Europe News: June 24, 1957

New Conference

A Conference of European Churches has been formed by representatives of Protestant churches in 10 countries of Eastern and Western Europe.

The action was taken at the close of a five-day meeting planned to promote closer relations between European churches. Many of the leading West European churches did not send delegates, however, because of the fear that the meeting in Denmark would have a political tinge.

The Conference will be headed by three co-chairmen: Dr. Heinrich Held, president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Rhineland, Germany; Dr. Egbert Emmen of the Netherlands Reformed Church; and Evangelical Lutheran Archbishop Jaan Kiviit of Estonia.

Invitations to join the Conference will be extended to the Church of England (Anglican) and the Lutheran Churches of Germany and the Scandinavian countries. In addition, spokesmen said attempts will be made to seek the cooperation of the World Council of Churches.

The German Evangelical Churches and the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany did not send delegates to the meetings. Neither were there any representatives of the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Lutheran Churches. There were, however, large numbers of delegates from minority churches in Belgium, France, Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia.

Among the delegates were groups representing the Lutheran Churches of Hungary, Latvia, Estonia and Hungarian Reformed Church. These delegates appealed for cooperation between the Protestant churches of Western Europe and those behind the Iron Curtain.

1,000,000 Bibles

More than 1,000,000 Bibles and Scripture portions were distributed in Germany during 1956 by German Evangelical Bible societies.

Over 200,000 were produced by societies in the Soviet Zone. This was made possible largely by newsprint shipments from foreign churches.

The report was issued by the Association of Evangelical Bible Societies in Germany at a meeting in Stade. Largest of the societies is the Priligierte Wuerttembergische Bibelanstalt, which has circulated more than 37,000,000 Bibles and portions since its founding in 1812.

Samuel Mueller, secretary general of the association, said the most important event last year was the completion of a revised version of Luther’s translation of the New Testament. Written in modern language, the version takes into account recent finding of theological research.

Work on the translation, which will soon go into print, was launched about 30 years ago. The revision was approved by a special commission of the Evangelical Church in Germany and the Association of Evangelical Bible Societies.

The version currently in use was issued more than 60 years ago, with only minor changes made since then.

The Law Preached Before Love

Walter Winchell

“Like Wesley, I find that I must preach the law and judgment before I can preach grace and love.”

In line with his statement, Dr. Billy Graham devoted practically all of the first two weeks of the New York Crusade at Madison Square Garden to a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments.

“The Ten Commandments,” Dr. Graham said, “are the moral laws of God for the conduct of people. Some think they have been revoked. That is not true. Christ taught the law. They are still in effect today. God has not changed. People have changed.”

He continued:

“Every person who ever lived, with the exception of Jesus Christ, has broken the Ten Commandments. Sin is a transgression of the law. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Ten Commandments are a mirror to show us how far short we fall in meeting God’s standards. And the mirror of our shortcomings drives us to the cross, where Christ paid the debt for sin. Forgiveness is found at the cross, and no other place, according to the Bible.”

Each night Dr. Graham discussed a particular commandment. Some of his comment was as follows:

“God says, ‘thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ You may not have any idols set up in your back yard, but there are idols in your life. Anything that comes before God is your idol. You spend more time reading the newspaper than you do reading the Bible. You spend more time in front of the television set than you spend in church. Idols have crowded God out of your life. You just don’t have time for him any more.

“Another commandment says ‘thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.’ You may not curse God, but you take his name in vain when you profess to be a Christian and don’t live like one. You take his name in vain when you defile your bodies, when you make vows and don’t keep them, when you pray and don’t believe God.

“The Bible says ‘honor thy father and thy mother.’ Young people today think this is old fashioned. God doesn’t think it is old fashioned. He commands that such respect be given.

“The Scriptures say ‘thou shalt not kill.’ You may not have broken this commandment with a gun or a knife, but you have broken it. If you have ever had hate in your heart, you are guilty. You can murder your own souls by denying or neglecting God. You can murder others by setting a bad example.

“A commandment says ‘thou shalt not commit adultery.’ You may not have committed the act, but the Bible says if you have ever looked on a person with lust in your heart you are just as guilty. A woman commits this sin when she deliberately dresses in such a way as to entice a man. Preachers have been silent for too long on the subject. America can be destroyed quicker by moral deterioration than by communism.

“The Bible says ‘thou shalt not steal.’ It isn’t necessary to use a gun in order to break this commandment. We rob God in tithes and offerings, in our daily devotions and in not observing the Lord’s Day as we should.

“God also says ‘thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’ The disgrace of the Christian church today is that we don’t have love one for another. May God have mercy on the secular magazines that will murder a man’s reputation in order to print a sensational story. May God have mercy on the leaders of some Christian periodicals, who spend all of their time trying to expose other Christians.”

He added:

“All have broken these commandments. All have sinned, and death is the penalty, but Christ paid the debt when he died on the cross. If you will come to the cross, confess and renounce your sins, receive by faith the Lord Jesus and surrender your will to him, he will forgive and forget. You will become a new person in Christ. Then you begin to grow as a Christian when you read your Bible, spend time in prayer, witness and become active in your church.”

The response to such a presentation at Madison Square Garden is testimony to its effectiveness. In three weeks an estimated 15,000 persons left their seats to make decisions for Christ.

In another phase of the Crusade, the Rev. Tom Allan of Glasgow, Scotland, challenged ministers of the metropolitan area during a series of addresses.

Mr. Allan, leader of the “Tell Scotland Movement” and a man who built two small congregations into big ones within a short time, stated:

“The churches never will win young people by meeting them on the level of entertainment or recreation. This generation’s youth will have to be won on the serious level of sacrifice. They will give up certain things and will undertake difficult tasks if we ask them.

“Give people definite tasks and they will respond. This is particularly true of youth. In times of emergency young people come through with magnificent response. This was proved in the Battle of Britain. Today our young people are responding to the tremendous adventure the church can offer.

“What we are fighting against is partly the aftermath of world wars’ disillusion, the collapse of old conditions that people had supposed would last forever. Now there’s hunger for something real. We are living in a one-dimension world, a world of vast and unprecedented breadth but little or no height, a world where the divine dimension is no longer a reality. We want to bring back that dimension.

“What I have to tell the ministers here about what we are doing in Glasgow comes from a profound realization that we have barely touched the edges of what needs to be done. I believe that here and in Scotland and other parts of the world a spiritual revolution is on the way.

“People want it.”

Crusade Quotes

“The biggest disgrace in the Christian Church today in America is that we don’t love one another. Some professing Christians spend all their time trying to expose other Christians. The Bible says such people may be important in their own eyes, but to God they are tinkling cymbals.”—Billy Graham.

“Before the Crusade began I knew but one neighbor in our large building. Even though self-conscious about it, I went to each apartment and invited people to the meetings. Already three whole families have come to Christ. Our building isn’t the same.”—Testimony of an Apartment house “cliff dweller.”

“Billy Graham’s Crusade apparently has clicked. Midtown bookstores report the biggest demands for the Bible in years.”—Walter Winchell.

Cross Of Christ

Excerpts front baccalaureate sermon delivered at Roanoke College, Salem, Va., by Dr. William C. Robinson, Professor of Historical Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga.:

“The gospel is like a trumpet, ‘more powerful and penetrating when it does not follow the range of the scale but keeps to one penetrating note.’

“It is not a philosophy proved by the persuasive words of man’s wisdom, but a message from God to be attested and accepted … the good news of God’s great acts for our redemption needs … anything else is to empty the Cross of Christ of its power.

“Luther is sure that one does not need to shout or cry aloud in his preaching, for the power of the gospel is not in the lungs of a man but in the might of the Spirit.…

“The problems of life today are too great to be faced in the strength of puny man. God gives us power to meet the issues of life only when we stand upon the foundation he has laid. May we not turn from his testimony to the nostrums of men. Why should one forsake the fountains of living water for man-made cisterns which hold no true water? When we start with Christ as the foundation, the absolute, the subject, there are blessings for each issue in life. But when one takes up every popular project that culture offers, when he treats some great cause as God’s new Messiah before he relativizes Jesus Christ, everything is thrown out of order.

“Some have taken total abstinence, others pacifism, others economic collectivism, others racialism as their primary interest and treated Jesus Christ as secondary. Thus, one man decides that all use of force is wrong, and that if Jesus struck anyone with the whip of cords in cleansing the Temple, he will have nothing to do with Jesus. Another starts with current studies on the evils of alcoholism and concludes that Jesus was wrong in turning the water into wine. Then he undertakes to excuse Christ on the ground of some kind of kenotic theory. Jesus Christ is the Lord, the subject one who declines to be made the predicate for any human scheme.…

“The Christian Church has no commission to reverse the process. Take God’s way and his Spirit blesses it. Try to reverse God’s way and the Church becomes no longer the ambassador of God.… The ambassador of the living God preaches the LORDSHIP of Jesus Christ, the crucified.”

People: Words And Events

BUSY FATHER—A 73-year-old retired school teacher who has taught 5,000 students, reared four children and now works as a school-crossing patrolman and as a tutor for high school youngsters, has been named Texas Baptist Father of the Year. He is Ira Irving Isbell, a member of the Polytechnic Baptist Church, Fort Worth.

INVITATION DECLINED—Dr. Karl Barth, Swiss Protestant theologian, declined an invitation from the Warsaw Radio to broadcast his views on the possibility of an international agreement to ban nuclear weapons tests as the first step toward outlawing all weapons of mass destruction. “We are awaiting deeds, not discussions,” Dr. Barth replied. “Sincere and worthy of belief … will be that world power which, regardless of the attitude of the opposing side, will be the first to announce its firm renunciation of further nuclear weapons tests.”

NOBLE EXPERIMENT—In lieu of coffee breaks, more than 50 health department employees in Pueblo, Colo., have elected to hold twice-monthly 30-minute discussions with clerygmen of the different churches. The ministers will give a short presentation and then discuss with employees various problems affecting them or the community.

VALUABLE ESTATE —The Rev. John Garlick Scott, retired Episcopal rector who died recently, left an estate valued at $850,000 to a charitable foundation he established last fall. The William H., John G. and Emma Scott Foundation was created for religious, charitable and philanthropic purposes. It has no denominational restrictions.

NONSENSE—Talk of one great “universal church” was branded as nonsensical by the Rev. Murdoch Macphail, newly-elected moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. “Our existing ecclesiastical organization,” he said, “may not be the final form of the visible Church on earth but a mechanical arrangement as proposed seems to be quite as unnatural as a world government.… Much theological nonsense has been written and spoken by those who advocate a universal Church.”

NEW BISHOP—The Reformed Episcopal Church elected its first new bishop since 1920 at the 35th triennial meeting of its General Council in Chicago. He is Dr. Henry Harris Trotter, 59, rector of St. Paul’s Reformed Episcopal Church, Oreland, Pa.

WAGING OPEN WAR—Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, has accused the Roman Catholic Church in Britain of waging an “open war” against the Church of England, “unlike its friendly counterpart on the Continent.” The Roman Catholics are waging an intensive campaign in Britain for new members.

APOLOGY DEMANDED—Pastors from 150 Southern California Disciples of Christ churches have demanded an apology from the Marine Corps for “irresponsible” statements “concerning some of our great religious leaders” made during the recent court martial of a marine private at Camp Pendleton. The private refused to accept a rifle after deciding he was a conscientious objector. Several Methodist clergymen, including Bishop Gerald H. Kennedy of Los Angeles, testified in his defense. During the trial Bishop Kennedy was called a “creep” by one member of the court martial, who was subsequently ousted for his off-duty comment. Another clergyman, the Rev. Eugene Wood of Oceanside, Calif., was forced to answer prosecution questions seeking to link Methodist agencies with communism.

EXCHANGE OF VIEWS—Georgia Presbyterian leaders called upon judicial and law enforcement agencies to stick to their business of rounding up and punishing law violators and to refrain from telling churches what they shall “preach or teach.” This was in reply to a presentment handed down by the DeKalp County Grand Jury which said, in effect, that preachers should pay more attention to preventing juvenile delinquency instead of “advocating race mixing.”

Southern Baptists

Dr. William A. Mueller, professor of systematic theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky., is the writer of the following special report on the recent annual meeting of Southern Baptists in Chicago:

More than 8,500 messengers and 5,000 visitors, representing nearly 9,000,000 Southern Baptists—the nation’s fastest growing major denomination—recorded many significant developments at the recent Convention in Chicago’s amphitheater.

President C. C. Warren insisted in his opening address that “it is not the policy of Southern Baptists to go as invaders anywhere. We prefer to be regarded as allies, but where there are large numbers of unsaved and unchurched people, we feel compelled to go to the limit of our ability in getting the message of salvation to them.”

Dr. Baker James Cauthen, Executive Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board, reported steady progress with regard to the world-wide expansion of Southern Baptist missionary work. Prior to 1948 Southern Baptists labored in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Ghana (Gold Coast), Hawaii, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Macao, Manchuria, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, Roumania, Spain, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. Since January 1, 1948, when the Advance Program was launched, new mission posts have been opened in the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Formosa, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Lebanon, Malaya, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Southern Rhodesia, Switzerland, Tanganyika, Thailand and Venezuela. Southern Baptists are presently working in 38 countries and territories. Their total missionary personnel on the foreign field is 1,113 and within the next five years it will reach 1,800.

While the 30,834 churches of the SBC gave $372,136,675 to all causes, their contribution to foreign missions amounted to $12,474,638, or $1.43 per member.

During 1956 the largest number of missionaries were appointed—121. In the decade between 1938–47 an average of 36 new missionaries were appointed, while from 1948–56, the first nine years of advance, an average of 85 people were sent to the field.

By 1964 Southern Baptists aim to establish 30,000 new churches. This goal has been set by the executive committee and the affiliated agencies of the Convention in order to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the establishment of United Baptist missions in 1814.

Among the high peaks of the Convention’s sessions was the brief address by Howard Butt of Texas on the Billy Graham Crusade in New York City. The messengers eagerly heard this speaker as he dramatically told of the wonders of God’s grace in the vast metropolis. Fraternal greetings were sent to Dr. Billy Graham, assuring him and his associates of the prayers of his fellow-Southern Baptists.

One of the most significant decisions made by Southern Baptists was the establishment of a new theological seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. Although Denver and Chicago were eloquently recommended as possible sites for a new seminary, the advocates of Kansas City won out. That city, it was argued, is well situated with regard to the five other seminaries. It is practically equi distant from Louisville’s Southern Seminary and Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, the two schools with the heaviest enrollment. In the four states of Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, and Oklahoma, Southern Baptists have 4,800 churches with 1,230,000 members who in 1956 gave a total of $40,000,000 to all Southern Baptist causes. There are 400 pre-ministerial students in the Southern Baptist colleges in Missouri alone, not to speak of more than three times that number in the other states of this area. The Convention voted $2,000,000 as the initial outlay for the new seminary.

The Christian Life Commission, headed by Congressman Brooks Hays, vigorously protested against continuing mistreatment of Negroes by segregationists and called on law-enforcing agencies to “bring to legal justice the perpetrators of these crimes.” Dr. Henley Barnette, Dean of Southern Baptist Seminary, spoke on behalf of the acceptance of the committee’s report. There was no time for discussion and, according to some observers, the presiding officer put the question without waiting for a second. On the last day of the Convention, 84 year old Dr. W. M. Nevins of Kentucky rose to attack the committee’s report and expressed resentment over the insinuation that “the philosophy of equal but separate treatment of Negroes” is labeled unchristian. His protest went unheard by the messengers of the Convention.

Southern Baptists often are best understood by what they vote down at their conventions. Thus, the proposal to enlarge the facilities of Ridgecrest and Glorietta assemblies so as to provide for a permanent meeting place of the Southern Baptist Convention was voted down. The cost of such a venture was thought to be prohibitive. Yet, the cost of holding a Convention at a place like Chicago is enormous. Another proposal to change the name of Southern Baptists to World-Wide Baptists was voted down with equal vigor.

Although Southern Baptists are now working in 46 states, they seem to be unwilling to reckon with that fact when it comes to changing of their name. James M. Bulman, North Carolina, tried in vain to have the Constitution of the SBC changed so as to safeguard the interests of the local church Dr. J. D. Grey, New Orleans, and former president of the Convention, helped defeat Bulman’s proposal. He pointed out that the present Constitution amply provided for the rights and freedom of local churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Congressman Brooks Hays, Arkansas, was elected president of the SBC, being the first layman to head it in 12 years. Dr. W. Douglas Hudgins of Jackson, Miss., was elected first vice-president and Dr. Noel Taylor, Carbondale, Ill., second vice-president. Next year’s Convention sessions are to be held in Houston, Texas, with Dr. Robert E. Naylor of Fort Worth chosen as Convention preacher. The 1959 Southern Baptist Convention is to be held at Louisville, Ky., in connection with the centennial celebration of the establishment of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Worth Quoting

Quotes from Southern Baptist Convention speakers:

“We must give the people of the earth the Lord Jesus Christ to give direction to the material and cultural benefits we are giving them, else they will turn on us some day to destroy us.”—The Rev. George W. Cummings, associate director, Chaplains Commission, Atlanta, Ga.

“The devil would rather start a church fuss than sell a barrel of liquor.”—Dr. W. Ross Edwards, pastor, Swope Park Baptist Church, Kansas City, Mo.

“Churches have been ringing church bells when they should have been ringing door bells.”—Dr. E. Hermond Westmoreland, pastor, South Main Baptist Church, Houston, Texas.

“In 1950 when Southern Baptists last met here, there were six small Southern Baptist Churches in metropolitan Chicago; now there are 56, and there are 1,000 Southern Baptist churches in the Great Lakes area, and increasing at the rate of one new church every four days.”—Dr. Noel M. Taylor, executive secretary of Illinois Southern Baptist Convention.

“There are evidences that the world is on the verge of the greatest religious awakening in history.”—Dr. C. C. Warren, pastor, First Baptist Church, Charlotte, N. C., and retiring president of SBC.

—F. D. W.

American Baptists

The following is a special report of the American Baptist Convention’s Golden Anniversary, observed recently in Philadelphia. It was written forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. Harold L. Pickett Jr., pastor of Tremont Temple Baptist Church, Boston, Mass.

Dr. Harry Dillin, president of Linfield College, McMinnville, Oregon, and the Convention, in his presidential address challenged the denomination to undertake two progressive steps.

First, to authorize the Home Mission Society to borrow $3,000,000 for the purpose of building new churches, and second, to raise $7,500,000 during the next three years for Baptist higher education.

This program was enthusiastically adopted, but there was much corridor conversation concerning which schools were to be recipients of the money. The criterion for determining this, as stated by the motion, will be cooperation on the part of the institution with the American Baptist Convention. Since the word “cooperation” sometimes implies rather nebulous concepts, the question naturally follows: What is meant by the term? The Board of Education and Publication has been charged with the responsibility of answering this question. The answer, in my opinion, will determine the degree of the success of the campaign.

The most vexing problem confronting the Convention was the location of its headquarters. For several years it has been the opinion of delegates that a site should be selected where all cooperating agencies can be housed together. The General Council recommended by a 17 to 14 vote that property should be selected within a 50-mile radius of Chicago for this purpose. After lengthy debate, characterized by Christian consideration, the recommendation was accepted by an 84 majority. Protagonists for the Chicago site, feeling this was too small a majority, moved that the matter be reconsidered and referred back to the General Council. The council was instructed to appoint a commission to study the problem and bring a definite recommendation to the 1958 Convention in Cincinnati.

Professor James Wesley Ingles of Eastern Baptist College wrote and produced an historical pageant-drama entitled “From These Roots.” The spectacular production told the story of some 250 years of Baptist history in the United States. Staging, costuming, acting and music, furnished by the Eastern Baptist College choir, were outstanding. Every scene exalted Christ as the Savior and Lord of mankind.

American Baptists, renowned the world over for their mission zeal, evidenced their continuing concern for others by appointing 32 new foreign missionaries and 31 to serve on the various home fields. The commissioning service was a personal challenge of rededication for all missionaries and delegates.

The greatest concern evidenced by the discerning delegates was that American Baptists are not growing numerically. In an open-forum session, Dr. Cecil Osborne, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Burlingame, California gave the results of a questionnaire sent out to a large number of American Baptist pastors. Five basic reasons were seen for the lack of growth.

They are:

We are not producing enough pastors in our seminaries. Only one-third of the American Baptist pastors are educated in our own schools. The remaining two-thirds come from Bible schools, other denominational seminaries or no schools at all.

We have a status-quo mentality on the part of our leaders and our pastors.

We’re not building enough new churches.

We do not have a real sense of destiny. Ecumenicity is fine as far as it goes, but it is a poor substitute for true purposefulness.

We are lacking in personal spiritual vitality. Organization alone will not produce the desired growth.

In the discussion that followed, it was also suggested that too often American Baptists are theologically ambiguous. Southern Baptists, who are growing rapidly, were held up as an example. Your reporter has the temerity to suggest there is another reason for the lack of growth. We have failed in many of the churches in our Convention to develop a Christ centered, biblically based, evangelistic program. Without this type of New Testament evangelism, growth is an impossibility.

Southern California delegates were pleased by the Convention’s full recognition of California Baptist Theological Seminary, located in Covina, California. Evangelicals of the Convention were greatly encouraged by this action. This institution will make a profound spiritual contribution to the life of the Denomination because of its positive stand for the true New Testament Christianity.

Delegates and visitors heard an address by Dr. Billy Graham. After reporting briefly on the New York Crusade, Dr. Graham spoke about the need for evangelism in all areas of life. He said each professor in church-related colleges, regardless of his field, should be primarily concerned about the winning of his students to Christ. He pointed out that Wheaton College, with this emphasis, is attracting students in such numbers that 9,000 applicants had to be turned away last year. He challenged American Baptists to insist on a Christ-centered evangelistic emphasis on every one of its college campuses.

Dr. Clarence Cranford, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D. C., was elected president of the Convention. An interesting note is that Congressman Brooks Hays, who belongs to the same church, was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention recently at Chicago. In bringing greetings from Southern Baptists, Congressman Hays said, in effect, “The fact that Dr. Cranford and I belong to the same church is symbolic of the way in which the two conventions will work together next year.”

A Challenge

The world population is increasing at the rate of 83 persons a minute, or about 5,000 an hour, and at the present rate will double by the end of this century, according to the United Nations Demographic Yearbook for 1956.

The yearbook estimated the world population now at 2,777,000,000. It said the population increases by about 43,000,000 a year.

Theology

Bible Book of the Month: The Gospel of Mark

Ralph Earle

One of the great responsibilities of the preacher is to make the Bible come alive for his listeners. A careful study of the Gospel of Mark will help much in the fulfilment of that task.

The early church gave meager attention to this Gospel. Commentaries were written on the other three. But Victor of Antioch in the fifth century wrote that he had not discovered one commentary on Mark. Augustine and his successors held that Mark’s Gospel was merely an abbreviation of Matthew’s.

In the last century the tide has turned. It is now generally recognized that Mark was the first of the Gospels to be written and that Matthew and Luke used Mark. About ninety-five per cent of Mark’s material is in Matthew and/or Luke. Of the 661 verses in Mark the substance of all but 31 will be found in the other two Synoptics. Furthermore, in the order of events Matthew and Luke sometimes differ with each other but they never agree together against Mark. It is rather obvious that Mark’s Gospel furnishes the historical framework for the other two.

The Author

That John Mark was the author of the Third Gospel is questioned by very few scholars today. The tradition of the early church is unanimous on this point. It would be difficult to explain the assignment of authorship to a non-apostle except on the basis of reliable tradition.

The early fathers are also emphatic in saying that Mark derived his material from Peter. The statement of Papias (ca. A.D. 140) is well known. But it is echoed by a host of others. Justin Martyr (ca. A.D. 150) quotes from this Gospel as “Peter’s memoirs.” Irenaeus (ca. A.D. 185) says: “Mark the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.” Quotations can be given from most of the patristic writers to support this view.

John Mark was probably too young to follow Jesus. But he started out with his cousin Barnabas and Paul on the first missionary journey. In spite of his unfortunate defection on that trip, he later made good and even won from Paul the accolade: “He is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11).

Characteristics

The Petrine background goes far to explain the outstanding characteristics of this shortest Gospel. Rapidity of action, vividness of detail, picturesqueness of description—they all reflect the personality of impulsive Peter.

No other Gospel moves so rapidly from one scene to another. While John’s Gospel gives us a studied portrait of the Master—the lines drawn with loving care by one who had lived long in close fellowship with his Lord—and Matthew and Luke present a series of colored slides, Mark’s Gospel is a motion picture film of the life of Christ. One can almost feel the rapid movement from place to place. This is accented by Mark’s favorite word euthys—“Immediately, straightway”—which occurs over forty times, as well as by the constant use of “and,” especially in the opening chapters. As Vincent so aptly puts it, “His narrative runs.”

Although Mark’s Gospel is the shortest he often gives vivid details not mentioned by Matthew or Luke. Thus one can form a mental picture of the scenes in Christ’s life more fully and clearly by reading this Gospel. The looks and gestures of Jesus receive unusual attention. The preacher who wishes to make the Master stand alive before his audience will do well to look long at the Gospel of Mark.

While every good thing can be abused, there is a type of dramatic preaching which will add tremendous effectiveness and interest to anyone’s ministry. We do not mean stage props and artificial scenery. Nor do we refer to a sickly and sickening operatic performance in the pulpit. What we are saying is that if a preacher will read carefully Mark’s account, for instance, of the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage and the raising of Jairus’ daughter—spending hours filling in the background from the best commentaries and other reference works, and then meditating on the psychological reactions of the persons involved in the story—he will get an entirely new thrill in Bible study. Furthermore, the next Sunday morning his listeners will sit wide-eyed with amazement as the figure of Jesus among men becomes sharply vivid before them. If the writer may be allowed a word of testimony, that is exactly what happened in his first pastorate when he learned the simple secret of true dramatic preaching. By such means Calvary and Easter, for instance, can and should be made very real to our congregations and study groups.

Peter’s love for picturesque words found a permanent outlet in Mark’s Gospel. A keen observer of the out-of-doors, the big fisherman vividly portrayed the scenes of Jesus’ ministry to his hearers. In recounting the feeding of the five thousand he recalled how the people seated on the green grass of the hillside, dressed in bright Oriental garments of red and yellow, looked like “flower beds.” Mark is the only one who uses this term, as well as the only writer to mention the green grass. This is just one example of the many vivid touches in this Gospel.

Its Message

The first verse, which is the heading, hands us the key to unlock the message of the book. There it stands: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

In our critical age it has been customary to hold that John’s is the theological Gospel—and hence of no historical value—while the Synoptics, especially Mark, are primarily supposed to be history—whether authentic or not. But with the current revival of biblical theology a new insight has been gained. It is now commonly asserted that Mark’s purpose was basically theological rather than historical.

Even Liberals who deny the deity of Jesus admit freely that Mark’s Gospel teaches it clearly. While the inducing of belief in the deity of Jesus Christ is the avowed purpose of John’s Gospel (John 20:31), it is now apparent that Mark wrote with much the same objective. He was not interested in Jesus as just a historical figure but as Son of God and Saviour. In other words, Mark’s aim was theological rather than biographical.

In this connection it is of interest to note that one of the strongest passages on the Atonement is to be found in this Gospel (Matt. 20:28–Mk. 10:45). It reads: “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” The Greek word for “ransom” was used regularly for the redemption money paid to free a slave, as Deissmann has shown in his epochal work, Light from the Ancient East.

So the main emphasis of “ransom” is on redemption or deliverance. Also Moulton and Milligan in The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources have stated that in the first century “by far the commonest meaning of anti (for) is “instead of.” On that basis it may be asserted that this passage teaches the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. Certainly this Gospel is more than a mere chronicle of events. It is history interpreted—theologically.

Outline

The Gospel of Mark may be divided several ways. Since Mark presents Jesus as the “Servant of the Lord” one possible outline would be as follows: I. The Filial Servant (1:1–13); II. The Conquering Servant (1:14–13:37); III. The Suffering Servant (cc. 14–16). Perhaps a better outline would be: I. The Period of Preparation (1:1–13); II. The Galilean Ministry (1:14–9:50); III. The Perean Ministry (c. 10); IV. The Judean Ministry (cc. 11–13); V. The Passion Narrative (cc. 14–16).

As is the case with the other Gospels, Mark may be considered a drama of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The hero is presented to Roman readers as the great conqueror—over disease, death and demons. He alone could still the storm by two words uttered on the Lake of Galilee. Master of every situation he met, he fed the hungry multitude with five little barley biscuits and two small fish. He was the greatest Conqueror of all time.

Yet his friends misunderstood him and his enemies conspired against him. Finally came the climax in his crucifixion and burial. The one who offered himself as Messiah on Sunday morning was five days later condemned to death and hanged on a cross. The end had come.

But it was not the end—nor even the climax. The latter came in his resurrection, when he showed himself conqueror forever over death and hades. He stepped out of the grave into a new life—for all who would follow Him in eternal life, here and hereafter. So for the believer there is no end to “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark, as he says (1:1), just records “the beginning of the gospel.”

Tools For Exposition

One of the best commentaries on Mark is A Practical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark, by James Morison. Here one will find a thorough discussion of every passage and almost every phrase. Long out of print, it can sometimes be secured from used book stores.

As with all his works, Joseph Addison Alexander’s volume on Mark is rich in expositional and devotional material. Fortunately it has recently been reprinted. Among the better recent commentaries on the English text is Lenski’s Interpretation of St. Mark’s Gospel. In The Interpreter’s Bible the exegesis by F. C. Grant is meager and disappointing. But the exposition by Luccock is excellent. Here one finds fresh preaching material beamed to the problems and situations of our day. While the old standard commentaries are still unsurpassed for their presentation of the great principles of scriptural truth, the preacher should have a few recent commentaries to help him in making his applications pertinent. Incidentally, of course, the newer works are also needed to bring one up to date on matters of geography, chronology and archaeology, as well as on significant items of historical and textual criticism.

For a thorough study some commentaries on the Greek text are absolutely indispensable. The old standard work by Swete has been somewhat superseded by Vincent Taylor’s recent monumental volume, The Gospel According to St. Mark. It will be a long time before this is surpassed in thoroughness and scholarship.

Of more immediate value to the average preacher is Alfred Plummer’s volume in the Cambridge Greek Testament (new series). All of Plummer’s many commentaries are superior. A. B. Bruce writes on the synoptic Gospels in The Expositor’s Greek Testament. The present writer has found this set of five volumes to be the best single commentary series on the entire New Testament.

For a satisfactory study of any of the Gospels a harmony is needed. The best on the four Gospels is that by A. T. Robertson or the recent Gospel Records by A. C. Wieand. On the synoptic Gospels we recommend Gospel Parallels, published by Nelson.

RALPH EARLE

Cover Story

Dare we Renew the Controversy?

The Editor

The Fundamentalist Reduction

Fundamentalism counteracted the modernistic philosophy of religion from the standpoint of supernaturalistic Christianity. Certain essentials that had come under special attack dictated its test for orthodoxy: the authority of Scripture, the deity of Christ, his virigin birth, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection and literal return. The temporary test of assent to these specific tenets served its purpose well, for fundamentalism thereby exposed unbelief by boring beneath evasive declarations about the Bible and the supernaturalness of Jesus.

Nonetheless, concentration on “the fundamentals” often displaced doctrinal responsibilities of the church in the wider dimensions of historic creeds and confessions of faith. Evangelical pulpits resounded with “the fundamentals” supplemented periodically with “the case against evolution.” The importance of other theological indispensables became tragically marginal. The norm by which liberal theology was gauged for soundness unhappily became the summary of fundamentalist doctrine. The inevitable result was a premium on creedal brevity. This, in turn, brought further dangers. The organic relationship of revelational truths was neglected. Complacency with fragmented doctrines meant increasing failure to comprehend the relationship of underlying theological principles. Individual doctrines were reduced to simple cliches, without much thought of their profounder systematic implications.

Twentieth Century Movement

The fundamentalist movement became a distinctly twentieth-century expression of Christianity, characterized increasingly by reaction against liberalism. While adhering to “the heart of the biblical gospel” (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:1–4) in evangelism and missions and Christian education, in its campaign against the so-called “social gospel” fundamentalism tended to narrow “the whole counsel of God” and felt little obligation to exhibit Christianity as a comprehensive world and life view. In becoming other-worldly in spirit, fundamentalism not only neglected the exposition of Christian philosophy and constructive personal and social ethics, but even became distrustful of such interests. Because it failed to relate the Christian revelation to the broad concerns of civilization and culture and narrowed the interests of religion to personal piety only, fundamentalism—to borrow Dr. G. Brillenburg Wurth’s phrase, ran the danger “of degenerating into a morbid and sickly enthusiasm” (“Theological Climate in America,”—Christianity Today [Feb. 18, 1957], p. 13). Beneath this pietistic tendency lay an uncritical antithesis between the heart and the head to which most fundamentalist educators and ministers subscribed their schools and their churches. This belittling of the intellect and the phrasing of religious experience primarily in terms of the emotional and volitional aspects of life is a tendency actually more in accord with the anti-metaphysical temper of modernistic theology than with biblical theology. Nevertheless, many fundamentalists uncritically followed this distinction despite their insistence on a core of objective spiritual knowledge. In his work on the history of philosophy, Thales to Dewey (Houghton-Mifflin, 1957), Gordon H. Clark criticizes Protestant liberalism as a caricature of historic Christianity, but indicates as well fundamentalism’s disparagement of intellect.

Areas Of Neglect

Fundamentalism lacked theological and historical perspective. Calvinism and Arminianism it embraced side by side, not alone in polemics against the secular climate of the day, but in an intentional moratorium on discussing doctrinal differences. The result was scant devotion to the dedicated enterprise of theological study and research. Impatience and disinterest deterred precise formulations of doctrinal details.

Fundamentalism neglected the production of great exegetical and theological literature and derived a borrowed academic strength from reprints of the theological classics of the past. This failure to produce scholarly books was due in part to the staggering task of carrying forward on traditional lines the Christian program of missions and evangelism bequeathed by the modernist defection. Another reason was modernism’s capture of strategic educational leadership and facilities, while fundamentalism, in its distrust of higher education, did little to encourage and support scholarly study.

Furthermore, fundamentalism veered at times to antidenominationalism rather than to interdenominationalism. Not content with the promotion of rival nondenominational, interdenominational and superdenominational fellowship and cooperation, it gravitated frequently into caustic criticism of denominational effort. The rift between fundamentalists and modernists be especially pronounced just after the First World War and reached its bitterest extreme during that decade. The devout effort to preserve the Christian churches from paganizing influences through a searching and scholarly analysis of the alternatives drifted into a reactionary current. The World Christian Fundamentals Association, formed in 1918, although carrying on a positive spiritual program of missions, evangelism, Bible conferences, Bible institutes and Christian colleges, nevertheless engaged more and more in vitriolic polemics.

Neglect of the doctrine of the Church, except in defining separation as a special area of concern, proved to be another vulnerable feature of the fundamentalist forces. This failure to elaborate the biblical doctrine of the Church comprehensively and convincingly not only contributes to the fragmenting spirit of the movement but actually hands the initiative to the ecumenical enterprise in defining the nature and relations of the churches. Whereas the ecumenical movement has busied itself with the question of the visible and invisible Church, the fundamentalist movement has often been preoccupied with distinguishing churches as vocal or silent against modernism.

Many fundamentalists, moreover, identified Christianity rigidly with premillennial dispensationalism. Some even were prone to label non-dispensationalists as incipient modernists. Doubtless the premillennial spirit was already in evidence in the very beginnings of the fundamentalist movement eighty years ago, when the Niagara Bible Conference in 1895 first proposed the “fivefold test” to determine ministerial attitudes toward the fundamentals. But it was not until after the First World War that fundamentalism became largely a premillennial enterprise.

These fundamentalist features—neglect of the organic interrelations of theology, of the bearing of the Christian revelation upon culture and social life, and of the broader outlines of the doctrine of the Church—exacted a costly historical toll. When the classic liberal theology was at last overtaken by an inevitable judgment and collapsed, fundamentalism, with its uncompromised regard for the authority of Scripture, saw the theological initiative pass not back to the evangelical forces but rather to neo-orthodoxy, a movement fearless to criticize liberalism in terms of both internal philosophical and external biblical points of view. However unsatisfactorily its principles of the theology of the Word and of the witness of Scripture were applied, neo-orthodoxy nonetheless earnestly and aggressively produced a vigorous commentary and dogmatic literature.

A Classic Heritage

In surveying fundamentalism’s eighty-year life cycle, one must regret today’s contrast to an earlier stature of positive, profound influence. At one time fundamentalism displayed a breadth and concept of theological and philosophical perspective, a devotion to scholarly theological enterprise not characteristic of the present movement. The twelve-volume set, The Fundamentals, distributed to the ministry in 1909 as the gift of two evangelical lay leaders, and reaching ultimately a circulation of three million copies, illustrates the fact. A cursory examination of the booklets discloses many evidences of evangelical strength. Here one finds polemic without bitterness, and a concentration upon great issues besides evangelism and missions, important as these are.

James Orr of Glasgow discusses the virgin birth of Christ in the opening article of Volume One. He enriched the evangelical outlook on both sides of the Atlantic both through significant books and as general editor of The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Benjamin B. Warfield, one of America’s ablest exegetical scholars, wrote the second article, on Christ’s deity. His meticulous theological works still serve the evangelical cause. The third essay, “The Purposes of the Incarnation,” is by G. Campbell Morgan, one of the finest Bible expositors of the past generation. It is noteworthy that both postmillennialists and premillennialists supplied opening articles, united in an evangelical witness to the person and work of Christ. Today’s fundamentalist movement, in its present reactionary position and mood, could hardly rally the participation of such representative and distinguished scholars and leaders as the contributors to The Fundamentals. With A. C. Dixon and R. A. Torrey as editors, the participants (besides those already named) included W. H. Griffith Thomas, Melvin Grove Kyle, William G. Moorehead, Handley C. G. Moule, E. Y. Mullins, George L. Robinson, and George Frederick Wright, among others.

High View Of Scripture

No sense of pressure or panic shifts their whole emphasis to the inspiration of the Bible, important as this theme was for contributors like Orr and Warfield, who even prepared separate books on this subject. An article on higher criticism, near the end of the first volume, carefully avoids blanket condemnation of higher criticism as such, and in fact vindicates a positive role for higher as well as for lower criticism. This first volume, indeed, does not end without a resounding emphasis on “the authority and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures,” a conviction infusing the entire series. All the contributors believed that the sacred Hebrew-Christian writings must be referred to a special divine activity of revelation and inspiration; all emphasized that in matters of doctrine Scripture is the only reliable and authoritative canon. Yet they were not required to agree “jot and tittle” in their expositions of inspiration, as anyone familiar with the writings only of Orr and Warfield will recognize at once. The fundamentalist movement’s later uniformity and rigidity in formulating inspiration resulted from reliance upon cliches more than upon a readiness to define its fuller doctrinal implications. This development contributed needlessly to liberalism’s prevailing misunderstanding of the evangelical view of Scripture.

Only uncritical and unrepresentative expositions, however, supplied the slightest basis for ascribing to fundamentalists such straw views as belief in a specially inspired King James Version, or in the veritable divine dictation of Scripture. Truly representative fundamentalist expositions, while upholding the normative and trustworthy character of Scripture, refuse to sketch divine inspiration in terms of sheer dictation. The contributors to The Fundamentals, however, retained creative liberty to expound the witness of Scripture to its own inspiration. No premium, of course, rested on disagreement and difference. But Scripture ever remained the conspicuous final authority by which fundamentalist expositions were to be governed and judged. The older apologists appealed confidently to the lordship of Christ and to the witness of the Spirit, being less inclined than recent evangelical thought to rest everything on the bare inerrancy of Scripture. This did not imply their displacement of objective revelation by subjective considerations, for fundamentalism has always resisted modernism’s substitution of immediate for mediated revelation. But whether the self-authenticating character of an inspired and authoritative Scripture is derivable from objective indications alone, or whether this self-authenticating character involves also the witness of Christ by the Spirit, was the issue in debate. The older apologetic was less hesitant to begin with Christ—not because it sought to detach Christology from bibliology, but because it sensed the danger that biblicism might seem to ascribe superiority to some principle other than the Christological.

The Larger Perspective

Something of the earlier fundamentalist range and perspective comes from a hasty glance at other volumes in The Fundamentals series. The second book, in support of biblical as against critical views, sweeps into the field of archaeology and closes with a doctrinal essay on justification by faith. An article on inspiration, which begins the third volume, is followed by the testimony of a seminary professor who has rejected his earlier concessions to negative criticism. Between these chapters are essays on the moral glory of Christ, on Christ’s revelation of the fatherhood of God and on the significance of Christian experience. Other volumes present science and Christian faith, the weaknesses of Darwinism, the knowledge of God, the Holy Spirit, sin and judgment, the science of conversion, the nature of regeneration, salvation by grace, the nature of the Church, the efficacy of prayer, the sanctity of the Lord’s day, the Christian use of money, Christianity and socialism, competitive cults and religious movements like Christian Science, Mormonism, Millennial Dawnism, Spiritualism and Roman Catholicism. The essays indubitably differ in quality, but when one recalls that The Fundamentals sought a rather general reading audience, the series creditably reflects a scholarly competence, a refreshing range of interest, an application of biblical Christianity to the wider problems of life and culture and an avoidance of restrictions and negations frequently associated with fundamentalism in our times. A delightful absence of caustic apologetics and polemics pervades these writings. Restraint is shown toward men of dissimilar views; no attempt is made to depreciate their abilities and skills.

Christianity And Science

In the matter of Christianity and science, the early fundamentalists quite carefully avoided a dogmatic dismissal of the whole scientific enterprise as perverse speculation. Contributors to The Fundamentals doubtless agreed on the inadequacy of any explanation of the universe and man in merely evolutionary terms; in this respect they anticipated the dangers of the naturalistic-communistic view of life better than those apostles of “Divine immanence” who merely baptized evolutionary theory with a capital E. Genesis the early fundamentalists regarded as an inspired account of beginnings; they deplored its dismissal as legendary and mythical. Some contributors more than others deferred to scientific opinion in supplementing the creation narrative. The message of The Fundamentals centers in the great affirmations of the creation narratives. Its support of Christian supernaturalism is wary of whatever threatens biblical theism, and it is certainly not proevolutionary. At the same time the writers are neither suspicious nor distrustful of science. They are open to the facts, but unconvinced that all the facts have been introduced.

Fundamentalists questioned the factuality of development rather than exposing the inadequacy of evolution. This disposition, to exclude scientific explanations, rather than to evaluate their adequacy, has maneuvered fundamentalism repeatedly into a tardy and retarded awareness of the constantly changing scientific scene. Some fundamentalist popularizers boldly disparaged scientific studies as a whole, using sarcasm and ridicule to reinforce their deficiency of logic. More cautious spirits, however, refused to dogmatize against every possibility of development in nature, and inclined to agnosticism rather than to skepticism in relationship to evolutionary theory. Some evangelicals in America requested of science only that it refrain from tampering with the reality of the supernatural, with the role of transcendent divine power in creating the graded levels of life and the essential uniqueness of man. They did not feel called upon to exclude a scientific supplementation of the Genesis account of beginnings. The main thrust of the fundamentalist interest in science, however, had become mainly anti-evolutionary. Nature as a divine laboratory in which men may read the plan and thought of God and science as a sphere of divine vocation where Christian young people may facilitate the control of nature to man’s purposes under God were all but lost as motivating concepts.

Decline Of Dignity

Outside conservative theological circles, especially among unchurched people and among members of many liberal churches, the word “fundamentalism” became a term of reproach. Secular newspapers and magazines use it today, quite in the Fosdickian spirit, as a badge of obscurantism. This is less than fair to the traditions of the movement as a whole. To dismiss the fundamentalist as an obscurantist is a strategy often appropriated by those hostile to belief in the supernatural. It gains credibility in liberal circles through the reactionary spirit of some present fundamentalist groups who seem to align themselves against higher education, science and cultural interests.

Such reactionary tendencies in fundamentalism, therefore, caused men of profound biblical loyalties to hesitate to identify themselves with the movement as such. Aware of the undesirable connotations of the term fundamentalism, they prefer to be called conservatives or evangelicals. Already by 1923, when Machen wrote his penetrating critique of modernism, Christianity and Liberalism, men of his theological acumen preferred to call themselves evangelicals.

The real bankruptcy of fundamentalism has resulted not so much from a reactionary spirit—lamentable as this was—as from a harsh temperament, a spirit of lovelessness and strife contributed by much of its leadership in the recent past. One of the ironies of contemporary church history is that the more fundamentalists stressed separation from apostasy as a theme in their churches, the more a spirit of lovelessness seemed to prevail. The theological conflict with liberalism deteriorated into an attack upon organizations and personalities. This condemnation, in turn, grew to include conservative churchmen and churches not ready to align with separatist movements. It widened still further to abuse of evangelicals unhappy with the spirit of independency in such groups as the American Council of Churches and the International Council of Christian Churches. Then came internal debate and division among separatist fundamentalists within the American Council. More recently, the evangelistic ministry of Billy Graham and of other evangelical leaders, and efforts whose disapproval of liberalism and advocacy of conservative Christianity are beyond dispute, have become the target of bitter volubility.

This character of fundamentalism as a temperament, and not primarily fundamentalism as a theology, has brought the movement into contemporary discredit. Doubtless it is unfair to impute this mood of rancor and negation to the entire fundamentalist movement. Historically, fundamentalism was a theological position; only gradually did the movement come to signify a mood and disposition as well. Its early leadership reflected balance and ballast, and less of born bast and battle. Only later did a divisive disposition show itself, plunging the evangelical movement into internal conflict.

The recrudescence of fundamentalism during the Second World War involved a diversification within the movement. On one side were those eager to detach the great theological affirmations from a recent negative reactionary spirit and to strengthen constructive theological and ecclesiastical activity; on the other, those who add to reactionary spirit by multiplying divisions and by disowning brethren in the former category. The first group insists that fundamentalists of the latter definition are severing themselves from the spirit of historic evangelical Christianity; the second group claims that evangelicals of the former category are making a subtle retreat to a compromised fundamentalism.

Call To Repentance

By mid-century, fundamentalism obviously signified a temperament as fully as a theology. Despite its belligerency, many evangelicals courageously stayed with fundamentalism, remembering rather its contribution to Christianity’s age-old battle against unbelief. Others, however, weary of the spirit of strife, wrote off a pugnacious leadership with the declaration that “fundamentalism is dead.” None, it should be noted, showed the same courage and earnestness in calling fundamentalism to judgment and repentance as did Barth and Brunner in approaching classic liberalism. Should evangelical leaders as candidly admit the excesses of fundamentalism as have neo-orthodox leaders relative to the prevailing liberalism? They dare not do less. The growing revulsion toward the fundamentalist temperament is but one evidence that orthodoxy is being chastened in our day. A renewal of biblical Christianity will involve not only a restoration of the fundamentals, but also a revival of fundamentalists imbued with a new mind set and a new method in ecclesiastical life.

If modernism stands discredited as a perversion of the scriptural theology, certainly fundamentalism in this contemporary expression stands discredited as a perversion of the biblical spirit.

TO BE CONTINUED

Ideas

Natural Law and Revelation

The Editor

The Fourth of July is an appropriate time to consider the basic problems of politics.

In the Declaration of Independence the American people accused the British government of abuses, usurpations, despotism and tryanny. The King had exceeded his just powers. He had forbidden his governors to execute important laws until his assent had been obtained; he had repeatedly dissolved duly elected legislatures; he had made the judiciary dependent on his will; he had erected a harassing bureaucracy; he had made the military superior to the civil power; he had imposed taxes without the consent of the people; he had deprived them of trial by jury and transported them beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses.

Evidently the colonists thought that there were some things a government had no right to do.

So also when the Constitution brought into being the United States of America, a bill of rights had to be written into it. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.… The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.… The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Liberty today more than ever needs to be defended from totalitarian encroachments. Not only is there the brutality of reducing a populace to the level of abject slavery, with a controlled church to applaud its atheistic rulers; but also in western lands the burdens and budgets, the regulations and controls, become constantly more onerous. The tenth article of the bill of rights is almost a dead letter.

Can limitations on governments, can the protection of minorities from majority action, can individual rights and liberties be rationally maintained? Or does democracy mean mob rule?

Some of the colonists, Thomas Jefferson, for example, were deists. Jefferson regarded Jesus simply as a good moral teacher. Nonetheless he founded individual rights on a sort of theology. After referring to the laws of nature and of nature’s God, Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident! that all men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

The Thomistic philosophy of the Roman Catholic church also bases its (all too totalitarian) political theory on the idea of natural law. Maritain has said, “There is, by the very virtue of human nature, an order or a disposition which human reason can discover.… The unwritten law, or Natural Law, is nothing more than that.” And if Maritain has not, others add that this unwritten law is the minimum religious premise because it means that the universe is not indifferent to man’s individual life.

Thus the law of nature is considered superior to the statutes of a state; it is a norm for legislation; and a state is under theoretical obligation to confine its legislation within the limits prescribed by nature.

In this discussion the important point is whether or not human reason can discover in nature an order of morality that sets the norm for statutory law. Are Jefferson’s unalienable rights self-evident? The argument does not center on individual rights as such, nor on the existence of a Creator, nor on the Creator’s authority to judge the nations. The point at issue is whether or not these propositions can be proved by an observation of nature. Perhaps they can be obtained only by special revelation.

It is instructive to note that political theorists who were untouched by the Christian revelation, almost without exception, advocate totalitarianism. If Plato was a communist, Aristotle was a fascist. Private parental education is forbidden because education has as its aim the production of citizens for the good of the state. The number of children a family may have is controlled by the government, and surplus children are to be fed to the wolves. And everybody must profess the state religion. Rousseau is equally totalitarian: “There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles.… If anyone, after publicly recognizing these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death.”

If individual liberties were as evident as Jefferson said, would not Rousseau have recognized them? If they could be learned by observing nature, would Aristotle have missed them? And in any case, would there not be a fairly wide-spread agreement on what in detail these laws are? Jefferson thought that all men are created equal; Aristotle believed that some are born to be slaves. Aquinas argued that all things to which man has a natural inclination are naturally apprehended by reason as being good; but Duns Scotus replied that this leaves no method for determining whether an inclination is natural or unnatural.

Hume and Mill also, in their criticisms of the argument for God’s existence, throw doubt on the theory. In those passages where they emphasize the injustices in the world, and Mill in particular does this vigorously, they show clearly the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of discovering by human reason any perfect justice in nature.

Although Hume and Mill are in bad repute among devout Christians, their attack on natural theology may prove to be a blessing in disguise. At least, their insistence on observable injustice and misery is a recognition, however unintentional, of the existence of sin in the world. Too often philosophers with optimistic blindness ignore or minimize sin.

Now, one of the theoretical deficiencies of natural theology and natural ethics is its assumption that human reason has not been depraved or distorted by sin and remains a competent and unbiased observer. An orthodox Christian has no wish to deny that God at creation wrote the basic moral law on man’s heart. Even yet this conscience acts after a fashion. For example, experiences of guilt occur, though they may occur too infrequently; self-commendation also occurs—with greater regularity; and both are often improperly assigned. Natural political law and personal moral law can therefore be barely discerned, if at all.

Thus, Caesar, Napoleon and Stalin can take pride in their crimes. Looking carefully on nature and seeing it red in tooth and claw, they can conclude that the universe is indifferent to the fate of any individual and that it is the law of nature for the brutal to rule the meek. There are natural inclinations for domination and a will to power. And if Aquinas says otherwise, he can’t see straight and reasons like a bourgeois gentilhomme.

If now one turns from nature and reads special revelation, ambiguity and confusion are replaced with clearly stated principles. In such contrast to the heathen nations surrounding Israel—such a contrast as to be unintelligible to Jezebel—Ahab could not legally expropriate Naboth’s vineyard. Here for one instance there is the divine sanction on private property, and therefore the rights of individuals, and a limitation of government. In another instance Daniel defied the religious laws of Nebuchadnezzar. And Peter said, “We must obey God rather than men.”

These brief considerations indicate that the theory of natural law is not a satisfactory theoretical defense of minority and individual rights. Human reason, that is, ordinary observation of nature, leads more easily to totalitarianism than to anything else other than anarchy. But an acceptance of God’s word justifies a limited government.

Unfortunately this is a theoretical justification only; it is not a civil guarantee. It does not, it actually has not prevented tyrannies in history. What is needed to protect our unalienable rights is a popular acceptance of biblical principles. Only in so far as a determined and vocal segment of the populace forces power hungry politicians to curtail their ambitions, only in so far as the will of the people can reduce budgets, relax controls, and eliminate pork barrels, only so can the twentieth century trend to Communism be slowed down.

Long may our land be bright

With freedom’s holy light;

Protect us by thy might,

Great God, our King.

Government Service As A Christian Vocation

One of history’s greatest philosophers, Plato, voiced the verdict that democracy cannot survive. The interest and trust of the Western world in popular government have been encouraged for a century and a half by the American form of government, a republic within a democracy. Since World War I, however, faith in the democracies has waned. Fears are deepening that, apart from a vigorous rededication to spiritual and moral values, even the American form of democracy must decline and decay.

One can therefore sympathize with all efforts to infuse American governmental life with Christian principles. The past history of the West attests that the Christian religion supplied a new moral earnestness and excellence and furnished a spiritual framework that unified the masses in their devotion to the right. American state affairs in colonial and revolutionary times were Christian in temper at least, and the concern for separation of Church and State arose within this disposition. The loss of Christian principle and perspective in recent generations, however, has produced a withering sense of religious and ethical priorities. Today the attempt to temper national affairs with Christian principles is resisted by secular forces hostile to supernatural religion and ethics and is resisted also by some agencies spiritually and morally aggressive yet fearful of ecclesiastical dominance in state affairs by a single voice like the Church of Rome.

The Roman Church, at any rate, has a specific philosophy of political action. Its militant concern for religious government gains sympathy from the drift of the Communist world to irreligious government. Pressures behind the Iron Curtain drive Christians out of government leadership. Soviet disregard of justice and moral law, with its enthronement of deception and the lie, has pricked the Free World’s conscience. Can Christians, whatever their communion, be blamed—ought they not indeed to be lauded—for seeking to inspirit American politics with Christian leadership?

Roman Catholicism encourages political service, and implements such encouragement. It sponsors a training program for government leadership in which the Edwin A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University plays a leading role. Admittedly, somewhat less than half of Georgetown’s graduates are Roman Catholic; about one-fifth are Jewish. But the curriculum reflects the viewpoint of the Vatican. From the halls of Georgetown, Roman Catholic alumni in significant numbers find their way into diplomatic service.

Roman political gains in the United States are increasingly evident. In the state of Rhode Island, Catholics have a majority, 52 per cent of the population, and only one Protestant now holds state office there. Increasing Catholic strength in Congress is clear. This year for the first time Catholics number second in the religious census of Congress, outnumbering Baptists, and narrowing the lead of Methodists. One Washington news correspondent thinks it “almost inevitable” that within five or ten years Catholic congressmen will take the lead, and that, once they gain control, that lead will be irreversible. Catholic maneuvering for a presidential or vice-presidential candidate has been an obvious phase of recent party conventions. Catholic policy includes the objective of a U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, preferably Roman Catholic. In Roman Catholic lands like Latin America, where a disproportionate number of Catholic consuls represent the American government, visas for incoming Protestant missionaries have frequently been opposed as disruptive of the unity of those lands. The Catholic program of encouraging government careers and of equipping candidates for those careers with a specific philosophy of government is politically efficient.

This way of stating things, however, is reactionary, for it tends to an anti-Catholic mood. In a democracy, after all, no citizen is less a citizen because of the religion he espouses. Catholic forces are not alone in a religious political vision for America. Across the years, Protestant ministers’ sons have found their way in significant numbers into State Department service, some inspired in past decades by the untenable “social gospel” vision of a christianized government. Protestant lay leaders are conspicuous in Cabinet and congressional posts; Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Director of National Security Harold Stassen, Congressman Walter Judd are three of a great many. In the Department of Agriculture, Mormons reportedly have been in full harvest in recent years. Methodist leaders, determined to translate church influence into political life, are projecting their own costly school of foreign service in the District of Columbia.

Roman Catholic citizens have seized opportunities that other American religious groups have neglected, and for this they ought rather to be envied than blamed. It would be sheer prejudice to exclude an American citizen from public office because his private worship and witness fall into some particular religious communion. The real concern, however, is Rome’s official philosophy of politics. The Roman Catholic conception is that every government (the United States included) is the temporal arm of the Roman Church. History is too clearly written to ignore the fact that Rome utilizes the democratic framework to subordinate national interests to the totalitarian religious and political goals of the Vatican. It would doubtless be uncharitable to suspect every Catholic in politics of being an agent of the Vatican’s foreign policy. But the only way to determine whether a candidate does or does not share the official view of the hierarchy that the State is the temporal arm of the Vatican is to press for a personal statement.

Evangelical Christianity is apprehensive about direct church influence in politics, whether that influence be Catholic or Protestant. The minister and church in politics threaten the principle of separation of Church and State by entangling the Church in government, and reviving the ogre of the medieval church-state.

Yet evangelicals have been spurred to a new look at the political arena. The major motivations for this growing interest in government are two: a reaction to the growing power of Romanism, and the evidence that political neglect abandons this area of life to secularism. The slogan “the best politics is no politics” breeds inferior politics. Politics has its seamy side, as someone has remarked, because so few Christians are in it.

What evangelical Christianity lacks today is a philosophy of Christian social action which sets political responsibility and activity in a consistent and compelling frame of thought and action. Good politicians are not only men of high principle and moral courage, but men of political insight and consistency. Evangelical interest in politics lacks the motive drive of a full-orbed outline of social duty. For that reason evangelical action tends to be needlessly reactionary, to be stirred to activity only on grave issues, to be one-sidedly competitive as a parallel effort. Its creative contribution and dynamic are impeded through this lack. There is the danger of enlistment only in short-term programs, of premature commitment to excessive positions, of effort wasted in programs of enthusiasm. Whoever has moved in evangelical circles during the recent decades has sensed their interest in headlines more than in study commissions in social ethics.

What is needed today, as a background for virile evangelical political action, is a renewed interest in the study of comprehensive principles of Christian social ethics governing the whole of life and culture. It will take more than salvage and patchwork to arrest the decline or democracy today.

Theology

The Bible

L. Nelson Bell

Christianity Today June 24, 1957

The most up-to-date book in all the world is the Bible. It goes beyond scientific speculation to God, the Creator of the universe; it unfolds the revelation of man’s need and God’s provision for that need; it is man’s only infallible guide for both faith and living; and it gives an unerring glimpse into the future, into eternity itself.

But how much do you know about the Bible? Have you assigned it to a place of major importance in your life? Do you appreciate the fact that the Bible contains solutions for your multiplied daily problems? Have you met and surrendered to the Christ revealed to us in the Bible?

There are many things that we learn by experience or observation. Others we discover by experimentation, reason and deduction. But, beyond these, there are truths in the spiritual realm that man could never discover for himself. They must be revealed by God, and this he does in the Bible.

To illustrate: We pick up our morning newspaper and read of murder, theft, rape, disputes and litigations. We read of the results of pride and envy and greed in the hearts of people. And we know there is something seriously wrong.

The Bible tells us what this is; that it is a disease of the soul with which all men are born, and calls it sin. But the Bible does more than this; it declares that the wages of sin is death, that sin separates man from his God both now and for eternity. Best of all, the Bible reveals what God has done to free us from the power and penalty of sin—it tells of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Without the revelation of spiritual truth, found in the Scriptures, man has a warped perspective. He values “things” more than truth and looks at this world in terms of the present rather than in the light of eternity.

Man needs to know that he is a transient in a transient world and that human wisdom is relative while divine truth is absolute.

Through the Bible we learn to see time in the light of eternity and material things in the light of spiritual values. Here we learn of the way to eternal life.

All of us are aware of the unending conflicts in the world, the pressures for and against right and the ebb and flow of opinions on every hand. Little wonder that life is filled with frustrations and complexes, for a life without Christ is a life without lasting meaning.

In the Bible we learn of Christ, the eternal Son of God, who wishes to become the center of our faith and worship and the companion of our daily lives. In the Scriptures we are given basic principles relevant for every generation and applicable to every contingency of life. While written nearly three thousand years ago, the book of Proverbs is a relevant treatise on personal living and, if heeded, the greatest deterrent to juvenile delinquency to be found in print.

In every generation the Bible has had its detractors. The old phrase “Yea, hath God said?” is always current. But the Bible remains and its truth continues to be the foundation of knowledge and its teachings as impregnable as Gibraltar before a pea-shooter powered by a rubber band.

The unanswerable fact is that the Bible works. Let anyone accept it at face value, letting it speak for itself, trying by God’s grace to follow its teachings and live its truths and promises he will discover that the Bible works.

Let the Bible give its own estimate of its message; let it tell of its origin in the revelation of God to man; let it become a part of one’s thinking and way of life. Then its complete reliability and basic authority will be found to be unanswerable.

Sit down and read the Bible and soon we find it speaking to our hearts as no other book can ever do. It pierces between the cracks and seeps into the pores of life. We see ourselves, not as we would like to think we are, or as we portray ourselves to be before others, but as God sees us. The Holy Spirit, speaking through its pages, shines the white light of divine conviction into our hearts and minds and we stand naked before the one to whom all men must answer.

This supernatural power in the written word brings a consciousness of sin, a conviction of sin and a repentance for sin. This same divine power leads us to God’s answer to the sin question—his only Son.

The Apostle Paul warns the Christian that his life is a daily battle and that the enemy is Satan with all his wiles. He then goes on to tell us the necessity of wearing the God-given armor, taking in one hand the shield of faith and in the other the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

When our Lord was tempted in the wilderness he gave us a perfect example of its use as a sword. Three thrusts, three relevant quotations from the Scriptures, and Satan left him.

Little wonder that the Devil hates the Bible. Little wonder that he has sought to destroy its influence. Little wonder that he interposes every possible excuse to keep us from reading it and making it a part of our lives. Satan does not fear holy water, nor secular knowledge that may banish many of the material and physical ills of man. Rather he dreads the Bible because he cannot stand against its power.

For those who question how God could give a revelation of divine truth through human channels, it is satisfying to let the Bible speak for itself. There we find that God prepared men through background, training and experience; then the Holy Spirit led them to speak and write according to his will, not as stenographers but as responsible agents moved by the Spirit.

The Apostle Peter wrote: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not of old time by the will of man: but Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

Our Lord, after his resurrection, said to his questioning disciples: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” And later: “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.”

A study of Christ’s references to the Old Testament scriptures reveals his implicit trust in their reliability and authority and gives us full confidence as we read them for ourselves.

We do not worship the Bible. It is the Book which tells of God and we worship him. But we must study the Bible, make it a part of our daily lives, make it our unswerving rule of faith and practice.

We need to study the Bible. Books about the Bible have their place but the Bible must come first and it must be permitted to speak for itself.

In all of this we should pray for the guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit who spoke to those who wrote the Book will speak to the hearts of those who read it if they will but heed.

Set aside those first minutes of each new day to pray to God and let him speak to us through his word.

Eutychus and His Kin: June 24, 1957

MINISTER CHEEVY

(With profound apologies to Edwin Arlington Robinson)

Minister Cheevy, man of cloth,

Grew sleek while he assured the matrons.

He feared no wardrobe-eating moth

For he had patrons.

Reverend Cheevy loved the sight

Of crowded pews at Sunday service.

His rhetoric was at its height

When he was nervous.

Pastor Cheevy could obtain

Rapport with tense, neurotic people.

The soothing of his manner sane

Was like a peace pill.

President Cheevy always ran

Church meetings with a smooth decorum.

The board would somehow choose his plan

In open forum.

Rotarian Cheevy could relax

With all the boys at business lunches.

He knew the art of slapping backs

And pulling punches.

Doctor Cheevy wrote a book

That traced the road of human progress.

An author, father, husband, cook,

He ran for Congress.

Minister Cheevy filled his roles

With balanced poise beyond aspersion.

This guide of souls met all his goals

—But lacked conversion!

EUTYCHUS

LIBERAL CHURCH UNION

The watchword of the Ecumenical Movement … is “Organic Union.” Steps toward mutual understanding, recognition, or agreement between Christian churches which do not make “Organic Union” their ultimate objective are disparaged by the leaders of this “Liberal Ecumenicism.” They have no compunctions about jeopardizing the results of every other kind of approach to unity. They plainly consider intercommunion or mutual recognition valueless. To them, Organic Union is all.

How remote this is from the biblical picture! In the New Testament we see organically separate churches, according full recognition to one another. There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, but not one organization. All are accountable to the Apostolic Council, but the Council is called because the Churches desire it.… The Church must be an organism organically united to its Head, who sits at the right hand of the Father. As soon as it is organically united to a single earthly head, it begins to cease to be united to the heavenly. This is the general aspect of the problem. I want to mention a specific one.

The “Church of South India” is the most successful experiment to date of the liberal ecumenical movement. It is a union of Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches. We are here criticising one feature of this experiment, but we do not mean thereby to imply that there is nothing good about the South India achievement, for other features are independent of our criticism.

The distinctive feature of the “Church of South India”, which includes about a quarter of the Christians in the area, is that it accepts an Episcopal form of church government, but without “any particular view or belief concerning orders of the ministry” (Constitution, Chapter II, Section 11). Though it sounds innocent enough to say that no particular view or belief is required, the effect is the same as if every view or belief were forbidden.

No view may be taught authoritatively. Any person who advocates a definite view will be accused of attempting to destroy the union. The denominations which have joined to form the Church of South India have had to abandon the principle of loyalty to Holy Scripture in order to do this. The former Anglicans have had to do it in one way, and the former non-Episcopalians in another. The former Anglicans previously accepted and continued the Episcopate because they taught and believed that it was scriptural (see the Ordinal in the Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church, pp. 529 ff.).

Now, those who have gone into the South India Union retain the Episcopate, but by the terms of the Union must relinquish the claim that it is scriptural. They must in practice teach their spiritual descendants that they have the Episcopate, but that it is not required by Scripture.

Those who went into the Union from non-Episcopal churches are in a corresponding predicament. They formerly believed that Scripture taught the parity of ministers. Now they accept an imparity but without any claim that it is scriptural. It would not have been wrong in principle if they had accepted the Episcopal form of government because they had become convinced that the Reformers were wrong, and that Scripture did not, after all, teach the parity of ministers. Nothing of the kind happened, however. They accepted the Episcopate without having any such scriptural reason. What is worse, the giving of such a reason is specifically excluded. That would be “a particular view or belief concerning orders of the ministry.”

A more cynical attitude towards the Scriptures could scarcely be imagined. Had all the uniting churches come to the explicit conclusion that Scripture had nothing definite to say about Church government, it would have been less cynical. But even that seems to be excluded as a “particular view or belief!”

Many Evangelicals find that in the matter of theology the South India Constitution and Basis of Union are even more cynical. The “Basis of Union”, having commended the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds states, in a footnote (Section 3) that “The uniting Churches accept the fundamental truths embodied in the Creeds as providing a sufficient basis of union; but do not intend thereby to demand the assent of individuals to every word and phrase in them.…” The cynicism concerning the Creeds here expressed in words is similar to the cynicism about the Scriptures expressed in actions with respect to the ministry.

The Liberal Ecumenicist concept of the church fails because it leaves out the middle term of the description “one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.” Faith is left out to make room for the term “one Organization.” It is worse than left out, for by eschewing any “particular interpretation”, a liberal ecumenical union in practice requires a vague or lax interpretation of both Scriptures and Creeds.

The insistence on “one organization” is certainly not a Reformation concept. We have indicated above that it is not a New Testament concept. Where, then, does it come from? It is a characteristically and specifically Roman Catholic concept. Liberal ecumenicists have unconsciously, almost instinctively clung to this non-biblical, un-Protestant concept. Ironical it is, for that is the very concept which was back of the trouble the Reformation sought to remedy. Liberalism has the same root disease, with the difference that where Roman Catholicism is a bureaucracy for the maintenance of a distinct and vigorous (albeit mistaken) faith, the liberal ecumenical church would be a bureaucracy for the propagation of no faith at all.…

The end result of the liberal ecumenical movement would be a Protestant Pope ruling over a doctrinal blob. No doubt the “Pope” would be a committee, not an individual. So much the worse! Scripture shows a better way.

ROGER GEFFEN

Church of the Good Shepherd

Wakefield, Bronx, N. Y.

WHAT SCRIPTURE FORBIDS

I certainly appreciate … CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Your articles and features have been thought-stimulating … a wedding of the spiritual and intellectual much needed today. Keep up the Gospel approach. No magazine has the right to the name Christian which does not present the message of our Lord and Master. Yours certainly does.…

I would like to comment on “The Headship of Christ” (April 29). The author states: “Without a scriptural warrant she (the church) can make no requirement binding the consciences of men.… We multiply error when we first make our own laws and then use the church of God to enforce them. Accordingly, nothing ought to be regarded as a matter of offense or as a cause for discipline in the Church except that which can be shown to be contrary to the word of God.” This has always been the determining factor in the Lutheran Church, regarding both faith and practice. We dare not command nor forbid, where God has not already done so.

Yet in the paragraph following the author gives the obscure impression that this is not so in the Lutheran Church. In the Reformation period we retained much that was ancient and good, such as altars, vestments, church music and gothic architecture, simply because there was no scriptural warrant for discarding them. Today many reformed churches are returning to these age-old “customs”—for the same reason. Anything that enhances worship, that directs the worship away from self toward God, that centralizes the worship in the message of God rather than in the individual participant—is good.

As for the Bible being a “book of Common Worship,” that is impossible. No order of worship could be devised entirely on the basis of Scripture. Here Christian judgment and the needs of the people must decide. Worship must be living and vital. It must be orderly and dignified. “Let all things be done for edification, for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.”

R. J. MARTENS

Messiah Lutheran Church

Carlyle, Ill.

Thank you very much for letting me see the interesting letter from the Rev. Robert J. Martens. I hold his great Church in the highest esteem and certainly hope that you will publish his letter, or at least such part of it as corrects any misapprehension which my article may have carried concerning the Lutheran Church.

The historic positions of the two sister denominations of the Reformation were that the Lutheran Church rejected everything in the mediaeval worship which the Scripture condemned, while the Reformed body sought to introduce nothing into the worship but what the Scripture authorized.

Our Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., states that Christ as King has given to his Church officers, oracles and ordinances and has especially ordained therein his system of … and worship, all which are either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary inference may be deduced therefrom, to which things he commands that nothing be added and naught taken away. This, it seems to me, can be put in popular language by saying that the Bible is our Book of Worship. Of course, I give to Dr. Martens the privilege of differing with our position and hold him in high regard as a Christian brother and fellow minister of the Gospel.

WM. C. ROBINSON

Decatur, Ga.

SLAYING THE GIANT

Edward John Carnell asks … “Can Billy Graham Slay the Giant?” (May 13 issue). Why doesn’t this author have the simple courage to say … precisely what he means? Dr. Carnell does a neat little job of shadow-boxing in the field of semantics, “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” … All the “fundies” with their bibliolatry … are making such desperate efforts to elevate themselves as impeccable leaders who “traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

C. SUMPTER LOGAN

First Presbyterian Church

Henderson, Ky.

The crux of Dr. Carnell’s article … is the sentence “But it so happens that sick people are more anxious to get well than … to learn how sick they are.” No one questions but that granite towers will offer little final resistance to the message of Billy Graham. But having cast out devils without all the diagnostic skill available are we certain that seven devils will not return to occupy the room of one? The aftermath of revivalism has before this brought us into a spiritual condition worse than before … Something must be done with the Paganism of New York City, God knows. But has Billy’s God the answer?

R. HULBERT

Pilgrim Heights Community Church

Minneapolis, Minn.

During the past week two papers have come to my desk, each of which contains articles attacking the person and evangelistic ministry of Billy Graham. The writers are professional evangelists.… Our Lord suffered this same jealousy and divisiveness among his own disciples.… May we today forget organizations and personalities, and fall on our knees, beseeching the Holy Spirit to move in a mighty way.…

R. E. HOOK

First Baptist Church

Canon City, Colo.

Dr. Carnell perhaps raises more interesting questions than he realizes … There is some justification to the criticism that Christian realism could stand to be more realistic about redemption … But, as Dr. Carnell almost comes to the point of saying, Christian orthodoxy must also become more realistic about the realities of the human situation. If theological justification for this sort of realism is needed, it might be remembered that in the definitive act of revelation the Word became flesh, not doctrine; we have to do with an incarnation, not an inscription.…

It seems as though contemporary orthodoxy has fallen into what a psychologist might call an “Elijah complex” … “I, even I only, am left …” (1 Ki. 19:10). Christian realism sees here, mixed with admirable dedication, something it calls pride. And its analysis pretty sharply hits the nail on the head. It is my feeling that Christian orthodoxy could profit from this insight.

PAUL MCKAY WRIGHT

First Presbyterian Church

Timnath, Colo.

Cover Story

What Can Southern Baptists Do?

H. H. Barnette

Southern Baptist pastors, denominational leaders and seminarians are burdened about the racial issue because they see a basic contradiction between our ideals about human relations and our practice of segregation and discrimination. They have the conviction that the Supreme Court’s decision to desegregate the public schools is in harmony with both Christian and democratic principles. But they honestly ask, “What can we do about it?”

Those of us who have lived in the South know that no shortcuts to the solution of the race problem are to be found in either legislation or Christian social action. But this should not deter the preacher in his efforts to achieve better race relationships.

One thing is certain: the Southern Baptist pastor cannot remain neutral any longer concerning the race question in the South. For two reasons: (1) He must face up to this problem honestly in order to live with himself. Recently, a Southern Baptist pastor accepted a call to a church in the South. Before he arrived to take up his new duties, the church in business session revised its constitution to prohibit the pastor from preaching on the race issue. With much prayer and tact the pastor got this prohibition stricken from the constitution of the church. He confided: “In order to live with myself I have to be free to preach my convictions on any issue.” (2) The race issue is a moral one and the preacher must take the lead in its solution.

Must Be Informed

In the first place, it is imperative for the preacher to be informed as to the nature of the racial issue. There is no place for consecrated ignorance at this point. For one thing, the white preacher must become acquainted with the Negro himself. He knows almost nothing about the Negro. Beyond Booker T. Washington, Dr. George Washington Carver and Joe Louis, most white Christians are ignorant of the Negro people in America. Even the textbooks for children say nothing prejudicial about the Negro—they just say nothing! Consequently, white people have grown up in ignorance of their colored neighbors.

Dare the white person forget that the Negro is a person made in the image of God? He is a person with emotional problems. He has emotional reactions when he is herded to the rear of buses, when he is forced to wait in the doctor’s office until all the white patients are cared for, when he is refused admittance to the State University, when he is denied his basic rights in the courts, when unkind epithets are hurled at him. It is a revelation to know that the Negro reacts just as a white man would under similar circumstances.

Again, the preacher must avoid a paternalistic attitude toward people of other races. The idea of working for rather than with Negroes is offensive to them. Any attitude of condescension repels people of other races.

Beyond getting better acquainted with the individual Negro, the preacher should study the local situation. He should find out how the Negro lives in his community, what his grievances are, what is being done, and what can be done about his situation.

Christian Attitudes And Actions

People are more influenced by the preacher’s pattern of life than they are by his moral preachments. When there is a discrepancy between what he preaches and what he practices, his words are not taken very seriously. The most effective way the minister can help to bring about a better understanding in race relations is to be Christian in his own attitudes and actions. An earnest Christian came to Mrs. Mary McCleod Bethune shortly before her death and asked her how he could help to bring an end to segregation in southern schools without the violence which has marked the attempt in other sections of the South. Among other things Mrs. Bethune suggested that he first live up to God’s requirements as outlined in the Bible. She went on to point out that the Christian of today must be willing to disregard the traditions of the past and have the courage within himself to live up to the requirements of mankind as stated in the Golden Rule. To put it another way, there must be a correlation between what we believe and the way be behave.

Recently I served on an ordination council examining a young candidate for the pastoral-preaching ministry. After the traditional questions as to his conversion, call to preach, and doctrinal soundness, someone on the council asked the young man, “What is your attitude toward people of other races?” I had never before heard this question put to a candidate for the pastoral-preaching ministry. But it is a question which is asked of all of our foreign missionary volunteers; failure to answer in terms of goodwill toward minority groups is a considerable factor in their rejection for mission work. Certainly no person aspiring to be a preacher of the Gospel should be ordained to this high office if he harbors unChristian attitudes in his heart toward other races. For the preacher must set an example of Christian brotherhood in all of his dealings with all races and classes of people.

Dr. A. C. Miller, Executive Secretary of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, tells an interesting experience which illustrates the meaning of brotherhood. A few days before Christmas (when he was pastor in a southern town) Dr. Miller went into the post office to mail some Christmas cards. He stood at one end of the high writing desk in the lobby placing on each envelope a Christmas tuberculosis seal. A Negro woman stood at the other end of the desk using the same kind of seals on her Christmas cards. She opened a conversation with Dr. Miller. “Brother Miller,” she said, “I am glad to see that you use the tuberculosis seals.” The Negro woman went on to point out that many people of her race had tuberculosis and that these seals helped them in their struggle for health. Dr. Miller thanked her and after some further conversation mailed his cards and left. Some days later he saw this woman in one of the stores. She approached him somewhat uncertainly and said, “The other day after our talk at the post office, the postmaster called me to the window when you had gone and told me I owed you an apology because I had addressed you as ‘brother’.” “You owe me no apology,” Dr. Miller replied, then went on to say, “Two things I hope you will ever remember: first, the Postmaster is not a Christian and does not understand the relationship that should exist between Christians; and second, I am your brother and you are my sister through Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother.” This is an excellent example of a preacher practicing brotherhood in his daily living.

Articulating Biblical Principles

It is the task of the preacher to lay emphasis upon ethical principles of conduct rather than codes and rules of living. By emphasizing biblical principles the preacher can avoid semantical problems which grow out of the use of emotionally explosive terms as “integration” and “segregation.” This is not compromise, but an effort to reach the hearts and minds of the people with the spirit of the Gospel. It is easy for “ethical snipers” who are far removed from an issue to sit in judgment upon others who do not use their terminology and techniques in approaching that problem. To be honest, the preacher must proclaim principles rather than specifics about the race problem. For the Bible does not contain proof texts to support either segregation or integration. But the preacher should be fully aware that unbrotherliness, discrimination and injustice in human relations are not in harmony with Christian love by which he should be motivated and by which he must seek to live.

The biblical principles of human relations are found throughout the Bible. For example, humanity is one by creation (Mal. 2:10; Acts 17:26). Thus there is the unity of humanity in the order of creation. Again, God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). We are all one in Christ (Gal. 3:28). Thus humanity is not only one in the order of creation but one in the order of grace. Paul points out that God is creating a new man, a new commonwealth, the members of which enjoy the equality of citizenship (Eph. 2:11–22).

Again, there is the principle of the value of the individual (Mark 8:36; Matt. 12:12). Also there is the unqualified command to love everyone, even our enemies (Matt. 5:43–48; Luke 10:25 ff.). Moreover, Christians are to practice the Golden Rule, doing unto others as they would have others do unto them (Matt. 5:12). Again, Jesus set the example in race relations. He crossed racial barriers and challenged his disciples to follow him. His disciples were astonished when they discovered him talking with a Samaritan woman because the Jews and the Samaritans had no dealings with each other (John 4:8, 27).

Dr. C. Oscar Johnson, pastor of the Third Baptist Church in St. Louis, Missouri, believes that the fundamental scriptural passage about race relations in the New Testament is John 12:32. When two of his disciples brought certain Greeks to him, Jesus said among other things, “And I if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Some scholars think that what Jesus means by “all men” is “all kinds of men.” Be that as it may, Jesus does draw all kinds of men to himself into a fellowship of the redeemed with equal rights and privileges in the kingdom of God.

Finally, the Holy Spirit makes no distinction but comes upon all people who open their hearts to him. Peter, who was filled with race prejudice, was bidden by the Spirit to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, making no distinction (Acts 11:12). He witnessed the falling of the Spirit upon Gentiles, notably Cornelius and his friends. Peter then concluded: “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:17). Thus Peter perceived that it was not race but the action of the Holy Spirit in response to faith which determined participation in the fellowship of the church of Christ.

Pay The Price Of Conviction

Some Southern Baptist preachers who are paying the price for preaching their convictions have had to give up their pastorates because of their stand on race relations. They have found it necessary to go into the chaplaincy or into pastorates in the North or into some other kind of work.

The cost to the clergyman for acting on his convictions may be that of bodily harm. For example, a Southern Baptist pastor was severely beaten by a mob of white men after he had escorted six Negroes to the public school in Clinton, Tennessee. Fortunately, this incident served to bring about the re-establishment of order in a disorganized community. The high school was reopened on an integrated basis. And candidates for public office opposed to desegregation in the public school were overwhelmingly defeated at the polls.

At the peril of losing his pulpit the Southern preacher must discover positive ways of dealing with racial injustice. Preachers of Henderson County, Kentucky, discovered strength and effectiveness in a united effort to uphold law and order. The whole association of pastors concertedly attacked a movement to block integration in the public schools and won the battle. (“Henderson Pastor’s Diary,” The Christian Century, Oct. 24, 1956.)

Again, through personal and group counseling, study courses in his church and cooperation with the forces of righteousness in his community, the preacher can effectively work for the achievement of better race relations in the South. While some of these suggestions may seem to be too mild, some Southern churches will dismiss their pastors for implementing them.

A prophet of God must constantly challenge sin and injustice in every area of life. One of his great temptations is to preach to please. When the great preacher Hugh Latimer was about to preach before the king, Cardinal Wolsey drew him aside and said, “Latimer, Latimer, remember that today you are to preach before the high and mighty King Henry VIII who has the power to take your life. See that you do not displease him. But Latimer, Latimer, remember also that today you preach before the King of Kings, the Lord of Hosts, see that you do not displease Him.”

Paul warned preachers against this temptation when he said that those who are put in trust with the gospel must speak “not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts” (1 Thess. 1:4).

Where there are cases of discrimination against children, the Supreme Court has decreed that our public schools must be desegregated. This is the law of the land. As citizens of the Kingdom of God and of the state, Christians must uphold the laws of the land which are in harmony with the Christian view of love and justice. God’s key man in achieving this goal is the preacher.

END

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

Cover Story

The Moral Sag in France

André Lamorte

The French drama is in effect a moral drama. But the meaning of the epithet reaches beyond the framework of frivolous morals, of which France no longer has the monopoly. It concerns a religious form of thought, of feeling, of action, and of reaction which determines the internal structure of the individual and which survives even when the individual has ceased to believe or to practice his beliefs.

A Nation’S Moral Shame

The moral revolt in France is largely written in contemporary life. Evidences may be found in the wide-spread religious indifferences and atheism, in social evils, in the increase of mental illness and in other aspects of the national life.

In a population of 43 million, according to the latest figures, there are, at most, less than 10 million “believers”—if that term dare be applied to the 9 million who are baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, and the 800,000 on Protestant church rolls. One fact is clear: three-fourths of the population, or 33 million persons, live on the fringe of the Christian churches.

Social evils are rife. Before 1914, there were 35,000 divorces annually; today the figure is 250,000, and some estimates lift it to 350,000. This is a direct consequence of religious indifference, for the home is no longer secure when divine law is unrecognized and when the church exercises no salutary influence upon it.

Alcoholism is a stigma upon the nation’s life. According to official statistics of the Minister of Finance, France has 450,000 liquor stores, or 10 to each baker shop—one for every 86 persons. In 1951 France produced about 1,276,000,000 gallons of wine, 484,000,000 gallons of cider, 176,000,000 gallons of beer. The average consumption annual per capita is high: for all adults 20 years and over, 34 litres; adult men, 54 litres; adult women, 18 litres. These figures far exceed the rest of Europe.

The causes of alcoholism in France are numerous, but three are especially prominent: the hovels, or poor housing conditions, with which inhabitants must often contend; nervous anxieties due to privation and suffering during the war and postwar years; and habit or custom. Public authorities have sought to improve housing, but the hovels are many. Liquor shops open to the working man divert and distract him from the burdens of insufficient income. Many alcoholics are nervously afflicted, resorting to alcohol to quiet their fears and to find a feeling of abundance. But most addicts are victims of education and custom: to drink is to evidence manliness. The masses believe that wine and alcohol are necessary for work and even for sanity.

In 1940 the population of psychiatric hospitals numbered 110,000. During the war legislation and lowered supplies of liquor brought a noticeable reduction in numbers. Since 1945 the increase of patients has resumed at an alarming rate: in 1954 the figures of 1939 were almost reached again. The increased number of liquor shops and their legal tolerance or approval are regarded as contributory factors.

Child delinquency is another sign of the decay of national life. There are more than 100,000 known delinquents. Most of the strayed youth have seen nothing but homes of quarreling, vice, violence and injustice; family life is deficient. Alongside the problem of environment is that of heredity; alcoholism, syphilis and tuberculosis are important factors.

Prostitution is a common vice, for which statistics cannot be easily obtained. In 1910 the Chief of Police estimated that 60,000 women in the Seine area alone lived more or less entirely by prostitution. The 1946 legislation, requiring registration, was exclusively for sanitary regulation, not for policing. The number of registered prostitutes in 1952 was 8,000; of these, 3,000 registered in Paris. These figures by no means tell the full story, for these are far outnumbered by a legion of clandestine offenders who escape control.

There are other evidences that the moral atmosphere vanishes, and law is bypassed, when spiritual checks no longer guard the national life. Pandering is a tragic phenomenon in the large cities, and is caused by traffic in dope. Bawdy literature, of the “Paris-Hollywood” type, is sold in a quantity of two million pieces monthly. Even sports have become an end in themselves, often serving as a pretext for indulgent eating and drinking after the game. Many old rugby players and boxers maintain tavern patronage in their associations with old comrades.

Origin And Causes Of Crisis

Because this writer sees in the religion to which the majority of the French people still adhere the fundamental explanation of the crisis France is passing through, he, though French by nationality, has agreed to write these lines. Other Frenchmen, better qualified than he in the sociological and political realms, have already analyzed the situation, as, for example, in the captivating book by Frederic Hoffett, Protestant Imperialism (Flammarion, 1948).

Romanism has pressed its mold on freethinkers as well as on believers. This invisible background alone can give a valid account of the actual behavior of the nation that was long called “the eldest Daughter of the Church.”

The crisis France is enduring commenced when she rejected the Reformation.

In other countries the “Protestant man” was prepared for liberty and thus for a natural adaptation to democracy; the “Roman Catholic man,” always submissive to the church’s direction, remained inadequately prepared for modern forms of political life. (Let us remember what Brunetiere said: “What I believe? Ask it of Rome.”) Hence the discipline of the Protestant, to which he freely consented (which explains the evolution and astonishing success of the Anglo-Saxon nations), contrasts with the revolt and complexities of the Roman Catholic man and with the germs of political instability and moral decline in the Roman Catholic nations.

Thus two factors of religious origin are at the basis of the decline of the French nation: persecution and the order of the Jesuits.

The opponents of French Protestantism admit themselves that the Reformation, at its beginnings, had conquered a quarter if not half of the kingdom. Neither the mind nor the French temperament was hostile to it. What arrested its salutary expansion, and what explains why French Protestantism today is a weak minority, is persecution. The latter was the work of the church. For under the cloak of a royal authority, frightened of liberty, one can discern the guidance of Roman inspiration. The history of three centuries of martyrdom and the heroism of epic Huguenot believers are the irrefutable proof of this fact. With consummate skill, the Roman church multiplied its efforts to win over the princes; she overcame their hesitations through seduction or through terror; she promised her support in the realization of their designs of despotism, and she held over them the threat of the mysterious and poisoned weapons of her occult authority. Thus the kings who, for a moment, had inclined toward the Reformation, finding in the latter no furthering for their tyrannical projects, nor for their vices and their passions, turned from the Reformation and became the executors of the church, implacable toward heresy, but smiling upon crowned corruption.

So it came about that fanatical popes, such as Paul III and Paul IV, depending on the intimate union between Church and State, managed to transform heresy into crime, and on those grounds were able to undertake the most serious measures against the Protestants. At their instigation, Francis I in 1542 proclaimed his intention to pursue heresy “until the foundation and the root of this pest should be exterminated and abolished,” and he ordered in the year 1544 “that one should proceed with all diligence to seize, chastise and punish those who propagate the Reformation.” In acting thus, the kings conformed to the will of the popes. Thus we find Pope Pius V writing to Charles IX at the time of the St. Bartholomew massacre: “Your Majesty must pursue the enemies of religion until extermination.” At his crowning, Louis XIII, who consecrated his reign to exterminating heresy, offered his crown and his sword to the Virgin, in so doing imitating the Spaniard Don Carlos who had placed his person and his army under the sovereign protection of Mary. “I will only reign if you reign,” said Louis XIII in calling on the Virgin.

Persecution exterminated with the Reformation every possibility of spiritual renewal, and at the same time political and social renewals, the latter revealing themselves strictly bound to the former.

But to open violence, a more baneful force was added, perhaps through the insidious work of moral and intellectual fragmentation of the French soul: the Jesuit power.

Havings made their entry as “timid foxes” to Paris University in the sixteenth century, the Jesuits came to “reigning there as furious lions” (the expression is from Etienne Pasquier, himself a professor of Paris University).

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which was to deprive France of her most fruitful spiritual substance, was the work of the Jesuits before it became that of Louis XIV.

Xavier de Ricard wrote that in order to break the Huguenots, Jesuitism “had invented, noted, classified, co-ordinated all the proceedings, all the maneuvers, all the intrigues, all the learned wiles and all the skilful violences prepared in cold blood which by a slow and successive extenuation, culminated in radical and legal extermination …” (The Political Spirit of the Reformation, 1893, p. 4). One can but read again the immortal “Letters to a Provincial” by Blaise Pascal, which edify one singularly on the pernicious work of the Jesuits and their machiavellian maneuverings for the education of men and nations.

“Radical and legal extermination,” said Xavier de Ricard. Extermination of bodies when the temporal gives its consent. But in every way—extermination of will, of conscience, of righteous judgment—through the substitution of a soul simultaneously servile and given to low desires clever and brutal, deceitful and inconsistent.

Persecution and Jesuitism have been the educators of modern France.

The Present And The Future

France has known the Revolution of 1789. The latter culminated in the formation of new and generous principles. But the idealists who conceived them, if they changed the facade, were not able to regenerate the soul of the nation. For the Revolution was above all an explosion of hatred against the joint despotism of the king and the church.

The political and social upheavals which have agitated France since 1789 and which led her in turn from the Republic to the Empire, from the Empire to the two most recent Republican Constitutions, did but powerfully underline the moral uneasiness of a long clerical regime. Men may change but the spirit remains. To royal absolutism the bureaucratic dictatorship succeeds; the separation of the church from the State has given the French clergy a wider liberty of action. The priest is no longer the holder of civic and legal authority, but the church is always present in the private counsels of those in authority and in the official organisms through her individual commands. Her voice is not alien to the solutions of compromise, to the dilatory maneuvers which characterize French political laws or French diplomacy.

As to the Protestant fraction, it was easily carried away by the current. Worn out by centuries of suffering and clandestine existence, deluded by the tolerance engendered by the well-being and buoyancy of a new-found peace, it accepts many fatal compromises. It suffices to read the collection of sermons of the nineteenth century to understand the obsequiousness of the Protestant clergy, who with bewildering suppleness were able to praise in turn the imperial prestige and the benefits of the Restoration. Today, with the exception of a few centers authentically Calvinistic and biblical by tradition, the Protestant mass has well accommodated itself to the moral, political and social standard of the nation. Its leaders seem more inclined toward “Reformed clericalism” than toward a return to the principles of the Reformation. The nostalgia for church union has silenced all problems of doctrine.

One is amazed to see how much certain churches which pretend jealously to maintain Calvin’s conception remain bound to the sacramental practices of Rome. For fear of alienating a vast number of Protestants with Roman Catholic tendencies, their heads, though evangelical, disapprove of pastors who refuse to baptize indiscriminately the children of the faithful and the children of unbelievers. The synodal assemblies bring forward again and again the question of the sacraments. Concerning this question, an uneasiness weighs on these communities. One realizes that one day one should put an end to these practices of “baptisms” and of “confirmations” which are nothing more or less than Roman Catholic. But one does not dare to make a change. On the other hand, these same synodal assemblies integrate into the pastoral body with disconcerting ease and without previous tests former priests newly converted.

Persecution seems to have eliminated the true Huguenot substance of France, and Jesuit education seems to have weakened the conscience of the sons of Huguenots. The Jesuit order is the determinating factor in the political and social life and general behavior of the French people.

The constant changes of government, the social upheavals, the periodical scandals such as the Stavisky affair, under the Third Republic, the “leakages” affair under the Fourth Republic, can only be explained by the moral deviations of clerical education. In the same way, the reproaches addressed to the French—lack of seriousness in the handling of affairs, lack of civic spirit—must be attributed to this same education.

The success of the French communist party is above all imputable to clericalism. Our Anglo-Saxon friends, whose hysterical fear of Communism sometimes warps their perspective, should realize this fact. The Frenchman, barring some exceptional cases, is not Marxist. He is attached to his small property or to the small capital which is the fruit of his labor. Social laws in France are as advanced as in the most democratic of foreign countries. The economic standard is not below that of neighboring nations. Communism in France is chiefly anticlerical reaction. Its advance in the recent elections is chiefly owing to the collusion, more or less avowed, of the different republican parties with clericalism. This explains why the communist party, which in the National Assembly is the most numerous, in the nation itself plays but a fairly effaced role. Its opposition is always justified on philosophical grounds. It does not justify itself on the plane of social progress.

Hope For Renewal?

We believe there is hope for straightening out the situation in France, if past experiences are taken into account and if men act with courage and without delay, relying upon the elements of promise which are as yet uncontaminated.

The ill being essentially of a spiritual nature, the redress of France may be a spiritual redress.

The failure of the Reformation in the sixteenth century should not augur a new failure. The constitutional and social conditions of the nation are today totally different.

On the other hand, however marked the French people are by the pharisaical turn of mind, they show themselves more and more detached from Roman Catholic practices. The people are psychologically open to a spiritual renewal. Religious meetings, stripped of all ecclesiastical stamp, are generally well attended, and sects of diverse kinds attract followers more than ever. The churches have lost all credit with the masses, but the Bible, almost totally unknown, is favorably accepted.

Therefore we are convinced that the hour has come to launch into France missionary teams of evangelists and scholars whose task will be the conversion of souls and the study of the Word of God. This work must be carried out by the French, but with the indispensable cooperation of believers from abroad.

Those who believe in the power of a new life through the Bible and in regeneration through the blood of Christ, and who do not want France to perish but who desire her renewal, take an interest in the evangelization of the French, and make this the subject of their prayers.

END

On The Late Hungarian Massacre

The blood of our brothers cries out from the ground,

As Rachael our mother weeps over her slain,

Fallen at Kilian. Again we are bound;

And alone we tread out the winepress in pain.

In words, multitude, the nations now clamor,

Resolve, passing censure against the oppressor,

While thousands desert the dread sickle and hammer

At the frightful exposure. They seek a confessor.

But the foe, crafty, taunts us, “Men forget past events,

And your plea, ‘Come and help, lest you suffer our fate,’

Will be drowned in the din of new world ferment.”

Even now in our ranks some murmur, “Too late.”

Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by,

That a people, a nation, for freedom now die?

F. MARK DAVIS

Dr. André Lamorte served for 15 years as Dean of the Faculty and as Professor of Theology at Aix-en-Provence in France. More recently he has been active in “France Evangelisation,” a movement aggressively interested in Bible study and evangelism. He holds the Th.D. degree from Montpellier and in 1954 was named attache to the National Center of Scientific Research.

Cover Story

Psalms: Heart of the Old Testament

J. Kenneth Grider

Here you have words that have soul in them and that lift up the soul. Words that have music in them and that set one’s spirit soaring. Words that have tears in them and that talk it out with you when you have dark days.

The thoughts in the Psalms are as warm as sunshine, as human as a baby, as personal as the next door neighbor’s greeting. They are living experience written out with incandescent words. Men sensitive to God’s marvelous works are stirred to their depths so that they think high thoughts about holiness and low thoughts about sin.

With the whole heart men poor in spirit here enter into Yahweh’s secret place and lose themselves in wondering adoration. They adore him as one many-sided in mercy, right ready to help all who pass through deep waters.

Not the shallow, fat-witted optimism that looks at troubles and laughs them off. Not that, here. Here you have candid camera shots. You see man as he is: sometimes in his midnights and sometimes in his noondays. And in his midnights you see him with his deep disturbed—really disturbed. Disturbed to the core, so that he hurts—out loud. Not with forced smiles does he look up, but with tears and sobs and anguish. He crys out to Yahweh. Crys out with wailing. And the Lord hears and delivers: hears and succors him; hears and shepherds him; hears and sets him singing—singing out of real victory and not out of a conjured up mental attitude that knows deep down it is not actually so.

A hymnbook sure enough. Lyrics and harmonies, rhythm of ideas and feeling—here you have them all. David, the Sons of Asaph, the Sons of Korah, and others—but mostly David—wing their way into the heavens here.

They Help The Persecuted

The Psalms were used in temple worship long ago. But they were soon loosed and given to the whole wide world.

At the Last Supper, just before the rendezvous with Judas, Jesus received strength for the gathering storm by the singing of a Psalm with the eleven.

These Hebrew songs that open the soul up on its Godward side helped Paul and Silas, jailed securely in Philippi. At midnight they broke out with psalms and God broke in with release.

The early Christians, dauntless in persecutions, hid the Psalms away in their hearts. Those who wrote the New Testament quoted them frequently. Of the 287 quotations from the Old Testament in the New, 116 are from the Psalter.

Martyrs through the centuries have been bolstered by the Psalms during their last moments. In the early days young and old faced lions in Roman arenas singing: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Ps. 34:1).

John Huss, a Protestant before there were any, was condemned to death in 1415 by the Council of Constance. He walked to the stake reciting Psalm 31, a part of which reads: “For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.… Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth” (vv. 3, 5).

And Savonarola. Mutilated in body, but with his right hand left him so that he could write a confession of conformity, he lay in his cell and composed a meditation on Psalms 31 and 41.

And take Martin Luther. As a professor in the University at Wittenburg he lectured for many years on the Psalms. He also preached from them often in the church he pastored in that city. He considered them to be the Bible in miniature. How he relished these pantings after God! He adapted several of them for a “New Churches” hymnal. Some have not realized that he first found justification by faith in the Psalms and only later saw its full orbed teaching in such New Testament books as Romans and Galatians.

Luther had his share of persecution. After his excommunication he was fair game for anyone. And the Diet of Worms in 1521 added its authority to his death sentence. With the German populace four to one for him it was thought unwise to execute the sentence. But until his natural death twenty-five years later it remained. In his trying times Luther’s strength was “renewed like the eagle’s” when he turned himself to the Psalms.

Protestants by the hundreds of thousands, during a century of persecutions, died for Christ. As they went to their death on the scaffold or in the flames many of them sang, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24).

Their Use Otherwise

The Psalter was “the first book which the early church put into the hands of her young converts, the primer of her religious teaching: and no man could be admitted to the highest order of the clergy unless he knew the Psalter by heart” (James Robertson, Poetry and Religion of the Psalter, pp. 7, 8).

John Paterson says, “No other book appears to have entered so deeply into the general life of humanity” (The Praises of Israel, p. 8). Many noble families of England have lines from the Psalms inscribed on their coats-of-arms. Sundials, coins, and even sword blades have been engraven with passages from this literature. Of their wide use F. B. Meyer writes: “In palace halls, by happy hearths, in squalid rooms, in pauper wards, in prison cells, in crowded sanctuaries, in lonely wilderness—everywhere they have uttered our moan of contrition and our song of triumph; our tearful complaints, and our wrestling, conquering, prayer” (F. B. Meyer on the Psalms, p. 7). Samuel Terrien summarizes his wide studies in the Psalms to say of them: “No other book of hymns and prayers has been used for so long a time and by so many diverse men and women” (The Psalms and Their Meaning for Today, p. vii). And one cannot forget that T. H. Robinson declared: “No other part of the Old Testament has exercised so wide, so deep, or so permanent an influence on the life of the human soul” (The Poetry of the Old Testament, p. 107).

A Psalm prepared Wesley’s inwardness for Aldersgate. We all know that his heart was “strangely warmed” as he heard the reading of Luther’s preface to the Epistle of Romans. But in his Journal, in the paragraph preceding the account of his conversion one evening, he tells us that that afternoon at St. Paul’s he had heard an anthem from the Psalms which had contained these words: “If thou, Lord, will be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? But there is mercy with thee; therefore thou shalt be feared. O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his” sins.

Luther and Calvin fostered Psalm singing, along with hymns like Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” But English-speaking Protestants long sang only the Psalms, considering that in worship services all words sung should be from the Holy Scriptures. They made metrical versions of the Psalms, for something had to be done to align them with the requirements of their developing sense of music. That way there was rhyme; but more important, there was definite meter so that the Psalms could be fitted to tunes. With Isaac Watts, however, there developed a new practice: that of singing paraphrases of the Psalms. This was done so that more New Testament teaching could be included in them.

Soon Watts, Charles Wesley, Toplady, William Williams, and others were writing hymns. These hymns were often based on Scripture, and frequently on the Psalms. Take Isaac Watts’

Jesus shall reign where e’re the sun

Does his successive journeys run.

Psalm 72 inspired it, verse eight of which reads: “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth.” Can we proceed without mention also of Watts’, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past?” Psalm 90 had helped him on that one. Watts had read, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (v. 1).

A Concluding Word

In the Psalms, surely, you have the heart of Old Testament religion. In them deep calls to deep, souls speak out in their dark nights, spirits have their sinews strengthened. From the Apostles to Wesley, and onwards, we have rightly cherished this inward heart-history of Israel as an integral part of our Christian heritage. Let modern Hegels and Schleiermachers discard them if they must. But we will keep them near, even in physical proximity to our New Testaments in many pocket editions. For while we might not want to baptize them into Christ, we nevertheless find in them the language of which hallelujahs and amens are born.

END

God’S Dimension

When mankind lays the age of time to sleep

By his methodic questing after cause

Of death, the single tenuous strand that draws

A screen across the Chalice true men keep,

Then God’s eternal watch beyond the deep

Of years will bring to focus all the flaws

Humanity has sanctioned by her laws

And Christ will be the Shepherd of His sheep.

Each soul will rise reclothed in his new face

To greet that dawn of ever-lucent day

Beyond earth’s old dimensions, time and clay.

And all will see the aureole God gives

To men whose faith in His unceasing grace

Proves God’s long-sought-for Kingdom ever lives.

JOHN RENWICK TAYLOR

J. Kenneth Grider is Professor of Systematic Theology at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He holds the B.D., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees, the latter from Trinity College, Glasgow. Formerly, he taught in Pasadena College.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube