Review of Current Religious Thought: September 02, 1957

G. C. Berkouwer

The international work of the Bible Societies is a tremendous effort, especially in our times, all over the world. Whoever becomes acquainted with this work will be impressed by various aspects of this task of translating and spreading the Gospel. Already in the nineteenth century there were Christians who gave their life and time for this work; e.g., in the translation work, for the Javanese Bible (over a period of 28 years, completed in 1854), in the work of Dr. Matthes in the Makassar Bible translation, and of Dr. Hardeman, who translated the Bible into the Ngadja-Dajak language. Those who wish to be informed about all the aspects of this work should read the important Bulletin of the Bible Societies.

What was the background of this great effort? Bishop Berggraf was once reminded of the word of a Japanese Christian: “The Bible is no longer a Western book, but our book.” There had been in divine providence a way for the Gospel to the Western world and now there is a way from the Western world to the East. This work of translation is immediately connected with the witness of the Gospel, “ye shall be witnesses … unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Sometimes there has been in church and theology a strange criticism, that Christianity gives the impression that it is a “book religion” just like other religions (Koran, etc.). But it is necessary to stress that no one can understand the meaning of this word “book” in a formal and neutral comparison between Christianity and other religions. In such a comparison the specific content of this “Book” is left out and we are warned in the Bible against formalism, against Pharisaism which adored the Torah (coming from heaven), but did not see and understand the content of grace, abounding grace. But when form and content are not separated, then this “Book” arouses a tremendous enthusiasm and activity, also scientific work.

Sometimes we are told that scientific work in connection with the Bible is not necessary because the mystery of the Kingdom is hid from the wise and prudent. It is obvious that this quotation from the Lord is misunderstood. All scientific work is not dominating the Church by the proclamation of science, but is a service to the Word of God.

This Word was not an isolated divine voice (vox divina) but a voice which penetrated the human world in a special time and special language. The Church rejects (and has to reject) every form of Docetism which does not recognize this real human side and aspect of the Bible. (Docetism—the doctrine of the docetae, an early heretical sect which held that Christ’s body was merely a phantom or appearance, or that if real its substance was celestial.) Docetism is not only to be avoided in the doctrine of Christology (it was a threatening danger in the history of the Church and extinguished the image of Christ our brother), but also in connection with the Word of God. Sometimes, against the sharp criticism of the Word of God, making this Word a human word, the divine Word was emphasized. This emphasis was correct, but we shall have to recognize the marvelous fact that there is in the Word of God no competition between the divine and the human side of this Word, but that it is exactly the divine voice that sounds in and through the human voice and brings thus the divine Word very near and understandable to us. The mystery of the Word of God is not only that God speaks to us, but that he speaks in this way. And from this important point of view the work of translating of the Bible becomes immediately important as implied in historic Christianity.

All the work of theology (obedient theology), exegesis and translation is service, no more and no less. Sometimes we can be impressed by the enthusiasm of a translator, working so that in a certain country they may hear in their own language—and the background of much unknown work is love, understanding the Gospel, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:13, 14).

Of course there is danger in every Christian activity. We can do all this work in connection with the Bible as a science or as a business, with all its financial aspects. We can translate as if we are translating “a book.” But dangers are challenges to be overcome. And when we love the Word of God, then there is for us the possibility of service, in which we are reminded of the word of Pentecost, unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

All this effort needs our prayers and cooperation. In this way we shall be kept from selfishness and isolation, from glorifying the Word without obedience and love, from forgetting the world which needs the Gospel more than ever. We shall also be kept from forgetting the perspective of the Apocalypse, “the great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9).

No Docetism will take place in our hearts, neither in Christology nor in the doctrine of the Bible. There will be no rest for the Church until the Gospel is heard everywhere. Was not the preaching of the Gospel one of the signs of the times? “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14).

This is the eschatological aspect of all the work of the Bible Societies. Eschatology never is—according to the Scriptures—without an actual responsibility in the present.

Books

Book Briefs: September 2, 1957

James Packer

Christianity Today September 2, 1957

Maurice Restated

Reconciliation in Christ, by G. W. H. Lampe. Longmans, London, 120 pp. 6s.6d.

This book by the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in Birmingham University contains an expanded version of the Maurice Lectures delivered in London in 1955. It is a study in the Bible doctrine of salvation, and is a much more learned and important volume than its small size, paper cover and almost entire freedom from footnotes might suggest. Prof. Lampe’s earlier book, The Seal of the Spirit, made him known as an erudite and vigorous champion of Protestant and biblical sacramental teaching; the present volume sets before us the broader basis on which he conceives that teaching to rest.

His main thesis is that what fixes the perspective and determines the interpretation of New Testament soteriology is the thought of personal union with Christ by faith. It is an error„ he says, “to try to interpret St. Paul’s teaching on the atonement in isolation from the real central point of his thought, namely, the idea expressed in that phrase ‘in Christ’ which is the true heart of his religion … Man is reconciled in Christ. This is the heart and essence of the Pauline gospel. It is also central in the Johannine teaching … It is in Christ that the sinner is justified … he is given the status of a son because he is in Christ, standing within the scope of the reconciliation that Christ effected” (pp. 61 ff). The author reviews the doctrines of sanctification, the Church and the sacraments in the light of this principle. Sanctification, he insists, is “a life of continual dying and rising in Christ” (p. 65), a process energized by the Holy Spirit as man exercises faith Christ-ward. The “virtues” of Christian character must therefore be conceived as “modes of the operation of the Holy Spirit, working in and through (the believer) because by grace he is in Christ” (p. 66). They are God-given, not man-made, and only exist where faith is active in humble dependence on God. Christian behavior is “the expression of the personal relationship of Christ, and so of the believer who is ‘in Christ,’ to his fellow men” (p. 67). The sanctifying process must be viewed eschatologically; throughout this age it remains incomplete, and Romans 7 depicts the present condition of the Christian man as the law of sin in his members wars against the law of God in his mind.

The state of the Church in the world is precisely analogous. Its “virtues,” its holiness and unity, are gifts of Christ by the Spirit, and it is not in man’s power to achieve them by his own unaided efforts; they are, indeed, eschatological qualities, which means that “neither (the Church’s) holiness nor its unity can ever be fully and completely realized in the present order” (p. 71). Prof. Lampe briefly suggests the bearing of this important truth upon current thought about reunion. Then he issues a protest against mediaevalizing views of sacramental grace as “an impersonal force, like a charge of electricity” or “a dose or injection of medicinal tonic,” and pleads for a return to the Reformed and confessional Anglican conception of the sacraments as “effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will” to believers, whereby Christ is exhibited for the evocation and confirmation of faith. The author’s scriptural demonstration of these contentions is brief but wholly admirable.

The polemical slant, however, which Prof. Lampe seeks to give to his exposition of saving union with Christ, is less happy. He wants to detach it altogether from the historic Protestant view that Christ’s saving work in us is founded upon his saving work for us, in making satisfaction to his Father for our sins, and that the ground of our justification is the imputation of Christ’s merits to us. What Prof. Lampe is trying to do is to rehabilitate the atonement theory of F. D. Maurice. This theory consisted of a catena of what we judge to be false antitheses, thus: God is the author of propitiation, therefore he is not the object of it; Christ died to save us from sin, not from the punishment of sin; Christ is man’s representative, but not his substitute; his obedience unto death was vicarious, but not penal; and we are saved, not by his satisfying God’s holy law for us, but by his reproducing his own holy life in us; Christ saves us, not by dealing with God on our behalf, but by dealing with us on God’s behalf. Prof. Lampe more or less explicitly echoes all these antitheses. He speaks as if such categories as debt, penalty and imputation were somehow inconsistent with all that he has said about faith-union with Christ, and seems to think that jettisoning the one will help to conserve the other. This too, however, is surely a false antithesis. The real reason why Prof. Lampe is unhappy with ideas of satisfaction and merit becomes plain when he tells us that he does not believe in the necessity of satisfaction for sin. “God’s forgiveness is really free; it does not have, as it were, to be compensated for by the satisfaction of his holiness through the merits either of men in general … or of Christ as man. In Christ, God brought man out of his sin into the scope of the divine forgiveness; he did not have to make it possible for himself to forgive” (p. 110 f). This, of course, is Maurice over again.

Does the Bible warrant such statements? We are sure that it does not. The Bible represents sin as guilt, and God as Judge; it interprets man’s slavery to sin, and death in sin, as penal, the first fruits of “the wrath”; and it undoubtedly represents the imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the objective ground for the removal of the subjective penal consequences that Adam’s sin has brought upon his posterity. The crucial passages here are Romans 1:18, 3:20 and 5:12–21. But Prof. Lampe devotes no attention to either; and there is no treatment of the guilt of sin anywhere in his book.

We welcome, then, Prof. Lampe’s positive emphases; but we think that a closer study of the biblical evidence will reveal that the “not-but” of himself and Maurice should be replaced by the “both-and” of the historic Reformed faith. The biblical doctrine of the covenant union of the redeemed with Christ is broader than Prof. Lampe here recognizes; Christ saves his people from the guilt of sin no less than from the power of sin, and there is no inconsistency between these two aspects of his gracious mediatorial work.

JAMES PACKER

Bultmann’S Myths

Scripture and Myth: An Examination of Rudolf Bultmann’s Plea for Demythologization, by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Tyndale Press, London. 30 pp., 1s.6d.

One of the more curious phenomena of British theological scholarship is the almost obsequious respect it tends to pay to critical theories which emanate from Germany, however destructive of the Christian religion or intellectually unsatisfactory they may prove to be. Rudolf Bultmann’s book, Die Geschichte synoptischen Tradition, published in 1921, was described by Vincent Taylor in 1933 as “one of the most important contributions to Gospel criticism of our time,” though he admitted that it was “radical to the point of scepticism.” Many of us were under the impression that Bultmann’s combination of an extreme form-critical analysis of the Gospels with an existential philosophy, which found expression in his book Jesus published in 1925, had proved unacceptable to the majority of British scholars by the time the second world war began. It has become evident however during the postwar years that some British scholars are most anxious by radio talks and English translations of Bultmann’s works to give wide publicity to his views.

In view therefore of the revival of “Bultmannism,” Dr. Philip Hughes has rendered a most valuable service in this Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture in submitting Bultmann’s plea for the demythologization of the New Testament to a critical philosophical examination. In thirty lucid pages Dr. Hughes shows that a careful scrutiny of Bultmann’s postwar books—particularly those known in English as Kerygma and Myth and The Theology of the New Testament—makes it abundantly evident that so much is thrown away in Bultmann’s demythologization that Jesus is reduced to a figure so puny that he has no claims to the attention, let alone the allegiance, of mankind. And yet by the aid of existentialism Bultmann brazenly asserts that this Jesus, who is not the incarnate Son of God, who is unknown and unknowable from the only records that we have about him, who is neither risen nor ascended, nevertheless becomes through preaching a living, challenging reality to the individual, confronting him with the opportunity and the necessity for making a decision of ultimate significance. No explanation is given why this man Jesus, any more than any other mere man, should have this power—for the very good reason that no explanation is possible.

As Dr. Hughes convincingly shows, a theology which can truly be described as “a faith without hope,” which “robs the Christ-event of its crucial uniqueness,” which is preoccupied with the present at the expense of the past and the future, which bows uncritically to the authority of “modern science” and to a large degree a demoded modern science which views the whole natural order as a closed system, does not deserve the name “Christian” in any recognizable meaning of that word, and in the last analysis is antitheistic. “Nowhere,” Dr. Hughes penetratingly observes towards the end of his lecture, “does Bultmann seek to call into question the being of God; but this, so far from being a merit, is in fact the crucial inconsistency in his system. For throughout, by setting up the knowledge of ‘modern man’ and ‘modern science’ as determinative of what is and what is not possible in our world, he proclaims that the knowledge of man is authoritative and thereby pronounces against the knowledge and authority of God. That means that in effect, though not in intention, he pronounces against the being of God. It is hardly surprising that in his writings God has the appearance of being an unexplained ‘foreign body.’ Can he not see that the logic of his position cries out for him to take the one last step of declaring ‘God’ to be the ultimate myth that has to be eliminated?” Not the least interesting part of Dr. Hughes’ lecture is his demonstration with special reference to Genesis 3 of the truth that, “the God of the Scriptures is the ground not only of all being but also of all knowledge.”

In thinking of Bultmann we ought to remember what is not mentioned in this lecture, that his theology is to no small degree conditioned by the political tensions in Germany in the prewar years. As Ulrich Simon observes in the Church Quarterly Review for March 1957: “Can any reader take Bultmann’s ‘Jesus’ really seriously without hearing, so to speak, the threatening Horst Wessel Lied in the background? The historical Son of God, born of a Jewish lady, Saviour of the whole world, had become totally inacceptable at the time … I remember only too well the swastika imposed on the Cross, in slogans, on posters, even in school classrooms while religious instruction was being given. I am not charging Bultmann with such excesses, but I do not believe that his work should be read apart from a realization that these and later events were happening at the same time.”

R. V. G. TASKER

Proven Worth

Commentary on the Gospel of John, 2 vols., by Frederick Louis Godet Zondervan, Grand Rapids. $11.95.

This commentary is one of the nineteenth-century reprints in Zondervan’s current series, The Classic Commentary Library. The book’s jacket quotes an opinion that Godet on John is “… from a theological standpoint and for going to the uttermost depths of the profound teachings recorded in the Fourth Gospel … the supreme work [containing] some of the finest pages of Christology to be found anywhere.” It is likely that few authorities would agree with this statement. M. C. Tenney, for instance, says of Westcott’s commentary that it is “probably the greatest single commentary on John ever published” (John: The Gospel of Belief, p. 318). But if Godet on John is not without peer, he is certainly one of the best commentators, particularly in his exposition of the devotional riches of this Gospel.

Godet’s theological and critical conservatism is well known. John, the son of Zebadee and our Lord’s disciple, is the author of the Gospel (I, p. 203). For a further example, John 3:16–21 is not the comment of John but is based on what Jesus himself said (I, p. 395).

But some of Godet’s positions reflect a freer air often breathed by nineteenth-century evangelicals but not shared by some of their would-be twentieth century heirs. While Thiessen (Lectures in Systematic Theology, p. 139) and Berkhof (Systematic Theology, p. 94) contend for the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of the incarnate Son of God, Godet flatly denies that Jesus possessed these attributes (I, pp. 270, 292–294). Nor does he falter in such a matter as the rejection of the Johannine authorship of John 7:53–8:11 (I, p. 71, and II, pp. 83–89; cf. the indecision of Thiessen, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 176).

On the relation of the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptics, Godet’s nineteenth-century position is out of touch with the contemporary viewpoint. In his hands John becomes the primary historical document among the four gospels. He refers to John as correcting “an inaccuracy of detail” in the Synoptics (I, p. 79; with Godet this is compatible with inspiration). In explaining why John places the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and not at its close as in the Synoptics, he declares that John knew that the event had “a much more serious part [in Jesus’ ministry] than that which was attributed to it in the synoptical narrative” (I, p. 83).

An interesting contrast with current ideas is also evident in Godet’s claim that the prophecies of the Suffering Servant and of the Messiah were clearly united in messianic interpretation prior to the time of Jesus (I, pp. 311–312, f.n. 1; ct. H. H. Rowley, The Unity of the Bible, pp. 133–134).

But these are matters largely confined to Godet’s introductory section. So far as the commentary itself is concerned, it has continued to prove its worth. In addition to its devotional richness, its great strength is its positive evangelicalism. Godet faithfully portrays from beginning to end the eternal life which is the possession of all who believe in Jesus Christ.

W. BOYD HUNT

Study In Apologetics

Christian Commitment: An Apologetic, by Edward John Carnell, Macmillan. $5.00.

This book on Christian apologetics by the president of Fuller Theological Seminary is divided into two unequal parts. The last third or fourth of the volume is a statement of the Christian position; the much longer first part consists of arguments by which the author recommends to his readers the theology of the conclusion.

The theology begins with a fine statement of the need of propitiating an offended God. If you and I require propitiation after someone despises the dignity of our person, God does so all the more. Christ is the propitiation—Christ’s death in the stead of sinners. “Only Jesus Christ can lead a sinner from moral ruin to judicial restoration … We can determine our place in God by simply naming our federal head.”

This biblical emphasis on propitiation and federal headship is a needed one today when so many have weak notions of God’s righteousness and sovereignty. Unfortunately some later phrases are confusing. “Let no one caricature this by saying that only those who contemplate the atonement can be saved. Abraham did not know the cross, yet he was justified. The Scriptures say that all who believe in God will be saved … Men prove their respect for God by repenting” (p. 296).

Does this mean that faith in Christ is not absolutely necessary to salvation? Will faith in God suffice? And would a Mohammedan’s faith in God suffice, as least if he repents? The precise meaning of the paragraph is not clear, yet evidently the words bear a sense that can be taken as disparagement of foreign missions, for the author tries immediately to justify missions on the ground that generic repentance is perilous and uncertain. “The Apostle Paul [limited] repentance almost (!) exclusively to the active preaching of the gospel. Not that men cannot repent without being confronted with Christ after the flesh, but that they do not repent without such confrontation” (p. 297).

However, since the book is a book on apologetics, the main interest lies in the arguments by which the author attempts to recommend his theology to his readers.

As may be expected a large part of the earlier chapters deals with epistemology. “Ultimate reality cannot be grasped unless rational knowledge is savored by spiritual conviction” (p. 13). President Carnell does not deny the need of rational knowledge, but he denies its sufficiency. But what “savoring” ultimate reality is, and how “spiritual conviction” is distinguished from rational knowledge are not explained.

The author begins by placing some emphasis on knowledge by acquaintance. He contrasts it with knowledge by inference (p. 17) and seems to identify it with presentational immediacy. A number of contemporary philosophers make use of the notion of knowledge by acquaintance. It is usually immediate awareness of sense data completely apart from interpretation. It is not knowledge by description. As Bergson says, a quality “inscribes itself automatically in sensation.”

Unhappily, after contrasting acquaintance with inference, the author confuses the reader by stating that all knowledge is inferential. Even “knowledge by acquaintance is the passage of the mind to a conclusion without the aid of a middle premise” (p. 17). This statement brings to mind chiefly what the logicians call immediate inference. For example: All triangles contain 180 degrees; therefore some triangles, equilateral triangles, contain 180 degrees. This inference has no middle term and no middle premise. But it is not the customary notion of knowledge by acquaintance.

It is in fact difficult to grasp the author’s concept of knowledge. He defines knowledge as “man’s systematic contact with the real.” He explicitly notes that this does not require consciousness. “I assert that man can be systematically in contact with the real without knowing it. But this want of awareness in no way alters the reality of the knowledge” (p. 29). This quotation contains a self-contradiction. If systematic contact with reality is knowledge, then a man cannot be in such contact with reality without knowing it, for the contact is the knowledge. Furthermore, if consciousness or awareness is not necessary to knowledge, then breathing and digestion are forms of knowledge because these are systematic contacts with reality. Here one must question whether such unconscious “knowledge” is a contribution to epistemology.

Another and more emphasized factor in Dr. Carnell’s epistemology is his theory of moral self-commitment. There are certain truths that become immediately clear as soon as we take ourselves seriously. If we stop making philosophy a mere academic game and examine our own sincere reactions to the concerns of life, we shall have insight. In one place the author states as a self-evident truth so obtained, “Whenever people receive us because of a respect for rational self-consistency, we are offended” (p. 67). This somewhat pontifical dictum is one which the reviewer is not so willing to accept. Really, I am not offended when people accept me because of rational self-consistency. I might even be flattered. But I am not flattered when it is said that my lack of insight into this truth is the result of my insincerity. In another place the author dismisses a conflicting opinion as “ossified” (p. 151).

In addition to these criticisms in detail something should be said about the general method. While the book cannot be accurately styled a form of the cosmological argument, yet it is an attempt to understand God by observations of man. “If the meaning of God’s character cannot be anticipated by information drawn from our own conception of decency … [and] unless we can meaningfully anticipate God’s standards of rectitude, it may turn out that the book, church, or priestly caste that is least moral on human standards is most moral on divine standards” (p. 142).

This line of reasoning will commend itself to those who believe that the cosmological argument is valid. It also commends itself to those who like Kant believe that theology should be founded on ethics rather than ethics on theology. In fact, it is standard procedure of those who wish to oppose the theology Dr. Carnell stands for. Did not Mary Baker Eddy write that anyone who accepts the concept of a substitutionary sacrifice has failed to understand the character of God? Have not many others opposed historical Christian doctrines on the ground that they are immoral? And in view of the noetic distortions caused by sin, is it not likely that men should fail to anticipate God’s standards of rectitude? Would it not therefore be better to appeal to revelation rather than to anticipation? Must we not conclude that theology is basic to ethics and that ethics is derivative?

GORDON H. CLARK

Fresh Viewpoints

Certainties for Today, by Lehman Strauss, Loizeaux, New York. $2.50.

This is an unusually provocative book of sermons with the ideas involved presented in clear, simple style. The reader feels at times, in fact, that he is being personally confronted with the words of a prophet. Orthodoxy here goes far beyond the mechanical use of proof texts, for fresh interpretations are coupled with the skilfull use of pointed illustrations which challenge the reader to search his own heart. The author also shows wide acquaintance with scriptural symbolism, which is so essential to correct interpretation of the Word of God. It is refreshing indeed to find the sublime truths of the Christian faith presented so interestingly and so remarkably free from the threadbare phraseology too often found fundamentalist writings.

Dr. Strauss’ frequent employment of alliterative headings is not artificial and helps the reader to remember the main points of each message. A carefully prepared index of texts has increased the value of the volume for reference purposes. A book of this quality deserves wide circulation and should be particularly well-adapted for use in discussion groups.

ERIC EDWIN PAULSON

Theology

Bible Book of the Month: The Johannine Epistles

Alexander Ross

Careful examination of the Johannine Epistles leads to the conclusion that all three of them come from the same pen. The second and third epistles, which have been called “twin sisters,” manifestly have the same author, who describes himself as “the Elder.” Comparisons indicate that the author of these epistles is also the author of First John (cf. 1 John 2:7 with 2 John 5; 1 John 2:18, 4:1–5 with 2 John 7; 1 John 2:23 with 2 John 2, 9; 1 John 3:6, 9 with 2 John 11). Of the 13 verses of the second epistle no fewer than 8 can be matched with verses of I John.

The internal evidence seems to point to identity of authorship. Who was the author? Was there at Ephesus at the end of the first century and the beginning of the second a “John the Elder,” as distinct from the Apostle John? That depends on how we interpret the famous words of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor in the period 100–140, as quoted by Eusebius. Papias writes about the importance he attached to the declarations of the elders: “If anywhere one came my way who had been a follower of the elders, I would inquire about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or what Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples; and I would inquire about the things which Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, say.” We are inclined to agree with Dr. Smith when he says, “the Elder John must mean the Apostle John, since the apostles have just been called ‘the elders,’ and it is impossible that the term should have different meanings within the compass of a single sentence” (Exp. Greek Test.).

The existence of a Presbyter John (as distinct from the Apostle John) in Ephesus at the close of the apostolic age is regarded as extremely problematical by Zahn, Plummer, Farrar, Salmon and many others. Plummer finally came to the conclusion that this problematical figure is a “superfluous conjecture” (Cambridge Greek Test.). Many other scholars conclude that criticism has no other John to operate with but John the Apostle. This vexed question I have discussed with a fair degree of thoroughness in my Commentary on the Epistles of James and John (New International Commentary).

The external evidence also has to be considered. Has the voice of early Church tradition anything definite to say here? The Muratorian Canon, or the Muratorian Fragment, as it is sometimes called, contains a list of the books of the New Testament recognized by the Roman church about the year 180. It records a tradition with regard to the composition of the fourth gospel, which is ascribed to the Apostle John and goes on to say: “What wonder is it then that John brings forward each detail with so much emphasis even in his epistles, saying of himself, what we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled, these things have we written to you? For so he professes that he was not only an eyewitness but also a hearer, and moreover a historian of all the wonderful works of the Lord in order.”

A Clear Echo

Who can fail to hear in these words a clear echo of the opening words of First John? Bishop Lightfoot made skilful use of the fact that First John is thus associated with the fourth gospel as an argument in confirmation of the theory that the epistle was originally sent out along with the gospel as a kind of commendatory postscript. For that theory much can be said, and it has been advocated by such commentators as Haupt and Ebrard and others.

When we travel back along the stream of church tradition, we find testimony to First John which is dated much earlier than the Muratorian Canon. We find traces of the epistle in Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom in the year 155, and in Papias, who is described by Irenaeus as “a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp.” Irenaeus himself (140–202), who was familiar with the views of the church at Rome and the church in Gaul, in his treatise Against Heretics quotes the epistle twice, ascribing it to John. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp of whom he has given a vivid account in his Epistle to Florinus, a portion of which has been preserved by Eusebius in his Church History. If Polycarp was John’s spiritual son, it may be said that Irenaeus was his spiritual grandson. The tradition of apostolic authorship thus goes back here through Irenaeus and Polycarp to John himself. The evidence here seems tremendously strong and it has not been shaken by the attempts of many critics to discount it.

Few allusions to Third John appear in early Christian literature. That is not surprising in view of its brevity, the nature of its contents and that it is addressed to an unknown person. To Second John, despite its brevity and that it also is addressed to an unknown person, we find a number of allusions, and such testimony to the second epistle may be regarded as testimony to the third.

Testimony Of Irenaeus

The testimony of Irenaeus is interesting. In his treatise Against Heretics he says of these heretics that “John, the disciple of the Lord, intensified their condemnation by desiring that not even a ‘God-speed’ should be bid to them by us; for, says, he, he that biddeth him God-speed partaketh in his evil works.” This is an allusion to 2 John 10, 11. Again, Irenaeus quotes 1 John 2:18 and goes on to say: “These are they against whom the Lord warned us beforehand; and His disciple, in his epistle already mentioned, commands us to avoid them, when he says: ‘Many deceivers are gone forth into this world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist. Look to them, that ye lose not that which ye have wrought.’ ” This is an allusion to 2 John: 7, 8, with some slight variations that indicate Irenaeus had a different text from ours. In that second quotation he cites words of the second epistle as though they belonged to the first, but that is just a small slip on his part; it is evident that he regards the two epistles as coming from the same man.

With regard to the designation “elder” we ought to note that Peter, one of the disciples of the Lord, so designates himself (1 Pet. 5:1). If he could do that, so also could John. It may be that he uses that title as the last survivor of the apostolic company, about the end of the first century.

A Polemical Purpose

John had a polemical purpose in writing his first epistle. He is definitely on the warpath against certain dangerous heresies that were threatening to invade the churches of Asia Minor. The heresies in view, likely, are chiefly those associated with Cerinthus, who was a native of Egypt and taught in Asia Minor at the same time as John. We owe our information about him to Irenaeus and to other early writers. Irenaeus tells us that Cerinthus taught that “Jesus had not been begotten of a virgin, but had been born of Joseph and Mary as a son in like manner to all the rest of men, and became more righteous and prudent and wise. And after the Baptist the Christ descended into him from the Sovereignty which is over the Universe, in the form of a dove; and then He proclaimed the unknown Father and accomplished mighty works, but at the end the Christ withdrew from the Jesus, and the Jesus had suffered and been raised, but the Christ had continued throughout impassible, being spiritual.”

These deadly heresies aroused strong indignation in the soul of John. A knowledge of the facts about the teaching of Cerinthus enables us to understand John’s meaning when he writes (5:6) that Jesus Christ, in indissoluble union, came through, or by means of water and blood; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. His baptism in the Jordan and his death on Calvary were both essential parts of his self-manifestation, and it is the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, which cleanses from all sin (1:7).

To Establish In Truth

While John apparently never loses sight altogether of the heresies of Cerinthus in any part of this epistle, he has also a more positive purpose in his mind of writing. He wants his “children” to be firmly established in the truth and especially, to understand clearly all that is involved in Christian love, love to God and love to men. Three times he states his purpose in writing (1:4, 2:1, 5:13). The best way to become immune against infection by dangerous heresy is to know the truth (Jn. 8:32) and to be so firmly established in it that any teaching that is alien to the truth as it is in Jesus (Eph. 4:21) will at once be detected by us in its true character. John is here in agreement with Peter, who tells us that the way in which men of unstable mind can attain to spiritual stedfastness is to be in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and, in that blessed sphere, as in our abiding spiritual home, to grow (2 Pet. 3:17, 18).

Dr. James Moffat has said we would not have suffered much loss if the second and third epistles of John had been excluded from the New Testament canon. On the contrary, we would have suffered very serious spiritual loss if we had never read the subtle rebuke of “advanced” thinkers in 2 John 9. The true reading there is not the reading which lies behind the AV rendering, “whosoever transgresseth,” but the reading which lies behind the RV rendering, “whosoever goes onward” and the RSV, “any one who goes ahead.” Real advance in Christian truth comes only as we abide in the teaching of Christ and are led by the Spirit of truth step by step into the fullness of its meaning (John 16:13). Any teaching that claims to be an advance beyond the teaching of Christ, as the Cerinthian heresy no doubt claimed to be, is teaching that is dominated by the “spirit of error” (1 John 4:6) and will lead to barren regions of futile and often dangerous speculation.

Would we not have been spiritually poorer if we had lacked the scathing portrait of Diotrephes in the third epistle? Dr. A. T. Robertson once wrote an article on Diotrephes for a church magazine in which he developed the idea that Diotrephes was a typical “church boss,” and the result was that some twenty deacons wrote to the editor cancelling their subscriptions because of the personal attack on them!

Tools For Exposition

Some commentaries which may be recommended are those by Alford, Huther (in Meyer), Haupt (1st Ep.), Westcott, Plummer in Cambridge Greek Testament, Smith in Expositor’s Greek Testament, Farrar in Early Days of Christianity, and G. G. Findlay, Fellowship in the Life Eternal. Dr. Samuel Cox’s little book Private Letters of St. Paul and St. John deals in a deeply interesting and very suggestive way with Second and Third John.

ALEXANDER ROSS

Far East News: September 2, 1957

Properties Transfer

More than 200 churches, schools, colleges, hospitals and residences valued at $2,000,000 will be transferred by the United Church of Canada to the United Church of Northern India this year.

Dr. D. H. Gallagher, secretary of the board of overseas missions, said the transfers will mark the culmination of a long-range policy to integrate mission work and assets into the indigenous church.

The United Church of Northern India is one of seven denominational bodies planning an organic merger in 1961. Other groups comprise Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Disciples of Christ. The new body will be called the Church of North India.

“It has been our constant policy to train local church leaders with the hope that some day they would take over the mission work,” Dr. Gallagher said. “Gradually they have been taking over the work. Now the time has come when they should assume full charge of our program of church life and work, medical services, educational institutions and technical services.”

The United Church of Canada has 42 missionaries serving in India under the board of overseas missions and another 33 serving under the Women’s Missionary Society.

Dr. Gallagher said the help of Canadian missionaries will still be needed to further the training of local leaders and to assist them as “partners and colleagues.”

Work In India

After a period of ministry among refugees in Berlin and West Germany, Dr. and Mrs. Harold B. Kuhn have begun duties as guest professors at Union Biblical Seminary in Yeotmal, India.

The seminary, founded by the Free Methodist Church, is now the approved training institution of the Evangelical Fellowship of India and is a cooperative enterprise in which 16 evangelical bodies participate.

Dr. Kuhn has been granted a term’s leave-of-absence from Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky., where he is professor of Philosophy of Religion.

Thailand Integration

The American Presbyterian Mission in Thailand ended its 130-year history when it was integrated into the Church of Christ in Thailand at ceremonies in Bangkok.

Leaders of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. turned over the mission’s assets to two officials of the national church—the Rev. Puang Akkapin, moderator, and the Rev. Leck Taiyong, general secretary.

The Church of Christ is a union of Presbyterian, Baptist and Disciples bodies in Thailand, with Presbyterians representing about 90 per cent of its estimated 10,000 members.

American Presbyterian missionaries will become “fraternal workers” under the administration of the Church of Christ, with the Presbyterian body providing their full material support.

Nigeria News: September 2, 1957

W. Harold Fuller

College For Nigeria

Baptists are planning to found a degree-awarding theological college in Nigeria, Dr. G. W. Sadler, secretary for Africa, Europe and the Near East of the Foreign Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, said recently.

The announcement was made at a dinner given in Dr. Sadler’s honor by the Nigerian Baptist Convention in Lagos, Nigeria, on the eve of his retirement.

“We feel that such a higher center of learning will help in the progress of Christianity in this land,” said Dr. Sadler, who served as a missionary in Nigeria for 18 years. He was responsible for building up the Baptist Seminary at Ogbomosho, the Baptists’ highest education institute in Nigeria.

W.H.F.

Little Fanfare

Self-government came quietly to the Eastern and Western regions of Nigeria last month. There was no public holiday, no mass celebration.

In Enugu, capital of the Eastern Region, Prime Minister Nnamdi Azikiwe, who had been loudest in demanding self-government, attended a simple service of thanksgiving at St. Bartholomew’s (Anglican) Church.

The reason for the lack of flag-waving was that the official recognition of regional self-government will mean little change for the country. Because the backward Moslem Northern Region has refused to accept self-government until 1959, the nation must wait until 1960 for full federal self-government.

In watching neighbor Ghana, which obtained independence last March, Nigerians realize the heavy responsibilities and cost of independence. They are more than ever appreciative of the work of missions, which are still responsible for 70 per cent of the nation’s education and much of its medical care. One region recently announced financial aid to bring mission hospital nurses and attendants to government wage standards.

Europe News: September 2, 1957

Youth For Christ

Evangelistic meetings in various parts of Europe were conducted by Youth for Christ teams after the ninth World Youth Congress on Evangelism at Copenhagen. The purpose was to “present Christ to teen-agers.”

Dr. Ted Engstrom, YFC International president, said the congress was conducted “to stir Christian youth leaders from all parts of the world to the responsibility of reaching young people, and to show them the media of doing the job.”

Thirty-three delegates from behind the Iron Curtain were at the meeting.

National leaders reported Youth for Christ progress in all parts of the world. Gene Boyer, YFC director in France, said Christians there are showing a new readiness to support evangelism. Victor Monogarom, YFC leader in India, reported strong Bible club work in Delhi among nurses and high school girls. He said officials of the Church of South India had pledged their support. Juan Gili of Barcelona and Leandro Roldan of Madrid announced plans to cover Spain with youth Gospel meetings.

Madras, India, was chosen as the site for the 1958 World Youth Congress on Evangelism.

Churches Closed

All churches in the area of Koenigsberg, capital of the former East German province of East Prussia, have been closed by communist authorities and converted into “cultural centers,” or depots and storehouses.

The report appeared in Sonntagsblatt, widely-read Protestant weekly, which said the same situation is true for the whole of the Soviet-occupied part of the province.

Koenigsberg is located in the northern part of East Prussia, which was annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II. The southern part was taken over by Poland.

This Happened in New York

WORLD NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

The May 13, 1957 issue ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY, published two days before the opening of Billy Graham’s crusade in Madison Square Garden, carried an article of predictions entitled “This Can Happen in New York.” It was written by George Burnham, news editor ofCHRISTIANITY TODAYand author of two books on world tours of the evangelist. Burnham, after covering the New York campaign for 800 newspapers and magazines, now describes what happened during the crusade which ended Sept. 1 after three and one-half months.

The first article about New York began with the admonition, “If you care enough to pray, a number of incredible things will happen.…”

Millions did care enough to pray—in big city cathedrals, small rural churches and mud huts of jungle outposts. People in faraway Assam, most of whom have never seen a two-story building, prayed for God’s blessings on the concrete jungle of New York.

The original predictions and subsequent results are as follows:

1. Billy Graham will tell more people about Jesus Christ during the next six weeks than he has during all of his phenomenal ministry.

Capacity crowds of 18,500 at Madison Square Garden and audiences of 10 million-plus for Saturday telecasts made this come true before the end of six weeks. The Crusade, however, was just getting started. It was extended to July 20, then to August 10 and finally to Sept. 1. Madison Square Garden was not available beyond that date. A conservative figure for all telecasts would be 100 million viewers.

An estimated 2 million heard Mr. Graham in person at the Garden, Yankee Stadium, Central Park, Wall Street and Brooklyn. The total for 12 weeks in London was 2,047,333, but this figure included hundreds of services carried to relay points by special wire. The largest single crowd in New York was 100,000 at Yankee Stadium, with 20,000 turned away.

Other thousands heard the message on daily radio and television programs that covered the metropolitan area.

Television results surpassed all expectations. Over 10,000 letters a day, with hundreds telling of decisions for Christ, swamped the office daily. Mr. Graham expects to use this medium more than ever in future campaigns.

A Norfolk, Va., family was watching a telecast as the evangelist preached on the broad and narrow roads. When the message was over the six-year-old girl looked up and asked, “Mother, which road are you taking?” The parents drove to New York and made decisions for Christ. Wrote a person in Chicago: “Your sermon convinced me that now is the time of decision. I shall profess my faith in Jesus Christ tonight at our church.”

2. The number of inquiriers who respond to the invitation at the close of each message, by grace of God, will surpass any campaign to date.

Over 55,000 decisions were recorded. London’s 38,447 was closest to this, but this total also included relay figures. An intensive follow-up program is now under way to aid the Christian growth of those making decisions.

A young lady gripped the back of a seat so hard one night to keep from going forward that she cut her hands. Several nights later she responded. New York’s warring teen-agers declared the Garden “neutral ground” and hundreds of them made decisions for Christ during a special Youth Emphasis Week.

Not all of those making decisions will last. Not all lasted when Christ was doing the preaching.

3. Ministers and church members will be revived. Unity and love will spread as they place Christ first and denomination second, endeavor to help instead of hinder, offer comfort instead of criticism.

“This is like all the Christmases I have ever known rolled up into one,” commented a minister as he watched the hundreds marching toward the platform. Another clergyman took in 50 new members at a Sunday service. Scores of other churches were strengthened in the flow from the Garden. Many ministers began preaching evangelistic sermons and giving invitations for the first time.

A number of clergymen made decisions, explaining later that they had entered the ministry as a profession without surrendering their wills to Christ.

A tall, gaunt man with the rugged, weatherbeaten look of an Abraham Lincoln stepped from the crowd one night to make a decision. He jolted a young team aid in the counseling room by saying he had been a missionary for 25 years, and then added: “My work was fruitful for many years on the mission field, but I have felt the power leaving my ministry in the last few years. As I sat in the Garden tonight and listened to Billy, I became aware of why I was accomplishing little. I had to admit, down in my heart, that I began to seek the praise of men for my work rather than the blessing of God. When the invitation was given, I felt a strong urge to confess my sin and lay it at the foot of the Cross—the only place where sin can be forgiven and problems solved.”

As the man was leaving the counseling room, a ministerial advisor told the team aide: “The man you were talking with has been a giant of our denomination for many years. If he needed to make such a decision, how much greater is my need to do the same.”

4. The name of Jesus Christ will be for many the biggest topic of conversation on the streets, in factories and offices and on the dimly-lit night circuit of such spots as the Stork Club and Toots Shor’s.

Leaders of the New York Protestant Council agreed, during the campaign, that it had never been so easy to witness for Christ, with his name coming up during conversations in the most unexpected places. Christians covered entire apartment projects in their desire to make Him known.

The name, often used as an oath previously, took on new meaning as it spread through the young gangs, supper clubs and slums. A few of the celebrities who attended meetings included Jack Dempsey, Edward G. Robinson, Gene Tierney, Tex and Jinx Falkenburg, Carl Erskine, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, Dale Evans Rogers and many others. Ethel Waters missed only one service as a member of the choir. Church leaders from throughout the world visited the Crusade.

5. The effect of the campaign will be felt in many parts of the world, as the press and radio spread the news from Madison Square Garden to all nations.

The major wire services, such as Associated Press and United Press, gave the campaign unprecedented attention, with daily coverage for the most part. In the past, a weekly or monthly roundup after the opening events was the usual method.

While talking with workers at the Crusade office, the religious editor of a wire service decided to make his decision for Christ. He made the decision public at the Garden in hopes that it would influence the writer for a rival agency. Only another newspaperman could understand such an unusual action.

Not all writers were impressed, but the majority were, according to the following comments: “There was a good, clean solid look to those in the seats and those who came forward to repent”—Bob Considine; “At Madison Square where the air is as fresh and happy as a day in Spring—because these ‘newborn Christians’ wear their conversion radiantly, as love.…”—Phyllis Battelle, New Jork Journal American.

6. Communists in New York will face the rising threat to their godless way of life by smearing Mr. Graham in any way possible.

There was little or no smearing by communists.

7. Opposition will continue to come from small extreme groups within the church.

Such criticism was evident throughout. Some liberals complained that Mr. Graham was too fundamental and that his messages did not accomplish the social impact desired. Some fundamentalists complained that the evangelist was too liberal in that he associated with ministers of varied beliefs.

Mr. Graham, who went to New York with no strings attached, preached “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” He taught that the Gospel was vertical—“Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, mind and soul.” But he also taught that the Gospel was horizontal—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

8. Jesus Christ will be glorified.

Pastors and the press were struck by the genuine humility of Mr. Graham and members of his team. In every instance they played down self and played up Christ. Ever before them were the words, “It is not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord,” and “My Glory I will not share with another.”

The evangelist and his team spent themselves unselfishly in order that others might know the “good news that Jesus Christ came to save sinners.”

Each night a theme song rang through the Garden—“How Great Thou Art.”

The New York Crusade was the biggest evangelistic undertaking in history. And incredible things happened—because you cared enough to pray.

Break Rejected

After an eight-hour debate, the Evangelical Joint Lutheran Synod of Wisconsin and Other States rejected a report from its floor committee proposing a suspension of fellowship relations with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

The vote was 77–61, with eight delegates abstaining.

People: Words And Events

Alaska-Mission—Dr. Louis H. Evans, Minister-at-large of the Board of National Missions, Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., is conducting a five-week preaching mission in Alaska. He will speak to servicemen at three Air Force bases, address a conference of Presbyterian workers, and make radio and TV appearances. Dr. Evans travels more than 60,000 miles a year in his ministry.

First Girl President—For the first time in its 62-year-history, the Luther League of America has a girl president. She is Judy Ford of Cherryville, N. C. The league is the official youth auxiliary of the United Lutheran Church in America. Miss Ford was elected at the league’s convention in Lawrence, Kans.

Historic Chapel—The chapel in which Charles Haddon Spurgeon found Christ has been closed. A move is under way to buy the chapel so that it will not be offered for sale for commercial purposes. Located in Clochester, Essex, England, the chapel and adjoining manse are falling into disrepair. The two buildings can be bought, perhaps, for as little as 7,000 pounds.

Graham Papers—Dr. Billy Graham will give his personal letters, papers and sermons to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky. The papers include Dr. Graham’s correspondence with the heads of many nations. Dr. Duke K. McCall, seminary president, said the papers will “afford generations of future young ministers the opportunity to study the great Graham revivals of this era.” He said the files will be kept in a Billy Graham Room in the James P. Boyce Library, to be built soon.

Airport Ministry—In Puerto Rico, an unusual office has been set up at International Airport to help families departing for the United States. From behind a glass booth, Osvaldo Carlo explains U. S. currency and gives the departing Puerto Ricans a folder telling them what churches in many U. S. cities are ready to welcome them. Carlo is employed by the Evangelical Council of Churches of Puerto Rico.

Latin Campaign—Plans for a widespread evangelistic campaign in Latin America during the summer of 1959 have been mapped by the executive committee of the World Presbyterian Alliance. The campaign will be launced before the meeting of the Alliance’s 18th General Council in Campinas, Brazil, July 27-August 6, 1959, and will continue after its close.

Mass Evangelism—Herbert E. Eberhardt, superintendent of a Washington, D. C., gospel mission, was “filled with righteous indignation” when he read the following words of Dr. Harold E. Fey, editor of Christian Century: “The effects of the Billy Sunday meetings have long ago disappeared. It seems likely that the Billy Graham revival may have a similar transiency.” Said Eberhardt: “ ‘Ma’ Sunday, who passed away within the year, had a list of 400 ministers who were converted in those campaigns. All over this country there are clubs and organizations still active which grew out of the Sunday meetings, including one here in Washington. Indeed, the ever-expanding and influential Christian Businessmen’s Committee, International, is largely an outgrowth of the Billy Sunday campaigns.”

Missions Magazine—Larry Ward, former managing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, is editor of a new publication, World Vision Magazine, published by World Vision, Inc., in the interest of encouraging faithful prayer for world missions.

Less Chaplains—The Air Force says it will dimish its ranks of Protestant chaplains by as many as 117 before the end of the year, in keeping with the Defense Department order to reduce military personnel. Protestant chaplains will be reduced in number because their group is the only one currently over strength, the Air Force said. Those released will be permitted to take reserve training in order to keep their commissions in force, and those with more than five years of active duty will get readjustment pay.

New Administrator—The Rev. Charles H. Boyles of Jackson, Miss., has been elected administrator of the National Conference of Methodist Youth. For the last two years he has been national chairman of the United Christian Youth Movement, youth arm of the National Council of Churches.

50 Million Lutherans

Gerald B. Smith, religion editor of the St. Paul Dispatch, provided the following special coverage forCHRISTIANITY TODAYon the Lutheran World Federation Assembly:

August 15 to 25 were important days for Lutherans of the world, and thousands of lay men and women from Lutheran churches of America visited Minneapolis during that time to see for themselves what is involved in the international assembly of the Lutheran World Federation.

Newsmen covering the assembly were impressed by the serious nature of the visiting thousands—they were not just on a vacation lark to be impressed by the color and pagentry of the Federation’s third convocation.

These visitors crowded out many of the sessions in the Minneapolis Auditorium, which seats 10,000—and these sessions were sobering affairs, with deep, unhesitant probing of what Lutherans, and other Christians, ought to be doing in the present-day world.

Pursuing the theme, “Christ Frees and Unites,” the delegates and official visitors, representing 50 million Lutherans around the world, found the word “freedom” and “unity” much in use during the 10 days.

Included in some of the delegations were churchmen who have long been in conflict with such ideologies as Nazism and materialistic Communism, and as a result there was an eagerness on the part of American delegates to learn what happens to the Christian church when it is marooned behind the Iron Curtain.

Most vivid symbol of the Church in Communist-controlled areas was Bishop Lajos Ordass of Hungary, gaunt, somber prelate who was only restored in late 1956 to his ecclesiastical jurisdiction after 20 months in jail and six years of house arrest by the communist government.

On the day before the Lutheran assembly began, Dr. Carl McIntire of the American Council of Christian Churches, staged a “protest” meeting in a Minneapolis theater, charging that Bishop Ordass is a tool of the communists and actually heads a “slave church” in Hungary. Lutheran students in Minneapolis for the assembly heckled Dr. McIntire, disputed his interpretations of Lutheranism and contended he had not documented his charges against the Hungarian prelate. Police had to be called to restore order.

Chosen as the keynote speaker to give the opening sermon, Bishop Ordass told the delegates from many nations that the fruits of Christ’s death are personal freedom, freedom for service and the gift of Christian unity.

“Although we may be living under entirely different earthly circumstances, we are nevertheless friends and brothers of one body—the universal church of Christ,” he said.

In a press conference, Bishop Ordass faced reporters and church editors and said: “I am not afraid to go back—on my own words I will stand.” He said that since the 1956 revolution, attendance in churches has been increased, offerings are much better and pastors are not restricted in teaching church doctrine.

Another of the colorful European churchmen was Bishop F. Otto Dibelius, 77, of Berlin. His diocese of Berlin-Brandenburg straddles the Iron Curtain, and because of his insistence on a positive Christian education program in his churches he has been forbidden since March by East German officials to carry on his ecclesiastical duties in the eastern Communist-controlled zone.

Bishop Dibelius sounded one of the most urgent notes of the assembly when he said that superficial Christianity is no match for militant Communism.

Because of the international nature of the meeting, it was not strange that there was a pre-occupation with the future of the Christian church in areas already overshadowed by Communism.

Bishop Rajah B. Manikam of India, first and only Lutheran bishop in India and head of the Tamil Lutheran church, said openly that India may shift over to Communism in the next five years unless technical and financial assistance from America can stem the tide. The Indian churchman said the current “revolution in Asia” dwarfs the previous revolutions in France and Russia.

Bishop Bo H. Giertz of the diocese of Gothenburg, Church of Sweden, sounded one of the many emphatic doctrinal notes when he insisted that the Christian church must have the freedom to reform its functioning, but the Christian Gospel itself can never be reformed or changed.

“No authority in the church has the power to alter the smallest letter in this Gospel,” he warned. “Here there can be no willingness to compromise.”

On the same score, Dr. Vilmos Vajta, a native of Hungary now head of the Lutheran World Federation department of theology at Geneva, told the Lutherans to make sure of their theological moorings.

“If we lose theologically, we lose everything,” he summarized.

A college professor, Dr. Edgar M. Carlson, president of Gustavus Adolphus college, St. Peter, Minn., stood before the delegates and confessed the American sin of racial discrimination, and then urged that the Christian churches take the lead in forming a solid front against such practices.

Most discussion early in the assembly was brought about by approval of a project to study Roman Catholic theology, aimed at bringing the Lutheran and Roman churches closer together. Bishop Hanns Lilje of Germany, president of the Lutheran World Federation, said the study should be “an objective Christian inquiry in the spirit of understanding.”

“The Catholic church stays out of our ecumenical relations,” he said, “but we want them in. The Roman Catholic church, like ours, is moving with the times.” He added that he believes each generation of Lutherans has to “rethink the decision of the sixteenth century.”

Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, president of the United Lutheran Church in America, became the new president of the Lutheran World Federation in the elections prior to the conclusion of the world assembly.

Nature Of Unity

Nearly 300 delegates representing 40 denominations in the United States and Canada gather Sept. 3–10 in Oberlin, Ohio, for the World Council of Churches’ North American Study Conference on “The Nature of the Unity We Seek.”

Eight other denominations are sending observers and, in addition, 85 consultants have been invited, 10 from foreign lands.

The opening keynote address will be delivered Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 3, by the Rt. Rev. Angus Dun, chairman of the committee on arrangements. Daytime sessions from Sept. 4–7 will be devoted mainly to simultaneous sessions of 12 sections.

Most important of these, for evangelical Protestantism, is the section on “Doctrinal Consensus and Conflict.” This is the largest section, with some 40 participants. Its chairman is Dr. Edgar M. Carlson of Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, and its secretary, Dr. Walter N. Roberts of Evangelical United Brethren Church.

Consultants to attend the session on doctrinal concerns are Dr. V. E. Devadutt, Baptist Federation of India; Dr. Robert L. Calhoun, Congregational Christian Churches; Dr. Roy G. Ross, Disciples of Christ; Dr. John W. V. Smith, Church of God; the Rev. William D. Powell, Congregational Christion Churches; Dr. Otto W. Heick, United Lutheran Church, and Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Dr. Paul M. Bretscher will attend as an observer for the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod).

‘Blood Of Lamb’

A Protestant church leader accused Rep. Flood (D.-Pa.) of using “sophisticated oratorical blasphemy” during House debate on the foreign aid bill.

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, public affairs secretary of the National Association of Evangelicals, expressed “amazement” at Mr. Flood’s choice of terms while arguing unsuccessfully for an increase in economic aid funds.

Referring to Republicans who sided with his proposal, Mr. Flood said he welcomed them “to the fold after their many years of dereliction.”

“I say ‘hallelujah,’ ” he continued. “They have been washed in the blood of the lamb, a condition that I have enjoyed on this bill since 1945.”

Dr. Taylor singled out use of the term “washed in the blood of the Lamb” as being particularly offensive and said in a letter, “Surely you must be aware that to understanding Christian believers this concept is at the very heart of biblical religion. It is vital to a relationship between God and man.”

Mr. Flood replied, “My deep sense of religious conviction prevents me from giving offense intentionally to anyone of any faith. If offense has been taken to any words of mine by honest and sincere people, understandably or not to others, then that I sincerely regret.”

World Affairs

Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant church leaders from 21 nations turned their attention to the role of the Church in international affairs at the tenth annual meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches at Yale Divinity School recently.

Underlying all the deliberations was a basic question: How can the Church speak to the world in a way that is specifically Christian? How far should it go in offering solutions in tense international events. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Geoffrey F. Fisher, introduced the subject when he suggested that pointing out basic Christian principles is better than offering concrete advice.

Another question of importance to the world mission of the Church was the proposed integration of the World Council of Churches with its older sister organization, the International Missionary Council.

Dr. Josef L. Hromadka, Czech theologian, was reelected as a member of the executive committee, but more than half of the delegates abstained from voting. His fitness to serve was challenged by the Dr. Petrus Olaf Bersell. Dr. Hromadka is a professed non-communist, but has urged cooperation with his communist government.

Reports noted with favor the Prapat meeting of the East Asia Conference of Christian Churches last March in Indonesia. Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, general secretary, said, “The Asian churches, which knew very little about each other, have discovered their sister churches. They find that they have much in common and also much to learn from each other, and are therefore eager to enter into much closer relationships.”

The Asian churches, he added, have asked the Australian and New Zealand churches to associate themselves with the new Asian body.

A Tragedy In The Making

Marlon Brando is said to be planning a film about a handsome young evangelist who takes the nation by storm.

In Brando’s picture the evangelist holds big rallies in giant arenas and collects a fortune. He keeps all the loot and invests it in rackets. The role has been offered to Errol Flynn, who reportedly seems fascinated by it.

It is conceivable that Brando might be planning a take-off on Billy Graham, since he is the only current evangelist who has taken the nation by storm.

To keep the plot from going to pot, and to add the authentic touch of Hollywood realism, Brando might have his research department get in touch with George Champion, President of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. He handles all of the collections and disbursements of Graham’s New York Crusade.

To date, after three months of exhaustive preaching, the evangelist has received exactly nothing. When the campaign ends on Sept. 1, the total will have climbed to five cents short of a nickel.

Such research, however, might ruin the picture. The Hollywood motto, in many cases, is “Forget the facts and tell the story.”

It has been reported, printed and checked scores of times that Graham receives a salary from his own organization of $15,000 a year. He is such a soft touch that he usually has to borrow money to pay his income tax. A worthy cause will always find him digging and he runs into more of them accidentally than most folks do on purpose. Admire his tie and he will give it to you. He has a hard time playing golf because he keeps giving his clubs to friends who need them more. If money was his goal, Hollywood has repeatedly offered him a blank check for film rights to his life story.

The casting of Errol Flynn to play the part is nothing short of genius. Such a muchly married and harried playboy should bring a great amount of truth to the part. Quite a contrast with Billy and Ruth Graham, however. They have been married for over 15 years and still love each other. The courtship will never end. If she enters the room 15 times a day, he stands up 15 times a day.

Recently Graham was acclaimed as “Father of the year.” Flynn, with x-wives scattered in all directions, might be even more fascinated by this role.

The tragedy of such a picture is that some of the public will believe it, even when the lie is told in Cinemascope.

Brando and Flynn should be warned, however, not to try filming it during a thunderstorm.

Worth Quoting

A Christian who resided in China for 25 years had the following to say when asked for comment about the exploited junket of young Americans from Moscow to Peking:

“Forty-one misguided youths, led by a clergyman long identified with left-wing movements, are touring Red China in defiance of U. S. State Department instructions. That they will be used for propaganda purposes in Russia and may themselves become propagandists for a system they did not actually see and do not actually understand is a matter of secondary importance.

“The basic problem is one of deliberate flouting of our government, of setting up group defiance of established authority. It is inherent in the spirit of our times and reflected in the numerous expressions of approval of their action to be heard on every hand.

“The policy of the State Department with reference to travel in Red China can be debated without violation of democratic principles and right. Arbitrary flouting of this policy is an act of insubordination and should be treated as such.”

Eutychus and His Kin: September 2, 1957

SPECTATORS

Americans are all screened these days—by the TV set. The screen separates a few hyper-tense performers on a ball diamond or in the studio from spectators relaxing in the bars, living-rooms and dens of the forty-eight states. Never have so many lost so much to so few.

Fortunately some have escaped the contour chair of spectator sports. Even the country club has members who will occasionally desert the TV lounge for an afternoon on the links. As the coach has often reminded us, the school football program still demands self-discipline for the glory of Alma Mater and several thousand paid spectators. Progressive education has not affected squad scrimmages!

Off the athletic field, discipline is rare. This fall school teachers face again the relaxed teens in loafers with the loose look and desperately resume the struggle in a strategic position much deteriorated from the long summer truce.

A preacher can sympathize. The stifled yawns of relaxed worshipers are symptoms of spectator Christianity, slumped smugly in the sanctuary. The most evangelical parson might be tempted to prescribe for his flock the rigor of the canonical hours that summon monks to prayer.

Discipline should begin with the preacher. If he prays more in public than in private and makes fewer calls than any doctor, insurance salesman or Fuller Brush man, he needs self-examination. A popular style of preaching is the stream-of-consciousness method, a flexible, freeform discourse in which the preacher passionately or pompously says whatever comes into his head. The cure is the discipline of the study. Scientific exegesis of the Scriptures and a return to the bracing richness of the creeds can bring new meaning to preaching.

Lazy Christianity that avoids hard thinking and hard work will never reach America’s spectators with the gospel.

EUTYCHUS

NIEBUHR AND GRAHAM

A subtle movement is on to discredit Billy Graham and his message before the world and the Christian church. Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr has become the spokesman for Protestant enemies of the Graham crusades: In Life magazine (July 1, 1957) Dr. Niebuhr accuses Graham of “simplifying the issues of life” in his crusade sermons. From his theological citadel of New York’s Union Theological Seminary he denounces Dr. Graham’s evangelism declaring that (1) he “exemplifies a typically frontier American evangelism”; that he (2) has “neglected to explore the social dimensions of the Gospel,” and that (3) “this new evangelism is much blander than the old.”

Dr. Niebuhr attacks “frontier American evangelism” because of its condemnation of the “old self” and its emphasis on the need of “decision for Christ.” But this is precisely the method which brought the Christian church into existence, preserved her and made her spread out to the ends of the earth. The apostolic message and method was the same Graham is carrying to the world today.

It was not the liturgical priesthood nor the theological Pharisees or Saducees which promoted Christianity, but those “frontier” men of Galilee who were personally regenerated and therefore able to carry the message of new life across national, racial, cultural and social frontiers of their day. This same frontier evangelism saved Christianity in the Middle Ages from the liturgy and formalism of dead Romanism. It saved Protestant Europe in the eighteenth century, through Wesley, Whitefield and others, from national, social and religious corruption. It is not present-day liturgical Rome nor Niebuhr’s modernized theology which can save America from corruption and destruction, but new life in Christ Jesus brought to us through the channel of what the Bible says. There is no other way to change men’s lives, morally, socially and culturally, than grafting of Christ’s new life into the “old self” life.

Can Dr. Niebuhr prove his assertion that “Such evangelism, with its continual emphasis on the individual saving his own soul, neglects to explore the social dimensions of the Gospel”? Individual regeneration is the only effective way to reform society. Only in the heart of individuals who are open to the Gospel seed can a better ethical and moral standard be planted.

Communism is progressing on the very same principle, that reform is built on small cells of individuals having accepted unconditionally the tenets of communistic ideology. While Niebuhr is working with abstract formulas for reform of New York’s teeming millions, hundreds of them are individually “converted” each week to Communism through surrender of “self” in “decision for” Karl Marx.

We wonder if Dr. Niebuhr has ever taken the time to hear a whole sermon by Dr. Graham. If he had, how could he say “This new evangelism promises a new life, not through painful religious experience but werely by signing a decision card.” After having heard Graham a dozen times in soul-searching messages demanding complete change of moral and ethical life toward men, in repentence toward God, my impression is that not since Savonarola have men heard an evangelist who has thundered so much against spiritual as well as social sins.

Can we wonder at Dr. Niebuhr’s assertion that “relatively few New Yorkers attend the Garden meetings” when we consider that nearly two thirds of New York’s population are of the Jewish race or Roman Catholics? Dr. Niebuhr, who wants to be spokesman for its 8 per cent Protestant population, warns both Jews and Gentiles against Graham. Roman Catholic leaders are glad to mingle their voices with his. The greater part of New York’s religious life is encased in formalism, a shell which Dr. Niebuhr’s theology has not been able to crack.

God is in the process of breaking open this shell of estrangement from him. Through united prayers of Christians around the world God is tearing down the temple walls which New Yorkers have erected for their mammon and bacchus worship. A few days ago I went to call on a new convert whose name and address had been mailed to me from the Garden Crusade office. I found him in one of Brooklyn’s swank apartments. This prominent Latin American businessman said to me, “My wife is a strong Catholic, but I have frequently attended Billy Graham’s meetings. I have given my heart to Christ.”

If Dr. Niebuhr would dedicate more of his time to the “narrow” channel of “frontier evangelism” and less time to filling the “chasm between Christian pietism and modern scientific culture,” he would find with Graham that the approach to life’s problems is not “too simple and narrow,” for both the man in the street as well as the erudite scholar may find solution to all life’s problems in the presence of Christ the Saviour and through what the Bible says. Director of Evangelism OLAV EIKLAND Latin Evangelical Free Church Brooklyn, N. Y.

ROMAN CATHOLIC GAINS

“Roman Catholics are increasing by leaps and bounds in America” seems to be a belief of many Protestants.

It simply is not true, and it is surprising that so few Protestants are familiar with the statistics which are to be found, incidentally, at periodic intervals in “Information Service” of the National Council of Churches.

Here are a few figures: In 1906, Roman Catholics were 37% of all church members in the USA. In 1956 they were 34%. In 1906, Catholics were 16.5% of the whole American population; in 1956 they were 20%, an increase of 3.5%. During that time much of the immigration was Roman Catholic. During the same fifty years, non-Catholics increased from 24.3% in 1906 to 40% in 1956, for a gain of over 15%. In other words, from 1906 to 1956, Protestants and Jews increased at a ratio of 4 times as rapidly as Roman Catholics.

Two other items are significant: 1. of the 531 members of Congress, 94 or 17.5% are Roman Catholics. 2. of the 48 governors, 5 or 9.6% are Roman Catholic.

Interpretations of these statistics may vary but at least there are the figures.

WILLARD JOHNSON

Barrington, Ill.

• The present population of the United States is 171,000,000. The Roman Catholic population of the United States is between 32,000,000 and 33,000,000 at the present time. The United States has 223 archbishops and bishops.

In 1906, according to the Catholic Directory on file at Catholic University Library, the Catholic population of the United States was 12,651,000. At that time the total population of the United States was close to 80,000,000. (It was 75,900,000 in the 1900 census.) At that time there were 104 bishops and archbishops.

In 1857 the Catholic population of the United States was 2,064,000. At that time there were 29 bishops and archbishops. The U.S. population, as a whole, was about 25,000,000 (23,190,000 in census of 1850).

In the last 50 years the Catholic population has increased about 275% while the whole U.S. population was increasing about 212%. Therefore, a contention that the non-Catholic population of the United States is increasing more rapidly than the Catholic is not borne out by the facts. However, Roman Catholic statistics include everyone ever baptized in a Roman Catholic church and there are a certain percentage who have lapsed from the church.

The Catholic membership in Congress is now 96 out of 531, the highest it has ever been, except for a brief time this session when it was 97 (prior to Sen. McCarthy’s death)—ED.

REVIVALISM’S RESIDUE

I hesitate to ask you to print a rejoinder to R. J. Rushdoony’s review of my book, Revivalism and Social Reform, (June 24 issue) lest I appear ungrateful for the many kind things he did say. But the more critical portion of his essay identifies me, personally, with the doctrines of the men whom the book describes. I fear the result will be that many of your readers, whose fellowship I cherish, may think that I am now outside the pale of evangelical fellowship. So please accept this brief apology and confession of faith.

I certainly do not rejoice in the triumph of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism. I regard the seizure by radical liberals of the proprietorship of the parable of the Good Samaritan as one if the great ironies—and falsehoods—of our time. Similarly, the doctrine of America’s “manifest destiny” is odious to me. For most of my short life I have held to the a-millennial “variant of the beliefs which [William] Miller’s demise discredited,” without regard to who “spawned” it. Far from being blindly prejudiced against Calvinism, I have taken heart at every movement in recent scholarship or piety which has opened up an avenue to the reconciliation of Wesleyan and “Calvinist” evangelicals. Our division is the least defensible of any which affiict modern Christendom.

But the facts are that in the mid-nineteenth century revivalist churchmen did identify the Kingdom of God with the American dream. They were largely postmillennialists. They did blaze the trail which Social Christianity later followed. They nourished the ecumenical spirit. Christian perfection made remarkable headway among them. And they nearly all believed that old school Calvinism was a superannuated theology, closely identified with the reaction against political and social democracy. All this was as true of Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Baptist revivalists as of their Lutheran, Low Church Episcopal and Methodist brethren.

I thought these things important and tried to tell the story which lay back of them with accuracy and enthusiasm. That the writings of old school Calvinists, so long quoted by secular historians as typical of “Christian” opinion, were in fact a minor current quite outside the mainstream of American religious life in the period, seemed important to point out. This applies to Warfield’s later studies of perfectionism, too, though the reviewer could not but have noticed that the stricture which he deplores was also applied in the same sentence to the work of a recent Wesleyan scholar and referred only to their inadequate treatment of “the social dynamics of the movement” (p. 238).

Mr. Rushdoony’s statement that the chapters on the rise of Christian perfection contain a genealogy which omits reference to the black sheep of the family will, I think, seem strange to those who read the book. Please note the uncomplimentary facts recorded concerning Asa Mahan (p. 111), T. C. Upham (p. 144), the Free Methodists (pp. 129–132), W. E. Boardman (p. 234) and Bishops Janes and Hamline, architects of the Methodist bishops’ policy of silence on slavery (pp. 211–212). All these were clearly in the “second blessing” camp. I doubt if the reviewer seriously believes that “sexual communism” is an inevitable concomitant of Arminian or Wesleyan revivalism. But just to make sure all the evidence was in, I referred to John Humphrey Noyes (who was neither an Arminian nor a Wesleyan) and the Oneida community five times (see index).

One final note. The “something”, as the reviewer put it, to which I referred as being potentially “as dry as Johnathan Edwards’ bones and just as sterile of saving compassion” was (p. 92) Arminian Orthodoxy. But I hasten to acknowledge that such a reference even to that dear Calvinist’s bones was unfortunate, especially if it leads any to suspect that I have not read Perry Miller on Edwards!

TIMOTHY L. SMITH

First Church of the Nazarene

Boulder, Colo.

THE RISING TIDE

At 80, after 57 years in public Christian work, I can truthfully say your magazine met a long felt need in our library.… Being now retired, a good, sound paper is a good companion.…

JOHN O. FERRIS

Crystal Bay Presbyterian Church

Wayzata, Minn.

Ideas

Christ and the Atom Bomb

The Editors

To preserve the universe from capitulating to pagan views of origin and existence, each generation must delineate and declare the relationship between Christ and the atom. Development of the atomic bomb, and of its even more monstrous successors, imposes on our own generation particularly an unprecedented urgency to meet this task. In fact, for us the challenge may already involve retrieving as well as withholding the atom from Satan and his destructive purposes.

During the past decade, atomic energy’s military significance received man’s concentration far more than its peacetime potential. But relegated to even less consideration than the link between the atom and peace has been the link between the atom and God. The long overexposure (and double exposure) to evolution and naturalism has obliterated, at least skewed, the present generation’s recognition of the Christian doctrine of origins and being. Unfamiliarity with Christian thought patterns is prevalent. The comfortable assumption of Christianity as a permanent, all-inclusive Western tradition has inured modern man to a purposeful personal investigation of religion. Within his remnant of theological categories, the average man, therefore, can only associate the atom bomb with the Devil, rather than the atom with God.

Communism drives relentlessly toward world revolution. The political absolutism of “might makes right” perils millions with barbarian mass destruction. Atomic fall-out and radiation mean yet unplumbed hazards. Must not the Christian conscience speak to the world’s conscience about the atom and its uses? Not to do so is a shirking of responsibility. Indeed this silence of a Christian community grants to alien philosophies permission to interpret the atom and its serviceability in wholly secular and arbitrary terms.

But silence is not the only charge to be leveled at the Christian community. What is spoken in the name of the Church, often by its cursory nature, and sometimes by its narrow and even misguided phrasing, is hurtful to Christianity and helpful to paganism.

Monstrous as it is, the atomic bomb is but a part of a much vaster, more important concern, that of the atom itself. To confine the problem to the atomic bomb is unfortunate both for the proclaiming Church and for the listening world. Largely inundated by naturalistic ways of thought, twentieth-century culture needs from the Christian churches a more comprehensive approach to the atom than merely pronouncements on the bomb.

Basic to Christianity’s philosophy of life as it relates to war is the Christian doctrine of origin and existence. While a generation may perpetuate its survival by restraining the atom bomb, that survival may be within a pagan concept of life that brings its own and worse final doom. At every moment the Christian movement must primarily engage in a total battle for the souls of men and not simply in lesser endeavors that spare life unchanged for the pagan world. The contemporary Church needs to proclaim the comprehensive message of the God of the atom when it issues its subordinate proclamations on the atom bomb.

In this connection, some of the recent programing of the Voice of America has reflected a deeper sensitivity to spiritual realities than have the massive church organizations. The U.S. Information Agency’s approval of Moody Institute of Science films such as The God of the Atom for international educational purposes is commendable, since such material lifts the question of the use of the atom beyond the elemental issue of the peaceful or destructive employments of nuclear energy to the higher principle of the spiritual purposes of the universe. If the primary basis of the Communist philosophy is evolutionary naturalism, as indeed it is, then no decisive blow has been dealt to the Communist program for the use of the atom while this basic philosophy is unassailed. The neglect of the Christian doctrine of creation within the churches is due largely to the infiltration of evolutionary naturalism into the religious as well as the secular centers of Western thought and life. This deficiency is a current factor that nullifies the churches’ own efforts to champion the peaceful over the destructive use of nuclear energy. To borrow a warning from the recently published symposium on Contemporary Evangelical Thought (Channel Press, 1957), the unchallenged revolt against the God of creation provides modern man with leverage for his revolt against the God of redemption.

If the subject of Christ and the atom is urgently vital, the subject of Christ and the atom bomb is an appropriate and crucial problem as well. If the Church is properly concerned with why Christ made and preserves the atom, it is also properly concerned with why man splits it.

Christianity is not a religion of war; it is on the side of peace among men. Today when so much of the initiative for world peace is carried by secular agencies, when the warring chapters in the history of Christianity are exploited by anti-Church movements, it is especially necessary for Christianity to entrench in man’s conscience the fact that the tidings of the incarnation are those of “peace on earth” and that Christ’s beatitudes include a special designation of his disciples as peacemakers. Above all the symbols of warfare and strife in the world today, the Church of Christ should tower as a symbol of peace.

Alien conceptions of peace, so often today defined as mere cessation of outward hostility, can easily mislead Christian leaders, however. A striking feature of the New Testament is that despite its emphasis upon the peace of God in human life, the early Church was not drawn into political dispute with the Roman empire, the mighty military power of that day. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans of the mighty dunamis of God, and of Christians being “more than conquerors,” but whatever may have been the perils of mankind and of the scattered Christian communities, the early Christians felt no constraint to chart a military program for the Roman Empire. The early Christian concern for peace on earth was linked exclusively with the necessity for spiritual and moral regeneration of individuals, not primarily with programs of action whereby unregenerate men might assure mankind’s survival. The followers of Jesus Christ never understood their task to be the promotion of survival programs for unregenerate men who sought physical security while persisting in rejection of the Redeemer; rather, they ministered to the sick and to the dying by way of spontaneous commentary on their living faith, and they preached Christ the Saviour and Lord before whom even the Roman emperor must be counted a doomed sinner needing salvation (cf. Rom. 3:20, 23). Although it insisted upon the universal validity of the biblical revelation, the early Church did not foster resolutions to reform unregenerate humanity.

Leaders in the World Council of Churches have frequently pleaded for suspension of all current tests of nuclear weapons. Such a demand was voiced to the American government at the WCC New Haven meetings in August. An adopted report of its Commission of the Churches on International Affairs urged that “governments conducting tests should forego them at least for a trial period, either together or individually, in the hope that the others will do the same, a new confidence be born, and foundations be laid for reliable agreements.”

Entrance of churchmen into the political order in the name of the Church frequently has the effect of ascribing to multitudes of parishioners opinions which they as individuals do not in fact entertain, and for the propagandizing of which they have no mandate. Organized Christianity thus may become enmeshed in questions that go beyond the scope of the Church’s legitimate function. In demanding that the United States unilaterally suspend all current tests the WCC’s recent action on nuclear weapons actually supported present Soviet Russian policy. This shocking situation coming from the most representative gathering of Christendom apart from the Papal See supplies a tremendous asset to the Russians in their present jockeying for world sympathy and international support. Although motivated by quite other considerations, the WCC action nonetheless climaxes a Communist drive begun in the Stockholm Peace Conference, namely, by mobilizing and utilizing pacifist sentiment in the non-Communist world to deter the development of new atomic devices in the West thus to alter the balance of power between the Communist and non-Communist worlds. One of the program’s most zealous proponents has been Professor J. L. Hromadka from Communist-dominated Czechoslovakia.

While some dissent was evident at the New Haven conference, the recommendations of the executive committee were never effectively challenged. Professor Florovsky, Russian Orthodox Church official, publicly abstained from support of the atomic tests statement because he considered it a political issue. Dr. P. O. Bersell, Augustana Lutheran leader from Minneapolis, publicly declined to support the re-election of Dr. Hromadka to the executive committee but finally yielded with the explanation: “If the executives are satisfied, knowing the nature of this election, I am satisfied.” Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher of the Church of England was criticized when he suggested that the World Council should not take sides in international disputes, but confine its pronouncements to “fundamental spiritual principles.” Mayor Charles P. Taft of Cincinnati, a leader in the Protestant Episcopal Church, cautioned against pronouncements without the aid of experts, indicating that this is a common failing in church groups. But executives of the central committee received overwhelming endorsement in virtually everything they proposed. The result of the New Haven sessions may well be that, in the months and years to come, the political program of the WCC will receive more scrutiny than ever before. The great tragedy of the twentieth century would be if, in the effort to conserve the creative power of the atom for Jesus Christ, the atom bomb should unwittingly have been given in to the destructive service of Karl Marx.

The Christian churches have adequate reason to warn the nations of the world of their moral accountability to the Living God, to condemn the evil of aggressive warfare, to protest the one-sided enlistment of scientific genius to what Pius XII has called a “race toward death,” and to show concern for the well-being of the race in view of the perils of radiation. The Christian community has good reason also to disown a fatalistic view of the inevitability of war, and to emphasize the crucial role of spiritual decision upon the flow of history.

But what mandate do the Christian churches have for instructing any nation that it ought in the name of political righteousness to desist from testing its military defenses? If God wills the state as a political order to promote justice and to restrain injustice in a sinful society, is not a state precondemned to suicide if it is deprived of the right to test its weapons of defense in a century in which one world power, operating on the thesis of state absolutism, makes no pretense of its goal of world revolution?

The usual reply, that a halt must be called in the bomb race because of the vast destructive capacity of nuclear energy, is not decisive. No clear case has been made out for a qualitative difference between nuclear bombs and other weapons of warfare; the difference, however great, remains quantitative. Eliminate the bombs, and terrible though more conventional weapons of war remain. Does the Church bless these? Does it condemn their use under all circumstances also? Is experiment with tactical atomic bombs (limited to battlefields and used against cities only along the front lines of land fighting) approved as moral? Can this qualitative line really be drawn in warfare?

Is not an organization that intrudes into such questions in the name of the Church confused about the weapons of the Church’s warfare? Are we not driven to ask whether behind the WCC action there still lurks the optimistic hope of the now discredited social Gospel of Protestant liberalism, that by the reorganization of unregenerate mankind on ostensibly Christian prinicples a warless world will be inaugurated?

No Christian—indeed, no human being—can fully escape agony of soul over the death-dealing prospect of modern warfare. The Christian churches are rightly driven to assure themselves that they are making their fullest contribution to world peace. But what scriptural license has a resolution to end the testing of the bombs, even for a trial period, as a strategic Christian contribution to world peace? As a venture of political idealism it may perhaps be justified, even perhaps as a military maneuver, but that is a decision which statesmen charged with the destinies of the political order need to make. When Christian churches speak, are they not obliged to stress that man’s only guarantee of survival is his devotion to the commandments by which God judges the race; to stress the connection between the social evils of the world and the master passions of individual life (cf. James 4:1, “From whence come wars … Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?”); and to stress the contribution to peace made by the regenerating power of the Gospel? Doubtless it is superficial to hold that, in a sinful order, the preaching of the Gospel is the only contribution that Christianity can make to promote world peace. But, if anything, it is superficiality compounded to seek a Christian solution while neglecting the Gospel, and venturing simply to reorganize an unregenerate world order on the basis of romantic idealism.

Progress in disarmament hinges upon a sense of mutual trust among nations. Even unchurched leaders today ask what basis exists for trusting a Communist leadership that acknowledges no objective moral principles, let alone the reality of the Living God and the validity of his commandments. Is not the Gospel the best weapon the Church knows for restoring these dulled spiritual and moral sensitivities?

The Christian community is profoundly right in its warning to the world that nuclear war will provide no solution to world problems, but will bankrupt modern history. But if Christian forces hope to show the way to peace, they had best not concentrate their efforts on dubious vulnerable techniques for avoiding war. Worldly organizations may busy themselves with delaying actions for postponing doom, but the Church’s primary role is to call a new race of men into fellowship with Christ as Lord. The cessation of nuclear bomb tests is no more the world’s real hope for peace in this decade than the organization of the United Nations was in the last. That great hope is Jesus Christ. And it is time professing followers of Christ clarify this hope in a world of peril. The modern man’s one great prospect of peaceful existence in these dark decades lies in the recognition of the lordship of Christ, in the reaffirmation of the Judeo-Christian view of life, and in the dedication of the atom and the atom bomb to the service of righteousness and love.

A Prepared Messenger And His Message

Dr. Robert Munger, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California, recently said in a workshop for ministers in New York: “A prepared messenger is more important than a prepared message.”

By this Dr. Munger did not mean to minimize the importance of thorough preparation of a sermon from a topical, scriptural and homiletical standpoint. But he did mean that God uses cleansed and filled vessels for his own glory and that a minister who has prepared himself by a complete yielding to Christ in every area of his own personal life and approaches his message from his knees is the one whom God can honor and use.

In these days when so many administrative duties accrue to the minister, when he finds himself under constant pressure to meet pastoral responsibilities, grave danger exists of too little time being left for the most vital part of his life, the spiritual, without which even the most eloquent sermon can become so many empty words.

While it remains the responsibility of the minister to guard and nurture this most important part of his own life, the congregation has a duty to see that he is spared many seemingly important but nonetheless secondary duties. To make this possible the minister will have to say “No” to many requests and to make his position tenable the congregation will have to accept such refusals graciously.

What person would employ a lawyer on a vitally important matter and then expect him to spend his time in social and other activities that mitigate against proper preparation of his case?

Who would ask a surgeon to operate for a serious physical ailment and then expect the surgeon to fritter away his time on secondary matters?

And yet, too many members of the average congregation ask their minister to provide time and services they have no right to expect. Or how often a minister may himself take time and energy for things that deaden or lessen spiritual awareness and power.

The Christian ministry is a desperately serious matter for it has to do with matters of eternal import. The preacher of the Gospel stands as a link between the living and the dead, between men who are in darkness and despair and a Way which brings light and joy. “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord” is an admonition found in Isaiah. This envisions a minister of the Lord cleansed for his task. “Be filled with the Spirit” Paul exhorts us, an indication of the source of spiritual power.

Prepare your message? By all means, but never forget that for the message there must also be a prepared messenger.

END

Theology

God Is Not Deformed

L. Nelson Bell

Can man hope to have an adequate concept of God? Certainly we can never hope to understand comprehensively all of his perfections and attributes for we are finite. Nevertheless God has not left himself without a witness. It is both our privilege and duty to learn that which he has been pleased to reveal about himself.

We know only that which God has been pleased to reveal, and for sinful man this is overwhelmingly adequate.

To contemplate the attributes of God staggers the imagination, yet he has revealed himself for the very purpose that we might, although limited by the flesh, know him and glorify his name and distinguish between that which is true and false.

God has made it possible for us to know him through his general revelation in nature. Romans 1:20 says, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” He reveals himself also in history and conscience.

He has revealed himself in his Son of whom we read in Colossians 2:8, 9: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”

God reveals himself in his written Word. The apostle Paul writing to Timothy says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto good works.”

In these various ways God’s marvelous attributes are revealed, being exercised by him in his works of creation, providence and redemption.

Why then the necessity of affirming, in a spirit of deepest reverence, that God is not deformed? Because in each generation, and particularly in our own, God is often presented in only one aspect of his personality or by only one attribute to the exclusion or depreciation of others. This narrow presentation causes God to be seen as though he were deformed; his glorious person is disclosed out of focus.

There are those who are so overwhelmed by the love of God and all of its implications that they overlook other attributes which are equally true and impelling. The depth and height and breadth of the love of God can never be exhausted, for he is the epitome of love and all that it implies.

He is also the God of holiness and justice. The Bible which tells us that God is love also affirms that he is a consuming fire. Therefore, to stress the love of God to the exclusion of his perfections in holiness and justice is to give a distorted picture.

The Cross of Jesus Christ reveals the love of God. But it reveals far more. The depths of sin, the magnitude of its offense against a holy God and the price necessary to free man from its guilt and penalty, all are revealed by the Cross. We see combined in one sublime act the love, truth, holiness, righteousness, mercy, faithfulness, justice, and knowledge of God, and having said this, all of its implications have not been exhausted. Let us never forget that in this glorious act of redemption and propitiation we see combined many aspects of the God with whom we have to do.

God is the God of infinite and absolute perfection. Being infinite he is free from all possible limitation. Being absolute he is an eternal self-existent person who is the voluntary cause of all that is, has been or ever will exist. He is “the same yesterday, today and forever” and he is “without variableness or shadow of turning.”

One may hear the seemingly wise statement: “God is too good to damn anyone,” and from this premise the deduction that therefore all men will some day be saved regardless of what they do about Christ, God’s provision for their need. Paul, in Romans, writes: “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.” The crux of the matter is that sin must be judged and God in his infinite love and justice has done something about it, sending his Son through whom man may be freed from the guilt and penalty of sin and restored to fellowship with Him now and forever.

If we would know God and the attributes whereby he is known we have but to turn to Holy Scripture. In both Old and New Testaments we find the same God. Some would distinguish between the “God of the Old Testament” and the “God of the New,” but they are the same. To discard the one for the other is to be guilty of a selective prejudice that leads to grave error.

For instance, in Isaiah we read: “Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” But the same God, speaking in the same book also says: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

We find the Lord Jesus Christ uttering this scathing denunciation: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!… Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” This same Christ also says: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

The apostle Paul denounces sin and the unrepentant sinner but offers pardon and peace to all who will turn to Christ in full repentance. The writer of the Epistle to Hebrews affirms God’s revelation through the prophets and the Son and presents a picture of escape and eternal salvation to those who believe.

Peter tells of the patience and longsuffering of a holy God unwilling that any souls be lost, but also of the day of impending judgment from which none who have rejected Christ shall escape.

No, God is not deformed. He is revealed to us in the perfections of his glorious attributes. It is his will that we should see him and believe in him for who he is and what he is.

We who are capable of love, feeling, knowing, righteous indignation, kindness, mercy and a sense of right and justice, should realize that in him all of these things are found in absolute perfection. He who knows no limitations of time, space or circumstance deals with mankind in perfect love and also perfect justice. He who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and who cannot look on iniquity, has nonetheless made perfect provision for sin and the sinner. In all of this the perfection and absoluteness of his attributes are revealed to man.

No, God is not deformed. He is perfection, a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, truth and love.

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