The place of women in the Church is not a new problem, and it has seldom been an easy one. But during the last few decades, especially in Europe, it has cropped up in a new and urgent way, bringing with it questions of deep and practical significance. Should women undertake the responsibilities of a pastor in the Church? Should women be ordained? Does the present status of women in church circles adequately reflect the biblical affirmation that “in Christ … there is neither male nor female”? Not a few churches are puzzled by these questions, and many are moving to face them in the light of pressing organizational and sociological demands.

That the problem should arise in this new way is due to many factors—the emancipation of women in the nineteenth century, the subsequent promotion of women to positions of responsibility, the crying need for leadership within the Church. But this problem has also been aggravated by the ecumenical movement, in which many women have played leading roles. As a result, it is singularly appropriate that the question of female ordination should be raised within the ecumenical movement itself.

As far back as the first world Conference on Faith and Order in 1927, six women issued a statement calling for a careful consideration of “the right place of women in the Church.” And at New Delhi in 1961, a committee dealing with theological questions expressed an urgent request to the Working Committee on Faith and Order “to establish a study of the theological. Biblical and ecclesiological issues involved in the ordination of women.” To this request many troubled churches of the WCC gave hearty endorsement.

Last month the Department on the Cooperation of Men and Women in Church. Family and Society reported to the Faith and Order Conference in Montreal, and the results were disappointing to all but historians. For despite a series of papers presented to a subsection of the general committee, the final document merely returned the issue to the churches, urging “real ecumenical dialogue” in the area of female ordination and specifying church law and practice, biblical and doctrinal criteria, and sociological and psychological factors for consideration. Also presented to the committee was a summary report of answers to a questionnaire dealing with the ordination of women in sixty-seven member communions of the WCC.

In this report lay the interest of the Faith and Order proceedings. The first of five questions dealt with present custom governing the ordination of women. To this inquiry twenty-two churches answered that they ordain women to the pastoral office. Three churches reported partial or occasional ordination. Four churches declared the ordination of women permissible according to present law but not practiced. And thirty-eight churches answered that the privilege of ordination is denied to women. Although the line broke unevenly, most of the Anglican, Lutheran, and Orthodox churches affirmed that ordination is denied to women. And most of the Baptist churches (those which are members of the WCC) as well as many independent churches stated that female ordination is condoned. The Salvation Army considers that it has over 15,000 ordained women within its various constituencies.

In 1958, according to a document published by the Faith and Order Department on Cooperation of Men and Women, forty-eight churches admitted women to full ministry, nine to partial or occasional ministry, and ninety churches did not permit the ordination of women at all. This earlier document involved the total 168 member churches of the WCC, twenty-one of which did not reply to the questionnaire.

Another question on the current report dealt with the status of women in those communions in which they are ordained. Nineteen of the twenty-two churches which ordain women stated that ordained women are given equal status and privileges with male ministers.

Other questions dealt with ministries to which women are “set apart” or which they are encouraged to perform if denied ordination to a pastoral or priestly ministry. Nearly all pointed out that some forms of service were open to women. Six churches did not ordain women to any other ministry. Twenty-five churches ordained women to service as deaconesses or nuns. And six churches occasionally ordained women to various other forms of service.

On the whole, answers to the Faith and Order questionnaire only betrayed the divergence of opinion which the Department on Cooperation of Men and Women had failed to help resolve. There were several indications that the question of the ordination of women might result in serious ecumenical barriers in the months and the years to come. Already the decision of the Lutheran Church of Sweden in 1958 to introduce the ordination of women has led to serious upheavals within the Swedish church, and it has raised troublesome questions relating to the intercommunion between the Church of Sweden and the Church of England. Similar obstacles may also hinder the contemplated merger of the Church of Scotland and the Congregational Union of Scotland.

Observers of the World Council of Churches see several areas in which the Faith and Order Commission must move to be effective. There must be a scholarly reassessment of the biblical teaching concerning the ministry of all believers and of the place within that ministry for a special ministry of ordination. To fail in such an investigation would be to lose the significance of ordination entirely. Attention must be given to the biblical understanding of the proper relationship between men and women in general. Not all observers would admit that this is subject to modification on the basis of changes within society. Finally, study must be made of the traditions of the churches. It is certainly to be asked if the causes which raise the question of female ordination anew in the present day are valid grounds for departing from the leading of Jesus Christ and from the practice of the early and medieval Church.

As indicated by the report on the committee’s questionnaire, some communions have already proceeded to ordain apart from the requested guidance of the WCC commission. Many observers will be asking if the Department on Cooperation of Men and Women in Church, Family and Society can regain the initiative and assume a position of responsible leadership. To do so might lead the churches toward a more validly theological and less superstructural union.

Bultmann Encounters The Orthodox

The following report was prepared forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. W. Stanford Reid of McGill University, Montreal:

The role of Scriptures in the World Council of Churches has long raised anxious questions among evangelicals. It was hoped that the Faith and Order Conference in Montreal might shed some light on this matter, since “Scripture, Tradition and Traditions” formed one phase of the conference’s area of special study, but the results were disappointing.

Now that the Eastern Orthodox churches are vigorous participants in the World Council, the question of Scripture and tradition has become even more pressing. In the interpretation of the Scriptures as well as in their institutional organization, the Orthodox stress the place and authority of the traditions of their church. Since the World Council is no longer a Protestant body, as some speakers emphasized at the conference, it must now make up its mind on the issue of ultimate authority.

Section II of the conference dealt with this matter. Debates carried on in section and subsection reflected the fundamental problem facing the council. Since many professing Protestant leaders have thrown over the older ideas of the Bible as an inspired revelation, they too are seeking some way of “accepting the Bible” while at the same time escaping from its final and unlimited authority.

The dominant, or at least most vocal, groups in Section II represented the positions of Rudolf Bultmann and of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

While conceding that the ecumenical movement must necessarily probe the subject of Scripture and tradition, not a few Protestants voiced dissatisfaction over the final report. Dr. Floyd V. Filson found its threefold use of the word “tradition” needlessly complicated, and predicted it would prove confusing to the churches generally. He contended that the term “Gospel” is still preferable to the term “Tradition” as a synonym for Gospel, and he insisted that all tradition stands under the corrective judgment of Scripture in a clearer way than the report indicates.

The followers of Bultmann declared that the “Christ-event,” by which they mean Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, forms The Tradition. With a Teutonic play on words, they described Christ as The Tradition about which the Apostles spoke in transmitting The Tradition to others. At this point Latin and Greek expressions were freely invoked to elucidate what apparently was inexpressible in English, French, or German. Besides The Tradition (the “Christ-event”) one also—so it was argued—finds “tradition” in the New Testament. Pauline tradition, representing Paul’s understanding of the Christ-event, assertedly differs from and even conflicts with that of John, James, and Peter. Thus the Reformation principle of Scripture alone as the ultimate authority is dissolved for the scholar. By means of what ultimately appears as “demythologizing,” he must rediscover The Tradition and its significance.

At first this Protestant stress upon tradition sounded like sweet music in Eastern Orthodox ears. But before long, Orthodox delegates discovered that the Bultmannian approach differs from that of their church, since it does not identify The Tradition as the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Both in subsections, sections, and plenary sessions the Orthodox repeatedly asserted the fact that they alone have the true Tradition, for they alone constitute the Catholic and Apostolic Church. Therefore the Holy Spirit has assertedly given them, above and beyond all others, a true knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures.

Those who represented the Bultmann school of thought could not entertain the idea that God could give revelation which interprets the Christ-event or that he would inspire his apostles to write truths. The New Testament simply contains the various traditions which the apostles handed down to posterity as their witness or tradition. Thus the New Testament is but a special form of tradition recognized by the Church as containing The Tradition.

MARRIAGE WITHOUT HESITATION

The hesitant step of the bride toward the altar and the wedding march have “had it” as far as the United Church of Canada is concerned, according to the United Church Observer.

“Here Comes the Bride” is being sent back to Hollywood, and the hymnary is being used more and more, wrote the Rev. A. C. Forrest, editor.

He declared that the pausing between steps “was popularized in the gay nineties, had its vogue and now should be abandoned, we are told, for the sake of a slow, dignified, unhesitating march toward the expectant bridegroom.”

One might think that such an interpretation would have interested the Orthodox representatives. But they insisted much more firmly upon the Scriptures as revelation and as the criterion of tradition. They insisted, moreover, that the Scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit, who also inspired their tradition.

In this dialogue between Bultmannians and Orthodox various other points of view made themselves heard, but with little real effect. Usually when any outside “the charmed circle” raised the issues of revelation or inspiration, they received relatively summary treatment or were ignored.

Throughout the dialogue one noticed that the speakers made much reference to the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. But they seemed to reject the idea that the Holy Spirit speaks to man finally and authoritatively through the Holy Scriptures. The result is that the Bultmann school seeks for The Tradition through the guidance of the Holy Spirit in critical scholarship, while the Orthodox hold that the Spirit guides them through the tradition of their church.

This tension appears in the final report which the conference sent to the churches for study and referred to the Faith and Order Commission for appropriate action. But what does it mean? It would seem quite clear that the Faith and Order Movement as “the theological side” of the WCC has made very clear that it does not hold to the historic Protestant doctrine of the Bible as the inspired record of divine revelation. While the report tries to circumvent this by stating that “the very fact that Tradition precedes the Scriptures points to the significance of tradition, but also to the Bible as the treasure of the Word of God,” it in fact does not modify in any respect the departure from the view of an authoritative canon of Scripture.

Although the final report attempted something of a compromise between the Bultmannian and Orthodox positions, it eventually came out more fully on the side of the existential German theologians. Consequently, churches whose confessions hold to the Bible as the Word of God in the historic sense are now called to do some deep study and hard thinking. Nor is the outcome wholly irrelevant to WCC’s objective of church union. For if, after all, Christ’s prayer “that they all may be one” comes merely from an apostolic “tradition,” and is not The Tradition, external Church unity would not seem mandatory.

A crowd of 38,708 filed through the turnstiles at Los Angeles Coliseum for the opening service August 15 of Billy Graham’s Southern California crusade. Spokesmen said it was the largest crowd ever to attend a weeknight opening of a Graham campaign. Some 2,000 stepped forward at the invitation to indicate a commitment to Christ.

The service was recorded on video tape and will be one of a series from Los Angeles to be shown over more than 200 television stations across the United States and Canada during September.

Graham preached on Jeremiah and judgment. He called for national repentance if Americans hope to escape the judgment of God.

The evangelist’s appeal noted that Los Angeles is where Khrushchev had made his famous rebuke of American morals. Graham issued a challenge that the United States aptly demonstrate its moral and spiritual strength to the Soviets.

A close associate of Graham reported that the evangelist appeared to be in good physical condition, and Graham himself said he had never felt better at the start of a crusade. Earlier this year he had suffered from a series of maladies that kept him from a scheduled Far Eastern crusade and left him in a weakened state for many weeks.

The Los Angeles meetings got under way after months of intensive preparation. Crusade leaders were deeply gratified at the response of ministers and laymen in the area. There appeared to be a profound commitment among thousands to try and reach the huge metropolitan area with the claims of Christ.

Decision, published by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, noted that it “looks to be the most intensely organized evangelistic crusade in human history.”

“Nothing in the annals of Christendom can quite compare with it.”

“When did 20,000 church workers ever go out at one time to call in a million and a half homes for the purpose of inviting people to a worship service?” the publication asked.

“When did 80,000 women ever gather in 10,000 homes all through a metropolitan area to unite in a common prayer to God in behalf of their neighbors?”

The crusade choir will probably be the biggest ever for musical director Cliff Barrows. Nearly 10,000 names have been registered. A choir with as many as 5,000 voices is singing during the crusade services.

The crusade will last for three weeks, concluding on Sunday afternoon, September 8.

There is a nostalgic note to the Los Angeles meetings for Graham, for it is one of the first cities where he began to attract national attention. The Graham team considers the meetings held in a tent at Washington and Hill Streets 14 years ago as their first major crusade.

‘Sermons’ At The Fair

Ground was broken this month for a “Sermons from Science” pavilion at the New York 1964–1965 World’s Fair, bringing to six the total number of religious exhibit centers now under construction. The “Sermons from Science” pavilion (see photograph) will use Moody Institute’s highly regarded science films as well as live demonstrations to present the Gospel to many of the expected seventy million fairgoers. Through a similar venture at the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962 more than 1,000 decisions were made for Christ.

Outstanding among the features of the science pavilion is a 500-seat auditorium where visitors will hear film narrations through earphones in any of six languages.

Indications are that there will be a strong evangelical witness at the fair. Among other pavilions now under construction is one for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. A number of evangelical groups are also renting space in the interdenominational Protestant Center.

Latin American Enterprise

Peruvian Christians decided to “go it alone” and will join forces for an all-out, nation-wide evangelistic effort during 1964. This determination on the part of nearly 250 Christian leaders assembled for a workshop on evangelism at Huampani, Peru, came after they had learned that the Latin America Mission could not coordinate any evangelism-in-depth movements in 1964 other than those already scheduled for Honduras, Venezuela, and Bolivia.

The nation-wide Honduras effort is already under way. Kick-off came at an evangelism-in-depth pastors’ conference held in San Pedro Sula in July. Prayer cells are being organized in 200 Protestant churches of the country, sponsored by some sixteen denominations. With Protestants forming only 1.5 per cent of its population of less than two million, Honduras is the neediest field in Central America.

Venezuela expects to launch its nation-wide movement on New Year’s Eve, and evangelism-in-depth will start in Bolivia in about June of 1964, according to Dr. R. Kenneth Strachan, general director of LAM. Plans were to be crystallized and publicized following a highly significant conference on evangelism scheduled for San Jose, Costa Rica, during the last two weeks of August. The gathering was sponsored jointly by LAM and an autonomous Latin American group known as CLASE (Comite Latino-Americano de Evangelismo).

W.D.R.

Churches in the nation’s capital divided sharply over the August 28 “March on Washington” by civil rights demonstrators.

Many top denominational leaders endorsed the march and urged constituents to lend full support. Several national churches in Washington, however, were among scores that have balked at participation and endorsement.

“I am a liberal in civil rights and social action,” said Dr. George R. Davis, minister of National City Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), “but I am against this demonstration. It has been a very difficult decision for me, but I cannot in good conscience support such method and procedure.”

National Presbyterian Church decided to cooperate, but on a very limited scale. The church will act as an “information center” at the request of United Presbyterian Stated Clerk Eugene Carson Blake. It will also open its Hospitality House to Presbyterian ministers. The church session hotly debated the extent of cooperation. Only by a narrow margin was the request for the “information center” approved.

Metropolitan Memorial Methodist Church, the national Methodist church, turned down a bid for cooperation, explaining that its ministerial staff was on vacation.

A number of other churches, by contrast, pledged to pitch in. Chief among them was Washington Cathedral, where officials endorsed the march enthusiastically. The use of the cathedral was offered, as well as beds and food.

Members of National Baptist Memorial Church were among slated marchers, but the church took “no official stand” (it was to be open for worship August 28).

No church leader seemed to question the right of public demonstration and protest. But some felt that the massive movement “on” Washington was objectionably coercive. If mob ultimatums more than juridical processes become the means of securing legislative changes, they contended, democracy will deteriorate to anarchy. Others insisted that the Church must rely on regenerative dynamisms for effective social change.

What put Washington churches on the spot was a letter from Executive Director Sterling Tucker of the Washington Urban League, a United Fund agency. The letter was sent to more than 450 churches in the District of Columbia. In it Tucker said that the league “has been delegated the responsibility of organizing the Washington churches willing to offer their facilities to house the delegates to the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.”

“At least one church will be needed for each state,” he explained, adding that one of the league’s officials will “need to know … Will your church be available?”

Arrival of the letters sent ministers scurrying to their boards for advice. A number obviously tried to avoid cooperation without appearing hostile to the civil rights campaign. At least one church got out of it by arguing that their insurance coverage would not allow it. A number of churches circumvented the decision because their ministers were on vacation. But in some churches, particularly the larger ones, ministerial absences served only to complicate matters.

Directors of the march subsequently changed their plans, and the request for accommodations was withdrawn. Out-of-town delegates were told that if at all possible they should arrange to arrive in Washington in the morning and leave in the evening, so that overnight lodging in the nation’s capital would not be necessary. Moreover, instead of reporting to assembly points, demonstrators were instructed to mass at the Washington Monument grounds.

The necessity for churches as assembly points and housing was thereby largely eliminated, and many congregations, thus taken off the hook, breathed a sigh of relief.

The league then declared that churches would only be requested to volunteer “on a standby basis for emergency use,” presumably in case of rain.

The reaction of local churches in exhibiting reserve toward the march came in spite of pleas of denominational leaders.

Dr. Robert W. Spike, executive director of the Commission on Religion and Race of the National Council of Churches, said in his call contained in a circular to church members:

“We need thousands of Christians, white and Negro, in Washington on August 28. Put everything aside and COME.”

A similar appeal came from Blake, who urged that his denomination’s 9,200 pastors participate.

“I expect to be there,” Blake said, “and I hope to see every one of you there who believes we must act now.”

The Presbytery of Washington City (United Presbyterian) was non-committal in spite of Blake’s enthusiasm. In a letter to constituents Moderator John H. Grosvenor, Jr., merely noted that “regardless of your feelings about the Civil Rights demonstration you should recognize that it does offer all of us an unusual opportunity to demonstrate how we believe Christ would have acted in such a situation.”

The National Council of Churches was under orders from its general board to hold a “Church Assembly” in Washington to demonstrate “how deeply the conscience of the American people is troubled about racial injustice.” Council officials, however, scrapped plans for an assembly of their own as the NCC Commission on Religion and Race joined “in sponsoring this massive witness to the nation’s most important commitment—racial justice now.”

The Capital Area Council of Churches’ board of directors was also reported as having voted support of the demonstration.

Roman Catholics of the Archdiocese of New York were urged to take part in the march in a letter signed by Auxiliary Bishop John J. Maguire and read at all Sunday masses. A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington said he did not know whether similar endorsement was forthcoming in that jurisdiction.

A carefully worded resolution adopted by the Protestant Episcopal House of Bishops observes that “participation in such an assemblage is a proper expression of Christian witness and obedience.” The resolution welcomes “the responsible discipleship” of participants and “supports them fully.”

One of the bishops subsequently commented that he voted for the resolution even though he thought clergymen ought not to march. Said another: “Mass meetings don’t help anybody, and I certainly won’t be marching on Washington.”

The National Lutheran Council and the American Lutheran Church were reported as being officially identified with the march through representatives. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, said President Oliver R. Harms, would not participate.

Historic New York Avenue Presbyterian Church will be open to demonstrators, but its session and trustees issued a statement which said that access to church facilities does not imply endorsement of the demonstration.

The Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Capitol Hill indicated no cooperation, but a spokesman said a prayer in behalf of the marchers would be offered during the regular Wednesday noon service on August 28.

Metropolitan Baptist Church, also on Capitol Hill, declined to share its property with demonstrators. Its minister, Dr. R. B. Culbreth, said that the church has tax exemption because it preaches the Gospel, and it does not engage in direct political activities.

First Congregational Church pledged all-out support and urged its members to march.

First Baptist Church “has taken no official position on the civil rights march,” according to a statement released by its moderator and deacon chairman. A meeting of church officials to discuss cooperation with demonstrators was called off when leaders of the march changed their minds about separate state assemblies.

Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church, said a spokesman, supported the goals of the marchers, but the church’s officials differed on the propriety of the march itself.

A minister at the Church of the Epiphany (Episcopal) in downtown Washington said, “I’m not sure whether we’re in it or out of it.” The vestry had not discussed it, he added, but demonstrators will probably find the church open and “the coffee pot on.”

A proposal was made that the march begin with an interdenominational church service, and the cathedral was offered for that purpose. But leaders of the march were unable to agree on the idea. An “official Episcopal service” will be held at noon at St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square. A specially organized “D. C. Clergy Committee for Freedom March” called a meeting of all clergymen and religious leaders on August 19 “in order that an organized spiritual emphasis may be exhibited in the Freedom March … and that we may be of the greatest possible assistance to our out-of-town brothers and sisters who will gather for the demonstration.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, meanwhile, said in New York that he was proposing to President Kennedy creation of a federal civil rights police force “to protect demonstrators against possible police brutality.” King said the proposal would be made to the President if he agrees to meet with Negro leaders spearheading the Washington march.

In Chicago, meanwhile, Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, head of the nation’s largest Negro church body, resigned as president of the Century of Negro Progress Exposition. The president of the National Baptist Convention of the U. S. A. Inc., said he had “too many other commitments” to carry on his work with the exposition.

Jackson told newsmen there had been no pressure for him to resign the post. They had noted that the Negro leader and the mayor of Chicago were booed recently at a rally of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Groups in the crowd had said Jackson was too moderate in the campaign for Negro civil rights.

Jackson said he wants to “give more time to working for passage of the President’s civil rights legislation.” Jackson on numerous occasions has questioned the value of mass civil rights demonstrations.

Growing Indignation

Fifteen thousand U. S. clergymen conveyed a joint protest this month against the persecution of Buddhists in South Viet Nam.

The “Ministers Vietnam Committee,” in a letter to President Kennedy, assailed “the loss of American lives and billions of dollars to bolster a regime universally regarded as unjust, undemocratic, and unstable.”

The Rev. Donald S. Harrington, minister of the Community Church of New York and secretary of the committee, transmitted the letter to the president.

The protest, he noted, had grown out of an appeal by 12 noted U. S. clergymen including Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, Bishop James A. Pike, and Dr. Ralph W. Sockman.

Harrington said the fifteen thousand signers included clergymen “of various faiths and denominations.”

This has to do with perspective—how things look from where.

With the dawning of faith in his heart the Christian begins to see things in a new light. The change may be slow, as the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit proceeds in his heart, but it is real.

Blurred vision is often a sign of Christian immaturity, and many go through life very conscious of the immediate but woefully unaware of the eternal.

The Apostle Paul experienced a blinding revelation of the risen Christ. From that moment he was a completely changed man, and in later years he said in his defense: “Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19).

Paul’s perspective had changed, and as time went on he was the recipient of direct revelations, so that he could write the Galatian Christians: “For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11, 12, RSV).

Paul the legalist, the zealot who went about to destroy Christians, became one of them and the most effective witness to their common Lord.

Job, a good man and convinced of his own goodness, went through trials experienced by few. As he experienced the loss of all the world had to offer, there came a day when his perspective was completely revised and he said to God, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6).

There should come a time when every Christian has an entirely new perspective on life and the things around him. Delay in acquiring this new perspective can mean untold conflicts of body and spirit. Until there is a genuine change of orientation life remains an enigma, and we grope our way with myopic outlook, unaware of immediate values and unable to see down the corridors of time. All around there are those asking: “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “What is my destiny?” They remain confused because they seek not their answers of the One who came to answer, and to introduce man to the heavenly vision.

From where unregenerate man stands, the baffling questions of life can never be adequately answered. Only when he stands at the foot of the Cross can he catch a vision of this world and of the regions beyond. In the light of the divine revelation in the person and work of the Son of God, man comes to know who he is, why he is here, and what his eternal destiny is.

The heavenly vision has been the guiding star of those who know and love God from the beginning:

Abraham went out from his home at God’s command, unaware of his destination but deeply aware of God and His faithfulness.

The patriarchs, by faith, had a perspective which carried them from place to place and from generation to generation. The writer of the Book of Hebrews says of them that they could have returned to their own country, “but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:16).

Moses had at hand every privilege and blessing of the royal household of Egypt. In his restlessness he thought he could deliver his own people in his own way. Driven out into the wilderness he met God, and there came to him a new perspective of this life and of the next. There came a time when he went out as an earthly refugee, leading other refugees, but because of his heavenly vision things were different—“By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27).

Stephen too caught the new perspective. Deeply versed in the Scriptures, filled with the Spirit, he saw his witness rejected and lost his life because of it. But as this transition was taking place God gave him a new vision of that which was in store, and he cried out: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).

The heavenly vision has not been confined to those of past generations alone. As time marches on a growing host of men have seen, and even today are seeing, the City of God. This is not a question of being “so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly use.” Rather, it is a question of seeing things in their proper perspective.

Paul, writing to the Christians in Colossae, emphatically states: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1–3).

Is that the perspective of the Church today? Hardly. The general emphasis is on secular matters, on social, economic, and political concerns, with little or no difference from non-Christians. The heavenly vision is a horizon lost in the haze of secular interests, an intangible to the worldling but something which should be very real to the believer.

Our Lord was exceedingly practical. He knew of man’s material needs and of the necessity of secular pursuits, but he wanted these kept in proper perspective. He spoke of the perishable nature of things and the eternal preservation of spiritual assets. He urged that we set our basic desires on the things of his kingdom, assuring us that immediate necessities would be ours.

The heavenly vision should be for the individual Christian, and for the church of the living God. Because many whose names are on church rolls have no vision of the spiritual and eternal, we find their affections centered in this world. Because the Church is so often led off into secular activities she too shares in the lost vision, and in so doing she fails to help where man’s greatest need is to be found.

It has been truly said that Christ came into the world, not so much to preach the Gospel but that there might be a Gospel to preach. He came not so much to make the world a better place in which to live but to save men from sin and its consequences. He came to change our perspectives, to enable us to look with the insights of the Spirit and to judge rightly between that which is eternal and that which will perish with the using.

Why are we so often blind to the heavenly vision? There can be but one answer: our senses, desires, and perspective are all directed horizontally, around us, rather than vertically, to the living Christ.

If we have the heavenly vision we are enabled to look at the future of this world and the next in the light of the divine revelation. Although we see “through a glass darkly,” we know that some day we will see Him face to face. Although we remain aware of chaos without and strivings within we know that some day there will be a new heaven and a new earth and we will be a part of it. What a heavenly vision!

The Editor

Ecumenical theologians climbed Mont Réal,

Ecumenical theologians had a great fall.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put ecumenical theology together again.

The World Council’s fourth world Faith and Order Conference, held July 12–26 in Montreal, proved a major debacle whose defacing scars may long embarrass the ecumenical movement. In the aftermath of this fiasco (WCC leaders themselves privately labeled it “a crisis in technique”) the council’s Central Committee will now face the heavy burden of defining the future status of faith-and-order concerns.

The Montreal conclave doubtless had positive values: face-to-face meetings dispelling needless suspicion, frank exchange of contrary views, recognition that despite deep divergences delegates are sincerely devoted to Christian concerns in a non-Christian world, mounting uneasiness over the fragmented Christian witness, probing of areas of agreement as well as of difference between long-separated communions, inquiry into what limited objectives might be cooperatively sought by churches of differing theological convictions, and finally, open cross fire concerning some of the Church’s current and pressing problems. It was, in fact, to such “fringe benefits”—typical of every ecumenical assembly—that conference spokesmen swiftly appealed in expounding the achievements of Montreal.

But these were not objectives for which WCC had budgeted $63,000 toward the overall cost of a faith-and-order conference. What was sought was theological breakthrough. What Montreal produced was theological ambiguity transcended only by theological stalemate.

Once again, assuredly, the 350 participating delegates manifested the irreducible fact that emergence of the ecumenical movement is among the most significant developments in twentieth-century Christianity. Its admission at New Delhi of powerful Eastern Orthodox constituencies erased the dominantly pan-Protestant character of the World Council, and the larger strength of Orthodox participation was noticeable in the Montreal discussions (36 of the 270 delegates were Orthodox). Another recent trend is the warm pursuit of dialogue with Roman Catholicism in open hope of ultimate union. A major Montreal address by a Roman Catholic biblical scholar and participation of a Roman Catholic cardinal (the Archbishop of Montreal) in a public interfaith worship program further evidenced this nod to Rome. In fact, Dr. Paul S. Minear, newly elected chairman of the Faith and Order Commission, cited the inclusive Orthodox-Anglican-Protestant-Catholic service held at the University of Montreal as most noteworthy among achievements of the conference since it marked a “unity in worship deeper and wider” than that previously experienced by the participating churches.

Such developments are among what WCC’s general secretary, Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, hails as “astonishing achievements” of the movement’s brief fifty-year history in the aftermath of centuries of ecclesiastical conflict and rivalry. The fervor for unity has gained such zeal that a test vote by delegates in one of the five deliberating sections in Montreal approved by 21 to 5 the thesis that all denominations are provisional and sinful. Ecumenical staff members gave almost unanimous support.

This swift growth, Visser ’t Hooft concedes, involves serious dangers for the ecumenical movement: new enigmas arise before old ones are solved; the shortage of adequately trained personnel increases rather than lessens; need for an expanded secretariat enlarges the risk of bureaucracy; without a vast specialized organization (such as Rome’s) the movement must rely on theological faculties for much of its work. The Geneva staff is being encouraged to “borrow” professors from British universities and American seminaries in order to elevate its present “hand-to-mouth” theological existence to one of continuing competence.

But the problem of Montreal ran much deeper. For it unveiled a faith-and-order crisis not only in respect to technique—which ecumenical leaders conceded—but in respect to substance, and, moreover, reflected a power struggle within the machinery of the ecumenical movement itself.

The Geneva planners had resisted preparatory suggestions that would have preserved the study character of the Montreal conference by inviting as delegates the 120 theologians who serve on the WCC theological commission, some 80 additional theologians on working committees preparing special reports, and other qualified participants. They also declined to make the special reports prepared by these working committees the special focus of the conference. Although Montreal was promoted as a serious theological dialogue, participation was extended far beyond the range of theological competency. Almost as soon as members of the deliberating sections had met each other, the steering committee pressured for statements of agreements, and to emphasize such agreements some drafting committees moderated expressed differences. Theological emphases which prevailed in the democratic process of the sections and subsections were neutralized. Some theological participants were so exercised over the inadequacy of section reports that they tried, but without success, to forestall presentation of the reports to the plenary session. A revolt by “younger theologians” (mainly in their fifties) almost wrested the initiative from behind-the-scenes politicos who tried to maneuver the conference. Throughout the sessions these “upstarts” pressed for earnest doctrinal discussion of divisive issues and emphasized that theological integrity is more important than meeting a convention timetable. One European dogmatician facetiously apologized to the plenary session because theologians are not endowed with the supernatural power to provide within a week’s time all answers to all questions.

But—although their victory was a hollow one—the political bloc won out. The theologians who had attempted an unsuccessful Caesarean delivery of the conference’s doctrinal vitality resigned themselves to its eventual and inevitable demise. Even in the press room word spread that the Montreal dialogue was “born to die.” After two full weeks of exchange no single theological principle or ecclesiological affirmation had emerged that carried Montreal significantly beyond the Lund, Sweden, conference of 1952.

In the final business hours section reports were submitted in plenary session, not for adoption, but simply for reception and transmission to the churches and to the Faith and Order Commission, and that without plenary amendment. The emphasis that the plenary session lacked sufficient time for deliberative study to approve the reports was sheer rationalization of the strategic situation. The sections had produced hurried, synthetic reports which the officers wished to reflect to the churches as a conference achievement. But they feared the growing revolt of theologians aware that the section reports lacked theological stability and precision and could not be harmonized into a cohesive document. The convention would not even permit its officers to submit their proposed “word to the churches” unless they extensively tempered expressions of optimism and moderated claims of accomplishment. When opposition developed in plenary session, an open hearing on the statement was called for later in the day, on a “free” afternoon. Fifty delegates appeared for a discussion on the statement; as somebody put it, “the bone was thrown to the dogs.” Delegates applauded, the closing night of the conference, when Bishop Tomkins announced that the “word to the churches” had been completely rewritten. In the conference machinery’s first open acknowledgment of distress, he noted that delegates had asked that the statement by the officers to the ecumenical constituency convey “a greater note of honesty about our failures at the conference here.” The final revision contained such sentiments as: “We still find it hard to know what God calls us to keep or to abandon and what He calls us to venture.… We could only touch the fringes of our task.” The conference, it was conceded, was unable “to express a common mind in a single report.” The delegates thereupon unanimously voted to make this “word to their churches” their own as well as that of the officers.

As theological achievements, Professor Minear noted that the trinitarian orientation of the New Delhi Assembly was assumed in all Montreal theological affirmations and that a reference to the work of Jesus Christ now replaced the earlier documentation of theological affirmations by specific Bible passages. But these developments were not really new to Montreal. In theological principles, Dr. Minear conceded that “we are farther and farther from verbal formulations,” and he acknowledged pessimism over the “substantial impressiveness” of the section reports. Of the interfaith worship service at the University of Montreal, hailed as a devotional breakthrough, he remarked that it is “more and more difficult to give careful theological formulation to these events.” Minear added, in a closing word to the conference, that “ecumenical reality resists imprisonment in dogmatic formulations.… We have been united in a truth that surpasses all of the truth that we can put into words.” In connection with the vaunted “breakthrough in worship,” the WCC press room did not publicize the fact that Greek Orthodox bishops walked out of the ecumenical gathering addressed by Roman Catholic Cardinal Leger (and Metropolitan Athenagoras of the Greek Orthodox Church) because they were not seated in the front row in accordance with their ecclesiological traditions. (Some reports said the bishops were prevailed upon to return to the service after being assured that the non-reservation of first-row seats was an oversight.)

In the aftermath of Montreal certain facts about the theological-ecclesiological situation in the WCC have become clear:

1. The aggressive participation of Orthodox forces cannot be undone, and from now on every advance in theological affirmation must represent an adjustment of Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant views. This problem will be complicated even more if and when Roman Catholic participants enter the doctrinal debate; an official Vatican observer said “no dogmatic obstacle” exists to prevent the Catholic Church from joining the WCC.

2. The Protestant position increasingly reflects the initiative of Bultmannian existentialists. Their dominant theological strength in Germany seems to constrain WCC leaders to allow them increasing participation in the prevailing ecclesiastical situation. This means that as never before the problem of “hermeneutics,” or biblical interpretation, must become a central concern in theological dialogue.

3. Ecumenical leaders are more hopeful of advancing ecumenism at the level of common worship than at the level of theology. They regard worship as somehow transcending theological divergences and as outside the necessity for precise theological and ecclesiological distinctions. “At the level of worship,” said President James McCord of Princeton Theological Seminary, “the ecumenical movement has the greatest potential for taking root.” Not a few ecumenists see the “marvelous diversity” of Christian witness and life transcended in the “unique togetherness” of ecumenical communion. The report to the Montreal plenary session by Dr. McCord’s section urged that all delegates be invited and encouraged to worship at intercommunion services, even where church doctrine and individual conscience preclude partaking of the elements. Despite objection that such a procedure would proclaim to the world the Church’s divisions rather than its unity, the delegates transmitted the recommendation to the churches. But the action was hardly unifying, for while 118 delegates favored the recommendation, 51 opposed it. Many Orthodox delegates supported the measure, but an Orthodox spokesman reminded the conference that communion is a means not for achieving but rather for expressing the unity of the One Church. This cause of unity, he felt, would be served better by a common understanding of holy tradition, of the Eucharist as a sacrament, and of the ministry in relation to sacramental realities. It was not at all certain, then, that mutuality of worship could be preserved apart from theological formulation, except by those who demean the role of truth and doctrine in Christian experience.

4. Officers of the Montreal conference readily conceded that “the ecumenical reality is taking shape faster than our capacity to think it through or act it out.” Although the ecumenical movement has been growing for fifty years, Dr. Visser ’t Hooft told the press, “We can’t answer the question” of its ecclesiological role because “it is a living process in which the reality always runs ahead of the definition.” This was small comfort to critics who complain that WCC can act like a world church even while it denies that intention. The subject of WCC’s ecclesiological significance had been referred to Montreal for a clarifying word, but the report transmitted to the churches said little more than that “member churches attach various meanings” to the WCC and that “the Council is not the Church; it is not seeking to be a church or the Church.” Preliminary assertions that WCC shares in the life of the Church, participates in the reality of the Church, and manifests qualities which belong only to the Church of Jesus Christ were deleted from the report under Orthodox pressures. Extreme critics of the WCC have long had opportunity to note that a movement which denies being the Church while claiming its qualities can be only a false church. Although Orthodox churchmen readily concede that the WCC aids and abets the unity of the true Church through prayers and the sharing of convictions, they insist that it has no church character of its own. Professor R. Mehl expressed disappointment that the final report does not mirror WCC’s fifteen years of self-reflection on its ecclesiastical significance, and emphasized that the subject would have been worth a full plenary discussion. Delegates applauded.

5. The authority of the Bible has an increasingly tenuous role within the life of the World Council. The Montreal conference almost exchanged sola traditione for sola scriptura, intending thereby to equate the Gospel with the Tradition. Although hesitating to adopt this position, it nonetheless denigrated Scripture and exalted tradition. Delegates stressed the importance of the authoritative New Testament Canon more by way of protest against the tide toward tradition than as an accepted controlling principle. This is not to say that great moments of biblical exposition were wholly lacking. The morning Bible studies in Colossians, particularly those under Professor J. Bosc, French Reformed theologian, were superb. Even in the section meetings some delegates rested their case squarely and exclusively on the biblical data. But nowhere in the dialogue was there unanimity concerning the kind of appeal that could be made to Scripture. In one session discussing ordination, a Reformed minister’s spirited appeal to the Bible was greeted approvingly by a Russian Orthodox priest, who said that he hoped the delegates would keep the New Testament criterion in mind when considering the ordination of women. Dr. Minear characterized WCC theological reports as “more biblical in spirit” although not so “lavishly sprinkled” with biblical quotations as in the past. There was an obvious effort to expound theology on a “Christological base”—urged by Barthians and Bultmannians for quite different reasons, and resisted by some Eastern Orthodox bishops who advocated a “trinitarian base” to counteract “Christological unitarianism.” Appeal to the person and work of Christ for an analogical understanding of the nature and work of the Church was responsible, in fact, for one interminable sectional controversy as to whether the ministry of the Church is an imitation or an extension of Christ’s ministry. That the Church’s ministry is a response to Christ’s ministry is beyond dispute. But an analogical appeal, apart from the higher governance of scriptural teaching, cannot discriminate correspondences from differences in the two ministries, and runs the danger therefore of compromising the unique and final work of Christ. The one-sided emphasis on the analogical implications of Christ’s ministry obviously reflects newer views of revelation which emphasize event more than propositional truths.

Facing The Ideological Conflict

The main objective of the political bloc was to achieve broad phrasing which ruled out nobody’s point of view, without adequately expressing anyone’s. In one section, for example, the phrase “the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” was openly acknowledged to serve the role of “highly useful ambiguity,” since it “preserves the interests of those who hold a eucharistic theology and sacerdotal ministry while not dissolving the interests of those who do not go that far.” And to say that “the Holy Spirit comes to each member in his baptism for the quickening of faith” was ambiguous enough to pacify Baptist as well as Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed participants. When one delegate insisted that the phrase “the unity of baptism” could not be stretched to cover both “believer-baptism” and “infant baptism,” a French theologian pronounced the controversy unimportant (Baptist delegates disagreed), since the report elsewhere affirmed “one Lord, one baptism.” The deliberate incorporation of verbal generalities yielded a hasty production of a pseudo-ecumenical document acceptable to the conference leadership but distasteful to professional theologians, since mutual acceptability was possible only because the divergent communions gave different interpretations to identical formulas. This “shell game” approach to faith-and-order issues exasperated many a theologian.

In assessing the Montreal confrontation, Dr. Minear told the press that the “colossal combination of collisions” attested the fact that differences were not being subordinated. But many of the section tensions arose in the process of trying to achieve more doctrinally precise formulations agreeable to all, by sharpening up preliminary synthetic statements shaped in verbal generalities in an earlier atmosphere of mutual affability.

What The Theologians Want

What most theologians want is smaller study and work groups and freedom from the duress of paper production. Although they differ concerning the ideal role of faith and order in the ecumenical movement, some consensus is likely to emerge among members of the Faith and Order Commission before its 1964 meeting on Cyprus. Some are ready to dissolve faith and order as a separate enterprise, hoping thereby to disseminate its concern throughout the ecumenical movement; others hold such action might have just the opposite effect. Still others contend that since ecumenical activity is concerned with church unity, faith-and-order studies should be confined to areas of frontier conflict. A number of “younger theologians,” however, insist that doctrinal integrity is impossible apart from the entire movement’s permeation by theological concern, and they would greatly widen theological participation.

In view of Montreal developments, professional theologians were in no mood to applaud the strictures leveled at them by New York lawyer William Stringfellow, member of the Faith and Order Commission, who flew into Montreal merely long enough to picture the conference as “an academic, professionalized, esoteric, elite ecumenical monologue in which the world is seldom heard or addressed, but in which for the most part, professors, theoreticians, patriarchs, politicians, and alas, bureaucrats, talk to themselves, each other, and their vested interests in the status quo of Christendom.” Some churchmen dismissed Stringfellow’s remarks as “arrogant,” and not a few theologians resented them. In Europe, remarked one delegate, one may criticize, but one does not insult theologians.

Actually, nobody was more indignant over the paltry achievements of Montreal than the theologians themselves. The fruit of ten years’ work had been largely ignored in the deliberations. In the section on “Christ and the Ministry,” Dr. Edmund Schlink’s fine preliminary study on “Apostolic Succession” was given scarcely any consideration, yet the delegates ventured to commend it to the churches for study.

Instead of openly conceding that the cosmopolitan character of the conference was an obstacle, its leaders justified the broad participation of non-theologians on the ground that theological earnestness must be scattered throughout the whole Church (which nobody questions). Nowhere did they ask whether the Montreal exhibition might confuse rather than edify the layman. The answer to that question must now come when and if the churches study the reports transmitted to them.

Fasten Your Seat Belts

It was a shame in a way that that woman, whatever her name was, from Russia, jumped off into space and had a very successful trip. This is not really surprising to me, because I have long since concluded that women are without question the superior sex. What hurts, however, is that the whole thing was apparently so easy. Some girl parachutist happens by, steps into a space ship, and is off into orbit. If conquering space is going to be this easy, it hardly seems worth so much excitement—not to mention money.

When Grace Kelly’s father won a race at Henley the British handled this so much better. Since he was undoubtedly a commoner, they just concluded that he didn’t win the race, because how could he, you know. Now this woman has come along and taken all the glamour out of space flight.

“Conquering space” is, as we know in our sober moments, a fundamentally ridiculous idea. We are well up in relation to the planet Earth, but we are still nowhere in terms of space. Space has to do with light years. That means traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), and the only way we can travel at the speed of light is to become light or some other form of basic energy. We might start to conquer space by being turned into units of energy, being fired off into space, and being reintegrated when we arrive at the other end. Apart from the little problem of being reintegrated, we are still faced with distances measured in hundreds and thousands of light years.

The phenomenon of angels is reported here and there, and there is even a kind of systematic treatment called angelology. I was never too clear about such things, but I am impressed by one title: they are called “ministers of light.” This, with their personal habit of appearing on the scene out of nowhere, makes me wonder if there may be something to this traveling through space as light, followed by some power of reintegration. At least, any notion of conquering space seems to lie in that direction, and in a scientific age angels are, strangely enough, easier to believe in.

EUTYCHUS II

For Greater Evangelical Dialogue

Especially did I enjoy Kenneth McCowan’s article, “Historic Contemporary Fundamentalism” (July 5 issue).

The vast majority of us would indeed be among Mr. McCowan’s fifth classification. Unfortunately the word “fundamentalism” has so been dragged through the mud that the word itself is ambiguous. “Evangelicalism” or “conservatism” might be far more appropriate. Any classification, however, will be misunderstood.

I do not feel that Mr. McCowan is naive. Indeed, with God all things are possible. I shall continue to pray as did our Master, “that they may all be one.”

Would that there might be greater dialogue between those on the extreme right and those in the conservative middle. Sad to relate, the new fundamentalism will invariably refuse fellowship to any who will not accept their position.

First Baptist Church

Gloversville, N. Y.

Kenneth McCowan has done us a great service in accurately stating the case for a large number of us who are tired of seeing ourselves painted as “main line deviates,” “fringe group reactionaries,” out of touch with the real world, and socially unconscious. Frankly, I cut my theological teeth on “historic fundamentalism,” and I never had an uneasy conscience about it. You are doing us all a great service by publishing such helpful material, and I want to thank you for accurately classifying me at last. I shall wear the tag without the slightest feeling of guilt, knowing that I am in excellent company.

Village Bible Church

Garden Grove, Calif.

Kenneth McCowan’s brief article says exactly what needs to be said. I am not sure that the designation used as his title is the best descriptive for the bulk of evangelical Christians, because we’re not too concerned about a label. We’re just the majority, the mainstream of Bible-believing, converted people.

We’re not heard of too much because we don’t make good enough news copy or black enough headlines. We like to think of ourselves as independent thinkers, and not as rebels. We give the largest numerical support to Billy Graham, Youth for Christ, Inter-Varsity, Campus Crusade, and Young Life. Most of us probably are outside the ecumenical movement, but some of us are in it. We’re found in both new-line and old-line denominations, and can work together.

We will continue going about our business of winning the lost and building the Church. All we ask is that we be heard!

First Baptist Church

Grand Marais, Minn.

On Nuclear War

General Harrison and I hold many positions in common (“Is Nuclear War Justifiable?,” June 21 issue). Neither of us is a pacifist in principle. Both of us believe that God himself has authorized the state to wield a sword in defense of righteousness and order. Neither of us believes that the state is justified in standing idly by when armed lawlessness stalks the earth and tyranny threatens the freedoms God wishes us to exercise in Christian obedience and love. Both of us endorse the just-war doctrine elaborated in the course of history; we recognize that in an evil world painful surgery upon the social organism and the body politic is sometimes a regrettable necessity.

Our agreements, I have no doubt, extend even beyond these points. I hold, and I trust General Harrison holds, that a war, to be accounted just, must fulfill certain conditions. A war fit to receive Christian endorsement cannot itself be lawless. Nor can it be ecstatic. It must be conducted according to certain rules, and it must envisage concrete historical ends. It must be waged within a settled moral framework, and it must serve to reestablish both a sound political order and a meaningful social community able to inherit and appropriate accumulated goods and values. On this I trust we are agreed.

General Harrison and I are even agreed in thinking that a just war can deploy atomic armaments. Although my Christian conscience begins to hurt me when I come to think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the indiscriminate destruction associated with these names, I do not deny that a localized nuclear blast set off within a limited war can be serviceable to mankind and presentable to God. This kind of social surgery is fraught with frightful peril and can be performed only with utmost trepidation. It also stretches to the limit the morally dubious principle of “military necessity.” But I am not yet prepared to rule it absolutely out of order.

What I am not prepared to accept and to baptize in Christ’s name is an all-out nuclear struggle, a general atomic war that on this shrunken planet encloses all, or nearly all, of mankind in its destructive embrace. This kind of war can in my judgment receive no Christian sanction. It is by definition total, indiscriminate, uncontrollable, and unserviceable to meaningful historical ends. I do not know whether the next war, or the following one, will be of this sort. I only know that this sort of war is impermissible. It can be placed in no moral frame I know of, and it can serve no concrete purpose. I am sorry, therefore, that General Harrison did not see fit to veto it.

A veto would have driven General Harrison to advocate with me and with most observers of the present scene the one practical measure that requires immediate adoption: the scrapping of atomic weapons under international surveillance within a framework of mutual agreement. Instead my correspondent contemplates with apparent equanimity the drift of mankind toward all-out nuclear war and undertakes to prepare in advance a moral justification of it. This I regret.

I particularly regret his novel suggestion—rightly characterized as “rarely considered in discussions of the matter”—that the great mass of the country’s population has the guilty responsibility for the initiation and prosecution of a war of aggression and that consequently mass destruction of the population is no more than a just judgment upon the guilty. In this suggestion the ancient principle of “discrimination” and “control” is with one stroke surrendered, and “total” war is given moral and religious sanction. In the process the traditional doctrine of the just war, with all its inbuilt qualifications, is surrendered, and one is left with no, or with nothing but the most attenuated, rules of civilized warfare still in effect.

I can therefore muster no sympathy for the General’s suggestion. I cannot accept the notion of a lawless or a nearly lawless war, nor one that does not envision the eventual assignment of the defeated people to its secure and rightful place in the family of nations.

Calvin Seminary

Grand Rapids, Mich.

Mr. Stob makes the point that a Christian would rather live as a slave or die as a martyr than participate in the nuclear destruction of civilization with all that he is fighting for. It would be difficult to argue against that viewpoint. But, the obvious next step is to urge immediate surrender to Khrushchev, thereby avoiding any risk of such catastrophe. Mr. Stob does not advocate it. The reason is that he realizes correctly that nuclear war is not demonstrably inevitable, and that non-nuclear war and the deterrent value of our nuclear weapons do serve currently to preserve our own and others’ freedom. Consequently, to surrender now would be to abandon our own and other nations to Communist tyrants before we know it to be the only alternative to nuclear war. Such abandonment he says cannot be right, and I agree with him. To surrender once further resistance becomes futile has been a common practice in military experience, but to surrender life’s greatest human values while there is still a reasonable chance of defending them has never been acceptable practice.

Dr. Stob sees the impasse in which we find ourselves and believes that a multilateral disarmament is the only way out. This would certainly solve the problem. Nuclear war is so terrible and unholy, with Russians as well as us living “in the shadow of the bomb,” and disarmament being the obvious solution, one asks: Why then is there no disarmament? The American experience in disarmament negotiations shows that the Russians will not participate in any action which gives us, as well as themselves, a reasonable guarantee of security. If “the shadow of the bomb” is so terrible, how can they act so foolishly? They can see danger as well as we can. The answer is that they are not in the shadow of the bomb in any degree approaching our own danger. A little reflection will show why this is so.

In the cold war the United States has been consistently on the defensive, seeking fair agreements, making many unavailing concessions in order to get them. The Soviet government has been always the aggressor in military actions, espionage, subversion, and threats of extermination. Knowing that our nuclear policy is retaliatory, Russia can engage in tentative military adventures with relative impunity, knowing that we will not risk nuclear war unless we are forced to do so. Nuclear war has little chance of erupting unless the Communists force it on us. It should be clear to anyone that Russia will not do this, because it would suffer the destruction of its homeland. No external gain could compensate for that loss. On the other hand who can doubt that the Russian dictators would unhesitatingly destroy our country if they could do so with small risk to themselves?

The deterrent value of our nuclear weapons lies in the belief of the Russian government that, if forced to do so, we will use them with annihilating effect. Believing this, they will avoid such risk while keeping us under constant pressure, hoping to intimidate us, to force weakening concessions out of us, and gradually to reduce us to the point where they can secure our submission without a fight, or destroy us with nuclear weapons if we don’t submit.

Under such circumstances, and given their known determination to eliminate the United States as an obstacle to their effort to dominate the world, how can we expect the Communists to engage in a bona fide multilateral disarmament? At best, our hope is that the deterrent effect of our weapons will prevent nuclear war, permit us to hold for ourselves and the free world such freedom as we possess, and give time for a possible change in Russian purposes to develop.

As stated above, the deterrent power of our weapons lies in the Communist belief that we will use them if necessary. It is impossible to deceive or bluff the Communists in a matter of this kind. If we were to change our present retaliatory policy the fact could not be concealed. The political pressures on our government would be widely known and would only encourage the Russians to increase their pressure on us, probably taking dangerous risks that might well cause the very war we seek to prevent. Ultimately the deterrent value of our weapons rests solely in our determination to use them if forced to do so. It is impossible for us to possess and not to possess this determination at the same time. If we must launch our weapons it will almost certainly be after Communist missiles are speeding toward us. Within moments our own disaster will be complete and the doom of the free world certain unless we have retaliated. The guilt of the aggressor population, as explained in my article in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, makes this retaliation an act of simple justice, horrible as it is, and might actually save the rest of the free world.

We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We must choose between:

1. In order to avoid all risk of a possible future nuclear war of unknown probability, we now abandon our armaments, our people, and the free world to the tender mercies of Soviet Russia and Communist China. I agree with Dr. Stob that this cannot be right.

2. We continue to protect ourselves and others by maintaining our nuclear capabilities, determined to use them if forced to do so, thereby accepting a risk which may not be as serious as many think. This course affords further time to await that hoped-for day when Russian intransigence may give way to reasonableness.

I support the second course. If it cannot be right to abandon our people and the free world it is right not to abandon them. To do wrong now in fear of something that may never occur seems to me to be unethical. To know to do good and then not to do it is sin (James 4:17). As a Christian I believe we should do what we know to be right for the present moment and trust God to take care of the future risk and danger. Such a course is a normal experience of Christians.

Largo, Fla.

Irs Vs. For

In commenting on the Fellowship of Reconciliation tax case (June 21 issue) … when … you associate yourself with the … IRS argument, namely, that the FOR is “essentially engaged in political activity” and hence disqualified for tax immunities accorded to religious societies, both your information and your argument appear defective.… First, there is nothing in the FOR policy or program (no Washington office, no lobbyists, no systematic legislation-influencing action) which would enable one to speak, as you do, of “the group’s concentrated efforts towards the congressional vote,” or the implication that its work focuses primarily on legislative “mechanisms.” Do you, perhaps, confuse the FOR with other agencies who honestly and legally pursue such goals?

Second, the real domain of FOR work is the “sea of ethics” in which, according to Chief Justice Warren, the law floats, the domain, incidentally, characterized in America by the dialogue of freedom, ardently defended by another writer in the same issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. In any event, the architects of the FOR through the years, often at the price of great sacrifice, achieved a far deeper insight into the human predicament than to assume that legislative fiat is the key to conflict resolution. Hence, if your intriguing distinction between “regenerative spiritual dynamisms” and “legislative solutions” means a recognition that our problems are basically spiritual, FOR members would likely endorse your platform. If, however, it means that those dynamisms ought not to spill over on occasion into legislative paths, they would likely recall the intra-mural definition of religion common in another part of the world, and would, notwithstanding occasional theological aberrations, likely prefer the company of Jesus.

Exec. Sec.

The Church Peace Mission

Washington, D. C.

Liberal Encouragement Lacking

Thank you for your fine June 21 issue. I wish every critic who says that conservative Christians have no “social concern” would please read that issue. After listening to this old line since I became a Christian five years ago I have concluded that what such critics really are saying is quite different. What they mean (but will not admit) is that conservative social concern does not square with their liberal philosophy of things. In the areas of the military, the campus, juvenile delinquency, and mental health (in all of which I and/or my wife have had some experience), the most persistent and sometimes vicious liberal attacks always seem to be leveled against conservative Christians who are carrying the Word of God into action in public. If it were a case of no “social concern” on the part of the conservatives, why attack the conservatives who are doing something? Why not encourage those who are applying the Gospel to social problems (and I do not mean the social gospel to spiritual problems!)?

(Lt.) CHARLES A. CLOUGH

Corvallis, Ore.

Your June 21 number is the best on so many subjects regarding liberty. “Faith and Freedom” by J. Howard Pew, “The Illusory Promise of Security” by Ben Moreell, “Money, Man, and Morals” by Elgin Groseclose, and the editorial “Land of the Free”—all are tops. Yet nearly every number is the same.

First Baptist Church

Salisbury, Mo.

Across The Three-Mile Limit

Part of the article on the Conservative Baptist fellowship’s twentieth annual meeting (News, June 21 issue) reads as follows: “It was noted that American Baptists, with five times the total constituency of the Conservatives, have fewer foreign missionaries.”

If we would like to measure things in this way, I would refer you to statistics from The Baptist World of June, 1962, which showed that the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society had work in seventeen countries with 389 missionaries, no national workers, 227 mission churches, and a church membership of 21,593 people. At the same time the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society has work in nine fields with 334 missionaries (already less than the Conservative Baptists), 10,026 national workers, 5,268 mission churches, 645,451 people in church membership.

I think the statistics speak for themselves. We do not measure the success of the orthodoxy of our program purely by the number of people we send across a three-mile limit to do what we call Foreign Missionary Work.

First Baptist Church

Bloomington, Ill.

The State’S Business

Governor Mark Hatfield’s answers to the questions asked by Professor O. Roberts (“The Christian and the State,” June 21 issue) are heartening.… I am encouraged and pleased by his position as to the role of individual, church, and state.

His opposition to capital punishment on the grounds of economics—the inequality of its application—that is, the poor die and the rich get off, is, however, inconsistent. He virtually says that because the law is not carried out justly is cause to call the law unjust. Doesn’t this inequality of application exist in every area of law enforcement? Still Mr. Hatfield says, and rightfully, “What right do we have to say, ‘Go, sin no more’ to the person who has committed the capital offense, and not say the same thing to the person guilty of tax fraud …?” and “The state is not in the business of dispensing grace; it is in the business of dispensing justice.” Let’s underline justice. I wish every law maker and administrator and citizen wholly understood and subscribed to this biblical principle that the state’s business is to administer justice.

Monroe, Wash.

Luther And The Pope

In the June 21 issue are two corresponding and very interesting articles: “A Pontiff’s Love and a Council’s Anathemas” (p. 27) and “The Papacy: Then and Now” (p. 47).

Luther’s sharpest rejection of the pope is found in the Smalcald Articles of 1537. These articles are one of the confessions of the Lutheran Church, not just a private opinion of the Reformer. A Lutheran pastor—at his ordination—confesses that the confessions as contained in the Book of Concord are in agreement with this one scriptural faith, and he solemnly promises to preach and teach the pure Word of God in accordance with these confessions of the Lutheran Church. We are, therefore, compelled to confess with Luther: “The Pope raised his head above all. This teaching shows forcefully that the Pope is the very Antichrist, who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself against Christ, because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power. This is, properly speaking, to exalt himself above all that is called God, as Paul says, 2 Thess. 2:4” (Smalcald Art., II, Art. IV, 9, 10).

The Council’s anathemas are not yet repealed, especially those canons of the sixth session which prove that justifying faith is not merely ignored or only changed by additions or subtractions, but plainly rejected.

Canon IX: “If anyone saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order … (to obtain) the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will: let him be anathema.”

Canon XII: “If anyone saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified: let him be anathema.”

The first stanza of Luther’s hymn “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy Word” reads in the original German: “Erhalt uns Herr, bei Deinem Wort und steur des Papsts und Tuerken Mord, die Jesum Christum Deinen Sohn, wollen stuerzen von Deinem Thron!” This hymn is entitled “A children’s hymn, to be sung against the two arch-enemies of Christ and His holy Church, the Pope and the Turk.”

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Casa Grande, Ariz.

The Court And The Schools

The Supreme Court assumes that God is the giver of human rights and it is up to the state to recognize what God has done. The court finds the recognition of God allowable in the oaths of public office, in chaplain programs, and soon. But in the Supreme Court’s opinion, the acknowledgment of God in school is unconstitutional. They seem to be saying that religious observances are allowable if they extend from the federal government, but unallowable if they extend from the state government. Public education, of course, is a state government function. It could also be true that the court is only waiting for new cases to dislodge the influence of religion in the chaplaincy and elsewhere.

The court has said two opposites are true: (1) that it is a realistic political fact that religion can never be completely separated from government (“we are a religious people”) but (2) in governmental function of education, religion must be separated. As I read their opinion I can see not logic, but only opinion. As I read the decision I can see still further secularization of our society and the continued withdrawal of our religious emphasis and the growth of a moral vacuum in America which someday may lead to our downfall.

Community Presbyterian Church

Chester, N. J.

If a God-fearing parent cannot afford a private school for his child, what then? Must he defy the “powers that be” and withdraw his child from school (as has happened recently in Falls Church, Virginia, because of an obscene book being taught to ninth-graders)? Or must he helplessly continue to submit his child to teaching that corrupts morals and denies the Creator? Can our Constitution be so interpreted? It is high time that an amendment be adopted which will protect those who believe in Almighty God, but who have no other choice than a public school education. Or will the time come when there will be no public schools, Bible-believers establishing their own, the atheists theirs?

Fairfax, Va.

Plea For Missing Issues

CHRISTIANITY TODAY fills a need which I have long felt existed—that for a conservative periodical using superior English (without the usual fundamentalist cliches) and unafraid of scientific investigation. I am also pleased to see articles by persons with whom the editors might not be in absolute agreement.…

As librarian of the Near East School of Theology (Beirut, Lebanon) I find the book reviews extremely helpful. The fact that the good points of books even by non-conservative authors are cited is indicative of a genuinely scholarly attitude.

We are unable to bind two volumes of CHRISTIANITY TODAY due to certain missing numbers.… Perhaps an appeal can be made to readers.

Box 235

Beirut, Lebanon

• Is any reader able to send Numbers 5 and 6 of Volume I? Our supply is exhausted.—ED.

Strategy

Elect bishops, superintendents, and other officials for their ability to present evangelical Christianity clearly and forcefully over mass media. Reduce our rash of promotional material by at least nine-tenths, and use that money for national and local TV, with our best youthful talent. Without such support, Protestant work is ever more difficult.

Methodist Parish

Purdys, N.Y.

Preaching Plus Practice

A statement in a news story (“An Organization Spared,” December 7, 1962, issue) appears to have given rise to a false impression. The statement read: “The Wisconsin Synod frowns on cooperation with bodies with which it does not have doctrinal agreement, but the word was discreetly dropped last month that it was participating with the other three denominations in an urban church planning study in Milwaukee.” This item has been used to suggest that the Wisconsin Synod does not practice what it preaches.

A news release from this department made it quite clear that while the planning study was being conducted concurrently with congregations of the National Lutheran Council and of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, it was being conducted independently. There were no joint meetings with other Lutheran church bodies. There was no cooperation, even in the elementary sense of sharing or pooling information. Dr. Walter Kloetzli of the National Lutheran Council, who was in charge of the planning study and a nationally recognized expert in such mystical affairs, was engaged by the Wisconsin Synod congregations as a consultant on a fee basis. Dr. Kloetzli, in every phase of the study, was most understanding of our fellowship principles.

Director of Public Information

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod

Milwaukee, Wis.

A Barge And A Seminary

Flying from New York City to Atlanta, Georgia, the other night I skimmed through the Saturday Evening Post for June 1. The feature article was by Walter Wanger, producer of the newest Hollywood extravaganza, Cleopatra. He reported that the cost of this super-colossal spectacular, which evidently depends on unabashed sensuality for its box-office magnetism, ran $37,000,000. A specially built barge for one sequence cost $277,000—enough to support our seminary for more than two full years! But why worry about money? Moviegoers will pay between $63,000,000 and $100,000,000 (estimates vary) for the privilege of seeing Elizabeth Taylor play Cleopatra. All of which compels a Christian to reflect on values.

President

Conservative Baptist Seminary

Denver, Colo.

Did you know that Mary Magdalene was the mother of Jesus? That the New Testament book which records Paul’s conversion is Psalms? That the last book in the Bible is Evolution? That Mary Margaret was Naomi’s daughter-in-law? That the first murderer listed in the Old Testament is Pilot? That the title of the first four New Testament books is Beatitudes? That King Saul consulted Sybil on the day before his death? That Isaiah was a son of Solomon?

These are but some of the answers taken from a Bible-knowledge test administered to 357 incoming freshmen at Westminster College (New Wilmington, Pa.) in September, 1962. Of a total of twenty-five questions (most of them elementary), the average number answered correctly was eight! Seventy-five students who had served as Sunday school teachers achieved a median score of eleven. A check of six typical questions revealed that:

256 students could not name the New Testament book which recounts the story of Paul’s conversion;

209 failed to identify correctly the title given the first four New Testament books;

208 did not know the name of either of Naomi’s daughters-in-law;

173 could not name the first murderer listed in the Old Testament;

140 were unable to identify the last book in the Bible;

129 could not name the author of the largest group of letters in the New Testament.

Are the test results valid? In previous years, freshmen who evidenced superior Bible background were assigned to advanced classes. It is possible, then, that many deliberately did poorly on the placement test to disqualify themselves from the more difficult sections. This year no such class divisions were made, however, and it must be assumed, therefore, that the students did their best and that the test results are valid.

But are these Westminster College freshmen really typical? Most of them come from what might be called upper middle-class Protestant homes. Eighty-six per cent ranked in the upper two-fifths of their high school graduating classes. Since 60 per cent of these young people are drawn from the sponsoring denomination (the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.), it would seem likely that many of them and their parents have an above-average interest in the church and have therefore selected this particular college. For this reason one might expect these students to score better on a Bible-knowledge test than would the average young person.

Moreover, 335 of these 357 freshmen identified themselves as communicant members of their respective churches—a relationship which presupposes prior instruction and personal commitment to the Christian faith. Nine are Roman Catholic, 205 United Presbyterian, and 121 represent other Protestant bodies. Most of the students admitted having attended Sunday school from childhood; many reported additional Bible study in vacation church school, released-time classes, summer camps and conferences, and personal devotions.

Yet this appalling ignorance! How can we explain it? What does it mean? J. B. Phillips has observed: “It is one of the curious phenomena of modern times that it is considered perfectly respectable to be abysmally ignorant of the Christian Faith. Men and women who would be deeply ashamed of having their ignorance exposed in matters of poetry, music, or painting, for example, are not in the least perturbed to be found ignorant of the New Testament” (The Young Church in Action, Macmillan, 1955, p. ix).

The sociologist explains the situation by calling it the inevitable result of that process whereby a sect evolves into a denomination or church. The first-century Christian fellowship began as a sect of Judaism. As such, it exhibited the sect characteristics of spontaneity, spiritual ardor, evangelistic zeal, lay participation, loose organizational structure, high membership requirements, rigid discipline, and rejection of the world’s sense of values and standards of success. But gradually church characteristics began to appear. Worship services became stuffy and formal. Control shifted from the laity to a professionalized clergy. Organizational structure grew more complex. Membership became traditional rather than voluntary. Admission requirements and discipline were relaxed. Whereas the sect had been in conflict with society, the church began to accommodate itself to worldly values and success standards.

Second-Hand Religion

In view of this transition, the twentieth-century prevalence of second-hand religion, with its accompanying apathy toward religious education, should come as no surprise. While accepted in theory, the faith which most people so easily profess is denied in practice. Parents who agree that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” nevertheless fail to provide religious instruction for their children. Most church-going (to say nothing of church-belonging-but-not-going) parents glibly covenant to rear their children in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord” without the slightest intention of fulfilling this vow.

Several years ago two couples who had been delinquent in their church attendance asked me to baptize their infant children. I agreed to do so only on the condition that they make the sacrament an occasion for recommitting their lives to Christ and assure me of their intention to keep faithfully the covenant promises—which I then carefully explained. All four parents assented, whereupon I administered the sacrament. Neither couple has been inside the church since!

What does this irresponsibility signify? That religion in American life has deteriorated to the level of the merely cultural. Social custom dictates that babies be baptized, that children “join the church,” that young couples be married by a clergyman, that deceased loved ones receive Christian burial. Often these ceremonies are performed with a minimum of religious significance for the persons involved. Many ministers, moreover, by administering church sacraments and covenants indiscriminately, have made the Church itself a party to the downgrading and decline of religion.

The most damning heresy of our time is that of admitting God’s existence while denying his relevance. We are guilty of fencing God off from life, of isolating him to the circumscribed confines of a particular building. A religion that is unrelated to what a man does outside of church can hardly be expected to enlist his undying devotion, or that of his children. Still less can it be expected to stimulate in its adherents a desire to study seriously its literature and teachings.

It is no mere coincidence that the growth of the secular mind has been paralleled by a similar growth in the concept of the secular state. Each has contributed to the development of the other. For a state to be religiously neutral is an impossible paradox. A government which fails to encourage faith encourages non-faith; when it leans over backwards to avoid discrimination against any religion, it willy-nilly discriminates against all religions.

Let the church and the home teach religion, say advocates of the secular state. But what are the odds that parents reared in a religiously emasculated culture will devote themselves to this task? And what are the odds that the few parents who do will be successful? Already imbued with secularism, our society has demoted religion to an extra-curricular status. As a result, today’s children feel imposed upon when asked to devote their “free” time to Bible study. Such a situation, accordingly, makes the task of religious education extremely difficult, in both home and church.

Even released-time classes in religious education are viewed with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude by many church-member parents and their children. A boy who was given a poor grade for his work in a sixth-grade released-time class complained to his mother. She thereupon sent a note to the teacher and requested that the boy be withdrawn from the course. Would it ever have occurred to this mother to ask permission for her son to drop English or history if he didn’t like the subject or received a low grade in it? The fact that many church people did not enroll their children in released-time classes indicates the low priority given to religious education in allegedly Christian homes.

What is the answer? How can the Bible be elevated to at least the level of the arithmetic text? Certainly not by continuing to widen the gap between the sacred and the secular. This deplorable trend must be reversed. Only as the state declares itself honestly on the side of moral and spiritual values can the church and the home be expected to do an effective job of Christian education. This is no argument for a state church—or for the suppression of religious or anti-religious minorities. Such a declaration, rather, is the acknowledgment that faith in God is the will of the people and therefore the official policy of government.

The Myth Of Neutrality

It is ironic that much of the insistence upon extreme church-state separation has come not from atheists but from ecclesiastical leaders. One of their principal arguments is that a lowest-common-denominator faith, one which dilutes theology to a content acceptable to all religious groups, is to be abhorred because it fosters superficial, shallow religion. In answer let it be said that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” In committing itself to faith in God—and leaving the content of that faith to be amplified by the various religious groups which comprise our society—the nation encourages its citizens at least to acknowledge God and to cultivate attitudes of reverence, dependence, and love toward him. This approach is of fundamental importance, for it lays a spiritual foundation upon which all faiths may build. When government fails to encourage religious faith it actually undermines faith; such failure conveys the impression that as far as the nation is concerned God is either non-existent or irrelevant. The result of such dereliction breeds a climate which is favorable to agnosticism and atheism and consequently hostile to religion. The will of the minority thus becomes the rule for the majority—and, what’s more—in the name of democracy!

It is not advocated that our government deprive atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers of their constitutional rights. What is advocated is that we abandon the myth of neutrality and reaffirm our historic position of concurrence with moral and spiritual goals and values. Justice Potter Stewart, in his dissenting opinion in the celebrated Regents’ Prayer case, noted that the Supreme Court had declared in a previous decision ten years earlier, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a supreme being.” By exempting church property from taxation, granting tax deductions for gifts to religious and charitable causes, maintaining military chaplains and chapels, imprinting “In God We Trust” on our coins, acknowledging our nation to be “under God” in the pledge to the flag, and in other ways our government has implemented this principle. The policy has been to provide impartial support for all religious faiths while discriminating against none.

Probing For Solutions

Released time, by which children are permitted to leave the public school for an hour each week to attend religion classes in nearby churches, is another important means of sympathetic cooperation between church and state. Recently shared time has been proposed as a more effective way of advancing the cause of religious education while safeguarding church-state separation. Under this plan, as described in a Washington Post editorial (Feb. 27, 1963), “a child whose parents desired him to do so would be allowed to attend public school part of the day for instruction in subjects free from religious connotation such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, home economics or manual training and to attend a parochial school for part of the day to study such subjects as history, social science or literature which, in their parents’ view, ought to be taught from a religious point of view; they would also, of course, receive religious instruction in the parochial school.”

The Post admits that there are serious objections to this proposal—chief of which are its cost and unwieldliness.

A much simpler solution is this: let the public schools add religion to the three R’s and integrate religious education classes into their curriculum. Like released time, the program could be financed and staffed by the churches. If administered on an elective basis, with equal opportunity for all students and all religious groups, such a plan would implement the American philosophy that our government should guarantee citizens free exercise of religion within the framework of our pluralistic society. No longer a stepchild of public education, religious education could then be given the serious attention it deserves. Religion teachers would be required to meet state educational standards; homework would be assigned, tests given, and grades awarded as in other school subjects. Ended, moreover, would be the inconvenient and time-consuming practice of taking children out of school, often to less adequate church facilities.

In addition, a clarified government policy that favors the propagation of religious faith would make it easier for public school teachers to relate belief in God to their subject matter. When a sixth-grade teacher, in discussing natural science, made frequent references to “nature,” a student inquired, “What is nature?” “Just nature,” the teacher replied with a shrug. Perhaps the teacher thought he would be violating the principle of separation of church and state if he offered a simple theological explanation. It is indeed ironic that in a nation composed of “religious people whose institutions presuppose a supreme being,” a God-fearing teacher is thus placed in a position of teaching “atheism by omission” (to borrow William Ernest Hocking’s phrase).

Further, religious material could be incorporated into such courses as history, literature, art, and music, so long as the common-denominator principle were carefully followed to avoid sectarian indoctrination. Also, religious holidays could be explained and recognized both in the classroom and in assembly programs. Christians should not object to their children’s learning about Purim or Hanukkah if such teaching were to involve no indoctrination; many Jews have indicated a similar attitude toward Christmas and Easter. In this plan, teaching about religion could be handled by the schools and teaching the content of religious faith reserved for teachers supplied by the churches.

Should this proposal sound extreme, let it be remembered that for years our nation has provided a similar service for men in the armed forces—and at government expense! The motto of the military chaplaincy reads, “Cooperation Without Compromise.” Is there any logical reason why this principle cannot be applied in an inter-faith program of religious education in the public schools—with the churches, not the taxpayers, footing the bill?

A Day Of Reckoning

The nation must ask itself, What is the logical outcome of a consistent policy of neutrality toward religion? Can the answer be anything less than the elimination of all religious expression from those aspects of public life controlled or sponsored by the government (e.g., prayers at official functions, the military chaplaincy, references to God on our money and in our patriotic songs, recognition of God in the public schools? Personally, I can think of no more effective way for America herself to fulfill Nikita Khrushchev’s prophecy, “We will bury you!”

Not merely against individuals but against an entire nation Elijah hurled the stinging rebuke: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). Is not this exactly what we have been doing? We have stumbled between the opinion that God does have a place in our national life and the opinion that he does not. In our limping we have admitted him to certain areas but excluded him from others. The showdown between the religious and the secular state is upon us. We must make up our minds.

The recent decision of the Supreme Court regarding religious exercises in the public schools was not unexpected. The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America scooped the denominations by stating at their 175th assembly that “Bible reading and prayers as devotional acts tend toward indoctrination or meaningless ritual and should be omitted for both reasons.” Acceptance of the statement was not unanimous, and most of the arguments over the report of the Committee on Church and State were on this question.

There would be no disagreement on the part of a large segment of the Church on the arguments given for omitting Bible reading and prayer in the public school: that we live in a pluralistic society in which people of all beliefs and of no belief attend our public schools; that we do not want our public schools to be part-time churches; that we would not like to live in a society, such as Spain or some of the South American nations, where religious doctrines are crammed into the minds of those who attend government schools; that merely to read a few verses of Scripture and have a prayer that makes no mention of Christ becomes a mere routine with little vitality of religious devotion.

Responsibility Of The Home

We would agree wholeheartedly that the responsibility for the religious training of the child is first that of the family, and second that of the church. Certainly the Scriptures support this fact. We read: “And what great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children” (Deut. 4:8, 9, RSV). It was the second generation of liberated Israelites who heard these words, for the first generation of those who escaped slavery died in the wilderness because they disobeyed God. The righteous laws and ordinances were to be taught by one generation to the next, and in the family tribal system of Israel this was the responsibility of the family.

All through the Old Testament, religious instruction took place in the home, whether that was a tent or a house. When the Israelites were taken into captivity in Babylon, it was impossible to make the pilgrimages to the temple of Zion. In all probability the plan of the synagogue came into being then. Families exiled from the “City of God” would, in a strange, hostile land, continue to “train up the child in the way he shall go.”

The eighteenth chapter of Matthew relates how Jesus once put a child in the midst of the disciples. He instructed them to be humble as the child, to receive such a child in his name, and to be concerned that the child would not be led astray or caused to sin. This certainly implies moral conduct on the part of adults and their teaching right concepts to the children. The God-given responsibility of those who believe in God and of Christians who believe in Christ to teach their children the commandments of the Lord is unequivocally declared throughout the Bible.

Not what was said about the Supreme Court decision and the reasons given for the United Presbyterian position so much as was what was left unsaid troubled me. The instinctive cry which came from my heart as a father and as a pastor of a congregation in which there are young people was, “Give me back my child!” As a parent, give me back my child so that I can teach him in the manner of the Old Testament family. Today the family is not the center of life as it was in ancient times. As a minister I plead that my church child, whose time is devoured by the community and public school life, be given back to the life of the church. Who would plead on behalf of the parent and the church in the high courts of our land that even one hour of one day be given over to the home when it would be unlawful for the school to schedule events and activities? But one asserts that after-school activities sponsored by the school are voluntary on the part of my child and my church child. The higher authorities have already stated, however, that although pupils may abstain from the religious exercises, there is a tendency to put pressure on those who do not participate. The same argument certainly could be given for after-school extra-curricular activities.

The argument of the dissenting Justice Stewart of the Supreme Court is poignant: “It might be argued that those who wish their children exposed to religious influence can adequately fulfill that wish off school property and outside school time. But this argument seriously misconceives the basic constitutional justification for permitting the practice at issue. For a compulsory state educational system so structures a child’s life that if religious exercises are held to be an unpermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage.”

Certainly we are naïve if we think that the home and the church as they are situated in the governmental structure of our day will have the child to teach, to train, to nurture. We are thankful to God that there remains the freedom to worship in a church or synagogue in our land, and that the child is not taken out of the home for full-time government training, as is done in some countries. However, if the state continues to demand more and more of the time of the child, it may yet be difficult in our democracy to have the child, even for a brief time, to teach the precepts of God.

The United Presbyterian assembly brought out the discouraging fact that at a time when there are more young people than ever before of school age, the Sunday school continues to show a decline. Almost any pastor, if candid, would report that of those registered for Sunday school, only about half attend consistently.

It is no secret that for the past two decades colleges have been out of bounds for the Church and for Christ. Many state institutions have established a separation of church and state so drastic that any subjects but religion can be discussed on college campuses. My last pastorate was only two miles from a state university institution that forbade the holding of any class, lecture, or discussion in religion. When one attended a seminar, however, he was more than likely to hear the Church, the Bible, and faith in God ridiculed or caricatured. At the same time we are told that from 40 to 50 per cent of college drop-outs are caused, not by lack of intellectual capacity, for all colleges now take only the upper half of graduating classes, but because of moral and emotional failures.

Changing Patterns Of Church Life

In the past few months some of our church leaders have been saying that the pattern of church life is changing. Dr. Colin Williams, of the National Council of Churches, calls for a new parish structure. “The parish system now in use dates back to the middle ages, when industry and education centered in the home, and the church controlled everything. The reformed Church, also residence-centered, was a place where a fellowship gathered. The Word was preached, and the Sacraments administered. Because of radical changes in social patterns, which have occurred in the last two decades, this system is under attack in the modern world. The trend is to see the relevance of the first century church, a body of believers moving out into the world.” Paradoxically, we are to move out into the world of industry, of racial tension, of inner city, and all the rest, but the place where the child spends most of his time and where his recreational and social contacts are made is declared, with the agreement of the church, “out of bounds.”

King Solomon, who prayed for wisdom and was given it by God, had to make a difficult decision concerning a child. The incident, related in the third chapter of First Kings, concerns two mothers who came to Solomon with one child, each claiming to be the child’s mother. Solomon ordered an attendant to bring a sword and divide the child in two, so that each mother could have half. The real mother was so desirous of keeping the child alive that she agreed to give up the child to the other. Solomon returned the child to her.

Splitting The Child In Half

It seems that the church, unlike Solomon, has allowed the child to be cut in half, or, more likely, that the church and the home will have only a fifth of the child. Can the child really live as God’s child in the modern world? Can he live as a schizoid? If the time ever comes—and surely there are strong groups advocating it—when governmental tax funds are given to parochial schools regardless of denomination, we in the Presbyterian churches will be without a child, for we have always defended the public schools against the charges of being “Godless.” Remember, for instance, how at Omaha the Presbyterian church, in a statement written by Dr. Ganse Little, went on record as defending the public schools against this charge.

Why did we not tell how the church and the home were to get back the child? No program has been so revised and changed in the church as “young people’s work.” There is always a new approach, a new fad, a new gimmick to appeal to our youth, and each one like a firecracker makes a big noise, then dies out. Never once since I have been a pastor has the cry been raised, “Give me back my child, that I may teach him in the things of the Lord.”

Whether or not we agree with the decision of the Supreme Court, we must live with it. We must regain the child by standing out against the increasing community and public school pressures exerted on him. Most of them are good, but we will now have to choose for the child between the merely good and the best. The best is that the child know God in Jesus Christ, His Son, and that he live in the power of a daily commitment to Christ.

As parents we no longer dare to be indifferent to Johnny’s religious training, or tossed to and fro by his every whim not to learn the things that pertain to God. For in the future the home and the church may be the only place where the child can get religious training.

Joshua, commander-in-chief of the Israelites when they fought to make Palestine their land, told the people that they would have to make a choice, “whether we serve the gods beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites … or the Lord.” Joshua chose to serve the Lord. Our gods today are indifference and secularism. Whom will you serve? As a father and as a pastor, I choose to serve the Lord. Give me back my child!

Anyone who wants to teach the Bible to children can learn from Robert Browning. In “Development,” a little-known poem with a very modern-sounding title, the poet demonstrates the elements of sound learning and teaching through the relationship of a growing and alert son with his perceptive and exemplary father.

The poem begins:

My father was a scholar and knew Greek.

When I was five years old, I asked him once

“What do you read about?”

“The siege of Troy.”

“What is a siege, and what is Troy?”

Father, the story goes, piled up chairs and tables for a town and put his son on top to represent Priam. The cat became Helen, who had been stolen away by cowardly Paris, and her brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus, who were trying to get Helen back again, were represented by the two family dogs. The pony in the stable served for Achilles sulking in his tent, and their page boy became Hector. As Browning puts it, “a huge delight it proved.”

Light From The Languages

Several years later, the father found his son and playmates “playing at Troy’s Siege.” The boy ought to know more about this poem, suggested the father. Why not read the translation by Pope?

So I ran through Pope,

Enjoyed the tale—what history so true?

But, remember, “father was a scholar and knew Greek.” Soon the son had his own Greek primer.

Time passed, I ripened somewhat: one fine day,

“Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less?

Don’t skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon!”

And so after reading Homer’s Iliad in the original Greek, the son fancied himself an authority on both author and poem. But then, introduced by his father to reading the critics on Homer, he was amazed to learn that certain German investigators, especially Wolf, now had “proved” that there never had been a Troy, nor a Homer, and that no authentic text existed for the poem which he had known and loved since he was five years old! Ought the son, now mature, to censure his father for instilling Homer through all these years?

A Time For All Things

Not at all. On the contrary, the son has nothing but praise for his teacher-father, who allowed him to grow up to cherish this literature and to learn from it not only an exciting story but in due time also basic principles of life and living—

… to loathe, like Peleus’ son,

A lie as Hell’s Gate, love my wedded wife,

Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.

Could he not have learned this directly and much earlier in life from a translation of Aristotle’s Ethics without ever getting involved in a controversial poem? Hardly, says the now gray-haired son in retrospect.

The “Ethics”: ’tis a treatise I find hard

To read aright now that my hair is gray,

And I can manage the original.

At five years old—how ill had fared its leaves!

While this kind of summary can never do justice to the original poem, it nonetheless points up what might be called Browning’s theory of education. If you want a child to read the Greek of Homer, how do you begin? By telling him stories without any explanation or critical comment, by making them live for themselves. You yourself read Greek with pleasure, and this pleasure you communicate with the stories. As he grows older, the child begins to read for himself, and as he “ripens” even further, he tackles the original Greek. Then, and only then, after the facts of the story have been his possession for years, do you introduce him to critical comment. The book on ethics, with its abstract ideas on friendship, honesty, wedded love, and so on, comes last of all.

Does not this procedure seem sensible? Who would answer a five-year-old’s question about Troy by saying: “This is a story, perhaps not actually true, but still interesting, about a town which may or may not have existed, and about people who may never have lived. But as Homer tells it—if indeed Homer ever existed, and if he wrote this poem.…” And so on. What good teacher of Greek would talk like this to a twelve-year-old? The proper time for critically studying the text and for examining the principles of ethics comes soon enough, but hardly during young childhood.

Yet how do many of those who plan Sunday school curriculum materials approach the teaching of the Bible? They regard the stories of the Old Testament as too difficult to “explain” to children, and therefore use very few of them. When such stories are used, they are prefaced with all sorts of apologetic explanations and followed up with careful interpretations. Seldom do children have the opportunity to hear the actual story, get from it what they can, and then go home to act it out—as did one small boy who built his own Jericho with blocks and marched his toys around it.

Comprehension And Experience

Since so many Old Testament stories are considered suspect, we substitute even for very small children such sentences from the Bible as “Even a child is known by his doings” or “He careth for you.” Perhaps first and favorite of all we offer them “God is love,” even though this sentence contains two nouns whose meanings are among the most difficult concepts to explain. Any intelligent adult knows how the comprehension of love, for example, changes with the years. And in trying to understand the two great commandments, the average class of adults wrestles long and hard with the differences between eros, philia, and agape. Yet this difficult word love we use with our beginners not as part of a story, but as an abstract statement of fact.

Someone will say at this point that the lesson material which follows is planned to make the sentence “meaningful” for the child. Yes, sometimes the story of Jesus’ blessing the children is used, for example. Usually, however, the “stories that follow” tell how mother worked hard to make a pretty birthday cake for her daughter, or how two good little boys each gave a quarter to buy a Christmas present for the old man who sells newspapers on the street corner. The “He careth for you” often develops into an extended nature session, in which we decorate the class room with autumn leaves, or cut out large snowflakes to take home to mother, or write on the board the names of all the birds we saw during the week and talk about how they get their food. This, we are told, is “within the comprehension of the child.”

We should hope so! A little later, still well within such a level of comprehension, come stories about how to get along with teachers, what to do when your friend has a prettier dress than yours, how to treat the boy who has the highest (or the lowest) batting average in the Little League, how to “understand” your parents, and so on. For the teen years, typical curriculum materials plunge into discussions about the role of the church, how young people can affect the social conditions around them, how the major ideologies of our day differ, and such matters. Then in a course geared to lower-division college age, the student is asked to explain why he believes in God, what reasons we have to suppose that Moses is or is not a historical character, and what are the major theories about the authorship of the Hexateuch.

The upshot of this kind of planning and teaching is that we now have a generation of parents whose ignorance of the Bible is utterly abysmal. Even more serious is their attitude that it is unnecessary to know much more about the Bible than the Lord’s Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount, a few parables, and perhaps First Corinthians 13 (the one chapter from Paul that so far I have not heard even his severest critics find fault with). By the time Browning’s “son” reached maturity, you remember, he knew the Iliad by heart, knew all the facts about Troy, Homer, and the text of the poem, and was profoundly grateful that he had not been brought up on the Ethics, which he nevertheless came to know also, in due course. By contrast, what do the children subjected to our educational program know about the Bible?

I am not implying that the Iliad and the Bible stand on equal terms; the Bible is infinitely more important than this or any other poem. And I do not believe for a minute that the child who grows up absorbing the stories of the Bible must go through a period of discovering that most of what he learned is not really true. If he thinks and reads and talks with his fellows at all he is bound to come in contact with a great deal of critical material, some of which would do for the Bible what Wolf and his contemporaries did for Homer. But because he is biblically grounded, he should be able to deal intelligently with such theories instead of succumbing to them. Furthermore, in recent years archaeology has done a great deal to uphold the conservative view of inspiration and of the Holy Scriptures.

Techniques Of Teaching

It is interesting that in one respect Browning’s poem definitely bears a nineteenth-century stamp. Although archaeological excavations had proved long before the poem was written (1890) that there was indeed a Troy, the influence of Wolf and his associates seemed to continue nonetheless. Modern scholars are more inclined to accept the historical Homer than were Browning’s contemporaries. “He who knows no history is forever a child,” it has been said. And no one is more childish than he who is unaware of how variable are the winds of criticism and how unnecessary it is to be “carried about with every wind of doctrine.”

The fact that the Bible is true in a different way than Homer, or than any other literature, for that matter, does not therefore alter or lessen the wisdom of Browning’s method of teaching demonstrated in his poem. First, in answer to the child’s question, “What do you read about?” comes the story, told by someone who knows it and loves it. Before anything else, a good teacher of the Bible must read the Bible, understand it, love it. Then follows a rereading of a particular portion, a retelling of the story that recognizes the child’s developing interests and abilities. No one understands the Bible with only one hearing or reading. As long as he lives and thinks and grows, the serious Bible student finds the Bible to be an inexhaustible mine of treasures, a limitless well of water springing up into eternal life, a perpetual source of truth that at the same time is both reassuringly old and unfailingly new. Yet I remember one time when I asked to teach the Old Testament stories to a group of junior highs. A leader in our group told me very kindly that I should be teaching juniors, for they were the ones with a unit on Old Testament heroes! Is a single reading of the Old Testament stories enough for our children? One study course for junior highs which I have seen gives one lesson to the Genesis stories, another to Exodus, and by the third lesson has arrived at the kingship of David! By this type of procedure, when and how are pupils to acquire the line-by-line knowledge of the Bible that they should have? Nature appreciation, recognition of a mother’s unfailing love, and a study of social ills have their place, but surely a thorough knowledge of the Bible should come first.

Neglect Of Biblical Data

One unit of studies which I used with junior highs included a few stories from Exodus. What astonished me was that before these stories were introduced, an entire lesson was given to explaining what we might find in Exodus and how we should interpret it: we should expect to find in it not exact history, but stories, rather, from which we should carefully extract spiritual truth. This material was not reserved for the teacher’s manual but was a full lesson in the pupil’s book. What is more, this “lesson” appeared without a single bit of Scripture on which to base the teaching for that day, to which the pupil might give some thought. When I first asked the pupils in this class who Moses was, one hesitantly suggested that he was the son of Abraham. Then and there I quietly departed from the prescribed unit of studies and instead taught the narrative sections of Exodus with all the energy and skill at my command—omitting entirely the so-called introductory lesson on Exodus!

But the Bible is hard to teach, many people remark. Let me reply that the substitute material offered today in no way solves the problem of the poor teacher. The superintendent of a children’s department told me about two visits to a particular junior class. Each time she found the pupils reading paragraph by paragraph around the room, not from the Bible, but from the supplementary book of stories that accompanied their unit of work. No time was given to Bible references, to the outline of the lesson, nor to any suggested activities. In other words, the lazy teacher, the ineffective, unprepared teacher, will teach poorly no matter what kind of material is put into her hands. If pupils must read aloud around the circle, they would much better be reading from the Bible than from any other book!

Capable teachers of the Bible are hard to find. And not everyone who possesses the first requisite (that the Bible is to him a dear and familiar book) is a gifted teacher. But such a person usually takes seriously the responsibility of teaching, and often succeeds remarkably in communicating his love for the Word he teaches.

A Word For The Parents

Besides speaking to Sunday school teachers and to those who prepare curriculum materials, the Browning poem speaks also to parents. It was the father, after all, not a teacher in public or private school, who instilled in the son his knowledge of the Iliad and his love for it. Upon parents rests the primary responsibility for seeing that their children know and love the Word of God.

Children actually make it easy for us to teach if we possess the necessary knowledge and faith to do so. By asking, “What do you read about?” the son in Browning’s poem, you remember, opened the door to instruction. In Exodus we find these words, “And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say …” (Ex. 12:26, 27). Our children ask endless questions—about the order of Sunday services, the way the altar is arranged, the observance of the Eucharist, and so on. Are we prepared to answer them? And if they see us reading the Bible often enough, they are likely to ask—as did the son in Browning’s poem—“What do you read about?” Properly met, these questions are important stepping-stones to the introduction of further truth and create an atmosphere in which we need not worry greatly about methodology. The path of wisdom and faith for the teacher is to put first knowledge of what the Bible says, not some kind of modern story or some “scholarly” opinion about how to interpret the Bible stories.

In Browning’s poem the son summarizes the wise and thorough teaching method of his father in these words:

… thanks to that instructor sage

My father, who knew better than turn straight

Learning’s full glare on weak-eyed ignorance,

Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sandblind,

Content with darkness and vacuity.

An appalling amount of “darkness and vacuity” about the Bible is apparent among Christians today. Perhaps we could profit from reexamining our teaching methods in the light of Browning’s poem. We might find that, just as in Jesus’ time, children of this world like Browning’s “father” are wiser in their generation than the children of light!