Oberlin: Unity and Mission

In a world tottering before powers contrived to divide, one Power alone qualifies to unite men for time and eternity. Transcending all differences of race, of nationality and of social status is the oneness men may find in Jesus Christ.

Yet we languish in a divided Christendom. The religious disunity of the West, the crumbling of visible unity of Christian faith and order, are only too apparent. In fact, today’s Christian community often lacks a vibrant sense of common Christian heritage, of historical continuity bridging from New Testament times to the present.

During the last 100 years Christian churches, through their missionary effort, for the first time became a world-wide phenomenon. Yet confrontation by hostile world powers, especially of totalitarianism and secularism, sharpened the awareness of a very real Christian disunity. After 2000 years, Christian leaders were driven to ask: Is there hope that the visible churches can surmount their divisions? May it not be that some ecclesiastical conflicts stem from human perversity, that some divisions reflect secondary concerns?

And so the great drive for unity has gained momentum, storming the arguments in favor of diversity. May not diversity stem from human finiteness as well as from sinful rebellion? May not a democratic element in church life best guard a universal Church from usurping Christ’s lordship? (See Luther on the papacy for comments still relevant to a monolithic church.) Such questions became unpopular in the desperate concentration upon unity. For a generation Christian disunity has been diagnosed as evidence of institutional pride and sin, and of deficiency in nourishing ecclesiastical life with the unifying dynamic of the Holy Spirit. While emphasis has fallen, as well it may, on the dangers of a divided Church, the fact that churches can be united in quite bizarre patterns and by quite unworthy motives has been minimized.

The World Council of Churches has weighted the contemporary Christian balances with its uneasiness over disunity, thereby providing a powerful new incentive for unity. While three decades of prayer and effort, of study and organization, have shaped its convictions, yet agreement is still lacking on the meaning of ecumenical unity as it concerns the churches. Previously, the nature of church unity had not been a main theme for the World Council nor even an explicit subsidiary theme of an ecumenical session. This month in Oberlin, however, the North American Conference on Faith and Order addressed itself specifically to this dilemma.

Two controlling definitions of ecumenics have emerged from ecumenical discussion and debate. The one is structural: herein ecumenics is a basic unity of faith and/or order, involving the churches in a search for a common faith or a common framework for ecumenical effort. This endeavor for agreement in faith and order has proved increasingly frustrating and exasperating. Insisting that unity of the churches involves some tangible demonstration in their role as churches, leaders asked: What sort of visible unity does God will for his Church? Among the various formulas for the “organized body of Christ,” the following have been suggested, sometimes as successive stages: (1) mutual recognition (in which cooperation replaces competition between churches); (2) cooperative action through councils of churches on local and national levels; (3) church mergers in view of a sense of unity at the level of faith and order on the part of ministry and members; (4) organic or corporate unity in one communion or church that functions as a body with a single life and history in space and time. Would this last stage result in recombining existing churches with a high measure of visible centralized control and government? As opponents often say of ecumenical insistence that unity requires organization visibly manifested at the local level, would it carry outlines of a monolithic organized super-church? At Oberlin, Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft dismissed the notion of a monolithic super-church as the only alternative to disunity. But neither Dr. Visser ’t Hooft nor anyone else at the conference produced any alternative that actually delineates the WCC’s normative concept of unity between monolithic uniformity and competitive pluralism.

Since discussions of unity frequently had reduced to a running apologia for the doctrines of member groups, or for hospitable schemes of church union and organization, and had achieved no clear agreement on the lineaments of ecumenical unity, the North American Conference longed for a promising alternative of motivation. Instead of a structural definition, therefore, it ventured a second definition of ecumenics, namely the dynamic: herein unity comes through the Church’s mission, rather than from a common faith or a common order or structure. Thus ecumenics is the Church universal expressing the saviourhood and lordship of Christ by its missionary concern. Proponents of this approach ask: For what purpose is the One Great Church fashioned? One observer, fearful of a super-church as the end-all of ecumenical activity, asked: “What shall it profit the Church if she gain the whole oikumene and lose her witness?”

This shift of emphasis to purpose or mission as the basis of unity by the North American Conference gave a new and strategic direction to faith and order study. Leaders had observed that world conferences often generalize issues; that a special obligation to elaborate unity rests upon the United States and Canada, since their churches speak much the same language, members freely intermingle and intermarry, and congregational life reflects the special influence of democratic forces. Other leaders noted the absence of an ecumenical temper on the local level; the emergence of a powerful evangelistic dynamism from outside the organized ecumenical movement; the frustrated effort to find ecumenical unanimity on the level of faith and order. The new sense of dynamic purpose encourages the WCC merger with the International Missionary Council as the next great organization goal (cf. “The Drive for IMC-WCC Merger” in this issue, p. 9), thus underscoring the missionary spirit to shape the ecumenical outreach, and overruling the organizational foundations to remove dilemmas resulting from differences of doctrine and order.

A united Christianity engaged with full heart in the fulfillment of the Church’s mission would, of course, afford a strategic counter-blow to totalitarian and secular forces today. Christians everywhere will view with gratitude the new concern for mission. But, despite its enthusiasm for mission as the basis of unity, Oberlin left this very mission of the Church undefined. In reality, the constituent members of the WCC are as divided on the nature of the Church’s mission almost as much as on questions of faith and order. The term “mission” itself is given both a narrow interpretation, in terms of evangelism and missions, and a broader meaning, with reference to the whole task of the Church. Some churches identify the work and life of the Church exclusively with social action and cultural concerns, defining ecumenical cooperation simply in terms of “whatever we can do together.” It is not strange, therefore, that the missionary philosophy characterizing much contemporary ecumenical effort is itself under fire. Some critics detect a tendency to substitute ecumenism for evangelism; inter-church aid for missions; fellowship among Christians for outreach toward the unevangelized; fraternal workers for missionaries; consolidation for pioneering. (In Japan the unity of the Kyodan, organized mainly on a pragmatic basis, is already threatened.) What will happen when and where the mission of the Church is interpreted mainly as the promotion of organizational oneness? Some observers regard the Oberlin sessions on the nature of unity as but a prelude to a conference on church union, an ecumenism more concerned for propagation of the gospel of Church unity than for the Church’s evangelistic task. The question arises: Before mission can be a sufficient basis for ecumenical unity, must there not be consensus on the content of that mission?

Can the mission of the Church actually be defined without adequate reference to faith and order? The shift from faith and order to the alternative of mission as the basis of unity does not deal realistically with the viewpoint of large groups both inside and outside the WCC who contend that the mission of the Church is not isolated from but includes a specific content of faith, or of faith and order. Moreover, evangelicals question a unity in mission, for example, that enlists the Orthodox Church whose past history in Greece has been one of hostility to evangelical Protestant effort. The notion that mission can supersede theology in building the ecumenical movement seems to place the Church’s mission in a non-theological setting. Is such a mission a sufficient criterion of unity? Can mission in fact be detached from concerns of doctrine? Of order? Is not the new WCC emphasis vulnerable to the constant threat of basic dichotomies? Dare we interpret Ephesians 4:5 in this Revised Ecumenical mood: “One Lord … (one mission) … one faith?… one baptism?” Is this an adequate reflection of New Testament unity? Did the early Church understand its unity in terms of action rather than of being, of purpose rather than of nature? Is the WCC engaged in recovering the past unity of the apostolic Church, or is it shaping its own novel and experimental unity?

Moreover, if the deepest criterion of genuine ecumenity is expressed by obedience to the Great Commission, should not the ecumenical movement recognize mission-active denominations and movements of Protestant church life unaffiliated with the WCC as genuinely ecumenical expressions though they dissociate themselves from the WCC because of their insistence upon a more specific statement of Christian doctrine? In relation to non-member constituencies, the ecumenical movement today finds itself in an awkward dilemma. Many leaders consider the absence of large groups such as National Association of Evangelicals, Southern Baptists, Missouri Lutherans, as in some sense a judgment upon the ecumenical movement. On the other hand, whenever unofficial overtures are made to non-member groups, the question naturally arises whether the invitation to “come into the WCC” ungenerously implies the non-validity of these competitive ecumenical expressions.

Christology And Confession

Ecumenical leaders doubtless will contend that the twin concerns of faith and mission have been merged into each other, rather than submerged one to the other, and that they do not expect the problem of unity to be resolved wholly on an exra-doctrinal plane. The relationship, they aver, is never serial but organic. To ask upon what mission we can engage before doctrinal agreement, or what doctrinal agreement is needed for a common mission, is for them too static an approach. They stress that the New Testament Church was united in its mission despite the absence of theological agreement at the level of the later ecumenical creeds. And in evidence of theological earnestness they point to WCC discussion on the basis of “Jesus Christ is God and Saviour” by which Amsterdam upgraded the formula “Lord and Saviour.” (Some constituents, however, do not subscribe to the formula confessionally. Seventh Day Baptist leaders were unofficially reported at Oberlin as in the WCC not because they subscribe without reservation to the affirmation that Jesus Christ is God and Saviour, but because they regard the WCC mission as more important than doctrine—a statement that passed unchallenged in the section on doctrinal consensus and conflict.)

Doubtless the evangelical criticism of ecumenical theology too often fails to grasp the importance of this central Christological affirmation. Whatever its limitations, the confession bristles with relevance in a totalitarian age. Profession of Christ’s lordship liberates the human conscience from the claims of state absolutism. Wherever a single believer recognizes Christ as God and Lord, there the existence of the totalitarian state is nullified. Communist awareness of this fact explains the persecution that Chinese Red leaders directed especially against the Christians who constituted only two per cent of the population. Moreover, the ecumenical confession emphasizes that the way to Christian unity lies through Christology, and aims to give to all discussion—including ecclesiology—a Christocentric character.

Yet the WCC confession of Christ as God and Saviour is not to be understood as a dogmatically defined statement. Even as a confession, the statement is capable of divergent theological expositions. Leaders in the WCC are far from agreement on Christology; their generalities (does the emphasis on the personal as against the doctrinal here really substitute an abstraction for the reality?) avoid a division over differences. The ready concentration on a simple Christological formula, moreover, is viewed as a symbol of theological indifference as much as a symbol of unity. Will the latitude permitted beyond this initial requirement threaten the doctrinal purity of the Church? (Note Oberlin’s unprotested offering of prayers for the dead, and the pulpit reading of The Pastor of Hermas alongside the Pauline epistles.) Does the disposition to tolerate, if not to recognize the validity of each other’s confessions and practices require a pragmatic and expedient concession at the expense of the doctrinal?

The WCC confession is far too skeletal as a basis for virile Christianity. That Jesus Christ is God and Saviour is true but hardly the whole of vital New Testament teaching; actually, this statement includes less than the elements of confession necessary to salvation, namely, that Christ died for our sins and is risen (cf. Rom. 10:9–10, 1 Cor. 15:1–4). The accepted WCC formula is inadequate, therefore, to define the Gospel of Christ. Has not the Saviour and Lord already formulated the Christian organism and mission in more adequate terms? Foundational to the unity of the early Christians stood a biblical content at least as full as that of the Apostles’ Creed.

Because the WCC confession is theologically barren, it is widely regarded as the foreboding antecedent of divisions that might have been avoided through doctrinal specificity. Especially evangelical Protestants protest the WCC’s wholesale abridgment of the doctrinal basis of Christian unity. To them such reduction is a liability rather than an asset to Christian faith and witness. Some observers aver that unless the WCC arrives at a stronger confessional basis, it ultimately faces repudiation of the movement by some of its own member churches, or through indifference to revealed theology will succumb to intellectual deterioration of ecumenical Christianity.

This approach to the WCC confession, however, does not probe the deeper issues at stake.

For one thing, the WCC is increasingly disposed to issuing additional confessional statements. Such neoconfessionalism has emerged in many major communions that avoid absolutizing their own denominational convictions (cf. recent world confessions by Presbyterians and Lutherans), but issue wide pronouncements concerning the bearing of Christian belief upon threatening cultural trends of the time. These confessions, in turn, are given ecumenical interest and status alongside the early creeds.

The ecumenical movement as such has no apparent desire, however, to reintroduce doctrine as a test, but only as a testimony. That is, no disposition is evident to recognize the existence of divinely-revealed doctrines. The influential leadership of the movement distinguishes between faith and belief; doctrines are evaluated more in terms of interpretation than of revelation. Assertedly, faith concerns the Word (not concepts and words); belief, whereby the Church articulates its faith, issues confessions only as a witness to the world, not in conformity to an authoritatively revealed declaration of what men must believe to be recognized as Christians.

The non-confessional groups, maintaining that all creeds are responsible to Scripture, decry and fear the growing confessional tendency in the WCC. The confessional groups, on the other hand, fear the WCC’s possible power over the churches through the issuance of influential definitions of the faith. Both miss the major considerations. The real issues are: What is the basis of Christian authority? What is the relation of divine revelation to reason? What is the status of Scripture as a bearer of revealed truths or doctrines? These are the crucial factors. The old liberalism, now a waning influence in ecumenical meetings, struck its deepest blow at the historic Christian faith by dissolving the authoritative note in Protestantism, by sketching divine revelation in terms either of rationalism, voluntarism or emotionalism, and by rejecting Scripture as the authoritative rule of faith and practice. Has the formative leadership of the ecumenical movement provided an adequate alternative?

Evangelicals will continue to assess contemporary ecumenity’s statement of unity and mission as given at the Oberlin sessions on doctrinal consensus and conflict by the following criteria: (1) The basis of Protestant authority. Is the Bible qualified by divine revelation and inspiration as the final and trustworthy authority in matters of faith and doctrine? (2) The importance of truth. Granting the danger of rationalizing revelation in speculative terms, and that doctrine has a view to Christian obedience, is it acknowledged that truth also has a legitimate existence for its own sake? Does divine revelation take the form both of deed and truth? Granted that religious commitment involves the whole self in relation to God, is it acknowledged that truth is essential to both faith and belief? (3) The person and work of Christ. Is it affirmed both that “Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ” and that “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”? Many current formulations distinguish Jesus from “the Christ in Jesus,” and prefer also to speak of “God in Jesus Christ” rather than of the personal deity of the God-man. Is it affirmed not only that men as sinners are justified by faith without personal merit, but also that they are supernaturally regenerated on the occasion of faith in the imputation of Christ’s atonement as the ground of man’s salvation?

Evangelicals are saddened by any unity in mission that relegates such verities of revelation to an optional, secondary status.

Race Relations And Christian Duty

America is in the throes of great sociological change. Never has there been more need for Christian love and restraint. That the race issue has become political is to be deeply regretted. That the spiritual problem is ignored by some and stressed to the exclusion of sociological factors by others is equally regrettable.

In recent weeks incidents have arisen that should move every Christian with righteous indignation. The deliberate mutilation of a Negro in one city is one example; justice demands the severest penalty for those found guilty. Abuse accorded the few Negro boys and girls assigned to previously all-white schools by some young people in these schools has been a disgrace.

The unfortunate situation in Little Rock is eloquently appraised by a group of white and Negro ministers in that city expressing the Christian position in these words: “There is need for all to exercise constant and diligent prayer and a love which respects the dignity of all children of God and seeks equal justice for them. Because we have not walked in the way of the Lord we now find ourselves confused, disturbed and distressed. As Christian ministers we confess our own share in the corporate sin and guilt of our state and our own subjugation to the holy judgment of God. Our one hope in this hour of crisis lies not in our own ability to change ourselves, our people, or the social structure of which we are a part, but in the power and grace of God to bring order out of confusion, good out of evil and redemption beyond judgment.”

In such situations (and they are not confined to the South) there is need for Christian love, sympathy and common sense. That the church should lead in Christian relations goes without saying. There are those who feel that she has been woefully slow in assuming her role of leadership in breaking down racial discrimination and injustice. In some instances the church has lacked courage in vindicating justice for all. But some leadership has shown more enthusiasm than good judgment, more zeal than understanding. Christian courtesy, love, humility and consideration form the only basis on which right race relations can be developed. There are vocal integrationists who themselves refuse to have social contacts with another race. There are segregationists whose personal dealings with those of another race put to shame some most ardently active on the other side. Each needs to learn from the other.

The Christian church should work for the elimination of every restriction, discrimination and humiliation aimed at people of any race. She should preach and exemplify love and compassion and consideration at all times. She should also refrain from confusing legal, spiritual, and sociological problems—for in so doing she is being neither Christian nor realistic.

END

- More from The Editors

Eutychus and His Kin: September 30, 1957

THE SOUND BARRIER

Pastor Peterson dropped by last night after an evening of calls in the new Cloverleaf Vista subdivision. He wants a TV distance tuner that will fit in his coat pocket and operate so as to shut off any television set. To produce “snow” he said wouldn’t be enough. Sight and sound must both go, too, or the calling pastor hasn’t a chance.

We discussed other possibilities. The cord of the set is usually too inaccessible to trip over. The pastor has tried lowering his voice, and there are sensitive souls who will turn down the volume. Even these keep on looking. Standing in front of the set is sometimes an effective hint, he admitted, but usually he is firmly ushered to a chair in a corner. He has been forced to develop a two-minute talk which he can insert during a commercial. This is the one time, he reports, when TV viewers become conscious of a guest in the room.

At this point I urged him again to come in and sit down, but he declined, and left. As I returned to my favorite TV chair it occurred to me that perhaps this technique of the doorstep conversation was his latest solution.

Some of my “kin” may have sugtions for Pastor Peterson. Remember that he is an old-fashioned evangelical who insists on doing door-to-door evangelistic calling. It won’t do to tell him to go home and watch television. I should add that he has had some success on late afternoon calls by taking four of his children along. Since the Petersons have no TV set, the youngsters need little encouragement to find a thoroughly juvenile program and block the screen completely. This method, however, has not been found ideal for a first contact call.

Can you help Pastor Peterson?

EUTYCHUS

REFORMED EPISCOPAL BISHOPS

Your issue of June 24 states that the Reformed Episcopal Church elected its first new bishop since 1920 at the recent meeting of its General Council in Chicago. May I point out that this statement is obviously erroneous. Since 1920 the following have been consecrated as bishops in the Reformed Episcopal Church:

Robert Westly Peach, Joseph Edgar Kearney, Frank V. C. Cloak, Howard David Higgins, William Culbertson, the last two having been consecrated in 1937.

FRANK E. GAEBELEIN

The Stony Brook School

Stony Brook, Long Island

GOD’s IMAGE IN MAN

Kindly permit me to direct your attention to a review by G. Aiken Taylor (July 22 issue) of my book on The Basic Ideas of Calvinism.…

The reviewer writes of “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. Meeter’s view (that the imago dei is wholly destroyed) necessarily colors his writing.” Emphatically, the author does not subscribe to any idea that the image of God is wholly destroyed in man. Rather he would wholeheartedly maintain with Calvin, as can be gathered from the quotes from references to Calvin’s writings in the book (The Basic Ideas of Calvinism, pp. 70–75), that the reason the image of God is not wholly destroyed in man lies precisely in the common grace of God. For if God had not restrained sin in the natural man, according to Calvin natural man would become worse than a furious beast or a violent overflowing river (p. 71). God’s common grace makes possible many laudable and excellent deeds by sinful man as explained in the quotes from Calvin (pp. 70–72). God’s common grace is therefore to Calvin the source of much “constructive behavior” even in pagans. The alternative, namely that man’s constructive behavior is due to native qualities left in man, would have laid the author open to the charge that it was not the Calvinistic view of total depravity he was advocating but rather partial depravity of the Arminian stamp. According to Calvin man after sin did not retain the image of God in the narrower sense of true knowledge, righteousness and holiness. In the broader sense of the term, that of being a spiritual being, rational, moral and immortal, man still has the image of God. Without these qualities he would cease to be human. I trust that the above will absolve the book from any charge that in it is maintained the view that the image of God is destroyed in man and of an altogether negative approach to man’s constructive behavior. God’s grace makes for constructive behavior.

H. HENRY MEETER

Grand Rapids, Mich.

SHORT OF THE GOAL

Since somebody sends me CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I occasionally glance over a copy—invariably my reaction is that my unknown benefactor is wasting his money, and I am wasting my time. I have never seen a periodical which strains so hard to achieve scholarly eminence and which falls so short of its goal.

Aside from the promotion of Billy Graham, CHRISTIANITY TODAY seems to be published primarily to compliment, propitiate, and flatter the liberals and infidels while ridiculing, insulting and denouncing those who stand for the Inspiration of Scripture and contend for the Faith.

It was my impression that at least all of the editorial staff (though perhaps not all of your correspondents) claim to believe in the Divine Inspiration and Infallibility of the Word of God but one would never know this was true from the average issue of the magazine.

BOB JONES, JR.

Bob Jones University,

Greenville, S. C.

Your contribution towards making a Messiah out of “Billy” Graham is particularly obnoxious. In due time we shall find that he will do Protestantism in general more harm than good.…

FREDERICK A. STERNER

Trinity Evangelical and Reformed Church, Reading, Pa.

We in Canada have been subjected long enough to the imperialism, religious and otherwise of the U.S.A. One of your least savoury influences has been the promotion in this country of religious vaudeville by the unlimited number of evangelical fundamentalist and Pseudo-Christian cults and sects.… I would suggest that you provide a school in the department of emigration for training emigrees in the fine art of gentlemanly and civilized mannerisms.… You would score a bigger hit in Canada if you through the medium of your newspaper dissuaded these aforementioned groups from interfering in the national religious life of Canada.…

PAUL E. GLOVER

All Saints’ Anglican Church

Calgary, Alberta

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is one of the most valuable magazines I receive. In variety and general excellence of material—spiritual and intellectual—it is tops with me.…

I. L. LLEWELLYN

Fields Methodist Church

Shenandoah, Va.

It is a great joy to see the beginning of such a needed organ of such high calibre.…

H. J. BENNETT JR.

The Methodist Church

Hemingway, S. C.

… Destined to take a leading position in evangelical literature. The warm, uniting and positive message may well help forge the bonds of a stronger evangelical Christianity tomorrow.

WILBERT D. GOUGH

Gilbert Meml. First Baptist Church

Mount Clemens, Mich.

It is extremely helpful to have such current theological thought coming to my desk in the form you present it.

G. F. GREENFIELD

First Baptist Church

Breckenridge, Tex.

… An intellectual approach that is appealing.…

JOHN WEBORG

Pendor, Neb.

I have found CHRISTIANITY TODAY a peerless theological publication. It allies clear utterance, deep scholarship, wonderful variety of subjects, rare equilibrium and moderation, to a sound theological position.

LIBRARIAN

Seminario Presbiteriana Do Brasil

Campinas, Brazil, S. A.

How thankful I am to receive your evangelical paper … I am 82 years of age … I had the joy of working with the late Dr. John R. Mott and Dr. Sherwood Eddy in India as a Secretary of the Y.M.C.A., Calcutta, and in … evangelism among the students … I was once a Hindu and now dying as a disciple of Christ …

P. A. N. SEN

Ranchi, Bihar, India

Especially do I appreciate the forthright stand you take relative to the problem of liquor advertising.

Editor FRANCIS A. SOPER

Listen

Washington, D. C.

Re the editorial “Dung and Scum” (July 8 issue), vilis means “cheap” (“vile” is turpis).

“Let an experiment be made on a cheap body” ran the conversation. “Cheap, do you call a body for which Christ did not scorn to die?”

A fine article all the same, and an outstanding issue.

E. M. BLAIKLOCK

Auckland University College

Auckland, New Zealand

Too long have we waited for such a voice as this in our wilderness world.

A. F. BALLBACH JR.

First Baptist Church

Oneonta, N. Y.

INFANT BAPTISM

I read with great interest the very worthwhile articles in the August 19 issue concerning “The Body Christ Heads.” A very pertinent question was raised by W. Boyd Hunt. It is a question which has divided the Christian Church on a very basic and essential doctrine—the doctrine of infant baptism. I am grateful to God that about 95% of the “Body Christ Heads” has continued to teach and to follow this revealed practice of the first century church.

Mr. Hunt asks, “Where in the New Testament is infant baptism?” (p. 8). Has he never read Acts 10:47–48 or Acts 16:15 or Acts 16:33? There are others, but these are enough references from the established practice of Peter, Paul and others to answer his question. For example, what else but baptism of the whole family can be meant by the statement of Acts 16:33? Very plainly Scripture states, “And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.” “His” certainly does not refer to his material possessions nor to the pets in the household. Any person ready to interpret Scripture with an open mind will have to interpret that statement to mean “his family,” i.e., “his wife and children.” Some would even include the family servants in this service of baptism. But “family” is sufficient to answer Mr. Hunt’s question. I suggest that Mr. Hunt read the booklet by Dr. Albertus Pieters entitled, Why We Baptize Infants.

KENNETH H. HESSELINK

Laketon Bethel Reformed Church

Muskegon, Michigan

Theology

The Second Coming Is News

L. Nelson Bell

Should there be a sudden rending of the sky, a lightning-like flash, the sound of trumpets such as our ears have never heard—if Christ should suddenly appear in the sky with his holy angels—what would our reaction be?

And it will happen!

One of the most frequently mentioned truths of all Scripture is that Jesus Christ is coming again. In theological circles his return is spoken of as the doctrine of last things, or eschatology. Strange to say, it is probably the most abused and also the most neglected truth in all the Bible. While some simply ignore it entirely, others distort its teachings.

When Christ will come has been the subject of much foolish speculation. There are also some who become so interested in the details of events of that future time that they fall into wrangling among themselves. In so doing they have tended to becloud the transcendent fact that Christ is coming again.

Generally speaking, there are four schools of thought. There are some who flatly deny that Christ will return in person. We will not deal with this group here because many of them even question his uniqueness as the eternal Son of God and their position hardly comes within the purview of Christian consideration.

The chief differences of opinion, however, center around when he will come. There are the post-millennialists who believe in the gradual improvement of world conditions until the millennium comes, after which Christ will appear.

There is a second and larger group, the amillennialists, who believe in his return but also believe that the millennium described in Revelation 20 is figurative, not literal.

Finally, there are the premillennialists who believe in the imminent return of the Lord to set up his reign on the earth for a thousand years, after which Satan will be released for a short time finally to be destroyed by Christ and the armies of heaven.

Because of the strong convictions held by many on these matters, few will be pleased by this article, but we feel constrained to write because so many good people are beclouding a transcendent and glorious truth by arguing over details which are of secondary importance. The truth of paramount concern is the inescapable fact that Christ is coming back to this earth.

As he ascended up to heaven after his resurrection, and while his disciples were gazing upward in amazement and awe, two men clothed in white suddenly stood by their side and said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

“This same Jesus … shall so come … in like manner … as ye have seen him go into heaven.” These words are as clear and specific as words can be.

If this were an isolated statement at variance with the general teaching of Scripture, we might be led to look for some other meaning. But it fits in perfectly with what our Lord said on a number of occasions and the writers of the epistles and of Revelation reiterated again and again.

What a stupendous thought! What a portentous event! In the twentieth century we think of Christ as living two millenniums ago and, while we accept the fact of his resurrection, it is easy to give him, so far as his bodily presence is concerned, a place in past history. But we fail to realize that our own physical eyes may see him at any moment!

It is here that the tragedy of controversy over the second coming becomes most poignant. It is at this point that the tragic silence of many becomes all the more distressing.

The doctrine of the second coming of Christ centers in the fact that he will return. On many occasions he affirmed this truth. Speaking to his confused and sorrowing disciples, he said: “Let not your heart be troubled.… I will come again.” Again: “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Repeatedly, he spoke to his disciples along these lines.

The Holy Spirit, speaking through the apostles, affirmed the same truth. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 we read: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.…” In Revelation 1:7 we are told: “Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him.”

Christ speaks of it as being a sudden event: “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.…” He compares his return to the sudden destruction that came on Noah’s generation; to the unexpected entrance of a thief at midnight.

The imminent return of the Lord has been the comfort and hope of saints since his ascension. That he has delayed so long only emphasizes the fact that with him a thousand years are but a day. He is not slack in keeping his promise but rather he is longsuffering to sinful men, anxious that they might repent while yet there is time.

In enthusiasm for the truth of the second coming some confuse time and space as we know them with the infinitudes of God and eternity. Einstein with his theory of relativity, the splitting of the atom and probably yet undiscovered facts of the universe can well open up to us new vistas having to do with what Christ will do and how he will do it. There is a tendency to think this world and the universe of which it is a part will continue to be governed by laws as we now know them. Paul may have given a hint in 1 Corinthians 1:27–29; the God of creation can so easily use “things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.”

But even more reprehensible than setting up the details and schedules of events having to do with the coming of the Lord are the strange phenomena of silence and indifference. European theologians, far less certain of a man-made Utopia than some of their American confreres, urged the World Council meeting at Evanston two years ago to face squarely the doctrine of last things and in the subsequent discussions were far more inclined to follow a biblical approach than some in this country.

Why the resounding silence in so many American pulpits today? Why ignore a truth which is as clearly taught as any doctrine to be found in Holy Writ? Why deny to men today the thrilling fact that Christ is coming back and that he is the hope of the world? The inescapable fact is that Christ is coming back to this earth and there is no truth more calculated to galvanize attention, to promote right living and to generate witnessing zeal.

The early Church found the hope of his coming a constant source of comfort and a spur to righteous living. It can do the same for the Church today.

- More from L. Nelson Bell

The WCC Searches for Visible Unity

Carl F. H. Henry

WORLD NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

A perceptible shift of emphasis from faith and order to mission as the center of Christian unity marked the World Council of Churches’ North American study conference Sept. 3–10 at Oberlin College, where the great evangelist Charles G. Finney was president during Civil War days.

Still ununified over “the nature of the unity we seek,” the conference nonetheless issued an 800-word message calling upon “every local church and congregation to examine the way in which it makes visible the nature of the Church of Christ” and looked for “continuing advance in the practical unity of united action by churches and congregations.” It spoke of a unity already achieved, and of a unity still to be gained.

Greek Orthodox bodies (the Great Archdiocese of North and South America, the Rumanian Orthodox Episcopate of America, the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America, the Syrian Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America) dissociated themselves from the conference statement. Their spokesman, the Rev. Georges Florovsky, professor at Harvard Divinity School, complained that the draft was open to various interpretations: “We are embarrassed to accept phrases which if not ambiguous are elastic. Is there any sense in using glorious phrases that can be accepted with mental reservation by everyone, but which secure no real agreement?” While other delegates thought the statement wordy and weak, some considered it an exciting symbol of positive achievements.

A beehive of activity, Oberlin revolved for the week around section and division meetings leading up to plenary sessions. Representing five Canadian and 34 U. S. denominations or churches, 279 delegates discussed and debated the nature of unity with 92 consultants, and 39 observers from non-member denominations. Although gathered on the first coeducational campus in the nation, women delegates (only two in the Methodist contingent of 40) were somewhat of an oddity. It was the first major ecumenical conference without organized protest by the American Council of Churches. Earlier ecumenical dispositions to dismiss non-participating groups as disruptive salients in the main movement of the Church’s life, moreover, gave way to respectful deference to those whose consciences disallow official participation (Roman Catholics, Protestant evangelicals, including Southern Baptists, Missouri Lutherans and denominations represented by National Association of Evangelicals and American Council of Churches), and appreciation of the unofficial presence of consultants and observers. The message to the churches stated: “We are saddened by the absence of members of other Churches whom we recognize as fellow-Christians, and we ask forgiveness for any failure of charity or understanding in us which may have kept them apart from our fellowship.”

More was at stake in the quest for unity, however, than charity and understanding. While plenary sessions were circumspect, reflecting a level of minimal agreement, conference vitality existed mainly in section meetings in which discussion might more easily become debate, and dissension disruption. Differences of faith and order shadowed the gathering more than division reports (commended to the churches for study) reflect in their emphasis on an overarching unity. The high hopes of some delegates were disappointed, that Oberlin might create a stirring confession of belief relevant to the contemporary cultural crisis. Recurring emphasis of President John Mackay of Princeton Theological Seminary that ecumenical concerns be framed in terms of obedience rather than doctrine and structure, voiced in committees, sessions, divisions, and plenary meetings, did not gain sharp expression in the message to the churches, although it shaped a growing mood among the formative leadership at Oberlin, and is mirrored in the division reports (cf. the editorial “Unity and Mission” elsewhere in this issue): Significantly, however, the main Oberlin directive spoke to rather than for the churches.

Nonetheless, Oberlin had high hours. The passionate hope of surmounting Protestant disunity marked all sessions. Some of the best minds in many Protestant confessions came out of isolation into ecclesiastical encounter to wrestle with faith and order problems. Main divisions covering faith, order and cultural pressures subdivided into twelve sections; of these, that on “Doctrinal Consensus and Conflict” was strategic. With President Edgar M. Carlson of Gustavus Adolphus College (Augustana Evangelical Lutheran) as chairman, the 30 delegates included President Mackav of Princeton (Presbyterian Church U.S.A.), Dr. Walter M. Horton (Congregational Christian) of Oberlin, Dr. T. A. Kantonen of Hamma (United Lutheran), and Dr. Robert L. Calhoun (Congregational Christian) of Yale among the consultants in this section. In all sessions, the old liberalism was but a defensive minority view, although sullen survivors murmured off the record that “these neo-orthodox fellows have now reacted against liberalism more radically than we did against fundamentalism a half century ago.” Theological emphasis had moved far beyond the old scorn for central Christian doctrines to a devout appropriation of many biblical themes.

Evening public meetings left profound impressions on the delegates. Addresses by the Rt. Rev. Angus Dun, Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D. C., Professor Calhoun of Yale, Dr. Albert C. Outler of Southern Methodist University, Dr. Joseph Sittler of University of Chicago, and Dr. Walter T. Muelder of Boston University, represented the movement at a high and sometimes stirring level. Beyond the horizontal level of agreements and differences reflective of the WCC’s first decade, conscious effort was being made to shift discussion to the vertical level of divine confrontation and bequest. Professor Calhoun’s address included as a dramatic turn a cautious reassertion of Christian trinitarianism in the tradition of the Protestant Reformers, reflecting views of a WCC committee (with representatives from Yale, Union and Hamma) in contrast with narrower Christological formulations.

Oberlin included, moreover, provision for refreshing and positive Bible exposition by Dean Walter J. Harrelson of University of Chicago Divinity School. Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, WCC general secretary, told Sunday morning worshippers that “in the great encounter with other religions which have found new vitality, in the conflict with totalitarianism, in the struggle against cheap caricatures of the Christian Gospel, our cause lacks convincing power as long as we do not prove that we live under the authority of the same Word of God.”

But the question of an objective index to Oberlin remains a difficult one. In the high public addresses, spokesmen were not formulating official positions binding upon WCC constituents. This was clarified by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, vice president of the Oberlin conference and stated clerk of Presbyterian Church U.S.A., in his comment on complaints over German Bishop Johannes Lilje’s remark that “we reject the notion that the Church needs that sort of historic guarantee of her continuity which is supposed to be given in the apostolic succession of bishops.” Prodded by private protests of Protestant Episcopal and Polish National Catholic delegates, Dr. Blake stressed that the speaker had full right to voice his convictions, yet did not commit the conference. Orthodox Bishop Athenagoras, who pronounced the benediction after Bishop Lilje’s sermon the previous night, publicly told the plenary session: “A few more sermons like this … and the ecumenical consciousness is gone.” Public addresses, therefore, were not definitive.

Some delegates considered “the Church at worship” the heart of the ecumenical enterprise, but this too had flutters. Variegated programs of worship and prayer, reflecting Greek Orthodox as well as more familiar Protestant traditions, are now an ecumenical commonplace. But initial announcements of a communion service were clarified to stress optional participation, because the WCC in accord with policy sponsors no such service. Greek Orthodox delegates chose not to exercise their option. Unprotested by participating groups, however, was the Greek Orthodox devotional service including prayers for the dead. Devotional life at Oberlin was no sure index.

Conference leaders spoke, in fact, of a prevalent ecumenical temper more than of the ecumenical mind. It was really an open question whether Oberlin signaled victory for the Great Dane (Kierkegaard) as fully as for the Great Tradition. In the emphasis on the priority of obedience over faith and order, in the phrasing of doctrinal concerns, and in the general formulation of positions, the neo-orthodox approach—although with many shadings—held initiative. Yet leaders were eager to preserve both evangelical and modernist participation in the dialectic. A theory of religious knowledge reflective of modern speculation was frequently evident in the dialectical relating of revelation to reason, in the disregard of coherence as a criterion in religious commitment, in the capitulation of intellectual considerations to a more voluntaristic view of faith, and in invocation of the Bible as relative authority only.

This approach was blessed, in turn, by the tendency of the earlier Lund and Edinburgh conferences to relate study of the nature of the Church directly to the study of the nature of Christ, rather than to an adjustment at doctrinal borders. Taken as doctrine, the declarations on Christology were diverse and often inadequate, and the trinitarian emphasis did not survive in official reports. Prevailing views were criticized for doing more justice to the humanity than to the deity of Christ, in view of a semi-Arian tendency that affirmed that Jesus is the Christ while refusing to speak of the full deity of the person. While Oberlin bristled, moreover, with appeals to the Word of God, and the emergence of biblical theology was identified as “one of the exciting developments of our time,” the conference deleted from its statement to the churches an insistence that this development “does not constitute a return to … uncritical bibliolatry” because of possible effect upon the laity.

The major lack was Oberlin’s failure to exhibit an unambiguous Protestant principle of authority. The hope for unity, some leaders stressed, lies in the ecumenical movement “studying the Scriptures together,” but the controlling suppositions of such study remained diverse. In Oberlin the weather blew both hot and cold, both wet and dry. Religious journalists, some fresh from the Madison Square Garden phenomenon, found no revival atmosphere. The notion of a growing unity was more of a feeling than of anything logically demonstrable. This was no unique kairos, no time of decisive change, in the minds and lives of the delegates that could be refracted at the local level. Ecumenical leaders who looked for a breakthrough into the midrange of American life were disappointed. There was a feeling that Oberlin’s conclusions were too much hastened and dictated by the time factor, by the necessity of reflecting sectional and divisional unity for the sake of plenary unanimities. In the one fellowship of Oberlin remained lonely souls—there to bear witness, professing to love the same Lord, yet unconvinced that the message to the churches faithfully reflected their differences.

Greek Orthodox delegates criticized the discussions both at the outset and conclusion as framed from an inadmissible viewpoint that the unity of the Church has been lost and needs recovery, instead of permanently characterizing the body of Christ. They publicly pointed to the Eastern Orthodox Church as its visible and historical expression: “Since Pentecost she has possessed the true unity intended by Christ … She has been unassociated with the events related to the breakdown of religious unity in the West.” Insisting that the Orthodox Church has kept the integrity both “of the apostolic faith and of the apostolic order,” her delegates lamented the deletion from the program of “the most vital problem of ministry and that of the Apostolic Succession, without which … there is neither unity nor church.” Before the week ended, German Lutheran Bishop Johannes Lilje remarked in a sermon that “Protestantism which is so frequently blamed for having sown the seed of disunity within Christendom, was neither the first nor the greatest schism which Rome had to suffer; the great schism of 1054 (900 years before Evanston) separated … the Eastern church from its Latin lord.”

Orthodox delegates justified WCC membership under the category of “witness.” [Roman Catholic spokesmen, off the record, say that the Greek Orthodox Church has no business in the WCC, but are nonetheless glad she is in, because Orthodox leaders “say many things we would say.”] Although officially distributed, the Orthodox statement was largely ignored until a Jesuit observer asked the section on doctrine why there was no comment on it. The Greek Orthodox delegate promptly gave answer: his church’s claim to be the Una Sancta is avoided as an unpleasantry in the Protestant search for unity (which supposes that none of its members has given adequate expression to all the truth), yet for having invited the Eastern Orthodox Church into the WCC, Protestantism must pay the price of hearing that claim. “Sometimes we Orthodox feel much out of place, and even wonder whether we speak the same language,” he added, “but we value the Protestant search for unity, and bear witness in it; if we were to withdraw, the WCC would become simply a pan-Protestant endeavor.”

In his opening address Bishop Dun took note of misgivings produced by the conference title. But it did not necessarily exclude, he said, a given spiritual unity among believers, nor imply such division that the one Church must search for and restore its unity, but reflected rather that the Church’s presence is to be acknowledged in other churches, and that others stand outside the unity that is given.

Later named chairman of the plenary sessions, Bishop Dun voiced “the ecumenical sorrow”: “For at least 35 years I have been engaged in such conversations.… If you are like me, you will find, as you meet your brothers and sisters coming out of their own particular households of faith, that you cannot think lightly or contemptuously of what has nurtured them, even though you should not be at home where they are at home. And you will experience afresh the sorrow of realizing that they go back and you go back into households or structures of faith and prayer and allegiance that in many ways separate you from them and fail grievously to make manifest our unity in Christ. This sorrow can turn you into a patient seeker for the household in which we could all be at home.”

Nature Of Ministry

The ministry of Jesus Christ continues in the world today as the Church participates in his ministry. The bourgeois, middle-class churches of America are very imperfect, but nevertheless the true Church is in them. The Church must continually struggle to get its message and forms from the New Testament rather than from the secular culture. The special ministries of the clergy are instrumental and come from the primary unit of the congregation in Christ dwells.

These were some of the emphases of four notable addresses delivered at the Fourth National Triennial Conference of the Inter-Seminary Movement at Oberlin, Ohio (Aug. 27–Sept. 1), at which 500 theological students and professors from 64 seminaries of 23 denominations met to consider “The Nature of the Ministry We Seek.”

Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, in his keynote address, “Slaves and Spokesmen,” referred to the renewed search for authority in the world today, pointing out that there is no Christianity without accepting the final authority of Jesus Christ, concerning whom the Church must declare, “Thou are the Son of God.” The ministry must be above all else the ministry of the word, the living Word, known only through the Scriptures; “If there is ever to be a theological renaissance in America it will involve the rediscovery of the Greek New Testament.” “Preaching has to do with events, facts, the great reality”; consequently, there is only one kind of valid preaching, expository preaching.

Dr. James I. McCord, Dean, of Austin (Texas) Presbyterian Seminary, speaking on “Flunkies and Soothsayers,” charged that the ministry as we know it in American churches is a luxury the rest of the world cannot afford. He contrasted the typical American ministerial student and minister with a simple-hearted lay-minister who works as a hod carrier all week and ministers evenings and Sundays in poor communities of Latin America. Although not arguing against a trained ministry, he believes the congregation is in the ministry, and deplored the term “layman” which too often implies an incompetent and unskilled person. “It is not the minister who should organize the congregation; it is the congregation which should organize its ministry of preaching, of oversight, and of mercy.” The Church needs to focus less attention on ministerial “orders” and give greater heed “to God’s ordering us within the body of Christ.”

Dr. Paul Lehman of Harvard Divinity School spoke on “Society’s Elite and Christ’s Elect.” In the Old Testament the people who were called as God’s elect assumed this made them society’s elite; they confused their theological terms with sociological ideas. Under the new covenant the Church is constantly in tension between being society’s elite and Christ’s elect. The elite count their blessings, but the elect are troubled by them. The elite want to be seen, but the elect sit with publicans and sinners. The elite are respectable and conforming, but the elect must be non-conforming and challenging to the world order. He showed that the goal of the Christian life is maturity, possible only within the fulness of the Christian community. The congregation “must be the vital center and not the dead center of the church.”

The American theological student today is living “the distracted life,” said Dr. Daniel Day Williams of Union Theological Seminary, New York. Theological education is being blocked, he said, by “too many courses, too many subjects, too many lectures, too many papers, too many selections to be read from too many books, instead of rereading and digesting those that can be mastered only through prolonged attention.” Dr. Williams said the greatest lack in American seminaries is in the field of Christian ethics, dealing with questions of what to do in contemporary situations, on Christian ground. Practical studies in the seminary are important to help the minister continually bring to bear on the life of the Church valid criteria upon which to judge its work; “the theological school is the Church in its most intense and concentrated activities.”

C.A.H.

Oberlin Comments

Non-member observers of Oberlin sessions divided in their appraisals solicited by CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Father Gustave Weigel, noted Jesuit theologian of Woodstock College, gave Roman Catholic reaction: “… Today the language and spirit are contemptuous of the Liberal Theology … (and) also far removed from the concerns and approach of those Evangelicals called Fundamentalists. The present terminology could be called ‘Catholicizing,’ though more evangelical than genuinely Catholic in its dynamism … From the Catholic point of view … the primary issues were never faced … There was no accepted test for any theological statement. Rather, creedal tests were deprecated … In consequence, it was impossible to come to a common understanding of what the Church is; to tell what revelation is or how it can be decisively ascertained. In spite of this fundamental incapacity, all took it for granted that all belonged to the Church and that they were speaking for her … The Conference belief was activist, vague and its expression emotionally warm but intellectually baffling. Nor can the accepted formulas reveal the wide and contradicting varieties of the understanding of the terms. The Bible was always recognized as a normative expression of Christian doctrine. Yet there was no common understanding of what the Bible is or how its authority can be exercised … The Catholic doctrine of Tradition was timidly approximated in the term ‘the historical experience of the Churches.’ … The unity of the churches in the Conference is more emotional and verbal than substantial … There is a strong tendency to make doctrinal statement a matter of less than primatial significance, if not of indifference. There is indeed some doctrinal unity in the conference, but on nothing decisive and crucial.”

Dr. John W. V. Smith, Church of God: “Two aspects … seemed to stand out. The first was the abundance of strong affirmations of basic truth about the unity of the Church … The second was the very apparent difficulty in really apprehending these truths … Discussions often revealed many deep-seated prejudices and an unwillingness to look beyond particular traditions. At times presuppositions contrary to Biblical truth were evident.…”

The Rev. F. Burton Nelson, Mission Covenant Church: “… Reports from the various sections indicate a marked sensitivity to contemporary currents in Christian theology … There appears to be a fresh appreciation of what the Bible has to say … The majority of churchmen at Oberlin have seen that divisions in the Church are deeply rooted, and … not likely to be alleviated by sentimental approaches.…”

National Day Of Prayer

Wednesday, October 2, has been proclaimed by President Eisenhower as a national day of prayer, according to annual custom initiated by joint resolution of Congress in 1952. The President urged that “each according to his own faith unite in prayer and meditation on that day” and “in constant dependence upon our Creator for the spiritual gifts required in the conduct of our affairs as individuals and as a nation … ask for wisdom and strength” in seeking the “welfare of all people through a just and lasting peace.…”

Cathedral’S Fiftieth

Washington Cathedral marked the fiftieth anniversary of the laying of its foundation stone September 28–29. Observance events included special services at the cathedral and a dinner addressed by Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Bishop of Coventry, Dr. Cuthbert Bardsley, preached the anniversary sermon.

New York, Baptist Target

Dr. Paul S. James, Pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, for the last 16 years, has been appointed by the Home Mission Board, as director of Southern Baptist work in the greater New York area. He will also become pastor of the Southern Baptist Chapel group in New York, which presently meets at the 23rd Street YMCA in downtown Manhattan and will soon be organized as the first Southern Baptist church in New York City.

In a statement to his church, Dr. James said: “This is a call to lead Southern Baptists in the establishment of churches in one of America’s greatest mission fields. It comes in the wake of the Graham Crusade when the time seems ripe for constituting churches and missions according to the pattern being followed by Southern Baptists.”

- More from Carl F. H. Henry

Books

Book Briefs: September 30, 1957

G. Aiken Taylor

Tragic Return

The Pulpit Rediscovers Theology, by Theodore O. Wedel, Westminster, Philadelphia. $3.50.

This is an exceedingly important book: important for its thesis that the Church must return to a vital theology if it is to be a true fellowship of reconciliation offering salvation to truly lost men; and important for the way it manages to evade classical Christianity when it paints its picture of a return to “true Biblical Theology.” The author believes passionately that the quest for the historical Jesus was a mistake—the pulpit, to be effective, must preach a dogmatic gospel about a divine Christ. But he does not mean the Christ of orthodoxy. Yet he sounds the most refreshing, stimulating, evangelical note that I have yet heard rung out by the new theology of our day. For this contrast, the book is a must for every person concerned about modern trends in theology.

The closer neo-orthodoxy comes to historic Christianity and the more nearly it discovers how it can comfortably speak the historic language of the Church, the more potentially dangerous it is. Niebuhr, in a sense, sowed the wind with his new anthropology, appropriating such historic terms as original sin, guilt, creation, the fall, but assigning symbolic meanings to them which robbed the human predicament of its reality. Niebuhr, acknowledging his own limitations, indicated that another must take up the crusade and add a soteriology to his new anthropology.

The present book reaps the whirlwind of Niebuhr’s sowing, with a soteriology which all but diehard liberals will view with reverent awe and many evangelicals will embrace with delight because of its apparent apostolic fervor.

Dr. Wedel’s theme is mouth-watering. In the Incarnation, faith does not see just a great example or master teacher, but Deity itself coming to enter into a new relationship with sinful man. The pulpit which truly preaches the Good News cannot limit itself to an ideal or a code of ethics, but must proclaim a vital theology which has power to save from sin and then sanctify unto eternal life.

Remarkable quotations appear within the book: “(Our people) look to us not for inexpert advice as to how to vote in an election, but for light from another world on this world.” “We have sentimentalized the law and called it an ideal. We have reduced Christ from God to human prophet and moral hero. We have preached discipleship and the imitation of Jesus, not realizing that this, too, when isolated from the Good News of the Cross and the Resurrection, is burden, and not Good News.” And, “Christ must be met as living Lord, as the power of the Holy Spirit, or there can be no death of the sinner and no resurrection.”

Good? Indeed it sounds thrilling. What then can be wrong with it? Here we face the one great question of our day: Are the great affirmations of biblical theology references to literal reality or are they mere symbols of truth essentially philosophical and existential—and what difference does it make? No one denies that the Bible contains symbols in profusion. But are the historic doctrines of the Christian faith merely symbolic of “truth” or do they truly affirm reality? And if they represent literal truth, can the denial of their literalness truly save?

The author frankly confesses that his theology is “new” but he declares that it follows no single modern school. He is rather sympathetic toward the entire “diverse movement” in theology. He “cannot go back to the fundamentalist biblical literalism.” He “cannot possibly” take literally the miraculous in the Bible. Critical historians, he declares, have freed us from the slavery of a literalist Bible.

Original sin is a state of self-centeredness which separates man from God and which includes guilt only as a “feeling.” Grace is the word used to describe the various biblical references which have reunion as their theme. Grace means reunion and its perfect opposite is disgrace (wearing the wrong dress at a party). There is no hint that grace may denote a supernatural power or initiative on the part of a personal Being. Christ is exalted and the Holy Spirit frequently mentioned, but the Christ of God was incognito in the historical Jesus and today being “in Christ” is a matter of being in the organized fellowship of the redeemed, to which Christ has “returned” as its Holy Spirit.

Perhaps the place where Dr. Weber makes his position most clear is at the point of his eschatology. For him, the Church’s theology respecting last things is frankly symbolic. Following C. H. Dodd, he declares that the doctrine of last things confronts the Church with the fact of death and with the fact that the decision we make for or against God is fateful for eternity as well as time. Contemporary theology, he affirms, can no longer accept the orthodox structure of doctrine concerning life after death. With Aulen he affirms that juridical categories can no longer be applied to eschatology. And then he says, “We cannot conceive that God will limit the offer of His love to that fraction of the human race which has had the good fortune to hear the story of the Cross.”

To me there is tragedy in the enthusiastic “return” of modern theology to the “gospel.” It is not without significance that little evidence of guilt, or anguish of spirit, appears in the glib confessions of those who report that for years they followed a blind alley but now know more perfectly the Way. Where is the heartache for the multitudes who followed them up their blind alley and perished in the dead end?

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Devotional Values

Indebted to Christ’s Resurrection, by C. W. Gault, Pageant, New York. 1956. $3.00

The author’s interest in studies of the Life of Christ, developed in seminary days, has increased in years that followed, and a sample of the fruit from his study in one area, the resurrection of our Lord, is incorporated in this volume. In its conception, the book follows the plan of an anthology. Each chapter begins with a verse or more of Scripture text, then the comments of various authors follow. Occasionally Mr. Gault adds something of his own, principally to provide smooth connections.

Although the author has kept abreast of modern writings on the resurrection, he has a distinct preference for the old masters, quoting most largely from H. Latham, H. M. Paynter, W. G. Schauffler, H. B. Swete and T. V. Moore. For the most part, the emphasis falls on the devotional values of the resurrection accounts, but the critical is not ignored. The reader comes away with a sense of firmer grounding in this cardinal truth of our faith and feels his soul refreshed in the multifarious values of the resurrection for Christian life.

Many are the volumes which touch the resurrection in some fashion. This one is steeped in it. Every verse of the gospels dealing with the subject comes in for consideration, and the material is woven into a pattern which moves from the empty tomb right on to the ascension.

EVERETT F. HARRISON

- More from G. Aiken Taylor

Cover Story

Billy Graham’s Impact on New York

The Editor

How shall we evaluate the colossal religious drama recently concluded in New York City? The magnetic attraction of nearly two million persons to Madison Square Garden in summertime? More than 50,000 public decisions for Christ. New York’s official ecclesiastical cooperation with mass evangelism. The very person and message of Billy Graham. Are these factors God-propelled or man-made? Do they accelerate the collective pulse of sluggish Protestantism? Do they retard the ecumenical throb by their injection of a specifically delineated theology? Such questions engage the vigorous interaction not only of professional theologians, ministers and evangelists, but of laymen as well. What shall we say of Billy Graham? Whose voice is he?

The Spirit Or The Serpent?

Liberalism and neo-orthodoxy have virtually exorcised the Devil from their theology. Consequently, the theological left shows little disposition or reason to dismiss Billy Graham as a voice of Satan. On the other hand, some spokesmen for reactionary fundamentalism, appalled at Billy Graham’s technical and organizational alignment with modernistic clergymen, have made this very charge. A Christian college president, for example, forbade students on his campus to pray publicly for success of the meetings. Elsewhere an evangelist privately attributed the mass response in New York to Satan. A greater number in the reactionary rightist classification, however, have prayed for the evangelist and the meetings. Albeit, they speak of Graham with more reserve than gusto, and avoid reference to the Holy Spirit in evaluating his ministry.

Radical liberals, too, have leveled sharp criticisms at Graham’s ministry. Among such, Professor Arnold Nash of University of North Carolina considers the New York campaign a portent of the end of Protestantism. Similarly, others view mass evangelism as a major danger in contemporary spiritual life.

Critics Right And Left

Billy Graham’s critics include distinguished leaders in Roman Catholicism, Protestant liberalism and neo-orthodoxy, as well as irreligious secularists claiming no spiritual profession whatever. Secularists either explain mass evangelism in terms of “a promotional achievement,” or lampoon it as “a religious circus.” Modernists dislike Graham’s theological re-emphasis on the “five points” of fundamentalism (the inspiration of the Scriptures; the deity, virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, and second coming of Christ); many of them actually view Graham’s ministry as a sinister plot to undermine their accepted theologically inclusive ecumenical views. Roman Catholics consider Graham’s converts only “half saved,” since his evangelical convictions are not carefully related to the world of culture. For several reasons, neo-orthodox leaders speak of Graham’s thrust as “naive.” They assert that in Norman Vincent Peale fashion it appropriates God for purposes of personal success; that it allegedly perpetuates an antiquated theology appended to an outmoded world-view; that, lacking a deep cultural vision, it pursues easy solutions to complex social problems.

Serious Challenge

Because of the liberalistic monopoly of organized Protestantism, evangelical Christianity has long been spurned in American religious life. The searching public criticism of representative men like Reinhold Niebuhr, Father Gustave Weigel and Harold E. Fey, however, gives evidence that leaders in virtually all major religious traditions today consider Billy Graham together with his theology a serious competitor for the loyalties of hundreds of thousands of people.

Graham is convinced that biblical evangelism moves within the orbit of biblical theology. Criticize him as some will for reviving “the five points of fundamentalism,” his doctrinal emphasis belongs not only to extreme fundamentalists but also to the historic Christian churches (whereas the semi-unitarianism that prevailed virtually unchallenged in many churches in recent decades is not expressive of genuine Christianity at all). Fears expressed over the influence of Graham’s ministry upon the ecumenical movement will hardly shape confidence in that movement’s biblical concern. An ecumenics so narrow that it considers fundamental Christian doctrines to be divisive, yet so broad that it includes both Greek Orthodox and the most liberal churches, can hardly be expected to offer a return to Christ and the gospel.

Friends As Well As Foes

On the other hand, approval of Graham’s ministry is wider than sympathy for his theology. While some Protestant leaders attach little significance to doctrine of any kind, they interpret mass evangelism as a legitimate phase of the wider “return to religion” in contemporary American life. Others, actually apprehensive of Graham’s theology, nonetheless welcome his impact on the masses for its inevitable spur to church attendance, and even to reinforcement of membership with new recruits at a time of financially burdensome physical expansion. Still others, while in theological disagreement with Graham, feel that his evangelical supporters could enrich the ecumenical movement no less than liberal, neo-orthodox and conservative forces already within its framework have done. To some, Graham holds a strategic key to the ecumenical movement. To others, whatever theological difficulties may be involved for contemporary Protestantism, Graham’s ministry demonstrates the pragmatic success of his evangelistic message.

While proponents of Graham’s ministry fall into all these categories, his fullest support unquestionably comes from Protestant ministers personally convinced of the theological basis of his work. To them, Christian witness includes the ministry of mass evangelism, a ministry in which Billy Graham excels. Moreover, for them, biblical theology and biblical evangelism imply each other: the evangelistic challenge inevitably raises the theological question, while theology to be biblical must yield a missionary and evangelistic concern for lost masses in need of salvation.

A Pathetic Minority

New York City, to which Mr. Graham courageously carried a missionary investment that some of his friends feared might prove “a colossal bust,” is a metropolitan area of ten to fifteen million persons. Roman Catholics “claim” 75%, Protestants 33% of the population. But churches of all faiths reach less than half the population, and Protestantism is a pathetic minority.

Despite liberalism’s domination of Protestantism in New York for almost two generations, the movement made little impact upon the city’s unconverted masses. While the Protestant Council of New York had a department of evangelism from its beginning, interest in evangelism was at such a low ebb that the department had not been staffed. Yet more than four million inhabitants within the city limits belonged to no church, Protestant, Catholic or Jewish.

These facts must not be forgotten in weighing criticisms that Mr. Graham’s influence upon social institutions and the world of culture has been meager. Religious forces primarily dedicated to Christianizing the social order have little to show for many decades of effort. The long-established church agencies achieved no obvious turn in the dominant temper of New York life.

Indispensable Beginning

Over against the attempt of some to spawn a Christian culture through ethical reorganization of unregenerate humanity, Billy Graham summoned New York churches to their primary task of evangelizing lost multitudes for personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. The requirement of individual repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, neglected by the “social gospel,” gained new biblical centrality.

Much criticism of Mr. Graham’s ministry is directed against the social phase of his message. Does he sharpen the religious awareness of central moral problems in national life? Is he concerned to infuse justice into the social order? Does he seek the translation of personal commitment into great social institutions? In short, Mr. Graham is often charged with diluting and over-simplifying the requirements of Christian social ethics.

The question is pertinent whether the Church properly looks to the evangelist to delineate the intricacies of Christian social ethics, any more than the Church rightly expects proficiency in mass evangelism from the theologian. Much of the Niebuhr-Graham debate has overlooked the fact that the bulk of the Apostle Paul’s teaching on social ethics is hardly deducible from his sermonic ministry.

Optimism And Pessimism

Nor must we accept every current plea for Christian social ethics as framed in an acceptable evangelical way. Mr. Graham has so much stressed the new birth as the basic ingredient to a new social order that neo-orthodox thinkers charge him with ignoring the corruption of sin in regenerate experience, and therefore with reflecting the illusions of liberal Protestantism.

While the problems of Christian culture are no doubt somewhat more complex than Mr. Graham implies, perhaps under the necessities of an evangelistic thrust, to many observers the neo-orthodox approach seems needlessly overcomplicated; by shrouding the simplicities of the gospel with theological subtleties, neo-orthodoxy well nigh places the Christian faith beyond the reach of the man in the street. Indeed, the charge of naivete pressed against evangelical Christianity today by Bultmann, Tillich and Niebuhr is not in all respects modern; it reflects a line of attack made already by the Gnostics in early Christian ages, and is based in part upon disposition to question aspects of the theology of revelation. Unfortunately, Christianity has often become more concessive, the more highly intellectualized; in place of “uncritical bibliolatry” scholars readily yield the field to criticism of the Bible. Tumult over “the obscurantism of literalism” has a long echo and bespeaks an eagerness to reject as antiquated vital elements of the Christian world-life view.

If Mr. Graham’s approach to the social question is too optimistic, the neo-orthodox approach may be too pessimistic. Neo-orthodoxy suffers from viewing man as sinner simply on the grounds of his creatureliness, i.e., on the basis of original creation. Its despair of social progress reflected in Karl Barth’s earlier writings is often criticized. While orthodox evangelism may underestimate the difficulties of social progress within the framework of redemption, neo-orthodox ethics underestimates the power of the Spirit in collective life. Whereas in the last generation liberalism dismissed the evangelical view as pessimistic, an ironic twist of twentieth-century theology is evangelicalism’s discovery of unjustifiable despair in the theology of neo-orthodoxy.

The Social Vision

To charge Billy Graham with deficient social vision is less than fair. He underscores the need to reflect Christian ideals in family, in business and labor, and in political relations.

Graham offered no direct reply to Niebuhr’s proposal that the genuineness of personal regeneration be demonstrated by applying the commandment of “love for neighbor” especially to the contemporary vice of race prejudice, thus sharpening the religious conscience at the very point where secular agencies are most indignant over social evil. But he replied indirectly (Life Magazine, Oct. 1, 1956), that such a test would tend to narrow the dimensions of neighbor-love. (Niebuhr was rightly concerned because the trade union movement supported the Supreme Court decision more aggressively than the churches; Graham might properly have noted the long-standing trade union tolerance of another type of exploitation involving all races within its ranks.) Total repentance seemed a far more complex matter.

In actuality, Graham emphasizes regeneration and sanctification, more than a broad program of social action, as the key to the problem of race hatred. The campaign in New York, where there are more colored than white Protestants, was wholly integrated. Negro and white Christians shared alike in the choir, in ushering and in counseling. Ethel Waters, Negro radio and television star, was a featured outside soloist. For thousands of Christians it was a new experience to share a hymnbook in worship with a member of another race. From Madison Square Garden, quite unpublicized, rose outlines of a new working relationship between believers of all races. Gain was registered, therefore, in the very realm that most concerned some of Mr. Graham’s critics.

At the conclusion of the Garden campaign, the Rev. Dan Potter, executive director of the Protestant Council of New York, told a news conference that he did not know another clergyman in the city who had spoken as forcibly from the pulpit as Billy Graham during the Crusade on areas of Christian social responsibility.

Depth Of Penetration

Depth of social penetration remains nonetheless an important question. Idealistic short cuts have stranded modern life in the swamps of secularism near the jungles of naturalism. All social agencies today acknowledge the difficulty of moral penetration in big cities. Because of the structure of modern community life, the sense of social solidarity is all but gone. While many workers live in city tenement and slum districts, the upper classes usually only work in the cities while they reside in the suburbs. Here in these suburban communities residents are thrown together mainly for purposes of self-preservation and self-aggrandizement. In earlier generations community interests ran deeper; today, community existence poses major obstacles to a decisive turn in social outlook and life.

Moreover, the influence of evangelism upon the social order—marriage and the home, labor and economics, the state and culture—cannot be measured overnight. (Few of Mr. Graham’s critics would want their localized ministries evaluated hastily.) The striking response of young people to Graham’s plea for Christian commitment in the face of New York’s juvenile delinquency problem, and the response of college students as well, both involve strong future significance. While New York still faces the delinquency problem on a large scale, Graham’s special plea to teen-agers gained a dramatic response after police authorities had tried virtually everything else without success. During youth week in the Garden teen-agers comprised 60% of the capacity crowds. Decisions were more numerous than during earlier weeks of the campaign. More than half the converts were teen-agers, mostly unchurched. Some admittedly had participated in gang wars. Garden statistics also indicate that 2000 students from more than 400 colleges registered decisions. For these young lives strategic problems of Christian vocation and life still remain, but they represent evangelical resources with which the Church can hopefully face the coming generation.

In evaluating social impact, however, the question of present-day achievement inevitably pushes to the fore. Those who stress social issues ask: what centers of sin have shut down? what changes have taken place in the ethics of business and labor? what spheres of culture and art have been penetrated by Christian claims? what discernible impact has been made upon the problem of divorce and in the realm of sex? One critic has lashed Graham on the ground that “he failed to make enemies—enemies of the politicians at Tammany Hall, the publishers of filth magazines, the liquor traffic, the labor racketeers, and many of the fellows in the front pews of our churches who can continue their sinful practices of deceit and thievery …” What shall we say to these things?

The Gospel And Reform

It is tempting to reply that none of the great evangelists has been a social reformer in the direct sense. Cultural reformers have arisen, however, under their inspiration and impetus, as Wilberforce, for example, followed Wesley, to eliminate the slave trade in England. Those who would capture the realms of culture for Christ must first follow Mr. Graham’s initial penetration, for the spheres of marriage and the home, labor and economics, politics and government, education and culture largely remain in the grip of secularism today.

Some critics argue that Graham’s ministry has not successfully “broken through” to the unchurched. It might be asked, what Christian spokesmen achieve a conspicuous breakthrough today? And who has tried more than Graham? When in the history of this century has New York City witnessed a more sustained evangelistic attempt? If there is no general revival of historic Christianity, is this Graham’s fault? Those who speak of the disproportion between the magnitude and success of Graham’s campaigns when measured in lasting converts and religious and moral concern in the social sphere, easily forget that almost every local church program must wrestle with the same difficulties.

The fact is, however, that Graham has achieved a partial penetration, however fractional. Surely Graham’s ministry has lifted Christian evangelism into a prominent and respectable place in the national news. During the last generation it was a rare achievement when, through some evangelistic impact, Christian commitment was made an easy subject of conversation. Graham’s ministry has created a climate of evangelical witness in England, Scotland and the United States. In this Communist era how many spiritual leaders have done more to allay Christian “lost cause” jitters? Graham has gained national interest for the gospel on television (the Garden telecasts attracted letters from 100,000 seekers), competing against featured Saturday night entertainment programs. The late telecast of Impact reached many a barroom crowd. In the heart of pagan New York, Madison Square Garden and the gospel were made so synonymous that the Christian witness was given an initiative which 1700 participating churches will be able to exploit for months to come. Hundreds of thousands who missed the Garden meetings will admit privately to their probable loss of spiritual blessing. For years the “worldly crowd,” whenever it returns to the Garden for a sports event, will recall Billy Graham’s call for decisions; will hear Beverly Shea singing “How Great Thou Art”; will see hundreds of converts grouped at the altar. For a generation to come, those who shared the blessings of the Garden will be telling their children and their children’s children.

The Problem Of The Home

In repairing unhappy marriages and broken homes the New York campaign achieved spectacular results, especially in its television ministry. Suicides were averted; clandestine sex appointments interrupted; separated mates restored; dead marriages revived. The conversion of marital partners was a nightly spectacle of the campaign.

Admittedly there are few signs that Graham’s meetings significantly affected the worlds of business and labor. These spheres are vast machines today. One can scarcely say that many who control their destinies were enlisted for Christ. The campaign did reach the comfortable middle class, as one could tell from its nightly dress; the extreme poor and the rich were seldom present. Large blocs of workers from the garment industry attended through the encouragement of their leaders, which was all to the good, although Graham’s ministry is pointed toward personal decision without elaborating the world of daily work as a realm for the service of God and one’s fellow man. The New York committee drew to itself some men of towering influence in the world of finance, and committee members did not hestitate to describe the experience as a time of personal spiritual growth and gain. New campaign decisions at the executive level were not numerous, though there were some. Graham’s meeting on Wall Street had a profound momentary effect upon influential men; how good or ready the soil was it is too early to tell. The cost of the Garden campaign was $1,500,00 ($650,000 additional for television), a budget that could not have been met without substantial gifts from dedicated wealthy sources. Liberal churchmen often ask what evident changes have come into the prevailing climate of business ethics? This type of question has often harbored an anticapitalistic edge. But even when it has not, and probes rather for a healthy correlation of free enterprise and Christian principles, the inquiry too often looks to resolutions, organization and legislation, rather than to personal regeneration as the real key to social change.

In the sphere of culture and the arts the campaign shaped the Christian Arts Fellowship, after 400 seekers from the entertainment field responded at the Garden. Jerome Hines (Caruso Award winner) of the Metropolitan Opera company is first president. The group enlists twice-born talent in the entertainment world of television, radio, theater and stage (including playwrights, producers, actors, musicians, singers and models). While its main drive is personal religion and soul-winning (most affiliates are babes in Christ), with the aim of changing men, some revision of the theatrical world could issue from its concern for an enlarged evangelical witness.

Back To The Gospel

In surveying the campaign from the foregoing perspectives, however, one inevitably returns to the basic principle that the major Graham thrust is personal. The social complex is viewed, quite in accord with biblical theology, as a reflex of the realm of spiritual decision. Graham’s mission is that of an evangelist, not that of a social reformer, though he is convinced that biblical evangelism is the best road to social reform.

This emphasis, moreover, introduced into inter-church Christianity in New York City the deepest bond in its history of ecumenical enthusiasm. “There has been more real fellowship among ministers and churches in New York City than at any time for 25 years,” said one leader. Another put it this way: “The Church is most ecumenical when it is most evangelical.”

Madison Square Garden may not tower far enough, but it laid strong foundations. One reason to think that the social force of Graham’s converts can be preserved is his emphasis that Christian growth is more than a private affair; it requires fellowship in a church where Christ is proclaimed as Saviour and Lord. The real problem, therefore, is whether the churches will channel these converts into constructive action without sacrificing either evangelistic priority or social vitality. The conservation or non-conservation of converts will reflect the virility of the churches to which Billy Graham has entrusted them. Whatever may be said about the task that remains, the New York sponsoring committee is confident not only that the campaign was “the most prayed for crusade in history,” but also that in Madison Square Garden “the tide came in.”

END

- More from Billy Graham

Cover Story

The Complete Life

Bastian Kruithof

We spend our years, not only as a tale that is told, but also in fractions. The brevity and swiftness of life have much to do with this, yet these are not entirely to blame. We are apt to remain in the valley of particulars too long and that way neglect the heights of universals. Keats on first looking into Chapman’s Homer felt like a watcher of the skies standing on a peak in Darien. And Shelley once said that if he were to die tomorrow, he would have lived longer than his father. The intensity of our lives and right perspective have much to do with seeing life steadily and whole.

In our world of specialization and the scientific outlook there is a real tendency to be content with the fractional. There may be a basic humility about this, but there may also be a creeping pride which narrows the field of interest and mistakes a trail for a highway.

It is the maturing Christian’s blessed, fundamental prejudice that he is far on the way to grasping the complete life. He is closer to seeing life steadily and whole than Matthew Arnold who gave us the telling phrase. His experience is greater than that of Keats when that young poet walked into the mind of Homer. The comprehensive intensity of his life is more full of adventure and discovery than that of Shelley, the passionate rebel, who felt so much and left out more.

But we are speaking of the maturing Christian. There are others who have the one thing needed, whose destination is heaven, but who have no sharpened senses toward the infinite boundaries of the pilgrimage that begins here and lasts forever.

The Christian stands in that enviable position where everything can be evaluated sub specie aeternitatis. His can be that cosmic wanderlust which is of the very essence of the complete life. He considers is no sin to explore the universe and get stardust on his nose. Gertrude Stein at one time made the remark that all of us have a certain amount of “stupid being.” And some have more than others. One of our dangers as Christians is that, afraid to include too much, we exclude more. One day Michelangelo walked into the studio of Raphael to study the artist’s canvas. Then he picked up a piece of chalk and wrote the word amplius—greater, more ample. The picture was too cramped, too narrow. That is how our lives appear.

Religion And Culture

I have tried to formulate for myself a definition or description of the complete life. It is the life under God, lived alone and in society, with the proper concern for soul, mind and body. It is both contemplative and active, as the Middle Ages revealed at their best, and our contemporary age could and should reveal at its best.

For us the complete life includes the proper relation of Christianity to culture. In a time of decadence during the Nazi heyday there was not only a denial of Christianity but also a sneering at culture. In a play staged in Berlin one of the characters said, “Culture? Whenever I hear that word, I remove the safety catch from my gun.” The startling matter is that each time these lines were spoken they were greeted by a roar of applause.

The Two Questions

The Christian quite naturally affirms Christianity. But that affirmation can suffer from an application that is too narrow. We who experience divine grace are challenged by two persistent questions: What must I do to be saved? and, What must I do now that I am saved? If our concern is only with the first of these, we separate our religion from the cultural mandate that has come to us through the ages from God himself. Then the whole realm of culture may draw from us a sneer like that of the Nazis.

Long ago the Lord said to Adam, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.” Both sacred and secular history are evidence of the real though partial fulfillment of that order. The purpose of creation is the showing forth of the glory of God. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. To do that man must take all revelation into consideration. That was so before the fall, and that is so now. Creation, providence and redemption—all of these have their religious and cultural significance.

Definitions of culture are many and at times confusing. Perhaps a simple description will serve our purpose. By culture we understand the cultivation and appreciation of all that is true, good and beautiful in God’s world. Ideally there is no conflict between it and religion. In fact, religion is the mother of culture. T. S. Eliot reminds us that we must not look upon religion and culture as two separate but related things, nor must we identify the two. And he goes on to say that “no culture has appeared or developed except together with religion” (Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, p. 15). Of course, sin has blurred man’s vision with the result that religion and culture often appear as antagonistic. It is Christianity based on divine revelation that gives the proper perspective.

The Natural And The Spiritual

Now in terms of the two questions there is a tendency among Christians to honor the first and to ignore or misunderstand the second. The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck quotes J. Christian Blumhardt as saying that man really needs a twofold conversion, first from the natural to the spiritual life, and then from the spiritual to the natural (Philosophy of Revelation, Dutch Ed., p. 207). The implication is that the Christian should appreciate not only special revelation which deals primarily with redemption, but also that general revelation which speaks unmistakably in God’s universe. The redeemed person must think not only in terms of what he is redeemed from, but also of what he is redeemed for. Redemption has a cosmic significance. As R. H. Strachan writes, “It is impossible for a Christian who thinks at all to have Christ in his heart and keep him out of the universe” (The Historic Jesus in the New Testament, p. 72).

We have no quarrel with the first question. Evangelism thrives on that cry and the answer to it. But an exclusive concern easily results in an asceticism not worthy of Protestantism. If only the soul’s salvation and heaven count, there is a withdrawal from man’s place and purpose here. That way we lose the abundant life over and in which the two revelations shine, and we fail to prepare for it hereafter. We spend our days in a sort of perpetual spiritual schizophrenia, vascillating between a distorted spiritual claim and a desire for health and wealth and the latest gadgets that ease and confound our existence.

With such a withdrawal from the world the wholehearted and wholeheaded Christian is not at all satisfied. He sees his salvation in broader and deeper perspective. Pilgrim of eternity, he considers the importance of all that God reveals and demands in time. For him the second question certainly implies the urgency of witnessing that others may be won, but it also means his bearing witness to all that God is trying to tell us in creation, providence and redemption. He looks upon life as the unfolding of one increasing purpose. To him the City of God takes in and transforms the city of man and gives man his most significant role. For him the scientific, the aesthetic, the social and the religious are inseparable.

The Scientific

Man appears in his lights and in his shadows. There is truth in Hamlet’s soliloquy and in Pascal’s parody of the words. Yet to the latter, man is a thinking reed.

The Christian rejoices in knowledge and its quest, for all knowledge is from God. These two revelations in the Word and in the world find a response in the mind of man. Learning is indispensable and the adventure is rewarding. Whatever of value has been thought, said and done challenges our searching and our research.

We must cultivate the open mind which at its best is blessedly greedy. It reveres all revelation whether it be the mystery of the stars or of the ocean floor, the unleashed forces of the atom, the secrets of the human heart, or the being and purpose of God—or all these and more. The quest is a perennial one. Though we cannot all be scholars and specialists, we are the poorer and live the more fractionally if our senses are not keen to all the worthwhile that beats at our doors.

For the Christian, science and the scientific sense are not estranged from religion. Knowledge is not to be separated from deep religious certitude, but neither is it to be injured by unintelligent conviction. For him theology is a science feeding on the Word of God and growing from more to more, nurtured by all that is worthy and knowable.

The Aesthetic

The aesthetic sense must also be intelligent. God is the author of beauty as well as of truth. The Bible witnesses to that in content and form. Nature and life witness to it. The creativity of saints and sinners does as well.

Christians should strive to cultivate and appreciate beauty. It is part of their religious and cultural mandate. Sadly enough we are living in an age when the ark in the holiest place has given way to the jukebox. Taste has suffered even among Christians. While the psalms and great hymns remain unsung because they are “heavy, slow and boring,” our worship is invaded with secular tunes and primitive rhythms. Bach, Beethoven and Handel are considered long-haired, and instead we hear sentimental ditties and choruses that express a marked immaturity.

Television and radio have crowded out our bookshelves. Pictorial magazines are more important in our homes and hospitals than the living Word and books of value. If there is any reading, predigested digests curb our own spiritual and mental mastication. The heavens declare the glory of God and much on this good earth does the same, but we hurry through life with blinders, unmoved by the pre-education for eternity.

It is not entirely so. God pours out his beauty in nature and through poets, artists and musicians. One who has traveled remembers mountains, museums, music halls, cathedrals and libraries stocked with lore, more than eye and ear can grasp and the mind understand. All that beauty is for God to contemplate. The spillover is our reward until that greater comprehension unshackles our receptivity.

The Social

It was the divine will that man should not live alone. We have millions of brothers and sisters sprung from one common stock. The image of God in us, though sadly marred and needing restoration, makes for responsible relationship. I am more than my brother’s keeper; I am his brother. That implies privileges and duties in the family, society, the state and the world. Christianity gives us the shining ideals for each sphere. These cannot be spurned with impunity.

Christians basking in an atmosphere of, “When we all get to heaven,” are living very fractionally. If they lament the breakdown of the home, social delinquencies, labor disputes, separation from religion in education, economics and politics, and bitter race relations, they have also themselves to blame. For God requires of them that they love him above all and their neighbors as themselves. Their faith, wrapped in cellophane or hermetically sealed as insurance for the life to come, belies the words of Jesus that his followers must be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

What Christian principles have done for all the social spheres is a long and astounding story. What they can and must still do is an adventurous chapter the denouement of which depends on how faithfully Christians will practice what they believe.

The Religious

Christian faith and practice are basic to the complete life. Christians are the children of God, the people of the Book, the beneficiaries of all divine revelation. The more sharpened our senses are to the ultimate values of life and to our calling in a world that bristles with problems, the more we answer to God’s purpose and will.

Personal piety, the assurance of salvation, a healthy walking with God, a profound theology of grace are essential. And a translation of these into dynamic action for the living of these days is indispensable. We must have the devotion of St. Augustine, the brotherliness of St. Francis, the heat of Luther, the burning heart of Calvin, the passion of John Wesley, the faith of our fathers, not dead but living.

Would you strive for the complete life? Then walk with God in the city streets, through alleys and on highways, in pastures and over mountains, in the atom and among the stars, in realms of duty and of beauty. And as you walk, keep your eyes on the City of God. That is the way of the complete life.

The Cathedral

Here it stands in humble eloquence,

The great cathedral, handsome, splendid, tall.

Across the street its morning shadows fall

As if to hide the sin and arrogance

Of foolish men, who by some plan or chance

Scorn heavenly things. But yet they heed the call

To worship in this great cathedral hall

And give its ornate walls a prideful glance.

They crowd its aisles, they listen to the choir,

And hear its echoes like a heavenly lyre.

Forgetting for the moment basic sin

They lose themselves to wandering thoughts within.

The temple bell rings solemnly from crypt to floor,

While Christ outside, waits lonely at the door!

Inspiration

He entered the cathedral timidly

As if its choir and chancel frowned on him

A stranger. But the soft and vibrant hymn

The organist was playing, seemed to be

A full processional—a melody

That caught his heart and cast aside his sin,

Making him guiltless, clean and pure within.

His life felt joyous, full, and free.

He found a seat among the silent crowd

Of worshippers, and in deep reverence bowed

His once proud head in strange humility,

As voices of the choir, in ecstasy,

Caught up the hymn in childhood he had known—

ABIDE WITH ME. He was with God, alone!

HARRY ALBERT MILLER

- More from Bastian Kruithof

Cover Story

Universalism in Today’s Theology

Harold B. Kuhn

The teaching of universalism is one which has divided Christian thinkers since the days of Clement of Alexandria and Origen. The subject has been raised in recent years with new force, so that it challenges consideration from the point of view of newer theological currents. The Christian Gospel raised the blunt question: “Will there be lost men who finally find themselves irrecoverably in outer darkness?” Universalism answers this question in the negative.

Early universalism held that man was created with opportunity of improvement as enduring as his being. This was the view of Clement of Alexandria. Origen, his pupil, rooted his universalism in the Platonic doctrine of the pre-existence of souls. The major thrust of his teaching was that human souls were now in bodily garb for the purposes of discipline and education, the outcome of which was held to be necessarily favorable. In similar vein Gregory of Nazianzen held that all punishments led necessarily to salvation. In his view God permitted evil only because he foresaw that all would be saved.

In the Middle Ages, John Scotus Erigena, following Plato’s view that our earthly life is the result of the imprisonment of the pre-existent soul in a body, taught that Jesus came to repair the entire damage, and finally to restore all to God. In general, medieval theology condemned universalism. Thomas Aquinas gave the classic formulation of the Roman church’s opposition to it, asserting that partialism was not only in keeping with the doctrine of God’s grace but that it was required by the clear statements of Scripture. Protestant orthodoxy continued the same teaching, asserting even more emphatically that the Scriptures are the final court of appeal at this point, and that they teach that the final reconstitution of all things in Christ would be accomplished only at the price of the eternal loss of a portion of mankind.

The last 50 years have witnessed a restatement of the case for universalism, given skillful expression by a number of able theologians. It will be helpful to know the basic arguments by which these defend the view that all will ultimately be saved.

Karl Barth has given expression to his belief that God’s final triumph must include the salvation of all men, in terms of what has been called “Christomonism.” In seeking to give a full account of faith as it relates to all of human life, including the mystery of man’s struggle with evil, Barth insists that Jesus Christ is the Elect Man and that we are elected in him collectively—not as separate individuals. It was Emil Brunner who first raised a vigorous protest against Barth’s weird doctrine of election and who pointed out its universalistic implications.

Reinhold Niebuhr has in less systematic fashion announced a similar doctrine. He sees salvation as being always in principle, not in fact. To him divine action is at present hidden action; we can only know it indirectly. Thus to Niebuhr as to Barth, our best attitude is that of taking our place with the sinners, living in penitence moment by moment. His confidence seems to be that the ultimate well-being of all souls must be achieved eschatologically. What Niebuhr fails to see is that his principles do not clearly rule out the possibility that there may be men with a hardness of heart which eternity does not change.

British Advocates

In Great Britain the three major recent exponents of universalism are Dr. C. H. Dodd, Dr. J. A. T. Robinson and Dr. H. H. Farmer. Dr. Robinson defends the view that universalism is in keeping with the Christian Gospel upon the ground that if divine love is omnipotent it must finally eliminate all opposition to itself. He recognizes that this involves the doctrine of human freedom, but insists that freedom can be safeguarded in a manner harmonious with the doctrine that all shall finally come to contrition. He holds that an all-compelling love can nevertheless leave freedom intact, because “the very act of submission is an act of freedom and embodies the assertion of its eternal integrity” (Scottish Journal of Theology, June 1949).

Dr. H. H. Farmer follows a similar line of approach in his volume The World and God. He assumes that if God is holy love, then we must conclude “that not only is he seeking to reconcile every individual to himself, but also that he will in the end succeed in so doing … Thus the profound concern of religious faith for God’s ultimate victory seems in its Christian form to move unavoidably towards universalism” (p. 255). He rejects the idea that the destiny of man can be once and for all settled by what happens in this world and is thus forced to assume, gratuitously we think, a post mortem existence in which even the most stubborn spirits are brought to yield to the truth.

Dr. Farmer feels that we must restate the ideas of freedom and of coercion. He insists that, given a theoretically eternal opportunity, God can manifest his wisdom with such force that it can no longer be resisted. He allows that the process may entail a very long period of time and much suffering. However, he believes, just as an irresistible logic may bring us to conclusions which we may not like but nevertheless accept, so also the appeals of God in the post mortem situation may bring even the most recalcitrant soul to yield to divine mercy, without his personality being overridden in the process.

American Supporters

In this country, Dr. Robert L. Calhoun puts the case in a slightly different form in his volume God and the Common Life. He insists (p. 248) that God’s redemptive world must be as extensive as his work within man’s environment. He infers from the triumph of God in the cosmos that “The Hound of Heaven” will never ultimatively fail, but will bring to bear upon men such influences, from within and from without, that they will hear and respond.

From similar premises, Dr. Harris Franklin Rall insists that since God has worked with success through ages of cosmic development, it would be irrational if he were to fail to achieve his objectives in the salvation of men. Assuming that God is greater than evil, he reasons that ethical triumph, no less than cosmic triumph, is implicit in divine activity. Rall’s conclusions are conditioned by his view that salvation is chiefly positive in nature. That is to say, he understands salvation almost exclusively in terms of the achievement of eternal life, not as escape from eternal death and outer darkness.

A word needs to be said with reference to the implications of the thought of Rudolf Bultmann and of Paul Tillich for the subject at hand. Both of these theologians are concerned primarily with the way in which the Gospel is to be interpreted today. They feel that a contemporary understanding of the gospel can best be expressed in terms of an existentialist philosophy, which lays stress upon living decisions in the present, rather than in terms of traditional theological expressions concerning either the past or the future. Thus such terms as “the wrath of God” and “the final judgment” are paradigms expressing dramatically the absoluteness and unapproachability of God. These and similar modes of speech are held to be poetic, useful chiefly to evoke the mysterium tremendum, or the overpowering sense of awe in the presence of the Divine. To such a view, of course, the teachings of Scripture concerning the factuality of either future blessedness or future perdition become meaningless and irrelevant.

Perhaps the most pronounced of the American exponents of modern universalism is Dr. Nels F. S. Ferre. The cornerstone of Ferre’s system is that God combines in himself the ideal and the actual, is absolutely sovereign, and will finally save all men. The final outcome of the course of things is beyond our present power of understanding. By “faith,” however, he sees God as finally supreme above all.

Ferre sets up an antithesis between God’s love on one hand, and his power and justice on the other. From this dialectic he concludes that if any of the sons of men were to be irrevocably lost, God would have acted in a manner which was both “subjustice” and “sublove.” He, like Dr. Farmer, assumes a set of conditions after death in which those who die impenitent here will be once again faced with both the terror of evil and the grace of Christ. Ferre’s language is picturesque; he sees men in this situation promptly perceiving themselves to be out of their proper element, and in consequence quickly beating a retreat to Father’s house.

Fallacy And Oversight

These modern assertions of universalism share more or less largely in three serious fallacies and in one critical oversight. Their exponents assume, first, that anything less than universal salvation is unthinkable and therefore impossible. They are unwilling to allow as a possibility that which seems to them to be unthinkable. Now it needs to be said that some of the subjective factors involved here come as reaction to the ill-advised and lurid preaching upon the subject of hell by well-meaning persons. Who of us has not heard some minister deal with the subject of eternal perdition in such manner as to create suspicion that he was in reality giving vent either to his own feelings of aggression or to his own frustration? This prompts one to add, homiletically, that no minister is prepared to preach upon the subject of hell until his soul has been gripped by the poignant fear that some of his audience may make their bed there.

The supposed unthinkability of eternal punishment rests, in general, upon what we believe to be a faulty human analogy. Universalists tend to feel that the love of God must be like human love, raised to the nth power. Now it is clear that there is a relation between God’s love for us and the love of the parent for the child. “Like as a father pitieth his children …” But this analogy must have its limits, and these limits are reached when we face the clear words of our Lord concerning “the strait gate” and “the great gulf.” It is significant that such statements, together with our Lord’s solemn references to “the shut door” and to “both soul and body cast into Gehenna,” are neatly bypassed by universalists.

These statements seem clearly to reveal in concrete form the realities of the situation as God sees it. No abstract reasoning on our part can hope effectively to explain away these statements, since they rest upon what God has actually done in history through his Son. The Cross goes beyond any of our logical processes of analogy in which we may try to set God’s love and God’s power in antithesis.

Rationalizing Iniquity

The second fallacy is the assumption that the problem of evil is capable of being rationalized. Universalism shares the weakness of absolute idealism at this point. It needs to be remembered that evil is ultimately illogical and unsystematic in character. Those who assert or imply that evil can easily be transcended by reason, or rendered logically coherent by any process of dialectic, have forgotten that our Lord speaks of “the mystery of iniquity.”

Both ancient and modern universalism fail to see that sin is in its essence ultimately contradictory, so that the gulf between the sinner and God cannot be bridged by human reason. Men are reconciled to God only in terms of the activity of God at the Cross. At Golgotha the mystery of evil was not denied; man was reconciled to God by an act which at the same time affirmed the bottomless reality of sin. No unitary interpretation of existence can possibly do justice to the mystery of iniquity, and it is perennially true that the preaching of the Cross is foolishness to the wisdom of this world.

The third fallacy of universalism lies in its shallow understanding of Calvary. Its proponents fail to see that as the darkness settled around our divine Lord at Gethsemane, and as it enveloped him on the Cross, it was not a darkness springing from a normal manifestation of his will-to-live, but a darkness born of the shocking realization that shortly divine love was to be pressed to the point of no return. From henceforth the frightful possibility should exist that in spite of God’s absolute love for men, some may resist in arrogance and selfishness and go into eternal night. In other words, in the Cross the incredible became possible; men henceforth might, in a personal and decisive rejection of divine mercy, manifest the incredible mystery of iniquity.

What is needed to correct this third fallacy is, of course, a more profound insight into two things: first, into the Eli, Eli lama sabachthani of our Lord upon the Cross; and second, into the unfathomable horror of the act by which men, in arrogance and proud denial, refuse the ultimate work of love at Calvary. When one grasps these in their profundity, he will scarcely dilute the significance of the sufferings of our Lord by a declaration of universalism. He will see, in the light of the Cross, that hell is no crude medieval invention but a hideous reality, prefigured here and now in the wreckage of character evident all about us, and the ultimate and inevitable consequence of the power of men finally to contradict God and to depart from him.

Finally, universalists overlook the clear statements of Scripture concerning the possibility of a final and decisive rejection of the love of God in Christ and a consequent eternal estrangement of the human soul. Reference has been made to the neglect of the statements of our Lord which can scarcely have any other significance than that the day of mercy has its final moment, and that some will reach this moment in impenitence. Worthy of special study in this connection is his account of the rich man and Lazarus, with its total lack of any indication of a postmortem repentance and its clear statement that death precipitates a character finality. “Neither can they pass to us that would come from thence!” To this may be added the statement concerning Judas, that “it would have been better for that man had he never been born.”

False Guides Amid Urgency

In the days of his flesh our Lord continually emphasized two things: first, that eternal life is available to all men; and second, that it is the urgent duty of all to accept it promptly and immediately. This is the “word of eternal life.” Urgency was and is the keynote of the proclamation of the Church. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men,” said Paul. The reason is not far away: “The love of Christ constrains us as we make this judgment that when Christ died, all died.” This urgency is not merely rhetorical; it springs from the tragic fact that the kerygma is both a savor of life unto life and a savor of death unto death.

In the light of these things, it seems incredible that men entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel should take away the railings from the precipice roads of life. We cannot refrain from voicing the conviction that those who thus remove the red flares and the danger signals do so as false guides who stand in desperate need of returning for instructions to him who said, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many will seek to enter in and shall not be able.”

END

- More from Harold B. Kuhn

Cover Story

Christianity and the Pagan World

Oswald J. Smith

If you want to find countries where there is little or no poverty and much prosperity, you will have to go to Christian countries. In non-Christian lands the lot of the masses is indescribable poverty and the virtual absence of prosperity.

If you want to find countries where there are hospitals to care for the sick, homes for the aged and orphanages for the helpless, again you will have to go to Christian countries. In non-Christian lands there are few, if any, hospitals or orphanages except those provided by Christian missionaries and no provision for the aged.

If you want to visit countries where people live in houses and where beggars do not clutter the streets, you will have to visit Christian countries. In non-Christian lands multitudes live in caves and shelters made out of old cans and boxes or in crowded river boats and beggars in their rags and nakedness throng the roads.

If you want to see countries where individuals own their own homes, and where they get three square meals a day, once again you will have to turn your eyes toward Christian countries. In non-Christian lands countless multitudes are destitute. They lack even the common necessities of life. They sleep on the street without enough cover to warm their bodies, and all their lives they are dependent on others. Even in communistic countries men cannot forge ahead and freedom is unknown, for they live as slaves of an atheistic, dictatorial government that holds life cheap and knows no mercy.

If you enjoy a country where there are schools, universities and colleges, where the courts administer justice, you will have to live in a Christian country. In non-Christian lands the masses have no opportunity of getting an education and justice is unknown, for bribery is rampant.

If you love a country where women are equal to men and where hard manual labor is not the lot of the weaker sex, and where woman can take her place in the office and even in politics, you will have to seek a Christian country. In non-Christian lands woman is the slave of man. She may be one of several wives or concubines. She is illiterate. In many such countries she is seldom seen; even when parades are going by, it is the men who stand and watch, not the women.

Christ Makes The Difference

What has made the difference? Christianity. Who has made the difference? Christ. Only in the countries that have been influenced by the teaching of Jesus is this difference found. Where Christ has gone, hospitals, schools, orphanages, leper asylums, homes for the blind, nurses and doctors have appeared. Where Christ has gone prosperity and plenty have followed. Where Christ has gone beggars have disappeared, homes have been built and the comforts of life have come. Where Christ has gone law has taken over and justice has been exercised. Where Christ has gone woman has been exalted, educated, reverenced and loved. Christian marriage has taken the place of polygamy. Where Christ has gone life is sacred and property protected, the individual given an opportunity to develop his business and to prosper, so that he can care for his family and leave something for them to inherit.

Go to a non-Christian land and you will find people hungry. Millions of them get only one meal a day or less and that a bowl of rice; they never know what it is to be satisfied. That is why there are so few fat people in non-Christian lands. They are thin for lack of nourishment. That is why they beg for a morsel of food. They are hungry. They have always been hungry and they always will be, for pagan governments are not long interested in their people’s welfare.

Most people in Christian countries do not know what it is to be hungry. They have more than enough. The United States throws away sufficient food to feed a nation. God has given America and Canada a superabundance of everything. The nation that recognizes Christ is rich. In 3 John 2 we are told that it is the will of God that his people should prosper. The greatest prosperity the world has ever seen will be during the millennium and it will be because Jesus Christ will be exalted as Lord of lords and King of kings.

The Duty Of Missions

What about the heathen? If Christianity makes such a difference, then ought we not to tell them about Christ? Their own religions cannot save them. They have never bettered their lot. Only Christianity can raise them from their degradation and filth to prosperity and righteousness. Only Christ can change their condition. Then why not give them Christ? He died for them. They have no other hope. All the by-products of Christianity will be theirs once they know Christ. Let us send out missionaries. Let us distribute the printed page. Let us get the message to them. By some means let us “Go … into all the world and preach the gospel.”

One Church’S Program

During the past years the Peoples Church in Toronto, Canada, of which I am the pastor, has contributed well over $3,000,000 for missionary work, most of it for foreign work. At the present time we are giving seven times as much to missions as we spend on ourselves. For instance, last year we spent $39,000 on ourselves in Toronto and during the same period we sent $282,000 to the regions beyond. Thus we are trying to put missions first. At the present time we are contributing toward the support of 350 missionaries on 40 foreign fields under 35 accredited faith missionary societies.

Each year we hold a missionary convention that lasts for four weeks and five Sundays. There is no period of the year when the attendance is as large as it is during this convention. On Sundays we hold four services—one at 11 o’clock in the morning, one at 3 in the afternoon, one at 7 in the evening and another at 9. As a rule some 2,000 people attend each of these services, making a total of 8,000 people for the entire Sunday. This continues for five Sundays.

We bring missionaries from various parts of the world, invite missionary leaders to speak on their work and show pictures, until our people catch such a vision that they can hardly wait for Sunday to make their investment for missions. Everyone takes part in the convention. They do not give cash. They make a faith-promise offering, agreeing to send in so much each month for the next 12 months. A pledge offering is, of course, between the individual and the church, and the officials may be sent to collect it, but a faith-promise offering is between the individual and God, and the individual is never asked for it. He makes it to God and he deals with God alone. As a rule much more is received than the amount promised.

It is like buying on credit. If we had to pay cash we could not get what we want, but by signing a contract and agreeing to pay so much a week or month it is possible to obtain things that are beyond our reach otherwise. So it is with missions. We sign a contract with God and we agree to send in so much month by month for a year. Thus we receive sufficient to carry our great missionary work.

Built On A Vision

The Peoples Church is built on a vision—the vision of getting the message to the Christless masses in the regions beyond. It is that alone which binds our people together. We have never had a split of any kind in the history of the church. Our people realize that “the supreme task of the church is the evangelization of the world” and they put missions first.

We have seen the same thing happen in dozens of other churches in the United States and Canada. It was my privilege to conduct the first convention ever held in Park Street Church, Boston. That church was then giving $3,200 a year to missions; it is now giving over $200,000 a year. For six years in succession I conducted this convention. The same thing happened in Grace Chapel, Philadelphia. That church was giving about $8,000 a year for missions. I held a convention there for five consecutive years. The Chapel is now giving over $100,000 each year. I have seen it happen in Presbyterian churches, Baptist churches, Pentecostal churches, Independent churches, all kinds of churches. I have never known it to fail. God’s plan is the convention. With a convention and a faith-promise offering, missions can be supported.

A Motto For Missions

About a quarter of a century ago God gave me a motto which I put in the form of a question: “Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?” I have used that motto all over the world and God has greatly blessed it. Missionary leaders everywhere are using it today. I have no objection to people hearing the Gospel a thousand times, but I do object when a church gives it to the same people for a quarter of a century and never once turns to those who have not yet heard. “The mission of the Church is Missions.” “This generation can only reach this generation.” “You must go or send a substitute.” “The church that gives is the church that lives.” These are some of the mottoes that influence us in our missionary work.

We must decide whether we are going to put our money into buildings or into the message. Jehovah’s Witnesses build Kingdom Halls, not luxurious in any sense of the word. They know that the message is more important than the building. They do not build a beautiful church and invite the people to come in; they put their money into the message, the printed page, and send it out. At one of their services they baptized 6,000 converts, every one of them won by the printed page. The communists are doing the same. They even boast that they took China by means of the printed page. The Church of Jesus Christ is going to have to change its methods. If we are going to depend upon missionaries, we are going to fail. The message is more important than the messenger.

Our people do not give as the world gives, namely, out of sympathy. We know that anyone will respond to physical needs. We have taught our people to give in order to carry out God’s program, which is to evangelize the unevangelized tribes of earth and thus bring back the King. Our policy is: “To hasten the return of our Lord by following his program for this age, which is to ‘preach the Gospel in all the world for a witness to all nations,’ and ‘to take out a people for his name.’ Our aim is to work among peoples, tribes and nations where Christ is not named.”

When Jesus left this world he left us one job and one only—world evangelization. Everything else is of secondary importance. We have no women’s missionary society in our church because we place the responsibility of missions upon everyone. It is only when the most important work of the church is given to everyone in the church that the church will indeed be a missionary church. I would never dream of giving the most important work of the church to any one of the many societies in the church. I give it to the entire church.

We have 130 elders. Last year our elders gave $42,000 to missions. No one becomes an official in the Peoples Church unless he is backing the great work of world evengelization and, if he ever ceases to back that work, he ceases to be an official. We have a choir of about 70 members. Last year our choir gave $10,000 to missions. We have a very small Sunday school, for we do not emphasize Sunday school work. There are less than 400 in it and yet our Sunday school gave $28,000 to missions last year. We have a small group of business girls, about 40 or 50, and they gave $5,000. Thus we have trained our people to put missions first. Any church can do the same.

There are still some 2,000 tribes without the Gospel, 2,000 languages into which no part of the Word of God has yet been translated. Jesus Christ cannot come to reign in millennial splendor, power, and glory until these tribes have been reached, for there must be some in the Body of Christ from every tribe, tongue and nation throughout the world. When, then, are we going to complete the task? When will we take him seriously? When will we invest more in missions than we invest at home? When will we put missions first? I have been preaching the Gospel now for 49 years, but I am a pastor second, a missionary first. I am a hymn writer and an author second, but a missionary first. I am an evangelist second, a missionary first. “The gospel must first be published among all nations.” God help us to accept the challenge and evangelize the world that the King may come back and reign.

END

George Stob is minister of Prospect Street Christian Reformed Church of Passaic, New Jersey, has been pastor in the state of Washington, chaplain in the U.S. Army during World War II and has taught Church History at Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids. He is author of handbooks on Bible history and an editor of the monthly Reformed Journal.

- More from Oswald J. Smith

Cover Story

Bultmann: Genius or Apostle?

Robert Paul Roth

What is the storm over Bultmann’s demythologizing of the New Testament? Hailed by friends as the monumental genius who has made Christianity meaningful to modern man, he has been charged by critics with both subjectivism and Docetism. He has been investigated for heresy, and he has had the honor of delivering the much coveted Gifford Lectures. What is the reason for the heated controversy raging about this man, not only on the continent of Europe and in England but now also in America?

Bultmann’s chief concern is to make the Christian message relevant to the present generation. A discerning student of history of the early Christian period, he tries to understand the Gospel in its primitive milieu so that he can divest it of all unnecessary accoutrements and present the original message in all its purity.

While his intentions may be good, Bultmann does not let this original Gospel speak to him. Coming to the scriptural record with a preconceived existential philosophy, he finds everything supernatural or other worldly to be unhistorical and mythological. Thus he declares that from the beginning the Christian message was couched in mythological thought patterns of the ancient world.

There were two mythical patterns prevalent in Jesus’ day—the Jewish apocalyptic notion of a final day of the Lord when the earth would melt and the redemption of Israel would be realized, and the Gnostic myth of the Greeks which promised redemption through the coming of a pre-existent Lord who humbles himself to save others. The preaching of the early Christians, Bultmann asserts, combined both of these so-called myths and thereby presented Jesus to use both as the pre-existent Lord sent to die on the Cross and the expected Son of Man who will come again in glory. Thus Paul is supposed to have naively combined the Gnostic myth of a dying and rising deity in Romans 6:2 with the Jewish myth of an atoning judge and redeemer in Romans 3:25 (cf. Bultmann, Primitive Christianity, New York, 1956, p. 197).

Because of these two mythical forms the true Christian message, according to Bultmann, was obscured from the very beginning. In the Middle Ages obscurantism persisted through the preservation of the Gnostic drama of a cosmic salvation. It is only in modern times, says Bultmann, that we are able to shake loose from false metaphysical world-views and gain a genuine understanding of man as he really exists. According to this modern understanding, man sees himself as the historically unique product of his past. The world around him is not a fixed structure to which he must fit himself, but it is an infinitude of future possibilities for which man is responsible. This means that man’s life is constantly being challenged with decision. Unlike the Stoic, who tries to find serenity through a rational decision that frees him from the future, the Christian, says Bultmann, finds release through a decision for Christ which frees him for the future. But this freedom is purely historical (existential) and has no relation to a future life in a new world to come.

Event As Confrontation

The Stoic thought he could rid himself of his past by rational choice, but Bultmann says that Paul with a surer realism knew that a man cannot shake himself loose from his past. If he is to be saved at all it must be by a gift of grace. This gift is the event of Christ, not understood as an historical occasion, but as the moment of revelation, a crisis of decision, which comes to individuals in every generation repeatedly whenever God meets them in judgment and mercy. In this regard Bultmann says that Christianity agrees with Gnosticism because both declare man incapable of saving himself, and both define redemption as an event. The only difference is that while Christians connected this event with Jesus, the Gnostics relegated the event to a mythical age before history began (ibid., p. 200).

Since this mythological framework is not necessary, Bultmann wishes to cut away all prescientific myths in the Bible so that nothing but the relevant message of the early Church remains. This message alone can speak to our day of “electricity and radio.” Thus the miracles, the birth stories, the empty tomb and the resurrection stories must all be discarded. The core of the message which is left is the historicity of the Cross and the good news of justification by faith. Bultmann says that man in his existence is suffering from a desperate calamity. This lostness is the point of contact for all Christian preaching because when a man reaches the boundary of his resources he can find release by making a decision for Christ. This decision, made at the edge of the abyss, will bring a man to a believing self-understanding (Selbstverstandnis), or a release from the powers of this world which he can control (and which in sin control him) into the service of that Power which he cannot control (which is the hidden God). This gives a man “serenity of soul” in the face of otherwise hopeless frustration. The historical Jesus is significant in this picture only as occasion for the encounter between the cross-event and the sinner who makes the decision for the ultimate. Apart from this personal encounter, there is no more significance to Jesus than to any other martyr in history. Really it is not the Jesus of history that concerns us (he was assertedly not even conscious of himself as Messiah), but the personal Lord we meet in the moment of decision.

Subjectivistic Criticism

Now how does Bultmann know all this? How is it possible for him to say that the original and relevant message was from the beginning clothed in an unnecessary mythical dress? The answer is that he uses the useful but dangerously sharp tool of form criticism in a most unscientific and subjective fashion. For example, every time the text of the Gospel of John does not corroborate Bultmann’s existentialist philosophy, he ascribes the discrepancy to redactional gloss. Thus when John’s futurist eschatology contradicts Bultmann’s realized eschatology in John 6:39, 40, 44 and 12:47, he simply pleads ecclesiastical redaction (Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, New York, 1955, Vol. II, p. 39.) Similarly, when the Jewish concept of an atoning sacrificial death is found in 1 John 1:7, 2:2, and John 4:10, 6:53–56, 19:34, Bultmann declares these passages to be late theological accretions because they do not fit his theory that John used a Gnostic representation for his message. This method has further led him to say that “for John, Easter, Pentecost and the parousia are not three separate events, but one and the same” (ibid., 6:57). That this fails to distinguish properly between Spirit and Son and thereby truncates the Trinity does not seem to bother Bultmann.

In addition to this question-begging subjectivism Bultmann has been rightly charged with a Docetic Christology. It seems fair to say that for Bultmann the Cross becomes an empty symbol because of his failure to take into consideration the suffering Saviour on the Cross. The Cross is not just a symbol pointing to an occasion which, having no meaning in itself, becomes meaningful only in the crisis of personal decision. As Luther said, “The Kingdom of God comes indeed of itself without our prayer!” And moreover, the Cross does not occur without the historical resurrection as it was witnessed by the apostles. Bultmann seldom mentions the resurrection because he has reinterpreted it in terms of existentialism to be a release from frustration in this life rather than a gift of new life both here and hereafter (ibid., p. 200). Ironically, in his attempt to understand man in a purely historical way Bultmann has denied the decisive significance of the Cross for all history by defining its meaning only in terms of human decision.

Furthermore, the serenity of soul that comes from this decision cannot really replace the gift of resurrection which the Gospel proclaims. The Gospel offers not serenity indeed but a holy war against sin and the joyful foolishness of forgiveness. The holy war is not fought in the ivory tower of dialectics but in the flesh and blood association of Christians who are yoked together with Christ in love. Faith is not a nontemporal, nonhistorical symbol that exists only in the realm of meaning. It is not man’s decision but God’s gift in bringing men into communion with himself through Christ, the Lord of the Church. This is no simple I-Thou encounter; this is the divine action of election as it reaches its fulfilment both in the history of the Church and in personal history. Such history will be anything but serene; actually the Christian and the Church become involved in a new tension under the Cross which tears at their hearts but is also accompanied by an abounding hilarity in hope.

Misunderstanding The Worlds

Another aspect of demythologizing is Bultmann’s criticism of the biblical three-story universe. The modern scientific world-view involves a one-story universe, and since the biblical view is mythical, Bultmann says it can be discarded. In brief this would mean that we must stop talking about heaven and hell. This criticism involves a misunderstanding of both Scripture and science.

Actually Scripture teaches not three worlds, nor one world, but two worlds. There is an eschatological, not metaphysical, dualism between this present world which is in bondage to decay and the world to come which has already begun in the coming of Jesus. It is true that the Bible also teaches that God has created things visible and things invisible, things in heaven, things on earth, and things under the earth. The invisible things are not to be understood as subjective realities only, but they refer to angels, principalities, powers, demons, departed spirits in nether regions. This biblical viewpoint was just as offensive and irrelevant to the Gnosticism of Paul’s day as to the materialism of ours. But the real issue is the resurrection. We must say to Bultmann as Paul said to the Corinthians: “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.” If Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection, then departed spirits must pass from some kind of fettered condition to a new freedom and life in Christ, and this cannot be consummated within the confines of the visible world.

The scientific misunderstanding is due to a common confusion between science as a method and science as a materialistic philosophy. Most practicing scientists clearly understand this distinction, but nonscientific people often do not. No scientist today would claim that his science makes incredible heaven, hell, angels, demons, miracles. Science is not a philosophy, nor a world-view, but a method of investigating how things happen in our experience. The scientist is an honest observer who simply describes what is given him in experience. He tries by the help of reason to construct meaningful “shorthand” resumes of a wide range of data, and thereby he hopes to gain some control over what he experiences. There is no unity in the sciences; the only thing besides method which binds the sciences together is the assumption of uniform causality, but this must be recognized as a construct of human reason which is not binding on God in the least. When it comes to the data of faith and revelation, the scientist admits that his methods of investigation cannot apply. In this realm there can be no experiment, manipulation, or control; for in this realm we must simply wait upon the Holy Spirit to call us ubi et quando vult.

In summary we must say that just as Bultmann’s historicism is utterly unhistorical, so likewise his scientism is unscientific. Is he a genius or an apostle? Certainly he is a genius, for one cannot help but marvel at the ingenuity of this man’s handling of scriptural interpretation, but it is precisely this human ingenuity which denies him the right to be called an apostle. An apostle is one set apart by God to proclaim the Gospel of Christ Jesus, who was promised beforehand, descended from David according to the flesh, and designated Son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead! Bultmann does not proclaim that message.

Bastian Kruithof is Associate Professor in Bible and Philosophy at Hope College. He is author of five books and has contributed frequently to religious periodicals. He holds the B.A. and B.D. degrees from Calvin College and Seminary, the A.M. from University of Michigan and the Ph.D. from University of Edinburgh, where his dissertation was “The Relation of Christianity and Culture in the Teaching of H. Bavinck.”

- More from Robert Paul Roth

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