Eschatology has been the center of theological attention for about a half century. It was at the turn of the century that theologians rediscovered the New Testament teaching about the Kingdom of God. Against the background of nineteenth century evolutionistic thought, it was realized that the New Testament said nothing about a Kingdom of God to be gradually realized by human effort, but that it said much about the Rule of God to be brought about by a radical and new act of God. Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer laid the groundwork for the so-called “thoroughgoing eschatology,” and their influence is felt on the eschatological thinking of our own day. It was Fritz Buri and Martin Werner in Switzerland who later worked out the implications of the conclusions of Weiss and Schweitzer. Their basic idea was that the New Testament teachers (Jesus and the apostles) had reckoned on the direct and immediate coming of the Kingdom, an expectation doomed to be unrealized. The Church was disappointed at the delay of the Parousia as the Lord did not reappear and as it became apparent that the Church still had a long way ahead of her in history. So said Buri and Werner.

Such a view aroused the opposition in our day of men like Oscar Cullmann. Cullmann insisted that the “thoroughgoing eschatology” had wholly misinterpreted the New Testament hope. The radical eschatology missed the central place that New Testament faith gave to the completely decisive event of the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, said Cullmann. The fact that the decisive events in saving history had already taken place kept the Church from suffering a severe crisis as a result of the delay in the reappearance of Christ.

The Lord’s coming was further off than the first believers thought, said Cullmann, but their faith realized that the great and radical event that changed the world had already happened at Calvary. What had yet to happen was only an outworking and an establishment of the salvation that had already been brought into the world.

Representatives of the school of “thoroughgoing eschatology” have argued against Cullmann that the expectation of the New Testament believers had been crushed by the Lord’s delay. They argue, indeed, that the delay of the Parousia had become an explicit matter dealt with in the New Testament itself, namely in II Peter. But we must note that in II Peter, it is the scoffers who intimidate the believers with the jibe, “Where is the promise of His coming?” Everything goes on the same as it has since the beginning of the world. Peter answers the scoffers by saying that they forget that everything has not gone on the same since the creation of the world. The flood has intervened. Scoffers in those days were saying that nothing could radically change things, that it was folly for Noah to expect judgment from heaven. Moreover, God delayed the flood which made it look for a while as though he had forgotten his promise. But God delayed only in order to grant time for men’s conversion; the delay was filled with God’s patience and long-suffering. The delay in his coming now does not make history meaningless; indeed, there is really no delay. God is fixing his own time wisely.

In the early days, the scoffers were not really concerned with the coming of Christ. They ridiculed the whole notion of God’s promise. Hence, when Peter says that a thousand years are like yesterday for God, he is not insisting that history has a long road ahead before the Lord would return. He only places before the Church the need for watchfulness: the day of the Lord shall come as thief in the night. Meantime, believers were to make their way through the world in a holy walk; filled with expectation, theirs it was to hasten on toward the coming of the Day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:11).

Representatives of the “thoroughgoing eschatology” obviously are not ignorant of II Peter. They are, however, not convinced of the above argument. They insist that Peter’s epistle is one that lets us see how the Church was confused by the delay in the Lord’s return. That is, II Peter is an early attempt to explain the delay to the Church. But such an interpretation does not have rapport with the contents. We read nothing to suggest that the Church as a whole was confused by the fact that the Lord had not yet returned. On the contrary, it was only some of the scoffers who made a point of it.

A controversy such as this, having gone on now for some 50 years, is not an academic point of theological debate. It touches on the vitals of believers’ lives. The Church still stands before the New Testament witness that the return of the Lord is near at hand. It is a witness that calls the Church of today to watchfulness. The surprising nature of the return (he comes as a thief) accents the need for watchfulness. We do not know the time of his coming.

Nonetheless we must remember that the history of man which marches on toward the end time is not a meaningless history. It is still a history full of God’s forbearance, for God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). This means that we can count on nothing certain for tomorrow, but that we must view history in faith as we walk in holiness and love. Every setting of the date of his return has failed; yet, every now and then someone tries to set the date. The Gospel teaches us two things: we are not to fall asleep but are to be ever watchful, as a sentinel at his post; and we are not to despair at the course of history. For now is the gracious time in which the call to conversion sounds over history. How closely the controversies of theology are related to the life of the Church! The word of II Peter concerning the scoffers at the delay in the Lord’s return is still of existential significance for the Church of the twentieth century. Our century is full of tension and catastrophy, but it is full too of the forbearance and mercy of God.

Evaluating Bultmann On The Gospel And Myth

Gospel and Myth in the Thought of Rudolph Bultmann, by Giovanni Miegge (John Knox Press, 1960, 152 pp., $4), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, Professor of Historical Theology, Columbia Theol. Sem.

Professor Miegge of the Waldensian Faculty in Rome earlier placed us in his debt with his able study on The Virgin Mary. Now he has again enriched us with this sympathetic and yet critical study of the work of Rudolph Bultmann on the Gospel, as well as on his presentation of the alleged mythological elements in the Bible. Bishop Stephen Neill of England has rendered the Italian into clear English, and John Knox Press together with the London Lutterworth Press have done excellently in their publishing of the work.

Miegge recognizes that Bultmann is an evangelical scholar who magnifies the revelation of God’s love and mercy in the Cross of Christ as well as an apologete who seeks to make the Gospel relevant by presenting it in terms of current thought. In Bultmann’s construction the Jesus of history is resolved into the Christ of faith as the only Christ we can reach by way of the kerygma of the Gospel, and the objective historical importance of Christ is understood only in terms of the conviction he was able to inspire. Christ is the revealer of God, and he is that in his coming and particularly in his Cross.

According to Professor Miegge, “It is necessary to affirm, much more strongly than Bultmann finds himself able to do, the truth and objective reality of the historical and supra-historical event which is summed up in the name of Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Risen One; Christian faith stands or falls with the objective truth of these events. But it is also necessary clearly to recognize that Christian Faith is far more than the mere repetition of already known truths—it is a reliving of the event of Christ in our own personal existence here and now.” While we differ with Bultmann “the champion of the elimination of the mythological,” we must not forget Bultmann the apostle of decision on the level of existence.

We rejoice in the author’s fine use of the article directed against the use of myth in TWNT by Professor G. Staehlin, as well as the line by which he shows that myth as used by Bultmann has reference to God’s own act in Christ and in present encounter. We are still of the opinion that Staehlin’s is the preferable position, and that we can recognize the use of symbol and of phenomenal language in the Bible without bringing in the term myth which often means fable.

The magnificent hand atop the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church of Port Gibson, Mississippi, is a symbol pointing heavenward and using the language of appearance to direct the thoughts to God. It does not imply that the cultured members of that fine congregation nor their scholarly pastor are unaware that the finger points to different places in the sky as the earth revolves on its axis and travels around the sun.

Then we commend Miegge for raising the question as to whether Gnostic thought so antedates John, Paul, and the pre-Pauline kerygma (Phil. 2:5–11) as to provide the categories to describe the eschatological event. Certainly “the testimony of Ignatius, as well as that of the Odes of Solomon” (Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes, s. 11–12) is from second century Christian documents. If such records show any borrowing they indicate that Gnosticism, at one stage, had taken over some Christian rags to cover its heathen nakedness. Professor Kleinknecht (TWNT. IV. 88–89) shows a fourfold difference between the Hellenistic logos speculation and the Prologue of John.

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON

Nature Of Preaching

The Essential Nature of New Testament Preaching, by Robert H. Mounce (Eerdmans, 1960, 159 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Cecil K. Thomas, Professor of Biblical Theology, The Graduate Seminary, Phillips University.

Mounce writes out of “a deep-seated conviction that the man in the pulpit occupies a position of unrivaled significance in the life and destiny of his fellow man” (p. 7). With this conviction he undertakes to discover the essential nature of the preaching of the New Testament Church. He deals with the Kerygma in the preaching of John, of Jesus, and of the preachers of the early church. The heart of this preaching he finds to be (1) a proclamation of the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus; (2) “The resultant evaluation of Jesus as both Lord and Christ”; and (3) “A summons to repent and receive forgiveness of sins” (p. 77). Mounce makes a careful evaluation of the position of C. H. Dodd, and examines the whole subject in the light of the New Testament and of contemporary scholarship. He arrives at the conclusion that such preaching is relevant today because in it men are confronted with the redemptive act of God in Christ and must make their fateful decision (pp. 153 ff.). The theology of Mounce is primarily conservative, but his treatment is sufficiently controversial to challenge both conservative and liberal into lively discussion with him. This is a book for every minister who takes seriously his role as preacher.

CECIL K. THOMAS

Bible Translation

God’s Word into English, by Dewey M. Beegle (Harper, 1960, $3.50), is reviewed by Samuel J. Schultz, Professor of Bible and Theology, Wheaton College (Illinois).

The author of God’s Word into English is to be commended for his interesting and vivid presentation of translation problems in the language of the laymen to whom this is addressed. The modern reader is made conscious of the difficulties confronting the translators by the use of biblical texts and their rendition in various versions. Archaisms and obscure translations need revision in the versions as languages change and more light from archaeological findings and philological studies clarify the original text of the Bible as transmitted to us.

Textual scholars would concur with the author that revisions are needed from time to time. Texts selected by him from the New Testament as well as the Old Testament clearly illustrate the need for revised translations. Changes in language, artistic styles for expressing the truth, new meanings of biblical words, alternate translations, and the matter of equivalence between the meaning of the Hebrew or Greek and the English translation—all these are vividly illustrated to make the modern reader conscious of the translation features which will enable him to understand God’s Word better.

Texts, used by the author to illustrate the problems, have been carefully selected, accurately presented and thoroughly treated by the author. Most textual scholars would concur with his observations regarding these passages. Based on the selected passages treated, the author makes some conclusions which are unfortunate for the layman who is not in a position to compare the various versions with the Greek or Hebrew. Beegle asserts that the RSV “usually alerts the reader by means of Cn footnotes. In such situations the reader is not forced to follow the text. He may always exercise his right to read the translation of the Masoretic text which is in the footnotes.” This may be true in the examples cited but not all scholars are of the opinion that the RSV “always” acquaints the reader with the Masoretic text in the Old Testament.

Neither is the layman informed about the references where the RSV emended or translated the text in such a way as to minimize or destroy the Messianic import. Messianic references are not included in the samples of passages used.

Today more than ever the layman needs a translation of the Bible which conveys to him as accurately as possible the text of the Hebrew and Greek for the Old and New Testaments, respectively. Footnotes should always indicate any textual departure. This represents the unfinished task of modern scholarship.

SAMUEL J. SCHULTZ

Pastor And Patient

Spiritual Therapy, by Young & Meiburg (Harper, 1960, 184 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Leslie R. Beach, Associate Professor of Psychology, Whitworth College.

Here is a book that helps bridge the rapidly narrowing gap between the healing ministries of the medical profession and the clergy. Written in very readable style by two pastors who carry on their ministry at the North Carolina Baptist Hospital, it provides information and guidelines of value to all ministers dealing with the sick, and especially to theological students in pastoral care training and to hospital chaplains new to that form of ministry.

Richard K. Young and Albert L. Meiburg believe that man is body, mind and soul. Therefore the physician, psychiatrist, and minister by working together in their specialties can contribute best as a team to the healing of the whole man. Spiritual Therapy is primarily concerned with the relationship between pastor and patient but the authors constantly stress the importance of the minister’s cooperation with doctors and psychiatrists.

From the case illustrations, one could conclude that the chaplain may use exhortation, directive advice, moralizing, probes and even sarcasm and ridicule, all with equal success. The patients always make a remarkable recovery. While such special techniques seem, for the most part, to be employed with good judgment, it does make this reviewer uncomfortable that more therapeutic and somewhat less directive techniques are not highlighted for the novice in pastoral care of the sick. The generous use of cases adds much to the strength of this book. The inclusion of seemingly authoritative medical information regarding various ailments is valuable.

All in all, the authors of Spiritual Therapy seem to have contributed significantly to the realization of their own expressed hope that minister-doctor cooperation will continue to improve and that their type of approach will serve “to push forward the effort to release more of religion’s creative and curative powers in the lives of distressed people.”

LESLIE R. BEACH

Data On Evolution

Why We Believe in Creation, Not in Evolution, by Fred John Meldau (Christian Victory Publishing Company, 1959, 348 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by E. P. Schulze, Minister of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Peekskill, New York.

There is a considerable library of scholarly books by scientists, professional and amateur, pointing to the improbabilities and fallacies of the theories of evolution. A handy compendium such as this, however, will serve to make relevant information readily available in a classified, documented, and indexed form, plus a useful bibliography.

The book is sprightly, packed with interesting facts, but devoted primarily to the biological aspects of the subject. One chapter is devoted to the earth, another is assigned to cosmic matters, but geology as a study is scarcely mentioned. One misses, too, a discussion of the radioactive elements and of carbon-14. The omissions are understandable, however, in view of the author’s expressed opinion, “The Bible clearly teaches that ‘in the beginning’ God created the universe (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1–3), and that far-off date may have been ‘five billion’ years I ago, more or less.” Thus the geologic eras per se, the “uranium time clock” and the radioactive carbon method of dating organic materials do not trouble him as they do some other creationists.

In spite of limitations, Meldau’s fascinating book will make a worthy and valuable addition to any pastor’s working library.

E. P. SCHULZE

Toward Clarification

Evolution and Christian Thought Today, edited by Russell L. Mixter (Eerdmans, 1959, 224 pp., plates, $4.50), is reviewed by Thomas H. Leith, Chairman, Division of Science and Mathematics, Gordon College.

“We believe that God has created life—why should we not be interested in how he created it?” (p. 70).

“It is not enough for one to raise objections to evolution, sound as they might be, but one must offer even more sound creationist possibilities to put in its place” (p. 32).

“Those who want to see no design and no Creator can easily do so, while those who look for design in nature can just as easily find it” (p. 122).

The above quotations express rather well the spirit behind this fine contribution to the Darwin centenary by 13 members of the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization of Christian scientists. Too much literature on evolution has been either misinformed or unfair: it is refreshing to find a book both authoritative and reasonable. The first quote typifies the text, since specialists carefully scrutinize pertinent fields of biology and geology as areas of God’s natural revelation so as to find what current research and theory have to show us about how life originated and developed.

The second quote exemplifies a twofold problem. First, in some circles biological theory has been confused with theological, political, ethical, and social theses illogically connected to it in a century of human thought. Repelled by such theses, these persons have ignored or debased the quite legitimate function of theory construction in science so as to integrate what is known and suggest implications for future experimenting. Secondly, they forget that no theory is given up by scientists until a more adequate theory (for scientific purposes) comes along, and Christians have not readily presented such alternatives. In this volume attempts are made by different writers, stressing one or the other of these problems, to resolve the respective difficulties at least in part. Some are willing to accept evolution as does their non-Christian colleagues, but they see it not as implying such things as atheism, Marxism, or naturalism but as consistent with a theistic starting point. Others prefer to present alternative theories allowed by present data wherein God acts creatively in a unique manner at times.

The third quote reveals the crux of the decision necessary here. Christians must see the hand of God in nature. But the rub lies in that we should do this not on scholastic arguments from design as in natural theology but because God has first spoken. The belief in God is prior and axiomatic, not discovered a posteriori. If then we believe in God and seek to find his hand in nature, does Scripture, biology, geology, and anthropology best show it in His continued providence (some form of theistic evolution perhaps) or in special creative activities (some form of progressive creation) with some measure of evolution between these?

As one reads carefully the articles on Darwin’s influence in biology, on the origin of life, genetics, hybridization, speciation, ecology, fossils, physical anthropology, and theology and evolution, he sees what varied attitudes and perspectives are currently held by scientists and philosophers who are conservative in theology. Every Christian who desires to be informed in such an important and influential area of thought, as a century has proven it tobe, cannot afford to fail to read this book. Nor should anyone miss it who thinks science provides objections to Christian belief or that a Christian cannot be a reputable science scholar.

To my mind this book should go alongside Jan Lever’s Creation and Evolution (International Publications, 1958) as essential sources in the library of the educated Christian.

THOMAS H. LEITH

Church Administration

A Ministering Church, by Gaines S. Dobbins (Broadman, 1960, 231 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Sam A. High, Secretary, Training Union and Student Union Department, Maryland Baptist Union Assoc.

This is one of the best books on Church Administration that I have seen. It is really a guide to the meaning and dynamics of the Church Administrative Process. The age in which we live makes many demands upon the pastor. In addition to preaching and teaching, the present day pastor must also know how to be an administrator. Dr. Dobbins sees this as the heart of the pastor’s work.

The book begins with a chapter on what a church is for. The fact that a church needs many ministers is discussed. Then there is a helpful chapter which brings home to us what we already know, that ministers must be administrators. Most of the division in churches comes about because of lack of administration, and the problem cannot be solved by preaching.

The organizational life of the church is discussed. “The teaching church calls for elaborate organization of the congregation,” says Dr. Dobbins. The church is considered as a school, not just a “Sunday School.” Teaching, training, and worshipping all take place in the New Testament Church.

Qualifications of the church staff are well presented. Church-staff relationships involving matters such as the causes of tensions among staff members, when a staff member should resign, when he should not resign; and a parable for staff members are all discussed.

Music, stewardship, counseling, and evangelism are strongly emphasized.

The book is a first-class piece of work and worthy of study by every pastor. Ministers of education and music, as well as various age group workers, will also find much help in this book.

SAM A. HIGH

Christian Culture

Response in Worship—Music—the Arts, edited by Walter E. Buszin and a staff of 11 assistants. This is a new magazine, and it contains 46 pages, 8″ × 10½″ in size, the subscription is $1.75 per year, and sample copies are $1.

This number contains articles on Christian worship, liturgy, church literature, hymnody—and editorial comment. There are 12 illustrations, three of which are full-page plates. It is set in what appears to be one of the dozen versions of Times Roman, a most attractive face. The church buildings illustrated are decidedly modern. The essays are more conservative, and there is no evidence that the reader is to be given articles in praise of such musical idols as Hindemith, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Mihaud, and Ives. The circulation manager is Mr. Gerhard Cartford (2375 Como Avenue, St. Paul 8, Minnesota).

The mortality rate of such magazines is high. Even Mr. R. A. Cram’s rather lavish Magazine of Christian Art came to an end after 21 issues. Today a complete set brings as much as $400 at book auctions. Let us hope that Response may have length of life.

F. R. WEBBER

CHRISTIANITY TODAYcommissioned Adon Taft, religion editor of the Miami Herald, to visit Cuba to learn how the revolution has affected the religious life of the people. Taft toured the entire island, interviewing missionaries and national church leaders as well as the laity. Here is his report:

Faith is being put to the test on the tense, confused island of Cuba.

Fidel Castro’s revolution has split the church and more and more his government’s restrictions are tightening on the material life of God’s people.

Prophetic, perhaps, is a window display of the American Bible Society’s downtown headquarters in the capital city of Havana. The display, which stops hundreds of passersby a day, quotes 1 Peter 4:7–9:

“But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging.”

Everyone who enters the store comments on how well the verses fit the situation in the nation, reports the pretty young clerk who is a Roman Catholic.

Just what that situation is has people both inside and outside Cuba confused. Many people outside the country think it is a pitched battle between a Communist-led government and a powerful Roman Catholic church.

There is little doubt left that the government is Red controlled. Fidel himself may be no more than a neurotic with a savior complex. He is in the power, however, of the avowed Communist, Che Guevara.

In addition to its thinness, the Roman Catholic church in Cuba is split over the revolution. Many of the brawls which have occured over denunciation of communism from the pulpits were between pro and anti-Castro forces within the congregations.

The famous pastoral letters against communism were not read in any of the Catholic churches in the interior provinces. This was partly because of fear of reprisals, but also because of the sympathy of many priests and others for the Castro regime.

There has been some effort, as in many Communist countries, to organize a national Catholic church. The appeal has been to the 200 Cubans among the 720 priests of the church. The other priests are foreigners, some 400 of them Spanish.

Cuban Catholics: How Strong?

Catholic strength in Cuba is questionable. Cuba is not a Catholic nation, as is commonly thought, if one takes it to mean that a majority of the 6,000,000 population are Catholics.

The predominant religion of Cuba is spiritism, a combination of animism and voodooism. Many nominal Catholics actually practice spiritism, adopting saints of the Roman church as the spirits of the inanimate objects they worship.

A good example of the thinness of the Catholic church on the island is Havana, with its population of nearly 1,000,000. There are only 30 fully established churches and 50 mission stations in the whole city. Six of the churches are Catholic. This compares with Miami, a city of comparable size and not in any sense a Catholic center, where there are a total of 450 churches, including 30 Catholic.

Havana is not an exception. In Mantanzas, for example, there are only 2,000 church members in all—Protestants and Catholics—in a population of 100,000.

The greatest strength of the Catholics is in Camaguey, where they have 22 of the 30 churches in the city area of 210,000 persons.

All of the hierarchy’s opposition to the government has not stemmed from anti-Communist feeling, either. Castro, although nominally a Catholic himself, has cut off all government subsidy for the Catholic church which has existed throughout the island’s 450-year history of European civilization.

The recognition traditionally given the Roman church by the Cuban government gives that church’s current pronouncements more prestige and force than is indicated by the statistics on active membership.

Protestant churches, meanwhile, have received a sort of left-handed blessing from Castro. For the first time Protestants are given recognition in public events.

Many Protestants—both clergymen and laymen—were active in the government when the revolution first was established and found general support for promises of much-needed reforms.

Several still are in the government although Faustino Perez, former minister of recuperation, and Enrique Ostalki, both Presbyterians, and Lopez Fresquet, a Methodist who was minister of finance, have quit their Castro-given posts.

Significantly, most of Christians left in the government are Presbyterians. Heading the list is Dr. Raul Fernandez Ceballos, secretary of the Cuban Council of Churches who heads up the literacy program under the minister of education.

Castro met with Dr. Fernandez, Dr. Rafael Cepeda (a professor at the Evangelical Seminary and director of education in Latin America for the Presbyterian Church, USA) and others, mostly Presbyterians, to propose a national Protestant church with a minister of religion in the cabinet.

Only intervention by the Presbyterian mission board in the United States with a threat to cut off funds aborted the plans.

Many Protestant leaders—both American missionaries and native Cubans—opposed the attempt at a new union of church and state.

The historic union of the state with the Catholic church had prevented any significant Protestant work in Cuba until after the Spanish-American War when missionaries from the United States followed Yankee troops in to liberate the people from more than Spanish rule.

The Bible was banned from the latently wealthy island until 1871. But since the days of independence, Bible-believing Christians have been making some headway.

Methodists and Baptists have been the pace-setting Protestant churches. The former have about 10,000 full members and have an elaborate educational system which includes the nation’s only Protestant university.

Baptists have divided the island, with Southern Baptists working in the western four provinces and American Baptists serving the two eastern provinces. Together their strength is about the same as that of the Methodists and their work across the island seems to be similar.

Presbyterians, Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostals (the name given in Cuba to the work of the Assemblies of God), Episcopalians, and Churches of God, also have strong works in Cuba.

Free-Will Baptists, the West Indies Mission (which began in Cuba), Nazarenes, the Four-Square Gospel churches, the Church of Christ, the United World Mission, the Berean Mission and Conservative Baptists also are active.

All of these churches are split over the revolution because all of the people of Cuba are divided on the issue. At first, nearly all the people and most of the church leaders supported Castro. Many ministers thought the millennium had come with Fidel’s promises. Some thought he was a Christian.

But as civil liberties have vanished and private enterprise of every kind has been placed under restriction, the people and the church leaders have begun to place the Red label on the government. Probably 70 per cent of the people now are against the Castro regime.

“Our days are numbered,” remarked Jose Colmenero, 38-year-old, Cuban-born, American missionary for the Conservative Baptist Convention.

Working among business and professional people of Havana, Colmenero finds that many of those he has won to the Lord in the last two years now are fleeing the country because the government has taken their property and frozen their bank accounts.

“Few Christians are on fire. They’d rather talk politics than Christ,” he said. He told of one Baptist youth meeting breaking up with Christian Cubans telling American Christians, “Why don’t you Americans go home?”

The anti-Americanism stirred up by Castro is a definite stumbling block to missionaries. John Tiezen and Jerry Sandal], of the Berean Mission in the farming town of Auros, in Oriente Province, report they are unable to talk to some people just because they are Americans.

Nonetheless, the mission carries on at 13 preaching points which reach 1,000 of the poverty-stricken natives who live in the squalor of thatched-roof huts.

The mission’s two radio programs are limited in effectiveness since batteries for radios no longer are available for their listening audiences.

The biggest hope of the mission is the 11 students in the Bible school who will go out well-grounded in the faith to work among their compatriots.

Bible school is not enough, though, in the opinion of Roy Ackerle, of United World Mission. That mission’s Bible school in Cabanas, Pinar del Rio, has been closed down after 12 years to make way for a seminary-type school providing classes for about 15 students a year.

Protestant Panorama

• The Rev. James M. Lawson, Negro sit-in leader whose dismissal from the student body of Vanderbilt University Divinity School caused a faculty controversy last spring, is being assigned as pastor of Scott Memorial Methodist Church in Shelbyville, Tennessee. The 33-year-old minister earned a bachelor of divinity degree at Boston University School of Theology this summer.

• A clerical exchange program is under way between the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States and the Church of England (Anglican). The plan provides for pairs of qualified priests—one English and one American—to exchange their parishes for a year.

• Southern Baptists have started 10,252 missions and churches since the beginning of the “30,000 Movement” on June 1, 1956, according to program director C. C. Warren. The movement seeks to establish 20,000 missions and 10,000 churches by 1964.

• Nearly 500 high school and college athletes assembled at an Estes Park, Colorado, camp last month for the annual summer conference of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Among sports greats who participated in the program were St. Louis Hawks basketball star Paul Pettit, All-America center Doon Moomaw of UCLA, and Dave (Boo) Ferris, former Boston Red Sox pitcher.

• A week-long evangelistic campaign in Quito, Ecuador, drew capacity crowds to the 3,000-seat Capital Theater this summer. Some 415 persons responded to nightly invitations following sermons by evangelist Fernando Vangioni of Argentina.

• American pianist Van Cliburn, at the close of a summer concert tour of the Soviet Union, gave 80,000 rubles ($8,000) from his receipts to the First Baptist Church of Moscow.

• A leading Navy researcher told the American Scientific Affiliation last month that world peace is contingent upon mankind’s voluntary surrender to God. “Until human nature is changed we’ll have war,” said Dr. Robert M. Page, director of research for the U. S. Naval Research Laboratory. Page addressed the 15th annual convention of ASA, a fellowship of Christian scientists, held in Seattle, Washington.

• Twin brothers Frank and Charles Richard observed their 80th birthday by serving as guest pastors at Park Place Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Hutchinson, Kansas, last month. The two retired ministers each delivered a brief sermon.

• Delegates to the annual summer national conference of the Methodist Youth Fellowship passed resolutions which supported non-violent sit-in demonstrations, took a stand for racial and social equality, urged abolition of the Methodist Central Jurisdiction, and called for a study of communism by Methodist youth to enable them to more effectively oppose it. The meeting was held in Lincoln, Nebraska.

• The Young Life movement plans to erect a $92,000 national headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

• Protestant church members in Taiwan now number 136,250, according to the newly-published Taiwan Christian Yearbook. The figure represents a gain of 39 per cent since 1957. Overseas Protestant missionaries on the island are said to have increased from 444 to 534 during the three-year period.

• The Kresge Foundation is making a $25,000 grant to the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico to be applied to construction of a new men’s dormitory.

• A minority faction in the First Baptist Church of Wichita, Kansas, is pressing a law suit which seeks to retain the church’s property and enjoin the majority from interfering with the congregation’s buildings, funds, or affairs. The minority faction charges that custom, tradition and doctrine were violated when the congregation withdrew from the American Baptist Convention to protest the convention’s membership in the National Council of Churches.

The 15 American missionaries with UWM find that many Cubans shun them because of their nationality, Ackerle said. But their work continues among about 1,000 persons at 15 churches and preaching stations in the province.

A UWM daily radio program from Havana’s revolutionary station still finds response.

Faced with the possibility of losing a farm used to support its work, the UWM has sold it. The move followed government seizure of Methodist and Nazarene camp sites on the Isle of Pines.

The growing prejudice against Americans also may force out men like the Rev. Victor Rankin, district superintendent of the Methodist Church in Camaguey where an Episcopal missionary already has been attacked by the government and has left the country, at least temporarily.

Rankin is glad that so many Cubans have been given leadership in the Methodist Church because they could carry on if necessary. But, like most of the Americans on the field, he is a little apprehensive about the preparedness of the majority of the Cuban churchmen.

“After all,” he points out, “the church is only 50 years old here.”

Besides the prejudice against American missionaries, the pinch of the general economic conditions of the island, and the isolated seizure of church property, Protestants and Catholics alike are faced with government antagonism in their vast educational undertakings. The churches operated 1,300 schools with 300,000 students and 10,000 teachers.

Some 300 of these schools will be unable to open this month because they are unable to meet the high salary requirements of the new law. Many of the teachers were practically volunteers.

The government is making it uneconomic to run many other schools in such ways as in the case of the school which has three buses. One is broken and the school doesn’t have the money to replace it and there are no buses for sale anyway. The school asked the government for permission to lay off the bus driver, but the request was denied.

In another instance a school had 170 boarding students, 150 of which were orphans or needy students whose tuition was paid by the government. The government is taking the 150 students out of the school but the school can’t fire the cooks and housekeepers used to care for those students.

Catholic schools must pay into teacher pension funds, maintained by the government, even though the teaching nuns can’t draw a pension.

A Methodist school has discovered that one of its teachers is a Communist. The director cannot fire the teacher because of present laws forbidding employers to fire anybody. Classes cannot be taken away from the teacher for fear the teacher would complain to the government.

Despite all this, not even all the American missionaries are disturbed at Castro’s policies. Mrs. Herbert Caudill, a Southern Baptist who has been transplanted from Mississippi for 30 years, notes:

“Government recognition of Protestants by using them in government has given evangelicals prestige for the first time and makes our work easier.” She terms Che a genius who has saved the Cuban economy.

And many Cuban church leaders still feel Castro is in sympathy with their work. Some point out that Fidel’s son has joined the Methodist Church, that his sister sings in a Baptist choir, that he often quotes the Bible, and that Che Guevara’s wife—Aleida March—is a Presbyterian (she also is a known Communist).

Among those are such evangelical leaders as the Rev. B. G. Lavastida, a founder of the West Indies Mission and just-retired director of Los Pinos Nuevos School near Santa Clara.

He sees no danger of communism in the government and hails the promised reforms as Christianity in action. The fact that his 32-year-old school for training nationals to evangelize Cuba is closing next year to channel money to build churches, is because many fanners who supported the work have moved to the city and lost contact, he said. The number active in the work has dwindled from 7,000 to 5,000.

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Walter Lowrie Whallon, 81, retired Presbyterian minister and one-time president of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States; in Newark, New Jersey … the Rev. Domingo Marrero, 51, a dean at the University of Puerto Rico and well-known Methodist leader; in San Juan … Dr. Garfield Williams, 78, former dean of the Church of England cathedral at Manchester; while travelling by train from his home in Devon to Exeter, England … Lieutenant Colonel John Stobart, 56, territorial commander of the Salvation Army in Ceylon; in Colombo … Miss Ellen Nielsen, 89, veteran Danish missionary to China who refused to be repatriated; in Takushan, Manchuria … Dr. Norman B. Harrison, noted Presbyterian minister.

Elections: As president of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Rev. Anders E. Farstrup … as Methodist Bishop of Lima, Peru, Dr. B. Foster Stockwell.

Appointments: As president of Tougaloo Southern Christian College, Dr. Adam Daniel Beittel … as professor of systematic theology at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Dr. Gerrit T. Vander Lugt … as Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Masasi, Tanganyika, Father Trevor Huddleston … as chaplain at American University, the Rev. LeRoy Steney Graham.

Citation: To Dr. Paul W. Brand, British Baptist medical missionary, the 1960 Albert Lasker Award for Distinguished Service to the Physically Handicapped (Brand has been director of orthopedics at Vellore Christian Medical College in India since 1946. He was cited for work among lepers.)

So the picture remains confused. A Communist youth movement in Oriente uses the name of an American Baptist minister who helped launch Castro’s revolution; a Methodist layman and a Methodist clergyman in the interior are active leaders in the underground counter-revolutionary movement. Protestants, some of whom at first welcomed the Castro attacks on the Romans, and Catholics are working together in schools and other areas for the first time.

But the biggest area of agreement in even the Catholic church is that this is the Cuban church’s greatest opportunity. The church still is free to preach Christ in all his glory and power.

And the greatest need of Cuba, in the opinion of most evangelical leaders, is more American missionaries to give guidance and initiative to the faithful, young Christians in the churches of the island.

It’s a pressing need underscored by the theme hymn used by a Methodist clergyman specializing in work among laborers in the interior—“Work for the Night Is Coming.”

‘Kneel-in’ Arrests

The first “kneel-in” arrests were made in Memphis August 25 after would-be demonstrators appeared at Bellevue Baptist Church, second largest in the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Ramsay Pollard, SBC president, is pastor.

A white youth and his Negro companion were fined $51 each on disorderly conduct charges and ordered held for grand jury action on a state charge of interfering with public worship. They had been offered seats in the balcony, but declined and protested.

A passing policeman noted the disturbance and intervened. The church itself did not press charges.

Aide for Kennedy

Senator John F. Kennedy has enlisted the services of a high-ranking National Council of Churches official in his presidential campaign.

James W. Wine resigned as Associate General Secretary for Interpretation for the NCC last month to join the Kennedy staff as “special assistant for community relations.” The new job will entail dealing with questions raised by the Democratic candidate’s membership in the Roman Catholic Church, his statements on Church-State matters, and similar issues.

Wine, a 42-year-old Presbyterian elder who has long been active in Democratic circles, is known chiefly for his key role in the Air Force manual controversy. It was he who first called the Defense Department’s attention to a reservist security manual which accused prominent Protestant clergymen of pro-Communist activities. He pressed the issue even after being assured that the manual was being withdrawn.

Wine, a lawyer, spent a year and a half with the NCC. He came to New York after having served as vice president of Park College, in Parkville, Missouri, for two years. Before that he had served in his native Kentucky as a U. S. Commissioner under appointment by President Truman.

After 38 Years

Radio station WABC in New York is cancelling seven paid religious programs totalling four hours weekly.

Among those being eliminated is a Sunday morning broadcast from Calvary Baptist Church, a program which has been aired regularly for 38 years.

The station plans to replace the four paid hours with 90 minutes of free time to be shared by the area’s “four largest organized religious groups—Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Evangelicals.” A spokesman said the station would continue to relay the ABC radio network’s full religious schedule (which itself is being curtailed).

Crusade in Europe

Evangelist Billy Graham was scheduled to begin meetings in Germany this week following a series of crusades in Berne, Zurich, Basel, and Lausanne.

Meetings were slated in Essen from September 10 through 16. To accommodate the campaign, the largest tent ever erected in Germany was raised in the big West German industrial center. The tent was made to seat 20,000.

Following the Essen meetings, Graham planned to go to Hamburg and Berlin.

Buddhist Control

The government of Ceylon plans to take over all state-assisted Christian schools. Education Minister Badiudin Mahmud says the move will be made before the end of the year.

For some years there has been a growing Buddhist campaign for the nationalization of all schools and social welfare agencies in the country.

Bookshop Ban

Ecumenical Press Service says missionary bookshops in the Sudan province of Equatoria are being closed down by order of the governor.

All business-connected missionary enterprises must be eliminated, the report states, under the latest of a series of measures imposed by the government in a campaign for “complete Islamisation of the Sudan.”

Malta Observes Landing Of Paul

The diminutive island of Malta this year is celebrating the 1900th anniversary of the landing of the Apostle Paul.

Among Maltese it is a matter of intense pride that about A.D. 60 the apostle found refuge on the island when a Rome-bound ship in which he was travelling as prisoner wrecked in fierce winter storms (see Acts 28).

Paul remained three months, ministering to the sick and preaching Christian conversion. He left an indelible imprint on the island.

Even today, half of Malta’s men and boys seemingly are named Paul, the National Geographic Society says. Church after church bears his name. So does a nearby islet said to be the actual place where the Roman ship, with Paul aboard, ran aground.

The main island of Malta, which has been a British Crown colony since 1814, covers about 95 square miles. Most of Malta’s 319,000 residents are Roman Catholics.

The island’s religious identification stems chiefly from the Knights of Malta, a militant order which dates back to the first Crusade. The order was formed in Jerusalem, but was driven out and pursued successively through Acre, Cyprus, and Rhodes. The Knights of Malta finally established a permanent headquarters on Malta in 1530.

Korea’s Second Republic

In most respects Korea’s Second Republic is radically different from the First Republic of Syngman Rhee. Power will be centered in a prime minister instead of the president. But one thing which the April revolution did not change is Korea’s continuing dependence upon Christian leadership in the government.

In the new republic as in the old, Korea’s future rests in the hands of two Christian statesmen, a Protestant president, Posun Yun, and a Catholic prime minister, John Chang.

Succeeding Rhee as president of the republic is an aristocratic, austerity-minded Presbyterian elder whose family is famous in the history of Korean Protestantism. President Posun Yun neither smokes or drinks. Scottish-educated, he majored in archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. His wife is theologically trained at a women’s theological seminary in Japan and is actively interested in Christian education.

The whole Yun family faithfully attends the Andong Presbyterian Church near their old ancestral home in Seoul.

The prime minister is a Roman Catholic, and an intense political rival of President Yun. Both belong to the Democratic party which was swept to power in the July 29 elections, but the Democrats are one party in name only. For all practical purposes, the party is split into two almost equal factions which function as rival political parties: the Old Faction Democrats and the New Faction Democrats.

President Yun heads the Old Faction and Prime Minister Chang the New.

Convention Circuit

Here are reports of summer church conventions:

At Edinburgh, Scotland—The Sixth quinquennial assembly of the World Convention of Churches of Christ (Disciples) drew more than 4,000 delegates from many points on the globe. Some 2,500 of the delegates were Americans. The six-day meeting was held in Edinburgh’s historic Usher Hall.

Delegates unanimously adopted resolutions which (1) recognized responsibility “for the tensions and distress around us” and accepted the challenge of the age to seek new insight as to how moral power can be made an effective element of “national strength and international action”; (2) declared delegates’ readiness to make full use of whatever organizations or machinery might be seen to be working to achieve international disarmament and world peace; (3) pledged the convention to work for abolition of racial discrimination; and (4) promised efforts to provide homes for refugees and to help increase the world’s food supply.

Florentino Santana of Puerto Rico was elected convention president.

At Memphis, Tennessee—The General Assembly of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) drew some 7,000 lay delegates to Memphis.

Just prior to the biennial session, the Council of Ordained Ministers of the Church of God adopted a resolution which questions the fitness of a Roman Catholic as President.

“We honestly doubt that a Roman Catholic President could or would fully resist the pressures of ecclesiastical hierarchy,” the ministers said.

Formed in 1886, the denomination, a Pentecostal group, is the largest body using the name “Church of God” in this country, reporting a U. S. membership of more than 163,000.

At Waterloo, Iowa—In a nearly unanimous vote, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church endorsed merger with three other Lutheran churches at its 83rd annual convention. The proposed union with the Suomi, Augustana, and United Lutheran churches will produce a three-million-member denomination to be known as the Lutheran Church in America. The merger timetable calls for final consummation in 1962.

After merger, the AELC plans a special interest conference to continue fellowship among Danish congregations.

Saint Andrews, Scotland Facing a changing world order which challenges the Church to show the relevance of Christianity to man’s needs and to the tremendous ideological warfare engaging all the nations, the World Council of Churches held one of its most significant meetings last month in Saint Andrews, Scotland.

In the shadow of historic monuments to the faith and courage of the leaders of the Scottish Reformation (this year celebrating its 400th anniversary), WCC leaders saw their best hope and greatest resource in a strengthened Basis of membership which exalts Christ and emphasizes the authority of Holy Scripture and the validity of the Trinitarian faith.

Some 200 ecumenical leaders, representing more than three-fourths of all non-Roman Christendom, had come to Saint Andrews for the last annual meeting of the Central Committee and its multifarious subcommittees before the great Assembly in New Delhi, India, next year. The 90-member Central Committee of the World Council is often said to be the World Council, so great is its constitutional authority and practical importance in the ecumenical structure. What it decided at Saint Andrews is almost certain to be approved at New Delhi.

For evangelicals the Central Committee’s action on the new Basis was more heartening than anything else that transpired August 16–21. Its importance calls for a bit of historical background.

When the Council came into being at Amsterdam in 1948, it adopted a bare formula acceptable to almost any shade of theology:

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches who accept Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.

Evangelicals contended that there should be a “basis for the Basis.” They held that any form of ecumenicity which bypasses the Holy Scripture as the ground of authority must be futile. While the WCC’s basis was stronger in its evangelical spirit than that adopted by the National Council of Churches in the USA, it still left much to be desired.

In 1954, prior to the WCC Assembly in Evanston, the Church of Norway became the spokesman for a very considerable evangelical element in the Council and proposed an amendment to the Basis which would cause it to read:

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches who, according to Holy Scriptures, confess Jesus as God and Saviour.

Doughty Bishop Eivind Berggrav, of honored memory, assumed the responsibility of presenting the proposal and came from Norway bravely contending that “What the WCC needs is a flying standard under which we will march. This standard without the Bible is incomplete.” He was greatly shocked when this proposal was sidetracked by a parliamentary and constitutional technicality and did not come before the Assembly for consideration. The complete story of that maneuver would make interesting reading. Competent observers are divided as to its entire justification. Some indication of the fears of those in authority at Evanston is reflected in a statement by Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert in a press conference in Cann Hall to the effect that if Norway’s proposal Should come to the Assembly for discussion, it would pave the way for proposals to include in the Basis the Trinity, Holy Tradition, and the dogmas of the historic creeds. That, said Dr. Cavert, would wreck the ecumenical movement. Finally the proposal was referred to the Central Committee.

It was with some reluctance that the Central Committee eventually appointed a subcommittee to study the matter and report. Dr. Earnest A. Payne, respected British Baptist leader and a vice-president of the WCC, headed the group. One of its first moves was to poll some 70 theologians for their advice. The almost unanimous response was in favor of retaining the original Basis. For two years the future of revision looked dark.

But Dr. Payne and his colleagues persisted in their assigned task and explored every area of WCC influence. Unexpected reinforcement of the Church of Norway’s inflexible position then came from Eastern Orthodox theologians. They urged even further strengthening by reference to the Trinity and Holy Tradition. The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches asked a change in wording that would make clear the humanity of Jesus, implicit in the Trinitarian formula. About this time it became evident to Council leaders that theological thought in continental Europe was becoming more favorable to a biblical frame of reference in dealing with all matters ecumenical. Suzanne de Dietrich’s The Biblical Renewal (Le Renouveau Biblique) indicated that there was in progress a world-wide “Back to the Bible” movement not only in Protestantism but in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. With this encouragement the Central Committee was constrained to consider seriously an entirely new proposal going beyond Norway’s initial suggestion. Subcommittee reports at New Haven in 1957 and at Rhodes in 1959 were well received.

All along the Central Committee maintained that the Basis adopted at Evanston was primarily a formula of agreement which is purely functional and has as its purpose “to say what holds us together in the World Council, what is the starting point of our conversation and the foundation of our collaboration.” The Committee’s reluctance to alter the Basis stemmed from a fear that if it were to be thought of as a creed, or as offering a full statement of the Christian faith, the WCC might be accused of seeking to set up a super-church. In the changed climate of Saint Andrews there was almost unanimous consent that something was needed to guard against misunderstanding.

Four changes from the original Basis were proposed and accepted: (1) the word “confess” was substituted for “accept” as being more decisive; (2) the definite and exclusive article “the” replaced the vague “our” before “Lord Jesus Christ”; (3) the authority of the Bible was recognized as “the basis for the Basis” by the addition of the phrase “according to the Scriptures”; and (4) the Trinitarian character of the Basis was clarified by introduction of the formula “the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

The Central Committee will now submit the following altered form of the Basis for confirmation at New Delhi:

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, according to the Scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfill their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

While confirmed evangelicals rejoiced at this trend toward a more explicit commitment to the cardinal doctrines of the historic Christian faith, and while others breathed a sigh of relief over a succesful ecumenical maneuver which left WCC unity substantially intact, there are fears and unresolved problems in many quarters. Will the proposal open the gate to an overt development in creed-making? Will there be emergence of a super-church with the Basis as statement of faith? Is the proposed revision adequate to exclude Unitarian theists who may hold modal Trinitarian views? Does it completely satisfy those who contend not only for the Scriptures as supplying normative Christian witness but as divinely inspired and authoritative? American liberal theologians particularly see this move as a step backward which may delay ecumenical achievement by 50 years. Swiss liberals (who are greatly influenced by the theological speculations of Rudolph Bultmann) fear the expansion as a stumbling block to wholehearted cooperation in the Council. There is, however, little unanimity among protestors and effective negative action at New Delhi is quite unlikely.

It may be relevant here to view the status of Faith and Order which was under discussion at Saint Andrews. From August 3 to 8 this important Commission met to deal with the theological concerns of the Council. Important papers on the Church, Baptism, Tradition, Institutionalism, Worship, and other themes were presented, and progress was reported in several areas of study and ecumenical action. The biblical frame of reference was frequently evident in the papers and discussions.

In the meetings of the Central Committee much was made of the “growing significance” of theology in ecumenical encounter, and of a more practical role of Faith and Order in every phase of the Council’s program. In the background, however, there seemed to lurk a deep concern for the future of the Commission. The long-time clash between Life and Work on the one hand and Faith and Order on the other is still very real.

Faith and Order traces its beginning beyond the history of the WCC itself. It was originally known as the Conference on Faith and Order and Missionary Cooperation. Its first meting at Edinburgh in 1910 has been considered the birthplace of the ecumenical movement. Liberals became restive under its strong theological emphasis—its belief that effective unity must be grounded in a common Christian faith—and agitated for a conference which would stress the social concerns of Christendom. They held that “doctrine divides, but service unites.” Accordingly the Universal Christian Council of Life and Work held its initial meeting in Stockholm in 1925. When these agencies along with others combined to form the world Council of Churches in 1948, Faith and Order was given preferential status and retained much of its original freedom of action.

Since Amsterdam, Life and Work has steadily moved toward primacy, and Faith and Order is now considered by many objective observers to be a “third-rate” Commission. At Evanston (1954) it was forced to surrender its right to convene inter-church conferences on faith and order, its separate London office was ordered closed, and its functions were integrated with those of the WCC secretariat.

The present Constitution which was adopted at Evanston, states that the Commission is (1) to proclaim the essential oneness of the Church, (2) to study questions of faith, order, and worship with the relevant social, cultural, political, racial, and other factors in their bearing on the unity of the Church, (3) to study the theological implications of the existence of the ecumenical movement, (4) to study matters in church relations which need theological clarification, and (5) to provide information concerning actual steps taken by the churches toward reunion.

Still further integration with “the total work of the WCC” was proposed at Saint Andrews. It is being made clear that the Commission now works under “changed circumstances.” Going beyond Evanston, the Central Committee called for a fuller statement of the Commission’s purpose; a review of memberships, the requirements therefor and methods of appointment; and a re-examination of the means by which Faith and Order should realize its goals. No radical changes are to be made until after New Delhi, but there are fears that the Commission’s new role may destroy its remaining evangelical strength and usefulness.

Integration of the International Missionary Council with the WCC moved a step further toward final realization at New Delhi. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, IMC general secretary, said, “We have reason to believe that it is virtually certain that the plan will go through.” It was reported that 24 IMC councils had approved the integration proposals, six were considering the matter and five had not responded. Little was said of the withdrawal of the Congo council and the warnings of the Norwegian boards. It would take five negative IMC votes to block confirmation at New Delhi, but even in case of such an unexpected development, the merger is certain to come at some future time. Eighty-three WCC member churches have approved the plan; only five oppose it. Evangelical elements in both the IMC and the WCC are fearful that the proposed new Division of World Mission and Evangelism will cool the ardor of the churches in winning the world to Christ. Already other WCC concerns are pressing in to claim the attention of mission boards—Christian Home and Family Life, Inter-Church Aid, Ecumenical Action and the Division of Studies. But the doubting Thomases put great faith in Newbigin’s oft-repeated plea “that if ecumenicity is not to mean Christianity without its cutting edge, one of our needs is to identify and promote the specific foreign missionary task” within the ecumenical complex. Observers believe the “proof of the pudding will be in the eating.”

Major attention was given to reports and pronouncements of the Council’s Commission of Churches on International Affairs. The secular press gave most of its headlines to this phase of the meetings. Left-wing humanitarian Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the Commission, bulks large over modest moderate Sir Kenneth Grubb, its nominal head. Admittance of Red China to the United Nations was endorsed though in somewhat ambiguous terms. The Council urged its members to help “create the conditions” which would permit the 650,000,000 citizens of “the People’s” China to have a voice in world affairs.

Professor Georges Florevsky of Harvard Divinity School cast the only vote against the proposal. Another member abstained. Nolde said the Commission hoped that “other governments” would establish diplomatic relations with Red China. His panacea for the solution of world problems takes the form of “seven steps”:

—Peaceful competition and larger cooperation with the Reds, avoiding risks involved in the Soviet conception of coexistence and the dangers in the view that coexistence is impossible and morally undesirable.

—Creation of an intergovernmental committee to study the basic differences between East and West with a view to bridging the gap between the Communist and the non-Communist nations.

—Acceptance by all governments of essential rules of behavior in all negotiations.

—Reduction and regulation of armaments under international control.

—Agreement on the cessation of nuclear testing with provisions for international control.

—United Nations aid to keep the great powers from open clashes and from suspension of negotiations for better understanding.

—Promotion of calm consideration of international problems on their merit without “blusterings, threatenings and name callings.”

When asked in a news conference whether there was any theological basis for the Commission’s program, Nolde said “No,” but insisted that its members had tried to look at world issues from “a Christian viewpoint.”

It may be noted here that the WCC is continuing to urge Council membership for the Russian Orthodox Church. The report of the Central Committee indicated progress. His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow sent a message of greeting to Saint Andrews. He was represented by two observers of the proceedings, Professor Protopriest Vitaly Borovoy and Mr. Victor Alexeev. Communist members of the Central Committee Bishop Jan Chabada and Professor J. L. Hromadka of Czechoslovakia and substitutes Bishops Tibor Bartha and Zoltan Kaldy of Hungary actively participated.

One of the finest examples of the values of ecumenical cooperation came in the reports of the special Commission on Christian Witness, Proselytism and Religious Liberty. The Right Reverend Angus Dunn had guided the extensive preliminary studies and negotiations which have done much to create a more cordial ecumenical atmosphere. The report on the nature of religious liberty recognizes the right of the individual to be free from coercion in religious matters and free for the “proclamation of his faith and its implications among his fellowman.” Whenever state or society uses force in the matter of religion it denies its true nature under God. The report strongly asserted that respect of the churches for the convictions of other churches and for the individual’s right to choose or to change his church allegiance are inherent in the Christian way of life. Principles were adopted which should enable the Council to deal effectively with problems of religious liberty.

When Youth spoke up at Saint Andrews there was a considerable stir. The European Youth Assembly at Lausanne had challenged the denominational separateness of the churches and most of its delegates had shattered precedent by holding an unauthorized union Communion service. The ecumenical portent of this revolutionary action warmed the hearts of many, but was frowned upon by ecclesiastical leaders. The Central Committee sternly warned that church tradition should be respected and communion is best received in the churches. It failed to speak any word of caution respecting the shocking leftist social and political views expressed at Lausanne.

“Population explosion” and “family planning” came in for their share of ecumenical discussion. Bishop Stephen L. Bayne, Jr., executive officer of the Anglican Church, startled many by his major address calling for a study of the moral and social aspects of birth control. Professor Egbert de Vries, director of the Institute of Social Studies at the Hague, called attention to the political and economic aspects of the population problem. The WCC now has an important Commission on Christian Home and Family Life (strangely enough now being “tacked on” to the Division of World Mission and Evangelism) which will be giving a great deal of attention to this and other kindred problems.

Many other important issues were considered. But the eventual unity of Christendom was the all-pervading concern of the Saint Andrews meetings.

One of the high points was Faith and Order Commission report which dealt with ecumenical action. Vice Chairman Henri d’Espine presented a statement which broadly defined the theological nature and organizational form of eventual unity. It should be primarily a local unity said the document or “one which brings all in each place who confess Christ as Lord into a fully committed fellowship with one another.” Their union would be based on the same baptism and express itself by the preaching of the same Gospel and by participation in the one Bread. The statement indicated that “there would no longer be in each locality several churches but one church comprising all” Christians. “The local community would be linked to the Christian community at all times and in all places by the fact that its ministry and members would be acknowledged by all.” The very nature of such a unity would be “visible” but it would “not imply a single centralized ecclesiastical institution.…” The plan was admittedly a long-range proposition which would “involve nothing less than death and rebirth for many forms of church life.” It is proposed that the Report be sent to the churches for study and action.

Plans for merger and integration within the Council itself are concentrating greater and greater authority in the Central Committee and the Secretariat. Three groups of Divisions and Commissions may well come to dominate the whole Council. Fearful that these moves might indicate a departure from the Toronto (1950) assurances that WCC would never become a “super-church,” leaders sought to make clear that the Council is only an instrument to encourage organic unity—an achievement which must eventually come by action of the churches themselves. The Church of South India was frequently cited as a pattern for such action. Progress toward unification in Madagascar is following a similar course.

Ecumenists at Saint Andrews even discussed seriously eventual union with Rome. They saw hope in the new secretariat for the unity of Christians set up by Pope John XXIII. It is to perform a double function: (1) to enable non-Catholics to follow the work of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and (2) to help the churches not in communion with Rome to arrive at unity with the Roman Catholic Church. Here appears to be a medium through which effective dialogue may take place and it is quite likely the WCC will move to initiate such conversations at an early date. Two Roman Catholic observers were present at Saint Andrews: the Reverend Bernard Leeming, S.J., of Heythrop College, Oxford, and Dr. J. G. M. Willebrands, secretary of the new Vatican bureau, Warmond, Netherlands. WCC observers will quite likely attend the Second Vatican Council.

Eight new churches were received into WCC membership. Protestant churches: The Evangelical Church of Madagascar, the London Missionary Society Synod in Madagascar, the Evangelical Church of Togo, the Sudanese Christian Church of West Java, the Methodist Church of Ghana (subject to approval of the WCC basis and receiving full autonomy next summer), and the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (subject to formal confirmation of the basis). Others: the newly autonomous Church of the Province of East Africa (Anglican) and The Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East.

One cannot fail to be impressed, indeed, awed somewhat at the growing evidences of competence and power in this great complex of churches intent on acting together to achieve common ends. By means of constant communication and intercourse, which we can clearly observe, there is evident a very widespread and increasingly uniform development of a new form of Christianity somewhat removed from the pattern of the apostolic church depicted in the New Testament. By virtue of its extraordinary importance, the World Council of Churches demands our serious consideration and should have a large place in our prayers, that “God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

THE ‘PROPHETIC MINISTRY’ OF THE CHURCH

No one will dispute that the Church has a “prophetic” role, or that the Christian ministry has a “prophetic” responsibility.

But there is serious debate at the present time whether either the Church or the individual minister has a “prophetic” ministry other than that already made final by the Early Church and the first century apostles.

In the strict sense of the word, there is no such thing as “prophetic” preaching today. No minister can stand in his pulpit and say, I have a new revelation from the Lord. He can only recognize the authority of Old and New Testament writers who spoke, by inspiration of God, His message. It is the duty of ministers today to apply revealed truth, not to assume the role of prophets themselves.

A study of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles indicates that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, crucified, dead and raised again, was the message of that era.

The Early Church was surrounded by social evils. Slavery, debauchery, drunkenness, political oppression, and dishonesty were all rampant.

But the “prophetic preaching” of the apostles was Jesus Christ and him crucified. They pointed men to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of those that believe in him. They affirmed the historical accuracy and divine inspiration of the Old Testament writers and showed that the coming of Christ was worked out in the councils of eternity and foretold by the prophets of old.

There is little evidence that the early apostles were concerned with social engineering. They knew that the Gospel message, faithfully proclaimed, carried with it the blessing, power, and fruitage of the Holy Spirit. Their concern was with the message of personal redemption. Redeemed men, they believed, would meet head-on the social evils of every generation and work out solutions at the personal level in the light of the love of Christ.

Their attitude was a far cry from the “prophetic ministry” of the Church about which we hear so much today. Too often we are presented with an ethic without the dynamic to make that ethic a reality. Constantly we hear unregenerate men being challenged to live like Christians! How repeatedly are we told about the symptoms of the disease without adequate diagnosis of the disease itself. What emphasis there is on social evils without corresponding emphasis on the cleansing blood of Calvary.

Peter and John showed in their preaching and personal lives the evidence of a transforming faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. They affirmed: “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,” and the things had to do with redemption, not reformation.

Confronted with the evils by which they were surrounded, they preached the one thing that could bring about change.

My writing is a plea for a “prophetic” message and ministry that will place things in their proper perspective and logical order. The hearts of men must be changed before they can live as Christians; redemption must ride over reform.

Dr. Hugh Thompson Kerr has said: “We are sent not to preach sociology but salvation; not economics but evangelism; not reform but redemption; not culture but conversion; not progress but pardon; not the social order but the new birth; not an organization but a new creation; not democracy but the Gospel; not civilization but Christ. We are ambassadors, not diplomats.”

Somewhere along the line Protestantism has been led astray. The emphasis has been changed; ethic has been preached without the dynamic; the Gospel of Christian principles has been substituted for the Christ who makes such principles possible.

The diversion is found in new concepts of evangelism, missions, Christian education, and churchmanship. At the heart of the matter is an unbelievably clever philosophy of the Bible that takes from it its full integrity and authority; a method of “interpretation” that bewilders and beclouds; a substitution of ideas for facts, and of a God who works through events without there existing, they believe, any accurate record of those events.

But the question will be asked: Did not the prophets of old denounce the social sins of their times? Did not Nathan denounce David’s wickedness? Did not Hosea, Amos, and the other prophets inveigh against the social evils rampant in a people who had left God?

Yes. They spoke, as God inspired them to speak, of evils committed against fellow men because the people had left their God. They preached the judgment of God and also his love and forgiveness.

Between the prophetic preaching of the prophets of old and the “prophetic” preaching of today there are important differences. Men, inspired by God, preached personal righteousness in the light of God’s holiness, the sinfulness of man in the light of God’s judgment, and personal and national forgiveness in the light of divine mercy predicated on repentance. Here redemption was the key to reform; social reformation was no end in itself.

In the early days the Church was spoken of as a place where the Word was proclaimed, the Ordinances observed, and discipline administered. This is not the picture of twentieth century Protestantism. Only too often the Word is questioned, and the Ordinances and Sacraments are ritualized, while discipline is never heard of.

In both the Old and New Testaments there is found prophetic preaching which embodies a burning plea for righteousness at the personal as well as at the national level. Sin is never minimized, nor is it explained away; it is regarded for what it is—an offense against a holy God.

In such teaching and preaching there is no place where the right of God to act is questioned; nor is there ever an intimation that those who spoke for God spoke except at his behest and with his authority.

The question of “interpretation,” particularly of a form of “interpretation” which denies stated facts and construes them to mean something different, is never raised.

The prophetic affirmation, “Thus saith the Lord” carried conviction then, and it does the same today.

Ours is a time for prayer that within the Church there may be a revival of true Christianity. Once let the Church be set on fire and empowered by the Holy Spirit, and we shall begin to see marvelous changes in our social order, because Christians go out to act as “salt” and “light.”

Without a genuine revival within the Church, however, we are in grave danger of having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.

L. NELSON BELL

ORIENTATION

Empty quiet has returned to the base camp now that the expedition is launched. A crumpled check-list blows across the floor where the last foot-locker was packed. The assault up the stern brow of Parnassus has been renewed. The children are off to school, and our first freshman is in college.

Paternal sentimentality becomes irrepressible at this point. A scion of a college romance returning to the alma mater.… Dreamy college moon! The only cure for such reverie is reflection on the relief the young man must feel in escaping this parental solicitude which has been teetering on the brink of bathos. No doubt in modern scientific education a college moon is a satellite to be observed through a telescope, with a view to selecting a landing field.

Still, there is so much advice I should like to give about Getting the Most from College. Orientation courses are probably very effective these days. I hope so. I have a disquieting recollection of how our freshman class put an orientation lecturer to flight by thunderously applauding his every hapless truism about the Facts of Life.

Just in case the orientation people still have some trouble communicating with the younger generation, I should like to recommend a source in the book of Job. In chapter 28, Job describes a mining operation. He must have stood at a pit-head, for he speaks vividly of miners swinging down deep shafts, tunneling into the roots of mountains and stopping underground streams to rifle the vaults of the earth. It was an engineering marvel in the ancient Near East. We take mining for granted now, until a catastrophe reveals its hazards. Modern technology prefers swinging in orbit to swinging in shafts.

Job’s point, however, applies equally well. He reflects that while mountains of rock do not hide earth’s riches from men, there is a treasure which cannot be mined. Neither research nor engineering technology can lay bare the lode of wisdom.

Even Job’s friends understood that better than we. The urgent confusion of debates as to the purpose of education in the space age shows how little we grasp the meaning of wisdom. Wisdom is more than practical knowledge. It drinks from the undivided stream where thought and life flow from the throne of God.

Son, even at a Christian college you cannot find wisdom apart from the Son of God, in whom those treasures are hidden.

EUTYCHUS

DESPISED BRETHREN

Again CHRISTIANITY TODAY has brought to light an issue many would like to ignore … in Russell Jaberg’s “Is there Room for Fundamentalists?” (July 18 issue). I hope there will be some helpful dialogue regarding the status of this almost despised segment of the Christian Church.… By facing the issue squarely in an honest and objective discussion, much light might be shed on the currently popular quest as to the nature and mission of the Church.… [We might discover] a true scriptural concept of ecumenicity which God will own and which the indwelling Holy Spirit can give powerful expression and confirmation in the lives of individuals and the churches.

KENNETH HARRY

Vineyard Estates Baptist Church

Oxnard, Calif.

There are always two sides.… Let’s have the answer to the other and equally relevant question: “In fundamentalist life and program in the concept of their church, in the nature of the unity(?) they seek for Christians, is there room for any cooperative witness to the living Christ who not only prayed that they may be one, but is revealed as the Chief Cornerstone of one Church?”

This question is even more relevant than the one to which you devote an entire article. Particularly in a day when man is determined to split everything, from atoms to churches. To wit, MacIntyre, Kingfish of the great mythical ICCC, in his abortive attempts prior to the Baptist World Alliance in Brazil, or the more successful effort which resulted in a thriving Presbyterian Church in Mexico, located across from a Roman Catholic cathedral, being not only shut down, but whose windows and doors are boarded over—a monument to “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” at Collingswood—to say nothing of what he and his motley band of ecclesiastical vagrants are planning already in the light of Billy Graham’s Philadelphia Crusade in the summer of ’61.…

AUGUST F. BALLBACH, JR.

Brookhaven Baptist Church

Chester, Pa.

Apart from the fact that Dr. Jaberg … is guilty of dodging the main issue at several points, his article contains a proposition which the right wing of American Protestantism should have articulated decades ago—the practice of libeling a group of sincere, dedicated Christians by indiscriminately tagging them with a label with negative connotations.

Dr. Jaberg is annoyed that dubbing certain men “Fundamentalists” may put their “professional careers” in jeopardy. Those anxious to do battle for the Fundamentals have not only placed the status of the so-called “Modernists” in jeopardy, but have often called their eternal destiny in question. For raising honest questions about the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, one might be consigned to hellfire forever. I was once subjected to an inquisition for expressing doubts about the Pauline authorship of Hebrews.

If it is wrong to discredit sincere Christians by the epithet “Fundamentalist” it is just as evil to disparage other sincere Christians by the label “Modernist.”

W. B. UPHOLD

First Congregational Church

Fresno, Calif.

Russell L. Jaberg’s plea that there be room for Fundamentalists in the major denominations, involves a plea that “they are not seeking to start new controversies; they are seeking to stand in the biblical and theological traditions of the churches to which they belong.” But while Jaberg would plead for them to be given room in the inclusive church, the men in power in the denominations know better than Jaberg, from past experience, that Fundamentalists standing in the biblical tradition will not forever sit at the Lord’s Table with those who deny the truth of the Gospel. Sooner or later Galatians 1:8, 9 will come to their lips, and when that happens, the “inclusive” church becomes intolerant, as did the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in the expulsion of Machen in 1936.

EDWARDS E. ELLIOTT

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church

Garden Grove, Calif.

The article of Russell Jaberg immediately suggested the idea that another should be written on “Is There Room for Liberals?” If we think of the church as a world organization on the order of Romanism there is no room for “Fundamentalists.” If we think of the church as the “Body of Christ,” is there room for “Liberals?”

WILLIAM L. CARR

Calvary Baptist Church

Toppenish, Wash.

“Is There Room for Fundamentalists?” alone is worth the subscription price of CHRISTIANITY TODAY (even to a seminary student). Jaberg’s thesis that a “Fundamentalist” can be a sane, educated, and dedicated Christian must sound strange to many ears.…

BILL ANDERSON

Lorena, Tex.

‘MINISTERS ANONYMOUS’

Response to the article, “Ministers Anonymous” (July 18 issue) has been almost overwhelming. Some ministers are suggesting that we form a national organization to be known simply as “Ministers Anonymous.” The idea intrigues me. I would not want to get involved in any elaborate machinery but if we could set up a fellowship on the order of Elton Trueblood’s “Order of the Yoke” I think this might be practicable. I would like to receive reactions to the general idea.

JOHN ROSSELL

The Federated Church of Harvey

Congregational and Presbyterian

Harvey, Ill.

After reading John Rossell’s “Ministers Anonymous” I wondered how some preachers find time to write articles and serve their people. I do not see how they can do both.

EDWARD B. HOLLENBECK

Benton, Ark.

John Rossell was extremely effective in clearing the air for me as a busy pastor. He made me realize the real objectives of the often thankless pastoral mission. We want no horns blown in our behalf. We just want to be left alone long enough to seek out and save the lost, and heal broken hearts with the Word of Life.

FRANK I. BLANKLEY

First Wesleyan Methodist Church

Syracuse, N. Y.

As a young minister I find I am more and more concerned with ecclesiastical politics and … with church programs.… Do we not need to realize that our Lord’s standards of greatness and success—namely, gentleness and love, a cup of cold water in His name, fruitful study and proclamation of the Word in demonstration of the Spirit’s power—may be a far cry from some of our modern standards? May the number of “Ministers Anonymous” increase.

C. FERRIS JORDAN

New Hope Baptist Church

Franklinton, La.

AS IN DAYS OF THE JUDGES

I approved in general of your editorial “Is The Church Confusing the Body and the Head” (July 18 issue). But I personally have not yet seen, after over 40 years’ ministry, a church that deserves demoting. My work has been done in typical Protestant communities where the Roman Catholic Church was weak or non-existent.

There is the other side, from my viewpoint, of the Church Dominant. It is that of the Church Belittled. And I believe this is due to the fact that the Church has lacked self-discipline. It has permitted its members to be like the people in days of the Judges, who did every man that which was “right in his own eyes.” And the multiplicity of sects, sometimes called erroneously “churches,” has tended to break down the authority and the respectability of the Church.

It is my conclusion after all these years of struggle, that it may be too late for Protestantism—or nearly so. The people don’t really respect their own churches. They love their ministers in the personal capacity. But in the official capacity there is much to be desired. The doctrine of a strong Church—or, to say it better—a strong doctrine of the Church needs to be preached.

C. G. MCKNIGHT

Gibson, Iowa

SUNDAY SPORT

After thirty-two years in the work of impressing upon people the value and need of the Christian Sunday I must admit the letter of Donald Dee Shinnick is the most interesting and amazing I have ever read (Eutychus, July 4 issue).

Jesus preached more about the Sabbath than any other subject in his short ministry upon earth; He used the Day to help the sick, suffering and discouraged, and there is not one shred of evidence that He ever commercialized the Day. When we become Christians we become followers of Christ and follow His example. Where would our nation be if everyone used the Day the way Donald Dee Shinnick does? How could we develop spiritual life? How could the Church properly call the people to God?

I would suggest that Mr. Shinnick read the pages of history, and see what has happened to nations who misused the Day of the Lord when sports and games took the time of the people.

ROBERT S. WOMER Editor

The Sunday Guardian

Newark, N. J.

The only encouraging thing in his statement was the fact that he plans to enter seminary for study. Let us hope that this brother will be taught a better understanding of the Bible and the principles of Christianity.

WILLIAM A. POWELL

Chicago Southern Baptist Association

Chicago, Ill.

DIM VIEW OF BRIGHT

The issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY for May 9 contains a highly commendatory review of John Bright’s A History of Israel. The reviewer states that “this is one of the few great books in the field of Old Testament study.”

In order to set the record straight, it will be well to consider what must be regarded as covered by the reviewer’s statement, “Scholars will naturally not go along with him (Bright) at all points.” Following are some of the “points.” Bright accepts the documentary analysis of the Pentateuch substantially in the form which goes back to Wellhausen. He dates J in the 10th century B.C. and thinks that it cannot be proved that E is younger than J. Back of the documents there is, he tells us, a long period of oral tradition. But he holds that the study of these traditions by the Form Critic must be based on the documentary analysis. He holds that archaeological research has established the correctness of the background of the traditions of the patriarchal period. But how undependable he holds them to be at times is indicated by such a statement as, “Theologically legitimate though it may be to do so, it is not historically accurate to say that the God of patriarchs was Yahweh,” when studied in the light of Genesis 24:3, or for the Exodus period such a statement as “The number that participated in the exodus was hardly more than a very few thousand,” in the light of Exodus 12:37 (cf. the censuses in Num. 1 and 2).

Bright holds that Deuteronomy, or the early form of it, originated in the Northern Kingdom, was brought to Jerusalem after the fall of Samaria, and that it or an expansion of it became the basis of Josiah’s reform. He treats P as exilic or post-exilic. The Historical Books (Joshua to Kings) he calls “the Deuteronomistic history,” which means that they were written or compiled in accordance with the viewpoint of the reformers of Josiah’s day and consequently misrepresent the real course of the history. The question of the unity of Isaiah is ignored. It is assumed that Deutero-Isaiah begins at chapter 40. As to a Trito-Isaiah, the writer is not so positive, but he is disposed to favor it, and he dates chapters 24–27 in the post-exilic period along with Joel and Jonah. Daniel he describes as “the latest of the Old Testament books.”

The treatment of Daniel illustrates one of the major defects of the book. The reviewer assures the reader that “The footnotes are virtually a syllabus for a graduate course in Old Testament history, and they cover the field magnificently.” This statement should be modified to read, “and they cover the field of critical scholarship magnificently.” References to books and articles written from the conservative viewpoint are few and far between. Great stress is placed on the archaeological evidence. But in dealing with Daniel, for example, not a word is said about the confirmations of the historicity of the book by recent discoveries. R. D. Wilson, Boutflower, Dougherty, and E. J. Young are completely ignored. We are told, for example, that “No Jew would have had any difficulty in understanding the figure of Antiochus behind that of Nebuchadnezzar.” We would like to ask Dr. Bright what evidence he has to show that any Jews before the rise of modern higher criticism “understood” Nebuchadnezzar in that way.

These few examples will suffice to indicate that there are many important “points” at which conservative scholars “will naturally not go along with” Dr. Bright. If this book is to “supersede” all other books in the Old Testament field, this can only mean that what is commonly called “higher criticism” is to continue indefinitely to cast its dark shadow over the pages of the Old Testament.

OSWALD T. ALLIS

Wayne, Pa.

BALM OF GILEAD

Many of your readers trying to orally ingest this material (Christian Psychotherapy, June 20 issue) into their intellectual craw, will suffer from acute psychological indigestion.…

No one can sensibly deny the contribution trained psychiatrists and psychologists have made and are making in the healing of sick minds and emotions. The ministry has another field for its labor which can be a valuable help in working side by side with them. There is a sickness of personality caused by sin; it involves guilt which only the Gospel can resolve and clear up. Phychiatrists and psychologists have their place, but they can never replace the Balm of Gilead administered by the Great Physician.

WALTER BRUGGEMAN

Chicago, Ill.

RED PROPAGANDA

Your Protestant Panorama item of June 6 about the Soviet embassy release of 8,000 feet of film showing a worship service in Moscow’s Baptist Church … is a Communist No. 1 exhibit to create a false impression that there is religious freedom in this officially atheistic country.

A friend of mine who recently took a Communist government sponsored tour of Czechoslovakia found that—

Church members are under pressure to sever relations with their churches if they wish to hold jobs.

Church members are under penalty if they invite others to church.

There is no freedom of speech or press. Pastors are not permitted to publicize their services.

Church publications and Sunday School material can be neither printed nor distributed.

Pastors are under a heavy penalty for praying in a home or inviting anyone to church.

If a high school youth does not sever connection with his church he is denied further education.

All non-Communist congregations are very small.

To obtain a permit for the repair of a church is an exceedingly difficult task.

ROBERT W. YOUNG

North Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

TRAGIC BIFURCATION

If the modern Christians desire to be realistic, they must decide whether they will worship and believe firmly in God—or in Jesus. No one can serve two Masters—sincerely. God needs no assistants. Santa Monica, Calif.

LOUIS BERGER

In the pamphlet “Winning the Jew” issued by the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, there appears the statement: “At present there are more than 5,500,000 Jews in America. Our Baptist theology teaches us that they are lost without hope, without Jesus Christ as their Saviour.”

This sounds like a voice from the Dark Ages. It was precisely such a belief that was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the persecution and massacre of millions of Jews throughout the ages.

SAMUEL NEWMAN

Danville, Va.

• The motivation of the Baptist quotation is the commission that fell from the lips of the greatest of all Jews, Jesus of Nazareth, which propelled another Jew, Paul of Tarsus, through the Mediterranean world with the conviction that he was debtor both to Jew and Greek.

—ED.

THEY HOPE IN HIS MERCY

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the splendid editorial “God’s Judgment on the Summit” (June 6 issue).

Even as God was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of His people, so He will consider any country where His people reside. Christians can make a contribution to their country far above and beyond that of the non-Christian citizen in the Christian life they live. The Psalmist expresses it well when he writes, “The Lord delighteth not in the strength of the horse: He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy” (Psalm 147:10–11).

What tremendous power America has in its Christian people! If Christian people would just awake to this hour and serve God we would have no need to stand in fear of this country’s future.

WM. G. KENNELL

The Lutheran Church of the Epiphany (Missouri Synod)

Montgomery, Ala.

THE RESURRECTED ONE

Thanks for the review by Dr. Wilbur Smith of Weatherhead’s, The Manner of the Resurrection (Apr. 11 issue). I paid only a dollar for the book but found in it at least $10.00 worth of pseudoscientific, psychical nonsense that I could preach against.

I’m sure that if Mr. Weatherhead would truly meet the “Man” of the resurrection, he would more candidly understand the “manner” of the resurrection.

JOHN R. TERRELL

Riverside Brethren Church

Johnstown, Pa.

SURPRISING IMPRESSION

As I have read CHRISTIANITY TODAY I have been much impressed by the surprising similarity of the social goals of Conservative and Liberal Christians.… On the problem of the growing statism of this country … as a liberal I am interested to find that the most concerned men are those of very conservative theology, particularly the Lutherans.

HARRY R. BUTMAN

The Congregational Church of the Messiah

Los Angeles, Calif.

The Evangelical Ministerial Association of Fort Wayne has discovered some startling things regarding the separation of church and state. It is amazing to find even the Lutherans of our city accepting government help in the transportation of their parochial school students and regard this as no violation of the separation of the church and state.

JAMES KOFAHL

Assembly of God Church

Fort Wayne, Ind.

UNBIBLICAL RATIONALISM?

I have been disturbed by what I read.… Lest you think that you are receiving a letter from a disgruntled liberal, may I identify myself as a pastor of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. What disturbs me in your magazine is not its repudiation of liberalism, but the failure to distinguish the different forms of liberalism and its continual attempts to replace it with a very narrow and, for me, unbiblical rationalism. You treat the Christian message as though it were some sort of supernatural truth, rather than the Biblical witness to the enduring Christ.

DALE G. LASKY

Church of the Good Shepherd

Hamden, Conn.

It most certainly is the best Christian publication we know of, and it seems so good to see it direct itself to all denominations.

H. J. AAFTINK

St. Andrew’s United Church

Kaslo, British Columbia

Your publication is much appreciated and very stimulating. In this age of doubt, which latter like a creeping paralysis seems to get into so many books and periodicals, it is refreshing to find articles in CHRISTIANITY TODAY to be written by men of both faith and scholarship.

JOHN P. POSNO

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

Rose Bay, Nova Scotia

In the field of evangelical journalism, your magazine has transformed a glaring gap into a proud pinnacle.

W. G. MULLINAX

Rustburg, Va.

OPEN LETTER TO SEN. KENNEDY

I have addressed this letter to Senator John F. Kennedy and feel it is of sufficient importance to justify public consideration.

CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON

Dear Senator Kennedy:

During your successful campaign for the Presidential nomination you publicly stated that you believe in the principle of separation of church and state. I am addressing this Open Letter to you in the hope that your comments and answers to my questions may clarify certain matters systematically ignored in political discussion on the ground that this discussion involves a so-called “religious issue.” But if the intentions, purposes, and objectives of a particular religion are or are believed to be incompatible with the American Constitution, it must be dealt with on the political level and by forthright political discussion. To ignore it because of its religious context is irresponsible and evasive. I believe that the American electorate will thank you, as I do, for your considered attention to the matters which I wish to bring before you.

First, I would respectfully direct your attention to a statement on church-state separation made by the American Roman Catholic hierarchy, consisting of the bishops, archbishops, and cardinals of the American Church. The statement was published in The New York Times of November 21, 1948. It declared that the conception of separation of church and state was a “shibboleth of doctrinaire secularism”; that it was neither a literal nor a historically correct interpretation of the First Amendment to the Constitution; that it is a “novel” interpretation and of recent origin; that it is a modern invention of the opponents of religion and is itself unconstitutional. The statement went on to say that the Supreme Court was in error when, in an 8 to 1 decision in the McCollum case, it declared that “separation” meant that the state could not constitutionally aid one church or some churches or all churches without violating the Constitution. The hierarchy announced its determination to work “patiently, peaceably and perseveringly” for the reversal of the Court’s decree. Question: Can you, Senator Kennedy, reconcile your belief in the separation of church and state with this authoritative position of your church; or do you repudiate it for yourself?

The Meaning Of “Separation”

Your public statement that you believed in the Constitutional principle of separation of church and state has been received with uncritical satisfaction by some and bewilderment by others. It is my desire in addressing you to clarify your position by directing your attention to some concrete and specific situations in which the principle of church-state separation is involved so closely that it can be detached from its religious context and considered as a simple political question.

Our correspondence, Senator Kennedy, will be more constructive if we try to get a clear conception of the meaning of church-state separation. I will lead off by saying that “separation” does not mean that church and state may not talk to each other! The church is continually and vigorously telling the state what it ought to do! And the state frequently tells the church by court decisions what it may or may not do. Nor does separation mean that church and state may not cooperate in certain ways such as the military chaplaincy and numerous other ways.

Separation of church and state means that at no point shall their respective jurisdictions be interlocked, or fused or otherwise united in support of any church, its doctrines or institutions or projects. The Constitution gives complete freedom to the church in the area of religion, as it defines and limits the powers of the state itself. This, I take it, is the meaning of the First Amendment to the Constitution which forbids Congress to make any law “respecting”—that is, tending toward or pertaining to—“the establishment of religion.”

Moreover, separation does not mean that the state may not itself perform religious acts, and our government has always performed them: Thanksgiving Day proclamations, chaplaincies in Congress and the armed forces, inauguration of the President accompanied by prayer, “In God we trust” on our coins, “So help me God” in the oath, and perhaps many others. These religious acts the state performs in its own way and without the slightest fusion or interlocking of its juridiction with the jurisdiction of any church. It is in the use of public funds to finance or aid a church or churches or church-related institutions or projects that the jurisdictions of church and state are most likely to overlap and thus violate the First Amendment. In our United States we have a free church along side of a free state, both in a free society.

Question: Do you agree with the above statement as to the meaning of separation? If not, will you state your own conception of the meaning of church-state separation?

Relations With The Vatican

Americans have always assumed that a President’s religion, or the lack of it, was a personal and private matter unrelated to his office or his official duties. Your public statement that if you are elected you would not appoint an ambassador to the Vatican has been received with satisfaction. Important as your pledge seems to be, it is actually superfluous. The Papacy could hardly imagine a better line of communication with the government of the United States than your Presidency would provide.

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be and is in fact a political state as well as a church. Its capital is Vatican City. It exchanges ambassadors with the leading nations of the world, the United States excepted. It should be made clear that you have no need of an ambassador to the Vatican, because you in yourself, as President, are such an ambassador. Indeed, you would be the first President of the United States to combine in yourself a dual political allegiance—one to your country, the other to the Vatican State. You would have more intimate entree to the Vatican than any politically appointed ambassador would enjoy. You would be our first President to kneel before anyone other than God. You would be our first President whose oath of allegiance to the Constitution would be qualified by his prior and equally sacred allegiance to another State. This is not a fiction, but a realistic political fact.

A request: I will be sincerely grateful if you will show me that I am wrong in the above paragraph.

Suppression of Personal Freedom

Another issue that emerges in connection with your candidacy, Senator Kennedy, is the authoritative clamp which your church places upon the personal liberty of the faithful. I refer to just one of numerous instances of invasion of the dignity of the American citizen by prohibiting him from entering a Protestant or other non-Catholic church. Disobedience to this prohibition is a sin that requires absolution in the confessional. It is hard for most Americans to believe that any of their fellow citizens in this land of liberty can be so cowed by ecclesiastical authority. But every Protestant minister knows of such examples. The interdiction of attendance upon the Billy Graham revival in New York issued by a Prelate of the Church is a case in point. Question: Do you, Senator Kennedy, approve of the restraint upon personal liberty exercised authoritatively, as for example, by the aforementioned instance?

Public Versus Parochial Schools

An alien phenomenon in our American democracy is the wide-spread withdrawal of Roman Catholic children from the public schools into Catholic parochial schools. Our public school system is an expression and a guarantee of our democratic government and a prime factor in maintaining our cultural unity. The public school has been rightly called the “melting pot” in which the immigration of heterogeneous cultures of many countries is fused in a national unity. This unity does not mean and has never meant cultural conformity. It has meant and has produced cultural freedom. The parochial school of the Catholic Church is oriented to an exactly opposite goal, namely, the fixation of the mind in every generation in the mold of its childhood dependence upon an authority in the field of religion. This is the field in which the greater problems of life arise. The technique for this procedure includes teachers dressed in conspicuously unfamiliar garb, and a pedagogy—not precisely of “brain-washing” but of brain-conditioning against infection by the democratic principle of personal responsibility and freedom.

The political effect of this denial of free intercourse with the environing community, produces a self-enclosed enclave within the democratic community which can neither assimilate nor be fully assimilated in the free society of American democracy. Canon Law 1374 forbids Catholic parents to send their children to public school (elementary, secondary or college) unless permission is granted by the bishop. The attitude of the Catholic Church toward the public school was recently vividly expressed.

On June 6, 1960 Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis issued a pastoral letter which rigorously applied to the young people of his area prohibition of their enrollment at public universities or other non-Catholic colleges. His directive read: “No student may attend a non-Catholic college or university unless he or she has obtained written permission. Permission will be granted only in individual cases and for just and serious reasons.”

In twenty of our states nuns dressed in their conspicuously distinctive attire are teaching in so-called public schools. They are teaching just enough of the subject matter to meet the requirements of state law, the remainder being subject matter taken over from the curriculum of the Catholic parochial schools. (A side-light on this situation is the fact that the nuns are paid the same salary as other teachers which they turn over to the church, retaining only the pittance which these dedicated women sworn to poverty receive from their order. These public tax funds are used to maintain this obvious violation of separation of church and state.)

Question: Will you, Senator Kennedy, if you become President, disavow your church’s boycott of this fundamental American institution, the public school?

Federal Aid to Education

It is unnecessary to remind you, a Senator, of the long and oft-repeated effort to secure Federal aid to public education, especially needed in those states whose resources are inadequate for the support of a standard educational system. I do not raise the question of the desirability or otherwise of such action by the Federal government. I would however, respectfully direct your attention to the long and often-defeated efforts to secure from Congress the required action for an appropriation of Federal funds for this purpose. These efforts were repeatedly defeated by a minority opposed on principle added to a minority which demanded that the appropriation should apply to parochial as well as publicly-supported schools. In view of the great need to level-up the standard of public education throughout the nation, I respectfully ask you the following question.

Question: If you are elected President will you oppose attempts to appropriate Federal funds for parochial schools?

Land Grants To Churches

You, no doubt, are fully acquainted with the practice of land grants by city, state or federal governments to educational institutions. I would invite your attention to the case of St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. There, under a federal redevelopment project, a very valuable tract in the project was set aside exclusively for St. Louis University, a Roman Catholic institution, at a ridiculously low price, not at all commensurate with present land values in the area for any purpose. No provision was made for competitive bidding as to this particular tract, which was sold to the University at approximately one-tenth of its real value.

Also allow me to direct your attention to the case of a new Presbyterian College in St. Petersburg, Florida. The trustees of this institution, unaware of any legal principle involved, accepted the gift by the city of a tract of land as the site of their new Presbyterian college. Later, on being convinced that this was a violation of the principle of church-state separation, they returned to the city the deed and assumed without court action an obligation to pay a half-million dollars for the property.

Question: Will you, Senator Kennedy, please comment briefly on the implications of the Presbyterian procedure in contrast with that of the Roman Catholic Church in these land grant matters?

The Brandy-Making Monks

The monastic order of Monks, The Christian Brothers, in California, produces what is said by experts to be the finest brandy in this country. The federal government is pressing a claim for unpaid taxes amounting to one and three-quarter million dollars. These taxes have not been paid on the ground that their monastery is a religious institution. The law specifically provides a limit on which a commercial income may be tax-exempt. I believe there are similar evasions of taxes by churches (not all of them Roman Catholic).

Question: Will you, Senator Kennedy, if you become President, give your moral support to the activity now under way to discover and prosecute, if necessary, such violations of church-state separation?

Religion in Politics

In your speech accepting the Democratic nomination, you expressed satisfaction that the “religious question” had not been raised in your candidacy for the nomination, the implication being that it would not or should not be raised in your campaign for election. The “religious issue” has not entered decisively or conspicuously in any presidential campaign except in 1928 when Al Smith, a Roman Catholic, was the Democratic standard bearer. It is relevant for us to inquire why the religious issue arises chiefly in the form of opposition to a Catholic candidate. Our Presidents from the beginning have represented a wide variety of religious affiliations—Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Unitarian, Reformed, Quaker—not to mention others. Their religion does not create a “religious issue.” Why does the “religious issue” emerge only when your church is involved? The answer is that all these other churches are content to live and work in the open domain of religious liberty which the state is forbidden to enter and the churches may not lawfully transgress. (I do not wish to be too complimentary, for there is a constant tendency for some Protestant churches to seek the backing of government aid for their otherwise laudable purposes.)

But your church, Mr. Kennedy, has no such inhibition on this score because it is itself a state, and its ultimate power is political, not religious. The Roman Catholic church does not feel at home in a thoroughgoing democratic society. Its hierarchy confesses quite frankly that it is uncomfortable, but it “adapts itself” to whatever political system beside which it lives, awaiting the time when, by concordat or by actual acceptance, it may attain its never-forgotten goal. It is the First Amendment to our Constitution (God be thanked for it!) that is the American bulwark of our religious liberty. A Request: I would be pleased if you would comment on my statement of the religious issue in politics.

The Deeper Concern

The specific issues which I have brought to your attention are only samples of many others which, if I included them, would unprofitably prolong this letter. But there is a single matter which comprehends them all. I refer to the monarchical structure and character of the Roman Catholic Church itself. The American mind wants to believe that its democratic structure is able to maintain itself in competition with any kind of a controlled society. But now there looms up in our midst this self-enclosed monarchical society, which, aided by our perhaps all too hospitable immigration policy, is steadily withdrawing from the general democratic process and asserting its right at many points to control it and swerve it from its native course.

The preceding matters upon which I have asked your opinion, my dear Senator, are only the visible manifestations of the deeper concern which American democracy feels toward the Roman Catholic Church itself. It has become clear to a large public that the very structure of this authoritarian church-state puts it outside of and inimical to a democratic structure of society.

What you are confronting as a candidate for the Presidency are not merely the disparate issues, samples of which I have enumerated. You are confronting a state of mind that fears you because it sees behind you the facade of a monarchical system which is both a church and a state. Moreover, it sees this structure defended by a Jesuitical ethic and logic with which the vocabulary of democracy cannot converse.

It is becoming clear that democracy faces two powerful monarchical competitions in our time—the Communist Dictatorship and the Infallible Papacy. Both control vast populations. Karl Marx could have had the Roman Catholic Church in mind as a pattern for the structure of his Communist dictatorship of the proletariat. The structures through which authority and power flow down to the people are alike and the end effect of both is to keep the people in bondage—the one through fear, the other through faith.

What I want now to say in conclusion is that if the American people elect you as their President, they unawarely but inescapably invite your church, if not to the council chamber of our democracy, at least to its threshold.

I beg you, Senator Kennedy, to believe that my political opinion in the matters which concern the separation of church and state is not an expression of what is meant by the term “anti-catholicism.” Our religious differences are profound, but we could live with them and meet each other in mutual friendship and fruitful conversation in the domain of religious liberty which your faith and mine enjoy in this American democracy. I hope you will feel that you can reply to my questions in the same spirit of mutual respect in which I have laid them before you.

CHARLES CLAYTON MRRISON

Chicago, Ill.

• Dr. Morrison was founder and for 40 years Editor of The Christian Century. He is honorary president of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State. CHRISTIANITY TODAY has advised Senator Kennedy that its pages are open to him for any reply he wishes to make.

—ED.

Unemployment is a perennial problem in the world economy, but nowhere is it a more poignant tragedy than in the Christian Church. And what deepens the tragedy of evangelical idleness is the fact that it is so unnecessary because it springs from a fundamental misunderstanding of the Church.

To the average man, the “work of the church” involves serving on the official boards, teaching in the Sunday School, singing in the choir, or ushering. The work of the church has come to mean what the church is doing for herself through the maintenance of her own life and program and organization. The impression prevails today that the church is an institution preoccupied mainly with her own survival. A patronizing attitude rises toward the church, and groups of citizens feel that the church “certainly should receive more support than she does from the community.” The church is thus regarded as an entity separate and distinct from those who compose her. She is seen as an institution—one of many community organizations—that ought to be supported by the community along with all the other organizations.

Whether local or national, the church is viewed as an agency to be served, in direct contrast to the New Testament view of the church as a servant.

ONE VIEW OF THE MATTER

Prospective applicants for church membership generally evaluate a church in one of two ways: “What can the church do for me?” or “What can I do for the church?” They think of the church as an institution that does something for them or for which they are expected to do something. The number is legion of those who go to church—or don’t go—with an eye on what the church will do for them; and numberless others are idle because they are unable to find anything “to do for the church.”

Burdened pastors are soon exhausted by the effort of finding something for activistic members to do so they can be “working for the church.” Many a pastor’s effectiveness is diminished or destroyed because of the pressure of finding a way to keep people “busy for the church.” If he is not careful, his pastoral duties suffer and he is pressed into the role of personnel manager who, in a kind of quiet desperation, must invent jobs to satisfy the insatiable appetite of members who crave “work in the church.” Special committees plan special programs to integrate new members (old ones too) into the “work of the church.” Yet, despite all the ingenious activity, the task is a hopeless one, for there simply is not enough “work” in the church to absorb the membership.

The frustration is vividly dramatized by two situations. For nine years the writer was a member of the staff of a church of 7,000 members, said to be the largest in my denomination. If one in four were male members, there were about 1,750 men in the church. The official boards enlisted 90, there were about 30 men in the choir, 15 in the Men’s Council, 20 ushers, and perhaps 150 to 200 teachers and officers in the Sunday School. The church, in other words, required a work force of about 300 to 350 men (the figure is actually exaggerated, since many of the officers also sang in the choir, ushered, and taught Sunday School). This left 14000–1500 men without “jobs in the church”—1400–1500 unemployed Christians, if the work of the church is assessed in terms of the official boards, choirs, ushering, and teaching.

At present the writer is pastoring a church of approximately 700 members, of whom more than 200 are men. The official boards comprise 36 men, the other “jobs” require 40 more. This means that three-fifths of the men are doomed to idleness so far as “the work of the church,” as commonly understood, is concerned. A perceptive church member will quickly see that, by the law of averages, there is little chance for “a challenging opportunity to work for the church.” And a serious-minded pastor who accepts this view of the work of the church will get tied up in knots trying to find things for men to do before interest evaporates.

Generally, the men who are called into leadership in the upper echelons of their denomination are men who have been “proved” (to use a church administrator’s term) at the local level. This means that the “working force” of the denomination is in inverse ratio to its membership in the levels above the local congregation. No matter how much a church grows, the work force remains relatively static. Literally millions of members will never have an opportunity to do “the work of the church.” Many, unwilling to be idle, become busy in civic and community activities which lack any direct relation to the church and which, in some cases, become competitive and woo members from the church. To be sure, some are content to occupy a pew for an hour on Sunday morning and let this crown their religious activity. They patronize a religion that makes no demands, carries no obligations. Their discontent increases whenever the program of the church threatens their status quo.

But others will never be satisfied to vegetate in the pew, for they dignify life with a purpose that demands their utmost dedication and allegiance. And if they cannot find this expression in the church, they will seek it elsewhere! They will not wait indefinitely to be involved, especially when it becomes apparent how few demanding jobs exist in their church in ratio to the available manpower. Life’s greatest challenge then lies outside the church, in business and industry and the professions, which demand man’s highest concentration of energy and ability.

INSTITUTIONALIZING THE CHURCH

Paralleling the misconception of the “work of the church” is a corresponding notion that the real influence of the church in the world is institutional. To exert an influence commensurate with her claims, the church must therefore strengthen herself. The effort to increase her influence then involves preoccupation with herself—with her own strength and size and efficiency. The church becomes an agency to be served instead of the servant her Lord intended. And she is a stranger to the priceless lesson on grace learned by the Apostle Paul: “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

The real impact of the Church on the world is not institutional! The real impact of the Church is not that of world councils or national councils or denominational councils, necessary though they be. The real impact of the Church on the world is not the influence of a gigantic, monolithic organization overwhelming the opposition like a juggernaut by the sheer might of her size and power. Neither the influence of council or clergy, nor the influence of church boards or administrators, is her power index.

The authentic impact of the Church of Jesus Christ in the world is the collective influence of individual Christians right where they are, day in, day out. Doctors, lawyers, merchants, farmers, teachers, accountants, laborers, students, politicians, athletes, clerks, executives—by the tens of thousands, by the millions—quietly, steadily, continually, consistently infecting the world where they live with a cantagious witness of the contemporary Christ and his relevance to life.

God’s method is men, not machinery. God has his men everywhere! They are there everyday, quietly invading their worlds for Christ—beachheads of the Kingdom in business, education, government, labor, and the professions established by regenerate men doing their job daily to the glory of God as servants of Jesus Christ. This is the work of the Church!

It is not what goes on when the Christian occupies the pew that counts, but what he does when he leaves the pew; not what happens in the sanctuary, but when the sanctuary is deserted. The measure of the effectiveness of the sanctuary on Sunday is its carry-over downtown Monday through Saturday. Indeed, the measure of the pastor’s effectiveness in the pulpit is the measure of what happens when he has stopped preaching. Everything done inside the church and for the church is in order that the real work of the Church might be done in the world. The work of the official boards, teachers and officers, choirs and ushers is the means to the end of the church’s work.

The work of the Church means a perpetual witness next door and around the world, the daily, consistent Christlike influence of every Christian in his home, on his job, in his social circle, around the clock, seven days a week, to the glory of God. This is the work of the Church and it requires every member! Evangelism is everybody’s business in the Church, the task of every Christian without a single exception. The relatively few who are employed in “official business” are there to equip the whole membership to do the work of the Church everywhere.

Unemployment in the Church will be eliminated as the Church abandons secular ambitions of bigness and institutional influence, as she “apprehends that for which Christ has apprehended her,” and then dedicates and equips herself to do the thing her Lord commissioned her to do in the beginning. “Ye shall be witnesses unto me.…”

“When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. His gifts unto men were varied. Some he made special messengers, some prophets, some preachers of the Gospel; to some he gave the power to guide and teach his people. His gifts were made that Christians might be properly equipped for their service, that the whole Body might be built up until the time comes when, in the unity of common faith and common knowledge of the Son of God, we arrive at real maturity …” (Eph. 4:8, 11–13, Phillips).

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

At a joint meeting of scientists and theologians, devoted to better understanding of one another’s work and to clarifying tensions between the scientific and theological disciplines, one scientist insistently repeated the question: “How can I, as a Christian, conduct my research to the glory of God? What must I do different than non-Christian scientists?” Because the main discussion was pointed another way, and perhaps because others were taken somewhat by surprise, the question remained largely unanswered—despite its repetition by the inquirer, once with the implication that perhaps one had better desert scientific endeavor if no clear answer could be given.

The question could probably have been differently phrased, but it needed answering. In a sense, the devout scientist has no greater problem than other Christians in any lawful occupation. Thinking Christians will always be concerned with the problem of relating their faith to daily life, of finding the best ways and means by which the Gospel may be reflected in their daily tasks. It is the old problem of letting the light so shine that the Father may be glorified. But strong feelings have developed over the years in some tension areas, and scientists who are Christians are sensitive to the problems which their discipline has created for theology. The more active and sincere their Christian faith, the greater is the urgency in their thinking on this requirement of their vocation.

NON-CHRISTIAN APPROACH

For the non-Christian, science is an empirical activity whereby one tries to enhance his approximation of what he thinks is a reasonable explanation of the world about him. The activity includes careful observation, creative imagination, hunches, trial and error, instrumentation, controlled experimentation, mathematical analysis, and logical deduction. For the most part, the endeavor is intellectually honest and is pursued by individuals for a variety of reasons—for example, to enjoy it, to effect some psychological compensation, to satisfy curiosity and reduce ignorance, or for prestige or remuneration. There are many reasons why most of us keep at the particular job or profession we prefer. But the non-Christian, since he is unregenerate, tries to suppress any thoughts within him that there is a Supreme Being, a Creator who transcends the material world, and who may not be truly known through avenues of knowledge which lead to empirical understanding of our world.

THE BELIEVER’S APPROACH

For the man who knows God and believes in his redemptive power, science is all of the things previously mentioned, plus something more. It is an activity whereby he increases his knowledge of God’s creation. He knows that this is a fallen creation, but he avoids the danger of considering it so corrupt that he cannot get a glimpse of the truth through open inquiry. Thus in his research he tries to increase, albeit indirectly, his knowledge and understanding of God.

For the Christian, such an outlook or starting point makes a great deal of difference. He realizes that his efforts in a particular science will be limited, that his methods are fallible, and that even the most rigorous experimental and statistical technique may be subject to valid criticism if appraised from some reference frame outside its own postulates. Furthermore, he knows that induction and deduction both have inherent limitations, and that models or theories developed from either mode of logic contain the cumulation of all original error plus errors within the theories themselves. Because no model or theory, therefore, ever fits all of the data perfectly, its service can be merely that of a map, a guide, or an approximation.

RELIABLE AUTHORITY

Realization of such limitations will cause the Christian scientists to follow one of the operational concepts of science, namely, that of reserved judgment and tentative conclusions. He will never knowlingly venture conclusions and generalizations that go beyond what the data permit. But he will follow the operational concept for an altogether different reason than does the non-Christian. The skepticism and caution of the latter are based on an inherent scorn for all authority. The former realizes that there is only one reliable authority, namely, divine authority. He will therefore tend in his theoretical projections to be guided by other criteria than the popular one which states that an hypothesis is good if it works. His hypothesis will be tempered by ultimate implications, if these are foreseeable. In so thinking, he is not only being a good Christian but realistic, for many are the hypotheses that have been workable but completely unconformable with the facts later discovered. In many cases such facts have been useful scientifically because they have stimulated further research. But the fine line between workability and representation of reality is often overlooked, and right here great harm has been done to the cause of truth and spiritual values, which are quite obviously the deep concern of the believing scientist.

Thus, scientific methodology and philosophy cannot always be neatly paralleled by the believing scientist. He considers his work justified by the biblical precept that whatsoever he does, he does to the glory of God; and he firmly believes that his vocation is honorable and pleasing to God because it flows from a regenerate heart committed to the service of God and man. His science will therefore be moral, not amoral, the latter being an avowed operating conception of non-Christian science. Yet, because his pursuit is moral does not mean he needs to moralize over every minor observation he records nor every conclusion he reaches. Such a procedure would stand in the way of effective work. Although science has more than once been accused of assuming some of the characteristics of a religious cult, its whole atmosphere discourages moralizing. Real scientific generalizations have a way of sifting themselves out and becoming established on their own merits. But the Christian scientist will seek to find the moral implications of his work and those of other scientists, and the norm which he applies in making such evaluations will be the principles of revealed truth.

In short, what the Christian scientist does is outwardly no different from what any scientist does. Both receive the same training, read the same instruments, apply and examine the same laws, and experiment with the same matter. If the methods of science are at all valid in their own realm, both will arrive at the same generalizations and laws. But there is an essential difference between the two because each will be working for a different reason and with a different purpose. The believing scientist is actually the better equipped because the Christian virtues of integrity and personal humility are his by deep conviction rather than adopted because scientific circles advise them.

A careful and considered answer to the question of the Christian scientist in his vocation is much needed in our day. Even agnostic scientists in the midst of modern research are asking for consideration of the moral implications before certain areas are fully explored. They have seen enough to have become cautious and even apprehensive. The beacon of scientific illumination followed by responsible moral behavior no longer shines as clearly as was once hoped. In the years to come, humanly speaking, the welfare of many will depend upon scientists who are more than scientists because they are conducting their research for a good reason and with an eternal purpose. Such scientists need an answer to the question, “How can I, as a Christian, conduct my research to the glory of God?” The answer can come only from Him whose handiwork they probe, and from his will reflected in the attitudes and research of those who serve him.

We Quote:

THE POWER TO TRANSFORM—“By no stretch of the imagination can I see Christ or the apostles placing the emphasis of the Gospel on social and political agitation. It is but a step from social and political agitation to legal action, and legal action must be backed by force and police action to be legal. Here is the trouble with present ‘integration agitation’—it looks to agitation rather than a change of heart. Are we seeking to run the business of the Church without the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit? The central truth of the Gospel is its power to transform human hearts by what Jesus did through His Cross, Resurrection, and outpouring of His Spirit at Pentecost.

“The greatness of St. Paul’s theology is that his heart always stayed close to the Cross and therefore his mind stayed on the track of God’s Truth. There is no guarantee that any theologian’s mind will stay on the track of Truth if his heart is not ruled by the Holy Spirit.

“Communism is essentially ‘man’s mind in control’—and relying on force because it has not the secret of changing human nature. Social and political agitation tend to veer in this same direction because it no longer trusts in God’s power to change the heart—and so it plays into the hands of Communism.

“If we really believe the Gospel’s power to radically change the human heart and behavior—because it has done just that for us personally—we will not readily rush off on social and political agitation tangents. And I believe the battle must be fought here: not so much by argument, as by determined passion to raise up and demonstrate a force of Christian people who are committed to changing the world by changing human nature.

“The Gospel is God’s property. We tamper with it at our peril. He will take in hand and correct or discredit those who try to change the Gospel that Jesus Christ bought for us at such great cost.”—The Rev. C. LEWIS IRWIN, formerly missionary to China and now pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, in a letter to U. S. News & World Report, May 9, 1960, p. 123.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

In some quarters we hear the cry for more worship in our churches, and less preaching. Many church members are asking pertinent questions in this respect. Why is so much modern preaching (even within conservative circles) apparently ineffective? Why do so many preachers lack verve and conviction, or, if they have these, why do so many ramble aimlessly in a discussion of social trends or content themselves with a neat moral essay?

The writer searched a number of dictionaries and found discussions of the form of worship and its history, but seldom was its meaning considered. The cry for more worship is revealing.

PURPOSE OF WORSHIP

What is worship? An exhaustive definition is probably impossible, but some vital elements should be noted. The word means to honor and recognize the ‘worth-ship’ of another. In Old English it was used in regard to the honor given to our fellowmen as well as to God. Worshiping God involves approaching him with the honor due to him as our Creator and Redeemer; and if it is to be acceptable, it must be performed in the way which accords with the revealed will of God. Inwardly, the worshiper experiences feelings of love, confidence, and submission; outwardly, he takes part in prayer, praise, and offerings.

When, through Jesus Christ, we worship our heavenly Father, we experience fellowship and communion with him. We are drawn closer to him to the end that his will becomes ours; we are transformed. In other words, in worship God speaks to man and man to God. That is why the Reformers laid such emphasis on the reading and exposition of Scripture and the singing of Psalms, through which the people heard the voice of God. Worship is essentially reciprocal, and only when this is realized does the house of God become a Bethel in actual fact. We may sum up the situation in two words—adoration and encounter. As we draw near to God in the way which he has appointed, he speaks to our hearts and lives; that is worship in the deepest and most practical sense. Dr. William Temple was certainly right when he said, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.” Over a century ago, Alexander Smith Paterson in his excellent analysis and explanation of “The Shorter Catechism” gave his famous definition of worship: “To worship God, is to make Him the supreme object of our esteem and delight, both in public, private, and secret.” Worship therefore is both relevant and dynamic.

CENTRALITY OF THE WORD

Dr. J. J. Van Oosterzee remarked that “Christianity is par excellence the religion of the Word.” As we ponder upon the elements of worship, it is natural to ask how they are produced and if man can worship independently of the Word. In view of the modern clamor—a clamor reflected in much modern church architecture with its pulpit to one side—we must ask and answer the vital question—just how important is preaching?

Scripture presents the exposition of the Word as an integral part of worship. The only preaching we find in the Bible is expository. And this is tremendously important in that it emphasizes the Godward side of worship—where God speaks and draws near to us in his grace. The New Testament shows and the experience of the Church confirms that wherever the Word is faithfully expounded, Christ the living Word draws near, so that the most important question that a person can ask himself after a service is, “Did I meet Christ today?” The sermon may have been orthodox, the service harmonious and sincere, but if the answer to that question be in the negative, then for that person at least the main thing was missed.

The all too current view of a service consisting of prayers, praise, readings (“preliminaries”—that dreadful word!) with preaching as a sort of intrusion or intellectual interlude is deadly. And the view that draws a sharp line of distinction between “the worship part of the service” and “the sermon” is not much better. We would repeat, therefore, and insist with our whole being that preaching is an integral part of worship. And the Word we preach is absolutely essential to all worship whether it be prayer or praise. The Scriptures provide the atmosphere, the framework, the foundation, the purpose, and vade mecum of all worship. They give the preacher authority. Recent writers have shown that there was a sense in which Calvin taught that the preached Word became God’s Word to the hearers. On John 10:4 Calvin says, “Though he speaks here of ministers, yet, instead of wishing that they should be heard He wishes that God should be heard speaking by them.” And on Heb. 2:11, “This ought to add no small reverence to the gospel, since we ought not so much to consider men as speaking to us, as Christ by His own mouth; for at the time when He promised to publish God’s name to men, He had ceased to be in the world; it was not however to no purpose that He claimed this office as His own; for He really performs it by His disciples” (compare Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, by Ronald S. Wallace, chap. 7, for a helpful discussion of this point). Dr. Van Oosterzee reminds us that the pastor is “impelled and called to lead his flock, so far as possible as one whole, in the pasture of the Word.” He speaks the Word of God for the salvation of men. And he speaks with authority because he is proclaiming God’s Word and not his own. That is why only expository preaching is true preaching in the biblical sense. And such preaching is doctrinal, practical, devotional, and exhortative—it covers all the generally recognized types of preaching.

Basic to the uniqueness and authority of the Word in worship is its inspiration. What right has a man to speak so definitely about salvation and damnation? Why should I pay heed? The answer lies in the fact that all Scripture is “God-breathed” and therefore of supreme authority. It is precisely this point that sets Christians poles apart from pagan religions. Dr. William G. T. Shedd was right when he wrote, “Unless Christendom possesses a superior knowledge, it has no right to instruct heathendom; and unless the Christian clergy are endowed with the authority of a special revelation, and can bring credentials therefore, they have no right to speak to their fellow-men upon the subjects of human duty and destiny.” Shedd continued, “No sacred orator can be bold and commanding in his tone, if he believes or if he fears that there are fatal and irreconcilable inconsistencies in the written revelation.”

CLIMAX OF WORSHIP

Once we grant that the minister is conducting worship not only when praying and singing but also when preaching, we have answered the popular appeal for more worship. But we must do more. We must show that preaching is the climax of worship, for this is God speaking to his people. In the best sense this is the crisis of the service. It is his Word demanding a verdict in my life; this is the vision which calls for obedience. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” To meet with him and hear his voice is the climax of worship. Commenting on 2 Corinthians 3:6, “Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament,” Calvin declares, “Christ, through our instrumentality, illuminates the minds of men, renews their hearts, and, in short, regenerates them wholly. It is in consequence of there being such a connection and bond of union between Christ’s grace and man’s effort, that in many cases that is ascribed to the minister which belongs exclusively to the Lord. For in that case it is not the mere individual that is looked to, but the entire dispensation of the Gospel, which consists, on the one hand, in the secret influence of Christ, and, on the other, in man’s outward efforts.”

How unspeakably solemn then is the preacher’s position! What a privilege is his, and what a tremendous responsibility! No wonder Richard Baxter wrote: “It is no small matter to stand up in the face of a congregation, and deliver a message of salvation or damnation as from the living God, in the name of our Redeemer.” “How few ministers do preach with all their might; or speak about everlasting joy or torment in such a manner as may make men believe that they are in good sadness!

Preaching which wearies the hearers is more than a fault, it is a sin and defeats the whole purpose of worship. Instead of climax there is anticlimax, and the hearers go away unedified and potential nonchurchgoers. What would Baxter say about the “sermon” of so many modern pulpits, where so often there is not even a text! Or what would he say of the orthodox ministers who depart from exposition to indulge in sensational subjects, such as substituting for the Word a lecture on Romanism, “Christian Science,” or “Apartheid”?

When the Word is given its rightful place in worship and is faithfully preached, it will prove doctrinally satisfying and socially relevant. As the ageless Word, it will never be out of date. True preaching, like the Word proclaimed, is Christocentric and issues in that crucial encounter between Christ and the soul. Such is the climax, the crisis for which we must ever pray and strive, and which can never be experienced apart from the activity of the Holy Spirit breathing the Word into the hearts of preacher and hearers alike.

Let us by all means have more worship, and let us recognize preaching for what it is and give it its proper place.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.