About This Issue: January 31, 1964

How is a Christian responsible to God for the use of his free time? This issue deals with several of the more important aspects of leisure in the context of harried modern life. The editors feel that leisure represents a vast area deserving of continuing Christian inquiry (see the editorial on page 20). More articles on the subject are scheduled for future issues.

Related to the proper use of leisure is the Christian’s responsibility in good works. One area needful of the time and effort of many more evangelicals is that of mental retardation. For a survey of this need, see Mrs. Hampton’s article on page 12.

South Africa’s Race Dilemma

Carl F. H. Henry

While most nations sense that the midnight hour has struck for solving race problems, South Africa pleads for time and understanding in reaching a solution. To many its policy of apartheid seems like lifting one’s hand against the sea. But the South African position calls for a fair hearing, for it has been widely misunderstood and misrepresented.

Unlike European relationships to many African countries, the white Afrikaner neither displaced nor dispossessed the black African. White and black moved into South Africa at about the same time. After a period of conflict, each staked out separate territories and each charted an independent way of life. The native Bantus (aborigines) today have the highest per-capita income of all African races. Nowhere in Africa do non-whites enjoy a higher standard of living, education, and health. Four out of five Bantu children are in school. The Bantu literacy rate is the highest in Africa. Their university achievement is proportionately far superior to that of any other African race. The 2,000 non-white university graduates in South Africa exceed the number in other African territories with a combined population of 80 million. The government-sponsored non-white settlements provide residential benefits unknown to multitudes of Africans and have virtually replaced all slum areas.

Yet the worldwide explosion of race problems has focused sharp attention on South Africa’s rigid segregation policy and practices. Nations promoting Negro rights consider intolerable South Africa’s withholding from non-whites a vote in determining national policy, and its requiring them to ride separate buses, to enter and leave public buildings through separate doors, to sit on separate park benches, and to live in segregated suburban communities. The Bantus live outside Johannesburg on land they lease but can never own. (Liberia applies the latter policy against the whites.) One will even find entrances marked: GOODS AND NON-EUROPEANS. University apartheid has also been declared. In the United Nations. South Africa, condemned for racial bigotry, is made out to be more or less the polecat of the world.

Why does the Afrikaner, whose fierce devotion to liberty and self-determination built a nation where a century ago there were treeless plains, now strenuously oppose a multi-racial society? In part because the Vortrekkers or founders envisioned a distinctive national culture. They came to South Africa, much as did early colonists to America, to carve out a new nation for themselves, except that the Afrikaner came to virgin territory. But there is another reason: the present population imbalance. The population of South Africa is about 15 million. While there are proportionately more whites than in any other African nation, the whites now represent only one in four to five persons. Johannesburg’s metropolitan area includes about 400,000 Europeans, about 690,000 Bantus, and 90,000 Eurafricans and Asiatics. Moreover, the Afrikaner has an unparalleled economic investment in South African industries and in its gold and diamond mines.

South African whites are wholly unimpressed by the hasty Belgian and British concessions of equal rights (one vote to one person) to Africans. In Kenya and Rhodesia the result has been Britain’s departure under political pressure. In the Congo the Belgians were faced with revolution and virtual expulsion after many years of costly colonial development. In this substitution of black for white domination the Afrikaner finds neither hope nor justice. An uprooted Afrikaner would have no place to go.

What the Afrikaner proposes instead is “separate but parallel development.” The government is pouring immense resources into the development of separate African communities. An elite group of political leaders in the Broederbond questions the patriotic loyalties of public critics of apartheid. Apartheid therefore becomes not simply a political policy committed to the formation of self-governing Bantustans, but simultaneously a racial policy that involves complete racial segregation except within highly delimited areas.

This policy of apartheid, to which the nationalist government is firmly dedicated, is increasingly attacked as discriminatory from two sides. Criticism stems on the one hand from those who consider a multi-racial society an inevitable African development; from African spokesmen in the United Nations who want African self-determination (and define African as nonwhite); and from the ever-present Communist propagandists. The Communist line is that in any part of Africa the white man should be regarded merely as a visitor. Professing to come as visitors to help the Africans, they grab political power through devious means (as in Nyasaland and Mozambique). In Congo-Leopoldville Red agents recently were expelled for plotting the overthrow and death of Congolese leaders.

Caught between the pressures of world opinion and national opinion, many Afrikaners today waver unpredictably between two unreconciled moods. More and more Afrikaners concede that apartheid is unnatural, yet that its alternative—judged by the results in Congo and Rhodesia—would be calamitous. They consider that the majority of non-Europeans in South Africa are no more ready for self-determination than many other Africans. Some Afrikaners concede that apartheid may prove a workable policy at most for ten years, and that they are fatefully late in training Africans for a democratic social and political development. Others argue that African tribalism is historically so inherently authoritarian that a democratic development will prove only a temporary transition to future dictatorships. Afrikaners stress that the nonwhites are now unqualified to evolve a stable society and a developed economy, and that their takeover of South Africa would not only swamp the whites but force the United Nations to feed and run South Africa, as has been the case with numerous other African nations. They are determined to resist a hysterical yielding to the pressure and panic of world opinion calling for a hurried turnover of responsibility to those unprepared for self-determination. The prevalent conception of democracy—in which the vote of the ignorant weighs as much as the vote of the enlightened—is not highly prized by Afrikaners.

Yet in the rather feeble opposition party, in church circles, and in the English-language newspapers one discerns increasing uneasiness over the government’s rigid apartheid policy. The Pretoria government has discouraged visiting journalists by withholding visas, contending that the South African situation has been too much misrepresented. The editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, unable to secure a visa from the South African consulates in New York and Lisbon, received a visa from Nigerian immigration officials (South Africa maintains no embassies in other African countries).

In recent months the Broederbond, a secret organization that supports apartheid and that reportedly has numbers of clergymen in its ranks, has become a subject of high controversy. Albert S. Geyser, professor of divinity at the Witwatersrand University, charges that the Bond seeks to use the church for political purposes. Bond leaders have criticized the “new deal” Dutch Reformed churchmen connected with the Christian Institute, while “old line” churchmen contend that ministers who differ from official decisions should be regarded as disloyal to the church.

Despite such ferment, the short-term visitor senses little open race hostility in South Africa. Non-whites seem to accept the situation without apparent resentment of the established patterns, although some Negro spokesmen are beginning to join the issue, and there is an undercurrent of impatience among non-Europeans in urban areas. In Transkei the non-Europeans have voted two to one to support the multi-racial ideals of Paramount Chief Victor Poto against Chief Kaizer Matanzima, advocate of apartheid and tribal nationalism; but the office of chief minister is non-elective, and the government may resist naming a critic of its policies. Poto has announced his determination to create in Transkei a model multi-racial society for all South Africa. In the key cities not a few white leaders speak apologetically of prevailing patterns.

The race problem is not the only special issue before the South African churches, even if other concerns are more neglected. The divorce rate among Johannesburg whites is 1 in 2.8 marriages. The Dutch Reformed Church is meanwhile raising a public standard against Sunday swimming, dancing, and flying. The colored (mulatto) churches have only recently voted to withhold ordination from a divorced man. The colored group is spiritually more responsive to “the white man’s God” than the Bantus, although they are emotionally unstable and given to liquor; they are also proportionately better educated than the Bantus. On the other hand, they have neither European nor Bantu culture ties. The Bantus are still widely gripped by witchcraft and ancestor worship. Curiously, transplanted missionaries, coming to South Africa after doors have closed on their ministry elsewhere in Africa, have usually engaged in a ministry to Europeans rather than to the blacks.

The Rand Daily Mail of Johannesburg recently carried a series of articles by Christian leaders on the Church’s role in respect of the South African race problem. The consensus was that churches are failing to provide moral leadership; that they are more the product than the molder of their environment; and that, moreover, they are divided in their attitudes toward apartheid. The laity as well as the clergy were blamed for this situation. Courageous church leaders are left unsupported in their views; the significance of Christian commitment is widely confined to private life; and some churchmen seek biblical justification for the status quo. Subtle political pressures operate meanwhile to silence all criticism.

Yet there is a growing sense of wrongness in the present situation, and some evidence of indignation over its perpetuation. The conviction widens that any solution lies not primarily in the espousal of particular political solutions but rather in the practice of the Christian ethic. Some churches are taking a new look at the implications of racial equality for their virtual exclusion of non-whites from congregations. The Methodist Church has chosen an African as its new president. Dutch Reformed churches, which have traditionally left the regulation of South African social relations wholly to government, are showing a new searching of conscience in the matter, aware that in favoring apartheid they differ not only from other churches of South Africa but also from the Reformed churches of the world. Roman Catholics concede that even where whites, coloreds, and Indians kneel in the same church, their association does not survive the benediction. There is noticeably less tendency to concentrate on difficulties than to apologize for failure.

There are basic differences over the role and strategy of the Church. Some would enlist the Church in a political crusade, promote a clamor for constitutional change, and fan the fires of black resentment with all the risks of violence. Others contend that the Church should not directly concern itself with social change, but instead promote within the body of Christ a unity of persons that transcends social distinctions and works to undo them. They emphasize the danger of regarding the political sphere as the Church’s main responsibility, since the Church has no final insights into the particulars of legislative reform. Yet Christian citizens are being urged to become vocal and politically active. One point of growing sensitivity centers in the present government policy of frowning on different races’ eating together, even in church.

Father Tom Comber, rector of St. Andrew’s, Kensington, Johannesburg, argues that “the Church will become indigenous only in the proportion that it becomes a genuinely multi-racial fellowship.” And an African minister, the Rev. Christian Molefe, rector of St. Andrew’s Anglican Mission, has warned that the Church will lose the African if the apartheid issue is not faced squarely. The future of Christianity in South Africa, he contends, “is very doubtful.… The upcoming generation … will take action—either by leaving the Church or by going somewhere where they feel they can be treated as equals.”

South Africa is showing signs of an awakening conscience over its race problem. Outside condemnation is a luxury that those who live in lands with racial problems of their own can scarce afford. South Africa needs understanding of its special dilemma, and the prayers of Christians everywhere. In its determination to avoid the unhappy developments of neighboring African countries, may it also avoid sundering both the whole body of humanity and the body of Christ.

Religion And Revolution

When 3,000 students gather during their Christmas holidays under church auspices, what do they discuss?

“Revolution” was the subject this time. Collegians and seminarians from throughout the United States and from seventy-seven other nations met at Ohio University to hear speaker after speaker call them to devote their lives to the revolution now sweeping the world.

They met as the nineteenth Quadrennial Ecumenical Student Conference on the Christian World Mission. Sponsor was the National Student Christian Federation, an agency of the National Council of Churches and successor to the old Student Volunteer Movement and other interdenominational college groups. SVM, under the early leadership of D. L. Moody and John R. Mott, had as its motto, “The Evangelism of the World in This Generation.”

Theme for the nineteenth quadrennial was, “For the Life of the World.”

Christians, it was said, must be prepared to give their lives to improve the lot of humanity—politically, socially, and economically—because Christ is at work in the struggle for such changes. Delivering the first address of the conference, the Rev. Eliezer D. Mapanao of the Philippines said; “The world asks from us, not tax-deducted donations, but the depth of compassion that makes us stand alongside men in their struggle for justice, equality, freedom, and the fullness of human life as God purposed it to be.”

Mr. Mapanao, now directing Princeton Seminary’s International Study Fellowship on the University Mission, suggested that the traditional missionary concept of a Christian ministry to the heathen, or “outsiders,” is no longer valid. Instead, he said, Christians have “no choice left today” but to catch up with the revolution and take their places in the world.

The question facing the students is not whether to involve themselves in the revolution, but how to do so, they were told by the Rev. Vincent Harding of the Mennonite Ministry of Reconciliation in Atlanta, Georgia. He and other speakers at special “civil rights meetings” stressed that “God is working” in the revolution.

Students were promised that even more revolutionary activity awaits them when the racial struggle is concluded. Dr. Robert W. Spike, executive director of the National Council of Churches’ Commission on Religion and Race, declared that a “major social revolution” started with 1963’s explosive events, and that the race issue is “only the beginning.”

“Revolution is the act in which the Church follows in God’s steps,” said the Rev. Rubem Alves of Campinas, Brazil. Alves, a student at New York’s Union Seminary, told his audience that Brazilian Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Communists have found a common goal in working for “the humanization of man.” Mr. Alves described Marxists as “catalysts” in the revolution and counseled the students against considering them as a “group with which we are in competition, using all our intellectual and spiritual power to defeat them.”

Giving a basis for this involvement in “the life of the world” were two daily lecturers. The Very Rev. Alexander Schmemann, dean and chaplain at St. Vladimir’s (Russian) Orthodox Seminary, New York, spoke on the conference theme. Leading a narrative study on the life of Christ was the Rev. Philip Zabriskie, director of college and university work for the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Mr. Zabriskie said the lesson of Peter’s vision and subsequent ministry to Cornelius in Acts 10 is that a Christian’s first missionary calling is to be ready to receive and to “be open.”

Professor Schmemann also stressed the necessity of “opening up” to the forces at work in the world. Such an attitude is seen in a study of history’s Christian “victories,” he noted. Both lecturers underscored the idea in the Mapanao address that relieving human hunger is a “sacrament.”

Student attention was directed at the word “sacrament” throughout the conference. The emphasis reached its peak at the communion service, which the noted Christian historian Kenneth Scott Latourette described as unique in the history of the ecumenical movement. With some adaptation, the service was conducted according to the tradition of the second-century bishop Hippolytus. Episcopal Bishop Daniel Corrigan presided and administered the elements, assisted by “presbyters” and “deacons” of fifteen or more denominations, many of whom had not been episcopally ordained.

About twenty-five Roman Catholics attended the conference. Some came as official observers, but about ten registered as regular delegates.

ARTHUR MATTHEWS

The Fundamental Baptists

Early this year Zondervan Publishing House will issue a book with the unsensational title of Biblical Faith of Baptists. It may not go down as the publishing event of 1964, but it will record one of the more significant Baptist gatherings of recent years: the Fundamental Baptist Congress, held last fall in Detroit, where some 10,000 United States and Canadian Baptists took a unanimous stand for an infallible Bible, separatism, and anti-ecumenism.

A compilation of the addresses given at the congress, Biblical Faith of Baptists will be a “veritable handbook … declaring clearly what we believe,” according to the Canadian Baptist News.

As Baptists who hold their independence dear, delegates were careful to point out that the unity affirmed in Detroit was doctrinal, not organizational. They came representing themselves, not their associations.

Nor can the congress itself be called a permanent institution at this time; another one has been called for 1966, but plans go no further than that now. There is little machinery for operating between sessions beyond a planning committee that will meet later this year, and there is no one spokesman.

But there are some ambitious plans, and they reach out beyond North America. One project in the works is the “International Baptist Fellowship,” which is to be, on a worldwide basis, what the Detroit congress was last fall for North America. So far, nothing much exists beyond the name; but the Baptists behind the project held one international meeting in London in 1962, and they are proposing another by 1967.

A forthright, militant note, which may provide an indication of the emphasis of future gatherings, was sounded at Detroit.

“Every one of the 33,173 verses in the Bible is a message from God Almighty,” declared Dr. Wendall Zimmerman, keynote speaker. He said the Bible was “the Word of God or the biggest bunch of fraudulent sayings ever palmed off on an unsuspecting public.” One listener said after the address. “That does to me what ‘sic ‘em’ does to a dog.”

“The speakers in this congress,” said Dr. Robert Ketchum, “are Baptist leaders who had to separate from their original Baptist conventions. The need for such a separation lies in two basic facts. First, the appearance of apostasy in these conventions; second, the plain command of the Scriptures to separate.”

Its adamantly separatist stand may prevent the Fundamental Baptist Congress from ever embracing a significantly larger segment of the denomination (there are over 20 million Baptists in the United States alone), but its promoters believe that their separatism is positive rather than negative.

“That which separates us from others separates us unto Christ and unto each other,” said Dr. James Bedford.

“Positive, aggressive, Bible-teaching,” was the way Dr. Jackson described their ministry. “We wanted to make it manifest that there are thousands of loyal Baptist churches who believe the Word of God and are loyal to the historic position.”

It turned out that there were more than anyone had realized. Besides the official invitations to the speakers, letters were sent to 1,800 Baptists and Baptist groups that are “fundamental and separate from the apostasy,” but others heard of the meeting and came. Among the delegates were members of the Baptist Bible Fellowship, the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, the Conservative Baptist Association, the Southern Baptist Premillennial Fellowship, the World Baptist Fellowship, the Regular Baptist Churches of Canada, the Association of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada, some smaller groups, and many unaffiliated churches.The project got its first real push forward in 1962 when Dr. H. C. Slade of Toronto, who had been asked to take the initiative in planning, and several other men met in Ketchum’s Chicago offices. The committee selected Detroit, “the strongest citadel of Fundamental Baptists to be found on earth,” as the site of the congress. Subsequently, a planning committee was chosen, and, shortly before the congress, 100 pastors were called together for a breakfast meeting. They acted as hosts during the congress.

Despite the disclaimers, could the Fundamental Baptist Congress eventually turn into, say, the Fundamental Baptists? Could doctrinal agreement lead to organizational consolidation?

“It is not our intention,” said Dr. Jackson. “Anything is possible,” he admitted, but such a unification is “not our under-the-table purpose in any sense. What the future may hold, we do not know.”

GEORGE WILLIAMS

- More from Carl F. H. Henry

Churchmen Speak up on Smoking

George Williams

Is smoking a moral issue as well as a health problem?

The most conclusive indictment of cigarette smoking issued in America to date—the report to the Surgeon General—produced some carefully worded statements on both sides of this question. (See also the editorial on page 22.)

The 387-page report links cigarette smoking directly to lung cancer and chronic bronchitis and indicates a probable relation to coronary artery disease.

The president of the United Church of Christ, Dr. Ben Mohr Herbster, said flatly that cigarette smoking is not a moral issue but that tobacco advertising aimed at youth is.

On the other side, an Episcopal professor of moral theology, Dr. Thomas J. Bigham, referred to the “moral obligation for the reasonable care of one’s body.”

In some cases, reaction appeared to be colored by personal habits. One prominent minister said frankly that he was a smoker and had no statement to make. Another church spokesman said that the top men in his denomination “smoke like smokestacks” and did not like to make statements on the subject.

The Methodist Church has a no-smoking statement for ministers, and evangelist Billy Graham told Religious News Service that “it will not be a good Christian witness for a clergyman to smoke cigarettes.”

The smoking issue, touchy enough as it is, has been further complicated for a few churches by the fact that they have held stock in the tobacco industry.

RNS reported that the North Carolina Methodist Conference voted to sell its tobacco stock in 1956, but that the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) decided not to dispose of its holdings.

Here are statements made to CHRISTIANITY TODAY by representatives of major denominations:

Dr. Herbster: “Cigarette smoking is not a moral issue. It is a health problem and should be treated as such. Obviously anyone who has studied the Surgeon General’s report and continues to smoke is deliberately jeopardizing his own welfare, but it is his right to do so.… On the other hand [he] knows that he may also be injuring people who are dependent on him and love him. A Christian should find in this fact motivation to quit smoking.

“There is a moral issue to be faced in the advertising that is deliberately designed to make smoking attractive to young people.…”

Dr. Bigham: “… Every Christian should give thorough consideration [to the report and its conclusions] … in the light of Christian conviction of stewardship of the body and the moral obligation for reasonable care of one’s health.”

Dr. Edwin H. Tuller, general secretary of the American Baptist Convention: “… The churches have even a greater responsibility than ever to inform their people of the facts and to discourage smoking, especially among young people.”

Dr. Foy Valentine, secretary of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention: “… Immediate and positive action is strongly indicated. Let Christian citizens unite behind a legislative program which will protect the young from being victimized through false or misleading advertising of cigarettes, which will rehabilitate those farmers and businessmen who now need a new and less hazardous means of livelihood, and which will provide … a favorable climate where our bodies can indeed be ‘temples of the Holy Spirit.’ ”

Dr. Carl F. Reuss, director of the Commission on Research and Social Action of the American Lutheran Church: “Lutherans have been taught to believe that … ‘deliver us from evil’ includes evil of body and soul, property and reputation. If heavy smoking of cigarettes is as suicidal as the report indicates, whoever prays the Lord’s Prayer ought to heed its implications.…”

Barton Hunter, executive secretary of the Department of Christian Action of the United Christian Missionary Society of the Disciples of Christ: “… We are exceedingly grateful for the report.… [It] raises a question concerning the justifiability of the immense and expensive advertising program … to enlist new users of cigarettes. We shall look forward to publicizing … the findings of the committee and to supporting its efforts in discouraging the use of cigarettes.”

Dr. William H. McCorkle, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.: “I think it would be foolish for individuals not to heed the warning involved. It is not so much a matter of morals as of physical well-being, but there is a moral implication in the possible injuries to our bodies as ‘temples of the Holy Spirit.’ ”

Methodist Bishop John Wesley Lord: “… I earnestly implore the parents of our nation to protect their children from the ghastly results of the smoking habit.…”

G. Elson Ruff, in an editorial in The Lutheran, official organ of the Lutheran Church in America: “We’d better act as vigorously as we can according to the knowledge that tobacco is an enemy, not a friend. But it’s a free country, and those who insist on living dangerously still have that right.”

Breaking The Habit

Since the publication of the smoking report, telephones at the New York headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s how-to-stop-smoking program have been “ringing off the hook,” says director Elmon Folkenberg. The five-day series of lectures and films started on the same day that the smoking report appeared in newspapers, and although the city was blanketed by snow, a record 1,200 people came for the first session (the previous high was 700). Another 1,300 people who had signed up for the course were weather-bound. Folkenberg said that there are tentative plans to start another class in New York soon to handle the response.

Adventists will cooperate with New York City’s Department of Health, which asked for assistance in future programs. Other classes are scheduled for Portland, Oregon; New Orleans; and Toronto. Previous classes have been held in Detroit, Minneapolis, Denver, and Hollywood.

The program (which is not used to preach Seventh-day Adventism) has proved its effectiveness. By the end of a five-day course, an average of 50 to 70 per cent of those attending have stopped smoking, according to Marvin Reeder, associate secretary of the Adventists’ Public Relations Bureau in Washington. The percentage drops afterward, but the number of those who continue to “choose not to smoke” (outright vows are discouraged at the beginning) is still high, according to available data.

The “Five Day Plan to Stop Smoking,” as it is called, begins with a film entitled One in 20,000, which shows an actual lung operation and is frankly designed as a shocker, Reeder said. The classes are in the hands of a minister and a doctor. “We are prescribing for the people,” Reeder declared, “and you just can’t prescribe without a physician.”

The nightly seminars are supplemented by a rigorous daily routine that takes each student through the day, from the minute that he wakes up in the morning until he goes to bed. This includes walks, cold showers, rubdowns, and, for the first twenty-four hours, a fruit-juice and no-coffee diet. “A cup of coffee will trigger the impulse to smoke,” Reeder explained.

On the fifth day, a class member can exchange his pipe or old pack of cigarettes for a small pack of cards giving further helpful hints on how to “stay stopped.” Further informal meetings after the series are designed to help those in the course to “hold the ground they’ve gained.”

The Five-Day Plan was started about three years ago by two Seventh-day Adventists, Dr. Wayne McFarland and Pastor Folkenberg. Since then the program has grown to such an extent that now 250 “teams” are putting on sessions around the country. This includes a training program for new instructors.

The Adventists are revamping their follow-up program, because, as Reeder stated, “We feel that if there is a weakness in the program, this is it.” They want to reduce the number of those who turn in their cigarettes and later choose to change their minds. An independent research organization is studying the results of the classes.

The program is growing, and Reeder said they hope to be able to keep up with the demand. As Pastor Folkenberg put it, the recent response has been “phenomenal.”

GEORGE WILLIAMS

- More from George Williams

Vatican-Orthodox Rapprochement: Where Now?

Additional meetings between Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras are very likely. No one was talking yet about time and place, but prospects seemed good following the two meetings between the supreme Roman Catholic and Orthodox leaders on the Mount of Olives this month. What they talked about has not been disclosed, but there is every indication that the talks were cordial and that they paved the way for further contacts. An ecumenical “hot line” is now operating between Rome and Istanbul.

Before returning home, Patriarch Athenagoras told newsmen that Pope Paul wishes to have another meeting with him. “I am in favor of personal contacts,” the Patriarch said in commenting on the Pope’s proposal.

Asked whether such meetings might bring about a union of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, the Patriarch said “a merger is impossible because the churches have never been unified at any time in the past.”

“But,” he added, “we aim at creating a unified Christian front to face our common problems.”

Vatican observers were quoted as saying that a visit to Rome by the 77-year-old Patriarch Athenagoras is now likely. There was no official confirmation, however, of any such plans.

Back at his residence in Istanbul, Patriarch Athenagoras told newsmen that he planned to visit North America in the fall. He specifically mentioned a trip to the United States. In Toronto, the Very Rev. George Dimopoulos, 34-year-old nephew of the Patriarch, said his itinerary would include Canada. Father Dimopoulos said no enthroned patriarch of Constantinople has ever visited North America before. Patriarch Athenagoras, however, is a former U. S. citizen who spent eighteen years in New York as archbishop of North and South America, until his election as ecumenical patriarch.

Meanwhile, there was speculation that Pope Paul would also visit North America this year, although probably not at the same time as the Patriarch. One high Vatican source was reported as saying that the Pope would definitely travel to India for a eucharistic congress in the fall and that some feelers had already been extended to the U. S. government about an American visit. The source indicated no final decision had been made about the possibility of travel to the United States.

The Dutch Radio broadcast a report that Pope Paul intends to visit President Johnson in Washington and that he would like to address the United Nations in New York. The broadcast said the report came from an “unofficial source,” but claimed it was “very reliable.”

Johnson suggested a meeting with the Pope in an handwritten postscript to a letter delivered to the Pontiff at Nazareth by Sargent Shriver, director of the U. S. Peace Corps.

One prospect, perhaps somewhat remote, is that the Pope would come to the United States for the opening of the New York World’s Fair in April. The Vatican is building an impressive pavilion that would provide an appropriate entree. As a special dispensation to the fair, the Vatican is loaning for display Michelangelo’s “Pietà.”

The Papacy As An Obstacle

Archbishop Iakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of North and South America, considers Pope Paul’s VI’s view that the Bishop of Rome is the earthly head of the Church of Christ, an obstacle to reunion of the Christian churches.

In an interview in Athens, after conferences with Archbishop Chrysostomos, leading prelate of Greece, Iakovos told CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

“I understand very well the Roman Catholic ecclesiology. If we differ with Catholics we differ in the understanding of our Lord’s statement that there will be ‘one flock, one shepherd.’ Bishops are heads of local churches but there is only one head of the whole Church and this is Christ.”

Archbishop Iakovos insisted that the doctrine of the papacy “can and must be discussed—first in the light of the Gospel, and second in the light of the anxiety to reach one another in quest of unity. If the desire for rapprochement is genuine and sincere, no dogmatic and doctrinal technicalities should be raised as a new wall of partition.”

Archbishop Iakovos traveled with Pope Paul’s entourage to the Holy Land. While he was in Athens to call on Archbishop Chrysostomos, Greek newspapers carried Paul VI’s indication, upon returning to Rome, that the Pope is committed still to the vision of a single Christian church with the Bishop of Rome as its head, although for the present he is reconciled to a period of cooperation in “co-existence.”

Asked if the Vatican’s view of the role of the pope in relation to the church is a barrier to church unity, Archbishop Iakovos replied: “Definitely.”

After his return to the Vatican, Paul VI also affirmed that the Roman Catholic Church is the one church to which others must return if perfect communion is to be achieved. Emphasizing that truth is basic to unity, he added that there can be no compromise of Roman Catholic doctrine.

Archbishop Iakovos disclosed that in Jerusalem he urged Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras, who met with Pope Paul, to seek the appointment of three commissions for the study of doctrinal, liturgical, and canonical differences between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. There is some hope that the commissions will be designated before the Vatican Council’s resumption in September.

In Greece, Orthodox spokesmen divided sharply over the propriety and desirability of the Holy Land meeting of the Pope and the Patriarch. The Greek primate Chrysostomos opposed the confrontation.

Common Prayer

Use of a common prayer marked this year’s observance in Montreal of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The prayer was drafted jointly by a Roman Catholic priest and a Reformed minister.

Montreal has been a center of the ecumenical dialogue, and the use of the prayer by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants, and Orthodox is another milestone in interfaith relations.

The WCC’s Week of Prayer coincides with the Roman Catholic Chair of Unity Octave, which originated in the United States. The prayer used in Montreal was drawn by Father Pierre Michalon, head of the Catholic Christian Unity Center in Lyons, France, and Dr. Lukas Vischer, a WCC staff member.

Ecumenism achieved visible form in Montreal with the establishment there of an Ecumenical Centre having a library, meeting rooms, and a full-time director. The center in the predominantly French-speaking city is bi-lingual (French and English) and is directed toward the advance of ecumenism through discussion among Protestants, and between Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Establishment of the center resulted from the growth of ecumenical ideas in the world at large, but more particularly as the result of a changing climate of opinion among the French Roman Catholic clergy of the Archdiocese of Montreal. The man primarily responsible for the change is the archbishop, Paul-Emile Cardinal Leger, who issued a pastoral letter two years ago summoning all the faithful to pray for unity in order that the “separated brethren” might be reunited to the “Mother Church.” To facilitate the movement the cardinal appointed a diocesan ecumenical commission which in turn established the center last June, shortly before the opening of the Faith and Order Conference in the Canadian city.

The director of the center, the Rev. Irenee Beaubien, S. J., stresses that Christian unity can be only in Christ, a fact which obliged him to admit that he has much more in common with evangelicals than with so-called liberals who deny Christ’s deity and so cast doubt on their Christianity. His program includes a series of evening lectures during which various denominations may set forth their views on the nature of the Church. Once a month groups of ministers and priests meet for Bible study and prayer.

One observer notes that the center significantly reflects “the radical change which has taken place in Roman Catholic thinking. No longer do the Roman Catholics stand apart, interested only in their own monologue and in Protestant submission. They have shown themselves very willing to talk and discuss.”

“This may present to evangelicals,” he added, “a God-given opportunity to bear witness, that God’s grace in Jesus Christ may be made even clearer.”

Books

Book Briefs: January 31, 1964

Southern Presbyterians Seen In Context

Presbyterians in the South, Vol. I, by Ernest Trice Thompson (John Knox, 1963, 629 pp., $9.75), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, chairman, Department of History, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina.

In many ways this first volume of a projected two-volume history of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. is a superior piece of historical writing; it offers an excellent account of the development of Presbyterianism in the South for all who are interested in the religious development of the American people, regardless of their own religious outlook. This volume is obviously the fruit of a tremendous amount of research and solid documentation. The accompanying bibliography is one of the finest on the subject to have come to the attention of this reviewer.

Professor Thompson is to be congratulated on the breadth and scope of this work, for he has not lost sight of the fact that Presbyterianism in the South was part of the South. The relation between Presbyterianism and the South, in its social, cultural, and political development, is especially well treated during discussion of the colonial era, and, although the idea recedes somewhat toward the last of the book, it is never forgotten. For this reason, if for no other, this work is unique. It is denominational history, and rightly so; but the history is presented in a most meaningful way. It is unfortunate that so few denominational histories attain this high standard.

This work never becomes a dull recitation of what presbyteries and general assemblies said or did; rather, it gives a real and valuable place to their pronouncements in the light of the issues involved. Professor Thompson is always alert to the impact that Presbyterians had on Southern history to 1861; he is very careful to present their influence on education (this might be called one of the major themes of Volume I) and on the development of religious liberty. In fact, his treatment of the role of Presbyterians in the struggle for church-state separation is one of the highlights of this volume and is a needed corrective to the prevailing view that the struggle in Virginia was carried to a successful conflict by the Jeffersonian Deists and the Baptists.

There is so much of value in this book that this reviewer wishes he could conclude at this point; but this is not possible. Although Professor Thompson treats his sources and his many quotations with fairness and accuracy, he fails to present the doctrinal side of Presbyterianism in the South in all of its majesty and strength. He is careful to state the disagreements between the Old and New Light parties in the 1740s and 1750s. He is equally careful to set forth the differences between Presbyterianism and Deism. At no time, however, does the reader gain the impression that these differences are vital and that Deism was a distinct threat to the evangelical faith.

This doctrinal obscurity gains a greater influence in Professor Thompson’s writing as he considers the revivalist movements of the early years of the nineteenth century and the rise of abolitionism. At no place does he show an awareness of the close relation that existed between transcendentalism and unitarianism and the abolitionists in the North, and his attempt to convey the impression that it was largely an evangelistic movement is not supported by the facts. Again, he is accurate in his presentation of the facts concerning the split between the Old and New School groups. But he fails to set forth the relation between the theology of the New School, on the one hand, and the religious and philosophical radicalism which was coming to the North as a result of Hegelian philosophy. The basic issues of this controversy are glossed over, and the threat posed by the New School to historic Presbyterianism is never set forth. On the other hand, the author tends to minimize such controversies, and to find one of the major causes for the split of 1837 in the growing rivalry between the mission boards directly under the General Assembly and those boards that were the result of the Plan of 1801.

This tendency to reduce the importance of doctrinal issues comes to its height on the discussion of the issues that brought the final break between Presbyterians of the South and the Old School General Assembly and the formation of the Southern Presbyterian church. He admits that slavery was not the only cause, but his general treatment of the split is not satisfactory. He fails to explain why Plumer, Thornwell, Palmer, and Dabney finally took such a strong stand against abolitionism, when at one time they had been in favor of some kind of manumission of the slaves. The insights of Thornwell and Palmer into the real meaning of abolition and its connection with radicalism in the North are slighted, and Thompson is something less than fair when he says that Thornwell was guilty of inducing a new concept of Presbyterianism into the thinking of the South. He later admits that the root of this jure divino Presbyterianism can be found in English Puritanism. Because the author slights the doctrinal strength of Presbyterianism, he never is able to show the close relation of this doctrinal vigor to the amazing influence that Presbyterianism was able to achieve in the cultural life of the South. In the opinion of this reviewer, the failure to appreciate the biblical foundations of what he calls jure divino Presbyterianism is a weakness of what would otherwise be a great denominational history.

For the Presbyterian layman as well as the minister this book fills a real need; but it should be read with the above comments in mind.

C. GREGG SINGER

Is It What It Does?

The Minister in the Reformed Tradition, by Harry G. Goodykoontz (John Knox, 1963, 176 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by Elton M. Eenigenburg, professor of church history. Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan.

This volume is a welcome addition to a growing body of literature on the nature of the ministry. Much of it has been written in behalf of communions other than the Reformed—all the more reason for rejoicing in a contribution that tries to be of specific help in grasping and defining the Reformed understanding of the ministry of the Gospel.

Dr. Goodykoontz has produced a useful book, one which reflects a careful selection from largely contemporary sources. The author is concerned to be contemporary, and places us in dialogue with advocates of similar and dissimilar points of view. The involvement of the author himself in the dialogue is not very vigorous, though he does not leave doubt as to where he stands on disputed matters. He often leans too heavily on his authorities, quoting them rather than incorporating their wisdom into conclusions of his own.

On the more practical side, concern is expressed for the tendency in our times to drive a wedge between the clergy and laity, largely because of the minister’s inability to understand his own image and role and the layman’s inability to accept the minister for what God intends him to be. But Dr. Goodykoontz does not believe the difficulty finds solution through a depreciation of the minister’s office. He is especially opposed to Dr. Arnold Come’s program (in his book, Agents of Reconciliation) of dissolving office into function so thoroughly that there no longer is a clergy in distinction from laity.

A more technical problem is related intimately to the one just indicated. Should the minister be regarded as holding an office in the technical sense of that term, or does he merely exercise an important function? The author attempts to show, both on the basis of the biblical evidence and from the history of the Reformed churches, that the minister definitely holds an office (and thus exercises the functions that are implied in the office). Contemporary authors. he finds, and this includes some in the Reformed-Presbyterian tradition (like Come), have been so determined to describe the ministry exclusively in terms of function that we are in great danger of reducing the ministry in our time to an amorphous activity incapable of careful definition.

This study of the problem would have been considerably benefited by an analysis of the semantic difficulties created by juxtaposing the terms “office” and “function.” Too often in contemporary discussion they are looked upon as antithetical terms, and are put in an either-or relationship to one another. Goodykoontz’s study implies, but does not say clearly enough, that this does not have to be the case. Obviously “office” indicates a function or functions of some kind. A “function” persisted in over a period of time by the same person, who has been set apart for that function by some form of initiation to his duties, attains the character and structure of an office. Thus properly conceived, office and function have the inalienable relation to one another of form and content.

There are many good things in this book. We have singled out only a few. A large part of the effort is devoted to a summary treatment of attitudes towards the ministry up and down the history of the Church, especially in the Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Another substantial section is given over to practical questions relating to ministerial calls, ordination, and related matters. Ministers. Reformed and otherwise, will gain new perspective on their high calling by a study of this book.

ELTON M. EENIGENBURG

Who Should Be Initiated?

Baptism: Conscience and Clue for the Church, by Warren Carr (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964,224 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Paul K. Jewett, associate professor of systematic theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Some people find a key to the meaning of the Church in the role of the laity; others, in a return to expository preaching or in a conscience awakened to social and economic injustice. The present volume, as its title suggests, elaborates the thesis that if the Church will fulfill its mission in the world today, it must seek to close the gap between its doctrine of baptism and its practice of baptism. According to the author this is not a task that can be achieved by one group in the Church seeking to make the whole Church conform to its particular view. The author, a Baptist minister, has read widely, for a non-practicing scholar, in the literature on both sides of the issue of infant baptism as well as in ecumenical sources, some of which try to play down all questions about baptism in the interest of harmony and unity. Seeking to steer a middle course, he definitely feels that our attention must focus (as it has recently in Continental theology) on the question of baptism, yet in a spirit of humility that is willing to learn, to whichever tradition one may belong. The unfortunate thing is that too often those who have been concerned with baptism have given their energies to a defense either of infant baptism or of believers’ baptism. Having examined the case for these alternatives, the author concludes that both sides are culpable of “private distortions” of the true meaning of the rite. Christian baptism is neither believers’ baptism nor infant baptism. The bulk of the book is concerned to set forth both traditions with accuracy and some fullness, and then by analysis to show their respective weaknesses. For readers who, like the reviewer, are members of American Baptist churches practicing open membership, some of the illustrations of Baptist failure will appear the unfortunate result more of Southern Baptist usage than of flaws in the theology of believers’ baptism as such. This, however, does not altogether nullify the author’s strictures against his Baptist brethren.

On this score the author has some enlightening things to say about Christian education, specifically Baptist Sunday school literature, which suffers from a paucity of materials and methods. The drum is beaten rather consistently for evangelizing the lost, and the Sunday school scholar is pressed into a decision for Christ before he is old enough to say no. On the other hand, pedobaptist educators are weak on the evangelistic element. They cannot escape the shadow of Bushnell, who taught that children of believers should be so nurtured as to grow up Christian from childhood, never knowing themselves to be otherwise.

But whatever defects we may see in the way others practice baptism, we should all agree that baptism is the symbol of Christian initiation. This leaves the old question of the proper subject of baptism unresolved. “Direct appeal to the New Testament does not promise an early end to the reigning uncertainty. It is conclusive that the theology of the New Testament disfavors infant baptism with considerable inflexibility. On the other hand, the New Testament evidence for the practice of infant baptism cannot be summarily dismissed as an ‘argument from silence.’ The assumption that persons born of Christian parents, were not baptized until they had reached the age of discretion or accountability must also be argued from silence. A second complication is the assured impossibility of recapturing the New Testament Church without abolishing the form and institution of the Church as it now is. The only workable option is to find the proper subjects of baptism for the contemporary Church within a grace-faith context while looking to the New Testament as the most resourceful guide” (p. 176). Each tradition, concludes the author, must look to what its baptism does to the world mission of the Church as well as what damage is wrought to the act of Christian baptism in its own right. The writer’s serious attempt to do this as a Baptist gives the book a unique ministry.

PAUL K. JEWETT

A Rich Novel

Holy Masquerade, by Olov Hartman, translated by Karl A. Olsson (Eerdmans, 1963, 142 pp., $3), is reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby, chairman, Department of English, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

Let those who doubt that a “Christian” novel is possible read this one. They will be happy to discover in it none of the patent situations and contrived procedures that have too often marred the religious story. It is one of those books that do not exhaust themselves in one reading. On the contrary, as it proceeds the novel takes on a far-reaching symbolism that reminds one of Ibsen and Mauriac.

The story is in the form of a journal written by the worldly and doubting wife of Pastor Albert Svensson. Realizing not long after their marriage that they inhabit different worlds, Klara Svensson attempts to bring a crystal-clear common sense to bear upon Albert’s religious pretentions. She finds her husband totally enveloped in the “apparatus of piety” and a man who “stuffs all his problems into his theological system,” even, eventually, his clandestine meetings with another woman. Klara notes how Albert unconsciously accommodates both his theology and preaching to circumstances, chiefly his unspoken desire for ecclesiastical advancement.

But primarily the novel is about Klara Svensson’s unsuccessful bout with God. Convinced that atheism is the only reasonable view, Klara attempts to establish her whole life on that platform. In focusing her keen eye on Christianity she discovers that logic itself plays unexpected tricks and that even so sharply outlined a doubt as her own may also be as complete a masquerade as that of her husband’s well-packaged piety.

Examining a madonna statue in the church tower, Klara at first sees only vacancy in the eye of Mary, but later the far view of Calvary. In spite of her abiding hostility to the supernatural, Klara experiences the mystery of Christ and, still struggling against belief, finds that Christ is in process of gestation in her. Thus the picture is reversed and Klara’s husband appears as the unbeliever, the man of an overriding “common sense” who interprets Klara’s conversion as the oncoming of insanity.

Let me mention only one of the many symbols in the novel. Klara and her husband are barren both of children and of spiritual life. In time Klara grows envious of the Virgin with her Christ-child and longs, even while she fights against the idea, to “bear” Christ also. But she realizes that it must be a virginal birth, since Albert Svensson is himself incapable of taking part in any spiritual begetting. While Christ is born in Klara, her husband ends as barren as in the beginning, for he is incapable of any participation in the supernatural.

No summary can suggest the rich contents of this novel. For me the book has been a grand discovery, and I have urged the publisher to arrange for the translation of other works by Olov Hartman.

CLYDE S. KILBY

The Best

Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism (from the “New Testament Tools and Studies” series), by Bruce M. Metzger (Eerdmans, 1963, 163 pp., $4), is reviewed by Herman C. Waetjen, assistant professor of New Testament, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California.

The study of the transmission of the biblical text is an extremely technical and complex science. At the same time it is also an indispensable tool. Professor Metzger’s book is like the subject he deals with: technical and indispensable. It is a series of essays examining some of the more important as well as some of the more irregular problems of New Testament textual study. The chapter titles themselves provide a good survey of the contents: The Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible, The Caesarean Text of the Gospels, The Old Slavonic Version, Tatian’s Diatessaron and a Persian Harmony of the Gospels, Recent Spanish Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, Trends in the Textual Criticism of the Iliad and the Mahabharata, and finally an appendix, William Bowyer’s Contribution to New Testament Textual Criticism.

Each chapter outlines the history and development of the subject under examination and leads up to the present-day discussion. Sometimes the “tasks and problems” awaiting or demanding investigation are summarized. In each case the reader knows where the debate is presently focused and where the exploratory work of the future lies and needs to be undertaken.

For example, Metzger reviews a chain of scholars since the time of Westcott and Hort who, through their research on the Lucianic Recension, have forced a re-evaluation of the generally dismissed Syrian text. The debate on Streeter’s Caesarean text is sketched, with the conclusion that this recension probably had its origin in Egypt and not Caesarea, but at the same time that it was revised at a later date “into the true Caesarean.” Metzger’s examination of the scholarship which has been devoted to the Old Slavonic version results in a call for renewed efforts to include the significant readings of this text in the critical apparatus of the Novum Testamentum Graece.

Here is scholarship at its painstaking best moving beyond the general beaten paths of textual criticism. Footnotes are extensive and valuable. The book supplies ample testimony that Professor Metzger is one of the world’s leading authorities in textual criticism. In the light of the prevailing emphasis on maximum capital gains in printing and selling books, Eerdmans is to be congratulated for undertaking the publication of the present volume and of the entire series.

HERMAN C. WAETJEN

As Seen From The Jordan

Where the Jordan Flows, by Richard H. Sanger (Middle East Institute, 1963, 397 pp., $5.75), is reviewed by Anton T. Pearson, professor of Old Testament literature, Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul Minnesota.

Where the Jordan Flows is free from the xenophobia so often observed in writings on the Arab world and from the chauvinism so frequent in Zionist apologies. The author, Richard H. Sanger, long familiar with the Near East, has served on the American Embassy staff both in Beirut and in Amman, and is now a member of the faculty of the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.

The book surveys in twenty-two chapters the history of Palestine from Abraham to the year 1963. The volume contains a selected bibliography, an index, and sixteen representative photographs, but regrettably lacks maps. Sanger uses the standard works, but does not mention G. Lankester Harding’s definitive The Antiquities of Jordan.

After a sketch of the biblical epoch from Abraham to Solomon, in which the scene of the wilderness wanderings is very graphically portrayed, the author leaps to the Maccabean era, with an intervening chapter on Petra. Ensuing chapters treat the periods from the Herods to the modern times, but there is no reference to the Mamluk rule (1250–1517).

The discussions on Petra, Jerusalem, Jerash, and Qumran employ careful research and reveal the author’s personal familiarity with these places. Here, too, outline maps would be a desideratum! The story of the Crusaders is fascinatingly told, and the chapter relating Lynch’s trip down the Jordan River, the visits of Mark Twain, Chinese Gordon, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Allenby’s entry, and Bertha Spafford Vester’s long sojourn, is delightful reading.

Moderate appreciation is expressed for the enigmatic Lawrence of Arabia, while high tribute is paid to Abdulla, King Hussein, and the Englishman Glubb. Glubb befriended the Bedouin, organized the Desert Patrol, maintained calm in Jordan during the tensions of 1936–38, overcame Nazi and Vichy French movements—only to be expelled after twenty-six years of faithful service! The tribal structure of the Bedouin, “who spend most of their life hungry” (p. 322), is detailed with insight. The conflicts with the Jewish settlers and the Suez crisis are summarized in the last chapter. The author neither passes judgment on nor suggests a solution for the thorny Arab-Jewish problem.

Scholars would dispute the accuracy of Sanger on a number of points of biblical history (see pp. 3, 12, 17, 49, 50, 117, 120). Among the jarring misprints are Arets IV (for Aretas), p. 54; D. (for R.) de Vaux, p. 140; and Mars (instead of Mar) Saba, p. 190. Antiochus appears as Antigonus (pp. 70, 72, etc.), and Herod’s Hasmonean wife Mariamne is always designated Marianne (pp. 77–81, etc.).

However, the book can be profitably read by Christian, Moslem, and Jew!

ANTON T. PEARSON

The Best Four-In-One

The Four Major Cults, by Anthony Hoekema (Eerdmans, 1963, 447 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, professor of missions, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventism, and Christian Science are treated in this volume by Professor Hoekema, who is associate professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The book revolves around the general historical background of each cult. The doctrinal treatment follows the normal approach to the study of theology by considering the subjects of God, man. Christ, salvation, the Church, and the sacraments, and then eschatology. Each chapter has an appendix in which further material is provided for special subjects peculiar to the cult in question. Thus in the case of Seventh-day Adventism the Investigative Judgment, the Scapegoat Doctrine, and the Sabbath receive further treatment. The concluding chapters of the book provide insights into the distinctive traits of each cult and the task of approaching the cultist from a Christian standpoint.

Mr. Hoekema has produced a splendid piece of work. He has included excellent bibliographies for each cult and has carefully footnoted his material. He has leaned heavily on primary source material and has checked his material with leaders of the cults. The presentation is fair and accurate. His conclusions will not be accepted by the cultists, but there can be no doubt that given the usual evangelical presuppositions his conclusions are quite correct. He has not indulged in name-calling, but at the same time he has made it clear that these cults do not stand up under the light of the biblical revelation. The book is one that can be used in the classroom and is an excellent source of information for anyone interested in this subject. It can be recommended highly and without reservation.

There are one or two observations on the other side of the ledger, but they are not serious. Mr. Hoekema, coming out of the Reformed tradition, discusses the cults in relation to predestination as though that were a controlling principle. Anyone in the Arminian tradition would be somewhat annoyed by this. He obviously leans strongly in the direction of pedobaptism and is a sacramentalist. The other observation pertains to Seventh-day Adventism and points in another direction. Mr. Hoekema is apparently not familiar with the Brinsmead brothers and the Sanctuary Awakening Fellowship among the Adventists. These movements are of great significance, for they condemn the leadership of the cult and argue that the views of Mrs. White are being revised and reinterpreted. They claim that Mrs. White is being repudiated. To an outsider looking in on the cult it would appear that the Brinsmead group and the Sanctuary Awakening Fellowship have the better of the argument. If words convey meaning, it is obvious that Questions on Doctrine (published by the Adventists and the subject of much discussion because of the statements of the late Dr. Barnhouse and of Dr. Martin) marks a departure from the teachings of Mrs. White. It is to be hoped that Mr. Hoekema will enlarge his work to include this aspect of Adventism, for it is the expectation of the reviewer that there will be a large demand for the book, which is far and away the best one-volume treatment of these four cults.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Fruit Of The Spade

The Bible and Archaeology, by J. A. Thompson (Paternoster Press, 1963, 468 pp., 30s.; also Eerdmans, $5.95), is reviewed by A. R. Millard, librarian, Tyndale House, Cambridge, England.

Archaeological discoveries relating to the Scriptures have become one of the most popular topics among Bible students. Their importance for background information and for clarifying specific points is now gaining its proper recognition. Dr. Thompson, qualified for his task by experience of excavations in Palestine, by research at Cambridge, and by several years of teaching in Australia, has written a book presenting and interpreting current knowledge with simplicity and with caution. Both spectacular and routine finds are placed in perspective against the Bible. Clarity of presentation and the breaking up of each chapter into shorter sections with subheadings increase the volume’s readability.

This survey includes all the familiar and outstanding material, and much that is less known. It is unusual that, whereas the Old Testament seizes the lion’s share of most books of this sort, here more space is devoted to the Inter-Testamental and New Testament periods (Parts Two and Three) than to the Old (Part One). The first two parts follow the historical sequence from Abraham to the Exodus, the Exile. Ezra, the Essenes, and the Herods. After a historical summary commencing each chapter, particular subjects are discussed, such as Solomon’s trading enterprises or the court at Susa. In this way the position of Israel among the nations of the ancient world is well conveyed. The author, a well-known evangelical, has confined his book to the material remains bearing directly upon the Bible, and little space is devoted to the ancient literary compositions of the same genre as Proverbs and the Song of Songs, or relevant to the early chapters of Genesis. These demand another volume.

A work of this nature cannot escape errors. The merit of this one is that those observed are of minor import. Some have resulted from the amalgamation into one of the three Pathway Books published by the author a few years ago. Not everybody will agree with all of Dr. Thompson’s conclusions; in one or two instances these are superseded by recent discoveries. Yet he has not been afraid to indicate alternative views or to suggest that some questions cannot yet be answered. He has, moreover, a firm persuasion that the Bible is the Word of God written for our learning. So his brief remarks applying a lesson or drawing an example for the present make this book of the past a seed-bed for meditation as well as a reliable presentation of the fruits of archaeological scholarship.

A. R. MILLARD

Book Briefs

The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands (in two volumes), by Yigael Yadin, translated by M. Pearlman (McGraw-Hill, 1963, 484 pp., 525). The story of how war was conducted in all biblical lands: from Anatolia to Egypt, from Palestine to Mesopotamia. The text is accompanied by line drawings, color plates, and explanatory captions. Not a history, but a discussion of implements, techniques, and strategies. Beautiful color photography. An extraordinary treatment of an extraordinary subject; done with excellence.

Ministers of Christ, by Walter Lowrie, edited by Theodore O. Wedel (Seabury, 1964, 186 pp., $3.95). Four men of four different traditions respond to Episcopalian Walter Lowrie’s original monograph: “Ministers of Christ.” A discussion of the ministry in terms of church unity.

The Military Establishment, by John M. Swomley, Jr. (Beacon Press, 1964, 266 pp., $6). An opponent of universal military training warns against the growth of a military establishment in the United States.

A Relevant Salvation, by Reginald E. O. White (Eerdmans, 1963, 132 pp., $2.25). Biblical sermons that analyze humanity’s broken life in sin and proclaim the healing and saving power of the Christian Gospel. Substance and style combine to make excellent reading.

Reprints

The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, by Charles P. Krauth (Augsburg 1963, 840 pp., $7.50). One of the theological classics that came out of American Lutheranism. Published in 1871 to recall Lutheranism to its confessional basis.

Immortality, by Loraine Boettner (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1963, 161 pp., $2.50). An informative treatment of the many faces of death and immortality. First published in 1956.

Cults and Isms: Ancient and Modern, by J. Oswald Sanders (Zondervan, 1962, 167 pp., $2.50). Fifteen essays on as many cults, giving critiques of their basic errors. The book makes no distinction between heresy and cult, and includes treatment of Roman Catholicism and Seventh-day Adventism. Revised and enlarged. First printed in 1948. Formerly issued under Heresies Ancient and Modern.

Bolshevism: An Introduction to Soviet Communism, by Waldemar Gurian (University of Notre Dame, 1963, 189 pp., $3.25). A valuable study of Communism as a secular religion and a world power. First printed in 1952.

The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, by Loraine Boettner (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1963, 435 pp., $4.50). The book’s announced purpose is to state the Reformed Calvinistic faith and “to show that this is beyond all doubt the teaching of the Bible and of reason.” The book’s rationalistic method and presuppositions distort the Reformed view. First printed in 1932.

The Parables of Jesus, by Joachim Jeremias (Scribners, 1963, 248 pp., $4.50). A book that ought to be read by every preacher making sermons on the parables. This translation is based on the sixth German edition, and compared with the first English edition of 1954 is considerably enlarged and revised. Read discriminatingly, its rewards are great.

The Mother of Jesus: Her Problems and Her Glory, by A. T. Robertson (Baker, 1963, 71 pp., $1.75). Written in the belief that Roman Catholics make too much and Protestants too little of Mary. Not a polemical but a biblical expository writing by a former great Southern Baptist. First printed in 1925. A book not to be forgotten.

Ideas

The Christian Use of Leisure

The Editors

With the five-day work week, most Americans enjoy an amount of free time unknown to former generations. While the number of hours worked during the year fell rapidly between 1940 and 1960, the decline, although slowed since the advent of the forty-hour week, continues. But working less and less for more and more leisure is not making us a happier or a better people. Leisure time is a potential rather than an inherent good. Its beneficial employment demands the exercise of personal responsibility, for few things are so demoralizing as the abuse of leisure. What we do with our free time is a matter of Christian concern.

Underneath the misuse of leisure is the lack of those inner resources that make possible the right use of solitude. As Pascal put it in a flash of insight, “All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber” (Pensées, II, 139).

The emptiness of soul that makes solitude unbearable for so many leads to the restless search that so marks our times—the search for satisfaction through new and more exciting ways of being entertained. This is not to say that the shared pleasures of the group are necessarily inferior; man is a social being, and his nature requires fellowship. But what he brings to this fellowship reflects what he is within himself. Participating in wholesome sport and outdoor recreation, attending a concert of great music or a fine play, or (incomparably the most elevating of all) joining in the public worship of God—these experiences not only strengthen the individual in shared enjoyment of what is good but also show something of the kind of person he is within himself. By the same token, group participation in what is morally reprehensible openly degrades the individual and reveals him for what he really is. But still the paradox remains that those who are best able to entertain themselves through good reading, music, art, the personal enjoyment of nature, and other worthy avocations derive most from group recreation.

Christians today live in a state of tension with the world and its culture. Nowhere is this tension more acute than in the realm of leisure. The answer to the problem is not to list the multitudinous varieties of leisure-time pursuits, and then to declare some good and some bad. That way lies legalism. Obviously there are in the light of the Word of God things that are clearly wrong and others that are clearly right. The difficulty resides in the ambiguities about which committed Christians disagree.

Moreover, the binding obligation of witnessing for Christ cannot be discharged in a social vacuum. To ask, as did Tertullian, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” and then to retreat into cultural isolationism will not do for us today. Christians must know the culture that surrounds them, if they are to make their witness understood. But there is a difference between knowledge of or about something and identification with it. Our culture contains elements the defiling nature of which we know full well and in which we participate at our soul’s peril.

Here is the real point of tension respecting the Christian use of leisure. As Milton says in a great sentence in his Areopagitica, “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.” So the Christian in an unchristian culture must have the fortitude, as Milton says in the same context, to “see and know and yet abstain.”

The Reformation doctrine of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit reaches beyond its application to the Scriptures. For those who are Christ’s in a spiritually alien culture, it provides the essential safeguard in the inevitable encounter with the world in which they live and to which they are obligated to communicate the Gospel. The Spirit who indwells every Christian can be trusted to show the believer who knows his Bible where in his obligatory contacts with the culture of his time he must draw the line. To say this is not to take refuge in mysticism but simply to state a principle verifiable in daily life.

In an exhaustive study of the problem of leisure in British life by R. Seebohm Rowntree and G. R. Lavers (English Life and Leisure, Longmans, Green and Co., 1951), religion is treated along with the cinema, the stage, broadcasting, dancing, and reading, as a leisuretime pursuit. This strange misconception of the role of religion in life is all too common even among many church members. Whether a Christian uses his leisure for playing a musical instrument, painting pictures, reading adventure stories, gardening, mountain climbing, bowling, or any one of a thousand other things, is an optional matter. God has given us a host of pursuits richly to enjoy. The scriptural criterion of what we may do is unequivocally stated by St. Paul in Colossians 3:17, “And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” But religion (using the word in the high sense of the practice of Christianity) is not for the believer an elective, spare-time pursuit like going to football games or bird-watching. It is life itself, and it comprehends everything Christians do and say and hear and think. To be sure, certain practices of religion, such as attendance at church, reading the Bible, visiting the sick, and helping the underprivileged, are done in time apart from the daily job. Yet the claims of Jesus Christ are all-inclusive. Nothing is ever irrelevant to him with whom we have to do.

Christ is the Lord of time—of free time as well as of working time. Those who are his are responsible for the stewardship of the time he gives them. One of the great New Testament phrases is the twice-repeated one of the Apostle, “redeeming the time” (Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5). Our Lord himself lived under the pressing stewardship of time, as we know from his reiterated “Mine hour is not yet come.”

How Christians use their time in a time-wasting world is crucial to their spiritual outreach. “Eternity—for some who can’t spend one half hour profitably!” President Charles William Eliot of Harvard once exclaimed. God entrusts us with nothing more valuable than time. Without it money is valueless and the stewardship of money meaningless. Literature has few more pathetic passages than the vain plea for time at the end of Marlowe’s Faustus:

Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,

That time may cease, and midnight never come;

Fair Nature’s eye, rise, rise again, and make

Perpetual day; or let this hour be but

A year, a month, a week, a natural day

That Faustus may repent and save his soul!

The very word “leisure” implies responsibility. Its first meaning, according to Webster, includes “freedom to do something.” But in the Christian vocabulary freedom is always conditioned by responsibility. Our liberty is to be used to “glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.” Within this context we are accountable for the stewardship of our leisure as well as of our working time. From the daily work there is indeed leisure, but from the unremitting exercise of Christian responsibility there is no such thing as spare time. No Christian is ever off-duty for God. Leisure and working time are equally to be accounted for to the Lord who said, “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 4:35).

Cyprus—The Troubled Island

The island republic of Cyprus, with less than half the area of New Jersey, lies forty miles from Turkey and five hundred miles from Greece. There nineteen centuries ago a magician was worsted, a governor converted, and a church founded by Paul and Barnabas. Such was its growth that it sent three bishops to the Council of Nicea in 325, and later was able to maintain its autonomy despite pressure from Rome. Under Turkish rule from 1571, the archbishop was regarded as ethnarch (governor) of the Greek population, and with his fellow bishops was held responsible to the occupying forces. During Greece’s national war of independence (1821) all the island’s bishops, with other clerics and prominent Greek laymen, were hanged by the Turks. The position of the bishops as national leaders remained unchanged after British occupation in 1878, and the bitter struggle that preceded independence four years ago found the hierarchy actively supporting the majority which sought Enosis (union with Greece).

The republic has just under 600,000 inhabitants, of whom 78 per cent are Greeks, 18 per cent are Turks, and 4 per cent are of other nationalities, including British. After elaborate provisions made in 1959 to ensure a balancing of interests and to safeguard the (Moslem) Turkish minority, Cyprus achieved independence, the Orthodox Church’s position was guaranteed, and Archbishop Makarios became president of the new country.

Things have not run smoothly. Vice-President Fazil Kutchuk complains that the rights of his fellows, the Turkish minority, have not been observed, and he sees partition as the solution. President Makarios, for his part, would like to do away with the treaties under which Britain, Greece, and Turkey undertook to maintain the constitutional and territorial integrity of Cyprus. “Unless we become an independent state without outside intervention,” he declares, “our problems cannot be settled in a satisfactory way.” This sounds ominous. British troops, flown in last month at the request of both sides, succeeded in preventing sporadic bloodshed from developing into overt civil war. Meanwhile, Greece and Turkey are howling offstage, and Russia is indulging in a favorite pastime by fishing in troubled waters—encouraging dissidents abroad while suppressing them at home.

The islanders desperately need a purged memory, the realization that they are neither Greeks nor Turks but Cypriots, and that neither Enosis nor partition will resolve their problems. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that President Makarios’s dual role perpetuates old antagonisms. That one man should officially represent both church and state calls for a Solomonic wisdom and impartiality that the President-Archbishop shows little sign of possessing. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s,” is a word that Paul and Barnabas may well have proclaimed to the Cypriot proconsul Sergius Paulus. Makarios and his troubled island vividly demonstrate the folly of ignoring that divine injunction.

The Panama Problem

American high school students with matches in a tinderbox linked by a fuse of conspiracy to world revolution: the picture is not a comforting one, especially in Panama where sparks are adequate and matches superfluous. You disobediently raise a flag over your Canal Zone high school, then step back and watch in amazement as more than twenty people die and scores are wounded. Yet another chapter is added to the troubled history of the Panama Canal.

The Red network exacerbates and exploits every grievance that promises to bear the bitter fruit of rebellion. And in grievance-ridden Latin America there are sparks aplenty to light dangerous fires. The high school students in this case were reportedly reflecting attitudes of their parents. Any condescension toward Panamanians can be ill afforded where poverty and plenty co-exist in envy-rousing contrast. Although Panama reportedly has a higher per-capita income than fifteen other Latin American countries, the Panamanian gazes upon an affluent strip that bisects his country and believes the northern colossus grows wealthy at his expense—whereas Milton S. Eisenhower points out in his book The Wine Is Bitter that the canal has actually been a financial burden to the United States.

The history of agitation that has been companion to the canal did not really need the flag-raising incident, but the timing was unfortunate for the pursuit of rational negotiation inasmuch as this is election year in both countries. The United States government is to be commended for firmness in the face of Panamanian demands, though certain adjustments in Canal Zone policy have long been required, as Dr. Eisenhower and other informed observers have pointed out. The Panamanians do not want us to leave, and international stability probably requires continuance of United States control of the canal. But Panamanians could, for example, be trained for skilled jobs that command high wages, and this to the benefit of both countries. Protracted negotiation is in prospect, and it is the lot of the powerful country to manifest patience and forbearance.

The Government Report On Cigarettes

None who have followed investigations of the past decade into the explosive epidemic of lung cancer were surprised at the federal advisory committee’s report, Smoking and Health, indicting cigarettes as a chief cause of this dread disease and as a serious factor in other major ailments. The conclusive evidence presented to the nation of the deleterious effects of cigarettes reinforces the position of the lead editorial in our November 8 issue that for Christians smoking is now a moral question inescapably related to the stewardship of the body.

The response of many smokers reveals the extent to which a physiological and psychological habituation can blind millions to incontrovertible facts. Moreover, one wonders why the Christian community with its growing sensitivity to social problems has in comparison with secular agencies like the American Cancer Society shown so little active concern about so great a problem of human welfare. The effrontery of the Tobacco Institute (subsidized by cigarette manufacturers) in interpreting the report as a call for further research in the hope of dispelling the fears of smokers is matched only by the determination of members of Congress from tobacco-growing states to resist restrictions upon an industry bent at all costs on continuing to promote a habit that brings disease and premature death.

Intensive education of youth against the dangers of cigarettes and curtailment of advertising are needed. The $8 billion a year tobacco industry and the advertising agencies it employs have an unavoidable moral responsibility. An ethically sick industry should cease fighting a delaying action in a battle already lost, cut advertising drastically, and continue diversification into other fields. Economic consequences with the employment of hundreds of thousands at stake are serious. But the public welfare comes first.

Gustave Weigel

The death of the Roman Catholic apologist Gustave Weigel terminated the career of an able scholar interested in ecumenical dialogue and one specially familiar with current Protestant thought.

Dr. Weigel was a participant in our anniversary-issue symposium of twenty-five religious leaders. Behind that invitation lay an interesting series of events. In the late 1940s, when Protestant liberalism was by political means reinforcing its ecclesiastical hold to compensate for crumbling theological supports, a team of American scholars—a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Jew—were lecturing in Germany about religious trends in America. Father Weigel was sufficiently abreast of the times to know that American Protestant tensions could not be oversimplified into the contest between modernism and neoorthodoxy, but that what Time magazine now recognizes somewhat modestly as “the evangelical undertow” was already a formative force. In his lectures abroad Dr. Weigel repeatedly referred to writings of American evangelical scholars whose attacks on liberalism and affirmation of biblical positions he considered noteworthy. The liberal Protestant simply professed ignorance of such views and voiced a tranquil inclusivism.

Father Weigel and this writer attended major ecumenical assemblies and conferences in the role of observer. But one meeting with him stands out, a simple luncheon in a modest Washington restaurant. We had spoken frankly of our own religious pilgrimages and had exchanged theological agreements and differences. Then suddenly, at a point of important dogmatic difference, Dr. Weigel reached a hand across the table and clasped mine. Calling me by name, he said, “I love you.” The editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY has met scores of Protestant theologians and philosophers of many points of view. None ever demonstrated as effectively as Gustave Weigel that the pursuit of truth must never be disengaged from the practice of love.

- More from The Editors

Theology

Everything that Counts!

L. Nelson Bell

The christian has everything that counts, and it pays to take stock of these things, for our own comfort and for God’s glory.

Sins forgiven. The root of much of our trouble is a failure to realize the enormity of the sins from which we have been saved. Glossing over the fact of sin, its offense against a holy God, and its ultimate end, tends to make us complacent. “God he merciful to me a sinner” seems irrelevant to our own needs, but it is basic to becoming a Christian.

David wrote: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputed no iniquity” (Ps. 32:1, 2a, RSV); Paul, speaking of Christ, says: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7), and in another place speaks of this continuing forgiveness: “Who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8).

A continuing work of grace. Christianity is not a flash-in-the-pan religion—it is everlasting life. To this end an asset of the Christian is the cleansing power of the Word, not only the living Christ but the written Word which speaks of him and to our needs.

Regeneration is a work of creation. David knew this when he prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10). But being a Christian is more than being saved. There is the continuing work of the divine detergent, the blood of Jesus Christ: “… the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7b, 9).

A sure foundation. We live in a time when human foundations are being shaken, when the present and the future are uncertain. But none of these things should move the Christian, for he stands on The Foundation that is laid and can never be moved—Christ, the eternal Son of God.

A Christian who hears and does our Lord’s commands is, Christ tells us, like a house built on a solid rock—nothing can cause him to fall. We have God’s word that there will be yet more shaking, “in order that what cannot be shaken may remain” (Heb. 12:27b). It is good to be thus forewarned.

An anchor. For a ship an anchor is an indispensable part of equipment. The Christian, too, has an anchor, one which holds when all else may fail. “We have this [hope in the promises of God] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf” (Heb. 6:19, 20a).

Because of this assurance Paul could face suffering, trials, difficulties—even death, and say, “None of these things move me” (Acts 20:24a, KJV), his anchor firmly fixed in eternity and his one aim being that others might share this certainty with him.

Roots in the eternal. Because of Christ the Christian’s roots are in the eternal; he is like a tree planted by rivers of water, fruitful regardless of drought on the surface of life. Not only is the Christian’s destiny changed but his perspective is different, enabling him to evaluate rightly that which is temporal and that which lasts forever.

Necessities provided. Once the Kingdom of God and his righteousness come first, material problems are solved by the promise of Christ himself. Anxiety for the necessities of living is exchanged for the assuring word: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches of glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).

The acquisitive spirit seems a part of the unregenerate temperament, and conversion does not mean an immediate cure. The “deceitfulness of riches” will continue to be a snare until money becomes servant, not master.

That God gives to the seeking Christian the right attitude, as well as the mastery of material things, is but one of the fruits of growing in grace. The world fights, schemes, and lusts for money; but the Christian knows his needs are always provided for.

A spiritual compass. The Christian can stand on promises beyond the realm of human understanding. God’s promises to David hold good for us: “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Ps. 32:8); and “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way” (Ps. 25:9).

As a spiritual compass the Holy Spirit reveals divine truth: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13, 14).

Confronted by problems, uncertain of what to do in emergencies, the Christian can find the answer: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him” (Jas. 1:5).

The Christian’s compass is a sure one, always available and always true.

The City of Hope. The Bible lists the heroes of faith and speaks of Abraham: “He looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” And of the host of them we read: “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. for he has prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:10, 16). Our place is now being prepared by the Lord of glory.

We have mentioned only a few of those things that belong to the Christian. Everything that counts has been provided, now and for eternity. A man once remarked simply, “My ticket has been bought and paid for.” Yes, and all the contingencies along the way are also provided for in the sure promises of God. “What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom. 8:31); this same chapter concludes with the glorious fact that we are more than conquerers through him that loved us—for nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

These things being true, it seems impossible that any Christian should be discontented, frustrated, or unhappy. The only explanation is that we fail to appropriate what is ours through Christ.

While these assets are basically spiritual in nature, they are at the same time wonderfully practical and real. In fact, Christianity is the most relevant of all things—relevant for each day that we live.

How often we lack the sensitive and listening ear, the obedient heart, the empowering Spirit! As long as we live as paupers we will experience unending frustrations. Walking alone we know neither God’s will for us nor his provision for us to walk in peace and full assurance.

God has provided everything that counts. Try him and see!

- More from L. Nelson Bell

Eutychus and His Kin: January 31, 1964

SARTOR RESARTUS

Some people are easily pleased, which probably accounts for all my excitement when everyone stands up for the “Star Spangled Banner” at a big-league baseball game. Since those heroes on the diamond represent all my Walter Mitty dreams, it seems just nice all around to watch them standing there on the baseball diamond, in that beautiful grass, with their heads bared. It makes one feel like all kinds of a good American, with what Madison Avenue likes to call “deep down goodness.” As an old Pittsburgh fan, I used to like to watch Dick Groat especially, on account of his bald head. He was the kind of person an old man like me could, as the bright ones say, “identify with.”

Now to make every man my age happy there comes along Mr. Y. A. Tittle, the best and the baldest quarterback in the big time. There are a lot of things Y. A. T. can do that I can’t do, but isn’t it nice to think what a wonderful athlete he is at his age and all. My Walter Mitty flights continue, notwithstanding certain obvious disparities between Y. A. T. and me.

Somebody has been advertising new shirts for men. This season they are showing a man on the left page wearing a shirt made by Omar the Tentmaker and on the right page a football hero wearing a new, trim shirt. Somebody gave me some new, trim shirts only to break my heart because I am not trim the way the shirts are trim. I don’t look like the man in the ad—I go along with Y. A. Tittle for my hairline and Smokey Burgess for my general physical contours.

And what brought all this on? Well, last week I had to teach a Sunday school class to some adults who were just ordinary citizens, bless them, and the material that came out from the New York office was a little too trim. How is it in your church? I am of the opinion that our resource boys have become provincial. They convey the impression that they don’t know what people are wearing this year.

EUTYCHUS II

UNIVERSALISM

I have just read the prize-winning sermon on universalism, by R. Eugene Crow (Dec. 20 issue). Content: good, helpful. To whom? Preachers, theologians, perhaps some laymen.… If this was supposed to be a sermon preached to a local congregation of worshipers, in my opinion it was way over their heads, and did very little to set forth the plain teachings of the Scriptures against universalism. If this was a lecture or treatise on the doctrine and dangers of universalism delivered to theological students or a group of preachers, then it hits the spot.

I have no criticism concerning the article, or its being printed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY. This was good. I was thinking of what is generally known as a sermon, delivered to a local congregation of Sunday worshipers, setting forth God’s truth as declared in his Word, and warning them of the dangers inherent in the doctrine of universalism. This “sermon” just isn’t that. However, it does do one thing. It makes me want to preach a sermon to my people refuting this doctrine. Maybe that was the original intention. If so, good.

VERNON F. CALE

South Side Methodist Church

Huntington, W. Va.

The “sermon” missed the heart of the issue, its central point. The place to begin is with the Cross. Had there not been some everlasting principle at stake there would have been no need of the Cross.… For the Cross says the issue of man is so consequential to himself and to God, that only an invading act of God in his infinite suffering could meet the issue. The fate of man lies in such terrible jeopardy, man is so incurably helpless that only God’s Cross can reverse the impending disaster.…

CHESTER WARREN QUIMBY

Oxford, Ohio

I will leave it to others to criticize the structural and stylistic qualities of Dr. Crow’s sermon-essay. It seems to me that behind this version of personal responsibility lies a theoretical universalism implied in the possibility that all men might be saved if we would but preach the Gospel with sufficient urgency. It should rather be acknowledged that it is the grace of God that alone moves men’s hearts to repentance and faith. The only sure bulwark against the sentimental appeal of universalism is the regrettable circumstance, affirmed by both Scripture and experience, that apparently not all men are recipients of divine grace.

RAYMOND B. WILBUR

First Congregational Church

Brewer, Me.

I would like permission to reprint the article.…

I have shown this article to two of my colleagues. They feel that its message should be as widely disseminated as possible. For that reason, they are anxious that the people in the pews of our churches read it.…

E. N. O. KULBECK

Editor

The Pentecostal Testimony

Toronto, Ont.

Dr. Crow’s text is that illuminative passage in Matthew 25:31–46, but he does not make [a] single attempt to tell us what his text says.…

The motivation, sincere or insincere, for development of a doctrine and the supposed effects of a doctrine cannot be, logically, admitted as evidence either for or against a doctrine. But this is the type of evidence that Dr. Crow is using. If we claim the Scriptures as source of our doctrinal concepts [then] nothing but Scripture can be used in testing doctrine.…

Lynnwood, Wash.

E. A. LARSEN

HAPPY ACCIDENT?

Thank you for the fine editorial comment titled “Our Times Are in His Hand” (Dec. 20 issue). It contains some good Old Year’s-New Year’s sermon “fodder” for a time when the writer claims there is a dearth of it.

I would like to take kindly but serious exception to the contention contained therein that “neither Old Year’s Day nor New Year’s Day is a Christian holiday.” Both are, and New Year’s Day doubly (and more) so. Both are two of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and New Year’s Day is the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus—the Holy Name Day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since this is true, can you think of many more important days than the latter—especially since it comes on the first day of the year? It is a day which turns our devotional attention to the wondrous Name of Jesus—“for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

JOHN R. CATON

St. Mark’s Episcopal

Anaconda, Mont.

Your good editorial … reminded me of an old hymn seldom heard today with one beautiful verse as follows:

Oh mystery of mysteries

Of life and death, the Tree!

Center of two eternities

Which look with rapt, adoring eyes.

Forward, and back, to thee!

C. M. HATHAWAY

Colorado Springs, Colo.

HEART OF THE LITURGY

It is encouraging to read a sympathetic article on liturgical worship by a Methodist pastor (R. P. Marshall’s “What is Liturgical Worship?,” Dec. 20 issue). Unfortunately the article misses the heart of liturgical renewal, the Holy Eucharist.… Used specifically, liturgy is the efficient means through which the whole body of Christ participates in this Eucharistic sacrifice.

When liturgical principles such as simplicity and congregational involvement, or liturgical details, such as versicles and responses and the historic creeds, are removed from their Eucharistic context and applied to what is essentially a preaching service, the inevitable results are “formalism,” “prettifying,” and “ceremonialism,” which destroy the integrity of both the liturgy and the preaching. It is foolish and dishonest to confuse what is appropriate to the Eucharist or to preaching.…

In a broader sense, liturgy is not a matter of forms, ancient or modern, to be applied indiscriminately. It is a matter of getting what has to be done, done efficiently. If what has to be done is the Eucharistic sacrifice, one type of action will be appropriate; if it is the proclamation of the Gospel through preaching, another will be appropriate. In this basic sense, the term liturgical can be applied to the preaching service. By this criterion many of the classic preaching services of Protestantism were more liturgical than are some of those labeled liturgical today. Some Anglicans of the nineteenth century made the mistake of indiscriminately borrowing from Roman Catholicism practices which distorted the integrity of the Anglican liturgy. Liturgically minded Protestants would be wise to learn from such mistakes on the part of their Anglican brethren. If liturgical worship is to be understood and applied, attention must first be given to the essence of what is done in worship, and then to the means of accomplishing that end.

L. PAUL WOODRUM, 65

The General Theological Seminary

New York, N. Y.

YES AND NO

I enjoyed very, very much … “My Life in Preaching” by Otto Dibelius (Dec. 20 issue). It inspired me to rethink my preaching and to sit and write an article for our local newspaper.

CLYDE CARTER

Church of the Brethren

Midland, Va.

I look forward to the day which will bring me a new issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Especially was I appreciative this week of the splendid, convicting, and moving article by Bishop Otto Dibelius.

I was, however, horrified at the same time. What did I come upon in the perusal of my copy but a piece titled, “The Melody Man of Gospel Music,” treating of Mr. John W. Peterson. I was distressed, not to say dismayed. How can this be? I asked myself, and in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the journal of respectable and responsible evangelicalism! I now inquire of you, sir: Do you not realize that Mr. Peterson has done as much as anyone in the last decade to degrade church music? What once was our glorious musical heritage has been so prostituted as to give us in its stead a frivolous, worldly, and spiritually corrupting corpus of song, which uplifts no one, certainly entertains many, and is completely incapable of inducing worship.

Let us have no more of this.

JOHN RICHARD DE WITT

Sixth Reformed Church

Paterson, N. J.

• Composer Peterson won entree to these pages as a newsmaker. CHRISTIANITY TODAY aims to apprise its readers of significant religious (rends, whether these be considered favorable or adverse.—ED.

ON CHRISTIAN UNITY

The December 6 issue … is excellent. The feature articles and editorials are all of the highest quality. However, I wish to raise a question, in the name of Christian unity, as distinguished from organic union, concerning the position of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Dr. Oswald Hoffmann has written a splendid Christmas message, and no listener tan deny the incisive thinking he applies to his radio messages. I find myself in agreement with his thinking in all major points and wish that we could acknowledge each other as brothers in Christ. However, it is just at this point that I must admit to a sense of confusion and genuine sorrow. Confusion because the official position of his denomination does not permit fellowship with other Christians about the Lord’s Table. Sorrow because of their belief that all other members of the body of Christ “eat and drink unworthily” at the Lord’s Table.

The only regrets I have ever had from my military chaplaincy experiences came from the stillness of mind and heart from Missouri Synod chaplains.…

JOSEPH MACCARROLL

Past National Chaplain: The American Legion

Lynnwood, Wash.

GOD’S SWORD THRUSTS

Thank you for giving us an opportunity to express ourselves on some precious Bible text (Nov. 22 issue).

What would we do without the Word of God to carry us through the hard experiences of life?…

VIOLA ZURLINDEN

Gridley, Ill.

VARIETY OF EXPRESSION

On page 28 of the Dec. 6 issue … are the words: “Christ was crucified by Jewish hands.” This is in flat contradiction to John 19:23. The Gospels of course state that he was crucified at Jewish instigation, but the actual execution was by Roman soldiers on the order of the Roman procurator.

J. MERLE RIFE

New Concord, Ohio

• But see also Acts 2:23.—ED.

ANOTHER SLANT

I enjoyed reading the article by Bruce M. Metzger, “Four English Translations of the New Testament” (Nov. 22 issue). I was in complete agreement with almost everything he said. With one small … exception. In his last paragraph he said, “The wide variety of renderings already on the market rightly leads many persons to conclude that the need for additional translations is diminishing.”

In regard to the English language I certainly agree with him, along with his conclusion that what we need here in our country and among our people is “the ‘translation’ of the Word of God into the daily lives of those who profess to be followers of the living Word!”

But as far as the rest of the world is concerned the idea that the “… need for additional translations is diminishing” is far from the truth of the matter.

Today, two thousand years from the time Christ’s followers were told to go forth and evangelize the world, there are still more than 2,000 languages that lack any portion of God’s Word translated into them!

BILL NYMAN, JR.

Regional Secretary

Middle Atlantic Regional Office

Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc.

Charlotte, N. C.

MERCURY WAS A ROMAN GOD

Re: “Paulus ex Machina” (News, Dec. 6 issue): Sooner or later it was bound to happen! But my heart gives out to St. Paul for his having been treated like hamburg through a meat grinder.

Of course a computer is accurate. It cannot be otherwise. It can only put out what it is fed. Any fault comes from the programmer—the human operator. All he needs do is to feed it a “bit” of misinformation or neglect to insert a different “bit” of good datum and the resulting answer is based on the false premise.

Instead of trusting in Mercury and his $2250 toy (good computers by Sperry-Rand, IBM, and GE cost 100 times that price) and an a priori method of reasoning, the Holy Spirit can be trusted to lead and attest by the internal evidences of the Book that he indeed moved that great mind and soul to write.

Another added proof that the Bible is divine and still the all-sufficient authority for faith and practice is the way it withstands the attacks of Satan whether by fire or Mercury’s machine. Of course the latter is more subtle.

R. S. KOMP

Defense Electronics Division

General Electric Company

Syracuse, N. Y.

A DISTANT SOUND

For three years CHRISTIANITY TODAY has come regularly to my study. For many years The Christian Century has done the same. I read them both and find much that is helpful in each. Sometimes as I watch them lying there together on the shelf (to what lengths “togetherness” can go!) I have the feeling, somehow, that there is a lifting of editorial eyebrows and a whispered, “Well, feature meeting you here, in a thoughtful pastor’s study!”

At night I think I hear, sometimes, a distant sound, and it is at times hard to tell whether I am hearing the rejoicing of the saints together or the drawing up of ecclesiastical artillery and the honing of doctrinal differences to the point of deadly sharpness.

There are times when I wonder how The Christian Century manages to keep such a “hot line” connection with the Almighty. It’s wonderful!

But there are times, too, when I wonder about CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the authoritarian way in which it presumes to speak for evangelical Christendom.…

MILLARD REWIS, JR.

Warrenton Methodist Church

Warrenton, Va.

GOD AND CAESAR

Mr. Bruce Y. Dong (Eutychus, Sept. 27 issue) pegged tax-deductible church gifts as subsidies from the state. He said, “I submit that many if not most churches draw their lives from the state through these ‘subsidies’ in the form of tax deductions.” This fences all of one’s income into a tax-priority allegiance to the state.

God had other views when he reserved the tithe holy unto himself (Lev. 27:30). Without stating sums, Jesus commanded certain renditions from man to Caesar and from man to God. I would give “Caesar” credit for acknowledging that the first tenth is not his to tax, nor mine to spend. Jesus was saying that Caesar’s and God’s endeavors were not cross-purposes, but parallels. I give Caesar further credit for conceding that the tithe is not lost to his and God’s common aim, the diminishing of lawlessness, merely because God reserved it for another channel different from his.

First Baptist Church

HURLEY A. LOW

Neodesha, Kan.

T. C. C.

T. C. C. Ever heard of it? The question is not so much what does it mean as what could it mean? It is a contraction for “totally committed Christian.” Much is said about the disunity of the Church, despite the many organizations that are seeking to weld into one the body of Christ. The true unity is spiritual and effortless on our part. It comes like the gentle rain from above. The Holy Spirit comes without a fanfare of trumpets. Many despair of the Church ever being one. It is already one. Are men trying to make something which is already made? The intensification of the unity we have in Christ is surely one of the major needs of our day. This is the reason for T. C. C. In every area and in every denomination there are Christians who are totally committed in as far as they know their own hearts.

But there is no central fellowship in their area to which they can belong. If some districts have this in a truly corporate sense, then I will be happy to have some information. A monthly meeting locally with the aim to intensify what we already have rather than to bewail our “unhappy divisions” would be a potential that would change the course of history. The leader of this group could be called the “Overseer.” It would be best to have a layman in charge of this fellowship. The membership would be strict. This would not be another church in the local scene and any attempt would be discouraged. As things stand, we have no place where all Christians can gather to ascertain what the mind of Christ is in a given situation. The need for this in our explosive age is apparent.

My problem is how to get this “off the ground.” You might have an excellent plane on a runway but if it cannot leave where it stands it could become a museum piece.

Perhaps some of your readers have knowledge of such a type of fellowship and if they have I will be most happy to learn.…

WILLIAM BLACK

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

Dresden, Ont.

REJOINDER TO REJOINDER

This is in reply to a [letter] signed by Ernest L. Laycock … in the December 6 issue.… It is fine that he has Negroes in his fellowship, but where does he get the idea that Satan is behind the “one-race-one-world-one-church delusion”?

If Mr. Laycock would study his Bible a little I’m sure he would find as most Christians do that it is God who founded the one world, one human race, and one Christian Church.

ROBERT WILLIAMS

Bathgate, N. Dak.

TENACIOUS TENDENCY

The demands which confront a Salvation Army officer are tremendous, and it seems that the work never draws to a conclusion. The tendency is for one to be so overwhelmed with the multitudinous aspects of work that sometimes it might cause one to sadly neglect the intellectual and scholastic side of one’s life.

The articles in CHRISTIANITY TODAY have been an intellectual stimulant to me as well as being a wonderful spiritual strength.

DOUGLAS J. HILTZ

Kirkland Lake, Ont.

Please accept my sincerest thanks to you for CHRISTIANITY TODAY. It has been coming to my desk for some time now, and I have learned to appreciate the fine journalism in presenting sound theology as well as the news of the Christian world. You certainly have my personal vote of confidence in the periodical.

BILL MORGAN SMITH

District Superintendent Greenville District, North Texas Conference

The Methodist Church

Greenville, Tex.

Theology

Retarded Children and Christian Concern

Dorothy L. Hampton

My only child is a little girl of nine. She is tall for her age and extraordinarily pretty, with large dark eyes that sometimes seem to look right through you. So attractive is she that people have come to me in the supermarket and exclaimed over her—and then they have stopped in mid-sentence, for it suddenly strikes them that she is different. And indeed she is. My little girl is mentally retarded. Her I.Q. is between 50 and 60, classing her with the trainable group of the retarded.

I write therefore as the mother of a retardate, but more than that, as a mother who has put her heart and her life in Christ’s hands. I have read articles by directors of Christian education or by volunteers teaching church classes for the retarded, but I have never seen an article by a parent of a retardate who is willing to speak openly to her fellow Christians about what it is like to mother a defective child.

Three out of every hundred persons are mentally retarded. This means that, in a state such as mine, one out of every eight persons is as closely related to a retardate as mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, or aunt. Here is heartache. Only 3 per cent of the mentally handicapped are institutionalized; the remaining 97 per cent are at home, many of them without adequate schooling, recreation, friendship, and church life. Some may say, “But I honestly don’t know any retardates.” Nevertheless they are with us—perhaps hidden, perhaps mildly retarded and “passing” in the community, but all needing the evangelical church and what it can offer.

There are several stages through which one goes upon learning that one’s child is mentally handicapped. For those who do not know that Christ controls all that happens in their lives, there is usually a harrowing time of guilt and self-examination. Parents ask themselves again and again, “What did I do to give birth to such a grievously handicapped child?”

As a Christian I went through this for a mercifully short period, when it had to be all or nothing. Yet even with the most scripturally grounded believers, the human element of what may be called a built-in psychological mechanism is not wholly canceled. When a mentally handicapped child is born, this mechanism may lead to bewildered questioning. Parents cannot help asking, “Lord, why me? How can I live with this? What shall I do?”

From The One To The Many

Some unfortunate parents never progress beyond this stage. To the great detriment of themselves and their handicapped child, to say nothing of any other children in the family, they remain preoccupied with “I,” “me,” and “us.” Most parents of retardates, however, pass out of this stage to a second, in which their thinking is all directed toward the child involved. Here the normal reaction is to ask, “What can I do to help my child, only mine?” Some parents, unfortunately, remain in this second stage, and are almost as useless to themselves and to the child as those still in the first stage. Hopefully, most parents pass into a third stage, that of asking, “What can I do to help all mentally handicapped children?” Only then, they realize, can they help their own child.

Some parents pass through these stages rapidly, others slowly, and some never through all three. Nor does being a Christian exempt parents from these experiences. But, as my husband and I know, many Christians are able through the grace of God to reach the third stage more rapidly than others. For ourselves, we learned that when parents are told their child is mentally retarded, they suddenly realize that if all they believe and have professed is really true, then it mustbe sufficient now in this moment of soul-searing truth. Christians who have faced with God this hardest of problems understand why their faith is powerful, why it is built on agony and sacrifice instead of upon mere platitudes and kind sayings.

If my faith offered only some practical guides to everyday living, I would not be able to write this. But for Christians who have such inescapable problems, it means everything to know that we have a hereafter to count upon for us and our children. We have a God who is all-powerful, all-loving, and in control. We know that our children are provided for in God’s eternal plan, that not just a great man but the incarnate God himself said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40).

Loving The Unlovely

Surely among “the least of these” are the retarded, for who is more lowly than they? Perhaps the most comforting fact of all is that Christ loves the unlovely. Many retarded are unlovely; their features are ugly. Some have crossed eyes, some have heads malformed from birth injuries; others are palsied, and still others are so handicapped that they are living vegetables. What has helped most as I have felt the anguish of knowing that my little girl is retarded is to realize that the retarded are part of the Lord’s plan and that his love encompasses them as much as it encompasses the most gifted children.

All of us (Christians included) have a great deal to learn about the problem of retardation. Every retardate has parents and often brothers and sisters who desperately need Christian friendship, Christian love, a church home, and genuine acceptance. How sad to hear it said in an open meeting about church classes for the retarded, when conservative evangelical churches are mentioned, “Oh, they don’t care. They won’t do anything but sit in their ivory towers and criticize!” How cruel it is to know that, with some exceptions, this is true.

Why is it true, not only concerning retardation, but also in respect to alcoholism, mental illness, and the underprivileged poor? Why are some evangelicals letting their liberal friends do most of the works of compassion, while they argue about immersion versus sprinkling and whether Christ will come before or after the tribulation—and all the time souls in the agony of despair over a mentally retarded child, an alcoholic or mentally sick relative, are perishing all around them? While Christians who have knowledge and understanding of the power that alone can save souls and ease burdens quibble over how separated they are, there is intense spiritual suffering going on in the very blocks where they live. And somehow they are strangely uninterested in helping. If this seems overly severe, let me ask this: Why is it only now becoming the “in” thing to assist the retarded and their parents? Where have we (and I include myself) been?

It is time to come down out of the clouds of theological controversy and spiritual pride and to take our share of responsibility for the unfortunates of society. Our great-grandparents did it for the slaves. We can do it for the “least of these,” Christ’s brethren.

What then should Christians do? Let me offer some suggestions based upon experience. First, they must realize that retarded children and adults need to feel wanted and that church life is important for them. “But,” someone says, “their mentality in most cases limits their understanding of doctrine.” Such a statement overlooks the wonder of the Gospel. Most retardates understand something about death; many can understand, to a limited degree, the concept of an all-powerful Being; many understand wrongdoing; virtually all can understand love—the quality they need more than any other. Thus many mentally retarded persons are able to understand something of the central truth that Jesus is God and that he loved them enough to die for them. And after all, what else is there? This is the magnitude of the Gospel and its magnificent simplicity.

I believe that my little child understands this great truth. Whether she is or ever will be at the age of discernment I may never know; but she loves Jesus, and she knows that he loves her. And if she could not grasp even this, I would still know that he loves her.

A teacher of a primary-level church class for normal children told me recently how a rather severely retarded child entered class the day the Gospel story was told. Instead of being a behavior problem as the teacher feared, the child sat very still. At the end of the lesson, the teacher gave a simple invitation to accept Christ. The retarded child stood up asking over and over, “Can I? Can I?” There were tears in that teacher’s eyes as she said that she knows our Lord is as happy over that little one as over any other.

Not Only For The Child

Secondly, Christians must understand that it is not enough to say, “Let’s have a nice church class or Sunday school class for the retarded,” and then, after doing this, to think that nothing more is needed. Every retardate has a family, and these are often in greater need than the retardate. What about the parents and others in the family? This is what pastors and congregations must ask when they decide to do something for the retarded. What of the teen-aged brother of the little mongoloid in the special class? Is this adolescent made welcome and shown that his church understands? Does the congregation realize that mongolism is not hereditary and is not the result of some hidden sin of the parents?

Churches must do more than begin classes for the retarded; concern must also be shown for their families. Evangelicals might well follow the example set by some of more liberal theology and start group therapy classes for parents, never forgetting that the greatest therapy comes through personal knowledge of Christ as Saviour and Lord.

Only those who have a defective child will ever know the terrible need for acceptance, the deep desire to be treated like other families. The cruel stigma against the retarded has been tolerated far too long. Human beings seem to accept any handicap so long as it does not limit the one thing we need above all else—the mind. The words of Milton’s sonnet, “On His Blindness,” apply also to mental retardation: sight is not the only “talent which is death to hide.” Even more essential is our ability to reason, to express ourselves in spoken and written language, to think.

Today in an inarticulate but eloquent plea the retarded are calling for help. It is to the lasting credit of our late President Kennedy, whose oldest sister is mentally retarded, that he heard that plea and led the movement resulting in the first legislation in our national history designed to help the retarded.

Emotional response is not in itself sufficient. Response must be informed. This means that Christians must lake the trouble to learn the difference between retardation and mental illness. They should know what facilities their communities offer for therapy and schooling for all retarded. They should be aware of the need for greater educational opportunities, more job openings, additional legislation in the field of retardation, and institutional reforms. They should find out what parents’ groups are available where fathers and mothers of retardates can meet others with similar problems. Above all, they should know that retardation can happen to any family, that it is no respecter of education, social position, or economic status. With such knowledge they will have something concrete to recommend when a young couple comes to church in the crisis of having just learned that their child is mentally handicapped.

Progress But No Cure

Parents of retarded children can become victims of the most callous medical quackeries—money-draining schemes that claim miracle cures. The parents must be helped to realize that there is no cure. There can in some cases be great progress for the retarded child. Nevertheless, retardation is a condition, not an illness to be cured. Apparently our Lord meant for the retarded always to be with us, needing our help and understanding.

All children take their cues from their parents and the adults around them. Normal and gifted children must learn compassion for their unfortunate brothers or sisters. They should be told that handicapped children may be coming to church or Sunday school, that this is how God made these children, that they are to be helped and loved. Normal children will surprise parents and teachers with their matter-of-fact acceptance and eager willingness to help. The real hope for the retarded is regrettably not in this generation but in the next. If young people hear about retardation in the community and ask, “What can I do to help?” instead of saying, “Poor things, poor, poor things,” then progress will be made.

Retarded children have emotions. My child loves, she gets angry, she gets upset. She knows when people accept her openly for what she is; she also can tell when they feign sympathy. In addition to those who have already heard the call to help “the least of these,” many more professionally trained persons—teachers, medical researchers, therapists, recreation directors, counselors—are needed. So much can be done for the retarded, many of whom, when trained and supervised, are able to lead useful and happy lives as part of the community.

Here is a call to Christlike service for evangelical youth. Such service entails more than professional skill; it can mean helping parents of retardates to a sure trust in Jesus Christ that will take them through the deepest valleys of despair.

The Newly Open Door

The task of assisting parents who have older retarded children may be especially difficult; they will not always respond happily or even graciously. Perhaps years ago when they needed a church, none was ready to welcome them. They may ask, “Why is the church now opening its doors to us and our children?” The best answer is a positive program. It is important to schedule classes for the retarded at the same times as regular church services. Some churches offer classes for the retarded on Saturday or another weekday. This has two serious flaws. It prevents a group of parents from going to church on Sunday, because there is nothing on that day for their handicapped children; it also means that there are whole congregations of adults and children who will never see these mentally retarded children among them on Sunday as part of the Lord’s flock.

Too long have most Christians lagged in assuming their burden for the unfortunate and the handicapped. We who have mentally retarded children need more than sympathy and tears. We need what committed Christians have to offer us in knowledge of sins forgiven, in courage for living, and in a blessed hope for the future. Let Christians to whom much has been given give of themselves and of their bounty to help the unfortunate. Let them give in love.

To do this is no concession to a social gospel. The second great commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” is part of the faith. Christians can no longer forget the young father and mother in that hospital room who have just been told that their baby is retarded and may always be a child in mind. To these can be given understanding and hope for eternity. While they cannot be offered immediate happiness, they can be shown that there are things more important than mere happiness.

Some of us are crossing our Jordans sooner than others. We parents of the mentally retarded have heavy burdens. But when you free our souls by giving us the joyous knowledge that Christ is God, that he died for us and for our children, that he cares for us, that he loves the unlovely, that he is with us day by day, then there is nothing we will not strive to do for our children and all of “the least of these [Christ’s] brethren.”

Dorothy L. Hampton (A.B., Barnard, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) is the wife of Clyde R. Hampton (A.B., Columbia; LL.B., Colorado), an attorney in the legal department of the Continental Oil Company. Mr. and Mrs. Hampton are active in the work of the Metropolitan Association for Retarded Children of Denver, of which Mr. Hampton was the first chairman.

- More from Dorothy L. Hampton

Theology

Camping as a Means of Grace

Pierson Curtis

The Christian, like any other human being, needs recreation. After days and weeks at the desk he finds, like Charles Lamb, that the wood has entered into his soul. And she, even more, needs an out from her seven-day round of meals, beds, dishes, vacuum cleaning, and children.

They both need periodic refreshment, preferably together, and best, as a family. Golf, squash, tennis, a basement hobby, often are escapes for one. Family ski-trips may help in the winter. And the car is always with us.

But for a complete change of scene, a source of happy family memories, and a freshener of the spirit, give me camping trips—properly equipped and planned. And I don’t mean just public-camp stops on a motor tour.

Of course, to sit in a rain-beaten tent with three nothing-to-do children and an I-told-you-so wife—or husband—is not a source of happy memories. But if you have proper rain gear and waterproof minds, a trip through wet woods can be a lovely and rewarding experience. If, in addition, you have cached in a dufflebag a few paperbacks like The Guns of Navarone to read aloud, a game or two, and something special to cook on the emergency two-burner, a rainy day can be something to tell about later. And it builds resilience and an enviable state of mind.

Or, if you are just trying it out, you are doubtless near that lifeline, the car.

Of course, if you have two left hands which are all thumbs, camping is not for you without a guide. But let us suppose that you are resourceful and have a healthy sense of adventure, and have had either experience or the briefing of dyed-in-the-wool campers. Also, that you have borrowed or bought a suitable tent and other equipment, and that you know something of the country you intend to visit.

To illustrate three things that camping can do for a family, let me, as trail man for a Maine girls’ camp for thirty summers and as the father of a started-camping-young family, take you on a few trips.

1. A lean-to at three thousand feet off a trail in the White Mountains, the first flush of day showing through the firs to the northeast. The scent of balsam beds under our sleeping-bags. Firewood ready under a plastic sheet. In a few minutes fire is leaping and water from the spring is heating. An hour and a half later, with sleeping bags airing on a line under the shelter and dishes washed, we are heading up the trail for a trip along the ridges. A bay lynx scuttles off from a spruce partridge he has been tearing and climbs a balsam. After a mutual look-see, we leave him there.

2. A dirt road along a lonely Nova Scotia beach. Driftwood crackling between two rocks. Seagulls sailing by. Air-mattresses ready on the station-wagon floor and under a tentfly beside the car. Canadian T-bone steaks. And then the sunset across the water, and a lighthouse winking.

3. A night under the stars in an open field lent us by a farmer. “Of course you can sleep out there. But wouldn’t you rather come in?” To wake briefly at two in the morning with the winter constellations blazing across the sky. “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man …?”

4. Five miles in from anywhere, beside a mountain stream in a great slanted valley. We have taken two easy days to carry in, and slept one night under a huge slanted rock. Even Cynthia, aged five, has carried her six-pound sleeping bag on her little packboard. Now we are camped for three days by a rocky pool of the cloud-fed stream. The children make a water wheel, gather balsam for their beds, sit around the campfire, help to cook. We take short exploring trips together, go wading and swimming, watch the sparks zig upward, go to sleep with the firelight flickering against the shelter cloth, doze off to the voices of the rapids.

5. Canoes upturned safely back from the river edge. We have paddled and floated ten miles downstream, around bends, under overhanging trees, down sunny reaches—kingfishers flashing across ahead of us and turtles slipping off half-submerged logs as we pass. We have swum whenever we felt like it. Now the river sweeps silently and sleepily by under the stars, and a crescent moon rides halfway up the sky.

6. Colorado—the dirt road along the Rampart Ridge—a beaver pond reflecting aspens turned to gold—great snow patches still in the high pockets of the mountains.

7. Katahdin under a full moon. After a day over the Knife Edge, down Pamola to Basin Pond and back to our camping spot high up Hunt’s Trail, the family decides during supper to go down the several miles to the car by moonlight. After four hours of sleep we break camp and start down. For the first part of the overhung trail we pick our way with flashlights. But as we come out on the open lumber road along the Sourdnahunk, we look back at the moon-silvered slopes above. In a clearing beside the stream we pass a camp of boys asleep. As the first grey of dawn lightens the sky, the mountains flatten to black silhouettes. Then a gleam of gold edges them. We see a fox catching grasshoppers in a grassy meadow.

I could go on to scenes in the Canadian Rockies by glacier-fed streams or lakes, or to small islands along the Maine coast reached by sail or power-boat.

But what about the discomforts, the unnecessary effort, the bugs, the mosquitoes, the snakes, the wet? Is it relaxing or beneficial to leave the comforts that make life easy? Why not be comfortable at home or in a lakeside cottage with screens and beds and electricity? “I can endure hardness for a good cause, but why punish myself for fun?”

The second gift of camping is, I reply, the bracing effect of overcoming difficulties. “Comfort,” says Kahlil Gibran, “is a stealthy thing that enters as a guest and becomes a master.”

Our great-grandparents felled trees for their cabins, cut their own firewood, and warmed themselves at open fires. They carried their water from dug wells or springs, washed clothes and dishes by hand, baked their own bread, plucked their own geese for feather-bedding. The children walked to school. Perhaps it gave them something—iron.

(One word of warning: the iron should not be mostly mother’s. If she is left to plan the meals, buy and pack supplies, do all the cooking away from the gadgets she is used to, roughing it will be roughest on her.)

We need something of the primitive occasionally to counteract our usual dependence on oil burners, deep freezes, and Beautyrest mattresses. Not that we can call modern camping very primitive—what with canned goods, package mixes, air mattresses, and gasoline stoves. Compared with the difficulties our ancestors took for granted, we have it easy.

Finally, besides the back-to-Eden urge that drives some of us to the woods and lakes and mountains, and besides the urge to prove ourselves, to show that we are not tied to our comforts, we have also a feeling that it is good to get away from the works of man to the works of God.

A week or two away from neons and traffic and TV may help us to see with the writer of the Hundred-fourth Psalm the One “who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind.… He sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the hills.… He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.… O Lord how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.… The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever.”

Tribute To Baby Bird

How far from what it will be

Is the featherless baby bird.

The open beak

Now larger than its wings,

A tottering head

That awkwardly sustains

Its own wide open jaws.

Raw, new-made need

That gives no forward glimpse

Of radiant plumage,

Or of will-be flights.

For this the mother bird

Flies tirelessly from food to nest,

For this unpretty tribute

Weak and wide-mouthed faith.

Bird patience

In a patterned miniature of God

When needs like these

Unfeathered, wide-beaked birds

Reflect for us

Our groaning emptiness,

Our cries which are no more

Than bird, or child-like

Trustful asking.

RUTHE T. SPINNANGER

Pierson Curtis, a graduate of Princeton University and a secondary-school teacher of English for over fifty years, is a camper of long experience. He has given talks on camping procedures before the New England Camp Directors Association and the Southern Camp Directors Association and has served as a guide in Maine.

- More from Pierson Curtis

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Religion And Revolution

The Fundamental Baptists

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Breaking The Habit

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The Papacy As An Obstacle

Common Prayer

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Southern Presbyterians Seen In Context

Is It What It Does?

Who Should Be Initiated?

A Rich Novel

The Best

As Seen From The Jordan

The Best Four-In-One

Fruit Of The Spade

Book Briefs

Reprints

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Cyprus—The Troubled Island

The Panama Problem

The Government Report On Cigarettes

Gustave Weigel

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From The One To The Many

Loving The Unlovely

Not Only For The Child

Progress But No Cure

The Newly Open Door

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Tribute To Baby Bird

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