“God’s solutions applied God’s way will always get God’s results.” This was the simple message of Baptist minister-lecturer Larry Coy to nearly 1,400 Brazilian evangelicals gathered recently for a week-long Conflicts of Life Seminar in São Paulo.

After a week’s seminar for missionaries in late August (attended by 300 first-timers and 150 taking the advanced course), Coy presented his basic-life-conflicts course in Portuguese to the Brazilians. Both seminars were sponsored by Brazil’s Missionary Information Bureau, headquartered in São Paulo. The following week Coy repeated the English seminar for 116 more missionaries in the northern Brazilian city of Belém. This was Coy’s second visit to Brazil; he gave his course two years ago at the annual MIB conference for missionaries.

An overflow crowd packed out São Paulo’s cavernous Independent Presbyterian Cathedral for the thirty-two-hour Portuguese course. Brazilian Baptist evangelist Walter Kaschel interpreted. More than 500 seminar notebooks in Portuguese, priced at $15 each, went like pasteis and were sold out the first night. More than 100 cassette tapes of the sessions were ordered at 200 cruzeiros a set (about $33). Ford-Philco supplied a closed-circuit TV hookup with five screens placed throughout the sanctuary.

Coy was formerly associated with lecturer-counselor Bill Gothard (see May 25 issue, page 44). His seminar is similar to Gothard’s Basic Youth Conflicts course, but is aimed more toward the family. Coy met Gothard while both were Wheaton College students, then teamed up with him for about twelve years. Coy says that he wrote about 20 per cent of Gothard’s basic course and 80 per cent of the advanced course. After Coy left Gothard, there was a bit of conflict between the pair over Coy’s use of his own material, whose copyright is owned by Gothard, but the hassle is apparently being worked out amiably.

Coy is now on the staff of the 13,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church of Lynchburg, Virginia, where he has been heavily involved in the church’s battle with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (see September 14 issue, page 49). His responsibilities at Thomas Road include administration of the church’s $12 million annual budget. Coy gives his seminars part-time as a ministry of the church, often flying to assignments in the church’s private airplane. His seminar notebook is copyrighted by Thomas Road’s nationwide broadcasting ministry, “The Old-Time Gospel Hour.”

“The things you’re going to hear in the seminar are not new,” advises Coy at the beginning of his course. “Our real goal is to impress upon people that the Word of God has the answers” to life’s practical problems. Essentially the seminar amounts to a course in applied biblical ethics. Coy begins with a study of the Beatitudes, from which he distills eight basic principles of Christian living. He places strong emphasis on maintaining a clear conscience (as does Gothard) and on ordering one’s life—including time and finances—according to biblical priorities. Careful scheduling of time and no credit buying are urged. The aim of the course is to put practical tools into the hands of the individual Christian to help him know how to live according to God’s standards.

Response from Brazilians was largely favorable. Coy was pleased and has agreed to return to Brazil next year. According to Missionary Information Bureau’s Bill Hewlett, Coy seminars will be held in June or July, 1974, in Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro.

Nonflammable Word

The first full-length feature color film made in the Malagasy language recently played on the cinema screens of Tananarive, capital of the Malagasy Republic (which occupies the island of Madagascar). It has packed halls wherever it has been shown, even though ticket prices have been tripled and even quintupled.

The film, called The Book That Would Not Burn, is not a Western, or a thriller, or even a romantic tragedy, but the story of the part played by the Bible during the persecution of Malagasy Christians around the middle of the last century. The story of the martyrs is well known not only by Christians but by all the people of Madagascar as a part of their history in which many take pride; this is a major reason for the film’s success.

The story is told through a lovely young girl, Ranivo, condemned to death because of her conversion to Christianity. When she is about to be hurled from a high rock, she recalls the martyrs who preceded her, especially the girl Rasalama, the first martyr, who was speared to death. Other martyrs were burned alive or stoned to death during persecution in the mid-1800s.

Ranivo thinks about the fearful queen, who is determined to root out missionary teaching. The young girl also thinks of her Christian mother, and of her father and her uncle, the village sorcerer, both of whom she loves despite their denunciation of Christians.

The persistent secret meetings of Christians to read their Bibles (when found, Bibles were burned, on the queen’s orders) and other memories make up the plot and give point to its dramatic ending. “I am frightened,” she says, “but I am discovering that I am also at peace.”

The shooting of the ninety-minute film took only six days. Money came from a small American church, and Ken Anderson Films furnished the producer.

Sponsored by the Malagasy Bible Society, the film was made on the initiative of the Malagasy church to celebrate its 150th anniversary.

After Lausanne, The World

The goal of next year’s International Congress on World Evangelization is, in a nutshell, to provide impetus and help for achieving the goal of world evangelization. To that end, about 3,000 evangelical leaders from throughout the world will pool their knowledge and ideas in the ten-day event that will convene July 16 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Also on hand: 300 mass media people and 200 observers. Participation will be on a by-invitation-only basis, with national advisory committees making recommendations to the ICWE planning committee.

ICWE director Donald E. Hoke, founder-president of the Tokyo Bible College, says his committee is seeking to ensure fair representation according to national, cultural, and other categories, such as women, laity, evangelists, missionaries, theological educators, and youth (approximately 600 of the participants will be under age 30). Quotas range from 946 from Europe to one from the Pacific island kingdom of Tonga. Special emphasis is being placed on Third World participation, adds Hoke. Participants from the more affluent countries will be expected to pay their own way; others will be subsidized. Meanwhile, the committee is rummaging for funds. (The Billy Graham organization has taken the lead so far in underwriting initial expenses.)

ICWE program director Paul Little says that speakers likewise will reflect a variety of national, cultural, and denominational backgrounds. They include:

Peter Beyerhaus (Lutheran), Germany; Rene Padilla (Baptist), Argentina; Susumu Uda (Reformed Presbyterian), Japan; Bishop Festo Kivengere (Anglican), Uganda; George Peters (Mennonite), United States; Howard Snyder (Free Methodist), Brazil; Donald McGavran (Disciples of Christ), United States; Samuel Escobar (Baptist), Peru; Canon Michael Green (Anglican), England; Henri Blocher (Baptist), France.

Opening addresses will be given by evangelist Billy Graham, ICWE honorary chairman, and Anglican minister John Stott of London, a well-known evangelical author.

Unlike the procedure at the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism, the major ICWE papers will be sent out in advance to the participants for study and response. Speakers will only summarize their papers, says Little, then address themselves to the comments and questions sent by participants. Additionally, the latter will also receive beforehand an “over-all view of world need” and an in-depth study of churches and evangelization of their respective countries or regions. Advance questionnaires will enable the participants to indicate how the congress can best help them in reaching particular groups, in the use of evangelistic methods, and in the discussion of theological issues, Little points out.

ICWE planners say they hope to make conference material widely available to church members across the world.

Continue The Quest

A revolt against liberalism’s view of Christ and the Gospels is going on, Archbishop of Canterbury A. Michael Ramsey asserted approvingly at last month’s Fifth International Congress of Biblical Studies at Oxford University. His keynote was a highlight for the 600 theologically diverse delegates and visitors who attended from throughout the world. They included a number for the first time from East Germany and Poland.

The apostles meant to present a trustworthy picture of Jesus not to be explained by existentialism and demythologizing attempts, affirmed Ramsey, more or less endorsing “the current revival of interest in a credible picture of Jesus to his contemporaries, applicable today.”

In all, 164 lectures and papers were delivered at the quadrennial four-day conference by authorities from Europe, Africa, Australia, and North America, with delegates unable to attend more than ten sessions daily. There was hardly unanimity of viewpoint, but the conservative position was well presented by a few. Evangelicals especially appreciated the daily devotional Bible expositions by University of Glasgow professor Robert Davidson and C. F. D. Moule of the University of Cambridge.

Most papers centered on the gospels of John and Mark, pointing up the growing interest in historicity (though hermeneutics remains in the foreground of current study). “The quest of history and faith in Christ must go together, for faith also gives historical insight; the quest must continue,” declared editor D. G. Wigmore-Beddoes of the Modern Free Churchman in Belfast.

ROBERT J. CAMPBELL

Pakistan: Worst Ever

Local press reports called the recent floods in Pakistan the worst in memory. Of the eight million people affected (10,000 villages were hit, 500,000 houses destroyed), thousands were Christians. Many lost everything. Some had only recently rebuilt their homes following the 1971 war with India over Bangladesh. A number of missionary residences in southern Punjab were flooded. Fortunately, however, loss of life was slight; most people had ample warning before run-offs from heavy rains in the northern mountains came cascading into the heavily populated plains.

Christians were quick to offer aid. The missionary community itself came up with more than $1,000. The Salvation Army in Britain sent nearly $20,000. Conservative Baptists and World Vision together offered $10,000; the World Council of Churches promised $250,000.

HUBERT ADDLETON

Hungary: Easing The Tensions

A remarkable church-state détente has been achieved in Hungary, according to the authoritative Catholic newsletter Overview, which credits the Pope John-initiated Vatican foreign-policy campaign to relax tensions with eastern European nations. Bishops are appointed from a list of candidates submitted by the Vatican and approved by the state. The state is no longer demanding veto power over appointment of local clergy. Only four priests are in jail now, and their release is expected shortly, says Overview. For its part, the Catholic church for almost two years has excommunicated no priests for cooperating with the communist regime.

The practice of religion within church buildings is reportedly unrestricted. Eight Catholic high schools are operating; their graduates enter state universities without trouble. The government pays the teachers, who are members of religious orders. It pays about $3.5 million a year to subsidize church operations and maintain church buildings. As in Czechoslovakia, religious instruction of children is allowed in state elementary and secondary schools (priests sometimes teach) and in the churches. Six seminaries are preparing 303 candidates for the priesthood.

There are more than five million Catholics in Hungary, about half the nation’s population, located in 2,345 parishes and served by 4,000 priests (including 452 of the Byzantine rite), says Overview.

Penalty For Preaching: Ten Years

In an eleven-day, closed-door trial last month, a Soviet court in Kharkov, the Ukraine, sentenced Boris M. Zdorovetz, one of the best-known evangelical preachers in the Soviet Union, to three years of solitary confinement in a “severe” labor camp (a harsher regime than the ordinary labor camps) and seven years of exile. His offense was leading an unauthorized open-air service attended by 2,000 people on May 2. In 1972 Zdorovetz completed a ten-year sentence for unauthorized religious activity. He is a member of the unregistered Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, or initsiativniki.

New Life In Germany

A total attendance of 35,000 was registered at last month’s week-long “New Life” evangelistic crusade in Hamburg held by “people’s missionary” Anton Schulte, Germany’s foremost evangelist. Two public halls, connected by a cable TV hook-up, could not accommodate the crowds on four nights, and two extra meetings were held. Polls revealed that more than half of those attending had never been to such an evangelistic rally before. According to the Information Service of the German Evangelical Alliance, several hundred came forward for personal decisions or counseling.

‘Evangelikal’: New Word, Old Faith

Because the normal German word for evangelical, evangelisch, has been downgraded in daily speech until it means nothing more than “non-Catholic,” Christians in Germany have been at a loss for a term that would attest their personal commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to an authoritative Scripture without the negative connotations of orthodox, konservativ, and pietistisch. A few years ago evangelikal, a direct loan from English, came in, and after initial opposition it has been more and more widely adopted. In the fall issue of the influential Oekumenische Rundschau (Ecumenical Review), Dr. Ulrich Betz, an Evangelikal, explained the word to non-evangelicals.

German television in a feature September 9 attributed the rise of the Evangelikale in large part to the Graham crusades. The non-evangelical producers left viewers some unanswered questions: “Why are so many Evangelikale so fervent … so hard-working … so active … so young … so happy?”

Hungary: No Betrayal

Bishop Zoltan Kaldy of the 430,000-member Lutheran Church in Hungary denied on a Helsinki broadcast that churches in socialist countries have “betrayed Christ” or have mixed Marxism with the Gospel. He said gospel preaching is permitted on Hungarian radio and that Bible smuggling is unnecessary (“anyone who wants one can get one”).

The Korean Christ

Full-page ads in major U. S. newspapers have heralded the arrival of “Rev. Sun-Myung Moon” of South Korea on a lecture tour. His Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (Tongil-kyo in Korea, meaning Unity Church) reputedly has 300,000 followers in Korea, with branches in Europe and North America. He is called the Korean Christ, and his third wife is the Holy Spirit.

He was born in 1920 in North Korea, suffered excommunication by the Presbyterian Church in Pyongyang in 1948 and imprisonment by the communists in the Korean War, and established his church in 1954 in Seoul. Claiming to have had special revelations at age 16, he believes that the first Christ (Jesus) failed in his mission. The Jewish Christ won spiritual salvation for man but died trying to achieve physical salvation for man, something the Korean Christ (Moon) accomplished through his marriage to the Holy Spirit, according to the sect’s teaching. Followers are organized with military precision and discipline, and marriages are arranged by the church.

Between them, the three major black—or Negro (depending upon one’s age or cultural inclination)—Baptist conventions lay claim to nearly half of America’s black population.¹As with many church groups, however, average Sunday-morning attendance—which may more nearly show actual numerical strength—is considerably lower than published membership figures. Reflecting splits from their common ancestry, all three held their annual meetings the same week last month but in different locations. The 6.5-million-member National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Incorporated, attracted 20,000 delegates to Los Angeles, NBCUSA’s largest convention gathering ever. About 8,000 persons, including 2,500 messengers (delegates), were on hand in Chicago for the annual sessions of the 2.5-million-member National Baptist Convention of America. And 3,500 messengers gathered in Jackson, Mississippi, for the 550,000-member Progressive National Baptist Convention assembly—the first national convention of a black organization ever held in the Mississippi capital.

The common ancestry dates from 1880, when veteran Southern Baptist missionary W. W. Colley called leading black Baptists together and formed a foreign missions convention. Two other organizations merged with the convention in 1895 in Atlanta (there were state-wide associations of black Baptist churches as early as 1866) to form the NBCA. A dispute over control of the publication board led to a split in 1916, with the majority faction adopting the NBCUSA title and the minority retaining the NBCA name. At the NBCUSA meeting in Denver in 1961, a vocal faction tried to make the denomination assume a more liberal social-action stance, and backers of Brooklyn pastor Gardner Taylor claimed their man had defeated conservative Joseph H. Jackson of Chicago for the NBCUSA presidency. In the near riot that ensued, a number of delegates were injured, one fatally, and the PNBC was born. Things have been relatively quiet in the denominations since that time, and at last month’s conventions there was obvious interest in getting on with the task, especially in the realms of evangelism, theology, and foreign missions.

NBCA president James C. Sams of Jacksonville, Florida, lamented that “we hear more about Watergate than we do about Jesus,” then exhorted: “Go back and clean up your own homes, towns, and churches. Watergate is a small part of God’s judgment which we all must face.”

Jackson, meanwhile, was reelected without opposition to his twenty-first successive year as NBCUSA president. He likewise alluded to Watergate in underscoring a call to spiritual renewal: “[It’s] God’s way of telling us to put moral content into our lives.”

A conservative in politics and theology, Jackson slapped at the practice followed by some “Negroes” (he eschews use of the word “black”) of holding citizenship in both the United States and an African nation. One cannot be a loyal and trusted citizen of two countries, he asserted. In the process of illustrating his point he also knocked churches that are dually aligned (some NBCUSA and PNBC churches, for example, are affiliated with the predominantly white American Baptist Convention). “They want two sets of privileges without bearing two sets of corresponding responsibilities,” he chided.

Three young ministers, commissioned three years ago to draft a statement of faith and theology—the NBCUSA’s first such document—presented a thirty-eight-page interim report. Chairman Henry C. Gregory III, a Harvard-educated West Virginia pastor, said NBCUSA ministers need to have their own faith revived and then to project stronger faith to their congregations.

The NBCUSA earmarked $50,000 to supply food and clothing to Arab and African herdsmen suffering in drought-stricken west Africa (see September 14 issue, page 42). Money and goods will be sent to the land-locked area, home of six million persons, when a way is found to circumvent logistical and political blockades, reported William J. Harvey III, foreign-missions board secretary, who himself has seen the misery.

A report noted that the convention’s 5,000-acre farm in Tennessee had produced profits of $60,000 in recent years in cotton, soybeans, and pork. These are used to help support member churches, colleges, and the ministers’ retirement fund.

Executive director Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People paid tribute to the black church as a political power and urged the NBCUSA to help double the current figure of 2,600 elected black officials in the United States. In a welcoming address, Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley—an African Methodist Episcopal layman—credited the black church with a big boost in his victory over incumbent Sam Yorty.

At Jackson, PNBC president L. Venchael Booth received from Governor William Waller the Outstanding Mississippian Award for leadership in religious affairs. Booth, pastor of Cincinnati’s Zion Baptist Church, is a native of Mississippi.

Southern Baptist president Owen Cooper, a Mississippi industrialist of Yazoo City, in visits to the three conventions said he envisions expanding cooperation between the black churches and his denomination. At a luncheon he hosted for PNBC leaders in Jackson he urged that they consider sending missionaries to areas now closed to Southern Baptists. “We can no longer go into Nigeria, but I believe you can,” he said.

The PNBC already has three missionaries in Nigeria. But they represent the total foreign missionary force of the PNBC. And the statistics are just as bleak among other black denominations. The NBCUSA, with 30,000 churches, has one missionary in Malawi, five in Liberia. Officials for the NBCA declined to state their total. The independent Carver Foreign Mission Board in Atlanta has half a dozen missionaries in Liberia. Afro-American Missionary Crusade in Philadelphia has eight in Liberia. Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention in Washington, D. C., named after a Virginia slave who purchased his freedom and in 1821 became the first American missionary to Africa, lists three missionaries in Haiti and two in Liberia. In all, there are fewer than 100 blacks—including those affiliated with predominantly white groups—among America’s 25,000-plus foreign missionaries, according to a survey to be published soon.

Yet there are bright aspects. The black bodies have sponsored over the years a number of overseas students in American schools; some become national church workers upon their return, their support underwritten at least partially by their American benefactors. And most of the black denominations help fund national-church projects in Africa or the Caribbean.

PROOF-TEXTING AT THE U.N.

During a meeting of the United Nations Security Council last month, Cuban ambassador Ricardo Alarcon Quesada and U. S. ambassador John Scali got into an argument, complete with Bible proof-texting, over who was responsible for the downfall of Marxist president Salvador Allende of Chile. Quesada accused the United States of masterminding the plot. Scali scoffed, saying the CIA will next be blamed for having secretly written the Bible.

Later Quesada said he wanted everybody to know that he was still a nonbeliever but that he reads the Bible and respects believers. The Bible could have never been written by the CIA, he pronounced wryly, because it is a document opposed to the hyprocrisy and evil deeds of the CIA. Scali’s remark, Quesada went on, had prodded him into rereading a few chapters. The denials of American involvement in the Chilean coup, he said, reminded him of Revelation 21:8, which states that liars will be consigned to hell.

Scali reached for James 3:7, 8 as his response, pointing out the unruly, poisonous nature of the tongue. Quesada’s “newest outpouring of bile” gives fresh meaning to this passage in “that great book,” needled Scali, that has suddenly become such an inspiring source of quotations for the Cuban ambassador.

But why the shortage of career missionaries? The reasons revolve around social history, the economic situation in the black community, failure of members to support adequately their churches, failure of churches to fund sufficiently their national agencies, lack of missionary education and promotion among church members, neglect in recruiting and training young people for full-time service, the fierce independence of many local churches—even within denominations—that in turn hinders cooperative endeavors.

In an interview, PNBC’s Booth said he is “very concerned” about Cooper’s challenge. Already, PNBC leaders are preparing a cooperative-program proposal to submit to the Southern Baptists.

Increasingly, missions is a subject under serious study in black church circles.

Importing The Gospel

Changing some traditional roles, an American mission to Africa is taking steps to bring Africans as missionaries to black urban areas of the United States. The New York-based Africa Inland Mission is experimenting with the idea in response to a variety of needs and trends, both in Africa and in urban America. “Urban America’s needs are as great as or greater than those of the underdeveloped countries of the world,” says Tom Hopler, 37, a former missionary to Africa who is directing the urban ministry for AIM.

The 75-year-old independent evangelical mission traditionally has sent white Americans out as missionaries (it has 700 workers in six east and central African countries). But as churches in Africa have developed their own leadership and strength, African Christian leaders have objected to what they feel is cultural domination by Western missionaries. And missionaries have been less welcome since the demise of colonialism in some of the African nations. Therefore many missions have been undergoing adjustment, sometimes just providing technical assistance while turning over leadership and control to Africans. Meanwhile, African churches have been developing their own missionary programs, limited mostly to other African countries.

In line with the changing scene, AIM is also trying to recruit American blacks as missionaries to Africa. This too will take adjustment; most mission agencies are geared to white social, cultural, institutional, and educational patterns, note observers. The door will no doubt be open longer to black than to white American missionaries, and with the dearth of black missionaries serving overseas (see preceding story), it is imperative that mission agencies step up recruitment of blacks, say the experts.

AIM’s own search for new directions has led to a U. S. inner-city ministry, one that recognizes the distrust urban blacks often have toward whites. “Many black Americans believe that Christianity is a white man’s religion,” explains Bill Chavis, 29, a black law student who has worked in an AIM experimental urban project at Calvary Gospel Church in Newark. “Black Africans can show Christianity’s universality and show that blacks have played a role in the growth of Christianity.”

AIM is proceeding slowly in the project of bringing Africans over to the United States, seeking first to lay the groundwork for an urban ministry with churches in Newark and other cities. The first AIM missionary from Africa, Simon Kahunya, 35, of Kenya, is encouraging other African Christians to come to the United States as missionaries. A student at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts, he worked last year in the black neighborhoods around the Newark church, finding he could overcome barriers of mistrust that whites might encounter, and finding “that American blacks are seeking the African identity—culturally, economically, religiously.”

AIM is also working with several other African students on plans for urban ministries in Washington, D. C., and Philadelphia.

Hopler says the Africans generally will be financed by educational grants, because African churches cannot afford to pay full salaries for missionaries to the United States.

Bishop Wellington Mulwa, who presides over the 1,600 congregations of the AIM-sponsored Africa Inland Church in Kenya, recently came to America to talk to blacks in Newark and other cities about the project. He says his church may be sending Africans here within a year after he gets back and confers with his own church leaders. Mulwa believes the bitterness of many blacks in America will be healed only if they embrace Christ. Nothing is to be gained by “taking arms or being militant,” he says, affirming that hope lies only in the Christian message. Africans are uniquely qualified to bring this message to black Americans because they have endured similar experiences, he says. “We Africans went through the same suffering from the colonists. We have taken a position of forgiving, forgetting the past, and forging ahead.”

RUSS PULLIAM

In Black And White

For months the twelve-member Fellowship of the Cross black ministerial group in Washington, D. C., was concerned about the lack of communication across racial lines in the Christian community. The pastors and evangelists in the group were equally concerned about evangelization of young blacks. They decided to take the first step in doing something about both at the same time, securing local white evangelist Paul Rader to lead an “experimental” week-long crusade on the campus of the city’s predominantly black 11,000-student Howard University. The group chose Rader “because we had so much in common—a deep concern for this city,” said Fellowship leader Rufus Settles, pastor of the Refuge Church of God.

Attendance averaged 250 nightly; the meetings were not well publicized on campus, but interest ran high among those who attended. Questions, sometimes hostile ones, were fired at Rader and a panel of black believers at hour-long rap sessions that preceded the preaching. Rader said he was impressed by the way his friends fielded the questions and objections of Black Muslims, Black Panthers, and followers of Guru Maharaj Ji. A dramatic highlight: the testimony of a convert formerly involved with both Rap Brown and the Black Muslims. There were a number of decisions for Christ during the week, as many as twenty at one meeting, said Settles.

There were beneficial racial overtones too. “We wanted better relationships; we wanted to show that there are no black or white Christians, just God’s people,” Settles affirmed.

All things considered, the experiment was a success. It was a first—for Rader, the Fellowship, and Howard—but, asserted Settles, it won’t be “a last.”

Cocu: Generating Unity

Despite decisions and appearances seemingly to the contrary, the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) still insists that union of the participating churches is its top priority. At its meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this year, COCU admitted what many had known for some time: members of participating denominations (with the addition of the out-and-in-again United Presbyterians there are nine) were not keen on a giant united church. As a result, preparations for union were slowed down and the focus shifted slightly to local-level cooperation through “generating communities” (see April 27 issue, page 40).

Last month, in an effort to thwart reports that COCU had given up on union completely, COCU’s executive committee at a meeting in Princeton, New Jersey, reiterated its stand that unification was the prime intent of COCU.

The committee—composed of two representatives from each denomination—also laid out suggestions for local churches interested in COCU participation. Such churches, said the committee, could share sacraments, work together on area-wide mission projects, or even participate as full partners in a generating community in which they would worship together, share facilities, and be a mini version of what COCU has in mind.

BR-R-R

Soviet authorities in a few cases have invited members of unregistered churches (most are Pentecostal separatists) to come in from the cold—literally. According to recently returned travelers, officials in some towns requested the unregistered believers (who often meet in forests) to hold their Sunday afternoon services in registered-church buildings that are otherwise vacant at that time. In one city, however, the unregistered saints were evicted after the registered (government-recognized) pastor complained that he had lost many in his morning congregation to the afternoon service.

Another report by the committee: a guideline for common marriage rites between Catholics and Protestants has been worked out by a joint Catholic-COCU team. Drafting of a common ritual is already under way.

Deprogrammers Derailed

Self-styled “deprogrammer” Ted Patrick (see August 31 issue, page 40) is in trouble again, this time in Denver. Seven Greek Orthodox parents who had engaged him to help deprogram five daughters pleaded no contest to charges of unlawful imprisonment and conspiracy. They were given suspended sentences and ordered to have no communication with the young women unless the youth initiate it. Patrick pleaded not guilty; a trial was set for December 11.

Only two of the girls were actually detained by the deprogrammers: Dena Thomas Jones, 21, and Kathy Markis, 23. They were held for a week in Colorado and at Patrick’s home in San Diego. “There was nothing to deprogram,” they said, blaming the mess on deteriorating relationships with their parents, who in turn charge that their offspring are under Satan’s control.

Meanwhile, Patrick says he must start charging $1,500 per client if he is to continue his line of work.

Good News For New Readers

The 167-year-old American Bible Society unveiled its most ambitious effort to date last month: producing 725 million Scripture portions for distribution to newly literate people around the world.

The publications are scientifically designed for new readers in 200 languages. They are special translations illustrated and printed to have high impact. Officials speak of them as “literacy selections.”

“Good News for New Readers,” the society’s name for the program, is expected to take twelve years and cost approximately $62.8 million. The idea behind it is that the greatest lack in literacy programs today is the shortage of transitional reading material for the newly literate.

“Our literacy selections,” says Dr. Eugene A. Nida, the society’s head of Biblework translations, “lie somewhere between the level of the primer, which is focused primarily on language form and exemplified by drill materials, and the common-language or popular-language versions. They are designed to serve as bridge materials.”

According to Nida, millions of people who have been taught basic reading skills do not own a single piece of literature. Because of this, many are lapsing back into illiteracy.

Under Nida’s guidance a team of specialists has been working on the literacy selections for a number of years. It is a highly complex process, requiring not simply easy vocabulary but syntax that communicates well, and typography, illustrations, and format that take cultural variations into account.

Even the “content” is weighed. Says Nida: “To provide materials that correspond to the reading capacity of the average new literate, it is necessary to make certain slight modifications in the content of biblical passages” (see editorial, page 45).

Nida, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Bible translation, is an American Baptist clergyman. He was born in Oklahoma City fifty-eight years ago, studied at UCLA and USC, and holds a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Michigan.

DAVID KUCHARSKY

All In The Family

Raising Your Child, Not by Force, But by Love, by Sidney D. Craig (Westminster, 1973, 190 pp., $5.95), Why Can’t I Understand My Kids?, by Herbert Wagemaker (Zondervan, 1973, 110 pp., $3.95, $1.95 pb), The Christian Home in a Changing World, by Gene Getz (Moody, 1972, 107 pp., $1.95 pb), and Christian Living in the Home, by Jay E. Adams (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972, 143 pp., $3.95, $2.50 pb), are reviewed by Stephen L. Phillips, minister, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Stratford, New Jersey.

One might wonder whether all this reading about the family has been of any value to me or to my children, since it is now one hour since lunch began and I am patiently waiting for my five-year-old son to finish so he may be excused from the table.

Sidney Craig would say that I am among those “most likely to produce delinquency in their children” since I group myself with the “most conscientious parents.” That’s from his book Raising Your Child, Not by Force, But by Love (my uncle claims the title is wrong—you rear children and raise hogs!). Craig contends at length that children react irrationally and that therefore parents should strive to produce loving feelings and avoid producing anger because “loving feelings produce loving behavior” and “angry feelings produce angry behavior.” The power to eradicate delinquency lies in the production of these love feelings, made most possible by the love principles of “certain of the Old Testament prophets, the scholarly rabbis, and Jesus,” boiled down to the Golden Rule. (There is no mention of a certain king who wrote excellent proverbs!)

Craig’s cases (he’s a clinical psychologist) appear to be largely from overly strict homes, and never from permissive homes. From this background he draws some helpful suggestions, such as: give due consideration to “biologically determined immaturity”; be careful not to show your child only disapproval; be ready to forgive; and be cautious in your choice of words when saying “no.”

The parents who want to exercise the means and methods of the whole of Scripture will find a lot to disagree with in this book. The norm is the will of the parent: “do what your own human feelings indicate should be done.” The child is basically good (sin is being irrational). There is no real distinction between punishment and discipline. Craig urges parents to practice moderation in the use of discipline and punishment—let the child blow off steam, and tolerate his temper tantrums (but don’t give him what he’s after). If a child or person is very, very angry, then someone else made him very, very angry; the poor lad couldn’t help it.

Interact and react I did, while taking my time reading through Craig’s book. The next one I tackled, Why Can’t I Understand My Kids?, by Dr. Wagemaker (a psychiatrist), was a fast, easy reader in chit-chatty style, but the discussion questions at the end of each chapter could really slow one down. Although some of them cried for answers, the answers were seldom given, the questions rarely discussed. I was disappointed. I was also disappointed, having seen this book prominently displayed at the local Christian bookstore, because there was scant use or mention of Scripture and because, except for up-to-date illustrations, the book did not seem fresh. The author tells us of the importance of listening and the benefit it has for both listener and talker; of sharing, failures as well as successes; of having a good, communicative relationship between parents; and of avoiding favoritism.

Contrary to Craig, Wagemaker is convinced (by his experience in psychiatric wards) of the importance of not acting on feelings but rather setting limits, which gives the child the chance to develop inner control and also shows him that someone cares.

A chapter on God-created individuality brings out this provocative question: Since one of the family roles is to take the children from dependence to independence, should we not allow them freedom to fail?

The book by Getz, associate professor of Christian education at Dallas Seminary, has virtually nothing personal. It is more what the subtitle says (“Biblical principles arranged as a guide for personal study and group interaction”) than what the title (The Christian Home in a Changing World) suggests, i.e., confrontation with practical and theoretical changes in the family of the seventies. Crowding thirteen chapters into 100 pages leaves little room for anything beyond an introduction and a short explanation of Scripture for each topic, and the book seems sketchy. The illustrative material was taken largely from Scripture. Generalities abound, without specific illustration, and the book tends to read like some dry sermons I’ve heard. “Children—their place in God’s plan” is a chapter not usually found in contemporary books on this subject.

Yet I would buy this book anyway. It is a good reference book on what Scripture says about the family. Group discussion, interaction, and projects suggested at the end of each chapter can “make” this book. In fact, it should prove useful to a Sunday school or couples class; it should be in the church library; and, as Getz says, it can be used by pastors, teachers, and prospective homemakers.

Meanwhile, my wife, who majored in Christian education, had been reading the books. “You’re going to like Adams best,” says she.

Here goes! Another seminary professor (Adams is professor of practical theology at Westminster), and chapters with the same old topics—the Christian wife, the Christian husband, single Christians, the Christian family, living with an unbelieving partner. But Christian Living in the Home is no ordinary book. A clue to that is its opening:

A truly Christian home is a place where active sinners live; but it is also a place where the members of that home admit the fact and understand the problem, know what to do about it, and as a result grow by grace.

The sinner is confronted at every turn of the page. I wasn’t wrapped in abstract ideas; I was faced with God’s demands on me! Adams deals with sin and its prevention “to avoid the trials and problems that the family next door must face simply because they have no [biblical] standard.” He deals with sin by laying a foundation of hope and help. Call sinful patterns of living “sin,” and not “sickness” and there is hope, because you have a Saviour, his Word, and his Spirit. Recognize that problems at Sinai and Corinth are the same basic ones as found in twentieth-century America (1 Cor. 10:13) and there is hope.

“Attack problems, not persons.” “Ventilation is plainly un-Christian” (agreeing with Wagemaker). “You ought never to begin [reconciliation] by taking the lid off the other fellow’s trash can until you have cleaned out your own garbage can first.” The style is never stuffy. Discussion of Scripture bristles with challenge. Every chapter is pithy, written with gusto, loaded with illustrations from next door, across the street, in your own home.

The chapter on single persons explodes the “myth of compatibility.” To be compatible, Christians must, by God’s grace, work hard at the task of becoming so.

In contrast to Craig, Adams shows love being not first a feeling but a giving of yourself. Feelings develop out of giving.

Christ commands, “Love your enemies.” You can’t sit around whomping up a good feeling for your enemies. It doesn’t come that way. But if you give an enemy something to eat or give him something to drink, soon something begins to happen to your feelings. When you invest yourself in another, you begin to feel differently toward him.

There is real help in discipline, too. A written code of conduct in the home means that parents are held to their side. Start with one rule and enforce it. After results set in, introduce a second rule. And keep the rules to a minimum (God gave us only ten commandments).

Ultimate responsibility for both family leadership and spiritual development is placed in dad’s lap. There is an unusual presentation of the manliness of Christianity and Christ in that chapter.

Major chapters have do-it-yourself worksheets that correlate with the practical suggestions and solutions offered, a big help for those who don’t know where to begin. Individuals and the family meeting together will benefit from the everyday scriptural and spiritual help found in this book.

Wagemaker I would borrow, Getz I would buy. But Adams I am recommending to my whole congregation.

My son? He finally decided to eat his lunch. And later on he hiked with, wrestled, and several times spontaneously hugged and kissed his dear ol’ disciplinarian dad.

An Exercise In Futility

The Human Face of God, by John A. T. Robinson (Westminster, 269 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Harold O. J. Brown, associate editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The latest offering by the famous author of Honest to God is written with ingratiating skillfulness. The introduction is so kindly and pious that it could as well be prefixed to a sweetly orthodox book of devotions. Robinson, we are frequently assured, wants to offend no one, and certainly shrinks from imposing his views on others. Whether this tender style makes the book any more valuable or easier to digest in the light of its content, is another matter.

At the conclusion, Robinson tells us that Jesus, in order to be acceptable to us as “God for us,” may not be allowed to be anything other than a mere man, “psilos anthrôpos, to be served and loved for his sheer humanity.” But why does he believe this? Because he begins with his own presuppositions about what Jesus Christ may be allowed to be, in order to be acceptable to modern bishops and their friends. On the basis of what modern man’s real or imaginary intellectual triumphs (the “cracking of the genetic code,” and the wisdom of Darwin, Marx, and Freud), he cleverly marshalls rationalistic arguments against the Virgin Birth, and suggests—ever so tactfully, of course—that Jesus was begotten by an unknown father and later accepted by Joseph as his own. Arguing against Docetism (classically, the view that Jesus Christ was only seemingly human, but in Robinson, any view that maintains that he shared God’s divine nature), on the basis of his conviction that in order to be acceptable to us, Jesus must have been exactly like us, Robinson also disposes of the personality of the Logos, the Son in the Holy Trinity, and is thus implicitly Unitarian. He defines the Logos not as a Person but as “the self-expressive activity of God.” He is uncomfortable with the Atonement but knows that the Resurrection, even for Paul, “did not depend in any way on anything exceptional having happened to the flesh-body of Jesus.” “We must be free to say that the bones of Jesus may still be lying around somewhere in Palestine.”

There is a certain amount of useful exegetical material in Chapter 5, “God’s Man,” in which Robinson reminds us that, despite his smug reinterpretations, he is still capable of understanding, if not accepting, what the New Testament actually says. Curiously, Robinson seems to feel it necessary to review the development of orthodox Christology in order to show that his teaching corresponds not to what was rejected as heretical but rather to what was accepted as orthodox, though of course this correspondence exists only when the intent of the orthodox formulations is understood in the subtlest and most profound (i.e., Robinsonian) way.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

How to Choose a Christian College, by Robert Webber (Creation House, 209 pp., $4.95). A theology professor at Wheaton offers a very practical guide to Christian liberal arts and Bible colleges; charts give data on more than 200 of them. Size, cost, sponsorship, majors offered, and sports played are among the specific items treated.

Beginnings in the New Testament, by Howard Vos (Moody, 108 pp., $1.50 pb). A brief, nontechnical guide to New Testament origins, organization, and the specific books. A helpful resource for brand new Bible students.

The 13th American, by Pastor Paul (David C. Cook, 190 pp., $1.50 pb). A minister tells of his alcoholism and subsequent recovery through a specialized clinic and Alcoholics Anonymous. A full and useful discussion of the problem by one who has been there.

This New You, by Harold Myra (Zondervan, 120 pp., $.95 pb). An excellent book developed by Youth for Christ. Offers guidance by answering typical questions of new, teen-age Christians. Very readable; has pictures and cartoons. Avoids the terse, systematic approach of traditional “follow-up” materials.

Agape: An Ethical Analysis, by Gene Outka (Yale, 321 pp., $11). A scholarly analysis of the literature by recent religious thinkers on love as an ethical principle. Includes sketches of Kierkegaard, Niebuhr, Nygren, and Ramsey, among others, on specific aspects of love, concluding with a more detailed evaluation of Karl Barth’s views and the author’s summation. A well-written digest.

A Biblical Perspective on the Race Problem, by Thomas Figart (Baker, 185 pp., $3.95 pb). A discussion of racial origins is followed by a survey of Old and New Testament instances of racial problems. Noting that those on both sides of racial issues often base their positions on the Bible, the author offers a thorough, persuasive argument from Scripture against racial discrimination.

The Heritage of John Calvin, edited by John H. Bratt (Eerdmans, 222 pp., $5.95). Twelve lectures given at Calvin College and Seminary by prominent theologians and historians, including J. T. McNeill (Calvin as Doctor of the church), Quirinus Breen (Calvin and Thomas Aquinas), Philip Hughes (Calvin as Director of Missions), Franklin H. Littell (Calvin at Strassburg), Paul Woolley (Calvin and Toleration), and Carl Bangs (Arminius as a Reformed Theologian).

The Jews in the Roman World, by Michael Grant (Scribner’s, 347 pp., $10.00). A historian’s fast-moving survey of the Jews in Palestine and throughout the Empire. Lengthy discussion of Christianity’s inception and impact, with considerable (and unwarranted) disagreement with the apostolic accounts.

Romans: The Gospel of God’s Grace, by Alva J. McClain (Moody, 256 pp., $4.95). An orderly, well-written commentary on Romans by the late president of Grace Seminary. Includes both an overview and a more detailed exposition.

Communication in Pulpit and Parish, by Merril R. Abbey (Westminster, 231 pp., $7.50). A “philosophy of communication” introduction for the local pastor. Abbey concentrates on preaching as the primary form of communication but delves also into multimedia communication in the community. Has tips and suggestions for improving the preacher-congregation communication channel.

Within the Circle, by Rosalind Rinker (Zondervan, 120 pp., $3.95, $1.95 pb). Delightful spiritual autobiography of the well-known writer’s struggle in moving away from belief in entire sanctification and toward belief in eternal security. Refreshingly honest. Very well written.

The Idea of Fraternity in America, by Wilson C. McWilliams (University of California, 695 pp., $14.95). In an impressive and scholarly assessment of American social history McWilliams discusses fraternity—the bond of interpersonal affection through shared values or goals—as an essential quality of man that, though rooted in America’s religious traditions, has continually been challenged and eroded by the institutions and values of the liberal Enlightenment.

Beauduin, by Sonya Quitslund (Newman, 366 pp., $10.00). A Belgian monk and friend of the future Pope John XXIII, Lambert Beauduin (1873–1960) was an instigator of liturgical reform and ecumenism. His struggle culminated in Vatican II. Provides insights into Catholic tensions and changes. Scholarly and well written.

The New Testament: A Guide to Its Writings, by Günther Bornkamm (Fortress, 166 pp., $3.25 pb). A prominent German scholar proclaims the Resurrection as the primary theme of the New Testament in this well-written introduction for laymen. However, many of his views are unacceptable, and the helpful insights that are present should be gleaned only by advanced students.

Armstrongism’s 300 Errors Exposed, by S. E. Anderson (Church Growth Publications [Box 90361, Nashville, Tenn. 37209], 215 pp., $2.45 pb). A very extensive look into the theology and practice of Herbert W. Armstrong and his “Worldwide Church of God.” Points out how thoroughly unbiblical Armstrongism is. Clearly written; a good reference book for those who deal with members of the group.

The Evidence That Convicted Aida Skripnikova, edited by Michael Bourdeaux and Xenia Howard-Johnston (David C. Cook, 154 pp., $1.25). Contemporary Soviet persecution of religion is conveyed through an account of the trial and conviction of a young Leningrad evangelical.

Conscience, edited by C. Ellis Nelson (Newman, 353 pp., $5.95 pb). Recent, scholarly essays on conscience, thirteen from a theological perspective followed by nine from a psychological standpoint. The theological articles, while generally of a Christian framework, have no common ideology. The others follow a preference for Freudian-type psychology.

The Hebrew Humanism of Martin Buber, by Grete Schaeder (Wayne State University, 503 pp., $17.50). A thorough analysis of Buber’s philosophical development provided in a biographical context. Evaluates major influences that include Zionism, Hasidism, and the Old Testament.

The Worship of the Early Church, by Ferdinand Hahn (Fortress, 118 pp., $3.25 pb). A scholarly survey of early church worship, including Jewish backgrounds, Christ’s attitudes, and the Church itself on into the second century. Well documented and comprehensive.

Mysticism and Dissent, by Steven Ozment (Yale, 270 pp., $10). A scholarly, well-documented investigation of the appropriation of concepts from late medieval mysticism by six major sixteenth-century religious dissenters; Müntzer, Hut, Denck, Franck, Castellio, and Weigel. Well organized.

The Johannine Epistles, by Rudolf Bultmann (Fortress, 143 pp., $11). Latest addition to the scholarly and aesthetically appealing commentary series known as “Hermeneia.”

Weekday Ministry With Young Children, by Martha Locke Hemphill (Judson, 96 pp., $2.50 pb). Practical approach to planning and preparing for a weekday nursery school in the church. Questions to answer before beginning, lesson ideas, and sources of information make this a very useful guide.

Citing his German counterpart, Heinz Zahrndt, Robinson affirms that Jesus is God in the sense that “he alone allows God to be really his Father.” Here we see one of the curious paradoxes of Robinson’s variety of apostate thinking: having devoted half his book to showing that Jesus must not, under any circumstances, be thought of as essentially or metaphysically different from us, and not even as morally different in principle (in other words, he is not free from sin), Robinson nevertheless asserts that Jesus somehow managed to achieve such a moral triumph in his life that God is fully visible in him. An odd line of argument in view of the fact that—as Robinson himself knows—the life of Jesus is far less fully reported than his atoning death and bodily resurrection, which he finds so baffling and disagreeable. Under the heading “Man for All,” he develops his view of universal salvation (whatever salvation, in his view, may mean).

It goes without saying that Robinson, despite his erudition, gives no time to any writer on Christology (e.g. Brunner, Pannenberg) who does not share his loftily reductionist views.

All in all, it is a pity that so brilliant a mind must continue to devote itself to rationalizing its own now well-entrenched apostasy and commitment to error. The Human Face of God is the document of a spiritual tragedy.

Lundensian Theology

Meaning and Method: Prolegomena to a Scientific Philosophy of Religion and a Scientific Theology, by Anders Nygren (Fortress, 1972, 412 pp., $12.95), is reviewed by Marvin E. Repinski, campus minister, St. Cloud State College, St. Cloud, Minnesota.

To have been introduced to Anders Nygren via his biblical studies, as I was a dozen years ago, and then later to have come upon his more philosophical works gives one an impressing sense of the many-sidedness of this author. His fine biblical studies and theological reflections are a call to a stout faith and reveal a vigorous and devoted heart. Theological thinking, according to the author, is “nothing other than probing into the secrets of the divine Word.” In this volume he probes with his own scientific instruments, hoping to offer the reader means by which to embrace both the community of science and the company of the faithful.

Bishop Nygren is among those Scandinavian churchmen who have given voice to what has become known as Lundensian theology. It is really the generous and ecumenical spirit of Nygren that has been most responsible for giving an international status to what was once a rather parochial method. Now for a good fifty years a number of scholars have been involved in a study that has brought a thematic approach to bear upon scriptural study and philosophical analysis.

Nygren’s commentary on Romans is a fine statement of a bishop with a pastoral heart who wishes to counsel us in the critical, yet devotional, use of the Scriptures. A scholar’s brilliance is welded to a cultural historian’s perspective in his book Agape and Eros, which, though it describes the kinds of human love in overly rigid categories, launched a spirited and useful dialogue in the area of “motif research,” as have other of his works.

Nygren has made a noble effort to free himself, and European theological reflection in general, from Thomistic and other philosophical presuppositions and establish the biblical Word, the event of Christ, as normative within the setting of our age of scientific inquiry. He has fared well and on some fronts established a new level from which theology can proceed—for instance, his development of various forms of what he terms “scientific argumentation.” Scientific inquiry has a kind of built-in testing, an evaluative process that confirms or denies the data being examined. This, Nygren reminds us from several different angles, is very different from the widespread and mistaken notion that science is a deposit of “truths.” This very methodology of science, when properly understood, provides a touchstone for another discipline, namely theology.

Part of the Lundensian approach in theological matters has been to tackle the large terms, to find categories that would carry the freight of weighty discussion and deliver the content in tidy parcels. So Nygren is at home in this work with the big concepts: Good, True, Beautiful, Eternal. But after pursuing godly knowledge via the path of the large and heavy terms, we do well, I suggest, to pause and set another consideration beside Nygren’s manifold pages. Do we do justice to the content of theology by crowding it into “master concepts”? I would depart from Nygren’s methodology to argue that content in theological discourse is not necessarily clarified by being fit into large, universal-type concepts. Rather, words gain their meaning in a context. For the Christian, the context is a life stirred to seek and know the gift of faith. Finding themes, positing all-embracing concepts, can become a temptation to locate faith and its consequent virtues in an artificial context. The plea I make is that the human heart is the proper context for it.

I am convinced, as is Nygren, that one of the objectives of theologizing should be to free the discipline of metaphysical structures. The hard question is: Has he fulfilled his own intentions? One cannot escape the suspicion that there yet remains an ominous metaphysics in this author’s attempt at a scientific theology. Has a kind of “metaphysics of the mind” taken the place of other traditional uses of this approach in doing philosophy and theology?

Anyone who would dare to lead on the fronts of theology must undergo rigorous training in books like this. Those who hope to provide a dynamic in a counter-culture must be familiar with the culture. Likewise, a theology without knowledge of its underlying philosophy will evolve into a thin brew no matter how hearty the original ingredients. Nygren has proved that he can convey nourishment for both the heart and mind.

Fills A Significant Gap

A Manual For Evangelism/Church Growth, by Vergil Gerber (William Carey Library [533 Hermosa, S. Pasadena, Calif. 91030] 1973, 91 pp„ $1.50 pb), is reviewed by Leroy Birney, missionary, Medellín, Colombia.

Congregations and denominations that are serious about the Great Commission will certainly wish to evaluate the results of their evangelistic efforts during Key 73. They will want to discover their strengths and weaknesses and make plans that capitalize on the former and compensate for the latter. Here is a book that can be of great help to them.

The Manual is divided into four sections. The first lays the theological foundation for the use of the skills to be taught. Three concise chapters present the biblical goal, dynamic, and strategy for evangelism in a way easily adapted to presentation in a workshop.

Section II should have been placed at the end, perhaps as an appendix, because it obscures the connection between sections I and III. It summarizes the program of an actual church-growth workshop, presumably as a stimulus and model. The Manual is, in fact, a guide for such workshops on all levels—denominational, regional, city-wide, and congregational.

The key word in section III is diagnosis. It is a step-by-step guide for diagnosing the evangelistic program of a local church or group of churches. It presents not a “new” program or technique of evangelism but rather a method of evaluation.

The Manual introduces concepts such as the growth rate by decades, yearly growth rates, patterns of growth, and three distinct kinds of growth and loss. It shows how to compute each one, make it visual with line and bar graphs, and interpret its relevance for the church.

The diagnosis leads directly into goal setting for conversion growth during the following five years, with an annual evaluation of progress and goals. This process should be part of every church’s annual meeting.

Section IV is designed to promote the learning of the skills taught in section III by providing worksheets and instructions for immediate practice.

Vergil Gerber’s Manual fills a significant gap as a book with which to teach churches to do the diagnostic research necessary for effective evangelism, as recommended in “The Minister’s Workshop” by Peter Wagner (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, January 19, 1973). Each chapter of the book concludes with recommended further reading.

Double Focus

Our Visited Planet, by William M. Justice (Vantage, 1973, 168 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Rachel King, adjunct professor of biblical studies, Barrington College, Barrington, Rhode Island.

The opening chapter of Our Visited Planet is a brilliant apology for the divinity of Christ based on the uniqueness of his personality and the claims he made for himself. I do not know of any book in the past quarter of a century that conveys so well the impression of numinous “otherness” that Christ made upon his immediate followers.

The book is characterized by a balanced rationality of approach, and it is written in a rhythmic, sonorous prose.

Although it is basically orthodox in its summarizing of the arguments for Christ’s pre-existence, incarnation, atoning death, resurrection, present glory and power, and future judgment of the world, it is not a rehash of old doctrines. Instead it has the double focus that is part of the intensity of Ibsen’s plays. Ibsen’s plays unfold in the present and in the process tell the story of the preceding decade. Just the opposite, Our Visited Planet unfolds the first-century story of Christ and in the process draws the picture of our contemporary thought and situation to which Christ’s career is relevant. The strength of the book lies in its Christ-centeredness and in the even sanity with which it combines the orthodox view of the historical resurrection with its modern social implications. Here is religious backing for a heroic stand for racial justice and against the insanity of war!

Although the title of the book makes it plain that Mr. Justice believes that the earthly career of Christ was an invasion of the world by the genuinely supernatural Deity, he of course is not thinking of the world beyond as a spatial “out there.” Discussing the ascension of Jesus, he stresses that in the “hard-core teaching of the early apostles as they spoke of Jesus’ exaltation to the right hand of God” what the primitive church was saying in effect was, “ ‘Don’t overlook the Crucified! The scepter of the universe is in these pierced hands’ ” (p. 145).

The book is a breath of fresh air. One feels that the author personally has—as C. S. Lewis said—“got ‘out’ in some sense which [makes] the Solar System itself seem an indoor affair.”

Horror Center Stage

Albrecht Dürer might have become the artist of the Reformation “had not death intervened not too long after his crisis of the spirit,” according to historian Roland Bainton.

Dürer’s ten woodcuts based on the Book of Revelation, which were part of a recent exhibit of Apocalypse art at the University of Maryland, amply illustrate what the Reformation movement might have gained had he lived longer.

Like many other biblical illustrators of his day, Dürer used older illustrations as sources. Under his hand these traditional motifs were transformed from illustrations into works of art.

The term woodcut misleads when applied to Dürer’s work, bringing to mind as it often does a heavy, stencil-like impression. These prints with their subtle, delicate, yet masculine line, as detailed as a pen drawing, are visually satisfying in every way. One’s eye delights in details of jewelry, feathers, dragon scales; the anatomical construction; the careful modeling that gives form and depth; and faces so carefully treated that each character (including the dragons) exhibits its own personality.

In addition, Dürer’s work is fluid and action-filled, avoiding the static look of many of the woodcuts of his day.

These Apocalypse prints were produced early in the artist’s career, before his spiritual crisis. Rather than demonstrate an interest in Revelation as the word of God, they probably “underline the popularity of this enigmatic text among late-fifteenth-century readers and its appeal to the inventive artists” (Exhibit Notes).

Dürer, forty-six and an important artist when Luther posted his theses on the Wittenberg door, apparently was converted through the Reformer’s writings. He expressed the desire to engrave Luther’s portrait “as a lasting memorial of the Christian man who has helped me out of a great anxiety.”

Dürer’s later works are more warmly evangelical. (Reproductions of the Apocalypse series together with some of his later works are included in The Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer, edited by Willi Kurth, Dover Publications, $2.75.)

Dürer’s beasts from Revelation, repulsive as they are, are not really horrifying. It remained for English artist William Blake to provide truly horrible monsters.

Blake, eccentric artist, poet, and critic of rationalism and dogmatic Christianity alike, produced a series of twelve drawings on the Apocalypse and commented modestly, “There is not one touch in those Drawings & Pictures but what came from my Head & my Heart in Unison … I am Proud of being their Author.…”

Both of Blake’s watercolors chosen for this exhibit feature the beasts of Revelation 12 and 13. In one, the seven-headed dragon, untraditionally drawn with the body of a man, glows ominously against a darkened sky. He stands astride an expanse of water from which the seven-headed beast rises between his legs.

The dragon, featuring both male and female heads, has a thick, brutish, generously muscled torso with bat-like webbed fins at his knees. He so dominates the scene that one wonders whether God is dead in this painting.

Twelve shadowy lithographs by French artist Odilon Redon occupied a rather large part of the exhibit.

Redon has said of his work, “My originality consists in making incredible beings live according to credible laws.” With that feeling it was inevitable that he should turn to Revelation with its incredible beings as a source. His dark prints are more tenuous and less robust than the work of either Blake or Dürer and suggest that the world of the Apocalypse is a dreamy, poorly lit land of shadows.

The Apostle John has the triumphant Lamb of God center stage in his book. Unfortunately, artists have usually been more preoccupied with the books’ horrors. The Lamb of God covered with eyes seems to come across as another freakish curiosity. Even in Dürer’s prints, God the father is someone you’d hate to have to face on the bench in traffic court, to say nothing of the great white throne.

The artists represented are better at depicting horror and judgment than glory and forgiveness. Perhaps that’s an inherent limitation of art. Or perhaps it reflects the fact that we more easily believe the bad than the good.

JOHN V. LAWING, JR.

‘Superstar’ Brings Us Together—In Protest

Jesus Christ Superstar, though a theological disaster, has become an ecumenical triumph. Protestants, Catholics, Jews for Jesus, and Jews for Judaism have all joined in denouncing the Universal Pictures production as anti-Semitic. Moishe Rosen and his Jews for Jesus have picketed the film in California, carrying placards that invite viewers to “read the Bible and see for yourself” and not to “swallow this ‘super-lie.’ ” Handouts charge that the film is unfair both to Jews and to biblical Christianity in perpetuating “the anti-Semitic canard that the Jews are ‘Christ killers.’ ” “Superstar forgets that Jesus is not a fallen star.… He is Risen!”

While Rosen pickets for Jesus in California, Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum upholds Judaism in New York. Switching from Key 73 as his prime example of anti-Semitism, Tanenbaum in news releases and in a letter to the Christian Century declares that Superstar is a passion play, a genre that by its very nature tends to be anti-Semitic. (Malcolm Boyd agrees.) Tanenbaum states that “Passion plays—from Oberammergau … to Jesus Christ Superstar … ought to be abandoned voluntarily until some morally sensitive creative artist finds it possible to write one that allows the professed Christian message of love for fellow man and reconciliation to prevail as a dominant motif, rather than hatred and vilification.”

Late last month the controversy showed few signs of abating. The Religious Advisory Council of the New York State Division of Human Rights released a statement denouncing Superstar as a “provocation of racial, ethnic, and religious tension.” Baptist, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and Jewish clergy signed the position paper.

Christian Century editor James M. Wall seems to be one of the few to approve the film, which was directed by Norman Jewison (not Jewish), who also directed Fiddler on the Roof. Wall says, “I found the film to be compelling, moving, and visually stunning. It is superb cinema, stimulating theology, and in no way anti-Semitic.” Wall differs from prevailing opinion among secular film critics not only in his views of Superstar as a film but also in his attitude toward its theology. Gary Arnold of the Washington Post says that pious people tend to confuse “any representation of Christ’s life with the Gospels themselves.” And Time critic Paul Zimmerman concludes his review by saying, “How did the tour leader write up that afternoon’s outing? ‘We danced and sang and Jesus was crucified and a good time was had by all.’ Lord, forgive them. They knew not what they were doing.”

While the film does possess a certain degree of pathos, it is directed toward Judas, not Jesus. Jewison, following O’Horgan’s lead (see December 3, 1971, issue, page 43), makes Judas the hero, the innocent dupe of a ghastly Providence. Judas objects to Jesus’ morals in allowing Mary Magdalene to kiss and caress him. (“I don’t object to her profession,” sings Judas, played by the new black actor Carl Anderson. “It just doesn’t fit in well with what you preach.”) He betrays Jesus out of fear and a misguided sense of patriotism and then hangs himself out of “innocent” remorse.

Jesus, played by Ted Neeley, looks and acts incompetent, insecure, and petulant. In the surrealistic healing scene Jesus screeches in rock falsetto, “Don’t push me. Don’t shove me. There’s too little of me.” He is hardly the son of God or man in this film.

During the agony in Gethsemane the film almost approaches biblical truth. The music moves and the viewer feels the fear Jesus as man must have known. But Jesus’ lack of understanding—“Why do you want me to die?—weakens the impact.

Using the play-within-the-play technique, director Jewison manages to end the film with wonder. As the cast reboards the bus that brought them to the desert at the film’s outset, each member looks back to the solitary, empty cross silhouetted against a dusky sky. Who is Jesus?

In many scenes with a Christian director and producer the film would have made a very different impact. One viewer as he left the theater said, “No matter what you believe, Jesus makes a good story.” What we need, however, is a Christian filmmaker to produce the true story.

CHERYL FORBES

Second in a Series

The supreme court considers it a violation of the First Amendment—that is, of the “establishment” clause—for a state to require religious exercises involving either sectarian or non-sectarian prayer and/or officially supervised required reading from a religious source-book, even if absence from or non-participation in these exercises is approved. Public schools are not free to hold religious or chapel services with officially approved readings or prayers even if attendance is wholly voluntary.

It follows, moreover, that public schools may not sponsor any program of an evangelistic nature, whether obligatory or elective, no matter what provision is made for non-participation; nor may school administrators or teachers include evangelistic activities in the instructional or related programs. It makes little difference that a public school happens to be located in an area that is predominantly Southern Baptist or Roman Catholic or Jewish. In the opinion of the Court, the majority’s right to free exercise of religion is not jeopardized by the prohibiting of required religious exercises even if these exercises are favored by a majority of those affected.

Traditional baccalaureate services seem to fall into somewhat of a gray area. They do involve the practice of religion with administrative initiative and sponsorship. Justice Black has commented, however, that the decision against the New York Regents’ prayer (in Engel v. Vitale, 1962) is not inconsistent with official encouragement to school children “to express love for country by reciting historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence which contain references to the Deity or by singing officially espoused anthems which include the composer’s professions of faith in a Supreme Being.… Such patriotic or ceremonial occasions bear no true resemblance to the unquestioned religious exercises that the State of New York has sponsored.…” School authorities doubtless may rent facilities or make them available without charge to community groups for religious services of various kinds, presumably including baccalaurate services.

The underlying principle here, as expressed by Justice Clark, who wrote the Schempp decision, is that the machinery of the state is not to be used for the practice of religious beliefs. He commented: “The breach of neutrality that today is a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent.…”

Some saw in the Schempp decision a carte blanche for teachers to evangelize for atheism in the classroom, and who looked to a Constitutional Prayer Amendment as the best corrective recourse. Such persons, in my opinion, were wrong on both counts. Some people consider religious exercises such as devotions and prayer as the only important thing about religion, and even view the study of religion as inimical to the practice of religion. To identify religious concerns exclusively with religious exercises—whether prayer or Bible reading or both—seems to me a serious abridgment of the religious agenda.

I do not intend to minimize the importance of group affirmation of the reality of God, nor even of symbolic recognition of God simply as the Almighty upon whose blessing the felicity of men and nations depends, and I would insist that the practice of religion is not less important than its study. A long, hard look at Supreme Court decisions in the light of the Constitution may yet indicate that religious exercises on an unofficial voluntary basis are not inappropriate to the public schools. The question of sponsorship is the central issue, not necessarily use of the premises.

Paul G. Kauper of the University of Michigan Law School has noted that the decisions do not outlaw classroom prayer as such, that a school board may prescribe a period of meditation in which a child may pray or hear devotional literature, and that opportunity may be given for voluntary student participation in religious exercises congenial to his or her faith (Religion and the Constitution, Louisiana State University Press, 1964). The use of school properties for voluntary religious exercises not involving the influence of teachers but initiated and arranged by students with the permission of school authorities is not excluded. Religious practices including prayer and devotions may be arranged in a public school in whatever spontaneous expressions students wish providing the rights of fellow students are preserved and the functioning of the school is unimpeded. Robert Maynard Hutchins has called attention to the fact that all Supreme Court decisions involving religion have thus far been based on the “establishment” clause and not on the “free exercise” clause, which would bear on the right of students to express themselves religiously at their own initiative.

But if the public schools were to suppress classroom study and discussion of God and religion and the Bible, not even an expansion of religious exercises from ten to a hundred Bible verses and not even the supplementation of a non-sectarian prayer by the Lord’s Prayer would compensate for the inexcusable forfeiture of the classroom to anti-religious and anti-theistic prejudices. No informed person could welcome the segregation of religious concerns from the arena of rational persuasion and truth. Atheists and theists alike might for sound reason legally oppose mandated religious exercises in the public schools, but only an atheist should be gratified that the friends of religion concentrate their concern at the edge of the instructional program, on the matter of opening exercises reserved for internal experience, rather than in the realm of public truth and learning.

Despite its prohibition of authorized religious exercises, the Schempp decision did not foreclose all educational interest in God and the Bible. While the decision firmly closed the door on required religious practices, it also opened a window that many persons have ignored and that all must contemplate with great care.

This column by the late Executive Editor ofCHRISTIANITY TODAYis reprinted from the October 9, 1964, issue.

Can we have victory over the Devil? We know that Satan will ultimately be destroyed forever, and this is a comforting thought. But our immediate problem is to gain victory now.

The first lesson to be learned is that no one can overcome the Devil in his own strength and wisdom. Never forget that he is “as smart as the devil.” This means that in any chosen field he is more astute and stronger than any mere human being.

We are told—and this is true today as it has been true all through human history—that “the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” This figure of speech is given to alert us to the acuteness of our danger.

Unable to stand against the Devil in our own strength, confronted by the reality of his person and activities, we must look outside ourselves for the answer to our problem. Can we be victorious over this implacable enemy who tempts, accuses, distracts, and destroys?

The answer is an unequivocal Yes! Not only is his ultimate fate sealed; there is open to every Christian the means of victory—day-to-day victory—in the conflict. It is possible to stand firm, to defy and to defeat every wile of Satan. It is possible to overcome him whenever and wherever he attacks. This is not to imply perfect sanctification. Rather, it is to affirm the complete effectiveness of the triumph of Christ and of the provision he has made for those who look to him for victory.

In Christ there is victory over sin, the object of Satan’s temptations. There is victory over what has aptly been spoken of as “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” And there is victory over death.

At the heart of victory over Satan there lies the finished work of the Christ of Calvary, the one who died for our sins according to the Scriptures, who was buried, who arose again from the dead according to the Scriptures.

There is victory now and for all eternity because at Calvary, in his malignant wrath, the Devil overstepped himself so that the Cross was not his victory but his doom.

There is victory now because God has placed in our hands the means of subduing his attacks and of waging a counterattack. Protected by the whole armor of God, blunting Satan’s arrows by the shield of faith, we have in our hands the one weapon against which the enemy cannot stand—the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

Little wonder that from the first insinuation, “Yea, hath God said?,” there has been an unceasing attack on the divine revelation. Little wonder that the Bible continues to be the object of the Devil’s unending hate, of ceaseless efforts to weaken it by refutation, alteration, interpretation, and infiltration. Where formerly the Bible was the object of ridicule from outside the Church, now some of its most avid critics are found within the Church itself.

Nowhere is there a more convincing proof of the usefulness of the Scriptures to defeat Satan than in our Lord’s three thrusts with the Sword when tempted in the wilderness.

Nothing explains the weakness of the average Christian today more clearly than his abysmal ignorance of the Word of God. And this cannot be remedied by reading a verse a day, or by reading a book about the Bible. To have the ability to make victorious use of the Scriptures in our daily living, we must take the time to read and reread and reread until God’s way becomes our way because he has spoken to us through his Word.

In the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 we find out that in each case there is held out a hope and a reward, all based on “overcoming.” And it is revealing to find repeated this phrase, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says.…”

The war against Satan is a spiritual war. The means by which he is defeated are spiritual. The teaching and power of the Holy Spirit are necessary if we are to be victorious. Whenever man seeks victory by any other means he is always defeated.

To fight the Devil successfully we must exercise both confidence and distrust—confidence in the completeness of the means made available to us by God’s grace and distrust of ourselves and all man-devised weapons.

For us there is the daily ebb and flow of battle. Temptations come at unexpected times and in unexpected places. The enemy attacks where we are weakest. When we feel a sense of our own sufficiency, defeat is not far away. “Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

Looking at ourselves and considering the enemy, we would be overwhelmed except for promises such as this: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13, 14). The very practical application of this is that we look for the God-given exit when it is needed.

Our own victory over Satan is inexorably linked with our victorious Lord. Apart from him there is no victory; with him and by his grace we can overcome any attack to which we may be subjected. The words of our Lord hold forth a promise for us who live in an increasingly troubled world: “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We should never forget that God has never promised peace and ease, as the world sees these things. But he has promised the necessary grace and strength, and ultimate victory. In the Revelation John tells of this victory: “They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful” (17:14).

In our armament there is also prayer. William Cowper’s words: “And Satan trembles, when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees,” are fraught with meaning, for he who prays for strength and guidance finds himself fortified against evil and the way of escape made plain. David expresses this in his prayer: “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty” (1 Chron. 29:11). Once we realize that victory is in and through Christ, prayer becomes the imperative two-way communication with the divine Headquarters.

Finally, Christians are “more than conquerors through him that loved us.” As the Apostle Paul so graphically states, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. He who has defeated Satan gives us the victory.

Lives Sublime

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time.

—Longfellow

Occasions like Columbus Day often bring on me a recurrence of the “footprints in the sands of time” syndrome.

“What,” I ask myself, “have I done or am I likely to do to cause my name to be remembered by posterity?”

Will my accomplishments result in towering monuments reflecting the sun with more than Oriental splendor and having Eutychus V boldly graven on the base? Will Eutychus V Day give the workers of America a welcome day of respite from their labors?

Probably not.

I’m not sure what sort of men Longfellow had in mind in the “Psalm of Life,” but it’s hard to say what the lives of some “great” men remind us of.

If one is to believe the historical records, Columbus himself displayed arrogance, avarice, deceit, cruelty, and dishonesty.

Having been promised unprecedented honors, titles, and shares of the trade by the Queen of Spain, Columbus nevertheless claimed for himself the prize offered to the first seaman to spot land, defrauding the poor sailor who had actually done so. Yet he is piously enshrined in our history books.

On the coast of Massachusetts there’s a small beach known as “Singing Beach” because the sand is so fine that as you walk it collapses into your footprints with a musical sound. I suspect the sands of time are very much like Singing Beach.

The lives of most truly great men probably don’t remind us of anything. They were too busy doing God’s bidding to worry about leaving indelible footprints.

The Israelites had a better system. They erected their monuments to God, who had given them the victory or led them across a dangerous way. Their great holidays commemorated no leader but rather the mighty acts of God.

It’s better to leave our leaders and ourselves to the judgment of God and to join the Psalmist in saying:

Sing to the Lord and bless his name,

Proclaim his triumph day by day.

His Marvelous deeds among all peoples.

Remember, his “Well done, good and faithful servant” is worth ten thousand monuments reflecting the sun with more than Oriental splendor.

EUTYCHUS V

Characteristic

That was an excellent article on Dr. Trumbull by my friend Bernard De-Remer (“Henry Clay Trumbull: A Profile of Involvement,” Aug. 10). It may be that your readers would be interested in a characteristic anecdote which was told to me by the person I am about to mention.

When Trumbull began the publication of the Sunday School Times in 1875, he asked Philip E. Howard to be his business manager. Howard was then a very young man, and he told Trumbull he would not be the cause of the paper’s ultimately folding up due to poor business management. Trumbull replied, “I had rather have you working with me and failing, than to be a success without you.” The choice, of course, was wholly justified in the years ahead when the Sunday School Times became the most important Sunday-school paper in the English world. Though the life of Dr. Trumbull was written by Howard himself, the anecdote I have just related is not mentioned in these pages. Let me repeat, this was told to me by Howard himself.

WILBUR M. SMITH

Professor Emeritus

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

San Marino, Calif.

The Right To Lie

Thanks for including “the lying reports about U. S. bombings in Cambodia” among the “immoral actions that must be condemned” in your editorial “Watergate and Religion” (August 31). I wonder whether you would include the bombings themselves among the immoral actions that must be condemned. Or are we to understand that the bombing was moral, but the lying about the bombing was immoral?

A similar question is raised by your quotation from Billy Graham, “Lying, cheating, stealing, fornication, and adultery are always wrong. They are a breach of God’s law no matter who does them.” Are we to understand that killing human beings is not always wrong? Is it wrong only when it is murder, that is, when the society in which one lives declares it to be wrong? If the society determines when killing human beings is wrong and when it is right, can it not also determine when lying, etc. are wrong and when right?

Can we Christians expect the world to take us seriously when we say that lying is always wrong, while at the same time we let the world decide for us when killing is right and when it is wrong? When we as Christians delegate to a few national leaders the responsibility to decide for us when it is right to kill human beings, can we blame them if they also assume the right to decide when it is right to lie?

MERLE E. BRUBAKER

Dillsburg, Pa.

In Remembrance

What a delight to see that those who gave their lives for what they believed to be a service to God and country have not been forgotten (News, “Sixteen Men,” Aug. 31). Chaplain Don L. Bartley was a dear friend and companion of mine who was on his way to visit me when his truck ran over a land mine, killing him and five others on assignment to make a film record of chaplain activities in Viet Nam. Chaplain Bartley was an outstanding chaplain (on the promotion list ahead of his contemporaries), a faithful proclaimer of the Word of God, and a sweet and loving Christain who attracted many to Christ by his life. May God grant we have many more examples like Don Bartley to follow. Thank you for remembering them.

GROVER G. DEVAULT

Chaplain (LTC), United States Army

Fort Hood, Tex.

Misplaced

Please note that under “Diabetic Deaths” (News, Sept. 14) you say [that the tragedy occurred] in Bakersfield, California. It was Barstow, not Bakersfield.

KEITH M. HOOD

Minister of Parish Life

First Presbyterian Church

Bakersfield, Calif.

‘Gospel’ Or Bible?

I deeply resented your editorial, “Missouri Synod: The Conservative Victory” (Aug. 10), particularly the implication that Southern Baptist seminaries are becoming increasingly unorthodox. Frankly, I think you are misinformed. However, if by unorthodox you mean placing primary emphasis on “the Gospel” rather than beginning with the Bible (one of the conflicts between “liberals” and “conservatives” in the Synod, according to your news article), then perhaps your remark has some basis. For it is true that many professors (and others as well) feel that a person will usually first come to faith in Christ and will then realize the authority of the Bible for his life. This is as it should be. Which came first, the Bible or the living Word (John 1:1)? The Bible is primarily a sword to be used, not a book to be defended. If this is unorthodox, then you should categorize many traditionally evangelical groups as unorthodox—Campus Crusade and Inter-Varsity, for instance. If not, then I see little justification for your statement.

It is interesting that you bemoan the “liberal drift” away from the “orthodox theology of the founding fathers,” yet in the Synod’s case it is not adherence to the historic Lutheran creeds that is at issue. Rather, Tietjen and others are apparently to be vanquished for their non-adherence to President Preus’s personal statement of doctrinal principles. I am glad that Southern Baptists have not come to the point of pitched battle over different theological interpretations. If the growing “unorthodoxy” of SBC seminaries has been harmful, it isn’t evident in the area of evangelism. A record number of baptisms, about 450,000, was reported for this past year. Perhaps diversity can even be an asset!

NORMAN LANGSTON

Eugene, Oreg.

It is most unfortunate that such a statement as “the theologically orthodox who are increasingly being crowded out of Southern Baptist seminaries” should appear in print. Southern Baptists are due a retraction and apology for this statement as it is unfounded and out of place. More and more your magazine is becoming a “witch hunter’s guide” for those who confuse orthodoxy by self-definition with Christianity. You were bred of better stock and would that you return to same.

JERARD W. THORNTON, JR.

The First Baptist Church

Goliad, Tex.

In your editorial commendation of Dr. Preus for his conservative victory, it is interesting that you noted only his courage and perseverance. Sadly missed is a recognition of the man’s love—perhaps, and tragically, because that mark of a New Testament man has not been one of our president’s strong attributes. I lost my respect for him as my spiritual leader when one of my letters of concern to him was answered in part by him thus: “… you had impressed yourself upon me as a cruel, insolent and loveless individual.” Others who have written to him out of their genuine concerns have received similar responses or been attacked with biting sarcasm.

DONALD R. HOGER

Saint Timothy Lutheran Church

Hyde Park, N. Y.

Fine Balance

I appreciate the quality of the articles in CHRISTIANITY TODAY. The fine scholarship and balance can be seen quite clearly in Clark Pinnock’s article “The New Pentecostalism: Reflections by a Well Wisher” (Sept. 14). I hope both “sides” listen well to it, especially the sentence, “Let us not permit Satan to use the occasion of the new Pentecostal revival to drive evangelical believers from one another as he has used eschatology, social practices, and the sovereignty of God in the past.”

JOHN SCRUTON

First Baptist Church

Hampton, N. H.

Thank you for the excellent article. With concise clarity and an economy of words yet with deep understanding Pinnock has reflected many of the hopes and fears elicited by this movement. Please, if it is possible, make this available in reprint form.

CHARLES H. SIDES, JR.

Gaffney, S. C.

I have just finished reading the September 14 issue of your magazine, and was especially pleased to read the article on the new Pentecostalism. CHRISTIANITY TODAY has not always been as conciliatory when it treated this subject. It seems to me that Dr. Pinnock has raised some legitimate questions that require a reply. I for one would like to see replies to this article by charismatic theologians from Protestant and Catholic branches of the Church.

Pinnock mentions Rodman Williams, a Presbyterian charismatic theologian. Dr. Williams has done some [thinking] on these problems, and might be persuaded to make a reply. Also, he is currently in talks with Catholic theologians in this country and in Europe, and might suggest one of them to make a reply as well. I firmly believe one of the ways CHRISTIANITY TODAY can open up a new offensive to make evangelicalism more creditable is by assisting in an effort to draw these two movements closer together. The differences in views and goals between charismatics and non-charismatic evangelicals is not a great one.

GORDON L. LYLE

First Presbyterian Church

Dadeville, Ala.

Dr. Pinnock’s otherwise penetrating article answers his own question on why many evangelicals reject the so-called charismatic movement. (With him, I believe the church is charismatic.) The genius of both the new and old Pentecostalism, which he does touch on, is the authority of experience, which bows to nothing else, including revelation. Pinnock’s helpful suggestions to the charismatics, mild as they may seem (and biblical as they are), would absolutely vitiate the movement. Twisted Scripture can never produce straight theology. Subjectivism will remain that, no matter what our purported spiritual objectives.

Surely we cry out for a greater fullness of the Holy Spirit, but he will not arrive at the cheap command of babbling. (See “Speaking in Tongues” by Stanley D. Walker, Youth in Action, May, 1964, for syllabic instructions on speaking in tongues.) His presence and power is available now just exactly on the same basis it always has been. “… the Holy Spirit … God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32, RSV). The cost of the life in the Spirit remains the same as when Jesus promised to send the Comforter—the cross of complete submission.

LYNN BAERG

Seventh-day Adventist Churches of the Rio Grande Valley

Weslaco, Tex.

Clark Pinnock’s reflections are a healing balm on an old wound in the body of Christ. An important omitted fact is that the growing number of Christians who believe in spiritual gifts but not in a post-conversion baptism in the Holy Spirit overwhelmingly do not exercise these gifts. This doesn’t prove a “second blessing,” but points to the general need for bringing experience and biblical understanding into alignment.

JOHN KOHL

Arlington, Va.

Thank you very much for the most incisive and compassionate article on this most sensitive subject that I’ve read in a long while. As a pentecostal, evangelical, Episcopal priest (sic?), I felt Dr. Pinnock speaking spirit to spirit in the Holy Spirit. While I agree with most everything he had to say, I would offer this one reason for the apparent insistence upon the gift of tongues as normative if not necessary:

1. The Christian is to have the mind of Christ and do the works (even greater!) Christ did. This, obviously, can be only by his grace as we are totally yielded to the Spirit within us.

2. The yieldedness (as the branch to the vine) issues forth in the fruits of the Spirit, or the character of Jesus. James reminds us that our tongue is the last to be tamed of all our members, and is not subject to human control. He is not arguing for the gift of tongues (Jas. 3:1–12), but his truth is [obviously] self evident.

3. Therefore, we might say that the gift of tongues (glossolalia) is self-edifying in that it is a sign-gift from God of our more complete yielding. Somewhat like uncorking a bottle, the Spirit is then manifested in many other ways in the life of the believer. The overflowing seems to begin for many with this step of trust. Remember, speaking (more correctly “praying”—for it is to the Father) in tongues requires a walking-on-water kind of faith. Walking comes naturally, as does normal speaking; but as Peter’s faith in stepping out of the boat preceded the Lord’s evident provision, so must we open our mouths and pray, trusting him to provide the actual vowels and consonants which constitute the “tongue” or language he gives us.

TIMOTHY S. RUDOLPH

St. Martin’s Church

Daly City, Calif.

One of my favorite quotations comes from a Canadian humorist, the late Stephen Leacock. He tells about the hero who “flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” Don’t try to analyze the picture; just enjoy it. It won’t stand up to critical analysis. Or try this one from the same author: “Falling in love is like swallowing a sunset.” You either get the picture or you don’t.

These quotations from Leacock came to mind a couple of days ago when I studied the cover of the New Yorker. A very serious young thing painting a sunset is holding up her brush as artists do to get the measure of the subject. Now just how do you go about getting the measure of a sunset?

There are splendid pictures of sunsets, which means that artists have been able to “reduce” the whole scene to canvas. But if the artist is wise, his picture is not a photographic production all neatly measured but a reduction that is open-ended and allows the viewer to appreciate the picture and then to see through the picture to what the sunset can be or must have been. The viewer, of course, brings with him his own appreciation and understanding of sunsets. But he doesn’t come to analyze or criticize the technique of the picture unless his assignment is purely academic. He comes to appreciate and to grasp and happily to live with and feed upon what the artist has brought him.

Poetry was almost killed for me in high school by endless analysis and criticism. Shakespeare and Milton were almost destroyed in the same way. It seemed to me then that English literature consisted in looking things up in the back of the book. Later in Egypt I sat happily at the feet of Arch Owen, a great missionary teacher, and he simply read poetry to us as he might have played a piece of music.

There is endless theological argument about whether things in our holy faith can be defined. I think they can be so long as we know what we are doing. When we say that God is a spirit we are saying he is not matter or flesh, and this is a clear distinction and we have said a true thing about God. We have also said an open-ended thing, and the realm of the spirit must not be reduced unless the same thing happens as happened with the artist. The realm of the spirit must be handled in such a way that one is “in the spirit” (spiritual things are spiritually discerned). He is thus enabled to move far beyond what our definition has said. We define God not to limit him but to set him forth. The Bible seems to say that there are those who can see and there are those who cannot see, or again, “he that hath ears to hear let him hear.” Are we in danger of analyzing and criticizing the Bible to death? “The word killeth, the spirit maketh alive.”

IN MEMORIAM

Our good friend and faithful co-worker Addison H. Leitch died September 17 at the age of sixty-four. Our hearts and prayers go out to his widow, Elisabeth Elliot, and his four daughters.

The funeral service was held at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, the sixth and last school to have had Dr. Leitch on its faculty. His longest term was at Pittsburgh (then Pittsburgh-Xenia) Seminary, 1946–61, the last four of those years as its president. He had a Ph.D. from Cambridge. He wrote six books.

The name Addison H. Leitch (the H. for Hardie) has always been well known among readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. He was a long-time contributor to “Current Religious Thought,” our anonymous “Eutychus II” for several years, and one of the magazine’s editors-at-large. An essay of his entitled “The Primary Task of the Church” appeared in the very first issue of the magazine, October 15, 1956. Now, in another first-in-October issue, we publish the last piece he sent us, intended for use in “Current Religious Thought.”

Add Leitch visited me in June when I was a patient at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. We had a blessed visit together despite his grave illness and the debilitating side effects produced by the radiation therapy he had been undergoing.

A long-time friend of his wrote us recently to suggest the applicability of words Macaulay wrote of Charles Simeon: “… if he but knew with what authority and influence he swayed the church.… Who ever heard him deliver a dry sermon? Who ever had to listen to dull remarks in his conversation?” Not surprisingly, in a biographical data form we once asked him to fill out Addison Leitch listed as “a ‘favorite’ Bible … text,” “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” We miss that fine mind and devoted spirit and merry heart.

HAROLD LINDSELL

The other side of this whole discussion has to do with the person who is looking at the picture of the sunset or, more to the point now, the person who reads his Bible. It is an old and solid Reformed doctrine that the Bible must be treated as Word and Spirit. The Word without the Spirit becomes wooden. The Spirit-filled Christian uncontrolled by the words of Scripture becomes wild—what Calvin called a “frantic.” This is a danger in many charismatic movements today. It is also a danger in many enthusiastic youth movements where singing and “sharing” crowd out the Scriptures.

If our thesis still stands up, then we see that in the larger sense one does not stop with the immediate text but includes the whole of Scripture, which introduces wider interpretation.

Think of a simple phrase like “by grace you are saved.” There is no objection to a close analysis of grace and salvation, of course. I believe in exegesis. There is no question that the verse is literally word-for-word true. But how much it is enriched by the endless examples of Scripture, the endless experience of one’s own life, the testimony of the Church, and the sturdy support of the creeds. And the end is not yet, because when one lives with the Bible and feeds on it he continues to grow up into his understanding of the grace of God and will probably some day have to sing about it in some heavenly choir because ordinary definitions of that grace won’t do.

Some of this sounds like Tillich and his symbols and Tillich is always scary to fundamentalists and evangelicals, so why not try the word sacrament or sacramental? The bread and cup are literally what they are, and they are not changed into something else. Nevertheless, received in faith they communicate the Realities of the body broken and the blood shed; this is our expectancy and our hope at the holy table. In some sense also the words of Scripture communicate something larger than themselves, and all life in this sense can be thought of as sacramental. “The heavens declare the glory of God.… There is no speech nor language.…”

God creates. Hence man, created in divine image, is also creative. And the Spirit of God who “was moving over the face of the waters” at the dawn of creation is the same Spirit who, according to Scripture, operates in the Church, giving to each Christian “the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7).

Great confusion exists today regarding the important biblical doctrine of the gifts of the Spirit. The institutional church often shows a crippling misunderstanding of this concept. And too often specific Christian traditions implicitly, if not explicitly, deny the possibility of real creativity.

When I speak of misunderstanding spiritual gifts, I speak from experience. I had read the passages on the gifts of the Spirit in First Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians many times, always with a half-conscious puzzlement. Paul emphasized spiritual gifts, but there seemed to be no application of this teaching to the contemporary church. Then slowly it dawned on me: the contemporary church in its institutional form makes little room for spontaneous spiritual gifts. Worse yet, often it does not need spiritual gifts to function. When the local church is structured after an institutional rather than a charismatic model, spiritual gifts are replaced by aptitude, education, and technique.

Severall common misunderstandings of spiritual gifts need to be shown for what they are, unbiblical tendencies that restrict the working of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community. I suggest five that need to be explored.

1. The tendency to deny or discredit spiritual gifts. In its most extreme form, this tendency says that the gifts of the Spirit were given as miraculous signs at the birth of the Church but have no legitimacy today. Gifts of healing, prophecy, and tongues, especially, are no longer to be considered valid. In a milder form this tendency admits in theory the validity of spiritual gifts but in practice is suspicious of them and tends to discredit them.

An example of such thinking is found in John R. W. Stott’s little book One People. Stott arrives at the unwarranted conclusion that some New Testament gifts “certainly do not exist in the Church today, notably apostles and prophets.… Probably some others like ‘workers of miracles’ have also ceased” (Inter-Varsity, 1968, p. 27).

Such a position arbitrarily limits the operation of the Holy Spirit and the applicability of the New Testament to our day. There is no more warrant, for instance, to apply chapters twelve and fourteen of First Corinthians exclusively to the early Church than there is so to limit the thirteenth chapter. Gifts and love go together.

To deny spiritual gifts is to misunderstand their nature. Those who fear spiritual gifts (and often the problem is, in reality, one of fear) usually think of them as highly individualistic, irrational, and eccentric manifestations that disturb the unity of the Body of Christ. But this caricature is not at all what the Bible means by the gifts of the Spirit.

We cannot depreciate spiritual gifts without devaluating the biblical understanding of the Church and the Spirit-filled life. The charismata are not something merely tacked on; neither are they temporally or culturally bound. They are cross-culturally relevant, and their presence in the Church makes the Church cross-culturally relevant. Both in Romans 12 and in Ephesians 4, Paul relates the unity of the Spirit’s ministry in the Church to the diversity of gifts. The appeal to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” and “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” is followed by the appeal, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given us, let us use them” (Rom. 12:1–6). Both injunctions are for today.

We simply have no authority to declare specific gifts invalid. It may be difficult to accept the full range of biblical teaching on the subject, but this is necessary to avoid impoverishing the Church. And it is essential for a truly biblical doctrine of the Church and its ministry.

2. The tendency to over-individualize spiritual gifts. Western Christianity in general has tended to over-individualize the Gospel to the detriment of its more communal and collective aspects, and contemporary conceptions of spiritual gifts have suffered from this tendency. Spiritual gifts are too often thought of as strictly a matter of one’s “private” relationship to God, without regard for the Christian community. In contrast, Paul repeatedly emphasizes that the Spirit’s gifts are for the edification of the Church, and that they lose their significance if this emphasis is lost. The general principle is, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). The individual gift is balanced by community responsibility and interaction. Paul prefaces his comments on gifts in Romans 12 with the assertion, “We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). This is the biblical balance, and spiritual gifts can rightly be understood only in this context.

The biblical conception is that the community of believers acts as the controlling context for the exercise of gifts, thus discouraging individualistic aberrations. And gifts must operate in this way. The Church is, to use Gordon Cosby’s phrase, “a gift-evoking, gift-bearing community.” When the Church really functions in this way, the various gifts not only reinforce one another but also act as check and balance to prevent extremes. Here the New Testament analogy of the body is helpful. The hand or foot is prevented from some extreme or uncontrolled action by its connection to the body, with its various organs and systems. Functioning as part of the body, the hand is helpful and nearly indispensable, but cut off from the body it becomes grotesque and useless. So it is with spiritual gifts.

It is at this point, incidentally, that small Bible-study groups find their usefulness. The small Spirit-directed group builds community and provides the context for both awakening spiritual gifts and disciplining their use. As a consequence of many such cells, the whole larger community of the Church is edified.

Spiritual gifts are not given merely for personal enjoyment, nor even primarily for the individual’s own spiritual growth. Rather, they are given “for the common good,” “that the church may be edified” (1 Cor. 14:5).

3. The tendency to confuse spiritual gifts and native abilities. The error here lies in the tendency to go to one extreme or the other: to make spiritual gifts and native abilities either synonymous or else antithetical.

Each person is born with latent potentialities that should be developed and used to the glory of God. This is stewardship. But when the New Testament speaks of spiritual gifts, it goes beyond this. Paul says the Holy Spirit “apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). There is an immediacy here that speaks of a direct relationship between man and God through conversion and life in the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit result from the operation of the Spirit in the life of the believer, and so are something more than merely the wise and faithful use of native abilities. They must be understood as, literally, gifts of the Spirit.

But how and when does the Spirit operate? The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of creation that “was moving over the face of the waters,” the same Spirit who said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). God is sovereign and omniscient, and we must not suppose that he begins to operate in a person’s life only after conversion. There really is no such thing as a “native” ability—“What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7). It is not too much to say that God in his foreknowledge has given to each person at birth those talents that he later wills to awaken and ignite. A spiritual gift is a God-given ability that has caught fire.

A native capacity does not really become a spiritual gift until it is given over to the Spirit. The principle of crucifixion and resurrection, of dying and rising, applies here. Natural abilities remain in the plane of human effort until given to God in self-sacrifice.

In his perceptive discussion of spiritual gifts in Full Circle, David R. Mains writes:

In those areas where I have natural abilities, such as a facility for public speaking, the difference between their being talents or gifts of the Holy Spirit is found in my attitude. If I recognize the talent as from God, and in prayer and continual dedication commit it to Him to be used in ministry in a special way, it becomes a gift of the Holy Spirit with supernatural expression. The proof of this is seen in the gradual way God increases this gift for His service [Word, 1971, p. 62].

So talents and gifts are neither synonymous nor antithetical. Both, after all, are bestowed by God. It is no accident that converted salesmen often make good evangelists. God is not capricious. Although we must not limit the sovereign working of the Spirit, yet we may normally expect some correspondence between a person’s “native” abilities and personality traits—latent or developed—and the spiritual gifts God will bring forth in him. The Spirit intends to transform us into what we were meant to become, not into Xerox copies of someone else.

4. The tendency to exaggerate some gifts and depreciate others. This is one of the most serious and most common errors regarding spiritual gifts: the tendency to think only certain gifts are legitimate gifts. How serious this aberration has become is seen in the fact that any discussion of spiritual gifts today usually becomes sidetracked on the question of tongues. The tendency to think only of the more spectacular gifts—such as tongues, healing, or prophecy—as spiritual gifts is wrong. All gifts are important, all are necessary, and all are given by God for the common good.

An examination of the relevant biblical passages suggests that the various lists of gifts mentioned are intended to be representative, not exhaustive. The multiform operation of the Holy Spirit may awaken a vast variety of gifts; gifts may be as varied as is human personality. The New Testament lists the specific leadership gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher (Eph. 4:11; 1 Cor. 12:28). But such designations as utterance of knowledge, helps, service, and acts of mercy may be understood as general categories that take in a wide spectrum of specific gifts. Any ability ignited and used by the Holy Spirit—whether in music, art, writing, intercessory prayer, homemaking, hospitality, listening, or whatever—is a legitimate spiritual gift. If God has given the gift, then it is good and is intended to be used. The biblical teaching is plain: “As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: … in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:10, 11).

The problem, too often, is the failure to affirm the full range of gifts—the failure to appreciate “God’s varied grace.” All gifts are important, and none is an anomaly when exercised rightly in the context of community. It is as wrong to overemphasize preaching and teaching and deny tongues and healing as it is, on the contrary, so to emphasize the more spectacular gifts that the less showy ones are forgotten. The Holy Spirit acts so “that there may be no discord in the body” only when all gifts are affirmed and operate cooperatively. To quote David Mains again:

Every true member of the local church has a minimum of one gift, and most people have many. Since no one has every gift, and everyone has at least one, there exists an interdependence among the members of the church. Scripture teaches (1 Cor. 12:22–25) that the less spectacular gifts are more necessary than the showy ones. In other words, the church can go a long time without a miracle, but let it try to exist without acts of mercy or contributions!… How disabled the body of Christ has become because our primary purpose for church attendance has been to hear one man exercise his gifts, rather than to prepare all the people to develop their gifts for ministry, not only within the church but also to society [Full Circle, p. 63].

The function of the local church should be to expect, identify, and awaken the varied gifts that sleep within the community of believers. When all gifts are affirmed under the leadership of the Holy Spirit and in the context of mutual love, each gift is important and no gift becomes an aberration.

5. The tendency to divorce spiritual gifts from the cross. This tendency arises from the failure to incarnate the tension between the cross and the charismata, between Passover and Pentecost. It is the tendency, on the one hand, to emphasize gifts in such a way that the cross is lost sight of and the community is fractured by self-centeredness. Or, on the other hand, it is the opposite: to deny any emphasis on gifts because of this tendency toward self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement.

What is the biblical position? How can the fact of each person’s discovering and exercising his gifts be reconciled with Christ’s fundamental words, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34)?

There is a danger here, for spiritual gifts are often misunderstood. The New Testament teaching concerning spiritual gifts is not a call for each Christian simply to “do his own thing” and forget the welfare of the group and the need of the world. Ministry is not determined exclusively by personal desire but by the cross.

And yet, biblically, there is no contradiction between gift-affirmation and self-denial. In fact, the two go together. The biblical principle, again, is that of death and resurrection. As one is crucified with Christ and dies to his own will, the Holy Spirit resurrects within him his significant gift. So the spiritual gift, rightly exercised, is not self-centeredness; it is self-giving.

But we must go further and say that the Christian discovers the true meaning of crucifixion as he really begins to exercise his gift. Faithful ministry of the gift of the Spirit will lead him into depths of self-giving he never dreamed possible—and God planned it this way. This is the way we are created, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Here we find the meaning of the life and death of Jesus Christ, God’s Son and the perfect man. We may suppose that Jesus possessed, at least potentially, all the gifts of the Spirit, and he publically exercised many of them—apostle, evangelist, healer, prophet, teacher, helper, comforter, friend. The faithful exercise of his ministry led him not to the throne but to the cross. But it led beyond, as well—to resurrection.

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). Here we find the meaning of the gifts of the Spirit.

Elizabeth O’Connor has written helpfully along this line in Eighth Day of Creation. “When one really becomes practical about gifts, they spell out responsibility and sacrifice,” she says.

The identifying of gifts brings to the fore … the issue of commitment. Somehow if I name my gift and it is confirmed, I cannot “hang loose” in the same way. I would rather be committed to God in the abstract than be committed to him at the point of my gifts.…

If I develop one gift, it means that other gifts will not be used. Doors will close on a million lovely possibilities. I will become a painter or a doctor only if denial becomes a part of my picture of reality. Commitment at the point of my gifts means that I must give up being a straddler. Somewhere in the deeps of me I know this. Life will not be the smorgasbord I have made it, sampling and tasting here and there. My commitment will give me an identity [Word, 1971, p. 42].

Spiritual gifts come to their full biblical legitimacy and meaning only in the rhythm of incarnation-crucifixion-resurrection.

The urgent need today is that spiritual gifts be seen and understood in the context of ecclesiology, as in the New Testament. A biblical understanding of spiritual gifts is absolutely essential for a biblical understanding of the Church. For our understanding at this point will determine whether our ecclesiology is based on a charismatic or an institutional model.

When spiritual gifts are misunderstood—through being over-individualized, denied, divorced from community, or otherwise distorted—it is the Church that suffers. The Church truly becomes the Church only when the biblical meaning of spiritual gifts is recovered. A church whose life and ministry is not built upon the exercise of spiritual gifts is, biblically, a contradiction in terms.