The Scramble for Radio-TV

Religious movements rightly consider radio and television as strategic channels to the American home. But their transmission of spiritual and moral truths by these media is often a costly and exasperating operation. In recent years, the most vexing aspect of this venture has been the growing struggle for power to dominate religious broadcasting and telecasting.

Religious programs a generation ago took to the air on paid network time, spurred on by two considerations. For one thing, the Gospel must be carried to every last soul; radio provided an access to multitudes drifting outside the churches. For another, American Protestantism was largely shaped by liberal leaders. In many pulpits the Gospel was no longer preached, and it scarcely survived in the Sunday school. To be evangelized at all, such church constituencies had to be reached from outside. This was the “Elmer Gantry” age, when biblical supernaturalism was scorned even in the house of God and when evangelism was equated with racketeering. During that era, the air waves provided the evangelical movement’s only strategic access to “the strangers to the Gospel” both outside and inside the churches.

But the scattered evangelical forces, more and more isolated by the theological pressures of the times, were not alone in their vision for religious radio. The modernist-fundamentalist controversy was at its height, and the religious realm was marked by intense rivalry and continual maneuvering for position. Highly organized religious agencies had a show of solidarity unassociated with the many dispersed churches and uncoordinated religious groups. They were best able to get a hearing from the neworks and to dispose them to their particular interests. The Federal Council of Churches, whose ecumenical vision almost from the first had been projected along the lines of theological inclusivism, moved swiftly, on the strength of its constituency, to gain free (sustaining) time on the networks for the Protestant forces of America under the jurisdiction of the Council.

From that time forward, successive policy statements issued by the Federal Council of Churches and by its successor, the National Council of Churches, have precipitated mounting tension over Protestant religious broadcasting. Controversy has risen along three lines: theological, organizational, financial.

The doctrinal conflict is reflected in the cleavage between those who support the historic Protestant confidence in a revealed biblical theology, and those who have abandoned this confidence, or who have combined it with a broad doctrine of ecclesiastical cooperation. The organizational conflict is reflected in the fact that tens of millions of Protestants (and Anglican and Orthodox communicants as well) claim to be unrepresented by the Council. Such large bodies as the Southern Baptist churches and the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), and interdenominational agencies like the National Association of Evangelicals, which claims a service constituency of 10 million Protestants, remain outside.

The financial conflict is reflected in the fact that while Protestants unaffiliated with the Council have purchased extensive radio time (and have championed the principle of paid religious programming), the Council itself has secured more and more of a monopoly of free (sustaining) religious radio time on the networks for its own agencies, so that noncommunicant groups are increasingly discriminated against in the assignment of sustaining time. The result, in general, is that Council forces enjoy free network religious broadcasting, while unaffiliated groups have to pay their way. To this must be added a further maneuver by Council forces, the effort to influence networks not merely to assign free Protestant time to the Council as the representative and authoritative voice of American Protestantism, but to discontinue all paid religious programming. The effect of this policy would be virtually to drive evangelical (and non-communicant) broadcasting off the air, for it would suspend the privilege of such programming on the tolerance of the Council. The record of the Council across the years, at best, has been concessive rather than favorable to sturdy evangelical broadcasts.

The Council’s scramble for radio-TV has a long history, but its turning points can be swiftly told.

Almost twenty years ago the Federal Council of Churches projected a national radio plan for American Protestantism whereby local councils of churches would promote “a few selected preachers who have the full endorsement of the Federal Council.”

In 1929 the Council was badgering stations throughout the nation to carry these programs free as a community contribution to Protestantism. No less than fifty stations signed “ironclad contracts obliging them to use the Federal Council religious programs and none other” with Frank R. Goodman, who later became head of the F.C.C. Department of National Religious Radio (his son, Wesley Goodman, is now assistant executive director of the N.C.C.’s Broadcasting and Film Commission). With such competition, religious workers faced increasing difficulty in broadcasting without Council sanction.

This policy gained respect not only from the rather wide Protestant support of the Council but from the fact that now and then religious workers of questionable integrity, especially in financial matters, widened their opportunities by radio.

But almost from the first, the policy carried objectionable overtones. It came to imply that the Council ideally (if not officially) represented American Protestantism and therefore was heir-apparent to all Protestant radio-TV time (including that for Anglican and Orthodox groups who do not consider themselves Protestant). It also carried an insinuation that broadcasts outside the Council orbit were more vulnerable to religious racketeering.

More and more the Council plea for centralized clearing of Protestant radio time was heeded. The National Broadcasting Company allocated three blocks of sustaining (free) time—to Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews—with the Council virtually monopolizing the Protestant portion. The Mutual Broadcasting Company for a time resisted pressures to halt the sale of radio time to independents, but in 1943 capitulated to the program already adopted by the other networks: no sale of religious time; all Protestant broadcasting assigned to the Council on a sustaining basis.

Since most of the Council’s radio voices muffled basic evangelical doctrines, whereas some openly attacked them, the continuity of conservative broadcasts on the major networks virtually depended on discrediting the notion that the Council officially represents American Protestantism (and for that reason should be allowed to dominate and dictate religious radio time, paid or sustaining, on American stations). While leaders flouted any notion that the Council wanted control of Protestant broadcast and film time, the situation steadily worsened. With the sale of radio religious time excluded, and the allotment of sustaining time controlled by the Council, virtually any non-cooperating evangelical program could be silenced in time or its survival conditioned on the Council’s approval.

In association with the National Association of Evangelicals, National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., was organized to challenge the impression of the four great networks that only Council-approved programs are acceptable to Protestantism. Sponsoring a code of ethics for religious broadcasters, N.R.B. listed many evangelical broadcasts of unquestionable integrity.

Evangelical broadcasts affiliating with N.R.B., purchasing more than $10 million annually of radio time, boast some of the largest religious network audiences, a number with remarkably high ratings. Other independent efforts accounted for impressive blocks of additional time. Operating outside the Council’s programming were such paid broadcasts as the Lutheran Hour (Missouri Synod), the Back to God Hour (Christian Reformed), Showers of Blessing (Church of the Nazarene), Light and Life Hour (Free Methodist Church), America for God Hour and Temple Time (Reformed Church of America), the Hour of Decision (Billy Graham), the Old Fashioned Revival Hour (Charles E. Fuller) and the Back to the Bible Hour (Theodore H. Epp.).

Some N.C.C. leaders have been growing restive under these conditions. Dr. G. Merrill Lenox, executive director of the Michigan Council of Churches and a member of the Council’s General Board, has opposed the sale of religious radio time ostensibly to hold the line against the “irresponsible racketeering religious broadcasts which already dominate the airwaves”—a turn of phrase exasperating to evangelicals who purchase the bulk of religious radio time. In 1956 the Council took two significant steps: It offered to secure sustaining time for certain prominent evangelicals, and it renewed its opposition to the sale of religious radio time. (Some evangelicals are apprehensive over the Council’s readiness to accommodate strategic representatives of non-member groups, since such evangelical programs are simply incorporated within the underlying policy of theological inclusivism, and also because this added evangelical participation within the Council only lends more credence to the exaggerated impression that America has a pan-Protestant voice and might therefore involve a retreat from the freedom of evangelical broadcasting to simply tolerance of it. Moreover, it could lend support to the notion that evangelical programs not endorsed by the Council are inferior.)

On March 7, 1956, the Broadcasting and Film Commission issued a policy statement that (1) it “expects the networks and stations to recognize it as their responsibility to make a substantial provision of facilities and desirable broadcast time free as a public service for such programs”; (2) sustaining programs scheduled “only in marginal or unsalable time are not in the best public interest”; and (3) it “advises against the sale or purchase of time for radio broadcasts.” Thus the Commission continued to append the demand for free time for all religious broadcasting to widening Council expectations, and dealt an indirect blow to evangelical broadcasters who rely on the purchase of network time.

The N.R.B. in a counterstatement on April 12 commended the American and Mutual networks, and many independent radio and TV stations as well, for allocating commercial time for paid Gospel broadcasts. It noted again that many millions of members of Protestant churches in the U.S.A. are unaffiliated with the Council and stressed that the National Association of Evangelicals, composed of forty denominations, supports paid broadcasting and telecasting opportunities. Repercussions in the industry followed swiftly. The National Broadcasting Company, long opposed to the sale of network religious time, reversed policy by signing contracts with “The Hour of Decision” and “The Lutheran Hour.”

Behind the Council’s push for the lion’s share of religious time lurks the notion that the Council is the authoritative corporate body for American Protestantism, and that the Council’s corporate witness is more truly ordained of God, or at least more deserving of priority, than either the individual ecumenical witness or the witness of nonaffiliates. For many years, the crescendo of complaint against the growing domination of Protestant radio-TV by Council forces was dismissed as the reactionary activity of malcontents and independents. In recent years, however, the solidity of the Council’s position has steadily deteriorated. When the N.R.B. held its fourteenth annual convention January 30–31 in Washington, D.C., the top echelon of the radio and television industry saw clearly that the National Association of Evangelicals was not alone in its protest against Council policy. In fact, the Council’s position was assailed from the right and from the left, by denominational and by interdenominational forces, and by elements inside as well as elements outside the Council. Dissociating themselves from the Council’s radio-TV policy, along with the N.R.B. and the National Association of Evangelicals, are representatives of the Southern Baptist churches, the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), the Anglican (or Anglo-Catholic, as distinguished from the Protestant Episcopal) communion and the United Lutheran Church. This wave of protest, carried directly to leaders in industry and government, weakens the Council’s claim to be the authoritative and accepted voice of American Protestantism and, in fact, is likely to force a revision of Council policy at the annual Board of Managers meeting March 4–6.

The most unfortunate side of the Council policy involves its intrusion into the radio-television opportunities of nonmember churches whose number is legion. Authoritative statistics to validate any claim that Council forces already get an excessive share of free Protestant radio time are hard to compile. Richard M. Allerton, research director for N.A.R.T.B. points out that accurate estimates would require a factual survey not only of network time, but of local programming on network stations during non-network time and also of programs on unaffiliated independent stations. Council forces are allied and active in pursuit of free time, nationally and locally. There is every reason to think—although from a business point of view this is strange—that the champions of free time as a public service to religion get more of it than those who champion paid religious time, and who may, in fact, be deprived of proportionate free time to which they would be entitled. Numerically speaking, the Council would seem to be entitled at the very most to about 63 per cent of available free radio time; the last religious survey lists 58,448,000 Protestants in the United States, while the Council—apart from the question of effective representation—claims a constituency of 36,719,000.

When the Broadcasting and Film Commission was criticized for manipulating to restrict radio-TV time-free and paid—available to nonmember evangelical agencies, one Council leader curiously rejoined: “We did not ask this just for ourselves.…” The Commission, however, had no mandate to speak for non-Council forces. What non-Council forces, it might be asked, desired an end of paid broadcasts? Or the expansion of free time for Council programming? The obvious reply to such questions doubtless explains an additional comment, equally unconvincing: “[We did not ask this just for ourselves] though we did not presume to speak for anyone other than ourselves.” Yet radio-TV stations not only caught the impression that Council member churches are repudiating paid religious time, but they felt encouraged to discontinue paid religious time to nonmember evangelicals, the main supporters of paid religious time.

One of the big imperatives is that the basic errors of the past generation be frankly confessed by church leaders involved in the scramble for radio-TV time, and that program assignments be encouraged with an eye to fairness to the respective constituencies. The time, energy and money now spent in religious controversy and maneuvering could be used constructively to improve programming if an agreement were reached for fair radio-TV allotments. Liberal theology has every right to be represented on the air, but the evangelical forces have an equal right. Where necessary, they are prepared to pay for it. That the more liberal churchmen should insist upon free time for themselves while denying others the right to buy time is a sad commentary on both Americanism and the freedoms on which our land was founded.

Opposition To Evangelism A Strange Phenomenon

Billy Graham’s coming campaign in New York City is more than just another evangelistic effort in a city where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is needed so desperately, where only a small minority give lip service to Christianity, where the majority have no church connections whatsoever and where paganism is entrenched as strongly as almost anywhere in the world.

All of these factors are present but the battleground has cast upon it a strange light of conflict precipitated by and participated in by two extremes within the Church.

There are two forces which for opposing motives are working, intentionally or not, to destroy the effectiveness of this campaign. The extreme liberals are throwing up road blocks of criticism, disparagement and contempt. The extreme fundamentalists are doing exactly the same.

An analysis of this situation is now due for it is highlighting unbelief on one hand and devisiveness on the other. It is showing up the philosophy of a religion which will countenance the rejection of many of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith and belittle those who preach them. It is also making plain for all to see the unjustifiably narrow and pharisaical concept of Christianity held by some extremists who improperly take refuge in the fundamentalist’s camp.

That both of these positions should be so clearly defined by these controversies is fortunate. It will cause Christians to think. It should also lead us to fervent prayer.

By the extreme liberals Mr. Graham is being attacked for what he preaches.

By the extreme fundamentalists he is being attacked because of some of those who share in making this preaching possible.

One of the New York’s leading secular journalists remarked to the writer: “They are scared to death because if this campaign is a success and Billy Graham is right in his message, they are discredited. Either they will have to admit they are wrong or continue to live a lie.”

The extreme fundamentalists bitterly attack Mr. Graham, not because of the content of his message so much as because they do not like some of the company he keeps. Also, they insist that instead of channeling converts “into the church of their choice,” they should be sent “only to fundamentalist churches.” But even here they often disagree among themselves as to what constitutes an acceptable church. They would narrow this in many cases to churches where controversy and bigotry are rampant. That the campaign itself would be made impossible by their own concept of the Gospel is no deterrent.

In writing this we are in no way suggesting that Mr. Graham has not made mistakes. He has made them and will probably make more. Few men have not been guilty of making hasty statements which if later given the opportunity they would gladly retract. Furthermore, any person in the public eye as much as Mr. Graham is subjected to situations where a misquotation or amisinterpretation is inevitable. But an evaluation of the projected New York campaign should be based on the positive aspects involved in motive and message.

What is Mr. Graham’s objective? We are not speaking for him personally. But on the basis of his work in recent years—in Houston, London, Glasgow, on the Continent of Europe, in Oklahoma City, Louisville, at Cambridge, Oxford and at Yale—certain facts are clear.

What is Mr. Graham trying to do? Very obviously he is trying to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all of its fullness to all who will hear it, praying that the Holy Spirit will take the message and use it to win souls to him and then guide and protect and instruct and strengthen them as they go on in the Christian life.

If extreme liberals will cooperate in such meetings, listening to the message and urging others to hear them, Mr. Graham praises God for this opportunity. If extreme fundamentalists do the same he is equally thankful. In a unique way we believe God has laid his hand on Mr. Graham for this particular and specific purpose. In it he is also following the example of the Lord Jesus Christ who preached to all who would hear (and whose strongest denunciations were often against those who would restrain men and close the door of heaven in their faces).

By the admission of many of its former adherents extreme liberalism has no saving Gospel. It has found itself discredited not only by the lack of content of its message but also by the distortions of its program. At the same time, extreme fundamentalism discredits the Gospel it affirms by an extreme and dubious doctrine of so-called “second degree separation” on the one hand, and the virtual absence of the first principle of the fruits of the Gospel—Christian love—on the other.

That these two forces should now have unwittingly, but none the less truly, joined hands to hinder the preaching of the simple Gospel of God’s redeeming love—which in Mr. Graham’s preaching includes Christ’s incarnation, his ministry, his atoning and substitutionary death, his bodily resurrection and his coming again; along with the personal obligation of believers to make him not only Savior from sin but also the Lord of life—that such opposition has now arisen, is a judgment on both camps.

What progress has been made in establishing a committee in New York which is representative of Protestant forces? Great progress has been made. Men of good will from both camps have recognized the need for a great spiritual awakening in New York. They have admitted that Protestant Christianity by any token is a pitifully weak force there. They unite in recognizing that Christ alone can bring about a change and they unite in believing that such a campaign offers the greatest hope of making an impact for Christ where that impact is so greatly needed.

Because of this common conviction a large group of men have united to make the Madison Square Garden Campaign a reality. The Garden has been leased for every night for five months, should there be evidence that the campaign should continue that long. They have prayerfully agreed that their own differing viewpoints should be submerged in a united effort to make Christianity a reality in the hearts and lives of men who now know Him not.

There have been problems but they have been resolved in Christian love. Other problems will certainly arise. But God has marvellously touched the hearts of these men and given them a vision of reaching that city. That they have united in asking as the man to lead this crusade one on whose ministry there rests to such a marked degree the seal of God’s blessing, should be a reason for thankfulness for Christians everywhere and should at the same time cause such an outpouring of prayer for the campaign that the very gates of hell itself will be shaken.

In many ways the New York campaign is a clarifying challenge to Christians. Involved are many things but the two outstanding factors are these: what is the Christian message?, under what conditions should the Gospel be preached?

Mr. Graham will unhestitatingly preach the biblical message, not only in its full doctrinal content but also in its social application. He will also unhesitatingly associate with and preach to all who are willing to hear that message. That he has been and will continue to be the target of attack by extremists in both camps within the Church should make him and his attackers the object of the prayers of all of us.

Mr. Graham needs wisdom, courage, physical and spiritual strength in a degree which can come alone from the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit in the fullest measure. Those within the Church who are now doing everything within their power to damage and destroy these meetings need a sober re-evaluation of their own position. They need an outpouring of God’s spirit which will make them join in prayer that despite their misapprehensions God’s name shall be glorified and countless souls won to Jesus Christ.

If the New York campaign is of God, and with all our heart we believe it is, then all who name the name of Christ should unite in prayer for it—prayer that mistakes may be overruled, that wisdom and strength may be given to all who are now carrying the burden and that men and women and young people who are now without Christ and without hope in the world may hear the Gospel and believe it to their eternal salvation.

A Call For Renaissance Of Evangelical Literature

Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein calls for a renaissance of worthy evangelical literature. He claims that Christian writers are far from producing great and distinctive works. Lack of rigid Bible study, absence of proper Christian education and aesthetic appreciation, deficiency of hard work contribute to the dearth and poverty of evangelical literature. An additional reason has been the concentration on negative criticism. The surge of liberal scholarship resulted in evangelical preoccupation with an exhibition of liberal weaknesses. Meanwhile the positive presentation of biblical Christianity has been spotty and sporadic.

Evangelical theologians and writers have overlooked the strategic advantage of a positive presentation of biblical doctrines, biblical theology and an output of scholarly commentaries. Such work, displaying the wonderful unity of the Scriptures, would have the effect of placing liberal scholarship on the defensive. Furthermore, it would encourage and inspire the evangelical pulpit to a more positive and powerful presentation of the Gospel. While some progress has been made, the great need of the day is for evangelical writers to present the glorious truths of the Scriptures.

Theology

Bible Text of the Month: John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh

unto the Father but by me (John 14:6)

Jesus here says: I am the means of coming to the Father (the way) in that I am the truth and the life.—F. L. Godet.

The three terms lay down the proposition that no other than Christ is the Mediator of eternal salvation with God in the Messianic kingdom, under three several characteristic aspects which are coordinated yet in such a way that the advance is made from the general to the particular.—H. A. W. Meyer.

Note as belonging to all three of these that remarkable: I am. We show a way, Christ is it. We speak truth, Christ is it. Parents impart life, which they have received, Christ is life. He separates himself from all men by that representation that he is not merely the communicator or the teacher or the guide, but that he himself is, in his own personal being, way, truth, life.—Alexander Maclaren.

The way without error, the truth without darkness, the life without end. The way in exile, the truth in counsel, the life in reward. All the words call us to Christ. Post me, per me, ad me, after me, by me, to me. After me, because I am truth; by me, because I am the way; to me, because I am life.—Thomas Adams.

The Way

I am the way. This is spiritually spoken of that union of the believer with Christ, which opens a way of approach to God, so that as Christ himself returns to the Father, the believer may follow in his footsteps and attain to the same place of glory and bliss.… Christ opens for all his followers a way to heaven, by the atoning efficacy of his blood. He is therefore figuratively declared to be the way, because he is thus the author of salvation to them that believe in him.—John J. Owen.

God did at the beginning assign us a path to walk in with him, even the path of innocency and exact holiness, in a covenant of works. This path, by sin, is so filled with thorns and briers, so stopped up by curses and wrath, that no flesh living can take one step in that path; a new way for us to walk in must be found out, if ever we think to hold communion with God. It is hid in Christ. All the world cannot, but by and in him, discover a path that a man may walk one step with God.—John Owen.

In the religious language of the Jews, it meant the path which a soul should follow in order to reach the true goal of its destiny; in order to be conformed to the will of God. Thus the Psalmist speaks of the way of the righteous, the right way, the way of God’s statutes, the way of truth, the way wherein I should walk, the perfect way; and the Book of Proverbs of the way of life; and Isaiah of the way of the just, the way of holiness, the way of peace; and Jeremiah of the good way, the one way, the way to Zion, the way which God would show; and Amos of the way of the meek; and Malachi of the way that the forerunner should prepare; and Zacharias of the way of peace into which the Day-star from on high would guide our feet.—H. P. Liddon.

The Truth

He does not say, “I teach the truth.” All teachers would at least wish to say that. He does not say, “I am the greatest teacher of truth that the world has seen.” That would have been true; but it would have fallen short, almost infinitely short, of the reality. He does say, “I am the Truth.” … His message is bound up indissolubly with his person; nay, he is his own message to the world. His language is intolerable or meaningless unless there exists such a person as he proclaims himself to be, and unless he is that person. In short, Christ is Christianity.—H. P. Liddon.

God himself is the first and only essential Truth, in whose being and nature the springs of all truth do lie. The counsels of God are the next spring and cause of all truth that is so declarative. Of them all the person of Christ is the sacred repository and treasury—in him are they to be learned. All their efficacy and use depend on their relation unto him. He is the centre and circumference of all the lines of truth—that is, which is divine, spiritual, and supernatural. And the beauty of it is presented to us only in his face or person.… So we are said to learn the truth as it is in Jesus (Eph. 4:21). And the knowledge of all evangelical sacred truth is, in the Scripture, most frequently expressed by the knowledge of him (John 8:19; 17:3; 2 Cor. 2:14; 4:5, 6; Eph. 1:16; Phil. 3:8, 19; 1 John 1:1, 2; 2:4, 13; 5:20; 2 Pet. 2:20).—John Owen.

But now where is this truth? I will tell you an apologue. Four friends parting inquired where they should find one another again; the water, the fire, the wind and the truth. Fire said, You shall be sure to find me in a flint stone. Water said, you shall be sure to find me in the root of a bulrush. Wind said, you shall be sure to find me amongst the leaves. But poor truth could appoint no certain place of meeting. What say you to Westminster Hall? Indeed, there is room enough, but small room for truth. What say you to the exchange? There be fair walks, but they may exchange away truth. Is she then in the courts? We behold there always the seat of truth, but not always truth in him that supplies that place. You would smile to find her in children and fools; yet they say, children and fools tell truth. But if it be childhood or folly to tell truth, I am sure we have but a few children, a few fools. Where then shall we find truth? I hope in the church, in the pulpits: oh God forbid else! yet often truth keeps only in the pulpit, and does not go down-stairs with the man, but stays there till his coming up again.… There is no certain place to find truth, but in the word of God; there let us seek her, there we shall find her. Now the God of truth give us the truth of God, in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.—Thomas Adams.

The Life

The life which believers derive from God is through Christ. He is that eternal word, by which all things were made on their first creation, and do still subsist. And he is made the basis of the second creation, in a wonderful way, becoming himself a creature; and so, the root of the new progeny is from heaven, the sons of God.… Man is knit to God in the person of Christ so close, that there is no possibility of dividing them anymore.—Bishop Leighton.

Though a man be physically a living man, i.e. his natural soul hath union with his body, yet his soul having no union with Christ, he is theologically a dead man (Luke 15:24; Col. 2:13). Alas, it deserves not the name of life, to have a soul serving only to season and preserve the body a little while from corruption; to carry it up and down the world, and only enable it to eat, and drink, and talk, and laugh and then die. Then do we begin to live, when we begin to have union with Christ, the fountain of life, by his Spirit communicated to us.—John Flavel.

Let us not deceive ourselves. Christ came not to free us from damnation only, but as an head, to infuse spiritual life into us, and to live in us by his Spirit. He came not only to purchase a life of glory for us, but likewise to live in us by his Spirit; and if he overcome for us, he will overcome in us; if he hath a life for us, he will have a life in us. The life Jesus must be manifested in us.—Richard Sibbes.

Only Mediator

Christ spans the distance between God and the sinner. Man would fain manufacture a ladder of his own, and by means of his resolutions and reformations, his prayers and his tears, climb up to God. But that is impossible.—A. W. Pink.

There is no choice. You must accept of him, or remain unreconciled and be cast into hell. Israel found but one path through the Red Sea; the church shall never find more than one way to the heavenly Canaan. Christ is the elect and beloved of the Father, the appointed medium of man’s approach, the designated channel of God’s communication.—Christmas Evans.

He is the medium through which intercourse is carried on between heaven and earth. Through him the love of God descends upon us, and through him our prayers, and thanksgiving, and all our holy services, ascend to God. He obtains for us all spiritual blessings. They are granted in consideration of his merit, and in answer to his request; and they are not dispensed immediately by the Father, but pass to us through the hands of his Son. The fountain of Divine love has found a channel, in which it flows to refresh and gladden the souls of the guilty and unworthy.—John Dick.

Korean Missions: Triumph and Shadow

L. Nelson Bell

No Christian can visit Korea and not be moved with a sense of deep gratitude to God for what he has done in that land. In no other field where Christian missions have had a reasonably adequate opportunity to work has there emerged a church of the strength and influence on the life of the nation as a whole comparable with that to be found in Korea.

Comparisons can be unwelcome for they are not always justified. But on any given Sabbath it has been estimated that more people worship in Seoul’s largest Presbyterian church than in all churches of that denomination in all of Japan. And this church is but one of over four hundred in that city, over half of which are Presbyterian. This may give a relatively true picture of the comparative impact which Christianity has made on these two nations.

Presbyterianism is strong in Korea because of the combined work of American, Australian and other missions of that denomination over the years. The Methodists, Baptists and others also have much to show for their work.

Reasons For Growth

Many factors have entered into the success of the Christian enterprise in Korea. They are a religious people, devout in worship and ready and anxious to hear. National frustration during the years of Japanese occupation may have driven some into the church for solace. In addition, exceedingly wise mission policies were adopted by the early missionaries. What is known as the “Nevius Plan” led to the establishing of a self-reliant national church, looking to the missions primarily for spiritual cooperation rather than for financial assistance.

Furthermore, the Korean Church has been a Bible-instructed church. For many years, during the cold winter months, centers of organized study were held in central locations. Here church officers and lay readers, men and women, would join in two or more months of intensive study. The courses were set up on a long-range basis so that Christians received comprehensive instruction over a period of several years. This led to probably the highest rate of spiritual literacy to be found.

The Korean Church has been a praying church. Even today almost all places of worship are open long before dawn and thousands of Christians resort to them to pray. That these buildings are unheated and the weather sub-freezing does not deter these earnest people.

Suffering too has taken its toll and borne its precious fruit. Because of their faith, thousands of pastors and other Christians have undergone imprisonment, torture and death. The Shrine issue, imposed by the Japanese, found hundreds of Korean pastors ready to endure prison and torture rather than violate their consciences. To them submission to the demands that they attend Shrine ceremonies involved an act of idolatrous worship and they were willing to suffer for conscience and principle’s sake.

Later even greater and more universal atrocities were perpetrated by the Communists who rightly considered the church and Christians their greatest source of opposition. At least five hundred pastors were martyred by the red invaders and tens of thousands of other Christians died because of their allegiance to Christ.

The Korean Church has been a generous church, Christians often giving far more than their tithe. Many bring an offering of rice each week, having taken a part of this major source of their diet and set it aside for the work of the Church.

Such faith and virile Christianity have resulted in churches scattered over the length and breadth of Korea. Prior to the taking over of the North by the Communists, the Church was particularly strong in that area. Reliable information today indicates that rigorous suppression has driven the church underground. Of great significance is the fact that there is a Christian church on an average of every three miles along the southern border of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) which stretches across Korea.

The present Korean government recognizes the significance and importance of the Christian movement through the appointment of Christian chaplains for the armed services. Prisons also have chaplains. Only under the Nationalist government on Taiwan (Formosa) does a similar situation exist in the Far East.

A Time Of Burden

But it would be wrong to imply that World War II, liberation from the Japanese, the arbitrary division of the country, the invasion of the South by the Communists with the attending loss of life and destruction of property and now the uneasy truce and the blight of economic instability, have not all combined to affect the church adversely. These things are taking their toll.

Prior to the communist invasion the population of Korea was more or less equally divided geographically. Today twenty-two million people live in the South, only six in the North. This influx of people from the North has brought its blessings and its serious problems. Many Christians have come South, men and women strong in the faith and willing to bear their witness. Literally hundreds of new churches have been started by and for these displaced persons and most of them are self-supporting.

But such wholesale transplanting of the population has been attended by serious economic problems. The North has been developed industrially and in that area there are rich reserves of iron, good coal and other minerals. The South has been largely the granary of the country. New industries are now being gradually developed but last year the entire exports were said to be only twenty million dollars. The refusal of the present government to accept normal economic relations with Japan is a handicap to both countries, particularly Korea. It is also encouraging wholesale smuggling from Japan.

The disruption of wars and their aftermaths are also to be noted in the life of the Church. Less emphasis is now laid on organized Bible study than formerly. Standards in some theological seminaries have been lowered until a graduate of a “night seminary,” of which there are many, is now accepted in the senior class and subsequently graduated.

Relief money and goods have been poured into Korea in recent years. Desperately needed at the beginning, the continued flow of help from the outside is in danger of having an adverse effect in the important realm of self-support and self-reliance. Also, seeing hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the country by the American government, some of which is obviously squandered and misused, seems to be creating a desire for more money from abroad, even in the work of the church.

It is of more than passing significance that an American administrator recently asked an experienced missionary to explain to him the “Nevius Plan,” with the candid admission, “We have made a mess of much of our relief program in this country.”

Experienced mission personnel in Korea seems united in the opinion that certain mission boards are now complicating the situation for the Korean Church by proposing a policy directly antithetical to the policy that was so largely responsible for the strong Church which exists in Korea today. The observation has been made by one missionary that the recipients of relief funds should never be the ones who administer those funds. Also, that any move to subsidize a church, be it in America or in Korea, is a “step backward, nor forward.”

Preacher In The Red

FOR PAGANS ONLY

The problem of making an early contact with newcomers to the city has always been a problem for me as a minister.

In my pastorate of the First Christian Church, Lynchburg, Va., I thought I was on the way to finding a solution when I obtained the names of all newcomers to the city each week from a merchant association.

I wrote each new resident a brief note of welcome. I urged them to join in the religious life of the city and I invited them to attend a morning or evening service of worship at my church.

Everything was going well until one day I received a letter of reply from one of the newcomers.

The letter read:

“Your letter expressing interest and welcome to us on our arrival here is very kind. I am sure that you did not note that I will be occupying the pulpit here in Fairview Heights Methodist Church each Sunday for both services, but nevertheless it is good to be welcomed. Trusting I may have the privilege of meeting you soon, and with best wishes, I am Sincerely, (signed) F. Lester Hylton.” COLBERT S. CARTWRIGHT Pastor, Pulaski Heights Christian Church, Little Rock, Ark.

Faith And The Future

What of the future? Korea is a land of uncertainties. Divided by the agreement of outside powers; an armed camp by necessity; living perilously on an economy based on outside aid; controlled by a government strong in determination to resist Communism, (and even economic ties with Japan), but weak and often corrupt at local levels; little wonder that optimism is a lagging commodity in that land. There is an overwhelming sense of uncertainty, of living from day to day, of an unwholesome dependence on American money and might. There is also a rightful yearning for a re-united country, a country now divided and for which American leadership is rightly blamed.

The bright spot on the horizon, and it is a bright spot, is the devotion, loyalty and faith of the Church. Those who have invested their lives or their money in Christian work in that land have much to show for their investment. The same God who has strengthened and blessed that Church is still present and active today.

Apparently secure in the peace and plenty of American Church life we should pray earnestly for our brothers in Christ in Korea, a land of triumph and a land of shadow.

END

My Father

He knows! My heavenly Father surely knows

The mortal limitations that oppress

This earth-born frame: the dire distress

Of surging griefs: the diabolic foes

That hold the soul in grim encounter: every need

He knows, and all my wants His mercies still exceed.

He cares! I know my heavenly Father cares,

And bids me cast on Him the pressing load

Of dark, foreboding thought. ’Tis mine the road

Of filial trust to tread, since He who bears

In hands omnipotent the sparrow and the ages

Makes me His care, and for my weel His might engages.

He can! My Father’s boundless grace can meet

The high demands of full salvation: sure

His succour in temptation, to endure

His help sufficient, swift His rescuing feet.

His promises arc matched with equal powers: the score

Of all my prayers this motto bears, “He can do more!”

He will! Performance crowns the triple grace

Of knowledge, care and power divine. What work

Begun will be performed until the murk

Of time dispels. Complete before His face

I then shall stand from pain and tribulation brought,

While powers supernal loud acclaim, “What hath God wrought!”

J. C. MACAULAY

- More from L. Nelson Bell

Cover Story

Are We Obscurantists?

Bernard Ramm

A frequent criticism of evangelicalism is that it is obscurantist. An obscurantist is one who binders knowledge, or actively resists its progress. In religion it refers to those who oppose the progress of critical biblical scholarship and the findings of modern science. Because evangelicals do not accept much of the current theories in Old and New Testament criticism they are branded as obscurantists. The charge is that obscurantism is essential to evangelicalism and as long as evangelicals persist in it they are anachronisms in the modern theological world.

To the contrary I shall defend the thesis that obscurantism, far from being essential to the evangelical position, is positively not a part of its essence. Further, it is impossible for an evangelical who truly understands his position to be an obscurantist. That obscurantism does associate itself with conservative religion cannot be denied; but the reasons for this are psychological and sociological. It is not the product of the essence of evangelicalism.

Role Of Scientific Scholarship

The Roman Catholic Church professes to be graced with an infallibility that enables her to determine the canon of scripture; to issue decrees on matters of biblical introduction; and, if necessary, to give an authoritative interpretation of a passage of Scripture. The Reformers substituted a different program. They accepted the divine authority of Scripture and the inner witness of the Divine Spirit. But they cut off their divine certainties at this point. They did not profess to possess a special means of knowing the text, canon or interpretation of Scripture. Such items were not considered matters of revelation. The only hedge put around such matters was that no position could be held that was a virtual denial of the revelatory content of Scripture nor of its divine inspiration. The authenticity and genuineness of Scripture could not be challenged without serious damage to its inspiration and its revealed content.

If the Reformers rejected the Roman Catholic position in these matters, there was only one other avenue open to them: these matters are settled by principles of scientific scholarship working with due reverence for the word of God and trusting that these matters were under the providential guidance of the Holy Spirit.

It was the essence of the Reformers’ position to commit themselves to a program of devout, critical biblical scholarship. Biblical obscurantism is therefore not part of the essence of the evangelical Protestant tradition. Just the opposite happens to be the case.

Text Of Scripture

The evangelical has no means of settling the text of the Scripture outside the usual methods of scholarship. There is no official copy of either the Hebrew or Greek Testaments. There are only copies of them. There is only one conceivable method of settling the text of Scripture and that is by the employment of the general science of textual criticism modified to fit the peculiarities presented by the biblical texts. When Calvin treated the text of Scripture, he employed the methodology he learned as a humanist and attempted scientifically to determine the true readings (cf. B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, p. 58). Warfield himself affirmed in another place that “processes that are valid for the ascertainment of a secular are equally valid for the ascertainment of a sacred text” (Critical Reviews, p. 81).

Evangelicals may believe that God has remarkably preserved the text of the Old and New Testaments, but to determine the precise text of Scripture is a problem for scientific criticism. This is the essence of the evangelical position, and there is, therefore, no place for obscurantism here.

Calvin accepted the canon of the Church but it was no blind acceptance. His acceptance was (in Warfield’s phrase) “critically mediated” (Calvin and Augustine, p. 54). Again Calvin put his former humanist learning to service. He investigated the history and the internal characteristics of the books of the canon.

Faith that God would lead the Church to establish a canon does not settle the limits of the canon. The internal witness of the Holy Spirit bears witness to the divinity of Scripture, but the internal witness of the Spirit does not determine the canon. The canon is determined by historical research and criticism, and there is no place here for obscurantism. The very opposite was the essence of the Reformers’ position.

The scholarly ability of Luther and Calvin may be readily gathered from the relevant chapters of E. H. Harbison’s The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation. Much of the powerful striking force of Luther and Calvin must be credited to their scholarly backgrounds. Luther’s translation of the Bible earned for him the right to be called a scholar, and no one acquainted with the Commentaries and Institutes of Calvin could dare think otherwise of the Swiss Reformer. Warfield also sketches for us the remarkable education and scholarly traits of Calvin (Calvin and Augustine, Chapter I).

Interpretation Of Scripture

The Reformers’ rejected Rome’s claim to be the infallible and authoritative interpreter of Scripture. Their counterblow was to develop a critical and scientific hermeneutics, whose greatest achievement is in Calvin’s Commentaries. While not depreciating nor underestimating the necessity of prayer and faith in understanding sacred Scripture, the Reformers proceeded to develop a scientific hermeneutics to replace the authoritarian hermeneutics of Roman Catholicism.

A battle raged over the use of the Hebrew and Greek Testaments by the Reformers and the Latin Vulgate by the Catholics. A scientific understanding of exegesis drove Luther and Calvin back to the original languages of Scripture. Thanks to the Reformers, Hebrew and Greek were restored to their proper places in exegesis. The story of the contest over the original languages versus the Latin Vulgate is briefly recited in Preus’s The Inspiration of Scripture (p. 134 ff.). Here again the evangelical position is pledged to a scientific scholarship operating within the circle of Christian faith. No obscurantist methodology is available to the evangelical to enable him to interpret Scripture.

The scientific attitude of Luther and Calvin toward matters of biblical criticism is a matter of record. By no means was their approach characterized by obscurantism. Perhaps the most serious differences between evangelicals and much of contemporary biblical scholarship are at the level of literary criticism. But the essence of the Reformers’ position and of the evangelicals is that matters of literary criticism must also be settled by the canons of the highest scholarship. The evangelical insists that revelation and inspiration are as much objective data as the other materials of literary criticism, and it is this insistence which creates the divergences between them and contemporary schools of thought. However this may be judged, the point is still obvious that the essence of the evangelical position is not obscurantist.

Role Of Scientific Scholarship

First, evangelicals admit that much biblical learning has been contributed by non-evangelical scholars (e.g., Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, commentaries, lexicons). The outstanding Reformed scholar of France wrote: “We are not foolish enough to condemn modern criticism as a whole. The works of the best representatives have contributed and still contribute to a better understanding and a greater love of the sacred text. It would be absurd as well as unjust to accuse all modern critics of a spirit of systematic hostility to divine realities” (A. Lecerf, An Introduction to Reformed Dogmatics, p. 304). The great Reformed scholar of another century in Holland was of the firm conviction that the scholarly works of men outside the boundary of orthodoxy could be employed with profit by the Christian scholar (A. Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology, p. 581).

Second, evangelicals admit that there is no short cut for the hard work of biblical criticism. They may venture an opinion that much of modern critical work is hay, wood and stubble but that does not settle the data for them. Evangelicals must make their peace with the Pentateuchal problem, the Synoptic problem, or the Johannine problem. “The believer cannot at any time afford to be obscurantist; and orthodox scholarship must set right criticism over against wrong criticism” is the outspoken opinion of a Reformed theologian (John Murray, The Infallible Word, p. 10).

Evangelicals may be flayed for not facing up to modern criticism or for not making a significant contribution to it. They may be accused of harboring too large a population of obscurantists. But the thesis here propounded is undamaged: The pattern of the Reformers states that when divine certainties end, the only safe guide is the finest of scientific scholarship excercised in humility before God. Obscurantism has no place in an evangelicalism which properly understands itself; in fact, the essence of evangelicalism demands the wholehearted denial of it.

Bernard Ramm is Professor of Religion and Director of Graduate Studies in Religion in Baylor University, and was formerly Professor of Philosophy at Bethel College and Seminary, St. Paul. He holds the A.B. degree from University of Washington, B.D. from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Ph.D. from University of Southern California.

- More from John Calvin

Cover Story

Theological Climate in America

G. Brillenburg Wurth

To a European the study of contemporary American theology is highly important. America is one of the two political, cultural and spiritual poles (Russia being the other), around which oscillate the main currents of the life and thought of Western Europe.

For a long time America was of no concern to the spiritual vision of a European. Indeed, Europe looked down upon an America it considered immature and culturally undeveloped. The “Yankee” did not appear to be a cultured inhabitant of Western Europe. Fie seemed solely concerned with the dollar. He appeared to have little understanding of spiritual life. Since the last World War, however, the European’s attitude has changed. Personal contact with Americans has led to a better understanding and appreciation. In any case, the economic and political life of Western Europe must take America into account. The luxury of ignoring the existence of this great power in the West is no longer permissible. Nor, for that matter, can we Europeans ignore Russia and the Far East.

Present-day American theology is still predominantly liberal or modernistic in character. In the past, this was not the case. Once America was the land of the Pilgrim Fathers. The public life bore a Christian stamp in all social expressions. American theological faculties, for example, at Harvard, were fortresses of orthodox Christianity and orthodox theology.

Retreat From Orthodoxy

The spiritual powers now in control of American life cannot be called Christian. In philosophy, the Pragmatism of which William James is the spiritual father has exercised a great influence for many years. Its modernized form is found in the Behaviorism of John Dewey.

Pragmatism is closely connected, in some respects, with the historical origin of the American people. The colonist, who daily encountered the hard facts of reality and therefore did not have much time and interest for abstract philosophical speculation, was inclined to ask, “What is the benefit of it?”

The specific type of Pragmatism encountered in James and Dewey is one of the characteristic off-shoots of the Enlightenment, which at the end of the eight-teenth century propelled life along radically new paths. The Enlightenment exchanged historical Christianity for a humanistic rationalism, strongly optimistic in character and nearly unconditional in its faith in the unlimited possibilities of human nature. The roots of this philosophy have gone deep in America. The eighteenth century American stood on the threshold of its natural development. Under the influence of the Enlightenment it suddenly became conscious of its enormous potentialities. In this respect no figure was more important for his own time and for later periods than Benjamin Franklin, in whom the young America was so-to-speak incarnated. With him was launched the triumph of modern science, especially the application of science to technique. The unbelievable accomplishments of technology have shaped America into a land where the majority, not just a fortunate few, can achieve a standard of living higher than any previously conceived. This trend in development was favorably disposed to the rise of Pragmatism.

Truth Reduced To Utility

Pragmatism implies the radical denial of each concept of truth. Truth is no longer a magnitude of an entity in its own right. Just as modern American life was oriented toward utility, so truth became reduced to usefulness. Truth is what is useful, what in one way or another serves the vital needs of the individual in society. And since different individuals have different needs, Pragmatism for the first time in the history of philosophical thought consciously proposed a pluralistic concept of truth. Truth is not unitary; truth is just as much a plurality as life is pluriform. What is true for one person does not necessarily have to be true for another.

The Behaviorism of John Dewey, a mild form of this early Pragmatism, is known by the term Instrumentalism. For Dewey, the human spirit is in its essence nothing but an instrument, a utensil, a tool, suited for the attainment of a specific aim. It is clearly evident how thoroughly undermining this concept is for the Christian faith. Nothing is more devastating to our spiritual life than such a devaluation of the concept of truth. It results in a spiritual decline of human life in its entirety, especially in the field of religion.

Religion is not denied its right to exist. Dewey believes, however, that religion comes into its own only when it breaks all connection with the supernatural. What is left, however, is a religion that no longer deserves the name of religion. It is a religion without God. Some may continue to speak of something divine, but faith in a personal God as the creator of the world and of man is abandoned. Man was not created by God. God is a creation of man. Man is able to manufacture everything that he desires. Man makes or fabricates all he desires and needs, also his God.

It is deplorable that Dewey’s viewpoint still gives the general tone to present-day scientific America and controls much of the entire philosophy of education.

Gospel Becomes Social Energy

What has been the attitude of the Christian Church during the last century with respect to Pragmatism and Humanism? Has it been asleep? Did it simply allow the life of its time to slip by unnoticed? Certainly not. The large ecclesiastical bodies in the United States (e.g., Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist) have so far been a model of powerful activity in this twentieth century. For example, their enormous accomplishments in the field of philanthropy and missions are well known. Financially and organizationally, America has for a long time played a dominant role in the missionary enterprise.

To a large extent, however, the prevailing American spirit has left its mark upon the official life and theology of the larger denominations. In particular, this is evidence in the social gospel movement, which since the beginning of this century has been the motif of American theology. The attempt to confront with the Gospel of Christ the problems of modern American life, especially the important problem of an industrialized society, is in itself worthy of respect. What is seriously to be regretted, however, and what has resulted in great spiritual damage, is that this movement has been accompanied by a complete lack of resistance to the dominating spirit of the time. The latter has been given a completely free hand to dictate the path to be followed. What is characteristic of the social gospel is not so much the application of the gospel to social questions but rather the overwhelming emphasis placed on social problems by this gospel. The entire gospel is seen as a social and ethical totality; everything that does not fit into this framework is discarded.

This accomodation of the gospel to social and ethical problems was readily accomplished through the inner affinity of the social gospel and the dominant American liberal theology.

Triumph Of Enlightenment

The spirit of the Enlightenment with its rationalism, moralism, optimism, and tolerance had conquered the entire New World. In harmony with the spirit of tolerance, the separation of church and state was not guarded against an exaggerated and libertarian concept of religious freedom. The acceptable view was that everyone can believe and teach whatever he wishes. The day was not distant when faith was strongly reduced in its content. Of the original Christian confession, very little was to remain in force. In the broadest circles, the ideal became a religion as free as possible of any dogmatism and predominantly moral in character. Even unitarian tendencies became respected as essentially Christian. Inevitably, the grace of God was little understood. Much more important than God’s mercy in Christ, it was held, is the dignity of man. One can thus truly speak of the trend as the humanization of religion. “The biggest goal of God’s laws and religion,” said one of the spiritual leaders of the time, “is human happiness.” He did not bother to add “… the happiness of unregenerate man.”

Impact Of Evolutionary Science

The theology of the social gospel clearly contains trends of the piety of the Enlightenment, especially its individualism, rationality, and unconquerable faith in human progress. These tendencies acquired a special emphasis with respect to the Darwinian theory of evolution, so cherished by the modern ideal of science.

One task of science was thought to be that it should, as much as possible, purify religion of all so-called nonessential elements (especially the miraculous!) so that it would be a suitable foundation for modern society.

In the form of modern biblical criticism science was expected to lead to the creation of a more “correct” picture of Jesus, which would replace the ecclesiastical Christological dogma by a completely human Jesus.

The idea of development was now applied to the New Testament message of the Kingdom of God, viewed as a human accomplishment, to be developed by human effort, within the boundries of our human era.

Religion Narrowed To Ethics

A new type of Christian piety arose. The religious, in its entirety, was nearly subordinated to the ethical. Honest moral conduct was considered to be the best form of religiosity.

Great value was ascribed to the idea of the brotherhood of man on the basis of the universal Fatherhood of God. This brotherhood discloses itself in the cooperation envisioned by the social gospel, in the equality of man, and in a recognition of the absolute value of human personality.

In time the ideal of the democratization of the industrial social order arose; that is, the workers must receive the right to organize.

In international relations the Christian ideal of life was also to be applied according to the Golden Rule, “Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you” (Matt. 7:12). War was viewed as a serious violation of the divine world order.

Although these concepts undoubtedly have some real values, Christianity is hereby conceived in a predominantly collective fashion. Very little value is placed on personal salvation. The entire Christian faith is restated in terms of collective solidarity. God’s plan primarily consists in saving and reforming human society.

Inseparably connected with this movement was the removal from Christianity of all “transcendent” elements. Walter Rauschenbusch, a representative figure of the social gospel, sought to humanize all religion, including the conception of God. He frankly said that today God must be dethroned in order to meet the needs of men. What is necessary is “a God with whom men may cooperate, not to whom they must submit.” God is openly proclaimed to be a partner of man. And Harry Emerson Fosdick, one of America’s most popular preachers, ascribed only one function to religion, namely, the service of man and humanity. Religion according to him was a question of psychology. It was not concerned with the knowledge of God but with a knowledge of man and his human end.

It is no wonder that in this spiritual atmosphere no room remained for the biblical evangelical proclamation: the preaching of Christ as God’s Redeemer, reconciliation through his sacrifice, and justification by faith in his Atonement and Resurrection. The historicity of Christ no longer had any integrating significance. The only thing important, declared A. W. Palmer, one-time President of Chicago Theological Seminary, is “that Christ shall be reduplicated in a myriad of Saviours.”

Fidelity To The Bible

American Fundamentalism has also contributed to the theological climate of America. In sharp contrast to the predominantly moralistic social gospel in which the atoning death of Christ has almost no place, in Fundamentalism one often finds a hearty inner piety, especially a joy in the blood of the atonement and in the grace of the Holy Spirit. Characterized by an unconditional respect for the witness of the Scriptures, Fundamentalism views modern biblical criticism as a serious threat to true Christianity. Unconditionally it retains the plenary inspiration of the Bible and requires that, above all else, one must bow in faith to what is revealed in Scripture.

Special emphasis is laid, however, upon what are considered to be fundamental biblical truths: the virgin birth of Christ; his metaphysical Sonship; his crucifixion as the only basis of salvation; his resurrection; original sin, and the consequent depravity of man; and eternal life and eternal death, as the twofold starting points of human life. Fundamentalists deem it impossible to have any bond or fellowship with one who denies any of these fundamental truths.

Lack Of Cultural World-View

Often, however, the impression is given that faith in these truths is only a blind subjection to an external authority without the integration of these truths into the totality of life. And, in many cases, no attempt is made to reach a solution to questions of the relevance of Christianity to modern science and culture. Such questions are in fact often met by a hostile attitude. Usually there is no awareness of the call and obligation of a Christian to culture or the intellectual content of civilization. Christianity is thus in danger of degenerating into a morbid and sickly enthusiasm.

Niebuhr On Liberalism

After this short and incomplete characterization of the twentieth century American spiritual and theological situation, it may be well to discuss briefly a representative of contemporary American theology, Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr’s theology is usually described by the term “Christian Realism.” This designation distinguished it from the older theology of the social gospel, which was characterized by a definite idealistic tendency and a naive trust in the goodness of human nature.

The social gospel limited itself to social programs and high-sounding social slogans, but it scarcely disturbed the actual life of society. Niebuhr gradually discovered the cause of this failure of liberal theology to lie in its anthropology, its theory concerning man, which lacks all understanding of the demonic depth of human existence. In its thoughtless optimism, Liberalism imagined that a proclamation of law of love could of itself conquer the natural egoism of the human heart. Its perfectionism, its new faith in human perfectability, did not take into account the deeply rooted power of sin in human nature.

In addition to his campaign against Liberalism, Niebuhr conducted a second front against orthodoxy. The basic fault of Liberalism was to be sought in its sentimentality; the lack of power of orthodoxy was due to its pessimism. Orthodoxy’s vision was too exclusively directed to the sinfulness of our world. Therefore, orthodoxy maintained the status quo as much as possible. It feared that if changes were made in the existing order, the result could only be complete chaos.

Niebuhr is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the theological world of today; in more than one respect he is worth listening to. We consider it of great importance that Niebuhr was one of the first to recognize the pernicious totalitarian structure of such ideologies as National Socialism and Communism. Niebuhr was one of the first to understand that sin is more than a wrong subjective attitude of the human heart; it can also become incarnate in certain social relationships, which then constitute the greatest threat to temporal human life.

Flaws In Niebuhr’S Thought

At the same time, we believe that there are serious objections to Niebuhr’s theology and ethics.

His views are dangerous because Niebuhr is one of the most noteworthy and most gifted representatives of a new type of theology, often qualified in America as “neo-orthodoxy.” Many hope that neo-orthodoxy will provide the basis of a future ecumenical theology. As a matter of fact, neo-orthodoxy contains something which makes it appropriate for this purpose. It is preeminently a theology of synthesis. The chasm between orthodoxy and Liberalism appears to be bridged in a genial manner. Basic evangelical sounds are heard and what offends modern man’s world view and religious autonomy is discarded.

In this respect Niebuhr’s theology displays a striking agreement with another fashionable theologian of our time, Rudolph Bultmann, who by his de-mythologizing seeks to escape the offense of biblical revelation. Bultmann does not realize that in the meantime he has exchanged revelation for a modern religious Existentialism. The latter is ready to speak to modern man in his despair, but it shares with the true gospel of Jesus Christ only a verbal similarity.

Our century is apparently repeating the same mistakes made by the theologians in the nineteenth century. Everything points to the fact that a new theology is more adapted to the needs of twentieth century man; it contains dialectical tension, is less strange to reality, and has a better understanding of the tragic depths of human life. But like nineteenth century theology, it accomodates the gospel in its deepest kernel to the dominant spirit of the time, and has received its stamp from the dominating philosophy of the day.

Because of the important influence of America upon the economic and political life of the world, Europeans watch with interest the theological climate of this great nation. It is hoped that the humanization of religion under Liberal influence will be halted, and greater emphasis given the transcendental elements of Christianity.

Dr. G. Brillenburg Wurth has taught for a number of years at Kampen Theological Seminary in the Netherlands. He is author of many books, and writes frequently on such themes as pastoral counselling, the Christian life, Christian morals, and Christian ethics.

- More from G. Brillenburg Wurth

Cover Story

Faith and Reason

Gordon H. Clark

Part 1

[Part II is here]

According to many Protestant writers, Roman Catholicism is seriously mistaken in making faith a mere intellectual assent to certain dogmas. Faith, true faith in Christ, these writers say, is a personal trust rather than a cold intellectual belief. On the other side, the Catholic Encyclopedia (in loc. cit., p. 752, 1913 ed.) states “Non-Catholic writers have repudiated all idea of faith as intellectual assent.” The truth of the matter, however, seems to be more complicated than these brief characterizations suggest.

These complications include the uncritical assumption that personality should be divided into intellect, will and emotion rather than into id, ego and superego. Granted, the Freudian division may have an evil odor, but its very recognition of an evil nature in man could be closer to the biblical view than the other division allows. For the older division is not self-evidently scriptural. At any rate, those who use it often assume that intellect, will and emotion may be equated with specific biblical terms, when a study of the Bible shows that this is not so.

The Head And The Heart

The key term of biblical psychology, particularly in the Old Testament where the fundamental principles are laid down, is the term heart. When contemporary Christians, often in evangelistic preaching, contrast the head and the heart, they are in effect equating the heart with the emotions. Such an antithesis between head and heart is nowhere found in Scripture. In the Psalms and the Prophets the heart designates the focus of personal life. It is the organ of conscience, of self-knowledge, indeed of all knowledge. One may very well say that the Hebrew heart is the equivalent of the English word self.

To understand Old Testament usage, consider the following few examples.

Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually … (Gen. 6:5).

Then Abraham … said in his heart, Shall a child be born … (Gen. 17:17).

In the integrity of thy heart thou hast done this … (Gen. 20:6).

My heart exulteth in Jehovah … (1 Sam. 2:1).

Commune with your own heart (Psalm 4:4).

God, who saveth the upright in heart (Psalm 7:10).

They speak falsehood … and with a double heart do they speak (Psalm 12:2).

The fool hath said in his heart … (Psa. 14:1).

He … speaketh truth in his heart (Psalm 15:2).

Lest they … understand with their heart (Isa. 6:10).

Neither doth his heart think so (Isa. 10:7).

He hath shut … their hearts that they cannot understand. And none calleth to mind [heart], neither is there knowledge nor understanding (Isa. 44:18, 19).

As there are somewhat over 750 occurrences of the word heart in the Old Testament, these form a meager sample. But they are enough to show that many verses would make complete nonsense if the term were translated emotion. For example, if this identification were made, it would be necessary to say, “He speaketh truth in his emotions”; and, “Lest they understand with their emotions.” Obviously this substitution results in nonsense. It is not to be denied that the biblical term heart can and does occasionally refer to the emotions, as in 1 Samuel 2:1, though even here there must be some intellectual understanding. But although sometimes referring to the emotions, the term heart more often signifies the intellect. It is the heart that speaks, meditates, thinks and understands. At the same time, since the self acts emotionally, volitionally and intellectually, the three activities are each represented in the several occurrences of the term.

But the preponderance of the intellectual references shows the preponderance of the intellect in the personality. It is extremely difficult to appreciate the motives, at least in the case of those who are attached to the Bible, which lead to a disparagement of the intellect. Why is it that thinking, meditating, understanding are to be condemned? Why is knowing and thinking of God a poor way, an impossible way or an impious way of coming to him? What is wrong with intellectual activity?

The common modern contrast between head and heart is thus evidently unscriptural. There is a scriptural contrast. It is the contrast between the heart and the lips, for Matthew is quoting Isaiah when he says, “This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” When the scriptural contrast is refused, the possibility cannot be ruled out that other scriptural theses are discarded at the same time.

Two results of this unscriptural belittling of intellectual activity will be discussed.

The Element Of Trust

In describing the nature of faith, fundamentalists, evangelicals and even modernists in a certain way stress the element of trust. A preacher may draw a parallel between trusting in Christ and trusting in a chair. Belief that the chair is solid and comfortable, mere intellectual assent to such a proposition, will not rest your weary bones. You must, the preacher insists, actually sit in the chair. Similarly, so goes the argument, you can believe all that the Bible says about Christ and it will do you no good. Such illustrations as these are constantly used, in spite of the fact that the Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

Confusing The Issue

There is here at least a confusion of mind, a confusion between something unscriptural and something else that is entirely scriptural. The weak point of the illustration is that it contrasts an intellectual act of believing with a physical act of sitting in a chair. This distinction is a matter of common experience; but how is it supposed to apply? In the spiritual realm there is no physical action but mental action only; hence the act of sitting down, if it means anything at all, must refer to something completely internal and yet different from belief. Belief in the chair has been made to stand for belief in Christ, and according to the illustration belief in Christ is of no value. Something else is needed. But what is this something else that corresponds to the act of sitting down in the chair? This is the question that is so seldom answered. Now, there is such an internal factor, though it is extremely doubtful that those who use the illustration have this factor in mind. But since there is another facet of mental activity, the truth that has been confused with the error needs to be given its due. However, when the true element is identified, the illustration collapses.

In addition to “mere belief” or “intellectual assent” faith in Christ surely involves an “act of will.” Whether faith requires emotion or not and if so, which emotion it requires are at best secondary considerations. Emotions notoriously depend on bodily conditions; a good meal or a bad meal can alter them; atmospheric pressure and anemia likewise. Emotions by definition are fluctuating; whereas throughout our constantly changing emotional states, our beliefs and the volitions founded on them remain comparatively fixed. And, to return, faith surely involves the will.

Here, however, the original difficulty returns in full force. Is there such a thing as “mere belief,” or “mere intellectual assent?” Indeed, is there such a distinguishable phenomenon as a “mere” act of will? Intellectual assent is itself an act of will; and conversely, no volitional action could possibly take place without belief. If you will to eat ice cream, you must believe at least that there is some ice cream to be eaten. Intellect and will are not two separate “faculties”; rather they so interpenetrate in a single mental state that it is difficult and perhaps impossible not only to separate them in time but even in definition.

Faith And Belief

There is perhaps another flaw in the illustration, a flaw which also combines an element of truth with a confusion of thought. It would seem that those who say belief in Christ is of no value have an incorrect notion of belief and intellectual assent. They probably mean—though it is rash to guess what they might mean—that salvation is not obtained by knowing the propositions in the Bible and understanding their meaning. Obviously this is true. Many intelligent men know very well what the Bible says; they understand it far better than many Christians; but they are not saved and they are not Christians. The reason is that though they understand, they do not believe.

Clear thinking, however, will reveal that faith, Christian faith, is not to be distinguished from belief. Consider Hebrews 11:1. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The A.R.V. says that “faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.” Assurance and conviction are belief, strong belief, voluntary belief and as intellectual as you please. The heroes of faith, whom the chapter goes on to describe, all believed some definite intellectual content. Hebrews 11:3 says, “Through faith we understand” something about the creation of the world. Surely this is an intellectual content. And in explaining why “without faith it is impossible to please God,” verse 6 says, “for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.” As a reply to those who disparage the intellect within the limits of this first example, let this suffice.

[TO BE CONCLUDED IN NEXT ISSUE]

- More from Gordon H. Clark

Cover Story

Peter’s Confession

R. V. G. Tasker

MATTHEW 16:13–17

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them “But who do you say that I am?” Simon replied “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him “Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven.”

When a great personality appears on the stage of history, the opinions about him held by his contemporaries are often diverse. It is certainly true that the views held about Jesus of Nazareth by the men and women of his generation differed widely. All of them, rabbis and rulers, priests and peasants, were agreed that here was an astonishing person; but only a very few could say with truth as well as conviction who and what manner of man he really was. Some, to be sure, imagined that they had found the clue to the understanding of him; but for the most part their attempted explanations were at best inadequate and at worst little more than the products of ignorance and prejudice.

Verdict Of Contemporaries

Those who disliked him most, the scribes and the Pharisees, forced as they were by the evidence to recognize his supernatural power, concluded that he was a dangerous sorcerer in league with the prince of devils, regardless of the lack of logic such a verdict involved; for how could Satan cast out Satan? On the other hand, the ordinary folk among whom his early life had been spent, baffled by the mystery of his person and behavior, dismissed him as abnormal and eccentric. “He is beside himself,” they said. Moreover those of a more jealous nature could not forget that he belonged to their own level of society. “This is the carpenter’s son,” they complained, “whose father and mother we know”; and the implication was that he was obsessed by an exaggerated idea of his own importance. Whatever the views men came to hold about him, one thing was certain; here was a man who made others conscious of the impact of his personality and compelled them to attempt some answer to the question “Who do you say that I am?”

Jesus was no doubt aware of much that was being said about him; but one day when he was alone with his disciples in the district of Caesarea Philippi, when they were free from the danger of interference from the partisans of Herod the tetrarch of Galilee, at a time in his ministry when he was anxious (if they were at all ready to receive it) to tell them about the necessity for his own submission in the near future to a criminal’s death, he felt constrained to question them about what men were saying of him. What in fact was the gossip they had heard about him in the synagogues, the bazaars and the country towns of Galilee? And in reply they gave him three specimen answers, typical no doubt of the more thoughtful and less superficial views that were current. “Some are saying,” they answered, “that you are John the Baptist risen from the dead; others that you are a second Elijah; and others that you are another Jeremiah.” All three suggestions had two things at least in common. They all identified Jesus with a figure of the past instead of acknowledging him as unique, someone whose like had never been seen in this world. And they contained dangerous and misleading half-truths; for, though Jesus possessed some of the characteristics of each of these three great men, he transcended them all.

Greater Than The Baptist

But, we naturally ask, why should some of his contemporaries ever have imagined that Jesus was the martyred John the Baptist returned to life? We cannot be sure of the answer. We only know that John made a very deep impression upon his fellow countrymen when he first appeared in the desert of Judea. People flocked to hear him, and all sorts of people responded when he called upon them to repent and return to the Lord their God, in view of the impending judgment. Soldiers, tax collectors and many others came to him for practical advice as to how they ought to conduct their lives in this critical time of waiting. John, moreover, in true prophetic tradition, had boldly rebuked vice even when he found it in royal circles and rebuked it with such effect that Herod, who had somewhat reluctantly given the order for his execution, never forgot the impression that this martyred prophet had made upon him. When subsequently news reached him of what Jesus was doing, he was ready enough to believe the rumor that Jesus was John, the troubler of his conscience and the disturber of his dreams, restored to life. “This is John the Baptist,” he said to his servants, “he has been raised from the dead; this is why these powers are at work in him.”

There was, it is true, some likeness between John and Jesus. Both were children of the divine wisdom. Both had vital parts to play in the working out of God’s plan for man’s salvation. But the difference was far greater. Many, who knew both men better than Herod did, had been quick to observe this difference both in their behavior and in the way they exercised their ministry. John, they noticed, lived an ascetic life typical of the holy man of the east; Jesus came, as they put it, “eating and drinking.” John moreover ministered away from the haunts of sinners, Jesus was known as “the friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus to be sure repeated, with equal emphasis, John’s call to repentance, but he also did what John could never do. John could prepare men to receive the reign of God in their hearts, but he could not enable them to receive it. He stood on the threshold of the kingdom of God: Jesus was the door alone through whom men could enter the kingdom. The truth was that sinful men and women had need of a Saviour, himself human and divine, who could make atonement for their sin, as no ordinary man however pious could ever make it and restore them to fellowship with the all-holy God—and that Saviour John could never be. Some said “John the Baptist”—but they were wrong.

Greater Than Elijah

But others were saying, “Jesus is another Elijah.” It is perhaps less difficult to understand how this identification should ever have arisen; for Elijah had come to occupy a unique position in Jewish thought. As the earliest of the great prophets of Israel, his name had become representative of the entire prophetic revelation, just as Moses represented the entire revelation embodied in the sacred law. The blows that Elijah had struck for true religion at a most critical period in Israel’s history were both mighty and decisive. He had been indeed “the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof” glorified in his mighty deeds; and according to biblical tradition he was translated to heaven without experiencing death. So wonderful did the achievements of Elijah seem to subsequent generations that he was regarded as more than human; so much so that James (as we read in the Epistle in the New Testament which bears his name) when he wished to hold up Elijah as a supreme example of what a man of prayer can effect, had to remind his readers that Elijah was in fact no demigod or superman, whose example they could not be expected to follow but a man of like nature with themselves.

There are real parallels between Elijah and Jesus. Both were men of prayer; both performed supernatural works of healing; and both waged triumphant war against false religion. But the victories of Elijah were won by physical force, while the victory of Jesus was won not by shedding the blood of others but by allowing his own blood to be shed. One day his impetuous disciples requested him to command fire to come down from heaven, as Elijah did, and consume the inhabitants of a Samaritan village that had refused him entrance. But the answer of the Master came swift and sure: “Ye know not of what spirit you are. The Son of Man came not to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”

Elijah, moreover, wavered in his vocation, but Jesus set himself consistently and steadfastly to accomplish the work he had come into the world to do. Single-handed, Elijah defied 850 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel; but a little later we find him cowering in a cave at Mount Horeb, crushed by a sense of futility and failure, a victim of an almost suicidal self-pity, wincing at the thought of his own spiritual isolation and requesting, even though his work was unfinished, that he might die. Jesus, on the other hand, learned not self-pity but obedience through the things he suffered. He was faithful to him who had appointed him, faithful even unto death. He endured to the end, despising the shame. Some said “Elijah”—but they too were wrong.

Greater Than Jeremiah

But others were saying, “Jesus is another Jeremiah.” This estimate was perhaps nearer the truth than the other two. For of all the historical characters of the Old Testament Jeremiah approximates most closely to Jesus himself as an outstanding example of patient endurance of undeserved suffering. He was known to subsequent generations of Jews as “the prophet”; and they looked back to him for inspiration and courage in their own trials and persecutions. This hypersensitive, warm-hearted patriot, commissioned by God to proclaim a succession of divine messages to his countrymen that were unpopular because they were of necessity pessimistic, who was so sympathetic with others in their sufferings, was himself beaten, put in the stocks, imprisoned in a dungeon and thrown into a cistern by the very men he gladly would have saved, had that been possible, from the doom that awaited them. Surely this weeping prophet, whose eyes ran down with tears day and night for the sins of his people, was indeed akin to the divine Man of Sorrows, who, on a spring morning over five hundred years later, wept over the faithless city of the children of his people, the city outside whose walls within a week he himself was destined to be crucified.

But for all the nobility of his character, Jeremiah remained a prophet and no more. He foretold the new covenant, by which men with their sins forgiven would be given a direct knowledge of God, but neither he nor any prophet like him could ever bring it into being. For all his sympathy and patience he was not good enough, as Jesus was good enough, to pay the price of sin, by allowing his own blood to be shed in the only perfect sacrifice by which the way was opened for sinners to draw nigh boldly unto the throne of grace.

Some said “Jeremiah”—but they too were wrong.

Verdict Of Disciples

What then did Jesus’ own disciples think about him? The answer they would give was of vital importance. For if their estimate of their master had not risen to a higher level than the answers of their contemporaries, he could never have gone on to teach them the most vital truth that they had to learn. Men may do many things for other men. They may die for other men as so many in our own lifetime have done. But no man may deliver his brother from the penalty of human sin or make atonement to God for him: that was precisely what Jesus had come to do. And it was the fact that he was divine as well as human that alone could give infinite value to all that he was to suffer as man on behalf of men. Simon Peter’s answer to the great question, however, did not disappoint him who had asked it. However slow and even unwilling Peter was to prove in accepting the further truth that Jesus was now to unfold to them about the necessity for his death, his confession at least showed that he understood one thing very clearly. The age of prophecy was over because the hour of fulfillment had come. Peter knew there was no need for another John the Baptist, another Elijah or another Jeremiah, because he to whom all these prophets had been pointing was standing there before him. He knew that Jesus was not just another in the long line of prophets to whom the living God had spoken in many and various ways in the past but the Son of the living God who knew, as only such a Son could know, the mind and purposes of his father. And because his Master was the Son of the living God Peter knew that he need not—nay he could not—look elsewhere for salvation. “Lord to whom shall we go?” he said to him on another occasion when some were turning away from him; “Thou hast the words of eternal life.”

Christ The Son

This great confession of Simon Peter (as the last part of our text reminds us) was no wild leap in the dark: he did not make it on the spur of the moment as if “stung by the splendor of a sudden thought.” Nor was he voicing at second-hand an opinion learned from some other human being. Flesh and blood, as Jesus told him, had not revealed it unto him. On the contrary, ever since that day when he first stood before Jesus and felt compelled to say, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” and yet in spite of that reluctance had found himself irresistibly led to respond to Jesus’ call and leave his nets and follow him—during all the time that he had witnessed his master’s mighty works and listened to the words of eternal life that fell daily from his lips, the living God, the God who acts and intervenes in the affairs of men, had been leading him to see that Jesus was indeed his Son—his Christ or anointed one, anointed to bring the Gospel of salvation to sinners. In consequence, there was only one answer that Peter could make. It was: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

And Jesus pronounced him blessed, just because his heavenly Father and no one else had made this confession possible. “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

And the way by which Peter was led to make this confession is always the way by which men are led to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. No man is even led to this faith solely as the result of human reasoning or solely through the example of others or solely through hearing the Gospel preached. All or any of these things may play, and do play, a vital part in the process by which men are brought to Christ. But unless the Spirit of the living God is at work in the human heart, the deductions of reason, however convincing, will not lead to a life of active discipleship; the example of others, however inspiring, will have but a temporary influence; and the message of the Gospel, however faithfully proclaimed, will fall on soil where it takes no permanent root. Only the Holy Spirit can take of the things of Jesus and so reveal them to us that we are led to make with Peter the great confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

So may I put to you the question that Jesus put to Simon Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” It may be that you have tried to answer it in the past, but that your answer has not risen much higher than the answer given by so many of Jesus’ contemporaries. It may be that to you, as to them, Jesus may have been just one more, even though perhaps the greatest, of the prophets. But it may also be that the Holy Spirit of God is leading you to a fuller confession of faith. And it is certain that if you listen to his voice, you will be able to say what only a Christian can say: “The life I now live I live in faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” and you will be counted among those blessed ones, who, though they have not seen Jesus as Peter was privileged to see him, yet have believed.

For twenty years the Rev. R. V. G. Tasker, M.A., B.D., has served King’s College, University of London, as Professor of New Testament Exegesis. The sermon printed here was preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.

- More from R. V. G. Tasker

Cover Story

Liberalism as a Mirror of a Secular Invasion

Andrew K. Rule

When Adolph Harnack based his interpretation of Christian history upon the principle that the Gospel, in any time and place, must have a “contemporary integument,” his principle was sound though his application of it was faulty. Without taking on the thought forms and the language forms and some other forms, from the contemporary culture, the Gospel could not be apprehended by the preacher or by his hearers. The difficulty and danger are that these forms were created for, and normally express, a culture that did not have Christianity as a formative influence within it and, as it stands at the time, may be quite antithetical to Christianity. For example, in the first century the Gospel had to be expressed in popular Greek—a language which somewhat perpetuated the pagan culture of classical Greece and which at that time embodied the pagan culture of the Mediterranean basin. But it had to be made to express Christian meanings. The results show that the New Testament writers achieved amazing success. Not so, however, the Alexandrian theologians. And Nygren’s study, Agape and Eros, shows clearly that the problem persisted. Taking on the contemporary integument means, in practice, that either the Gospel will be accommodated to the contemporary culture and lose its distinctive significance or the culture will be baptized into the spirit of the Gospel or there will be a mutual accommodation. Whenever a Christian seeks to proclaim his faith, he and his hearers are faced with this problem and exposed to these hazards; for both he and his hearers must put the same Christian meaning into the borrowed forms or no real communication will result.

The thesis of this paper is that nineteenth-century liberalism was, on the whole, an earnest attempt to express the Gospel in terms of one strand in the European and American culture of that era; that the culture of that strand was a naturalistic humanism; and that in spite of the sincerity and the ability of the creators of that form of liberalism, the authentic Gospel was finally submerged by the naturalism.

It is sometimes stated quite sweepingly that the culture of the nineteenth century was secularistic, and that it was this culture which invaded Christian theology. In view of the character of the missionary movement for which this century should always be famous; in view of the revival of the Roman Catholic Church and of its increasingly conservative spirit; in view of the continuing evangelical revival within Protestantism; and in view of the highly cultured and scholarly resistance to liberalism among the Protestants; in view further of the faith of rank and file Christians, confused but not captured by liberal propaganda—in view of such facts as these it is not true to say that nineteenth-century culture was secularistic. But nineteenth-century liberalism was an attempt to appeal to the culture of certain highly vocal people, the “intelligentsia”; and their culture was secularistic. We are not condemning that attempt. What Christian dare say that none of them may be included among the elect, and that we need make no serious attempt to win them for him? However, they must be won for him. Their culture must not be dressed, essentially unchanged in vague, Christian-sounding terms and the result be offered to the world as “progressive Christianity.” The latter, unfortunately, is what happened. Read, in this connection, Nathaniel Micklem’s article, in an early issue Christendom (Vol. I, No. 5, Autumn, 1936) on “The Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion.”

Decline Of True Liberalism

We have been using the qualifying term “nineteenth century” as a not very precise way of indicating that it is not liberalism as such that we have in mind. Since “His service is perfect freedom,” we would contend that authentic Christianity is true liberalism, and we are heartily in favor of it. Indeed, our objection to “nineteenth-century liberalism” is that it is not really liberalism all but abject and soul-endangering slavery to an alien philosophy.

But it is one thing to say that it was not really liberalism; it is a very different thing to say precisely what it was. For example, one of the spokesmen for the movement, (D. S. Robinson, in his The God of the Liberal Christian) begins by assuring us, as many another did, that liberalism or progressive Christianity is not a body of doctrine but a method and a spirit; but then he proceeds to give a fairly definite statement, doctrine after doctrine, of central-trend liberalism in its distinction from the liberalism of the social theologians. That would seem to suggest that liberalism was more than a method and a spirit; it was also a coherent body of doctrine. But, if so, what can be made of the following facts? Schweitzer, at least in his The Quest of the Historical Jesus, apparently reserved the term “liberal” for the doctrines of Harnack. Others would characterize Schweitzer’s own views as liberal. In their conceptions of the historical Jesus, at least, these gentlemen flatly contradict one another. And that is fairly typical.

What, then, was liberalism? Was it a body of doctrine to which “all competent scholars agree”? Or was it a method and a spirit without any necessary agreement as to doctrine? Or was there some minimum of doctrine essential to it? If so, what? In answer, perhaps one could do no better than follow the late Dean Willard Sperry. In his little book, Yes, But—the Bankruptcy of Apologetics, addressing his fellow liberals, he maintained that authentic liberalism, wherever you find it, sacred or secular, has a brief creed, the first article of which is “I believe in man.” By calling it the first article, he means that it is the controlling article. Any other article in the creed is either derived from it or held only in harmony with it. But that certainly means that liberalism is always humanistic, and that the humanism, even if it goes on to include a belief in God, is first and basically naturalistic. There you have our thesis in a nutshell.

Humanism At The Crossroads

A thoughtful Christian surely will not object to a certain kind of humanism, in the right place. The fact is that the Reformation did for man exactly what the humanists wanted done. For it discovered or rediscovered the value and dignity of the individual; and it presented man in nobler colors, based more firmly, than humanism ever was able to do. But it did so indirectly, not directly. It did not vaunt man’s inherent qualities and his superiority to the natural creation, though it did not ignore or minimize them either. The humanists did, and that way lies soul-destroying pride. The Reformation saw the glory of man in the gracious purpose of God—a much greater glory, which nevertheless cultivates the virtues of gratitude and humility. Thus, what Dr. Sperry tells us that liberalism essentially does is precisely what authentic Christianity refuses to do. Indeed, that is, for it, the essence of sin.

According to authentic Christianity, God made man, because he is love, to live and grow in filial dependence upon God; and he equipped man with those qualities in which the liberals found man’s greatness to consist in order that man might be capable of such a relation to God. Man’s whole life was to be “begun, continued and ended” in God. Sin is man’s prideful effort to realize his potentialities in his own way, in dependence upon himself alone. If God is permitted to enter the picture at all, it will be only upon man’s terms, to do what man thinks his right but not within his power. In short, “I believe in man” is the first article of the operative creed of the sinner. But, according to Dr. Sperry, “I believe in man” was the first article of the liberal creed. To such an extent had the spirit of a sinful, secular culture invaded the thinking of men who regarded themselves as Christian.

Theological Road To Pride

But, let it be clearly noted that we are here characterizing a theological expression. We are not bringing any charge of immorality and sin against the persons who adopted and advocated this theological expression. As far as any human being is capable of judging in such matters, we would gladly insist that these men were no more immoral or sinful than the rest of us. We earlier recorded our judgment that they were sincere and highly capable. How then, it may be asked, did such men come sincerely to adopt a theological expression that constitutes sin and that logically generates pride? In answer, we would draw attention to two things—the peculiar character of nineteenth-century life and thought and the way in which naturalism crept up on the theologians gradually and unsuspected.

The life and thought of the nineteenth century were like the life of a tropical jungle, teeming but chaotic. Before men had a chance to orient their thinking and conduct to one new idea or invention, a dozen others came leaping upon them. The constant and increasing overstimulation might have caused resignation or frustration, and it probably did in many cases; but in many others awakened an unbridled enthusiasm for the new and sensational. One thing it did not foster. It did not encourage men to take time to make a calm and balanced evaluation of their attainment and direction. We have seen how liberals could flatly contradict one another. In that burgeoning century, individuals could flatly contradict themselves, and apparently be blissfully unaware of the fact. It would be ungenerous and presumptuous to deny the genuine Christian status of all of these liberals, yet their thinking certainly was seriously out of harmony with Christian truth.

A Creeping Naturalism

And naturalism crept up on them gradually, without their suspecting its true character. When Justin Wroe Nixon, in 1925, drew the attention of his brethren to the real character of the principles upon which they had been building, they reacted with horror and dismay; and the contemporary era came upon American theological thought. For they then saw that their principles led to pure naturalism. Why had they not seen that previously? It had overtaken the movement gradually. How it proceeded in every area may be seen by studying as an example the way in which it penetrated Christology; and Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historcial Jesus will picture that for us with sufficient accuracy and vividness. It began, as he shows us, as an ill-defined discomfort with regard to particular supernatural actions attributed in the Gospels to our Lord and as an effort to suggest a natural explanation. The rationalists tried that in one way; Strauss tried it in another. By the time of Schleiermacher, this naturalism had become a highly skillful dialectic, which might almost have been expressly designed to conceal from the reader just what that great thinker did believe about the miracles. In Harnack, Jesus was forced within the limits of human genius, and “miracles do not occur.” Most of the liberals went approximately as far as that; but they did not go along with the spate of volumes that presently presumed to diagnose the mental ill health of the man named Jesus. What had happened was that, in that century of rich confusion, the desire of Christian scholars to get away from the woodenness of eighteenth-century theology and to make Christianity appeal to contemporary thinkers opened the way for an alien “camel” to get its nose into the Christian tent. That camel, the naturalistic humanism of contemporary university life, pushed itself further and further in, always most graciously and plausibly, until finally the owner of the tent was outside in the storm without ever discovering, until it was too late, what was happening to him. When that discovery was finally made, in the second decade of the present century, a new theological era was upon us. Liberalism was, indeed, a mirror of the secular invasion of a Christian country.

A native of Australia, Professor Rule has an international education: M.A., University of New Zealand; B.D., Princeton Theological Seminary; Ph.D., University of Edinburgh. Since 1927 he has served as Professor of Church History and Apologetics at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.

- More from Andrew K. Rule

Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: February 04, 1957

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

The Bible is indeed an amazing book. In the academic world alone many thousands of scholars continue year after year to find it an inexhaustible mine in which they dig and delve and probe and experiment; and as the years go by the vast amount of scholarship devoted to the critical and analytical study of the sacred text shows no sign of diminishing. The great pitfall which intellectual activity of this kind does not always succeed in avoiding is that of a perspective which has room only for technicalities, thus tending to permit preoccupation with the letter to smother the spirit of the text and to forget that the primary purpose of Holy Scripture is to make man “wise unto salvation which is through faith in Christ Jesus.” But that the sacred text should be searched and pondered is a vital task of the Church in every generation.

The Expository Times (January, 1957) contains a stimulating article by Professor T. F. Torrance of Edinburgh on “One Aspect of the Biblical Conception of Faith.” We have by now become familiar with the contention that in the New Testament the word “faith” (pistis) should in important instances be understood as “faithfulness”, particularly divine faithfulness. For example, Romans 1:17—“The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith”—may, as Dr. Torrance points out, be taken to mean that God’s righteousness is revealed from God’s faithfulness to man’s faith. “God”, he expounds, draws man within the sphere of his own faithfulness and righteousness and gives man to share in it, so that his faith is embraced by God’s faithfulness.” Or again, Romans 3:3 may be rendered: “Shall their faithlessness make of none effect the faithfulness of God?” Other significant texts mentioned are Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16, 20, and 3:22. Dr. Torrance explains “the faith of Jesus Christ” as “essentially a polarized expression denoting the faithfulness of Christ as its main ingredient but also involving or at least suggesting the answering faithfulness of man, and so his belief in Christ,” and he adds that “even within itself the faithfulness of Christ involves both the faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of the man Jesus.”

No one is likely to dispute the conclusion that “the whole of our salvation depends upon the faithfulness of God who does not grow weary of being faithful.” But when Professor Torrance asserts that “in Jesus Christ we are in fact unable to disentangle our faith from the faithfulness of God” we can but feel that his predisposition to dialectical thinking has confused rather than clarified what is a crucial issue. And even more so is this the case when he propounds the doctrine that “Jesus Christ is not only the Word of God become flesh, He is also Believer, but Believer for us, vicariously Believer” (my italics). So novel a deduction may be the offspring of dialectical ingenuity, but hardly of scriptural revelation.

In the exegesis of the biblical text, however, the twofold significance of pistis should not be overlooked.

Professor C. F. D. Moule of Cambridge writes in New Testament Studies (October, 1956) on “The Nature and Purpose of I Peter.” The hypothesis that I Peter is not properly a letter, but a primitive liturgy, and, more particularly, a baptismal liturgy, has been put forward by certain scholars in recent years. (Perdelwitz, 1911; Bornemann, 1919; Preisker, 1951); and more recently still Professor F. L. Cross of Oxford has advanved the view—in his book I Peter, A Paschal Liturgy (1954)—that I Peter is not only a baptismal liturgy, but (in Professor Moule’s words) “substantially the celebrant’s part of the Baptismal Eucharist of the Paschal Vigil.” While agreeing that I Peter is concerned with baptism, Professor Moule observes that this is also true of many other parts of the New Testament, and that in itself this ‘proves no more than that the early church writers continually had the ‘pattern’ of baptism in mind.” He is unconvinced that there is here an actual liturgy—“the words used actually at a celebration of baptism or a baptism-and-eucharist.” He finds it difficult to conceive how such a liturgy “could have been hastily dressed up as a letter and sent off (without a word of explanantion) to Christians who had not witnessed its original setting.” His detailed criticism of the hypothesis in question is sensible and compelling.

Professor Moule, however, advances a theory of his own. He believes that I Peter is “genuinely epistolary and was

written specifically for the communities indicated in the greeting.” But it is his opinion that, since (on his interpretation) “some of these communities were actually suffering persecution, while for others it was no more than a possibility, the writer sent two forms of epistle, one for those not yet under actual duress (1:1–4:11 and 5:12–14), and the other … for those who were in the refining fire (1:1–2:10, 4:12–5:14),” and suggests that “the messengers were bidden read the appropriate part to each community, according to the situation.” By an analysis of the contents he shows that each part contains an opening address (2:11 and 4:12) and a closing ascription (4:11 and 5:11), a macarism (ie. “Blessed are ye …”, (3:15 and 4:14), an appeal to Scripture (3:10–12 and 5:5), a reference to the imminence of judgment (4:7 and 4:17), an exhortation to commit one’s cause to the Lord. 1:1–2:10 and 5:12–14 are taken as common to both letters. This theory is certainly interesting and thought-provoking. The lack of any breath of ancient tradition in its support is, however, an obstacle not easily surmounted, and it is well known, not least in the New Testament, that the epistolary form may not infrequently exhibit digressions, recapitulations, repeated emphases, and spontaneous outpourings in the form of ascriptions, invocations, and so on.

Writing in The Christian Graduate (December, 1956), on “Some Aspects of the Reformed Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” the Rev. H. M. Carson emphasizes that “linked closely to the objective fact of the sufficiency of Holy Scriptures there is the allied doctrine of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.” This means that “our acceptance of the sufficiency of Scripture is not merely a mental assent, but is a spiritual response to the inner testimony of the Spirit, who brought the Scriptures into being, and who still interprets them to the people of God.” The Christian who adheres firmly to the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture can, he asserts, “be assured that he stands in a noble succession”—a succession which reaches back to the early church and to Christ Himself. It is, moreover, a doctrine that has been prominent “at all periods of spiritual awakening in the life of the church.” We, too, for our part, are convinced that, if there is to be a true spiritual awakening in our own day, it will not be apart from the recognition of the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as the Word of God.

- More from Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Books

Book Briefs: February 4, 1957

Voice Of Barth

The Existentialist and God, by Arthur C. Cochrane. Westminster, Philadelphia. $3.00.

Mr. Cochrane, a Canadian, did his undergraduate work at the University of Toronto and took his theological training at Knox College, Toronto. He received his Ph. D. from Edinburgh in 1937 and did further graduate work in Germany. Since 1948 he has occupied the Chair of Systematic Theology in the Seminary of the University of Dubuque, Iowa. The work here reviewed contains the Robert Foundation Lectures delivered at Presbyterian College, Montreal, during the fall semester of 1954. The lectures consist of an analysis of the concept of being in the thought of Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre, Tillich, Gilson and Barth, from the standpoint of Christian doctrine of the being of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

The author’s thesis sets forth that existentialism is a serious quest for being. It is fundamentally ontology (though more than that) with the color of theology. This ontology rests on the awareness that our existence is founded upon something which transcends it. It understands man’s being as movement, as action in relation to another than itself, rather than as being grounded in itself.

As for Kierkegaard, the fundamental principle of his thought is the absolute qualitative distinction between time and eternity, God and man. Man is a particular existing being, but God is eternal. According to Cochrane, Kierkegaard did not intend by this formulation to outline a new philosophy of existence, but rather to drive home to his contemporaries what it means to exist before God. For Kierkegaard the only legitimate question in connection with pure being is that of the relationship which I, the subjective, existing thinker, sustain to this being. Ontology is incidental, at best implicit, in Kierkegaard, and this was his intention. Those who have followed him, however, have all too often seen in Kierkegaard’s refusal to develop an ontology, and invitation to them to do just that. The elaborate systems of Jaspers, Heidegger and Sartre are really, according to the author, utterly foreign to Kierkegaard’s spirit, and to call him the father of contemporary existentialism leads to a gross misunderstanding (pp. 29–30).

Turning then to the exposition of Jaspers’ thought (pp. 48–57), the author shows quite convincingly, in the reviewer’s opinion, that though Jaspers is a sort of theist who talks about “faith” in “God,” his thought is essentially humanistic. The concept is the awareness of the transcendent in the ultimate situations of life. Cochrane tells us that churchmen (I suppose he means respectable Christians) should realize that Jaspers combines with this theoretical opposition to Christianity something of an evangelistic fervor against Christ’s claims to exclusiveness.

As for Heidegger (pp. 58–65), he agrees with Jaspers that being cannot be comprehended as anything that is or as an object of thought. Heidegger, therefore, begins with human existence (Dasein) in its ontological structure. Dasein is not at hand, however, as objects are. Dasein is a being-in-the-world, but not simply spatially, as a table is in a house, but being in a situation which has the possibility of non-being. Hence non-being (death) is integral to Dasein; it constitutes its possibility. “For if Dasein is to become something, it must not be. We encounter this nothing in the mood of dread (Angst). Its object is indefinable.”

Satre (pp. 65–76) is the boldest of all the existentialists. He draws the pessimistic consequence of Heidegger’s ontology with fortitude. He perceives the relationship of human existence to that which transcends it, but for him it is unequivocally the nothing. Sartre is an honest atheist. Man simply turns up on the scene and then defines himself. He becomes what he wills himself to be in the upward thrust of his existence. Cochrane observes (p. 70) that there is little danger that the church will ever confuse the nothing which Heidegger and Sartre have substituted for God, with the true God, though the possibility exists that it may be confused with what the Bible calls evil.

Turning to Tillich (pp. 78–99), the author believes that being, non-being and being-itself are the three leading concepts in his system and the key to understanding his use of them is his method of correlation. To reduce the author’s analysis of Tillich’s position to the space of this review would overtax the reviewer’s ingenuity. We will content ourselves by observing simply that Cochrane feels that the revelation of God in Christ is nonessential to Tillich’s system. He comes to the knowledge of being-itself and of finite being just as Jaspers and Heidegger do. Churchmen should be aware of this secular strand in Tillich. His Systematic Theology is actually a systematic philosophy, not a witness to Jesus Christ, but to “being-itself,” of which Jesus Christ is only a symbol (p. 90).

The treatment of Gilson (pp. 100–112) marks a rather different stream from the main course of the book, a sort of interesting parenthesis. The thrust of this Thomistic existentialism consists in the composition of existence and essence, in which existence is the primary element (p. 105 f).

The most interesting phase of the book, to this reader (and about the only place where he has some reservation), is the analysis of Barth’s view. In the subtitle of the book, Barth’s name is the last in a list of seven representative thinkers, but in the actual structure of the book, we meet Barth everywhere—at the beginning, at the end and in the middle. As indicated at the start, the perspective which pervades the treatment of the whole is the Christian doctrine of the being of God as revealed in Christ, but in specific terms this means the doctrine of Karl Barth. It is Barth, according to Cochrane, who has given us the Christological corrective to Kierkegaard’s implicit ontology and the only saving antidote to the overt, un Christian ontology of the other representative thinkers discussed. As an exposition of Barth’s view, there is little with which anyone could disagree expressly. The reviewer, however, cannot share the author’s enthusiasm for the Barthian position, especially on the score of Barth’s Christological emphasis. No Christian would doubt that Christ is the supreme revelation of the one true God; but the Christ testified to in Scripture and the Christ who appears in the theology of Barth are somewhat more different than Cochrane would admit. More specifically, the reviewer is still not convinced that Barth has a toe to stand on in his differences with Brunner on this score. (The primary discussion occurs pp. 33–39). Not that we would counter enthusiasm for Barth by enthusiasm for Brunner, but who could ever argue, and get away with it (except Barth), that since Pilate fulfilled the plan of salvation, we see that the state is indissolubly intertwined with the Cross and therefore the Christian should honor the state? No wonder van Balthasar, the Romanist, commends Barth for expounding Scripture without being “exegetical” (p. 145, note 43). Before the writing of this review we scanned Barth’s Nein! again and still feel he is simply shouting Brunner down, as he has done with just about everyone, at one time or another. If one wants to believe everyone was a Thomist until Barth, the first Protestant, came along, that is his privilege, but it is our opinion that both Paul and Calvin believed that the knowledge of God which the sinner has is pre-supposed in the knowledge which he receives in Christ.

The book is definitely for the specialist and serves (though without intention or fault) to underline the great gulf between the theology of Barth and the common man. I fail to see, when I read Barth, or books about him, how anyone could ever transmute his theology into the idiom of preaching. Not that we expect Barth to write Sunday school quarterlies, but if theology is to serve the Gospel, there ought to be some apparent connection. Dean Homrighausen recently defended Billy Graham against theologian Niebuhr and asked, “Where are the neo-orthodox evangelists?” (Time Magazine, July 23, 1956, p. 51). Barth would probably answer, the Holy Ghost doesn’t need any!

PAUL K. JEWETT

Biblical Theologian

Our Reasonable Faith, by Herman Bavinck. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 1956. $6.95.

This is a translation of Herman Bavinck’s Magnalia Dei, first published in 1909, now for the first time translated into English by Henry Zylstra of Calvin College, Grand Rapids. It is, as Zylstra says in his preface, “a compendium or synopsis of the four volume Dogmatics” by the same erudite and distinguished Dutch theologian. As a compendium it is less technical and is intended for more popular use (cf. p. 6). It must not be supposed, however, that this volume is a little handbook. It is a large volume in which all the leading themes of the Christian faith are unfolded with that thorough competence of which only a master theologian is capable. It is a systematic theology for the layman, and it is executed with remarkable skill. The person unversed in the technicalities of theological discussion needs to have no hesitation in undertaking the reading of this volume. It is meant for him.

If one wishes to know the distinguishing features of the unpardonable sin, he will find one of the finest expositions to be found anywhere and much misunderstanding and confusion will be corrected (pp. 253 f.). In the chapter on the covenant of grace it is gratifying to find that Bavinck uses the expression “the counsel of redemption” to designate the arrangements between the persons of the Godhead in distinction from “the covenant of grace” as the historical actualization of that counsel (pp. 260–279). Bavinck also rejects the distinction between the external and internal covenant as a distinction which “cannot stand in the light of the Scriptural teaching” (p. 279). Thorough Calvinist as Bavinck was he does not rationalistically rule out the will of God to the salvation of all, that God “wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” and he appeals to 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9 in this connection (pp. 360 f.). He insists, and the present writer thinks rightly, that hell in Acts 2:27 must mean grave (p. 365). If we wish to know how Bavinck interprets such a difficult text as Ephesians 1:23, he tells us (p. 383 f.). In reference to the “water” of John 3:5, he says that “Jesus is not in the first place thinking of baptism”; water is the image of renewal and purging (p. 426). Yet, if we are a little troubled that in our evangelical tradition sufficient significance is not attached to baptism as the rite of initiation into the fellowship of the church, we may listen to Bavinck again: “Viewed in this way, baptism was in very fact a preservation, like that of the ark which spared Noah (1 Peter 3:20–21), a dying and being raised again with Christ (Rom. 6:3–4), a washing away of sins (Acts 22:16), a break with the world and an entrance into a new fellowship” (p. 524). For all of us some difficulty arises in connection with the distinction between the completed accomplishment of redemption and its application. Not a little help can be derived from the distinction which Bavinck develops between property by deed and actual possession (p. 455). These are but a few random examples of how rewarding a perusal of this volume can be.

The simplicity of presentation will not conceal from the discerning reader the maturity of thought which lies back of this exposition of the biblical system of truth. Neither will it conceal the amazing knowledge of Scripture which the author had at his command. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find another book which is so fully documented by quotation and citation of Scripture. This evinces that Bavinck was essentially a biblical theologian. And because this is so, every chapter breathes the atmosphere of that godliness which persuasion of the truth creates. In this respect Our Reasonable Faith is like its great predecessor in the Reformed tradition, The Institutes of the Christian Religion; it is written in the interests of Christian devotion, faith united with a serious fear of God. “God, and God alone, is man’s highest good” (p. 17). It is with these words the book begins.

The scientific theologian will not find it a waste of time to mark up this volume. He will find gems of theological exposition and formulation. For example, what could be better than Bavinck’s formulation of the relation of time and space to creation (pp. 169 f.)? And, when in these days the doctrine of the church is so much in the forefront

of thought and discussion, what could be more rewarding than a careful study of the chapter on “The Church of Christ” (pp. 514–543)?

The translator evidences throughout his sensitivity to the demands of literary taste and form, and this adds greatly to the readability of the translation. An occasional footnote by the translator, however, would have been in order as, for example, a correction of Bavinck’s slip reproduced in the translation at the middle of page 380. And the omission of the name of God from the translation of Hepp’s tribute to Bavinck (p. 11) leaves a startling, though erroneous, first impression of what Hepp actually said and of what Zylstra intended to say.

JOHN MURRAY

Theological Background

English Thought: 1860–1900. The Theological Aspect, By L. E. Elliott-Binns. (Longmans). 28s.

The late Canon Vernon Storr published in 1913 his book on The Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century: 1800–1860. He had intended to produce a companion volume dealing with the latter half of the century but was prevented from doing so by the pressure of other work. We now have a volume from Canon Elliott-Binns treating the subject over this period from a wider outlook than Canon Storr had in mind, for as the author rightly says the theological viewpoint can only be seen in true perspective when set against the background of prevailing trends of thought in other fields.

Beginning with the impact of natural science upon theology and religion, the author traces the influence of philosophy, archaeology and the critical views of German theologians on biblical studies in this period, together with the development of dogmatic theology, sacramental teaching and the position of Church and State. In such a book one would expect this ground to be covered. But where Dr. Elliott-Binns puts us particularly in his debt is in relating these theological considerations to the political, economic and social conditions of the times, to which he has added a study of the general literature and spread of liberal views associated with that period.

Though one is constantly impressed with the immense range of the author’s reading, as indicated both by quotations and footnotes, yet his learning is so easily presented that this book is a sheer delight to read. His own comments on the different situations and problems are shrewd and penetrating; for example, in dealing with dogmatic theology he states “Dogmas are working hypotheses to be tested by practical religious experiment, and every age must conduct its own tests and be prepared if necessary to make the consequent adjustments, for a too rigid doctrinal system may erect barriers to the fuller knowledge of things divine and preclude further progress. The Christian faith is not a kind of Maginot line behind which the Church takes shelter against the intrusion of new and unwelcome ideas” (p. 213).

Two major impressions are left by this book upon the· mind of at least one reader. First, the immense prestige acquired by German theologians during the period, so that for a time many British scholars accepted their findings as being almost above criticism. Though this docile spirit and submissive attitude were not universal, yet such teaching did considerable harm in undermining popular views on the inspiration of the Bible, leading to a general opinion that as its text was unreliable, so its message was obsolete. Second, the dominant position of Westcott in England at the close of the century. Though as a pure scholar he may not have been the equal of either Lightfoot or Hort, yet his influence was in his day more widespread than theirs, due to his deep concern over the social problems of the times and over the expansion of the Church in other lands. By seeming to see the past by the light of the present and its needs, by his emphasis on the teaching of the Fourth Gospel and by his knowledge of the Greek Fathers, he helped to change the direction of theological thought in this country. But if Westcott was the outstanding personality, and Lightfoot “the greatest interpreter of the New Testament”, to Hort belongs the distinction of producing what is described as “one of the most valuable and suggestive theological works produced in England during the period”, entitled The Way, the Truth, the Life. Quotations from it go far to substantiate this claim for a volume which has been largely forgotten.

In the long view, the development of psychology presented a greater danger to religion than the attacks of science, and not the least valuable section of the book is that dealing with this subject and the effect of its early pronouncements upon the uninstructed public.

Many of the problems and difficulties with which the church is faced today in England, and indeed in other countries, owe their origin to events and trends of thought which began about a century ago. A true understanding of these problems can only be gained by examining their causes, and to read this book will enable the student, and general reader alike, to obtain a wide understanding of the many factors which have contributed towards the religious climate of our own times.

G. C. B. DAVIES.

Stimulating Reprint

Luke The Physician, by William M. Ramsay. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids. $4.50.

Sir William Ramsay’s mind was that of an eager, earnest scholar who is determined to grapple with great problems. This series of studies (reprinted from the 1908 edition) deals with a variety of unrelated subjects and exhibits the wide range of the author’s interest and the carefulness of his scholarship.

Indeed, it is perhaps in this that the significance of Ramsay’s work consists: not so much in the conclusions reached, as in the methods used and the attitude which characterizes his consideration of New Testament problems. Many of the particular points he makes may seem somewhat dated, after the passage of fifty years or more. His treatment of Harnack on Luke, or Sunday on New Testament criticism, may not have the relevance it once possessed. His conclusions as to the authorship of Hebrews are interesting, and his study of the original sources of our gospel records is stimulating, but the picture which the author gives of himself is far more valuable than any of these things or the sum of them.

Here is a man who proceeds on the basis that “when a real piece of living literature is to be examined, it is a false method to treat it as a corpse, and cut it in pieces: only a mess can result” (p. 3). He lashes out against “so-called critics” who “do not read a book whose results they disapprove” (p. 8). He sees that “ideas are not like dead matter to be placed side by side: they unite and are productive, or they die; but they cannot remain inert and unvarying” (p. 125). His protest against mere cleverness in scholarship is excellent (p. 250).

The book will have a limited appeal because of the technical nature of its subject matter, and because it deals with some themes which are not of great concern today. But to those who share Ramsay’s concern for the problems of the history of religion, it offers much that is rewarding.

H. L. FENTON, JR.

CHRISTIANITY TODAYis a subscriber to Religious News Service, Evangelical Press Service and Washington Religious Report Newsletter.

The kingdom of God is near.

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Opposition To Evangelism A Strange Phenomenon

A Call For Renaissance Of Evangelical Literature

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The Way

The Truth

The Life

Only Mediator

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Reasons For Growth

A Time Of Burden

Preacher In The Red

Faith And The Future

My Father

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Role Of Scientific Scholarship

Text Of Scripture

Interpretation Of Scripture

Role Of Scientific Scholarship

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Retreat From Orthodoxy

Truth Reduced To Utility

Gospel Becomes Social Energy

Triumph Of Enlightenment

Impact Of Evolutionary Science

Religion Narrowed To Ethics

Fidelity To The Bible

Lack Of Cultural World-View

Niebuhr On Liberalism

Flaws In Niebuhr’S Thought

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The Head And The Heart

The Element Of Trust

Confusing The Issue

Faith And Belief

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Verdict Of Contemporaries

Greater Than The Baptist

Greater Than Elijah

Greater Than Jeremiah

Verdict Of Disciples

Christ The Son

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Decline Of True Liberalism

Humanism At The Crossroads

Theological Road To Pride

A Creeping Naturalism

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Voice Of Barth

Biblical Theologian

Theological Background

Stimulating Reprint

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