Sin: A New Word In Psychiatry

The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, by O. Hobart Mowrer (D. Van Nostrand Co., 1961, 264 pp., $1.95), is reviewed by Theodore J. Jansma, Chaplain-Counselor of the Christian Sanatorium, Wyckoff, New Jersey.

Sin is as strange and taboo in modern psychiatry as witchcraft and demon possession. Such ideas belong to a bygone era of superstition and magic, and have no place in this age of science. Psychiatry is a medical specialty; it deals with sickness. It is heralded as part of modern enlightenment, that psychopathology is a sickness that can happen to anyone, like pneumonia or peptic ulcer, only much more complex, and the patient needs special medical treatment. As a science, psychiatry owes most perhaps to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and he practically reversed the meanings of sin and virtue. Thanks to him, psychiatry became the friend of impulse and the enemy of conscience, the emancipator of the Id and the suppressor of the Superego. According to Freud, neurosis is rooted in the repression of natural and instinctive drives, especially the sexual drive, in the tyrannical prohibitions and inhibitions which society clamps down on the developing human organism, and the cure must necessarily be sought along lines of liberation from this tyranny of a culturally-imposed “conscience.”

While the psycho-sexual theory of neurosis has been challenged by some of Freud’s closest associates, and considerably modified in the past three or four decades, yet the euphemism of “sickness” is now so firmly attached to psychopathology that even the clergy have been taken in by it almost completely. Perhaps it is well that we have dropped the words “insane” and “crazy,” but the substitute, “mentally ill,” which all “enlightened” people now use, only emphasizes the fact that “sickness” is now the universally accepted characterization of neurosis and functional psychosis. Of course, the inescapable implication is that a mentally-disturbed person, no matter how much he may speak of moral transgression and guilt, is really not guilty and cannot be held responsible for his condition, no more than one who suffers physical pain.

But something is stirring. Voices of protest that were raised but not heeded a few years ago are now becoming more persistent, and are coming from various directions inside and outside the field of psychiatry. Yes, “Sin” is coming back into the psychiatric vocabulary. A remarkable example of this is this latest book by O. Hobart Mowrer. Mowrer is no religious crank, nor even a theologian, but an eminent psychologist. He is research professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, taught at Yale and Harvard, was past president of the American Psychological Association, is widely known as researcher, teacher, and lecturer, and has published extensively on the psychology of learning, language, and personality theory. The book is a collection of lectures and papers which he has presented over the course of the past 10 or 12 years, and is, therefore, somewhat repetitious. But this very repetition makes Mowrer’s position perfectly clear, and quotations could be made from any chapter and almost any page not only to show his own “guilt theory” of neurosis, but also the support he draws from other writers and clinicians. Here is a sample: “The Freudians, of course, recognize that guilt is central to neurosis, but it is always a guilt of the future. It is not what the person has done that makes him ‘ill’ but rather what he wishes to do but dares not. In contrast, the emerging alternative—or, more accurately, the re-emerging one—is that the so-called neurotic is a bona fide sinner, that his guilt is from the past and real, and that his difficulties arise not from inhibitions but from actions which are clearly proscribed, socially and morally, and which have been kept carefully concealed, unconfessed, and unredeemed” (p. 126, Mowrer’s italics).

And here is a point for the clergy to ponder: “At the very time that psychologists are becoming distrustful of the sickness approach to personality disturbance and are beginning to look with more benign interest and respect toward certain moral and religious precepts, religionists themselves are being caught up in and bedazzled by the same preposterous system of thought as that from which we psychologists are just recovering” (p. 52).

As Mowrer’s theory of neurosis differs radically from the Freudian, so does his therapeutic approach. Psychoanalysis, and also the nondirective counseling therapy of Carl Rogers (as Mowrer points out), is aimed at “insight,” while Mowrer would aim at confession, atonement, restitution. The “sick” person needs to have released the healing powers inherent in the uninhibited organism; he must be liberated from the restricting fetters of an over-severe conscience. The “sinner,” on the other hand, must come to terms with his wicked behavior, he must confess and atone for his sin, and be restored in fellowship with the society which he has offended and from which his sin has alienated him (p. 78).

Now all this must be welcome to evangelicals. Mowrer uses language with a familiar biblical sound. However, though Mowrer seems to speak the language of evangelical Christianity, we must not be hasty to assume that he means what he seems to say. For one thing, he has some sharp words for Protestantism, especially Calvinism, which he charges with determinism (predestination) as killing as Freud’s and which he indicts as being no better than Freudianism for helping the neurotic out of his predicament (p. 159). It would take us beyond the scope of this review to point out how completely Mowrer misunderstands Calvinism in general and predistination in particular. But while Calvinism, especially as it is sometimes articulated by unrepresentative spokesmen, lays no claim to finality, we should certainly be put on our guard when Mowrer makes capital of the outworn alleged conflict between St. Paul and St. James (p. 109, 186 ff.). He refers to Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith alone as “cheap grace,” an expression he borrows from Bonhoeffer. In contrast he presents James as the advocate of action, works, and Mowrer takes his “stand with the Apostle James and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, against the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther” (p. 109).

This is naive superficiality. It does not take a biblical scholar to understand that Paul advocates works just as much as James, and that James advocates faith just as much as Paul. Paul is concerned to show that saving faith and reconciliation with God through Christ is the prerequisite to good works or godly living, that good works are the redeemed sinner’s way of showing gratitude to God for salvation. This is in complete harmony with James’ emphasis on good works as the way a genuine saving faith proves itself. Both Paul and James refer to the example of Abraham, Paul focusing on the root of Abraham’s faith and James on the fruit of Abraham’s obedience.

To be more specific, we must now ask what Mowrer means by sin, guilt, confession, atonement—terms rooted in the Bible and rich with evangelical significance. Of course, we do not expect a fully-developed theological formulation from the professor of psychology, but we do have a right to a clear definition, and this is hard to find, especially on sin and guilt which lie at the heart of his thesis. He defines sin almost exclusively in terms of the violation of one’s conscience or of the moral code of one’s society (p. 42). And he makes this pungent remark on Original Sin and, incidentally, on the Substitutionary Atonement: “… my untutored layman’s opinion is that this doctrine is nonsense, as is that of the Substitutionary Atonement, and has done much harm in the world” (footnote, p. 147). He does not relate sin and guilt in the first place to the divine Law, but to human relationships. Now sin certainly does have a horizontal dimension, and it does cause alienation from self and others. But it is first and basically an alienation from God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God … this is the first and great commandment.” In fairness to Mowrer, it must be said that he does speak of the judgment and wrath of God (p. 28). At least he concedes that the sinner should be made to feel that the “Hand of God” is upon him. But even then he limits sin to known (and, in the neurotic, hidden) transgressions. Sin is thus a violation of conscience, the content of which need not be derived from God, but can be derived exclusively from society. Now we shall not argue the thesis that neurosis results from misbehavior, hidden and unredeemed; but it is important to mark the difference between misdeeds against society and sins against God. Of course, even an atheist can have a culturally-derived moral code, and he may become neurotic if he violates that code without atoning for it (if Mowrer’s thesis is correct). Mental health must then be defined in terms of social conformity, and a religious reference is rendered unnecessary.

But the evangelical Christian is in a quite different position. For him sin is always a violation of God’s objective and biblically-revealed Law, and violation of any other code is sin only if it is at the same time a transgression of God’s Law.

And this is not merely a semantic distinction; this must be emphasized not only for the correct definition of sin but also for the definition of confession, atonement, and expiation. Mowrer is right when he insists that these are important for the reconciliation of man to man, but he is wrong, or at least extremely weak, in failing to point out that, for the Christian at any rate, confession and atonement are indispensible first of all for reconciliation of man with God. And, inasmuch as he rejects the atoning work of Christ, he sets himself apart from any Christian concept of a “guilt theory” of neurosis. His “guilt theory” seems to fit better into the framework of Adler’s “Social Interest” (Gemeinschafts gefuhl), or into Sullivan’s “Interpersonal Theory,” rather than into the Christian context. His emphasis on the conscious rather than the unconscious, on misdeeds instead of instincts, on responsibility rather than helplessness, is, in our opinion, a salutary one. Indeed, he has given Christian psychiatrists something to think about, and it is to be hoped that the new direction which Mowrer represents will stimulate scientists with Christian convictions to make a distinctive contribution to the relief of human misery, and in a field that has been dominated almost completely by secular and even anti-Christian thought.

THEODORE J. JANSMA

An Alternative To Kant

Transcendental Criticism and Christian Philosophy, by Vincent Bruemmer (Franeker, T. Wever, The Netherlands, 1961, 258 pp.), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The Dutch scholar Herman Dooyeweerd must be credited with a profound enquiry into the universally-valid conditions which make philosophical thought possible, and which are required by the immanent structure of thought. In venturing to delineate a Christian alternative to Kant’s Critique of knowledge, and attacking Kant’s dogma that theoretical thought is autonomous, and projecting a searching analysis of the categories of thought from a religious-revelational point of view, Dooyeweerd has taken a commendable initiative in a neglected sphere of Christian scholarship.

Vincent Bruemmer’s doctoral dissertation at Utrecht is a critical exposition and incisive evaluation of Dooyeweerd’s position. He notes that it is divine cosmic law more than divine Logos that supplies the content of Dooyeweerd’s philosophic ground-idea. Dooyeweerd asserts that the speculative Greek view attributed prime significance to the intellect and hence, he says, tried to construe a rational harmony in the cosmos whereas the Christian view finds the unity of the cosmogonic order rather in a transcendent divine harmony in the will of God. The sovereignty of the divine creative will is affirmed in independence of the rational nature of God (cf. Bruemmer, pp. 143 ff.). The law is affirmed as absolute boundary between divine and human reason as well as between divine and human will (ibid., p. 149).

Dooyeweerd stresses that despite the knower’s ability theoretically to distinguish the various modal functions of the concrete act of knowledge, in the concrete act of knowledge the corresponding modal aspects of the cosmic meaning-structure are involved in their mutual intercoherence. Whereas theoretical thought because of its problematic character breaks up experience into various abstracted modal aspects, the naive “pretheoretical” attitude leaves intact the cosmic meaning-coherence and directs itself to concrete things and events. Bruemmer shows that this antithetical representation is unsatisfactory, and provides an inadequate basis for dealing with the epistemological problem of synthesis: “like Kant … Dooyeweerd initiates his philosophy by isolating the logical and nonlogical ‘modalities’: Kant does this through abstraction, Dooyeweerd through the principle of sphere-sovereignty. From the start the intrinsic coherence between the logical and the nonlogical appears to be problematic in the philosophies of both Kant and Dooyeweerd. It is hardly surprising to find both of them faced with the epistemological problem of synthesis between the various law-spheres, a problem which is central in the transcendental critique of both” (ibid., p. 160). Dooyeweerd in fact may be viewed as less affirmatively rational than Kant. While both affirm that the cosmos is an order of meaning, Dooyeweerd does not limit meaning, as Kant does, to logical meaning (ibid., p. 164). In fact, whereas Kant’s theory of antinomy presupposes the law of noncontradiction, Dooyeweerd rejects the universal cosmological relevance of this logical principle. Alternative to Kant’s denial of the ontic and noetic articulation of the cosmos by the divine Logos, and to Kant’s view that the logical consciousness of man produces the meaning-structure of the phenomenal world, Dooyeweerd limits the logical modality to one law-sphere in isolation from the others and denies that the ultimate cosmological principle is logical. Instead of insisting that the cosmic meaning structure has a logical character grounded in the divine creative Logos, Dooyeweerd considers cosmic meaning as a structure of divine laws. Hence Dooyeweerd opposes his cosmonomic Idea not only to Kant but also to Abraham Kuyper and other theologians who hold that the cosmos has a logical structure (ibid., pp. 175 ff.).

A prime criticism of Dooyeweerd is not his insistence that the relation between God and creation is that of purposive will, but the failure to stress that the divine sovereign will is rational, and that the cosmos owes its origin to the divine creative Logos. For both the Genesis creation account and John’s prologue refer the concrete realization of God’s purposive will to the creative Word. The assertion that the whole creation is grounded in the divine will requires, rather than disallows, the creation and preservation of the universe and its cosmic meaning to the Logos.

Bruemmer develops the self-defeating implications of Dooyeweerd’s position in a careful manner. His dissertation is a worthy contribution. The publication has some unfortunate typographical errors: “though” for “thought” (p. 13); “wich” for “which” (p. 103); “reserve” for “reverse” (p. 190); “oragin” for “origin” (p. 177).

CARL F. H. HENRY

T.V. And The Gospel

Religions Television, by Everett C. Parker (Harper, 1961, $4), is reviewed by Lee Shane, Minister, National Baptist Church, Washington, D. C.

Most of us read book reviews to discover if the book in question is one that would interest or be of help to us. Religions Television will be of enormous interest and value to anyone engaged in any phase of this media—ministers and laymen responsible for religious television programs, members of ministerial councils or councils of churches whose responsibility is guiding and planning religious programs for the community, people in the industry, station managers, program directors.

For the most part the book deals with down-to-earth techniques of program development from the germinal ideas, through the format, writing of script, casting, proping, directing, budgeting, promotion, and evaluating. This is a completely understandable and practical “how to” book and one quite indispensable to anyone seriously concerned with communication of the Gospel by television.

The first two chapters deal with judgments out of which religious television stems and propound new strategy for using the media. Aims and goals and obligation are stressed. The next eight chapters deal with broadcasting techniques and program ideas which all faiths using this media will find most helpful. The final chapter again points up judgments on the industry and deals with the ethics of mass communication.

LEE SHANE

Grace, An Afterthought

On the Eternal in Man, by Max Scheler, translated by Bernard Noble (Harper, 1960, 480 pp., $10), is reviewed by Cornelius Van Til, Professor of Apologetics, Westminster Theological Seminary.

Max Scheler was, says I. M. Bochenski, “beyond doubt the most brilliant thinker of his day” (p. 471). Bochenski adds: “After St. Augustine, Scheler received the most lasting impressions from life-philosophy, Nietzsche, Dilthey, and Bergson, which accounts for his title ‘the Catholic Nietzsche’ (Troeltsch)” (ibid.).

The most important material of the present volume is that which deals with religion. Scheler is particularly interested in the relation of natural to positive religion.

By way of illustration we summarize what he says on “Repentance and Rebirth.”

Scheler finds that “the deepest understanding of the meaning and significance of Repentance is to be encountered in Christianity and, within Christianity, in the Catholic Church” (p. 63).

Repentance, says Scheler, “effects moral rejuvenation. Young forces, as yet guiltless, are dormant in every soul. But they are hampered, indeed smothered, by the tangled growths of oppressive guilt which in the course of time have gathered and thickened within the soul. Tear away the undergrowth, and those forces will rise up of their own accord” (p. 42). “Repentance, at least in its perfect form, genuinely annihilates the psychic quality called ‘guilt’ ” (p. 55). It thus enables men “to embark on new and guiltless courses. Repentance is the mighty power of self-regeneration of the moral world, whose decay it is constantly working to avert” (ibid.). There is “no Repentance which does not from its inception enclose the blueprint of a new heart. Repentance annihilates only to create. It is already building secretly where it still seems to destroy. So it is that Repentance forms the driving power of that miraculous process which the gospels call the ‘rebirth’ of a new man out of the ‘old Adam,’ the acquiring of a ‘new heart’ ” (pp. 56–57).

One wonders why Scheler needs anything further. What need is there, on his view, for the objective Atonement through Christ and for the application of that Atonement to sinners by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit? Even so, Scheler adds grace to nature. He adds God to his purely naturalist view of sin and redemption. Having completed the act of rebirth in its own strength, Scheler’s “soul” “looks up to God” and “learns to understand the renewal and peace of Repentance as the mysterious process known as ‘the forgiveness of sin’ and as an infusion of new strength from the Centre of things. Grace is the name of this strength” (p. 60).

Scheler is well aware of the fact that “the foregoing is still not specifically a Christian thought, and is far from resting on any positive revelation” (p. 61). At this point it is too late for him to add that “it is only through Christian teaching that we are able to understand why Repentance should possess the central function of Rebirth in the life of man” (ibid.).

Scheler exhibits in a particularly striking way the antinomy that confronts any form of the Roman Catholic method of dealing with the central truths of Scripture. The beginning is made on the assumption that man is self-sufficient. After that a futile effort is added to make room for the “primacy of grace.” Thus to deny the basic primacy of grace in order to reach the natural man is virtually to hold that the natural man needs no grace.

CORNELIUS VAN TIL

America’S Ailing Church

A Letter to American Christians, by M. J. Chen (Exposition, 1961, 55 pp., $2.50), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister, the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer. Peekskill, New York.

America is not Christian. Her Christendom is mundane. Her Church is not a Christian fellowship. Its terminology is in a semantic quagmire. Its preaching is neglectful of doctrine, is largely “positive” and humanistic; its teaching, frequently based on critical opinion, is pragmatic, and concerned only for the here and now. The social gospel elbows out the gospel of Christ. The fallacy of man’s brotherhood is rife. Faith and works are confused. People populate churches because they are born into “Christian” families or find temporal advantages in joining a church. Churches have degenerated into clubs. Missionary contributions, though comparatively liberal, are often regarded as fashionable.

Unfortunately this is all too frequently true.

Chen’s remedies are, in general, fairly obvious. Inter alia, he pleads for “the resumption of Christian fellowship” which means not syncretism but a concern for the invisible Church that strikes across denominational lines.

This letter, written by a former Buddhist who is now an American pastor, indicts “Protestantism” particularly, but “every Christian” should help correct the abuses.

E. P. SCHULZE

Protestant Social Ethics

The Protestant Search for Political Realism 1919–1941, by Donald B. Meyer (University of California Press, 1960, 482 pp., $6.75), is reviewed by Theodore Minnema, Pastor, South Olive Christian Reformed Church, Holland, Michigan.

A very competent historian has written this book. His competence is manifest in his concise and orderly arrangement of facts, those of main concern being restricted to a period in American Protestantism between 1919 and 1941. The author’s historical orientation is initially evident in the title word “search.” The searching, developing, and forming process of a political philosophy remains the prevailing theme throughout the book.

Between World Wars I and II, American Protestantism was in ferment. Usually this ferment is restricted to theology, and thus Protestantism between the World Wars is reduced too exclusively to a debate and controversy between theological orthodoxy and theological liberalism. Such a reduction obscures and may even distort subordinate but significant tensions in Protestantism. One of these tensions is that between religion and culture which in America became gospel and society. This gospel-society tension in Protestantism the book raises to its warranted place of importance and concern.

Beginning with the social gospel as originated and defined by Rauschenbusch, the author traces out the interplay, conflicts, and realignments between Protestant religion and socio-political thought. Protestant social concern was fostered on the assumptions of liberal theology. The basic liberal assumption of divine immanence was the point of departure. The absolute in some form was emerging in history.

In the Gospel Jesus revealed the will of God or the absolute for man and society. The problem to be solved was the conjunction of God’s will as revealed in the Gospel with some amenable immanent force or power in society. If an immanent power in society could be conjoined with the will of God then the Christian ideal could be realized. By assumption, such an immanent power should be available.

Protestant social concern spent itself in the “search” for a power that would realize the will of God. Capital, labor, and the church as centers of power eventually proved to be impotent in the fulfilling of the will of God in society and politics.

The frustration and disillusionment of unfulfilled ideals caused the social gospel movement to break up into diverging and conflicting currents, the extremes of which were pacifism and communism. Both continued to assume the availability of the absolute, pacifism in the form of means and communism in the form of end or goal.

Out of the social gospel turmoil evolved a third movement under the leadership of Reinhold Niebuhr. This movement arrived at the position of political realism. It claims to be realistic because power is no longer surrounded with the illusions of perfection and identified with the absolute. All power, it maintains, is subject to corruption, and the recognition of this reality must be basic to all political theory. Therefore, all forms of social and political power must seek perfection and fulfillment on some level of existence beyond themselves.

This book offers no final answers to the age-old problem of how to relate Christianity to culture, but it very adequately records and unfolds attempts to arrive at such answers.

THEODORE MINNEMA

God’S Acts In Genesis

The Message of Genesis, by Ralph H. Elliott (Broadman, 1961, 209 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Robert B. Laurin, Associate Professor of Old Testament, California Baptist Theological Seminary.

Christopher Morley once wrote, “Take your mind out and dance on it; it is getting all caked up!” Here is a book that will help a person to dance the right steps. One of the great difficulties in using the book of Genesis is discovering the intended message. Years of discussion about the problems of harmonizing science and Scripture often blind the reader to what the book is actually all about. The Message of Genesis should prove a steady and trustworthy guide to the primary theological teaching of the book.

Never denying the essential historicity of Genesis, Professor Elliott deftly and irenically shows how the “scientific” and “historical” statements are only vehicles to convey the more important theological message. The inspired authors often used myth or parable or paraphrased history as a teaching method. So the real infallibility of Genesis lies in its disclosure of God’s mighty acts in the creation and salvation of men.

The book, clearly sympathetic with contemporary scholarship, does not allow, in length, for adequate technical and theological treatment at many points. So if it is used along with a few detailed commentaries it should clarify the much-needed message of Genesis for the teacher and preacher.

ROBERT B. LAURIN

Nightmare In Retrospect

The Destruction of the European jews, by Raul Hilberg (Quadrangle Books, Inc., 1961, 788 pp., $14.95), is reviewed by Jacob Gartenhaus, Founder and President of International Board of Jewish Missions, Inc.

Many books have been written on the destruction of the European Jews, but none of them has given such a clear, comprehensive, and comprehensible picture of what actually happened as does this volume by Professor Raul Hilberg.

In the period between the years 1933–45, the German Nazis destroyed 6,000,000 Jews in Europe. So ghastly and gruesome was this wholesale murder that people away from the scene of events could not conceive of such atrocities. When reports became too evident, too insistent, too frequent, they were viewed as an inexplicable mystery by some, and as a nightmare by others.

This volume by Professor Hilberg, which is a product of 10 years of intensive study of the most authentic documents, removes the dark veil of this mystery and gives shape and dimension to the nightmare. The ghost takes on the body of a living creature.

The book is an eye opener and should be read by every thinking person. In it he will re-discover humanity with its frailties, its pitfalls, and rediscovering them he may invoke God’s grace to prevent man from ever being guilty of such crimes again.

Having recommended this monumental, impressive, and instructive work by Professor Hilberg, I feel that a word of caution is necessary to the reader. The author makes the same mistake which other Jewish writers have made over the years and which has been adopted by some Christian writers, that is, of blaming Christianity for most of the suffering of the Jewish people in the dispersion. This is a scurrilous libel which may please only those who fortify the wall of partition between Jews and Christians.

From the very first pages of the book, the reader gets the impression that the Nazis based their atrocities on the teachings of the Church. It is regretfully true that many who cried, “Lord, Lord,” acted in defiance of the Lord’s will. True, many of these “Churchians” were directly and indirectly responsible for much of the Jewish persecution; but this only points up that some people, despite Christ’s command to “love thy neighbor,” often give vent to stored-up atavistic, primeval passions.

The following two facts refute the libel that Christianity has been the main cause of Jewish suffering.

1. Long before the birth of Christianity there were those who sought the destruction of the Jews as, for example, Pharaoh and Hainan. If you read the book Contra Apionem (Against Apion) written by Joseph Flavius who lived in the time of Christ, you will see that already at that time there were several anti-Semitic books on the market. This Jew-baiter, Apion, a Greek Sophist from Egypt who lived in Rome, and who quoted other anti-Semitic writers famous in his time, assails the Jews and accuses them of almost the same sins and crimes as do modem anti-Semites. His slanders against the Jews (in his book Aegyptica) found their way to Tacitus and many other writers in Rome, and it is remarkable how the same defamations, with slight changes according to time and place, have been repeated to this day. The Nazis could have copied from those heathen sources rather than from church leaders whom they disliked no less than they did the Jews.

2. If Christianity were so inimical, so harmful to the Jewish people (as some of the hate-mongers would have us believe), why is it that the Jews have always preferred to live in Christian countries? Even now, only a few Jews live in non-Christian lands and they would escape from there if they could. Another indisputable fact refutes that lie: only Christian countries have helped in the restoration of the Jewish State of Israel, and if it were not for Christian support this State could not withstand the non-Christian world which would eagerly destroy it.

JACOB GARTENHAUS

Echo Of Liberalism

A Historical Approach to the New Testament, by Frederic R. Crownfield (Harper, 1960, 420 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Glenn W. Barker, Professor of New Testament, Gordon Divinity School.

This book, comprising the material covered in a course introducing the New Testament to the students at Guilford College, commands admiration both for its scope (canon, text, sources, backgrounds, critical problems, life of Jesus, early Christianity, Paul, and later Christianity) and its thoroughness. The material is attractively arranged and intelligently applied. The critical studies reflect use of the primary sources and in most instances include contemporary interpretation of the sources. An exception to this may be the substantial dependence upon Moore and Montefiore as the best interpreters of first-century Judaism.

One criticism that might be pertinent in the critical sections is the overuse of what may be designated “reversal” conclusions. Since it cannot be absolutely established by historical evidence that the Gospels were written by apostles, it does not necessarily follow that the opposite is established, namely that “the Gospels were written by people who were not eyewitnesses, a generation or two after the events they tell about, far from the scenes they depict, in an alien language and under the influences of a strange culture” (p. 73). Moreover, even if this conjecture should be accepted as a reasonable possibility, the conclusion is misleading, for it fails to raise the more significant question of the character of the sources from which the writers ultimately drew their information.

The treatment of the life of Jesus is somewhat unusual in that it reflects in a very able fashion the type of liberalism most popular 10 to 20 years ago. Jesus is best understood as a prophet whose loyalty to his own insight cost him his life (p. 189). The church owes its origin not to Jesus but his followers (p. 143). The ultimate value of the Christian faith is to be found simply in the message of Jesus which “challenges us to give our allegiance and trust to a God who gives good gifts to his children and who, despite the absoluteness of his demands, freely forgives the repentant sinner and even seeks him out while he is still in his sin” (p. 189).

The Suggestions for Further Reading are extensive (15 pp.) although somewhat one-sided. The paucity of modem interpretations of Christianity, the omission of the splendid contributions of Roman Catholic scholarship to critical problems, and the neglect of the more conservative studies must be noted.

Beyond the immediate purpose of the author, the book is significant in revealing both the strength and the weakness of the so-called “historical approach” to the New Testament.

GLENN W. BARKER

A Christian Novel

The Missionaries, by G. W. Target (Duckworth, 1961, 218 pp., 16s.), is reviewed by J. C. Pollock, British author and Contributing Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

There is such a shortage of good novelists who are Christians (as distinct from scribblers of “Christian novels”) that the emergence of the young British writer G. W. Target is to be warmly welcomed, not so much for the considerable performance of this book as its splendid promise.

The Missionaries explores, in the colloquial of the South London lower-middle income group, two barely related themes. A missionary doctor is released from a London jail after serving sentence for being mixed up with Central African terrorists who are supposed to have murdered his famous Schweitzer-like colleague. The ex-convict is befriended by the narrator, a young office clerk on the fringe of the Denomination (a rather improbable denomination), and his wife. In their jolly home, where a fourth child is expected, the clerk extracts the true story behind the doctor’s unjust conviction.

This book is scarcely what the blurb claims: “a grim and tremendous novel of modem Africa,” for Africa is dealt with at long range, intermittently. But it is exceedingly worth reading for the exploration of the other theme—the mind and home of the narrator. The gradual unfolding of what the young clerk and his wife are like is well done indeed and gives Target the right to be called a novelist, not a mere story teller.

The South Londoner is genuine all through. He is a man of compassion and insight, whimsical, a delightful friend. He can detect hypocrisy without being cruel or pompous. His Christian faith is as realistic as himself, and carries the same conviction as the daily goings-on in his household.

If Target can find a subject more of an entity to which he can bring his vivid imagination and grasp of character, he will become the Lloyd Douglas of the younger generation—with a far more biblically-based and satisfying faith.

J. C. POLLOCK

Brilliance In Disarray

Religion, Culture and Mental Health, a symposium by the Academy of Religion and Mental Health (New York University Press, 1961, 157 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Lars I. Granberg, Professor of Psychology, Hope College.

This book contains the proceedings of the third Arden House symposium which had as its topic the relationship between religion, culture, and mental health. Participants were drawn from the clergy, theological professors, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and education. Some are Protestants, some Roman Catholics, some Jews, some religiously uncommitted.

The topic is approached from the sociological, the anthropological, and religious standpoints. Each approach is initiated by a statement from the discussion leader, which is commented upon by designated discussants. This is followed by general discussion. The caliber of the participants may be seen in that Talcott Parsons led the discussion from the sociological viewpoint, Margaret Mead the anthropological perspective, and those participating in the discussion included Gordon Allport, Otto Klineberg, Goodwin Watson, Noel Mailloux and many other persons who are recognized leaders in their fields.

Among the many topics given thoughtful treatment one finds discussion of the move away from positivism in this generation of social scientists, the relationship of society and religion, role relationships of ministers and psychotherapists, the importance of faith and hope in mental health, and even some interesting thoughts on visions, miraculous cures, and magic.

Those who insist upon tightly organized, systematic presentations leading to definite conclusions will most likely find this an irritating book. But it is a rich source of information and insight at many levels which will be a delight to those who can tolerate the disorderly creativeness of brilliant conversation, with its inevitable unevenness, disconcertingly sudden shifts in topic and openendedness.

LARS I. GRANBERG

Patmos Revisited

A Revelation of Jesus Christ, by J. B. Smith (Herald Press, 1961, 369 pp., $5.75) and The Postman of Patmos, by G. A. Hadjiantoniou (Zondervan, 1961, 149 pp., $2.50), are reviewed by Charles C. Ryrie, President, Philadelphia College of the Bible.

A few months ago this reviewer expressed in another periodical the opinion that we are seeing today a revival of interest in prophecy. Here is further proof! Though a Mennonite, J. B. Smith, also known for his Greek-English Conordance, has produced in A Revelation of Jesus Christ a commentary in the finest of the Plymouth Brethren tradition. It is premillennial and pretribulational, but less symbolic than some of the Brethren commentaries. In this respect it is not unlike Newell’s work. Completely exegetical, it does not attempt to sidestep problem passages as too many purported commentaries do! As a matter of fact, 22 appendices throw additional light and often fresh insight on the problems. The work is further distinguished by its statistical analyses of the use of various words in the Revelation. Undoubtedly this book will become a mainstay for the futurist school of interpretation for many years to come. The reviewer intends to recommend and use it in his own classes on Revelation.

The Postman of Patmos is a sermonic presentation of the messages of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. One might expect that the Greek background of the author, who is pastor of the Second Greek Evangelical Church in Athens, would provide him with insights not usually found in similar works. Occasionally it does, but not to any great extent. These are popular sermons, almost too popular—some important verses are entirely omitted (e.g., Rev. 3:10), and in many places parallel Scripture references or footnote citations used need to be included. The author rejects any use of the seven letters to illustrate the periods of church history, and concentrates his attention on the Lord’s knowledge about and promises to each of these churches. Though obviously not exhaustive, the presentation is clever and the message contemporaneous.

CHARLES C. RYRIE

The following report was prepared by Dr. James DeForest Murch:

In an atmosphere of ecumenical urgency 11,000 Disciples of Christ met in Kansas City, September 29-October 4, for the 1961 assembly of the International Convention of Christian Churches.

From the opening address by President Perry Epler Gresham through the bold ecumenical message of J. Irwin Miller, Disciple president of the National Council of Churches, the theme of Christian unity hung over the assembly, largest in history.

Historically the Disciples communion had its inception in the Declaration and Address, an ecumenical document written in 1809 by Thomas Campbell, then a Presbyterian minister on the Allegheny frontier. Traditionally the Disciples pleaded for the unity of all Christians through restoration of the New Testament Church in doctrine, ordinances, and life. Their fellowship grew with amazing rapidity to become one of the largest religious bodies in America. Today the movement is fragmented into three schools of ecumenical thought with a total membership of some 5,000,000. A Kansas City segment is led by left-wing interpreters of “the plea” who have abandoned the “restoration” concept and joined the mainstream of the modern ecumenical movement.

Miller, who is the first layman and the first Disciple to be an NCC president, said “Christians for 1,500 years have gone to the Scriptures, selected an inference here, a verse there, skipped over passages which didn’t quite fit in. and each has come up with the right answer and the correct blueprint and has said, ‘I belong to Christ. I have all the answers.’ The only problem is that nearly everyone has come up with a different answer and a different blueprint.”

Added Miller: “When we say, as the Corinthians did, ‘I belong to Christ,’ implying that we have the final truth, that ours is the correct theology, that our answers in church practice are right in some final unchangeable way, then we are commiting ourselves to a static, finished religion whose members can hope only to look back, only to contemplate an ever receding past. When we admit that our knowledge is imperfect, then we hold before ourselves and all men the exciting prospect of adding to our knowledge and enlarging our understanding of our heavenly Father and his purpose for us.…”

President Gresham was respectful of Disciple heritage, while expressing unqualified approval of all efforts toward realization of a united church embracing all followers of Christ. “I welcome,” said Gresham, “any means to promote this end insofar as the Bible is not replaced by human creeds and the absolute Lordship of Christ is not called in question. It is my view that all Christians could unite under the constitution of the New Testament more readily than sovereign denominations could merge. The heritage of the Christian churches continues to call for the union of all Christians everywhere on the basis of one Lord, one Bible and one Fellowship.…”

Assembly Upholds Congregational Autonomy

In contrast to long-range denominational plans which may spell the end of congregational autonomy, the 1961 assembly of the Disciples of Christ upheld the right of local churches to operate as they please.

A proposal urging the National City Christian Church of Washington, D. C., to speed up racial integration was overwhelmingly defeated on the grounds that such action would violate traditional Disciples polity.

“This is not to be construed as a disposition on the issue of segregation or desegregation,” said a statement of the convention’s committee on recommendations.

The real issue before the assembly was whether the church’s unique relationship to the convention (it had been built with funds raised through the convention) made it subject to convention control. The assembly action resolved the issue in favor of local autonomy.

The Washington church is located on the edge of a Negro area. The congregation is predominantly white, although a few Negroes worship there regularly. The congregation has an integrated vacation Bible school and a Negro superintendent in the Sunday school.

“No one has ever been rejected for church membership,” said the Rev. George R. Davis, minister, “and I shall accept anyone who comes down the aisle.”

Delegates of the assembly voted to enter into conversations with the United Church of Christ looking toward merger. But Disciples are plagued by a congregational structure in which local churches are not bound by decisions of the assembly. As an editorial in the August 9, 1961, issue of The Christian Century noted, “… the loose and haphazard structure of Disciples organization is such that the denomination cannot act as a church in relation to union, no matter how hard it tries and no matter how large a proportion of its members are ready to put their historic principles into ecumenical practice.”

The leadership of the International Convention moved at Kansas City to remedy this situation through a plan to “restructure the brotherhood.” A commission was set up which will work out ways and means and report to a later assembly.

The idea of restructure had its origin in the biennial meeting of the Council of Agencies at Culver Stockton College, in July, 1958. The committee dealing with the plan was appointed by the Board of Directors of the International Convention. It polled 1,000 carefully screened ministers, lay leaders and seminary students and learned that there was a “strong demand” that outmoded procedures be scrapped in favor of a new and imaginative church structure.

The committee’s work gate rise to actions taken at the last three Disciples assemblies: a resolution (Number 34) passed by the Denver assembly two t ears ago, a report (Number 30) received by the Louisville assembly last year, and another report (also Number 30) received by the 1961 Kansas City assembly. These actions constitute the initial step toward restructure.

The committee proposed developing a new theology of the nature and mission of the church looking toward restructure for bigger and broader involvement in keeping with an “over-all master plan that will relate each part to the whole.” 4 his new structure would extend beyond Disciple borders, including their “historic concern for Christian unity.” Every level of Disciple structure would be involved in a new denominational structure—“its church members, its ministry, its functioning, its authority, city unions, district and state conventions and organizations, its International Convention and all agencies reporting to it, colleges, seminaries, benevolent homes, national planning bodies and involvement in all ecumenical bodies.” Each of these units would be properly related to a central government. “Autonomy” and “self government” would be replaced by “interdependence” and “responsibility” to proper official authority.

A tentative blueprint of the new denominational structure is already being drawn up for presentation to the churches in an intensive program of education, propaganda and legal action. There will be conferences and consultations, speakers in conventions and institutes, lectures in seminaries, articles in the religious press, study courses, books, brochures and tracts. An “informed and experienced” cadre of denominational leaders will be “at the heart of the restructuring process,” directing and guiding the operation.

The undertaking will be of such magnitude that it “should probably involve the Brotherhood for most or all of the decade of the 1960s.” This does not mean that there will be delay in inaugurating important phases of the overall plan. “It is probable that some reorganizational moves will be made effective within three or four years.” Each will fit nicely into the whole design which is already well conceived in the official “inner circle” of the convention leadership. By 1969 the new ecclesiasticism will be complete and will be ready to move legally in effecting merger with the United Church of Christ.

Objective observers, while admitting the feasability of restructure and merger, in view of liberal control of the convention, also feel that ecumenical achievement will bring a split in the communion. A large segment of local churches and ministers have long ago ceased to cooperate with the convention in protest against theological liberalism and emergent ecclesiasticism. It is estimated by some observers that at least a million communicants may defect.

Miller’s church is a good example of what is happening. He was an elder of First Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana, one of the largest in the state. His views on theology and ecumenicity were not shared by his pastor. Finally he and 200 members of the congregation withdrew to form the North Christian Church, leaving 1,500 members of First Church to carry on with traditional conservative policies such as do most Columbus area churches.

Protestant Panorama

• Dr. Robert Lindsey, American Southern Baptist missionary who was injured while trying to smuggle an Arab youth from Jordan into Israel, was returned by Jordan authorities for treatment in the New City of Jerusalem. Official Israeli circles indicated that no formal charges would be preferred against Lindsey, who underwent amputation of one foot after he stepped on a land mine in no man’s land.

• The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. will be asked to rule on the suspension of a Presbyterian pacifist minister who for more than 10 years has refused to pay a major portion of his income taxes. The Cincinnati Presbytery suspended the Rev. Maurice F. McCrackin for ignoring an Internal Revenue Service summons. The Presbyterian Synod of Ohio upheld an appeal made by McCrackin, but ordered that the suspension remain effective while the presbytery carries the case to the General Assembly.

• Missouri Synod Lutheran churches are marking the 150th anniversary this month of the birth of Dr. C. F. W. Walther, first president of the Missouri Synod.

• A Greek court ruled unanimously last month that Protestant clergymen have the legal right to use the title of “Reverend.” The decision was handed down in the appeal of the Rev. Spiros Zodhiates of New York, a Baptist minister who is general secretary of the American Mission to Greeks. A lower court hid convicted Zodhiates in a suit brought by Greek Orthodox Archimandrite Christopher Kalyvas, who maintained that only priests of the Greek Orthodox Church had a right to use the title. Zodhiates has purchased space in Greek periodicals for evangelically-oriented messages over his name and that of his mission.

• A meeting between Pope John XXIII and the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), Dr. Archibald Campbell Craig, now appears likely for next year. Special committees of the Scottish church have authorized a courtesy call on the Pope if an invitation is extended when Craig goes to Rome for celebrations marking the centenary of the Scots Kirk (St. Andrews Church) there.

• Mennonite Brethren College of Winnipeg, Manitoba, has become an affiliate of Waterloo Lutheran University of Kitchener, Ontario. The relationship provides that the students at the Winnipeg campus may receive degrees from the Kitchener university. Similar academic standards and regulations will prevail.

• A nonprofit organization headed by evangelist Billy Graham is establishing a 10,000-watt radio station at Black Mountain, North Carolina. The Federal Communications Commission has assigned to the group a commercial license with a wave length of 1,010 meters and the call letters WFGW.

• The new Conwell School of Theology, located on the Temple University campus in Philadelphia, opened its classroom doors for the first time last month. A successor to the Temple School of Theology, the new interdenominational seminary is named for the late Dr. Russell Conwell, a noted Baptist clergyman who founded the university. It is independently incorporated.

• Dr. and Mrs. Charles E. Fuller are marking their 50th wedding anniversary this month. Fuller has been the voice of the renowned “Old Fashioned Revival Hour” for nearly 37 years.

• A new theological journal, independent but Lutheran-oriented, is scheduled to make its debut in January. Dr. Carl E. Braaten, professor at Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary, has been named editor. The magazine, to be called Dialog, will be published, promoted, and distributed by Sacred Design Associates, Inc., an independent religious publishing house in Minneapolis.

• A 34-voice “Korean Orphan Choir” is touring North America under the auspices of World Vision.

Visiting The President

Greek Orthodox Patriarch Benedictos I paid a visit to the White House this month to bestow upon President Kennedy a decoration which includes a tiny fragment of wood said to be a piece of the cross on which Christ was crucified.

It was the first meeting ever to take place between a U. S. president and a Greek Orthodox patriarch.

A citation praised the president for “your endeavors in the name of the God of peace and justice.”

Two days earlier, Kennedy received a delegation of United Presbyterian officials led by State Clerk Eugene Carson Blake. They discussed plans for a multi-million dollar National Presbyterian Church and Center in Washington. Later the delegation met with former President Eisenhower, who is honorary chairman of the sponsors’ committee for the project.

Clergy Confidences

A new law in the District of Columbia prohibits examination of any minister in connection with any communication made to him in his professional capacity, without consent of the party to such communication. The exemption is similar to that enjoyed by attorneys and physicians.

Religion And Labor

The Religion and Labor Council of America formally opened a new national headquarters in Washington, D. C., last month. Dr. Kenneth Watson, Methodist minister, is executive director.

Exemption Regained

The Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, which has an annual income of some $18,000,000, regained tax exemption last month from the Tennessee Board of Equalization.

The board’s latest ruling prohibits the city of Nashville from imposing property taxes on the publishing house. It affects only the 1961 assessments, however, which the city had set at $1,674,600.

Last year, the board cut in half a 1960 assessment of $1,546,300 on the publishing house property. Methodist agencies have appealed the 1960 decision in court. An assessment of $694,050 for 1959 is also pending in court.

In its most recent ruling the state board said the 1960 decision was made because “the only proof presented to the board showed or indicated that 50 per cent of its (the publishing house’s) total income was realized from business which was beyond the scope of its religious purposes.”

However, it said, the proof before the board this year clearly indicated that only about $200,000 to $300,000 of the publishing house’s annual income of $18,000,000 “could be considered by any rule to be beyond the scope of a religious purpose.”

Since the income derived by the publishing house from “not strictly religious activities” is “only incidental,” the board said, its entire properties should be exempt from taxation.

Rosary Crusade

What was described as the “largest religious gathering ever to take place in the United States”—a crowd estimated at more than 500,000—jammed San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on Sunday, October 8, for a rally of the Family Rosary Crusade.

The service was led by Father Patrick Peyton, director of the crusade, with the rosary and family prayer.

Assistant Police Chief Al Nelder said the attendance was more than a half million people on the park’s vast polo field and adjacent lawns and roads.

Auxiliary Bishop Hugh A. Donohe of San Francisco said the rally was “the greatest religious gathering ever to take place in the United States.”

‘King Of Kings’

MGM has produced a new “King of Kings.” The cast is new, the producer new, and much of the story of Christ’s life is new. Woven part from history, part from the New Testament, and part from fancy, this newest version of the life of Christ moves its steady slow-moving pace across the wide screen for three hours in technicolor. It was three years in making, and none who remain to see it all will doubt it.

The picture is king-size, no doubt necessitated by Hollywood’s additions to the New Testament. There is the prolonged insurrection led by Barabbas—with Judas’ benediction—which occurs on Palm Sunday. There is the defense of Jesus’ legal counselor (the Centurion) before Pilate, Herod Antipas’ unconcealed affection for Salome, and Jesus’ visit to John the Baptist in prison, to mention no more. Such license with the life of Jesus is taken no doubt to heighten the dramatics; yet tis folly. Those not awed by the life of Christ without the additions, will not be induced by them to go to the box office, and millions of Christians will be disturbed by such distortion.

Few would object to some padding in a dramatic presentation of biblical text, providing it does not change the texture of the material. But from both a religious and literary point of view such alteration of the biblical material as occurs in the script of “King of Kings” is inexcusable. Judas, for example, is hardly to be recognized. He is not chosen by Jesus, but requests a place among the twelve. Nor, as this suggests, is he a bad man. He is merely a zealot with a burning desire that his people be free. Nor is Barabbas really a bad man; in the cause of freedom he merely baits his traps for the Roman “wolves.”

With its technical skill and expert craftsmanship, one wonders why Hollywood does not have the ability to recognize the most dramatic story ever told and then simply produce it. For millions of people there is no more moving, profoundly dramatic story than the life of Christ. There was indeed more political intrigue involved in the death of Christ than many Christians know. But this is but the more reason for the playwrights and producers to seize its tremendous opportunity to recreate on the screen the greatest story ever told, without fanciful additions, alternations of script—and without omissions.

Omissions. The charge has been made that the intent of “King of Kings” is to clear the Jews and place the responsibility of the death of Christ squarely on the Romans. This may not be the intent. Yet additions and omissions to the biblical script lend credence to the charge. The film begins in 63 B.C. with the Roman soldiers wasting the Jewish countryside landscaped by Jews on Roman crosses, piled in death, or thrown to the flames. There is no Jewish crowd whipped by priests to demand the crucifixion of Christ, no trial before the Sanhedrin with its judgment that Christ was worthy of death, no Jewish mob but Roman soldiers who seize Jesus in the Garden, no Jewish mockers at the Cross. Nor is Pilate presented as one who at least struggled to be just. All this tends to lend life to the charge that “King of Kings” is made to serve a racial purpose.

One omission which all Christians will find strange is the omission of the word “church” in Jesus’ statement that he will build upon Peter.

What of import does the film say? The only discernible theme is the perpetual conflict between violent tyranny and man’s love for freedom. A written prologue given the viewer states both the film’s basic theme, and the role and character of both Jew and Roman. “As it is today, so it was in the turbulent times before Christ, that the menace of pagan tyranny shadowed the hearts of men who would be free. In their quest for truth, their unquenchable thirst for knowledge and faith, they brought down the wrath and might of Roman blasphemy.”

The “King of Kings” suffers from miscasting. Jeff Hunter conveying sincerity also conveys an effeminate and unconvincing Christ; Peter looks more like a French Mephistopheles than a Big Fisherman, John, like a college sophomore. Salome (16-year-old Brigid Bazten), whose dance is brief but vulgar, is a sex kitten who would never go so far as to demand a man’s head.

The producers have attempted a reverential treatment, but something went wrong. John the Baptist is a strong character, and Barabbas perhaps the strongest character of all. Yet at times the Gospel breaks through. Christians will see more of the biblical truth than is really there. Others will be, if not confused, then misinformed. But all who see it through to the end will learn patience—and that after all is a Christian virtue.

If instead of trying to gild the lily, Hollywood would use its monumental know-how to present the divine Word become flesh—without embellishments—it might well produce the greatest picture ever filmed.

J. D.

Prelude To A Prelude

An Eastern Orthodox ecumenical council, presumably of a scope comparable to one proposed within Roman Catholicism, is in the offing. It will be preceded by a preparatory pro-synod, the groundwork for which was laid last month on the Greek island of Rhodes in a Pan-Orthodox conference of some 65 prelates from 12 of the 15 major Eastern Orthodox churches.

The specific aim of the week-long Rhodes meeting was to agree upon an agenda for the pro-synod. The agenda was finally drawn up despite distractions occasioned by the presence of the Russian Orthodox Church representative, the assertive Archbishop Nicodim, identified as head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s foreign relations department.

The young (in his early thirties), bearded Archbishop Nicodim sought to seize the initiative throughout the proceedings with the characteristic Soviet line. He demanded and got two votes, claiming to represent the Georgian Orthodox Church also. He electrified the opening session with a speech criticizing what he termed the “enslavement” by the state of Orthodox churches in various countries, but observers said he clearly intended to exclude from his criticism the domination which Moscow exercises over Russian churches. He insisted that the pro-synod agenda include matters with political overtones, but successfully fought for the deletion of an item concerning methods of combatting atheism (the final agenda includes such items as “Orthodoxy and racial discrimination,” “Co-operation of Orthodox churches in the application of the Christian ideas of peace, brotherhood, and love,” and “Orthodoxy and Christian duty in areas of rapid social change”).

The conference agreed to renew theological talks between the Orthodox churches and the Church of England which were interrupted in 1931.

Archbishop Nicodim also had urged the assembled prelates to set a date for the pro-synod. He was overruled, however, and a date is still to be worked out.

According to Religious News Service, Archbishop Nicodim comes from a nonreligious family, the son of a Soviet farm manager. He was a student at the Ryazan Pedagogical Institute when he left to enter an Orthodox monastery. In 1950 he became dean of a church in the ancient town of Uglich, near Moscow, and started a correspondence course offered by the Leningrad Theological Academy. He graduated in 1953 and began work as a priest in Jarislav Cathedral. Three years later he was sent to head the Russian Orthodox Church’s mission in Jerusalem. He is the youngest of all Eastern Orthodox bishops.

Archbishop Nicodim won the foreign relations post last year, succeeding Metropolitan Nicolai. He had only been in his new post for two months when he accompanied Patriarch Alexei of Moscow on a month-long tour of the Near East which included visits with numerous Eastern Orthodox officials.

Ecumenical observers expect to see a lot more of Archbishop Nicodim.

Tour Of The Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are to be exhibited in museums throughout the world, according to an announcement by Dr. Awni Dajani, director of the Jordan Antiquities Department.

Recently Jordan King Hussein issued a ban on permanent export of any of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Winners

Yemenite Rabbi Yihyeh Alsheikh of Israel won the second International Bible Contest in Jerusalem this month by defeating a Brazilian mother of four, Senhora Yolanda Da Silva.

The final question called for the two finalists to name seven Bible verses mentioning the exile or return of the Israelites.

The American entrant, 33-year-old Tovia Goldman, placed third. The Israeli-born Goldman, son of a rabbi, is a life insurance consultant in Cincinnati.

Runners-up in the contest’s last round were the Rev. Jacobus J. Kombrinck, a Seventh-day Adventist preacher from South Africa, and Edmund Read, a New Zealand teacher.

Bishops Or Not?

Methodist Bishop Gabriel Sundaram of Lucknow, India, declared this month his opposition to a plan for a United Church of North India and Pakistan which was to have included Methodists.

He urged that Methodists reject the plan on the ground that Anglicans were failing to recognize Methodist bishops. He cited the fact that Anglican bishops declined to attend a conference of Protestant bishops at Madras to which Methodist bishops had been invited.

Sundaram declared that Methodists had been led to believe that they were

uniting with the Anglicans “in terms of equality.”

“The constitution of the proposed church laid down that both these churches were linked with the church of apostolic times,” he added. “However, the plan of church union for North India and Pakistan is capable of double meaning. It means one thing to the Methodists and an entirely different thing to the Anglicans.

“It is now clear that in the minds of the Anglicans, Methodist bishops are not really bishops. It is equally clear that the services proposed for use at the inauguration of the new church are really services of supplemental ordination which will regularize the ordination of Methodist bishops and ministers.”

Sundaram concluded that the “decision of the Anglican bishops not to recognize the ministry of the Methodist church leaves it no other option than to reject the plan.”

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Weldon F. Crossland, 71, Methodist administrator; in Rochester, New York … Dr. Alfred Haapanen, past president of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America; in Houghton, Michigan … the Rev. Henry R. Van Til, professor of Bible at Calvin College; in Grand Rapids, Michigan … Dr. Archibald G. Adams, retired American Baptist missionary to West China and former professor at Temple University; in Philadelphia … Dr. Arthur C. Darrow, 86, retired American Baptist missionary to Burma and an administrator of mission hospitals; in Newark, Ohio … J. Reuben Clark, Jr., 90, first counselor in the First Presidency of the Mormon church; in Salt Lake City … the Rev. Brian Hession, 57, pioneer of religious films in Britain and noted campaigner for funds to fight cancer; in London.

Resignations: From the presidency of Ewah Women’s University in Seoul, Korea, Dr. Helen Kim … from the editorship of the Youth for Christ Magazine, Warren Wiersbe.

Retirement:Dr. Clayton E. Williams, pastor of the American Church in Paris, effective next summer.

Election: As president of the International Convention of Christian Churches, Dr. Leslie R. Smith.

Appointments: As president of Central Baptist Seminary of Toronto, the Rev. E. Sidney Kerr … as professor of missions at Columbia Theological Seminary, Dr. C. Darby Fulton … as chairman of the Baptist Jubilee Advance for 1962, Dr. Joseph H. Jackson … as executive director of the National Council of Churches’ Department of Social Welfare, the Rev. Sheldon L. Rahn … as general secretary of the Southern California Council of Churches, Dr. Forrest C. Weir.

Tools For Study

The student who wishes to use the book of Joshua in a pastoral ministry or as source material for a Sunday school class, will be well advised to consult a good Bible atlas to equip himself with a knowledge of the geography and topography of Palestine particularly in the time of the conquest. For this purpose two works may be recommended, the Westminster Historical Atlas by Wright and Filson and the Bible Atlas by Charles F. Pfeiffer. Commentary material is not plentiful since the book of Joshua deals largely with statistical material and is not as replete with prophetic utterances as some other books of the Bible. Among older works the commentary by Keil and Delitzsch is excellent as is the material in the Bible Commentary. Among more recent titles, the New Commentary is a very fine one-volume work prepared by devoted Christian interpreters. The volume in The Interpreter’s Bible will be found useful at a number of points although it discounts some of the miraculous elements in the book and is inclined to be overly interested in literary division. A study of the person and work of the man Joshua, as described not only in the book of Joshua but in the earlier parts of the Old Testament, will enrich every man of God who wishes to be thoroughly furnished unto every good work.

DAVID W. KERR

Professor of Old Testament

Gordon Divinity School

“Thou shalt call his name Joshua.” Thus the angelic command to Joseph might well read in our English versions of the Bible, for our Lord bore the name of the great captain of Israel in ancient times. Indeed, the confusion in interpretation which resulted from the use of the Greek form Jesus in the fourth chapter of Hebrews, is well known. Most scholars are agreed that the Jesus of Hebrews 4:8 is the Joshua of the Old Testament, while the Jesus of 4:14 is, of course, our Lord. Joshua, Jehoshuah (as the name occasionally appears), Jeshua and Jesus are all variant forms of the name which means Jehovah saves. The form Hoshea is also found in Deuteronomy 32:44.

Place In The Bible

The book of Joshua has always been placed after Deuteronomy in the Old Testament except in the Syriac version where the book of Job usually intervenes. The insertion was made, no doubt, in the interests of chronology which was based upon the tradition that Moses was the writer of Job. Since the book takes up the story of Israel from the death of Moses to the death of Joshua, it is natural that it should stand where it does in the Hebrew and English Bibles.

Old Testament Studies

Ancient tradition ascribed the authorship of the book to Joshua himself. For this there was some evidence in the use of the first personal pronoun in Joshua 5:1, 6. The manuscripts do not all agree here, however, and such parts of the book as the accounts of the deaths of Joshua and Eleazer could not have been written by him.

In the course of modern studies Joshua has been included as a unit with the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch), and the whole is called the Hexateuch. A few men in the ancient church had followed a similar practice but not for reason of literary criticism. Recently Joshua has been included with the books of Moses because it was thought that the same literary strands, called by the critics J, E, D, and P, which were “discovered” in the Pentateuch also continued through Joshua.

Some, however, among the present generation of scholars, have presented the view that Deuteronomy through II Kings is an historical unit. The view is supported partly by the fact that there is a continuous narrative in the books, beginning with Israel’s history as propounded by Moses in Deuteronomy 1–4, and also by the fact that the philosophy of history which is found in these books is the same. It should be recognized, on the other hand, that the account of Israel’s origin which is summarized in Deuteronomy 1–4 is the same as that which is found in detailed fashion in Exodus and Numbers, and that the biblical philosophy of history is substantially the same throughout.

The book of Joshua uses a quotation from an old epic called the Book of Joshar, Joshua 10:13. It is quite probable that the author used other historical accounts, some of which may have come from eye-witnesses, such as the account in Joshua 5 of the crossing of the Jordan River. The accuracy of the stories of the Israelitish conquest is supported generally by archaeological findings. There is considerable disagreement among scholars as to the dating of some sites. There is, moreover, no mention of Joshua himself outside the Bible—though there is no mention of Moses either. Some of the information contained in the book may have been passed on to the author by oral tradition, which in the Near East can be amazingly accurate. At any rate, though the book in its present form cannot be from Joshua himself, it is older than much of the Old Testament materials and seems in its written form to come from a time reasonably close to the actual events.

Contents

The book depicts the faithfulness of God in fulfilling under Joshua’s leadership the promises he had made to those who left Egypt under Moses. This theme is introduced in the first paragraph of the first chapter, 1:3, 4. It is summarized toward the close of the book, 23:14–16. A convenient outline of the book is as follows:

I. Introduction 1:1–9.

II. Entrance into Canaan 1:10–5:15.

a. Preparations for crossing the Jordan 1:10–2:24.

b. The river is crossed 3:1–4:24.

c. Encampment at Gilgal 5:1–15.

III. Conquest of the Land 6:1–12:24.

a. Capture of Jericho 6:1–27.

b. Achan’s theft 7:1–26.

c. Capture of Ai 8:1–35.

d. The southern campaign 9:1–10:43.

e. The northern campaign 11:1–23.

f. List of the conquered kings 12:1–24.

IV. Division of the Land 13:1–22:34.

a. Command to divide a land not fully possessed 13:1–7.

b. Territories of various groups 13:8–19:51.

c. Cities of refuge 20:1–9.

d. Levitical cities 21:1–45.

e. The altar of witness of the eastern tribes 22:1–34.

V. Joshua’s Farewell 23:1–24:33.

a. His first address 23:1–16.

b. Renewal of the Covenant 24:1–28.

c. Death of Joshua and Eleazar 24:29–33.

It may be seen that the book is a fairly well-knit unit and that, whatever its place among the other annals of Israel’s history, it may also stand as a composition by itself.

Problems

A few problems have been raised for the Christian conscience by some matters which have the divine approval in Joshua. One of these is the punishment of the sin of Achan. It would appear from a reading of the account that not only Achan himself but his whole family was involved in the deception which brought disaster upon the young nation of Israel. The amount of contents which was hidden in the family tent was sufficiently large that scarcely any member of the family could have been unaware of its presence. The hiding of these items was no doubt a matter of agreement among the members of the family and the punishment which fell upon them is very’ similar in nature to the punishment which came upon Ananias and Sapphira who agreed to lie to the Holy Spirit as recorded in the book of the Acts: It is, of course, also true that in the time of Joshua the family was considered to be a unit but it was also considered to be a part of the larger family which was emerging as a nation. It was necessary’ that a holy nation should judge sin. There could be no compromise in the struggles in which they were involved and to allow a sin with social implications to go unjudged would be a moral disaster. Another of the problems in the Book of Joshua is the matter of “holy wars.” In the campaign against Jericho and various other towns, both the material goods and the population were “devoted.” In ancient parlance this means that they were to be set aside as the right or property of God or in the case of heathen nations of a god. The people were not to pamper their pride either by enslaving the population or by enriching themselves with the plunder. A part of the explanation lies therefore in the ideas of the culture involved. It is to be kept in mind, however, that the acts of total destruction are given the divine approval and this means that we cannot simply explain away the holy wars which were aimed at the extinction of native groups. It ought to be remembered that the inhabitants of Canaan had espoused a type of religion in which sexual promiscuity played a very prominent part. One such fertility rite is described in the book of Numbers, chapter 25, in which the children of Israel were led to participate in a sexual orgy in honor of Baal-Peor. Every practice related to such religion was an abomination to God and would certainly offend the moral sense of any modern man, Christian or otherwise.

One of the most influential men in our specialized society is the critic. His function hi every field of artistic development appears well defined: he is a sampler, a professional taster for millions. With few exceptions the masses of theatre-goers, collectors of art, and book readers rely upon the published reviews of established critics. The names of many of these men (and some women) have become as familiar to the American household as are the names of the celebrities whose works they analyze. Every day Americans may be kept informed of the expert opinion of their cultural peers, who are dedicated wholly to the task of surveying the artistic horizon for signs of better and better things.

Professor Carlos Baker of Princeton in a recent issue of The New York Times Book Review wrote that it is the critic’s social responsibility to see that we miss as little of the best art of our time as possible. The immediate problem raised by this definition is in the phrase “the best art of our time.” Here indeed is a relative remark. It may well be argued that to anaylze our present flood of degraded literature, immoral and bluntly obscene, and to find any superlative degree of comparison in it may be the same task as the classification of decaying refuse into levels of corruptness.

And yet each weekend the literary reviews of our major newspapers carry plaudits and praises for third-rate novels by third-rate writers. Bolstered by the apparent acceptability of his initial work with its typical sequence of passion and pornography, the third-rater flashes through another manuscript. Before the serious reader has had a chance to recover from the first bout, the trusted reviewers are encouraging him back into the ring for a rematch with this “finest genuine talent” or “sparkling new artist.”

Nor are the critics content merely to extol the praises of these pint-sized minds with their single track of plot and stereotyped characters. The critics have gone farther: they have heaped recognition upon shoddy forms of literature by awarding respected prizes to authors of shallow samples of the decadence of unregenerate mentalities.

Not all of America’s famous reviewers have been taken in by the prevailing trend in fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism. Upon occasion—such as Malcolm Cowley’s devastating mauling of Leslie Fiedler’s Love and Death in the American Novel—an honest critic will permit his offended sense of natural morality to give vent to his long-suppressed ire. All too often, however, the critic is more conscious of a supposed obligation to twentieth century fad and style than to his real responsibility to society.

In the preface to his courageous commentary on contemporary writing, Man in Modem Fiction, Edmund Fuller meets this inconsistency among his fellow-critics head-on: “I distinctly attack the canon of critical values which elevates the mandegrading books to claims of literary-artistic eminence.”

More such voices crying in the wilderness are needed today. Weak as our evangelical novels may be, our supply of Christian critics is weaker. The evangelical writers who can phrase a line of dialogue or rhyme a Petrarchian sonnet may be few, but the paucity of Christian critics is even more striking. One may almost count on his fingers the number of conservative American Protestants whose book reviews or critical comments are being published in the major magazines and newspapers. Edmund Fuller, perhaps the most frequent contributor to the prominent publications, always brings to his reader a forthright picture of the aims and achievements of an author in language that is both intelligent and direct. Elis scope of influence has been widespread: as a teacher at the Kent School; as publisher’s consultant, textbook editor, and author of professional articles on teaching, as well as top-ranked critic. In all of these areas he has demonstrated a Christian faith that meets the need of the intellectual.

Along with Edmund Fuller one should mention Clyde S. Kilby of Wheaton College, who has gained distinction for his studies of C. S. Lewis, as well as for his text Poetry and Life. He has also been greatly responsible for the “Conference on Christianity and Literature,” a loosely-federated group through which Christian teachers may exchange views and opinions on literature.

Randall Stewart of Vanderbilt University, the editor of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Notebooks, ranks as the finest literary historian and researcher from the Christian view in America. His work American Literature and Christian Doctrine should be read by every Christian interested in classical American literature.

Two other men, both frequent contributors to this magazine, have established themselves as qualified scholars and writers. They are James Wesley Ingles, Professor of English and Head of that department at Eastern Baptist College, and Calvin D. Linton, Professor of English Literature and Dean of Columbian College at George Washington University. Professor Ingles has specialized in the study of Victorian literature, while producing five novels of his own. Dean Linton has concentrated much of his critical focus upon Elizabethan drama, as well as supplying scholarly reviews and critiques of hooks and trends in current literature.

In the particular area of poetry evaluation and in his close analysis of C. S. Lewis, Chad Walsh of Beloit College has made a remarkable contribution to scholarly criticism with Christian tenets. As College Poet and editor of the Beloit College Poetry Journal, he is an influential figure among active poets.

Although he is known as a philosopher rather than a critic, some of the most searching criticism appears in Emile Cailliet’s The Christian Approach to Culture, as well as in his last book, The Recovery of Purpose.

The passing in 1956 of Henry Zylstra, the Reformed critic and scholar, removed one more evangelical voice that we should surely have counted on our roster of Christian critics of literature. Even so, the wealth of his wisdom has not been lost to us, for by virtue of the posthumous publication of his speeches and essays, Testament of Vision, “he being dead yet speaketh.”

The work done by these men whom we have named constitutes a basis on which to build the structure of Christian criticism. The high quality of scholarship and the honest, unequivocating manner of writing sets a good example for others to follow.

It is important to recognize that in some of the writings of so-called evangelical critics, a disturbing theological blandness exists alongside their admitted literary skill. It is not sufficient for the highly-trained university professor, who would analyze literature having theological problems, to deal with those problems merely in general terms. His knowledge must be more than an elementary or cursory acquaintance with faith and doctrine—à la A Handbook of Christian Theology. One may not attain complete critical excellence by over-simplifying or avoiding crucial theological issues that arise so frequently in the consideration of literature. All who would attempt to evaluate literature in the light of Christian perspective must possess an acute awareness of the shifts and slants in theological views. An evangelical approach to literary criticism must include an incisiveness that penetrates to the heart of all problems, whether they be linguistic, artistic, moral, or spiritual.

What can be done to enlarge the number of effective Christian critics? To begin, a greater effort must be made by Christian teachers of language and literature, principally those in our Christian schools and colleges, to have their critiques published in whatever influential organ they can, though it be simply a journal sponsored by the creative writing class of their own institution. Eventually it is to be hoped that many more of the critical reviews and quarterlies would have on their lists of contributors the names of recognized Christian teachers and critics.

In the classrooms of our Christian institutions we must introduce our students to standards or criteria by which they may learn to assess for themselves the worth of the literature of this or of any time. To do this will require a more intensive and comprehensive study of theology by our literature students, matched by an increased emphasis upon literary values by our seminarians.

But until the whole of the Christian public becomes a thinking and reading public, able to judge for themselves the distinctions between “good” and “bad” in the cascade of literature that pours in upon them, it will be necessary to find worthy men to serve as guideposts.

More reporters of that which is “of good report” must be trained to augment the group enumerated above, as well as to counteract the existing trend toward a limited view of God and man in literary criticism. Together, and with a definite sense of Christian mission, a vast enlargement in the effectiveness of the Christian critical view of contemporary writing will speak forcibly against the present godlessness in literature.

Director of Music

Stony Brook School

Stony Brook, New York

In the nineteenth century the rise of new scientific theories, including the biological theory of evolution as well as the rapid development of biblical criticism, contributed to the formation of some new viewpoints concerning the person of Christ. Usually these interpretations were intended to make the miracle of the Incarnation more reasonable or more acceptable to the scientific mind of that century. One theory which received widespread emphasis and acceptance in the late nineteenth century and whose influence is still felt today is the so-called “kenotic theory” of the person of Christ. The name “kenotic” comes from the Greek word kenoō, used by Paul in Philippians 2:7 to describe the action by which Christ “emptied” himself, taking the form of a servant, when he came incarnate into the world. In order to understand the tremendous importance of this theory and its widespread influence even today, it will be necessary to survey briefly the historical background and then concentrate upon a biblical exposition of those passages which have been crucial in the discussion of kenosis.

Historical Background and Development. Apparently Theodotion (second century) is the first to use “kenosis” as a theological term, in his translation of Isaiah 34:11. However, both Gregory Nazianzus (fourth century) and Cyril of Alexandria (fifth century) use the term in the technical theological sense to express the action in Philippians 2:7 by which Christ “emptied himself” (Greek, heauton hekenosen). The Latin Vulgate renders this phrase “semetipsum exinanivit” (he emptied, i.e., desolated, his very self), while Tertullian used the phrase “exhausit semetipsum” (he exhausted, i.e., completely emptied, his very self) in his Adversus Marcionem. The real point of concern for each of these thinkers, as for us today, was this: “Of what did Christ empty himself?”

A secondary question for these early Christian writers, and a question which came to the front in the Reformation period, was this: “Exactly who is the subject of the verb emptied?” Is it the pre-existent Son of God who by sovereign choice divested himself of some of the prerogatives of deity in order to become incarnate; or is it the incarnate Son, who, in the days of his flesh, was involved in a kind of repeated or continual emptying of himself in order to fulfill his mission as the Servant of God and submit even to death on the cross?

The Synod of Antioch (A.D. 341) had spoken suggestively and pointedly on both questions, with these words: kenosas heauton apo tou einai isa Theo (emptying himself of “the being equal with God”). It was stoutly maintained that Christ was fully divine, having given up temporarily not some portion of his deity, but rather the status or position at the right hand of God which was his by right, in order to become the suffering Servant.

Medieval theology was concerned with the attempt to define more explicitly what attributes of deity were laid aside in the Incarnation or what actual limitations were experienced by Christ during his incarnate life. During the Reformation period the discussion centered upon the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Much of this discussion was rather barren because it often degenerated into an exercise in imagining certain characteristics of deity which might be laid aside without seriously impairing essential deity.

The discussion moved on into the seventeenth century with bold assertions that Christ certainly was, according to the Scriptures, less than divine. Some tried to soften this heresy by maintaining that Jesus actually possessed the divine powers all the time but kept them under a conscious restraint. Others supposed that he actually had the divine attributes in all their fullness, but that he was unaware of the extent of these powers and therefore lived his incarnate life within the limits imposed upon any creature.

With such an unfortunate pilgrimage throughout Christian history, the whole idea of kenosis might have been summarily dropped as a dangerous and confusing concept for Christian faith, except for something which happened in the nineteenth century. This great century of scientific discovery, historical investigation, and biblical criticism brought about a rediscovery of the real humanity of Jesus. Against the background of the Darwinian theory of evolution, the Graf-Wellhausen school of Old Testament history, and the radical Tübingen school of New Testament criticism, a group of English theologians fought valiantly to save the central dogma of the unique divine humanity of Jesus Christ. Bishop Gore, along with many other scholars, published the symposium on incarnation theology entitled Lux Mundi, which went through twelve editions between 1889 and 1891. This book did much to popularize the concept of the divine kenosis. This zenith of the doctrine in the whole history of Christian thought can best be understood by turning to the biblical evidence which they were attempting to expound.

The Biblical Data. The Bible certainly does not elaborate a doctrine of kenosis, but it does set forth the data with which serious biblical theologians have developed the doctrine of the divine “self-emptying.” Basic elements of the scriptural evidence are easily categorized:

(1) The divine relationship or unity between Father and Son (John 1:1–18; 10:30; Heb. 1:1–4).

(2) Closely connected with this explicit claim of unity with God is the expression of limitations upon this relationship (John 5:19, 30; Matt. 27:46).

(3) Also there are specific statements of Jesus in regard to limitations upon his knowledge and pre-incarnate glory (Mark 13:22; John 17:5).

(4) The emphasis of New Testament writers upon the real humanity of Jesus can be seen in the account of his temptations (Matt. 4:1–11), his growth and development in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52), and his learning by the suffering which he endured (Heb. 4:15; 5:7, 8).

(5) Finally, the most important passage of all, the one which actually contains the term which carries the central idea of the doctrine of kenosis is Philippians 2:5–11. This is further amplified by the Pauline statement in 2 Corinthians 8:9, which Albrecht Oepke calls “the best commentary” on the Philippian passage.

The Central Passage: Philippians 2:7. In the Philippian context Paul is urging the Christians to practice unselfishness and humility. In order to illustrate this he turns to the supreme example: “Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:5–7).

While most commentators have agreed on the subject of the verb “emptied,” that is, the pre-incarnate Christ who emptied himself, they have had differing ideas as to what he emptied, or of what he divested himself. In 1880, H. Crosby set forth the idea in The True Humanity of Christ that during the whole period of the Incarnation, although the essential deity must have necessarily existed without interruption, yet his conscious and active deity was entirely quiescent. Only at the Resurrection did he reassume the full power of deity.

Bishop Charles Gore, in The Incarnation, 1891, maintained that the Son of God voluntarily surrendered or abandoned certain natural prerogatives of external attributes of God, while he yet retained the essential, ethical attributes of truth, holiness, and love. A similar idea was advanced by A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Thought, 1893, and by a host of others in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

Other kenotic theologians carried the speculation to even more extreme lengths. W. N. Clarke, in An Outline of Christian Theology, 1898, suggested that on the basis of an original kinship between God and man, God became man in the Incarnation by self-limitation. Henry Van Dyke, in The Gospel for an Age of Doubt: The Human Life of God, 1897, also sought to make the Incarnation more acceptable to human reason upon the assumption of an original kinship between God and man. This would suggest that the Incarnation was the most perfectly natural thing in the world, offering no affront to human reason. Modern psychology was called to the aid of the theory by R. H. Hutton in Essays Theological and Literary. He recalled the capacity of the conscious mind to deposit a portion of its contents in the subconscious mind, suggesting a pattern by which conscious deity may have become unconscious deity.

Perhaps the most constructive suggestion in all this period of kenotic speculation came from D. W. Simon, in his Reconciliation through Incarnation, 1898: In the creation God certainly limited himself with reference to future choices and deeds of free moral beings. If men have any true freedom, it must be because of divine self-limitation which chooses not to determine every action of his creatures but, rather, gives them the responsibility of making real choices. The Incarnation then becomes a further and supreme example by which God limits himself in relation to his creation—he actually comes into his creation, accepting the limits of creaturehood.

Evaluation. In all this theological speculation, which often rambled far from the Pauline passage, the commentators seemed compelled by some hidden force to interpret the passage only in one way: What did Christ give up? Of what was he divested when he became incarnate. The Greek scholar, William Hersey Davis, cut through this Gordian knot by suggesting in his lectures that Paul is not talking about what the Son gave up, but what he gained; not the royal status he forsook, but the role of the servant which he chose. This is certainly the point of emphasis Paul is making to the Philippians: they are to have the mind of the Servant of God; they are to be filled with humility rather than lording it over one another. Davis even went so far as to suggest that “kenoō” should be understood in the sense of emptying the contents of one vessel into another vessel, so that it was a matter of pouring the same content into another form: Christ emptied himself (i.e., poured himself) into the form of a servant. Whether Greek grammar requires, or even permits, this interpretation, it is clear that the context emphasizes the change of form, not the change of content of the divine being. He did not give up deify, but he gained humanity. There was no attrition of the divine nature in the Incarnation; his life incarnate, containing the fulness of the Godhead bodily, was offered for man’s redemption.

Although the main thrust of the kenotic theory led into some barren speculation, it is well to note positive contributions which the theory has made to the doctrine of the Incarnation:

(1) Kenosis does emphasize the divine initiative. With the few exceptions indicated, the kenotic theologians have proclaimed a salvation which comes from above rather than from below, from God rather than man.

(2) Kenosis emphasizes the free, voluntary act of the pre-incarnate Son in choosing the path of humiliation. Not of necessity but out of the sovereign choice of love he gave up heaven’s glory for the way of the cross.

(3) Closely related to this is the emphasis laid upon Christ’s conscious restraint in the use of divine powers during the days of his flesh. Surely, as the Gospels testify, Jesus had powers upon which he could have called to deliver himself, but he refused to use them. We must admit that this continuing voluntary element is of supreme importance in our understanding of the person of Christ. Without it Christ would become the helpless victim of the Incarnation, once the original decision was made; and the significant, repeated, voluntary submission of Christ to suffering and death would be destroyed.

(4) Kenosis emphatically preserved the doctrine of the real humanity of Christ against all Docetic attempts to undermine it. The basic motivation behind most kenotic interpretations is clearly to provide a pattern of thought in which one must take seriously the actual lowliness, condescension, and humiliation of Christ.

The most serious criticism of the kenotic theory is the one which may be levelled at Arius, Eutyches, Nestorius, and the long line of theologians who were rejected by the main stream of the Christian community: all of these made the fatal mistake of trying to rationalize the supreme miracle of the Incarnation, to make intelligible by analogy and illustration that event which is absolutely without parallel, the coming of the Divine Being into the world as a real man.

Closely connected with this criticism is another: kenotic thinkers often fell into the hopelessly negative position of trying to define the divine nature in less and less essential terms until they might at last squeeze the residue into a human personality with no strain at all.

While we can be grateful for the kenotic defense of the humanity of Christ, we can be just as thankful that we are not required to defend this doctrine on such misleading grounds. We can proclaim the humanity he gained, without attempting to define certain aspects of deity which he could have given up; we can certainly bow before that throne to which he was exalted by the way of the Cross.

Bibliography: Athanasius, De Incarnatione; H. Crosby, The True Humanity of Christ; H. Van Dyke, The Gospel for an Age of Doubt; A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Thought; C. Gore, The Incarnation; Belief in Christ; Lux Mundi, ed.; A. Oepke, “Kenosis,” Theologisches Wörterbuch, G. Kittel, ed.; J. Orr, The Christian View of God and the World.

Associate Professor of Theology

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Louisville, Kentucky

“When shall I start teaching my son about the Bible?”

A Christian mother asked this question of her new pastor.

“How old is he?”

“Six,” she replied.

“Hurry home, woman, you have already lost five precious years,” the pastor exclaimed.

This is not a joke but a matter of the gravest importance. Too many parents assume that little children are not prepared to hear and understand spiritual truths, and in their ignorance they fritter away golden years of opportunity.

The writer is fully aware that some child psychologists, even leaders in Christian education, feel and teach that children should not be subjected to spiritual instruction before they are six years of age. Some even deplore the telling of Bible stories of adventure and daring.

But the writer also knows that these children are a fruitful field for just such teaching and that they respond in a way which proves conclusively that these are indeed the golden years for Christian instruction. He knows this from experience.

The mind of a child does not operate in a vacuum. Even when he is only a few months old impressions are being formed and character developed. What a tragedy it is to permit this formative period to pass without making an impact on him for God and his Word!

The hearts and minds of little children are amazingly receptive to outside impressions, either for good or evil and when our Lord affirmed, “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein,” he was speaking to those characteristics of a child which are so worth emulating by all.

We know of individuals who deplore telling children stories of violence which are to be found in the Bible. These usually depict heroism, divine guidance, and intervention and carry with them the implication of man’s dependence on God which thrill young minds and bring blessing to them and on through life.

When one considers the violence in the very unfunny “funnies,” on TV, and in the daily press, one is inclined to cry out against any effort to deprive children of stories about David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion’s den and his three companions in the fiery furnace, to mention but a few.

Even more deplorable is the concerted effort on the part of some to protect children from the “gory” details of our Lord’s death on Calvary. Some persons to my positive knowledge have reprimanded Sunday school teachers for mentioning the “blood of Christ” to their children. And yet, when such children are subjected to the impressions of so much violence all around why should they be denied the story of the death of the Son of God, and the cleansing and redeeming blood which flowed from Calvary?

One of the outstanding characteristics of children is their simple faith. How wonderful, then, is the opportunity to instil in their minds the truths about Christ which will form the basis for their own faith in Him!

Lack of sophistication is another thing to be found in children which is a thing we are sure the Lord loves. The Christian world is beset by a desire to be sophisticated, so much so that the simplicity of the Gospel is only too often lost in a maze of worldly wisdom.

Not so with little children. Holding implicit faith in their parents and willingness to take the Scriptures at face value, their hearts are a fertile soil for spiritual truths and their simplicity is an example and warning to us who may value worldly wisdom too highly.

This lack of sophistication carries with it a receptiveness to the Gospel which should thrill those who witness God’s grace working in the hearts of little ones. Innocence in itself carries a challenge and a warning. Woe be it to any who either take advantage of innocence for evil ends or ignore its potential for good.

How then should Christian parents take advantage of the privilege and opportunity which is theirs?

That millions of children are born into unprepared homes is a tragic fact in each generation. Certainly to the Christian, it would seem axiomatic that the Christian home alone has in it the potentials for proper training. But that so many Christian homes fail in this regard is cause for real heart searching on the part of those involved.

Christ is the center of the Christian home and he must become the center of child training if it is to be effective.

One of the first problems one must handle is the psychology of the child. Even the very small will sense things he has never been told. They know whether parents are sincere in their spiritual aspirations for them or not.

It is little use to speak of prayer to a child if the parents are never seen praying. Little use to speak of the importance of Bible study if the parents are never seen reading the Word. Why tell of Christ’s love and transforming power if our children do not see the effect of His presence in our lives?

But all of these things can take place, and there can be fulfilled before our eyes the promise, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

It should not be forgotten that it is the way he should go and not the way he wants to go, for the truth that “foolishness is bound in the heart of a child” is self-evident to all who try to guide wayward little feet.

Fortunately, Christian parents are not left to carry out their task alone, nor do they lack the tools.

First, they have the privilege of praying for their children, as well as with them. God knows our weakness and our inability to train others for him. To that end he will give wisdom and guidance and the necessary grace to carry out the task. The power of prayer will never be understood this side of eternity. That God hears and answers prayer, that he reaches out often to bring help and blessing to our children should be an unending source of comfort.

Secondly, he has given parents his Word. That so many children now grow to adulthood but remain spiritual morons is one of the tragedies of our day. Even those coming from Christian homes know so little about the Bible because they have neither learned it from their parents nor used it in their daily reading.

In a very real sense the Bible is the foundation of true education. It is the reverential trust in God which is the beginning of wisdom. A child who goes out into the world with a knowledge of and love for the Holy Scriptures has the best preparation possible.

Young Timothy was raised amid surroundings we today would call utterly primitive. But he had the best training a parent can give: “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

The Christian parent has the same privilege today.

Halloween Fantasy

Double, double toil and trouble—

The witches have flown to the moon (Where they should, for a spell,

Form a communist cell,

Since Russians will join them there soon).

Double, double toil and trouble—

They’ve left us a witch legacy

Of mascara-ed eye-lids,

Masquerading small kids,

And bubbling brews on TV—

(Bubble, bubble; less toil, no trouble—)

This legacy seen on the screen

Shows a lather enriched

With a charm that’s bewitched—

Commercials are pure Halloween.

Double, double bowls of stubble—

The world is de-witched, air-conditioned,

And when Hecate mocks

From a cereal box

Her face is a mask for nutrition.

Double, double trick or treat—

Three rubber-faced witches are there;

Little goblins with bags

Clutch the skirts of these hags,

Unnerved by the masks that they wear.

Double, double, all the trouble

Since witches have turned to thin air,

Is the hunt that goes on

When the witches are gone,

The witch hunt which hunts what’s not there.

Pastor Peterson thought my poem had a point, but he is not so sure we are free of witches. “Perhaps Macbeth’s trio has gone, but what is meeting modern Macbeth’s in the night?” He added a stanza:

Double, double, triple trouble—

In crisis we mustn’t decry sense …

Is there not enough reason

To declare open season,

And bag a few hags with a license?

EUTYCHUS

Remonstrant Riposte

All of us who are interested in the Christian college are indebted to Professor C. Gregg Singer for the sober and generally well reasoned warnings in his article “Why Evangelical Colleges Die” (Sept. 11 issue). But the section on “Theological Weaknesses” reminds one of finger paintings with mixed paints, and leaves us evangelicals of the Wesleyan tradition gasping for breath.…

Perhaps the real trouble where modernism has made inroads in both Reformed and Arminian circles is a defection from simple willingness to accept the Bible as God’s written Word and man’s final authority.

STEPHEN W. PAINE

President

Houghton College

Houghton, N. Y.

It is apparent … that he does not believe colleges with an Arminian emphasis have the theological strength to survive.… We are glad to rise to Dr. Singer’s challenge. I am sure there are many others who join us.

MERNE A. HARRIS

Vice-Pres. and Dean

Vennard College

University Park, Iowa

May I suggest that the cause of evangelism is not well served by a kind of infighting between Calvinists and Arminians? In two recent articles … the authors are biased in favor of Calvinism.

MILO C. ROSS

President

George Fox College

Newberg, Ore.

Arminianism is not humanistic nor sub-biblical.… Maybe evangelical colleges die, but it is not due to an Arminian Achilles heel—rather, … failure to be truly regenerated, … failure to tarry until filled with the Holy Spirit.…

W. J. YOUNG

Grace Church of the Nazarene

Yuma, Ariz.

Has Dr. Singer never read that statement in the Methodist Discipline: “The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” Is that sub-biblical?

J. B. CAIN

Memorial Methodist Church

Bolton, Miss.

It seems that Calvinism would say, “It was decreed to die anyway” … we would say we must be on guard to prevent our schools from death.

A. REUBEN HARTWICK

First Pentecostal Church

Coraopolis, Pa.

Christian, Jew And Arab

My effort to evangelize my Jewish dentist has shown me the wisdom of your comment (Aug. 28 issue) “… when a Jew comes to the Messiah, he does not cease to be a Jew.” I am sure such a strategy is even more urgent in Israel.…

I feel that the evangelization of Israel and the dialogue between Jewish and Gentile Christians is even more important than the dialogue among Protestant churches or between Rome and Protestantism.

HAROLD WHITE

Belvidere, N.C.

It is a tragic fact that the very people who will liberally give to a Jewish mission in some far-off place make no attempt to witness to the Jews of their own neighborhood or community.

BELDEN MENKUS

Nashville, Tenn.

We must never lose sight of our opportunities and privileges as Christians in Israel, but the distinct and unique contribution that Baptists and other evangelicals can make to this young state just celebrating her Bar mitzvah this year is the Christian concept of religious freedom. Democracy has always enjoyed greater security when the tasks of the watchman on the wall were shared by evangelicals.

In many ways I feel that we are near our goal. The young people, the intellectuals, and the self-styled free-thinkers are completely fed up with Israel’s creeping theocracy. They are convinced that reformation and not reform (small ‘r’) is the only solution. There are also increasing pressures from world Jewry to break the strangle hold of the Orthodox on the jugular of Israel.

DWIGHT L. BAKER

Baptist Church

Nazareth, Israel

I’m afraid I am not able to see the Arab situation quite the same way (Sept. 11 issue). By official British census, in 1947, the number of refugees is nearer 600,000 than 1,000,000. Thirty-eight of the 40 million world refugees (the Hong Kong and Palestinian being the exceptions) had been resettled in the lands that received them. This is standard procedure. In no case have they gone back to the point or points of origin. There is a three million dollar UN fund held in escrow for this resettlement. Arab leaders will not permit it, however, preferring to “use” the refugees in the game of propaganda politics. The Israelis have already taken back, to reunite families, a considerable number of these persons. They are prepared to take back up to 100,000 more when the Arab states are ready to call off their war and sign a peace treaty (in spite of the fact that this is not the way of dealing with this kind of problem anywhere else). Furthermore, two factors: (1) Israel has taken in 400,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries coming with only the shirts on their backs (bank accounts frozen and goods confiscated), but no one seems concerned to make a fuss about this, and (2) the refugee movement out of Israel-Palestine was at the initial instigation of Arab military leaders (even if “atrocities” some genuine, some trumped up, were used to encourage it). I think we have to admit to these facts along with others that might be pro-Arab.

G. DOUGLAS YOUNG

Director

Israeli-American Institute of Biblical Studies

Evanston, Ill.

You may find the following material specially helpful in rounding out … general conclusions:

Who Knows Better, Must Say So, by Elmer Berger (American Council for Judaism, 201 E. 57th St., New York 22, N. Y., 50¢)—Jewish, but anti-Zionist. (Many Jews feel the Zionists have gone too far in their propaganda and moneyraising, and have really hurt the Jewish cause.)

Olive Trees in Storm, by Morris S. Lazaron (American Friends of the Middle East, Inc., 225 E. 46th St., New York, N. Y., paperback ed., $1)—analysis of Jew-Arab situation in Egypt-Syria-Jordan-Iraq-Lebanon-Israel. Largely pro-Arab and anti-Zionist.

Exodus—A Distortion of Truth (35¢, Strife in the Holy Land (15¢), and many other publications (Arab Information Center, 120 East 56th St., New York 22, N. Y.)

For enlightened Christian attitude, write (1) Dr. Joseph P. Free, professor of archaeology at Wheaton College, and founder. Near East School of Archaeological and Biblical Studies—on Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, Jordan (Dr. Free’s address: Free Haven, Park Rapids, Minnesota; Dr. Free can supply many other helpful titles and information); and, (2) Dr. G. Douglas Young, professor of Bible, etc., Trinity College, Chicago, and founder, Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies (Street of the Prophets, Jerusalem, Israel). Dr. Young’s address is 1046 Ridge Avenue, Evanston, Illinois.

PETER STAM, JR.

Covenant College and Seminary

St. Louis, Mo.

To Repair The Damage

In the recent article by Eugene Peacock, “New Life for Christian Colleges?” (Aug. 28 issue), some very worthwhile things are said. However, permit me to make two remarks.

I am pleased with the fact that he recognizes that no one is without a world-view, and that a church-related college is committed to a Christian world-view. The assumption is that this is desirable for higher education. But I would ask is this not also true on the primary and high school level? We give our children 12 years of secular education and then expect the Christian college to repair the damage.

Another statement of the writer puzzles me. After telling us that in church-related colleges there are men without faith, he assures us that he is not asking for witch hunts or heresy trials.… If our church-related colleges are to continue to be Christian, should not such men be removed, even though it should take a heresy trial to do it?…

RALPH J. BOS

Willmar Christian Reformed Church

Willmar, Minn.

He Prefers A Both-And

As an individual member of the Conservative Baptist Association of America, I take exception to the letter (August 28 issue) from B. Myron Cedarholm, General Director of Conservative Baptist Association of America, in which he states, “Many of us feel that CHRISTIANITY TODAY’ is more concerned about being courteous and scholarly than they are in being biblical and positive.” … I fail to see the “either-or-ness” of Dr. Cedarholm’s statement. Cannot a dedicated, Holy Spirit-born Christian be courteous, scholarly, biblical and positive all at the same time?

GEORGE A. COLE, JR.

Calvary Baptist Church

Bristol, Pa.

THE EDITOR

Third in a Series (Part II)

The year 1960 marked the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Theodor Herzl, father of modern Zionism. In an illuminating commemorative address that restated Zionism’s philosophy and goals, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein of New York City recalled:

“When Herzl appeared upon the scene, with the publication of his Judenstaat (1895), he did not create ex nihilo. Wherever Jews lived, and the Jewish tradition was honored, the Land of Israel was regarded as the place to which, ultimately, all Jews would be regathered. All other countries were considered to be places of ‘exile,’ to which the Jews had been consigned by God in punishment for their sins. In the theological system to which Jews were committed before modern times, the ‘redemption’ from ‘exile’ would be accomplished by an act of divine intervention; the Messiah would come to initiate a new order of things, and the first act in this new order would be the ‘ingathering of the exiles.’ ”

As Eisenstein put it, traditional Judaism taught, 1. the dispersion was an expiation; 2. the end of exile would occur in God’s own time; 3. this release would be the work of a divine agent; 4. the restoration of Zion would introduce a messianic age; and 5. any attempt to “force the hand of God” by initiating redemption through human effort is blasphemy.

Breakdown of this integrated theological system, Eisenstein noted, began with emancipation of the Jews of Western Europe and America. Modern scientific thought weakened the foundations of a literal belief in some of Judaism’s basic postulates; and modern states, offering citizenship to Jews regardless of their creed, posed even more basic dilemmas. Jews no longer needed to regard themselves in “exile.”

Two new conditions, however, precipitated creation of the Zionist movement: 1. anti-Semitism reminded Jews that their “emancipation” was by no means complete, and 2. assimilation aroused concern that—despite anti-Semitism—“emancipation” might succeed only too well. Thus fears for security of the Jews and for the future of Judaism spurred men like Herzl to action.

Paradoxically, the action they undertook smacked of the very blasphemy their tradition had always decried. By taking matters into their own hands, the Jews were not waiting for the Messiah to restore them to the land. The Enlightenment had weakened their adherence to the orthodox interpretation of Jewish destiny, but not enough to destroy all continuity with the past.

The consequences, succinctly summarized by Eisenstein, were far-reaching. Of the five premises mentioned above, 1. was retained in a somewhat revised form, namely, that the dispersion was a calamity, particularly when it subjected Jews to persecution as a minority group; view 2. was rejected entirely, and 3. was reinterpreted in naturalistic terms. The “divine agent” was now conceived not as a personal Messiah but as a passion for justice to a people that had been wronged throughout a long history. Most of the early Zionist leaders were not “religious” in the conventional sense. Indeed, their tendency to reject anything theological as such might label them even “anti-religious.” Only in the broad cultural sense were they spiritual, dedicated, and self-sacrificing. They burned with a vision of a restored Zion from which “Torah” would go forth. Concept 4. was integral to this vision. Zionists as a whole truly believed that the age that righted an historic wrong to the Jews would initiate a new order of society. Those known as Labor Zionists went even further; they resolved to establish in the coming new state a utopian society that would incorporate the ancient ideals of the Prophets into the modern machinery of statehood. View 5. obviously met with complete rejection. Those who clung to tradition scorned the movement entirely; those in “neo-orthodox” groups compromised by saying that settlement in Israel had always been regarded as a mitsvah (commandment).

Thus from its very inception Zionism recognized religious tradition, even though that tradition underwent partial reconstruction in terms of modern political and intellectual tenets. In fact, religious Zionists insist that, had the movement been merely “patriotic,” it would not have won universal support in the Jewish community.

But to accomplish its first objective, namely, to establish a legally-secured and publicly-recognized home for Jews who needed or wanted to come, Zionism took recourse to political activity. Therefore Western Zionism became identified for many as essentially political; since Nazism produced a mammoth refugee problem, Zionism represented a political cum philanthropic movement. In eastern Europe, more emphasis was given self-realization and cultural creativity as Zionist methods.

This survey helps explain why Israelis regard the emergence of the state as a “messianic token,” but also bypass the traditional understanding of Messiah (in the Orthodox sense of waiting for a personal Messiah). Messianism today is simply belief that history is purposively directed, that creation is the beginning of history, and its end the messianic age. Some identify this age simply as the climax of history, others as the world transformed into God’s kingdom.

In this historical movement the Jews assign themselves a special mission. However universal its vision may be, Jewish messianism retains a nationalistic basis; only through Jewish national restoration will come the world’s restoration to super-national moral realities. As the meaning of messianism becomes secularized, then “the belief in Messiah” deteriorates to mere trust in enlightenment, in liberal ethical goals, even in socialism. In its wake, therefore, Zionism has left a mere moralizing of orthodox theological concepts and a disintegration of orthodox messianism. Emphasis on messianic character and messianic era lacks the reality of a personal Messiah. History is permitted its “messianic movements,” “messianic events,” “messianic moments,” and ultimately a “messianic age.” Ironically, therefore, current Zionist motivations for return to his homeland in effect have exiled the Jew from the orthodox Messiah; he misunderstands the kingdom of God as a national socio-political crisis instead of a spiritual-personal crisis. Human establishment of the new state and national sovereignty has derailed to marginal consideration the traditional expectation of the coming personal Messiah.

This modern spirit of self-sufficiency dispenses with special reliance on the Old Testament. To vindicate the state’s emergence as an act of divine providence, some Jewish interpreters specially emphasize nature and history and not simply the Torah as God’s avenues of self-revelation. Religious Zionists attribute Divine authorship to apparently natural causality. Israel therefore claims a redemptive mission that envisions perfection of the world, it is said, and not just fulfillment of a prophetic promise. Regathering the Jews in the new state can materialize an authentic Jewish civilization and culture to channel Israel’s mission among the nations. For the first time in 2,000 years Hebrews manifest in one locale all the prerequisites for shaping their own institutions and mode of life. Even if Israel cannot compete with the great powers technologically, she can offer ethical inspiration to the world by restoring her own historical values.

It should be observed, however, that alienation from the Old Testament prophets involves more than loss of hope in a personal Messiah; it threatens also the historic Jewish sense of divine covenant. After all, the crowning glory of Hebrew history is its early heritage of revealed monotheistic religion. If the Jews are to confront the world with more than modern social ideals, if they are to urge a renewal of old and respected values, presumably from Jerusalem as a spiritual center for international Judaism, then the validity of God’s covenant with their forebears requires more than mere inference from general history. Indeed, it requires vital faith in the prophetic word, in Scripture that commits Judaism to much more than the social present and demands new investigation of the messianic question. To represent Zionism as a direct successor of the historic messianic vision, or as bearer of the historic messianic motive has only short-lived and limited appeal. The unique divine claim upon the Hebrews springs from God’s self-revelation of “I, the Lord God.” That they are “a chosen people” the Hebrews cannot abstract from purely politico-social considerations. The consciousness of Jewish unity and mission can only prosper, therefore, on a deepening acceptance of the Old Testament vision of redemption.

What Of Jesus Christ?

The turn of Jewish expectation against a personal Messiah, and exposition of messianism in post-biblical terms, may lead to fresh rejection of Jesus of Nazareth. Many Jews indeed consider Jesus a good man. But they seem unaware that such appraisal was impossible in the first century when commitment was either for the Messiah or against a messianic pretender. Scholars who debate the question of Messiah express their hostility in two significant ways: either they attack Christian sacraments by labeling their foundations as idolatrous, or they may reveal opposition to Jesus Christ by aligning themselves with some figure wholly alien to Judeo-Christian history. Professor R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, for example, reveres Buddha as the greatest of all religious figures.

One factor in this rejection stems from refusal to approach the messianic question except in relationship to national sovereignty. This issue in fact already influenced the first-century rejection of Jesus when the Jews still expressed messianic expectation in personal terms (“Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?,” Matt. 11:3; cf. John 1:19–25). According to Zwi Werblowsky, “Israel’s attitude toward the Church was automatically determined by the fundamental Jewish decision in favor of national continuity and history.” He considers this explanation of the rejection of Jesus more accurate than that “Judaism was confronted, in the person of Jesus, with a crise de conscience and finally decided against him.” That is, Jewish expectation so linked Messiah and national sovereignty that Israel’s concrete renewal on the world historical scene was to be “the sign” Werblowsky contends that Jesus himself recognized this link in affirming that “this generation shall not pass away” except the kingdom of God come (Matt. 24:34 actually reads “till all be fulfilled”). “Not only ‘this generation,’ ” adds Werblowsky, “… but many other generations passed by and saw nothing.” Jesus’ claim of fulfillment, he insists, is “denied by the sober consciousness of historical realities.”

Approach To The Jew

The Christian view, it should be emphasized, does not ignore or rule out Israel’s political renaissance. Even Roman Catholics, whose church traditions have bound them to nonbelief in the restoration of the state of Israel, are now rethinking this issue. The Greek Orthodox church, too, has insisted for centuries that the rejection of Jesus of Nazareth forever plunged Judaism into a sorry meaninglessness. Any implication that all 19 centuries of Jewish history since Jesus’ death have been insignificant makes Hebrew spokesmen bristle. Except for amillennial thought, Protestantism finds providential and theological importance in Jewish developments. Protestant Christianity does not of course assimilate post-biblical Jewish history into saving or redemptive history. It tends, however, to interpret the return of the Jews and the restoration of the nation (even if in spiritual unbelief concerning the Christian Messiah) as an end-time development of prophetic significance. Since, however, many evangelicals couple this interpretation with an anticipated spiritual change of heart, certain Israelis consider this evangelical verdict a mixed blessing. Chaim Wardi, for example, thinks it “only to be regretted that this interest and sympathy are conditioned by the desire or the expectation of a more or less wholesale conversion of the Jews to Christianity. One should expect on the part of friends … a more disinterested interest.” One senses here the peculiar suspicion that explicit Christian concern for awakening among the Jews is something less than spiritual, and, perhaps an acceptance of evangelical overtures simply for their “prophetic bolstering” to recent Palestinian developments.

The foregoing discussion should indicate, therefore, that the Christian approach to the informed Jew should not be confined, as so often in the past, to whether Jesus of Nazareth fulfills the Old Testament prophecies, and whether certain Old Testament emphases conflict with rabbinic Judaism. Many Jews, no less than pagan Gentiles, need help simply as fallen creatures in need of redemption. The Jew in Tel Aviv like the Jew in New York may be totally out of touch with Old Testament religion, since modern liberal ideals may represent the only spiritual context he knows. Quite different, however, is the spiritually-minded Jew. He wants to know what bearing the question of Messiah has on Israel as such, what it signifies for the Hebrew return to Palestine and for national restoration. To discuss Christianity only in terms of individual commitment with no reference to God’s operation in the human community of faith troubles the serious Hebrew. As Professor Simon has said, “Christianity is founded on the biography of a sacred personality. It is easy for the Christian personally to become a Christian, and difficult subsequently to become really identified with the community of faith. But the Hebrews began as a community at Sinai, and they are not disposed to inquire into the question of personal salvation independently of the question of the community.”

This word, of course, does not fairly express the New Testament concept of the believer’s relationship to the Christian community. It does indicate, however, that to address effectively many Jews requires more prongs of discussion than have ordinarily characterized recent Hebrew-Christian dialogue. Such conversation must re-explore the meaning of 19 centuries of Jewish suffering among the nations, must re-study New Testament intimations of God’s purpose for the Jew and of Israel’s place in the divine plan. Many Jewish leaders today deplore what both Orthodox Judaism and Christianity believe, namely, that the suffering of the Jews is punishment for sin and spiritual unbelief. “If there has been a ‘Christ’ among the nations of the world,” said one prominent Israeli, “the Jews have been the innocent who bore the sufferings of the guilty.” To concede that dispersion and persecution are a divine penalty for revolt against light carries the hard implication that Christianity is right. To deny juridical interpretation of Jewish history leads simply to the notion that by educating the dispersed Jew in all the wisdom of the Gentiles God was preparing him for an ulterior purpose, a national regathering for a Hebrew mission to the world. Jews who study the Talmud, however, cannot overlook the connection between punishment and past sin, a principle applied both to individuals and to the nation. The Prayer Book of the Hebrew holy festivals declares: “Because of our sins we have been driven from our land.…” The Christian witness must indeed affirm that no man can see the kingdom of God unless he is spiritually reborn, as Jesus warned the rabbi Nicodemus (John 3:3, 5). But it must also include the Lord’s reference to “times or seasons which the Father has put in his own power.” Christ s answer to the disciples’ query about the restoration of the Kingdom to the Jews (Acts 1:7), and Paul’s discussion concerning the place of the Jew in God’s plan are increasingly significant.

Another method of attacking a messianic claim for Jesus of Nazareth is to discredit him as destructive of the Old Testament Law. Professor Werblowsky willingly concedes that Jesus was not “simply one Jewish teacher among others” but stands out as qualitatively different. In this way (argues Werblowsky) Jesus gave not merely a different interpretation of the Law, but he destroyed the Law. Thereby Werblowsky does not mean (as Christianity asserts) that by His sacrificial death Jesus himself met the claims of the Law and so nullified its power over those who trust him. Rather, Werblowsky charges Jesus’ teaching with a revolutionary element that implicity leads to rejection of Jewish religion. Werblowsky calls Jesus a messianic pretender with a messianic message typical of Jewish sectarian tendencies in his day. The Nazarene, he says, opposes sanctification through details of the Law, whereas Jewish life is totally regulated by these sanctifying disciplines. Even if there have been no sacrifices for 2000 years because of the destruction of the temple, the Jews recognize no distinction between moral and ritual law. Yet when Jesus justifies the disciples’ plucking grain on the Sabbath, Werblowsky charges him with acting on a non-Jewish premise: sanctification by the Spirit, and not by the Law. According to Werblowsky this vague Spirit-religion (or Christianity!) really dispenses with the Law, or reduces it to vague abstraction. By “destroying” the Law, Christianity thus threatens the Jewish organization of human life in which keeping the law is the service of God.

Even allowing for antinomian tendencies that have frequently plagued the Christian Church and allowing for modernism that repudiates law-religion in any form as sheer legalism, the fundamental misunderstanding of Jesus as one who abolished rather than fulfilled the Law (cf. Matt. 5:17) is still apparent. It recalls the Jewish insurrection against the apostle Paul and the charge before Gallio that “this fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law” (Acts 18:12 f.). Rabbi Silver long ago granted however, that Jesus’ attitude ‘was expressed within the framework of the law” and that he sought “the correct ‘intensive’ attitude toward the existing law” (Messianic Speculation in Israel, p. 10).

It disturbs the modern Jew nonetheless that even at 19 centuries’ distance Jesus of Nazareth must constantly be reckoned with. Unlike the false messiahs, Jesus has not passed into oblivion. The alternatives proposed by Gamaliel when Jews in the first century resorted to violence to suppress the apostles remain on record as an embarrassment. How is the continuing power of Jesus’ name explained? Since the modern Jew faces this question only in the context of ecclesiastical persecutions of his people, he is not disposed to ask if the Church after all is right. Most scholars, recognize, however, that to explain the vitality of Christianity involves more than merely the psychological readiness of the pagan world, or the genius of Paul. Hence debate focuses ever more clearly on Jesus of Nazareth himself. In this context, and in view of Jesus’ messianic claim, any Jewish intellectual tendency to call Jesus of Nazareth simply a good man appears an evasive tactic.

We Quote:

THE WORLD CRISIS—The character of the Communist challenge consists, first, in a conception of matter, man, society, history, government, and the supreme being radically different from and opposite to anything you and I and our ancestors have known for the last four thousand years; second, in the existence of a superbly organized political party … with an absolutely dedicated membership all over the world … actively working to bring every people on earth under the bondage of this philosophy …; third, in this party’s use of every conceivable means—war, revolution, subversion, infiltration, propaganda, intimidation, dictatorship, manipulation of the masses, smear tactics, character assassination, exciting the basest instincts in man, playing up differences and grievances between nations and peoples and races and classes—to attain its unalterable ends of world domination; fourth, in the fact that this world revolutionary thrust is backed by one of the most powerful military establishments in the world …; and fifth, in the fact that this world revolutionary force … has succeeded in extending and consolidating its iron hold upon at least a third of the human race.…

The classical Western values of freedom, personality, excellence, rank, objective truth, faith in God, and the primacy of the spirit, are subverted both by Communist infiltration from without and by doubt and criticism by some of the best Western minds from within.… There are many influential people who preach, or at least are taken by, “peaceful coexistence,” and who appear to be prepared to settle for peace at any price and for what is falsely called “mutual accommodation,” where accommodation turns out upon analysis to come only from one side.…

Only as the total arsenal of political, moral and spiritual values are brought to bear … is there any hope of winning in this tremendous struggle.… If you are already converted to the materialistic standpoint of your opponent you will talk only in terms of … economic security and social benefits. The Communists lore to confine you within that round of ideas.… The greatest weakness of the Western strategy is its relative neglect of the intellectual and spiritual dimension. This is strange, because intellectual, moral, and spiritual matters are the greatest point of strength in the Western arsenal.…—CHARLES MALIK, former President of the United Nations and a Greek Orthodox layman, in an address to the Second National Conference of Southern Baptist Men in Memphis, Tennessee.

It is frequently said that Luther did not regard the whole Bible as the divinely-inspired Word of God, but only such parts of it as “urge Christ” (Christum treiben.) He thus assumed “a canon within the canon” (atque ita velut canonem in canone constituit; Grimm, Institutio Theologiae Dogmaticae, p. 118).

Rightly understood, this “canon within the canon” may be admitted as representing a principle which Luther applied in all his teaching and preaching, for he treated with special emphasis and predilection those writings of Scripture which set forth Christ and his redemptive work as, for example, Paul’s Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, Peter’s first Epistle, the Christological portions of John’s Gospel, and the like. But in the sense in which moderns commonly interpret the expression, Luther’s “canon within the canon” is a myth, that is, an invented tale without a determinable basis of fact—indeed, a piece of fiction which contradicts his actual profession and practice. If, according to the current explanation of the phrase, Luther held that only those sections of the Scriptures are God’s inspired Word that treat of Christ and his redemption, there would have to be excluded from his perspective of scriptural inspiration the major part of the Old Testament. Actually, however, Luther accepted all the canonical books of the Bible as the divinely-inspired Word of God and as such the only divine norm of the Christian’s faith and life.

Since, then, Luther is commonly charged with having entertained a liberal view of Scripture, it is well for the impartial student of reformational dogma to consider his conception of scriptural inspiration.

The distinction of homologoumena and antilegomena applies properly to the books of the New Testament; for when the New’ Testament canon was finally fixed as, for example, at the First General African Church Council of Hippo Regius in 393, and again at the Council of Carthage in 397, both of which listed all the New Testament writings as we have them in our Bibles today, some were “most certainly” (homologoumenos) approved as having been written by the apostles, the divinely authorized teachers of the Christian Church, while others were accepted with considerable doubt and even contradiction as to their apostolic authorship (cf. Eusebius, Church History, III, 25). The generally acknowledged New Testament books were received as protocanonical or homologoumena, while the others were accepted as deuterocanonical or antilegomena, that is, books whose apostolic authorship was “spoken against.” The medieval church, in which Luther was reared, ignored this distinction, and for all practical purposes also Protestants today may ignore it, since all the deuterocanonical books have sufficient witness in favor of their apostolic authorship to entitle them to a place in the canon.

The distinction of homologoumena and antilegomena, however, may also be applied to the books of the Old Testament as maintained by the medieval church. The Old Testament homologoumena are the canonical books that were accepted by the Jewish synagogue, Christ, and his apostles as divinely inspired and authoritative. The so-called apocrypha are 14 spurious, uncanonical books which passed from the Septuagint into the Latin Vulgate and which Luther, in agreement with his moderate reformation policy, published in his German Bible, but with the express proviso that they as antilegomena are not a part of the Old Testament canon. Protestant Bibles, for valid reasons, omit the apocrypha. They are of doubtful authenticity and frequently contain erroneous teachings contradicting those of the canonical Scriptures.

Luther, of course, did not place the apocrypha of the Old Testament and the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament on the same level, for while he repudiated the apocrypha as totally uncanonical, he, especially in his later years, evinced considerable appreciation of the New Testament antilegomena.

All Canonical Books Inspired

While moderns usually cite only those passages of Luther’s writings which make him appear as championing a liberal view of Scripture and commonly do not publish such quotations in their proper context, they omit those clear and unmistakable statements of Luther in which he very emphatically professes his acceptance of all the canonical books of the Bible as the divinely-inspired and authoritative Word of God. A notable exception to this unfair practice we find in Reinhold Seeberg’s Lehrhuch der Dogmengeschichte, of which he dedicates an entire volume to Die Lehre Luthers (cf. Vol. IV.1; Deichertsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig, 1933). Seeberg too supports the view of modems that for Luther the inspired Scripture is only that part which urges Christ or, more properly, the “doctrine of the Gospel” (op. cit., p. 416). But he also, at least in part, states passages from the Reformer’s writings which clearly show that he regarded all the canonical books as given by divine inspiration.

Seeberg thus writes inter alia (op. cit., p. 414 f.): To Luther the words of Scripture are indeed the true words of God, for the Holy Spirit expressed his wisdom and mystery in the Word and revealed it in Scripture (Weimar ed., 36, 501). The truthful God speaks in Scripture wherefore we must accept without dispute what he says (W 40.2, 593). Whatever Paul says, the Holy Ghost says; hence whatever goes counter to Paul’s Word goes counter to the Holy Spirit (W 10.2, 139 f.). According to God’s decree the apostles are infallible teachers; therefore they are authoritative as are the prophets (op. cit., ibid.). In addition, they received the Holy Spirit so that their words are God’s Word (W 40.1, 173 f.). As human beings they are subject to sin and error as was Peter at Antioch, but the Holy Spirit corrected their deviations (W 40.1, 195 f.). He moved them to speak the divine truth even when they committed grammatical irregularities (W 40.1, 170). For this reason Scripture is God’s Word and not that of man (W 5, 184; 8, 597). God is the author of the Gospel (W 8, 584) and the Holy Spirit is the writer of Genesis (W 44, 532; W 43, 475.628; 44, 18.19.327). The Bible is the peculiar Scripture of the Holy Spirit (W 7, 638; 46, 545; 47, 133). Such quotations might easily be multiplied. However the cited passages seem sufficient to prove satisfactorily that Luther took over the later medieval theory of inspiration. But from the very start it must not be overlooked that at all times Luther merely presupposes inspiration and that he does not express himself on the process itself in any accurate or comprehensive way. This, however, makes it appear all the more convincing that he simply reproduced the traditional doctrine. So far Seeberg.

In his Christian Dogmatics (Concordia Publishing House, 1950) Dr. Francis Pieper quotes many more passages to show that Luther without reservation accepted all the canonical books of Scripture as divinely inspired and authoritative (cf. Vol. I, pp. 276 ff.). But Seeberg’s quotations prove convincingly Luther’s acceptance of the plenary inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures.

Expressions Against Romanism

A third important observation that must be kept in mind in connection with Luther’s alleged liberal view of scriptural inspiration is the fact that his extreme expressions were commonly made in opposition to papistic error and concerned only the antilegomena. This is true especially of his remark that only such biblical books are apostolic as preach or urge Christ. That rather extreme comment occurs in his “Preface to the Epistles of James and Jude,” written in 1522 (cf. St. L. Ed. XIV, pp. 129 ff.; WA Bibel VII, 384). It is well known how assiduously Roman theologians used James 2:17–26 against the sola fide-doctrine of the Reformation. While it is not within the scope of this article to go into exegetical detail on Romans 3:20–28 and James 2:17–26, it may be said that Protestant theologians long ago have pointed out that between the teachings of Paul and James there is perfect agreement, though they differ in orientation.

In 1522, however, Luther was wholly unaware of this perfect agreement between Paul and James just as also later he did not solve the problem of the seeming discrepancy. He therefore wrote in the introductory paragraph of his Preface: “This epistle of St. James I praise, though it was rejected by the ancients, and I regard it as commendable because it does not teach human doctrine, but earnestly inculcates the divine law. But if I may express my opinion, without, however, putting anyone else to a disadvantage, I do not consider it to be the writing of an apostle, and that for the following reason.”

Luther then states his twofold objection to the epistle, namely, first, that, contrary to Paul’s letters and all other Scriptures, it ascribes justification to works, and, secondly, that it does not mention at all the suffering, resurrection, and the Spirit of Christ. While James does mention Christ several times, he does not teach anything definite about him, but speaks merely of the common faith in God. Then Luther goes on to say that it is the office of a true apostle to testify of Christ’s suffering, resurrection, and office and so to lay the foundation of the Christian faith, as the Lord himself says: “Ye shall bear witness” (John 15:27). After that he comments: “And all true sacred Scriptures agree in this that they with one accord preach and urge Christ, since the whole Bible teaches Christ (Rom. 3:21) and St. Paul is determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 2:2). Whatever does not teach Christ is not apostolic, even though St. Peter or St. Paul should inculcate it. Again, whatever does preach Christ that would be apostolic even though Judas, Annas, Pilate, or Herod should teach it.”

Luther concludes his preface to the epistle of James with the words: “In short, he [the writer] wanted to restrain those who relied on faith without works, but in trying to do this, he proved himself too weak and so he endeavored to accomplish by legal stress what the apostles bring about by urging Christian love. Therefore I cannot classify the letter among the true chief Scriptures. But this is not to prevent anyone else from placing or exalting it as it pleases him, for it contains many fine passages.” This is the shorter form of the conclusion; there is one somewhat longer though it does not add anything that is essential.

From these words it is obvious that in 1522 Luther did not understand the relation of James to Paul. Nor did he later acknowledge the letter as one written by an apostle. But it is clear that the suggested criterion, that only those are true apostolic books which preach or urge Christ, was declared in opposition to the papistic error of work-righteousness, and that it was to apply only to the antilegomena or uncanonical writings whose apostolic authorship had been doubted or even denied by the ancient church. By accepting the homologoumena or canonical books of the Old and the New Testament as divinely inspired and authoritative, Luther himself exemplified the limitation of this criterion of judging biblical books. Within the acknowledged canonical Scriptures he did not accept “a canon within the canon” in the sense in which the phrase is commonly, but erroneously, interpreted.

Judging Luther In Context

It cannot be denied that Luther, in blazing a trail through the labyrinth of papistic biblical confusion, at times made extreme statements and voiced extravagant opinions. That was quite in agreement with his impulsive, emotional nature, for, unlike Melanchthon or Calvin, he often was excessively frank in his judgments especially when they concerned opponents who bitterly opposed him. Nor did Luther later revise, carefully and critically, his printed works since for this chore he had neither leisure nor inclination. An exception, of course, was his German Bible which he painstakingly edited and revised till shortly before his death. To the end of his life Luther was an extremely busy man, ceaselessly writing, lecturing, preaching, and doing odd ecclesiastical chores which really should have been delegated to others. So it happens that moderns may find in his writings statements that might make it appear as though he inclined to a liberal view of scriptural inspiration. But had Luther desired to lecture only on books that preach or urge Christ, he never would have accepted the Wittenberg professorship of the Old Testament on which he lectured practically throughout his life. And always he declared the canonical books of the Bible to be divinely inspired and authoritative. In his sermons and lectures he treated even the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament, some of which he later rated rather highly, as, for example, the striking differences between his earlier and later prefaces to the Apocalypse, namely, those of 1522 and 1545, show (cf. St. L. Ed., XIV, 141.130; WA Bibel VII, 404.406). In short, moderns cannot claim Luther for their liberal view of Scripture. As a matter of fact Luther’s view of biblical inspiration, so far as the canonical books of the Old and the New Testament are concerned, differs very little from that of John Calvin. As Seeberg rightly remarks, he took over the medieval doctrine of biblical inspiration; but so also did the learned Genevan Bible scholar.