“Getting out of the church” has been a cheap remedy for frustrated tempers throughout many periods of history. Apparently the habit began in the first century. But the Middle Ages witnessed something of much greater moment than this. The Christian Church split into the Eastern and Western churches, neither having any regular communion with one another. When, the Pope of Rome, therefore, later excommunicated from the Western church that “drunken German monk,” Martin Luther, why did not Luther simply give his allegiance to the Eastern Orthodox Church? Would that not have been the simplest and most Christian action?

The answer to that question should be stated with some care. Luther was forced out of the Roman church because he refused to stop publicizing convictions at which he had arrived after much agony of mind and heart. They were convictions that concerned the very core of the Gospel. He had found no peace in the official doctrine of the Roman church. After his “tower experience” he had arrived at joyful peace. But that had been preceded by years of study and struggle. The conclusions that he had reached were centered upon two basic convictions. The first was that the final standard of authority was not the Pope or the Church in General Council but only the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. The second conviction was that man, according to the Scriptures, could never stand at peace before a holy God by virtue of his own efforts, but only through the pardon which God freely grants to him who trusts in the work which Christ accomplished on the cross.

These were convictions that no church organization had set forth for centuries. Individuals for some time had been discovering them for themselves or for their own small circles, but it was Luther who trumpeted them throughout the world of European culture. Other Reformers sprang to his side or in their own languages proceeded to spread to fellow countrymen in other parts of Europe the basic truths that Luther had made available for everyone.

The Eastern Church

But what about the Eastern Orthodox Church which for five hundred years had also shown little respect for the authority of the Roman pope now relegating Luther to outer darkness? Why did not Luther seek its support, its shelter, its co-operation?

What, in fact, had caused the Eastern church to cease recognizing the authority of Rome? Was its action based on an earlier Reformation than the Protestant one of the sixteenth century? What had caused the separation? There has not always been agreement on the answer to that question.

Forsaking The Apostles

One of the first reactions which a man has when he studies the history of the ancient church is surprise that the leaders and mentors of the church should have departed so soon and so thoroughly from the teaching of the Apostle Paul. The most obvious area where this occurred was where salvation was the subject of discussion. Justin in the mid-second century clearly thought that the major element in the pursuit of salvation was the Christian’s obedience to the moral law. Irenaeus saw Christ as the founder of a new race of men, one who led men upward as Adam had led them downward. Men were free to choose Christ as their leader, to unite with him and follow him.

Tertullian talked of man as saved by grace. But grace, he believed, served to support man’s will so that through his good works he might obtain the reward of eternal life. In other words, man had to add to the work of Christ at the Cross. To Clement of Alexandria Greek philosophy was a justifying covenant with God, even though that idea was dimly comprehended. Man, with his free spirit, was enlightened by the Logos to choose truth and love for himself.

In Origen we meet a universalism. Even the demons were to be ultimately restored to union with God, and purging fire was to aid all men, good and evil, toward that end. Universalism reappeared again, in the fourth century, in Gregory of Nyssa. His view of salvation was synergistic. Man was carrying on a great moral drive toward salvation, with God stepping in and assisting him in the effort.

From this brief summary it appears that the early fathers of the Eastern church did not follow apostolic teaching in the matter of salvation, and it was of apostolic teaching that Martin Luther was so forcibly reminding the church at the time of the Protestant Reformation. To some extent this reminder had been given to the church of the West by St. Augustine in the fifth century. But the East had paid little attention to Augustine; original sin, for instance, was regarded as a Western disease.

As a result of their variable doctrines, the East tended to lay greater and greater emphasis on man’s co-operation with God in the matter of salvation. The resurrection came to be stressed more strongly than the atoning significance of Christ’s death. And Christ’s death came to be considered the Christian’s victory over corruption and death, the attainment of which was dependent upon the vigor with which it was pursued in life or upon purgatorial process after death.

Between East And West

Difficulties in the relationship between the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople became apparent by the fifth century. It is not possible to lay them at the feet of any one cause. But the rift persisted until in the year 1054 Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople. Despite several attempts at reunion, some momentarily successful, the division continued from that time forward. Various reasons for the breach were offered. The West was charged with the use of unleavened bread in the supper, with the introduction of “filioque” into the Nicene creed. The East was told that it had priests who were married and that the Patriarch of Constantinople called himself an “ecumenical patriarch.” However, neither the time nor the immediately proffered reasons were actually important. The division was the result of a long historical struggle which had gradually become more and more implacable. What was important were two fundamental differences: the Eastern church did not acknowledge the supreme authority of the Pope of Rome, and it did not see, even as imperfectly as did Rome, the importance of the scriptural teaching that man is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Therefore, the separation was not based upon the reluctance of the Eastern church to modify its doctrine of salvation to Rome’s.

Martin Luther, seeking support for his recovery of the scriptural treasure of justification by faith alone could find, then, no encouragement for his stand from the bishops of the Eastern church. Neither the sole authority of Scripture nor the truth of justification by faith were at home there.

The Fate Of Cyril

A demonstration of this fact was provided a century later in the tragedy of an Eastern Orthodox theologian, Cyril Lucar. Cyril was a native of Crete. For a time Patriarch of Alexandria, he became in 1621 Patriarch of Constantinople. As a young man he had studied in Italy, but it was in later years that he came to the conviction that the Reformation provided a true statement of the faith. In 1629 he published a confession of his belief in which he stated clearly that the authority of the Scriptures is superior to the authority of the church. The Scriptures are inerrant, the church is not. The confession also affirmed that “man is justified by faith, not by works” (Ch. 13). What more could be desired for determining the true stand of the Eastern church? But behold! Cyril was charged with being a Lutheran, and his enemies succeeded in securing his deposition from the patriarchate. He obtained reinstatement, and on four more occasions this same cycle was repeated. At last, on a charge of high treason, he was strangled. Cyril, however, had disciples who, with views favorable to the Protestant Reformation, continued to reappear again and again in the Eastern church. To ward off the effects of their influences, four different synods condemned Protestant tendencies during the remainder of the seventeenth century, at Constantinople in 1638, at Jassy in 1642, at Jerusalem in 1672 and at Constantinople again in 1691.

Reformation Unwelcome

It must be concluded, regretfully, that Protestantism failed in bringing scriptural truth to bear effectively on the larger number of Easterners. There appears to have been no notable hostility on the part of the Reformers to the Easterners. Calvin had written a preface to a collection of Chrysostom’s sermons, and in it he spoke highly of the services of John “the Golden-Mouthed” and incidentally commended other early Eastern fathers. But in no way did the Eastern Orthodox church prove hospitable to the doctrines of the Reformation. The Reformation and those like Cyril who sought to forward it were unwelcome to the Eastern church and this has, tragically, continued so to be.

Paul Woolley is Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and Managing Editor of The Westminster Theological Journal, published semi-annually.

The ecumenical honeymoon is over.” So writes Albert C. Outler in his recent book The Christian Tradition and the Unity We Seek. Appraising the progress of the ecumenical movement, Outler finds that the first phase of finding and charting areas of agreement and disagreement must now yield to the second phase of grappling with the residual problems of disagreement which are “acute, urgent, and desperately difficult.”

Conflicting Outlooks

One of the most noticeable disagreements within the World Council of Churches, apparent at the Amsterdam Assembly in 1948 and rudely shocking to many at Evanston in 1954, is that between what are frequently called, not altogether accurately, the “Anglo-Saxon” and the “Continental” theologies. The one it criticized as activism, the other as quietism. The one finds its antecedents in the social gospel, the other in crisis theology. The one stresses God’s immanence, the other his transcendence.

The “Anglo-Saxon” approach accents God’s role within history; the “Continental,” God’s role beyond history. The first calls the Church to broad cultural responsibilities in realizing the Kingdom of God here and now. The second insists that all the Church can do is to point to the Kingdom of God as an eschatological reality. The first recognizes biblical norms as they emerge through cultural interaction. The second seeks to apply biblical norms quite without regard for cultural context. The first tends to regard institutional church union as the summum bonum of the ecumenical movement. The second is more easily satisfied with fellowship and discussion as the expression of ecumenicity.

It may be recalled that at the time of the Amsterdam Assembly, Reinhold Niebuhr, certainly not entirely representative of the “Anglo-Saxon” mind, sharply challenged statements made by Karl Barth. In speaking on the assembly theme, “The World’s Disorder and God’s Design,” Barth had urged giving up any idea that the care of the Church and the care of the world are our care, or that God’s design means the task of the Church in relation to the world’s disorder and its activity for the amelioration of human life. Rather, said Barth, God’s design is his plan already come, already victorious in Jesus Christ. As far as the Kingdom of God is concerned, we can only point to it and wait “while we observe our office as political watchmen and do our service as social Samaritans.”

Replying in the columns of The Christian Century, Niebuhr questioned whether such a view has “any guidance or inspiration for Christians in the day-to-day decisions which are the very woof and warp of our existence,” and warned that the Christian faith can degenerate into a “too simple determinism and irresponsibility when the divine grace is regarded as an escape from, rather than an engagement with, the anxieties, perplexities, sins and pretensions of human existence.”

Significance Of History

This polarity in the World Council, very conspicuous in Evanston’s discussions of the Christian hope, comes down to the matter of one’s view of human history and cultural process. The typical “Continental” theology depreciates both. In the extreme of Barth’s teaching, history has no real meaning and culture no ultimate significance. All that matters is a vertical penetration of the horizontal by divine revelation and grace in an eschatological moment which is not really a moment of time at all. Interestingly, out of such a theological approach Bishop Dibelius, leader of the Evangelical Church in Germany, recently declared, “It is of no interest to our Lord who has been able to send up a Sputnik first.”

On the other hand, “Anglo-Saxon” theology presupposes that history has a revelational quality, that grace is structural in man, that culture is an imperative concern for the Church, and that the Kingdom of God is present and progressive. At its extreme, in liberalism, evident in the social gospel, only the horizontal has reality. There is no special grace, no supernatural revelation, and eschatology is merely a futuristic point of view on man’s autonomous progress.

Evangelical Penetration

Within this polarity of what we choose to call horizontalism and verticalism, the ecumenical movement is open to penetration by historic Christian theology. For liberalism loses the Gospel when it repudiates the supernatural, vertical intrusion of God into history, and neo-orthodoxy loses the direct relevancy of the Gospel to life when it repudiates the horizontal action of God within history. Over against both, historic Christianity insists that these are not genuine alternatives requiring a choice.

The evangelical, whether inside or outside the World Council, has a timely opportunity to witness to the integrity of both the horizontal and the vertical as planes in which God acts and speaks. The evangelical affirms both natural and supernatural revelation, both common and special grace, the Kingdom of God as both temporal and eschatological.

It may be noted in this connection that evangelicals are in peril of self-betrayal when they neglect the compelling relevancy of Christianity to all of life. Fundamentalism, for instance, has usually been quite insensitive to the Christian cultural task and distressingly unconcerned with the redemption of man’s world. It is revealing that Niebuhr, from his theological standpoint, currently challenges both Billy Graham and Karl Barth, the former to preach repentance from the sins of racial segregation and the latter to declare himself on the issue of Communism. Different though they are in many basic factors, fundamentalism and crisis theology are surprisingly alike in neglecting the social implications of the Gospel and ignoring the Christian cultural task of enthroning Christ as King in every sphere of life.

Points Of Challenge

It remains to suggest a few specific points at which the evangelical challenge, in the name of historic Christianity, may be addressed to the ecumenical movement. We cite three: revelation, the unity of the Church, and missions.

For the “horizontalist,” revelation is only natural. God is immanent and knowable in the normal course of things. Revelation is merely an empirical configuration of persons and events in which the resident divine may be discerned. On this basis the Bible is merely a record of religious experience essentially no different than other sacred writings, and Jesus Christ is a religious teacher and example not uniquely unlike many others. For the consistent “verticalist,” on the other hand, revelation is only supernatural. God and his revelation are inseparable, and since God is wholly transcendent, infinite and eternal, he cannot reveal himself directly in history which is finite and temporal. There is a radical discontinuity between God and the world. Therefore the Bible is nothing more than a human document, a pointer to God’s revelation, not itself the revelation. And Jesus is a mere man, a pointer to Christ as God, but not himself God.

Thus both “horizontalism” and “verticalism” fall short of the classic Christian view of revelation, the former in repudiating the supernatural, and the latter in repudiating the natural as media for God’s self-disclosure. There is only one way for this polarity to be transcended in the ecumenical movement. That is through the reassertion of the historic Christian view of a living God who sovereignly discloses himself in an authentically historical manner, first of all in creation and providence, and then redemptively in Christ the incarnate Word and the Bible the inscripturated Word.

Paradox Of Unity

In respect to the unity of the Church, “horizontalism” is inclined to insist on institutional unity as the irreducible aim of the ecumenical movement. Thus The Christian Century recently editorialized: “The ecumenical movement can have but one object. It is organic union.” “Verticalism,” however, is inclined to wait upon God for the fulfilment of his purpose and to be content with the unity of the Church as an eschatological reality. But why must we choose? The one suffers from historical perfectionism, the other from eschatological quietism. The one may be too optimistic, the other too pessimistic.

Today’s evangelical, with the Reformers, will acknowledge and strive for the ideal, but will also recognize that in this world of sin and error unity may come at too high a price. He will hold that the Church is in this world as the body of Christ under two aspects; as institution and as organism (mater fidelium and coetus fidelium). The one is a horizontal reality, the other a vertical. The Church must always live its life in suitable tension between these two poles, conformable to its God-given duties and opportunities.

The Missionary Debate

In the ecumenical missionary movement, too, “horizontalism” and “verticalism” emerge as alternatives. The best example of this is the famous Hocking-Kraemer debate which came to focus at the Madras Conference of the International Missionary Council in 1938. Hocking’s Rethinking Missions, reacting to the policy of radical displacement applied by many missionaries to native religions and cultures in the communication of the Christian faith, had urged the principle of continuity between all religions, that is, that Christianity is essentially no different from other religions. Differences are only in degree. This view, incidentally, had nearly prevailed at the Jerusalem Conference in 1928. Hendrik Kraemer, strongly influenced by Barth, replied to Hocking with his Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, in which he advocated the principle of radical discontinuity between Christianity and non-Christian religion, to the extent of ignoring general revelation and common grace in pagan culture and denying that there is any valid theological point of contact between the Christian message and the pagan mind.

The Madras debate, after being pushed into the background by World War II and its aftermath, is now being revived by the contemporary surge of the ancient non-Christian religions and by the publication of Kraemer’s latest work, Religion and the Christian Faith. Although the extreme of Hocking’s position has few advocates in missionary circles today, the issue between continuity and discontinuity is very much alive. And if the proposed merger between the IMC and the WCC is consummated, the larger issue of “horizontalism” versus “verticalism” will be faced in the WCC in a new dimension.

The evangelical, however, cannot accept Hocking and Kraemer as alternatives. He will not choose between continuity and discontinuity. He insists that this polarity is resolved in the presuppositions of orthodox Christianity, which posits both a horizontal general revelation in nature and human consciousness, and a vertical special revelation in the incarnation of Christ and in the Bible; and which likewise posits both a horizontal common grace by which God restrains human sin, and a vertical special grace by which he redeems man through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.

What the ecumenical movement needs today is to face squarely and to accept these several paradoxes of the Christian faith which are caught up in the one great paradox, that the living, sovereign, self-disclosing God is both immanent and transcendent, and that in judgment and in grace he is constantly moving within history and penetrating it from above.

Harold Dekker is Instructor in Missions at Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids, where he received the A.B. and Th.B. degrees before pursuing additional studies at Union Theological Seminary, New York. He served as U. S. Navy chaplain from 1942–45, returning to Calvin College as Associate Professor of Bible, and later as Dean of Students. For six summers he has served as guest speaker for the Back to God Radio Hour.

The official participation of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement began in 1925, at the Stockholm Conference on Life and Work, and since then it has never been discontinued. Today one of the five presidents of the World Council of Churches is a Greek Archbishop; there is an official representative of the Patriarch of Constantinople at the World Council of Churches headquarters and Orthodox members serve on practically all WCC commissions. And yet this Orthodox participation in the World Council of Churches remains a highly debated issue and divides the Orthodox themselves. Some of the Orthodox churches (the Church of Russia) have declined to join the Council, in some others (the Church of Greece) the discussion is going on concerning the possibility of participation, as well as its nature and meaning. Thus a kind of “agonizing reappraisal” of the Orthodox position in the Ecumenical Movement takes place and anyone interested in the future and the progress of the movement should make an effort to understand the true “dimensions” of this constant crisis. We shall attempt here to give it a very general and so to say “introductory” description.

Absolute Church Claim

Among the reasons of this crisis, the first to be mentioned is without doubt the very special doctrinal position of the Orthodox church, or to be more exact, the “absolute” character of her ecclesiology. A western ecumenical leader well acquainted with Eastern Orthodoxy describes it in the following terms: “The Orthodox Church differs from the Roman in her conception of how the authority and unity of the Church are expressed, but she is not less insistent that to her has been given by God the fulness, the ‘plenitude’ of Catholic faith and life, so that other Christians can only serve the unity of the Church by recognizing the claims of Orthodoxy.… For the Orthodox, Christian unity is a totality of faith and life in love, sacraments and ministry to which nothing can be added, from which nothing may be taken away and which already, by God’s grace, is the Holy Orthodox Church” (Oliver S. Tomkins: The Church Is the Purpose of God, Faith and Order Commission Papers No. 3, pp. 12–13).

It is not my purpose here to try to give this position any theological or historical “justification.” Let me merely point out that it is organically rooted in the whole Orthodox tradition in which the Church is always viewed as a “theandric” organism, as a given fulness of Christ, excluding by its very nature any possibility of division. It is clear that this ecclesiology at once puts the Orthodox in a very paradoxical position in a movement whose raison d’etre is to recognize first, and then to heal, the divisions of the Church.

This paradox, it is true, has been from the very beginning accepted as one of the basic “notae” of the World Council of Churches and found its expression in the “Toronto Statement” (“membership in the WCC does not imply that a Church treats its own conception of the Church as merely relative”). But one thing is the formal recognition of “dynamic relations” between mutually exclusive ecclesiologies as the essence of the ecumenical conversation, quite another is the practical application of this principle.

Overcoming Isolation

And it is here, probably, that we touch upon the really “existential” center of the whole Orthodox “agony” in the World Council of Churches. To understand this agony one must realize that, from the Orthodox point of view, what makes the Ecumenical Movement ecumenical is precisely the West-East encounter that took place after almost ten centuries of virtual isolation of the two parts of Christendom from each other. The Orthodox are aware that in this encounter they “represent” not only a few doctrines denied or ignored by Protestants, but first of all a living and unbroken tradition of faith and life, which long before the Reformation was either distorted or forgotten in the West. From the Orthodox point of view the schism that separated Rome and the whole West from the Orthodox church made the Reformation both unavoidable and unavoidably “Western” in its presuppositions and developments, for the real disruption of the “catholic understanding” had taken place long before. The Reformation, in other words, expressed itself in terms of Western theological and ecclesiological tradition, but some of these terms, at least, were the result of a long and tragical distortion. Therefore the uniqueness of the Ecumenical Movement lies precisely in the possibility of going beyond this “Western” tradition, to evaluate it within a restored universal framework of Christian thought and experience. Eastern Orthodoxy, whatever its own historical limitations and shortcomings, was to provide the ecumenical dialogue with those “terms of reference” that were forgotten or denied in the Western spiritual development. In the Orthodox conception, the Christian West, divided as it is, still constitutes a “whole,” in which all “denominations” are related to each other in a fundamental unity of thought-forms and theological categories. And this is especially true of non-Roman Christianity, whether “catholic” or “protestant.” It is this “whole” that Eastern Orthodoxy encounters in the Ecumenical Movement, giving it its “other pole,” so that this opposition constitutes the basic ecumenical tension; without it the Ecumenical Movement ceases to be ecumenical, in the full sense of this expression, and must be understood as a movement towards reunion of churches having their common origin in the Reformation.

Ecumenical Difficulties

If all this is true, and it is true at least in the Orthodox understanding of the ecumenical reality, then, in spite of the formal rectitude of the Toronto Statement, the Orthodox church is still facing very real difficulties in her relations with the World Council of Churches. For the constitution of the World Council of Churches puts on exactly the same level the divisions between the non-Roman churches of the West and the more basic division between the West and Orthodoxy. According to this constitution the Orthodox churches are but some of the one hundred sixty bodies which altogether constitute the World Council. Not only are they a numerical minority, but their whole doctrinal tradition has to be expressed in terms of “agreements” and “disagreements” proper to the West itself, but whose adequacy to the Orthodox faith and experience is more than doubtful. The Orthodox church is forced to witness to her faith in categories and terms which too often are not hers, which are not capable of embodying her real message and essence. She can fully recognize herself neither in the Amsterdam definition of the “catholic,” nor in the various classifications proposed since then. And it is precisely this impossibility to express herself fully and adequately that forces her so often into a position that to so many Protestants seems almost entirely negative and even arrogant. I do not mean that the Orthodox church wants all other Christians to accept her own theological language. No one among the Orthodox will deny the wonderful “ecumenical” achievements such as the common return to the Bible, a common search for theological and spiritual revival, and so forth. But inasmuch as the Ecumenical Movement cannot be reduced to a theological conversation but is a living encounter of living experiences, the Orthodox participants feel that the totality of their experience, of their tradition, cannot be fully expressed in the present ecumenical setup. For once more, in their opinion, the ecumenical dialogue consists not so much in the discussion of precise “agreements” and “disagreements,” but, above all in the recovery of a common language, in restoration of the “catholic mind.”

An Open Question

All this explains why the problem of Orthodox participation in the World Council of Churches is a permanently “open” question, which cannot be solved by a mere election of Orthodox dignitaries to high ecumenical positions. There must begin within the World Council of Churches itself a process of re-evaluation of its whole structure, of transforming it into a more adequate “ecumenical” instrument. But is it not the very nature of the World Council of Churches to be always in a “process of formation,” to be a question and a challenge more than an answer and a solution, to be itself in “agony” as long as Christian unity is not achieved in the fulness of the Church?

We Quote:

Henry Stob

Associate Professor of Ethics, Calvin Seminary

It is characteristic of the Reformers that they put human liberty in an ethico-religious context. This is especially true of Calvin. He binds freedom to morals. Freedom for him is a means and not an end. It has only instrumental value. It must serve the purposes of love. This determines its nature, and sets the limits of its exercise.… Liberty, then, is always in order to goodness. It is never merely freedom from something; it is always freedom to something, the freedom to meet one’s obligations. It always implies direction, which means commitment to some value or ideal. This means that freedom binds. It presupposes God. Our duties are the generating source and limit of our liberties. But our duties represent precisely God’s sovereign claim on us. There can, accordingly, be no liberty that does not take God into account. This is Calvin’s conviction and that of every Christian who listens intently to the Word.—In The Christian Concept of Freedom (Grand Rapids Int’l Publications).

Alexander Schmemann is Professor of Church History and Liturgics at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York City. He was graduated from St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute of Paris in 1945, and lectured there in Byzantine Church History until 1951, when he was elected to the faculty of St. Vladimir’s. Since 1952 he has been a member of the WCC Faith and Order Commission, and attended the Amsterdam, Lind, Evanston and Oberlin meetings. He is author of The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Biblical Perspective

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

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

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

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

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

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

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Sane And Sound

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

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

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

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

MEREDITH G. KLINE

Religious Fire

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

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

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

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

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

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

DICK L. VAN HALSEMA

Christ Not Marx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

L. NELSON BELL

Heritage Piece

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

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

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

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

DAVID W. BAKER

Literary Work

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

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

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

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

PHILIP EDGCUMBE HUGHES

New Testament Church

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LORAINE BOETTNER

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

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

Proper Seeking

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

RUDOLF STIER

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

THOMAS ADAMS

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

JOHN TRAPP

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

R. C. H. LENSKI

Kingdom And Righteousness

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

JOHN BROWN

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

J. A. BROADUS

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

JAMES BLAIR

Cure For Anxiety

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

J. A. ALEXANDER

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

J. A. ALEXANDER

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

A. MACLAREN

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

J. OSWALD DYKES

Evangelical Broadcasting Outlook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

News Editor

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

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

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

Writers Confer

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

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

Captive Chaplains

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

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

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

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

People: Words And Events

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Training View

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

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

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

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

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

Five-Point Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pagan Attitudes

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

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

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

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

F.D.W.

Press Merger

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

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

New York Audit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RECEIPTS

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

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

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

EXPENDITURES

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

$322,308.60—Advertising and publicity.

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

$239,792.94—Office operations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Balanced Education

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

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

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

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

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

South America

Another Auca Rebuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Argentina Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Europe

Get Tough Policy

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

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

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

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

Australia

Moral Leadership

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PASTORAL PROBLEMS

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

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

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

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

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

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

PARTICULARS ON COLOMBIA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. J.G. HanlinOklahoma City, Okla.

YMCA HERITAGE

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

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

Arthur SoundyGreely, Colo.

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

F. R. AckleyDenver, Colo.

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

Samuel S. WileyPresbyterian ChurchLookout Mountain, Tenn.

VIRGIN BIRTH AND GOBLINS

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

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

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

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

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

Vernon T. SmithFirst Presbyterian ChurchHolt, Mich.

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

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

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

John A. HawkinsCalvary Presbyterian ChurchFort Wayne, Ind.

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

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

Allen H. GatesFirst Congregational ChurchChesterfield, Mass.

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

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

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

Paul is silent with respect to it.

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

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

Valton V. MorseCongregational ChurchCumberland Center, Me.

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

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

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

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

Robert B. MuhlTrinity Episcopal ChurchWashington, Pa.

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

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

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

Alexander A. MurraySydney, Nova Scotia

RSV CATCHES UP

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

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

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

Wm. Childs RobinsonColumbia Theological SeminaryDecatur, Ga.

REVIEW AND REBUTTAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

CORRUPTION AND SECESSION

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

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

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

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

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND

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

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

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

CRUMBLING ALTARS

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

Wilbur M. SmithSan Marino, Calif.

SACKCLOTH AND ASHES

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

A. E. WardnerThe Homiletic BiasOklahoma City, Okla.

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

V. Charles SpencerSeattle Pacific CollegeSeattle, Washington

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

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

John D. CraigCentral Presbyterian ChurchHouston, Texas

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

OUR ECHOES ROLL

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

J. S. NickersonUnited Church of CanadaFranklin Centre, Quebec

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

Oliver R. DavisonUnited ChurchCabot, Vermont

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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