Eutychus and His Kin: October 14, 1957

CONGRATULATIONS!

Parish activity is booming this fall—the Cooperative Community Canvass (COCOCAN), the Rally Day bonfire at the Cloverleaf Chapel, Dr. Ivy’s new allegorical play to be produced by the All Souls’ Players of Deepwell Heights. I was about to describe this seasonal color for your readers when I remembered that your magazine has now been appearing for a full year.

Congratulations are therefore in order. Naturally I went to my all-occasion box of greeting cards. (The girl across the street sells them.) Unfortunately, only two cards of congratulation were left. One featured a stork, the other showed two blissful fish captioned: “You are the ideal couple …” Inside the card this sentiment was concluded: “because there are two of you.”

Neither of these seemed appropriate, and I fell to musing about greeting cards in general. They are symptoms of the mass mind and the advertising era. A few thoughtful sentences of greeting can have the personal warmth of a smile and a handclasp. But isn’t it frightening to have our most personal wishes mass produced? Rather like wearing a plastic false face with the smile of a Hollywood star built in. Of course the cards are more clever than the greeting we could devise, but who can bear the wit who only quotes jokes?

Once greeting cards were all lace, frills, flowers and sentiment. Now, matching a more sourish mood, they are turning to zany wisecracks. Laughs … but no joy, greetings as thin and insincere as the smile of a hostess calling everybody “darling.”

There is another world of greeting in the Bible. Our Lord greeted not with a wish, but with a blessing. “Be of good cheer; it is I,” was his salutation in the roar of the tempest. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” So he said goodbye.

We who are Christ’s must remember to greet each other in the joy and blessing of his name. That is how I would salute you. (P.S.—When I remember some of your editorials, I would even like to add a holy kiss.)

EUTYCHUS

THE GRAHAM IMPACT

Your article is the most fair and the most comprehensive I have seen.… Thanks for your advancement of sanity in Christianity.

The Presbyterian Church

Seneca Castle, N. Y.

Thank you for your fine article on Billy Graham’s impact.…

Greensburg, Pa.

Was it Billy Graham’s impact … or the impact of the Holy Spirit …? After all, isn’t Billy just another of God’s servants?…

Dover, Ohio

Certainly many of the “liberal” persuasion have shown their willingness to accept the witness of Graham and others. But I am sure that they as well as myself would not accept the “success” of the Graham Crusade as the basis for authoritative efforts to exclude from Christian fellowship all who did not accept Graham’s theology in toto.…

Pentwater Methodist Church

Pentwater, Mich.

What is “biblical theology”? “biblical evangelism?”

Is Graham’s doctrinal emphasis the only brand that belongs to the historic Christian churches? Is it wholly true that “semi-unitarianism … is not expressive of genuine Christianity at all”?… If you are so certain that Graham’s “five points” are fundamental, and that we who … put a different interpretation on these points are lost … you are divisive.… “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” is still the fundamental requirement.… Paul said nothing about the virgin birth, and his interpretation of the resurrection is not literal.…

First Congregational Church

Chesterfield, Mass.

In connection with the Evanston meeting of the World Council of Churches I attended the Festival of Faith, the largest religious gathering in U. S. history. I won’t say how many. In fact, as a Christian, it makes me feel uneasy even to be comparative, to say nothing of superlative.

Come to think of it, the Roman Church soon thereafter, and in the same place (Soldiers Field, Chicago), held the largest religious gathering in U. S. history.

Come to read of it, the Graham Crusade in Yankee Stadium was (according to your newsman in “The Stadium Story,” Aug. 19) the largest religious gathering in U. S. history. But as a matter of record it was smaller than the World Council meeting. Which was smaller than Cardinal Stritch’s meeting.

Who started all this comparative and superlative business? The devil (whether you spell him or it with “D” or “d”). “When they … compare themselves …, they are without understanding.” (2 Cor. 10:12) Let the world have the statistics, by its own guesses. But God withhold the Church and its agencies from “giving out” the often inaccurate and always deceptive numbers!

The Community Church

Morton, Ill.

• Yankee Stadium (with many thousands outside as well) was probably the largest evangelistic meeting in U. S. history. We agree that the Church’s proper business is something superior to “this comparative and superlative business.” But we doubt that the Devil (large “D” except when he lulls theologians to sleep) was happy about the Stadium rally.—ED.

GOD AND THE ATOM

It was a “Christian” nation which actually used the bombs. It is we who have exploded the most test bombs. So we take the lead in frightfulness, in fear of the possible aiding of communism. We betray the Prince of Peace by putting our reliance on frightfulness …

St. Paul’s Evangelical and Reformed Church

Evansville, Ind.

It is possible for our scientists to detect within a few hours, or days at the most, when atomic weapons have been tested anywhere in the world.… Dr. Walter Selove, chairman of the Radiation Hazards Committee of the Federation of American Scientists, has predicted 50,000 cases of bone cancer or leukemia because of tests conducted so far. When you condemn the World Council of Churches for suggesting that tests be foregone for a trial period, your careful avoidance of reference to the above is obvious. Here is no unrealistic pacificism, such as most first century Christians were probably “guilty” of. The obvious implication is that we would forego tests only if other nations do the same. If we discover that they are not cooperating—and probably some sort of pledge would be made beforehand—we can simply resume the tests.…

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Bridgewater, Conn.

Perhaps … yours is the Judeo-Christian rather than the Christian view, and has not therefore arrived at the knowledge that you cannot win for Christ those you have slaughtered.…

Quaker Cove

Anacortes, Wash.

We must protest these tests—or find that hell has room for us all.…

Sutherland, Neb.

Your editorial on “Christ and the Atom Bomb” … has cured me from fear and the tendency to seek physical escape.…

Pasadena, Calif.

ANGLICANS AND ORDERS

There are a couple of misapprehensions in Mr. Hughes’ article on the English Anglican-Presbyterian negotiations (July 22) which ought to be set straight:

The fact that the “39 Articles of Religion” do not so much as mention …” episcopacy, is no test of the importance of this doctrine in the Anglican pattern. The 39 Articles are a series of pronouncements upon certain religious questions; they are not, and never have been intended to be, a comprehensive statement of Anglican faith. The “Preface to the Ordinal,” which does make clear the Anglican doctrine of episcopacy, is fully as binding on Episcopalians as the 39 Articles.

It is unfair to represent open communion as the traditional Anglican practice and closed communion as a new thing. The subject has always been a controversial one in the Anglican Church, and both sides can cite a long list of precedents from the past.

The Lord’s Table in the Anglican churches is fenced against unbelievers and notorious evil livers. The Prayer Book gives authority for this, and it is not a dead letter; I have had to use this Rubric now and then, though I don’t much enjoy doing it, naturally.

It seems to me that Protestants are usually unfair when they discuss union matters with Anglicans. I don’t think the unfairness is conscious on their part. But Mr. Hughes seems perfectly willing to say, “Let the episcopate give up its claims, and then we can have mutual recognition.” In other words, “Let the Anglicans espouse the Protestant position.” Yes, if we did that, unity would be easy enough to attain—but what concessions is Mr. Hughes prepared to make? I’m an Anglo-Catholic of at least four generations—perhaps more—and while I’m interested in church unity, I’m not willing to become a Presbyterian to get it.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Milwaukee, Wis.

The bias Mr. Hughes holds towards Anglo-Catholics is unjustified. By and large I have found Anglo-Catholics on this side of the Atlantic more sympathetic with the approach of CHRISTIANITY TODAY than are “liberal-evangelicals” in the American Church. The statement (July 22 issue, page 39), “considerable numbers of ministers with no more than Presbyterian orders were admitted to full ministry in the Church of England without being required to submit to episcopal re-ordination” cannot be unchallenged.

Cathedral of All Saints

Albany, New York

The … statement … is just what, I believe, Winston Churchill called, a terminological inexactitude. Would Mr. Hughes be able to give further details as to when and where this extraordinary event took place?

Holy Trinity Rectory

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

Mr. Hughes has marred what started out to be a good article by his slurs at Anglo-Catholicism.… Lest the writer think I am an Anglo-Catholic, let me remind him that I am not but I do believe in fairness and his accusation deserved to be rebuked.

St. James Episcopal Church

Independence, Iowa

Mr. Hughes has done the report rather a disservice by his failure to grasp its essential message and spirit beyond his first paragraph. It is easy to use such a document as a springboard to air one’s own views, but that was not the stated purpose of his article.… For Mr. Hughes to label everything Anglican that may be unappealing to American Protestant ears as “Anglo-Catholic” is surely a shot fired very wide of the mark.

St. John’s Rectory

Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.

As some American Episcopalian brethren have questioned the correctness of what I wrote, I very willingly now offer a brief substantiation:

In the first place, that episcopal ordination is not to be regarded as essential is shown by no less an Anglican authority than Richard Hooker, who acknowledged that “there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination without a bishop (Ecclesiastical Polity, VII, xiv, 11). Referring to this in his Preface to Hooker, John Keble admits that “nearly up to the time when he (Hooker) wrote numbers had been admitted to the Church in England with no better than Presbyterian ordination.”

But this practice continued also after Hooker’s time. Thus in 1650 Bishop Cosin wrote concerning ministers who had received Presbyterian orders in the French Reformed churches: “If at any time a minister so ordained in these French churches came to incorporate himself in ours, and to receive a public charge and cure of souls among us in the Church of England (as I have known some of them to have done so of late, and can instance many other before my time), our bishops did not re-ordain him before they admitted him to his charge, as they must have done if his former ordination in France had been void. Nor did our laws require more of him than to declare his public consent to the religion received amongst us, and to subscribe the Articles established” (Letter to Mr. Cordel). This is a particularly clear statement of the situation as it existed in England up to the middle of the seventeenth century by one who was himself a bishop of the Church of England. It will be noted that he speaks of many with Presbyterian orders only having been admitted, without episcopal re-ordination, to a public charge and cure of souls in the Church of England.

In Hooker’s own day there was the noteworthy case of Whittingham, who was Dean of Durham for sixteen years, and who was offered the choice of either an archbishopric or a bishopric when the sees of York and Durham were both vacant at the same time—and yet the only orders of this man who was regarded as fit to hold such high office in the Church were Presbyterian orders received in Geneva.

Another case was that of Morison, a Scottish Presbyterian, whom Archbishop Grindal, declaring him to have been ordained according to “the laudable form and rite of the Reformed Church of Scotland,” licensed in 1582 “to celebrate the divine offices and minister the Sacraments throughout the whole Province of Canterbury (Strype: Life of Grindal).

These citations are sufficient to demonstrate that the fathers of the Church of England, though themselves strongly convinced of the value of episcopacy, did not interpret the formularies of their church along narrow and exclusive lines; nor did they regard the Presbyterian orders of other Reformed churches as invalid, realizing as they did that in their origins episcopacy and presbyterianism are not different, as St. Jerome pointed out long since.

Personally, I certainly have no fundamental objection to the proposal of the report in question for the institution of presiding “Bishops-in-presbytery”; but I cannot view with approval the declaration that apart from episcopacy full communion will be impossible, “even if otherwise agreement had been reached as to doctrine and to practice.” It seems, however, that at this point I and some of my fellow-Episcopalians must agree to differ.

Lest there should be any misunderstanding concerning the scope of my comments, perhaps I should emphasize that, since they related to a report which was the outcome of conversations between representatives of churches in the British Isles, my field of reference did not extend to churches in other parts of the world.

London, England

PRESERVING THE BALANCES

I am certainly not interested in your new magazine. It was not needed in the Christian world—there are enough compromises already.

Sharon, Pa.

It is so prosaically orthodox as to be dull reading. It is one of the dullest papers I have ever tried to read.…

Linden Heights Methodist

Columbus, Ohio

You are far too conservative and narrow for me … and do not bring any fresh helpful insights to one’s thinking.…

Holt, Mich.

Some of your articles have been helpful. But I do not like your slant on the Bible.… The tendency today is for commitment to some form of external authority.… A liberal is a person with a mind open to receive truth from any source.…

Baltimore, Md.

Anti-intellectualism, anti-internationalism, bibilical literalism, rugged individualism, all smell the same to me.…

Fairview Baptist Church

Cleveland, O.

… Splendid reading and a real tonic in days when the emphasis on things that really matter seems to have gone.

Duan Minor

Helston, Cornwall, England

The articles are readable; editorials challenging, news timely, book reviews enlightening and the “Review of Current Religious Thought” especially true.…

Monmouth, Ill.

Your magazine is excellent. I enjoy, and profit from, every issue.

First Methodist Church

Monroe, Ga.

Leaves little to be desired as far as scholarship, evangelical fervor and a Christ-centered approach to contemporary problems is concerned.…

Stanley Presbyterian Church

Stanley, N. C.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is excellent; it is of great value to a busy pastor … The publication exalts our Risen Lord …

Central Baptist Church

Palmyra, N. J.

I have found each number most informative and inspiring in content …

United Church of Canada

Woodville, Ontario

We need such a magazine as yours to keep us aware of our problems and of our sure hope.

First Congregational Church

St. Petersburg, Fla.

This magazine is great. May it be used of God to help to turn the tide today. Greenville, S. C.

It was the Easter issue that finally persuaded me. Thank you for waiting so long.…

First Presbyterian Church

New Vernon, N. J.

- More from Marshall E. Bartholomew

Theology

Bible Text of the Month: Isaiah 53:5

J. Gresham Machen

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

If there is any one passage in the Old Testament which seems to the Christian heart to be a prophecy of the redeeming work of Christ, it is the matchless fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. We read it today, often even in preference to New Testament passages, as setting forth the atonement which our Lord made for the sins of others upon the cross. Never, says the simple Christian, was there a prophecy more gloriously plain.

Because of its clear-cut statement of the substitutionary atonement, it is a verse that is dear to every devout Christian heart. It begins with a glorious disjunction. The prophet has just set forth the erroneous view which men had held of the Servant. Now, however, he gives the real reason for the Servant’s suffering, “but he …” We, so the thought may be paraphrased, thought that God had smitten him because of his sins, but the real reason why he was smitten is found in the fact that he was wounded for our transgressions.

Our Transgressions

And it was all for our iniquities and for our transgressions. What else, we ask, can these words mean than that he suffered vicariously? Not merely with, but for others? By no exegesis is it possible to escape this conclusion. And there is nothing in the conclusion that need surprise us.

DAVID BARON

The reason for the Servant’s sufferings was, “our transgressions.” More is suggested now than sympathetic identification with other’s sorrows. This is an actual bearing of the consequences of sins which he had not committed, and that not merely as an innocent man may be overwhelmed by the flood of evil which has been let loose by others’ sins to sweep over the earth. The blow that wounds him is struck directly and solely at him. He is not entangled in a widespread calamity, but is the only victim. It is presupposed that all transgression leads to wounds and bruises; but the transgressions are done by us, and the wounds and bruises fall on him. Can the idea of vicarious sufferings be more plainly set forth?

ALEXANDER MACLAREN

He suffered the punishment of sin, but it was “the just in the room of the unjust.” This is the only principle which can harmonize the sufferings and death of the immaculately innocent, the absolutely perfect, incarnate Son of God, with the divine wisdom, righteousness, and benignity. It converts what appears the most unaccountable of all things—a piece of folly, injustice, and cruelty, on the part of the all-wise, the infinite holy, the infinitely benignant Jehovah—into the most glorious of all displays of his unsearchable wisdom, his eternal righteousness, and his exceedingly rich grace.

JOHN BROWN

Vicarious Suffering

There were no stronger expressions to be found in the language, to denote a violent and painful death. As min, with the passive, does not answer to the Greek hupo, but to apo, the meaning is not that it was our sins and iniquities that had pierced him through like swords, and crushed him like heavy burdens, but that he was pierced and crushed on account of our sins and iniquities. It was not his own sins and iniquities, but ours, which he had taken upon himself, that he might make atonement for them in our stead, that were the cause of his having to suffer so cruel and painful a death.

FRANZ DELITZSCH

The intensity of the Servant’s sufferings is brought home to our hearts by the accumulation of epithets. He was wounded as one who is pierced by a sharp sword; bruised as one who is stoned to death; beaten and with livid weals on his flesh. A background of unnamed persecutors is dimly seen. The description moves altogether in the region of physical violence, and that violence is more than a symbol.

ALEXANDER MACLAREN

Completeness And Intensity

This verse is a wonderfully complete representation of the sufferings of Jehovah’s righteous servant. It represents them as violent, severe, fatal, numerous, diversified, penal, vicarious, expiatory, saving, and reconciling. The great truth contained in it may be thus stated: the numerous, varied, violent, severe, fatal sufferings of the righteous servant of the Lord, were the endurance of those evils in which God expresses his displeasure at sin, in the room of those who had merited them; and were intended, and have been found effectual, for the expiation of guilt and the obtaining of salvation.

JOHN BROWN

There is no pardon for unexpiated sin; there is no expiation of sin, but in the Cross of Christ; and no saving virtue can come forth from that cross to the unbeliever. He who rejects Christ’s sacrifice must answer for his own sin. God marks his iniquity; he will make exaction for it; and who can stand where the incarnate Son stood? Who can bear what he bore? Be warned ere it be too late. You can neither merit the divine favor, nor bear the divine wrath.

JOHN BROWN

Our Peace

The chastisement of peace is not only that which tends to peace, but that by which peace is procured directly. It is not, to use the words of an extreme and zealous rationalist, a chastisement morally salutary for us, nor one which merely contributes to our safety, but, according to the parallelism, one which has accomplished our salvation, and in this way, that it was inflicted not on us but on him, so that we came off safe and uninjured. The application of the phrase to Christ, without express quotation, is of frequent occurrence in the New Testament (See Eph. 2:14–17; Col. 1:20, 21; Heb. 13:20).

J. A. ALEXANDER

Righteousness And Mercy

The forgiveness of sins is a question of righteousness as truly as of mercy. If God cannot forgive in righteousness, then he cannot forgive at all. If he were to forgive simply because he is compassionate, or because (being sovereign) he so wills it, or out of mere good nature, he would remove the very ground on which my conscience plants itself in all its moral operations. It behooves that the glory of his character and the rectitude of his government should suffer no eclipse, but, on the contrary, be demonstrated. But now light is thrown on the case—though still deep mystery remains—when it is said, “The chastisement of our peace was upon him.” Through his suffering for others, they obtain peace in the sense of reconcilement to God.

CULROSS

The spectacle of the Cross alienates many persons from Christ, when they consider what is presented to their eyes, and do not observe the object to be accomplished. But all offense is removed when we know that by his death our sins have been expiated, and salvation has been obtained for us.

JOHN CALVIN

- More from J. Gresham Machen

Nae Marks 15 Years of Ecumenical Effort

NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

Marking a 15-year effort to frame an ecumenical movement on a creedal basis, National Association of Evangelicals observes NAE week, October 20–27. A fellowship and service organization, in a decade and a half the movement has gathered together scattered conservative groups, both denominations and churches, until it claims a membership of 2,000,000 and a service constituency of 10,000,000 evangelicals whose theological viewpoint is fundamental and conservative. Embraced in its cross section membership of conservative sympathies are groups ranging from Reformed Presbyterians, Free Will Baptists, Free Methodists and Wesleyan Methodists to Assemblies of God and Church of God, as well as several Mennonite, Friends and Pentecostal groups—altogether some 40 denominational bodies.

NAE leaders point out that their program has helped to give positive thrust and content to the evangelical center of American Protestantism; that it has helped to reverse the extreme fragmentation of the Protestant movement; that it has given the evangelical movement unity and voice it had lacked with the tendency of the Federal Council (later National Council of Churches) to liberal prospectives.

That their goal of a “united evangelicalism” is still far from achievement, NAE leaders readily admit. With 15 years’ pioneering and organizational effort behind, they disclose larger ambitions for the future, with a program of contact and enlistment of other religious and ecclesiastical bodies sharing the evangelical creedal viewpoint. To critics who complain that NAE represents a “least common denominator” in order to gather varying fundamentalist and evangelical groups into one basket, leaders exhibit their seven-point statement of faith, a requisite for NAE membership. (This includes belief in the Bible as the inspired, infallible, authoritative word of God; the eternal Trinity, the deity, virgin birth, sinlessness, miracles, vicarious and atoning death, the bodily resurrection, the ascension, and the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ; salvation by regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and the present ministry of the Holy Spirit; final resurrection and judgment; and the spiritual unity of all believers in Christ.)

Spiritual unity is cited as evidence of genuine ecumenical approach founded on the creedal statements given, rather than on the basis of mere organization. In criticism from both the fundamentalist right and the liberal left, NAE leaders find evidence that they have followed a balanced course, freeing the evangelical movement from the stigma of extreme fundamentalistic abuses, and guarding it from liberal and neo-orthodox wanderings.

In reaching its influential role in American church life, NAE has relied heavily upon various service commissions and affilated agencies, which serve a constituency much larger than official NAE membership. Besides national headquarters in Wheaton, Ill., the movement operates a public affairs office in Washington, D. C., a publications office in Cincinnati, Ohio, and seven regional offices throughout the country. Related organizations are National Association of Christian Schools, Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., National Sunday School Association, Evangelical Youth, Inc., and commissions on educational institutions, evangelism and church extension, government chaplaincies, international relations, a laymen’s council, a purchasing agency, a women’s fellowship, world relief, and a spiritual life commission. All these efforts have used NAE influence to enlarge the evangelical center of the Protestant scene. Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA), for instance, formed in 1945, now claims to represent about 5,000 missionaries around the world, supplying numerous services. Other agencies, like those for radio and education, operate on the same active service principle.

Many of the 147 evangelical leaders who signed the first official call for an organizing conference at St. Louis in 1942 are still active in NAE leadership and its affiliated organizations, including Dr. Harold J. Ockenga of Park Street Church, Boston, first president. The presidency today is held by Paul P. Petticord, head of Western Evangelical Theological Seminary, Portland, Oregon.

Dr. George L. Ford, Executive Director of NAE, in a comment on the 15th anniversary’s ecumenical significance, had this to say:

“The NAE is a major contribution to true ecumenicity for it has brought together the conservative evangelical denominations, organizations and churches not attracted by other interchurch movements. By avoiding the extremes, the NAE provides a positive witness by demonstrating the spiritual unity of believers in Christ in line with Christ’s prayer, ‘That they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou has sent me and hast loved them, as Thou has loved me’ (John 17:23).

“The future of NAE lies in the strengthening of the positive spiritual witness of evangelicals in the world. This must include further expansion.… extension of service in other areas.… and encouragement of other truly evangelical denominations, churches and organizations to join in the spiritual witness.… NAE provides. The prospects for the work are now the brightest in the history of the organization.”

Churches in the NAE will mark Sunday, October 27, as NAE Sunday with special services and prayers.

Clean-Up Commission

First move in a nation-wide campaign against distribution and sale of pornographic literature has led in Washington, D. C., to formation of the Churchmen’s Commission for Decent Publications, supported from the outset by many denominational and interdenominational leaders.

Spurred to action by the multiplication of indecent and obscene publications, the commission caps a year’s preliminary effort by former Congressman O. K. Armstrong, prominent Baptist layman. Objectives are sixfold: Coordinating church, organizational and individual efforts to halt distribution and sale of indecent and obscene material; lifting standards of publication; encouraging literature expressive of the Judeo-Christian philosophy of sex morality; educating the public in the need for necessary federal, state and local laws; cooperating with local, state and national groups in law enforcement; assisting in the organization of effective regional groups.

Participants heard General Counsel Abe Goff of the U. S. Post Office department emphasize the importance of supportive community sentiment if postal authorities are to take effective injunctive action against “fake ‘art’ magazines and cheap ‘girlie’ magazines.” Goff pointed out that “while the main sale of such magazines is by newsstand, they acquire second class privileges (intended for educational and informational literature) for ‘an aura of respectibility.’ Mail carriers are then required at public expense to deliver corrupting material that most parents do not even want in their houses.”

Dr. Inman H. Douglass of the Christian Science Committee on Publications is national president. Others elected are Dr. A. C. Miller, of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, first vice president; Dr. Fred E. Reissig, director of the Washington, D. C., Council of Churches, second vice president; Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, secretary of affairs of National Association of Evangelicals, secretary; Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, treasurer. A national advisory council of 50 members is to be announced. Chairmen of standing committees are: membership, the Rev. Don Gill; research, the Rev. Ralph A. Cannon; legislation, Dr. O. K. Armstrong; public relations, Glenn D. Everett; finance, the Rev. Roger Burgess; community organization, the Rev. A. D. Zahnheiser.

Churchmen heard Mrs. C. R. Addington of the Women’s Club of Coral Gables tell how she successfully spearheaded a statewide effort for a law that “took 16 of the most objectionable magazines” off the Florida newsstands. “We had to overcome a natural reticence to identify ourselves with a task that sometimes had an indelicate and even unladylike aura,” she remarked, “but we found courage when we sensed that the sacredness of the home and of family life is at stake.”

Chaplain Wallace M. Hale, chief of the training division for Army chaplains, urged that cure as well as punishment be kept in view. “We must change the attitude of people and provide a new motivation and respect for moral law if we are really to lick the problem.” He noted “a more serious search for dependable absolutes, and somewhat less interest in the broad areas of personal freedom” in American life. “We must evolve a general code and principles that have the support of the citizenry, but we cannot stop there,” he said, “but must spell out the tested truths applicable to man’s personal righteousness.” Other speakers shared his hope that the commission’s social action effort not decline to a mere reliance upon legislation of morality.

People: Words And Events

Crusade Windup—Dr. Billy Graham and his team returned to the New York area for a series of suburban evangelistic rallies the week of Sept. 25 to October 1, with meetings also in New Jersey and Connecticut. On Reformation Sunday, Oct. 27, a great closing rally for the New York Crusade and the follow-up program will be held at the Polo Grounds. Dr. Graham will speak at the service at 3 p.m.

Far East Crusade—George Burnham, News Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, is in the Far East during October, as part of the World Vision team holding pastors’ conferences and evangelistic crusades in Java, Singapore, The Philippines, Formosa, Japan, and Korea. The Seoul Crusade closes on October 20. Members of the campaign team are Dr. Bob Pierce, Dr. Richard Halverson, Dr. Paul Rees, Bishop Alexander Theophilus of India, The Rev. Jose Yap and Bishop Sobrepena of the Philippines, Dr. F. Carlton Booth, and Norman Nelson.

Seminary Adjustment—Concordia Theological Seminary of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, opened the new academic year with approximately 550 students on campus. The liberal arts courses formerly taught at Concordia Seminary move this year to the new Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Thus, this year for the first time in its history, the seminary does not have an entering class. The revised curriculum will bring students to the seminary with a B.A. degree, and they will follow a four-year program (quarter system) of study, including one year of supervised practical work in a parish.

Spiritual Survey—A poll sponsored by the radio ministry of the North Syracuse Baptist Church, was conducted through the “Christ at Noon” exhibit at the New York State Fair. Motif of the booth was a huge question mark with the question, “Do You Have the Answer?” In response to the question, “Do you believe that there is a personal God?” 1763 replied yes, 81 no, 48 uncertain. To other questions, responses were: “Do you believe that the Bible is God’s message to man?”—1739 yes, 40 no, 29 uncertain. “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?” 1737 yes, 32 no, 37 uncertain. Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, rose again, and lives to be your personal Lord and Saviour?”—1757 yes, 36 no, 56 uncertain. Do you believe that you will go to heaven when you die?”—1183 yes, 76 no, 584 uncertain.

Lutheran Membership—A total membership in the Lutheran Churches of the United States and Canada increased to 7,618,000 in 1956, according to the National Lutheran Council. This was an increase of 3.3 percent which has been about the average yearly gain for the last ten years. The Lutherans represent the third largest Protestant denominational group in America, exceeded only by Baptists and Methodists. Largest single body of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, now numbering 2,152,000.

Accrediting Post—The Rev. Jared F. Gerig, president of the Missionary Church Association, has been named president of Fort Wayne Bible College, effective January 1, 1958, when he will succeed Dr. S. A. Witmer. Dr. Witmer will become executive secretary of the Accrediting Association of Bible Institutes and Bible Colleges.

Christian School Growth—Some 37,000 pupils are now enrolled in 137 day schools affiliated with the National Union of Christian Schools, it was reported at the group’s annual convention. John A. Vander Ark, director of the union, said the schools, sponsored chiefly by members of the Christian Reformed Church, are growing at the rate of 2,000 students a year. Ten new schools were developed each year during the last three years.

Baptist Brotherhood—More than 6,000 Baptist laymen from 40 states met recently in Oklahoma City at the First National Conference of Southern Baptist Men. The three-day conclave featured addresses and discussions on the theme, “Free Men Through the Ages.”

Wesley Hymn Sing—Hymn festivals to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Charles Wesley’s birth are being planned by Methodist churches throughout the country in December, as part of a worldwide Charles Wesley celebration, sponsored by the World Methodist Council. Charles was one of the greatest hymn writers in history and his brother John Wesley was the founder of Methodism.

Artist Honored

Warner Sallman, Chicago artist whose “Head of Christ” and other religious paintings are known the world over, was honored at a dinner in Washington on October 3, when he was presented the Upper Room award for world Christian fellowship. The award cited Sallman’s artistic leadership in “helping bridge the gap between denominations and bringing them closer in Christian fellowship.”

We Quote:

JOSEPH SITTLER

Professor, Federated Theological Faculty, University of Chicago

Enquiry into the nature of Christian worship of God has, particularly in North America, got to operate in a sphere of discourse already occupied. The name of the occupant, in very many of our congregations, is the psychology of worship. This strange roomer got into and established himself in the living room of church practice in roughly the following way: that people do worship God is an observable fact; and every fact is permeable to psychological enquiry. Psychology does not operate from hand to mouth; it has either open or unavowed presuppositions about the structure and dynamics of the psyche. If, then, in worship people are in some way or other in search of a relationship to the ineffable there must be ways which lubricate and ways which hinder this search. The human animal is influenced by setting, accompaniment, symbols, silence, the gravity of statement and response, the solidarity-producing impact of solemn music, etc. So it has happened that experts in worship have arisen among us. All assume that the purpose of public worship is to create a mood; and he is the most admirable as the leader of worship who has mastered finesse in the mood-setting devices made available by the application of psychological categories. Thence has flowed that considerable and melancholy river of counsel whereby one may learn how to organize an assault upon the cognitive and critical faculties of the mind, how to anesthetize into easy access the non-verbalized but dependable anxieties that roam about in the solitary and collective unconscious, and how to conduct a brain-washing under the presumed banner of the Holy Ghost.

That this is what worship means in thousands of congregations is certainly true; it is equally true that the Scriptures know nothing about such ideas. Where we are enjoined to be still and know that God is God, the presupposition is not that stillness is good and speech is bad—but rather that God is prior to man and all God-man relationships are out of joint if that is not acknowledged.—In an address on “The Shape of the Church’s Response in Worship,” North American Conference on Faith and Order, Sept. 6, 1957.

WALTER G. MUELDER

Dean, Boston University School of Theology

Another group of problems have to do with bureaucracy, or, as some prefer to say, the administrative top. The role of bureaucracy in churches is analogous to that in all institutions. Church bureaucrats dominate ecumenical discussions. Bureaucracy maximizes vocational security and promotes technical efficiency. Tenure, pensions, incremental salaries, regularized procedure for promotion are related to leadership control. Control, continuity, administrative discretion and rational order make for institutional efficiency. However, bureaucracy tends to separate the average member, the so-called layman, from the expert who holds the position of legitimate administrative authority.… [especially] when the ecclesiastical bureaucrat is also an ordained clergyman. Ecumenicity, the bureaucrat may forget, is a function of the whole church—not of its clerical and administrative top alone.

Though bureaucracy makes for rational efficiency and institutional security, it also tends to develop certain dysfunctions, such as: blindness to needed change; trained incapacity to sense new needs; inflexibility in applying skills and resources to changing conditions … etc. These dysfunctions are no respecters of denominational polities and apply to boards and agencies as well as to fundamental church structure.

The consequence of these dysfunctions is that the discipline once designed to assist efficiency becomes an intrinsic value, and loyalty to ultimate ideals on the part of subordinates is measured by obedience to superiors in the hierarchy of the institution. Bureaucracy thus breeds overconformity.—In an address on “Institutionalism in Relation to Unity and Disunity” at the World Council of Churches’ North American Faith and Order Conference.

Ministers Hear Graham

Fifteen hundred twenty-five New York ministers and friends gathered at 8:30 a.m. on September 24 to hear Billy Graham assess the New York Campaign. Optimism and gratitude pervaded the atmosphere as ministers greeted one another in New York’s largest ballroom, taxing its faciilties, interspersing their remarks with praise to the Lord for the great victory won.

The speakers’ table was occupied by the Graham team and the members of the Protestant Council of New York. Dr. Jesse M. Bader, for 27 years Secretary of the Department of Evangelism for the Federal Council of Churches, gave a ringing challenge to the ministers and recognized the two divisions of the campaign: First, the Crusade as held in Madison Square Garden; second, the personal visitation campaign scheduled October 20 to 27 in at least a thousand communities by teams of laymen under the direction of ministers from a thousand cooperating churches.

Dr. Bader declared that evangelism is an imperative, not an elective of the Church. He admonished that what Christ made primary the Church must not make secondary. His address gave ringing affirmation of the biblical program and basis for evangelism and a challenging appeal for participation. The personal calling campaign is to have the same purpose as the public Crusade, namely to win men to Jesus Christ, to reach out further, and to bring men to commitment to Christ. Dr. Bader declared that this could not be done unless the ministers were thoroughly committed to it. The ministers are the key men in the churches. If they are evangelistic, the people will be evangelistic. Hence, the success or failure of this undertaking rests with the ministers.

Preparation must be made for this campaign by sermons from the pulpit, prayer meetings of the people, advertising, gathering a prospect list, selecting workers, and beaming the whole church program to visitation evangelism. Thirty-five selected men representing different denominations will be assigned to as many districts. These selected men will meet with the ministers of each district from Monday until Friday, from 10:30 a.m. until 12:00 daily. They will spark the program and bring information which the pastors are to bring to their own people each night at the supper meeting before calling commences. Ministers were assured that if this is successful in New York it will be added to the Graham program of evangelism in every city the team visits.

Roger Hull, general chairman of the campaign, spoke briefly his appreciation of his privileged place of leadership, voicing thanksgiving to God. Beverly Shea, in his inimitable way, sang “I Know a Name.” Then Billy Graham spoke.

Dr. Graham expressed appreciation for all who came to this morning meeting, for their faithfulness, their energy expended and their cooperation. He pointed out that it was not properly called a Billy Graham campaign, for thousands participated by prayer, giving counseling, attending and advertising the meetings. Billy paid tribute to Dan Potter, Secretary of the Protestant Council, for unflagging faithfulness and enthusiasm, to all cooperating organizations, and to the unusual and sustained coop eration of the churches.

Graham then launched into his major address. He spoke of things that he had learned in the campaign.

The power of prayer. He acknowledged records of organized prayer meetings in 109 countries throughout the world. Persons like Madame Chiang Kai-shek organized prayer meetings sustained during the entire campaign. On Formosa all-night prayer meetings were held. On the farthest mission fields missionaries and native Christians were praying. He paid particular tribute to Mrs. Norman Vincent Peale who organized the prayer meetings among the women in New York City.

The power of faith. Graham paid tribute to the faith of members of the executive committees such as Ralph Nesbitt, John Sutherland Bonnell, John Wimbish, Erling C. Olsen and others. Their faith went beyond his and was justified in the results.

The power and authority of the Scriptures. He emphasized that the source of power in his preaching was a return to the Book which in his hand became as a flame of fire or as a hammer, according to the words of Jeremiah. Many people were converted by verses of Scripture which stuck in their minds after all else was forgotten. Writing their testimony they told of the power of the Scripture.

The influence of the Holy Spirit, who was there in a demonstration of power to convict, to reprove and to convert.

The power of Christ to change lives. Here Graham quoted numerous illustrations which were given to him from the testimonies received by individuals who were converted. Most effective of all was the influence of the television as a result of which over a million letters came in containing requests from hundreds of thousands of people for spiritual help. Some pastors had additions to their membership immediately after the television programs and others reported definite conversions.

Next, he emphasized that the harvest is ripe in New York City. Now is the time to reap for if we fail to reap at this moment, we may never get another opportunity. The tide of revival moves in and out and the tide is in just now in New York City. If the pastors utilize this, they hold in their hands the key to peace in the world. Ministers simply cannot go back to the same way of life. They have been shaken out of the old ruts and must not get back in them again.

Lastly, Graham emphasized that any large movement such as this Crusade would necessarily have its critics. Then he dealt individually with the criticisms which had come, none of which he treated as personal. He explained the necessity for statistics and great expenditures. He showed that 18 per cent of those responding with decisions had not been identified with any church and 30 per cent to 40 per cent were of people who did not attend church regularly. Graham also pointed out that it is not the province of an evangelist to deal with all the deep and profound problems related to Christianity. He humbly confessed that probably all would not agree with his theology, and that in some areas he might not be right, but that he stood upon the Bible.

H.J.O.

Goal For 1958

A goal of 475,000 converts for 1958 and a day of commitment to soul wining were announced by Dr. Leonard Sanderson, Secretary of Evangelism for the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The day of commitment will be Sunday, January 5, 1958. At that time members of 30,384 churches will be asked to sign cards pledging a personal attempt “to win non-Christians to Christ during the year.”

Hawaiian Lad

“Awaken ye islands of the far away sea!”

This prayer of a young Hawaiian who lived over 140 years ago was the theme of the annual meeting in Hilo of the 113 Congregational Christian Churches of the Territory of Hawaii.

Henry Opukahaia was remembered and honored as the lad who was responsible for the beginning of the mission story in Hawaii. In 1808, Opukahaia sailed for America. Here he was converted to Christianity. He died in 1818 in Cornwall, Conn., but not before he had impressed upon the officials of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions his people’s need.

After being commissioned in the famous Park Street Church of Boston, the first little band of missionaries sailed for Hawaii in 1819.

A highlight of the program this year was a pilgrimage to Opukahaia’s birthplace for the dedication of a memorial chapel.

An editorial in the Hilo-Tribune Herald entitled Tribute to Opukahaia said … he was instrumental in bequeathing to the islands a new and perpetual life, one that is constantly being marked by people of all races in a peaceful Hawaii.” The annual meeting also marked the 100th anniversary of the sailing of the Morning Star, first missionary ship to arrive in the islands to the south of the Hawaiian chain, the Micronesian Islands. In true New Testament fashion, the islanders of Hawaii, after hearing of Christ and his love went to the southern islands as missionaries.

Today, a new Morning Star carries Christian workers between the islands. This is the seventh one since the Micronesians first were told of Christ. The ship now in service is skippered by Miss Eleanor Wilson, an ABCFM missionary. Part of her support comes from the same historic Park Street Church in Boston.

The Hawaiian Evangelical Association of Congregational Christian Churches announced plans of a $1.5 million project for next year which will involve new buildings for the denomination’s headquarters. Plans call for a memorial building with a 600-seat auditorium, headquarters offices and offices for rent.

The session closed with the annual Festival of Choirs in which groups from the churches across the territory presented the great music for which the Hawaiian church is known. In 1958 the meeting will be held on Kauai Island.

Germany

Baptists In Germany

The first civilian American Baptist church in Germany has been organized at Kaiserlautern, with the Rev. Donald Scott McAlpine, formerly of New York and Washington, D. C., as pastor. Members of four U. S. Baptist conventions are presented in the membership, and services are in English.

New Zealand

Union Of Churches

A joint standing committee in New Zealand has issued a report in which the vote of four church groups favors the “principle” of union.

In the major body, the Presbyterian Church (76,005 members) voted three to one in favor of union, but one-third of the total membership did not vote.

The total and union vote percentage were heavier in other churches. In the Methodist church (28,679 members) 92 per cent of those voting favored union. The affirmative vote among Congregational churches and the Associated Churches of Christ were 88 and 94 per cent, respectively.

The matter now will go to the annual assemblies or conferences, meeting later in the year, to decide what steps, if any, should be taken as a result of the preliminary voting.

—R.S.M.

Books

Book Briefs: October 14, 1957

William Sanford LaSor

Valuable Auxiliary

An Introduction to the Apocrypha, by Bruce M. Metzger, New York: Oxford, 1957. 274 pp., $4.00.

With the publication of the Revised Standard Version Apocrypha on September 30, 1957, there will doubtless be a new interest in the Apocrypha, and many will probably be asking questions about these little-known writings. Professor Metzger of Princeton Theological Seminary has prepared this volume, which appears simultaneously with the RSV Apocrypha, to introduce such persons to the works which might be described as biblical but noncanonical.

Chapters I–XV present the individual apocryphal books. In each case, Metzger gives a brief introduction, then sketches the content of the book, and closes with a discussion of relevant questions or implications. The author’s approach is in line with his frank statement, that he “does not regard the apocryphal books as part of the Bible; at the same time, he is convinced that they contain certain moral and religious insights of permanent value” (p. viii). The reader will enjoy the lucid manner in which the author presents his material, and will particularly appreciate Metzger’s ability to lift certain details into unforgettable prominence. For example, concerning Tobit he says, “Almost every family relationship is touched upon with natural grace and affection.… Even the boy’s dog goes along with Tobias on his journey.…” (p. 37). Again, with reference to the latter portion of the Wisdom of Solomon, he says, “whoever was responsible for the last half of the book unfortunately kept on writing long after he had anything fresh or important to say” (p. 70). A few samples of the text are included, including the splendid tribute to the physician found in Ecclesiasticus 38:12–14 (p. 83), which might well be hung on the walls of waiting rooms of Christian doctors. Metzger’s translation of a portion of the story of Susanna (Dan. 13:55, 59) brings out the play on words contained in the original: “Under a clove tree … the Lord will cleave you.… Under a yew tree … the Lord will hew you” (p. 111).

The balance of the book presents valuable discussions of the Apocrypha and the New Testament (with interesting parallels printed in parallel columns), a brief history of the Apocrypha, and their pervasive influence (with quotations from English literature, lines from sacred music, and a list of great works of art based on scenes from the Apocrypha, not to mention the influence of the Apocrypha on the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus)! Appendices include an account of the translations of the Apocrypha into English and a discussion of New Testament Apocrypha.

Some will ask, “What interest can the Christian have in these books?” Approximately 400 years separate the Old Testament from the New Testament. God was not inactive in that time. The apostles were the children of their age, and the Holy Spirit did not ignore that fact. The neo-orthodox may ignore the historical, but the evangelical Christian dare not! Metzger shows, in a clear and convincing way, that the Apocrypha help us to understand the life of first-century Jews in Palestine in broadly cultural, sociological and theological respects (p. 154). He singles out for specific discussion the development of the doctrines of the Messiah, the after-life, and angels and demons. At this point the present reviewer wishes the discussion could have been expanded—for this is certainly an important, and not-too-often recognized, truth.

Four pages of carefully selected and annotated bibliography, plus an index, makes the book of service to those who want to follow the reading of it with more careful study. This reviewer recommends the book cordially, and thanks the author for his care in preparing it.

WILLIAM SANFORD LASOR

Understanding Ezekiel

Ezekiel, the Man and His Message, by H. L. Ellison. Paternoster Press, London, 1956. 144 pp. 10s.6d.

The common English cold compelled your reviewer, some time ago, to spend a day or two in bed, and he took the opportunity of reading through the book of the prophet Ezekiel “at a sitting.” While this exercise had the effect of clarifying certain aspects of the book, much still remained obscure and he felt like the Ethiopian eunuch when he said, somewhat plaintively, “how can I understand, except some man should guide me?” What Philip was to the Ethiopian, Ellison may well prove himself to be to the one who, seeking further guidance in the understanding of Ezekiel, avails himself of this helpful commentary by the author of Men spake from God. Mr. Ellison writes clearly and cogently and the reader is made aware of alternative viewpoints where these differ from his own.

There is no index but the book is carefully arranged and follows a normal sequence, so that there is no real difficulty in tracing references. After an introductory section the author deals with the book of Ezekiel paragraph by paragraph and brings out the significance of the contents, particularly for the prophet’s own time but also where possible for our present generation and for the events still future.

Particular problems are dealt with, such as the whereabouts of Ezekiel when he uttered the opening prophecies in chapters 4 to 24, the prophet’s dumbness and his use of strange symbolic actions, as also the significance of the “New Temple” prophecy in chapters 40ff. But he also treats of wider issues such as the nature of the prophetic office itself. His discussion on “false prophets” is especially striking. “False prophets,” he says, were not always vicious; they must have included “godly men who either wished themselves into the body of the prophets instead of awaiting God’s call, or having been truly called by God found it easier to compromise with men than to give God’s message in all its stark unattractiveness” (p. 53). That touches us all in some measure. There is another valuable section on conditional prophecy (pp. 102ff).

Other points mentioned are the self-consistency of Scripture, the biblical doctrine of man, Israel and the Church, to name only a few. But the book’s chief contribution is undoubtedly its illuminating exposition of the actual text of Ezekiel for which Mr. Ellison is admirably equipped.

L. E. H. STEPHENS-HODGE

English Psychologists

Christian Essays in Psychiatry, by Philip Mairet, Ed., Philosophical Library, New York. $4.50.

Ten English theologians, psychiatrists and psychologists have combined, under the editorship of Philip Mairet, in this series of brief essays on the values possible in a proper liaison between psychiatry and the Christian faith, without sufficiently clarifying the distinction between the various points of view which characterize the omnibus distinctions inhereing in “Christianity.”

Mr. Mairet’s situation in the field of Christian psychology, as convener of the contributing group, is not made sufficiently clear to give any weight to the choice of the contributers as representative of Britishers expert in the field. However, some of them seem to be so located that they must qualify to speak as experts in the British economy. Judged on its common-sense merits the material is full of practical suggestions and should be of value in stimulating further reading in psychiatry.

The contributors are Methodist, Anglican and Roman Catholic, and one is evidently not religiously active. The most provocative paper is that of Erastus Evans, Methodist superintendent active in promoting pastoral psychiatry. He writes on the relation between religious attitude and psychological insight in the successive periods of life. In this he makes use of Jung’s adaptation of the Trinity idea to show how Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be suggestive of concepts found in infancy, when the child is under parental control; maturity, when the individual finds himself as a person and asserts himself free from father dominance; the age of wisdom in the latter years, when the individual has insights, suggestive of the illumination of the Holy Spirit. This was the one essay which included a concept which the others “could not assimilate.”

Other essays include one on current concepts in psychiatry, the religious development of the individual, treating individuals as individuals in psychiatry, theological and psychological aspects in guilt. Eve Lewis, educational psychologist, has a most interesting essay on the development of children’s religious attitudes. This will give some idea of the scope of the volume.

An advantage for the general public is relative freedom from psychiatric nomenclature, so that the book is very readable. It is informative on basic psycho-religious concepts, and is not polemic. What the reader will obtain from reading this brief volume will depend upon his familiarity with the nomenclature of the psychologist and even more upon his insights. A thoughtful person can hardly put the book down without resolving to read more on the subject.

The book contains a good digest of the views of Adler, Freud, Jung and Kretschmer, and enough explanation of the essential varieties of mental illness as they affect the psychiatrist’s techniques is presented provocatively. The basic distinctions between guilt as conceived by the theologian and the usual approach of the psychiatrist is handled by a Roman Catholic with discernment. The book’s chief value is in stimulating further reading in the vast field and in nicely summating some basic psychiatric concepts.

WALTER VAIL WATSON

Religious-Social Interaction

Protestant and Catholic, Religious and Social Interaction in an Industrial Community, by Kenneth W. Underwood, Beacon, 1957. $6.00.

This pioneer work in its field is a detailed objective and scientific sociological study of the interaction of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches with each other and with political, economic, social and intellectual elements of culture in the daily life of an industrial community. The deep involvement of religious loyalties in the daily life of an urban culture and basic assumptions of these churches as to the nature of the church and society are described clearly.

This study grew out of the Roman Catholic opposition to a lecture on planned parenthood by Margaret Sanger in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1940 in the First Congregational Church. The lecture had to be held in a labor union hall because of the opposition and Protestant alarm over the success of the Roman Catholic Church in this instance prompted this study.

Underwood describes the incident in detail in the first part of the book in order to point up the importance of understanding the interaction of religion and life. The second part is devoted to a study of the role of the church in salvation, doctrines, worship, the authority of religious leadership, organization, money-raising techniques and methods of property-holding.

In each of these areas Protestant and Roman Catholic views are contrasted and their mutual interactions are set forth. A helpful appendix (pp. 386–389) charts the doctrinal differences of these bodies. The final section relates the influence of these churches in recreation, business, labor, politics, reform and ethnic groups in Holyoke which has in recent years become a dominant Roman Catholic community.

The author’s conclusions are less weighty than might have been expected in so objective and massive a study as this. Protestants, according to him, conceive the nature of community to be plurality and seek “vital diversity of religious and social groups” (p. 367), but the Roman Catholic Church views it in terms of acceptance of ecclesiastical authority in all areas of life even though it faces ethnic and class divisions within its own ranks.

Advanced degrees in journalism, sociology and theology have aided the author in keeping the book scientific and objective.

He has used only primary oral and written sources of information which he lists in a massive bibliography. The reader’s understanding is increased by full footnotes (which unfortunately are placed at the end of the book), an appendix on his methodology, helpful statistical tables and clear simple maps of Holyoke.

The book will appeal both to those interested in an exhaustive case study of sociology of religion and those who are interested in the practical problem of the relationship of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in a democratic society. Those represented in the latter group may find themselves in disagreement with the apparent inclusivism of the author’s conclusions.

EARLE E. CAIRNS

Symposium Of One

Christianity and World Issues, by T. B. Maston, Macmillan, New York, 1957. $5.00.

In this century Christianity, the church and individual Christians have plenty of world issues with which to occupy their minds. Those discussed in this book include the effects of modern divorce on the family and the race problems in our country, but more space is given to economics and war.

The author’s opinions on these world issues are not always clearly stated. He sketches various views and rarely argues in favor of any one. The method makes use of frequent quotations: so and so said this; somebody else said that. This indirect method is pursued still further. For example, a quotation from John C. Bennett is used to give us Niebuhr’s position (p. 24), and “Norman Pittenger suggests (!) that someone has remarked …” (p. 307). Eventually this dependence upon other author’s assertions becomes wearisome. Does Dr. Maston accept the sentiments he quotes? Sometimes he does not; much of the time, one cannot tell.

Although no conclusion is discernible with respect to the problem of divorce as it confronts ministers who are asked to marry divorced persons, and although the author assumes without argument that certain procedures relative to the race problem are advantageous, his views on economics, communism and war can somewhat be guessed from the turns of expression and the favorable or unfavorable connotations of words.

Apparently he wants the church to reject both communism and laissez-faire capitalism. Communism, however, seems to be condemned more for its methods than for its aims. One senses a strain of embarrassment that communistic brutality should have received such widespread publicity.

True, the author condemns godless materialism; but planned economy whether in Russia or in the U.S.A. is merely a matter of degree. Free enterprise and its opposite are merely matters of labels (p. 143).

In fact, Christianity is a source of communism because it has a messianic eschatology and because it practiced communism in Jerusalem (p. 155); but there is no historic relation between the two (p. 156); yet the roots of modern communism go back to Christian communism (p. 157).

There is no adverse criticism of communistic economics—no criticism of the labor theory of value, or the theory of surplus value, and not much of a defense of private property. “There may not be a great deal of difference between the ultimate goal or hope of the Christian and the communist for society” (p. 184).

Since communism is so close to Christianity in aim, though drastically different in method, it would be wrong to engage in war to rescue the captive nations. The author is generally pacifistic. “A major duty of Christians is to do everything possible to support and strengthen” the United Nations (p. 266); and he seems to entertain the hope of world peace by human efforts without messianic intervention.

These are bare assertions without argument; no attempt is made to base them on the Bible. “War accomplishes nothing” (p. 288); at least modern war, as distinguished from the American Revolution and the Civil War, settles little, if anything (p. 289). Can we not therefore conclude that it would have been better to allow Hitler to conquer the world?

The great defect of the book, and the probable cause of its frequent inconclusiveness, is that no firm foundation of argument is selected. The opinions are impressionistic. They are not founded on scriptural revelation for no clear notion of the role of the Bible emerges. Several times the author appeals to “the centrality of the cross,” but the phrase remains ambiguous. “Can any crucifixion [including Christ’s?] be identified with the cross? No … The cross is a symbol of self-denying, suffering, redemptive love.… It means the giving of oneself in the interest or on behalf of others”(p. 338).

The cross! But where is Christ?

GORDON H. CLARK

- More from William Sanford LaSor

Review of Current Religious Thought: October 14, 1957

W. Stanford Reid

Although reference has already been made in these columns to the report of the joint Church of Scotland and Church of England committee on “Relations between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches,” it might be well if one took a second look, particularly as it is now possible to gain a little indication of some of the reactions to the report. Moreover, a somewhat more detailed study of the report itself makes it possible to raise certain interesting, and probably important, points.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the report is that there is a tendency to take doctrinal agreement more or less for granted. In Appendix I there is reproduced the statement of agreement of doctrine upon which the Committee of Representatives had found themselves at one in 1934. This document, despite the changes in the committee’s personnel and the many changes in the theological climate of opinion since that day, apparently was regarded as being still acceptable to both groups. The real point at issue was that of the episcopacy. Or more concretely: how could episcopacy and presbytery be reconciled and amalgamated?

The report indicates that the committee feels that it has solved this problem which for the last three centuries has caused so much division and conflict between Episcopalians and Presbyterians. The suggestion is that the Presbyterians should have elected permanent bishops ordained by bishops of the Church of England and presiding over the presbyteries. At the same time the Episcopal churches should give the laity more place in the councils of their body, thus meeting the demands of the Presbyterians that the Church should be seen as a “communion of believers,” rather than an hierarchical organization. Although the present writer would hate to give the impression of being biased, he must confess that he feels that the Presbyterian representatives have surrendered most of their position.

In one sense, however, this is not the most important aspect of the report. It is, rather, those things which do not appear in the report that would seem to raise some of the biggest problems. For instance, there is the big question of the identity of the Church of England referred to in the report. Is it the Church of England of the Thirty-Nine Articles, or of Pusey, Keble and their Anglo-Catholic successors? When reference is made to the sacraments, are they the seven of Thomas Aquinas, or the two of the New Testament and the Protestant Reformation? The very fact that the Church of England representatives have insisted so strongly on the office of bishop being established in Presbyterian churches seems to indicate that it is the Puseyite tradition which is dominant in the negotiations.

It would seem, therefore, that although there is a basic statement of agreed doctrine, doctrine has not really been taken seriously in the preparation of this report. For instance the question of the differences between a fundamentally sacramental church and a Reformed church do not seem to have been adequately considered. This appears, for instance, when one finds that continual reference is made to the local clergyman of the Church of England as a “parish priest” (pp. 16, 17), while the Presbyterian teaching elder is called a “minister” (p. 15). This would seem to indicate that whether both churches have bishops and lay elders or not, the Presbyterians and Anglicans would still be in truth very far apart. In other words, the so-called unity and intercommunion which they would enjoy would be only a facade and not one of faith which would seem to be the only valid basis of outward and visible unity.

That this will be partly overcome by the conferring of Apostolic Succession on the Presbyterians through the ordination of bishops by the Anglican or Scottish Episcopal prelates would seem agreed. But the very admission that such an ordination is necessary raises for the Presbyterians many more questions than it settles. What about the ordination of all the other Presbyterian ministers? How about the validity of the Presbyterian sacraments, administered by non-episcopally ordained elders? What about much of the Church of Scotland’s law which is based upon the decisions of General Assemblies who specifically rejected the idea of episcopacy?

Most fundamental of all is the question of truth. From the statements of the report itself and also of some of its advocates, one receives the impression that unity is the most important aspect of the Church’s existence. Obedience to the teaching and example of the New Testament on this basis falls into a secondary place. Consequently, one finds in reading through this report that all arrangements for bringing about intercommunion give the impression of being compromises of principle for the sake of external unity. Whether it is right or not to have bishops or lay elders is not discussed on the basis of biblical authority, but on the ground of bringing about a uniformity which seems to be primarily a matter of expediency.

It is this attitude which is now apparently causing considerable misgivings in certain circles, particularly in Scotland. A number of ministers of the Church of Scotland have been pointing out that since bishops, according to the Presbyterian view, are not of the essence of the Church, they do not see that they are necessary for true intercommunion. They believe that such desirable relations may be brought about simply by stressing the unity of all those who truly trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord. True intercommunion is best able to grow out of this soil.

Many are also worried lest this report shall cause strife and conflict within the churches involved. Possibly it may. While this is to be regretted, history has shown that often out of such controversy has come forth a deepening and intensification of the Church’s self-consciousness, and a better understanding of its responsibility to Christ its Lord. It is, therefore, to be hoped that even out of such differences of opinion that Christ will bring forth in the Church a deeper understanding of the true meaning of Christian unity and a revived interest in the proclamation of his unsearchable riches.

• With this issue, Dr. W. Stanford Reid, Associate Professor of History, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, joins the list of regular contributors to “Current Religious Thought” for Volume II of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.—ED.

This review of live spiritual and moral issues debated in the secular and religious press of the day is prepared successively for CHRISTIANITY TODAY by four evangelical scholars: Professor W. Stanford Reid of Canada, Professor G. C. Berkouwer of the Netherlands, Professor John H. Gerstner of the United States and Dr. Philip E. Hughes of England.

- More from W. Stanford Reid

Cover Story

Right and Wrong Uses of the Apocrypha

Bruce M. Metzger

The word “Apocrypha” commonly denotes the fourteen or fifteen books which are present in Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Old Testament but which are not included in the canon of the Hebrew Old Testament. Most of them were written during the period between the close of the Old Testament and opening of the New Testament.

The apocryphal books represent a variety of literary forms. Some are historical in content (such as I Esdras and I and II Maccabees); others resemble the Book of Proverbs (such as Ecclesiasticus); one is a devotional piece (The Prayer of Manasseh); one stands in the succession of the prophetical books (Baruch); still others are moralizing novels and entertaining legends (such as the books of Tobit, Susanna, Judith, and Bel and the Dragon).

In view of the fact that these books have been recently translated into English by a group of the Standard Bible Committee and published by Thomas Nelson and Sons (September 30), it is appropriate to review some right and wrong uses of the Apocrypha. First, however, it will be useful to put them in correct historical perspective.

Apocrypha In English Bibles

It may be a surprise to some that the books of the Apocrypha were included in all English Bibles of the sixteenth century (that is, Coverdale’s translation, Tyndale’s translation, the Geneva version, the Bishops’ Bible, etc.), as well as in the King James Version or so-called Authorized Version of 1611. In fact, one of the translators of the King James Version, George Abbot, as Archbishop of Canterbury, issued a decree in 1615 that if any printer should dare to bind up and sell a copy of the Bible without the Apocrypha he would be liable to a whole year’s imprisonment. Despite this decree, however, during subsequent centuries fewer and fewer Bibles were published containing the Apocrypha, and today virtually the only editions of the King James Version containing the Apocrypha are the large Bibles found on the pulpits of most Protestant churches.

Two main factors operated in the dropping of the books of the Apocrypha. One was an economic consideration; since the books of the Apocrypha are almost as long as the New Testament in bulk, it is cheaper to print and bind Bibles without these books. Chiefly, however, it was for doctrinal considerations that they fell out of general usage among Protestants.

Doctrinal Statements

Although Jerome at the close of the fourth century clearly differentiated between the canonical books of the Hebrew Old Testament and the others which circulated in Greek and Latin manuscripts, most people during the Middle Ages who used his Latin Vulgate translation quoted indiscriminately from both canonical and apocryphal books alike. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, Luther and Calvin once again reiterated Jerome’s fundamental distinction. The reason they insisted upon this distinction was that certain Roman Catholic practices and emphases (including the efficacy of prayers and masses for the dead in purgatory, and stress upon merit acquired through good works) were based largely upon texts in the Apocrypha. Such a use of the Apocrypha, the Reformers maintained, attributed to these books an authority which they did not possess.

On the other hand, the Reformers also recognized the proper use of the Apocrypha. Luther, for example, in his very influential German translation of the Scriptures (1534) gathered together all but two of the books of the Apocrypha (he did not include I and II Esdras) and printed them between the Old and New Testaments with this heading: “APOCRYPHA—that is, books which are not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read.” He also provided prefaces before the text of the several books of the Apocrypha, in which he pointed out the ethical and devotional help which Christians could derive from perusing these books. His edition of the Bible formed the basis for the first Bibles to be translated into Swedish (1541), Danish (1550), Icelandic (1584), and Slovenian (1584), all of which have the Apocrypha with Luther’s heading and prefaces.

Similarly, Reformed churches in France and part of Switzerland used the first Protestant translation of the Bible in French (1535), which was prepared by Pierre Robert Olivétan, Calvin’s cousin; this contained the books of the Apocrypha. Olivétan’s rendering, revised by Calvin (1545), was reissued in 1551, with a new translation of the Apocrypha by Theodore Beza.

As a reaction to Protestant insistence on the fundamental difference between canonical and the apocryphal writings, at the Council of Trent (1546) an anathema was pronounced upon anyone who would not receive as sacred and canonical all the books in the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. This decree, it should be noted, was arrived at only after prolonged debate and the opposition of some of the more learned of the Roman prelates, who were well aware that the distinction between the Hebrew canon and the apocryphal books had been maintained from the time of Jerome by a succession of Catholic scholars, including even Cardinal Ximenes and Cardinal Cajetan, Luther’s opponent.

Now that the Roman church had moved to canonize certain apocryphal books (namely, all but I and II Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which are printed as an appendix after the New Testament in the official editions of the Latin Vulgate), it was natural that some Protestants would tend to deprecate any and all use of the Apocrypha. Thus it came about that, though Luther had declared these books to be “profitable and good to read,” others, in reaction to the use made of them by the Romanists, refused to have anything whatever to do with them. Not all, however, took this extreme position. In the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican or Episcopal church, issued in 1562, it is declared that, though uninspired, these books are “read for example of life and instruction of manners” (Art. VI). After lengthy debate as to the merits of the intertestamental books, the representatives of the Reformed churches meeting at the Synod of Dort (1618) voted that the new official translation of the Bible, which had just been decreed, should include the Apocrypha, placed after the New Testament. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), though sometimes popularly thought to forbid the reading of the Apocrypha, actually only cautions against their improper use, stating that these books “not being of divine inspiration … are not … to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings” (Chap. I, sec. iii).

In commenting on the attitude of Protestants respecting the disputed books, Œcolampadius, perhaps on the whole the best representative of the Swiss Reformers, declared in a formal statement: “We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the last two books of Esdras, the books of Maccabees, the additions to Daniel; but we do not allow them divine authority with the others.” Here he clearly distinguishes between proper and improper use of the intertestamental books.

Usefulness Of Apocrypha

There is an old Latin proverb to the effect that the abuse of anything does not do away with its use. Granted that the Apocrypha are not inspired and that the Roman church erred in elevating them to canonical status, the intertestamental literature is far from being without value for Protestants.

In the first place, these books are useful in interpreting and elucidating various aspects of Western culture. In English literature, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Ruskin, Longfellow and many others have borrowed more or less freely themes and statements from the Apocrypha. In art, many of the old masters, as well as several modern painters, have chosen subjects from this body of literature. In music, such hymns as “Now Thank We All Our God,” “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” and dozens of Charles Wesley’s compositions disclose the adoption of ideas, phrases and even whole sections from the Apocrypha. Anthems, oratorios and several operas incorporate material from these books. Even Christopher Columbus was influenced in his decision to sail westward by a passage in II Esdras. (Since there is not room here to document these instances of the pervasive influence of the Apocrypha, perhaps the author may be allowed to refer those who are interested to his recent book, An Introduction to the Apocrypha, Oxford University Press, where all these and many more examples are discussed.)

In the second place, just as the works of the ancient Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, are useful to the serious student of the New Testament, so too the apocryphal books throw much light upon the history of the Jews between the Old and New Testaments. The development of the sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees; the growth of interest in the coming of the Messiah; the extension of beliefs regarding angels and demons; the dissemination of the doctrine of the resurrection—in all these respects the Apocrypha provide great assistance in tracing the growth of institutions and beliefs which are taken for granted everywhere in the New Testament but of which there is scarcely an allusion in the Old Testament. All such study constitutes the proper use of the Apocrypha.

In the third place, despite the presence of obviously frivolous and superstitious statements in some of the apocryphal books, it cannot be denied that they also contain several passages of great inspirational and devotional value. The saintly Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, one of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible, incorporated the greater part of the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh in his book of Private Devotions, and thus made it widely familiar to users of that excellent devotional aid. In conducting funeral services many a minister who reads the words of a hymn of comfort, or Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar,” also may use the exalted passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, beginning, “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and no torment will ever touch them” (3:1–5).

Proper Attitude

John Bunyan provides an instructive example of a sane and sensible attitude toward the Apocrypha. In his remarkable autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, Bunyan describes how in 1652 he received help to overcome a lengthy period of spiritual despondency from the text, “Look at the generations of old, and see; did ever any trust in the Lord and was confounded?” Though he could not at first locate this verse, when at length he found it in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. 2:10), he was honest enough to confess that “this, at the first, did somewhat daunt me; but … when I considered, that though it was not in those Texts that we call Holy and Canonical, yet forasmuch as this sentence was the sum and substance of many of the Promises, it was my duty to take the comfort of it; and I bless God for that word, for it was of God to me.” He concludes this moving account with the admission, “That word doth still, at times, shine before my face” (section 62 ff).

As a postscript, one may ask whether it is too far-fetched to speculate what might have been the result if Bunyan had not been somewhat familiar with the Apocrypha. In that case, humanly speaking, he might never have overcome his spiritual despondency and consequently might never have written his immortal allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress.

END

Harold B. Kuhn is now in India, serving as guest professor at Union Biblical Seminary in Yeotmal, the training school of the Evangelical Fellowship of India. He is on leave until January from his post as Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Asbury Theological Seminary. Before returning to the U.S., Dr. and Mrs. Kuhn will be speaking at several conventions and Bible conferences.

- More from Bruce M. Metzger

Cover Story

Revelation, History, and the Bible

George Eldon Ladd

At the heart of biblical religion is revelation. The presupposition of biblical religion is that man’s predicament is so involved that he is incapable of finding God. Left to himself, man’s religious quest leads to futility. However, God has not left man to himself. God has taken the initiative to bring to men that which they could not achieve: knowledge of God and fellowship which grows out of that knowledge. This divine activity involves both redemption and revelation. God has acted to impart to men, who are in bondage to ignorance and sin, knowledge of and fellowship with himself.

Role Of The Bible

The role of the Bible in revelation is vigorously debated in contemporary theological discussion. Orthodox theology has maintained that revelation has taken place in the Bible, that the Scriptures themselves are divine revelation, that the Bible is the Word of God. A powerful reaction to this traditional theology has arisen with the insistence that the medium of revelation is redemptive history rather than a book. The content of revelation is held to be not truth about God to be stated in propositional form; it is God himself who through revelation imparts himself to man. Revelation conveys not knowledge about God but knowledge of God.

A vigorous and stimulating presentation of this modern point of view may be found in John Baillie’s American Bampton lectures delivered at Columbia University (The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1956). Baillie has some excellent passages on the historical character of biblical religion. Other sacred books consist of oracles setting forth timeless truths to instruct man in his conduct and worship. The Bible records what God has done to bring man into fellowship with himself. The Mosaic law is set apart from other legal codes in being based upon a covenant between Israel and God which is conceived as taking place in history. The prophetic oracles differ from other oracles in antiquity in that they were concerned with the meaning of definite historical situations rather than with timeless truth. While the great philosophies offer a new interpretation of old and universal facts and pagan religions attempt to provide men with a new relationship to an old situation, biblical religion has something new to announce. God has done something. New events have occurred which place men in a situation in which they have never been before (pp. 52 f). The Gospel is indeed “good news.”

Through this historical revelation culminating in Christ, says Baillie, God has not merely made himself known; he has given himself that men might enter into fellowship with God. If revelation consisted chiefly of theological propositions, the reaction required of men would be intellectual assent. This, however, is not what God requires; it is rather complete committal, truth, that there might ensue a life of fellowship with and dependence upon God.

There is indeed, Baillie admits, an element of assent in revelation; but this intellectual element plays a distinctly subordinate role in man’s response to God’s act. Only wholehearted trust which replies to God’s giving of himself in revelation is an adequate response. In fact, such a response is necessary for revelation actually to exist. Revelation is never complete, i.e., the process of the divine impartation is never consummated without this human response.

Revelation Or Witness?

In this process, Baillie insists, the Bible is not revelation but a witness to revelation. It is both a record of what God has done in revelation and the response of men contemporary with the divine act which completes the revelation. As men in subsequent ages read the witness and, led by the Spirit, respond to God’s revelatory act in Christ, as did the prophets and the apostles so that the prophetic response becomes our response, then revelation again becomes a completed reality.

This theology of revelation as recital and response rather than as proposition is offered as a challenge to the traditional view that the Bible is part of revelation. The traditional view which is no longer acceptable to thinkers like Baillie is described as “an ecclesiastical formulation which identified revelation with the written word of Scripture and gave to the action of God in history the revelational status only of being among the things concerning which Scripture informed us” (p. 62). In other words, orthodoxy is accused of emphasizing the role of the Bible in revelation to the practical exclusion of revelation in historical events.

This “ecclesiastical formulation” is not the only interpretation held by modern orthodox theologians. There is no reason why the orthodox understanding of revelation requires a denial of special or revelatory history. On the other hand, cordial recognition of history as the vehicle of revelation does not lead to a denial that the Bible is itself a part of revelation. The role of redemptive history in revelation is recognized, if not stressed, by Carl F. H. Henry in his essay, “Divine Revelation and the Bible” (In Inspiration and Interpretation, John W. Walvoord, ed., Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1957, pp. 253–278). “Special revelation involves unique historical events of divine deliverance.… The category of revelation is therefore broader than the category of the spoken and written words of Scripture, since it covers special historic events which the Bible normatively interprets.… Revelation cannot, therefore, be equated simply with the Hebrew Christian Scriptures; the Bible is a special segment with a larger divine activity of revelation” (ibid., pp. 254 f).

Certainly Henry’s view squares with the teachings of Scripture. The Bible is very conscious that God has spoken unto the fathers in the prophets in diverse manners (Heb. 1:1). One of these modes of conveying the Word of God is historical events. We need not be afraid of the affirmation that God has revealed himself in redemption history. In fact, apart from this redemptive history, there would be no revelation and no Bible.

We may agree with Baillie that the historical character of biblical religion is one of the elements which determines both its distinctiveness and its glory. Theology is not simply a set of universal truths, a system of philosophical concepts. The so-called “old liberalism” of men like Adolf von Harnack is subject to the criticism that it reduced the kernel of Christianity to a few religious truths of universal character: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the infinite value of the human soul and the ethic of love. This is not biblical Christianity. The Bible asserts that God has done something, that God has been active in the stream of redemptive history and has finally himself entered history in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, to bring lost men into fellowship with himself. God is indeed revealed in the historical Jesus. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

History And Relativity

There is indeed one important circle of contemporary theological thought which is embarrassed by the historical character of revelation, for it seems to make theology dependent upon the relativities of historical research. The modern understanding of history often takes offense at the idea that one “piece” or strand of history can contain meanings which are absolute and by which all other history is judged. The effort has therefore been made to free Christian theology from its involvement in history while retaining the theological values of orthodoxy—an effort which has not been successfully accomplished (See Paul King Jewett, Emil Brunner’s Concept of Revelation, London, James Clarke, 1954).

While we may agree that the events of redemptive history are revelatory, that God has spoken in the events of the history of Israel and above all in Jesus Christ, we must insist that much contemporary theological thought has not adequately understood the role of the Bible in revelation. Revelation in acts is not left to speak for itself. Revelation in historical events might not always be recognized as such. Baillie recognizes this fact and, following C. H. Dodd, admits that history consists of the historical occurrence plus its interpretation or meaning. It is the total structure of historical events plus their interpretation which is God’s Word to man. The events by themselves are capable of other explanations, but the prophetic interpretation recognizes the divine activity in the historical event, and this prophetic interpretation becomes itself a new event (p. 69).

Normative Interpretation

This is indeed the biblical pattern. However, a problem arises at this point: does the biblical concept of revelation recognize any normative and authoritative element in the prophetic interpretation of the revelatory historical events? Neo-orthodox theologians see little that is authoritative in the interpretation. They hold that the prophetic interpretation is a human response which completes the divine act in history so that it becomes revelation to the person responding. This view insists that the Bible is a witness to the act-revelation and the record of the human response which completes it. The man who today reads the witness to revelation and responds as did the prophets and apostles enters into the same experience of revelation. God becomes reality to him as he did to them.

This, however, is not the biblical pattern. Rather, the interpretation is not merely a human reaction to the divine act but is also a divine act. The prophetic interpretation is itself the Word of God which is necessary to convey the divine meaning of the historical events. Redemptive history has a character of once-for-allness. Christ died. The death of Christ is an unrepeatable event. Christ died for our sins. This apostolic interpretation of the death of Christ also shares this character of once-for-allness. There is indeed variety of interpretation, but it is not a variety of contradiction but of richness of meaning. There are divinely intended meanings in the events of redemptive history which are not always self-evident. These meanings are conveyed in the prophetic and the apostolic interpretation. Therefore the total revelatory event includes the historical act plus the prophetic interpretation; and both share the character of once-for-allness. There must indeed be a human response to revelation as each individual embraces the redemptive act of God for his own experience. This, however, is not revelation but illumination. My experience does not share the authoritative character of the apostolic interpretation, nor does it give rise to new and equally authoritation meanings.

The Meaning Of Calvary

We may here cite only one illustration to demonstrate this fundamental principle that the revelatory event consists of occurrence plus authoritative meaning. The death of Christ is an historical event. Paul says that it is the proof, the demonstration of the love of God (Rom. 5:8). How do we know that Christ’s love discloses the love of God? Were the Roman soldiers conscious of God’s love as they watched Jesus die? Were the few disciples who stayed close to the cross drawn there because they realized that in this act God was demonstrating his love for them? Was the love of God in Christ’s death self-evident? Does Golgotha speak for itself? On the contrary, the disciples thought that the end of their world had come. Their reaction was, “We had hoped.…” (Lk. 24:21 RSV).

An answer frequently given to this problem is that the theological understanding of Christ’s death grew out of Christian experience. However, the fact seems to be that Christian experience arose only where there was already a theological interpretation of the meaning of Christ’s death. Only when the Resurrection reversed the apparent catastrophe of his death, only when the risen Christ himself interpreted the meaning of his death (Lk. 24:26–27), only when the apostles set forth the unseen, divine activity in an otherwise tragic event, did it begin to convey a new significance and to be recognized for what it was: an act of God’s love. We know that Jesus’ death shows the love of God only because of the prophetic interpretation of that event. This interpretation is a given, and it is normative, authoritative. It cannot be displaced by any alternative interpretation, for it is itself revelation which comes from God. The authoritative apostolic interpretation has been crystallized and deposited in the written New Testament Scriptures, which are therefore themselves revelation, the Word of God.

This analysis indicates the role of the Bible in revelation. The prophetic words of interpretation were sometimes spoken, sometimes written. Sometimes they preceded act-revelation, sometimes they followed, and sometimes they both preceded and followed. But interpretative words are always necessary. Revelation is never left to speak for itself.

Thus God’s revelatory acts were consummated in Jesus Christ. He is an historical character, and Christianity stands or falls with the historicity of his person and ministry. But revelation is not itself consummated in Jesus Christ, for the event of Christ is not “bare” event; the meaning of the “Christ event” is set forth in the apostolic interpretation, i.e., in our New Testament. This interpretation is itself revelation, consisting of the divinely initiated tradition of the meaning of what God did and said in Christ. The events of redemptive history can never be repeated, nor can the prophetic interpretation ever be repeated. Both are normative; both participate in the character of once-for-allness. The experience of the apostles and prophets included two elements: a personal realization of God, and a normative interpretation of the divine revelatory events. The first is repeatable in Christian experience; the second is unique.

Revelation And Inspiration

Thus revelation is never consummated apart from the inspired interpretation of the apostles and prophets. In biblical days the interpretation was of necessity, in part at least, in spoken form. This inspired interpretation is now inscripturated in the Word of God written. The writing of the inspired Scriptures is therefore an essential part of the activity of God in redemptive history. Revelation has not occurred in history alone; it has occurred also in the written Scriptures which preserve the divinely initiated meaning of act-revelation. This does not mean that there are two revelations or two processes of revelation—one in history and one in Scripture. Both elements are essential in the one process of revelation. God acted in history; God inspired the prophets to interpret authoritatively the meaning of revelatory history, whether the interpretation was oral or written. We no longer have the living prophetic voice; but we have the living Word of God written, which is the inscripturated prophetic interpretation. Redemptive history is revelatory, but it is not by itself revelation; it is revelation only as the prophetic, or biblical, interpretation discloses the revelatory meaning of redemptive history. We can however say that redemptive history is revelation when we recognize that the Bible is itself the result of God’s activity in history and is in fact the crown and consummation of the process of revelation, giving to act-revelation its normative meaning. Thus revelation consists of acts and words, occurrences and interpretation, history and the Bible. The Bible is not merely a witness to revelation in history; it is itself revelation which alone discloses the revelatory meaning of redemptive history.

This explains why propositional truth is an indispensable element in revelation. “God is love.” This is a proposition; but it is much more than a proposition. It is a proposition which, ultimately, can be made and understood only in the light of the historical event of Christ’s death, as that event is prophetically interpreted in the Scriptures. Such truth requires the assent of the reader; yet it is obvious that intellectual assent is not enough. Scripture itself affirms this. Personal response is demanded—commitment, trust. It is true that in revelation and as a result of revelation, God gives himself. Revelation has a redemptive purpose. However, this divine self-giving includes knowledge about God as well as knowledge of God. I must know something about God before I can commit myself to him. The continuing human response to the divine revelation includes both mind and heart; in fact, the whole man. It is the business of orthodox Christianity to define and to defend the truth about God and redemption. Apart from assured truth, we have no certain message to proclaim. But it is also the business of orthodox Christianity to propagate revealed truth, to proclaim to sinful men the reality of the self-revealed God and the divinely initiated redemption in Christ, that lost men may be brought back into fellowship with the living God. This is the goal of revelation.

The name of Oswald J. Smith, Litt.D., pastor of the Peoples Church in Toronto, Canada, is a symbol of missionary spirit in the pulpit. His church has contributed more than 3 million dollars for missionary work, mostly for foreign missions. He has written 22 small books, one of them, The Passion for Souls, somewhat of a missionary classic. Dr. Smith here relates the mission and method that motivated his program.

Preacher In The Red

SPEECHLESS

It was in the early days of my ministry, when I was a student minister prior to college days. I was making a pastoral call at a home where a little girl talked incessantly, preventing a conversation between her mother and myself. In self-defense, I playfully said to the child, “Amy, if you will be quiet for five minutes and don’t say a word, I will give you five cents. That’s a cent a minute, which is pretty good pay.”

The little girl became silent and remained so, while I kept my eye on my watch. At the end of the five minutes I gave her the five cents, for which she thanked me. Imagine my great surprise when she looked me seriously in the face and said, “Now, Mr. C., if you will be quiet and won’t speak for five minutes I’ll give it back to you!” It left both her mother and myself speechless for the moment and I can’t recall who spoke next, or what was said.—The Rev. TOM CURRANT, St. Thomas—Wesley United Church, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Suite 1014 Washington Building, Washington, D. C.

- More from George Eldon Ladd

Cover Story

The Drive for IMC-WCC Merger

The spirit of ecumenical merger, motive force of contemporary Protestantism, has set as it next goal the integration of the International Missionary Council with the World Council of Churches. Most ecumenical leaders view this step as a logical move in shaping a master framework of organizational unity for Protestant witness, and they are confident that merger will be a fait accompli before the end of the 1960 WCC assembly. Many evangelical leaders, on the other hand, regard the drive for merger with dismay, and as tending to disrupt the harmony of missionary effort in many parts of the world. One fact is certain: while the merger would bring almost half the world witness of Protestant missions within the orbit of the ecumenical movement, it poses fresh problems for mission boards at home and missionary workers abroad.

35,000 Protestant Missionaries

The number of Protestant missionaries in the world today is just under 35,000. Standing at the frontiers of Christian faith against the powers of unbelief and darkness, this missionary force faces modern pressures for alignment unknown in apostolic days. The missionary today is caught in the tension between denominational and interdenominational or superdenominational alignment, which the ecumenical movement proposes to transcend, ostensibly by fulfilling the New Testament conception of the unity of the Church. Over and above this issue, however, hangs the theological tension of the day, posed by the conflict between the liberal and evangelical theology.

Strength Of Imc Effort

Since its organization in 1921, the IMC has gathered somewhat less than half the Protestant missionary personnel around the world into its orbit. Since IMC includes most of the older and established mission boards, it doubtless represents half the Protestant missionary effort. Most estimates place its missionary force between 12,000 and 15,000. The bulk of its strength is in missionary personnel from the United States and Great Britain; in fact, 60% of its missionary personnel is accounted for by the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches, U.S.A., and much of the remainder by its British counterpart, the Conference of Missionary Societies. Of the 35,000 Protestant missionaries, 25,000 are from North America, and 43% of these are represented by IMC.

IMC functions as an association of national councils of missions and as an association of councils of national churches, with a shifting emphasis from mission boards to younger churches as the basis of membership. It is rooted in an effort to coordinate the missionary effort of national churches whose rise is an aspect of ecumenical Christianity in the twentieth century.

At first IMC was promoted as a non-theological agency concerned only with missionary cooperation and efficiency. Its early efforts were carried on under the theme of the missionary proclamation of the gospel. Many evangelical missionaries cooperated with the understanding that its existence was wholly independent of ecumenical interests. Although the IMC program was increasingly represented as a means of fulfilling Christ’s prayer for the unity of the Church—the favorite theme of all ecumenical ventures—evangelical leaders who were apprehensive about this trend understood ecumenical pronouncements before and after the 1955 Evanston Assembly to mean that no plan was on foot to integrate IMC and the WCC.

The fact is, however, that IMC and WCC had already been brought into an official consitutional relationship at the Amsterdam assembly in 1950. IMC leaders, replying to evangelical protests that they were misled by ambiguous statements at Evanston, stress that the question in debate was not whether to merge, but when to merge, and that 1955 was not the propitious time. The announcement was not “we have resolved not to integrate,” but rather, “we have not resolved to integrate.”

Other Mission Agencies

Alongside IMC, which accounts for less than half of the Protestant missionary personnel, exist other missionary agencies organized on a specifically theological basis, both denominational and interdenominational. Organized in 1917 as an association of non-denominational faith mission boards, Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association now represents 6,000 missionaries. Evangelical Foreign Mission Association, an association of mission boards formed in 1945, reports 4,600 missionaries in direct membership. Doubtless these figures reflect some measure of overlap. But since EFMA represents an additional 1,000 missionaries not in direct membership but outside IFMA, these organizations account for more than 10,000 missionaries.

Both IFMA and EFMA are fundamentalist or evangelical in theology. IFMA excludes denominational and holiness groups, while EFMA includes both. In addition to its framework of spiritual fellowship, EFMA emphasizes its service features (expediting passports, protesting infractions of religious liberty, etc.).

Beside these movements exist denominational groups going their own way and represented by none of the larger organizations. For example, there are 1,000 Southern Baptist missionaries and almost 300 Lutheran (Missouri Synod) missionaries outside the orbit of IMC, IFMA and EFMA.

The Shift In Imc Emphasis

When local and national councils of churches were organized in foreign lands by the ecumenical movement, many areas boasted a predominance of evangelical missionaries. In many instances these missionaries did not wish to be excluded from a voice in organized Protestantism. Since IMC was projected as a non-creedal agency assisting established missions in doing their job, these evangelicals did not resist its advances, but enlisted in the local IMC councils.

In recent years, evangelical opinion has cooled toward IMC, primarily for two reasons. Little by little IMC has moved into the realm of theological issues. The question of the nature of the Church has been constantly raised by the younger churches in relation to their mission boards, and this in turn has renewed the issues of liberalism, neo-supernaturalism, and evangelicalism. Moreover, while IMC has not directly implemented the WCC program, the agency has doubtless done much indirect footwork for WCC since the Amsterdam assembly.

The Big Merger Looms

These issues have now come into major focus with the announcement that merger of IMC and the WCC is under active consideration. Whereas a few years ago the imminence of merger was scouted, the current emphasis is that the WCC in reality is a product of the IMC as the symbol of ecumenical missionary concern. The IMC claims that its 1921 beginnings were really sparked by the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. Whereas the ecumenical movement has centered interest in the concerns of Faith and Order, and Life and Work, it is now proposed to center its outreach in the missionary movement.

The next step toward merger is scheduled next December when the IMC assembly at Ghana, on the African Gold Coast, will vote on a draft plan of integration. If approval is ratified by IMC constituent councils, the plan will come before the 1960 assembly of the WCC.

Denominational Questions

Structural and theological aspects of the proposed merger are causing concern to leaders in some denominational mission boards.

On the structural side the questions are numerous. The IMC has been and is, as its name implies, an organization strictly devoted to the business of missions. Those who compose it are, for the most part, persons who are engaged in the missionary task. Thus IMC is of the nature of a “trades association” in which those who are charged with a specialized responsibility meet for consultation and counsel concerning matters to which they hold a direct administrative relationship. The WCC, on the other hand, is quite different in structure. It is, as the name suggests, a council of churches. Representatives from various ecclesiastical bodies to the WCC are not persons who necessarily have any relationship to their own denominational program of missions. For example, of the 12 representatives of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. in the WCC, not one has any administrative connection with its Foreign Mission Board or with its program of work overseas. The framers of the plan of integration have undoubtedly seen this difficulty and have sought to meet it by proposing that there be set up within the WCC a Commission on World Missions and Evangelism, approximately two-thirds of whose membership will be drawn from councils now affiliated with the IMC. However, this Commission would have no final authority within the Council, but would submit its report and make recommendation to the Assembly and the Central Committee.

Some denominational spokesmen also fear that all this machinery of organization, with the interposition of additional steps before any action can be regarded as authorized, will have the effect of retarding the functions and processes that the organization is designed to serve. The unwieldiness of ever larger structures involves enormous overhead costs, time waste and delay, and inefficiency that one critic declares “would bankrupt any organization except one supported by charity.”

Fear Growth Of Power

Others warn that democratic liberties characteristic of Protestantism will be in serious danger under this system of concentrated power. While the new organization is projected as “consultative, not controlling,” designed to serve the purposes of reference and counsel, and without compromising the independence and autonomy of constituent bodies (the draft plan of merger asserts that “the Commission has no mandatory authority over any of the affiliated or associated councils in its membership”), they regard this as unconvincing. Mandatory power there may not be; but the power of pressure, persuasion, preponderance, publicity and propaganda is tremendous. A kind of regimentation can be brought about which is absolute in authority. Experience clearly shows, they argue, that organizations of this sort, begun for the purpose of mutual consultation and sharing, soon develop administrative powers.

By way of example, such observers note that since the Foreign Missions Conference was superseded by the organization of the National Council in 1950 with its Division of Foreign Missions, there has been a gradual change with respect to function. The elements of reference, counsel and consultation are still there, but there is a definite development in the direction of making the Division of Foreign Missions and its Executive Board increasingly administrative and directive. Various units of the Division, such as the Africa Committee, the Far Eastern Committee and the Latin-America Committee, are setting up programs and projects administered centrally from New York, the boards participating by contributing their share to the special budgets required for these enterprises and by their representation on the controlling committees. There develops, through this process, a sort of collective administration of rapidly increasing programs of work in these several areas. Would it not be too much to expect, observers ask, that the same thing would not happen if the merger takes place between the IMC and the WCC?

Whatever the structural problems, the theological aspect is viewed by some denominational spokesmen as the real heart of the difficulty. Theologically speaking, the WCC is a disappointment to many who stand for a vigorous Christian testimony in the world. They feel that the Council, purporting to represent the major stream of Christian life, thought and action in the world, ought to have a more forthright testimony in faith and doctrine. What kind of mission will be fostered and promoted by a unity that seems to be interested primarily in organizational oneness, they ask, rather than in a united proclamation of a forthright full-rounded gospel that will be honoring to Christ?

Evangelical Concern

The evangelical missionary enterprise has been thrown into new tensions over ecumenical issues through the IMC-WCC merger maneuver. Evangelical missionaries enlisted in the IMC on the basis of its non-creedal framework are now threatening to detach themselves from local missionary councils on foreign fields unless those councils detach themselves from IMC in view of the proposed merger with WCC. The ecumenical drive for merger, it is protested, while ostensibly in the name of the unity of the Church, is actually disruptive, since it is now threatening and curtailing the range of missionary cooperation, in and through the identification of the broad missionary interest with an objectionably abbreviated theological base as represented by the WCC.

Congo Protestant Council, one of the oldest members of IMC and also one of the most vigorous councils in Africa, has threatened to withdraw from IMC because of the provocative theological issue if the merger with WCC is consummated. The Norwegian Missionary Society has also given indications of withdrawal on the ground that its workers would not be at home within the new alignment.

Meanwhile, tensions between evangelical forces and the IMC are rising. Some missionary leaders resent increasing IMC pressures in behalf of the WCC aimed to secure evangelical continuance within the merger framework. IMC spokesmen have propagandized to preserve the status quo on foreign fields while home constituencies are pressuring missionary boards for theological reasons to pull their missionaries out of foreign councils that persist in affiliation with IMC. In French Indo-China, evangelical leaders complain, IMC advocates have sought to influence local churches contrary to the principles of their governing mission boards in America. EFMA has already set aside a day during its Winona Lake conference, October 1–4, when its executive committee will discuss problems related to the drive for merger.

Ecumenical spokesmen discount evangelical fears that the proposed merger will neutralize the missionary effort through a blurring of theological distinctives. But evangelical mission leaders point to the Church of South India, arguing that it was shaped according to the lowest common denominator theologically on the ecumenical pattern and then defected from a Bible-centered ministry.

Peace Of The Churches

In recent decades evangelical leaders have been exasperated frequently because they have been dismissed as uncooperative or divisive simply because they have not enlisted in ecumenical organizations and ventures. Many of them point to the implications of the IMC-WCC merger as an evidence that ecumenical forces are more interested in massively organized Protestantism than in harmony of the Protestant witness. What genuine devotion to the unity of Christian missions, they ask, dictates an unyielding drive for massive mergers that are provocative of tensions in evangelical missionary effort and disruptive of the harmony of established church enterprises?

Evangelical spokesmen point especially to the Congo, where the crisis posed by the merger possibility affects 54 mission boards. Of these, 46 are in the Congo Protestant Council, which is older than IMC, of which it is now an affiliate. Some of the largest of these boards are also in EFMA and IFMA, but all have cooperated and contributed to the Council within the IMC as a non-theological agency. The vast majority of these boards want no affiliation with the WCC for theological reasons, and their leaders have given advance warning that an IMC-WCC merger will split the Congo Protestant Council.

The disruptive consequences of the IMC-WCC drive for merger, some evangelical leaders argue, gives a hollow center to ecumenical attempts to impute to evangelical Christianity blame for the disunity of Protestant witness.

As pressures increase for the ecumenical movement’s absorption of the missionary enterprise, reaction will also increase on the part of those lacking enthusiasm for the ecumenical effort in its present theological outlines. The present Protestant missionary situation is therefore not bright with the promise of harmony.

Is Merger Assured?

Some Protestant leaders doubt, however, that the IMC-WCC merger is certain of achievement in 1960, though they regard it as inevitable. Dr. Norman Goodall, secretary of the Joint Committee of the WCC and IMC, concedes some reservations have been voiced both within IMC and WCC to the present formulation. Moreover, the IMC constitution makes possible the defeat of the merger plan, once it is commended to the member councils in December at the Ghana assembly, by the opposition vote of but six of those councils during the subsequent two-year interval.

Already there are indications that the Congo and the Norwegian councils will oppose. Moreover, opposition to the merger has also been voiced by the Orthodox Church (both Greek and Russian), for reasons quite different from evangelical opposition. The complaint of the Orthodox Church is that the merger would imply WCC approval of the Protestant Reformation missionary witness to which the Orthodox Church is opposed in its own geographical sphere as objectionable proselyting. (Some ecumenical leaders think the Orthodox opposition will help to crystallize evangelical enthusiasm, while some evangelical leaders reply that the inclusion of the Orthodox Church within the ecumenical framework only serves to dramatize its objectionable theological base.)

Although Dr. Goodall concedes that the IMC assembly “could turn down” the merger plan as too divisive, he thinks the general proposal is more likely to receive a majority vote at Ghana, and that its fate will be commended to the constituent councils. In the event of their approval, the merger will be consummated at the 1960 WCC assembly.

END

Cover Story

Ecumenism and the Lord’s Table

R. J. Rushdoony

With the current interest in ecumenism and church union, there is a growing emphasis on the Lord’s table and a revival of interest in liturgics. Much of this latter interest has been properly criticized as romantic, as concerned unduly with rubrics, chants, stained glass, choral and congregational responses, clerical garb and the like, and as irrelevant. The Lord’s Supper began as a simple meal in an upper room, and, in the early church, was closer to the church potluck supper than to the modern observance. On the other hand, it must be clearly understood that we are not tied to the original form of the Lord’s Supper, in which case an upper room would be required, but to the essential form and content, as given in 1 Corinthians 11:18–34. Concerning the basic form, the words of institution, there is general agreement.

But what then is the essential content of the Lord’s Supper? Here, for many persons, the old term “communion” is most expressive. It is the Christian bond of peace and unity, the outward token of an inward and outward communion in and with Christ. As such, the Lord’s Supper has become the symbol of the current aspirations for ecumenity. Christ’s Church, sorely divided into many fragments and splinters, must be again united so that, with an effective and united voice, she may witness to a troubled world. In terms of such thinking, every service of communion becomes an indictment of the Church for continuing in disunion.

The fallacy of such thinking, however, is that it makes central to the Lord’s table the human communion of many believers, the totality of human strength as essential to witness, and the centrality of unity to Christian faith and life. It inevitably obscures the essential meaning of the sacrament, the atonement and redemption effected for believers by Jesus Christ, their continuing preservation, sanctification and unity in and with him. That unity does have an important part in this picture is obvious. But to emphasize it unduly is to distort the entire picture, if not to destroy it. In ecumenical thinking, incredible latitude is permitted with regard to the doctrinal aspects; these need not be taken literally, but unity must be taken literally. Thus the ecumenical approach allows a latitudinarian interpretation of the deity of Christ, of his atonement, of security, sanctification, and other doctrines, but insists on a literal approach to unity. The opponents of unity insist on a literal subscription to dogmatic statements but insist on a spiritualizing and latitudinarian interpretation of unity.

Truth And Unity

Obviously, therefore, the concept of unity needs examination. It must be first of all noted that the modern ecumenical movement has no relationship to the councils of the early Church. There the emphasis was on truth above unity, and unity only on the grounds of truth. The enduring value of these councils, despite many disorders as well as doctrinal variations, consisted in their emphasis on truth as the only valid ground for union. This emphasis, however, gave way gradually to the Roman Catholic emphasis, which, from the Protestant point of view, is on unity above truth. The differences preceding the Vatican Council were subordinated to the principle of unity; the long history of theological differences, for example, between Dominicans and Franciscans, shows also their subordination to the opinion made dogmatically binding. To the Protestant, truth and unity have a transcendent reconciliation in Christ; to the Roman Catholic, believing in Christ’s continuing incarnation in the church and the apostolic authority of the See of Peter, truth and unity have an immanent reconciliation in the pope; and hence papal infallibility is not an exotic but natural development of this immanence. Since the principle of unity is present in the person of the Roman pontiff, the principle of unity cannot exist apart from him or be reserved to the church and its schools. Thus devout Roman Catholics can submit to doctrinal pronouncements previously unacceptable to them because doctrinal pronouncements “concerning faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church” are truly and authoritatively defined by the Roman pontiff alone “and not by virtue of the consent of the Church” (Vatican Council). To the evangelical Protestant, truth and unity are perfectly reconciled in Christ only, not immanently in any social order or church. The modern ecumenical emphasis is analogous to Rome in that unity is the means to truth and the very ground of truth. The Roman concept of unity is imposed from above. The modern Protestant ecumenical movement differs from the Roman approach only in seeking unity more democratically. It agrees with Rome in emphasizing peace and unity as more important than truth and as the real ground of truth in Christ.

Unity Does Not Stand Alone

In terms of such thinking, Athanasius, Luther, and Calvin were clearly wrong in insisting that truth is more important than peace and unity. They were wrong then in believing that Christians must be exposed to the turbulent and demanding claims of truth and in insisting, through the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, that all Christians, and all men, must be brought face to face with the truth in Jesus Christ, and with the whole counsel of God in his Word, that unity might grow out of a priesthood grounded and established in truth.

Here it must be pointed out that the very conception of truth and unity as well as truth versus unity is in a very important measure defective. First of all, it must be recognized that by its very nature truth is divisive. It compels a demarcation and a definition, a separation from error and evil. Truth must therefore always be underrated and obscured if a blanket unity is to be furthered. Second, unity in itself is no more a virtue than is sincerity. The sincerity of Hitler and the unity of the German people under him constituted no moral value or gain. Sincerity and unity possess moral validity only as they are attached to persons and causes having moral validity. If unity is sought on grounds which undervalue truth, then unity becomes to that same degree reprehensible. Third, it must be recognized, however, that truth in itself can be barren, if, indeed, it is possible for truth to so exist. A very important question must here be raised: can truth exist without grace? For a Christian, such a thing is inconceivable: truth and grace are different aspects of one revelation. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Jesus Christ is the revelation of God’s truth and grace. Truth cannot exist without grace, and grace cannot exist apart from truth. Thus, the doctrinaire and belligerent attitude of some opponents of ecumenity is grounded neither in grace nor in truth but in a partisan spirit which is as defective as the barren insistence on union. The truly ecumenical insistence will not be on peace and unity but on truth and grace, and the only effective opposition to the defective ecumenity of our era is one which presents truth and grace. Fourth, it must be stated that there is a difference between unity and union. Union can exist without unity, and unity without union. Ecumenical thinking too often aims at union rather than unity, at an outward marriage, leading to a Protestant Rome, rather than a true marriage of minds and spirits. All such attempts only compound weaknesses and troubles and render sick churches more sick. On the other hand, it is not enough to emphasize unity without union. Where true unity exists, is there no obligation to union? Is it not indeed a form of irresponsibility to emphasize our unity and berate union?

Evangelical Contributions

Fifth, it is obvious that many churches today are far more interested in union than in unity. One of the ironic notes today is the growing destruction by ecumenity of its own parents. More of the modern ecumenical movement stems from various evangelical movements of the past century than is commonly recognized. Moody’s revivals, for example, cut across denominational lines and did more to foster interchurch relations than is generally conceded. Revivalism, with its “common denominator theology,” did much to correlate the theologies of the various churches. The Christian Endeavor movement, for many decades shaping the lives of the potential leaders of various denominations, trained them into a common denominator Christianity, albeit a conservative one, and emphasized interchurch unity. These movements and others like them were important in their major impact on American life in extending the frontiers of faith and life; they were also important in leveling the specifically Calvinist, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, and other specifically theological and ecclesiological emphases in favor of a skeletal Christianity. As such they were a major ecumenical factor, whatever our opinion of their value.

But modern ecumenical leaders are at one and the same time active in promoting specifically denominational youth programs, church revival, and evangelism endeavors. They insist on union rather than unity, and on church loyalty rather than basic and fundamental doctrines. Clearly, church loyalty is a needed emphasis in the face of so much atomistic and individualistic thinking with regard to the Christian life. Without it, the church cannot be a church. But church loyalty is a dangerous concept unless subordinated to truth and grace, unless it is held in recognition of the freedom of the Christian believer and is truly a part of our obedience to the triune God. The Church and its leaders are never free of sin and every trifle cannot be made an occasion for revolt, but neither can the Church require obedience where it seeks to be the lawgiver as against God in his Word. Jesus Christ is King of the Church and its only lawgiver, and none other can bind the consciences of men. The Church can bind and loose only ministerially, not legislatively; only in Christ, not in its own authority; and loyalty must be ministerially, not legislatively, required.

Meaning Of Lord’s Table

Ecumenity, and the opposition to ecumenity, needs to be recalled to the true meaning of the Lord’s table, which indeed is the true bond of our unity and peace in Christ. According to Paul, those who failed to discern the Lord’s body (1 Cor. 11:29) were those who failed, first, to understand the nature of the sacrament, the meaning of the death, resurrection, atonement, sanctifying and preserving work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Second, they revealed their lack of knowledge of truth by their lack of grace and order in their supper observances, their gluttony and drunkenness, their disunity and contempt of their brothers, and their self-satisfaction with their worship. They thus failed to discern the Lord’s body in the supper, that is, in its meaning, and failed to discern the Lord’s body in his Church. Today, in both the proponents and opponents of ecumenity there is a similar failure. It may again be said or this generation, both Christians and churches, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30). The penalty for failure to discern the Lord’s body is still judgment (1 Cor. 11:29).

Robert Paul Roth has been Professor of New Testament Theology and Dean of the Graduate School at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S. C., since 1953. He holds the M.A. degree from University of Illinois, B.D. from Northwestern Lutheran Seminary, and Ph.D. from University of Chicago. He was formerly Professor in Luthergiri Seminary, India, and in Augustana College.

Alternatives

Not with mere stuttering repetition

Or useless aspirations dumbly spun

From wheels forever whirled on fitful winds

Over bleak gullies washed by turbid streams;

Nor egocentric flailing of dull flesh

Practised in the cloistered cell by night,

With wielded scourge and trickling blood and grief,

For extrication of essential guilt;

Nor bruised knees upward groping on the steep

Cross-studded sacramental stairs nor tear-

Groined cheeks to squatting idols bowed, with hope

From bloodless stone to gather certitude:

Neither these nor other agonies of heart

Preclude the grace that caused the veil to part.

JOHN JAMIESON

- More from R. J. Rushdoony

Theology

Lost River of Paradise

J. Marcellus Kik

The second chapter of Genesis presents a mystery that has puzzled many through the ages—the mystery of a lost river. Scholars have endeavored to trace the river that flowed out of Paradise but so far only several of its branches have been identified. Seemingly the River of Eden has completely disappeared. The account as given in Genesis 2:10–14:

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is bedellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

Scholars have conjectured that the four branches of the lost river are: the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates. These four great rivers give us some idea of the extent of the lost River of Paradise. The magnificent trees, the fragrant plants, the beautiful flowers of the Garden of Eden were watered by this river. The division into four branches indicated that the world surrounding Eden was to be watered as the numeral four is often used as a symbol for the earth. Thus we know that God intended the blessings of Paradise to prevail throughout the world. The entire earth, under the providence and blessing of God, was to be like the garden of Eden.

If the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates were branches of the River of Paradise, then they pose a difficult problem of relating them to a common source, as a glance at a map will show that they are somewhat disjointed. This very disjointure, however, points graphically to the sad fact that Paradise itself is lost.

Another River

Paradise and its river were lost through the fall of man. The Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates are like four huge signposts that have been turned and confused by the sin of man. Reading these signposts, one can only become convinced that the former source, the River of Paradise, has been lost.

Turning away from these confused signposts, we turn for direction to a guidebook which so often discloses that which has been lost. The Bible is that guidebook; within its pages we hear the rippling sound of a quiet, soft-flowing river. Its sound comes to our ears in Psalm 46:

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

Within the boundary of the Psalm the river appears so small. Yet the river is set in contrast to the roar and restlessness of the mighty sea. The sea symbolizes the unbelieving world. The Bible informs us that “the wicked are like the troubled sea.” The wicked multitude is kept in constant motion by pride, ambition, greed and lust. Like the restless sea they are never at rest with themselves or with others. The sea ever rages and seeks to destroy. In opposition to this roaring, restless, raging sea is set the quiet, soft-flowing river with its peaceful streams. Strange as it may seem this river conquers the mighty, restless sea. Surely this river with its streams must be the lost River of Paradise.

A Healing Stream

The nature of this river and its healing streams is revealed in chapter 47 of the prophecy of Ezekiel:

And, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward … Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea … And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed: and everything shall live whither the river cometh.

The prophet Ezekiel has just seen a vision of a glorious temple. Now he beholds a river whose waters issued from under the threshold of the temple. The river flowed into the east country, into the desert, and finally into the sea. Significantly, the river entered into the Dead Sea. No fish or any form of animal life can exist within the salty water of the Dead Sea. But behold! When the river from the temple enters into the Dead Sea, “it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish.”

The river that flows from the temple has such restorative energy that even the Dead Sea—symbol of God’s curse against sin—is filled with a multitude of fish. May we hint of the fulfillment of this vision by recalling the voice of one who cried to a group of fishermen, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”? He also directed his disciples, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.” They cast the net and were not able to draw it for the multitude of fish. Through the restorative powers of the River of Paradise children of God would appear in nations that previously had been under the curse of God.

Ezekiel also relates how the river affected the desert places, “And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed” (Ezek. 47:12). The ripple of the same river is heard in Jeremiah 17 and Psalm 1 where we read that those who are planted by that river bring forth their fruit in their season and their leaf shall not wither. May we hint at the fulfillment of this part of the vision by recalling the statement of him who said, “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” The disciples of Christ are indeed planted by the River of Paradise and bring forth fruit unto everlasting life.

A River Of Life

We would love to dwell wherever we hear the sound of the rippling of this river in Scripture; but we pass on to the very last chapter of the Bible where the river reappears. (Oh those blind leaders of the blind who deny the unity and inspiration of the Scriptures! Could mere man keep this river flowing through the books of the prophets and apostles during the course of centuries? What fools men be who deny the divine authorship of the Book of books!) In words reminiscent of Ezekiel’s vision, the river appears in verses 1 and 2 of Revelation 22:

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

The water of this river is pure, living, clear, fresh and wholesome. Unlike the salt water of the restless sea or the stale stagnant water of broken cisterns, this water possesses life-giving power. As the river flows desert places are changed into gardens of Eden.

The river finds its source in the throne of God and of the Lamb. All life comes from God the Father, in God the Son, through God the Holy Spirit. The Lamb is specifically mentioned because all life is bestowed by virtue of his atoning sacrifice on Calvary’s cross. Those who search for living water outside of Christ, search in vain.

But let us draw even closer to this life-giving river. In the seventh chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks these thrilling words:

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.

The River of Paradise is Jesus Christ. It consists of the life of Christ conveyed by the Holy Spirit to believing and thirsting souls. They who drink of the water of this river are quickened and made alive forever more. Their souls resemble a watered garden. Where desert plants of uncleanness, idolatry, hatred, wrath, strife, drunkenness and deceit once thrived, there now appear fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. The barren soul becomes a garden of Eden watered by the River of Paradise, Christ Jesus.

Each One A Branch

Each individual soul becomes a branch of living water, reaching out to barren souls. The four branches of Eden become a multitude of streams flowing to the four corners of the earth. The River of Paradise entered into the Church of the New Testament on the day of Pentecost. The preaching of Christ by Peter was the first bursting forth of these waters from the temple. Three thousand souls were quickened and received the gift of the Holy Spirit. From Jerusalem the river and its streams flowed into Judea, Samaria, Syria, Asia, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Holland, England, America, China, Africa, India and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

Each believer by the indwelling Spirit becomes a branch of the River of Paradise and conveys refreshing and healing waters to thirsty souls in desert places.

The River of Paradise which first appeared in the second chapter of Genesis has been found. In the midst of the roaring and raging of the restless sea, the ripple of this gentle, quiet, soft-flowing river is scarcely heard. Yet its healing waters continue to flow, causing the fragrant flowers of love, peace and joy to appear—love that abides, peace that remains throughout eternity, joy that never departs. The river regains Paradise for the soul.

He who is the River of Paradise has promised, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.”

END

- More from J. Marcellus Kik

The kingdom of God is near.

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Vicarious Suffering

Completeness And Intensity

Our Peace

Righteousness And Mercy

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Clean-Up Commission

People: Words And Events

Artist Honored

We Quote:

Ministers Hear Graham

Goal For 1958

Hawaiian Lad

Germany

Baptists In Germany

New Zealand

Union Of Churches

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Valuable Auxiliary

Understanding Ezekiel

English Psychologists

Religious-Social Interaction

Symposium Of One

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Apocrypha In English Bibles

Doctrinal Statements

Usefulness Of Apocrypha

Proper Attitude

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Role Of The Bible

Revelation Or Witness?

History And Relativity

Normative Interpretation

The Meaning Of Calvary

Revelation And Inspiration

Preacher In The Red

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35,000 Protestant Missionaries

Strength Of Imc Effort

Other Mission Agencies

The Shift In Imc Emphasis

The Big Merger Looms

Denominational Questions

Fear Growth Of Power

Evangelical Concern

Peace Of The Churches

Is Merger Assured?

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Truth And Unity

Unity Does Not Stand Alone

Evangelical Contributions

Meaning Of Lord’s Table

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Another River

A Healing Stream

A River Of Life

Each One A Branch

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