Zechariah

The triumphs of Cyrus the Great brought the return of Japheth to dominion over the tents of Shem after centuries of Semitic supremacy in the Fertile Crescent. They also brought the return of Israel to her own tents in Canaan after the “seventy years” of exile in Babylonia. Then in 520 B.C. some two decades after the edict of Cyrus launched the reorganization of Israel as the province of Judah within the Persian satrapy of Transpotamia, the prophetic witness of Haggai and Zechariah began. In the name of the God of Israel they called the restored remnant to the reconstruction of the ruined temple and promised them a future of Messianic glory.

Authorship

All fourteen chapters of the book bearing Zechariah’s name have been traditionally recognized as coming from his pen, and that is the position accepted in this article. The Interpreter’s Bible by its very format propagandizes for the dominant attitude in modern higher criticism. For it distinguishes its treatment of chapters 9–14 from that of chapters 1–8 almost as sharply as it would in the case of two separate books. It assigns the last six chapters to a different pair of scalpel happy commentators who explain the editors’ policy when they in turn assign the authorship of these few chapters to three or possibly more unknowns of the Hellenistic age. This post-Zecharian dating of chapters 9–14 has been the vogue since the end of the nineteenth century, having replaced the pre-exilic hypothesis which was the equally confident persuasion of the earlier negative critics.

Ready access to the detailed linguistic, historical, and ideological arguments is available to all who are interested in the discussions of G. L. Robinson (“Book of Zechariah” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) and H. G. Mitchell (commentary on Zechariah in The International Critical Commentary). These scholars take account of each other’s arguments as they advocate respectively the Zecharian and post-Zecharian origin of chapters 9–14. Apropos of useful tools for the study of Zechariah the recency of the date of the commentary is not always a reliable index of value. The busy preacher, earnestly concerned to know what God is saying to us through Zechariah, will find that the nineteenth century work of Hengstenberg (in his Christology of the Old Testament) and of Keil is still as highly rewarding as anything produced since. Those who consult the original text will find the commentary of Mitchell rich in philological material.

The Night Visions

The first major block of material covers chapters 1–6 and consists of seven visions received in one night, along with an introductory word, dated some three months before the night visions, and a concluding symbolic action:

Introduction (1:1–6) The keynote is sounded in verse 3: “Return unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will return unto you.” Zechariah joins his fellow Old Testament prophets in their twofold task as expounders of the Law and forerunners of the Gospel. He begins his ministry to the Israelites with the exhortation to hearken unto Moses if they would inherit the blessings of Christ.

Vision 1 (1:7–17) The central theme of these night visions is the kingdom of God in the midst of the kingdoms of the world. The problem is introduced at once that Jerusalem, Old Testament center and symbol of God’s kingdom, bears the scars of defeat and desolation while the nations of the earth are at ease in their indifference to the sovereign claims of the Lord, the God of Israel. This is the problem of unrealized eschatology, next to sin the profoundest source of tension in the Christian pilgrim’s life of faith. The saints of the most High, the heirs of all according to divine promise, find themselves now the possessors of next to nothing. (The theocratic domain in Zechariah’s day covered a tract of only some 25 by 40 miles—subject to Persia at that.)

This discouraging world situation is reported by horsemen returning from their reconnaissance of the earth to the angel of the Lord who is found near Jerusalem. But there is promise for the saints in the very presence of God’s angel and his intercession for Jerusalem brings from the Lord the message that he is sore displeased with the nations at ease, plus his assurance that the theocratic cities shall yet overflow with prosperity and his house shall be built in Jerusalem.

Vision 2 (1:18–21) The first vision’s declaration of divine displeasure with the world indifferent in unbelief is now elaborated. The nations which dispersed Judah are symbolized by four horns. Against them God sends agents of judgment symbolized by four smiths to cast down the horns and bring relief to the theocracy.

Vision 3 (2:1–13) This vision resumes the first vision’s divine promise concerning the future expansion of Jerusalem. A man with a measuring line goes to measure Jerusalem envisaged as enjoying unprecedented prosperity. Then a call is issued to God’s people still dwelling in Babylon to return and participate in Zion’s coming exaltation above the nations which had afflicted her. This prosperity is interpreted in terms of a divine advent (vs. 10) and the incorporation of the Gentiles within the covenant community (vs. 11). That is, Zechariah through the imagery of the typical Old Testament theocracy phophesies of the antitypical Christocracy of the New Testament age.

Vision 4 (3:1–10) Another dimension in the Church’s holy war is introduced: her trials are traced to the enmity of Satan. At the same time the ethical roots of the eschatological tension appear in the exposure of the defiling sin of God’s people. But in this context the theme of Messiah’s soteric mission also emerges in the prophecy of the Branch through whom Satan is rebuked and the iniquity of the elect is removed “in one day.” Joshua the high priest is declared to be a type of the priestly work of the Branch.

Vision 5 (4:1–14) The prophecy proceeds from the work of the Son to the work of the Spirit. The symbolism of the visions has gradually circled in from the heathen nations to Zion and now it enters the holy place of the temple itself. The candlestick appears, so designed and fed oil by the olive trees that without human tending it burns continually, so signifying the monergism of the divine Spirit’s operations as he works recreatively in those the Son has redeemed to be lights in the world. The reappearance in this context of the imagery of the rebuilding of the temple, here attributed to Zerubbabel, is further indication that such imagery is intended as a symbolic portrayal of Christ’s spiritual temple which he builds through the Spirit.

Vision 6 (5:1–11) Agreeable to the redemptive-spiritual character of the kingdom revealed in visions 4 and 5, the progress of that kingdom is now found to be a matter of reformation as well as of expansion—of judgment within as well as judgment of the world outside. The removal of covenant-breakers is symbolized by the destruction of their houses in the holy land and the construction of a new dwelling to which they are transported in the world-sphere of Shinar. This complements the call to believers lingering in Babylon to come home to Zion and the flocking to Zion of the converted Gentiles (vision 3), the net effect being the sharp separation of the Church from the world which prepares for the final scene of eschatological triumph.

Vision 7 (6:1–8) Under the symbolism of four chariots of judgment which go to the several points of the compass and appease the wrath of God there is depicted the final judgment of the Serpent’s seed. The earth is thus cleared of foes to become from sea to sea the inheritance of all who are Christ’s, and therefore are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.

Concluding Symbolic Transaction (6:9–15). The Lord requires Zechariah to make a crown of silver and gold offered by returned exiles and with it to crown the high priest Joshua king. Thus in striking symbolism the Messianic figure of the Branch, singled out of the preceding visions for closing attention, is shown to combine in one person the offices of both Joshua and Zerubbabel. Christ is revealed as a priest who builds his own temple, unto which men come from afar to take their place—as a priest who reigns as king from the glory of his throne.

A Rebuff To Formalists

The occasion of the prophesying of chapters 7 and 8 was the arrival, almost two years after the night visions, of a delegation from Bethel, posing to the priests and prophets at Jerusalem a theological problem. Was it necessary in their days of restoration to continue the observance of fasts instituted in remembrance of the destruction of Jerusalem? (7:1–3).

In reply Zechariah first confronts the delegation with the teaching of the past (7:4–14). The loss of God’s favor manifested in the fall of Jerusalem had been due to no want of formal ritual on Israel’s part but to their failure to bring forth the righteous fruits of their covenant privileges. This reply cuts through the delegation’s superficial formulation of the question and convicts of the basic realities of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Zechariah points to obedience to the covenant ethic (not to a concern about self-righteous ceremonialism) as the way to continued covenant favor.

He next enforces this lesson of Israel’s past by coupling with promises of the future transformation of all Jerusalem’s fasts into feasts and the conversion of the nations to Israel’s God the demand for a response of love and truth to the covenant grace of God (ch. 8).

Chapters 7 and 8 are transitional in the structure of the book. They provide a hortatory introduction to the “burdens” of chapters 9–14 while they bring the night visions full circle with a clear echo of the keynote theme sounded in the opening verses. Their non-visionary form also prepares stylistically for the following oracles at the same time that they share with the preceding chapters an orientation to the concrete situation of the returned exiles. A further element of continuity found in this section is its utilization, in common with all the rest of the book, of the symbol of a flourishing Jerusalem as the sanctuary of the converted nations in its preview of the Kingdom of God during the Messianic age.

Hadrach And Israel

Chapters 9–14 consist of a “burden” on Hadrach (9–11) and a “burden” on Israel (12–14). These are not dated but presumably come from a later period in Zechariah’s ministry. A few major strands in the eschatology of these chapters are selected for brief comment here. With an eye to the Zecharian authorship of the whole book note will be taken of the continuity in eschatological perspective between chapters 1–8 and 9–14.

The Casting Away of Israel: Chapter 5 had expounded the keynote principle that one’s continuance in the privileges of God’s kingdom depended on his manifestation of the righteousness of that kingdom. It pictured the covenant-breakers being cut off and driven into permanent exile. That theme is continued in chapters 9–14.

According to 13:7, 8a, as an immediate sequel to the suffering of the Messianic shepherd, a judgment falls upon the covenant flock which results in the cutting off of the majority. A more extended treatment of this dark prospect is found in chapter 11. Here the judgment is traced to the general apostasy of Israel, expressed climactically in her failure to recognize the hour of Messianic visitation. Israel and most of all Israel’s leaders despise the Good Shepherd. The consequent judgment involves not only the abandonment of the majority of the flock to destruction but the termination in wrath of the Old Testament theocratic order. The religious hierarchy is cut off; the promised land is made desolate.

In short, Zechariah expected that the consummation of the kingdom’s blessings which he foretells in other passages must be realized in spite of a divine judgment against Israel of such proportions as to be called the fall or casting away of Israel. This is ignored by the commentators who make facile charges of chauvinism against the author.

The Double Remnant: The casting away of Israel is not fatal to the continuity of the covenant program because the Lord saves out of Israel a remnant according to the election of grace. The Old Testament, however, anticipated more than mere continuity. There was to be glorious fullness and Zechariah provides the explanation of that fullness when he prophesies of the salvation of a remnant of the Gentiles. He is not, therefore, narrowly nationalistic but cherishes the hope of universalism.

The motif of the remnant of Israel informs the whole historic situation to which Zechariah immediately addressed himself in the days of partial restoration after the Exile (cf. especially chapters 1, 7 and 8). The idea of the remnant is, moreover, the necessary corollary to the excision of the covenant-breakers in chapter 5. The prophet repeats this theme in the later chapters 11:7, 11; 13:8b, 9; cf. 10:6–12; 14:2.

The conversion of the nations is predicted in the earlier chapters in the third vision (2:11; cf. 6:15) and in the reply to the Bethel delegation (8:22, 23); it is found in chapters 9–14 in 9:7, 10; 14:16. The participation of the remnant of the Gentiles in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant is also repeatedly symbolized by the unprecedented expansion of “Jerusalem.” Thus throughout all 14 chapters is taught the doctrine of the double remnant.

The Final Judgment

The Judgment of the Hostile Nations: The universalism of salvation is not distributive. It is only a remnant of the heathen who are saved. The world looming large in its hostility to the covenant community forms part of Zechariah’s outlook throughout his book. The world-power is depicted in various ungodly attitudes. Now they are at ease and indifferent (1:7, 15). Now they attack God’s kingdom (1:18 ff.; 12:1 ff.; 14:1 ff.). Again, they are found occupying the promised inheritance of the saints (ch. 9).

Corresponding to this rebelliousness of the world is the recurring theme of the final judgment of the nations. They are to be cast down and dispossessed. They are to become a spoil to God’s people. The arrow of God will go forth against them and he will “destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” The last glimpse the Seer catches of that world finds it reeling under the wrath of the Almighty gone forth in deference of the remnant of his people. In the visions see 1:15, 21; 2:9; 6:1–8. In the final “burdens” see chapter 9; 12:1–9 and 14:3,12–15.

Messiah, Divine Priest-King: As a final strand in Zechariah’s eschatology the Messianic must be mentioned because of its inherent importance and because Zechariah’s treatment of it is especially rich. Repeatedly Messiah appears as the agent of the divine salvation of the double remnant or the divine judgment on apostate Israel and the hostile world.

In the night visions the Messiah is represented by Old Testament figures who typified him and his work—Joshua the high priest and the governor Zurub-babel, heir to David’s throne. There also appears the angel of the Lord, pre-Incarnate theophany form of Messiah, and there is the direct in-breaking of the voice of Messiah speaking in the first person. In chapters 9–14 the figure of the Messiah himself appears although in chapter 11 he stands behind the transparent form of the prophet Zechariah who enacts the role of the Messianic shepherd. These differences in revelational form are due to the differing literary forms in various parts of the book. What is more significant is the harmony of all the chapters in their concept of Messiah’s person and work.

The deity of the Christ is revealed in 2:8; 12:10; 13:7.

Very prominent is the union in Christ of priestly and kingly office and function. It is most strikingly portrayed in the scene of the high priest Joshua’s coronation (6:11, 12; cf. 4:11–14). That scene gathers together the teaching of the preceding visions which had already presented Messiah as priestly intercessor (1:12) and iniquity remover (3:9), and as royal governor and temple builder (4:6–10).

The same two strands intertwine in chapters 9–12. These make mention of his sorrow and sufferings as one despised and betrayed (11:8b, 12, 13), pierced and smitten of the sword (12:10; 13:7) as he came lowly and having salvation (9:9). But they also call him Zion’s king (9:9) who as shepherd-king governs the flock of his people and executes judgment against their oppressors (11:7, 8).

MEREDITH G. KLINE

NOW BOOKING!

My tired blood tingled as I read the prospectus from the Rev. Don Hillis, who claims to be the world-wide director of the All Saints’ Tourist Agency. Hawaii, Europe, Mexico, or around the world!

Sympathetic Mr. Hillis has sensed my spring weariness. He writes: “You need our Caribbean tour with a splendid group of overworked Christians like yourself. The highly privileged three hundred saints whom we accept will relax for fourteen days aboard our luxury liner S.S.S. Pedro for a mere total of $120,000. They will be privileged to spend another $20,000 for sight-seeing and souvenirs.… Our time-payment plan makes this convenient and easy.

“Our exclusive Holy Land tour will fulfill your dreams of being a Crusader. Once you have seen Gordon’s Calvary, the victorious Christian life will become an everyday experience. Why should not you, too, carry a camera through the hills of Judea and fill a bottle from the Sea of Galilee? Think of sharing the missionary task of the Church by covering your shoes with dust from the very roads on which Paul fled forward with the Gospel!

“Please do not worry about the several million dollars spent every year for this kind of thing. The Lord has other people who will give to world evangelism. After all, your $1,000 would hardly support a missionary for a year …”

You have made your point, Mr. Hillis. I will stop regretting that I do not have the funds to join the ecclesia tourans, and make a spring contribution to missionary travel instead. But take heart, brother; there have been missionaries who were once tourists at heart. Perhaps, seeing the need of the world, Christian tourists may yet become missionaries.

SDA AND THE EVANGELICALS

Do the differences between the SDA’s and conservative Christians generally approximate those between Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians which, though serious enough, do not make impossible according to each other some degree of recognition as churches of Jesus Christ? Ought we to rejoice when we hear of Adventist successes, and look upon them as indications that the kingdom of Satan is being destroyed and the Kingdom of grace advanced? Or do we have here but one more foe that we must face?

SDA’s teaching and program cannot be understood very well apart from the historical origins. In 1816 one William Miller, a farmer in the northeastern part of New York, having been converted from deism to orthodox Christianity, began to apply himself with earnestness to the study of Scripture. His particular interest was prophecy, especially Daniel 8:14: “Until 2300 days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” For him, the starting point was 457 B.C.; thus 1843 or thereabouts would see the return of the Lord. Well, 1843 and 1844 came and went, and nothing happened. It would have been the expected thing for the Millerite movement to have died a natural death. But the great day of disappointment had hardly passed before an event occurred which led directly to the founding of the SDA denomination. The report became current that an Adventist leader, Hiram Edson, had seen a vision that the sanctuary to be cleansed according to Daniel 8:14 was not an earthly sanctuary at all, but the original holy of holies in heaven. The prophetic period had indeed ended. But instead of our High Priest coming out of the Most Holy to come to this earth, he entered the second apartment of the sanctuary to perform a work that must precede his coming to earth.

At this time another development contributed a second distinctive feature: the introduction of the seventh day Sabbath largely through the influence of Captain Joseph Bates of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Thus the movement came to be known as Sabbatarian Adventism.

But the foundations were not yet complete. Without the introduction of what is referred to as the “Spirit of prophecy”—by which the Church that was to be born would not only enjoy counsel and direction, but possess an authoritative witness to the correctness of its teachings—SDA would never have flourished to the degree that it has. This was accomplished through a young woman, Ellen Harmon, later Mrs. James White, of Portland, Maine. She had been an ardent Millerite follower and like many others had been grievously disappointed. But in December, 1844, she reportedly experienced a vision, one of over 100 to follow during her lifetime. This vision was to the effect that the Adventist movement, in regarding the seventh month as the end of the 2300 years of Daniel’s prophecy, had been right all the time. After some months the Sabbatarian Adventists with their sanctuary position came to believe that the spirit of prophecy had reappeared in the ministry of Mrs. White. Conferences were held over a period of years to formulate the doctrines of the movement. The record shows that when the discussions became tense or confused, Mrs. White would be shown the truth of the matter and would bid the contenders to yield their errors. Not only at meetings of the Adventist leadership but on many occasions some word from heaven would be forthcoming through her; these revelations consisted not only of decisions on doctrinal issues but of practical counsel for the church’s faith and life—even including a deliverance on the subject of the propriety of the use of salt in the diet.…

Throughout her life, Mrs. White considered herself to be the recipient of special revelations from God. A fair question is, How does this relate to the doctrine of Holy Scripture? The Adventists deny vigorously that they regard Mrs. White’s writings as an addition to Scripture. In their latest doctrinal formulation they write that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and practice. In the same document, however, they confess that the “prophetic gift … was manifested to the SDA Church in the work and writings of Ellen G. White.”

In explanation of this apparent contradiction, the Adventists take the position that Mrs. White’s writings are in the class of the prophetic utterances of such people as Iddo the Seer and Silas and the four daughters of Philip, all of whom prophesied but whose words were either not recorded or not included in the Bible if they were. They add that the “spirit of prophecy counsels” are an aid to a fuller, clearer understanding of the Bible; that Mrs. White’s writings do not give them their doctrines; they simply confirm or broaden the concept or point out erroneous ideas that already existed.

But is not the contradiction a real one after all? If we reflect upon the people in whose ministry the Adventists find a parallel to the work of Mrs. White, we find that although for reasons known only to God their prophetic utterances were never inscripturated, their messages were none the less the word of the Lord, and just as authoritative to those for whom they were intended as the canonical Scriptures are to the Church universal. And when Mrs. White says of her writings, “It is God and not an erring mortal who has spoken,” and the SDA church says that the gift of prophecy was manifested in her life and ministry, is any other conclusion possible than that her writings are in a real sense to be equated with Holy Scripture?

The fact of the matter is that a number of things in Mrs. White’s writings are extra-Biblical, e.g. various details of the boyhood of Jesus. But even if this were not the case, is the statement of the Adventists that these writings simply confirm doctrines and point out erroneous ideas intended to reassure those of different theological persuasion? Is it not evident that this is no mean gift? Indeed, does the church of Rome say much more for the Pope himself than that he confirms doctrines and points out erroneous ideas?

If it is fair, as I believe it is, to charge SDA with admitting additional revelations to the place of authority which the Church is to accord only to the Word of God, this in itself is a sufficient reason for regarding the movement as having departed quite radically from a soundly Christian position.… Are we at liberty to look upon it as something less than deadly error to add to the Word of God?

American Evangelical Mission

Senafe, Eritrea, E. Africa

We certainly have no fears as to the outcome of the current re-evaluation of our evangelical standing, so long as the investigators have the moral and intellectual dignity to reject for documentation the dog-eared philippics of the self-vindicating ex-Adventists.

Reseda, Calif.

“HEAD OF CHRIST”

What a perfect description of Sallman’s “Head” by calling it “A pretty picture of a woman with a curling beard who has just come from the beauty parlor with a halo shampoo” (Roth, Mar. 3 issue). Allow me to add a hearty AMEN!! As a former student of art I agree that it is commercially designed to make money.

It seems strange to me that we wish to “see” a likeness of the man-God that we are to worship in spirit and truth. If Jesus wanted us to know what he looked like he would have left a photograph.…

First Baptist Church

Henrietta, Mo.

I was first attracted to his picture because the manliness of it was in direct contrast to so much of the church bulletin art that, by color and line alike, picture a “milk-sop” Christ. I could say the same thing in relation to much of “classic” art.

Art appreciation can be helpful, even in the field of “religious art.” However, I think it’s particularly true here that the gauge is whether or not the art either speaks to, or speaks for, the beholder. This criterion, in this field, is as applicable to “orthodoxy” in art as it is to Functionalism.

In going back to read Dr. Roth’s article … I must disagree sharply with the basis for part of his criticism.… The “Halo treatment.” … I’m all for realism, but can portrayals of Jesus be adequate only if the pictured Christ is literally lousy? Valuing each individual as a distinctive creation of the Creator, wouldn’t Jesus have been concerned with plain hygiene and cleanliness?

North Congregational Church

New Hartford, Conn.

What a far cry from “Christian” were the criticisms of Sallman’s Head of Christ.

Until Roth, Jayne, Steele and Ortlip can come forth with a better painting that will inspire Protestants and Catholics the world over, let them be silent.

Woodstock, Ill.

Do you not think that … Roth’s statement concerning Mr. Sallman’s painting, Head of Christ, was crude?

Fairbanks, Alaska

I think Sallman’s “Head of Christ” is very evangelical Christian art. I have had visions of our Lord Jesus Christ and his painting is a very close resemblance.

San Francisco, Calif.

While Dr. Roth limits his discussion to painting, the general aesthetic principles implied may be carried over into other fields of art, for example sculpture and music. Accepting the author’s definition of painting (and we may imply sculpture) as “some kind of patterned arrangement of space,” we ask ourselves, are the landscape paintings of the Japanese and Chinese any less beautiful works of art (for they do reflect, do they not, God’s creation) than the landscapes of Corot simply because they fall outside the pale of Christian tradition? Is the Hermes of Praxitiles any less marvellous a sculpture than Michelangelo’s David, or the Athenean Parthenon less marvelous architecturally than St. Peter’s? And what will be the verdict of the symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven, to cite a small example, because they are not “religious” music, per se?

I submit, rather, that sound and line are subject only to the interpretation given them by men. In music, the examples of “secular” music converted into religious usage are too numerous to mention.… I challenge Dr. Roth, or anyone, to label a work of art as “sacred” or “secular” apart from its usage.

El Camino College, Calif.

The question posed relative to authentic, evangelical, biblical art is a good one and I personally welcome such an airing. To me it reacts as a stimulant to clearer and deeper thinking and I hope my future work will manifest benefits gathered from this.

May God richly bless you and your work is my prayer.

Chicago, Ill.

LINCOLN’S BAPTISM

I was disappointed to find … (in) Settle’s article (Feb. 3 issue) … no mention of the fact that Abraham Lincoln was immersed and became a member of a Disciples of Christ Church.

John O’Kane, a minister of the Disciples of Christ in the Springfield, Illinois, area actually baptized Abraham Lincoln. As Mr. O’Kane relates it: “On the night before Lincoln was to be baptized his wife cried all night. The matter was deferred as she thought, but soon after Lincoln and I took a buggy-ride. I baptized him in a creek near Springfield. We changed to dry clothing and returned to the city, and by his request I placed his name on the church book. He lived and died a member of the Church of Christ.”

This record has wide circulation among the Disciples of Christ. It has appeared from time to time in a number of local church publications.

First Christian Church

Lemoyne, Pa.

MORE ON THE REPUBLIC

Just a note to tell you how grateful I am to you for … “Can We Salvage the Republic?” (Mar. 3 issue). This is one of the best pieces of writing on the state of contemporary life I have seen in a long time. It is strong in substance, penetrating in its analysis, and yet it holds out the great hope of the gospel.

The National Presbyterian Church

Washington, D. C.

I believe the title could be said … “How Can We Salvage England?” The condition of our church and state are at a very low ebb spiritually. Crime is on the increase from youth to old age. The welfare state has become a social disease. Greed and grab and the lust for money and power is common knowledge. Material prosperity at the heavy cost of national deterioration.

“When nations perish in their sins, ‘tis in the Church the leprosy begins.” The open Bible is the weapon of the Church’s warfare. A spiritual revival of teaching and doctrines of the Reformation.

Milford-on-Sea, England

DETOUR

As a reader of Christianity Today I should like to say that I am not convinced that Carl McIntire is in the wrong track. He may detour at times, but who doesn’t?!!

Fairmont, Neb.

HELP FOR CLERGY

Regarding the ministers’ replies to the challenge of the sick and dying (Feb. 3 issue) my heart cried out with the poet:

Where is that spirit, Lord, which dwelt

In Abram’s breast, and sealed in Thine?

Which made Paul’s heart with sorrow melt,

And glow with energy divine?

By and large I wondered who needed the most help—the patient or the clergy. I agree that it would be hard to give the exact responses or approach we would make in a hypothetical situation, but what seemed lacking was a basic message.

Seventh-day Adventist Seminary

Washington, D. C.

The “Symposium” is one of the most inspiring articles I have ever read, and will go first to my own doctor, and then to two young friends just starting their medical careers.

Clifford Vicarage

Hereford, England

NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

Clothed in architecture of the next generation, the Brussels World’s Fair opens this week to display man’s greatest accomplishments. Within the 500 acres of “hanging roofs and walls” in Heysel Park is represented the utmost in human achievement. Theme of the first full-scale international exhibition of the nuclear era: “A declaration of faith in mankind’s ability to mold the atomic age to the ultimate advantage of all nations and peoples.”

Scientific advance sets the pattern of the fair, as symbolized by the already-famed Atomium which rises the equivalent of 30 stories above the ultra-modern roadway. For 25,000,000 fairgoers this model iron crystal magnified 150 billion times will likely be the feature they most remember, even if they are not whisked to the top-sphere restaurant by Europe’s fastest elevator or escalated between the displays of peaceful uses of atomic energy in the other spheres.

Situated in the shadow of this theme structure which speaks of technological mastery is an unimposing little building, pale blue trimmed in yellow, which represents world Protestantism. The Protestant Pavilion, in clean lines of brass, aluminum and glass, represents monumental determination, cooperation and foresight. Of the more than 200 buildings in the Brussels Fair, perhaps none represents such painstaking effort on the part of a comparative few.

All around, nations and organizations have tried to outdo each other. Superlatives will be in order during the next six months of the fair’s duration. The pace may well have been set by Baron Moens de Fernig, Belgium’s appointed commissioner general of the exhibition:

“Today, in countless areas of thought and action, human genius and creative vigor are responding to human needs. Everywhere, one finds evidence of man’s bounteous labor. How to examine this evidence anew—and to restore confidence in man’s capacity to create and prosper? The Belgian government, under the high patronage of His Majesty King Baudouin, has organized the most comprehensive moral and material stocktaking of man’s achievements ever undertaken.”

What are bounds for such keen international competition? There are hardly more bounds than those which the budgets of the individual countries themselves establish. But it is this limitation which works hard against the United States, which has only $15,000,000 to build and maintain “the largest circular building in the world with interior columns.” Across the street, the Soviet exhibit represents an outlay of some $50,000,000.

Amidst the man-made embellishments, nature will nevertheless have its place. Heysel Park’s ancient woodlands lend an appropriate backdrop to magnificent botanical garden displays, featuring more than two million individual plants.

Nor is the creativeness of man in arts omitted. The exhibit of original masterpieces of all ages and nations, on loan from galleries and collectors throughout the world, will comprise-what is described as the most comprehensive exhibit of the fine arts ever assembled under one roof. The world’s finest orchestras, opera, choral and theatrical groups will perform. There will be film festivals and ballets.

The first impression might be that this environment is no place for the Protestant Pavilion, which likely will be built and operated for less than a quarter of a million dollars, particularly in view of Catholic efforts. According to the World Council of Churches, this is the first international exhibition in which the Holy See has been represented in two distinct exhibits, both larger and more costly than the Protestant building, one representing the Church and the other the Vatican State.

This Sunday the Protestant Pavilion will be dedicated with services in four languages. The dedication will be the climax of many months of perseverance on the part of a tiny Protestant minority in Belgium (less than 100,000 in a population of about 8,500,000). The World Council is backing a drive to raise funds for the pavilion, but few outside of Belgium share the zeal of the Protestants there for their World’s Fair project.

Yet the Belgians, despite the lack of adequate support from fellow Protestants in other countries, have come up with an exhibit which as a physical plant not only compares favorably with others, but which has already won praise from architects. The chief architect of the fair has called the Protestant Pavilion one of the purest pieces of design in the entire exhibition. Credit for the design goes to M. Calame-Rosset, a Swiss who has been living in Belgium for most of his life.

In front of the building stands a 60-foot pylon topped with three crosses. The pavilion itself covers some 3,000 square feet and features a circular chapel (54 by 75 feet) and a rectangular exhibition hall (51 feet in diameter and 30 feet high). The chapel is furnished with a light oak communion table and a plain brass cross. A huge mosaic figure of Christ, made of natural hard stone by Swiss artist Peter Siebold, will hang free from the center wall and will be flanked by a second mosaic representing the people of the world.

Visitors may attend daily services in several languages. In the exhibition hall are displays of literature, inter-church aid, religious art, liturgy, evangelism and social work. Lectures and conferences will be held throughout the duration of the fair, after which the Belgians hope to move the building for use as a permanent church center.

An observer at this point could well ask: What is the message to be found at the Protestant Pavilion? What is the purpose of the exhibit and what is there to be communicated to the fairgoers? The theme of the Protestant exhibit is the new humanity, as seen in the light of Jesus Christ. This theme sets the hope of mankind in a context of supernatural grace, in contrast with the general theme of whole exhibition, with its accent on man’s ability. The optimistic notion that atomic power will be used automatically to the advantage of all nations and peoples is thus avoided. Yet there is no explicit contrast of the contemporary reliance on science with God’s not by might, not by power, but by my spirit. Nonetheless, Protestants seem not to be passive toward the general theme of the fair. Brussels offers an opportunity for a challenge, for a witness that goes beyond design and expense and display, for a chance to say that supreme confidence in the works of unredeemed man is not of God! Only as Protestantism articulates the modern man’s hope in Christ the Redeemer, will it reflect to fairgoers touring Europe the true spirit of the Reformation.

For whatever the pavilion is, much can be attributed to the inspiring leadership of the Rev. Peter Fagel, pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in Brussels. Largely because of Fagel’s vision, the one-fifth acre Protestant site was secured—and this largely on faith! The Federation of Protestant Churches of Belgium then appealed to Protestants elsewhere for help.

The project still is in dire financial straits. The World Council up until April 1 had only been able to collect half of its $100,000 responsibility. Among the donors have been the National Lutheran Council, $5,000; the Protestant Episcopal Church, $5,000; and the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the American Baptist Convention, $1,000 each. Fund-raising gimmicks have included a dance on the University of Maryland campus. Donors’ names will be listed on a Protestant Witness Roll to be delivered to the pavilion.

Protestants in other countries have helped in unusual ways. A church in Holland is lending an organ, while a Dutch firm supplied chairs. Five-color plexiglass windows have been imported from Switzerland. The aluminum walls were made in England, the floor tiles come from Italy and wall decorations from Germany.

The Christian witness at the 1958 World’s Fair will not be confined to the Protestant Pavilion. The Belgian Congo displays include portrayals of Protestant activities, as do the exhibits of Germany, Switzerland, Finland and Austria. The United Bible Societies have an exhibit all their own in a huge display board representing an open Bible as the focal point. The board will flash Bible verses in a pattern of electric lights in several languages. The Belgian Gospel Mission, a member of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, has been readying thousands of pieces of literature for distribution to fairgoers.

Hands-Off Policy

At Shannon Airport in Dublin, ground hostesses for an Irish airline refused on moral grounds to handle a consignment of an American servicemen’s magazine intended for distribution to American troops en route to Germany.

The magazine carried four pictures of an American actress which the young women hostesses considered to be in bad taste.

New Post

With this issue, Peter deVisser ends a term of service as acting managing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Mr. deVisser has held the temporary editorial post since July, 1957. Prior to that he had been general manager of the Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, for many years.

He leaves Washington and returns to Grand Rapids to become director of publications at the Zondervan Publishing House. He will continue as CHRISTIANITY TODAY news correspondent in Grand Rapids.

Emphasis On Preaching

An English clergyman says that Anglican churches in Great Britain are again emphasizing preaching.

In a Minnesota address, the Rev. George B. Duncan said that there was a time when the sacraments were given the exalted place. But now, he said, that trend has been reversed and there is a much greater emphasis on the preaching of the Word of God.

Mr. Duncan, rector of an Anglican church in London, said the response to Bible preaching has been shown in his church where he has held two services each Sunday night “to get all the people in.”

He reported that the Keswick convention, devoted to Bible teaching, attracts more than 7,000 persons in Britain each July. He is a trustee of the convention and has been making a world tour in its behalf.

Addressing several hundred ministers and students in St. Paul, Duncan said “our job is to present to people what God has to say to men, rather than what we think about God.”

Worthy Of A Probe?

American Protestants would welcome an investigation into Colombian persecution as suggested by the Jesuits’ America, says Dr. Stewart W. Herman, executive director of the Lutheran World Federation’s committee on Latin America.

A recent editorial in the national Catholic weekly proposed that a team of social scientists be appointed to make such an inquiry, possibly financed by a large foundation.

Dr. Herman said this could serve both “to establish the facts in the case and bring about better working relations” between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Columbia. “There is no doubt that Protestant elements would welcome this sort of impartial investigation being suggested … (it) would provide greater spiritual and educational benefits.”

People: Words And Events

Appointments: As Chief of Naval Chaplains, Rear Admiral George A. Rosso, Catholic, effective in June; as director of the Department of Evangelism in the United Lutheran Church in America, the Rev. J. Bruce Weaver; as superintendent of Central Methodist Mission in Sydney, Australia, Dr. Alan Walker; as general secretary of the International Society of Christian Endeavor, Harold E. Westerhoff.

Deaths: The Rev. William C. Tapper, 53, executive secretary of the Baptist General Conference in America, in Chicago; Judge John J. Parker, 72, senior judge of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and chairman of the general sponsoring committee for next fall’s Billy Graham Crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina, in Washington.

Crusade: Six days of evangelistic meetings held by evangelist Oral Roberts on Long Island with overflow crowds.

Index: Of a major portion of the Dead Sea scrolls, printed in New York by an IBM electronic computer. Some 30,000 words from the scrolls were transferred to punch cards and arranged systematically.

Grant: To Taylor University, $8,000 from the Atomic Energy Commission to establish radioisotope training program.

Buildings: A new headquarters for the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society and the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society, at Wheaton, Illinois, to be erected this year; ground already broken for a new headquarters for Church of the Brethren in Elgin, Illinois, to cost $1,500,000, ready for occupancy in a year.

Denial: Of accreditation by North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools to Christian High School of Holland, Michigan, reportedly because no shop or cooking courses are offered.

Abstinence: Observed by 21 Negro congregations in Washington with day-long church services as a boycott of department stores which have not opened sales jobs to Negroes.

God On A Stamp

Vatican art provides the religious motif for a new three-cent postage stamp.

The new American stamp, which commemorates the International Geophysical Year, will be issued in Chicago May 31. “The Creation of Man,” a masterpiece fresco by Michelangelo, is incorporated into its design. The Michelangelo fresco appears on the ceiling panel in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

Expert philatelists say this is the first time God has actually been portrayed on a postage stamp.

This week, the Old North Church (Episcopal) of Boston becomes the first church ever to be pictured on an official cancellation for United States mail. A cancellation that will incorporate a view of the church and its famous belfry will be used on all first-day covers for the 25-cent stamp picturing Paul Revere, to be issued in Boston Friday, April 18.

Merger Advances

The Joint Commission on Lutheran Unity hopes to woo more churches into its merger plan as the result of a new agreement which would bar pastors from lodge membership.

The commission announced at a meeting in Chicago last month that it would recommend a provision in the constitution of four merging Lutheran churches that would require ministers to stay out of secret societies.

Commissioners also ironed out a thorny problem of seminary supervision and set a target date for submitting a merger constitution and by-laws to the United Lutheran Church in America and the Augustana, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran and American Evangelical Lutheran churches.

Governing documents for the merged body will be submitted to the 1960 conventions of constituent churches. The merged church would have nearly three million members in six thousand congregations and would be the largest Lutheran body in the United States.

Personal Inquiries

CHRISTIANITY TODAY inquired into the current projects of some noted religious personalities. Here is a report on their latest doings:

Professor Karl Barth, 72, is striving to finish his Dogmatics. His travels and lectures are at a minimum. Barth’s home is in Basel, Switzerland.

Professor Emil Brunner, recovered from a stroke, is readying the third volume of his work on Christian doctrine (this one on the Church). Brunner lives in Zurich, Switzerland.

Warner E. Sallman, Christian artist, is completing a mural for the Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. The mural, 8 feet high and 12 feet wide, depicts a scene from Mark 2:1–12, with more than 70 people represented.

The Bay Crusade

More than 3,000 cottage prayer groups are meeting regularly in behalf of evangelist Billy Graham’s San Francisco Bay Cities Crusade opening April 27.

Some 5,000 counsellors are in training, the most ever recruited for a Graham campaign. Cooperating churches number 1200.

Six of the evangelist’s Saturday night rallies at the Cow Palace will be televised nationally over the American Broadcasting Company network.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is reported planning Spanish translations of the weekly radio program, “Hour of Decision.”

The Rev. Rogilio Archilla, Spanish interpreter for Graham in the evangelist’s recent Latin American meetings, said he had accepted a tentative request to translate and deliver the “Hour of Decision” sermons to a potential audience of 150,000,000 in Latin America, Spain, the Philippines and other Spanish-speaking areas of the world.

Mr. Graham has agreed to come to New York in September for a week-long evangelistic campaign among the city’s Spanish-speaking population, “if we in New York can get together for it,” Archilla said. He added that the Fraternity of Spanish-speaking Protestant Ministers of New York City has decided to go ahead with preparatory work for such a campaign. Archilla is pastor of the Spanish congregation of DeWitt Church in the lower East Side of Manhattan. He is a native of Puerto Rico who came to New York in 1929.

Has the current recession affected church giving? Have contributions fallen off with increased unemployment? If so, how much?

CHRISTIANITY TODAY asked its domestic correspondents for reports on fluctuations in local church treasuries.

The results of the nationwide poll showed no general pattern. The closest thing to a trend seemed to be notes of caution about future spending. Church boards were becoming a little more cautious about committing themselves to costly building programs. Individual members were not as willing to pledge amounts of money over an extended period.

Thirty Southern Baptist pastors were confronted with this question at a conference in Kansas City: “Is the recession apparent in your church offerings?”

Seven reported that their offerings were higher for the first three months of 1958 than they were for the first three months of 1957. Five of the seven said their offerings probably would have shown a larger increase if it were not for the recession. Five others reported their offerings about the same and expressed the belief they would be larger if it were not for the recession. Two reported their offerings were less, another decidedly less. The other ministers said the recession had not affected their offerings.

Of 12 churches polled in Los Angeles, all reported a drop in income this year ranging from 10 to 30 per cent.

Said the Rev. Clarence Forsberg, pastor of First Methodist Church of Eugene, Oregon:

“A number of our churches in the Northwest are receiving from $1,000 to $5,000 below a year ago.”

Some ministers observed that the pinch has been felt less in churches where there is emphasis on stewardship.

One church in Cincinnati reported that unusually bad weather coupled with a wave of influenza had a more adverse effect on receipts than did the recession.

The churches hardest hit, as expected, were in heavy industrial areas. Congregations composed mostly of white-collar workers were not as adversely affected as those with tradespeople. But psychological factors seemed to be at work to cut down spending in many regions. In South Carolina the economy leans largely upon the textile industry, which is more active than a year ago. Nevertheless, Dr. R. Archie Ellis, pastor of the 3500-member First Baptist Church of Columbia, said weekly contributions are down. He added that he did not think the income of the average member has been reduced, except for those depending on investments, but “I think they are scared.”

Many churches reported no noticeable dips in incomes. One such is the First Presbyterian Church of Oklahoma City, whose pastor adds, however, “The people are beginning to be a little bit cautious in making future plans for the church.” Members of a Seattle congregation reportedly were reluctant to sign pledges although they were continuing to give at a rate comparable to a corresponding period last year.

The administrative head of a national religious organization said he was ready to tighten belts for next year’s budget after noticing a drop in contributions.

There were notable exceptions to the reports on decreases in giving. Said the Rev. Paul Koenig, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in St. Louis:

“Offerings are up 33 per cent over last year. In March, two weeks’ regular offerings were each over $5,000, the largest in the 100-year history of this pillar of St. Louis Lutheranism. Many others of the 80 Missouri Synod congregations in St. Louis report similar increases over last year. Many of the congregations attribute this to an all-out ‘every-member stewardship drive’ last fall which asked for annual sacrificial pledges. Apparently, church members have not been hit too much in the area by unemployment and are therefore keeping their pledges.”

A similar report came from the Rev. Paul G. Stephan, pastor of the Trinity Lutheran Church of Des Moines, Iowa:

“The contributions of our constituency are 25 per cent better this year than in 1957. We do not even use the word ‘recession’ in our congregation.”

Another exception was the 743-member Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Pittsburgh. Dr. K. C. Fraser reported that his congregation last month pledged to give $63,000 for foreign missions within the next year. The figure represents a $2,000 increase over similar pledges made at the same time in 1957 and overpaid by $680. Fraser said receipts for the church maintenance fund were holding steady in spite of some unemployment among members.

Dr. Luther P. Fincke of the Point Breeze Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh reported “no discernible effects.” The First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, Calif., is not noting “any real falling-off,” according to Dr. Robert Munger, pastor.

Wesleyan Tradition

In Cincinnati, a 10-member joint merger commission of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America and the Pilgrim Holiness Church voted to recommend union of the two denominations to their quadrennial general conferences.

The commission said it found no “insuperable barriers” in the two churches’ doctrines or areas of operation which seemed to militate against a merger.

The Wesleyan denomination will hold its general conference at Fairmount, Indiana, in June of 1959; and the Pilgrim Holiness at Winona Lake, Indiana, this June.

A commission spokesman said that doctrinally the two bodies are both in the Wesleyan tradition of fundamental early Methodism. He said they have a combined membership of about 90,000 in 2,000 widely scattered congregations in the United States.

Conferees restricted their discussions to differences in church procedures important enough to influence denominational action in either body. They found that both denominations could save about $150,000 a year in operating expenses if they merged into one group.

The commission will recommend to the general conferences that they adopt as a uniting slogan: “Uniting for World Evangelism.”

Co-chairmen of the commission are Dr. W. H. Neff of Indianapolis, Indiana, general superintendent of the Pilgrim Holiness Church; and Dr. Roy S. Nicholson of Marion, Indiana, president of the Wesleyan Methodist Church.

Ratio Of Evangelism

It took an average of about 25 Methodists to win one new one in 1957.

Dr. George H. Jones, member of the Methodist General Board of Evangelism, came up with this “evangelistic ratio” after a study of membership statistics.

The Methodist Church added 378,031 new members during 1957. This figure divided into the total number of Methodists in the United States in 1956 results in a ratio of some 25 to one, meaning that on the average it took about 25 Methodists to win one new one.

Nae Meeting

The 16th annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals meets in Chicago this week.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory” is the theme of the five-day conclave at the Hotel Sherman.

NAE President Paul P. Petticord’s keynote address will approach the subject, “True Ecumenicity.”

Billy Graham will be another featured speaker, along with Dr. Stephen Paine, Dr. Albert J. Lindsey, Dr. Robert G. Lee, Dr. J. Wilbur Smith, Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Dr. Herbert S. Mekeel, Dr. J. Edwin Orr, Dr. V. Raymond Edman, and Dr. R. L. Decker.

Two nights of prayer are planned under the leadership of the Rev. Armin Gesswein, chairman of the NAE Spiritual Life Commission.

Dr. Frederick C. Fowler is convention chairman.

Blasts Denounced

The blasting of a Miami synagogue’s school recreation center was denounced by Dr. Harold E. Buell, president of the Greater Miami Council of Churches.

“This violence and the apparent prejudice lying behind it gives a bad name to our city and area and damages the influence of American democracy abroad,” he said.

Temple Beth El’s annex was lifted off its foundation last month by about a dozen sticks of dynamite planted by unidentified persons. Damage was estimated at $30,000.

On the same day the Miami building was blasted, the Nashville Jewish Community Center in Tennessee was dynamited with damage estimated at $6,000.

Jewish leaders in Florida said they feared the twin bombings may have signalled the start of a nationwide terror campaign against the Jews.

Benjamin H. Chasin, national commander of the Jewish War Veterans, wired the governors of Florida and Tennessee and the United States attorney general urging federal-state teamwork to stamp out what he called a “conspiracy reaching across statelines.”

In Nashville, the Community Relations Conference urged all law enforcement agencies to make every effort to find and arrest those responsible for the Jewish center’s bombing.

CANADA

Contingent Aid

Premier W. A. C. Bennett of British Columbia indicated that the provincial government is willing to help ship the “Sons of Freedom” to Russia if there are assurances that the Doukhober dissidents will stay away for good.

A group of “Sons” recently returned from Russia with the report that their group would be welcome on Siberian farms. The sect, which time after time has balked at governmental authority, now wants British Columbia to pay the bill for their proposed move.

The premier made it clear that before the provincial government would give any such aid it would want assurance from the Dominion government that those moving “would lose their Canadian citizenship and not come back.”

The Question

If you had the opportunity to ask President Eisenhower one question, what would that question be?

Send your suggestion for such a query to the News Editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1014 Washington Building, Washington 5, D. C.

For New Churches

The United Church of Canada spent $14,000,000 to build 196 new churches and 85 manses in 1957, according to the annual report of Dr. M. C. Macdonald, secretary of the denomination’s board of home missions.

Macdonald said plans call for 178 new churches and 59 manses in 1958 at an estimated cost of $13,000,000.

He added that the United Church will need a minimum of 40 to 50 new churches annually to keep up with an expected Canadian population rise from 17,000,000 to 27,000,000 by 1975.

The church official called for more cooperation among religious workers “to guard against the frittering away of energy and missionary funds.”

EUROPE

A Catholic Majority

The Catholic People’s Party of The Netherlands emerged with a 250,000-vote majority over the Labor Party (Socialist) in elections last month for 590 seats in the eleven Dutch provincial legislatures, thus reversing the situation at the 1956 elections.

About 6,000,000 voters went to the polls to give the Catholic Party 190 seats as against 178 for the Labor Party. The Catholic group polled about 33 per cent of the votes as compared to about 29 per cent for its nearest rival.

In an interview between the official functions in connection with the state visit of Queen Elizabeth of England, Foreign Affairs Secretary J. M. A. H. Luns, a leader of the Catholic Party, said the returns showed that “the electorate is getting fed up with being too much mothered and directed” by the four-party government.

Ghetto-Church Pressure

The pressing problems of 15 million Protestants behind the Iron Curtain in Germany’s Eastern Zone are highlighted in a new report just published in Berlin (Evangelische Kirche Jenseits der Zonengrenze, by Gunter Jacob and Christian Berg, Verlag-Lettner, 52 pp.).

Hitler’s war on Russia and American political naivete has deeded over half the land mass of Germany to intense communistic indoctrination supported by the threat of the Red Army.

The Russians can hardly execute 15 million people, and yet religion is offensive to them. Their goal is to make the church a Ghetto church. Religion is thought of as a feeling within the “soul,” or to be restricted completely to the church building, and every effort to evangelize is efficiently cut off.

To produce this Ghetto-church (which the authors say was not difficult to produce in Russia with the decadent Orthodox church) and to weaken the German Evangelical church, several measures have been adopted. In some instances evidence of a good knowledge of Marxism, plus a spirit of dedication to it, are necessary for admittance into advanced education, thus preventing any education among Christians. The church money collected by the state—a custom in Europe—has been cut in half, and the church population willfully lowered so as to diminish even more the church’s financial resources. Any new building or repairing of present structures is either denied or made very difficult.

To intensify the difficulties for Christians, a program of dedication to Communism has been instituted to parallel confirmation, and house-to-house visitation is made to conscript young people to make this act of dedication.

Enormous changes of thought are observed among Christians. The traditions of 400 years now seem to be unworkable and are no longer recognized as New Testament teaching. Foremost in this regard are the concepts of a state church and a “people’s” church. The tradition of the church tax, collected by the government, is proving to be detrimental in the present situation. Separation of church and state is no longer regarded as an American peculiarity but a vital part of New Testament faith. The immense value of the American churches’ emphasis on stewardship of time and money, and participation of the entire church in the Christian witness is also being recognized and is having its effect.

One of the most difficult problems is that of the thousands who are fleeing the Eastern Zone for the West, among them many pastors. This is regarded by the authors of this report as high treachery. Their judgment is that God can build his Kingdom in East Germany, that God is greater than the Kremlin, and that the Gospel is still the power of God, and therefore, Christians must remain in the Eastern Zone and remain faithful to the Gospel and firm in their convictions of its power.

Certainly, for the Christian brethren who must live, work and serve in such adverse circumstances, life and witness is far from easy.

B.R.

AFRICA

Kibango Simon

Back in the 1930s a prophet movement sprang up in the Bas-Congo, owing its inception to a man who once professed Christian conversion, Kibango Simon. The movement was marked by a distinctly subversive tinge, forbidding its followers to pay head tax to the government.

Many Congolese left their employment, others abandoned fields they had been cultivating under government direction. Life became so dislocated that authorities moved in to arrest adherents, including Kibango Simon himself. Many were exiled and kept under restraint in localities far removed from their original homes.

Kibango Simon was exiled to Elisabethville, where he died some 12 years later. While there followed occasional murmurings, it appeared as if the movement were dead.

Now there is a recrudescence of Kibango-ism, or to call it by its new name, Kintwadi-ism. The revival is mostly limited to the Bakongo tribe in Lower Congo, Portuguese Angola and French Equatorial Africa.

The exponents of Kintwadi-ism claim that Kibango Simon is still alive and ranks with Jesus Christ as saviour of men. They meet in groups, sometimes with leaders who give way in the proceedings to anyone who thinks he has a special message to impart. They use the Kintwadi Bible or such portions of it as fit their own special ideas and have composed words of their own to Christian tunes. They have drawn a large part of their followers from Catholic and Protestant churches. Their meetings often follow a “holy roller” pattern, the leader winding up his service in ecstatic convulsion reminiscent of the ancient witchdoctor.

Meetings at first were held only at night. Now the government has recognized the movement as a religion, permitting assemblies at any time.

The Bakongo tribe is probably the most nationalistic group in Congo. Its link with Kintwadi-ism may well give rise to a politico-religious movement.

J.M.

Evangelist Sentenced

A native evangelist on the Danish mission field in the Sudan was fined and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for having offended the Moslems by delivering a sermon on the words of Jesus: “No one cometh to the Father except by me.”

The evangelist has maintained that he said nothing hostile to the Moslem faith. He appealed the case.

Three African pastors were imprisoned at the same time, but were acquitted then filed law suits against a tribal chief for alleged slander and bad treatment in prison.

Powerful Book

The Preacher’s Task and the Stone of Stumbling, by D. T. Niles, Harper, 1957. 125 pp., $2.00.

In this review I am doing what I have never before brought myself to do, viz., recommending a book for its vital message that contains theology with which I cannot possibly agree. The author is a thoroughgoing Universalist. He denies a historical Fall of any kind. He affirms that the Cross did not enable God to forgive sins, it was only the place where Christ “exposed” sin. But he has written the most powerful book on Gospel preaching, against a missionary background, that I have ever read. His heresies seldom appear and in almost every instance could have been left out without affecting either the theme or the continuity of the book. And I found myself saying, as I read it, O that someone could edit no more than three or four pages of lines throughout!

These are the Lyman Beecher lectures for 1956–57. They take as their text the scriptural references to the “stone of stumbling” and the “rock of offense.” Examining primarily the missionary task of the Church (and the author is a great-grandson of the first Tamil convert in Ceylon), these lectures deal with the objections of a Hindu, a Moslem and a Buddhist to the Gospel.

Jesus Christ, of course, is the stone of stumbling in every case, and men stumble because they must take him as he is and not as they would like to receive him. But men stumble over him for different reasons. The Hindu would like to fit Christ into his own culture. But Christ cannot be made ours, we must become his. The Muslim would accept Jesus as a prophet, not as incarnate God. But the nature of sin demands the Incarnation, though the Muslim (including many of us) would make sin something that man can himself correct. The Buddhist would accept Christian religious “disciplines,” but not its other-worldliness. Yet Christianity is not identical with its own practices of renunciation, prayer and morality, disciplines shared by the Buddhist. Christianity is not “religion,” it is Gospel: the Good News that in the Resurrection God is still among men and at man’s disposal.

This is a powerful book. Page follows page of ringing Christian apologetic as the author shows up the universal human tendencies to adapt Jesus to culture, to gloss over the reality of sin, and to avoid the reality of the Resurrection. He writes against the background of pagan religions. But the points that he makes are applicable in First Church, Main Street, U.S.A. Particularly stimulating is a chapter in which Niles evaluates various evangelistic philosophies—from those which view evangelism as an attempt to supplant the existing religion with Christianity, to those which present Jesus Christ from the point of reconception or adjustment to the existing religious climate.

How does Niles manage to be a fervent Christian apologist and, at the same time, a Universalist? He does it by one of the most interesting feats of gymnastics that I have seen in this day of theological gymnastics. Christ, evidently, is the only answer both for time and for eternity. Eternally, all men are his. In time, all men can become his and enjoy his benefits only by obeying the uncompromised Gospel.

Niles would take into the church a low-caste Hindu who knew only that Christians have no respect of persons, and then he would teach him that it is only in Jesus Christ that he will ever understand the reason why Christians are willing to forget his low caste. But as the man already belongs to Christ and, if he thereby truly accepts him, then he, too, will come to look upon others without respect of persons. Says the author, “We believe that it is essential for the Church to evangelize, but we don’t believe that it is essential for people to be evangelized.”

What a pity to spoil a good book like that!

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

All-Out Evangelism

Evangelism in a Changing America, by Jesse M. Bader, Bethany Press, 1957. $3.00.

After 12 years of practicing evangelism in pastorates in Kansas and Missouri, 12 years serving as secretary of evangelism for the Disciples of Christ denomination, and 25 years holding the position of secretary of evangelism for the Federal Council (now National Council) of Churches, Dr. Bader speaks with the “voice of experience” on evangelism.

He has given us a comprehensive, evangelical, enthusiastic and kindly book. He emphasizes the sinfulness of men, the power of the Word of God, the place of the Holy Spirit, the incarnation, atonement and resurrection of Christ, repentance, faith, the new birth, baptism, church membership, and the necessity of prayer and witnessing.

Believing that “evangelism is the church’s first business” and that “to evangelize is the greatest work in the world” (p. 13), Dr. Bader advocates all types of evangelism, revival meetings, educational evangelism, home evangelism, visitation evangelism, military evangelism, university campus evangelism, preaching missions, rescue missions, and especially personal evangelism. He has chapters on child, youth, and adult evangelism.

He thinks that the local church should go all-out for evangelism and world missions, and should cooperate fully with community, denominational and interdenominational evangelistic programs.

His book is quite statistical. He gives the latest statistics on population growth, the churches and denominations, statistics regarding children, youth, adults, radio, television, colleges, crime, liquor, comic books, war costs, and he makes them interesting.

The conservative Christian can find little to criticize in this book. He might think that Dr. Bader is too optimistic about the various phases of evangelism going on today and too enthusiastic about the National Council’s cooperative evangelism, but certainly there is vastly more to agree with and rejoice over than otherwise in this fine book.

FARIS D. WHITESELL

Christian Realism

Least of All Saints, by Grace Irwin, Eerdmans, 1957. 251 pp., $3.50.

“The novelist’s aim is not to tell a story, to entertain and touch our hearts, but to force us to think and understand the deep and hidden significance of events.” So wrote de Maupassant.

Measured by this standard, Miss Irwin has a contribution to literature. The reader is taken underground and shown why certain complex drives and forces in a human soul can create an anomoly, a paradox. Thus “the deep and hidden significance of events” is brought to light.

Andrew Connington, 29, a veteran of World War I, receives a call to a large city church. He is an intellectual snob, a resourceful pulpiteer, the product of a liberal theological seminary. Reacting against the shallow liberalism of the 1920s, he converts his pulpit into a sounding-board for evangelical doctrine of a scholarly order. His whole appeal is necessarily to the intellect, never to the conscience. Why should a person immersed in radical skepticism wish to set forth the case for historic Christianity? Or talk to his flock about “a Being who for him was non-existent?” The answer makes for stimulating reading.

It is not always that a Christian novelist develops a situation without sermonizing, a plot without preachment, a message without moralizing. But here is a writer who does just that. And she is refreshingly free from cliches and tired platitudes. She puts her story together with skill and facility, and builds her characters with compassion. One might wish she had polished her quoted sentences, a la Hemingway, with the unobtrusive “he said” or “she said” rather than the redundant “he agreed,” “he contributed,” “Andrew inquired,” “she took up,” “he interposed.” But this is a minor criticism. On the whole Miss Irwin has done much to help lift Christian fiction out of its deplorable rut. Certainly Least of All Saints ought to furnish an exhilarating challenge to the school of young Protestant writers.

There is romance too. Cecily is someone you know. She’s not the saccharine sweet type, the formal feminine profile without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but completely natural, and therefore believable.

And the last page has for you a unique twist. The fade-out which is quite surprising, is Christian realism at its best. With the touch of a Rembrandt, the writer has called into play the contrasting principles of light and shadow, and woven them into a scene that will live with you long after you put the book down.

HENRY W. CORAY

On Human Fear

Prescription for Anxiety, by Leslie D. Weatherhead, Abingdon, 1956. $2.50.

In an introductory note careful distinction is made between fear and anxiety. The author calls the first “a God-given response to danger,” a danger that is focal. On the other hand, anxiety comes when one feels terror and helplessness with no definite foci. “A patient with an anxiety neurosis feels afraid without being able to say what makes him afraid” (p. 16).

The book is written with a warm sympathy for human suffering, by one who has had much experience in pastoral counseling. The causes of anxiety are dealt with. The place of confession as a therapeutic means is given large place, and suggestions of what and how and when to confess.

Help from the spiritual world is shown to be available and this is the final stress of the book. It is assumed that if and when anxiety-ridden souls sense the “reality and ultimate friendliness of the spiritual world—the world all around us,” they will put themselves en rapport with the heaven that everywhere about them lies and find the grand solution to all unsolved problems by realizing that Someone has the solution and will take care of it for them.

Weatherhead of course believes that every man must bear his own burden. He is not so visionary as to say that all anxiety vanishes with complete commitment. But the general idea certainly is that everything becomes delightfully tolerable that still must be borne, and that if we commit it with the best of our understanding all unnamed fears will flee.

This book must be read with rare insight in order that one not fall ultimately into a slough of disillusionment. For a bitter fact of life is that there is no solution to the problems of anxiety outside of the gospel personally accepted and fully understood and constantly appropriated. If one is a discerning Christian he will find much in Weatherhead’s book that he can use, for the simple reason that in such a case he has the inner resources of the Holy Spirit. But the danger is that a person who is not yet born again will seek to employ these indicated spiritual panaceas and find they do not work.

To those who do not yet realize and live by that which Christ came to earth to give, this volume has no message. To those who are the Body of Christ the book may speak of their need of more constant commitment to the One all-sufficient to banish all sorts of fear.

WALTER VAIL WATSON

Modern View

Understanding the Old Testament, by Bernhard W. Anderson, Prentice-Hall, 1957. $7.95. Understanding the New Testament, by Howard Clark Lee and Franklin W. Young, Prentice-Hall, 1957. $7.95.

These handsome volumes, designed as textbooks for the college and seminary levels, present the modern view of the Bible as persuasively as style and technique can make possible. Embellished with numerous maps, charts, illustrations, etc., these sister books win half of the student’s mind by the mere force of their physical format and attractiveness. Liberals will naturally glory in the addition of these works to an extensive literature already existing on their side.

The conservative Christian and biblical scholar will receive these contributions with mixed emotions. He will admire the beauty of the casket and all of its external adornments, but will look loathingly at the corpse which it contains—the corpse of German rationalism of the nineteenth century now “touched up” and “colored” (as if still alive!) by American neo-orthodoxy.

Understanding the Old Testament, for example, is simply a popular presentation of the critical view of the Bible associated with the names of Driver and Pfeiffer and their lesser satellites. Or, to put it another way, one will find here a condensation of the views set forth in Interpreter’s Bible. The author runs up and down the whole vocabulary of “higher criticism.” Such words as “colored” (pp. 31, 62, 130, 438), “borrowed” (pp. 90, 158, 453, 468, 472), “touched up” (pp. 145, 180, 218, 433, 478), “exaggerated” (pp. 45, 81, 83, 84, 295), etc., are applied quite freely to the history and literature of the Old Testament. The student will learn of the “legends,” “folklore,” “blunders,” “inaccuracies,” “embellishments,” “theological bias,” and “propaganda” which Dr. Anderson characteristically imputes to the biblical authors and their writings.

After sailing through the turbulent waters of Understanding the Old Testament our ship of faith finds no rest in the equally tempestuous billows of Lee-Young’s Understanding the New Testament. Here, surely, we ought to find some hope that is stedfast and sure! No, the Christian community becomes the ultimate authority in New Testament history and literature. It is that body that “creates” a story (pp. 90 f), or places something upon the lips of Jesus (p. 127), or reworks a tradition (pp. 163,165), or uses mythological language (p. 397).

The reading of these pages—over 1,000 in the two volumes—convinces us that the liberalism of neo-orthodoxy is just as destructive of the Bible’s authority and uniqueness as the older liberalism ever was. Nowhere in all these pages do we find the thought that the prophets and apostles were men who were inspired with an authoritative message from God which was recorded accurately in the sacred pages of Holy Writ. Rather, the Bible becomes in the hands of the Anderson-Lee-Young school a very fallible book which, perchance, contains a message somewhere from Deity. It will be difficult for this reviewer to understand how either of these Understandings will make the Bible more understandable, in its avowed supernatural features, to those young men and young women who, in our tragic times, are seeking for light and life in the only book that professes to be God’s final message to man.

WICK BROOMALL

Classic Treatment

Exposition of the Epistle of James, by Thomas Manton, Sovereign Grace Book Club. 454 pp., $4.50.

What Pusey is to the Minor Prophets and C.H.M. to the Pentateuch, so Manton is to the Epistle of James. This is a reprint, of course, as Dr. Manton did his writing during the seventeenth century, but it will be welcomed by any who like to collect the best.

The author writes, as may be expected, in the grand manner of the seventeenth century. And one occasionally wishes that he had managed to have his say in fewer words. But the material is rich and suggestive, especially from the homiletical standpoint.

As the Epistle of James, by the way, is the classic New Testament treatment of the place of works within the framework of faith, a pointed, suggestive exposition done in the modern manner is very much needed today. The implications of faith vs. works for modern theology are almost unlimited.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Thrilling Life Story

Dr. Sa’eed of Iran, by Jay M. Rasooli and Cady H. Allen, Grand Rapids International Publications, 1957. 189 pp., $2.95.

The word “thrilling” is much overused in our day, but there seems to be no other way to characterize the life story of this great servant of Christ. From the time he left the Moslem faith of his fathers to give his heart to Jesus Christ, this Kurdish doctor was almost constantly in the midst of difficulties and dangers, and the record of his deliverance from them makes great reading.

Dr. Sa’eed ministered to the high and to the lowly, and always seems to have borne a sweet witness for his Lord. His medical skill was in constant demand; his travels took him far and wide, and everywhere he went he ministered the Gospel of Christ in effective fashion. Although often threatened, and repeatedly in danger, he was strengthened by his simple faith in the Lord’s keeping power, and his life was a blessing to untold numbers.

Recognized for his medical and surgical proficiency, Dr. Sa’eed was respected by many great doctors, and he became friends with Sir William Osler and Dr. Harvey Cushing. He spent himself without limit in the service of Christ and of his fellow men, and his biography is certain to bring a challenge to many readers.

H. L. FENTON, JR.

Reverent Testimony

At the Foot of the Cross, by an imprisoned pastor behind the Iron Curtain, Augsburg, 1958. 210 pp., $3.00.

This book of Lenten meditations surveys the scenes and events of our Lord’s Passion from the viewpoint of a humble believer kneeling at the foot of the cross. It is written in the form of an informal monologue. The informality, however, is not of the irreverent and offensive kind which we encounter among many modern Christians. On the contrary, it simply bears witness to the remarkable spiritual intimacy which one friend shares with the Master.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to justify the lavish praise which attended the recent publication of this book. In commending it to the public, one well-known leader rated it the best selection for the Easter season that has crossed his desk in a decade. After reading it himself, this reviewer is not nearly that enthusiastic. This is not to say that the book is altogether void of value. Here and there one finds an occasional spark of fresh insight, especially in the places where the author makes the ancient persons and scenes contemporaneous with the present. But the real value of the book lies in its vibrant testimony to the fact that simple and sincere Christian faith and love are stronger than even the bars of a communist cell. Perhaps that, if little else, makes it worth reading.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

In 1956 there appeared in Germany a Roman Catholic book by F. Richter dealing with two outstanding figures in the history of the Church, namely, Martin Luther and Ignatius Loyola. These two personalities were, in truth, inhabitants of two different worlds, and it is always dangerous to undertake a comparison of two such utterly different historical figures. But they did live in the same period and as such they had a common historical background.

Luther was born in 1483 and Loyola in 1491, and each of them experienced a definite, determining turning-point in his life, which in Luther led to the Reformation of 1517 and in Loyola to the establishment of the Society of Jesus. Luther became the Reformer, and Loyola the founder of the Jesuit order and the leader of the Counter-Reformation.

Both Luther and Loyola were occupied primarily with affairs of the Church, and Richter, the author of the book mentioned, points to the fact that the element of prayer and the reading of Holy Scripture had a large place in the life of both of these great men. And although the author is a Roman Catholic, he acknowledges that Luther had great ideals and ambitions and that he strove for these with remarkable enthusiasm and drive.

However, he does want to picture the antithesis of the two men and, specifically, he wants to defend Loyola over against the many critics who later arose to castigate the Jesuits and their morality, and in the course of his book, therefore, we find Loyola pictured the more brightly, while the shadows often fall over the picture of Luther. For no matter how well Luther may have intended, the conclusion comes to this, that he had destroyed the fundamentals of the Church.

What may have been good in Luther, says Richter, he had carried with him out of the Roman Catholic church. But this was wiped out through his rebellion, his attack upon the mystery of the Church; while in Ignatius the most noteworthy characteristic is exactly his great loyalty. From the time that he founded the Jesuit order in 1540, his whole life was spent in the service of the honor of God and the Church. Loyola strove for the restoration of the Church, which was shaken to its foundations by the Reformation, and he tried to find a new way of life for Christendom, for Christendom that should conquer the world. He became the man of complete and strict discipline, of total dedication, and to this Luther is pictured in sharp contrast as the man of the autonomy of conscience, from which idea later Protestantism has not been able to free itself.

None of this, indeed, is new, but it is certainly portrayed in a captivating manner by way of this contrast: Luther versus Loyola. The picture that is painted of Ignatius Loyola reminds us of other new contemporary studies, e.g., by Hugo Rahner, and whoever follows the trail of the spiritual exercises of Loyola in the new translations from the Spanish, once and again comes under the impression of the passionate inspirations that led him on the path to the Counter-Reformation.

But especially one is impressed with the fact that men could give such a varied form to the “soli deo gloria” that also played such a determining role in the life of Luther and Calvin. It has been within the acceptance of this “soli deo gloria” that the deep-running differences come to the fore.

The author of this book sees the important difference especially in the “revolution-idea” that he feels can be ascribed to the entire Reformation movement. And although he wishes to acknowledge that in the Reformers religious motives did indeed play a certain role, he does wish to point out that these motives were overshadowed and negated by their rebellion, by their attack on the great mystery, the Church, which is the creation of God and is not to be violated.

The consequences of this he sees in a tendency to self-destruction which he asserts he observes everywhere in Protestantism. According to him there is only one reason to account for this: the tearing apart of the body of Christ and through this the estrangement or dissipation of the enormous powers of Christ himself. This is a specifically Roman Catholic vision, that flows forth directly from their doctrine of the Church, in which, despite all the sins of the church, even of the popes, although not accepted as such, that also the Church—yes, exactly the Church—should stand under the discipline and normativity of the Word of God, under the scepter of the Head of the Church. And it is just at this point that ever again the great controversy between Rome and the Reformation comes into view, and to which issue both Luther and Calvin joined their weightiest protestations.

It will certainly amaze any reader of this book that it closes with a chapter on the subject of Luther and Loyola as forerunners toward unity. We ask ourselves immediately, both? Not alone Ignatius, but also Luther? Does here a new ecumenical insight break through the aforementioned contrast?

The answer to this question must be negative for we read that although both sought unity, the way in which Luther sought it was not to be attained. And thereupon the author makes a call for the unity of the West over against the antichrist-like dictator of the East, who makes it imperative that the Church should be one. This calls for complete “obedience.”

Whenever we think of the dangerous situation in which the world finds itself, we can understand the Roman Catholic call for speedy decision. But it is likewise plain that in this call to return to the mother church, nothing is decided and no single problem is solved. For if we are called to “obedience,” we must remember that it was exactly with obedience that the Reformation concerned itself. The pathetic thing in this historic break is that the Reformation does not acknowledge as a true and biblical obedience the Roman Catholic view, because it has no room for the permanent subjection of the entire Church under the discipline of the Gospel as an always-new divine command.

The only possible answer to the call for unity and obedience that we hear nowadays from the Roman Catholic side, must be a clear and unmistakable witness from Protestantism, in both word and deed, from which it will be clearly shown that the Reformation was not a matter of rebellion, but that it only wanted to bring back to mind the reality of the Church as it was described by the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. 10:5). Only in this way will it be possible to work for the unity of the Church and not to fear for the future. True, the overwhelming tensions in the world call for unity—but then unity in this sense, in which the word of the Apostle Paul comes to a daily reality in the entire Church, the Church under the sceptre of her only Lord.