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Ideas

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.

Eutychus and His Kin: February 18, 1957

SOUND THE TRUMPETS

Thank you, sir, for returning my last MSS. with the rejection slip. Do you plan, then, to ignore the current discussion of theological education? Do you want ministers to have breakdowns?

If you reject my definitive work, you can at least reprint a classic on the subject: Cotton Mather’s Manuductio ad Ministerium (Hancock, Boston), 1726. Only one title page and the preface are in Latin. You have a choice of two further titles: Directions for a Candidate of the Ministry, Wherein, etc., or The Angels preparing to Sound the Trumpets.

Mather faces up to this mental health business right off. “In the FIRST Place, My Son, I advise you to consider yourself as a Dying Person.…” Imagine “your Breath failing, your throat rattling, your Eyes with a dim Cloud.…” Modern “candidates” will greet this abrupt introduction less with gasps than with guffaws. Yet as shock therapy in Christian realism it is worth ten hours of orientation courses anywhere. The tough-minded old Puritan was much at death-beds with the comfort of the risen Christ.

This Puritan realism about dying leads to a Puritan plea for living to God. Here Mather has the freshness of deep devotion. It is the quality of life, not its length that makes it living. For the Puritan it was not a tragedy to bum out for God.

However, Mather does not encourage a martyr complex. He wishes his “son” a long life, and counsels him how to make the most of it.

He is never tedious. He admits that a Hebrew scholar is suspected of “being an Odd, Starv’d, Lank sort of a thing, who had lived only on Hebrew Roots all his Days,” but testifies, “I scarce ever take an Hebrew Bible into my Hands, but I am gratefully surprized with something I never thought of.…”

Read Mather on visiting friends, “foolish amours,” Greek accents, stolen sermons, and, above all, conversion. Theological education has much to regain before it can progress!

EUTYCHUS

THE BASIC DOCTRINES

Excerpts from the Rev. Thomas J. Kelso’s letter … are of concern to Presbyterians and I would think to evangelical Christians as a whole.

I have a letter from the Stated Clerk’s office of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. stating that these excerpts have been brought to their attention, and I quote: “You may be sure that these excerpts do not reflect the doctrinal position of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and the Presbytery having jurisdiction over Mr. Kelso, namely, the Presbytery of Pittsburgh, already has the matter under its purview.”

For the good of all those concerned, including your magazine, I shall be looking forward to some clarification.

W. J. B. LIVINGSTON

First Presbyterian Church

Hampton, Va.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY in its issue of December 24 published a portion of a letter reecived from a young assistant minister of one of the churches of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh, Rev. Thomas J. Kelso. In so far as the letter may have reflected on the general doctrinal position of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh, or the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., a Committee of the Presbytery has requested me to inform you that the following recommendation was adopted by the Presbytery of Pittsburgh at its regular meeting on Thursday, January 1:

“The Ministerial Relations Committee has received from the Presbytery Council a communication relating to parts of a letter of one of the members of the Presbytery that were recently published in a magazine. Since the Ministerial Relations Committee has this letter and the whole matter under advisement, the Ministerial Relations Committee therefore RECOMMENDS to the Presbytery that any persons interested in this matter be instructed by the Presbytery to consult with the Ministerial Relations Committee; and that the Presbytery reaffirm its belief in and support of the basic doctrines of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., and the traditional views required of one of its ministers.”

JOHN K. BIBBY

General Presbyter

Presbytery of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Pa.

I do not know of a single one of the 30,000 Southern Baptist churches that would allow one with so little belief to minister to its people.… If our people did not believe in the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection …, and the substitutionary atonement, we would not receive them as believers.… When one has had an experience of the new birth, he does believe in them.…

Mr. Kelso said that he did not believe in the substitutionary atonement … but states in his second letter that he believes in “the victory of Jesus Christ over sin.” It looks like the only way one could believe in one without the other would be to throw away the Bible.…

LEON W. HEIBECK

First Baptist Church

Basile, La.

Christology is the heart of the Bible and Christianity today and every day stands or falls with the incarnation via the virgin birth. May you and your magazine long wave.…

JOHN BUNYAN SMITH

Alhambra, Calif.

… It seems the policy … will be prejudiced to a certain group of theologians whose ideas I do not care to take time to peruse.

RALPH I. MCCONNELL

Kirkwood Presbyterian Church

Bridgeport, Ohio

My people don’t care whether my sermons are doctrinally correct—they want something by which they can live.

FRANK T. JAMES

Brownsville, Pa.

THE PROUD AND PERTURBED

Please give up ignorant, sneering remarks about our Colonial policy. We are righdy proud of it, as under God, it has done more than anything else to raise the status of backward races.

G. A. EVANS

Dunkerton Rectory

Bath, Somerset, England

I have read Mr. Pollock’s article “Has England’s Glory Faded?” and, although in hearty agreement … I would point out, with all Christian charity, that … what he means presumably is that Britain and not England had so risen.… This, of course, is a common error of Englishmen in speaking of England when they mean Britain and is an illustration of that arrogant spirit of English nationalism which has done more damage to British unity than anything else.… No Scotsman considers it a compliment to be called an Englishman.…

WILLIAM WHYTE

Portobello Baptist Church

Portobello, Midlothian, Scotland

CHURCHES THAT COUNT

I am interested, nay fascinated, by what appear to be the unstated premises beneath a remark attributed (issue of Jan. 7, 1957) to Dr. Colin Williams of the Garrett Biblical Institute. “… There is a big time lag—20 years or more—between seminary graduation and the time a man gets into a church big enough to count.…”

It would appear wise, and even imperative, that we … younger Clergy be given some guidance from our elders … in evaluating the theological significance of the words, “a church big enough to count.”

This Parish into which the Lord … has seen fit to place me as his priest, at the last “count” numbered about 340 baptized persons. Is this number “big enough.…”? If not, would St. Luke’s Parish be “big enough …” if there were 341? Or 1341? Or 2341? How many souls, in short, make a Parish one which is “big enough to count”?

Or, in another vein, is this a “church big enough to count” when, by the Lord’s infinite and saving mercy, the Blessed Sacrament of his body and blood is truly celebrated and truly received.… Must we have here a dozen Priests, four choirs, three DRE’s, and a bevy of secretaries, in addition to our Saviour’s gracious gift of his life, in order to be “big enough to count”?

R. C. MARTIN JR.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Marietta, Ohio

JUDGING CHRISTIANITY

In Charles W. Lowry’s “Judgment on the Christian West” (Jan. 7 issue) he is, I think, moved more by passion than by reason.… He makes a case of the inability of the West to intervene immediately and overwhelmingly in the Hungarian situation. But not even the Hungarian revolutionaries themselves knew that the insurrection would develop how and when it did.

Mr. Lowry does not state what in his opinion we should have done. He quotes one saying, “We gave them nothing but words.” So, more than words was required, i.e. deeds. That could mean only armed intervention. Would the might of Russia have quailed and drawn back? Or would the West have precipitated the dreadful world-wide conflagration …?

Much evidence now points toward Russia having desired the revolution in order to crush it. Some reputable refugees tell of false radio promises of immediate U.S. aid in case they rebelled.…

So the West is … ridiculed and condemned for not doing what it was impossible to do, what it would have been disastrous to attempt.… Surely our Western Christianity is far from Christ, but throwing stones at each other is not going to bring us the faith we lack.

HARRY FRED SMITH

Mineville, N.Y.

CHURCHES AND THE STATE

In a democratic society, what governs one must govern all. If Protestants really want to curb Rome’s demands, why not begin to agitate for laws that will curb concessions made to ALL religious institutions? If we really believe in separation of church and state why shouldn’t we insist that religious organizations pay taxes on the same basis with other property owners …? In America, the laws we impose upon others we must first be willing to impose upon ourselves.

R. A. MCDONALD

The Methodist Church

Crystal, N. D.

MISSION AND OMISSION

I am concerned about certain omissions … I do not see much in your paper of American liberalism which, most certainly, is part of the total picture of Christianity today.…

ROSS E. WINNER

Christ Church Methodist

Dayton, O.

• The current issue contains Professor Andrew K. Rule’s article, “Liberalism as a Mirror of a Secular Invasion.”—ED.

The way in which CHRISTIANITY TODAY “lowers the boom” of criticism on progressive scholarship, the National Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church I find neither truly Christian nor reflective of Christian thought of the twentieth century.… I shall remain within the theological tradition of The Methodist Church and the growing “horizontal fellowship” of our generation of Christian churches.

RAY E. BIGGERS

Union Protestant Church

Niagara, Wis.

You’re doing a good job; one that nobody else seems to be doing.

EMMET RUSSELL

Short Beach, Conn

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is the most challenging reading both spiritual and intellectual that we have received. It is the first to come to our attention that is not biased or marginal in its coverage.

BERNICE B. MORGAN

Aboard M/V North Wind

Juneau, Alaska

Sincere congratulations on the excellence of the issues.…

ROBERT WHITE KIRKPATRICK

Union Theological Seminary Librarian

Richmond, Va.

I read the leading articles of each issue.… Excellently done.…

BENJAMIN CLAYTON

Houston, Tex.

After I have finished reading my copy, it is sent to … brother ministers in the Philippines, so my copy is well read. They are hungry for good reading.…

WAYNE W. WOODWARD

Shoals Circuit, Methodist

Pinnacle, N.C.

This magazine has not only quantity but quality; it has depth and spiritual vitality; it has good organization and a sound editorial policy.…

DAVID J. KLASING

First Baptist Church

Greenville, Ill.

Your journal is doing a great job. Keep it up.

ROBERT E. MERRY

Nativity Episcopal Church

Crafton, Pa.

I prize this periodical as one of the most valuable I receive.…

HARRY LEE GRIFFIN

First Baptist Church

Collinsville, Okla.

If it should discontinue, I feel that something of value would be gone out of my life.

FREDERICK PINCH

Grand Rapids, Mich.

The real concern you show for the labors of Christ’s Church is refreshing.

PAUL KAUFFMAN

First Evangelical U.B. Church

Fayetteville, Pa.

Broadcasters Defend ‘Liberty’

WORD NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

Four basic principles of religious broadcasting, built around an explosive attack against the National Council of Churches for its “pressure policy” in the control of air programs, were officially adopted at the convention of National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., in Washington, D. C., this month. (NRB is affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals.)

The principles were presented to the spirited convention in an address by Dr. Eugene R. Bertermann of The Lutheran Hour, St. Louis, Missouri.

Highlights of the presentation follow:

PROGRAM EXCELLENCE—“Every religious program ought to feel its responsibility, not only to retain audience, but also to build audience.… The target listener in many cases is the average unchurched American. He does not normally have a consuming interest in religion.… A twist of the dial can bring him another radio or television program.… Nobility of purpose and purity of doctrine do not in themselves guarantee that a specific program will be ‘good radio.’

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY—“… Those engaged in the proclamation of the Gospel should be scrupulously honest and honorable in their dealings.… Dr. Peter Eldersveld of the Back to God Hour made this reference to ‘the evils of religious racketeering in radio and television: Some of the broadcasters who buy time for religious programs have abused the privilege. They have made a profitable business out of pleading for gifts to help pay the cost of broadcasting, and they exploit their unsuspecting listeners with all manner of dubious devices which are designed to bring in lots of money, much more than they actually need.… Nothing could be more disgraceful to the cause of Christianity, and more dangerous to its future in radio and television. Something should be done to stop it.’

LIBERTY IN THE AIR LANES—“It comes as something of a shock to learn that a serious abridgement of the liberty of the air lanes has been aggressively advanced by an organization within the Christian Church—a Council, as a matter of fact, which purports to speak for a substantial sector of American Protestantism. (The National Council of Churches has adopted a policy against the sale or purchase of time for religious broadcasts, in which it is recommended that “consideration to the strength and representative character of the councils of churches” be given in allocation of free time. S. Franklin Mack, executive director of the NCC Broadcast and Film Commission, said the NCC desired to simulate a consideration of the place of religion in broadcasting and was not “seeking to control all of religious broadcasting.”—EDS.)

“Broadcasting-Telecasting Magazine, leading industry publication, carried this editorial comment: ‘… no church has the right to dictate how religion should be broadcast.’

“Representative of the reaction of certain individual broadcasters was this statement (in part) contained in a letter by Jerry S. Hughes, program director of Radio Station KMLW in Marlin, Texas: ‘In all fairness, I simply believe that you, the members of the Broadcasting and Film Commission (of the National Council), made a colossal blunder by adopting a resolution the very nature of which proves you don’t know what you’re talking about.… If you approach radio people with a genuine desire to improve religious broadcasting, I am sure you will find most of them cooperative and anxious to help. I think you’ll even discover that they know what they’re doing. Continue the way you’re going, however, and you will find it hard to get inside the door of any radio station without a check in your hand.’

(Harold E. Fellows, president of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, had this to say: “You would not close the door of your church or tabernacle to a worshipper seeking the blessings of faith, nor would radio or television or any public medium worthy of its name deny its products to a single citizen.”—EDS.)

“Dr. Oswald Hoffman, Lutheran Hour speaker, asserted in a prepared statement: ‘Our experience in radio leads us to believe that the only effective presentation in the medium is to buy time. In order to obtain favorable time and thereby attain the required frequency to make messages meaningful, we feel it is best accomplished through paid time.’

“In maintaining the thesis of the liberty of the air lanes for religious programs, we draw attention to the following considerations:

1. “We believe that religious groups and denominations have the fundamental liberty to purchase broadcasting time on a radio or television station … because this is an eminently American principle.

2. “… this is an eminently fair principle. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ should not find leveled against it unnecessary and unfair restraints and restrictions which are not imposed upon other categories and classes of radio and television programs.

3. “We believe that through a dual approach, namely the utilization of both sustaining and paid radio and television time, religious programming will be able to serve a greater aggregate amount of radio and television time.

4. “The purchase of time for a religious message gives the Church more direct control of religious content and the ability to speak out more clearly and forthrightly in its religious message.

5. “We believe that the principle of purchasing broadcasting time will help secure more advantageous time slots.…

6. “The principle of purchasing time … is an important one for certain religious broadcasters also in the light of the fact that they conduct an international operation.

7. “It is a matter of historical record that in most cases the National Council of Churches has favored broadcasters and accorded sustaining radio time on the networks of America to men who publicly denied the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, such as, the inspiration and inerrancy of Holy Scriptures, the Virgin Birth and deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his suffering and death for the sins of mankind, his resurrection from the dead and his second coming on the last day to judge the living and the dead. Evangelical Christians cannot believe that these men in any sense represent them or, for that matter, the fundamental message of historic Protestant Christianity in America. On the contrary, they feel constrained to do all in their power to see to it that such a denial of the historic Protestant faith and of the very foundation doctrines of Holy Scriptures be countered with a positive proclamation of Bible truth.…

FIDELITY TO THE FAITH—“The broadcasters represented here must for reasons of conscience steadfastly oppose every denial, perversion, or dilution of the historic Christian faith as set forth on the pages of God’s inspired Word. They can have no part in the setting forth of ‘another Gospel,’ ‘teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ They recall Saint Paul’s sweeping denunciation of all who falsify or pervert the true Gospel: ‘Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other Gospel unto you, than that ye have received, let him be accursed.’ ”

Key Quotes

(The following quotations, relating to the controversy over broadcasting between the National Religious Broadcasters and the National Council of Churches, were made at the NRB convention in Washington, D.C.)

Dr. John S. Wimbish, Calvary Baptist Church, New York City:

“The National Council policy, if followed to its conclusion, would result in our program going off the air next Sunday. But I do not believe this will happen. The National Association of Evangelicals and millions of other Americans who believe in freedom will defeat such a policy.” (The Calvary Baptist radio ministry has been on the air for 34 years and is reported to be the oldest religious broadcast in existence today.)

Dr. George L. Ford, executive director, National Association of Evangelicals:

“The situation of evangelicals being thrown off the air, on the local level, is most serious. Pressure has been terrific. The First Baptist Church at Danville, Illinois, because of the NCC policy, had its program cancelled.”

Dr. James DeForest Murch, president of National Religious Broadcasters, Inc.:

“A great majority of evangelical broadcasters in the United States are on paid time. Their programs will be eliminated if the NCC policy is implemented. The Council has stated that no pressure is being applied, but evidence of such pressure is mounting daily as programs go off the air.”

Dr. Peter Eldersveld, “Back to God Hour,” Christian Reformed Church:

“This program will soon be off the air if the National Council has its way.”

Rev. S. Franklin Mack, executive director Broadcast and Film Commission of National Council of Churches:

“It is not our desire to control the station manager, but we do ask that he use his good judgment about the merits of certain broadcasts.”

China Visit Hit

The State Department has indicated its disapproval of a proposal that a group of American clergymen visit Communist China.

Views of the department were made known in a letter to Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, secretary of public affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. The letter thanked Dr. Taylor for the NAE’s “efforts to discourage travel by American citizens to the communist-controlled mainland of China under existing circumstances.”

Walter P. McConaughy, director of Chinese Affairs of the State Department, signed the letter. He said he was writing “for the Secretary of State.”

Dr. Taylor wrote Secretary John Foster Dulles recently expressing objection of NAE to any attempt by the National Council of Churches to send a delegation of Protestant clergymen to China. The letter referred to a “resolution” by “a National Council commission” and said the resolution “is intended to put pressure on the Department of State in order to bring about a shift in governmental policy so as to allow travel of American citizens in Communist China.”

A National Council spokesman said no official action had been taken on the suggestion.

He said that a report of one of 15 discussion groups at a meeting in December recommended that the Council “undertake to establish direct lines of contact between the churches in America and the churches in China.” The report, he said, was referred to the Council’s Department of International Affairs.

No action will be taken on the report without very careful study, he added.

In his letter to Secretary Dulles, Dr. Taylor charged that the “collaborating leaders” of Christian churches in China with whom any American delegation would meet “have used their important positions to encourage and compel collaboration on the part of all Chinese Christians.”

He listed a long record of communist persecution of Christian missionaries in China.

In the reply, Mr. McConaughey wrote:

“I want to thank you for your very helpful letter of January 8, 1957, in which you express support for the Government’s efforts to discourage travel by American citizens to the communist-controlled mainland of China under present circumstances.

“Your letter evidences a clear understanding on the part of the National Association of Evangelicals of the Chinese communists’ motive in encouraging the travel of certain American citizens to Communist China.

“It is particularly heartening because it comes from an organization which has had extensive experience (in mission work) on the mainland of China.”

Nothing in the letter was intended to reflect on the National Council of Churches, said a department spokesman.

Parochial Education

The National Lutheran Council, at its 39th annual meeting in Atlantic City, N. J., registered “grave concern” over the trend toward development of parochial education as a substitute for public schools.

Delegates, representing eight major Lutheran church bodies with a constituency upwards of 5,000,000, noted that interest in parochial schools “has led to indifference and even opposition to adequate provision for public school needs of a community.”

In earlier discussions, delegates had expressed concern that the trend towards parochial education was hampering the sale of bond issues for the construction of public schools and was tending to undermine the public school system.

Without mentioning specific communities or church bodies, they made it clear that the import of the resolution was directed both to Lutheran churches and to the Roman Catholic Church.

In another action, delegates charged that cancellation last December of the “Martin Luther” film by Chicago station WGN-TV “following pressure reputedly emanating from Roman Catholic sources” was a violation of “the American tradition of freedom of expression.”

Chicago Alarmed

Chicago’s Mayor Daley has submitted 15 names to the City Council to constitute his new Commission on the Rehabilitation of Man.

The Commission, operating on a budget of $121,000, will aid the city’s derelicts.

Startling crimes in Chicago have alarmed the entire city and, according to civic leaders, point up the need for “the rehabilitation of man.”

With thankfulness for the good that may be accomplished, evangelical leaders ask:

“Can it be done apart from the personalized power of the Gospel of Christ?”

‘Least Of These’

Many American generals take over high positions in U. S. industry when they retire.

Criticism cannot be attached to such decisions. A grateful nation wishes them well after long years of service.

But it is notable when a general bypasses lucrative positions and aims his life in a different direction. Such a man is Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison, U. S. Army commander in the Caribbean area and contributing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Gen. Harrison, who was in charge of peace negotiations with the communists in the Korean War and signed the armistice for the United Nations, will be the new executive director of the Chicago Evangelical Welfare Agency, March 1.

The welfare agency, a subsidiary of the National Association of Evangelicals, places orphaned or deserted children in Christian homes for adoption or foster care. It helps all youngsters.

Gen. Harrison, whose distinguished Army career spans 40 years, has long been noted for his Christian leadership. He has been active in aiding his men spiritually, both by private counsel and by speaking in Army chapels.

During World War I, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the cavalry and rose in rank until he was made a lieutenant general in 1952. In 1951 he was deputy commander of the Eighth Army in Korea and later chief of staff of the Far East and United Nations commands.

‘Luther’ Tv Protest

Senator Warren Magnuson (D-Wash.), chairman of the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, expressed an opinion that the Federal Communications Commission has authority to handle an official complaint involving widespread Protestant opinion about the “Martin Luther” film cancellation by Chicago’s WGN-TV.

The legislator made his viewpoint known to a church delegation which visited his office. Dr. Philip Gordon Scott, pastor of Westmoreland Congregational Church (Washington, D. C.) and a member of the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, represented his denomination. Washington Attorney Frank Ketcham represented the Chicago Action Committee for Freedom of Religious Expression.

Senator Magnuson told the delegation he believed the issue was “a serious matter affecting public-interest responsibility and broadcasting licensees.” He said he would advise the FCC concerning the views of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee.

The complaint was filed with the FCC by Ketcham on behalf of the action committee. He asked that the application of WGN-TV for a power increase be held over for a hearing.

Ketcham said the station, in its application for a license, stated it would present controversial issues. He stated that the action committee would ask the FCC to question the station on whether it had changed its policies.

“If it has changed its policy,” he said, “it is not fit to operate a television station.”

Ketcham, retained by Dr. John W. Harms, executive vice president of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago, told a reporter that 50,000 members of 3,000 Protestant churches and Jewish synagogues have signed petitions urging legislative action on the banning of the film. The petition will be expanded nationally when at least 100,000 Chicago petitions are received, Ketcham said.

The Action Committee for Freedom of Religious Expression was initiated by the Church Federation of Greater Chicago—including the Lutheran Council of Greater Chicago and 30 other religious organizations.

The group has contended that the station’s decision not to show the film was the result of “pressure” brought by “the Roman Catholic Church.”

(In the wake of the cancellation, several television stations in various parts of the nation have expressed interest in showing “Martin Luther.”)

Foreign Clergy Bid

President Eisenhower has asked Congress to approve legislation that will admit clergymen and members of religious orders to this country without regard to quotas or other restrictive provisions of the immigration and naturalization laws.

Such admissions, however, will be limited to 5,000 a year.

As outlined in proposed legislation submitted by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, members of the clergy and religious orders will be placed in the same special class of immigration as aliens who have served in the Armed Forces of the United States or those who are the wife, parent, brother, sister, son or daughter (included adopted children) of an U. S. citizen.

The special class of immigrants will be granted visas to come to the United States despite filled quotas or other eligibility, at the direction of the Attorney General if he “is of the opinion that such action would not he contrary to the national interest, safety, or security of the United States.”

West Point Maneuver

A bill to repeal authority by which the President appoints a civilian chaplain at West Point Military Academy has been introduced in Congress by Rep. E. Ross Adair (R-Ind.).

Unlike other military posts, West Point traditionally has had a civilian chaplain. Since 1896 the chaplain has been an Episcopalian. The Episcopal order of worship is followed in the academy chapel services, at which attendance for cadets is compulsory.

Roman Catholic and Jewish cadets are excused to attend services of their faiths.

Rep. Adair said his bill will abolish the civilian chaplaincy and leave it up to the Chief of Chaplains to look after the spiritual needs of the cadets. He sponsored the bill at the request of Protestant leaders who oppose a recently-renewed request by the Department of Army that the civilian chaplaincy at West Point be made permanent with power of appointment transferred to the Secretary of the Army.

The Department of Army also asked Congress to raise the salary of the civilian chaplain from $5,482 to $10,330 a year and provide him with a civilian assistant.

‘High Church’ Alarms

Dr. Markus Barth, associate professor at the University of Chicago and son of the famed Swiss theologian, Dr. Karl Barth, expressed alarm recently at “the increasing emphasis” churches are placing on sacraments, liturgy and “high church” forms of worship.

In an address to the 26th annual Ministers’ Week of Chicago Theological Seminary (Congregational), he said:

“I’m afraid that we are trying to enclose ourselves within holy walls rather than to seek unity in our Christian testimony to the world.”

Dr. Albert T. Mollegen, of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of Virginia, told the ministers that modern minds have been alienated from age-old Bible teachings.

Smith Accepts Call

“Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?”

Dr. Oswald J. Smith, who has asked this challenging question around the world, will hold evangelistic campaigns, deeper life conferences and missionary conventions in South America during September, October and November.

While away from his missionary-minded church (The Peoples Church, Toronto, 350 missionaries), Dr. Smith will speak in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Curitaba, Brazil; Asuncion, Paraguay; Montevideo, Uruguay; Rosario, Argentina; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Lima, Peru; Quito, Ecuador; Panama, Panama; and Costa Rica, Central America.

Flying Higher

When Colonel Bob Morgan flew his famous Memphis Belle on bombing raids over Tokyo he was not interested in the Bible, church or the spiritual welfare of others.

One day, in later years, something tremendous happened, instantaneously. With a sense of utter frustration and overwhelming need, he made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, confessing him as Savior and making him the Lord of his life.

Recently, as president of the Morgan Manufacturing Company of Black Mountain, North Carolina, he installed a small chapel in the plant. Services are held daily, on company time.

The story of Robert Morgan is not one of self-reformation. It is a story of God’s redemption in Christ and the desire to be of service.

Military Religion

U. S. military chaplains are in danger of developing an “armed forces” religion which bears little resemblance to the doctrines of the churches from which they come.

In making this charge, the Rev. Engebret O. Midboe of Washington, D. C., a prominent Lutheran official, said increasing emphasis upon “a general Protestant program” to the detriment of denominationally-geared services is threatening church unity and has caused a growing estrangement between the service church and the civilian denomination.

(Other church leaders of different denominations have observed that, in a day when AWOL’s and loose morals are costing the taxpayers unprecedented millions, the armed forces are counting on a character program, instead of Christ, to change men.)

Mr. Midboe, secretary of the Bureau of Service to Military Personnel of the National Lutheran Church, said “the trend is viewed with some alarm on the part of the churches of America.

“It is not suggested that anyone is maliciously encouraging this schism. It is rather a general drift away from the denominational moorings into a type of religious community which seems to operate with the least tension in the military service.”

He pointed to the dropping of the annual re-endorsement policy for chaplains as an indication of the growing separation.

(Until 1952 annual re-endorsement by their denominations was required for all military chaplains. Under the present system a chaplain may serve on the basis of his original endorsement until retirement.)

Worth Quoting

“Wherever the spade has dug, wherever it has turned over an ancient civilization, wherever it has brought to light some ancient monument, wherever it has had anything to do with a name, an event or a place of the Bible, it has vindicated the Bible.”—Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Park Street Church, Boston.

“The secret of John Wesley’s power was his kingly neglect of trifles as he mastered the important thing, the preaching of the Word.”—Bishop Gerald Kennedy, Los Angeles Area of Methodist Church.

“Man, at long last, has come to know that the security and safety of mankind—in fact, his very existence—now depends upon guidance from a wisdom far greater than humans possess. Man in the mass is turning, as each individual does in a time of great personal tragedy, to the church and religion to seek a way out of the labyrinth of disasters that seems to threaten him.”—Rep. Russell V. Mack (R-Wash.) in address to House of Representatives.

“Our aim at Wheaton College is not to prepare leaders. Our aim is to prepare servants. God will pick the leaders.”—Dr. V. Raymond Edman, president of Wheaton College, quoted by Dr. Theodore Epp, “Back to Bible” Hour.

Far East News: February 18, 1957

Kandy For Council

Almost as certain as death, war, taxes and clergy controversy is the fact that the 1960 meeting of the World Council of Churches will be held in Ceylon, a country now in the throes of a Buddhist revival.

The historic city of Kandy is expected to take its place in the distinguished line which began at Amsterdam in 1948. (The Council meets every six years.)

Kandy is a modern city set in surroundings of tea and coconut plantations. Fence posts often are the trellis for long, creeping black pepper plants. A muddy little river meanders through the city. Tourists come to the banks at tea time to watch elephants wash up after a day’s work.

Three miles from Kandy’s heart, in an adjoining suburb, the river borders one of the world’s most beautiful botanical gardens. Across the well-paved road from the garden is the University of Ceylon, an extravagantly-built educational center less than 10 years old.

The university campus will be the site of the World Council meeting.

Prime Minister Bandaranaike, leader of the Buddhist revival, has given strong assurances of welcome to Dr. Vissert’Hooft, secretary of the WCC. Ceylon is a friendly land for tourists and offers many attractions.

Kandy is sacred to the Buddhists because its Temple of the Tooth, situated in the heart of the city, once claimed to house a superhuman-sized tooth of Buddha himself. Every August, for the last 20 centuries, a procession of elephants, numbering as many as 100 in modern times, honors the Temple of the Tooth.

Broadcast Cancelled

Billy Graham’s Hour of Decision broadcast has been cancelled by the Ceylon government and all Christian broadcasts are expected to be eliminated by the end of 1957.

Radio Ceylon, a government broadcasting agency, said a recent sermon by Mr. Graham contained anti-communist remarks, including criticism of Russia and China.

C. R. Dodd, director of the commercial service, said he asked officials of the program for an explanation on “why a religious talk should include political comment.” In cancelling the contract, he said he had not received any explanation.

A number of other missionary programs, including Back to the Bible and Light of Life, have been purchasing time on Radio Ceylon for several years. Broadcasts are made in several languages and beamed to nearby India, where they are forbidden. One program reported hearing from more than 20 different countries scattered from Australia to the Gold Coast.

Objections to Christian missions using the facilities of Radio Ceylon have been raised since the government of Prime Minister Bandaranaike took over last April. The government needs money badly but has decided it can do without the thousands of rupees spent annually by Christian missions.

Report From Japan

“You can’t unscramble eggs,” was the favorite remark of my church history professor. The hymn writer states the same idea in beautiful words:

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.

We may not be able to fathom all the mysterious movements in the Church, but we know that the Church, in all its branches and forms, is moving forward in Japan.

There is great hope, signs of vigorous growth and a courageous planning for big things.

There is hope because of the evident blessing of God.… In the mysterious rise of denominations (114 missions work with 65 denominations, more than double pre-war figures), the hand of the Lord is ever guiding, ever making “the wrath of man to praise him.” Through these various denominations, more people in more scattered areas and more diversified strata of society are being reached.

There is vigorous growth. The Japan Bible Society reports the largest sales in its history, with the publication of the Kogotai version New Testament in 1954 and the entire Bible in 1955. Sales for 1956 total 1,854,574 copies of Testaments and portions. The 1955 Bible won the Osaka Daily News prize for typography and style in its class of publications. More people are reading the Bible than ever before; consequently, more persons are seeking out the churches so as to understand the Bible. Another sign of growth is the rapid expansion of the lay visitation evangelism movement. In 1948, Bishop Arthur Moore and the Rev. Hugh S. Bradley came to Japan in an effort to introduce visitation evangelism, but it failed to “catch.” Then suddenly, in 1952, the Rev. Yoshida, pastor of Reinanzaka Church in Tokyo, “discovered” the method. He has been successfully advocating it throughout Japan.

The spiritual birthrate varies with each denomination, but on the whole compares favorably with older churches in the Western World. According to the 1956 yearbook published by the Christian News, the figures for 1955 show a total Protestant membership of 271,394, with 81,466 baptisms.

When we think of the small number of Christian in Japan, about one-fourth of one per cent of the population, it is amazing to see the courage with which they plan for great things. Two big events loom before them: the 14th World Convention of Christian Education, scheduled for Tokyo in August, 1958; and the Centennial Year of Protestant Missions, in 1959. Various plans are now being drawn up for a year of nationwide evangelistic campaigns.

J.A.M.

Korean Appraisal

Nowhere among the younger churches, save perhaps in the islands of the South Seas, has evangelism cut more deeply into the moral and spiritual fabric of a nation than Korea.

In two generations this hermit, pagan kingdom has become the most Protestant country of Asia. Out of the revivals of the first decade of this century, undergirded by earnest and intense Bible study, came a massive growth of the Protestant church, and out of this church have come the leaders of the new Korea, from President to primary school teachers, in such proportions as no other country of Asia has known.

Has the turning point, then, already been reached? Probably not. In the first place, revival has produced its paganreaction. Already there is powerful resentment among the non-Christian majority against the ascendancy of the Christian minority. In the second place, revival is no end in itself, but leads on to consistent, responsible Christian living, or it is discredited. It has taken only a few scandals in high places to begin to weaken the reputation for integrity which the Korean Church won for itself at so great a price in the days of persecution.

The basic question is: Can Korea’s Christians stand up to the corrosive responsibilities of power as gloriously as they have faced the tortures of the oppressors? Until we know the answer to that question, the immediate future of what may be called the Korean Revival remains in doubt.

S.H.M.

Decree On Bowing

The executive branch of the Chinese Nationalist government has published a decree authorizing penalties against state employees who refuse to bow to the flag or the portrait of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the founder of the Chinese Republic.

The decree upholds findings last year by the committees of law and education of the legislature that such salutes are “not acts of religious worship,” but merely gestures of respect to the flag and to the memory of Dr. Sun.

Issuance of the government decree climaxed a controversy which arose in 1953 when two American Presbyterian missionaries—Egbert W. Andrew and Richard B. Coffin—objected to the practice as “sacriligious.”

Middle East News: February 18, 1957

Christianity Today February 18, 1957

Another Invasion

Israel is anticipating an invasion of tourists from America and Europe, with a quick resumption of normal traffic expected.

The Israel Government Tourist Office in New York City reports many inquiries about bookings.

Coptic Leader Held

Archmandrite Joachim El Anthony, leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Israel, has been arrested by Israeli authorities on charges of espionage in behalf of Egypt.

The Coptic Church, founded at Alexandria in 451, is the largest Christian body in Egypt, with an estimated membership of 2,500,000.

The 45-year-old Egyptian-born priest was taken into custody as he crossed into Israeli territory through the Mandlebaum Gate from the Arab-held Old City. He has been head of the Coptic monastery in Jaffa since 1948 and has made several visits to Egypt.

Britain News: February 18, 1957

F.C.

Red Dean Attacked

The current issue of Cantuarian, the magazine of King’s School, Canterbury, carries an attack on the “Red” Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Hewlett Johnson.

The dean, 83, is chairman of the school governors.

Strong feeling was aroused in the school last term over Dr. Johnson’s views on the Russian invasion of Hungary. A petition, signed by nearly 200, was presented to the dean, deploring his attitude over Hungary.

Then came the editorial:

“Profoundly moved as we all are by the outrage the Russians have committed, the statement which the dean has made on the subject of Hungary has caused particular distress. This is not the first occasion on which we have felt strong disagreement with the dean’s views, nor the first time that we have regretted that such pronouncements should be made by a high dignitary of the Church of England and the chairman of our board of governors.

“We have not so far taken issue with the dean in these pages out of respect for his office; and, like everyone else, he has the right of his own opinions and the right to express them. But there comes a point when we, too, have the right to say what we think of views he has so publicly expressed and when, considering his official connection with us, we have a duty to do so.

“The Hungarian people know what Fascism is. They suffered under it both before and during the war. But the dean claims to see a resurgence of Fascism in a rising which has been made nationwide. And what must we think when we are told that an action which cannot be condoned from a moral point of view can be justified politically?

“It is true there are people who believe this, unfortunately even among those who do not otherwise share the dean’s views, but one is sorry to find such teachings coming from a minister of God.”

Books

Book Briefs: February 18, 1957

Life Against Nature

The Nun’s Story, by Kathryn Hulme. Little-Atlantic, Boston. $4.00.

Riding high on the nation’s best-seller lists in this fall and winter of election, war and rebellion is The Nun’s Story, Kathryn Hulme’s novelistic biography of a Belgian nurse who became a nun, served her order for 16 years at home and in the Congo and returned to “the world” at the end of World War II.

The book’s right to be a best-seller is obvious: it caters to the well-known American preoccupations with medicine and hospital life, with psychiatry, with the bizarre and mysterious continent of Africa, with the secrets of the cloister, and with the Resistance movements during the Nazi occupation. For Sister Luke, the heroine, did not lead a life of quiet retirement. During her novitiate she finished her nurse’s training and received a diploma in psychiatry in institutions run by her Order. Her first months out from under the wing of the mother-house where she was trained were in a rigorous government course in tropical medicine. The proving ground where she demonstrated the ability and stability to undertake missionary work was a large mental hospital for women which the Order operated.

Finally she reached Africa, the land of her dreams, but instead of being allowed to do evangelistic work among the natives was detained as a supervisory nurse in the European hospital in a large city in the Congo. Just before the outbreak of World War II, she made an emergency trip to Europe, accompanying a mental patient, and was caught in the hostilities. From her nursing post in the tuberculosis wing of a hospital she aided the fight of her countrymen against the Nazis after their armies had surrendered. In this struggle she realized openly what had been implicitly true all along, that she was more nurse than nun, and that her Christian conscience often contradicted the rule of life she had sworn to follow. The story ends the morning she shed her habit, and dressed in a lay nurse’s uniform supplied by the Order, stepped forth into a strange world to make her own way.

The elements of a “sure-fire hit” are here, but above them all are religion and the religious life. The Nun’s Story is being read in search of an answer to the spiritual needs of today by the same people who followed Thomas Merton to the Seven Storey Mountain, who seek to “understand” such diverse characters as Albert Schweitzer and Billy Graham, or who eagerly looked for Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From The Sea. The answer given by The Nuns Story is not simple or unequivocal. In spite of her departure from the Order, Sister Luke remains a devout Catholic, and no where does she deny the validity of a Rule—for those who subscribe to it.

From the first days of her postulancy to the days of war, a battle raged between Sister Luke and the religious life. She and “it” might he described as the two protagonists of this book.

Gabrielle Van der Mal, the girl who became Sister Luke, was the lively young daughter of a famous surgeon. She had medicine in her blood, had learned to use a microscope when she learned to read. She was devoutly religious, and though her father had prevented her marriage to the man she loved, entered the Order from a sincere devotion and desire to serve Christ as a missionary in the Congo, a land that had captured her imagination.

Alongside Sister Luke is the Life to which she is dedicated. The making of a nun is given in brilliant detail, from the hundred bare cubicles which the novice marvels can hold such diverse women and not show it, to the perfect worship in the motherhouse chapel which must not be disturbed even when a Sister faints, to the silent meals in the refectory and to the “recreation” in the sunny garden where the sisters sit in a large circle and talk—but only of items of general interest. Through Sister Luke’s eyes as a novitiate we see these women living by a Rule which forbids mirrors (or even highly polished shoes), which provides a small flagellant made of light chains with hooks at the end of each (but orders moderation when it gives them), and which gives the older sisters permission to talk to the novices when their hair is clipped (to prevent nervous giggles at the sight of one another’s bald heads). With her we learn the rules governing the minutiae of daily life—eating, sleeping, walking, speaking, praying, travel, clothes, letters. Each small rule, we learn, is to further the community toward its goal of “constant conversation with God.”

The striking demands made in God’s name are for detachment, charity, obedience—and perfection in the keeping of the Rule. On the road to detachment from “the world” the nun leaves behind belongings, pictures, even a room of her own in the dormitory. The call of a bell stops her in the middle of a word or in the middle of a helpless child’s meal to turn to prayer. The road to charity leads through humility, service, and selflessness. Obedience is won through public confession of faults—and the older sisters help a younger one if her memory seems lacking. The goal of perfection involves continuous self-searching for faults—as well as a voice that is neither too loud nor too low, and promptness that is neither late nor early. The battle between Sister Luke and the religious life rages around one principle—obedience. The first trial came when a superior suggested that it might be a great gift to God if Sister Luke were purposely to fail her examination in tropical medicine, in order to restore the self-esteem of an older sister who feared she might fail. After days of self-searching and prayer she found that she could not throw away her training and prospects for service in such a way. In the Congo, gradually she turned from nun to nurse, apparently feeling that God needed her more in the hospital than in the sisterhood. Back at home, under the stress of war, she turned more and more to the Underground and to the spiritual needs of her patients as having priority over the rules of the Order. Sister Luke could not be a good nun; her conscience protested.

Whatever one’s religious background, this book leaves in the mind admiration and appreciation—of the life as well as of Sister Luke. The nuns who follow this Rule are fine people, sincere in their desire to serve God. There are a minimum of neurotic or misplaced inhabitants of the Order—a smaller percentage than one would find in “the world.” The grandeur of their goals shames those of us who with deadened consciences settle for less. In Sister Luke, in spite of her “failure”, we find a Christian heroine, for she tried, and her courage was spiritual as well as moral and physical. The great traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience when we see them lived before us strike at our hearts and show up our softness, self-indulgence, weakness of will, sloth, and our lack of any intention to put God first. The rigorous life of the cloister and the accomplishments of the sisters make us aware of the dissipation of our energies into so much that is not ‘ “of faith.”

And yet there is much about the so-called “religious life” that gives one pause. One to whom the Orders are strange, whose tradition does not include a veneration of them as a higher way of life, cannot but be struck by the conflicts inherent in this life. Obedience and charity are at war when a nurse takes away the cup of milk at a child’s lip so that she may pray. The “grand silence” Sister Luke found kept her from ever talking to her patients of their souls’ needs in the one time of day when they relaxed and “opened up.” The humility and charity in failing the medical tests would have been achieved at the cost of a lie. The detachment from the world includes detachment from the other nuns as well—and the heart cries out against such a studied denial of nature. Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus and wept, yet the sisterhood may not mourn its martyrs. What is the glory of “a life against nature?” (Mother Emmanuel’s description to the novices.)

The age we live in is in many ways an age of anarchy. Standards are changing in many areas of life, as governments are changing around the world. Our enthusiasms, our passions are muddied and impure. We Americans particularly are doing our best to sell our spiritual birthright for something we call “the American way of life,” but which in another day might be called gluttony or greed. The tenor of our times is to seek comfort and content. Our slang farewell bids fair to become our national creed: “Take it easy!”

Is it any wonder that from the midst of a self-indulgent, materialistic society like ours the cloister looks like heaven, or at least a haven? Its battles exist, but they look easier perhaps than the everyday decisions facing Christians. If I have given away everything it is no longer painful to decide between keeping up with the Joneses and my obligations as a Christian steward. If I bind myself to mass and prayers seven times a day, I am no longer plagued with the proper use of time. Is it any wonder that to one whose conscience pricks the cool, quiet, holy life of discipline and charity—and withdrawal—calls? Is it a surprise to find Trappist monks in our popular magazines—and Sister Luke sponsored as a Book of the Month? Or that untold numbers of women read Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s extremely tentative searchings for some kind of inner life?

But withdrawal can never be the answer for all of us—and as Protestants we even say for any of us. The life which the Gospel imparts is to be shared. Jesus was no ascetic—in fact he made rather a point of being the opposite. Neither did he show two ways of life-one for the mass of his followers and one for the special few with higher aspirations.

The New Testament denies a “life against nature.” It hallows all of life, all its relationships, all its duties and obligations, all its tasks. There is one call to all-in the words of Paul, “Follow after love.” How can we compute the value of an ordinary life—outwardly unrestricted by a special rule, unhampered by petty laws, in which the love of Christ is released? Which is greater, the denial of self within the bounds of a community, or the forgetfulness of self of an ordinary man, living an ordinary life, beset by the problems of all mankind, yet who gives the cup of water, the coat along with the cloak, or goes the second mile? We see Christ in a dedicated nun indeed, but is He not more evident in the life of a mother or house-wife who has made of her work an offering to God?

The disciplines of life which the convent brings to our attention are all there in the New Testament. Sister Luke and her world speak to our hearts because they have the strength too many of us lack. Set times of prayer are not a monopoly of any one group—they may he found recommended by such diverse Protestants as William Law and Frank Lauhach. Some of the disciplines should be part of our daily lives if we are aware of our need of “constant conversation with God.” Some of them have their place on special occasions, in times of preparation for future service, or for short periods of special need. Paul says husbands and wives may stay apart for prayer and fasting. Jesus spent some time in fasting, some whole nights in prayer; neither was made an absolute. For our discipline, our gifts, our virtues themselves, are all subservient to one principle: “The greatest of these is love.” Sister Luke said her conscience asked questions; love can tell us when to pray and when to work. It told Hudson Taylor on one occasion to get up from his knees where he was asking God to supply the needs of a family in want and give them the money in his pocket. “Love never faileth.”

Sister Luke can teach us the importance of singleness of heart—we who live so close to Mammon. She can teach us not to be afraid of differences which may be the result of following Christ—if a nun can forget all the inconveniences and peculiarities of her life in serving others, can we not bear to do without something our television sets declare we need, to be perhaps a little shabby, or to forego the neighborhood cocktail parties or poker games—for His sake?

We can love Sister Luke, and admire her for what she is—and at the same time remember the words of Paul: “I show you a more excellent way.”

PRUDENCE TODD MOFFETT

Defensive Tone

American Catholicism by John Tracey Ellis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956. Cloth $3.00, paper $1.75.

The Right Reverend John Tracy Ellis, Professor of Church History at the Catholic University of America, editor of the Catholic Historical Review and author of a number of works on English and American Catholicism is certainly the right man to write this volume for The Chicago History of American Series. He has produced a succinct and scholarly piece of work for both historian and general reader.

It is not possible in the space available for this review to give anything more than a very brief statement of the contents of the work; but probably the four chapter headings summarize it most effectively. I. The Church in Colonial America, 1492–1790; II. Catholics as Citizens, 1790–1852; III. Civil War and Immigration, 1852–1908; IV. Recent American Catholicism.

Dr. Ellis traces clearly and interestingly the history of the rise and expansion of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S.A. He cannot of course go into great detail, but his work does form a good, readable introduction.

The most important criticism which one could make of the work, however, is that a defensive tone dominates the work. There is a continual stress upon the “maltreatment” meted out to Roman Catholics both in Britain and in America.

No doubt Professor Ellis has some reason for complaint, but he never mentions that Roman Catholics in America were much better off than Protestants in Roman Catholic countries. For instance he fails to say that while Roman Catholics were at least permitted to live in Maryland, albeit under certain restrictions, Protestants were absolutely banned from New France and from the Spanish Empire.

Coupled with this he has ignored the reasons for American anti-Roman Catholic movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has apparently failed to understand the influence which the anti-liberal actions of Pius IX and of the Roman church in Spain, Bolivia and other countries have had upon American Protestant thinking.

To pass these examples of Roman Catholic persecution off as having no more relation to American Catholicism than Afrikaander racial polices have to American Calvinists is a little misleading (p. 158). After all the anti-Protestant actions in Roman Catholic countries seem to be based upon that church’s doctrine and law. (cf. A. G. Cicognani, Canon Law, Philadelphia, 1935, pp. 120 ff.) It is because of this that many Americans fear the possibility of the Roman church gaining political power.

Yet, despite this weakness, the book should be of great use to those who are concerned with the contemporary American religious picture. It is well produced and has an excellent list of suggested readings.

W. STANFORD REID

Useful Instruction

Personal Evangelism, by J. C. Macaulay and Robert H. Belton. Moody Press, Chicago. $3.25.

The instructors in evangelism at Moody Bible Institute have prepared a textbook on personal evangelism that should find wide acceptance both in and out of the classroom. These men write out of passion for the souls of the lost, and both of them bring to the task a broad background of experience in this field. The result is a book which lends itself well to class use but which will be stimulating and helpful to the individual reader as well.

The book begins with a careful definition of evangelism and then treats the message of evangelism. This latter section shows that man’s need of salvation lies in his guilt, depravity, alienation and judgment, and then clearly demonstrates how perfectly the Gospel of Christ meets each aspect of man’s need. The authors’ conclusion here is “We need no new Gospel, no new evangelism but a mighty increase of sane, sound, Spirit-filled evangelism” (p. 28).

The presentation of the various forms of evangelism takes in some of the most recent developments in this field and shows how each new form has its place in God’s plan. The counsel given by the authors as to the way of approaching various types of people is most practical, and to this reviewer, the section on dealing with Roman Catholics was especially valuable. Almost any Christian, however experienced in personal work, would be helped and encouraged by reading these pages.

The book is characterized by a wealth of illustration, much of it drawn from the experience of the authors, and by an evident familiarity with the books which have become classics in this field. A helpful bibliography is appended, and a list of questions is given at the close of each chapter.

HORACE L. FENTON, JR.

The Red Dean

Christians and Communism, by the Very Reverend Hewlett Johnson, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Putnam. 10s, 6d.

Britain’s “Red Dean” states his views in this book, and sees Communism as an ally of Christianity. To do this, he has to concentrate on the field of moral ideals. Thus the Marxist slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” is a commendable aim for the Christian. Ideas of brotherhood and of human rights may be found in the two systems. Moreover, the Christian approves the banning of suggestive papers, films and advertisements, as also do the Russians.

The Dean baits his hook attractively, but the hook is what worries the Christian. Ideas of brotherhood and human rights sound hollow in the face of happenings in Hungary and elsewhere. The kindly Communist provisions for old people presuppose that one is allowed to grow old before being “removed.” And at heart the Christian finds the basis of Communism in hopeless antagonism to Christianity, in spite of what the Dean says. Thus, “Ultimate reality, says the Marxist, is a substance, a stuff, a something objective, existing outside us and our mind, though including our minds. The basis of reality is substance, not just idea; substance, as in the Christian Creed” (p. 125). Here is a subtle misuse of the term “Substance” in the Nicene Creed. Are Christianity and Communism brothers because both are monistic, even though the ground of one is the personal God and the ground of the other is matter?

What shall we say of matter and spirit? “Jesus was materialistic in His attitude to the world” (p. 28). Yet He taught the essential need for faith in himself and of spiritual rebirth. “Jesus was not hated for his attitude to God. He was violently hated for his attitude to man” (p. 47). Yet scholars have shown a high proportion of parallels between the moral teachings of Jesus and those of the rabbis. Jesus stood his trial on a charge of blasphemy, and reasserted his own identity with the Son of Man of prophecy.

J. STAFFORD WRIGHT

Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: February 18, 1957

William A. Mueller

The Southland continues to be perturbed over racial desegregation problems. We read of violence and resistance to the Supreme Court decision of May, 1954. What are Southern Baptists, the largest and most influential Christian body in the South, doing about the situation?

It is a fact that a number of Southern Baptist pastors have been ousted from their churches because of their loyalty to King Jesus and their defense of constituted rights for all Americans. The Rev. Paul Turner, pastor of First Baptist Church in Clinton, Tenn., made the headlines due to his courageous stand for righteousness in race relations.

The Alabama Baptist (Dec. 20, 1956) copies from RNS a detailed account of the Rev. Mr. Turner’s defense of Negro children’s basic rights. This same journal prints an editorial from the Chilton County News in the same issue:

In this day of race problems, would all races accept Him, no matter which He chose to be born into? He is the King of all races and yet, would we listen to His Word if He were anything but Anglo-Saxon?

More likely than not, this editorial continues, were Jesus to appear again, he would not come as a “dynamic business, political, or religious figure,” but would “make His appearance where He was least expected.”

“Few things are more dangerous than the germs of racial prejudice,” writes The Baptist Reflector of Tennessee (Sept. 20, 1956). Christians, it is argued, have a new spirit. They are therefore concerned that all men are treated with fairness. T. B. Matson, professor in Southwestern Baptist Seminary, Texas, writing in the same journal, speaks of the substitution of orthodoxy for basic morality and practical Christian living. “Some of the most unscrupulous, dishonest, immoral preachers are loudest in proclaiming their orthodoxy.” Alas, such can also be the worst purveyor of prejudice and hate in race relations!

Pastor Sterling Price of University Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas, spoke to 3000 persons at the Baptist Training Union conference at Wichita Falls with prophetic force when he said:

The Christian churches are failing to take decisive action on such social issues as racial discrimination, labor relations and work opportunities.

Thus reports The California Baptist (Dec. 13, 1956).

The Christmas 1956 editorial of the Florida Baptist Witness stabs us wide awake with these questions: “Are we as concerned for the Mexican in San Antonio as for the one in Mexico City, for the Chinese in Miami as for the one in Hong Kong, for the Indian on the Seminole reservation as for the one in South America, … for the Negro in Jacksonville as for the one in Nigeria …?”

President W. R. White of Baylor University in the Baptist Standard of Texas (Nov. 10, 1956) speaks of the issue of racial integration as the greatest problem confronting Southern Baptists since the days of slavery. “It threatens to sever the fellowship of Southern Baptists in twain.” Dr. White senses the urgency of the situation. He counsels moderation, warns against the hotheads on both sides of the controversy, but considers adjustment imperative for several reasons: world opinion is against treating any human being as less than human; Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, the U. S. Constitution, the Judeo-Christian concept of God compels us to act; our far-flung missionary endeavors face the shadow of unfavorable reaction; as communistic agitation and Catholic attempts to lure the Negro away from our ranks, these dangers and imperatives compel us to be “Christian in principle, spirit and attitudes.”

Professor Stewart A. Newman of Southeastern Baptist Seminary at Wake Forest, N. C., in his The Christian’s Obligation to All Races lays bare the tragic race issue in these sobering words:

The extent of this contradiction of our ideals with our attitude and conduct toward other races is illustrated by the reaction of new converts who recently came to America from our mission fields in Africa. Young people who were the product of our Southern Baptist evangelistic and educational work in Africa were unprepared for the disillusionment which they suffered when brought by our missionaries to this Christian land. They were caught up in such a maelstrom of bickering and prejudice, race antagonisms and discriminations as to be ostracized from the Christian fellowship which was the source of their greatest blessing.

This tract bears the imprint of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. J. B. Matson’s Integration and John Hass Jones’ The Unity of Humanity speak with equal vigor and clarity on the issue under discussion and are being widely distributed among Southern Baptists. In due time they will bear fruit, but the going will be hard in the days immediately ahead.

Christianity and Crisis (Dec. 24, 1956) admits—and this is encouraging to all right-minded people in the South—that “vast progress has already been made in the direction of public acceptance of the Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution, though, to be sure, defiance and outbreaks of violence are what makes headlines.” While the editor, E. T. J., considers the Supreme Court decision of 1954 “a great moral judgment,” he nevertheless realistically states that “evils that have a tragic character are not expunged by recourse to law.” John C. Bennett of Union Theological Seminary, commenting in the same journal (Oct. 29, 1956) on Billy Graham’s stand on desegregation of our public schools in Life, calls it a “truly prophetic statement about the racial problem.” Bennett believes that “there is no other Christian leader in America who can do so much as Billy Graham to open the eyes of believing Christians to the implications of their faith in this area.”

There are other hopeful signs on the horizon of Southern Baptists in this matter of race relations. Their five theological seminaries with their more than 5000 students have been interracial for more than five years. During the recent Thanksgiving season two international house parties with more than 300 nationals from Latin and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe met in Mississippi and Tennessee for fellowship and discussion of crucial issues facing the life of mankind today.

Other Christian communions in the South are equally concerned about the issue. On the whole, “it seems Christians are more favorable to the abolition of the caste system than secular opinion in the same communities, and Catholics are often more energetic than Protestants, and preachers more positive and articulate on the race issue than laymen.” Thus states W. E. Garrison of Houston University in a recent issue of the Virginia Baptist journal, The Religious Herald.

Cover Story

God and the Continental Congress

Stewart M. Robinson

The Journals of the Continental Congress make an excellent textbook on free government. Excerpts would be suitable for the Voice of America. Full sets given to political leaders in a dozen languages might help the cause of peace.

The thirteen original states of our Federal Republic sent a total of 337 official delegates to this remarkable convention during the period September 5, 1774, to the end of 1786, after which its work was taken up by the Constitutional Convention.

A Working Congress

The Congress put in 3,100 working days. The 1774 session was designedly brief, 35 working days. The 1775 session began by appointment May 10, and took the month of August off. In the following years, Congress was on duty twelve months, and took no time off save for Sundays, Good Fridays, and Christmas Days, but not New Year’s Days. It met six days a week. It lost a week in 1776, moving from Philadelphia to Baltimore. In 1777 it lost about two weeks shifting from Philadelphia to New York, via Lancaster. Its sojourn in Princeton in the summer of 1783 was marked by a rather desultory ending. The Annapolis residence became a little sketchy at the end, that at Trenton only an episode. But the last two years in New York saw a strong comeback in pertinacity. The score by years and work-days runs thus: 1774, 35 days; 1775, 146; 1776, 291 days and no day lost by reason of no quorum or no business; 1777, 287 days with 7 lost; 1778, 304 with 1 lost; 1779, 309 with 2 lost; 1780, 299 with 1 lost; 1781, 284 with 2 lost; 1782, 231 with no day lost; 1783, 214 with 21 days lost; 1784, 182 days (26 as Committee of the States) with 33 days lost; 1785, 215 days with 37 days lost; 1786, 206 days with 14 days lost. The founding fathers accepted the Ten Commandments, which state that the Sabbath Day is holy, and that “six days shalt thou labor.”

Sunday Sessions Unusual

In spite of the tensions of that period only seven Sunday sessions were held. Sunday, July 14, 1776, Congress determined “That an express be sent to overtake the powder wagons going to Virginia … that the committee … of Virginia … send … as much of the lead they now have at Williamsburg as they can spare … that a letter be written to the commanding officer in the Jerseys, to march such of the militia, and flying camp … as they may judge necessary … that the committee … of Pennsylvania be requested immediately to order to the several places of their destination all the British officers, prisoners, in this city; their ladies not to be requested to go until the weather is more suitable … that the commanding officer in Pennsylvania … exert himself to forward the immediate march of the militia to New Jersey … that the deputy quarter-master general be directed to request the use of some house of public worship, to cover the troops during their short stay in this city.”

Congress met Sunday, December 29, 1776, to arrange to get “cannon and ordnance stores as are required … being immediately necessary.” Sunday, August 3, 1777, Congress ordered Washington to relieve General Philip Schuyler of command. Sunday, September 14, 1777, Congress met to resolve “that the Board of War be directed to … remove all public bells in Philadelphia … upon a near approach of the enemy … that if Congress shall be obliged to remove from Philadelphia, Lancaster shall be the place at which they shall meet … that the public papers be put under the care of Mr. Clark … General Dickinson … is hereby directed … to conduct the said papers safe.”

Sunday, April 26, 1778, brought Congress together at 3 P.M. to conduct several “yea and nay” votes which had been demanded the previous day. On Sunday, September 26, 1779, Congress met to hear letters announcing the arrival of the French fleet. Congress met on Sunday, April 8, 1781, upon receipt of intelligence that the British fleet was moving out of New York harbor, presumably for the Chesapeake.

Prayer Indispensable

Almost the first item of business in September, 1774, was to obtain a Chaplain for Congress and ask him to open Congress with prayer. With a broad-minded recognition of good religion and good sense the strongly nonliturgical New Englanders plumped for an Episcopalian. Thenceforth, chaplains were regularly elected, two of them at a time. One liturgical and one nonliturgical cleric made up the team. The Journals contain references to stipends, and calls made upon them for additional duty at the funerals of members who died while in attendance. There is one period when the daily Journal commences with the word “Prayers.” The pay schedule on an annual basis indicates that the chaplains officiated regularly as a part of each day’s proceedings. While Congress met in Philadelphia and in New York, and these two places were the principal places of meeting, the clergy were local churchmen, and doubtless carried on other responsibilities.

Recognition Of God

Reference should be made to the public statements of the Continental Congress that recognize God. 1775 had a Fast-Day Resolution; 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782 saw Congressional proclamations for both a Fast-Day and a Day of Thanksgiving. We are familiar with Thanksgiving Days. Where are the Fast-days? Perhaps we are missing something in the most important form of public relations: “getting right with God.” The first Fast-Day Resolution (June 12, 1775) might well be cited since most moderns do not know what the term signifies. “As the great Governor of the World, by his supreme and universal Providence, not only conducts the course of nature with unerring wisdom and rectitude, but frequently influences the minds of men to serve the wise and gracious purposes of his providential government; and it being at all times our indispensable duty devoutly to acknowledge his superintending providence, especially in times of impending danger and public calamity, to reverence and adore his immutable justice as well as to implore his merciful interposition for our deliverance: This Congress, therefore, considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state of these colonies, do earnestly recommend that Thursday, the 20th day of July next, be observed, by the inhabitants of all the English colonies on this continent, as a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer; that we may, with united hearts and voices unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins, and offer up our joint supplications to the all-wise, omnipotent, and merciful Disposer of all events; humbly beseeching him to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present calamities, to avert those desolating judgments with which we are threatened, and bless our rightful sovereign, King George the Third, and inspire him with wisdom to discern and pursue the true interest of all his subjects, etc.”

The Thanksgiving proclamation of October 11, 1782, still glows with the flush of great achievements. “It being the indispensable duty of all nations, not only to offer up supplications to Almighty God, the giver of all good, for his gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner to give him praise for … great and signal interpositions of his Providence in their behalf, the United States in Congress assembled, taking into consideration the many instances of divine goodness to these states … the present happy and promising state of public affairs … do hereby recommend to the inhabitants of these states in general, to observe, … Thursday, the 28 day of November next, as a day of solemn Thanksgiving to God for all his mercies; and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify their gratitude to God for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience to his laws, and by promoting … true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.”

Spiritual Priorities

A series of letters to the people stud the annals of the Continental Congress, and they are real jewels in the treasury of our country. Besides rendering a faithful accounting of legislative service, they sound a clear note of truthful information, and upon occasion call attention to the spiritual nature of man and to the place which God has in the life of national society. Not every such communication mentions God, but enough do to emphasize the feelings of the heart.

“Above all things we earnestly intreat you, with devotion of spirit, and penitence of heart and amendment of life, to humble yourselves, and implore the favour of almighty God; and we fervently beseech the divine goodness, to take you into his gracious protection.” (Address to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies—October 21, 1774.)

On the same day that Congress assembled in Philadelphia, in May, 1775, pursuant to a call issued on their adjournment in October, 1774, doughty Ethan Allen entered Fort Ticonderoga and demanded its surrender. Captain Delaplace, commanding the garrison, required his authority. Allen answered, as told by Washington Irving, “In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.” No tell-tale radio babbled hourly news reports of Philadelphia events to forest-bound Ticonderoga. Many Americans, however, in those days, believed that people should do what they were intended to do, that authority issued from proper agencies, and that God and man linked together make an unbreakable chain.

On December 10, 1776, Congress addressed the citizens: “Confiding in your fidelity and zeal in a contest the most illustrious and important, and firmly trusting in the good providence of God, we wish you happiness and success.” Trenton and Princeton came as an answer to that firm trust.

May 29, 1777, another report was made to the nation, closing: “Do what it is in your Power to do; and you have the greatest reason to rest assured that, under the gracious protection of divine Providence, your virtuous struggles will be crowned with abundant success.”

May 26, 1779, Congress addressed “The Inhabitants of the United States of America” in a summary of the situation which was read beside firesides where the chill of evening still traveled on the wind.

“Fill up your battalions … place your several quotas in the continental treasury … prevent the produce of the country from being monopolized … effectually superintend the behaviour of public officers; diligently promote piety, virtue, brotherly love, learning, frugality and moderation; and may you be approved before Almighty God worthy of those blessings we devoutly wish you to enjoy.”

The principal business of Congress while the fighting lasted was to read the daily communications from George Washington and make suitable answers. Washington was a member of the Congress until he accepted its commission as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Continent in June, 1775. On December 23, 1783, Washington appeared before Congress to return his commission. It is a moving statement: “Mr. President: The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself before them, to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country … my gratitude for the interposition of Providence, and the assistance I have received from my countrymen, increases with every review of the momentous contest … I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have superintendence of them to his holy keeping. Having now finished the work assigned to me, I retire from the great theatre of action and bidding affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose order I have so long acted, I here offer my commission and take leave of all the employments of public life.”

END

Ordained to the ministry in 1918, Stewart M. Robinson served as divisional chaplain, U.S. Army, with the American Expeditionary Forces and then served churches in Ohio, New York and New Jersey until, in 1934, he became editor of The Presbyterian. A frequent contributor to religious journals, Dr. Robinson is editor of Political Thought of Colonial Clergy.

Cover Story

The Bible and the Christian Writer

Frank E. Gaebelein

As we think about the Bible in relation to Christian writing, we must define Scripture in terms of the King James or Authorized Version. The literary influence of other translations through more than three centuries has been but a drop in the bucket compared with that of the King James Bible. Perhaps the Revised Standard Version or some other new translation may eventually supplant the King James Bible. If so, the loss from the literary point of view will be very great, as some versions of inferior nobility and vigor of language replace the book that is literature’s chief glory.

Turning now to the Christian writer, we need first of all to look closely at the objective, “Christian.” If we limit our discussion to the evangelical segment of Christianity, let us be careful to avoid any parochialism of outlook. Evangelicals are not the only Christians. There are those who share with us a firm belief in historic, supernatural Christianity, who worship Christ as Lord and Saviour, who take a high view of Scripture, yet who may not use all our terminology and who hold a view of the church and of the ministry different from ours. They, too, are Christians; and from some of them we have much to learn, especially when it comes to writing.

What Is A Christian Writer?

Let us grant that the writer whom we are considering is a Christian, a regenerated child of God, committed to the evangelical doctrines of Scripture. The question is, What do we really mean when we talk about a “Christian writer?” We might say simply that we mean Christians who write. That is much too broad a definition. The other day I asked the editor of a leading Bible study magazine, “What’s the matter with Christian writing today?” His answer was candid, if not entirely elegant: “Most Christian writers,” he said, “can’t write. Many of them can’t spell or punctuate. And a lot of them have nothing to say anyway.” The plain fact is that not every Christian who writes is a Christian writer!

We must go on, therefore, to identify the Christian writer as a Christian who, being reasonably competent in the craft of writing, treats his subject in a manner that directly or indirectly reflects his spiritual convictions. He may be working in such fields as theology, biblical exposition, philosophy, or other areas closely related to the faith. Or he may be writing about so-called secular matters. Again, he may be practising what is often called “creative writing,” such as fiction or poetry. Whatever his subject matter, he is a Christian writer if the Christian world view, which is the world view based upon the Bible, is reflected in his writing.

This distinction is subtle but all-important. Reflecting the Christian world view does not mean conscious and obvious moralizing or, heaven forbid, labored preaching. It does mean that Christians, and certainly Christian writers, ought to have a God-centered view of life and the world. And it means also that this view of life, this Weltanschauung, to use the German term, is not held in a vacuum. Anyone, whether writer, teacher, or scientist, who has genuinely committed himself to the Christ who is the living God incarnate has made a decision that henceforth will color all of his work and all of his thinking. How far-reaching that decision is Browning tells us in “A Death in the Desert”:

I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ

Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee

All questions in the earth and out of it,

And has so far advanced thee as to be wise.

All writers must write from some particular point of view. And Christian writers ought to write from a God-centered, Christ-oriented, biblical view of life.

But at this point in our discussion we must turn back to the Bible. What is there about Scripture that makes it the one book of incomparable influence upon the Christian writer? First, the truth that the Bible reveals; second, the manner in which it states this truth. The two are organically related in that the second grows out of the first. To begin with, it is primarily the distinctive, biblical view of life and the world that influences the Christian writer. The major premise of Scripture is the living God. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the God who, through his Spirit, inspired the Book. He is the God who, when he speaks in the Book, tells the truth. In the Bible, therefore, he tells the truth about himself and about man, sin, the world that now is and the world that is to come. Thus the Bible presents a view of life and of the world distinctively its own and in a class apart from all other philosophies and all other religions. And this view the Bible equates with truth.

Next, turning to style and form, we find a correspondence with the content of Scripture. The Book that communicates truth speaks truly. The reference here is not to the inerrancy of Scripture, important though that is. Rather am I speaking from the writer’s point of view. Though we must always remember that our Bible is a translated book, it is remarkable how little fumbling for words the sensitive reader sees in Scripture. In its use of words, the Bible is the best model, because it speaks directly and truly; in it the right word is in the right place.

Think, for example, of the declaration of John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Here is finality of expression. So also with the words of our Lord, “By their fruits ye shall know them” or, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Go back to the Old Testament and there is the same rightness of expression, as in the psalmist’s petition, “Search me, O God, and know me; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.” Likewise with Job’s great affirmation: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” It was not without reason that the Greek rhetorician, Longinus, in his treatise On the Sublime, which, by the way, every writer ought to know, took as an example of sublimity in literature the words of Moses in Genesis: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

Contagious Greatness Of Scripture

Now this quality of unerring choice of the right word in the right place carries over to the writer who is steeped in the Bible. In the Princeton University Alumni Bulletin (June 1, 1956), there is a moving address by Judge Harold Medina on “The Influence of Woodrow Wilson on the Princeton Undergraduate, 1902–1910,” a period covering the judge’s own college years. In this address, Judge Medina says this of Wilson:

But how he could talk! And we flocked to hear him … At first we were fascinated by his perfect diction and the skill with which he chose just the right combination of words to express his meaning. Pretty soon it dawned on us that what he had to say was important. There was no mistaking his sincerity; he spoke with a singular intensity; he was always quoting from the Bible; and bit by bit he got his spiritual message over to us …

Moral principles, ideals, action, achievement, power; all these spelled out to us in the words of Christ, with continual emphasis upon unselfishness and sacrifice, the peace and good will to men which went beyond one’s own borders and reached out to all mankind, and the unending fight against what he called “the thraldom of evil.”

Here was a man who really believed in unselfish devotion to one’s country, who was seeking, in the words he quoted from the Bible, to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God,” and to lead us out of the wilderness into green meadows where ideals and principles were formulated and acted upon. This is what young people craved to hear in 1909, it is what they crave to hear now, and it is what they will always crave to hear.

Woodrow Wilson was not only a great president; he was also a great writer, a great Christian writer, if you will. And he was a great Christian writer in large part because of his intimate and continued use of the Bible.

In his Aims of Education, Professor Alfred North Whitehead has written what Sir Richard Livingstone of Oxford calls the greatest statement about education outside Plato: “Moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness.” Unfortunately, Whitehead lets us down as he points to the history and culture of ancient Greece and Rome as “the habitual vision of greatness.” Certainly for the Christian writer, “the habitual vision of greatness” is not classical history and literature but the Bible, the Word of the living God. And a host of great writers rise up to prove this point.

An Inescapable Influence

The influence of the Bible upon our literature is inescapable. Think of Shakespeare, who in his thirty-seven plays alluded to fifty-four of the sixty-six books of the Bible. How many Christians today know their Bibles that well? There is Bunyan, who, with meager education and knowing little beside the Bible, produced the greatest allegory in the English language. Edgar Allan Poe, whose subject matter was far removed from Scripture, drew heavily upon it, as Professor Forrest of the University of Virginia showed in his fascinating study, Biblical Allusions in Poe. We think too of Lincoln, the writer of our most imperishable American prose. In his recent book, A Clerk of Oxenford, Professor Gilbert Highet of Columbia University has a fascinating essay tracing, line by line and phrase by phrase, the influence of the Bible upon the Gettysburg Address. And at that he misses the echo of the close of the eleventh chapter of Romans in Lincoln’s climactic series of phrases: “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

The most telling illustration of the inescapable influence of the Bible upon great writers comes from the poet Shelley. Shelley was expelled from Oxford because he wrote a pamphlet entitled “The Necessity of Atheism.” In it he said, “The genius of human happiness must tear every leaf from the accursed Book of God ere man can read the inscription on his heart.” Or, in less rhetorical language, “Man must tear up the Bible, if he would know himself.” Just eight years later Shelley wrote his greatest prose work, the critical essay, “In Defense of Poetry.” At its climax, this is what he said: “Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance [an allusion to Daniel]; if their sins were as scarlet, they are now white as snow [almost an exact quotation from Isaiah]; they have been washed in the blood of the Mediator and Redeemer, [New Testament, evangelical phraseology].” The brilliant, unbelieving poet of the nineteenth century could not escape the Bible.

Paradox Of Christian Writing

Now we come to the paradox of the Christian writer today. More than any other of his fellow writers, the Christian writer of our time is close to the Bible. His faith in a biblical one, so much so that he has been labeled bibliolater, biblicist, or literalist. The epithets may not be accurate, but they show that he is known for his closeness to the Bible. Yet in spite of this relationship to the Scriptures, evangelicals by and large are not writing well.

I happen to be associated with a book club that is committed to the policy of selecting for its members only evangelical writing of genuine worth. A survey of our selections since 1954 shows that a large proportion of them have been books from other countries—England, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Australia. Indeed, if we had depended upon the writings of American evangelicals, we should have had difficulty in continuing. Not only that, but of the many books submitted to us for consideration many are marred by careless writing.

To cite another example, a while ago I read Albert Schweitzer’s autobiography, Out of My Life and Work. The difference, theology aside, between this book and one by an evangelical writer that I read at about the same time was as the difference between day and night. With Schweitzer I felt in touch with a distinguished mind; the other book, although well-intentioned, was flat and uninspiring.

Evangelicals Have Written Well

It was not always so. A few generations ago, and, in fact, even more recently, evangelicals were writing a great deal better than today. Nor need we go as far back as Bunyan. Take, for example, a man of more modest ability, the Princeton theologian Charles Hodge. This is the tribute The Cambridge History of American Literature (Vol. III, pp. 202–203) pays him:

There is a strange sublimity and extraordinary perspicacity about the style of Charles Hodge. It is not style at all.… Yet … few books open the mind on fields of grandeur more frequently than this systematic theologian. Its prose is not unworthy of being associated in one’s mind with that of John Milton. Out of the depths this man cried unto his God and found Him.

He writes with transparent sincerity. There is neither condescension nor cringing. There is nothing left at loose ends. There is no sparing of thought.… He only claims to apprehend the Word of God.”

Of more recent evangelicals there is J. Gresham Machen, a writer not inferior to C. S. Lewis in his lucid facility in handling ideas. The Systematic Theology of Lewis Sperry Chafer contains passages of genuine nobility and power, especially in his treatment of the Atonement. Dr. Samuel Zwemer, apostle to the Moslems, wrote with notable vigor. And the books of Robert E. Speer, another evangelical, contain some eloquent writing; while for simple clarity, there is the work of Harry Ironside.

Why The Present Mediocrity?

But why are Christian writers not doing better today? To put it bluntly, there seems to be a short circuit between the Bible and most of our contemporary evangelical writing. We ought to be doing some of the best writing of the times simply because we are, of all writers today, nearest the Bible. But we are far from producing the best work. Why? Why is our supreme model, our authentic “vision of greatness,” being thwarted in its communication, if not of greatness, at least of distinction to our writing? The answers are not easy. I suggest six reasons why present-day Christian writing seems to be so little influenced by the Bible.

First of all, can it be that in this busy day of radios, TV, picture magazines, tabloids, condensed books, much traveling and many meetings, we simply do not know the Bible as well as we think we do—or as well as our predecessors knew it? Yes, we use the Book for preaching, for reference, for proof texts, for help and comfort. But is not much of our use of Scripture for an ulterior purpose? Do we really know, and love, and read the Bible for its own sake? There is such a thing as living in the Word, making it literally the vital context of life and thought. Bunyan did that and God used him to write a book of incomparable power.

Some years ago Professor Charles Grosvenor Osgood of Princeton wrote a little essay, Poetry as a Means of Grace. This is what the Princeton humanist—and he is a Christian humanist—advises, after recommending an intimate acquaintance with any one of the great poets as an antidote to modern materialism (p. 22):

Choose this author as friends are chosen … think of him daily in odd moments. Read a bit of him as often as you can, until at least parts of him become part of yourself. Do not consult other books or people by way of explaining him any more than you can help. Let him explain himself. What you thus come to know in him will every day seem new and fresh; every recourse to him brings forth new thought, new feeling, new application, new aspects of things familiar. He becomes an antiseptic agent against all the agencies that tend to make life sour, stale, and insipid.

Apply this counsel to the Bible, as Professor Osgood himself does. This is what we need—this kind of living in the Book, if the Bible is to communicate power to our writing. But for it to do this the evangelical writer must know the daily discipline of the Word of God, or it will never be for him a means of grace.

A second thwarted biblical influence in our writing is this: Many of us are not bringing to the Bible a truly Christian education. There is within us a tension between the secular and the Christian world view. Even in Christian institutions, the secular frame of reference has crept in. Yet all truth is God’s truth; the Bible knows no other truth but God’s. But most of us at some time in our education have become habituated—perhaps unconsciously—to the false dichotomy between sacred and secular truth. Thus, not being fully committed to a God-centered world view, we have allowed the secularism in our thinking to offset to some extent the biblical view of life.

Danger Of Trifling With Truth

A third reason for the short circuit between Scripture and Christian writing may be the comparatively low estate of aesthetic appreciation among evangelicals today. Is it possible that debasing the aesthetic faculty in some fields affects it in other fields? Consider the third-rate music that we so often hear and sing in our services—the jingling, flip choruses unequally yoked to the name and work of our Saviour, the hymns dripping with sentimentality. Think of the lack of good taste in some public presentations of the grand truths of redemption. At the close of a recent telecast by a popular evangelical leader, viewers were urged to write in for fifteen-cent key rings with “a cute, little cross” attached. What has happened to our Christian, let alone our aesthetic, sensibilities? There is artistic integrity, there is truth in art as in science, history, or finance. The tear-jerking religious tune is false, because musically it lacks integrity. The heart-rending sermon illustration that never happened in the first place, though all too often told by the preacher as though it happened to him, everything in our life and thought that savors of sentimentality and pretension—these too violate integrity. Do not be mistaken. The Bible knows what sentiment is; it is full of true and valid feeling, because it is par excellence the book of the human heart. But the Bible never sinks to pretense and sentimentality. And when evangelicals traffic in these things, the noble and wholesome influence of Scripture may be thwarted in our thinking and in our words.

In the next place, the supplanting of sound values by the world’s methods of popularity and success may be clouding the influence of the Bible upon our writing. This is a difficult problem. Christian writing needs the note of contemporaneity, but never at the expense of truth and never at the price of debasing the coinage of sound usage. Words are important. The right word need never be irrelevant. It is doubtful whether the right and the true word is ever the cliche of the popular, mass-circulation periodical. Exactness in usage is no more equated with stodginess of style than good taste with a dull, unattractive format in our publications. In an article in the Atlantic Monthly a few years ago Jacques Barzun dissected the growing vocabulary of business and bureaucracy. Words like “processing” as applied to human beings and the pretentious business usage of “contract” came under his scalpel. Perhaps a similar deflation is due some of the overworked words in our evangelical vocabulary, so that some day we shall no longer have to read about ministers “pastoring” churches and writers “authoring” books.

Biblical Criterion Of Work

The foregoing is related to a fifth explanation of lack of biblical influence upon evangelical writing today. It may be that some of us have forgotten the Scriptural principle of hard work, resulting in the achievement of excellence to the glory of God. As Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might”—a saying that finds its New Testament extension in Paul’s advice to the Colossian church, “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to men,” coupled in the same chapter with this great criterion: “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” But this costs; it costs hard work, and the price will not come down. Whatever we are doing as Christians, whether it be writing, or teaching, or anything else, let us remember that nothing is ever too good for the Lord. On the title page of his autobiography, I Remember, Abraham Flexner, whose report on medical schools revolutionized the teaching of medicine in America, quotes Hesiod: “Before the gates of excellence, the high gods have put sweat. Long is the road thereto and rough and steep at the first, but when the height is achieved then there is ease, though grievously hard in the winning.”

The Snare Of Pedantry

Still another reason for the comparatively low estate of writing among evangelicals may be an overconcern with the outward marks of scholarship. In recent decades a good many evangelicals have been among the “have nots” when it comes to recognized scholarship. Today we are concerned, and rightly so, with the growing prestige of evangelical thought. Thus, some who are writing in the more technical fields may be betrayed into a cumbersome vocabulary under the delusion that they are thereby being scholarly and profound. We may, however, safely leave that kind of style to theologians like Niebuhr and Tillich, both of whom excel in it. Instead, we should try to write clearly and incisively like Gresham Machen, or with the fluid lucidity of C. S. Lewis, neither of whom is ever obscure and both of whom are scholarly without pretense. Or, more modestly, we may seek the unadorned simplicity of an H. A. Ironside.

“The Man Of Letters As Saint”

Finally, consider a noble example of the Christian writer at his best, the greatest writer and theologian of the Reformation, John Calvin. Before his conversion Calvin was one of the most brilliant humanists of the Renaissance. In a biographical essay (Calvin and Augustine, pp. 4–5), Professor B. B. Warfield says:

It is interesting to observe the change which in the meantime [i.e., after Calvin’s conversion] has come over his attitude toward his writings. When he sent forth his commentary on Seneca’s treatise—his first and last humanistic work—he was quivering with anxiety for the success of his book.… He was proud of his performance; he was zealous to reap the fruits of his labor; he was eager for his legitimate reward. Only four years have passed, and he issues his first Protestant publication—the immortal “Institutes of the Christian Religion” … free from all such tremors. He is … content that no one of his acquaintance shall know him for the author of the book.… He hears the acclamations with which it was greeted with a certain personal detachment. He has sent it forth not for his own glory, but for the glory of God; he is not seeking his own advantage or renown by it, but the strengthening and the succoring of the saints.… He has not ceased to be a “man of letters,” … but he has consecrated all his gifts and powers … to the service of God and His gospel.

What we see in Calvin, thus, fundamentally is the “man of letters” as saint.… He was by nature, by gifts, by training—by inborn predilection and by acquired capacities alike—a “man of letters,” and he earnestly … wished to dedicate himself as such to God.

“The man of letters as saint.” It is an exalted ideal that we see in a man like Calvin, or, to turn to our own American literature, in Jonathan Edwards, whose literary eminence is so clearly recognized in the recent life by Professor Perry Miller. Verily, it is a great thing to be a Christian writer—a writer who tells the truth about God and His Son, a writer in whose work there is reflected even in a very small way the beauty and power of the Bible.

END

Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein, Headmaster of the Stony Brook School, on Long Island, is a gifted lecturer and writer in biblical and educational subjects. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of New York University, with an A.M. from Harvard, he holds honorary degrees from Wheaton College and the Reformed Episcopal Theological Seminary. This article abridges his lecture at a recent Workshop and Conference on “The Christian and the Literary Scene” at Wheaton.

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