The thorny question of religion in public schools, now tottering insecurely between secular and sectarian pressures, is prompting the National Council of Churches to construct a new proclamation of concern and a new program of action. Some 50 representatives of 25 ecumenically-identified denominations and 11 state councils of churches, including many NCC staff members and a few observers, descended on Chicago for three intensive July days to draft an unpublished preliminary statement by the Committee on Religion and Public Education. After another plenary session a year hence, church councils and member denominations will be asked to approve the document for public release in 1960. It handles more than 50 controversial issues, from teaching of religion and moral and spiritual values in public schools to use of public funds for bus transportation and textbooks in private schools.

Although NCC has issued previous proclamations at top level, constituent churches have often deviated from the announced official policy regarding public schools, especially at the local level, and even some major NCC committees—now numbering more than 70—have spoken obliquely if not diversely on the same issues. Spokesmen have increasingly voiced a need to transcend these “contradictions, confusions, frustrations,” and to “find a type of expression acceptable to everyone.” If differences are to be reconciled, these leaders acknowledge, “Protestants must do some homework.”

A Vexing Issue

Since the closing years of World War II, mounting emphasis on a religious understanding of life has repeatedly raised the question of the place of religion in public education. “What Protestants think” became a vexing and uncertain issue when court cases tested the validity of week-day religious education which National Education Association leaders seemed to regard more and more as a deviation and annoyance. Secular agencies, like the American Council on Education, issued their own documents on the role of religious influences in public education. Meanwhile the tempo of criticism of public schools accelerated; Roman Catholics, interested in their national system of parochial schools, and Protestant evangelicals, whether interested or disinterested in private schools, struck hard at the dominant note of humanism in the educational philosophy of the day and the calculated avoidance of the priorities of revealed religious truth.

Earlier NCC statements, however brief, have frequently touched fundamental issues. In 1953 the movement appointed its Committee on Religion and Public Education, adding as executive leader Dr. R. L. Hunt, a school administrator formerly on the faculty of Peabody College, Nashville.

The 1953 Proclamation

In its 1953 proclamation NCC affirmed: “The home and the Church must assume their primary roles as teachers of religion.… No agency of the state, including the school, can safely or wisely be entrusted with this task. At the same time, we believe that the public school has a responsibility with respect to the religious foundations of our national culture. It can declare, as the state itself declares, that the nation subsists under the governance of God and that it is not morally autonomous. It can acknowledge, furthermore, that human ethical and moral values have their ground and sanction in God. The school can do much in teaching about religion, in adequately affirming that religion has been and is an essential factor in our cultural heritage. The school can bear witness to its appreciation of the place of religion by the personal characters of those who teach in its classrooms. No impairment of the separation of Church and State is involved in the assumption of such responsibilities.… The Committee believes that as the people of our American communities … explore the rightful and proper place of religion (in the schools), they will be wise to avoid reliance upon legislative compulsion. Religious testimony and religious exercise especially are significant to the extent that they are free and voluntary.”

This statement advanced in some respects beyond the 1952 message of NCC’s General Assembly. That message had urged that pupils of American schools be made aware of “the heritage of faith upon which this nation was established, and which has been the most transforming influence in western culture”; it recommended “some constitutional … provision … for the inculcation of the principles of religion, whether within or outside the precincts of the school, … within the regular schedule of a pupil’s working day”; it supported “the reverent reading of selections from the Bible in public school assemblies or classes”; and it affirmed that “on no account must an educational system which is permeated by the philosophy of secularism, something quite different from religious neutrality, be allowed to gain control of our public schools.” At the same time, the 1952 message had only a negative reference to parochial schools (“the solution … lies in loyal support of our public schools, and in increasing their awareness of God, rather than in state support of parochial schools”) and it seemed over-eager to defend public schools against criticism (“It is unfair to say that where religion is not taught in a public school, that school is secular or godless. The moral and cultural atmosphere … and the attitude, the viewpoints, and the character of the teachers can be religious and exert a religious influence, without religion necessarily being taught as a subject”). Both this negative disposition toward private schools and over-defense of public schools subsequently became points of controversy within NCC circles through growing pressure for debate on the extent to which the Protestant theological position actually requires support for a system of common schools. Most significant, however, was the failure of the 1952 message to include an emphasis on the propriety of teaching national dependence upon God (which goes beyond making pupils “aware of the heritage of faith.…”) and on an exclusively theistic grounding and sanctioning of moral values.

Herculean Task

While the NCC faces a herculean task in formulating practical strategy, difficulties on the theoretical plane are no less formidable, especially in the crucial areas of teaching about religion and moral and spiritual values. NEA statements had cast weight mainly on the humanist side of the controversy, and against supernaturalism. It was to be expected, therefore, that NCC’s theistic grounding of values, in 1953, would provoke criticism, not only among schoolmen, but from humanistic churchmen, some of them vocal members of denominational committees on social action. The latest NCC pronouncement, a resolution of its General Board adopted Dec. 1, 1955, was somewhat more obscure in the matter of values. It gave unapologetic support to teaching “that our moral and ethical values rest upon religious grounds and sanctions.” But that was no clear-cut victory for theism since naturalism in the form of humanism often parades as religion.

When the Committee on Religion and Publication sought an index to NCC opinion on 44 issues in its “Preliminary Document No. 1,” the responses from 30 of its own members fluctuated from enthusiasm to hostility on six of the tentative statements; from enthusiasm to opposition on 20 items; and from enthusiasm to indifference on seven others. Committee members proposed 11 additional related subjects for discussion. This background material armed NCC committee members in Chicago’s Pick-Congress Hotel last month. Divided into five subcommittees, each group worked through an assigned portion of the preliminary document with an eye on consensus of conviction and points of correlation. While NCC policy excludes staff members from a vote, the extent to which staff activity participated (either as proxy for non-staff denominational representatives or as representing other NCC committees) was as curious as the insistence that any final draft would be cleared with councils of churches as well as with member denominations. Observers from non-affiliated agencies were allowed full participation other than voting privileges.

Complicating Motivation

NCC’s search for a statement that “reconciles our differences, incorporates our best thinking, and presents an authoritative Protestant view” is complicated by multiple motivations. It sets out, avowedly, to speak within an acknowledgment of “Jesus Christ as divine Lord and Saviour” through which the ecumenical movement links together Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and some Catholic and Anglican churches varying in theology, churchmanship and theories of action. The transition from the authority of Christ as Lord, to the particular positions taken on pressing issues, is not an easy one. A “hidden agenda” seems to shadow many discussions: assuming that “the thing to be done” includes preserving public schools under any circumstances, impeding Roman Catholic maneuvers for larger benefits from tax funds, avoiding a forthrightly theological pronouncement as trespassing the prerogatives of member denominations, accepting without question previous NCC commitments (the 1954 General Board statement favored “federal contributions to education … applied exclusively to the aid of tax-supported public schools” and staff members have interpreted this in support of federal aid for school construction), and a solicitous awareness of practical difficulties of local school superintendents. Beyond all this, NCC pronouncements involve the desired adjustment, in the interest of unanimity, of as many agreements and differences as possible, with staff consultants, state and local councils of churches, and constituent denominations all engaged in the dialogue. Given this context, the problem of addressing to member churches, in the hope of wider public approval, a statement which is authentically Protestant, is no easy task.

Worth Quoting

“Baptists and other evangelicals in Spain continue to suffer many disabilities and face many difficulties in their work. One situation, that of civil marriage, is even worse than when I visited there in 1956. There has been no violent persecution such as I reported after a recent visit to Colombia, but persecution of Protestants in Spain is more subtle and persistent.”—Dr. Theodore F. Adams, president of Baptist World Alliance, after a trip through Spain.

“Ours is a declining culture sagging out of orbit, a civilization sinking like a meteor in the night, a generation that has lost its reason for being.”—Editor Carl F. H. Henry of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, in remarks to Christian Business Men’s Committee of Washington,

D. C., on “The Place of Christ in a Disheveled World.”

Growing Pressures

There are growing pressures for the avoidance of direct theological statements and for a merely functional approach to religion and values, along the line of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago policy statement on “The Relation of the Churches in the Public Schools and The Place of Religion in Education.” But others insist that a theological position is unavoidable and inevitable. Dr. Gerald W. Knopp of NCC’s Division of Christian Education has reminded the Committee that its present draft takes lower ground than the exclusively theistic sanctioning of values in past NCC statements. “We had best reaffirm … or come off that limb deliberately,” he admonished.

Facing the framers of the declaration, guided by a newly proposed Department of Religion and Public Education of NCC, is the staggering task of consistency of conviction as much as fidelity to consensus. A holding operation may content itself with a view to consequences, but a strong strategic position will require a firm stand on principles.

C. F. H. H.

In Hans Urs von Balthasar’s fine book about the French writer George Bermanos, we find an instructive discussion of Bermanos’ attitude to the Roman Catholic Church, of which Bermanos was a member. His attitude was at once reverent and critical. This is not to say that Bermanos was reverent toward certain things in the church and critical of others. The relationship between his reverence and criticism goes deeper than this. The criticism grew out of the reverence, and the reverence was a critical reverence. Though the Protestant sees the possibility of criticism differently because he views the Church differently, he, too, may have the same two-pronged attitude toward the Church.

The Church is surely no stranger to criticism. Nor is criticism as such a rejection of the Church. Simple conformity within the Church rises from a failure to appreciate the human character of the Church. The Gospel offers little support for conformity. Just as it was possible for Paul to criticize Peter when he was convinced Peter was wrong (Gal. 2:11), so is it possible for us today to criticize the Church on all its fronts. The Church can be in danger. Antichrist can take his seat in the temple of God (2 Thess. 2:4). He who has uncritical reverence for the Church simply because it is the Church renders the Church poor service.

But criticism can flow from an impure spring. Critics can level their charges at the Church from a bastion of their own dissatisfaction and lovelessness. When they do, such critics do not speak as living members of the Church. Whenever the critic of the Church speaks his criticism from a distance, without love, without regret and without emotion, without a willingness to suffer and strive along with the Church, he betrays his estrangement from the Church and its mystery.

In this regard, we can learn something from Roman Catholic Bermanos. He did not hold back criticism of his church. But his critique was not thrown at his church from a distance. It was a critique of love. As he criticized he also confessed that he could not live for five minutes without the church. “Should I ever be forced outside of the church,” he said, “I would turn about and come back, on bare feet, ready to submit to whatever would be laid upon me.” Typical Roman Catholic submissiveness, one may retort. But we must be careful here. We must not forget the necessary and unbreakable relation between criticism and love.

We can criticize the Church truly only when we love it truly. There is no contradiction between true criticism and true love. It is just where love for the Church is strong that there is a yearning for the Church to be manifest as spotless, for the Church to be the light in a dark world. The prophets spoke this way to Zion: “For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake will I not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth” (Isa. 62:1). Watchmen were set on the walls of Jerusalem who were not to hold their peace until “he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (Isa. 62:6–7).

This is the touchstone of all criticism—the willingness of the critic to accept his own responsibility, to take his stance as a living member of the Church. One does not have to close his eyes to the failures and mistakes of the Church. He ought to look them squarely in the face, look at them with the eyes of love, and then speak out about them. The man who loves the Church feels no pressure to be a conformist, a yes man to all that occurs in the Church. He who loves the Church lives in longing for the final mystery, the mystery of the spotless congregation. In his longing, he is moved to criticism whenever the true wealth of the Church—in faith or in life—is threatened. Anyone who has had a share in the vision of the Body of Christ on earth cannot rest until its spotless character, its true wealth is manifest. He is a watchman on the walls of Zion, ready to call out at every threat. But when he speaks in warning tones, he speaks with the voice of earnest love.

If it is ever true, it is surely true here that love is not blind. This is why reverence and criticism of the Church are not two attitudes that balance each other off, as though the man who is both reverent and critical is on one hand reverent and on the other hand critical. Reverence and criticism are two aspects of one attitude, two aspects that penetrate each other and are never balanced off against each other. Therefore, every critique leveled from a behind-the-lines position is judged. Every critique that does not arise from within the dangers and the agony of the Church is unworthy and unconstructive. It is fruitless because it is loveless.

There is a difference between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant view of the Church. But we can nonetheless learn something from Bermanos as we read of his criticism of and yet his passionate love for his church. For, in spite of the faults of the Church, there is a mystery within it. It is the mystery of sacrifice and resurrection, the mystery of love and mercy. It is a rich mystery. And its wealth lies in our hands. How can we ever count the sins that the Church has committed and still commits? What a darkness falls over its path in the course of its centuries! Yet, we do not turn our backs to the Church.

Every cloud that falls over the Church is a summons to new responsibility. The darker it becomes in the Church, the more earnestly we strive for the light. We do this with finger pointed in disturbed criticism and judgment; but the disturbance is the disturbance of love. To divorce criticism of the Church from love and prayer for the Church is to lose hold of the mystery of the Church. This is the warning for all criticism of the Church!

It will be readily conceded that the times in which Hosea lived called for a prophet from the Lord. From the high peak of prosperity achieved under Jeroboam II, Samaria had rampaged downhill to suicidal destruction. Few would have believed that after Jeroboam’s death the northern kingdom would have only 27 years of nationhood left. That is the measure of the speed with which spiritual apostacy and moral degeneracy can compass the death of a nation. A debauched aristocracy, a degenerate priesthood, a debased people, constituted an apostate nation that grew prematurely old and died by its own hand (7:9, 4:1–11).

Background And Date

Hosea was contemporary with Amos, Isaiah and Micah (cf. Hos. 1:1; Amos 1:1; Isa. 1:1; Mic. 1:1), and like Amos he witnessed in Samaria, the northern part of the divided kingdom. The spontaneity with which he depicts the contemporary situation in Samaria, and the accuracy of the details, suggest that he was a native of the north. The name Ephraim occurs nearly 40 times. The numerous place names met with are all of locations in Samaria.

When Hosea began to prophesy in Ephraim it is safe to assume that Jeroboam II still ruled the country. At least the dynasty to which he belonged (the House of Jehu) still survived. In 1:4, its overthrow, which took place six months after Jeroboam II died, is foretold but not fulfilled. A hint of the amazing prosperity that Jeroboam’s rule brought to Samaria occurs in 2:5, 8f. The king died in 749 B.C., so that the early part of Hosea’s writings (1–3) probably concern events that took place within a period a few years before that date.

The second part of Hosea’s ministry was fulfilled in a completely different ethos. There are many hints of the chaotic conditions that prevailed following Jeroboam’s death. However, Samaria had not yet fallen to the Assyrian Sargon II (13:16). Indeed, Hosea betrays no knowledge even of the disasters that befell Israel during the reign of Tiglathpileser III, predecessor of Shalmaneser V, whom Sargon succeeded. The darkening gloom that heralded Samaria’s bloody end is descending like a pall upon the doomed nation, but Gilead in Transjordania is still part of Ephraim (6:8), and the ruthlessly efficient Assyrian war machine is not yet in operation against her (5:13, 12:1). In fact, the situation is powerfully reminiscent of Menahem’s rule in Samaria (2 Kings 15:13–22), the king who “reigned” by permission of the Assyrian emperor, his overlord. Since Menahem died in 734 B.C., probably Hosea’s ministry was completed prior to that date.

Contents

The book of Hosea falls into two main sections: chapters 1–3 and 4–14. The first divides fairly easily into five parts: (1) 1:1–9, describes Hosea’s relations with Gomer his wife, and by means of symbolic names given to the prophet’s children foreshadows Samaria’s doom; (2) 1:10–2:1, provides hope of a reversal of this doom; (3) 2:2–13, returns to the disaster foreshadowed in the first section; (4) 2:14–23, supplies fresh promises of a restoration; (5) 3:1–5, suggests that Hosea’s treatment of the wayward Gomer points to the means by which Samaria may be restored.

The second section is less easily divided but there appear to be three main parts in it: (1) Chapters 4–8, which exposes generally the horrifying state of Samaria’s moral life; chapter 4 describes Israel’s national sins, for which the priests must share responsibility; chapters 5–7 show the extent to which Ephraim’s life is riddled with the dry-rot of sin, while chapter 8 specifies the actual sins which plague the nation; (2) 9–11:11, describes the entail of judgment that such sinfulness necessitates; (3) 11:12; 12; 13, reviews some of the salient features of Israel’s past history, while chapter 14 promises a limited restoration to a chastened and repentant residue.

Hosea’S Relations With Gomer

Chapters 1–3 are easily systematized because they revolve around a common center. In this first section the prophet is preoccupied primarily with the chesedh (grace) of Jahweh and the faithfulness of Ephraim. This stemmed from the harrowing experience that came to him in his own home. The interpretation of this event is the crux of the first part of the book because it seems to raise a serious moral problem.

The most widely accepted interpretation is based on the conviction that Hosea’s account of his marital relations with Gomer is factual. He married Gomer and she bore him three children. The first, a son, was named Jezreel signifying the judgment of Jehu’s house (1:3–5); the second child, a daughter, was called Uncompassionated signifying the close of Israel’s day of grace (1:6f.); the third, a son, was named Not-my-people signifying that Israel was no longer Jahweh’s people.

In the course of their married life Gomer’s infidelities came to light. Hosea and Gomer separated but she persisted in her immoral habits. So complete became her eventual degradation that she was put up for sale as a slave. At the Lord’s behest Hosea redeemed her and restored her to his home, though not as his wife. Sexual relations were to be resumed only after a probationary period had proved that she was cured of her waywardness.

It is important to note that Hosea restored Gomer to his home after he saw that the Lord would restore Israel, while Gomer’s unfaithfulness was discovered before Hosea gained insight into Israel’s apostasy. The significance of this is that while the prophet’s domestic tragedy preceded his understanding of God’s sorrow over Israel, it was the Lord who set the example of forgiveness. Hosea saw God’s sorrow in the light of his own, but he saw how to forgive Gomer when he saw the Lord’s willingness to forgive Israel. Human grace is the reflex of divine grace.

But the acceptance of Hosea’s account of his domestic sorrow as factual seems to involve a moral problem. In Chapter 1:2, Jahweh says to Hosea: “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms!” This command marks the opening of Hosea’s prophetic ministry. But is it conceivable that the Holy One of Israel would lay such a command upon one of his prophets? A number of scholars deny this and resolve the problem by describing Hosea’s account of his domestic tragedy as an allegory. The stark realism of the prophet’s story, however, does not suggest that he was using allegorical language, and in any case the allegorist still has to explain why Hosea used an immoral subject in the alleged allegory.

Another attempt to solve the dilemma is the suggestion that Hosea knew that Gomer was a prostitute before he married her, and that the marriage was the prophet’s endeavor to lift Gomer from her degradation in response to the Lord’s command in verse 2 of chapter 1. But this solution accounts neither for Hosea’s view that Israel was chaste at the time of her betrothal with Jahweh and only corrupted herself subsequently, nor for his understanding of his own tragedy.

If the phrase “wife of whoredoms” (1:2) is applied to Gomer to describe not what she was but what she became after Hosea married her, then the difficulty disappears. Hosea’s children are described as “children of whoredoms” (1:2), but they were yet unborn. This would free us from imputing to God a command that would at once outrage the prophet’s moral sense, and render impossible the fulfilment of part of his mission, namely the condemnation of the nation’s immoral practices.

It also enables us to establish the necessary connection between Hosea’s personal experience and his teaching. The former was the medium through which the latter was communicated. Out of that harrowing experience there came to the prophet an understanding of the heinous nature of Israel’s idolatry. She was committing adultery (1:2) when she worshiped the Canaanite Baal (2:5, 8). And since Jahweh was the Holy One, he could neither condone nor ignore such infidelity. Judgment in the form of exile (3:4) became inevitable. But this would not be Jahweh’s final word to Israel, his unfaithful bride. Her return home was certain (3:5) when the fiery furnace of exile would have welded her into a unity (1:11), and purged away the dross of her idolatrous cravings. Men would then know her as the Lord’s betrothed (2:19).

Additional Teachings In Hosea

The second part of the book of Hosea, chapters 4:14, has no cohesive principle similar to that which unifies the first three chapters; but there are one or two important truths set forth in this second section. These must necessarily be presented in summarized form.

1. In chapters 4–6 the prophet again turns his attention to the religious life of Samaria. There are several factors to notice here.

(a) He describes her worship at the high places as harlotry (4:13), and for two reasons: gross immorality characterized it (4:14 f.), and it represented national apostasy from Jahweh. The local Baalim were Israel’s paramours.

(b) Now what Hosea underscores is that this revolting behavior was the result of the people’s ignorance. And this lack of knowledge was the outcome of a deliberate policy of the priesthood. When Hosea speaks of knowledge at this point he does not mean knowledge that is an abstract entity. He has in mind a knowledge of God that is practical. A knowledge that reveals to a man his duty toward the Lord and that impels him to a response of obedience.

(c) It was this kind of knowledge that the priests, of set purpose, withheld from the people (4:6). Within this deliberately induced vacuum they fostered sensuous passions in the people, which they craftily guaranteed could and would be sated at the high places. This deliberate policy pursued by the priests was motivated by the determination to gain mean advantages over the people (4:8).

(d) This policy finally bore baneful fruit in the nation’s life. The time came when Hosea could say that there was neither truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of Jahweh in Ephraim (4:1). And as the insensate people plunged deeper into the morass of an immorality that was both religious and ethical, their foolish hearts became increasingly dark (4:10 f.), until Hosea’s famous dictum became proverbial: ‘Like people, like priest’ (4:9).

(e) Turning to the great world powers for help in her dilemma (5:13, 7:11, 8:9, 12:1) proved unavailing. It was only added evidence that Israel was a sick nation. It bespoke an apostate condition because the absence of trust in Jahweh which this policy revealed indicated alienation from God in heart as well as mind. Hosea knew of only one remedy for this cancerous growth that was eating into Samaria’s vitals—judgment, and the return of a chastened people to their God. Then they would know, if they continued to follow on to know the Lord (6:1–3).

2. Hosea’s teaching on the covenant relation between Jahweh and Israel is also important. In this field his main burden is that the nation has wantonly severed this covenant bond (5:7, 6:7, 8:1).

(a) He understood it in terms of filial relations (11:1). But whereas in the neighboring nations this relation between deity and people was understood in terms of a physical relationship, in Israel the bond with Jahweh was spiritual and ethical.

(b) This covenant relation between Jahweh and Ephraim was morally conditioned because it was a bond of chesedh. The bond, therefore, could be maintained only by the worship and behavior of a people who loved mercy, holiness, justice, truth and a right knowledge of Jahweh. But in fact Israel’s life was the complete antithesis of this ideal.

(c) The prophet saw from his own experience of Gomer’s infidelity what Israel’s unfaithfulness must have meant to Jahweh. It was when his own love was so heartlessly trampled underfoot by Gomer, and his character and purpose were so cruelly misinterpreted, that insights into the heart of God flashed into his distraught mind.

(d) It was this, too, that showed him the inevitability of judgment (13:16). But this would not mean the cessation of Jahweh’s chesedh for Ephraim (11:8, 13:14). Through the gloom of impending judgment Hosea saw gleams heralding the dawn of a new day (5:15–6:6, 11:9–11, 14:4–9).

3. Attention should also be drawn to Hosea’s concept of religion. This stemmed from his doctrine of God.

(a) Whereas Amos had conceived Jahweh to be a God whose chief concern was the Law and its observance, Hosea believed Jahweh to be essentially a God of grace (11:1–4). God’s grace could not merely match law, it was greater than law. God’s grace could pronounce judgment upon the people who had a broken law on their conscience and at the same time promise redemption.

(b) Now having seen that Jahweh was essentially grace and spirit, Hosea could teach that religion was of the heart (6:6). Religion was an inward thing of the spirit. This insight was inevitable when one has due regard to the elemental thing in Israel’s faith, namely Jahweh’s elective grace in redeeming her from Egypt, and the ethical nature of the covenant bond into which she entered with Jahweh at Sinai. For Hosea, Israel’s religion was pre-eminently inward and ethical, spiritual and moral.

(c) Hence, Hosea viewed exile not as the end but as the beginning. It would only serve to make plain what was inherent in his view of Israel’s faith, namely that behind the outward religion, behind temple, sacrifice, priesthood and ceremonial, was the essential inward religion. The invisible “required” the visible accompaniment for the benefit of its adherents, but Hosea saw that the invisible had qualities and ideals that no visible ceremonial could finally embody. Hosea saw the truth which a Greater than he was one day to formulate: “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

Brief Bibliography

From fairly extensive literature on Hosea the following may be said to be representative: John Calvin, Commentaries, Minor Prophets (Edinburgh, 1846, Vol. 1); Keil & Delitzsch, Commentaries on the Old Testament, Minor Prophets (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1954, Vol. 1); C. Von Orelli, The Twelve Minor Prophets (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1897); G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Prophets in The Expositor’s Bible (Funk & Wagnalls, 1900); W. R. Harper, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Amos and Hosea in The International Critical Commentary (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 4th Impression 1953); A. C. Welch, Kings and Prophets of Israel (Philosophical Library, New York, 1952, pp. 130–184); H. Wh. Robinson, The Cross of Hosea (The Westminster Press, Philadelphia).

J. G. S. S. THOMSON

Professor of Old Testament

Columbia Theological Seminary

Enriching Worship

Leading in Public Prayer, by Andrew W. Blackwood, Abingdon, 1958. 205 pp., $3.00.

The name of Andrew Blackwood is practically a byword among contemporary preachers. In addition to having taught homiletics to a generation of divinity students at four theological seminaries, he is the author of a wide variety of books covering this and kindred subjects. His writings have never been technical, but are designed for use by the average parish minister. Without exception they have received a warm welcome from clergymen of all denominations.

This volume is equal to its predecessors. Its purpose is to assist the minister of the “free church” tradition in enriching his worship services by instructing him in the art of public prayer. Dr. Blackwood discusses the essential elements of Christian prayer: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication (which includes petition and intercession), and submission, and insists that no service of worship is complete which omits any one of them. He argues convincingly for the division of public prayer according to this progressive order, greater congregational participation, brevity, and concreteness rather than abstraction. He suggests ways of varying the emphasis in the prayers at different services according to the diverse needs of the people, thereby emancipating the services from monotony and attracting more worshipers. The book includes a check list of faults in public prayer, a bibliography, and an index.

Dr. Blackwood approves the use of the historic prayers of the Church and those by masters of this discipline. With this we agree, but we question his logic. For while he endorses this practice, he apparently disapproves the use of other men’s sermons. He claims that the borrowing of prayers is not plagiarism, and advises the man who has qualms about the practice to read word-for-word the borrowed prayers, but to shut his eyes when voicing his own. That is a rationalization. And if the unacknowledged borrowing of prayers is not plagiarism, what makes the unacknowledged borrowing of sermons plagiarism? Is it fundamentally a question of length? If so, then we are enmeshed in a casuistry which matches that of the Jesuits.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Compelling Subject

Words and Images, by E. L. Mascall, Ronald, 1957. 132 pp., $3.50.

This is both an interesting and disappointing book. It is interesting, first, because the author’s style is attractive. Second, and more important, the subject is compelling: the logical positivist theory of language versus a Roman Catholic view of words and images which, though based on sensory experience, convey non-conceptual and unverifiable truth.

Yet the book is disappointing, for the theory defended is not comprehensively explained. A reader new to the subject might indeed have his interest stimulated, but he would be many times perplexed. The author excuses his omissions on the ground that he or his friends have given the arguments in other volumes.

The excuse, however, is not altogether sufficient. In the space of a few lines the author dismisses the view that perception is inferential: Brand Blanshard in The Nature of Thought spent 100 pages of careful argument to show that it is. Then the author proceeds to assert that the intellect grasps the real thing in a direct but mediate activity (pp. 33 and 34). How apprehension can be direct without being immediate, he does not explain.

There is a more serious omission. If the author wishes to reject logical positivism—and most of his reasons here are quite sound (perhaps there is one doubtful accusation of ambiguity on page 13)—he should show more clearly that it is possible to defend the meaningfulness of theological propositions while retaining the sensory origin of language. “All the language that we have in which to talk about him [God] has been devised in order to describe and discuss the finite objects of our sense-experience” (p. 101). Does this not concede too much to the logical positivists right at the start? Can this position be rescued by a puzzling hint of a primitive language that antedates the distinction between the material and the spiritual? And is mystic imagery of any help?

It would be unreasonable to require a man to write a 700-page volume when he wants only to talk for 150 pages. But is it unreasonable in this case to wish that the number of assertions were few enough to allow for moderate explanation and for some genuine argument?

GORDON H. CLARK

Benevolent Government

Commonism, by Pik Kum Chau, Exposition Press, 1957. 256 pp., $3.00.

One does not like to be critical of such a sincere effort to provide a Christian answer to Communism. It is true that good will is essential to the solution of our problems, and that Christians need to respond to the challenge to live on the level of Christian love. It is true that the disciples in Acts 2:44 had all things in common, but this was not an effort to establish a permanent economic system. It was a temporary system of relief (Acts 2:45; 4:34–35), and it was not practiced in churches outside Jerusalem. If it had been, there could have been no weekly contribution wherein individuals gave, as they purposed and as they had been prospered (1 Cor. 16:1–2). If all sold their lands and houses when they came into Christ (Acts 2:45; 4:34), soon many would be on relief with no one to relieve them. Dr. Chau did not advocate this, but rather a double tithe and special offerings, so although he took the title of his book from Acts 2:44 he did not advocate the having all things common.

Dr. Chau recognizes the right of private ownership, which is also stated by Peter in Acts 5:4, but I am afraid that the type of government which he suggests would destroy private ownership and freedom. For he not only advocates a government which would be the “father” of the people looking after all their needs, but also an international government with sufficient force to enforce its will (pp. 174–178) and with a Religious Affairs Committee which would endeavor to establish a federation of religion and have the direction of universal evangelistic movements (pp. 182–184).

As with many others, Dr. Chau is misled by the pleasant but deceptive sound of the slogan: “Each person contributing according to his ability; each person receiving according to his needs.” This is in reality the formula of dictatorship since there must be a government with dictatorial powers to decide what my ability is and what my needs are. This would necessitate the Planners, the varying Plans, the Police to enforce the plans and the people who would be the Planned. I know of no planners who are wise enough, intelligent enough, informed sufficiently, or good enough to be entrusted with the political, economic and spiritual power suggested.

In my opinion, Ivor Thomas in The Socialist Tragedy shows a better understanding of human nature.

We agree with Dr. Chau that Christians need to have a stewardship concept and to use their material goods in harmony with the will of God.

JAMES D. BALES

Pavlovian Ideas

Battle for the Mind, by William Sargant, Doubleday, 1957. 263 pp., $4.50.

The author’s subtitle, “A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing,” hardly prepares the reader for the congeries of animal and human phenomena here assembled. With only the Pavlovian concept of the conditioned reflex to justify their juxtaposition, the author has ranged through history and across geography to collect copious quotations from Saul of Tarsus to Billy Graham and from ancient Greece to communist China.

Sargant is a British psychiatrist who has written a previous book on physical methods of treatment in mental illness. From this constricted viewpoint he undertakes what he calls “a limited mechanistic approach” to the subject of political and religious conversion.

The author begins by recounting in the introduction his own conversion to belief in the “experimental neuroses” of Pavlov, and continues by describing in detail the Russian scientist’s work with conditioned reflexes in dogs. A second chapter endeavors to establish the existence of identical phenomena in human beings. In the remainder of the book, the author assumes the truth of this proposition and proceeds to use the Pavlovian terminology in analyzing his collected descriptions of religious and political conversion phenomena. He is justifiably defensive about this extrapolative transfer of dog behavior to human beings, which oversimplifies psychological problems and treatment, at times to the point of naivete.

Sargant cites the work of Jonathan Edwards, George Fox, Charles Finney and George Whitefield in support of his contention that evangelistic methods are primarily assaults on the brain—not even psychological, but physiological. His severest attacks are reserved for John Wesley. The choice of excerpts is slanted and the treatment of Wesley overly aggressive, denigrative and studded with gratuitous interpolations.

This global compilation that binds Christian conversion, psychoanalysis, voodoo, police grilling, snake-handling, witchcraft and communist interrogation in the same bundle proves one thing—that its author’s indoctrination in Pavlovian ideas has been a complete success.

ORVILLE S. WALTERS

Christianity in the World Today

This summer’s developments in the Mideast captured the attention of the godly and godless the world over. The crisis held its greatest meaning, however, for evangelical Christians, who know that world history began near the eastern shore of the Mediterranean—and may well end there!

Current events in the Mideast have great significance if only because of this fact, that ancient Bible lands which originally supplied the setting for the decisive events of sacred history are once again providing the scene for potentially momentous happenings. In back of the mind of most informed individuals is the question: “Will this struggle degenerate into a nuclear war, heaping unparalleled destruction upon the earth?” Yet the true Christian aspects of the turmoil transcend in importance even the alarm over whether troop movements, bloody riots, and nationalistic political realignments will eventually trigger a third global conflict.

Evaluations Will Take Time

Precise determinations as to how the 1958 Mideast strife affects the Christian outlook may well be a long time coming. Few theologians, if any, were immediately willing to venture specific appraisals. By early this month the only representative church statement relating to the Mideast came from Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, a joint agency of the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council. Nolde drafted the statement with five other ecumenical leaders “inspired by queries from Christian leaders all over the United States.” The 10-point statement made no attempt to deal with particulars. Aside from an assertion that “it is not essential to Western interests that the governments of the Middle East be ‘pro-Western,’ ” the remarks were non-committal on any new course of action. For example: “We in the churches should both support the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of Middle Eastern nations and promote alertness to the extent to which the response of national governments falls below the needs and aspirations of their own people.”

Doubtless, though, theologians of many persuasions will become increasingly vocal as political realignments jell and sides are chosen. These may be some of the concerns which will guide thinking:

The welfare of Protestants caught in the struggle. Up through the first week of this month, there were no reports of any Protestant missionaries in the Mideast having been harmed or mistreated in the uprisings.

The effect political realignments will have on the work of the Gospel in Mideast lands. The facts are that present evangelical impact in the areas where Christianity had its roots amounts to little more than a drop in the bucket. Moslem domination could eliminate even this small impact, but concerted efforts against Christian advance at this stage can hardly be expected.

Lebanon Is Half And Half

Maronite Roman Catholics compose an overwhelming majority of the Christians who make Lebanon half-Christian, half-Moslem. President-elect Faud Shehab, like President Camille Chamoun, is a Maronite. The Shehab family, originally Moslem, reportedly became Maronite about the middle of the eighteenth century. Shehab has relatives among the Moslems and the Druses, a sect of Islam. A Moslem cousin, Khaled Shehab, once was premier. (Maronite Patriarch Paul Meouchi is the cousin of ex-President Bishara el-Khoury, whom Chamoun forced from office by coup d’etat in 1952.)

In Iraq, only about five per cent of the population can be considered Christian, using the term in its broadest sense. There are 210,000 Latin and Eastern Rite Catholics, plus some 90,000 Eastern Orthodox and about 2,000 Protestants. Modern Protestant efforts in Iraq date back only about 50 years.

The Moslem character of both Iraq and Jordan had focused on the Hashemite royal family, which is said to number Mohammed among its ancestors.

Correlation of modern Mideast geographical features with those of biblical times. Perhaps the most prominent biblical site associated with Iraq is the Garden of Eden. Almost directly north of Baghdad, near the Tigris River, lay the remains of the world’s oldest known village. In southeast Iraq stands the oldest temple known to man.

Lebanon’s most prominent biblical cities are Tyre and Saida, or Sidon, the latter having been the uppermost limit of Canaan. Both cities are mentioned many times through the Old and New Testaments.

Do present phenomena represent fulfilled biblical prophecy? Most prophecy discussions these days center on Israel, which in the early weeks of the 1958 Mideast crisis was a silent neighbor. Not until early August did the Jews become significantly involved. Almost immediately after the United States recognized the new government of Iraq, Israel said it was refusing to let British transport planes cut across its borders. The move cut off air supplies for British troops in Jordan. Some observers felt the Israel refusal was the result of Soviet pressure; others thought the little country was merely trying to assert its independence. Many scholars say Israel is the country to watch.

The issues in the Mideast struggles were, from the beginning, largely political and economic. Religious ramifications were overlooked. Chiefs of states showed no alertness to the lessons of Mideast history. Policies were being predicated on vulnerable issues which failed to penetrate deeply into human nature. Still to be explored was the possibility of solutions on a theistic level. Yet to be realized, seemingly, was the fact that the principals are theists, and that this might provide a common ground for reconciliation. (The first Baghdad radio announcements following the coup began: “With the aid of God Almighty and the support of the people and the armed services, we have liberated …” King Hussein said he was guiding his country “with God’s help.”)

Was anyone about to come up with the answer? Republican Senator H. Alexander Smith of New Jersey said that only a return to God can restore America’s “moral leadership” in these distressing times.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Smith said that “the times call for a renewal of our faith and a new dedication to re-establish the moral leadership of a free America in the world.”

The “distressing world problems of today remind me that throughout our history, in times of national crisis, America has affirmed through its leaders that ‘God governs in the affairs of men,’ ” he said.

In quoting from Benjamin Franklin, Smith stressed that the spiritual heritage of the founding fathers “springs from the Declaration of Independence and its statement of basic moral and religious principles, which are rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition of human dignity and equality under God.”

Staff Additions

Dr. James DeForest Murch, for the past 13 years editor of United Evangelical Action, becomes managing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, September 1.

On August 25, Clair C. Burcaw, New York textile sales executive, will become general business manager.

The new appointments were made under a staff expansion program which also provides for a full-time advertising manager, a post that will be filled by Charles Claus, who has been business and advertising manager.

Murch will fill the post vacant since April, 1957, when Larry Ward resigned as managing editor to join World Vision.

Murch holds the A.B. from Ohio University and the M.A. from the University of Cincinnati, plus an honoray doctorate from Northwest Christian College.

Prior to his association with United Evangelical Action, official organ of the National Association of Evangelicals, he was editorial secretary of Standard Publishing Company, Cincinnati.

An ordained Disciples of Christ minister, Murch is a past president of National Religious Broadcasters, National Sunday School Association, and Cincinnati Bible Seminary. He was also vice president of the World Christian Endeavor Union.

Murch has written a number of books, among them Cooperation Without Compromise, Studies in Christian Living, Christian Ministers Manual, Christian Education and the Local Church, and God Still Lives.

Burcaw, aside from wide business experience, especially in the textile field, is also an active Christian layman.

Preventive Legislation

“A reduction of 50 per cent in the problem of the drinking driver would mean the saving of more than 7,500 lives per year.”

Can the number of drinking drivers be cut in half? “I certainly think so … in a couple of years,” said William N. Plymat, president of Preferred Risk Mutual Insurance Company (which sells policies exclusively to non-drinkers).

Plymat proposed the means in talks to summer conferences of the National Committee for the Prevention of Alcoholism. His plan: Equip patrol cars with kits to detect alcohol on the breath of drivers; institute programs of surprise highway checks; deal with habitual offenders through a point system.

For God, Country

Who would ever have thought that Americans could win the average Russian’s heart by displaying superiority in a particular field? Yet the Soviet public has been captivated by visitors from the United States. And, even more remarkable, the Americans apparently getting the most attention in Moscow are outstanding lay Christians.

Take Brooks Hays, U. S. Congressman and Southern Baptist Convention president who was overwhelmed at his reception in Moscow’s First Baptist Church, or Van Cliburn, young Baptist musician who sang in the New York Crusade choir last summer, then went on to become a hero in the Russian capital by winning an international piano competition, not to mention American churchmen acclaimed enthusiastically in visits to the Soviet Union.

Last month, a 23-year-old California Negro won more attention than perhaps all the rest by performing a feat that the chief Russian track coach called “the greatest to occur in the world in any sport.” Rafer Johnson, who remembers October 29, 1953, as the spiritual turning point in his life, broke the world’s decathlon record in nine events and was promptly labeled by United Press International as the “greatest all-around athlete in history.”

Recognition of Johnson’s superlative athletic prowess came at a track and field meet between Americans and Russians at Moscow’s Lenin Stadium. He was reportedly mobbed by enthusiastic Russians after piling up 8302 points—288 more than the old record for the 10-event test.

Johnson joined the Kingsburg, California, Mission Covenant Church shortly after his conversion at a Youth for Christ banquet. Now a student at the University of California at Los Angeles, he works with Campus Crusade for Christ.

The American Tract Society in New York, in a new illustrated tract about Johnson, quotes him as saying:

“The championships and college teams will soon be forgotten, and the lights will go out; but the Christian team will live and the light will never dim, but will burn on and on.”

Church And State

Danger! Precedent! Such is the cry of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which this summer voiced misgivings over such potential pace-setters as these:

—An order from the New York commissioner of hospitals forbidding a doctor to prescribe a contraceptive device for a Protestant woman. (“This is exactly the sort of thing that many people have come to fear in the prospect of a Roman Catholic candidate for president—that if elected he would use his official position to further a sectarian program rather than the best interests of all citizens of all faiths,” said POAU Associate Director C. Stanley Lowell. Replied a Catholic spokesman, “The issue at hand is whether the money of taxpayers, among whom are Catholics who believe that birth control violates natural and divine law, should be used for contraceptive fittings in public hospitals.)

—An Internal Revenue Service regulation exempting from federal taxation business activities conducted by religious orders “with sacerdotal functions.”

—Proposed excise tax exemptions in favor of sectarian educational institutions.

—Congressional bills which would subsidize school travel in the District of Columbia.

Rebuilding A Faculty

Trustees at Louisville’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary have reinstated one of thirteen professors dismissed June 12 in a dispute with the administration.

Reinstatement of Dr. J. J. Owens, Old Testament professor and the only one of the thirteen to respond to a special trustee committee’s negotiation invitation, was made retroactive to the date of his dismissal.

It was announced that the other 12, if still unemployed, will receive salaries through January 31, “to assure that no financial hardship will be suffered.”

Since the dismissals, the seminary has added to its faculty Dr. Joseph A. Callaway of Furman University and C. Allyn Russell, teaching fellow at Boston University School of Theology.

Dr. Clyde T. Francisco, Old Testament professor, who was to have resigned his position to teach in Fort Worth, has decided to stay.

Minister Shortage

The interdenominational Ministers’ Council of Tuskegee, Alabama, “in an effort to face the problem of the dire shortage of ministers,” appointed a committee to study the matter and make recommendations.

Among the committee’s conclusions: “If the church is to face adequately the issues of our time, and if the influence of the Christian gospel is to be felt as these issues are resolved, it is essential that the “call” to Christian service be answered more often than it has been in recent years.”

Hostility Hit

Dr. John C. Bennett, dean of the faculty at Union Theological Seminary, suggest that Christians should take a less “rigid” attitude in their opposition to Communism.

He told some 450 delegates from 22 countries attending the eighth assembly of the International Congregational Council in Hartford, Connecticut, that perhaps it is time “to emphasize less than has been our practice opposition to communism and to stop the continuous expressions of national and religious hostility to Communists and Communist nations.”

Urging Christian churches to be “more sophisticated” about communism, Bennett said, however, they should not be misled by its “propaganda and its illusions.”

“They should not take so rigid an attitude that they cannot see that second generation Communists in Russia may become concerned chiefly about building their own country, that they may become less fanatical believers in their ideology and less a threat to the freedom of their neighbors.”

Bennett said he believed Christian churches in the West and in countries most vulnerable to communism “should continue to emphasize the conflicts between Christianity and communism.”

However, he continued, the churches should show more understanding toward the Russian fears of attack. These fears, he added, are “part a matter of dogma but are greatly strengthened by Western emphasis upon bases that surround the Soviet Union and by continuous expressions of hostility against that country.”

Other various meetings around the world produced these developments:

At New York City—Jehovah’s Witnesses from all over the world gathered at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds in the biggest convention, religious or otherwise, that New York has ever seen. More than 150,000 delegates impressed New Yorkers with their orderliness. More than 250,000 persons attended closing meetings. Witnesses set a record of their own in the mass baptism of 7,136 converts at Orchard Beach in The Bronx. (The men wore white T-shirts and swimming trunks, the women one-piece bathing suits with straps.)

At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England—A joint interim statement by representatives of the Church of England and the Methodist Church on closer relations between the two denominations brought sharp debate at the annual meeting of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain. The statement summarizing conversations held during the last two years suggested that unification of the ministries of the two churches might be accomplished by the Methodist Church’s acceptance of the historic episcopate.

At Silver Bay, New York—Pointing out that “there never has been a more difficult age than this for the church to carry out its mission,” Dr. Charles T. Leber told the annual NCC-sponsored Silver Bay Conference on the Christian World Mission that a “non-violent Christian revolution” is needed to shake up the complacency of Americans with regard to race, corruption, and the “worship” of material advances. Leber is general secretary of the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

At Edmonton, Alberta—The 32nd triennial General Conference of the North American Baptist Church decided to put the denomination’s two educational institutions under one board of education.

At Frankfurt, Germany—The 13th World Christian Endeavor Convention, with 12,000 youth in attendance, resolved to increase social action activities.

At Louisville, Kentucky—The national convention of Gideons International was told that hotel and motel rooms in 46 states are completely “Bibled.” The 18,000-member Christian businessmen’s group is in its 50th year of Bible distribution ministry.

Canada

New Texts

In 1957, Dr. Lewis S. Beattie, formerly Ontario’s superintendent of secondary education, was appointed chairman of the Inter-Church Committee on Religious Education in province schools. Since then he has been working on a plan for promoting religious education in elementary and secondary schools. Cooperation came from principals of teachers’ colleges and ministers who teach religious education.

Part of the plan is the publication of new guide books aimed at centering on the life of Jesus Christ and presenting his personality as portrayed by the Gospel writers. Committee members were hoping to have some of the books ready for the resumption of classes this fall.

Beattie undertook the work because he said he felt that excluding religion from school curricula has often given the impression that religion is unimportant or unworthy of a place alongside other school subjects.

—T.W.H.

Royal Worship

Touring Princess Margaret worshiped at St. George’s in the Pines Anglican Church during a stopover at Banff, Alberta. The rector, the Rev. George A. S. Hollywood, said afterward:

“There is no doubt in my mind that the Princess is a sincere Christian.”

“She was sitting very close to me during the matins service,” he added, “joining in heartily in the hymns, many of which she sang from memory, and responding well in … the service.”

J.N.

South America

Auca Episode

What has happened to Dr. Robert Tremblay, the Montreal doctor who went into the Ecuadorian jungles to deal with savage Aucas? (See CHRISTIANITY TODAY, June 23, 1958.)

Last month, a group of Quechua Indians went down the Curaray River to check on Tremblay. Just below “Palm Beach,” where five American missionaries were slain, the Indians found the jungle house where he had set up headquarters. They said the house had been ransacked with furnishings strewn about outside. No sign of Tremblay.

Several days later, a Missionary Aviation Fellowship plane made a pass over the house confirming that “stuff was strewn all over the place outside.”

Said pilot Hobey Lowrance: “We found that all the (Auca) houses at four locations had been burned. And no people appeared.”

Missionaries who know the Aucas thus feared the worst, for after a killing these Indians customarily burn their houses and hide for a time. All the indications, however, were circumstantial.

Europe

Showdown Series

Continuing clergy arrests notwithstanding, church-state showdowns cropped up liberally behind the Iron Curtain this summer.

First the Hungarian government, in a roundabout way, ousted Bishop Lajos Ordass as head of the Southern District of the Hungarian Lutheran Church. The state, which claims the right to approve all key church appointments, said it has never recognized the resignation of Bishop Laszlo Dezsery in favor of Ordass, a staunch anti-Communist who took up the post during the 1956 Hungarian revolt. Dezsery is now reported to have also disclaimed the office.

Then the scene switched to Warsaw, where Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Roman Catholic Primate of Poland, became the key figure in another church-state clash. Anti-state feelings among Catholics were stirred when Communist police raided a monastery and claimed to have seized literature which ridiculed the state. The question of whether the church or the state should distribute relief supplies from American Catholics added fuel to the controversy. Dr. Jerzy Sztachelski, minister of state for religious affairs, blamed Wyszynski for all the trouble, charging that the cardinal has been “inflaming relations between the church and the Polish state” ever since he visited the Vatican last year. A special church-state commission stepped in to try and ease the tensions.

Meanwhile, in East Berlin, an agreement was reported to have been established between the Soviet Zone government and Evangelical churches in East Germany to eliminate “disturbing factors” in church-state relations.

Forecast: Swedish Schism

A split within the Swedish state church looms if the country’s Lutheran hierarchy fails to veto a parliament-approved bill allowing ordination of women.

Last month 600 pastors and laymen led by Bishop Bo Giertz formed an organization to discourage the move for female clergy.

The bishop flatly predicted a split if the Lutheran Church Convocation allows the legislation to become effective. The convocation, which will meet in extraordinary session this fall, holds a veto power over bills affecting it.

—P. L.

End Of The Road?

The Free Church of Scotland’s official Monthly Record takes a dim view of a current move for closer ties between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England.

Proposed inter-communion, as suggested in a report referred by the Church of Scotland General Assembly to constituent presbyteries, “does not appear to have any doctrinal foundation,” the Monthly Record says.

“What is there to prevent both sides, here and now, from recognizing each other as brothers in Christ, working, each in his own domain, for the upbuilding of the Kingdom of Christ?” the publication asked. “Nothing, save empty, childish Episcopal pretensions!”

“But the long-term policy envisaged in the report … opens the door wide, not only to the Greek and Russian churches, but to Rome itself. And if this be the price we are asked to pay for a meager recognition by Anglicanism, can anyone doubt the cost of recognition at the hands of the Supreme Pontiff …? It would be, as it has always been, full and unconditional surrender. It is well, then, to recognize now that this is the end of the road we as Presbyterians are asked to launch out on.”

New Zealand

Broad Appraisal

Stirrings of new life mark the present religious situation in New Zealand. These movements sometimes interpret themselves, and frequently dissipate themselves, in such by-products as tithing campaigns.

Heretical sects have taken full advantage of easy money. With a background of national prosperity and disciplined giving characteristic of such groups, they have embarked upon building projects which have proved, in some cases, effective advertising. Notable is the huge and costly Mormon installation at Hamilton.

Exotic forms of Christianity have always exercised a fascination over the Maori people, and the Mormons in particular are presenting, and will increasingly present, a sharp challenge to the orthodox denominations which work with the native race. Personal evangelism by both Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses is reaching such proportions that churches can no longer rely on the common sense and rudimentary Bible knowledge of their rank and file to fortify those marked down by the door-to-door proselytizers. Some churches are realizing the need for clear and specific teaching to meet the challenge.

Add to this the general turning towards simple evangelism. An invitation has gone forth with wide backing to Billy Graham to visit New Zealand, which has never known a powerful religious revival. A party led by Dr. J. Edwin Orr found some response last year, but much cold conservatism and suspicion of evangelism. The representative nature of the invitation to Graham is expected to go far to break this down.

Orthodox scholarship, so reprehensively lagging a generation ago, is on its feet, and its results are beginning to penetrate the church. An evangelical renaissance is generally apparent. Revival, in short, seems nearer than New Zealand has ever seen it.

—E.M.B.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Archbishop Michael, 66, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in North and South America and a co-president of the World Council of Churches, in New York … Dr. Frank C. Goodman, 80, pioneer in religious broadcasting and one-time executive secretary of the National Religious Radio Department of the Federal Council of Churches, at Amityville, New York … Dr. O. W. Taylor, 73, Baptist and retired pastor, historian, and editor, in Nashville, Tennessee … the Rev. Clyde E. Heflin, 70, retired Presbyterian missionary-educator in the Philippines, in Wooster, Ohio … Miss Rose Ida Paden, 62, nurse-missionary to Chile, in Duarte, California.

Elections: To the board of trustees of Fuller Theological Seminary, Billy Graham … as president of the board of trustees of the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Bishop Hazen G. Werner … as president of California Baptist College, Loyed R. Simmons … as moderator of the North American Baptist Church, Dr. John Wobig.

Appointments: As stated clerk and treasurer of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., Dr. James A. Millard, Jr. (accepted earlier call), effective July 25, 1959 … as treasurer of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Martin E. Strieter … as president of Honolulu Christian College, Robert C. Loveless … as president of San Francisco Baptist Seminary, Dr. John R. Dunkin … as faculty members at Fuller Theological Seminary, Dr. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Dr. Robert K. Bower … as associate executive secretary of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Gary Demarest … as circulation manager and news editor of the Pentecostal Evangel, the Rev. Harold Mintle … as secretary of the U. S. A. division, Council of the Evolution Protest Movement, Professor L. V. Cleveland.

Resignations: As chairman of the Board of Bishops of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, Dr. Ira D. Warner … as director of religious programming at Voice of America, the Rev. Jay Moore, to assist the production department of Good News Productions.

Award: In recognition of “outstanding contribution to evangelical Christianity,” Winona Lake School of Theology Alumni recognized Dr. S. A. Witner, past president, as outstanding alumnus of the year 1958.

Grants: To Wake Forest College, $6,400 from the Atomic Energy Commission for a nuclear research project … to Duke University, $10,000 from Lilly Endowment, Inc., for religion fellowships.

Expansion: Costing $1,275,000, planned by Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois.

Digest: Dr.J. Edwin Orr has accepted an invitation from the United Churches Committee in Ireland (composed of official nominees from Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other church bodies) to conduct a series of teaching missions next spring … C. S. Lewis says he hopes to visit the United States, but “my duties at Cambridge will make it impossible for several years to come.” … Trips from major eastern cities are being arranged to Billy Graham’s crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina, which begins September 21 … Dr. Charles E. Fuller is inaugurating a simultaneous radio-mail “Explore and Discover” Bible study plan … Some part of the Bible has been published in 1127 languages and dialects, according to the American Bible Society … The Baptist seminary in Oslo, Norway, has a new set of buildings … The Peoples Church in Toronto reports a new high in missionary giving—$300,500 at this year’s missionary convention … Dr. and Mrs. Harold B. Kuhn were staff workers at a teen-agers convention held by the U. S. Army Chaplaincy Corps, European Command, at Berchtesgaden, Germany, last month … The Rev. Avery Dulles, son of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, is reportedly planning to finish theological studies in Rome. He has been studying at a Jesuit school near Muenster, Germany.… James Glisson, Baptist student-pastor, was granted a full pardon by Tennessee Governor Frank Clement after having been held in contempt of court for refusing to divulge information given him in confidence during counseling sessions.