(Part I)

Two matters, both of them of greatest importance, are before us. On the one hand, there is the Reformation, a decisive turning point in church history. What is more, it is not merely an event of past history, for even today after four centuries the results and principles that once were at stake are very much alive. On the other hand, there is the present-day discussion among the churches. Ecumenicity is one of the burning problems of our time. One meets it on all levels of church life—the local, national, and international levels. In Australia we see a movement towards union among the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist Churches. And the Church of England is already visualized as a prospective partner.

In such a situation, there is every reason to ask: What is the importance of the Reformation for the discussion among the churches? First, however, we must ask what the essential character of the Reformation is. For we are interested in more than the historical fact as such; we must consider its spiritual significance.

In the course of the centuries many different answers, according to the starting point of the particular investigators, have been given to the question of the essential nature of the Reformation. In his biography of Luther, recently translated into English, the German scholar Franz Lau shows the variation in the portraits of Luther. In the so-called Lutheran orthodoxy of the Post-Reformation period, Luther was first of all seen as the renewer of pure doctrine. Pietism saw him primarily as the man who discovered faith as trust in God’s gracious mercy. By the people of the Enlightenment the Reformer was celebrated as the liberator from narrow-mindedness. During the nineteenth century many people hardly saw him as a man concerned about religion; they extolled instead his significance for modern culture.

Likewise, varying evaluations of the Reformation itself might be collected. And yet all such evaluations miss the real point. This is true even of orthodoxy and pietism. Of course, we do not wish to deny that the Reformation was a renewal of pure doctrine, or that it meant the discovery of faith as trust in God’s mercy. These were indeed important aspects of the Reformation. One may even say that to a degree even the people of the Enlightenment and of nineteenth-century “Kultur-Protestantism” were right: the Reformation was also a liberation from narrow-mindedness, and it did have great significance for modern culture. But at the same time the Reformation was much more than all of these. The deepest dimension (which at the same time includes all the other aspects) was that through the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Gospel of God’s grace in Jesus Christ was rediscovered. This was not only a matter of true doctrine; it also concerned the very heart of the Gospel itself. In the spiritual struggle of Luther and the other Reformers the Christian religion itself was at stake.

This rediscovery of the Gospel can conveniently be summarized in a few expressions.

1. Sola gratia. Man’s salvation is a matter of pure grace. Man does not contribute anything to his salvation. Of course, man has to perform good works, but his works do not precede his justification: they follow as its fruit. Justification itself is all a Work of God’s grace.

2. Solus Christus. Actually this expresses the same truth; only the words are different. It is only through Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, that we can come to God. “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). There is no place for any other mediator. There is no place for Mary or the saints in the divine scheme of salvation. There is no place for priests as absolutely necessary intermediaries. There is no place for the Church as “another Christ” (Alter Christus). Jesus Christ, and he alone, is the One we need, for him “God made our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

3. Sola Scriptura. Again it is actually the same message. God through his Word has the first and last word in our life. There is no place for ecclesiastical tradition, however old and venerable, as of equal authority with Scripture. There is no place for a “magisterium” that has the right to interpret Scripture with an absolute and infallible authority. Holy Scripture is the only basis and form for the Church, and, being the Word of the Sovereign God, it is sovereign and free, carrying its own authority.

4. Sola fide. Again we say the same, but this time we say it from the side of man. The only possible way for man to receive the grace of God is to accept it by faith. This faith does not derogate from the sola gratia, as if, after all, man still has to make his contribution to the work of salvation. On the contrary, it is only by the empty hand that we receive the gift of grace. Faith always means to look completely away from yourself and to expect everything from God. What is more, faith itself is a gift of divine grace (cf. Eph. 2:8).

It is evident that all this is much more than a matter of pure doctrine only. Taken by itself, pure doctrine, however important, is primarily a matter of the intellect. If this had been Luther’s main concern, there would have been place for him within the Roman Catholic system, because this system is so wide that it leaves room for the most divergent views. But for Luther, Calvin, and all others this was an existential matter of life and death. Their whole spiritual existence was at stake because the Gospel of grace itself was at stake.

This is also the reason that the Reformation is not a merely historical phenomenon, interesting from the historical point of view but not really relevant for our day. No, the Reformation is still of the greatest importance for the churches of today and also for the discussion among the churches. We even dare to say that it is an issue of life and death for the ecumenical encounter, because the very same Gospel that was rediscovered in the days of the Reformation is still the only true Gospel, the acceptance or rejection of which means life or death.

The Great Change

The first thing that strikes every student of the relation between the church of Rome and the church of the Reformation is the great change that has taken place in the years since the last war. In fact, the change is so enormous that one can hardly believe that it is true.

We can easily summarize this change in these words: We are living in the day of the Second Vatican Council, which is the third council of the Roman Catholic Church in the period after the Reformation and which is altogether different from its two predecessors. The first of the three was the notorious Council of Trent that took place shortly after the Reformation (1545–1564). It was the council of the Counter-Reformation. All its decisions were taken in direct opposition to the views of the Reformers, and intentionally and consciously the church of Rome continued and fixed the theological development of the Middle Ages. The second council, Vaticanum I (1869–70), also was a purely Roman Catholic occasion. The Protestants simply did not exist for the majority of the council fathers. All they did was fix the development of the three centuries after Trent. In these centuries, especially the last one (the century of J. A. Möhler and J. H. Newman!), more and more emphasis had been placed on the decisive role of the church itself in the evolution of the tradition and the dogma. This resulted almost naturally in the decree of the First Vatican Council, “that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church” (P. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, II, 270, 271). Preceded by the Mariological dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854) and followed by that of the Assumption of Mary (1950), this seemed to be the end of all future discussion between the church of Rome and the churches of the Reformation.

And now, all of a sudden, we have Vaticanum II, which breathes an altogether different spirit. To be sure, it is still first of all meant as a council for the Roman Catholic Church itself. In the original encyclical, Ad Petri Cathedram, in which he announced the convening of the council, Pope John XXIII stated: “The prime aim of the Council itself will be to promote an increase of Catholic faith, a healthful renewal in the conduct of Christian peoples, as well as to revise church discipline in accordance with the needs of today” (Vittorio Subilia, The Problem of Catholicism, SCM Press, 1964, p. 19). But there was also an ecumenical motive, although it was not so strongly expressed in the official encyclical. It became very clear when Protestant churches were officially asked to send their observers to the meetings of the council. The Pope also established the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity, under the leadership of Augustin Cardinal Bea, one of the most ecumenically minded cardinals. Related to this is the fact that today it is customary in official Roman Catholic statements and documents to refer to the non-Roman Catholic Christians as “separated brethren.” Although the expression was used before the pontificate of John XXIII (we find it in early writings of Fr. Yves Congar), it has come into vogue especially through Pope John. Rome has always held that those who were baptized in the name of the triune God somehow belonged to the mystical body of Christ, though separated from the visible manifestation of this body in the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, they were separated brethren. In the past, however, the full emphasis was on the adjective. The great change of our day is that it has shifted to the noun: we are separated brethren.

All this is connected with the emergence of a new theology in the Roman Catholic Church. Over against the traditionalists with their emphasis on “integrism” i.e., the pure and simple submission to the claims of Roman authority, the return of the prodigal sons to the father’s house, stands the progressive party with its stress on “integration,” i.e., the necessity to take the gospel truths professed by non-Catholics and insert them within the framework of the Catholic system. The last view is eloquently and impressively advocated by a comparatively small avant-garde of brilliant theologians who wish to adhere faithfully to the dogma of their church but who also assert that this dogma has not in every respect achieved its complete form.

Bigger Than Trent

A striking example of this new approach is found in the doctoral thesis which the young Austrian theologian Hans Küng wrote on justification in the theology of Karl Barth and in the decrees of the Council of Trent. He freely admits that the decrees of the Council, although fully true in their foundations, were one-sidedly anti-Protestant. Catholic doctrine is bigger than Trent. On the other hand, the decrees have often been misunderstood, as if they taught “co-operation” of man with God in the act of redemption. Basically there is a place for the Lutheran simul justus et peccator (at once just and a sinner) and sola fide (by faith alone) in the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification, and therefore Karl Barth is altogether wrong in calling the Roman Catholic doctrine “another gospel.”

All this just shows how much has changed in the theological and ecclesiastical climate in the last few years. In one of its latest sessions the Vatican Council even went so far as to use the term “church” for the Protestant churches. Until recently we were called “separated brethren,” but the term “churches” was studiously avoided in official documents. Instead the word “communities” was employed. On September 29 the Melbourne Herald reported that the council had accepted the first chapter of a decree giving detailed guidance on how Roman Catholics can work more actively for Christian unity. “The new text, revised and strengthened after debate last year, refers to Protestant faiths as churches or communities. The original text described them as communities and reserved the word churches to the orthodox.”

How must we assess this amazing development? To put it in the terms of our subject, can one still speak of the “importance” of the Reformation in the discussion with Rome? The answer must be a straightforward, Yes.

One of the first requirements for a correct and balanced assessment of the new situation is a clear discernment of its various aspects. To be more exact, we have to distinguish between the present-day theological and ecclesiastical climate, on the one hand, and the essential structure of Rome and its dogma, on the other hand. There is no denying that the climate has changed considerably. In fact, it has veered completely around. And this is very important indeed. For the first time since the Reformation, Rome shows that it is willing to take the Reformation seriously. It is even willing to admit that in the churches of the Reformation aspects of truth have been retained which did not receive proper attention in Roman Catholic dogma. In other words, for the first time in four hundred years there is a real basis for discussion.

Has The Dogma Changed?

But—has Rome itself with its dogma really changed, so that one can say that the Reformation has become superfluous? Does Rome now have a real understanding of the existential protest of the Reformation? Is there any trace of a similar rediscovery of the full Gospel of grace on Rome’s side?

In his recent book, The Problem of Catholicism, Dr. Vittorio Subilia, dean of the Waldensian Theological Faculty at Rome, gives ample documentary proof that this is not the case. Admittedly, Rome is prepared for “reformism.” In fact there are many reforming tendencies in the church of Rome today. It is readily granted in Roman Catholic circles that there are “subjective faults,” requiring a reformation of life; institutional faults, requiring a cleansing of the Temple; historical faults, requiring a “de-westernizing” of Christianity; ecumenical faults, requiring a reform of the confessional psychology. The language and the intellectual framework of the Church also need to be reformed. But a dogmatical reform is an impossibility! Even the most ardent advocates of ecumenicity in the Roman Catholic Church, such as Cardinal Bea and Father Boyer, uninhibitedly speak of the immutability of the dogma. Subilia rightly says, “We must categorically exclude any reform of the sort to which Luther and Calvin called the universal Church of their days” (op. cit., p. 97).

For this reason we must reject attempts of reinterpretation, such as that of Küng. They are not really helpful but rather confuse the issue. “No real ecumenical contribution is made by this sort of approach, in which Trent’s semi-Pelagian phrases are subtly wrapped up in Augustinian ones, and by clever documentation Luther is made to look like a Catholic, and the Fathers of Trent like Lutherans, and the Catholic-Protestant antithesis is drained of its meaning and reduced to an accidental if regrettable misunderstanding that no one in four centuries had ever noticed before Dr. Küng” (Subilia, op cit., p. 41).

The Catholic-Protestant antithesis is still there in all its force and sharpness. For proof we need only to point to the Roman Catholic Mariology. This doctrine is not just a matter of popular devotion, nor something on the edge of the doctrinal system, for in it the deepest essence of the Roman Catholic conception of the Christian faith, namely, the necessity of co-redemptive mediation on the part of the creature, is expressed. G. C. Berkouwer has rightly pointed out that Mariology cannot be considered an excess that might be eliminated from Roman doctrine without affecting its heart (Conflict with Rome, 1958, p. 165). He also quotes the leading Roman Catholic theologian Scheeben, who said: “On these grounds Mary occupied a position in the divine world plan and in the dogma and the life of the church, which is as essential and universal as it is exalted and striking. And, therefore, the doctrine about her constitutes an organic part of dogmatics.” All this is still fully maintained by the Roman Catholic Church of today and also by the representatives of the “theologie nouvelle.” Pope John XXIII said in one of his addresses: “He sets in jeopardy his salvation, who tossed in the storms of this world, refuses to clasp her helping hand,” since “it is through Mary that we come to Jesus” and “to love Christ means to love Mary his Mother and, in the light of redemption, our universal Mother.” And likewise Hans Küng, though rejecting excesses of Marian devotion, nevertheless asks his Protestant brethren the following question: “Can we raise our voices in praise of Christ without also raising them in praise of her who spoke the decisive fiat to Christ? Can we be Christian without—though in a different way—being Marian too? Can we work at Christian theology without—though in a different way—working at Marian theology too?… Can there, finally, be any reunion in Christ which would leave the mystery of Mary to one side?” (The Council and Reunion, p. 187).

We have recently made a special study of the Roman Catholic doctrines of the primacy, Petrine succession, and infallibility of the pope. In our study we were struck by the fact that in the new theology they are fully maintained. There are differences of emphasis. But the pope is still “Sanctissimus Dominus noster Papa”—“our most holy Lord, the Pope.” Pope John XXIII himself left no doubt on this point. The present Pope Paul VI, in his first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam (August, 1964), emphatically declares: “We bear the responsibility of ruling the Church of Christ, because we hold the office of Bishop of Rome and consequently the office of Successor to the Blessed Apostle Peter, the bearer of the master keys to the Kingdom of God, the Vicar of the same Christ who made of him the supreme shepherd.” In this same encyclical he warns those “separated brethren” who say that if it were not for the primacy of the pope, the reunion of the separated churches with the Catholic Church would be easy: “We beg the separated brethren to consider the inconsistency of this position, not only in that, without the Pope the Catholic Church would no longer be catholic, but also because, without the supreme, efficacious and decisive pastoral office of Peter, the unity of the church of Christ would utterly collapse. It would be vain to look for other principles of unity in place of the one established by Christ himself” (this and the above statement quoted in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Aug. 28, 1964, p. 44).

In the light of these statements—and they could easily be augmented with many others on other doctrines—we must conclude that Rome has not fundamentally changed. There are important changes in climate, in approach, in emphases, even in aspects of truth; but the system as such has not changed.

The Church And The ‘And’

This also means, however, that the Reformation has not lost anything of its spiritual importance. To say, as some Roman Catholic ecumenists do, that it represents an insight which had been long neglected by Rome but which in our time is being incorporated into the fullness of the Roman Catholic system, is a serious misunderstanding of the Reformation. As we have said before, it was no less than a rediscovery of the Gospel of grace. And it is this Gospel of grace which we still have to hold before Rome as the real spiritual challenge. What the church of Rome needs is not “reform,” which amounts to pruning away some of the historical accretions, but “reformation,” that is, a new, completely new, understanding of the Gospel itself. Karl Barth brought all of this into sharp focus when in an interview he remarked: “In my view the greatest obstacle to rapprochement between the Reformed Church and the Catholic Church is a tiny little word which the Roman Church adds after each of our statements: the word ‘and.’ When we say Jesus, the Catholics say Jesus and Mary. We try to obey Christ as our only Lord; the Catholics obey Christ and his representative on earth, the Pope. We believe that Christians are saved by the merits of Jesus Christ; the Catholics add, ‘and by their own merits,’ i.e., by their works. We believe that the sole source of Revelation is Scripture; the Catholics add ‘and tradition.’ We say that knowledge of God is obtained through faith in his Word as expressed in the Scriptures; the Catholics add ‘and through reason’ ” (quoted by J. D. Douglas, “Reflections on a Common Heritage,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Oct. 11, 1963, p. 4). So long as Rome maintains this word “and”—and it is maintained even by the adherents of the new theology!—there is no reason to say that the Reformation is an antiquated historical position. In fact, it will never be such a position, because it is not primarily a historical event. Rather, it is a spiritual understanding. No one, neither Rome nor we Protestants, can ever pass by this rediscovery of the Gospel. To be a true Church of Jesus Christ we always have to begin with the a b c of the Reformation: sola gratia, solus Christus, sola Scriptura, sola fide. Without this a b c no one can spell the Gospel, and so long as Rome refuses to do this, it will have a distorted understanding of the only true Gospel, the Gospel of pure, sovereign grace in Jesus Christ.

TO BE CONTINUED

T. Leo Brannon is pastor of the First Methodist Church of Samson, Alabama. He received the B.S. degree from Troy State College and the B.D. from Emory University.

On June 25, 1865, James Hudson Taylor at thirty-three came to the great crisis of his life. The locale was Brighton Beach on the south coast of England. There on a quiet Sunday morning he took a step of faith in response to a simple spiritual principle he had just discovered. He was surprised that this truth had so long eluded him. “If we are obeying the Lord, the responsibility rests with him, not with us!” Months of struggle were over, and the way ahead was clear. To obey the Scriptures and trust God to be faithful to his pledged Word was not rash.

Throwing caution and tradition to the winds, Hudson Taylor formed the China Inland Mission. He determined that it would be interdenominational, in that evangelical Christians from all communions would be welcomed. It would be “by faith,” in that its financing would be attained by looking to the Lord alone, not by appealing to men. It would be non-professional, in that the vast untapped potential of the laity, along with clergy, would make up its membership. Inland China would be opened to the Gospel! “Thou, Lord,” Taylor cried with unutterable relief, “thou shalt have all the burden! At thy bidding as thy servant I go forward, leaving results with thee.”

One hundred years later we commemorate this notable event. For on that day, Protestant missions took a large step forward. The interdenominational missionary movement was launched, with far-reaching effects in all parts of the world.

Americans and British tend to give one another a difficult time. They accent their differences, and these differences cause them to drift apart. But a Winston Churchill has a stroke and sinks into a coma. Or a Kennedy is assassinated. And suddenly both sides of the Atlantic are caught up in a wave of concern. They discover a deep mutuality emerging from their common roots.

Something of this sense of discovered oneness emerges also when Christians in America and Britain consider one another’s outstanding spiritual leaders. The nation that produced Wesley and Whitefield is genuinely grateful for the succession of activists—Moody, Torrey, and Graham—who have been successful in reaching all levels of class-conscious Britain. When Americans think about missionary leaders or expository preachers, they tend to look eastward. And when they contemplate Hudson Taylor, they realize with great admiration that here was a man of God. The fragrance and influence of his life still linger, the scope of his achievements still impresses. True, Hudson Taylor found Americans a rather difficult, demanding, undisciplined lot. Yet they never gave him the hostility and open criticism he received from his own countrymen. Perhaps because they had the advantage of distance, they were the more easily able to grasp his full stature.

Yet the suggestion comes to mind that perhaps the reason for Americans’ high esteem of Hudson Taylor is that he embodied a balance of certain qualities that they particularly admire.

In the first place, Hudson Taylor was ambitious without being proud. His ambition was nothing less than “to evangelize all China, to preach Christ to all its peoples by any and all means that come to hand.” Significantly, God largely granted him his heart’s desire. Men differed with him and criticized his methods severely. They thought the wide range of his vision almost arrogant. They shrank from the tenacity with which he pursued his goal. True, they spoke freely of his “exceptional, brilliant, and distinguished talent.” But they could not help having misgivings over the drive that took him to the forefront of all missionary work in his day. Such consuming ambition!

And yet, Taylor’s sharpest critics again and again went out of their way to comment on his deliberate avoidance of the praise of men. One who knew him intimately for more than forty years paid this tribute: “How lowly he remained in his own eyes. God was able to take that beloved man and make him a prince, if I may say so, among all the missionaries of the Victorian era.” When asked to appraise Hudson Taylor’s life, Eugene Stock of the Church Missionary Society could only think of one verse of Scripture: “He hath exalted the humble and meek.” That is what the Lord did with Hudson Taylor.

Another of Taylor’s qualities was that he was catholic without being superficial. The China Inland Mission is his memorial. He wanted it to be a living demonstration of the safety and blessedness of trusting in the living God. To all its details he paid the greatest attention. Funds had to be handled as economically as possible, accounts kept scrupulously. He loved organization and was a master at it. To spend hours over the mission’s administrative matters was to him as important as the more “spiritual” task of pouring vision into the minds of field workers.

And yet those who knew Taylor found that his heart extended far beyond China and the CIM. Dr. Harry Guinness, director of the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, once recollected: “I noticed that in his prayers he was always praying for South America.… His sympathies were as broad as the world, and it was South America every time he prayed.” Were Taylor living today, one can easily envision the interest he would have had in Evangelism-in-Depth, developed by the Latin America Mission to reach whole nations through the mobilization and continuous witness of all evangelical Christians within their borders. An exciting possibility comes to mind—did his prayers yesterday contribute to this extensive program today?

Hudson Taylor also sought to do a mighty work for the Church at home, reviving its sleeping congregations. When he spoke of its worldwide task, he never pleaded for his own mission society. The claims of the whole world were ever before him; they were the substance of his ministry. Eugene Stock said that “it was just as much joy to him when men went to Africa, or to Japan … as it was when they went to China.… It was the world that he wanted for Christ.”

Here was catholicity without superficiality. This rare combination contrasts sharply with our proneness toward the parochial. We have many experts in depth but few in breadth. We find it easy to compete with one another, and to criticize or ignore those whom we cannot surpass. Unnecessary fragmentation, expensive duplication, subtle competition, unwarranted downgrading of one another—these are all too common. What leader has not experienced the sharpness of being undercut by his peers? What man has not been unnecessarily misunderstood when he has sought to call us to trust one another more, and fear one another less? Why must mixed motives be imputed to those who feel fellow missionaries should be open to new insights into methodology or priority? Why not more catholicity of interest, more genuine desire to help one another fulfill the ministry received from the Lord? Scripture does not encourage us simply to admire Taylor’s balance in this regard. It rather calls us to imitate his example.

Hudson Taylor was also biblical without being bigoted. He was primarily a man of God—the God of the Scriptures. A life filled with Bible study, prayer, vision, and faith made him venturesome and hopeful. Bishop H. C. G. Moule of Durham spoke of his “personal attention to the very words of Holy Scripture, in the spirit of obedience and prayer.” No wonder he was described as a man “in restful realization of the Lord’s companionship.” How natural that his life was one of rare spiritual force.

To Hudson Taylor, every word of Scripture had its treasures. Arthur T. Pierson spoke of his “strange wonderment” at the readiness of clergymen to make concessions to the rationalistic enemies of supernaturalism. Taylor often used the illustration of the Russian who tossed out his children one by one to the pursuing hungry wolves, in order that he himself might escape their violence. “Why appease the clamor of these critics,” he would thunder, “by tossing out the vital truths of the faith? Don’t have less faith in God than you have in man!” Indeed, much of his ministry in the homelands involved calling men to follow apostolic precedents long and tragically neglected by the Church.

But almost greater than this ministry was the man himself. His life was an unanswerable demonstration of God’s faithfulness to the plea of the psalmist: “Let thine hand be ready to help me; for I have chosen thy precepts.”

Naturally, it followed that Taylor was a man of strong doctrinal convictions. But he was surprisingly free from the narrow bigotry that has plagued evangelical circles in America. On the one hand, he held tenaciously to the basic truths embodied in the Nicene, Athanasian, and Chalcedonian creeds. But, on the other, he recognized that evangelicals had never agreed on such matters as sanctification, eschatology, churchmanship, and polity. Why break fellowship with those who differed from him on these points? Although a convinced Baptist, he would have deplored the controversies among evangelical Baptists that have occurred during the last decade. He organized the CIM so that its doctrinal grid would be forthrightly evangelical, yet free from both obscurantism and dogmatism on minor matters. For 100 years it has not deviated an iota from its doctrinal standards. During Taylor’s lifetime it passed through its only doctrinal crisis (relating to universalism). This was very painful to him, for he deeply loved the man involved. An American was especially used to strengthen Taylor and implement the New Testament disciplinary process, and the mission was preserved. Love also triumphed, and the offending brother’s respect for Taylor was undiminished.

Charismatic without being selfish—this was another of Hudson Taylor’s balanced qualities. One of his most prominent features was the ability to create strong ties of esteem and affection between himself and others. When he spoke, men listened. When he challenged them, they responded. When he went forward, they followed. This ability did not arise solely from his loyalty to God and to His missionary purpose. Nor did it come from the largeness of his personal interest in people.

What was the source of this mysterious quality? Some who hardly knew him spoke of their sudden discovery that his was a “burning Christian heart.” They sensed that he somehow had the right to teach them and to lead them forward into God’s service. True, he was often misunderstood by fellow missionaries and by friends at home. Some doubted his ability to “hold together his motley crew.” And yet they lived to sec him weld this crew into a strong missionary band. Varied gifts were used to best advantage. He trained some of the most unlikely, and they proved to be outstanding missionaries. How did he accomplish this? No other explanation will suffice than that he had been anointed and given a charismatic gift by God.

Taylor sensed this and shrank from its implications. He once saw a small “exciter” dynamo alongside a powerful one. Its task was to start the giant dynamo. In this Hudson Taylor saw himself—God’s “exciter”—surrounded by men of far greater potential than his own. This greatly humbled him, and he resolved to try to bring out this enormous potential he saw in his fellow workers. He made the CIM a brotherhood, a family, thereby creating the best conditions for each worker’s development. From the beginning, CIM workers spoke of “the family feeling,” “the remarkable experience when, for the first time, one came into close fellowship with Mr. Taylor.”

God has granted this gracious charismatic gift to some of his own people in America today. We can all call to mind those few who are so anointed. But to call some to mind is to find oneself bowed before the Lord in sadness and intercession. How this important and dangerous gift has been misused! Empire-building, financial success, ruthless suppression of fellow Christians. Everywhere, the chatter about leadership. Absent, the teaching of Scripture about servanthood.

Here is the end of the matter. Hudson Taylor was Christlike. He sank all personal interests into a consuming desire to serve, no matter how humble or difficult the service. He was the embodiment of what Christ commanded when he said: “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Hudson Taylor’s example is sorely needed by the leaders of the evangelical Church in this centenary year of the worldwide missionary fellowship he founded.

T. Leo Brannon is pastor of the First Methodist Church of Samson, Alabama. He received the B.S. degree from Troy State College and the B.D. from Emory University.

This list of significant evangelistic events in the history of the Church has been prepared in view of the World Congress on Evangelism, whichCHRISTIANITY TODAYwill sponsor in Berlin as a tenth-anniversary project in 1966. Space limits forced difficult choices upon the specialists who aided in compiling the list of events, and readers no doubt will wish to add to or delete from the compilation. Nearly all missionary agencies are excluded for reasons of space.—ED.

I. BEFORE THE TIME OF JESUS CHRIST

A. Prior to the Exodus

Enoch: spokesman for God

Noah: preacher of righteousness

Abraham: God’s messenger to the surrounding tribes

Joseph: God’s representative to the Egyptians

B. From Moses to Jesus Christ: Old Testament Revivals

Moses and the people of Israel at Sinai

Joshua in the closing days of his life

Period of the Judges: recurring apostasy, repentance, and revival

Samuel: Israel revived and the Philistines defeated

Elijah: revival victory over the priests of Baal

Jonah: the evangelization of Nineveh

Asa and the great revival (2 Chron. 14–16)

Hezekiah and the revival in Judah

Josiah: a time of reformation in Judah

The post-captivity revival

II. THE FULLNESS OF TIME

The Lord Jesus Christ: his evangelistic ministry

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ

The Great Commission after the Resurrection

III. THE FIRST TEN CENTURIES A.D.

Pentecost (A.D. 30): the descent of the Holy Spirit and Peter’s first evangelistic sermon (3,000 converts)

Stoning of Stephen

The Apostle Paul: his worldwide missionary ministry; his apostolate to the Gentiles

Origen (186–253): teacher-scholar who preached every day for thirty years and who never divorced gospel preaching from scholarship

Gregory Thaumaturgus (213–c. 270): evangelist in Pontus of whom it was said that there were only seventeen Christians when he came and only seventeen pagans when he died

Gregory the Illuminator (c. 240–332): the conversion of Armenia through the conversion of the king, Tradt (Tiridates), c. 250

Ulfilas (311–388): evangelist to the Goths; inventor of an alphabet and translator of the Bible into the Gothic tongue

St. John Chrysostom (347–407): “silver-tongued” preacher who wrote more sermons than any other man before Spurgeon

Ambrose of Milan (c. 339–397): last of the early great preachers; contemporary of Chrysostom

Martin, Bishop of Tours (320?–397?): evangelist to Gaul

Augustine of Hippo (354–430): his conversion and extensive ministry

Patrick (389?–461?): a native of Roman Britain who was the “Apostle of the Irish”

Augustine of Canterbury (505?–605): evangelist to the people of Britain

Columba (c. 521–597): evangelist to the Scots

Columbanus (550–615): evangelist to the Burgundians and the Swabians (Swiss)

Willibrord (658–739): “Apostle of Frisia”—Holland and Denmark

Boniface (Wynfrith) (680–754): the “Apostle of Germany”

Anskar (801–865): the “Apostle of the North”—Denmark and Sweden

Cyril (826–869) and Methodius (c. 815–885): the “Apostles of the Slavs”—Bulgaria, Moravia, and Bohemia

IV. THE ELEVENTH CENTURY TO THE REFORMATION

Otto, Bishop of Bamberg (1062/3–1139): the “Apostle to the Pomeranians”

Peter de Bruys (died c. 1140): founder of the Petrobrusians

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153): mystic who preached like an existentialist; probably the only Crusader who could be considered evangelistic

Peter Waldo (?–1217): evangelistic founder of the Waldensians; his ministry and that of others like him precipitated the Fourth Lateran Council and the Inquisition

Anthony of Padua (1195–1231): Franciscan who was first to use a sermon outline and who often preached to 20,000 people

Cathari (meaning “pure”) (11 th–13th centuries): radical evangelistic sect

Brethren of the Free Spirit (13th century): mystical sects claiming freedom from ecclesiastical authority Raymond Lull (1235–1315): evangelist to North Africa and the Muslims

John de Montecorvino (?–1328/9): evangelist to China who built a church and orphanage and translated the New Testament and Psalms into Chinese

John Wycliffe (c. 1329–1384): “The Morning Star of the Reformation,” translator of the Bible into the English vernacular, and founder of the Lollard Revival

John Huss (c. 1369–1415): Bohemian evangelistic reformer; precursor of the Reformation

Savonarola (1452–1498): preacher and reformer in Florence

V. THE REFORMATION TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The Reformation (from 1517): Luther, Farel, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, and others

Balthasar Hübmaier (1485?–1528): Anabaptist evangelist in Moravia

Menno Simons (1496–1561): founder of the Mennonites

Martyrdom of Latimer (c. 1485–1555) and of Ridley (c. 1500–1555) under “Bloody” Mary

Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556)

Rise of Puritanism in England (from 1596)

Scottish revival at the General Assembly of 1596 under the preaching of Bruce of Edinburgh

Thomas Mayhew (1593–1682): evangelizer of the Indians of New England

John Eliot (1604–1690): evangelist to the American Indians

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667): Anglican writer and revivalist

Roger Williams (1606–1690): founder of Rhode Island and establisher of religious liberty in America

Richard Baxter (1615–1691): Puritan writer and revivalist

Irish revival of 1628 ff. under Blair and Livingstone

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England founded in 1649

Spener (1635–1705) and Francke (1663–1727): founders of Pietism; rise of the missionary center at the University at Halle

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge founded in 1698

Hans Egede (1686–1758): evangelist to Greenland

Count von Zinzendorf (1700–1760): Moravian leader, evangelist, and missionary enthusiast

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts founded in 1701

William Tennent and the “Log College” evangelists Revivals in New Jersey under Frelinghuysen in the 1720s

Great Awakening in New England under Jonathan Edwards, 1734/35

Revival ministry of George Whitefield in England and America

Evangelical Revival in England, under John and Charles Wesley, from 1738

David Brainerd (1717–1747): evangelist to the American Indians

Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740–1790

Scottish revivals of 1742 at Cambusland, Kilsyth, Campsie, and Calder

Vosges Mountains revival beginning in 1765 under John Frederic Oberlin (1740–1826)

Francis Asbury (1745–1816): evangelist and first Methodist bishop in America

Revival at Lundie, Scotland, 1771, under Whitefield

Second Awakening in New England in the 1790s

William Carey (1761–1834): evangelist to India; father of modern missions

London Missionary Society founded in 1795

Scottish Missionary Society founded in 1796

Beginning of the Norwegian revival under Hans Nielsen Hauge in 1796

Netherlands Missionary Society founded in 1797

Beginning of the great revival in the U.S. West, 1797

Church Missionary Society and Religious Tract Society founded in 1799

Scottish revival from 1800: Holdane Brothers, evangelists

Awakening of 1800 in Canada

VI. THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Yale and Hampden Sydney College revivals under Timothy Dwight and John Blair Smith

James McGready: Log College revivalist, father of the Second Awakening in the West, beginning in 1796; often preached to 20,000 people

British and Foreign Bible Society founded in 1805

Primitive Methodist Awakening began 1807 in England

Henry Martyn (1781–1812): evangelist to India and Arabia, translator of the Bible into other tongues

Robert Morrison (1782–1834): evangelist to China, translator of the Bible

Haystack Prayer Meeting in New England, 1810; beginning of American foreign missions

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established in 1810

Methodist camp meetings: 200,000 people gathered by 1816

Five decades of revival in the United States, 1792–1842

Conversion and baptism of Pomare II (1819) and the evangelization of all Tahiti

Adoniram Judson (1788–1850): evangelist and translator of the Bible; pioneer missionary to Burma

Revival all over Germany from 1815

American Bible Society founded in 1816

Le Reveil began in Geneva in 1816 under Robert Holdane, spread to France and Holland

Reginald Heber’s evangelistic ministry to India (Calcutta), 1822–1826

American Sunday School Union founded in 1824

American Tract Society founded in 1825

Johannes Gossner (1773–1858); German pastor, missionary leader, and founder of the Gossner Missionary Society (1842); father of faith missions

Educational evangelism of Alexander Duff in India, 1829–1863

Awakening in Sweden in 1837 under George Scott and Carl Rosenius

Awakening in Hawaii in 1837 under Titus Coan

Scottish revivals of 1838/39 under W. C. Burns

Martyrdom of John Williams in New Hebrides, 1839

David Livingstone (1813–1873): evangelist and explorer who opened Africa to the Gospel

Joseph Hardy Neesima (1843–1890): founder of Doshisha College and Theological School in Japan

Founding of the YMCA in 1844 by George Williams

Fijian revival beginning in 1845

Awakening among Germans in Russia, 1845; Stundist Movement began

English Methodist evangelism beginning in 1846 under James Caughey

John Geddie (1815–1872): evangelist to the South Seas island of Aneityum of whom it was said: “When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen”

Founding of the YWCA in Germany and Great Britain in 1854

John L. Nevius: evangelist to the Far East, 1854–1893; father of the Nevius method of establishing self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating churches Charles G. Finney (1792–1875): American evangelist, 1824–1875

New York City revival of 1857/58 and the Fulton Street prayer meeting

The “Annus Mirabilis” in Ulster: 100,000 converts in a spontaneous movement

Revival in Scotland, 1859/60

Revival in Wales, 1859

Extended revival and evangelism in England, 1860–1865

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–1899): evangelist to Britain and America

John G. Paton (1824–1907): evangelist to New Hebrides; at Aniwa (Oceania) from 1866

Conversion of King Khama of Bechuanaland, 1860; transformation of his country

Second “opening of China” to the Gospel following the Treaty of Tientsin

Work of the Salvation Army (William Booth, founder) from 1864

J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905): faith mission leader; founder of the China Inland Mission; evangelist in China 1853–1905

Evangelization of Madagascar following the baptism of Queen Rànavàlona II in 1868

Martyrdom of Bishop Patteson (1827–1871) in Melanesia

British awakenings under Moody and Sankey in 1873/74

Kumamoto Band established in Japan in 1876

Evangelization of the Barotse in Africa from 1877 under Francois Coillard

Samuel Porter Jones, the D. L. Moody of the South, 1881–1906

Student Volunteer Movement founded in 1886

R. A. Torrey (1856–1928): successor to Moody; evangelist and author of soul-winning literature

John R. Mott (1865–1955): lay evangelist and world leader, YMCA, Student Volunteer Movement, from 1890

Samuel Zwemer (1867–1952): evangelist to the Muslims

Martyrdom of 189 Protestant missionaries in China in the Boxer Rebellion, 1900

Colonel Yamamuro, the “General Booth” of Japan: evangelistic ministry from 1900

Masahisa Uemura (Kimura): the twentieth-century Moody of Japan, from 1900

J. Wilbur Chapman (1859–1918): evangelist and developer of the simultaneous revival campaign

Billy Sunday (1862–1935): evangelistic ministry in America from 1900; developed basic revival organization

Martyrdom of James Chalmers (1841–1901) in New Guinea

Welsh revival under Evan Roberts and Seth Joshua

Madagascar revivals in 1905, 1927, 1946

Awakenings in Scandinavia, 1905

Revivals throughout India from 1905

Korean revival of 1907

Awakening in Chile in 1909, becoming Pentecostal and numbering 600,000

Manchurian revival of 1908 under Jonathan Goforth

Ecumenical Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, 1910

A. Earl Kernahan: emphasis on visitation evangelism in denominations

Pentecostal movement, front 1910

Awakening in Ireland from 1921 under W. P. Nicholson

Beginning of radio evangelism; e.g., “The Lutheran Hour” and “The Old-Fashioned Revival Hour”

Great Awakening in China from 1927: John Sung, Andrew GiH, and Bethel Bands

East African revival began in 1932

Summer Institute of Linguistics beginning in 1934 (L. L. Legters and W. Cameron Townsend); founding of Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1942

Youth for Christ Movement founded in 1942

Student revivals in the United States 1949–1951

Billy Graham: evangelist and pioneering television crusader; worldwide evangelistic ministry beginning in 1949

Awakening in Brazil in 1952

Evangelism-in-depth in Latin America

What happened between the first two days of Billy Graham’s Copenhagen crusade and the closing night could only be called a miracle. Graham himself described the crusade as “one of the most dramatic and exciting crusades we have ever conducted anywhere.”

The opening nights were marked by disturbances and near-violence. Despite the presence of thousands of Danish Christians in the Forum, the hostile spirit on the part of some could be felt. An activist leftist group—named “Group 61,” after the year of its founding, and composed largely of young beatniks—had announced it would break up the meetings.

On the second night, between fifty and one hundred of them created disturbances in several sections and tossed stench bombs throughout the Forum. One of them—later arrested—threw a bottle of the malodorous liquid in the eyes of a Forum guard, who had to be hospitalized. Doctors said his eyesight was not permanently damaged, however.

Sensing the threatening violence, Graham did not close the meeting with his usual public invitation to receive Christ. The demonstrators, poised for mischief, seemed stunned by the abrupt end of the meeting, and from the balcony came shouts of “Yank, go home!” Some members of the gang milled around in the hall after the meeting, but there was no further violence.

When a group of apparent troublemakers showed up for the third meeting, Forum officials refused to admit them. Graham himself went to the door, met the gang leaders, and appealed to officials to let them in as his personal guests. “These are the very people who need to hear what I am preaching,” he said.

Only when a Graham aide guaranteed their good behavior were they admitted. The aide sat with them during the meeting, and three members of the group went forward to make commitments. Others of them made decisions on subsequent nights, and there was no further disruption of the services.

From that night on there was a noticeable difference in the atmosphere of the meetings. As Graham said, “The devil overstepped himself.”

The 8,000-seat Forum was packed on all but two nights. Standing-room-only attendance on the final two nights reached 9,600. Officials said the crowds were the largest in the Forum’s forty-year history. Dr. Paul Brodersen, retired dean of the Copenhagen Cathedral, said: “We have seen nothing like this in Denmark since the revival of 1880–1900.”

The Rev. Richard Petersen, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, said: “These days have brought with them a new faith, a new expectation, and a new confidence in God for thousands of people.”

A free church pastor, the Rev. Kurt Mortensen of the Apostolic Church, commented: “The future looks very promising now that so many different denominations are able to cooperate and the Folkekirke [State Church] and free churches have shown they could stand together in this great evangelistic effort.”

Coverage by all of the public media was unprecedented in Denmark. Newspapers gave full pages, and the state radio and television took a special interest in the crusade. Danish television videotaped a meeting and showed it the next night to the entire country. The same program was later shown by Swedish and Norwegian television. In addition, Norwegian radio taped one of the meetings for broadcast.

Graham said he believed the Copenhagen meetings may “open up all of Scandinavia for crusades.” He said that he had received many invitations from Sweden, Norway, and Finland, and that he believes Scandinavia may be ripe for a spiritual revival.

Total attendance for the eight nights in Copenhagen was 65,700, and 681 inquirers were counseled.

The Gospel Via Tv

Evangelist Billy Graham will conduct another of his coast-to-coast television crusades this month. Four one-hour programs are scheduled on 200 or more stations. In most areas they will be seen on four consecutive evenings, June 7–10.

“It will be by far the most extensive television coverage that we have ever had—and the most expensive,” says Graham. Production, air time, and advertising costs are estimated at more than $900,000.

The four programs to be shown were videotaped during Graham’s February crusade at the International Center in Honolulu. The four sermon topics are, “Forgiveness,” “A World in Crisis,” “Teen-Age Rampage,” and “The Heart of Man.”

The Winners

The weekly Baptist Record of Mississippi won a merit award from the Associated Church Press last month for a crusading editorial that led to the rebuilding of burned Negro churches. The editorial, “Smoke over Mississippi,” written by the editor, Joe T. Odle, was instrumental in the formation of the interdenominational Committee of Concern, which raised funds for rebuilding projects.

Renewal, a weekly of the Chicago City Mission Society, also won a merit award for demonstrating “editorial courage through creative and crusading content.” Other award winners were The Lutheran, a biweekly of the Lutheran Church in America; Youth, a biweekly of the United Church of Christ; and Interaction, a monthly of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Citations went to Motive, a monthly of the Methodist Division of Higher Education; Christianity and Crisis, a biweekly independent opinion journal; and Concern, a biweekly published by the Methodist Board of Christian Social Concerns. The latter two were cited for having given “superior treatment of the 1964 U. S. election campaign.”

A Seminary By The Seine

Paris, whose familiar landmarks include the University of the Sorbonne, monument to left-bank intellectualism; the Eiffel Tower, monument to an old world’s fair; and Charles De Gaulle, monument-at-large, is not known as a thriving center of evangelicalism. But leading European evangelicals plan to start a seminary there in the fall of 1966.

The institution was officially incorporated last year by forty-two representatives of evangelical church groups, missions, and Bible institutes throughout continental French-speaking Europe. The founders are presently looking for a site in the Paris area.

Although only a dozen or so students are expected to attend the first year, interest on the part of other students and their advisors extends beyond French-speaking Europe to Africa, Canada, and Haiti, and even to some circles in Holland and Germany.

Representation on the board has been broadened to include members of missionary societies working in Europe, such as The Evangelical Alliance Mission, Greater Europe Mission, Belgian Gospel Mission, Bible Christian Union, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

The seminary’s statement of faith closely resembles that of other evangelical bodies. The paragraph on “The Holy Scriptures” reads: “The divine inspiration and sovereign authority of the Bible which is the Word of God free from error as originally given.”

The seminary plans were not approved until every effort to revitalize the seminary at Aix-en-Provence, which the late Dr. Donald G. Barnhouse helped to launch, had come to a standstill.

Directors plan to open the seminary next year with two resident professors and a small staff. Short distances between cities will permit a wide number of evangelical professors to come in periodically for lectures.

The founders hope that the new seminary will help alleviate the acute shortage of seminary-trained men. It is feared that if this need is not met soon, existing church groups and institutions may shrivel or drift into the control of theologically liberal leaders.

The Rev. John C. Winston, Jr., of the Belgian Gospel Mission and the Brussels Bible Institute, will move to Paris to become dean of students and administration.

Closing By Decree

Soviet authorities have ordered the closing of a Russian Orthodox seminary near Lwow in the Soviet Ukraine, according to reports from Moscow. Confirmation of the order was received from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

With the closing of the seminary, located in the town of Lutsk, the Russian church now has only three seminaries—in Moscow, Leningrad, and Odessa. The Lutsk seminary is the fifth to be closed since 1959.

A Perspective On Doctrine

Holding fast the faithful word (Titus 1:9) … Holding forth the word of life (Phil. 2:16).

In the stuffy ballroom of a Minneapolis hotel last month, the Christian and Missionary Alliance arrived at an eleven-point doctrinal consensus. It was the first comprehensive creed in the seventy-eight-year history of the society, and it reflected traditional evangelical views. A record turnout of 1,138 delegates shared in the adoption process at the sixty-eighth General Council of the CMA. The 553-word creed is subject to ratification by next year’s delegates.

Will it be “sign up or get out,” as one delegate feared, for the society’s 2,807 clergymen and missionaries and 73,629 North American laymen? The twenty-eight-member CMA Board of Managers will wrestle with the question in coming months. Whatever the outcome, the CMA now has for itself an official perspective on doctrine and an articulate summary of what its constituency preaches and teaches.

Most distinctive of the approved tenets are those suggesting healing in the atonement and a post-salvation “crisis.” The closest vote of the council came on a motion that deleted a definition of sanctification as “an experience.” A subsequent motion introduced a description of sanctification as “both a crisis and a progressive experience” wrought in the life after conversion. It passed easily.

Inclusion of a reference to scriptural inerrancy climaxed a see-saw floor battle. A committee refused to insert a definitive inerrancy clause, and delegates followed suit. Later, in a resounding reversal, delegates approved a simpler change recognizing the Old and New Testaments “inerrant as originally given.”

Will the statement guarantee the CMA against apostasy? Few in the society would be so naïve as to think so. Most would place their hope in the “holding fast—holding forth” link that was the theme of the six-day council. As one program participant put it, “The only way to hold fast is to hold forth.”

In the vital matter of growth, it is nip and tuck for the CMA. Delegates were cheered by the report that forty-five new churches were added during 1964. But twenty-four were lost through closing, termination of affiliation, and consolidation.

A slight decline in Sunday school enrollment caused widespread concern. Even more alarming was the acute shortage of pastoral and missionary candidates the CMA faces. Yet despite the adverse elements. CMA work is forging ahead on a number of foreign fronts.

Viet Nam continues to be the priority CMA mission field, with 126 missionaries assigned there. Escalation of the war prompted removal of a missionary dependents’ school from Dalat. Viet Nam, to Bangkok, Thailand.

Deteriorating relations between the United States and Cambodia have forced the evacuation of all but three of the CMA missionaries assigned to Cambodia. One American missionary woman was reissued a visa by the Cambodian government in gratitude for past services. The other two remaining missionaries are Canadians.

Davidson: ‘Not Wise To Catechize’

If a proposal that easily cleared the spring meeting of Davidson (North Carolina) College trustees gets final approval, the way will be clear to add Roman Catholics to the faculty of the “Oxford of Southern Presbyterians.”

Under faculty pressure for several years, the board has been debating teacher qualifications and a controversial faculty oath. Until the trustees began to change the vow gradually a few years ago, full professors were required to subscribe to the Westminster standards that Presbyterian pastors and lay officers agree to accept. Last year, still another change required teachers (all on tenure) to pledge allegiance only to “evangelical Christianity.”

But the trustees agreed this spring to abolish the vow completely. If they give second reading approval next fall, they will charge the administration with certifying that faculty nominees (1) are committed to the Christian faith and members of a Christian church, and (2) comprehend the Davidson statement of purpose and intend to promote it.

President J. McDowell Richards of Columbia Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, who is also president of the Davidson trustees, said the spring action is “recognition of the broad fellowship of Christians that’s being recognized today.” He added that the board does not “feel it academically wise to catechize.”

Help For College Applicants

What happens to the student who applies to the one or two Christian colleges he knows about and is rejected?

According to Dr. Charles Schoenherr, director of admissions at Wheaton College, he is likely to give up the idea of Christian higher education and turn to the state-supported school. As a countermeasure Schoenherr suggests a national clearinghouse and counseling service for applicants to Christian colleges.

Since he presented the idea last fall to the newly formed Coordinating Committee of Christian Colleges, and this spring at the convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, it has received “a lot of support,” Schoenherr says. He hopes the service will be operating by the fall of 1966.

“My office is astonished by the number of young people who know of only one or two Christian schools,” he says. “I believe a clearinghouse could help students become more aware of other Christian colleges and would hold more young people to their commitment to Christian higher education because of the accessibility and convenience of being admitted into another Christian college.”

Another advantage, says Schoenherr, is that a student would be able to apply to a number of schools with only one application form.

Melvin Leon Steakley

Houston police are investigating the mysterious death of Melvin Leon Steakley, 37, religious news editor of the Houston Chronicle. Steakley was killed about 1:20 A.M. Saturday, May 1, when he returned to his car after working some three hours making up the Chronicle’s Saturday church page. A 32-caliber pistol had been wired to the steering column of the editor’s Volkswagen sedan with a wire leading from the trigger to the clutch pedal. The gun discharged, firing a bullet into Steakley’s chest, apparently as he depressed the pedal in preparing to drive away.

Authorities have been unsuccessful in tracing the source of crank letters that had been mailed to Steakley and seventeen other religious figures, apparently from a religious fanatic. The letters were signed “Amicus Dei” and “The Voice of Truth.” They led to speculation that the death device may have been wired for Steakley by someone who opposed his views on racial integration, since they attempted to use Bible quotations to support segregation. Steakley resided in a Houston sector in which both white and Negro families live, and he had chided churches in the area for practicing segregation.

Another possibility being considered by investigators was that the editor may have been the victim of a mistake slaying. Two other Chronicle reporters drive Volkswagens almost identical to Steakley’s.

Officers have been unable to locate any evidence that Steakley, described as pleasant and easy-going by acquaintances, had been involved in any personal quarrels or that he was aware he had enemies who might have wanted to kill him.

Police were not discounting the possibility of suicide. Hairs found on tape used to attach the pistol to the steering column have been shown by chemical and neutron-activation tests to have been from Steakley’s body. Traces of red grease pencil such as the editor used in his work were found on the tape and on a knife that was in his pocket at the time of his death. Steakley carried $85,000 life insurance.

However, Mrs. Steakley reported that her husband was happy when he left for work and that she could conceive of no reason why he should kill himself. All friends and acquaintances questioned by police have confirmed this.

In addition to his wife, Steakley is survived by two sons, ages fifteen and four, and three daughters, ages thirteen, nine, and two.

Steakley was born in Godley, Texas. He attended Texas Christian University for two years, transferred to Baylor University (Southern Baptist), and was graduated from Baylor with an A.B. degree in journalism and English in 1948. Before becoming religious news editor of the Chronicle in January, 1961, he had edited several West Texas weekly newspapers and a daily newspaper at Pasadena, near Houston. He was a Baptist and was active in Baptist churches in every locality in which he lived.

When the police department has completed its investigation, it will submit all evidence to the Harris County Medical Examiner, who will then issue a ruling on the circumstances of the death.

JIMMIE R. COX

A few months ago Dr. George Anderson Long reached his eightieth birthday, and I think a few things ought to be said about him for the record. I write this realizing that many of the readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY are from Great Britain or Australia or elsewhere with no particular interest in one man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am reminded, however, that the British do very well when they get around to praising famous men by a toast or a eulogy, so perhaps they will make allowances for an American effort and think about what gives rise to my remarks rather than their unfortunate ignorance of the man himself.

Back in the forties Dr. Long agreed to become president of Pittsburgh Xenia Theological Seminary. The dark days on which that United Presbyterian institution had fallen are now hard to imagine; it took a brave and determined man to be willing to take on the presidency. I remember that a friend of mine who was a mathematics professor helped me bring in my luggage when I moved into a study-bedroom combination on the third floor of that old building on the north side of Pittsburgh, and I think he had a slight trauma when he saw the “digs” into which I was moving. Three decrepit buildings and a parking lot were our campus.

Dr. Long set for himself three goals—a new campus with adequate buildings, a new faculty, and an enlarged student body. All three goals were fulfilled. The new campus and buildings were beautiful as well as utilitarian. The faculty took its place among the better ones of the country, and the growth of the student body reflected the confidence that the church now had in this renewed institution. In and around these physical fulfillments came an enlightened curriculum, an excellent school spirit, and deep devotion to the Christian enterprise. If ever an institution was the reflection of a single man, Pittsburgh Xenia was a reflection of the faith and strength of George Long. The institution became the greatest gift of the church to the merger of the United Presbyterian Church with the Presbyterian Church U. S. A.

One gets to thinking about the influence of one man’s life. I suppose there are many ways in which I could now take my point of departure, but 1 got to thinking about a great number of professors I had known over a long period of time and came up with the interesting idea (at least to me) that one could build a tremendous seminary faculty out of men who were products of Dr. Long’s administration. With the merger of the United Presbyterian and the Presbyterian Churches, the center of gravity was, of course, with the larger denomination, and structurally at least the progress of the church has been weighted about ten to one in favor of the larger denomination. This has meant that a great many of the young men who came along under Dr. Long have been scattered and in one way or another have passed notice.

Let me remind the church of an all-star theological team, all of whom were developed under one leader. These men could make a very rich and scholarly and, indeed, young and vigorous seminary faculty.

The lines of the various disciplines in any educational institution tend to overlap, depending on the personalities and abilities of professors. Curricula are often forced to follow personalities, but I think we could group these men in general classifications.

In the general area of theology, which could include history of doctrine and apologetics, I can think of three outstanding men all of whom worked under Dr. Long and all of whom are now ready for seminary level, that is, graduate school, teaching. Jack Rogers, now at Westminster College, is finishing up his Ph.D. under Berkouwer of Amsterdam. John Stevens, who took his Ph.D. at Temple University, has a strong congregation in St. Petersburg, Florida. A very strong contender for a post in theology is Fred Graham, whose Ph.D. will be from Iowa University and who is now on the faculty of Michigan State.

Shifting from theology to homiletics may get me into all kinds of trouble; usually homiletics professors are drawn from the ranks of great and/or successful preachers, and there may be a great many products of Dr. Long’s regime who would qualify here. I am willing to take a chance on at least two. Dr. Bob Meneilly is the pastor of the great Village Church in Prairie Village, Kansas City. I think it was just about a month ago that the membership of his church passed the 6,000 mark. More to the point, Dr. Bob has kept up with his city; his preaching has kept his church and staff out in the front of church development, and he has the reputation for an understanding administration of a very complex organization. With Dr. Meneilly I would name Dr. Dale Milligan of the Beulah Presbyterian Church, just east of Pittsburgh. Here again we have a forward-looking pastor, a highly complex organization well managed, a constant building program, and the influence of a man and a church in the broader work of the denomination. Both these men are already instructive for the church and would make marvelous teachers in a seminary.

Shifting over into languages, I would have Dr. Robert Kelley for Greek. He is finishing up a Ph.D. at Princeton University and is teaching at Pittsburgh Seminary. He could, with some training, shift into Hebrew from Greek, but I think his major work is in Greek and New Testament exegesis. Robert Coughenour is teaching at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and has made tremendous progress in Hebrew and in archaeology. Dr. Edward Grohman, a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, is a top man in Hebrew and its cognates and is teaching at Knoxville College, Tennessee.

Harold Scott, who is finishing his Ph.D. at Princeton Seminary, is at Pittsburgh Seminary. He looks to me like a good man for field work and would, I think, make a good dean for the faculty just listed.

When I started out on this page, I realized I was heading for trouble. I am in the same position a man finds himself in when he tries to thank the right people for putting on a church dinner. He is bound to leave somebody out. For a couple of “utility infielders,” I would name Bruce Thielmann and Lloyd Dalby, both of whom have excellent minds, and both of whom could with short formal training be ready to move into a wide variety of seminary assignments.

As I look back over this faculty, I notice that no provision has been made for the general field of Christian education; but I am satisfied that almost any of the men listed could easily move in that direction. This would be particularly true of Thielmann or Dalby. Kelley, Milligan, and Meneilly could also qualify.

A salute, then, to George Anderson Long. When he took the presidency, he wanted to train scholars for the church. I think he did. His own “total recall” mind will delight in making some changes in this faculty of his boys. I wonder if he recognizes that the average age probably hits somewhere between thirty-five and forty. That should make for considerable excitement.

The race problem in the United States, which promises little let-up in the months and years to come, may ultimately cause some major ecclesiastical realignments. It is already registering a serious impact, with a seemingly growing number of local church disputes attributable in some measure to differences over the Negro’s role in society. This spring saw several such disputes erupt into open dissention.

In the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, a United Church of Christ pastor said he was forced to resign his pulpit because he had “dared to welcome into the membership of the church a Negro family.” The Rev. Milton D. Jones, pastor of the 275-member Immanuel Church since 1954, announced that he will resign, effective July 15, and will go to an integrated church in Cincinnati.

Some officials of the United Church of Christ, however, apparently sought to dispute the pastor’s argument. Dr. S. Garry Oniki, executive coordinator of the United Church’s Committee for Racial Justice Now, said in a statement: “We have found that the Shaker Heights church has an open membership policy for all persons regardless of race or nationality. We do not find that any member of this church has raised the issue of race with regard to church membership or church attendance.”

In Savannah, Georgia, the congregation of St. John’s Episcopal Church voted, 700 to 45, to withdraw from the Protestant Episcopal Church rather than admit Negroes to its regular worship services. Balloting was held at a meeting during which the Rev. Ernest Risley, rector, said he was renouncing the ministry.

The church vote was taken as a rejection of the Episcopal Church canon forbidding racial discrimination, but Mr. Risley, a clergyman for thirty-seven years, went a step further. In a letter to Bishop Albert Rhett Stuart of South Georgia, the rector said he could not remain loyal to the church when it “permits to go unchallenged doctrinal teaching denying the Virgin Birth and the Trinity.” His letter also said the church was “embarking upon new canonical requirements which I sincerely believe cannot lead to anything but heartbreak and sorrow.” Risley had said previously that he would resign the Episcopal ministry rather than admit Negroes to regular worship services.

In Texas, Dr. K. Owen White resigned as pastor of the 3,600-member First Baptist Church of Houston to take an executive post with the Southern Baptist General Convention of California. Just prior to the announcement of his resignation, the congregation voted 206 to 182 not to accept Negro members. White, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he was disappointed in the outcome of the vote but insisted that it was not a factor in his leaving.

The Methodist Judicial Council, meanwhile, postponed a hearing on the question whether the General Conference or jurisdictional conferences have ultimate authority in regional desegregation procedure. The Judicial Council, which is the supreme court of Methodism, ruled for the postponement on a request by jurisdictional representatives, who acted in turn on a request from the Council of Bishops.

Voting is now under way on a resolution which if adopted will pave the way for transfer of Methodist annual conferences in five southwestern states from the racially constituted Central Jurisdiction to the geographical South Central Jurisdiction. Ballots are being cast by ministers and lay members of all annual conferences in the two jurisdictions. A two-thirds majority of total votes cast in each jurisdiction will be required for passage.

In Philadelphia, meanwhile, St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church changed its charter to allow Caucasians to hold voting membership in the congregation and to serve on its vestry. The vote at the church’s annual meeting was unanimous. The church, oldest Negro Episcopal Congregation in the nation, has since 1796 had the restriction excluding Caucasians from voting membership or vestry service.

Protestant Panorama

The American Lutheran Church will launch a program of general advertising in Sunday newspapers this fall. The ad messages, said a spokesman, “will focus on basic Christian truths, expressed in clear and colorful language without a distinctively denominational emphasis.”

The Assemblies of God are conducting a nationwide Christian literature drive to explain their doctrinal position on the work of the Holy Spirit. A special World’s Fair issue of the Assemblies’ weekly Pentecostal Evangel will be made available in quantity for community distribution.

Miscellany

The new government of Zambia invited the Africa Evangelical Fellowship to staff and to assume control of a high school for girls in the North-West Province. It is expected to open in 1966. By 1970 an enrollment of 400 is anticipated. Some eighteen missionary teachers will be needed.

Groundbreaking ceremonies were held May 16 for a $4,000,000 retirement center in Kansas City to be known as Temple Towers. The ten-story structure will adjoin the Temple Baptist Church and will be sponsored by the Temple Foundation of Kansas City. Dr. Rutherford L. Decker, pastor of the church, is president of the foundation.

Riverside Church of New York City won the George Foster Peabody Award for its four-year-old FM broadcasting station. The award is administered by the University of Georgia’s School of Journalism.

The school board in North Haledon, N. J., voted last month to drop a proposal that would have provided for ten minutes of “voluntary” daily prayers in the borough’s schools. Dr. Frederick M. Raubinger, State Commissioner of Education, said the plan was unconstitutional.

Moody Bible Institute filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission requesting an increase to 100,000 watts in the power of its station WMBI-FM in Chicago. The power increase would make the station, which presently operates on 20,000 watts, one of the most powerful FM stations in the Midwest.

Christian Education

Azusa College and Los Angeles Pacific College, both of which have an Arminian-Wesleyan orientation, will be merged. The new school will open on the present Azusa College campus (in the eastern part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area) in September. It will be known as Azusa Pacific College. Six Arminian-Wesleyan denominations will cooperate in supporting the school.

A $19,000,000 program involving the virtual rebuilding of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond was unveiled last month. First construction is scheduled to get under way next summer.

More than 500 students assembled in Frankfurt, Germany, for a missionary convention organized by groups related to the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. The convention opened in a historic building which housed a Dominican monastery in pre-Reformation days.

Personalia

William P. Thompson, lawyer from Wichita, Kansas, was elected moderator of the United Presbyterian General Assembly.

Dr. Roy Pearson was elevated from dean to president of Andover-New ton Theological Seminary. He will succeed Dr. Herbert Gezork, who is retiring, on September 1. Andover-Newton is related to the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Convention. Pearson is a UCC minister.

Dr. Raymond L. Strong, a United Presbyterian, was named president of the ecumenically oriented Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico. Strong served for seven years as a professor of New Testament at a Protestant seminary in Cuba.

Dr. William S. Litterick, president of Keuka College, is resigning to become president of the Educational Records Bureau. Keuka, a four-year liberal arts college for women, is affiliated with American Baptists.

Dr. Jesse Jai McNeil will leave the faculty of California Baptist Theological Seminary to become head of the Department of Christian Education at Bishop College in Dallas.

Dr. V. Raymond Edman, chancellor of Wheaton College, was elected editor of the Alliance Witness, official journal of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

B. E. Junkins reflects on his departure from, and subsequent return to, the ministry (see opposite page). David L. McKenna (page 5) shows how our changing world demands innovations in the presentation of the Gospel. N. Gene Carlson (page 9) pleads for expository preaching and shows its superiority. The weakness of the American pulpit is analyzed in an editorial (page 24).

Internal Revenue Service officials have a low opinion of unexplained charity deductions on income tax returns.

Just how low became apparent last month when the New York district tax commissioner, Harold All, disclosed that his office is using a guideline of $78 for unsubstantiated charity donations, $52 of which is allowed for church donations.

The New York Times reported that one “high corporate official” emerged “ashen-faced” from his interview with the IRS, during which his unsubstantiated $4,500 charity deduction was cut to $78.

Mr. All was also quoted as indicating that a taxpayer who could not get a statement from his pastor vouching for regular church attendance might not be allowed even the $52 deduction.

Reaction to the recently announced policy was mixed. “What an evaluation of God and compassion,” wrote one angry citizen. “I don’t think an agency of my government has any business, even by inference, telling the American people what a ‘guideline’ contribution to church and charity is.”

The “off-the-cuff reaction” of Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, pastor of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C., was that “personal experience and the experience of others indicate that the amount allowed is far too low.”

“I’m sure I’d take several hundred dollars on that,” he said.

A letter writer to the Times said. “It appears that the Internal Revenue Service—or at least the North Atlantic area—is trying to discourage any form of contribution other than by check.”

On the other hand, reported the Times, the guideline “may be welcomed by many taxpayers who have listened in silent vexation to tales of major unsubstantiated charity deductions by others.”

(Deductions may be substantiated by receipts, canceled checks, and “other records” such as appraisals on donated property and recorded envelope contributions.)

It was also reported that several ministers who spoke up after the announcement said they believed the $52 limit to be fair.¹IRS officials indicated that most contributions of people who give systematically would be deductible anyway, since charitable organizations make it “the usual practice to issue receipts for donations.… In short, substantial contributions in cash for which no receipt is given are the exception rather than the rule.”

Out of the controversy emerged these facts, confirmed in a telephone interview with IRS headquarters in Washington:

—The “new” policy is not really new; it was initiated without publicity last year in the New York tax district.

—The guideline applies only if the return is examined.

—It applies only to certain areas (the IRS reported that it does not have records on which areas these are; each district office is given latitude to develop policies that fit its locality).

—Generally the ceiling on charity deductions—30 per cent of the taxpayer’s income, no matter how much proof he has—still applies.

After ten days of varying press reports, the IRS issued a guide to the guideline that said in part: “What the [New York] guideline actually means … is that when a return is audited and the taxpayer cannot furnish documentary support of his claimed deduction for contributions, the auditor is authorized to allow a deduction for contributions up to $78 on a joint return of husband and wife provided that the taxpayer’s oral statements are credible. This is neither an automatic allowance nor a rigid limit. If, in the auditor’s judgement, the taxpayer’s oral statement does not support a deduction of $78, a lesser amount will be recommended. If, on the other hand, the auditor concludes that more than $78 should be allowed, a larger deduction can be recommended for approval.”

An IRS spokesman indicated that cash giving by vacation visitors would not present churches with additional bookkeeping burdens under the recently disclosed guidelines. He also expressed a vote of confidence that may or may not warm the heart of churchgoers everywhere.

“We believe that most taxpayers are basically honest,” said the spokesman, “and if he has been in the habit of giving regularly so much to his church back home, we would not burden him, the pastor of the host church or its board of trustees with this kind of record keeping.”

Time, Labor, And Old Clothes

When a Roman Catholic church in Ontario burned down some time ago, parishioners sought to restore the loss by helping to rebuild the church and running bingo games. The church gave them receipts for their services, and the parishioners used them to make deductions on their income tax returns.

The Canadian Revenue Department at first rejected the receipts. It cited a 1962 ruling that outlaws as deductions the following categories of donations: Those going to charitable organizations outside Canada and to individuals; those listing value of services rendered; value of merchandise where its costs have been charged as a business expense; old clothes, furniture, etc.; amounts paid at card parties, bingo games, and lotteries, even if they are held for a church or charity.

Later, however, the Revenue Minister, E. J. Benson, reportedly told the Member of Parliament who represents the area where the parishioners live that the department would accept the receipts. The amounts involved were small, and the department ultimately did accept them.

Evidently someone in the church acted to meet the department halfway, for a revenue investigator was reportedly assured that such receipts would never again be issued by the church for donations of time and labor.

The department said that it is determined to stick to its 1962 ruling.

A U. S. Internal Revenue spokesman said that United States laws are similar to the Canadian riding. But the IRS will accept deductions for property donations to charity, including old clothes, “to the extent of their fair market value,” he said.

Is Anybody Listening?

Are resolutions of church assemblies influential in Congress?

Marie H. Walling of the Register-Leader of the Unitarian Universalist Association went to Washington to seek the answer.

Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey, and Congressman Thomas C. Curtis, a Republican from Missouri, stated flatly that resolutions of religious groups have little effect on them.

“Unless they can come up with some new argument I haven’t heard,” Curtis was quoted as saying, “I think I am probably better informed than the populace on most issues, and therefore better able to make a judgment.”

Miss Walling observed that “it would appear from similar opinions of other Congressmen that general resolutions are not tremendously effective in influencing the thinking of United States legislators.” She added, however, that they are “definitely” effective in other ways.

Williams told Miss Walling that “resolutions from ‘on high’ don’t mean much to legislators. They may not be truly reflective of what people are thinking, but only the position of the organization.”

However, when a resolution supports the Senator, it may mean a lot. “If I can roll out the support of church groups for my position,” added Williams, “both in committee and on the floor of the Senate, I find it the sharpest arrow in my quiver.”

From Dallas To Washington

President Johnson named a prominent Southern Baptist clergyman to the five-member Equal Opportunity Commission created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Dr. Luther Holcomb, executive director of the Greater Dallas Council of Churches, has been chairman of the Texas Advisory Council to the U. S. Civil Rights Commission for the last three years. Holcomb, 53, is a native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He prepared for the ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville.

The new commission will supervise administration of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which makes it an unlawful practice for any employer, employment agency, or labor union to engage in discriminatory practices because of race, religion, or national origin.

The commission, to be headed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., will investigate complaints and “attempt by conference, conciliation, and persuasion to eliminate any unlawful practices and, where voluntary compliance is unobtainable, to certify the fact to the Attorney General for institution of legal action.”

Turkey And The Patriarchate

As Roman Catholics claim that Peter established the bishopric of Rome, the Greek Orthodox take his brother Andrew as founder of their church. Colorful as has been the history of the latter, it has never been long free of trials. Even today trouble dogs its representative in Istanbul, where ever since 1453 the patriarchate has existed under the aegis of a government that is not Christian and does not regard with any friendly eye a system that allegedly combines Christian tenets with Greek nationalism.

Until 1922, when the Greek armies were defeated at Smyrna, the Ecumenical Patriarchate had under its jurisdiction at least three million Greeks scattered throughout Asia Minor and Thrace (i.e., Turkey in Europe). When the Greeks finally left Asia Minor, however, the number decreased sharply to 250,000, confined to Istanbul and two Aegean islands. The drain continued through successive decades, and by this year only 35,000 of them remained.

Engaged chiefly in commercial pursuits, these Greeks were rarely discriminated against until 1954. When the Cyprus trouble flared up, they were regarded somehow as guilty by association. The illogic in the Turkish lumping together of all Greeks is seen in a traditional distinction made by the Turks themselves. They call Greece Yunanistan, and the Greeks in Greece Yunan (from Ionian), but Greeks in Istanbul, Cyprus, or elsewhere they designate Rum—i.e., descendants of the Roman Empire that was smashed in 1453. This is a significant point, for the Turks thus look upon the patriarchate as linked with a long-vanquished foe.

During the first Cyprus crisis, violent retaliation on September 6, 1955, against the Greeks in Istanbul and other Turkish cities caused to Greek property an amount of damage probably equivalent to the total wealth of Cyprus. Thousands of Greeks left Turkey after this. International arbitration brought some years of peace until the notorious Greek atrocities against Turkish Cypriot women and children in a Nicosia suburb at Christmas, 1963.

Thereafter in Turkey the authorities expelled a substantial number of Greek residents, some at forty-eight hours’ notice. Similar treatment was meted out to two bishops of the Holy Synod who, unlike the other deportees, had Turkish citizenship. This was taken away. Greece would not accept these two, who are now in the United States. All this was done supposedly for reasons of security, and the Turks denied that events in Cyprus had influenced them. Thousands of Turkish-citizen Greeks were meanwhile leaving the country voluntarily for Greece. The Turks showed no change of heart when the patriarchate as a gesture made some donations toward a fund for Turkish Cypriot refugees made homeless by Greek action in Cyprus. (CHRISTIANITY TODAYS reporter last month visited a refugee camp there in which nearly 3,000 people are crowded together, most of them in tents supplied by the British Army.)

The Plaza Report on Cyprus this year sorely disappointed the Turks, and they rejected the Ecuadorian diplomat as U. N. mediator. Thereafter the situation rapidly deteriorated. The Turkish press began to insinuate that the Istanbul patriarchate was an agency of Greek nationalism rather than a religious center, and called for official re-evaluation of its position. Despite initial protests, the Patriarch Athenagoras permitted and even actively helped government officials to examine his books. Their findings have not yet been made known.

While the Turkish authorities still tend to deny it, the Turkish press leaves readers in no doubt that the destiny of the patriarchate and the remaining Greek element in Turkey is closely bound up with developments in Cyprus, where some 26,000 Turks are said to have been dislodged from their homes. The Istanbul daily Aksam of April 19 introduced a new note when in a front-page editorial it suggested that the patriarchate was supported with American dollars and serves the Orthodox in the United States rather than those of Greece. It predicted that expulsion of the patriarchate would mean the withdrawal of American aid to Turkey and, moreover, that “a dreadful propaganda against us will start in the Western world.” The whole thing, it continued would be worked up as a Christian-Muslim issue. That point was taken up also by the Turkish Prime Minister, Suat Urgüplü, who said that the days of the Crusades were long past, and that to bring up old religious conflicts now that Europe and the world were trying their best to unite rather than divide was a grievous error.

Included in the patriarchate’s jurisdiction are four bishoprics within Turkey, fifty-two schools in Istanbul, and the Greek Orthodox theological college on the island of Chalki.

J. D. DOUGLAS

The Cuenco Bill

A church-state controversy is lending drama to the quadricentennial of the “Christianization of the Philippines.”

The Philippine House of Representatives approved overwhelmingly a bill that would authorize religious instruction in the public schools. A Senate committee then began discussing the constitutionality of the measure.

Among those who voted for the bill in the House were the three Muslim representatives; the others were Roman Catholics. The only two Protestant members of the House voted against it.

Proponents argue that religious instruction would be an effective way to tackle “the alarming problem of criminality and juvenile delinquency” in the Philippines. The sponsor of the bill, Representative Miguel Cuenco, said that the teaching of religion to “school children in their formative … years should be strengthened.”

Critics of the bill say it would tend to undermine the Constitutional provision for separation of church and state. The opposition includes the Religious Liberty Association of the Philippines, composed of local and national civic leaders who have pledged to defend the country’s religious liberty above their individual religious sympathies.

The principal argument of this group is a clause in the Constitution reading:

“No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use of any sect, church, denomination, sectarian institution, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary as such, except when such priest, preacher, minister, or dignitary is assigned to the armed forces or to any penal institution, orphanage, or leprosarium.”

Below the constitutional level, the rules and directives seem to conflict. A section of the “Revised Administrative Code” enjoins public school teachers from teaching religion or conducting religious exercises. But in 1955, after the death of former president Manuel L. Quezon, who was a defender of church-state separation, a “Department Order” was issued making religious instruction part of the school curriculum in public schools. Some critics of the present bill view it as a move to buttress the Department Order, issued after systematic prodding by the Catholic hierarchy.

In the Senate hearings, Dr. Enrique Sobrepeña, executive secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, eloquently described the advantage the bill would give to the religion whose leaders could recruit the largest number of public school teachers. Catholics totaled 83.8 of the total population in the 1960 census.

The Cucnco bill provides that “public school teachers may voluntarily teach religion upon being designated in writing as a teacher of religion by priest or minister in the school building …, and the teaching hours of religion of such public school teachers shall not be deducted from their normal regular teaching load. However, no pupil shall be required by a public school teacher to attend and receive the religious instruction herein permitted.”

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines, composed of the Aglipayan Church and seven Protestant denominations, opposes the measure, saying that it violates the spirit of the ecumenical movement launched by the late Pope John XXIII.

The fate of the measure may depend on whether it is acted upon now or held over until next year. If the Senate does anything with the bill this year, it will probably pass it, according to CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S Philippines correspondent, Eustaquio Ramientos, who says: “It is doubtful whether there is a single Catholic senator in the Philippines who is willing to risk his political future by opposing the stand of the Catholic hierarchy on the religious instruction bill, this year being an election year.…” On the other hand, “shelving the bill until next year would at least give the oppositionists … more time to entrench.… There is not much expectation among evangelicals in the country that the President of the Philippines would veto the measure, he being a protege of the Philippines’ Cardinal Rufino Santos.”

Evangelicals in the Philippines are also aroused by the news that the country’s top Catholic journalists, in collaboration with leading Catholic churchmen, plan to start a national Catholic daily newspaper. The Philippine press is now regarded as one of the freest in the world; the metropolitan newspapers have given full coverage of the opposition to the religious instruction bill. However, as would be expected in a predominantly Catholic country, Catholic press representation and patronage is considerable.

The following sermon was preached by the Rev. Richard K. Kennedy at the East Union United Presbyterian Church of Cheswick, Pennsylvania.

Its structure is in the basic homiletical pattern, in that the introduction leads naturally to the proposition, and the body of the sermon is an elaboration of the two biblical guidelines indicated in the proposition. The strength of the sermon lies in its biblical soundness as well as its timeliness in the present era of moral decline and ambiguity.—Charles W. Koller

Text: “So glorify God in your body.”

—1 Corinthians 6:20

A recent article in a news magazine of wide circulation stated that “there is an illusion abroad in the land that sex is the most important thing in life and that life can be built on sex alone.” Some wag has said the same thing in another way: “Sex is not the only important thing in the world, but it’s way ahead of whatever is in second place.”

These are just two ways of expressing the fact that a very important part of life has to do with the relations between the sexes and with all the implications and complications of the sex drive itself. It is, of course, a delicate subject, and we have to measure our words when talking about it publicly. Yet it is a necessary subject, and the Church does no service to its people by maintaining a silence about it. Certainly the Bible has much to say about it. It gives direct commandments about our attitude toward sex and tells about people who became, as we say, “involved.”

In the sixth chapter of First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul was writing to a church that had caused him all kinds of concern. A part of that concern had to do with the sexual immorality of some of its people. In order to set their thinking straight, Paul wrote to them about the proper attitude toward the relations between the sexes. Certain guidelines given here and in other places in the Bible make it possible for us to understand what our attitude should be and what actions should grow out of our attitude. We find, here and in other places, a Christian view of sex.

I

The first thing that we see in the Bible about this fact of life is that it is a gift of God. Almost at the very beginning of the Bible, we find it written that “God created man in his own image … male and female created he them.” And, just a little later, that thought of God appears: “It is not good that man should live alone.” God could have chosen any way to create us. He could have made us simply some higher form of the amoeba or paramecium, those cells that reproduce simply by dividing one cell into two. He could have created the world with a kind of continuing creation going on within it, with new human beings created every year by his divine power, and without even the existence of the reproductive system as we know it. But we were created as people of one sex or the other. And we were created with that drive in us which leads to the reproduction of the human race. The fact of sex is a gift of God.

Children get to the place—all too soon, most parents think—where they enjoy the company of children of the opposite sex. For a while, all girls are “creeps” to the boys, and the girls return the compliment by thinking, and by saying without hesitation, that all boys are “stupid.” Then boys and girls begin to mix in groups. The next step is individual dating. This is all a normal pattern for the development of the young people of our country.

In most other countries, courtship is carried on under the Watchful eye of the parents of both parties. Dating is regulated, or at least confined to those whom the parents consider to be of satisfactory standing in the community. But in the United States, young people are given freedom to roam and are able to have the family car frequently. The result is that they carry on their courting with very little supervision and often with very little direction from parents as to either behavior or the choice of persons.

Following courtship or a series of courtships, there is the engagement, and then marriage. And the position of the Church, which is the position of the Bible, is that all this is given to us to be enjoyed. No matter what the culture, no matter what the rules are about the mixing of the sexes and the courting of a wife, the Church takes the position that, within that framework, it is possible for the people involved to find the pleasure that God intends them to have.

The physical part of married life involves the giving of two people to each other. It involves surrender, and it brings two people close together emotionally and spiritually. It is significant that children come into this world as the result of an act of love. And a part of the enjoyment of all that is involved in the physical relationship between man and wife is the knowledge that this is the act by which children are created. So sex is to be enjoyed within marriage simply for itself, for the deepening relationship between husband and wife, and for the creation of children. It is a God-given fact of life, a God-given part of life, and it has been given to us in order to make life more full. Through its expression, we may “glorify God in the body.” And to glorify God is to enjoy life.

II

But the second thing we see in the Christian attitude toward sex is that it is to be controlled. As with everything else that is worthwhile, discipline is necessary to fulfillment. A national magazine is the authority for the statement that “the vast majority of men and at least half the women” now have before marriage the physical relations that are supposed to be reserved for marriage. Some standards have slipped so low that now (and again the same magazine is the authority for this) many people consider a woman “pure” if her sexual experience before marriage has been confined to only her husband-to-be and one or two “steadies.” And no one knows how many people—even in our own neighborhood—are at this moment being unfaithful to their husbands or wives. It is obvious that we need to take a new look at the self-discipline on which happiness in this area is based.

The Church controls the expression of the sex drive partly through its insistence on monogamy, the marriage of one man to one woman “so long as they both shall live.” It has certain regulations about the remarriage of divorced persons, and the basis of those regulations is the protection of the institution of marriage. If the Church were to make it easy to be married again after a divorce, then it not only would be ignoring the clear teaching of the Bible but would also be cheapening marriage and treating it disrespectfully. By being strict about remarriage, the Church is saying that marriage is a solemn, sacred thing and that the physical aspects of it are to be respected.

The purity of our thoughts in this part of life is abused by the advertising in many of our magazines. In the issue following the one that dealt with the relaxing of our standards, the same magazine had at least half a dozen advertisements that used the very techniques about which the writers had been concerned the week before. Sex is used to sell everything from hair tonic to trips to Europe. And some magazines are apparently given over completely to this abuse of God’s gift to us of sex. Such magazines are found on many magazine racks, and it is perfectly obvious from their covers and their subtitles that they are playing on this same theme. So there are those who feed this urge and then wonder why pressures build up, pressures that are extremely hard to deal with and that leave them feeling nervous and upset, or else lead them to do things they would not want the world to know about. They tease themselves with certain jokes and certain movies and certain magazines and some of the feminine fashions, and then wonder why they cannot control themselves.

Not only that, but there are those who glamourize what has come to be known as “serial polygamy.” A movie star gets married and then married again and then again and again, and yet remains popular because of her beauty. There is even, I suppose, some delight among her fans in the thought that they are almost sharing her sin. It all seems so exciting. And those who find this kind of adultery in their favorite movie star exciting begin to wish for some excitement themselves. No matter how old they are, they begin to imagine themselves as glamour girls or glamour boys and become involved in shameful things. Glamourizing evil leads only to more evil.

Furthermore, we encourage our children to grow up too fast. They get put into situations in which they develop adult desires, and they have the ability to express these desires but do not have the maturity to control them. They start dating very young and start going steady very young. When a girl starts going steady with a boy, she feels that she should do more than hold his hand because he is, after all, her boyfriend. When that doesn’t last and there is another steady boyfriend, the new one is, of course, much more serious in her eyes, so she feels that she needs to express herself a little more freely than she did with the first one. So it goes through several boyfriends. Thus she may be deeply involved while she is still very young.

In spite of signs of outward rebellion at our discipline, our children really want to have some control. They are confused by the situations we often allow them to get into, and they want to know where they stand. There was a time when a girl let her boyfriend know that it was time for him to go when her father started dropping shoes on the floor upstairs or when he slammed a door or two. But do you know what has happened in our time? We now have all-night parties, and we need to recognize why they began. They began because parents said that, if they didn’t provide them, their children would stay out all night and they wouldn’t know where the children were. Well, who was making the rules and enforcing them, the parents or the children? The all-night party began as an admission of failure by parents to control their children. And this all fits into the pattern of our theme today, because self-discipline, which begins with enforced discipline by the parents, is necessary if young people are going to be able to control this problem.

There is a question that is related to all this and that needs to be answered: “What shall I tell my children, not just about the facts of life but about their relationship to other people of the opposite sex?” Very simply, this can be said to them: “Relax and enjoy life. Try not to let yourself become too involved with one person at least until you are settled in a job or are a junior or senior in college. Teen-age marriages fail much more often than those involving people in their twenties. So relax. Enjoy your youth.” This, too, can be said: “Sex is a wonderful thing, but don’t do the right thing at the wrong time. Save your best for marriage.” And this can be said: “Sex is not an end in itself. It is an expression of love, a full expression of full love. And you can fully express this kind of love for another person only within the framework of marriage.”

There are times when our sexual desires can be fully expressed, and that within the framework of God’s law. There are also times when those desires must be suppressed. We all need to admit that sex is a part of life; but if we have such desires and cannot rightly give expression to them, we can do what is called sublimating them. That is, we can take the power of this drive and use it in acceptable channels: nursing, teaching children, showing sympathy and concern to those who have special need. But, whatever we do, we are to deal with sex as followers of Jesus Christ, enjoying what God has given us by controlling it in his name and by his power.

The Apostle Paul speaks of glorifying God in our bodies. Sex is not the most important thing in life, nor can a life be built on it alone. But it is a fine, beautiful, wonderful thing. Yet it is that only when we use it as God intended. When, in this regard, we pattern ourselves after Christ, we shall find that abundance of life which Christ promises to those who follow him. Therefore, in the words of this morning’s text: “Glorify God in your body.”