I should like to introduce you to an American bathtub, latest model, advertised as “The Revolution in Philosophy.” This is the bathtub in which all young Anglo-American philosophy majors are fishing today.

Philosophy must be “positive,” it is said; that is, “unbiasedly scientific,” not fouled in theological myths or capricious metaphysical assumptions, but straight methodical analysis of observable facts. Most significant of observable facts is the language we use, a universally public vehicle of thought. “Undogmatic,” “purely objective” philosophy at its “best,” then, will be logical analysis of language. Philosophy’s proper business is not to demand assent to certain assertions but merely to detachedly make clear the propositions men utter, and to discard formulations of thought that are found nonsensical by simple rules of logic or are found theoretically unverifiable by direct sense-observation: only what meets these criteria can be meaningful, “true.”

Students schooled in philosophy know with what prejudice this peculiar conception of philosophy approaches problems of knowledge and morality. They detect here perhaps the design of David Hume with his sense-tight Scottish skepticism which would suspend judgment on certain basic matters (such as the source of his original philosophical principle [An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Liberal Arts Press, 1957, p. 47 n. 1]), yet dogmatically burn as “sophistry and illusion” all books not containing mathematical reasonings or experiential scientific descriptions of matters of fact (An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Liberal Arts Press, 1957, p. 173)—which would include burning the Bible. The cult of language this philosophy prospers stems mostly from the enigmatic work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who believed language to be the key of knowledge that unlocks the meaning of reality.

It used to be said that Logic would save us: get people to think straight, and the ills of mankind—such as world wars—will begin to go. Now that cogito (logical thought), which Descartes chose as the Archimedian point to move the world, has simply been moved a notch to dico (scientific speech). For twentieth-century thinkers to trust that exact Speech will mediate our practical ills is no less foolish than the seventeenth-century rationalists’ following their phantasmagoria. Unambiguous speech is indeed requisite for intelligent communication, but clarity does not necessarily entail agreement, a fortiori not a saving solution.

Extreme epigones of this so-called analytic philosophy blasphemously if sophisticatedly deny the possibility of a meaningful Christian faith. For example, since prayer cannot be scientific speech, abba! it can only be an emotive gush! The pity of it all is this: philosophical analysis is nominalistically pulled back one more step from wrestling with the critical issues of concrete reality and diverted from many of the most significant philosophical problems. Legitimate investigation of the related meanings and functioning of human lingual, logical, and mathematical activities has here been absolutized, and thereby philosophical enterprise has been reduced and distorted to the technical speciality of semantics, arbitrarily loaded and defined as method, too. Therefore, this ruling philosophy, like some of the worst contemporary art, is so taken up with its media—words—that it seldom gets around to saying anything much worthwhile in the media.

If this kind of inverted sophistry takes over departments of Christian colleges trying so hard to be respectably indigenous—and it is doing so in some places—Christian education will be hurt hard for years to come. What sort of fish can you catch if your horizons are confined to this type of bathtub? Does not philosophy here become something like a game of blowing bubbles? Elegant logical bubbles which shimmer for a few pages of a philosophy journal and then go poof! And then you blow another beautiful bubble. This fashionable bubble game shows the insufferable ennui of brilliant minds facing a dead end.

What we Christian teachers and students, as teachers and students, can do for Kafka’s fisherman and the bubble blower is, like an uninvited Guest, invite them down from their empty upper room to visit us where we fish, in God’s Great World Bay—where the water is choppy all right, but rainbows like halos surround the sky.

I doubt whether Kafka’s fisherman will want to fish in our bay right away. As Augustine would say, he has grown so accustomed to his own dark hole he wishes no other. And he cannot, he can not see rainbows in the sky. We can point them out to him, but only the Holy Spirit is able to reveal to him what it all means.

As we examine our Christian colleges the concern must be not how successful we are at catching fish, but this: that we have been obediently fishing together in His creation, re-forming for Christ’s sake—that we are obediently doing it when He comes.

Maybe you know Kafka’s story in which a man picks his solitary way past rubble and scorched earth until he encounters a huge deserted apartment building. He enters a door, hesitates, then climbs a cement staircase high up into the building. And up there somewhere he stumbles upon a long corridor down which he begins to poke his way wonderingly. A chance premonition makes him turn off into a room, a little bathroom. And there, lo and behold! a fellow sitting on the sink, hunched over a pole, fishing in the bathtub filled with water. The visitor looks the situation over carefully and finally dares to say, “You’re not going to catch any fish in there.” And the other fellow says back, “I know it”—and continues his fishing.

Kafka’s story of the defiant bathtub fisherman is a keen analysis, it seems to me, of contemporary education without Jesus Christ. A difference between Kafka’s postwar European university and the secular twentieth-century American college may well be that the Americans are still expecting to catch fish, but the story holds.

Facing The Real Issues

And now a question. What is a Christian to do about it? Shake one’s head, smile, and wander off out to where there is some fundamentally fresh air and flowers? Or, like a liberal hail-fellow-well-met, pull out one’s fishing tackle and sit down beside the man, letting one’s own line dangle dialectically in his tub, too? What is a Christian college? A separate, specially built bathtub stocked beforehand with approved edible fishes—so that Christian education becomes one big sanctified fish fry?

We Christians, I think, would be much less timid about what we are doing educationally if we had a clearly developed understanding of what a Christian college is, what spirit must drive it on, and exactly what is going on in academic America today.

On Church-Relatedness

A church-related college is not necessarily a Christian college. Many private American colleges today are church-related simply because some devoted clergymen started them in the nineteenth century, and the historical relation has been maintained because the church, like a distant rich uncle, puts up the desperately needed money in the spring of the year—providing that the Bible department hasn’t gotten too far out of line and any student immorality has been kept out of the headlines. Moreover, if a church has betrayed its centuries-old Christian confessions, the fact that the college is “church-related” means little.

If “church-related” means that the college is church-dominated, and the church be orthodoxly sound, then you may have the machinery for a Christian college. But is it the church’s business to run a college? The church may give birth to centers of advanced scientific study and prop those young institutions up like saplings during their infancy; it has done so, thank God. Because a college is not a church, however, some of us contend that it is a mistake to subject one to the other, that is, to let one kind of social structure dominate the internal workings of another kind of institution. Whenever that happens, both become denatured. That is why some Christian “colleges” actively dominated by a church are not so much colleges as lay seminaries, restricting themselves predominantly to the church-like business of mission—ministry—youth-work training with nary a major in sociology, French, or mathematics; and denominations running a full-fledged college today soon, if they lack the worldliwise Romanist restraint of watchdog control, find themselves with a million-dollar building program on their hands for dormitories, science buildings, and gymnasia—a rather devilish distraction from the Church’s first love, the pastoral care of its many members and preaching the Gospel.

Sincere subscription by the faculty to certain theological dicta, and a measure of honest piety and prescribed morality among the student body—if you will not misunderstand me—even these pearls of great price do not yet make a college biblically Christian in its workings. I have no patience with existentialistic quibblers unwilling to pin themselves down to confessional standards; and the anomaly of “required chapel” and proscribed liquor is no laughing matter, because those regulations are at least hard-headed attempts to meet terribly basic problems. But we evangelicals must resist the temptation to rest our case for Christian college education on the Christian environment we maintain, for it is full of holes. My church has long had an unwritten rule against attending the movie theatre, and then television came in the back door—fait accompli; prohibition of the modern social dance on campus—rightly so—has not stopped students from petting indiscriminately in the dark.

Yet it is especially for our Bible-believing creeds and signal virtues that unbelievers know us and defer. We are law-abiding citizens, a credit to any community, minding our own religious business; thank you for letting us shine “this little light of mine” on our 25–50–200 acres. Why, we wouldn’t hurt a fly. But maybe biblical Christians should be hurting flies, should be training to stand up ever to dragons without apology but with the flaming sword of the spirit—demythologized dragons like the Russian bear, and if need be, to a new kind of American centaur with elephantine hide and donkey’s head. The most impeccable “Christian” college will always be something of a tatterdemalion. What shall it profit us if the secular world comes to esteem us for our inoffensive, genteel behavior? For the sake of our suffering Lord, we should perhaps cultivate less pacific qualities, those with more biblical grit and Wesleyan vigor.

The Learning Process

So, you say, if church-relatedness and moral perfection do not make a college distinctively Christian, what does? The living presence of the Holy Spirit in the very matter that makes a college a college—what goes on between a teacher and student.

Strip away all the fringe benefits of a contemporary American liberal arts college—not coeds necessarily, but choirs, clubs, and college publications, if they are not made academic disciplines—the core of a college is still its wissenschaftlich educating action. That is its reason for being. A college is not a Robert Shaw Chorale, Rotary Club, newspaper business, or convalescent home. A college is that intimate association of a professionally competent, practicing investigator in a certain field with a young inquiring follower, who together, really communally together, leading and questioning, searching and finding, take some aspect of God’s world, however small—atom, irregular verb, or the nuance of “idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean”—and examine it until its meaning is discovered. Education, I dare say, is basically learning to make distinctions, uncovering and interrelating the meanings of different things. If education takes place it will involve a communal examination of created reality in which some new understanding of its nature and workings is born.

God Or An Idol

And this is the Christian insight on education: that such examination and its results take place inescapably within the framework of a dynamic religious perspective. By “religion” I do not mean the Christian faith, Sabbath consecration, or moral acts in general. By religion I mean that inescapable, structural God-relatedness of man, that deep-down unconscious bent of being dependent upon some Absolute that every man has, that sensus deitatis, the directedness of one’s self toward the true God or toward whatever one takes to be divine, final. By “perspective” I mean focus, the simply lived-out, expressed, or carefully articulated hanging-togetherness of a sane man’s thought, word, and deed. So I assert as a biblical position that whether a man eat or drink or abstain or study, whatever he does issues either from a heart committed to the true and jealous God Almighty revealed in Jesus Christ through the Scriptures or from a heart attached to some temporal idol, whether bacchanalian or as sophisticated as Reason. As Deuteronomy 30 puts it: human action is on the road of life and blessing or on the road to death and a curse—choose whom you will serve!

To realize that the delicate, triggering process of education is the working out of one’s religion, that learning is full-fledged worship of God or denial of him, that the fine sifting and fallibly deciding that “this theory is so, and that problem is false, and the other clue is worth pursuing” is all couched in and simultaneously giving body to one’s stand toward God or against him—to realize all this is altogether sobering—and exhilarating! Because: where two, teacher and student, are gathered together in Christ’s name, there His Spirit is. So the teacher’s fear and trembling at what rests so trustingly in his hands need not be a Kierkegaardian agony: it can be an overflowing rush of hope that despite the blind mistakes and shortcomings, out of this work something glorious may come—their growing in the fear of the Lord, because the Spirit is nearby, blessing. Only that—a teacher and student in the very activity of learning growing in the fear of the Lord—only that makes a college Christian. All else is vanity.

It takes more than devout Christians to make a Christian college. The free gift of God’s grace and the play of the Holy Spirit inside wissenschaftlich investigation are needed to establish it.

No one who keeps at least superficially abreast of the theological literature pouring from the presses of various countries these days can escape the impression of being flooded with significant problems. Moreover, these problems are discussed so intensely that only the brave dare pursue them to the end. Matters that used to be set out in brief and clear summaries are now becoming far more complicated, sometimes needing the tools and training of specific and rather awesome specialization. The preacher is now faced with the burden of coming to terms with some of these complex problems.

The average pastor has too busy a schedule and too limited leisure to keep up with the theological evolution these days. But meanwhile, the developments can too easily pass him by. He may well get the feeling that the dialogue is beyond him, leaving him insecure in the theological discussions going on everywhere around him. The trouble is that he may not divorce himself from the theological dialogue. It is bound up too closely with the life of the Church he serves. However difficult this may be, he shall have to orient himself to the problems on the agenda of the modern theological world.

There is another problem that the minister faces in regard to the theological world. Is there not a danger that the certainties of the simple Gospel which we preach on Sunday may be undermined and even destroyed by the complications of modern theology? Does not theology complicate the Gospel needlessly? If theology needs specialists, cannot the preacher best leave it to them and go on preaching the Gospel? One need think of only a few of today’s theological problems: the exegetical studies in the Four Gospels (form criticism, the priority of Mark, the meaning of the Fourth Gospel), the theology of election, the doctrine of the Church, eschatology (does the New Testament give a journalistic report of things to come or is the portrayal of things future a matter of apocalyptic mythology?), the theology of the Incarnation, the question of Christology as a hermeneutical principle for interpreting the Scriptures. These are not just theological problems—games without practical importance: each is intimately involved with the preaching of the Gospel.

I should mention, too, the controversy between Rome and the Reformation. Can we rest with the traditional formulation of the controversy? Or have new problems arisen, or at least new ways of stating the old ones? Can we stand aside while discussions are going on about reinterpretations of Trent? For example, what are we to think of Hans Kueng’s discussion about the meritoriousness of good works? And what about the new views regarding the relationship between Scripture and tradition?

Our former ways of putting the Rome-Reformation contrasts are being made more complicated by new discussions within the Roman community. We can no longer get by with simplistic formulations. We have passed into a period of deeper analyses of the motivations that have played real roles in theology. We may be tempted, where possible, to win an argument against an absentee opponent by means of cheap and easy diatribes. But the times and the situation call for truth and integrity. Both of these cost us time and labor, as well as honesty.

Bishop Robinson’s book, Honest to God, which has aroused such hefty debate in England, holds up traditional theological views to the light of Tillich, Bultmann, and Bonhoeffer. I am not interested in debating the contents of the book; I only want to call attention to its title. The title is—in contrast to the contents—admirable. Integrity before God and men in a new world, a world brimful of new problems! This is a legitimate demand.

There are forms of “fundamentalism” (an unfortunately vague word) which will have nothing to do with these new problems. Behind this refusal of certain types of “fundamentalism” to come to grips with hard questions lies a kind of anxiety lest problems be a danger to Christian faith. But though we may let the problems alone, the younger generation does not. They, at least those seeking an education, are already busy with them. What they want, and that justly, is honesty. Often it is the demand for honesty on the part of a new generation that keeps us going hard at such questions as those of creation and evolution, the inspiration of Scripture, God’s providence, and the biblical message of the future.

I am convinced that we must be careful, in criticizing such books as this one of Robinson, not to close our minds to the demand for honesty. An honesty which has a candid eye open to the problems of the day is basically Christian and belongs to our Christian responsibilities. If we were to renege on this Christian responsibility, we would confine Christian life to a ghetto of irrelevancy and powerlessness.

The harder the problems, the greater our responsibility becomes. The great question behind most other questions involving church and theology is the question of certainty. But we want a certainty that is unafraid, that wears no theological blinders. It must be a certainty that is willing to abide a grappling with all problems, that is willing to subject itself to all kinds of critiques, and that is more than ever persuaded that faith is what overcomes the world (1 John 5:4).

For this kind of certainty, we need each other. The theological dialogue of these days is in earnest. No one who wants to serve the Church can wash his hands of it. He who is afraid of new problems denies the Lord who makes us free—free to serve in a new day filled with new problems.

SPEED-UP ORDERED—It was nine years ago that the famous school desegregation opinion was written … call[ing] for dropping the racial barriers with all deliberate speed. But reactionaries have used even this concise statement for their own ends and have interpreted it to support evasion. This, the [Supreme] Court has now made plain, is intolerable. Gradualism will not hold up in court.… Civil rights must be granted to all at once.—New York World-Telegram.

SOURCE OF STIMULATION—Negro leaders are high-pressuring the Kennedy administration to coerce the dissenters on the segregation issue, even if it means the ruin of many private businesses which are caught in the emotional collision between rival groups in local communities. President Kennedy … has gone much further without law than any other chief executive to compel what is called “equal rights.” But the Negro leaders—stimulated by the immunity granted by the Supreme Court recently to participants in street demonstrations which have provoked violence—say Mr. Kennedy hasn’t done enough. So the President … [has asked] Congress for more sweeping authority over business than has ever been given a chief executive in a federal statute.—Columnist DAVID LAWRENCE.

WE ARE THROUGH—Because of our love for democracy we cannot wait. We are through with gradualism. We are through with see-how-far-you-have-comeism. We are through with we’ve-done-more-for-your-people-than-anyone-elseism. We cannot wait. We want our freedom now.—MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

LOSS UPON LOSS—The outstanding danger is a loss of confidence by the Negro people in the good faith of the white people. If confidence is lost that there is a legitimate remedy for genuine grievances, there will be lost at the same time confidence in the doctrine of non-violence. What will come after that is unpleasant to contemplate.—Columnist WALTER LIPPMANN.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE—Not in recent history has there been so much overt hatred of whites for Negroes and Negroes for whites. Both sides, it now appears, feel the federal government is against them—creating a climate of potential tragedy … all over the country.—Alabama Journal (Montgomery).

MONGERS ON BOTH SIDES—This country, which has not in fact ever been very strong on hatred, is being warned, rightly if excessively, against the “merchants of hate.” We ought, however, to be alerted to another sort of merchant, too, This is the monger of hysteria.… All over this land he is suddenly overstating and inflaming, rather than sensibly seeking to abate, the current racial tensions.—Columnist WILLIAM S. WHITE.

WORD OF WISDOM—Wisdom surely counsels the avoidance of action which inflames prejudice and which invites the most serious consequences by resort to such tactics as bringing school children into the streets to participate in mass demonstrations.… The Rev. E. Franklin Jackson has said that if Negroes can’t get what they want by non-violence, “you may look for blood to flow in the streets of every city in the country.” To be sure, these and similar statements are put in the form of predictions or warnings. But they could easily serve the cause of incitement to violence.—The Evening Star (Washington, D. C.).

VOICE FROM WITHIN—If we are to take on the same characteristics of our oppressors and our enemies—intolerance, bigotry and allowing no voice to speak but those that say what we want to hear—I feel that certainly our cause may well be doomed.—JAMES H. MEREDITH, first Negro student enrolled in the University of Mississippi.

GOSPEL GUIDANCE—While the Christian should have a special love toward other Christians because they are “blood” brothers, bought by the precious blood of Christ, he should never forget that, as Jesus taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan, all men are our neighbors.… Christian ethics cannot support segregationist ideas, for such ideas have no place whatsoever in a truly Christian view of life.—C. HERBERT OLIVER, No Flesh Shall Glory, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1959, pp. 59–61.

EFFECT ON EVANGELISM—We believe that the propagation of the Gospel is hindered in many foreign countries by these [discriminatory] practices, and we believe that many from these minority groups in our own country are alienated from the Gospel by these actions.…—Resolution of the 1963 convention of the National Association of Evangelicals.

FRUSTRATING DILEMMA—There is no place right now where it seems more difficult for the child of God to measure up to the high demands of the Christian religion than in the area of race relations. In some communities the pressure on the Christian is terrific. This is particularly true of many ministers who find themselves in a frustrating dilemma. They have a deep inner desire to proclaim what they interpret to be the Word of God concerning segregation and desegregation. On the other hand, the climate in the community and even within their churches is such that they are uncertain about effects of the proclamation of the truth. Would it do more immediate harm than good?… This much we can say: “If they are true prophets of God, they will speak the word the Lord delivers to them.”—T. B. Maston, Segregation and Desegregation: A Christian Approach, Macmillan, 1959, pp. 165, 166.

POSITIVE PROOF—We must never forget that the ultimate solution to racial injustice is a changed heart and life, wrought through the work of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Just as love for one’s neighbor is proof of one’s love for God, so one cannot love his neighbor truly until he loves God by personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Having said this, however, we would urge Christians to do something personal in the present crisis.—The Sunday School Times.

How To Plan A Teaching Sermon

A teaching sermon calls for a careful plan, clearly visible. Let us assume that a pastor has begun in good time, that he has a worthy goal with a royal text, and more than enough materials, from both his passage and outside Holy Writ. In the spirit of prayer he sits down to figure out the best way to use the materials in meeting a need today.

Mentally, planning starts with a purpose, as it concerns the hearer, one of many. This aim a man does well to write out, word for word, and then keep in view. He may wish to win the unsaved hearer. Then may come the phrasing of a topic, with both the divine and the human, often in this order. A good topic shows how the minister interprets his text, and how he will proceed in the sermon. This kind of topic dominates all that follows. The topical use of materials from a Bible passage! Unity!

As often with F. W. Robertson, the facts may call for two main divisions; with C. E. Macartney, four; or R. E. Speer, in a long address, five. No more! What about three, which Maclaren is supposed to have preferred? In one of his ablest books, The Secret of Power, thirteen out of twenty sermons have a four-point plan. If the facts call for three, have three. Let the purpose and the materials guide in making the plan. Whatever the number, let the headings stand out like piers in a suspension bridge.

To aid both speaker and hearer, in each main heading use the gist of the topic. Phrase all the headings in a like form, often in sentences, easy for the layman to remember because of parallelism. Each main part may call for subheads, easy for the speaker to recall, but not for the hearer to notice. Somewhere determine which of the main divisions, if any, call for illustrations.

With the main body now in view, decide about the path of approach. Before this consider more than one sort of introduction, but make the final decision after you know what to introduce. The effectiveness of a spoken discourse depends largely on the content and tone color of the opening paragraph. As the senior girls told me at Mary Baldwin College, “On Sunday with a visiting preacher we listen for a sentence or two. Then if he does not interest us we think about something nice!”

Why not put in the opening sentence the gist of the sermon, or the theme? A Simple declarative sentence, once known as the proposition, tells the substance of the discourse. Here listen to John H. Jowett, the most popular evangelical preacher thus far in our century: “No sermon is ready for preaching, ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal. I find the getting of that sentence the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labor in my study” (The Preacher, His Life and Work, p. 133).

At last the plan lies here, all complete. Tomorrow how make it better? By using four oldtime tests. 1. Unity. As with the Master’s seamless robe, is there unity, or only patchwork? Does everything in the message have to do with the topic? Does the topic relate directly to everything in the sermon? Because of faults here, one cannot preach without notes, and a hearer cannot recall the main parts of a message.

2. Order. Do the various parts follow a visible pattern? After a brief introduction, does the basic idea come first? Does each part lead up to the next? If so, both speaker and hearer can easily follow; the latter can gladly remember.

3. Symmetry. The last important test, in the least conspicuous place. Does the plan call for equal work, relatively, on each main division? Or does it tend toward anti-climax? Many a message at first full of promise oozes out into mediocrity. The reason? Not planned with sufficient skill and care!

4. Climax. Not in spectacular fashion but with growing intensity a real sermon builds up. Since a typical hearer thinks much about himself, the climactic order may be that of our Lord: Love God first, your neighbor next, and yourself last. Then by the grace of God you will begin to have a self with which to love both God and neighbor.

As in a newspaper article, put to the forefront what you wish the hearer to learn. Then make him long for such an experience. At last lead him to do what the Lord desires, in the light of this message from God’s Book. With all sorts of variety, this is the way the masters have planned teaching sermons. Who follows in their train? (For fuller treatment see the author’s The Preparation of Sermons, a teaching book, Abingdon Press, 1948.)

ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones (Ezek. 37:1).

Prophecy often comes as the gift of God to the imagination. When Ezekiel told the Hebrews about dry bones they had gone into exile. Through this vision they learned to hope in God. Without pushing the analogy too far we may think of that valley as like many a portion of earth today. Could any place seem more God-forsaken? Nevertheless, into that valley came the power of the Holy Spirit. What else do we need today?

I. Power from the Spirit. The prophets often write in terms of power, the power of God. Here the power comes from the Spirit as a Person of the Triune God. Power to bring life and hope here in the homeland, as well as in Africa and Asia. Herein lies the world’s only hope before the end of the present age.

II. Power through Preaching. In terms of today, “Preach to dead souls.” So the fathers spoke of a sermon as “thirty minutes to raise the dead.” The Spirit alone has the right to determine who shall preach and where, as well as what and how. Here he calls for a message of hope. Hope for dry bones? Ah, yes, life from the dead!

In early life Charles Darwin visited one of the Fuegian Islands so besotted he declared that no power could change them in a thousand years. A few decades later he sent the London Missionary Society five pounds as an unbeliever’s testimony that in less than a generation the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ had transformed the island.

III. Power through Prayer. In an oldtime valley after the preaching came a commotion, but the valley still was full of bodies dead. Such a commotion we have witnessed of late in Africa, largely because of preaching by our missionaries. But preaching alone can never bring life to dead souls. Life comes from power, and power comes from God, often in response to prayer. Why is it that we do not pray?

My friend, do you ever feel helpless in our atomic age, Yes; except when we look up, we all feel so because we forget the super-atomic power of Almighty God, waiting now to be released through the right sort of preaching, in response to the right sort of prayer. Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring life into many a valley of dry bones, and first of all, here at home.

If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? (Jer. 12:5).

[The first sermon Gossip preached after his wife’s “dramatically sudden death.” Perhaps the most noteworthy pulpit message in our century thus far. No one can fitly reduce it to halting prose. The two main parts, equal in length, have to do with how a believer shows faith while in the hour of testing.]

In the providence of God—

I. Every Man Has an Hour of Testing. “Never morning wore to evening but some heart did break.” When yours breaks, what then? How are you, so querulous and easily fretted by minor worries, to make shift at all in the swelling of the Jordan? With the cold of it catching away your breath, and the rush of it plucking away at your footing?

So many people’s religion is a fair-weather affair. I do not understand this life of ours. Still less can I see how people in bereavement can fling away peevishly from the Christian faith. In God’s name, fling away to what? By and by the gale dies down, and the moon rises, and throws us a lane of gold across the blackness and the heaving of the troubled waters. It is in the dark that faith becomes biggest and bravest, that its wonder grows yet more and more. So that by the grace of God—

II. Every Man Can Meet the Hour of Testing. The faith fulfills itself, is real, and the most audacious promises are true. The glorious assertions of Scripture are not propositions and guesses. There is about them no mere perhaps. These are splendid truths that human hands like ours have plucked in the garden of actual experience. Further, one becomes certain about the life everlasting.

One thing I should like to say, which I never have said before, not feeling that I had the right. In the mass we Christian people are entirely unchristian in our thoughts about death. We think aggrievedly of what it means to us. That is all wrong. In the New Testament you hear little of the families with the aching gap, huddled together in their desolate little homes on some back street; but on the other hand you hear a great deal about the saints in glory, and the sunshine, and the singing, and the splendor yonder.

And so, back to life again. Like a healthy-minded lad at some boarding school who after the first hour of homesickness resolves that he will throw himself into the life about him and enjoy every minute of it, always his eyes look for the term’s end, always his heart thrills at the thought of that wonderful day when he will again be with the loved ones.

You need not be afraid of life. Our hearts are frail. Ofttimes the road is steep and lonely. But we have a wonderful God. Who can separate us from his love? Not death. No, not death. Standing in the roaring of the Jordan, cold to the heart with its dreadful chill, and conscious of the terror of its rushing, like Hopeful I too can say to you who some day will have your turn to cross it: “Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom, and it is sound.”—From The Protestant Pulpit, compiled by A. W. Blackwood, Abingdon Press, 1947.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isa. 55:7; read vv. 1–13).

This verse is central to the chapter. The chapter comes from a supreme moment when the seer is borne aloft into the future. Here he beholds people who suffer because they have forgotten God and have rebelled against Him. Then he shows the breadth and the blessedness of God’s will for his disobedient children. Let us deal with the message as it relates to conditions here and now.

I. Two Conditions of Life Today. On the one hand, men in the desert, thirsting for water, hungry for bread, a picture of life, hot, restless, feverish, without water, without bread, without peace. In the garden men listen to the anthem of the hills, the applause of the trees. What does all of this mean?

A picture of the godless life! There are men whose birthright is among the mountains, men who have lost the rivers of God. This is a picture, not of Babylon alone but of our city today.

II. The Wicket Gate into the Garden. The text reveals God’s way of salvation.

Let a man forsake his evil way, by giving up his thoughts of evil, and by returning to God. A man does not come back by giving up specific sins, but by giving up his own ways and his own thoughts, for they are not those of God. A man sins as long as he chooses his own path. He never worships, never prays, has no commerce with heaven, no traffic with eternity, no fellowship with God. But God’s thoughts are higher by far. He thinks a great deal more of you than you do yourself if you think you can do without him. The difference is that between the height of heaven and the meanness of earth.

III. The Way Back into the Garden. Return unto the Lord. This is the Evangel. I wish I could put into words all the music in my soul when I say: “He will abundantly pardon.” “He will have mercy.” My brother, had it not been easy for you and me, we could never have found salvation, but it was not easy for God. In this hour we are gathered under the shelter of the Cross. Turn back to Him, knowing that by the touch of thy weak hand the gate will swing open and thou shalt pass into the garden of God. But know this also, that the very heart of God, the God who was in Christ, was bruised and broken to make sure thy welcome home.—From The Westminster Pulpit, London, March 3, 1911.

… Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee (Dan. 6:16b; read vv. 12–23).

In a den of lions this believer hears words of hope from an unbelieving king. In ways far different each of the two shows that in time of extreme peril belief in God affords the only sure protection. A case study for everyone likely to meet peril today.

I. The Believer’s Trust in God. “My God is able!” Note here the believer’s Loyalty to God—Fixity of Purpose—Certainty of Deliverance—and Clarity of Statement. “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!”

II. The Lord’s Care of His Believer. Note God’s Miraculous Deliverance—Complete Deliverance—Instructive Deliverance—Convincing Deliverance. “My God will deliver!” And so he did! He always does, according to his holy will, when a would-be believer trusts.

My friend, is your God able? Your answer: “Of course my God is able!” If so, how completely do you trust him? Trust him for eternity, and begin by trusting him now.—Adapted from Mark These Men, London, 1949.

… Is thy servant a dog …? (2 Kings 8:13; read vv. 7–15).

“Who would have thought it?” The exclamation comes to mind when you think, not only of military disasters, but of those crushing moral ambushes that suddenly overwhelm the soul of a man. The passage before us affords a case.

I. The Ignorance of Yourself. “Dog or no dog, he did it!” Mere disinclination is no guarantee against doing evil. The worst doer of evil may be the man who thinks he would never do such a wrong. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

II. The Inside Man of Sin. This is not complimentary to human nature, but a preacher is not here to praise human nature, alienated from God. Because you share the common nature of mankind, God warns you to be always on guard. Every man has his own ladder down to hell.

III. The Desire that Leads to Sin. With any suppressed desire to do wrong the opportunity to gratify that desire may soon arise. What in the distance may seem unthinkable and detestable takes on a far more appealing guise when desire and opportunity meet. In a moment ambition and opportunity to meet it are married. The issue of that marriage is sin.

IV. The Way of Unconscious Deterioration. As with a rotting log, the collapse comes suddenly, under a new stress. But the log has been rotting for years. Beware! “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts.”

With fear and trembling accept the Bible account of your heart. In order to be secure against sin, have Christ in your soul. Pray that he may dwell in your heart. Since all of your resolutions have failed, try the Lord. He is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of God.

“Well,” you say, “what a strange sermon in a theological seminary!” But remember our alumni. They had hardly put on their armor before some fell into perversions of Christianity. Others have become highly paid vendors of the small talk of the world. Still others have fallen into unspeakable sin, as though they never had been anointed with holy oil. These are facts, facts that ought to burn into your heart. You have a soul to be saved, a soul to be lost. “My soul, be on thy guard, ten thousand foes arise!”—From The Protestant Pulpit, ed. by A. W. Blackwood, Abingdon Press, 1947.

Luther Sans Lutheranism

Faith Victorious: An Introduction to Luther’s Theology, by Lennart Pinomaa, translated by Walter J. Kukkonen (Fortress, 1963, 216 pp., $4.75), is reviewed by Herman C. Waetjen, assistant professor of New Testament, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California.

During the past eighty years the quadricentennial of the Reformation as well as of Martin Luther’s birth and death have been celebrated. These three celebrations have provoked and stimulated a great Luther renaissance whose beginnings can be fixed by the publication in 1883 of the first of the now one hundred volumes of the authoritative, critical Weimar Edition of Luther’s works. With the aid of the exacting application of the historical-critical method, Luther scholarship has effected an entirely new appreciation and understanding of the German Reformer’s thought and work. Until very recently American Lutheran denominations have remained aloof of this movement and have preferred to understand Luther through their own tradition, which, as is now evident, involved an almost complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Luther’s theology in terms of seventeenth-century Lutheran scholasticism.

Gradually American Lutheranism has been yielding to this Luther renaissance, and the result has been a resurgence of theological vitality and activity. This is immediately evident in the fifty-five-volume American edition of Luther’s writings now being published jointly by the Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House. It is also manifest in the scores of books about Luther and his theology by Americans as well as translations of German and Scandinavian works on the same subject that are rolling off the presses every year.

Faith Victorious is one of these books belonging to the Luther renaissance and presenting a critical introduction to Luther’s theology. It is a European contribution written by Lennart Pinomaa, a Finnish professor of theology at the University of Helsinki, and consists of lectures the author gave on an American tour at various Lutheran seminaries under the auspices of the Lutheran World Federation.

Faith Victorious is an enthusiastic book about Luther’s thought by a Lutheran. At the same time, however, it does not present Luther as a Lutheran but rather as a Christian theologian who answered questions asked by life itself and drew those answers from the Bible. Pinomaa unfolds the richness, profundity, and complexity of Luther’s theology, and he does so in a precise, compact, concentrated manner. Each chapter deals with a part of the Reformer’s thought, relating it at the same time to the whole.

Especially worthwhile are the chapters entitled “Justification and Sanctification” and “The Spirit and the Word.” In the former, Pinomaa uses Luther’s own writings—as he always does in this book—to refute clearly the oft-repeated charge that Luther taught only justification and not sanctification and that Luther’s emphasis on justification leads to antinomianism. The author also demonstrates how Luther differentiated between the Word of God and the Word of God. For Luther the former is the outward Word, the Bible; it is an instrument of the Spirit, indeed, an incarnation of the Spirit. The latter Word of God is Christ. Through the Spirit’s influence Christ is in the external Word; “the Bible is the spiritual body of Christ” (p. 105).

American Lutheranism would do well to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this fine book. As a matter of fact, every Christian would benefit by reading it; for from the very beginning he is assured of a fine analysis and presentation of Luther’s thought, which is still remarkably relevant for Christian life and reflection in the twentieth century.

HERMAN C. WAETJEN

How They Buried Eschatology

The Last Judgment, by James P. Martin (Eerdmans, 1963, 214 pp., $4), is reviewed by Andrew J. Bandstra, assistant professor of New Testament, Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

While this book concludes with the consideration of A. Ritschl’s rejection of judgment and eschatology, investigation on this subject, as the author states, actually started at this point. How was it possible for Ritschl, who sought to return to the New Testament as the sole source of theology, to virtually eliminate eschatology and the last judgment from his theology when these figure so largely in the New Testament? The answer to that question, contends the author, lies in the exegesis employed by Ritschl. It is the burden of this book to show that exegesis takes place not above history, but in history, and is therefore influenced by philosophical, theological, and cultural factors. In this work, Martin, professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, seeks to expose those presuppositions—presuppositions of which exegetes may be unaware—in order to expose their influence in the exegesis of the biblical teaching of eschatology.

The modification—and the possibility for further modification—of biblical eschatology had its beginning in the theology of the Protestant Orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, as represented, for example, in J. Gerhard and F. Turretin. While these men held to the divine authority of Scripture, their view of the actual authority of the content of Scripture was weakened by their assuming the equivalence of the message of Scripture with tradition and confessions. They did not use this formal principle as the starting point for a fresh consideration of the biblical teaching of eschatology and, consequently, did not make it an integral part of the redemptive message.

This neglect of eschatology as an integral part of the message of salvation opened the door for an invasion of rationalistic individualism, which, indeed, came about in Later Orthodoxy as well as in Puritanism and Pietism. In various ways natural theology was assumed to be a necessary foundation and complement to revealed theology, and thus “Reason” began to dictate that which was necessary, important, and useful to know. In this respect eschatology fared badly, since Reason could “establish” the need for the immortality of the soul but had little use for the rest of eschatology as revealed in Scripture. While formal acceptance of Scripture as the norm for theology and Christian living staved off complete rejection of biblical eschatology, the last judgment became less and less an essential part of the understanding of the message of salvation.

In the third chapter, the author investigates the impact of rationalism and its concomitant, subjectivism, on such items as man, God and the world, and history.

The nineteenth century, while it contains also a reaction toward confessionalism and attempts at biblical theology and realism which reassert the importance of eschatology to some degree, exhibits the impact of rationalism and the failure to come to the New Testament view of eschatology. Indeed, this century exhibits most clearly the extreme reduction and virtual elimination of the last judgment in the positions of Schleiermacher, the Hegelian theologians. and A. Ritschl. Martin demonstrates this to be the result of the theological and philosophical presuppositions which governed their exegesis.

This is an important book. It is an important warning against an exegesis controlled by dogmatical presuppositions as well as an appeal, be it indirectly, for allowing the New Testament first of all to speak for itself and with its own categories. It might have been better had the author included in brief compass—perhaps an impossible task—the salient features of the New Testament eschatology to which he frequently alludes and in terms of which he assesses the exegetical results of the various periods.

It is not a book for laymen, but as the Foreword, furnished by T. F. Torrance, states, it “cannot be ignored by anyone who professes to engage in scientific work in the fields of biblical interpretation or systematic theology.”

ANDREW J. BANDSTRA

He Didn’T Say

The Reality of the Resurrection, by Merrill C. Tenney (Harper & Row, 1963, 221 pp., $4), is reviewed by Robert H. Gundry, assistant professor of biblical studies, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

In the first half of this book the doctrine of the resurrection is historically surveyed from pre-Christian concepts, through the Old Testament, and on through the New Testament and church history. The author’s prevailing method is to list passages from various sections of the Bible and to comment briefly on them. At times the resurrection in general is in view, at other times the resurrection of Jesus in particular. The latter half of the book contains apologetic and theological material.

There is a certain amount of sermonic padding on topics not closely related to the resurrection. This reviewer also felt a lack of careful exegesis and a failure to consider or even mention other, perhaps more probable interpretations. For example, David’s cry over his son, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me,” may express despair over a common destiny in the grave rather than yearning for immortality. Jacob’s statement, “I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning,” may be similarly understood. Psalm 16:10 probably voices confidence that God will deliver the righteous sufferer from death before it occurs, not after.

Jesus’ argument for the resurrection from Exodus 3:6 is passed over in a cursory manner. There is no discussion of Job 19:25–27, of the questions surrounding 2 Corinthians 5:1–9, of the chronological problems created by the “three days and three nights” of Matthew 12:39, 40, nor of the exact nature of “the sign of Jonah,” which has caused so much comment. The discussion of Jesus’ predictions about his death and resurrection ignores form-critical studies which would claim that Christians read their post-Easter faith back into Jesus’ mouth. The treatment of the resurrection accounts does not consider alleged contradictions which are used by some to destroy reliability and by others to establish the main features of the accounts inasmuch as the “contradictions” disprove collusion. One must avoid criticizing the book for not being what it was not intended to be. Yet the Preface states an intention to be relevant which would require more interaction with contemporary scholarship.

The strengths of this work are that it freshly states traditional orthodox arguments, shows that the doctrine does not stem from pagan sources, and emphasizes Jesus’ resurrection as an event “as truly historical as Cornwallis’ surrender at York-town” (against Bultmann’s de-objectivizing). Tenney also makes a good point that the resurrection was not so essential a part of Jewish theology generally, much less of Messianism, that Christians would have felt a necessity to fabricate the Easter story.

ROBERT H. GUNDRY

Scholarly And Fair

American Christianity, Volume II: 1820–1960, edited by H. Shelton Smith, Robert T. Handy, and Lefferts A. Loetscher (Scribner’s, 1963, 634 pp., $10), is reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, professor of history, Catawba College, Salisbury, North Carolina.

The second volume of this comprehensive work picks up the story of American Christianity in 1820 and brings the account up to the events and movements of 1960. These two volumes form a monumental collection of documents dealing with nearly every aspect of the history of the organized church in this country from its early days up to the questions which are agitating Christian people at this very hour. Together they are an invaluable collection of documents, not only for a serious study of American church history but for any study of American history which involves, even remotely, the thinking of Christian people on social, economic, and political issues throughout the history of this country. In this second volume the authors have furnished very adequate introductions to the documents they present as illustrations of the trends in American Christianity.

Reading for Perspective

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

★ The Holy Spirit, by Wick Broomall (Baker, $2.95). Author sketches the person and work of the Holy Spirit from the Old and New Testaments, presenting a sharply etched picture.

★ The Challenge of the World Religions, by Georg F. Vicedom (Fortress, $3.50). Author stirs the Church’s sense of mission because he believes that Christianity’s future will be decided as it confronts the religions of Asia.

★ Tradition in the Early Church, by R. P. C. Hanson (Westminster, $5.75). A careful study of the abundant literature comprising the tradition of the first three centuries. Author attributes more “inspiration” to some rejected letters than to some canonical books.

The authors are to be commended for the broad sweep of their material and for their willingness to include pertinent documents dealing with fundamentalism as a movement and with such great conservative leaders as the late J. Gresham Machen. Equally gratifying is the treatment accorded to the founding fathers of the Southern Presbyterian Church: Thornwell, Dabney, and Palmer. They have made available large sections from pertinent Roman Catholic material, particularly from papal encyclicals which have a direct and important bearing on the life and place of the Roman Catholic Church in this country, many of which are not always easily available to Protestant students. The attention which they pay to the rise of neoorthodoxy and the development of the ecumenical movement is not out of proportion to the importance of these movements in contemporary Protestantism in this country. However, this reviewer regrets a tendency to dismiss historic orthodoxy as something from which Protestantism has, and should have, departed. Although this is certainly not the author’s dominant theme, at times traces of this kind of thinking are visible. On the whole, the work is characterized by scholarly thoroughness and a genuine fairness as to both the documents included and the accompanying remarks. No important movement has been omitted, and no group has been neglected.

The average minister, whatever his theological position, should have this work, for it is an invaluable collection of source material which he would have great difficulty in obtaining on his own.

C. GREGG SINGER

Not For Reading?

The Church’s Use of the Bible: Past and Present, edited by D. E. Nineham (S.P.C.K., 1963, 174 pp., 21s.), is reviewed by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, professor of church history and historical theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

It was a happy idea, on the occasion of the reconstruction of the theology department at London University, to arrange a series of public lectures on the Church’s use of Scripture. With one or two changes due to unexpected circumstances, the essays in the present volume are the lectures delivered in this series. Seven authors contribute historical studies relating to the successive stages from the New Testament world and the Greek and Latin fathers, through the Middle Ages and the Reformation, to the eighteenth century and the modern period. The editor, Professor Nineham, then winds up the series with lessons for the present day.

With a series of this kind, it is natural that there should be great diversity of presentation. All the authors are scholars of repute, but they have different conceptions of their task and enjoy varying levels of success in achievement. Drs. Chadwick and Kelly tell us very little about the actual use of the Bible; they are more concerned with theological issues, and spoil the patristic reputation of Anglicanism by disliking the early understanding of Scripture. Miss Smalley seems to be leading us to a revolutionary view of medieval exegesis, but it turns out that the Renaissance and Reformation campaign for literal exposition was needed after all; again we learn very little of the common use of Scripture. Justifiably, perhaps, Canon Carpenter and Professor Lampe restrict their review of modern developments to the British scene, though it may be doubted whether we can attain to true understanding by national concentration. Perhaps the most uniformly successful contribution is that of Gordon Rupp, a Reformation scholar who shows a fine appreciation of the Bible in the Reformation age, and who is still convinced that the basic insights of the period were right.

The final essay by Professor Nineham is a disappointing conclusion. It is well written, and displays considerable reading and thought within a restricted sphere. Its starting point, however, is wholly within the liberal Protestant tradition. Hence it is not surprising that the argument moves in this circle, and that the tentative gropings after a solution of the biblical problem bear little relation to orthodoxy, whether in patristic. Reformation, or indeed biblical form. The ultimate conclusion as far as it concerns the use of the Bible is, in fact, both gloomy and sinister. Dr. Nineham apparently disapproves of the modern inculcation of individual Bible reading. Only scholars apparently can be trusted to read the Scriptures with understanding. The principle “who runs may read” is perhaps a passing one, linked to a passing understanding of Scripture. Even if some measure of understanding can be expected, how are ordinary men to relate these ancient things to modern issues?

Along the lines of this essay, we may indeed agree that little understanding will be possible and that the relevance to the modern age will remain obscure. For if one thing is certain, it is the fact that scholarship and human philosophising alone will not produce true exposition or application. Yet need we be so gloomy? Are not things hidden from the wise revealed to babes? Can not the Father in heaven make clear that which eludes flesh and blood? Is not the Holy Spirit the internal Master who breathes upon the page which he has given and brings its truth to light? In spite of Dr. Nineham, we hope that the modern rise of Bible reading, in Roman Catholic as well as Protestant circles, will continue and increase, for in prayer and seeking it is likely to contribute more to genuine knowledge and piety than the self-encircling antiquarianism or theorizing which does not truly begin with God, revealed and self-revealing.

GEOFFREY W. BROMILEY

Another Is Needed

The Reformation in England, Volume II, by J. H. Merle D’Aubigne (Banner of Truth Trust, 1963, 507 pp., 21s.), is reviewed by P. H. Buss, lay tutor, London College of Divinity, Northwood, Middlesex, England.

This second volume is as easy to read and as rich in illustration as the first, which appeared some months ago. The same flowing style whisks one from the court to the shop, from Rome to Canterbury, from the King to a humble subject. The reader almost takes part in the seesaw of power and contrasting influences in the critical years 1530–1547.

We read how authority was abolished and of the multiplication of the Word of God in English, yet how at the same time Roman Catholicism seemed as firmly entrenched as ever, with evangelicalism fighting for its very life. Papist and Protestant alike in these bewildering years fall to ax or flame. More gospel heroes, such as Bilney, Frith, and Tyndale, appear and disappear. Great men of state and church—More, Cromwell, and Fisher—topple. Queens are humiliated, divorced, and beheaded. Over them all looms Henry VIII, like some Tudor Herod: attractive and repellent, cultured and barbaric, with one hand gripping the heritage of medieval Catholicism and the other encouraging the progress of reformation. Throughout stands the enigmatic Cranmer, working for renewal, timid and bold, faithful and wavering, under the regimen of an authoritative Scripture and a sovereign liege at one and the same time. Slowly and painfully the Church of England edges towards reconstitution, and D’Aubigne charitably describes its position, so anomalous to some branches of Christendom.

Our generation is so fact-and-figure conscious that this classic history of the Reformation cannot be a standard textbook in the mid-sixties. A new D’Aubigne, with all his warmth, life, sympathy, and excellence, is needed for this task.

This volume contains the index to both volumes.

P. H. BUSS

Being As Revelation

The Later Heidegger and Theology, Volume I of “New Frontiers in Theology,” edited by James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr. (Harper & Row, 1963, 212 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, professor of ecclesiastical history, church polity, and apologetics, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

This volume, edited by two professors in the Southern California School of Theology at Claremont, is the first of a series on “New Frontiers in Theology.” Projected in the same series are discussions of The New Hermeneutic centering in the theology of G. Ebeling and E. Fuchs of the Bultmannian School and of Theology as History revolving around W. Pannenberg’s emphasis on the mighty acts of God in Christ Jesus. The series aims to remove the time lag between German and American theological thought and to bring American scholars into the maelstrom of Continental discussions.

This first volume in the series concerns itself with a study on systematic theology by Heinrich Ott, the young successor to Karl Barth in Basel. Bultmann used the earlier Heidegger to support his theological program; Ott now claims that the turn in Heidegger’s thought, which gives beingstrict priority, makes his philosophy more relevant to Barthian and to Bultmannian theology.

Modern philosophy since Descartes and Kant has been subjectivistic. This led Barth to reject the analogia entis on the ground that it meant subsuming God under man’s highest generalization, being, and thereby gaining control over God. God became a concept at man’s disposal. But now for Heidegger, being is not a general concept at our disposal. Rather, being is an occurrence of unveiling, so that to speak of God’s being and to speak of his freedom in self-revelation are congruous formulations. “The being of God signifies, in terms of the way we have understood ‘being’ thus far, an occurrence of unveiling, that God unveils Himself to thought as he who is!” (Exod. 3:14). Accordingly, as philosophical thinking is related to being when being speaks to thinking, so faith’s thinking is related to God when God is revealed in his Word. And Heidegger’s primal thinking, as gratitude for the favor of being, becomes thanking, and so is congruent with theology’s reverent awareness that one’s being is God’s creation.

This book is not easy reading. We suggest a second study of the opening discussion, after a perusal of the whole book. And readers will, no doubt, agree with parts and differ in other places, as do the sundry writers themselves.

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON

What Is Truth?

Truth and the Person in Christian Theology, by Hugh Vernon White (Oxford, 1963, 240 pp., $6), is reviewed by Samuel J. Mikolaski, professor of theology, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Many fine things can be said about this book, which is a shortened systematic theology developed around the concept of the person. Dr. White evinces a devout spirit attuned to the issue of salvation: “The heart of the matter is the heart of man, the man himself; the creature made in the image of God; the sinner who needs to be reconciled to God, and to his neighbour, and to himself” (p. 202). He stresses the person as a free, spiritual being created by God, the subject of experiences, not just a bundle of motor-affective responses, who must live in other spiritual selves to be himself (pp. 58–68). He is convinced that only the creatio ex nihilo can adequately account for the world (p. 96); that we must interpret its meaning teleologically, by the will of God; and that the categories of idealism and rationalism are inadequate to the Christian revelation. As an example of the latter, Dr. White cites the work of Dr. Tillich for criticism several times (e.g., pp. 7, 16, 217), paralleling therefore a growing body of literature critical of Dr. Tillich’s philosophical theology.

Essaying to criticize the orthodox doctrine of revelation, Dr. White, who is emeritus professor of Christian theology and world Christianity at Pacific School of Religion, contends that “the revelation is never the communication of truths or doctrines; it is always God making himself known” (p. 45), then proceeds to compound many equally dogmatic and unvindicated utterances. For example: “The immediate knowledge of God is faith itself” (p. 9); “God … reveals himself. He does not produce miraculously a book containing the truth he wants men to believe” (p. 93); justice is the “imposition of an impersonal rule upon the acts and relations of persons” (p. 116); concerning Jesus’ ministry, “it was wholly practical teaching …” (p. 124); “the Reformers were more aware of the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit than were their scholastic successors” (p. 216—but what of the post-Reformation studies of the Holy Spirit, including such English works also as Oman’s early seventeenth-century essay?); “there is no metaphysical knowledge of God” (p. 221). To say that “nature is a ‘whole,’ a complete reality about which universally valid formulas can be made” (p. 33) seems a venture of faith into scientific certainty (which the author is scarcely willing to advance for the Christian revelation) which the scientists of today might wish to call into question. This is not to say ipso facto that the language of Christian faith is more certain, but simply to suggest that perhaps the stance of science is neither so certain (for the content of the statistical method scientists look for a trend or systematic difference which is often blurred by chance or random fluctuation) nor the data of revelation so uncertain (“words … which the Holy Ghost teacheth,” 1 Cor. 2:13) as the author suggests.

Such pronouncements may be true, but they require argument and vindication on more clearly defined grounds. There is a curiously uneven use of Scripture in this book. At times frequent appeals to Scripture are made as authority. Why? In the treatment of certain other subjects—for example the Incarnation, Trinity, and Atonement, not much Scripture is used. Some justification of method seems needed.

Certain tantalizing questions occur to me. If the ultimate nature of the resurrection is to be found in the faith of believers, was it a reportable event (p. 47)? Are there three kinds of truth: historical, scientific, and theological (pp. 74, 75)? If the New Testament and orthodox theologians contend for the just judgment of sin (also in the Atonement), does this mean that justice is the imposition of an impersonal rule upon things and persons (p. 116)—for if relations are personal, can they be less than moral? Is the Incarnation interpreted in adoptionist terms by Dr. White (p. 95)—for do the words “the Word became flesh in Jesus Christ” (p. 219) mean that Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh? Further, with so much valuable stress laid on the person as subject, is it really true that the fourth-century Fathers did not have an advanced conception of the person? And, if personal language in the pronoun usages and forms of address for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is employed in Scripture, can it sustain the apparently modal interpretation of the Trinity that the author suggests (pp. 139–142)? What, then, is the Ascension? What does it mean to say that “man’s essential lostness is sin; sin is against God”? Why not a more concrete definition of sin as rebellion, failure, impiety, pride (to mention but a few realities)? What does universalism do to morality?

My comments may suggest more of criticism than appreciation, yet I have enjoyed this book and profited from it. The nature of the person is delicately and usefully discussed, but the development of the central issue of truth and the person is disappointing, primarily because the voluminous recent discussions of semantics, semiotics, and the truth functions of statements for revelation are not taken into account. Truth seems to be of several kinds involving in certain ways facts and history, yet transcending them as a sort of transcendental, nouminous, non-rational thing. Truth conveyed by language, the truth of factual assertions, seems to be peripheral to Dr. White’s exposition for the doctrine of revelation. Is religion at all important if its statements are not true in the ordinary sense of what is actually the case? This is all the more regrettable because he raises the question of how persons communicate. Beyond physical contact and observable emotional responses, he points out, language is the vital medium for personal communication. What a higher level of immediacy may be in the light of his stress on such a sentence as “the language of personal relations” (p. 83) remains, to me, obscure. What is this language? Can we avoid the basis in fact of faith and the role of language (among other finite factors) for revelation, if our religion is to remain biblical, historical, and graspable?

SAMUEL J. MIKOLASKI

Better On Attack

The Freedom of the Christian Man, by Helmut Thielicke, translated by John W. Doberstein (Harper & Row, 1963, 222 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by John H. Gerstner, professor of church history, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This volume contains an assortment of lectures, essays, and sermons by the distinguished rector of Hamburg University and pastor of St. Michaelis. The first chapter shows that the author is sometimes thinking of liberty to act rather than freedom to will, while in the next chapter he argues that ideals, if regarded as other than “pen-ultimate” (Bonhoeffer), can be the enemy of the freedom which is only in Christ. Of great interest is Thielicke’s discussion of the question “What Will We Say to the Young Communist on X-Day?” (pp. 109 ff.), in which Western materialism is shown to be no more acceptable than the welfare state of the East. When the Iron Curtain comes down, only the freedom which is in Christ will be worth presenting.

In “Freedom and Love of One’s Neighbor” Thielecke argues that Christian virtue consists not so much in feeling and acting differently as in seeing men differently. This means seeing them as fellow men which, ironically enough, the modern emphasis on “human relations” quite overlooks. The following statement shows not only the substance of Chapter VIII’s analysis of the meaning of history but much more: “Just as I cannot reason a posteriori from the creation to the Creator—as if it were really true that ‘all things corruptible are but a parable’—but can only know the secret of creation if I know the Creator and his heart, so I know that secret of judgment only if I know the Judge” (p. 173). The chapter on preaching presents the best-known Thielecke; that is, the learned professor who loves to defend the “kitsch” or corny. Perhaps a quotation from the last chapter summarizes Christian morality as seen through the eyes of the scholarly author of Theologische Ethik: “When I act in this way (retaliation) I am not free at all; then I am merely a function of my opponent.… [The Christian] does not simply ‘react’; he seizes a creative initiative and thus becomes free” (pp. 216, 217).

Like so many other present-day Christian thinkers Thielecke is better at attacking the enemy than he is at advancing the standard. The reason is that in the attack all the recognized weapons of intellectual warfare are used, but when the Christian proclamation goes forth its paradoxical form makes all these weapons suddenly obsolete, just as the enemy begins to counterattack. This is apologetics according to the rule “heads I win, tails you lose.” We Christians like this game—but can we blame the opposition for not wanting to play? But that this book could be better should not obscure the fact that it is a good book, unless we wish the best to be the enemy of the good.

JOHN H. GERSTNER

Think!

The Christian Mind, by Harry Blamires (Seabury, 1963, 181 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Lloyd F. Dean, pastor, East Glenville Community Church, Scotia, New York.

Not another C. S. Lewis, but strongly reminiscent of him, is this long-time instructor in an Anglican church training college in England. The burden of this provocative volume is that a Christian mind must be developed “in contradistinction to the secular mind” (p. ix). No such “collectively accepted set of notions and attitudes exist.… No vital Christian mind plays fruitfully, as a coherent and recognizable influence, upon our social, political, or cultural life” (p. ix).

In other words, the Christian mind of earlier periods “has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history” (p. 3). The pragmatists and utilitarians are in power both within the Church and without.

To reconstitute the Christian mind, it will be necessary “to reestablish the status of objective truth as distinct from personal opinions” (p. 38). The data of secular controversy must be handled “within a framework of reference which is constructed of Christian presuppositions” (p. 40). The Christian mind will, of necessity, view all of this life in the perspective of eternity, while “secularism is so rooted in this world that it does not allow for the existence of any other” (p. 64). There can thus be no easy coexistence between the Christian and the secular mind.

Through a series of incisive analyses of attitudes characteristic of the world and far too prevalent in the Church, Blamires portrays the desperate need for Christians today to think “Christianly.” Only on this basis can Christian evaluations of the most important areas of life and culture be understood and applied.

To the reviewer, it seems that Blamires is pleading (though it is not stated specifically) for Christian schools, kindergarten to university, that will establish a Christian mind and put this mind in both pulpit and pew.

LLOYD F. DEAN

Book Briefs

The Handbook of Africa, edited by Violaine I. Junod (New York University Press, 1963, 471 pp., $10). A valuable compendium of factual information on the fifty-odd political units of Africa. Gives data on geography, history, government, education, population, industry, and the like.

Philosophy of Education, by Leo Ward (Regnery, 1963, 311 pp., $6). A definitive statement of the character and purpose of education with special application to problems of our time; by a Roman Catholic member of the philosophy department of Notre Dame.

The Deed, by Gerold Frank (Simon and Schuster, 1963, 317 pp., $4.95). The story of the tangled passions and idealism of two Jewish boys who murdered a member of Churchill’s war cabinet on the belief that the act of assassination would change the course of history—and were hanged for their deed.

A Reasoned Faith, by John Baillie (Scribner’s, 1963, 180 pp., $3.50). A collection of selected essays written through the years and heretofore unpublished; simple language shows the relevance of the Christian faith for the problems of personal and social life.

The Dilemma of Modern Belief, by Samuel H. Miller (Harper & Row, 1963, 113 pp., $3). An analysis by a facile pen of the secularity of our world and a probing for a solution to our dilemma. Concedes everything resembling the historic affirmations of Christian faith on the ground that they are idols of our vanity, and worthless in today’s changed world.

Marital Counseling, by R. Lofton Hudson (Prentice-Hall. 1963, 138 pp., $2.95). A wealth of help and information for the pastor engaged in marital counseling. Author believes the cause of most sex problems is other than sexual; his notion of what is abnormal will jar the evangelically committed, and even some of the merely decent.

A Happy Married Life, by William S. Deal (Zondervan, 1963, 117 pp., $1.95). Homespun, sometimes perceptive essays on how to be both married and happy.

Outline Studies on I John, by R. A. Torrey (Zondervan, 1963, 84 pp., $1.95). Evangelical, easy-reading. “Outline Studies” means the material is organized, not that the studies are outlines of the content of I John.

Jesus: The Man, the Mission and the Message, by C. Milo Connick (Prentice-Hall, 1963, 462 pp., $9.25). A thorough work, clearly presented, excellently bound, by an author who constantly backs down from a clear affirmation of miracle, resurrection, and the like. A scholarship that neither possesses nor creates strong conviction or deep commitment.

Christian Worker’s New Testament—Psalms, edited by J. Gilchrist Lawson (Zondervan, 1963, 427 pp., $2.50 for “Regular Edition”). “All subjects connected with the theme of salvation” indexed and underlined in red. Small print, cheap cover, overpriced.

He Spoke to Them in Parables, by Harold A. Bosley (Harper & Row, 1963, 184 pp., $3.50). Very practical sermons whose ethics are far better than their theology. The sermons are too good not to read, and too poor to preach.

Beyond the Law, by James A. Pike (Doubleday, 1963, 102 pp., $2.95). The lawyer-turned-bishop looks back at the legal profession. Pike at his peak.

Religion and Contemporary Society, edited by Harold Stahmer (Macmillan, 1963, 282 pp., $4.95). Catholics, Protestants, and Jews assess the effect of religious pluralism in the U. S. Assessors include W. Pauck, R. Niebuhr, A. A. Cohen, and J. Wicklein.

Paperbacks

Puzzled Parents; Where Did I Come From?; Hour a Family Begins; The Start of a Family; Science and You; Sorting Things Out; and The Christian View of Sex, by Hugh C. Warner (Concordia; 1963; 33, 10, 17, 17, 31. 19, and 31 pp.; $.35 each). Sane, sound discussions of the physical and social functions of sex. For different age groups.

Ethics, Crime, and Redemption, edited by Stanley J. Rowland, Jr. (Westminster, 1963, 90 pp., $1.25). A theological approach to social morality and crime. The author is an editor and feature writer on the staff of the United Presbyterian Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations. The nature of his theological basis? “Creation was an act of faith by God.… God believed in us enough to make his love and redemptive will incarnate in a man as his son.… Christ embodied the Father in that he embodied God’s faith in man.…”

The Christian’s Approach to University Life, by Oliver R. Barclay (I.V.F., 1963, 63 pp., 2s.). A stimulating and scholarly treatment by the Graduates’ Secretary of British Inter-Varsity Fellowship.

Cigarette Smoking and Cancer (American Cancer Society [521 West 57th St., New York 19, N.Y.], 1963, 32 pp., free). The evidence which has led the American Cancer Society to conclude that “beyond reasonable doubt cigarette smoking is the major cause of the unprecedented increase in lung cancer.”

Christian Issues in Southern Asia, by P. D. Devanandan (Friendship, 1963, 174 pp., $1.75). A readable, informative discussion of the problems of the Church in changing India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Nepal, by one who believed in the uniqueness of God’s revelation in Christ.

The Holy Spirit of God, by W. H. Griffith Thomas (Eerdmans, 1963, 303 pp., $1.95). One of the relatively few extant fine works on the Holy Spirit. The L. P. Stone Lectures of Princeton, 1913.

Jesus’ Teaching in Its Environment, by John Wick Bowman (John Knox, 1963, 120 pp., $1.75). The message of Jesus as it occurred within its environment. Sober, lucid, and informative, with reference to modern scholarship.

Chrysostom and His Message, selected and translated by Stephen Neill (Association, 1962. 80 pp., $1). A selection from the sermons of St. John Chrysostom.

A Marketplace Ministry

Methodists will erect a new church in the heart of an eighty-acre shopping center neat Phoenix, Arizona. Developer John B. Kilroy sees the church as a return toward making a religious center the focal point of a community. The Rev. James R. McCormick, 27, of Jackson, Mississippi, appointed to lead the congregation, says it will “open a lot of doors for a kind of ministry where there’s no precedent.”

Protestant Panorama

Statisticians for the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) say they erred in reporting a membership loss of nearly 56,000 for 1962. The decrease was only 14,989. They hope to reduce the chance for errors next year by feeding data into IBM machines.

Southern Baptists now have churches in all fifty states. The last state without Southern Baptist representation was Vermont. The first congregation was established there several weeks ago in the town of South Burlington.

American Baptist-related Chung Chi College of Hong Kong is one of three schools which will form a new degree-granting university. The colony has only one other university.

A joint committee of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church is drafting a plan of union for the two denominations. Work on the detailed plan of union follows two years of exploratory negotiations.

Lutheran Church of Sweden’s $100,000 memorial library in honor of the late U. N. Secretary Dag Hammarskjold was dedicated near Kitwe, Northern Rhodesia. The library is located at the Mindolo Ecumenical Center, an hour’s drive from the site where Hammarskjold was killed in a 1961 plane crash.

Miscellany

A lecture series on the four Gospels will be televised in September under auspices of the National Council of Churches’ Broadcasting and Film Commission. The weekly half-hour telecasts will be part of the NBC-TV regular Sunday program, “Frontiers of Faith.” Speaker for the September series will be Dean Robert C. Campbell of California Baptist Theological Seminary.

Congress approved a joint resolution accepting a gift by the state of South Dakota of a statue of the Rev. Joseph Ward, pioneer Congregational missionary and educator of the nineteenth century.

A 1,000-year-old church in Payerne, Switzerland, was rededicated for continued worship. The church had not been used since the Reformation.

Southern Baptist Annuity Board, which currently leases office space to a federal government agency in Dallas, says it will not bid on a new lease agreement which would make the property owner comply with yet-to-be-written equal employment opportunity regulations.

Rock River Methodist Conference will establish a chair of religion at Northwestern University in honor of its episcopal leader, Bishop Charles W. Brashares of Chicago.

Roberts Wesleyan College won accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.

The Cuban government expelled two Southern Baptist missionaries last month following two days of house arrest. Dr. Lucille Kerrigan and Miss Ruby Miller said that authorities would give no reason for the expulsion. Four Southern Baptist missionaries still remain in Cuba.

A statement signed by all heads of major denominations in Great Britain last month called for a Christian day of prayer in view of recent “repressive legislation” in South Africa. The statement also called for financial support for legal actions against the legislation and for “those left in hardship or even destitution because their wage-earners are removed.”

Hebrew Christian Alliance of America appealed to “the people and the government of Israel to grant recognition as ‘Jews’ to all people of Jewish birth regardless of their religious belief.”

Personalia

Dr. Sanford S. Atwood chosen president of Methodist-related Emory University.

Dr. Sidney A. Rand elected president of St. Olaf College.

Dr. Stewart L. Boehmer appointed president and chief executive officer of the Toronto Bible College.

The Rev. Franklin Chestnut elected moderator of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Dr. Iain Wilson elected first incumbent of the newly endowed William Oliver Campbell Chair of Homiletics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

The Rev. G. N. M. Collins appointed professor of church history at Free Church College, Edinburgh.

The Rev. Thorvald Kallstad named dean of the Union Methodist Theological Seminary at Gothenburg, Sweden.

The Rev. M. A. Thomas named first director of the new Ecumenical Study Center and Lay Training Institute near Bangalore, India.

The Rev. Dudley J. Stroup chosen as rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church of St. James the Less of Scarsdale, New York. The church has been involved in a controversy with a nearby country club over alleged racial bars.

Worth Quoting

“Some of our clerical visitors from Communist Europe, I am certain, are men of God who are trying their best to keep religion alive under very trying circumstances.… [But] it can be taken for granted that at least a small quota of our visitors have been Communist secret police agents in clerical garb.”—Senator Thomas J. Dodd.

“They felt it was a poor investment for the church if I continued at my weight.”—Ministerial candidate Michael Hughes, suspended for a year by St. Paul’s College but promised readmission if he can lose about 200 of his 419 pounds.

DEATHS

DR. ALFRED JAMES GAILEY, 67, clerk of the General Assembly and secretary of the Irish Presbyterian Church; in Belfast.

EDGAR T. WELCH, 82, first president of the Methodist General Board of Lay Activities; at Westfield, New York.

MRS. INA DAVIS FULTON, 89, former treasurer of the Methodist Woman’s Division of Christian Service; in Nashville.

The following report was prepared forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. Claud Nelson of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, who was an official delegate-observer at last fall’s Vatican Council session:

What can one say, in the light of the first session and of the change of popes, as to the outlook for the second session of Vatican Council II? Will the trends that became marked in the first session continue, and find formulation in papal decrees? Will an ecumenical climate be maintained and encouraged? This reporter lays no claim to clairvoyant foresight, but finds reason to expect, on the whole, affirmative answers to both questions—regarding the first as internal and specific, and the second as more general.

Pope Paul can weight the scales as unmistakably as Pope John did. The impression with which I left Rome in November was that Cardinal Montini, whether from prudence or conviction, was supporting Pope John’s efforts toward aggiornamento, bringing the Roman Catholic Church up to date. On December 5, the cardinal spoke decisively in favor of sending the schema on “The Church” back for revision to the Theological Commission and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity—the same disposition that Pope John had already made of the chapter on the sources of revelation (following a not quite two-thirds majority vote of the bishops to suspend discussion of that schema as submitted). Montini had written in his weekly diocesan letter to the Milanese that council progress had been hampered because members of the Curia (heads of Vatican administrative “congregations”) had prevented cooperation among the various commissions during the council’s preparation.

The Federal Council of Protestant Churches in Italy has been issuing a well-informed and reasonably balanced bulletin on Vatican II. It has reported rumors (of which I have partial confirmation through Catholics) that the new schema on revelation will avoid any dichotomy in speaking of “sources,” using the formula, Scripture alone in the mouth of the Church (Sola scriptura in ore ecclesiae)—a formula that is obviously elastic, but significant because of what it replaces.

Some probable products or by-products of Vatican II are, I think: restricting the Curia’s determination of policy; emphasizing the bishops’ responsibility and authority, individually, collegiately (in council), and regionally; encouraging lay activity and evangelistic responsibility; supporting the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity; encouraging ecumenical dialogue by competent theologians on the nature of the Church, traditions, baptism, biblical interpretation, and the work of the Holy Spirit. About mixed marriages and population pressures I am not prepared to hazard any guess. However, Cardinal Cushing’s adoption of a stand similar to that of Hans Kueng evidences that important Catholics see the injustice of the present mixed-marriage regulations.

Will the political irenicism of Pacem in Terris have Pope Paul’s support? His policy in Milan would indicate that he counts more on a friendly pastoral attitude than on anathema. Italian political developments and the presence or continued absence of Greek Orthodox delegated observers may furnish additional clues as to Roman Catholic policy on Communism.

My impression is that after another seven or eight weeks’ session, we shall still have more “climate” than formulas in evidence. Meanwhile, there is much and impressive evidence that the bishops are as earnestly and prayerfully seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit as the delegates to any Protestant or Orthodox assembly that I have known.

Orthodox Anniversaries

Ever since the excommunication of the Patriarch of Constantinople by Pope Leo IX in A.D. 1054, the Orthodox Church has been overshadowed in Western eyes by the more militant and more politically influential Church of Rome. In the West, Orthodox churches have frequently been weak, and the impact of Orthodoxy upon European history has been slight. Despite the somnolent appearance of this third-largest branch of Christendom, however, Orthodoxy has retained a significant degree of intellectual vigor and contemporary relevance. And last month, as if to document this claim, it reflected its vitality by two celebrations which drew the interest and attendance of the ecclesiastical world.

Marking one thousand years as a monastic community, historic Mount Athos, protruding deep into the Aegean Sea on the eastern coast of Greece, drew hosts of ecclesiastical leaders to the famed Great Lavra monastery for a week-long celebration of its founding. Among the first to arrive on the hilly peninsula was Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Istanbul, supreme leader of Eastern Orthodoxy. Patriarch Athenagoras greeted monks of Athos from the deck of the Greek warship which conveyed him to the harbor, then joined a long procession which wound up the steep hillside into the monastery yard. In this and other ships came King Paul of Greece; bearded patriarchs from Jerusalem, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Rumania; the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece; and more than one hundred other churchmen from religious centers throughout the Orthodox world. Representatives from other communions included Lutheran churchman Franklin Clark Fry, ecumenical spokesman W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, and Roman Catholic priest-journalists Christophe Dumont and Antoine Veger.

Following a solemn vesper service upon his arrival, Patriarch Athenagoras spoke to assembled cenobites of a need for “intercommunion … for exchange of views … among all Christians.” He noted that the world was divided because of a lack of dialogue between peoples. “We invite all theologians to work for a solution to the problem of spreading Christianity—how will we make it possible for Christianity to live on the face of the earth?”

The invitation was not without a context. Within days of the Mount Athos celebrations the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Greece announced that its hierarchy will meet on October 1 to determine whether to send delegate-observers to the second session of the Second Vatican Council. The council’s second session—Greek Orthodox observers were not present for the first session—is set to convene on September 29 by decree of Pope Paul VI.

(Several days later, while on a visit to the island of Rhodes, Patriarch Athenagoras announced that “very soon” a permanent Pan-Orthodox Committee will be set up to study Christian problems and promote church unity, Religious News Service reported.)

Soon after the affair at Athos another week-long celebration, also with ecumenical overtones, was held in Moscow and in nearby Zagorsk. The occasion was the golden jubilee of the episcopal consecration of Patriarch Alexei, supreme head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and three hundred foreign guests were invited.

The arrival of the Catholic delegates was preceded by a Vatican announcement that Pope Paul VI had accepted an invitation from the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church to be present at the ceremonies honoring Patriarch Alexei. The event, he noted, would mark a continuation of the “dialogue” with the Russian church begun when the late Pope John XXIII asked the church to send observer-delegates to the first session of the Second Vatican Council last fall.

J. M. B.

Ecumenical Education

Formation of a unique Association of Theological Faculties was announced in Iowa last month. The cooperative group embraces the State University of Iowa, the only state university in the country that offers a doctor’s degree in religion, and three denominational seminaries.

University officials said it marked the first time that Protestant and Roman Catholic theological institutions have joined with a state university to further study in theology.

The heads of the State University of Iowa School of Religion and the three seminaries, all at Dubuque, Iowa, said the association was formed to strengthen scholarly programs and resources at the four schools. The seminaries are the Roman Catholic Aquinas Institute of Theology, the Lutheran Wartburg Theological Seminary, and the Presbyterian theological seminary of the University of Dubuque.

The association will enable selected students and faculty members from the Dubuque seminaries to participate in the state university’s graduate program in religion.

Death Of A Sadhu

Crowds estimated at about 50,000 gathered near New Delhi last month to witness what they expected would be the “miraculous” emergence of a sadhu, or Hindu holy man, from a forty-day internment in an airtight sealed pit.

When associates opened the pit they found the decomposed body of eighteen-year-old Gunga Puriji.

Hundreds of devout Hindus, meanwhile, had flocked to pray at the spot where the holy man had had himself buried in order to demonstrate his progress on the path of yoga by suspending all the processes of his body while his mind communed with Brahma.

The sadhu’s body was cremated beside a nearby river. Police had to use force to curb outbursts by the shocked and disappointed crowds.

A Religious War

After some two and a half months of religious strife in Viet Nam Roman Catholic government leaders were still unrelenting. They gave no indication of ending discrimination against Buddhists and Protestants.

And a seemingly obvious question continued to elude American policy-makers most concerned about a settlement: Why does the Roman Catholic Church fail to act within the government dominated by its faithful?

President Kennedy was asked about the effect of the religious strife on military operations against Communist guerillas. He declared that “we’re bringing our influence to bear” in efforts to settle the religious dispute. He did not elaborate, except to say that the Vietnamese have been in war for twenty years.

Meanwhile in Saigon, heavily armed police moved in to break up a sit-down demonstration against discrimination by the Roman Catholic government of President Ngo Dinh Diem. Some of the demonstrators were still kneeling in prayer when the police swooped down swinging truncheons. Several Vietnamese girls were clubbed severely and hauled away with blood streaming down their faces.

The incident came after the Rev. Thich Tinh Khiet, supreme Buddhist leader in South Viet Nam, had sent a letter to President Diem declaring the Buddhists would stage non-violent demonstrations to demand enforcement of a religious liberty agreement signed June 16. The letter stated that “officials either have ignored orders of Your Excellency and the government or they have received secret instructions to discredit the joint agreement.”

At the same time, some 150 Buddhist priests and nuns demonstrated for about two hours outside the home of U. S. Ambassador Frederick E. Nolting, Jr., located near Xa Loi Pagoda, the main pagoda in the city. Some of the demonstrators, speaking in both Vietnamese and English, urged the United States to “settle our Buddhist problem.” Others declared the Buddhists would continue their struggle “until we die.”

National Rites

On August 15 the Japanese government will begin the first of a series of annual memorial services for the war dead. The decision by the cabinet to inaugurate the commemoration is fraught with religious precedent, say Japanese Christians.

The government says the service, to be witnessed by the Emperor and Empress, will be held for two reasons First, it is to fulfill a moral obligation of later generations to demonstrate their remembrance of those who died in behalf of their country. The government also argues that the service affords some opportunity for reflection on past wars and for expressing a desire for peace.

Although the government has declared, in keeping with a constitutional provision for separation of religion and state, that it will exclude all religious rites, officials have nonetheless admitted that the program will include a request to the nation to do mokuto, that is, to offer silent prayer. In the context of a Japanese memorial service it will be understood to be prayer to or for the spirits of the dead.

Christians in Japan are said to be suspicious that the government may be reviving a kind of state religion, or at least a state-sponsored religious rite, by this annual mokuto service. Such a rite could open the door for accusations of unpatriotic attitudes against Christians who refuse to participate. Some fear that even a revival of persecution could follow.

The president of the Japan Bible Christian Council, Dr. John M. L. Young, appealed to the Prime Minister to eliminate the mokuto service. A letter from Young also suggested that if the government called for mokuso, a moment of silent meditation, it would be more in keeping with the announced intention of avoiding any religious rites and with the practice of Western democracies at war memorial services.

The decision to hold annual memorial services for the war dead was made at a meeting of the Japanese cabinet on May 14. At that time, the welfare minister urged that the nation offer condolences to the war dead. Authorities have indicated, however, that they are sensitive to reactions from clergy and lay leaders.

The Montreal Faith and Order Conference, which gathered five hundred participants from fifty countries July 12–26, faced the World Council of Churches with the thorny question of whether to widen or relax the role of theology in its quest for church unity. In the first world theological study conference of its kind on the North American continent, the 270 delegates from 138 Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches sensed from the outset that doctrinal issues may be cresting toward “a moment of truth” in the ecumenical movement. They hoped before the final days of their dialogue to clarify the ecumenical role of faith and order concerns.

Not a few ecclesiastical leaders saw Montreal as essentially “a holding operation” by delegates trapped between conference fever pressures to “say something manifesting unity” and the theological urge to probe doctrinal debate in depth. Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, chairman of WCC’s Central Committee, characterized the conference as “transitional” and stayed for two days. Anglican Bishop Oliver Tomkins of Bristol, England, later elected conference chairman, reminded the opening press conference that the World Council has been “trying to elucidate the causes of church disunity for twenty years.” The Montreal conference, he added, was “simply an incident in a long continuing process.… Faith and order is not the only nor even the chief effort in the ecumenical field.”

Delegates and sixteen observers from nine churches outside the World Council assessed reports summarizing the ten-year effort of four theological study commissions named at Lund in 1952 to explore Christ and the Church, Tradition and Traditions, Worship, and Institutionalism.

Most theological world giants were notably absent. Now in retirement, Karl Barth and Emil Brunner bequeath ecumenical participation to younger men, content to have given them “a pointer.” The conference sent greetings to Leonard Hodgson, long an active participant. Anders Nygren of Sweden towered above most theologian-delegates. Unconvinced that theology holds adequate scope in the structure of WCC, not a few European theologians point to the mass of theological research still undigested by the ecumenical movement, while program-planners continue to move from theme to theme on the edge of journalistic relevance.

Edmund Schlink of Heidelberg contributed one of the outstanding papers, but sent an alternate, deciding that Rome in September would be more important than Montreal in July. Oscar Cullmann and A. Koeberle were preoccupied, and T. F. Torrance of Edinburgh and Hendrikus Berkhof of Leiden wanted summer respite from the ecumenical circuit. Norman Pittenger and Otto Piper were absent, too. But Roger Mehl of France, N. H. Soe of Denmark, and Albrecht Peters of Heidelberg were among those who came.

Only a small number of American participants are widely respected by Europeans as theologians. Paul Minear, who went from Yale to the WCC Geneva staff for two years, Jaroslav Pelikan, J. A. Sittler, Floyd V. Filson, Walter M. Horton, G. M. Lindbeck, R. Johnson, Bernard Ramm, and C. J. I. Bergendoff were among the American contingent. A group of younger theologians took a competent part in discussions.

When questioned about “theological greats” one American delegate after another would apologize for the lack of “scintillating greatness” in his own denominational circles and point outside his own communion. The pragmatic temper of American ecumenism has been doctrinally debilitating. Ecclesiastical leaders continually ask how theological contributions serve “the cause of unity.” Theological interest is largely confined to such consensus as promotes ecumenism. The fortunes of dogmatic theology are at low ebb (Princeton’s bookstore no longer stocks Hodge’s Systematic Theology). Seldom are achievements in biblical studies worked out in relation to dogmatics and ethics. “What can we say together,” asked French theologian Mehl at Montreal, “to help the Church to manifest on the doctrinal plane, more clearly and more courageously than in the past, that unity in Christ whose mystery is already known to us?”

The Montreal conference got off to a hopeful, if anxious, beginning. Methodist theologian Albert C. Outler of Texas noted that “Faith and Order is a risky business.… We are never further away than two bigots from disruption or three diehards from a deadlock.” And he added: “In this conference and its outcome, Faith and Order is on trial.… On the one hand, our colleagues in the WCC must form a judgment as to our distinctive contributions to the ecumenical movement as a whole. On the other hand, a sizable number of ecclesiastical statesmen have thus far regarded our enterprise as rather more arcane than practical.… This conference is almost certain to tip the balance in the verdict as to what function we have to perform in the WCC and in the larger cause of Christian unity.”

This was the first time in eleven years—since Lund—that Faith and Order was speaking to some of its concerns. Consequently, any statement by the Montreal conference (overall cost: at least $150,000) was sure to be judged, not simply by its easy generalities reaffirming the urgency of the Christian world mission or the desirability of Christian unity, but by the presence or absence of new commitments and specific evidences of increasing theological and ecclesiological unity.

Bishop Tomkins, in his conference address, said he lacked courage to poll the delegates on whether they had read the advance theological reports. “I have long believed,” he added, “that one of the main effects of Faith and Order work lay not so much in its printed results (indeed I am rather skeptical about how far these laboriously produced volumes and reports are in fact very widely read), but in the transformation that it produces in the outlook of those who take part in person.” That turn of things gave theologians eager for theological revival in the local churches little encouragement. But the bishop urged that “within the structure of our organization” WCC make room for “such sustained, intensive, serious theological discussion as to justify us in asking the leading theologians of Christendom to give their time and energy to meet with one another on occasions which will vindicate themselves by their own inherent value.” There was a word also for church politicians aspiring to theological competence: “We may be in danger of developing a sort of stage army of ecumenical activists who, wearing different hats, dash about the world meeting each other in a variety of guises.”

Dr. Minear was hopeful that reflection on the study document “Christ and the Church” would issue in a statement elaborating “what WCC believes.” That document contained two unreconciled reports by American and European sections. Professor Ernest Kaseman, who with Eric Dinkler of Bonn gave ardent support to Bultmannian positions, deplored the fact that the European report was written from the standpoint of Cullmann’s salvation-history rather than of Bultmann’s existentialism. A similar plea for the mirroring of Bultmannian perspectives came from the conference chairman, Bishop Tomkins, in the opening address: “Are we in danger of developing a kind of theological provincialism in our Faith and Order work?… Certain theological voices that are speaking amongst us today have not been sufficiently attended to in our work in recent years. To name only one, the kind of thought associated with Professor Bultmann is not reflected in our studies as effectively as it should be.…”

Mobilization For Integration

O freedom! O freedom!

O freedom over me!

And before I’ll be a slave

I’ll be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord

And be free!

Hands clapping, voices raised in song, the seven hundred pastors and laymen echoed Negro minister Andrew J. Young as verse after verse of the freedom song surged across the crowded auditorium. Some persons pondered the current racial crisis. Many yearned for measures which would successfully counter the swelling tide of racial and ethnic bigotry. The event might well have been a freedom demonstration in any one of a dozen Southern cities, but it was not. The setting was the Grand Ballroom of the Denver Hilton Hotel. The churchmen were predominantly white. And the occasion was the final evening session of the fourth biennial meeting of the United Church of Christ.

The event itself was not unusually significant, but it was expressive of a deeply felt need which had dominated the eight-day convention of the two-million-member denomination—a need for formative action in the current racial crisis. President Ben Mohr Herbster had taken the floor on opening day to set aside the scheduled program of events and to call for immediate and effective action in the race-relations crisis. “The situation present across America, the way in which … our Negro brethren are treated, economically, politically, and socially, constitute a blight from which we must be saved,” said Dr. Herbster.

“We have had too many words that changed too little. We must act, and we must act now.”

His proposals, approved overwhelmingly by voice vote of the delegates, called for uprooting of intolerance and bigotry in the life of the individual, universal integration of the United Church of Christ, mobilization of the manpower and means of the church for racial justice, establishment of a special fund to cover the cost of such a program, and prayerful dedication on the part of church members to the cause of justice and good will. President Herbster did not mention a specific total for the proposed fund, but a pre-convention document had suggested §1,000,000. By convention’s end $5,530 of this goal had been collected. In implementation of these proposals, President Herbster called for formation of a bi-racial committee which would direct the administration of funds and coordinate specific action in the struggle for racial equality.

The program was not allowed to rest only with the committee or with church officials. On Wednesday night soon after the singing of the freedom song, the newly formed committee for effective racial action, the Committee for Racial Justice Now, challenged the delegates to sign a pledge installing them in “The Fellowship of the Committed.” The pledge, signed by 580 of those present, committed the delegate to work for inclusive membership in his church, to seek for enactment of civil-rights laws, and to engage in non-violent demonstrations for racial justice when necessary.

The same night saw first defeat and then approval of a controversial measure which will require economic sanctions against dependent churches of the denomination if by July 1, 1964, they have not declared “a policy of openness without respect to race, national background or ethnic origin.” Rejected by a vote of 232 to 204 after an hour of heated debate, the proposal was subsequently revived and passed by a vote of 308 to 129. A number of those present declared that they had been swayed by the succession of Negroes who had risen to speak in favor of the economic sanctions and by President Herbster, who concurred, noting, “If we really mean what we say we mean … we must do this though we do it with a heavy heart.”

The General Synod took further steps toward racial integration by presenting citations for distinguished service in the cause of racial equality to Chicago Negro physician Dr. Theodore K. Lawless and to former Brooklyn Dodgers baseball star Jackie Robinson. The General Synod also elected a Negro woman, Mrs. Robert C. Johnson, to the post of assistant moderator for the next biennium. Dr. Gerhard W. Grauer, pastor of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Chicago, was elected moderator.

Other business on the agenda was a pronouncement on the Relation of Government to Freedom and Welfare submitted to the General Synod by the Council for Christian Social Action. This document, approved only after acute debate which extended through several sessions on the floor of the synod, declared that the Christian conception of freedom requires law and order but justifies civil disobedience whenever governments become “tyrannical or oppressive.” The document also tended to encourage government welfare, noting that “government must meet the changing needs of the people without being bound by the assumption that the growth of government is inherently a threat to freedom.”

One proposal particularly provoked the opposition of individual delegates and, in its final form, differed significantly from the original statement submitted to the synod. The original statement had declared the right of Christians and citizens “to safeguard the right of freedom of expression as guaranteed in the First Amendment, including the constitutional right to express opposition to our government or to advocate alternative political and economic systems without being intimidated and harassed by legislative or other instrumentalities of government.” The latent apprehension of many was further aroused when a member of the Council for Christian Social Action declared that “alternative political and economic systems” might conceivably include “communism or anarchy.”

In its final form, after this portion of the 147-line pronouncement had been repeatedly challenged and at last returned to committee for rewriting, the sentence read: “to safeguard the right of freedom of expression as guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, including the right within constitutional limits to express opposition or commendation to our government or to advocate peaceful change to alternative political and economic systems without being intimidated or harassed.”

On the second day of the convention the United Church of Christ took further steps toward Protestant consolidation by authorizing its delegation to the Consultation on Church Union to join with the Methodist, Protestant Episcopal, Christian Churches (Disciples), United Presbyterian, and Evangelical United Brethren representatives in a comprehensive plan of ecclesiastical union.

In further action by the 700-member General Synod, approval was given to a denominational emphasis for the next biennium on “The Church and Urbanization,” and authorization was accorded the Executive Council to establish the national headquarters of the United Church of Christ in New York City. The instrumentalities of the church, some of which have offices in Philadelphia and Cleveland, were urged to relocate at or near the national headquarters.

J.M.B.

The following report was prepared forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. George E. Failing, editor of The Wesleyan Methodist:

At its thirty-first Quadrennial General Conference, convened at Fairmount, Indiana, June 26-July 2, the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America reported modest gains in church membership and finances in North American conferences and phenomenal membership increases (10 to 1) in overseas conferences. National conferences were organized during the preceding quadrennium in Haiti, Central India Jamaica, and Puerto Rico.

Major changes made in the administrative structure of the church at the 1959 conference were solidly reaffirmed in the return to office of all general officers of the church and by endorsement of a continuing progressive program in establishing indigenous overseas churches, in implementing an aggressive evangelistic outreach at home, and in making financial provisions to secure a better-trained ministry.

Introduced on the floor of the conference, and received by the conference to be placed in the minutes, was a statement offered by five delegates from the North Carolina and South Carolina conferences: “The current social revolution that is sweeping the country is of grave concern to us. As Christians we cannot condone the strife that is resulting from racial unrest in our beloved Southland. Neither can we condone nor be a willing party to the heinous system of racial segregation that has so long plagued us. It is our firm belief that, as Christians committed to evangelization of the world, we must seek out and win our black brothers to Christ.… Central (S. C.) Wesleyan College has never refused admittance to a bona fide applicant because of race. Recently the Academic Committee unanimously went on record as being opposed to racial discrimination in the admission of students to Central.…”

The General Conference also adopted a resolution calling upon all Wesleyan Methodists to “respectfully petition legislative leaders to recover for us and the great majority of our people some adequate lawful redress from the growing inclination to ban from public life all worship of God and recognition of Him. We presume that such may require a constitutional amendment.…”

In other action, merger negotiations were reopened with the Pilgrim Holiness Church. Delegates ordered formation of a committee charged with preparing a merger plan, to be presented at the 1967 conference.

Vancouver, British Columbia—Delegates to the eighty-fourth annual meeting of the 85,000-member Baptist General Conference adopted a resolution calling for prayer for peace and support of reduction of armaments, “thereby lessening the tensions that lead to war.”

Joplin, Missouri—The Pentecostal Church of God of America went on record at its biennial General Convention as being opposed to the Supreme Court ruling against Bible reading and prayers as devotional acts in public schools. In another resolution, the 500 delegates declared their opposition to “every form of social violence resulting from both race and religious prejudices.”

New York—A resolution condemning the U. N. as a symbol of “idolatrous worship” was approved unanimously by nearly 85,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses at their International Convention. The resolution pledged that Witnesses would never worship an organization which “stands for world sovereignty by political men.”

Convention Chairman Milton G. Henschel cited a membership increase which makes the Witnesses claim to be one of the fastest-growing religious bodies. In 1939, he said, there were 41,000 Witnesses in 2,425 congregations in the United States, compared with a current total of some 308,000 in 4,708 congregations. Witnesses now claim a world membership of about 1,000,000.

MISSIONS STRATEGIST

The war made him a missionary. Beginning September 1, he will man the strategy switchboard for a global network of nearly 8,000 evangelical missionaries.

Edwin L. Frizen, Jr., newly appointed executive secretary of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, got his missionary vision while serving in the Pacific with the Seabees during World War II. He was one of a group of servicemen who founded the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade. Following the war he and his wife served as missionaries to the Philippines.

Frizen, known familiarly as “Jack,” fills a post made vacant last year by the resignation of Dr. J. O. Percy. As administrative chieftain for IFMA, he will coordinate strategies and operations for 46 interdenominational “faith boards,” ranging from Arctic Missions, Inc., to the Soldiers and Gospel Mission of South America.

World conditions tend to be less forgiving of missionary policy blunders and disputes, which makes Frizen’s job even more strategic. One of his biggest challenges will be the possibility of closer cooperation with the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, which represents the interests of 59 missionary boards with 6,500 missionaries. Some measure of cooperation has already been achieved between IFMA and EFMA, but the opportunities are broad. Discussions between the two groups thus far have been fruitful, as evidenced by the fact that they have scheduled their first joint retreat at Winona Lake, Indiana, this fall.

A cartoon in a July issue of Punch shows a board meeting of the “British Travel Association” with one director asking in all apparent seriousness:

“Have we ruled out the tourist appeal of a decadent and dissolute society?”

Indeed, the cynical tourist sizing up Piccadilly Circus might think it small wonder should Great Britain wind up in a moral morass. Here, hovering over the recognized national meeting place, is an aluminum statue of Eros, the old Greek deification of passionate love and fertility.

Is it a memorial to sex? Well, hardly. The statue at Piccadilly was Sir Alfred Gilbert’s memorial to the philanthropic Lord Shaftesbury and, remarkably enough, was tagged the “Angel of Christian Charity.”

The British clergy have exhibited a great deal of restraint in reacting against the country’s recent vice scandals, perhaps too much. Not a word came out of either the Anglican Church Assembly or the British Methodist Conference last month. A number of Roman Catholic prelates did express concern, and some called for immediate efforts to counteract what they said was the country’s “declining public morality.” Bishops were reported preparing a pastoral letter to define more clearly the hierarchy’s attitude toward the scandals involving Profumo. Keeler, Ward, et al.

Evangelist Billy Graham, in London for a brief holiday, saw a note of encouragement for religious leaders. “The thing that has encouraged me is the moral shock,” he said. “It shows that the British have more moral and spiritual strength than many people thought.”

Rebel Bishop

July 10 was a landmark in the defiance campaign being waged by Dr. Francis Walsh, 61-year-old Roman Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen. It saw the expiry of the three-month period within which he was to have dismissed by Vatican order his housekeeper, Mrs. Ruby MacKenzie, the former wife of a Church of Scotland minister (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY News, May 10).

In a statement which he directed to be read without comment in every church of his diocese, the bishop says: “I have from the beginning insisted that the order to turn Mrs. MacKenzie out of my house is unjust and cruel. Early on I thought I must obey. Now I have come to the decision that I cannot act against my conscience. I have informed my superiors. Mrs. MacKenzie has offered to leave of her own accord. I cannot acquiesce. Nor do I see why she should be allowed to sacrifice herself to satisfy malice and spite. Let the troublemakers go about their own business, their prayers and their duties.”

Bishop Walsh blames “a jealous woman and … a number of priests” whose attitude has allegedly led to a spate of filthy accusations, anonymous letters, and threatening telephone calls.

Last month the bishop dismissed his vicar-general because they disagreed on this subject. Said Mrs. MacKenzie, a Catholic convert: “I put my trust in God throughout these difficult times. I am quite sure he will deliver me from my ordeal in the best way possible.”

The MacKenzie marriage was dissolved last year on the ground of the 42-year-old wife’s desertion. The Rev. A. Ian MacKenzie, who was given custody of their two children, is now minister of a Glasgow church.

J.D.D.

Perfect Husbandry

“I heard a woman say once that she did not want to marry a perfect husband; she wanted to marry a husband and make him perfect.” This intriguing reference in support of the proposed Anglican-Methodist merger, made by Vice-President David Foot Nash in an address to the British Methodist Conference, was a complete change of front on the part of one who had earlier condemned the union proposals as a retrograde step. Nash had written a booklet in support of the dissentient minority. It was already being printed when an article by Professor Thomas F. Torrance of Edinburgh so impressed him that he suppressed the booklet and distributed instead the article, entitled “Reconciliation in Christ and in His Church.”

A similar note was touched on in the presidential address by the Rev. Frederic Greeves, who said: “Hosts of those whom we call outsiders are wondering how we Christians will deal with our problems and controversies. Some are watching us with a somewhat evil glint in their eyes, hoping to find in our quarrels yet another excuse for having nothing to do with us. Others are, more wistfully, hoping that in spite of all the evidence to the contrary in Christian history, it may be possible for Christians to differ in charity and to come together in faith and love.”

The conference heard that at the end of 1962 the church’s membership stood at 719,286, a decline of 4,243 from the previous year. The number of lay preachers (these are responsible for three-quarters of Methodist services throughout the country) fell by 272, to a total of 21,788.

J.D.D.