photo, page 50), and Norman and Joanne Johnson (see April 11 issue, page 31). The Millers served with Wycliffe Bible Translators; the others were members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA).

In addition to the missionaries were Paul Struharik, a U. S. Agency for International Development (AID) official; Jay Scarborough, a Cornell student; Peter Whitlock, an Australian; and a Filipino and his Vietnamese wife and son.

All fourteen had been captured in or near Ban Me Thuot (pronounced ban-may-too-et) in the central highlands at the outset of the fighting that led to the sudden collapse of South Viet Nam.

At the conclusion of an airport press conference with the returnees, the Canadian ambassador took the Johnsons, who are Canadians, to his home to spend the night. The other missionaries were whisked to a nearby CMA guest facility. Two days later, Mrs. Mitchell was hospitalized with a severe case of malaria she’d contracted while being held a prisoner in jungle camps, and there was no immediate word on how soon she would be able to leave for home.

In the few days that the missionaries spent at the guest facility before proceeding to North America, they recalled their experiences for interviewers.

The Johnsons were based in a village outside of Ban Me Thuot. On Sunday, March 9, they awoke to the sound of shelling and gunfire in the distance. The couple packed in order to be ready to evacuate in case the shooting turned out to be more than one of the intermittent Communist probes. At 3A.M. the next morning they were suddenly jolted out of bed by a tremendous explosion outside their window. Other shells landed nearby; the village was under attack. The Johnsons huddled until daybreak on the floor of a roofless concrete shower stall at the back of their house.

By dawn the shelling was less intense. The couple saw some South Vietnamese soldiers walking along the street in front of the house, and they decided to venture out themselves in the direction of the nearby missionary compound. They had taken only a few steps when they heard a lot of cheering: triumphant North Vietnamese troops were entering the Raday village.

The couple jumped off the road and made their way to a bunker near their house. For the next eight hours they hid there with a group of frightened Vietnamese, within earshot of the North Vietnamese soldiers (who were rummaging through the house) and with South Vietnamese planes bombing the area. About four o’clock in the afternoon a soldier spotted the people in the bunker, fired a warning shot, and ordered them out. The troops seemed especially excited about snagging a couple of Americans.

The prisoners were marched down the street and into the hills. For their journey the Johnsons had only the clothes they wore, along with a jacket, sweater, and blanket that Mrs. Johnson carried from the house earlier in the day.

When an officer began to tie Johnson’s hands, Johnson explained that he was a missionary and would cause no trouble if left untied. The officer complied, and he ordered the return of a watch and money that had been taken from the missionary.

Along with other prisoners, some of them injured, the missionaries were herded along a rough trail in the hill country. At 1 A. M. they finally came to a building. Here they were kept with one hundred others for the next seven days. It was in the same area where Archie Mitchell had last been seen.

When the attack on Ban Me Thuot began on March 9, the Phillipses hurried to Struharik’s home. Struharik was the senior American advisor in the province. He had a radio and would know of any evacuation flights. With the exception of the Johnsons, the other members of the “Ban Me Thuot 14” were already there. But there were no evacuation flights. The fighting roared on past Struharik’s house that same day, and for the next two days everybody inside tried to be as quiet as possible. But on March 12 the North Vietnamese discovered them and took them to a detention area. On March 18 the group linked up with the Johnsons.

The first jungle camp to which they were taken was located in the northwest corner of Dar Loc province. They stayed here thirty-three days. Then they were moved to another jungle camp in Pleiku province near the Cambodian border, where they stayed forty-three days. This was followed by a seventy-six-day period in a village away from the jungle. From here they were taken by truck to North Viet Nam, arriving on August 23 at Son Tay, the camp outside Hanoi where American helicopters landed in 1970 in a futile attempt to rescue POWs.

The missionaries say they were treated well by their captors. In the jungle camps they were given plenty of rice, although a tablespoon of meat had to be split twelve ways. They were offered whatever medicines were available (Phillips is a doctor; his wife and Mrs. Johnson are nurses), and they were allowed a certain amount of freedom of movement. They built their own shelters and latrines, and they did their own cooking, frequently experimenting with new dishes. One favorite: donuts made from rice flour, sugar, and shortening. The missionaries laugh about how hard the donuts were, “even after ten minutes of dunking.” Once in a while they got dried fish, and they learned to like manioc root. They missed greens in their diet, so they kept sampling leaves that might serve as substitutes.

Everyday they had to cut back the jungle from their doors. They bathed in streams. The only illumination at night came from campfires. For their work they were paid a small sum with which to purchase food.

From the beginning, the foreigners were kept isolated from South Vietnamese prisoners. The missionaries were allowed to hold religious services, but Vietnamese Christians who tried to join in were driven away. The Vietnamese were not permitted to have services.

Mrs. Phillips developed a hobby during her jungle sojourn. She made a butterfly net and collected forty-five different varieties of butterflies. She even persuaded guards to pursue specimens that fluttered into off-limits areas.

The bamboo structures the prisoners built had no walls, and they had to sleep on the ground. When it rained the thatched roofs leaked badly. Many became ill, and most of the foreigners came down with malaria.

Conditions were much improved in North Viet Nam. The prisoners were housed in cement shelters that had electricity and running water. In the jungles the only reading matter the missionaries had were Bibles, but in Hanoi they were provided with books, magazines, and newspapers. Recreation facilities were made available, and the menu improved considerably (for breakfast: soup, fish, bananas, and cookies).

Mrs. Johnson was hospitalized for an infection requiring minor surgery, and she says she received good treatment and the proper medication.

Shortly before their release the missionaries were taken on sightseeing tours to a zoo and a museum but their request to visit a North Vietnamese church service was denied.

Throughout their captivity they were often subjected to tough interrogation sessions. Their questioners kept asking who they really were and why they really were in Viet Nam. Contrary to some speculation, the missionaries say they saw no atrocities, mass graves, or the like that might account for the North Vietnamese reluctance to release them sooner.

“They kept telling us that they had to wait for good relationships to develop between our countries and that they had to find out who we really were,” says Phillips.

Johnson complains that the North Vietnamese would not let him communicate with Canadian officials.

The missionaries, homesick for their families, at the encouragement of prison authorities wrote a number of letters to their children and other relatives, and Phillips prepared a tape for his family. He discovered after his release that none had been received.

They were required to attend indoctrination classes, but with the right questions and reasoning techniques the missionaries were able to turn some of these into witness sessions.

They held services on Sunday mornings in North Viet Nam. These consisted of some hymns, a Scripture reading, and a Bible message. There were regularly scheduled prayer meetings, and whenever anyone was in the interrogation room or was feeling especially low the others would all pray.

The missionaries say they were conscious of the prayers of people back home. “We want to thank everyone who prayed for us,” Mrs. Johnson told a broadcast interviewer. “That’s what brought us through.”

Canada: A Win For Women

After hours of debate, bishops of the 1.5-million-member Anglican Church of Canada voted 31–3 to give individual bishops power to admit qualified women to the priesthood after November 1, 1976. Meeting in Winnipeg, they asked Archbishop Edward Scott, the Canadian primate, to seek comments on their new policy from Anglican churches in other countries. Only “overwhelmingly negative” reaction could stall the move, but Scott anticipates no such reaction. The vote ratifies a move of the General Synod of the church last year.

A Church of England spokesman said it was unlikely that his church would object to the Canadian action. The English church decided in principle some time ago that it has no fundamental objection to women priests. The issue is now being considered by the Church of England bishops.

The decision was made despite several formidable attempts to block it. Some critics wanted to forestall action until the council’s next meeting. Others urged no action until after the 1978 Lambeth conference, which brings together Anglican and Episcopal bishops worldwide, but supporters saw such action as an “intolerable strain.” Reports have suggested that the purpose of a September visit to Canada by Presiding Bishop John N. Allin and eight provincial bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States was to urge Canadian Anglicans to delay a decision. What effect the Canadian action will prove on the American scene is still a matter of speculation.

About 350 of Canada’s 2,700 Anglican clergy have signed a manifesto that calls for a total boycott against the ministry of any woman who accepts ordination. The manifesto states that “it is an impossibility in the divine economy for a woman to be a priest.”

The 1,000-member Council for the Faith, an alliance of Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals, described ordination of women as “schismatic if not heretical.” Some members of the council have threatened to quit the church to form a new Anglican church.

Archbishop Scott hopes that women candidates for the priesthood will be ordained next year at the same time as men wherever possible.

LESLIE K. TARR

Harvest Time On Taiwan

It was harvesting time as well as watering time in Taiwan early this month when evangelist Billy Graham ended a five-day crusade, breaking all records for a religious event on the 300-mile-long “island beautiful.”

The water was both spiritual and physical in Taipei, capital of the Republic of China. Rain fell each day, turning the playing field of the city stadium into a morass. People came from all over the island, however, sometimes huddling under umbrellas and sometimes squatting on styrofoam squares.

Only on the fourth night did the rain stop briefly, and the estimated 65,000 then filling every space in the stadium broke an attendance record for the facility. It was a special kind of victory for island evangelicals since ecumenical forces had predicted about six months earlier that the government would not allow a crusade in the stadium. On the final day, Graham preached to 60,000 in the rain on Noah, “the man who dared to stand alone.” In the audience was the top man in the government, Chiang Ching-kuo, premier and son of the late president Chiang Kai-shek.

Absent, but sending cabled greetings, was Madame Chiang Kai-shek, honorary chairman of the crusade. She was in the United States for medical attention. Her personal chaplain, Chow Lien-hwa, translated Graham’s messages into Mandarin Chinese. (Translation was also provided in Japanese and Taiwanese.)

Cumulative attendance for the five meetings was estimated at 250,000. Many of the listeners came from outlying towns and villages on the mountainous island, and Taipei churches provided sleeping space for thousands of visitors.

The harvest came as Graham issued an invitation at the end of each service. More than 11,500 decisions were recorded during the five days.

Graham’s team musicians were on hand, but the wet weather had the effect of making the music more Asian than American. Area instrumentalists and vocalists stepped in to lead when rainfall made it impossible to play the piano and organ.

A 5,000-voice choir was only one of the groups of volunteers recruited by local churches to assist. The 300 supporting congregations of some forty denominations also provided more than 3,000 counselors and 2,000 ushers.

A veteran Presbyterian pastor, C. C. Chen, was crusade chairman. “This is the biggest thing I have seen happen in the church life of Taiwan,” he said of the cooperative effort. “It is with deep thanksgiving and joy that I have watched us come together to save our brothers’ souls.”

A school of evangelism conducted in connection with the crusade attracted 2,900 pastors, pastors’ wives, and college and seminary students. Among those enrolled were 160 students, virtually the entire student body, of a seminary at Tainan. They rode eleven hours on a steam-powered train to attend.

China-born Ruth Graham, the evangelist’s wife, accompanied him to the Far East, where he was to conduct a crusade in Hong Kong two weeks after the Taipei meetings. Correspondent Nell Kennedy reported that the Grahams planned to meet in Tokyo with U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, prompting speculation that they were arranging for a visit to Mrs. Graham’s childhood home in Mainland China.

Rio In Retrospect

Evangelicals in the Rio de Janeiro area staged an anniversary commemoration a year after Billy Graham’s crusade in famous Maracana Stadium, and an estimated 10,000 came through a downpour of rain to attend. It was still pouring at the end of the sermon, but some 500 came forward for counseling when the invitation was given.

Sponsors said that live radio broadcasting of the service gave additional thousands an excuse to stay home in the bad weather. They also emphasize that the Rio meeting is just one of many indications of the impact made on all of Brazil by the 1974 Graham campaign.

Graham biographer John Pollock of Britain was in the country to assess the impact a year later, and he reported that the crusade “set in motion a great surge of evangelistic activity, not just in greater Rio but wherever School of Evangelism students returned.” The “school” was a seminar series for Christian workers.

Among the places Pollock visited were the cities of Recife and Belem in the north and Brasilia and Belo Horizonte in the south. He says he found unprecedented cooperation among evangelicals and record response to their evangelistic endeavors.

Perhaps most important of Pollock’s discoveries was what he described as a new respect for the Gospel throughout the country. He attributed this mostly to the network telecast of the final Sunday rally of the 1974 crusade. It went into all major cities and into most states. Viewers saw a record crowd at Maracana.

Organizers reported to Pollock that decisions for Christ are still being recorded, and that initial inquiries are still coming to the phone number set up in October, 1974. More than 50,000 inquiries have been noted.

The crusade, its preparatory work, and its aftermath have “demolished the inferiority complex” of Brazilian evangelicals, Pollock found. He also attributed to the campaign these results: seminary enrollments in the Rio area are up to capacity and beyond; Baptists have met their national budget early; sales of evangelical literature are up, with one Rio bookshop experiencing a 50 per cent increase this year. The biographer also found that since Graham’s meetings evangelicals have made historic penetrations into intellectual and political circles.

The sense of achievement realized by the cooperating Christians also taught them they can work together “without having to unite in formal organization,” Pollock was told.

Euthanasia: Can Death Be Friendly?

Death by Choice, by Daniel C. Maguire (Doubleday, 1974, 224 pp., $6.95), Death by Decision, by Jerry B. Wilson (Westminster, 1975, 208 pp., $7.50), Freedom to Die, by O. Ruth Russell (Human Sciences, 1975, 352 pp., $14.95), Beneficent Euthanasia, edited by Marvin Kohl (Prometheus, 1975, 255 pp., $4.95 pb), and The Morality of Killing, by Marvin Kohl (Humanities, 1974, 122 pp., $9.75), are reviewed by Sid Macaulay, Southeast regional director, Christian Medical Society, Decatur, Georgia.

In late January, 1975, Dr. and Mrs. Henry Pitney Van Dusen, elderly members of the Euthanasia Society, took an overdose of sleeping pills to carry out a suicide pact. He had been the president of Union Seminary in New York from 1945 to 1963 and was one of the founders of the World Council of Churches. For the last five years of his life, Dr. Van Dusen was severely debilitated; a stroke had left him unable to speak or write. His wife, who suffered from severe arthritis, died from the overdose; Van Dusen vomited up the pills but died two weeks later of a heart ailment.

Ethicist John C. Bennett, a long-time friend of the Van Dusens, wrote, “There was no doubt in my mind that they sincerely believed that in this act they were doing the will of God for them.”

C. S. Lewis describes our Lord’s dilemma in contemplating his sufferings: “Hence the Perfect Man brought to Gethsemane a will, and a strong will, to escape suffering and death if such escape were compatible with the Father’s will, combined with a readiness for perfect obedience if it were not.” Can we know the will of God on hastening our own death? And who among us will realize a redemptive purpose in his or her suffering? Euthanasia is a complex issue that reaches into almost all ethical categories. The Bible does not resolve the situation, and if it did, modern medical techniques would pose an indefatigable challenge.

The consensus of these writers is that we must have some kind of euthanasia legislation and that 1975 is already late. I am still unconvinced. To say the least, if the problems of suicide and suffering could be resolved, many things would fall into place. Voluntary euthanasia is, in a sense, assisting in the suicide of one who is undergoing an unbearable or meaningless suffering.

If there is anything more effective than reading five books on euthanasia to spoil one’s summer, it is to find that one of the writers has ink in his veins as well as in his pen. I am thinking of Marvin Kohl’s cool dissection of the Morality of Killing. In his treatment of abortion, however, his ethics and logic falter (there is some blood there!).

I must confess that I can now clearly understand, thanks to Kohl, how euthanasia is an expression of mercy and kindness in certain instances, even though it is a type of killing. We can justify killing in some war, in capital punishment, and for a number of proper motives, including self-defense. Kohl sees euthanasia as a moral alternative for the patient suffering irremediable pain.

He rarely indicates a good grasp of Christian theology or concerns, and asserts that “theology and ethics are logically independent.” Little is accomplished in his dealings with euthanasia from the hinterland of linguistic analysis.

Kohl also edited Beneficent Euthanasia, essays stacked on the side of the legalization of suicide, assistance in suicide, direct and indirect euthanasia. I could not find anyone who favors strict involuntary euthanasia, but the term non-voluntary (not in involuntary) is supported for those who lack the capacity of consciousness and consent, where no dissent is actual or implied. Color this category gray.

Bishop Joseph Sullivan, one of the contributors, still follows the conservative position of the Roman Catholic Church magisterium, which is that no innocent life can ever be taken. He considers scriptural material in his essay, but to very little consequence. In fact, these essays in general show the point of view of persons who claim there is an abyss between biblical studies and Christian ethics.

Since beneficent euthanasia means mercy-killing, Harvard professor Arthur Dyck, another contributor, coins benemortasia as an alternative. He observes, “Whereas the former would deliberately induce death, the latter, as a last resort after making every effort to save and repair life, mercifully retreats in the face of death’s inevitability.” Dyck stands out from the crowd with his declaration that “every life has some worth” and his conviction that “humans require restraint.”

Call Joseph Fletcher what you will, his contribution, “The Right to Live and the Right to Die,” is cogent and communicates without obfuscation. His logic may be simplistic reductionism, but he forces you to think from a Christian position. While most of the essayists try to do away with the “wedge” argument, Fletcher extends its life brutally. “Why is fetal euthanasia all right, but not terminal euthanasia?” he asks.

Freedom to Die by O. Ruth Russell is a textbook or reference handbook, replete with documentation. It is the work of a Canadian psychologist who points to the logic and moral suasion of the opinions and arguments advanced by others. Every imaginable bit of information, including legislative proposals and a massive bibliography, is included. Dr. Russell’s amassed evidence is a necessity for anyone working on the legislative or historical level. Her book is not dispassionate; she clearly supports the legalization of euthanasia. Since she is not trained in theology, there is not a serious evaluation of theological principles that bear on the subject. Her book, unlike the other four, is indexed, which makes it a useful reference resource.

Death by Choice and Death by Decision are similar in purpose and content. Both seek to integrate the medical, moral, and legislative aspects of euthanasia in order to give a comprehensive appraisal. They both conclude that more human freedom will be gained than lost by a good law allowing doctors to do what they are, on occasion, now doing furtively with terminal patients (yet without any real legal punishment).

Both authors want some type of committee to monitor the decision-making, but neither considers the thorny issue of who will be the “executioner,” to use Dr. Duncan Vere’s word. Wilson comes down hard on the patient’s right to determine the direction of treatment at every possible turn.

Although Wilson allegedly works from a theocentric perspective, Christian thinking amounts to little more than a theological overlay. If “theocentric love … begins with the concrete needs of patients as persons,” as he claims, where could anthropocentric love possibly begin? Why is the “imago dei” not even considered here? One wishes for a more articulate explanation of “response to the redeeming love of God” than that the “dying can confront death without anxiety or despair.” It sounds like a baptized stoicism.

Daniel Maguire does not try to maintain a theological tenor; he writes as the warm-blooded ethicist that he is. Yet he does recognize that “for a Christian and for anyone who believes in an afterlife, to ‘terminate life’ is … to move on to a new life.” Sandwiched in the middle of Maguire’s book is an excellent minicourse in ethics. I consider it worthy of independent publication as an ethics primer.

Wilson’s work, unlike Maguire’s, is too abstract. But it is an excellent contribution, especially in its objective appraisal of the dilemmas and professional pitfalls of physicians. He identifies four distinct levels of moral discourse: emotional, moral, ethical, and metaphysical. He totally avoids the emotional and offers no real help on the metaphysical or theological. Maguire is thoroughly sensitive to the area of feelings, which is a sine qua non for a proper evaluation of the euthanasia problem. He employs the German term, Gemüt to denote intuition or knowing that comes from the heart.

Both of these authors deal seriously and adequately with the contributions of Princeton professor Paul Ramsey. On this delicate subject, as on other ethical issues, Ramsey can be counted on to shore up the weak places in the ethical dam. He has done Christendom a great service by skillfully pointing to the “indignity” of death from a biblical perspective (see Hastings Center Studies, May, 1974).

We are at a social apex for this problem of caring for the dying. This is the “gerontological era,” says Maguire, and he cites a forceful statistic: “It has been estimated that one quarter of all human beings who have ever reached age 65 are alive today.” Since 1900 their number has increased 500 per cent in the United States alone. While a lot of attention is being grabbed by the sensational issue of euthanasia, the more common problem of the quality of life for the aged is more important and is significant for conceiving of death as an enemy or a friend. Ruth Russell and Maguire both reflect a deep concern for the care and quality of institutions for the elderly.

The case for voluntary euthanasia is gaining an approving consensus among Christian moralists. The best arguments, against it seem to be on the level of Gemüt, where the practical application of death-dealing techniques will be. Most ethical, philosophical, and legal discourse will disqualify feelings as having any authority in the arbitration of this issue. I am not sure that is right.

Those who want a consistent opposing view will find it among these authors: Yale Kamisar, Duncan Vere, and Cicely Saunders (the latter two are British).

Maguire’s book is more easily read than the other four. I recommend it for those who want to enter or keep up with discussions on euthanasia. His thesis is that “death should be presumed an enemy until it presents itself as a friend.”

What’S In A Name?

The Naming of Persons, by Paul Tournier (Harper & Row, 1975, 118 pp. $5.95), is reviewed by Michael H. Macdonald, associate professor of German and philosophy, Seattle Pacific College, Seattle, Washington.

Paul Tournier’s latest work focuses on the human person and its inestimable value. Dr. Tournier seeks to rediscover the spiritual communion between doctor and patient, teacher and student, person and person, I and thou, which is still beyond the frontiers of objective scientific knowledge. Man belongs to two worlds, the impersonal world of nature and the spiritual world of the person. The basic problem of our time is that too much importance is attached to things and not enough to persons. This book, like Tournier’s others, presupposes that the source of life and human consciousness lies in God and that man’s universal and supreme need is to find him.

The Naming of Persons explores the meaning and implications of names and shows that their role in our lives is larger than we might suspect. Names are not the result of chance. In his perceptive manner, Tournier probes into the significance of signatures, nicknames, name-changes; he discusses why names are chosen, why children name teddy-bears, and when first names should be used. God gave man the right to name, enabling him to personalize the world. God calls man to share “in the creation of the spiritual world, of this world of persons which is the people of God.”

Man is also charged with the responsibility of giving names to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. Herein Tournier sees animals, plants, and even inanimate things endowed with the quality of the spiritual realm. (Does not the Bible allude to fellowship with these spheres in First Kings 4:33?)

Tournier’s call is for a mature dialogue between God and man, man and man, man and world. This is the very basis of the idea of the person.

Tournier argues that the child in some way comes into existence when it is named. It is no longer a “bundle of cells” but the indivisible whole that is a person. The name is “not only the symbol of the person; it is the person itself.” Naming the child implies the parents’ responsibility before God to bring the child up as a person in accordance with God’s will. A child is not a thing to be possessed but a person who should be respected.

In an excellent chapter on possessiveness Tournier stresses that parents “must avoid all those commands and threats that have no other aim than to test out the child’s docility, to break his will and force him to capitulate.” Even love, devotion, and kindness can turn the child into a slave as well as spoil him, for “the purest love and the most dangerous possessiveness are inextricably bound up together.” Dependence must diminish or it will become an obstacle to personal development. It is important that the child acquire his own tastes, aspirations, beliefs, and ideas. This, of course, includes the choice of activities, studies, dress, hair-style, friends, and career.

Harmful effects in blocking the development of the child can last a lifetime. The roots of possessiveness are deep within the human heart. Liberation is really possible only as God himself intervenes in our lives, making us new creatures in Christ.

With warm, personal anecdotes the author emphasizes the interrelationship of medicine, psychology, and religion. He is honest; he admits that we see only “through a glass, darkly.” In places he might be somewhat frustrating to the person only searching for clear, distinct ideas and answers. But this is how it must be, for Tournier is no system-builder. This is not an analytic and detailed exposition; Tournier here evokes a way of life. At its center is the potential for a unique God-given attitude, universally available yet almost totally neglected. I find that he gets to the heart of the matter in a way that none of the more analytic philosophers and psychologists have been able to do.

Biblical Authority

Holy Scripture, by G. C. Berkouwer (Eerdmans, 1975, 377 pp. $8.95), is reviewed by Geoffrey Bromiley, professor of church history and historical theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

The Christian world owes a great debt to the Dutch scholar G. C. Berkouwer for his series of studies in dogmatics in which over the years he has offered a fresh treatment of most of the central theological themes. Now the latest volume in the series has now been made available in an excellent translation.

Predictably, Berkouwer does a thorough, painstaking job. He covers not only questions of inspiration, authority, and reliability but all the traditional aspects of a theology of Scripture, including the canon, interpretation, clarity, sufficiency, and the relation to preaching. He manifests a wide acquaintance with Scripture itself and quotes and discusses writers both ancient and modern. As in all Berkouwer’s works, the extensive interaction with Dutch theology is a particularly useful feature for those who have not had direct acquaintance with this nourishing root.

From many angles Berkouwer’s theology of Holy Scripture will commend itself as an informed and convincing presentation of the orthodox Reformation position in the changed world of the twentieth century. The discussion of the testimony of the Spirit in chapter two is particularly balanced and helpful. Another good chapter follows in which Berkouwer deals with the canon. The substitution of the more literally biblical “God-breathed character” for “inspiration,” which is in line with Warfield’s argument, also calls for commendation, and the chapter on the “servant form” of Scripture is an innovative feature that adds depth and stature to the understanding of the theme.

Good things may be found, too in the chapter on sufficiency, both in relation to the role of tradition and also existentially in relation to the perplexities of life and thought in the modern age. Along similar lines the treatment of the relation between Scripture and preaching, while perhaps not as comprehensive or profound as it might have been, responds to a critical question in modern ministry with the cogent declaration that preaching achieves true relevance when it sets forth the biblical message of salvation without reorientation or rearrangement to suit what might seem to be more pressing contemporary issues.

One must be grateful to Berkouwer, then, for the powerful help he brings in these important matters. Nevertheless, some uneasiness cannot be avoided at the way he deals with certain particularly sensitive areas. Among these, I wish to consider three: first, fundamentalism; second, inerrancy; and third, the relation of Scripture to time and culture.

In his first chapter Berkouwer engages in a brief criticism of fundamentalism that can hardly be described as either illuminating or helpful. For one thing, he recognizes that fundamentalism is a complex phenomenon, and yet he goes on to attack the whole in terms of the part. To be sure, he accurately pinpoints some problems in fundamentalism, especially its tendency to be pushed into an either/or. Yet he himself will not let it break out of this.

Regarding the divine and human roles in producing Scripture he argues that Burgon’s rejection of mechanical inspiration cannot on its own premises be taken seriously. Burgon has to give an account of the method of inspiration and is forced to ignore “the fact that God’s Word has passed through humanity.” Three points may be made in this regard. (1) It has always been a weakness of Berkouwer in theological evaluation to say what others must do, or cannot do, on their own presuppositions. (2) It is by no means self-evident that emphasis on the divine authorship precludes a nonautomatic use of human means. This is for God, not Berkouwer, to decide. (3) Pressing the alternative on fundamentalism carries with it the danger that on the other side, in fact if not in intention, the reality of the divine authorship will be, implicitly at least, left out of the reckoning. Something of this may be seen in the author’s own work.

As Berkouwer sees it, a serious fault of the fundamentalist stress on the divine origin of Scripture is that it entails a “leveling down” whereby every statement has the same weight and in practice interpretation is superfluous. This leveling down seems to be identified at one point with the presence of propositional truth-communication in Scripture. Here, of course, we have in the first instance a generalization that cannot stand up to analysis. Dispensationalists can hardly be accused of a leveling down that obliterates all nuances and involves no interpretation. Similarly the Reformed conservatives whom Berkouwer quotes, e.g., Warfield and Packer, obviously are not going to offer Passover lambs on the ground that the Old Testament command has the same force as the new commandment of Jesus. As regards propositional statements, it has been increasingly appreciated that the antithesis between the propositional and the existential has been much exaggerated and that no either/or need exist here. Berkouwer makes some good points in this section, but his barely veiled hostility to an amorphous fundamentalism, which presumably includes Packer, D. B. Knox, and Warfield, since these are the only names he gives, can hardly be described as informal or illuminating.

My disquiet increases when in chapter six, “The God-Breathed Character Continuity,” Berkouwer discusses inerrancy. Again he begins with two incisive and helpful comments. First, he agrees with Bavinck that the authors of Scripture “spoke in the language of daily experience.” Hence they did not need a special knowledge of topics such as zoology, and there is no reason for technical prevision in what they say about such matters, which are not in any case the subject of their message. Second, he points out that the real concern about the Bible is with erring rather than errancy, i.e., with swerving or diverting from the truth rather than with limited or even defective knowledge of secular topics. Lying is what Scripture associates with error, and Scripture itself is certainly not be be identified with deception in this sense. In relation to God and his truth it will never lead into error, and to that extent it is inerrant.

This is all true, but unfortunately Berkouwer cannot leave well enough alone. To be sure, he does not explicitly say that there is factual misinformation in the Bible. But he does say that in the view of inerrancy that has developed in our time “we meet with a serious formalization of erring … which cannot later be related to truth in the biblical sense.” If the naturalness of the authors’ speech leads to what might be technically called errors, this makes no difference to the basic reliability of God’s Word, and even enhances it, whereas earnestness for a “miraculous correctness” “in the end will damage reverence for Scripture more than it will further it.”

The precise position of Berkouwer in all this is difficult to determine. He operates with the principles of everyday speech and time-bound cosmology without clearly saying what the coincidence of the two involves or, indeed, how they interrelate in matters of inerrancy. He confuses, matter by adducing our Lord’s “not knowing” and yet apparently saying that he, of course, could not be charged with error (or is he quoting someone else here?). He confounds confusion by equating inerrancy with the extreme form in which it means the miraculous anticipation of every true scientific discovery. The problem, perhaps, is not that Berkouwer leaves us with a Bible that is unreliable in some areas but that he fails to present the matter in a coherent way. He advances some useful principles but so obscures their application that in some respects the trustworthiness of the biblical record is left in suspense.

A few concrete examples might have brought some clarification. For instance, is the historical witness to the empty tomb historically reliable, so that we can be sure that things did in fact happen as the records say they did? In this case Paul apparently thinks that should there be error in the accounts, the apostles are false witnesses who are leading people astray. Unfortunately, however, Berkouwer remains in the realm of ambivalent generality, the more distressing here because in another connection he sees that the apostolic records must be historically reliable and can even say that a stand for inerrancy might be necessary.

The third and possibly the chief reason for uneasiness is the way Berkouwer handles the time-boundness of Scripture in connection with inerrancy. The issue, of course, is not the fact that the Word of God is given in specific times and cultures. This is a truism. The real issue is the inferences drawn from this fact. Haunted by the fear that the statements of Scripture might be reduced to timeless truths, Berkouwer sees an implication of contingency and tries to avoid the dangers of this approach by a distinction between the scope or intent of Scripture, which is for all ages, and its timebound expression, which is simply the way of presenting it in a given situation and by a given author. As he sees it, Paul offers apt illustrations in First Corinthians 7 and 11, where the detailed injunctions are culturally related and have only historical authority but their intent, which has to be discerned, has in contrast an authority that is normative. One may thus obey God’s Word here while ignoring the specific commands that the apostle gives.

The problems in all this are obvious. First, why should not the scope or intent be culture-bound as well? Why should anything in Scripture be relevant to this age and place when all of it was written for other ages and places? Berkouwer’s efforts to deal with this difficulty are lengthy but carry little conviction.

Second, distinguishing between intent and time-bound statement may be easy in some cases where Scripture itself tells us why a command is given (as Paul does in First Corinthians 7), but in other cases it is extremely difficult. The resurrection narratives are given in order that we might believe, but believe in what? Are the narratives simple records of real events, so that we are to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God whom the Father has raised from the dead? Or are they time-bound ways of expressing something else, so that perhaps we are to believe in Jesus as the Eternal One in whom we may have ongoing life after death? Berkouwer himself naturally takes the former view, but the principle of contingent time-boundness can just as easily lead to the latter.

Third, there seems to be no way that Berkouwer can prevent others from using his distinction along the lines of Harnack’s husk-and-kernel procedure or Bultmann’s demythologizing. Certainly Berkouwer himself sees important differences, emphasizing especially (1) the fact that he seeks from Scripture itself its true intent within its expression and (2) the fact that Scripture intends to present historical and not timeless or existential truth.

But both Harnack and Bultmann would agree on the first point, and as regards the second, Harnack can easily argue that the historical approach of Scripture is itself culturally related, while Bultmann maintains that the eschatological act of God is the true theme of Scripture, so that authentic historicity is not jettisoned.

The root of the problem seems to be that Berkouwer imposes on himself and others an either/or of timeless truth and contingency when there is in fact a third possibility, namely, particularity: the fact that God has himself chosen the times and cultures and so forth in which to speak his Word. Berkouwer briefly mentions this but immediately discards it because he seems to be caught by the false principle that emphasis on the divine authorship must inevitably weaken the humanity of Scripture. Particularity, however, opens up a wholly different view of the relation of Scripture both to its own and also to other languages, times, and cultures. It also makes possible a more serious reckoning with verbal inspiration than Berkouwer achieves. It brings a more precise biblical control than Berkouwer can establish over the “translation” of Christianity into other linguistic and cultural forms. It answers many of the real questions that Berkouwer raises without exposure to the dangers that inevitably arise—especially the danger of uncontrolled relativism—with his own acceptance of contingency.

All in all, Berkouwer offers a solid contribution to the discussion of the doctrine of Scripture.

It would do him a serious injustice to say that he personally espouses a compromising view. The problem remains, however, that his presentation opens up unhappy possibilities that his many imprecise or ambivalent statements in no way exclude. His reactions to some forms of fundamentalism, his lack of coherence in treating inerrancy, and his misdirected approach to time-relatedness weaken the total impact of what is for the most part a strong and positive statement concerning Scripture.

They do this, unfortunately, at a time when the normativity of Scripture seems to be dissolving in a sea of relativism and the distinctiveness of the Christian “transforming” of life and thought is apparently being lost in the blur of secular “conforming.” Berkouwer himself believes that in the long run his understanding will strengthen the authority of Scripture.

I hope that he is right but gravely fear that he is wrong.