READING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

The words of David B. Truman, dean of Columbia: “We are in danger of producing a generation that has spent more years than its predecessors in educational institutions but has not gained the kind of literacy that was once regarded as the mark of an educated man.”

Having read this I wondered why. At the same time I picked up a bibliography of readings put out by the National Education Association of Washington, D. C. There were fifty-two titles on the list as well as a note promising more of the same if you wanted it.

Listen to some of the titles. Experiments in Independent Reading, Guiding Children’s Reading through Experience, The Improvement of Reading, On and On in Reading, Growing into Reading, and the prize of them all, Readings on Reading. And so it goes for all fifty-two titles.

It has been one of my basic beliefs that the best teaching in the whole educational scheme is done by those wonderfully devoted women in the first and second grades. From my own experience and that of people I know, I surely have no complaints with what they get done year after year. What worries me is how any sober teacher of integrity can possibly “keep up” with a bibliography of fifty-two books on just the subject of reading. Furthermore, is reading really so tough? And furthermore, do you get the suspicion I do—that most of what is listed on a bibliography is there because too many people have to “publish or perish” or because there is nothing more impressive to a certain level of educated mind than a mimeographed bibliography? This sort of thing can push us eventually to a twentieth-century Tower of Babel.

As an old McGuffey Reader fan, I am more interested in content than in technique, in big ideas than in controlled vocabularies. And what I say goes also for too much stuff under the general heading of Christian education. Our much “learning” will make us mad.

SELMA

As one who has had frequent occasion in the past to be critical of your stand on social issues, I would like to thank you for the forthrightness of your editorial “Flood Tide in Selma” (Mar. 26 issue), and commend you for the vigor with which you spoke.

Certainly the events since the tragic march of March 7 have indicated that the Church is at long last irrevocably involved in the civil rights struggle, and we must all hope that this is one point where we can unambiguously make common cause together, regardless of what things may separate us elsewhere.

Professor of Religion

Stanford University

Stanford, Calif.

Only the ultimate in ecclesiastical arrogance would compel a minister to brazenly assume that he must leave the subways, Central Parks, blood-bathed streets, the Harlems, canceled basketball tournaments, narcotics, political corruption, obscenity by the barrels, racial gang wars, etc., etc., ad nauseam, and come to “wicked ole Alabama” and set our house in order.…

You have problems in the Northern cities, and our prayers, sympathy, and Christian understanding go out to you. We are not going to parade in your streets (how long would I as a white Southern minister last demonstrating in Detroit?), make mockery of the cause of Christ, arrogantly enter your communities and rudely set your efforts in reverse, and create a distorted image of your community.…

First Baptist Church

Andalusia, Ala.

Prayer is to be made in the quiet of one’s own closet, not for show in the streets.… Birmingham, Ala.

Most of these traveling troubleshooters have a record behind them of subversive activities in some front organization.…

Church of the Nazarene

Port St. Joe, Fla.

You have done an excellent job of canonizing James J. Reeb, the Selma victim. I suggest, however, that Mr. Reeb is not a martyred saint, but a murdered sinner.…

I suggest turning to the Book of Philemon and reading where Paul … sent a slave, who was deprived of his civil rights, back to his master.

Certainly no one would suggest that Paul endorsed slavery. Paul believed, just as James Reeb, that Onesimus stood on equal footing of equality before the Lord and his fellow man (by right if not in fact); he believed in civil rights. But he didn’t call his fellow preachers and march on the house of Philemon. He took the only legal recourse—he sent the slave home, not because he condoned slavery, but because he condemned lawlessness.

Mr. Reeb had been participating in and encouraging civil disobedience. His death is tragic, shameful, and sinful. But his actions were inexcusable in spite of this.…

County Line Church of Christ

Axton, Va.

Those who have protested voting irregularities in the South have yet to register their protest about voting irregularities in Chicago. Brutality in Alabama has stirred them to action, but there were no marches for the martyred missionaries of the Congo who were brutally attacked by Communist cannibals.… These lovers of mankind mourn when a meddling Unitarian is murdered, but have not one tear to shed when a policeman gives his life in the line of duty. These people will parade before news-reel cameras when some American in this country is deprived of his rights, but they will not protest, parade, nor petition the President for that uncounted number of Americans who have been deprived of all their rights because they are forcibly detained by Communist governments. Does not this consistent pattern of inconsistent demonstrating betray the demonstrators?

Ashburn Baptist

Chicago, Ill.

Though I do not always agree with your point of view I want to express to you my deep gratitude for your most perceptive and forthright editorial.… In this expression of Christian concern for the tragedy in Selma, Alabama, you have evinced the prophetic sensitivity which certainly ought to characterize Christians of all theological views. May I therefore indicate to you my gratitude for your forthrightness, indeed rightness, of this statement.

Department of Preaching and Worship

Saint Paul School of Theology

Kansas City, Mo.

We must remember that the Scriptures not only teach “brotherhood” for the Church, but we are also enjoined to “do good to all men,” which makes those who are supporting civil injustice, and white supremacy, to be actively against that which is right, and just.…

How can missionary work succeed, when those who claim to be the champions of fundamental Christianity are beaming their anti-Negro, anti-civil-rights programs to Africa and other parts of the world, in support of white supremacy against the less privileged races?

Berlin Bible Church

Narrowsburg, N.Y.

Re “The Clergy March on Alabama” (News, Mar. 26 issue): True, it would have been better if Alabama clergymen, or better still, lay churchmen, had taken up the cause of Alabama Negroes. The stark truth is that they remained silent along with “the host of evangelicals in America.”

Who was to break the silence? The local white power structure had already passed by on the other side of the street. They may have deplored the circumstances of Negroes, but, even more, they were afraid to break the social mores of the South and to suffer social crucifixion. In this day of mass communication the other side of the street is brought as close as our television screen. Men of compassion, clergy and laymen alike, responded to the Alabama tragedy as readily as the good Samaritan.

As for the fear of ecclesiastical examples being set on the side of civil disobedience, it seems that evangelical Protestants have short memories. The birth of Protestantism was cradled in civil disobedience; and so was the birth of America. At the time it happened it was said that man’s law was being broken for the sake of the higher law of God. Why are the so-called followers of One who so clearly led the way over and beyond social conformity afraid to break the unjust traditions of our nation?

Dir. of Adult Program

Central YMCA

Philadelphia, Pa.

Mr. James Reeb would still be alive today if he had been minding his business in Boston, helping the underprivileged people, instead of going in a “totalitarian atmosphere instructed by Martin Luther King.”

I lived in east Tennessee for several years, and I believe I can understand both sides of this issue a little better than if I had never lived there. “Taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots” is anti-freedom, anti-Christian, and anti-American.…

Educational Director

Taylor Street Church of Christ

Hobbs, N. M.

Could it be that “evangelicals in America who remained silent” about events in Selma remained silent because of embarrassment! Have we not been caught in the embarrassing position of sending our young people to colleges where segregation is taught (i.e., Bob Jones University, where Governor George Wallace was awarded an honorary doctor’s degree last year)? Perhaps we are silent because we use ministers in our conference circuits whose churches practice segregation. Perhaps it’s the beam in our own eye that keeps us silent.

If Dr. King uses “fantastic prooftexting,” great segments of evangelical Christianity practice segregation based on a misuse of Scripture. Ought we not to raise our voices and call this fantastic?…

Hartford, Conn.

Selma has very, very fine reserved people—Christian people who have behaved exceptionally well under these trying circumstances.

We have no hate for the Negro, and they are treated well.…

Huntsville, Ala.

When whites, especially Southern whites, decide that they are fully as good as the blacks, the entire problem will be better prepared for dissolution. In any 100-year period, when have the Caucasians come as far and as fast as the Negroes?

Bloomsburg, Pa.

There is much truth in “Selma: Parable of the Old South” (News, Mar. 12 issue). But there is one fact which the whole country knows, but which I have never seen hinted at in any publication, North or South.

It harks back to colonial days, and both North and South are implicated. Many white men—I fear a decided majority of them—exploited the Negro women to mix the races. Many Negroes in this country are blood-relations of the old Southern aristocracy; and as sons of their fathers, why shouldn’t they enjoy the standing, socially and nationally of their fathers?

Incidentally, I do not think it is pleasing to God for races to mix.… I am reminded here of Micah 7:6: “… the son dishonoreth the father.… A man’s enemies are the men of his own house.” Doubtless this applies to the Northern man as well as the man of the South.

A second fact: … The North, during Reconstruction days, in order to humiliate the South as much as possible, proceeded to put, or try to put, the Negroes above the defeated white man—which was a bit galling to the Southerners. By this the “Yankees” dropped the “seed” of hatred and rebellion, and the “harvest season” is now. It also prevented, or greatly delayed, a feeling of brotherhood between the North and the South.

High Point, N. C.

The Communists have been very discouraged about the smooth way the South has handled all their heckling. But, to get justifiable scenes and reports, they excite “outsiders” to add to the confusion and to make a killing so they can praise a martyr.…

Steelville, Mo.

The white clergy want things done “gradually”—what do they mean? Isn’t 100 years gradual enough? Any honest person will admit that the white race in the South will never move one inch except when forced to do so.…

Ann Arbor, Mich.

EMPTY TOMB AND EARLY CHURCH

Thank you for the fine discussion, “Faith, History, and the Resurrection” (Mar. 26 issue). I would simply like to question Professor Moreau’s last statement that “preoccupation with the facticity of … the resurrection … is quite foreign to the attitude of the early Church.”

In Matthew 28:6, the angel not only says, “He is not here; for he has risen, as he said,” but also, “Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.” Certainly the “Come see …” serves a verificational purpose as well as an apologetic. (I see no way to set these purposes in antithesis as Professor Moreau does.) Mark 16:6 also has this “see the place where they laid him.” What else is this but an appeal for them to believe that the resurrection of Jesus was a historical fact?

What is the point of Luke 24:11, “these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them,” but to set up the problem of verification? And, if we skip verse 12 as being textually insecure, what is the point of verses 36–43, the “see my hands and my feet” and “handle me and see” and the eating of physical food before them, except to verify to them the facticity of a bodily resurrection.…

Philadelphia, Pa.

Wonder how much the average layman would profit by such a discourse. It would seem that each one of the speakers tries his best to outdo the previous one in hairsplitting.…

Minneapolis, Minn.

I am particularly enjoying the current issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and your discussion on “Faith, History, and the Resurrection”.…

Park Avenue Methodist Church

Minneapolis, Minn.

WHEN REASONING IS FOOLISH

In reference to J. G. M.’s article, “Is the Bible the Word of God?” (Mar. 26 issue): The Authorized King James version of 1611 of the original Greek and Hebrew Holy Scriptures is perfect and without error—in other words, infallible.

The same Holy Ghost that inspired the eight writers of the Greek New Testament to protect them from error was also with the scribe who reproduced the original script (“autograph”) and the subsequent scribe who reproduced the reproduction until the invention of printing. The same Holy Ghost was with the authorized King James revisers who relied quite heavily on William Tyndale’s translation from the Greek into the English in 1525.

A man is inspired by God when he is being used by Him to fulfill one of His acts but usually erring much of the rest of the time when dealing in earthly matters. To reason any other way is foolish—and dangerous.

The Authorized King James is the only true English version of the Holy Scriptures. Covina, Calif.

TWIG BENDS, LIGHT DOESN’T

Allow me to point out a scientific error in Dr. Bell’s contribution for March 12.

The property of bending light to go around corners is properly called “fiber optics.” Actually the light is not bent. When light enters an elongated body of high refractive index such as the plastic, methyl methacrylate, known commercially as Lucite or Plexiglass, the light tends to be confined within the walls of the body in the same way as water is within a pipe. Thus, it is possible to view one end of a bundle of rods of this material and see an object placed in front of the opposite end of the bundle, even though the bundle might be tied in a knot as mentioned.

The laser has no relation to fiber optics. Ordinary light tends to diffuse in all directions, as ripples extend out from a stone dropped in a pond. By the use of lenses or mirrors, light can be directed in a more confined path. However the laser concentrates and intensifies light in much more intense manner so that the narrow beam possesses the high energy needed to weld detached retinas, bore holes in steel, etc. The ability of a magnifying glass to gather light to a point is commonplace. The laser gathers light also, but directs it into a beam rather than a spot.

Each of the two phenomena mentioned by Dr. Bell affords interesting object lessons in various areas of life, but if they are not kept in their proper places, they produce a confused impression.

Washington, D. C.

TO RESTORE THE CHURCHILLIAN

Perhaps I ought to be the first to point out that the quotation from Churchill in my recent letter (Mar. 12 issue) was garbled so as to begin: “We regret with scorn.…” That, it seems to me, is not at all Churchillian, and it weakens the whole statement. What he really said was “We reject.…”

The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer

Peekskill, N.Y.

A WAY THROUGH THE WOOD

Thank you for your magnificent series of articles on contemporary European theological trends.… I could not begin to tell you how this has provided for me (and, I am sure, for countless others) a “way through the wood,” and provided us with a completely new kind of enlightenment on the theological issues with which we are involved.…

Glasgow, Scotland

The articles on contemporary European theology [provide] an excellent historical survey.…

Baker Book House

Grand Rapids, Mich.

It is obvious that these theologians are drowning in their own verbiage and at the same time are dragging down with them many innocent victims, especially young seminarians.…

WEST LEBANON, N. Y.

Comment on the anarchy of present-day theological thought: Every man thought according to what seemed right in his own eyes (compare Judges 17:6).

Lookout Mountain, Tenn.

AND TODAY IT’S JAFFA

Dr. J. Lester Harnish [in] “Keep Those Windows Open” (Jan. 29 issue) stated that he attended church services in Haifa in a church that had been built in the … [traditional] spot where Simon the tanner had his house.… My Bible states that Simon the tanner lived in Joppa and that is where Peter had his vision.… Minnetonka, Minn.

FRIENDLY CORRECTION

We are interested in the article by Harold B. Kuhn about the Society of Friends appearing in your issue of February 26. We should like to call the attention of Harold Kuhn, and of your readers also, to two statements in that article which we believe are somewhat misleading. The first is that “General Conference Friends” have been absorbed “into groups of Friends formerly labeled ‘orthodox.’ ” This is not true. Friends belonging to Friends General Conference were not absorbed into the former “orthodox” group. What has happened is that within the last ten years in a number of sections of the country formerly divided groups of Friends have reunited as equals, but Friends General Conference has very far from disappeared. It is, in fact, now the central organization holding together at least 32,000 Friends in many parts of the United States.

The other statement that we question is the one saying that Quaker Life is the major publication of the Society of Friends. It is true that Quaker Life is the official publication of the Five Years Meeting of Friends and is an excellent magazine, but Friends Journal, sponsored by Friends General Conference, is, I believe, an equally influential organ of present-day Quakerism.…

Friends Journal

Editor

Philadelphia, Pa.

WEARY OF WAITING

Dr. Wayne Dehoney (Jan. 29 issue) is no doubt right in his judgment that “Southern Baptists have generally believed that the ultimate objective of the current ecumenical thrust is organic union.” Yet there are many Southern Baptists who know that this is not the case and who respect the National Council’s intent as stated in its constitution, that “the Council shall have no authority … to limit the autonomy of the churches cooperating with it.”

It is unfortunate that Dr. Dehoney failed to mention one of the main reasons why Southern Baptists have been wary of the ecumenical movement. We have been afraid to speak out on controversial issues, whereas the National Council has had the courage to relate Christianity to the controversial issues of the day. We have been intimidated against applying the implications of our faith to the racial revolution all around us. Yet it is far easier to oppose the ecumenical movement on theological grounds than to confess this failing.

I am confident that I speak for an increasing number of Southern Baptists who are weary of waiting for our denomination to join hands with the larger Christian community.

Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist

Chapel Hill, N.C.

DIMINISHING RETURNS

For many years I have heard vigorous discussion on both sides of the question, “Do pastors belong in politics?” Some of your readers concerned with finding an answer might find some food for thought in this story:

Last summer a local pastor was holding a successful revival in a rural section in the South. In fact, he finished up the first week by baptizing eighteen converts. But because the local election was a week away and he was seeking office, he cut the revival effort short and went out electioneering. When the election was over he had received only eight votes in the community where he had baptized eighteen less than a week before.

Bergenfield, N.J.

This issue announces the fifty-five-member Sponsoring Committee for the World Congress on Evangelism, CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S tenth-anniversary project scheduled for West Berlin October 26 to November 4, 1966. The committee includes influential evangelical leaders from twenty countries. CHRISTIANITY TODAY solicits the prayer of Christians everywhere that the congress will light the fuse for a spiritual explosion with worldwide impact. The complete list of Sponsoring Committee members begins on page 53.

Christianity is a world religion. The ecumenical movement as expressed in the World Council of Churches operates on a global basis. The Roman Catholic Church with its emerging ecumenism is likewise global and impinges on the WCC on all fronts. In addition to the religious movements of our day, other significant forces cannot be dismissed lightly—Russian and Chinese Communism, African nationalism, secularism, scientism, racial fomentation, and the specter of overpopulation.

All this tends to discourage any assessment of the fortunes of the faith in national and regional terms. Yet it is time to take the pulse of American Christianity, to evaluate its assets and liabilities. How is the faith faring in America? What discernible forces are at work in our midst and how will they help or hinder the churches?

The liabilities of American Christianity include the following:

1. An absence of authentic theological concern and interest in churches, colleges, and even seminaries that has impoverished the sources of great preaching. In too many American churches and schools, theology has been displaced by psychology and sociology.

2. The dearth of prayer in many churches except on a superficial basis (“the next moment for our missionaries”) and dwindling or dead midweek prayer meetings that are concerned with everything except prayer.

3. The unfortunate trend of extending the dogma of separation of church and state to the point where atheistic and secularistic philosophies replace Christian presuppositions.

4. The rejection of the Christian world-view in public education and the substitution of an evolutionary outlook that exalts naturalism.

5. The absence of great Bible preaching from the American pulpit and the neglect of sustained Bible study in the pews, leading to the substitution of sociological analyses for the message of spiritual regeneration and a compromise of the Christian claim in the churches themselves.

6. A growing disposition by the American populace to accept salacious literature and films without protest and to tolerate standards of conduct far below the biblical norms, and to do so with complacency or in the name of liberty and freedom.

7. The concern for the Madison Avenue “image” more than for fact which fosters the illusion that whatever is of interest to the news media is historically decisive, and that what men do is more important than what they are.

8. The slump and secularization of moral and ethical standards in the churches themselves as membership qualifications are lowered and church discipline is forgotten.

9. The failure of non-evangelical churches to preach the Gospel while they emphasize economics and social action, as well as the failure of the evangelical churches that emphasize the Gospel to apply its principles systematically to society.

Yet American Christianity is not without impressive assets that belie the claims of the Jeremiahs who say we live in the post-Christian era or that Christianity is ready for the mortician. Among these assets are:

1. A free press that gives sympathetic coverage to religion.

2. Separation of church and state—a principle which, regrettably, is being steadily eroded by sectarian pressures upon politicians for public funds.

3. The continuing popularity of church attendance as a desirable social and cultural practice as well as the example of a President whose inauguration was preceded by a service of divine worship.

4. An open religious situation conducive to voluntary personal commitment and public approval in contrast to totalitarian religious or atheistic situations.

5. The revival of mass evangelism associated especially with Billy Graham’s crusades and reflected in noteworthy campaigns of lesser-known revivalists.

6. The increasingly active participation of some laymen in the life and leadership of the churches, and their relatively high sense of missionary responsibility and stewardship.

7. The existence of accredited Christian educational institutions at all levels that perpetuate the biblical world-life view amid the secular climate of public education and of some private education.

8. The emergence of neighborhood Bible study “cells” held in homes and attended by unchurched adults. Often such groups are compensating for the neglect of serious Bible study in the churches; but in noteworthy instances they are sponsored by churches committed to a scriptural ministry.

If American Christianity is to move forward in power, it must have certain things. Among these are:

1. A recovery of the divine authority of the Bible in the churches generally instead of just among those in the evangelical tradition.

2. A new and powerful work of the Holy Spirit in and out of the Christian community that will produce true Christian unity, not motivated by a spirit of “togetherness” after the fashion of a “religious ‘U. N.’ ” but based upon common acceptance of the eternal verities.

3. A new understanding of how churches grow with the knowledge that church mergers in themselves neither guarantee spiritual and theological vigor nor necessarily lead to growth or an increase in baptisms.

4. A return to the primary task of the Church, which is making disciples of men for Jesus Christ, building them up in the faith until they have been conformed to Christ’s image, and then challenging them to deal with social and humanitarian problems in the spirit and in the name of Christ.

5. A renewed understanding of the biblical teaching that spiritual life consists, not in programs, buildings, and budgets, but in the devout service of Jesus Christ.

When these things come to pass, new life and vigor will come to the Church of Jesus Christ.

The Price Of Peace

The international press gave an overwhelmingly favorable report of the Second All-Christian Peace Assembly held in Prague last summer. Excerpts in support of this claim are given in the magazine published by the Christian Peace Conference, in a survey by the Rev. Karoly Toth of Budapest, a member of the editorial board. The evidence adduced appears impressive, testifying to the removal of prejudice and distrust and to the opening up of new vistas as old suspicions are seen to be groundless.

Those with suspicions yet undulled may notice some odd features about this survey, apart altogether from a certain selectivity and the absence of detailed criticism. In its first page, for example, there are quotations from what seems a representative group of press reports: two in English, one each in German, French, and Italian. All of them had grasped the great significance of the assembly and warmly commended it to their various readers; yet not one of the publications concerned is named on the official list of journals accredited at Prague. This curious fact might suggest that the writers of these reports, if they were in attendance at all, came in a less objective category than that of newsmen, and their assessment should be regarded accordingly. Many of the succeeding excerpts are similarly from non-journalistic participants; others say very little, but the source is listed as a thoroughly reputable Continental daily.

The bulletin concludes that from its analysis of press response the CPC has “found its place and service in the ecumenical life at the side of the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church.” It further claims that Dr. Martin Niemöller’s intervention in one assembly debate indicated “the actual temptation of anti-communistic preaching in the churches of the Federal Republic and other Western countries … and proved that the sermons in the socialistic countries were free from the temptation of anti-capitalism or anti-westernism.” The representative of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, present on that occasion, would strongly deny that it proved anything of the sort (see “Engineering Peace in Prague,” July 31, 1964).

One column of the bulletin purports to deal with four criticisms of the movement—none of which turns out to be of much importance. Even there, however, each alleged criticism is so rounded off that the (mild) wrath of men is somehow interpreted as praising the organizers. The one note that gives a passing nod to the real burning issue is slipped in unobtrusively: “Despite the fear of many people still that the movement of the Prague Christian Peace Conference serves too one-sidedly the political interests of the East,” a Swiss paper is quoted as saying, “the idea that forms its basis has created a stir all over the world today.” No one is likely to deny that the world is interested in peace.

The facility of utilizing other people’s words is seen also in another article in the bulletin, entitled “The British Broadcasting Corporation on the Second All-Christian Peace Assembly.” It gives the gist of a program organized by the Rev. Paul Oestreicher, BBC religious producer, who is also chairman of the CPC’s British committee. In this broadcast, President Johnson was quoted as having said in a speech last May: “We will continue to build bridges across the gulf which has divided us from Eastern Europe. They will be bridges of increased trade, of ideas, of visitors, and of humanitarian aid.” To which Oestreicher added: “It would be strange indeed if in this situation the Christian Church was not itself engaged in this work of bridge-building. The Prague Peace Conference can truthfully say that it was beginning to construct shaky footbridges when the politicians were still busy dynamiting existing ones.” Oestreicher has since left the BBC for a post with the British Council of Churches.

Why A New Confession?

In Saul Bellow’s Herzog he picks up a useful word from a psychiatrist: “Neuroses might be graded by the inability to tolerate ambiguous situations.” And the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. may be headed for some neurotic times. The old securities and the new confession, the middle-class virtues and the freedom marches, the big money all around and the new poverty frontier, the old moralities and the “new morality,” the pride in the democracy of presbytery structures and the anguished outcries about the Hierarchy and the Establishment, the subtleties of 475 Riverside and the sturdy simplicities of Nebraska—maybe the new confession at Columbus will depress the panic button, with things flying loose in all directions.

For reasons of state (the masses have to be handled carefully for their own good) the confession has been held back except for some discreet releases in Time and the New York Times, or in the official channels of Presbyterian Life, where it looks good. If the releases reflect the official position (Professor Dowey’s?), Presbyterian ministers have for years now been vowing loyalty to the Westminster Confession with tongue in cheek or crossed fingers. If this kind of loyalty is condoned in the old creed, why do the ministers need a new one? Just keep the old one. If it’s not binding anyway, what do we need a new one for? And if it isn’t representative or binding, why is it needed? Or perhaps we need a new creed every year to meet the new day, or every day to meet the existential situation? Meanwhile, it is known by one and all that in a so-called confessional church, confession is not now nearly so important as adjustment or cooperation or peacefulness. Use the official publications, but don’t be concerned about the theological content. For the peace and purity of the Church, stick to the peace.

Does the great “know how” in these matters mean that the new confession will be passed by 1967? Are the General Assembly and presbyteries as constituted wise enough or patient enough really to debate theological issues? How many informed laymen know what is at stake in Westminster vs. 1967, or how will they find out? The theologians will silence the laymen and the professors will silence the clergy. History will be made and the press releases will look good, and it will be said that the Church has made an epochal decision.

But as a member of Parliament once said of the British, “that a thing is an anomaly they consider no argument against it whatever.”

Christianity And Affluence

A “District News Letter” sent out by an Ohio district superintendent of The Methodist Church contains some statements that should not go unchallenged.

On “Christianity and Affluence,” a subject worthy of deep study in a society such as ours, the paper approves an ideological climate more suggestive of Moscow than of Sinai.

The moral outlook of Christianity, says the superintendent of the Youngstown District, “disapproves of material wealth—not just of vulgarity of ostentation or unequal distribution, but of the moral pursuit of wealth as such.” If this is not a repudiation of the profit motive per se, then Superintendent Norman M. Parr has not made himself clear.

We read: “Probably our greatest single need in the second half of the Twentieth Century is the faith with which to tackle the task of building an affluent society throughout the world. The traditional Christian outlook does not provide such a faith, but equally we find a growing recognition among non-Christians that we shall not find such a faith merely by abandoning Christianity in favor of humanism. Humanism by itself is incapable of popular moral appeal; the moral energy in the past has been negative, based on its opposition to the superstitions and inhumanities which used the name of religion.

“I am not alone in my belief that we need a new kind of Christianity—a Christianity which does not make the mistake of treating the Bible as a textbook for living.…”

This proposed “new kind of Christianity” would reduce the redemptive work of Christ to a change in the material balance of this age.

The author of this remarkable letter ends it with these words: “True Christianity is not imitation of Christ, but the furthering of His revolution.”

We wonder.

One More Day?

A communication from the Grand-dad’s Day Council, Incorporated, reminds us that the first Sunday after Labor Day has been officially designated as “National Grand-dad’s Day.” This new day has been the subject, the council says, of “proclamations by mayors and other important people”; it has been recognized by the World’s Fair “with Georgie Jessel as Master of Ceremonies” and marked by golf and bowling tournaments all over the country.

All this leaves one disenchanted. To add the public sentimentality of a “Grand-dad’s Day” to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, which are already tarnished by commercialization, is a doubtful contribution to the respect for elders Scripture enjoins. Think also of the added burden on the ministers of preparing an annual Grand-dad’s Day sermon—right after the Labor Day sermon at that. And why not go on to Grandma’s Day and Aunt’s and Uncle’s Days? No; instead of naming a day for Grand-dad, it would be better to reconsider the current American trend of consigning him and Grandma to the loveless care of strangers rather than giving them an honored place in the home.

After all, what is Sunday for? The day men are commanded to keep holy is the day for honoring the living God, of whom the psalmist said, “he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.”

Halting Red Aggression In Viet Nam

Speaking of the Roman patriot Cicero, Sulla, the Roman military dictator, said two thousand years ago: “There are soldiers who never bore a sword, and brave men who died in no battle.” Against a backdrop of international proposals that America pull out of Viet Nam and pressures by press and pulpit to negotiate in the face of Communist aggression, President Johnson has spoken to the American people as a brave soldier.

The President has placed the Viet Nam situation in proper perspective. Simply stated, the problem exists because North Viet Nam coveted control of South Viet Nam and viciously breached that country’s sovereignty by naked aggression. The United States is fighting to fulfill its pledged word of honor to defend South Viet Nam against such aggression. In this fulfillment, Mr. Johnson affirmed, “We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.” Behind these words lie three sound ideas: (1) South Viet Nam has the right of self-determination; (2) Communist aggression in Southeast Asia must be resisted; (3) world order must be strengthened. American policy does not yield one inch to those who want peace at any price, and who never seem to condemn Communist aggression or even understand the nature of its threat.

The United States has no ulterior motives, wants no territory, and is willing to help in the development and growth of Southeast Asia. But to Hanoi and Peking the message was loud and clear: There will be no withdrawal. No possibility exists of military successes for aggressors. Only the thinnest edge of American power has been unleashed.

The aggressors would be foolish indeed not to take a close look at the offer of unconditional discussion, although the Chinese, expectedly, rejected it at once. This offer was accompanied by the promise of a billion-dollar American investment in the economic development of the crowded Asian sector of the world. The President challenged Russia to join in this peaceful development by investing its own resources in plowshares rather than in swords. Russian response to this overture will test the sincerity of her professed “peaceful” aims in what may be a choice between the olive branch and the bomb. Moved by idealism, the President called for food to feed the hungry, taken from the overflowing American granaries, and looked to a time of peace when medicine and education would improve the lot of the hard-pressed millions. In support of this idea he quoted from the Scriptures. But his moving challenge to accept either life or death fell short of the biblical truth that God sets eternal life and eternal death before all men—and that the best things in life are assured only to those who choose eternal life.

The present situation is not without irony. Some say Mr. Johnson’s policy is the one represented by Barry Goldwater and repudiated by the electorate in the choice of Johnson over Goldwater. This is a gross oversimplification. It may indeed be true that Mr. Goldwater read the signs better than Mr. Johnson a year ago. What Goldwater feared has happened. But the President now discerns what he may not have seen then.

In a democracy, the right to dissent is ever present. Always there will be those who disagree with any policy formulated by the party in power. It may be hoped that Mr. Johnson will not yield to opponents of a sound policy in Viet Nam—those who neither sense nor see the true nature of our present dilemma, and whose hopes for withdrawal would precipitate another Munich. America is still the greatest bastion for freedom, and it holds the greatest military power in world history. This power must be used responsibly when principle, freedom, and truth are at stake.

Like A Russian Ballot

If it were not high tragedy, it would pass for high comedy. Under auspices of the tax-exempt Fellowship of Reconciliation (Clergymen’s Emergency Committee for Vietnam), Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, former president of the National Council of Churches, circulated a prepaid “ministerial opinion poll for the benefit of the White House.” Anybody seeking evidence of ecclesiastical objectivity would find little in its obviously weighted alternatives. Significantly, neither option gave any hint that Communist aggression is wrong, nor that America’s defense of self-determination by small nations should be commended. Rather, the clergy had this choice (“Just check one … then detach and mail”):

( ) I favor intensifying and extending the war in Vietnam.

( ) I would like the United States to initiate efforts now to negotiate peace in Vietnam.

If some anti-Communist organization had sponsored an equally prejudiced poll, loud ecclesiastical voices would have cried “foul.” Such an alternative might read:

( ) I favor conferring sanctity upon Communist staging areas and Communist aggression, and an immediately negotiated “Munich” in Vietnam.

( ) I approve containment of Communist aggression and self-determination for all nations threatened by aggressors.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation lost tax-exemption only to have it restored after some difficulty. Many clergymen who in this poll registered opposition to America’s military involvement in Viet Nam were the same ones who recently urged force, and lots of it, in Alabama.

With this issue, our series on the great Christian verities turns to James Orr, noted Scots theologian and apologist who was editor-in-chief of the “International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia.” This and subsequent essays are excerpted from his volume “The Faith of a Modern Christian.”—ED.

One thing which the late Prof. G. J. Romanes tells us specially impressed him in his return from unbelief to faith was that, in contrast with the words of other great teachers, even such as Plato, the words of Jesus do not become obsolete with lapse of time—do not grow old. He did not know of any part of Christ’s teaching which the subsequent growth of human knowledge has had to discount (Thoughts on Religion, p. 157). This is what must be true if Jesus is indeed the supreme and final revelation of the Father.

To set the teaching of Jesus in its right connection with his total revelation, it ought to be remembered, first, that, all-important as the teaching is, it is not the whole of the Revelation, or perhaps even the most fundamental part of it. Behind the word of Jesus stands ever the Person, and the whole impression of God which the Personality makes. To this everything about Christ—character, acts, works of mercy, equally with words—contributes. The miracles of Jesus, for example, are as rich in revelation as the parables. This is but to say that Jesus was more than teacher—more even than prophet. He did not come merely as the bearer of a verbal message from God to men, but was himself the embodied revelation—“the Word made flesh” (John 1:14). He did not simply utter truths, but was himself “the Truth” (John 14:6). His revelation was as unique as his Person and mission were unique. Hence he could say of himself, as none other could: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9; cf. 1:18). It is this conscious personal relation to God which gives his sayings the depth, meaning, and authority they possess.

A second consideration important to be borne in mind in this connection, though often forgotten, is that Christ’s words are not to be treated as isolated utterances, or taken out of their context in previous revelation. One thing never to be lost sight of is Christ’s relation to the Old Testament. These ancient Scriptures were, as already seen, the Word of God to Jesus. He constantly assumes their truth and the reality of the revelation embodied in them. He moved in the circle of its conceptions about God, man, the world, sin—everything.

There is, however, another side of Christ’s relation to the Old Testament in his teaching which must not less be taken into account. While Jesus in the fullest way attached himself to the Old Testament revelation, he yet, as Goal and Fulfiller of that revelation, placed himself in the most exalted relation to it (Matt. 5:17). He took up, as Son of Man, a lordly, discretionary attitude towards it, deepening, expanding its precepts, lifting it up to the level of his own higher dispensation. Instances are seen in his broadening and spiritualizing of the precepts of the law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5), in his teachings on the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8), on ceremonial purifications and distinctions of meats (Matt. 15:10–20; Mark 7:19, Revised Version), on divorce (Matt. 19:3–9). It follows that, in Christ’s teaching, even what is taken from the Old becomes transformed (cf. 1 John 2:7, 8).

Approaching the actual teaching in the light of these considerations, we are struck at once by the loftiness, the originality, the universality of Christ’s conceptions. Petty, local, national limitations fall altogether away; we are in presence of the abiding and eternal. No shallow, trivial utterance of his can be pointed to in any of the Gospels. Eschewing merely secular controversies (Luke 12:14), he deals with deep, enduring principles—with those master truths which furnish light and guidance to each succeeding age.

His ideals and standards on most things—e.g., on blessedness (the Beatitudes), on greatness (Matt. 18:1–4; 20:25–29), on wisdom (Luke 12:16–21), on wealth (Matt. 6:19–21; 19:23–26), on the chief good itself (Matt. 6:33)—are an all but complete inversion of the standards customarily accepted in the world. Whence this change? It arises simply from the new center of Christ’s teaching—the new standpoint which he occupies in looking at everything. His teaching is ruled, as Browning would put it, by the ideas of God and the soul. This leads to a transformation in the conception of values—of the relative values of the material and the spiritual, of the temporal and the eternal, of the goods of the body and the goods of the soul.

While Christ lays down principles which affect earthly and social conditions, it is already evident that the chief parts of his teaching relate to something higher. What that something is is summed up in the comprehensive expression “the Kingdom of God.” His Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom. The righteousness he expounds is the righteousness of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the summum bonum for man.—J. O.

The best-known verse in the Bible is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

If eternal life for mankind was God’s object for sending his Son into the world and faith the one condition of receiving it, why has the emphasis of the Church so largely shifted to other things?

We write with deep feeling because we believe people who need the message of eternal salvation are being denied that message in many places.

Basic to this shift in emphasis is open or tacit unbelief in the biblical teaching about unregenerate man’s lost condition and acceptance of theories more palatable to human pride.

The love of God must be preached as the motive for his gift, but the condition of man must also be preached to show his lost condition outside Christ. There is no general amnesty in the Cross; it is the basis of redemption to those who will believe. Salvation is not for sinners who ignore or reject God’s proffered forgiveness.

In many churches entirely too much is taken for granted. People are urged to “join the church” without ever being told they are sinners in need of a Saviour. Young people come up through the church school without ever being confronted with the claims of Christ other than as a challenge to go out and make the world a better place in which to live.

Lest some think these statements are too sweeping, we hasten to affirm that there are many churches that are preaching the sinner’s lost position outside Christ and the obvious necessity for repentance, faith in Christ, and holy living. But too often such preaching and teaching is found only in the newer and more evangelistic denominations that have risen up to challenge the older churches with the very message the older churches have abandoned in their concern with social engineering. This shift in emphasis in most major denominations may well determine where God’s blessing will rest in the years to come.

For generations the main thrust of Protestantism was the proclamation of salvation by the grace of God. Central to this was the Cross. There were differences over interpretation and emphasis on one particular doctrine or another, but there was never any quibbling about the sinfulness of man and his need of redemption—a doctrine pointed up by the Reformation and stressed by Luther and Calvin. Nor was there any major division about the reality of heaven and hell and the finality of man’s destiny once death had intervened. Theologians and churchmen were willing to accept at face value the clear statements of Scripture about these things.

Then, insidiously at first but more and more openly as dissenters became bolder, there was questioning of almost every doctrine of the Christian faith. Where the meaning of Scripture could not be contravened, the integrity or validity of the author was attacked. Often the excuse was only that the attackers did not like or believe what he had written.

The present shift in emphasis stems from a frank denial of Scripture and a new philosophy of man. The result is a completely altered message.

If man is essentially good, if he needs only example and coaxing to become truly good, that is one thing. If, on the other hand, he is a lost sinner, a sinner by inheritance, by choice, and by practice, then he needs a complete transformation, a new nature, a new heart—all of which is a part of the regenerating power of the Son of God. If man’s eternal destiny rests on his relation to the Christ of Calvary, as is so clearly taught in the Scriptures, then the most important thing the Church can do is to preach that Gospel in season and out.

The greatest tragedy in Christendom today is that so many within the sound of the Church have never heard of their own need and condition as sinners. Where is the urgency of the apostles and the early Church? Where is the personal confrontation demanded by preachers only a few score years ago? How often are men challenged about their lost condition and about the claims of Christ today?

We write with deep earnestness because we believe the present shift in emphasis is a betrayal of the trust imposed on the Church by the very nature of the Gospel and the condition of men.

Two days before writing this we were talking to a friend of many years’ standing. Four hours later he was dead of a heart attack. Godly parents had set his feet on the right path, godly and able preachers had taught and preached in his church, and he had made his personal surrender to Christ years ago and had become an active church member and officer.

But what about those who live within the sound of the pulpit, and even work within the program of the Church, who have never been confronted with the necessity of accepting Christ as Saviour from sin and Lord of life? What about those about whom too much has been taken for granted? We speak with feeling because we know so many people who have “joined the church” but who have never confessed their sins and turned to Christ for forgiveness and renewal.

The current idea that people are “educated into the kingdom” gives precedence to the head rather than the heart, to reason rather than the Holy Spirit, and often to salvation by works rather than salvation through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no question about the depth and height of the love of God for all the world. There can be no question but that our Lord clearly stated the lost (perishing) condition of those who live in this world. There can be no question but that he taught two destinies, “perishing” and “eternal life.” And there can be no doubt that Jesus taught that the shift from being lost to being redeemed rests solely on the faith of those who believe.

Why then do we play down man’s desperate need and the fullness of salvation to all who will believe?

The social concerns of the Church have their rightful place provided they are not given priority over the soul needs of those to whom the Church ministers.

The “one thing needful” has to do with eternal values, not earthly; with changed hearts, not changed environment; with the inside of the cup, not its outside; with Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, not with some man or organization.

There is no question but that the Gospel will be preached to all the world for a witness. There is no question but that God’s Kingdom will surely come. Nevertheless, whether the ecumenical church as we know it will be the instrument of this ultimate triumph will depend on its faithfulness to the message that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

Are men prepared for death through the Gospel you preach?

In his new book Between Heaven and Earth (Harper and Row, 1965), Helmut Thielicke, the Hamburg theologian who was imprisoned by the Nazis, answers questions from Americans as to whether the collapse of Germany in 1945 brought about a religious revival and whether this revival has continued. This is Thielicke’s comment:

“It is exceedingly difficult to say anything about a revival and the course it may have taken. After all, what really happens in people’s hearts and therefore what is spiritual or merely psychological emotion remains hidden from human eyes.

“This much is certain, however, and that is that after the collapse people in Germany went through a period of tremendous shock. When everything that had happened came out and countless people were suddenly and in very different ways led into a great silence (either into the troubled silence of the new situation under the occupation or the dreadful silence of the new concentration camps), the majority undoubtedly felt that a tremendous judgment had fallen upon us. Many people even spoke of the ‘blessing of the zero hour,’ the time when things have hit absolute bottom and God gives the chance of a new beginning in the midst of the ruins and the dead. I cannot here analyze the whole complex of feelings and existential experiences which filled us at that time, and yet I dare say that the general feeling was that of visitation and judgment.

“Externally this was apparent in the fact that the churches were crowded and that people literally cried out to the church for some word which would explain and point the way out of the situation. In this hour we also established the evangelical academies which sought on the basis of the gospel to point out roads to a new order and to a new self-understanding in the previously ideological country which had suddenly become a no man’s land. It appeared to be a precious and fruitful hour in our history. The soil of men’s hearts had been plowed and there was great readiness to repent. And there were times when I thought that now the hour of awakening might have come. Anybody who lived through these hours in the pulpit was moved by the way in which people listened.

“And yet this hour, this kairos, passed by; people ate and drank, married and were given in marriage—and everything remained as it had always been. Why was this so? We dare not answer this with speculations and psychologizing. We have no right to specify the exact reasons why the manifest grace of God was again withdrawn from us.

“And it seems to me to be clear in what direction we should look for these reasons, namely, in the direction of human guilt and human failure.

“I believe, for example, that the church at that time did not find the message for the hour. There were some very unpleasant ‘seizures of power’ and self-assertion on the part of the ‘old guard.’ Not infrequently services were rewarded with offices and occasionally someone who really had exceptional charismatic gifts was made an ecclesiastical bureaucrat, where he naturally failed. Instead of the preaching of repentance and salvation we had the proclamation of a collective guilt and a hysteria of self-accusation which was in need of psychological understanding rather than having any theological justification, and this led to a hardening of men’s hearts. Despite the times, from many pulpits we heard only very conventional, pallid sermons which did not reach men’s hearts and left them cold. We seemed to be denied a prophetic awakening.

“But from a totally different and altogether unexpected side there came something which in my judgment constituted an obstruction in the spiritual situation. When I speak here of the procedures of denazification as they were handled particularly by the Americans, I beg you to believe that today I can speak about this completely without anger. I have long since realized that a military government coming in from the outside simply could not understand certain things in an occupied country and that this was not changed by the fantastic amounts of printed information materials which the army carried with it. At that time (1947) I preached a sermon about and against these forms of denazification which was later published along with a polemical exchange of letters (Die Schuld der anderen, Göttingen: Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1948) and also reprinted in American papers. It was precisely the reaction of American Christians to this that so happily showed me how innately helpful, fair, and self-critical people are in this country.

“What was the matter with those forms of denazification?

“If I may express it in rather rough and simplified form, I will put it this way. The Americans at first regarded the entire German people—with only a few exceptions—as one band of more or less thoroughgoing Nazis. Figuratively speaking they had the whole German people fall in three deep and then ordered everybody who had had anything whatsoever to do with the Party to step to the left. They then added to this group a rather large number of other people. In Württemburg, for example, this included everybody who had a title that ended with ‘… rat,’ such as Studienräte, Regierungsräte, Veternärräte (schoolmasters, government counselors, veterinarians). It was thought that these people must have had a specially close connection with the system. Many thousands were sent into concentration camps. Since I had suffered some unpleasantness during the Third Reich, I was among the few men who were allowed by American permission to visit these camps and could speak to those who were interned in them. There I learned to know something about the inward and the outward state of affairs. Here I am concerned only with the inward attitude of people.

“The fact that very many were unjustly deprived of their positions and a good portion of them were imprisoned in itself led to a certain hardening of mind. Also contributing to this was perhaps the fact that many people had placed high hopes in liberation by the Americans, that they looked upon them as representatives of a Christian nation which would proceed in love and justice to show a nation of neopagans what true humanity is. In the face of such hopes any disillusionment would be sorely felt and would result in a loss of prestige for—a wrongly understood—Christianity.

“But far worse than this and something which really brought with it what we have called a spiritual obstruction was the following. Innumerable people—I believe the greater part of the German people—were therefore dismissed from their jobs and professions. (At that time one could see formerly wealthy businessmen and high officials performing the manual labor of cleaning up the streets and rubble heaps.) In order to get back their positions and a livelihood, they had to undergo a process of denazification which required a testimonial. These testimonials were called Persilscheine (Persil was a well-known soap company which advertised that its soap would produce dazzling white laundry). The consequence was that everybody who was affected sat down and wrote letters to every possible irreproachable non-Nazi begging him to testify that he had had only a formal relationship to the Party, that he had really gone out of his way to protect the Jews, that he had always been cursing Hitler, and that he had just missed by a hair being sent to a Gestapo prison or concentration camp. And because the non-Nazis had sympathy for the many who were now being unjustly punished, they quite willingly handed out these Persilscheine (hopefully not too many to those who were really guilty!). Then these people could read some heart-moving words about their innocence, their heroism, their secret martyrdom. And all along we were all guilty and should have been arrested (if not by men then certainly by God). Many people had ten, twenty, and more such testimonials. Never in their lives had they seen such a flattering picture of themselves, since this is the kind of thing you read only in death notices and memorial addresses. When a man read this stuff he was able to recover his self-conceit!

“Can you imagine what this method of denazification meant inwardly, ‘spiritually’? A people who seemed to be just at the point of grasping its guilt and should have been hearing the message of forgiveness were suddenly carried away by a gigantic stream of self-justification. It did not require the ‘blood of the Lamb’ to rise ‘white as snow’ from the water of reconciliation. No, the thing got washed automatically, gleaming white—with Persil!

“There are many books on the history of the church in postwar Germany. They tell of Kirchentagen and evangelical academies, of synods and addresses to the congregations. But hardly anywhere can one read anything about this ‘spiritual obstruction’ (at least I have not come across it). Therefore I wanted for once to give an account of how I must look at all this. I have quite simply told you a bit of postwar history as I myself experienced it, since you asked me whether there had been a ‘revival.’

“I say all this not in order to throw the blame on the Americans of that time. It is not my business here to draw up an account of guilt. I know what I did that was wrong. I too wrote Persilscheinen until my fingers were sore in order to save as many as possible whom I considered relatively harmless sinners. But should I not have enclosed a pastoral letter which would have said to the recipient: ‘We are all guilty and in need of the forgiveness which no appeal board can give us’? Should I not have written to him: ‘I seek to wash you clean before men, but what will happen to both of us when we stand before the Last Judgment and we are asked to give an account of the years past’? ‘It is our guilt that we are still living,’ said Karl Jaspers. This may sound a bit overpathetic, but there is something to it.

“We have all, each in his own way, contributed to that ‘spiritual obstruction.’ And yet there is no value in making merely general, wholesale confessions of sin. If the confession of guilt is to be taken seriously, it must be very specific and personal. The ultimate personal and specific distinctions will be made at the Last Judgment. My purpose has been, and could only be, merely to indicate what these distinctions mean here by illustrating from my own experience something of recognizable guilt. If God does not grant an awakening, then we can never simply say that he has denied us his grace. No, rather we must always confess that it is we ourselves who are blocking God’s way to us.

“In closing I can only thank you for having shown such fraternal interest in the fortune of my country. We have not forgotten that it was the Christians—and especially the American Christians—who stretched out their hands to us after the war and provided us and our children with food and clothing. All of us who went through those years will treasure in our hearts this act of helping love. During these last several hours which have evoked in me so many moving memories, I have felt a great gratitude that it has been possible to speak to Christians as I have here to you. Here there has been no need politely to retouch the picture or to beat about the bush. Nor does shame need to keep us from speaking. For we can take even the most painful things and set them down in the light of eternity in which we all stand together. We face one another not as strangers but as brothers. This is what I shall never forget about these hours.”—From Between Heaven and Earth, by Helmut Thielicke (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 177 ff. Used by permission of Harper and Row.

Your job is not to fatten geese but to train athletes!” This mandate passed on years ago to a group of Bible teachers is just as relevant to God’s prophets and teachers today. Cramming people with hosts of biblical facts divorced from the hortatory “therefore” cannot produce the victors in life’s race and the stalwart soldiers so desperately needed in the Christian warfare.

When Paul described the Christian’s armor (Eph. 6:10–17), he could not have meant by the sword of the Word of God merely a thorough knowledge of biblical facts, or even an intellectual mastery of systematized doctrines of the faith. Paul, highly educated Hebrew of the Hebrews who from earliest childhood had been thoroughly trained in the law and history of Israel, knew that facts of themselves could fatten but not fortify; and so his appeal was for the believer to take up and put on the whole armor of God, which included, besides the sword of the Word, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sandals of gospel-heralding, and the helmet of salvation.

God chose to reveal himself in a volume of history and doctrine that, by the very magnitude of its scope, inevitably stimulates many readers to attain an encyclopedic knowledge of its contents. But throughout this divine volume God has made it very clear that not facts in isolation but the life, the race, the warfare, as they are energized by the dynamic of the Gospel, are what men are to concern themselves with.

Words Made Alive

Paul’s writings clearly join fact and its application in vital relation. This is seen from the organization of his epistles, in which first the doctrines are asserted (e.g., Eph. 1–3) and then the commands are delivered (e.g., Eph. 4–6). In the 119th (“Word”) Psalm, the psalmist reveals a heart transformed and motivated by an active, put-to-practice Word (e.g., “I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me”—119:93). To Joshua, on the eve of Israel’s entry into the promised land, was given this formula for prosperity and success: (1) “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth”—head knowledge and oral witness; (2) “but thou shalt meditate therein day and night”—exercise of soul and spirit; (3) “that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein”—putting the words to life (Josh. 1:8). In the first decades of the Church many Hebrew Christians succumbed to the dread disease of spiritual lethargy and dullness of hearing because they had not trained their faculties to distinguish between good and evil (Heb. 5:11–14).

Harry Golden, in Only in America, decries those whom he calls the “knuckleheads” who have reduced scholarship to the level of knowing the population of Tokyo and the batting average of Babe Ruth. Albert Einstein’s genius lay not in any ability to memorize—his “forgetter” was a plague to him—but in his ability to construct conclusions from facts. Golden illustrates this characteristic of Einstein by his hobby of playing the violin. If one had asked Einstein where Vivaldi was born or how many children he had, the professor would simply have said, “Please, let me just play it for you on my violin.”

But in insisting upon our conviction that Bible teaching is not a process of fattening by mere fact-imparting, we must beware of two pitfalls. The first is that of minimizing the importance and denying the truth of the facts themselves, even to the point of maintaining that the source of their recording is immaterial. This is wrong. Consider an illustration. As inhabitants of the earth we may not be impressed when told that the earth’s axis is tilted at a twenty-three-degree angle. Yet this fact is vital to the very survival of mankind; were it otherwise, all the earth’s water would converge on the areas of the two poles, building up uninhabitable mountains of ice and dehydrating the rest of the earth’s surface. So with the contents of the Bible, including its myriads of facts, natural and supernatural; the veracity of the words is essential regardless of our knowledge or understanding of them. Furthermore, if our present Bible is not substantially pure, then God’s power to preserve it pure may be questioned; and if the original text was not infallible, then the act of God-breathing loses its supernatural creative character.

Pulpit Anemia

The second pitfall is anemic preaching and Bible teaching short on content of biblical fact. Such pulpit anemia reflects the weakness of the kind of seminary training that neglects Bible study per se. Apparently that was a shortcoming of some American seminaries even in the first decades of the century. In an article back in 1923, Robert W. Rogers said, “What is to be done in this crisis? Let me state it with a certain daring simplicity. The Bible needs a new emphasis in the theological seminary.… Who wants biblical preaching, let him see to it that the preachers of tomorrow are today filled, saturated, steeped in the Bible” (“After Thirty Years,” The Christian Advocate, September 27, 1923). While facts are not the end of preaching and teaching, facts are the framework and dynamic of the evangel. The redemption of a dry, bony sermon is not the deletion of the facts but, in Phillips Brooks’s words, the “clothing it with flesh.”

With a desire to make preaching relevant, many ministers expound their views about contemporary issues apart from a firm emphasis upon the Bible’s authoritative “Thus saith the Lord” and its historical “And it came to pass.” Samuel Zwemer with keen insight used to warn preachers against majoring in minors by this exhortation, “Throw away the scabbard; wield the sword!” The facts are not only relevant; they are basic. One cannot preach on the Easter faith of resurrection without grounding it in the Easter fact of Christ’s resurrected body. One cannot preach on future judgment and ignore the fact of hell.

Preaching or teaching that merely skims the surface of the biblical facts goes back to the preparatory stages of Bible study. In the preparation of sermons, whether topical or expository, the Bible must be more than just an aid, or illustration, or prooftext, occasionally used. It must be the source and authority of the message, its life and inspiration and power, and even the determinant of the mood in which the sermon is to be delivered. If the Bible is all this to the preacher in his study, it can be this for his hearer in the pew.

One method of Bible study that can help cure the anemia described above is the inductive method, which follows the sound scientific order of (1) observation: what does it say? (2) interpretation: what does it mean? (3) application: how is this to be applied?

The most prominent feature of inductive study is the first stage, which demands comprehensive first-hand observation of what the Bible says or implies and how it does this. Hours spent here are premium hours, because correct observation is basic to correct interpretation. Inductive study is essentially analytical; it involves studying a passage’s various parts (content) and their relations (form) and letting this study build upon itself to final conclusions. This method of Bible study also encourages independent thought, for in its initial stages outside aids are avoided in order to leave the door open to the inspiration of first-hand discover)’. Preachers and teachers intent on making the Scriptures live for others would do well in their preparation to go to the passage of the Bible to be expounded, to spend much time observing and letting the Bible speak for itself, to use pencil and paper in analysis, looking for “hook-and-eye” structural relations—all with the aim of deriving the passage’s meaning, implications, and practical applications. To live with the passage will lead to making it live for others.

Thus the facts of the Bible are foundational. Independent of men’s responses, God’s Word is forever “settled in heaven” (Ps. 119:89). That is the objective side of the coin. On the subjective side is the truth that what men do with the facts determines their personal destiny. Therefore Bible teaching, whether by way of pulpit, teacher’s desk, or writer’s pen, must aim deeper than the storage compartments of the mind. Dealing with souls whose daily life and eternal destiny are determined by heart decisions, it must storm the will and plead for the choice of redemptive options. This is what Paul had in mind in the succinct charge to Timothy, his understudy, “Preach [Greek kerusso] the Word!” Kerusso means to proclaim as a herald sent from a throne, and so Paul was telling Timothy that as God’s ambassador he was to claim a response from his hearers.

Training athletes is a challenging vocation. As the raw recruits for track stand on the field on the first day of training, the keen eye of the coach scans the squad for an initial appraisal. What could he hope for without the miracle of lung and heart, the secret source of endurance, the desire to win? He lays before his charges the goal each member must work for, the toil and faithfulness of training expected, the health habits demanded, the races to be won. The coach will always be around to help and direct; but come the race, the boys will be on their own.

How much more profitable Bible teaching would be if the goal were to train strong, steady Christian runners, helping them to learn to run the race of life on their own. He who teaches thus will be grateful first of all for the efficacy of the Cross, the miracle of the Resurrection, and the power of the Gospel. He will thank God for the raw material, his pupils with their minds and hearts able to choose and learn and grow, their vision of faith and desire to know and serve God, their perseverance to learn at any cost. From the Bible the teacher will impart the Gospel of grace, the challenge of the Christian’s race, the disciplines of spiritual training, the essential sacrifices of self, and the techniques of the race. In so teaching, the preacher will make it clear to his congregation that his sermon is not a parcel to be carried away at the benediction and stored until needed; rather, it is to be put to the test now and used throughout the week. In the classroom the teacher will aim to show his pupils how to study the Bible for themselves and how to clothe their lives with it. Preachers and teachers will offer help and guidance along the way. But when all is said, they must leave their charges with the challenge, “The race is yours! Run it by the Book. From start to finish keep your eye on Jesus. And at the finish line, he will be there.”

A while ago I went back to college with my daughter. Aside from some summer in-service training in the Theological Seminary at Princeton in buildings and under conditions which change little and which her graduates remember with nostalgia, I had not seen what goes on inside present-day higher education.

“Hey, Daddy-o,” said the red-headed light of my life, “how about going to biology with me?”

So promptly at the scheduled hour—although in a large university no one cares whether you come or sleep in—I was seated beside her in an amphitheater that she casually told me could hold between seven and eight hundred. As in most universities, it is full on the first day of each semester and then the intellectual death rate begins to take its toll. This day there were probably no more than six hundred, which is still larger than most congregations on Sunday morning. The bell, however, was still tolling for them. We sat at long tables that struck us in the chest at the proper height to compel us to stay awake and take notes.

The lecturer, a Ph.D. in biological science, was a woman who is rather a favorite of the students because she relates her material to everyday life. On this first day of classes after the Thanksgiving holiday, the lecture happened to be on the complicated process of digestion. The lecturer reminded the class of the yet undigested cold turkey within them and then plunged immediately into the task at hand, which, like the legendary question to the centipede—“How do you manage with all those legs?”—was calculated to make us so amazed with what was going on inside us that we wouldn’t be able to function properly.

The lecturer had a microphone about her neck; control of the lights in the room and the projector was at the tip of her toes; instead of a blackboard she had in front of her an illuminated writing pad that threw the important words on a screen behind her. But as I sat there, my memory took me back to biology as I had studied it some thirty years before, and I marveled not only at the technology that made the modern classroom itself such an amazing place but also at the amount of detail gathered by biology since I studied it. The list of enzymes in the pancreas alone would drive you mad.

As the lecturer talked rapidly on toward that deadline beyond which no professor dares go lest feet shuffle and books be dropped, two sentences appeared for me on the classroom wall, behind her writings, superimposed on a full-color drawing of the stomach and intestines. They were from Luke 12:55, 56:

And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?

The teacher was giving the most convincing testimony to the fact of and the power of and the intent of God I had ever heard. After describing the breakdown of the protein we eat into amino acids and mentioning five or six steps which she said were chemically unfathomable at points, she stated that the food comes to a chemical composition that is “the only composition which would enable the cells to absorb it.” And I wanted to stand up in the midst of a class dedicated to the proposition that evolution makes all things equal and shout that the hand of God was right there in their midst.

Again and again in tracing the biological process the lecturer would arrive at the mysterious end by which all things worked out for good for the turkey dinner and the class. And I thought that even if she could not have shown us a cross section of the soul, she could at least have written across her diagram of the liver, “the work of God.” For the liver, by means of the marvelous ATP, changes glucose into the “only” substance (glucose phosphate) into which it can be transformed and still be used by the body. And parenthetically, it struck me that there is a high degree of correlation between the abuse of the liver, the abuse of the human spirit, and the wages of sin.

But as I looked at the sleepy young faces I knew that they did not see the handwriting. Moreover, I realized that unless the prophet pointed with the eternal pointer to the sovereign God and wrote on the projected cellulose page, “In the beginning God,” they would not know. And it’s a fact, dear reader, that when the lecturer turned off the flow of scientific fact and shut off the lights, I looked at the clock on the back wall and it said five minutes to twelve.

The ministry of the early Church mirrored the mission of Jesus. The apostles were called and trained by him as he carried on his own ministry. Later on deacons were called by the Spirit and ordained by the apostles. Presbyters or elders were likewise called and ordained to serve in churches, the senior elder consecrated at first by the apostles to serve as the bishop or presiding elder of the congregation. Besides this, there were in the early Church prophets, teachers, healers, and unordained ministers called by God to his service.

While it is difficult to establish the earliest principles of Christian mission, it seems clear that the original outreach was to the Jews. Even in our Lord’s time this was extended to the Samaritans and others outside the Jewish community. Then through St. Paul and his co-laborers the Christian mission was broadened to include the Gentiles, and finally the whole world.

From earliest times the followers of “the Way” understood that baptism into Christ’s body meant participation in the mission of that body. All who became part of the body were expected to become workers by taking up some aspect of the ministry of our Lord.

It seems clear that there were few, if any, professional clergymen in the early years of the Church’s life. St. Paul himself was self-employed. As he said in his address to the Ephesian elders, “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus … It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:33–35).

It is difficult to establish clearly the social and economic characteristics of the group that formed the fellowship in these early years. But undoubtedly a great many of them were poor and from the working classes. On the other hand, Scripture and early church history tell us that converts to the “fellowship of the Way” and the “good news” of the Gospel came also from the educated classes and from those of high political and economic status. As the centuries passed, more such converts were made. The good news met personal and collective needs in an empire affected by the changes in the power structure of the Roman government and no longer secure in its old gods and religious observances. The old order was passing, and the Christian Church was gaining in temporal power.

Service Of The Self-Employed

In the early Church, preparing the members of the fellowship for mission seems to have been done largely through in-training methods. Both ordained and unordained ministries reflected the presence of many self-employed persons rather than professionals, as we know them today—a fact sometimes overlooked because communal living was an ingredient of the early fellowship at Jerusalem. Indeed, the rapid spread of the Gospel throughout the Roman empire, in spite of periods of persecution and other difficulties, shows that leadership composed of baptized members committed to the principles of Christ and his mission must have been largely self-employed. And in one way or another this pattern persisted for centuries.

It is interesting that one of the keys to the rapid growth of present-day cults and newer churches is that many of their ministers are self-employed. This is true, for example, of the Shepherd Movement in West Africa and the Congo, of Revival or Revival Zion in Jamaica and Trinidad, and of Pentecostal and Holiness churches. These and similar groups have a very small proportion of “professional” ministers; most are self-employed.

The followers of the way that came to be known as the Catholic Church, though initially resistant to their cultural milieu, were more and more affected by the cultures and sub-cultures of their time. New converts brought into the Christian family many values, beliefs, and concepts from pagan religion and other aspects of pagan culture; in fact, a process of syncretism introduced many principles quite different from our Lord’s own teachings and the experience and teaching of the early Church.

Many of the pagan religious structures centered around priests and priestesses who were often professional in the sense that they withdrew from the general work and life of the community, and Christian converts from paganism early affected the characteristics of the Christian ministry. In time the ministry became largely professional. The ministers of Christ were increasingly removed from the total stream of productive society, until all the working members of a church were in some kind of religious order. The process continued, and within the professional ministries of the Catholic Church there came to be a division between holy and more holy professionals, the holiest being known as the “religious.” The purest form of the “religious” were men and women in orders that required a contemplative life, completely withdrawn from society.

On the other hand, because of the increasing popularity of the Roman church and because of a similar trend in the Orthodox church toward professional ministries, the clergy became powerful political figures. For a long period in the Western world, church leaders dominated the political and economic structures of society. Popes, cardinals, and other clergy dictated to the sociological, educational, and scientific life of the times. The Church was in the world, and this made the Church extremely worldly. And the Church and its sense of mission were far removed from Jesus and the apostles and the group known as the “followers of the Way” in the first few centuries after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

From Love To Destruction

For the average baptized person, mission meant merely adhering to the rules and regulations of the ecclesiastical institution. Missionaries were professionals bringing with them what they believed to be Christian rules and the corporate life of the Church. At the same time, these missionaries were serving to promulgate the materialistic aspects of their cultures to such an extent that the total missionary movement seemed to be aimed at the actual destruction of other cultures. The love and other spiritual dynamics of the “followers of the Way” were changed by the dogma and institutional methods of the Church. Most of what had appealed to the people about Christ and his mission was muted. The Church was placed at the service of powerful economic and political leaders developing a colonial policy in an attempt to dominate the whole world.

The Reformation brought a new theological dimension through its recovery of the basic doctrine of justification by faith. Yet it did not essentially change the process by which Western culture was affecting the other cultures of the world.

Because the Church, as the body of Christ, no matter how segmented, is made up of individual human beings, and because the Bible and the sacraments contain within them the spiritual power of God, no age was without persons whose lives reflected Christ. Some of them, like Savonarola, were put to death for their efforts.

History makes clear that though men can be kept in bondage by the power of political, ecclesiastical, and cultural structures and institutions, the Spirit of God and his love, exhibited in the incarnation and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, can always break through and set men free.

One of the problems of our time, then, is how to recover in our Christian mission the power of the Word made flesh. If we cannot do this, the institutions now established as parts of the Christian Church will ultimately be destroyed in many parts of the world, either as useless and innocuous or as enemies of the people. If this happens, the body of Christ will doubtless become visible in quite new forms from anything we now know. Christ died and rose again, defying the natural order. He is the Alpha and Omega. He was at the beginning and will be at the end. The creative forces of God cannot be stopped. God speaks to all men. All men are made in his image and likeness. All men, therefore, can hear his Word and be redeemed, can be converted, and can become part of Christ’s body. If salvation could have come by law, there would have been no need for God to send his Son into the world. There would have been no need for his ministry and life among us, no need for his crucifixion and resurrection.

Consider now some practical questions. What kind of person chooses the ministry today and why? What kind of ministry is he trained for? How does present seminary education equip men for their task? Underlying all such questions there must be a clearer understanding of what the Church is or should be, who its ministers are, and how many types of ministries there should be. There must be consideration of the role of the professional minister and of whether or not this professional can change his role to that of a self-employed minister—and vice versa. Moreover, the task of the self-employed minister, whether ordained or unordained, and the training needed for men working in the latter kind of ministry need to be discussed, as well as where the minister should receive his training. And what should be the function of theological institutions, parish churches, and training centers in the whole educational process?

Within every Christian group we find differences of opinion on even so simple a question as whether the parish, as such, still has value. All denominations or communions would fall for lack of support if parishes were liquidated, unless completely new lines of support were established. Moreover, parishes, as such, are separate and almost completely independent entities; hence, no group of theoreticians can decide that they should be abolished, since by and large they are the units that make up the controlling government of the various communions.

What is apparent in the face of such differences in the minds of intelligent men planning the programs of our churches is the unmistakable fact that the basic parish units must at best be restructured, if they are to be effective in our day. Careful study of the past may reveal types of action units set in cultures quite different from our own that can be adapted for our use and made valuable assets for ministry in our world. Two merit special mention: cells and centers of action.

The Cellular Structure

In the first centuries, followers of the way of Jesus were often banded together in small, cell-like structures for prayer, study, and action. Part of the strength of the body of Christ in mission in those centuries came as a direct result of these cells. In the middle years of church history this principle of organization died away, and it never reappeared in force, though from time to time organizations reminiscent of it were begun.

In the midst of World War II in 1941, members of the Church of England who had assembled in conference at Malvern spoke to the Anglican church in all parts of the world, if not to all Christians torn by internal and external strife. Many things said in the document they issued were important, but one section had direct bearing on recommended Christian action for their time. It said:

Let cells be formed upon the basis of common prayer, study, and service. Groups should be formed wherever possible of people not ready as yet to join in Christian devotion, but who come together to study and discuss what is the Christian way of life for them and for society. In all such schemes, the Christian people of a district belonging to various denominations should all combine to foster true neighborliness in the community.

Cells, therefore, or small working units, gathering people together for prayer, study, and action in close neighborhood areas or in close working areas, embody a principle that must be considered. People who work in one department in a factory or business or people grouped together by professional interests can, by meeting and studying together, stimulate one another and become effective witnesses for Christ in their community.

One of the significant things about cells working dynamically within their culture is that they may vary in size from as few as two or three to as many as twelve or eighteen. Through this fellowship, individuals can develop joint action programs, can assist one another, and can influence others around them.

In the thirties and forties, and, perhaps, even the sixties, the word “cell” was almost always linked with the word “Communist,” since cells are used by the Communist party. Yet long before the birth of the Communist party, this type of structure had been used by “followers of the Way.” And we who follow Him have a prior claim to the cell technique in our mission to the world.

The cell group should be formed with a solid nucleus of believers, but it should also be open to men and women of good will regardless of creed. Cells should not be limited in their program of action but should reflect through their work, prayer, and study the manner in which Jesus himself worked during his ministry before his trial and crucifixion. While conversion to Jesus personally is to be desired for all participants, these groups must not because of the inner corps of converted people be exclusive. Training for various types of ministries active in cells is needed. Because of the fluid nature of this kind of organization, training should be adapted to all kinds of situations in modern society.

Gathering For Action

The other kind of unit, the center of action, also reflects the earliest centuries of church history, when the faithful were gathered together first by apostles and then by senior presbyters. It is possible that in many situations in which the Church finds itself, action centers might replace regular parishes. In less complex situations the centers might be set up within parishes.

As in the old days, centers of action may be used to train catechumens who then are baptized and brought into the body of Christ and participation in his mission in various kinds of ministries. Today centers of action should also offer instruction in all kinds of Christian work. But while these centers must be first and foremost religious, with the Eucharist at the heart of their fellowship, they may also afford opportunities for research into the psychological and sociological problems of the neighborhood. Although instructors should include professional clergy, most of the teachers must be self-employed clergy and unordained lay workers. These unordained workers should include such categories as prophet and teacher.

In both the cell and the center of action, most of the training for Christian mission will be in-training. Christian scholars from every discipline should discuss the methods and curricula needed to prepare professional or self-employed clergy or non-ordained laity to carry on training programs preparing church members to witness wherever they are.

But the possibility of training the whole Church for mission is vast and reaches far beyond what can be discussed in a single article. It demands the pooling of all the talents of convinced Christians. The priesthood and ministry of the laity is therefore not a pious wish but an absolute necessity. There can be no satisfactory fulfillment of our responsibility for mission without it.

The task is not the work of professional and self-employed clergy alone but must include all men and women who hear the Word of Christ and become one with him through faith. If man was made in the image and likeness of God; if man because of his creation has free will; if man through the exercise of his free will created culture; if this culture then restricts that which God created—then the only answer God could have given was to send into this culture his Son, and through his incarnation, birth, life, death, and resurrection, again set men free. This was and is the good news. This testimony was and is our ministry in mission—our Alpha and Omega—our total and only concern.