“WHATEVER THE REASONS and whatever the motives, the fact is that in the ecumenical movement the Sacrament of Unity has become more obviously than ever before the Sign of Disunity. We may be able to do very little to remedy that tragic and scandalous situation. But we may be able to do something. And to do something is radically different from doing nothing at all.” These words of Dr. Keith R. Bridston appear in the December issue of Many Churches, One Table, One Church published by the Youth Department of the World Council of Churches. They symbolize the growing impatience of the younger (and many older) members of the ecumenical movement. This impatience was not allayed by the New Delhi assembly of the WCC held last year. “The more one reflects on the present ecumenical situation in regard to intercommunion,” says Dr. Bridston, “particularly as it is reflected in the New Delhi Report, the more one has the uneasy feeling of being transported into an ecclesiastical Wonderland.… And if one attempts to inject some sense into the chaotic proceedings—for example, by trying to find a rational and generally acceptable plan for communion services—it seems to end up in something even more ludicrous and grotesque: the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life.’ ”

Spurred on by, as much as anything else, this impatience, which erupted into independent action at the European Ecumenical Youth Assembly held at Lausanne in 1960, the fourth world Faith and Order Conference, convened in Montreal two months ago, drafted a number of recommendations for the holding of communion services at ecumenical gatherings. The intention of these recommendations is “to find that arrangement of communion services which, while respecting the teaching of the churches and individual consciences, gives the fullest possible expression to the oneness of the Church of Christ which we all confess.” This intention will be generally applauded.

Space permits reference here only to the two most significant of these recommendations. In the first place, it is proposed that at ecumenical gatherings provision should be made for the holding of a communion service with an open invitation to all conference members to attend and partake; and that ideally this service should be at the invitation of one of the local churches, or at the joint invitation of a number of such churches. This proposal, surely, is right in itself. Fellow Christians meeting and seeking unity together should not leave undone the expression of their unity at the Lord’s Table in particular.

If, however, this is right in principle, it is fraught with difficulties in practice. The Bishop of Leicester’s invitation to all baptized and communicant members of the British Christian Youth Conference held in Leicester last year to receive the sacrament in his cathedral stirred up quite a hornet’s nest in the Church of England—though he was doing something which was essentially Christian and fully in harmony with the hospitable spirit of classical Anglicanism.

And this is something which must operate in both directions: those who offer hospitality must be willing also to accept hospitality. Nothing does more to bedevil and obstruct the intercommunion situation than the claim (a modern refinement on the part of some Anglicans) that the validity of the sacrament depends on its being given by and received at the hands of episcopally ordained ministers. Even when such a claim is accepted on its own grounds, it rings somewhat hollow when we remember that the validity of Anglican episcopal orders is denied by the much vaster organization of, for example, Roman Catholicism.

The image of historic Anglicanism was more truly reflected in the renowned Open Letter on Intercommunion addressed to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York by thirty-two distinguished theologians of the Church of England nearly two years ago, which contained the following declaration: “The raising up of non-episcopal ministries was the almost inevitable consequence of the Reformation and post-Reformation divisions of the Church following from the necessary duty of maintaining the truth of the Gospel as this was conscientiously understood. We believe that our Lord conveys through these ministries the same grace of the Word and the Sacraments as He bestows through the historic ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, and that He does this, not as an act of unconvenanted mercy, but because they are real and efficacious ministries within the Body of His Church.” At last month’s Anglican Congress in Toronto, too, the Bishop of Llandaff demanded removal of “episcopality” as a bar to union.

Secondly, it has been recommended that provision should be made within the conference program for a communion service “according to the liturgy of a church which cannot conscientiously offer an invitation to members of all other churches to partake of the elements,” and that all conference members, though unable to partake, should be invited and encouraged to attend. This, however, is a very different matter. It is a perversion, indeed a contradiction, of the sacrament as instituted by Christ. It is a non-communion rather than a communion. To speak of the value of non-communicating attendance and the enjoyment of “spiritual intercommunion” is nothing more than a romantic smoke-screen. It makes sense neither to the younger generation nor to the younger churches, by whom it has been described as “human and sentimental rather than truly spiritual.”

It would make as much—if not more—sense to have all the conference members attending an entirely “spiritual intercommunion,” without any outward forms or elements, conducted by the Society of Friends, who have no observance of the sacraments in their worship but who none the less (so the WCC assures us) possess the sacraments in their inward and spiritual reality. It might just possibly be argued that such a device would give expression to the invisible unity which binds together all Christian believers. But to invite a gathering whose members are seeking the outward expression of Christian unity to indulge in a demonstration of visible disunity, and at the Lord’s Table of all places, can be justified neither in Scripture, nor in history, nor in logic. Nothing could be better calculated to defeat the intention (already mentioned) propounded in this same document to give “the fullest possible expression to the oneness of the Church of Christ which we all confess.”

The difficulties of intercommunion which confront the churches today are located not in the New Testament but in the elaborations of denominationalism. The way forward must lie at the congregational level, where the Lord’s Table should be ever open to fellow believers. At least we can start there!

The Best Christology In Nineteen Centuries?

The Vindication of Liberal Theology: A Tract for the Times, by Henry P. Van Dusen (Scribner’s, 1963, 192 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by James Daane, editorial associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

This book has that blunt forthrightness and simple integrity so typical of an honest Dutchman. Its author freely expresses his convictions, reveals the warm piety of his heart, and defends both with courage. The now retired president of Union Seminary of New York is by his own avowal a liberal Christian who firmly believes that liberal theology “was—and is—the least inadequate, most credible and cogent interpretation of Christian Faith in the nineteen centuries of its history.”

Religious liberalism, says Van Dusen, was a child of the nineteenth century. It was not virgin born; its male parent was the scientific, intellectual mind, and its female parent, the evangelical religious resurgence. The child was conceived to make Christianity credible to a scientific age so that an intelligent, intellectual person could be both Christian and honest. To make this possible, liberal theology sought to rid Christianity of the graveclothes of tradition and outmoded superstitions, and to purge modern thought of its gross abberations.

It was the glory of liberalism to be “Christocentric” and to concentrate on Christology, for Christ, says Van Dusen, has ever been the true center of the Christian faith and the source of its spiritual power. Moreover, it is Christ as defined by the ancient classical creeds that is offensive to modern intelligence. The Christological problem is that God should himself have lived and walked as a man on the earth. The classical Christology, with its declarations concerning divine and human substances which were “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,” was a “distilled nonsense” that left the problem just where it was at the start. From this quagmire and distortion of the true biblical faith “Liberal Theology offered deliverance and corrective.”

Modern philosophical scholarship has shown—so goes the vindication—that we can have no certain metaphysical knowledge, and science (both natural and historical) has demonstrated that Reality is of one piece, and in evolutionary process. Therefore there is a “continuity … between Christ and other men, between man and God,” and, consequently, traditional Christology is unacceptable. Moreover, argues Van Dusen, classical orthodoxy always placed the accent on the divinity as against the humanity of Jesus, and in greater or lesser degree was always guilty of the heresy of docetism. Liberal Christology, we are told, is purer and more adequate than any that preceded it, because it strongly and consistently emphasizes the humanity of Christ.

Rejecting discontinuity, and employing a continuous-Reality-in-process as a working presupposition, liberal theology defined Jesus as he who stands at the apex of the summit of man-in-process, has a true knowledge of the destiny of man and the purposes of God, and utterly commits himself in faith to God’s will. “Here continuity is at a maximum, total,” and therefore the “faith of Jesus,” the “mind” and “spirit” of Jesus is the highest truth about God and our highest inspiration and authority. “The only Christ whom Christianity knows is one who is at every point the direct continuant of Jesus of Nazareth” (italics added). In this sense God himself “was present, as fully present as it is possible for Him to be present in a truly human life.” If it be objected that this unity is merely ethical, Van Dusen will answer, “The ethical is the metaphysical in its most revealing aspect.”

This understanding of Christ is assertedly liberal theology’s grand Christological contribution, the most credible, the least inadequate of any produced by the Christian church in its nineteen centuries. We may thank Van Dusen for putting the matter so lucidly. We may also concede that the Christian church has always tended in subtle ways to docetism. But for the rest? Being equally Dutch I may be equally candid. Van Dusen’s liberal Christology contains no Incarnation. This Jesus is not a man that God became. And is this Jesus Christ more credible to modern man? If by “credible” is meant more provocative of Christian faith—then there is no evidence for it. Does the modern man stumble over the discontinuity involved in the classical Christological affirmation that God became this man? Is it this which offends his intellect? Is it this that he cannot believe and yet remain honest? Humbug. Modern man has been very agreeable to the idea that he himself is, or can become, divine. Modern man—intellectual or illiterate—is offended by the very same thing that offended the New Testament Jew—learned or otherwise: not the fact that God became a man, but the claim that God became this man, a man who claims that he, not we, is the Son of God, the Elect of God, the Lord of all and the Saviour of the world.

It is sophisticated nonsense that the offense of Christ is to man’s intellect rather than to his pride, a pride which is offended that the life and death, the tears, humility, and suffering of this man of Nazareth are the disclosure of the heart and will of God. If the Christ of Van Dusen’s liberal theology were really such that an honest, intellectual modern man would find Him credible, then one could rightfully expect modern intellectuals to crowd the Church to confess Jesus. Statistics lend no support to this expectation which liberal Christology gives us a right to entertain. Further, this interpretation of the offensive character of the classical Christology throws no light whatsoever on the fact that masses of people who do not have the faintest notion as to what the problem of discontinuity is about remain outside the Christian church.

Much that Van Dusen says in his book is eminently worth reading—and I recommend the reading of it. But his critique of classical Christology, his definition of the nature of the modern man’s offense, and his reconstructed liberal Christology are an exercise in sophistication, one which gains no credence from a considerable amount of loose and imprecise language—language especially ill-fitted to a vindication. All in all, the book elicits the word justify rather than vindicate.

JAMES DAANE

Narcissistic Or Apostolic?

Call to Commitment, by Elizabeth O’Connor (Harper & Row, 1963, 205 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Charles D. Kean, rector, The Church of the Epiphany, Washington, D. C.

Elizabeth O’Connor’s book is really a love story—not with a man, as such, but with a Christian congregation. The book is an account of the origin and development of the Church of the Saviour (an ecumenical church) in Washington, D. C., the founder and minister of which is the Rev. Gordon Cosby.

Those who have read of Gordon Cosby’s thought and work know that his primary concern is with committed church membership. From its outset the Church of the Saviour has stood in sharp contrast to the mass psychology so prevalent in American life, whether in the form of mass evangelism or mass sales. Here is a church which is more concerned with the depth commitment of its members than with the number of names on the role.

The book gives the history of the parish, the background of its minister, and a kind of sermon—all put together. A large part of the text consists of what appears to be the author’s reflection on what she has picked up theologically from Mr. Cosby’s sermons and from the adult classes which are such a prominent part of the church’s program.

This reviewer has had a chance to know the Church of the Saviour a little bit from the inside since he conducted a program in advanced adult education technique for the Education Committee some four years ago. A good many of the people whom the author mentions were part of the class, and there is no gainsaying their commitment to the Church of the Saviour and what it stands for.

The book tells of the parish’s experiments with its retreat center, “Dayspring.” and its coffeehouse, “The Potter’s House.” with its associated workshop. It also describes the congregation’s attempts to minister effectively to needs in metropolitan Washington in a variety of ways. It brings out the important fact of racial inclusiveness across the board.

Gordon Cosby has a vision, which many of the members of his congregation share. This reviewer cannot help wondering, however, particularly when he reads Miss O’Connor’s book, whether what we have is the fullness of the Church in microcosm or, rather, a “cultural island” which, because of the very intense involvement of the members, becomes somewhat irrelevant to the needs of a pluralistic America.

There is no doubt that the Church needs greater commitment on the part of its members. There is no doubt that serious discipline and prayer and Bible study are essential to this end. There is no doubt that Christians reinforce each other during the long, dry periods in the life of the soul. There is no doubt that the witness of the Church of the Saviour is a challenge to superficial church membership wherever it may exist. But there is real doubt whether the experiment in Washington isn’t in continual danger of turning inward as its members, unconsciously or semi-consciously, mistake commitment to the Church of the Saviour for commitment to the Holy Fellowship. Many of its members admit the problem, at least verbally, but the turning inward continues.

CHARLES D. KEAN

Novel-Christs

Pseudonyms of Christ in the Modern Novel, by Edwin M. Moseley (University of Pittsburgh, 1963, 231 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by William R. Sengel, minister, Old Presbyterian Meeting House, Alexandria. Virginia.

“The chief sources for an explanation of this sort are simply what one knows: a bit of Greek mythology, a bit of the Bible, a bit of Oriental religion, some more of Faulkner.”

In the above note at the end of his essay on William Faulkner, Professor Moseley reveals what is to me the chief problem of his work; namely, that his image of Christ is drawn from so wide a syncretism as to keep it ever uncertain and obscure.

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

•Let Europe Hear, by Robert P. Evans (Moody, $3.95). The “spiritual plight” of Europe emerges from a careful country-by-counlry study of historical backgrounds. theological influences, and national idiosyncrasies.

• Calvin, by Francois Wendel (Harper & Row, S6). Incisive summary of Calvin’s life and thought in the turbulent context of the political and intellectual ferment of his age.

• The Sanctity of Sex, by Stephen F. Olford and Frank A. Lawes (Revell, $2.95). A popular New York City pastor joins a popular Glasgow pastor in reverently presenting under the theme “Jesus Christ is Lord” the facts and facets of sex in life’s varying situations.

“Who do men say that I am?” is still Christ’s valid question to us. And the answers reported by the modern novelists. here further clouded by a jargon of literary criticism, are far more varied and wide of the mark than those first reported by Peter on the road to Caesarea Philippi.

The choice of novels covers a wide range from the esssentially orthodox religious focus of Conrad, Dostoyevsky, and Turgenev, through the naturalism of D. H. Lawrence, Remarque, and Fitzgerald and the social novels of Faulkner, Forster, Steinbeck. Silone, Malraux, and Koestler, to the “new orthodoxy” of Camus and Hemingway. The Christ archetype and the religious symbolism in many of these works Professor Moseley admits he did not see in his earlier readings of them. The vision, finally arrived at, appears to have been tailored to a pre-arranged pattern of interpretation.

One further note. It is certainly a proper exercise for the modern artist, including both novelist and critic, to describe the profound depths of man’s contemporary plight. But if the claim is made that our chaos and need can be understood in terms of the mighty act of God in Christ—the Word made flesh—then some acknowledgment is needed that Christ’s suffering is redemptive, that into the midst of man’s deepest need comes the hope for reconciliation, salvation, peace. One wishes that the author might have included, say, an Alan Paton in his lists. There the symbolism is not so obscure nor the pseudonym so contrived.

WILLIAM R. SENGEL

Five Minutes More

The Urgency of Preaching, by Kyle Haselden (Harper & Row, 1963, 121 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Sherwood E. Wirt, co-editor, Decision magazine, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Amid the general poverty of ecclesiastical writing, this book is a pleasure to read. Editor Haselden’s Andover Newton preaching lectures are constructed in the classic style of Horne, Gossip, Sockman, and Stewart. There is the majestic argument, the subdued passion, the telling quote, the deft allusion, the crisp turn of phrase.

Dr. Haselden knows his compass: “It is not flesh and blood that makes a minister, but God’s appointment” (p. 114). His pulpit illustrations are masterful: “If a doctor, arriving at the scene of an accident, knows that he has only twenty minutes at most in which to save a victim’s life, he will waste none of them combing the patient’s hair or brushing his clothes.… He will move as swiftly as he can to the most critical and threatening wound.… Something similar is demanded of the minister in the pulpit. He has his twenty minutes …” (p. 100).

With its quotations from Spurgeon, this volume is no apology for liberal preaching. It criticizes the “ambiguity” of the World Council’s stand at New Delhi on the issue, “Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.” If it views the professional evangelist with distaste, at least it takes him seriously: “Better a Jonathan Edwards holding men like a spider over the flaming hell, than a namby-pamby preacher who assures his people that they have no cause to fear God’s wrath in this world or the next” (p. 51).

Despite their overall excellence, one comes away from these chapters with a feeling of wistfulness and sadness. A noble profession is heading for the rocks. The situation is not so much one of “urgency” as of “desperation.” No real ultimate solutions are pointed out. There is no supernatural victory in Jesus Christ set forth here, no mighty salvation, no trumpet note of the resurrection, no everlasting glory, no white radiance of eternity.

One wishes that Dr. Haselden had gone further, and had pointed out that whatever the preacher’s predicament, revival is always possible. There is hope—even for preachers! There is always the Lord, and “he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy … [and] singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

SHERWOOD E. WIRT

Newman Then And Now

Newman: The Pillar and the Cloud (Vol. I) and Newman: Light in Winter (Vol. II), by Meriol Trevor (Doubleday, 1962 and 1963, 649 and 659 pp., $7.95 each; Macmillan (London), 1962, 50s. each), are reviewed by Roderick H. Jellema, instructor in English, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland.

Professor Walter Houghton, our keenest student of Victorian literature, calls Newman “the most highly gifted of all the Victorians.” Other scholars do not seem eager to dispute it. Christians ought to do more to lay claim to such a judgment, for they have always heard by a kind of hand-me-down tradition that Newman is also the greatest Christian apologete of the nineteenth century.

“The most highly gifted”—in a dazzling age that produced Arnold, Browning, Mill, and Huxley? Few of Newman’s contemporaries would have agreed. To them he was merely reactionary, at times even darkly sinister. He was out of step with the Parade of Progress. A brilliant mind driven to lonely dissent, he held with confidence to his vision of Christ and history: “I see that men are mad awhile, and joy to think the Age to come will think with me.”

Miss Trevor’s massive biography, culled from the literal tons of papers and letters and notes that Newman left stuffed in the cupboards of the Birmingham Oratory, recreates something of Newman the man. He steps out of his long years of misunderstandings and disappointment as a man of humility and poise, a man of deep vision and high integrity.

It is the Christian vision that really matters, of course. Somehow, Newman’s critique of liberalism rings harder and truer in our age than it did in his own. By setting his life in order, Miss Trevor gives that ring still more room in which to resound.

Newman’s struggles involved not only the skeptics and the liberals, but also the powerful and mistrusting Catholic hierarchy, the frightened cardinals and bishops who were moved, said Newman, “in automaton fashion from the camarilla at Rome.” The whole of Christendom must blush to take this second look at one of her most brilliant apologetes.

Perhaps it is we Protestants, whose compromising or retreating ancestors helped drive the middle-aged Newman to Rome, who now need him most. His life, says Miss Trevor, reversed the story of the wayward young intellectual and the weeping, saintly mother. He was “an Augustine weeping over a Monica who refused the challenge of thought.” What he wanted most was to orient the coming generations so that they could “explore the new worlds of knowledge and yet be firmly rooted—not in the old, but in the eternal.”

RODERICK H. JELLEMA

Natural Theology Dominates

Reason and God, by John E. Smith (Yale University Press, 1961, 274 pp., $5), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor,CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The chairman of Yale’s philosophy department gives a useful survey of encounters of philosophy with religion in such post-Kantian figures as Bultmann, Berdyaev, Heidegger, and Tillich, and then assesses the present state of natural theology. He rejects the adequacy for philosophy of the current emphasis on Existenz. He thinks a reconsideration of a positive relationship between Christianity and philosophy one of the necessary tasks of our time.

Christianity has a large stake in the survival of metaphysical thought: “attacks upon metaphysics are also attacks upon theology” (p. 114). But he rejects the view that Christian theology forms a system of certain propositions in no way dependent on philosophy, contending that this position reduces the Christian in philosophy to the role of “a ‘fifth columnist’ in the ranks of worldly wisdom” (p. 138). He rejects the possibility of a “Christian philosophy,” and holds that the two must maintain a distinct, autonomous relationship. In this turn Dr. Smith seems hardly to follow the lead of his own assertions that the special Christian concept of Logos results in an essential relationship between theology and philosophy. The cause may be found in the rejection of “Christian” concepts, that is, in a view of divine revelation which does not allow for God’s special communication of truths about himself and his purposes. The volume assigns wholesome emphasis to general revelation, but then permits natural theology to dominate the biblical arena of special revelation.

CARL F. H. HENRY

1930 To 1956

The Fundamentalist Movement, by Louis Gasper (Mouton & Company [The Hague, Netherlands], 1963, 181 pp., 18 Dutch guilders; American agent: Humanities Press, $5), is reviewed by Wilbur M. Smith, professor of English Bible, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Bannockburn, Illinois.

Histories of fundamentalism in our country began to be published over thirty years ago; the most important of these was the 1954 volume by Furniss, which carried the history down to 1931. This new work should have as a subtitle “Since 1930,” a starting point announced in the very first sentence of the Preface. This is a most thorough piece of work, sympathetically written. All groups are treated with fairness. How the author, a professor in the Los Angeles Pacific College, could find time to read and analyze the hundreds of items he refers to in footnotes—including obscure magazines, Bible institute catalogues, standard works on this subject, and biographies of those involved—I do not know. There is no complete collection of this relevant literature in any one place in America.

The author states that “religious Fundamentalism in American Protestant Christianity has its roots in Apostolic times, Medieval-Reformation theology, and American revivalism.” The book brings us as far as 1956 in the annals of this vigorous movement. Here we have the story of the attack of the American Council on the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Evangelicals, with the accusations thrown back and forth among evangelical Christians for these many years. Here we have also a full story of the evangelical forces of America contending for time for gospel broadcasting and ultimately winning—a defeat for the National Council. In discussing the new evangelical seminaries of our country, the author concludes that they have “proliferated a body of erudite literature demonstrating that they are not only articulate, but that they can also deal responsibly with opposing theologies.”

There are spelling errors in the book, which need not be enumerated; but one factual error should be pointed out: Ernest Gordon was never editor of the Sunday School Times. The formation and early history of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, founded by Dr. Machen in 1933 and thus within the generation the author sets out to review, has unfortunately not been given adequate consideration. Also, while other similar organizations are mentioned, neither Campus Crusade nor Young Life is included.

The author makes no flippant remarks concerning basic evangelical beliefs. It would seem, however, that the basic issue between modernism and fundamentalism, namely, their divergent approaches to revealed truth, has not been as adequately treated in the text as have such secondary issues as economic influences and antagonism toward Communism. The book is, nonetheless, a very thorough piece of work.

WILBUR M. SMITH

For Pastoral Care

Christian Counseling: In the Light of Modern Psychology, by G. Brillenburg Wurth (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1962, 307 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Lars I. Granberg, professor of psychology, Hope College, Holland, Michigan.

Some things are not credited for what they are because they fail to meet expectations concerning what they should be. Such could be the fate of this book. Its original Dutch title, Christian Pastoral Care in the Light of Modern Psychology, is a reasonably accurate description of the book’s thrust. It is too bad that this title was not retained for the English edition, for the book is not about counseling, as that word is currently used among pastoral counselors or psychologists. It is about pastoral care.

When taken for what it is, this is a commendable piece of work. It contains an analysis of the implications for biblical anthropology of some of the more recent thinking in psychology of personality. While his discussion of the American scene is not as current as could be desired, Professor Wurth’s discussion of the European scene—in particular the contemporary Dutch existential psychologists—is excellent. This is followed by movement toward a working synthesis of psychological contributions with biblical anthropology.

When the author turns to application, one finds an interesting blend of compassionate wisdom, biblical understanding, and Calvinistic austerity. The commonly met pastoral problems are considered with thoroughness—e.g., doubt, suffering, bereavement. Chapters on general religious development and on the need of pastors for pastoral help also have been included.

In these discussions Professor Wurth’s commitment to Reformed theology is evident and consistently applied. Our brethren from the pietistic tradition may find his pointed criticisms uncomfortable, but they stand to profit from much of what he has to say.

The book represents the considered opinions of a learned and experienced pastor who has thought deeply about what he has encountered. It should have particular appeal to those who take seriously their pastoral responsibility to persons and those who are interested in the working out of a biblically based synthesis between the view of man presented in the Scriptures and the thinking of personality theorists.

One feature which detracts from the book’s usefulness is the absence of an index, which militates against ready reference.

LARS I. GRANBERG

The Vatican Today

The World of the Vatican, by Robert Neville (Harper & Row, 1962, 256 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Leslie R. Keylock, doctoral student in religion, State University of Iowa, Iowa City.

For those many Protestants who want background information for the second session of the Second Vatican Council, which will open on September 29, this book by a foreign correspondent and former chief of the Time-Life Bureau in Rome is a real desideratum. Although it opens with a brief historical sketch, it is primarily a picture of the Vatican State (the political side of Vatican City) and the Holy See (its religious side) as they exist today.

The core of the book is an interesting resume of the childhood, education, and previous ecclesiastical responsibilities of Pius XII and John XXIII. The volume has twenty-nine excellent pictures, including views of St. Peter’s Basilica (where the council meets) and of some of the buildings surrounding it on the 108 acres of Vatican City. There are also portraits of the two popes and of some of those who played important roles in the life of the Roman Catholic Church during their pontificates. A detailed and somewhat slow-moving discussion of the election of John XXIII in 1958 will give ample information to anyone interested in this. At least a year before Pope John’s death Neville correctly predicted the election of Cardinal Montini to the papacy.

Three miscellaneous chapters discuss matters that only a person with the author’s background could write. There are now about ninety cardinals, more than at any other time in history, but the doctrine of papal infallibility seems to have deprived them of much of their dignity and function. Although Neville does not refer to this, the second session of the council will undoubtedly attempt to remold and redefine the offices of both bishop and cardinal. Such an attempt will seek to rectify the unavoidable onesidedness of the First Vatican Council (1870), which defined the infallibility of the pope but failed to discuss the authority of bishops and cardinals because war brought it to a premature and undignified close. The question of the financial sources of the Holy See and the problems of a news reporter confronted with the traditional secrecy of the Curia (Vatican civil service) are among the more “sensational” topics with which the author deals (and in a manner that might prove irritating to a sensitive Catholic).

The concluding chapter, a discussion of the Second Vatican Council itself, is disappointing, largely because it was written before the opening of the first session. Several predictions are made which did not come true. And there is no adequate treatment of the more than three years of preparation for this council. The discussion of the major obstacles to a reunion of Protestant and Orthodox Christians with Rome clearly shows Neville’s limitations: he is a secular reporter and grossly oversimplifies theological complexities.

This does not mean that the chapter is without merit. In fact, all in all this book is probably the best on the market for the layman interested in the world behind the council. It is not, however, a book that one interested in the theological heart of the Vatican will read with profit.

LESLIE R. KEYLOCK

Book Briefs

Look to Your Faith, by J. N. Smucker (Faith and Life, 1963, 111 pp., $2.50). Culled from the editorial writings of Smucker, for ten years editor of The Mennonite. Selections are not strictly editorials at all, but devotional writings.

Questions and Answers on the Catholic Faith, by John V. Sheridan (Hawthorn, 1963, 319 pp., $4.95). Questions sent in by the public; answers by the director of the Catholic Information Center in Los Angeles. More for the curious than the serious student.

Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, by A. N. Sherwin-White (Oxford, 1963, 204 pp., $4 or 25s.). A studied consideration of the Roman legal, administrative, and municipal settings of the Book of Acts and the Synoptic Gospels. The meaning of Roman citizenship, and the trials of Jesus before Pilate and of Paul before Felix and Festus are included.

The Baptizing Work of the Holy Spirit, by Merrill F. Unger (Dunham, 1962, 147 pp., $2.50). Dispensationalist author traces the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit in biblical thought and distinguishes it from the believer’s experience of the Spirit’s power.

American Pluralism and the Catholic Conscience, by Richard J. Regan, S. J. (Macmillan, 1963, 288 pp., $5.95). An excellent study of the inter-relationships of a theologically dogmatic church and the American democratic political system which posits the separation of church and state. Candidate J. F. Kennedy’s claim that his religious views were “his own private affair” is said not to point toward the solution of the church-state problem.

Maturity in Sex and Marriage, by Joseph Stein (Coward-McCann, 1963, 318 pp., $6.95). A highly sophisticated analysis, supplemented with case histories; often informative, though basically oriented on unchristian premises.

Guilt: Where Psychology and Religion Meet, by David Belgum (Prentice-Hall, 1963, 148 pp., $5.25). A thoroughgoing study of how the Church should deal with guilt; with a reconsideration of penance and a discussion of a “functional confessional.” Author confesses that for sixteen years he thought he could combine secular psychotherapy with a clerical collar.

The Preaching of the Gospel, by Karl Barth (Westminster, 1963, 94 pp., $2.50). Lectures on practical theology delivered long ago, when Barth was young. A general discussion on preaching—selecting a text, composing the sermon, and the like.

Salvation, by Ernest F. Kevan (Baker, 1963, 130 pp„ $2.50). A good biblical exposition; substance with clarity. Adapted to individual or group study.

A Baptist Manual of Polity and Practice, by Norman H. Maring and Winthrop S. Hudson (Judson, 1963, 237 pp., $4.50). A wealth of information about Baptists, presented to make them identifiable to themselves and others.

Camping for Christian Youth, by Floyd and Pauline Todd (Harper & Row, 1963, 198 pp., $3.95). Leaves nothing unsaid.

Children of the Developing Countries, A Report by UNICEF (World, 1963, 131 pp., $3.95). A detailed report with pictures tells what the United Nations Children’s Fund ($40 million a year) is doing to improve the health, education, job training, and home conditions of 500 million children in 120 “developing countries” of the world.

Church in Fellowship, edited by Vilmos Vajta (Augsburg, 1963, 279 pp., $5.95). The problems and history of altar and pulpit fellowship in American, German, and Scandinavian Lutheranism.

A Man Named John, The Life of Pope John XXIII, by Alden Hatch (Hawthorn, 1963, 288 pp., $4.50).

The Rise of the West, by William H. McNeill (University of Chicago, 1963, 829 pp., $12.50). Grounded on evolutionary presuppositions, the author in this massive work develops the theme of cultural diffusion, rejecting the Spengler-Toynbee view that many civilizations developed independently. Numerous excellent illustrations help to make this a book of fine craftsmanship.

Winning Jews to Christ, by Jacob Gartenhaus (Zondervan, 1963, 182 pp., $3.50). A storehouse of information about the Jews—their history, tradition, and beliefs—presented to help Christians make a Christian approach to the Jew.

American Immigration Policies, by Marion T. Bennett (Public Affairs Press, 1963, 362 pp., $6). A massive, valuable study of our basic immigration policy: what it is; how it developed, was criticized, and changed; how it affected the composition of our population; and how pending proposals would change it further.

The Reconstruction of Theology, edited by Ralph G. Wilburn (Bethany Press, 1963, 347 pp., $6). A panel of scholars representing the major seminaries of the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) seeks to clarify what Disciples believe. This is Volume II in a three-volume series, “The Renewal of the Church.”

The Turin Fragments of Tyconius’ Commentary on Revelation, edited by Francesco Lo Bue (Cambridge University Press, 1963, 199 pp., $11). The late editor Lo Bue by modern critical techniques has established beyond reasonable doubt that this commentary on the Book of Revelation can be ascribed to Tyconius After, an influential Donatist in the Donatist-Roman Catholic struggle in the churches of fourth-century Africa. Tyconius’ writings are important for their influence on St. Augustine, and for their light on the church struggles in Africa and on the Book of Revelation. What was long little more than a title is now a book come to life.

Right Side Up, by Betty Carlson (Zondervan, 1963, 120 pp., $2.50). The author with an easy style and a Christian perspective addresses herself to the massive amount of unhappiness in life.

Paperbacks

The Faith of Christendom, A Source Book of Creeds and Confessions, edited by B. A. Gerrish (The World Publishing Company, 1063, 371 pp., $1.95). Texts of and commentary on the principal statements of faith; with excellent introductions.

North American Protestant Foreign Mission Agencies (Missionary Research Library, 1962, 119 pp., $2.50). Directory of North American Protestant mission work done outside of the United States and Canada. Basetl on replies received from 427 agencies. Fifth edition.

One Church: Catholic and Reformed, by Lewis S. Mudge (Westminster, 1963, 96 pp., $1.75). Declaring the ecumenical honeymoon to be over, the author cites the responsibilities of the present situation and seeks for a theology of ecumenical decision that will move toward unity. A provocative discussion.

Fifty Years of Faith and Order, by John E. Skoglund and J. Robert Nelson (World Council of Churches, 1963, 113 pp., $1).

A Guide to Religious Shrines in the Nation’s Capital, by Glenn D. Everett (Capital Church Publishers [926 National Press Building, Washington, D.C.], 1963. 48 pp., $.75). Fine pictures with descriptive write-ups of the national capital’s religious shrines; tells when they’re open and how to get there.

These Cities Glorious, by Lawrence H. Janssen (Friendship, 1963, 175 pp. $1.75). The author sketches the urbanization of our culture and tells how the Church must alter its patterns of ministry if it is to meet its task.

Bible Personalities, by Mary Jane Haley (Broadman, 1963, 192 pp., $2.75 for teacher’s, $1 for student’s edition). A highly useful, biblically grounded series of lessons on thirty biblical persons. For teachers of children in the ten-year-old range.

Patterns of Passing, by Charles Waugaman (privately printed [order from author at American Baptist Convention, Valley Forge, Pa.], 1963, 36 pp., $1.75). Rich, lovely, affective poems on nature and its God.

Ras Shamra and the Bible, by Charles F. Pfeiffer (Baker, 1962, 73 pp., $1.50). An introduction, for the non-specialist, to the significant discoveries made at Ras Shamra since 1928.

God’s Messengers to Mexico’s Masses, by Jack E. Taylor (Institute of Church Growth [Eugene, Ore.], 1962, 82 pp., $1.50). A study of the needs and problems of that “mission held” of 100,000 to 200,000 Mexicans, a field that crosses the border and confronts the Church in the United States.

New Testament Follow-up for Pastors and Laymen, by Waylon B. Moore (Eerdmans, 1963, 192 pp., $1.95). How to do effective follow-up work so as to conserve, mature, and multiply converts instead of losing them through the back door almost as fast as they come in the front.

One Way for Modern Man (American Bible Society, 1963, 78 pp., $. 15). The Gospel of John in modern English (J. B. Phillips); done in attractive form, with modern photography that ties in with the text.

A Fast To Death

A 22-year-old convicted arsonist, a member of the fanatical Sons of Freedom Doukhobor sect, died of malnutrition last month following a thirty-day hunger strike in an Agassiz, British Columbia, prison. Paul E. Podmorrow, one of more than 100 who vowed to fast to death, died several hours after being admitted to a hospital. Prison and hospital attendants had fed him by force in an attempt to save his life. The strike was reported broken several days later.

Protestant Panorama

Delegates to the second national Methodist Conference on Human Relations issued a call to eliminate the church’s Central (Negro) Jurisdiction by 1968. Their call also asked support of public-accommodations legislation and the use of church finances to further desegregation.

Luther, a controversial play about the great Reformer, opens on Broadway this month. Written by a Britisher, John Osborne, the drama has been widely criticized for its Freudian treatment of Luther.

A number of Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa said they would boycott a scheduled preaching mission conducted by Methodist evangelist Alan Walker of Australia. Walker was reported to have made a statement four years ago expressing disrespect for the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. He denies it.

Plans for the formation of a North American Baptist Fellowship were approved by the executive committee of the Baptist World Alliance at its annual meeting. Establishment of the fellowship is contingent on a constitution’s being written by November and approved by major Baptist bodies affiliating with the new organization.

Trans World Radio will establish a 750,000-watt Christian broadcasting station on the Caribbean island of Bonaire instead of on Curacao, as was originally planned. Both islands are in the Netherlands Antilles just north of Venezuela. An announcement said the change was made because of “the technical superiority of the selected site.”

Miscellany

Former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker of Canada was received in audience this month by Pope Paul VI at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. Diefenbaker, a Baptist, was in Italy with his wife en route to the United Arab Republic and Israel.

A six-member delegation from the Orthodox Church in Russia paid a summer visit to Church of the Brethren congregations in the United States. A Brethren group will go to Russia for an exchange visit next month.

The Christian Council of Kenya is urging member churches to conduct thanksgiving services in connection with the nation’s forthcoming Independence Day, December 12. The call was issued following a meeting between Christian leaders and Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta.

A team of American archaeologists will begin work next summer at Hebron, traditional site of the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hebron, located twenty-five miles south of Jerusalem, is the last major biblical site in the Holy Land still unexcavated.

Formation of the interdenominational Creation Research Committee was announced by Dr. Walter E. Lammerts, world-renowned developer of roses. Lammerts, who is chairman of the new committee. says its eventual goal “is the realignment of science based on theistic creation concepts.” Plans include publication of an annual yearbook beginning in 1964 and thereafter a quarterly review of scientific literature. The committee has won the endorsement of a number of evangelical research scientists.

A proposal for international controls on cigarettes, similar to those on narcotics, was advanced by an official of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union at its eighty-ninth annual convention last month. Mrs. T. Roy Jarrett, vice-president at large, called on the World Health Organization to support a United Nations agreement on cigarette control.

Latest survey of U. S. Public Health Service shows the number and rate of illegitimate births at an all-time high.

A Salt Lake City firm owned by the Mormon church is asking government approval to purchase controlling interest in the Queen City Broadcasting Company, which operates station KIRO AM, FM, and TV in Seattle. Price: $5,090,000.

Personalia

Dr. George L. Ford is resigning as executive director of National Association of Evangelicals, effective January 1, 1964.

Commissioner Holland French named to succeed Commissioner Norman S. Marshall as national commander of the Salvation Army in the United States. Marshall is retiring.

Evon Hedley resigned as executive director of Youth for Christ International to become director of public relations for World Vision, Inc.

Joseph T. Bayly appointed managing editor of David C. Cook Publishing Company, succeeding C. Charles Van Ness, who was named executive editor.

Worth Quoting

“I really believe the things Christianity teaches, but I do not believe in most of the things Christianity condones.”—James Meredith, in an address to the second national Methodist Conference on Human Relations.

“The strategy which the Communists have used in every country where they have come to power is to capture the minds of youth with books.”—Dr. Walter H. Judd, in an address at the annual convention of Christian Booksellers Association.

Deaths

PETER DE VISSER, 52, vice-president in charge of publications for Zondervan Publishing House and formerly a member of the editorial staff of CHRISTIANITY TODAY; in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

PASTOR JULIO MANUEL SABANES, 66, retired Methodist bishop in Latin America; in Buenos Aires.

ALFRED CAHEN, 83, chairman emeritus of World Publishing Company, leading Bible publisher; in Cleveland.

FRANK STEWART, 73, former religion editor of the Cleveland Press; in Cleveland.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen. Scotland, gave up his office this month to keep his housekeeper. The Most Rev. Francis Walsh, 62, had been ordered by the Vatican to fire Mrs. Ruby MacKenzie, 42, divorced wife of a Presbyterian minister. Townspeople complained she had “traveled about” with him. The prelate blamed a jealous woman and five priests for the campaign against him. Walsh was permitted to retain his rank as titular Bishop of Birta, but without a diocese.

“My greatest enemy is still that old Presbyterian, John Knox,” complained Lord Harewood, artistic director of the Edinburgh Festival and cousin of Queen Elizabeth. A former sovereign, Charles II, had found the same thing in Scotland—a land in which “there was not a woman fit to be seen and where it was a sin to play the fiddle.” Even that merry monarch might have changed his mind had he attended the festival which closed earlier this month. A nineteen-year-old nude model was wheeled across the organ gallery for thirty seconds as part of an “action theatre” display. The avowed purpose of the display, staged by Kenneth Dewey, young avant-garde director from Los Angeles, was “to get the audience involved in the conference.”

One man who did get involved was Lord Provost Duncan Weatherstone, whose city council contributes $140,000 toward festival expenses. “It is quite a tragedy,” commented the civic chief, “that three weeks of glorious festival should have been smeared by a piece of pointless vulgarity.… It has been suggested that the Edinburgh International Festival is handicapped by a Presbyterian outlook. This is offensive, and the sooner everybody realizes it the better. I am quite certain that the majority of our people will continue to be enthusiastic about the value of the arts, but they have not the slightest intention of surrendering their standards in the process.”

Refusing to be drawn when asked if he thought Edinburgh was “too Presbyterian” for this kind of incident, Dewey said he had staged a similar scene in Helsinki. Meanwhile the festival had been under fire at the London Moral Re-armament Conference—it seemed to be producing dirt, debts, and decadence, said Mr. Michael Barrett of Edinburgh, who continued: “Some people think the once fair name of Edinburgh, the Athens of the North, is being besmirched by the soot of Sodom and the godlessness of Gomorrah.”

Temporarily superseded by the greatest train robbery in history, the Christine Keeler story regained the front page earlier this month when the 21-year-old ex-waitress was arrested on charges of perjury and obstructing justice. The London girl who ruined a ministerial career and nearly toppled a government has found the wages of sin so high that even the $8,400 bail set by the judge constituted only a fraction of what one Sunday newspaper paid for the privilege of serializing her love-life.

This development comes at a time when the principal medical officer of Britain’s Ministry of Education, Dr. Peter Henderson, has gone on record as saying that a young couple intending marriage are not wrong in having pre-marital intercourse. Commented Lord Fisher of Lambeth, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury: “If you need not wait until marriage, why wait until you are in love and meaning to be married? Why wait, indeed, until you are in love? In fact, why wait at all?”

Sir Edward Boyle, minister of education, said his ministry does not dictate what teachers should teach on morality. The Archbishop of York replied that it is the duty of political, religious, and educational leaders to give a clear lead in moral matters. He condemned the view that premarital intercourse is not unchaste.

Even responsible statesmen have accused the school of theologians associated with Cambridge of contributing to a situation in Britain in which “popular morality is now a wasteland, littered with the debris of broken convictions.” George Goyder, an influential lay member of the Church Assembly, writing to the Church Times, says: “I believe the present moral climate of this country, and the tragedy of Mr. Profumo, both rise up in judgment against the blind guides of Cambridge, who reject the law of God, and with it the morality of society, in favour of a morality of self-development and social selfishness.”

Meanwhile a governmental commission of inquiry into security, with special reference to the Vassall spy case, has recommended that no more bachelors in the foreign service should be posted behind the Iron Curtain. In view of this, there is a certain piquancy in recalling an ironical comment made some months ago by a correspondent in The Observer: “At least the Profumo affair has given due warning of one thing—the necessity of purging all heterosexuals holding high Government posts as potential security risks.”

The good ship Oikumene, its sails somewhat tattered, pulled slowly out of Montreal harbor, navigated the St. Lawrence Seaway, crossed Lake Ontario with little difficulty—cargo having been lightened by unloading of Faith and Order in Montreal—and came to port in Rochester, New York, where the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches disembarked. The natives there showed them no little kindness, but the voyage was marred by Orthodox soldiers’ shooting neoorthodox seamen in the legs to prevent their escaping overboard with definitive blueprints of the ship. For the problem of defining the ecumenical movement and the World Council had not been jettisoned in Canada but had been reloaded and marked as Rochester cargo as well.

On a quiet hilltop where Colgate Rochester Divinity School had been enjoying summer somnolence, the 100-member policy-making committee listened, in late August, as Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, able general secretary of the WCC, addressed them on “The Meaning of Membership” in the WCC. Their responses underscored the tentative nature of the address, which noted the conviction of several theologians that the experience of fellowship in the WCC has forced admission, beyond official definitions, that “the nature of the Council should be described in ecclesiological categories.” But strong objections to this conception were noted at the Montreal Faith and Order Conference on the part of Eastern Orthodox delegates especially. It was not different in Rochester.

Dr. Visser ’t Hooft cautioned against confusion of WCC’s “provisional unity” with “the unity which belongs to the Church Universal.” He disclaimed any WCC identity with Church or Super-Church, but spoke of “a deeper understanding” of the Church’s nature and “new opportunities to manifest its true meaning,” which accrue through “common life in the Council.” For the immediate present, the churches would have to “live with a reality which transcends definition.”

In ensuing discussion a German Lutheran bishop enthused: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the World Council became a church?” But the majority of other spokesmen were opposed to this. Metropolitan Nikodim, head of the delegation from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, asserted that Orthodox churches always react to any attempt to give an ecclesiological element to the WCC, but “in all justice” he did not believe that the council regarded itself as “having ecclesiological significance.”

A Swiss Protestant maintained that a probing operation was useful toward an attempt to “say what stage we’re at,” but a Coptic Orthodox bishop said that “mere mention of this subject makes the work of Orthodox churches difficult.” Father Paul Verghese, Syrian Orthodox priest who heads the WCC’s Division of Ecumenical Action, described the ecumenical experience as being “not only one of enrichment but of loss of the wholeness we, of the Eastern churches, especially find in our own churches.” During recess, Central Committee Chairman Franklin Clark Fry remarked, “It’s quite clear we should attempt no further definition for some years.”

In response to floor discussion Dr. Visser ’t Hooft stated, “The World Council must decrease in order that the Church may increase. It is our hope that one day we can scrap the World Council as not necessary—because the Church is in its unity.” The committee voted to send his paper and a resume of the discussion to member churches for their responses.

When black-bearded Orthodox spokesmen would sweep to the microphones in flowing black robes, their steps were accompanied by the clatter of earphones as delegates prepared to hear them via translation to English, German, or French. Underlying East-West political differences came to the surface in one debate in which Dr. Klaus von Bismarck, head of the West German broadcasting network, indicated that some Eastern churchmen are used as “Trojan horses” for Communist ideology. Russian Orthodox response was denial and reminder of the need for Christian repentance that the Church had not done some things in the area of social justice that the Communists have done.

Variations in the concept of freedom in relation to Orthodoxy of the non-Russian sort were footnoted as the committee commended a Bible-distribution project of the United Bible Societies. A metropolitan of the Ecumenical Patriarchate supported the measure but said that such activities had in the past been related to proselytism. He indicated that the church authorities in a given area should always be contacted prior to distribution of Bibles.

Debate on a statement on racial tension which centered on the United States and the Union of South Africa afforded a Russian Orthodox churchman the opportunity to strike at a point of U. S. vulnerability. Alexander Shishkin spoke of the supreme “crying injustice” of racial discrimination and asserted that countries guilty of the disgraceful practice “should be condemned without mercy.” After all, he said, “this is the twentieth century.” An African committee member felt that the penalty for discrimination should be exclusion from the WCC, but others warned against trying to exercise the power of excommunication. The committee finally settled for describing Christians who favor segregation as betrayers of Christ and “the fellowship which bears His name.” Dr. Martin Niemoller, one of six WCC presidents, felt the statement should show how Christ was thus betrayed, but such was not done. Some observers felt the theological implications were left somewhat obscure. Another president, India’s Dr. David G. Moses, had noted the common association of betrayal with Judas, while defending the strength of the language.

East-West agreements and differences in the area of social ethics will doubtless be explored at a 1966 WCC conference on church and society. The committee commended plans for dealing with subjects such as “responsible government in a revolutionary age” and “economic growth and technology.”

With virtually no basic debate, the committee approved a statement urging worldwide support for the limited nuclear test ban treaty as a “first step” on the road to peace. Copies were sent to heads of state of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. President Kennedy had sent word of the importance of the treaty through Averell Harriman.

But vigorous debate did come on the question of church-state separation as related to a WCC division committee’s proposal that church social service projects for helping developing nations should accept money—amounting to many millions of dollars—from the West German government. The proposal was referred back for further study.

Central Committee Chairman Dr. Fry, scintillating master of parliamentary procedure, reported WCC’s extensive aid to earthquake victims in Iran and Yugoslavia, and to nation-builders in Algeria, health and social services being provided in the latter country. More than $1,600,000 was subscribed in 1963 by WCC churches to meet various emergencies arising from disasters.

With regard to WCC relations with the Roman Catholic Church in light of the Vatican Council, the committee expressed a longing for dialogue as between churches which recognize one another as confessing the same Lord, sharing the same baptism, and participating in a common calling.

The committee provisionally admitted nine churches to WCC membership, and one to associate membership. Most were young churches, the fruit of missions. Report came of the withdrawal in the past year of one body, the Union of Baptist Congregations in the Netherlands. With finalizing of these actions, the WCC will embrace 209 full member bodies and three associate churches.

The Lay Approach

Hopes are rising in the Philippines for a more tangible manifestation of the ecumenical spirit generated by local church dignitaries who attended the first session of the Vatican Council and World Council of Churches functions.

The movement took on a fresh, new vigor a few weeks ago when lay leaders of the Philippine Federation of Christian Churches met with their lay counterparts of the Knights of Columbus societies. The PFCC is a large national council of churches from different communions, and the K of C is the most prominent propagation-of-the-faith arm of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines.

Squarely in the center of this grass roots ecumenical movement is Dr. Gumersindo Garcia, Sr., PFCC president who initiated exploratory talks at a meeting with K of C officials. Garcia expressed confidence that the ecumenical spirit would achieve considerable success if pursued by laymen. He said Protestant and Catholic lay people have little to talk about in theological matters anyway. Church leaders, on the other hand, know too much about theological differences and are more keenly aware of deeply rooted religious bickerings, he added.

The PFCC president is a layman whose services and prestige as a well-known physician and civic leader have earned for him the leadership and patronage of many social, civic, cultural, and religious organizations of different religious persuasions. Because of his stature as an “ecumenical figure,” many believe that the current dialogue might eventually lead to a more intimate understanding of ecumenicity.

Amidst this seemingly favorable wind are strong undercurrents of objections and doubts from other church officials and denominational lay leaders. Spokesmen of conservative evangelical groups view the movement as without scriptural warrant and are having nothing to do with it. Other evangelical lay leaders strongly doubt the sincerity of the K of C officials. They base their doubts upon the long controversy between evangelicals and Catholics in the Philippines which has produced so many undesirable manifestations. The conflict took a sharp turn recently when an archbishop of the hierarchy issued pastoral letters warning Catholic parents not to send their children to Protestant schools.

VATICAN II, ACT II

About this time last year, reports were rife that the forthcoming Vatican Council was geared for rapprochement with the Eastern Orthodox. It turned out, however, that most of the major Orthodox communions refused even to send observers.

On the eve of the council’s second session, due to begin September 29, the Orthodox seemed more aloof than ever. The Synod of the Orthodox Church in Greece announced it would do all it could to prevent a proposed Pan-Orthodox conference from taking place on the Greek island of Rhodes. The Panhellenic Orthodox Union warned that the meetings could lead “to a split in Orthodoxy and bring us into contact with the Papists, who are treacherously working for the enslavement of the Orthodox Church.”

The Rhodes conference reportedly had been called to decide whether the Orthodox churches should be represented at the Vatican Council and whether possible unity talks should be explored.

The council under Pope Paul VI will have plenty to worry about even without the Orthodox. The strife between Roman Catholics and Buddhists in Viet Nam will tend to focus attention on the issue of religious liberty. Serving to complicate the problem is the fact that tensions in Viet Nam are political as well as religious. And some say that Communists are helping to foment unrest.

Tightening The Bonds

The Reformed Ecumenical Synod, hitherto a rather loose federation of twenty-two churches (embracing 2,500,000 members in twelve countries), tightened its bonds of fellowship last month.

At a ten-day meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, delegates decided to establish a permanent secretariat and to coordinate missionary efforts of member churches. A central missionary agency will be set up.

Moreover, delegates “looked with favor” on the formation of an International Reformed Agency for Migration and adopted a set of resolutions encouraging the formation of separate Christian organizations in the social and political field.

The synod was organized in 1946 and has met every five years since 1949. Its churches are intimately related by historical ties. Among the larger of the churches are the two Reformed churches of South Africa, two independent Reformed churches of The Netherlands, the Christian Reformed and Orthodox Presbyterian churches in North America, and the Free Church of Scotland. Most of the others are either young churches born of the missionary activity of the larger groups or churches sustaining close ties to them.

The synod is ecumenical in that it embraces Reformed churches from many lands, but it is not in essence an exclusive ecumenical grouping which regards itself as standing in opposition to larger affiliations. Reports on ecumenicity have been considered at previous synods, and at this one—the fifth—a committee was appointed to analyze opportunities which can help member churches determine their total ecumenical obligations.

The synod also prepared a statement on the race problem which enjoyed the endorsement of both the Nigerian and South African delegations. The statement declared that “where members of one ethnic group or nation permanently live together with other ethnic groups or nations within the same country, all individuals, groups, and nations shall be equally accorded God-given rights under the law.”

The turnstiles counted 134,254. Police estimates placed the figure at about 150,000, some 34,000 of them sitting on the grass. Another 20,000 or more stood outside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum or were waved on by traffic officers. It was by far the largest crowd ever to turn out to hear Billy Graham in the United States.

It was the closing meeting of the evangelist’s three-week crusade in Southern California. Said he:

“There are almost enough people here tonight to have a march on Washington. And if they keep throwing the Bible out of the schools, we might do just that.” The size of the crowd prevented Graham from extending his usual type of invitation to receive Christ. Instead of asking inquirers to come forward he merely suggested that they stand in front of their seats and indicate commitment by signing the printed cards used to supply inquirers with counseling literature and to refer them to a church. Crusade officials said 3,856 cards were turned in, and 64 per cent were said to be first-time commitments.

Largest previous crowd to hear Graham in America was the estimated 116,000 at Soldier Field, Chicago, at the close of Graham’s 1962 crusade there. In 1959, in the final service of his campaign in Melbourne, Australia, a crowd estimated at between 135,000 and 150,000 was on hand.

In 1960, Graham spoke at a rally of the Baptist World Congress in Rio de Janeiro which drew a crowd estimated at over 180,000.

At the closing Los Angeles service Graham preached from one of his favorite Bible themes—the story of Belshazzar, the king who was “weighed in the balances and found wanting,” and whose kingdom was taken away and given to another. Warned Graham:

“There comes a day when God says, ‘It is enough.’ It is true that God is a God of love, grace, and mercy, but he is also a God of judgment. The Bible teaches that God hates sin. He has the capacity to hate. He will judge sin with the fierceness of his wrath.”

The vast crowd brought to 930,340 the number of persons who passed through the turnstiles to hear Graham at the coliseum during the three weeks. That represented an average of more than 44,000 per service.

Graham, sidelined because of illness earlier this year, was reported in good physical condition. The only threat to his health in Los Angeles came from a nattily dressed spectator who sidled up to the evangelist at the coliseum and said, “I am going to kill you before this crusade is over.” The stranger then disappeared in the crowd.

Graham was officially welcomed to the city by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors. The supervisors introduced him at a press conference.

The record-breaking response of Southern Californians to Graham and his message was remarkable in its own right, particularly considering the total number of inquirers: nearly 40,000.

What added even more significance was its setting, in the eyes of some, “out where materialism begins.” Evangelicals further east tend to regard the Pacific Coast as breeding ground for carnality, and often look west with an air of religious condescension. They think “an ostentatious California culture” shows up in many professing Christians too conspicuously.

In the last few weeks the Christians of Southern California have shown that they are not a spiritual notch below their eastern brethren. They have proven not only that they can mobilize and act, but that they are concerned for spiritual priorities.

Graham reminded Los Angeles of its special responsibility to the nation:

“No city influences the nation more than Los Angeles. If Los Angeles would lead the way in a spiritual awakening, the whole nation would be affected.”

As in many other cities, the “youth nights” of the crusade drew the largest response—both in attendance and in number of inquirers.

Perhaps the person who had come the longest distance to the crusade was Graham’s son-in-law, Stephan Tchividjian of Switzerland, who read the Scripture during one of the youth night services. The Tchividjians are expecting their first child in the spring.

Graham challenged the notion that juvenile delinquency stems from underprivilege. He quoted the local police chief as saying, “It is the overprivileged child who is causing us the most trouble in Los Angeles. He is being given so much in the way of material things that he has gone haywire looking for new satisfactions.”

For the most part, as is his custom, Graham preached the simple Gospel: man’s sin, the need for repentance, and the forgiveness that comes through faith in Christ. Some of the evangelist’s secondary remarks, however, were publicly challenged.

Graham, who had insisted on integrated seating at his crusades long before the American race issue flared up, said he was convinced that “forced integration will never work” and that “some extremists are going too far, too fast.”

“The racial problem in America is getting worse and dangerous,” he declared, “and it will not be settled in the streets.”

Graham also expressed concern “about some clergymen of both races who have made the race issue their gospel. This is not the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that he rose from the dead and that God is willing to forgive our sins and to give us new life and peace and joy.”

The evangelist’s stand provoked some criticism. Marvin L. Prentis, president of the National Association of Negro Evangelicals, said that “Dr. Graham consistently fails to appreciate the intensity of this great social dilemma which cries out to be met.” NANE was organized in Los Angeles last April with the help of the Rev. Howard O. Jones, one of two Negroes employed by Graham as associate evangelists (the other is the Rev. Bob Harrison).

The organization subsequently announced that it had adopted a resolution expressing its appreciation for Graham’s crusade and ministry in the Los Angeles area. Negroes often are major participants in his evangelistic campaigns. Well-known for her appearances at Graham rallies and in one of his dramatic films is Miss Ethel Waters. She sang at the Los Angeles meetings several times, as did a trio composed of Jones’s teen-aged daughters.

Graham also had some terse comments about the Peace Corps. “I have supported Mr. Kennedy’s Peace Corps because it offers a challenge to American youth,” he said, “but I am disturbed that the Peace Corps does not have a spiritual philosophy and framework within which to move.” He said that so far “it is almost completely materialistic in its aims.”

Director R. Sargent Shriver denied that the Peace Corps is “godless.” He said the evangelist did not have the experience to substantiate his claim. He added that “there are a large number of Baptists in the corps.”

In another observation on federal government policies, Graham said:

“If I were Mr. Kennedy, I would spend the $20 billion allocated for the moon project to clean up every ghetto in the United States.”

The evangelist’s pointed remarks on social issues underscored his contention that the Gospel is indeed relevant to all of culture. But it is a matter of priorities, Graham says, and it is far more important to preach the need for personal regeneration. This he does, and he does it so effectively that 33 million people have heard him preach the world over since his first tent crusade in Los Angeles in 1949. Uncounted millions more have listened to him via radio and television. He has addressed more people than any other person in all of history.

The phenomenon of Graham as a man inspires action in laymen and clergy alike wherever he goes. In Southern California, for instance, 750 churches scheduled a follow-up program of visitation evangelism.

But for all his success, Graham is still implicitly snubbed by some denominational and ecumenical leaders.¹Occasionally, religionists will go so far as to use Graham for their own purposes while avoiding involvement in his. In Washington, D.C., the local chapter of the Religious Public Relations Council once tried to win public attention for the local council of churches by having Graham sign an anniversary statement praising its accomplishments. But the evangelist’s subsequent crusade in Washington drew official support from neither council. He rarely speaks at denominational conventions. His crusades go virtually unnoticed in the publications of mainstream Protestantism. Even the press service of his own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, practically ignores him.

Organized ecumenism likewise pretends that Graham does not exist. His name is seldom publicly mentioned and sometimes privately sniped at in ecumenical conferences. Such an attitude toward him is perplexing in view of the fact that Graham’s crusades currently represent the most dramatic manifestation of grass-roots ecumenicity—the linking of clergy and laity across denominational lines for the purpose of winning people to Christ.

In Mormon Territory

An eight-day evangelistic series, said to be the first united Protestant crusade for Christ in the Salt Lake City area, drew an estimated 10,000 persons to the Utah Capitol grounds. Some 150 persons responded to the invitation to accept Christ extended by evangelist Myron Augsburger of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Local churchmen who sponsored the crusade adjudged it a significant success, considering the fact that Salt Lake City’s population is about 50 per cent Mormon.

The opening meeting, forced inside the Capitol building by rain, featured a welcome by Utah Governor George D. Clyde and an address by Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield. Hatfield, calling himself a Calvinist and a believer in Christ as God incarnate, said: “We must have Christians dedicated in power, in purpose, and in influence to the person of Jesus Christ.”

Christian Coordination

All-out, nation-wide evangelistic efforts which will mobilize in Christian witness the entire evangelical communities of five Latin American countries are scheduled for 1964 and 1965 as a result of an intensive two-week workshop of evangelism in San Jose, Costa Rica. Delegates from Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and Peru returned to their places of responsibility in these efforts with new enthusiasm and zeal.

“The dedication and vision of these men is tremendously inspiring,” one observer remarked. “Never have I seen such a level-headed and Spirit-directed approach to the challenge of continental evangelism.”

Hosted by the Latin American Biblical Seminary and the Latin America Mission’s Division of Evangelism, the conference attracted leaders from virtually every Spanish-speaking nation in the hemisphere, with eighty-seven delegates from fifteen countries registered. A concentrated schedule of lectures, panels, and discussions covered practical as well as inspirational themes. Special features included a “clinic” on evangelistic communication and a series of lectures on the theological problems inherent in evangelism.

Evangelism-in-depth, which emphasizes the evangelistic witness of each believer in the context of his local church, although not to the exclusion of professional or mass evangelism, seems to have gained universal acceptance as providing the best answer to date to the challenge of what evangelist Fernando Vangioni of Argentina called the “period of integral revolution” through which the Latin American world is passing.

Already successfully proven in three Central American countries, evangelism-in-depth programs of cooperative, year-long, nation-wide outreach are in various stages of development in Honduras, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Objectives of the effort are to (1) mobilize every believer in Christian witness, (2) strengthen the evangelistic ministry of the local church, (3) take advantage of every evangelistic resource and activity available to the evangelical community, and (4) reach every section of the country, geographical as well as sociological, with the Gospel of Christ. Usually these efforts have been climaxed by mass campaigns with radio and television coverage which have made a strong impact on the non-evangelical public.

Participating in the San Jose conference sessions were members of the evangelism-in-depth team who had served as coordinators for the 1962 movement in Guatemala, where the year’s program of advance netted between ten and fifteen thousand new church attendants. Typical of the philosophy of evangelism-in-depth is the fact that these team members have become specialists in mobilizing Christians more than in ministering to them. They serve thus as coordinators rather than primarily as evangelists. This “in-depth” aspect of last year’s Guatemalan effort was particularly successful in the secondary cities and rural areas, they reported. The impact on the more sophisticated capital city was definite but less notable, and it is felt that future campaigns must devote more attention to this problem.

EVANGELIST MEETS COMEDIAN

Evangelist Billy Graham is scheduled to appear as a “guest star” on Jack Benny’s first program of the new television season.

The program was to be televised over CBS on Tuesday, September 24.

Graham said he was reluctant to accept the offer to appear on a comedy show.

“I almost said no. But then I agreed because Jack Benny has a clean show.”

The evangelist observed that “laughter is a part of our nature. It’s a gift of God. Especially at this time of our history, with so much tension, it’s good to laugh.”

“I think some persons who watch Jack’s show might not have seen me. Maybe after seeing me on the show they will come and hear me. And Jack is going to let me say a serious word.”

Graham will receive no fee for his guest appearance, but Benny will make a contribution to the Billy Graham evangelistic Association.

Benny normally tapes his show on a Sunday, but in deference to Graham’s wishes it was to have been recorded on a weekday.

Between conference sessions, the delegations from the different countries represented in San Jose last month were hard at work ironing out details and plans for the movements already underway or soon to be launched in their homelands. These planning sessions were able to take advantage of the experience acquired in other countries and strove to correct the errors and strengthen the weak spots which have shown up in earlier efforts.

Meeting concurrently were members of an executive committee set up last year at the Huampani (Peru) Consultation on Evangelism, known as CLASE (Comite Latinoamericana al Servicio de la Evangelizacion). Presided over by Vangioni, this nine-man commission decided to form a permanent organization for the promotion and coordination of evangelistic activities throughout the continent. It is expected that the structure will follow the lines already established by sister organizations in the fields of literature and radio. A constituent assembly will be called in 1964.

Cooperating with the CLASE committee are several missionary service agencies whose Latin American representatives are desirous of working together under CLASE’s aegis. They include the Latin American departments of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Youth for Christ, the United Bible Societies, Overseas Crusades, the Navigators, and the Latin America Mission’s Division of Evangelism. Representatives of these and possibly other groups will seek authorization to meet again with CLASE in January for more definite planning.

“One of the most encouraging aspects of the present situation is the enthusiasm and practical commitment to the evangelistic task of so many different men and organizations,” stated one of the conference planners. “It seems to be the unanimous conviction that now is the time for an all-out effort to reach Latin America for Christ—and that this effort must be directed by the Latin Americans themselves. The delegates here manifested a solid harmony of purpose. And with negligible exceptions this same spirit of cooperation holds on the local level. Fortunately our common love for our one Lord transcends our secondary differences. The prospects for an all-out evangelistic advance in Latin America are bright.”

W.D.R.

A thirsty woman came to the well at Sychar to draw water not only for herself but also for her household. There she found the spiritual water which became for her a spring, welling up to life eternal.

Had this woman found the water of Jacob’s well only she would have continued to go back from day to day. But on that memorable occasion she met Jesus Christ, who revealed himself to her as the Messiah, the one for whom all Jewry longed. That it was to this stranger and despised person that Christ witnessed makes the story all the more thrilling.

Countless sermons have been preached about this well-side encounter, and in them are to be found multiplied lessons for our own eternal good.

There is one lesson we need to learn in each generation—that there is a difference between the temporal and the eternal which transcends all else. The things which are seen are temporal and temporary. It is the things which are not seen which are eternal.

Never has the Church needed to recognize this difference more than today. So many things are spoken of as “Christian” which are not Christian but humanitarian. As a matter of fact, much of theological controversy hinges on this basic problem, while the effective witness of the Church stands or falls at precisely this point.

Exploding populations, emerging nations, and accelerated communications have made good men more conscious than ever of the plight and needs of men around the world. Attempts to alleviate suffering, raise standards of living, and offer something of the “good life” to all men everywhere strike a responsive chord in many hearts.

All of this is as it should be, but the task, message, and emphasis of the Church goes infinitely further than this, and we are in grave danger of losing sight of this priority.

To the Church is committed the message of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. This in no way minimizes the obligation to carry the cup of cold water as we proclaim the Gospel; but if humanitarianism is the dominating work and message of the Church, she is not fulfilling her obligation to a lost and dying world.

As one studies the emphasis of many church programs (an emphasis reflected in the pronouncements of major denominations in their annual meetings), one is forced to the conclusion that for many the primary concern of the Church has to do with people as they live in this present world.

Who then is to preach the Gospel of redemption—of salvation from sin? Where then can men go to learn the way of eternal life? Who will preach to men of sin, and of self-control, and of future judgment? In other words, if the Church is to center her emphasis on the temporal needs of mankind, who will enter the spiritual vacuum thereby created?

We recently heard a consecrated layman tell of evening prayers with his wife. He was praying for the sick and the needy when suddenly he felt God speaking to him: “I have given you the means to help the needy; why pray about something you can and should be doing already!”

There is no use in hiding our unwillingness to become involved in the relief of human need and suffering with pious platitudes about the next world. At the same time, if our concerns have solely to do with the material and secular welfare of mankind we are not being Christian either in attitude or in activity.

We frequently hear persons spoken of as “great Christians.” As a rule this phrase is used as a tribute to their humanitarian concern and efforts. Concern for peace, philanthropic activities, the relief of human suffering, crusades for social justice—all have their place in the activities of Christians. But none of these things, singly or in the composite, constitute Christianity as such. To be a Christian one must have entered into a new relationship with God through faith in his Son. This relationship involves a spiritual change, a rebirth into the family of God whereby one has eternal life.

In many places and ways there is grave danger of the Church’s forgetting her twofold responsibility and settling for water after the drinking of which men will thirst again.

The writer yields to no man in his concern for the alleviating of human suffering. For twenty-five years he shared in the work of a large mission hospital in China. During those years several hundred thousand patients went through the clinic and hospital. A great many of them had their diseases cured. Where are these people today—after a quarter of a century? We are constrained to believe that most of them are now dead.

The question then arises. Where are they now? During the time these people were under medical care there was a carefully worked-out and executed plan of evangelistic effort. By word of mouth, the printed page, and example, there was a prayerful and careful determination to lead these people to Christ. We know that many of them accepted Him as Saviour and Lord either while hospital patients or later.

Suppose all efforts had been centered on physically rehabilitating these patients without at the same time preaching to them Christ as their Saviour and their hope of eternity? Had this been the case, one would look back today on twenty-five years of futility, as far as eternal verities are concerned.

Even true Christians can be led to spend their time and energies—yes, for a whole lifetime—only to find that they have lived in vain in the light of the final testing.

The Apostle Paul speaks of men who have established their lives on Jesus Christ as the one and only foundation but who have built with perishable materials of wood, hay, and stubble, all of which are destroyed when tested by the fire of God’s judgment even though the individual is himself saved.

Emphasis on the temporal is a grave temptation, for it is this which we see and experience. Furthermore, if our Christianity is valid we must show forth love and compassion in terms which really help men in their social and physical misery.

But as far as the Christian and the Church are concerned, love and compassion are fruits of the Spirit and are never complete unless they look down the corridors of time into that eternity for which all men are destined.

Hungry men—thirsty men—needy men constantly enter the doors of the church only to hear economic, political, and social platitudes and panaceas. They are not fed with the bread of life, nor have they been able to drink from the fountain of living water. They have sought and received only that which lasts for the moment.

Our Lord says: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). Shall those who need God’s greatest gift be offered nothing more than that which perishes with time?

It’s being done.