For the first time since it emerged in the 1960s as a potent force in the American religious scene, the modern charismatic movement shows signs of severe internal stress. Indeed, long looked upon as having the best potential for uniting Christians in and out of the major denominations, it now is coming apart in some quarters. Here is what is happening:

• A dispute is taking place over issues of authority and discipleship. Powerful figures in the movement have built up a chain of command linking many local groups around the country to themselves, in some cases involving the relaying of tithes up through the system. Other prominent individuals believe groups should bind themselves together in mutual submission at the local level only. Such groups usually have “elders” or “shepherds” (or, among Catholics, “coordinators”) to whom the disciples submit. Still other leaders contend, however, that the only one to whom Christians need to submit spiritually is Christ.

• A number of leaders are expressing concern that the main guiding forces of the charismatic movement seem to emphasize discipleship, “teaching,” and “community” at the expense of evangelism as a top priority. These leaders see a specter of stagnation hovering over the scene.

• The ecstasy of one-in-the-Spirit fellowship is wearing off among people who have been in the movement for a long time, and emotional love-and-worship sessions are increasingly giving way to serious Bible study. As a result, many charismatic Christians are discovering—or rediscovering—doctrinal distinctives, the teachings that make one an Episcopalian or a Presbyterian or a Lutheran. Thus denominational fellowships of charismatics are burgeoning. Catholic charismatics tend to mingle with other Catholic charismatics, and where groups have Catholic leadership there is heavy seepage of Catholic tradition and dogma into program content and style. Exit the Protestants.

The topic being talked about most at the present time is the authority-discipleship dispute. At the center of the controversy is Christian Growth Ministries (CGM) with its six globe-traveling leaders: Bob Mumford, Derek Prince, Don Basham, Ern Baxter, John Poole, and Charles Simpson. Arrayed against them in varying degrees are people like Pat Robertson of Christian Broadcasting Network, Charles Farah of Oral Roberts University, Episcopal priest Dennis Bennett (a father of the modern charismatic movement), David J. “Mr. Pentecost” du Plessis, Kathryn Kuhlman, Juan Carlos Ortiz, and national leaders of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Committee International.

CGM, based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, sponsors an extensive teaching ministry through conferences, publications, and tape cassettes. If CGM has a chief leader it is Bob Mumford. At 45, he is described by many as the one who has had the most significant influence on the charismatic movement.

Mumford, who hails from Atlantic City, was converted while in the Navy through an Assembly of God contact on the West Coast. He graduated from Northeastern Bible College in Green Lane, Pennsylvania, the University of Delaware, and Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. He was a pastor for a while and taught at Elim Bible School in New York before striking out as an itinerate. In the late 1960s he moved with equal ease—and acceptance—among Jesus people in remote wilderness areas, well-to-do people from liturgical churches, and the masses of Middle Americans who packed into Full Gospel meetings in those years. He came across as a Bible teacher—not a healer or evangelist—at a time when the charismatic movement was long on experience and short on content, and when many mainstream evangelical Bible expositors were blasting the movement.

In the early days of the movement those who had received the so-called baptism of the Spirit came together from their varied backgrounds perhaps once a week, usually in a restaurant or hired hall. Here they would sing choruses (some of them not reduced to the printed page until years later), pray with outstretched hands, share testimonies, drink in a message in tongues or prophesy, and listen to a talk on some aspect of the Spirit-filled life. At the close of the service they could, if they wished, request prayer for healing or other special need—with the laying on of hands by leaders (always male). Willing newcomers were coached in acquiring the gift of tongues, usually interpreted as the sign of Spirit baptism. The same general format is still followed today in many meetings. There are no structures other than the officers needed to keep the machinery oiled.

But with the advent of the Jesus movement and with the exodus of many charismatics from churches where they weren’t wanted or weren’t “fed,” a large number of people found themselves desiring more than a weekly or monthly pep meeting. Thus evolved ongoing Bible-study and prayer groups, “covenant” communities (where members pledge themselves to mutual nurture, often living under the same roof), and the like—along with the need for a trained leadership, structures, and discipline. Many groups became de facto churches. Mumford himself became spiritual father of such a group in Ft. Lauderdale.

To Mumford, discipleship is uppermost. The goal of discipleship is to effect a change in behavior. It is achieved through being trained by a man (not a woman) with high spiritual motivation and who has been commissioned for the task by the Lord—a shepherd or elder. Discipleship involves submission to the shepherd as he points the way—and points out flaws in behavior. The shepherd constantly chips away at the raw material, attempting to create a disciple patterned after the biblical model.

The shepherd-submission concept as practiced in the movement is not totally Mumford’s brainchild, but he had a lot to do with refining and promoting it. Some of his recent thoughts were gleaned from Argentine renewal leader Juan Carlos Ortiz.

When local discipleship groups grow much beyond a dozen or so members, they are divided. Additional leaders are then appointed. Some travel to Ft. Lauderdale to receive training directly from Mumford and his colleagues. Middle-level leaders often travel to other localities, establishing groups. Lines of responsibility and authority nevertheless lead back to Ft. Lauderdale. Tithes are split between local and regional staffers, sometimes with national leaders. In the chain of command, the six CGM top-level leaders see themselves as apostles.

Those being discipled must consult with their shepherds about many personal decisions. In some cases, shepherds forbid marriages, reject school and vocational plans, demand confession of secret sins.

Mumford says he has not seen the established churches producing discipies. Therefore, he confides to some, God must be doing a new thing—turning away from the churches and toward the shepherd-type groups. An amillennialist, he believes God is going to set up his government on earth through the (renewed) Church.

In 1973, Pastor Dick Coleman of the Westside Baptist Church in Leesburg, Florida, organized a “Shepherds’ Conference” where small-group leaders could come and receive inspiration and instruction for their tasks. (Not all groups are related to CGM.) Last year’s conference was held at Montreat, North Carolina, and the program—as this year’s—reflected substantial CGM input.

Criticism of shepherd-group practices surfaced this year, mainly among older charismatics. In a memo to his staff in May, broadcaster Pat Robertson declared, “Our board of directors is unalterably opposed to a charismatic dictatorship where self-appointed elders begin to take unscriptural control of the lives of others, thereby usurping the role of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ himself.” In a later memo he banned CGM speakers from his fifty-four radio and television outlets across the country, and he ordered all tapes of their messages in stock destroyed. He also broadcast an attack against CGM. A sharp exchange of letters followed between Robertson and Mumford.

A frequent criticism is the aloofness of CGM groups from other charismatic groups in many communities.

In August, a secret meeting of charismatic leadership was held in Minneapolis to discuss the situation. The thirty participants represented a veritable who’s who in the movement. Robertson, Episcopalian Bennett, and the Full Gospel Businessmen’s representatives pressed hard against Mumford and the other CGM leaders there. Nothing was really agreed upon except to meet again sometime. Robertson was mildly rebuked for his public handling of the matter, but majority sentiment ran against the CGM men. Ortiz said he believes in “horizontal” relationships among local members of groups, not trans-local “vertical” ones. (In plurality, there is equality, Ortiz teaches; in plurality there are differences, replies Mumford.)

At last month’s Shepherds’ Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, the CGM leaders resisted attempts to turn the platform into a forum for divergent views. Charles Farah was unable to read his statement calling on the Mumford coalition to lay aside the trans-local chain of command and the use of the word “church” employed by some CGM groups. Issues were discussed in seminar and question-answer sessions, however, by the 4,500 men.

CGM’s John Poole, a Philadelphia pastor, acknowledges that some criticism is justified: “our quickness to talk before testing, our difficulty in exerting corrective authority where we have influence but don’t want it.” He indicated that the CGM leaders, who have met several times to discuss strategy, will try to cut some of the umbilical ties to Ft. Lauderdale and concentrate on building a showcase model of biblical discipleship at the local level.

SOMETHING IN COMMON

Cornelia Wallace, the wife of Alabama governor George C. Wallace, and Ann B. Davis, the actress known as Schultzy on “The Robert Cummings Show” and Alice on “The Brady Bunch,” have something in common: They both are Christians who have experienced speaking in tongues but who prefer to emphasize other aspects of the Christian life.

Mrs. Wallace is a former Baptist who attends Trinity Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, Alabama. She recently told a southern Alabama charismatic-fellowship audience that she had prayed in tongues with evangelist Oral Roberts while Wallace was recuperating from wounds inflicted in an assassination attempt. Mrs. Wallace said she had committed her life to Christ earlier. An aide says she is not a member of any charismatic group.

Miss Davis is a member of St. David’s Episcopal Church in North Hollywood. She underwent spiritual renewal after joining a midweek Bible-study group four years ago, soon after James Fenwick arrived as pastor. Fenwick is a booster of Campus Crusade for Christ materials and methods.

Miss Davis began giving testimonies of her faith in Christ wherever she went, and she searched out other Christians whenever she was away from home. On one such Occasion she was introduced to the charismatic experience. However, she prefers to play down the gift of tongues in favor of joy in the Spirit.

To others wishing to discover a full, new life, Miss Davis recommends “hanging around where the Word of God is taught. Seek and you shall find.”

Rebuked

Taking its harshest action since criticizing the late Bishop James A. Pike in 1966 for making “irresponsible” utterances, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church last month censured three of its members and voted to “decry” the action of another.

In a three-part resolution the bishops voted 119 to 18 with seven abstentions to repudiate the actions of fellow bishops who had ordained women to the priesthood in violation of church policy. They voted 118 to 8 with eight abstentions to censure Robert L. DeWitt, resigned bishop of Pennsylvania; Daniel N. Corrigan, retired bishop of Colorado; and Edward E. Welles, retired bishop of West Missouri. The three last year ordained eleven women in Philadelphia in a service the House of Bishops later ruled was invalid. Disciplinary charges were not pursued after an inquiry panel decided it had no jurisdiction. The panel ruled that the case involved doctrinal issues.

The bishops decided to decry the action of George W. Barrett, 67, resigned bishop of Rochester (New York) who lives in California, rather than to censure him because to do so might prejudice possible ecclesiastical court action that may be brought against him. The action passed 116 to 16 with twelve abstentions. Barrett earlier last month ordained four women at the Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, D. C.—ignoring the objections of Bishop William F. Creighton of Washington. Specific charges were reportedly being drawn up against Barrett by several other bishops. Meanwhile, Bishop Robert C. Rusack of the Diocese of Los Angeles revoked Barrett’s license to officiate at church rites in the diocese.

Censure has little effect other than public rebuke, but spokesmen said it was the only action short of a full-fledged doctrinal trial that the bishops could take. Many of the controversially ordained women at the invitation of some rectors and churches are performing priestly functions. Disputes over these actions, however, must be thrashed out at the local diocesan level.

Captive In Chad

Paul Horala of Strasbourg, France, a missionary of the Sudan United Mission, was still being held hostage last month after his capture in June by anti-government militants in northeastern Chad. They ransacked the mission station and stole a vehicle. Mrs. Pauline Horala, who returned to France after the incident in the African nation, said she has received two letters from her husband, the latest dated July 31 saying the rebels had not yet received orders from their leaders as to what to do with their captive.

The Black Baptists: Handling History

Historic roots of black Baptists were a top topic of speechmakers as three major conventions met simultaneously in September. Featured at the St. Louis meeting of the largest group, the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Incorporated, was President Gerald Ford.

Speaking on a Bicentennial theme, the President lauded the contributions that individual blacks and their churches have made to America.

Before the nation’s chief executive was welcomed to the NBCUSA’s platform, Illinois state senate leader Cecil A. Partee and also a Los Angeles pastor delivered speeches urging black participation in the Bicentennial. The recommedations were contrary to advice that has been coming from some black activists who oppose the celebration.

In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Progressive National Baptist Convention took the position that black Americans should join in the observance of the country’s two-hundredth birthday, but only if the emphasis is on repentance. President Nelson H. Smith of Birmingham asserted: “I believe that the role that blacks should take in the Bicentennial is one of reminding our nation of her sacred promises in the Declaration of Independence.”

The 5,000 PNBC delegates at Atlantic City voted to stage a pageant in Washington, D. C., next September to spell out the contributions of blacks to the building of America. In another move related to their history, the “Progressives” launched tentative plans for a special centennial celebration in 1980 to commemorate the founding of the National Baptist organization from which the three conventions have developed.

Two of the three held a joint session in Atlantic City. A caravan of some twenty buses and 100 automobiles brought delegates from the Philadelphia site of the meeting of the (“unincorporated”) National Baptist Convention of America. Among the speakers at the joint session was Pennsylvania governor Milton J. Shapp, an aspirant for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He blasted Ford administration policies.

NBCUSA, the most conservative of the three groups, elected its president, Joseph H. Jackson of Chicago, to an unprecedented twenty-second term. An estimated 12,500 delegates rose to give him a unanimous vote.

In another action thought to be without precedent, the NBCUSA elected Cecilia N. Adkins executive director of its Nashville-based Sunday School Publishing Board. Mrs. Adkins, a board executive for fifteen years, is believed to be the first woman in the United States to head a major denominational publishing house.

While no current statistics are available, the NBCUSA claims to be the largest of the black church bodies, with an estimated 6.5 million members. The NBCA, which met in Philadelphia, claims 2.5 million, and the Progressive convention has an estimated 500,000.

New Readers Get The Word

Thanks to a scientifically designed program of the American Bible Society, millions more have read Scripture for themselves the past two years. Spokesmen say the society’s “Good News for New Readers” literature (see October 12, 1973, page 60) has been received at the grass roots with much enthusiasm. In some countries, Bible distribution groups are having a hard time keeping up with the demand.

The program is aimed at the growing number of newly literate people around the world, most of whom have nothing to read, let alone the Bible. Studies show that about half the people who learn to read will lose the skill unless they get access to reading material. It is said that there will be an estimated one billion new readers by the year 2000.

The Scripture selections aimed at new readers were the fruit of nearly a decade of Bible society research and experimentation. They are in special translations that are easily understood. The type faces, format, line breaks, and accompanying illustrations are carefully chosen in line with the discoveries of what communicates best. The selections are being produced in a series divided into five levels of successive reading difficulty. Translation work has been undertaken in a total of 209 languages, and selections have been printed and are already distributed in 106. One consultant contends that “this program might well be the most important and significant contribution to the growth and the development of the Christian church in the past century.”

Togetherness Tonic For Growing Pains

Rapid expansion of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has brought with it some growing pains, but the two-year-old denomination tried to soothe them with the tonic of togetherness in September. Commissioners (delegates) from the PCA’s 386 congregations met in Jackson, Mississippi, for the third General Assembly, to take stock of the growth and to oil the new body’s organizational machinery.

Started mostly by people leaving the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern), the denomination now has congregations in twenty states. Stated clerk Morton Smith, a member of the Reformed Seminary faculty in Jackson, estimated that as many as a third of the ministers now enrolled have had no connection with the PCUS. Among the new presbyteries accepted at the Jackson meeting was one in Pennsylvania.

Smith reported that communicant strength is now at about 60,000. Other leaders believe that when the official statistics are compiled at the end of the year there will be 75,000 on the rolls.

Also growing has been the church’s overseas missionary force, with fifty-five people under appointment to twenty nations. The unique policy of the Mission to the World Committee, whereby some personnel are appointed to serve with non-denominational agencies (such as Wycliffe Bible Translators and Greater Europe Mission) was approved overwhelmingly by the Assembly. There was little debate after the committee assured the court that all cooperating agencies had agreed to allow PCA personnel freedom to teach the Reformed faith. While there was a scattering of “no” votes, no one took the trouble (as some did in 1974) to ask the clerk to record his negative vote. One abstention was recorded. The Assembly did caution the committee to emphasize church planting and to balance the number of support missionaries with more preachers. It called for appointment of at least ten ministers for overseas duty during the next year.

The closest vote in the meeting was a 286 to 135 tally limiting assembly agencies to spending no more than the amounts in their respective budgets. The 1976 budget of $2,593,196 includes $1,443,200 (56 per cent) for overseas operations. Opponents of the spending ceiling wanted to allow agencies, especially Mission to the World, the option of expanding their work if additional funds should become available. The prevailing view, however, was that the church’s top court should maintain control over how its money is spent. In 1974 the denominational agencies spent $920,585, with more than half of that going to the overseas committee.

One of the overseas visitors who addressed the gathering was the powerful president of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, Boanerges Ribeiro. On behalf of his denomination, which has not established official ties with PCA but which has cut its ties with the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., he extended greetings and expressed an interest in exchanging communications.

On the ecumenical front, the Assembly agreed to be a founding member of a North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council. It is the fifth denomination to authorize the organization. Others who took the step previously are the Christian Reformed Church, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Reformed Presbyterian Church (Evangelical Synod), and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church is expected to have official observer status at the initial meeting of the council later this month.

The Assembly by-passed some possibly heated debates by delaying final action on a number of proposals. It sent proposed constitutional documents to an editorial committee for additional work, and several other items were referred for study.

Moderator of the Assembly was a senior elder in Jackson’s First Presbyterian, circuit court judge Leon Hendrick. He was an early leader in the movement to found the denomination and was a member of the twelve-man steering committee that brought it into existence. The veteran of many a stormy session in civil and ecclesiastical courts said when the Assembly was over that it had been “blessed by its unanimity.”

ASLAN THE LION

Aslan, as most lovers of literature know, is the name of the lion mentioned prominently in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia tales. But now there is a real Aslan, and he is a prominent Lion too—the recently elected president of Lions International, Harry J. Aslan of Kingsburg, California. Aslan (of California) first heard of Aslan (of Narnia) several years ago when his wife gave him a Lewis book to read during a hospital stay. A Presbyterian admirer of Billy Graham, the world’s chief Lion says he occasionally gets some good-natured ribbing about the coincidence of names. Interestingly, his ancestors came from Armenia, where Aslan means “son of a lion.”

Wctu: Boo To Booze (And Betty, Too)

Meeting in Glorietta, New Mexico, for its 101st annual convention, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) expressed concern on a variety of issues in addition to the traditional target, alcohol. One resolution criticized First Lady Betty Ford for her televised comments on pre-marital sex and marijuana use. Delegates deplored her remarks on sex and expressed regret for her suggestion that marijuana is “something young people have to experience, like your first beer or your first cigarette.”

Other resolutions supported proposals before Congress to curb profanity and explicit sex on television, to provide that advertising of alcoholic beverages not be a tax deductible expense, and to limit the jurisdiction of courts to enter judgments on voluntary prayer in public schools.

No precise membership figures are disclosed, but Mrs. Herman Stanley, the president, told reporters that the WCTU has about a quarter million members and is experiencing “healthy” and gradual growth. The convention at the Southern Baptist conference center in Glorietta attracted some 650 delegates.

Two New Bible Encyclopedias

The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, five volumes, edited by Merrill C. Tenney (Zondervan, 1975, 4,990 pp., $79.95), and Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, two volumes, edited by C. F. Pfeiffer, H. F. Vos, and J. Rea (Moody, 1975, 1,861 pp., $29.95), are reviewed by Carl Edwin Armerding, associate professor of Old Testament, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.

When any major biblical reference tool appears it is news. And when that reference tool is a product of evangelical scholarship it is especially noteworthy for the readers of these columns. And when two major reference works, similar in scope and both from evangelical publishers, appear in the same year, it has to be a landmark. Despite their weaknesses, the fact that these two sets, combining the labors of almost four hundred scholars, are now in print is itself a testimony to the continued and growing vitality of evangelical scholarship.

The Zondervan Encyclopedia is intended to “supply more detail for scholarly study” than its smaller forerunner, the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary (1963). It is not, however, an expansion of the latter. Contributors total 241, including 65 non-Americans (34 Britons top the list). Schools liberally represented include Wheaton, Trinity, and London Bible College, and the others cover a broad spectrum. Members of the British Tyndale Fellowship, one of the spawning grounds of current evangelical thought, are notable not merely by their large numbers but for the significance of their contributions. By contrast, very few Bible colleges (American style) are represented. To round out the picture, there are even a couple of Jewish scholars and one or two others who might not identify with evangelicalism.

The editors of the Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, in an extensive explanatory foreword, affirm the WBE’s indebtedness to a series of predecessors, both liberal and conservative. Its audience is envisioned to be the “informed layman,” which sets it in a slightly different category from the ZPEB, although its format is similar. Both works include liberal illustrative materials, but WBE is less obvious in its attempts to “show” as well as “tell.” WBE is the effort of 223 persons, 69 of whom also wrote for ZPEB. From there on the profile changes slightly. Only ten of the writers live outside the United States, and the schools prominently represented are Moody, Dallas, the Bible colleges, and various kinds of institutions in the Southern states. One Jew and a Seventh-day Adventist complete the list.

In spite of these differences, the tone of most articles is strikingly similar. The more dispensational cast expected from Moody and Dallas is by no means dominant in WBE nor absent in ZPEB. On such subjects as “Covenant,” WBE gives two positions (represented by adherents of each), while ZPEB carries a survey of the field followed by a strongly Reformed argument. But “Dispensation” in WBE is written by a covenant theologian while the same article in ZPEB comes from a Dallas professor! On critical issues there is the same variety. Most contributors (and all articles) are theologically conservative, but there is a wide variety of opinion on such topics as the dating of Old Testament events and books.

To compare the sets, let’s turn to some specific articles. In the first volume of ZPEB (A-C) I counted more than forty articles of six or more pages (Abraham, Acts, Agriculture, Alphabet, Amos, Angel, Antiochus, Arabia, Archaeology, Amorite, Art, Assyria, Babylon, Baptism, Bible, Brothers of Jesus, Calendar, Canon, Chronology, City, Coin, Commentaries, Conscience, Cosmogony, Covenant, and Crime—to name a few). By contrast, in the same letter group, WBE had only about eight (Animals, Archaeology, Babylon, Bible Manuscripts, Christ, Chronology, Covenant, and Crime). In some cases, of course, the same material appears under different headings (e.g., the long “Animal” article by J. W. Klotz in WBE takes the place of several score of fine short contributions by G. S. Cansdale in ZPEB). In a few instances the same author writes on a particular topic in both works. Wilbur M. Smith lends to both the benefit of his extensive bibliographical awareness on the subject of “Bible Dictionaries,” while J. A. Thompson writes on “Arabia” in both. Professor D. J. Wiseman of England contributes a fine article on “Babylon” to ZPEB and a short consideration of “Chaldeans” (though the main article on Babylon is by someone else) in WBE.

Sometimes the article on a given subject seems unnecessarily long, and sometimes the reverse. Does ZPEB really need eight pages on the “Brothers of Jesus” or six pages on “Antiochus” (both outstanding articles, by the way)? And does WBE need a five-page statement of “Arminianism” when it has only five paragraphs on “Calvinism”? Such unevenness is, I suppose, inevitable in a work that combines so many contributions, but it does leave the reader a bit perplexed. Again, in ZPEB the important tell of Beth-shean is given only three columns, while the less-imposing Beth-Shemesh receives three pages and Megiddo twelve.

Further, the location of an article is sometimes puzzling. Under “Biblical Theology,” ZPEB treats us to three articles, the first of which is general while the other two treat Old Testament theology alone, and from quite different perspectives. The expected parallel article, “Bible Theology, NT,” is conspicuous by its absence in the “B” volume but surfaces in Volume IV under “New Testament—Theology.” In the same volume, under “Old Testament” there is neither article nor cross-reference to an article on the theology of the Old Testament. Turning to WBE, we find no article of any kind on biblical theology, Old Testament theology, or New Testament theology. The article “Theology” ignores the matter of biblical theology completely, a fault that, to some extent, mirrors a weakness of the set.

ZPEB lists the more prestigious roster of contributors, though the quality of articles in the two works is often similar. Notable among contributors, and contributions, in ZPEB are the extensive works by D. Guthrie (86 pp.) on “Jesus Christ” and that by R. N. Longenecker (41 pp.) on “Paul” and his “Theology.” Both have already appeared in separate book form and are well worth the purchase. WBE contains many contributions by its editors, who seem to have left their stamp on the books a bit more than did M. C. Tenney and his contributing editors in ZPEB. As befits a work of greater length, the bibliographies are considerably more complete in ZPEB. This is an area that seems uneven in WBE (especially troublesome in archaeological articles) and will make it of less value to the student.

In graphics, the ZPEB could be expected to excel, since “Pictorial” is part of its name. Certainly it offers an abundance of fine illustrative material, but much of it seems less than fully relevant and some is even misleading. For the article on “Acts” we are shown a panoramic view of the Dead Sea with Jerusalem a tiny pinprick on the horizon and the caption, “The area where much of the action of the early part of Acts took place.” The article “Apostle” is illustrated by a shot of the Mount of Olives “where the apostles observed Christ’s departure.” Under “Astronomy” we are again treated to the old “flat earth” diagram (copied in this case from S. H. Hooke) which presupposes that the Hebrews took all of their own symbolic language regarding the earth in a most wooden and literal sense. (Because they refer to the “windows of heaven” it is clear that they viewed heaven as a wall and the rain as let out through the windows!) A photograph of Megiddo confidently asserts that the “Valley of Megiddo” is the “Armageddon” of Revelation, though R. D. Culver’s article on Armageddon just as confidently denies the identification. And so it goes.

There are, of course, many useful illustrations. For a starter see the pictures of Antioch and Athens and the line drawings and photos in the articles on “Armor” and “Art.” Also, the color-photo collection of coins is positively beautiful. But in a volume of this kind we should expect the finest in illustration, and, unfortunately, a good bit of what is here is banal, misleading, or irrelevant. By contrast, the less lavishly illustrated WBE is a model of concise, useful illustration, much of it from the collections of the editors themselves. The pictures, though smaller in size, are unusually well reproduced and seem always to the point.

In its extensive use of maps, ZPEB is even more to be faulted. The goal seems to have been a map to illustrate each place name, but the illustrative quality is mixed. Especially troublesome is the superimposition of an Old Testament place name on a New Testament map (see, for example, articles on Arvad, Amalek, Bashan, Canaan, and Carchemish). Further, for the insignificant (for biblical purposes) tell of Beth-eglaim (Tell el-Ajjul) we find a full page-map (again a New Testament version), while for the great city of Beth-Shean there is no map to locate the site (though the article on “Jezreel” carries a good photo of the tell). Some of the historical maps (e.g., the conquests of Alexander and Antiochus III) are a great help, but many of the rest could as well have been left out. Perhaps the most egregious error in the whole set is the map accompanying “Assyria,” an article splendidly illustrated otherwise. The map is a full-page spread of New Testament Palestine with a portion shaded out and marked with the caption “The Assyrian Empire”! The error is, fortunately, corrected in the excellent color map section (Rand McNally) at the end of Volume V.

By contrast, WBE’s maps, though not overly abundant, do the job. Only major geographical entities are shown (Assyria, Babylonia, Cyprus, Palestine, etc.), but there is good detail, although the older line-drawings could have given way to newer map-making techniques. Volume II concludes with a full set of the same Hammond color maps used in Baker’s Bible Atlas (1961) and many reference Bibles.

In conclusion, we must ask how well each set fulfills its intended role. WBE, with its more modest aims (ignore the enthusiastic dust-jacket speculation, “It may well take its place as the standard evangelical Bible encyclopedia of our day”), is closer to meeting them. The informed layman will find a wealth of data on a variety of subjects; the student will wish for a bit more. Had the quality of contribution been consistently as high as that of Inter-Varsity’s New Bible Dictionary, the set could have replaced that and other, lesser, one-volume works, but most students will use WBE alongside of rather than in place of the NBD.

ZPEB is aimed at another market and must be judged as a replacement for the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Eerdmans; last revised in 1939, but for several years a major revision has been in the works) and the more liberally oriented Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 1962). The scholarship is generally high, and most articles are up-to-date. The set represents the extensive labors of so many for so long that it can’t help being a bargain even at the price quoted. But unfortunately, the lack of consistency and care in a few areas makes it necessary to conclude that evangelicals have not yet produced the standard for our time. With a bit more care (compare the meticulous editing of the IDB and NBD) a much more satisfying result could have been achieved.

In closing, I will repeat what I said at the beginning. Despite their faults, both these works are a treasure-house of reverent, accurate, and clearly written scholarship. Their very existence testifies to the distance American evangelicals have come in their quest for intellectual life. We wish both sets a long life and feel confident that any purchaser will enjoy many an hour of mining treasures old and new.

BRIEFLY NOTED

Fill Your Days With Life, by Mildred Vandenburgh (Regal, 186 pp., $1.95 pb). Retirement can be a time of fulfillment, according to the author. She describes the joy of involvement and the sense of ministry she has experienced with the “Jolly Sixties” group from her church.

Make God Your Friend, by Carol Williams (Zondervan, 90 pp., $1.25 pb). A short, excellent volume on learning to know the personal God.

Baptism: A Pastoral Perspective, by Eugene Brand (Augsburg, 125 pp., $3.50 pb). A simple and concise treatment of the place of water baptism in the Church through the centuries. Specifically examines Lutheran practices.

Mandatory Motherhood: The True Meaning of “Right to Life,” by Garrett Hardin (Beacon, 136 pp., $4.95), and The Morality of Killing: Sanctity of Life, Abortion and Euthanasia, by Marvin Kohl (Humanities, 112 pp., n.p.). More on the growing debate over abortion and euthanasia, this time on the pro side. Hardin tries to refute the emotional responses of many of the “right to lifers” by using an emotional appeal of “mandatory motherhood.” Kohl uses a more “logical” reasoning that encourages situation decisions. Both would discount a biblical definition of life and death.

Bible Handbook For Young Learners, by Michael and Libby Weed (Sweet, 236 pp., $7.95, $5.95 pb). This is truly for the young reader and should be very helpful. Divided into four sections it covers the history of God’s people through the New Testament, important Bible verses as they relate to various doctrines, colorful and simple maps, and a dictionary that clearly explains terms and names the reader will encounter in the Bible. Every Sunday school should have a copy in its junior department.

Patterns For a Christian, by A. L. Mennessier (Alba House, 228 pp., $4.95), Thinking About God, by Fisher Humphreys (Insight [P.O. Box 625, 3939 Gentilly Boulevard, New Orleans, La. 70126], 244 pp., n.p. pb), To Speak of God, by Urban Holmes III (Seabury, 154 pp., $6.95), and What Faith Has Meant to Me, edited by Claude Frazier (Westminster, 172 pp., $4.95). Four differing theological statements. The first is a new translation of Mennessier’s exposition on the thoughts of St. Thomas Aquinas. Meaty content for the theologically mature. Humphrey’s volume is a much simpler but not simplistic approach to the major tenets of Christianity. Biblically sound. The first half of Holmes’s book explains a view of God not specifically Christian. In the second half he fits Christianity into his theological system. The last volume, edited by Frazier, contains the personal testimonies of nineteen theologians and church leaders from all parts of the Christian spectrum. Interesting and readable.

Once Saved … Always Saved, by Perry Lassiter (Broadman, 96 pp., $1.50 pb). A brief, competent defense of the doctrine of eternal security.

Mystery Doctrines of the New Testament, by T. Ernest Wilson (Loizeaux, 128 pp., $1.95 pb). Examines fourteen “mysteries” referred to in the New Testament. Among them are faith, the Jew and Gentile in one body, godliness, Israel’s blindness, and the rapture. Readable for non-specialists.

The Johannine Synopsis of the Gospels, by H. F. D. Sparks (Harper & Row, 96 pp., $15). Excellent tool for the study of John. The text of the Revised Version of 1881 is printed in order, and in parallel columns are the related passages and similarities from the Synoptic Gospels.

Go to the Mountain, by Robert Voigt (Abbey, 148 pp., $2.95 pb), Hang In There, by Robert Whitaker (Logos, 56 pp., $.75 pb), and Speaking in Tongues, by Joseph Dillow (Zondervan, 192 pp., $1.75 pb). Differing approaches to the charismatic movement. Voigt, a Catholic priest, documents the Catholic “charismatic renewal,” speaks of his personal involvement, and encourages investigation. Whitaker addresses charismatics who have received cold responses to their experiences from their local church. Dillow, a non-charismatic, presents a balanced view of the movement.

Sexuality and Human Values, edited by Mary Calderone (Association, 158 pp., $7.95), Psyching Out Sex, by Ingrid Rimland (Westminster, 142 pp., $6, $3.25 pb), and Beyond Sexual Freedom, by Charles W. Socarides (Quadrangle, 101 pp., $7.95). Three on the psychology of sex (not marriage manuals). Calderone’s is a SIECUS book; selections deal with sexual values including religious influences. Rimland provides some good insights into our cultural sexual values; little mention of God. Socarides’ thesis is that modern sexual freedom has led and will continue to lead to chaos. Although he does not argue from the Scriptures, many evangelicals will agree with his conclusions.

A Guide to the Parables, by John Hargreaves (Judson, 132 pp., $3.95 pb), Exposition of the Parables, by Benjamin Keach (Kregel, 904 pp., $12.95), Parables Told by Jesus, by Wilfrid Harrington (Alba, 136 pp., $2.95 pb), and The Jesus of the Parables, by Charles Smith (Pilgrim, 264 pp., $8.95). Four expositions of the New Testament parables. Hargreaves has written on twelve parables with guides for discussion on their applications today. Keach’s book was written in the seventeenth century; good insights for those who can wade through it. Harrington’s, subtitled “A Contemporary Approach,” is concerned with making applications as well as examining the form of the parables. Smith’s, an updated reprint from 1948, concentrates on what the parables can show about Jesus.

Just Take It From the Lord, Brother, by Jeanette Lockerbie (Revell, 126 pp., $3.95). A creative examination of how to accept the circumstances of life as being from God. Readably and honestly stresses the need for faith in God as the Giver.

Give, by Harvey Katz (Doubleday, 252 pp., $6.95). Carefully examines many charities and has some good hints on how to give wisely.

A Gathering of Lambs, by Gertrude Johnson (Concordia, 144 pp., $5.95), Crying For My Mother, by Wesley Nelson (Covenant, 103 pp., $4 pb), Czech Mate, by David Hathaway (Revell, 187 pp., $1.75 pb), Disciple in Prison, by Robert Johnson (Tidings, 70 pp., $1.25 pb), How to Live Like a King’s Kid, by Harold Hill (Logos, 214 pp., $2.95), Thanks For the Mountain, by Erling and Marge Wold (Augsburg, 122 pp., $2.95), The Emancipation of Robert Sadler, by Robert Sadler (Bethany Fellowship, 254 pp., $6.95), and The Frog Who Never Became a Prince, by James “Frog” Sullivan (Vision House, 174 pp., $4.95). Eight authors tell how God has worked in their lives. Gertrude Johnson tells the moving story of her family’s struggles against the Nazi regime in Poland, and how God brought them safely through. Nelson candidly examines his life, both as a clergyman and earlier. Hathaway was a Bible smuggler; this is the story of his arrest and imprisonment in Czechoslovakia. Robert Johnson murdered four of his five children in a blind rage. He was converted in prison and writes about his growth there. Hill, a charismatic leader, uses a rather flip style to describe his deliverance from alcoholism, conversion to Christ, and subsequent growth. The Wolds’ book, a sequel to What Do I Have to Do, Break My Neck?, shows them facing triumphantly the despair that set in several months after Erling broke his neck. Sadler was sold into slavery in 1916 when he was five years old. His story makes fascinating reading. A hurricane demolished Sullivan’s home in 1970. That incident caused a re-evaluation of priorities and is the starting point for a book about a Christian so busy “doing” he had forgotten what God called him to “be.”

Aging Is Not For Sissies, by Terry Schuckman (Westminster, 128 pp., $2.95 pb). Written in a light-hearted vein for those of retirement age, but the younger set too can gain some insight into how to age gracefully and with a full enjoyment of life.

Disguises of the Demonic, edited by Alan Olson (Association, 160 pp., $6.95). Essays attempting to approach the demonic in a serious rather than sensational style. Not necessarily espousing the concept of a “personal” devil, the writers deal with the “forces of evil” as seen by four major religious traditions: Christianity, Islam, the African experience, and the folk wisdom of Central Europe.

The Deity of Christ, by W. J. Martin (Moody, 48 pp., $.75 pb), and The Lord From Heaven, by Leon Morris (InterVarsity, 112 pp., $2.25 pb). Reprints of short, excellent defenses of the deity of the Second Person of the Trinity. Important because not only modernists but also many heresies that appeal to biblical authority are defective in this area.

An American Catholic Catechism, edited by George Dyer (Seabury, 308 pp., $10, $4.95 pb), The Catholic Catechism, by John Hardon (Doubleday, 624 pp., $9.95, $5.95 pb), Catholicism Confronts Modernity, by Langdon Gilkey (Seabury, 212 pp., $8.95), The Church Yesterday and Today, by John Sheridan (Our Sunday Visitor, 312 pp., $4.50 pb), Focus on Doctrine, by James Gaffney (Paulist, 150 pp., $1.65 pb), Keeping Up With Our Catholic Faith, edited by Jack Wintz (St. Anthony Messenger, 103 pp., $1.75 pb), The Spirituality of Vatican II, compiled by William Kashmitter (Our Sunday Visitor, 272 pp., $7.95), Your Confession: Using the New Ritual, by Leonard Foley (St. Anthony Messenger, 105 pp., $1.50), and Positioning Belief in the Mid-Seventies, by William Bausch (Fides, 176 pp., $7.95). A large selection taking various approaches to modern Catholicism, but all aimed at reassuring concerned Catholics that the changes occurring since Vatican II are changes not in essential doctrines but in the way these doctrines are carried out in the world. The American Catechism, in traditional question-and-answer form, claims to deal with every aspect of the Catholic faith as taught by the church today. The Catholic Catechism treats the same subject, incorporating a historical perspective into the contemporary teachings. Gilkey is a Protestant whose thesis is that Catholicism is finally confronting modern man and that in this crisis, it may profit from the long history of Protestant experiences. Sheridan uses a question-and-answer format to bring out his views on the changing church and its approach to the Bible, liturgy, society, authority, and prayer. Gaffney deals with the same matters in a shorter, more informal volume. He tries to explain the changes to a traditional, unchanging audience. The volume edited by Wintz, written in a more casual, colloquial style, is also an explanation of the changes in the church since Vatican II and is the first in a series on developments in Catholic thinking. Kashmitter has gathered official statements from Vatican II on such topics as God, man, the church, priests, and spiritual duties. Foley’s short book treats one aspect of the new ritual: confession. Bausch, addressing a general but educated audience, explains the church’s position on eight traditional doctrines.

Listen Prophets!, by George Maloney (Dimension, 210 pp., $7.95). The author, a Catholic charismatic, summons all Christians to become prophets. Some good thoughts on discernment, prayer, fasting, and quietness.

Art As Spiritual Discipline

An Encounter With Oomoto, by Frederick Franck (Cross Currents, 1975, 63 pp., $2.50 pb), Pilgrimage to Now/Here, by Frederick Franck (Orbis, 1974, 156 pp., $6.95, $3.95 pb), and The Zen of Seeing, by Frederick Franck (Vintage, 1973, 135 pp., $7.95, $3.45 pb), are reviewed by Virginia Mollenkott, professor of English, William Paterson College, Wayne, New Jersey.

Frederick Franck, whose drawings and paintings are part of the permanent collections of such museums as the Whitney, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Tokyo National Museum, holds doctorates in medicine, dentistry, and the fine arts, and for three years served with Albert Schweitzer in Africa. He was the only artist to record all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council in 1962–65, and in addition to foreign-language readers has written several plays and twelve books, most of them dealing with various aspects of spiritual experience. He converted the ruins of an eighteenth-century watermill in Warwick, New York, into a chapel called Pacem in Terris, which he terms “a transreligious place of inwardness.” Christians who want to deepen appreciation of their own faith by re-examining it from what is admittedly a radically different perspective cannot afford to remain unacquainted with this man and his work.

An Encounter With Oomoto is a brief, clear introduction to a modern Japanese religious community called Oomoto, rooted in the mystical Shinto, Buddhist, and folk traditions of Japan. For Western minds, which tend to get caught up in exclusive either/or choices, perhaps the most important of Oriental attitudes is the tendency to let intellectual opposites interact with each other and thus reconcile themselves. For instance, rather than setting up a dualistic opposition between the secular and the sacred, the Japanese find the sacred within nature, within interpersonal relation, and within ritual, folklore, and magic. For the Oomoto Community, cofounded by the extraordinary artist Onisaburo Deguchi (1871–1948), the proper practice of an art form is one of the Ways by which a person may experience union with God. Onisaburo taught that the vocation of every human being is to evolve toward full identification with the divine essence that is a part of each person. And in this evolution or ripening of full human potential, the disciplines of art play an important role. Art, then, is “more than a purely aesthetic concern; it is a yoga, a way of becoming fully human, a means of making contact with the divine.”

The thrust of Frederick Franck’s basic concern is well summarized in these teachings of Onisaburo Deguchi. In the various programs held at Pacem in Terris, in his drawings and paintings, and his plays and books, Franck is constantly urging mankind toward a spiritual awakening that might be called “incarnational humanism,” in order to “restore the lost connection with our inner self in the all-encompassing Structure of Reality [i.e., God].” Pilgrimage to Now/Here sharply distinguishes incarnational humanism from what Franck calls “that naïve optimistic humanism which closes its eyes to the indescribable horror deluded, unregenerate man is capable of.” Franck interprets the Fall as a split between the subject and the object, the ego and the other, the individual human soul and the source or fountain or groundwork of its own being and of all being; and he makes enlightening analogies to the Buddhist term for such a fall, Avidya.

Pilgrimage to Now/Here provides a lucid theoretical basis for incarnational humanism by describing Franck’s experiences during a journey to India, Sri Lanka, the Himalayas, and Japan. By detailing conversations with such religious thinkers as Sri Krishna Saxena (a Hindu philosopher), the Dalai Lama, and Neiji Nishitani (a Buddhist philosopher), Franck gradually clarifies for the Western mind the profound meanings of what has been termed, with deceptive simplicity, Zen. One cannot read this book without thinking often of such Christian mystics as Saint John of the Cross, Meister Eckhardt, or Jacob Boehme. More importantly, one cannot read it without thinking, often with a sense of new comprehension, about the doctrines of God’s omnipresence and of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and of such wonderful New Testament passages as Colossians 1:15–20; Ephesians 4:13, and Luke 17:20–21. Franck himself refers to “the childlike rhymes of that underrated seventeenth-century German mystic,” Johannes Scheffler, who captured something of the immediacy of dynamic Christian faith:

Stop, where dost thou run!

God’s heaven is in thee.

If thou seekest elsewhere,

Never shalt thou see!

In good time we shall see

God and his light, you say.

Fool, never shall you see

What you don’t see today!

Learning to see is precisely the subject of Franck’s exquisitely illustrated and handwritten book, The Zen of Seeing. It is as if this contemporary artist had provided ocular evidence for a memorable statement by that great seventeenth-century Christian, the dean of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, John Donne:

The sight is so much the noblest of all the senses as that it is all the senses.… Employ then this noblest sense upon the noblest object, see God; see God in everything, and then thou needst not take off thine eye from beauty, from riches, from honor, from anything.

But Franck puts it all into a more Oriental manner of speaking:

We do a lot of looking.… Our looking is perfected every day—but we see less and less.… The purpose of “looking” is to survive, to cope, to manipulate, to discern what is useful, agreeable, or threatening to the Me, what enhances or diminishes the Me.… When, on the other hand, I SEE—suddenly I am all eyes, I forget this Me, am liberated from it and dive into the reality of what confronts me, become part of it, participate in it.

The Zen of Seeing is not just a book for artists or would-be artists, though it seems essential for them. It is a book for anyone who wants to learn how that which ultimately matters “can be perceived through the senses, not denied but maximally affirmed.”

Speaking of worshiping God through an enlightened appreciation of the natural world, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “I greet Him the days I meet Him, and bless when I understand.” These books by Frederick Franck even though written from a different religious stance can do much to help Christians achieve a more profound understanding, and hence a more frequent encounter.

The Continental Congress on the Family will be held in St. Louis, Missouri, October 13–17. The following quotations are from material prepared for that event.

Edith Schaeffer,author.

A family is an interaction of personalities, minds, and emotions. It is a living mobile. It is a museum of memories; it is form and freedom; it is a shelter; it is an economic unit.… Because the human family is a tiny picture of the whole Family of God, putting the Lord first will actually mean putting the family before all else at times.

Lloyd Ogilvie,pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Hollywood, California.

Oneness in marriage is the result of experiencing the relational implications of the Gospel. It begins with grace. Because of the unmerited love of God, we are made right with him through the cross. This is the focal experience of our salvation. Acceptance of ourselves as loved enables us to love ourselves as loved by God. This self-acceptance frees a person to be delighted in himself, excited by his own uniqueness and potential. Emotional healing of the syndrome of self-negation and disease is made possible by this experience of grace in the depths of personality. This alone can reverse the “not okayness” which is communicated through our growing-up years. Many “Christian” families have failed miserably in being a gracious womb of healthy self-appreciation. Too few children of Christian homes can say, “I’m glad I’m me!”

Britton Wood,minister to single adults, Park Cities Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas.

Many persons who are married feel that the most important way to help the single person is to find a suitable marital partner. They find it inconceivable that some single adults choose to be single.… Some married adults find the single adult life-style threatening to the married adult life-style.… The Church can provide one of the few opportunities for single adults to meet in a non-threatening environment.

Denny Rydberg,editor, “The Wittenburg Door,” San Diego, California.

I wish Paul had added the words “There is neither youth nor adult” [to Galatians 3:28].… We have a tendency in the Church to discriminate on the basis of age. Senior citizens are shuffled off to the Golden Hours club. Youth are confined to the youth group.… Don’t age-group all Sunday-school classes.… Involve adults and youth in retreats and mission projects.… Encourage and train young people to teach younger children in the Sunday school.… God ministered to and used the services of young people. Let us follow the example of our Master. Equality, not discrimination. Incorporation, not alienation.

Larry Christenson,author and pastor, Trinity Church, San Pedro, California.

A husband needs to be sensitive to his wife’s hurts.… The husband demonstrates his love in that he sacrifices for [his wife].… He helps her to become holy.… He is concerned that she become a fully developed person.

Gladys Hunt,author.

When women have won all their rights and honor and equal opportunity, we will still be faced with our emptiness if we have not worked out our human relationships.… Christian wives must heed a new call to an old truth, a call to maintain, to insist upon, and to establish quality relationships in our lonely, alienated world.

Letha Scanzoni,author.

Some roles are achieved, and others ascribed. Gender roles are of the ascribed type. Increasingly, behavioral scientists are showing that the sexes have far more in common than they have differences. Thus, ascribed roles on the basis of gender seem totally out of place today.… According to the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit apportions gifts “to each individually as He wills.” Nothing is said about limitations according to gender, and there is no room for ascribed roles here. The whole idea of labeling characteristics “masculine” or “feminine” is patently unscriptural.

John Scanzoni,professor of sociology, Indiana University, Bloomington.

The application of individual affirmation to women has been and is now the major force changing the family.… Affirmation means that the Church gladly extends this right to women in all areas, including ordination. The issue that the Christian man must face in terms of a Christian woman is not, “How much authority do I have over you?” Instead it is, “What can we do for each other? What can I do for you?” The point is that within the family that is emerging, among a steadily increasing minority the watchwords are freedom for the exercise of gifts and flexibility to allow for changes over time. Some women will always prefer traditional patterns of marriage, and they must be allowed this freedom. Once we catch sight of how exciting and challenging and interesting it would be if women were affirmed, we would begin to do it with considerable enthusiasm.

Western civilization is coming unglued. Those who seem least aware of its impending collapse are (1) politicians with vested interests in promising a better tomorrow, (2) philosophers who despite a dismal record keep drawing up blueprints of utopia, and (3) stock brokers whose livelihood depends on marketing a bright future. Scientists seem more realistic about the world’s slide. They speak even of the end of human history—though their alarm centers in matters like atmospheric pollution, the prospect of nuclear destruction, limited natural resources, and possible famine in an overpopulated world.

Solzhenitsyn, on the other hand, pinpoints our problem as a lack of conscience and will in the face of totalitarian Communist expansion. Meanwhile Muggeridge stresses the mass media’s promotion of the moral shallowness and spiritual superficiality of our materialistic culture.

What it all adds up to is the gloomy fact that for all its promise of bright tomorrows, scientific technology will itself crumble in the ashes of a society that abandons ethical and religious concerns. As the world in the last quarter of the twentieth century divests itself of belief in God and his revelation and in redemptive renewal, it is left without any clear understanding of the meaning of life. It therefore plummets toward pervasive melancholy and despair. A remnant that believes in God and his purpose in history will be left to carry the moral fortunes of a dispirited race.

It has not dawned on the West that, instead of being a conquered malady, Naziism is but a shadow of things to come, and that Russian Communism, which also arose in the West, is not the worst of all coming judgments. To be sure, the brutalities of twentieth-century Communism are aptly appraised by Solzhenitsyn:

What had been acceptable under Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in the seventeenth century, what had already been regarded as barbarism under Peter the Great, what might have been used against ten or twenty people in all during the time of Biron in the mid-eighteenth century, what had already become totally impossible under Catherine the Great, was all being practiced during the flowering of the glorious twentieth century—in a society based on socialist principles, and at a time when airplanes were flying and the radio and talking films had already appeared—not by one scoundrel alone in one secret place only but tens of thousands of specially trained human beasts standing over millions of defenseless victims [The Gulag Archipelego, Harper & Row, 1973, p. 93].

Solzhenitsyn confesses, “We didn’t love freedom enough” but submitted rather to the Party line and so “we purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward” (p. 13, n. 5). The embarrassing question is whether the so-called Free World (the designation is less and less appropriate) truly loves freedom or whether it is not rather so motivated by a passion for private material gain that secular capitalism cries out for controls upon its avarice.

Does not infatuation with sex in a time of scientifically abetted libertarianism push aside moral principles and thereby cast to the winds the sanctity of marriage and the dignity of human personality? By its preoccupation with change and its enthronement of human creativity, does not modern academic learning become subservient to a renegade call for new norms, norms that simply substitute expediency for enduring truth and principle? We have turned freedom into license. Our professed love of freedom is increasingly shown to be a sophistry that replaces wisdom and righteousness with self-gratification.

It is time we professing evangelicals speak up and move out. Solzhenitsyn says of the Russian believers who waited too long to take a stand that “like the ancient Christians, we sat there in the cage while they poured salt on our raw and bleeding tongues” (p. 498). Martyrdom may indeed become the fate of a faithful remnant, but it should hardly be considered glory for a remnant that was silent in a time of spiritual eclipse.

Evangelical tradition in and of itself is not good enough for an era of civilizational end-time. We need to plumb far deeper than this into the basic biblical heritage. There we find prophets willing to be jeered at, flogged, chained, stoned, tortured, and if need be killed by the sword. Solzhenitsyn writes of victims of Communist terror who “crawled along the path of hope on their knees, as if their legs had been amputated” (p. 449). If in a time of cultural decay evangelicals live as if their tongues were cut, and confine their light inside the churches, do they deserve a better fate than the godless?

However casually we may dismiss Jesus’ warnings about some future judgment, we cannot refute Solzhenitsyn’s awareness that judgment may also strike in the present: “Do not pursue what is illusory—property and position; all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night” (p. 591). Who is to say that “the end of all the ends” may not actually be upon us, that tomorrow may not be the very last day or tonight the last night?

Signs of a bleak near future are unmistakable in the philosophy and practice of our time. Human life is cheap. Moral considerations are considered expendable in the passion for material gain and sexual gratification. Personal preference dictates what is right. Truth is viewed as a changing commodity subject to private redefinition. The inevitable outcome of such deceptions is a barbarism that will dwarf anything known to pagans in pre-Christian times.

We are approaching the deliberate abandonment of distinctions between good and evil espoused by Judeo-Christian revelation and along with this a surrender of the concept of human dignity that revealed religion has sustained. Neither American technology nor American democracy nor American capitalism in and of itself can spare us.

Let us not be taken in by illusions of political salvation. Politics has become the utopian metaphysics of restless twentieth-century visionaries, and the Christian—while he has no license to neglect politics—should never expect too much from it. Without shared national goals, without an enlivened public conscience, without a commitment to transcendent truth and law, without a sure dedication to moral and spiritual priorities, the national spirit on the eve of America’s bicentennial marks us as pied pipers whose call to hollow ideology leads down the short road to disillusionment.

CARL F. H. HENRY

What different emotions the idea of “seek and find” can call forth. There is the eager seeking for one whom we love, the joyous finding with the resultant expressions of love. There is the fearful search by the harsh dictator’s forces, the terror-inspiring knock on the door indicating the finding. The motives for seeking, the carrying out of the purpose to the “found one,” can be as different as the words “evil” and “good.”

Come to the time when the Wise Men were searching for the new-born Jesus in order to worship him. Their search had the right motive: they recognized Jesus as having come from heaven, no ordinary human being but the One to be worshiped. And so when they found him, they fell down on their knees before him.

Then God directed them supernaturally by warning them that someone else who had asked to be shown where this baby was did not have the right motive for his search. God also sent the angel of the Lord to Joseph in a dream, telling Joseph directly, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him” (Matt. 2:13). Here God, who knows the motives of men’s hearts, makes plain the purpose of Herod’s search.

But what had Herod said to the Wise Men? “Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also” (Matt. 2:8). Herod’s words sounded honest and beautiful. What he really wanted to do, however, was not to worship but to destroy. He wanted to smash any possibility of Jesus’ becoming a leader, to stamp out other people’s worship of this One, to demolish the true search of other people like the Wise Men by wiping out the Person for whom they would search. He wanted to keep man—i.e., himself—in the place of honor.

Come to another time, another place, when again God lets us see what is behind mere spoken words. “And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people.… And they sent unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words” (Mark 12:12, 13). Place with this Matthew 22:15—“Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.” Add to these two statements Luke 20:20—“And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which would feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor.” God lets us see what was going on in men’s minds and private conversations, the wicked intent of a “search for Jesus” whose aim was to twist and turn his words into something that would harm him.

Some questions are not honest. Some seekers are looking only for loopholes, for opportunities to twist words and condemn the speaker. What the Pharisees wanted was an undisturbed continuation of their own leadership—at any cost.

Slip back again into history, the central period of all history, as the Lamb of God approaches the moment when he will be once and for all The Sacrifice, The Substitute. Imagine yourself in the garden of Gethsemane, and listen to Jesus as he asks, “Whom seek ye?” (John 18:7). What is the meaning of their answer, “Jesus of Nazareth”? There is a quietness on a lake before the wild lightning streaks the sky and the thunder crashes down and the waves whip up into whitecaps. One sees, feels, senses the quietness as the water goes into flat patches of grey and darker grey. In this moment of quietness in the garden “Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way” (John 18:8). Ah, yes, they have found him! He has made himself known to them. Can they pursue their purpose without recoiling in fear? They do fall backward to the ground, but it doesn’t last long—they hastily get up, brush themselves off, and go about their appointed task.

If you have a vivid imagination, even now, centuries later, you may feel like putting out a hand, shaking one of them, and urgently whispering in his ear, “Stop! Don’t take part in this! Don’t you know this is the Virgin-born Son of God, the promised Messiah? Don’t take part in finding him with this evil motive. Change now, seek him for your own life, find him as your Messiah. O soldier, whatever your background has been, open your eyes before it is too late!” But we aren’t there. They went on with their seizure of him whom they had found, to deliver him up to be spit upon, scourged, placed on a cross to die.

Our own spot in history is the place where our motives will make a difference, and where our warnings and explanations will help to pull someone who is “seeking with the intent to destroy him” out of the wrong search and into the right one. There are people today who seek Jesus in order to prove that he is not who he claims to be, who spend a lifetime seeking to prove that Jesus was just a good man, not God, not the Second Person of the trinity. There are seminaries that train men and women to deny Jesus’ place in the Trinity, to deny the virgin birth, to reduce his resurrection to an airy spiritual happening with no body involved. There are whole churches or groups within churches that use the words “seek” and “find” in speaking of Jesus but who cast away his Word, reducing the Bible to myths and fables whose applications change with the changing winds.

For those who “seek” and “find” in order to destroy, the final result is that they are destroyed. Jesus came to seek and to save lost human beings, and he clearly reveals himself to the lost who truly want to be found. He came to bring life, eternal life; but those who seek in order to destroy him find only death, if they persist. The sad thing in that like Herod, the Pharisees, and all the other false seekers, they influence others into following them.

For each of us the time is very short during which we can use our words, or our influence, or our prayer, to help others find the right motive for their search. Not long after the soldiers in the garden had found Jesus, only a long weekend later, Mary weepingly searched for him. With desolate loneliness and disappointment and fear she was seeking her Lord’s dead body.

Jesus appeared and asked why she was crying. She supposed he was a gardener, and she wanted to know where the body of Jesus was. Then the resurrected Jesus spoke in an accent and tone that she recognized. She had found him. One day we, if we have found him as our Saviour and Lord, will talk to Mary—alive forevermore, in her resurrected body, as we will be in ours.

There is a seeking and finding that result in everlasting life. And there is a seeking and finding that end in everlasting death. There is no middle way.

EDITH SCHAEFFER

Sing Them Over Again

Riding a subway car back from one of the big-city evangelistic crusades of a few years ago, I overheard a woman comment: “Wasn’t it wonderful to hear them singing the old hymns?” “Which one did you like best?” her companion asked. “I don’t remember the words, but it was number forty-two,” the woman replied.

We all know those who are familiar with only the first verse of a “favorite” hymn, or even with only the chorus. But it is an unusual experience to encounter someone who remembers only the number. It is unlikely that this situation is widespread. The fact that there are so many different hymnbooks in use—sometimes two or three in the same local church—with totally incompatible systems of numbering would make the practice of remembering the numbers unproductive, to say the least. But the very fact that there is, somewhere on a subway route in this great land, at least one person who remembers hymns by the numbers is a clue to a deeper reality: with regard to hymns, many if not most people—even those who like hymns and have favorites—do not notice their content.

Choir directors and songleaders have fought a long and not always successful battle against the habits of treating hymns as just “preliminaries.” How can they be anything more if people remain generally unaware of what they actually say?

More than once I have heard a clergyman call for one verse of Luther’s “Ein’ feste Burg,” a practice resulting in the following formulation: “For still our ancient foe/ Doth seek to work us woe;/ His craft and power are great,/ And, armed with cruel hate,/ On earth is not his equal. Amen!”

If that apparent tribute to the Evil One seems a bit discouraging, its impact is not overlooked by the songleader who applies the “first-and-last verse” technique to “Art thou weary?”: “Art thou weary?/ Art thou languid?/ Art thou sore distress’d?/ Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs answer: Yes!”

It may be some distance from the languid saints, apostles, prophets and martyrs to those who have walked in the garden alone. “Art thou weary?,” like “Ein, feste Burg,” loses its coherence when it suffers too much amputation, but there are hymns that hardly make good theological sense no matter how many verses you sing. Is “Every Day With Jesus” really “sweeter than the day before”? Certainly most saints, apostles, prophets and martyrs would have to answer, “no,” or at least, “not always, except in the high theological sense that each day brings one closer to glory, when ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’ ” Theologically, some of the material habitually sung as “old favorites” is as unreliable as “Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!” is politically.

Of course, hymns are meant to be sung by a congregation, not in general by individuals. And it is appropriate to sing them if they express the spiritual experience of the church as God’s people, even though as individuals we may not at that precise moment each have the “joy, joy, joy” all the way down to stay.

Pay attention to what you sing—or impose on your congregation. If it doesn’t make sense, leave it alone. And don’t put the Amen after a comma or a question mark: otherwise you may wind up singing a tribute to your ancient foe.

EUTYCHUS VI

Each Benefits

May I take this opportunity to commend you for the good work you are doing with CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I go through every issue and am always benefited.

ORLEY M. BERG

Executive Editor

The Ministry

Washington, D. C.

Those Who Provide

I feel compelled to write and commend you for your recent articles dealing with the humanities. Such articles as Pat Ward’s on Francois Mauriac (The Refiner’s Fire, Aug. 8) and Cheryl Forbes’s on “Charles Williams: Substituted Love” (Aug. 29) fulfill a sorely-needed task in evangelical circles: introducing the lay Christian to authors who provide significant insights into Christian (and non-Christian) experiences.

I am especially delighted, personally, to see your magazine giving Charles Williams something of his long-neglected due. Reading Williams has drastically influenced my perspectives on prayer and on bearing burdens. Williams’s works have been labeled “difficult,” but for those who persevere, the rewards are great. For those who have hesitated about delving into Williams, I can think of no better way to be introduced to his theological ideas and to his unique vision of Actuality than to read Ms. Forbes’s outstanding article.

SUSAN F. JONAS

Messiah College

Grantham, Pa.

Much—And More—Needed

I write to thank you, and Dr. Collins, for his article “The Pulpit and the Couch” (Aug. 29). There is much misunderstanding within evangelical circles concerning the science of psychology in general, and Christian psychological counseling in particular. Dr. Collin’s article is a stimulating and much needed analysis of the current movement.

As an undergraduate student in Psychology at South Dakota State University, and as a student of the Scriptures, I am constantly faced with integrating psychological facts, theological truths, and existential reality for myself and others. I hope in the future you will include more articles on this subject.

THOMAS J. KUSHMAN

Brookings, S. D.

I was surprised to see Dr. John W. Drakeford, Professor of Psychology and Counseling, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, referred to as “probably not” an evangelical. He unashamedly considers himself to be one, as do those of us who know him and are most familiar with his classroom, counseling, pulpit, and writing ministries.… In the preface to his book Experiential Bible Study Dr. Drakeford alludes to his twenty years of teaching psychology and the books that have grown out of those experiences, and then goes on to say, “In this volume I return to my first love—the Bible.” These are hardly the words one would hear from one who is not an evangelical. You may confidently eliminate the word “probably not” when you refer to John Drakeford’s evangelical conviction.

T. H. DOWELL

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Ft. Worth, Tex.

So Corrected

While reading the news item, “Adventists in Vienna: God’s Package Deal” (Aug. 29), I noted a rather glaring error that our Adventist friends would certainly like to have corrected: in the fourth paragraph reference is made to statistics; then this quotation … “with more than three million in Sunday School.” I am sure they would much prefer the term, “Sabbath School.” In the light of Romans 14:5, 6, I think we should extend this kindness to them.

WILLARD WILLIAMS

Grace Missionary Church

Mooresville, Ind.

Hitting Home

“In the baldest terms,” it is plain that John Warwick Montgomery’s Christianity (Current Religious Thought, Aug. 8) is not adaptable enough to cope with a God who is able to work outside the box the author has built for him.…

It is appalling to find that Montgomery discounts those Christians who show “charity and patience” as misdirected because they do not concern themselves with what he believes to be the measure of Christian growth and spirituality, penetrating Bible analysis at prayer breakfasts. In his frustration to find a scapegoat for his incapacity to understand, Montgomery has ranged much too far in a search which should begin, and I suspect end, closer to home.

LYNN L. SIMS

Leavenworth, Kans.

I was born and raised in Washington (on Capitol Hill) and find Montgomery’s impressions of Washington Christianity completely different than my own. It was as a teenager that I became a Christian (having been raised in a Jewish home), and it was largely due to the teachings of an area church. As a matter of fact, I can think of a number of churches within walking distance of the capitol which gave “sound doctrinal teaching.” In addition, there were other institutions committed to solid biblical teaching such as the Christian Youth Crusade, Washington Bible College, and others. As a young adult working in the government, I was aware of a number of organized Bible study groups—ones that didn’t get the publicity of the prayer breakfasts.… Perhaps Montgomery reveals that there are two Washingtons: the Washington of the transient politicians and military personnel and another … one of local people, people like myself who grew up there and attended local schools and churches—but who weren’t as flashy and newsworthy as the politicians or the Christian “heroes.” Perhaps it is not that Washington Christianity is superficial, but that Montgomery’s experiences with Washington Christianity are superficial.

SHIRLEY BRINTON

Boise, Idaho

Pornography: Purulent Infection

Millions of Americans today are peeling off five dollars for the dubious privilege of being voyeurs of kinky sex acts. Porno film-makers are reaping great profits because many people in our permissive social milieu want their cinema sinful.

To state that this pursuit of vicarious sexual titillation via skin flicks shows juvenile curiosity or degraded appetites and the increasing vacuity of our skidding society is to assert the obvious. Surely no one who appreciates the joy of sex as God intended it—within the context of married love—can find current sex films anything but immoral and empty exhibitionism.

Moreover, most of them are crashing bores. During my research for this article I viewed a variety of porno flicks with story lines as bare as the performers’ bodies, and I actually fell fast asleep in the midst of a smoldering lust scene. My eyelids hadn’t closed in a movie since I watched Rock Hudson pilot a submarine under a polar ice cap in Ice Station Zebra. Love is exciting, but sex without it becomes a drag that degrades and stultifies. When will people realize that sexploitation is to abundant living what raw sewage is to Lake Erie?

Porno films are as old as the earliest motion pictures and have long been a staple at stag parties. The past decade, however, has seen the onset of obscene films that even now, I suspect, have not plunged to their lowest depths. Many Christians don’t realize how widespread pornography has become.

In the mid-sixties theaters showed sun-loving bathers displaying their nudity with no overt sexual activity. Then came soft-core pornos, like Russ Meyer’s Vixen, that had bare breasts and suggestive sex scenes. Such soft-core is now standard fare at most drive-in passion pits. “Art theaters” soon after sprang up with “beaver films,” such as those by Alex de Renzy, in which bountifully endowed women tantalizingly took it all off.

In the late sixties, shoddy hard-core “loops” of heterosexual copulation emerged. These amateurish flicks combined the world’s worst acting in the sleaziest hotel rooms with gymnastic love-making accompanied by sound tracks of pop records and lovers’ feigned squeals and moans. In many cities theaters now offer half a dozen of these fifteen-minute loops at a special price of ninety-nine cents.

In 1972, Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat, the first boffo box-office porno hit, exploded all over America, bringing innumerable arrests of exhibitors on obscenity charges. Deep Throat became the first hard-core film to gross six million dollars. Blase, sexually liberated movie-goers clamoured for $5 tickets to witness Linda Lovelace’s proclivity for fellatio after she is told by her psychiatrist that her clitoris is mislocated in her throat.

The profits generated and the market uncovered by Deep Throat stimulated more technically improved skin flicks. The most successful at the box office have been The Devil in Miss Jones, The Stewardesses, The Resurrection of Eve, and Behind the Green Door. The latter film, produced by San Francisco’s Mitchell Brothers, featured Marilyn Chambers, whose porno sexual antics hardly jibed with her image as the ideal mother pictured then on a box of Ivory Snow. The resultant publicity, said Jim Mitchell, helped the movie gross five million dollars, excluding profits from prints pirated and shown by the Mafia.

The current crop of porno films has moved beyond the usual heterosexual sex scenes to include sodomy, bisexuality, ménages à trois, group orgies, bestiality, lesbian lust, and all types of male homosexual action. The latest debauchery is the B and D film—bondage and discipline—where sado-masochistic beatings are simulated or actually performed to provide sexual arousement. In B and D pornography human degradation finally moves to physical violence and the portrayal of human beings as either worthless or worthy of only hate and punishment. The biblical picture of rebellious man described by Paul in Romans chapter one is all too apparent in today’s sexual cinema.

Although the grossly obscene films of the hard-core entrepreneurs are not regularly seen in most neighborhood theaters, such X-rated “serious pictures” as Midnight Cowboy, Last Tango in Paris, and the 1975 box-office success Emmanuelle have reached wide audiences and garnered critical acclaim despite their aberrant sex acts. Now however, nearly every R-rated film includes a partially nude copulation scene, blasphemy and obscenities, and realistic violence.

The trend toward more filth in films is likely to increase despite the self-regulating rating code of the Motion Picture Association of America. (Its standards call for decency and the upholding of human dignity, and for restraint in presenting: indecent or undue exposure of the human body; illicit sex relations and sexual aberrations; obscene speech and gestures; profanity; brutality, cruelty, and physical violence; and the demeaning of religion.) Movies will be made as obscene and violent as the public desires. Pornographers are motivated primarily by money and will violate any code that limits them.

Pornographer Jim Mitchell, thirty-one, who has been arrested thirty-five times for exhibiting obscene films and is now appealing his one conviction, admits his chief motivation is money. He hopes to make it big with his upcoming epic Sodom and Gomorrah, which mixes the story of Abraham and Lot with astronauts and atomic destruction. Together with his brother Art and his associate Bill Boyer, he hopes to make The Great Pornographic Film. He claims that his sex films meet the legal standard of showing serious scientific, literary, or political value. Boyer justifies pornos on the grounds that they relieve anxieties and allow potential rapists to fantasize their aggression, thus preventing violent sex acts.

Pornography prospers because sinners want it. But it is also true that its ready availability may induce sinful sexual indulgence not otherwise stimulated. Christians need to understand the nature of this socially degrading entertainment and use legal means to close it down.

The sins of the flesh, the mind, and the spirit are becoming more open in American society. Only Jesus Christ can change a person’s life so that love and not lust controls his life.

ROBERT L. CLEATH

Robert L. Cleath is professor of speech communication at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California.

Newly Pressed

Evie Again (Word, WST-8642). Since her first album her voice has matured and her low notes are fuller. On her upbeat numbers such as “Sunday Mornin’ ” and “Stop, Look and Listen” words and music meld effectively.

Burt Kettinger (Tempo, R-7083) and Bond of Love, Phil and Jill Freeman (Sound III, a division of Tempo; ST-3006). Both albums have a similar sound—as the jacket of Kettinger’s record puts it, “sincere, basic, and simple.”

CHERYL FORBES

‘Witness Art’S: A Contemporary Expression

The Church commissioned some of the earliest religious painting to help its uneducated communicants understand Scripture. Frescoes and altar-piece screens portrayed simplified Bible stories and characters to teach Christianity to those who could not read. Often these teaching art works were breathtaking in their execution: the mosaics shimmering with inlaid precious stones, the paintings and frescoes enriched with gold leaf.

Christian themes were also represented in other forms. Integration of the written word and the visual representation of that word occurred quite early in the form of manuscript illumination. But such manuscripts benefited only the educated.

Despite the predominance of Christian subjects the visual arts tended to be impersonal. Art was never specifically designed to give the owner—and at the time there were few individual collectors—an opportunity to share his knowledge of Christ.

A new concept in religious art, available to people who want to share their faith in Christ, has been created, and is called “Witness Art.” The designers believe it is an expression unique among forms of art illustrating Christian themes.

Witness Art, which will soon be available in Christian bookstores throughout the country, consists of lithograph reproductions of paintings designed as an evangelistic tool. An information card describing the artist’s vision based on certain Scripture passages accompanies each print.

The three preview paintings are all impressionistic, ethereal, and elusive in style. And that is Witness Art’s primary weakness. Use of color, mostly muted tones, gives a washed-out appearance, though it is in keeping with the impressionistic style. I would like to see a stronger use of color and a broader use of styles, including surrealistic, abstract, and even realistic modes of expression.

The lithographs will be in both limited and unlimited editions, framed and unframed. For further information, contact Standard Publishing, 8121 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45231. However, the plan to limit sales to the Christian market is a mistake. We need to witness to unbelievers, not to believers. Christ did not limit the sale of his “product” to Christian emporiums. Neither should we.

MARTHA POLLIE

Martha Pollie is a free-lance writer and photographer, Alexandria, Virginia.

This questionnaire is intended to be like a mirror. It is an experiment in self-knowledge. If you wish to undertake the experiment, please answer each question as honestly, simply, and briefly as you can. Write your answers down, so that you remember them and cannot later fool yourself into thinking you answered in another way. Do not read anything that comes after these questions until you have written your answers.

1. Who are you? What is your true self, your real identity?

2. Why do you exist? What is the purpose of your life?

3. Define your way of life.

4. What is truth?

5. What is life?

6. In the light of #5, what is death?

7. List the three greatest living persons, in your opinion.

8. What living person do you think is now exercising the most important and effective influence on the world, making the greatest difference, for good or evil?

9. Who is the first person you naturally tend to turn to for help when a problem arises in each of the following areas of your life? (a) business (b) friends (c) family (d) finances (e) health (f) mental health

10. What living person has had the greatest influence on your life?

11. What is the most successful cure for each of the following problems? (a) drug addiction (b) alcoholism (c) hypochondria (d) psychosomatic diseases (e) boredom (f) fear (g) loneliness (h) feeling unloved (i) despair (j) feeling worthless and unproductive

12. What would you tell a friend who had an incurable disease?

13. How can someone who lacks wisdom acquire it?

14. How can a person who is evil become good?

15. Why did God make the world?

16. How can a person know God?

17. How much can a person know of God? What is God like?

18. What is the Christian Church?

19. Christianity seems to be just one religion among many in the world: something particular, partial. How universal is it, really?

20. What is Christianity? What is the kerygma, the Christian proclamation? What does a Christian preach?

Now compare your answers with those of the New Testament by looking up the following passages. Before proceeding to the next question, think about the significance of each New Testament answer, and about how your answer compares with it.

Take the questions in reverse order, as follows: (20) Colossians 1:27, 28; 1 Corinthians 2:2. (19) Colossians 3:11. (18) Ephesians 1:23. (17, 16) Colossians 1:15, 19; 2:3. (15) Colossians 1:17. (14, 13) 1 Corinthians 1:30. (12) John 11:1–44, especially 24 and 25. (11, 10) Philippians 4:19. (9, 8, 7) Luke 24:5; Matthew 28:20. (6) Philippians 1:21. (5, 4, 3) John 14:6. (2) Ephesians 4:13. (1) 1 John 3:1; John 15:3; Colossians 3:3; Galatians 2:20.

CONCLUSION: 1 John 5:21.

(11.10.11.10.D)

O GOD, OUR FATHER, RULER OF ALL NATIONS

O God, our Father, Ruler of the Nations,

The Leader of our country from its start:

How richly you have blessed us, beyond measure!

We come to you with full and grateful hearts:

O help us now to wisely use our plenty.

Forgive us for our greed and for our waste,

And teach us how to share what you have given,

Till poverty and hatred be erased.

Around us are the forces of corruption,

Our vision fails, direct us by your hand.

Inspire in us the faith that led our fathers,

And guided them to found this mighty land.

Our leaders need your courage and your wisdom,

O speak again through men whose lives are just,

Until your will is done across this nation,

And we can truly say, “In God we trust!”

We thank you that our land is blest with freedom,

This testing ground for true democracy.

And pray that in the course of human struggle,

We’ll always stand for truth and liberty.

For here the cries of dissidence and protest

Can mingle with the rousing shouts of praise.

But in this very freedom, grant us wisdom

To keep your laws and serve you all our days.

America, the beautiful, the mighty,

America, the land of liberty!

O, Father, keep us mindful of our blessings,

And never let us turn away from you.

Surround us with your cleansing, healing Spirit.

Forgive our sin and purge our apathy.

Now use us as an instrument of blessing

To all the Earth—America, the Free!

MRS. MONCRIEF JORDAN

Copyright 1975 by the Hymn Society of America

Used By Permission

What’s ahead for the African church? Here is the concluding portion of the Editors’ interview with the general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar (see September 26 issue for Part I):

Question. Dr. Kato, a number of evangelical missionaries have complained about the use of American scholarship money to “buy the minds” of foreign Christian nationals. Is it true that in Africa young evangelical men and women are taken out of Bible schools and financed through schools with a theologically liberal bent, and that some lose their faith?

Answer. That is very much a problem. It is going to be so increasingly, until evangelicals wake up and see what’s to be done and get involved in doing it. I highly commend the administrators of the Theological Education Fund for their initiative and for emphasizing national training. They have helped many Africans get trained for positions of leadership. It is unfortunate that the training has been made mostly in liberal schools in Norh America and in Europe.

For some reason we evangelicals sometimes seem to see ignorance and naïveté as virtues. If a person is not very bright and does not ask questions, we say he is very spiritual. Maybe that’s why you find independent missions operating largely in the rural areas.

Q. What do you mean? What’s the connection?

A. Most of the work of independent missions over the years has been in rural areas. They have neglected the city centers and the intellectuals. Up to now it has only been the conciliar groups that have chosen these strategic areas, and therefore you find leaders of government and leaders of thought in the academic world coming from the liberal camp.

Thank God the picture is changing. We are moving to the intellectual circles now. We hope that evangelicals will wake up to the need for leadership training. While we still appreciate the coming of missionaries, let us not take that as an excuse to keep on exporting young people from America instead of training Africans.

Q. What is your organization doing to encourage the new trend?

A. Because we consider the coming of missionaries second to the need for developing leadership in Africa itself, we want to establish a graduate school of theology at Bangui in the Central African Republic (Bange) so that young people in Africa can be trained at this level.

Q. What is the evangelical strategy for witness at the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture [to be held in November in Lagos, Nigeria]?

A. The Nigerian Evangelical Fellowship has put in a request to have a booth there, and I have written a booklet for the occasion. The NEF will have displays and will show Christianity’s history on our continent. It will show that far from being a Western religion, Christianity has more connections with Africa than with Europe, let alone the young continent of America.

Q. You have said that Gatu is pushing the idea of a moratorium on missionaries. Do you feel that this view is broadly accepted among the African laity?

A. It is far from being the major thinking of the lay people in Africa. In my travels recently I came across a church group whose missionary was just transferred from one town to another, and the group was very angry with the mission. “Why do you take away our missionary?” they asked. This is typical of the thinking in Africa.

One Presbyterian couple from North America saw the need for working among the Masaai people in Kenya, and so they went there and built a hut and worked with them. The Masaai people have come to love them very much. They are developing better living conditions, building dams for better agriculture, and so on. A church leader in Africa then went to this particular couple and said their presence in Kenya is a hindrance. The couple said they would go home if that were the thinking of the people they were trying to work with. A government official was called in to talk to the Masaai people. They became quite indignant and warned that if the couple were forced out there would be strong reaction. The government gave the couple a ten-year permit instead of the usual two-year permit.

Q. So you are convinced that Africa still needs foreign missionaries.

A. Yes, I am. And even the advocates of moratorium are not consistent. After the conference in Lusaka, where there was such a cry raised for a moratorium on missionaries, many of the vocal ones headed for North America and Europe. Maybe they do not want the foreign people, but they surely want the money. About 97 per cent of the resources of the All African Conference of Churches comes from abroad. It would probably fold up without foreign support. Admittedly this is also the case with the Association of Evangelicals in Africa and Madagascar. But we recognize the need for support from overseas while we are working to raise some in Africa also. It is not a question of either/or but of both/and.

Q. How were you converted?

A. It was through the ministry of a missionary of the Sudan Interior Mission and a Nigerian school teacher. The missionary worked in my town and got me interested in Sunday school. Later, when I was twelve, I started going to school, and it was in the classroom through the ministry of a Nigerian school teacher that I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour. My pagan parents later gave their hearts to Christ as well.

Q. Dr. Kato, you have suggested that Christians in Africa may be in for some hard times. In a number of countries there has been increasing political pressure of various sorts upon the churches. What is going on?

A. I think Bible-believing Christians in Africa should be prepared for some persecution perhaps before too long. Certainly there are things that would call the Bible-believing Christian to examine his position. We are deeply grateful that a number of high government officials in Africa are professing Christians. But as I have said before, the African is searching for an identity and asserting that identity. And in every country the authorities are rightfully anxious to bring about national unity. Some of our heads of state do not see any differences between liberals, evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and so on. They see only “Christianity,” and the emphasis is just to have unity. Any dissenting voice is suspected of being an enemy of unity.

Q. So this creates pressures.

A. It does. Another thing has to do with culture. There is a strong movement that Africans should be authentic and go back into the root of our existence and find our connections with our ancestors. This readily raises religious tensions. I am not condemning culture as such. I think I am thankful for being an African, and there are certain cultural elements that are compatible with a biblical outlook and can and should be retained. But some are not. Some of these so-called cultural things amount to denying the faith we hold so dear. Some leaders, for example, are calling for secret oaths similar to those of the Mau Mau, and other pagan practices. Thank God some influential Christians have taken a stand against such things as pouring libations to the ancestors.

Q. What is that all about?

A. Well, I heard an interesting story recently of a Christian leader in Zaire at a formal occasion where drinks were being poured on the ground out of respect for ancestors. But this Christian leader, instead of pouring his drink on the ground, lifted it up and thanked God in prayer. They told him he was not being an authentic Zairean. He told them he was a Zairean but not an ancestor worshiper. Rather, he said, he was a Christian whose practice was to give thanks. I thought that was beautiful. Unfortunately, many in Zaire are saying that they are Zairean first and Christian second. That’s why I said that Bible-believing Christians may be heading for persecution.

Q. How are the people in Zaire reacting to their political leadership, considering that they have long been under Christian missionary influence?

A. President Mobutu Sese Seko has done a lot for Zaire. Anarchy had been threatened, and he has brought order out of chaos. The people of Zaire are certainly happy with what he has done, and so they respect him. The Bible tells us to respect the powers that be. When it comes to the point where our religious convictions are involved, I think Christians should speak up to authority. This is not easy in Africa because the consequences can be far reaching. Some people who want to object may be afraid to do so.

Q. Zaire seems to be particularly interested in dealing with Christianity as a whole, a unified group as you mentioned earlier.

A. Yes, the Christians there have been forced into one big consortium of sorts. Of course, one has to understand the background situation in Zaire: the kind of dominance the Catholic Church had during the days under Belgium, and the multiplicity of splinter groups clamoring for recognition. The new arrangement could be a blessing in disguise. The Church of Christ in Zaire has an imposed unity and is headed by a clergyman who is a member of the WCC Central Committee. But the constitution of the CCZ allows a good deal of liberty for the individual denominations, now referred to as “communities.” It is up to Zairean Christians to make good use of the constitution.

Q. Are the Arabs having any success in spreading Islam in Africa? How strong are the Communists?

A. There is definitely a strong Islamic influence in Africa. But in countries other than Muslim states the Muslims are limited in policy-making positions. This issue of Communism is a touchy one. There is much emphasis today in Africa on African socialism. In all fairness we must appreciate the call for a kind of socialism because capitalism has become a real curse in Africa and the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. In Africa today you will find many millionaires but also many people who go to bed hungry.

Many Africans are enthusiastic about Mao and admire some of the ideologies of Communist countries. Many young Africans go to Communist countries for an education. It is worth pointing out that when you study in a given situation it is difficult not to absorb the ideas, too. Some of the Communist ideas are not necessarily bad, but their atheism is what we totally reject as Christians. So Communist countries are having their influence in Africa just as Western countries had it for years.

Q. What do you think that Christians in Western capitalistic countries could be doing to help the material development of the people? Are things not getting done that Christian businessmen in the West could be doing?

A. Yes, I think that if Christian businessmen and other leaders in the Western world would take into serious consideration the voluntary agencies that are operating in Africa and would lend assistance in agriculture and preventive medicine, it would help a great deal. But sometimes the problem is not at that end. Sometimes the governments are not keen to see voluntary agencies operate. The governments want to give the impression that they are already doing what is needed. They feel that exposing their countries’ poverty abroad affects prestige.

Q. What do you think can be done in the southern part of Africa to give representation to non-Europeans?

A. We are now in the process of organizing a national evangelical fellowship for the whole Republic of South Africa that would be multi-racial and interdenominational. We may come up against a wall, but I have been working in correspondence with both blacks and whites. If Bible-believing Christians pray and keep talking, we probably will achieve more success than a radical approach would. We can have the radical approach to government and non-church organizations. We see the work of the Church as conciliatory.