The minister’s most important duty before the Sunday-morning service is not shaking hands with early parishioners, attending to church-school matters, preserving the parish house from wanton destruction, or even going over the sermon. The first charge upon the clergyman is keeping peace of a special kind, that is, being “in the Spirit” on the Lord’s Day. There are always innumerable secondary details that need attention, but they should be the responsibility of others. For the pastor, the half hour before the service should be kept as free as possible from interruption.

The minister must be alone during those brief moments before public worship in order to ready himself for leading the people into the Holy of Holies, where the soul is refreshed in the midst of the glory of the Lord. He should so prepare himself that by voice and manner, by calmness and serenity of spirit, he, too, is seen to be truly worshiping and not merely officiating. Thus ancient forms that are channels of divine grace gain new life and freshness and are interpreted anew through the minister’s contact with the eternal Spirit.

James Moffatt translates Revelation 1:10: “On the Lord’s day I found myself rapt in the Spirit.” This experience is not a matter of chance. While the waters of the Spirit are indeed forever flowing free, we must open our hearts and minds and souls to receive him. To do so requires elimination of external and secondary things so that we may be cleansed of pettiness, coldness, indifference, and professionalism and be truly lifted into the heavenlies.

To be “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” is not limited to Sunday, for the entire week is a period of preparation. The last half hour before the preaching service is especially critical, however. It climaxes all other readying for the exacting privilege of conducting public worship. Even in this short time, God can melt the minister’s hardness and break down his aloofness; when “rapt in the Spirit” the minister can say from the heart, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”

Each minister must discover through his own experience how best to prepare himself for the worship service. Sometimes religious classics are helpful, and collected prayers and meditations. Books about the ministry can challenge the mind again and again with the glory of one’s calling. Many of the Lyman Beecher lectures on preaching, for example, are far more than treatises on sermon construction and are helpful for this sort of interior preparation.

Not least effective, of course, is quiet meditation upon biblical passages. Here one reviews Scripture, concentrating not on proper rendering and emphasis but rather on placing oneself into the biblical setting, getting the feel of the situation.

The pre-service half hour will quite naturally close with prayer. Probably few of us pray enough; too often we come to our work from low levels of preoccupation and perspective. When we trust God more and place less value upon our own efforts, when we scale mountains on our knees, then people will become aware that we have been with the Lord. Perhaps such preparation explains the Scotsman’s comment on his minister’s sermon, “This night Jerusalem was searched through with lanterns.” This involves the sacrifice of ourselves, but we rise to be more nearly adequate to our calling.

As J. W. Stevenson has said, “It is one thing to serve the highest, another to be willing to be made fit for the serving.”

Another resource for preparing to lead a congregation in worship is found in certain parts of the Book of Common Prayer. In The Renewing Gospel, W. Russell Bowie tells of a clergyman who in the middle of the night was called to the bedside of a dying parishioner. In his haste to answer the call he forgot his prayer book. At the hospital the mother of the dying girl asked the minister to pray, and he uttered a heartfelt prayer for the presence and help of God. When he had finished the mother thanked him, but she asked also for prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. The preacher understood that in her time of deep distress she wanted her petitions to be uttered, as it were, with the united voice of all the gathered centuries, and he went home for the book. She longed to hear a note, not of one man’s faith only, but of that faith that the long patience and proven experience of the Church had shaped.

Certain portions of the Book of Common Prayer can be used in various situations besides public worship without any lessening of loyalty to other traditions. Most of the collects or short prayers antedate the Reformation and are the creative translations of Thomas Cranmer. One that is often used is the Collect for Purity. Other particularly useful ones are prayers of thanksgiving, for Christian service, for social justice, and for the family of nations.

In this exciting ecumenical period of the Christian Church, a phrase of the late Evelyn Underhill stands out. In the preface to her “Worship” she says, “My wish has been to show all these [liturgical and non-liturgical forms] as chapels of various types in the one Cathedral of the Spirit.”

There is no dearth of materials to stimulate and quicken the willing heart. The man who would lead his people into the possibilities of true worship must himself exercise the discipline of waiting upon God. A jealously guarded period before worship services for reading, meditation, and prayer is indispensable preparation.

—The Reverend WARREN C. HERRICK (retired), formerly rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Melrose, Massachusetts.

Even a casual evaluation of the world scene today can lead to utter pessimism. But the Christian has no right to be a pessimist. He knows God and his Son. He knows, as a child of God, that nothing can happen that is outside God’s will for his life.

Between the black despair of those who see a world rushing to certain judgment and the sublime confidence of some Christians, there is a great area of outlook shared by true but uninstructed Christians and others whose faith and aspirations rise no higher than man and his ability to cope with life.

Perhaps there has never been a time when so many have lacked assurance as now. Some respond by plodding through life like dumb animals. Others frantically attempt to solve problems at the human level—through committees, plans, organizations, buzzing activity. Still others give way to despair, which may lead to depression and even serious breakdown.

Why the different reactions? Why are some optimistic and others pessimistic? Can both attitudes be justified?

Perhaps the key is found in the object of confidence. If one’s confidence is only in the potential and attainments of man, in nations and their power, in organizations and their human wisdom, then one has every reason to be a thoroughgoing pessimist. If, on the other hand, his confidence is in God—his love, goodness, power, and sovereignty—then he should be an incurable optimist.

Misplaced trust can bring disaster, but trust in God is never misplaced. It brings peace in the midst of turmoil, hope when things are at their darkest, and certainty that he never makes a mistake, that “in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28, RSV).

Perhaps the basic cause of mental, moral, and spiritual breakdowns is uncertainty, an uncertainty that runs all through the social, economic, political, and religious thinking of many. Longing for a firm anchor and failing to find it, they feel hopelessly adrift on the sea of life.

In a time when so many are unsure of themselves, this world, and the future, the Christian has a golden opportunity to bring hope and joy to others through his confidence on Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Son of God, who is Saviour and Lord of all who will invite him into their hearts.

There is no other foundation but Christ, no hope, peace, or certainty apart from him and his work for and in us. The words of restful assurance found in Henry F. Lyte’s hymn still speak to our souls today:

Change and decay

In all around I see;

O Thou who changest not,

Abide with me.

When people have no firm foundation, they are easily shaken. Pressed by the adverse circumstances of life they will crumble like a house built upon the sand.

Three times in Psalms 42 and 43 we find the observation of a discouraged yet confident believer: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

Has God changed? Is he not worthy of our complete confidence? Can we not look above and beyond the immediate discouragements and with the eye of faith see One who never changes and who is altogether faithful?

Why is lack of certainty so prevalent today? Why do so many drift to and fro in the tides of doubt?

The primary reason is that men do not know God or his Word. They have never experienced the saving and keeping power of Jesus Christ. And, sad to say, many through their contact with the Church have had their faith impaired and their doubts deepened.

Recently, a letter came to this magazine from a man who had just read the revealing and alarming results of a questionnaire submitted to delegates and others attending the National Council of Churches’ triennial assembly, held last December. He wrote: “As an international airline captain for twenty-five years, I wonder what kind of accident statistics we would have, and how good business would be, if 66 per cent of the captains would say on the PA system, “Relax and enjoy the flight, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll probably make it. Two-thirds of your crew believe we will get there safely.”

He was referring to the depressing fact that to this NCC questionnaire 33 per cent of the delegates replied that they had doubts about the existence of God, 36 per cent had doubts about the deity of Christ, 31 per cent doubted whether there is life beyond the grave, and 62 per cent doubted that miracles happened as recorded.

A basic reason for much uncertainty today is that in too many pulpits the trumpet gives an uncertain sound. The words of Jeremiah 2:11–13 are again being fulfilled: “Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

This is not an attack on the highest of all callings, that of a minister of the Gospel. It is an honest confrontation with those ministers who no longer have, or never have had, a Gospel to preach and who offer the hungry, not the Bread of Life, but the ashes of doubt.

Translate the perfidy of these false apostles into the secular realm and they would soon be denounced for the charlatans they are. Put them in the pilot’s seat of a modern jet with similar doubts and uncertainties about flight plans and operational techniques, and disaster would follow. Translate the floundering opinions of some who now hold places of leadership within the Church into the practice of medicine and surgery, and death, not life, would be the lot of those patients so unfortunate as to come under their care.

God offers assurance, faith, and hope in the person of his Son and in the revelation of his truth as found in the Holy Scriptures. Here one finds the cure for pessimism in the certainty of God’s loving faithfulness. In this and this alone there is serenity and peace—now and for all eternity.

Dear Liturgical Experimentalists:

The quest of the “now generation” for experiences that overwhelm the senses is gaining momentum in our swinging churches. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, located in the shadow of the U. S. Capitol, last month staged a “Total Environment Eucharist.” So bombarded were my senses by the service’s sight-sound-smell-taste-kinesthesia stimuli that after I left the church bright and noisy Pennsylvania Avenue seemed like a soothing tranquilizer.

Patterned after pseudo-psychedelic light and sound shows, the service was highlighted by brilliant projections on a large screen behind the communion table. A succession of flickering, luminous images—superimposed, in and out of focus—of religious and abstract art, nature scenes, and spattered colors floated before one’s eyes as the magnificent communion liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer was read. The auditory sense was excited by sacred and profane music wafting from loudspeakers. All the while a heavy smell of incense flooded the nostrils. Taste buds were innervated by the elements: brown bread and dry wine. Kinesthetic feelings were aroused as people followed the rector’s suggestion to dance in the aisles during the offertory (three Beatle numbers). I don’t know how many people concentrated on the Eucharist, but the consensus seemed to be that St. Mark’s avant-garde churchmen had put on a kicky, mind-expanding show.

To observe the cultural force that had shaped the Episkies’ luminoptic spectacle, later that night I visited Washington’s only rock ’n roll light show. This environment was even more total than St. Mark’s, as undulating colors on all sides mesmerized the eyes and the driving cacophony of amplified guitars produced pain in the inner ear. The frugging to the live “U. S. Mail” rock group there was less hectic, however, than that done to the Episkies’ Beatle records.

I mention these experiences to all ecclesiastical aesthetes to spur further liturgical renewal. Relevant churchmen must strive for “total environments” and boldly implement the divine command, “Let there be light.” To really be “where it’s at,” we should trade in flannelgraphs and chalk-drawing easels for color wheels and a dozen slide projectors and also inject some “soul music” into our services. It all else fails, we might even sound forth the Word to see if it will generate light.

An “angel of light” sounding off,

EUTYCHUS III

FINDING A CURE

To your editorial “We Are Sick” (Sept. 29) I say, “Me too!” It encourages me to see more and more responsible people voicing this attitude. Our “Big Brother” government will not solve our problems in civil rights, poverty, or foreign policy with give-away programs, as is being witnessed on every front.

ROBERT E. BLAZEK

Parker Heights Christian Church

Odessa, Tex.

If “We Are Sick” is an accurate reflection of the way the editors understand life in the ghetto, they are much sicker than they know.

FRITZ GUY

Chicago, Ill.

Thank you! Thank you! I had lost hope that ever again would a voice be raised for the majority.

JOHN B. EBERHART

Vista, Calif.

When I read your editorial, my brother, I wanted to put my arms around you to comfort and assure you, for I know how frustrating and frightening the forces of evil can be.…

You and I and all the rest of God’s people certainly must work and suffer with him at the frontier line of his ever-advancing Kingdom. We must live in this world and be his agents of projection, for surely we are part of the means through which he makes his Kingdom secure; he has called us to be. We must live the task.…

We need to be reminded that we have that which the power of evil force can never have: through Jesus Christ we have assurance of victory; we can know that our labor, our pain, is not in vain.…

We need to withdraw, if only for a moment, to hear our Lord say, “Fear not, for I am with you,” that we may be revived and strengthened in our witness to the absolute truth that God will prevail, … that his goodness and his love triumph over all evil, that it is evil that will perish, not God—to proclaim with much joy the good news that “God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved”!

J. B. SCEARCE, JR.

Clark Memorial Methodist Church

Houston, Tex.

You have expressed rhetorically and literally what I feel so deeply. May God help us to lay aside every weight and open the door to the Great Physician who can heal of illness.

LANEY JOHNSON

First Baptist Church

Throckmorton, Tex.

HOW TO SUCCEED

The poem “And to the Church at Laodicea, Write …” provided a good supplemental thought to the excellent article, “Did Success Spoil American Protestantism?” (Sept. 29).…

Until the Church makes the effort to put the Christian love it so often talks about into practice in this love-starved world, its message will be spewed out of the mouth of those who may be led to taste it as well as out of the mouth of the One it claims to represent.

EUGENE LINCOLN

Editor

The Sabbath Sentinel

Berrien Springs, Mich.

I was delighted to read the article on American Protestantism. Many of us are struggling to find ways of communicating with suburban culture without conforming to it and without truncating the Gospel. And too often we feel stymied. A clear understanding of where we stand and how we got there is a must. Mr. Marsden’s article has helped me appreciably in this, and will continue to help me in defining and working out my task in Christ our Lord.

EDWIN WALHOUT

Webster Christian Reformed Church

Webster, N. Y.

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER

Your statistics about evangelism in the Presbyterian Church, U. S. (“A Call to Southern Presbyterians, Sept. 29), are grossly incorrect. Instead of having “only 4,000 additions by profession of faith” in 1966, our General Assembly’s minutes (p. 138) show that we received 25,532 on profession of faith and had a net gain in membership of over 5,000. We are not at all proud of these figures, but at least they are over six times the number you gave us credit for having received.

J. MALCOLM MURCHISON

First Presbyterian Church

Concord, N. C.

• Mr. Murchison (and others who have written) are wholly right; the statistics from our informant were incorrect, and CHRISTIANITY TODAY apologizes. We editorialized that it took nearly 240 Southern Presbyterian ministers and members to make one convert last year. Actually, it took 37—not a shining record, but considerably better than our editorial indicated.—ED.

CIVIL RIGHTS IN MILWAUKEE

It is easy to write about social justice, and the concern of those in the evangelical movement for racial justice, but you are betraying yourself when you pick out Father James Groppi’s most acute moment of weakness (“Unrest in Milwaukee,” Editorial, Sept. 29) and use this to give him a blanket condemnation; in the process you ignore the basic issues which he is going after. Somehow, I still think that we ought to be grateful that a devoted churchman is leading the civil-rights movement in Milwaukee; if he were to be displaced now, only a more radical and a much more violent leader would take his place. But then that is a pattern which all of us have consistently followed: publicly we disavow the moderate Negro leadership, and then we jump back in surprise when the moderate leadership which was not given a fair hearing by us is replaced by a violent form of leadership. When will we ever learn?

RONALD L. BERGEN

Lutheran Church of the Escarpment

Lewiston, N. Y.

You never even mentioned the fact that the white power structure of Milwaukee won’t listen. You didn’t say a word about the abuse heaped upon the demonstrators for eight nights or more by so-called Christian people. You never even hinted at the fact that these people should love their neighbor like you want blacks to love whites, regardless of how we are treated in America.

JOHNNY K. BRYANT

Gay Street Baptist Church

Columbus, Ohio

JUST THE OPPOSITE

I am pleased to see the first of my series of four articles on “Vatican II and the Ecumenical Movement” (Oct. 13) and I hope that the series will be of value to those who are seeking to assess what has been going on in the Roman Church.

There is, however, one unfortunate error … giving the opposite sense of what was intended. On page 11, column 2, line 48, “without” should be read instead of “with.” Thus amended, the sentence says: “Roman Catholicism conceives its ecumenical task as being, in the first place, renewal of its own image, including the clearing out of the outdated lumber that litters its household, and the reformulation, without dogmatic compromise, of its teachings where this can be done to advantage.”

PHILIP EDGCUMBE HUGHES

Decatur, Ga.

THE GEM’S OTHER FACET

Cary Weisiger’s treatment of “The Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification” (Sept. 1) is a gem in the discussion shaping up around “Sanctification Rediscovered,” as William Horden entitled a significant chapter in his New Directions in Theology Today: Introduction.

If I might be permitted one brief footnote to Dr. Weisiger’s study, it would be at the juncture where he says:

Although these imperatives indicate a moral exertion that makes it impossible to believe that the desire and possibility of sinning are extinct, they rest upon such a complete internal change wrought by divine grace in the baptizand that a liberal response to grace (“let us continue in sin that grace may abound”) becomes impossible.

It is not the possibility of sinning that is excluded in a Wesleyan understanding of sanctification, but its necessity.

Wesleyans attempt to hold in balance recognition of the fact of moral effort, striving, and growing … while taking seriously frequent references to purity, perfection, fullness, and adequacy as an accomplished fact.… This tension between the once-for-all and the moment-by-moment is what Daniel Steele called “the Wesleyan paradox,” the paradox of a love that is both perfected and growing, a purity “as he is pure” combined with unceasing effort in the developing arts of saintliness, to borrow William Sangster’s eloquent phrase.

The Wesleyan asks only that the distinction between sinfulness and humanity be kept clear, a distinction forced upon him by the fact of the Incarnation. Holiness, as he understands it, is not dehumanizing, and sinfulness is no essential part of humanity.…

W. T. PURKISER

Kansas City, Mo.

We agree that the word “sanctify” means to consecrate or to set apart for a sacred use. However, the fellows on the Wesleyan side of the fence say that it has another … meaning in the New Testament … more prominent than the above definitions. They say it also means to cleanse or purify. Why is it that our Calvinist friends do not mention this meaning when they are expounding their doctrine of sanctification by growth?

The Amplified New Testament and several other recent translations support both meanings of the word. Consider Acts 26:18. There is mention of those “who are sanctified by faith in me” in the RSV. In the Amplified it is “those who are consecrated and purified by faith in me.” There are other references in which the word “sanctification” also means cleansing or purification.

Is there any chance in the world that sanctification means an instantaneous cleansing from all sin?

JOHN R. FERGUSON

First Church of the Nazarene

Cheyenne, Wyo.

SCHEDULING A STAR

It seems very unfair to both American and German Christians to publish such a misinformed review of Kirchentag as that of Mr. Montgomery (Current Religious Thought, Sept. 1). He is entitled to project his own opinions into the complex problems currently plaguing German Protestants, but statements such as Ralph Bunche being one of two “stellar speakers” who participated in the Kirchentag program lead me to question whether Mr. Montgomery even attended. All that we participants heard from Mr. Bunche was a letter regretting that he could not come to Hanover because of the Near East crisis.

GARY A. MARSHALL

New Haven, Conn.

• Our reporter inadvertently dropped the word “scheduled” before “some stellar speakers.” Dr. Bunche’s speech may yet appear in a published report of the Kirchentag program.—ED.

On April 21, 1855, a Sunday school teacher stood in front of a Boston shoe store, indecision written on his face. He wanted to visit a young member of his class who was a clerk in the store, but he did not want to embarrass the boy in front of his friends. He hesitated, walked past, then “determined to make a dash for it and have it over at once. I found [him] in the back … wrapping up shoes in paper and putting them on shelves. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, and as I leaned over I put my foot upon a shoe box. I simply told him of Christ’s love for him and the love Christ wanted in return” (Richard K. Curtis, They Called Him Mr. Moody [Doubleday, 1962], p. 53).

The young man received Christ as his Saviour right there in the storeroom of the shoe store. He made application to join a local congregation but was turned down because of his spiritual ignorance. A year later he applied again and was received—though with some reluctance.

Soon afterward he moved to Chicago, where his heart was touched by the poor children who lived in the slums. He organized a Sunday school class and worked so diligently that the enrollment grew tremendously. Before long he was recognized as an authority on Sunday school work and was asked to speak at many Sunday school conventions. Because he lacked education and ordination, he preferred to be known simply as “Mr. Moody.”

Shortly after the great Chicago fire of 1870, this relatively unknown preacher of the Gospel went to the British Isles. On a Sunday morning he preached in a little chapel whose pastor was a young man with the imposing name of Frederick Brotherton Meyer. During the sermon the visiting preacher told about a Sunday school teacher in Chicago who, knowing he was soon to die, was burdened for the lost teen-agers in his class. The teacher personally went to each pupil and led every one to saving faith in Christ. F. B. Meyer was unmoved by the emotion-charged story, but the woman who taught the senior girls’ class was so gripped that she missed her noon meal to pray.

At the afternoon teachers’ tea, Meyer casually asked her, “Well, Miss Lines, how have you got on this afternoon?”

“Oh, I told that story again, and I believe every one of my girls has given her heart to God!”

That testimony completely changed the ministry of Meyer. Looking back on his life many years later, he said, “For me it was the birthday of new conceptions of ministry.… I owe everything, everything in my life, I think, to that parlor room where for the first time I found people broken-hearted about sin. I learned the psychology of the soul. I learned how to point men to God” (J. C. Pollock, Moody: A Biographical Portrait [Macmillan, 1963], p. 107).

F. B. Meyer came to America and preached many times. During a chapel talk he gave at Furman University, a discouraged young student who was about ready to drop out of school heard him say, “You never test the resources of God until you attempt the impossible” (F. B. Meyer, “Great Pulpit Masters,” Vol. VI [Revell, 1950], p. 7). After that message the young man took renewed courage and finished his schooling, and later he became known as one of the great orators of all time—Robert Greene Lee.

On another occasion F. B. Meyer was preaching in Moody’s school in Northfield, Massachusetts. There a somewhat confused young preacher sitting on the back seat heard Dr. Meyer say, “If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?” The young minister later said, “That remark changed my whole ministry; it seemed like a new star in the sky of my life” (Great Gospel Sermons, Vol. I [Revell, 1949], p. 148). The young preacher went out to become one of God’s most useful evangelists, J. Wilbur Chapman.

Chapman employed a young YMCA clerk as an “advance man” to help him set up his revival crusades. When Chapman decided to return to the pastorate, the mantle fell on this energetic young man. He began to preach the Gospel he had heard from Wilbur Chapman in a new and dynamic way, and the imagination of the entire country was captured by Billy Sunday. Hundreds of thousands were converted at his preaching in great tabernacles in the large cities of the nation.

In 1924 Billy Sunday conducted a revival campaign in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the close of the campaign, a group of laymen formed an organization to continue personal witnessing for Christ. Later these men saw a relation between the economic and the spiritual depression of the early thirties, and in 1932 they began to plan for another revival effort. Twenty-nine men met for prayer on the outskirts of Charlotte. “We prayed for revival in Charlotte; we prayed that it might spread over the state; then out to the ends of the world!” (Edward E. Hamm, When Billy Graham Found Christ [Sword of the Lord Publishers, c. 1955], p. 15).

As a result of the prayers and efforts of these men, evangelist Mordecai Ham began a city-wide meeting in Charlotte in 1934. One evening a lanky sixteen-year-old boy sat at the back of the huge crowd in the tabernacle. He was spellbound by the message of the white-haired evangelist. As the nights passed, the young man became convinced that Ham was pointing his long finger straight at him. To escape, he joined the choir. But it was no use. Finally, one night as they were singing “Almost Persuaded,” the tall youth went forward to receive Christ. Two of his friends were saved also.

As time passed, these young men felt called by God into the ministry, and they began to prepare themselves. Eventually the tall one went to an obscure Bible college in Florida. He practiced his preaching in silent woods and on patient rural congregations. Later he transferred to Wheaton College, and God began to use him in the Youth for Christ movement. Today the name of Billy Graham is known by many millions around the world.

This sequence of events began a hundred and eleven years ago when a humble Sunday school teacher named Kimball reluctantly went into a shoe store to present the claims of Christ to one of his class members. Who can tell where it will end?

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Fourth in a Series on the Church in Politics

Social revolt and the revival of the Church often seem to go together. Although a social upheaval does not necessarily cause revival, history shows that a great spiritual renewal usually comes in a time of social and political unrest. Society periodically comes to a point of disintegration: morally, economically, and politically. The result may be simply chaos. But in such an extremity may lie God’s opportunity to revive and reform his Church so that it may be renewed as “the salt of the earth,” or as balm for the healing of the nations. It may well then arrest the tendency towards chaos and bring about a renewal of civilization and culture.

This appears to be true of certain periods of revival in the Old Testament and seems certainly to apply to the New Testament and the early Church. The Apostle Paul does not explain exactly what he means when he refers to Christ’s coming in “the fullness of time,” but there is little doubt that the phrase would apply to the early Roman Empire. A new era had dawned, and many serious problems had arisen in all spheres of the ancient civilization. The old “republican virtues” had largely disappeared. Emperors with their expensive and luxurious courts had become the focus of attention. At the same time, the whole economy of Rome was changing in character. The imperial city was becoming increasingly parasitical, living off the rest of the empire. In religion all kinds of strange doctrines were being accepted. Morals had fallen to a new low, and promiscuity, homosexuality, and other forms of debauchery were common. Although for a while it had seemed that the emperors would bring peace and political stability where the republic had failed, within a short time this hope faded.

In this situation Christianity took advantage of the opportunity to evangelize so that by 325, despite frequent persecutions, it largely dominated the scene. And because it gained the victory then, it was the one social entity able to survive the barbarian invasions during the three succeeding centuries. Thus it became the cornerstone of a new culture and civilization.

Much the same may be said about the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the rise of deism, the concomitant decline of morals, the industrial revolution, the French Revolution, and the imperialist expansion came radical and often violent change. Yet with it frequently went a renewal of the Church. The rise of the Methodist movement, the Swiss revival under Malan and Merle d’Aubigné, the religious awakening in Holland under Van Prinsteren, DeCoq, and Kuyper, and the numerous revivals and renewals in America all indicate that even in modern times a relation has existed between radical social change and revival of the Church. Furthermore, in the countries where renewals took place, society was stabilized and went forward to greater cultural achievements.

The best example of this connection between social upheaval and religious revival, however, comes from the sixteenth century. As the result of the work of many historians over the past century we can see today, probably more clearly than ever before, how the two fit together. Those who interest themselves in the history of the Protestant Reformation should constantly recall that it was a period of most intense social conflict and change. Out of this stirring and boiling came the Reformation, a movement one can really understand only if he takes into full account the social background.

Many recent works on the economic history of the period 1450–1600 point out that it was a time of industrial and commercial expansion unknown for at least fifteen hundred years, if not for the whole earlier history of man. The geographic discoveries in the New and the Old World played a considerable part, while the development of new techniques of production and commerce in Europe itself also stimulated radical economic change. One of the important effects of this “revolution” was a drastic rise in prices; the Reformation era experienced a spiraling inflation so violent that one economic historian has attributed the whole religious revolt to the “Price Revolution.” Partially as a result of this development, the old economic order with its individual merchants who carried their wares from one market to another was giving place to a new type of economic organization: the big company with its permanent representatives in every important city at home and abroad. At the same time governments were intervening increasingly in economic affairs for their own benefit. Economic change appeared everywhere.

With economic revolution went radical social change. The nobility, who often included the upper echelons of the church, faced serious difficulties. Although they were usually well supplied with land, they lacked the liquid wealth necessary for the new day. They could, of course, improve the use of their lands, but this they often found difficult because long-established custom prevented them from making changes, or because they simply did not have the ability or money to take the necessary steps. Some succeeded in obtaining positions at court or in the church that brought them increased revenues. But many who could not do so sought to recoup their fortunes by demanding more work or higher rents from their tenants and serfs. The response of these groups was anything but enthusiastic and was often expressed in riots and attempted revolutions.

The one group that found its lot improving throughout the period was the merchants and industrial entrepreneurs, who profited from the rise in prices and were rapidly increasing in wealth. Marrying into noble families that accepted them because of their money, setting themselves up as gentlemen by buying landed estates, acting as bankers for nobles, ecclesiastics, and kings, they increasingly gained power but always sought for more. In these ways, then, sixteenth-century society experienced a continual economic and social upheaval.

Quite naturally these changes had a profound effect on political organization and stability. No longer was the noble with his retinue of armed servants and vassals of such great importance. More efficient collection of taxes and the use of gunpowder had made the medieval noble as anachronistic as Don Quixote. The rising middle class with its relatively large supply of liquid wealth was quite prepared to support the monarch who would guarantee them protection and peace at home and abroad, who would pay them substantial carrying charges for loans, and who would, on occasion, open the ranks of the nobility to their sons and daughters by conferring titles. As a result, many of the national monarchies experienced a rapid growth of royal power or, in a country like England, of parliamentary authority under the aegis of the monarchy.

At the same time, every European monarch also saw on the eastern horizon the forces of Islam which threatened to destroy Europe, and with it Christendom. Yet this did not deter the Spaniards and the French from making alliances and waging wars to restrict each other’s power and prestige. Thus Europe lay constantly under the threat of both internal wars and foreign invasions now made completely inhuman by the unconscionable introduction of firearms. Politically, Europe seemed to stand on the brink of destruction.

Accompanying, and perhaps basic to, these various changing aspects of European life, was an intellectual and moral revolution every bit as radical. Partially causing and partially caused by other forces operating within European society, it formalized many of the changes taking place in the economic, social, and political spheres. A new attitude toward life, toward one’s neighbor, toward oneself, and toward God had become common.

The new affluent society and changes in philosophical thinking led men to begin to concentrate their interest upon this life rather than the one to come. Taught by the ancient classics now becoming well known through the labors of scholars and publishers, men came to believe they could become almost divine by using their reason. Through discipline and culture they could gain the greatest felicity upon earth; they did not need to dream of a future life. In fact, some, such as Pomponazzi, believed that faith in an afterlife was really immoral. Self-exaltation here was considered to be enough.

Naturally this presupposition brought a change in moral standards. Men began to believe that they should deal with each situation as it arose and formulate a decision on the basis of what reason taught in those circumstances. The belief that a divine law existed for the guidance of men, a law to which they had to adhere or take the consequences, disappeared in many circles of intellectual and social leaders. The outcome was that even in the Church standards of right and wrong became very vague and uncertain, while in political, economic, and personal life moral principles seemed largely to disappear, not only for the upper levels of society but even for the common man. Men boasted of their freedom and their liberty to act solely according to their reason or their passions. Rabelais with his ribaldry brings this whole picture into focus.

Yet, while many boasted of the changes taking place on the ground that man was coming of age and entering a new era, many also had grave doubts. If things continued as they were, civilization might well fall apart. Furthermore, many also had gnawing fears that there might be a Day of Judgment, there might be a God of righteousness who would demand that man give an account of himself. To solve the problem some turned back to the Middle Ages, hoping to revive the medieval church with its doctrines and its commands. Others, usually under the influence of Augustine, the fifth-century Bishop of Hippo, turned to the Bible. There they found answers that medieval man had forgotten long ago: justification by faith, salvation by grace, rebirth by the Spirit of God. The result was the Reformation of the sixteenth century.

As one compares the sixteenth century with today, he cannot but feel that contemporary man stands in a situation very similar to that of his brethren of the days of Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer. It looks as though Western culture and civilization is heading directly for collapse. Yet 450 years ago God by his Spirit used a chaotic situation to bring men back to himself. May it not be that he will do the same in our own day and age? Our responsibility is to take our stand as did Luther and leave the rest in His hands.

Will A Believer Steal?

In John Aiken’s Alexander the Great and a Thracian Robber we come on these impressive words: “What is a conqueror?… All that I have done to a single district with a hundred followers, you have done to whole nations with a hundred thousand. If I have stripped individuals, you have ruined kings and princes. If I have burned a few hamlets, you have desolated the most flourishing kingdoms and cities of the earth. What is, then, the difference, but that as you were born a king and I a private man, you have been able to become a greater robber than I?”

Theft wears many faces; it operates in many fields. Were human history given as a drama, perhaps the largest cast of characters would be associated with some sort of thievery. Observing the pirating and plundering that goes on in places high and low, one might suppose that the Apostle Paul had written to the Ephesians, “Let him that stole, steal”!

Almost any kind of wrong involves stealing. The order “Thou shalt not steal” is inherent in any one of the Ten Commandments. By having other gods we rob God of his supreme right to be worshiped alone. Taking God’s name in vain, we rob him of reverence due him. Dishonoring our parents, we cheat them of their rightful respect. Profaning the Lord’s Day, we rob it of its sacredness. Murder is the worst kind of robbery. Adultery is stealing of affection that belongs to another. By bearing false witness we may steal a man’s reputation, his liberty, or his life.

Theft is action emanating from the condition of the human heart. George Herbert said, “He that steals an egg would steal an ox.” Thievery takes innumerable forms. Chicanery, cheating, misrepresentation of commodities, disguising of products—all these are theft. “These traitorous thieves, accursed and unfair,” roared François Villon, “the vinters that put water in our wine!”

In a scriptural sense we are all God’s guests: to presume on his hospitality by regarding his creation as ours unconditionally is a form of theft. Paul not only orders the thief to quit stealing but commands him to go to work that he may start giving (Eph. 4:28). Every non-giver robs somebody. Malachi pictures people who probably wouldn’t have pilfered a piggy bank as cosmic bandits pillaging the bank of heaven! “… Ye have robbed me … in tithes and offerings.… Ye have robbed me, even this whole nation” (Mal. 3:8, 9).

Thievery assumes many forms and operates in many places. But surely it must appear the most dishonorable when it operates in God’s house. One could scarcely play a more ignominious role than that of the thieving believer! How shall we sing psalms in the congregation of the Lord if we have robbed men of eternal hope? If stealing bread from a man is wrong, what if we steal from him the Bread of life? If failure to share our goods with the needy is theft, what is our failure to share with him the Gospel of grace?

Not all believers are thieves. Many have taken up the cross and committed themselves with abandonment to God’s kingdom. With the Apostle Paul they know that God’s love and Christ’s death have made them debtors to “both the wise and the unwise,” and they are bent on paying that debt.

They not only believe that Christ is the Redeemer; they also believe that he speaks the truth when he says, “… unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more” (Luke 12:48). They will not steal from men the most valuable thing of all: the Word of life everlasting.—LON WOODRUM, Hastings, Michigan.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Second in a Series

The relation between Scripture and tradition is still the crucial issue in the continuing controversy with Rome. It is the subject of one of the most important documents to emanate from the Second Vatican Council, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. (An English translation of this and the other statements issued by the council has been published under the title The Documents of Vatican II [New York, 1966]. References to this volume will use the abbreviation DV II followed by the page number.) Although the preface to this document declares that the council is “following in the footsteps of the Councils of Trent and of First Vatican” in desiring to set forth “authentic teaching about divine revelation and about how it is handed on” (DV II, 111), yet this document is very far from being a mere reaffirmation of the status quo so far as the Bible is concerned. After many centuries, the Bible has been set free. No development could be more significant and more potentially dynamic than this. Even though, as we shall see, the situation remains officially unaltered so far as tradition is concerned, and the conflict of authority between Scripture and tradition continues as intense as before, yet the setting free of the Word of God in its written form as apostolic witness to Christ and the Gospel, which is the touchstone of genuine renewal in the Church, cannot fail to have a tremendous effect within the ranks of Roman Catholicism. As the light of Scripture shines into minds and hearts prepared by the Holy Spirit, it cannot fail to shine critically on the traditions and structures of the Church itself.

Technically speaking, there is no change in the doctrine of Scripture. Not only is the equality of Scripture and tradition reaffirmed in words practically identical with those used by the Council of Trent—“both sacred tradition and sacred scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of devotion and reverence” (DV II, 117)—but the inerrancy of Scripture, which Rome has ever maintained in its formularies, also receives fresh statement:

Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation [DV II, 119].

Evangelical Christians who hold a high doctrine of Scripture will find in this precise declaration an excellent point of contact, and indeed point of departure, as they engage in discussion with Roman Catholic friends.

It is well to recognize, however, that the situation is complex. Ultimately, the question is one of authority. The simplicity of the sole and supreme authority of Holy Scripture in all matters of faith and conduct (sola scriptura) on which the evangelical Christian insists is foreign to the Roman Catholic temper. The situation in the papal church is complicated by the multiplication of authority that prevails. It is complicated by the addition of tradition to Scripture as a source of authority. Thus, according to the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, “sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God” (DV II, 117). In itself, this is quite unexceptionable, provided that the two together form a coherent and homogeneous whole; for no one denies the existence, indeed the inevitability, of tradition in the Church. But there must be a governing factor that will ensure the harmony of the two, and that governing factor is, for the Reformed Christian, Scripture itself. Article 34 of the Church of England, for example, though it admits the permissibility of a diversity of traditions in the Church, is yet emphatic that “nothing be ordained against God’s Word.”

The church of Rome, however, brings in a third factor, namely, the teaching office (magisterium) of the Church, to which is assigned the ultimate authority of judgment regarding both Scripture and tradition. The claim is made that “the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written [i.e. Scripture] or handed on [i.e., tradition], has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church.” The qualification is indeed added that “this teaching office is not above the word of God,” but nonetheless it is in effect the determinative authority in the Roman Catholic Church, since on its pronouncements depend not only the admissibility of traditions but also the very sense in which Scripture may be understood. Consequently, the source of authority for the Roman Catholic is not single (Holy Scripture), nor twofold (Scripture plus tradition), but threefold (Scripture plus tradition plus the Church’s teaching office), as in fact this Dogmatic Constitution states:

It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, sacred Scripture, and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others [DV II, 117].

Once again, Reformed Christianity has never denied that the Church possesses authority; but it has insisted, with logical coherence, that the authority of the Church, like the authority of traditions, must be subject to the supreme authority of Holy Scripture, since the Scriptures embody the authoritative Word of God to man. Thus the twentieth of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion grants the authority of the Church, but with the important proviso that “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written.”

It is only fair to admit that there is a logic in the Roman Catholic position, given the premises on which it is based. If it is true that the pope is the vicar of Christ on earth and his bishops the successors of the apostles, then it follows that the authority and infallibility of Christ and his apostles is inherent in their office across the centuries and, therefore, that the teaching office residing in them is invested with absolute apostolic authority. Further, if this be granted, then a complete consistency among Scripture, tradition, and magisterium must be expected. But it is precisely here that the papal pretensions are found to be altogether inadmissible. For one thing, it is demonstrable that in the Roman church both sacred tradition and the teaching office, which are dependent on each other, are at important points incapacitated by internal contradictions and incompatibilities and irreconcilable with the teaching of Scripture. For another thing, the concept of bishops as the extension of the apostolate and of tradition as the extension of the canon makes nonsense of the recognition in the early centuries of the canon of Holy Scripture; for the very idea and meaning of the term canon is that of a measuring-rod or rule to which all else must conform. The books of the New Testament were acknowledged as canonical precisely because they and they alone constituted the authentic deposit of the apostolic teaching and witness under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The definition of the canon of the New Testament deserves, then, to be adjudged the most significant development in the history of the post-apostolic Church. It drew the line of demarcation between the teaching of the apostles now contained in the pages of the New Testament (authoritative in the ultimate issue because it is the teaching not merely of the apostles but of Christ himself, our supreme and infallible authority, whose teaching they were enabled to record faithfully under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as Christ had promised) and all other teaching in the Church. It set the standard (canon) by which all else—teaching, tradition, everything—must be governed.

Again, one would never wish to deny that the Church has a teaching office or function that is a very important element in its life. But we cannot assent to the claim that the teaching office of the Church enjoys a finality of authority, which in effect the Second Vatican Council claims when it reaffirms that the interpretation of Scripture “is subject finally to the judgment of the Church” (DV II, 121); for this claim is tantamount to the usurpation of the teaching office of the Holy Spirit.

Demise Of The Drugstore

A druggist has been defined as a man who stands behind a soda fountain and sells ball-point pens. I can barely remember when the corner drugstore was a place that majored in medicines and minored in ice cream. The other day I went into a drugstore and had a hot lunch, bought a note pad, and priced garden hoses. Then, out of curiosity, I set out to find the prescription counter. After walking down a long aisle of hardware and past the liquor department, I made a left turn at a men’s jacket display. I passed the toy counter, and suddenly I found it: nestled comfortably between chocolates and greeting cards was the sign that read, “Prescriptions.” Behind the counter the man with a white coat seemed so busy with his bookkeeping that I probably would have hesitated to ask him for a bottle of aspirin had I needed it.

The Church also has made some startling changes since the days of the old-fashioned drugstore. We used to preach individual redemption through Christ; now, except for a few obscurantists, we are redeeming social structures instead. We used to proclaim boldly, “Thus saith the Lord”; now we timidly ask, “Hath God said?” We once tried to point secular man to the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” But not being able to lick him, we have joined him in a secular city whose builders and makers are Cox, Altizer, and Fletcher. We used to proclaim the Gospel as the power of God unto salvation; now we have made it so “relevant” that it is not even necessary. The Gospel used to be good news; now it’s good advice. Clergymen used to go to jail for preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus; they still go to jail, but for other reasons.

Yet the Church still has its religion department. There are still a few diehards who haven’t yet seen the light and are living back in the dark ages of Pentecost, Wittenberg, and Enfield. While drugstores and churches race toward relevance, there will always be those who offer the healing balm for needy bodies and souls.—The Rev. W. NORMAN MACFARLANE, Calvary Baptist Church, Springfield, Vermont.

At this point the much misunderstood Reformed doctrine of the right of private judgment comes into the picture. This does not mean, as it has so frequently been caricatured to mean, a carte blanche for uninhibited individualism. It does mean, and might be better expressed as, the right of the Holy Spirit to guide and illumine the ordinary Christian in private as he studies and prays over the sacred text. It asserts the final authority of the teaching office of the Holy Spirit, in accordance with the apostolic instruction of First Corinthians 2:11 ff. (as translated in the recently published Jerusalem Bible):

… the depths of God can only be known by the Spirit of God. Now instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us.… An unspiritual person is one who does not accept anything of the Spirit of God: he sees it all as nonsense; it is beyond his understanding because it can only be understood by means of the Spirit. A spiritual man, on the other hand, is able to judge the value of everything, and his own value is not to be judged by other men.

Thus St. Paul defines the right of private judgment under the final teaching authority of the Holy Spirit. This does not rule out the profitable teaching office of instructors, scholars, and commentators in the life of the Church; but it does make it subservient, not dominant.

The most significant chapter in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation is the last one, “Sacred Scripture in the Life of the Church,” for it is here that the very striking breakaway from the restrictions of past centuries receives clear expression. Although both Scripture and tradition together continue to be proclaimed as “the supreme rule of faith” and the “primary and perpetual foundation” of sacred theology, yet this chapter is a powerful appeal for unshackling and opening up the Bible. The admonition is given that “easy access to sacred Scripture should be provided for all the Christian faithful” (DV II, 125), and, though all is to be done “under the watchful care of the sacred teaching office of the Church,” ministers of the divine word are counseled to be diligent in study so that they may be “able effectively to provide the nourishment of the Scriptures for the people of God”; biblical scholars are encouraged to “continue energetically with the work they have so well begun”; and “all the Christian faithful” are urged to “learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures the ‘excelling knowledge of Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 3:8)” (DV II, 126). It is resolved, further, that “editions of the sacred Scriptures, provided with suitable comments, should be prepared also for the use of non-Christians and adapted to their situation,” and that “both pastors of souls and Christians generally should see to the wise distribution of these in one way or another.” To this the concluding exhortation is added:

In this way, therefore, through the reading and study of the sacred books, let “the word of the Lord run and be glorified” (2 Th. 3:1) and let the treasure of revelation entrusted to the Church increasingly fill the hearts of men [DV II, 128].

No matter how much the dogmatic status quo may be entrenched and safeguarded, the placing of the Scriptures in the hands of the people must lead us to expect a liberating movement within the ranks of Roman Catholicism. There are indeed convincing signs of such a movement in many different places. We can help it forward by encouraging our Roman Catholic friends to “take up and read.” There are still many Augustines for God to pierce with the Sword of the Spirit!

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

All aspects of community life fall within its vision

Is Reformation Protestantism really relevant to the social crisis of contemporary America? One writer suggests that by 1900 “Protestantism … had ceased to protest.” Similarly, historian Henry Steele Commager, writing in The American Mind, reports that the typical twentieth-century Protestant “inherited his religion as he did his politics, though rather more casually, and was quite unable to explain the differences between denominations. He found himself a church member by accident and persisted in his affiliation by habit.…” Commager believes that for many Protestants the Church has become something to be “supported,” like an aged relative whose claim is vague but inescapable.

Is Protestantism impotent? Or does it have a meaningful word for our times? We can find the answer to these questions by looking back at the leaders of the Reformation and considering the consequences of their doctrine, to see whether their achievements are applicable to the social problems of our day.

A Social Theology

One important outcome of the Reformation was the appearance of a biblical social theology. John Calvin laid a basis for Protestant social teaching in his affirmation of the absolute sovereignty of God over all aspects of life. According to H. Richard Niebuhr, the concept of the “Kingdom of God” is the central theme in American Protestantism. It is fitting, therefore, for Protestants in the United States to reconsider Calvin’s insight that society is to be theonomous, not autonomous, and is to be ordered in accordance with the will of God.

Closely related to this thought was the doctrine of Luther and Melanchthon that God established five “natural orders” in creation—the state, the home, the Church, work, and culture. In their genesis, these institutions are not achievements of man but gifts of God and agencies of his Spirit. This is evident from the Scriptures in five ways:

1. The “natural orders” were inaugurated by divine initiative because the Creator realized that “it is not good that the man should be alone.” Man was made to live in communities of meaning. He was to talk with God in worship. By having dominion over the earth he was to find self-expression in work. Placed in a garden, the symbol of civilization, man was called to develop a culture. Endowed with speech, he was enabled to share thoughts and sentiments with others and thus to develop language, literature, and the liberal arts. The provision of a sabbath, a day of rest, sanctified man’s leisure and gave opportunity for renewal through recreation. But preeminently through the home the Lord laid the basis for social life, for the family became the first church, state, school, and place of labor and relaxation. Society, therefore, is as much a work of God as the physical world.

2. The intention of the “natural orders” through the ages has been to prevent chaos and to further the perpetuation and perfection of human life.

3. The justification of the “orders” resides in the very needs of man as created by God. For a healthy and full life, man requires work, worship, play, and love.

4. The institutions of life found a sanctification in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. After creation, God had seen “everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” The fall of man into sin corrupted both individual character and the corporate life. Consequent abuse and misuse of the “natural orders” caused some to consider them evil. The assumption of manhood by the Master and his full participation in the “orders of society” demonstrated that they were salvable. By his birth in the home of Joseph and Mary, Jesus sanctified the family. Through his work in the carpenter’s shop, he revealed the sacred aspect of labor. Obedient to both state and synagogue, the Saviour prepared the way for their transformation.

5. By his death and resurrection, Christ made possible the regeneration of men, and through them the reformation of society. As the inscription on the cross was in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, so the Son of God was rejected by the highest state of his time (Rome), the revealed church of his dispensation (Judaism), and the purest culture of antiquity (Greece). But, by his victory over sin and death, Christ liberated men from futility and fear for a new and vital fellowship with God. In his resurrection and ascension he demonstrated the sovereignty of God over the world. Because of the salvation Christ offers men, “the creation,” as St. Paul reported, “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” The “natural orders” will participate in the benefits of Christ’s triumph.

The Christian, filled with the empowering pardon of Christ, becomes a “new creation” and is called and commissioned at baptism to be a minister of Jesus Christ within the institutions of society. Freed from the way of works, the believer has as his motivation for social action a sense of thankfulness to Christ for his salvation, a fuller understanding of what it means to be obedient to God’s commands, and a sensitive appreciation of the needs of his neighbor. This attitude expresses itself in the Christian’s daily life. Dr. Matthias Loy, a nineteenth-century Lutheran theologian, wrote, “Every Christian is to look upon the labor of his earthly vocation … as a service that he renders in gratitude to his Redeemer.”

A Peaceful Revolution

The Reformation social ethic, incorporating the concepts of the sovereignty of God, the “natural orders,” and the “royal priesthood of the faithful,” had a revolutionary effect on sixteenth-century society.

One intriguing example was the impact of Protestantism upon the towns. In the one hundred years after 1500 there was an urban explosion in Germany, accompanied by an increase of nearly 8,000,000 inhabitants in the Holy Roman Empire at large. Primitive Protestantism, like apostolic Christianity, found not a perplexity but a ripe opportunity in urban areas. As the ancient Church spread rapidly in the metropolises of the Roman Empire—Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, and Rome—so the Protestant Reformation flourished in the towns of early modern Europe—Zürich, Basel, Berne, Geneva, Strasbourg, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Prague, Nürnberg, Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and a host of others.

Harold J. Grimm, the Reformation historian, observes, “There is little doubt that the Christian ethics fostered by Luther, Melanchthon, and their colleagues had a profound effect on the development of German townsmen.” The career of Savonarola in Florence and of Calvin in Geneva show the significant effect of Protestant preaching upon the cities. A study of the Reformation and its vital role in the towns could very well suggest insights and provide inspiration for twentieth-century Protestants in their struggle to penetrate the American megalopolis with the Gospel.

Another sign of the social significance of the Reformation was its ability to bridge the “generation gap” and give the Christian message a vivid appeal to young people. Apostolic Christianity had been a young man’s movement. Jesus was only thirty-three when his earthly ministry ended. Paul was still in his thirties when he was converted on the Damascus road. The youth of the earliest disciples is indicated by one of Paul’s observations in the First Corinthian letter: he notes that of the five hundred to whom the risen Christ appeared, “the greater part remain unto this present.” Similarly, Protestantism attracted the young. Luther was but thirty-three when he posted the Ninety-Five Theses, and Zwingli was in his middle thirties when he began the reform of Zürich. John Calvin was twenty-six when the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion was published. The Reformation had a message that challenged a young generation. A recovery of that spirit could reinvigorate contemporary Protestantism.

The Reformation also had a great influence on culture. The involvement of the Reformers in education, for example, can stimulate us in our efforts to preserve and perpetuate the faith in a mass society.

Chief among the German Reformers in his grasp of the close connection between church and school was Philip Melanchthon, the “Teacher of Germany.” He was convinced that Protestantism would fail unless it educated both the clergy and laity in biblical Christianity and the literary arts, and he purified, enhanced, and extended education on all levels in his country, from the elementary school to the university. So thorough was Melanchthon in his promulgation of Christian education that, according to J. W. Richard, “when he died in 1560 there was scarcely a city in Germany that did not have a teacher or pastor who had not been a pupil of Melanchthon.” At the same time similar projects were promoted by Johannes Sturm in Strasbourg and Theodore Beza in Geneva. And it was through the Reformation emphasis on Christian higher education that the United States obtained its first university. The Puritan fathers, imbued with the Reformers’ zeal for learning, established Harvard College in 1636, after having been on this continent only six years.

Early Protestants were aware that the Reformation was born in the university, that it was raised by professors who professed the evangelical faith, that it was explained by doctors who knew biblical doctrine, and that education and zeal must go together in creating a Christian social order. In our time of crisis in Christian education (from the Sunday school to the seminary) we can find an example and encouragement in the Reformation emphasis on uniting faith and learning.

The Reformers believed that the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost in the gift of tongues had sanctified the vernacular languages, and they labored to translate the Scriptures into the speech of the people. In this process they made another contribution to culture. Although their primary intention was to promote the Gospel through vernacular Bible reading and preaching, they helped lay the foundations of the languages of contemporary Europe. Luther created modern German, Calvin modern French; and the British divines gave shape to our mother tongue.

The Reformation also had a profound influence on the family. By abolishing monasticism and the celibacy of the clergy, the Reformers took a giant step toward restoring the high status of marriage found in the Scriptures. Marriage ceased to be inferior to asceticism and was re-established as a divinely ordained basic unit of society. The example of the marriage of Luther and the other Reformers, the creation of the Protestant parsonage, and the insistence on marriage as the “school for character” did much to articulate a theology of the home that has endured into the twentieth century. Concern for the family as the initial congregation of believers is seen in such things as Luther’s preparation of The Small Catechism for the use of fathers in their house devotions. The Reformers strove to establish the spiritual and social significance of the family and to bolster its dignity and durability.

Politically, the Reformers took action that was to be vitally important. The state was given a “declaration of independence” from ecclesiastical domination. Luther commented on this development one day at table with his friends when he said, “The world is a vast and magnificent game of cards, made up of emperors, kings, and princes, and so forth. The pope for many centuries beat the emperors, kings, and princes. They yielded and fell before him. Then came our Lord God. He dealt the cards: he took the lowest [Luther] for himself, and with it he beat the pope, that vanquisher of the kings of the earth.… This is the face of God.”

Although the state was freed to be itself, statesmen were considered accountable to God for their service as the Lord’s instruments on earth to preserve justice. As the Church was entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel, so the state had been charged with the establishment of law. The state was to maintain justice, not simply by police power, but also by provision of necessary services. Melanchthon wrote, “It is a mistake to suppose that the state is maintained by arms only, and by power. Of greater value to this end are the arts of peace, justice, moderation, constancy, care of the public safety, diligence in proclaiming the law and in settling the disputes of citizens, patience in bearing the faults of the people, vigor in punishing transgressors, kindness in sparing those who can be reclaimed.”

Finally, the Church was purged to make its principles and practices meaningful within the social order. This was done in two ways. First, the Church was recalled to its primary task—preaching the Word and administering the sacraments. Second, participation of the people in the worship, witness, work, and welfare of the Church was earnestly sought through such reforms as the vernacular translations of the Scriptures, the introduction of hymn-singing and responsive liturgies, and, in certain places and among certain varieties of Protestantism, popular self-government through congregational polity. The Church was not to be an institution, nor was it a hierarchy. It was to be a “beloved community” of believers.

The social significance of the Reformation can be seen, as Harold Grimm suggests in an essay in Luther and Melanchthon (edited by V. Vajta, Muhlenberg, 1961), in the letters between Luther and Melanchthon with the leading citizens and councils of German towns and cities. In these letters, the opinions of the Reformers were “sought on such questions as the disposition of church property and incomes from religious endowments, the establishment of common chests, provision for income for clergy and teachers and aid for the poor, regulation of morals, observance of laws on the taking of interest, correction of abuses involved in the publication of Luther’s books, treatment of left-wing evangelicals and Jews, clarification of doctrines, provision of evangelical clergymen and teachers, setting up of liturgies, and church discipline, and reform of old and establishment of new schools.” In short, there was no aspect of community life to which the Protestant faith was not relevant.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

“Out of love and zeal for the elucidation of truth, the following theses will be debated … in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote an obscure monk at the head of a series of propositions four and a half centuries ago this week. Those theses were posted not simply on a Castle Church door (which the ravages of time have long since claimed) but on the conscience of Christendom. Both the formal theology and the practical church activity of Luther’s day were leading men away from, rather than to, Christ’s salvation, for the Church had embraced the greatest error of all: the belief that man can earn his own way to Life. On the Eve of All Saints, 1967, “love and zeal for the elucidation of truth” demand that this same fundamental error—today appearing in a different but no less deadly form—be revealed for what it is. (Readers of these theses may enjoy comparing them, number by number, with the originals, some of which have been freely used here in various degrees of modification. Concordia Publishing House publishes an English translation of the theses in attractive booklet form with introduction by E. G. Schwiebert.)

1 Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying: “Repent ye,” etc., intended that the whole life of believers should be penitence.

2 In the sixteenth century, indulgences diverted men from a life of repentance; in the mid-twentieth century, “secular religion” achieves the same purpose.

3 Then the world was kept from the Gospel by hyper-religiosity on the part of churchmen; now, by their hyper-irreligiosity.

4 Which is another way of saying that false religion and irreligion amount to the same thing.

5 The lamentable condition Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” can result either from selling grace cheaply (as then) or from cheapening the very idea of grace (as now).

6 Grace is cheapened and man becomes his own pseudo-saviour when God is considered dead—either metaphorically or literally—for as God diminishes, man assumes his place.

7 Yet true religion begins with the Baptist’s affirmation: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

8 A world without a name for God is a world without a name for salvation; all hope in such a world is man-made hope and therefore chimerical.

9 Secular towers of Babel, built over the alleged coffin of Deity, invariably produce confusion of tongues.

10 A “secular Christ” is a contradiction in terms, for he plainly said: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

11 The way is narrow and the gate strait leading to that Kingdom; to enter it, one must give up all hope of saving oneself and rely fully upon the Christ.

12 To rely on Christ is to take him at his word.

13 To question his teachings at any point is to stand in judgment upon one’s Judge and Advocate.

14 To translate the Christ of the New Testament into a secular “man for others” is to re-do God in our image instead of permitting him to re-do us in his image.

15 If the Christ in whom one believes is unable to say, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” he is no Christ at all.

16 A “fully kenotic Christ” is by definition unknowable.

17 If nonetheless believed in, a “fully hidden Christ” will necessarily turn out to be the mirror-image of his worshiper or of the times in which the worshiper lives.

18 Salvation through such a Christ is self-salvation, which is in reality damnation.

19 If we are on the threshold of a “new age of the Spirit,” we had better be sure which “spirit” he is before we worship him; the spirit of the age is generally “the god of this world.”

20 “Test the spirits,” says Scripture, intending that God’s Word judge the spirit of the age.

21 But when Scripture itself is judged, what ultimate judgment remains?

22 Human judgment of Scripture assumes that we know more than God and must in the last analysis save ourselves.

23 Indeed, all “secular theology” is grounded in an optimistic view of man’s abilities.

24 How quickly has theology in our century come the full circle from modernistic optimism to secularistic optimism!

25 How very fast sinners forget the piles of eyeglasses and teeth and the bodies of naked children at Dachau.

26 How readily sinners forget that apart from the living God of Scripture and his Son’s death in our behalf, we turn our secular existence into a seething cauldron of hell and hatred.

27 They preach human doctrine who say that the soul achieves bliss as soon as the divine truths of biblical Christianity are reduced to “secular cash-value.”

28 What is achieved is “sinful cash-value,” nothing less, nothing more.

29 One wallows in secularity, without hope of a solution for its self-centered condition.

30 In the words of Tillich, one destroys proper theological correlation by turning revelational answers into existential questions.

31 Unless a clear and unimpeachable Word from outside the human situation is available to man, his existential predicament will remain overwhelming and secular optimism will stand revealed as naïve folly.

32 Those who believe that they are made sure of their own salvation by “finding God where the social action is” will be eternally damned along with their teachers.

33 We must especially beware of those who say that such social and political action is that inestimable gift of God by which men are reconciled.

34 The “horizontal” reconciliation of man with man depends squarely upon the “vertical” reconciliation of God and man at the Cross, even as the Second Table of the Decalogue follows and rests on the First.

35 They preach no Christian doctrine who teach that contrition and faith in Christ are not necessary for doing God’s will in society.

36 Every Christian who feels true compunction over his sins has plenary remission of pain and guilt, even without involvement in social and political causes.

37 Involvement in politics and society will follow as a fruit of faith, for “we love because he first loved us.”

38 But when the Christ-relationship is not seen as the ground of Christian social action, Law is confused with Gospel, and neither faith nor properly motivated social action remains.

39 It is a most difficult thing, even for the most learned theologians, to exalt before the people the great riches of political action and, at the same time, the necessity of true contrition.

40 True contrition seeks and loves punishment for its sins, while stress on changing society makes it seem relatively unimportant.

41 It is well to remember that the Great Commission had to do with the proclamation of the Gospel, not the reformation of the Roman Empire.

42 The Empire was much transformed through the Gospel, but where this occurred it happened because believers “sought first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

43 Christians should be taught that he who proclaims to a man an eternal word of grace does better than he who participates in a sit-in.

44 For by a preachment of God’s Word, which never returns void, man becomes better, while by sit-ins he does not become better but only less subject to adverse social conditions.

45 Christians should be taught that he who substitutes political lobbying for the proclamation of divine grace is not obtaining God’s favor but calls down upon himself God’s wrath.

46 Christians should be taught that he who does not perform charitable acts to his immediate neighbor accomplishes little in attempting to improve the lot of those at a distance.

47 Christians should be taught that while they are free to engage in social and political action, they are not commanded to do so for their soul’s salvation.

48 Scripture nowhere sets forth a normative political or social system; Christians are to proclaim the eternal riches of Christ under political systems of the “right” and of the “left.”

49 Christians should be taught that political and social philosophies are useful if they do not put their trust in them, but most hurtful if through them they lose the fear of God.

50 Adherence neither to the “American way of life”—conservative or liberal—nor to socialism nor to Communism will save or damn a man; adherence to Christ, and Christ alone, saves, and rejection of him, and him alone, damns.

51 To demand that all Christians accept a given political or social philosophy as a test of “consistent Christianity” is to elevate man’s word to the level of God’s word.

52 Vain is the hope of salvation through secular activity, even if a divinity-school dean—nay, the President of the World Council of Churches himself—were to pledge his own soul for it.

53 They are enemies of Christ and of the Church who, in order that a secular salvation may be preached, condemn the Word of God to utter silence in their churches.

54 Wrong is done to the Word of God when in a sermon as much time is spent on secular topics as on God’s Word, or even more.

55 If secular participation by Christians is celebrated with single bells, single processions, and single ceremonies, the Gospel should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, and a hundred ceremonies.

56 A theology derived from the sinful human situation will be humanistic and sinful, likewise an ethic stemming from man’s situation instead of from God’s revelation.

57 A “contextual” or “situation” ethic foolishly assumes that proper norms will automatically arise from descriptive action; this is a precise example of what G. E. Moore called the “naturalistic fallacy.”

58 If human “contexts” and “situations” are self-centered, will not the ethic found there have the same qualities? Can water rise above its source?

59 The importing of agape-love into a situation as a norm is of little help apart from God’s revealed law, for agape is a motive, not a guide for specific action; it will be interpreted in whatever direction the sinful interpreter wishes.

60 How ironical that churchmen today combine “absolute” social and political programs with relativistic situational ethics! Is this not the predictable imbalance of Paul’s “natural man”?

61 Only the eternal Word of God can show the relative to be truly relative (e.g., political systems) and the absolute to be truly absolute (e.g., God’s moral law).

62 The true treasure of the Church is still the holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God.

63 This treasure, however, is deservedly—today as yesterday—most hateful because it causes the first to be the last.

64 But the treasure of secular salvation is deservedly the most acceptable because it causes the last to be the first.

65 Hence the treasures of the Gospel are nets wherewith churchmen of old have fished to save men from a sinful society.

66 The treasures of secularity are nets wherewith churchmen now fish for acceptance by a sinful society.

67 Those activities which the preachers loudly proclaim to be the greatest graces are seen to be truly such as appeal most to unregenerate standards.

68 They are in reality in no degree to be compared with the grace of God and the piety of the Cross.

69 Christians ought to receive with all reverence exhortations to racial justice, open housing, and equality before the law, for these are demonstrably the will of the God of scriptural revelation.

70 But they are still more bound to open their eyes and ears lest churchmen preach their own fancies in place of the biblical Word.

71 He who speaks against legitimate and proper social action, let him be anathema and accursed.

72 But he, on the other hand, who is seriously concerned about the wantonness and licenses of speech of the preachers of social action, let him be blessed.

73 We should justly thunder against those who by rationalization (“I’m for the slow evolution of fair housing”) impede the advance of social justice.

74 And, much more, we should thunder against those who, under the cloak of social programs, depreciate the proclamation of divine grace and the gospel message.

75 To think that secular involvement has such power that it can absolve a man even if he denies the atoning death and bodily resurrection of God’s Son, is madness.

76 We affirm, on the contrary, that all of man’s good works cannot take away even the least of venial sins as regards its guilt.

77 The saying that Jesus was “the most”—the ideal man and “the place to be”—but not, as he claimed, the very incarnate God, is blasphemy.

78 We affirm that the true grace the Lord Christ has to grant is not a program but himself: his death for our sins and his resurrection for our justification.

79 To say that any earthly goal is of equal rank with the Cross of Christ is blasphemy.

80 Those bishops, curates, and theologians who allow such ideas to have currency among the people will have to render an account for this.

81 The preaching of “secular Christianity” today makes it no easy thing, even for learned men, to protect the reverence due to the visible church against the calumnies of unbelievers and the criticisms of the laity.

82 For instance: Why do the secular theologians always claim credit for jumping on social bandwagons that have been put into motion outside the Church?

83 Again: Why bother with all the theological jargon if Christianity really reduces to humanism?

84 Again: Why not study sociology or politics or psychiatry instead of attempting to be a sloppy representative of these fields with irrelevant theological training?

85 Again: If the Church’s beliefs are derived from the fallible human situation like everyone else’s, why does the Church presume to judge others or declare grace to them?

86 Again: If God is ipso facto “where the action is,” was he motivating the action of the Third Reich, as National Socialist theologians said he was?

87 Again: If the theologian judges the Bible and its Christ, who judges the theologian?

88 Again: When Christ demanded fidelity to the “once for all” character of his saving work, how is it that the contemporary Church is satisfied only when it continually proclaims “some new thing”?

89 And how does it happen that faithful preaching of the eternal Word of grace is despised, while the most bizarre theological and ecclesiastical innovations are lauded to the skies as a true mark of “relevance”?

90 Repressing these scruples and arguments is to expose the Church to the ridicule of her enemies and to make Christian men unhappy.

91 If, then, churchmen would subordinate themselves to God’s Word, and seek first to bring their wills into accord with Christ’s will, and make his Gospel their Gospel, all other things would be added, and the troubles of today’s Church would be resolved with ease; nay, they would not exist.

92 Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “Peace, peace!” though there is no peace.

93 Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, “The cross, the cross,” and there is no cross.

94 Christians should be exhorted to strive to follow Christ, their Head, through pain, death, and hell;

95 And thus to enter heaven through the tribulations of his cross rather than in the pseudo-security of optimistic secularity.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

Forty prominent leaders met recently for a Thursday–Saturday discussion of possible areas for larger evangelical cooperation, prodded by CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S editorial plea, “Somehow, Let’s Get Together!” Their Key Bridge Meeting in Arlington, Virginia, may signal a bright new advance for biblically oriented Christianity. (For reports, see pages 25 and 42.)

They have projected for committee consideration a 1973 campaign that would engage local churches nationwide in simultaneous community evangelistic effort.

Equally significant at the Key Bridge Meeting was the reflection of widening dissatisfaction among evangelicals over the idea of cooperation for evangelism only. That Christianity is engaged in a global battle for the minds of men gives new urgency to the ideological and theological facets of the contemporary struggle. Nearly every evangelical conclave that meets today to consider the imperatives of New Testament strategy senses a deepening obligation to confront the world of thought and learning more effectively with the urgent claims of the truth of revelation.