Bible Book of the Month: The Acts of the Apostles

The Book of the Acts should need no commendation to Christian preachers. The minister who wants to be sure that he stands in the true apostolic succession will turn to this book time and again. What was the message that the apostles preached, and how did they preach it? How did they adapt their presentation of the message to their varying congregations—Jewish, God-fearing and Gentile? What part did their personal experience of Christ play in their preaching? The preacher who looks for the answers to such questions as these in this book will certainly find it, and if he tests his own preaching in the light of that answer, he will know how far he falls short of the apostolic example.

The Book of the Acts was clearly written as the sequel to the Third Gospel, which is the “former treatise” referred to in Acts 1:1. This conclusion is not based simply on the fact that both works are dedicated to Theophilus, but on wider considerations of style, language and outlook. They were intended to circulate as two parts of one historical work, tracing the beginnings of Christianity from the birth of John the Baptist to Paul’s imprisonment in Rome. It has been suggested that the author projected a third part, in which the story would be carried on possibly to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70; but this cannot be proved.

When the four Gospels began to be bound up together and to circulate as one collection, early in the second century, the two parts of this historical work were separated from each other. Part I was henceforth part of the fourfold Gospel, and Part II had to pursue a career of its own, under the title The Acts of the Apostles, which it acquired soon after the middle of the second century.

Pivot Book Of New Testament

But the necessity of pursuing a career of its own did not reduce its importance. On the contrary, it occupied an influential position as the pivot book of the New Testament (to use Harnack’s term). It provided the link between the two chief collections of canonical Christian literature—the fourfold Gospel and the Pauline epistles. It supplied at once the sequel to the fourfold Gospel and the historical background to the Pauline epistles. Nor did it only supply the historical background; it supplied most cogent evidence of the reality of Paul’s apostolic commission. A reader of the Pauline letters might conclude that they were written by a man who was anxious to assert his independent apostleship in the face of others who denied it; but how could he assess the validity of the arguments on the one side and on the other? If his only other source of information was the fourfold Gospel, he would find not the slightest reference to Paul there; and he might well believe that the weight of the evidence favored the arguments for the superior authority of those who were companions and apostles of our Lord in the days of His flesh. But no one could read the Acts without realizing that Paul was a genuine apostle of Christ, independently commissioned by Him, and proving by the “signs of an apostle” which accompanied his ministry the truth of his claim that he came in no way behind “the very chiefest apostles” (2 Cor. 12:11).

On the other hand, the Acts served another useful purpose in the second century by showing that Peter and the rest of the twelve were as truly apostles as Paul. When Marcion issued his challenge to the apostolic churches and maintained that all the apostles had corrupted the pure gospel of Christ except Paul, and that even his letters had to be purified from judaizing interpolations, this further value of the Acts came to be appreciated as it could not have been before.

First Century Work

Yet the Book of the Acts is no second-century production, reflecting an age when the antitheses of Paulinism and Judaizing Christianity had been reconciled in a more comprehensive unity. This was the view of the Tubingen theologians of last century, and it has found some advocates in more recent years; but to the historian and archeologist Acts has all the marks of a first-century work. Sir William Ramsay’s studies in this field may have gone out of fashion in many quarters (but not in all, as their recent reissue by a well-known publishing house indicates); but the solid basis which he provided for the first-century dating and high historical value of Acts can hardly be overthrown.

The traditional account is that this book, along with the “former treatise” was not only the work of a first-century author, but of a friend and companion of Paul’s. This account is well founded. It is supported by the most natural explanation of the three “we” sections of Acts—the sections which begin at Chs. 16:10; 20:5, and 27:1, three points where the narrative suddenly changes from the third person “they” and “them” to the first person “we” and “us”. For the most natural explanation of the threefold transition is that the narrator is adopting this unobtrusive means of informing his readers: “At this point I joined the party and was present at the incidents which follow.”

The traditional account goes further, and names the author: he was Luke, referred to on a few occasions by Paul as one of his companions (cf.Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11), and described by him once as “the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). A careful examination of Col. 4:10–14 indicates that Luke was a Gentile Christian; and the general outlook of the narrative of Acts suggests a Greek author rather than a Jewish one. A document from the later part of the second century makes Luke a native of Antioch in Syria—a highly probable statement. Luke plays such an insignificant part by name in the New Testament that the ascription to him of the Third Gospel and Acts is not likely to have been invented. If the medical element in the vocabulary of the two books can no longer be used to prove that they were written by a physician, it certainly retains considerable illustrative value.

Major And Minor Themes

The author is specially interested in tracing the rise of Gentile Christianity: he tells first how the good news was brought from Jerusalem to Antioch, and then how the chief apostle to the Gentiles carried it throughout the chief provinces of the eastern Roman Empire; at last he brings him to Rome, and ends his narrative with the picture of Paul in the imperial city, a prisoner indeed, but carrying on his apostolic witness to all his visitors under the very eyes of the praetorian guard, without let or hindrance. This picture is the climax of his insistence throughout that Christianity is no threat to imperial law and order—that, in fact, responsible officials in various provinces of the Empire had acknowledged the legality of the Gospel itself and of its messengers. Acts was surely written at a time when this apologetic emphasis was necessary, and Theophilus was probably typical of the more thoughtful members of the Roman upper middle-class who could be trusted to give an unprejudiced hearing to an informed account of the rise and progress of Christianity, instead of accepting the popular misrepresentations.

But many would ask why the advance of Christianity had so regularly been attended by serious disorders, if it was such a law-abiding movement. Luke has his answer to this question: sometimes the Gospel threatened vested property interests, and therefore aroused the hostility of people like the owners of the fortune telling slave-girl at Philippi and the silversmiths of Ephesus; but more often the disorders were stirred up by the leaders of Jewish communities in the various places to which the Gospel came. They were unwilling to accept it themselves, and stirred up riots to try to prevent others from accepting too. So, alongside the major theme of the book, the progressive acceptance of the Gospel by Gentiles, there runs a minor theme, its progressive rejection by the bulk of the Jewish people. And if the major theme reaches its climax in Acts 28:30–31, the minor theme reaches its climax in the verses immediately preceding, where a prolonged disputation between Paul and the Roman Jews is concluded with his quotation of Isaiah 6:9–10 and his announcement that the Gentiles will receive the salvation which the Jews refuse.

The transition from the early days of the Jerusalem church to the Gospel’s forward movement is provided in Chs. 6 and 7 by the story of Stephen. Not only does this story introduce us for the first time to the young man Saul (Acts 7:58); not only did the persecution which followed Stephen’s death drive out many Christians from Jerusalem to carry the Gospel as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch (Acts 11:19); but the very character of Stephen’s distinctive ministry and the terms of his defence foreshadow the church’s Gentile mission. It is remarkable how many of the dominant themes of the New Testament find incipient expression in Stephen’s speech.

Dr. A. T. Pierson wrote a series of studies in Acts which he entitled The Acts of the Holy Spirit. This might well have been the title of the book itself. For the emphasis on the person and activity of the Holy Spirit is even more basic to the book than its apologetic insistence. Right at the beginning of the book, the risen Lord promises the baptism of the Spirit to His followers (Ch. 1:5, 8), and this promise is fulfilled for Jewish believers in Ch. 2, and for Gentile believers in Ch. 10. The apostles and other Christian leaders (like Stephen and Philip) not only preach in the power of the Spirit, but their movements are under His direction; they are witnesses to Christ, but the Spirit is the primary Witness, whose testimony confirms theirs (Acts 5:32).

Thus, in the ministry of Paul in particular, we find a noteworthy combination of the Spirit’s guidance with long-range strategic planning. And there is no suggestion that the two are incompatible. Even if Paul was making for Ephesus when the Spirit diverted him in Acts 16:6–7, the route which he was obliged to take was vindicated from the standpoint of long-term Christian strategy, for it meant that he evangelized the circumference of a circle running through the lands east and west of the Aegean Sea before he settled down for nearly three years in Ephesus, at the centre of that circle, and carried on a more effective campaign of evangelization than would have been possible at the earlier date.

The book may be divided into six sections: (1) The Birth of the Church (Chs. 1–5); (2) Persecution leads to Expansion (Chs. 6:1–9:31); (3) The Acts of Peter and the Beginnings of the Gentile Mission (Chs. 9:32–12:25); (4) Antioch becomes a Missionary Church (Chs. 13:1–16:5); (5) The Evangelization of the Aegean Shores (Chs. 16:6–19:41); (6) How Paul realized his Hope of seeing Rome (Chs. 20:1–28:31).

Tool For Exposition

As I write this, I survey a lengthy array of commentaries on my shelves, many of which I have found of great use in my own attempts to expound the Book of the Acts. The five encyclopaedic volumes entitled The Beginnings of Christianity, edited by Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake (Macmillan, 1920–33), are indispensable to the student, though the preacher who reads CHRISTIANITY TODAY will wish to replace its general liberal emphasis by something more positive. R. B. Rackham’s commentary, The Acts of the Apostles, published in the “Westminster Commentaries” in 1902, is still one of the best expositions of the English text. R. J. Knowling’s commentary on the Greek text in the “Expositor’s Greek Testament” (1900) remains a work of high value. A more homiletic treatment is provided in such works as The Preacher’s Homiletic Commentary: Acts, by Thomas Whitelaw (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1896), C. J. Vaughan, The Church of the First Days Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles (Macmillan, 1890), and G. Campbell Morgan, The Acts of the Apostles (recently reprinted). From another angle, the recent Lowell Lectures by Dr. Henry J. Cadbury, The Book of Acts in History (Harper, 1955), throw the light of the latest research on the historical worth of Acts, providing a worthy sequel to Sir William Ramsay’s St. Paul the Traveller (14th edition, London, 1920).

F. F. BRUCE

The Editors commend in addition to the commentaries mentioned above The Book of the Acts, by F. F. Bruce in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (1954). Not without cause the statement has been made: “The best major commentary on Acts that has appeared in the last fifty years.—EDS.

Cover Story

The Glass-Top Desk

Kermit Eby

After working for unions full time for twelve years and having studied them for an equal length of time, I have become convinced that the greatest threat unions face today is their corruption by the mores of the society that they once had expected to reform. May I hasten to add though, that there is nothing unique in labor’s defection. Organized religion is equally guilty of watering down its prophetic heritage.

Here illustration is better than argument. During the first weeks in June, I spent a day visiting my old union friends in the new A.F.L.-C.I.O. building in Washington, D. C. These were men with whom I had worked, employed and taught. When I entered their offices and the conversation had moved away from the conventional, each one in his own way apologized for the ostentation of the environment and ended by expressing a longing for the days of their youth when they marched and picketed and sang labor songs, instead of listening to the piped-in strains of the semiclassics.

Marks Of Distinction

And yet they are not seriously to be blamed. The workers in our culture who employ my friends, and elect their bosses, want it that way. Big offices, sleek secretaries, glass-topped desks, and black limousines are marks of success in our culture. And why, the workers ask, shouldn’t our men live as well as the bosses? “There is nothing too good for the workers the workers employ” may sound a bit cynical, but it is a deeply revealing statement. Perhaps there is no clearer statement of the point of view than that uttered by Delegate Andy Rapchok when he was arguing for a $40,000 a year salary for Walter Reuther (which incidentally was refused). “Now if we are going to be a bunch of cheapskates on this floor, how in h—do we expect the companies to give us concessions when we meet with them? The first thing they will throw back at us is ‘You don’t pay your leaders, but you want us to pay your men!’ If we are going to have leadership the same as the industrialists do, we should be men enough to pay as they do. I, too, say $40,000 spent right on down the line.” Incidentally, labor leaders are notoriously good speech makers!

Trend In Union And Church

But now, lest I seem too hard on the labor movement, may I hasten to add that I belong to a mortgage-free church that installed an air conditioner this summer at a total cost of $10,000 instead of hiring a director of religious education. The most charitable reason for the action is that the Board of Trustees wished to restore the atmosphere of the catacombs, which I understand were cool.

It is my unwillingness to accept this trend in unions and in churches which produces all the conflict in me. Perhaps because I am a sectarian, the son of generations of sectarians who were forever in tension with the mores of the world. Now it is my thesis that the labor movement and the church best serve their age when they are a transforming influence, when they are in tension with the political, economic, and moral values of their time, in tension, if you please, with both Republicans and Democrats, who, from my point of view, are so little different that to make a choice between them is of no significance.

Rise Of The Labor Giant

Now, from this point of view, let us look at one of the most significant events in labor’s recent history: the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Consolidation is the order of the day. Corporations are consolidating, and in order to match corporation strength unions must do likewise. The rationale for weight and counterweight is understandable, but from my sectarian point of view there is real tragedy in the fact that labor unity was possible. A tragedy because the A.F.L. and the C.I.O. were so much alike. The C.I.O. in twelve short years had become like the A.F.L., a bureaucratic organization more interested in maintaining the status quo than in challenging either the state or the economic order.

Of course, one of the avowed aims of the united movement is the organization of the unorganized. (Incidentally, there has been no appreciable gain in organizing labor’s ranks since the early forties, and last year saw more workers reject unions in Labor Board elections than in any previous year.) To state it bluntly, $125 per week organizers with expense accounts and driving Buick Roadmasters are not doing as good a job as the itinerants with a vision did in the thirties. But to churchmen this should not be news, for churchmen know that churches grow when they have a lay ministry and a congregation that tithes, sings, and testifies. To put the proposition clearly, then, in labor we have the decline of the local union, the proliferation of the giant international, the rise of the monolithic power structure and the denial of any concept of a loyal opposition that suggests a compromise of personal power or of immediate political success.

The Tension In Our Midst

Recently, I participated in two strike situations, the one directly, the other vicariously. The first was a strike of workers, members of the Carpenters and Joiners Union, against the Peabody school furniture factory in North Manchester, Indiana. If ever a group of men were the victims of paternalism and exploitation, these men were it. Our son, a senior in Manchester College, helped organize the union because he had worked in the plant, knew the men, and sympathized with them. While the strike was in progress, the Carpenters Union leaders gave the local union president and vice-president a chance to earn a little money washing their Buicks. Actually, there was little difference in the way of life of the union’s professionals and the corporation head. And it wasn’t that difference which influenced me to join my son on the picket line. It was instead, my identification with the oppressed and browbeaten in this Brethren stronghold where students discuss the strategies of Christian love in East-West tensions and have no answer to the tensions in their midst.

Then there was the steel strike, a strike by agreement, where factories closed and workers stayed home; where decisions were made in the stratosphere of a New York air-conditioned office between the giants of industry and union. Here there was no drama, not even the drama of pathos that existed in the North Manchester strike. Everything was impersonal. No loves and no hates, except official ones. And there really couldn’t be, for both management and labor were the children of the depersonalization of bigness.

It is because of this and many other previous experiences that I have formulated the question which haunts me more than any other: “How can we give meaning to our Judeo-Christian ethic in a society that is increasingly complex, with decisions ever farther removed from the persons affected by them?” Translated it means, can we maintain personal values in the “great society”? There are times, I confess, that I doubt it. But I continue trying just the same.

Moral Economic Choice

And my emphasis is largely in the area of economic choice, for I believe that our most significant moral choices are budgetary, both governmental and personal.

To be specific, the moral choice is not in the amount we spend, but for what we spend. For example, inflation for military purposes, in my way of thinking, is one thing; relief for the suffering of the world is another. Personal debt for the education of one’s children seems to me more justifiable than for a newer and bigger car.

It is because of this conviction that I tend to disagree with the drives of the powerful pressure groups in our compensatory state. (A compensatory state is one that rewards or withholds rewards from pressure groups in proportion to their power or lack of it.)

Beyond The One And The Many

It is the confusion of the private good with the public good in these organizations which troubles me. Or as I tell my students who would become experts for big business, big labor, or agriculture, “Go ahead, but if you want to survive don’t insist that there may be larger interests involved than business, labor, or agriculture.” Business wants the free market, but it wants subsidy and protection; labor wants freedom to bargain but it wants to bargain protected by a friendly government; and the farmer, we all know, produces our indispensables, food and fiber.

Most of us inside and outside of pressure groups are the victims of the thesis that the best way to serve the public interest is to serve the private interest. This I do not believe! By the very nature of their privateness such interests do not and cannot concern themselves with the larger whole.

Nor, as important as economic security is—and I joined the Teachers Union because I wanted books as well as hamburgers—do I believe that more is always the answer. For example, there is no positive correlation between the quality of teaching and the pay of teachers or the public responsibility of elected officials and their salaries.

Is More Always Ideal?

Thus, I belong to the school of thinkers inclined to ask who won the victory in the recent steel strike. What happened in those 36 days that made them necessary? Why was there such a general acceptance of the inevitable inflation that is the aftermath of all such strikes? (The price of steel is being raised $8.50 per ton as I write.) Perhaps it is an indication of my age, but I remember the days when people used to seriously suggest that the wage-price profit line should be held and that there were profoundly moral arguments for so doing. But now the escalator only goes up! I wish I could be convinced! Unconvinced, I ask, was the larger interest served? Were the steel workers’ interests served? For they will get a small share of the increased cost in wages, and the lion’s share will go to the corporation in increased profits. More, in other words, isn’t always the answer, even if Samuel Gompers affirmed it as labor’s goal.

The mood of America, however, is not a questioning one. We have peace and prosperity for practically everyone but farmers and automobile salesmen. All the mass media in America proclaim that paradise is just around the corner and will be attained when we all spend not only what we earn but a little bit more. The other day I read that 75 per cent of our spendable income, that in the $4,500 to $7,500 per year bracket, was all spent in the month it was earned, except for 21/2 per cent. The article didn’t say but implied that 100 per cent might be more ideal. Now as an unreconstructed individualist, I wonder what happens to a man who hasn’t enough of a reserve (say about one month’s wages) to walk into his boss’s office and tell him to drop dead.

Life By Monthly Installments

Here almost all Americans are in the same predicament, for they are all in debt—$36,000,000,000 in short-term loans. About $16,000,000,000 in automobiles alone. Averaged out, this is about $800 per family. Hence, Americans no longer think of saving to buy. Such thinking is obsolete. The question now is “Can I meet the payments?”

The worker is no different from all other Americans. His culture emphasizes the relation between “things” and happiness, and he wants to be happy. Furthermore, the American worker is not class-conscious. He believes that the middle-class way is his way, too.

At this point, I want to re-emphasize my thesis. The American labor movement has been (and is being) corrupted by the mores of the society it once would reform. And my conclusion is that society’s values will win, for there are not enough influences in our society to produce the counteracting trends.

Nevertheless, it is my ambition to continue working as if there were a possibility. In season and out of season, I challenge the labor movement to find alternatives to the stabilization of our production short of war and preparation for war. Here again I reflect my sectarian bias (Brethren-Mennonite) and am troubled when I read in the labor press that the Hudson-Packard workers have petitioned for defense orders to keep their jobs intact. And in the public press that Curtiss-Wright will stabilize Studebaker and South Bend with $100,000,000 of airplane (military) contracts. Somehow I wanted the labor movement to come up with alternative suggestions.

But why should they? The Democratic platform calls for more of the same. And the churches aren’t far behind

It is here that I finally left C.I.O. I could no longer accept the idea that I was contributing to the stabilization of employment through means that were so anachronistic. For example, arguing that the moral choices we make in economic decisions are centered in what the funds are used for, I persisted in asking why we couldn’t get more for foreign aid, for the hungry of the world, not to mention our own. Or more for slum clearance and parks and playgrounds. Even those who would debate these specific uses of money, or suggest alternatives, must feel the force of the argument.

I asked these questions always conscious that although certain Americans were poor compared to those above them in income, compared to their counterparts in the world they were rich. The Jericho road, I am told, is a tortuous one; it is a long one as well.

Leaven In The Lineup

Likewise, I persist in challenging the movement in every way I know on how to involve in it people who are idealistic enough to survive the resulting buffeting. And in season and out, I stress the structural and constitutional changes that would facilitate participation by union’s rank and file. At present, I have between thirty and forty students active in the labor movement. I don’t know if they will maintain the idealism I tried to indoctrinate them with, but even if they lost most of it, they will be a leaven in an increasingly secularized lineup. Frankly, I think democracy in a trade union is impossible without the tensions precipitated by ideological conflict, caucus, and party. (It is ironical indeed that only two international unions have contested elections, the one by constitutional provision, the other by ideological factions.) Likewise, I would place constitutional limitations on officeholders, and return all union officials to the ranks from which they rose. I believe that workers under such circumstances would be more inclined to participate, for they would be more consciously determining their destiny.

When I was Research and Educational Director of the C.I.O., our offices at C.I.O. were constantly being renovated. On one occasion all department heads were given glass-top desks. For some perverse reason I liked my old leather-topped one and insisted on keeping it, only to upset the building management. Their instructions were to increase the status of all department heads by one glass-topped desk. “It is awful to have an extra glass-topped desk,” I was informed, and didn’t I realize that my refusal to give up my old desk reflected on the entire C.I.O.? I didn’t and I don’t!

But from that day I was out of step!

Kermit Eby is Professor in the Division of Social Sciences, University of Chicago. After acquiring the A.B. degree from Manchester College, Mr. Eby, then a high school principal, pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1931. A minister in the Church of the Brethren, he served from 1945 to 1948 as Director of Education and Research for the C.I.O. He is a frequent contributor to national religious and labor publications

Cover Story

Preaching on the Edge of Desperation

Cary N. Weisiger Iii

Today’s busy minister is caught in an intense tug of war. He is stretched wire-taut. Forces at one end pull him into perpetual activity. He is a slave to the telephone, office appointment, committee meetings, workshop conferences, speaking engagements, and such parish obligations as weddings, funerals and church-night affairs. At the other end, often losing the battle, but retaining undeniable attraction, are his ideals for study, meditation, and pulpit work. He wants to preach well. He likes to preach. But when he steps into his pulpit, he feels woefully unprepared.

It may console the harassed prophet to remember that effective ministers have always been torn between clamant people and the need for quiet hours. Human hands were always clutching at Jesus. Cries of need were constantly coming to His ears. Our Lord had little seclusion.

A later century than the first affords similar witness. Augustine, in his Confessions (Book VI, Chapter III), recalls his vehement desire to speak with Ambrose. The prophet of Milan was so busy, however, with crowds of people and their infirmities that Augustine restrained himself from intruding upon Ambrose’s time for study. The young seeker marveled at the power of concentration in Ambrose who read to himself while people came and went in his study; Augustine therefore contented himself to hear the eloquent preacher on the Lord’s day. Evidently the fourth-century pastorate was no sinecure. Ambrose protected a small part of his time and energy, not by secretarial guardians nor by retreat to a dimly lit cubicle, but by sheer intentness in reading in the presence of people. Augustine does not say whether Ambrose ever knew urges of despair. This much we know: he managed somehow amid heavy pastoral burdens to maintain a distinguished pulpit ministry.

The Alternatives

What is a man to do?

Some men surrender their pulpit ideals. Preaching gets the leftovers. It is so easy to use someone else’s outline and to cull a few good illustrations from printed sermons. The sins of these men will find them out. Can a joyless parrot deceive anyone? Slovenly efforts will breed slovenly effects. A congregation may tolerate an amiable pastor but will have little respect for his utterances. From then on the refrain will be reiterated, “He is good as a pastor but he can’t preach.” Well, he could preach. But he has stopped trying.

A few men become pulpit specialists. Their people may resent it or may graciously make provision for it. These men have a firm “no” in their make-up. They refuse to be distracted from their one specialty. They may visit the sick when compelled to and may assume some rare committee obligation, but they are essentially lecturers and preachers.

The majority of ministers feel that they must be both men of activity and preachers with a message. They accept their fair share of parish, denominational, and civic chores. It’s part of the price. Besides, there is drudgery in every worthy occupation. But they fiercely refuse to compromise their pulpit standards. So they commit themselves to unending struggle and try, as Henry Ward Beecher once said, to “make an average.”

Interruptions Incessant

Ambrose never had a telephone.

What of this instrument—this blessed curse—and of the integrity of the parsonage and the church office? Should the minister’s wife follow the example of the woman who sweetly lied to protect her doctor husband when he needed rest? Perish the thought. If the minister is in, he is in. Of course, there are adroit protective devices. In a cathedral-like edifice in one of our cities, the minister has two sumptuous rooms. A former incumbent designated one his office and one his study. When he wished to be undisturbed, he went into the study. Telephone demands were then handled by his secretary: “I am sorry, Dr.—— is not in his office now. May I take a message?” Was this justifiable? Let each man work out his own salvation and be fully persuaded in his own mind.

Some congregations learn to be considerate.

Members call the church office and spare the parsonage unless the message is urgent. Most ministers will pray devoutly for an increase of their tribe.

There are times when God is clearly in the interruption. The neat plan for the day is not God’s plan. “As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth” (John 9:1). The casual chance! The unexpected opportunity! Men of God should be sensitive to the leadings of God. If God is Sovereign of our time, we must grant Him the right to break in when He wants to. As for trivial intrusion, we can only assign it to God’s permissive will for the development of patience.

Human Constants And Variables

However men may differ in their endowment, most of them need three meals a day and eight hours of rest. All require time for exercise and recreation and for their families. All will do better in the long run with some break in the weekly routine and a proper annual vacation. Those who cannot “sleep fast” and so manage on six hours of rest; those who claim no extraordinary gifts of facile mind, retentive memory, or exuberant energy can still aim at a balanced work day.

What remains is to redeem the “golden moments,” overcome the leakages of wasted effort, and in general have disciplined effort. Prompt early rising pays large dividends for the person who means to study and to carry to his pulpit the fruits of respectable toil.

When John Wesley sailed for Georgia, he and his companions adopted a work schedule that challenges us today. Although Wesley was still a child of the law and knew not the deliverance of the Gospel, he carried this discipline through life. His diary for Tuesday, October 21, 1735, records:

“We now began to be a little regular. Our common way of living was this:—From four in the morning till five, each of us used private prayer. From five to seven we read the Bible together, carefully comparing it (that we might not lean to our understandings) with the writings of the earliest ages. At seven we breakfasted. At eight were the public prayers. From nine to twelve I usually learned German, and Mr. Delamotte, Greek. My brother writ sermons, and Mr. Ingham instructed the children. At twelve we met to give an account to one another what we had done since our last meeting, and what we designed to do before our next. About one we dined. The time from dinner to four, we spent in reading to those whom each of us had taken in charge, or in speaking to them severally, as need required. At four were the Evening Prayers; when either the Second Lesson was explained, (as it always was in the morning) or the children were catechised, and instructed before the congregation. From five to six we again used private prayer. From six to seven I read in our cabin to two or three of the passengers, (of whom there were about eighty English on board) and each of my brethren to a few more in theirs. At seven I joined with the Germans in their public service, while Mr. Ingham was reading between the decks to as many as desired to hear. At eight we met again, to exhort and instruct one another. Between nine and ten we went to bed, where neither the roaring of the sea, nor the motion of the ship, could take away the refreshing sleep which God gave us.”

Dividing ministerial time into three parts for preaching, pastoring, and administering affairs, and making preaching the first among equals, should enable a man to have three to four hours a day somehow, somewhere, for study. Five or six days of this will give him about twenty golden hours a week.

The Resolve Invincible

Unless a seminary graduate expects to be a specialist in education, administration, or visitation in large churches, he must determine that his preaching be foundational in his ministry. Upon the declared word of God he stands and builds. If he thinks otherwise, let him re-examine his commission or if that will not convince him, let him listen to the conversations of pulpit Committees who are looking for a new man. Yes, they want a man who organizes, who visits, and who is “good with the young people.” But they also want strength and freshness and inspiration in the pulpit.

This means strenuous resolve to be the best preacher he can be. It means getting through many a hectic week and yet contriving to have a message from the Lord on Sunday that is thoughtful, interesting, and practical with some passion in it.

So he launches out into the deep, week after week. His venture is often desperate. Saturday night, unfortunately, may find him catching up. Early Sabbath morning a light may burn in his study. He may even go into the service with the ink wet upon his manuscript. But he is doing his best and trusting the Lord.

John Ellis Large, rector of the Church of the Heavenly Rest, New York City, in his Harper’s Lenten Book for 1954, Think on These Things, records this presermon petition given him by Canon B. I. Bell:

Dear Lord, this sermon of mine isn’t much good. But I’ve worked honestly on it and it’s the best I can do—at least at the moment. I know that any good that comes from my sermon will be Your doing, not mine. Please help me so live, that I may become an increasingly uncluttered channel of Your grace. To that end, may I think Your own thoughts after You, and speak Your own Word. I love You and I love these people, among whom I’ve been called. That’s that, God. Amen. So the preacher stands up to preach.

His very inadequacy is dedicated. His desperation makes him terribly in earnest. Somehow his message has unction. God’s Spirit moves speaker and listeners with power. There is conviction. Then when it is all over and the last person has left the sanctuary and the custodian is closing the doors and the spent servant of the Lord goes back to take off his garments of sacred office, he says to himself, “The Lord helped me, and next week I’ll do better.”

The Rev. Cary N. Weisiger III, D.D., is Minister of Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon, Pittsburgh. In a pastorate of 2,900 members, he carries the principal administrative responsibility, visits and counsels 20 to 35 people a week, and prepares three new messages weekly. He has four assistants: in evangelism, education, visitation and music.

Good Will Is No Mean Virtue

Eugenia Price

As long as Jesus Christ remained to me a legendary figure (or at best, a great man), the inevitable greeting on all white embossed Christmas cards with wisemen left me quite cold:

“Peace on earth … good will toward men!”

It sounded like a nice idea. But so vague and uninteresting to me that I marked off my list for next year every person who sent me a white embossed card with wisemen and the “good will” greeting. I marked them off because good will bored me. And so did the cards. I am not merely free to admit this now that I am a Christian and understand about Christmas. I would have told you then too, with no embarrassment whatever, that good will interested me not at all.

At least not a general good will toward all men.

Toward women either, for that matter.

From A Business Standpoint

I was an extremely “natural” minded individual before the year 1949 when I became a believer in Jesus Christ, and as far as I can see, general good will is just not a “natural” virtue. It is an excellent idea from a business standpoint and it is necessary for the few close friendships we care to protect. But for me (B.C.) good will was something as uninteresting and pale as those who sent the pale blue Christmas cards with white embossed “good will” and wisemen.

Mr. Webster defines the word virtue as a particular moral excellence. In my teens I learned that Plato identified what he called the four cardinal virtues and they bored me too. As I remember, Plato’s four cardinal virtues were: prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice.

Just words.

Words that I could well leave alone, except to make use of them when trying to raise the listener rating on one of the “soap opera classics” I happened to be writing script for at the time. Housewives, I soon learned, waxed adoring if the heroine had any one of Plato’s four cardinal virtues. Their adoration increased—raising my rating still another notch—if heroine Geraldine Graciousness possessed all four of Plato’s cardinal virtues plus a husband who had a mistress and a failing business!

Soap Flakes And Scripture

I made frequent use not only of Plato’s four virtues, but the twenty-third Psalm as well—quoted slowly and with courage (and an occasional mistake) by the actress playing Geraldine Graciousness for a little above union scale. Either extreme virtue or free use of the Scriptures caused the listener to listen and feel righteous along with Geraldine. I found that housewives loved to hear Scripture and to overhear “filter mike” telephone conversations intended only for the ears of Geraldine’s wayward husband and a hoped-for fifty million women who would buy some brand of soap flakes on the weekend shopping trip.

But virtues that appealed to Plato were merely tools to me as a writer of radio drama. So were the Scriptures. All words were merely tools and I used them with the callous abandon of a spoiled child. The spoiled child nor I cared little that the scars we made would last. Only that the tools were sharp and we had them to use.

If the words I used raised my listener rating and my paycheck, nothing else mattered. I had finished weeping over the adolescent longing to write greatly for a “posterity” I would never know and for which I cared not at all, and so I used words and virtues and hearts and Holy Scripture and broken homes to any advantage I pleased.

And of course, at Christmas time I incorporated in the “sponsors’ message” (which always had a “spiritual twist” and a “religious gimmick” at the close) all the Platonic virtues I could scrape up along with the old stand-by wisemen greeting about “good will.”

ANNOUNCER: (Using Most Poignant Pear-Shaped Tones) And now … to your house, at this Holy time of year … when all human hearts are turned toward Bethlehem, the native city of all virtue … comes the heart-deep wish from all of us here in the Geraldine Graciousness studio … and from our beloved sponsor, the makers of the original sparkling, sudsing, seething DOUBLE BUBBLE, the soap that loves your face … from all of us and from our sponsor, here is that heart-deep wish I started forty-seven seconds ago—(up) to all of you everywhere … “Peace on earth, good will toward men!”

MUSIC: Organ Up on “Hark the Herald Angels” On Phrase “God and sinners reconciled, etc.”

Words For Good Or Ill

You are reading this article in a Christian magazine. I am writing it with the same medium I employed for years to whet appetites for overrich foods, alcoholic beverages, illicit romance and gossip. I am writing it with the same medium I used to break hearts and damage reputations and avenge and amuse myself. The same words, being used by the same writer who piled them up for twelve years and then knocked them over into broken homes and innocent lives and was amused and gratified if the tears fell and the sparks flew and the hearts broke.

Characterization was always a dear delight to me. The more “realistic” the more I loved doing it. I knew, for example, that certain Christians back home listened to my day-time serials and I also suspected that they were praying for me. This infuriated me into one of my most “successful” characterizations. A middle-aged country woman, whose “fictitious” first name in my script was the same as one of the praying churchgoers at home, prayed ungrammatical prayers designed to leave the housewife first in tears and then laughter, because immediately following the “prayer” my character inevitably did something to make a donkey of herself socially.

The woman back home with the same first name kept listening and continued to pray for me, for which I thank God.

Some eleven years ago as I write this, in a West Coast city, another “fan” of mine did not know that I knew she listened regularly to the opus we are calling Geraldine Graciousness. And of course she didn’t know her niece in Chicago had told me that Auntie’s husband was not at all interested in being Auntie’s husband any longer. Personally I had always thought marriage very foolish and unwise and expensive to escape, so it amused me to build an entire sequence around this woman’s tragedy. Her home was broken up forever.

“Good will toward men.”

It bored me.

It was strange to me. I hadn’t much of it. Neither did many of the people I liked. Certainly we didn’t have it toward any but a very few who pleased us. I still believe this is true of most of the people in the world in whom Christ does not live. I didn’t know it was there then, but one fact in the Bible I did believe before I was converted to Jesus Christ. Now I know the Bible says “there is none righteous, no not one” simply because there is none righteous.

Invasion Of The Divine

And so, I wasn’t very unique in my old life. I was “natural.” And good will toward all men is a result of the invasion of the super-natural! A state of good intention with “heartiness and cheerful consent” toward all mankind, if Webster is correct. A state of heart so extraordinary as to be unheard of, except by those who have been hurled out into the place of joyful, utter despair with themselves where they are finally allowing Jesus Christ to be Himself in them!

I did not sit at my typewriter in the old days fancying myself as an evil woman with sole intent to wound. I was merely “natural” and therefore uninterested in good will. Except when it encouraged or abetted or entertained me in some way.

Even the dictionary calls Plato’s virtues “natural” and the Christian virtues “virtues infused by God.” To infuse means to pour into. God pours His own virtue and righteousness and love into us when we receive Christ. When He comes, He comes not just delivering a “spirit of good will” in a package, but He begins the very real process of forming His own wall in us!

When I received Him, He came being my good will. He came being my faith whereby I can lay hold of the stunning and glorious fact that when He died on Calvary the “old girl,” who drove word splinters into the hearts of unsuspecting people for the sheer fun of it, died too! My need to wound died when He died of His wounds crying loudly as He died, “It is finished! It is finished!” My need to hurt died with Him. My desire to hurt died with Him. And up from the grave of that co-crucifixion sprang a new and unfamiliar woman at whom I have come to wonder. A woman with my name who no longer wants to hurt. A woman who can do nothing of herself, but who has fallen under the influence of the One who did it all for her on a very rough, real Cross. Who has fallen under the transforming influence of this same One who has come to live His Life in her, since she received Him seven years ago.

The One who has become my righteousness. My virtue. My good will.

Good will is no mean virtue.

Good will pours out love and concern toward every lovely and unlovely person on earth. Good will is no Platonic virtue! It is “infused by God” when the Man-God Christ comes to live within.

I reach toward you with the same old words and great new good will at this Christmas time of year.

I can now.

Because Jesus Christ Himself is my good will.

For eleven years before her conversion to Christ in 1949, Eugenia Price wrote for network radio in both Chicago and New York. She closed her own production office to write and direct the Christian dramatic program Unshackled in 1950, then resigned in 1955 to release the transcribed radio series Visit with Genie. Miss Price is author of four books, Discoveries, The Burden Is Light, Never a Dull Moment and Early Will I Seek Thee.

Cover Story

Has England’s Glory Faded?

J. C. Pollock

Sixty years ago next summer Queen Victoria was celebrating her Diamond Jubilee. In the sixty years of her reign, England had risen to the height of glory and her influence was predominant in the world. “The Kings must come down an’ the Emperors frown When the Widow at Windsor says ‘Stop’!” wrote Kipling, and it was true.

Take’old o’ the Wings o’ the Mornin’,
An’ flop round the earth till you’re dead;
But you won’t get away from the tune that they play
To the bloomin’ old rag over’ead.

Kipling’s soldier might be saddened to-day. Almost every year sees the Union, Jack hauled down as yet another territory, with the fullest good will and cooperation of Britain, secures independence. Nor may the Queen say “Stop!” to Emperors or Kings (or their successors) without the consent of great powers to the West or even to the East.

Does this mean that England is no longer a great power herself? Five or six years ago, when the country was emerging from the aftermath of war, many in Britain and abroad supposed our day to be done. The Golden Century of England had followed the Napoleonic glories of France and the Golden Century of Spain into the dead pages of history books. Today, however, many realize that our greatest days can lie ahead. England may still be a world leader; and her leadership will be a moral leadership.

Center Of The Commonwealth

Britain remains the center of the Commonwealth of Nations. She is not the political leader of the Commonwealth any more than the Queen is the Sovereign of every member; Britain’s leadership is no longer by virtue of superior wealth or talent. But the free nations of the Commonwealth still look to England as the moral head of their community. British traditions—the British conception of justice, her parliamentary system, the ideal of integrity in government service, the sense of stewardship for minorities or dependents—are so ingrained in the Commonwealth countries that Britain continues the uniting factor; her moral leadership is unquestioned. And because of these things also British prestige throughout the world remains out of all proportion to her wealth or strength.

Whether this will endure is in the balance. If we are living on the moral capital of the past, our leadership will decline. But if England preserves and extends its right to be known as a repository of all that is best in ideals and character, our influence may yet expand to its greatest extent, to the blessing of the world.

State Of Moral Flux

Whether we shall grow or decline depends on England’s own moral outlook. And this is in a state of flux.

On the one hand we have the Welfare State, an unselfish structure that has almost eradicated poverty. On the other we have the Wages Grab, a selfish and short-sighted trend rooted in the doctrine of every man (or group) for himself. Again, the qualities that made England great—faith, honesty, loyalty—which in the nineteen-thirties were laughed at as archaic, are now respected. Yet dishonesty is rife. Sunday is secularized. The divorce rate is high. Voluntary service in leisure time is more the exception than the rule.

The key to our moral progress or decline, on which so much depends, is in the national attitude to Christianity. And that attitude is also in a state of flux. England may be on the verge of a national revival of religion; or this revival may bypass us.

Progress Of Christianity

There can be no doubt that Christianity has made great progress in England during the past eleven years. The signs of a widespread swing back to faith are too obvious to ignore.

The First World War did more harm to religion than any other episode of modern times. It broke down the structure of churchgoing and Christian ethics, which looked so imposing but beneath the surface had been slowly eaten away. In the twenties and thirties religion was at a discount; to believe was old fashioned; to adhere to Christian principles was prudish. The Second World War jolted us back from the paganism into which we were slipping. But it left thousands in a vacuum. They had not been sent to Sunday School and they were not accustomed to churchgoing. Few of them had heard the Christian Gospel preached with assurance. They were seeking security and a satisfying faith but knew not where to find it.

Since 1945 the theologians have returned to the Bible. By and large, they once again gauge and mould their theories by the Scriptures instead of trimming the Scriptures to fit their theories. These words “sin,” “atonement,” “conversion,” “evangelism,” so unfashionable twenty years ago, are now on every cleric’s lips, though not always with the same meanings. The churches are filling and young people especially are in the pews in great numbers. Children’s work is extending rapidly, while in the universities religion is one of the foremost loyalties among students, whose elder brothers before the war would have been almost ashamed to be seen inside a church.

Harringay A Turning Point

The coming of Dr. Billy Graham to London in 1954 marked a turning point. The great response proved the hunger among all classes for a firm presentation of a gospel which had the ring of truth and which transformed lives. Harringay made the Christian faith once more a topic of conversation, and brought the whole subject out of sentimental and respectable seclusion into the glare of publicity and the arena of common life. None would have believed, a few months earlier, that twelve thousand people each night would listen to a forty-minute sermon, or that London tube trains could be filled with reverent, unembarrassed hymn singing.

The Crusades gave Great Britain a new vision of the place of the laity in Christian work. The counseling system was new. It has now become part of the life of every vigorous, evangelistically minded church. We have seen that the laymen, who used largely to be limited to distributing hymnbooks in church or organizing sales of work, must be the rank and file of evangelizing. They are ready to submit to training and, once trained, can undertake, proportionately, as effective a service in prayer or personal work as any fulltime minister.

Secondly, we have for the first time realized that mass evangelism must mesh with the ministry of the local churches. In the bleak days between the wars evangelism was related to the continuing life of the churches so loosely that the impact of a campaign was negligible. The Crusade movement—introduced from America but now made our own—has moved the climax of mission work from the appeal to the counseling room, and from the counseling room to the pastoral contact of the local church. Thus, when a church has known how to use its opportunities there have been corporate growth and mature individual faith for many who in a secularized society were searching blindly for the truth.

Tawdry Disparagement

If this were all, national revival might be round the corner. Unfortunately, however, in England we like to snap at the heels of our saviours, whether in politics, war or religion. Certain religious leaders have gone out of their way to denigrate the evangelistic forces on which so much depends. In particular they have resurrected the label “Fundamentalist.” In England “Fundamentalist” is commonly held to denote a man or movement whose Christian outlook may be worthy but is intellectually dangerous. To call a man a fundamentalist is to brand him obscurantist or puerile—the cheapest way to dismiss him. This label, scarcely heard for twenty years, is now fastened on any, however scholarly or discriminating, who whole-heartedly and reverently accept the Bible as God’s Word and use it authoritatively as “the sword of the Spirit.”

This labeling (Americans might call it a smear campaign) is a hindrance to the furtherance of the Gospel. It can stifle serious study among men and women within the churches and exasperate and deflect those without. If the return to Christ is to gather momentum and become nation-wide, all leaders in the Church of England and the Free Churches, whatever their own cherished views on the Bible, on the Atonement and on conversion, must let the evangelistic movements of our time have fullest scope. They already owe them a great deal.

Important Tasks Ahead

Much remains to be done. Though the swing back to faith touches every class there are areas where little progress has been made. In certain regions of heavy industry, for instance, the material prosperity of the workers has increased greatly, but the attitude to Christianity is conditioned by the cheap popular science of the early thirties. At the opposite end of the scale, many rural districts also live in the past, seeking to hold church and parson to a traditional (and now rather sub-Christian) role in the life of the parish. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the whole organization of the Church in rural districts needs reconstruction. Not until the rising tide of faith flows into these areas, the heart of England, may revival be said to have truly arrived.

Advance must continue on lines already shown since the war. The layman, the ordinary humdrum Christian of any denomination, must be the spearhead of advance, passing on his discovery of personal faith and, like John the Baptist in John 1, awakening a sense of need, pointing out Christ as the Sinbearer and introducing his acquaintances to Christ’s personal friendship.

Secret Of Christian Unity

Co-operation between the churches must continue to increase, not by seeking common formulas, or, as yet in England, formal union, but as it has done in recent years—by devotion to a common evangelistic cause in the power of the Holy Spirit. True unity will not arise from an attempt to further it but from a mutual passion for the lost.

Missionary consciousness is lacking on a wide scale, and as a nation we are deficient in a sense of the stewardship of money. Not until men and supplies are flowing out from our shores as freely as seventy years ago can we talk of revival as a reality. And we must again become a people of the Book. Bible knowledge, which was a national characteristic two generations ago, is only slowly being recovered. Our grandfathers were steeped in the Scriptures, which shaped their characters and moulded their outlook and made the British character what it was.

At the root of it all England must take her stand squarely on the basic doctrines of her faith—God’s revelation, man’s need as a sinner, Christ’s death as a Savior, the new birth, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The heart of the matter is the personal friendship of the ordinary man or woman with Jesus Christ.

New Prestige And Glory

And what, if personal faith once again becomes a normal and expected feature of English life, will be the result? A new morality—without the little hypocrisies and pharisaisms that too often marred the Christianity of the Victorians. A new prestige, as a nation standing for the highest and best. And glory.

At the time of the Diamond Jubilee, England sent, year by year, many of her sons across the seas. They could be found wherever “our banner of England flew.” They drained swamps and turned deserts into cultivated fields. They administered justice under Indian trees and in African kraals with the hot sun overhead. Unarmed young men made warring tribes lay aside their weapons and trade in peace. Roads were driven across the wilderness and rivers dredged. Those whom they served often abused them, but at heart loved them; and they knew it and were content.

The day of the Empire builder is gone. His task is done and the free nations of the Commonwealth take their place beside us. But we may still send our sons from our shores—not as Empire builders but as World Church builders, in humble partnership with national Christians in Asia and Africa, serving the younger churches in their need.

And if we do, then England’s glory will be enhanced, with the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ.

The Rev. J. C. Pollock, M.A., is Rector of Horsington, Somerset, England, and Editor of The Churchman, a quarterly journal of Anglican theology. Born in 1923, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. During World War II he served in the Coldstream Guards. He is author of The Cambridge Seven and three other books; his next, The Road to Glory, the story of the distinguished Christian general Havelock of Lucknow, will be published in 1957.

We Quote:

STANLEY HIGH

Senior Editor, READER’S DIGEST; Currently Author of his Ninth Book

Whether or not Billy Graham proves to be the human instrument of revival in our time, one thing, I think, is certain: such a revival will come from the preaching of no other or no lesser Gospel .—Billy Graham (published September, 1956).

Cover Story

Nativity Theme in English Poetry

Calvin D. Linton

Christianity Today December 10, 1956

It is not reasonable to suppose that man will ever, in his highest artistic striving, approach the divine harmony, the majestic melody, which burst from the night sky upon the awestruck shepherds that night two thousand years ago. But probably no other religious theme has so often inspired artistic creation as this eternal one of the First Advent of the mighty Son of God. It is the golden thread among the browns and crimsons, the blues and greens of the merely earthly scene, a thread which, in English letters, runs from the earliest expression of Anglo-Saxon religious fervor to the intellectually taut, dry lines of W. H. Auden’s After Christmas. In between these two artistic and chronological extremes lies a great bulk of lyrics, dramas, epics, odes, each reflecting the temper and spirit of its own day.

Light in the Gloom

For the pagan Anglo-Saxon, the chief significance of the Christian message was that it shed light in the stern and gloomy atmosphere of pagan ignorance. Many readers will no doubt recall the famous passage in Bede’s eighth-century Latin Ecclesiastical History, in which he describes the introduction of Christianity into Northumbria. King Edwin had called a council of the chief men of the kingdom to hear the strange news, and one of the eldest spoke: “The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and retainers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.”

The instinctive reverence in the Anglo-Saxon temperament for the Hero, the Conqueror, found its perfect outlet in the story of the Divine Victor over the powers of darkness and hell. As the Beowulf poet records with solemn triumph: “The truth is made known, that the mighty God has always wielded the affairs of mankind. The Holy God, the Wise Lord, decided war victory; the ruler of the heavens decided it aright.”

Even the more melodic and more sensuous poem called Christ, believed by many to be the creation of the great poet Cynewulf, has a tone of dignity and high seriousness. The fragment is incomplete, and the first words are the last of an incomplete sentence: “… to the king. Thou art the cornerstone, which the builders rejected from the work. It befits thee well that thou shouldst be head of the glorious temple, and frame the wide walls, the unbreakable flint, with firm joint, so that all things with gazing eyes … may marvel forever at the Lord of Glory.”

And he puts words of vision and grandeur, not merely those of gentle, maternal care, in the mouth of Mary, who is made to say: “What is the amazement with which ye wonder, and sorrowing lament with grief? Ask ye in curiosity how I have kept my maidenhood and yet become the mother of the glorious Son of God? Wherefore that hidden thing is not revealed to men, but Christ made known in David’s dear kinswoman that Eve’s sin is all done away, the curse cast off and womanhood exalted. O rising Sun, most radiant of beings sent to men upon earth and true beam of the sun bright beyond the stars … the mighty Child of the Lord doth dwell together in concord among men. Wherefore we can ever utter thanks to the Lord of victory for his deeds, because he was pleased to send us himself.”

The Intimate and Tender

Turning to the Middle Ages, we are overwhelmed by the sheer bulk of religious works, including numberless treatments of the Nativity story. Although the Norman invasion snuffed out the unique, stark grandeur of Old English literature for several centuries, there was available all the richness and subtlety of the French tongue and of European culture to draw upon.

Outstandingly, one finds that medieval Nativity poems deal with the more intimate and tender aspects of the Bethlehem scene. The Infant King is more the Babe in his mother’s arms now, less the Mighty Conqueror of the dark powers. From among hundreds of lyrics, one may be selected to give a hint of the gentle simplicity and the artful directness of the best poems. One must not be deceived by what seems to be naivete, for it is rather a directness of vision which transcends the clutter of the fragmentary and has fixed its gaze upon the One who embraces the many. I quote only a fragment; and, at a loss of some of the original flavor, I have modernized some of the vocabulary. The poem dates about 1450, and is usually titled “I Sing of a Maiden.”

I sing of a maiden that is matchless. King of kings as her Son she chose.
He came as still where His Mother was as dew in April that falleth on the grass.
He came as still to His Mother’s bower as dew in April that falleth upon the flower.
He came as still where His Mother lay as dew in April that falleth on the spray.
Mother and Maiden was never—none but she; well may such a lady God’s Mother be.

Redirected Ardor

As we get into the sweep of the Renaissance, religious verse diminishes in quantity, though not in quality. But the ardor which had been devoted to Mary is redirected toward more mundane ladies, and the spirit of classical paganism bursts out in the Elizabethan splendor of such works as Marlowe’s Hero and Leonder and Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. (Indeed, in the next century, the saintly George Herbert asks whether the poet has forever resolved to devote his verse to mere earthly love; is there no more “heat toward God”?) Again, from among endless profusion, I pick one poem, this time a very strange and powerful one: “The Burning Babe,” by Robert Southwell, written about 1593.

As I in winter’s night stood shivering in the snow
Surprised I was by sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear.
“Alas,” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I lie,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My fauldless breast the furnace is, the fuel, wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sights the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls.”
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrank away—
And straight, I called unto mind that it was Christmas Day.

Then the youthful exuberance of the Renaissance passed into the maturity of the 17th century, and the Puritan movement built a great, gaunt cathedral of religious verse, scores of poems celebrating the Nativity, now viewed with renewed faith and with renewed emphasis on the Babe rather than His mother. The variety is endless, both within and without the Puritan impulse. There is Ben Jonson’s tender, classically polished lyric called “A Hymn on the Nativity of My Saviour”; Crashaw’s charged, hotly passionate and sensuous poem, “In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord God,” with its lovely quatrain:

Gloomy night embraced the place
Where the noble Infant lay;
The Babe looked up and showed His face—
In spite of darkness, it was day!

Grandeur and Sweep

But set apart from all other efforts in the 17th century is the grandeur and sweep of Milton’s mighty “Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” probably (almost undoubtedly) the greatest of all English poems on the subject. Again, only an illustrative fragment—but if you have not recently re-read the entire poem, by all means do so. Listen at least to the organ roll of the beginning:

This is the Month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav’ns eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That He our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,
Wherewith He wont at Heav’ns high Council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,
Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Once more, notice, the emphasis is on the majesty and kingliness of the Babe, and the poem ends, you will recall, with awed eyes raised to the encompassing circle of the night sky, where, unseen by men, there stand rank on rank of glorious angels mounting watch over their King.

The Modern Temper

Turning to the modern period, we may choose almost at random for an illustration of the 20th-century temper. Because W. H. Auden so skillfully sets the tone of modern coldness and skepticism over against the titanic implications of the Nativity, I have chosen to use a few lines from his ironic poem, “After Christmas.”

In a deliberately colloquial, under-charged tone, Auden sets the smallness of modern Christmas celebrations, with their commercialism, their raucous songs and their vulgarity side by side with hints of the real and lost meaning of the event. It begins:

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes—
Some have got broken—and carrying them up to the attic.
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed once again
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.

The indirectness, the studied casualness of Auden’s poem stands in marked contrast to Eliot’s abstract, subtle, philosophical handling of the great theme of Incarnation in The Four Quartets. And both are utterly different from Edith Sitwell’s booming, powerful music.

But we end where we began: no words composed by men have the magic simplicity, the innate grandeur of those lines which begin: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.…”

Calvin D. Linton, A.M., Ph.D., is associate dean of Columbian College and professor of English Literature at George Washington University in the District of Columbia. He has written numerous articles in the literary field, particularly in the area of Elizabethan drama. In February he leaves to visit the libraries of Great Britain for research in 17th century Puritan concepts of freedom.

Cover Story

Incarnation: Fact or Theory?

Gordon H. Clark

Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of the Virgin’s womb: Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail the Incarnate Deity.

With these words, at this time of the year, grateful groups of believers sing the Good News and praise God for the gift of His Son. But can we really believe that God has come in human form? Is it not incredible? Of course, we may be so familiar with the Christmas theme that we sing the words thoughtlessly. The inspiring music also distracts from the sense of the words. And it is a season of happiness. So our minds are dulled to the intellectual content of the hymn. But let us stop and think. Incarnate Deity! Is it possible that God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, should have come at a particular time in history to a particular spot in geography and dwelt in the flesh of an infant boy? Astounding!

Virgin Birth Unessential?

Under the impact of the scientific and philosophic difficulty of believing so stupendous a story, attempts have been made through the last fifty years to alleviate the situation by distinguishing between the Incarnation and the Virgin Birth. It is obvious that without the Incarnation, or at least without an incarnation of some sort, there could be no Christianity whatever. But the Virgin Birth is an unacceptable biological miracle, which fortunately is unessential. For such reasons, it was claimed, the religious value of Christianity could be preserved and all scientific difficulties avoided by accepting the one and dropping the other. Candidates for ordination, therefore, professed belief in the Incarnation, but found themselves “unable to affirm” the Virgin Birth.

The motivation was scientific. From Galileo to Newton to the dawn of the twentieth century, inviolable mechanical law had extended its sway until no room was left in the universe for miracles. Today, however, the scientific situation is noticeably altered. The philosophy of mechanism is at least in retreat. Not only do some scientists talk unashamedly of in determinacy (though it does not follow that a Christian ought to accept Heisenberg), but the laws of some ordinary phenomena, such as light, are in a state of confusion. It can no longer be maintained that science arrives at fixed truth; its results are subject to constant revision. Therefore neither the science of 1900 nor the science of 1950 can be taken as the infallible criterion of the possibility of miracles. When the universe was considered to be a machine, tinkering with it implied a defect in the Divine tinkerer. Thus miracles were made impossible. But if the relation of God to the universe is not that of an inventor to a machine, but that of a Father providing for His children, we may cut short an incipient discussion of scientific law by simply asking, Is not God omnipotent and can He not manipulate His own creation?

Nevertheless, one may abstractly admit God’s omnipotence and still doubt the Virgin Birth. Perhaps this miracle is not absolutely impossible; but yet, true miracles are at least rare, false miracles are less so, the whole matter is embarrassing, and fortunately the Virgin Birth is not essential. The Incarnation is what counts. Thus there still remains from nineteenth-century science a hangover of antipathy toward the Virgin Birth. Just after last Christmas, in Time (January 2, 1956, p. 34) there was reported an attack on the Virgin Birth, which Time itself considered sarcastic. Among the objections was mentioned the thesis that for John and Paul “the virgin birth was not dignified enough to mention.” Ignoring the tone of the attack, one may seriously ask where the writer obtained his information that John or Paul did not think the Virgin Birth dignified. Has he some special insight into their motives? Note also that John does not mention Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, and Paul has nothing to say about the feeding of the five thousand and the triumphal entry. Does this silence mean that these events are not dignified enough to mention? Does it cast even the least doubt on their occurrence? Clearly this type of argument is invalid.

There are other authors, however, less sarcastic than the gentleman mentioned in Time, who also insist that the Virgin Birth is either untrue or unessential. Yet their arguments are no better. Rudolph Bultmann, for all his reputed scholarship, relies on the same argument from silence (Theology of the New Testament, Scribner, New York, 1951, Vol. I, pp. 50, 131), asserting further and without evidence that the early Church knew nothing about it. He also claims, showing no acquaintance with the detailed investigations of J. Gresham Machen (The Virgin Birth of Christ, Harper, New York, 1932), that later Christians appropriated virgin birth mythologies from Babylon and Egypt.

Or, if one should avoid a dogmatic denial of the Virgin Birth, John Mackintosh Shaw of Queen’s College, Ontario (Christian Doctrine, Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 153n.) more modestly claims that the Virgin Birth is unessential. Yet those who make this claim fail to avoid ambiguous language.

Essential To What?

When it is said that the Virgin Birth is not essential, one must ask, essential to what? Is it meant that belief in the Virgin Birth is not essential to ordination? Or do some writers mean that this belief is not essential to personal salvation? With the thief on the cross in mind, the most orthodox Christian would have no hesitation in admitting that the Virgin Birth is unessential in this respect, though he might well suppose that candidates for ordination should meet higher requirements.

Professor Shaw, though he would probably remove belief in the Virgin Birth from the ordination requirements, has other matters in view; but what precisely they are, he does not quite succeed in making clear. He writes, “There is no basis in the Gospel records or in the New Testament generally for making this belief an essential or [a] necessary part of our Christian faith.” Does this mean that it is not essential to salvation? Emphasis on the word our could lead to such an interpretation. But the context rather suggests another, a third meaning, of the term “essential.” Professor Shaw seems to mean that the Virgin Birth is not essential to the Christian faith; i.e., not essential to the system of Christian truth, not essential to God’s plan of redemption. Since frequently such writers do not seem to have considered these three possible references of the word “essential,” their language is confusing.

What Is The Criterion?

Whether one or all of the three meanings are intended, a careful thinker would like to know the criterion by which one distinguishes the essential from the unessential. Both Professor Shaw and the gendleman in Time seem to depend mainly on the silence of the New Testament outside of Matthew and Luke. Now, if there are only eighteen verses on the Virgin Birth, as Professor Shaw indicates, is eighteen too small a number to make a doctrine essential—essential to ordination—essential to Christian truth—essential to God’s plan? At least in the last meaning, could not one hold that Joash’s escape from Athalia’s massacre, recounted in two verses of II Kings and two verses of II Chronicles, was essential to God’s plan? How then decide what is essential to ordination?

Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Professor Shaw—and all the more so, Emil Brunner—selects the verse “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” as essential. In fact, Brunner seems at times to regard this as the only place in the whole Bible where God has spoken; but how can the selection of this one verse be consistent with the rejection of eighteen others? Now, of course, Professor Shaw, and even Brunner himself at other times, may not be so extreme; but Shaw gives nothing except his own asseverations and personal preferences as a basis for his conclusion. And when he further says, “there is no warrant … in the historic creeds of the Church for tying up belief in the fact of the Incarnation necessarily or indissolubly with assent to a certain theory of the method of the fact,” one wonders whether he has forgotten the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed, not to mention the Westminster Confession.

Theory Versus Fact

This last quotation refers to the Incarnation as a fact and to the Virgin Birth as a theory. The source of this distinction between theory and fact, or at least a widely publicized example of it, is the so-called Auburn Affirmation. This document, published in 1924, declares that the inerrancy of the Scripture has neither biblical nor confessional foundation, impairs the authority of the Scripture and weakens the testimony of the Church. In addition, while stating that the Incarnation is a fact, the Affirmation describes the Virgin Birth as a theory. Other doctrines also are represented as theories rather than as facts. These theories are not the only permissible theories, and “all who hold to these facts and doctrines, whatever theories they may employ to explain them, are worthy of all confidence and fellowship.”

Two Decades Of Debate

Throughout the past twenty years the issues thus posed have stimulated theological literature and debate.

Consider the article written by A. H. Baldinger in The United Presbyterian of January 31, 1955. Dr. Baldinger is impressed by the Affirmationists’ statement printed in bold type, “We all hold most earnestly to these great facts and doctrines.…” Unwilling through the goodness of his heart to put any sinister interpretation on these words, Dr. Baldinger is satisfied with this declaration. And so might any careless reader, distracted by bold type, be satisfied. The document gives the appearance of accepting the matters under discussion. But when the wording is more closely examined, it will be seen that the antecedent reference has been altered. “These facts and doctrines” are not the doctrines in debate. Instead of the infallibility of Scripture, there has been substituted an undefined reference to inspiration; and the Virgin Birth has been replaced with the Incarnation. This may be an acceptance of the Incarnation as a fact and a doctrine, but there is complete indifference to the Virgin Birth, or any “theory” that may be used to explain this “fact.”

An understanding of this situation demands an answer to the question, What is a fact? Is a fact something true and a theory something false? This cannot quite be the meaning; the document can hardly intend to say that all theories are false. What then does it mean? Does it use “fact” in the sense of an historical event and “theory” in the sense of a general or an abstract principle? This understanding would not lend coherence to the view, since obviously the Virgin Birth is not a general principle. If, of the two, one must be designated a fact and the other a theory, would not the better linguistic usage make the Incarnation a theory to explain the fact of the Virgin Birth rather that the Virgin Birth a theory to explain the fact of the Incarnation?

What Is The Alternative?

Further, if the opponents of the Virgin Birth wish to call it one of several permissible theories, would they care to specify what the other theories are? Presumably some would suggest that Joseph was the natural father of Jesus; but this is precisely what both Joseph and Mary deny. Could Joseph and Mary have invented such a lie? To avoid this suggestion, it would no doubt be necessary to regard Matthew and Luke as untrustworthy: more of this in a moment. There is also the theory that Mary gave herself to some Roman soldier. This shocking notion apparently satisfies the specifications of the document, for it states that ministers are “worthy of all confidence and fellowship,” “whatever theories they may employ to explain” these facts and doctrines. In this way the position is defended that belief in the Virgin Birth is not essential to ordination.

Incarnation Also Incredible?

Now, what if Matthew and Luke are untrustworthy? Suppose they just improvised the story of Jesus’ birth, shepherds, angels and eastern Magi. Such was the view of Bruno Bauer. But if this is the case, what reason has anyone for believing in the Incarnation while rejecting the Virgin Birth? In both Gospels the two are inseparable parts of one account. Why then should one strand of the account be thought trustworthy and the other not? Why call the Incarnation a fact and the Virgin Birth a [scarcely] permissible theory? They are both from the same source. Would it be more difficult for a historian like Luke to ascertain the fact of the Virgin Birth than the theory of the Incarnation? On the assumption that the Virgin Birth was an actual event, it seems to present far less difficulty to the historian. Or, is it the assumption, not to be brought into question in this scientific age, that the Virgin Birth could not possibly have occurred? But the Incarnation is just as miraculous, just as scientifically impossible, as the Virgin Birth. Indeed, what with all sorts of biological surprises, a virgin birth seems even less impossible than the incarnation of Deity in human flesh. Has God actually become man? Incredible!

But both doctrines come from the same source. And it is the only source. If Paul and John are silent, at least every New Testament writer who mentions Jesus’ infancy at all insists on the Virgin Birth. Why then should a Christian believe the greater miracle and stumble at the lesser? The infidel who rejects both is at least consistent. The orthodox Christian who accepts both is consistent. But what can be said of the logic of one who tries to hold to an Incarnation without the Virgin Birth?

Late in time behold Him come,
Offspring of the Virgin’s womb:
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the Incarnate Deity.

Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D., is in the front rank of evangelical philosophers today. He is Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Butler University, Indianapolis. His publications include A Christian View of Men and Things, A Christian Philosophy of Education, and Readings in Ethics, which he co-authored with Dr. T. V. Smith. His comprehensive survey of the history of philosophy, Thales to Dewey, will be published in January by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Review of Current Religious Thought: November 26, 1956

G. C. Berkouwer

The present day stream of literature in Europe dealing with religious and theological questions is best described as overwhelming. It appears that almost all the questions of the previous era are again being considered; also those that were given little attention by the past generation.

Restricting ourselves on this occasion to the dogmatical literature, we refer first of all to newly published dogmatical works such as: Werner Elert (Lutheran), Der Christliche Glaube, 1940; P. Althaus (Lutheran), Die Christliche Wahrheit, 1948; Th. L. Haitjema, Dogmatiek als Apologie, 1948; H. Vogel, Gott in Christo (1000 pages); O. Weber, Grundlagen der Dogmatik, Vol. 1, 1954 (a second volume will follow); H. Diem, Dogmatik, Ihr Weg zwischen Historismns und Existentialismus, 1955. In addition, not to mention more, two volumes of Barth’s Kirchliche Dogmatik (IV, 1 and IV, 2) appeared in 1953 and 1955.

¶ Alongside the Protestant activity there is a profuse stream of Roman Catholic dogmatical publications, some dealing only with particular subjects, some covering the whole field. Important particular studies are those of W. Stahlin, Allein. Reckt und Gefahr einer polemischen Formel, 1950 (dealing with the “sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide” doctrines); and M. Lackmann, Sola Fide, Eine exegetische studie uber Jacobus 2 zur reformatorischen Rechtfertigungslehre, 1949. With respect to comprehensive Roman Catholic dogmatical works, a dogmatics (succeeding the old works of Scheeben, Pohle, Bartmann and Diekamp) is in the process of being published by Michael Schmaus, whose pen has already produced the volume on Mariology (1955).

In the Netherlands the beginning of a new dogmatics by P. Schoonenberg has been published under the title: Het Geloof van ons Doopsel (Vol. I, 1955; II, 1956). This is an important contribution because Schoonenberg is one of the most brilliant representatives of the so-called “New Theology,” a movement which arose in France about 1942 and which is letting itself be heard at the present time. This movement has given a different version of the relation between nature and grace than that found in the traditional Roman Catholic theology, as well as a trenchant analysis of the influence of philosophy on scholastic thought. Without speaking of a radical revolution, one can say that through this “New Theology” the controversy between Rome and the Reformation has taken on new aspects, especially since the criticism made by the Reformation was narrowly connected with the dualistic Roman Catholic vision of the relation of nature and grace. An important point in the discussions is the evaluation of the already famous papal encyclical of 1950 (Humani Generis), in which the new streams of irenism and existentialism were rejected, but in which also a warning was sounded against a relativizing of dogma and an underestimation of the significance of Thomas Aquinas. In spite of the fact that many were of the opinion that the “New Theology” was condemned by this encyclical, the representatives of this theology, through many publications, are playing a very important role in current discussions. We see in this movement one of the important phases of contemporary Roman Catholic thought.

¶ In addition to the literature concerning “Humani Generis” and the “New Theology”, the fixation of the Marian dogma of 1950 (the assumption of Mary) has received special attention. The interest here undoubtedly centers around an infallible proclamation (ex cathedra) because it is declared that whoever denies or doubts this dogma “has totally fallen away from the divine and catholic faith.” A very orientating study has been published by F. Heiler: Das neue Mariendogma im Lichte der Geschichte und im Urteil der Oekumene, 1951. It contains the views of many scholars with respect to this new dogma, including, among others, that of B. E. Mascall (Anglo-Catholic). From all sorts of angles the question is discussed as to the deepest meaning of this new dogma concerning Mary. It appears very clearly that the intention is not to deify Mary. The interest turns rather on the share that Mary (as creature) has in the redemptive work. In this light the Marian dogma takes on its distinct significance at the peak of the Roman Catholic system, because precisely this share of Mary is connected with her physical glorification in heaven.

Although in the above-mentioned “New Theology” new perspectives are visible in the Rome-Reformation controversy, this new Marian dogma has again pointed up the conflict in spite of all the attempts by Rome to demonstrate that its Mariology in no wise constitutes a threat to the glory of Christ as our only Redeemer. Already before 1950 there were signs pointing to the fact that the proclamation of the assumption of Mary would not yet mark the end of the Mariological development. We think of the feelings (not yet firmly established) concerning Mary as participating, not only in the subjective redemption (the distribution of the treasures of Christ), but also in the objective redemption. This dogma is at present not yet fixed, but already studies are appearing under titles such as: Mary as Co-Redemptress alongside Jesus our Lord. It is understandable that in this development there is a constant demand from the Reformation camp for scriptural proof. But tradition plays such a powerful role here that in the proclamation of 1950 of Mary’s assumption, no scriptural proof is given, and the only texts appearing in it are the citations to be found in the church fathers. The power of the Reformation remains here also the power of the “sola Scriptura”!

¶ Besides that already mentioned, there is in continental theology a many-sided interest in the theology of Luther. Excellent studies have been made, e.g., W. von Lcewenich, Theologia crucis, 1954; idem, Luther als Ausleger der Synoptiker, 1954; J. T. Bakker, Coram Deo, Een Bijdrage tot het Onderzoek naar de Structuur van Luthers Theologie, (dissertation at the Free University) 1956; R. Prenter, Spiritus Creator, Studien zu Luthers Theologie, 1954 (translated from Danish into German). In these studies there is a continual discussion of the relation between Luther and Calvin, and this is understandable because there is a growing feeling that in spite of all their differences (e.g., concerning the sacraments), a deep unity in faith bound these two reformers.

¶ It is impossible in any respect to set forth in one “review” a complete survey of what is now in the center of interest in continental reflection. This incompleteness already appears in the fact that we have made no mention up to this point of the continuing discussion surrounding the theology of Karl Barth, who recently put his doctrine of redemption into print (IV, 1 and IV, 2). In commemoration of Barth’s seventieth birthday many articles and “Festschrifte” have reviewed his theology anew.

G. C. Berkouwer, Ph.D., is Professor of Systematic theology, Free Universty of Amsterdam.

News about North and South America: November 26, 1956

Lutheran Merger

Representatives of four American Lutheran bodies, with a combined membership of more than 2,861,000, will meet in Chicago on December 12–13 to begin conversations toward organic union.

The denominations are the United Lutheran Church in America, Augustana Lutheran Church, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church (Suomi Synod) and American Evangelical Lutheran Church.

All Lutheran denominations in America were invited last December to “consider such organic union as will give real evidence of our unity in the faith.”

Three other Lutheran bodies now engaged in negotiations for a separate merger said they will be “unable to participate in the meeting, whose sole stated purpose is to consider organic union.” They are Evangelical Lutheran, American Lutheran and United Evangelical Lutheran.

Also absent from the unity conference will be the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Synod and the Norwegian Synod. They declined the invitation on the grounds that they cannot discuss organic union before doctrinal agreement has been reached.

Baptists Add Colleges

A trend toward establishing Southern Baptist colleges in large cities will result in the opening of perhaps 12 new schools in the next 15 years.

(Records show that it costs about half as much per student to operate a college in a city of over 50,000 population).

R. Orin Cornett, executive secretary of the Southern Baptist Education Commission, said some of the schools will be junior colleges and universities.

The plans, hailed in many quarters, aren’t meeting with approval everywhere. Dr. W. A. Diman, executive secretary of the Chicago Baptist Association of the American Baptist Convention, denounced the move to Chicago and the North as “a bad case of bigitis.”

Dr. Diman, who said Southern Baptists intend to start 60 new churches and open a theological seminary in Chicago, said such action may “further divide a badly-splintered Protestantism here.”

(The University of Chicago has offered a 150,000-square-foot area on its campus to American Baptist Convention officials for headquarters of the denomination. Adoption or rejection will be decided at the annual meeting in Philadelphia next May.)

Major Religious Trends

Intense interest in the Bible and increased interest in theology on the part of laymen are among the major religious trends of the past 10 years, Dr. L. Harold DeWolf, of the Boston University school of theology, said recently. Dr. DeWolf, speaking to deans of Methodist pastors’ schools at Dickson, Tennessee, also noted that “extreme controversy” among theologians has given way to “a mood of mediation and communications and conciliation.”

He added:

“It was only a few years ago that theologians couldn’t understand each other and didn’t want to.”

The Bible, he said, occupies a place of greatly enhanced esteem and influence over previous years.

“There’s a new and increasing hunger for real biblical learning,” Dr. DeWolf asserted.

Unhappy Liquor Stores

God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform!

Church folk of Hamilton County, Tennessee, decided they wanted to vote Chattanooga’s 54 legal liquor stores out of business.

The Christians organized under the leadership of Major General Paul H. Jordan, who is retiring as leader of Tennessee’s National Guard in order to give more time to the three rural Methodist churches he is pastoring.

Sufficient signatures were obtained for a referendum, but Jordan, using the military’ tactic of surprise, kept the wets guessing as to when the vote would be called. The drys reportedly favored a special referendum because of the heavy vote in “controlled” wards on general election days. To offset this planning, the wets got some signatures of their own and filed for an unprecedented referendum to be held on November 6, with a big vote assured by the Presidential election.

The battle about bottles began, with the liquor store operators catching it from all sides. They had to finance the wet campaign. Political leaders of one party, with the “say so” on retail licenses, put the squeeze on them for funds. The other party, irritated about the money given to the opposition, passed the word their followers would vote dry unless contributions were forthcoming.

J. B. Collins, staff writer for The Chattanooga News-Free Press, said the liquor dealers, fearful of being drained by politicians and then being voted out of existence, were in a sad plight … somewhat like the farmer who knocked down a hornets’ nest while trying to beat out a grass fire around his barn. He didn’t know whether to fight fire or swat hornets.

Then came the vote. With well-organized church support, the drvs collected 29,704, and the wets trailed with 27,180. The wets asked a court injunction to keep the election commission from certifying the results, on charges that phrasing of the ballots and vote machines was confusing. Chancellor J. Clifford Curry denied the injunction and the votes were certified.

The 54 stores have 90 days to liquidate their liquid.

This case may be the only one in history where whiskey stores asked for a referendum in which they were voted out of business.

Philadelphia Story

The New Berean Baptist Church is located in a section of Philadelphia where a large part of the population is colored.

Eighteen months ago the church called as its pastor the Rev. David E. Gregory, 40, a graduate of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

He believed in ministering to the people of his community, no matter what their color. In 1955 about 30 per cent of children in the Vacation Church School were colored. This year, a Negro minister was invited to participate in the Vacation School program. Another adult Negro worker was enlisted.

The enrollment was 194 children, and 80 per cent of them were Negroes.

Deacons of the church became alarmed at the trend, especially when Negroes began attending the worship services. A questionnaire was sent out by the deacons to the membership, asking three questions:

First, should the church seek members among the Negro race?

Second, would members be willing to receive Negroes into the church if they applied?

Third, would the present members remain in the church if Negroes were received?

To the first question, most members said they would not seek Negro members, but would not reject those who applied of their own volition. A majority replied in the affirmative to the second. In answering the third, 31 said they would leave and over 50 said they would stay.

The deacons then sent out a letter to the congregation stating that the church policy would be neither to seek nor admit Negroes to membership. A special meeting of the congregation was called. Mr. Gregory said that according to the church constitution the deacons could not formulate a policy for the congregation. Deacons pressed for a vote to uphold their stand. The church constitution required a month’s notice before a vote could be taken on a change of policy and said a two-thirds majority vote of those present was necessary in order for it to become a law of the church. A majority endorsed the deacons’ stand when a vote was taken.

Mr. Gregory resigned as pastor.

Integration problems, seemingly, are not confined to the South!

R.E.G.

Milestone In Mexico

The year 1957 will mark the 100th anniversary of Benito Juarez’s “Reform Constitution of 1857,” a milestone in Mexico’s struggle to achieve civil and religious liberties.

Appropriate ceremonies throughout the republic will celebrate the occasion.

The Reform Constitution opened the doors to Protestant missions and introduced evangelical Christianity to the people of Mexico, after 300 years of domination by the Roman Catholic clergy.

Benito Juarez, described by Stuart Chase (author of Mexico—A Study of Two Americas) as “perhaps the greatest name in Mexican history,” was a full-blooded Zapotec Indian from the state of Oaxaca. He was educated, first for the priesthood and later for the bar, becoming Minister of Justice and eventually Constitutional President of the Republic.

As president, he legislated against the special privileges of the military and the clergy, confiscating vast land holdings of the church valued at $125,000,000. Into his Reform Constitution he wrote the laws which decreed the separation of Church and State, severed relations with the Vatican, placed priests under civil authority, closed parochial schools and made the state responsible for the education of all children, forbade churches to own property, prohibited foreigners from officiating as priests or ministers, reserved the right to perform marriages and burials, and guaranteed liberty and equality for all religions.

His efforts were interrupted by foreign (French) intervention and the ill-fated empire of the Hapsburg Archduke Maximilian. Juarez died in Mexico City on July 18, 1872, before his program was carried into effect.

Thirty years of dictatorship under Porfirio Diaz further delayed the reforms. It was not until “The Revolution of 1910,” which overthrew Diaz, and “The Constitution of 1917,” which embodied all of the major tenets of the first reform, that Juarez’s dream of religious freedom for the common people was realized.

It is within the framework of this constitution that modern missions and churches operate today in Mexico.

Since the constitution forbids churches to own property, land and buildings for mission schools and hospitals are held in the name of legally constituted holding companies composed of individual missionaries and Protestant Mexicans.

When some of the mission schools were closed, student homes and hostels were opened, providing dormitory facilities under Christian supervision for Protestant young people attending nearby government schools.

Since no foreigner may be a minister or priest, only native-born Mexicans are pastors of the churches and only they may officiate at the sacraments. Foreign evangelistic missionaries, however, are allowed to preach, to hold special services and to engage in personal work—completely unmolested.

Celebration of the centenary of Juarez’s reforms is expected to be bitterly opposed by anti-Protestant church leaders, and some observers predict that the occasion will be used as a pretext for the Catholic church to make an open bid at regaining some of her former prestige and power. Should this occur, trouble undoubtedly will ensue.

But Juarez evidently thought the reforms were worth any trouble involved. He said, “Upon the development of Protestantism largely depends the happiness of our country.”

J.H.R.

Faithful And Fruitful

The Rev. David Finstrom had two great assets when he arrived in Venezuela in 1899—faith in God and willingness to serve.

He began his pioneering work in La Victoria, Aragua.

At the beginning of the century, when a great battle during a civil war was fought in La Victoria, he and his wife did everything they could to help the people. They cared for the wounded and dead.

As a reward, Grab J. V. Gomez, when he became president of the country, granted Mr. Finstrom a personal right to address the Congress of Venezuela. Gomez, a tyrant for 26 years, was a great admirer of the missionary. A mistress of the president was converted under the preaching of the faithful servant.

Mr. Finstrom lived to see the small beginning grow into churches and conventions of churches, with thousands of believers. A Bible Institute was founded. In 1914 he published the first issue of his paper, El Faro Evangelico (The Evangelical Beacon), which spread throughout the country.

The 57 years of fruitful service came to an end recently when he died in Palo Negro, Aragua State. His widow survives.

P.N.T.G.

Tongue In Cheek

Twenty-three Protestant ministers of Mount Ida, Arkansas, have proposed, with a trace of sarcasm, that speeding, theft and prostitution be legalized and taxed for revenue in the state.

The clergymen attacked arguments that “drinking and gambling should be legalized because people are going to do them anyway,” and said, “it is just as consistent to legalize and collect taxes” from other vices.

Bible And Flag

The Woodmont Kiwanis Club of Nashville, Tennessee, is sponsoring a drive to place a Bible and American flag in every home of the city.

Profits will be used to buy recreational equipment for church orphanages.

Offhand, the combination appears to be the world’s best buy!

Predestination

Clergymen as a group are “not good, safe drivers,” in the opinion of M. L. Allison, accident prevention department of Employers Mutual Casualty Company, Charlotte, North Carolina.

“Most clergymen drive like they are going to a fire,” he said.

Digest …

Dr. Harold J. Ockenga honored on 20th anniversary as minister of famed Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts … A. F. (Tex) Keirsey, church editor of Amarillo (Texas) News-Globe, wins 1956 Press Award of Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Rep. Ruth Thompson (R-Mich.), defeated at polls on November 6, seen working cheerfully as volunteer at Washington, D. C. Central Union Mission on November 7 … Superior Court Judge in Montreal, Canada, rules testimony not acceptable from witness who does not believe in heaven and hell … The Rev. H. Lawrence Love, Jr., pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, appointed associate executive director of World Evangelical Fellowship.

Baptist General Convention of Texas approves record $10,000,000 budget for missionary work during year.

Billy Graham speaks to over 7,000 in Moody Church auditorium and overflow halls. Service relayed to seven other churches … Mrs. Billy “Ma” Sunday, 88, widow of noted evangelist of 1920’s, elected president of Winona Lake (Indiana) Bible Conference.

Britain and the Continent News: November 26, 1956

‘Uneasy And Unhappy’

The respected voice of Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, was heard in the House of Lords on the Anglo-French attack of Egypt.

“Christian opinion,” he said, is “terribly uneasy and unhappy. We cannot ignore the fact that the President of the United States thinks we have made a grave error, that world opinion on the whole—almost entirely—is convinced we have made a grave error.”

The Anglican Primate said he spoke “with fear and trembling.”

In Berlin, Bishop Otto Dibelius, head of the Evangelical Church in Germany, expressed great concern over Near and Middle East events through letters to British and French church leaders.

12 Days Of Life

Hungarian churches were making big plans when their brief hours of freedom were cut short by Russian butchery.

Bishop Lajos Ordass, imprisoned in 1948 on trumped-up charges, was reinstated as active head of the Lutheran Church of Hungary after the resignation of two communist-sponsored bishops.

He put into immediate practice the teaching of Jesus to “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you …”

He sought to aid dependents of former church leaders.

New elections were planned—to replace all officials of the Reformed and Lutheran churches who received their posts after 1948. Many churchmen known for their collaboration resigned.

Church schools and-other institutions were to be reopened.

Millions of tons of food and clothing arrived from friendly countries and relief centers were opened.

Josef Cardinal Mindzenty, Primate of Hungary liberated by the rebels, called on the United Nations and the world for support.

The revolt seemed destined to succeed on October 31—Reformation Day. Then, during the night of November 3–4, the vanguard of a massive Russian force of 200,000 men and 5,600 tanks, supported by squadrons of bomber planes, launched a surprise attack on Hungary. Almost defenseless people were slaughtered like cattle.

(An American newscaster said Russia threw more armor against Budapest than U. S. General George Patton used in driving across France during World War II.)

Fighters for freedom put up stubborn resistance, but their cause was virtually hopeless. Millions prayed around the world.

Some Hungarian leaders were captured. Others took refuge in embassies or escaped across the border.

Twelve days had passed.

But in suffering defeat, Hungary emphasized to the world that Communism was crumbling around the edges. Hundreds of individual members left the party in European countries. Early returns from Italian regional elections showed heavy communist losses. Unrest was noted in East Germany.

And Russia looked around anxiously as she waited for the next shot.

Question In Norway

On January 25, 1953, a professor, Dr. Ole Hallesby, addressed the Norwegian people by radio with words which were to resound from one end of the country to the other.

He asked:

“How can you who are not converted go to bed calmly in the evening, not knowing whether you will awake in your bed or in hell?”

Testimony of several conversions was received as a result of the broadcast. Many newspapers, however, raged. One of the bishops of the Norwegian Church, Dr. Kristian Schjelderup, wrote a sharp article, denouncing the doctrine of eternal punishment as contrary to God’s love.

The debate raged until finally the question was put before the Government, as well as the Stortinget (assembly of the people). Views of all bishops and leaders of the two theological faculties were given.

As usual in such discussions, the controversy eventually subsided, with both sides holding to original beliefs.

But new fuel has been added to the fire.

A well-known Christian layman, manufacturer Otto Langmoen, made public a letter in which he declared himself unwilling to represent his local congregation at an all-diocese meeting—where Bishop Schjelderup was listed as one of the preachers.

Mr. Langmoen said it was a matter of conscience and cited Scripture to support his views.

Theological sides again came to life, with the press serving as a gleeful go-between for their eager readers.

The diocese meeting was held. Participation was great, and Bishop Schjelderup was elected chairman of the assembly.

Front page headlines next day said there would be no fight within the church after all.

But Norwegians long will remember the professor’s blunt question!

T.B.

Reds Razing Old Church

Historic Holy Spirit Church, dating back to the 13th century, is slated to be razed in Magdeburg, Germany (Soviet Zone), despite protests by the Evangelical Church of Saxony.

The church, considered one of the finest specimens of Gothic architecture in Germany, will mar the looks of a new city hall due to be built on an adjacent site, according to the Communist city planners.

Heavily damaged during World War II, the church was the first worship center to be rebuilt in Magdeburg after the end of fighting. Many foreign churches contributed to the reconstruction cost.

Significance of the razing, in the opinion of church leaders, can be traced to the fact that the Evangelical Church in Germany designated Magdeburg as the 1956 “City of Church Reconstruction.”

Some 275,000 of Magdeburg’s 337,000 residents are Protestants.

Powers Of Violence

The world is afraid of its own powers of violence “and can only be saved by suffering and forgiving love,” Dr. Martin Niemoeller, president of the Evangelical Church of Hesse-Nassau in Germany, told 9,000 at a Reformation rally in Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, Missouri.

In a reference to the H-bomb, he said, “Like Peter and John, we are tempted to bring down the fire of heaven upon the evildoers,” but warned “the danger is that we shall love our own truth and our own way and not put our trust in God.

“We must not give ourselves to our own ideas and our own beliefs, for both are dangerous, but we must remember that God’s promise to His children stands. Christ is the way, the truth and the life for a world in which men are caught in the nets of pride and despair.”

(On December 6, New York University will present Dr. Niemoeller with the University Medal, its “highest award to distinguished people.”)

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube