IN SURVEYING current religious periodicals we note with pleasure that two solid theological journals have recently given serious attention to what is usually thought of as a light or popular subject—the movies. If there is any lightness in the subject, there is surely no lightness in the treatment it receives in the Jesuit Quarterly Theological Studies (September, 1957), nor in the Protestant Theology Today (October 1957). The article, “The Legion of Decency,” by Fathers Gerald Kelly and John C. Ford, and “Theology and the Movies,” by Malcolm Boyd, Tutor Assistant at Union Theological Seminary, New York, assume the moral legitimacy of the cinema. Neither shares the not infrequently taken position that movies are evil per se and, therefore, to be avoided completely.

Apart from this concurrence on the legitimacy of movies, the two articles diverge throughout. This divergence, however, is not one of obvious conflict so much as complementation. The Legion of Decency article is concerned especially with what is evil and to be censured and avoided in the movies, while the Protestant article is occupied exclusively with the values of the movies, nowhere dealing directly with the possibility that any movies are to be blacklisted.

Because of its nature, we will consider the Jesuit essay first. “The Legion of Decency emerged as a social reality in 1934.” (The historical data of this article is based on a highly recommended thesis by Father Paul W. Facey, S.J.). Some years prior there had been widespread discontent with the moral quality of movies and the lives of the actors. Our writers admit that this early concern was largely among non-Romanists. “And it may be said to the credit of non-Catholics that their own efforts toward this goal antedated the efforts of organized Catholic bodies.” On the other hand, we suppose that most Protestants would grant the Roman claim that “the Catholic contribution was that in the very structure of the Church there existed a power of mobilizing public opinion that no other religious or social group possessed.”

In its initial push, the Legion enlisted more than seven million pledges from Romanists. These pledges promised not only to oppose vile motion pictures and seek the support of others in condemning them, but said, “Considering these evils, I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality.” A shorter form of the pledge which is still in use today includes this statement: “As a member of the Legion of Decency, I pledge myself to remain away from them” (indecent and immoral pictures, and those which glorify crime and criminals).… I promise, further, to stay away altogether from places of amusement which show them as a matter of policy.” The crusade, in which many non-Romanists joined, was successful at the box office and the movies really accepted a “Production Code.”

As this crusade against “indecent and immoral pictures” progressed, the need for a definition of such terms became apparent. The difficulty of such definition also became apparent and none realized it more than those who were drafted to do the defining. The article is very full in its treatment of this problem, but we may mention here only what seems to be a sort of ultimate classification. It seems that hundreds of “reviewers” to judge the moral merits of movies appeared, and “besides the reviewers, there was a committee of consultors, made up of sixteen priests and thirteen laymen.… The final decision on the rating was left to the executive secretary (apparently of the committee of consultors). A fourfold classification evolved: A-I—Morally unobjectionable for General Patronage. A-II—Morally Unobjectionable for Adults. B—Morally Objectionable in Part for All. C—Condemned. A result was that though C pictures decidedly declined in number, there was actually an increase in the B pictures.

This increase led to a revision of the Production Code. “The old code forbade the treatment of miscegenation; the revision has nothing explicit on this subject. On the other hand, the first code had nothing explicit about blasphemy, whereas the new code states: ‘Blasphemy is forbidden. Reference to the Deity, God, Lord, Jesus, Christ, shall not be irreverent.’ The old code said nothing about mercy killing; the new code provides: ‘Mercy killing shall never be made to seem right or permissible.’ ” Brothels “in any clear identification as such may not be shown.” Certain types of kisses are prohibited.

In the above-mentioned article there is frequent reminder that movies are often very useful—good movies that is. This usefulness is the emphasis in the article by Malcolm Boyd—and he apparently does not exclude what the Legion of Decency would grade as C. Movies provide a point of contact for religion. They often by “negative witness” poignantly express the loneliness and sorrow of secular life. “In the movie Country Girl, Bing Crosby tries despairingly to justify himself, while at the same time fighting with all his might against the fact of his justification lying outside of himself, that is, only in Christ. This was never said; the film bore no ‘religious’ markings; not more than one out of a hundred persons who saw the film even considered that there might be an iceberg of Christian relevance underneath its slick surface.” Country Girl dealt with a drunkard, but Lust for Life, the screen treatment of Vincent Van Gogh’s life, has a scene in a bordello; it frankly reveals the life of Van Gogh with his mistress who was a former prostitute; it shows much drinking and uncontrolled emotion and it even shows up the sham of an institutional, bourgeois church which had so far failed to be the Body of Christ that it had forgotten to love humanity or to have mercy upon it. This is a ‘religious’ motion picture, containing genuine religious insights and pointing to values beyond itself.” The script called for verboten references to ‘nigger’ and ‘dago’ and ‘wop.’ This must be commended, for it mirrors truly a cancerous growth in American life which cannot be healed until it is diagnosed. Since people use such epithets to refer to their brother human beings created along with themselves in the image of God, why not face the truth in the art form of the cinema?”

As indicated, Mr. Boyd gives a somewhat caustic appraisal of so-called religious movies. This is not because he is opposed to the idea, but because his idea is broader than most of those who use the expression. He sees much that is spurious in religious films and much that is genuine in non-religious films.

Any adequate criterion of these articles would require a great deal of space and we have left not even a little. It seems to us that there is true and false, good and evil, in each article. We leave the reader to judge for himself.

Biblical Perspective

The Secret of Radiant Life, by W. E. Sangster, Abingdon, 1957. $3.00.

The author, formerly minister of Westminster Central Hall in London, has a large following on both sides of the Atlantic. He will endear himself to many more who meet him for the first time on these pages.

“The Secret of Radiant Life” is a volume long overdue. For some time Americans have stormed the book stands for a wide variety of selections on The Art of Happy Living and kindred themes. In most instances they have been sold short by promoters of the “Do It Yourself” Cult. Dr. Sangster writes on this subject from a perspective which is manifestly and refreshingly biblical. He rightly emphasizes that the radiant life is not the crowning accomplishment of human effort but the mind of Christ achieving itself anew in human personalities. It is therefore a gift of divine grace communicated to the believer by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Yet it is not automatically conferred. While man cannot manufacture it, he nevertheless must exercise conscious effort in the direction of a total surrender of his whole being. “To have the mind of Christ we must give him our mind.”

In addition to theory there are practical suggestions and meditations here which aid in a fuller appropriation of the mind of Christ. The reader will find among these meditations some novel methods of prayer and Bible study which will remove the dullness and drabness from his own routine.

One further emphasis is worthy of note. The author warns that if the mind of Christ is sought selfishly the quest will end in disappointment. The grace is given only to be shared. It is poured, not into reservoirs, but into living channels.

We recommend Dr. Sangster’s book universally because it is rooted in the biblical concepts of sin and grace and because it is eminently useful in enriching the life of Christians.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Sane And Sound

The Dead Sea Scrolls, by Charles F. Pfeiffer. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids. $2.50.

Here is another useful introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls. All who write on this subject are much indebted to the legion of their fellow scroll enthusiasts and Dr. Pfeiffer, a recent graduate of the Dropsie College of Hebrew and Cognate Learning and now Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at Moody Bible Institute, exhibits commendable modesty in acknowledging his debts, especially to Millar Burrows’ The Dead Sea Scrolls.

All the ground is covered in this survey—the story of the discoveries, the Qumran community, the contents of the scrolls, the questions of their date, historical background and their relevance for biblical studies and Christian origins. The over-all treatment is uneven, however (42 of the approximately 92 pages of text are devoted to the chapter on “The Sectarian Scrolls”) and, therefore, the discussion of some matters is exceedingly brief. In style the presentation is somewhat encyclopedic—in contrast, for example, to F. F. Bruce’s volume which carries the reader along more lightly over about the same terrain.

The author achieves his stated aim of presenting an “objective and dispassionate” survey of the scrolls and their significance. He labors no particular thesis. Making his way through the many knotty problems he repeatedly succeeds in laying his finger on the decisive point, yet states his conclusions with scholarly restraint. In gauging the significance of the scrolls for biblical studies Pfeiffer is sanely conservative and his judgments on the relevance of the scrolls for Christianity are theologically sound—and that is a welcome change from much of the mushrooming literature on this subject.

MEREDITH G. KLINE

Religious Fire

The Great Awakening in New England, by Edwin Scott Gaustad, Harper, 1957. $3.00.

Here is a careful study of the Great Awakening—a religious fire which swept the American colonies in the 1740’s. The author limits his study to the Awakening in New England, but this phase is of profound importance for understanding the spread and character of Christianity in the entire United States.

Gaustad’s book on the Great Awakening (his first published work) is not an exhaustive chronicle or detailed narrative. The main figures and phases of the Awakening are introduced, but they pass in brief review and only when they are relevant to the author’s thesis. One must look elsewhere for a closer introduction to Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent and Charles Chauncy. But, as it stands, this new survey is a first-rate appraisal of an important event in American history; no student of its church history can afford to neglect it.

The Great Awakening in New England was at its peak in 1741–42. In the first chapter, Gaustad sketches the Puritan background; in the following four chapters he gives highlights of the revival’s rise and fall, and the three final chapters indicate three consequences of the Awakening—personal, institutional and theological.

Exception may be taken to the statement on page 85 that Yale College was “the coldest, darkest corner of New England” in Great Awakening days. New Haven may not have known the excitement that swept through a place like Northampton, but there must have been far “colder, darker” corners. Witness the effect that the revival had on New Haven and Yale—church attendance surged, trustees were hard put to keep things running normally at Yale College, and the visits of Whitefield, Tennent, and Edwards produced no small stir. Indeed, it was at Yale that Samuel Buell was aroused to his provocative ministry as an itinerant evangelist, that David Brainerd was inspired to go from room to room in students’ quarters to confront classmates with the demands of faith and repentance, and that Samuel Hopkins—himself destined to become one of Edwards’ most influential followers and New England’s first systematic theologian—was brought to conversion. Surely, this could not have been in New England’s “darkest, coldest corner.”

The book would be stronger if more space had been devoted to showing the connection of the revival to subsequent developments in American Calvinism, to the Harvard-Yale-Andover-Hartford series of events which led at last to the repudiation of New England Theology and the acceptance of theories based on higher critical, evolutionary and rationalistic hypotheses.

DICK L. VAN HALSEMA

Christ Not Marx

Marx Meets Christ, by Frank Wilson Price, Westminster, Philadelphia. $3.50.

In the judgment of this reviewer this is the finest book yet written on the conflict between Communism and Christianity. Dr. Price does not write from theory, from unsupported opinions or from an unreasoned prejudice; rather he has read and digested Marx’s writings, has seen his theories put into practice, compared the man Marx with the Lord Jesus Christ, Communism with Christianity, and come up with the most incisive and devastating analysis it has yet been our privilege to read.

Marx Meets Christ is divided into four sections: I. Two Persons Meet; II. Two Ideas Meet; III. Two Systems Meet; and IV. Two Faiths Meet.

With some of the views expressed by Dr. Price we do not concur, particularly his rather obvious feeling that the ideal government towards which Christianity should work is some form of modified socialism. There are various countries today in which one may study modified socialism but in every case the nation has emerged in a weakened state and its people with security bought at too great a price.

Having made these reservations we go on to say that in repeated comparisons Dr. Price comes out clearly and unequivocally for the triumphant and living Christ and convicts Marx on every count. In fact, this book has more voluminous quotations from the writings of Marx, with incisive refutations accompanying them, than any other book of comparable size we know of. In addition, the actual applications of Communistic principles and the techniques employed and the results attained are shown up in the refreshing light of immediate effects and eventual by-products, so much so that readers with any possible illusions as to the usefulness of Communism should have them dispelled once and for all.

In Section II, “Two Ideas Meet,” we read:

Marxism would change systems, then mass man; Christianity seeks to transform both individual men in their societies and, through them, the systems and structures of society.… Communistic violence turns the sword first against the enemy class (everyone except the workers); Christian love turns the sword first against evil in oneself. Christ was sure that the gentle, brave, and loving would possess the earth rather than the fierce, cruel and hateful (p. 74).… Marx’s faith that a new social system will automatically change all human nature in it from greed to cooperation, from parasitism to hard work, from evil to good, is a naive, unscientific, and, we add, unchristian view of the nature of man (p. 77).… Jesus Christ gave men a social hope for this world and for the world to come, partial hope for this age of history and a perfect hope for history beyond history. The Kingdom of God—the rule of God—is being realized in measure now and could be realized far more; but it is Christian realism to admit that it can never be fully realized in space and time as we mortals know them (p. 78).

Section III, “Two Systems Meet.” Dr. Price repeatedly states the only too often overlooked fact that Communism never changes in its ultimate objectives. For tactical purposes there may be retreats and flank movements.

From time to time Communist leaders enlarge the area in which they will maneuver and thus make it somewhat easier for other groups to deal with them (we are in such a period today), but never has there been any serious deviation from basic theory or from main lines of strategy that the Communistic power bloc deems essential to its present and future interests (p. 94).

One startling statement is found with reference to the absolutism within the Communist system:

It is more difficult to join the Communist Party today than to join a Christian church body. For this reason the number of fellow travelers far exceeds the actual registered membership in Communist parties. With all of this voluntary, enthusiastic assistance, the Communists are able to move swiftly into political vacuums.… Even peoples who love liberty do not realize how much a Communist government that brings certain reforms can crush that liberty. The Chinese people today are a vivid illustration.

Dr. Price brings out the exceeding dangerous cleverness often exhibited by the Communists: “The means that the Communists select are generally clever, diabolically clever, and at times frighteningly efficacious” and this is because they are “not inhibited by any personal compunctions, democratic ideals, or religious standards of the non-Communistic world” (p. 96). Speaking of their strategy Dr. Price tells how they exploit situations, attach their cause to popular movements and legitimate national aspirations and even use religion and religious ideals as a cover for Communist efforts. He tells of their infiltration and subversive activities, their zigzag tactics, their propaganda methods through highly trained professionals, their seizing of all media of public information when possible: “Those who have lived always in countries with relative freedom of thought can hardly understand the demonic force and hypnotic influence of Marxian ‘advertising’ ” (p. 120).

Section IV, “Two Faiths Meet.” This is clearly expressed in these words:

But Marxism is also a faith-inspiring creed, in a sense a perversion of Christianity, a twisted plagiarism from the Bible; in another sense a violent reaction against Christianity and return to pagan religion. Or we may call it a new humanitarian religion in which the deification of man has followed the denial of God (p. 136).… It is impossible, or next to impossible, to be a member of the Christian Church and the Communist Party at the same time (p. 139).

To read Marx Meets Christ is to realize afresh that it is Christ, not Marx, who has the answer to the individual and corporate needs of all mankind.

L. NELSON BELL

Heritage Piece

The “Old Colony” of New Plymouth, by Samuel Eliot Morison, Knopf, New York, 1956. $3.50.

This is a wonderful book by one of America’s great modern historians, who, perhaps in this book more than in any of his other 24 volumes, has displayed his gifts as a superb storyteller. The story he tells is old and familiar: the coming of the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620. But with what artistry he tells it, and with what fascinating new detail, and with what aliveness and simplicity! No wonder the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation has already given it its Annual Children’s Book Award “for special excellence.”

Of special note is the high spiritual tone with which this book begins and continues to its very end. There is no muckraking here, no debunking. Nor does the author indulge in the sentimental vagaries and half-truths of blind hero worship. One gets the definite impression that the early Pilgrims were seriously and soberly set upon the business of being just that: Pilgrims. And the deep faith which inspired them to begin their venture, and sustained them through it, shines through with great clarity.

In many respects Plymouth Colony was the most balanced of all the English colonies in New England, never knowing the extremes of Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, or New Haven. And Professor Morison has given us and our children such a readable and balanced account of Plymouth, and such an astute evaluation of what America owes to it religiously and politically, that one lays down his book with much reassurance that the foundation of the American way of life was good. In its remembrance and in the continuation of the spirit and faith in which it was established lies our national hope.

DAVID W. BAKER

Literary Work

Newman: Prose and Poetry, selected by Geoffrey Tillotson, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1957. 30s.

Quite apart from being one of the most controversial figures of last century, John Henry Newman was a master of fine English prose. In this fat and excellently produced volume (one of the Reynard Library series of reprints) Mr. Geoffrey Tillotson has not given us an anthology, but instead has brought together some of Newman’s longer works in extenso, in particular the propagandist novel entitled Loss and Gain, the Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education and the History of My Religious Opinions (better known as the Apologia pro Vita Sua). Added to these there is The Tamworth Reading Room, selections of four sermons and eight letters and a number of verses. In view of the great amount of material available one cannot help feeling that, with the exception of the Apologia, something more in the nature of an anthology would have been preferable; and surely Newman’s letters could with advantage have played a more prominent part in a volume of this nature. It is entertaining to find one so intimately bound to Oxford as Newman was writing in one of these latter, with reference to a visit to Cambridge: “My allegiance to Oxford was shaken by the extreme beauty of this place.” In another he confesses that the only master of style he ever had was Cicero.

To read Newman’s Apologia again after an interval of a good many years is a forcible but also fascinating reminder of the mental and psychological tortuosities of this strange and somewhat pathetic cleric. Though brought up in an Evangelical home, even as a child he was very superstitious and, until an experience of conversion at the age of fifteen, used constantly to cross himself on going into the dark. Of Hurrell Froude, John Keble’s pupil and friend, he says: “He taught me to look with admiration towards the Church of Rome and in the same degree to dislike the Reformation. He fixed deep in me the idea of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe in the Real Presence.” A visit to Rome, including two calls on Cardinal Wiseman, in 1833 convinced him that he had “a work to do in England.” Having grown up with the belief that the Pope was Antichrist, Newman was coming to embrace a very different opinion. The desire to reconcile Romish dogma with the teaching of the Thirty-Nine Articles led up to the publication, in February 1841, of the notorious Tract 90. “Alas!” he exclaims, “it was my portion for whole years to remain without any satisfactory basis for my religious profession, in a state of moral sickness, neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor able to go to Rome.” The Via Media of Anglo-Catholicism failed to satisfy the hopes he had entertained of it. Then in 1843 he took “two very significant steps”: in February he made a formal retractation of all the hard things he had previously said against the Church of Rome; and in September he resigned the living of the University Church of St. Mary’s at Oxford. At last, two years later, there came his expected desertion of the Church of England for the Roman allegiance. What “Kindly Light” led him amid that “encircling gloom” it is difficult to imagine. (The famous hymn, incidentally, contrary to popular misconceptions, had been written years before, in 1833.)

“The things chosen are among those which most obviously interest the general reader,” explains Mr. Tillotson in his Introduction, “but it would be wrong to consider them as more literary than those I have passed over”; indeed, as he goes on to point out, “Newman is always literary, even, all things considered, when he is most narrowly ecclesiastical.”

PHILIP EDGCUMBE HUGHES

New Testament Church

Israel and the New Covenant, by Roderick Campbell, Presbyterian and Reformed, Philadelphia. $3.75.

The early chapters of this book set forth the position, privileges and blessings that accrued to Old Testament Israel under the Abrahamic and Sinaitic covenants, and the much greater blessings which under the New Covenant accrue to the Christian Church. The promise spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was: “Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.… I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their hearts will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (31:31–34).

This New Covenant, our author says, was established by Christ with the “faithful remnant” among the Jews who recognized him as the long promised Messiah and as the rightful King of Israel. This group became the nucleus of the New Testament Church, the true and lawful successor of Old Testament Israel, and as such the rightful heir to all of the unfulfilled prophecies and promises that related to Israel.

In harmony with Paul’s statements that, “They that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham,” and, “If ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:7, 29), the true Israel is no longer composed of the Jewish people as an ethnic group, but of all true believers in Christ. The writer affirms that the task assigned to the Church in the Great Commission is that of winning the entire world for Christ, and that that task can be accomplished during the present age with the means now at the disposal of the Church, namely, through the preaching of the Gospel and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. He refers to “those bright promises of world-wide salvation which sparkle like stars in the firmament of Holy Writ.”

The Church is represented as not yet having taken seriously the command to go and evangelize the whole world, nor as having in any adequate way laid hold on those resources that God has placed at her command. Instead, she is seen as ignoring the plainly stated fact that Satan is already a defeated foe, that he is “on a chain,” and that he can do only what he is permitted by God to do. The viewpoint of the book is therefore post-millennial.

The author’s treatment of the subject of prophecy is particularly enlightening. Chapter 8, entitled “Coming in the Clouds,” gives many helpful insights regarding the interpretation of Matthew 24, a portion of Scripture that has caused the commentators no little trouble. Much of the discussion moves within the realm of eschatology.

This is a worthwhile book. The author is well read, and he writes as an authority in his field. The reader gains a much clearer knowledge of God’s dealings with his people in all ages, and feels himself uplifted and edified as he peruses these pages.

LORAINE BOETTNER

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matt. 6:33).

How gracious and comforting is this assurance of the blessed Jesus, that, in heartily seeking what is most estimable and durable, we go the way to find not only that Jewel, which is above all price, but to have added to it in abundance all the desirable jewels of lesser value. To seek the kingdom of heaven by faith in the merits of Christ, and, through the sanctifying gift of the grace of the Holy Spirit, in righteousness and true holiness, is the paramount duty, which every man owes to himself; and all other objects comparatively are utterly unworthy of his devoted attention, otherwise than subserviently to that end and aim.

Proper Seeking

It is only the wantonly presumptuous who, in mockery of God, would reap without sowing; and seeking first the perishable riches of earth, fondly imagines that the eternal good will be added to him over and above.

RUDOLF STIER

Seek it in faith, with prayers, with tears, with reformation. Seek it first; let no worldly thing stand in your thoughts worthy preferment to it. Seek it with disregard and a holy contempt of other things: for this once come, they will be added to you.

THOMAS ADAMS

Learn to covet spiritual things, labor for the meat that perisheth not. Lay hold upon eternal life, whatever you let go. Temporal things are mutable and momentary, mixed and infected with care in getting, fear in keeping, grief in losing. Besides, they are insufficient and unsatisfactory, and many times prove instruments of vice, and hinderances from heaven. Spiritual things, on the other side, are solid and substantial, serving to a life that is supernatural, and supernal. They are also certain and durable. They are sound and sincere, a continual feast, without cessation or the least intermission.

JOHN TRAPP

This supreme seeking, described as hunger and thirst in Matthew 5:6, is the distinctive mark of all true disciples. We may translate the present imperative: “go on seeking.” The desire for the Kingdom and righteousness is constantly satisfied, for what we seek is ours by grace; and yet the seeking is always to continue, for the object of our desire can ever be more fully attained. This seeking is, of course, in no sense synergistic, but the desire of the regenerate and believing heart to enter ever more fully into union with God. Grace kindles the desire and keeps it ever active in this life.… To seek his Kingdom is to desire more and more participation in the rule of the Father’s grace in Christ, enjoying more and more the blessings (Matt. 5:3–12) of that rule of grace which eventually becomes a rule of glory.

R. C. H. LENSKI

Kingdom And Righteousness

The Kingdom of God is the new spiritual economy. To seek it, is to make attainment for ourselves and others, of the holy spiritual happiness which it secures to all its genuine subjects, our great object, to lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven. The righteousness of God is obviously neither the justice of the divine character, nor the divine method of justification, but the righteousness of the kingdom required by God; that righteousness which far exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. To seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, is to make the attainment of that holy happiness for ourselves and others, which is to be perfected in heaven and the cultivation of that spiritual religion and morality, which is indissolubly connected with this holy happiness, our great, our principal business, to which everything else is to be subordinated, to which everything else is to be sacrificed.

JOHN BROWN

His righteousness—This means that personal righteousness which our Father requires in the subjects of the Messianic reign, which they ought to hunger and thirst after (Matt. 5:6); which ought to exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 5:20); extending not merely to outward acts, but to the inner life of purpose and desire (Matt. 5:21–48); which ought to be practiced, not with a view to the praise of men, but to the approval and rewards of the Father in heaven (Matt. 6:1–18).

J. A. BROADUS

This righteousness by the evangelical condescension is far short of a sinless obedience; but is absolved by our sincere endeavors, though in many things we offend all. The evangelical righteousness consists in a hearty endeavor to obey the laws of the gospel; and in a diligent applying to God for grace to do it, and a quick and sincere repentance after lapses; and all this founded on a true faith in Christ, in and through whom it is that we are admitted to the benefits of the new covenant.

JAMES BLAIR

Cure For Anxiety

Having now prohibited, at great length and in various forms, the indulgence of a skeptical solicitude about even necessary things belonging to the present life, he shows them how it is to be avoided; not by mere negation, or attempting simply to abstain from such anxiety and unbelief, but by positively doing something else which will immediately correct the evil. This remedy for unbelieving doubts and cares consists in constantly subordinating all such personal consideration to the higher interests of the divine service, not as excluding all provision for this life, but as including and securing it.

J. A. ALEXANDER

All these things—an expression twice used in the verse preceding, and applied to the necessary things of this life, with particular reference to food and clothing, as the subject of the previous context. Added—given over and above the spiritual good directly flowing from devotion to God’s service. The whole prescription, therefore, is, instead of anxiously and passionately hunting, like the heathen, for the good things or even the necessaries of this life, as if God were not aware of their necessities or able to supply them, to aim first, in time and preference, at those things which concern his service, and believe that by so doing, what appears to be neglected will be certainly secured.

J. A. ALEXANDER

It is of no use only to tell men that they ought to trust, that the birds of the air might teach them to trust, that the flowers of the field might preach resignation and confidence to them. It is no use to attempt to scold them into trust, by telling them that distrust is heathenish. You must fill the heart with supreme and transcendent desire after the one supreme object; and then there will be no room and leisure left for the anxious care after the lesser. Have inwrought into your being, Christian man, the opposite of that heathen over-regard for earthly things.

A. MACLAREN

Here then, at last, we have reached Christ’s effectual cure for distrustful anxiety. If, Christians as we are, with a Father in heaven to ask for bread, any poor heart among us be still fretted with fears for the morrow and the evil it may bring; may not the secret of such heathenish disquietude be found in this, that we are not flinging ourselves with sufficient self-forgetfulness into the task given us by our Father? Perhaps we are like some Christians of whom Paul wrote, who sought their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s. It is when we are not pursuing as our first concern his kingdom and its righteousness, that we have room in our unfilled hearts for petty, earthly, and selfish cares. So long as we do not make God’s interests our supreme care, we cannot, or we dare not, cast on God the charge of our own private interests. If we would live free of thought about tomorrow, unburdened today by the evil which tomorrow, when it comes, will find sufficient for itself, and would learn the secret of a heart light as a bird’s in air, ought we not to practice a more entire devotion to the doing of God’s righteous will and the seeking of his spiritual kingdom?

J. OSWALD DYKES

Evangelical Broadcasting Outlook

The radio and television picture regarding religious broadcasting is fuzzy with conflicting reports as the new year begins.

United Evangelical Action magazine, edited by Dr. James DeForest Murch, immediate past president of National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., has this to say:

“Some evangelicals are laboring under the erroneous idea that ‘all is well’ since the tremendous demonstrations of evangelical solidarity and co-operation in Washington a year ago when the National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., met in annual convention.

“All is not well with evangelical broadcasting. The announced policy of the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches in favor of ‘free’ or ‘sustaining’ time and against the ‘sale’ or ‘purchase’ of time for the broadcasting of religion is being promoted vigorously and effectively at the local level.

“… the battle is still on. The National Council of Churches is slowly but surely extending its vise-like control over State Councils and local Councils of Churches. By an elaborate system of inter-related committees, national policies are being implemented at the local level. This is a new development.… The constituent denominations of the NCC often have the largest and most influential churches in the local community. Their pastors and key laymen are in position to make the contacts necessary to kill evangelical broadcasting.”

Dr. Eugene R. Bertermann, current president of the NRB, was far less emphatic when queried on the “new” pressures. He said:

“The situation, certainly, calls for continued vigilance on the part of evangelical broadcasters, but I do not feel there has been any major change in the problem as it existed when the NRB met in Washington.”

Recent reports asserted that Dr. Charles E. Fuller was cutting his “Old Fashioned Revival Hour” to one-half hour as a result of “pressure.”

When contacted by CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Dr. Fuller confirmed that the program would change to one-half hour, but he added:

“So far as our program is concerned, we have had no pressure brought to bear upon us by any station or group, but rather we are constantly being offered time on various stations which seem anxious to carry the program.”

In a letter to his mailing list about the change, he said:

“The past two years it has grown increasingly difficult to secure outlets for a full hour program, and even more serious has been the fact that due to higher living costs, strikes, drought, floods, etc., our income has fallen behind, so we are not able to continue to carry the full hour on the ABC network and the hundreds of independent stations over which this program has been heard for so long. We have spent much time on our knees concerning this problem, and now are confident God has clearly revealed his solution to us.

“It is this—after January 12, 1958, the ‘Old Fashioned Revival Hour’ will cease to be an hour long as it has been in the past, and we will no longer broadcast from the Municipal Auditorium at Long Beach.” (Mr. Fuller began his radio ministry 33 years ago.)

The Rev. S. Franklin Mack, executive director of the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the NCC, vigoriously denied that pressure was being applied at the local level against evangelical broadcasting. He said:

“Our policy remains the same. We hope all stations will exercise more discrimination in the regulation of all religious programs. Some of our programs have been taken off the air. Instead of blaming someone else, we go to the station involved and try to solve the problem. This is a time for self-examination on the quality of programs. We are doing it.

“We are not urging pressure on the local level. Our contact with local Councils of Churches is one of friendly relations. Certainly, we would not suggest that they advise stations on what constitutes good broadcasting.”

United Evangelical Action supported its assertions with a “spot check.” Here it is, in part:

“In Danville, Illinois, the First Baptist Church, for 102 years a leader in the religious life of the community, was branded as ‘non-cooperative’ by the local ministerial association, and the ‘good word’ was passed on to Station WITY. As a result a fine, years-long broadcasting hour was eliminated.

“In Huntington, Long Island, N. Y., Station WGSM was ‘encouraged’ to adopt a new policy refusing to sell time for religious broadcasting, but making time ‘available to all major religious faiths as a new policy, refusing to sell time for a free, public service. The minors have no rights.

“In Spokane, Washington, the ‘Old Fashioned Revival Hour’ and other nationally-known evangelical broadcasts were dropped ‘as a matter of financial policy.’

“In Columbus, Ohio, evangelical paid broadcasts were eliminated because of pressures by the Council of Churches which holds that ‘a disproportionate amount of time in religious broadcasting is given to that type of commercial programming which does not reflect the theology or the worship practices of the main body of the American people.’

“In Mineola, New York, Station WKBS adopted a policy whereby all ‘commercial programs fall into a news and music category’ and all ‘commercial religious programs’ were canceled.

“In Los Angeles, California, Station KFAC discontinued all religious broadcasts. Caught in the change of policy was one religious program which claimed to be the oldest in the nation, having been launched in 1923. When the pastor carried the case to the Federal Communications Commission, he was rebuffed by the finding that since KFAC was consulting with the Church Federation of Los Angeles in the drafting of its new policies, there was nothing that could be done about it.

“In Schenectady, New York, Station WGY announced that it was dropping paid religious broadcasting because of an ‘imbalance of fundamentalist Protestant theology’ but would continue to provide free time for an adequate, representative schedule of religious broadcasting, undoubtedly in consultation with the local Council of Churches.

“In Boston, Massachusetts, Radio Station WMEX canceled ‘The Fellowship Hour,’ a daily devotional program sponsored for more than twenty years by the New England Fellowship of Evangelicals. This was the oldest daily religious broadcast in New England.

“Other evangelical broadcasts suffered a similar fate in the Boston area.

“Such instances could be multiplied by the hundreds in all parts of the nation. Usually there are accompanying denials by the local Councils of Churches that they have had anything to do with the demise of evangelical broadcasting programs.”

News Editor

David E. Kucharsky, staff correspondent for the United Press in Pittsburgh, will succeed George Burnham as News Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, beginning with the January 20 issue.

Burnham, a veteran of 20 years in the daily newspaper field, has resigned to organize a syndicated column for the secular press on human interest in religious news. One of his objectives will be to tell the story of foreign missions in language the man-on-the-street can understand. The author of four books, he also will devote more time to the preparation of manuscripts on the lives of outstanding Christians.

Kucharsky received his B.A. in journalism at Duquesne University. After serving as an Air Force lieutenant from 1953 to 1955, he joined the UP Pittsburgh staff.

Writers Confer

Wheaton College (Illinois) will host the Third Annual Writers’ conference March 7 and 8.

Among the speakers engaged for the conference are Joseph Bayly, editor of His magazine; Grace Irwin, Canadian novelist; Harold Fuller, editor of The African Challenge, and Charles Urquhart, radio and TV writer. Peter Viereck, noted essayist, poet and philosopher, will give a general address.

Captive Chaplains

A conference of Methodist leaders urged in Washington, D. C., that ministers be discouraged from serving as industrial chaplains unless their salaries are paid by the church and they are completely independent of both management and labor.

The recommendation was made by 50 delegates attending a two-day meeting on “Methodism’s Ministry to Industry.”

Pastors in industrial areas were urged to “become familiar with local situations, learn the viewpoints of labor and management, boldly face controversial issues, and emphasize that the ultimate power of Christian ethics is in the life of the individual Christian who takes his faith and ethical standards into his daily work.”

The report said the church must not become the “captive of any faction or section of society.” Chaplains hired by industrial plants, it said, faced limitations “imposed by the fact that the salary of this type of chaplain is paid by sources other than the church.”

People: Words And Events

Luminous Hands—More than 100 deaf persons were enabled to “hear” as well as see “The Ten Commandments” with the help of a pastor whose luminous hands relayed the film’s speaking parts. The Rev. C. Roland Gerhold of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church for the Deaf in Newark accompanied members of his congregation and other deaf persons in the community to a showing of the movie.

Spare Time—On the street called Chong No near the new Bible House in Seoul, Korea, is the shop of a cobbler who makes his spare time count for God. Between the repair jobs he does for the people, he reads to his customers from the Bible. And the Bible is heard by hundreds who cannot read.

A Promise—Secretary of State John Foster Dulles took part in a service at the American Cathedral in Paris during the NATO conference. He read from the 46th Psalm, which begins, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Million From Alumnus—Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, has received a gift of $1 million from a former student who had to borrow $200 in order to stay in school and receive his diploma 34 years ago. The donation was made by Dr. Stanley Hanley, president of the Power Equipment Co. of Galion and Columbus.

Dies at 100—Dr. James Thomas Blackwood, Monteagle, Tenn., believed to be the oldest Methodist minister in the United States and possibly in the world, died recently at the age of 100.

New Approach—A new method in the rehabilitation of prisoners is being tried in California at Tulare County’s road camp. When prisoners go to bed their wired-for-sound pillows lull them to sleep with a recorded religious talk. Results will be announced after a test of 30 to 60 days.

Chaplain Injured—Lt. Comdr. Paul W. Reigner of Philadelphia, Protestant chaplain at Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year, was seriously injured recently in a helicopter crash. He is making a “satisfactory recovery.”

Newspaper Chaplaincy—Creation of a newspaper chaplaincy has been proposed by James W. Carty, Jr., religion editor of the Nashville Tennessean. He said newspapers need chaplains because, with their accent on deadlines, “many tensions develop and erupt.”

Printer’s Devil—The church members in Jackson, Miss., wanted to encourage their pastor. An article was prepared for the weekly church bulletin, under the headline, “Boost the Pastor a Bit.” It came out this way in print, “Boot the Pastor a Bit.”

Writer Passes—Dorothy L. Sayers, who has won a measure of distinction through her writings as a dilettante Anglican theologian, died recently in England. Miss Sayers wrote 12 plays on the life of Christ in the colloquial language of her country. The plays created wide debate. At the time of her death she was working on a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Public Relations—A far-reaching public relations program for the Southern Baptist Convention has been approved by the denomination’s executive committee to interpret and promote the SBC through the press.

Digest—Full accreditation by the American Association of Theological Schools has been granted to Fuller Theological Seminary.… Larry Ward, former managing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and Christian Life magazines, is now associated with World Vision, Inc., Dr. Bob Pierce, president, announced. Ward will edit the World Vision Magazine and aid Roy Wolfe, director of publications, in the preparation of mission literature for local church use.… A budget of $431,000 has been adopted by the Billy Graham San Francisco Bay Cities Crusade Executive Committee for the six-week crusade opening April 27.… Robert P. Taylor, Southern Baptist chaplain, is the new chief of personnel division, office of Air Force chaplains, Washington, D. C.

Training View

Speaking at the 71st annual meeting of the Theological Faculties Union of Chicago and Vicinity (100 teachers from 12 seminary faculties), Dr. James F. Gustafson of Yale Divinity School, collaborator in the Niebuhr Report on ministerial training, said, in part:

“Too many classes and too many subjects are taught by the same man. Too many students study too many courses at the same time. Too many students read only the textbooks and reserve shelf books, and never get into the library stacks.

“We give too many survey courses and not enough depth courses. There is not sufficient penetration for students to grasp basic issues. We have too few seminars, and some students graduate without ever getting into a single seminar. We have too little tutorial assistance and too cursory guidance on the part of teachers.

“Professors are not stimulating initiative and basic insights in theological students today. They are failing to transmit basic perspectives and fundamental interpretative principles. We should train men to be self-starting and self-educating, men who will continue to grow in the knowledge of God and the culture around them.”

Dr. Faris D. Whitesell of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary was elected president for a one-year term.

Five-Point Plan

About 100 missionaries, publishers and printers, representing 31 evangelical mission boards and 22 countries, met in Lincoln, Nebraska, recently in the sixth annual Evangelical Literature Overseas (ELO) conference, to plan a strategy of advance in the urgent task of meeting world literature needs.

Harold B. Street, executive secretary of ELO, announced in his keynote address a five-point program for the coming year: (1) formation of a panel of technical experts in writing, translation, production, and distribution of evangelical Christian literature whose counsel will be available through ELO to both missionaries and nationals; (2) establishment of a library of technical books at ELO headquarters in Wheaton, Illinois, of help in all fields of mission publishing, and a catalogue of evangelical manuscripts and books available for translation or adaptation; (3) encouragement of a training program for nationals; (4) sending of specialists to various language areas to counsel in all phases of mission publishing; (5) encouragement of field literature groups in setting high standards for published material.

To implement this program, specific projects are planned, such as a series of how-to-do-it booklets on various phases of mission publishing. With the objective of training both furloughing missionaries and newly-appointed literature personnel, ELO encourages colleges, Bible schools, and seminaries to set up courses in mission publishing, and it acts as liaison between missionaries and publishers or printers willing to provide on-the-job training.

Not primarily a fund-raising agency, ELO seeks to provide a meeting ground for co-ordination and development of cooperative publishing programs in the various language areas, through sponsoring literature conferences, making surveys of currently available evangelical literature, with a view to filling the gaps in a given language area.

Literature conferences in Beirut, Tangier, Barcelona, and Lisbon are being planned for May-June, 1958, Street announced.

A British group similar to ELO is in process of formation, under the aegis of the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, it was announced. An initial conference is scheduled for February 4 in London.

Priority manuscripts needed in most language areas, according to a survey reported by the Rev. Harold Kregel, missionary to Spain under the European Evangelistic Crusade, include a one-volume Bible commentary, Bible dictionary, Bible study material, evangelistic material in local dialects, devotional books, and children’s stories.

Newest of the mass-appeal periodicals is Kiran, launched in India in October, as reported by the Rev. Irvine Robertson, missionary to India under the Evangelical Alliance Mission. This brings to nine the number of mass-appeal periodicals, with nine more to be launched in 1958.

In Africa, V.I.P. (Vernacular Illustrated Publications) leaflets, produced by the Sudan Interior Mission, are a follow-up of the success of the African Challenge, first of the mass-appeal magazines, which in five years has rolled up a circulation of 180,000. The V.I.P. four-page leaflets, cheaply produced though heavily illustrated and in color, appeal to non-Christians by means of a folk fable, a health message, with a gospel message following, and a puzzle.

Conference sessions at Lincoln featured “how-to-do-it” panel discussions and workshops in the three major areas of publishing: Editorial problems, emceed by the Rev. Donald K. Smith, literature secretary, South Africa General Mission; and Robert Walker, editor, Christian Life; production problems, Kenneth N. Taylor, director, Moody Press; and Rev. B. H. Pearson, executive secretary, World Gospel Crusades; distribution problems, Rev. Kenneth R. Adams, general secretary, Christian Literature Crusade; and Rev. G. Christian Weiss, director, Missionary Agency, Back to the Bible Broadcast.

“In the light of increasing population, increasing literacy, and increasing need for the evangelical message of the printed page,” Street challenged the conference, “shall we not dedicate ourselves afresh to the task of producing more and better evangelical literature? Shall we not, with renewed recognition of the urgency of the hour, commit ourselves in full obedience to the One who commanded, ‘Write in a book and send it to the churches’?”

Pagan Attitudes

Bishop Gerald Francis Burrill of the Episcopal diocese of Chicago has issued a pastoral letter containing 10 requests designed to make “eloquent proclamations of our basic understanding of the Christian faith.”

“Many of the customs surrounding death and the burial of the dead reveal pagan attitudes,” he said.

The bishop asks that funerals be held in the church or home instead of a funeral parlor, except “for grave cause.” The casket should be closed at all times, flowers should not be used in the church, and fraternal rites are not to be used in conjunction with the Office for the Burial of the Dead. The burial service “can be a source of great comfort to the bereaved when it is not subjected to distortion by addition of elements of crass sentimentality,” wrote the bishop.

Music at the services must be authorized by the clergy, the bishop said. Sunday funerals are to be avoided, and remuneration of the clergy is not required and should never appear on the undertaker’s bill, except when legally necessary, he added.

F.D.W.

Press Merger

The Sudan Interior Mission has announced the combining of its two influential printing operations, the Niger Press and its publication, African Challenge.

Launched by SIM in 1944, Niger Press has produced about four million pages of literature in the past four months. African Challenge, started in 1951, has an English edition circulation of 185,000.

New York Audit

The final report of the executive committee of the Billy Graham New York Crusade, audited by Price Waterhouse and Co., showed total receipts of $2,850,031—leaving an excess of $217,618 over expenditures.

Roger Hull, chairman of the executive committee, in making the report public, said:

“We again express our gratitude to Almighty God for the way in which he has provided for our every need … Over two million people heard the gospel proclaimed in New York and many additional millions heard it each Saturday night on television. We can count those who came forward in the Garden to make a public commitment, but there is no way to count the many additional thousands who made commitments or rededicated their lives to Christ in the quiet of their own hearts without leaving their seats.”

The report of Edwin F. Chinlund, treasurer, said the $217,618 excess would be distributed as follows:

$150,000—Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, to be used for the support of television broadcasts of subsequent crusades.

$67,618—Protestant Council of the City of New York, Department of Evangelism, to be used for follow-up work resulting from the Crusade and for the development of evangelism in cooperation with all churches in the Metropolitan area.

The report of receipts and expenditures from inception, May 17, 1956, to December 16, 1957, is as follows:

RECEIPTS

$32,938.87—Offerings received at Madison Square Garden, stadiums, rallies, and so forth.

$2,004,532.17—Contributions from appeals, receipts from television broadcasts, supporting contributors’ gifts, gifts from other crusades and other miscellaneous gifts.

$1,559.87—Net receipts from the sale of song books, Bibles, other books, records, periodicals and other miscellaneous receipts.

EXPENDITURES

$622,960.83—Expenses of meetings in auditoriums and stadiums.

$322,308.60—Advertising and publicity.

$114,513.07—Local radio and television program expenses.

$239,792.94—Office operations.

$133,706.07—Team housing, honorariums and travel expenses. This includes living and travel expenses of members of the Graham team while in New York and honorariums paid to additional personnel who handled specialized work. No salaries are included for Dr. Graham or members of the team, as these were paid by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Minneapolis.

$56,578.94—Counseling and follow-up expenses.

$1,054,439.12—Direct cost of national television broadcasts.

$60,000—Preparation of film “Miracle in Manhattan.”

$28,113.34—Other expenses. This includes meetings, breakfasts, luncheons, in connection with fund raising and the securing of interest and support of ministers and others.

(A number of observers pointed out during the crusade that the total cost of winning thousands for Christ was less than the cost of one jet fighter plane, built for destruction).

Balanced Education

A Lutheran group has warned that a “needed emphasis” on scientific education, resulting from the launching of earth satellites, must not be given priority over “the cultivation of the spirit and mind of man.”

The warning was sounded in a resolution adopted by the Board of Higher Education of the United Lutheran Church in America at its mid-winter meeting in Washington, D. C.

The board said “any educational changes which do not preserve a balance between the ethical and functional may cause us to lose our soul while seeking to gain the world.”

While the board commended church-related colleges for training men and women in scientific fields, it challenged them to continue to produce “spiritually mature and responsible leaders” in the various professions.

It also called on Christian educators to “awaken in their students an intelligent commitment to the spiritual foundation for the quest for knowledge.”

South America

Another Auca Rebuff

American Protestant missionaries have suffered another setback in their attempts to gain a foothold among the savage Auca Indians of eastern Ecuador.

The Auca tribe, said to be the fiercest in South America, has been consistently hostile to the missionaries. Early in January, 1956, they massacred five young Americans who sought to convert them.

The latest act of hostility occurred when the Aucas attacked a group of semi-civilized Quichua Indians from the settlement where the missionaries had set up an outpost. As a result, the mission post had to be abandoned.

The mission center had been conducted by Mrs. Betty Elliott, 31, of Moorestown, N. J., widow of one of the missionaries slain in 1956; Dr. Wilfrid Tidmarch, a British subject who is in his late fifties; and Mrs. Tidmarch, an American.

Hopes for reaching the Aucas had been encouraged a month earlier when three Auca women visited a shack the missionaries had built near the junction of the Curaray and Agian Rivers. The women’s visit came after the Aucas had attacked the shack, piercing it with dozens of spears and lances.

Later the missionaries used light planes provided by the Mission Aviation Fellowship to broadcast appeals for friendship in the Auca language through loudspeakers over the native villages.

However, the attack on the Quichuas indicated that the missionaries’ peace overtures had been fruitless.

When the Auca women arrived at the mission shack they were greeted by Mrs. Elliott, who spent ten days with them. She made tape recordings of all they said. The women made frequent mention of the name of Muipo, who is reputed to be the most savage and hostile of the Auca chieftains.

Argentina Report

Luna Park, the Madison Square Garden of Buenos Aires, has been the scene of many memorable events during its long history.

For several weeks downtown Buenos Aires was covered with large red posters announcing “Salvation at Luna Park” and inviting all to the special Oswald J. Smith evangelistic campaign organized by the Protestant churches of Buenos Aires.

Many people objected to the slogan, but whether the phrase, “Salvation at Luna Park,” should have been used or not, over 1,000 decisions for Christ were made during Dr. Smith’s meetings.

This was the first evangelistic effort in which virtually all the evangelical churches in Buenos Aires cooperated. The organizing committee included conservative evangelicals from all denominations. Special training classes for counselors were held in Methodist churches, Pentecostal assembly rooms and Brethren halls. The campaign was the object of much prayer all over Argentina.

Attendance ranged from a minimum of 7,000 to a maximum of over 20,000. Plans were laid for a careful follow-up.

The Buenos Aires press was favorable, on the whole. One sensational weekly stated that the campaign was a racket and demanded a government investigation of the origin of the funds. A more conservative weekly, the R. C. Criterio, criticized the slogan and the type of salvation people would find through Dr. Smith, but recognized the sincerity of the preacher and the organizers. La Vanguardia ran a leading article entitled “A Suggestive Contrast,” in which the meetings were compared with a big R. C. rally in favor of religious education, held at the same time in one of the parks.”

The R. C. meetings were attended by some 4,000 people after “the vast advertising campaign of the church, the ringing of bells, the firing of rockets and the use of deafening loudspeakers.… On the other hand between 17,000 and 20,000 people gather every afternoon at Luna Park to attend meetings organized by the evangelical groups of Buenos Aires.”

La Vanguardia ended by saying: “Liberty of education and of worship exist in our country. Nobody would think otherwise. Both evangelicals and Roman Catholics recognize the fact. But while the former support their churches and the establishments in which they teach their doctrines with the contributions of their own people, and only ask the State to respect them, the latter, the clericals, insist that the community should pay for the R. C. schools and pay the wages of all their propagandists. That is what they want. The difference between the two groups is very evident.”

Europe

Get Tough Policy

Church sources in Vienna said that a congress on “problems of atheistic education” held in Prague under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Culture may herald a new tough policy against religion in Czechoslovakia.

Rude Pravo, Czech Communist party organ, reported that the congress discussed the “failure of atheistic education in the past” and considered measures to “step up” such education.

According to the paper the conference agreed that atheistic education should not be “restricted to the schools but spread over all parts of the population.” Pravo added that the meeting also discussed “other religious problems in the country.”

The church sources showed surprise over the publicity given the congress. They said that in past years the Czech Communist government has carried on the fight against the Church with as much secrecy as possible.

Australia

Moral Leadership

Dr. Frank Woods, speaking after his enthronement in St. Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia, as the fifth Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, warned that the West is losing its moral leadership of the world.

He said that in the eyes of the seething millions of India, the East and Africa, Christianity is not a harbinger of peace and goodwill but synonymous with a civilization which has resorted to war twice in 50 years—“war more devastating and terrible than any before in history.”

The new archbishop, formerly Bishop of Middleton, England, and chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II, said that not only does the East no longer look to the West for leadership but it has labeled the Christian faith as a western importation which it will resist.

He said the peoples of the East regard Europe as a Christian continent where “unspeakable atrocities, far outstripping in enormity and cruelty the fabulous atrocities of ancient Rome or of modern savages, have been committed.”

“These have been committed,” Dr. Woods said, “by a nation which might well have claimed to be intellectually the most advanced in the world. No wonder that the East no longer looks to the West for leadership.”

The archbishop blamed industrial materialism for causing “the proletarian masses of what was once Christian Europe to lose contact with the church and to become themselves objects of evangelism.”

Dr. Woods said that “possibly the most sinister of all the thought forces of the rising generation, even in so-called Christian countries, are such as to make the great Christian concepts almost unintelligible.”

“Such words as salvation, atonement, miracles, sacrament, grace, redemption, sacrifice,” he said, “need explanation to our generation as if they came from an alien culture. The prevailing school of modern philosophy questions the very foundation of knowledge. Theology, once the queen of the sciences, is held to be intellectually barely respectable.”

PASTORAL PROBLEMS

Do you have a pastoral problem? Most church members do. Our forthcoming book, The Problem Pastor, has the latest patterns for cutting men of the cloth down to size.

“Group Therapy for the Pastor Who Thinks” is a practical chapter outlining a tested cure for the solitary cerebrate. He becomes addicted to social thinking and soon the bar of reason loses all its attraction for him. Small groups meeting each morning in the pastor’s study continue the therapeutic process, since there is some danger of recurrence if he is left alone.

Is your pastor cordial and effusive? Continued use of our thesaurus of after-sermon comments will shrivel this expansiveness. Examples: “Have you had that sermon published, Doctor? It seemed so familiar …” “Thank you so much for that profound address. I never dreamed that text was such a puzzle!” After two months of this it will be enough to say, “I shall always remember the experience of hearing that sermon!”

Perhaps your pastor’s problem is idleness. This often develops in those long days between Sundays when he has nothing to do. One contribution you can make is to help him with his reading. Choose a book at random from your late uncle’s trunk in the attic and ask your pastor to read it carefully and give you his opinion of it. When he returns it, have two more ready. Vary the selection, using Watchtower publications, long modern novels (Is it valid, pastor?) and the Congressional Record.

If he pretends to be too busy, spend an afternoon at the parsonage in an informal check on his activities. Further spot checks may be made by phone or through friends. You may discover that his idleness is a mask; many problem pastors are frantic do-gooders, neglecting their families shamefully for parish and community activities.

Snap the tension of your strained pastoral relations by sending your problem or your pastor to the undersigned.

PARTICULARS ON COLOMBIA

In your November 11 issue, Clyde W. Taylor has me seeing things I never saw. Please—I saw no “burnt walls” of the missionaries’ house at La Cumbre in Colombia.

What I did see and hear, by talking to Protestant missionaries, the Catholic pastor, the Sisters of Charity, the mayor and dozens of townspeople, was by way of overwhelming evidence that Mr. Taylor’s charges in the La Cumbre instance are simply not correct.

My conversations with the missionaries indicated that there were many loopholes in their testimony. Their oral statements to me often differed from their written statements, and their testimony in the mayor’s office is flatly contradicted by that of other witnesses.

If the rest of Mr. Taylor’s presentation is as inaccurate as the two sentences in which he writes of my visit, readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY would be well advised to look to other sources than the National Association of Evangelicals for less emotive and more factual statements.

Rev. John E. KellyDirector, Bureau of InformationNational Catholic Welfare Conf.Washington, D. C.

Father Kelly, in his letter to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, disclaims having seen the “burnt walls” of the missionaries’ house at La Cumbre, Colombia. My statement was based on word from one of our regular correspondents in that country: “Father John Kelly of Washington spent a day in La Cumbre last week, investigating the attacks on the Mennonites in July, 1956. He visited the missionaries and was very friendly. He asked them to tell the story of the attacks and they showed him where the fire was.” Thus I had concluded that he had viewed the charred walls which I had seen when I visited La Cumbre just after the incident occurred. If Father Kelly did not view the building which had been damaged, I am glad to stand corrected in this minor detail, but I must also conclude that his investigation was anything but complete.

More important is the fact that Father Kelly does not deny the violence at La Cumbre, but rather makes the general assertion that my statements are “simply not correct.” Is he willing to be more specific? Does he deny that there was an attempt to burn the missionary residence while the missionaries were supposedly asleep inside the building? He states there were loop holes in missionary testimony. Will he identify the specific missionaries? Were they directly involved in the attack? And does he deny that the local priest, the mother superior of the hospital and the chief of police were implicated in the plot to carry out this violence? If so, it is certain that his denials are contrary not only to my previous statements, but also to the facts given to both United States and Canadian consular officials at the time the incident occurred and given in sworn testimony to Colombian officials.

Clyde W. TaylorSecretary of Public AffairsNational Assn. of EvangelicalsWashington, D. C.

THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM

Commenting on the article “By A Former Jesuit Trainee,” an Akron, Ohio, contributor writes: “If you would state the Catholic position truly, why not call on such men as Msgr. Sheen?” (Nov. 25 issue, p. 25).

One of the clearest statements of the “Catholic position” was published in Rome, Italy, in the Jesuit fortnightly publication, La Civilita Cattolica. The following excerpt from the Jesuit statement was published in Time magazine (June 28, 1948) to which the questioner may give heed:

“The Roman Catholic Church, convinced, through its divine prerogatives, of being the only true church, must demand the right to freedom for herself alone, because such a right can only be possessed by truth, never by error. As to other religions, the church certainly will never draw the sword, but she will require that by legitimate means they shall not be allowed to propagate false doctrine. Consequently, in a state where the majority of the people are Catholic, the church will require that legal existence be denied to error, and that if religious minorities actually exist, they shall have only a de facto existence without opportunity to spread their beliefs. If however, actual circumstances make the complete application of this principle impossible, then the church will require for herself all possible concessions.…

“In some countries, Catholics will be obliged to ask full religious freedom for all, resigned at being forced to cohabitate where they alone should rightfully be allowed to live. But in doing this the church does not renounce her thesis … but merely adapts herself … Hence arises the great scandal among Protestants.… We ask Protestants to understand that the Catholic church would betray her trust if she were to proclaim … that error can have the same rights as truth.… The Church cannot blush for her own want of tolerance, as she asserts it in principle and applies it in practice.”

The contents of the excerpt are confirmed in the Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, and by other popes also. The book The Pope’s New Order published by Macmillin (1944), after the present Pope Pius XII was crowned, states: “Whatever the popes have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter teach, must be held with a firm grip of the mind, and so often as occasion requires, must be openly professed.”

Mrs. J.G. HanlinOklahoma City, Okla.

YMCA HERITAGE

I was very much surprised that in your editorial concerning the YMCA (Nov. 11 issue) you make no mention of Sir George Williams. The fact is that Sir George was the founder of the YMCA. Undoubtedly he called in others to help him, but to him alone is credit due for the formation of this great institution.… When I was in business in London, I was personally acquainted with this truly great man, have been in his home, was a member of the Central YMCA, and when I came to America in 1905 carried a letter of introduction to the 23rd St. YMCA in New York City.

I truly hope and pray that the Y will recover its Gospel for it was rooted in prayer. There were great men in those days: Williams of Hitchcock & Williams; Morgan of Morgan & Scott; Hodder of Hodder & Stoughton; and I was privileged to know them all.

Arthur SoundyGreely, Colo.

I was also interested in the editorial on the YMCA, for my father was in this work for the better part of his life. We saw it decline from the highly spiritual organization it originally was, to little more than a social or commercial club (with the few exceptions you mention). With regard to your question in the tide, I fear the “Y” has gone too far to come back. God will save an individual from the very depths, but I know of no instance where he has restored an organization when it has once become thoroughly apostate. He does not value organizations as much as he does individuals.

F. R. AckleyDenver, Colo.

As one who served for two years as General Secretary of a YMCA on a church college campus which had a strong Christ-centered program, I share your views on the importance of stressing the Christian emphasis in the Y program, and I am happy to see evidence here in Chattanooga that that emphasis is strongly made.…

Samuel S. WileyPresbyterian ChurchLookout Mountain, Tenn.

VIRGIN BIRTH AND GOBLINS

Mr. Douglass must have had a dictatorial parent or teacher and when the thunder of blind religious fanaticism crashed on him at the Presbytery, it would only be natural that sooner or later he would stop thinking and knuckle under the Presbytery, his parent or teacher substitute.…

I agree with the “Earl Douglass” who for a few years was a free child of God led by his Holy Spirit and not with the Douglass dominated by dogmatism who first believes and then rationalizes his belief. The believers in witches and evil spirits and hobgoblins did the same thing and so do Communists today!

The fact that Paul, the first great interpreter of the Christian faith, did not mention the virgin birth surely indicates that it was not an essential belief of the early Church, and that Church did right well.

To believe that God would refuse to use his natural means to produce a body (“vesture of the flesh”) for his Spirit (Christ) to use on earth is to cast aspersion on normal conception and birth.…

Strange that the Bible should trace Jesus’ lineage through Joseph’s line.… I’ll bet that screaming brother in the Presbytery who embarrassed and smashed young Earl Douglass’ self-respect wouldn’t have let half the disciples in as Christians. I doubt if they (disciples) had to say “I believe in the virgin birth.” …

Vernon T. SmithFirst Presbyterian ChurchHolt, Mich.

• Dr. Douglass’ article suggests his greater freedom through belief in the virgin birth than in its denial. The only compulsion under which the disciples Matthew and Luke relayed their account of the virgin birth was that of reliable evidence and testimony. J. Gresham Machen’s The Virgin Birth of Christ is recommended reading. Moreover, historic Christian teaching, which through the ages has included the doctrine of the virgin birth, has always lifted and ennobled normal conception and birth. It should be noted that Dr. Douglass does not equate denial of the virgin birth with disbelief in salvation through Christ, although this dual rejection is common, while the dual affirmation is biblical and normative.—ED.

Just how inconsistent can we allow ourselves to become in putting faith before reason, and belief before understanding? In Earl L. Douglass’ article on his belief in the virgin birth of Jesus (Dec. 9 issue) he makes an amazingly naive (appearing) statement as follows: “The testimony of Scripture is that he (God) chose to put him (Jesus) into the stream of human history by the means of birth. Such being the case, the awesome question is, Who could be the father of this child? Has any human being ever lived who could, with propriety, be designated for this honor?”

Is this given as seriously providing in rhetorical question form overwhelming persuasion toward conversion to a belief in this doctrine? If this be so, I am shocked by the superficiality of intellect in the ranks of you conservatives! For either you who nod gravely in agreement with this not-so-profound syllogism, are very good proponents of the Roman Catholic system of Mariolatry, or your eagerness to grasp at any device to promote your ideology is both pathetic and humorous. Allow me to illustrate by the simple device of rephrasing Douglass’ pedantic question thusly: “Who could be the MOTHER of this child? Has any HUMAN being ever lived who could, with propriety, be designated for THIS honor?” Obviously the mere fact of Mary’s supposed virginity (at a still tender age) could never qualify her, in itself, for the role that must be too exalted for her counterpart in the opposite sex.

John A. HawkinsCalvary Presbyterian ChurchFort Wayne, Ind.

Earl Douglass’ reconversion to faith in our Lord’s virgin birth understandably was a comfort in the church he served. But if that is made the test of regeneration in Christ’s church … many must be denied admission.…

I believe: in our Lord’s spiritual generation by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. The generation of his flesh and blood … and its final disposition is not crucial to my faith.… Countless martyrs and prophets of old … were justified by a faith which was not that of Earl Douglass. I believe such faith still saves.…

Allen H. GatesFirst Congregational ChurchChesterfield, Mass.

Before accepting the virgin birth as an historical fact one must have the courage to face the following negative arguments. I fear that Dr. Douglass is lacking.…

The virgin birth … is mentioned only by Matthew and Luke and then with rather marked differences.… The earliest Gospel, Mark, makes no reference to it.

If belief in the virgin birth were in any way necessary for salvation, or if it were factual, Jesus would have mentioned it.

Paul is silent with respect to it.

In Matthew’s account the argument that Jesus was a descendent of David, through Joseph, indicating clearly human fatherhood, cancels out the virgin birth.

People from the period from which the gospels came easily accepted the idea of divine-human parenthood for outstanding figures.…

Valton V. MorseCongregational ChurchCumberland Center, Me.

Doctor Douglass is to be congratulated for his step toward catholic orthodoxy in … his acceptance of the virgin birth. Now if he could accept the universal Church’s teaching that St. Mary was truly Theotokos, holy bearer of God the Son, or in some sense “mother of God,” … also … about the sacraments, sacramental grace, and the Apostolic ministry including the Episcopate, he would indeed possess a faith complete in its “catholic fulness.” The Church has always maintained that the incarnation was God’s initiative, God’s act of love toward man, and that the virgin birth was a means he chose toward that end. Any other concept is private opinion.…

Frank W. Marshall, Jr.St. Mark’s EpiscopalNewport, Vt.

I noticed the emphasis on the virgin birth.… The textual and exegetical analyses were thorough and helpful.…

The silences of certain portions of the New Testament are indeed thundering silences because they stand with biblical, creedal, and patristic attestation to the facts of the virgin birth which are themselves highly sensitive, personal, and prone to a misunderstanding by the ignorant and an exploitation by the profane.… Since the virgin birth is a fact of Christian tradition in and beyond Scripture, its great significance lies in the assertion that this was the manner in which God chose the introduction of the incarnation. What could possibly be more important, simply and serenely as it stands in the two Gospels, than the affirmation that God acts as he does; we behold in wonder and gratitude?

Robert B. MuhlTrinity Episcopal ChurchWashington, Pa.

Are we quite sure there is no reference to it (the virgin birth) in John’s Gospel, 1:12–13.… “even to them that believe on his name, which were (or, who was?) born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God”?

See Encyclopedia Brittanica, 11th Ed., Vol. 27, pp. 852–57: “But antecedent to any ancient MSS., Irenaeus (A.D. 178), Tertullian (A.D. 208), Augustine (A.D. 395), and other Fathers read, “Who was begotten” (Sing., not Pl.). The Hos—who agreeing with “autou” (His name, Gr. onoma autou, name of him). Verse 14 goes on to speak of the incarnation of him who was not begotten by human generation. The Latin Codex Veronensis (before Jerome’s Vulgate) reads “Qui … natus est.” Tertullian (De came Christi, c19) says that “believers” could not be intended in this verse, “since all who believe are born of blood, etc. He ascribes the reading of the Received Text to the artifice of the Valentinian Gnostics of the Second and Third centuries” …

This rendering is in keeping with what follows, viz., the incarnation of our Lord. It is true that believers are begotten of God, but is it true that in these two verses believers are the subjects?.… We read of the doctrine of Christ, not the doctrines. The doctrine of Christ means that all the Bible says of him is welded together, and that to deny one doctrine is to deny the lot.…

Alexander A. MurraySydney, Nova Scotia

RSV CATCHES UP

Thank you for the interesting article by Dr. Nida on revising the Bible.… Allow one observation …

The first change which Nida comments on is John 1:18 where the oldest manuscripts give not “the only begotten Son” but “God only begotten.” One might get the impression from reading Nida that this change was brought out first in the RSV.

As a matter of fact, the 1885 English Revised Version has this as its marginal reading with the notation that “Many very ancient authorities read God only-begotten.” The same is repeated in the margin of the 1901 American Standard Version. On the other hand, the RSV New Testament in 1946 entirely ignored this ancient reading and it was only added in the margin of the 1952 RSV after many of us had made public criticism of the 1946 RSV for not giving this ancient reading either in its text or its margin. Thus the reading in Bodmer II confirms the ERV of 1885 and the ASV of 1901 and those who protested against its omission in the 1946 RSV. It does not confirm the 1946 RSV nor the defenders of the 1946 RSV at this point.

Wm. Childs RobinsonColumbia Theological SeminaryDecatur, Ga.

REVIEW AND REBUTTAL

The review of my book, Christianity and World Issues (October 14 was very inadequate, inaccurate and unfair. The review gave a very distorted picture of the nature and content of the book. One could not tell from the review that it was written primarily as a textbook in the area of applied or social ethics, and that it assumed a background in biblical and Christian ethics.

Almost every sentence of the review could be challenged. Statements are incompletely quoted or are taken out of their context and made to mean something quite different from the original. One or two rather basic concepts are missed entirely or are misinterpreted, such as the place of the cross in the Christian life and in Christian ethics.

Conclusions are drawn that cannot be justified by what is said in the book. For example, the reviewer quotes me as saying “war accomplishes nothing” (page 288), and then asks “can we not therefore conclude that it would have been better to allow Hitler to conquer the world?” Nothing is said that would justify such a conclusion. It is plainly stated on the very next page that one possible good result of war is that it might “save a nation from enslavement by some foreign power.”

One of the most perplexing and disturbing things is the reviewer’s implication that I am friendly to communism. I do not see how he could have possibly come to that conclusion. I did attempt to be objective in my appraisal of communism, which is the only wise and sensible approach to make. If the reviewer really wanted to be fair, why did he not call attention to what is said about the basic philosophy and the ethic of communism?

There is absolutely no foundation for his statement that “one senses a strain of embarrassment that communistic brutality should receive such widespread publicity.” A similarly unfounded, unfair statement is the following: “Since communism is so close to Christianity in aim though drastically different in method, it would be wrong to engage in war to rescue the captive nations.” It seems to me that such labeling, even if merely by implication, should be beneath the dignity of any Christian scholar and should be contrary to the publication policies of any Christian journal.

T. B. MastonSouthwestern Baptist Theol. Sem.Fort Worth, Tex.

CORRUPTION AND SECESSION

I’d like to comment on the letter of Edwards E. Elliott (Dec. 9 issue). I gather that the drift of Mr. Elliott’s remarks is that a Christian must leave a church as soon as the Christian sees that leaders of the church are agents of Satan, and opposed to the Gospel; for, if the Christian stays in that church, his financial support is a supporting and tolerating of the agents of Satan.

It would seem that to continue in such a church is to do evil that good may come. But if Mr. Elliott’s argument be valid, our Lord was guilty of sinning when he paid the temple tax (Matt. 17:24–27). It would also seem, on the basis of Mr. Elliott’s reasoning, that our Lord was ill-advised to praise the widow for giving her mite to support his adversaries.

My present loyalty to the visible church, with all its serious failings, is the result of reading Philip Schaff’s discussion of “Calvin’s Idea of the Holy Catholic Church” in History of the Christian Church, Volume VIII, Modern Christianity: The Swiss Reformation pp. 448–457. At one point Schaff summarizes Calvin’s viewpoint in the following words, “So strong are the claims of the visible Church upon us that even the abounding corruptions cannot justify a secession.” Schaff supports this from the Institutes, IV, i, 18–19. Calvin’s argument seems so cogent that it deserves reading today.

J. K. MickelsenCanoga Presbyterian ChurchSeneca Falls, N. Y.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND

Evangelical forces look on this “time of trouble” as a day of unparalleled opportunity. The very failure of nations to find any common ground for creating peace, and the amazing scientific discoveries of the age with their potentialities for good or ill, are driving men back to God.

While there is no great revival of church-going as yet, there are two elements of great hope in the present religious situation in England. One is that leaders of thought with differing biblical presuppositions (i.e. conservative and liberal theologians) have been meeting together regularly to discuss the great fundamentals of the Gospel and to see whether they can unite in evangelism. The other is that in many parts of the country, visitation evangelism by the laity, going out two-by-two among their friends and neighbors, is already bringing in a rich harvest. These things which have happened in 1957 fill me with great hope.

F. P. Copland SimmonsSt. Andrews, FragnalLondon, England

CRUMBLING ALTARS

The same day that the issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY carrying my article (“Satisfactions of a Life in God’s Word,” Nov. 25 issue) came in the mail, I happened to be reading for the first time the prefatory sketch of Gerhardt Hauptmann in the second volume of John Gassner’s Treasury of the Theater, dealing with modern European drama. One statement in this sketch is but another indication that this former world figure has no message even for his own land today: “After 1933, Hauptmann allowed his reputation to serve as window dressing for the Hitler regime. No particular importance can be attached to the plays written during the last twenty-five years of his life, and today even the bulk of his work before 1921 rings hollow outside, and apparently also inside, Germany.”

Wilbur M. SmithSan Marino, Calif.

SACKCLOTH AND ASHES

Might I suggest that you change your theology and when you have repented in sackcloth and ashes for your unbiblical, anti-Christian, modernistic editorials and articles, and have been forgiven, that you change your name to “The Everlasting Gospel” …

A. E. WardnerThe Homiletic BiasOklahoma City, Okla.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has been a source of soul-satisfying enjoyment. I think it’s tops. Nonetheless, I was disturbed when, scanning the news section of September 16, I discovered a report of remarks purported to have been said by Rev. Kaneys Oda, a leader of the Free Methodist Church in Japan. The fact is, however, that Rev. Oda’s official report to our United States’ offices was yet to have been received when your article was published. A preliminary report was published in the Free Methodist of September 10: “To clarify garbled reports, Brother Oda wrote … to the missionary secretary as follows: ‘A newspaper reporter, just for the sake of sensational news, wrote untruth of my report … Don’t believe what they write, I am not brainwashed, nor Communist, nor pink.’ ” Rev. Oda’s official report is forthcoming and from this rather than from a newspaper reporter’s words should conclusions be made of Rev. Oda’s bias.

V. Charles SpencerSeattle Pacific CollegeSeattle, Washington

Before your editor starts gratuitous “sicing” he ought to learn how to sic—“but much too (sic) boring to hold the attention of any schoolboy I know.” (Eutychus and His Kin, December 9, 1957.)

For you to bore at all is to be “much too boring,” and, if two of you are doing it, you have two bores being too boring to be tolerated because much too smug about too little learning.

John D. CraigCentral Presbyterian ChurchHouston, Texas

• The Editor is sicer than he dare admit! An overzealous but drowsy proofreader made a devastating change in Allan Pyatt’s letter dismissing CHRISTIANITY TODAY as of “schoolboy standard” and “much to (sic) boring to hold the attention of any schoolboy I know.…”—ED.

OUR ECHOES ROLL

Well, I have finally changed my mind, and feel the great value of your positive witness in a wide field of Christian thought and action. It does seem that Christianity today must be on the march with a uniting and united idea, powerful enough to stem the tide of materialistic and atheistic Communism.…

J. S. NickersonUnited Church of CanadaFranklin Centre, Quebec

I find the major emphases … in harmony with my own viewpoint, and even when they are not I get that kind of mental jolt that is always healthy and stimulating. I am grateful for the whimsical humour of Eutychus, in the midst of more serious concerns.…

Oliver R. DavisonUnited ChurchCabot, Vermont

Many bonuses accrue to the Christian. Some—a constant source of comfort, hope, guidance and help in Christian living—of others, we seem often unaware.

But God has made one promise to his children so staggering in its implications that few of us have begun to live in the light of its fullness. In Romans 8:28 we read: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

This is not a generalized statement as some think. Someone may say that it means “everything will work out well, regardless of circumstances.” But it means nothing of the kind. It is a promise given specifically to those who love God, who are his children—a promise which is specifically and exclusively given to Christians.

Another striking fact is that it is an unqualified affirmation. Paul says that we know this. One of the characteristics of a life separated from God is uncertainty, groping and frustration. The world is restless and many are afraid because they have never found a certainty on which to base their hopes. But here we have a flat statement of fact, something which can be accepted in faith and demonstrated in practice.

Furthermore there can be no question raised of taking a verse of Scripture out of context. This particular promise rests squarely in the center of some of the most glorious truths revealed in the Bible. Paul has just affirmed that it is the Holy Spirit who helps us to pray, that he prays for us according to the will of God. And immediately following this glorious promise of all things working out for the good of those who love him we are confronted with God’s complete foreknowledge, without which such a promise would be meaningless. The chapter ends with a statement of the impossibility of our being separated from the love of Christ whether by earthly circumstances, or unearthly ones—not even death itself.

Because of that which God is promising his own, and because of the limitless possibilities which he is here setting before believers, we will find it of infinite profit to examine the promise and plumb its implications.

Remembering that this has to do solely with those who are God’s children we begin with the amazing statement that “all things” work together for good.

Not only does God know that which will take place in our lives, but in his infinite wisdom and love, he so orders events and their effects on us that regardless of how adverse they may seem to us, or to others, they are all actually for our good.

Job, no stranger to the rough vicissitudes of life, said: “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Trouble and sorrow are an inevitable part of life. To the unbeliever such experiences only accentuate the hopelessness of a life outside of Christ. To the Christian God uses these same hardships for his own glory and the strengthening of our faith. The Apostle Paul states the Christian perspective when he says: “We glory in tribulations: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost … given unto us.”

It is the clarifying promise that trials do work out for our good which enables us to see them in the light of God’s grace.

Human experience runs the entire gamut of trouble, sorrow, sickness, material needs, physical dangers and the problems of human relationships which can be so trying. And yet, we are assured that any and all of these experiences are combining to work out for our good.

How can this be possible? There is but one explanation. Once we have committed our hearts and lives to God through faith in his Son we are no longer our own; we have been bought with an infinite price and we are the objects of God’s loving care. This side of eternity no man can fully understand all that is involved but we can all grasp this fact: our lives are in the hands of the One who sees the past, the present and the future. We are in the care of the One for whom there are no limitations of time, space or circumstances.

There is nothing more calculated to demonstrate God’s omniscience and omnipresence than the realization that at any given instant God knows and sees all men everywhere and is fully aware of their circumstances and conditions. Men and events change within seconds but this does not change his knowledge. Furthermore, God has known about all men in all ages and this knowledge reaches forward into that which we call eternity of which God has been and will always be the sovereign ruler.

Only the sovereign God could make such a promise and only the sovereign God could fulfil such a promise. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says: “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

God’s ability to make good on his promise is not open to question. His willingness to make such a promise is a token of his infinite love and mercy to redeemed sinners.

What of the practical implications of such a promise? Can we grasp the fact that every possible contingency of life for the Christian is ordered and supervised for our specific good? We may accept it in theory but when we appropriate it as a glorious fact it becomes an unending source of joy and comfort.

This is not fatalism, but the very opposite, for while fatalism is a doctrine of occurrences necessitated by the nature of things, or a fixed and inevitable decree, our destiny is in the hands of a loving Father. This means that circumstances which to the non-Christian could be completely disastrous are, for the Christian, a source of blessing.

When the Children of Israel went out from Egypt they were soon followed by the armies of Pharoah bent on retrieving their slaves. But God intervened and that night he interposed a cloud between Israel and their pursuers. The Bible says: “And it was a cloud and darkness to them (the Egyptians), but it gave light by night to these (Israel).” The same cloud which was a hindrance to the one was a blessing to the other. So it is with Christians today. We are in the hands of one who knows the end from the beginning and one who in love and mercy is ordering the affairs and circumstances of our lives so that all shall work together for our ultimate good.

Boys choosing sides for a game may toss a coin and say: “Heads I win, tails you lose.” But Christians can say with the fullest assurance: “If God be for us, who can be against us?”

And it is God who has promised his children that all things are actually working out for their good. This should completely change our attitude to life.

The recent North American Conference on Faith and Order at Oberlin brought together in “historic harmony” representatives of most major Protestant bodies. Theologians of many denominations found themselves in remarkable agreement as to essentials, especially the Person and Work of Christ.

Cause For Concern

Some observers, however, have pondered the results of the conference with apprehension. To these there is cause for concern in the spectacle of Oberlin’s “unity.” They are not alarmed by the possibility that men of divergent views may find it possible to achieve unanimity. They are, however, alarmed by the far-reaching implications of the fact that men of widely separated faiths could find it so easy to achieve unanimity.

It may be—one observer mused—that Oberlin demonstrated as a fact what we have long suspected: not that our denominations have come closer together but that some of our theologians have discovered that they can agree and at one and the same time profess loyalty to traditions that clearly disagree.

We seem to be entering a new era, one in which the old issues that once divided us no longer tend to keep us apart, not because they have been resolved, but because they have paled into relative insignificance in the face of new issues more important. The old walls of separation apparently are crumbling … from lack of attention. Not that we no longer care about the difference between Congregationalism and episcopacy, but rather that we are confronted by the urgency of issues about which we care more.

At Oberlin it was demonstrated, not that lines of demarcation have disappeared in Christendom, but that new lines of demarcation are being drawn crossing denominational boundaries, dividing men of like faiths and uniting men of unlike faiths. Oberlin did not bring Presbyterians and Episcopalians together against Methodists. Oberlin brought some Presbyterians and some Episcopalians together, while other Presbyterians and Episcopalians stayed home and took a dim view of the whole proceedings. And some Methodists shouted amen to the brethren at Oberlin while others shouted amen to the brethren who stayed home. The significance of this realignment is the most important thing in Christendom today.

Most significant of all about the new realignment is the fact that everybody is now saying the same thing: “We must turn to the living Christ for an adequate theology for our day.”

We no longer live in a time when differences in affirmations of faith divided men who called themselves Christians. We are entering an era in which all men may conceivably make the same affirmation of faith, but with meanings that are poles apart. Today men are finding it possible to swear allegiance to the “living Christ” from the standpoint of a faith far removed from that of other men who with equal fervor also swear allegiance to the “living Christ.” And this fact is causing upheavals in the Christian world.

Evidence of the above exists in abundance.

New Alignments

Witness some of the alliances that have recently been consummated, or defeated. The United Church of South India brought together widely separated concepts of theology and polity. The Fellowship of Fundamentalist Churches has also brought together widely separated concepts of theology and polity: churches that immerse have exchanged ministers with churches that sprinkle. But no one in his right mind would predict unanimity should the Bishop of the Church of South India sit down in conference with the President of the Fellowship of Fundamentalist Churches.

Not long ago in the United States, Presbyterians of the North and Presbyterians of the South failed to unite despite their common heritage and an active promotional campaign. But only the careless student concluded that the major issues were sectionalism and racism. For the Presbyterians of the North have many congregations in the South and the Presbyterians of the South are beginning actively to consider enlarging their boundaries and reaching out into the North and the West. No. The issues defeating the union were theological—and among brethren who hold to the same Westminster standards.

Once upon a time the doctrine of Predestination separated Presbyterians from their Methodist brethren. Today you can hear Presbyterian professors of theology denying that man’s will is captive or his depravity total, while Methodist professors here and there affirm fervently their belief that God has more to do with the steps man takes unto salvation than man.

Language No Longer Meaningful

Neither Christ nor Calvary can any longer be held to be the ground or basis of Christian unity. Today you must know what Christ and which Calvary. Neo-orthodoxy has taken the last significant step back into full theological agreement with the historic Gospel by affirming that the liberal Jesus must be replaced with the living Christ. But Neo-orthodoxy says, in the next breath, that it does not mean the Christ of 17th Century orthodoxy. The issue, then, is not whether Christ will be the only answer, but whether you mean this or that when you affirm that Christ is the only answer.

The issue is not whether the Bible will be held to be the Word of God, for all are earnestly affirming the modern validity of that historic terminology. The issue is rather what is meant when you say that the Bible is the Word of God.

The problem of unity is not what to do with believers who remain at odds with other believers over the historical Jesus, but what to do when Unbelief proclaims the Lordship of the living Christ.

No greater time of danger has come upon the Christian Church than the present. For today Faith cannot be distinguished from Doubt by the language it uses or the confession it makes. Unbelief once kept itself aloof from the household of faith. Today it wants to come into the house, take a place at the table and crawl into bed with the children … without becoming a member of the family.

This is the situation which has driven Christians of every faith to a re-alignment of their loyalties. A new evangelical ecumenism is rising to meet the vapid ecumenism of radical theology.

Distinctions Must Be Preserved

Unfortunately the new alignments are taking place against a background of increasing suspicion and mistrust. Very likely this may not be avoided. When opposing armies become hard to tell apart by the uniform they wear, increasing alertness is indicated. There comes a time when some “shibboleth” may be the only way to distinguish a man of Ephraim from a friend. Thus, instead of fading into disuse, such tests as the so-called five points of fundamentalism may loom in increasing importance. But even here the possibility of confusion remains. Not long ago a prominent clergyman wrote that he believed the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. But not—he carefully said—in a physical sense.

Recently I heard, in a sermon delivered by a famous minister, a word which illustrated the urgency of the crisis facing the Church today. This man is considered one of the more evangelical preachers of my own denomination. He was preaching on Christian family life and he was rooting the origin of the Christian concern for the family in the Old Testament experiences of the people of God. He painted a vivid picture of Moses’ awful responsibility in the wilderness and he spoke of the laws which were given at Sinai. In the course of his sermon he said, with a sweep of his hand:

“There was Moses, sitting on the mountain, with that vast encampment of people spread out below him, patiently chipping into the rock the commandments which he felt that God was speaking to his heart.…”

I felt numb. The preacher passed over to the New Testament and concluded with warm words about the living Christ. But what can “living Christ” mean to a man who stumbles at the thought that God actually met Moses on the mountain?

G. Aiken Taylor is Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Alexandria, Louisiana. A Calvin scholar, he holds the Ph.D. degree from Duke University. He is author of A Sober Faith and St. Luke’s Life of Jesus, and numerous magazine articles.

We Quote:

PAUL WOLFE

Minister, Brick Presbyterian Church, New York City

The Churches of the Reformation do not officially deny the right of private judgment, but in practice they are approaching the Roman position and affirming that the Church has authority over social and political problems.

Where once they stood for liberty of conscience, these Free Churches today are stressing “group thinking” and the “collective mind”. Pronouncements and resolutions on social and political problems, purporting to represent the “group mind” of the Church, are used to compel the individual Christian to conform. Sometimes we are told that these pronouncements carry “authority” to compel the individual Christian to conform.

The pronouncements are on all manner of subjects. Is it foreign affairs? The government of the United States is told how to conduct its diplomacy. Christians are told what they should think about the United Nations. Is it domestic politics? The individual Church member is told whether he can approve Federal appropriations for education or Federal appropriations for housing; he is told what should be his attitude toward public schools and private schools. A short time ago one of our Church bodies had before it a resolution to tell the President of the United States when he should speak and what he should say in his speech. There is hardly a meeting of a Church body in which some representative of an “action committee” does not bring in a resolution and ask that “the prophetic voice of the Church be heard on (whatever he considers) the social and political crisis of this hour.” The Free Christian Churches in the name of group action are asserting authority over almost everything except religion.

There are a number of things to be said about this. The first is that it is a tragic thing that our Free Churches learn so little from the past. One of the sad days for Protestant Christianity was the day when the Churches made Prohibition the major Christian issue of the hour. In their prophetic capacity they wrote Prohibition into the legislation and the Constitution of the country. And the result? After fifteen years of experiment, Prohibition was withdrawn, one hundred years of progress in temperance was lost, alcohol was given a secure place in American social life.

The second thing to be said is that these pronouncements are not the voice of the Church. If they were the voice of the Church, they would have to be debated in every Session, in every Board of Deacons, in every congregation, debated back and forth until they actually expressed the judgment of the responsible courts of the Church. This, however, is not what happens. The pronouncements represent the political maneuvering of a hard core of committee-entrenched individuals who use a majority vote of a council to promote their social prejudices. These persons work at this task year in and year out. Some of them are part of the paid secretariat of the Church. Delegates and Commissioners to Church bodies rotate, but these permanent office holders are there year after year writing their “prophetic” resolutions.

Another thing to be said is that such action is not prophetic action. Prophecy does not count noses or operate through majority votes. The prophets of the Old Testament were lonely men. Amos, the Prophet of social justice, asked that he be not called a prophet. He did not want his name associated with the schools of mass prophecy. The same was true of Jeremiah. The men who were defeating righteousness were the organized prophets who set their truth in place of God’s Truth. The true Prophet said—I stand here alone and I speak alone because God commanded me to speak.

But the final critic of these pronouncements is Church law. The words of our Confession in regard to Synods and Councils are: “All synods or councils since the Apostles’ times … may err and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice.” “Synods and councils are to handle or conclude nothing but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth.”

One can understand the Pope of Rome claiming authority over social and political problems; he does not believe in the right of private judgment. What is tragic is to have the churches that do believe in religious liberty attempting to play Pope to their own people.

We should remember that the law of our Free Churches still protects the right of private judgment. Our councils and assemblies, being made up of all kinds of men with varying capacities for judgment, probably will continue to be the victims of political pressures. You should know, however, that these pronouncements carry no authority and you are not obligated to obey them.…

I remind you that the right of private judgment is a solemn responsibility exercised under God.

Frequently our Roman brethren speak as though the Reformation stood for religious laissez faire, meaning religious anarchy. They assume that the right of private judgment means that one may think what he wishes and worship as he pleases.

To assert this is to indicate complete ignorance of the teaching of the Reformers. In his statement on the freedom of the Christian man, Luther pointed out that the individual Christian is at one and the same time the most free and the most bound of all men; he is free from the authority of men, but he is bound by the revelation of the Bible and the truth of God’s Word. He is bound by the voice of God speaking to his own conscience.

Our Confession of Faith teaches a similar doctrine: “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to His Word.” The Christian is free. He does not stand in intellectual or moral bondage to any man, to any council, Presbytery, hierarchy or priesthood. Nevertheless the Scriptures are to be studied and the will of God is to be obeyed. The Christian stands responsible before the most august court of all, the court of the Living God. “He is constantly referred beyond the Church to the Lord of the Church and summoned, as a free man, to make his solemn answer to the rightful Lord of his life.” When Martin Luther set the Western world free from the commandments of men he bound it to the Law of God.

There is a scene in Luther’s life which no liberty loving Christian should ever forget. A lone man, isolated and seemingly forsaken, stood before the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and representatives of the Roman Church. On a table before them were the man’s writings. Had he written them? He had. The writings had been condemned by the Roman Church: Did he still believe what he had written? He did. He knew the penalty for heresy? He did. Would he retract and recant? The man paused before he answered and then spoke in measured word. “I cannot submit my faith either to the Pope or to the councils because they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by clear reasoning, since my conscience is thus bound by the Word of God, I cannot and will not retract; for it is unsafe and injurious to act against one’s conscience. Here I stand; I can do no other. May God help me. Amen!”

“Amen” and “Amen” and yet again, “Amen”. And let all of the Church courts, councils, presbyteries and assemblies of our Free Churches re-echo that Amen. In such sturdy independence is the foundation of political and religious liberty. To attempt to substitute for such independence the servile group mind and the standardized social thinking of our time is, in the words of the late General Smuts of South Africa, “the greatest human menace” to religious, and all other liberties.—In a sermon on “Reaffirming the Reformation.”

Revival is a return to God, and a return to God is a return to his Word. Throughout the whole span of the history of revivals this can be seen repeated in the remarkable turning of men to the Holy Scriptures. That which they had lauded as authority they discarded in favor of the Bible. Revival in every epoch has retold the story of the use of Holy Writ in restoring vitality to the Church.

Probably the greatest attestation to this in the Protestant era is found in the initial movement that made the western world Protestant. It was because the leaders of his period—Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and others—focused attention upon the Bible that revival was realized. The beginnings of the Reformation were the fruits of their efforts and the result of their pleas for a pure faith springing from the dictates of God’s Word. They recognized that the Church had previously been encumbered with volumes of literature which only obstructed the clear meaning of the Book of Books. Hence they deemed it reasonable that Scripture should take first place in the thinking and reading of the people. It was when this was emphasized that the peoples of Europe felt a strange but real power of moral uplift surging throughout the continent. This was the whole aim of the Reformers and the primary drive that motivated their zeal and teaching.

Source Of Renewed Life

What they advocated they practiced themselves. They were students of the Scriptures. The whole of Europe followed their example when the Bible was placed in the vernacular of the people. Men and women of all classes gladly became students of the Word of God with them. As the Bible was deeply, sincerely and prayerfully pondered, it quietly and unerringly did its divine work in cottage and mansion. In every country multitudes were awakened out of their sleep of spiritual death, convicted and converted to God. Converts were characterized as a saintly group, possessed by a supernatural power, for through them eternity was sensed, heaven’s atmosphere felt, and the unmistakable awe of God’s majesty realized. They lived listening to the Word of God and doing its precepts. This was indeed revival, the true portrait of vital spiritual quickening that is Christ-centered.

Motivated Wesleys, Edwards

A similar pattern was in evidence in the outpouring of God’s Spirit through the Wesleys during the eighteenth century. The whole basis of early Methodism was the Scriptures. John Wesley said in 1738 that he and his colleagues “resolved to be Bible-Christians at all events; and, wherever they went, to preach with all their might plain, old Bible Christianity” (Jackson’s Works of Wesley, Vol. VIII, p. 349). Whatever effect the revival had was the result of the soul-passion of this man. He cried, “I have thought I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: Just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing—the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men, I sit down alone: Only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book; for this end, to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of the thing I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate? I lift up my heart to the Father of Lights: ‘Lord, is it not thy word, If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God? Thou givest liberally, and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, if any be willing to do thy will, he shall know. I am willing to do, let me know thy will.’ I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. I meditate thereon with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God; and then the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach” (ibid., Vol. V, pp. 3–4).

Proclaiming The Word

Nothing less was the heart-concern of every man whom the Lord chose as his instrument for bringing about revival. In each instance it was the proclaiming of Holy Writ that brought about a God-consciousness and a sense of eternal verities in the midst of society. Jonathan Edwards, the mouthpiece of the Great Awakening, scrupulously applied himself to the same task of being a student of the Bible and then proclaiming what he had imbibed. One of his resolutions (which he read over once a week) states, “Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same” (Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. I, p. 4). An extract from his diary confirms this desire; he says on Tuesday, August 13, 1723, some years before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in abundance, “I find it would be very much to my advantage to be thoroughly acquainted with the Scriptures. When I am reading doctrinal books, or books of controversy, I can proceed with abundantly more confidence; can see upon what foundation I stand” (ibid., p. 11). He relied upon Holy Writ because he believed it recorded God’s thinking and spoke his message to men’s hearts. “In the Bible,” he wrote, “we not only have those warnings which are given by inspiration of the prophets, but we have God’s own words, which he spake as it were by his own mouth. In the Old Testament is his voice out of the midst of the fire and the darkness, from mount Sinai; and in the New Testament, we have God speaking to us, as dwelling among us. He came down from heaven, and instructed us in a familiar manner for a long while; and we have his instructions recorded in our Bibles” (ibid., Vol. VI, p. 333).

This was the fountain that brought new life to early American Christianity. Here is the spring of that power that revivified the dying church and cleansed it of the corruption that polluted its entire ministry. A new day dawned in the history of the United States when the infant nation again grasped and accepted the truth of God’s Word. Under the biblical preaching of Edwards the country mended its ways, received stamina and grew to become a leader in international affairs. When the church was revived the nation lived a vital life.

Also On Mission Field

What wrought revival blessing in long established Christian countries also produced the same results in heathen lands. Young mission churches in pagan surroundings experienced the impact of God’s Spirit upon their work when they emphasized scriptural teaching and Bible reading. A spiritual refreshing of unusual proportions came their way when they placed the Word of God centrally in their lives as the primary avenue through which God was permitted to speak to them his message. After many years of fruitless labor, revival came to Ongole, India, because of this very fact. John E. Clough, principal instrument in that movement, later reported, “The missionaries and native preachers are doing, we have reason to believe, a good work. Thousands of village schools are taught by Christian men and women; hundreds of colporteurs, with Bible in hand, travel from village to village, and offer the word of God, and evangelical and other tracts, for a nominal price to all who will buy; while hundreds of other zealous men, as catechists or lay-preachers, go everywhere preaching Jesus” (From Darkness to Light, p. 280).

Again the secret of success in bringing strength to a weak church, spirituality to carnal Christians, and the voice of God to deaf ears was in stressing the Bible as the Lord’s message. When constant systematic study of the Word was restored, Christians were so blessed that heaven met earth through them, heathendom was affected and thousands found salvation in the true and living God.

Modern Experience

The modern era bears testimony to the same truth. In the twentieth century there have been many notable revivals, and Holy Scripture has been shown to be the foundation of them all. One of the most extraordinary took place in Wales. Here Evan Roberts was the channel God used. He made the Bible his first concern. A contemporary biographer of his wrote in 1906, at the height of the movement, “His great book, both during the years before he became a church member and after, was the Bible. It has continued to this day to be his delight. This is proved by his extensive knowledge of the Old and New Testament by heart” (Phillips, D.M., Evan Roberts, p. 53). Whether at work or in leisure he was absorbed in the Word of God. “It will be interesting to see him at work in the smithy. Scarcely a minute passes by that he is not singing or repeating Bible verses and other good things” (ibid., p. 46). Upon leaving his place of employment he does not waste his time in gaiety, but in his home he “sits before the fire with the Bible in his hands, and reads on for hours. Losing himself completely in it, he is deaf to the chatter and clatter of the house” (ibid., p. 47). Small wonder when he became God’s man in Wales he was able to bring to that land God’s message, the sense of heaven’s presence and the touch of the Eternal. Later through his biblical preaching as a revivalist he bore in upon his hearers with telling conviction the Word of God, the “quick and powerful, and sharper than two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). As “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” the Lord used his message through his servant to speak to the people. In turn the Welsh population found God to be merciful, loving and ready to forgive.

Individual Confrontation

In every revival, individuals through personal studious and methodical contact with the Bible have seen themselves as they really are before God. Hence, each one after seeing Jehovah laments with Job, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” With intense meditation upon the Word, every revivalist has a similar experience with Isaiah. He “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke” (Isa. 6:1–4). Upon such a sight he exclaims, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts” (Isa. 6:5).

Such a revelation motivates the viewer to revival activity by first rectifying his own life and then appealing to his fellows to do likewise. This was the commission of Jesus Christ to Simon Peter; the apostle had just seen the power of God demonstrated by the Saviour, and in astonishment he “fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). However, the Lord immediately responded with spiritual quickening when he “said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men” (Luke 5:10). Peter was thereby declared a revivalist. Divine energy was his when he humbled himself before the sinless One. It is the sight of the sovereign Lord in all of his matchless purity and glory as revealed in the Scriptures that stirs men and brings them to themselves in contrition. Only when sin is acknowledged and forsaken does revival begin. When this is accomplished in backsliding Christian lives, revival has begun. The impact will be felt among believers who under the dynamic of the Holy Spirit turn to God.

Spirit-Directed Drive

As this is an individual matter, revival must of necessity be an independent movement fostered by God. This peak experience of spiritual blessing comes to the Christian when he meets the Lord and in that meeting he is aware only of him. Stripped of all pretence and superficiality, a Christian is in the ultimate analysis alone before his God. Out on the vast expanse of eternity that has no horizon, lacking support of environment and circumstances, he is in a condition of forsakeness apart from the consciousness that the King of Eternity is near. An unbeliever may describe such an encounter with the Lord as something phenomenal, but for one regenerated by the Spirit of God and acquainted with the Lord, it is geunine. Christians assert they know the Lord of Glory from experience. He may not be seen or grasped by human hands, but nevertheless he is as real as hands and feet and closer than breathing.

Being sensitive of such presence of God crushes one into the dust to nothingness. Knowing he is being quietly observed and read, and being certain he is under the scrutiny of God’s eye, the Christian has no other alternative but to admit his utter sinfulness and to allow the cleansing blood of Christ to make him clean and every whit whole. At that moment the Holy Spirit, who has directed this work, reoccupies the heart as sovereign and controls its every area. This is personal revival which issues in a community-wide experience. Is not this the essence of what the prophets and the apostles knew and realized in their own generation?

Broader Implication

Revival always has the broader implication, although it still possesses the traits of the personalistic contact of being subordinate only to the Lord. Whatever influence revival has, it is at the behest of God. This is noted in its corporate action in the Church. In this society of called-out ones, regenerated by the Spirit of Jehovah, the benediction of revival is shared by everyone. Each member does not realize this blessing to the same degree, but all have received some evidence of God’s grace. Each one has not the same capacity to receive spiritual power, but all know something of the outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord when he manifests himself to the Church. Under the sway of the Spirit’s brooding, the assembly unitedly rises to a new level of devotion to its Master and its members consecrate themselves severally and as one with greater purpose to propagate his truth as revealed in his Word.

Revival in its practical application brings the Christian and the Church to concert-pitch spiritually. Due to this it must be free and autonomous, for its actions are dictated by a consuming passion to obey God rather than men. No obstacle can hinder and no blockade can stop men under the direction of revival fervor. Reiteration of this is noted throughout history and can be seen in every revival. Always this has been the aspiration of the Church, even though it has been held captive at times by worldliness. It has constantly endeavored to seek God and his will through his Word, for to be in the center of his will is to be in the place of revival. This is ascertained only in God’s Word. Thus to repeat, revival is a return to God, and a return to God is a return to his Word.

Ernest V. Liddle is a native of Northern Ireland, studied at Edinburgh University and the College of the Free Church of Scotland. He holds degrees from Asbury Theological Seminary and Northern Baptist Seminary; has been a preacher for the Methodist church in Ireland and the Free Church of Scotland, held Methodist pastorates in the U.S., became a Baptist in 1956 and is now on the staff of the Watchman Examiner, New York.

Four hundred years ago this year there took place in England one of those events which may genuinely be described as crucial for the whole development of the Western world, not only in the sphere of religion but also in that of ethical, political and social movement. In itself, the event was quite ordinary and simple, and not altogether unexpected. It consisted in the death of an aging, lonely, disappointed and embittered lady. But this lady happened to be the Queen of England, the wife of Philip of Spain, and the leader of the Counter-Reformation in her kingdom. Her name was Mary Tudor.

She had been through unfortunate experiences prior to her accession. Her mother was the ill-fated Katherine of Aragon, who had first been married to the elder son of Henry VII, and then became the first of the many brides of Henry VIII. Mary was her only child to survive infancy, and the failure to produce a male heir was one of the reasons for the unsavory affair which touched off the Reformation in England. Mary herself grew up under the shadow of her mother’s ill-treatment and a prey to the fickle moods of her father. For a time, when the king’s marriage with Katherine was pronounced null and void, she was even declared illegitimate and excluded from succession to the throne. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that she later identified the Reformation with a great wrong, and regarded those who espoused it as mistaken at the very best, if not irreligious and hypocritical.

Mary was not unkindly treated during the reign of Edward VI, and was given her rightful position as next in succession should Edward die without any children of his own. Her religious convictions were respected, although Reformers like Ridley made futile efforts to bring her to an appreciation of evangelical truth. But the experiences through which she had passed, and the influence of her advisers, made her quite impervious to their appeals and unswerving in her conviction that England must be brought back to the papal fold. The precarious health of Edward made the position of the Reformers a very uneasy one during the years of their apparent success, and the selfish and unscrupulous policy of the real ruler in Edward’s minority, the Duke of Northumberland, did little to commend the cause of reform to the mass of the people.

When Edward died in 1553, the new reign commenced with high hopes. Even Protestants had not supported the attempt of Northumberland to secure the throne for Jane Grey, whom he had conveniently married to his own son. And encouraged by Mary’s vague promises of respect for religious convictions, most of them rallied to the legitimate heir, and were only too glad to throw off the yoke of the exacting Northumberland. Mary had in fact a great chance. She could hardly be expected to approve or actively foster the cause of Reformation. But at least she could grant a period of conciliation or concession when matters could be thoroughly and honestly sifted and some form of settlement quietly reached.

No Concession To Protestants

However, in practice, this was hardly to be expected, and the leading Reformers were well aware that they must seek safety in exile or face the possibility of imprisonment and even death. Mary’s character and policy were already fixed for her. The bringing back of Reginald Pole as Archbishop, the election of a new Parliament carefully picked from sympathizers and finally the Spanish marriage committed her to a way of reaction which very quickly became a way of intolerant suppression. One by one the various measures of reform were repealed, Mary’s only failure being in the matter of monastic properties which even the most “Catholic” of beneficiaries refused to restore. The instigators of the Reformation, from bishops on the one hand to humble artisans and even expectant mothers on the other, were committed to prison, and in many cases to flames. Nor was the policy of religious reaction and intolerance matched by progress in the economic or foreign fields. At home, conditions were perhaps even more wretched than they had been under Edward, while abroad England as junior partner with Spain had seldom stood so low in the estimation of other nations.

Perhaps the main question in the minds of Protestants and others during the brief reign of Mary was whether she would have an heir and thus ensure a “Catholic” succession in place of Elizabeth. On many occasions there were rumors that an heir was expected, and once the bells were even rung for his or her supposed birth. The likely source of these rumors was that Mary was suffering from an internal growth from which she finally died, but we can imagine the state of suspense for the country when so many issues were poised in the balance, and no one could tell how the decision would fall.

God Can Work The Improbable

No study is ultimately more futile than that of the possibilities of history. For after all, one of the great interests of history under the guiding providence of God is that even the most probable things do not happen. Yet it is tempting to consider what might not have happened if Mary had really had a healthy successor. Even politically the consequences could have been momentous. England might have been enslaved for many years to Spanish policy, and never have become the seafaring, mercantile and colonizing power which it did under Elizabeth. In these circumstances, there might well have been no development of the dominions or even the United States in their modern form; no emergence of the democratic institutions which these nations have in common; no vigorous development of commerce and industry; no flourishing of independent education; no literature and culture so obviously informed by Protestant convictions and principles. Religiously, of course, the results might have been even more awful to contemplate. Protestantism might well have been finally excluded from England, and in this case the Scottish Reformation would probably have been impossible, the Netherlands might well have succumbed to Catholicism, there would have been no Pilgrim Fathers to spread evangelical truth to the new world, and all the enterprises in which Britain and America especially have been so gloriously identified, whether in the form of religious awakening, missionary expansion or social reform, might never have eventuated. Indeed, it is not impossible that Spain might have maintained its influence far longer than was the case, and ultimately have been the real colonizer of North as well as South America and other parts of the globe. So much of the future depended upon the life or death of Mary Tudor.

The lessons of history are more instructive than its probabilities. And from the situation at the close of the reign of Mary, four simple lessons are to be learned which may stand us in good stead in similar circumstances. The first is obviously the value of a steadfast witness even when the cause seems hopeless. The martyrs who died at the stake did not die in vain. Indeed, they perhaps commended the Gospel in a way in which it had never been commended to the common people by previous reforms. At the very least, it aroused a hatred for the bigotry (however sincere) which could carry through such remorseless persecution, and a respect for simple folk and learned churchmen who cared enough about scriptural truth to be prepared to die for it.

The Lesson Of Restoration

But not all the Reformers were called to die. Some of them sought refuge in exile, not merely for their own safety, but to be ready for a possible restoration. Some Roman Catholic writers have been prepared to see in the exile almost a deliberate and well-considered plan for the possible future. Whether this was consciously the case or not, the fact remains that from the exile there came back to England on Mary’s death an able body of mostly younger leaders able to take up where their fathers had been broken off. We must not despise those who flee when they are persecuted. Some are called to suffer; some to preach elsewhere and at the right moment to return. Even in the most desperate case, prudent measures can rightly be taken for the turn which God may see fit to bring. Preparation for the future may also be an act of faith and obedience.

One of the less fortunate aspects of the exile was that it saw the beginning, or rather the intensification, of discord and division among the English Protestants, with all that this was to mean in the form of later Puritan and Independent controversies. At this point there is a third lesson of warning. Times of weakness and apparent defeat are often times when there is a particular temptation to disagreement. But the call of God in such times is surely to close the ranks, to face the common enemy, to concentrate on the essentials and to work together a step at a time for the basic cause. How much happier might not the ultimate settlement have been, and how much stronger the evangelical cause in England, if the exiles and their successors had overcome at once the kind of division which became such a scandal at Frankfort!

Finally, there is the simple but supreme lesson of the divine overruling of history. This need not be labored. It is so obviously true at so many points that while man proposes, it is not man, whether he be emperor, pope or politician, but God himself who disposes. This has been particularly at the climaxes of history, and most of all when out of apparent disaster God brings a glorious victory like the triumph of Protestantism in England. This is the ultimate challenge to faith in the death of Mary Tudor.

Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Ph.D., D.Litt., is rector of St. Thomas’ English Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, Scotland. Educated in the University of Edinburgh, he is author of books on history and religion and contributor to numerous periodicals. He was Vice Principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol, from 1946–54.