The Lost Chord of Evangelism

Christianity in the World Today

Dr. Billy Graham, in an address prepared for delivery April 3 at the 15th annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Buffalo, New York, illustrates a major point on “the lost sincere compassion for sinners” with these words:

“Where are the tears for the lost? Where is our concern for men that are confused, frustrated, lost, sinful and destined for hell? At the moment, our New York campaign has been challenged by some extremists on two points.

“First, as to its sponsorship, I would like to make myself quite clear. I intend to go anywhere, sponsored by anybody, to preach the Gospel of Christ, if there are no strings attached to my message. I am sponsored by civic clubs, universities, ministerial associations and councils of churches all over the world. I intend to continue. Not one person in New York has even suggested or hinted as to what my message should be. It will be precisely the same message that I have preached all over the world. The centrality of my message will be Christ and Him crucified.

“Second, we have been challenged on what happens to the converts when the crusade is over. Apparently these brethren who make these statements have no faith in the Holy Spirit. The work of regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of follow up is the work of the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that convicted them of sin and regenerated them is able to follow them. No group of ministers in any large city anywhere in the world agree on what constitutes a sound church. We do all we can in follow up, but ultimately they’re in the hands of the Holy Spirit. He is more than able. We have overwhelming evidence of how miraculously the Holy Spirit has led thousands who have come forward in the meetings to surrender their hearts to Christ.”

Other key points of Dr. Graham’s address, entitled “The Lost Chord of Evangelism,” are as follows:

“The lost sensibility to the majesty of God.

“We handle holy things too glibly and professionally. We need to sense the majesty and holiness of God, as did Isaiah, Moses and Daniel. If we could get a glimpse of God today we would fall on our faces, as did Peter, James and John at the transfiguration and as Paul did on the Damascus Road.

“The lost sense of God’s presence.

“Samson ‘wist not’ that the Lord had departed from him. Many of us have lost the sense of God’s presence and anointing. We no longer minister in the powers of the Holy Spirit. Our message has lost that certain something that is necessary for spiritual power.

“The lost sensitivity to personal ethics.

“The Christian should be the most ethical person in our society. His income tax returns should be the most honest. The Christian minister should lean over backwards in his honesty, truthfulness and personal decorum. In the complexities of the present-day world, it is easy to get careless.

“The lost simplicity of our love one to another.

“The one badge of Christian discipleship is not orthodoxy, but love. There is far more emphasis on love and unity among God’s people in the New Testament than there is on orthodoxy, as important as it is.

“The lost significance of the scope of the Church.

“We evangelicals sometimes set ourselves up as judges of another man’s relationship to God. We often think that a person is not a Christian unless he pronounces our shibboleths and cliches exactly the way we do. I have found born again Christians in the strangest places, under the oddest circumstances, who do not know our particular evangelical language. But their spirit witnesses to my spirit that they are truly sons of God. There is a great swing all over the world, within the Church, toward a more conservative theological position. The old terms, fundamentalism and liberalism, are now passe. The situation has radically changed, since the days of Machen, Riley and other defenders of the faith a generation ago.

“The lost separation from the world.

“There is danger among evangelicals of compromising with the mode of the day. The lines of separation from the world are no longer drawn. Our attitudes are becoming infected with the spirit of the times. We are in danger of surrendering to false standards. While we must not be legalistic, we must be separated from the world. Worldliness is not a few designated things, such as dancing, movies and drinking, but is a spirit that is invading our homes and our lives today through many other mediums. We need to issue a new call for separation, not only from the world, but unto God.”

The NAE, representing over 40 denominations and associations, announced plans for a united prayer effort on the evening of April 3 in behalf of Dr. Graham’s New York crusade. Cards displayed at the convention, state by state, carried the pledges of scores of churches to unite their midweek prayer services with the concentrated effort. The prayer session at Buffalo is to last through midnight.

“Demonstrating Oneness in Christ” was the tide of another major convention address, prepared for delivery by Dr. Paul P. Petticord, president of Western Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Oregon, and president of NAE.

Highlights are as follows:

“Evangelicals demonstrate oneness in Christ.

“In this our day we have on the one hand the martyrs who cannot compromise the evangelical Christian doctrine and on the other those who liberalize Christian truth by rationalizing themselves into a philosophical position that says, ‘I must retain my existence, regardless,’ or ‘I am better alive than dead.’

This sounds logical but it does not come from the lips of evangelical Christians … Since when are we so valuable to this modern generation that the entire Christian philosophy should be reversed from ‘He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it’ to ‘I shall gain my life through expediency’?

“Evangelicals lift a voice against this type of thinking which depends upon temporal values and social recognition rather than the security of the cross. They are very much aware that this type of philosophy had crept into the church, especially among the ministry, until one might say that one of the chief motives of the modern minister is ‘to get along.’ I call this ‘the sin of expediency.’ Rather than to insist upon a minister being called to deliver God’s message in judgment as well as love, mercy and peace, many ministers feel it is more important to preach only the ethical idealisms and to leave out the most important part of the Gospel, the plan of redemption. Kindred to this position is the attitude that a minister must not make negative statements concerning the basic sinful nature of man. To this, evangelicals must say that one must discern the evils of the day and follow the instruction of the Scriptures to call men to repentance and to warn them of the results of sin and the judgment of God.

“Evangelicals demonstrate oneness in organizational cooperation.

“To be a crusading movement means that evangelicals must have not only a spirit of discernment but also a vision of what God would have his children do in facing the evils of the day. Now this necessitates a struggle against certain forces that would oppose the message of evangelical Christianity. It is because of this opposition that evangelicals are sometimes labeled as divisive, intolerant conservatives. I think any student of the Scripture is convinced that Christ had many who opposed him because he discerned the evils of his day and was willing to lift his voice against sin and unbelief in a positive presentment of himself as the only Saviour who could free men from sin. The evangelical testimony has this same type of witness. It is not belligerent, caustic, arrogant or pretentious, but it is an expression of deepest sincerity.

“Evangelicals demonstrate ecumenicity.

“Wherever the unification of peoples has been imposed under terms of force or regimentation, culturally, politically, socially, educationally, morally or religiously, great new rifts soon open where least expected, dividing along natural ‘fault’ lines. The infinite variety of differences in man seems to challenge conformity. Yet the ideal of achieving the proper relationship of the many into a unified endeavor continues to challenge men everywhere. However, there is a Divine plan. We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.…

“In the doctrinal Lordship of Christ is the only true ecumenicity. It means first, a spiritual Kingdom or society, uniting ‘in one Spirit,’ every ‘born again’ person everywhere. But it means also a living expression of ‘love to God’ which is ‘loving others as oneself.’ A Christian is vitally concerned about and interested in the spiritual and social well-being of his fellow man. It is ever his passionate desire to make available to all people the blessing he himself enjoys in Christ. Wherever men have become Christians, the darkness and oppression of sin and greed have been lifted.

“Evangelical oneness, which is Christ’s kingdom, is a morally transformed body of individuals, each one of whom has experienced, in himself, the life of Christ. Evangelicals unite their strength to live out the principles of Christ, its Lord, in the midst of daily life. This is the demonstration of evangelical ecumenicity.

“Evangelicals demonstrate oneness in purpose.

“The evangelical Christian gives more than mental assent to truth and he is one who refuses to ameliorate or compromise by administrative or ecclesiastical manifestation the clear witness concerning salvation in Christ.… The chief purpose of the evangelical is to spread the message of redemption from sin through Christ. Because of this fact, convinced evangelicals are bound to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.”

Dr. Petticord said evangelical Christianity, as a crusading movement, should have an outreach for the immediate future in a united purpose of successful witness in the following seven fields of service ministry:

(1) A ministry of encouraging evangelical fellowship, (2) encouraging social and material benefits for mankind, (3) expressing a united evangelical voice before government, (4) encouraging evangelical broadcasters, (5) encouraging evangelical home missions expansion, (6) calling evangelicals to manifest the oneness of Pentecost and (7) calling all evangelicals to prayer.

“He added:

“Evangelical Christianity does not depend upon worldly political power or organization to survive one kind of culture or another. Roman and Grecian culture died and Christianity was virile. Barbarism overran Europe and still evangelical Christianity survived. It is through the power of prayer that men are able to survive and perpetuate their faith.

“It is an ‘other worldly’ allegiance depending upon a King of a spiritual kingdom that is the culture in which virile Christianity grows. So if the Lord tarries and if the old world order succumbs and a new order arises, evangelical Christianity, though under other banners, will survive.

“The power of Christianity has never depended upon numerical superiority nor does the evangelical Christianity today. Through the power of prayer, its influence is multiplied like the loaves and the fishes in the hands of Christ and the multitudes are fed.

“To this end, the National Association of Evangelicals calls evangelicals everywhere to prayer, imploring men and women to set aside everything else to do that which is most important. This is to intercede before God, understanding that it is ‘by my spirit saith the Lord’ that the Kingdom of God may come in the hearts of men, and that evangelical Christianity will become increasingly virile through importune prayer, and that our differences will be minimized in the reaffirmation of the great objectives of our common faith.

“Evangelicals are today demonstrating a greater oneness in Christ than ever before. May God grant that the witness will be clear, unequivocal and certain so that all men may know by the Holy Spirit that Christ is the way, the truth and the life and that no man can come unto the Father but by him.…”

Short, Short Story

Ohio state senators were on the floor discussing the addition of a prayer and meditation room at the Capitol in Columbus.

“More people are praying today than ever before,” said Senator Lowell Fess, who introduced the measure.

“How are you going to keep the lobbyists out of the prayer room?” asked Senator Arthur Blake.

“They will need it more than we will,” replied Senator Fess.

Intercreedal Program

The National Council of Churches has invited Roman Catholics and Jews to join in producing a weekly, nationwide television program to promote spiritual values without reference to specific religious beliefs.

The invitation was extended by the Board of Managers of the National Council of Churches’ Broadcasting and Film Commission at its annual meeting in New York City. The board acted on a proposal made by the Rev. S. Franklin Mack, the commission’s executive director.

According to the officials, the program will be aimed chiefly at the “unchurched and the indifferent.”

The three groups now share in turn a weekly half-hour program on the National Broadcasting Company. At present, the Sunday program is called “Frontiers of Faith” by the Protestants and Jews and “The Catholic Hour” by the Catholics.

A 1957 budget of $1,170,930 was adopted by the Board of Managers.

Rose Bowl Service

Dr. Norman C. Hunt, one of Great Britain’s outstanding educational and religious leaders, will address the ninth annual Easter Sunrise service on April 21 in the Rose Bowl at Pasadena, California.

Dr. Hunt, professor of the Department of Industry and Commerce at the University of Edinburgh, has written publications on personnel management and industrial relations that are highly regarded by business leaders. He spent three months in the United States at the invitation of the American government to survey facilitites for university education pertaining to business.

He is president-elect of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Great Britain, serves on the Scottish councils of a number of missionary societies and has been active in the Christian Endeavor movement.

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, will interpret the significance of the service to the Bowl and radio audience.

Scheduled to begin at 6 a.m., the hour-long service will include musical numbers by the Pacific Bible College Choir, the Congress Hall Band of the Salvation Army and the Westmont College male quartet. Hundreds of other volunteer workers will be engaged in various duties to make possible the service.

Missionary Privileges

H. R. Bill 872, which would permit missionaries to make purchases at armed services commissaries outside the United States, is almost certain to get an adverse report from the Defense Department.

Spokesmen for the Defense Department have indicated that such legislation would run into serious difficulties in a number of countries because of duty-exemption agreements with post exchanges. The officials pointed out, however, that present regulations make it possible for area commanders to extend the privileges to missionaries wherever possible.

Questions also have arisen as to whether such legislation could place the government in the position of assuming expenses which otherwise would be the responsibility of the churches or mission boards. In this case, the bill would clash with the principle of church and state separation.

Meanwhile, missionaries in a number of countries face tremendous financial difficulties because of official exchange rates. The Bolivian government recently, with U. S. support, established one official exchange. There had been two official rates, plus a free market. While one rate was as high as 13,000 bolivianos to the dollar, certain exports were traded as low as 190 bolivianos to the dollar. Under the new rate the American dollar brings about 7,500 bolivianos.

One mission reported that the buying of some essential items had to be stopped because “it is altogether impossible to pay the fantastic prices.”

‘Religion’ Ruling

The House Judiciary Committee has reversed itself and restored the word “religion” to the list of discriminations which a proposed Federal Civil Rights Commission would he empowered to investigate.

Earlier, the committee had dropped “religion” in an effort to make the bill less controversial. A bi-partisian group of Congressmen indicated, however, they would fight for an amendment to have it restored on the floor unless the committee reconsidered its decision.

Representative Lester Holtzman (D-N. Y.), a spokesman for the group, said the United States was settled “primarily as a refuge for the Pilgrim Fathers who suffered as a result of their religious beliefs and set out to find a new homeland where they could worship as they pleased.”

He said America “should not give mere lip service” to its ideal of religious freedom but “take concrete action in ensuring the protection of the exercise of these inalienable rights.”

34-Year-Old Broadcast Terminated

The 104-year-old First Methodist Church of Los Angeles, California, has asked the Federal Communications Commission to order a public hearing on the action of Radio Station KFAC in terminating a religious program that has been broadcasting every Sunday morning for 34 years.

A number of churches have received broadcast termination notices since the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches adopted an advisory policy against the sale of time for religious programs, but practically all such churches were members of denominations not affiliated with the NCC. The denomination of First Methodist in L.A. is affiliated with the Council.

Asked to comment on the incident, the Rev. S. Franklin Mack, executive director of the NCC Broadcast and Film Commission, said, “we are not involved in the matter.”

The “Mother Church of Southern California Methodism” pioneered in broadcasting its Sunday morning service to shut-ins in 1923, when radio was in its infancy.

In a formal complaint to the FCC, Dr. J. Richard Sneed, minister of the church, said the Los Angeles Broadcasting Company, proprietors of the station, had informed him that “the First Methodist Church services on Sunday morning are completely incompatible with our program format.”

“We are gradually eliminating all religious programs and replacing them with musical programs,” the station said in advising the church that it would no longer be permitted to purchase time between 11 and 12 o’clock on Sunday morning and that no other time would be made available.

The church said it had been paying the regular commercial rate.

Dr. Sneed, in his petition to the FCC, declared:

“If your honorable Commission does not take immediate steps to investigate and review this entire problem, the broadcast of church services and other religious programs will be sacrificed completely to unadulterated commercialism.”

The church pointed out that prior to 1951 it had for 28 years purchased time for the broadcast of both its morning and evening services over KFAC. In 1951 the station asked the church to discontinue broadcast of its evening services and “at that time represented and warranted that KFAC would not disturb the continued broadcast of morning services.”

The church also informed the FCC that KFAC, in its application for regular three-year renewal of license in 1956, represented to the Commission that 1.9 per cent of its broadcast time was being devoted to religious services, whereas the station now proposes to eliminate all such broadcasts.

“America,” the church asserted, “is basically a religious-minded country,” and it is in the public interest that “all religious denominations” be permitted a fair amount of broadcast time.

The church asked that the FCC order a public hearing in the Los Angeles area to determine if the station meets its obligations as a broadcast licensee.

The bill, which the House Judiciary Committee is preparing, would set up a bi-partisian commission to investigate all cases in which there is discrimination because of “race, color, religion or national origin.”

Protest Withdrawn

The Action Committee for freedom of Religious Expression has withdrawn its request to the Federal Communications Commission for a public hearing on Chicago television station WGN-TV’s application for a license to operate a new and more powerful transmitter.

The committee, formed to protest the cancellation by WGN-TV of a premiere telecast last December of the film “Martin Luther,” said the petition to the FCC was withdrawn in view of a scheduled showing of the movie by Station WBKB in Chicago.

“It now appears that the film will be telecast … April 23 at 10 p.m.,” the committee said. “The immediate goal of the Action Committee, which was to make this important film available to the people of Chicago, therefore, will have been achieved.”

The committee, which includes representatives of the National Council of Churches, major Lutheran bodies in the United States, and other Protestant groups, called the scheduled April 23 showing of the film “a substantial contribution to the cause of freedom … the threat to the freedom of religious expression represented by the action of WGN-TV in yielding to sectarian censorship demands has been repudiated by the broadcasting industry.”

Dr. Charles J. Anderson, midwest executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals, dissented from the committee’s decision to withdraw its petition.

He said:

“The issue is whether a medium of public information may submit freely to sectarian censorshop without censure from the public agency to which is entrusted the responsibility to see that it operates in the public interest.”

The Action Committee’s statement to the FCC noted that “any dereliction upon the part of WGN-TV cannot be cured by the deed of WBKB.”

Dr. John W. Harms, chairman of the committee, said his group will continue on a permanent basis to exercise “vigilance” against “sectarian censorship.”

Vatican Relations

“I don’t know!”

Vice President Richard M. Nixon made this reply when asked if he anticipated the eventual resumption of relations between the United States and the Vatican.

‘Therapy’ Appeal

The liquor industry, in a new bit of strategy, is planning to advertise liquor as a therapy for old people, claiming that it keeps them “spry and alert.”

“Liquor executives are scheming this new approach, believing it will boost consumption among adults over 40 enormously,” said Sen. Thomas C. Desmond, chairman of New York State’s committee on the problems of the aging.

None of the ads, presumably, will be placed in The Bowery, a New York area filled with “spry and alert” men of distinction who grew old long before their time.

The question was put to him after he had been received in private audience by Pope Pius XII.

“Personally,” said Mr. Nixon, “I can only hope for the continuation of the same good personal relations so far existing between the United States and the Holy See.” He said the topic was not discussed during his talk with the Pope.

Presidents Roosevelt and Truman maintained a personal envoy to Pope Pius, but the relationship ended when the envoy, Myron C. Taylor, resigned in January, 1950. President Truman’s nomination of General Mark Clark in 1952 to be U. S. Ambassador to the Vatican aroused so much opposition that General Clark asked his name be withdrawn.

Mr. Nixon, who is a Quaker, was received by the Pope after arriving in Rome from Libya, one of the nations in his African tour. The Vice President spent 25 minutes with the Pope, discussing problems of Africa, Asia and the “cold war.”

He also said he also had talked to the Pope about Palestine and the Holy Places but declined to reveal what was said. He remarked that “the Pope is very well informed and, at the same time, very concerned about the general situation in the Middle East.”

The Vice President delivered a personal message to Pope Pius from President Eisenhower.

Mrs. Nixon, a Methodist, joined her husband a few minutes before the Pope received the rest of the Vice Presidential party and newsmen in his library.

Church Merger

With 41 of 66 presbyteries on record, the vote of United Presbyterians at press time was 717 to 481 in favor of merger with the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.

The voting is expected to be completed well before the General Assembly meeting in June.

In the vote of presbyteries, 29 favored the merger with 12 opposed, but the official count will be votes cast by the minister and one elder of each church. The issue will be decided by a simple majority.

A number of ministers opposed to the merger are not instructing church members for or against in the matter. There have been cases of elders voting for merger and ministers voting against it.

The General Assembly may study the results closely if the minority vote is large enough for possible disruptive pressure.

The Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., vote for merger was overwhelming.

The Men Speak

A proposal to ordain women as ruling elders and deacons in the Presbyterian Church, U. S. (Southern), approved by the denomination’s 1956 General Assembly, has been rejected by the presbyteries.

Dr. E. C. Scott, the church’s stated clerk, reported that 43 of the 85 presbyteries had voted against the proposal and 40 in favor, with no word from two presbyteries.

Approval by a majority of the presbyteries with subsequent favorable action by the General Assembly is required.

Delegates to the General Assembly, which met last June, voted 234 to 226 in favor of the proposal.

Code For Parents

A six-point code for parents of teenagers has been adopted by parents who are members of six churches in Manhasset, New York.

Titled “Principles for Parents,” it pledges them to chaperon parties held in their homes, not to serve alcoholic beverages to anyone else’s children and to discourage youngsters from going to homes where such beverages will be served.

The code also calls on parents to prevent party crashing, to make sure they know where their children are going and when they will return, to insist that their children respect the rights and property of others and the community and to bar unlawful driving after dark on junior drivers’ permits.

‘Discrimination’

An Eastern Orthodox clergyman has charged that New York City’s Committee on Slum Clearance is guilty of discrimination in excluding his church from plans for a $228,000,000 redevelopment of the Lincoln Square area.

The committee has denied the charge made by the Rev. Gregory R. P. Adair, pastor of the Cathedral of Our Saviour. Mr. Adair told a protest meeting held at his church that he intended to “call the bluff” of the committee.

The protest meeting was arranged by Americans United, a branch of Protestants and Other American United for Separation of Church and State.

Americans United is opposing the proposed resale by the city of properties within the area to St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church and to Fordham University, a Catholic school.

A taxpayers’ suit to bar the city from proceeding with the Lincoln Square Redevelopment Project was dismissed as “premature” by the State Supreme Court in February on the grounds that the Board of Estimate had not yet given final authorization for the plans.

Plaintiffs had maintained that the planned sale of 300,000 square feet of cleared slum land to Fordham University at $5 a square foot and the erection of a Catholic church and school on the property struck at Church-State separation.

Mr. Adair said provision had been made in the area for the Catholic institutions, which he asserted will benefit from markdowns subsidized by public funds, but that his request to be included had been rejected by the committee.

William S. Lebwohl, slum clearance director, said that Mr. Adair’s request came too late. He also went on record as saying that when the area is put up for resale, after the city acquires it, Mr. Adair’s church can bid for one of the plots against proposed sponsors, who have been negotiating construction details with the committee for more than a year.

Said Mr. Adair:

“I believe Mr. Moses [Robert Moses, chairman of the committee] will find some technicality for disqualifying us if we bid against St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church, Fordham University or any of the other sponsors he has virtually selected.”

The Presbyterian Church of the Good Shepherd, also in the project area, is to remain undisturbed. St. Cyprian’s Protestant Episcopal Church is slated for demolition and is not included in the redevelopment plan.

Off To Adventure

Sunday School and television have united in a planned curriculum for the first time.

The first national religious TV series produced expressly for children had its premiere on New York Station WPIX-TV in March.

Sponsored by the National Council of Churches, the series, called “Off to Adventure,” will tie in with the 1957 Protestant Sunday School theme—“the Indian American.”

The quarter-hour film programs show work done for Indian Americans by American Baptists, the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., the United Church of Canada, the Protestant Episcopal Church and the American Bible Society.

An estimated 200 stations are expected to carry the program by June. The New York premiere, on Sunday, March 17, was telecast at noon. Other telecast times around the nation will be decided by sponsoring church groups.

Tax Exemptions

Sixteen bills proposing income tax exemptions for tuition payments to private and parochial schools are pending in Congress.

The newest, introduced by Rep. Paul Fino (R-N. Y.) would provide tax exemption for the full tuition payment. Others would give full or partial exemption for college tuition only. One would classify all tuition payments to private elementary and secondary schools as charitable contributions.

The House Ways and Means Committee, to which all the measures have been referred, is expected to appoint a subcommittee to study the problem.

Religious Mail Rates

Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield has asked Congress for an increase in second and third class postage rates, but he urged that the present subsidized rates for mail of religious and non-profit organizations be left unchanged.

The rate for religious and non-profit periodicals entered as second class matter is one and one-half cent a pound. Other periodicals now pay two and one-half cents a pound. The Postmaster General asked for a zone rate schedule on second class that will raise these rates 60 per cent over a four-year period.

Religious and non-profit groups now mail circulars, bulletins and other bulk mail at one cent each. Other postal users pay one and one-half cents for mailings larger than 200 pieces and two cents on other third class matter.

This would be raised to two cents and two and one-half cents, respectively, under the proposed legislation.

Europe News: April 01, 1957

State Church Exit

The traditional State Church is on its way out in Europe, according to the president of the Baptist Union of Sweden.

Dr. Gunnar Westin, former dean of the theological faculty at Uppsala University, made the statement recently on a visit to Washington, D. C.

“A strong doctrine of Church and State separation is developing throughout Europe,” he said.

Dr. Westin, a member of the Baptist World Alliance executive committee, came to the United States last fall for a four-month lecture engagement at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. He also has lectured at other theological schools and will conclude the visit with lectures at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, the first week in April.

The Baptist leader said the State Church system which developed in Europe immediately following the Reformation was based on the theory that “government is responsible for the souls of its people.” It also grew out of the doctrine that church unity is essential to political unity, he said.

The Lutheran Church is the State Church of Sweden and other Scandinavian countries.

Study In Contrast

The United States has delivered $700,000,000 worth of equipment to the new German army, including 1,100 tanks and 1,000 military planes.

The Pocket Testament League is sending 50,000 copies of the Gospel of John.

‘Pact With Devil’

Communist newspapers in Germany’s East Zone accused Berlin’s Bishop Otto Dibelius of “entering into a pact with the devil” when he recently co-signed with the West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer as agreement providing for establishment of chaplaincy services for the new West German Army.

The pact will go into effect after approval by the synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany and the Bundestag, lower house of the West German Parliament.

Bishop Dibelius is chairman of the EKD Council. Roman Catholic chaplaincy for the new army has already been established under a Vatican-West German concordat.

The Soviet Zone press denounced the arrangement as an “un-Christian misuse of the Church” and “provocation of peace-loving forces within and outside the church.” It said that Christianity must not be “misused as a moral cement for a NATO army” and warned East German members of the EKD Synod that they could not “in good conscience” approve the treaty.

Ruling In Italy

Italy’s new Constitutional Court has ruled that public religious gatherings may be held without previous notice to the police.

The decision marked a victory for evangelical groups who had long sought to have the police regulation set aside.

In its ruling the court declared unconstitutional an article of the 1931 Public Security Law specifying that the police must be notified three days in advance of any religious assembly outside a recognized house of worship.

Some Italian and Protestant missionaries have run into trouble in recent years over interpretations of the law.

Africa News: April 01, 1957

Doors Open Wider

Christian denominational mission leaders, once fearful of the path the new state of Ghana will take, now feel that self-government may mean wider open doors—with the stigma of “foreign imperialism” removed.

Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah said his country will continue to welcome missionaries. “We owe a lot to missionaries,” he stated.

The Prime Minister said his people were becoming Western in their outlook and had no intention of joining the Afro-Asian bloc of leftist countries.

In the flush of their first taste of political freedom, the jubilant people of Africa’s newest nation did not forget to thank God and the missionaries who brought the message. At the official Independence Week mass church service in the capital city, Accra, the Rev. Christian G. Baeta, chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana, told thousands of worshippers:

“Ghana’s independence enables her to do battle for God. We would dedicate ourselves and our new nation, all that we are and have, to the service of Almighty God, the giver of all. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.”

Dr. Baeta, who is senior lecturer in theology at the School of Divinity, University of Ghana, paid tribute to the work of missionaries:

“Particularly would we remember with humble thanksgiving that noble army of missionaries of the Gospel who, in selfless devotion, penetrated the deepest recesses of our land and of the lives of its people, bringing in the light of God, the light by which we now live.”

In an interview with the African Challenge (140,000 circulation), Dr. Baeta stressed the need for Christian instruction in the young nation:

“The ordinary religious instruction given is very primitive. We teach people basic Bible stories, but little instruction is given on how to carry Christianity into practical life. Nobody else will give moral instruction so vital to a young nation. It remains for Christians to do this through literature.”

—W.H.F.

Threat By Church

The Capetown Presbyterian Church of South Africa intimated recently that it will resort to civil disobedience if proposed legislation is enacted giving the government control over church services attended by both Europeans and Africans.

In a statement read from pulpits in all churches of the denomination at Capetown, the presbytery declared that to bow to government control of multi-racial worship services would be to “disregard our Lord’s own words—‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.’ ”

The statement added:

“In the event, therefore, of the bill becoming law, it would be our solemn duty, while not unmindful of our obligations towards and respect of civil power, to take our stand on the words of Calvin: ‘We are subject to men who rule over us but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against him, let us not pay least regard to it nor be moved by all the dignity they possess as magistrates—dignity to which no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God.”

The proposed new law is incorporated in a section of the Native Laws Amendment Bill. It will require permission from the Minister of Native Affairs, Dr. H. F. Verwoerd, for multi-racial services in churches or other institutions established since 1938. The bill also has been opposed by the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Baptist churches and other religious groups.

Middle East News: April 01, 1957

Massive Radio Effort

Plans for the construction in the Near East of a 100,000-watt radio transmitter to beam programs to the Arabic-speaking world have been approved by the Near East Committee of the National Council of Churches.

To be built at a cost of $250,000, the station will be supported by cooperative Protestant foreign mission boards. With the exception of the Vatican radio, which equals the new station’s planned power, this reportedly will be the largest and most powerful venture in radio by any religious group.

The radio will be as powerful as the 100,000-watt Voice of America transmitters in the area. Like these, it will be short-wave, which carries much farther than medium and long-wave signals. Most home radios in Africa and the East—405,000 were licensed last year in Egypt alone—are equipped to receive short wave.

Exact location of the transmitter has not been determined.

Radio jamming by Russia, recently intensified in the area, will be a problem, but church engineers are optimistic after studying transmitting conditions in the Middle East.

The station’s programs will be educational and cultural as well as religious.

Dr. W. Burton Martin, executive secretary of the NCC’s RAVEMCCO (Radio, Audio-Visual Education, Mass Communications Committee), said programming will call for an eight-hour day, seven-day-a-week schedule. Included will be a family breakfast program, and programs for industrial workers, farmers and homemakers.

Bible study and daily devotions will be features in the schedule, but music, drama and light entertainment will have significant roles.

“Its influence will be invaluable in bringing the Christian message to new millions, while operating in the public interest,” said Dr. Martin.

Some American observers said they were not enthusiastic about the church putting on public service programs. Others expressed hope that evangelical voices, long familiar to world audiences as bearers of the Gospel, will not he bypassed.

Far East News: April 01, 1957

Philippine Outlook

Religious issues may play a big role in the November election of a president in the Philippine Republic, a country officially dedicated to the Order of the Sacred Heart a few months before the airplane crash in which President Ramon Magsaysay was killed.

Presidential aspirant Claro M. Recto is opposed by Catholics and backed by Protestant leaders.

The former Vice President, Carlos P. Garcia, who assumed duties of the high office shortly after the crash, is a graduate of Silliman University, a Presbyterian institution in Manila. He is a Catholic, however, as was his predecessor.

Secretary of Education Hernandez, strongly Catholic, also perished in the crash, which took 24 lives. Undersecretary of Education Martin Aguilar Jr., a logical choice for the vacant position, is a Protestant, and church observers are intensely interested in seeing who will get the key post.

President Magsaysay was a popular figure among both Catholics and Protestants. Nearly a half-million persons swarmed around Malacanan Palace when the body of the 49-year-old chief executive was brought from the Cebu Island mountainside.

“His fight against communism as one of democracy’s staunchest champions …,” said Philippine Ambassador to the United States, Carlos P. Romulo.

‘The Only Weapon’

Thirty missionaries, representing 24 different mission groups, agreed on the following statement of faith before issuing invitations to all missionaries in Japan for the 1959 Protestant Centennial Conference:

“We believe in the Bible as the fully inspired, infallible Word of God, the only rule of faith and practice.”

Words Of Warning

Christians in China who are permitted to communicate with the West are members of “show case” churches maintained by communists for propaganda purposes, Ambassador Hollington K. Tong of Nationalist China said recently.

The ambassador, speaking at a dinner commemorating the 155th anniversary of First Baptist Church in Washington, D. C., said most Christian groups in China continue to feel severe persecution.

Despite such reports, however, according to Japan Harvest, a 13-man Protestant Japanese delegation is making plans to visit Red China in April and May. The Rev. J. Asano, Japan Biblical Seminary professor and pastor of The Mitake Kyodan Church, will be the delegation leader.

The delegation will be in Red China for communism’s biggest holiday, the May Day Celebration.

Worth Quoting

“This is the day of the larger church, handsome buildings, plush furniture and costly appointments. I’m not against these things. I love them. I break the Tenth Commandment every time I go into one of those spacious ministers’ studies in our new churches. Then I have to remember how easy it is to insulate yourself from your neighbor, especially if he is on the poorer side of town. If we forget him and his work, we are judging ourselves and our ministry by the price tag.”—Rev. Homer R. Lane, Toronto, Canada.

“It is not a struggle merely of economic theories or forms of government or military power. The issue is the true nature of man. Either man is the creature whom the Psalmist describe as ‘a little lower than the angels’ crowned with glory and honor, holding ‘dominion over the works’ of his Creator; or man is a soulless animated machine to be enslaved, used and consumed by the state for its own glorification.…”—President Eisenhower.

Digest …

Zondervan Publishing House takes over book publishing business of Sword of the Lord Foundation April 1.… Over 50% of Milwaukee TV viewers watch premiere of “Martin Luther.”

$140,000 fund raised to restore historic Calvin Auditorium in Geneva, Switzerland.… Two leading Christian schools in Seoul, Korea—Chosun University and Severence Union Medical College—merge as Yonsei University. First president, Dr. L. George Paik.

Books

Book Briefs: April 1, 1957

Liberal Leader

The Living of These Days, by Harry Emerson Fosdick. Harper and Brothers, New York. $4.00.

Harry Emerson Fosdick’s friends have prevailed on him to write his autobiography, and he has done so under the title, The Living of These Days. It is part of a prayer, taken from his hymn, God of Grace and God of Glory: “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, For the living of these days.” The title is apt, for not only was Fosdick strongly influenced by the events of the last seven or eight decades, he also exerted a considerable influence on that period of human history. To this reviewer, who is not a great many years younger than Fosdick, the reading of this biography seemed like a review of the history of his generation.

No one who has heard or read Fosdick needs to be told that his style is superb. This does not indicate one that is flowery and certainly not one that is wordy. Fosdick’s style excels in precision, simplicity, directness, forcefulness and ruggedness. His humor is as wholesome as it is natural. One of the most pleasing features of this volume is the author’s humility. To cite but one of numerous instances, concerning his teaching of homiletics at Union Seminary, he says, “I hope that I helped the students, but I am unable to express how much they helped me” (p. 119). Another laudable characteristic of the book is its candor.

Harry Emerson Fosdick received his formal education at Colgate University and Union Theological Seminary of New York. He has been pastor of the First Baptist Church of Montclair, New Jersey, and the First Presbyterian and Riverside churches of New York City. He has served Union Seminary as part-time professor of homiletics and practical theology. He has preached and lectured in several lands and has written some twenty-six books.

The aforesaid salient facts derive most of their significance from his theological pilgrimage. He informs his readers that he began as a fundamentalist. However, as a young man he found fundamentalism incompatible with intellectual honesty. His problem was how to retain Christianity without committing intellectual suicide. Theological liberalism, or modernism, proved to be the answer. He accepted many of the conclusions of the so-called higher biblical criticism and rejected the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture. He felt that the doctrines of historic Christianity were but the temporary, and hence changeable, framework for abiding truth. That formula he applied to certain explicit teachings of the Bible as well as to teachings deduced by the church from the Bible. He denied such supernatural events as the virgin birth of Jesus and his bodily resurrection. He deprecated the orthodox formulations of such dogmas as the Trinity, the deity of Christ and the satisfaction of divine penal justice by Christ’s death on the cross. He came to base his theology, not on the Bible as the infallibly inspired Word of God, but, after the manner of Schleiermacher and Ritschl, on religious experience. He taught his students to base their preaching on the Bible as the record of the religious experience of certain saints of antiquity rather than the authoritative Word of God. Withal he fell under the spell of the social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch. The fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. of the nineteen-twenties centered about his teaching. When a general assembly asked him to subscribe to the system of doctrine contained in the confessions of that denomination and to its principles of church government, he declined in the interest of honesty to do so. He wanted the membership of his churches to be inclusive, not only in the sense of embracing all races and strata of society, but also in the sense of “a liberal fellowship ready for an adventure into unrestricted interdenominationalism” (p. 183). To be sure, after the Second World War he saw, with others, that modernism was in need of several adjustments. For instance, it had been too optimistic about human nature and hence about the future of the human race, it had stressed the divine immanence out of due proportion to the divine transcendence and it had accommodated itself too much to the prevailing culture instead of challenging that culture. But Fosdick did not cease to be a modernist. Even the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, particularly in its early expressions, was not nearly liberal enough for him. Now that Brunner has mellowed in his attitude toward liberalism, Fosdick is hoping for a synthesis of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy.

What struck the reviewer perhaps more than anything else in his perusal of this autobiography was the author’s slighting of orthodox scholarship. He denounces fundamentalism scathingly for its “obscurantism,” and in so doing he takes to task especially William Jennings Bryan. Now Bryan, sincere Christian layman that he no doubt was, did not rate as a theologian. That there are fundamentalists who cling tenaciously to foolish notions is beyond dispute. For instance, the notions that the human authors of the Bible were mere robots, that each and every statement in the Bible must be interpreted literally and that man was created in the physical image of God do indeed fall under the head of obscurantism. But pray, what orthodox theologian of any note holds to such nonsense? This reviewer cannot suppress the question whether Fosdick has ever made a serious study of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, of such protestant confessions, to name but two, as those of Augsburg and Westminster and of the works of contemporaries as B. B. Warfield and Herman Bavinck. And why does he completely ignore the man who proved to be not only the most militant but also the most scholarly defender of orthodoxy in that Presbyterian conflict in which Fosdick himself was so deeply involved—J. G. Machen? Here seems to be a most serious lacuna in Fosdick’s education. Or is it possible that he would brush aside as unscientific the noblest literary products of orthodoxy? But that would be so preposterous as to be well-nigh unbelievable, for their authors excelled in erudition and it may be said without in the least belittling Fosdick that in point of theological scholarship he does not deserve to stoop down and unloose the latchet of the shoes of any one of them. To refer again to Machen, even the most extreme liberals being his judges, he was a scholar to be reckoned with. In A Preface to Morals Walter Lippmann stated that Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism was more convincing than the reasoning of his modernist opponents, and H. L. Mencken in his characteristic way eulogized Machen shortly after his death in 1937 by saying that he was to Bryan what the Matterhorn is to a wart.

This reviewer intends no insinuation that this biography is wholly devoid of good ideas. We must all assent to the improvements Fosdick advocates on the older liberalism. But even here Fosdick does not give historic orthodoxy the credit due it for those ideas. A few examples follow. Says Fosdick: “Static orthodoxies are a menace to the Christian cause” (p. 230). But orthodoxy has always said that. One of its tenets is the progressive guidance of the church by the Holy Spirit into the truth. Therefore it ever seeks to bring forth new things as well as old out of the treasure of the Word of God. Such a conservative church as the Christian Reformed has in recent decades drawn up a tentative formulation of the doctrine of common grace, and the Presbyterian Church in 1788 amended its Westminster Confession of Faith to eliminate Erastianism. Baptist Roger Williams, no doubt, deserves some credit for that change. Fosdick insists that the preacher must deal with social problems. While it is true, on the one hand, that orthodoxy rejects the modernist brand of social gospel and, on the other, that dispensationalists would preach an exclusively individualistic gospel, many conservatives have long insisted that the social implications of the Gospel must be stressed in the pulpit. Professor Louis Berkhof of Calvin Seminary did that in a lecture on The Church and Social Problems, delivered in 1913. The undersigned did likewise in an article, The Christian Pulpit and Social Problems, published in the Westminster Theological Journal. Fosdick declares: “Faith and reason are not antithetical opposites” (p. 258). But what orthodox theologian of any stature ever thought they were? Paraphrasing a saying of George A. Buttrick to the effect that “there is only one thing worse than a devil and that is an educated devil,” Fosdick comments: “That emphasis is a newcomer in America” (p. 271). But this reviewer had it impressed on his soul by the advocates of Christian day schools when he was yet a mere boy. Fosdick has come to the conclusion: “Neo-orthodoxy is right in stressing the necessity and primacy of God’s self-revelation, if we are to know him” (p. 256). But why credit neo-orthodoxy with a truth which has been obvious to orthodoxy for ages? Fosdick agrees thoroughly with Brunner “that man’s wickedness is a dreadful, desperate fact, and that man, left to his own unaided devices in a materialistic universe empty of the saving grace of God, is doomed” (p. 252). But that is the very essence of historic orthodoxy—provided, of course, the term “grace of God” be taken in the Augustinian sense, not the Pelagian. In short, in later years Fosdick has moved in the direction of orthodoxy, yet he keeps insisting that he is a modernist. No doubt, basically he still is.

As good a way as any of stating the point at issue between Fosdick’s modernism and historic orthodoxy is this: the latter acknowledges God’s infallible Word as the test of truth; the latter makes experience the norm. Of course, it does not follow that Fosdick casts the Bible overboard; according to him it is itself the record, albeit a fallible one, of the religious experience of great saints of old. But in seeking solutions for such problems as that of God and immortality Fosdick does not rely on any authoritative statements of Scripture but turns to human experience. For that reason he cannot but flounder about, much as a vessel without rudder or compass. Small wonder that his attitude toward war has changed so radically. Nor is it altogether strange that in spite of his high regard for Jesus of Nazareth he rejects his teaching of hell. If truths are divorced from their formulations, they become vague indeed. Besides, many truths simply cannot be experienced. At best theology of experience will lead to probabilities, never to certainties. Fosdick himself so much as grants that and even more when he writes: “Concerning every human experience theories of explanation and interpretation are essential, but however confidently they may be held, their probable insufficiency must be assumed and their displacement by more adequate ways of thinking positively hoped for” (p. 230).

Is modernism Christianity? Fosdick is sure that it is Christianity at its best and he defines it thus: “For me the essence of Christianity is incarnate in the personality of the Master, and it means basic faith in God, in the divinity revealed in Christ, in personality’s sacredness and possibilities, and in the fundamental principles of life’s conduct which Jesus of Nazareth exhibited” (p. 269). But that definition is quite inadequate. For one thing, it makes the incarnate Son of God a Christian, which he certainly was not. A Christian is a sinner saved by grace; a sinner who, conscious of his need of salvation and realizing that he cannot save himself, abandons himself to the Christ crucified; and a sinner who loves the Lord who bought him with his blood and lovingly serves that Lord. Such is the Christian, and Christianity is first of all God’s solution for the problem of sin—its guilt and penalty as well as its power and pollution.

In his early work, The Theology of Crisis, Brunner vigorously denounced modernism as “a religion which has nothing in common with Christianity except a few words” (p. 261). But Brunner was not then and is not now an exponent of the historic Christian faith. In 1924, the very year in which Fosdick delivered at Yale the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching under the title The Modern Use of the Bible, Machen wrote his Christianity and Liberalism. The point of that book was that Modernism is not Christianity. Five years later Lippmann observed that Machen had not been refuted. That still holds true today. This reviewer thinks his argument irrefutable.

Christianity is based squarely on the Bible as the Word of the living God. Modernism is based on religious experience. Christianity is history, doctrine and life—all three; and they stand and fall together. In that history such supernatural events as Jesus’ virgin birth and bodily resurrection loom large. Modernism denies them. But the apostle Paul said, “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). At the heart of Christian doctrine lies the Pauline teaching that, being justified by Christ’s blood, believers will be saved from wrath through him (Romans 5:9). Modernism preaches another gospel. In his sermon Shall the Fundamentalists Win? Fosdick spoke with disgust of those who believe “that the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an alien Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner” (quoted in Christianity and Liberalism, p. 120). The Christian ethic is rooted in Christian doctrine, notably in the doctrine of the atonement. Paul has enjoined Christians to glorify God in their body and their spirit because they are “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). That price was the precious blood of Christ. The ethic of modernism disdains blood-theology. Inspired Paul being the judge, modernism is not Christianity.

R. B. KUIPER

Full Commitment

Christian: Commit Yourself: By Paul S. Rees. Revell, $2.00.

Paul Rees is pastor of the First Covenant Church of Minneapolis. The influence of his Christian ministry, however, has extended far beyond the confines of his own parish; it has been felt throughout the entire nation. His books on stewardship, evangelism and the Holy Spirit have blessed many lives.

The 10 messages in this volume are all directed toward securing from the listeners a full commitment to Christ and his cause. Decisions at depth constitute the major thrust of each soul-probing sermon. Thus, the paramount aim of this preacher is to recapture the dedication, devotion and discipline that gave such irrepressible fervor and undaunted daring to the early Christian movement. Following the announcement of each subject, Dr. Rees stipulates the kind of commitment he seeks from the particular message. For example, in the sermon on “The Supreme Surrender” he begins by summarizing the commitment he desires: “I will seek to know and do the will of God in every area of my life.” After announcing the subject “The Badge of Royalty” the commitment sought is “I will accept responsibilities for service in my church.”

Dr. Rees quotes General Omar Bradley as saying, “The most completely committed person I have met is a convinced Communist.” Recognizing the challenging truth in a statement of this kind, Dr. Rees has dedicated himself to the holy task of activating and mobilizing Christian people to a more drastic and ardent commitment to Christ and his cause in this world.

The Christian minister will find here new illustrations and perhaps new insights expressed in new ways. The new Christian who reads this book will be able to learn more about the nature of the deeper Christian life and the clarification of many of his own embryonic thoughts.

JOHN R. RICHARDSON

Render To Caesar

The State in the New Testament, by Oscar Cullman. Scribners, New York. $2.50.

That the New Testament has something to say about the State will come as a surprise to many people. Secularists have assumed that politics have nothing to do with piety; sectarians have imagined that piety may be divorced from politics. But the New Testament has much to teach us on this subject. We are indebted to Cullman for his careful exposition of the Christian view of the State.

In the various chapters of this book the author discusses, “Jesus and the Resistance Movement of the Zealots,” “Jesus’ Condemnation by the Roman State,” “Paul and the State,” “The State in the Johannine Apocalypse.” There is also an excursus dealing with “the powers that be” mentioned in Romans 13, viewing the State as the effective agent of invisible (angelic) powers.

According to Cullman, the attitude of the New Testament to the State is one of “neither denial nor affirmation.”

The State is to be accepted rather than denied since it has been ordered of God for our own good. The State is intended of God to be his servant in the administration of justice, and that is why Jesus refused to go along with the Zealots who renounced the State unreservedly and sought to overthrow it.

Nevertheless, the State is not final. There are some things that are not Caesar’s. The totalitarian claims of the State must be resisted. For this reason Jesus refused to agree with the Sadducees whose religious indifference gave the Romans unlimited submission.

Some have regarded the question of the political world order within the framework of the sovereign Lordship of Christ (cf. “The Declaration of Faith Concerning Church and Nation” approved by the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1955).

Cullman’s emphasis is on the eschatological. In the New Testament witness concerning the State he finds a unity rooted in the tension between present and future. Ordered of God for the present, the State must be recognized by the Christian citizen. Yet in the end, it will pass away. The State is not a final institution with divine authority; therefore the disciple of the Lord will ever be ready to warn and resist when the State transgresses its limits. Only the Christ of the cross, the coming King, is Lord of all.

We have seen the State threaten the Church by political tyranny (Communism), and ecclesiastical forces seek to dominate the State by pretensions to power (Romanism). It has also been disturbing to note the indifference of many professing Christians to political problems and the attitude of the worldling that Christianity is irrelevant to the situations of our time. Most welcome, therefore, is this volume by Cullman. While one may not always agree with the author, no one can fail to profit from his serious and stimulating exposition of the New Testament on the subject of the State.

MARIO D. GANGI

Able Commentary

I and II Thessalouians, by William Hendriksen. Baker, Grand Rapids, 1955. $4.50.

This able commentary, one of a series called New Testament Commentary (upon which the author is at present engaged), covers in a semi-popular fashion Paul’s two letters to the church at Thessalonica.

Dr. Hendriksen is fully abreast with modern scholarship in the realm of New Testament literature and exegesis. However, there is no parade of learning in these pages. The difficult problems of interpretation are usually relegated to footnotes (which do not average one a page). A selected bibliography lists the major works on these epistles, and a more extended bibliography adequately covers the larger literature on this subject.

The book is definitely evangelical and conservative in viewpoint, The Pauline authorship is defended with adequate scholarship. All the arguments against Paul’s authorship are fairly stated and persuasively answered. No one can accuse our author of obscurantism.

One of the most valuable features of this commentary is found in the extended prior to Christ’s parousia. Although there is no precise treatment of the various eschatological views as such, the author’s interpretation naturally leads to a millennial conclusion. This is what we would expect from the author of More Than Conquerors.

In general the reviewer agrees with the theological and eschatological views presented in this excellent commentary. The flaws are few and hard to find. We found a Greek preposition misspelled and incorrectly accented (p. 21). On the same page another Greek preposition is incorrectly accented. A participle appears without accent (p. 48). The Greek word parousia is accented incorrectly (p. 76). A smooth breathing is omitted (p. 135). A present participle is called an aorist participle (p. 142). A Greek infinitive is incorrectly accented (p. 168). The English word “personal” is misspelled (p. 137). “Of repent” should be “to repent” (p. 185). “So that” is always spelled as one word except in two places (pp. 68, 103).

Conservative scholarship cannot be entirely satisfied with the republication of learned and evangelical works that were produced by orthodox scholars of the nineteenth century or earlier. It is good to see an increasing number of conservative books on biblical and theological subjects appearing in our day. We feel confident that Dr. Hendriksen’s contribution to this swelling list of evangelical literature will do much to restore confidence in the orthodox position concerning the New Testament literature. A more useful commentary on Paul’s letters to the church at Thessalonica could hardly be found.

WICK BROOMALL

Reliable Introduction

Second Thoughts on the Dead Sea Scrolls, by F. F. Bruce. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1956. $2.50.

This is just the book to give to the layman who wishes a trustworthy introduction to the now famous Dead Sea Scrolls. The interest which these scrolls has aroused in the public mind is nothing short of remarkable. It is probably no exaggeration to say that they are the most significant archeological discovery of the last thirty years. Inasmuch as this is so, many of the books (and the number of such books is rapidly growing) which discuss the scrolls may tend to overemphasize their importance for the study of the beginnings of Christianity. It cannot be denied that much that has been written on the subject borders on the nonsensical.

If there is any one word which can characterize the present work it is the word “sane.” Professor Bruce gives a remarkably clear and valuable survey of the whole field, and in all his discussion seeks to abide by the facts. He goes as far as the facts allow and no farther. He makes it clear that he is acquainted with the various interpretations of disputed points which have been advanced, but he himself is not interested in pressing them. He is fair in his discussions, and seeks to withhold judgment when judgment must be withheld. For this reason primarily that his work is dependable.

The book is written in a pleasing style, and is well adapted to the layman who is not acquainted with the various technical questions which a proper study of the scrolls involves. One who reads through this work carefully will have a good understanding of the principal points in debate in connection with the scrolls, and he will be prepared for further study. To produce such a book is no easy task, and it is this reviewer’s opinion that the author has done his job in a first-rate fashion.

The principal point at which we are constrained to disagree with the author is in his evaluation of the importance of the Isaiah manuscript with respect to the question of the origin of the prophecy. Professor Bruce thinks that this newly discovered manuscript proves nothing that was not already known. For our part we believe that the manuscript is of unique significance. It makes clear that the book of Isaiah existed in its present form as early as the second century before Christ. Thus it stands as a monumental NO to the views of Bernhard Duhm, the influential German scholar who held that the prophecy did not receive its present form until the first century B.C. This is not a minor point, but one of tremendous importance. For, if there is a first and a second Isaiah, as the overwhelming majority of modern biblical critics affirm, then the witness of the New Testament to the authorship of the prophecy is clearly in error. The Dead Sea manuscript supports the New Testament, and it also renders more difficult attempts to explain the origin of the book of Isaiah on any view other than that of the Bible itself, namely, that Isaiah was himself the author of the entire prophecy.

If the reader wishes a clearly written, accurate, informative introduction to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this is the book to obtain.

EDWARD J. YOUNG.

Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: April 01, 1957

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

The question of the relationship between the Church and the State remains a perennial problem for the Christian. Four hundred years ago at the time of the Reformation the principle in England was that of one State, one Church, so that every Englishman was regarded as a member both of the State and of the Church. One thing that history has taught us is that everybody cannot be forced into the same ecclesiastical mould and that between fellow-Christians there must be room for conscientious differences of judgment and practice where forms of worship are concerned. Failure to recognize this on the part of the authorities in England led to the hazardous sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers for the New World in the search of that freedom. Subsequently, as toleration gained ground, the Free Churches came into being—free, that is, or independent of official connection with the State-while the Church of England continues to this day to maintain its historic bonds with this Protestant realm of England.

The Rev. Edward Rogers, a Methodist minister, writing in the January issue of The London Quarterly and Holborn Review on the subject of “Christians and the Modern State,” speaks of industrialization, urbanization, centralization and secularization as the four distinctive features of the modern State, and asserts that the Christian, “simply because he is a Christian, confronts the State in two inseparably related ways,” as one who, “whatever the social or political order, … must seek to live by faith and love. The political order,” he says, “may be corrupt or cruel, the economic order unjust and the moral code of society debased. Nevertheless, he will be generous and just, truthful and honest, kind and forbearing.”

We are reminded that political liberty is “a rare and precious thing, hardly won and easily lost” and that it “demands and depends upon men and women of integrity and charity, ready to acknowledge that they are their brother’s keepers.” It is, in fact, the believing Christian who is “the preserver of sound values in a society that would otherwise decay.” Mr. Rogers points to loneliness and a slackening of the social ties that strengthen life as resulting from living in the modern State. These deficiencies, it is true, are made good by church life, which offers “fellowship and shared responsibilities.” Saying this, however, he makes the following very salutary comment on what has come to be known as the social gospel: “What went wrong with the ‘social gospel’ in the generation immediately past was that it put ‘social’ first, and a diluted gospel second. Men and women of noble intention strove to implement the Sermon on the Mount while pushing into the background the Cross and the Resurrection—and found that their fine phrases and benevolent exhortations splashed ineffectively on the rocks of sin.”

Who will not agree with his conclusion that the doctrine of the sovereignty of God is “a doctrine desperately needed to check the blasphemous and destructive doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of the State”; for the State “is the servant of God, not the master of men?”

The dualistic doctrine that the care of the State extends only to the body and the care of the Church only to the soul is described as “entirely unchristian” in an article on “Church and State” in the January–March number of The Church Quarterly Review by C. H. Glasson, who, appropriately enough, is a lay member of the Church of England and also a civil servant. He affirms that the Church “will continue to assert that it is different in kind from other voluntary organizations,” and that it “will not even consent to reserve its gospel for its members, as Freemasons do the oddities they indulge in.”

Regarding the function of the Church of England as the “established” church of the realm, Mr. Glasson is of the opinion that its disestablishment would weaken both itself and also the Free Churches. He imagines that there are few Christians who would be glad to see the sovereign profess no religion or the proceedings of Parliament open without a prayer—with the exception of the Roman Church, which, he pointedly observes, is “the one nonconformist body which might have cause for satisfaction.”

In a consideration of the politics of the Church of Rome. He draws our attention to the fact that in the Roman Missal there are prayers whose design is the undoing of the work of the Reformation; that in it the English are spoken of as having been “the dowry of the blessed virgin Mary and subjects of Peter,” and that among the Bidding Prayers for Good Friday there is the distinctly political note, under the heading “For the Emperor,” explaining that this prayer is “omitted, the Holy Roman Empire being vacant.”

Mr. Glasson warns—that the Roman Church is far from having abandoned its political objectives. “In this country [England],” he says, “it plays the role of a minority, biding its time. If it were as strong in England as our Church now is, the State would be forced to define more or less regularly its relationship to it. The State would, ultimately, have not merely to define relationships with its own subjects in their church but with a foreign power.” And that, he adds, is “from the national point of view, the most significant difference between the Roman Church and our own.” Past history shows that English Roman Catholics have been relieved of their duty of loyalty under papal direction. But we are rightly admonished that these are political issues which by no means belong only to the dead past. Evidence of this is provided by citing the well known Roman Catholic writer and apologist Jacques Maritain, who “can still defend the old thesis of the Elizabethan Jesuits that excommunication of a Prince by Rome relieves the subject of all duty of obedience, and that a Pope is indeed a temporal sovereign because if he were not he could not avoid being a subject.”

The political aims and ambitions of the Roman Catholic Church are no less total and arrogant than are those of Communism. The Church-State connection in England is designed to ensure, amongst other things, a Protestant succession to the throne and security from a relapse into a state of subjection to the absolute tyranny of a foreign potentate claiming unrestricted authority over the souls and bodies of men. These ends are thoroughly desirable, but it must always be remembered that the only effective safeguard against the domination of darkness, whether civil or ecclesiastical or both, is the promotion of that vital evangelical religion whereby men’s hearts and minds are enlightened and liberated by obedience to the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever.

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 William Mueller of the United States, Professor G. C. Berkouwer of the Netherlands, Professor John H. Gerstner of the United States and Rev. Phillip Hughes of England.

- More from Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Cover Story

Christianity and the Sense of Tragedy

W. Stanford Reid

The feeling that life is fundamentally tragic seems to be common to the human race. The tendency toward death, frustration and what Carlyle has called “the inane” seems for most men to be the dominant theme of earthly existence. True, in times of expansion, of economic and social improvement, men have usually become optimistic, declaring this to be the best possible world and that every day in every way we are getting better and better. But let there be ever so slight a “recession” and the immediate change of tone in the chorus of optimism becomes very noticeable. The sense of tragedy very soon reasserts its rule over the human heart and mind.

That this is so is seen early in the history of civilization and culture. To the Greeks, for instance, the highest type of dramatic art, that which most truly portrayed life, was tragedy. Aristotle held that such representation performed a catharsis in those who witnessed it, enabling them to project themselves into the situation depicted in the drama. By so doing, they would be able to evaluate and overcome the catastrophic in their own lives. Here, as in much Eastern thinking, the black tragedy of man’s existence is taken for granted.

The Forms Of Tragedy

To the Greek dramatist, whether Sophocles, Euripedes or another, tragedy had one of three principal forms. The hero might find himself in conflict with society and its conventions, the result being virtual outlawry and death. Such an end, however, was not so tragic as that of the man who dared to fight with the gods. If he attempted this, his end was foreordained, for the gods would crush him with the weight of their roaring thunderbolts. In an even worse plight was the man in conflict with himself. There lay the deepest depth of tragedy, for such a one was not only the victim but also his own prosecutor and judge.

Thus, in Greek thought, anyone worthy of the name of man was obliged to enter into one form of conflict or other. As an individual he had to face the demands of society, religion or even his own human nature. One answer he could offer to these demands was submission, but by giving this answer he really ceased to be an individual and a man. This was slavery. On the other hand, he could go his own independent way, a way leading inevitably to a conflict ending only in defeat. But having fought a good fight, he would go down with his flag flying. Here was the gloriously tragic moment of life.

Such an approach to life assumes, of course, a whole philosophy or world-and-life view. It holds that life is fundamentally void, for man is destined to defeat and consequently to hopelessness. The hero is one who does not really overcome but who faces life defiantly and, by maintaining his own individual integrity, transmutes defeat into true victory. This is the tragedy which underlies all of life, for it reveals the ultimate vanity of all human endeavor.

It is upon this tradition that the great Western dramatists have built. This theme lies at the heart of Milton’s Samson Agonistes, which the author prefaced with a discussion of Aristotle and his views of the tragic. Corneille and Racine both followed the same pattern. Only Shakespeare at first appears to be different, but he too in King Lear, Macbeth or Othello, while perhaps more psychologically profound, follows the same well-worn path. Whether it be man’s fatuous love, his pride or his lust, they all lead to a destruction which he can only resist, daring the gods to strike him down with their searing darts of lightning.

Bleakness In Modern Life

Nor has our thinking changed much in our own day and age. We, who would seem to have good reason for optimism, particularly if we live in the Western Hemisphere, might well be excused for a certain buoyancy of outlook. Yet, on every hand, tragic bleakness seems to dominate. Robert Louis Stevenson commented more than once on this fact, and the parade of great novelists and writers only bears him out too well. Dreiser, Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, Proust, Dylan Thomas and many others continually point up the fact that life is essentially calamitous. Going even further, historian-philosophers, such as Spengler and Toynbee, declare that civilizations, like the individual, can end only in tragic death.

One may, of course, object that this attitude is a product of extreme intellectualism. It is the fate of the university professor, rather than of the man in the street. Yet is this true? Is it not true that it is part and parcel, not merely of Western, but of human thought? How often have we heard it prophesied in the past few years that there will be a third world war, and that this war will bring about the end of all things! Man seems to accept it as axiomatic that he will eventually bring himself to destruction, perhaps because of his very efforts to survive. In a hostile universe he can look forward to nothing but ultimate disaster. Despite all that he does, the universe will ultimately run down, bringing man’s hard-won achievements in art, science, religion and war to nothing. There is the ultimate tragedy.

And what practical effect does this have upon men? They see no value to life. They make money, they amass power, they build up a reputation. But where does it all lead? There is nothing beyond, for death ends all, and frustration is the common lot of man. Out of this situation come inner tensions, which in turn lead to social conflicts. The individual in his drive, in his search for something beyond his own puny efforts, to make life mean something finds himself opposed by others with the same tensions and acquisitive desires. The result is war in the economic, political or international sphere, and this in turn destroys man and his glory, civilization, and their cultures, nations and their achievements. Man agrees that

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Await alike the inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Mirror Of Man’s Need

The Christian church in human society and the individual Christian as a member of society both have seriously to face this common interpretation of life. A mere glib “God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world” sort of attitude does not solve the problem, nor overcome the difficulty. Does Christianity, therefore, have any real answer to, any effective argument against, the usual “philosophy of tragedy?” Or, does it simply admit that life is vanity of vanities about which man can do absolutely nothing?

In considering this matter, the Christian must of course realize that this belief in ultimate tragedy is a revelation of man’s need. As man becomes more self-conscious, so he becomes more “tragedy-conscious.” His sense of uncertainty and insecurity grows stronger as he more clearly sees his own smallness against the background of the universe. At times he has felt that he could govern all things by his reason, but before long, further knowledge has made him realize that he was dealing with something far beyond his power to control. Thus it has indeed been true that “he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow” (Eccles. 1:18).

To the Christian this is not unexpected. After all, when man frankly and bluntly refuses to acknowledge God as sovereign, he cannot expect anything else. A limited god, or no god at all, leaves the universe as the plaything of chance and the sport of conflicting currents of forces. In the circumstances, all that man can do is fight back at his environment, in the hope that some day in the future he may see victory—or oblivion. Man’s sin is thus at the root of his tragic sense.

Its Roots Are Deep

One may well ask then if Christianity sees no tragedy in life. Is Christianity a religion of facile optimism that goes its way without considering or caring for the emptiness which obviously lies so close to the surface of all human endeavor and activity? No, Christianity realizes that there is indeed a tragic side to life, but it believes that its roots lie deeper than most men realize.

The Christian bases his understanding of tragedy upon his belief in the doctrine fundamental to all Christian thought—God’s sovereignty. Because God is sovereign, he is the Creator, Sustainer and Ruler of all that is (John 1:3–5; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16, 17). Indeed, he is more: the Redeemer of his people, sovereignly saving them by his grace (John 1:12 f.; 3:3, 6, 7, 16; Rom. 8:28 ff.; Eph. 1, 2). God is absolute in all things.

Yet although God’s sovereign goodness is so bountifully manifest in creation and providence, man continues in rebellion. Although God continually displays his kindness to man in providing what he needs in this life, man shows neither gratitude nor thanksgiving. He prefers to declare that all these things are attained by his own hard work, or even by chance. Completely egocentric, he ignores God, refusing the submission that he should offer (Rom. 1:19–20).

Nevertheless, the sovereign God continues by his providence to sustain and govern the rebel, not only providing him with those things which he needs, but even restraining the ravages of sin in his mind and body. Although man laughs in his face, God still keeps him in this life, for the rebel is utterly dependent, though he acknowledge it not, upon him.

As if this evidence of God’s goodness were not enough, he has entered into history speaking to men through the mouths of prophets and apostles, and calling upon them to return to him. Most important of all he entered into man’s world as man, in the person of Jesus Christ. And in the Incarnation, which led to his death on Calvary’s cross, he substituted himself for man, that he alone might bear the penalty of man’s continual and obstinate rebellion. Here was the supreme manifestation of divine sovereign grace.

The Rebellious Creature

Yet in spite of God’s infinite grace, in spite of all his calls to return, man pays little or no attention. Faced with the offer of the Gospel, he turns his back upon it, and we hear the tragic cry of the Savior: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not” (Matt. 23:37). Here is one aspect of the Christian sense of tragedy: the tragedy of the rebellious creature.

But there is another side to it, for Christ adds the words: “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” The tragedy of life consists not only in man’s turning away from the call of the sovereign God but also in the fact that God in his just and righteous wrath may, and does, turn away from his rebellious creatures. This is tragedy indeed—the tragedy of Hell, far greater, deeper and more enduring than anything man can imagine: eternal death.

The Initiative Of Grace

Yet no Christian would ever admit that tragedy is the final word. For the Christian, tragedy is never the end, since God’s grace is as ultimate as his justice. Even though the Christian once rebelled and fought against God, in his infinite mercy and loving kindness God has laid hold upon him. He has sweetly wooed him back to himself, and hope has blotted out the feeling of vanity and emptiness.

The Christian, however, must continually emphasize that this has not happened because of his own willingness or desire to turn to God, but because God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit has taken the initiative.

Born again from above, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13), God’s people turn to him in faith and obedience, knowing that they have been saved from black tragedy, by the sovereign grace of God alone.

Swallowed Up In Hope

The Christian cannot and does not seek to escape from the sense of tragedy in the world. But his view of tragedy is not the result of a sense of insecurity forced upon him by a world of chance. He sees tragedy in man’s continual rejection of the sovereign God of grace; but at the same time he also sees tragedy swallowed up in hope. Christ has died; yea, he has risen again and he offers salvation freely to all. Tragedy is not ultimate, for Christ lives and reigns as the Redeemer and Intercessor for all who come unto him by faith.

How does the Christian view affect one’s attitude toward life? For one thing, the Christian realizes that God has called him in this life to serve him. The Apostle Paul never tired of stressing this point when dealing with the individual members of the early Church, because it gave to even the humblest Christian a sense of vocation. God had summoned the Christian to service; therefore the Christian, even though a slave, was God’s freedman.

And out of this sense of calling comes a further result. The Christian’s work, feeble, sinful and ineffectual though it might be, if it is done honestly, faithfully and conscientiously, will redound to the glory of the sovereign God. Thus, even the humblest ditch digger can glorify God in his work. Moreover, this is not just for a day, or a year, but for all eternity, for “their works do follow them.” This destroys frustration, emptiness, tragedy. We are working for the eternal glory of the King of Kings.

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).

END

Components

Dust … and clay …

and the voice of God.

Here is the Creator’s handiwork;

Here is dust … and clay.

The highest of all organisms,

yet of the earth.

The most complex of God’s creations:

Insignificant.

What good can come of dust …

and clay?

Dust of itself is nothing;

Clay—little more.

What then remains?

The voice of God.

DONALD CLAIR REAM

W. Stanford Reid teaches in Canada in the city of his birth, at McGill University, Montreal, where he is Associate Professor of History and Warden of Men’s Residences. He holds the Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is author of The Church of Scotland in Lower Canada, Economic History of Great Britain and Problems in Western Intellectual History since 1500.

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Segregation and the Kingdom of God

E. Earle Ellis

Race relations is probably the most important problem agitating the Christian conscience today. Secular integrationists are calling upon the Church to speak to the problem—assuming that if it “spoke,” it would call for the solution that the integrationists demand. As a matter of fact the Church has spoken and is speaking, but it does not speak with one voice. The cleavage is particularly apparent if one avoids that un-Protestant confusion of the voice of the clergy with the “voice of the Church.” Since the Supreme Court decision of 1954, the issue has been focused in terms of “segregation” versus “integration.” Within this framework Christian integrationists champion their position as “the Christian way” and dismiss the views of segregationists as naive or prejudiced.

Most of the integrationist press treats the question as if all segregationist thinking stemmed from emotional, ignorant or ulterior motives. Religious periodicals, with some exceptions, tend to identify integration with Christianity and segregation with the forces of iniquity. This attitude is not just an oversimplification; it is a basic distortion of the issues. It identifies the principle of segregation with certain evils in segregation-in-practice. It illogically leapfrogs from the proposition, “Integration is concordant with Christian race relations,” to the contention, “Integration is necessary for Christian race relations.” Finally, it ignores the injustices present in integration-in-practice in the North, and the evil implicit in a consistent integrationist philosophy.

A Southern Point Of View

Few Southerners—certainly few Christians—will defend in toto segregation-in-practice in the South. Too often the color line has been viewed as horizontal rather than vertical; unchristian white men—like unchristian men everywhere—have used their racial status to bully or to prey upon the weaker group; and the slogan “separate but equal” has preserved the separate and forgotten the equal. The greatest sin of Christian segregationists has not been their individual relationship with Negroes but their indifference to chronic injustices within the dual social system. In the forties, Virginius Dabney and a number of other Southerners organized to correct some of these injustices within the segregation formula. Dabney cites the reason for their failure (American Magazine, August, 1956): “There was no cooperation from influential segments of Southern society. The result of such indifference was the removal of the Negro capital from Atlanta to New York and the shifting of Negro leadership from Southern moderates to Northern radicals.”

This is not the whole story however. Raymond Moley has correctly identified the two salient facts in the segregated South over the past half-century—the great progress of the Negro and the great improvement in racial attitudes. Within the segregation pattern the South has opened the door to the professions for the Negro, in some ways surpassing integrationist areas. In each of several Southern states, for example, there are as many Negro school teachers (receiving “equal pay” and in some areas a higher average pay) as in thirty-one Northern and Western states combined (cf. Dabney); segregated Meharry and Howard universities have provided more Negro doctors than all of the integrated institutions of the North. For several decades preceding the Supreme Court decision, inequities had declined and the business and professional strata of Negro society had increasingly developed. “In the South they have segregation,” replied a Mississippi Negro to his surprised Northern college professor, “but Southerners are kinder to Negroes than Northerners are.” Segregation does not necessitate bad race relations, nor does integration guarantee good ones. On the contrary, the very opposite often appears to be true.

It is sometimes asserted that segregation almost always is associated with domination of and discrimination against the weaker group. It would be more accurate, however, to say that whenever diverse groups have been associated under a political unit, whether on an integrated or a segregated basis, the tendency has been to discriminate against the weaker. This is true of some “integrated” minority groups in Europe today—a problem that finds a “segregation” solution in the political realm through racial, rather than merely geographical, representation in parliament. On the other hand, eastern Canada is an example of segregation equitably administered. The French and the English have separate schools and churches, move in their own social circles and maintain distinct cultural divisions in an attitude of mutual respect.

It is not unnatural that the Christian in the North should look askance upon segregation. He can see no good reason for it (the “melting pot” philosophy worked for the Poles and the Germans, why not for the Southerner and the Negro?); he weighs it in terms of individual discriminations, e.g., the inferior Negro school (a complaint passe in many areas) or the poorer Negro residential area; and he hears of it only in caricature. Emotional and sentimental factors are particularly strong where the problem can be solved by a slogan. It is no secret that the integration sentiment of most white Christians increases in direct proportion to their distance from the Negro as a group factor in society.

The integrationist, viewing the problem as one of “personal” exclusion, overlooks or denies the relevancy of treating it as a group relationship. Christians in the South have a different reality to face: There is de facto a biracial society with vast numbers of each group; cultural, sociological and psychological differences between the races are considerable. (Only a naive appraisal can reduce the problem to one of “skin color.”) Freedom of association, in the eyes of the South, is a liberty applicable to group as well as individual relationships. The white South desires—and holds it to be a right—to preserve its European racial and cultural heritage; this cannot be done if integration is enforced in social institutions, e.g., the schools. Intermarriage, whether in the 2nd generation or the 10th, is a question which, in Alistair Cooke’s phrase, “only the intellectual, the superficial and the foreigner far from the dilemma can afford to pooh-pooh” (Manchester Guardian Weekly, May 24, 1956). The soothsayer may confidently predict that this will not happen, or publicize as the “scientific” view (as though scientists were agreed on the matter) that racial differences are merely physical and environmental. The essential point is that the people who must live in the situation are convinced, for reasons sufficient for them, that integration will be destructive of their society, ultimately an evil rather than a good. (Compare H. R. Sass, “Mixed Schools and Mixed Blood,” The Atlantic, Nov., 1956.) And they are confident that, where the white and black races live together in considerable numbers, the concept of a dual society applying a principle of segregation in varying degrees according to the exigencies of particular situations will, when directed by a Christian conscience, provide the more equitable and harmonious relationship.

The master-servant relationship is passing in the South, and some modus vivendi is desperately needed to replace it. Segregation has the potential to develop into a partnership of mutual respect; this partnership can never arise from a judicial force bill which is intolerable to one of the groups. Southerners often wonder whether integrationists are as interested in good race relations as in forcing a particular kind of race relations. The unfortunate fact is that ardent Christian integrationists, however conscientious, are one cause of the worsening race relations in the South today. Their moral superiority complex, their caricature of the segregationist as an unchristian bigot and their pious confession of the sins of people in other sections of the country have not been wholly edifying.

Segregation in America is, and should be, a fence not a wall, a division with many openings. In former years in the South the writer occasionally visited colored churches and enjoyed their fellowship in an atmosphere of Christian love; they on occasion visited his. At that time segregation was the norm, recognized and approved by both groups; yet it was no bar to friendship or fellow ship in many areas. Then came the integrationist, a self-righteous harbinger of a “new world a-comin,” pounding his pulpit drum and condemning all opposition to Gehenna. The outlines of his new world have come: and what is the cause of the growing resentment, fear, animosity and discord? Why, the segregationist, of course!

Across The Ohio

Whatever appeal integration has for Southern Negroes, it has been produced by the current identification of everything bad with segregation and everything good with integration. Even to the more sophisticated outside the South the word still casts a spell, but some of its luster no doubt has faded. They came north to the promised land, but they crossed the river to find it wasn’t Jordan at all but only the Ohio. In the North Negroes are integrated—at the bottom. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large integration-inpractice is full of discriminations: A Negro student sometimes cannot fulfill his requirements because no integrated school will accept him for student teaching. In Negro sections business and professional services are largely in the hands of whites. There is no “separate but equal” formula to equalize facilities between “white” New Trier and Chicago’s “black” south-side schools.

If the 90-year integration experiment in the North had produced a just and amicable relationship, it might be more attractive to the South. Actually, integration has most signally failed in just those areas which most nearly approximate—in population ratio—the Southern scene. The integrationist “blockbuster” approach is exemplified by Trumbull Park (Chicago) where Negroes were assigned to a white housing project. The result has been riot, race hatred and a 24-hour police guard for more than a year. In nearby Gary, Indiana, Andrew Means, a Negro contractor, using a segregationist approach, has built six Negro suburban-type communities. Race relations are good. Nevertheless, integrationists encounter a mental block at the suggestion that segregation has merit as a pattem-for-living in a multiracial society.

The Southerner can understand the sentimentalist, but the inconsistency of most integrationists is harder to comprehend. In the integrationist North, papers often censor local racial unrest (to prevent riot), then editorialize about immoral segregation in the South. When teaching Sunday School in Chicago’s “black” south side, the writer failed to encounter any homes of Christian integrationists. They live in “white” suburbs, send their children to “white” schools, and then travel through Negro areas to their editorial offices, professions and businesses where they expatiate against segregation. Sometimes they favor admitting a Negro to their suburb if he is the “right kind” of Negro. A Christian friend of the writer, quite integration-conscious, mentioned having had Negro dinner guests. “Of course,” he added, “they were clean and educated—no one like Isaac (our janitor).” Is this the fulfillment of New Testament ethics?

The point is not that the integrationist would defend integration-in-practice in the North. But in condemning the segregationist’s failure to achieve a “separate and equal” society, the integrationist fails to realize the implication of his own failure to achieve a “mixed and equal” society. This failure hardly recommends integration as “the solution” to racial discrimination and animosity—a goal that both groups seek. If Southern Christian leaders can do no better than to follow the integrationist approach of their brothers to the North, the future is less than bright.

And The Kingdom Of God

Both integrationists and segregationists are extremely eager to quote God as on their side. However, the Scriptures most frequently used, the “curse of Ham” argument in Genesis and the “one blood” argument in Acts, are irrelevant. The New Testament does indeed picture all Christians as being united. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, free nor slave, rich nor poor, educated nor ignorant, clean nor dirty, black nor white (cf. Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). But in New Testament Christianity this is a unity in diversity, a unity which transcends differences and works within them, but never a unity which ignores or denies differences or necessarily seeks to erase them. The servant is no less a servant, the master no less a master; the rich no less rich, and the poor no less poor. The New Testament ethic is not “we are the same, there is no difference; we are equal, therefore I love you” but rather “we are not the same, we are not equal in many ways; but I love you and desire your good.” The Gospel was not primarily to change the pattern of society, but to bring to bear new motives and new attitudes within the pattern. It is true that Christianity effected changes in the pattern, but its approach was totally different from the integrationist’s philosophy today.

Integration as a moral imperative has its roots in a secular view of the Kingdom of God in which the Kingdom is identified with the church and ultimately with the society of this world, and is to be brought in by social reforms. For the New Testament, however, whatever its manifestation within the Christian community is, the Kingdom of God is never to be identified with or find its consummation in a this-world society. (Compare T. W. Manson, The Teaching of Jesus, p. 134; E. Stauffer, New Testament Theology, p. 196.) Even within the church the differences between individuals and/or groups are not done away. Paul and Barnabas came to the conclusion that in certain circumstances their best unity lay in separation (Acts 15:36–46). Jewish and Gentile Christians differed in many practices, e.g., the observance of the Sabbath and other Old Testament laws (Rom. 14:5, 6; Acts 18:18; 21:23 ff), differences that ultimately resulted in “ecclesiastical” separation. Not only does the Apostle not view these differences as sinful, but he rather insists on the right of the groups to continue in them (Gal. 2:5; Rom. 14). In other words, the unity of Christians does not necessarily mean a physical “togetherness” or organizational conformity; the Kingdom in the church does not negate the church’s relation to the social customs of the world and of the churches: The same Paul who said that there was neither male nor female in Christ also instructed women to be silent in church (cf. 1 Cor. 11:4; 14:34).

The creed of consistent integrationist Christians could be summed up in the phrase, “the right to belong”; and their heresy, “the refusal to belong.” In their minds “togetherness” is a good, exclusiveness an evil. God—whatever else he is—is certainly “democratic”; segregation is “undemocratic” and therefore immoral.

Only when one applies the philosophy of integration consistently—thankfully most integrationists are not consistent—can he see its full implications. In Christ there is no rich nor poor; therefore, says the economic integrationist, we must integrate society through Christian socialism to eliminate evil class distinctions. It is wrong, cries the political integrationist, to discriminate against a man because of “an accident of birth”—birth in a foreign country; world government and world citizenship are the answers to this wrong. The ecclesiastical integrationist intones: denominations are evil per se, they divide us; we must fulfill Christ’s prayer “that they may be one” by uniting in the “coming great church.” Segregation is discrimination, concludes the racial integrationist, and “de-segregation” is its cure.

The argument for racial integration and the use of governmental force to implement it is a part of a pattern that is very evident in other areas of life. (And how often the voices in the argument vaguely remind one of voices heard at other times, on other issues.) It is a bad argument. Christian communism does not yield a good economic relationship; the “one church” organization does not give true Christian unity; cultural leveling does not produce a common bond of friendship; integration does not alleviate racial animosity and injustice. Further, it is an argument that is ethically anemic: in the name of equality it destroys the liberty of individuals and groups to live and develop in associations of their own preference; in the name of unity it points with undeviating insistence toward authoritarianism and conformity, eschewing the inherent sin root in human society with its inevitable consequence: power corrupts and total power corrupts totally.

If the Kingdom of God as a monolithic homogeneous structure is the goal of Christian ethics—if national, economic, cultural, racial, ecclesiastical distinctions are to be abolished as “immoral,” then the integrationist argument is sound. But if the Kingdom of God is seen as intersecting—and yet above—a this-world framework, compatible with—and yet superseding—the many and varied distinctions in this present age; then segregation is, in principle, an equally valid answer. And in practice it is much more compatible with liberty. Christian integrationists are patently sincere in the path they are forging, but the road signs along that path sometimes remind one more of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World than of the New Testament’s Kingdom of God.

A native of Florida, E. Earle Ellis holds the B.S. degree from the University of Virginia, the M.A. and B.D. degrees from Wheaton College Graduate School and the Ph.D. from University of Edinburgh. His dissertation, “Paul’s Use of the Old Testament,” has just been published. He is Assistant Professor of Bible and Religion at Aurora College, Illinois.

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The Spirit in the Old Testament

J. G. S. S. Thomson

In the Old Testament the Spirit operates in two spheres: in the realm of nature and in the life of man. In nature, the Spirit is depicted as an agent who creates (Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13; Isa. 32:15) and who sustains what has been created (Ps. 104:30; Job 34:14). This serves to remind us not only that God created the world, but that the principle that animates nature is not a blind, unreasoning force. The Spirit is not mere physical energy but is life-breathing, vitalizing what God the Father created through the Word (cf. John 1:1–3; Heb. 11:3).

The Old Testament presents this same Spirit as present in the life of man and active at four different levels of man’s personality.

“The Lord God … breathed into his [man’s] nostrils the breath of life,” and in virtue of this “man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job 33:4). The purely physical human organism is vitalized by the breath of God.

Elsewhere in the Old Testament the spirit of man appears as the animating principle, but this does not conflict with the Genesis account of man’s creation. For the vitalizing power that is the Spirit of God belonged to man, and could, therefore, properly be called the spirit of man (Job 27:3; Ps. 104:29 f.). Both views teach that the life that animates the physical organism results from God’s communication of his spirit.

Now it is this Spirit in man—or, if you will, it is man’s spirit—that distinguishes him from the beast and imparts a unique pre-eminence to man. This is the Old Testament explanation of a self-evident fact.

This Spirit in man is the special gift of God, and constitutes also the source of righteousness, wisdom and morality in man, placing him in a relation with God that is unshared by the animal world.

If it be argued that the terms in Genesis 2:7 are used also in Genesis 6:22, in reference to the animal world in general, it may be pointed out that Genesis 1:27 introduces a factor which distinguishes man absolutely from the rest of animate creation. In addition to his being animated by the Spirit of God, man is created “in the image of God.” These two phenomena—his being created in the image of God, and his being vitalized by the Spirit of God—are not, however, two distinct factors in the nature of man. This spiritual quality of man’s physical organism proclaims his original creation in the divine image.

It may also be argued that some of man’s higher faculties manifest themselves in animals. But even there we find an unbridgeable gulf between man and animals. In man these faculties are conjoined with self-conscious reason; in animals this conjunction is absent. And the conjunction in man is not the result of an evolutionary process but of the inbreathing of God of his Spirit into man. It is this that makes man a spiritual, self-conscious being, capable of communing with God and reflecting something of the character of God. It is the root of man’s rationality and morality. It is man’s inmost self, the essence of his manhood. And this image of God in man did not disappear with the fall. It is handed on to posterity (Gen. 5:1, 3; 9:6) and is the possession of all men in varying degrees.

But this concept of man’s physical organism vitalized by the Spirit of God portrays but the beginning of the Spirit’s activity in the human personality. The Old Testament depicts the Spirit also as the source of man’s mental life, creative faculties, ineradicable moral sense and capacity for knowing and communing with God. Let us consider these elements in turn.

The Spirit And Man’s Mental Life

When God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, he not only vitalized the human organism but he made man a living soul. This implies not merely animation but intelligence. “There is a spirit in man; and the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding” (Job 32:8). The Spirit is indissolubly linked, in the Old Testament, with the intellectual element in man (cf. Exod. 28:3; 31:3; 35:31; Deut. 34:9). This conjunction is even clearer in the Septuagint, which speaks of “a divine spirit of wisdom, and understanding and knowledge” (Exod. 31:3; 35:3) and of “the spirit of wisdom and perception” (Exod. 28:3). When this “divine spirit of wisdom” became operative in man, intellectual powers, unique among created beings, were manifested.

The Old Testament gives us several examples of such manifestation. Joseph’s discernment and wisdom and his ability to interpret dreams are said to be due to his being “a man in whom the Spirit of God is” (Gen. 41:38 f.). Moses was given the Spirit to help him bear “the burden of his people” (Num. 11:17), i.e., to enable him to dispense judgment at the tribunal (Exod. 18:22 f.), a task requiring the use of the critical faculties to an unusual degree. The seventy elders were also given the Spirit to enable them to assist Moses in guiding and governing the people (Num. 11:16 f.). Bezaleel, the chief artificer in constructing the Tabernacle, was also filled with the Spirit of God, in virtue of which he had the ability to devise complicated designs, execute work in various metals and carve in stone and wood (Exod. 31:2 ff.). Bezaleel’s chief assistant and all the workmen under their direction also shared in this artistic skill, which had its source in the Spirit of God (Exod. 35:30–36:2).

Clearly then, the Old Testament teaches that the Spirit of God, who originated the personal life of man, is also the source of man’s intellectual life; and that where the Spirit is allowed to act in a special degree, outstanding powers manifest themselves. This means that our reason is not completely other than the divine reason. Reason in man is that which feels, wills and apprehends goodness; and God, not being pure reason, also wills, and feels and cares. But it is the Spirit of God which in the divine nature feels (Mic. 2:7), thinks (Isa. 40:13 f.) and acts ethically (Ps. 143:10); and it is this same Spirit in man who feels and thinks, and apprehends goodness.

The Spirit And Man’s Moral Life

In two passages in the Old Testament the Spirit is called the Holy Spirit, Psalm 51:11 and Isaiah 63:10 f. Now, if to this additional fact concerning the nature of the Spirit we conjoin the fact of the divine Spirit’s presence in man, then moral life in man becomes not merely a possibility but a human necessity.

In Proverbs 20:27, “the spirit of man” (which means the Spirit of God in man) is described as “the lamp of the Lord,” whose function is to “search the innermost parts” of man. This is probably a reference to conscience, the inner mentor that tests a man’s motives and feelings, thoughts and actions by God’s law, approving some, condemning others, as they agree or disagree with that criterion. In other words, this divine Spirit who is the principle of life in man and the source of his intellectual gifts is also present as “a moral witness against sin.”

If the rendering of Genesis 6:3 in the Authorized Version—“My Spirit shall not always strive with man”—can be maintained, then here also the divine Spirit appears as a moral witness in man against his sin. Indeed, even if the Hebrew be rendered “rule,” or “judge,” in man, its ethical significance would still be apparent.

What we today would describe as a guilty conscience was explained in the Old Testament in terms of the activity within man of an evil spirit from, or of, the Lord (1 Sam. 16:14; 18:10; 19:9). In 1 Samuel 16:3, this spirit is spoken of as “a spirit of God.” These verses have particular reference to King Saul, and indicate that his guilty conscience had sprung into life through a divine agent that was tormenting his spirit through its accusations. A guilty conscience, a sense of sin, is somehow connected with the activity of a supernatural spiritual agency. This is another aspect of the Old Testament conviction that a moral sense in man is produced by the Spirit of God.

The divine Spirit’s connection with man’s moral life is further established in later Old Testament writings where the word “spirit” connotes in man a fixed state of mind, a permanent attitude of heart, a man’s character. The predominating feature of a man’s disposition may be pride (Eccles. 7:8), haughtiness (Prov. 16:18), quick temper (Eccles. 7:9), humility (Prov. 16:19), patience (Eccles. 7:8) or faithfulness (Prov. 11:13), but in every case the outstanding failure of the character is described as a spirit.

The Spirit And Man’s Religious Life

The presence of the Spirit in man must, of necessity, be significant for his religious life for two reasons. It is the Spirit in man that links him to God, and creates the capacity to know, and commune with, God (Isa. 26:9). And it is the Spirit in man that makes him a moral being, and enables God to lay moral demands upon him. But man as a sinful, fallen creature cannot fulfill these moral demands. He requires a power not native to himself to enable him to respond to moral demands from which he cannot escape.

This is what Ezekiel undoubtedly recognized when he gave God’s epoch-making promise: “I will put a new Spirit within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: that they may walk in my statues, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.… I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel” (11:19 f.; 39:29; cf. 36:26 f.); Jeremiah’s reference to the New Covenant (31:33 f.) carries the same theme.

Here is something new in the Old Testament’s teaching on the relations between man and the Spirit in the religious life. It anticipates a revolutionary change in man’s nature involving such an invasion of spiritual power and such a renewal of character that it would amount to a rebirth in man’s experience. This conception had to wait till Pentecost for fulfillment. If Joel, Jeremiah and Ezekiel were dealing with actual spiritual experience, then at best their words could have meaning only for a few choice souls in Israel.

Even the change of heart promised to King Saul (1 Sam. 10:6, 9) was clearly not of this striking moral or spiritual nature. It was not yet the time of fulfillment of Moses’ yearning cry: “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!” (Num. 11:29). Moral reformation there was, but not spiritual regeneration. The Spirit was still only the source of moral goodness, not the Agent of the birth that is from above.

But this must not lead to undue depreciation of the conception of the Spirit’s activity in the religious life of man in the Old Testament. Sufficient justice must be done to the fact that in the Old Testament the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit. Why must the tide “Holy Spirit” (Ps. 51:11; Isa. 63:10 f.) be interpreted to mean that holiness is not to be predicated of the Spirit per se, that the Spirit is holy only because the Spirit is the Spirit of the God of holiness? Old Testament saints would be able to predicate holiness of the Spirit because in their experience, limited though it must have been, the Spirit produced holiness of life. It was the Spirit who implanted in the heart “the fear of the Lord” (Isa. 11:2), “righteousness” (Isa. 32:15–17) and a penitent and prayerful spirit (Zech. 12:10).

In the Old Testament the most spectacular evidence of the Spirit in the religious life of man is seen in the experience of the prophets. Through them the Lord communicated his word (Zech. 7:12), and to them he revealed his secrets (Amos 3:7). The Spirit was the power in which the prophet proclaimed his message (Mic. 3:8). It was natural, therefore, that the prophet should be known in Israel as “the man that hath the Spirit” (Hos. 9:7).

It is significant too that one of the chief results of the universal outpouring of the Spirit in New Testament times would be that its recipients would prophesy (Joel 2:28). Obviously, then, the Spirit was the main factor in this phenomenon of Old Testament religious experience. What differentiated the true prophet from the false was precisely that the Spirit lifted up the former into fellowship with God, enabled him to understand, and then to communicate, the divine will to his fellows.

This surely is the only adequate explanation of the genuine inspiration that characterize the prophet’s writings, and which makes them a divine revelation. How otherwise explain the habit of the prophets in attributing their message, spoken or written, to the Spirit of God (2 Sam. 23:22; Ezek. 2:2; 3:24, etc.), and of Isaiah’s and Jeremiah’s constant use of the solemn phrase “thus saith the Lord”?

In A Greek New Testament

Language of high and laurelled Attic song,

Homer’s wide wings, and Plato’s cadences;

O trophied speech! Thy mightiest honor is

That God hath made of thee his human tongue.

—NATHAN R. WOOD

Professor J. G. S. S. Thomson served with the staff at New College, Edinburgh, while completing doctoral studies at University of Edinburgh. He specialized in Old Testament and cognate studies and served for eight years in Algeria, French North Africa, as a missionary among Arabic-speaking Moslems. He returned to Scotland as assistant in the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages, University of Edinburgh. He is now visiting associate professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga.

- More from J. G. S. S. Thomson

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The Spirit And Man’s Mental Life

The Spirit And Man’s Moral Life

The Spirit And Man’s Religious Life

In A Greek New Testament

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