The Preacher’s remark that “of the making of many books there is no end” comes readily to mind when anyone attempts a survey of this sort. The current revival of religious interest in the United States has been accompanied by a renewed interest in the production of religious books on the part of many publishers. Some who had discontinued religious titles have resumed their publication. Others whose interest had been confined to liberal points of view have discovered that conservative and evangelical Christians provide a good potential market. It is to be hoped that the support of these publishers may give further impetus to the progress of biblical Christianity.

In order to be more than an extended book notice, a survey must be also an evaluation. As such, it will represent in some measure the theological viewpoint of the writer. In this case, the viewpoint is that of one who is Reformed in doctrine, holding to a type of inspiration of the Scriptures which is not accepted by many of those whose works have been examined. It is hoped that this acknowledgment will help the reader to understand better any criticisms which are offered; at the same time, should the authors peruse these pages, they may be assured that even where there has been disagreement there has been enjoyment and profit.

The publication this year of the Revised Standard Version of the Apocrypha (Nelson) has not created anything like the furor which greeted the same version of the Old Testament. This is no doubt due to the fact that those who objected to the Old Testament version will likely ignore the apocryphal books. The appearance of the Apocrypha is, however, symptomatic of a renewed interest in the matter of the canon. It is surely significant, too, that a very cogent argument for not receiving the Apocrypha as canonical is offered by one who was himself a member of the translation committees. In Which Books Belong in The Bible (Westminster), Floyd V. Filson states that canonicity means primarily that certain books are basic and authoritative and that the idea of the canon includes the continuing spiritual authority of the books. Of the Apocrypha he states, “They are not Scripture, and they have no right to a compromise position which practically treats them as Scripture while maintaining the fiction that they are without influence on doctrinal thinking” (p. 150).

Over against the view of Filson, who holds that we do not accept the Old Testament canon by slavish necessity because Jesus and the apostles did, is the position of Laird Harris expressed in Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible (Zondervan). There it is said that the Lord Jesus Christ’s seal of approval … is guarantee enough of the canonicity of the Old Testament for those who find in him the Way, the Truth and the Life (p. 179). Much valuable material is found here, including a chapter which deals with some objections to verbal inspiration, an objectionable doctrine to many of the other writers be mentioned.

Literary Introductions

One of the most interesting books in this field that came to your reviewer’s attention is already three years old, but it is valuable at once for its description and its analyses of modern Old Testament scholarship. This is the work by Herbert F. Hahn, Old Testament in Modern Research (Muhlenberg), in which he criticizes incisively the various approaches to the Old Testament such as the critical, sociological, archaeological, etc. The effort at synthesis of these will not satisfy the orthodox student, however.

Problems of introduction, such as the date, authorship and purpose of the Old Testament writings, have not had much by way of new consideration in the past year. The Books of the Old Testament, by Robert H. Pfeiffer (Harper) is an abridgement of his earlier Introduction. In the author’s own words, it “adds nothing, changes no conclusions, and omits much …” (p. x). It is a popular presentation of Dr. Pfeiffer’s position and will bring the developmental view of Israel’s history and religion down to a more popular level. Those who have known the author will readily grant his sincerity in saying that there is no conflict between deep religious faith and historical investigation about the Bible. They may, however, have great difficulty in accepting his idea that both Haggai and Malachi are of slight religious and literary importance (p. 323), or that objective study shows that none of the Pentateuchal codes (except a nomadic decalogue) could have been promulgated by Moses (p. 70).

It is a good exercise to compare with Pfeiffer’s position an excellent study by G. T. Manley, The Book of the Law (Eerdmans). In an objective manner, showing a large acquaintance with the literature of all points of view on the topic, he seeks to show a real, historical connection of Deuteronomy with Moses. Since the date of the origin of Deuteronomy has been said to be the Achilles’ heel of the developmental view, the question is still vital.

Biblical Backgrounds

A very delightful assignment was the reading of Denis Baly’s The Geography of the Bible (Harper). The author’s attitude toward his topic is at once clear when he says that God in Christ “came into the land which he had prepared for himself and which he had previously used for the revelation of himself during the space of well over a thousand years.” As a geographer, Baly relates the features of climate, soil, topography, etc., to the biblical text in a way not surpassed and perhaps not equalled in any other recent work. On a different subject, but equally readable, is the book by Ludwig Kohler, Hebrew Man (Abingdon). Through a kind of detective work, the author tries to depict the physical appearance, life and thought of the average Hebrew. Unfortunately he does not hesitate to contradict the biblical account on what appears to be flimsy evidence, e.g., on the original use of circumcision by the Israelites. Rather too easily the conclusion is reached that the Hebrews were more than ordinarily subject to psychoses and depressions. Nevertheless, a better feeling for the Old Testament may be gained from this book.

Also useable as background study is Abraham, by Dorothy B. Hill (Beacon). Regrettably, however, the Genesis story, rabbinical legend, and a vivid imagination are given almost equal validity. The able use of archaeological material in weaving the tale gives a good picture of patriarchal times.

Old Testament History

The year has seen a larger than usual number of histories or surveys of the Old Testament period, due partly, it seems, to a desire to relate archaeological findings directly to the contemporary situation, and partly also to elicit that which is of permanent, religious validity in Israel’s experience. The two most extensive titles are Bernhard W. Anderson’s Understanding the Old Testament (Prentice-Hall) and Emiel G. Kraeling’s Bible Atlas (Rand McNally). The former of these has a greater theological emphasis and is written in a very attractive way. The latter is an atlas and therefore stresses matters of geography and archaeology. Both of them discount to a large extent the miraculous elements in the Old Testament, either by defining away the supernatural or in several instances as, for example, the cycle of Elijah and Elisha miracles, relegating them to the realm of pure legend. An excellent devotional study of these same stories is found in Ronald S. Wallace’s Elijah and Elisha (Eerdmans), from which any young Christian may profit.

A newcomer to the historical field is R. K. Harrison, a Canadian Anglican, whose History of Old Testament Times (Zondervan) is up-to-date and adheres to a high view of the integrity of the Scripture narratives while attempting to find a solution to their problems.

Significant of one trend of thought in Old Testament studies today is the title of a college textbook by Colin Alves, The Covenant (Cambridge). Although Alves accepts most of the older documentary views, he finds in the Old Testament concept of the covenant relation a unifying principle not only within the Old Testament but between the Old and the New Testaments. This is true of Anderson, mentioned above, as it is of a number of recent writers, and is the result of the more truly biblical approach to the Bible.

The turning of scholarly attention to archaeology and theology may be the reason for a dearth of commentaries. At any rate, just one commentary has come to our attention. It is the fine work by Theodore Laetsch on The Minor Prophets (Concordia). This is the second in an Old Testament series, the first being Jeremiah by the same writer. Laetsch is aware of most of the historical as well as the exegetical problems. Though he is not always kind to those with whom he disagrees, the author’s discernment in theology and his positive conviction are stimulating. It is to be hoped that further volumes may appear soon.

Biblical Theology

The revival of biblical theology is the most prominent feature of Old Testament studies and it is not surprising to see a number of titles devoted to this topic. A leader in the reaction to the theological sterility of older liberalism is H. H. Rowley, whose Faith of Israel (Westminster) in some respects carries us back to the beliefs of older Reformed theology. Moses gave the people the Decalogue of Exodus 20 (p. 126). There is reason to believe that though the so-called Messianic psalms were used in royal rites of the temple, they were also “Messianic.” They held before the king the ideal king (p. 192). The Old Testament covenant was not a legal contract but rather Israel’s pledge of loyalty to him who had first chosen and saved her (p. 69). Many will not like the author’s views of the origin of Scripture but they will be pleased to hear his conclusions.

A book that is likely to popularize both biblical introduction and theology is The Book of the Acts of God, by G. Ernest Wright and Reginald H. Fuller (Doubleday). Wright, whose Biblical Archaeology (Westminster) was also published last year, is the author of the Old Testament section. His view of the Old Testament sources is that of most developmental critics. His ideas of the flexibility of the canon are open to criticism. Yet there is much that is helpful to an understanding of the history of God’s people, and a serious dealing with the narrative. There is a fine devotional feeling and also a repeated acknowledgment that the Old Testament finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.

The problems of interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis are mentioned in virtually every work on introduction, history or theology. Two small books are devoted to the topic more particularly. The problem is solved by William M. Logan, In The Beginning God (John Knox), by saying that Genesis 1–11 is a series of theological essays dealing with the universal human predicament. Genesis is not concerned with science, and therefore there can be no conflict (p. 14). It is interesting to see that N. H. Ridderbos, of the Calvinistic Free University of Amsterdam, states that since God is the author both of science and of the Bible there can be no conflict between them. He then explains Genesis I as purely literary form in which historical time plays no necessary role.

Messianic prophecy is coming into its own again in some quarters, without some of the eschatological trappings that have created such disturbance among conservatives in the past. Aaron J. Kligerman, a Hebrew Christian, has given a kind of outline manual on the subject, Messianic Prophecy in the Old Testament (Zondervan). Ministers and students who are eager to do some serious study have now been provided with a reprint of what is a monumental work and the only one, to your reviewer’s knowledge, that attempts to exegete carefully all the Old Testament messianic prophecies, the famous century-old Christology of the Old Testament, by E. W. Hengstenberg (Kregel). Here is good reading from one who, ever more clearly than some modern biblical theologians, saw in the Old Testament the Word who would be made flesh.

Text And Criticism

Most graduates of seminaries, it is well known, have little time and no patience for textual criticism. For those who know Hebrew and are still students, whether in seminary or parsonage, a valuable help has appeared in The Text of the Old Testament, by Ernest Wurthwein (Macmillan). Using the Kittel Biblia Hebraica, third edition, with its critical apparatus, the author has provided an excellent introduction to the Hebrew text, the versions and the methods of Old Testament textual criticism. A series of 41 plates is of great help.

This survey has already become more extensive than was planned, but it is too brief to cover all the titles the publishers have kindly sent to your reviewer. Perhaps the following brief notice will serve to introduce the reader to other available literature:

Broomall, Wick: Biblical Criticism (Zondervan). An analysis of destructive higher criticism, with positive approach. Recommended in its field.

Ellis, E. Earle: Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Eerdmans). Scholarly investigation of Paul’s quotations from the Old Testament.

Field, Laurence N.: Family Bible Story Book (Augsburg). Suitable to Junior and Senior High group.

Hanke, Howard: Christ and the Church in the Old Testament (Zondervan). A nondispensational approach to the plan of redemption.

Knapp, Christopher: The Kings of Judah and Israel (Loizeaux). A devotional, biographical study.

Metzger, Bruce M.: An Introduction to the Apocrypha (Oxford). An excellent introduction by a member of the translation committee. Recommended for intertestamental studies.

Owen, G. Frederick: Abraham to the Middle-East Crisis (Eerdmans). A quick survey of Israelitish history. Very enlightening in modern period. Apparently premillennial.

Pfeiffer. Charles: The Book of Leviticus (Baker). A manual for Bible study, excellent for church use. The Dead Sea Scrolls (Baker). A sane, Christian treatment of a pertinent topic, recommended.

Pfeiffer, Robert H., and Pollard, Wil.: The Hebrew Iliad (Harper). Popularizes the two-document theory of the Books of Samuel, but makes the story read like an ancient novel. Pleasant.

Robin, Chaim: Qumran Studies (Oxford). Rather technical. Helps to understand the Qumran sect from a Jewish viewpoint.

Sloan, W. W.: A Survey of the Old Testament (Abingdon). A college textbook. Accepts documentary hypothesis. Some good theological insights in well-phrased language.

Strachan, James: Early Bible Illustrations (Cambridge). Especially interesting to a historian, deals with medieval and early Reformation periods.

Thompson, J. A.: Archaeology and the Old Testament (Eerdmans). Will be reviewed later.

Unger, Merrill F.: Unger’s Bible Dictionary (Moody). A revision of Barnes’ Bible Encyclopedia. Most articles brief but up-to-date, evangelical. The Dead Sea Scrolls (Zondervan). Discusses the scrolls in relation to the New Testament. Review of older archaeological finds.

David W. Kerr has been Professor of Old Testament at Gordon Divinity School since 1953. He holds the B.A. degree from University of Western Ontario (where he was awarded the Governor-General’s medal for highest standing in arts), and the B.D. and Th.M. degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary. He has served on the General Assembly Committee on Articles of Faith, Presbyterian Church in Canada.

A virulent moral sickness is attacking American society. Its obvious symptoms may be seen at any newsstand in large cities or small. American society is becoming mentally, morally and emotionally ill with an unrestrained sex mania.

For two years we have been independently—and in the last six months cooperatively—studying trends in popular magazines and paper-backed books. We have watched, appalled, as scores of new titles have made their appearance in the magazine field, many of them violating every standard of decency which has hitherto been recognized in the publishing field.

We are convinced that the only reason there has not been an indignant outcry from our nation’s religious leaders is that few have been advised of the extent to which standards have plunged. We ourselves are incredulous as we survey from month to month some of the cartoons, jokes and stories that appear in the so-called “men’s entertainment magazines.”

Churches Asleep

It is high time that our churches awaken to the kind of material being circulated to teen-agers and young adults of both sexes, sold openly at drug stores and newsstands under the guise of sophistication and respectability. While the guardians of our Christian moral standards have been comfortably sleeping, those who seek profits by pandering to sensuality and lawlessness have been reaping a golden harvest.

Distasteful and unpleasant as the subject of pornography may be, it is one that imperatively calls for the attention of every churchman in our nation who is concerned with preserving the sanctity of the Christian home as the basic unit of American society.

The expose magazines like Confidential, and its imitators, Whisper, Hush-Hush and Uncensored, enjoy circulations running into the millions. Using the language of the gutter and the names of celebrities whose marital misadventures they exploit, they are spreading the cynical philosophy “Everybody’s doing it!” to millions of impressionable young people.

The so-called “men’s entertainment magazines,” led by Playboy, and its imitators, Nugget, Dude, Bachelor, Gent and Modern Man, hide behind covers of innocuous, sophisticated design, while they peddle article after article glorifying prostitution, sadism, orgies and sexual perversion.

The “girlie” magazines, such as Night and Day, Paris Life, Tab, Pin-Up Art and literally scores of others, go farther each issue in portraying nudity than has ever been the case before. More important, the models are posed in a languorous manner calculated to be as suggestive as possible. It is difficult to stay within the bounds of good taste and convey to the decent citizen who rarely peruses such periodicals and almost never reads the stories, the extent of the depravity to which they have sunk. The current February issue of Playboy which can be obtained from almost any newsstand can serve as a typical example. The language of the gutter is flaunted with a sneer and detailed descriptions of the most sordid acts of fornication are given on almost every page.

These magazines are known to the high school crowd across America, so the mention of the likes is not unwise; it is the ministers of America who are unaware of them, and ministerial meetings and councils that must be put on the alert for swift action.

Openly Anti-Christian

The immorality of such magazines does not lie simply in the fact that there is too much unadorned flesh and an excessive use of indecent language, but rather in the over-all attitude toward sex represented by such publications. The philosophy of these magazines is not just amoral. It is openly and avowedly anti-Christian.

Sex is depicted as a merely biological, animalistic function in the same category as eating and breathing. Women are completely de-personalized and are shown merely as pliant machines which men utilize for brutish pleasure. We have read hundreds of stories in these magazines and in not one has the heroine ever been depicted as having the slightest moral objection to seduction. If the man does not achieve his lustful purpose, it is only because his technique is not right. The typical woman who populates these publications is herself a nymphomaniac whose entire existence and nature is tied up in one prolonged, unbearable, insatiable desire to perform the sex act.

Anyone who puts any stock in virtue, chastity, fidelity or restraint is ridiculed. They are depicted as victims of outmoded hypocritical prudery. To have any scruples about free erotic indulgence is to be neurotically repressed. These magazines are advocating a pagan, libertine philosophy of life directly opposed to the Christian concept of love and marriage. It has become in the last 12 months the most sustained and insidious attack on the moral standards of this nation ever witnessed in the history of our Republic.

A certain pattern runs through the fiction offered in all these periodicals. One theme is to depict religious persons as fanatics and hypocrites. One magazine recently published a story about a Southern Baptist clergyman who in the process of “saving” a sister from her frustrations, “redeemed” her by commiting adultery with her. The writer of this obscenity and blasphemy took care to make his subject a Protestant minister and not a Roman Catholic priest, for that church would surely have moved in massive protest.

Another theme is the glorification of prostitution. It is depicted not as a degraded, back-street crime, but as something that smart girls of the upper middle class do. Bachelor, a magazine obviously aimed at college students in pictures, cartoons and text recently published a story “The Girls in Dormitory A” which told of co-eds who ran a house of ill fame on the night their housemother was out. She caught them, as inevitably she must, but her reaction was to turn it into a real “business operation” open every night.

We also see recurring in cartoons and stories the theme of the wife who prostitutes herself to her husband’s employer so that he can obtain a raise or a promotion to branch manager. Playboy has even gone so far as to make a cartoon jest about incest. Nothing is too degraded for these magazines to touch, for under the libertine standard which they espouse, any restraint on sex relationships is puritanical repression from which “modern man” should be liberated.

Contempt For Religion

The attitude of contempt in which these publications hold religion is illustrated by attacks on Evangelist Billy Graham in the January issue of Rave and the March issue of Foto-Rama, both now on newsstands.

Rave depicts Graham on its cover as a huckster offering a hot breakfast cereal labeled “Instant Salvation.” The story, entitled “How to Sell GOD” bears the subtide “Billy Graham, the Hotshot of the Hucksters, Is Delivering a Packaged Heaven to All who Heed the Call.” The article accordingly declares, “Something new has been added to the fiery-eyed procession of doom merchants.” After paying respects to Jeremiah as “scary-looking,” Savanarola as “scrawny and scowling,” and Billy Sunday as a “baggy-kneed solo artist,” the writer bitingly ridicules Graham’s neat appearance and smooth sermon delivery.

A photograph of Graham talking to President Eisenhower carries the caption “Billy and Ike—Anybody Who Doesn’t Like What he Gives Them can go to Hell.” Rave, which in some respects appears to be an aptly-named magazine, summarizes its opinion of Graham’s ministry as “road-show Christianity—superficial, sentimentalized, sold by the best Fuller Brush man in North Carolina … a product that will oh-so-easily make you five shades whiter.”

Foto-Rama, by contrast, treats Graham with a mocking reverence. It seems engaged simply in exploiting Graham’s name for the sake of a superficial respectability—perhaps in order to include at least one article which counsel can quote if the publication is prosecuted for obscenity. The cover of Foto-Rama carries a large caption: “In Sex: Does Practice Make Good Lovers?” Underneath appears the headline “What Billy Graham Thinks of Girls.” The first article, of course, is one advocating “more liberal sex education” in schools.

In the article on Graham, the magazine gives passing notice to the evangelist’s emphasis on the Christian home as the foundation of American society, then spends most of the space discussing the business side of his crusades. The article concludes a largely critical and cynical account of his work with the pious observation: “Foto-Rama salutes Billy Graham for the splendid work he is doing in bringing religion into American lives.”

Foto-Rama then gets on with what it obviously conceives to be its business—to bring into American lives such articles as “How the Strippers Took Paree”; a near-nude photo sequence entitled “S is for Sizzle”; and an expose-type article “Why Do Men Throw Stag Parties?,” subtitled “There Were Thirty Men Standing When the Naked Corinne Went Through the Motions.” These stories, together with the inevitable article appealing to sadism, a sordid, depraved tale of alleged cannibalism during World War II entitled “I Ate My Buddy!” would seem to constitute the real mission of Foto-Rama in American life. We might add, in passing, that a disturbing number of articles appealing to sadism appear in recent issues of the sex magazines. Sadism is the most vicious of all sex perversions, since it leads to horrible sex crimes and is a factor in the break-up of many marriages. Yet these magazines, in their lust for the dollar, do not hesitate to pander even to this base instinct of depraved men.

We must voice a most urgent call to our Protestant churches to join in a vigorous campaign to re-establish common standards of decency in publishing.

The United States Supreme Court in the case of Roth v. U. S. last June gave us a workable legal definition of obscenity. It is, to quote the Court, “The presentation of sex in a manner appealing to the prurient interest.” The Court added the caution that it must be judged in the light of “contemporary community standards.”

The Court made it clear that obscenity has no standing under freedom of the press. The way is open, therefore, for use of the courts to prosecute those newsstand dealers, and those wholesale distributors, who bring sex magazines into a community if they fail to heed appeals for a voluntary clean-up.

Churchmen’S Commission

An organization to co-ordinate Protestant efforts in this field has recently been established known as the Churchmen’s Commission for Decent Publications. Membership is open to any Protestant layman or minister concerned with this problem. Its membership includes a more broadly representative group of Protestantism than any group ever brought together. Inman Douglass of the Committee on Publication of the Christian Science Church is the Commission’s first president; Frederick E. Reissig of the Council of Churches, National Capital Area, vice president; Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, of the National Association of Evangelicals, secretary; Editor Carl F. H. Henry of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, treasurer. Mr. O. K. Armstrong, contributing editor of Reader’s Digest and Southern Baptist layman, is legislative chairman.

The very word “censorship” is repugnant to Protestant leaders. The alternative to Protestant inactivity in this field, however, is to leave it by default entirely to Roman Catholic groups. Inevitably, their approach to the issue differs greatly from the Protestant position. Wherever there is strong Catholic-inspired legislation against indecent literature, as in the Province of Quebec, for example, we soon find such things as the movie “Martin Luther” being banned also because it would “disturb the public order.”

Censorship, in the sense of establishing a board of public censors whose approval must be obtained before a book or magazine may be published or a movie exhibited is clearly repugnant to the American tradition and to the U. S. Constitution itself. The Churchmen’s Commission, therefore, favors efforts to obtain voluntary co-operation in securing compliance with community standards. Where this fails, the question of “obscenity” in the light of prevailing community standards should be decided by local judges and juries.

We have laws against dope peddlers and against those who would promote the practice of prostitution. We similarly have laws against those who would subvert the basic foundations of society by assailing its moral standards. All that is needed is for existing laws to be enforced in light of the Supreme Court’s workable and intelligent definition of “obscenity.” Public opinion must be mobilized to do the job. Most of these magazines do not have a leg on which to stand if they are brought into court.

We frankly appeal to churchmen and churchwomen of every persuasion, conservative or liberal, to join hands in common defense of the morals of our society. An assault has been mounted against everything Jesus Christ, Paul and the Apostles taught concerning love, marriage and the family. If our churches fail to answer it, they will rue the day that their timidity and inaction gave a victory, by default, to the advocates of paganism.

(Address of the Churchman’s Commission on Decent Publications is Suite 100, Western Union Building, 1405 G Street, N.W., Washington 5, D. C. The research and action reports which it publishes will be of great help in organizing local drives to clean up newsstands and to keep them clean—ED.)

Ralph A. Cannon is Chairman of the Research Committee for the Churchmen’s Commission for Decent Publications. He holds the A.B. degree from Wofford College and the B.D. from Yale Divinity School. Since 1955 he has ministered at St. James Methodist Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina.

In the days of our grandfathers it was believed that the great truths of redemption should be preached every Sunday from every pulpit. There were doctrinal differences, of course. The Baptist believed in immersion, the Congregationalist defended the sovereign rights of the local congregation, the Episcopalian kept in mind his apostolic succession, and the Presbyterian insisted upon the Kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ. In one important respect, however, they all agreed: the great message of the pulpit must be sin and salvation. Man is a lost sinner by nature, and he can be saved only by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. That was the central truth kept before the people by C. H. Spurgeon the Baptist, G. Campbell Morgan the Congregationalist, Charles R. McIlvaine the Episcopalian, B. B. Warfield the Presbyterian, C. F. W. Walther the Lutheran, and scores of others. Young men in seminary were told emphatically that preaching must be Christ-centered and redemption-centered.

Loss Of Anchor

All that was years ago. Then came a period when the pulpit lost its evangelical anchorage. After a few years of sensationalism, smart-aleck sermon titles and catchy rhetoric, many clerical faddists cast away the evangelical preaching of their forefathers and substituted life-centered sermons for Christ-centered ones. It was not a proclamation of the life to come. It was an analysis of the life that we are living today. A popular Scottish preacher, whose books of sermons were known to many in America, was one of the leaders of the new homiletical fashion.

The Saturday church page of almost any newspaper contained such sermon titles as: “On Facing Life in an Atomic Age,” “What to Do When Life Lets You Down,” “The Poignant Call of Life’s Yesterdays,” “On Standing up to Life Unafraid.” Such sermons were often devoid of any evangelical content. A sailor lad was not far wrong when he said of a sermon that he had just heard: “He used the word ‘life’ thirty-seven times and the name of Jesus Christ but once, and that was in his last sentence.”

The formula of life-preaching was simple. It consisted in selecting any trite saying, adding all manner of rhetorical embroidery, then ending with an admonition of the self-improvement variety. A popular preacher, for example, was quite likely to take a current cliche, such as “take it easy now,” and out of this vapid expression produce the following:

“Life surrounds us with all manner of temptations, and one of these is the bad habit of trying to do too much. The business man rushes for his 7:15 commuter train, the children scamper off to school, and the housewife hurries to the shopping center. We are all in too much of a hurry. We have never learned the art of sitting down for a quiet hour and getting acquainted with ourselves. Life surrounds us with too many distractions, and life puts many an obstacle in our way; but on the other hand, life will speak to us with a still, small voice if only we might learn to sit down and listen to the things that life is trying to say to us.”

Having taken his original theme of four words, our preacher has said the same thing in a paragraph of 124 words. Then he restates the idea once more in different form, and continues so to do until 15 minutes are consumed. Then he says, “Let us pray.”

Neither Law Nor Gospel

There is nothing difficult about such preaching, for it demands no study of the Greek text, no effort at exposition, not even a knowledge of theology. Is such preaching a faithful fulfilment of one’s duty? It cannot be, for it contains neither the Law which leads sinners to repentance, nor the Gospel which declares the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. When such men as Spurgeon, Herber Evans and Moody preached, men and women were brought to a knowledge of sin by the Law, and led to Calvary by the Gospel; but if ever a sermon on “Life’s Message to an Age of Stress” caused one reprobate to live an upright life, or directed one alarmed sinner to the Cross, neither you nor I have heard of the incident.

A variation of the life-centered sermon is the more recent discourse that is loaded with terms borrowed from the prep school’s course in psychology and psychiatry. Such sermons are man-centered and sprinkled with pronouns in their plural form. There is never a mention of sola gratia and sola Scriptura in these we-us-our-ourselves essays. No person with wavering faith has ever been strengthened by a tepid little lecture on procrastination, nor has ever a family, stunned by a sudden bereavement, received comfort on Sunday by listening to their pastor say: “We are all inclined to side-step life’s more basic commitments. There is a tendency in all of us to shirk the duty of evaluating the problems presently before us. Our reluctance to integrate our own potential with life’s more attractive possibilities results in a positive loss to ourselves.” Such words as “commitments,” “evaluate,” “presently” (which means soon, and not now), “integrate” and “co-ordinate” are shop-soiled expressions of the news secretaries of the New Deal period, and to link them together with plural pronouns can bring comfort and strengthening of faith to no one.

Secularized Preaching

John Kennedy of Dingwall, that magnificent evangelical pulpit orator of the Scottish Highlands, realized the danger of secularized preaching more than 70 years ago. In his The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire (Edinburgh, 1861), in his The Apostle to the North (London, 1867), and in the posthumous Sermons by the Rev. John Kennedy (Inverness, 1883), this great Gaelic-speaking preacher pleads in the English language for better preaching, declaring that the work of the pulpit is “worthless because it is Christless.” Dr. Kennedy declares:

Pauline preaching is becoming, in the estimation of many, an antiquated kind of thing, which, in an age such as ours, should be quite laid as a fossil on the shelf. And what is this new thing which they have introduced? It is not easy to describe it, for it is neither Law nor Gospel, and it is a rare eye that can discern it to be common sense. It is suited neither to saint nor to sinner, and where to find an audience for such preaching, in which neither of these shall be, it is utterly impossible to conjecture.… There are some who are enamoured of what they call practical preaching, by which they mean preaching which is not doctrinal, for they dislike to be made to feel how ignorant they are of the divine scheme of grace, preaching which, taking it for granted that all are Christians, deals out its counsels to all indiscriminately; and which, coming down to the everyday cares and anxieties of life, tends to cheer men in their daily toils by comforts which are furnished by reason rather than by Scripture, and which never flowed from “the fountain of living waters” through Christ crucified. These are the new styles of preaching, and if recent progress is maintained, Pauline preaching will soon cease to be heard from Scottish pulpits (Sermons, p. 550).

Still another type of sermon of our own day is that which attempts to present a Bible character in the light of psychoanalysis. Abraham, Moses, David, Simon Peter, Judas and the dying thief are each given a character dissection, and each part is mounted neatly, labeled and commented upon. The problem is to discover why such men acted as they did. Those who defend such preaching will tell us that Alexander Whyte did it; and was not Dr. Whyte one of the greatest of his generation? Did not all Edinburgh queue up for half an hour, twice every Sunday, before what was then called Free St. George’s Presbyterian Church? However, were one to read G. F. Barbour’s The Life of Alexander Whyte (London, 1923), he will discover that Dr. Whyte preached a Law and Gospel sermon morning and evening at St. George’s. His lectures on Bible characters were given after the close of the service, and in the assembly hall adjoining the kirk. Admission was by ticket, and tickets were issued only to those who had attended the entire service at which Law and Gospel had been preached. Dr. Whyte would not permit Hugh Black, John Kelman or any other assistant pastor to discuss Bible heroes, for he declared that such things are not true evangelical preaching. Men may call Whyte legalistic, yet he told his assistants and all guest preachers that only the great truths of redemptive Christianity were permitted in his pulpit.

The Immortal Truths

It is just these immortal truths of sin and grace that have vanished from many a fashionable pulpit. They have taken refuge in the mission halls and the storefront churches. A few evangelical strongholds still remain in our larger cities, but quite too often do we hear much about life personified, and little in regard to our Lord crucified. Men are preaching psychology and religious psychiatry instead of sin and salvation.

Evangelical preaching begins with the fact that all men, by reason of the Fall, are sinful creatures. Except for the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, such men are helpless. The Law can bring the sinner to a knowledge of his lost state, but the Law cannot save him. Jesus Christ, true God, became man for our sake. He was born of the Virgin Mary without a human father. Where man had failed miserably to obey the Law, Jesus Christ became our substitute in respect to the Law. He kept it perfectly, and God accepted the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ as though it were ours. Our Lord Jesus likewise became our substitute in respect to the penalty of the Law. The wages of sin is death, and our Lord Jesus died for us, taking our place on the Cross, so that hell-deserving sinners might not have to die. He rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven. He is coming again, and we may be sure that every one of us will stand before our Saviour on the last day. He offers salvation freely to all men by grace; and grace is a gift that no man has earned nor deserved. If a man is saved, it is due entirely to this grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ. If a person is lost, it is due entirely to his own sin and unbelief. Faith is the only thing asked of us, and even this saving faith is God-given. The true believer is assured of unending joys in heaven, whereas those who reject the Saviour can expect only the fires of hell.

What is wrong with much of the preaching of today? Precisely the lack of these basic truths of the New Testament. Evangelical truth is no longer questioned in the pulpit. The method of some preachers of today is to ignore it. The fault of such men lies in what they do not say. In place of Law and Gospel they substitute their innocuous sermonettes on “the cares and anxieties of life,” and they seek “to cheer men in their daily toils by comforts which are furnished by reason rather than by Scripture.”

If we would see a religious awakening in our time, this can be accomplished only by a return to just that which brought about every spiritual awakening in the past, namely, a fearless preaching of Law and Gospel, sin and salvation. Men have tried other methods, yet the basic fact remains that “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). This Gospel that God permits men to preach is a means of grace. It is a bridge over which the Holy Ghost comes to men, and thus we say that the Gospel is a means of grace.

Men have tried to bring about religious awakenings by other methods. Many have assured us that an indifferent world, and a Christian church diluted with secular ideas, will pay no heed to our message of repentance and faith until we form a strongly centralized ecclesiastical government. However, our Lord said, “Thus is it written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations” (Luke 24:46–47). He tells us in Matthew 28:19–20 to go, preach, baptize and teach all nations. Where faithful men preach Law and Gospel in their entirety, such efforts will prove effective. Sinners will be brought to repentance. Uncertainty will yield to conviction. Weakness of faith will become strength of faith. Through the power of God the Holy Ghost the benefits of our Saviour’s suffering, death and resurrection, and the merit of the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ will be given to the believing Christian.

F. R. Webber was Secretary of the Architectural Committee of the Lutheran Missouri Synod for more than 30 years. He has written six books, three on A History of Preaching in Britain and America. The American appraisal appeared in 1957.

The relatively recent growth of interest in the meaning of history as demonstrated by widespread interest in Spengler’s Decline of the West, Toynbee’s Study of History, and Croce’s History as the Story of Liberty, indicates that something of a revolution is taking place in Western thought. Prior to World War I, there were not many works on the market dealing with the problems of the philosophy of history, but after 1920 there was a noticeable increase in their number which since 1945 has become almost a deluge. In our day of uncertainty and insecurity men are trying to find out the meaning and direction, if any, of the historical process.

To the believing Christian, this has never been too much of a problem. Consciously or unconsciously basing much of his thinking on Augustine of Hippo’s City of God, he has taken for granted that history is the working out of the divine plan of redemption, centered in Christ’s humiliation and culminating in his glorious return in judgment. Such a position was presupposed by the Protestant Reformers and forms the basis of the work of later theologians such as Robert Flint (Philosophy of History, 1874), Van Til (Common Grace, 1947), Popma (Calvinistische Geschiedenis-Beschouwing, 1945) and others. While realizing that all history presents many problems, by their acceptance of the Bible and of the Lord of history they have had an underlying philosophy of history that tends to make history coherent and comprehensible.

That this was not the case with those who rejected the historic orthodox position became apparent during the eighteenth century. The rationalists came to believe that by “scientific” thought they could discover the meaning and purpose of history. As Voltaire, Condorcet and others pointed out, history was the story of man’s progress from ignorance and superstition to the clear day of rationality through which he would eventually reach perfection. This optimistic point of view received support in the nineteenth century through the growth of confidence in the efficacy of the new historical method to discover the truth of history, and so the meaning of history itself. This meaning was centered in the evolutionary process which took place largely through the biological and material improvement of man. Divine intervention by means of creation, providence, miracles and incarnation was declared to be impossible, because of history’s very nature. The divine would only enter in at the end, and would then turn out to be man himself.

In the twentieth century this interpretation has gradually broken down. The idea of automatic progress has become increasingly doubtful, the possibility of a “truly scientific” and objective historical method is now regarded as unacceptable, while the nature of history itself has become a mystery. After all, if ultimate reality is chance, as some would maintain, history can hardly have any pattern or purpose. Some, on the other hand, have come as a result of two world wars and a depression to feel that they cannot be content merely to look back on history to see what has happened. They must attempt to analyze history to see if they can gain any idea of its direction and ultimate end. Thus the very nature of history itself has been called into question, and caught up in this movement have been the various schools of modern theology.

While some scholars like Oscar Cullman (Christ and Time, 1951) or Heinrich Berger (Calvins Geschichts, Auffassung, 1955) have attempted to follow a biblical-theological or an historical method, most of those interested in the problem have approached it directly. Karl Barth and Emil Brunner have said considerable concerning this matter in various of their works, while such writers as Reinhold Niebuhr (Faith and History, 1949), Nicolas Berdyaev (The Meaning of History, 1936) and most recently Rudolph Bultmann (History and Eschatology, 1957), have written works analyzing history in the light of their own interpretations of Christianity.

One of the fundamental points of agreement amongst most of those who have recently been writing on the subject of the meaning of history is that they have given up any idea of inevitability. In a wide-open universe, history also is wide open, anything being possible. This may not always appear, as for instance when a writer lays stress on the Lordship of Christ, but usually one discovers that underneath there is the acceptance of the idea that man’s freedom precludes the possibility of God’s absolute control. This would seem to arise from the fact that the Bible, although frequently referred to as the Word of God, is not regarded as that Word in the original Protestant sense of an inspired revelation. Niebuhr, for instance, refers to the “errors of Isaiah” (p. 126), and denies the historicity of the virgin birth, while at the same time accepting the actuality of the resurrection. There is also a general weakness in dealing with the actual meaning for history of the life and work of Christ.

Positively one might say that there has been a renewed sense of the inadequacy of any explanation which attempts to interpret history, simply from history. History may be known only by One who is beyond its movement. Moreover, there has been a move toward general acceptance of the sinfulness of man, although the historicity of the Fall is generally denied. Finally there is a renewed emphasis on “eschatology,” or last things which is bound up with the person of Christ.

In connection with this latter point perhaps one finds the eschatological interest carried to its ultimate in Bultmann’s recent work. In accordance with his desire to demythologize the New Testament, he apparently rejects the idea that “eschatology” means that which takes place at the end of history. Rather, he follows the lead of R. G. Collingwood (The Idea of History, 1946), insisting that eschatology consists in our being repeatedly addressed by Christ here and now, so that in our response to him “The meaning in history lies always in the present, and when … conceived as the eschatological present by Christian faith the meaning in history is realized” (p. 155).

What is the conclusion which one may draw from this mid-twentieth-century interpretation of history? One may say generally that it is not a return to the historic orthodox understanding of the meaning of history. It represents the contemporary loss of confidence in the evolutionary-historical process, which has resulted in the appearance of modern existentialism. The basic assumption seems to be that we cannot know if there is a plan for history, nor even if there is, whether it can ever be realized. Yet while there is this somewhat depressing view of history, it may be out of this tendency towards anguish and hopelessness that God will bring forth a new reformation that will give man peace in the knowledge that God is guiding history to its ultimate culmination.

Barth’s View Of Man

Christ and Adam, Man and Humanity in Romans 5, by Karl Barth, Harper, 1957. 96 pp., $2.00.

In his introduction to this book of Karl Barth, Dr. Wilhelm Pauck asserts that Barth’s doctrine of man as expressed in his view of the relation of Adam to Christ involves “a reinterpretation of traditional theological anthropology” (p. 12).

Pauck’s estimate is true to the facts. For the “parallel between Adam and Christ” of orthodox theology, Barth wants to substitute the parallel between Christ and Adam” (p. 16). “The relation between Adam and us reveals not the primary but only the secondary anthropological truth and ordering principle.… Man’s essential and original nature is to be found, therefore, not in Adam but in Christ. In Adam we can only find it prefigured. Adam can therefore be interpreted only in the light of Christ and not the other way round” (p. 29).

While Barth, then, holds to a formal parallelism between Adam and Christ, his chief aim is to indicate the “essential priority” and “inner superiority that would make Christ the master of Adam” rather than Adam the master of Christ (p. 32).

This “material relationship” between Christ and Adam means “that sin is subordinate to grace, and that it is grace that has the last word about the true nature of man” (p. 43). Thus “the history of humanity is the history of God’s covenant with man” (p. 61). “Jesus Christ is the secret truth about the essential nature of man, and even sinful man is still essentially related to Him. That is what we have learned from Rom. 5:12–21” (p. 86).

The radical character of Barth’s “reinterpretation” of the relation of Christ and Adam may be seen even more clearly in his Church Dogmatics (Kirchliche Dogmatik) especially in his doctrine of the atonement. For there it appears that if we are to have the new doctrine of man that Barth wants us to have we must first have his new doctrine of Christ.

Thus the Chalcedon creed is said to be greatly in need of reinterpretation Co. cit., IV:2, p. 6). There must be no static separation between the divine and the human natures of Christ. Christ is what he does. And what he does he has always done. The humanity of Christ is inherently integral with his divinity (ibid., p. 37).

Again, inherent in this new doctrine of Christ there is a new doctrine of God. According to Barth, God’s being is identical with his revelation in Christ. God does not change when he goes into estrangement in his Son (ibid., p. 29). The entire old Christology “suffered from the pride of man who makes God in his own image” (ibid., p. 92). Its doctrine of the unchangeability of God kept it from realizing that God’s being is inherently being for man.

Only if we understand that God’s being is inherently being for man can we also understand that man’s being is inherently being for God. Since God’s being is being in grace to man, it follows that man’s being is that of the receiver of grace from God. Thus God’s humiliation in Christ is at the same time man’s exaltation in Christ. “The act of humiliation of the Son of God is as such the elevation of the Son of man and in him of human nature” (ibid., p. 111).

It is only if we have thus substituted the idea of the freedom of God by which it is his nature to turn into the opposite of himself for the orthodox view of the immutability of God that we can “actualize” the incarnation (ibid., p. 118) and therewith have a Christ in terms of whom we can interpret human nature (Adam) truly.

Then Adam is put in his proper place. The “anonymous of the Genesis saga” (IV:1, p. 572) then appears to be a shadow image of Christ. We misunderstand the Genesis account of the creation of Adam and of his fall altogether if we take it to be history (ibid., p. 566). The original man was as such the original sinner (ibid., p. 567). Only if we drop the idea of the historicity of the Genesis narrative can we say that Christ is the first and real Adam (ibid., p. 572). What is more, and basic to all, it is only if we stop thinking of the person and work of Jesus Christ as historical and lift him into the realm of Geschichte that he can be the Saviour of mankind (ibid., p. 814). The steps of the humiliation and of the exaltation of Christ do not follow one another. The humiliation and the exaltation of Jesus Christ are two supplementative aspects of one another (ibid., p. 145). If we are to have the real, the first and last Adam, the man in terms of whom alone human nature itself is to be defined, then we must think of him as moving in Geschichte rather than in “Historie” (ibid., p. 370).

What Barth means by Geschichte as over against “Historie” is difficult to say. He tells us that it is the realm where our ordinary understanding of space and time has no application (Ibid). Geschichte has a space and time of its own. There is real happening there (ibid., pp. 371, 373). We are to have no parthenogenesis of the faith. The apostles faced the fact of the resurrection. They saw, they heard, they felt him (ibid., p. 377). For all that it remains true for Barth that by means of the category of ordinary history we cannot understand the death and resurrection of Christ (ibid., p. 370). For him “Geschichte” overlaps and in some measure enters into “Historie” but always with the understanding the fully real transaction between God and man takes place in Geschichte, not in “Historie.”

It is in Geschichte rather than in “Historie” that Barth looks for the objectivity that he seeks on the one hand over against Bultmann and on the other hand over against orthodoxy. And his “universalism” is immediately involved in this objectivity. The love of God in Christ is for Barth by definition love for all men. In failing to see that God’s love is by definition love for all men he never had a true view of the depth of God’s love at all (ibid., p. 589).

If, then, we are to avoid the fatal parallelism of Adam and Christ and instead have the true superiority of Christ over Adam, the process of reinterpretation of “Chalcedon” must lead on to the reinterpretation of the orthodox doctrines of God, of the fall, and of the life and death of Jesus Christ so as to take all of them out of history into the one Christ-Event which is Geschichte. Then it can be seen that the sin of Adam, of mankind, is “real,” but only as already overcome in Christ. The “normalization of our nature” as men has taken place in Christ before our birth. To be men, really men, men must be in Christ. And all men are men since they are all in Christ.

There remains one qualification. Judas Iscariot, a son of Adam, stands “for the open situation in preaching,” for the idea that determinism has its correlative in indeterminism. But this “nominalist” aspect in Barth’s thinking, though still active, is now overshadowed by his “realist” emphasis.

Historic Christianity would be destroyed by either emphasis. For in Barth’s view, God does not confront man in ordinary history. Man does not know and break the law and break it in history, and no atonement is made for him directly in history.

C. VAN TIL

Guidance In Building

Building The New Church, by William S. Clark, Religious Publishing Co., Jenkintown, Pa., 1957. $2.25 (paper $1.25).

When a new church is planned, the minister and building committee usually find themselves in need of guidance in their task. This little work is simply a handbook which will help to solve many of the problems they meet.

Every aspect of the building campaign is simply and succinctly dealt with in these pages. From “The Initial Preparation,” all the way through the process—the work of committees, meeting conflicting opinions in the congregation, choosing an architect, raising funds, materials of construction, art in the church, to “Dedication and Occupancy,” this book provides a guide.

The treatment is brief, perhaps too brief, but the bibliography points the way to further information. Like any other work on the subject, it serves to emphasize the fact that every minister should acquire a working knowledge of church architecture, to which this is but a short but highly useful introduction.

ARNOLD A. DALLIMORE

Scriptural Validity

Thy Word Is Truth, by Edward J. Young, Eerdmans, 1957. 287 pp., $3.50.

It is a pleasure to recommend this popular yet thorough book upholding the full truthfulness of the Bible. Dr. Edward J. Young knows the Bible and believes it. His other books on the Old Testament show his thorough familiarity with the critical attacks of our day. His defense is the more encouraging.

He develops a definition of inspiration-verbal inspiration—from the Scriptures themselves. He grounds the authority of the Word upon the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. He also gives Christ’s attitude toward Scripture and shows that disbelief in it involves distrust of him.

In his section discussing inerrancy, he shows that this is the Church’s historic doctrine, and considers a number of the usually alleged inconsistencies, giving adequate answers to them. The reviewer would question the author’s treatment of the details of some of these problem passages, but in any case Dr. Young has established his main thesis that the Bible in these places has no insoluble difficulty.

The last part of the book is somewhat different. In Chapter 8 he adopts, largely, the apologetical viewpoint of Van Til. He accepts the charge that Bible believers reason in a circle (p. 192), and says that “If one begins with the presuppositions of unbelief, he will end with unbelief’s conclusions” (p. 191). The reviewer would like to differ with the author here. The fact is that the apostles did not forbear to argue nor did they use circular reasoning. They appealed to facts of observation declaring that these should convince the doubting, and doubters were saved by the thousands. They established the validity of the claims of Christ by a witness to historical facts. After that, the authority of Christ was sufficient for all matters. This is not circular reasoning; it is reliance upon valid historical testimony. And it has been used to convince doubters down through the ages. Numerous famous men have begun to write books against the Bible using wrong presuppositions only to have the redemptive facts used of the Spirit to convert them and cause them to change their views. We should add, however, that this chapter is an able and readable statement of the author’s position.

The last section is a much needed analysis of some modern denials of the Bible. The ideas concerning Scripture of O. Piper, G. Ernest Wright and John Mackay of this country, Alan Richardson and H. L. Ellison of England, and Brunner and Barth of the Continent are briefly but effectively analyzed and shown to be quite erroneous. This section is enough to commend the book to orthodox readers. The reviewer hopes that it will be widely used and that many may profit from it.

R. LAIRD HARRIS

Heritage Piece

One Hundred Years in the New World, issued by the Centennial Committee of the Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1957. 218 pages, $3.95.

The year-long program of activities marking the denominational centennial of the Christian Reformed Church in 1957 has occasioned a great deal of favorable comment from many quarters. Built around goals of church extension and increased laymen’s participation, perhaps the greatest impact was made through the vigorous use of the printed page, including an integrated program of newspaper ads and articles, historical and informational booklets, church bulletins and a variety of other publications.

To this has now been added the official memorial volume, One Hundred Years in the New World, which depicts in a series of articles the history of the denomination from its formation by a group of Dutch immigrants a century ago, as well as various aspects of the church’s work in the fields of education, home missions, neighborhood evangelism, Indian and foreign missions, youth work, the ministry of mercy, and publications. Embellished with more than 300 well-chosen photographs, the volume is a most attractive pictorial memento of the denomination’s centennial celebration and a heritage piece that will undoubtedly be treasured among Christian Reformed families for years to come. It is also a good example of the use of the printed page to help instill denominational loyalty and, especially in young people, an appreciation of their historical background.

J. MARCELLUS KIK

The Garden Story

Billy Graham and the New York Crusade, by George Burnham and Lee Fisher, Zondervan, 1957. $2.50.

An experienced journalist has the perspicuity in observing the facts to sift the irrelevant from the important; and also has the perspective to realize the significance of the facts. In excellent journalistic style George Burnham and Lee Fisher tell the story of Manhattan’s 1957 miracle.

There is understanding of Billy Graham’s background so as to show his sincerity, humility, and utter devotion to the Saviour and to the Scriptures. One receives insight into the faith and courage of young men who accepted the challenge of the apparently impossible—summer-time evangelistic services in Madison Square Garden!

From these pages one gets vivid impression of the setting for the services—a huge sports arena transformed into a house of God by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of saving grace was preached in simplicity and earnestness, and the response was overwhelming. The testimonies of some who received Christ are graphically told by way of illustration of the power of the Gospel to save the up and out and the down and out.

In these pages one relives the high tide of Spirit-filled evangelism in the Garden, at Yankee Stadium, on Wall Street, or on Times Square. To those who could not attend, or who saw the telecast on Saturday evenings, this is a thrilling account of what actually took place.

V. R. EDMAN

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

When our Lord was thus set forth by John, it is well to note the special character under which he was declared. John knew much of the Lord Jesus, and could have pictured him in many lights and characters. He might have especially pointed him out as the great moral Example, the Founder of a higher form of life, the great Teacher of holiness and love. Yet this did not strike the Baptist as the head and front of our Lord’s character, but he proclaimed him as One who had come into the world to be the great Sacrifice for Sin.

The principle office of Christ is briefly but clearly stated: that he takes away the sins of the world by the sacrifice of his death, and reconciles men to God. There are other favours, indeed, which Christ bestows upon us, but this is the chief favour, and the rest depend on it; that, by appeasing the wrath of God, he makes us to be reckoned holy and righteous. For from this source flow all the streams of blessings, that, by not imputing our sins, he receives us into favour. Accordingly, John in order to conduct us to Christ, commences with the gratuitous forgiveness of sins which we obtain through Him.

Lamb Of God

The article denotes the appointed Lamb of God, which, according to the prophetic utterance presupposed as well known, was expected in the person of the Messiah. This characteristic form of Messianic expectation is based upon Isa. 53. Comp. Matt. 8:17; Luke 22:37; Acts 8:32; 1 Pet. 2:22 ff.; and the Lamb in the Apocalypse.

H. A. W. MEYER

As the lamb was sacrificed upon the altar, as a symbolical atonement for the sins of the people, this epithet is applied figuratively to our Lord Jesus Christ, to denote the sacrifice which he made for the sins of men. That John so intended the expression to be understood, is evident from the words which follow, which taketh away. This shows that Jesus was not called a lamb, to denote merely that he was an innocent and harmless man, or from any analogy existing between him and the paschal lamb, which was the sign of deliverance from Egyptian bondage; nor was he thus called, with any reference to the lamb of the daily evening and morning sacrifice, for this was only one of the several animals which were offered on such occasion.… Christ was indeed typified in the paschal lamb and in all the sacrificial ritual, but the Lamb of God is here used in a higher and more significant sense, as the Lamb previously referred to in the Messianic prophecies.

JOHN J. OWEN

It is a testimony that stands as a heading to the whole series or class of similar sayings which represents the Lord Jesus as bearing our sins in His own body.… The identification of the Lamb of God with Jesus of Nazareth was the only thing in this testimony of the Baptist specifically new; and He is called the Lamb of God, just as He is styled “the Bread of God” (John 6:33), partly because He was graciously provided by God, partly because He was the truth of the types, or the reality of what was foreshadowed by the Lamb in the old economy; or, it may be, the Lamb that belongs to God—that is, which is to be offered as a sacrifice to Him.

GEORGE SMEATON

Taketh Away

He is said to be “the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world; not hath taken, or will take, but taketh, which notes, actum perpetuum, the constant effect of his death.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK

The verb rendered taketh away, refers to the removal of sin or its penalty, by an atonement or expiation. It is the word chosen by the LXX to translate pardon (i.e. put away) my sin, in 1 Sam. 15:25, and to bear the iniquity, in Lev. 10:17. How could the sin of the world be revoked in any other manner? Could it be effected by the death of a merely good man? Surely not. Strict and perfect obedience is required of every created intelligence, and no one therefore, however good he may be, has any stock of merit which can be transferred to the account of another. But a suitable expiation has been made, and Jesus Christ, who a little before was averred to be the Incarnate Word, who in the beginning was with God, and who was God, and by whom all things were created, is here declared to be the Being, through whose blood shed like that of the lamb upon the altar, the expiation has been effected.

JOHN J. OWEN

The full meaning of the expression, o airon, is scarcely brought out in our authorized translation. The Greek verb, airo, like its Hebrew equivalent nasa, primarily signifies “to lift up”; and, secondarily, “to carry away,” as one lifts up a burden, and then removes it to another place. No doubt it may be translated “to take away”; but it strictly means to take away in one particular manner—namely, by bearing or carrying the thing that is taken away. As used in this passage it is highly significant, implying that Christ took upon himself the burden of our sin, and in this way removed it from us. The expression, indeed, as thus applied, is figurative. But it is not on that account to be stripped of its obvious meaning.

THOMAS J. CRAWFORD

Sin Of The World

Here is no ground at all for universal redemption; for the word world, standeth here in opposition to the Jews, as this very evangelist himself explaineth it (1 John 2:2): “And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only (of the Jewish nation) but also for the sins of the whole world”; and of men of other nations; and so he meaneth here—that “Christ is the Lamb of God, a sacrifice, not for the Jews only, but for the Gentiles, and other nations also.”

JOHN LIGHTFOOT

And when he says, the sin of the world, he extends this favour indiscriminately to the whole human race; that the Jews might not think that he had been sent to them alone. But hence we infer that the whole world is involved in the same condemnation; and that as all men without exception are guilty of unrighteousness before God, they need to be reconciled to him. John the Baptist, therefore, by speaking generally of the sin of the world, intended to impress upon us the conviction of our own misery, and to exhort us to seek the remedy. Now our duty is, to embrace the benefit which is offered to all, that each of us may be convinced that there is nothing to hinder him from obtaining reconciliation in Christ, provided that he comes to him by the guidance of faith.

JOHN CALVIN

Like most of the terms for sin, this term, too, is negative, “missing the mark,” i.e., the one set by the divine law, missing it by thought, word, or deed, by our very condition which is corrupt by nature. As many men as there have been, are now, and will be in the world, each with his daily life stained with many sins, so many individual masses of sin are formed, and all these masses are combined in one supermass, “The sin of the world.” We may unfold this collective by taking the law and dwelling on all the many kinds, types, forms, and effects of sin. Again we may set forth the deadly, damning power of a single sin, and then multiply this power a million fold and again a million fold. Yet we should not make the rather specious—merely abstract—distinction between the “sin” itself and the “guilt” of sin, for sin exists nowhere apart from its guilt, and guilt nowhere apart from its sin. The same is true with regard to “sin” and its “consequences.” As the guilt inheres in the sin, so the consequences stick to the sin, closer than a shadow. Neither the guilt nor the consequences are taken away, really taken away, unless the sin itself is taken away. With the sin also its guilt and consequences are cancelled.

R. C. H. LENSKI

Men are willing to accept Christ as most anything except as Saviour; but Christ is not willing to be accepted as anything less than a Saviour. He is a Priest that he may offer sacrifice for a lost race; he is a Teacher that he may teach men the way of salvation; and he is a King in a kingdom of saved souls. If we will not accept him as the Lamb of God, we have no part with him. The Jews were ready to accept him as a political Reformer, but he refused such an office. Many nowadays are ready to accept him as the Leader of all sorts of social reforms, but they and all men must take him as their Saviour or not at all.

W. A. CANDLER

There are only two places where sin can be—either it is with thee, to lie upon thy neck, or it lies on Christ, the Lamb of God. If it lies on thy shoulders, thou art lost; but if it rests on Christ, thou art quit of it, and art saved.

MARTIN LUTHER

The champions of ecumenism had no mean task when the Ghana Assembly of the International Missionary Council convened at year-end. Their objective was to get the delegates on record in favor of a proposal for merger with the World Council of Churches—a valuable promotional asset for achieving a final consummation of the plan. Whatever resolution the delegates voted on, therefore, would have to be just noncommittal enough to prevent wholesale opposition, a development which might work lasting damage to the ecumenical cause.

Significant personalities behind the ecumenical movement were on hand to guide the action. Among those who braved the blazing equatorial sun on the campus of the University College at Achimoto were Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, General Secretary of the WCC; Dr. John A. Mackay, President of Princeton Theological Seminary, who was made honorary chairman of the IMC after serving 10 years as its chairman; Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, Chairman of the WCC Central Committee; Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, President of Union Theological Seminary; Dr. Roswell P. Barnes, Executive Secretary for the WCC in the United States; and Dr. Charles W. Ranson, outgoing General Secretary of the IMC, who had to return suddenly to his London home because of his wife’s death.

An Ambiguous ‘Yes’ Resolution

The Assembly voted 58 to 7 to adopt a “steering committee” report of 1,420 words as a representative statement. Tucked into the document as the first of its 10 resolutions was this significant sentence:

“Resolved: 1. The Ghana Assembly of the International Missionary Council, having reviewed the steady growth of the relationship of association between the IMC and the WCC and having considered with care the opinions of delegates, and those of the Christian Councils whose views have been presented, accepts in principle the integration of the two Councils and desires further steps to be taken toward this goal.”

The language is sufficiently ambiguous so that delegates may be said, loosely speaking, to have voted for a merger. But there was no vote on straight acceptance or rejection of integration or on the draft plan for merger previously made public. The WCC is readying itself to exploit the Ghana development with bandwagon technique.

The vote on the resolutions was no accurate index to the atmosphere of the meeting. There were apprehensions and tensions, fears of American pressure and domination, and criticism of proceedings which Dr. Van Dusen conceded as “very indignant.”

Integration proponents gained their large vote by (1) appealing to desires for unity, (2) phrasing resolutions carefully so as not to bind the delegates to specific action, (3) formally recognizing opposing viewpoints, (4) encouraging criticism, (5) promising further study, (6) allowing plenty of time, and (7) by stressing that the WCC and the IMC have been working together to a progressively greater extent all along so that a merger would not be as great a step as it might seem. Generous as these points appeared, numerous delegates insisted they represented no real concessions by ecumenical proponents. On the other hand, the WCC is now armed with the most powerful propaganda tool it has ever had in its drive to absorb the IMC.

Three New Councils Added

When the 12-day Ghana conclave began December 28, the IMC had 35 constituent councils. During the proceedings three new members were admitted: the National Councils of Ghana, Hong Kong and Northern Rhodesia. The IMC has strength because it has the support of old-line denominations which control the larger churches. Some evangelical groups have been associated with it since its organization in 1921.

Although the matter of integration was unmentioned until halfway through the Ghana Assembly, this one supreme concern overshadowed the sessions. From the outset a formidable bloc propagandized in favor of integration: the United States, Canada and Australia, where an elemental integration already exists, and all the churches of Asia except Korea. From this circle came almost ecstatic support for the plan in the two plenary sessions.

Backers of a merger say that the aim of the new WCC Commission formed out of the IMC would be to “further the effective proclamation to all men of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Says the WCC-IMC Joint Committee: “The unity of the church and the mission of the church can no longer be separated.”

The opposition stood its ground. In addition to Korea, the whole of Latin America represented in the Assembly (except the River Plate) was opposed; Congo Protestant Council, one of the oldest members of the IMC and one of the most vigorous councils in Africa, was opposed; observers from Nigeria, French West Africa and Kenya voiced opposition; Norway and Sweden were opposed, as were two speakers from Germany; and spokesmen for the British Evangelical Alliance and for the Church Missionary Society of London were opposed. Canon M. A. C. Warren, General Secretary of the CMS, opposed integration in the course of a careful examination of theological and practical aspects of the proposal, and voiced severe criticism of the handling of the plan.

“The divided church,” he said, “has carried on a very effective mission, and there is no reason to think that an administrative act of this kind would make its mission endeavor more effective.”

Concluded the Canon, “When the vote is taken, I hope that no doxology will be sung.” He nevertheless voted for the resolutions “with regrets.” He said the waste of manpower had gone too far, and failure to accept the plan would mean the resignation of officers of the IMC.

The introduction of the merger proposal was to have been handled by Ranson. But tragedy struck just 24 hours before the presentation. Ranson was notified of the death of his wife in a London automobile accident, whereupon he left immediately for England. The presentation thus fell upon President Mackay. His speech was followed by another from Dr. Fry as representative of the WCC, and one from President Van Dusen, chairman of the joint integration committee. The talks took about 40 minutes. Van Dusen later admitted that only the favorable side was presented, and it was this procedure with which Warren took issue in a plenary session the following day. Van Dusen believes the opposition thus got a fair deal in that the Canon took almost as long to criticize the plan as it took to present it.

It is significant that neither the draft nor the approved Ghana resolutions list the nature of the unfavorable aspects of merger. The negative view is recognized but not spelled out. There is no attempt to stack up the advantages and disadvantages side by side to see which side carries greater weight in principle.

Ecumenical leaders consider the absorption of the IMC essential, say opponents of the plan, and they appear willing to go to any extreme to see it through. They point out that the proponents of merger are not on record as having even answered objections. One approved resolution passed off criticism as stemming “in part from a misunderstanding of the WCC and ignorance of the already existing relations between the two organizations.”

The “positive” wing of the churches is asserted to be after “more co-operation.” Yet there is no consideration of co-operation already in effect among evangelical groups in IMC. These groups assertedly have long been the most aggressive and successful proclaimers of the Gospel, whose convictions are incompatible with theological inclusivism now represented by the WCC. But evangelicals at Ghana were unable to get their case on record in the face of the tide of ecumenism.

In approving the adoption of the resolutions, the Assembly agreed that the draft plan of integration “is a generally suitable instrument for integration.” The plan was referred back to IMC constituent organizations for further study, comment and criticism, for amendment and further improvement.

One resolution asked the WCC to consider postponement of its 1960 Assembly at Ceylon for a year. Dr. Visser ’t Hooft had already indicated his willingness to delay the Assembly. This was to follow for “further unhurried consideration.”

Under the resolution timetable, comment from member organizations on the IMC plan is to be in the hands of the secretariat by April 30, 1959. The joint committee’s final plan is to be sent to member organizations early in 1960 and is to include in draft form a constitution for the new unified body. Then the Administrative Committee or an Assembly of the IMC is to consider the constitution in 1960 or in the early part of 1961. If approved, it will go to the member councils and six months later the official action of the IMC is to be signified to the Joint Committee and to the WCC. The Administrative Committee was given power to reconvene the IMC Assembly if required.

The assembly at Ghana was historic, said some critics, as a pattern for “the most expeditious way of promoting ecumenical amalgamation.”

“There was little in the way of an obvious meeting of minds, much less a blending of hearts in prayer,” said one observer. “The Lord God was not mentioned in the adopted report. Neither was the Bible, nor any expressed desire to seek the will of the Lord.”

Partisans of the merger were confident, however, that a majority vote can be anticipated when the integration issue is faced in final form.

(Most estimates place IMC missionary strength between 12,000 and 15,000. The Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association together represent more than 10,000 missionaries.)

Evangelical spokesmen felt that their opportunity for constructive and positive appraisal and criticism of the plan must now be centered within the constituent members of the IMC.

George S. Constance, Area Secretary for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in South America, Africa, and the Middle East, said that a merger would trigger the formation of more independent evangelical councils in various mission fields.

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, Executive Secretary of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, said that in face of the merger evangelicals “probably will strive to withdraw their councils from the IMC and thus maintain a united front.” Taylor added that “where this is not possible, the natural course of action will be withdrawal and the establishment of evangelical fellowships where these do not already exist.”

Dr. Everett L. Cattell, former secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, takes this view: “My deep fear is that the effort to educate these churches in which missions are peripheral, to their duty to make them central, by the mere organizational device of merging the IMC with the WCC, will actually result in moving missions still further from the center.

“If vigorous missionary societies functioning in the congregations of these denominations for a century have not been able to put missions central in the structure of their churches, does anyone seriously believe that it can be done better from Geneva by plotting a blueprint whose intricacy approaches that of the tax structure of the United States?

“The fallacy involved in this move is the old one of assuming that spiritual deficiencies can be made up by organizational change. In India it has been thoroughly demonstrated that making over authority to nationals and integrating missions into churches, good and right as such moves may be, has in no case supplied spiritual life when it was deficient. There is little hope that doing a wrong thing in a bigger and better way will be any more successful.”

[Next issue: CHRISTIANITY TODAY reports on $4,000,000 in grants to the IMC for ecumenical theological training of nationals, a move unprecedented in the history of missions.]

People: Words And Events

Clergymen Retiring—Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam said he will retire June 15, 1960. A successor to the former co-president of the World Council of Churches will be elected when the Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the Methodist Church meets in Washington at the time of Oxnam’s retirement.… Dr. James Henry Hutchins, who saw the Lake Avenue Congregational Church in Pasadena, California, grow in membership from 400 to 1,700 in his 37 years of ministry there, will retire at the end of 1958.

“Dependence” Hit—Bishop David Chellappa warned against “excessive dependence on overseas support” in a talk to the biennial synod of the Church of South India.

Theological Dictionary—Dr. Everett F. Harrison, Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, is guiding the publication of a new Dictionary of Theology as its editor-in-chief. Dr. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Episcopal pastor in Scotland and a contributing editor to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, is an associate editor. Contributors to the dictionary scheduled for 1959 publication include W. F. Albright, G. C. Berkouwer, F. F. Bruce, Gordon Clark, Oscar Cullman and R. V. G. Tasker.

Scholars’ Society

A firm if not a spectacular contribution to current evangelical vitality may be credited to more than 275 Bible scholars from some 75 faculties who make up the Evangelical Theological Society.

As it has done annually since its inception in 1949, the society named a new president for 1958: Dr. Warren C. Young, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. Young succeeds Dr. Ned B. Stonehouse, Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, who in leaving office restated the society’s outlook.

Its purpose as set forth by Stonehouse is “to foster conservative biblical scholarship by providing for the oral exchange and written expression of thought and research in the general field of the theological disciplines as centered in the Scriptures.”

Can the society exert a theological impact?

Most assuredly, according to Stonehouse, despite the fact that “its purpose is not to make propaganda for the Christian faith” and therefore “its proceedings do not attract much attention even from the Christian public.”

He said the group’s activity “consists largely in the exchange of ideas at periodic conferences” which have the potential to nourish “the most fruitful scholarly labors.”

“The Evangelical Theological Society came into being,” he said, “because of the conviction that (other societies), because of their doctrinal inclusiveness, could not fulfill the widely felt need for a fellowship of conservative scholars.”

Weary of negative and critical approaches to the Bible, the society’s founders unequivocally committed themselves to the Bible as Word of God in the formulation of a doctrinal basis definition.

They confined it to one article:

“The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.”

Stonehouse said creeds of more than one article “characteristically lack precision,” and “because of their fragmentary character, they fail to reflect the unity of biblical truth.”

He also expressed awareness of three “dangers attendant upon the formulation of beliefs solely in terms of the inspiration of the Scripture.”

Here, according to Stonehouse, are the dangers and how they are being faced:

(1) “That this doctrine might be held in doctrinaire fashion.

“This danger can be avoided only if we recognize that our doctrine of Scripture is an aspect of our doctrine of God and that to acknowledge Scripture as infallible is to acknowledge the absolute supremacy of the God of the Covenant in the sphere of truth.”

(2) “That we shall conceive of infallibility in an abstract manner in dealing, for example, with such matters as the harmony of the Gospels and quotations of the Old Testament in the New and thus shall draw inferences from the affirmation of infallibility, or apply this doctrine in such a way as actually to do violence to the total witness of Scripture.

“There ought to be a constant concern, therefore, to reflect upon the testimony of the whole of Scripture to its own character.”

(3) “That in concentrating attention upon the doctrine of Scripture we shall relegate to a position of subordination the message of the Bible as a whole including in particular the doctrine of redemption.

“Our very commitment to the Sola Scriptura doctrine must constrain us to press forward to lay hold with all our powers on the whole counsel of God in order that all our thoughts and ways may come under His control.”

Pulpit Potpourri

Church World Service, a relief agency of the National Council of Churches in the United States, advanced $100,000 to the United Nations Refugee Fund to help resettle more than 20,000 White Russians stranded in Communist China since the Red Revolution 40 years ago.…

An appeal court in Ontario ruled that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation must stand trial on charges of violating the Lord’s Day Act of Canada. The CBC planned a higher appeal.…

Drafts were completed for documents intended to unite the American Lutheran Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church.…

The International Reformed Congress will meet in Strasbourg, France, July 22–30.… The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) now has a world membership of 192,820.…

The Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, began regular telecasting of its Sunday morning worship services.… Central Airlines inaugurated a new half-fare clergy travel plan. The line serves 30 cities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado.

The Methodist Board of Education allocated $1,000,000 to the denomination’s ten theological seminaries.… Evangelist Monroe Parker took over the presidency of Pillsbury Conservative Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minnesota.…

Harvard University Press is offering $3,000 to the author of the best book manuscript on the history of religion submitted during the next four years.… The National Lutheran Education Conference voted to establish a national office in Washington.

The International Society of Christian Endeavor marked its 77th anniversary with a Youth Week observance in cooperation with the United Christian Youth Movement.…

In a 600-word statement, educators attending the 44th annual convention of the Association of American Colleges in Miami believed they had the first Protestant-Catholic agreement on general policy in education in 400 years. The basis of agreement: “Church-related colleges upon which Christian higher education depends must be maintained at all costs.”

Schools And Government

Tax-writing United States Congressmen heard a new bid for legislation which would give income tax relief to parents who send their children to Christian schools.

Legislation sponsored by Representative Gerald R. Ford, Jr., a Michigan Republican, would make legal deductions of tuition payments to schools which are non-parochial but nevertheless conducted “on a religious basis.”

There are some 350 such elementary and elementary and secondary schools in the United States joined by two organizations: the National Union of Christian Schools and the National Association of Christian Schools. Evangelical convictions are their common ground, although neither has any direct affiliation with churches.

John A. Vander Ark, director of the National Union, represented both groups in a statement before the House Ways and Means Committee, which drafts tax legislation.

Vander Ark said tuition rates at schools he represented “are, in effect, suggested minimum contributions for parents.”

“Pupils,” he said, “are not barred because of non-payment of tuition.”

Viewing the tuition payments as contributions, Vander Ark said the tax law thus reveals an inequity between these non-parochial “Christian parental” schools and parochial schools. In the case of the latter, payments by parents for the schooling of the children can be channeled through churches which directly support the schools. Such payments are unquestionably deductible.

There were those who saw an inequity, but who nevertheless had qualms about the bill. Notable opposition can be expected from the organization of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which fears that should it become law, the measure might be invoked later as a precedent for partisan programs.

Greater Than Ever

Construction of churches and synagogues in the United States set a new record in 1957, the government reported.

The value of new church buildings constructed last year was estimated at $868,000,000, topping the previous all-time high of 1956 by $100,000,000.

A new record also was established in the building of private hospitals, homes for the aged and other institutions, many of which are church-related.

Private school construction, however, was down three per cent.

Obscene Literature

The Post Office Department classified three magazines as obscene. So did a string of lower courts. The United States Supreme Court said no. Result: Mailing bans against the magazines were lifted.

The high court decision (unanimously delivered, but without written opinions) did not deter other efforts:

—Postal authorities will continue to deny mailing privileges to magazines which exploit obscenity, said Abe McGregor Goff, general counsel.

—The House Judiciary Committee scheduled public hearings on legislation designed to increase penalties for mailing obscene matter.

—The International Society of Christian Endeavor urged local affiliates to support any such legislation.

Obituaries

Dr. Frank C. Phillips, Executive Secretary of World Vision, Inc., died after a heart attack in Los Angeles.

The Rev. John C. O’Hair, pastor of the North Shore Baptist Church in Chicago, died after a heart attack.

Dr. P. B. Fitzwater, Professor of Theology and New Testament at Moody Bible Institute for 41 years, died of injuries suffered when struck by a car.

Latin America

Off to the Islands

Evangelist Billy Graham shook off effects of a flu attack and began a Caribbean campaign with meetings on the islands of Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Barbados and Trinidad.

The aid of associate evangelists, including Spanish-speaking clergymen traveling with the team, enabled overlapping schedules in Graham’s nine crusades. Meetings in Panama were to be underway this week, with rallies in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico to follow.

Graham was enthusiastic over early reports of favorable reaction. His Caribbean evangelistic thrust follows on the heels of unprecedented evangelical cooperation in the South American crusade of Dr. Oswald J. Smith, whose eight city campaigns in the last four months of 1957 resulted in some 4,500 first-time decisions for salvation.

Graham said the response in Smith’s meetings indicated “a world-wide move of the Holy Spirit.”

Before leaving for the Caribbean, the evangelist visited Charlotte, North Carolina, to arrange for a series of rallies there next fall. He said “the difficulty of conducting a crusade in the southern United States is that a lot of religion there is not dedicated to Christ.”

He said that “to be a church member in the South is the popular thing,” whereas those in the North take their religion far more seriously and “must brave more criticism for their faith.”

Ministers in Buffalo, New York, are studying a proposal to invite Graham to their city for meetings next summer.

Crusade Cancelled

Continued reports of political unrest in Venezuela prompted Billy Graham to cancel rallies which had been scheduled this week in Caracas.

Graham announced the decision a week before bloody demonstrations broke out against the government.

The evangelist was to have sandwiched in a Venezuelan crusade between meetings in Trinidad and Panama.

There was a feeling that it was best to forego the evangelistic opportunity at a time when conditions were unstable.

Protestantism in Venezuela had enjoyed, at least until recently, a great deal more respect from Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez, than did the Roman Catholic Church. Protestant church leaders attributed this advantage to Roman Catholic involvement in politics. The Catholic press has had open clashes with the government.

Demonstrations against the government were continuing despite the fact that Venezuelans voted Perez Jimenez into office for a second five-year term in December. Five priests were jailed following an abortive New Year’s Day revolt by military units, but all were released after a cabinet reshuffle which saw the replacement of the police chief. One of the imprisoned priests was Msgr. Jesus Hernandez-Chappellin, editor of the Catholic daily La Religion, generally regarded as critical of the Perez Jimenez regime.

Meet Nelson Edman

Mrs. Billy Graham presented her evangelist husband with the couple’s fifth child, the second boy, in an Asheville, North Carolina hospital.

The baby was named Nelson Edman in honor of Mrs. Graham’s father, Dr. L. Nelson Bell, Executive Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and Dr. V. Raymond Edman, president of the Grahams’ alma mater, Wheaton College.

Nelson Edman arrived just several days before Graham was to leave for the Caribbean. Only once previously had the 39-year-old evangelist been with his wife when she gave birth.

Africa

A Gift of Souls

When the Kagoro Christians learned that the Rev. and Mrs. Tom Archibald were leaving Nigeria for their ninth furlough, they decided that a collection of $300 was hardly enough to pay due respect to a Scottish missionary couple who had worked for 37 years among head hunters and cannibals.

Why not conduct a special evangelistic crusade aiming to reach every last individual with the message of salvation?

The dark-skinned Kagoro tribesmen responded first with a revival among their own church people. Prayer meetings drew overflow crowds before dawn, then a witnessing campaign followed. Two by two they went out for Christ, these same people who 30 years before had lived and worshipped in the blood of others.

Now the Archibalds were leaving. Thousands of the dark-skinned people swarmed onto a football field cut out of the jungle. Kagoro Pastor Adamu rose to present the gift. He only gestured. On the field were 3,533 new Christians, the fruit of the three-week evangelistic effort in honor of the missionary couple.

Europe

Their Irish Up?

Three ministers and a layman aired their views on mass evangelism over the facilities of the Northern Ireland Broadcasting Service.

The Rev. W. M. Craig listened quietly while a fellow panel member likened the big campaign with its emotions to a “brain-washing technique.”

Then Craig stepped to the microphone and reminded the accuser that emotion is an integral part of human personality, and that when a soul passed from death unto life there is bound to be emotion.

“Some aspects may not please all,” he said, “but the church cannot cast the first stone.”

Craig declared that the past campaigns in the North of Ireland had given the church “some wonderful leaders,” and that he did not consider them “over-evangelized.”

S.W.M.

VALENTINE BOUQUET

A rash of comic valentines has appeared at the Market Square Church. Results were unfortunate. These samples show the danger of such a practice:

For Our Preacher

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell,

But this I know, and know full well,

I get a headache when you yell.

S. S. Teacher’s Reproof

“Johnny Pistol, I declare

You’ve cut a curl from Annie’s hair,

Carved initials in your chair,

And while I glared in your direction,

Put bubble gum in our collection!

If you don’t stop, you shall not have your

Big gold star for best behavior!”

To Our Electronic Organist

With calm deliberation

you make your preparation

Depress the little stops …

and Whoom! the detonation!

How can you keep your balance,

serenity, and poise,

While stomping on the pedals

that booming bass of noise?

Your grand fortissimo piles

the decibels in cubes;

What supersonic sock

from the vacuum in tubes!

For a plaque above your organ

we bring this metal casting.

We found it by the roadside;

it says, Beware of Blasting!

The Ushers

The marching file moves in style

Down the aisle

In smooth formation. Each carnation

As punctuation

Bobs as one. The offering done,

With crisp precision now retiring

And quite aloof from eyes admiring

They slip into a narthex pew

Hid from view,

And there they shed the manner formal

Endure the sermon as is normal

With yawns and whispers, nods and giggles

Some gossip, titters, coughs and wiggles,

Each polished dandy munching candy.

This is the preacher’s heart’s desire—

To hush the ushers and the choir!

EUTYCHUS

HOLLYWOOD AND BABYLON

The Halverson article, “Any Good—from Hollywood?” (Dec. 23 issue), is a statement in favor of a qualified recognition of the movies. Stephen W. Paine in The Christian and the Movies (Eerdman’s, 1957) presents the indictment.…

Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary

Pittsburgh, Pa.

Prof. Gerstner has done a service in his excellent review of the movie discussions from Catholic and Protestant points of view, by Fathers Kelly and Ford and by Prof. Boyd.

The Catholics point out with some justification that the Legion of Decency has since 1934 exerted a considerable amount of influence upon the movies, while the Protestant slant, as represented in the article by Prof. Boyd of Union Theological Seminary in New York, is that there are many fine lessons to be learned from the movies in general, lessons having “Christian relevance.” These lessons are often conveyed “by negative witness” as the “loneliness and sorrow of secular life” are shown, and perhaps these lessons would be perceived only by the very thoughtful, and in the case under study by “not more than one out of a hundred.”

In the Boyd article, mention is made of the film Lust for Life, portraying the life of the great painter Vincent Van Gogh. Although the film devotes quite a bit of attention to Van Gogh’s life with his mistress who was a former prostitute, has a scene in a brothel, and portrays extensive drinking and “uncontrolled emotion,” yet it is seen as doing a service containing, as it is said, “genuine religious insights and pointing to values beyond itself.” Much as it might be argued that one who has plumbed the depths of sin has, in a negative sort of way, learned many valuable spiritual lessons, I feel sure that at least some readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY wished that mention could have been made of another point of view on commercialized movies, namely, that the institutionalized entertainment movie inflicts untold moral damage upon society, that because of its necessary dependence upon the degraded, unregenerate tastes of our times this condition has no promise of remedy (despite what some have for years regarded as hopeful counter-currents, i.e., the Legion of Decency), and that Christians should therefore withhold the financial support and approval implied in their attendance at even so-called “good movies.”

The movie audience includes each week some 18.5 million minors (37 per cent of the total) of whom 7.5 million are under 14 years of age. In studying the sociological affects of the movies, the Motion Picture Research Council found that in the group of reformatory boys under study, 55 per cent indicated that pictures of gangsters and gunplay had stirred in them a desire to “make a lot of money easily,” and in a group of delinquents aged 15 or under, 17 per cent indicated that movies had influenced them “to do something wrong.” Furthermore, the answers of the boys actually mentioned a total of 32 important items of crime technique which they had learned from the movies.

Speaking of sex delinquency, the MPRC investigators queried a sizeable grouping of delinquent girls. Their findings revealed that while 72 per cent of these deviates felt they had improved their attractiveness by imitating the movies, nearly 40 per cent admitted they were moved to invite men to make love to them after seeing passionate sex pictures.

All this is in spite of the industry’s own code and the pressures of the Legion of Decency, whose approach is of necessity a somewhat legalistic approach. Details like miscegenation, profanity, and mercy killing are bartered and traded between the industry and critical agencies. It is difficult, if not impossible, to legislate against a “spirit,” or a “moral climate.” You cannot by a set of rules keep the great movie-going public from getting the type of films it wants.

One film writer, discussing this, complains, “The moguls have as yet been unable to cater to this great box-office yen for immorality,” but he adds quickly that ways to evade the code are always being found. “The movie makers have not been too stymied by this part of their self-imposed curbs. They have learned how to hint at fornication in a hundred masterful ways.” Much more could be said, of course. Against this background many Christians feel that the commands of scripture enjoining separation from the world-spirit, and warning against being unequally yoked with unbelievers, would seem to call for a policy of abstinence from the commercialized entertainment movie.

President

Houghton College

Houghton, N. Y.

It is good to read an article which does not start out to make a whipping boy of Hollywood, although I thought I detected a concession that movies are not per se evil, which to me was condescending.

Hollywood has much to recommend it to the intelligent man. Whatever else might be said about it, there is, at least, a concerted effort to adjust its material to certain moral standards, which at the minimum would reflect the basic laws of the Ten Commandments, and which sometimes soars considerably beyond this.

One has only to compare the product of other branches of the entertainment world with what appears on the screen to see this in the concrete. A current example would be the extremely popular picture Peyton Place. Is there any need to recall the fuss that was made about the novel from which this picture was derived?

Another fairly obvious example would be Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, which, of course, could have been vulgar beyond description. Consider also the quality of some of the material on the so-called legitimate stage, as well as the contents of many of the foreign films imported into this country, and you will readily get the idea that while all is not perfect here, nor as lofty as some earnest souls might want it to be, it is still not Babylon by any means.…

Motion Picture Assn. of America

Production Code Administration

Hollywood, Calif.

• The Hollywood road runs nearer Babylon than Sinai. Time Magazine’s cinema editor remarks: “There is still too much meaningless blood and lust in Peyton Place” (Jan. 6 issue). Yet the camera and cinema are not intrinsically evil. And every sincere effort to bring them within the orbit of Christ’s lordship has value. The Production Code may stop short, but a code is a code.—ED.

THE CHURCH IN RUSSIA

The first article by Henlee H. Barnette (Dec. 23 issue) relates a story, gotten at third or fourth hand, about a Christian who answered the communist counterblast with the word, “Christ is risen.” I first read that story about 20 years ago. Then it was in a small village on Easter Day, and the Commissar had gathered the peasants together to indoctrinate them with the communist ideology. After he had finished he asked if anyone wanted to say anything. One man got up and said, Yes. The Commissar said, Make it short. He stepped to the platform and said, “Christ is risen.” His fellow-peasants answered with one voice, “He is risen, indeed.” That has the ring of probability and truthfulness. That little incident has grown until now it is 40,000 that answer with one voice. Which is a very improbable happening indeed.

California Christian Citizens Assn.

Los Angeles, Calif.

• Prof. Barnette of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary faculty, author of the article “The Church in Soviet Russia,” comments: “Could it not possibly have happened in 1940 on a larger scale?… Note that I cite the famous theologian Emil Brunner as my source for the story (cf. The Great Invitation, pp. 74–75). I do not believe that Dr. Brunner embellished the story enough to seriously mar its truth.”—ED.

Your … article … is the line which the Reds want us to accept concerning the church in Russia.…

CARL MCINTIRE, President

Intl. Council of Christian Churches

Collingswood, N. J.

EVOLUTION AND UNBELIEF

J. H. Ward is right (“Unbelief Today,” Jan. 6 issue). Mussolini, Bismarck, Hitler, Stalin all used the same naturalistic-evolutionistic base to build on. But we, stupidly, do not see it.… When a magazine with the might, power, wealth and influence of science behind it—such as the Scientific Monthly—can give ten pages against any temptation to even consider supernaturalism, as its November issue did, then the Church of Christ had better wake up.…

Anti-Evolution Compendium

Henniker, N. H.

VIRGIN BIRTH AFTERTHOUGHT

I have been rather amazed at the rejection of the Virgin Birth of Jesus by certain of your correspondents but even more amazed at the reasoning by which they arrive at their conclusions.

Having practised law for 19 years before becoming a priest, I am inclined to approach these problems from a legal position. I was taught and conducted my trial work as a lawyer on the rule of evidence that if you could prove a witness falsified his testimony in one respect, you have a right to tell the jury that he is not to be believed in any respect. What these writers are saying is that St. Luke and St. Matthew are liars with regard to their testimony on the Virgin Birth of our Lord. How then, can they believe their testimony in other respects? How can they believe “The Sermon on the Mount” or bring themselves to follow it to the best of their ability as a teaching of our Lord?

… You cannot impeach one witness with the silence of another. The fact that St. Mark, St. John and St. Paul make no specific reference to the Virgin Birth as such would never be accepted as evidence to make St. Matthew and St. Luke out as liars.… How ridiculous can one get?

St. James Episcopal Church

Titusville, Pa.

I am a retired Methodist minister of the Peninsula Annual Conference.… I have the profoundest respect for an intellectual and scholarly interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, but when it becomes so rationalistic as to rule out the supernatural in the miracles of the New Testament, of which the Virgin Birth is historically factual and of signal import, I am constrained to raise my voice in protest.

The letters by Vernon T. Smith and John A. Hawkins are astutely worded in the vernacular of a modern liberalism in theology which would question not only the truth of the Virgin Birth, but any other of the miracles of the New Testament, and ruling out any possibility of a supernatural act of divinity. To my thinking, such rationalism is perilously destructive.…

Salisbury, Md.

I have the deepest respect and fondest admiration for Dr. Douglass, for, having seen the error of his earlier thinking, he changed his views on a very important doctrine.… Two of the comments on Dr. Douglass’ article were by Presbyterians (U.S.A.) … expressing contempt for a cardinal doctrine of the Church to which they belong. In their ordination vows they were to have sincerely received and adopted the Confession of Faith of their Church, which contains the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures—the doctrine of the virgin birth not excepted. They were to have vowed also that the Scriptures were their infallible rule of faith and practice.… I’m sure this position is not generally held by all Presbyterians, for which we are thankful, but still remain disturbed because those who err are not corrected or disciplined.…

United Presbyterian Church

Reinbeck, Iowa

Matthew 1:11 gives Jechonias (Coniah) as one of Joseph’s ancestors. Read Jeremiah 22:24–30, especially the 29th and 30th verses.… If Joseph were the father of Jesus, then Jesus is not the Christ the Son of David.…

Bradenton, Fla.

COUNTERBLAST TO WRATH

The enclosed sermon … is in a measure a counterblast to your “Jonathan Edwards’ Still Angry God” (Jan. 6 issue) … Read particularly the marked passages … (“Jonathan Edwards believed in a … kind of god … quite foreign to the nature of Jesus.… The god he portrayed was as horrific in his spiritual features as the masked witch doctor of some primitive tribe is horrific in physical appearance. My God is a God of love.…”) Please return the sermon after you have glanced through it; it is still unfinished as you may realize.…

Carman United Church

Sardis, B. C.

I will have to take issue with you and Jonathan Edwards.… If we live in a dispensation of Grace, then it is one of love and not of anger.… The whole world of humanity was predestined to be saved.… It is doubtful if there are many hell-scared Christians.…

Charleston, W. Va.

The God pictured in the editorial is certainly Jonathan Edwards’ God and not the Christian God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.…

Pentwater Methodist Church

Pentwater, Mich.

… A misapprehension of God’s present economy of grace.… God the Father has “committed all judgment unto the Son.” The Judge of all men throughout this dispensation of grace is their Saviour. This accounts for the long suffering of God in a day of exceeding sinfulness and extreme lawlessness.… Sir Robert Anderson has aptly stated in Silence of God,” … all judicial and punitive action against human sin is in abeyance—deferred until the day of grace is over and the day of judgment dawns … a truth that will be sought for in vain in the standard theology of Christendom.”

Wheaton, Ill.

Certainly God gets angry. He even hates sinners because of their sin. Are you suggesting, however, that this wrath of God is separate from and equal to his love?… that “God is wrath” or “God is hate” in the … same way as one says “God is love”? Is it not a God of love who consigns the lost to hell?…

Martin Luther referred to wrath as the “alien” nature of God, and love as the “essential” or “proper” nature of God. He was even able to call wrath one of the enemies which Christ “satisfied” by conquering in the atonement.

Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church

East Grand Forks, Minn.

I want to commend your editorial on Jonathan Edwards.… It’s surely needed now.…

Pasadena, Calif.

I was very much pleased by the editorial “Jonathan Edwards’ Still Angry God.” The primary issue in the Church today is not the Deity of Jesus Christ, his bodily Resurrection, or his Virgin Birth, but the Pauline interpretation of the Cross. If, as evangelicals contend, Paul received this doctrine from the risen Lord (Gal. 1:11, 12), then there can be no thought of compromise. Christianity is sterile without the “expiatory and propitiatory significance” of Christ’s death; the zeal of Paul in persecuting the early Church proves this thesis. When it becomes popular in the visible Church to reject the Pauline doctrine of the Atonement as pagan, then we may well wonder at the profound offense the Cross of Christ brings to the world.…

Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass.

MORNING MAIL

Thank you for a periodical that shys away from the stilted intellectualism of some others we could name and the ultra conservatives at the other end of the road.…

First Baptist Church

Savannah, Mo.

Tremendous value lies in the fact that … you have done what fundamentalists have fought tooth and nail—introduced self-criticism. I believe that such a willingness to judge ourselves is not only basic to our making an impact on our contemporaries but it is indispensable for presenting ourselves worthily before the Lord.…

Gordon College

Beverly Farms, Mass.

And they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation, and he [Joseph] made a mourning for his father seven days.”

The account of Genesis 50:10 is the story of the death of a parent, a Patriarch who had given to his children the blessings of a nation. And it is the scene of a passionate and most beautiful reunion among lost and almost forgotten members of a great family.

Joseph and the others of his family had been in Egypt before this occasion; but at the request of Jacob, he and the other sons had taken the father back to the homeland for burial. They had left behind the “little ones and the flocks and herds,” in the land of Goshen, and Joseph, leader of the group, had taken with him “all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt.” But when at last they entered the borders of Canaan, they stopped at a level spot of ground called the threshing floor of Atad, and there together they mourned and wept.

Reunion In Bereavement

What a season of reunion, repentance, reminiscence and regret that must have been. The eventful life of Jacob had come to a quiet close. And the days of the years of his sojourning had been a hundred and thirty years. But what years! “Few and evil have been the days of my life,” he had said. Self-centeredness and regretfulness in youth, unhallowed dealings with Esau his brother, questionable business practices in later life, and that mysterious night of wrestling with the angel and meeting defeat; that reconciliation with Esau, and those ceaseless quarrels and intrigues of a large family, two mothers and the jealousies between their sons—and in all these relations, he had shown preference and partiality rather than justice even among his own. But notwithstanding all this, his name had been changed from Jacob (supplanter) to Israel (prince with God), and the priceless heritage of the covenant with Abraham had been committed to him.

The Influence Of Jacob

To the moment of his last breath, he had held sacred the traditions of an honored ancestry. Beginning with Reuben, his firstborn, and on to Joseph and Benjamin, Jacob had spoken prophetic words and affectionate blessings. And then, “when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.”

What recollections, what suppressed emotions, what agony of heart and self-reproach must have been theirs as they had made their slow return over the wilderness way! What a contrast—the inward emotions of twelve men going “back home” to bury father, to the outward pomp and pageantry which they had known among Egyptian nobility. But pent-up grief and remorse must presently have time and place for expression. And so, after crossing the border into the homeland, they came to the threshing floor of Atad, and there they paused and “mourned with a great and very sore lamentation.”

This was not the end, however, of Jacob. He was now Israel and father of that distinguished race, “the children of Israel.” And though he was embalmed and ready for interment, he was but to make his way through the generations of the covenant down the centuries of time. Not one of the mourners at the threshing floor could have sensed the far-reaching significance of Jacob’s blessings and prophecies, nor even have imagined what the goal of their own future journeyings might be. And we cannot fathom, even today, the meaning or mystery of these things.

Truly, says the psalmist, “The lord hath chosen Jacob,” but truly, declares the writer of Hebrews, “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” The deep distress of that pause at the threshing floor was but a forecast. Nehemiah, yet to be born, would “sit down and weep certain days over the desolation of Zion.” There would be “a voice from Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted for they were not.” The hymn of a later day would recall how the exiled remnant, their harps hung on the willows by Chebar, “wept when they remembered Zion by the rivers of Babylon.” Like David and his followers at the ruined city of Ziklag, the strange pilgrimage as they have come down the centuries “have wept until they have no power to weep more.” And wandering tourists may still see today the “wailing wall” at Jerusalem.

There is no end, even yet, of that sorrowful procession. What Longfellow wrote of the nameless dead in the Jewish Cemetery at Newport has ever been and still is true of that noble race:

Pride and humiliation, hand in hand

Walked with them, through the world where ’ere they went,

Trampled and beaten as the sand

And yet unshaken as the continent

All their lives long with unleavened bread

And bitter herbs of exile and its fears

The wasting famine of the heart they fed,

And slaked its thirst with the Marah of their tears.

It was the Apostle Paul, “an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin,” who said, “if ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” The distinguishing characteristic of Abraham was his faith. Little did it matter, the racial relation or family blood tie, the physical characteristics or ritual performances. The true children of Israel were to be known by a trusting faith in God, a faith like that of Abraham who “believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.”

Death And God’S Providence

One wonders, does that inheritance to sonship in Christ carry with it disciplines as well as blessings from God in the attaining of a glorious destiny? Can it be that even death and its sombre shadows has a place in the providence of God? Must the “household of faith” bear its portion also of the sorrows which were suffered by that ancient family at Atad? Are human families held together by hardships and heartaches as well as by natural affection and seasons of joy?

Certain it is that in the present world order every household comes some time or another to its day of weeping and then to after-days of melancholic reflection. Father goes from us, or mother it may be, or others whose lives have been intertwined with ours by nature or by deeper ties of friendship. We had not thought it could happen to us. But it has been happening all around us, and we have been so busy or so occupied with our own interests that we have not paid heed until too late. How differently would we have done had we but known and understood those crises that come to life. Hitherto our vision has been obscured in petty things; now we begin to discern, though dimly still, life’s hidden and mysterious meanings.

Memory Of A Great Past

Pausing at the threshing floor, as death requires each family to do from time to time, there suddenly comes to memory deeds of past days. We see that elder brother in his true stature now, and we recall how his kindly counsel was so ruthlessly set aside. And then we remember our passionate desires to retaliate or “get even.” How senseless, how puerile, and how needless they all were! Father and mother—what pains and anxieties we caused them. In the midst of their busy lives, they were but seeking to pass on to us the treasures of righteousness and integrity. And we, the “chosen seed of Israel’s race” had not understood them then, but now with our hearts made tender by bereavement, we see what they meant.

Two men, brothers who had prospered abundantly in the world, returned home to bury their aged father. They were to divide the old farm and build their dream houses, each on the allotted acreage as they had previously planned. The old house was to be torn down, and the two of them were busily engaged at work.

“See here,” said the one inside to the other outside, “see how thin these floor boards are by the fireplace?”

“Why is that, I wonder,” said the other, coming in.

“It is where father used to sit in his rocking chair reading the Bible.”

There was a stillness between them for some moments, and then, in the midst of the rubble and wreckage, one of them spoke …

“John,” he said in a hushed voice, “we ought to kneel here. We ought to give thanks for such a father as we had and pledge ourselves as we’ve not done before to the service of his God.”

The two of them knelt together, and in reverence they prayed for the first time in their adult lives to God in the name of the Christ whom their father had tried to serve.

Threshold Of The Unseen

We today see much by way of backward glance. We are joint-heirs with that ancient family to the treasure of faith which they were to bear back from Egypt to “Canaan, beyond Jordan.” To that strange camping party, death had been but a tragic pause on the long and sorrowful journey of a Syrian family back to the homeland and family burial place. But it also had been a promise and purpose of God, unrevealed to them and perhaps to us even now. We are ever moving slowly and toward an unseen glorious goal. And by means of our humble workaday lives, we are moving there even in spite of petty human faults and failure. Truly the ways of God are past finding out:

We have but faith—we cannot know,

For knowledge is of things we see,

And yet we trust it comes from Thee

A beam in darkness; let it grow.

What simplicity of life had these pastoral peoples of long ago! How natural to us, even in our day, were their human impulses, their jealousies, their enduring rancors, and their attempted retaliations! Still, underneath all these, was a faith and a love, a spiritual compassion given them by God when man “became a living soul.” And such power of tenderness in Jacob’s family, such power of faith and love which they expressed is in our families and ourselves when we exercise it, believe, and have the patience to wait upon God. We live on the threshold of an unseen world of which we are only dimly conscious. We cannot pass the mystic border line now, though we can come near. And we do come near when we push aside the distractions and confusions of this world to come to the threshing floor of Atad and mourn together for one we love. We need death; we need to see the still form, the closed eyes, and the folded hands of some dear one, for it restores to us our own kinship and a consciousness of that other life.

This life, we know, is like a passing cloud. Shall we ever see it again? Or it is like a shepherd’s tent, set up yesterday and taken down today. Will it ever be set up again? A tree cut down may sprout again and grow, but if a man die will he live again? David said, after his child had died, “He cannot come to me, but I can go to him.”

Perhaps then, it was a design of God’s, that when we saw death we would see more clearly life. Or that by the terrible “awakening” shock of death we might better come to know those about us and even ourselves. Sorrow reveals the depth of our natures; and, though fitting tributes and prayers, flowers and music may be but little consolation in moments like these, we loved ones who follow toward that grave in pleasant weather will be to each other effectual and sustaining strength in meditative after-days. At the threshing floor of Atad, we do not know the things to come in days ahead. But thank God, none of us again will ever be the same. Death and mourning have touched our spirits. And in the providence of a wise Creator, this is what we needed. “Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning.”

Dawn Of A New Day

But centuries pass now since that incident at Atad, and the world sees the dawn of a new day. The kingdom of God has come at hand. Someone is walking by. He pauses, caresses a wayside flower, and then notices a little bird obviously trodden under foot. For a moment there he gives loving attention to these last and least of creations. But a little later, he is taking over and restoring to life the limp form of a little maid. At another time he is stopping a funeral procession and sending a weeping widow home with a son reclaimed to life. One who himself weeps at the grave of his friend Lazarus, proceeds to call that one forth from the tomb and then turn to comfort the others who weep. And, miracle of miracles, this same Man voluntarily lays down his own life and after three days takes it up again!

Death Will Be Conquered

Blessed prospect! When the day comes that all nations will have heard this gospel of the kingdom of God, then we shall see “the end” (of an age). Then we shall remember no more the threshing floor of Atad. That will all be forgotten, for the last enemy, death, will have been forever destroyed. And “a great voice out of heaven” (Rev. 21:3) will cry, “Behold, I make all things new!” (Rev. 21:5) … “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God … and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:3–4).

And for those of us who live and dwell in the time between Jacob and that day to come, we have the assurance that “I am the resurrection and the life and he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25). “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” (1 Thess. 4:14). “… then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory” (1 Cor. 15:54–55)?

S. S. Lappin is a former public school teacher who served 17 years in rural Illinois pastorates. He holds the M.A. from Bethany College, where he taught Homiletics and Pastoral Theology. He has served as Editor of The Christian Standard.