Bible Text of the Month: 1 Corinthians 5:19

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Behold our Mediator! Not God without humanity, nor man without divinity; but intermediate between mere Deity and mere humanity, he is a human divinity, and a divine humanity.

As the salt-waters of the sea, when they are strained through the earth, they are sweet in the rivers; so the waters of majesty and justice in God, though terrible, yet being strained and derived through Christ, they are sweet and delightful.

To wit—This verse is designed further to state the nature of the plan of reconciliation, and of the message with which they were intrusted. It contains an abstract, or an epitome of the whole plan; and is one of those emphatic passages in which Paul compresses into a single sentence the substance of the whole plan of redemption.

Reconciliation

By reconciliation is meant the whole work of redemption. It is called reconciliation as it respects us as enemies, salvation as it respects us in a state of damnation, propitiation as we are guilty, redemption as captives, and bound over to punishment. Reconciliation, justification, and adoption differ thus: in reconciliation, God is considered as the supreme Lord and the injured party, and man is considered as an enemy that hath wronged him; in justification, God is considered as a judge, and man as guilty; in adoption, God is considered as a father, and man is an alien. Reconciliation makes us friends, justification makes us righteous, adoption makes us heirs.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK

That salvation implies the removal of man’s moral enmity to God is frankly admitted: but this is not inconsistent with firmly maintaining that it also necessarily supposes and requires the removal of God’s legal enmity to man. The party offended must be reconciled as well as the offender, before any real or permanent friendship can be effected. The reconciliation or atonement spoken of, is said to be effected by the death of Christ, whereas the removal of the enmity of man’s heart is more properly the work of the Holy Spirit. It is also represented as something synonymous with the non-imputation of trespasses, which itself is decisive of the sense in which it is to be understood.

WILLIAM SYMINGTON

Particularly, to Him belongs the praise of devising the stupendous plan of redemption, by which he reconciles to himself the rebellious children of men. In a way honorable to his holiness, justice, and truth, he removes the enmity of their mind; he subdues their rebellious will; he sheds abroad his love in their heart; he restores them to his favor and friendship; he renews them after his own image, and blesses them with all heavenly and spiritual blessings. This reconciliation is effected, not on the ground of their repentance; not by works of righteousness which they have done; not by the arbitrary exercise of mercy, but through the mediation of his own dear Son, who, by his obedience and death, has satisfied divine justice; magnifies and honored the law, and made a full atonement for sin.

WILLIAM LOTHIAN

To reconcile unto himself, does not mean to convert, or to render friendly to himself. This is plain first, because this reconciliation is said to be effected by the death of Christ as a sacrifice; and secondly, because what follows is not a proof of God’s converting the world, but it is a proof of his being propitious. The proof that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ (i.e., in his death) is that he does not impute to men their trespasses, and that he has established the ministry of reconciliation. The forgiveness of sin and the institution of the ministry are clear evidence that God is propitious.

CHARLES HODGE

In verse 18, it is said, God “hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” This does not mean that God changed our heart, and made us love him, and appointed the Apostle to announce that fact. It can only mean that through Christ, through what he did and suffered for us, peace is restored between God and man, who is able and willing to be gracious. This is the gospel which Paul was commissioned to announce, namely, as follows in the next verse, God is bringing about peace; he was in Christ effecting this peace, and now is ready to forgive sin, i.e., not to impute unto men their trespasses; and therefore the apostle urges his readers to embrace this offer of mercy, to be reconciled unto God; i.e., to accept his overture of reconciliation. For it has a sure foundation. It rests on the substitution and vicarious death of Christ. He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. It is impossible, therefore, that the reconciliation of which the apostles speak as effected by the cross or death of Christ, should, in its primary and main aspect, be a subjective change in us from enmity to the love of God.

CHARLES HODGE

Reconciling—The greatest controversy lies in this word, whether by it be meant God’s reconciliation to us, or our laying down our enmity against God. Socinus and his followers say God was not angry with man, he was reconciled before, but that this place is meant of affection towards God, because it is said we are reconciled to God, and not God to us.… By reconciliation of us to God in this place cannot be meant our conversion, or any act of ours. Because the reconciliation here spoken of was the matter of the apostles’ sermons, and the great argument they used to convert the world to God. If, then, that sense were true, it would be an impertinent argument, unworthy of those that Christ called out to be the first messengers and heralds of this redemption. The sense of their discourse would run thus: God hath already converted you, therefore be converted to him; as it is nonsense to exhort a man to do that very act which he hath already done. Also, this reconciliation doth formally consist in the non-imputation of sin to men. Now this is God’s act, not the creatures.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK

Fruit Of Reconciliation

The effect of God’s being reconciled, or his reconciling the world to himself, is in these words, “not imputing to them their trespasses.” God doth so reconcile us to himself by Christ as not to impute our trespasses to us; that is, not dealing with us according as justice required for our sins, upon the account of Christ’s work, remitting the penalty due to them, laying away his anger, and receiving us to favor. This is the immediate fruit of the reconciliation spoken of, if not the reconciliation itself.

JOHN OWEN

Sin at the same time creates enmity in the human heart toward God, an enmity removed also by faith in the great propitiation. Thus the cross is the symbol of peace. He who died on it possessed God’s nature, the offended party, and man’s nature, the offending party; and thus being qualified to mediate between them, his blood was poured out as a peace-offering. The law is satisfied, and guilty sinners are freed from the curse: an amnest is proclaimed; God reconciles the world unto himself, and justified man has peace with God.

JOHN EADIE

The evidence that the death of Christ has been accepted as an expiation for sin, of infinite value and efficiency, is the fact that God hath commissioned his ministers to announce to all men that God is reconciled and ready to forgive, so that whosoever will may turn unto him and live.

CHARLES HODGE

- More from Augustine

Eutychus and His Kin: November 11, 1957

Daniel L. Eckert

SERMON SATELLITE

From Deepwell Heights to Cloverleaf Vista the pulpits of this part of Exurbia have all viewed sputnik on the horizon. Comments on the world’s little red fellow traveler range from the political to the allegorical. The rector of All Souls’ was in splendid form, relating sputnik to Atoms for Peace, the prophets, the geophysical year, Zionism, and integration. It made you shiver just to hear him launch the word spooot-neek. The visiting speaker at the Village Gospel Tabernacle favored the pronunciation sputnick, and discussed the prophetic implications of the red moon.

Old Dr. Van Dyke, the emeritus pastor at Second Church, preached for Dr. Jones who was down with the flu. Surprisingly, he mentioned sputnik, too. He always chooses a text, and was preaching on the Tower of Babel passage in Genesis 11. (He insisted that it was not just a tower but a city.) It was a moving sermon. He pictured the race for the conquest of space as manifesting man’s pride and pretension. The motive that thrust sputnik soaring into orbit is the same that built the tower: “Let us make us a name …” As the patriarchal preacher described God’s sovereignty over human rebellion, he seemed to be looking down at our globe from a perspective more remote than a satellite could achieve. He was speaking as from eternity, proclaiming the Word of God.

Most memorable was his contrast between the pride of Babel and the worship of the chosen seed (Genesis 4:26): making a name for ourselves, or calling on the name of the Lord.

It was a little surprising that Dr. Van Dyke began with the sputnik. His conclusion was not novel, however. His sermon ended at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, as all his sermons have done for half a century.

EUTYCHUS

WORDS OF GOD AND MEN

It seems to me that the objective authority must ever be the self-revealing Spirit of God dealing with the individual soul. A good illustration … is a note in Bruce Metzger’s article on the Apocrypha, where he says, “John Bunyan … received help … from the text … he could not at first locate.… When at length he found it in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. 2:10), he was honest enough to confess that ‘though it was not in those Texts that we call Holy and Canonical, yet for as much as this sentence was the sum and substance … of the Promises, it was my duty to take the comfort of it; and I bless God for that word, for it was of God to me.” … My experience is that Bunyan’s principle is the principle which is followed by all Christians.…

Danville, Ill.

Publication of the Bible with the Apocrypha … can result too much in the average Bible reader’s mistaking the apocryphal writings from the written Word of God, and to distraction from the sacred text.… I take serious issue, in kindness, with Dr. Metzger’s use of Bunyan’s experience of relief from despondency through the use of the Apocrypha. It seems to me that Dr. Metzger is unintentionally being irreverent of the potentialities of the Holy Scriptures when he suggests that Bunyan might never have overcome his spiritual despondency if he had not been familiar with the Apocrypha. Certainly, Holy Writ itself … contains promises of an efficient enough nature to have relieved Bunyan.…

Pine St. Baptist Church

Scranton, Pa.

MISSIONARY PRIORITY

… Dr. Smith (“Christianity and the Pagan World,” Sept. 16 issue) mentions the motto which has virtually become synonymous with his name.… “Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?” Now this motto is very effective in creating missionary interest, and no doubt … is asked out of genuine Christian concern.… Nevertheless I submit that this motto is a purely human invention … blatantly contrary to the Holy Scriptures. There is no support … either in precept or by example. Indeed … Paul could wish himself anathema, if possible, for the salvation of his kinsmen.… This, however, does not justify Dr. Smith’s motto.… On his first Journey Paul visited the Asia Minor cities twice.… Shall we accuse Paul of not having a proper missionary spirit? Not only so, but Paul also visited these cities on his second journey and also on the third. Furthermore, Paul did not cover as much ground as possible, but rather spent considerable time in several places.… My purpose … is not to minimize Dr. Smith’s worthy emphasis on mission work, but rather to defend the Word of God which Dr. Smith himself loves.…

Ashland, Ohio

JUDGMENT AND REWARD

You may go jump in the lake anytime, as far as I’m concerned.

Toronto, Ontario

The very title CHRISTIANITY TODAY indicates that you believe real Christianity is changing.… Evangelist ED NELSON Aurora, Colo.

The thing that impresses me most about your journal is that it is criticized both by liberals and fundamentalists. Any magazine able to boast of such an accomplishment must stand in a fairly sound position. I personally disagree with a good percentage of what I read there; but occasionally I find an article which is reward enough for the wading.…

Christian Church

Alamosa, Colo.

I especially like the scholarly presentations relating Biblical Christianity to our cultural and everyday life.…

Wheaton, Ill.

Please be congratulated for CHRISTIANITY TODAY; what it does for Christian apologetics and dialectic is sorely needed for evangelical missionary intelligence.…

London, Eng.

Your magazine is top-notch, thoroughly sound, theologically incisive, intellectually respectable and vital.…

Third Presbyterian Church

North Tonawanda, N. Y.

I’m only a housewife, but your magazine gives me much joy … as I read the sound, scriptural articles.…

Asheville, N. C.

I would judge … that it is not designed as a popular magazine, but rather for those of a specifically theological type of mind. For such I believe you are rendering splendid service.…

United Church

Cottage City, N. Y.

I’m a retired minister, but am not retired from good literature. So I’m enclosing a check.…

Mocksville, N. C.

I enjoy CHRISTIANITY TODAY and commend you for fulfilling an important need in the Christian publications field.

Salem, Ore.

Secretary of State

I don’t know of another publication doing the same job, a job that needs to be done.…

Athis-Mons, Seine-et-Oise, France

“JINE ‘EM!”

In the June 24th issue I read with interest the reported accounts of both the Southern and American Baptist Convention sessions. Without any malice or ill-will, permit me to make public a comment which I believe the article will justify. It is difficult for some of us American Baptists—even those from the South such as I—to accept and reconcile the statement quoted from Southern Baptist president, C. C. Warren’s opening address that, “it is not the policy of Southern Baptists to go as invaders anywhere.” But as a matter of fact, they do—anywhere! Members of other denominations of my acquaintance have also voiced concern not because of fear or jealousy or competition but on the basis of Christian ethics and mutual respect.… If present trends persist, the only hope of the Baptists of the North is to give the victory to the South they lost almost 100 years ago and “jine ’em!”

Gilbert Memorial First Baptist Church

Mount Clemens, Michigan

GOD AND SEGREGATION

Race Relations is by no means the most important problem agitating Christian consciousness today. The real problem is the inability of scholars to accept God’s universal morality and a frightening ability to project with scintillating astuteness their own rationalizations. It is the chronic failure to acquaint revelation with fact. I want to point out several half truths employed by Dr. Ellis (“Segregation and the Kingdom of God,” March 18 issue) so common in the type of presentation made in his article. As I do so I want to stress that writers in religious journals should be aware that nonbelievers read their articles as well as believers. I am sure that the non-believer is strengthened in his non-belief by this featherlike thinking.…

The basic assumption of Dr. Ellis is that the white man in the North and South has been, is, will be, and ought to be the dispenser of morality and freedom. Thus when he (the white man) speaks from European culture or southern tradition all other men “ought” to condescend. With this anthropomorphic morality Dr. Ellis calls Paul, Barnabas and Jesus together for a Divine premise to his “ought”. Dr. Ellis’s procedure is not intellectually honest. He poses the weakest argument of the integrationists and addresses it to the strongest argument of the segregationists. He says for instance, “Only a naive appraisal can reduce the problem of race to one of skin color.” He does this, implying unfairly, that the integrationists base their entire defense upon this immature judgment. He then suggests the privilege of the white South’s “right” to preserve its European and racial and cultural heritage. Not a word is mentioned of the right of the Negro. It is assumed that the desires of the white man are axiomatically right and that the desires of the Negro are prohibitive. It must be pointed out that while Dr. Ellis employs the word “right” for the white South he should really use “desire” of the white South as I have indicated the desire of the Negro. Desires of various groups may clash, but Divine rights of one group can never clash with the Divine rights of another. A more accurate statement could have been made by Dr. Ellis had he said that the white South holds it to be a right to preserve their advantage rather than their heritage! The modern world holds little brief for heritage or tradition—production is the theme everywhere except in race relations.

In discussing the rights of the South Dr. Ellis says that the most important point is that the people who must live in the situation are convinced for reasons sufficient to them that integration will be detrimental to society. Dr. Ellis should have said that the white people are convinced that integration is an evil. There is a veneration here of a closed mind—“sufficient to them.” How dangerous it is when justice is based on reason sufficient to a few interested in preserving their own culture at any price! The man who robs a store may do so for reasons sufficient to him. Does this make it right? How unfair it is to the millions of personalities which are innocently tom by the penalty of segregation. Of course, Dr. Ellis, this is a problem greater than “skin color.” This has a tremendous effect on the souls of young children who are forced by law and custom to think less of themselves than they ought to think in the North and South.

Dr. Ellis said segregation should be a fence, not a wall. On my father’s farm there were chicken wire fences with many openings. The chickens were kept in place just as if it had been a wall. The assumption behind much of this thinking is that Negroes have nothing to contribute. Furthermore, the openings to which Dr. Ellis alludes are generally one way streets or safety devices whereby the builder of the fence can keep a watchful eye on those whom he wishes to keep out. There is, as Dr. Ellis well knows as a Virginian, freedom of a white man to visit a Negro church at his discretion. But a Negro visit to a white church must be prearranged. This is not New Testament ethics, sir.

Race relations is good according to Dr. Ellis in six suburban type communities which were built with a segregated approach. Here is real subterfuge. First it is projected that the Negro contractor is right because he apparently agrees with Dr. Ellis. This in the South is called a “smart Negro.” Actually it should be clear to Dr. Ellis that race relations in such a community are not good—they are nil.

All Christian integrationists are not headed for a socialistic state. This perhaps is the greatest half-truth employed by Dr. Ellis, and borders on being malicious. For that matter all integrationists are not Christians, nor are they wrong because of that. Dr. Ellis falls prey to that which he accuses the integrationists. He becomes emotional and calls all integrationists socialists and anarchists. He omits Paul’s great contributions and his ethical demands of Christian love. Rather he puts forth Paul’s weakness and short-sightedness as biblical evidence in support of a social philosophy of separate but equal facility. Shall we take Paul at his worse or at his best? Paul and Barnabas had vital differences, but their human traits must not be the basis of our social or racial philosophy or for the premise for moral law. If Dr. Ellis would escape from the ivory towers he would find that our churches would be quite silent if the ladies did not speak. Certainly the mores of the Pauline Community cannot be used as a basis for social philosophy today.

Finally I want to say that the substitution of legislation for natural law in Western civilization, and especially in America, is working a havoc with our moral system. Originally the role of the civil law was conceived as one to interpret the will of God in the affairs of men. This was a high noble concept. The judge, the advocate and the priest were true apostles. They were “sent forth” to proclaim and elucidate the will of God. Today right and wrong are legislated. If I hate a man’s color I simply develop a plurality in the legislature against him. Therefore, I legally justify my hateful actions against him. Thus, we have witnessed on the American scene the rise of a devastating relativism in moral conduct. With this relativism nothing is clear and precise. We have become ambiguous and indefinite. Look for instance at the range of words used in this short article by Dr. Ellis … “socialism, communism, world government, integration, forced integration, modus vivendi, unity in diversity and ecclesiastical integration.” What a wide range of indefinite words, and how increased the area of ambiguity when we add to these terms their emotional connotations. Certainly if we are to clarify and put at ease the Christian conscience on the matter of race we shall have to accept the unequivocable cosmic morality of one God. His truths must not be deflected by the limited ability of men to love their brother.

Trinity Methodist Church, Bronx, N. Y.

DEED AND INTENT

The statement … of CHRISTIANITY TODAY (Sept. 16 issue) was that the ‘president of a Christian college forbade students on his campus to pray publicly for success of the meetings.’ As a matter of fact, neither the founder or the president forbade the students to have a public prayer meeting for the success of the Billy Graham campaign. Had such a request been made, we would have forbidden it because we do not believe in mocking God, and to pray for God to bless that which in His Word He positively forbids is to mock God.

President

Bob Jones University

Greenville, S.C.

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY regrets that it confused intention with deed. The report was based upon a letter in which Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., chairman of the Board of Trustees of Bob Jones University, stated: “If any group of Bob Jones students wanted to have a prayer meeting to ask God to bless the evangelistic movement which Billy Graham is heading up in New York, we would not permit it. If we did permit it, it would be a repudiation of the purpose for which Bob Jones University was founded.”—ED.

- More from Daniel L. Eckert

Ideas

Will the “Y” Recover Its Gospel?

The Editors

As the YMCA moves into its second century, friends of this originally remarkable movement are hopeful that it will re-examine its mission and message for the safeguarding of a high and historic calling. They have been fearful over the past generation that the Young Men’s Christian Association has deleted from its program Christianity as a Gospel of salvation for lost sinners; and that in place of genuine spirituality, it has developed interests apart from, and even competitive to, the purpose for which it began.

It was in 1844, in the heart of London’s mercantile district, that twelve men, leaders from the Anglican Church’s evangelical wing, and from the Wesleyan and other free churches, launched the Y into operation. It was a time of social unrest. The evangelical conscience was now aggressively directed toward prison reform, education, temperance, decency in literature and art, and other vexing social problems. Yet, underlying all the energy put forward had been the presupposition of a personal faith in the redeeming work of Christ and an enthusiasm for soul-winning. John Wesley had emphasized his belief that “The gospel of Christ knows no religion but social, no holiness but social holiness”; yet he had also left no doubt in mind that he was “saving sinning men, with no aim to transform them into crusaders against social sin.” It was the evangelical forces to which England came to owe its greatest debt in the struggle for social justice; the social vision remained the by-product of a desire to fulfill the objective of the Great Commission—personal soul-winning and evangelism.

Nine of the twelve founders of the mid-nineteenth century London Association had been members of free churches, the remainder being from the Church of England. Their object was to improve “the spiritual condition of young men employed in the drapery and other trades, by the introduction of religious services among them.” It was a common fact then that many of London’s retail clerks had become degraded and dissolute. And for its first year of activity, the London Association sponsored prayer meetings, Bible study, soul-winning, and weekly offerings for foreign missions. Yet Dr. L. L. Doggett, in A History of the Y.M.C.A., credits the London Association as having been “one of the chief factors in shortening the hours of labor for commercial young men.” Incited by spiritual vision, the YMCA became a promoter of social welfare through the spread of Christianity.

A chain of Associations, devoted to the Gospel of Christ, soon spread across the United States. The first was established in Boston in 1851. Montreal had formed the first YMCA in North America two months earlier. Its founders were Protestants, mostly of fervent evangelical conviction, and the associations developed into centers of Christian activity. “In those days,” said the late “Ma” Sunday, widow of Evangelist Billy Sunday, “the Y was known for its Bible more than for billiards.”

Galen M. Fisher, for many years executive of the Institute of Social and Religious Research and author of Public Affairs and the Y.M.C.A. 1844–1944, claims that “during the first fifty years of the history of the Young Men’s Christian Association, there was virtually no attention paid to what is properly called public affairs. During the second fifty years there developed, albeit slowly and unevenly, a determination by progressive leaders to arouse and equip Association members to participate in solving some of the great public questions of the day” (p. 183). He observes that the second century discloses the “growingly rooted conviction held by both lay and secretarial leaders that public affairs must be a central concern of the Associations” (p. 185).

The observation would appear cryptic. Fisher is unwittingly stating the cold fact that as an evangelical agency, the YMCA has in recent generations displaced its Christian evangel by the secular and merely social.

Fortunately, some Y Associations have still preserved their spiritual heritage and at the present time carry on supplementary programs of recreation, education and social effort in the interests of vigorous Christian witness. Perhaps the best example of this is the Association at Kannapolis, North Carolina, the largest in America, with 12,000 members. This is an exceptional example, however. In many places the spiritual tenor is at a very low ebb, and in others virtually non-existent. Some Associations have gone so far as to distort their original theological emphasis. For instance, the Cal-Tech branch of the Pasadena YMCA has for years been drifting in Unitarianism. Other Associations have become rallying places for “religious brotherhood” efforts, bringing together Protestant, Catholic and Jewish interests in such a way as to deprive Protestantism of its former missionary vitality.

The issue, of course, is not whether the YMCA ought to bristle with social concern. Rather, the problem to be faced is the manner in which that concern is to be defined and carried out. Many Association leaders today declare that faith in God and his Kingdom is the foundation of their confidence, and that business, labor, politics, race relations and international affairs can be dominated by the Spirit of Christ. But they are still suffering from the liberal Protestant illusion that the Kingdom of God can be introduced by the social melioration of unregenerate humanity. Y leaders have frequently protested against “the excessive individualism of the Protestant tradition.” This complaint has arisen, not simply from tendency of private religion to overlook the obstacles that unjust social institutions place in the path of consistent Christian living, but also out of a misplaced confidence that social evils can be conquered apart from supernatural individual regeneration. Proponents of the “social gospel,” even speakers applying evolutionary theories to moral and spiritual realities, have been featured in the past on the Y platforms. Moreover, some speakers have accorded Christian sanction to forms of Marxism which, they imply, would be acceptable if “filtered through the minds of men steeped in democratic optimism and Christian idealism.”

This anemic, if not unchristian, drift of Y interests, running alongside its program of recreational and public activities for “Christian citizenship,” represents the situation today in many of America’s most influential Associations. What it indicates is that the liberal social gospel movement still widely dominates the YMCA public affairs program.

This development has not been due to a neglect of social issues by evangelicals in the Associations. The entire Y movement had been born out of a social concern. The great evangelist Dwight L. Moody had, in days when social concern was rooted in the Gospel of Christ, raised large sums of money in his campaigns for new Association buildings. Before the turn of the century, however, lectures and panels sponsored by some of these Associations were already reflecting a shift toward independent consideration of social problems. After the turn of the century, attention focused more and more upon social ideals as divine imperatives, and local Associations were called upon to educate their memberships in terms of these objectives. In 1919 the International Convention adopted a set of “Social Ideals” which called for “subordination of … the profit motive to the … cooperative spirit,” “social planning and control of the credit and monetary systems and the economic processes for the common good,” “a wider and fairer distribution of wealth,” and other semi-socialist objectives. It is not to be denied, however, that many of the social correctives which the Associations supported pointed to definite, even urgent, areas of need. Some of its formative leaders in past decades have been of socialistic temper, however. Others have represented “world church” ecumenical attitudes and even tend to speak of the Y as a form of ecclesia.

The vast membership of the Y today represents a strategic global constituency. Centennial statistics show that the YMCA now has more than 2,000,000 world members, over 8,500 Associations, with some 6,000 secretaries. The United States alone has 1,800 Associations and 3,700 secretaries, which account for three-fourths of the world membership.

It may appear ironic to say that the Young Men’s Christian Association today stands as a vast mission field with infinite, significant Christian potential. Its concern for human welfare has given it a unique role to play in American communities. And as it moves into the second century of its life, many of its supporters hope that it will reflect upon its Christian heritage and effectively find its social interests to the Gospel of personal redemption.

At the 1955 Centennial Conference in Paris, Alfred Hirs of Zurich, who has demonstrated a wide evangelical witness on the International Committee, reminded the opening session of a consecration which young delegates had made one hundred years previous: “Each one carried away in his heart a new vision of the Master’s cause, a stronger determination to serve the Lord more faithfully; each one left Paris with the conviction that the All Powerful would stretch out his hand upon this new undertaking.”

At that Paris conference on August 22, 1855, delegates from Europe and America laid the evangelical basis for the future admission of all new Associations: “The Young Men’s Christian Associations seek to unite those young men who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour according to the Holy Scriptures, desire to be his disciples in their faith and in their life, and to associate their efforts for the extension of his Kingdom among men.”

This was the beginning of the YMCA venture, worthy indeed of survival for Christian service.

Once A Bible Land, Syria Can Trigger War

It is sometimes difficult to interpret God’s mysterious hand in history, and even more difficult for us to understand the relation of immediate events to his ultimate plan. At the same time we should always confess that the sovereign God watches over men and nations and that all are subject to his judgment.

One of the most startling events in the history of the Christian Church took place outside the walls of Damascus. The Apostle Paul went out from that experience with a divine commission which made him a mighty power down to the present day.

This same Damascus is now one of the danger centers of the world. At the helm of the government of Syria are men who, wittingly or unwittingly, can trigger what could become World War III.

The disciples were first called Christians in Syrian Antioch. From that church there went out missionaries who, in their generation, turned the world upside down.

Strange that during these recent weeks this same city and area should now be occupied by Egyptian soldiers, as a gesture of defiance to the West and as a token of the would-be solidarity of the Arab world.

Paul’s missionary journeys were largely in the area now covered by Turkey. The witness of those early churches has largely disappeared. The cities in which were located the seven churches mentioned in the Revelation no longer have such churches; the total Protestant population of all of Turkey today is probably less than 150.

But today we find Turkey and Israel the dominant military powers in the Middle East. Both are able and willing to impose their own will on all of that area. Only America and Russia restrain these nations or make them hesitate to take action.

What is the significance of all of these events? None of us can say. But of this we can be sure: the God of history is overruling in the affairs of men and nations and his own holy will shall certainly prevail. One of the dramatic turns of history is that the Bible lands of antiquity so much dominate the headlines of the world. But the God of Bible history holds the destinies of nations in his hands.

In the face of the kaleidoscopic changes in the world situation, the modern man is holding his breath, not only at scientific developments which stagger the imagination but also because men themselves seem unable to exercise moral control over the forces they have now generated.

Precisely at this point the Christian and the Church has comfort and hope to offer. We know the Christ of history and the Christ of Calvary and they are the same. We also know that the future is in his hand. As he yearned over Jerusalem in the days of his flesh, so he yearns for the sinning world of our generation and offers peace and redemption to those who hear his call.

The Church is the repository of this glorious Gospel. God forbid that we should neglect it for another.

- More from The Editors

Theology

Assets or Liabilities?

L. Nelson Bell

Assets Or Liabilities?

The average Christian is a layman (and I use the term to include all church members other than the clergy). The ratio to the clergy is approximately 300 to 1, and while it is the latter which are usually quoted in the papers and who unquestionably exercise the greatest influence in ecclesiastical circles, so far as the world is concerned the Church is what the average Christian is.

We laymen therefore carry tremendous responsibility, for in the world at large the influence of the Church depends on the influence of its average member. It is the ordinary Christian who runs the home, does the shopping, teaches school, operates the businesses of our country and engages in the professions.

As one layman, writing to other laymen, let us consider just what Christ expects of us as his representatives. It is a sobering thought that people outside the Church judge Christ and Christianity, not by the Bible, not by church pronouncements, not even by the occasional fragmentary reports of sermons they may read in the paper. Rather, if they form any opinion at all, it usually is from the sudden impact or day-by-day influence of some man or woman who demonstrates in the contacts of daily living that there is a different quality of life and attitude in those in whom Christ is Lord and Saviour.

While the Apostle Paul affirms that it has pleased God to save men through the “foolishness of preaching,” he tells the same Corinthian Christians that they are letters written in the heart, letters which are known and read of all men.

Our Lord admonished his disciples to let their light shine before men for the express purpose of glorifying Him, and this admonition holds good today to all who bear the name Christian.

One of the difficulties in the Church today is the ever-recurring attempt to make non-Christians act like Christians. Because of this we have many people wearing the uniform and repeating a set of Christian shibboleths when they actually belong to the camp of the enemy and speak a different language.

I believe that if the average minister were asked what he feels is more important, more church members or more Christians who live as Christians, he would unquestionably say the latter. This is therefore written to that great company of believers, men and women who believe in Christ as the Son of God, trust in him for salvation and who honestly want him to be the Lord of life.

Just what is expected of us? How should we live? How can we do the things that our Lord expects of us?

A Christian is a redeemed person, one who has been transformed by the saving power and grace of Jesus Christ. He is living in the world but maintains citizenship in heaven. The very fact of this new citizenship entails on its holder a grave responsibility here and now, for the Christian should be the best citizen of the country in which he lives.

Christians are as salt in the society of which they are a part and as such should exhibit the properties of salt, among which are preservation and savor or sweetness. The social order outwardly may have a semblance of order and stability through the exercise of law and force, but true stability comes from the character of those who make up that order. Christian character is the salt which produces those qualities of society that preserve it and make it worth preserving. This “salt” may find its expression in what is spoken of as Christian influence, or it may assume the role of direct action.

Not only must a Christian be salt but he is also light, not a light of human origin or attainment but the reflected light of the living Christ who should shine in and from our lives. Without light man cannot live. By the presence of light man can orient himself and see the way in which he should walk. Light reveals grime and dirt, it cleanses and purifies, and it brings joy and hope to those who have been in darkness. Little wonder that our Lord told his disciples that one of their functions was that of light in the world.

A Christian is also a witness. Christianity has been spread by those who have heard and accepted the good news and then passed it on to others. We would not be Christians today but for the fact that some before us were faithful as witnesses. When our Lord went back to heaven he did not leave a great organization, nor did he ordain that the Church should exercise political or other worldly methods. Rather he left a set of historical facts and a divine revelation of their significance and committed these to a small group of men who, under the inspiration of and by the power of the Holy Spirit, went about telling others what had happened and why.

Today we Christians have the same task. It is our duty to tell other people about Christ, who he is and what he did, and it is also our duty to share in helping others tell about him. Missions both here and abroad would be an impossible task but for men and women who pay the bills while others go out to tell the story.

Christians are also followers. One of the weaknesses of some has been an intellectual acceptance of Christ as Saviour and an accompanying delight in promised happiness in heaven, without an accompanying realization that Christ must be made the Lord of our daily lives. This means following him, and the course may not be always pleasant, nor the immediate objective something attractive.

Being a follower of Christ is a matter of reflecting his glory, and we show this only as his presence shines from within our lives. This involves surrender to him, whereby the Holy Spirit takes possession and we become the channels through which he would reach men.

The outstanding characteristic of one who would live as a Christian is summed up in one word—love. We are not speaking of a pallid negativism which interprets Christ in terms of taboos, nor are we speaking of a “satanic sweetness” which may be a mask for a perverted and self-centered egotism. The love which should characterize the Christian is described in detail in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. Later in this same book Paul enjoins that everything we do shall be based on and proceed from love. This is a quality of character no man has from within himself, but rather a fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is a quality by which our lives commend the Gospel we profess and which must be received and cultivated.

If Christians are to so live in the world there is an inescapable source of strength which must be tapped daily. The daily study of the Bible is as essential to spiritual life as food is to the body. Prayer, a talking with and listening to God, is as necessary for the Christian as breathing is to human existence. Witnessing and living for Christ are as important for believers as is exercise for bodily strength. Make full use of them and we become the salt and light the world desperately needs.

L. NELSON BELL

- More from L. Nelson Bell

Theology

The Warping of American Conscience

Paul Harvey

In my multi-engine airplane there are two of everything. Two engines require much duplication of controls and gauges, but why two compasses? It’s because you’ll catch one of them lying to you sometimes. Because of other attractions and distractions, a generally dependable magnetic compass will sometimes look you squarely in the eye and lie about which way is north. When that happens—when your compass gets out of kilter—you have to ground your airplane, reswing the compass, readjust it, until it tells the truth again.

A man’s conscience is subject to similar deflection, Or a nation’s conscience. And as surely as a bad compass, pointing the wrong way, can lead you into trouble, so can a cockeyed conscience.

Beside your bed is an alarm clock. A dependable, trusted instrument capable of awakening you at six o’clock in the morning—unless you forget to wind it. There is another way you can cancel out its effectiveness—ignore it. If morning after morning you are awakened by the alarm but refuse to heed it, eventually it will cease to alert you. It may not even awaken you. Ignore it long enough and you’ll cease to hear it. In this case the clock is still there and still accurate and still ringing, but you don’t let it bother you anymore.

A man can deafen himself to his conscience the same way. A nation can do the same.

The Meter Is Bent

I find the struggle with my own compass, my own alarm clock, my own conscience, is a constant one.

Man comes into the world equipped with a brain and a conscience. Each must be educated to work properly or it is unreliable.

Manhattan’s mad bomber seemed such a delightful fellow. He liked flowers, had a cheerful disposition, made a pleasing appearance. But somewhere back there the built-in gauge that tells a man the difference between right and wrong got damaged. The needle was bent.

Suddenly what was morally wrong seemed morally right and he went around planting time-bombs in public places. He still had a conscience, but it wasn’t working right. So society disposes of Mr. George Metesky with one uncomplimentary adjective and locks him and his unreliable conscience in a place of confinement.

Yet the needle in the conscience meter is bent, if to a lesser degree, in most of us. We have gradually “adjusted our consciences” to where we are now against burlesque shows in a downtown theater. We say they are “wrong.” Yet we, through TV, feel no conscience anymore as we invite a burlesque show into the family parlor.

Or we say it is all right for the dancing girls to wiggle in all manner of suggestive undulation, but all wrong when a guitar-playing boy does the same thing.

See how unreliable your conscience can be? I am not being smug about this. I could not evaluate it so thoroughly if I did not understand it so personally. I know how a conscience meter can get out of repair.

From The Mount

And each man must regulate, adjust, oil, maintain and service his own conscience to keep it properly in tune with the laws Moses brought down from the mountain.

In national and international affairs, our sometimes contradictory policies result from a “bent needle.” A “compass” that is trying to tell us that north is two different places, and it’s not really.

The Apostle Paul once wrote a letter to the Romans telling them how man was supposed to follow God; not try to make God over into his own image. Yet this is the tendency. And so, “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

A man can’t make his own rules as he goes along, for then he goes in circles. We cannot make our own morals. We will either return to the Sermon on the Mount or we will destroy ourselves.

The Republic which was born in Philadelphia will have to be born again. If the Republic is to live, it must be fit to live.

This earthly while is a testing time, determining which of us deserves to populate some more perfect place. Americans have been especially favored. But there is another way to say that: We are being singularly tested. More than most, our seven per cent of the earth’s people have been abundantly endowed with the material blessings which invite sloth. Americans, then, must preserve, protect and defend this garden spot or surely they will have failed to measure up to any higher responsibility.

General Charles Lindbergh said, “We have measured success by our products rather than by ourselves. A medium which over-emphasizes short term survival detracts from the humanism essential to long term survival. We must remember that it was not the outer grandeur of the Roman’s but the inner simplicity of the Christians that lived on through the ages.”

Can the decline of American morality be reversed? Can our warped conscience be set straight?

God would have spared Sodom if he could have found ten righteous men. That was all he asked. Ten good men and he’d have spared the city.

Badness, resulting from an unreliable conscience, from misdirected emotions, wrote every black headline in today’s paper. Every one. On the other hand, properly ordered emotions are the basis for love, friendship, kindness, mercy.

We have been figuring religion is just for small children and old ladies. One hundred and three million churchgoers are more than ever before. Half again what attendance was ten years ago. Church attendance has increased far faster than our population has increased.

Yet, at the same time, prison rolls have climbed at the fastest rate in history. How come? How come some ninety-four million get a Sunday morning shower bath and yet so many don’t come clean?

The Republic, born in Philadelphia, can be born again … only … one man at a time!

Richard Lloyd Jones said: “We must begin again.” And the hour is late. So many stand to lose so much.

Jesus said: “Ye must be born again,” and the time is short.

Sigmund Romberg, for the lyric score of New Moon wrote, “Give me ten men, stout-hearted men, who will fight for the right they adore. Give me ten men, stout-hearted men, and I’ll soon give you ten thousand more.”

That’s the way it works. Ten men raise their voices and Jericho falls. Ten righteous men and Sodom and Gormorrah may be spared.

Ten … to inspire ten thousand to lead us … back to the Genesis of American Liberty … back to a reliance on “Divine Providence” and “Sacred Honor.”

We must return to the God of our fathers, for it is to him that we owe all blessings of the past and hope for the future. Then the law of the Lord will again be the respected law of this land. Then we’ll be worth saving.

After World War II, in which he served as Director of News and Information for the Office of War Information in Michigan and Indiana, Paul Harvey’s rise to radio fame was meteoric. He is heard over the ABC network Monday through Friday at 12 noon, CST.

- More from Paul Harvey

The Fate of Protestants in Colombia (Part II)

Clyde W. Taylor

On August 28, 1957, an ostensibly complete report on Colombia was given out by the Most Reverend Philip M. Hannan, Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, after a visit to Colombia. We understand he spent eight days in Bogota and visited the hierarchy there. He reported that Protestant missionaries in Colombia have been victims of political strife rather than religious persecution. He added that some missionaries were unfortunately linked with political parties and had suffered in consequence. But the fact is that no missionary has suffered because of political activity.

We challenge the American hierarchy that issued this statement to give one lone incident of an American missionary involved in Colombian politics and suffering on that account. Colombian Christians, of course have been in politics and are encouraged to take an interest in affairs of their nation. But our missionaries have as a primary rule to avoid all political activity in any country and that includes Colombia.

Another denial of Roman Catholic persecution came after Methodist Bishop Uberti Barbieri of Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay spoke before the World Council of Churches meeting in New Haven and requested the Central Committee to take action concerning persecution of Protestants in Latin America. The reply was given August 17 by Father John E. Kelly of the Public Relations Bureau of National Catholic Welfare Conference in Washington. He noted that there have been limitations on Catholic activity in Norway, Denmark and Sweden but ignored the fact that there has been no violence against Catholics there. There have been restrictions but in most cases even these have been removed in recent years. This action by Lutherans of those areas, moreover, has not been condoned by Protestantism at large.

In answering Bishop Barbieri’s charges of persecution, Roman Catholic leaders seem to rely most on an ex-newspaperman who traveled rather widely through Latin America more than ten years ago. This so-called Protestant, Mr. John W. White—who, curiously enough, sells most of his articles to the National Catholic Press—is unrecognized as a Protestant.

The next trip was made by Father Kelly to a Catholic press meeting in Bogota. Father Kelly did travel across Colombia. For example, he visited La Cumbre, talked with the missionaries, saw the burnt walls of the house and heard the reports. He was told that sworn testimony was available to him in the mayor’s office (this data was gathered also by U. S. and Canadian consuls who personally investigated the attack). Yet Father Kelly returned to this country and said there had been no persecution. Against this type of malicious reporting, the facts speak for themselves.

Hope For Improvement

The official release sent out by the Catholic News Service (September, 1957) contains one or two bright spots. We are told that the Roman Catholic Church authorities in Colombia have finally declared that they “recognize the right of non-Catholic Christians” in that South American country “freely to practice their own religion.” We are also pleased that they are going to put into effect some opposition to persecution. We hope they carry out this promise. They also pledge that the “Catholic authorities in Colombia … shall never order, encourage or approve any act of violence against our non-Catholic brethren.” We can heartily say “Amen” to that, if it will be carried out. This statement was issued by the Secretariat for the Defense of the Faith, an agent of the Colombian Catholic bishops. The Secretariat conceded that “in various places, ways and occasions Protestants in Colombia have suffered violence inflicted by Colombian Catholics.” But it denied charges of “Catholic persecution of Protestants in Colombia.”

This illustrates that Roman Catholicism admits no persecution unless the Church orders it. You can destroy 49 churches, confiscate 34 more, murder 89 church leaders for exclusively religious reasons (entirely divorced from politics), frequently on orders of local clergy, and yet this is not persecution! The fact that a hundred thousand Colombians have been killed in the political disturbances since 1947 provides no justification of the fact that evangelical churches have been burned and confiscated and believers murdered because they were preaching the Gospel or possessed a New Testament. Since most persecution of Protestants was on a local basis, does the Roman Catholic Church repudiate such action where its priests were involved, and is the Church willing to discipline those of its hierarchy guilty of this bloody and hateful action? If so, we could suggest as an eligible candidate Father Millan of La Cumbre, who according to sworn testimony was directly involved in arson attempt on the missionaries there a year ago last summer. Moreover, we would ask the hierarchy for specific instances of Protestants who “directly attack and ridicule Catholic beliefs and devotions.” This is one of their frequent accusations, but we do not believe this exists, and have no record of it in the last ten years. They say that Protestant missionaries from small sects entering Colombia since 1948 have caused most of this trouble. This is false, for new Protestant missionaries have been refused entrance into Colombia for ten years. Furthermore, all missions named have been there for many years. The charge of Protestant proselytizing, frequently made, should also be considered in view of the fact that a majority of Colombian Catholics are totally inactive as far as their church is concerned. It may well be that many of these are reached by the Gospel message preached by evangelical missionaries and pastors. The nature of religious freedom allows difference of opinion and change of religious affiliation in accord with personal beliefs.

Right Of Religious Liberty

Evangelical missionaries are not seeking the ill will of the Colombian government or Colombian people. They are only seeking freedom to preach the good news of salvation by simple faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. This right has been fully guaranteed in principle by the Colombian Constitution.

In view of many published denials, we call attention to an editorial in the world-famous daily newspaper of Bogota, El Tiempo, on September 17, 1957:

Freedom of religion is not a gracious concession of the mayor or a donation of the authorities, but a right made sacred by the national Constitution. It is the subject matter of an international commitment, since it forms part of the Charter of Human Rights, which has been signed by Colombia, even though it has not always been observed. The violations of freedom of religion are no more to be excused than the abuse of the other rights of mankind, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to travel, or freedom of political views. But in communities where a specific religion is greatly in the majority there is a tendency to minimize the importance of guaranteeing the rights of minorities, which, the smaller they may be, the more they are exposed to suffering oppression.…

There are those who have pretended to justify the persecution of Protestants by claiming that they have abused the right of religious liberty by making political proselytes. If this refers to foreign heretics, the provisions of common law should be applied to their case which prohibits them from mixing into the party strife of the Colombians. And if it refers to Colombians, this right of theirs should be respected, for they have not lost it by the failure to practice the religion of the rest. Under no circumstances is the spectacle to be condoned—which has been repeated many a time in this country until quite recently—of the stoning of Protestant churches by mobs organized and egged on by fanatics, irresponsible persons or demagogues who stir up primitive passions for their own selfish purposes. Persecution of religious minorities, carried out with the complicity or under the direction of the very authorities, in the past (but not in the remote past) has been our national shame in the eyes of the world, notwithstanding the pretexts with which there have been attempts to justify it.

We applaud the statement by El Tiempo, one of the papers long silenced by fanatics, and now under the new government free to speak again. In itself the editorial supplies quite an answer to those who deny that there has been such trouble.

In conclusion, we rejoice that the advent of the new government implies a sincere effort to restore the freedom and the culture for which Colombia was distinguished ten years ago, before the political violence was initiated by fanatical elements in Colombia in 1947. The present government has released a number of evangelical Christians, some of whom have been in prison for over two years with no charges preferred against them. The government has suggested that steps may be taken to open churches that were illegally closed in violation of the Constitution. Just recently the Minister of Government has sent out personal letters to the governors of the provinces of Bolivar, Santander, Antioquia, Cauca, Huila, Boyaca, Cundinamarca authorizing them to open the churches that have been illegally closed by the past government. These churches total 34. One large church in the so-called mission territories, that of Barrancabermeja, a church seating some 1,600, was ordered open August 16 by government order. This still leaves over 40 churches closed in mission territories under an agreement signed with the Vatican during the last regime. This same agreement not only closed down all the Protestant churches in approximately 60% of Colombian territory but all Protestant schools, numbering approximately 200. It is hoped that the new government will also observe the Constitutional rights of its people if they desire to have their own places of worship and their own schools in these areas as well. During these last ten years the Colombian government has refused absolutely to allow American missionaries as such to enter the country. The new government has just issued permits for nine teachers and pastors to enter Colombia to assist in the schools and pastoral work there. We congratulate the new government of Colombia on these steps to guarantee personal and national freedom and to restore Colombia to the international respect it deserves. We trust it will not be hindered by religious pressures and intrigue that would only curtail its return to international respect among freedom-loving peoples.

Clyde W. Taylor, M.A., Th.B., D.D., directs the Office of Public Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals in Washington, D. C., where he is the official spokesman of evangelicals to the U. S. and foreign governments. A world traveler, he has personally gathered the materials presented here and is largely responsible for the present hope for improvement in the Colombian situation.

- More from Clyde W. Taylor

Cover Story

What Is Christian Separation?

L. David Cowie

A Christian is under the constant tension of being a citizen of two worlds. Paul said our citizenship is in heaven; yet had practical things to say about earthly rulers and our relationships to them. He counseled the Christians of Corinth not to marry because the persecutions ahead would make family living difficult, yet told another Greek church at Ephesus that wives should reverence their husbands, and husbands should love their wives. He practiced and preached an “other worldliness” in which one finds his satisfaction in the spiritual life, yet he illustrated that life in his letters by many references to the athletic events of his day, indicating a familiarity with them on his part and on the part of his readers.

The whole Christian movement shows this same tension. When our Lord taught about the kingdom of God, his opponents tried to impale him upon the horns of the dilemma of paying or not paying taxes to Rome, whereupon he asked for a coin. He asked whose image was on it, and they answered, “Caesar’s.” Then he who was the express image of God said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” Keeping a proper relationship between the two has always been difficult for those who bear the family name of Heaven, yet whose Lord prayed, “I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one … as thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:15, 18). Keep this last statement in mind, as we shall endeavor to see some of its significance later.

The Ideal And The Relative

And so the tension has always been with us, caused by the ideal in a relative situation. For example, ideally a Christian would be an absolute pacifist, yet Cornelius the Centurion was not required to give up his soldier’s career to become a Christian. In any generation, war has been against the Christian conscience and yet the very paying of taxes to Caesar’s budget, or to Eisenhower’s, involves the Christian in a substantial support of the machinery of war.

In all of this, what is Christian separation? How can the Christian be in the world and not of it? The tension has found expression in various ways within the body of Christ. There have been those devoted souls who have gone to prison and death because they believed in “friendly persuasion” and would not fight, yet no objective observer would deny the sincere Christian faith of a General Montgomery or a General Sir Wm. Dobbie, or a General Douglas MacArthur. And General Eisenhower as a Christian President prepares for any eventuality, but becomes one of the greatest influences in our generation toward removing the causes of war.

Surely there is sincerity in the sacrifice of a St. Francis of Assisi who, for Christ’s sake, remains unmarried. But it is equally certain that more of the Christian faith has been passed on through Godly homes than through Godly monasteries.

On Worldly Pleasures

But this tension of Christian separation finds most of us run-of-the-mill Christians at the point of our participation in what some have called “worldly pleasures.” Here again there have been extremes in the church of Christ. On the one hand there have been those who have emphasized their “separateness” from the world by extreme asceticism in dress and manner, and a refusal to participate in anything which by their definition was “worldly.” On the other hand, men like Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers of all time, and G. Campbell Morgan, one of the greatest Bible expositors of all time, each smoked “to the glory of God.” (Of course, the relation of smoking and lung cancer was unknown to them.)

Furthermore, many times those who are most rigid in their rules regarding separation are quite un-Christ-like in their attitudes toward people. And the monk finds that worldliness pursues him even in the rigors of his severely simple cell and in the disciplines of his holy orders.

What is Christian separation, then, in the realm of actual living—especially in matters of fellowship and fun? Is everything that gives pleasure wicked? Is it true, as one cynic remarked, that everything that is fun is either sinful, expensive, or fattening? Where can the lines be drawn? Let us lay aside our family or church mores for the moment. Let us set aside our personal prejudices, and examine the bases upon which the question can be decided objectively: What is Christian separation? What are the principles involved?

Specific Commands

First, we know that there are some things which are always right for an individual Christian or for the church of Christ. It is always right to tell the truth, to love God, and to love one’s neighbor. These are specific commands of God, and it is always right to fulfill them.

Second, there are some things that are always wrong for a Christian. It is always wrong to take the name of our Lord in vain, to bear false witness, to sow dissension or a party spirit. There are specific commands of God against such things, and therefore it is always sinful to do them.

However, in between what is commanded as always right and what is forbidden as always wrong there is a “no-man’s land” which is not governed by law, but guided by principle. This is a nonmoral realm where there is no clear command of God, and where the conscience of one sincere Christian may differ from that of another sincere Christian. Shall a Christian go to a show, or play cards, or dance? There is no clear command of God saying “Thou shalt” or “Thou shalt not.”

It is in this realm that we must be led by the Holy Spirit, not according to specific rules, but according to general principles.

In Romans 14:1–15:6 Paul sets forth those principles as:

1) Do not judge another in this realm (14:1–12). Until one abides by this first principle, he has not the humility to discover God’s will at all. “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?” (v. 4). It is not for us to say that another is either “worldly” or “narrow.” “It is before his own Master that he stands or falls” (v. 4).

2) Do not endanger another (14:13–21). A Christian has liberty in this non-moral realm. But liberty is not license. Christian love limits Christian liberty. “If your brother is being injured by what you eat (or do) you are no longer walking in love” (v. 15). Good judgment is required here, of course, or the narrowest view of the most immature Christian would become the standard for the whole church.

3) Whatever is against your own conscience is sin to you (14:22–23). “He who doubts is condemned, if he eats, because he does not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (v. 23). The Holy Spirit as the direction points, and the conscience as the needle, make the only compass we have in this realm. One must be careful that the needle is not deflected by his own willfulness, or by the conditioning of an unenlightened background.

4) Do everything to the glory of God (15:1–6), “… that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 6). The Christian is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Within that temple should be a perpetual paean of praise to God.

Use Of Proof-Texts

This brings us closer to the answer to the question: What is Christian separation?

At this point, caution is needed in the familiar practice of quoting “proof-texts” one way or another. A limb of Scripture cut off from the tree of its context can become a handy club to use on those who differ with us, but in the process loses its life and its ability to provide fruit and shade for a weary pilgrim. And it does violence to the tree of God’s revelation as a whole. For example, the writer has heard the text, “Come ye out and be ye separate. Touch not the unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6:17) used as an admonition against “things of the world,” or against remaining in a given denomination, or against being a part of the ecumenical church. Actually, the context (2 Cor. 6:14–18) reveals that Paul is referring to the Christian’s relation to the immoral pagan worship of Corinth. It is interesting to note here that in spite of all that was wrong with the Corinthian church, Paul nowhere urges the Christians of Corinth to be “come-outers.”

Another proof-text one hears in connection with Christian separation is “Love not the world, or the things that are in the world” (1 John 2:15). Surely it is an important admonition, but the context (vs. 16–17) reveals John is talking about attitudes within us rather than atmosphere around us. Because the Bible says that the love of money is the root of evil does not indicate that we are to have nothing to do with money.

Life Situations

Thus Biblical truth is best unfolded not in proof-texts, but in life situations. In the New Testament we see two illustrations of separation. First, there was the separation of John the Baptist, which one may designate as physical separation. He lived apart from people, ate different food, and wore different clothes. His only contact with people was to condemn them. Second, there was the separation of Jesus Christ, who, we must admit, was at least as holy as John the Baptist. Yet Christ’s first miracle was turning water into actual wine (better than the host had served) at a wedding feast which lasted several days and which had its share of fun and frolic. Later, He attended a banquet given by Matthew in his honor with some unsavory characters as fellow guests whose language and humor were probably not too sanctified. He did not physically separate himself from them, but his separation was spiritual. He could participate in the activities and the fun, but was not thereby lowered in his spiritual life.

He was what he was, wherever he was. His spiritual life was positive, and contagious, rather than negative and defensive.

Surely Christians are to be followers of Christ, rather than the Baptist. We are to be thermostats, rather than thermometers. We are not to be lowered by the temperature around us, nor kept in a hothouse where the temperature is just right. But we are given the Holy Spirit, so that when we are in contact with the world we draw upon God’s power to raise the temperature of our environment. If we do not have adequate resources for this, then we must resort to physical separation; but this is an evidence of spiritual impotence, rather than spiritual sanctification.

Danger Of Legalism

Remember, we are speaking of the nonmoral realm—the area in which God has given no clear command. Certainly we should not go beyond God in our zeal in these matters, and begin laying down rules for others. Yet it is a strange fact in the Christian church that often evangelicalism in doctrine has been associated with legalism in practice. As soon as an individual Christian or a church moves into the realm of legalism, there is no limit nor consistency possible. The following examples are taken from the experiences of the writer: Shall it be consistent with spirituality to wear a red tie? or lipstick, or jewelry? or to listen to popular music; or see a motion picture? or look at television, or use oblong pieces of pasteboard that have one pattern on them and are called rook cards, but not another pattern and are called bridge cards, although the principle of the two games is the same? Or for a group of young people to play “Birdie on the Perch” because it is called a game, but not the Virginia reel because it is called a “dance,” although both are done with music, and the former has far more physical contact than the latter? Or to go on a hayride, but not a hoe-down, because the first is a ride and the second is a “dance,” although any chaperone will be quick to declare that the ride is far more apt to lead to undesirable consequences than the wholesome activity of folk games.

Questions Of Conscience

Or is it the location of a pastime that makes it sanctified or unsanctified? (Remember, we are still in the realm of questions of conscience—not of morals.) Is the square dance (or folk game) wrong because it is under secular auspices, and held outside of the social hall of a church building? Or does that make it right?

Or is the activity wrong because it is worldly? Then who shall decide what is or is not worldly? Is it worldly to go to a show, but not to go to a basketball or football game? Yet there is often drinking, smoking, and betting going on at such athletic contests. Are those things worldly? Is it worldly to eat Sunday dinner during the summer on one’s own patio? Then does it become worldly when one doesn’t have a patio, so eats in a park—because that becomes a picnic?

It should be obvious by now that to become legalistic in questions of conscience is to become as hopelessly enmeshed in the net of private judgment as the Pharisees of Christ’s day—who interpreted the law of the Sabbath by their own regulations and thus destroyed its spirit. Because of their preconceived prejudices, they missed the meaning of the ministry of the Messiah. (Read carefully John’s Gospel, chapter seven.)

Instead of legalism, God gives his Holy Spirit (John 7:37–39) that we should make all of life an expression of his life. And the fruit of the Spirit is love—against such there is no law (Gal. 5:22, 23).

In other words, the Christian life is the expression of the law of love and humility. It was Pharisaical legalism that put Christ upon the cross and it crucifies him afresh today.

On the other hand, love limits Christian liberty (1 Cor. 8). My liberty as a Christian is not a license to hurt the Body of Christ. Although all things in this nonmoral realm are lawful unto me, not all things are expedient. Christian maturity seeks to build up, rather than destroy the church. But both legalism and license destroy rather than build.

Thus, Christian separation is to be like Christ, who was what he was, wherever he was, and who epitomized attractiveness, understanding, kindness and good fellowship, consistent with a beauty of holiness which made God real in every situation.

L. David Cowie is minister of University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington. He is a member of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

- More from L. David Cowie

Cover Story

Profile of a Christian Soldier

J. C. Pollock

This month sees the centenary of the death of an English general, Sir Henry Havelock, for whom, when the news reached New York and Boston, flags were flown half-mast on public buildings and on the shipping in the harbours. “A purely voluntary tribute,” commented the New York Times, “paid to his memory by a people to whom he was a stranger, who were in no way interested in his career and to whom even his name was unknown six months since. It was a tribute of respect which even the Duke of Wellington did not command.”

Havelock’s life still has a message for the English-speaking peoples. He had swept to fame for his exploits in stemming the tide of the Indian Mutiny, which was spreading havoc and massacre. At the moment of triumph, when the world was celebrating the relief of Lucknow, he died there on November 24, 1857, at the age of sixty-two. Were this all, General Havelock would have little relevance for today. But it was not simply as a soldier but as a Christian general, a Christian hero, that Britain and America took him to their hearts. For a whole generation Havelock was revered as the pattern on which young men should mould their lives.

Saint And Soldier

Havelock, converted by a brother officer on their voyage to India in 1823, had an outstanding purpose: “It was the great object of my ambition to be surpassed by none in zeal and determination in the path of my duty, because I was resolved to put down the vile calumny that a Christian could not be a meritorious soldier.” In the steamy heat of Burmese jungles, in the excitements and privations of the Afghan and Sikh wars, and in the devastatingly dull years of routine soldiering in a climate which science and medical progress had not yet made bearable, he proved his point. Since Havelock, no one has seriously maintained that “it is impossible,” as a commander-in-chief had once remarked when blocking Havelock’s promotion in earlier days, “to profess to serve God and the Queen, to be at once a ‘saint’ and a soldier.”

Havelock failed to reach high command as early as he deserved because he lacked funds, and the purchase of rank was the contemporary method of promotion. During his long years of subordinate service, however, he contributed more than any other man of his age to the moral and spiritual welfare of servicemen.

For Temperance, Dignity

The prevalent attitude to enlisted men was that of Wellington: “the scum of the earth recruited for drink.” Havelock, “in the very teeth of ridicule and opposition” began a temperance movement. It was so successful in combating drunkenness that it spread throughout India; the fact that in the later nineteenth century the British soldier in India could get coffee rather than rum in the canteen was due to him.

Officers did not treat soldiers as individuals, and considered that they had no responsibility for troops outside parade hours, except to punish crime. They cared nothing for their welfare, and chaplains were almost non-existent. Havelock began Bible readings and evangelistic services for his men. He built chapels and prayer rooms, and it is small wonder that his own company became known as “Havelock’s Saints,” for despite the dire prophecies of his opponents discipline did not suffer, his Colonel testifying that Havelock’s men were the “best behaved in the regiment.” Thus, because of his Christian faith, Havelock was one of the first officers to treat his men as individuals, not mere cogs in the military machine.

His influence went even wider, for in 1833 he petitioned the Commander-in-Chief for freedom of worship to Dissenters. Roman Catholics could be excused from the Church Parade, which was always Church of England, but not Dissenters. As a result of the petition of this then unknown officer, freedom of worship was accorded to all in the British Army, at home and abroad.

When Havelock became famous in the crisis of 1857, hundreds of humble soldiers who had served with him must have told their neighbours of what sort he was. In no other way can be explained the spontaneous acclamation of Havelock as above all else a Christian. Before he died he knew that his plain unvarnished witness, his long endurance in face of disappointment and calumny, had received the reward he most coveted—a national exaltation of Christ.

Henry Havelock should be set beside his contemporaries, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and beside Gordon of Khartoum, as a Christian soldier. He was not however, an eccentric like Gordon or austere and reserved like Jackson.

After his death a spate of biographies appeared on both sides of the Atlantic, fashioning him in pure white marble, a man of forbidding moral perfection. If that had been so he would have little message for the present age, which has no patience with unreality. But Havelock was not an angel but a Christian, a sinner saved by grace—human, and therefore a sinner to the end. His hopes and fears, his tendency to melancholy, his money-worries, his loneliness when parted by the exigencies of service from his wife, daughter of the great missionary Joshua Marshman, are all shown in his private letters which were recently discovered. Through them shines also his faith: “I have Jesus Christ to trust to and his presence to comfort me. Yet in this mortal state we do feel keenly. Pray for me.”

The inscription on Havelock’s grave, still to be seen at Lucknow, proclaims that his character was “the result of the influence of the Holy Spirit on his heart, and a humble reliance on the merits of a crucified Saviour.” Growth in grace continued to the end, and it was the final flowering of his character in circumstances of extreme provocation which at last brought his eldest son, a few days before Havelock’s death when they were serving together, to give his heart to Christ after long years of stubborn resistance.

Havelock’s life, in its excitement and interest, must appeal to young men on both sides of the Atlantic. His is a character that may be extolled as an example, and one which will attract. The vast majority of Christians serve God in ordinary avocations and Havelock’s example will help them to do it.

His secret was the friendship of Christ. And that remains his message. “It is a happy thing beyond description,” he once wrote, “to have a heavenly Father and a powerful Friend in whom to put our trust.”

J. C. Pollock is Editor of The Churchman, a quarterly journal of Anglican theology. He holds the M.A. degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. During World War II he served in the Coldstream Guards. His most recent book, The Road to Glory, published in England by John Murray, is the story of the distinguished Christian general, Havelock of Lucknow, of whom he writes in this article.

- More from J. C. Pollock

Cover Story

Challenge of the Campus

Rudolph Norden

The contemporary upsurge of religious interest has engulfed also the campuses of North American colleges and universities. The favorable response to Billy Graham’s Christian messages by Yale University students has been narrated in a previous issue of Christianity Today. Evangelical campus missions sponsored by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and other witnessing groups are enjoying similar results.

Not to be discounted in less sensational but steadily increasing student participation in denomination-centered worship programs—those of the Canterbury Club for Episcopalians, the Westminster Foundation for Presbyterians, the Lutheran Student Association and Gamma Delta for National Lutheran Council and Missouri Synod students respectively, and others. According to Time (November 21, 1955) the Rev. Frederic Kellogg of Cambridge, Mass., counted only about 35 Harvard students at the Sunday Episcopal services in 1936. Twenty years later 500 attended the Sunday worship. At Memorial Lutheran Chapel in Ames, Iowa, the Rev. Wilbert J. Fields sees more Iowa State College students at average Sunday services than he has names on his list.

The quickening spiritual pulse is sensed by many observers of the campus scene. “I’ve been in the dean’s office for more than 20 years,” says Nicholas McKnight, dean of students at Columbia College, “and never have I seen such a wide interest in religion among the students” (Time, November 21, 1955).

University authorities themselves have taken steps in recent years to give religion a favorable hearing. If not by administrative implementation, they at least give their blessing to such campus-wide observances as Religious Emphasis Week or Church Night during New Student Week. At increasing numbers of state-supported colleges ways and means are found to offer religion credit courses, either by bootlegging them into the curriculum via philosophy departments or by approving the open establishment of chairs of religion. To assist students and campus pastors in their spiritual enterprises, some college administrations have created the office of coordinator of religious activities. Short of being an ordained chaplain, the coordinator lends counsel and aid in giving respectable status to campus religions. The enlightened policy is to recognize all religions on a frank, pluralistic basis. This gives evangelical groups an equal chance to make their unhampered Christian witness.

Greater support to campus ministries comes, and properly so, from the national church bodies themselves. Instead of considering the campus program an adjunct of the nearest parish, denominational headquarters today think more in terms of maintaining fulltime pastorates for college folk. Well they might, for just around the corner lurks the largest student population America has yet seen. The first ripples of the tidal wave of tomorrow’s students are already lapping the coastline. The present college enrollment of three million is but a shadow of things to come.

Optimum use of these unprecedented opportunities is contingent on a realistic appraisal of factors contributing to the crisis of the modern university. The survey will show liabilities along with the assets, opposition as well as opportunity. By honestly facing the facts and reckoning with them, we take the first step in channeling nondescript religious interest into meaningful commitment to the Christian religion.

Encounter With Scientific Humanism

Alongside the search for personal security in religion, there continues the trend to build creeds on secular philosophies. In the early 1950’s the Newman Foundation (Roman Catholic) at a mid-American university issued a manual in which it was stated, “Many people think of the university as a place where atheists and communists swarm like flies, waiting to pounce upon innocent and unsuspecting students. This is a gross exaggeration. One wishes one might say it was absolutely false, but that is not true either.”

The writer goes on to point out that positivism is a militant philosophy rejecting all absolute truths, such as the existence (or relevance) of God and the primary principles of morality rooted in revealed theology. He says that positivists are found in the departments of philosophy, education and social sciences, shaking the accepted beliefs of Catholic students oftener by innuendo and contemptuous comments than by direct assault. That is how a Catholic writer sees the picture.

There are instances of the acclaimed academic mind, pledged to the open pursuit of truth, becoming a mind in captivity to a hard and fast creed, with as many postulates in it as in any creed of the church. It is a creed that demands total commitment, and in many cases a blind faith. There is no open-mindedness about a “liberalism” that arbitrarily and categorically rules our Christian thought. It is a one-way street, and at its terminal a dead-end alley. What we are concerned about is not science itself, but the philosophic constructions put on science and the attitude of secularists and scientific humanists who want to close the doors to the legitimacy of Christian revelation. Roy LeMoine, Director of Religious Life at Iowa State College, has well stated, “The University knows no revealed truth.” It should be pointed out that this, perhaps necessary, principle is in itself a statement of faith.

Biblical, Spiritual Illiteracy

There is a set of retarding circumstances not originating on the campus but dating back to the student’s home and home church in the community from which he comes. Dr. Homer Rainey, formerly president of the University of Texas and of Stephens College, in a recent address pointed to the appalling condition of religious illiteracy. He stated that in former years a speaker could enrich his remarks with quotations and epigrammatic expressions from the Bible. But nowadays, according to Dr. Rainey, such references fall as duds and the speaker flat on his face because the modern generation doesn’t know the Bible. A curious anomaly is here recognized: A widespread interest in religion but a scant knowledge of the Bible.

It is not possible to sidestep all of Wesley Schrader’s critiques in the recent Life article “Our Troubled Sunday Schools.” Writes Mr. Schrader: “A young professor of religion at a girls’ college told me that he was disturbed by the inferior preparation young people are getting in our churches. ‘Students from all over the country enroll in our college,’ he said, ‘and they come to us with virtually no knowledge of the Christian faith. Religiously they are in kindergarten. The sad thing is that, in most cases, these girls have been going to Sunday School since they were in the nursery department.’ ”

This delinquency is not the fault of the university, but of the home and home church with its teaching agencies. The latter having faltered in their sacred task of teaching young people the Word of God, many freshmen come to college entirely innocent of Christian knowledge. Indeed, they are then easy prey to loose morals, indiscriminate acceptance of Christless philosophies, and low-level materialistic views toward their vocation.

There is considerable evidence that suggest that a college education does not alter people’s religious habits fundamentally. The pre-college pattern is pretty well preserved throughout life. In They Went To College, Ernest Havemann and Patricia Salter West point out that 46 per cent of the men reared as Protestants attend church regularly, while for women college graduates of the same category 59 percent attend regularly. The authors conclude, “There seems to be little evidence that college training undercuts religious beliefs” (p. 107). In brief: Religious illiteracy and all its fruits is not the product of the university as much as it is a carry-over from the student’s previous experiences.

An experienced campus pastor, when addressing himself to students, does well to locate the major problems of personal morality and spirituality not in the environment but in the person himself. I have known many Christian students during my ten years at the University of Minnesota who were not at all disturbed by the small but noisy group of budding atheists, agnostics, or what have you. If they wanted to participate in church activities, or could be so induced, they did so without casting lateral looks to see what others were doing. Ultimately, it is up to the individual. What if last Wednesday a professor got in an anti-Christian punch-line; was that a reason why students A, B, and C should sleep in on the following Sunday morning? The professor, who is very witty and probably comments similarly on big business, labor unions, or the Republican Party, should not be blamed for the sleeping propensities of students on Sunday morning.

These Christian students demonstrated that they could be active in church work under their own steam and quite without the parental push. Far from being a place where faith was lost, the campus was for them a community where Christian faith was tested and strengthened, their knowledge increased, the range of their Christian concerns widened, their spiritual insights deepened, while still others found Christ as their personal Saviour.

The Road Ahead

What procedure is indicated, if we would capitalize on present-day campus opportunities? Greater utilization of our most potent means—the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Militarily speaking, the best defense is offense, positive procedure, growth in Christian faith, and its daily exercise in Christian service. Faith is not something one can put in his vest pocket and keep it there for the duration of college life. That would at best be a dormant faith and one well on its way toward becoming a dead faith. It is better to exercise one’s faith and keep it stimulated through the means of grace.

So it is with Christian knowledge. To peg it at the point where it was at confirmation or graduation from Sunday School is to invite spiritual stagnation. It is through personal and corporate Bible study that a student’s knowledge of the Word is articulated and made relevant to life’s problems.

Students will profit more than they know from taking religion credit courses offered under the sponsorship of their denomination. During the 1955–56 term 1,866 University of Texas students availed themselves of credit courses given under the auspices of the Texas Bible Chair. If 1,800 out of a total enrollment of 16,000 is thought not to be a favorable ratio, it should be remembered that it is a considerable improvement over the 1908 figure. In that year only one U. of T. student took a religion credit course. Similar appreciation is shown on other campuses. Only 20 Princeton students took the first religion course begun in 1939. During the 1955–56 school year 700 Princetonians were enrolled in various religion classes.

There are study projects the student may undertake on his own, such as the reading of books written in the Christian perspective. If David Hume’s essay on miracles is required reading in a humanities course, the Christian student owes it to himself to balance the fare with a reading of C. S. Lewis’ book, Miracles. The last decade has seen the production of a virile Christian literature interacting with all the phases of thought and culture from an evangelical point of view. A sufficient beginning has been made in this direction so that stimulating reading, relevant to psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other disciplines, awaits the inquirer.

In my own church body, for example, Ph.D. scholars in philosophy, education, and psychology, one of them the Lutheran head of a Big Ten university psychology department, are working on a project to bring these studies into a Christian framework. Other churches are similarly engaged, particularly the Episcopalians with their Faculty Papers.

Things are looking up for Christian students and staff members at state universities. The challenge of the campus has the potential of a great blessing to Christendom.

Gambling For The Seamless Robe

Shuffling dice to win His robe

Has not ceased today;

Men take His teaching and His law,

But cast His Cross away.

They want His garb without His grief,

His light without His blood;

They want His joy without His pain,

But not the Spirit’s flood.

The seamless robe of deity

They rend with knives of guilt,

Deny His claims but take His gifts,

Betray the Church He built.

They gamble still just what to do

With things they won’t believe;

Deny the Word, destroy the faith

And simple hearts deceive.

ELMER H. NICHOLAS

Rudolph Norden is editorial assistant with the Commission on College and University Work of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, in Chicago. He holds degrees from St. Paul’s College and Concordia Seminary, has done graduate work in philosophy and history at the University of Minnesota, has served as a pastor in Colorado and Nebraska, and as Lutheran campus pastor at the University of Minnesota for 10 years, where he was founder of the University Lutheran Church and Student Center. He is Editor of the Lutheran Campus Pastor and a frequent contributor to other magazines.

- More from Rudolph Norden

Cover Story

How to Bring a Nation under God

Samuel M. Shoemaker

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12)

What should be the relation between a nation and God? It might seem that religion is so personal a matter that one cannot think of any real relation between a great aggregate of people, like a nation, and God. But aggregates of people have a character, an influence, a responsibility which they exercise. The individuals within them contribute largely to this, but the aggregate is more than and different from the sum of the individuals. The Old Testament is the record of God’s dealing with a nation. In it individuals are flashed upon the screen continually; but they are always individuals within the nation. When Christianity appeared, religion became both more personal and more universal in its implications. But we must never forget the profound debt of descent which Christianity owes to Judaism.

Some would attempt to divorce the religious from the national consciousness, on the grounds that when you add the religious to the national loyalty you have a fruitful source of egoistic nationalism, dragging in God for support. This danger is there, of course. It arises the moment the importance of the nation outstrips the importance of God. But there are some things to be said about this.

The first is that the nation, like the family, seems to be an intended unit of human society. There have always been these groupings according to race, or location, or language, or religion. How would you ever read history without individuals, families, and nations? Each of these seems to have a place in the permanent scheme of things.

True Patriotism

I remember a time when I thought that all patriotism was inevitably jingoistic nationalism. I felt the thing to go for was a love and loyalty for all mankind. There is a great truth here, but I had to live a while and learn that we are meant to reach our loyalties to the great aggregate of the world, through the more circumscribed loyalties of family, community and nation. A general concern for humanity without responsibility for one’s own group and nation may turn out to be a vague, amorphous internationalism that may be more sentimental than responsible. If we cannot deal effectively with those smaller units how can we expect to deal effectively with the whole human race?

The second thing is that there is only one thing bigger than the powerful state, and that is God. When the state usurps all power (as lately in Germany, and presently in Russia and the satellite countries), there seems to be no individual, no group, no interest, strong enough to rise up against it. Another power from without may have to effect its deliverance from its dictators. Organized religion may seem very impotent for a time. The Church must work by moral, not material force. The state can do terrible things to the Church’s leaders and people. But, even within the immediate framework, a power is exerted out of all proportion to its physical strength.

Outside Of History

Hitler broke the newspaper editors, he broke the college professors; he never could quite break the Church. That stood athwart him when all else capitulated to him. But God is more than the relatively small power resident in God’s people. God is the Lord and Judge of history. Once let the very thought of him enter the mind of the tyrant, and he will quaver. If he begins realizing that he stands under the judgment of a righteous God, it is more likely to make him modify, or even abandon, his ways than any other thing. For God, if he is at all, stands above and outside of history, while he works in and through history. The belief in God, even tenuously and provisionally held, yet remains the one factor that can put fear into the tyrant’s heart, as it puts hope into the heart of the tyrannized.

It appears, then, that God creates nations, as he creates men. And it appears that nations, like men, truly thrive and go forward, not when they seek their own will, and willed destiny, but when they seek to keep aware of God, mindful of his favour, conscious of his judgment upon all their partial successes, dependent upon him for their life.

There is a sense in which what I have just been saying is a fiction. There never has been a nation that fulfilled these things, unless on rare occasions. When we say that they happen at all, we mean that at times the will of a minority that thinks and feels in this way prevails and becomes public policy. A famous instance was our dealings with China after the Boxer uprising half a century ago. There were doubtless Americans who seethed when President Theodore Roosevelt, at the instigation of Dr. Arthur H. Smith, a famous old missionary in North China, returned the indemnity money asking that a college and scholarships be made of it; but good will prevailed. The act and its consequences were for half a century a symbol of our relations with China.

Strength Of Tradition

It is possible that the strength of a tradition coming down from the past, or the strength of a lively present minority of right-minded people, can infuse into a nation’s thinking and planning elements of Christian morality and concern.

When it comes to our own nation, the stamp of God’s hand is heavy upon us. Our early colonists and settlers fled religious persecution and came here for freedom in the spiritual and political realms. Our founding fathers were not all of them plaster saints, nor all entirely orthodox Christians; but they were men who believed in God and feared him and who wrote their convictions into their deeds and their documents.

Freedom as we know it did not begin with the founding of America—it really began on Sinai when Moses came down from the mountain with Ten Commandments, the first of which was, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” When it became clear that Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, was the God of the whole earth, and then it became clear that he had uniquely manifested himself in Jesus of Nazareth, there began the greatest move towards rightness in human life and human relations that had ever taken place in history. Man found his real nature and stature. He is a creature who belongs to the natural creation, capable of rebellion or of obedience towards God, therefore needing redemption; but when he has accepted that redemption, he is meant to behave like a child of God and to help all other men find their significance in becoming his children also.

Dignity And Conscience

Freedom is a natural consequence of this, but will not long be sustained except in an atmosphere where man knows both his affinity and his accountability to God. His affinity gives him dignity; his accountability gives him conscience. He must be both lifted up, and kept down, by his relation to God. Only such men dare to seek freedom, and only such men know how to use it responsibly.

We badly need to understand the nature of our freedom. For some, freedom is nothing but the protected right to behave as they please; such people help to destroy freedom by the way they misuse it. Some, indeed many in our time, are so aware of the way bad people, and the bad part of the so-called good people, misuse freedom, that instead of reforming and changing the bad in the people they want to take part of the freedom out of freedom. Many young people in our colleges, taught the secular philosophy which is their current sacred cow, seeing the plentiful evils in a nation like ours, want to do away with that system of freedom which allows bad men to go on being bad, and selfish men to be selfish in their exploitation of our capitalistic system, and they want to put such curbs on our freedom that it ceases to be freedom.

Our Greatest Need

What needs changing most is the men themselves. It is not the curbing of freedom from without, but the curbing of sin from within that we really need; for when you have destroyed all your freedom, you still will have sinful men who will go on working some other kind of evil, after they have been reduced to slaves. Dr. Donald J. Cowling has reminded us that the founding fathers did not go for a big military establishment, nor for a great many social benefits for our people; the one thing they went for was liberty as the over-all climate in which everything else should be effected. I suspect that liberty is the greatest political, academic, economic, and spiritual blessing that can ever be granted to a people. You can vote it away by ever-encroaching appeals to security; but when it is gone, you cannot vote it back. Large, sweeping legislative reforms have taken the place, in our modern world, of those personal reforms which begin in individuals but do not end in them.

Freedom as a philosophy, as a passion, as a constituent part of religious faith and conviction—how many Americans are there who understand this? How many just think it means having more refrigerators and television sets and screaming newspapers and radio programs than any other nation has? A nation that has lost its soul that way is in danger soon of losing its life. There is a treason which begins in philosophy, where I think Alger Hiss’s treason began, and many more like him who have not been caught. The low-level, secularist, naturalistic thinking such men do is their first step in betraying their nation and the freedom which is both its greatest blessing and its greatest responsibility. Karl Marx said that “Communism begins where atheism begins.”

Four Steps To Take

What, then, should we seek to persuade America to do if we would see “this nation under God”?

First, this nation must repent. It must repent of all its arrogance, its thunderings about being better than other nations, its loss of God and the terrible consequences in crime, from crooked politicians to dopepeddlers. The way families have let children grow up in this God-blessed land without knowing God except as a word to swear with, children who inherit the greatest blessings any children on earth enjoy without knowing enough to say “Thank You” to God, without understanding the deep wells of religious conviction out of which these blessings have come, is as stupid as it is wicked. There are moral standards in this universe as detectable, as obvious when you see them, as any natural or scientific laws. There is at least a grave question whether the dropping of the atomic bomb in Japan was not a military mistake; its morality was still more doubtful.

America is like a good-hearted, emotional, heedless child—and such a child can do great harm. We are incredibly lacking in mature philosophy and belief and therefore of sustained policy in our national plans. We forget that the role which destiny seems to have handed us can break us as well as make us. The only safe place for America is on our knees, saying, “God, be merciful to us sinners.”

Second, let America return to its houses of worship. It is years since some of our pagan citizens have listened either to the claims of the Gospel, or its moral challenge to their lives. Church-going, for the converted, is the opportunity for the greatest exercise of which man is capable, the worship of Almighty God. Church-going, for the unconverted (whether outside or inside the church), is putting oneself where he can hear needed but convicting truth. It is daring to go where you hear from without what your conscience has already been telling you from within. It is risking a spiritual experience and a conversion. I know the human faults of the Church; but I know also the divine power that still courses through her to human souls.

Third, let America think and act responsibly and unselfishly. It is hard in these days to wean any act, national or personal, from elements of calculation and prudence. We need the infusion into this nation of some more simple integrity and common goodness. The good are sometimes gullible and open to being used by the cleverly evil; but the genuinely good have a wisdom of their own, a shrewdness which is directed, not at self-interest, but at the good of everybody.

We need the courage that speaks out about evil. We need the concern that takes the part of the oppressed. We need the kind of faith that believes that goodness is not the contesting intruder in the universe, but the manifestation of the will of God the Creator.

Fourth, let America seek with all its heart the faith of our fathers from which have come our chief blessings. Free nations must admit the right of any to disbelieve, to accept thanklessly the blessings which believing men have bequeathed to us which come ultimately from God. This liberty is the only way to have an uncoerced truth, a faith that is truly free. But no nation can thrive on neutrality. A wise and wary people will realize that its best leaven are the caring, creative folk who believe in God and therefore try to meet human needs as they arise.

A nation which will not recognize the dependence of freedom upon faith is on its way to ruin. As Dr. Jacques Maritain said, “… the world has done with neutrality. Willingly or unwillingly, states will be obliged to make a choice for or against the Gospel. They will be shaped either by the totalitarian spirit or by the Christian spirit.” Let America heed words like that. Let America ponder the truth of the Psalmist’s words, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”

Samuel M. Shoemaker’s gifts range from pen to pulpit. Currently rector of Pittsburgh’s Calvary Episcopal Church, he is author of many books, among them How to Become a Christian and Revive Thy Church Beginning with Me. His contribution above is a revision of an article originally prepared for the magazine Faith at Work.

- More from Samuel M. Shoemaker

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Reconciliation

Fruit Of Reconciliation

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Once A Bible Land, Syria Can Trigger War

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Assets Or Liabilities?

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The Meter Is Bent

From The Mount

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Hope For Improvement

Right Of Religious Liberty

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The Ideal And The Relative

On Worldly Pleasures

Specific Commands

Use Of Proof-Texts

Life Situations

Danger Of Legalism

Questions Of Conscience

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Saint And Soldier

For Temperance, Dignity

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Encounter With Scientific Humanism

Biblical, Spiritual Illiteracy

The Road Ahead

Gambling For The Seamless Robe

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True Patriotism

Outside Of History

Strength Of Tradition

Dignity And Conscience

Our Greatest Need

Four Steps To Take

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