Advancing the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God.
Effective cooperation between evangelical missions has highlighted Gospel work in Ecuador.
More than 175 missionaries, representing 13 organizations, furthered their cooperative efforts recently at the eighth annual Inter-Mission Fellowship Retreat in Quito. Speaker was the Rev. Larry Love of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
The Fellowship has spearheaded a youth camp effort with much spiritual success.
The real tragedy of Ireland lies in the fact that the 16th century European Reformation, which had such a gracious and beneficial influence in England and Scotland, never reached Ireland.
This is the opinion of the Rev. F. Rupert Gibson, superintendent of the Irish Mission of the Presbyterian Church.
In an address at Belfast, he said history might have been different if Irish settlers had been given the Bible in their own language.
The Irish problem, he said, is not political, but spiritual, and must have a spiritual cure.
“The teaching of the Bible could take the gun out of Irish politics,” he added.
Under the tide of “Relations between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches,” a report has been issued by the Church of England (Anglican) and the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian).
Two smaller communions, the Episcopal Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church of England, collaborated in the study.
The report is the result of conversations of the four churches over a period of years with a view to creating closer spiritual ties. Emphasis in the talks has been placed on the removal of existing barriers and the reconciliation of differences rather than on formal church union.
Chief interest in the report lies in the proposal that the Presbyterian churches should adopt an order of bishops, chosen by each presbytery from its own membership, and that the Episcopal churches should introduce a system of lay eldership similar to the Scottish eldership.
The Bishop of Derby, Dr. A. E. J. Rawlinson, said the proposals probably will “starde” some people. If the recommendations are adopted, both the Church of England and the Church of Scotland will be called upon to make “radical changes” in their existing organizations “in the interest of fuller unity and fuller truth.”
It has been urged that no judgment be passed on the report until its proposals have been fully examined and discussed. Already, however, many voices have been raised against the chief proposal, especially in Scotland. The Rev. Tom Allan, leader of the “Tell Scodand” movement, is reported to have said that he opposes the plan. The Bishop of Brechin, Dr. Graham, of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, also is cautious. He remarked that the proposals must be allowed to “lie on the table” for some years to come.
—F. C.
The American Church in Paris, reported to be the first American chapel founded on foreign soil, marks its 100th anniversary this year.
Formed to serve the American colony in the French capital, the church is the oldest non-governmental American institution in Europe.
The present English Gothic structure, erected over the foundation of a tobacco warehouse on the Quai d’Orsy, was completed in 1931 at a cost of $1,000,000. It replaced the first chapel on the Rue de Berri, off the Champs Elysees. The building was called a chapel until 1883 when a French law prohibiting use of the “church” for a Protestant house of worship was repealed.
Wladyslaw Gomulka, leader of the United Workers (Communist) Party, said in Warsaw that future relations between the government and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland will largely depend on the church “marching together with us.”
He spoke at the first full convention of the party since he was returned to leadership after Poland’s bloodless revolt against Soviet political domination last October.
Gomulka said the party believes that the “idealist outlook” of the Roman Catholic Church will exist for a long time side by side with the “materialistic outlook” of non-believers.
He added:
“We don’t prevent the church from marching in matters of faith along its road of Roman Catholic doctrine. The church should also recognize the fact that Poland has changed her former social system, that she is building socialism.
“In matters which are of vital concern for the interests of the people’s Poland and the nation, we want the church to march together with us along the Polish road. It is on this that the long-term shaping of relations between the people’s state and the church will largely depend.”
For the first time since World War II a Japanese voice was heard over a Korean radio broadcast when HLKY, Korea’s first Christian station, used a taped rebroadcast of a service in Tokyo.
Delay in Korean reconciliation with Japan is understandable. The enmity is centuries old. In Japan tourists are still shown the great mound covering thousands of Korean noses and ears cut off and sent to Japan during the Hideyoshi invasion of 1592. Forty years of efficient but often brutal colonization (1905–1945) only whipped existing hatreds to white-hot heat. President Rhee was tortured by the Japanese when he was a young man.
Sharpest challenge yet given to Korea’s Christians on the necessity of reconciliation with their brother believers in Japan has come from an Ecumenical Youth Team touring the country under the auspices of the Korean Student Christian Federation.
Said Eliezer Mappanao of Manila, “The Japanese sinned against you, but that sin is past. Your sin is present. You have not forgiven.” When Korean students who had suffered bitterly under the conquerors questioned his right to speak thus, the young man vindicated himself very simply, “My father was killed by the Japanese without cause.” His plea that Korea’s Christians must take the initiative in forgiveness has stirred student thinking in city after city.
Membership of the Youth Team includes a Pakistani (the first ever to visit Korea other than diplomatic or military personnel), a Filipino, a Canadian missionary from Japan and an American college student now studying for one year at the University of Hong Kong.
—S. H. M.
Lost and Found—The California Senate, in a 20–7 vote, killed a bill to make “In God We Trust” the official state motto. Opponents said the bill would jeopardize the long-accepted but unofficial motto “Eureka,” which appears on the state seal. “Eureka,” which means “I have found it,” was put on the seal 100 years ago as a symbol of the discovery of gold in California.
The Wrong Key—A typist’s error in copying a Presidential proclamation led to an erroneous report in religious circles that President Eisenhower had designated the third Sunday in May for the 1958 celebration of Armed Forces Day. The observance will continue to fall on the third Saturday in May.
Morals and Money—Moral delinquency among U. S. airmen based overseas has been attributed, of all things, to an insufficient Air Force budget. Col. Harry J. Mrachek said the present indoctrination program is not sufficient to train airmen in the morals and customs of the foreign countries to which they are assigned.
Name Dropping—Alabama Baptist officials have demanded that the word “Baptist” be dropped by the Baptist Laymen of Alabama, a group of laymen organized for the avowed purpose of fostering white supremacy.
Bright New World—Twenty-two Roman Catholic members of the Moundsville (W. Va.) High School graduating class were barred by their principal from taking part in commencement exercises because they refused to attend baccalaureate services in a Protestant church. They sat at the exercises as spectators and the diplomas were given privately.
Age of Reasoning—Calle Parker Gates, 101, Jackson, Tenn., was awarded an honorary doctor of humanities degree by Lambuth College. Miss Gates, an 1873 graduate of Lambuth’s predecessor, the Methodist Memphis Conference Female Institute and a school teacher for 47 years, was honored for her service to the community.
“They’re just making me a doctor because I have lived so long,” she said. “In a few more years perhaps they’ll make me a Methodist bishop.” She will be 102 on July 3.
The Golden Orange—Anthony T. Rossi, builder of a $25,000,000 Florida citrus empire and a devout Baptist, relates his business success to his spiritual convictions—“God has always guided me, told me what to do and when to do it. He has used me for his purpose.”
Dancing on Campus—Action of the Wake Forest College trustees permitting dancing on the campus has led to threats of financial support withdrawal by individual churches. The college is a Southern Baptist institution. The action was supported, however, by the Cullom Ministerial Conference, comprising pre-ministerial students at the college, after a heated debate. “We have no right to impose our opinion on the student body as a whole,” the conference resolution said. It added that dancing is “a personal ethical matter which must be decided by each individual.”
Digest—Dr. Theodore F. Adams, president of Baptist World Alliance, recently suffered a heart attack, but is expected to recover “completely.” It may not even be necessary for him to curtail work, says his physician … Dr. Eric M. North retires as senior general secretary of the American Bible Society after 30 years service.… Dr. Ernest C. Colwell, vice president and dean of faculties of Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., elected first president of Southern California School of Theology.… Death claims Professor Emeritus Louis Berkhof, 83, first president of Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Mich. He wrote more than a score of books, among which were Systematic Theology, Manual of Christian Doctrine and Summary of Christian Doctrine.… Dr. Russell V. DeLong, Nazarene evangelist and author, elected president of Pasadena College, succeeding Dr. W. T. Purkister, who is going to the Nazarene Seminary, Kansas City.
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).
The distribution of rewards and punishments in the day of judgment will be in perfect agreement with the works of men; the righteous will be exalted to happiness; the wicked be doomed to misery. The Gospel makes no difference with respect to this: it provides relief for the penitent, but rather aggravates than removes the condemnation of the impenitent. But it opens to us an important fact: namely, that the punishment of the ungodly is the proper fruit and deserved recompence of their own works: whereas the reward bestowed upon the godly is a free unmerited gift of God for Christ’s sake.—CHARLES SIMEON.
While the doctrine of eternal happiness is generally admitted, the eternity of future punishment is doubted by many. The declarations, however, of the Holy Scriptures respecting both are equally explicit. Concerning each of them the very same expressions are used. Owing to the hardness of their hearts, men are insensible to the great evil of sin. Hence the threatenings of future punishment, shock all their prejudices, and seem to them unjust, and such as never can be realized.—ROBERT HALDANE.
Sin is personified as man’s natural master (vv. 12, 14, 22), and he is represented as paying his subjects with death. This term, according to the apostle, does not seem to denote the annihilation of the sinner. To pay anyone is not to put him out of existence; it is rather to make him feel the painful consequences of his sin, to make him reap in the form of corruption what he has sown in the form of sin.—F. GODET.
The reason why death is the result of sin is, that sin deserves death. Death is due to it in justice. There is the same obligation in justice, that sin should be followed by death, as that the labourer should receive his wages. As it would be unjust, and therefore wrong, to defraud the labourer of his stipulated reward, so it would be unjust to allow sin to go unpunished. Those, therefore, who hope for pardon without an atonement, hope that God will in the end prove unjust.—CHARLES HODGE.
The punishment of that death which was the threatened penalty of the first transgression, will, according to Scripture, consist in the pains both of privation and suffering. Its subjects will not only be bereaved of all that is good, they will also be overwhelmed with all that is terrible. As the chief good of the creature is the enjoyment of the love of God, how great must be the punishment of being deprived of the sense of His love, and oppressed with the consciousness of His hatred!—ROBERT HALDANE.
Eternal life contains a great deal more than the two words, life plus eternity. Eternal life is not merely endless existence. It means endless life in its highest possible state of existence. It means that all that is piecemeal and temporary has passed away forever. It means that the absolutely perfect has come, that life has reached its highest altitude. It means that all the fulness and richness that this human vessel can receive of the goodness of God has been made ours.—R. E. GOLLADAY.
Eternal life comprehends all the blessings of the covenant of grace. The Scriptures make mention of it as the great end of the incarnation and sufferings of Christ.… The enjoyment of it is not confined to the future state; it commences in this world, when the believer not only obtains a title to immortal happiness, but is illuminated, sanctified, and comforted by the Spirit of Grace, and it will be perfected in the life to come.—JOHN DICK.
Llfe eternal—of which, all that we can say is but stammering, and all our knowledge and conceiting of it but ignorance, in regard of what it is: yet, so much we know or may know of it, as, if we knew aright, would certainly draw us more into desires and pursuit of it. The very name of life is sweet.… So happy, that there shall not be the smallest drop of any evil or bitterness in it, pure unmixed bliss; nothing present in it that is displeasing, nor anything wanting that is delightful; and everlasting, that when millions of years (if there were any such reckoning there) are rolled about, it shall be as far from ending as at the first.—BISHOP ROBERT LEIGHTON.
Of the nature of that glory of which the people of God shall be put in possession in the day of their redemption, we cannot form a clear and distinct idea.… Their blessedness will consist in a knowledge of God and His mysteries, a full and exquisite sense of His love, ineffable consolation, profound tranquillity of soul, a perfect concord and harmony of the soul with the body, and with all the powers of the soul among themselves; in one word, in an assemblage of all sorts of blessings.—ROBERT HALDANE.
Christ is the foundation of all spiritual life that is in us. He is the second Adam that conveyeth all that is spiritually good. “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19). “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Christ came that we might have life, and that we might have abundance of life preserved for us, such abundance as he enjoyeth himself in the heavens.—RICHARD SIBBES.
Christ, God-man, Mediator, is the life, that eternal life, in respect of his threefold offices of king, priest, and prophet. As prophet, he is the life by way of revelation, discovering this eternal life to us; as priest, by way of impetration, procuring this eternal life for us; as king, by way of collation, conferring this eternal life on us. And as the fulness of water is dispensed by the sea to the earth, and the fulness of light is communicated by the sun to the air; so the fulness of grace and glory, of life, even eternal life, is conveyed by Christ to his church.—NATHANAEL HARDY.
Heaven is procurred, prepared, taken possession of, and retained, by means of the atonement. The blood of the covenant constitutes the title to its possession. The heavenly things themselves are purified with better sacrifices, than those by which the patterns of things in the heavens were purified. We have boldness to enter into the holiest of all only by the blood of Christ, and to the Lamb in the midst of the throne are the redeemed indebted for the permanency of their glory and bliss. Those immortal honors, those glorious hopes, those perennial enjoyments, which are imaged by crowns of glory, palms of victory, harps of gold, and rivers of life, have all their meritorious source in the cross.—WILLIAM SYMINGTON.
The Lord’s design is that His life may reappear anew in his people or be reproduced in them; and that there may be such a symphony, so to speak, that his people shall promote on earth the great object for which he lives in glory. The life of love and active service which he lived on earth is to be renewed and reproduced in all his people. And when we inquire how this is attained, we find that the tide of resurrection life flows into his people, in proportion as they keep before them His abasement, atoning death, and resurrection as the great themes of faith and the great springs of action.—GEORGE SMEATON.
If the greatest love hath been manifested in giving Christ to the world, then it follows that the greatest evil and wickedness is manifested in despising, slighting, and rejecting Christ. It is sad to abuse the love of God manifested in the least gift of providence; but to slight the richest displays of it, even that peerless gift, wherein God commends his love in the most astonishing manner, this is sin beyond description. Blush, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth; yea, be ye horribly afraid! No guilt like this.—JOHN FLAVEL.
The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Ned B. Stonehouse, General Editor. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. 6 volumes in print of the 17-volume set. $3.50 to $6.00 each.
In 1946 Eerdmans Publishing Company announced its proposed 17-volume commentary entitled The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Scholars from Europe, South Africa and America were engaged to offer their contributions to this project. Dr. Ned B. Stonehouse, the worthy successor to J. Gresham Machen in the chair of New Testament in Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, was chosen as General Editor.
It is both the desire of the publisher and the ambition of the General Editor that these works he abreast of modern scholarship in every phase which touches the craft of the exegete and interpreter of Scripture. More than noticeable is also the strong feeling that these biblical reference works ought to be slanted mainly to the usefulness of the man in the pulpit.
But as essential as both of these characteristics are, they are but secondary to the supreme devotion of all parties involved in the project; that is, to ever remain loyal to the Scriptures—the Word of God written, tapping every resource possible in the attempt to reveal the original intent of God’s written revelation.
In view of the first six volumes published in this set, it is apparent that the commentators and the General Editor contend that the realization of this goal will best serve the serious work of the Christian church.
Even though there is a solid agreement among the contributors in their acceptance of a strong theory on the inspiration of Scripture, and an unanimity of thought in their acceptance of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man as compromising their basic theological structure, each scholar reveals himself as an independent thinker and in no way shies away from textual, historical and doctrinal problems.
Occasionally, to be sure, there is a point where the author fails to do full justice to a knotty problem or glides quickly over some chafing text. An example of a rather brief and slightly dogmatic treatment is Grosheide’s comment on 1 Corinthians 7:14. The text reads, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the believing wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the believing brother, else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.” Rather than face the several problems involved in this text in the manner of Meyer, Alford and others, Grosheide works quickly to his own conclusions. Capping his remarks on the last phrase, “sanctified in Christ Jesus,” is his rather axiomatic statement, “This refers to the life within the covenant and to the right to baptism, hut does not imply that each of those holy children will go to heaven” (cf. Romans 11:13 f.).
Another example of a rather hasty treatment is found in Jac. J. Muller’s work, The Epistles of Paul to the Philippians and to Philemon. The biblical text reads, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Phil. 4:8). Less than ten full lines are used to expose the truth of this salient verse.
Preachers attempting to bring to their people an exposition of this remarkable, homiletically-arranged verse will need more than a few suggestive synonyms for the virtues mentioned in the text. They will need to know something of the relationship which exists between the things honorable and the things just, things pure and things lovely and whether or not the order in which Paul records these virtues is of any consequence. They will also be concerned over the force intended in logizesthe (think). These considerations are the ingredients with which soul-feeding sermons are made. Besides the biblical text itself, commentaries are supposed to be the chief source of supply.
For the most part, the commentators in this series use a semi-technical style which is arranged in a similar semi-technical page format. The main copy includes a commentary on the text, cross references, related historical material and, in some instances, references to other source books which augment the particular discussions. The bulk of references to other sources, however, plus the technical discussions on the original language level are found in the footnotes. This arrangement allows for a wide and varied readership, the main copy providing the English reader with the burden of the argument, while the student able to use Greek and Hebrew has considerably more exegetical content at his disposal. Naturally, this being a New Testament commentary, a working knowledge of the Hebrew language in the line of scholarly equipment is not to be compared to that of the Greek. However, the references to Hebrew words and ideas are not infrequent, especially in Bruce’s work on the Acts. Aknowledge of these two languages, plus that of Latin, German and Dutch, would assure a full understanding of these suggestive footnotes.
Of the six volumes now at hand, Bruce’s work on the book of Acts carries the torch of thorough research in the area of footnote enclosures. Geldenhuys’ work on Luke insofar as footnotes are concerned does not reach the standard attained by Bruce; it is, nevertheless, a work of some stature. Even though Geldenhuys offers some pertinent remarks on special subjects such as demon possession, fasting and like topics and acquaints his readers with portions of S. Greydanus’ Het Heilig Evangelic naar de Beschryning van Lukas, Plummer’s Gospel According to St. Luke, Strack and Billerbeck’s Das Evangelium nach Lukas and Zahn’s Einleitung in das Neue Testament, the body of the text and the footnotes are something less than classic in the field of Lukan research.
In the areas of textual criticism and introductory and historical references, Bruce’s contribution far excels those evidenced in the other five volumes. In the light of this footnote material alone, the Book of Acts is easily one of the worthiest commentaries to have rolled from the evangelical press within recent years.
Although none of the other volumes printed thus far equals the scholarly product produced by F. F. Bruce, each of the other entries is academically acceptable and includes some points of excellence. Jac. J. Muller’s Philippians offers about as fine a discussion in digest form on the Kenotic Theory as can be found. After pointing out flaws in the interpretations of Calvin, Augustine and others, Muller shows how the use of the aorist participle which denotes simultaneous action manifestly states that Christ emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant. Neither the preacher nor the professorial scholar needs more on this subject than that which Muller presents in this place.
Among the points of commendation revealed in the Commentary on the Epistles of James and John by Alexander Ross, is the thick supply of cross-reference material. A close examination of these references shows a keen awareness of not only the parallel passages and related verses, but a fine appreciation of contexts out of which these texts are culled. Readily noticed also in Ross’ work is his devotional passion. Especially is this conspicuous in his treatment of John’s First Epistle.
As pointed out in the Foreword by Editor Stonehouse, one of F. W. Grosheide’s more telling virtues in his commentary on First Corinthians is his attempt to show the main thread of thought which runs through the entire letter. To Grosheide, Paul’s thesis is that the Corinthian people had to be reminded in various ways and in strong but simple language that God’s redeemed ought to be a humble, God-fearing, neighbor-loving and serving people. After due allowance has been granted for “main-theme enthusiasm,” the contribution set forth here by Grosheide is of considerable worth and should he of some real value to the man in the pulpit.
The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia by Herman N. Ridderbos, in some ways failing to meet the exegetes’ expectations, is a highly serviceable work. Perhaps the most glaring deficiency is the omission of contrasting views. A case in point already brought to the Christian public’s attention in other reviews is his one-page commentary on Galatians 3:20—one of the most stubborn problems in New Testament interpretation. The biblical text reads, “Now a mediator is not of one, but God is one.” Out of a few hundred interpretations offered during the span of Christian history, Ridderbos enlightens his readers on just two of these suggested interpretations. This commentary, however, as is true of the others, has many commendable features. If one of these features is to be singled out, it ought to be his discreet handling of the alleged contradictions which supposedly exist between the parallel texts of Acts and Galatians. Especially fine are his comments on the harmony of Galatians 2:1–10 and Acts 15.
In the light of what has been pointed out in this brief survey-review, it is apparent that each of these commentaries is a judicious work which ought to be something of an expository stimulant for the sermon-maker and ultimately a source of spiritual food for those who occupy the pew. Due basically to the conciseness of these volumes, they are judged as being something short of authoritative in the area of biblical reference works. Invariably the material circumscribed is of a high order, but not infrequently there is considerable room for expansion of thought and a fuller expression of existing interpretations. Yet, in spite of this defection, these theologically conservative commentaries stand among the very best biblical reference works coming from the evangelical press in our day. Students of the Scriptures who are serious in the things of Christ will be helped considerably with the constant use of this source material.
LLOYD A. KALLAND
Doctrinal Preaching for Today, by Andrew W. Blackwood. Abingdon, New York, 1956. $3.00.
A long succession of able young men who came from Princeton Seminary to work with me as Assistant Ministers at the First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, bore unanimous witness to the great help they had received from the instruction of Dr. Blackwood, then Professor of Homiletics at Princeton. An examination of the book by Dr. Blackwood, Doctrinal Preaching for Today, makes clear why those who sat under him at the Seminary valued the training they received.
Ministers who did not have the advantage of Dr. Blackwood’s instructions will find no little profit in this book; and other ministers who have been drawing their inspiration from such subjects as Ecumenicalism, United Nations and racial issues are finding that their wells have run dry, may be moved by a study of this book to turn back to the sublime truths of the Christian revelation and “with joy draw water out of the well of salvation.”
The great thing about doctrinal preaching is that it is not only for Today, but for Yesterday and Forever.
CLARENCE E. MACARTNEY
The Experiment of Faith, by Samuel M. Shoemaker, Harpers, New York. $1.50.
Among the writing ministers of the day, “Sam” Shoemaker must be rated as one of the most effectively articulate. Another Shoemaker book is the “expected” thing. Those who are familiar with his previous books will not look for a volume heavily weighted with scholarship or startlingly novel in its originality. They will look—without disappointment—for a kind of “conversation in print” on matters that are closely related to Christian experience and to the communication of Christian witness to others.
Something known as “The Pittsburgh Experiment” was called into being soon after the author became rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in “The Steel City” in 1953. This was a concrete venture in evangelism in which businessmen were challenged to Christian commitment in a way that would make their faith witness relevant to the problems of every-day living in a roaring industrial city such as Pittsburgh.
What happened to these men, many of whom are junior executives either in management or in labor, and what they in turn have caused to happen, by the grace of God, in the lives of others, will live for a long time in the annals of unconventional evangelism.
Starting with a “case history” that concerns an insurance manager, Dr. Shoemaker unfolds the story of what the Christian faith does when people are exposed to a virile and victorious expression of it, and when, being exposed, they respond to it. His knack of writing for the person who knows little or nothing of Christian theology was never put to better use than in the way he does it here. Take this from the first chapter as a sample: “Yet our first great need is not for a set of rules about how to be good; it is for something to bridge that yawning canyon between us and the God we dimly seem to remember but cannot entirely forget.”
The chapters on “How To Keep Going Spiritually” and “How To Win People To Christ” are never nebulous. They are kept close to the one-two-three of specific steps, the relevant practicalities on which laymen can get their hands. Some words both frank and wise are written in reference to the danger of over-simplifying and mechanizing the procedures by which Christians seek to bring others, one by one, to the realization of the new life in Christ.
Incidentally, Dr. Shoemaker brands as a species of “snobbishness” the attempt by a well-known New York theologian to discredit—at least so far as the New York scene is concerned—the ministry of Dr. Billy Graham.
Some readers will feel, justifiably, I think, that more might have been made of the place and power of Scripture in the ministry of soul-winning.
The final chapter, “How To Work For Christ Through Your Job,” blows like a refreshing breeze through the stuffiness and sterility of much of our thinking in evangelical circles with respect to this inescapable area of Christian responsibility. “I am convinced,” says Dr. Shoemaker, at the end, “that God enters the business scene in two ways: first, through converted men and women whose hearts he has touched and changed and who carry his Spirit with them at all times; and second, in human relationships that are different because he has become the Third Party to them.”
Here, in 64 pages, is a gripping description of how one converted person can, under God, reproduce his kind!
PAUL S. REES
Our modern world is truly one world. It is indivisible. More than anything else the missionary enterprise has driven home that fact. But our world is also a sadly divided world. Yet, what happens in the U.S.A. or Western Europe has its impact on folk everywhere. How strong are our spiritual defenses?
Mother’s Day is behind us. What of the American home? Kermit Eby, eminent social scientist, is alarmed about certain trends in our American economy that are a continuing threat to the home (Christian Living, April 1957). He writes on “Pressures on the Family.” What are they? He lists the following: 21½ million women working in shop and office, desertions of families by fathers rapidly increasing, mass-purchasing power financed by credit and debt, the blessing or bane of installment buying, loan companies charging from 6 to 14%—and the consequent strains on millions of families in America. Eby is convinced that the price we pay for our comforts is all too high. “We have produced an economy in which major satisfactions demand the extra earnings of the wife; as a consequence the American home is being radically changed—children are ‘farmed out’ or allowed to roam the streets.” But the pressures to keep up with the Jones’ continue. “The pressures are blatant and constant; and few of us there are who can resist; we believe our happiness to be intimately bound up with what we have or want.” Presently, Americans owe 28 billion dollars for luxury necessities.
Has the Church anything to say concerning usury, the use of leisure, the submarginal groups among our people caught in this economic squeeze and rampant materialism? Watchman, what of the night?
Walter Schlichting’s “Christians, Luxury and Sacrifice” (Moody Monthly, March 1957) tells of the amusement that two American business men visiting Korea experienced when they saw a young farmer pulling a plow guided by his father. A missionary told them that they had sold their only ox and given the money to their church for a new building. “What a stupendous sacrifice!” exclaimed the American visitors. “They did not feel that way at all … They counted it a great joy that they had an ox to give to the Lord’s work,” answered the veteran missionary.
The same author tells of a returning missionary and his impressions of significant changes among Christians in America. The answer? “Yes—an increasing spiritual coldness.” And then: “The Christians are too engrossed in getting things and gadgets.… In the scramble they have lost touch with God.”
This writer has been alarmed about the tremendous turnover in missionary personnel. He knows of five missionary couples who have returned after one term on the field and the cost at the most charitable reckoning must have amounted to at least $10–12,000. The cost of church-ecclesiastical committees are rising every day. One even hears that missionaries on the field must spend much of their time as tourist guides to “prominent” laymen and pastors encircling the globe. What of our stewardship at home and abroad?
G. Pitt Beers, writing on “Home Missions After 125 Years” (Missions, May 1957) surveys the extensive and sacrificial work of American Baptists since 1832. When the ABHS was established in that year, our population was 12,858,670. New York City had 202,589 people, including 17 slaves. Today America numbers more than 165,000,000 people. Dr. Beers passionately argues for greater efforts to win America’s unchurched millions to the Lord Jesus Christ. “Though more people are in our churches than ever before, there are also more unchurched people than ever before. There are more unchurched communities of larger populations. There are more people in deteriorated city areas, largely untouched by the evangel. The needs of the people call from every side.… It is, indeed, a time for the Christian forces to go forward.”
“Evaluating Our Religious Revival” by Dr. Edward L. R. Elson in The Journal of Religious Thought, (Autumn-Winter 1956–57) is a sobering word against too hasty evaluations. We have by now heard Reinhold Niebuhr, Edward Carnell, Homrighausen and even Paul Tillich on the matter. Elson warns against cynics and snobs who prematurely decry or denounce the current religious revival. He defends both Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale, although he by no means is in full agreement with either. Both have been in the writer’s pulpit. Elson is aware of the pitfalls of revivalism, but he rightly points out that “the methods which one religious leader rejects may be effective through another religious leader.” Presbyterians in the Great Awakening (1734–58) became sorely divided into Old Sides and New Sides, yet God was in that mighty movement of grace. Elson searchingly asks:
Can it be that the lamentation of some critics is so boisterous because the real awakening does not emerge from their particular theological school, their academic cult, or their personally approved techniques and methods?
Let us beware, he warns, lest we mistake biliousness for prophetic insight. Theology is important, Elson admits, and as a Presbyterian pastor he is grateful both for the vigorous evangelism and the resurgence of vital theology of our day. However, the critics of revival need to be reminded “that men are not saved by theology. Men are saved by the grace of God. The Gospel is simply the good news that in Christ God acted on behalf of man for his redemption. The gap between the theologian at the summit and the newly initiated may be very great; but a Christian must begin somewhere, and it ought to be sufficient for him to begin where the earliest Christian began, with the confession Jesus is Lord.” The concluding word of Elson’s address sums up the burden of his heart:
Let us not miss the wonder and the glory of our age just because we are too close to its impact, too complacent with its stirrings, or too cautious to comprehend its meaning.
Dr. Elson’s convictions were addressed to the 39th annual convocation of the School of Religion at Harvard University.
Another word of warning comes from the ever judicious missionary statesman, Professor Kenneth Scott Latourette. In an article “Rethinking Missions After 25 Years” (International Review of Missions, April 1957), he warns the leaders of ecumenical-minded missions against overlooking the rapid growth in Asia, Africa and Latin America of groups and denominations who do not cooperate with the ecumenical movement. “Indeed, the non-cooperating bodies are more and more the growing geographical edge of Protestantism” (p. 168). Their prominence, Latourette says, “should compel those churches who join in the ecumenical movement to re-appraise their methods and message in more drastic fashion than did even the Inquiry.” Protestantism must ever be self-critical in the light of God’s revealed truth and changing conditions.
Only once, for a period of ten days, have the followers of Christ ever been found in a state of waiting. The Lord himself was no longer physically present to teach his own, and the promised Spirit had not yet come. But as soon as the Spirit came that company was galvanized into purposeful activity. They were launched upon a witness which turned the world upside down.
Evidently Jesus had selected his words with care when he told his chosen band in the Upper Room that it was expedient for them that he go away. If he did not go, he asserted, the Spirit would not come. His followers might well ask what could possibly be more to their advantage than the continued bodily presence of their Lord and Master? Yet now in one almost unbelievable day they had lived to experience the fulfillment of Jesus’ statement. The Spirit had come and with his coming the greater works had begun to unfold. A harvest of souls larger than Jesus had garnered through three long wearisome years of labor had been gathered in during this single day of Pentecostal blessing.
We need have no doubt about the accuracy of Luke’s report of that eventful day. Who would dare to claim for the preaching of the apostles a greater measure of success than had attended the efforts of the Lord Jesus? But this very success, even though it is attributed to the Spirit, creates a problem. Granted that Jesus had predicted this new era of power and achievement; yet its very realization seems to compromise his own uniqueness as the Mediator, the Founder of the Church, the supreme Lord. Is not the Spirit more potent than he? Do not the Spirit’s accomplishments outshine those of the Saviour?
All this is true in appearance only. Actually if the Son of God had not offered himself for the sins of men and if the Father had not raised him from the dead, there would have been no demonstration of the Spirit’s power at Pentecost. Further, the supreme authority of the Son is safeguarded in the very fact that he sent the Spirit. The economy of the Spirit is his own continuing work. The testimony of the Spirit is what the Spirit hears from the risen Christ (John 16:13,14). The Lord Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Spirit. The mighty deeds wrought through apostolic hands by the Spirit are equally attributable to the living Christ (Rom. 15:18,19). The gifts which the Spirit so freely bestows upon the Church are traced ultimately to the beneficence of the risen Lord (Eph. 4:8 ff). At no time does the Spirit act in independence of the exalted Son of God.
In view of the importance attached by Jesus to the coming of the Spirit in his teaching of the twelve and in view of the personal participation by these men in the experience of being filled and emboldened by the Spirit, it is not surprising that they attributed their decisions, their actions and the fruitfulness of their labors to the Spirit’s guidance and control. Later generations of believers could talk about the doctrine of the Spirit. These men knew rather the fact of the Spirit’s presence and power in their lives.
The early Church was characterized by a limited emphasis on organization. We read of apostles and elders and deacons, to be sure, but the real guarantee of order, the real authority in discipline, the real ability in the ministering of the Word lay with the Spirit. Ananias and Sapphira learned that it could be fatal to try to deceive Him. Peter learned that he could safely move in company which his traditions and inclinations forbade as long as he was sure that the Spirit was sending him. Faced with the same prejudice against Gentiles which Peter originally had, the church at Jerusalem came to the point of acknowledging that these aliens from the commonwealth of Israel were to be admitted to Christian fellowship without any burden of law observance. It freely acknowledged that its decision was prompted by the Spirit of God (Acts 15:28). Indeed, it could scarcely have acted otherwise, seeing that the Spirit had already pointed in this direction by coming upon Gentiles as Peter preached to them (Acts 15:8). Another prominent congregation, the Gentile church at Antioch, itself the product of missionary labors, was constrained by the Spirit to thrust forth its most valued leaders to bear the message to more remote places (Acts 13:2).
This apostolic Church is the Church we forget. We remember that it was missionary, and we try to be. We recall that it preached the Word, and we admonish one another to sound forth the Gospel in no uncertain terms. But somehow the wheels drag heavily. We are burdened with our efforts. We delight in motion even when we cannot honestly call it progress. Men of like passions with ourselves made up the apostolic Church. They were guilty of disharmony at times. They made mistakes. But their crowning credential is that they lived and labored under the consciousness of the authority of the Holy Spirit. Unless the Church in our time can recapture this basic attitude, it cannot successfully minister in the present world crisis.
It is characteristic of the allusions to the Spirit in the book of Acts that they are part of the life situation of the early Church. They are not items of formal instruction about the Spirit. For these we must turn to the Epistles. The extensive data cannot easily be subsumed under a few heads, but we propose to examine the teaching in terms of the Spirit’s relation to Scripture, to Christ, and to the saints.
We learn that no part of Scripture can be explained, from the standpoint of its initiation, as a human production. Rather, men spoke from God as they were borne along by the Spirit (2 Pet. 1:20,21). Consequently it is impossible to hold that the Bible is a humanly produced work which God subsequently endorsed. It is his Word because of the Spirit’s activity in prompting and controlling the human writers. From a companion passage (1 Pet. 1:10–12) we learn that some things given to the Old Testament prophets were so far beyond their own understanding that they required special illumination in order to comprehend the temporal aspect of their prophecies concerning the redemptive work of the Messiah.
The Word is not only a treasure house of divine information but an arsenal for the use of the Christian soldier. The weapons of our warfare are spiritual. In particular the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17). It cuts deeply into heart and conscience. It overcomes the evil one.
If the Spirit has truly authored the written Word, that to which our Lord appealed whether in the midst of temptation or argument or calm instruction, how unthinkable it is for the Christian to depreciate that Word by alleging that there is a guidance and authority of the Spirit which transcends the Word and sets one free from the trammels of the ancient and static oracles. When Paul draws his contrast between the letter which kills and the Spirit which gives life (2 Cor. 3:6; Rom. 7:6), he has no intention of providing justification for this modern fancy. He is simply contrasting the economy of the Spirit, the Gospel dispensation, with the legal economy, the Mosaic dispensation.
As we turn to consider the relation between the Spirit and Christ, it is well to note at the outset that here too a wrongheaded criticism has misrepresented the true state of affairs. Paul’s emphasis on Christ as Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45 and possibly 2 Cor. 3:17) has been construed as contradicting the idea of a bodily resurrection (an ironical twist to a passage embedded in the great resurrection chapter) or as an indication that for Paul the earthly Jesus of history mattered little; what is crucial is one’s perception of him in his present spiritual existence. The antithesis is sometimes put in this form: Jesus the man versus Christ the Spirit. In the hands of criticism this operates to impart to the figure of Christ a mystical vagueness. But when Paul linked the Spirit to Jesus, the actual result was not the etherealizing of Jesus into the Christ but rather the sharpening of the personality and historicity of the Spirit. Paul was already committed to the indispensability of the historic Jesus for Christian faith (1 Cor. 11:1).
A typical representation is that which the apostle gives in Galatians 4:4–6. God sent his Son to redeem; then into the hearts of those who received the Son he sent the Spirit of his Son, the same Spirit who rested upon him in the days of his flesh and who has now come to glorify him. How could this Spirit, in the fulfilling of such a function, divert attention from the historic Jesus, the One who sent him to realize in his followers the lively image of his character and to recall to them his words and deeds and to guide them into his truth?
Doubtless the tide Spirit of Christ is intended not only to glance back to the earthly life of Jesus but also to emphasize that it is only by means of the Spirit that Jesus, exalted to the right hand of the Father, can come to dwell in the hearts of his people.
By far the richest teaching of the Epistles on the Spirit concerns his relation to the saints. Here the gamut runs from conversion to consummation. Every phase of the believer’s life is under the gracious and compelling influence of the Paraclete. Christian life in terms of the teaching of the Epistles simply could not exist apart from his enablement. He is, in fact, the bringer of life (Rom. 8:2,6,10).
Because of our familiarity with the truth that every believer has the Spirit (Rom. 8:9), we are in danger of overlooking the truth that he is ours by virtue of a divine gift. Christ was given once; the Spirit is given every time a heart is opened to the incoming of Christ. God’s gifts are not repented of. The Spirit’s dwelling is permanent. Yet one would not know it to judge from our prayers and our hymnology. Ever and again we implore the Spirit to come. Such a prayer would seem to be a confession that we have not rightly cultivated his presence, that we are still in measure strangers to the communion of the Spirit.
Broadly stated, the Spirit is given to us for the development of the potential of our new life in Christ Jesus. He is ever the Servant of our blessed Lord even as Christ took the place of the Servant in relation to the Father during the days of his flesh. In sanctification the order is not, as in salvation, Christ, then the Spirit, but the reverse. We are to be strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man for the fullest measure of the realization of Christ who dwells in our hearts (Eph. 3:16,17). The goal is the new man in Christ which is being formed within us (Gal. 4:19).
The truth is in order to goodness. A part of the Spirit’s work is to lead the people of God into the truth, disclosing the deep things of God to them, that they may become “spiritual,” which Paul defines in terms of possessing the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). From the plight of the Corinthians we learn that the very truths of the Word which are needed to build us up can be kept from us by such things as divisions and strife, which belong to the old life but are out of place in the new. From the Spirit we must “learn Christ,” discovering what is alien to him as well as what is in harmony with his will.
One can hardly consider sanctification without some attention to the recurring title, the Holy Spirit. Almost nonexistent in the Old Testament, it appears occasionally in the Gospels, profusely in the Acts (over 40 times) and moderately in the Epistles (approximately 25 times). But when we look for a connection between the use of this title and the situation in which it is employed, it is seldom apparent in the Gospels (perhaps Luke 1:35 is the only instance). In the Acts the tide is almost conventional, although 5:3 may be an exception. In the Epistles, however, the title seems to be deliberately chosen at times to reinforce the demand for inner conformity to his holy presence (1 Cor. 6:19; Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 4:8).
Paul is fond of putting the Spirit in sharp antithesis to the flesh. If the flesh (which includes mental attitudes as well as bodily appetites) is powerless to please God in a man’s unconverted state it is equally true that the flesh which lingers in the believer cannot please God. The only hope for overcoming the pull of the flesh lies in hearty submission to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16).
In the Epistles, as in the Acts, a distinction is recognized between the presence of the Spirit and his fullness. In salvation, the believer is the passive recipient of the Spirit, who comes in as the divine seal of the transaction. But in attaining the fullness of the Spirit, the will of the child of God is active. We are commanded to have such fullness (Eph. 5:18). That this is no esoteric experience is evident. The command is addressed to all—wives, husbands, children, slaves, all whose peculiar obligations are sketched in the ensuing verses. Surely the implication is that even the homely demands laid upon them cannot be fulfilled apart from the Spirit’s fullest enablement. But this fullness of the Spirit is not linked to the realization of somber duty alone. It is more immediately seen as working out in terms of joyfulness and thanksgiving, so that obligations may be addressed with a light heart (Eph. 5:19,20).
Logically the fullness of the Spirit is closely connected with the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22,23), even though, in the immediate context, Paul prefers such terms as being led of the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. He distinguishes these states from simply living in the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). Some believers in our day, as in the apostolic age, are enamored of the spectacular gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues. Even if these should be sought and cultivated, it is well to remember that the apostle points to the fruit of the Spirit (which does not include the spectacular gifts) as the more excellent way. Unless the fruit of the Spirit is present, the power of the Spirit does not result in edification. Love has the preeminence in building up the saints.
This leads to the observation that the same Spirit who joins the individual believer to Christ unites the saints to one another. The term body of Christ is highly significant. Just as man is constituted of body and spirit, so the church is more than a mass of individuals viewed as a whole. It becomes a living organism because of the Spirit who indwells it.
Delicate indeed is the task of the Spirit. In the Word which he has inspired he must speak of himself. But he does so with consummate modesty. He gives himself no name. His titles are scarcely distinctive, for God is Spirit and God is holy. As the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ, he places himself in apparent dependency upon the other members of the Godhead. He nowhere asks for a specific act of faith toward himself. He turns us ever toward the Son of God and through him to the Father. It is his glory to glorify Christ. No man speaking by the Spirit of God called Jesus accursed: and no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 12:3).
Everett F. Harrison was born in Alaska of missionary parents. He holds the A.B. degree from University of Washington, A.M. from Princeton University, Th.B. from Princeton Theological Seminary, Th.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary and Ph.D. from University of Pennsylvania. Since 1947 he has been Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is author of The Son of God among the Sons of Men and is presently engaged in writing a Life of Christ.
A criticism in Britain at the time of the Billy Graham Crusades suggested that such efforts were outside the stream of national religious development and therefore suspect. This view takes no account of history. For over two hundred years, since large populations first arose, mass evangelism has played a leading part in the growth of Christianity in the British Isles.
The memory of John Wesley and George Whitefield is now held in high honor. Their names, Wesley’s especially, have that aura of respectability which is given to the prophets of the past and which was accorded to neither during his lifetime by national religious leaders.
Both men—Whitefield following somewhat gingerly at first in Wesley’s footsteps—addressed vast crowds in the only large auditoriums available, the open air. For preaching in unconsecrated buildings or in the open and for making mass appeals for decision they were berated by their contemporaries. A new class, however, a proletariat, had been created in Britain by the Industrial Revolution, and organized religion had passed it by. The two evangelists, working for the greater part independently and at times in doctrinal conflict, brought to this new class the knowledge of the holiness and love of God. They went fearlessly among rough and almost savage miners and sought out the factory and mill workers while also, like the Lollards before them, preaching at the market crosses of great country towns. The “classes” they founded and the congregations they built up brought a new awareness of Christ to many of every level, Whitefield especially reaching the aristocracy.
But it was the proletariat who most felt the power of Wesley and Whitefield. Without the two evangelists and their followers those exploited myriads, unleavened by the Gospel of Christ, might have exploded in a revolution more terrible than that of France. And this was recognized, once the passing of time permitted the building of the sepulchres of persecuted prophets.
After Wesley’s death in 1791 no evangelist of like caliber arose for two generations. The stream of the Evangelical Revival flowed on, Wesley’s branch mainly through the church which bore his name, Whitefield’s more directly affecting the Church of England. Evangelicalism grew, but its great names were now those of pastors and teachers, such as Charles Simeon of Cambridge, or social reformers, such as Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury. As the nineteenth century passed into its fifties the movement became stilted, its impetus dying, choked with the respectability born of its own victory, and its energies increasingly absorbed by controversy rather than evangelism.
In 1857 occurred the revival in New York. In 1859 this revival reached Northern Ireland from where, in the early sixties it spread through the length and breadth of England and Scotland, more quietly than in the first evangelical revival, but as surely. No name to be placed beside that of Wesley is associated with these years, but during them arose great missions operating today at home or abroad. A new spirit of devotion, of faith in God’s power, and of willingness to proclaim the Christian gospel with conviction was sensed in churches, chapels, and meeting houses, preparing the way for the great advance to follow.
In 1873, at the age of thirty-eight, Dwight Lyman Moody reached England. He had made a short visit before but had been unknown beyond a small circle. From 1873 to 1875, Moody undertook a campaign throughout the British Isles, and in a short time this genial, burly New Englander with a large black beard became, with the singer Ira D. Sankey, an important force in British religious life. He addressed, night after night, crowded meetings in London, Edinburgh and the provinces; he touched the lives of princesses and flower girls, cabinet ministers and cabbies and gave the churches a new vision of the need and the possibilities of evangelism. His second long visit, from 1882 to 1884, ensured that whatever the caustic comments of the ill-disposed, D. L. Moody would be reckoned among the formative figures in the development of modern Britain.
At first sight it seems strange that such a man should have so influenced mid-Victorian England, when the upper classes were stiff with convention and an excessive regard for birth and rank and the masses inclined to despise Americans as heartily as they despised Colonials. Unlike Wesley, Moody had little academic background. He made up for it by voracious reading and a native shrewdness which made him the type of the self-made man on whom depended the new wealth, if not the political leadership, of the age. He had no obvious breeding (and his accent was at first a source of mirth) but he offset this handicap by an innate courtesy developed no doubt as much from his New England background as from the influence of God’s grace on his character. And this, with his patience and expansive good humor, helped him to win the respect and affection of men and women of all levels without pandering to their artificialities. And his profound learning in those two great books—the Bible and human nature—enabled him to penetrate to the root of the troubles of those who sought his help.
The strength of British religion in the last quarter of the nineteenth century owed much to Moody. He did not initiate revival, as Wesley and Whitefield, but he caught the rising tide and swept it on until it reached the furthest recesses of the land. Every Protestant mission and ministry, even the Tractarians, drew strength from his work, epitomized by a remark of the Vice-Principal of a Cambridge theological college two years after Moody’s mission in the University. “I think there is not one man here whose life was not influenced more or less by Moody’s mission.”
In the social sphere he was not a pioneer, for the social consciousness was already alert before he came. But his campaigns increased the impetus provided by Lord Shaftesbury and others, and renewed the hope of the Gospel to the underprivileged who might have been led into materialistic exasperation by the agnosticism of Darwin and Huxley. That the British working-class movement developed more in the spirit of Methodism than of Marx is not a little due to Moody.
Nineteen years after Moody’s second campaign, another American evangelist landed in England. For two years it seemed as if the great days were back. R. A. Torrey, the failed suicide who had been converted to Christ, the brilliant Bible student who had run after Higher Criticism and found it wanting, the abrupt and rather forbidding white-bearded, white-haired prophet of forty-eight, reached London with Charles Alexander in 1903 after a triumphant evangelistic tour in Australia and New Zealand.
In the providence of God Great Britain has often learned more from American evangelists than from the native-born. Perhaps it is the freshness of their approach and the pleasing unfamiliarity of their accent which enables them to deal more faithfully with us than we would accept from one of ourselves.
R. A. Torrey was no exception. He filled the great halls of London and the chief cities of the land. He reached men and women of all classes. His severity seemed more apposite to the careless Edwardian age than Moody’s geniality, his inside knowledge of the strident liberalism of the contemporary theological leaders and his reasoned faith in “the Bible, the whole Bible, as the word of God; an altogether reliable revelation from God himself” was more effective for his generation than would have been Moody’s more rough-hewn presentation of biblical truth.
When Torrey left Great Britain in 1905, the sponsors said, “We know that tens of thousands have opened their hearts to Christ … and there have been blessings that cannot be counted, a spiritual force and influence and awakening which is immeasurable.” Yet no lasting national revival occurred. The churches turned again to their theological and ritualistic controversies, popular agnostic science gained further ground (despite the faith of many leading scientists), literary men continued to proclaim a Christian ethic divorced from Christian dogma and nine years later the outbreak of the First World War shattered the brittle fabric of national church-going.
In the barren years between the wars, the twenties and thirties, with the tide flowing strongly against any vigorous or authoritative Christianity, evangelism was at a discount. Such attempts as there were at mass evangelism on more than a strictly local level were associated with unfortunate characters, some from across the Atlantic, whose odd methods or travesties of doctrine left a legacy of suspicion to shadow the work of those who trod sounder paths in recent days; or else were devoted to the propagation of teaching attuned more to the spirit of the age than of the Scriptures, such as Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group.
In the late forties, in the fresher atmosphere generated by the sufferings and achievements of the Second World War, the usefulness and potentialities of great meetings began to be demonstrated again. The name of Mr. Tom Rees should be honored for his faith in reopening tracks which had become overgrown with the weeds of the interwar years.
When Dr. Billy Graham came to London early in 1954, he arrived at a time, as the Archbishop of Canterbury commented in his sympathetic appraisal at the close of the Crusade, when “a fairly widespread beginning of a return to the Christian religion had already set in.… Many things had combined to make people desire to find an escape from moral indifference, disillusionment and despair. Many were ready to be recalled to their faith in Christ or to discover afresh his claim upon them.” Thus, like Moody and unlike Wesley, Dr. Graham did not, under God, initiate a recovery of faith but was used to lift forward the incoming surge. For, as the Archbishop also wrote in June, 1954, the London Crusade “beyond doubt brought new strength and hope in Christ to multitudes, and won many to him.… It has given an impetus to evangelism for which all churches may be thankful to God.”
It is too soon to appraise Dr. Graham’s position in the story of British Christianity. But his London and his Glasgow Crusades can never be forgotten. And if the signs of the times are sure and if, as is to be hoped, he returns to conduct a Crusade in the Industrial North of England, it would certainly seem that he will be regarded by the later twentieth century as significantly as Moody the century before.
These five evangelists—Wesley, Whitefield, Moody, Torrey, Graham—with varying backgrounds and characters and, apart from their different historical environments, varying methods, have characteristics in common, which might be called the marks of the great evangelist. Each has the awareness of a definite, dated conversion, though not necessarily preceded by intense spiritual conflict. Each has an unhesitating dependence on the Bible as the Word of God, to be used as the Sword of the Spirit; no liberal has ever been a great evangelist. All the five possess great energy and resilience, an ability to continue for prolonged periods without proper leisure and to seize their relaxation in odd moments—Wesley did most of his reading on horseback as he traveled to his next engagement.
They exhibit strict discipline of body and mind and know that their ability to preach effectively depends on their willingness to absorb Bible knowledge and to read widely. They have faith, continually renewed. They have a passionate, unforced love for the souls for whom Christ died and, above all, a deep and abiding sense of the presence beside them of their Lord and Saviour.
Pastors, teachers and administrators each have their part to play. But without the evangelist God’s will for a nation cannot be fulfilled. And without these men, from Wesley to Graham, England would not be what it is.
J. C. Pollock, Editor of the Anglican quarterly The Churchman, is Rector of Horsington, Somerset, England. Author of several books, his most recent work, The Road to Glory, the story of Havelock of Lucknow, the distinguished Christian general, is scheduled for publication this year.
With the death of Professor John Dewey in June, 1952, there passed from the contemporary American scene a man whose writings probably reflected the real America since the turn of the century more revealingly than those of any other contemporary philosopher. Our faith in democracy as the ultimate guarantee of the perfectibility of society and the individual, our optimism concerning the wholly secular public school, the decline of Protestantism as a pervading Christian influence, our practical atheism, and our materialism—it is all duly recorded in Professor Dewey’s special brand of pragmatism known as instrumentalism.
As a philosopher he threw overboard all metaphysics, and he repudiated all absolutes—except, of course, the two which he introduced more or less sub rosa, namely, evolution as a cosmic and social principle, and scientific method as the only means of arriving at truth. And the only truth worth having, according to Professor Dewey, is not truth in any absolute or final sense but rather truth in the sense of “truth made,” truth provisional, truth for the time being. He refused to recognize the genuineness of any problem not in the end referable to experiment and practice, and he defined knowledge as the “intelligent control of a material situation.” Ideas are mere tools, and human intelligence is simply an “organ for the control of nature through action.” The only problems ever really solved are practical ones, whereas metaphysical and religious ones are simply outgrown. There are no eternal verities and no final answers, and any school of philosophy proposing final answers ipso facto degrades itself to a school of apologetics and propaganda.
Genuine progressive thinking is provisional thinking, i. e., it confines itself to the here and now, always aware of the necessity of perpetual adjustment to changing conditions. Man has no demonstrable destiny or end but only “ends that are literally endless.” Embedded as we are in the evolutionary process it does not make sense to talk about the universe as a whole, for our universe is and will forever remain a “universe in the making.” Moral and other values, therefore, have nothing of the abiding and the eternal about them.…
The import of all this for education is that it, together with everything else, will have to keep moving and changing. Accordingly, Dewey’s application of the absolutes of evolution and scientific method to education came to be known as “progressive education.” Because society learns only in the course of trying to solve its problems, the school should function as a kind of miniature society, in which progress in learning comes as a result of problem solving. The child, like the scientist and, let us hope, like the philosopher, gets his problems from the world of action and should therefore “return his account there for auditing and liquidation,” especially since the practical pursuits of modern man are of a kind as to allow “intellectualization.” Anyway, experimental science has effectually undermined the prestige of the purely intellectual studies.
Change, evolution, and progress are incompatible with the idea of unchanging goals or aims. The proper aims of progressive education are, therefore, those which satisfy the following criteria: They should be the outgrowth of existing conditions so that they will be founded on the activities and needs of the pupil; they should enlist the pupil’s cooperation; they should be flexible; and they should be specific and immediate rather than general and ultimate. Whereas traditionally the aim of education was conceived as the realization of man’s ideal nature and true end (which for Christian education meant the realization of his destiny as a redeemed creature made in the image of God), “progressive education” knows of no ideal nature or true end. For man as a member of a universe in the making there can be only an endless series of immediate and provisional ends, ends which are themselves means to still further ends. We know that somehow we are moving, but we can never know where we are going and just how we shall get there. And so if education may be said to have anything like a general aim at all it can only be that of social efficiency—for the time being, of course. Consequently, we cannot assert that one study is more valuable than another since value is something relative, depending upon specific situation. All we can say is that culture must be socially efficient to deserve the name of culture, that it is simply a halo of vocation, that usefulness is in utility rather than in enjoyment, and that a thing has value because it is useful.
A few observations. To say that one subject is as valuable as any other is to say that education has no determinable goal, i. e., that it is impossible to know just what the purpose of education really is. And this brings us to the subject of Professor Dewey’s criteria of the proper aims of education. These criteria would seem to apply to bad aims as well as to good ones—even where by bad aims we meant nothing more than aims which seem to interfere with “social efficiency.” These criteria would evidently be satisfied, for example, by a successful school for the training of thieves (on whatever financial or political level), gangsters, shysters, confidence men, and so on. The aims of such a school would presumably be founded on petty thievery as a persistent activity and need of the young; they would evidently enlist the cooperation of the pupils; and they would be specific and immediate rather than general and ultimate. In fact, such a school would aptly illustrate Professor Dewey’s definition of subject matter, viz, “what one needs to know in order to do what one is interested in doing.”
It is right here that we see the fallacy of limiting the essentials of education to the essentials of scientific method, for education and life vastly transcend scientific thinking. Professor Dewey, although recognizing the legitimacy of remote ends and interests, shows a definite preference for the immediate ones. As a result the factors of duty and conscience never really enter into the picture of progressive education, proposing as it does only those aims which place no obligation on human nature. Yet there is no good reason, whether in logic or psychology, why remote and therefore more or less external aims, aims imposed as it were from without, cannot in fact represent truly human ideals, ideals which may become internal as the result of a change of attitude. In fact psychology and psychiatry are today reasserting an old truth to the effect that a stable personality depends to a considerable extent upon such things as obedience, the recognition of authority, and self-denial. An important criterion of educational aims, a criterion ignored by Dewey, is that it should embody an ideal whose fulfillment is willed. It is simply a matter of fact that conscious mental effort has proved an important factor in past progress; and to the objection that imagined good does not sufficiently influence conduct, the answer is that by the testimony of history it is certain that imagined evil does. Dewey’s conception of interest may fit the needs of backward children; it does not fit the realities in the world of adults.
In discussing the role of the public schools in America Professor Dewey appears to be somewhat at odds with himself. He admits that as a matter of history American society made the American public school; nevertheless he recommends that the public school be used as an instrument to reform American society. Here the truth seems to be that the schools, like the philosophers, like John Dewey himself, rarely do more than reflect social conditions and the social temper, and that they do not as a rule change them. The American public will probably continue to employ the schools for the purpose of propagating the type of society in which the adults believe. After all, the adults live where the economic, political, and other problems are; hence, if there is to be any reforming at all, adult society will have to begin by reforming itself. That the schools usually reflect the society which supports them can readily be learned by looking at Russia, where a transformed adult society quickly transformed the schools.
Professor Dewey’s notion of learning by doing has, of course, its uses, and no one has ever denied this. But it also has its limitation. There is an old saying that only fools must learn by experience—the implication being, of course, that the wide awake pupil will be able to learn both from books and from the sad experience of others. Children need not experience crime in order to be effectively warned against it. Naturally, the burnt child dreads the fire, but that hardly warrants the burning. The learning process may start on the basis of physical activities, but that does not support the conclusion that it should be kept there. All depends upon the grade of intelligence; that is to say, the lower the grade of intelligence the more numerous the physical activities apparently necessary. Children doubtless begin some of their learning as the animals do; on the other hand, animals cannot learn as children learn, since otherwise we should be able to teach them mathematics, aesthetics, and morals. One of the most interesting features of Dewey’s theory of progressive education is the paradox that a person completely the product of this theory consistendy applied would be quite incapable of reading and understanding Dewey. If philosophy—at least in one of its important phases—may be defined as “the ultimate sense of the ridiculous,” Professor Dewey’s philosophy of education seems seriously lacking in at least one important respect.
In refusing to recognize the genuineness of all problems not referable to the method of hypothesis and verification on the physical level Professor Dewey, of course, brushes aside all “purely intellectual problems.” The truth is, however, that such problems do in fact determine men’s conduct to an extent far greater than is commonly supposed. Take for example such a “purely intellectual” problem as that of survival after death. The question of survival is natural to man in spite of the fact that any hypothesis about it is necessarily speculative and inconclusive. Furthermore, it is regulative of human conduct since, obviously, people act as if it were true, or false, or a matter of indifference. To justify any one of these alternatives would call for a certain amount of thinking, thinking which in the nature of the case must always be incomplete. In other words, it is simply a fact of existence to be explained—not ignored—that man is inevitably philosophical, that he thinks about problems he can never completely solve, and that he acts upon beliefs he can never hope directly and completely to verify. One may argue, of course, that modern man ought not to trouble his mind with these things, but the fact remains that he not only does, but that he can’t very well do anything else and remain normal. And that is something to be explained, not simply condemned.
Is pragmatism something new? William James once called it a “new name for an old way of thinking.” Certainly the only thing new about Professor Dewey’s brand of it is the success with which he gave ancient doctrines an American orientation. Its denial of finality to truth, its assertion of man as the measure of all things, its evolution, its naturalism, its denial of the legitimacy of metaphysics, its definition of knowledge as a tool for discovery, its humanism, and its skepticism are as old as, respectively, Heraclitus, Protagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Lucretius, the mediaeval nominalist, Hume, Comte, and Herbert Spencer. Nevertheless, John Dewey’s influence upon primary and secondary education in America is not easily over-estimated. In Columbia University he left behind a minor galaxy of pragmatists in the school of philosophy, who in turn have fathered thousands of “pale spiritual offspring in the jungles of Teachers College” alone. And Teachers College, despite the fact that it has occasionally been ridiculed for standing politically and socially for little more than colorlessness, mediocrity, and just plain behaviorism, has exerted a tremendous influence upon the school teachers of the American Middle West, underpaid men and women who for years have willingly spent their summers in New York City for the privilege of drinking at this new fountain of progress.
What must be our final judgment on John Dewey as the philosopher of the American public school? It would seem to be an elementary truth that before we can hope to invent a system, whether of politics or education, which will not in the end turn out to be thoroughly bad, we should be able to take for granted the existence of something like common decency. Now, moral earnestness without religious conviction is a bare possibility—at least with the select few who happen to be the beneficiaries of a moral momentum bequeathed by generations of devout forebears. But as a rule the passing of a religion marks the decline of the moral consciousness which it created and sustained. Professor Dewey seems to have taken for granted that the common decency he himself adhered to by reason of the aftershine of a Puritan ancestry could be regarded as a ubiquitous feature of human nature as the result of evolution. If so, his philosophy of education appears to rest upon a somewhat precarious faith, a thing not quite in keeping with his strenuous disavowal of metaphysics and his reverence for scientific method. And if, in view of the present religious and moral poverty in the homes, the schools, and increasingly large sections of the churches, American education will presently have only the principles of instrumentalism to fall back on, one wonders just how long we can last as a self-governing and civilized society. John Dewey is dead, but the dominant secular temper of contemporary America which he expressed is very much alive. John Dewey’s spirit “goes marching on”—who knows to what hard destiny?
END
“For He knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are dust.”
The God who spoke to darkness
And bid it turn to light;
Set sun and moon in heaven
And made the day and night—
Is the Father who created
Man from the dust of earth;
Who breathed into him spirit—
Gave him eternal worth.
The God of our Lord Jesus,
Who sent Him as the Light
To fill the earthen vessel
And thus show forth His might—
Is the Potter who remodels
The creatures of His Hand
Until the Glow of heaven
Shines through, at His command.
This God of matchless Power
In earth and sea and sky;
Yet stoops to bear the burden
Of one so frail as I—
In His divine compassion
Takes my infirmity;
His Hand, I know, will perfect
Those things concerning me.
FRANCES M. BARBEE
Cecil De Boer, late Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, died suddenly on November 28, 1955. His latest writings recently have been published under the title Responsible Protestantism: Essays on the Christian’s Role in a Secular Society by Eerdmans. The essay above is an abridgment of a chapter from this volume, reprinted by permission.
