The Gospel of Matthew

J. Marcellus Kik

An eye-witness received special grace and guidance from the Holy Spirit to give a faithful account of information received from other sources.

The Gospel of Matthew is a treasure house stored with a wealth of sermon material. Yet for many preachers the door to this treasury has been locked by Higher Critical scholars. But such was not the intent of those scholars. Their purpose was to clarify the teachings of the various books of the Bible, and Higher Criticism is indeed invaluable as an aid in the sphere of Biblical introduction, where it has a legitimate and important function. But as a result of the use of what sometimes proves to be only a critic’s imagination, the tendency has been to confuse rather than to clarify the text for the preacher.

What is in the mind of the present-day preacher as he takes a text from Matthew’s Gospel? One steeped in the lore of Higher Criticism immediately faces a number of questions. Is the text a translation from a document originally written in Aramaic? Does it come from Mark or from the hypothetical document Q? Or is its source some other unknown document? Or does it come from oral tradition? Does it show church or Hellenistic influence? Is it the work of the first or the second century? Is it the work of the original author, a redactor, or an editor? Is it legend, tradition, or history?

Caught in the maze of such questions; the preacher does not go to his pulpit and declare of the text, “Thus saith the Lord.” Indeed, to avoid insincerity he may turn away from the Bible as the source of sermon material and tum instead to current events, modem literature, social problems, or church programs.

But today something is happening in the realm of scholarship. Now one may dare to question long-venerated hypotheses without being accused of obscurantism. A prominent New Testament scholar, Dr. Vincent Taylor, in writing about a number of hypotheses under question says, “The celebrated Q Hypothesis is a case in point. In recent years it has been assailed by several scholars, including Abbot B. C. Butler, of Downside, in his Originality of St. Matthew (1951), and Dr. Austin Farrer, of Oxford, in A Study in St. Mark (1951). Its substance has been replaced by several Roman Catholic scholars of first rank, who prefer to think that the original sayings-source was an Aramaic Matthew used in the later Gospels” (The Expository Times, September, 1955). Other scholars, such as Professor J. H. Ropes, have questioned the very existence of the Q document.

As every scholar knows, the hypothetical Q document has entered into the warp and woof of almost every New Testament Introduction. The abandonment of this hypothesis will have the effect of making them obsolete. In the light of the recent assault on the Q hypothesis one may echo what Professor A. M. Hunter wrote concerning the “Proto-Luke Hypothesis,” “So twenty-five years after its propounding, this hypothesis remains hypothetical.”

A working hypothesis

A working hypothesis for the study of the Gospel of Matthew is this: The Gospel of Matthew was written by an eye-witness who received special grace and guidance from the Holy Spirit to give a faithful account of the things heard and seen and of information received from other sources.

The history of Higher Criticism reveals one discarded hypothesis after another. This is due to speculation in the absence of objective evidence. Generally, certain hypotheses have been adopted because they have been accepted by distinguished scholars. But, generation after generation, the subjective reasoning of scholars has been proved erroneous. Although desiring to give credit for constructive work, one cannot help questioning whether the influence of Higher Criticism on the study of the Bible is out of proportion to the lasting contributions it has made to the science of exegesis.

Uniqueness of Matthew

It is no accident that the Gospel of Matthew stands at the beginning of the New Testament, for Matthew forms the connecting link between the Old Testament and the New. More than any other Gospel, it concerns itself with Old Testament prophecy. There are over sixty references to the old dispensation. Frequently one finds such expressions as “that it might be fulfilled” and “thus it is written by the prophet.” This is in contrast to the absence of such expressions in Mark and Luke.

The Jewish constituency was foremost in the mind of the author of the Gospel of Matthew. This is seen incidentally in that he presupposes the reader will know the geography of Palestine and its customs, manners, and ceremonies. For instance, in the matter of washing the hands before eating bread, Matthew takes for granted that the readers are acquainted with that custom (Matt. 15: 1,2); but Mark feels that he should explain to his readers that this was the tradition among the Jews (Mark 7:3). Even more from the general content of the Gospel, we can sense that Matthew had Jewish readers in view. He wanted the Jews to see that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah who had come to establish the kingdom of heaven upon earth. But, alas, as Matthew so vividly portrays, the Jews would not recognize Jesus as the Saviour of Israel.

The conflict between the true conception of the Messiah and His kingdom and the false conception held by contemporary Judaism might be termed the plot of the Gospel. With increasing crescendo the Jewish leaders are warned and also denounced for their false views. This emphasis begins in the third chapter with John the Baptist warning the Pharisees and Sadducees that the axe was laid at the root of the tree and denouncing them as a generation of vipers. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warns against the false righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. He distinguishes between the true meaning of the Old Testament teachings and the false accretions of the elders. In the eighth chapter Christ prophesies that “the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.” This is followed by such expressions as “O generation of vipers” (12:34), “ye hypocrites” (15:7), “blind leaders of the blind” (15: 14). A dramatic climax is reached with the denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees in chapter 23.

The increasing enmity of the religious leaders may be gathered from these statements: “This man blasphemeth” (9:3); “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” (9: 11); “He casteth out devils through the prince of devils” (9:34); “Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine bibber” (11:19); “By what authority doest thou these things?” (21:23); “He is guilty of death” (26:66). This enmity is climaxed by the terrible cry, “Let Him be crucified.”

Though the apostle wrote with the Jews in mind, the note of universality is not missing. Matthew alone presents the story of the Magi, the first representatives of the Gentiles. He records the wonderful faith of the Roman centurion and the prophecy in connection with it: “Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” No doubt with sad heart he records another prophecy of Jesus: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” The great ecumenical reach of the Gospel is seen in the recording of the Great Commission: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations” (ASV).

The following is a broad outline of the Gospel: (1) Introduction, chapters 1, 2; (2) Christ’s entrance into his public ministry, chapters 3-4: 12; (3) Galilean ministry, chapters 5: 12-18: 35; (4) Judea and Jerusalem, chapters 19, 20; (5) Passion Week, chapters 21-27; (6) Resurrection and Ascension, chapter 28.

Tools for exposition

For the study of each book of the Bible a minister should have at least three or four good commentaries. Because of its clear exegesis and homiletical aids the commentary by Dr. John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, although first published in 1886, is still superior. A good example of the lexico-grammatical method of exegesis is H. A. W. Meyer, Handbook to the Gospel of Matthew (1875). One must be on guard against some of his conclusions; nevertheless his commentary is valuable. He is prone to assign needlessly a role to legend, e.g., the story of the Magi. Another standard work is Alfred Plummer’s An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (1909). Plummer does not give a verse-by-verse exposition. Rather, he treats each incident of discourse as a unit which is helpful.

Other commentaries of value are those of Calvin, Simeon, and Lenski. Calvin has rightly been called the prince of exegetes, and all later commentaries benefit from his work. In 1820 a work by Charles Simeon appeared under the title Expository Outlines on the Whole Bible. This work has recently been reprinted. The preacher who desires practical helps and outlines will find this book of great aid. Another recommended work is by a Lutheran scholar, R. C. Lenski, Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel (1931).

The Church has been enriched with the labours of learned men in the field of exposition. Neglect of the fruits of their work can only impoverish the pulpit. A diligent use of the commentaries suggested above will enable the preacher to be like the householder described in Matthew 13: 52, “who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.”

J. Marcellus Kik is associate editor of Christianity Today.

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Cover Story

Changing Climate of European Theology

G. C. Berkouwer

We have been placed by God in an extremely exciting time—an era charged with tension.

ArTono/Shutterstock

In the past thirty or forty years drastic changes have taken place in European theology. These theological changes are visible against a complex background; and to take account of their background is to be reminded again that theological development is interwoven with history. The theological climate of a given time is always profoundly influenced by historical events. In times of prosperity and calm, theology takes on an optimistic color; in other times catastrophe throws a shadow over theology. Theology, in the sense of believing reflection on the truth of the Christian faith, does not stand unmoved within the events of a given area. It is constantly taken up, in thesis and antithesis, in struggle and confrontation, into the situation of the times.

Temper of the times

In the nature of the case, there is always a real danger that a theologian may fit his theology to the mentality of a given era and thus capitulate to it. This has often occurred, as appears from the modernistic theology of the nineteenth century, which, under pressure of the natural science popular at the time, sacrificed decisive points of the ancient confession of the Church to the current Zeitgeist. When this happens, a time in history is no longer viewed in the light of the Word of God, but rather the Word of God is interpreted out of the presuppositions of a given epoch. Thus, the Gospel is assimilated to the mind of the time. And finally, it is no longer the Gospel, but the temper of the times that speaks with authority.

Post-evolutionary hypnosis

It is clear that theology in Europe today has arisen out of the crises of many catastrophic events that are still vividly alive in our memory. These events are concentrated around the two world wars and all that is intimately associated with them. I do not refer only to the problems that arose directly from them, such as the problem of the state, the question of the demonizing of life, and the problem of Israel, all of which have stirred up lively discussions in Europe during the past ten years. I refer primarily to the crisis in the optimistic, evolutionistic thought of the nineteenth century.

In the previous century we were hypnotized by the idea of the progress of humanity as it was spurred on by the development of the sciences. Fascinated by the optimistic notion of the imminent evolution of the Kingdom of God, we were blinded to actual threats to our existence that were even then arising. People gave up belief in the reality of demonic powers (as in the reality of angels), and they spoke seldom about the corruption of the human heart and the corresponding judgment of a holy God. What was formerly called corruption was then seen as the “not yet” of human development. The coming of the living Lord into history, paled in the light of the development of culture within history.

Secularizing of theology

The theology of the nineteenth century mirrored in many respects the optimism and evolutionism of the era. Books of dogmatics appeared in which eschatology was given only a passing notice and the message of the coming of Christ was scarcely heard. Correspondingly, the ancient dogmas of the church went through a profound crisis. Sharp critique was directed against the doctrines of the two natures of Christ, the confession of the Trinity, and redemption through the blood of Christ. In all of this we encounter what was actually a radical secularizing of theology; the scandal of the Gospel was disappearing. This development proceeded into the beginning of the twentieth century; even then, hearts were still full of faith in the promise of the future. The expectation was translated by voices who said that the new century would be the age of the soul or the century of the child. The developments of the century then past appeared to guarantee this future.

The waves of pessimism

These expectations were unfulfilled. Our century is the opposite of an age of peace. One sometimes wonders whether this hard and uncompassionate century has any room at all for the innocent child and whether in spite of the rise of the science of psychology—it is not precisely the soul of man that is lost. One wonders whether the proverb about the sickness of heart caused by deferred hope (Prov. 13:12) has not become a reality in our time.

A wave of pessimism rolled over Europe after the First World War. Spengler’s The Decline of the West reflected the bitter disappointment of Europe after the intense expectations of the nineteenth century. This disappointment is reflected in the literature as well as in the theology and philosophy of the postwar era. It was sensed increasingly that human development was not so obvious as had been imagined and that immense threats haunted the horizon of human existence in spite of and within its cultural and technical enrichment.

Recovery of the vertical

These threats, with the insecurities and fears they caused, were mirrored in theology. The break with the optimistic past was executed toward the end of the First World War. We think of the rise of dialectic theology with its onslaught against the optimism of the past and against the tendency to identify religio-socialistic ideals with the Kingdom of God. This movement called men to a respect for the majestic judgment of God, for His wrath (of which nineteenth-century theology knew scarcely anything), for the inescapable crises in the entire human situation—in culture, and in morality and religion as ways for man to get to God. Salvation for man was recognized as possible only through Divine forgiveness, only through the justification of the ungodly. The horizontal line of evolution gave way to the vertical line of God’s grace and judgment. This mode of thinking called attention so insistently once again to the eschata, the end, that we can justly speak of the eschatological theology of the twentieth century. In this the emphasis was laid on the unfathomable majesty, the unapproachable holiness of God, on His hiddenness, His grace and judgment. (In 1917 Rudolph Otto had written his celebrated The Idea of the Holy, which by 1925 had had its thirteenth printing.) The corollary of this was also set down, the nothingness of the creature in his lostness and rebellion against God. Eschatology—not now in the sense of a distant future event—became real and existential, a present actuality in the dynamic and in the tension of the coming of God into history.

Shift of perspective

This effected a profound shift in the thinking of theologians about the relationship between God and man. The distance between God and man came sharply into focus (“God is in heaven, and thou upon earth,” Eccles. 5:2), and the accent fell on the fact that only in recognizing this distance could the light of grace and the experience of comfort be captured. Man had been placed in the center of things by nineteenth-century theology; dialectic theology attacked this vehemently and set God in the center. Appeal was made for a theocentric theology. Schleiermacher, with his optimism, his Christology and his eschatology, was a favorite target of men such as Barth and Brunner. For Schleiermacher’s Christology did not recognize God in Christ and his eschatology had no place for a real coming of God into history.

This initial attack on nineteenth-century theology has proceeded in a line of development that, it seems to me, has been unbroken. The same questions put then are still acute. They are concentrated about the central questions of the Church’s confession and, in connection with it, about the nature of the last things. We see clearly that the struggle which began with eschatological questions still is centered there. More than ever, problems concerning the significance of the Kingdom of God are the order of the day. The extreme alternatives are still the view that would have the Kingdom as our task and the eschatological view that sees it exclusively as a future act of God. For us, the consciousness that the New Testament knows nothing of such a dilemma and, on the contrary, warns us against one-sidedness, becomes ever clearer as we observe the theological struggles or Europe.

A stubborn resistance

This remarkable development in theology does not mean that the influence of the theology of the last century is completely broken and that it has permanently disappeared from the stage. The resistance to the Church’s confession was too stubborn to be drowned so quickly. It should not surprise us that we still encounter attacks on the apostolic confession, with its virgin birth, resurrection, and ascension statements, nor that the fierce critique of the Christological confession of Chalcedon is carried through into the twentieth century.

In this connection it is important to note the strong influence of the German New Testament scholar, Rudolph Bultmann. Bultmann was part of the dialectic circle at first, but later came into sharp conflict with Barth in regard to the foundations of theology. The most striking element of Bultmann’s theology is that, with his program of “demythologizing” of the New Testament, he continues the critical line of the liberal nineteenth-century theology. This is manifest in his teaching that the New Testament has come to us clothed in the mythical view of the world common to the time of the New Testament, a view which has become impossible for modern man to accept. The Incarnation, the virgin birth, the resurrection and the return of Christ on the clouds of heaven are all inextricable parts of this mythical world picture. Modern man cannot accept the naive New Testament world picture, and therefore, cannot accept these mythical forms in which the New Testament presents the Gospel. It was Bultmann’s conviction that theology must make it clear to modern man that Christianity did not stand or fall with its Biblical, mythical setting and that theology must not put an unnecessary stumbling block before modern man by maintaining the antiquated mythical setting of the Gospel.

Dispute over basic concerns

In all this, we are not dealing with a struggle that was played off as a competition within the quiet libraries of theologians. It hit the Church in its vitals of faith. The Church could not observe this development from a balcony; she was brought into it with her entire confession and with her preaching. We see more and more that the struggle around orthodoxy, which took such fierce form in the nineteenth century, is not a thing that belongs only to the past. In the overwhelming flood of theological literature of the postwar era of the forties and fifties, we can see the struggle increasing in intensity. In Europe (we limit ourselves to this continent, although the same tensions are observable in other areas of the world) the struggle still centers around the same basic questions raised by the modernism that has influenced theology for a century now. In this struggle, as observed in Bultmann’s theology, the foundations of the whole Christian faith, and therewith the absoluteness of Christianity, are affected; and the Church of Jesus Christ is directly involved.

As we are impressed with this fact, we realize that our strategy cannot be that of a retreat to an intellectual no man’s land where we can withhold ourselves from genuine scholarly involvement. It is this approach which, if pursued, could do such a journal as CHRISTIANITY TODAY great harm. We would then be giving the impression that we are afraid of scholarship and, moreover, that we have reason to fear it. This is the position of fear. We must take the position of honest scholarship which is bound by the Word of God and which does not retreat with the Word but rather enters the struggle with faith, unafraid.

We have been placed by God in an extremely exciting time, an era charged with tension. The struggle is being played off on almost every theological field, in the Biblical as well as the dogmatic arena. If we insist on carrying on the battle, it is not because we are bound by conservatism. On the contrary, when we see the Biblical studies of our own day, we are impressed with the fact that there are treasures in the Gospel we have not yet touched. We carry on the battle because we realize that the Word of God has riches we have not yet grasped. We need think only of the great theological word book of the New Testament now being published in Germany (Theologisches Wortenbuch zum Neuen Testament, G. Kittel, ed.), which is having an enormous influence on European theological study, to see evidence that the Word of God is powerful through all heterodoxy. If I see it correctly, there is a special calling for true Christian theology implicit in today’s theological climate. We can be faithful to this calling only as we are seized by the Gospel of Christ and are willing to give ourselves wholly to an understanding of and obedience to the Scriptures.

Love and dogmatic debate

Naturally, there is danger of sterility and intellectualism, as there always has been in orthodoxy. But there is also another possibility. I think of John, the apostle of love. He lived in a time when a hard battle had to be fought for the reality of Christ come in the flesh. As he pursued the battle, he was the apostle of love; but in and from love he waged a hard and moving fight, not hesitating in his situation to point up the temptation and threat of the Antichrist. Evidently the strength of love did not disqualify the beloved apostle for pitched battle. I see in this the program for “orthodoxy,” or, if you will, for CHRISTIANITY TODAY, in the changed and still changing theological climate of our time. Orthodoxy has often been accused of being loveless and conservative for conservatism’s sake, possessed with an antiquated mentality without consciousness or feeling for the changed times. Whatever justice this charge may at times have had, it will be our continued calling to come to a unity of life, without unbearable tension between faith and science, and without conflict between love and orthodoxy.

The earnestness of life

In the midst of the continuing battle over the confession of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, redemption through the blood of Christ (and, in the background, the authority of the Scriptures), we shall have to understand that, in all the changed and changing times, there is one question which shall never be relegated to the sidelines. It is the question that, when Christ first asked it, stirred up a crisis: “Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? … But whom say ye that I am?” We may not allow ourselves to forget that after Peter confessed His Lord, the Lord gave a benediction. In our theological reflection too, we must remember this benediction. In theology, we do not deal with an intellectual joust, but with the very earnestness of life itself. It is in this earnestness that we must make our theological decision as to the offense of the cross, an offense that remains the same in every changed situation.

Natural understanding, regardless of the time, seeks other ways than the way of the Cross. Hence, in all changes of climate, there is also a prevailing continuity. The calling of the Church and of theology is to enter the struggle in order to serve with the Gospel, the Gospel that is not according to man. If we in common responsibility use the phrase CHRISTIANITY TODAY it must not be as an empty motto; but as a program and a perspective, a task that, without fear, we willingly take on. We shall not think too highly of our own strength or of our own thinking. We shall be comforted and led by the Word of God that is applicable here: “Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.”

G. C. Berkouwer, Ph.D., is Professor of Systematic Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam and author of Studies in Dogmatics, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, etc.

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Cover Story

Biblical Authority in Evangelism

Billy Graham

I had many doubts about the Bible. Now I see Scripture as a flame that melts away unbelief.

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

It is a sultry day with a hot breeze spinning little dust whirls down the winding road by the Sea of Galilee.

There is an air of expectancy everywhere. We hear voices, raised to an excited pitch as friend calls a greeting to friend. Down every trail leading to Galilee little clusters of people make their way. Word has spread abroad that Jesus is returning to Galilee.

Thronging multitudes

Suddenly He and His little band of followers come over the brow of a little hill on the Capernaum road. Following close behind swarms a vast multitude of people from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond Jordan.

Quickly the word passes from mouth to mouth, “Jesus is coming.” Crowds from Bethsaida and Capernaum soon appear and join the others. Together they follow the little band of thirteen men, simply dressed in flowing robes. As they reach the summit of the hill, where gentle winds afford relief from the heat, Jesus stops and motions for all to sit down and rest.

The authoritative teacher

The air is tense. It is a moment to be captured and held for eternity. The crowd hushes as Jesus mounts a large rock and sits down. Quiet falls upon the multitude, their faces turned expectantly toward Jesus. Then He moves His lips and begins to speak. What He was saying there, on that Mount of Beatitudes in faraway Palestine, was to illuminate the pages of history. The most profound, the most sublime words ever uttered were spoken there that day. In simple words, Jesus revealed to His dumfounded hearers the inner depth of God’s commandments and a new way of life!

No one who once heard Jesus could ever again be the same. What was the secret of this Master Teacher? How did He hold those crowds spellbound? “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority”(Matt. 7:28, 29). Is not this authoritative note part of the secret of the earthly ministry of Christ?

The prophets and revelation

The great prophets of the past had also spoken with authority. The impact of their preaching cannot be traced simply to an authoritative technique. Nor was their authoritative note based on confidence merely in the rightness of their own intentions and speculations. Their secret is traceable to nothing less than the confidence that they were the mediators of Divine revelation. Throughout the Old Testament we find Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and the other prophets continually using such expressions as “The word of the Lord came unto me” or “Thus saith the Lord.” The flaming prophets of old gained their authority from this: they were not simply speaking their own words, they were mouthpieces for God.

The authority of Jesus is more than a prophetic authority. The Christian Church rightly acknowledges that in Him alone the incarnate God entered history; the very words He spoke are the words of the one and only God-man. Yet the remarkable fact is that in His teachings Jesus continually referred to passages in the Old Testament as fully authoritative. His Messianic self-consciousness, His very authority as the Son of God, are combined with the highest regard for the Old Testament as the authoritative record of the will of God.

Even a casual study of Church history will reveal that the great giants of pulpit and pen, from Augustine to Wesley, relied heavily on Scripture for their authority. In this, they followed a sacred precedent hallowed by Christ and the apostles.

A word of confession

In 1949 I had been having a great many doubts concerning the Bible. I thought I saw apparent contradictions in Scripture. Some things I could not reconcile with my restricted concept of God. When I stood up to preach, the authoritative note so characteristic of all great preachers of the past was lacking. Like hundreds of other young seminary students, I was waging the intellectual battle of my life. The outcome could certainly affect my future ministry.

In August of that year I had been invited to Forest Home, Presbyterian conference center high in the mountains outside Los Angeles. I remember walking down a trail, tramping into the woods, and almost wrestling with God. I dueled with my doubts, and my soul seemed to be caught in the crossfire. Finally, in desperation, I surrendered my will to the living God revealed in Scripture. I knelt before the open Bible and said: “Lord, many things in this Book I do not understand. But Thou hast said, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ All I have received from Thee, I have taken by faith. Here and now, by faith, I accept the Bible as Thy word. I take it all. I take it without reservations. Where there are things I cannot understand, I will reserve judgment until I receive more light. If this pleases Thee, give me authority as I proclaim Thy word, and through that authority convict me of sin and turn sinners to the saviour.”

Preaching from the Bible

Within six weeks we started our Los Angeles crusade, which is now history. During that crusade I discovered the secret that changed my ministry. I stopped trying to prove that the Bible was true. I had settled. in my own mind that it was, and this faith was conveyed to the audience. Over and over again I found myself saying “The Bible says.” I felt as though I were merely a voice through which the Holy Spirit was speaking.

Authority created faith. Faith generated response, and hundreds of people were impelled to come to Christ. A crusade scheduled for three weeks lengthened into eight weeks, with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. The people were not coming to hear great oratory, nor were they interested merely in my ideas. I found they were desperately hungry to hear what God had to say through His Holy Word. I felt as though I had a rapier in my hand and, through the power of the Bible, was slashing deeply into men’s consciences, leading them to surrender to God. Does not the Bible say of itself, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12)?

Fire in the pulpit

I found that the Bible became a flame in my hands. That flame melted away unbelief in the hearts of the people and moved them to decide for Christ. The Word became a hammer breaking up stony hearts and shaping them into the likeness of God. Did not God say, “I will make my words in thy mouth fire” (Jer. 5:14) and “Is not my word like as a fire? … and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29)?

I found that I could take a simple outline and put a number of pertinent Scripture quotations under each point, and God would use this mightily to cause men to make full commitment to Christ. I found that I did not have to rely upon cleverness, oratory, psychological manipulation of crowds, or apt illustrations or striking quotations from famous men. I began to rely more and more upon Scripture itself and God blessed.

Hunger for God’s Word

I am convinced, through my travels and experiences, that people all over the world are hungry to hear the Word of God. As the people came to a desert place to hear John the Baptist proclaim, “Thus saith the Lord,” so modern man in his confusions, frustrations, and bewilderments will come to hear the minister who preaches with authority.

I remember how in London many secular and religious journalists remarked on this very point as being perhaps the greatest secret of the meetings there in 1954. One of the thousands who came to commit their lives to Christ in that crusade was a brilliant young Communist. She was a student at the Royal Academy of Drama and Arts, and was already a successful young actress. She had joined the Young Communist League because the members were zealous and seemed to have the answers to the problems of life. Out of curiosity she and some of her fellow students came to our meetings at the Harringay Arena “to see the show.” She later testified how startled she was to hear not a lecture on sociology, politics, psychology, or philosophy, but the simple word of God quoted. This fascinated her and her companions. They came back several nights until the Word of God did its work of breaking open their hearts. They surrendered their lives to Christ.

The bugaboo of bibliolatry

I am not advocating bibliolatry. I am not suggesting that we should worship the Bible, any more than a soldier worships his sword or a surgeon worships his scalpel. I am, however, fervently urging a return to Bible-centered preaching, a Gospel presentation that says without apology and without ambiguity, “Thus saith the Lord.”

The world longs for authority, finality, and conclusiveness. It is weary of theological floundering and uncertainty. Belief exhilarates the human spirit; doubt depresses. Nothing is gained psychologically or spiritually by casting aspersions on the Bible. A generation that occupied itself with criticism of the Scriptures all too soon found itself questioning Divine revelation.

It is my conviction that if the preaching of the Gospel is to be authoritative, if it is to produce conviction of sin, if it is to challenge men and women to walk in newness of life, if it is to be attended by the Spirit’s power, then the Bible with its discerning, piercing, burning message must become the basis of our preaching.

From my experience in preaching across America, I am convinced that the average American is vulnerable to the Christian message if it is seasoned with authority and proclaimed as verily from God through His Word. Do we not have authority in other realms of life? Mathematics has its inviolable rules, formulas, and equations; if these are ignored, no provable answers can be found.

Music has its rules of harmony, progression, and time. The greatest music of the ages has been composed in accordance with these rules. To break the rules is to produce discord and “audio-bedlam.” The composer uses imagination and creative genius, to be sure, but his work must be done within the framework of the accepted forms of time, melody, and harmony. He must go by the book. To ignore the laws of music would be to make no music.

Every intelligent action takes place in a climate of authority.

Basis in divine authority

I use the phrase “The Bible says” because the Word of God is the authoritative basis of our faith. I do not continually distinguish between the authority of God and the authority of the Bible because I am confident that He has made His will known authoritatively in the Scriptures.

The world is not a little weary of our doubts and our conflicting opinions and views. But I have discovered that there is much common ground in the Bible—broad acres of it—upon which most churches can agree. Could anything be more basic than the acknowledgment of sin, the Atonement, man’s need of repentance and forgiveness, the prospect of immortality, and the dangers of spiritual neglect?

There need be no adulteration of truth nor compromise on the great Biblical doctrines. I think it was Goethe who said, after hearing a young minister, “When I go to hear a preacher preach, I may not agree with what he says, but I want him to believe it.” Even a vascillating unbeliever has not respect for the man who lacks the courage to preach what he believes.

Messengers and the message

Very little originality is permitted a Western Union messenger boy. His sole obligation is to carry the message he receives from the office to the person to whom it is addressed. He may not like to carry that message—it may contain bad news or distressing news for some person to whom he delivers it. But he dare not stop on the way, open the envelope and change the wording of the telegram. His duty is to take the message.

We Christian ministers have the Word of God. Our Commander said, “Go, take this message to a dying world!” Some messengers today neglect it, some tear up the message and substitute one of their own. Some delete part of it. Some tell the people that the Lord does not mean what He says. Others say that He really did not give the message, but that it was written by ordinary men who were all too prone to make mistakes.

Let us remember that we are sowing God’s seed. Some indeed may fall on beaten paths and some among thorns, but it is our business to keep on sowing. We are not to stop sowing because some of the soil looks unpromising.

We have our orders

We are holding a light, and we are to let it shine. Though it may seem but a twinkling candle in a world of blackness, it is our business to let it shine. We are blowing a trumpet. In the din and noise of battle the sound of our little trumpet may seem to be lost, but we must keep sounding the alarm to those in danger.

We are kindling a fire in this cold world full of hatred and selfishness. Our little blaze may seem to have no effect, but we must keep our fire burning. We are striking with a hammer. The blows may seem only to jar our hands as we strike, but we are to keep on hammering.

We are using a sword. The first or second thrust of our sword may be parried, and all our efforts to strike deep into the enemy Hank may seem hopeless. But we are to keep on wielding our sword.

We have bread for a hungry world. The people may seem to be feeding busily on other things, ignoring the Bread of Life, but we must keep on offering it to the souls of men.

We have water for parched souls. We must keep standing and crying out, “Ho, everyone. that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”

Plea for Bible preaching

Give a new centrality to the Bible in your own preaching.

Jesus promised that much seed will find good soil and spring up and bear fruit.

The fire in your heart and on your lips can kindle a sacred flame in some cold hearts and win them to Christ. The hammer will break some hard hearts and make them yield to God in contrition. The sword will pierce the armor of sin and cut away self-satisfaction and pride, and open man’s heart to the Spirit of God. Some hungry men and women will take the Bread of Life and some thirsting souls will find the Water of Life.

Preach the Scriptures with authority! You will witness a climactic change in your ministry!

Billy Graham, D.D., is an internationally distinguished evangelist and author of Peace with God, The Secret of Happiness, and other books.

- More from Billy Graham

News

News Report: Conflict of the Gospel with Paganism, October 15, 1956

News from our correspondents around the world.

Ian Barker / Flickr

Jerusalem + Judea + Samaria

Canal Not Only Problem in Egypt Today

Christians in Egypt are concerned about the rights of ships to travel through a canal, but they are more concerned about the systematic program of anti-Christian legislation.

Reports from Egypt are as follows:

All foreign mission schools must comply with a government order requiring them to teach the Islamic religion to their Moslem students, along with Judaism to Jewish students and Christianity to Christians.
Meetings of worship are banned, unless they are held in government-licensed churches.
All Sunday sermons in Protestant churches must be approved before they are delivered.
Egyptian consulates abroad must obtain approval from the Ministry of Education before granting entry visas for foreign teachers, Among those affected will be hundreds of teachers in British, French, Italian and American mission schools who returned home for summer vacations.

The government announced that if an Islamic state can be so broadminded as to provide instruction in the Christian religion for Christian students in its schools, then any objection on the part of foreign mission schools to do the same for Moslem students can only be viewed as fanaticism and will not be tolerated.

A bombardment of protest followed, but the government stood firm.

Roman Catholic schools agreed to comply with the law, provided that textbooks, instructors and all expenses of the religious courses be paid for by the government.

Two Church of Scotland schools, which refused with an unequivocal “no compliance,” were confiscated and Egyptian principals were appointed.

The American Mission in Egypt, a United Presbyterian group, weighed the pros and cons in an effort to find a solution. Soul-searching questions were asked as to whether it might be the will of God that the mission get out of the school business and pour its resources into strengthening of the church’s evangelistic witness.

Glenn Reed, secretary of the United Presbyterian board, said:

“I am not primarily interested in the reaction of Christian people to what we may, or may not, do in the situation that confronts us. If we wrap our skirts about us and walk out of our difficulties in self-righteousness, we shall receive the plaudits of many Christian people … A decision to withdraw will not, I believe, impress Muslim people with the superiority of our religion over their own, nor will it increase the possibility of their encountering Christ in their life experience. God grant that our decision may be true to our missionary calling, which is of God.”

Finally, amid tears, a decision was reached, but it was by no means unanimous. The United board agreed to observe the new law, but went on record as being firmly opposed.

This was not the first time a mission board had been confronted with an agonizing decision. In 1937 missions in Korea were faced by the Japanese government with the alternative of students bowing at the Shinto shrines or closing their schools. The Presbyterian U.S. mission and board closed their schools rather than make what they considered a dangerous compromise. Later developments made them feel their action a wise one and a great aid to the national church of Korea in making a clear-cut decision against idolatry.

Widespread alarm was voiced in Egypt during the summer because of the government’s order that worship must cease in all churches unable to produce a license. It is almost impossible to obtain one.

Some Christians obtained permits for a “hall” or residence, with a meeting room attached.

Police were posted outside the doors of unlicensed churches to prevent the assembly of Christians when the latest order went into effect. Instances were reported of worshippers brushing them aside as they said, “Kill us if you like, only kill us inside the church.”

Appeals brought results. A new law recognized unhindered worship in all church -owned properties.

A Protestant youth publication, in the midst of all the activity, declared, “It now seems necessary to have government permission in order to commune with God.”

The government has promised that further demands will not be forthcoming.

But Christians feel they have good cause to wonder!

Jordan’s Role

Significant events have taken place in Jordan during recent months. They place the country solidly behind Egypt in her struggle with the West.

Beginning in December, 1955, countrywide riots broke out against Jordan joining the anti-Communist Baghdad Pact. Christians suffered in the rioting. The Mennonites in Jericho saw relief materials worth perhaps $65,000 put to flames by the attackers. Baraka Sanitorium of the Independent Board of Presbyterians (American) was attacked. A doctor’s house was entered by force. The American consulate in Jerusalem also was a target of violence.

The rioting began again a few weeks later. The Southern Baptist Hospital at Ajloun suffered an estimated $25,000 damage. Angry, shouting, hate-filled men tore the flag from the American consulate.

In March, King Hussein of Jordan announced the termination of service for General John Bagot Glubb, head of the Arab Legion, and other high English officers. Glubb Pasha, as he was called, served 25 years with the Legion and saw it become what has been described as the best Arab army in the world. One of the biggest causes of dissatisfaction, observers said, was that General Glubb restrained the Arab Legion from retaliating against the Jews.

Because of the Suez crisis, Great Britain in recent weeks has evacuated nonessential subjects, including a number of missionaries.

The tension continues to increase, as Jordan lives up to her role in the struggle against the West.

Thorn In Flesh

The Suez Canal has taken headlines away from Israel-Arab border incidents, but Israel continues a factor in international politics far out of proportion to her size.

Israel’s Arab neighbors fear her economic potential. This fear exists for two reasons: religious and political.

Under the Arab religion, Islam, women have few rights. Religious leaders are deeply involved in politics and most political leaders are heavily committed to the Koran and its teachings. In most cases, education is only for the boys and Islam is the predominant subject. The Koran teaches that man’s fate is under the absolute control of Allah. A Moslem interprets this in such a way that he sees no value in attempting to better his position. If he is poor, then it is the will of Allah.

Moslems fear that an Israel-promoted economic progress will eat away at the foundations of their religious system. Women will get modern ideas. They will demand equal status with men, remove their veils and insist on a voice in government. Because of this fear, Moslem religious leaders already have declared a “Jinhad”-holy war-against Israel. Such a declaration is virtually a law in Islam.

Secondly, most of the Arab states are controlled by one-man or one-family regimes.

The feudalistic economy is for the benefit of the land owners and to the detriment of the people who work the land for small handfuls of grain. This feudalism will collapse with the trade of machines and ideas.

In spite of the wide publicity given to the Suez crisis, the main problem of Arabs remains the same-how to get rid of Israel. In all probability, the Suez Canal will continue to operate, Egypt will maintain control and faces will be saved.

But Israel will remain the thorn in the flesh of Araby! — D.C.O.

Sign of Sodom

Shades of human nature.

The first of 300 markers erected by the Israeli government for biblical and historical sights was one pointing out Sodom, city of infamy on the shore of the Dead Sea.

Another was placed in a valley along the Jerusalem-Beersheba highway, marking the site where David slew Goliath.

Digest…

A new biblical scroll discovery, about one mile from the caves where the famed Dead Sea scrolls were found in 1947, reportedly contains the five books of the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy …. Native Christians in Turkey number less than two per cent of the total population.
“Our goal is to present men mature in Jesus Christ.” Words were spoken by the Rev. John Markarian, conference leader of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, at first graduation service this year of budding Haigazian College in Beirut, boom city of the Near East.

Africa + Asia + Australasia

Lo, How They Hate

Soldiers of Christ in North Africa, described by some observers as “few and feeble,” face many difficulties, including strong nationalist ties and conflicting religions.

The greatest problem, however, seems to be divisions among Christians.

There are organizational divisions and divisions between liberals and evangelicals, but the most serious is spiritual division.

In Algiers recently a church was split over the question of leadership. People in the apartment windows up and down the street witnessed many bitter arguments. They looked on as the two factions tried to lock each other out of the building. A leader of one group had a heart attack during a heated dispute and died.

Said the community godless:

“Lo, how these Christians hate one another.”

Both factions are considered conservative and evangelical!

Yet, in the midst of darkness and difficulty, God has planted His light. Some of the light is in the Koran itself. Followers deny the deity of Jesus, but believe that only He among the prophets can give sight to the blind, heal the lepers and raise the dead. A Moslem tribe in Nigeria has granted entrance to the “Jesus people,” because of the hope that they, like Jesus, will be able to heal the lepers.

Seventy-five years of organized mission work has done much to repel the darkness. A man from the heart of Tunisia recently appeared in Tunis to buy Bibles for a small Christian church where no missionary had been for years. A wealthy man in Morocco, who had given his heart to Jesus, brought up his nephew as a Christian. A young university track star in Fez found a discarded Christian tract entitled “The Gift of God.” He was amazed at the things God wanted to give him and followed through to become an outstanding Christian.

Missionaries have been rejected almost everywhere, but they have left God’s Word scattered all over North Africa as a testimony to the love that still shines forth from hospitals, dispensaries and craft schools.

Numbers are more encouraging among the French. Evangelical success in this field has been largely due to the efforts of a few Plymouth Brethren missionaries, some from England and some from France. The most outstanding evangelist, however, is a native of Oran.

Out of a population of 20 million, these few hundred French believers, about one hundred Spanish and a few score Arabs constitute the indigenous church in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.

An estimated 24 missionaries have gone to the North African field in the last three years. A new hospital is under way in Tripoli. A radio ministry in French has been started in Tangier. The staff of the old hospital in Tangier has been strengthened. Even among Moslems, this hospital is known and loved as “The House of God.”

Christians feel the day may be neat when foreign missions will be forced to leave North Africa, but believe God will build an indigenous church beforehand that will not be dependent upon foreign direction.

Unprecedented Days

The growing willingness of church groups in the Philippines to cooperate in evangelism, regardless of other differences, was strongly evident as pastors assembled in history-making numbers at two centers this month.

Made possible by Dr. Bob Pierce and World Vision, Inc., the meetings were held at fabled Baguio, mile-high summer capital in the north, and the southern city of Cebu, second only to Manila in size and importance. The Philippine sponsoring agency was the newly-formed National Evangelistic Strategy Committee, headed by the Rev. Jose Yap, executive secretary of the Philippine Federation of Christian Churches.

Church leaders pointed to evangelism as the crucial need in the Philippines today, as evidenced by the fact that evangelism has made it possible to maintain a spirit of oneness in a situation which conventionally could be expected to erupt into discord.

Digest…

“Tremendously impressed” was the report of four American Episcopal clergymen on the unity achieved by the Church of South India in its nine years of life despite the problems of illiteracy, overpopulation, food shortages and an increasingly militant, nationalistic Hinduism.
Some portions of the Scriptures now exist in the tongues used by 98 per cent of India’s population. The remaining two per cent constitute seven million people, approximately the population of Australia.

Britain and the Continent

A Burning Heart

Greek Orthodox Layman Charles Malik, who rose from formative years at Tripoli Boys’ Mission School to later become Lebanon’s able representative in the United Nations and now serves as president of Beirut’s American University, spoke challenging words to missions at a meeting in Dhour el-Choueir.

He stated:

“Mission work has tended to withdraw from direct witness to Jesus Christ to mere good works void of a burning heart. Direct testimony is costly, but only in return to a simple gospel witness wherein Christ crucified and risen is clearly proclaimed will missions in the Near East realize God’s will in their existence.”

In reply to a question on what the evangelical has to offer his church, the Greek Orthodox, Malik replied:

“The evangelical has the power, truth and relevance of the living Word of Christ to offer the Orthodox. That Word is not lost in the Orthodox Church, but is veiled in the smoke of incense and submerged in ceremonial ritual. Perhaps in God’s providence, it had to be hidden lest it be destroyed.

“The evangelical must ever point to the power of the Word, but never swing to the extreme of despising tradition and ceremony. Furthermore, the evangelical must give the Orthodox fellowship, remembering at the same time the Orthodox has definitely something to give to him.” – C. I. K. S.

110-Year-Old Testimony

It started with a letter.

A Norwegian sailor, Ole P. Petersen, wrote to his fiance, Anne Marie Amundsen, in the town of Fredrikstad. He said he had knelt during a meeting on board a ship in New York harbor and found peace with God.

This was in the year 1846.

The letter was read in many homes and made a deep impression. Anne Marie wrote and asked Ole to come home soon. “Take us by the hand and lead us into the road you have found,” she said.

Ole went home. And what he told was even more stirring than the words he wrote. The testimony was used in the conversion of six people on the day after his return. Results spread.

In 1850 Ole returned to the United States with his bride. Three years later he returned to Norway as the first minister for the Methodist Church. In his letter of presentation from Methodist Bishop Waugh, these words were written: “Thou shalt raise up a people for God.”

On Sept. 11, 1856, the first Methodist congregation was founded in Norway at Sarpsborg—where the jubilee celebration was held this fall.

The Methodist Church in Norway today has 60 congregations, with a membership of 8,433 and a “Methodist population” of 25,000. The church has 82 missionaries on several fields in Africa and Asia.

It started with a testimony! – T. B.

Digest…

Poland’s largest Lutheran Church, Holy Trinity in Warsaw, is being returned to the control of church authorities by the Polish Communist government … The government is now paying the salaries of the Orthodox clergy in Greece … Dr. Theodore F. Adams, president of the Baptist World Alliance who has completed a 32,000-mile tour of 15 countries, said he was impressed with the “vitality of Baptist life and work in all these countries even in the face of persecution and trouble.”
Withdrawal of government subsidies from more than 600 Roman Catholic schools in France was attacked by Bishop Antoine Marie Cazaux as an action “depriving Christian parents of the exercise of their rights.” Schools failed to meet teacher qualification requirements, according to government. …
Switzerland reports unusual results in two big evangelistic campaigns, one in Zurich and another in Geneva … An estimated 2,000 lay preachers are reported active in Norway. A revival swept Jaeren district, the “granary” of Norway, this summer when lay preacher and missionary to China preached Christ. Farther north, at Karmoy, “the island of the saints,” observers told about a revival of many months, with a pilot and preacher serving as co-laborers.

Key quotes:

“It is only the certainty that Jesus is Lord that makes confidence possible in a world like this. It is this that puts steel into your nerves and iron in your blood.” —Dr. Leslie Cooke, associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches.
“Your likeliest mission field is the office where you work, the factory or the shop, in places where they are more likely to listen to you than to me.” —Rev. J. Frazer McLuskey, chairman of the BBC Youth Department.

North and South America

Chart for the New Age

The National Sunday School Convention received some straight talk from its president, Dr. Harold W. Erickson, at Moody Memorial Church, Chicago, on October 10. It went like this:

“The new age is characterized by a new menace, world communism; a new weapon, the atomic bomb; a new source of power, nuclear fission; and a new nationalism among nations. Unless the Word of God gets a new hold on the hearts of men, this new age with all its potentialities may end in a holocaust of indescribable destruction.

“Our civilization suffers from biblical illiteracy. The Bible must become the chart and compass of the new age.

“The Sunday School is the logical instrument for the sowing of the Word of God in the hearts of childhood, youth and manhood. We must use every legitimate means to put the Bible back into use as the supreme textbook of the Sunday School. Only biblical study can produce a biblical faith. America desperately needs a generation of men and women whose spiritual experience, philosophy of life and moral principles are firmly grounded in the Word of God.”

Digest…

The American Civil Liberties Union objects to such questions in 1960 U.S. Census as “Do you believe in God?” and “Do you regularly attend church or synagogue?” … Conversions numbered 900 during eight days of Pan-American Congress of Evangelism held in Caracas. In follow-up work, 700 more made decisions … Theme for the 1956 Worldwide Bible Reading observance from Thanksgiving to Christmas will be “The Bible Speaks Today.”
Church membership in United States reached record 100,162,529 in 1955— gain of 2,679,918 over previous year … Adlai Stevenson took time out from campaigning to attend Unitarian All Souls Church in Washington, D.C. … Evangelical and Reformed Church delegates unanimously approved proposed merger with Congregational Christian churches.
“New pattern of holiness” for ordinary Christian men and women urged by Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, president of United Lutheran Church in America … First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, adopts 1957 budget of $705,000, with more than half going to missions … United Church of Canada cites need of at least 1,000 more churches to keep pace with soaring population.
Bill authorizing commercial airlines to grant reduced fares to clergy on “space available” basis signed into law by President Eisenhower … Establishment of 1,000 new churches annually for next three years adopted as goal by Southern Baptist Home Missions Board … Dr. Arno Q. Weniger, California, elected president of Conservative Baptist Association.
New York Evening School of the Bible established in Manhattan under sponsorship of 65 evangelical churches and organizations … “Christ for Blind Week” slated Nov. 18-25 in effort to aid 20 million sightless persons … Mrs. Glenn G. Hays, president of National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, charges government has quit publishing statistics on sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages for fear of public reaction.
Remarks on evangelism by the Right Rev. F. H. Wilkinson, Anglican Bishop of Toronto, Canada, at Canadian rally attended by 12,000: “It is the command of God as written in the Bible; it is the word to all the churches, and it is the universal cry of the people.” … James Hunter of Toronto proclaimed “Author of the Quarter Century” by Zondervan Publishing House. Best sellers include Thine Is the Kingdom and The Mystery of Mar Saba.

Convention Reports

Lake Junaluska, N.C. — The strangely-warmed spirit of founder John Wesley, who rode the equivalent of ten times around the world during his horseback ministry, hovered over the recent Ninth World Methodist Conference, the largest non-segregated meeting of its kind.

More than 2,000 delegates and accredited visitors, reflecting the life of 18 million Methodists in 44 countries, moved toward main goals of a strong world church and a vigorous denomination—but there was a wistful look toward evangelism.

“If Wesley were alive today, he would most assuredly be an evangelist,” remarked Bishop Lloyd C. Wicke of the Pittsburgh area.

Dr. Harold Wood of Australia put it bluntly:

“Nothing can save the world but the Gospel, preached and practiced in a church as pure and as passionate as the primitive church which first proclaimed that Gospel … Not ethical teaching, not even primarily the Sermon on the Mount, which was not the substance of apostolic preaching, but the Gospel of regenerating and reconciling grace: this we have to communicate.”

Conference observers felt that Wesley would be comfortably at home in the challenge to social evils. Frontier Methodism in America” had lashed at slavery, alcoholism, gambling and Sabbath violations. Wesley had sought justice for the laboring classes in the cities.

Some observers felt Wesley would have sounded such warnings as “beware of bigness” … “beware of respectability” … “beware of an atmosphere not conducive to the life of the spirit” … or “beware of apostasy, which has a form of religion but lacks its true doctrine and passion for souls.”

Presiding officer Bishop Ivan Lee Holt of St. Louis, succeeded as world president by Dr. Harold Roberts, British theologian, remarked to a platform guest, “Some things are being said in Methodism that could not have been said ten years ago.”

Despite some reservations, most delegates were inclined to think Wesley would concur proudly that his church, after two centuries, still moves by and large in the direction of its beginnings.

The distance, however, between the place of the Bible in modern Methodism and Wesley’s Methodism, was laid bare by Dr. Norman H. Snaith, principal of Wesley College in Leeds, England. Speaking on “The Authority of the Bible,” he said:

“The uniqueness of the Bible is not in the myths and legends … not in the early laws, but in its one grand common theme. This theme, backed by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, constitutes its unfailing authority . . . This common theme is the action through the centuries of God the Savior … the work of the Savior God.”

World Evangelical Fellowship

PROVIDENCE, R. I. — Fellowship is wonderful, but bolder action is needed to reach a lost world for Christ.

This was the feeling as delegates from 27 countries expedited the World Evangelical Fellowship’s transition from a program of fellowship to one of strong action in evangelism, literature and religious freedom.

The movement struck out boldly for a cooperative world program with international leadership in six major world offices. Unusual growth of the organization was noted, with recent applications approved from Vietnam and Indonesia, but it was pointed out that the biggest lag has come in European lands where biblical higher criticism thrives.

By way of achievements, W. E. F. leaders stressed the movement’s positive and constructive temper, its emphasis on the spiritual revival of the church and the evangelization of the world, its support of evangelical theological education and literature. The movement supplied the initiative and local organizational nucleus for many of Dr. Billy Graham’s strategic rallies abroad. It has carried to distant lands the long-denied evangelistic voices of such men as Dr. Ockenga, Dr. Paul Rees, Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse, Dr. J. Edwin Orr and others.

Lt. General Sir Arthur Smith of Great Britain was re-elected for a third term as president. Vice presidents are Dr. Rees of the United States, the Rt. Rev. Hugh R. Gough of Great Britain and Dr. A. P. Guruswamy of Ceylon. John Bolten of the United States is interim treasurer. Members of the international executive committee are Dr. Ockenga and Dr. Clyde Taylor of the United States, Calvin Chao of Singapore, J. Bordreuel of France, Dr. John Savage of South America, Dr. Rene Pache of Switzerland, Dr. Everett Cattel of India, the Rev. A. Kurumada of Japan and the Rev. E. A. Lee of Korea.

Christianity Today is a subscriber to Religious News Service and Evangelical Press Service.

This article appeared in the October 15, 1956 issue of Christianity Today as "Conflict of the Gospel with Paganism".

Books

Books in Review

A look inside Ernest White’s “Christian Life and the Unconscious,” B. B. Warfield’s “Calvin and Augustine,” and other important volumes.

Reinhold Leitner / Shutterstock

Unconscious Mind

Christian Life and the Unconscious, by Ernest White. Harper, New York, 1955. $3.00.

Writings in the field of psychiatry, especially as that field relates to man’s religious life, must meet two main requirements for the Christian. Such writings must reveal true understanding of scriptural doctrine and must indicate competence and insight into scientific psychology and psychiatry. This book of 190 pages meets both of those requirements to a high degree. Furthermore, these two highly commendable features of the book come together in many satisfying observations on the deeper spiritual issues of life and in much counsel that is biblically oriented and psychologically sound.

The author, a practicing physician with a deep interest in psychiatry developed since 1936, has worked in association with Leslie Weatherhead at the City Temple Clinic in London. He describes and uses accurately concepts like the unconscious, ego, id, super-ego, the collective unconscious, archetypes, etc. He can speak of Freud and Freudian teachings without becoming involved in the frothy pansexualism that the popular mind understands as the teaching of the man from Vienna. He understands the dynamic motivation of behavior, and realizes that such motivation to action belongs “ … rather to instinct and emotion than to intellect” (pp. 19 f.).

White’s main concern is with the Unconscious mind, that large hidden area of the personality that affects all of human life so profoundly. The author identifies the biblical term “heart” with modern psychology’s “mind” in both its conscious and unconscious aspect. He stresses the “unity of the mind” and rejects any notion of the personality in terms of sealed off separate compartments.

It is at this point that stress is laid on the biblical emphasis that salvation is of the whole man and is not just a surface change. And this emphasis can be seen in its proper light when an important doctrinal distinction is observed, namely, that between the new birth and conversion. Keeping his eye on his main concern, the Unconscious, Dr. White describes the new birth as (“… an unconscious process, apart from the will of man, wrought in the spiritual depths of the personality by the Spirit of God” (p. 30). Conversion is a conscious process involving the will of man. True conversion is an outgrowth of the new birth.

In harmony with the central theme of the book, helpful chapters are presented on baptism, Christ in the heart, sanctification, God’s guidance into truth, guidance in daily life, prayer, sin and guilt, and spiritual conflict. In the final chapter, “The Concept of God,” the importance for personal well-being of one’s conception of God is properly signalized.

An illustration of the author’s excellent counsel appears in these principles for guidance: a. knowledge of God’s will comes by daily dedication to him; b. we must not expect some special revelation from God; c. God’s guidance is not always to be looked for in success in achieving the goal sought. Another illustration is found in the thoroughly sound observation that the Christian must not expect his life to be without conflict, an unrealistic impression sometimes conveyed “… in evangelical ministry” (p. 161).

The reviewer wishes to place a question mark here and there in this largely excellent book. The author’s difficulty with God’s demand for perfection because it “… is surely a hopeless quest for anyone in the world,” suggests a failure to understand the meaning of salvation by grace alone (pp. 100 ff.). It is doubtful that we are to understand prayer in Christ’s name in the sense conveyed thus: “Name stands for character, and in so far as we conform to His character, our prayers will find acceptance” (p. 144). In his discussion on baptism the psychologist seems to have carried away the theologian. The discussion seems forced as the author looks for the significance of baptism in the symbolical meaning of water in the unconscious and in myths, “… the crystallized dreams of the racial unconscious” (pp. 71ff.). EDWARD HEEREMA

Theological Giants

Calvin and Augustine, by Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, Presbyterian and Reformed, Philadelphia. $4.95.

In 1931, the Oxford Press published two volumes of articles by B. B. Warfield, one a collection on Calvin and Calvinism, the other on Tertullion and Augustine. The present volume has been issued to make available the most notable of those articles on Calvin and Augustine, most of which are familiar to students of Warfield.

J. Marcellus Kik describes the book when he says, in his foreword:

To properly evaluate the work of Calvin and Augustine requires unusual gifts. These are found in Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. … Because of his lucid and stately style of writing, his penetrating gift of analysis, his knowledge of the works of Calvin and Augustine, and his firm grasp of Reformed theology, there was no one better qualified to estimate and express the unique place of Calvin and Augustine in the history of the Christian Church.

In this volume we have Warfield speaking his mind appreciatively and critically on the work of those earlier theological giants, particularly in the areas of religious authority and knowledge. There is also a concise biographical article on each, and the article, “Calvinism,” which appears in the Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia, and which is probably the best general statement on the subject in print.

Warfield’s genius lies in the concise but comprehensive way he manages to bring every possible aspect of any given problem into an article presumably dedicated to a treatment of the views of someone else. These articles are not simply what Warfield thought Calvin or Augustine were saying at this or that point–they are masterful treatises upon the basic issues at hand which include the background against which those earlier theologians wrote as well as a critical treatment of the major existing interpretations of their work. Thus the article, “Augustine’s Doctrine of Knowledge,” for instance, becomes a major dissertation on Christian epistemology in which the later interpretations of Augustine are also weighed and evaluated; and “Calvin’s Knowledge of God” becomes a major treatment of the general problem of Revelation, especially as it has been met by theologians of succeeding generations who considered themselves Calvinists.

Throughout the articles Warfield’s own views stand out prominently. And the collection is probably most important as an outline of the Princeton theologian’s views and thus as a portrait of early 20th Century Calvinism. The current revival of interest in the Reformation and especially in John Calvin will produce constructive results only as those who seek to recapture the spirit of the Reformation become fully aware of the ways in which later Calvinism sought, however unconsciously, to improve upon the Reformer. Warfield’s writings are among the best for research in this connection and this book may well be the best brief collection of Warfield’s writings in the area of religious authority and knowledge G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Massive Scholarship

The Epistle of St. James, by Joseph Mayor. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1954, reprinted from the third revised edition (1913). $6.95.

This commentary on the book of James, first issued in 1892, belongs to the “Reprint Classic” series of the House of Zondervan. The precious ore of the epistle is small in size (they are one hundred and eight verses) but the assayer requires approximately six hundred pages to report his findings. It may be taken as some measure of the author’s thoroughness that almost three hundred pages are devoted to introductory explorations of one kind or another.

Assiduous research leads Mayor to the conclusion that the “James” who wrote the epistle was indeed “the brother of our Lord.” The disputed question of date is examined patiently and, with a wealth of evidential detail, the late “daters” such as Harnack and the “pre-Christian” speculators such as Spitta are alike refuted. Mayor concluded that the letter was writ· ten near the end of the fifth decade of the first century. This judgment finds a contemporary echo in J. B. Phillips who, in Letters to Young Churches, says that James was written “possibly early, about A.D. 50, making it the earliest letter of the New Testament.”

From this conclusion with respect to the timing of the epistle it obviously follows that Mayor rejects the anti-Pauline bias that some scholars have attributed to James. He argues in fact that James, so far from reacting unfavorably to Paul’s allegedly extreme stress on “salvation by faith,” has influenced Paul, particularly in certain sections of the Epistle to the Romans.

In the structuring of the book Mayor commits himself to such diverse considerations as (1) the relation of James to the other books of the New Testament and to the non-canonical writings, (2) the grammar and style of James, which are treated with astounding detail, (3) the question of whether the author wrote in Greek or Aramaic, and (4) an analysis of the various manuscripts and versions which provide a basis for textual criticism.

A section follows in which the text of the epistle appears in Greek and in three Latin versions set in parallel columns. This provides an introduction to the voluminous exegetical notes which run on for nearly a hundred and fifty pages.

The concluding section consists of Mayor’s own paraphrase of the epistle and a commentary on the principal topics which James introduces, such as “Temptation,” “Modes of Self-Deception,” “Respect of Persons,” “The Law of Liberty,” “Faith,” “Use and Abuse of Speech,” “Judging,” and “Healing of the Sick by Anointing and Prayer.”

The author’s paraphrase reflects smoothness, and, in certain passages, a delightful simplicity. On the other hand, a stiltedness is introduced here and there which one finds much less frequently in such a free translation as that of Phillips. For example, in chapter 3, verse 6, Mayor gives us: “In the microcosm of man’s nature the tongue represents the unrighteous world.” Whereas Phillips gives the reading: “It (the tongue) can poison the whole body, it can make the whole life a blazing hell.”

In handling the ruling ideas of James the author is careful’ to give varying viewpoints a hearing. Where the ultimate meaning is dubious he is usually undogmatic. Only here and there is the dispassionate tone relieved by touches of moving warmth. A fine instance of this more glowing style occurs in connection with the apostle’s exhortation to “Confess your faults one to another” (5:16) Mayor exclaims:

How much easier it would be to put up with hastiness or coldness on the part of a friend, if we knew that he was himself conscious of his faults and trying to amend them! … Might it not tend to increase the feeling of Christian fellowship, if those who were exposed to the same difficulties, anxious to conquer the same weaknesses and to practice the same virtues, could break through their isolation and confirm themselves in their good resolutions by the knowledge that they were shared by others.

That’s doing right well for a man who, writing half a century ago, knew nothing of psychiatry’s jargon of “empathy” and “interpersonal relations!”

All in all, Mayor on James is massive scholarship, minutely competent and humbly dedicated. PAUL REES

Wittenberg Heritage

Reformation Writings of Martin Luther, translated by Bertram Lee Woolf. Philosophical Library, New York, 1956. $7.50.

This is the second volume of the Reformation Writings of Martin Luther and is very aptly characterized by the subordinate title “The Spirit of the Protestant Reformation.” We recommend this fine volume, excellently translated into English by a master student of Luther, who is equally at home in Latin and German, the two languages Luther used to spread the Gospel orally and in writing. Eight distinctive subjects are treated in this book: “Fourteen Comforts for the Weary and Heavy Laden;” “Why the Books of the Pope and His Followers Were Burned;” “Three Sermons Preached After the Summons to Worms;” “A Word to Penitents About the Forbidden Books;” “Luther at Worms;” “The Magnificat Translated and Expounded;” “Selected Biblical Prefaces;” “The Lord’s Supper and Order of Service.” These major topics are supplemented and explained by “Introductions” and “Notes” which are designed to help the reader in understanding Luther. The reader will, no doubt, be interested above all in the dramatic events centered about Luther’s famous confession at Worms, but from a pastoral point of view the “Comforts for the Weary and Heavy Laden” and Luther’s excellent “Prefaces” are challenges to pastors as well as laymen to cherish the rich evangelical and Biblical treasures which the great Wittenberg Reformer has left as a precious heritage to evangelical Christendom. In every way, here is a book which should find many students. The translation from the Weimar edition is so ably done that only in rare cases the student is reminded that he is dealing with a version and not with the original. Both the translator and the publishers are to be congratulated on this intriguing and instructive book. JOHN THEODORE MUELLER

A Living Book

The Book of Life (eight volumes), by Newton M. Hall and Irving F. Wood. Rudin, Chicago. Twenty-third edition, 1954.

“In the ordinary printed Bible,” points out the introduction to this eight volume series, “the background is missing. The personality of the speaker, the country of the speaker, the hills of Galilee, the streets of Jerusalem, the great nations which imperilled the life of the Hebrew people … these are missing.”

To remedy this lack, to bring the “Book of Life” to life for the average reader, this eight volume series reproduces over 900 pictures, including many of the world’s greatest religious art masterpieces; adds introductory and explanatory notes, including illustrated mention of archaeological evidence supporting the claims of Scripture; and brings in related hymns and poems. Volume three, for example, contains selections from the writings of Charles Lamb, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier and Lord Byron.

All of this extra-Biblical material is set off by itself and clearly identified, and the typographic arrangement is such as to give the Scriptures themselves the pre-eminent place.

The eight volumes cover Bible Treasures (including, in this volume, a “First Bible Reader”); Bible Heroes, Pioneers; Bible Kings, Captains; Bible Prophets, Statesmen; Bible Poetry; Life of the Master; Paul, Life and Letters; and Bible Educator (including a unique series of “Courses in Bible Reading”).

While the volumes are not intended to form an exhaustive commentary on every verse in the Bible, and while their place of greatest value is probably the Christian home, their rich background material would undoubtedly be an asset also to the Sunday School teacher who seeks to do for his class what this set seeks to do for its readers: to make the Book of Life itself glow with new vitality and meaning.

Attractively and uniformly bound, the Book of Life merits a place in both home and church library. LARRY WARD

Hymnology

The Story of Hymns and Tunes, by Brown and Butterworth. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, $3.95.

This book is an authentic and comprehensive work which will find ready acceptance with both ministers and laymen who wish to know more about the origin of hymns and gospel songs. In this compilation one may encounter not only brief stories of hymns and tunes, short biographical sketches of authors and composers, but also a great deal of information concerning church history and the lives of the saints who helped to make it.

Commencing with the song of Moses and Miriam, the trail leads through Greek, Hebrew and Latin hymns; the New Testament Magnificat; Gloria and Benedictions; Germanic, English and Welsh Hymnody; up to and including early and modern day American hymns and tunes.

It makes clear the distinction between philosophical poetry and that of the true hymnic character.

Chapter headings are somewhat different, in that they do not deal with the material either chronologically or geographically, but rather emphasize its type and usage. RUTH NININGER

Reply All

Letters from readers. (Yes, we had readers even before this first official issue.)

Agnes Kantaruk / Shutterstock

Epistolics Anonymous

To the Editor:

Can you tell me, please, whether it is proper to launch an ICBM rocket with a bottle of champagne? Having flunked physics, I am somewhat unsure of myself in this atomic age. It would be great fun for an inveterate non-alcoholic to contribute some verbal pop and fizz to the launching of your new magazine, but I don’t know whether it would be appropriate.

I’m a little over-awed. Your magazine, you say, is “designed for worldwide impact.” Looking at your streamlined brochure and the impressive list of editors and contributors I can well believe it. The jet take-off of your first issue is going to be something to see!

But sir, you need a Pseudonymous Letter Writer, for which position I herewith make application. I can hear you muttering, “The pseudonymous, while not synonymous with the anonymous, is equally pusillanimous…” I wish you wouldn’t talk that way. Where would American literature be without Mark Twain? Besides, as that great master of pseudonymity, Soren Kierkegaard, has explained, using a pseudonym may show too much courage rather than too little! My nom de plume suggests not a personality but a picture. Easy slumber under sound gospel preaching was fatal for Eutychus. The Christian church of our generation has not been crowded to his precarious perch, but it has been no less perilously asleep in comfortable pews.

The resemblance to Eutychus does not end there. Eutychus prostrate on the pavement is more appropriate than we know as a symbol of Christendom today. To tap sleeping Eutychus on the shoulder, to embrace dead Eutychus in love, faith, and hope is your task.

Believe me, my heart is with you. Evangelical Christianity … never were those words more significant than in this time when many who falsely or foolishly claim the noun would assure us, in the name of unity, that the adjective is unnecessary—either meaningless or sectarian.

But if we are to contend for the truth in love, humbling humor is good medicine. When men take a cause seriously enough, there is always great danger that they will take themselves too seriously. If we see ourselves as others see us, we may discover why everyone is laughing!

May your cause prosper, your letters-to-the-editor department flourish, and may I remain (this is a threat and a promise)

your humble scribe,Eutychus

• So that the Editor will be assured of at least one letter fortnightly, Christianity Today welcomes Eutychus the volunteer. Except in the case of Eutychus, whose identity is already established (d. Acts 20:9), communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the writer. The title “Eutychus and His Kin” is employed for letters to the Editor because Eutychus is an apostolic symbol for one made drowsy under the long exhortation of others, or providentially awakened to new opportunities. —ED.

At this Time of Day

To the Editor:

I am venturing to ask whether your heading “The Conflict of the Gospel with Paganism” … will regularly appear in the journal? If it does so, presumably in accordance with editorial policy, I respectfully submit that the title is ill-chosen. The science of Comparative Religion itself would, I should have thought, have precluded approaches of that kind, at this time of day, to highly complex religious phenomena.

Prof. G. K. Brown, Ph.D., D. Litt.University of ManitobaWinnipeg, Canada

Blubbered mouthful

To the Editor:

Your propaganda letter is to hand. It reminds me of another blubbered mouthful: “what America needs is a good five cent cigar.” A good five cent cigar would do as much good for the politico-economic situation in the U.S. as your proposed … Christianity Today will do for the kingdom of God. … The world doesn’t need another religious magazine. … As I look at the lined-up intellectual power and the display of gifted personalities which you propose to plow into a sterile paper I pray that God may frustrate the plan.…

H. D. HammerMontevideo, Uruguay

Christianity yesterday

To the Editor:

If you have a Christianity Today that differs from the Christianity of the Apostles of the first century, followed by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, A.D. 30, I have no use for it.

Frances Lincoln CookEugene, Ore.

Approval of trend

To the Editor:

Have read your sample of the coming publication Christianity Today with a great deal of interest and approval of the trend of thought behind the movement.…

Mansel B. GreenSouth Haven, Mich.

Wings of Christian growth

To the Editor:

From 1941 to 1945 I was fighting as millions of others to preserve freedom … Over Germany and Tokyo I prayed many times … for the safety of myself, my crew and squadron. I came through … unharmed, and have always felt there was some real reason and purpose for my returning when so many finer men did not.

I have found that purpose now, … since I have now accepted Christ as my Saviour and for the first time have found peace. … I realize today … that Christ is the only salvation for myself, this nation and the entire world. I continuously pray and read my Bible for continued guidance … Mediums such as Christianity Today will help us all grow in … Christian understanding.

Lt. Col. Robert K. Morgan,USAF (Reserve)Black Mountain, N.C.

• Colonel Morgan piloted the famous “Memphis Belle” which started the round of land-based bombings of Tokyo. Oddly, the pilot who led the bombing attack on Pearl Harbor, Captain Fuchida, is now also a Christian, active in evangelistic work in Japan. —ED.

This article appeared in the October 15, 1956 issue of Christianity Today as "Eutychus and his Kin".

Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: October 15, 1956

Philip E. Hughes

What British theology journals are saying.

Bencherlite / Wikimedia

The question of the reunion of the divided Church is very much in the forefront of theological thought in Great Britain at the present time. Events such as those connected with the Church of South India have forced this question from the sphere of speculative debate into that of practical politics, and “talks” are being carried on between representatives of the Church of England (Episcopalian), the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and Methodist Church.

¶ A vexed aspect of the question is that of episcopacy and orders. In the June number of the Scottish Journal of Theology Professor J. M. Barkley of Belfast, contributing an article on “The Meaning of Ordination,” remarks that it is noteworthy that the Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1563) and the “Bishops’ Book” (1537) and “King’s Book” (1543) of the Anglican Reformation “all declare the ‘presbyterate’ to be the highest order of the ministry,” and he maintains that it is only since 1662 that a distinction has been made in the Church of England between bishops and presbyters as separate orders. He rightly declares that today, as always, the Reformed Church must “submit herself to the leading and criticism of the Word of God.”

Professor Barkley stresses significantly that ordination in the New Testament is by prayer with the laying on of hands —prayer having the priority: “Owing to the doctrine of ‘lineal’ succession the laying on of hands with prayer was emphasized rather than prayer with the laying on of hands.” He further urges that, according to the New Testament, “the Ministry of Christ is the only ‘essential ministry’ in the Church, and all other ministries are derived from and dependent upon Him,” and that it is “the call of Christ and the gift of His Spirit” that alone validate any ministry. It is evident that the author has in mind the Anglo-Catholic teaching that episcopacy is the “essential” or “apostolic” ministry on which all other ministries depend.

Canon S. L. Greenslade of Durham, in an article entitled “Ordo” in the same issue, agrees that the Church “must be faithful to biblical principles” and emphasizes that “the ministry and priesthood of Christ is continued ;md shared by the whole Church, and not limited to an ordained ministry within it.” But he asks a number of questions without offering any answer to them, particularly in connection with the office of bishop: is episcopacy necessary to the being of the Church? are bishops successors of the Apostles? do they exercise functions which are withheld from or impossible for other ministerial orders? is it open to the Church to sanction ordination by presbyters? Many will feel that Professor Barkley’s article goes some way towards answering such questions.

¶ The Editor of The Modern Churchman states (in the March issue) that it is his conviction that “the Bishops of the Church of England … should take the first step on their side in the achievement of the much to be desired reunion” by declaring that all communicants of the Free Churches “are most welcome to communicate at the Lord’s Table in the National Church.” This is undoubtedly a practical and realistic proposal which would have the support of Evangelicals in the Church of England. There will be doubts, however, about the practicability of the further suggestion that the leading denominations of the Free Churches “should re-enter the National Church as Christian Corporations retaining their property, their buildings, their ministries and their organizations and powers of self-government.”

¶ Even the satisfaction of the lust for a united world Church would not solve the problems that distress us in this existence. As St. Paul foresaw, there will always be enemies within the Church as well as from without (Acts 20:29f.). The extremes of massive organization on a comprehensive scale and of the separatism of small independent and undenominational communities both imply perfectionism, whereas perfection will only be hereafter when the Church is exalted to her glorified state. We are inclined to agree with the anonymous reviewer of Professor Norman Sykes’s recent book Old Priest and New Presbyter who wrote in The Listener of July 19: “in England again now let inter-communion be consented to all round, and the impure ambition to re-unite will be sufficiently attained” (though we would have preferred the adjective “misguided” to “impure”).

Preaching to a congregation of Methodists in Durham Cathedral on June 30, the Archbishop of York, Dr. A. M. Ramsey, said: “My own dream is that one day the Methodists will by means of bishops be linked with the Church of England while retaining their own customs and methods, as a society.” A bishop, he explained, “is a bond of unity and continuity, a symbol of a Catholic Church coming down from the past and spanning the generations.” The editorial comment of the Church of England Newspaper of July 20 is apposite: “It is precisely those churches which have bishops in the ‘apostolic succession’ which find it almost impossible to speak to one another.” When bishops cease to regard themselves as apostolical prelates and are no longer appointed as administrative geniuses, but take their place with St. Peter as “fellow-presbyters” (I Pet. 5: 1), then the Archbishop’s dream will be nearer realization.

Archdeacon W. P. Hares, in an article on “St. Peter and Papal Claims” in the June number of The Churchman, writes: “The Bishop of Rome claims jurisdiction over the whole of Christendom because he is the successor of Peter. But from the Scriptures and the writings of the Early Fathers it is quite clear that Peter never claimed jurisdiction over anyone!” The arguments he adduces against the papal claims are not new, but they are none the less valid.

¶ A responsive echo will be evoked in many a heart by the protest made in the August issue of Theology by the well-known Anglo-Catholic theologian Dr. E. L. Mascall, of Oxford, against “the extreme verbosity which has come to characterize the writings of many modern theologians.” He draws attention in particular to the volumes of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics which are still being translated into English and which he computes will reach at least a million words in length. In his opinion Barth’s work “would have lost nothing in content and would have gained much in clarity if he had written at one third of the length.” Is Dr. Mascall familiar with the Puritan divines of the seventeenth century, we wonder? They were prolific enough, but at least they were comprehensible! And what about the voluminousness of Thomas Aquinas, to whom Dr. Mascall is much addicted? Karl Barth is unlikely to outdo him! “Of making many books there is no end…”

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, B.D., M.A., is former secretary, Church Society (Church of England) and former vice-president, Tyndale Hall.

This article appeared in the October 15, 1956 issue of Christianity Today as "Review of Current Religious Thought".

- More from Philip E. Hughes

The Fragility of Freedom in the West

Carl F. H. Henry

Individual liberty is not a sufficient yardstick of to measure Freedom versus Slavery.

Jojoo64 / Shutterstock

The role of freedom is waning. The high hope of a free world, so widespread two generations ago, is today in obvious decline. Wherever human liberty survives it dwells under somber shadows. The West distinguishes itself from the Soviet bloc especially as the champion of human freedoms. In contrast with the totalitarian enslavement of man, and the disregard for human dignity and rights in the Soviet sphere, the virtue most publicized by democratic nations is that they are “freedom-loving.” The twentieth-century conflict between the totalitarian and the nontotalitarian worlds is a conflict over man’s position and his rights and duties.

Search for a rationale

Yet the West itself betrays a growing search for a rationale of freedom. That the Western conception of freedom needs to be revitalized is increasingly recognized and confessed. Multitudes of citizens in the favored Free World today lack a dynamic devotion to the cause of freedom and a missionary zeal to proclaim its message to men near and far. The spontaneous passion to enlist recruits under the flag of freedom is missing. The political crusade upholding individual worth and dignity is carried forward mainly by specialized organizations and technical leaders. What the West lacks is a passionate popular enthusiasm for liberty.

Beyond doubt the Western view of human dignity and human rights presupposes a worthier outlook on life than does the communist devaluation of man. The Free World detaches itself, and rightly so, from the materialistic attempt to limit human life to finite considerations. Cooperation and loyalty require more than an appeal to underprivilege and misunderstanding; they demand a recognition of basic values. The West grasps the great fact that the strength of life and culture, and the permanence of nations, rest ultimately upon moral and spiritual foundations.

Yet the contrast between the Free World and the Soviet bloc cannot, in this respect, be reduced to an absolute antithesis. And the reason it cannot is complex. Even within the Soviet sphere, however counterbalanced they may be, there remain large groups of Christian believers who have not flexed the knee to Karl Marx. The West may take heart that such advocates of human dignity and responsibility, however thwarted in effectiveness, exist even on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Moreover, the tenets of the West and of the East cannot be reduced to two wholly hostile positions—a fact that should give the West no cause for gratitude. They cannot be so reduced because of the ambiguity over freedom in the West—an ambiguity that extends to the conception of the nature, the sanctions, and the sources of freedom. The West itself has not worked out a philosophy of human freedom that provides a satisfactory antithesis to the totalitarian world’s philosophy of the enslavement of the individual spirit.

Freedom in fuzzy outline

The West’s lack of a positive philosophy of freedom is increasingly acknowledged to be a major Free World weakness. The communist philosophy is categoric and precise; the West’s concept of liberty is indefinite and fuzzy. With the destiny of the world hanging in the balances, an ambiguous program holds little prospect of converting the impressionable masses permanently to its side.

Weaknesses in the West’s position are easily detected, however statesmen may defend them. The United Nations, with which the West has cast its lot, includes not only the U.S.S.R. and its veto but also lesser powers with scant sympathy for democracy or who, like France, seem to prefer a death-bed struggle to the disavowal of imperial colonialism. Apart from these considerations, the apparent foreign policy of the West reflects strategic concessions to material-expedient factors. An equally distressing weakness arises from the present tendency of some Free World leaders to champion only political freedom, cutting the plea for democracy and political liberty adrift from such fundamental issues as religious liberty and economic liberty.

Yet these important issues must inevitably be brought into any comprehensive discussion of human freedom. The distressing fact is that the West’s conception of freedom today is not one, but many. The Free World defends “the dignity of man,” but its agreement is mainly negative, against the communist view; it is not at all unanimous on the meaning of human dignity. The same charge may be leveled against the lack of a single definition of such everyday terms as democracy, free enterprise, capitalism, and so forth. In fact, organized propaganda continually bombards the man of the West in the interests of competing definitions of these controlling ideas.

Conflict of ideas

This lack of agreement in the West is due in part to an unresolved conflict in its culture, and reflects the lingering influence of the biblical and Renaissance traditions upon its past and present life. As a result of this conflict, friends and foes of theistic supernaturalism, carrying on an important war of ideas between themselves, claim an equal right and authority to fix the Free World’s definition of its governing terms. Thus, for example, UNESCO is headed by an aggressive humanist, whereas the President of the United States emphasizes an inseparable connection between the democratic outlook and the fact of man’s creation in the image of God. At the Geneva summit, the agnostics and atheists were not all on the Soviet side of the conference table.

Lack of dynamic

But this absence of synthesis and precision in the ideology of the West is not the only reason that the principle of freedom is incompetently shaped by the Free World. Alongside the problem of leadership in the West stands the problem of the masses. The case for human freedom and responsibility is often cast in a philosophical form quite beyond the grasp of the man on Main Street. The communist appeal to the masses has the virtue of simplicity, going with dramatic directness to some of the basic interests of life. The picture of the dedicated cadres of Communism, vigilant vanguard of the totalitarian thrust, supplies a disturbing contrast to the West’s fervorless and undedicated recognition of the priority of human freedom over slavery. Free men and nations do not long remain free unless they understand what freedom is and promote it with an enthusiasm that exceeds the vigor of untruth.

How, then, can the West “firm up” the case of freedom? Is there a simple yet valid appeal, calling for a personal dedication and a militant defense of liberties? How can the ideology of freedom gain dynamic? Can the West forge a positive and an evangelistic formula of freedom to replace a merely defensive statement?

The present tendency in the West is to position a nation on the yardstick of Freedom versus Slavery merely by the degree of individual liberty available to its citizens. Whatever worthwhile elements this preserves, it is a vulnerable measure of freedom.

The significance of the individual is, doubtless, an important criterion in gauging the submission to or resistance of totalitarianism. Whenever individuals accept personal responsibility and promote human rights they strengthen the bulwark against statism. The right of individual conscience to an opinion and to a decision about the reigning “class conscience” is essential. A state that minimizes this personal responsibility is increasingly vulnerable to totalitarian influences, which subject its citizens to society and society to the state.

In the free society, the military and police force protects individual rights, whereas in a totalitarian world, they enforce the will of the state. Indeed, the police state is dedicated to the abolition of personal freedom. In the free society, individual right of conscience in religious worship is upheld; in a totalitarian climate, the individual is hedged about either by a patriotic religion or by state irreligion. In the free society every citizen has the right of free and secret ballot; in a totalitarian nation, elections are predetermined, with a forced vote for but a single candidate or party, and reprisal if the citizen withholds his ballot. In a free society, the individual holds the right conscientiously to criticize the state alongside his obligation to support it; in a totalitarian atmosphere, the state is the lord of conscience, and individual disagreement means elimination. In the free society, social and economic distinctions do not imply differences in personal worth, nor do they exclude fraternal relations between the dictator, the high party functionaries, the party members, the general hierarchy, the proletarian masses, the slave masses, and the enemies of the state.

From these contrasts it is clear enough that every freedom-loving nation in defending the dignity of the human person must champion also the sanctity of individual conscience, in contrast with communistic suppressive tendencies.

Negative indication only

But does not the importance attached to the individual, expressed in this bare way, fail to supply a safe index to the actual presence of human freedoms? May it not rather simply give a negative indication of the absence of formal slavery? Is freedom ever simply the possibility of acting in a certain way in relation to the state? Is the individual’s ability to resist state aggression really a conspicuous and conclusive victory for the forces of freedom? Can freedom really be weighed accurately upon scales whose weights bear no other identifications than these: Will of the Individual, Will of the State? Is the revolution for freedom, in totalitarian lands, decisively implemented by the mere defense of certain horizontal freedoms for the individual?

The West tends to reply—quite in the spirit of the Renaissance, rather than in the spirit of the Reformation— that human freedom implies human responsibility, and. the freedom of the one man therefore implies similar freedom for every man. Individual freedom is guarded from becoming individual license, or individual tyranny, by the obligation of the one who invokes these freedoms for himself to de fend these same freedoms for all.

What of the durables?

This emphasis, that all privilege implies obligation, and that human rights imply human responsibilities, is good enough as far as it goes. The trouble is, it does not go far enough. It provides no adequate conception of the source, sanction, and scope of human freedom.

As a matter of fact, this approach cannot even show that human freedom is a permanent value. The reason is plain enough—it has not yet risen to the distinction between the temporary and the eternal. But if democracy is always superior to totalitarianism, if the dignity and freedom of man are permanent values, as against the communistic antagonism-then it becomes necessary to show that some things are eternally true and good.

Beyond naturalism

To establish the fact that truth and values endure, that they are eternal and unchanging, and not subject to revision from time to time and from place to place, it is necessary to refute the naturalistic thesis that everything is time-bound, or that distinctions of truth and morality are subjective and changing. The vindication of a supernatural order of truth and goodness is therefore prerequisite to the vindication of the enduring value of democracy and of human freedom. Unless distinctions between truth and falsehood, and between right and error, are ultimate, no convincing defense of the permanent truth and value of the democratic concept is possible.

Merely opposing the right of individual conscience to the calculated communist disregard and destruction of individual conscience does not meet head-on the hard core of the communist dogma that the interests of the state are above every personal moral code, religious inclination, family affinity, and political ideal. The point is not that individual conscience is unimportant; indeed, every worthwhile theory of morality must assign a significant role to conscience. No act can be considered moral unless performed with the approbation of conscience. The subjective sense of good intention and right conduct, the confidence that an act is performed out of moral obligation, are essential to ethical performance. An act that accomplishes “the right thing” quite by accident and lack of intention can never under those circumstances alone be a moral act. Therefore the communist doctrine, that the dead individual conscience is a virtue of the “good” party liner, must be resisted with might and main. (The communist himself tacitly admits the indestructibility of individual conscience, and is driven to reckon with its ineradicability. For he resorts to internal subversion, terrorism, revolutionary tactics, purges and military force in order to reduce individual conscience to a mere reflex “class conscience.”)

Role of conscience

But what is done conscientiously, even by the individual, is not on that account right. For the human conscience is finite and fallible; it requires education. Indeed, the Christian religion would go even further, contending that the conscience of man as fallen and sinful is distorted, needing regeneration and the guidance of revelation. The “sensitive individual conscience” can be regarded, therefore, as the diametric opposite of Communism only when one goes beyond the merely humanistic or idealistic constructions of man. The individual conscience, no less than the group conscience, may be wrong; individual conscience is not right simply because it is personal. And a wrong conscience imposed upon life is as wrong when it is individual as when it is collective. Indeed, even a group conscience need not always be wrong, and may at times be nearer the truth than a lone individual.

The theological horizon

If one aims seriously to reply to dialectical materialism, simply to insist on a balance of human rights with human responsibilities is not enough. The rights and privileges of every individual do indeed carry an inherent obligation to sustain these same freedoms for all others. But that human beings have rights and obligations is not a matter of anthropology alone, but of theology as well. The word “inherent” is misleading—a humanist or naturalist may deploy it in the service of atheism—even in the West. The only compelling basis for speaking of inherent rights is the theological fact that man is a creature bearing the image of God, so that his experience is bracketed by enduring distinctions of truth and goodness.

The fate of freedom turns on far more, therefore, than a sensitized individual conscience. It turns upon individual conscience sensitized specifically toward the living God, and toward His Word and commandments. The fate of freedom is suspended in the last analysis not on the alternative of the individual orientation or the state orientation of conscience, but on the Godward orientation of individual and state alike.

Modern crisis spiritual

The modern crisis, in which the West itself is entangled more deeply than its leaders suspect, is therefore a religious crisis. Decision for or against the living God is revealed as the upper side of the decision for or against the dignity and worth of the individual. The Hebrew-Christian religion of redemption, of the self-revealing God, vindicates a special view of human freedom-its source, its sanction, its scope. The Mosaic Law and the Gospel of Christ crackle with relevance for the modern debate over man and his worth. The Great Commission is not tangential to the crisis of the twentieth century. For Christianity is the purveyor of human freedom on the only level adequate to repel the communist revolution. It can show that lying, cheating, stealing, and murder are wrong because God by commandment forbids them-not simply because the United States forbids them (after all, in America adultery is not treated as nearly so objectionable), nor because the United Nations forbids them. They are wrong not merely because some state or superstate deplores them, but because God forbids them. Whoever therefore is bound by party discipline to perform them is obliged by the will of God to resist the will of the party.

Carl F.H. Henry is the editor of Christianity Today.

- More from Carl F. H. Henry

Ideas

The Evangelical Witness in a Modern Medium

A Christianity Today Editorial

Behind this initial issue stands a year of prayer, of decision, of planning. (Plus: CT’s first masthead)

With the first public announcement that a biweekly journal of evangelical conviction was in prospect, Christianity Today attracted the spontaneous interest of thousands of ministers and lay leaders. That initial response gained swift momentum as assurances multiplied that a wide welcome would await such an evangelical medium.

Behind this initial issue stands a year of prayer, of decision, of planning. The fortnightly correlation of the Christian lifeline and the editorial deadline now takes the form of necessity as well as of opportunity and responsibility.

In design and typography, Christianity Today combines the classic heritage of the past with the best of the modern. The cover achieves this effect with its combination of the classic Dutch and Weiss initials. The feature articles, contemporary in interest, are set and captioned in modern type faces. For article headings, Deepdene will predominate, with the body of the article set in Fairfield, an easily legible book face not uncommon in religious magazines. In its choice of type faces Christianity Today had the counsel of Paul Smith, a leading West Coast type designer.

Christianity Today is printed on 40-pound eggshell paper. The first issue alone required 37,000 pounds-enough to reach, page by page, almost across the state of Texas, or from Cairo to Jerusalem to Damascus to Beirut.

Christianity Today enjoys excellent printing arrangements. Type is set in Washington, D.C., by the McArdle Printing Company. “Mats” cast from the type are rushed to Dayton, Ohio, where the McCall Corporation, publisher of national magazines, completes the actual printing and mailing.

Even before the last copy of Christianity Today is off the press, the addressing and mailing of copies is begun. The mailing schedules to various parts of the United States are so arranged that all readers receive the magazine virtually the same day.

Readers of Christianity Today are served by a staff of more than seventy evangelical correspondents around the world. Swift airmail service speeds their reports to the news desk.

Christianity Today uses the cable facilities of Western Union and other wireless services under the code name XTY. Telegrams are received direct at Christianity Today editorial headquarters through the Desk-Fax service of Western Union. Christianity Today also uses the Bell System national teletype service, using the TWX code number WA-555.

Besides the efforts of far-flung correspondents, readers of Christianity Today will enjoy vigorous articles by fifty contributing editors, as well as contributions secured from other significant sources. In the formulation of a consistent editorial style for a religious magazine whose tone is formal but not austere, Christianity Today has had the counsel of Miss Joan H. Wise, textbook editor in New York.

Advertising in Christianity Today is carefully screened. As Time magazine noted in a prepublication item, Christianity Today accepts only “culturally constructive” advertising copy, in addition to advertisements for standard products and services of special utility to minister and church.

Editorial, subscription and advertising headquarters are in the Washington Building where, from Suite 1014-1022, the editors daily look down Pennsylvania Avenue and glimpse the White House, Blair House, and other strategic centers of national life. Thus Christianity Today is a symbol of the place of the evangelical witness in the life of a republic.

Staff

Carl F. H. Henry, Editor L. Nelson Bell, Executive Editor J. Marcellus Kik, Associate Editor Larry Ward, Managing Editor George Burnham, News Editor

Contributing Editors

Oswald T. Allis (Wayne, Pa.) G. C. Berkouwer (Free University of Amsterdam) Andrew W. Blackwood (Temple Univ. School of Theology) Robert F. Boyd (Assembly's Training School, Pres. U.S.) Geoffrey W . Bromiley (St. Thomas Episcopal, Edinburgh) F. F. Bruce (University of Sheffield) Gordon H. Clark (Butler University) F. P. Copland Simmons (St. Andrew's Presbyterian, London) Earl L. Douglass (Princeton, N. J.) Edward L. R. Elson (National Presbyterian, Washington) William Fitch (Knox Presbyterian, Toronto) C. Darby Fulton (Bd. of World Missions, Pres. U.S.) Frank E. Gaebelein (Stony Brook School) John H. Gerstner (Pittsburgh-Xenia Theol. Sem.) Billy Graham (Montreat, N. C .) Richard C. Halverson (Intl. Christian Leadership) William K. Harrison (U .S. Caribbean Command) C. Adrian Heaton (Eastern Baptist Theol. Sem.) Philip E. Hughes (London, England) W. Boyd Hunt (Southwestern Baptist Theol. Sem.) Norman C. Hunt (University of Edinburgh) Clyde S. Kilby (Wheaton College) W. Harry Jellema (Calvin College) Harold Kuhn (Asbury Theol. Sem.) Robert J. Lamont (First Presbyterian, Pittsburgh) Roland Q. Leavell (New Orleans Baptist Theol. Sem.) Pierre Marcel (St. Germain En Laye, France) Clarence E. Macartney (Beaver Falls, Pa.) Duke Mccall (Southern Baptist Theol. Sem.) Samuel Moffett (Seoul, Korea) Arthur J. Moore (Bishop, The Methodist Church) J. Theodore Mueller (Concordia Theol. Sem.) Roger Nicole (Gordon Divinity School) Harold John Ockenga (Park Street Church, Boston) Stanley W. Olson (Baylor Univ. College of Medicine) J. C. Pollock (Templecombe, Somerset, England) Bernard Ramm (Baylor University) Paul S. Rees (First Covenant, Minneapolis) W. Stanford Reid (McGill University) William Childs Robinson (Columbia Theol. Sem.) Samuel M. Shoemaker (Calvary Episcopal, Pittsburgh) W. E. Sangster (Methodist Home Mission Dept., London) Wilbur M. Smith (Fuller Theol. Sem.) Ned B. Stonehouse (Westminster Theol. Sem.) John R. W. Stott (All Souls Langham Pl., London) James G. S. S. Thomson (Edinburgh, Scotland) Cary N. Weisiger III (Mt. Lebanon U.P., Pittsburgh) Faris D. Whitesell (Northern Baptist Theol. Sem.) Maurice A. P. Wood (St. Mary's Islington, London) Kyle M. Yates (Baylor University) Fred Young (Central Baptist Theol. Sem.)

Correspondents

Tom Allan (Scotland) Charles F. Ball (Chicago) George Bartholdy (Denmark) Jerry Beavan (Evangelism at Large) Trygve Bjerkrheim (Norway) Louis T. Bowers (Liberia) Wilhelm Brauer (Germany) Allen Cabaniss (Jackson, Miss.) Frank Colquhoun (England) L. David Cowie (Seattle) Calvin Chao (Singapore) Ellsworth Culver (Philippine Islands) A. Thakur Das (Pakistan) R. L. Decker (Kansas City) Boris Decorvet (Switzerland) Peter De Visser (Grand Rapids) James I. Dickson (Formosa) Cyril Dorsett (British West Indies) W. Harold Fuller (West Africa) J. Wayne Fulton (Miami) Roy E. Grace (Philadelphia) G. A. Hadjiantoniou (Greece) J. Lester Harnish (Los Angeles) Stuart Harrison (Peru) T.W. Hazelwood (Toronto) Langdon Henderlite (Brazil) Benjamin Heras (Spain) Robert Holmes (Ceylon) John G. Jetty (New York City) D. Koilpitchai (India) Elmer F. Kraemer (St. Louis) T. Leonard Lewis (Boston) Paul Lilienberg (Sweden) Marcus L. Loane (Australia) Robert S. Lutz (Denver) Ben J. Marais (South Africa) W. W. Marichal (Belgium) James A. McAlpine (Japan) Don McClure (The Sudan) W. A. McGill (Egypt) Tom McMahan (Columbia, S. C.) Roger B. McShane (Detroit) Herbert Mekeel (Schenectady) R. Strang Miller (New Zealand) William McE. Miller (Iran) Samuel H. Moffett (Korea) Benjamin Moraes(Brazil) John Morrison (Belgian Congo) William Mueller (Louisville) Robert Boyd Munger (San Francisco) Sidney W. Murray (Ireland) Donn C. Odell (Israel) J. Edwin Orr (Evangelism at Large) James Pritchard (India) W Stackford Reid (Montreal) W. Dayton Roberts (Costa Rica) J. Hervey Ross (Mexico) Benjamin Santana (Puerto Rico) James P. Schaeffer (Milwaukee) C. Ralston Smith (Oklahoma City) Gerald B. Smith (Minneapolis-St. Paul) Paul G. Stephan (Des Moines) Cullen Story (Lebanon) P. N. Tablante-Garrido (Venezuela) Clyde W. Taylor (Washington, D .C.) Paul E. Toms (Hawaii) Renato Tulli (Italy) Abe C. Van Der Puy (Ecuador) Vance Webster (Eugene, Ore.) Cary N. Weisiger III (Pittsburgh) Faris D. Whitesell (Chicago) G. Brillenburg Vurth (The Netherlands) Irvin S. Yeaworth (Cincinnati)

- More from A Christianity Today Editorial

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