Man’s misuse of the best that technology and science have produced is nowhere more appalling than in the field of motion pictures. Misuse of atomic power may destroy man’s body, but misuse of the motion picture destroys man’s soul. As the “pen is mightier than the sword,” the camera is mightier than the H-bomb.

In the light of the peaceful potential of the atom, it is ironical to contemplate the horrible threat of thermonuclear warfare. But the incalculable moral and spiritual devastation wrought by the modern film is infinitely more ironical in view of the evangelistic possibility latent in the art and science of pictures. (One of Hollywood’s leading producers, at the suggestion of his clergyman father, dedicated his life to the camera as his “pulpit” and his films have been seen by many millions of the world’s population.)

Surrender By Default

It is sad that the most effective instrument of modern mass communication has contributed so much to the disintegration of the moral and spiritual foundations of our culture. But what makes it tragic is that Christians allow it to happen, having surrendered this immeasurably powerful weapon by default to forces so materialistic that profit became their god regardless of the degenerative effect on society.

Historically it would appear that evangelical Christians had decided the technology which produced the motion picture industry was diabolical and the science of motion pictures and the art of drama inherently evil. Whatever the cause, the effect has been that an entire industry has been largely “scuttled” rather than made to serve Christ.

In recent years this fabulously effective tool has been “discovered” by the church, but there persists a characteristic disinclination toward the industry, one evidence of which is the stubborn “nothing-good-can-come-from-Hollywood” attitude. By renouncing the industry per se, right of guidance was repudiated. Taking the position everything Hollywood does is wrong has been at the sacrifice of any appreciable Christian influence. This does not justify the production of whatever makes money regardless of its effect on society, nor excuse the industry’s failure to take the leadership incumbent upon it to use its powerful influence constructively. But it does mean that the criticism that indicts Hollywood in toto fails to have any force whatever. Obviously Hollywood will not heed the voice that would abolish Hollywood!

When occasionally Hollywood produces a picture with moral or spiritual thrust, those who should applaud refuse patronage and the result is box office failure. Hollywood may choose to produce what the public will buy or stop producing. They have little encouragement from a Christian public that should be in a position to demand the highest and best. (Even Christian producers struggle to survive, and too often collapse under economic pressure.)

A vivid illustration of this (in a related field) is the fact that one Elvis Presley record sold more copies in 1956 than all sacred records made by all sacred artists combined. Evidently those who purchase “Houn’ Dog” are more committed to their “music.” Incidentally, where does this put the sacred artist? He cannot depend on music for a livelihood. Must he forfeit his gift in order to make a living following his dedication to Christ? In a group of a thousand disc jockeys, only three indicated that they had had any requests for a sacred program.

Must We Be Jonahs?

One might think God loves the world—except Hollywood; as though some strange inflexible destiny precludes redemption to this industry. Assuming that Hollywood is all darkness—totally evil as some are prone to think—is it to be forsaken? Need we to learn with Jonah that pagan cities are candidates for salvation? Or is Hollywood with its strategic propaganda weapon to be abandoned to sub-Christian if not altogether Godless, degenerate forces?

There are those within the industry whose answer is a resounding NO! Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, they will not surrender so easily. They do not blindly disregard the “evils of Hollywood”; nevertheless, aware of its overwhelming potential influence for good, they see it as their mission field. At the risk of censure by those without, they labor and pray for a spiritual awakening that will capture its talents, in part at least, to evangelize the world. Not only do they bear the antagonism of some they are trying to reach, as well as the indescribable secular pressures within the industry, but they feel the opposition of Christians on the outside whose prayers and encouragement they desperately need. Let me introduce some of them:

Three men sat with bowed heads at a table in the restaurant of one of the largest studios. The one who led in prayer was a top executive. As they lunched, the conversation centered in Jesus Christ. Declared the studio executive, “To me Christianity is absolutely relevant. In this business Jesus Christ is my daily strength. I do not see how men get along without him.…”

More than two hundred fifty, among them some leading stars, gathered in the grand ballroom of a Beverly Hills hotel to preview a Christian film. One was a star who had resigned at the peak of her career to teach Sunday school. Consistently she has declined tempting offers, including several from Las Vegas night clubs involving a weekly salary running into five figures. “Because,” she insists, “I do not want the children in my Sunday School class to have a teacher who dances in a night club.”

Also present were two other stars who told of their conversion to Christ and the satisfaction of life committed to him. One has entered full time Christian service, the other remains in pictures. A third sang her testimony. Won to Christ during a Hollywood Christian Group meeting, she will soon begin the role of a pastor’s wife as her husband, also in pictures until won to Christ in the Hollywood Group, graduates from seminary and enters the ministry.…

Hollywood Christian Group

Visit another Hollywood Group meeting. Except for an occasional reference to entertainment business, it could be testimony time with any group of evangelical Christians. Actually it is the service concluding the annual Bible conference of the Hollywood Christian Group at Forest Home in the mountains of Southern California. One who spoke was an attractive woman who had attended her first meeting of the group during an engagement in a Los Angeles night club. Yielding to the persistence of a friend, she rushed over to the meeting between shows at the club. Though she had had a Christian background, she had grown indifferent. Her promising vocal career seemed destined for stardom. The new Christian fellowship awakened in her an interest in Christ and made her aware of a loneliness and frustration she had not dared to admit even to herself. She accepted Christ and subsequently dedicated her life for his service. Now she uses her talented voice in sacred concert and evangelism.

An older man, a veteran of the industry holding a high position in the technical end testified, “I think the greatest thrill of my life came when I was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar … That is, it was the greatest thrill until I began to take Christ seriously and committed my life to him. Nothing compares with that!”

Among the more than seventy-five who spoke was a young man. Obviously nervous, he stood on one foot and the other waiting his opportunity. It was not difficult to recognize him as the popular lead in a TV feature film series. So at home before a camera and under hot lights, the young star seemed anything but a professional as he waited impatiently, thumbs hooked in the hind pockets of his levis.

Finally his turn came. With an awkward gesture he beckoned a lovely young woman sitting at the edge of the crowd. A wave of polite laughter swept through the group as she took her place self-consciously beside her husband. Putting his arm around her he began, “We wouldn’t be together if it were not for Jesus Christ! A year ago our marriage was on the rocks. Nothing seemed to work for us—until somebody on the set invited me to the Monday night meeting. That was the beginning of a new life for us.”

He went on to describe their first group meeting, the misgiving with which they went, the unusual warmth of the friendships, the message. They raised their hands for prayer at the close. During coffee time a member took them aside, explained how one began the Christian life, and prayed with them. “This last year has been the greatest of our lives!” he exclaimed.

Something else he said is important, though some will misunderstand, because it affords an insight into a phase of the problem. “Jesus Christ must want me in this business because I couldn’t do it otherwise. Every time I go before a camera I pray my life will be a witness to the others working on the picture.” This raises the inevitable question: “Should these people quit Hollywood when they make a stand for Christ?” It would be unrealistic to pretend there are not those who, lured by prospects of popularity and riches, remain in pictures at the expense of their witness, but it is unjust to assume that all in the business are thus motivated.

As a matter of fact, at least a dozen members of the Hollywood Group have discontinued their careers to obey what they considered a call to Christian service. There are some (as in other professions) who have publicly identified themselves with the Church whose lives have been a reproach. But there are a large number of genuine Christians who have prayerfully considered their responsibility in light of the criticism they know to be forthcoming and their decision has been to remain in the profession believing it to be God’s leading, hoping to win their colleagues, many of whom do not have the slightest idea what authentic Christianity is.

Most of those won to Christ in Hollywood have been reached by the witness of local personalities. Whether they might have been reached otherwise is highly speculative. Christians in Hollywood represent a beachhead through which the Church has an opportunity to infiltrate the entire industry. This frontline witness demands hardy warriors and they desperately need sustained contact and a constant flow of prayer support. This problem in spiritual logistics ought to be borne largely by the Church outside.

The issue is easily over-simplified. One who knows and loves Hollywood is tempted to whitewash it. Those uninformed or misinformed are apt to consign it entirely to the devil. Be that as it may, Hollywood is here to stay, part of the world for whom Christ died and to which he commissioned the Church to take the Gospel of divine love and judgment. Take an average run-of-the-mill cross section of humanity anywhere in America and you will find its counterpart in Hollywood. Excluding the minority who make headlines, the people are disarmingly normal. Picture making is serious business and there is as little (or much) commercialism and secularism among them as in any other industry. Generally they are misinformed about Christianity like the average secular American. They are not familiar with the Gospel, or if they are, do not associate it with personal need. For the most part Christianity is thought to be an ethic, nothing more, and comparing themselves with the world outside, Hollywood people are inclined to feel their average is rather high. They are aware of the reputation Hollywood has and are ashamed of the incidents that justify it. But they feel, and rightly so, that most Hollywood folk are respectable and undeserving of the disparagement so readily directed at everyone in the colony.

Stars That Twinkle

In the matter of virtue, Hollywood is outstanding in one respect. Show people as a whole are unusually charitable with a concern for the down-and-outer, a willingness to go the second mile that is peculiar to their kind. Unfortunately this charity is equated with genuine Christianity and inclines them to think they are as “religious” as most, and more so than many. This common caricature challenges Christians in the industry to bear faithful witness to the Gospel. No group in the writer’s experience is more insistent for the Gospel or less willing to compromise. Believing no one can reach people in Hollywood like people in Hollywood, they accept as a divine mandate the responsibility to begin where they are to make disciples.

It would be naive to assume that Hollywood will ever be wholly, or even mostly, Christian, any more than any other category of society. But in the darkness that is Hollywood there are stars that twinkle. In the motion picture capital there abides a dynamic fellowship of Christians demonstrating that Christ is contemporary and relevant, that the purpose of his incarnation was redemption. God has not left himself without a witness … not even in Hollywood!

Richard C. Halverson was born and raised in North Dakota. From the age of 10 he was on the stage, and at 19 he went to Hollywood for a career in motion pictures. There he was converted to Christ, and answered God’s call to the ministry. He received the B.A. from Wheaton College and B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He served nine years as Minister of Leadership and Education in Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Since 1957 he has been Associate Executive Director of International Christian Leadership in Washington, D. C.

Preacher In The Red

THE GLORIOUS PROFESSION

Last year I needed new insurance on my car. In an insurance office a friendly lady pulled out a long application form and started asking questions.

“What is your occupation?” I answered, “Pastor.” Shy as I am sometimes, I may have said this just not loud enough. Anyway, she wrote down what she understood me to say. The following interview was the result.

“Do you use your car for your work or just for pleasure?” The question puzzled me somewhat but, after some soul-searching, I answered, “For both.” “Well, I mean,” she explained, “do you carry your tools in your car?” That made me wonder whether you can call a pocket Bible a tool. But she went on to the next question. “Who is your employer?” “The Christian Reformed Church of Brooks.” She looked at me, as if that was an unheard of precedent and finally brought out, “Are you employed full time by that church?” to which I could with conviction answer, “Yes.” This clear answer only seemed to add to the confusion. Now she tried to come down to my level of understanding and asked, “Well, you probably have a contract with that church, but eh—let me say—when you are through with that job, who will be your employer then?” Answer, “I won’t get through with this job.” That proved almost too much for her. Although still smiling, there was that now-let’s-get-this-straight resolution in her voice as she said with emphasis on the last word, “Do you really mean to say that the Christian Reformed church provides steady employment for a plasterer!”—The Rev. WILLIAM L. VANDER BEEK, Brooks, Alberta, Canada.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Suite 1014 Washington Building, Washington, D.C.

It is half-a-century since Peter Taylor Forsyth gave the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale in 1907 and three dozen years since his death in 1921 at the age of seventy-three. Of the forty-five years of his ministerial life twenty-five were spent as pastor of Congregational churches in Bradford, London, Manchester, Leicester, and Cambridge respectively and twenty as principal of Hackney College, Hampstead. Like many another man of genius, his influence has been greater since his death than it was during his lifetime. Indeed, if he was a prophet to his own generation, he may be said to be even more so to us in our mid-century situation. His mind and his message are preserved for us in his numerous writings, and it is impossible not to be stimulated and challenged by a personality of such intellectual energy and vision who gloried so wholeheartedly in the Cross of Christ.

His literary style is, as his daughter has remarked, a vexed question (Memoir prefixed to The Work of Christ, London, 1938, p. xxvi). His contemporary, James Denney, for instance, felt that the peculiarity of his style was such “that only people who agree with him strongly are likely to read him through” (Letters of Principal James Denney to W. Robertson Nicoll, London, n.d., p. 97), though he also expressed the judgment (in 1908) that Forsyth “has more true and important things to say … than any one at present writing on theology” [op. cit., p. 118]. It is not that his style is clumsy or slipshod; indeed, there is no theologian more quotable than P. T. Forsyth. Words, however, fascinated and enthralled his mind to such an extent that it seems to have become almost second nature for him when taking up his pen to express himself in epigrams. Of course, a good epigram in itself is an excellent thing: it adds distinction to a theme and may serve to clarify a whole argument; and at the same time it cries out for quotation. But when arguments and even complete books are composed very largely of epigrams piled one on top of another it is hardly surprising if the reader, however willing, finds the fare offered him excessively rich and sweet, with the result that after a while his zest for the feast diminishes. Let him persevere, however, and he will be edified and enriched; for he would be much mistaken to conclude that Forsyth’s style had the effect, like a rich sauce, of covering over an impoverishment or superficiality of thought.

Not Always Evangelical

Forsyth did not hold the evangelical faith from the beginning. “With a great price have I procured its freedom,” he wrote [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (London, 1909), p. 255]. And in his Lyman Beecher Lectures he spoke as follows: “There was a time when I was interested in the first degree with purely scientific criticism.… It also pleased God by the revelation of His holiness and grace, which the great theologians taught me to find in the Bible, to bring home to me my sin in a way that submerged all the school questions in weight, urgency, and poignancy. I was turned from a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace. And so, whereas I first thought that what the Churches needed was enlightened instruction and liberal theology, I came to be sure that what they needed was evangelization” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, London, 1907, pp. 282f.]. While Forsyth’s theory of Scripture continued to be somewhat liberal, his use of it was strongly evangelical. He realized that criticism “is a good servant but a deadly master” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p. 49].

The Gospel of grace he emphasized as “God’s act of redemption before it is man’s message of it.… Only as a Gospel done by God is it a Gospel spoken by man. It is a revelation only because it was first of all a reconciliation.… It is an objective power, a historic act and perennial energy of the holy love of God in Christ; decisive for humanity in time and eternity; and altering for ever the whole relation of the soul to God, as it may be rejected or believed” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 6]. He discerned that “every great revival in the Church has gone with a new sense of Christ’s vicarious redemption” and that the Reformation was “the greatest of evangelical revivals” [Ibid., pp. 195, 37]. “I am afraid we must part with the idea that there is no narrowness in Christianity,” he declared on another occasion. “… The Gospel is as narrow as Christ, and Christ is as narrow as the Cross” [Missions in State and Church, London, 1908, pp. 201f.].

The Key To The Saviour

The Cross of Christ, as the focal and finishing point of redemption, was very rightly his major theme. Thus he wrote: “Only the redeemed Church, the Church that knows the forgiveness, has the key to the Saviour. His blessings are the key to His nature; they do not wait till the nature is first defined. No philosopher, as such, has the key, no theologian, no scholar, no critic; only the believer, only the true Church. And we have it where the evangelical experience has always found its forgiveness—in the Cross. Our faith begins with the historic Christ.… We begin, in principle if not in method, with Christ the crucified.… The prime doer in Christ’s Cross was God. Christ was God reconciling. He was God doing the very best for man, not man doing his very best before God. The former is evangelical Christianity, the latter is humanist Christianity” [The Cruciality of the Cross, London, 1948, p. 17]. Again: “You do not understand Christ till you understand His Cross.… It is only by understanding it that we escape from religion with no mind, and from religion which is all mind, from pietism with its lack of critical judgment, and from rationalism with its lack of everything else” (Ibid., p. 26). “Most of the failure to recognize the divine greatness of Christ,” he declared, “arises in the end from a moral failure to appreciate Him as personal Saviour; and that failure rises from a defect in the estimate of the sin from which He saves. A lofty ideal is not mighty to save.… The theology of such a Gospel opens only to a Church of broken and converted men. Only the saved have the real secret of the Saviour” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, pp. 73, 219].

Grace And Judgment

Forsyth had a clear recognition of the truth that the grace of God has full significance only in association with the judgment of God. “Do preach a Gospel where salvation is in real rapport with deep guilt and redemption with holy judgment,” he urged [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 154]. Indeed, he boldly proclaimed the Cross to be the seat of final judgment: “It does not avert the great last judgment, it is the action of that judgment.… The justified have the last judgment behind them” [Ibid., p. 347]. This dynamic evangelical perspective could do much to revitalize our prosecution of the Gospel task today. Let him expound the subject further: “The judgment at the end of history is only the corollary of the judgment at the centre of history.… The mainspring of missions is not the judgment that will fall, but the judgment that has fallen in the Cross.… The absolute ultimate judgment of the world took place in Christ’s death. There God spoke His last word—His last endless word. The last moral reality is there, the last standard, the last judgment. The last judgment is behind us. The true judgment-seat of Christ, where we must all appear, is the Cross.… There, too, the judgment of our sins fell once for all on the Holy One and the Just. The judgment Christ exercises stands on the judgment He endured. He assumes judgment because He absorbed it. Salvation and judgment are intertwined; they are not consecutive” [Missions in State and Church, pp. 16, 61f., 73].

Forsyth was an outspoken, though charitable, antagonist of the theology of liberalism, which he himself had once espoused. To it he opposed what he termed “positive” theology. Thus he affirmed: “The first feature of a positive Gospel is that it is a Gospel of pure, free grace to human sin. (And you will find that liberalism either begins or ends with ignoring sin or minimizing it.) The initiative rests entirely with God, and with a holy and injured God. On this article of grace the whole of Christianity turns.… A liberal theology has most to say of God’s love, a positive of God’s mercy. The one views God’s love chiefly in relation to human love, the other chiefly in relation to human sin. In relation to sin chiefly—because a positive Gospel is a revelation of holy love.… The liberal theology, as I am describing it, is fatal to the old faith.… It reduces mercy to a form of pity by abolishing the claim of holiness, the gravity of sin, and the action of an Atonement.… It makes the Cross not necessary but valuable; not central but supplemental; not creative but exhibitive; a demonstration but not a revelation; a reconciliation but not a redemption” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, pp. 211ff.]. Again: “The final tendency of ‘advanced theology’ is backwards. Like Moliere’s ghost, it has improved very much for the worse.… We cannot take the resurrection Gospel and leave the resurrection fact. So also with the Cross; and so with the Person of Christ.… We reduce the New Testament to a piece of tradition; and in so doing we surrender the protestant position to the catholic” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, pp. 133, 182, 103f.].

And in these days when it is theologically fashionable, not to say respectable (though meaningless in terms of scriptural reality), to distinguish between “the historic Jesus” and “the risen Christ,” designers of religious thought may with advantage be reminded of Forsyth’s pungent comment that “to divide up the personality, and detach the heavenly Christ from the earthly Jesus, is not a feat of criticism so much as a failure of religion, or an intellectual freak and a confession of unfaith” [ibid., p. 177].

A Plea For Theology

How relevant to our present theological climate also are his remarks on the prevalent depreciation of so-called “propositional” or “dogmatic” religion. “The prime need of religion today,” retaliated Forsyth, “is a theology. No religion can survive which does not know where it is. And current religion does not know where it is, and it hates to be made to ask. It hates theology.… When preachers denounce theology, or a Church despises it for literary or social charm, that is to sell the Cross to be a pendant at the neck of the handsome world. It is spiritual poverty and baldness, it is not the simplicity in Christ, to be sick of grace, judgment, atonement, and redemption” [The Cruciality of the Cross, pp. 27f.]. He referred incisively to “mere theological liberalism, which, in the effort to discard dogma, only substitutes philosophic dogma for theological” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 248], and to “laborious scholars living at a date so remote as our own, working often with more psychological acumen than personal faith, and working under a bias against apostolic interpretation” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p. 127].

The Church And Missions

Finally, Forsyth has important things to say about the missionary activity of the Christian Church. The quotations that follow are from his neglected but notable volume entitled Missions in State and Church: “What goes deepest to the conscience goes widest to the world. The more completely we feel sin to be condemned in the Cross the more power and commandment we have to carry the absolution to the ends of the earth.… You may always measure the value to yourselves of Christ’s Cross by your interest in missions. And it is a safe test of the Spirit’s presence in a Church.… One reason why the Church is too little missionary abroad is that it is not a missionary Church at home. It is established on good terms with its world instead of being a foreign mission from another.… The missionless Church betrays that it is a crossless Church; and it becomes a faithless Church, an unblest Church, a mere religious society, and finally, perhaps a mere cultured clique.… Missions are a debt on every Christian individual.… It is not optional to pay our debts.… The man who repudiates his debts is bankrupt; the Church that disavows missionary sympathy is bankrupt in evangelical grace and universal faith. The decay of evangelical faith is fatal to missions” [pp. 18, 19, 251, 254f.]. And I cannot forbear to quote from a delightfully satirical passage in the same book on “globe-trotter” creeds. “Have you not met that class of people called ‘globe-trotters?’ he asks. They have time and means, health, curiosity, and interest, easily excited. They travel much, some incessantly. Their world is a plexus of hotels connected by rails.… They have seen the outside of many lands, and cities, and men. Their creed has a certain breadth which they parade. It is as easy as it is broad.… As it is with these grievous people, so I say it is with the creeds that sacrifice everything to breadth, and are interested in all faiths alike. They do not send missions, they do not help missions. They are globe-trotter creeds, cosmopolitan but not universal. They are, in the world of mind and belief, what these rich tramps, these returned empties, are in the world of movement …” [pp. 209ff.].

Some Other Works

Of other works from Forsyth’s pen not referred to above mention may be made of The Church and the Sacraments, The Soul of Prayer, The Justification of God, Theology in Church and State, Faith, Freedom, and the Future, Socialism, the Church, and the Poor, and Rome, Reform, and Reaction. Had space permitted, much more might have been said about various aspects of his thought and activity. But sufficient has, I hope, been said and quoted to demonstrate something of the power, the penetration, and the originality of Forsyth’s mind, the depth of his faith, firmly anchored to the Cross of Christ, and the profit and stimulation which may be expected from the reading of his works. Through their writings it is always possible for us to sit at the feet of the great ones of the past, and that is a privilege to be highly prized.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes is former secretary of the Church Society of the Church of England and former vice-president of Tyndale Hall in Bristol. He holds the B.D., M.A. and D.Litt. degrees. He is a frequent contributor to religious periodicals.

The Church of Christ has survived and even flourished under all kinds of governments. It was born in a totalitarian Roman world and survived the persecution of Nero, Diocletian, and other dictators. All the powers of the underworld, the agnostics, the atheists, principalities, powers in high places, have not been able to destroy this fellowship of the redeemed. Civilizations rise and fall, kingdoms crumble, ideologies have their day and cease to be, but the Church endures. The gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

The invincible nature of the Church is dramatically demonstrated in Communist Russia today. The powers in the Kremlin have not succeeded in stamping out Christian faith. Not only is the Church surviving in Communist dominated countries, it is growing in strength. In the summer of 1957, for example, I discovered that the Church in Russia is surrounded by anti-God forces, Christians are persecuted, and Soviet officials inveigh against God. Even under these circumstances the Church endures. Here are reasons why.

The Gospel Is Preached

On the stained glass window of the Kharkov Baptist Church in the Ukraine are the following words, “We preach Christ crucified.” This is the message of the Russian Baptists to the Communist world. They preach “Christ crucified” as the revelation of the sinfulness of man, the manifestation of the Grace of God, and the disclosure of the meaning of discipleship. When asked what the preachers did to combat Communism, the pastor of the Kharkov Church pointed to the scripture verse in the glass stained window and quoted, “We preach Christ crucified.”

From 1917 to 1935, the number of Russian Orthodox Churches fell from 46,000 to 5,000, the number of priests from 50,000 to 5,000. Today there are more than 35,000 Orthodox priests and 20,000 churches with approximately 40 million members.

Lutherans are growing in both Latvia and Estonia. In Latvia Lutherans are organized into 15 districts and 300 parishes with more than 300 churches. There are 110 Lutheran pastors who are, in most instances, required to serve more than one parish. In Estonia, the population is overwhelmingly Lutheran. Parishes are large with an average of from 6,000 to 10,000 people in each parish. Churches destroyed during World War II are being restored, courses are offered for such church vocations as the priesthood and ministers of music. All told there are approximately 150 Lutheran pastors in Estonia and 100 churches with a total adult membership of 350,000.

This year Russian Baptists are celebrating their ninetieth anniversary. In 1867 Nikita Voronin was the first Russian to be baptized into the Baptist faith. Today there are more than 550,000 Russian Baptist church members. There are approximately four million people over whom the Baptist Churches have an influence. Today these churches are baptizing annually from 12,000 to 15,000 converts. When I bragged to a pastor in Kharkov that I represented eight and one-half million Southern Baptists, he chided me by saying that Russian Baptists would soon catch up with us! Russian people are deeply religious and, if they could throw off the Communists who dominate them, there would be one of the greatest revivals of religion in the history of the Church.

In addition to Greek Orthodox, Evangelical Baptists and Lutherans, there are in Russia small groups of Roman Catholics, Methodists, Reformed, Mennonites, Friends, and Adventists.

Article 124 in the Constitution of the USSR declares that Church and State are separated and the school from the Church. There is “freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda.” Christians can gather in State owned churches or small private buildings licensed by the government for worship purposes. No form of religious education is permitted. There are no Sunday Schools, Training Unions, libraries, handcraft clubs, or organized groups. The churches sponsor no hospitals, orphan’s homes, or any sort of welfare program. Such would be an offense to the government which claims to care for everyone’s social needs from the cradle to the grave. Preachers are not allowed to criticize the government. Those who have challenged the Communists have suffered persecution. Some have been shot, others sent to Siberia and to slave labor camps.

But in spite of a limited religious freedom, the churches are growing. Recently, the Communist press printed 15,000 hymn books for Baptists along with a few Bibles. This is the same Communist press which has turned out tons of anti-God literature. Today it is turning out Bibles for domestic use and for export. The Ambassador of Sweden to Russia told a group of us that the Russian government has been more considerate of the Church due to the fact that during World War II it needed the aid of the Church. Hence, the Communists became less hostile to religion in Russia purely for political purposes. Another reason for the so-called “soft policy” toward the churches is due to the fact that so many of the letters came from Russian soldiers on the battlefields and in the hospitals begging their Christian parents to pray for them. Indeed so many of these letters were written that the government officials began to discourage any serious attacks upon the churches and Christian people.

Young People And Faith

With the exception of the Baptist Church in Russia, the churches are filled with adults. About twenty percent of those who attend Baptist Churches are young people. A number of these youths are preparing themselves for leadership in churches in the offices of pastors, choir directors, deacons, deaconesses and lay preachers. Another evidence of the strong appeal of the Christian faith to the youth of Russia is seen in the fact that during the summer of 1957, 400,000 young people were expelled from the Komsomols (Young Communist League). They were guilty of “immorality” and attendance at religious services. This is happening in spite of the fact that all their lives these young people have been taught by their public school teachers that God is a myth and that religion is a superstition. Recently the Kremlin has become alarmed at this rising interest of youth in religion. School teachers are given slogans to pass along to the children. They read, “Religion is poison.” “Food comes from collective farms, not Christ.” “When God is forgotten life is better.” Teachers are urged to use every means available to combat the Christian faith.

In July, 1957, two communist guides accompanied a group of Americans, of which I was a member, to the Baptist Church in Moscow. It was the guides’ first time to be in a church service. The Holy Spirit worked so mightily upon their hearts that one of them went out of the church in the middle of the worship service. During the singing of the closing hymn I turned to see tears upon the other one’s cheeks. God’s spirit had moved upon their hearts. Thereafter they became more tolerant and concerned about the Christian way of life. Perhaps someday these young people will make a clean break with the godless Communists.

God’S “Rod Of Anger”

Communism could be God’s judgment upon the Church of Russia. The Greek Orthodox Church had become political and worldly. Today the magnificent church buildings of Russia have been made into museums. A church can become a museum, passing on embalmed traditions, if it loses a concern for the needs of the people. I talked with Metropolitan Nicolai of Moscow who also holds the position of Vice-Patriarch of all the Greek Orthodox Churches of Russia. He admitted that the Communist revolution made at least one positive contribution to the Greek Orthodox Church. He explained by saying that prior to the revolution the church forced everyone, atheists and believers, to belong to the church and to attend the services, and to support the churches financially. Now, he observed, that the church and State are separate and that only those who really want to attend church are present at the services.

Another reason the Church in Russia can take heart is the presence of the living Christ. Professor Emil Brunner, attending a conference of Christian workers from all countries, met a young Russian who as an officer of the Russian army was taken prisoner for five years and had been doing Christian work among fellow prisoners. His father, who was once a diplomat and later turned to the priesthood, was so persecuted by the Communist party that his wife, the mother of the young man, collapsed and died in terror. One night his father was taken away and disappeared in the mines of Siberia. The young man told how he had been present at an Easter service in the region of Odessa back in 1940. Forty thousand Christians came to this Eastertide celebration in order to worship. The Communists organized a counterblast assembly to disturb the Christian worship in every way possible. Later they compelled the 40,000 people to listen to their godless Communist propaganda for hours. Then one of the Christians got up and announced his desire to speak. He was at first refused, but when he promised to say only four words they allowed him to come to the platform. These were his words: “Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen.” The whole 40,000 responded with the Easter greeting: “Yes, he has risen indeed.” After 40 years of suffering at the hands of the Communists the people held fast to their convictions that they were serving a living Christ. Today more than 50 million Russians profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Soviet dominated Poland the Church is manifesting new life and strength. Recently I visited Warsaw of which seventy per cent was destroyed during the last war. On the facade of a rebuilt church were these challenging words: Sursum Corda. In the midst of rubble, ruin, and a Communist State, here is a church with a message of hope—Lift up your heart!

The Church will triumph. During the racial movements in the fifth century the Roman Empire fell but the Church endured. The renaissance of the fifteenth century uprooted the medieval way of life, but the Church survived. The Church was divided in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, but all branches became stronger. The Church suffers under the Red regime in contemporary Russia. She will never be at peace while the Communists rule, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Sursum Corda!

Henlee H. Barnette is Acting Dean of the School of Theology and Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, from which he holds the Th.M. and Th.D. degrees. He was Assistant Professor of Sociology at Howard College, Birmingham, Alabama, from 1946–47, and Professor of Religion and Sociology at the John B. Stetson University in Florida from 1947–51.