Calvin and Religious Education

Almost everyone knows that Calvinism stands for an informed faith as well as a reformed one: that it has always represented that approach to Christianity which places the highest premium upon spiritual learning, whether ministerial or lay. Calvinism has won a just reputation for being as concerned with the state of the mind as with the state of the heart; with the need to understand the Gospel as well as to accept the Gospel. Indeed, because Calvinism’s interest in knowledge has been so pronounced, its critics often accuse it of being altogether bookish: a theological system without a heart.

But most people do not know that Calvinism’s admitted love of learning is the natural by-product of its understanding of the fundamental way God deals with men. By that I mean that when Calvinism preoccupies itself with theology, shows its distaste for doctrinal error and preaches its high regard for the Bible, it is only demonstrating its basic view of religion and of the way human beings become children of God. John Calvin was not only a systematic theologian; he also was a prime educator. And Calvinism’s love of learning does not reflect the reformer’s systematic theology as such. It rather reflects the reformer’s theory of religious education.

The Modern Debate

I have the feeling that John Calvin would have taken a keen interest in the modern debate in religious education. He was intelligently aware of the basic importance of having a correct answer to the question, “How does one appropriate religious values?” His own answer to this question may be deduced from what he had to say about the means of grace. And it is an answer which has lost none of its significance in the four hundred years since the reformer first required everyone to attend regular classes in catechetical instruction.

Two broad lines of investigation are being followed today in the continuing search for an effective theory of religious education. One of these is the line of method, the other the line of content. According to one viewpoint—the most modern and perhaps the most popular—“religious education” is just another phrase describing classroom procedures and techniques, this time within a church. According to this view the problem is essentially one of guidance and of participation. It deals with select and preferred behavior patterns. And, as one becomes qualified to teach algebra by earning credits in college courses in education, so one is qualified to teach religion by mastering child-guidance techniques. Method is valued above content in the education process. In the teaching of religion, the aim is to induce imitation by example, to habituate by practice.

Religious education in the modern mood further aims to “bring something out of” people rather than to “put something into” people. It believes that human beings become children of God and are nurtured in Christian experience by a program of appropriate activities carried on within environments suitable to those values which the pupils should be induced to appreciate and persuaded to apply. Virtue, in other words, is behavior to be cultivated rather than a quality to be acquired.

Devoid Of Essentials

But Calvin, following the evangelical tradition, believed that man begins devoid of certain essentials. Religious education, for him, described the process whereby human beings were given something they did not previously have. As he saw it, virtue was not something to be drawn out but something to be bestowed. He was not interested in imitation but in animation by the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit. He believed that what man needed must be given him and, further, that it must come from God. Religious education was the process of providing the occasion for—of cooperating with—the work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, for Calvin, the success of the educational process depended altogether upon grace, and the teacher stood, in relation to his pupil, simply as one who could apply the means of grace and seek to induce a response to grace.

Now Calvin’s prime emphasis was upon content. That is to say, he acted on the assumption that the educational process called for imparting knowledge. To the extent that he gave his attention to method it was almost entirely to the ways and means of applying content. His interest in content was for the best of reasons: he believed he had at his disposal the means of grace, a content which, when applied, animated the human heart in response to the work of the Holy Spirit. This content, of course, was the Word of God. He believed that God’s revelation—his Word—had, within itself, a dynamic quality. He noticed that this Word did things to people when they heard it. He concluded that this Word was a channel … an instrumentality … a means … of grace!

Calvin’s chief preoccupation in religious education, therefore, was to teach the Word of God. He would have taken a dim view of any procedure designed to beget children of God, in which the prime ingredient was not the Word of God. People became children of God by learning and understanding the Word of God. A Christian is not one who has adopted an intellectual proposition, but one in whom the Holy Spirit has planted and brought to fruition saving grace by means of the Word which is the prime channel of grace.

Importance Of Appropriation

Such a view of the Word of God is a far cry from the bibliolatry of which Calvin has often been accused. His interest in the Bible was not in the words of Scripture, not in the intellectual concepts within Scripture, not in the ethical principles deducible from Scripture—in themselves—but in the effect of the Word which was Scripture. The Word of God which we have—which is in Scripture, but which, to all practical purposes, must also be identified with Scripture—produces an evident and observable effect when it is preached and taught to people. Calvin pounced on this as the obvious substitute for the Roman sacramental graces. He recognized that we are called on to cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s purpose to reach human hearts for Christ by providing the means of grace, which is the Word.

This view of the aim of religious education is far removed from the other. This is based on a belief that people are converted by means of the Gospel and nurtured by means of the Word of God, and that both work in essentially the same way. Like the channel which is not a part of the river, or the electric wire which is not the power flowing through it, the message of salvation provides the means by which the Holy Spirit animates the heart.

Calvin went on to conclude that “doctrine” would be equal in effect to the Word itself as a means of grace, if it were sound doctrine. Obviously the Holy Spirit cannot work as effectively through imperfect means. Hence the reformer’s impatience with error. He put “sound” doctrine into a catechism and put the catechism into the minds of the youth of Geneva. And he doubted not that, as they gave evidence they understood this doctrine, they also were manifesting their effectual calling.

Sanctification In Life

Now I think it is clear why Calvinism speaks familiarly of “coming to a saving knowledge” of Christ. By this is meant, not that a Christian is saved because of his faith, but that a Christian is saved by his faith. To hear about Christ may bring about conversion because the knowledge of Christ provides the “connection” through which the Holy Spirit performs his saving work. Thus the Word of God effectuates salvation because “It has pleased God through the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe.” And the Word effectuates sanctification in a similar manner.

Calvin knew that children of God need to develop their Christian piety as truly as they need to be converted in the first place. And the process of growth is of growth “in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.” Again, the prime means is the Word of God, in which Christ is presented and through which the Holy Spirit, who is our teacher, operates.

I think it should now be clear why Calvin held the Bible and sound doctrine in such high esteem. It should also be clear why the reformer stressed the teaching of doctrine by such methods as catechetical instruction in his program of religious education. It was a program centered in an appeal to the mind, yes. But Calvin appealed to the mind in order to reach the heart. He judged the success of his program by whether or not his pupils understood what they were taught. To some, despite his best efforts, the Word remained foolishness. But he noticed that others found it to be the power of God and the wisdom of God. Calvin preached, taught, persuaded, cajoled, explained and illustrated, seeking all the while for a glimmer of understanding. When it came, he believed the Holy Spirit had entered.

Whatever you may think of the reformer’s epistemology—for that is what this is—it would be hard to deduce a more coherent doctrine of the means of grace from Scripture. And however modern education may contribute its part to the original idea, with practical techniques, the heart of any realistic program of religious education still must be the Word of God. This is not only because accurate concepts must be available as guides to practical living; it is primarily because “the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and the joints and marrow.”

END

G. Aiken Taylor is Minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Alexandria, Louisiana. He holds the Ph.D. degree from Duke University, where Calvin’s view of Christian education was one of his graduate interests. He is author of A Sober Faith and St. Luke’s Life of Jesus.

- More from John Calvin

Books

Eutychus and His Kin: July 22, 1957

The Editors

TOURISTS AND PILGRIMS

All men are strangers and travelers. Our fathers were pilgrims; we are tourists. The difference is more vast than the breadth of the continent spanned by generations of pioneers. The tourist, to be sure, sees a distinction. It adds relish to his feeling of superiority as he squeals around the curves of some historic trail in the foothills of the Rockies. An unusual and imaginative tourist may even speculate, while picking his teeth in an air-conditioned “chuck-wagon,” as to how his day’s drive compares with the best performance of a Connestoga “schooner.”

Yet the fondness of tourists for playing at being pioneers suggests a difference of another order, one that cannot be measured by the horsepower superiority of the high compression engine. Our curious interest in the voyage of the incredible little replica of the Mayflower is, in part, a tribute to the pilgrim spirit.

The pilgrims traveled with purpose. Between decks in that crowded vessel was a seriousness that our generation can only imitate in the convulsive hysteria of war.

Lack of seriousness is the tourist’s mark. Flipping wisecracks and cigarette butts, he squanders money to pass time. The wonders of an electronic age provide him with gambling devices in the majesty of the desert and comic books on the mountain top. His use of leisure projects in three dimensions the emptiness of his heart.

Every pilgrim seeks a city, a country, a home. The tourist is only leaving his home, or rather losing his home in aimless compulsive wandering. It was not the disappearance of the American frontier that made his travels pointless. Nor will new frontiers on Mars help him. He seeks no frontier for he has lost himself. In his vacuum of faith he needs to hear the call to the heavenly city; to become a pilgrim; to go out—and come home!

EUTYCHUS

THE WELFARE STATE

In CHRISTIANITY TODAY for June 24, 1957, Dr. Joseph M. Dawson writes “… that the state … has the responsibility of extending Christian love to those aspects of public life which affect for good or ill the welfare of one’s neighbors.”

We believe in extending Christian love, but we do not believe it can be done by the state. It can and should be done by individuals. Where the extension of Christian love requires the expenditure of money it can only be done by those who use their own funds. It cannot be done by officials who first have to seize the property of others before they can spend money in an effort to help the needy. Love to the latter cannot be based on taking by force the property of the former.

The state has no function forcibly to seize the property of some of its citizens in order to confer benefits upon other citizens. To do so is violating the Commandments against coveting and stealing.

We believe in relieving suffering and ministering to the needy, but it can be done in Christian love only by individuals in voluntary associations such as the churches and privately-operated charitable organizations. These certainly include hospitals, orphanages, schools, homes for elderly people, and assistance for the unfortunate and the handicapped.

Dr. Dawson declares “… governmental extension of love might cover social security, retirement benefits, assistance to the unemployed, aged and disabled, housing, soil conservation, agricultural subsidies, free education and many other benefits.”

Government can confer such benefits only by seizing the property of others. Since that is stealing, the state has no moral right to do it. Such activities should be carried on by individual Christians in private association through their churches and organizations. Certainly it would not exclude the cooperation of non-Christians in friendly help for needy people.

Dr. Dawson continues: “We conclude with the assertion that the rule of the people means the recognition of human rights—the right of the ignorant to education, the right of slaves to freedom, the right of the employed to fair wages, the right of the child to be well born, the right of all men to justice.”

We believe in the right of all, not merely the slaves, to be free.

The ignorant have a right to such education as they themselves can achieve together with such help as their parents, relatives or friends may be able and willing to extend to them. They do not have a right to education at the unwilling expense of members of the community whose property may be forcibly taken for that purpose.

We believe in the right of the employed to fair wages. The only way to determine “fair wages” is the free market wherein, without government intervention or privilege of any kind, one is paid for his time or his goods, what ever his fellows are willing to bid for them in the open market. That is the only possible way of determining “fair wages” short of government intervention in the realm of wage and price fixing which leads on inevitably to a centrally-managed economy, with great rigidity, lack of capacity for adjustments to changing conditions, subordination of the individual to the authority of the state, and eventually to slavery and totalitarianism.

The child, as a human personality created in the image of God, should be well born, but the state cannot contribute to that end by seizing the property of others. To do so will bring about conditions more unfavorable to children than exists under freedom with the powers of the state strictly limited. The highest degrees of culture and well-being for children, mothers, and the population in general have been developed where the powers of government have been limited, and the most freedom for the development of initiative, self-reliance and independent action have existed. Those states which have tried to do the most in planning elaborate programs of welfare for their citizens have achieved the least welfare for them.

People prosper best under a system which gives them the right to life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness, and to achieve all the material, cultural and spiritual well-being of which they are capable. They do not have a right to demand that government give them the property of others. We believe history proves the soundness of this view.

When the state confers benefits upon some at the expense of others, the latter are discouraged and cease to put forth maximum effort, while the former soon learn to believe that real effort on their part is unnecessary. Production inevitably declines, resulting in a lower scale of living for all. This is not only theory and experience; it is history. Why there should be reluctance to accept it and act upon it must indicate, it seems to us, a great lack of fundamental understanding of the issue involved.

HOWARD E. KERSHNER

Editor, Christian Economics

New York City

At the end of an otherwise excellent article, Dr. Joseph Dawson repeats the modern easy equating of “love” with material giving, that source of the subtle materialism that has invaded and caused disintegration of society.

Granted that love in the Christian sense eventuates in sharing and relieving want, Jesus’ great example of a “cup of cold water” as the price for entrance into heaven was based on his statement that the giver recognized him in the needy. That is, love is a spiritual quality that proceeds from personality to personality, as the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son to us. It is not an impersonal quality that can be manufactured, bought, sold or given from material bounty. One cannot rightly speak, as Dr. Dawson does, of “governmental extension of love.”

The subtle shift of Christian love over to material giving (erroneously called “love”) enables one to rationalize a life of material gain, or a materialistic society, by conveniently believing one is acquiring the wherewithal to give ‘love.” It is most noticeable in children fed this kind of material “love” and starved of true love, by parents who neglect them to earn more money to give them “advantages.”

Perhaps I do Dr. Dawson an injustice. Directly before his discussion of the modern Welfare State, he seems to disagree strongly with the medieval attempt at a Welfare State. But it seems to me Dr. Dawson, while disliking a Welfare State under church auspices, nevertheless sees nothing wrong with the same state under modern secularism and separation of the state and church.

Further, Dr. Dawson should distinguish between the ideal and the practical working out in modern society today when he says: “Democracy recognizes that man’s personality is the highest value in the universe and society is to be organized in a manner to minister to his true life.” All Christians will surely agree with this ideal, but shall we lightly gloss over the evident de-humanization which follows in society, as today, when material advantages being confused with love, efficient production is sought at all cost, to the evident distintegration of families and man’s spiritual unity?

MARLAND W. ZIMMERMAN

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Delray Beach, Florida

REVIVE THE CONFLICT?

I began reading your article on, “Dare We Revive the Conflict?” and I find it very helpful.

GLENN W. SAMUELSON

Greenbelt Baptist Chapel

Greenbelt, Maryland

There are some good articles in your paper. I was particularly interested and disturbed by your editorial, “Dare We Revive the Conflict?” I never could quite understand why Dr. Fosdick was the whipping boy of the so-called fundamentalists unless it was because of his successful leadership in the liberal movement of the middle decades of the present century.

PRESTON W. PENNELL

Solon, Maine

I am very much interested in your “Dare We Revive the Modernist—Fundamentalist Conflict?” It would be difficult to find two editorials more diametrically opposed than yours and the one in the Christian Century for June 19, entitled “Fundamentalist Revival.”

ROY FIELDS

Central Christian Church

Springfield, Missouri

Editorials in re fundamentalist controversy (Christian Century, June 19; Christianity Today, June 24) have been read with interest. Both seem to me to carry qualities which might justify publication in both periodicals. Christian Century seems to “view with alarm” a resurgent Fundamentalism with a new front. Christianity Today seems to hear a death knell for a movement poisoned by its own venom. Why cannot a “Grahamized” Fundamentalism, a chastened Liberalism and a filtered Neo-Orthodoxy be mutually cognizant of certain needed checks and balances among them for the good of the “Whole Church?” None of these movements is sufficiendy divine to sit in judgment upon all the others or to constitute an ecclesiastical supreme court.

D. HOWARD HOUSEHOLDER

The Methodist Church

Wellston, Ohio

Concerning your editorial on the “Modernist-Fundamentalist Conflict”—rubbish! Your article reveals a startling lack of responsible scholarship, particularly in your understanding of Fosdick’s point of view. You are fighting a battle that ended several years ago. Very few responsible Protestants are defending the dead horse of “liberalism” that you are kicking.

C. H. REID

Columbia Cong. Church

Seattle, Washington

In your editorials concerning the fundamentalist-liberalist controversy … you give the impression that both groups must be placed within the pale of Christianity. Then you show how the liberals have undergone some wonderful introspection and are reforming. You also point out that the fundamentalists have degenerated and are in dire need of a modern reformation.

Wouldn’t it have been better to have ruled the liberals outside the realm of Christianity because of their rejection of the blood-sacrifice of Christ than to make odious and perhaps biased comparisons between the two groups? While admitting that fundamentalists are in need of a good reformation of gigantic proportions, we ought at the same time admit that all evangelicals holding the “fundamentals” are really fundamentalists—whether they like the name or not.

ROLF PARELIUS

Roxbury, Massachusetts

I would take exception to the uncertain sound of your “Modernist-Fundamentalist Conflict.” … In its second paragraph you appear to lay the blame for the existence of unchurched multitudes equally on Liberals and Fundamentalists. The fact is that there would have been no occasion for Fundamentalism as a special issue, nor for Fundamentalist churches as separate entities if the traditional churches had kept the faith. This they did not do.

GORDON HOLDCROFT

Victoria, B. C.

APPRECIATION

The magazine is the finest of its kind that I know. The articles have all been excellent and the book reviews superb. May the Lord make it a blessing to pastors and evangelists, and may he give you wisdom and guidance in the important work of editing it.

J. NARVER GORTNER

Berkeley, Calif.

Your excellent surveys, whether of Christianity throughout the world, religious literature and current religious thought appeal to me.… If I had no time to read anything else, I should feel obliged to continue my subscription not to miss any of them.…

J. M. T. WINTHER

Lutheran Bible Institute

Kobe, Japan

My first reaction was less than enthusiastic, but through fairly regular reading.… I have come to appreciate it as an organ of the evangelistic point of view. In good conscience, then, I must pay for the privilege of continuing to receive it, and enclose my check.…

STANDISH MACINTOSH

All Saints Parish

Oakville, Conn.

I consider CHRISTIANITY TODAY to excel in depth, solidness, vitality and interest;—it seems to me to have that “instinct for the jugular.”

IRVING L. JENSEN

William Jennings Bryan University

Dayton, Tenn.

- More from The Editors

Billy Graham and the Pope’s Legions

The Editors

There is little doubt but that America is gradually becoming a Roman Catholic country. This is not surprising, however, for the strategies of Rome give her considerable earthly advantage. Her claims are impressive: the bishops in communion with the See of Peter form a divinely constituted, perpetual, inerrant, teaching Church. Rome is a continuation of Christ’s incarnation. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. Rome is the only power which has defeated secularism and modernism. She is at home in all lands. She is the Church of the catacombs, the Church of the Fathers, the Church of the great councils, the Church of the Middle Ages—in short, the Church of all ages. If any Christian effort will endure to the end of time, and thus merit the devotion of men everywhere, it is the Church of Rome.

An expert from the American Institute of Management recently examined the management excellence of the Roman Church. He concluded, in a 26-page report, that the Church was eighty-eight percent efficient [Time, January 30, 1956], Rome is disciplined and determined; her wealth cannot be assessed. She adapts her strategy to every situation. When her interests are at stake, she is cruel. When they are not, she is gentle. The Inquisition is valid against Protestants but not against children of the Vatican. When the Church speaks, debate is out of order, for the good is what the Church approves.

Rome’s confidence was illustrated several years ago when I had coffee with a learned Jesuit at Harvard Square. As I quizzed him about the future of the Roman Church in America, he looked at me with flashing Irish eyes and thundered, “Today, tomorrow, or a century from now, it makes no difference. We are patient. We will subdue the earth to the greater glory of God.”

Life magazine recently reviewed one phase of Roman Catholic power in America. The leading story of the May 27th issue was devoted to the 75th year of the Knights of Columbus. The pictures, many in full color, depicted the kind of pomp and circumstance which goes into Roman strategy. The legions of Rome are awesome. More than one million practicing Catholics make up the ranks of the Knights of Columbus. They are fraternally pledged to the ideal of bringing America under papal rule. They are powerful, wealthy, loyal. Little wonder that the Pope affectionately describes the Knights as “the right lay arm of the Catholic Church in America.”

It is significant, however, that the same issue of Life ran a story about Billy Graham. The contrast between the Knights of Columbus and Billy Graham pretty well sums up the contrast between Roman Catholic and orthodox Protestant intentions. The reader sees a young man in a business suit. He is holding an open Bible. In passion and love he pleads with sinners to repent. The pictures are in black and white, not color. There are no uniforms, no banners, no legions. The Garden is filled with people from all walks of life, people whose hearts are as hungry as their minds are curious. Before Billy Graham has finished, hundreds leave their seats to unite with the person of Jesus Christ. Even priests of Rome find their way to the mourner’s bench. The suasions of Rome are no match for the gospel. The tens of thousands which have responded in the Garden and to the televised broadcasts from the Garden give living evidence to the power of a message devoid of pomp and ceremony.

The Protestant Church is not very healthy. It is divided and weak. Its clergy dispute about matters which are elementary to the Christian faith. Scholarship is neglected in the colleges and seminaries. Rome, of course, interprets this as nothing but the logical conclusion to the Reformation. The ecumenical movement, on the other hand, says that the illness can be cured by devising new forms of visible unity. Rome is wrong in her diagnosis and the ecumenical movement is wrong in its therapy. The Protestant Church is sick for one reason: the gospel of Jesus Christ is not being preached with power and conviction.

We have no intention of making an idol of Billy Graham, but the fact remains that this young evangelist is a symbol of what God can do through a humble life. When Billy Graham stands behind the sacred desk, he makes it clear that he is mediating the Word of God. He is not discussing personality integration or the power of mind over body. This was strikingly reviewed in the June 25, 1954, issue of U.S. News and World Report. Scotland was astonished at the power of Billy Graham. Many were puzzled to explain the phenomenon. U.S. News editors cleared up the matter. “The people want to know the truth. They want it declared with authority and conviction, dogmatically and without apology. They prefer half an hour, or even three-quarters, of this kind of preaching to the ten minutes of platitudes which all too often is given from church pulpits.” This is excellently taken. There would be no sickness in the church if priests and ministers would bind their consciences by the Word of God.

Another symbol of this same power is the distinguished dean of American radio evangelists, Charles E. Fuller. For over a third of a century he has preached a compassionate gospel to those who labor in hard and distant places. His weekly listening audience is estimated at twenty million. He seldom refers to himself. With a tear in his voice and compassion in his heart he beseeches men everywhere to be reconciled with God. God blesses his ministry because his ministry is true to the Word of God.

The Pope must look to his legions because he can no longer look to the gospel. Let me illustrate this. Father Kelly recently warned Roman Catholics not to listen to Billy Graham [Time, May 6th]. The priest’s contention was that Graham evades “Catholic distinctives.” His converts, thus, are only “half saved.” This is an interesting complaint, for it betrays the distance which Rome has come from the simplicity of the gospel. The Apostle Paul could cry, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” And so can Billy Graham. But Father Kelly cannot. He must cry, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, plus the necessity of baptism, plus the mediatorial work of Mary, plus the centrality of the mass, plus the unity of the Church, and you will be saved—providing, of course, you improve grace throughout your life by performing good works, and then only after a frightful bout with the flames of purgatory.”

The Roman Catholic Church will continue to grow. She will infiltrate government, education, and labor. But let us not fear. Rome has her limits. The Lord says to worldly wisdom, as he says to the tides of the sea, “Thus far shall you go, and no farther.” Rome can coerce the film industry to use priests and Christopher medals in movie plots; she can lobby senators with effective cunning; she can rule over the treasuries of the world. But these are strategies of worldly wisdom. They have nothing to do with the gospel.

This is effectively pointed out by the late Donald M. Baillie [The Theology of the Sacraments, page 96]. He cites Karl Barth’s admission that “The mass in its conception, content and construction is a religious masterpiece. It is the high water mark in the development of the history of religion and admits of no rival.” He then adds the shrewd conclusion of Barth, “Religion with its masterpieces is one thing, Christian faith is another.” This is the sum of the matter. Rome is a genius in worldly wisdom. But worldly wisdom is one thing, the gospel is another.

If we honor the Word of God, we have no reason to fear Roman Catholicism. God is sovereign. His Word will not return void. The ministry of Billy Graham is witness to the biblical truth that it is “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6 RSV). We sing with Martin Luther,

And tho’ this world with devils filled

Should threaten to undo us;

We will not fear, for God hath willed

His truth to triumph thro’ us.

The Prince of darkness grim, we tremble

Not for him; his rage we can endure,

For lo! his doom is sure,

One little word shall fell him.

The Pope will continue to look to his legions. But let us look to the power of the gospel. Whenever the counsels of worldly wisdom become too efficient, God seeks out a man of faith—an Abraham, a Gideon, a David. And he uses this man of faith to confront an entire culture with the claims of Jesus Christ. God destroys the proud in their own folly. One sermon preached in the power of the Holy Spirit can undo in a day what worldly wisdom has taken a century to build.

The Pentagon’S Responsibility For Servicemen Abroad

The Girard case has focused the attention of America on the predicament of our service men when accused of crimes while stationed abroad.

The Formosa riots likewise illustrated that America has no one policy for dealing with such cases, in some countries retaining jurisdiction and rights of prosecution of servicemen while in others recognizing the rights of the local governments and courts.

Unfortunately little that has been said about the situation in Japan, Taiwan (Formosa), Germany or elsewhere, has dealt with the basic problem of the behavior of our troops overseas.

The average American soldier is a decent boy, thrust into new and often frustrating surroundings and at the same time confronted with temptations in their rawest form.

There are serious attempts to condition servicemen for the situations they will encounter overseas. Many officers add their influence to that of the chaplains to maintain the moral and spiritual standards important for the soldier as an individual and for him as a representative abroad. That such conditioning and safeguards often prove insufficient is known by the Pentagon, by American civilians living or traveling abroad and by many of the people living in the lands where servicemen are stationed.

Frankly, we feel that far more can and should be done to prevent incidents and to keep Americans from becoming increasingly unpopular in areas where they are quartered.

First of all, not all men who volunteer or are inducted into the services are suitable to send abroad for garrison duty. Some of them are obvious liabilities from the very start and some procedure should be devised to eliminate them from foreign service.

In the second place, we believe far more should be done to indoctrinate those sent abroad, not only as to the reason they are being sent but also the objectives in that area. Most important, these men should be made to understand clearly that as long as they are on foreign soil they are representatives of America and will be required so to act.

Finally, the strictest possible discipline should be enforced on those who get into trouble. Nothing does more to harm relations with those America wants to help than to see American men guilty of illegal or immoral acts go unpunished and often unnoticed.

We have before us a long letter telling of multiplied incidents in Formosa which built up a seething resentment which finally boiled over in riots. This letter tells of Chinese injured by drunken Americans; of others injured by speeding American vehicles; of the use of money to entice and at times debauch young women from good homes; and most of all, of wrongs reported to authorities which went unheeded and without redress.

Part of the difficulty comes from failing to look at incidents through the eyes of local custom and opinion. For instance, a “peeping Tom” would be frightened away in China, or he might be caught and beaten, but to kill him is as drastic punishment as would be the shooting of a speeding motorist in America.

Even a verdict of “guilty” with a suspended sentence would have in some measure appeased an aroused populace. A quickly rendered acquittal was regarded as a grave affront to the Chinese and also as a flagrant miscarriage of justice. The same ends could have been accomplished by taking due regard to local customs.

All of which leads to the conviction that, living in a small world as we do, and wielding the world-wide influence and power which we do, America will be wise completely to revise its policies with reference to its representatives abroad. The day has passed when we can do as we please—and the opportunity for drastic reforms may be very short.

END

- More from Billy Graham

Dare We Renew the Controversy?

Carl F. H. Henry

The Evangelical Responsibility

A higher spirit to quicken and to fulfill the theological fortunes of this century will require more than the displacement of modernism, more than the revision of neo-orthodoxy, more than the revival of fundamentalism. Recovery of apostolic perspective and dedication of the evangelical movement to biblical realities are foundational to this hope.

Exalt Biblical Theology

Evangelical theology has nothing to fear, and much to gain, from aligning itself earnestly with the current plea for a return to biblical theology. To measure this moving front of creative theology sympathetically, to understand its concern and courage and to name its weaknesses without depreciating its strength will best preserve relevant theological interaction with the contemporary debate.

The evangelical movement must make its very own the passionate concern for the reality of special divine revelation, for a theology of the Word of God, for attentive hearing of the witness of the Bible, for a return to biblical theology.

Positive Preaching

Rededication to positive and triumphant preaching is the evangelical pulpit’s great need. The note of Christ’s lordship over this dark century, of the victory of Christianity, has been obscured. If it be evangelical, preaching must enforce the living communication of the changeless realities of divine redemption. The minister whose pulpit does not become the life-giving center of his community fails in his major mission. Perspective on Christianity’s current gains and final triumph will avoid a myopic and melancholy discipleship. The Christian pulpit must present the invisible and exalted Head of the body of Christ; linked to him this earthly colony of heaven moves to inevitable vindication and glory. The perplexing problems of our perverse social orders find their hopeful solution only in this regenerative union. Out of its spiritual power must spring the incentives to creative cultural contributions.

Enlarge Christian Living

The evangelical fellowship needs a fresh and pervading conception of the Christian life. Too long fundamentalists have swiftly referred the question, “What distinguishes Christian living?” to personal abstinence from dubious social externals. The Christian conscience, of course, will always need to justify outward behavior, in home, in vocation and in leisure. But Christian ethics probes deeper. It bares the invisible zone of personality wherein lurk pride, covetousness and hatred.

Unfortunately, fundamentalism minimized the exemplary Jesus in the sphere of personal ethics. The theme of Christ’s oneness with God was developed so exclusively in terms of his deity that the import of his dependence upon God for all human nature was lost. The manhood of Jesus is essentially one with ours; its uniqueness is in the zone of sinlessness, not of humanness. His uncompromised devotion and dependence upon God, his sustained relationship of mutual love, embodied the ideal pattern of human life in perfect fellowship with God. In view of his unbroken union with God, his humanity holds a central significance for all humanity.

In this light, a new importance attaches to the Nazarene’s learning of the Father’s will in the course of obedient dependence. His struggle with temptation to magnificent victory over all the assaults of evil, his exemplary trust, his unwavering reliance on God even in the darkest hours, his interior calm of soul, the well-spring of love that flowed from his being—in all these experiences Christ models for us an ideal spiritual relationship with God. In Jesus of Nazareth, God is fully resident; in God, Jesus is fully at home. He lives out the “rest in God” that actualizes the “abiding” to which we are called.

Another way in which evangelicals need to move beyond the fundamentalist ethic is in comprehending the whole of the moral law in fuller exposition of love for God and neighbor, and in the larger experience of the Holy Spirit in New Testament terms of ethical virtue. Often quite legalistically, and with an absoluteness beyond New Testament authority, fundamentalism’s doctrine of surrender, of rededication, has merely proscripted worldly practices, from which the believer was discouraged. Unemphasized, however, are the fruit of the Spirit and those many virtues which differentiate dedicated living in terms of biblical Christianity.

Social Concern

We need a new concern for the individual in the entirety of his Christian experience. He is a member of all life’s communities, of faith, of the family, of labor, of the state, of culture. Christianity is by no means the social gospel of modernism, but is nonetheless vibrant with social implications as a religion of redemptive transformation. To express and continue the vitality of the gospel message, marriage and the home, labor and economics, politics and the state, culture and the arts, in fact, every sphere of life, must evidence the lordship of Christ.

Obviously, the social application of Christian theology is no easy task. For one thing, fundamentalism fails to elaborate principles and programs of Christian social action because it fails to recognize the relevance of the gospel to the sociocultural sphere. Modernism defines Christian social imperatives in secular terms and uses the Church to reorganize unregenerate humanity. Its social sensitivity gave modernism no license to neglect the imperative of personal regeneration. Evangelistic and missionary priorities, on the other hand, gave fundamentalism no license to conceal the imperative of Christian social ethics. Despite the perils, no evasion of responsibility for meaningfully relating the gospel to the pressing problems of modern life is tolerable.

The divine life is a “being in love,” a social or a family fellowship in which personality expresses the outgoing, creative relationships of redemption. A worker by God’s creation, man sees vocation as a divinely entrusted stewardship by which to demonstrate love to God and service to man. As divinely ordained, the state declares God’s intention and the dignity of man’s responsibility for preserving justice and repressing iniquity in a sinful order. This world challenges man to interpret literature, art, music, and other media in reference to eternal order and values.

Approach To Science

Evangelical confidence in the ontological significance of reason makes possible a positive, courageous approach to science. For more than a century and a half modern philosophy has regrettably minimized the role of reason. Kant disjoined it from the spiritual world. Darwin naturalized and constricted it within the physical world. Dewey allowed it only a pragmatic or an instrumental role. These speculations took a heavy toll in Christian circles. A segment of evangelical Christianity nonetheless maintained its insistence upon the Logos as integral to the Godhead, the universe as a rational-purposive order, and man’s finite reason is related to the image of God.

Yet for more than a generation the evangelical attitude in scientific matters has been largely defensive. Evolutionary thought is met only obliquely. American fundamentalism often neglected scrutinizing its own position in the light of recent historical and scientific research. It even failed to buttress its convictions with rigorous theological supports.

Yet modernism, despite its eager pursuit of such revision, achieved no true correlation of Christianity and science. While modernism adjusted Christianity swiftly to the prevailing climate of technical conviction, its scientific respect was gained by a costly neglect of Christianity’s import to science.

Today a new mood pervades the scientific sphere. That mood may not fully validate the evangelical view of nature, but it does at least deflate the presuppositions on which the older liberalism built its bias against the miraculous. The evangelical movement is now given a strategic opportunity to transcend its hesitant attitude toward scientific endeavor, and to stress the realities of a rational, purposive universe that coheres in the Logos as the agent in creation, preservation, redemption, sanctification and judgment.

The ramifications of revelation and reason are wider, however, than science, for they embrace all the disciplines of learning. The evangelical attitude toward education itself is involved. The day has vanished when all the levels of learning, from primary to university, were in the service of God. Christianity cannot long thrive in an atmosphere in which mass education is allowed to repress and impugn Christian confidence and conviction. Christianity must not withdraw from the sphere of education, but must infuse it with new spirit and life. Christianity need evade neither truth nor fact, for it offers an adequate view of the universe in which we are driven daily to decision and duty. In answer to the present secular perspective in public education, shall evangelicals establish private Christian schools? Or shall they rather work for eternal verities within the present public school order or perhaps even pursue both courses? One fact is certain: evangelical neglect of education will imply the irrelevance of historic Christianity to the pressing problems of the contemporary academic world.

Doctrine Of The Church

The evangelical movement needs also the sustained study of the New Testament doctrine of the Church and a greater concern for the unity of regenerate believers. Its program for reflecting the unity of the body of Christ in contemporary history is inadequate in several regards.

Evangelical discussions of the unity of the Church are shaped to protest the ecumenical framework as a compromise to be avoided. Ecumenical Christianity blesses a cooperation broader than the New Testament fellowship; it needs to be reminded that not all union is sacred—that the more inclusive the union, the greater the danger of compromising and secularizing its Christian integrity. By contrast, the evangelical movement easily restricts cooperation more narrowly than does the Bible. It must learn that not all separation is expressive of Christian unity. The principle of separation itself may acquire an objectionable form and content, related more to divisive temper than to theological fidelity. In the face of the inclusive church movement, the evangelical spirit reacts too much toward independency. Through refusal to cooperate with believers whose theological conservatism and dedication to Christ are beyond question, evangelical Christianity is in danger of divisiveness and disruptiveness.

Sound Doctrine And New Life

Evangelical insistence that the unity of the body of Christ requires a basic doctrinal agreement and a regenerate membership is sound. The ecumenical temperament encourages the breakdown of denominational barriers at too great a price whenever it minimizes doctrinal positions. Interdenominationalism in our century has sprung from a peculiar assortment of motives. Fundamentalists stimulated denominational desertion through discontent with theologically inclusive programs ventured by liberal leadership in the established denominations. Such was not in actuality an antithesis to denominationalism, since denominational tenets were not called into question. Indeed, most evangelicals prefer to support New Testament programs within their own denominational lines, allowing interdenominational cooperation to spring from multidenominational dedication to common evangelical priorities. The compromise of priorities in denominational circles, however, led to interdenominationalism at the expense of denominationalism and quickened the sense of an extradenominational unity based on common doctrine and faith.

The liberal interdenominational urge had a different motivation, namely, a virtual depreciation of denominationalism as unworthy sectarianism insofar as any fixed creedal positions are affirmed. This exaltation of the experiential unity of the Church through the disparagement of doctrinal soundness is the great peril of ecumenical ecclesiology today. Its constant danger is the elevation of the concern for unity above the concern for truth.

Precision In Beliefs

Evangelical emphasis on an indispensable doctrinal basis for Church unity needs, however, to be defined with greater precision. Such concern accounts for evangelical uneasiness over the creedal vagrancy of the World Council of Churches whose nebulous emphasis is only on “Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” Since the evangelical movement includes churches that are both creedal and noncreedal in heritage, a specific creedal unity has not been elaborated, although common theological tenets are listed. This evangelical listing of a doctrinal minimum raises difficulties for creedal churches, inasmuch as they consider no article of faith dispensable. To Reformed churchmen, evangelical formulas often appear open to objectionable development. They prefer a strict creedal fellowship, a restriction that excludes progress toward the unity of diverse evangelical elements. The evangelical failure to fully elaborate essential doctrines has resulted in fragmentation by granting priority to secondary emphases (in such matters as eschatology). Evangelical Christianity has been slow to establish study conferences in biblical doctrine, to encourage mutual growth and understanding. Ironically, study sessions on theological issues are now often associated with movements whose doctrinal depth and concern are widely questioned. The significance of Christian doctrine, its dispensability or indispensability, its definition as witness or revelation, the elements identified respectively as core and periphery—these are issues on which evangelical Christianity must be vocal.

Fellowship Of Disciples

Evangelical Christianity too frequently limits the term “evangelical” to those identified with a limited number of movements. This needlessly stresses a sense of Christian minority and discourages cooperation and communication with unenlisted evangelicals. But the tensions of American church history in this turbulent century cannot be automatically superimposed upon all world evangelical communities. Ecumenical leadership in the Federal Council of Churches and its successor, the National Council of Churches, failed to reflect the viewpoint of that considerable genuinely evangelical segment of its constituency. In the World Council of Churches, leaders on the Continent also have often found themselves theologically far to the right of American spokesmen, and have found American evangelicals in the World Council disappointingly unvocal. Long before the establishment of organizations like the World Evangelical Fellowship, many European churches have approached the World Council in quest of an enlarging evangelical fellowship. Evangelical world alternatives to inclusive movements arose after most large historic denominations were already enlisted in the World Council. Does evangelical loyalty within these committed denominations necessarily depend upon public repudiation of the World Council, and upon entrance instead into minority movements quite withdrawn from the stream of influential theological discussion? Even the National Association of Evangelicals in the United States must accept the absence of Southern Baptists and Missouri Lutherans, whose antipathy for theological inclusivism keeps these denominations also outside the National Council. The question that obviously remains, of course, is whether an evangelical who prefers identification with the broader movements can justify his participation, if he knows his own spiritual heritage, except in the capacity of a New Testament witness? Must not a silent evangelical in this climate always ask himself whether the silence which once perhaps was golden, now, through a dulling of love for truth and neighbor, has become as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. Indeed, must not the evangelical always and everywhere address this question to himself in whatever association he is placed?

Lack of evangelical communication across the lines of inclusive and exclusive movements is not wholly due to the exclusivists. Ecumenical enthusiasts have encouraged neither fellowship nor conversation with exclusivist evangelicals. This coldness contributed needlessly to the fundamentalist suspicion of all outside their own constituency, and did little to mitigate the incivility that some fundamentalists reserved for such individuals. The unity of the believing Church re quires communication between evangelicals on a basis of mutual tolerance and respect.

Concern For Unity

Unfortunately for the evangelical cause, the concern for the unity of the Church is now largely associated in the public mind with the inclusive vision. The failure of evangelicals to hear what the Spirit says in the New Testament to the churches has created the void now being filled by inclusivist conceptions of unity. The evangelical church needs with new earnestness to seek unity in its fragmenting environment, needs to reflect to the disunited world and to the disunited nations the sacred unity of the body of Christ.

Although evangelicals have criticized the broad basis of ecumenical merger and unity, they have achieved in their own ranks few mergers on the theological-spiritual level. Without conceding that denominationalism is evil or that health increases in proportion to the reduction of denominations, may there not be evidence that evangelical Christianity is over denominationalized? If doctrinal agreement enhances the deepest unity of believers, may we not expect progress in the elimination of unnecessary divisions by emphasizing the spiritual unity of the Church? Evangelical Christianity, if it takes seriously its own emphasis on the unity of the body, must show visible gains in demonstrating unity in church life.

Contemporary Christianity would gain if the discussion of ecclesiastical tolerance were set in a New Testament context. The scriptural respect for individual liberty in matters of religious belief must not obscure definite requirements for indentification with the body of Christian believers. The New Testament upholds specific doctrinal affirmations as indispensable to genuine Christian confession. In this biblical setting, divisiveness is depicted primarily as a theological question, not (as is usually the case today) as a matter of ecclesiastical attitude and relationship. The modernist tendency to link Christian love, tolerance and liberty with theological inclusivism is therefore discredited. Modernist pleas for religious tolerance and the caustic indictments of fundamentalist bigotry often were basically a strategic device for evading the question of doctrinal fidelity. This flaunting of tolerance, however, was discredited when inclusivist leaders suppressed or excluded evangelicals not sympathetic to the inclusive policy. The “tolerance plea” swiftly dismissed as divisive what was not clearly so in fact. Divisiveness meant disapproval of the inclusive policy, tolerance meant approval. But the New Testament does not support the view that devotion to Christian liberty and progress and to the peace and unity of Christ’s Church is measured by the devaluation of doctrine in deference to an inclusive fellowship. From the biblical point of view, doctrinal belief is a Christian imperative, not a matter of indifference.

Whenever it professes a genuine regard for the scriptural point of view, the inclusive movement is driven to soul-searching in respect to doctrinal latitude and its own propaganda for organic church union. Within the World Council, in contrast with the National Council, exists a forum from which this ambiguity can be challenged. Evangelicals in this movement, if they bear an evangelical witness, must constantly call the Commission on Faith and Order to judge the theological and ecclesiastical question from the standpoint of Scripture.

The fact must not be ignored, however, that different evangelical conceptions of the visible Church are prevalent. Although historically the Christian churches have all insisted upon a minimal theological assent for admission to membership, Reformed churches share Calvin’s view that even in the Church wheat and tares—professing and believing Christians—will dwell together until their final separation in the judgment. Baptist churches have traditionally placed greater emphasis on a regenerate membership and on a pure church. Even the disciplinary procedure of the more broadly conceived Reformed churches, however, considers church members flouting or indifferent to creedal standards as guilty as grave sin. Christian churches in the past stressed both a minimal requirement for membership and a maximal indulgence for avoidance of discipline or exclusion. But modernist leaders asserted the inevitability of doctrinal change. Heresy trials became an oddity in contemporary church history, not because of an absence of heresy, but because of the lack of zeal to prosecute heretics.

We dare not own any other authority over life and deed but the living God. We dare not own any other God than the righteous and merciful God revealed in Jesus Christ. We dare not own another Christ but Jesus of Nazareth, the Word become flesh who now by the Spirit is the exalted head of the body of believers. We dare not own any other Spirit than the Spirit who has breathed out Scripture through chosen men, that doubt may vanish about what God is saying to the Church and to the world. We dare not own any other Scripture than this Book. Let other men proclaim another god, another Christ, another spirit, another book or word—that is their privilege and their peril. But if once again the spiritual life of our world is to rise above the rubble of paganism into which it is now decaying, it will be only through the dynamic of revelation, regeneration, and redemption, through the sacred message which once brought hope. We have a task to do, a task of apostolic awesomeness; let us rise to the doing. The hour for rescue is distressingly late.

END

The Word Of God

Holy book!

Torch of God!

Light from off the Everlasting Throne!

Towering shaft of Infinity,

Around whose foot men rear

Their little spires of thought.

Inconceivable monument of the ages,

Binding man to God.

Without thy piercing, healing light,

Man is but a darker shadow

Flitting to and fro

In the impenetrable blackness

Of an eternal

Void.

JOE CARSON SMITH

This article concludes the abridgment of lectures on “Evangelical Responsibility in Contemporary Theology” delivered by Editor Carl F. H. Henry at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and Calvin College. The lectures will be published in full by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company in August in their series of Pathway Books.

- More from Carl F. H. Henry

Theology

The New Birth-an Imperative

L. Nelson Bell

When Jesus uses the word “must”, we would be utterly foolish to disregard or try to explain away that which he says.

Speaking to Nicodemus, an educated Jewish leader, he astonished this man by telling him his only hope of entering the kingdom of God depended on his being born again.

Strange to say, some try to explain away our Lord’s words, asserting that the new birth is an archaic term, long associated with an outmoded theological concept, scientifically ridiculous and in no way related to the needs of modern man and incompatible with the advanced scholarship on which today’s religious approach is predicated.

Others may explain away the significance of a spiritual re-birth by interpreting it in terms of human progress and achievement, leaving out its supernatural source and effect on the individual.

As one layman to other laymen: are we wise to do anything less than study what Jesus said and what the Bible teaches about this important subject? If Jesus said “must” shall we say anything else? At least three things should be done: define our terms; ascertain man’s present condition; see what the Bible has to say about these things.

What is meant by “being born again”? Our Lord made it plain to Nicodemus that the new birth is a spiritual, not a physical, experience. He says (John 3:6), “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” In other words, being born again is a work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the individual. This work of the Spirit compares to the blowing of the winds, invisible to the eye but none the less real.

John speaks of man’s regeneration in these words: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

To further clarify the meaning of regeneration our Lord links this work of the Holy Spirit in man’s heart with his own death on the cross and man’s acceptance of his salvation by faith. This he embodies in the best known verse in all the Scriptures, John 3:16.

But why should man be born again; what is his present condition that such an experience should be necessary? The Bible speaks of us as being “dead in trespasses and sins”. We hate to admit the situation but unregenerate man is spiritually dead and conversion to and faith in Jesus Christ means life from the dead.

For a long time we have tried to fool ourselves into thinking that the evil we see in the world is the result of unfortunate social conditions, psychological maladjustments, economic needs, ignorance, etc. All these things play their part in the tragedies of the social order but underneath all of this there is evil inherent in the human heart.

This can be demonstrated by a simple comparison of men and women possessing every advantage the world has to offer and those unfortunates to whom most of the good things of life have been denied—in the hearts of all lurk the innate tendency to hate, lie, steal, lust, kill, etc., fully corroborating the words of the Bible that “ALL have sinned.”

It is sin that brought death into the world. It is sin that brought spiritual death with separation from God. Therefore, the first step in the new birth is a realization of our actual condition—that we are spiritually dead.

What does the Bible say about the new birth? As a matter of fact, one finds many references in varied terms so that we cannot miss the meaning.

Matthew tells us, “Except ye be converted, and become as a little child, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (18:3).

Jesus said: “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47).

Paul explains this transformation in these words,” … who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4). And 2 Corinthians 5:17 reads, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”

There are so many other references—scores of them—that I will only mention certain phrases: “Of his own will he begat us”; “Being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever”; “Partakers of the divine nature”; “Born of him”; “Born of God”.

The most amazing effect of being born again is that there is a complete change. Our natures change because we become partakers of the divine nature; our destinies change because fellowship with God is reestablished; our desires and preferences change because we see and evaluate this world with something of God’s perspective; our attitudes change because we have the love of God in our hearts.

The new birth may be sudden and dramatic like Paul’s experience on the Damascus Road; or, it may be a quiet event, the time and hour never known to the one experiencing it, as was probably the case of Timothy.

I have a friend whose name only a few years ago was on the front page of every paper in America, one of our great war heroes. This man was a hellion (if you know what I mean), profane, immoral, a hard drinker, with a broken home and an evil reputation.

One day he came to the end of his rope. In desperation he turned to a casual friend, a true Christian, and in that friend’s home he confessed his sins and cried out to God for forgiveness. He arose from his knees a new creature in Christ—born again—and since that time he has been a living demonstration of the transformation Christ can and will bring to the heart surrendered to him in repentance and faith.

I know another man, reared in a Christian family, who from before his birth was dedicated to God and who in his youth and young manhood was surrounded by the blessings of a Christian home and the prayers of godly parents. When the transition from death to life took place he cannot tell, but he knows he has been born again because of the witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart.

Every individual has a personal responsibility to God. A godly heritage is a great blessing but ultimately we must make our own decision for or against Christ. “God has no grandchildren!” This is not a trite saying but the expression of a profound truth. To be born into the kingdom of God involves a personal experience with Christ whereby, through the help of the Holy Spirit, we accept him as our Savior from the guilt and penalty of sin and make him the Lord of our lives.

As new drags and remedies and operative techniques become known and publicized there come an avalanche of appeals for relief from those suffering from the diseases for which these new medicines or procedures are designed. How much more do men need to know of the cure for sin which God in his infinite love has provided through his Son!

We cannot explain the new birth in scientific terms; we may be unable to express it in words of human wisdom or with a philosophical approach, but it is something which can be demonstrated and which is being demonstrated in the hearts and lives of thousands.

After all, there is no argument against a transformed life.

WORLD NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

One of the largest crowds in Billy Graham’s New York Crusade turned out the night he delivered a special address to the thousands who had made decisions there to live for Christ.

An estimated 19,000 jammed Madison Square Garden for the sermon on “How to Live A Christian Life.”

Mr. Graham began by asking, “Who is a Christian?” Before answering, he described some people who are not Christians. He said:

“A person is not a Christian because his parents were Godly people. Christian parents are wonderful, but they can’t make the decision for a child. He must do it himself. A person is not a Christian just because he is sincere. My mother thought she was giving me cough medicine once, but she had poured out some poison. She was sincere, but she was sincerely wrong.

“A person isn’t a Christian just because he follows his conscience. His conscience may be dead. You aren’t a Christian because of your feelings. Feelings change.

“Then who is a Christian? I’ll tell you. A Christian is a-person in whom Christ dwells. The Scripture says, ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’

“A Christian is a person who believes that his sins have been forgiven through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The devil will try to make you doubt this. How can you know your sins have been forgiven? Because God said so, and God can’t lie.

“A period of adjustment follows the decision to live for Christ. Your life has been changed. Christian growth must begin unless you are to remain a spiritual baby. Some people never grow spiritually and many of our churches are filled with babies. These people are among the most miserable on earth, because they don’t feel at home with Christ and they don’t feel at home with the world. They want both, and it doesn’t work.

“How does a Christian grow? I am going to list five ways. There are others, but these are five of the most important.

“First, a Christian grows when he prays. When you were a baby, you had to learn to walk. You learn to pray the same way. God doesn’t expect your words to be perfect. When I heard my son, Franklin, say ‘da-da’ for the first time, the words were more beautiful than any ever used by Churchill. I am going to be a little worried, however, if he is still saying ‘da-da’ when he is 12 years old.

“It’s a shame that our churches are practically empty for Wednesday night prayer meetings. The person who waits to pray until he feels like it, will never pray. The devil will see to that. The Bible says you are to pray without ceasing. This means that you can be in a spirit of prayer while driving the car, walking down the street, working in the office or wherever you may be.

“Every Christian should have a quiet time alone with God every day. Your spiritual life will never be much without it.

“Prayers should be filled with praise to God, with thanksgiving for all the wonderful things he has done. Self-examination should be in your prayers, as you confess shortcomings. God is interested in hearing your personal requests, no matter how small. You should seek guidance in prayer. An important thing to remember is that you should pray that God’s will be done and not your will. People make mistakes. God doesn’t.

“Second, a Christian grows when he reads the Bible. This should happen every day, without fail. The Word of God cleanses the heart. Many people don’t read the Bible because they don’t understand it all. I want to tell these people that they will never understand all the Bible. I passed a big milestone in my own Christian life one day when I knelt before God and confessed there were many things in the Bible I didn’t understand, but that I was going to accept it all as the inspired Word of God, by faith. From that moment, the Word became a living fire in my soul.

“Turn off the television set and read the Bible. Begin in the New Testament if you’re a new Christian. It’s easier to understand. Don’t read to see how many chapters you can cover. It’s better to read two or three verses and meditate upon them.

“Make sure you have a Bible with big print. One of the devil’s biggest tricks is to have Bibles with small print, so people won’t read them. In addition to the King James Version, I would recommend the Phillips Translation.

“Third, a Christian grows when he leads a disciplined life. Your bodies, minds and tongues should be disciplined. Practice self-control. The Holy Spirit will give you the strength to become Christian soldiers.

“Many temptations will come to do battle with such discipline, but in Christ you can resist. The Bible says, ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’

“The tempter will flee when you answer with a verse of scripture. It’s impossible to argue or rationalize with the devil. Jesus, the Son of God, answered temptation by saying, ‘It is written.…’

“A little boy expressed it very well one day when he said, ‘Everytime temptation knocks, I just send Jesus to the door.’

“Fourth, a Christian grows by being faithful in his church. Going to church is not optional; it’s necessary. God says we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

“Lots of people today don’t go to church because it is too hot. In the winter they don’t go because it is too cold. I’m afraid I don’t know the ideal church temperature.

“Many figure that the preacher is doing a fine job if he doesn’t go five minutes beyond 12. But if that happens, they are ready to get another one. It may surprise some of you to know that you don’t go to church just to hear a preacher. You go to worship God.

“Get into a good church where the Bible is preached and Christ is exalted. Get to work for God. Join a Bible studycell in your church. The communists borrowed this method from the early church and their godless doctrine spread like wildlfire.

“Five, a Christian grows through service. Be a soul winner. There’s a difference between a witness and a soul winner. A soul winner is filled with the Spirit of God. He visits the sick. He gives to the poor. He loves his enemies. He is kind to his neighbors. Anyone can walk up to another on the street and bark, ‘Brother, are you saved?’ It takes more than that.

“We have a lot of witnesses today but very few soul winners.”

Wall Street Rally

12,000 persons, from financiers to clerks, jammed Wall and Nassau Streets for four blocks in all directions to hear Billy Graham speak on sin, business and money from the steps of the Federal Hall Memorial.

The evangelist told the crowd that “you can make millions of dollars and not find God, if you are separated by sin from Him who is the source of all peace and happiness.”

Immigration Bill

The National Association of Evangelicals has voiced objections to Senate Bill 2410, introduced by Senator John F. Kennedy (D.-Mass.)—providing for an annual redistribution of unused quotas.

Such a provision means that quotas from such countries as England, Ireland and Germany, which are seldom filled, could be assigned to regional pools. This would give emigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania a second chance of coming to the U. S.

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, NAE Secretary of Public Affairs, said the bill “provides for a shift of quotas from the unused ones for western and northern Europe, that have provided our main cultural emphasis, to southern and eastern Europe, that are Roman Catholic and decidedly of minority cultural emphasis. Moreover, its philosophy is that we have a moral obligation to help handle population surpluses.”

The bill was praised by Msgr. Edward E. Swanstrom, executive director of Catholic Relief Services. He said “it is particularly gratifying to know that Senator Kennedy and his colleagues have drafted a bill which the senator says ‘is a strong bill and one which no member of the Senate need feel any hesitancy in supporting.’ ”

The Walter-McCarran Act, passed in 1952, provides that the annual quota for any one of the 85 major quota areas shall equal one-sixth of one per cent of the number of inhabitants of the United States, based on the 1920 census. The House Un-American Activities Committee claimed recently, said the NAE, that the Communist Party has created over 180 organizations for the purpose of bringing “grass roots” pressure on Congress to destroy the Walter-McCarran Act.

Worth Quoting

“Of all the panaceas ever set forth in the world to remedy the ills of the human race, there is only one that is effective. That is the gospel of God’s saving grace. This is no over-simplification of a complex problem. It is the one and only basis upon which the superstructure of any temple of peace can be erected. If there is one question upon which we can pronounce dogmatically it is this, that until man has first made peace with God he will never be at peace for any length of time with his fellow-men.”—

JAMES H. HUNTER, author.

People: Words And Events

Editor Dies—Dr James Richard Joy, 93, editor of The Christian Advocate from 1915 to 1936, died July 1 at Manhattan General Hospital. Since 1936 he had been librarian of the Methodist Historical Society. From 1891 to 1904 he was on the editorial staff of the Methodist Book Concern.

Medal of Honor—The Pentagon indicates it will switch its “non-combat” stand and approve a Senate resolution to award the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously to four chaplains who lost their lives in the sinking of the troopship Dorchester during World War II. The chaplains perished on Feb. 3, 1943, after giving their life preservers to servicemen on the transport. They were The Rex. George L. Fox, Gilman, Vt. (Methodist); The Rev. Clark V. Poling, Schnectady, N. Y. (Reformed Church in America); The Rev. John P. Washington, Newark, N. J. (Roman Catholic) and Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, York, Pa.

Poll on Parsonages—Most clergymen are not in favor of having parsonages right next to churches, according to a survey made by the Southern California-Arizona Methodist Conference. “There is a tendency to encroach upon the privacy of the home life of the parsonage family” when it is next door, said a majority. They expressed a preference for at least three bedrooms with rugs, draperies or curtains supplied. At least one bedroom should have twin beds and all should have “good” mattresses. One full-length mirror is “helpful.” Of the 217 clergymen polled, 174 voted for two or more bathrooms.

Teen-Agers Pray—About 3,000 teenagers, delegates to the 13th annual convention of Youth for Christ International, spent a night in prayer at Winona Lake, Indiana, for Billy Graham’s New York Crusade.… Madison Square Garden officials said Graham has outlasted and outdrawn all previous attractions in the arena’s 30-year history. In seven weeks the Crusade attracted 824,300. The previous record was made in 1947 by the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, which ran for 40 days with a total audience of 785,813.

Children’s Center—Dr. Daniel Poling, editor of “The Christian Herald,” has donated his house and 400 acres of property at Deering, N. H., for use as a children’s center.

Good News—Churchmen received good news when the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that “obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press.” The high court upheld four laws—an 1872 Federal law making it criminal to send obscene matter through the mails, a California law against writing, publishing, selling or exhibiting obscene matter and a Newark ordinance banning “strip tease” acts in theaters.

Chaplain of Year—Secretary of the Army Wilbur M. Brucker presented the Army Chaplain of the Year award to Chaplain (Major) Arthur E. Mills (Advent Christian) of Aurora, Ill. Chaplain Mills, who has twice won the Silver Star for gallantry in action, is now post chaplain at Fort Monroe, Va.

Business Men Go—Evangelist Tommy Hicks challenged the delegates to the fifth annual convention of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International: “In the mission fields, the doors are closing to preachers and missionaries, but they are open to businessmen. Businessmen are doing something they have never done before—leaving their businesses for short periods and going out to the ends of the earth to witness to the untold dying millions, and paying their own expenses to do it.” 175 responded at two meetings when Hicks challenged them to go.

Conservative Debate—The possible addition of the word “premillennial” to the doctrinal statement caused considerable debate at the June annual Fellowship of Conservative Baptists. No vote was taken.

Digest—Church construction set a new record for the month of June, amounting to $73,000,000.… Evon Hedley, Toronto, appointed executive director of Youth for Christ International to succeed Dr. Ted W. Engstrom, new president of YFC.… G. Keith Hargett named director of film distribution for Moody Bible Institute. He gave famous “Sermons from Science” demonstrations for six years.

3 Hours In Queue

Alejandro Clifford, a journalist from Cordoba, Argentina, made a special trip to New York City recently and attended one of the Billy Graham Crusade meetings. He stood in a line outside Madison Square Garden for three hours. These are the things he heard and felt:

It was pouring rain. I did not know what to do or where to go on Sunday in New York. The great city seemed a far from cheerful place at 3 p.m. to this South American journalist with his one suit of clothes and one pair of shoes.

I decided to make for Madison Square Garden, which was quite close to my hotel, and to stand in the line for the Billy Graham meeting, if there should be a line at such an early hour. To my surprise, people were queueing up, and more and more kept arriving.

Though I had a press card which entitled me to a good seat, I decided to stay in the line. I wanted to know what sort of people were being reached by the New York campaign. Were they, as some said, people who do not need reaching? I was soon able to answer that question and several others. The line of folk waiting at 3:30 for the opening of the doors of the Garden at 6, was a crosssection of the world. I saw people of all ages, races, social conditions. Vigorous youth, the crippled, the blind. And suddenly my own little section of the queue became very interesting as people got friendly and began to talk.

I was wedged in tightly between two middle-aged colored women. The one on my left leaned over me and addressing the one on my right asked: “What church do you belong to, lady?” After a short pause there was a shamefaced reply: “No church.” A shocked “That’s not good!” from my left, was followed by an explanation from my right: “When I was a little girl I went to Sunday School and church, but I have been nowhere for many years. I’m coming every night to hear Billy, because I know his message is the truth, and I want to find Christ.”

The well dressed lady in front of me turned and said: “I am Swedish. When I was a girl, I used to go to the Lutheran Church, but in the States I have never been anywhere. Now I have become a Christian, thanks to Billy Graham.”

Four policemen were sheltered from the rain just a couple of yards from where I was standing. They were discussing baseball but soon switched over to a discussion of Billy Graham. Some of the remarks were far from complimentary. One of the policemen, a young, earnest looking fellow, asked his mates if they had taken the trouble to listen to Billy, then added: “I never bothered to listen to the guy until last night. I can tell you I never heard anything like it in my life. You’d better listen before you talk.” And with that they separated.

A stoutish overdressed woman in her early thirties, who was standing just behind me asked: “Can anyone tell me where I can find the story of the little man who climbed a tree because he wanted to see Jesus?” At once several Bibles were pulled out, and the man who was standing beside her showed her the passage in Luke. Zacchaeus was merely an excuse to start a conversation, for the woman continued: “I do wish I could understand this question of being born again. I listened to Billy’s sermon on John 3:16 last night. I went home and memorized the verse, but I can’t understand how one can obtain eternal life or be born again.”

The man with the Bible got busy and gave her a very clear explanation of the way of salvation. Then suddenly the woman said: “I am Jewish. Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ would receive a Jewess?” The man read several passages, Isaiah 53 among them. A German woman who was standing quite close to the Jewess, patted her on the back and handed her a couple of tracts written specially for Jews. As she did so she said: “Take these, Madam. I am a German, and I feel that by doing humble work and serving the Jews, I can atone in a small way for the terrible manner in which my nation treated them. And then, it gives me a chance to talk to them about my Saviour, their Messiah.”

And so it went on. The people were so interesting! The young colored schoolmaster, now employed by United Nations, who had just lost his teaching job because he insisted on reading the Bible to his students; the young man with the long hair who wanted to argue about the age of the earth, but did not wish to discuss sin; the smiling Oriental who did not seem to understand much English but who certainly showed that he was on the Lord’s side.

When the doors opened, I went in. Billy spoke very simply, but with power, on the Second Coming of Christ. And when the invitation was given, I felt the tears running down my cheeks as I saw that my Jewish friend of the queue was one of the first to go forward.

People can tell me whatever they like now about the sort of folk Billy Graham reaches or doesn’t reach. It won’t worry me. I know the truth. I stood for nearly three hours in the queue.

Brother Team

The Rev. B. O. Baker, pastor in Fort Worth for the last 10 years, and his brother, Dick, who worked with Howard Butt as associates in Billy Graham’s New York Crusade, have formed a new evangelistic team.

All campaigns will be conducted through church sponsorship.

Both are graduates of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

During the 10 years the Rev. B. O. Baker was pastor of Birchman Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth, the annual budget increased from $28,000 to $110,000, property value from some $50,000 to $350,000 and membership from 500 to 1,800. He will do the speaking for the team.

Dick Baker will be the music director. He was founder and director during college days of the Baylor Religious Hour Choir. Some of the songs he has written include Longing for Jesus, Keep Looking Up and Lord, Send Revival.

Brewer Suggestions

Brewers are reportedly weeping into their beer because their product failed to show an increase in sales last year. American Brewer has rushed forward with some suggestions to change the trend:

“Make the serving of beer predominate at all industry events. We are producers and salesmen of beer. We must also be consumers.

“Each employee is a potential salesman, and all must be encouraged to not only drink beer but promote its usage among families and friends. Could not brewery unions, which have a big stake in our industry, cooperate in this direction?”

School Decision

The following special article was written forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Peter de Visser, publisher of Grand Rapids (Mich.) International Publications.

The Christian Reformed Church, at the June Centennial Synod in Grand Rapids, Michigan, started off its second century with a strong reaffirmation of support to Christian education. The Synod voted, 88 to 22, to continue its ownership and operation of Calvin College and Seminary, rather than to turn the denominational schools over to private society operation. The Synod backed up its decision by approving relocation of the schools to a new and expanded campus, authorizing the construction of five buildings—one for the seminary, two dormitories, a power and heating plant and a physical education building to cost a total of $3,500,000 and to constitute the first units of the new 166-acre campus at Knollcrest, southeast of Grand Rapids.

A minority report of the Board of Trustees’ long-range planning committee had suggested that the college ought eventually to be turned over to a private educational society. The decisions to retain control, to remain in Grand Rapids and to expand on a new and larger campus, settled for the time being the efforts of some to have the college and seminary moved to Chicago, New York or Los Angeles and of others to curtail the the college to the upper two years and establish regional junior colleges in various sections of the U. S. and Canada. Part of the funds for the new three-quarter-million-dollar seminary building are already on hand, as funds for this project as a Centennial Memorial were raised at a special Centennial Thank-offering April 7, which brought in about $300,000. The college and seminary combined now have nearly 2,000 students.

A move toward eventual organization of regional synods, to meet on alternate years, was taken with appointment of a committee to draw up a specific plan of reorganization, to be presented to a future synod. At present the general synod meets each year.

Backing for increased missionary activity, both at home and abroad, was embodied in several actions. The Board of Foreign Missions was authorized to lend personnel assistance to the Reformed Church of Korea. Similar assistance was offered to the Reformed Churches of Australia and New Zealand, composed chiefly of recent Dutch immigrants to those countries. Encouragement also was given to cooperation with the Church of Christ of the Sudan in moves to establish a theological seminary in Nigeria.

In keeping with its Centennial thrust of increased activity in church extension, the Synod authorized opening of 10 new fields by its committee on home missions. The spurring of community evangelism has been one of the main features of the church’s anniversary program.

The Synod passed on for guidance to its 500 component congregations a set of resolutions condemning racial discrimination and segregation. No specific action was taken regarding the contents of the resolutions, but it was deemed desirable to circulate them to the congregations for their study and guidance in local situations.

The Synod voted to grant women the right to particpate and to vote in congregational meetings, at the discretion of local church consistories. Some churches of the denomination have allowed woman suffrage for many years.

Conversations looking toward closer co-operation were approved on request from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and one faction of the Protestant Reformed Church. Three delegates were appointed to attend the Reformed Ecumenical Synod in South Africa in 1958.

A resolution affirming continued opposition to appointment of any Presidential envoy to the Vatican was approved.

Adopted was a budget of more than $4 million, including more than $1 million each for foreign missions, home missions and Calvin College and Seminary. Financial assessments for the coming year were set at $16 per family for evangelism and $16 per family for foreign missions, also $14 per family for the support of Calvin College and Seminary. A new dormitory at the denomination’s Indian Mission School at Rehoboth, New Mexico was approved, to cost $80,000.

The Centennial Synod marked the climax of the denomination’s observance of the one-hundredth anniversary of its founding by Dutch immigrants in western Michigan in 1857. Fraternal delegates were present with greetings from the Reformed churches of Australia, Ceylon, Japan, South Africa and the Netherlands. A repeat performance of the Centennial pageant, “Upon This Rock”, was given for the synodical delegates.

The church’s Centennial Committee was asked to continue another year, with a view to establishing a denominational information agency to assist in the task of church outreach. The committee has done an extensive job in publicizing the work and message of the Christian Reformed Church during its centennial year.

Today the Christian Reformed Church has congregations in 28 states of the U. S., in Alaska and in all of the Canadian provinces. In recent years the Canadian membership has mushroomed because of the large influx of immigrants from Reformed churches of the Netherlands, so that now there are nearly 125 churches in Canada. And while the quarter-million membership of the Christian Reformed Church is still predominantly of Dutch ancestry and background, many nationalities are now represented on the church rolls.

Germany

Matter Of Judgment

Bishop Harms Lilje of Hanover, Germany, president of the Lutheran World Federation, asked people in the free world not to pass judgment upon the leaders of Christian churches behind the Iron Curtain who may be forced to make compromises with their communist governments.

“From my own experience under the Nazis, I know that the lines are not always clearly drawn,” the bishop said.

Bishop Lilje said “we will not be fooled” by any communist propaganda which might be voiced by delegates from Iron Curtain countries who attend the Lutheran World Assembly at Minneapolis, August 15–27. Delegates from eight Communist-ruled countries are expected to attend the sessions.

The bishop made his comment in response to statements by five refugee Protestant clergymen who testified recently before the Senate Internal Security sub-committee. The refugees asserted that delegates to the Lutheran meeting from Communist countries are appointees of the Red governments and may seek to spread false propaganda about freedom of religion. The clergymen who testified to the Senate subcommittee were accompanied by Dr. Carl McIntire, president of the fundamentalist International Council of Christian Churches.

“If there is a man who is just a servant of the other system (atheism) and who does not really care for Christianity, we would soon find him out,” Bishop Lilje declared.

Meanwhile, he urged that the representatives of Lutheran Churches in Communist areas be greeted with cordiality and he said he hoped the press would refrain from asking them questions “which are bound to be embarrassing to them.”

He said that great difficulty had been encountered in seeking permission for delegates to attend from the church in East Germany. He added he believed it would be helpful both to the Assembly and the church in the Eastern Zone if they can attend.

“It does something to a man to be able to breathe, if only for a few days, the air of freedom that we take so much for granted,” he declared.

Bishop Lilje said that the Lutheran Church in Germany has taken the position that “the shepherd must remain with his flock.”

“We have told our pastors that even if others flee to the West, they must stay and minister to those who remain,” he said.

“They have a hard duty to perform,” he observed, “and I don’t think it is up to us to judge them.

“We know that the communist governments are against religion and believe that in 50 years or so it will die out and not exist any longer, but our job is to give a constructive Christian testimony, not to argue politics.”

Bishop Lilje said that he hoped delegates would be present from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.

Africa

Islamic Way

While Nigeria jubilated over the victories of her 70 delegates to the London Constitutional Conference, Alhadji Ahmadu, Prime Minister of the Northern Region, made it clear that Christian ideas of modern democracy would not set aside the traditional Islamic way of life in the North.

With Londoners agog at the Nigerian costumes (silk top hats with ostrich feathers and a minister’s gown with 20-foot-long train), the delegates and their advisers hammered out plans for regional self government this year for those who want it (the West and East). In 1959 full national independence within the British Commonwealth will make Nigeria the largest independent country in Africa and the fourth in the Commonwealth.

In a London radio interview about his people’s rush to nationhood, swarthy, six-footer Alhadji Ahmadu stated that the Northern Region’s Moslem feudal system would not be scrapped under the new “democracy.” He said “we have foundations on which we have been building the modern civilization.

“The Islamic faith forbids the participation of women in elections. No matter what happens in the other regions, as long as I am in office we shall oppose votes for women because of our religion.”

Anxious about their future in a predominantly Moslem region (Northern Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are reported to be the only two areas in the world where pure Islamic law is practiced), Conference delegates representing Christians and pagans in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” (6 million population) are seeking the formation of a Middle Belt State, which southern politicians also favor as a way of trimming the North’s political bloc.

The British government has promised to appoint a commission to investigate the desirability of setting up new states in all three regions to protect minority groups.

This in contrast to the policy followed in smaller Ghana (4½ million), where Dr. Nkruman, the Prime Minister, declared: “The government is not prepared to create constituencies representing special religious, racial or tribal interests.”

Meanwhile, the steady advance of Islam in West Africa is arousing churchmen. A motion deploring inroads being made into Christian affairs by Islam was passed at the annual Synod meeting of the Anglican Church in Lagos, Nigeria.

Delegates claimed Moslems were “demoralizing Christians in their beliefs” through subtle tactics such as exchanging seasonal gifts and observing harvest ceremonies. To combat the Moslem advance, the Synod adopted a program of teaching about Christianity and Islam.

Pointing up the increasing power of Islam even in the “Christian South” of Nigeria, Christian candidates for a chieftancy title in the town of Iwo were reported hiding their religious identity by dropping baptismal names in order to gain popularity in the election.

In a newspaper interview, Maulvi Naseem Saif, chief Ahmadiyya missionary for West Africa, replied to protests of the Church.

“We are speeding up our own activities,” he stated. “We want to see that in our own lifetime this great country becomes Moslem, and by that I mean the whole population joins Islam. We are confident.”

Mission leaders, aware for the last decade that the advance of Islam has been outstripping Christianity in West Africa, are alarmed at the apathy of African Christians. The Rev. J. S. Trimingham, commissioned by the Methodists and Anglicans to make a survey of Islam and the Church in West Africa, reported “the increasing stagnation of the West African Church. The churches are concerned with internal organization and not with evangelism among non-Christians.… Fervor to evangelize their fellows has waned or died.”

The Sudan Interior Mission, largest Christian agency working in the Moslem areas of Nigeria, is tackling the problem by encouraging their churches to evangelize Moslem neighbors with literature.

If African Christians are stung into action, Maulvi Saifi’s threat may prove to have a healthy effect.

—W. H. F.

- More from L. Nelson Bell

Theology

Bible Book of the Month: Second Epistle to the Corinthians

Philip Edgecumbh Hughes

St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians may without exaggeration be described as one of the richest of all the writings of the New Testament. Its pervading theme of the complete sufficiency of God’s grace in the face of trials and afflictions of every kind is one that is peculiarly appropriate for our own times. And yet it is a strangely neglected epistle. The reason for this neglect is difficult to ascertain, unless it may be that the human mind has a subconscious and quite illogical tendency to rate what is known as a second epistle as being of only secondary importance. In point of fact, there would be some justification for speaking of I Corinthians as the second epistle (and II Corinthians as the third), since it is evident from 1 Corinthians 5:9 that St. Paul had written a still earlier letter to the Corinthians which is now lost. Be that as it may, II Corinthians is certainly not inferior to I Corinthians in the splendour of its perspectives of divine truth. Its “rediscovery” today could hardly fail to be an ennobling and fortifying experience for the church of Christ.

Structure Of Epistle

The opening salutation (in which St. Paul associates the name of Timothy with his own) shows that this epistle was written not only to the church at Corinth, but to all the Christians in the province of Achaia in Southern Greece. The epistle falls into three main sections: (1) chapters 1 to 7, in which the Apostle provides an explanation of his relations with the Corinthians, a defence of his own personal integrity in these relations and an appeal to them to reciprocate the confidence and the love which he entertains towards them; (2) chapters 8 and 9, in which he exhorts the Corinthians to give liberally for the relief of the poverty-stricken Christians at Jerusalem and makes arrangements for them to have their collection in readiness when he comes to receive it and to convey it to their fellow-believers in the mother-church; (3) chapters 10 to 13, in which St. Paul vindicates his apostolic authority with a view to silencing the slanders uttered against him by certain ill-disposed persons.

Wealth Of Contents

But to summarize the structure of the epistle in this manner is to fail to give any adequate idea of the wealth of its contents. Chapters 3 to 6, for example, set before us a succession of noble themes, memorably presented. There is, to begin with, the impressive comparison of the glory of the law ministered by Moses with the surpassing and abiding glory of the new covenant ministered by Christ (3:1–4:6). This leads to the reminder that the Christian has the treasure of the knowledge of God’s glory in the frail earthen vessel of the human frame, together with the assurance that, however much the outward man may suffer and decay, the inward man is renewed day by day and that the weight of affliction borne in this brief pilgrimage is immeasurably surpassed by the eternal weight of glory which is the Christian’s inheritance (4:7–18).

St. Paul then passes on to speak of the death of the body and the intermediate state. This present mortal body is like a temporary tent, which is dissolved at death. Even though to be absent from the body (as the result of death) means a period of “nakedness” and incompletion, yet it also means, for the Christian, to be at home with Christ. And when Christ comes again all Christians, whether still in the body or not, will be clothed upon with the permanent abode of the resurrection body. Man will not enter the heavenly state as a disembodied spirit but in the full splendour of his redeemed humanity; for Christ saves the whole man, body as well as soul (5:1–10). There follows one of the great classical passages concerning God’s soverign grace in reconciling man to himself through Christ’s atoning and substitutionary death. The passage concludes with what is perhaps the most perfect brief statement in the New Testament of the theology of our redemption, namely, that “God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (5:14–21).

6:4–10 is another memorable section, admired for its beauty by Augustine, Erasmus and many others, which describes the serene and transcendent spirit of the faithful follower of Christ in the midst of trials and afflictions of every kind—“as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things”. Could there be a more sublime paradox than that of the new man in Christ? Mention may also be made in this connection of the Apostle’s enumeration in the eleventh chapter (verses 16–33) of some of the many severe hardships and persecutions he had suffered in the course of his missionary labours. He, if anybody, knew what it meant to be “always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifested in our mortal flesh” (4:11).

Theme

What is the theme which pervades the whole of this remarkable epistle? It is perfectly stated in the never-to-be-forgotten words of the glorified Lord to his servant: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness”; and in the Apostle’s exultant response: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me; wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (12:9–10). Alas, how little do we know of this dynamic apostolic spirit today! Human weakness and divine power have not changed; but we have allowed the comforts and securities offered by twentieth-century civilization and the complacencies of denominational allegiance to bind us to this earth, with the result that we are at home here and now, and are puzzled to think (if we ever do think about it) how it will be possible for us to be at home with the Lord hereafter (cf. 5:8).

Unity

Something must be said about the unity of II Corinthians. Many scholars in modern times have propounded the view that one or more sections of the epistle as we now have it cannot have belonged to the original document, and must therefore, as the result of some later accident or mistake, have been inserted from elsewhere. The last four chapters especially have been said to be incompatible in tone and content with the earlier chapters, and the hypothesis has been advanced that they are a part of the “painful letter” to which the Apostle refers in 2:4 and 7:8. This “painful” or “severe” letter, it is supposed, must have been written after I Corinthians, since the latter is regarded, by those who advance this hypothesis, as unfitted for such a description. 2 Corinthians 10–13, then, would be a fragment from that letter which in some way not known to us became attached to our epistle. Various other passages have also been the subject of similar conjectures.

Such theories, however, are without the support of a single shred of external evidence. No early writer, no ancient manuscript and no breath of tradition betrays any indication that II Corinthians ever existed in a form other than that in which we now possess it. And, besides, it is difficult to see why our present I Corinthians should not be the “painful letter” mentioned in 2:4 and 7:8. Consider for a moment the extremely painful matters about which St. Paul writes in that epistle: serious divisions and factions in the church at Corinth, the pride with which its members had become “puffed up,” their condonation even of a case of incest in their midst, their willingness to institute legal proceedings against one another before unbelievers, their abuse of the Lord’s Supper, the grave disorderliness of their public worship and the denial by some in their midst even of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Tertullian was not without some justification in saying that I Corinthians was written “not with ink, but with gall” (De Pudicitia XIV).

Then, too, it must be remembered that St. Paul was writing a letter, not composing a literary essay or a logical treatise. The epistolary form is essentially spontaneous and flexible. In a letter, especially from an apostle to a church which he had founded, there is nothing either surprising or inappropriate in changes of subject matter, of style or even of mood. There is room for doctrinal instruction, ethical admonition, praise and gratitude, reproof and censure. And it must not be forgotten that it was Paul, one of the great personalities of history, who was writing, or rather dictating, this letter—Paul who lived so devotedly and felt so deeply that it was nothing unusual for him to break off from a particular theme and to embark on a profound and enriching digression. Indeed, it may be asserted that perhaps the noblest part of this epistle is an extended “digression,” namely, from 2:14 to 7:4. In 2:13 he is recounting how he traveled anxiously from Troas to Macedonia, hoping to meet Titus there with news from Corinth; but this subject is interrupted—and thank God that it is!—by a thought concerning the manner in which God causes the believer to triumph in Christ through all adversities, and it leads on to a sequence of great and glorious themes which have been an inspiration to countless saints who have suffered for Christ’s sake during the succeeding centuries.

The account of his coming to Macedonia and meeting with Titus is resumed only at 7:5. These events took place, as far as we are able to ascertain from the evidence available, in the autumn of 57 A.D., and immediately upon receiving Titus’s report on the manner in which his earlier epistle had been received St. Paul wrote II Corinthians and sent it to Corinth by the hand of Titus and two other brethren (8:16–24), intending to follow them himself after an interval (9:4, 12:14, 13:1, cf. Acts 20:2). The Pauline authorship of II Corinthians is not open to serious dispute.

Tools For Exposition

Of the commentaries which have been written on II Corinthians we shall mention only five, all of which will be of great value to the student of Holy Scripture: the Homilies of John Chrysostom (fourth century), the commentary of John Calvin (sixteenth century), and, in more recent times, those of Charles Hodge (1835, but recently republished), James Denney (1894, Expositor’s Bible), and, on the Greek text, Alfred Plummer (1915, International Critical Commentary).

PHILIP EDGECUMBE HUGHES

- More from Philip Edgecumbh Hughes

Books

Book Briefs: July 22, 1957

R. Allan Killen

Tillich Soteriology

Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, by Paul Tillich, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1957. $4.50.

This is decidedly the most readable book that Paul Tillich has yet published, due partly to the subject matter—the fall, sin, Christ and salvation—and partly to the fact that Tillich has found helpers who thoroughly understand and appreciate his views and who have ironed out his attempts to express himself in English. Tillich came to America at the age of 47 in 1933 and in spite of twenty-five years here does not have the same mastery of English as he does of his native language.

In his explanation of the fall Tillich speaks of man as first existing as essential being in the mind of God in a state of “dreaming innocence.” He denies that there ever was any state of conscious innocence or any golden age. As man exerted himself to come into existence he sinned—expressed unbelief, exerted pride and concupiscence—became estranged or separated from God and fell. In this fall he changed from the condition of essential being to that of existential being.

Tillich claims that man-kind is responsible for the fall even though it occurred before man came into consciousness. He draws an analogy from childhood to support his point and says, “the child upon growing into maturity affirms the state of estrangement in acts of freedom which imply responsibility and guilt” (p. 44). Such an explanation however, clearly fails to answer Rheinhold Niebuhr’s implication in The Theology of Paul Tillich that responsibility cannot be predicated of a fall which did not happen in history, nor his charge that this makes sin an ontological necessity in contrast to the Biblical view which makes it an historically responsible act (pp. 219, 222).

This second volume contains a full explanation of Tillich’s exegesis of Genesis 3 and shows how he forces the biblical account of the fall into the mould of his ontological system by what we can call half-way demythologization and which he calls “deliteralization” (p. 152).

From his view of original sin and a prehistorical fall Tillich proceeds on to a description of sin. He sees it as entailing unbelief, pride and concupiscence and adds to this the idea that certain polar tensions, present but always conquered in God—namely freedom and destiny, dynamics and form, individualization and participation—are in conflict in man. In spite of all this, plus a goodly admixture of the Kierkegaardian concept of Angst, Tillich fails to express the biblical view of sin in that he overlooks that it is, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “Any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.” For Tillich there cannot be any law as a revelation of the character of God because eternal verities and absolute truth are excluded by his definition of God as The Infinite and The Absolute. He has accepted the same definition of God as Mansel and Hamilton (Cf. Chas. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. I, pp. 346–365) and must therefore insist that the Ten Commandments, and the words, commands and deeds of Jesus are only of relative value and do not hold for us. Any absolute, even absolute truth, would make God relative (Cf. Vol. I, p. 134).

Evil receives a necessary ontological existence in Tillich insofar as God is made dynamic by Non-Being (The Courage to Be, p. 179) and becomes an unavoidable necessity for creation insofar as it occurs in the state of “dreaming innocence” in the transition of man from potentiality to actuality (p. 44).

In his ontological view Tillich maintains the creation itself fell with man—he makes no clear distinction between material being and spiritual being insofar as both partake of the power of being—and sees the creation therefore as falling with man under the curse of sin. “Creation is good in its essential character. If actualized it falls into universal estrangement” (p. 44). The doctrine of creation and fall coincide (Cf. Vol. I, p. 255). Creation, including man and the material, is good as potential essential being, but is fallen and evil as actualized existential being.

At one point Tillich drops into the complete pantheism of Hegel and Schleiermacher as he writes concerning creation that “… God is eternally creative, that through himself he creates the world and through the world himself” (p. 147).

It is to be carefully noted that in this volume, as in volume I, Tillich never speaks of Christ as one who is divine and God in his own right, but rather as one who attained the place of “the Christ,” one who becomes “the Christ” by an act of absolute surrender which was consummated in the Cross, followed by a victory which was signified in the kerygma of the resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is not physical (p. 155), nor spiritual (p. 156), nor merely psychological (p. 156) but is an ecstatic experience by the early Christians of the concrete picture of Jesus of Nazareth, in which he became united in their minds with the reality of the New Birth in such way that he had, for them, the character of a spiritual presence (p. 157).

It is regrettable that in this volume—and surely it should have appeared under his discussion of the person of Christ—there is no clear statement of what Tillich means by his term “God-Manhood.”

The references to “God-Manhood” are not listed anywhere in the index and yet the term is found in this volume on such pages as p. 124, 127, 146, 159, and 169. Carefully studied, and looked upon metaphysically, the concept means that essential being in the mind of God (and man only existed potentially there, cf. p. 33) was taken into union with the second principle in God or the Logos (a principle and not a person) and then became united with a common man, Jesus of Nazareth, to form “Jesus who is the Christ.” Tillich rejects the Virgin Birth as an historical fact in the life of Jesus (p. 160). Looked at physically the concept “God-man” means that Jesus became “Jesus who is the Christ” by surrendering everything of self and becoming absolutely transparent to the Logos or the divine.

References to the two natures of Christ are entirely missing in the index, though the subject is dwelt upon at length on pages 42 f. and 147–48. On page 147 Tillich confines the term “divine nature” to his concept of God as beyond essence and existence and denies implicitly that Christ could have such a nature in that it is “that which makes God into God.” He therefore considers that it is questionable that the term can be applied to Christ in any meaningful way.

When he comes to the doctrine of salvation Tillich insists that God is reconciled concerning sin, from eternity past, apart from the Cross of Christ. He states that “the message of Christianity is that God … is eternally reconciled” (p. 169). “He does not need to be reconciled to man, but he asks man to be reconciled to him” (p. 93). Tillich insists that Christ is only the “ultimate criterion” or norm of every healing and saving process, and that it cannot be insisted that there is no saving power apart from him Cp. 167–8). So far as Tillich’s theory of the appearance of the New Being under the conditions of existence is concerned, any other man could have been the Savior of mankind if he had completely surrendered himself and all he was to God and had become absolutely transparent to the divine.

R. ALLAN KILLEN

Sermonic Substance

God Has the Answer, by H. Orton Wiley, Beacon Hill Press. $1.50.

If more preachers waited until they reached the high plateau of spiritual maturity attained by this author before attempting to publish their sermons far less paper, printer’s ink and people’s time and money would be wasted on trivial books. Whether or not this volume of eight sermons deserves to be called a great book, the discerning reader will recognize that the spiritual vigor and godly enthusiasm of the author could only belong to one who has long walked in intimate fellowship with God.

In the preface Dr. Wiley admits of a love for the study of Bible symbolism and of having from the beginning of his ministry cultivated the expository method of preaching. That he has gone a long way in attaining these noble objectives is quite evident. If more ministers could be prevailed upon to follow the example of this man of God far fewer church people would “be tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine.” These are not light sermons that lend themselves readily to the use of men not given to solid study. Rather—here is sermonic substance in abundance for the use of careful and conscientious students ever in search of better materials with which to enrich the spiritual diet of their flocks.

While the author indulges in the use of a few too many scholastic words and phrases common to the pedagogue and often emphasizes the view of sanctification peculiar to his own denomination these practices detract but slightly from the underlying value of the sermons. The happy combination of practical with scientific knowledge in the study and application of biblical symbolism furnishes the reader with a profusion of fresh truth for use in expository preaching and teaching. This book deserves wide distribution and study especially among ministers.

ERIC EDWIN PAULSON

True Perspective

The Typology of Scripture by Patrick Fairbairn. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1956.

He who deals at length with types and symbols without becoming an extremist is an exception to the rule. Patrick Fairbairn is the exception. Like the geologist who walks the Grand Canyon floor, he studies his subject at close range, but like the same scientist flying high above the Arizona wonder, he sees parts in their relationship to the whole and achieves true perspective.

There were typology students before Fairbairn’s day, and there have been many since, but his work stands out head and shoulders above that of all others. It rests upon sound interpretative principles and reasoned theological conclusions. The comparatively recent hermeneutical handbooks of Ramm and Berkhoff touch upon the Old Testament shadows which become living realities in the new dispensation, yet they no more than skim the surface. Fairbairn’s study has depth and possesses enduring qualities.

A type, says Fairbairn, necessitates a “resemblance in form or spirit” with “what answers to it under the Gospel,” but not just any similarity. The resemblance must be one designed of God “to prepare for the better things of the Gospel” (p. 46).

The author enunciates principles, analyzes individual passages and places them in the total setting of Scripture, and defends his exegesis against that of alternative interpretations. The student of Scripture who would understand the ceremonial institutions of the Old Testament or biblical prophecy, in whatever aspect, must not be a stranger to this Zondervan reprint.

BURTON L. GODDARD

World And Life View

The Basic Ideas of Calvinism, by H. Henry Meeter. Grand Rapids International, Grand Rapids. Fourth edition revised. $1.50 and $3.50.

Ordinarily, these days, you can learn a lot about a book just by noting its publisher and its friends. This book comes out of Grand Rapids. That usually means a point of view faithful to the historic reformed tradition. And this book is highly praised by such men as Louis Berkhof, H. H. Kuyper, H. J. Kuiper, J. R. Richardson and F. E. Mayer. To these, this reviewer can be expected to add very little.

Any book with a title such as this, however, needs defining, for Calvinism means many things to many people. Dr. Meeter does not set out to analyze Calvin’s own writings, nor is he interested in the pure theology of the Reformer. His interest is to present the social and political—especially the political—implications of Calvinism as it today is recognized as a world and life view. He writes much in the spirit of Dakin’s Calvinism.

This book is actually a treatise in political science. Three-fourths of it is devoted to Calvinism and culture, to the calvinistic view of the State, of civil liberty, of international law, of war. The first part lays the groundwork for the author’s principal concern by treating very briefly, but well, of Calvinism’s fundamental principle (the Sovereignty of God), its main theological points, its view of Revelation. Then, using Calvinism’s doctrine of Common Grace as a springboard, he launches into the political realm. As a matter of fact, the author confesses his disinterest in Calvinism as a religion, declaring that readers who want information along this line should turn to other authors.

If there is anything wrong with this book, it is at the point of the author’s understanding of Calvin’s doctrine of Common Grace. His view of this doctrine looms large in importance because, after all, the book is about human behavior, or the effect of Common Grace in human relations. Meeter believes that a Calvinist must view the natural man as totally depraved, with every constructive or beneficial work the result of common grace.

He understands this Common Grace as a sort of superimposed (not native) endowment which acts altogether as a restraining influence, by preventing his normal, altogether evil tendencies from dominating. This is an altogether negative approach to man’s constructive behavior which results from Meeter’s understanding of the doctrine of total depravity, an understanding which fails to take into account Calvin’s pointed references to the image of God as marred but not wholly destroyed in man. The distinction is important. Meeter’s view (that the imago dei is wholly destroyed) necessarily colors his writing. Were he altogether consistent, he would say that there can be no native love between a human father and son except by Common Grace, which acts as a restraining influence to control the parent’s natural inclination to strangle the boy.

But it is a good book.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

New Translation

The Authentic New Testament, edited and translated from the Greek by Hugh J. Schonfield. Maps and Illustrations by J. F. Horrabin. Dennis Dobson, London, 1956. 25s.

Recent archaeological discoveries in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea have aroused considerable interest among all who are concerned with Christian origins. Mr. Schonfield wants us to treat the documents of the New Testament with the same breathless excitement.

To enable us to do this he has produced a new translation in which, as he says in his preface, one can “approach these records as if they had recently been recovered from a cave in Palestine or from beneath the sands of Egypt” and thus “look at everything freshly and ask oneself, and try to answer, all kinds of exciting questions.”

Our translator, therefore, as an accomplished Rabbinic and Semitic scholar, has paid full attention to the essentially Jewish background to these writings and, taking into consideration the individual styles and viewpoints of the different authors, has endeavoured to give, in our own modern idiom, what he calls an “authentic New Testament,” i. e. one which should strike people today in much the same way as it struck its first readers many centuries ago. By “authentic” he does not mean to assert that his version is the only correct one, but that it does, as far as possible in a translation, give an accurate reflexion of the period in which the documents were written.

This involves the purging out of all “ecclesiastical bias” and the avoidance of all words and phrases which have, in the course of time, come to acquire a more or less stereotyped, technical meaning, a meaning which may be somewhat different from that of the original one. Thus he speaks of “immersion” not “baptism”, of “envoys” not “apostles”, of “exoneration” not “justification” and of “the community” not “the church”. This is salutary, but it is questionable whether, at this late date, such words as these can be entirely divested of the ideas and associations which have gathered around them with the growth of Christian thought and experience. This raises the whole question as to how far the Scriptures can be read without bias, and to what extent we are to be expected to project ourselves into the ideas and outlook of the latter part of the first century of our era before we can really understand them.

Mr. Schonfield speaks as a scholar and a Jew. He is concerned to show that Christianity fits closely into its Jewish environment and that there is much common ground between the two movements. This is an approach for which we may be grateful, for it represents a very different attitude to the New Testament on the part of Jewish people from that which has been in vogue all down the centuries (an attitude for which the Christian Church itself is largely to blame). We therefore welcome Mr. Schonfield’s version as an instance of the drawing together of Jews and Christians for the mutual enrichment of both parties. We are grateful too for the superb way in which this version has been set out. Chapter and verse divisions have been replaced by more intelligible paragraphing.

The individual books, each provided with a brief introduction, are rearranged with Acts following immediately after Luke’s Gospel and the Johannine literature placed together at the end, to give only two examples. The four letters or fragments of letters believed by some to lie behind our 1 and 2 Corinthians are clearly indicated here. But your reviewer is not too happy about the dating of some of the books which seems to be based on ideas of 19th century liberalism.

The translation itself however is extremely well done. It ought to fulfill the author’s earnest desire “to persuade some, no matter what their creed or convictions may be, that the New Testament is well worth reading.”

But there is more to it than that. At the close of his general introduction Mr. Schonfield quotes the words of the Christian scholar, George Sale, who, in presenting his English version of the Mohammedan scriptures, wrote: “I have endeavoured to do the original impartial justice; not having, to the best of my knowledge, represented it, in any one instance, either better or worse than it really is.” Which reminds us that the really authentic New Testament is not any “ecclesiastical” version, nor even the version of H. J. Schonfield, but that which “is written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart.”

L. E. H. STEPHENS-HODGE

Christian Reformed

“… I Will Build My Church”, by Thea B. Van Halsema. Grand Rapids International Publications, $2.95.

It was while she was serving on the Program Committee for the Christian Reformed Centennial of this year that Mrs. Van Halsema, known already to readers for her articles for young people, became interested in preparing this volume. With her background as daughter of Dr. Clarence Bouma; her training at Grand Rapids Christian High School, Calvin College and Western Reserve University; her experience with people as a social service case worker; her interest in children as a mother of four; and her present concern for the church as the wife of one of its ministers—it is doubted that anyone could be better fitted for this task.

“… I Will Build My Church” was written to present to the young people of the Christian Reformed Church a picture of their own church and a picture of the Church of Christ as God has been building it ever since Calvary. It was written to thrill them with their past and inspire them for a greater future.

In addition to significant historical material the author presents details that provide human interest for the young reader. In a few bold strokes the historical figures become flesh and blood. Our respect for the hardy Christians who founded the church and weathered the early years is heightened with Mrs. Van Halsema’s presentation. She frankly admits failings of the church and at the same time helps those of us who are on the outside to understand such things as its exclusiveness in the past, while encouraging us with its declared purpose to reach out more to those also who are neighbors. The book concludes in this vein:

“Speak, says God to the church called Christian Reformed. Speak for me to the people of America. Go on speaking far away in Africa and the Orient, but speak now also to the neighbors whose homes are next to your own. And while you speak and work, hold fast to the truth, which is my Word.

“So I will be with you and bless you, and make you to be a blessing. Through you also I will build my church.”

Young people outside the Christian Reformed Church should read the section that deals with general church history. It would provide an excellent introduction for those to whom Augustine, Luther and Calvin are but names. The rest of the book, too, would be splendid for the young person’s general education and insight into the beliefs and history of another communion, However, some parts are necessarily pretty well peppered with dates and details which limit its appeal largely to readers within the Christian Reformed Church.

This is a fine piece of book manship, greatly enhanced by the virile and striking black and white drawings by the successful young illustrator and author, Dirk Gringhuis.

NORMA R. ELLIS

Christian Martyr

Nicholas Ridley, by Jasper Ridley. Longmans, London. 25s.

What possible interest can the life-story of an English bishop of the 16th century have for readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the U. S. A.? Never were the lessons it teaches more relevant than they are today.

It is a classic illustration of the danger to the Gospel when the church departs from the Bible; of the inevitable reformation which is needed when Holy Scripture is restored; of the vital importance of ensuring that the outward expression of worship should be consistent with scriptural doctrine. Ridley’s story is well told by a descendant who betrays no enthusiasm for his ancestor though he arouses it in his readers. Ridley’s progress from being a practising Roman Catholic to that of a convinced Protestant begins with his introduction to the Bible which he seized and devoured (he learned by heart all the Epistles in Erasmus’ Greek Testament). He was led first to reject the papal supremacy, then slowly and perhaps reluctantly to accept the reformed doctrines and finally to abandon the ritual and practices associated with Roman teaching. The new teaching was given the people in the English Prayer Book and later enshrined in the Articles.

But suddenly the progress of the Reformation was arrested by the death of Edward VI and the accession of Mary. Everything went into reverse. It was not enough that the new doctrines and practices be banned and the old restored; the Reformers must denounce the new faith and declare their allegiance to the old. It was a tremendous test for Ridley and his fellows. The alternatives were, as he put it, “Turn or burn.” He decided to bum, but not before he had proved in open debate the superiority both of his scholarship over that of his enemies and of the scriptural doctrines over those of Rome. At the stake he told the people that he was more honoured at the prospect of martyrdom in Christ’s quarrel than ever he had been by his elevation to the Sees of Rochester and London, or by his selection as Bishop of Durham. Through the clumsiness of his executioners his death was far more horrible than it need have been. In his agony he cried “I cannot burn,” but as his fellow-sufferer Latimer assured him he lit a candle which by God’s grace should never be put out. It is because it is in danger of being put out today that the lessons of the book should be read, marked and learned.

T. G. MOHAN

- More from R. Allan Killen

Review of Current Religious Thought: July 22, 1957

Philip Edgecumbe Hughes

An event of some note in the contemporary religious history of Great Britain has been the recent publication of the Report on the Relations between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches. This Report is the outcome of “Conversations” held between representatives of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Episcopal Church in Scotland and the Presbyterian Church of England. Of the many interesting features of this Report, the signatories to which claim to have made “no more than an exploratory survey,” not the least remarkable is that it is unanimous. Those taking part in these conversations accepted as a presupposition “the conviction that our Lord’s will for his Church is full unity, and that such unity must involve in the end not only agreement as to the truth in Christ, but also a ministry or ministries universally recognized, freedom to interchange ministries, and fulness of sacramental communion throughout Christendom”. This we regard as wholly admirable.

Unity is seen not as a contingent feature of the church’s life, but as “of the essence of it”; whereas disunity is deplored as “a deeply damaging contradiction between message and life”. Further, the Report says that it was common ground among the delegates “that every step towards unity would be a step also towards a more powerful and persuasive evangelism.”

The Church of South India is held up as an example which shows that “unity between Episcopalians and Presbyterians is a practical possibility and not merely a dream of theorists”. But is envisaged that “modifications in the two church systems” are likely to be necessary if unity is to become a reality. Also, in moving forward to “the church that is to be”, mistakes and conflicts of the past must be forgotten.

The perusal of this Report leaves no doubt in the mind that the crucial question around which the conversations revolved was that of Episcopacy. Thus we are informed that “from the Anglican side it was clear that full intercommunion and unity could not be realized apart from Episcopacy”. Despite divergencies in the concept of what constitutes an episcopate, however, “the question of Episcopacy did not prove (as it had sometimes done in the past) an obstacle to discussion but rather a means of its movement along fresh lines”. These “fresh lines” led to the concept of presiding “Bishops-in-presbytery”, who would initially be consecrated by prayer with the laying on of hands both by Anglican bishops and by the Presbytery acting through appointed representatives. In this way, it is maintained, there would be an acceptance of the “historic episcopate” by the Presbyterian Churches and the continuity of the “Apostolic succession” would be safeguarded. The presbytery, it is declared, would still retain “its full and essential place” in the life and government of Presbyterianism, “except that a permanent Bishop-in-Presbytery would take the place of the changing Moderator” and that decisions on doctrinal and constitutional matters “might well have to require” the consent of Presbyterian bishops. In the Episcopalian Churches, on the other hand, lay persons would be solemnly “set apart” to form “an office akin to the Presbyterian eldership,” and lay people would be given “appropriate participation in the government of the church at all levels.”

What it all boils down to is this, that in return for the acceptance by Presbyterianism of Episcopacy, without which full communion would be impossible, “even if”—and this should be carefully noted—“even if otherwise agreement had been reached as to doctrine and practice,” Anglicanism would give the laity more of a say in the affairs of the church. This may be regarded by some as a rather poor quid pro quo, even when it is realized that the healing of a breach may mean one side making greater concessions than the other. The issue of unity, in a word, has been permitted to become, in the first place, an issue of order reflecting the narrow view of Episcopacy as the essential apostolic ministry which is characteristic of Anglo-Catholicism.

It must be emphasized, however, that this is not the view of historic Anglicanism, in which faith, agreement on doctrine, has always been given precedence over considerations of order. Thus, though the Church of England is an episcopal Church believing fully that the threefold ministry is agreeable to Holy Scripture, its Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion do not so much as mention Episcopacy as a necessary mark of church and ministry. The Lord’s Table was always open to members of other reformed churches. And, what is more, in the past considerable numbers of ministers with no more than Presbyterian orders were admitted to full ministry in the Church of England without being required to submit to episcopal re-ordination. The rise of Anglo-Catholicism has unfortunately obscured these facts and set up barriers between the Church of England and other Churches which had been unknown since the Reformation.

One of the most commendable aspects of the Report is that it does not fall into the trap of equating unity with uniformity. The end in view is not one single “Church of Great Britain,” but rather a “Church of England” and a “Church of Scotland,” each enjoying its own freedom of life and worship and both participating in “fullness of sacramental communion” which would involve “fully authorized interchange of communicants and mutual recognition of ministries.”

If this goal is achieved it will be a very great and notable gain. But, we must repeat, it is the truth that sets free and removes barriers, not a particular form of order which is in fact a form of uniformity. On turning to the New Testament one cannot escape the conviction that there is a simpler and better way than that proposed in this Report. If it is true, as the Report says, that the validity of Presbyterian orders is not brought into question and that theirs is a “ministry of the Word and Sacrament which has been used and blessed by the Spirit of God,” then the way is even now open for the practice of full intercommunion and mutual recognition of ministries.

It is surely time that Angelicanism returned to its historic position and “fenced” the Lord’s Table (not the Anglo-Catholic altar) against the unbeliever and the notorious evil liver, as has been the practice of historic Presbyterianism, instead of “fencing” it against nonepiscopalians. This can be done now, and not only with reference to Presbyterianism. The effect of such action would bring untold blessing to the Church, simply because it would at last be possible for those who are Christ’s, irrespective of their denominational associations, to unite at the one place where above all there should be love, faith and gratitude, and at the same time it would be a witness such that the onlooking world could not gainsay.

- More from Philip Edgecumbe Hughes

Cover Story

Is America Losing Her Cultural Distinctives?

S. Richey Kamm

“American civilization has not merely changed its inspiration and its character but its epoch as well.” Thus Andre Siegfried, one of the leading French humanists, describes the cultural revolution in the United States. For him “the epoch of the pioneer has been replaced by the epoch of the machine” (Andre Siegfried, Nations Have Souls, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1952, pp. 170–171). Siegfried has emphasized the obvious. He has brought into focus the everywhere-apparent emphasis upon material values—the trend toward “bigness”—the decline of the significance of the individual.

The Vision Of Life

Latent in his analysis is the thought that culture is not made up alone of what we see. It may also be found in what we dream. Culture, in the sense of life’s habits—one’s way of doing things from day to day—may vary greatly from land to land, from community to community, and even from family to family. But the real question to be fathomed is this, What is the vision of life that a people carry about in their heads? Do they think of themselves as playing a part in a dramatic conflict with forces unseen, or are they cogs, bars, endless belts in an ordered mechanized existence?

The distinctiveness of American culture lies in its “myth”—its vision of life. This picture of life is highly dramatic. It conceives of man as an individual, discreet, intelligent, purposive, active. He is part of the society yet separate from it. He possesses capacities that are comparable to his fellows but always manifests a singular uniqueness in their demonstration. He is limited by his companions, yet is not bound by them. He is buffeted by circumstances yet never defeated. He is the servant of nature and likewise its master. He is a “free” man and not a slave. He knows life in the sense of destiny and purpose.

Such a vision of life is unique. The source of its singularity is to be found in its inspiration. This is hardly in the presence of “free land” in America nor in the abundance of the natural resources of the region to which men came. Neither was it imbibed from the changing climate of this north temperate region. Rather, it is to be discovered in the religious symbolisms of the men and women who laid the cultural foundations of American society.

Puritan Influence

The early vision of life in America was strongly influenced by the Puritan. His “cultural myth” was biblically inspired. Living in a day when church and state placed great emphasis upon the principle of order and unity, the Puritan protested against the cultural dominance of these external forms. He raised his voice against this tendency to uniformity in life and boldly asserted that man was no longer to be cast in the time-honored mold of his culture. Man was to be a “free” personality who would rise dominant over his culture. The basis for such a vision? It was to be found in the biblical view of God’s redemptive work for man, and in the realization of the individual reality of this experience by an act of individual faith. Alan Simpson’s recent study, Puritanism in Old and New England (University of Chicago Press, 1955), has again brought to light the importance of this vision in the life of early Puritanism. From it came the dynamic which drove men to oppose the church, the crown, and every semblance of regimentation until men were made free.

The real basis of the Puritan protest has great meaning for our present predicament. What the Puritan saw was this, that man tends to project the cultural form of the present into the future by codifying it as natural law and by employing the organized forces of society to sustain it. This made man the creature of his culture, rather than the creator. It further tended to divorce him from the real source of cultural inspiration, namely, God, and to deprive every cultural form of its real meaning and intent. In opposition to this tendency the Puritan asserted again and again that God, alone, was lord of the conscience. This meant that man must be free to follow the dictates of his own conscience in matters of law and government as well as in religious practices and in ethics. It gave man a basis upon which to assert the value of the individual over against the values of the group. It is the source of the spirit of individualism in American culture. As such, it is most important to consider in approaching the cultural transition of our times.

A People Of Lip Service

America’s cultural problem today is the problem of a people who give lip service to a set of cultural distinctives—forms of expression, standards of life, visions of reality—which are cut off from their real essence. The transition has been slow and gradual. The concept of liberty, once grounded in the belief that man must he free for the worship of God in every phase of life, is now confused with a man’s right to express himself or some vague assumption that the public welfare will be advanced by a scarcity of legal limitation. The concept of equality, which founds its inspiration in the biblical view of man’s creation by an eternal God and man’s universal state of sin or rebellion against God, is now confounded with weights and measures of economic privilege or physical capacity. The concept of private property which was conceived as a gift or trust from God and, hence, subject to limited political control, is now viewed either as the sole bulwark against arbitrary political power (that is, a very poor substitute for God), or it is viewed as a mere matter of social convenience. The institution of the family, which was once looked upon as of divine ordination and, therefore, not subject to man’s tinkering, is now often accepted as a product of an evolving set of social relationships. The state, once conceived as an instrument of God’s justice is now decried as the instrument of man’s inhumanity to man.

How may we retain our cultural distinctiveness? The answer lies in our readiness to abandon our prophets of monism and our willingness to return to a view of culture which accepts the various orders of inspiration—the spiritual, the intellectual, the material—and place them in their proper relationship to one another in the reinterpretation of American life.

The Loss Of Balance

Cultural history in America exhibits an alarming tendency to lose that sense of balance in orders of values that is so essential to a healthful cultural life. Beginning with a vital cultural vision gleaned from the Bible and interpreted in the forms of the evangelical Christian tradition it soon began to lose its distinctiveness. Seventeenth century Puritanism with its wholesome balance of supernaturalism, rationalism, and observationalism, sat down to converse with its snake in the garden and lost its freedom to an incipient intellectualism. Roger Williams detected the transition in Massachusetts Bay and was driven into exile for his protests. It all came about in a manner quite common to men who desire to preserve a revolution through the deification of new forms of expression. In its effort to preserve the vision of the individual God-man relationship through a personal experience of saving faith, Puritanism created its own “golden chain of being”—the concept of “covenant”—to connect the transcendent with the imminent and thus to give order to this new vision of life. The concept of “covenant” viewed all of life on this earth as related to God through the Living Word, Jesus Christ, and through the inspired word, the Scriptures. These somewhat mystical forms had to be translated into concepts intellectually prehensible. Then followed the “federal theology,” the elaborate explanation of the meaning of the “covenant” concept. It brought to American culture a vision of life which has never been transcended. In it the individual was most important. All institutions were divinely ordained, but man had a coordinate responsibility for their projection and maintenance. He was given a sense of responsibility and a vision of destiny that linked him with the Eternal. But tragedy became imminent when the son of the Puritan began to worship this theological formulation which often smacked more of Plato in its manner of expression than of its biblical typology. The idea of “covenant” which was basically an idea of personal relationship and order, was reduced to a principle of uniformity, a law. The result was manifest in the eighteenth century preaching of New England which emphasized the rationality rather than the personal aspect of God’s dealing with men. To put it theologically, the “covenant of grace,” whereby God extended salvation to his elect, was by-passed for the “covenant of works—the rational explanation of God’s dealings with men as part of the whole order of nature. Man thereby lost his identity as a person, he became known only as part of a rationally conceived order of life. Man was no longer dominant over culture but had surrendered his spiritual and intellectual powers to its control. With the passing of the “covenant of grace” there was little justification for change.

Shift Of Sovereigns

It was against this transition in American culture that Jonathan Edwards thundered in the middle of the eighteenth century. Edwards was concerned that America should assert the supremacy of the will as over against the domination of the intellect. He was determined that the sovereignty of God should be restored to American culture in opposition to both the intellectualist and the romanticists. In spite of his valiant efforts eighteenth century rationalism in the form of Deism wrought significant alterations in the American cultural myth. God, the Creator, still remained as the author of all order and truth. But the “golden chain of being,” the mediator between God and man, was no longer Christ and the Scriptures. It was Nature, conceived in the ordered vision of Newton’s Principia. The scientific experiments of Franklin and the writings of Jefferson and his friends tended to reinforce, yes, even to deify this concept. There had been brought back into American culture the principle of uniformity under the guise of science.

It was in the light of such a vision that Jefferson stated the basic principles of the American creed. These great ideas of equality, rights, and happiness were traced to “Nature’s God,” not the God of nature. In so grounding them Jefferson laid the basis for our cultural confusion. The modern conflict with atheistic materialism has demonstrated that there can be no “scientific” justification for such concepts. Man cannot look upon them as intellectual abstractions alone; they must be accepted as divine imperatives that are essentially spiritual in nature and can be understood only in the light of a Divine Creator who is also a Divine Redeemer. This is what Jefferson left out. Since then we have been trying to shore up the foundations of our cultural forms with new types of scientifically drawn intellectual abstractions only to discover that they are insufficient.

Distinctives In Peril

From the vantage point of the mid-twentieth century it is now possible to see quite clearly what happened to American culture in the nineteenth. Transcendentalism sought to perpetuate a basis of uniformity in the cultural myth that was not dependent upon human experience. God, in Emerson’s concept of the “Over Soul,” would transcend finiteness and thus give stability to culture. But there was something lacking, the sense of tragedy, the presence of sin. The vision became optimistically rigid. There was no deviation from the path of progress in the pattern of change. This vision served to strengthen the American vision of destiny and to awaken the social conscience to the enormities of human slavery. But the dynamic of action for the reform movement which followed sprang from the vision of God and man which burst upon the American scene in the Finney revivals.

Simultaneously, another movement sought to restore the concept of grace, of needed change, in the American cultural myth. Having rejected the vision of revelational grace which moved the Puritan Jonathan Edwards, and Charles G. Finney to clamor for reform, the new prophet sought inspiration from the scientific doctrines of change which were then emerging. The evolutionary view of life—dialectical, survivalistic, or emergent—became the inspiration for the American dream. God became imminent in the very motion of matter. In fact, there was no need for any transcendent God or any absolute; all that was necessary was the ability to determine the trend of the motion. This would provide the oracle for man’s action, the vision for his dream.

It is quite obvious that this tendency to monize our cultural inspiration does violence to the basic constructs of knowledge itself. Long ago the Greeks laid it down that all knowledge deals with origins (being), behavior (becoming), and ends (telesis). Our latest cultural inspiration has been drawn from behavior, alone. We have tried to explain both origins and ends in terms of behavior. We have lost the sense of balance and completeness which comes when one recognizes that both origins and ends are to be interpreted in terms of revelational truth. This places our absolutes where they belong—in God. It saves us from the error of confusing our ideas about God with absolutes, that is, it places rational truth in its proper place—namely, as one form of understanding. Likewise, it helps us to recognize that the knowledge derived from experience is meaningful only as it demonstrates in a non-deductive manner the realities of the absolute.

The American cultural myth is a rich one because of its basic inspiration derived from the person of God. It is sound when rational truth is brought into conformity with this “heavenly vision.” It is real when it permits man to experiment and to learn more of life through the realm of experience. This balance of the spiritual, the intellectual, the experiential, is the genius of American culture. When we lose this balance and endeavor to project either the principle of order, rationality, or the principle of change, experience, as the basis of our culture, we lose the proper foundation for any sound cultural system. We then become slaves either to the “god” of our intellectual abstractions, or of our observational generalizations. We can know freedom in our culture only as a free God is posited as its base. Without this assumption America will continue to lose her cultural distinctives.

END

We Quote:

DANIEL A. POLING

Editor of “Christian Herald”

Why do we support Billy Graham and the New York Crusade? Because he speaks always for Jesus Christ, because always his message is Christ-centered, because always he preaches Jesus Christ as man’s only sufficient Savior, because always he is a proved open channel for the Holy Spirit, because always he honors the Bible as the inspired word of God, and because under his leadership the churches of our Protestant faith are united in a Crusade unequaled in the history of this vast city.… The negative critics of the Billy Graham Crusade and of mass evangelism ask the question: Did Billy Graham change London and Glasgow?… The records indicate that large numbers of the converts do stand fast. But if the final test be thus raised, what about the entire history of Christianity since St. Peter preached at Pentecost?… What about John Wesley and Dwight L. Moody and all those other humble but inspired men who went before or who have come since? Is not Christianity itself and all that is worthy in the ecumenical movement of our time, the direct result of evangelism, mass evangelism included?

S. Richey Kamm is Chairman of the Division of History and Social Science at Wheaton College in Illinois. He holds the A.B. degree from Greenville College, A.M. from University of Michigan, and Ph.D. from University of Pennsylvania, and in 1952 was awarded the LL.D. degree by Seattle Pacific College.

- More from S. Richey Kamm

Cover Story

RSV Appraisal: Old Testament

Oswald T. Allis

Months before its publication in 1952 the Revised Standard Version (RSV) was widely advertised as “the greatest Bible news in 341 years.” This decidedly ambitious claim has yet to find general acceptance. Whether the RSV will attain permanent and widespread success still remains to be seen. For good reasons many are not ready to accept it as the rightful heir of the historic Authorized Version of 1611 (AV). Although the RSV professes to be a revision of the AV, it is in reality a modern speech version.

Literary Style

The literary style of the AV has been frequently and even extravagantly praised. Men like Ruskin and William Lyon Phelps have commended it most highly. According to A. T. Robertson, the great charm and the chief merit of the AV lies in the fact that “it reproduces to a remarkable extent the spirit and language of the Bible.” That it contains expressions which are now obsolete or have changed their meaning as well as readings which are now regarded as incorrect or inferior is obvious. Many of these were removed in the American Revised Version of 1901 (ARV) and should be changed in the text or margin of copies of the AV which are published today. One of the rules adopted in 1870 to govern the revision which resulted in the ARV was “That in such necessary changes the style of the language employed in the existing version be closely followed.” This rule was not adopted for the RSV. But the hope is expressed in the Preface to the RSV that the translators have not taken undue advantage of their freedom from it.

Some changes are a matter of taste. For example, “to” instead of “unto,” “on” for “upon,” “you” for “ye” are purely a matter of English. But when the translators presume to decide just how frequently “and” may be used in a chapter or paragraph, the situation is quite different, and subjective considerations enter into the decision. The first “and” is omitted in verse 10 of Genesis 1 and retained in verse 8, where the construction is exactly the same. Its omission at Leviticus 1:1 and Numbers 1:1 destroys the connection between these books. The familiar phrase “and it came to pass” is omitted in Genesis 6:1 and frequently elsewhere. “Answered and said” is reduced to “answered” (Gen. 24:50). In Genesis 36:15–18 the word “duke” (RSV “chief”) occurs 18 times. RSV reduces it to 6 (cf. 1 Chron. 1:51–54). Such changes may make for easy reading, but they do not reproduce the biblical language and style accurately.

The Use Of “Thou”

The most important question under the head of biblical language is the use of “thou.” Both Hebrew and Greek distinguish between the singular (thou) and plural (you). The 1611 version carefully observed the distinction, not because it was Jacobean, but because it was biblical. The ARV retained it for the same reason. “Thou” is little less common in our vernacular today than it was fifty years ago. Yet probably all “modern speech” versions either eliminate the singular form entirely or compromise by using it only “in language addressed to God” or “in exalted poetic apostrophe.” This compromise in RSV encounters the most serious difficulties. In the New Testament it means that in every case where Jesus is addressed the decision must be made whether the speaker recognized his deity. Thus in Matthew 16:16, where Peter makes his great confession, RSV renders “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That is, it declares that Peter addresses Jesus as a man, even when affirming him to be the Son of God.

In the Old Testament the same problem arises in connection with Messianic prophecy. The prophecy of Psalm 110:4 reads, “You are a priest for ever,” but it becomes in Hebrew 5:6 “Thou art a priest for ever,” which suggests that a prophecy which was not Messianic in the Old Testament becomes Messianic in the New Testament (NT). Or, if the principle of “exalted poetic apostrophe” is applied in the New Testament passage why not also in the Old Testament? We are told that the usage adopted in RSV followed “two years of debate and experiment.” The result is conclusive proof that such a compromise is both impracticable and dangerous. The only alternatives are either to follow the biblical usage or to eliminate the “thou” completely. We believe that the “thou” is too deeply embedded in the language of piety and religious devotion to be rudely displaced by the “you” of the modern colloquial. The fact that the diction of the AV differs from that of the daily newspaper is not necessarily a liability. Many regard it as a distinct asset. They enjoy the quaint and old-fashioned language of the Bible and want it changed as little as possible.

Paraphrase Not Translation

The aim of a translation is to render accurately the language of the text. A paraphrase may aim to give the meaning under a different form, but it tends to become an interpretation. “For he thought, ‘Why not, if there be peace and security in my days’ ” (2 Kings 20:19) is a loose paraphrase of “And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days.” Does “For he thought,” etc., mean that Isaiah is not telling us what Hezekiah said but simply reading his mind for our benefit? “But he said, ‘Oh, my Lord, send, I pray, some other person’ ” (Ex. 4:13) tells us what Moses clearly wanted to say, but not what he actually said, which was, “O, my Lord, send I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” It may help some readers to read “Moses’ feet” (Ex. 4:25), “Eli fell over backward” (1 Sam. 4:18), “took his stand by Amasa” (2 Sam. 20:11), “now Ahijah had clad himself” (1 Kings 11:29b)—passages where the simple pronoun of the text is somewhat ambiguous. All such explanations, if really needed, should be placed in the margin, not inserted in the text.

The AV and ARV use italics to indicate words which are inserted to clarify the meaning. RSV never uses italics. Yet it makes many interpretive additions. “After his mother’s death” (Gen. 24:67), “better than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps. 84:10), “seventy weeks of years” and “a most holy place” (Dan. 9:24), “three days’ journey in breadth” (Jonah 3:3). In these passages, “death,” “elsewhere,” “of years,” “place,” “in breadth” are all interpretive additions. But this is not indicated in any way.

Both the AV and the ARV recognized the value of the ancient versions, especially the Septuagint (LXX), for the Bible translator. But they recognized also that an important distinction is to be drawn between the divinely inspired original text and uninspired translations; and also that it is difficult to be sure of the text of these ancient versions. We are told in the Preface to the ARV: “The authorities referred to in the Old Testament are translations from the Hebrew; and though the date of these translations is more ancient than any extant manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, yet there is no means of verifying with certainty the text of these translations; and one can never get beyond plausible conjecture in attempting to correct the Hebrew text by means of them. It is one thing to admit that the Hebrew text is probably corrupt here and there; quite another, to be sure how to rectify it.” Consequently the ARV revisers reduced to a minimum the corrections favored by the versions; and their policy was to place those they adopted or favored in the margin, not in the text.

The attitude of the RSV to the use of the versions is radically different from that of the ARV. Not only has it corrected the Hebrew text some 600 times on the basis of one or more versions, but it puts these corrections in the text with a marginal note. This note varies considerably in form. “Assyria” (Amos 3:9) has margin “Gk.:Heb. Ashdod,” although the Targum, Syriac, and Vulgate support the Hebrew. “House of Israel” (Hos. 10:15) has margin “Gk.:Heb. O Bethel,” although the Hebrew makes good sense and is supported by Syriac and Vulgate (cf. Targum). “His neighbor’s flesh” (Isa. 9:20) has margin “Tg. Compare Gk.:Heb. the flesh of his arm,” although the St. Mark Scroll, Codex B of the Septuagint, Vulgate and Syriac support the Hebrew Massoretic text.

In a number of instances the margin contains the words, “Heb. lacks.” For example, “Jehoram his brother became king in his stead” (2 Kings 1:17) has margin: “Gk. Syr.: Heb. lacks his brother.” It is quite likely that the Greek translators, preparing a version for Greek-speaking Jews and proselytes, added the words “his brother” to make it clear just who this Jehoram was; and the Syriac probably followed the Greek. But the words “Heb. lacks” assume that the Greek is right and that the Hebrew text omits something which properly belongs there. Many examples of these alleged “lacks” of the Hebrew might be cited. Such readings as “Let us go out to the field” (Gen. 4:8), and “Why have you stolen my silver cup?” (Gen. 44:4 were undoubtedly known to the ARV revisers and probably also to those of 1611. But they ignored them. RSV places them in the text and states in the margin that the Hebrew “lacks” them.

How uncertain many of these changes are is illustrated by such a rendering as “swoon away” instead of “rejoice” (Jer. 51:39), which is adopted by RSV following Moffatt and the American Translation. If we take “exult” in the sense of “become hilarious,” the state which often precedes a drunken stupor, the Hebrew text makes perfectly good sense. It is quite probable that the Greek translators simply misunderstood the meaning. The RSV margin “Heb. rejoice” suggests that the Hebrew must be wrong. “And spreading itself like a green tree in its native soil” (Ps. 37:35 ARV) is literally “like a luxuriant native (tree).” RSV following the Greek changes it to “like a cedar of Lebanon” and adds a footnote, “Gk.:Heb. obscure,” which is a strange statement for Hebrew scholars to make.

Conjectural Readings

There are more than 300 readings in the text of RSV which are described in the margin as “cn,” which is explained in the Preface as standing for “correction.” But since these changes are without support in manuscripts or versions, they are really conjectures (properly abbreviated as “cj”) and should be described as such.

Psalm 2:11 f. is a “cn” which has been frequently cited. By omitting the words “with trembling” and rearranging the consonants of the words “and rejoice” and “son,” a rendering “kiss his feet” (so American Translation) is secured. Yet if it is admitted that the Aramaic form of the word “son” (bar) is used here instead of the Hebrew form (ben), the difficulty is entirely removed (in vs. 9 the word “break” is also an Aramaic loan word). By a similar juggling of letters a rendering “kiss the hero” has also been reached. One is quite as conjectural as the other. “Rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea” (Ps. 106:7) instead of “provoked him at the Sea, even at the Red Sea,” is not justified by simply referring to Psalm 78:17,56. “Crown” (Ps. 89:19) instead of “help” involves consonantal change and is no improvement. “Nor upsurgings of the deep” (2 Sam. 1:21) is no improvement on “nor fields of offerings,” i.e., fertile fields where first fruits might be gathered. It involves changes in the consonants of both Hebrew words and gives the words a mythological meaning. Dr. Moffatt justified the many conjectural changes that he made in his version on the ground that the Hebrew text is “often desperately corrupt.” It is only on the basis of such an assumption that many or most of the “cns” adopted in RSV can be justified; and obviously every “cn” adopted serves to strengthen the claim that the Hebrew text is corrupt.

Changes Without Marginal Note

Changes without marginal note are of two kinds. The revisers state that where the readings they have adopted make no change in the Consonantal text but simply involve the vocalization and punctuation of the Massoretic text (MT), no marginal note is given. The Massoretic pronunciation represents a reading which is both ancient and important. To ignore it completely is arbitrary, to say the least; and it is confusing to the reader who does not have all the facts before him. In Isaiah 49:17, RSV follows the St. Mark Isaiah Scroll in reading “your builders” (BoNaYiK) instead of “thy sons (BaNaYiK). In such cases a marginal note such as “MT: sons” would certainly be in order. It would indicate both the change and also to this extent the reason for it. “For they have no pangs; their bodies are sound and sleek” (Ps. 73:4) does not change the consonants, but it involves cutting the word “death” in two (making “they” and “sound”). This is favored by many critics but finds no support in the versions.

Unfortunately there are, despite the claim of the Preface, a good many passages where changes involving the Consonantal Text are made without any marginal note. A glaring example of this is, “And Moses did as the Lord commanded him” (Lev. 16:34b). The only possible rendering of the Hebrew is “And he did as the Lord commanded Moses” (AV, ARV). Since the entire ritual of the Day of Atonement was to be performed by the high priest (Aaron is mentioned six times in the chapter), the statement as it stands in the AV is perfectly clear. “The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar” (Gen. 10:10), instead of “and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar” (AV) has no margin. The rendering “all of them” (for Calneh) does not require a change in the consonants. But it does involve the rejection of the “and” which precedes; and it is at least questionable whether such a phrase as “all of them” would be necessary or appropriate after the mention of only three cities. It is arbitrary, to say the least, to introduce this new rendering without even a marginal note, simply because discoveries in Ugaritic indicate that such a rendering is possible. “In the land of Amaw” (Num. 22:5) replaces “of the land of the children of his people.” “His people” (ammo) could be read as Amaw. But this ignores the “sons of” which precedes. The Greek supports the AV. Some 13 manuscripts, the Samaritan Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Vulgate favor a reading “Ammon.” “Let my right hand wither” (Ps. 137:5) instead of “forget her cunning,” “cannot abide” (Ps. 49:20) for “understandeth not,” “The Lord is the strength of his people” (Ps. 28:8) instead of “The Lord is their strength,” “a pleasant vineyard” (Isa. 27:2) instead of “a vineyard of red wine,” “Summon thy might, O God” (Ps. 68:28) instead of “Thy God hath commanded thy strength,” “praised” (Eccles. 8:10) instead of “forgotten”—all involve consonantal changes. Such unindicated changes are disconcerting, to say the least.

Poetical Arrangement

In the AV the printing of each verse as a unit makes it somewhat difficult for the reader to distinguish readily between prose and poetry. The ARV made this possible by arranging prose passages in paragraphs and poetry in verses. It treated Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, and most of Job as poetry, also the clearly poetical passages in Exodus 15, Numbers 23–24, Deuteronomy 32–33. That there is a poetic quality in many of the utterances of the prophets has long been recognized. Rhythmic parallelism is quite marked in some of their discourses. But this does not warrant the treatment of them as poetry. The RSV has “metricized” the greater part of the prophetical books. The result has been that splendidly rhythmic prose has often been changed into very poor and lame poetry. The first chapter of Isaiah, often called “the great arraignment,” is broken up in RSV and printed as a kind of blank verse. An extreme example of this appears in Matthew 4:1–11. Jesus in answering the devil quoted three Old Testament passages, two from Deuteronomy, the other from the Psalms. The two from Deuteronomy are quoted from a simple prose narrative. Yet they are treated as poetry in Matthew.

Quotation marks are a feature of most, if not all “modern speech” versions. They may sometimes be helpful, but there are two dangers connected with their use. One is that they may be unduly interpretive. In Psalms 60, verses 6 to 8 are placed in quotes as the word of the Lord. Many commentators regard them as the word of the Psalmist. In Isaiah 2:3 the quotation ends with “paths” instead of including the rest of the verse. The other reason is that quotation marks are complicated and confusing. Deuteronomy 5:1 (“Hear O Israel”) to 26:19 is all placed in quotes. Every paragraph—there are more than 100 of them—begins with a quote (“). Hence the Ten Commandments are each introduced by two quotes (“ ‘) here, while in Exodus 20:2–17 they are introduced by one “quote” (“). Deuteronomy 5:28 begins with a quote (“). In includes a quotation (‘) which begins with the words “I have heard” and extends through verse 31; and this in turn includes a quotation (“) consisting of the words “Return to your tents” (vs. 30). Such a lavish use of quotation marks tends to pile up. Cf. Jeremiah 22:9 and 29:28, which end with three quotes (” ’ ”). It is to be noted also that the revisers have been quite inconsistent. Compare Jeremiah 13:12–14 with Ezekiel 35:1–9 in RSV.

An irritating feature of the RSV is its inconsistencies. Eitheir the Old Testament and the New Testament Committees did not consult one another sufficiently or they failed to reach an agreement on matters that concerned both testaments. Thus Isaiah 40:3 reads “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.”°’ This verse is quoted in all four Gospels, and in all four the words “in the wilderness” are connected with what precedes, not with what follows. The word “Gentiles” disappears from the Old Testament in RSV but appears nearly as frequently in the New Testament as in the AV. For the reader who has no way of checking them such inconsistencies are confusing. For those who have, they are irritating as indicative of carelessness and haste.

Minimizing Attitude

The most serious defect of the RSV is what may be called its minimizing attitude toward the supernatural. This appears with especial clearness in its treatment of Isaiah 7:14. That the word alma can be used and is used of a virgin (Gen. 24:43, cf. vs. 16), that the Septuagint rendered it by parthenos and that parthenos means virgin, that Matthew 1:23 used the word parthenos in quoting Isaiah’s prophecy, that the context in Matthew speaks of a virgin birth—these are facts which cannot be denied. Yet RSV renders the Isaiah passage by “young woman” (margin: “Or virgin”). This implies that Matthew read into the prophecy a meaning which was not originally there. It is of course possible, perhaps probable that alma was used at times in the broader sense of “a young woman (of marriageable age).” But to adopt such a rendering here shows a readiness to find a minimum of truth in a passage instead of a desire to claim the most its language will properly admit.

The words “and he shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne” (Zech. 6:13, AV) predict the coming of the Priest-King, who is to be like unto Melchizedek (Ps. 110:4). The RSV rendering “and shall sit and rule upon his throne. And there shall be a priest by his throne” introduces a sharp distinction between the king and the priest which is not justified by the Hebrew. “Your divine throne” (Ps. 45:6) substitutes a divine throne for a divine Messiah and conflicts with the rendering of Hebrews 1:8, “Thy throne, O God.” “Whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (Mic. 5:2) tones down the “from everlasting” of the AV. The rendering of Daniel 9:25, “Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again”—in fact the whole treatment of vss. 24–27—agrees with the critical theory that the Book of Daniel is Maccabean.

The writer is not one of those who regard the Authorized Version as sacrosanct. It is not infallible and where it is wrong it should be corrected. But such a revision, if it is to be entitled to the name, should be completely in the spirit of that time-honored version. It should aim to conserve its style and diction and make as few changes in it as are consistent with the accuracy and lucidity of the translation. We believe it to be imperative that conservative scholars prepare a revision of the AV that will carefully conserve all that is best in it while seeking to eliminate its occasional obscurities and errors. The AV has been for centuries a great unifying factor in the life of English-speaking Protestantism. Long may it remain so!

END

For a quarter of a century Oswald T. Allis taught Old Testament and related subjects. From 1910 to 1929 he taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, first as instructor and then as assistant professor of Semitic Philology; and from 1929 to 1936 at Westminster Theological Seminary, first as Professor of Old Testament History and Exegesis, and then as Professor of Old Testament. He is author of seven books and a member of the Version Committee of the American Bible Society.

- More from Oswald T. Allis

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The Modern Debate

Devoid Of Essentials

Importance Of Appropriation

Sanctification In Life

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The Pentagon’S Responsibility For Servicemen Abroad

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Exalt Biblical Theology

Positive Preaching

Enlarge Christian Living

Social Concern

Approach To Science

Doctrine Of The Church

Sound Doctrine And New Life

Precision In Beliefs

Fellowship Of Disciples

Concern For Unity

The Word Of God

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Wall Street Rally

Immigration Bill

Worth Quoting

People: Words And Events

3 Hours In Queue

Brother Team

Brewer Suggestions

School Decision

Germany

Matter Of Judgment

Africa

Islamic Way

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Structure Of Epistle

Wealth Of Contents

Theme

Unity

Tools For Exposition

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Tillich Soteriology

Sermonic Substance

True Perspective

World And Life View

New Translation

Christian Reformed

Christian Martyr

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The Vision Of Life

Puritan Influence

A People Of Lip Service

The Loss Of Balance

Shift Of Sovereigns

Distinctives In Peril

We Quote:

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Literary Style

The Use Of “Thou”

Paraphrase Not Translation

Conjectural Readings

Changes Without Marginal Note

Poetical Arrangement

Minimizing Attitude

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