Book Briefs: April 15, 1957

Toynbee’s Approach

An Historian’s Approach to Religion, by Arnold Toynbee. Oxford. 1956. $5.00.

Arnold Toynbee’s fame as a historical prophet has already spread far beyond the limits of the academic world. Although perhaps relatively few people have read all ten volumes of his Study of History, a great many have enough acquaintance with some of his ideas through works of popularization and criticism, to appreciate something of his wide knowledge and brilliant generalizations concerning man’s history.

For this reason, the present work under review should be of no little interest to many, particularly Christians, for in his Gifford Lectures of 1952 and 1953 Professor Toynbee has attempted to apply to the history of religion the same techniques he has already used on history in general. He is here endeavouring as he, himself says, to give “The glimpse of the Universe that his fellow-historians and he are able to catch from the point of view at which they arrive through following the historian’s professional path.” (p. 3). And, one might add, this glimpse is both interesting and stimulating, even if one is obliged to disagree.

Toynbee has divided his book into two distinct parts. The first of these divisions deals with “The Dawn of the Higher Religions,” attempting to outline the evolution of man’s religious consciousness from the time that he began his spiritual quest by worshipping nature. He states that man proceeded from that point to the worship of himself, first in “the idolization of parochial communities,” then in the “idolization of an oecumenical community,” and finally in the “idolization of a self-sufficient philosopher.”

Out of these efforts the higher religions eventually arose, reaching their apogee in Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity, both of which “accept Suffering as an opportunity for acting on the promptings of Love and Pity.” Moreover they believe this to be possible because it has already been done “by a Supreme Being Who has demonstrated his own devotion to the ideal, by subjecting himself to the Suffering that is the necessary price of acting on it” (p. 89). These two Beings are the Buddha and the Christ (chap. 6).

Both these religions, it is true have been diverted frequently from their spiritual missions by mundane tasks and have been perverted by the idolization of their institutions, but they still remain the only two ways of approach to Absolute Reality.

This brings us to the second part of the book. Here Toynbee deals with the breakdown of Christian tradition in western civilization. He seems to feel that the present religious situation is the result primarily of the religious conflicts engendered by the Reformation. These he holds, caused a revulsion from Christianity and men found their escape in the study of science which has in turn produced a new false religion: “The Idolization of the Invincible Technician” (chap. 17).

It is this new idolatry which is extremely dangerous, for as the world is becoming more and more bound together, Toynbee feels a world-government must eventually evolve and this will have to be dictatorial. Consequently, the one realm of freedom left for man must be the spiritual. In that situation, man (despite Nazi and Communist examples to the contrary) will be able to express himself fully only in religion. The question is, what will the mans’ ultimate religion be.

The answer to this problem, Toynbee maintains is, to use Bultmann’s phrase a little out of context, to demythologize the higher religions, by clearing away the religious underbrush from around them in order that once again man’s religious heritage may be purified and true religion shown to be the over-coming of self-centeredness through the suffering necessitated by our love for others. In this way man will once again enter fellowship with the Absolute Reality. This is Toynbee’s approach to religion.

As one reads this work, a recurring impression makes itself felt. In a good many ways, Toynbee is very much the eighteenth century “philosopher.” This becomes clear from his continual quoting of Pierre Bayle and Bishop Sprat in his ‘annexes’ to various chapters. But it is also characteristic of his way of thinking. His assumptions, his method and his conclusions are all those basically of the enlightened rationalist—of course in twentieth century dress.

In this connection, the first thing which a Christian notices is that there is no concept of supernatural revelation (p. 265). From the opening pages of the book, he assumes that any possibility of absolute reality speaking to man directly is not worth consideration. This is implied in a number of attacks upon the idea of a chosen people. Even natural revelation seems to have no place in the picture. The absolute reality, as far as one can see, is really the projection of man’s own mind contemplating himself or the world.

For this reason, although Toynbee may speak of sin and redemption, they are rather different from the Christian concepts. Sin is primarily self-centeredness, not rebellion against a God who has called man to “glorify and enjoy” Him. Redemption is to be found, as is natural on Toynbee’s definition of sin, through loving self-sacrifice, which in turn brings man by such good works to fellowship with absolute reality. Redemption by divine grace has no part nor lot in this matter.

And what is this absolute reality? It is very definitely not the Christian God. Since It (to use Toynbee’s word) has not revealed Itself man knows relatively little about It. Toynbee, however, is very insistent the historian knows that it is partly personal and partly impersonal. This would seem to posit within absolute reality an eternally unresolvable surd which can and does produce even for its personal aspect the absolutely new, or at least the unexpected. This is hardly the picture which one receives of the biblical sovereign God unto whom belongs all knowledge and wisdom.

A fundamental question which arises as one considers Toynbee’s thesis is: how does he know all this? How can he make absolute statements about an absolute reality which itself is not completely self-conscious? (pp. 18, 276). One receives the impression that not only is Toynbee’s religion not Christian, it is based upon a contradiction and so is self-destructive.

That this is necessarily so, would seem to arise from his method. He claims that what he is saying is the result of his study of history. But can one, without a prior interpretation of history which is revealed to man, use history which he declares to be apparently chaotic (pp. 9 f.) as a vehicle to go beyond itself to absolute reality? This would seem to be another contradiction in his position. The historian must indeed assume that history has a pattern, but without revelation he must also admit that it is a pattern of his own creation.

Thus, although Professor Toynbee’s book is both very interesting and stimulating, it hardly seems to be the answer which will help twentieth century man to solve his spiritual problems.

W. STANFORD REID

The Future Life

Immortality, by Loraine Boettner. Wm. B. Eerdmans. $2.50.

Dr. Loraine Boettner has earned recognition for himself as a careful and competent theologian with the publication of his earlier writings, especially “The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination”, a classic exposition of a difficult but important truth. In the present volume he again comes to grips with a perplexing, and often misunderstood, subject; death. Much contemporary thought in this area is muddled under the pressure of anxiety, sentimentality, and despair. This book, however, is a refreshing demonstration of rational argumentation growing out of fidelity to, and honest exegesis of, the Scriptures. Here is irresistible logic combined with the exercise of mature faith and spiritual insight. In addition, unlike many modern theologians, Boettner is willing to sacrifice recognition for personal genius, profundity and massive scholarship (to all of which he may lay legitimate claim) in order to be understood by his readers, whatever their theological orientation and acuteness. Even the untrained layman can read these pages without being driven to distraction.

The book is arranged in three sections: Physical Death, Immortality and The Intermediate State. Throughout the subject is treated, not in isolation and abstraction, but in relation to the whole fabric of Christian truth with which it is closely intertwined.

In the first section Boettner makes a sharp distinction between three different kinds of death: spiritual, physical and eternal. He points out that for believers physical death is in no sense penal, in which case it would be superfluous to Christ’s satisfaction on the cross. On the contrary, it is disciplinary in nature. It also serves as a constant warning to unbelievers for whom all three kinds of death are penal.

The second section includes a historical study of the universal belief in immortality and a marshalling of the arguments and evidences which establish the probability and necessity of a future life. Here Boettner indicates that the nature of the matter demands supernatural revelation, and insists that the doctrine is both assumed and taught in the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament and from the very beginning. He then examines and interprets the peculiar Christian teaching about the future life, particularly the resurrection of the body.

The concluding section on the intermediate state is a valuable study of biblical terms such as Paradise, Hades, Sheol and Hell. Here too, are carefully-documented refutations of the erroneous and perverse doctrines of purgatory (Roman Catholicism), soul sleep (Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventism) and communication with the dead (Spiritualism).

We have no doubt that this book will take its place among the important works on an all-important issue.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

The Neo-Calvin

The Theology of Calvin, by Wilhelm Niesel. Translated by Harold Knight. Westminster Press.

Wilhelm Niesel, whose work, here, first appeared in the original German in 1938, wrote this book as a contribution to the lively debate (still going on) devoted to finding a “key” to the understanding of the theology of Calvin. He took pen in hand (like the others) in order to settle once for all the problem for which Kampschulte, for instance, nearly a century ago thought he found the answer in a single doctrine such as that of Election; H. Bauke, more recently, in the form of his theology as opposed to a single doctrine; and H. Weber, in the structural psychology of his system, taking into account both form and doctrinal content. Niesel, decrying all efforts to understand Calvin’s theology from the point of view of its content, declares that the Reformer must be understood in terms of a single, dominant interest, namely the Incarnation. He reflects, in his thesis, the “crisis” theology of the Barthian school, of which he evidently is a member.

Niesel’s thesis is that in order to understand Calvin and resolve the obscurities and contradictions which otherwise inevitably appear, we must set aside any preoccupation with the form or the substance or even the sequence of thought which may seem evident, and look for something more “ultimate.” This “something” is provided by Karl Barth’s theology, whose idea of “theology being determined by its object” has “produced a revolution in Calvin studies as elsewhere.”

In order to develop his thesis, Niesel selects, for consideration, fundamental doctrines taken from the whole body of Calvin’s thought, such as the Knowledge of God, the Trinity, the Law of God, the Mediator, Prayer, the Church, the Sacraments, etc. His materials are selected at random from the whole body of Calvin’s writings. And there certainly are few men living who can equal his knowledge of the sources.

Calvin’s theology, explains Niesel, although centering in Christ, begins with Scripture. Scripture is the source of the divine wisdom which we must acquire and which consists in knowing Christ. But Scripture remains for us, in our unsaved condition, a dead and ineffectual thing. For Niesel’s Calvin, God’s self-revelation is in Christ, not Scripture. And the inclinations of our hearts must be changed if our study of the Bible is not to be so much lost time. This change takes place when we turn to God and is effected by the Holy Spirit. Then it is that we see in Scripture its great subject, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Throughout the entire Bible we are confronted by nothing else but the living Word of God and it is to find him that we study Scripture.

This epistemology, which underlies Niesel’s thesis, is clearly dependent upon a primary doctrine: that of the work of the Holy Spirit. Without this prior work, human intelligence remains unenlightened, the Bible meaningless and Christ unfound. Thus, though the heart of Christianity is Christ, the starting point in soteriology (and the foundation of Niesel’s theology) is the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit.

In most respects Niesel is essentially traditional in his treatment of Calvin, except for the obvious Barthian twist given the Reformer’s view of the Scriptures. But it is precisely the Reformer’s view of the Scriptures which modifies the epistemology Niesel seeks to delineate. Calvin did not believe the Bible a dead collection of words until the Holy Spirit made it the Word of God. He believed it to be the Word of God to begin with, the self-revelation of God which bore within itself the peculiar property of awakening faith as the Holy Spirit granted illumination.

There is a difference between saying that the Bible is a dead book to which a living Spirit must bear witness before it becomes meaningful; and saying that the Bible is the living Word which, when read, stirs and strangely warms the reader’s heart as the Holy Spirit applies the benefits of Christ received through the primary channel of Grace, the Word itself. In my own research, I seemed to hear the Reformer saying the latter. He certainly did not say that we must decide between doctrine and Christ, as Niesel does. He rather affirmed that sound doctrine is the way to find Christ!

The first contact of an unbeliever with the Ultimate Word is not at the point of the inward illumination of the Spirit, but in the preaching of the proximate Word. Then it is precisely because the Bible is intrinsically the dynamic Word of God that it serves as a channel through which the Holy Spirit speaks to human hearts about Christ. True, Calvin did not believe that the divine inspiration of the Scriptures could be demonstrated to all and sundry, as Niesel points out. But this was because this primary channel did not pour the saving Grace of God by the Holy Spirit into every heart: according to the Reformer’s doctrine of Election. (To some the preaching of the Word remains foolishness.) The difference is fine, but significant.

But this is an important book, without a consideration of which any serious Calvin research would be incomplete. Despite his attempt to make Calvin a Barthian, very few modern scholars know the Reformer as well as the author of this profound study. And if this had not come from his pen he would still be in the front rank of Calvin scholars by reason of the five-volume critical edition of primary sources which he co-edited with Peter Barth, the I. Calvini Opera Selecta, the last of which appeared only in 1952.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Though Dead, Still Lives

Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah, by Joseph Addison Alexander. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1953. $8.95.

The Psalms, Translated and Explained. Zondervan, Grand Rapids. $6.95.

Though dead, Joseph Addison Alexander still lives. A century ago, he spoke to the hearts and minds of the people of God; today, as his words have once more found their way into print, he speaks again. Some men live and die, and their memory perishes with them. In other instances, following the sunset there is a glorious afterglow but gradually the light fails and darkness reigns. It is therefore no mean tribute to the worth of a man’s work when succeeding generations find it of such worthy nature that his writings are again given wide distribution and become anew the means of our understanding that which God has spoken.

With the reprinting of Alexander’s Commentaries upon Isaiah and the Psalms, treasures which had long lain more or less buried and forgotten have once more come to light and are making it possible for us to live again in the days of the prophet-statesman of Hezekiah’s court and the sweet singer of Israel.

The author, a distinguished linguist and student of Oriental literature, an apologist of no mean ability, an historian and an exegete, for many years taught with unusual success in Princeton Theological Seminary. In the course of his studies, he amassed a body of information upon the Book of Isaiah which was characterized both by its extensiveness and by its penetrating analysis of the teaching of the Book.

The one who reads Alexander has before him three types of material, all three of which serve to aid him in understanding the text. The first of these is the author’s translation of the Hebrew, verse by verse as the discussion proceeds, a feature most helpful both to the reader who wishes to check the translation against the original language and to the one who merely wishes to have the text immediately before him so that he can appreciate fully the comments upon its various parts.

The second feature of the author’s approach is his careful analysis of the content. He endeavors to show to his reader the thought of each great segment of the book as well as that of each subdivision, each verse, each phrase, each word. He does this upon the basis of the original language, but in such fashion that the student who is not conversant with Hebrew can still follow the essential development of ideas—this in contrast to some parts of the excellent commentaries by Keil and Delitzsch.

There is a certain freshness to a commentary which makes no attempt to inform readers as to the reasoning of other exegetes, ancient and modern, regarding the interpretation of a point in question, but if one is to be a serious student of Scripture he cannot do other than to compare and contrast, to reckon with each suggested interpretation, to test each possibility against the biblical phrasing. The third aspect of Alexander’s treatment makes such checking possible, for he outlines the interpretations of others in great detail. Not only does he do so, but he analyzes these interpretations and sifts and weighs the evidence for each, leaving the reader no excuse for jumping hastily to unjustified conclusions. If the approach chosen makes for a more ponderous volume and is annoying to some, let it be remembered that Alexander’s Commentaries are designed more for study than for inspiration, but who shall deny that from devoted study comes often the deepest, most abiding inspiration!

Dispensationalist and non-dispensationalist alike will do well to evaluate Alexander’s treatment of prophecy. For him, the national pre-eminence of the Jews was “representative, not original; symbolical, not real; provisional, not perpetual …” (p. 52). He sees with Isaiah a carnal Israel which has not perceived this truth, but at the same time he sees a spiritual Israel, the true Church.

He sees a personal Messiah, who will come as a deliverer and bring his people into glorious liberty. He sees a Church of the future, not in its chronological outlines, but as one blaze of glory, the perspectives and details of which must wait for the fuller revelation of the New Testament.

His treatment of the Psalms is similar to that found in the volume on Isaiah except that he does not state or discuss the interpretations of others. Originally, his intention was to produce a translation only, but as he gave himself to the task he felt constrained to record exegetical comments in order that the translation might become more meaningful.

He sees the Psalms not as unrelated individual compositions but as pairs, as trilogies, as topical groups, as an organized body of liturgical material for the use of the Church.

He disavows a devotional intent in making his notes, but the commentary is markedly that of one who is consciously standing upon holy ground, and the reader whose extra-biblical knowledge of the Psalter does not include the musings of Spurgeon and others cannot fail, upon reading Alexander only, to take his shoes from off his feet, as it were, and to cry, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The volumes under review are worthy of a place in the pastor’s library, and the well-read layman will consult them with profit.

BURTON L. GODDARD

Clearer Insights

The Gospel of Mark, by Ralph Earle, Th.D. Zondervan, $3.95.

This is the work of a thorough-going scholar. The bibliography reveals the author’s broad acquaintance with commentators and theologians of many periods. The Introduction provides a brief but valuable summary of textual criticism, a subject most ministers tend to neglect after leaving the seminary. Yet with such scholarly emphasis the author writes in a clear, concise style that makes the volume useful and instructive to both ministers and laymen.

Although effective use is made of the findings of numerous other authors, this book is far more than a compilation. The writer presents old truths with freshness and imagination, showing that his academic preparation has been matched by a devout search for spiritual illumination. While even a casual sampling of the content reveals Dr. Earle’s consistently high standard of scriptural exposition, the portion dealing with chapter 9:42–50 seems especially excellent. In an age when reproach has been cast upon the Word of God by faith-destroying humanism as well as by fanatical interpretations and actions of misguided literalists, the explanations found in this part of the book are greatly needed. It is significant to note that, while our Lord authorized and qualified his disciples to amplify and complement his own teaching, the subjects of hell and eternal punishment were first expressed clearly and completely by Christ before being committed to them. This commentary should prove a great boon to pastors, Sunday school teachers and all others who wish to gain clearer insights into Mark’s account of the life and teachings of Christ.

ERIC EDWIN PAULSON

Journey To Christianity

Surprised by Joy, by C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, London. 15/-.

The autobiography of a layman who has had a profound influence in British theological and religious circles in recent years is an event of considerable interest. He tells the story of the journey which led him from a school-boy’s religion into atheism, and later back to Christianity. It is in the true Lewis tradition—with that strain of independence and puckish humour which characterise his writings.

Lewis was born in Belfast in an Episcopalian (Church of Ireland) home where there was little evangelical influence. He spent most of his youth in boarding schools and in the course of his life such religious life as he had was destroyed by an insidious subjectivism. In the progress to atheism, the author could never feel quite sure that he was right and that Deity could be altogether excluded from the universe.

His confidence in scepticism was rudely shaken by meeting a friend in a classroom in Oxford whom he describes as “a Christian and a thorough-going super-naturalist.” Finally in the Trinity Term of 1929 Lewis gave in and admitted that God was God; and knelt and prayed … the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet.”

The conversion of Lewis was at first to Theism rather than to Christianity, but he was moving to a more personal faith. The quality of the faith he received is clear from the books which he published during the war years and since.

Incisive is the analysis of the author concerning the twilight of religion during the years of early manhood. He makes a telling reference to a “Gabbling, a tragic Irish parson who long since lost his faith but retained his living” and who devoted himself to searching for evidence of human survival. Surely this is not an inapt description of a twentieth century Christendom, which Lewis has analysed so skilfully on various occasions.

S. W. MURRAY

Of Practical Value

Health Shall Spring Forth, by Paul E. Adolph, M.D. Moody Press. $2.50.

Dr. Adolph, student and graduate of Philadelphia Bible Institute and Wheaton College, obtained honors upon his graduation from the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. After internship and residency he served as missionary under the China Inland Mission until 1949, with time out for study and research in surgery and four years in the U. S. Army Medical Corps. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and is at present instructor in first aid and minor surgery in Moody Bible Institute.

Dr. Adolph’s aim “has been to stress the importance of the emotional tension diseases, and to point out the limitless resources at the disposal of the Christian to eliminate them through maintaining a healthy outlook” (p. 124). In no sense has he attempted to present the care for all mental diseases but has limited his treatment to some outstanding causes of emotional tensions and how to treat them from the standpoint of Christian supernaturalism when the layman has insight to apply Christian therapeutic principles.

In psycho-somatic ills he sees three “common tension patterns” which are focused in the organism and explains the emotional basis for those bodily ills which may be mitigated by spiritual therapy. He calls these: (1) the stiff-neck tension pattern, often issuing in compulsive behaviour not amenable to diagnosis by counsel, resistant to any change of ways; (2) the chest tension pattern, suggesting heart malfunction through a feeling of chest constriction, and depression; and (3) the stomach tension pattern, often described as nervous indigestion, with oft-accompanying abdominal tension, vague nausea; related to a general feeling of being “fed up,” often complicated by real peptic ulcer.

He thinks that no properly instructed Christian in a condition of full surrender to his Lord’s will need be a victim of emotions. He thinks that the emotionally disturbed Christian may always find a cure for all psycho-somatic symptoms and disturbances.

Employing the nomenclature of Scripture Dr. Adolph shows how a disturbed Christian may arrive at a healthy spiritual state by a proper resolution of his psycho-somatic ills. He discusses these problems as basically spiritual and gives several chapters to these in the areas of perfectionism, fears, the unforgiving spirit, doubts, indecisiveness, lack of orderliness, failure to appreciate the spiritual heritage and lack of Christian love.

There is a sound chapter on faith healing as well as one on spiritual maturity.

This non-technical, sympathetic, understanding summary of the Christian’s psycho-somatic ills may prove of greatest value to any Christian who would rightly live for his Saviour, for here are sound techniques of spiritual therapy. Dr. Adolph notes, however, that some Christians may have come to such a state as to be genuinely psychotic and in need of psychiatric care.

Every Christian will profit by reading and circulating this volume. It will prove of value to the minister in dealing with emotionally disturbed Christians.

WALTER VAIL WATSON

Highly Competent

Christian Theology and Natural Science. The Bampton Lectures, 1956, by E. L. Mascal. Longmans, Green and Company, 1956. $4.50.

This treatise is not about specific passages of Scripture and findings of empirical sciences, but about particular theological teachings of the Scriptures and contemporary scientific theory. The author, an accomplished mathematician, is an orthodox Anglican who has accepted Thomism, as his theological and philosophical framework. The entire work is characterized by an unusual high order of competence—theological, philosophical and scientific.

Having written a treatise of my own on the subject (The Christian View of Science and Scripture), I found it an interesting experience to read this work. It was startling to find similar sectional headings, and at times exact correspondence in theses defended. I will not challenge the patience of the reader by making comparisons save to state that my position is closer to Mascal’s than American orthodox literature on the subject.

Mascal’s thesis is: “What I have tried to do is to show, by discussing a certain number of matters in which both theology and science have an interest, that it is possible to be an orthodox Christian without either ignoring or repudiating the discoveries of present day science” (p. 291).

Two basic assumptions of the book are: (i) The value of the Bible is its theological meaning, and any attempt to find empirical scientific data in Scripture is wrong (cf. p. 99) (ii). A metaphysical and theological explanation and a scientific explanation are on two different levels. The former does not derive its validity from the latter, and the former may or may not be in harmony with the status of science at any given time. Thus the doctrine of creation does not depend upon cosmological speculations, but upon theological and metaphysical principles.

His general attitude is that twentieth century science is more favorably disposed to Christian faith than nineteenth century science, but that the Christian is not to boldly proclaim that modern science has verified many Christian dogmas. In the previous century scientific laws were taken as absolutes; in the current century as statistical approximations subject to constant revision. In the previous century scientific theories were considered as literal interpretations of reality; today theories are considered as models, not true or false, but useful or not useful.

Other items of interest are: (i) he does not believe modern astrophysics proves creation but follows the position of Aquinas which is too involved to explain here; (ii) he defends the virginal conception of Christ and New Testament demonology; (iii) he believes there was a fall of angels prior to man’s fall and this accounts for pre-human evil in the universe (p. 36); (iv) he censures modernism, logical positivism and ‘narrow biblicism’; (v) he believes in the possible polygenetic origin of man for the unity of the race is not biological but spiritual or metaphysical [he mentions the Russian biologist-priest who thinks having located the gene bearing human depravity he could knock it out with radiation!]; (vi) he asserts that only ‘obstinate fundamentalists’ oppose evolution and that the method of man’s creation is completely secondary to the that of his divine origin; and (vii) the older theologians of the church would not be disturbed one bit by modern attempts to create life from organic compounds.

BERNARD RAMM

Far East News: April 15, 1957

Unity In Asia

In 1834, at Indonesia’s Lake Toba, two American missionaries—Henry Lyman and Samuel Munson—were slain for daring to venture near what the savage Batak tribes regarded as a holy lake.

In 1957, officials of the Batak Church acted as hosts to 124 delegates from 24 countries at the Eastern Asia Christian Conference, reportedly the largest ever held by Protestants in that part of the world.

The conference was ushered in with a monster open-air rally attended by 100,000 persons. President Sukarno, a Moslem, flew 900 miles from Jakarta to address the meeting. He said Christianity has a vital role to play in helping to bring peace and justice to people everywhere.

He hailed the conference, sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the International Missionary Council and the Indonesian Council of Churches, as “a living reality of the Asian churches. The churches, he said, “following the teachings of Jesus, would contribute to freedom, justice and peace among men.”

Other conference highlights:

► Interim committee, under chairmanship of Bishop E. C. Sobrepena, United Church of Christ, Philippines, named to make plans for similar gatherings in three years.

► A call for “less reliance on techniques and gadgets” in evangelism and more on demonstrations of Christian living sounded by Dr. Chandu Ray of Karachi, Pakistan.

► Unity among churches of Asia termed vital factor in successful evangelism by Dr. D. T. Niles of Ceylon.

► Delegates asked, by Professor II Seung Kay of Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Seoul, to adopt “system” of the Apostle Paul in their evangelistic work—preaching, fellowship, service.

Challenge In India

Two missionary couples soon will be sent to Thailand by the Church of South India.

The Thailand Church is said to be anxious to have fraternal workers from other Asian countries. Church leaders in India feel that Buddhists in Thailand, who emphasize the Indian origin of their religion, might listen with special interest to Christian missionaries from India.

The Church of South India was formed in 1947 through the merger of Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational and Reformed bodies.

Something Happened

Le-van Thai of Vietnam threw stones at the missionaries. He urged people to attend preaching services and start arguments.

When a missionary closed his eyes in prayer, Thai would lead people out of the meeting.

Then something happened. He took a stand for Christ.

Next month the Rev. Le-van Thai, President of the Evangelical Churches of Vietnam, will make his first visit to America as a delegate to the International General Council of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches, scheduled to meet in Charlotte, N. C., May 15–21.

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

Africa News: April 15, 1957

Mau Mau Mission

The Navigators, with several cooperating groups, have completed an evangelistic mission in Kenya camps among the Mau Mau, the terrorists responsible for the death of over 2,000 African Christians.

Mau Mau prison camps are graded into a series called “the pipeline.” At first, men are put into camps with no liberty. Those who prove themselves are graduated to work camps, surrounded only by barbed wire. The final step before release is the open camp, under the watchful eye of the village chieftain.

Thousands heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ before their return to village life and many became Christians in the face of threats and bitter antagonism from their countrymen.

(Lorne C. Sanny, president of the Navigators, will be guest speaker each Friday from April through June on Theodore H. Epp’s world-wide Back to the Bible Broadcast. The series will deal with “Individual Witnessing.” Since 1951, Sanny had trained personal counselors and directed follow-up for every major Billy Graham Crusade).

Middle East News: April 15, 1957

Cutting Home Ties

The Synod of the Nile, one of 13 U. S. and overseas synods of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, has voted to ask the General Assembly for permission to sever its official link with the body in the interests of full Egyptianization.

Organizational links with foreign bodies are looked upon with disfavor by the Egyptian government.

Independence from the General Assembly, approved by the United Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and almost certain to be approved by the Assembly, is not expected to affect the close cooperation which has existed between the Egyptian Church and the American Mission.

The move is designed to eliminate a technical tie which may conceivably become a source of embarrassment to the Protestants of Egypt in a day of surging nationalism.

Egyptian Christianity is thought of there in terms of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which makes up perhaps 2,000,000 out of a population in excess of 22,000,000.

Protestantism, however, is looked upon as a Western importation. And Protestants are often charged (usually by irresponsible speakers and writers) with having at best a weakened form of national loyality by reason of their close religious affiliation with the West.

The synod vote was an attempt to prove the validity of the assertion, made openly for years, that Egyptian Protestantism stands on its own feet, directs its own affairs and that it is in no sense less loyal than any other body made up of the sons and daughters of Egypt.

The first U. P. presbytery was organized in 1860, six years after the start of American missionary activity in Egypt. It included eight local members, in addition to the foreign missionary personnel.

Within 40 years, the Protestant movement had grown so rapidly that on February 22, 1899, the 50 organized congregations and 165 stations, embracing over 6,000 members, were divided into four presbyteries: Thebes, Assiut, Middle Gypt and the Delta. Organization of the Synod of the Nile was completed in May, 1899.

The growth has continued to the present eight presbyteries, including more than 26,000 communicant members (the largest Protestant body in the country).

—W. A. M.

Change Of Policy

The Iranian government has approved the opening of a missionary school—the first time since 1940, when all foreign mission schools were closed by order of the government.

Properties were bought and the schools were reopened under supervision of the government.

A Teheran newspaper announced that the High Educational Council of the Ministry of Education now had authorized the founding of a vocational school by the Seventh Day Adventists. A three-year course in arts and crafts will be given.

South America News: April 15, 1957

Unexpected Liberty

When Dr. Camilo Ponce Enriquez, arch conservative, triumphed by a slim margin in Ecuador’s presidential elections last June, most evangelicals predicted difficult days ahead.

They had reason. As Minister of Government in a former regime, ardent Roman Catholic Ponce ran roughshod over the principles of religious liberty. He prohibited the entrance of Protestant missionaries, outlawed open-air Gospel services and threatened sterner measures against the Protestants.

Things have been different, however, since President Ponce took office in September. He has leaned over backwards to maintain a democratic government. He has not infringed on the liberties of opposing political or religious groups. In recent speeches he has insisted that he will follow this course of action throughout the four-year term.

Different reasons have been advanced for such a commendable attitude on the part of Ecuador’s leader. Many evangelicals feel that the large volume of prayer focused on Ecuador since the martyrdom of the five missionaries has been the key factor.

—A.V.D.P.

1960 World Congress

The first Baptist World Congress south of the equator will be held in July, 1960, at Rio de Janeiro.

Arnold T. Ohrn, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, visited the city recently to discuss arrangements. He conferred with Joao Soren, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Rio de Janeiro and others.

Theology

Unknown God or Risen Christ?

WORLD NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

The wonder of Easter will unfold in majestic settings around the world when millions gather before sunrise to glory in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Services of worship will be held on awe-inspiring mountaintops, in spacious amphitheaters, imposing cathedrals and small country churches. Inner warmth will come to thousands, as men of God unveil again in simple words the greatest miracle of all ages.

One of the notable sunrise services will take place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, where the speaker will be Dr. Norman C. Hunt, University of Edinburgh professor and contributing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, will interpret the significance of the service to the Bowl and radio audience.

The message prepared by Dr. Hunt has meaning for people throughout the world. It is presented here, in part:

“Many of us observe the festival, but do not believe the fact, or if we do believe it we know little of its transforming power. Our attitude to Easter is characteristic of our attitude to God; we acknowledge him but we do not really know him. We respect him but we do not love him. Yet the glorious message of Easter is that God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, who by his death and resurrection has made it possible for sinful man to know him. We need to pray Paul’s prayer this morning—‘that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.’

“The prevailing attitude of ordinary, intelligent people to the Christian faith is not one of antagonism but rather of tolerant scepticsm, if not agnosticism. Our times might be called ‘the age of unbelief.’ Call it ‘honest doubt’ if you will, but it is still unbelief. Christ is not denied, but neither is he exalted. He is the great teacher, but not the only saviour. Christian morality is accepted as an ideal but its only dynamic, the spirit of Christ indwelling the heart is rejected. Men are prepared to believe in God in a vague, shadowy sort of way, but a personal God and a personal saviour they cannot, or will not, accept.

“Thinking people everywhere admit that something has gone sadly wrong with society and with the individual, but the biblical diagnosis of it as the spiritual disease called ‘sin’ they refuse to believe. A great change has come over the attitude to religion in the universities during the 10 years or so in which I have been a university teacher. Whereas a decade ago, following the end of the war, there was a surge of optimism and confidence which made religion almost unnecessary, today in common room and quadrangle, students’ union and hall of residence, wherever university people gather to discuss and argue, one is sure to hear someone say, ‘Things are in a mess; it is time we got back to God and the Church.’ Or, ‘What we need is a revival of religion.’

“In a sense, I suppose, this is some little gain in that men are less self-confident than they were, and yet, I cannot help feeling there is a grave danger in all this. All too rarely does the name of Jesus Christ come into the discussion. Why? Because his very name means ‘saviour’ and men who will not believe that they personally are sinners see no reason why they should need a personal saviour. It is all very well to say ‘We must get back to God,’ but God is holy; we are sinful, and between us there is a great gulf fixed which can only be spanned by the atoning work of Christ upon the Cross. ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.’ We need to be reconciled to God.… There is no other way than the Cross of Christ to accomplish this.

“It is because of our persistent refusal to acknowledge the fact of sin in our hearts that God remains distant, unreal, unknown. We may be good living, kindly, hard-working, honest, religious, God-fearing, church-going folk, but we have no certain, assured spiritual anchorage in a world of change and decay. We believe in God, but we do not know him. You may remember the story of Paul in the Greek city of Athens, told in Acts, chaper 17. In that great center of human civilization, that repository of the priceless treasures of art and architecture, philosophy and drama, Paul came upon the altar with the inscription upon it, ‘To the unknown God.’ Small wonder that his spirit rebelled at this prostitution of man’s noblest aspirations, at this evidence of man’s capacity for God, man’s longing after eternal things expressed in the altar, and his spiritual bankruptcy expressed in the inscription. Here was the ultimate agony of man’s idolatry—an altar to an unknown God.

“Paul rose to the occasion as he cried, ‘Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.’ It was all so unnecessary, this ignorance; God had revealed himself in Jesus Christ. No longer need men grope after him, crying, ‘O that I knew where I might find him.’ God’s perfect revelation of himself in Christ had been given for all to see and believe.

“Almost two millennia have come and gone but this world of ours in the 20th Century is spiritually akin to the Athens of the first. All around us are great churches and monuments to Christian leaders. This very land of America is itself a monument to the great faith and Christian conviction of the Founding Fathers. The personal liberty we cherish is based upon the Christian philosophy. Yet, for most of us, God is still unknown, and the altar of our hearts has the same inscription upon it, ‘To the unknown God.’ As a consequence our quest for peace of heart is vain, our lives are purposeless and unsatisfying, our best hopes are frustrated. Our religion brings us no real spiritual satisfaction and some us have already given up trying to maintain the pretence of Christian living.

“Diagnosing aright the fundamental need of these men of Athens who ‘spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing’ (what a commentary that is on our generation). Paul ‘preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.’ What a gospel for a dead city! The Risen Christ instead of the unknown God; a vital faith instead of a vague, empty philosophy. And who better than Paul to declare such a message? To the Athenians, God was unknown; to Paul, he was the one of whom he could say, ‘I know him in whom I have believed.…’ He had seen him on the Damascus Road; he had known his friendship on many a long, weary journey; he had experienced his consolation when persecuted; he had proved his emancipating power when imprisoned for the sake of the gospel. Paul was sure of Christ; he really knew him.

“Nearly 25 years ago, in my late teens, I got to know him, too. Born in a godly home, trained in the Christian faith from earliest childhood, a regular attender at church, yet God was unknown to me. In my self-confidence and intellectual pride, I saw no reason why I needed to accept Christ for myself, and I despised the sentimental emotionalism, as I saw it, of those who kept harping on the need for a personal decision. How thankful I am that one day God broke my pride, convicted me of my sin, made me realize I was estranged from God, and revealed to me Christ who had died and risen again to make a reconciliation possible. In faith I received him into my life and I was ‘born again.’

“I knew him, and I know him still!”

Religious Freedom

“One of the most zealously guarded traditions in America is the separation between church and state. Yet there are few nations in which religion exerts greater influence than it does in the United States,” according to a State Department Public Affairs official who examines some 257 religious publications each month.

Harry W. Seamans, Senior Organization Liaison Officer of Public Affairs and active layman in the Methodist Church, who addressed the recent National Association of Evangelicals Convention in Buffalo, New York, said religious freedom and religious influences depend and thrive upon church and state separation.

Only in this way, he said, “could the 268 religious denominations existing in the United States today feel secure that no government privilege will be extended to any one denomination above another.”

Seamans, who interprets State Department policy to representatives of religion who make inquiries, said, “The members of both houses of the U. S. Congress open each session with prayer. Every coin minted today for use is inscribed ‘In God we trust.’ These factors are brought out only to illustrate the extent to which the American government, basing its authority on the consent of the American people, is bound to be influenced indirectly, even without any concerted pressures directed against it, by organized religious groups. Religious influences may be even greater, of course, when various churches band together and deliberately exert pressure in behalf of a moral cause.”

Convention Quotes

“The Christians in Tibet don’t even know where New York is but they are praying for the Billy Graham Crusade because they know God is going to work there.” Dr. Robert Pierce, President of World Vision, Inc.

“In Washington, since establishing the (NAE) office 13 years ago, we have watched as our freedoms have been threatened. Our government has continued to grow until big government threatens to become, not a government for the people, but in place of the people.” Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, Secretary of Public Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals.

People: Words And Events

Christian Oscars—“Seventeen,” produced for Gospel Films, Inc., by Charles Peterman, wins Christian “Oscars” in four of 10 categories—best actress (Cheryl Lee Oppenhuizen), best direction (Ken Anderson and Ralph Papin), best musical score (Ralph Carmichael) and best soul winning film. Other bests by National Evangelical Film Foundation—best actor, Ray Collins, in “Unfinished Task,” Family Films, Inc.; best motion picture, “Unfinished Task;” best documentary, “Walking Middle East,” Bob Jones University; best missionary film, “Before the Harvest,” Word of Life; best educational film, “Crescent and the Cross,” Winona School of Theology; film with best sermon, “Facts of Faith,” Moody Institute of Science.

Alumni Giving—Moody Bible Institute Alumni, with $200,857 in 1956, ranks 14th among 165 other large private coeducational schools in giving to alma mater. Led by Columbia, Cornell, University of Chicago, New York University, Pennsylvania, Syracuse, Boston, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Loyola, Marquette, Temple, Illinois Institute of Technology.

Separate News Items—Clare Booth Luce, wife of Henry R. Luce, editor of Time and Life, named by University of Notre Dame, to receive 1957 Laetare Medal, given annually to outstanding member of American Catholic Laity.… Henry R. Luce, criticizing separating religion from education in public schools, tells Presbyterian that “secular, agnostic education is the greatest problem facing the Christian Church today.”

Religious Studies—Rockefeller Foundation grants $140,000 to Missions Research Center of University of Chicago for a program of “interreligious studies.” University hopes to bring three experts to Chicago to teach Buddhism to students.

Up in Smoke—Tex McCrary, radio and television producer, unable to obtain representative of tobacco industry to engage in radio debate on smoking and health. Cancels proposed interview on National Broadcasting Company television with Dr. David M. Spain, member of study group that issued recent report warning of direct cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and lung cancer. “Will not be possible for us to participate,” says letter from Tobacco Industry Research Committee.

Link with Faith—Harry Denman, Nashville, Tenn., General Secretary of Methodist Board of Evangelism, following return from Russia, says “the many world-famous religious paintings still on display in Russian museums may be the one link with faith still possessed by the young people of that country.”

Gift from Widow—Mrs. Lillian M. Nelson, 73-year-old widow who has lived frugally all her life, gives Texas Baptists $100,000 in common stocks. Money to be used for missionary work in foreign lands. “If I can’t go to the foreign mission field,” she says, “it is my duty to make provision for those who can. I am obligated to see that the other person has the same opportunity of knowing Christ that I have had.” She and husband, Joseph Edward Nelson, both school teachers, bought no new cars, took few vacations and wore made-over clothes.

Baby-Sitting Fees—No arrangements for a nursery at the site of the 1957 Southern Baptist Convention in Chicago. Groups in charge of arrangements reveal that hotels in city provide “baby sitter” services for parents, but that rates are “very high.”

Deluge of Letters—Over 100 Congressmen received letters from Dr. J. R. Sneed, First Methodist Church, Los Angeles, asking that they press FCC for full investigation of radio station which announced intention of eliminating religious broadcasts. First Methodist program, broadcast since 1923, recently was discontinued.

Digest—Philippine station DYSR, church sponsored, to step up power from 10,000 to 100,000 watts. Will reach Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, East Pakistan, India and other countries.… Public Affairs Commission of Los Angeles Church Federation urges members to oppose state’s “loyalty oath” as threat to separation of Church-State.… Complete Bibles, Testaments, or Bible portions, now published in 1,109 languages.

Evans Honored

Dr. Louis H. Evans of Hollywood, Calif., minister-at-large for the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., will receive the “Churchman of the Year” award from the Washington Pilgrimage on April 27.

William Harper Bryan, Baptist layman of St. Louis, Mo., will be named “Lay Churchman of the Year.” Mrs. W. Murdoch MacLeod of New York, general director of United Church Women, will receive the “Church Woman of the Year” award.

The citations will be presented at a dinner in Washington, D. C. during the three-day Pilgrimage which brings together churchmen from over the country to consider the implications of America’s religious heritage. Cecil B. DeMille, movie producer, will make the presentation to Dr. Evans.

The second annual Faith and Freedom Award in Journalism will be announced and presented at the dinner.

Speakers at Pilgrimage sessions will include Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Senator Francis Case (R-S. D.) and Sir Hubert Wilkins, noted explorer.

A massed band concert at the Lincoln Memorial will commemorate addition of the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Another special ceremony will be held to make the 350th anniversary of the first American settlement at Jamestown, Va.

Dr. Evans formerly served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. He now travels more than 40,000 miles a year, has filled 450 speaking engagements since 1953, and has written several widely-read books.

Mr. Bryan, president of the Associated General Hardware Company of St. Louis, is a trustee of Third Baptist Church there and has taught a Sunday School class since 1923. He has been prominent in St. Louis civic affairs.

Mrs. MacLeod has directed the work of United Church Women, a department of the National Council of Churches since 1948. Previously she was with the Board of Women’s Work, Presbyterian Church in the U. S.

The Issue: Freedom

“Only faith in God can turn back our plunge toward a totalitarian state.… What a travesty it is to see so many of our ministers, and laymen, too, running to Washington to obtain more laws to make more people subject to more government controls!”

These opinions were among those expressed recently by J. Howard Pew, noted industrialist and Presbyterian lay leader, in an address at Chicago to the National Council of Presbyterian Men in the U. S. A.

Mr. Pew, retired president of the Sun Oil Company and for years identified with the Presbyterian Foundation (U. S. A.) Board as a member and president, said, “Those of us who have given years of study to this problem, believe that our country has already gone far beyond the limit of safety.…”

He added:

“The Founding Fathers were students of history. They knew that every government throughout recorded history had eventually fallen into the absolute control of unprincipled men, who enslaved the people, confiscated their property and threw the objectors into jail.

“They knew, too, that many of the great minds throughout the world had for thousands of years been pointing out that Divine Law, Moral Law, commonly called Natural Law, must be basic to all man-made laws, if dictators were to be prevented from destroying the freedom of people.

And so our Founding Fathers gave to us a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, which virtually said to those who might eventually come into control of our government: ‘We the people are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights,’ and that this government was set up primarily for the purpose of protecting the people in the exercise of those rights. In effect it said to them: ‘We the people will handle our own human relations and control our own institutions.’

Answers To Prayer For Crusade

Preparation highlights for the Billy Graham New York Crusade, beginning May 15:

More than 1,500 cooperating churches.

► Telecasts—The Crusade Committee has announced that it is accepting the offer made by a major television network of one hour each Saturday night. The telecast will carry the meetings coast-to-coast from Madison Square Garden. The unusual opportunity, most challenging ever offered an evangelistic undertaking, will be available from the first Saturday in June through the duration of the Crusade. Each telecast will include sufficient time for a choir number, solo by George Beverly Shea, sermon by Graham and the accompanying invitation for commitments to Christ. Plans also call for nightly telecasts over a New York station to begin with the start of the Crusade.

► Counsellor training program—opening enrollment totaled 3,200, with peak enrollment of 4,500 reached at end of second week. (London’s peak was 2,300).

► Prayer—New York Radio Station WABC, flagship station of American Broadcasting Company network, utilized from 12:15 to 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Effort joined by thousands in homes, apartments, business offices and factories. Amplified by world-wide program under guidance of Willis G. Haymaker.

► Ushers—more than 2,000 churchmen recruited to fill nightly need of 600 in big 19,000-seat Madison Square Garden.

► Choir—two complete choirs, each with 1,500 voices, being organized. One will sing Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and other to sing Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

► Associate evangelists—enlarged staff will join Dr. Graham in meeting need for scores of daily auxiliary meetings. Includes Grady Wilson and Leighton Ford of Graham team, the Rev. Joseph Blinco and the Rev. Stephen Olford of London, Dr. Paul S. Rees, First Covenant Church, Minneapolis; Howard Butt, layman-evangelist from Corpus Christi, Texas; Paul Little, former Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship staff member.

► Special speakers for pastors’ workshops—Dr. L. David Cowie, University Presbyterian Church, Seattle; Dr. Robert Boyd Munger, First Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, Calif.; the Rev. John Stott, All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, London and the Rev. Tom Allan, organizer of “Tell Scotland” movement, Glasgow.

► Group reservations—new high reached. Chartered trains, planes and buses already arranged from such distant points as Oklahoma City, Houston, Nashville, Richmond, Louisville, Detroit and Toronto.

“Today our courts and our politicians spurn Natural Law. They refuse to accept it as the basic law of our land.

“The issue is freedom, just as it was 180 years ago; and freedom can exist only in a state where the people generally accept honesty, truth, fairness, generosity, justice and charity as a rule for their conduct. If the people of a state accept bribery, guile, cupidity, deception and selfishness as a rule for their conduct, then the strong exploit the weak, might becomes right, and anarchy stalks the land. Freedom under such conditions for the individual is no longer possible.

“But honesty, truth, fairness, generosity, justice and charity are the attributes of Christianity. So if we would have individual freedom, we must first have faith in God. William Penn truly said: ‘Man will either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants.’

“The wearers of the cloth have long realized that religious freedom is of paramount importance if America is to remain great; but far too few of our ministers realize that religious freedom cannot exist in a collectivist state, because freedom is indivisible.

Thus, if we should lose our industrial freedom, then religious freedom, political freedom, and all other freedoms will certainly fall. Christ depended on the power of persuasion. He saw clearly that attitudes of the heart cannot be changed by coercion, law or penalty.

“When Christians lose faith in the message of Jesus and seek to reform society by the power of the state, they are in effect appealing from God to Caesar; they are resorting to force because they have lost faith in the power of their religion.…

“During the last hundred years, America has made far greater material progress than was previously achieved by the whole world during all recorded history. How did America accomplish so much in so little time?

“There seems to be only one answer to this question—individual freedom. Today most people are losing their interest in freedom because they are prejudiced in favor of certain objectives which deny the true concept of freedom.

“This is not a new subject. Lincoln was deeply concerned over it, for in 1864 in a speech to the American people he said:

“ ‘The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word, we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the products of other men’s labor. Here are two not only different but incompatible things, called by the same name—liberty.’

“Lincoln believed that each man should control his own life and the product of his labor, provided that by so doing he did not infringe upon the rights of others.

This is the concept of liberty which was held by our Founding Fathers, who bequeathed to us the finest form of government ever conceived in the minds of men.

“Real liberty is the freedom of the individual to exercise his talents, his initiative, his ingenuity and his resourcefulness. It is freedom to be an individual. Bogus liberty is the freedom of the individual to have the security of a government bird cage.

“In 1790, John Philpot Curran, the great Irish patriot, said: ‘The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.’ Now Curran did not invent that idea. He undoubtedly acquired it from the letters of Saint Paul and from the teachings of Christ himself.

“Saint Paul wrote: ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’ And again he wrote: ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.’

“But it was Christ who taught us, saying: ‘If ye continue in my word … ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ ”

Religion At Harvard

A Harvard University student committee has urged that the study of religion be given a more prominent place in the liberal arts curriculum.

The committee’s recommendations were based on a survey of the state of religion at Harvard since 1954.

Sixty per cent of 150 undergraduates who answered a questionnaire replied that religion or faith was necessary to achieve a “fully mature” philosophy of life. Twenty-three per cent replied that it was not.

The report stressed that Harvard had “intensely religious” origins and traditions, which were broken by the rise of the 18th century rationalism and 19th century liberal unitarianism.

Birth Of Church

May, 1960, has been set as the time for the constituting convention of the new Lutheran Church that will emerge from the union of at least three, and possibly five, Lutheran denominations.

The target date for the birth of the new church was fixed by the Joint Union Committee of the Evangelical, American and United Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

These groups, committed to union by convention actions last year, may be joined by the Lutheran Free Church and the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (Suomi Synod). Both are scheduled to make decisions on merger this summer.

With more than 2,000,000 members, the proposed merged body will be known as “The American Lutheran Church” and will have its national headquarters in Minneapolis.

Far East Chaplains

Dr. L. Nelson Bell’s article on Korea, in the February 18 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, mentioned that chaplains in the Korean and Chinese Nationalist armies are supported by their respective governments.

Information has now been received that the Indonesian and Philippine armies also have Protestant Chaplains assigned to their armed forces. Christians have expressed profound thanks for this significant development in the Far East.

Eutychus and His Kin: April 15, 1957

EASTER BUNNY THEOLOGY

“That ever popular personality—the Easter Bunny—again leads the Easter Parade … Added is the fact that he is truly an American Bunny—symbolizing the observance of another great American occasion. He suggests that you remember those you love—with Easter gifts—from Blank’s.”

This revealing bit of ad copy is classic Americana. The Easter Parade includes crowds of church-goers who for a single Sunday fill the pews with America’s church-membership statistics in the flesh. The Easter Bunny has led them there. Church attendance on Easter is part of another great American occasion for those dressed in Easter gifts from Blank’s.

The preacher may view the world’s best-dressed multitude with exhilaration, compassion or even with suspicion. He can scarcely welcome the Easter Bunny so many have followed to church.

Unless, of course, the Easter Bunny shares the pulpit.

Strangely enough, he is often found in churches thronged with Easter Bunny paraders. Easter Bunny preaching regards the resurrection of the body of Jesus as a myth, as a religious symbol for grown-ups, just as the Easter bunny is a symbol for the kiddies. The preacher is delighted on this occasion simply to dwell on the “life-affirming” meaning of Easter.

Which reminds me of Bultmann and an irreverent parody:

“Hark the herald angels sing,

‘Bultmann is the latest thing!’

At least they would if he had not

Demythologized the lot!”

For Easter we may more reverently parody the Apostle: “If Christ’s resurrection be a myth, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.…”

EUTYCHUS

THE CHURCH AND RACE

In all of his elucidation (?) on the segregation issue, Mr. Ellis forgot that simple prayer taught by Jesus: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Or is the “as” asinine?

ALBERT CRAMER

West Chicago, Ill.

To me Dr. Ellis’s article boiled down to the hateful doctrine that men of one race are better than men of another.… Pressure for integration will lessen on the day that a white man is hanged in Mississippi for the rape of a Negro girl or a white man is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Negro man.

DUFF TUCKER

Mt. Sterling Presbyterian Church

Mt. Sterling, Ill.

An integrated society will surely come—just as man evolved out of the ape (and with the same inevitable surety). When it comes the pathetic white aristocracy—the frightened southern intellectuals—(and if it does not lend more support than has been forthcoming, the church)—when it comes those forces which have opposed it will be evacuated in the process as so much historical waste material.…

LYMAN R. HARTLEY JR.

First Presbyterian Church

Yonkers, N. Y.

I sincerely hope you will never again publish such a dishonest and sacrilegious article.… It should be answered by an honest and religious person, regardless of whether he is a segregationist or integrationist.

FLETCHER BENNETT

Trinity Methodist Church

Superior, Wis.

How anyone today can defend segregation in a church paper is more than I can understand.

G. BARRETT RICH III

Fourth Presbyterian Church

New York City

Basically he (Dr. Ellis) is trying to defend and save face for the southern system. However, the issue is not one of voluntary integration or segregation. A more fitting term would be domination.… The Negro is kept separate because the white man wants to dominate him.… Christian or not?

HAROLD C. HOSLER

First Baptist Church

Norborne, Missouri

Personally, I think you have allowed your very fine magazine to be exploited by someone who is teaching in a northern college but in his heart lingers still the way of life his native state has so long endeared.…

ROBERT C. THOMAS

C. M. E. Temple Church

Shreveport, La.

Mr. Ellis … ignores certain facts. One fact is that when society has tolerated an evil for a long time there comes the inevitable period of revulsion … during which the evil is either controlled or erased.… To deny either the necessity for these “revolutions” or to blind oneself to the reasons for them is unrealistic.

Another fact that is ignored is that the Negro people, under the system of segregation, have been given neither equal opportunities nor equal rights in either the South or the North.… Consequently I’ll vote for integration and I’ll try to live up to my creed.

A third fact … is this, that segregation exists in the North, too.… Let’s just say that segregation of both the Southern and Northern variety have failed and that it is high time we realized this. Certainly the Kingdom of God cannot come if we refuse to make the correct appraisals of ourselves and of our systems.…

WILLIAM W. REILEY

The Methodist Church

Waterville, Ohio

The view expressed by Dr. Ellis … somewhat in the nature of a conclusion is one-sided. When he says New Testament Christianity implies that “the servant is no less a servant” … he is ignoring one of the finest declarations of the Christian ethic which the church possesses in the case of Onesimus … “not now … as servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved … both in the flesh and in the Lord.” My comment has little to do with the current agitation of either the integrationist or the segregationist, which is principally focused in the educational and social fields, but it is pertinently concerned with our attitude as believers toward fellow believers in the sphere of Christian fellowship and communion.…

ERLINC C. OLSEN

New York City

It is an untrue implication that integrationists exist only in places remote from the scenes of racial mingling. I speak as a Southerner by birth, rearing and education. I have pastored churches for seven years in the South and am now minister of a church in a town with a considerable Negro element. I am an integrationist, and the woods of the South are full of us.… I am no theological liberal.… But any serious study of the New Testament … tells us that segregation and New Testament Christianity have no common affinity.… If the conservative emphasis of Christianity prevails, and if the New Testament is ever taken seriously by the Church, the social picture of the South as we know it today, is doomed.

WILLIAM S. SMYTHE JR.

Tabor City Presbyterian Church

Tabor City, N. C.

It is difficult to restrain my amazement.… With physiological sciences, the U. S. Constitution and especially the Word of God all supporting the Christian concept of integration, just what do you expect to accomplish by publishing such an article?.… I cannot help wondering if your editorial on “The Church and the Race Problem” in the same issue was not written to correct some negative impressions your readers would invariably receive from the Ellis article …

DONALD K. BLACKIE

Hope Community Church

Los Angeles, Calif.

Dr. Ellis does an excellent job … on some rather interesting aspects of the segregation issue, but he leaves much to be said and says much that isn’t true.

ROBERT L. WENDT

Salem College

Winston-Salem, N. C.

While Dr. Ellis … makes many pertinent points … he has missed the chief issue involved, namely, that segregation in the South is by law with no freedom of choice given to the Negro who is the object of this discrimination.

Without drawing any distinction between such forced segregation and voluntary segregation, Dr. Ellis contends that segregation may be closer to the Christian pattern than integration. As an illustration …, he refers to a segregated housing unit in a community where race-relations were good. This is an excellent example of what voluntary segregation can accomplish but is far removed from the present situation in the South where no such freedom to choose exists. Consequently, such ideas have little meaning to either the Negro or White of the South.

It is quite probable that a large majority of the Negroes in both the North and South prefer voluntary segregation in many walks of life.… However, at present they are rebelling, and rightfully so, against being forced into this situation which is so humiliating and degrading to any human being.…

The excellent editorial of the same issue, “The Church and the Race Problem,” brings out this distinction but without this distinction in his article, Dr. Ellis’ contention that segregation can be a Christian pattern has no relevance to the present situation and seems decidedly foreign to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

E. T. CLARK JR.

Purcellville Baptist Church

Purcellville, Va.

I would like to commend the article Segregation and the Kingdom of God by Ellis. I feel he has properly stated the problem and has pointed out some fallacies in the usual approach.… I am getting weary of being classed as a second-class Christian because I am not willing to proclaim from the housetops that integration is the only religious way to solve the problem. I feel that unless some of the agitators on both sides show a little more of the spirit of love, we are in for a great deal of trouble.…

R. P. MARSHALL, Editor

North Carolina Christian Advocate

Greensboro, N. C.

As a Florida boy misplaced in the North and knowing the Negro, I cannot help but write a word of great praise for the article.… It really crystallizes my thought on the matter.…

RICHARD E. COLEMAN

First Evangelical U. B. Church

Flora, Ill.

Please allow me to commend … your editorial.… It is, on the whole, an excellent statement of the Christian position, with which I can disagree only in some minor respects.…

“Forced integration,” you say, “is as contrary to Christian principles as is forced segregation.” I would certainly agree that the use of compulsion to make anyone act against his will is contrary to Christian ethics. But here is a dilemma. In the status quo, such compulsion is heavily in force. Is not an equal or less-than-equal counter-force justified if it will rectify the situation? In the absence of more strictly Christian measures, allowing the issues to be decided in the secular realm by default, so to speak, this conclusion seems to me inescapable.… White people must decide whether theirs is a Church of Jesus Christ or merely a sanctimonious kind of exclusive social club, bearing the label “Christian church.”

WILLIAM ROBERT MILLER

Nyack, N. Y.

Dr. Ellis’s discussion of integration arising from a secular view of the Kingdom of God is excellent. His … distinction between segregation-in-practice and a segregation “equitably administered” will be missed by some people, but others of us appreciate it … Conscientious Christian people are being browbeaten by the crusaders who identify integration as “the Christian way.” If a person is not for them they brand him an enemy, and sneer at his Christian profession.…

C. E. NOTSON

Nyack, N. Y.

I appreciate the editorial “The Church and the Race Problem” very much …

JESSE L. GANN

Wilsonville Baptist Church

Wilsonville, Ala.

CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA

The Anglican Church in China does not accept the Marxist philosophy, and she can criticize the government so long as she avoids treasonable disloyalty. She has remained loyal to her Catholic principles, and the Chinese bishops affirmed their adherence to the “Lambeth Quadrilateral” by sending to us in Australia four symbolical gifts which I catalogue in their Scriptural order: a beautifully hand-printed scroll of the Nicene Creed in Chinese, a photograph of the seventeen Chinese bishops, a supply of wafer breads for every Australian Diocese to use at the Holy Communion, a copy of the Chinese Bible.… To these four essentials [the Apostles’ doctrine, the Apostolic ministry, the Sacraments, and the Bible] Christians of the Papal obedience have made one or more additions, while most Protestant grounds of Christians have subtracted one or more of them.

The Right Rev. C. E. B. MUSCHAMP

Bishop of Kalgoorlie

Bishopsbourne, Kalgoorlie,

Western Australia

• By way of comment on religious conditions in China, the opinion of our observers may be noted that, the situation is likely to remain indecisive until the government demands some simple act (such as incense and the shinto) which Christians may regard as a denial of Christ. Red China is striving to integrate its minorities into national life, and the Protestant church is viewed within this category. In the past, both evangelical and the more liberal missionaries denounced some evils of the old precommunist regime, and they cannot disown present-day corrections. The organized church appears to be independent of the government, in the sense that it is currently tolerated and ignored, and hence free compared to other societies, though not free as we count freedom. In contrast with the picture in eastern Europe, church leaders in China say from their pulpit and press that a person cannot be both a Christian and a Communist (the latter being defined as a member of the party in power, in contrast with the governed, or even with sympathizers). Christian workers who have been brainwashed have confessed to political faults; the government will not permit a religious issue. One source describes all who have confessed as “mental wrecks,” pointing out that a breakdown occurs several months after release. That the Communists evoked confessions from imprisoned Christians by means of torture seems not to have adversely impressed the visiting Anglican delegation from Australia. Nor did the party see or hear any of the underground.—ED.

LITURGICAL RENAISSANCE

The article of your columnist Eutychus entitled “Liturgical Revival” in your issue for March 18, 1957 is a flagrant example of irresponsible journalism. It is difficult for me to see how a discriminating person could attempt a satirical column on a subject which he neither understands nor evidently cares to examine objectively. Not everyone will find something of value in the contemporary liturgical renaissance in Christendom; however, a responsible critic would endeavor to gain some first hand knowledge of the matter at hand and attempt to appreciate its purposes before leveling his criticism.

As I understand the liturgical revival in contemporary Protestantism, interest in the nature and conduct of worship have followed upon our reconsideration of the nature of the Church and its character as a worshipping community. The liturgical revival has emphasized that worship is an action of the whole congregation gathered together to glorify God and to praise his holy name. Each person present, minister as well as layman, has his own proper and essential work, his liturgy, to perform in this corporate action of Christ’s Church. We are reminded that the Church may be defined in part as the congregation of faithful men in which the Word of God is preached and the sacraments ordained by Christ are administered. Those persons interested in the reform of worship are seeking to redress the balance which has been upset by our emphasis on preaching to the neglect, relatively speaking, of the sacraments, particularly Holy Communion. The church is defined by the word and the sacraments; our life in the church is impoverished if either of these two facets is slighted. This emphasis on word and sacrament is very good Protestant doctrine, as the writings of Luther, Calvin and Wesley will attest.

It seems to me that we honor God by worshipping him in the very best way we can—with honest architecture, tasteful and well performed music and the most fluent language which we can command. A dignified and orderly service in which the thoughts and emotions of the worshipping congregation are directed toward God entirely, without any distractions, is conducive to a joyful response to God. We do not come to church primarily to hear a great orator in the pulpit or to sing the songs we like to sing; we come to worship God. The appointments of a church, its arrangement and the kinds of things we do there depend in large measure upon the kind of God who has laid hold of us.

JOHN C. ENGLISH

Yale Divinity School

New Haven, Conn.

Doctrinal unity is a necessity to any true and lasting fellowship … But what are creeds or dogmas if they are not a real part of the life of the Church and expressed in the worship of the Church? Yet we find that worship, particularly liturgical worship, is belittled … This I cannot understand, for the liturgy is a true expression of what the Church believes to be true.…

The greater part of world wide Christianity worships liturgically. There is very little “free service” worship. The few church bodies and splinter groups that uphold the so-called “free service” are largely found in the United States. In reality … they have borrowed heavily from established church liturgy.…

RUSSEL WEBERG

Principal

First Luth. Elem. School

Compton, Calif.

Neither Rome nor the Middle Ages supplies the inspiration for the Liturgical Revival. It finds its inspiration in the earlier times … Rome allows too little participation for it to be truly liturgical.… Nor is the Liturgical Revival a movement for form without meaning but for meaning which is expressed by form … We do not believe that the real nature of worship is found until it is seen as an objective reality …

A. M. JONES

St. James A. M. E. Church

Goodman, Miss.

I will agree with the evangelicals that it is wrong to consider the tools of faith as ends in themselves. And it is a matter of internal church discipline on the part of the religious body involved, when its authorities discover a parson allowing his spiritual life to deteriorate to such an extent. However, God has given beauty to his world, and he has given power to men to make beautiful things … Why can’t evangelicals appreciate this?… “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them …”

FRANK W. MARSHALL JR.

St. Mark’s Episcopal

Newport, Vt.

CORRECTION

“… under the heading, “Claims Disputed,” you refer to me as the Roman Catholic Archdeacon of Halifax, York. I am not … a Roman Catholic. I am an ordained minister of the Church of England and … vicar of the Parish of Halifax as well as Archdeacon of Halifax.”

ERIC TREACY

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY regrets this error in identification.

AMERICAN THEOLOGY

In response to Mr. Wurth’s hopes (“Theological Climate in America,” Feb. 18) for a decline of liberalism in America: I am praying that Protestantism in Holland may have a resurgence of spiritual power, such as produced its greatest theologians, Hugo Grotius and Jacobus Arminius.

J. NOBLE ATKINS

Union Church (Christian, Methodist, Presbyterian)

Grandfalls, Tex.

The writer … speaks of “the so-called” social gospel and Rauschenbusch in a way that proves he has gone into the far country and left every bit of his objectivity at home. I first came in touch with Rauschenbusch in 1899 when I took up study in Rochester.… His social theology was deeply rooted in the grace of the Triune God and the redemptive need of man and human society. However, the other was: personal salvation and as a consequent obligation, social action. The Kingdom of God was the framework of and the end of any and all social action. But to him the Kingdom of God was a spiritual realm, not an earthly paradise.…

F. J. MONSCHKE

Alhambra, Calif.

LIBERALISM AS A MIRROR

Modernism was just one more expression of basic world evil—the motive of proud, assertive self-sufficiency—and … this motive can express itself quite as dangerously in the ideas of the philosopher as in the vices of the prodigal. World evil wears a hundred different masks; its motivation alone is constant.… There are two great motives continually confronting each other within history—the motive of humble, aspiring trust outside one’s self in the grace of the infinite Other; the motive of proud, assertive self-sufficiency.… The moment the high motive is relaxed, the low motive will be expanded. This is the tragedy of the first half of the twentieth century; and only a great moral deepening of life and thought can save the second half.

HAROLD PAUL SLOAN

Browns Mills, N. J.

Dr. Rule’s article … is very interesting. However, his assumption that “It would be ungenerous and presumptuous to deny the genuine Christian status of all of these liberals, yet their thinking certainly was seriously out of harmony with Christian truth” is a dangerous one. Can we so facilely separate what a man is and what he believes?.… I attended a seminary where many students and professors were liberals … They were often good men and great thinkers, but they are humanists and not Christians.

PAUL B. MCCARDEL

First Congregational Church

Woodhaven, New York

In his excellent analysis of the sources of “liberalism” Professor Rule’s acceptance of apostolic Christianity is strangely lacking in apostolic execration of those who destroy men’s faith.…

ELBERT D. RIDDICK

Church of the Good Shepherd

Portland, Ore.

A WORD IN SEASON

Ralston Smith’s discerning tribute to Clarence Edward Macartney and Dr. Macartney’s classic sermon, “Come Before Winter,” reawakened my own memories of this preacher who was both great and good. Two months before he died I had occasion to thank him again for the encouragement he gave me through letters when I was a student at Houghton College and am grateful that events so conspired that I was motivated to write him “before Winter.”

KENNETH L. WILSON

Managing Editor

Christian Herald

New York City

Many have come to know Dr. Clarence E. Macartney through his long life of outstanding speaking and writing, but it was my privilege to know him best as he neared the gates of death. The last year, and especially the last few months of his life, were filled with much pain and suffering. Many a martyr to the Christian faith has suffered less, but he stood stedfast unto the end. One of his last statements to close relatives was, “Tell them that the anchor still holds”.… It is one thing to live well, it is another thing to die well.… Here was a man of great and strong character who finished his course with colors flying.…

FRANK H. LATHOM

College Hill Reformed Presbyterian Church

Beaver Falls, Pa.

A SORE THUMB

The quote from Harry Emerson Fosdick stuck out like a sore thumb. I could not help thinking that he would deny the substance of all the articles that the magazine contains … The cause of Christianity owes absolutely nothing to Fosdick. This is one thing in which I feel that the Lord would not be pleased.…

J. M.

Washington, D. C.

• The issue quoting from Dr. Fosdick’s The Living of These Days contained a critical review of that book. But the concern for the individual in the throng was an emulable emphasis of Dr. Fosdick’s ministry, and evangelical churchmen do well not to neglect it. The fine art of avoiding blanket condemnation is an almost vanished art today. The companion quotation alongside that from Dr. Fosdick, should have put the discerning reader on guard against considering the quotation itself as an endorsement of Dr. Fosdick’s vapid theology.—ED.

GOSPEL ON RADIO

Congratulations on your editorial on “The Scramble for Radio-TV” … I am vitally interested in keeping the air free so the Churches of our Lord may purchase time …

MALLOY OWEN

Greenville, N. C.

Every religious broadcast dependent upon the free will gifts of the listening audience should be required by law to furnish, at regular intervals, a complete financial statement to every contributor.…

CARLTON L. MYERS

Riverside Baptist Church

Baltimore, Md.

OPPOSITION TO EVANGELISM

Your editorial … showed the ridiculous bias of your mind against the “separatists.” The vitriolic language was wholly unnecessary.… I am one who still believes that God can get His gospel preached without the aid of liberals of any stripe. We do not do evil that good may come.

JOHN J. MCCALL

The Baptist Tabernacle

South Belmar, N. J.

I believe in evangelism whether it is carried on by Billy Graham or John Smith. We are a far cry from the enthusiasm displayed by the liquor and cigarette industries, in advertising our wares.

WESLEY A. MOORE

Edgecombe Junior Academy

Baltimore, Md.

I gasp and grasp at the learned dissertations in your wonderful new medium.… Wish it were all as simple as Billy Graham’s preaching.

RUTH MURDOCK

Houston, Tex.

I defy anyone to prove that Jesus Christ accepted money and … close fellowship, and cooperation of the Pharisees and Sadducees … Jesus preached unsponsored. Jesus preached against these men, calling them by name!

W. C. MELOON

First Baptist Church

Harmony, Me.

Theology

Bible Text of the Month: 1 Peter 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3).

It is a cold lifeless thing to speak of spiritual things upon mere report: but they that speak of them as their own, as having share and interest in them and some experience of their sweetness, their discourse of them is enlivened with firm belief and ardent affection; they cannot mention them but their hearts are straight taken with such gladness, as they are forced to vent in praises. Thus our apostle here breaks forth into thanksgiving.—BISHOP R. LEIGHTON.

Blessed—A form consecrated to God alone, a completely different word from the blessed of the Beatitudes; and differing from the blessed of the Virgin Mary in that this form implies that blessing is always due on account of something inherent in the person, while the other only implies that a blessing has been received. The idea of blessing God (literally, speaking Him well, Ps. 110:3) is, of course, wholly Hebrew.—BISHOP C. J. ELLICOTT.

God is here blessed, as is frequently the case in the Epistles of Paul, not only as the Father but also as the God of Jesus Christ. Only in Christ and through him do all find and possess God. The paternity points to the eternal generation out of the being of God, (Ps. 2:3) and to the intimate relation to the Incarnate Son.—J. P. LANGE.

Abundant mercy. The idea is, that there was great mercy shown them in the fact that they were renewed. They had no claim to the favour, and the favour was great. Men are not begotten to the hope of heaven because they have any claim on God, or because it would not be right for him to withhold the favour.—ALBERT BARNES.

Born To New Hope

And for Christ’s death; even that also will not save you, without this new begetting; and the text will warrant this too. For consider but this, that he rose again as well as died. Now as he died for the pardoning of your sins, so he rose again to regenerate and beget you again.—THOMAS GOODWIN.

The hope of the Christian is a living hope, in opposition both to a dead and a dying hope—in opposition to the dead hope of the hypocrite, and the dying hope of the self-deceiver.—JOHN BROWN.

Without being converted there is no hope of this inheritance. You may have a dead hope, a false hope, that will deceive you, but not a lively hope. Is any man so fond as to hope for a crown that was not born to it? How then can we hope for heaven, if we have not the new birth, God’s image, to show for it?—THOMAS GOODWIN.

As Christ’s resurrection was the first step unto his glory, and to that exaltation that followed his resurrection, so regeneration is the foundation and first step unto all those privileges of a Christian that follow upon the state of grace.—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Resurrection Of Jesus

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the foundation of our hope. It was a confirmation of what he declared as truth when he lived; it was a proof of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul; it was a pledge that all who are united to him will be raised up.—ALBERT BARNES.

The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is one of the most striking and satisfactory proofs of the divinity of his mission, and, of course, of the truth of all its doctrines; and, among the rest, of that grand characteristic doctrine of his gospel on which the hope of eternal life is founded.—JOHN BROWN.

The oneness of believers with Christ is the explanation of the connection between his resurrection and theirs. It is because Christ and they are one by faith, that his resurrection involves theirs, and their resurrection is of the same kind as his. They are themselves in him; and their resurrection consequently is also in him. His resurrection is theirs.—ROBERT S. CANDLISH.

There is an intimate connection between the saint’s resurrection and that of Jesus Christ. The simple re-union of their souls and bodies, is not to be considered as the effect of his mediation, because the same thing will take place with respect to the wicked; and of all opinions none is more absurd than that of certain Divines, who have maintained, that the general resurrection is a privilege which Christ has procured for mankind in general by his death. To the wicked the resurrection is not a privilege, but a curse; it is not the effect of the goodness, but of the avenging justice of God. What the saints owe to his mediation is a happy resurrection, the change of tremendous evil into an unspeakable blessing.—JOHN DICK.

It is the Gospel alone that gives the well-grounded hope of eternal life; and the ground on which this hope rests is the resurrection of Christ himself. The certainty of our Lord’s resurrection is the great seal of the Gospel. The resurrection of the human nature of Christ, the incontestable proofs of this resurrection and the ascension of our nature to heaven in his person, are such evidences of the possibility and certainty of the thing, as forever to preclude all doubt from the hearts of those who believe in him.—ADAM CLARKE.

That he died manifests his love and his willingness to save. It is his rising again that manifests his power and his ability to save. We cannot be saved by a dead Christ, who undertook but could not perform, and who still lies under the Syrian sky, another martyr of impotent love. To save, he must pass not merely to but through death. If the penalty was fully paid, it cannot have broken him, it must needs have been broken upon him. The resurrection of Christ is thus the indispensable evidence of his completed work, of his accomplished redemption. It is only because he rose from the dead that we know that the ransom he offered was sufficient, the sacrifice was accepted, and that we are his purchased possession. In one word, the resurrection of Christ is fundamental to the Christian hope and the Christian confidence.—B. B. WARFIELD.

Ideas

The Word Of God Will Not Be Bound

Creation and preservation, revelation and redemption, resurrection and judgment: in all these the agent is Jesus Christ, the Word of God. This eternal Word of God cannot be bound.

This eternal Word of God is sovereign. Lord of nature and of man, he encompasses the cosmos with his purpose, “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), Throughout the far-flung galaxies his mighty hand of creation, his pierced hand of redemption, his waiting hand of judgment, probes the destinies of men and of nations. This eternally sovereign Word of God cannot be bound.

This eternally sovereign Word of God is incarnate. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). This one who was seen and heard and handled of men, “who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25) is still incarnate: raised and exalted to the Father’s right hand he ever liveth to make intercession “in the presence of God for us” (Heb. 9:24). This incarnate Word of God cannot be bound.

“I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending (saith the Lord) which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8).

“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).

“I am the living bread which cometh down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28).

“I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25 f.).

This Word of God written lives and abides forever: It cannot be bound.

Atheism and skepticism may darken the spiritual skies, but only for a season. Communism and secularism may flaunt their challenge at the face of God, but only for a season. Critics may scissor the Scriptures to myth and legend; science may fling the supernatural from its laboratories; industry may scrap the Word of God as a poor risk; society may dismiss him as an embarrassment; governments may unseat him as superfluous—but only for a season.

The eternal and sovereign Word of God, and the Word of God written, keep shining in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overwhelm them. The Word is not, will not, cannot be bound.

Citadels of heathendom crumble before his power. Tinged even in our day with the blood of martyrs, the onflowing stream of missionary endeavor inundates satanic demons of superstition, fear and despair with the Word of God. Unleashed are the purifying floods of love, of hope and of a sound mind. The Word of God bursts the bonds of heathendom. It cannot, it will not be bound.

The vagaries of philosophy, the conceits of learning, must quake at his voice. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God (1 Cor. 3:19). “He takes the wise in their own craftiness” (Job 5:13). But to the despised, and foolish, who have ears to hear, Christ the Word of God is made wisdom. With the foolishness of God that is wiser than men, they confound the wise. In their weakness they confound the mighty.

The imprisoning subtleties of unregenerate learning must yield before the Word of God that “is quick and powerful … a discerner (critic) of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). He cannot, he will not be bound.

All of civilization itself, even in its historical magnitude of centuries upon centuries, cannot restrain the Word of God; indeed, it is preserved by the Word, often unknown to itself, for a higher calling than it owns. Before him who ordained the peoples of the world into his created universe; before him who has temporarily yielded earthly government into the self-seeking and warring hands of men, all nations of the world shall bow, kings and queens shall bow, every knee shall bow. “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing” (Isa. 40:15). “All nations are before him as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity” (Isa. 40:17). “Have ye not known? have ye not heard?… It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity” (Isa. 40:21 ff.).

But of the increase of government and peace of the Word of God, sovereign, incarnate, coming again, there shall be no end. He will “establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever … the government shall be upon his shoulder” (Isa. 9:6 f.). This Word of God cannot, will not be bound. The times and the seasons are at his command.

This triumphant Word of God is the risen Christ. Crucified, sealed in a guarded tomb, he could not be bound, could not be holden, as the King James version quaintly expresses it, (even) of death. Christ is risen. As Paul, the aged apostle, exhorted young Timothy: “Remember that Jesus Christ … was raised from the dead … the Word of God is not bound” (2 Tim. 2:8 f.).

In the Easter issue of Reader’s Digest, Dr. Clarence Hall contributes a moving article, “You Can’t Hold Back the Dawn.” He recalls the pre-dawn darkness at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, where the sun broke suddenly over the horizon, casting the dawn’s bright halo over a party of Easter worshippers singing anthems. The article emphasizes Christianity as a religion of an empty tomb and of the dawn. The amazing refrain, “Jesus is alive,” sounded by the apostles to the world of their day, echoes to our own century, accompanied by victories that Jesus continues to work, for he is “the man who would not stay dead.”

“There is something familiar,” Dr. Hall writes, “about the account of Pilate’s attempt to shut Christ away in a tomb. It has happened in every age.” Dr. Hall ventures to ask whether, in our dark day, the Christian faith is to be written off as a failure. And in reply he casts this glance at some of its achievements:

“It has fought and won over slavery in all its forms.… It has shaken the systems of caste and class.… It has produced and fostered the finest in art, music, literature.… It has marched along with the explorers and pioneers, helping to open up new frontiers.… It has gone into every field of human distress.… It has brought the laboring man up from contempt and bondage.… It has elevated womanhood, abolished infanticide, ennobled marriage.… It has authored the freedom of man, has been—and still is—the guardian and sentinel of liberty.…

“The God of Easter is forever coming out of the tombs in which evil forces try to confine him.… A resurrection dawn is coming—and nothing can hold it back.… Easter is the birthday of vibrant hope for the individual. It is also a terrible warning to every evil power that preys on mankind—a warning that says that truth is again breaking out of its tomb.”

What glorious reason for the Christian church to take heart in this time of tyranny and trouble! “You can’t hold back the dawn.” Indeed! Christ is risen. Who can extinguish the Light of the world? The Word of God will not be bound.

In an era of foreign missions when doors once open to Western missionaries are unmistakably closing, native converts are going as missionaries to distant lands. National churches in India, for example, are sponsoring missionaries to Africa.

Today in Ecuador five widows of five martyred missionaries glory rather than grieve in God’s way of reaching the Auca Indians.

Hostility to biblical supernaturalism emanating over the years from naturalistic influences at Columbia University Teachers’ College, and even from religious circles, would seem to have immunized New York City against evangelical Christianity. Yet on May 15 Billy Graham proclaims the Gospel in Madison Square Garden.

Abroad and at home, in silent jungles and in teeming cities, the Light is shining in the darkness and the darkness cannot overwhelm it. The Word of God will not be bound.

Is The Elder Brother Also A Prodigal?

An ever increasing number of ministers turn to the Scriptures for normative theological knowledge and inspiration for preaching. Dissatisfied with the husks of Liberalism they turn to the milk and meat of the revealed Gospel. This calls for merriment and rejoicing in the Father’s House. The joyful welcome, however, is often marred by grumbling and even animosity on the part of the elder brother. Suspicious and unforgiving, he would deny a joyful reception to the prodigal.

Although the repentance may be genuine, evidence of the sojourn in the far country may still cling to the prodigal. Biblical knowledge, theological discernment, practical application of the Gospel may not measure up to exacting standards. The Father, however, hastens to clothe and feed. He wastes no time in bitter criticism.

The resentful elder brother must engage in intensive soul searching. A true son of God manifests the spirit of the Father. Like the Father he must hasten to welcome those who turn away from the husks of error. The real prodigal may be the elder brother who refuses to show a forgiving spirit.

Theology

The Resurrection

Gordon H. Clark

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, or, if you wish, the alleged resurrection, is the most stupendous miracle on record. A dead body’s resumption of life, walking out of its tomb, eating and talking with its former friends for a period of forty days is a series of events that we do not experience very frequently. No wonder the foes of Christianity doubt it and pseudo-Christians spiritualize it.

Power Of Hume’s Argument

No one since the time of David Hume has argued more powerfully against the resurrection than he. Therefore it is not amiss to begin with a reconsideration of Hume.

Suppose, he says, that all historians should agree that on January 1, 1600, Queen Elizabeth died, and that after being interred a month she again appeared, resumed her throne and governed England another three years. Hume confesses that the agreement of all the witnesses on so many details would puzzle him. He would be compelled to believe that Elizabeth had died, he would have to accept the public circumstances that followed for three years, but far from having the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event, he would assert that the resurrection was merely pretended and could not possibly have been real. If, further, this alleged miracle were made a part of some religion, this very circumstance would be full proof of a cheat and would induce all men of good sense to reject it without examination.

The arguments against the possibility of miracles from the viewpoint of scientific mechanism are too intricate for the present discussion, and as a matter of fact Hume remains pretty well within the limits of ordinary observation. But if anyone think that the broader questions of competitive world views are more difficult for a Christian to answer, and that therefore their omission here is a sign of weakness, it can un-embarrassingly be asserted that scientific mechanism does not enjoy the widespread acceptance it did fifty years ago. And when it comes to a particular miracle, such as the resurrection of Christ, the range of Hume’s procedure is satisfactory.

Some of Hume’s argumentation can be immediately dismissed because it begs the question. He assumes, for example, that any religious claim is automatically to be regarded as erroneous. Historians and travelers may mix truth and untruth, but religious stories are pure, unmixed falsehoods. When, further, he writes, “It is a miracle that a dead man should come to life, because that has never been observed in any age and country,” and when he continues, “There must therefore be a uniform experience against every miraculous event,” it is clear that he is using for proof the very conclusion he wishes to prove. Obviously, one who maintains the resurrection of Christ cannot allow as a premise the assertion that in no age or country has a dead man ever come to life. To the extent that Hume’s argument depends on such infelicitous assumptions, it is definitely weakened.

Improbability And Probability

Aside from such material Hume insists that miracles are improbable. This may well be granted in the sense that the number of miracles, or alleged miracles, is much less than the number of ordinary occurrences. Of course, miracles are admittedly rare. But this admission does not imply the improbability of miracles in another sense. For although the probability of a miraculous occurrence at a random time and place is very small, yet the universe may be so constituted that the probability of a miracle’s occurrence at some time or other is very great. This possibility Hume neglected to discuss, except insofar as he works out elsewhere a nontheistic world view.

Hume continues by listing the suspicious circumstances of several miracles individually and then manages to produce the impression that the list as a totality applies to each. He remarks that all experience is fallible, and secondhand experience is more so; witness cannot be trusted and many alleged miracles are frauds. The more unusual the story, the less probable it is; yet it is the more believed because mankind enjoys tall tales. Then, further, he argues that since there is as much testimony for a miracle of one religion as for a miracle of another religion, and since all evidence in favor of one is evidence against the other, the witnesses for miracles cancel each other out, just as the witness in court who supports an alibi cancels out the witness who identifies the accused.

Flaw In Hume’S Logic

Aside from the fact that the last consideration is not the precise truth, for courts constantly manage to decide between alibis and identifications, yet the cumulative force of such a listing of objections is considerable. However, examination will show that the force is more psychological than logical. To the extent that it drives a Christian to produce detailed evidence in support of the resurrection, it cannot be disallowed. But with whatever literary repetition Hume embellishes his account, he is only begging the question again when he concludes, “no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof.” In effect he says, no miracle has a sufficient number of competent and honest witnesses in its favor. Thus by a series of selected examples and by a hasty generaliza tion, he hopes to avoid the responsibility of a serious historical examination of the resurrection of Christ. In spite of his reference to Queen Elizabeth—and note that he fails to explain the testimony of the historians—Hume has not studied the resurrection. His argument in reality is an argument against miracles as such, and it is only from the impossibility of any and all miracles that he deduces the falsity of the resurrection.

As was said above, Hume’s argument that miracles are impossible begs the question. He assumes the point in dispute. And particularly in view of his philosophical empiricism, Hume should have first proved that the resurrection did not occur, then that another alleged event had not occurred, and so on, and then only at the end should have concluded that there is “a uniform experience against every miraculous event.” Is it not reasonable, therefore, and all the more evidently reasonable in view of the later Hegelians’ attempt to rewrite history according to a preconceived pattern—is it not reasonable, therefore, to insist that the actual events be determined first and that the theory be made to conform to them?

The demand that the resurrection, or the alleged resurrection, itself be examined rather than ruled out beforehand has a facet that may go far to explain why its opponents rest their case on a general nontheistic argument against miracles as such. In the examination of any particular event the person who decides that the event did not occur is under obligation to give an alternate account of the history in question. Hume, as noted above, would have had to explain the alleged resurrection of Elizabeth and the remarkable agreement of the historians. Or, as a more modern example, anyone who wished to deny that Hitler committed suicide in Berlin would have to produce evidence that he escaped to Bavaria, Argentina or some other definite place. So too those who refuse to believe that Christ rose from the dead are under logical compulsion to give an alternate account of what happened. This turns out to be so embarrassing that Hume’s procedure is psychologically understandable.

Undeniable Historical Facts

What, then, happened? Well, it can hardly be denied, even by the most violent opponent of Christianity, that the Christian church happened. In the first century there were groups of people who believed, preached and were persecuted for the name of Jesus Christ. Second, it can hardly be denied that these people, who at first were mostly Jews, held their worship services on the first rather than on the seventh day of the week. These Christians claimed—their claim cannot be denied—that they did these things because Christ had conquered death, had risen from the tomb, and had been seen by five hundred of them. If now these claims are not true, in what manner may the undeniable history be accounted?

This is the question that is so embarrassing for the unbelievers, and it is embarrassing because their method precludes a consistent answer.

Historians And The Records

For example, Ernest Renan, whose Life of Jesus went through more than 140 editions, claims to be a scientific historian: “J’avais fait mon livre avec la froideur absolue de l’historien.… L’histoire est une science comme la chimie.” In this role he asserts that “the evangelists themselves, who have bequeathed to us the portrait of Jesus, are so far below the one of whom they speak, that they constantly disfigure him.… Their writings are full of errors and misunderstandings.… [they] do not understand, [they] substitute their own ideas for those they only partly grasp” (Chapter XXIII). But if the documents are so faulty, how can an objective and scientific historian conclude that the belief in the resurrection was the result of Mary Magdalene’s hallucinations? The end of chapter XXVI in the original edition says, “the strong imagination of Mary Magdalene here enacted a principal part. Divine power of love! sacred moments in which the passion of an hallucinated woman gives to the world a resurrected God.” The later editions have deleted this chapter, but retain an anticipation of the idea in chapter VIII.)

In view of the utter unreliability of the Gospels, how could historian Renan objectively assert that Mary Magdalene is the source of the resurrection stories? Why could it not have been Peter?

As a matter of fact, this claim has been made. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, who has a much better claim to the title of historian than Renan ever had, vaguely traces the Church’s belief in the resurrection to some unrecorded, unknown experience of Peter (The Apostolic Age, pp. 37–38 n. 3; pp. 48, 55–56); and to this McGiffert joins Paul’s visions of a spirit—not a man of flesh and blood, but a heavenly apparition (ibid., p. 126), thus emptying the word “resurrection” of its essential significance.

Now, obviously, these and all other alternate theories conflict with the written reports. The substitution of visions for a resurrection, whether they be Mary’s visions or Peter’s, conflicts with the evidence of the empty tomb. Is the account of the empty tomb therefore to be deleted as one of the numerous errors? But if the tomb, so carefully sealed and guarded at the insistence of the Pharisees, was not empty, would not those implacable enemies of Christ have exhibited the body and silenced the disciples? On the contrary, they bribed the soldiers to say that the disciples had stolen the body—at least so the record reports. Is this too an error, perhaps a fabrication of the authors? The story that the Pharisees are said to have invented cannot be true because it implies that the disciples suffered martyrdom for a gospel they knew to be false. Since the story cannot be true, we cannot, by reason of the same implication, suppose that the disciples invented the story and put it into the mouths of the Pharisees. Hence at least this part of the account must be true. But if this part is true, the tomb was empty and the Pharisees knew it.

How much then of the gospel account is true? It cannot be all false. Could Caesar’s Gallic Wars contain many true statements and the Gospels none?

No Consistent Alternative

One way to distinguish the true from the false would be to construct a satisfactory alternate theory. But this attempt has failed. Hume did not really try. Renan and McGiffert give impossible reconstructions. A still more radical writer, Corliss Lamont (The Illusion of Immortality, pp. 153 ff.), mentions several alternate theories and allows his readers to take their choice. This procedure follows a famous case at law. A man was sued for damaging a crock he had borrowed. The defendant offered three watertight defenses: first, when he returned the crock it was not cracked; second, the crock was already cracked when he borrowed it; third, he had never borrowed it.

The alternate theories—the vision theory, the swoon theory, the deliberate falsehood theory, of which one but not three may be chosen—fail to account for the later undeniable history. None of them can construct a consistent story.

The explanation of their failure lies in the fact that none of these theories results from an honest attempt to discover whether or not the resurrection actually occurred. They all proceed upon the hypothesis that miracles are impossible. Thus a nontheistic world view is made the criterion of history. Instead of examining the world to obtain a world view, the unbelievers use their world view to construct the history of the world. And the history they construct is self-contradictory.

But if the Gospel narratives are accepted as true, then (1) we have a self-consistent story, (2) the subsequent events are satisfactorily explained, and (3) redemption has been accomplished by Jesus Christ the Lord. Otherwise our faith is vain and we are yet in our sins.

Few Protestant scholars today are at home both in the history of theology and the history of philosophy. Gordon H. Clark is among the few. His writings, for that reason, bridge the chasm in the intellectual outlook of the mid-century man. He is Chairman of the Department of Philosophy in Butler University. His latest book, Thales to Dewey, appeared in January.

- More from Gordon H. Clark

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