Cover Story

Through Gates of Splendor

Elisabeth Elliot

At four-thirty sharp Marj Saint eagerly switched on the radio receiver in Shell Mera. This was the moment when the big news would come. Had the men been invited to follow the Aucas to their houses? What further developments would Nate be able to report?

She looked at her watch again. Yes, it was at least four-thirty. No sound from Palm Beach. She and Olive hunched close to the radio. The atmosphere was not giving any interference. Perhaps Nate’s watch had run a little slow.

In Arajuno, Marilou and Barbara had their radio on, too. Silence. They waited a few minutes, then called Shell Mera.

“Arajuno calling Shell Mera. Arajuno standing by for Shell Mera. Any word from Palm Beach, Marj? Over.”

“Shell Mera standing by. No, no word as yet. We’ll be standing by.”

Not a crackle broke the silence.

Clinging To Little Hope

Were the men so preoccupied with entertaining their visitors that they had forgotten the planned contact? Five minutes … ten minutes … No, it was inconceivable that all five would forget. It was the first time since Nate had started jungle flying in 1948 that he and Marj had been out of contact even for an hour.

But—perhaps their radio was not functioning. It happened occasionally. The women clung to each little hope, refusing to entertain the thought of anything’s really having gone wrong. Their suspense was the sharper because most of their missionary friends on the network were unaware that Operation Auca was in progress. In Arajuno, Barbara and little Beth Youderian had primped up a bit, since it had been planned that Roj would come to Arajuno that night, while Pete took a turn sleeping in the tree house. Surely the little plane would come winging over the treetops before sundown. They walked up and down the airstrip, waiting …

Just after sundown Art Johnston, one of the doctors with Hospital Vozandes, affiliated with the missionary radio station HCJB in Quito, came into the radio room in Shell Mera. The radio was still on, but Marj sat with her head down on the desk.

“Is something the matter, Marj?”

She told him the situation briefly, but asked that he not divulge it yet. If nothing serious had actually happened, it would be disastrous to publicize what was taking place. There was little sleep that night for any of the wives.

By seven o’clock on the morning of Monday, January 9, 1956, Johnny Keenan, Nate’s colleague in the MAF, was in the air flying toward the sand strip which Nate had eariler pointed out to him. As he flew, Marj called me in Shandia: “We haven’t heard from the fellows since yesterday noon. Would you stand by at ten o’clock for Johnny’s report?”

It was the first I knew that anything was amiss. A verse God had impressed on my mind when I first arrived in Ecuador came back suddenly and sharply; “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.…” I went upstairs to continue teaching the Indian girls’ literacy class, praying silently, “Lord, let not the waters overflow.”

At about nine-thirty Johnny’s report came through. Marj relayed it to me in Shandia:

“Johnny has found the plane on the beach. All the fabric is stripped off. There is no sign of the fellows.”

In Shell Mera, a pilot of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Larry Montgomery (who is also a reserve officer in the USAF), lost no time in contacting Lieutenant General William K. Harrison, Commander in Chief of the Caribbean Command, which included the United States Air Rescue Service in Panama. Radio station HCJB, was also informed and news flashed around the world: “FIVE MEN MISSING IN AUCA TERRITORY.” By noon, all possible forces which might contribute to their rescue, including the prayers of thousands of people in all parts of the world, were set in motion.

Ground Search Party

On Monday evening it was decided that a ground search party should be organized, on the assumption that one or more of the men still lived, and Frank Drown, Roger Youderian’s colleague, a man with twelve years of jungle experience among the Jivaros, was unanimously elected to lead the party. Dr. Art Johnston offered to go along in his capacity as physician. Thirteen Ecuadorian soldiers promptly volunteered.

On Tuesday morning I was flown out of Shandia with Nate’s sister Rachel, who had been with me while the men went on the Auca trip. Frank was brought out from Macuma, and many of the missionary men arrived in Shell Mera from Quito, some as volunteers to go on the ground party. Word was received via short wave that a helicopter was on its way from Panama, which lifted the spirits in Shell Mera. That night the pilot of an Ecuadorian airline came to the house to tell the wives that he had flown over the scene at about six o’clock in the evening, and saw, a short distance upstream, a large fire, “without any smoke,” which would indicate perhaps a gasoline fire or a signal flare. Nate always carried signal flares in his emergency kit. This was a ray of hope for the five wives to sleep on that night.

Sighting The First Body

On Wednesday Johnny Keenan took off again in MAF’s second Piper Cruiser, a twin to Nate’s plane, on his fourth flight over Palm Beach to see if there were any signs of life. Marj, who had hardly left the radio since Sunday afternoon, stood by for his reports. Barbara, Olive, and I were upstairs. Suddenly, Marj called: “Betty! Barbara! Olive!”

I raced down the stairs. Marj was standing with her head against the radio, her eyes closed. After a while she spoke: “They found one body.”

A quarter mile downriver from the little denuded plane Johnny had sighted a body, floating face-down in the water, dressed in khaki pants and white tee-shirt, the usual uniform of the men. Barbara felt it was not Roger; he had been wearing blue-jeans.

Some of the land party went over to Arajuno to prepare the airstrip for the big planes which would be arriving soon from Panama. Late on Wednesday afternoon the roar of the planes was heard, and far on the western horizon where the volcano Sangay stands, a smoking pyramid, the great planes were silhouetted. As they drew near and circled the strip, the red, white, and blue of the United States Air Force became visible.

Expectation Runs Low

Dee Short, a missionary from western Ecuador, who happened to be in Quito when news of the disaster arrived, had come to Arajuno. As the party left, Marilou turned to him and said with finality: “There is no hope. All the men are dead.” Probably most of the ground party would have agreed with her but, nevertheless, every time they rounded a bend of the river they looked expectantly for one or more of the missing men.

Back in Shell Mera the radio crackled again. Marj answered: “Shell Mera standing by.”

Johnny Keenan reported: “Another body sighted, about 200 feet below Palm Beach.”

At about four o’clock in the afternoon the ground party reached Oglan, an Indian settlement situated at the place where the Oglan River meets the Curaray. Here camp was set up for the night. Frank Drown organized the group, appointing one man to hire canoes, one in charge of cargo, one to plan seating in the canoes, one as mess chief, two for safety precautions. That night they slept on beds of banana leaves. Watches were kept all night.

Before the party set off on Thursday morning, the missionaries offered up prayer, committing themselves into the hands of God; and the Ecuadorian soldiers, of a different faith, prayed with them. The party moved cautiously down the Curaray; the river was at its lowest, making navigation difficult, and special care was exercised in rounding the many bends, for it was feared Aucas might be lying in wait.

At about ten o’clock Johnny Keenan again flew over the ground party in the Piper, and Frank Drown was able to make contact with him by means of a two-way radio which the Air Rescue Service had supplied. Johnny told them of two canoes of Quichuas, proceding upriver in the direction of the ground party; he feared that in their excitement some one of the men in the party might shoot at the first sight of an Indian on the river. Soon the two canoes of Quichuas appeared. They were a small group of Indians from McCully’s station at Arajuno. On their own initiative they had boldly pressed into Auca territory ahead of anyone else, and had gone all the way to Palm Beach. The ground party was saddened when one of the Indians, a believer who had come to know Christ since Ed had gone to Arajuno, told them of having found Ed’s body on the beach at the edge of the water. He had Ed’s watch with him.

Now the missionaries knew who one of their fallen colleagues was, but a chance remained that at least three others had survived. They pressed on.

Wives Pray And Trust

As the wives hoped and prayed and waited the procession of flying machines moved slowly down toward Palm Beach, the airplanes circling to keep pace with the slower helicopter skimming along at treetop level and following the bends of the river. The airplanes chose different altitudes to avoid danger of collision as pilots circled with eyes on the jungle below. Johnny Keenan in the little yellow Piper was lowest. A few hundred feet above were the U.S. Navy R-4D (the Navy version of the familiar DC-3), and, higher, the big amphibian of the Air Rescue Service. Close by, Colonel Izurieta in a plane of the Ecuadorian Air Force flew in wider circles ready to help should decisions be needed. The teamwork of the United States Army, Air Force, and Navy and of the government and military services of Ecuador was heartwarming to the wives.

Air Force Major Numberg, riding in the Army helicopter, landed briefly to talk with the ground party, still some distance up the river from Palm Beach. Ed McCully’s name was mentioned guardedly on the radio. Those hearing guessed that somehow Ed’s body had been identified. Was his one of the two bodies that had been seen from the air? Had three perhaps escaped into the jungle? Or been taken captive?

After a few moments the helicopter moved on. Finally, rounding a bend, it came at last to Palm Beach and landed. Nurnberg, carbine at the ready, jumped out and looked around. Anxious minutes went by. Back in the “chopper” he radioed: “No one here.” Hope flickered brighter in those who heard.

The helicopter was off again and started slowly down the river. Crossing to the other side it stopped, hovering, the force of its downwash disturbing the muddy surface of the water. Minutes later it moved on, only to stop again two hundred yards farther on. A third and a fourth time Nurnberg and McGee hung motionless ten feet above the water, rotor blades beating dangerously close to overhanging jungle trees. Hearts sank in the aircraft above as those watching guessed the meaning of those stops.

The aircraft returned to Arajuno. Once on the ground, Nurnberg, his face showing strain, confirmed suspicions. Speaking in low tones to the tight circle of military men, he explained that McCully’s body, identified by the small party of Quichuas the day before, was now gone from the beach, no doubt washed away by the rain and higher water in the night. He leafed through his notebook for a moment. A few Indians stood silent in the tall grass nearby, listening and watching. “We found four in the river,” Numberg said, finally. “I don’t think identification will be possible from what I have here—” indicating his notebook. “One of them may be McCully.”

He did not have to say what was in every mind. There might be one who got away, possibly wounded, still in the jungle.

How To Tell Bad News

How to inform the wives was the question uppermost in military minds. Should Marilou be told? She was right there at Arajuno in the house.

“We’d better wait,” Nurnberg said. “DeWitt is running this show. Let’s get back to Shell and talk it over.” Captain DeWitt in the big Air Force amphibian was overhead, not wanting to risk a landing on the small strip at Arajuno. All returned to Shell and the military men gathered in the cabin of the amphibian. The wives would have to be told. But how?

Someone else had wisely decided to tell Marilou that four bodies had been found. Later in the afternoon Johnny flew her out to Shell to be with the four other wives.

In the end it was the wives who persuaded DeWitt and Nurnberg that there was no need to soften the blow. We wanted to know everything in detail. We gathered in Marj’s bedroom away from the children. Major Nurnberg opened his notebook and in terse sentences described what he had found. It was immediately evident that identification could not be positive. One body was caught under the branches of a fallen tree; only a large foot with a gray sock appeared at the surface of the muddy water. In reading his notes of another, Nurnberg said: “This one had on a red belt of some woven material.” Four of us turned our eyes toward the fifth, Olive Fleming.

“That was Pete,” Olive said simply.

As the Major concluded, it was still not known whether Ed’s body was one of those in the river. There was still the hope that one might have got away.

The Depth Of Trust

The military men, to whom the breaking of such news to loved ones was no new thing, left the bedroom silently. Their news had been met with serenity. No tears could rise from the depth of trust which supported the wives.

Barbara Youderian wrote in her diary:

“Tonight the Captain told us of his finding four bodies in the river. One had tee-shirt and blue-jeans. Roj was the only one who wore them … God gave me this verse two days ago, Psalm 48:14, ‘For this God is our God for ever and ever; He will be our Guide even unto death.’ As I came face to face with the news of Roj’s death, my heart was filled with praise. He was worthy of his home-going. Help me, Lord, to be both mummy and daddy. ‘To know wisdom and instruction …’ Tonight Beth prayed for daddy in Heaven, and asked me if daddy would come down from Heaven to get a letter she wanted to write him. I said, ‘He can’t come down. He’s with Jesus.’ She said, ‘But Jesus can help him come down, and God will take his hand so he won’t slip.’

“I wrote a letter to the mission family, trying to explain the peace I have. I want to be free of self-pity. It is a tool of Satan to rot away a life. I am sure that this is the perfect will of God. Many will say, ‘Why did Roj get mixed up in this, when his work was with Jivaros?’ Because Roj came to do the will of Him that sent him. The Lord has closed our hearts to grief and hysteria, and filled in with His perfect peace.”

Death In Muddy Waters

Starting out again at six in the morning of Friday, January 13, the party was on the last lap of its mission, with a date to meet the helicopter at Palm Beach at ten. The men had to hurry to get there and everyone was jittery from the strain of the trip and the thought of the job that lay ahead.

At last the beach was reached. There was no sign as yet of the helicopter. The ground party set to work, everyone having been assigned different duties: the Ecuadorian soldiers spread out in a semicircle in the jungle behind the beach to act as cover, two Indians set to digging a common grave under the tree house, others waded into the river looking for the men’s possessions. Dee Short and Frank Drown crawled up into the tree house to try to find a clue to what had happened. Some of the men began to dismantle the plane, others looked for bodies. It was not until the helicopter arrived at twelve-fifteen and hovered over the bodies where they lay in the muddy waters of the Curaray, that the ground crew was able to find them. Frank Drown told of the scene:

“First Nurnberg pointed out one body downstream and Fuller jumped into the water and pulled the body across. Then Nurnberg showed us Nate Saint’s body, and we got in a canoe and went downstream, and saw an arm coming out of the water, so I tried to attach a string to the arm and I just could not bring myself to do it. I’d reach out and try and then pull back, and have to try again until finally the man who was in the canoe with me did it. Now we were three canoes with three bodies attached to them, going upstream. We laid all four face down in a row on the beach. We never did get the fifth, which was Ed McCully’s body. Then I got over my feeling of hating to touch the bodies, because a body is only a house and these fellows had left their house and, after the soul leaves, the body isn’t much after all. The thing that is beautiful to us is the soul, not the body.”

Identification of the four bodies was finally positive from wedding rings and watches, change purse, notebooks. Ed was not one of the four, so it was finally definite: all five were dead. In the providence of God the missing body was the one identified by the Quichuas the day before. Not only had they brought back his watch, but also they had taken off one of his shoes (a tremendous shoe—size thirteen and one-half) and thrown it up on the beach. The day before, Nurnberg had picked it up and brought it back to Shell Mera.

While the bodies were being drawn ashore a violent tropical storm was gathering. At that moment the helicopter came in low and fast. Cornell Capa, a photographer-correspondent on assignment for Life magazine, jumped out, camera in hand, and ran across the beach. Then the full fury of the storm struck and the missionaries felt as if the powers of darkness had been let loose.

Earth’s Most Beautiful Cemetery

On Saturday morning Captain DeWitt of the Rescue Service asked us five widows if we would “care to fly over Palm Beach to see your husbands’ grave?”

We replied that if this were not asking too much, we would be grateful. The Navy R-4D took us out over the jungle, where the Curaray lay like a brown snake in the undulating green. Pressing our faces close to the windows as we knelt on the floor of the plane, we could see the slice of white sand where the Piper stood. Olive Fleming recalled the verses that God had impressed on her mind that morning: “‘For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’ He who has prepared us for this very thing is God … ‘Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.’ ”

As the plane veered away, Marj Saint said: “That is the most beautiful little cemetery in the world.”

Peace And Power

How good it is to turn aside

Each night and day

From fearsome clamoring of men

To praise and pray!

What a relief it is to be

With Him our Lord;

When nations o’er the earth have drawn

The steel of sword!

O what a privilege is prayer

In such an hour!

From bended knee alone

Come peace and power.

—EVA GRAY

The swift-moving epic of the five missionaries martyred in the attempt to evangelize the Auca Indians of Ecuador has just been published by Harper & Brothers under the title Through Gates of Splendor. The author, Elisabeth Howard Elliot, is already familiar to readers of Christianity Today through her inspirational article “The Prayer of the Five Widows” (Jan. 7). The above portion of the new book, reprinted by permission of the publishers, is an abridgment of the chapter tided “Silence.” The chapter is more than a graphic account of the tense hours in which the missionary wives—Marjorie Saint, Barbara Youderian, Olive Fleming, Marilou McCully and Elisabeth Elliot—first learned of the loss of their men; it is a story of heroic faith in a time of trouble. This book is a missionary drama moving with godly devotion. More than holy heartbreak, it is gethsemanic glory reflected anew. Reminiscent of the missionary stamina and sacrifice of the apostolic age, this twentieth century saga proclaims the high courage of Christian dedication and the high confidence that the risen Christ walks amid life’s shadows keeping watch over his own. The families of the five men are still at work in the jungle.—Ed.

Cover Story

Dare We Revive the: Modernist-Fundamentalist Conflict?

The Editor

Whoever evaluates the modernist-fundamentalist controversy from the standpoint of the sixth decade must sense the current distaste for religious contention, must sense the deference to ecumenical cooperation. In the face of present pressures for unity and unanimity, the ministry no doubt reflects an increasing impatience with controversy because of its apparent historical fruitlessness and futility. Ecumenical inclusivism rolls on; each passing year registers new mergers and numerical gains while the outside minority diminishes.

An added pressure is the destructive impact of religious controversy upon the unchurched multitudes. For more than half a century liberal preaching defined the evangelical message as irrelevant and meaningless for modern man. Conservative pulpits, in turn, affirmed that whatever else modernism might be, it was not Christianity. As the decades passed, increasing multitudes detached themselves from the churches. All the while modernist inveighed against fundamentalist and fundamentalist against modernist. Unchurched multitudes have been watching from the sidelines, justifying their detachment from a pugilistic spirituality.

Alongside these pressures against church strife engendered out of consideration for the larger Protestant witness and for the unchurched masses, evangelicals within their own camp experienced disappointments due to religious controversy. Deploring the strategy that delivered one influential post after another to liberal denominational leadership, conservatives saw some of their own leaders fall prey to the lust for ecclesiastical prominence. Theological controversy got out of hand; not only was it appended to personal ambition, but it was made to serve unnecessary discord and division. The positive side of theological controversy (the case for great Christian beliefs) was yielded swiftly to the negative. Pulpit and convention became a platform for the denunciation of personalities and organizations.

Another reason to resist a renewal of modernist-fundamentalist debate centers in the present upsurge in church attendance by the spiritually illiterate. Stabbed by an inner uncertainty, insecurity and fear in the aftermath of two global wars, the American people now throng the churches in record numbers. Most of these churchgoers are unfamiliar with the specifics of the modernist-fundamentalist controversy. Shall they learn unhappy details of past theological and ecclesiastical tension and trouble before they are invited to saving faith in Christ? To keep the fire of faith burning brightly for those who throng the tabernacles of God today, dare we neglect a new perspective on the recent past?

Thus far we have dealt mainly with a mid-century ministerial mood and mind-set, namely, an aversion to perpetuating the modernist-fundamentalist debate. Because of the modern premium on ecclesiastical unity, because of the inelegant impression church controversy makes upon the world, because of the easy degeneration of theological conflict into negation and lovelessness and because of the rising generation of churchgoers who must be linked swiftly with the first generation of Christian faith, today there is a growing impatience with the effort to preserve the edge of past-generation theological debate as the permanent center of Christian polemics, apologetics and evangelism.

The Great Divide?

This impatience is by no means universal, however. In some circles the ecclesiastical encounter still follows the same lines shaped a generation or two ago.

Some vocal fundamentalists consider the modernist-fundamentalist divide the permanent razor edge to which all the destinies of twentieth-century Christianity must be exposed. This view is encouraged by men of influence in a variety of opinion-forming media—church councils, periodicals, schools, exclusivist movements.

The fundamentalist wing is not alone, however, in the tendency to perpetuate the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Even some liberals draw the lines of ecclesiastical dispute much as they were drawn a generation ago. They refuse to share Karl Barth’s and Emil Brunner’s sharp criticism of classic liberal theology.

No less a modernist than Harry Emerson Fosdick believes that the fate of Christianity still reduces to a necessary conflict between the old liberalism and fundamentalism. In 1927 Dr. Fosdick’s sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” made him the storm center of American preaching. Three decades later his highly readable autobiography The Living of These Years (Harper, 1957) spins a halo of self-justification over Dr. Fosdick’s vagabondage and endeavors to vindicate the liberalism to which he raised an altar. Dr. Fosdick guards his cherished liberalism from any need for repentance and radical revision. Likewise his verdict on fundamentalism is identical to that of thirty years ago.

If another example is needed of a modernist tendency to freeze the modernist-fundamentalist debate as the permanent center of ecclesiastical life, we may refer to that influential journal of liberal opinion The Christian Century, which has so unmistakably established fundamentalism as a color word, while vindicating a role of ecclesiastical dignity and respect for such terms as liberalism and modernism. The Century’s outlook today is little different: nothing good can come out of fundamentalism; the hope of the church and of the world is liberalism. Fundamentalist missionaries may die as martyrs, but they are dismissed as misguided; fundamentalist evangelism may strike into the barren churches of our centuries like lightning from heaven, but it is naive and socially irrelevant; fundamentalist scholarship may produce worthy textbooks and religious journals, but they are suspect and dangerous because they are not liberal; fundamentalists may even criticize fundamentalists but unless they defect from evangelical Christianity to liberalism they are still unacceptable.

Essence Of Christianity

The modernism of the past generation is therefore still regarded as the essence of Christianity. Liberalism thus confronts contemporary Christianity once again with two important and interrelated issues: (1) Is modernism acceptable as expressive of Christianity? and (2) Is the Christian church ideally inclusive of both modernists and evangelicals?

Dr. Fosdick gives us a recent answer to these questions, but it is not new. He describes himself as an “evangelical liberal.” And he so defines the term “tolerance” as virtually to mean the acceptance “of a church inclusive enough to take in both liberals and conservatives without either trying to drive the other out” (The Living of These Years, p. 145).

Today, on the other hand, the contrast between modernism and evangelical Christianity is being sketched anew from a quite different standpoint by theologians of former modernist sympathies to show the radical perversion of biblical Christianity of which classic liberalism was guilty.

Secondary Criticisms

Modern churchmen who permit only secondary criticisms of classic liberal theology make its adequacy a contemporary issue through continued espousal. Dr. Fosdick himself enumerates certain criticisms: liberalism adjusted Christian thought to the standard of secular culture, so that “the center of gravity was not in the gospel but in the prevalent intellectual concepts of our time” (p. 245); it was “too blind to the tragic sinfulness and plight of man” (p. 248); “it took too negative a view of the Bible” (p. 243). Although the first of these criticisms would be sufficient to discredit modernism as the bearer of the essence of Christianity, Dr. Fosdick nevertheless refuses to bring under vigorous criticism the liberalism that he represented. While conceding that he “took the optimistic color of our generation” (p. 237), he declines to be classified with main-stream liberalism, or rather, with those “extreme” liberals whose views are now under fire (p. 231). There were varieties of liberalism, and his variety, says Dr. Fosdick, did not share these objectionable features which later invited a criticism of liberalism as secular and non-Christian. He identifies himself with that “very considerable number” of liberals who rejected “automatic, inevitable social progress” (p. 237); who denied that the “Kingdom of God could fully come in human history on this planet” (p. 239); who refused to reduce Christianity to mere ethicism but widened it rather to include Jesus’ world view and his faith in God as well as his morals (p. 242). While extreme liberalism doubtless propounded an excessive divine immanence, Dr. Fosdick defends his as the New Testament view (p. 253). Moreover, notwithstanding European criticism and rejection for more than two decades of Dr. Fosdick’s diminution of divine revelation to prophetic initiative and insight, he evades any acknowledged support of liberalism’s exaggerated confidence in human reason (p. 256). Although writing appreciatively of neo-supernaturalism’s stress on a divine initiative in our religious experience (p. 236) and on the necessity and primacy of God’s self-revelation (p. 256), and although voicing his debt to Niebuhr for the emphasis that even our best good is corroded by egocentricity and pride, Dr. Fosdick nonetheless repeatedly declares his own brand of liberalism (p. 251) without need of neo-orthodox revision, since he did not join the “optimistic extremes” of other modernists.

Evangelicals will not lament some dangers (such as an excessive divorce of faith and reason, an unhealthy pessimism) that Dr. Fosdick senses in neo-supernaturalism. But protest must be made when he protects Fosdickian liberalism from criticism, when he insists that even neo-supernaturalism is best sanctified by liberalism and when he concedes that neo-supernaturalism attracts him in its disavowal of any final theology. Herein an unrepentant liberalism of the 1920’s is seeking immortality for itself in the 1950’s.

An Unchanging Modernism?

Curiously enough, Dr. Fosdick throughout his lifetime has professed the conditioning of every generation’s theology by its social matrix. Therefore, each theology sooner or later is destined for discard (p. 232). “Static orthodoxies,” he tells us, “are a menace to the Christian cause” (p. 230). “Theologies are psychologically and sociologically conditioned” (p. 231). “Theological trends … are partial, contemporary” (p. 232). “Dogmatism in theology, whether ‘liberal’ or ‘orthodox’ is ridiculous” (p. 231).

In view of Dr. Fosdick’s representations of theology as necessarily relative and changing, is it not incredible that he should wish for his own views a durability and an exemption from criticism which he denies to the views of others? Is it not amazing that Dr. Fosdick is unwilling to refer his own prejudices to this principle of inevitable change, which he has so confidently invoked against the orthodoxy of the past? It was on the ground of the supposed inevitability of theological change that Dr. Fosdick had in fact contended that “creedal subscription to the ancient confessions of faith is a practice dangerous to the welfare of the church and to the integrity of the individual conscience” and, moreover, is “hampering to the free leadership of the Spirit” (p. 172).

Dr. Fosdick even seems to arrogate to his views a veiled prophecy of finality: “neither the extremes to which liberalism often went nor the extremes to which neo-orthodoxy goes today will be the final word” (p. 265). Are we not, in context, to regard the stable view of Dr. Fosdick as that final word? Yet has he not elsewhere firmly disowned the possibility of any final word in theology? Are we not to expect that, as in the mid-20’s he urged the church to go beyond fundamentalism, and as in the mid-30’s he pleaded that “The Church Must Go Beyond Modernism,” so in the mid 50’s he would require that it go beyond Fosdick?

Dr. Fosdick himself complains that other liberals, after rejecting biblical positions, too often fell prey to a static orthodoxy of their own (p. 246). Assertedly, there is no genuine protection from theological relativism. Yet hesitancy and half-heartedness characterize his own application of this concept. Now and then Dr. Fosdick ventures to write not merely of “the basic Christian experiences,” but of “revelations of truth”; indeed, he insists that he himself maintains “the timeless values and truths of the gospel” (p. 147), and that liberals agree with the historic denominations “in the abiding substantial truths” they support (p. 163). The impression is unavoidable that Dr. Fosdick more consistently observed the limits of his approach when in decades past he spoke of theory rather than of truth in words like these: “In theology I hold the opinions which hundreds of … ministers hold” (p. 172). However halting the application to his personal positions, Dr. Fosdick has cut himself off in principle from any privilege to propose lasting truth.

This fact puts us on guard when we overhear Dr. Fosdick, quite indifferent to the limitations of his theory of knowledge, pleading with modernists to stop conforming Christ to contemporary culture but rather to challenge modern culture in the name of Christ (p. 246). Elsewhere he pleads for “well-thought-out, positive statements of liberal convictions in the realm of Christian faith” (p. 243). But where, within Dr. Fosdick’s approach, is the minister to find fixed and final concepts and ideas wherewith to challenge the prevalent intellectual concepts of the times? If the liberal minister is to avoid both a revealed theology and an adjustment to contemporary culture, in the name of what is he to discriminate permanent truths from impermanent opinions? For not only are dogmatic certainty and static creed elsewhere affirmed to be unnecessary and impossible, but dogmatism is dogmatically alleged to be a source of religious ruin (p. 233).

Prevailing Prejudices

Dr. Fosdick’s autobiography reflects the speculative assumptions that determine his readiness to delete the sacred doctrines of evangelical Christianity from his conception of vital religion. Two such controlling prejudices, contradictive of biblical Christianity, stand in the forefront: (1) the notion that man’s experience of God is immediate, without a necessary dependence upon past mediation; and (2) the notion of the human mind’s incompetence to grasp spiritual realities. It is not amiss to comment briefly.

Dr. Fosdick writes of “direct, immediate, personal experience as the solid ground for assurance” (p. 234). Stated this bare way, we seem to have here the reiteration of an important New Testament emphasis, namely, that Christianity involves no mere second-hand relationship to God. Assurance of salvation is not suspended upon the word of some priest or hierarchy, but rather is subjectively ascertainable through the immediate witness of the Spirit. Actually, however, Dr. Fosdick virtually excludes any historically mediated revelation and redemption in his emphasis on man’s present relationship with God. The implications stand out when we inquire into Dr. Fosdick’s conception of the Gospel. He tells us: “The essence of Christianity is incarnate in the personality of the Master, and it means basic faith in God, in the divinity revealed in Christ, in personality’s sacredness and possibilities and in the fundamental principles of life’s conduct which Jesus of Nazareth exhibited” (p. 269). Read these words often as one will, one cannot escape the conviction that Dr. Fosdick’s statement contradicts the New Testament view that the essence of Christianity is the good news of the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for doomed sinners (cf. 1 Cor. 15:1–4). Instead of depicting Jesus Christ as the redeemer of all men, Dr. Fosdick tells us simply that Jesus of Nazareth was the first and finest Christian.

Dr. Fosdick’s restriction of the relevance of reason in the spiritual world accounts for his concessions to metaphysical agnosticism; this weakness the newer neo-supernaturalistic views carry over from the older modernist tradition. It is curious to note Dr. Fosdick’s apprehension over Barth’s divorcing of revelation and reason, while yet he approves Barth’s emphasis that “our concepts are not adequate to grasp this treasure.” Nonetheless, Dr. Fosdick disallows us any final theological knowledge. Curiously, he tells us: “Ideas of God change and ought to, but that fact does not mean that anything has happened to God [How Dr. Fosdick came by this latter bit of fixed information he does not inform us].” Nowhere does Dr. Fosdick harmonize his own incidental references to enduring spiritual truths with his denial of the competency of reason in the spiritual world, and with the consequent assertion of theological relativity. While he appeals deferentially to “the life and words of the historic Jesus” (p. 247), he does not indicate why even those teachings of Christ which pass Dr. Fosdick’s censorship are exceptions to the rule that divine truths cannot be infallibly grasped and communicated in the dimension of humanity.

Dr. Fosdick’s affirmation of the theological relevance of last-generation liberalism comes as a keen disappointment to many evangelical leaders. Prone to assume that liberalism had been chastened, curbed and forced to abandon its defenses by the drift of the times, if not by the authority of biblical revelation, these evangelicals will find in Dr. Fosdick’s The Living of These Days a revelation that he has not really lived through our era with theological awareness; he moves still within the gates of a romanticized experiential Christianity isolated from the realities of history. Casting the fortunes of liberalism in this unrepentant mold will not only evoke wide disappointment, but it will provoke the conviction that the time for theological controversy is once again upon us.

Irrelevance Of Modernism

Evangelicals are not alone in their negative verdict on classical liberalism, Dr. Fosdick’s species included. Influential liberal circles see the necessity of superseding the Fosdickian views if Protestant theology in the 50’s is to maintain its vitality. In fact, the whole initiative in theology is now shaped by leaders who dismiss Fosdick’s The Modern Use of the Bible as a mirror of outdated prejudices. They do not share his reliance on the relevance of classic liberalism but have already conceded the irrelevance even of the Fosdickian version.

A sound theological instinct supports their uneasiness over the classic liberal position. Even at best liberalism reflected the invasion of a secular spirit. It exaggerated God’s immanence, minimized man’s sinfulness, concealed Christ’s supernaturalness and the centrality of his redemptive work, attached utopian expectations to history and ignored the task of evangelism. For half a generation, most centers of the old liberal thought have been compromising, adjusting and refurbishing the views of a generation ago. Their theologians and ministers are eager to get beyond the modernist-fundamentalist controversy. For them classic liberal theology was too strongly leavened with secularism to be cherished as a fixed point of theological debate. The fact that modernism evolved a counter-dogmatics to historic Christianity, a counter-ethics, a counter-ecumenicity, attested the radically different premises with which modernism began. These inevitably spelled out their counter-implications to historic Christianity. That modernism took this course was no reflection on Christianity; it was a commentary, rather, on the fact that modernism quite understood its starting point, rooted in speculation instead of in revelation. What is a reflection on Christianity, however, is that many Protestant leaders did not sense this alien starting point. They chose, rather, to defend it as expressive of the essence of Christianity. Moreover, some influential leaders today still glory in a speculative secular standpoint whose implications are disastrous for Christian faith. Yet neo-supernaturalists like Barth and Brunner have expressed themselves no less pointedly than did J. Gresham Machen, in Christianity and Liberalism.

Barth does not hesitate to speak of modernism as a heresy. “Within the organized unities of the evangelical churches we are faced with the fact of pietistic-rationalistic Modernism” in which, he writes, “we do not recognize faith and the Church,” and in encountering which Christianity is called “to purification, to a rendering of our account, to responsibility.” Over against modernism, “although it has neither been expelled from the evangelical churches nor voluntarily gone over to found a counter-church, we draw the line as definitely as over against Catholicism” (The Doctrine of the Word of God, Vol. I, Part 1, 36 ff.).

In the very year in which Fosdick delivered his great sermon against the fundamentalists, Brunner was delivering a series of lectures in the United States in which he said bluntly: “A first glance at fundamentalism shows its strength to consist in a negative; its criticism of modernism from the standpoint of Christian faith … A fundamentalist, possessed of a reasonably correct knowledge of Christianity, will have little difficulty in proving that the modernist teaches, under the label of Christianity, a religion which has nothing in common with Christianity except a few words, and that those words cover concepts which are irreconcilable with the content of Christian faith” (The Theology of Crisis, p. 9. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929). (TO BE CONTINUED)

This is the first of four abridgments of lectures on Evangelical Responsibility in Contemporary Theology delivered by Editor Carl F. H. Henry at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in May, and at Calvin College during the centennial observance of the Christian Reformed Church in June. The original titles are: “The Modernist Revision,” “The Fundamentalist Reduction,” “The Contemporary Restoration,” and “The Evangelical Responsibility.”

Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: May 27, 1957

G. C. Berkouwer

In 1956 a book was published by the well-known dogmatician, Professor T. F. Torrance of the University of Edinburgh, with the title Kingdom and Church: A Study in the Theology of the Reformation. It appears to be a study of the eschatology of the Reformers: Luther, Bucer and Calvin. It can be called an important study which will interest all who are involved in the vigorous discussion on “the last things” in our time.

The problem of these last things has more than ever before regained its place in the theological discussion, a fact which is not difficult to understand, because there is no reason in the modern world to accept anymore the optimistic, evolutionistic view of many in the nineteenth century, that in the development of human, social and moral powers there would be a glorious future for the world. In the theology of our time we read again more about sin and corruption, about strange powers and destructive elements in the world and in the human soul and in catastrophic times the last things came more and more to the fore, not as a result of human forces but as the future of God in the coming of his kingdom.

Of course, this does not mean a self-evident renewal of the biblical message of the future. Everybody knows that in our time also the problem of the demythologizing of the New Testament arose, in which also the last things were included: the second coming of Christ belongs according to Bultmann to the mythological elements of the New Testament. And in Holland appeared a study from the side of a non-Christian thinker in which he tried to analyse modern thinking—also theology—as thinking without expectation of a real future. There was a tremendous one-sidedness in his book, but the question is important, whether there is in the changing of the times a real hope for the future.

It is interesting to see, in the book by Torrance, that there was a real eschatology in the time of the Reformation. In a time when the reality of church-life was taking all the time of the Reformers, there was simultaneously an outlook. Apparently there was no competition between being interested in the problems of the day and the expectation of the future.

Often in history we face such a competition: interest in the problems of the day or expectation of the future. But there is according to the Scriptures an inner connection. When Paul is writing on the real problems of the Church, he can do that in an epistle, in which he is preaching the future: his first epistle to the Corinthians. There is no competition, but the outlook for the future influences immediately the real problems of the Church. Exactly because of the coming of Christ there is an actual message for the Church and for every believer in the daily practice of Christian life.

That is what we see also in the eschatology of the Reformers. Their expectation of the future was not a threatening of their work in this world but the strengthening of their activity.

Now Torrance makes a remarkable distinction. He characterizes the eschatology of Luther as the eschatology of faith, that of Bucer as the eschatology of love, and the eschatology of Calvin as the eschatology of hope. In the light of 1 Corinthians 13 (faith, hope, charity) the division seems rather constructive and Torrance himself acknowledges that there was much in common in their eschatology, because their eschatological thinking was connected with faith, love and hope.

Nevertheless it will be good to notice the question which arises from the expectation of the Reformers in their time, which was in their conception an apocalyptic time. They were under the impression of the power of the antichrist, which they saw in the persecutions of the Roman Catholic Church and especially 2 Thessalonians 2:4 had their attention: “that he as God sitteth in the temple of God.” Even a Lutheran confession took up the identification of pope and antichrist and everybody understands that this identification influenced their eschatological thinking. Now there is a remarkable change, as far as this identification is concerned, in the following centuries and already Calvin identified the Roman Catholic Church more with the kingdom of the antichrist than with the personal pope.

But what interests us now is their being interested in the work of the Church (i. e., the unity of the church) and their eschatological outlook. That will always be the question for the Church of Jesus Christ, whether she is not only talking about today or about the future, whether she knows of the task today in the light of the future. The Reformers were occupied all the hours of the day but their eschatology was not a small closing chapter of their dogmatics but the stimulating factor in their difficult life. And when Sadolet reminds Calvin of the glorious future of Christ and asks him what he will have to say to the Lord when he is coming on the clouds of heaven (Sadolet was Roman Catholic), Calvin answers with the perspicuous message of Scripture on the task of the Church.

Love, faith and charity.… Only when the church lives in the richness of all three and never forgets that the greatest of these is charity, she will be able to live in the expectation of the future. Our century is called the century of eschatological thinking. Is the analysis right? The answer is not easy. There is a rethinking of the New Testament problems of the future, but there is also a criticizing of the New Testament message. There is a temptation of secularized eschatology again, although not in the same sense as in the optimistic 19th century. But there is another possibility: the possibility of pessimism. Optimistic eschatology expects a future from the human nature and now there is the danger that pessimism threatens every expectation and leaves the world without the responsibility which is included in the trustful message of the second coming of Christ.

More and more it becomes evident, that there is only one resistance: faith, hope, charity, these three.

Books

Book Briefs: May 27, 1957

Vital Truth

Redemption—Accomplished and Applied by John Murray. Eerdman’s, Grand Rapids, 1955. $3.00.

Central in Christian faith and experience is the doctrine of the atonement. Professor Murray of Westminster Theological Seminary has provided us with a fresh and vigorous study of this vital truth. The title of the book indicates the contents. Murray first deals with the accomplishment of redemption in terms of its necessity, its nature, its perfection and its extent. The death of Christ is seen as necessary to accomplish man’s salvation but not to win God’s love. Indeed, it is God’s very love which is the cause or source of the atonement. But unless the death of Christ was a necessity, it is hard to see how the cross is a supreme exhibition of love. The nature of the atonement is found in sacrifice, propitiation, reconciliation and redemption. Atonement was made, in Murray’s view, only for the elect. He argues vigorously that unlimited atonement leads to universalism.

Redemption, once secured by Christ, must be applied to men. In the second half of the book, Murray expounds the biblical teaching on Effectual Calling, Regeneration, Faith and Repentance, Justification, Adoption, Sanctification, Perseverance, Union with Christ and Glorification. An introductory chapter to this section discusses the order of application of the various aspects of applied redemption; and Murray argues that regeneration must precede faith and produce it. “Faith is a whole-souled act of loving trust and self-commitment. Of that we are incapable until renewed by the Holy Spirit” (p. 103). “Without regeneration it is morally and spiritually impossible for a person to believe in Christ, but when a person is regenerated it is morally and spiritually impossible for that person not to believe” (p. 133).

Any book is of value not so much for the positions it sustains as for the vigor with which the material is presented. A book which does not challenge and stimulate is of little value, whatever its view point. Professor Murray has given us an excellent book which no thoughtful reader will lay down unmoved. The positions taken are exegetically grounded and frequently interact with important optional interpretations. The book is attractively bound and includes a helpful text and subject index.

GEORGE ELDON LADD

Deity And Humanity

God Became Man by Alan M. Stibbs. Tyndale Press, London. 1s. 6d.

The person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ are rightly described by Mr. Stibbs as “the distinctive truth of Christianity.” It is this—if there were nothing else—that justifies the careful and thoughtful considerations which the author offers in this little monograph. Because so much recent thinking about the person of our Lord has been determined, not by Scripture but by scientific theory and philosophic speculation, Mr. Stibbs devotes a separate chapter to each of these alternative ways of approach. In a chapter on “Christian Truth and the Scientific Method” he deals with the insufficiency of “kenotic” theories and shows that the reasonable man is compelled to accept by faith the truths that are inherent in the Biblical view of the Person of Christ.

In a similar chapter on “Some Philosophical Speculations” the author discusses Anglo-Catholic views such as those represented by E. L. Mascall and L. S. Thornton who “have interpreted the incarnation in terms of human elevation and fulfilment.” Mr. Stibbs points out that these views are based upon unscriptural assumptions as to the purpose of the incarnation, for the Bible indicates that “what man needs is moral redemption, not metaphysical completion.” The author exposes “the evolutionary and optimistic humanistic ideas which underlie some of these suggestions.”

Against the above speculative notions Mr. Stibbs sets out the biblical data in a lucid manner. He draws attention to the evidence both for the full deity of Jesus and for his true humanity and emphasizes the fact that Jesus was born not for the purpose of realizing the metaphysical completion of man but to die for man’s redemption.

The fellowship of Christ’s sufferings which a Christian may know is nevertheless not “redemptive” in itself but is part of the cost of testimony which he in some small degree shares with his Lord.

ERNEST F. KEVAN

Evangelical Movement

Cooperation without Compromise, by James DeForest Murch, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. $3.50.

Any movement which claims the interest and devoted service of great numbers of evangelicals is worthy of careful study. In its fifteen years of existence, the National Association of Evangelicals has established itself as such a movement, and the history of its growth and development is bound to be of deep interest to all who are concerned about the religious currents of our day.

Dr. Murch, well qualified by his gifts and by his close association with the N.A.E., has written its story, and an interesting one it is. He begins by presenting the theological and ecclesiastical context in which the new movement was born. Briefly, but clearly, he portrays the rise of theological liberalism, the inroads of apostasy in the great denominations, the failure of the old Evangelical Alliance to claim the support of American conservatives and the shortcomings which rendered the Federal Council incapable of representing the evangelical movement.

The author traces, with careful documentation, the rise and growth of the N.A.E. and its early expansion into new fields of service on behalf of the evangelical cause. He presents the work of the organization in such realms as radio and television, missions, Sunday School work, social action and international cooperation. He closes the book with a moving appeal for fresh advances in the realm of cooperative activity among evangelicals, sounding a high spiritual note for the days ahead.

It is neither unkind nor unfair to say that Dr. Murch’s work sometimes lacks the objective quality which characterizes the best historical writing. It may well be that we are still too close to the beginnings of this important movement to form a fully objective evaluation of it. Besides, the author’s own enthusiasm for the work to which he is devoting his life and service probably makes impossible a full-orbed view of it. His writing sometimes seem more like a promotional release than a history. This tendency is manifested in his use of superlatives, in his passing over lightly some of the serious differences of opinions which have existed at times within the organization and in the omission of any adequate mention of the defection from it of some individuals and groups. Dr. Murch has every right to his enthusiasm for this work and is to be commended for it, but the reader may well feel on occasion that this factor has colored the presentation of his story, and that the full story of the evangelical movement in our times remains to be written.

HORACE L. FENTON

Wealth Of Material

The Story of Stewardship, by George A. Salstrand, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1956. $3.50.

Mr. Salstrand states in his introduction: The purpose of this treatise is to trace the record of stewardship from colonial times to our present day, seeking to determine in so far as possible the origin, growth and development of the stewardship movement.

To achieve his goal he received the cooperation of many denominations and several stewardship organizations in our country. This is a book containing a wealth of material gathered from numerous sources including many charts and statistics. To add to its value he includes a large bibliography of both original sources and secondary works. He shows how stewardship has been an American contribution to theological thinking since the separation of church and state made it necessary for individuals to support the church. As the church has awakened to its missionary responsibility, the financial needs have grown so that stewardship and missions have gone hand in hand.

It is amazing to observe what some churches and denominations have accomplished that have stressed tithing and courageously preached and taught the matter of biblical stewardship. One gets the feeling that the success of stewardship lies not primarily in clever schemes and techniques but in emphasizing the biblical truth that what a man possesses is the Lord’s.

Dr. Salstrand, who was instructor in Evangelism and New Testament at Tennessee Temple Schools in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is also the author of The Tithe, the Minimum Standard of Christian Giving and How to Preach from the Gospel of John. The Story of Stewardship contains 153 pages and is a powerful message to open the eyes of many of us as to what can and should be done to be faithful stewards and thus hear at our Lord’s return, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

GORDON L. VAN OOSTENBURG

Fresh Meaning

The Book of Revelation by J. B. Phillips. Macmillan, New York. $2.00.

For those already familiar with J. B. Phillips’ translations of the New Testament (and who, among those sufficiently interested in books to be reading this review, is not?), the task of the reviewer of a volume such as this is more to announce than to describe. Sufficient unto the task is the bare assertion that with this volume Phillips completes the New Testament.

In this translation of the Apocalypse, there has been less room than elsewhere in the New Testament for Phillips’ magnificent prose to convey fresh meaning. The account is too factual to lend itself well to the sort of interpretative writing for which the author is justly famous. On the other hand, by the use of tenses and idioms, it has been possible for him to convey meaning where before there was obscurity. Occasionally this is very refreshing. Occasionally it makes one pause.

For instance, in chapter 4, Phillips uses a continuous present tense to convey a dramatic impression of never-ending worship which is quite effective. But he translates the familiar “He that hath an ear …” by “Let the listener hear …” which, to this reviewer, weakens the suggested selectivity implied by the phrase. A similar weakness of idiom occurs elsewhere as, for instance, in the next-to-last verse in the book where “He which testifieth these things …” becomes “He who is witness to all this.…”

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Light On The Scrolls

Second Thoughts on the Dead Sea Scrolls by F. F. Bruce. Paternoster Press, London, 1956. 10s. 6d.

The Teacher of Righteousness in the Qumran Text by F. F. Bruce. Tyndale Press, London, 1957 2s.

Discriminating readers will distinguish between the reliable and the sensational books on the Scrolls. All books on the subject at present must contain considerable speculation, but in several cases hypothesis has been presented virtually as fact.

Professor Bruce’s book and his monograph are reliable treatments, and the reader is clearly shown the boundary between fact and conclusion. The book tells the story of the discovery of the Scrolls, their dating and the type of community from which they emanated. A chapter setting forth their bearing on the O.T. text is followed by a discussion of how the Qumran commentators treated the Messianic hope. Prof. Bruce points out that whereas Qumran looked for what we might call both a sacred and a secular Messiah, the N.T. finds all the O.T. prophecies fulfilled in the one person of Jesus Christ.

Who is the Teacher of Righteousness who is so greatly venerated by the community? Prof. Bruce holds that at present the evidence is insufficient to identify him with any known character of history, but he inclines tentatively to the view that the Wicked Priest, who persecuted him, is Alexander Jannaeus.

In estimating the relationship of the Qumran community to primitive Christianity, it is unlikely that the Teacher was himself regarded as the Messiah, nor was there any saving efficacy in his death.

Certain ideas are obviously common to any religion that is grounded on the O.T., and these must not be treated as though Christ and his disciples drew their teaching from Qumran. Yet the Scrolls have shown some interesting points of contact between the vocabularies of Qumran and St. John’s Gospel, indicating that some features that were formerly traced to Greek sources are likely to have been already current coin in Palestine in the time of Christ.

J. STAFFORD WRIGHT

Calvin Revival

American Calvinism, a Survey edited by Jacob T. Hoogstra. Baker, Grand Rapids. $2.50.

About twenty years ago Georgia Harkness wrote, “Calvin’s theology is in eclipse. Nobody now accepts his strange ideas.” After reading this survey of contemporary American Calvinism, one is not likely to accept Georgia Harkness’ judgment for 1957. The spirit of the times has changed. There is a great new interest in Calvin among students in the Southern Presbyterian Church. The same is true in the Reformed Church of America and in some seminaries of the Presbyterian Church. New translations of The Institutes have appeared in Hungarian, German and French; new printings have appeared in English also.

These and other facts are included in this unusual volume which embodies the talks given at the Calvinistic Conference held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on June 20, 21, 1956. The Conference was sponsored by the American Branch of the International Association of Reformed Faith and Action. Speakers included John H. Gerstner (Pittsburgh-Xenia), Paul Woolley (Westminster), Donald F. Tweedie (Gordon), J. Moody McDill (Pastor, Southern Presbyterian), Jerome DeJong (Pastor, Reformed Church of America), Jacob T. Hoogstra (Pastor, Christian Reformed Church), Cornelius Jaarsma (Calvin) and M. Eugene Oosterhaven (Western, Holland, Michigan).

The two papers by Gerstner and Woolley are well worth the price of the entire book. Prof. Gerstner sketches the history of Calvinism in the United States, especially in New England, before 1900. This is his field. Not only does he know the dominant characters but he knows their theology. He has the knack of painting with broad strokes the sweeping movements and then filling the canvas with details. Prof. Woolley takes up the picture with Darbyism and traces the social and doctrinal difficulties of the Northern Presbyterians to the present day expanding interest of the Reformed churches in Christian education and evangelism.

There follow ecclesiastical surveys of the various regions of our country. These are well done and form a basis for the growing optimism of Calvinists. It is regrettable that a survey of the North-Eastern region was not given. Many would like to know what theological direction Harvard is taking in 1957.

The inclusion of the discussion which followed each paper gives the reader the feeling he is listening in on a Calvinistic “bull-session”!

The collaborators on this book represent a broad front of Calvinism, as evidenced by their attempts to define it. Their talks cover American Calvinism in a comprehensive sweep.

FRANK LAWRENCE

Thematic Interpretation

Philippians, The Gospel at Work by Merril C. Tenney. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. 1956.

Immediately upon seeing a new book on Philippians, two questions come to my mind. (1) How has the author treated the Kenosis passage, and (2) how are the key words translated and applied? Satisfaction for both questions is to be found in The Gospel at Work. This is an “in between” book. It is not a comprehensive commentary of the Epistle to the Philippians, but neither is it a “thin” book in the sense of lack of scholarship or purpose. It is small, but it is filled with good things.

While completely “fair” with the text, a contemporary note is maintained throughout by the illustrations and applications utilized. Historical unity is maintained by frequent reference to Paul’s experiences in Philippi and also to his knowledge of the needs of that church.

The author has chosen thematic interpretation as his literary method; a natural method derived from the fact that the chapters of his book were originally lectures given in the spring of 1955 at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana. The theme is built around the nine appearances of the word “gospel” in the Philippians.

Five divisions; i. e. “Beginning”, “Fellowship”, “Pattern”, “Experience” and “Effects” are then developed. In interpretation, the author seems to be motivated by a desire to help rather than to dogmatize, and where necessary he will use variants of a text to make the meaning clear, including personal translation.

Each section of Philippians receives approximately equal treatment, including an analysis of Paul’s autobiography in chapter three. The “humiliation and exaltation” passage is treated briefly but adequately. The reader can be satisfied with what is there. In many instances, suboutlining by the paragraph and italics method makes the points more readily available.

As I read, I kept waiting for something to be said about the peculiar political status of the city of Philippi in the Roman system. This appeared in the last chapter; I could wish that there had been more.

ROBERT WINSTON ROSS

Africa News: May 27, 1957

Ambassador for Christ

Dr. Joseph Simonson, who recently completed a four-year term of service as U. S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, was given an unusual tribute before his departure by Protestant evangelical missions in the country.

James Luckman of the Baptist Mission expressed the conviction of all:

“Mr. Ambassador, it has been a great joy to have you in our midst as fellow members of heaven’s diplomatic corps. And we as missionaries have now no excuse for failing to understand Paul’s words to the Corinthians, ‘We are ambassadors for Christ.’ You, sir, have shown us by your example the meaning of a good ambassador.”

Dr. Simonson’s response revealed his humility and the truth that he was, indeed, a “fellow member.”

He said:

“I have often thought of this passage also, and as I have told you before, Mrs. Simonson and I have come out here with a sense of vocation. Most of you serve full-time as missionary teachers, nurses, translators, pastors, etc., and there will always be great need for such dedication of the entire life in Christian service; others of us believe that we can make our service in other fields just as directly unto our Lord and Master. After all, perhaps we should not divide our lives into the religious and the secular, but rather consider the fact that either Christ has all of us or he has none of us.”

Kanpur Campaign

Over 900 persons made decisions for Christ recently during evangelistic services in the industrial city of Kanpur, under sponsorship of the Evangelical Fellowship of India.

Dr. Akbar Haqq, who observed campaigns conducted by Billy Graham in the United States, preached to increasing crowds of 800 to 2,500.

Sixty-three per cent were first-time decisions for Christ.

The EFI aided churches in arranging the services. Preparatory meetings were held in all parts of the city. Counsellors were trained under the direction of Dr. Everett L. Cattell, EFI secretary.

Small prayer and fellowship cells are being formed by pastors engaged in follow-up work.

Middle East News: May 27, 1957

‘Act Of Injustice’

“Israel is founded on an act of injustice and nothing good can ever come of it,” an official of the Lutheran World Federation asserted in Copenhagen.

Axel Christensen made the statement as he left Denmark to become senior representative in the Middle East of the LWF’s Department of World Service. He will direct the organization’s large relief program in Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

“The Arabs have been living in Israel for a thousand years, just as we have been living in Denmark,” he said. “What should we say if some foreign country suddenly turned up and declared that it was their country?”

Mr. Christensen said he sympathized with the one million Arab refugees from Palestine who, he said, will not forego their right to return and to obtain damages.

He warned against letting oneself be “blinded” by sympathy for the Jewish people, a sympathy which he said he shared because of all they have suffered.

“I am not anti-Semitic,” he added. “I admire the Jewish nation, but I am opposed to the State of Israel because it is founded on injustice. This is also the opinion of many Jews, but we do not hear much about it here at home.”

Europe News: May 27, 1957

Fervor In Norway

Norway hasn’t seen anything since the 1930’s to match the religious revivals now under way.

The harvest in the Hoyland Church, Jaeren, (western Norway) has been going on for more than six months. People from surrounding towns and far-off countrysides are attending the meetings. From 14 to 80, they are finding Christ.

Another big movement has been surging through the valley of Audnedal in the southern part of the country, led by a young lay preacher, John Olav Larsen and assisted by local ministers of the Lutheran State Church.

Larsen also preached to overflow crowds in the largest halls of Oslo.

—T. B.

‘Air Raid’ Church

A church 50 feet below ground is being planned for the rapidly growing Swedish industrial city of Vasteras.

The project is designed to meet two major needs of the city—an A-bomb shelter and a new church. Vasteras, with 70,000 inhabitants, has only one state church, its 700-year-old cathedral.

According to plans, only the belfry will project above ground. The church, which will seat 500, will be reached by stairs and elevators.

Barth Hits Tests

Dr. Karl Barth, famed Swiss Protestant theologian, has called upon people in leading public positions to “take matters into their own hands” regarding atomic and hydrogen tests.

He urged them to “appeal to mankind and not be satisfied with political appeasing assurances.”

Dr. Barth said these leaders “must use all possible means to make their governments and press understand they wish neither to exterminate nor be exterminated—neither in defense of the ‘free world’ nor in defense of socialism.

“They should cry ‘Stop,’ to pierce the eardrums of men with responsibility in the West and East; to halt preparations for war with weapons making it from the outset senseless for all taking part; halt experiments which clearly imperil us already in peacetime.

“People in the West and East must oppose the current lunacy.”

The theologian said the matter was not one of principles, ideological systems or considerations of power but “of life.”

“Mankind must help settle the matter before it is too late,” he said.

New Russian Bishop

Archimandrite Anthony Bartochevitch, formerly of Brussels, Belgium, was installed recently as Russian Orthodox Bishop of Geneva and Switzerland.

He was elected to replace his brother, Bishop Leonty, who died last summer at the age of 42.

Bishop Anthony, whose family comes from Yugoslavia, is affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia which does not recognize the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate.

“Indifferent” New Yorkers Respond

WORLD NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

The time was 7 p.m., 30 minutes before the opening in New York’s Madison Square Garden of the biggest evangelistic crusade ever attempted. In nearby Times Square, crowds moved along in bee-hive proportions. But it was evident they were not on the way to hear Billy Graham.

Traffic seemed to thin with each passing block near the Garden. The thought of a syndicated columnist came to mind that indifferent New Yorkers might stay away by the thousands. Tiny darts of fear played around the edges of the possibility. Months of round-the-clock work by scores of people had gone into the effort. Unnumbered prayers had been offered. Members of 1,500 churches had studied faithfully the ways to tell people about Christ. Favorable publicity had been unprecedented.

Where were the people? A chartered bus rolled down the street. The riders were singing and the words rolled out of the windows for all to hear: “Everybody ought to know who Jesus is.”

Statues of pugilists dotted the entrance to the famous old arena. A number of policemen stood nearby with little to do. A step through the doorway provided the answer as the 1,500-voice choir boomed: “How Great Thou Art.” Over 18,000 were already there. Hundreds had been there when the doors opened at 6 P. M.

An estimated 250 reporters, columnists and photographers overflowed the huge press section, located near the spot where two circus tigers had tangled in a death fight a few days earlier.

After announcements and songs, the simple gospel of Jesus Christ was preached—in language a child could understand but one that gripped the attention of adults. The message was preceded by a prayer: “Grant that the speaker may hide behind the cross, and let the people see none save Jesus Christ.”

When the invitation was given, 704 of the “indifferent” New Yorkers arose from their seats, some in the top balconies, to walk the longest and shortest mile in the world. They came from every strata of society. (During the minutes of the invitation, 5,000 people from one town in India were on their knees praying. Tribesmen in Assam, who have never seen a two-story building, were praying for people in the concrete jungle of New York.)

The opening night was important. And the inspiring scenes were to be repeated nightly in following weeks.

Probably more important, however, was a meeting Mr. Graham addressed on the second morning of the Crusade. The theater marquee said “Cinerama: Seven Wonders of the World.” Inside were several hundred ministers from the greater metropolitan area.

“All the elements of successful evangelism are here,” he said, “and it will be a miracle if we do not have a spiritual awakening. Preaching is just a small part of the total picture. You are beginning to see for yourselves that it is not Billy Graham. It is all of us working together as a team, meeting certain spiritual conditions, that God is using.”

He then outlined several objectives of evangelism: “The Church needs to be revitalized. Dr. Frederick H. Olert said, ‘of every 100 enrolled members, 5 cannot be found, 20 never pray, 25 never read the Bible, 30 never attend a church, 40 never give to any cause, 50 never go to Sunday School, 60 never go to church at night, 70 never give to missions, 75 never do any church work, 80 never go to prayer meetings, 90 do not have family worship and 95 never win another soul to Christ.’ We are so familiar with this record of failure that we are in danger of accepting it as something to be expected.

“A new evangelistic emphasis is needed in the church. Dr. W. E. Sangster said, ‘The simplest way to embarrass a normal congregation is to ask them two ordinary questions: When did you last lead someone else to Christ? When did you last pray?’

“We have the un-biblical notion that it is best to live our religion and not say much about it. Actually, a silent discipleship is the first betrayal of a movement that began when 120 Christians filled with the Spirit of God took the witness stand to declare the wonderful works of God.

“Another objective will be to bring a new unity among the churches of New York. The New York Times in an editorial recently said, ‘The churches in New York have little influence and spend most of their time fighting each other.’

“Many ministers need to rededicate their lives and, in some cases, to accept Christ for the first time. In London we had ministers responding nightly to the invitation. Brian Green said, ‘The Church today cannot evangelize until she is certain of her gospel and recaptures something of that brilliancy and hope which the early Christians possessed.” We ministers need to catch fire. Nazism had fire. Fascism had it. The communists have it. Dr. John Mackay said, ‘It seems to be the Master deserves a more flaming allegiance than Marx.’ But he isn’t getting it.

“The primary objective of evangelism, however, is the conversion of sinners to Christ, both inside and outside the Church. Most church leaders recognize that there are thousands within the churches that need converting. If some of your church members come forward in the meetings and make a commitment to Christ, don’t be alarmed. Rejoice!”

Of the message to be delivered nightly at the Garden, Mr. Graham said he would preach sin and judgment. “I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified,” he said, adding: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of … Christ.”

The evangelist said he would discuss atonement, justification, adoption, resurrection, life after death, the elements of commitment and Christian responsibility.

He continued:

“Many people say, Billy, why do you give an invitation? Moses gave an invitation in Exodus 32–36 when he said, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side, let him come unto me’? Joshua gave an invitation, ‘Choose you this day whom you will serve.’ Jesus gave many invitations. He invited Zacchaeus to come down out of a tree. If Jesus did that, I see no harm in asking a man to come down out of a balcony.”

In speaking about the care of converts, Mr. Graham said: “In the average American church, of every two persons received on profession of faith, one has been dropped as a failure. If we treated newborn babes as carelessly as we treat newborn Christians, the infant mortality rates would equal the appalling mortality of church members. The whole early church was a communicants’ class.”

He urged the ministers to approach the meetings with an open mind, spend much time in prayer, engage in personal soul winning, to be tolerant and to sacrifice themselves.

“Let’s move our personal feelings aside and see what God can do,” he said. “The days are critical. The communist is almost winning the world with a lie, and we’re losing it with the truth.”

Worth Quoting

“It is very probable that more men participated in the Olympic Games than engage in foreign missions around the world. You could put all the missionaries of the world right here (Seattle) in your own city stadium several times over, and you would find that most of them are brave women and girls. There are hardly enough males in missions to man a couple of aircraft carriers, and we say we are trying to win a world for Christ. Where, I ask you, do we get the courage to stand up in church across this nation on Sunday morning and sing, ‘Like a mighty army moves the church of God.…?’ ”—Clay Cooper, president of Vision, Inc.

“We Christians ‘talk’ a good fight but too many of us have settled for coexistence with paganism. The future of the world is going to be decided either the totalitarian or the Gospel way. We hope it can be settled without a physical war, but it certainly cannot be won without a spiritual war.”—Dr. Samuel Shoemaker, Calvary Episcopal, Pittsburgh.

Protest On Colombia

Weary of Colombian persecution of Protestant minorities, the National Association of Evangelicals has urged Secretary of State Dulles to withhold recognition of the new regime there until the following conditions are met:

► Reopening of “mission territories” with complete religious and educational freedom to U. S. citizens.

► Freedom of press and radio to non-Roman Catholic religions.

► Approval of licenses to import non-Catholic books to all religious bodies, including Protestants and the Bible Society.

► Freedom to construct Protestant churches without hindrances after municipal approval of plans (49 such churches and chapels have been destroyed since 1947).

► Residence privileges for Americans for religious and educational purposes.

Racial Study

Less than five per cent of the Methodist ministers answering a questionnaire in an Indiana racial study favored a completely segregated local church pattern.

Nearly half the Methodist laymen answering a similar questionnaire said they would favor a segregated church.

Three-quarters of the ministers said they would willingly accept appointment to a racially mixed church. About 23 per cent of the 492 white laymen said they would accept the appointment of a pastor of another race.

People: Words And Events

Close Trimming—Grace before meals in public schools violates California constitutional provisions prohibiting the teaching of religion in schools, Fresno County Counsel Robert Wash ruled. He will leave it to school authorities for decisions in “borderline” eases. A borderline case is a familiar verse used by kindergarten children before milk and crackers: “Thank you for the world so sweet; Thank you for the food we eat; Thank you for the birds that sing; Thank you, God, for everything.”

Missionary Widows—All royalty income from the book, Through Gates of Splendor, will be channeled directly into missionary projects by the five widows of the Equador martyres. Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot, one of the widows, is author of the book, but all five will share equally in royalties. Harper & Brothers will publish it on May 29.

A Christian Mother—Mrs. Annie Laura Hale, a 70-year-old housewife who married in a pioneer buggy, reared 14 children and sent nine of them to college, has been named the 1957 Texas Baptist Mother of the Year. A Sunday School teacher for the last 56 years, she said: “If you are a Christian mother, you can always depend on the Lord to help you when you need him and the going gets rough. I couldn’t have made it without him.”

Meeting the Needs—Energetic Tom Young of Turlock, Calif., a former pastor and church magazine editor, saw two needs: Christian families, who need some stimulus to family prayer and service; non-Christians, who need tactful introductions to the Gospel. He came up with a single answer: a unique monthly periodical, Plus, which Christian families mail in their name to the unchurched. Participating families agree to pray for those to whom they mail the pamphlets.

Three Firsts—Dr. Frank T. Wilson, dean of Howard University School of Religion, Washington, D. C., has been named education secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. He is the first Negro to be appointed to the board’s staff.… William R. Robinson of New York City, recently arrived in Africa to become president of the Seventh-day Adventist Uganda Mission. He is the first Negro sent by U. S. Adventists to an administrative post in the denomination’s Southern African Division.… The Rev. Arthur F. Elmes has been elected president of the Washington (D. C.) Ministerial Union. He is the first Negro to head the group.

We Can Help—The voice of many leading American preachers are being heard today in small towns and villages—thanks to the efforts of an Oklahoma City couple. Five years ago Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hoefle took up tape recording as a hobby. Now they head a non-profit enterprise known as Spiritual Recordings Unlimited, which has sent 250 miles of tape recorded sermons to every state and several foreign countries. They travel around the country recording addresses at conventions and other meetings. The Hoefles recently were appointed official recorders of International Christian Leadership.

Alarm in Moscow—The Young Communist magazine has complained that many young people in the Murmansk region above the Arctic Circle are drifting away from communist moorings to become religious converts or juvenile delinquents. More alarm was expressed about converts than delinquents.

Sunday Closing—The United States Supreme Court has taken under advisement appeals challenging the constitutionality of Sunday closing laws in two states. One appeal seeks to overthrow a New Jersey ordinance banning the sale of new and used automobiles on Sunday. In another case, an Arkansas grocer asks the court to review a 1956 municipal law which prohibits grocery stores and meat markets from operating on Sunday.

Digest—Dr. J. D. Grey, past president of Southern Baptist Convention, observes 20th anniversary as pastor of New Orleans’ First Baptist Church.… Total of 233 missionaries sent to 17 countries in 1956 by American Lutheran bodies.

A Man Of God

Hundreds of pastors assembled in Chicago for a conference before the 100th annual session of the Southern Baptist Convention, May 29–June 1.

One of the challenging messages they heard was particularly timely, after a lot of recent national publicity about ministers suffering nervous breakdowns. The talk was given by Dr. F. Townley Lord of London, former president of the Baptist World Alliance.

His address follows, in part:

“The description of the Christian pastor as a ‘man of God’ is uplifting, heartwarming, challenging … and sometimes humiliating; for there can be few of us who do not realize how far short we fall of that great ideal. Once in my vestry in central London an actress came to discuss some personal problems. To my question, ‘Why have you come to me?’ she replied, ‘But aren’t you a man of God?’

“It is good to be reminded of the dignity and solemn responsibility of our high calling. Emerson told some divinity students that the minister’s function is ‘to acquaint men at first-hand with deity.’ George Herbert, once public orator in the University of Cambridge, defined a pastor as ‘the deputy of Christ for the reducing of men to the obedience of God.’

“These are great ideals; yet when I want to learn what it means to be a man of God, I turn to the Bible, for it is the Word of God that gives us a great procession of men of God, spotlighting their call, adventures, trials, successes, failures. In this biblical portrait gallery, one thing stands out with crystal clarity: its men of God were subjected to strain and pressure, generally from without, sometimes from within. The way of obedience to God was not for them the ‘primrose path of dalliance.…’

“You will not fail to observe that the strains and stresses felt by the Bible’s men of God were not unlike those we know and experience today.… How modern it all sounds! Working on unresponsive material, setting one’s course against popular demands, fitting a message of divine love and grace to a world embroiled in rivalries and war, battling against disappointment and frustration, keeping a brave face when tragedy gnaws at the heart.

“There is one figure in the Bible who seems to have combined in his own experience most of the discouragements men can conceive—Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. I mention him not just to add to the list of the Bible heroes, but because I think he had found the secret of keeping calm under pressure. He had critics by the score. They made fun of his appearance. They questioned his standing and authority. Sometimes he gives us an autobiographical passage, as when he writes (2 Cor. 11:26–28) of being:

‘In perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness; beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.’

“Yet, in the same letter from which this quotation is taken, he can say twice in one chapter, ‘I never lose heart.’

“That is the secret we want to know. Never to lose heart. Never to allow disappointment to cast a shadow of doubt on the great cause. Never to permit indignation to warp our judgment. Never to allow anything to obscure the one supreme fact that we are God’s men, representing him to the world.

“Paul gives us his own secret (2 Cor. 4:16–18):

‘But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’

“His secret is two fold. Part of it is paradoxical. The man of God looks at something he can’t see. He keeps his vision of timeless realities. The other part is inward—the renewal of inner life day by day. I have never known a Christian pastor who put this recipe to the test without finding that it is the door to serenity and patience in ministry.

“To keep our eyes turned towards the unseen, to know so much of the daily presence of the Lord Jesus in the heart—this is to discover the power of calmness under pressure.”

Literary Needs

“More trained personnel and greater emphasis on distribution are the most pressing needs in missionary literature work,” Kenneth N. Taylor, director of Moody Institute’s Literature Mission, said recently after completing a tour of Christian centers in the Near and Far East. He added:

“The products of missionary publishers will have to be improved to meet the competition of western magazines penetrating the Far East. To be effective, Christian literature must be printed on good paper, with attractive art, layout and color. Communists have been making remarkable inroads with attractive literature at very low prices.…”

Parochial Funds

“Unalterable opposition” to the use of public funds for the support of independent or parochial schools was voiced in a special committee report at the 169th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. (Northern) at Omaha, Nebraska, May 16–22.

In opposing public support of parochial schools, the report denied that these institutions are part of “community education.”

“Parochial schools, avowedly sectarian,” the report said, “are not amenable to the control of the community from which they seek support. There is a widespread and aggressive movement that asserts that the parochial school is really a part of public education. This contention confuses the public and is contrary to the fact that parochial schools and public schools are created upon entirely different foundations.”

The committee said that “confusion in the public mind can result in withdrawal of support from the public schools.”

The report also condemned “the practice of virtual donations of public school buildings, under the guise of sales, to parochial school systems below legitimately assessed evaluation regardless of lack of public school population or majority registration in parochial schools.”

Some 880 commissioners, lay and clerical, representing the denomination’s 250 presbyteries, attended the Omaha convention.

Rc School View

Archbishop William O. Brady of St. Paul, Minn., has spelled out the conditions under which Roman Catholics may attend or participate in public school baccalaureate ceremonies.

Priests may not participate nor Catholics attend if the rites are held in non-Catholic churches. And it is not permissable to hold public school graduations and baccalaureates in Catholic churches.

If the baccalaureate observances are held in a public place, there is no reason why Catholic clergy should not appear and speak, the archbishop said.

He traced the origin of baccalaureate observances to universities in Europe where “practically all education was religious and Catholic.… It is interestingly strange that now, when public education is more or less officially denuded of religion, how popular baccalaureate sermons remain.… Where baccalaureate day is no longer a religious occasion, but really a social event, it may be accepted and shared by all, even if it has no current meaning. But a difficulty will always appear in our pluralistic society as soon as our public schools attempt to crown the final days of the secular academic year with a religious sugar coating.…”

Christian Unity

Observers predict that the Third Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation in Minneapolis, Minn., August 15–25, will be one of the most significant religious meetings held on American soil in decades.

The Federation represents an estimated 50 million Lutherans from 29 countries.

Dr. Carl E. Lund-Quist, executive secretary of the LWF, said the Assembly hoped to make a major contribution to theological discussion on the question of Christian unity.

He said the question of unity will be considered with regard to the relation of the Lutheran churches to each other as well as to the possibility of church fellowship between Lutherans and others, particularly those in the World Council of Churches.

Dr. Hanns Lilje, Bishop of Hannover, Germany, Federation president, will preside at all formal sessions and will present the keynote address. Speakers on the program include Dr. Rajah B. Manikam, Bishop of Tranquebar, India; Dr. Otto Dibelius, Bishop of the Church of Berlin-Brandenburg and president of the Evangelical Church in Germany and Dr. Lajos Ordass, Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Hungary.

Redpath On Trip

The Rev. Alan Redpath, pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, will be away from his pulpit until August 29.

He will be a principal speaker at both the Irish and English Keswick. Also, he will visit in Austria before returning.

Mr. Redpath is chairman of the Mid-America Keswick to be held in Chicago October 12–19.

Fcc Rejects Protest

The Federal Communications Commission has rejected a protect by Dr. J. Richard Sneed, First Methodist Church, Los Angeles, against the action of Radio Station KFAC in dropping the church’s 34-year-old religious broadcast.

The Commission said it had been informed by KFAC that the station was consulting with the Church Federation of Los Angeles to find a different religious program to replace the Methodist service.

Accordingly, the FCC said it found no grounds for ordering a public hearing.

Dr. Sneed said he had been told by the station that “we are gradually eliminating all religious programs and replacing them with musical programs.”

(A number of churches have received broadcast termination notices since the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches adopted an advisory policy against the sale of time for religious programs, but practically all such churches were members of denominations not affiliated with the Council—(CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 1, issue). First Methodist in Los Angeles is affiliated with the NCC.

In a five-page letter to the Los Angeles clergymen, the FCC cited provisions of the Federal Communications Act and decisions of the Federal courts which limit its power to control the specific programming of a radio station. (Radio and television stations, in applying to the Commission for licenses, state the percentage of time that will be devoted to religious programs. KFAC, in its application for a three-year license renewal in 1956, informed the FCC that 1.9 per cent of its broadcast time was devoted to religious services.)

Meanwhile, in another broadcast development, Radio Station WGY in Schenectady, N. Y., said it was dropping paid religious broadcasts because it had an “imbalance of fundamentalist Protestant theology” in its religious programming. The station is owned by the General Electric Company.

The station said it would continue to provide free time for an “adequate, representative schedule of religious broadcasts.” Merl Galusha, WGY manager, said the station had declined to renew a contract for Billy Graham’s “Hour of Decision.”

Other programs that will no longer be carried on a paid basis after present contracts expire, he said, are “Word of Life,” “Bible Study Hour,” “The Lutheran Hour” and “Voice of Prophecy.”

It is “quite likely,” according to the manager, that some programs previously carried on a paid basis will be included in the free-time schedule.

Theology

Bible Book of the Month: I Thessalonians

William Hendriksen

Unless a thorough study of I Thessalonians has been made, one does not know Paul, “the apostle of the Gentiles.” Some students focus their attention on Paul, the theologian; others on Paul, the man; still others on Paul, the missionary. These three lines of interest converge beautifully in I Thessalonians.

To begin with the theological interest. Nowhere do we find so much source material for the doctrine of the last things (eschatology) as in the letters to the Thessalonians. In I Thessalonians every chapter ends with a reference to the second coming (1:10; 2:19, 20; 3:11–13; 4:13–18; 5:23, 24). As for Paul, the man, it has been well remarked that here he stands out “in all the charm of his rich and varied personality” (George Milligan, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Thessalonians, London, 1908, p. xliii). The following passages may be regarded as windows that afford a look into Paul’s great heart: 2:1–12; 3:1–10; 5:12–24. And as for Paul, the missionary, studies devoted to this subject often refer not only to Acts 17:1–19, which contains a brief report of the work at Thessalonica, but also to 1 Thessalonians 1:8–10, which indicates the content and the amazing success of Paul’s missionary message.

The epistle contributes more than a triple primary source for the study of Paul. It manifests God’s glorious special revelation that comes to every believer with absolute divine authority; it indicates how one may enjoy real comfort in life, benefit his brothers and sisters in the Lord, and live to God’s glory.

Authorship of this epistle presents no great problem, as it is among those letters which even today are generally conceded to Paul. To be sure, some disagree with this well-nigh unanimous opinion, but they do so on wholly subjective grounds which, if pursued to their logical conclusions, would rob Paul of all his epistles. According to some of these objectors, the letter cannot have been written by the great apostle because it is too un-Pauline, and according to others it cannot have been written by him because it is too Pauline! In the hands of such men Paul simply does not have “a ghost of a chance.” But all the real evidence points directly to Paul. The epistle presents itself as his letter (1:1; 2:18), has the typical Pauline structure, is Pauline both in vocabulary and phraseology, reflects Paul’s character, and was ascribed by the early fathers to Paul. Even the early heretics are in agreement with this dictum.

There are those who believe that II Thessalonians was written before I Thessalonians (for example, Lyle O. Bristol, “Paul’s Thessalonian Correspondence,” Expository Times, Vol. 55, 1944, p. 223). But that 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12 clearly points back to 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 can be seen by comparing the two (cf. especially 2 Thess. 2:1 with 1 Thess. 4:17; and note also the reference in 2 Thess. 2:15 to an earlier epistle).

A more difficult question is whether here in I Thessalonians the apostle gives an answer to a letter from Thessalonica that Timothy presumably had brought with him. Interest in this question has been revived by the article of Chalmer E. Faw, “On the Writing of First Thessalonians” (Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 71, December, 1952, pp. 217–225). Personally I believe that the evidence favoring the answer-to-a-letter idea is insufficient (see my Exposition of I and II Thessalonians, pp. 12 and 13, for detailed argumentation).

Historical Background

On his second missionary journey Paul, accompanied by Silas and probably Timothy, reached Thessalonica or Salonica, as it is called today. Situated in northeastern Greece, on what is now called the Gulf of Salonica, Salonica has become next to the largest city of Greece, with a population of about a quarter of a million. In course of time Thessalonica became the capital of the entire province of Macedonia. Because it had sided with him in the great struggle for supreme power, the emperor Augustus made it a free city. Hence, even in Paul’s day a great measure of home rule was enjoyed in the selection of magistrates, who were called “politarchs” (Acts 17:6).

Although the culture of the city was basically Hellenic, its population was cosmopolitan. In addition to Greeks and Romans, the city was “hometown” for many a Jew. It is not surprising, then, that Paul found not only pagan idol worshippers—Mt. Olympus, “the home of the gods,” was nearby—but also Jews and proselytes.

The missionaries seem not to have stayed long in this city, though the “three weeks” mentioned in Acts 17:2 probably indicates the period during which the apostle taught in the synagogue. For various reasons, the opinion of most commentators that the total duration of the Thessalonian ministry was longer than three weeks must be considered correct. Though the ministry was short, the amount of work the missionaries performed was amazing. Paul taught that the Messianic prophecies had attained their fulfilment in Jesus; that it was He who suffered, died, was raised from the dead, and will come again, all according to the Scriptures; that by his work he delivered from the wrath to come all those who trust in him; that idol worship is evil and foolish; and that those who accept Christ, having been called into his glorious kingdom, should live a life of sanctification so as to please God who saved them (Acts 17:3; 1 Thess. 1:9, 10; 2:12; 4:1–3). On one point—Christ’s return and the events that will precede it—Paul gave detailed instruction.

The great missionary’s heart was in his message. Deeply persuaded of the supreme importance of that message, he dealt with each person as a father deals with his children, teaching, exhorting and encouraging (1 Thess. 1:1–5; 2:4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11). There were many conversions, so that Paul later on mentions the joyful and enthusiastic manner in which the word had been taken to heart, and the fact that this congregation had become an example to all believers in Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thess. 1:6, 7). It is not surprising that Paul’s “success” made the unconverted Jews jealous and angry. In fact, their opposition resulted in the departure of the missionaries, who made their way to Berea. Here Silas and Timothy stayed for a while, Paul himself heading for Athens. It was there that Timothy found Paul, who, being deeply concerned about the young church, sent him back to Thessalonica.

When Timothy returned from his mission, Paul was carrying on his gospel activity in Corinth. So encouraging was Timothy’s report that Paul’s heart was filled with joy and thanksgiving. “Now I really live,” said Paul, as Timothy brought him the wonderful news of the undiminished faith and love of the infant church (cf. 1 Thess. 3:8). Yet there was also some bad news. Base opponents were casting slurs at Paul’s character and motives (1 Thess. 2:3–10) and were trying by this means to destroy his influence and the comfort his message had brought. And comfort was badly needed, comfort blended with further instruction. This was true especially with respect to one important matter. Some members of the church had “fallen asleep.” Were they going to share in the glory of Christ’s return? Moreover, if this coming again was imminent, why work any longer? Why toil for the things that were soon to perish?

Objectives And Content

Hence, Paul now writes I Thessalonians, having in mind the following objectives:

To meet head-on the whispering campaign with reference to his motives

To express his joy and gratitude for the good news Timothy had brought

To shed further light on the question touching those who had fallen asleep and on the related question of the manner of Christ’s return

To give exactly such directions as were needed by those who had so recently been brought into the kingdom of light.

In harmony with this four-point purpose Paul writes to the Thessalonians as follows:

Reminding them, in connection with his thanksgiving for them, how the gospel had come to Thessalonica, as a genuine work of God and not as a product of human deception (chapters 1 and 2)

Informing them how he rejoices over Timothy’s report of their continued spiritual progress even in the midst of persecution (chapter 3)

Instructing them how Christ will come again, namely, with impartiality toward all believers, so that survivors will have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep, and with suddenness, so that people will be taken by surprise (4:13–5:11); and accordingly

Exhorting them how they should conduct themselves, living sanctified lives with respect to all classes at all times (4:1–12 and 5:12–28).

Special Points

How gloriously the heart of God in Christ is revealed here: “Are you worrying about the dear ones who have fallen asleep [what a wonderful phrase!] in Jesus?” Paul seems to say. Well, God loves them. Hence, when he causes his beloved Son to return upon clouds of glory, these “dead in Christ will rise first,” and “then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).

Just what further light does the epistle shed on the subject of the Rapture? Is it possible, after all, that Christ’s coming “with the saints” and his coming “for the saints” are two phases of the same Second Coming? And speaking about the eagerly awaited return of our Lord, how should one interpret that mysterious passage in which the apostle expresses the wish that with a view to that day “spirit, soul and body” may be preserved entire (1 Thess. 5:23)? Was Paul a trichotomist? In my Commentary I have devoted several pages to the problem of 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (pp. 141, 146–150).

Literature

I shall try to be very selective in mentioning works on Thessalonians. The older “sets” of New Testament commentaries are too well known, I trust, to need mentioning. Of the more recent works that strive to do justice to the Greek text two have long been considered outstanding: James E. Frame, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians (New York, 1912) one of the best in The International Critical Commentary series, and George Milligan, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Thessalonians (London, 1908). Worthwhile information may also be gathered from the work I consider one of the best in The Interpreter’s Bible, namely, John W. Bailey and James W. Clarke, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (New York, 1952, Vol. XI).

Other more or less important twentieth century titles are: Martin Dibelius Die Briefe des Apostels Paulus (in Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Tubingen, 1913); George G. Findlay, ed., The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians (in Cambridge Greek Testament) (Cambridge, 1904); James Moffatt, The First and Second Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians (in Expositors’ Greek Testament) (London, 1910) William Neil, The Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians (in Moffatt New Testament Commentary) (New York, 1950) and G. Wohlenberg, Der erste und zweite Thessalonicherbriefe (in Kommentar zum Neuen Testament) (Leipzig, 1909).

Eutychus and His Kin: May 27, 1957

IN AND OUT THE WINDOWS

Every preacher knows that illustrations in sermons are windows to let in the light. Some sermons are like railroad coaches, with windows regularly spaced throughout their length; others are ranch style, featuring one picture window. Homiletical architecture, taking its cue from contemporary building, is using more and more glass. Indeed, to change the figure, as every illustrator must, many sermons have so many windows and so little structure that they resemble not so much a greenhouse as a fish net, classically defined as a large number of holes tied together with string.

A window does not only function to admit light. Recall the experience of my namesake at Troas! (Let me here deny categorically that Eutychus fell asleep on the window sill because Paul’s sermon lacked illustrations.) Many a bemused hearer has been lost from a sermon via illustrationis, that is, out the window. Consider the folly of the young preacher who on a June morning is the victim of his repressed desires and pictures an approach shot to the ninth green to illustrate his second point. The greater his finesse with his homiletical iron, the more squarely he will loft fifteen per cent of his hearers over to the wrong fairway for the rest of the service.

Illustrative windows have also been known to admit dust, bugs and noise. Red herrings have been dragged through some; others are service ports from which thousands of canned anecdotes slide down an endless belt.

One preacher’s corrective is to compare illustrating to harness racing. That illustrative critter must be lean and fresh, it must move fast on the inside track, and most of all, it must be harnessed. Unless it carries the point down the homestretch, keep that horseflesh off the track.

Still better, board up those windows and distill a limpid prose like that of this letter, which is free of all illustrative additives.

EUTYCHUS

CHURCH AND SCHOOL

Modern Americans are inclined to see Jesus altogether as a teacher. As if to correct the imbalance, they have with careful determination stripped his church of most of its teaching authority. It is not uncommon to hear preachers who call themselves evangelical declare from the pulpit and elsewhere that the traditional Gospel is not relevant to modern life, and ‘public’ schools are our salvation.

The supposed reason for abandoning the Church as the great teaching institution is that we believe in separation of Church and State. The slogan has served well a long night of debauched ravishing, both of Christian schools and Christian knowledge. Thank God there is a streak of dawn light splitting the darkness. Church schools are appearing all across the land: they may herald the dawn of real revival in our time.

It is strange indeed that to separate Church and State, American Christians have separated church and school. There is neither precedent nor logic for this. Certainly there is no doctrine. From the time of the great commission the Church has taken to herself full authority to teach all knowledge in the Name of Jesus: the brilliance of her scholars and thinkers has overshadowed even the giants of every non-Christian civilization. The mighty Aristotle has been ‘brought up to date’, and Plato cut down to size.

One searches in vain in the past to find any serious view that learning is a function of civil government, not of ecclesiastical. Even pagan writers of ancient Rome recognized that men’s religious beliefs are not subject to the power of police. Religion and learning are almost synonymous. Poets and philosophers were the religious leaders of paganism: and, for the Jews, the beginning of wisdom was the fear of the Lord. The scholars of China pored over the religious teaching of Confucious. In frontier America the little red school-house was more often than not the neighborhood church. Even Marxist religion is equated with the ‘intellectuals’.

Recent developments in New York state have only clarified the oneness of religion and learning. Reports of investigations and hearings on the subject make it clear that the root of all controversy over what is to be taught in the schools is religious. It seems to be impossible to teach any recognizable morals in New York, because all morals must reflect a religious conviction of some kind. It seems to be overlooked at the moment that it also reflects a religious viewpoint called godlessness to teach no religion.

In the face of this dead-end, the Council of Churches in at least one major city has expressed itself through committee as being unalterably opposed to teaching any sectarian religion in public schools. One is entitled to ask what religion is not sectarian?

Christianity is certainly sectarian in the eyes of civil government: if, then, it cannot be taught in government controlled schools, what religion do Christians accept from government schools?

The Christian doctrine about civil government has been expressed straightforwardly since the preaching of Peter and Paul. Rulers exist to punish wickedness and reward virtue. That covers all civil government authority in both domestic and international affairs. There is no hint that the government also teaches the young. If it does, and if Christians have no schools of their own, then Christians are compelled to accept a strange doctrine that the government not only punishes and rewards, it teaches. When we see state schools in other lands, we cringe at the shadow of tyranny and compulsion.

So-called ‘public’ schools (a misnomer for tax-supported or state-controlled schools) are usually espoused with a passionate conviction that they are a bond of unity. This raises a fundamental religious conviction. Whatever gives unity to a people is that people’s god. Could it be that the real center of real American religion is the image of Caesar, or the power of taxation and punishment with the sword? Are we not really united in Christ?

Certainly it makes sense for those who worship civil government to give to government the religious authority to teach: for to such, government is a god. But one must search in vain for any other rationale. Those who, having other gods, make of Jesus only a great teacher are not espousing the Jesus who really lived, or who has ever been really worshipped by any Christian Church. But both Latin and Greek churches have been alert to the pagan’s ‘debauchery of learning’, or ‘lust for knowledge’ which accompanied his worship of Caesar. The comparisons are too easy to allow any rest to the conscience of any American Christian. Learning, as a tool and an arm of faith, has reached heights in Christian scholars never attained outside the fold: but when made an end in itself, it has been a corrupting debauchery, a vicious lust.

This realization suggests some startling possibilities for modern churches. At a time when local school costs have caused public outcry, as in Denver, and when the Federal government is straining to centralize all tax-supported schools through its already overloaded budget, these possibilities cry out for attention.

Cost wise there is an overwhelming argument for opening the doors of thousands of church ‘educational buildings’ for week-day schools. Most of them are dark and empty except for one hour on Sunday. They are available at no extra cost to the same community which otherwise will have to construct equal but separate facilities.

The administration for congregational schools already exists where a congregation is functioning. All that needs to be added is a teaching staff.

The educational philosophy is at hand with the glory of the ages stamped upon it—the high calling of Christian scholarship.

By relieving civil government of a chore it cannot perform, by returning to a Jesus of Incarnation, Atonement and Beatific Vision, modern American churches can speedily and easily take up once more their great evangelistic mission of being a teaching church. At the same time, they can leave civil government free to its natural and historic function of punishing wickedness and rewarding virtue. Perhaps peace is nearer and easier than we thought, if government can do its work because the Church is doing hers.

For those who are alarmed at Roman Catholic schools, one need only reply their is no fear of Roman schools among non-Romans who have their own. Certainly we need not turn to political action to curb the religious activities of our Roman Christian brethren.

T. ROBERT INGRAM

St. Thomas Episcopal

Bellaire, Tex.

PROPITIATION

The article “Propitiation” (Apr. 15 issue) is timely and commendable. I hesitate to raise any question concerning it because Dr. Nicole is no doubt already aware of what comes to my mind. But, if he is, I wonder why he fails to note it. He lists three appearances of the word propitiation in the English N. T. What he does not note is that while hilasmos is the equivalent Greek for the two appearances in I John, the word that St. Paul writes in Rom. 3:25 is hilasterion. Hilasterion is the LXX word in Exodus 25:17, which KJ translates as mercy-seat. Does not this translation and its concept better fit St. Paul’s thought than propitiation? Is not Christ the new way to the Father, apart from the Law, through the New Covenant? Would our author not wish to add another item (6) to his “relevant observations”?

EARL M. HONAMAN

Diocese of Harrisburg

Suffragan Bishop, Williamsport, Pa.

Bishop Honaman’s observation is welcome. His interpretation of the meaning of hilasterion in Romans 3:25 has the support of many exegetes (Origen, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Tholuck, Olshausen, Lange, Philippi, A. Ritschl, Liddon, Gifford, and very recently Nygren, T. W. Manson, etc.). There are also many, however, who have favored another view (Hodge, Shedd, Godet, B. Weiss, Zahn, Sanday and Headlam, V. Taylor, C. H. Dodd, Lietzmann, O. Michael, F. Buechsel, J. Knox, etc.). This is obviously a keenly debated question, and it was our desire … to avoid as much as possible controversial issues, if merely incidental to our main contention.

In any case, whether the rendering mercy-seat be or be not favored in this instance, the fact that hilasterion, a cognate of hilasmos, is used implies an element of propitiation in this passage. If hilasterion is the mercy-seat, the root meaning of the word connotes that this is the propitiatory place, the place at which the propitiation of God with respect to his people is sealed and signified. If another translation be preferred, it should be one in which the idea of propitiation, etymologically and semantically implicit in hilasterion, comes explicitly to the fore.

ROGER NICOLE

Beverly Farms, Mass.

THE CHURCH AND VITAMINS

REGISTER STRONGEST POSSIBLE PROTEST AGAINST THE DISGUSTING HUCKSTER TYPE ADVERTISEMENT APPEARING ON THE BACK PAGE … MORE ESPECIALLY WHEN YOUR MAGAZINE IS SAID TO BE DIRECTED TO A RESPONSIBLE LEVEL OF CHURCH AND BUSINESS LIFE.

S. D. MACKEY

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

Allow me to protest briefly the unsavory nature of the advertisement on the back page of your issue (April 29). I look upon this kind of advertisement … as on a plane with liquor advertisement.…

GEORGE G. HARPER, JR.

Grand Rapids, Mich.

I was very much astonished as well as shocked to find this ad in your journal.… The product is a simple vitamin preparation which can be purchased in any drug store at a fraction of the price. Even if prescribed by a doctor it would not cost as much as this.…

E. OSTBRGAARD, M.D.

Evansville, Minn.

I am writing … of my personal dislike of your lack of taste.… Referring to the blazing headline: “… increased income plan endorsed by leading Churchman”.… What ‘leading Churchman’? What Pastor who is faithful to his calling has time to degrade himself and his ministry by becoming a pill peddler?…

CHARLES L. KOESTER

Holy Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church

West Allis, Wis.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S advertising policy is still fluid, except for the basic requirement that advertisements be culturally constructive. Beyond this, CHRISTIANITY TODAY does not restrict advertising to items it approves, whether church publications or products in general. The vitamin advertisement in question was cleared by a reputable Christian physician in advance of publication. Publishing costs are high, and advertising is necessary to meet them. When the quota is met through advertising more natural to a religious magazine, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will adopt a more restrictive policy. Meanwhile, it can only hope that the balances of the magazine will assure that readers burdened for the Great Commission will not lose that concern even if and when they are attracted to the ministry of vitamins.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY sincerely regrets, however, the appearance of a hotel advertisement (May 13 issue) containing reference to a cocktail lounge, and straightforwardly apologizes to its readers. The advertisement in question arrived late, and was relayed directly to the printers (unfortunately) without proof-reading by our advertising department.

—ED.

CATHOLICISM AND LABOR

I would appreciate your correcting an error in my article “The Catholic Plan for American Labor” (April 29).… The reference at the very end was to Italian, not Indian history.…

KERMIT EBY

University of Chicago

Chicago, Ill.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S proof-reading department dozed at a strategic point in Dr. Eby’s article. His point was, of course that recent Italian history supplies a commentary on the operation of the corporate state toward which he thinks Catholic social action leads.—ED.

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