Politics on the Ethical Periphery

Politics On The Ethical Periphery

President Nixon’s re-election amounts to a vote of confidence, in a general way, in his conduct of the affairs of state, both foreign and domestic. But it is not a very savory victory. Throughout the election campaign a moral cloud hung over the White House because of continuing revelations of dirty dealings. Even when allowance is made for exaggeration owing to the basically anti-Nixon motives of the accusers, the evidence is still very damaging. There seems little doubt that, whether Nixon knew it or not, a number of his key supporters engaged in a brazen program of political espionage and in unfair attempts to interfere with the nominating and election processes. There is also reason to think that the wheat deal with the Soviet Union brought inordinately large profits to certain privileged insiders.

The failure of the White House to counter the charges in any substantial way serves to underscore the impression that much was amiss. We feel that the American people in general do not condone such goings-on and that their return of Nixon to office for a second term should not be so interpreted.

It is now the President’s obligation to pursue with vigor and candor a full investigation of the alleged misdeeds. If the charges are found to be true, those judged responsible should be adequately punished. If the allegations turn out to have little or no basis in fact, then the slanderers should be prosecuted. One way or another, Washington must clean house.

Dealing With The Reds

Another major milestone on the road to East-West detente was reached in Germany this month. Negotiation of a treaty by East and West Germany cannot fail to ease Cold War tensions, at least for the time being.

The prospects of a settlement of the war in Southeast Asia have also been encouraging. And in Korea, though martial law was imposed in the South last month, the two sides have been conferring, and there is some hope that serious negotiations can be held toward unification.

The Middle East is the big remaining trouble spot. The possibility of any early breakthrough there seems dim. Our optimism about a peaceful future needs to be tempered by the understanding of how deep the differences are between Jews and Arabs.

We also need to keep in mind that though Communist strategy may be changing, Communist ideology is not. Considering conditions today, however, the lessening of tensions will, we hope, enable the West to keep the expansionist efforts of Moscow and Peking in check better than the old brinkmanship.

Between Winter And Christmas

C. S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, his beautiful book for children—and all adults who love the joy of a good story—explores winter as a symbol of sin and evil. The wicked White Witch has turned the land of Narnia into eternal winter—“always winter, but it never gets to Christmas,” remarks protagonist Lucy. As long as the White Witch reigns, the frozen land looks pure but is corrupt. When her evil spell begins to die, winter ends. Father Christmas appears, the air warms, the snow melts, and, most significant of all, the sound of running water is heard again. Edmund, who sells his loyalty to the White Witch for some “Turkish Delight,” is the first to notice the green of a pine branch, as the snow slides from it and, symbolically, from his heart.

Many of us are secretly—and perhaps, like Edmund, unthinkingly—selling our loyalty for magical candy that doesn’t satisfy but rather sickens even while the desire for it increases. Or we may hide destructive pride beneath the face of purity and beauty, as does the White Witch: “Her face was white—not merely pale, but white like snow or paper or icing sugar.… It was a beautiful face in other respects, but proud and cold and stern.” We are too often content to live in a winter that never reaches Christmas. As we enter this advent season, let us search our lives to see if we are trading Christ’s melting love for the ice of our own private, cherished sins.

Guidelines For Pastors’ Salaries

Does the average minister earn enough? We say no. Marjoe’s allegations notwithstanding, many clergymen are forced to scrimp year after year. The senior minister of one of North America’s most prominent churches went fourteen years (during the post-war inflationary spiral) without a single salary increase.

Now clergymen may be feeling an extra pinch. Church boards that set ministerial salaries may feel that little or no increase should be given in view of the wage-price clamps in the United States.

This ought not to be. To begin with, anyone who works for a firm or group with sixty or fewer employees is exempt from the 5.5 per cent annual salary increase ceiling. Moreover, Pay Board regulations specifically allow for hikes of more than 5.5 per cent when they include one or more of these: catch-up increase, cost-of-living allowance, merit increase. Longevity increases are allowed on top of these, provided they follow plans or established practices existing before November 14, 1971.

For any pastor to whom these factors are applicable, it is hard to see why for 1973 he ought to be getting any less than a 10 per cent wage increase.

How To Deal With Hijackers

The release of the three captured Arab terrorists of Munich Olympic infamy demonstrates again the need for effective international action to combat air piracy. It also brings in focus a profound difference over government policy. The captured Arabs were freed because a Lufthansa plane had been hijacked to Yugoslavia, then Libya, by other Arabs who threatened to destroy the plane and its crew and passengers unless their demands were met. Israel refused to release imprisoned terrorists in exchange for its Olympic team, believing that to capitulate to such demands encourages further violence. Germany was unwilling to risk the loss of its crew and passengers. One’s judgment on these matters is affected by whether one is viewing the demands abstractly or is himself a hostage or a friend of one.

Germany has given in to terrorists before. In September, 1970, it freed three Arab prisoners because of a plane hijacked to a remote Jordanian landing strip. Last February it paid five million dollars to “ransom” a German plane that had been hijacked to Aden. The Arabs had every reason to expect the Germans to capitulate again. The German policy generally saves lives in the short run. Israel contends that in the long run such policy encourages terrorism and greater loss of life.

Christians are repeatedly exhorted in Scripture to make decisions with the long-range view in mind. We do not live simply for this moment but for eternity. Christians have repeatedly given up their funds, their health, and even their temporal lives because they evaluate matters not for the present only but for the future. We cannot automatically transfer this ethic to resolve international incidents, but certainly we can encourage governments to weigh all the factors, not just the ones immediately at hand, in coming to their decisions.

Revolutionizing The Schools

Under the leadership of the late Konrad Adenauer and his minister of economics Ludwig Erhard, West Germany gave the postwar world a spectacular exhibition of what a free-enterprise economy could do. One understandable by-product of West Germany’s “economic miracle” has been an upsurge of materialism and hedonism, similar to that in the United States. A more puzzling phenomenon is the fact that while the free-enterprise, capitalistic economy flourishes, the academy—and not merely the universities, but especially the secondary and even the primary schools—is being systematically programmed to produce Marxist revolutionaries.

Exactly why or how this can be happening seems to defy comprehension, but that it is happening all across the board in West German education seems undeniable. Reports from German correspondents, including not only a prominent economic conservative but also long-standing members of the Social Democratic party, fully documented by Dr. Kuno Barth in Die Revolutionisierung der Schüler (1969), make it clear that it is happening. Although West German working classes have systematically rejected the Marxist experiment with its by now familiar accompanying features, dictatorship and police terror, secondary-school pupils are being propagandized—and won—on behalf of a philosophy that exalts rather than minimizes the bloody, violent, and tyrannical aspects of revolutionary Marxism. Very little is being done, officially or privately, to counteract this proselytizing, and except for some intrepid young Christians, few in the schools venture to find fault with it or to suggest an alternative.

America has often aped Germany and things German in the past. Therefore these developments are of concern to us not because of what they could mean for the Germans but of what they may also mean for us.

On Fountains

Fountains are making a comeback in North America. They are often seen now not only in parks and public squares but in front of new office buildings. More and more are being included in the landscape designs that grace private homes. Small, portable fountains are even beginning to be used inside, not only for aesthetic effect but for the practical purpose of moistening the dry air found in houses and other buildings these days. Fountains seem to have eternal eye appeal, and the trickle and splash of water is always pleasing to the ear.

Yet it is still very rare to see a fountain inside a church or on its grounds, even when great attention has been paid to decoration and symbolism and the ordinance of baptism. It was different in early Christian times. Fountains were a standard fixture in the atrium of the basilica. Courtyard fountains of Roman residences often became baptistries.

Natural fountains (springs) are mentioned repeatedly in Scripture. They are assigned the significant role of expressing the life-giving power of God. Springs have always been essential in the Holy Land, not just for refreshment but for life itself. The location of many a community in the Near East has been determined by the presence of a spring; no other factor is more important.

The parallel is obvious, for God is our sustainer. And the analogy is even more interesting in that a fountain contains an enduring, changeless substance that manifests itself in ever-fresh ways. That’s the way it is (or at least should be) with Christian faith. The good news never changes, yet is always timely. The basis upon which we trust God stays the same; yet as we obey him and walk in his will we have the joy of constantly new experiences. Fountains can well be used in churches and Christian homes to signify the blend of stability and variety that God supplies to those who believe in him.

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