The Stadium Story

WORLD NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

The following article, which appeared in many American newspapers, was written by George Burnham, news editor ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY, after 100,000 overflowed mammoth Yankee Stadium in New York to hear Billy Graham. It offers an insight to the aerial picture of the great throng.

The centerfield sign at Yankee Stadium read, “Say Seagram and be sure.”

Directly behind home plate was a banner, “Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Jammed between the two viewpoints were 100,000 people—the largest crowd ever to attend any event in “The House that (Babe) Ruth built” in 1923. An estimated 20,000 were turned away after standees filled the outfield area. (The largest religious gathering in the United States previously had been the 75,000 who heard Billy Graham at the Cotton Bowl during his Dallas. Texas, campaign.

The wide-open spaces, usually covered by the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle were covered by the Smiths and Joneses from Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Jersey City.

It was the hottest night of the year, with reporters in the dugouts perspiring more than Casey Stengel during a ninth-inning rally. Seventy persons were treated for heat exhaustion. Over 2,500 ushers did a magnificent job of keeping confusion to a minimum.

Shortly before 7 p.m. a wave of applause began rippling across the stands and grew into a mighty sound. Walking side by side toward the platform at second base were Billy Graham and Vice President Richard M. Nixon. They were trailed by guards, friends and a few who sneaked in under the blanket of applause.

The Vice President, during the short walk, remarked to Graham that it must bring a great satisfaction to attract the largest crowd in the history of Yankee Stadium.

“I didn’t fill this place,” Graham replied, “God did it.”

In the opening moments of the program the 100,000 voices joined in praying the Lord’s Prayer. Later another mighty sound rolled across the surrounding blocks as the huge crowd sang “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.”

It seemed impossible that complete quietness could come to such a throng, but it did as George Beverly Shea and the 4,000-voice choir, superbly led by Cliff Barrows, sang “How Great Thou Art.”

Roger Hull, chairman of the executive committee, announced that the Crusade, scheduled to end July 20 at Yankee Stadium, was continuing at Madison Square Garden for three weeks. A great burst of applause warmed the words. (Because of unprecedented attendance and results, the Crusade later was extended through August 31.)

After moving his eyes slowly around the vast expanses, Graham said in his opening remarks:

“They said Yankee Stadium wouldn’t be filled. But it is. God has done this and all the honor, credit and glory must go to him. You can destroy my ministry by praising me for this. The Bible says God will not share his glory with another.”

Mr. Nixon, who was given a standing ovation, said:

“I bring you a message from one who is a very good friend of Billy Graham and one who would have been here if his duties had allowed him—the greetings and best wishes of President Eisenhower.”

“America,” he said, “is a great nation because of its faith in God.”

Noises from planes taking off from LaGuardia Field drowned out some of the early parts of the program. A telephone call to the airport brought quick results. The tower instructed all pilots to turn away from Yankee Stadium.

Graham, citing the perils of Communism from without and moral deterioration from within, said, “I believe there is a glorious hope. There is only one solution for our collective problems that can guarantee the survival of America and its continued prosperity. Jesus Christ is the only answer.”

Clutching his familiar Bible, he gave the listeners a choice between heaven and hell. “You make the choice by accepting or rejecting the Son of God, Jesus Christ. There is no middle ground.”

With no room for people to walk to the platform, he asked all who would accept Christ to stand. An estimated 2,500 did so.

One man had made his decision before the address began. Posing as an usher, he collected about $500 in the bleachers when the offering was given. He was caught and arrested. (Graham attended the official hearing a few days later and, in love, offered him the riches of Christ. The man rebuffed Graham and refused Christ. Then the evangelist went another mile. He gave the man a job.)

Worth Quoting

“It has been three years since the London campaign of Dr. Billy Graham. The greatest impact, now emerging, has been upon the clergy.”—The Right Rev. Hugh Roland Gough, Bishop of Barking.

“The Billy Graham campaigns in Great Britain left thousands of new Christians and gave new faith to thousands of clergymen, but scores of applicants to theological schools in Britain are coming directly or indirectly as a result of the Graham campaigns.”—Dr. A. W. Goodwin Hudson, Vicar of All Saints Church.

“Liberal Protestantism is critical of Dr. (Billy) Graham because of his success with New Testament evangelism in which it disbelieves and not because there is anything intrinsically harmful about a bulk response to Christian evangelism. If hundreds of converts nightly were led to Christ by Dr. Graham through personal counseling, rather than through mass evangelism, it would still criticize him.”—Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, in newspaper reply to non-lasting charges against Graham converts by Harold E. Fey, editor of The Christian Century.

Evaluation

Erling Olsen, president of a Wall Street investment firm and member of the Billy Graham New York Crusade executive committee, wrote the following evaluation of the Crusade:

The most protracted political convention ever held in our country, in which a party sought to nominate its candidate for President, took place in the summer of 1924 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In all, 29 sessions were held over a period of 16 days. It was not until the one hundred and third ballot that a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, received sufficient votes to become the standard bearer of the Democratic party in that campaign. Who will forget the voice of the chairman of the Alabama delegation as he stentorially intoned with regularity as each ballot was taken, “Alabama casts its 24 votes for Underwood”? That convention was only one of the many historic events in that arena to attract wide public attention. But no event in its long history compares with the Billy Graham New York Crusade which began its opening session on May 15 and is still going strong, having already shattered all records for continuity and attendance in the Garden. The walls of that arena have recorded times without number the crisp, bell-like tones of the evangelist as he peals forth his famous phrase, “the Bible says.…”

But the length of the evangelistic crusade, rapidly approaching in duration the initial stage of Paul’s great ministry in Ephesus, is only one of the many amazing things challenging the minds and hearts of Christians everywhere. Has any event within the memory of living men or, for that matter, in all history been the target for such concerted, concentrated prayer for God’s blessing? No one can sit in the Garden night after night, seeing that steady stream of people from all walks of life and age groups respond to the invitation to make a “decision for Christ,” without thanking God that a voice is being heard resembling in effectiveness the apostolic preachers calling men to “repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus.” For years there has been a yearning in the writer’s heart that God would anoint a man of his own choosing whose voice would be heard across the land over and above all other voices, calling men to Christ. That prayer has been answered!

A widely-known theologian has charged that the Gospel Billy Graham preaches is a “bargain.” I do not know if the gentleman has been present at any service during the Crusade, but he is mistaken. I have heard gospel preaching by evangelists, ministers and Bible teachers, and have myself actively engaged, as a layman, in preaching efforts. If any criticism can be made of the message that Billy Graham preaches nightly, it certainly is not that he is offering a “bargain.” Rather it is that Billy Graham has almost obliterated the distinction between discipleship and sonship. This is the opposite of a “bargain.” It is a demand for a “commitment to Christ” as well as faith in the Saviour. But was it not a high price our Lord demanded of the multitude which followed him after he broke up a Sabbath day’s social engagement in the house of one of the chief Pharisees and which drew publicans and sinners near unto him for to hear him (Luke 14:25–15:1)?

What have we seen the past two and a half months? First, we have seen opposition from both liberals and evangelicals against the evangelist’s coming to New York melt away (except in the case of diehards on both sides) under the evident outpouring of God’s Spirit. More than once I have sat in the Garden listening to the Gospel preached powerfully and clearly and watching streams of people come forward without the use of any of the pleading and “tricks” used by evangelists to get response, and wished it were possible for Graham’s critics to sit where I sat and see what I saw. I have looked over the counselling room and have seen hundreds of devoted men and women seeking nightly to aid inquirers to more definite assurance of faith and thanked God for what I was witnessing. Many a time I have said, “Would that men I have known and loved, whose devotion to the Gospel was the chief characteristic of their lives, could have seen what I saw.” How the hearts of men like Dr. Houghton, Dr. Ironside and that father of Gospel missions, Mel Trotter, would have welled up with praise.

It was by divine guidance that the contract made with Madison Square Garden for the rental of that arena not only committed the Garden authorities and our committee for a six week’s period starting with May 15, but included an option to continue until Labor Day if we chose. Under the impact of the meetings all were agreed that an extension was in order. The first was until July 20; the second, until August 10, and now the third and final extension, until the Labor Day weekend. Someone asked me, “Do you think the Crusade will go on until January 1st?”

Following the initial response of the opening weeks a slight letdown was experienced. Some who saw and sensed the power of God in other crusades felt at that time the Crusade was not having the same effect upon New York City compared with those held, say, in Glasgow and London. But suddenly (I believe in response to concerted prayer) the tide of God’s blessing began to rise, so that, to use the Psalmist’s language, our “cup runneth over.”

Some New Yorkers thought six weeks of nightly gospel preaching, beginning at a time when folk start thinking of vacations and the churches were closing their active year, would be untimely and too long. Already in June the churches curtail their activities; ministers and members alike plan their vacations. But what have we seen in New York? Crowds hungry to hear the Gospel—men and women seeking Christ in vast numbers. Extending the Crusade, with the necessity to adjust vacation schedules, work schedules, etc., seemed insurmountable. The budget was a hurdle challenging the committee, but the promise, “Your young men shall see visions” and “old men dream dreams” (middle-aged partake of both) became a reality. Undertaking the telecasts of the Saturday night services—through which more people at one given time saw and heard the Gospel preached than at any prior period in history—presented a budget item that made Mt. Everest appear like an ant hill. But God has supplied the need. His people have responded generously, as they always do when God works.

Surely the evidence that professing Christians from all backgrounds and denominations can work together in a common purpose of presenting Christ to the unsaved will long be remembered as one of the mighty accomplishments of this campaign.

These are just a few of the many blessings which New Yorkers and the whole country have witnessed and for which Christians everywhere give thanks.

Gideon Convention

Gideons International elected the following officers at the 58th annual convention held recently in Minneapolis, Minn.:

P. J. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Mich., president; Howard Armerding, Lynnfield, Mass., vice president; Philip Lind, Hinsdale, Ill., treasurer; AxelFredeen, Bellevue, Wash., chaplain.

More than 1,400 attended the fellowship dinner, marked by a larger attendance of ministers than at any previous convention.

Greetings and reports were received from Albert Stedelbauer, president of Gideons International of Canada; N. Medina Estrada, president of the Gideons of Mexico; M. Angelotus, secretary of Athens, Greece camp, and M. Lu, member from Taipei, Formosa.

The convention will be held in Louisville, Ky., next year and at Dallas, Texas, in 1959.

Booksellers Meet

Christian Booksellers from the United States and Canada meet in Chicago this week for the eighth annual convention.

Among the speakers will be Mrs. Marjorie Saint, widow of Nate Saint, one of the Auca-martyred missionaries; Clyde Narramore, psychologist, author of books for young people; P. J. Zondervan, president of Gideons International and Stanley Tam, business leader of Lima, Ohio.

Theme for the five-day meeting: “Enthusiasm is Knowledge on Fire.”

R. Gordon Mitchell of Toronto is president of the Christian Booksellers Association.

South America News: August 19, 1957

W.D.B.

Argentina Progress

A young Scotsman, John F. Thomson, preached a sermon in Spanish from the pulpit of the American Methodist Church at Buenos Aires in 1867. He probably did not realize that he was making history.

Ninety years later evangelicals from many different denominations and missions gathered on the anniversary to praise God for all that had been accomplished.

Evangelical forces in Argentina are much smaller than those in the sister republic, Brazil, but they are making themselves felt in the life of the nation. They number about 500,000 out of a population of nearly 20 million. The largest work, numerically, is probably that of the Plymouth Brethren, known in Argentina as “Free Brethren.” More than 200 assemblies are spread over the country. The Southern Baptists come second and the Methodists third. Many other groups are at work, among them some very vigorous Pentecostal churches.

Several restrictions imposed on Protestants by the Peron regime have been lifted by the present government. It is now possible to hold street meetings in many Argentine cities and the Gospel is once more preached by radio. The “Index of Non-Catholic Cults,” a Peron creation which put all evangelicals under police supervision, is dead and is to be abolished this year.

On the other hand 12 new Roman Catholic bishoprics have been created with the object of “strengthening those who are struggling against Protestantism, Communism and Secularism.”

—A.C.

Colombia Picture

Things looked brighter for Protestants in Colombia after the executive committee of the Evangelical Confederation obtained a friendly interview with a special commision named by the government to discuss and define the question of religious liberty.

The conversations were carried on in a spirit of sympathy and understanding. As a first step toward establishment of rights for the evangelical minority, the government spokesmen promised to restudy the directives on the subject issued by the ousted Rojas Pinilla regime.

At Barranca Bermeja, however, the Four-Square Gospel Church, largest Protestant congregation in Colombia, was again closed by order of government officials only two weeks after it had opened its doors for the first time in over a year.

Although the church boasts a membership of over 1,000 and is located in a bustling oil-refinery town, its right to existence is denied by government officials who claim that the terms of Colombia’s Concordat with the Vatican prohibits the gathering to worship in non-Roman Catholic churches when these gatherings are located in “mission territory”—large tracts of land, comprising three-fourths of the nation, turned over exclusively to the church of Rome for development.

To spearhead its “campaign against Communism and Protestantism in Latin America,” according to Vision magazine, the Vatican has decided to establish in Bogota a central episcopal office (CELAM) similar to the National Catholic Welfare Conference office in Washington, which will develop a common strategy and coordinate the activities of the bishops, the religious orders and the Latin American lay organizations.

“In Vatican circles, the progress of Protestantism in Latin America is considered to be alarming,” explains Vision, “and this is attributed to the acquisitive power of the dollar. Well-equipped Protestant schools, the widespread distribution of pamphlets and Protestant reading matter, the powerful Protestant missions and the possibility that future directors of these missions may study and be trained in Latin America itself, are the principal factors which contribute to the spread of Protestantism in Mexico, Central and South America.”

One major purpose of the new CELAM office will be to establish contact with Catholic populations abroad in an effort to bring into Latin America more priests and missionaries.

—W. D. R.

Ireland News: August 19, 1957

S. W. M

Sub-Christian

The Rev. Wesley McKinney, president of the Irish Methodist Church, informed the recent conference that the prevailing climate of opinion in Ireland is, at best, sub-Christian.

“The dominant religion of the greater part of Ireland,” he said, “is authoritarian and obscurantist. The ethical standards accepted are often denials of Christian truth and love.”

He added:

“The supreme task of Methodism everywhere is to make disciples and to spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land.”

The Methodist Church in Ireland, like other religious bodies, is not divided by the political border.

Speakers at the Portstewart Convention in the North of Ireland included Dr. Alan Redpath, pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, and Dr. William Fitch, pastor of Knox Church, Toronto. This Convention is the largest of the “daughter” meetings of Keswick Convention scheduled for the middle of July.—S.W.M.

Europe News: August 19, 1957

A City Divided

The following special report on Berlin was written forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. Harold B. Kuhn, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Asbury Theological Seminary. Now on leave, he has divided his time between the United States and Europe for the last nine years.

This city, surrounded by the Soviet Zone of Germany, is a focal point in the struggle between East and West. As a city divided, its two halves seem somehow to sum up that struggle. In the relationship between the two parts, one sees reflected the tug-of-war between the forces of the free world and those of the Soviet Union, the stakes being control of Western Europe and ultimately the rest of the free West.

The “Greater Berlin” of a generation ago exists only as a memory, or else as a dream of the future. Berlin has always been a collection of villages and its status as a first-class city is a relatively new one. Now the outer settlements have been incorporated in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (ironically called “The German Democratic Republic”). West Berlin contains 12 out of the remaining 20 boroughs and 2.2 million people.

Left a shambles at the close of World War II, Berlin lacked the materials needed for rapid rebuilding. The coming of the blockade of 1948–49 and of the “cold war” arrested the reconstruction of West Berlin, which had been begun on a modest scale. The hardening of the zonal division of Germany and of the partition of Berlin, which the exceedingly vital currency reform of early 1948 precipitated, created in West Berlin a new sense of solidarity with the West. General Lucius Clay was a hero in those days, no less than Mayor Ernst Reuter.

Today the two halves of Berlin reflect respectively the differing standards of living of the Communist world and the free world. On the one hand, West Berlin is being rebuilt on a scale which is surprising when measured against her difficulties. Shop windows are full of first-line merchandise. New shopping areas are springing up, rivaling the long-famous Kurfurstendamm. Parks and recreation areas are being built with remarkable speed.

In East Berlin, however, there is little general rebuilding. While Stalinallee (Stalin Avenue) is rebuilt as a show-place, elsewhere each tries to hold on to what he had. In the rather outdated apartments of Stalinallee are “family collectives” for “reliable people’s democrats”—i.e., Communist party activists.

The East Berlin government faces the West with increasing toughness of outlook and method. To the regime of Ulbricht, Grotewohl and Pieck, everything is charged with political meaning. Every association and every movement is measured by the possible impact which it may have upon the political strength of the satellite government. Bishop Otto Dibelius has just expressed to this writer and his wife the view that, with the events in Hungary and Poland, the East Berlin government is pressed by the Kremlin to assume the role of the “most reliable satellite.” The Soviet masters have been abruptly shaken in other parts of their empire and seem determined to firm up the rim of their holdings.

Sheer cynicism seems to guide Red Boss Walter Ulbricht. Himself a creature of the Stalin era at its worst, he has just hastened to approve Khrushchev’s expulsion of Stalinists from their deputy pre-mierships. The constant parade of slogans in East Berlin likewise reflects an utter disregard for truth and fact.

From this vantage point, one sees the day-and-night struggle of Communism for the minds and souls of men. This struggle is waged with special vigor for the loyalties of the youth. Just now the most vicious attack at this point is that posed by the Jugendweihe or Youth Consecration. This is a secular version of religious confirmation and is urged upon all teen-agers as a patriotic duty. The church, both Protestant and Catholic, has responded with a clear assertion that no youth could receive both church confirmation and “Youth Consecration.” This writer has good reason to believe that even in the strongly industrialized areas the Reds’ “Consecration” ceremony is affecting but a small minority, while in many smaller towns no youth has participated in it.

The pressures, exerted in the name of patriotism, are fierce as they are brought to bear upon the youth in the cities. The entire ritual leading up to this ceremony is so offensive to the Christian conscience that it is small wonder that both Protestant and Catholic leaders have declared that the one who submits to it commits sin against the Christian faith.

Another point of struggle has been the question of whether the German Protestant church should furnish a chaplains corps for the new West German army. This has been a bitterly contested point in both West and East Germany. The opposition has felt that to provide chaplains is to give church consent to a remilitarized Germany. The viewpoint of such leaders as Bishop Dibelius has been that since the West German army is a fact, its men deserve moral and spiritual care.

It is significant that in the Lutheran church the percentage of ministers voting for a chaplains corps was higher in East Germany than in the West. This has perplexed and angered the East German government so greatly that it constitutes a major point of friction with the church.

At this moment the church plays a role which is umpire among the institutions of East Germany. She is the only effective link between the two halves of the divided country. Despite overpowering difficulties and an ever-changing pattern of harassments, the church manages to maintain some of her contacts and to keep open the traffic of ideas.

Again, the church is the only effective agency of opposition to the tyranny of the East Berlin government. Her leaders are frequently subjected to restrictions upon travel back and forth, and are compelled to struggle daily against heartbreaking problems. Yet they maintain a calm dignity as an opposing force.

Dr. Otto Dibelius, Bishop of Berlin and Brandenburg, stands in an especially significant place in this respect, since his area of responsibility includes the whole of Berlin and the administrative province of the Communist government that surrounds it. He has shared with the writer some of the difficulties with which his office is beset. Yet amid these he maintains the standard that “we must obey God rather than man” with a calm dignity born of faith.

No one who is well informed will predict an easy triumph of the church in this struggle. To the contrary, the situation promises that the East German church may live in the crucible of testing for some time. Yet she stands as a sentinel in the dark night of communist rule, awaiting with hope the dawn of a more felicitous day.

Near East News: August 19, 1957

W.M.M

Lives Of Service

Iranian government officials and the people have shown unusual appreciation for the work of Dr. Rolla E. Hoffman and his wife, Dr. Adelaide Kibbe Hoffman, who are finishing their missionary service for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

Dr. Hoffman went to Iran in 1915. He treated multitudes of sick people in Meshed, Eastern Iran and in 1947 transferred his work to Resht, near the Caspian Sea. Mrs. Hoffman began her missionary career at Meshed in 1929 and has spent 20 years in Resht, ministering to women and children. She is greatly beloved.

The Iranian governor general of the province arranged a farewell meeting in the city hall. A number of leading citizens were invited. The governor praised Dr. Hoffman as a “man of God” and lauded his years of selfless service to the people of Iran. He said photographs of the occasion would be placed in all the hospitals of Resht as a memorial to the Hoffmans.

An old and highly respected citizen of Resht, a Moslem by faith, expressed his appreciation in these words, “Dr. Hoffman has fully revealed in his life and work the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ.”

—W.M.M.

Far East News: August 19, 1957

New Patterns

Climaxing 75 years of some of the most fruitful work in the history of modern missions, the Korea Mission of the Northern Presbyterian Church will dissolve itself as an administrative body in 1959 or 1960. The agreement was worked out between the Presbyterian Church in Korea, the Mission and the Board of Foreign Missions (Presbyterian U.S.A.), and adopted by the Mission at its annual meeting this summer. The “mission” as such will be gone but the missionary will be as indispensable as ever.

This “euthanasia of the mission,” as it has been called, opens a new pattern of integrated missionary approach to the uncompleted task of winning Korea for Christ. Missionary and Korean colleagues alike will be under the direction of the Korean church’s judicatories.

Mission leaders pointed out that the dissolution of the mission will be no emergency or revolutionary step, but rather the accomplishment of the goal set by the missionary pioneers who acknowledged that the mission they organized was like a scaffolding which should be removed as the building—the church—rose to completion.

Today, two out of every three of Korea’s 1,288,000 Protestants are Presbyterian, and over half a million of these belong to the Presbyterian Church in Korea. (Two smaller bodies, the Koryu Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in the R.O.K., are not affected by the agreement.) The church has been self-governing and independent of the mission since its organization in 1907, and the work of the missionaries within the presbyteries has been directed by the presbyteries. Since 1945 the schools and institutions of the mission have been under boards of directors controlled by the church. Since 1956 the work budget has been in the hands of a joint church-mission conference.

The new agreement simply adds two further steps to what has already been accomplished in the transfer of authority from the foreign mission to the younger church. The mission will disappear and the assignment of missionaries and the preparation even of special budgets will now be made by the Korean church through its proposed Department of Cooperative Work, which, however, will include missionary representation. American personnel will be organized as a Missionary Fellowship to oversee matters of missionary health, furloughs, language study and residence. Direct liaison between the Korean church and the Northern Presbyterian Church will be maintained through the latter’s field representative, Dr. Edward N. Adams.

Fears that the dissolution of the mission means the end of the missionary, and that church control of foreign aid means abandonment of the Korea Mission’s historic “Nevius policy” of self-support, self-propagation and self-government in the younger church, were met by a statement of three governing principles. The first, “the principle of the giving of life,” underlines the continuing importance of the missionary. “In the relationship between churches in different lands,” it states, “the most important element is the giving of life.… The giving of funds is secondary. The reversal of this order can be fraught with spiritual danger to both the giving and the receiving church.”

The second, “the principle of stewardship,” emphasizes self-support. “A Christian church must support financially its own governing body, its own officers, offices and ecclesiastical activities to remain a spiritual, vital and independent church. Only after this is done can a church receive aid for its institutions and projects from sister churches without danger to its own moral integrity and independence of action.”

The third, “the principle of administration of aid,” outlines the balance in partnership which characterizes missions in the day of the rise of the younger churches. “A sovereign, independent church has the right to decide for itself when aid from sister churches is no longer needed. As long as that aid is continued, however, personnel from the sister church shall participate on the church committee which assigns work and disposes funds provided by that sister church.”

The two other missions which are working in cooperation with the Presbyterian Church in Korea—the Southern Presbyterian and the Australian Presbyterian—are taking somewhat similar but less radical steps toward closer integration with the Korean church.

—S.H.M.

Army Promotion

General Sun Yup Paik, a hero of the Korean War and commanding officer of the First R. O. K. Army, accepted Christ and was baptized last year by Dr. Kyung Chik Han of Seoul’s Yong Nak Presbyterian Church. He was promoted recently to the post of Army Chief of Staff.

Vatican Ambassador

The first Philippine ambassador to the Vatican has recently been appointed by President P. Garcia.

For several years Catholic groups have been urging such a selection. They found the late President Magsaysay sympathetic to their idea and the creation of the Vatican embassy was approved by Congress last year. Due to strong opposition the law was not acted upon until this year.

Dr. Jose Ma. Delgado, medical practitioner and prominent Catholic lay leader, was named for the post. His appointment was hailed in Catholic circles and many believe that his designation may soon lead to the appointment of a Filipino cardinal. Reports from Rome for the past two years give speculation to the probability that the Pope might name a cardinal from the East. If the pontiff names a Filipino cardinal, it may be Msgr. Rufino J. Santos, Archbishop of Manila.

Protestant leaders in the Philippines view the Vatican appointment as another indication of the strength of the Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines.

—E.C.

Books

Book Briefs: August 19,1957

Biblical Criticism

Paul Before the Areopagus and other New Testament Studies, by N. B. Stonehouse, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1957. $3.50.

Since 1938 Dr. Stonehouse has been Professor of New Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. During the last fifteen years his scholarly New Testament studies have found expression in formal addresses and in print. He has now collected and published seven of these studies in one volume.

Here is the list of subjects discussed: The Aeropagus Address; Who Crucified Jesus? Repentance, Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Spirit; The Elders and the Living-Beings in the Apocalypse; Rudolph Bultmann’s Jesus; Martin Dihelius and the Relation of History and Faith; and Luther and the New Testament Canon.

The author’s strength lies in his comprehensive understanding of the history of biblical criticism and interpretation; a deep conviction that the Bible, if permitted to speak its own message, is self-authenticating; scientific methods and principles of biblical exegesis; and a clear and dignified English style.

Each of the seven messages deals with controversial matters. Here are two examples. Men like Bultmann and Dibelius have contended that Paul’s message before the Areopagus is unchristian: that it contradicts Paul himself in the rest of Acts and his Epistles and also early Christianity as a whole. A second example concerns itself with Jesus’ crucifixion. In 1942 Solomon Zeitlin published a book in which he absolved the Jews from all responsibility in the death of Jesus, claiming that Jesus, like the Jews often in history, was the victim of a ruthless pagan political system.

Dr. Stonehouse shows that these conclusions are not based on facts.

Our author is disturbed by the skepticism and unscientific methods used by some critics in reconstructing biblical history and in re-evaluating the apostolic testimony and proclamation regarding Jesus Christ, resulting in a distrust if not repudiation of the Gospel. He works ably and effectively in defending the New Testament against unfair criticism.

With some justification critics will accuse Dr. Stonehouse of being as one-sided and as blind in facing all facts as he accuses them of being. They must also admit that he makes it necessary for them to be more careful and accurate in handling biblical truth.

These chapters will give helpful information and excellent training to those who are interested in essential and constructive biblical criticism.

WM. W. ADAMS

Expository Approach

Preaching from Great Bible Chapters, by Kyle M. Yates. Broadman, Nashville, 1957. $2.50.

Kyle M. Yates is an eminent Old Testament scholar of conservative and evangelical persuasion. He served on the Revision Committee which prepared the Revised Standard Version of the Old Testament in 1952. After service both in the pastorate and on the faculty of the Southern Baptist Seminary at Louisville, he is presently the “Distinguished Professor of the Bible” at Baylor University.

Preaching from Great Bible Chapters is the third volume of its kind to come from this author’s pen, being preceded by Preaching from the Prophets and Preaching from the Psalms. Yates has selected thirteen prominent chapters from both Old and New Testaments for detailed discussion, among them Psalm 23, Psalm 51, Isaiah 53, Matthew 5, Luke 15, Romans 8, and 1 Corinthians 13. His love for preachers induced him to prepare these studies in the hope and with the prayer that they “will inspire and provide material for at least thirteen good expository sermons.” He is quick to add that he has written equally for the layman in the interests of his fuller understanding of these portions of the Scriptures and his spiritual growth.

As indicated in the above quotation, Yates’ approach is expository. He takes the entire chapter, divides it into major sections on the basis of expressed themes or subjects, and then examines the parts in detail. In this way he provides a thorough analysis, yet always in relation to a central idea, thus giving coherence and structure to the exposition. True to the best expository tradition he is never satisfied to drop his pen after setting forth the contents of a passage, but carefully elucidates its relevance to the life of modern man. Underlying each study is a mastery of the original languages which makes for precision, thoroughness and poignancy. The book has deep spiritual and evangelistic overtones which are the outgrowth of a profound reverence for the Word of God and its basic teachings. It is not a volume of expository sermons, but an aid to the effective preaching of such sermons providing germinal ideas which can be further developed and implemented with illustrative materials. The form of presentation enhances its value for the layman’s devotional reading.

It is refreshing to find an Old Testament scholar of Yates’ stature who unequivocally affirms his faith in the Word of God, who perceives in Isaiah 53 a valid prophetic vision of Calvary and who insists upon the substitionary doctrine implicit in this passage. He does, however, infer his acceptance of the Deutero-Isaiah theory (pp. 116, 119). And at times this reviewer sensed a diluted doctrine of the divine sovereignty. Nevertheless, we commend the author on a noble purpose well achieved.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Moral Principles

Religion in Action, by Jerome Davis, Philosophical Library, New York. $4.75.

This is another book which deals with the matter of the application of morality to practical living. It is written by Jerome Davis, “Author, Educator, Interpreter of Foreign Affairs.” In the preface the author notes that among all the forces operating in our changing world, the most “revolutionary in their potentialities are the moral and spiritual forces available to every human personality.” These, it is said, “must be applied to life,” and that is what this book aims to do. The book is “the culmination of nearly fifty years of study and activity and the conviction that religion and action cannot be separated.”

Jerome Davis seems to have gathered together all the loose ends of “fifty years of study and activity” into this one volume. He treats every conceivable subject relating to human living—from food distribution and consumption and the way parents ought to deal with their children, to communism, the labor movement, racial prejudice and the importance of a religious institution to the life of the community. In no part is the treatment thorough or intensive. It is in the nature of running observation, with free use of quotation, incident, biographical detail. And the treatment is disparate, unorganized, and without clear focus.

Davis believes in God and has high regard for Jesus Christ and the wisdom of the New Testament. For the rest it is difficult to know whether he has any other religious presuppositions than those of a moral God, a moral man, and a moral order that needs attention from moral man who acts under the stimulus and guidance of a moral God. Here is an example of the case for religion in the community, whether that of the “church or synagogue.” A wealthy atheist tried to establish a community without a church. To it gravitated the agnostics, atheists and criminal elements. Families not too religious wanted a church or synagogue to which they could turn, if only for the sake of their children, or perhaps for the social activities of church life. Not finding either, but only saloons and gambling places, the people moved away. Finally the wealthy real estate owner decided, “even though he did not believe in God, that he simply must have a church or a synagogue in the community if he wished to sell his lots advantageously. So in the end he donated land for a church” (pp. 219, 220).

Davis’ discussion of the application of moral principles to everyday living would have been more effective if his treatment were more sharply delineated and his objectives more clearly defined. And it would have been immensely more helpful if he really had a religion (instead of a body of common sense moral counsels) to apply to life.

GEORGE STOB

More Than Bombs

Atoms for the World, by Laura Fermi, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. $3.75.

This book is for those who like their reading laced with the unusual and for those interested in the social impact of science. Written by the widow of the atomic physicist, Enrico Fermi, it is an account of the first International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy held at Geneva in 1955. While a vast literature of a technical sort has been written for and about this venture, this is the only lay description in book form intended for an audience “whose interest is probably half way between that of the delegates and that of the uninterested public.”

Two years ago, seventy-three nations met in this unique event, held under the direction of the United Nations. It was intended to provide a place for discussion and publicity of the possible uses of atomic energy for peaceful pursuits. It was intended, too, to provide those social contacts between the scientists of diverse nations so necessary for the advancement of science. In both the success was remarkable—particularly so because of the friendly participation of the Communist bloc. The writer, realizing that so worthwhile an event deserved popular description, has excelled in her task, painting admirably and with keen feeling the details, discussions, ideals and ideas behind such a technical venture. We are taken from laboratory to display and lecture to conversation but also from frustration to fulfillment and from the individual to the community of nations; all with delightful and informative ease.

Today, the initial success is manifest in another similar conference planned in the same city for next year. It is also shown in recent ratification by the governments of a number of countries (including Russia and the United States) of the statute creating an international agency on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Certainly one may question possible outworkings of the latter plan and one may be somewhat skeptical of the dreams of universal peace through science implicit behind both the conference and the agency. One recalls Max Born, the famous German theoretical physicist, recently writing, “In 1921 I believed … the unambiguous language of science to be a step towards a better understanding between human beings. In 1951 I believed none of [this].… Although physicists understood one another well enough across all national frontiers they had contributed nothing to a better understanding of nations, but had helped in inventing and applying the most horrible weapon of destruction” (Physics in My Generation). But with all this, our book does describe the inception of something new—an attempt to use the atom on the international scene for more than bombs. It may foretell greater social participation by the scientific community. It cannot demonstrate that international politics, and even applied science, will not continue to be used for the greed of the few rather than the good of the many.

THOMAS H. LEITH

Natural Development

Principalities and Powers, by G. B. Caird. Oxford University Press, London, $2.40.

Interest in biblical theology is on the increase today. This volume, a study in Pauline theology, is an investigation of that Apostle’s teaching concerning principalities and powers. It reproduces the Chancellor’s Lectures for 1954 delivered at Queen’s University, Ontario, by the Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at McGill University.

True to the task of biblical theology the first three chapters trace the history of Jewish beliefs which contributed to Paul’s demonology. The fourth and final chapter seeks to show in what manner Paul envisaged the Cross as the victory over principalities and powers. Among other things the author concludes that principalities and powers include the powers of state, that the history of the Law which was given and guarded by angels resembles that of Satan himself, and that the victory of the Cross is through revelation, identification and obedience.

While the book is fairly complete as far as the analysis of Pauline teaching is concerned, it leaves much to be desired theologically. In his introduction the author claims that his responsibility is mainly descriptive, which responsibility he has discharged well; but his denial that the consideration of such questions as Does evil exist? Are there personal powers of evil? What is meant by “personal”? are a part of his task is open to serious question. Biblical theology is concerned not only with what was written but also with the thought in the mind of the writer which, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, produced what was written. Certainly the answers to such questions which the author disclaims as part of his task are essential to the unveiling of Pauline thought in these areas.

In spite of this disavowal of responsibility the author in the course of his discussion does answer some of these questions, and it is these answers which make the work theologically inadequate. For instance, he denies the personal character of Satan. Too, and more basic, the author considers Paul’s ideas a result of natural development from his Jewish and Hellenistic background which ideas are set forth entirely in mythological language. This does not leave much room for Paul’s thought and writing to be moulded by revelation, nor does it predicate real substantial existence of these spirit beings which assume such a large place in Pauline theology.

CHARLES C. RYRIE

Teen-Age Problems

For Teen-Agers Only, by Frank Howard Richardson, M. D., Tupper and Love, New York, 1957. $2.95.

The market is being flooded with books having to do with the psychological approach to the various age groups, so much so that in many instances the psychiatrist’s couch has been substituted for the mourners’ bench.

When a physician who is a recognized authority in the field of child psychology is also a Christian it is fortunate that he is further gifted with the ability to write. For Teen-Agers Only is a book Christian parents can safely put in the hands of their own children faced with mounting teen-age problems, for it is sane, wholesome and frank.

One of the problems of young people today is that of “going steady,” with all of the emotional as well as physiological factors which may be involved. In this book Dr. Richardson, using hypothetical cases and names and a dialogue method, keeps the interest of the reader and makes one feel as though he were participating in the discussions.

Heartily recommended.

L. NELSON BELL

Competent Guide

Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, by Joseph Addison Alexander. Zondervan, Grand Rapids. $5.95.

Joseph Addison Alexander, son of the illustrious Archibald Alexander, who organized Princeton Theological Seminary in 1812, taught in the same seminary almost continuously from 1830 to 1860, the year of his death. His long teaching career covered most of the departments of the theological discipline. He was a man of consummate scholarship, a linguist, even from his childhood, of extraordinary ability and a teacher and preacher of exceptional parts. His massive erudition, which made him conversant with the Bible in its entirety, was constructively used in the defense and exposition of Holy Scripture.

Alexander’s commentaries on Isaiah and the Psalms, previously reviewed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, have perhaps contributed more to the author’s fame as an exegete than the present commentary under review. It will be evident, however, that the reader will find in the present work, written in clear and crisp English which make reading a pleasure, those features of Alexander’s abilities which have made his writings the joy of the Bible-believer and the envy of the liberal.

The reader will not find in these pages a constant parade of names representing this or that view or opinion, as is customary in some commentaries; but, as a blessed compensation, he will soon feel that he is in the hands of a competent guide who is able to lead him through this Gospel with a stronger and more intelligent faith than that with which he began.

In Alexander you know you have an expositor who believes the Bible to be the word of God. His view of inspiration is high (e. g., pp. 136, 184, 308). He never finds mistakes and contradictions in the Gospels (e. g., pp. 86, 171, 209, 332, 393, 438). He constantly, though not obtrusively, defends Mark’s historicity and trustworthiness against the then current schools of “neologists” and “German sceptics.” If one has grown tired of the sultry commentaries by modern writers who think of Mark as little more than a bad copyist and a worse historian, Alexander will come as a refreshing and reviving breeze from the past.

The conservative Christian will rarely find a place in this excellent commentary where he will disagree with the learned author. In hardly one place has the reviewer placed a question mark in the margin of his copy to indicate dissent. Alexander is always eminently fair; his conclusions, based upon a judicious spirit of unquestioned sincerity, are always reasonably valid.

It is little wonder, then, that Zondervan Publishing House feels justified in reprinting this “classic commentary” in its “Classical Commentary Library.” Resurrected just before its centennial anniversary (1958), this commentary will be a delight to a new generation of Christians who, not knowing the author in the flesh, will surely feel that they know the spirit of this prince of American exegetes.

WICK BROOMALL

Devotional Study

The Story of the Cross, by Leon Morris. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1957. $2.00.

A devotional study of Matthew’s inspired record of the events of the last half of Passion Week (Matt. 26–28) forms the content of this volume by Leon Morris, Vice-Principal of Ridley College, Melbourne. The material, with the exception of the final chapter on the resurrection, was given as a Lenten series in 1956.

Avowedly designed and presented to a general Christian audience, the book is simple and popular in content and in tone. At the same time it reflects an extensive substratum of solid exegetical scholarship and wide research in the pertinent literature.

Perhaps it is expecting too much of a book which covers such well-plowed ground to unearth any startlingly new or refreshingly different insights, but the persistent impression of this work is—good but prosaic. For a devotional volume it is almost coldly analytical in its approach and too didactic in its method.

The meaning of the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the reality of his bodily resurrection are clearly stated. With these doctrines no orthodox Christian would find fault. But many would dispute Morris’ sacramentarian view of ritual baptism as a means of grace which is essential for entrance into the Church.

JOHN A. WITMER

Review of Current Religious Thought: August 19, 1957

William A. Mueller

In recent days we have heard a good deal about the revival of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. Both CHRISTIANITY TODAY and Christian Century have had editorials on this matter. It would be unfortunate if a destructive type of controversy would develop out of this endeavour. Please let us define our terms, beware of over- or understatements of the opponent’s views, and may we have the grace to recognize those as brothers beloved who acknowledge in word and deed Jesus Christ to be Lord and Saviour. That all is not well even among the critical scholars is attested by a discerning article, “The Current Plight of Biblical Scholarship,” by Prof. C. C. McCown (Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. LXXV, March 1956). But has agreement been reached with regard to the Greek New Testament? McCown speaks of “the dubious predicament of the ‘science’ of biblical exegesis today, a predicament shared with all culture.” He calls for “imagination, original and creative scholarship in the face of danger of failure and defeat.” He writes:

“For 75 years scholars (like ourselves!) have been presenting their most brilliant ideas to the annual meetings and printing them in the Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature. But, not only between the Continent and America, but within the American groups, differences are sharper than ever, partly because of the altered tone of society in general, but partly, perhaps largely, because of the failure of our scholarship to attain assured and agreed results. Our very right to freedom of thought, criticism and expression is under attack in many quarters. Biblical scholarship is most directly involved in the anti-intellectual and anti-liberal movements of the present moment, as well as from those who doubt the value of both history and religion” (p. 13).

Surely, these are serious admissions of failure on the part of a leading critical New Testament scholar. He even goes so far as to say “current ecumenicity highlights, rather than subdues, the contrasts” among students of the Bible. Scholars entertain different conceptions of criticism, principles, methods and results of biblical studies. We ask: is it pertinent to inquire whether or not much of the present plight of so-called higher and literary critical scholarship may be due to a faulty starting point? In other words, scholars since Schleiermacher have not been as objective as they claimed to be. Did not the astute Schleiermacher smuggle Spinoza into Christian theology? Ferdinand Christian Baur, eminent church historian though he was, sees nothing but a nasty struggle in apostolic history.

David Friedrich Strauss, to whom Professor Bultmann seems to be beholden in many ways, radically denied the supernatural element in the Gospel. He defined the faith of the early Church in Jesus Christ as Lord as a myth that crystallized out of the pious wishes of the first Christians. And Strauss, be it remembered, ended finally in gross materialism! Bruno Bauer, left-wing Hegelian, interpreted Christianity as the religion of abstraction. To him Christianity estranges man from kin and kindred, family and people, a charge heard in our day by followers of Nietzsche and Alfred Rosenberg. F. Ch. Baur spiritualizes the fourth gospel, while Strauss sees in it the most sensual gospel.

On the one hand, excessive emphasis on rationality and the historical approach, on the other hand contempt of history and historical facts. One need only read Albert Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus in order to be reminded by that “liberal of a higher order” of the vagaries, distortions and evasions of much of nineteenth-century critical scholarship. And has not Harry Emerson Fosdick in our day admitted the serious flaws of modernism in his sermon “Beyond Modernism” published in the fall of 1935?

But neo-evangelicals have their troubles too. Witness the present controversy between Gordon H. Clark of Butler University and the men around Professor Van Til of Westminster Theological Seminary. We commend to our readers Professor Clark’s article, “The Bible as Truth,” in Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 114, April 1957. Clark realizes that theories of truth are notoriously intricate, yet we must somehow achieve a decent biblical epistemology. And Clark is convinced that “truth is characteristic of propositions only.” However, “the thesis that the Bible is literally true does not imply that the Bible is true literally. Figures of speech occur in the Bible and they are not true literally. They are true figuratively. But they are literally true.” Moreover, Clark argues, if God should speak a truth, but speak it so that no one could possibly hear, that truth would not be a revelation. Clark finds it incredible that conservative theologians deny that the Bible, apart from questions and commands, consists of true statements that men can know.

Clark combats the assertion of “The Text of a Complaint,” written by Westminster Theological Seminary teachers, of the absolute qualitative distinction between God’s knowledge of himself and man’s knowledge of God. Clark does not for a moment deny that human knowledge of God is and always will be limited. That is so because men are creatures. The fall has darkened men’s understanding. But, even though men need the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, men have some understanding of sin and God. There must be some point of similarity between God’s knowledge and our own knowledge of God, otherwise men could never receive anything that God would impart to them in his revelation. “If there could be a truth inexpressible in logical, grammatical form, the word truth as applied to it would have no more in common with the usual meaning of truth than the Dog Star has in common with Fido” (p. 167).

Needless to say that Clark’s position with regard to biblical epistemology has its difficulties as any other theory of knowledge. But it points up the fact that the neo-evangelicals are seriously talking to each other.

Erich Dinkier in “Principles of Biblical Interpretation” (Journal of Religious Thought, Autumn-Winter 1955/56) advocates a synthesis of the older historico-critical method and Karl Barth’s neo-biblicist approach. He writes:

“The historian’s task or question: How did it happen? What are the facts? was not corrected and supplemented by the questions the texts themselves were raising, the questions, How do you decide with regard to Jesus Christ, the proclaimed Son of God? How do you understand your own life before God and in the midst of this world after having encountered the risen Christ, the living Lord, and the Gospel? Disregarding these questions does not result in objectivity but in restricting our insight in falling short of understanding the inner forces and even the very core of the text. All this is done on the basis of a highly subjective conception of objectivity” (p. 26).

In other words, Christian scholars must be “open to self-criticism.” This ought to be true no matter which theological position we espouse.

Cover Story

The Church and Social Problem

H. Van Riessen

The church is often numbered, with the capitalists and the social system, among the culprits of the last century. It is accused of being blind to social needs and conservatively in partnership with the ruling and property class. The church is, therefore, deemed responsible for her own apostasy and accused by some for the rise of communism. Even churchmen have made such a charge. The accusation that the church has failed is voiced so systematically, with such generality and onesidedness, that one cannot help asking whether there is something ulterior behind the charge.

Much indeed may be blamed on the church and on its membership, too, for that matter. It is not my intention to create the impression that the church did all that she could. Far from it. Sometimes she was helpless because of her subordinate position to the state, as in Russia and Scandinavia. In England this was true of the established (Anglican) Church and in the Netherlands of the Dutch Reformed Church. An independent formulation and critique of the social situation, which in such a case had to be directed against the state as well, was practically impossible. In addition it must not be forgotten that some churches were preoccupied with internal troubles and schisms. Wanting in its protest and falling short in love, the church was saved from going down ingloriously only through the protecting care of her Lord and Saviour.

Has the church failed to make a true effort to solve the social problems brought about by the industrial revolution of the past century?

It is well to take cognizance of several factors that have been given little consideration. First of all, such one-sided criticism loses sight of the fact that the church was also caught by surprise by the tempo and the radical character of the industrial development. Within the church people were disposed to think that no solution of the problems was possible. Moreover, the prevailing distress must be estimated by a comparison with most unfavorable social conditions of former times. One should put himself in the time in question since hindsight is always easy.

Not Without Protest

Before general charges are made that the church was indifferent to her obligations, evidence should be brought forth that the pulpits of the day were completely without protest. Many nineteenth-century Christians did indeed voice their alarm, and the pulpit was not so silent as some critics contend.

Task Of The Church

When the church is reproached in this connection, it must be borne in mind that many assign her a much broader task than that to which she has been divinely called. Critics frequently ignore the fact that the enlarging denial of the Christ of the Scriptures had produced decay and impotence in the church of the nineteenth century. It is a striking feature of pagan criticism that the secular world is always excused. Humanism, socialism and even communism are held up to the church that she may learn how social problems should be handled. The message of Christ is reduced to just a gospel of social justice. To ease the pain of such criticism the observation is offered that if the church would really tackle the question, she would do it “much better.”

The delimitation of the message of Christ to social justice is related to the breakthrough propaganda (the de-Christianization of hitherto Christian organizations) and the high-church movement, which looks upon the church as a national, all-embracing institution.

When irrationalism and dialectical theology obscure the clarity of the Bible concerning believers, and when the radical character of the biblical message against apostasy is forgotten, it is not difficult to cling to the idea of a church for everyone and to eradicate the boundaries between the church and the world, between Christian and so-called neutral activities. Then the sympathetic concern for social problems and the anxiety about the cultural decline, point the way. The church becomes the fulcrum, social justice becomes the goal, and socialism carries the standard of honor. Some would add characteristically dialectical statements in which the exception becomes the rule, e.g., “A man who turns his back upon the church, may by that very attitude be saved religiously”; “The church must learn from socialism”; and “A humanist may very well be a better Christian than the man who goes to church twice every Sunday.”

Of course not every follower of Barth nor every adherent of neutralization and secularization of organized life subscribes to such reasoning. The taste for paradoxes is specially reserved for extremists. Nevertheless such views do prevail, and their adherents believe that the church of the previous century was the chief culprit in the prevailing social misery.

Christian Community

Much of what we have said here applies to the Netherlands. In the United States the idea of a Christian organization (or, more generally, an organization based upon a particular view of life and the world) is unknown. An important reason for this lack of explicitly Christian organizations is the strong sense of solidarity prevailing among the Americans, due to necessity as much as to the desire of the people to be a nation in the face of the diversity of origin among Americans. This sense of solidarity is intensified by the fact that they are a young nation and an enthusiastic and dynamic people.

Social Justice Derivative

Many Christians who turn to socialism seem to discover in the Bible only one subject: the social problem and the demand for social justice. This theme does indeed play a great role in the Old and New Testament; and yet it is but one of many (Exod. 21; Gal. 5; Col. 3). Besides, it is a derivative motif. The Bible does not view social injustice by itself but as the consequence of a greater evil, the source of all evil, namely, that men do not fear God and do not keep His commandments but bow down to idols (2 Kings 17). (The present idols seem to be man and society.) Such is the fountainhead of life’s errors, the source of humanism, irresponsible capitalism, social distress and the impotence of socialism.

Some may argue that the root cause of our difficulty is not forgotten. But the fervor of their argument and their systematic neglect of certain aspects of the problem makes me fear that this knowledge is cerebral and that their heart lives in the social issue only. Such are aroused when trangressions of the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” and the tenth, “Thou shalt not covet,” are viewed as a commandment meant for others. The level of the socialists is thus indeed reached, but the Gospel is forgotten as something inseparable from the exordium: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee up out of the house of bondage.”

Allow me to put it most boldly. The whole social problem is absolutely of no importance when compared to the command to fear the Lord. Any Christian that places human relationships on a par with the relation between man and God, or regards the human sphere as separate and independent of the latter relation, thereby discloses that his Christianity has been infected by humanism.

The Chief Commandment

The command, “Love thy neighbor,” is a Christian precept, but when detached and removed from the framework of the great commandment, “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart …,” it ceases to be such, in a very real sense. It is likewise erroneous to think that compliance with the command to love one’s neighbor is at the same time a fulfillment of the chief commandment to love God.

The humanizing phenomenon is so frequently encountered. In it the call of God and the obligation to serve him as an individual and in a group is replaced by the call of the other man and finally by the call of man himself, of his needs, the only source of his motivation. The process of humanizing reality has also influenced Christian circles. When Sargent, considering the challenge to the church, looks for basic concepts of the Christian action, he states: “The first of these basic concepts is the biblical idea of human dignity and individual personality.” This is, however, an unbiblical statement of man and a mere profane view of life.

Consider also a few quotations from Kuylaars (Werk en Leven), 1951, pp. 20, 36): “Labor is a realization of self.” “In industrial enterprise the laborer is central and primary. Capital is simply an aid; it occupies a secondary position, together with those who supply it.” This statement is intended as a reply to liberalism but this answer is wrong; the laboring man is not central. In this case the fruits of labor as the fulfillment of the cultural task are central.

It has been maintained that the aims and purposes of the communal life must be directed toward man. Aberrations of this kind are surely not innocent. They put Christians on the wrong track in their planning and their deeds. For example, Pedersen writes: “If ever peace and righteousness are to exist among men, then their material necessities must be satisfied, so that distress and want shall disappear. But this can be done only with the help of technique” (God en de Technick, p. 153). Peace and righteousness, however, come when man is reconciled to God. Both may be present even when distress and want exist. Both may be lacking, as in today’s secularized world, when distress and want are in fact relieved. Such is the Christian outlook on life an outlook which is the direct opposite of socialism.

END

Dr. H. Van Riessen, a professor at the Delft Institute of Technology in the Netherlands, holds a Doctor’s degree both in Engineering and in Philosophy. He is active in political, social and economic movements in the Netherlands, and during the German occupation participated in the underground movement. He is author of a major scientific and philosophic work, Philosophy and Technique. His article reflects the viewpoint of a forthcoming volume, The Society of the Future (David H. Freeman, translator), in which he opposes the Christian to the Communist philosophy of society.

Cover Story

Signs of Awakening in Britain

F. P. Copland Simmons

After a long period of decline, the churches of every denomination in Britain are enjoying today a period of new life. Careful observers are timid about using the word “revival,” for that would give to the outsider a picture of crowded churches and a genuine spiritual awakening throughout the land. Of this there is no great sign, despite the overwhelming success of Dr. Billy Graham’s Crusades in London and Glasgow. I would rather call it a “turn in the tide.” The slow but steady drift away from the church on the part of the majority of the population of Britain has for the moment ceased, and there is a slow but steady drift back to the church.

Golden Hour For Evangelism

While I was Moderator of the Free Church Council of England and Wales in 1955 and 1956, I could not help observing the large congregations and the deep interest of ministers and members alike in the vital topic of evangelism. The relationship between the Church of England and the Free churches (i.e., the Established and the non-established churches) is of the friendliest order, and I found myself preaching in Canterbury Cathedral and some of the other historic cathedrals and parish churches of England, as well as in free churches, large and small, up and down the land. The general impression I got was that the tide has definitely turned, and that men and women are hungering for some sure Word of God. This, I believe, is a golden hour for evangelism, which the churches of our land will miss at their peril.

The revival of interest in religious matters in the universities and colleges of Britain is but another welcome sign of this awakening. Where a few years ago, political meetings were crowded to the door and religious groups had a thin time, the tables have now been turned. Speakers on religious topics are facing crowded meetings, while even outstanding politicians can gather only a handful of listeners. Dr. Billy Graham was wise in his choice of time for visiting London, Glasgow and especially Cambridge. Skeptics wagged their heads and said he might draw crowds in London and Glasgow, but Cambridge would never stand for his fundamentalism! They were completely contradicted by results. No churches in Cambridge were capable of holding the crowds, and the results in decisions for Christ among the undergraduates of that ancient university were just as striking as in any other part of the country.

Prayer Meeting Revival

But to many of us the most hopeful sign of the times has been the revival of the prayer meeting. Time was when every church had its week night prayer meeting (usually on Wednesday nights). A church would as soon have thought of doing without a heating boiler as not having a prayer meeting. In a sense the prayer meeting was the “power house” of the Church, and miracles of conversion happened on Sundays because minister, officebearers and members prayed fervently on Wednesday that they might happen, and then turned up at church on Sunday expecting them to happen. And they were not disappointed.

The weekly prayer meeting (with a few outstanding exceptions) was not crowded to the door, but a “Godly remnant” met with unfailing faithfulness and each church was blessed because of the devotion of the faithful few. The minister usually presided and led in prayer himself, but it was not by any means left entirely to him. One after another would rise and unburden their minds and hearts in prayer, some of them in their simple and direct form of speech, having a real “gift” of extempore prayer. I have known miners and laboring men whose English was faulty and whose grammar was far from perfect but who could move a prayer meeting to tears by the sincerity and depth of their prayers.

Death Of A Noble Cause

But gradually over fifty years the prayer meeting began to change its character and in many cases to die out altogether. The multiplicity of other meetings and organizations, the advent of the local cinema and the coming of wireless and television played havoc with the attendance. In many cases it was moved to Sunday just prior to the morning or evening service and, owing to the “tongue-tiedness” of so many, the mid-week prayer meeting gradually became a mid-week service which was a pale copy of the Sunday service with a slightly shorter sermon. The whole service was conducted by the minister, and the laity gradually gave up taking any vocal part in it apart from the singing of hymns and joining in the Lord’s Prayer. Most ministers in Britain run their churches singlehandedly and, with so many other duties to perform, found the addition of a rather badly attended week-night service more than they could tackle. So in many congregations the prayer meeting died a natural death.

Time Of Restoration

But of late it has begun to revive, and a demand for prayer and Bible study is arising in churches of all denominations and in every part of the country. There is no doubt that the great Crusades led by Dr. Graham have had an important share in this revival. Just as the great missions of Moody and Sankey were followed by a nation-wide revival of the prayer meeting, so the thousands of converts from Billy Graham’s Crusades who came into our churches felt the need of such meetings through the week. The thousands of counselors who, during the Crusades, attended training classes and studied their Bibles systematically, felt the need of continuing this Bible study. These two streams, added to the awakened interest in evangelism through the local church which was evident about the same time, brought a demand for prayer and Bible study groups in many a church where the prayer meeting had died out.

One interesting factor is that in many cases the demand is arising from young people. Where ministers have been wise enough to let these young people take the leadership (standing in the background merely to help and advise when needed) it has transformed the life of their congregation. Group study of the Bible, followed by discussion, and intercessions led by the laity in church premises and in private houses, are becoming more and more popular. Autre temps, autre moeurs. Our forefathers who believed in extempore prayer would be surprised if they heard the well-prepared and written-out prayers which many of the young people utter. But the care with which they choose their prayers from the treasures of liturgy, or the time taken to prepare their own prayers, is symbolic of the fact that they wish to offer to God the best they have to give.

Intercession For The Sick

Another interesting feature of the modern prayer meeting is the intercessions for the sick, which are now an integral part of many meetings. The Church at large has awakened to the fact that one important section of its missionary and evangelistic task has been neglected far too long: the healing of the sick. When the Lord sent out his first disciples they were commissioned to preach the Gospel and heal the sick. But with the passing of the centuries we have forgotten the latter part or left it entirely to the medical profession. Modern scientific discovery of the effect of mind over matter, and of the inseparability of body, mind and soul, has led men to realize the importance of prayer in the great work of healing the body. The churches have set up commissions composed of outstanding ministers and medical men to study divine healing, and in hundreds of churches up and down the land there are regular meetings and services where prayers for the sick and the suffering are offered to God. In some cases where they have discovered latent powers, ministers lay hands on the suffering and anoint them with oil, while the congregation prays. But where this is not done, cases are described in detail, and specific instances are brought before God’s throne in prayer. From every part of the country reports have come of amazing cures, where the healing skill of trained doctors has been reinforced by the power of concentrated prayer.

A Gleam Of Light

All these new and differing forms of prayer, and the revival of the prayer meeting in churches and homes all over the land, are filling the hearts of Christian people over here with new hope. Britain used to be known throughout the world as “The Land of the Book,” but of late the sad neglect of that great Book of God and the falling away of millions from the practice of church-going have been accompanied by a decline in moral leadership among the nations of the world. This falling away from God’s Word, from God’s throne and from the observance of the Lord’s Day has brought sad consequences to our nation. Everywhere one looks one finds a disillusioned people. The great hopes they had pinned on man’s cleverness and his ability to raise himself by his own bootstraps have been dashed to the ground, and they are seeking everywhere for some sure word of hope and salvation.

This then is a golden hour for evangelism, when amid the disillusion and shifting sands of the hour we can point men to the Rock of Ages and assure them that in Christ alone is the hope of salvation for all mankind. And as all true and lasting evangelism begins in prayer, the revival of the prayer meeting is a sure sign that Britain is turning back to God. We may have a long road to travel yet, but at least there is a gleam of light in the darkness of our journey. Our own insufficiency in the face of the national and international problems which beset us and the assurance that only divine help will save our nation and our world are driving us to our knees in prayer. And there we will find, as our forefathers found, that our sufficiency is of God.

END

The Rev. F. P. Copland Simmons, M.A., served in 1955 and 1956 as Moderator of the Free Church Council of England and Wales, a position of leadership over 23,000 churches, mainly Methodist, Congregational, Baptist and Presbyterian. During that period he addressed some 1,000 gatherings in England and Wales, traveling about 25,000 miles.

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