Cover Story

Luther’s Doctrine of Inspiration

J. Theodore Mueller

The recent almost world-wide Luther renaissance, which has again made the Reformer’s teachings a matter of popular interest, has also produced a renewed discussion of his doctrine of biblical inspiration. Conservatives appeal to him for support of their position as well as the neo-orthodox and the neoliberals.

Since all quote passages from his writings to substantiate their claims, it would appear that Luther held heterogeneous and conflicting opinions on this issue. The resulting confusion justifies the question as to what Luther really believed and confessed with regard to the doctrine of biblical inspiration.

Luther’S Opposition To False Views

Only when we view the objective of Luther in its proper perspective can we rightly gauge his attitude toward Scripture. But this will lead us also to assign to him his rightful place as a true reformer of the biblical doctrine of Scripture in general over against the erroneous views of his day. As the first of the evangelical church reformers, Luther had to blaze a new Scripture-oriented trail through a veritable theological jungle of errant opinions in which Scripture, tradition, reason, mystic intuitions and the like were hopelessly jumbled.

Luther’s interest therefore was not attached primarily to the doctrine of inspiration, as was, for instance, that of the later Swiss divines. He accentuated, above all, what is now commonly known as the sola scriptura, that is, the proper source and norm of the Christian faith and life. That exalted position and function of Scripture Luther endeavored to establish and clarify against the Romanist view of Scripture plus church tradition, the humanist view of Scripture plus reason and the enthusiast view of Scripture plus private revelation.

The Bible’S Authority Decisive

To all these varying forms of unequally yoking together “what God says” and “what man says,” Luther once for all called a halt. Very early in his career as an evangelical reformer, he recognized that he could not maintain the central Gospel doctrine of Scripture, the glad tidings of salvation by grace alone through faith in Christ, unless the Bible alone is accepted as the decisive authority in religion.

He knew from both Scripture and experience that the sola gratia, or the sola fide, is a message of divine revelation, entirely foreign to a false church tradition, perverted human reasoning, erroneous mystic speculation, alleged private revelation and other standards which rationalizing theologians of all sorts desired to place side-by-side with Scripture as normative for doctrine and life.

Luther rightly maintained that the Christian way of salvation by grace through faith in the redemptive blood of Christ can come only from God Himself, and not from philosophy or any other manifestation of human thought. It was thus in the interest of the sola gratia that Luther so greatly stressed the sola scriptura. It was also for this reason that he inculcated the entire body of Christian truth from the viewpoint of Christ crucified and risen for sinful man’s deliverance and justification. Luther’s whole theology was indeed Christocentric, but this absolute Christocentric orientation did not flow from any speculative motif. His evangelical teachings were centered in Christ simply because, as he puts it, Christ is the beginning, middle and end of Scripture. Over against the vainglorious arrogance of perverted human reason his theology proved itself triumphantly theocentric.

Protest Against Rome’S Position

To understand properly Luther’s doctrine of biblical inspiration, we must keep in mind, moreover, that in the interest of the sola scriptura Luther also rejected, on the one hand, the false Romanist synthesis of the canonical Scriptures and the Apocrypha and on the other, the Romanist equalizing of the New Testament Homologumena and Antilegomena. Since neither Christ nor the apostles quote the Apocrypha of the Old Testament and since, moreover, Jewish tradition did not accept them as a part of the canon, Luther regarded it as an impious undertaking on the part of Romanism to place them on the same level with the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament. Luther’s protest against the Romanist attempt at placing on the same level the Homologumena, that is, the universally received books of the New Testament, and the Antilegomena, or those that were not unanimously received, such as James, Jude, Hebrews and others, was not quite as stern as was his repudiation of the Apocrypha. Nevertheless, he held that since the ancient Christian church, which alone was capable of deciding this matter, had made this distinction, the later (Romanist) church had no authority to abolish the established difference. This conviction largely explains Luther’s well-known condemnation of the Epistle of St. James.

Development In Luther’S Thought

At this point, however, it should be stated in justice to Luther that he later somewhat modified his earlier opinions on the Antilegomena. Thus his last preface to the Epistle of St. James is much more favorable than was his first.

Luther therefore should not be judged merely from certain expressions, often quoted without due consideration of the context, but from his theology as a whole, and that especially in its later development. There is no doubt that Luther increased in wisdom and stature as year by year he occupied himself with the profound Gospel content of Scripture. Hence, what the “young Luther” said must be compared with what the “mature Luther” had to say.

At the beginning of his work as a reformer, Luther had no dependable pattern to go by. Even so helpful a guide from the ancient church as St. Augustine usually failed him, as he faced doctrinal or exegetical problems. Then, too, it should be remembered that Luther was an extremely busy man who commonly wrote under heavy pressure. At one time he complained that his manuscript was taken from his desk by the printer even before the ink could become dry. That accounts largely for what has been called the “uncritical character” of his writings. Lastly, it may be noted that Luther was lacking in the literary punctiliousness, or precision that characterized, for example, such scholars as Melanchthon and Beza. Luther’s writings are like rugged gems, usually unpolished and often unfinished in form, but gems, nevertheless. Therefore the student of Luther may occasionally find in his theological treatises lapses or even contradictions, though these do not pertain to essentials, but to peripheral or accidental matters and may largely be explained by their orientation and emphasis.

But with regard to the doctrine of biblical inspiration there is nothing in his works that denies the verbal and plenary inspiration of the canonical books of the Bible. In Luther’s estimation every canonical biblical book is God’s Word, no matter whether it teaches a Gospel mystery or an intelligible precept and whether it pleases perverted human reason or not.

Champion Of Plenary Inspiration

While Luther did not use the scholastic terminology of the later Lutheran and non-Lutheran dogmaticians such as verbal or plenary inspiration, he in substance held what these terms signify, though he never taught what has been called a “mechanical dictation theory.” To him it sufficed that Scripture, given to perishing mankind by the merciful God through his divinely called prophets and apostles, is God’s own Word and therefore efficacious, authoritative, sufficient and perspicuous.

To Luther, God’s Word, set forth in Scripture, is never anything dead, but always something divinely alive, effective and powerful to work that which God wills, through the Holy Spirit operating in the written living Word. Therefore it must be regarded as efficacious and, as a divine message, also authoritative. But Scripture as the Word of God is also sufficient to quicken the hearts of men and convert them to Christ by a living faith, the Law humbling the conceited natural heart and the Gospel, the message of divine grace in Christ Jesus, as the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, engendering saving faith in Christ. For that very reason Scripture, in all its essential parts, is also perspicuous, or clear, though obscure portions occur in its prophetic utterances.

Luther very earnestly urged all students of the Bible to turn from such obscure passages and portions, if these should perplex them, and study with unabating zeal the divine plan of salvation in Christ Jesus, which Scripture everywhere sets forth in lucid terms. Luther himself never attempted an exposition of the Book of Revelation, which he regarded historically as deuterocanonical, and doctrinally as inexplicable in its prophetic visions.

The Central Interest Is Christ

On the other hand, Luther never wearied of expounding the fundamental Scriptures of sin and grace and to accentuate those Bible books that treat Christ, not because he regarded the others as non-inspired or less inspired, but because in his opinion Scripture serves no other purpose than to make men know, trust, love and follow Christ. Beyond that Luther did not develop the doctrine of biblical inspiration, not merely because there was no controversy on this subject, since both the Romanists and the Swiss reformers agreed with him on the doctrine of inspiration, but because he perceived no need of any further scholastic formulation of the doctrine. Nevertheless, essentially his teaching on inspiration is the same as that of the later Lutheran and non-Lutheran dogmaticians; for Christians who honestly accept what Scripture witnesses of itself are bound to reach the conclusion that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God and as such the only legitimate authority of doctrine and life, just as it is God’s power to convert and sanctify sinners, sufficient for man’s salvation and clear in all its teachings that pertain to man’s salvation.

Luther never changed or modified his doctrine of biblical inspiration which he had inherited from his medieval teachers, namely that Scripture, given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is God’s own saving Word. Having been made a “Doctor of Sacred Scripture,” on October 19, 1512, he, at Wittenberg, eagerly took over the prescribed lectures on the Holy Bible, the so-called Lectura in Biblia, which obligated him to offer continuous discourses on Scripture.

What Scripture Says, God Says

In spring, 1513, he began to expound the Book of Psalms, to which he devoted that entire year. In these his first lectures he again and again impressed upon the students his conviction that the Scriptures are God’s Word, and that therefore such expressions as “God speaks” and “Scripture speaks” must be regarded as interchangeable. Luther thus says, to quote but a few of his many statements on this point: “The Scriptures are divine; in them God speaks, and they are His Word” (Weimar Ed., III, 41,6; 451,26). In 1520 Luther published his famous polemic Concerning the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, in which he states that the church has no authority to set forth new divine promises of grace “… (but that) God’s Word stands incomparably high above the church” (W. VI,561). In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, he refused to recant his statements against the Roman church, because he “was overcome by the Scriptures” and his “conscience was taken captive by the words of God” (W. 7,838). According to Luther, Scripture is always above the words and wisdom of men, because it is God’s own Word.

That remained Luther’s doctrine of biblical inspiration till the end of his life. To him the canonical Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament were at all times the authoritative Word of God and this he asserted over and over, almost ad nauseam. In matters of salvation only Scripture is to be believed, and not any pope or church council, for my faith must be certain and have a sure foundation in Scripture (W. 15,195). Whatever is asserted without Scripture or without its sure revelation need not be believed (W. 6,508; 10,2,191; 2, 297,279,309,315). The true God speaks in Scripture, wherefore we must accept in simple faith what it says (W. 40.2,593). Whatever Paul says, the Holy Spirit says; and whatever is contrary to Paul’s word, is contrary also to the Holy Spirit (W. 10.2,139 f.). The apostles received the Holy Spirit; therefore their words are God’s Word (W. 40. 1,173 f.). So, then, Scripture is God’s Word and not the word of men (W. 5, 184; 8, 597). God is the author of the Gospel (W. 8,584). The Holy Spirit is the author of Genesis (W. 44,532). The Bible is the peculiar Scripture of the Holy Spirit (W. 7,638; 46,545; 47, 133).

Studies Of Luther’S Doctrine

Dr. Reinhold Seeberg, from whose Die Lehre Luthers (Vol. IV) of his Dogmengeschichte (Leipzig 1933), we have quoted these thoughts and words of Luther, rightly remarks: “Such quotations (from Luther) could easily be multiplied.” That is true, and there are many that have performed this task. Luther’s doctrine of biblical inspiration has been very adequately and convincingly set forth by Dr. M. Reu, in his excellent book Luther and the Scriptures (1943). It has been treated still more comprehensively by Dr. Francis Pieper in his three-volume Christian Dogmatics (English translation, 1950). More briefly the writer of this has summed up the matter in his Christian Dogmatics (1934).

A fair and unbiased study of what Luther has written time and again on biblical inspiration should convince any reader that he always and fully recognized the canonical books of the Old and the New Testament as the inspired Word of God, from which a Christian dare not depart nor to which he dare add anything.

Luther acknowledged no degrees of inspiration. He did not look upon some books of Scripture as more inspired than other but considered all canonical books of the Bible to be equally inspired, though not equally important for Christian study so far as the way of salvation through faith in Christ is concerned; for first, as he says, those writings deserve consideration that set forth the fundamentals of sin and grace.

It is commonly said that Luther took over the doctrine of biblical inspiration from his medieval teachers. Rightly understood, that statement may stand. But medieval theology did not develop a peculiar doctrine of its own concerning biblical inspiration. It rather taught what has always been the belief of the Christian church, ever since the time of the church fathers, the apostolic fathers and the blessed apostles themselves, who in their teaching of biblical inspiration followed their divine Master.

A Sacred Tradition

To Christ, the entire Old Testament canon was the inspired Word of God, which he quoted authoritatively as the divine Word, and that not merely according to its general scope, but according to its particular passages or statements. To establish monogamy as the divinely instituted form of marriage over against his opponents, he quoted Genesis 1:27 (Matt. 19:4). To repulse the temptations of Satan he quoted distinctive Scripture passages against him from the Old Testament (Matt. 4:1–11). To our blessed Lord, the Old Testament passages were the authoritative divine Word, and in that sense they were understood also by his adversaries, Satan no less than the Pharisees and Sadducees.

This was the practice also of St. Paul, who as a called apostle of Jesus Christ did not only proclaim in divinely inspired words the divine truths revealed to him (1 Cor. 2:12,13) and wrote by divine inspiration the “commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37) but also, in support of his apostolic teachings, quoted Old Testament passages as, for instance, Habbakuk 2:4 (Rom. 1:17).

That was done also by the other apostles, so that from the days of Christ and his apostles up to the time of crass rationalism the canonical Scriptures of the prophets and apostles were unanimously regarded in Christendom as the divinely inspired Word of God.

High View The Prevalent One

This fact was incontestably affirmed some years ago by the learned German theologian, Dr. H. Echternach, in a treatise on biblical inspiration entitled The Lutheran Doctrine of the Autopistia of Holy Scripture, which he delivered before a convention of Lutheran pastors and professors at Berlin Spandau in 1951. He wrote inter alia: “The infallibility of Scripture was the consensus of the church, irrespective of denominational lines, until long after 1700 A.D.” Again: “Lutheran theology … refused to surrender the doctrine of inspiration also for another reason. It was aware of the heinousness of false doctrine, something the moderns have lost.… The 17th century still knew something of ‘being constrained by the truth’ and of the moral implications of religious knowledge. It therefore recognized that both in the secular and in the ecclesiastical realm every error is blasphemy and soul-murder” (cf. Concordia Theological Monthly, April, 1952; pp. 241 ff.).

Acceptance Of The Biblical Witness

Luther took the Bible seriously. When, for example, it declares: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), or: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Tim. 3:14), he accepted these statements as the inspired Word of God from which neither he nor any other person had the right to deviate.

Modern liberalism gave up this doctrine of biblical inspiration and with that fatal surrender also the objective Christian truth of Scripture, which Luther valued so highly. It lapsed into a deadly subjectivism tantamount to religious agnosticism; indeed, that tolerating human error and repudiating as false the Gospel of Christ’s free and full salvation as taught in Scripture.

But this agnostic subjectivism is not only subversive of all positive supernatural truth; it is also unfair to Scripture which approaches man as a divine Book, authoritatively demanding, as God’s own Word, both faith and obedience. If this divine Book, the glory of the Christian world, with its Spirit-inspired message of salvation, is not given a chance to sanctify sinners and transform our perishing civilization by its preserving moral precepts, the light of Christ will fail our western peoples as darkness once fell upon rebellious Israel when it declined to listen to the warning of the prophet: “To the law and testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20).

Luther predicted that very thing to his own generation and people. Those who know history know what has happened. There is much that his prophetic voice may tell our own age on how to regard and treat the inspired Scriptures of God.

END

We Quote:

DANIEL A. POLING

Editor, Christian Herald

Always the high purpose, the veritable passion of the Reformers, was to know God through Jesus Christ; to open and release the Bible as the Word of God; to bring men, as individuals, to redemption, and to save the whole world, its institutions and its peoples from sin—sin corporate and personal. Always the message of the Reformation was, and always it must be, just this; Jesus Christ, Who is Very God of Very God, the one and only sufficient Saviour.—From a Reformation Day sermon November 4 in Jacksonville, Florida.

J. Theodore Mueller, whose earlier years were spent instructing in Lutheran colleges and serving Lutheran churches, in 1921 began his long and useful career as Professor of Systematic Theology and Exegesis at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. His books include Luther’s Commentary on Romans and The Lutheran Confessions. Born 1885, he received the Th.D. degree from Xenia Theological Seminary in 1927.

Theology

The Prayer of the Five Widows

Elisabeth Elliot

An account after the Auca ambush in Ecuador, from CT’s seventh issue.

11th November 1966: Kimo, one of the Auca Indians of Ecuador who killed five visiting missionaries, visits London in the company of Rachel Saint, the sister of one of the victims. Kimo is now a converted Christian, although he still displays the large holes in his earlobes which his tribe believe will keep them faithful to their wives.

11th November 1966: Kimo, one of the Auca Indians of Ecuador who killed five visiting missionaries, visits London in the company of Rachel Saint, the sister of one of the victims. Kimo is now a converted Christian, although he still displays the large holes in his earlobes which his tribe believe will keep them faithful to their wives.

Hulton Archive / Getty

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon a year ago, five young women were asking God for two things regarding their husbands: that they might be permitted to contact the Auca Indians again, and that they might be protected. As we sat in our jungle homes here in Ecuador, two in Arajuno, one in Shandia and two in Shell Mera, we little dreamed of the answer God was then giving. He answered both of those prayers, but, as is often the case with him whose thoughts are as far above ours as the heavens are high above the earth, his answer far transcended what we had in mind.

Silence on a Sand Strip

The second contact was given. Probably at about two-thirty in the afternoon at least ten Aucas arrived at the strip of sand where the men had set up their little camp. Having seen them some time earlier from the airplane, approaching the beach, the pilot had reported to his wife the anticipated contact. We can imagine the five, then, as the forest rang with their praises. They sang hymns together, committed themselves to the Lord once more and eagerly prepared for their longed for visitors. It was not long before savage yells, instead of hymns of praise, echoed through the forest, polished wooden spears slashed through the air and five young men lay dead on the Rio Curaray. Silence closed once more over the stand strip, and those beloved Indians returned nonchalantly to their thatched homes, to recount another killing to their waiting families.

When Christianity Today inquired about the burden in the hearts of the five widows of the Auca ambush in Ecuador (January 23, 1956), their reply suggested that this article might appear anonymously, since it mirrors the mood of all five women. Their scribe, however, was Elisabeth Howard Elliot. Graduated from Wheaton College (48) with a Greek major, she studied Spanish in Ecuador and, with a view to Scripture translation, studied the Colorado and Quichua languages in the west and east jungles there. In 1953 she married missionary-martyr Jim Elliot. Today at Shandia, on the headwaters of the Napo River, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon, where the only communication with the outside world is by radio and airplane, she works alone in Bible translation, literacy work among women, teaching and medical work at a government accredited school for boys. Marjorie Saint is now serving in Quito as hostess of the guest house for HCJB (The Voice of the Andes). Barbara Youderian continues to serve in the Ecuadorean jungles, at the outstation of Cangaime among the Jivaro headhunters. Olive Fleming plans to return to the United States to serve in the office of The Fields, a religious publication. Marilou McCully manages a home for missionary children in Quito.

The asked-for contact had been given. But what about the protection?

Protection from Disobedience

When the Lord Jesus prayed to His Father, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, he asked, too, for protection for those whom the Father had given him. For what purpose? “. . . that they may be one, as we are.” Protection from what? “. . . that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one.” Each one of our five men, years before, had asked for the whole accomplishment of God’s will in him at any cost, to the end that Christ be glorified. The Evil One is determined, however, that Christ shall not be glorified. But, in making them obedient men, God had answered the prayer of his Son, the prayer of the men themselves and the prayer of their wives. The adversary did not succeed in turning them aside from Gods highest purpose. They were protected from that most fearful of all dangers, disobedience. They loved God above all else. “Herein is the love of God, that ye keep his commandments.”

The prayer of our hearts today, of the widows who remain, is the same, that Christ may be glorified.

Christ’s Glory in Some Aucas

First of all, we continue asking for that which motivated the men from the beginning of the project—that Christ may be glorified in some Aucas. The contact God gave to the five was only one step in the opening of the fast-closed doors to that tribe.

Nor was it the first step. Others had thought and prayed for years about them, asking for an entrance, flying over the territory in search of their whereabouts, seeking a way to carry to them the Word of Life.

Some of the five men had long borne them before the Lord, asking for their salvation and committing themselves to God for them.

Now, thousands of Christians in all parts of the world have learned of them and are praying.

For us who have been most closely touched by the death of the five, there could be no greater joy than to know at last that the blood of our husbands has been the seed of the Auca church. Our hearts go out to the very ones whose strong brown arms sent flying the lances that killed our loved ones, for we know that they walk in darkness, knowing not even the name of Him who is more than life to us. And how shall they hear without a preacher?

So we ask for those whom God has prepared to be sent to the Aucas and only those. A well-meaning but misguided effort could ruin further opportunities to enter the tribe. But because God has done a tremendous thing in taking five of His choicest servants in this incipient stage, we are bold to expect tremendous answers to prayer in the future. We believe He will send the Light to the Aucas and have given ourselves anew for that, if He should care to choose any one of us to go. We were wholly at one with our husbands in their desire to reach the Aucas and had it been possible, would gladly have accompanied them. The last thing on earth we would have wanted would have been to hinder them in obeying the command of Christ, which was as clear to us as it was to them. He was directing; the only issue at stake was obedience. Jesus made the conditions of discipleship unequivocal—“Forsake . . . Deny . . . Follow.” This is the price we are asked to pay.

Many speak of the five men as having made the “supreme sacrifice.” We do not think of it in that way. They would not have called it that. One of them wrote in his diary years ago, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Jesus promised that whoever loses his life preserves it. Can we call this sacrifice? When we make a purchase, we pay the price, of course, but no one thinks of this as a sacrifice. How much less, then, when our lives, already paid for by Christ at tremendous sacrifice on his part, are offered to him? We lose nothing. We gain everything. Hence, we ask that God may choose those whom He wishes to carry the gospel to the Aucas, that they may be prepared by his Spirit, that they may not count their lives dear unto themselves, and that thereby the Aucas may be brought out of their bondage to know Jesus Christ, that he may be glorified in them.

Christ’s Glory in Us

We ask, further, that Christ may be glorified in us. “For we know that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Our hearts are filled with gratitude for the privilege He gave us in being the wives of men who were chosen to be slain for His sake. None of us is worthy. It is all of His grace, but we know that the Lamb is worthy, a thousand times, the lives of our husbands and of us. He chose to glorify himself in their death—may He now glorify Himself in our lives.

During those harrowing days when the rescue party was on its way to the beach, when we did not know what the next radio report would bring, we were conscious that whatever the outcome, God was determined to bring us to himself. He had promised, “When thou passest though the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God. . . . Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee.” How could we have proved the truth of that promise if there had been no waters? And what rivers could overflow but deep ones? And so, to show us that he meant what he said, to prove to us his love, this was what he sent, this thing which each of us had been sure she could never endure, the loss of the one who was as her own soul.

Purpose in the Stab of Pain

And how, then, can Christ be glorified in us through this experience? By our responding with thanksgiving to his dealings with us, by our declaration of our love to him in utter obedience, by our believing that his judgments are right, that he in faithfulness has afflicted us. We ask that we may go on in peace, as he has mercifully permitted us to do thus far. In talking together, we have often said that we did not want to miss one lesson which our loving Father would teach us by this thing. To us, the loss of our husbands is not a tragedy in itself—it is one more of our Father’s right judgments. But it would indeed be a tragedy if, in our failure to respond to him with love, trust, and praise, we should miss what he intended for us through it. We ask that we may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. If, through the loss of our husbands, we may cause Christ to rejoice, to see in us the travail of his soul and be satisfied, we shall never call it sacrifice. Each day, when little things remind us, with a new stab of pain, that our husbands are gone, we turn these things into prayer—“Lord, by this, too, glorify thyself. For this, too, I thank thee and trust thee, knowing that there shall be glory, as thou has promised, through this suffering.”

Christ and the Little Ones

Not only do we ask that Christ be glorified in the Aucas and in us, but also in our children. Most of them will have no recollection of their fine fathers. But our Lord gave his word, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.” We ask for his wisdom in training them, for his Spirit in us, that they may be as obedient as their fathers. How wonderful it would be if he should prepare one or more of them to go to the Aucas! We would give them to him for his use, asking that they come to know him as Savior and Lord at an early age. Far be it from us to withhold from the Lord the lives of these little ones, children of the men who did not withhold their own lives. May they sing from true hearts,

Faith of our Fathers, Holy Faith,
We would be true to Thee till death.

Wherever the Spirit Speaks

Finally, we ask that Christ be glorified in the lives of those to whom the Spirit of God has spoken because of the death of the five men. We have received letters from all over the world, telling of the impact of the event on one and another. But we have heard of few who have actually done anything about it, who have been changed by it. We pray earnestly that those who have heard the voice of the Lord may be obedient. We pray that young men who have been attracted by the “opportunities to use their talents for the Lord in the United States” may abandon themselves, with their talents, to Christ, for his use wherever he wants them. We pray that if any young wife is hesitating to commit her husband and family to God, through fear of loss, she may believe the words of our Lord Jesus, “Truly I say to you, there is no man who hath forsaken . . . who will not receive.” We have proved beyond any doubt that he means what he says—his grace is sufficient, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We pray that if any, anywhere, are fearing that the cost of discipleship is too great, that they may be given to glimpse that treasure in heaven promised to all who forsake.

And all our supplication is “with thanksgiving”— for his great love, for the high privilege of serving him with all of our hearts, for having given us as husbands men who were true soldiers of Jesus Christ, men to whom we could look up in every respect, men who set for us a great example of faith that acts on what it believes. We look forward with joy to that day when God will reveal to us his complete plan, knowing that we shall see clearly that every step of the way was ordained to the end that Christ might be glorified. Our husbands already walk with him, their joy complete. We, too, shall see him face to face, and be satisfied.

This hath He done, and shall we not adore Him?
This shall He do and can we still despair?
Come let us quickly fling ourselves before Him,
Cast at His feet the burden of our care,
Flash from our eyes the glow of our thanksgiving,
Glad and regretful, confident and calm,
Then through all life, and what is after living,
Thrill to the tireless music of a psalm,
Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and
through sinning,
He shall suffice me, for He hath sufficed:
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning,
Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.
(From St. Paul, F. W. H. Myans)

Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: January 07, 1957

G. C. Berkouwer

Goethe once remarked, after Immanuel Kant wrote in 1793 about the radical evil in the heart of man, that Kant had dirtied his philosophical robe with the stain of original sin. Others were more concerned to say that the philosopher had insulted humanity. This was understandable, for the expression Kant used reminded people of the Reformation doctrine of the corruption of the human soul. And this was a confession sternly maintained in the face of Humanism, which proceeded from belief in the profound and ultimate goodness of the human heart. The bitter encounter between Kant and Goethe is often cited in books concerning humanity, but it brings to mind for our purpose a problem that transcends the dispute between these two thinkers. The question is: what can we expect of man? Can man rely on man and can he trust himself to be led by man?

There were those in Kant’s time who were willing to forgive Kant for a notion that could be explained by means of the influence on him of his family tradition. But most people judged that he went much too far. If he had to speak of humanity, there were other, better things to be mentioned. It is, however, actually remarkable that Kant’s severe judgment concerning man’s radically evil nature had a bright side. For with Kant too there appeared, at the last moment as it were, an escape from this corruption. He spoke, indeed, of a revolution that was required in the perspective of man in order to make good his rescue. But though he compared this revolution with the biblical talk of the re-birth, he found the solution in human freedom by which man could arrive on his own steam. In the light of this, it is questionable whether Kant actually gave Goethe very much reason for his protest.

In the meanwhile, this anecdote may set us to some serious thought in our own time when the question of man has again been pushed into the foreground. In the history of thought we can see a tendency again and again to hold high the value of man and to refuse to minimize his capacities. We see this in Humanism, which, in various forms, never fully recedes from history. It was inexplicable for Erasmus, for example, that Luther refused to teach the free will of man, that he insisted on talking of the bondage of the will. Erasmus had more respect for man. And it is understandable that he is still the patron saint of Humanism.

After the Second World War, the “Humanist Association” was established in the Netherlands. An appeal was made (after the catastrophe) to fill in the ranks and get going again. The appeal was to the basic humanity of the people. It is interesting that great disillusionments often awaken new trust in man. Evil is explained by circumstances. The possibility is held out of going back to the deeper forces of human personality. No matter how many disillusionments man may suffer, he remains faithful to his confidence in the resources of humanity.

In our time, however, many humanists are saying that we cannot, as previously, be unqualified optimists. There is a recognition of dark and demonic powers working in man—an admission that humanists must this time be realistic humanists. The horrible aberrations of human life are so manifest that humanists cannot themselves go on talking simply about the goodness of man. The eloquence of anti-Semitism and the concentration camps is too persistent to be avoided. Still when the chips are down, the light shines through. The great conflict which according to the New Testament was engaged and won by Jesus Christ is assumed instead by mankind; it is thought that man himself shall yet appear as the victor in this present battle.

One wonders what the background of this perennially renewed confidence in man might be. Will this confidence never fail? Shall the dogma of man’s innate goodness continue to persist in this age when the shocks that humanity suffers have been so terrific that some human acts have been universally branded as inhuman? After the Neurenburg trials, one responsible writer wrote that such criminals were not to be regarded any longer as human. This is too simple a way to dispense with the grotesque aberrations of humanity. This brings us close to Phariseeism; it is a way of holding ourselves aloof from these crimes. No, whatever darkness closes in on us in this age, we shall have to confess that it is the darkness of humanity, of the humanity of which we are part. We cannot get rid of the darkness by raising ourselves above it.

The confession concerning the evil of man has persistently been explained as a form of pessimism. Augustine was accused of Manichean influences in his confession of the evil in man. (Augustine was a Manichean for nine years.) The same pessimism was charged to the Reformers. But the Reformation confession of man’s evil has nothing to do with pessimism. The Christian Church was concerned about the burning question of man’s self-redemption, a question which hovers in the background of many streams of thought in our own time. It is relatively unimportant whether one looks for this self-redemption through the state, society, or from man in his individual striving. For in all these forms of self-redemption we have to do with the healthy who are in need of no physician. Christ spoke his most sharp and revealing word against such people.

In the confession concerning the radical evil of man we are not dealing with a more or less pessimistic or optimistic mentality. We are faced with the decisive question of redemption. For this reason, it is not surprising that the questions arising around Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of men are followed by questions concerning man himself. In our own time one of these questions is that of human freedom. The existentialism of Sartre is freighted with this very problem. The entire human existence is set on the fork of the freedom of man, who must develop his life without reference to dependence on divine power. But there is also recognizable in Sartre a profound resistance to grace. Man, refusing to capitulate to grace, must always blaze his own trail in freedom to freedom. He must also recommend freedom to the children of his time. We are wondering just now whether existentialism has seen its day or whether it is yet expanding its influence. We need not wager an answer to this, though we do note many who are saying that in existentialism life is delivered to chaos. More important for us, however, is that in every adventure in self-redemption the Gospel of Jesus Christ is and remains the great scandal. This says again that the struggle of the Gospel shall be part of our ministry until the Last Day.

Books

Book Briefs: January 7, 1957

Milford Sholund

Lessons For 1957

The Douglass Sunday School Lessons, by Earl L. Douglass. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.95.

The International Sunday School Lessons and the International Bible Lessons for Christian Teaching are used in Sunday schools throughout the world. Sunday school teachers and leaders looking for stimulating commentaries on these lessons will be rewarded in this volume by Dr. Douglass. For forty years this series of lesson expositions has been a favorite in the United States.

The author has organized the fifty-two lessons in a compact volume of 490 pages. The introductory material for each lesson includes the Scripture reading, devotional reading and daily Bible readings with the printed text from the Scriptures for the lesson of the day. In addition, there are topics designed to help the teacher develop the lesson for young people and adults. The lesson plan includes a simple outline usually with four points which is very helpful for the teacher.

The biblical exposition is simple, scholarly and conservative in interpretation. Pastors and Bible teachers will find a library of choice interpretations on the heart of the Scriptures.

The lesson plan includes a section on suggested questions and topics for discussion, “Suggested Questions and Topics for Discussion.” There are usually five questions for each lesson, thus simplifying the discussion period.

The entire series of studies are made relevant to practical life situations. The author succeeds in showing how to use the biblical text for a twentieth century problem. The first quarter studies include the Gospel of Matthew.

Ten lessons in the second quarter on Studies in Genesis consider the origin of perpetual human issues. The author stresses the point that life and salvation are the great truths of God’s Word.

Personalities of the Old Testament are made to live again in lessons for the third quarter. The lesson on Amos, Crusader for Righteousness, is an excellent example of making an ancient prophet of God speak the eternal truth for American people in the twentieth century. The Sunday school teacher will find abundant help on thirteen biographies.

The New Testament themes are drawn from I Corinthians, Philippians and Philemon in the last quarter’s lessons. The author succeeds again in bringing truth to life. In the lesson entitled, “That I May Know Christ,” page 459, based on Philippians 3:12–14, Dr. Douglass says, “First we observe that Paul realistically regarded life as a struggle. The modern idea that we can lie back and let peace and confidence come down upon us like the gentle rain from heaven, finds no support in the New Testament.”

Temperance lessons are seldom included in graded lesson series. Dr. Douglass has not only included helpful information on this subject, but he has applied the implications of the problem where it belongs. He shows by reliable data what the results of drinking do in automobile accidents, home life, military service and among youth in general.

He includes a bibliography of fifteen pamphlets and periodicals which every Sunday school leader can use, especially for high school students.

Milford Sholund

The New Eve

Christ and the Church, by L. S. Thornton. Dacre Press. 18s.

In this comparatively slender volume Dr. Thornton has given us the third and final part of his treatise on The Form of the Servant, and the thesis of its pages is, in the author’s own words, “that the whole mystery of the Christ is re-enacted in the church.” The relation of Christ to the church he sums up in the two terms identify and cooperation. The doctrine of identity centers around his concept of the church as the new Eve coupled with that of Christ as the new Adam: as Eve was formed from Adam’s side while he was in a deep sleep, so the church was formed when Christ “fell asleep in death upon the cross and his newly opened side became the site of the new creation.” The doctrine of cooperation centres around his concept of the church, the New Eve, as “the human agent through whom the obedience of the new Adam becomes effectual in all.” As is common with Anglo-Catholic theology, reconciliation is sought in incarnation rather than in atonement; hence Dr. Thornton’s emphasis on the “one flesh” concept: as Adam and Eve were “one flesh,” so he finds it possible to speak of Christ and the church as sharing “a common nature in organic identity” and constituting “a single organism in which Christ is the head and the church is the body.”

Those who are acquainted with Dr. Thornton’s earlier books will recognize the theme of organic identity: the created order is viewed as a progressive organic series in which each higher level contains and elevates all the lower stages of the organic series. It is in the Incarnation that, at last, the highest level is seen to be reached; indeed, according to Dr. Thornton, it is not until the Incarnation that the plan of creation is fully disclosed. On his premises, it must be concluded that the Incarnation would have taken place even if man had not sinned: for “the first creation was,” he says, “part of a much larger plan which was from the first Christocentric,” so that the form of the first creation “is determined by the necessity that it shall find its fulfillment in the Christ.” Accordingly he maintains that “the ‘place’ of reconciliation with God is the flesh of Jesus in which Christ and the church are one.” Further, in the Incarnation, ex hypothesi, the Son of God embraced “all flesh,” so that “the transfigured flesh of Jesus was the ‘all flesh’ of creation which he had taken to himself.”

Dr. Thornton assigns to the New Testament miracles of healing a sacramental quality, so much so that this miraculous ministry, bringing wholeness to man and thereby effecting the restoration of creation to its true destiny, is propounded by him as continued in the church through the sacraments and particularly in the Eucharist, “the new passover,” in which “the bread is transformed because it is there identified with the Lamb of God as the material of his eucharistie body.” This “creative identification” of the bread with the body of Christ is effected by the repetition “in a duly authorized way” of the words “this is my body” by Christ’s “human representative.” It appears that Dr. Thornton regards the healing faculty of the church, focused in the eucharist, as leading gradually to a universal restoration of all things, until at last “all flesh” will be “one flesh” in Christ and the evolutionary journey will have reached its goal. As for the form of the servant, it finds its primary significance within the framework of the self-sacrifice of the Messiah. As the sacrifice of paschal Lamb is defined as “the substance of worship in the redeemed order,” this leads again to the central significance in Dr. Thornton’s system of the eucharist.

It is not possible in the space of a brief review to deal adequately with the important questions raised by a work so closely woven in texture as this. Throughout, in his use and manipulation of Scripture, Dr. Thorton applies the allegorical method in a manner which would have delighted the more imaginative of the early fathers and which bids fair to rival the more esoteric exegesis of certain groups of the Plymouth Brethren, though it may be doubted whether either early fathers or Plymouth Brethren would find themselves able to approve of his major conclusions.

PHILIP E. HUGHES

Semi-Popular

Titles of the Triune God, by Herbert F. Stevenson. Revell, New York, 1956. $2.50.

In the foreword to this American printing of an English work, the following statement is made: “The Bible makes no attempt at a definition of God. What it does is to give us a wealthy characterization of God.” Thus the reader is introduced to the theme of this little volume.

First, a few words relative to the mechanics of the book. The chapters, in the nature of short essays, are organized into three groups: “God,” “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” and “the Holy Spirit.” For the most part, the author has followed a chronological or progressive line of development in the first division of his book and a topical or nominal one in the latter two. Nothing in the way of an exhaustive concordance is furnished.

Second, some remarks relative to the content. There are two basic types of names treated in such a study: those formed from a single word and those formed from a combination of words. In the former class are to be found those deriving content from the word itself, e.g., “Jehovah,” and those of a descriptive nature involving something of the metaphor, e.g., “rock,” “shield,” etc. In the latter class, the general rule submitted is that the first word retains its own meaning while the subsequent word or words is an additional “unfolding of His Person, or will, or provision for His people” (p. 37). New experiences sometimes demanded new names. In some instances these names were ascribed to God by men while in other instances they were pronounced to man by God. In passing from the first division into the second, one moves into an area in which some change in meaning is evident, i.e., prophetic names of the Old Testament move into their New Testament fulfillment in the Incarnate Son and words of common use are given a deep, sacred content. The author’s treatment of the third division, the Names of the Spirit, which he calls a major theme in the New Testament, is Trinitarian and shows how in this area one moves from the vague and implicit Old Testament treatment of the Spirit of God into the concrete and explicit New Testament treatment of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

Third, a brief criticism of the book. For a proper perspective, one must keep in mind what must have been the author’s purpose in writing the volume. It is, first of all, to fill the gap created by the lack of any book treating “all the names and titles of the Three Persons of the Trinity,” (p. 7). Thus the scope is extensive rather than intensive. It is, next, written “not … for scholars but for students—for just plain you and me” (p. 6). Thus the nature and tenor of the book is what one may call “semi-popular.” For the pastor, this book will be extremely suggestive homiletically; for the layman it furnishes a guide for profitable devotional study; and for the scholar, in either group, it gives a good “bird’s eye view” of the subject plus a four page bibliography. The author has not purposed to enter into the arena of theological debate and therefore the expression of his own personal views without development at points is only to be expected, e.g., “the gap theory” (p. 171), his millennial view (p. 87), etc. Occasionally there is, we feel, a tendency to overdo the typology element.

HEINRICH B. EILER

Intelligible To Laymen

God In His World, by Charles S. Duthie. Abingdon Press, Nashville. $2.50.

Testifying that “the events of my own life have compelled me, from very early days, to see how necessary it is to take Christian thought and Christian evangelism with equal seriousness” (p. 7), Dr. Duthie has been concerned to present a theology that will be intelligible to laymen and that will serve them well in their efforts to win others to Christ. Out of a background that includes the pastorate, the chaplaincy, teaching, and participation in the Tell Scotland Movement of evangelism, he writes with a passion and with an ability to state old truths in fresh ways.

The author recognizes that many who previously had no interest in things spiritual are today groping for something that will satisfy their hearts, and he is concerned that the Christian faith be presented to them in an intelligible form. His interest in doctrine is to the end that men may come to know Christ as He is offered in the Word, and that they in turn may be used to bring other groping souls to him.

This is obviously a worthy aim, and it is good to be able to report that in a real measure, the author accomplishes his purpose. Recognizing the importance both of working from the Gospel out to the situation of modern man, and from the situation of man back to the Gospel, he does both effectively. His writing is full of fresh spiritual insights, and whether he is dealing with our beliefs in the persons of the Godhead, or in the opportunities which confront the Church today, his treatment is vigorous and helpful.

Each reader will have his own favorites among the chapters of the book, but there are highlights here that should have the widest appeal. The presentation of the meaning of surrender in the closing chapter of the book, for example, is a masterpiece. Dr. Duthie describes it under the headings of capitulation, acceptance, communion and confidence. Developing these thoughts, he shows that in the biblical sense, surrender is giving in to God, taking in from God, drawing near to God and trusting in God.

All of which is not to say that there are not occasional disappointments in the book. Dr. Duthie gives a central place to Christ’s redemptive work on the cross, but he cannot quite bring himself to admit that Christ was punished for our sins (p. 33). He seems to feel that the formation of the World Council of Churches marks a major step forward in Christian unity. His acknowledged indebtedness to liberal scholars is at times disturbing. But without denying or minimizing these disappointments, it must be said that Dr. Duthie has something for us, and that his message is well worth heeding.

H. L. FENTON, JR.

Faith Fades Away

Sermons from an Ecumenical Pulpit, edited by Max F. Daskam. Starr King, Boston. $5.50.

The Unitarian fellowship of German-town (it doesn’t say where, but presumably that is the Boston influence) does not have a resident minister. Instead, this congregation invites prominent preachers of every faith to occupy its pulpit for a few Sundays at a time. The plan has been in operation for twenty years and if the sermons in this book faithfully represent the result, the pulpit committee must draw its names from Who’s Who among America’s pulpiteers. Niebuhr, Tillich, Paul Scherer, James Cleland, Van Dusen, Fosdick, McCracken and Norman Thomas are among the many who contributed one sermon each to this collection.

“But how,” Max F. Daskam, the editor, reports they often are asked, “can you have (all denominations) in one pulpit? Don’t they contradict one another?” By way of reply Mr. Daskam reports that it is their experience that “denominational differences tend to fade away as our guest ministers stress the great and eternal truths of our Christian faith.” He would have spoken more accurately had he said that in these sermons whatever is explicit about the Christian faith tends to fade away.

The sermons are collected under significant headings, such as: I. What Goodness for Man; III. The Nature of Jesus; VI. The Larger Hope. When the time comes for him to speak, Niebuhr affirms the impossible possibility of human perfection; Tillich, that one can be righteous and yet feel no relief because little is forgiven him; Rabbi David W. Wise, that a true God-concept is one which does not fractionalize the Universe, accepting pleasure, for instance, but not pain, but is one which accepts all of life and substance as a part of God and His never-ending process; Harry C. Meserve, that you understand Jesus when you see Him to have been a man who found his vocation, that of a religious teacher, and went about talking, “not even about God, or any significant religious idea, but about the life that he found around him” with its necessities to maintain faith amid corruption and to get along with other human beings; Cleland, that we must get to know Jesus if we are to fit our lives to the ethical discernments and demands of our Lord and Master, for only in loving Him will we grow more like Him until our new conduct becomes second nature with us—theologically, this means re-birth; Elton Trueblood, that true freedom follows the recovery of the disciplined Christian life; Bishop Oxnam, that the ideals of a peaceful world and a unified church can be kept alive if we keep close to Jesus who incorporated those ideals; and Halford Luccock, that Easter is far more than an affirmation about the length of life, it is a symbol of the reality and the triumph of the spiritual world, the miracle of a life lived in a new relationship to God.

These are beautiful sermons. They are so beautiful, in fact, that almost everyone would enjoy reading them. But I am reminded that it is occasionally possible to string beautiful sentiments together without preaching the Scriptures. And this book suffers from the scarcity of a clear Word unto Salvation.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Psychological Approach

The Pastoral Epistles and the Mind of Paul, by Donald Guthrie, Tyndale, London. 1s.6d.

This pamphlet of 44 pages reproduces the Tyndale New Testament Lecture for 1955; it deals with a subject to which the lecturer, who is Tutor in New Testament in London Bible College, has devoted special study for a number of years.

In contemporary discussions of the New Testament Epistles, it is generally taken for granted that the three Pastoral Epistles—the two addressed to Timothy and one to Titus—cannot, as they stand, be ascribed to Paul. Some regard them as completely pseudonymous (one German scholar has recently suggested that they were composed by Polycarp of Smyrna, martyred in A.D. 156); others recognize genuine Pauline fragments embedded in them. Among the latter the most eminent name is that of the veteran English scholar P. N. Harrison, whose painstaking study, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles (1921), has perhaps done more than any other work to convince scholars that Paul was not the author of these letters in their present form. Yet the case against Pauline authorship has not been permitted to make its way without contradiction; commentaries maintaining their authenticity have been produced in recent years by Jeremias in Germany, by Spicq in France, and by E. K. Simpson in England and the scholarship of these writers is unimpeachable.

Mr. Guthrie defends the genuineness of the three epistles from the psychological point of view. His approach involves linguistic and doctrinal considerations. Dr. Harrison laid particular stress on the differences in style and vocabulary between the earlier Pauline letters and the Pastorals. Mr. Guthrie does not challenge Dr. Harrison’s data, but claims that other data must be taken into account as well and that the inferences drawn from the data by Dr. Harrison are not so certain as many suppose. To make the situation clearer, he supplies at the end of his study (among other linguistic appendixes) a list of particles and other small words which constitute the connective tissue of language, comparing their use in the Pastorals with their use in the earlier epistles.

Paul’s increasing years and the changing needs of the church account for the less dynamic approach and more formalized theology of the Pastorals. In an examination of the summaries of the doctrine called the “faithful sayings,” Mr. Guthrie points out that, with the exception of that in 1 Timothy 3:1 (where, it might be added, the Western text reads “popular” instead of “faithful”), the doctrine summarized is thoroughly Pauline.

Mr. Guthrie does not shirk the difficulties which a defender of the epistles’ authenticity has to face, but he concludes that the difficulties inherent in the pseudonymous and fragmentary theories are greater, especially on the psychological side. His arguments ought to receive the serious attention of all careful students of the New Testament.

F. F. BRUCE

Christian Verse

The Valley of Silence, by Jack Shuler. Zondervan, Grand Rapids.

This well-printed and attractively bound volume contains 94 selections. Some of them are by such well known writers as Annie Johnson Flint, Grace Noll Crowell and Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and there is one each by John Greenleaf Whittier, Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens. Forty-two of the pieces are listed as by unknown authors. Sometimes a textual comparison with such a book as J. D. Morrison’s Masterpieces of Religious Verse would have improved the printed version, e.g., in “Making Harbor” where about half the first stanza is omitted in Shuler’s collection.

These selections are fairly uniform in quality. They belong, however, not to poetry proper but to verse. In the Foreword the publisher describes them as “writing for every occasion … the fitting conclusion to a sermon, the effective opening to a speech.” Verse lends itself to such ends; poetry does not. Genuine poetry operates in a different capacity than to gild the lily. It is not decorative but rather carries its own essential autonomy. It penetrates not with the pin prick of a self-evident moral but with a massiveness which is as freighted with meaning as life itself. Verse can afford to be facile, clever, ingenious. Poetry proper is original, expansive and generative. Verse may toy with an idea; poetry thrusts toward truth itself. Verse is generally satisfied with a mere twist of meaning; poetry presents the genuinely significant. Verse is descriptive; poetry presentational and symbolic. Verse is usually practical and didactic; poetry, if it is to be called functional at all, is functional at the root of man’s being. In a word, verse may deal with the surface of things, but poetry will content itself with nothing less than the center.

The selections in Mr. Shuler’s book are as good as the average of Christian verse, but too often they are marked by the inevitable characteristics—cliches, forced rhymes, padded lines and the like. The time is ripe for orthodox Christians with a gift for writing to attempt devotional verse in the great tradition of literature itself.

CLYDE S. KILBY

Simple Testimony

The Angel Spreads her Wings, by Maxine Garrison. Revell, Westwood, New Jersey.

This is a book about a book. Maxine Garrison, a friend of Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, tells the story behind the writing of Dale’s little book, Angel Unaware.

She tells the heartache and faith behind the writing of that beautiful volume and describes the way in which it was received by the public. Many quotes are given from letters received by Dale Rogers showing how her simple testimony of the mission of her frail, short-lived, Mongoloid daughter has inspired and comforted others, particularly those with similar experiences.

As interesting as it is, I regret that no mention is made in this book of the precise nature of Dale Evans’ faith. In Angel Unaware we see her insistence upon a proper relationship with Christ. Edwin Orr vouches for Dale’s genuine Christian faith in his book, The Truth Behind the Hollywood Christian Group. But if one reads Maxine Garrison’s book alone, he gathers, I am afraid, that Dale’s faith is some beautiful, mystical thing having little or no connection with orthodox Christian faith.

NORMA R. ELLIS

Composite Volume

Encyclopedia of Morals, edited by Vergilius Ferm. Philosophical Library, New York, 1956. $10.00.

Here is another composite volume edited by tha indefatigable compiler, Vergilius Ferm. The first entry on the Aboriginals of Yirkalla emphasizes the statement in the Preface that the material is not only philosophical but also anthropological.

Then when we come to Puritan Morals (12 pages, double columns), we find more description of their allegedly disagreeable conduct than exposition of theory. The articles on Aristotle, Kant, and Sidgwick are well written. The difficulties, particularly in the last two thinkers, are lightly touched on, as may be wise in an Encyclopedia; Aristotle receives more criticism, though the total effect is not so clear. Christian Moral Philosophy (49 columns) dates the Mosaic Law after the prophets and claims that the Pharisees were the legitimate heirs of Ezekiel, but in contrast with this radical view the author recognizes the eschatological theme of the Sermon on the Mount and gives a tolerably good account of Romans. Justification by faith is explained, and the infliction of a penalty on Christ is acknowledged.

As it is impossible to review every article in an encyclopedia, these must suffice as samples.

GORDON H. CLARK

News about North and South America: January 07, 1957

Sparks In Canada

Nearly 500,000 persons attended 125 rallies in the first two months of a national evangelistic mission conducted by the United Church of Canada.

“It is impossible to estimate the number of persons influenced by these missions,” said Dr. W. G. Berry, crusade director, “but reports show that large numbers came forward to make personal decisions for Christ.”

The missions were held in cities across the country. Leading speakers were Dr. Alan Walker of Australia, the Rev. Joseph Blinco of England and the Rev. Leonard Griffiths of Ottawa.

Dr. Berry said the missions are “only a small part of a much larger plan of the United Church to conduct the greatest evangelistic campaign in its history.”

The crusade, he said, will “challenge every area of Canadian life and culture with the Gospel. We propose to offer the Gospel not only to individuals but also to society as a whole and attack sin not only in personal life but also in social life.”

The missions will continue through 1957. Over 300 rallies are planned during the Lenten season. Speakers from overseas will include Dr. Charles Duthie, the Rev. Tom Allan of Scotland, Dr. Donald Soper and the Rev. William Gowland of England.

Giving Goal Soars

The present goal for total Southern Baptist Convention giving in the year 1964 is $728,000,000—including $189,000,000 in missionary and benevolent work.

In 1955 the total was $335,000,000, with $35,000,000 used for missionaries and benevolences.

The following goals have been set by the SBC executive committee:

1957–$364,000,000; 1958–$416,000,000; 1959–$468,000,000; 1960–$520,000,000; 1961–$572,000,000; 1962–$624,000,000; 1963–$676,000, 000.

Along another front, a survey has disclosed some interesting facts about the average Southern Baptist minister in Tennessee. In his survey, Professor Herbert J. Miles of Carson-Newman College, found:

They agree (90 per cent or more) that Southern Baptists should not join the National Council of Churches, should not ordain women to preach, should not take part in the Lord’s Supper outside a Baptist church and should not accept by letter a non-Baptist even though he has been immersed.

They disagree on such issues as capital punishment, integration of races and performing weddings where one party has been divorced.

The average minister is 41 years old, has been preaching 14 years and has held five pastorates.

Lutheran Merger

Representatives of four American Lutheran churches have agreed to proceed at once toward a goal of organic church union.

Delegates, at a meeting in Chicago, voted to form a constitution for a united Church that will include articles of doctrine as well as “practical matters of organization.”

Involved in the merger plan are the United Lutheran Church in America (2,270,000 members), Augustana Lutheran Church (536,000 members), Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (Suomi Synod) (35,000 members), and the American Evangelical Lutheran Church (20,000 members).

“We have among us sufficient ground of agreement in the common confession of our faith, as witnessed by the Lutheran Confessions, to justify further procedure,” delegates announced.

Sales On Sunday

The growing trend of Sunday selling throughout the United States received a slight setback when the New Jersey Supreme Court outlawed the Sunday sale of automobiles in the state by a 6–0 vote.

It was a victory for religious forces in the state. They have been conducting a campaign against the rising tide of business-as-usual on Sunday.

The state legislature last year enacted a law prohibiting the Sunday sale of automobiles. Its validity was attacked by two New Jersey used car dealers.

In June, Superior Court Judge Howard Ewart declared the law unconstitutional. He said it had· not been enacted to promote the general health, safety and welfare, but had as its main purpose the controlling of competition in the sale of new and used cars.

The high court’s opinion, prepared by Chief Justice Arthur T. Vanderbilt, rejected this contention. It maintained that the dealers were not being discriminated against because the ruling applied to all motor vehicle dealers and all were “protected in their businesses.”

Floundering Students

Recent surveys prove that theological students are not being adequately trained to grapple with modern church problems, Dr. Colin Williams of Australia said at the 70th annual meeting of the Theological Faculties Union of Chicago.

Dr. Williams, new professor of historical theology at Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Illinois, asserted:

“Too many unapplied content courses and too many ungospelized practical courses leave the student frustrated and floundering when he takes a church. There is a big time lag—20 years or more—between seminary graduation and the time a man gets into a church big enough to count, and by that time he has forgotten his theology.”

Dr. Williams expressed fears that American Protestantism “identifies Christianity with Eisenhower prosperity and fails to bring modern culture under the judgment of the Gospel.”

He added:

“Contemporary religion in the United States lacks an awareness of Christ’s Lordship and sovereignty, which involves a break with the world.”

The speaker urged teams of seminary professors to go out for workshop conversations with laymen of the churches in order to bring the needs of the churches and the teaching of the seminaries into better focus.

F.D.W.

Educators Retire

The second president of a Southern Baptist College to announce his retirement, in recent weeks, is Dr. D. M. Nelson of Mississippi College.

Exact date of the retirement was not announced.

Dr. Harwell G. Davis has reported he will retire as president of Howard College in 1958.

Dr. Nelson has been associated with Mississippi College for 50 years. A graduate there in 1907, he later served as professor of physics before succeeding Dr. J. W. Provine as president in 1932.

The college increased from 360 students to over 2,000 during his span as president.

In announcing his plans, Dr. Nelson said:

“We have thought that with the completion of the library and fine arts building and with three other buildings begun and on the way toward realization, we should transfer the responsibility of the presidency to younger and more capable shoulders.”

The board of trustees appointed a nominations committee to seek a successor.

No Giving Up

Pilot John Keenan, who replaced the martyred Nate Saint, has been flying, in recent weeks, over Auca villages discovered after the death of the five missionaries.

He reports that the famous “George,” the Auca man who visited the martyrs’ camp with his two companions, always appears friendly and that he has in his possession the model airplane last seen floating in the water near the bodies.

It has been noted that Auca houses are adorned with the tin strips used to cover the graves of the missionaries.

College To Close

Shurtleff College, Alton, Illinois, 129-year-old American Baptist College, will suspend operations on June 30, according to a vote by the board of trustees.

One of the mid-west’s oldest educational institutions, the college was founded by a famous Baptist home missionary, John Mason Peck, in 1847.

The college has been unable to finance the additional personnel and equipment necessary for accreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges. Its facilities probably will be taken over by Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, as a branch school.

Britain and the Continent News: January 07, 1957

Responsibilities

Dr. Regin Prenter, professor of theology at the University of Aarhus, has warned members of the Danish Parliament that too great a dependence upon government will stifle self-reliance of the people and make them incapable of democratic self-government.

Speaking at the annual worship service in Copenhagen, marking the opening of Parliament, he declared that “the greatest danger of the modern welfare state lies in its failure to acknowledge its limitations.

“The danger is that the State not only cares materially for those who are not able to take care of themselves, but that it will care both materially and spiritually for all of us … to such a degree that the personal responsibility of the individual is weakened by it.”

Taking as his text, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” Dr. Prenter praised “the far-reaching social legislation” of recent years which has “put an end to much human need and misery.”

“But,” he added, “a democracy can live only as long as there is a feeling of responsibility in the people. On the day when the politicians alone have any responsibility and all of us let ourselves be blindly led by them … democracy will be finished.”

Sharp criticism of the sermon was voiced by the Danish press. Editors took issue on the grounds that it was a “political sermon” rather than the “ordinary devotional service” customarily delivered on the opening of Parliament.

In response to the criticisms, Dr. Prenter said “a colorless church service is of no devotional value.” (He is chairman of the Commission on Theology of the Lutheran World Federation.)

Changes In Hungary

The presidium of the General Synod of the Hungarian Lutheran Church has acted in Budapest to widen a reorganization of the Church begun in the wake of the anti-Soviet uprising during October.

It confirmed the reinstatement of Dr. Jajos Ordass, head of the southern district and acting leader of the Church. The presidium announced that elections will take place this month to fill all other church posts, including bishoprics. Results of the elections are scheduled to be announced January 19.

The General Synod also reinstated all pastors who had been removed or suspended by the former Communist regimes for political reasons.

Bishop Ordass replaces Bishop Laszlo Dezsery, former head of the district which includes Budapest. Bishop Dezsery was named to the post, with the approval of the Communist authorities, in 1950, only a week after Bishop Ordass was released from prison, where he served 20 months of a two-year sentence for alleged “foreign currency manipulation.” Bishop Dezsery resigned recently and may soon quit the ministry.

The General Synod also named Bishop Zoltan Turoczy to replace, temporarily, Bishop Lajos Veto, another Communist appointee who resigned, as head of the Trans-Danubian district.

Digest …

Greater Manchester (England) Evangelistic Campaign, with the Rev. Joseph Blinco as speaker, scheduled March 23 to April 13, at Albert Hall. Mr. Blinco now serving as associate evangelist of Billy Graham team.

Africa + Asia + Australia News: January 07, 1957

Missionaries Slain

Half-civilized natives of Dutch New Guinea became enraged when their pigs began to die in large numbers.

Blame for the plague (thought to be pig-cholera) was laid on the intrusion of missionaries in tribal territory.

A native uprising was planned for November 3, but failed to materialize, according to information received by the American Mission of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Then, about two weeks later, the natives, armed with axes and knives, surrounded the mission, located near the border of Dutch and Australian New Guinea.

Twelve unarmed native missionary teachers were killed and the bodies dismembered, the Sydney Mirror reported. An airplane belonging to a European missionary was ripped apart.

Had the November 3 attack been on schedule, 12 American missionaries, plus the 12 natives, would have been caught at a mission service.

The uprising was brought under control when the Dutch flew Marines, with Sten guns and mortars, to the scene. Americans and Europeans were kept under police protection in a government building for several nights.

‘Godless Monopoly’

A new universal primary education plan initiated by the East Nigerian government has been denounced by Catholics as a “godless monopoly of education.”

Under the plan, all new schools opened in the region are to be government-controlled and managed by local officials, who will be free to invite religious bodies to supply temporary faculty members.

Jerusalem + Judea + Samaria News: January 07, 1957

Route Of Moses

Extensive surveys, tending to support the theory of some that Moses took a northern route through the Sinai Peninsula on his way to the Promised Land, have been completed by two teams of Israeli scientists.

One team, consisting of archaeologists, historians, philologists and geographers of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, explored the famous Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine at the foot of Mt. Sinai.

The other team, made up of archaeologists of the Israeli Department of Antiquities, investigated ruins in the Oasis of Kadesh Barnea, near the Israeli-Egyptian border north of Sinai.

At St. Catherine’s the scientists scrutinized and photographed manuscripts dating from the sixth century. Examination of the monastery buildings disclosed remains of a basilical church built by the Emperior Justinian in the fourth century, with only a chapel of the Burning Bush—a Crusader addition—still substantially intact.

The monastery was found standing on a Justinianic foundation on which were superimposed structures of the Crusader, Napoleonic and late 19th century periods.

Geographers surveyed a granite area between the monastery and the south Sinai coast. Archaeologists examined the ruins of a large fortified settlement at Wadi Feiran in ancient Paran. Paran, which reached its prime in the Byzantine period, was inhabited from the middle of the Iron Age to the early Arab period.

The scholars, headed by Dr. Benjamin Mazar, president of Hebrew University, reported they had found no remains of a middle Bronze Age, claimed to have been contemporary with the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

The second team found large quantities of pottery at Kadesh Barnea dating from the Patriarchal period, as well as remnants of a 10th century B. C. Judean fortress which had apparently been destroyed by the Babylonians. A wall three miles long protected the whole Kadesh area against nomadic tribes.

Unusual Infant

Noah, builder of the ark, was such an unusual infant that his father believed he had been supernaturally conceived and spoke to his wife “with vigor” about it.

This new light on the family life of Lemach, father of Noah, and his wife is contained in what is known as the seventh Dead Sea Scroll, the last to be unrolled, Dr. Yigael Yadin, one of Israel’s leading archaeologists, disclosed.

Dr. Yadin, former chief of staff of the Israeli army, is now on the staff of Hebrew University. He and a colleague, Dr. Nahman Abigad, have translated five columns of the scroll.

The account, said Dr. Yadin, is written in Aramaic “in a very pleasant hand” on the hairy side of what is believed to be goatskin. He said it was so brittle that only an inch or two could be unrolled at a time.

In the scroll, Lamech, speaking in the first person, tells of his growing fear that the boy he thought was his son was really the child of “the Watchers, the Holy Ones or the fallen angels.”

He explains that his fear was induced by the unique qualities of the child. Lamech describes the infant as having a body “white as snow and red as the blooming of the rose,” with long locks of hair “white as wool” and eyes that lighted up the house “like the sun” when he opened them.

The scroll then tells how Lamech confronted his wife and how she, finally “growing wrath,” swore by the “Most High Lord of Greatness and King of the World” that Lamech, not some supernatural being, was the father of Noah.

One More Seat

Another seat in the Chamber of Deputies has been granted to Iraq’s Christian minority, making a total of eight in the 138-member lower House.

The newly-created seat from Baghdad brings the number of Christian deputies from the Iraqui capital to three.

Projects In Israel

The government in Israel has allocated $140,000 for the improvement of biblical, historical and other tourist sites.

Landing facilities will be improved at Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee, the site of the Multiplication of Loaves and at Capernaum, site of the ancient synagogue where Jesus is said to have prayed and preached.

A new tree-lined road to Mount Zion is nearing completion.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is a subscriber to Religious News Service, Evangelical Press Service and Washington Religious Report Newsletter

World Crisis Prompts Inauguration Decision

Christianity in the World Today

When President Eisenhower takes his second term oath of office at a private ceremony in the White House at noon on January 20, he will become the first President of the United States ever to be sworn in on a Sunday.

The decision against waiting until Monday, prompted by the tense international situation, will prevent the nation from being without a President for 24 hours. (Religious leaders, generally, are in complete accord with the decision.)

President Eisenhower will repeat the oath at noon on Monday, January 21, in a public ceremony on the steps of the Capitol. The Monday ceremony will be broadcast and televised throughout the world.

20th Amendment

Under the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1933, the term of the President ends at noon on January 20. If a President has failed to qualify, the Vice President-elect shall serve as President until he does. Thus, President Eisenhower will have to step down as President at noon on Sunday unless he takes the oath for a second term. Presidential advisers warned against a 24-hour hiatus of executive power.

Vice President Richard M. Nixon also will take his second term oath at the private White House ceremony and will repeat it at the public ceremony on Monday.

January 20 will be the fourth time in U. S. history that an inauguration day has fallen on Sunday. On Saturday night, March 3, 1877, President-elect Rutherford B. Hayes took the oath privately at the White House. He repeated the oath publicly the following Monday. In 1849, Zachary Taylor refused to take the oath on Sunday and was not sworn in until Monday noon. In 1821, President James Monroe deferred taking his second term oath until Monday.

Plans for Church

President Eisenhower plans to attend the 9:30 a.m. service at National Presbyterian Church on Sunday, January 20. If he attended the 11 a.m. service, he would be in church at the time his term expires.

Four clergymen, including the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in North America, will participate in the public inauguration. It will be the first time that a representative of Eastern Orthodoxy has taken part.

Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, pastor of National Presbyterian Church, where President Eisenhower is a member, will give the invocation. (Dr. Elson is a contributing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.)

Archbishop Michael, of the Greek Orthodox Archdioceses of North and South America, will deliver the first prayer, immediately before the Vice President takes his oath of office.

Dr. Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, will offer the second prayer immediately preceding the administration of the oath of office to President Eisenhower.

Edward Cardinal Mooney, Archbishop of Detroit, will give the benediction.

Traditionally, three clergymen participate in inaugurations—one each from the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish faiths.

Private Communion

On Thursday, January 3, a private Communion Service was held in National Presbyterian Church at 8 a.m. for President Eisenhower, his Cabinet and members of Congress. Dr. Elson conducted the service.

Flood Of Indecency

The so-called small protests of concerned people throughout the nation have converged on official Washington and touched off the following major developments in the “flood of obscenity” flowing through U. S. mails:

★ Staff members of the House Post Office Committee are drafting a bill that will make habitual violators liable to as much as 20 years in prison.

★ Rep. John Dowdy (D-Texas), chairman of House Subcommittee on postal operations, has announced plans to close a legal loophole through which “peddlers of lust” flaunt the law.

★ Mr. Dowdy also plans to introduce a bill providing that publishers of indecent books and magazines may be tried at any place such mail is received as well as where it is deposited. (Kansas and New York differ greatly on views of pornography.)

★ The United States Supreme Court has taken under advisement an appeal by a convicted publisher of obscene books which, if granted, can upset state and Federal statutes and necessitate complete revisions of such laws.

Concerning habitual violators, Mr. Dowdy had this to say:

“We see the same fellows over and over again. They publish first under this name and then under another. As soon as postal authorities catch on to them in one place, they move somewhere else. They get fined, but it doesn’t stop them because they are after big, quick profits. If they do go to jail for six months, they only use the time to think up new ideas.”

The only answer, he said is “a good stiff jail sentence.”

In the matter of the legal loophole he plans to close, the Texas congressman said the Dowdy-Rees Bill gives the Postmaster General authority to impound mail of publishers violating postal regulations, but allows violators to flaunt the law because of a Senate amendment.

Designed to protect legitimate publishers, the amendment provides that the Dowdy-Rees act “shall not apply to mail addressed to publishers or distributors of publications which have entry as second class matter under the Act of March3, 1879, or to publishers or distributors of copyrighted books and other publications to whom a certificate of registration of copyright has been issued under the copyright laws.”

Publishers of racy “men’s magazines,” he said, are rushing to Washington to register the contents of their magazines for copyright and are going through the form of applying for a second class mail permit.

The Post Office Department is rejecting the applications for second class mail privileges, but publishers are entitled to a 30-day period in which to appeal. Not until that period is over can the department start legal action to impound the publisher’s mail. The copyright office of the Library of Congress does not have authority to deny a registration of copyright merely because it questions the contents of a publication.

Regarding the site for the trying of cases, Mr. Dowdy said most of the objectionable magazines and books are being mailed from two cities, New York and Los Angeles.A staff spokesman for the House Subcommittee said:

“Pornography may be viewed as one thing in Hollywood or on Broadway, and as quite another in Emporia, Kansas, or Athens, Texas. After all, it is in the latter places that the damage is done in terms of corruption of morals and juvenile delinquency. Judges and juries who see at first hand the results of such immoral reading matter may take a more serious view of the offense.”

In the Supreme Court appeal, Samuel Roth, a New York publisher convicted by a Federal jury and sentenced to five years in jail with fine of $5,000, has asked that the conviction be set aside on grounds of no evidence to prove his publications actually injured anyone.

The appeal has reached the Supreme Court at the same time that the justices appear to be moving toward a sweeping ruling that will decide the constitutionality of state statutes aimed at preventing the sale of indecent literature.

The justices have delayed until mid-January their decision in the case of Butler vs. Michigan, in which a Detroit bookseller has challenged a Michigan law aimed at preventing sale of books that may be harmful to the morals of minors. This case was argued before the high bench on October 16, 1956. Other cases heard by the court during October have been decided.

(Usually when a case is by-passed in this manner, it means either that the justices are divided and dissenting opinions are being written by some members of the court, or that the court considers its opinion so important and fundamental that extra time is being spent on preparation of the written opinion.)

Eutychus and His Kin: January 7, 1957

SOBER UP

Martyrdoms have been commemorated in stained glass through the ages. Only to our time, however, has come the happy thought of memorializing a hangover in glass. There on the neighbor’s serving table is a choice selection of beautiful “Swedish modern” decanters, the relics and mementos of the New Year’s binge that finished off the Christmas spirits. Through the generous self-interest of progressive distilleries a man may now hit the bottle and keep it as a trophy.

Perhaps a liquor manufacturer in search of art treasures for his advertising might be referred to the triptych on the Fall of man by Albrecht Altdorfer in the National Gallery. The left panel would be appropriate for an antique label: it pictures Bacchus, dissolute and obese, presiding over a loathsome mass of besotted revelers.

I sense the reaction of some of my “kin” among your correspondents: “You evangelicals find it so convenient to attack the sins of the flesh! Everybody is against dmnkenness and scarlet sin. What about pride … the self-righteous hypocrisy of a sanctimonious wife that drives a man to drink … the social sins that create economic misery from which alcohol seems to promise escape? Don’t you realize that the alcoholic is a sick man?”

Touche! But to plead that drunkenness is not the only sin or even the worst sin or that it involves physical consequences beyond the initial sin does not disguise the fact that it is sin. This plea suggests a mistake like that of the crusaders against “Demon Rum.” Passing social legislation is no more effective than smashing whiskey bottles in dislodging the demon from the sinner’s heart.

Only Christ can do that. Christian soberness is more than temperance in food and drink. Aroused from the drunken befuddlement of wordly stupor, the Christian sees the real issues. He knows what time it is—that the night is far spent and the dawn near. The sober Christian is not a lean ascetic, but a full man—drunk with the new wine of Pentecost!

EUTYCHUS

MARIOLOGY-MARIOLATRY

There is a common misuse of the world “Mariology.” The term itself is neutral and refers simply to the theology concerning the place of Mary in the Christian scheme of things. Mariolatry (literally: worship of Mary) is the better term to use in describing certain extreme Roman Catholic theological developments which seem to threaten the unique place of Christ as our Redeemer. How unfortunate it is that these developments seem to exalt the humble Mother of God at the expense of her Son. For Mary always points us, not to herself, but to Christ: “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it” (St. John 2:5).

JAMES H. DAVIS

Ascension Episcopal Church

Hintong, West Va.

JORDAN’S STORMY BANKS

Having lived in Israel for three years I write … (1) The Arab conquest of Palestine was in 634 A.D., and this rule lasted till about 900.… The Jews had ruled the land for more than a thousand of the 3000 years of its recorded history, and had always maintained their claim. (2) Extensive Arab immigration came only after Jewish colonization brought new prosperity to land wrecked under Arab and conqueror misuse.… (3) The Jewish contribution to the allied cause in World War II was magnificent in man-power, applied science and money. The Arabs never lifted a finger to free themselves from the Turks.… The Arabs were given over 100 times as much land freed from the Turks.… On the basis of past history, what hope is there that any Christian hand or voice would … protect this nation, a pilot project for the world in working out the teachings not only of the Old Testament prophets but of him whom the Jews call their greatest Prophet.…

ELIZABETH G. CHAPMAN

May I, through your columns, ask Christian people three questions:

Are Arab refugees any less important or deserving in the sight of God than Jewish refugees? Or Hungarian refugees?

On what grounds can you justify the West’s support of Israel? (Surely not on religious grounds for if Egypt is a Moslem nation, modern Israel is out and out materialist with no claims to Christian partisanship whatsoever.)

If we believe in democracy and the sovereign right of a nation to determine its own affairs, how can we maintain this belief and, at the same time, deny these rights to ANY nation whose internal policy does not happen to please us?

The point is that through our support of Israel, the ancient foe of Araby, we seem to have driven the Arab nations into the arms of the Communists, and this seems to me to be not only a great pity but a very grave mistake.

M. B. JOSE

St. Paul’s United Church

Prescott, Ontario, Canada

CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE

Will Gordon H. Clark answer this question in print: If the virgin birth is as essential as the Incarnation in Christian belief, why does not Paul mention it in Galatians 4:4, 5 nor John the Evangelist in John 1:1–18 …? Please notice that these two writers both strongly affirm the fact of Incarnation, emphasizing God’s initiating Incarnation into human nature. It is Mary’s humanness as revealed in the Gospels and Acts and not the method (virgin birth) of conception that is important to Paul and John the Evangelist.

Mr. Clark evades this question by saying that Paul’s silence about the triumphal entry or John’s about Peter’s confession means that their silence about the virgin birth means nothing; however, in the above two passages either or both would have included the virgin birth if it was as important as the Incarnation. But it wasn’t. Their common interest is in God’s action through human nature in the particular woman, Mary.

Mr. Clark cannot say that I find the virgin birth too much as a miracle, for he knows as well as I that the Incarnation and the Resurrection are both such drastic miracles that all others are minor by comparison. I am raising only one question, and this on the basis of the two above passages, how can the virgin birth be equated with the Incarnation as equally important in any way? The Incarnation is essential fact or we become Unitarian in view, but let us only affirm and declare with Paul and John that Christ was born of the woman Mary.

Mr. Clark in his dealing with the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke neglects the important discoveries of 100 years of scholarship. These two narratives are not part of the foundation of our Gospels, which foundation is the kerugma and the Passion narratives. Attached to this essential structure, which of course, presupposes the Incarnation as a postulate, are the various pericopes, most of them very important, but some as the birth narratives showing a less important interest and emphasis.…

JOHN YEAMAN

Edison St. Methodist Church

Fredericksburg, Tex.

Paul in Gal. 4:4–5 does not state and cannot state all that is essential to the Gospel. Nor can John, who in chapter one of his Gospel has selected the preexistence of Jesus as his topic and not his human birth. We cannot legitimately expect everybody to say everything.

Further, the question of the letter seems to depend on lack of attention to what I wrote. A belief in the Virgin Birth is not essential to one’s salvation. The thief on the cross knew nothing about it. At the same time I maintain that the fact of the Virgin Birth is essential to God’s plan; and further, a belief in the Virgin Birth is essential to a worthy ministry. The kerugma, or that which must be preached, is not some small part of the New Testament: it is the whole of the Bible; as Paul indicates in Acts 20:27.

I am not ignorant of the “important discoveries of 100 years of scholarship.” The destructive critics “discovered” that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because writing had not been invented in his time. They “discovered” that the Hittite nation had never existed. Wellhausen “discovered” that the culture reflected in Genesis was the culture of the Babylonian captivity. Orthodox Christians have always known that this scholarship was mistaken.

GORDON H. CLARK

Indianapolis, Ind.

FOR MEN ONLY

I did not notice a single woman’s name connected with your publication.… It is probably an act of chivalry on your part to keep the menfolk in the vanguard army.… I can’t find any record in the New Testment of a woman deserting, or being displeased with Christ. Even the Magdalenes tagged after Him without seeming to unruffle His composure, so you see it should be a measure of your divinity if you can allow the company of “sissies” in your very dignified columns without losing composure.

E. N.

Norwood, Mass

The roster of masculine names in CHRISTIANITY TODAY follows from the fact that contributing editors and correspondents were largely chosen from among the clergy. But the magazine spearheads no anti-feminine movement. The current issue contains one of a number of articles to appear by lady penmen.

—ED.

ON THE EDGE OF GLORY

The solution of the problem … (“Preaching on the Edge of Desperation,” Dec. 10, 1956) lies in a thorough study and application of the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul and of Acts 6:1–4. If we ministers could and would, as we should, follow the guidelines there laid down—and how many congregations specify as much in their calls?—… we’d have a chance to grow professionally.

E. P. SCHULZE

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer

Peekskill, N.Y.

NO INTEGRATION

I feel the need of commenting … It is said that “Organic Church Union could be represented in its most intense form by the National Council.…” If the verb “could” is supposed to mean “is”, I can only express amazement: the NCCC has never even had a Department of Faith and Order in its structure! And as to the NCCC’s being “integrated” within the framework of the World Council of Churches, I feel that too strong a verb has been chosen. There is good cooperation, but hardly integration.

J. ROBERT NELSON

Commission on Faith and Order

World Council of Churches

Geneva, Switzerland

Both editorials “The Perils of Independency” and “The Perils of Ecumenicity” are excellent! Anyone who objects … reflects the confirmed bigotries of his “camp.” Continue on this high level. God condescends to work on such a plateau.

RICHARD T. SMITH

Princeton Baptist Church

Princeton, Me.

Your twin articles … pertinent and timely … were written kindly and penetratingly.

JOHN EUMURIAN

Angelo Community Church

Sparta, Wis.

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