Part of the renaissance of the city of Pittsburgh has been the renaissance of the University of Pittsburgh under the dynamic and imaginative direction of Chancellor Litchfield. One of the nicest things at Pitt has been the creation of the “Book Center”—“it’s a rouser for a browser”—and one of the nicest things at the “Book Center” is the series of book reviews being presented every two weeks, reviews usually by members of the faculty conversant with the themes of the books, or, best of all, the occasions when the authors themselves appear to review their own books and lay themselves open to question and discussion. As visiting chaplain at Pitt this year I get invitations to the reviews and always resent anything in my schedule which makes it impossible to attend.

Just about a month ago we had a review by Robert Musser Brown of his new and first novel, Brother, Which Drummer. You would have to be a Thoreau enthusiast to catch the allusion in the title: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” Brown is an executive, a vice-president in Pittsburgh’s largest advertising agency. He understands the pressure and the pace of modern business, indeed, through his agency experiences he must understand many businesses. The problem of his novel is related to the pressures brought upon a man who is trying to live his moral life in immoral society, but beyond this moral problem he works on a distinctively Christian problem, namely, whether a man paced to his own drum beat, can, through the exercise of affirming and forgiving love, bring another man to listen with him and perhaps change his pace. It is a book about sin and redemption with the fundamental problem of whether a Christian way of doing things can be redemptive even in the moral ambiguities to which a man is exposed in modern business competition. I have no notion of reviewing this book, even though I heartily recommend it; for my purpose I shall call attention to several things which I think arc significant: I. In a modern novel (ultra-modern you may think at some points) the teaching of Jesus is given serious consideration in direct conversation covering about two pages; 2. The theme of the book is a Christian theme and thus requires, as many modern novels deny, some stance with regard to what is right and what is wrong and what the redemptive struggle requires; 3. The battle between good and evil is carried out in the arena where man is living, and where so many men are living today in the era of big business; 4. At least in this novel, and Brown will write some others, there is no effort to solve a man’s moral dilemmas by changing the economic system, as if the change in scenery would change the basic issues—Adam fell in paradise! 5. As a religious novel the book is not a namby-pamby saccharine effort in which unreal characters have unreal temptations and gain unimportant victories; the forces of evil are constant, universal, attractive, and always subtle, and the results of brutal choices are not always pretty and clean-cut; 6. The author is a very attractive man. Besides being a top-flight businessman he is, as the jacket blurb tells us, “an accomplished musician …” and among “his other interests, in addition to writing, he lists tennis, tropical fish, church work, and hiking.” Now what do you think of a vice-president and the author of a modern novel who lists “church work” as one of his interests!

My intention had been to treat Brown briefly in order to get at some wider generalities, but he sort of took me over in the above paragraphs the way he charmed me the day he reviewed his book. I am enchanted by what I think, or maybe wish, is happening to the novel, and maybe to the stage. It will have to happen, because there is no story to tell, really, unless the moral struggle is clearly drawn and squarely faced. This fact was made plain to me first in a book by Randall Stewart, American Literature and Christian Doctrine. Stewart is a free-lance writer for the Saturday Review, and was visiting professor at Vanderbilt University when his book came out in 1957. His thesis is that there is no great literature in the American tradition without great doctrine—God, Man, Sin, Redemption. He illustrates in his own way from such great novels as Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter. Another man who has written along the same line is Edmund Fuller of Kent School. His book is Man in Modern Fiction. Again the approach is Christian; there is no doctrine of man without a doctrine of God, and a story has no real plot without real straggle, and you can’t have a real strangle without a moral issue.

Our seminary librarian of former days, an amazingly widely-read woman, heard some of my effusions about Stewart and Fuller and guided me to Arnold Stein. The first book I read by Stein was his Heroic Knowledge, a profound and beautifully written study of Milton’s Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. That book led me to his former work, Answerable Style, a series of studies on Milton’s Paradise Lost in which the author, primarily from the standpoint of literary criticism, but inescapably aware of the moral issues, is showing how the style of Milton is answerable to the magnitude of his subject matter, but nevertheless possible only because of the religious magnitude of Milton himself. Arnold Stein is professor of English at the University of Washington. Read I lopper’s Spiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature, especially his essay by Denis de Rougemont in which, somewhat after the clue of Dorothy Sayers, he sees an understanding of the creative artist in our acceptance of the reality of the Trinity. You should get a whole hat-full of ideas from that one essay. And, of course, our friend C. S. Lewis has been at this a long time—not in his specific books on “religion”—in his literary criticism, The Allegory of Love, and Preface to Paradise Lost, to name two. Something good is happening.

Fuzzy Focus On Billy Graham

Billy Graham: Revivalist in a Secular Age, by William G. McLoughlin, Jr. (Ronald Press, 1960, 269 pp., $4.50), reviewed by Sherwood E. Wirt.

When the fashionable poet Southey projected his biography of John Wesley, he sought out an elderly minister who had known the great man. “Sir,” commented the old minister, “thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.”

Author McLoughlin has staked his reputation on this book, the third in a series of studies of American evangelists. It extends the contemporary effort to reduce Christianity to a naturalistic expression of man’s efforts to adjust to his environment. A veiled contempt showed through both previous works, Modern Revivalism (a study of evangelists from Finney to Graham) and Billy Sunday Was His Real Name, which makes over Sunday as a kind of Elmer Gantry.

In the present work McLoughlin removes the veil, and the historian turns sociologist-hatchet man. Prominent persons must expect to be appraised critically, and Billy Graham has his measure of fallibilities and limitations. However, when a work that contains errors on nearly every page is sprinkled in addition with biased implications and faulty conjectures, and then put forth as a work of scholarship, something must be said. Science is the impartial quest for truth, not the indexing of prejudices.

There was good reason for McLoughlin not interviewing Billy Sunday before attempting to destroy him (he concluded that Sunday was a complete failure) since the evangelist died in 1935. But Graham is very much alive; yet he was not interviewed except once “briefly.” The first law of research is to go to the original sources; this McLoughlin ignored. Research was confined to attendance at a few Crusade metings at Harringay and Madison Square Garden; a visit to the Minneapolis headquarters of the Graham organization; talks with a few team members (not including Grady Wilson, Beavan, Barrows or Shea); and a vast amount of digging in newspaper files of cities where Graham preached years ago. Everything reported in newspapers and magazines was published as good scholarship, providing (it seems) it was derogatory to Graham.

There are misspellings, errors of description, incorrect dates and places. Yet McLoughlin does not merely claim to be an accurate reporter, he essays also to be a scholar; and in this realm he stands or falls. What are we to say of a statement such as: Graham “angered all Africans” when he refused to comment on the French A-bomb test? Is this objective research? What about the claim that crowds in America use Graham’s meetings as “self-flagellation” because of their opulence? Does this also apply in non-opulent India?

The author accepts Max Weber’s thesis equating the “Protestant ethic” with the “spirit of capitalism,” but apparently never heard of Robertson’s corrective which makes an equal case for the Roman Catholic ethic—to say nothing of Tawney’s Anglican ethic. He discusses theology as a lay historian without an experiential grasp of the terminology. By a facile rearrangement of history he lumps Whitefield, Frelinghuysen, Tennent, and Edwards as “quite different in theory and practice” from Wesley, Dwight, Taylor, Lyman Beecher, Finney, and Graham. Why? Because one group held that “there is little or nothing one could do to effect his own salvation,” while the other believed that “if he (the sinner) really wants to save himself (!) he can do it quickly and easily.”

On page 15 we are told Graham is an Arminian; on page 211 he is labeled a Calvinist. Again, the author assails evangelistic work in India as “a form of Christion imperialism” (p. 217), and yet we are told, “the Christian churches can never forsake their evangelistic function.”

Apart from such “double-think,” the author paints Graham as a narrow, rural, dyed-in-the-wool reactionary fundamentalist (he uses the latter word as a whip throughout), and also an intolerant fanatic (p. 215), a McCarthyite and an opponent of social reform. He is off course on every count. Furthermore, quotations illustrating the evangelist’s social and political views were taken almost entirely from broadcasts made during or before 1952, before the significant London Crusade, before Graham’s meetings with world leaders. Any allowance for growth is given grudgingly.

We are speciously advised as to what Graham “probably” thinks about men (e.g., Rauschenbusch) and issues (e.g., morals in non-Christian cultures). The author even speculates about the youthful Graham’s baseball batting habits. All good fun, but it is not scholarship. One complimentary reference to Graham in the book is unhedged: he is “honest!”

Who is McLoughlin and what is his mission? In another field, under better discipline, he might do effective work, for he shows some historical ability and insight. On the subject of revival he is over his depth and miserable, for he is forced to bandy words he cannot fathom. The well is deep.

What we really have here is not a book about Graham at all; we have the existential controversy of a man with his Creator. In his own way, McLoughlin tries to come to terms with God by drawing a psychograph of him. He aims to prove that Christian faith, even if true, is a mistake; salvation is a false option; and those who preach the Gospel are engaged in a vast deception. But God’s love is even vaster, and our hearts go out to Brother McLoughlin. We hope he will keep on going to Graham meetings. Who knows?

SHERWOOD E. WIRT

Science And Religion

The Natural Sciences and the Christian Message, by Aldert Van Der Zeil (T. S. Denison and Co., 1960, 259 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Edward John Carnell, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, Fuller Theological Seminary.

This is a Lutheran sponsored book, though it defends nothing distinctively Lutheran. The author is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His competence as a scientist is beyond dispute. He gently leads into his subject by a general definition of science (“a systematic investigation, interrelation and exposition of a certain field of human experience”). But before he is through, he escorts the reader into a dense jungle of technical symbols, a jungle that only an expert in science could hope to penetrate. His central argument is Barthian in substance: science and theology have nothing to do with each other, so why worry? “The Christian message and its systematic presentation, theology, are independent of science and thus cannot be supported by it or hampered by it.” If science should teach total evolution, a Christian should answer by witnessing to the faith-truth that God created the world.

While I envy this Barthian serenity, I suspect that sooner or later we must leave our castles of faith and engage scientists on the field of mutually accessible evidence. For example, when Freudians reconstruct the psyche on the analogy of natural determinism, I think a Christian must do a lot more than “witness to his faith.” Unless belief terminates in objective evidence, the witness of a Christian has no more claim on reality, and thus no more apologetical force, than the witness of a Hindu or a Moslem.

EDWARD JOHN CARNELL

Archaeological Survey

Prophets, Idols and Diggers, by John Elder (Bobbs-Merrill, 1960, 240 pp., $5), is reviewed by G. Douglas Young, Trinity Theological Seminary.

Here is a well-illustrated survey of archaeological data that bears on the time between Genesis and Revelation. The author establishes well the manner in which the science of archaeology enables us to reconstruct the life and times of the Bible world as a backdrop against which we can see the biblical details in a life situation. There is an emphasis on the contribution of archaeological science to the evaluation of the Bible as an historical record. The whole is a constructive work by an author whose viewpoint is in sympathy with the biblical material he surveys. Some corrections must be noted. Among them are the following: It will not take 50 years to translate the Scroll finds (p. 145); and the Waters of Merom no longer exist (p. 165). It is very readable, up to date, and geared for the layman rather than the specialist by a missionary-author who has lived in Iran since 1923.

G. DOUGLAS YOUNG

Peter’S Significance

Sermons on Simon Peter, by Clovis G. Chappell (Abingdon, 1960, 128 pp., $2), is reviewed by John R. Richardson, Minister, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Ga.

Peter played a leading role in the circle of the Twelve. Dr. Chappell undertakes to explain the significance of this Apostle for Christians today. The twelve studies throw the spotlight on the leading episodes in his career from his conversion to his latter days. The author holds to the idea that if a popularity contest were conducted even now, Peter would surely be selected as the best loved among the Apostles. The reason he gives is that Peter is so genuinely human.

For the special benefit of preachers, Dr. Chappell reminds his readers that Peter’s effectiveness was largely due to the fact that he spoke with compelling urgency. Says Chappell, “Peter was deadly in earnest. He believed in the importance of what he was saying. People have a way of listening to a man who is really in earnest.”

Dr. Chappell writes simply. It is not difficult to understand what he has to say. Each message is characterized by great plainness of speech. For years the author has excelled in lucid character sketches, and this latest volume, depicting Peter as a great human being and a great Christian, maintains the same high standards found in his earlier works.

The most valuable aspect of the book is the emphasis upon the power of the full-orbed Gospel of Christ to produce a strong and vigorous character.

JOHN R. RICHARDSON

On Thessalonians

The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, by Leon Morris (Eerdmans, 1959, 274 pp., $4), is reviewed by Merrill C. Tenney, Dean of the Graduate School, Wheaton College.

Dr. Leon Morris is already well known to the Christian world through numerous magazine articles and through his Tyndale Commentary on Thessalonians. This volume, which is the eighth to be published in the series of the New International New Testament Commentaries, is an outgrowth of the smaller volume, and deals more fully with the problems of the underlying text.

The first impression that one receives upon perusing it is that it is both thorough and readable. Dr. Morris’ presentation of the results of his study deals minutely with the grammatical meaning of the Greek text without being obscure or pedantic. Technical details are made lucid by clear explanation, and discussion of disputed points is generally relegated to footnotes where scholars may find them when needed. The main exposition of the commentary is comprehensible by any intelligent Bible student, and provides ready reference for the casual reader.

The author carefully weighs textual problems with a statement of evidence for all alternate renderings and with a reasoned judgment for his choice of reading. On disputed eschatological points, he states fairly the possible alternatives of interpretation. While he does not make his commentary a vehicle for controversy, he does state his own position so that readers may know where he stands, and then succeeds in maintaining a firm but amiable objectivity.

There is no equivocation, however, on theological issues. In discussing the allusion to Christ’s death in 1 Thessalonians 5:10, he says: “It is impossible to argue that the failure to mention the cross more often means that as yet Paul had no theology of the atonement.… The references to the kerygma throughout the New Testament show that the cross was the central element in the proclamation of the gospel to those outside” (p. 161). Doctrinally this commentary is thoroughly evangelical and reliable.

The candid and reverent attitude of Dr. Morris appears at its best in his discussion of the difficult passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12. He reviews completely all of the possible interpretations of “that which restraineth,” and finally says: “The plain fact is that Paul and his readers knew what he was talking about, and we do not.… It is best that we frankly acknowledge our ignorance.” He does dismiss as improbable the current interpretations that the “restrainer” is the Holy Spirit. According to him, “it is impossible to envisage Him as being ‘taken out of the way’ “(p. 228). He could have explained more fully the reason for the impossibility of this inference. God withdrew his spirit from Saul; why should He not do the same from a world that has persistently rejected him?

His references to other literature are carefully documented and up to date. This work should be useful not only in expounding the Thessalonian epistles but also in meeting the problems raised by advocates of neo-orthodoxy and of realized eschatology. To the evangelical theologian it affords strong exegetical support, and to the average Bible student a sane and constructive aid for his thinking.

MERRILL C. TENNEY

Bible Ornithology

All the Birds of the Bible, by Alice Parmelee (Harper, 1959, 279 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by John Leedy, Professor of Botany, Wheaton College (Illinois).

Authoritative, fascinating, profusely-illustrated in one volume, Alice Parmelee’s All the Birds of the Bible becomes a biblical ornithological Who’s Who.

The many never-before-told bird stories, so accurately, beautifully, often dramatically compounded with the spiritual message of Scripture passages, reveal in a new dimension the sweep of the entire biblical narrative … even “the clouds fly forth like birds.… He scatters the snow like birds flying down” (p. 158). Full of expert but not tedious or showy scientific asides, the book begins with Noah’s opening of the window of the ark and the launching of the raven, “the black dweller of the mountain crags” into the wind above “the floating wreckage of the flooded world” (pp. 54–55). From this dark beginning the reader is carried on multihued pinions from book to book to end with the exaltations of Revelation 4 and 5. “In the end as in the beginning God reigns.” … “Then the heavenly winged lion and the ox and the man and the flying eagle cried: ‘Amen’ ” (p. 266).

JOHN LEEDY

Position Of The Vatican

Vatican Diplomacy, by Robert A. Graham, S.J. (Princeton University Press, 1959, 442 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by W. Stanford Reid, Professor of History, McGill University.

Because of the political position of the United States, both domestically and internationally, the problem of the Vatican’s diplomacy is becoming of ever-increasing importance to Americans. Father Graham’s study of Vatican international relations should be of no little present interest. He writes in clear, concise English with few if any literary frills, and sets forth what he believes to be the rationale of the papacy’s position in the world of international diplomacy; and, what is of greatest moment, he does so in a way that though one may disagree one can understand him without any difficulty. The book, therefore, should be a significant one for Protestants.

Father Graham presents as his basic thesis the view that the pope enjoys a unique position in the field of international diplomacy, a fact demonstrated by the number of ambassadors representing even Protestant powers accredited to the Vatican. Such a position, he maintains, is perfectly correct diplomatically since the papacy, as a truly “sovereign” power, meets the requirements of being a proper participant in international diplomacy.

He then proceeds to present proofs of the pope’s sovereignty. One cannot enter into a detailed exposition of his argument, but in broad lines it is somewhat as follows. During the Middle Ages the rulers of Europe recognized the pope as a sovereign, and since that time many national governments have accepted his right to establish official diplomatic relations with them. The fact, however, would not necessarily establish the papacy’s claim to diplomatic recognition. Rather, it is derived from the pope’s position as head of the Roman Catholic church. “Ultimately, his authority is merely a function of the Church’s own authority” (p. 215). He is the sovereign over all Roman Catholics wherever they may be, so that in each country there is a “concurrence of two jurisdictions.” “The state deals with a religious authority located outside its territory, concerning institutions and persons who, civilly are within its jurisdiction” (p. 248). Thus the pope is freely sovereign in the ecclesiastical sphere over all Roman Catholics whatever their political allegiance.

It should be perfectly clear what Father Graham is at pains to emphasize repeatedly: the pope claims recognition as a sovereign, not by virtue of his sovereignty over Vatican City, but by virtue of his sovereignty over the Roman Catholic church. Such a position would seem to destroy the arguments of some Protestants who favor diplomatic relations with the Vatican on the ground that the pope is a political ruler. He claims recognition as a sovereign because he is lord over the consciences of the faithful (p. 395). Father Graham holds that this is the same position held by all other religions vis a vis the state. The uniqueness of the papacy rests in the fact that the earthly source of authority is outside all national sovereignty.

The argument sounds logical and to a considerable extent reasonable. One difficulty about it is, however, that Father Graham does not liken the claims of the papacy to diplomatic recognition with its assertion of superiority over all other sovereignties. Only once does he refer to it and then when quoting a letter of Pope Pius XI who spoke of “the absolute superiority of the church” over the sovereignty of the state. This doctrine of papal universal lordship, which goes back deep into the Middle Ages, was stated most clearly and concretely by Boniface VIII in his bull Unam Sanctam (1302). Thus the pope, an earthly though “spiritual” sovereign, would seem to make first claims on the faithful’s allegiance. This very fundamental aspect of the pope’s international position Father Graham has largely ignored.

Another matter which he might have discussed in order to make the issue perfectly clear is the church of Rome’s claim to be the sole church of Christ to the exclusion of all other bodies. This is implied in the Roman church’s claim to be the one “perfect society” which deals with that other “perfect society” known as the state. By the assumption of this uniqueness of the position of the Roman church, one may easily see how the Vatican on its own terms not only may but must use its diplomatic position to forward Roman Catholic projects by political as well as ordinary ecclesiastical means, if possible, to the exclusion of all other religious groups. Thus Vatican diplomacy can be a means of posing a serious threat to religious freedom whether government regards the pope as a ruler of equal status or as the first object of its allegiance.

Two chapters of this work are devoted to Vatican relations with the United States and the Soviet Union. Little or nothing is said about the papacy’s dealings with Falangist Spain or Nazi Germany. One cannot but feel that a study of Vatican relations with these two countries might have shed even more light on the subject. But Father Graham has perhaps set forth Rome’s position with sufficient precision, if we link it with her doctrine of the church, to show rather clearly the implications, both for political states and the Protestant churches, of the diplomatic claims of the papacy,

W. STANFORD REID

Dynamics Of Communism

Christianity and Communism Today, by John C. Bennett (Association Press, 1960, 168 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Harold B. Kuhn, Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Asbury Theological Seminary.

The question, how the Christian ought to view communism, has for 40 years been a thorny one. One admires the courage of any writer who seeks to come to grips with the problem, since no writing on the subject can possibly please everyone. Dr. Bennett has this year offered a revision of his volume, Christianity and Communism, first published in 1948. The revision seeks to view the scene in the light of the events of the past decade, particularly in terms of the death of Stalin and the changes it may have made in the Soviet Russia, and in the light of the communizing of China.

The volume accepts as given the proposition that we will need to live for a long time in a world in which communism is a powerful factor in the lives of men. Dr. Bennett seeks to interpret for us the dynamics of the Communist movement and the inner workings of the minds of its leaders, particularly the fears which are such potent factors with them. In the light of this, our author seeks to outline what he considers to be a realistic national policy with reference to both Russia and China.

The question which perplexes all of us is whether the Western World may not need to reckon for a long time to come with a system whose seeming flexibilities and whose temporary smiles may not issue completely from tactical considerations—a system whose over-all strategy cannot change without destroying the system itself. Dr. Bennett is to be commended for his willingness to let optimism spring eternally in the breast. Certainly none of us would wish to become enmeshed in a total cynicism concerning a movement that embraces a third of the human race. At the same time, one cannot help wondering whether the major blunders which the West has made with respect to the Communist world have not been made upon the basis of a too-great trust that the Soviet masters, if treated as respectable human beings, would respond in decency and honor. The reply of the enslaved peoples of Eastern Europe might be instructive to us.

Dr. Bennett proposes that we attempt a new beginning with the Soviet masters: that we declare a “statute of limitations” with respect to their crimes against humanity. Certainly our Lord did prescribe a “seventy-times-seven” forgiveness toward enemies. But can such a crime as Hungary, and as China’s rape of Tibet be wiped from the slate with one stroke of forgetfulness? Is there hope for a new beginning with such unutterable boors as now make the public pronouncements for both Soviet Russia and China. So long as these lands maintain the stance of the total destruction of the non-Communist world, some means of self-defense may need to be taken against them, as against any predator.

The author has attempted to deal with a bafflingly complex question. He seeks to be fair in his attitude toward the Communist world. Some may feel that in so doing, he sells the free world a bit short and tends to confuse tactics with strategy at some points—a thing which is easy for any of us to do. He feels constrained to maintain the innocence of those who joined Communist “front” organizations in the “thirties,” and has a good deal of confidence in an inclusive United Nations. Whether he would alter some paragraphs in the light of Khrushchev’s brusque termination of the Summit Conference and his subsequent abuse of the free world, is a question. The book has merit as a stimulant to thought. It would be improved by an index.

HAROLD B. KUHN

Counselors’ Guide

The Psychology of Counseling, by Clyde M. Narramore (Zondervan, 1960, 303 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Theodore J. Jansma, Chaplain, Christian Sanatorium, Wyckoff, New Jersey.

This is primarily a “How to” book; a better title would be “The Technique of Counseling.” It was “written to meet the needs of ministers and other Christian counselors.” The book has three parts, the first constituting the main body of the book and dealing with “Basic Concepts and Techniques of Counseling.” Part two discusses special areas of counseling, namely, teen-agers, the emotionally ill, marriage, and sex. The third part is an appendix on the use of Scripture, a glossary, and a list of books and recordings.

The book’s chief virtue is its simplicity. It is written in nontechnical language, the chapters are short, and the main points are numbered and italicized. Like other “How to” books, this one is dogmatic rather than scholarly. It does not discuss problems in the field of Christianity and psychology or psychiatry, it makes practically no reference to other works either in the body or footnotes, it has no bibliography other than a suggested list in the appendix of which a third are the author’s own works, and it has no index. The author’s evangelical faith is evident throughout.

THEODORE J. JANSMA

Anabaptist Ethic

The Way of the Cross in Human Relations, by Guy Franklin Hershberger (Herald Press, 1958, 424 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Arthur H. De Kruyter, Pastor of the Western Springs Christian Reformed Church, Western Springs, Illinois.

The Anabaptist ethic has an able apologist in Dr. Guy Hershberger, professor of history and sociology at Goshen College. This book is the latest addition to an impressive list of titles which have come from his pen since 1940.

The first half of the book deals with the problem of war. After a chapter on “Foundations,” the author treats what he calls the dualistic ethic of the historic branches of the Christian church: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, and fundamentalism. In each case an attempt is made to show that resistance through war is a second wrong seeking to right the first sin of self-interest and greed. Each system of theology fails to answer with consistency the basic ethical need of the world community.

There is only one right answer and there has been only one consistent approach to the problem, and that is the “way of the cross” found in the Anabaptist Christian ethic. Whether the abuse comes from a child, a neighbor, or a nation, there is only one true answer for it. The section closes with a series of examples of the “cross” ethic in action.

The second half of the volume probes the problems of establishing a Christian economic system (the relation of piety to riches), and points to a better foundation for all social relations. The discussion on race relations was very general and safe and rather disappointing in view of the author’s previously definitive stand on the issues treated.

ARTHUR H. DE KRUYTER

Twenty Years After

A Survey of Religious Education, by Price, Chapman, Carpenter and Yarborough (Ronald Press, 1959, 466 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Charles G. Schauffele, Professor of Christian Education, Gordon College.

For a teacher in the north to review a Southern Baptist textbook is like asking a proper Bostonian what he thinks of grits and gravy. Like the Boston baked bean, there is plenty of substance to it. One encounters no naturalism here. “Public education is under the direction of the state and is therefore secular in nature, while religious education is under the control of the church … and is religious and moral” (p. 9). The revision did not have to go from liberalism of two decades ago to neo-orthodoxy in its pilgrimage of relativity, but remains constant in its devotion to evangelical convictions. From Price’s section on “Philosophy” to Chapman’s treatment of “Principles,” there is expressed the dynamism of epistemology which posits knowledge upon revelation rather than experience. Here are found those basics of Christian education which have made this denomination a leader in the field. If one is ever curious as to why there are more men directors of religious education in local Southern Baptist churches, this book will give the reason.

The local pastor interested in more than just his responsibilities in the pulpit will find the volume illustrating the best in Christian education. It stands beside another popular revision, Murch’s Christian Education in the Local Church. What the latter has been to schools and churches in the north, the present book has been in the south.

A Survey of Religious Education is a solid refresher course for the workers in any church, north or south!

CHARLES G. SCHAUFFELE

Sex In History

Sexual Relation in Christian Thought, by Derrick Sherwin Bailey (Harper, 1959, 312 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by F. F. Bruce, Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England.

Dr. Bailey, who is Study Secretary of the Moral Welfare Council of the Church of England, has devoted special attention to the theology of sex, love and marriage, and has written a number of highly appreciated works in this field. The present work (published in Great Britain under the title The Man-Woman Relation in Christian Thought) takes the form of a historical survey of the subject in Christian thought from the teaching of Jesus to our own day.

Few subjects, Dr. Bailey points out, have exercised a more potent influence on the pattern of Western culture than the traditional teaching of the Church about sex; yet he has failed to find a systematic and sufficiently detailed account of the development of this teaching. Accordingly, he has set himself to make good this deficiency; the resultant book is a first-rate piece of research, interestingly written, and worthy to be recommended with confidence to all students of the subject.

It is good at an early stage in the book to see the appreciative evaluation of Paul’s “profound and realistic treatment of coitus and its significance in the first epistle to the Corinthians,” which “displays a psychological insight into human sexuality which is altogether exceptional by first-century standards” (pp. 9 f.). The unfortunate trend so evident in most patristic literature is examined in some detail: “while there was no denial that procreation is good in itself, there was nevertheless a general disposition to deplore the means appointed by the Creator to that end” (p. 45). Dr. Bailey points out that the oriental-hellenistic dualism in which the age was steeped infected Christian thought in this particular regard even when its heretical influence in other directions was condemned by the Church; besides, it can hardly be denied that the attitude of a number of the Fathers towards sex was adversely affected by their preconversion experiences.

There follow chapters on the thought of the medieval Church in the West, on the Reformation and seventeenth-century Anglicanism, and on the state of the tradition today. Among the factors which have influenced contemporary Christian thinking about sexual relation a high place is given to Martin Buber’s I and Thou, “which has, among many other things, profoundly illuminated our understanding of the metaphysical aspects of sexual love and marriage” (p. 247). Dr. Bailey pays attention also to the implications of biblical criticism, especially with regard to the Genesis narratives of the origin of mankind and our Lord’s words on marriage and divorce; and considers the significance of the inclusion of the Song of Songs in the canon of Scripture. His final chapter, “Towards a Theology of Sex,” concludes with an affirmation of the abiding validity of the analogy between marital love and the union of Christ with the Church, even if the husband be no longer regarded as the “head” of the wife: “rejection of the wife’s subordination does not invalidate the analogy, but simply requires a revision of the terms in which its ethical and personal implications are expressed” (p. 303). From which it will be seen that this important work does not shrink from challenging controversy.

F. F. BRUCE

Basic Stewardship

Stewardship in Contemporary Theology, edited by T. K. Thompson (Association Press, 1960, 251 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Fred L. Fisher, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

Jacket blurbs on newly published books are usually misleading—they often promise more than the book delivers. Not so this one. It says: “from a study of Old and New Testaments, a survey of stewardship in the history of the church, and a fresh look at current practices and problems—new understanding for the Christian and his church.”

The book consists of essays on stewardship principles and practice growing out of a conference sponsored by the National Council of Churches.

Each essay is written by a specialist. The book contains three biblical studies, one theological discussion, one historical study, and four studies of current practice. Naturally, there are variations in the quality of the essays. The chapters on the history of stewardship and the one of Paul’s philosophy are especially rewarding.

This is a book which will stimulate your thinking on basic principles which underlie the practice of stewardship.

FRED L. FISHER

Ecumenical Trends

The Ecumenical Era in Church and Society, edited by Edward J. Jurji (Macmillan, 1959, 238 pp., $5), reviewed by C. Gregg Singer, Professor of History at Catawba College.

This symposium in honor of Dr. John A. Mackay seeks to present the role and challenge of the ecumenical church in an ecumenical society. In the opinion of the reviewer, Dr. Mackay may well regard its dedication to him as a somewhat dubious honor. While there are a few good chapters in Part II, notably those dealing with the challenge to Protestantism in Latin America by G. Baez-Camargo, and renascent religions and religion in India by Paul David Devanadan, the work as a whole reveals the theological bankruptcy and the declining zeal of the ecumenical movement. Its theological weaknesses are startlingly apparent at the outset in George Hendry’s chapter on the theological context of the church today, in which he would seem to conclude that the most important question in theology today is the theory concerning the nature of the church.

Emile Cailliet’s attempt to set forth the role of the church in contemporary culture is quite disappointing in that he presents no theological foundations by which she may fulfill her cultural mission. But the crucial weakness of the ecumenical movement becomes even more apparent in Eugene Carson Blake’s chapter on the American church and the ecumenical mission. He insists that Protestantism will not be able to meet the challenge of our time unless it develops a world base for its world-wide mission, and such a base is not to be found in the historic theology of the Reformers (p. 76). It is to be found in the World Council of Churches and a theology which includes little more than an affirmation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Although Dr. Blake acknowledges the danger of seeking co-operation between churches on the basis of the lowest common doctrinal denominator, he actually has little more to offer as an ecumenical theology.

The concluding section on the communication of the Christian message fails to resolve any of the dilemmas raised in the preceding discussions.

It is clear that the Church must proclaim her message, but nowhere is her content clearly suited. There is no emphasis on the biblical doctrine of sin and redemption, justification by faith, and salvation by faith alone. Underlying much of the thinking of the book is an enervating existentialist approach that talks of estrangement rather than sin, and encounter rather than regeneration.

An ecumenical movement that rests upon the theology of this symposium has not long to live and little to offer to men who are dying in their sins.

C. GREGG SINGER

Orienting Buber

Martin Buber, by Malcolm L. Diamond (Oxford, 1960, 240 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Paul K. Jewett, Professor of Systematic Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Every student of contemporary theological thought is bound to ask such questions as, How is it that Buber being a Jew has so many dealings with us who are Christians? What does he really think of Jesus and Paul, and what do his Jewish brethren think of him? Flow did he come to embrace the “philosophy of dialogue” so commandingly stated in his I and Thou? These and many more interesting questions about this remarkable Jewish thinker are ably discussed and answered by Professor Diamond. The book is valuable not only because it helps a student to orient Buber’s place in the debate between Judaism and Christianity, but also for the sympathetic, careful, and well-documented synthesis of Buber’s thought. Buber’s mind has many facets, and it is no mean task to reduce these insights to a unity of brief compass. For these reasons the book is rewarding.

As a committed Christian, the reviewer read the book with an increased sense of the tragedy of the man. Buber has refused Paul’s interpretation of Jesus and substituted that of Albert Schweitzer and thereby for all practical purposes sided with the Pharisees against our Lord. He can therefore never have a really significant word for the Church, and yet at the same time without Jesus he can make no final sense for Judaism either, as is evidenced by the fact that he has had less influence on the thinking of his own people than on that of Christian theologians. These and lesser matters are brought into clear focus by this work, which is recommended to all students interested in the existentialist contribution to Christian theology.

PAUL K. JEWETT

Distinctively Lutheran

Worship: A Study of Corporate Devotion, by Luther D. Reed (Muhlenburg Press, 1959, 437 pp., $6.75), is reviewed by James C. Eelman, Professor of Practical Theology, New Brunswick Theological Seminary.

Dr. Luther D. Reed is president emeritus of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has been seriously engaged in liturgical studies for the past 50 years. Worship may be considered as his greatest contribution to liturgical study in which he has been so vitally interested during his long ministry in the Lutheran Church.

This book is a study in the principles and forms of corporate worship but also contains numerous practical helps for the use of worship materials. It is, however, a distinctively Lutheran work which concerns itself primarily with the liturgy and hymnal of that ecclesiastical body.

The book is divided into four main sections: “The Spirit of Worship,” “The Form and Content of Worship,” “The Ministry of Music,” and “Leadership.” The first section is a short exposition on the nature of worship as “an experience and an institution.” The remainder of the book is mainly concerned to assist Lutherans in the use of their new Service Book and Hymnal in the worship of God. The section on the ministry of music is very helpful and shows that the author has a sensitive appreciation of the place which music has in the worship of God.

The fact that Dr. Reed has written primarily for the Lutherans does not rob the book of value for other Protestant communions. It is regrettable, however, that the book’s preoccupation with the Lutheran Church led the author to make some questionable statements about other communions of the Reformation.

For example, a careful comparative study of Luther and Calvin’s liturgical efforts seems to indicate that in spite of what the author says, Calvin preserved the ancient structure of liturgy better than Luther did. That a later “Calvinism” has at times shown nonliturgical tendencies is, of course, true of many other Protestant denominations.

JAMES C. EELMAN

Book Briefs

A Treasury of Books for Bible Study, by Wilbur M. Smith (W. A. Wilde, 1960, 289 pp., $3.95)—Hundreds of biblical libraries have been built around Dr. Smith’s biographical suggestions. In this mature work—confined to church history, theology and biblical interpretation—he directs the Bible student to the volumes essential for such a library. A work of great value.

Preaching, Confession, The Lord’s Supper, by Walter Luthi and Eduard Thumeysen (John Knox Press, 1960, 121 pp., $2.50)—A book by two Swiss theologians dealing with three areas in the life of the church. Gives insight into the strengths and weaknesses of European Protestantism.

Predestination and Other Papers, by Pierre Maury (John Knox Press, 1960, 109 pp., $2.50)—A French theologian’s bold interpretation of the central doctrine of Calvinism which will scarcely satisfy the orthodox, but will stimulate constructive thought.

The Concept of Newness in the New Testament, by Roy A. Harrisville (Augsburg, 1960, 126 pp., $1.95)—An interpretative study of New Testament ideas based on (1) the words and deeds of Christ in the synoptic gospels, (2) the kerygma of the New Testament and (3) Old Testament background.

Toward World Literacy, by Frank C. and Robert S. Laubach (Syracuse University Press, 1960, 335 pp., $4.75)—A sound and practical training volume which admirably implements the elder Laubach’s world-wide literacy program now so effective in 96 countries and 274 languages.

More than two dozen important U. S. denominational bodies held general conventions during the month of June. The following reports summarize key developments (see also CHRISTIANITY TODAY for July 4, 1960, and subsequent issues):

At Kansas City, Missouri—More than 16,000 rank-and-file ministers and lay members of the Church of the Nazarene joined 660 official delegates to the 15th quadrennial assembly at the Municipal Auditorium. Together they constituted the largest assembly of Nazarenes in the church’s 52-year history.

For several days prior to the June 19–24 assembly, there were conventions of Nazarene young people, Sunday Schools, and missionary organizations in the city where denominational headquarters are located.

Though most visiting Nazarenes came from the United States, 25 countries were represented.

General Secretary S. T. Ludwig reported that 1,200 new churches had been established during the last decade to bring the total number of local congregations to 4,696 and membership to 311,300. During the quadrennium 1956–60, 119,000 new enrollments were made in Sunday School, bringing the total to 700,500, according to Dr. A. F. Harper, secretary of the Sunday School Department. Treasurer John L. Stockton reported that per capita giving averaged $135 per annum and that total giving for the four year period amounted to $14,648,245. Dr. Remiss Rehfeldt, retiring secretary of the Foreign Missions Department, said there were 50,350 Nazarenes in 42 world areas outside the United States where 489 missionaries are at work. Nearly $2 million was spent for foreign missions in the year 1958–59. New areas entered during the past quadrennium included Formosa, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Brazil.

The Church of the Nazarene was founded at Pilot Point, Texas, on October 13, 1908, with the merger of several independent holiness groups. There were initially 228 churches with 10,414 members. Since then, ten smaller denominations have joined the Nazarenes and growth by individual accessions has been rapid.

The church is governed by general superintendents elected at each quadrennial gathering from among the 660 official delegates from the 76 church districts. The 15th assembly reelected Hugh Benner, Hardy C. Powers, D. I. Vanderpool, G. B. Williamson and Samuel Young, and recognized the growth of the church by electing a sixth, Dr. V. H. Lewis, who has been superintendent of the Department of Evangelism.

Speaking for the superintendents in their annual report, Young said: “We do not claim to be the Church of Christ in any exclusive sense, but we would identify ourselves as a vital part of His great church and face our responsibilities. We are never free to ignore the disciplines of holy living. There is no divine strength without obedience to the divine will.”

Young challenged the church to obtain 800 new local congregations, 70,000 new members, 100 new missionaries, 150,000 new Sunday School pupils and $18,000,000 for missions and general expenses in the next four years.

At Kansas City, Kansas—Some 1,400 delegates to the annual meeting of the American Baptist Association agreed to “use our influence in every way honorably posible” to prevent a Roman Catholic from becoming president.

A unanimously-adopted resolution described the Catholic church as “an international religious-political organization whose religious and political dogmas and concepts are in absolute conflict with our United States constitutional concepts of separation of Church and State and religious freedom.”

The ABA is made up of some 3,000 churches, mainly in the South and Southwest, with a combined membership of 600,000. It is not related to the much larger American Baptist Convention.

ABA President Hoyt Chastain told delegates that “no man can be loyal to the United States and the Vatican at the same time.”

“Baptists have never opposed a man for president because of his religion,” he said. “But Catholicism is more than a religion. The Vatican is a political state.”

At Winona Lake, Indiana—The centenary General Conference of the Free Methodist Church of North America voted to organize overseas counterparts and an international fellowship. Delegates to the 25th quadrennial conference also endorsed the action of the Free Methodist Board of Missions to sever relations with the National Council of Churches’ Division of Foreign Missions and approved the use of service agencies of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (a resolution supporting the board’s move cited theological differences and variant social, economic and political views expressed in pronouncements by the NCC and its units not in harmony with the denomination’s views).

In establishing the new international structure, delegates authorized general conferences for Egypt, where there are some 5,000 Free Methodists, and for Japan, where there are about 3,000. Others will be authorized as “maturity requirements” are met. All will be bound together under the newly-organized World Fellowship of Free Methodist Churches.

Some 6,000 delegates and guests witnessed the Winona Lake conference. One of the highlights was an address by Dr. Glenn L. Archer, executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United and a third-generation Free-Methodist. Another was the groundbreaking ceremony for a $150,000 office building for the Free Methodist publishing house.

By a narrow margin, delegates voted down a resolution that would have put the denomination on record as favoring the abolition of capital, punishment. They also defeated (1) a proposal providing that certain general officers be appointed instead of elected and (2) a plan for easing restrictions against divorced persons.

The Free Methodist Church of North America, with a current membership of about 55,000, was officially organized at Pekin, New York, in August, 1860. The founding was commemorated last month with the unveiling of an eight-foot stone shaft bearing a bronze memorial plate and located near the apple orchard where the initial organizational meeting was held.

At Boston—Conservative Baptists, meeting in historic Boston’s Statler-Hilton Hotel for their 17th annual fellowship, found the finest spirit of unanimity and harmony since the movement’s founding. Unity has always been found in the raison d’etre of the Conservative Baptist Association, viz. world missions. Interest in the structure of the fellowship has been minimal, while attention is focussed upon reaching the world with the Gospel, and upon the building of new churches.

In thankful restrospect, the Foreign Mission Society reported a total income of more than $2 million in the past fiscal year. It required just seven years to double receipts from the $ 1 million mark. On the field and under appointment are 395 missionaries, and a new station in Borneo is soon to be opened. The Home Mission Society celebrated its 10th anniversary with a pictorial report of its 18 fields on the North American continent and surrounding islands, staffed by 92 missionaries. The Home Mission budget for 1960 exceeds $550,000.

The Conservative Baptist Association of America accepted 81 churches applying for affiliation, including 52 newly-organized churches. In the past 10 years the CBA has seen 690 new churches organized. The total Conservative Baptist constituency now stands at 1,321 churches with 300,000 members, and with a Sunday School constituency exceeding 325,000.

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, public affairs secretary of the National Association of Evangelicals, keynoted the fellowship with a message on “Historic Evangelical Christianity Confronting Roman Catholicism.” Awareness of the contemporary issues prompted a resolution concerning the separation of Church and State. Cherishing their “inalienable right to a conscience absolutely uncoerced,” the Conservative Baptists affirmed their “unalterable devotion” to this principle. Noting that the separation of Church and State is “repudiated and rejected by the official doctrine and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church,” and that there could be “no assurance that a faithful Roman Catholic who became president of our nation could impartially defend these basic freedoms of the United States while remaining true to his religion,” the resolution urged the “American political parties not to nominate … any candidate for President or Vice-President of our country whose religious affiliation … conflicts with the separation of Church and State.” Copies of the resolution were sent to the national chairmen of both Democratic and Republican parties.

The increasing intensity of the subversive strategy of world communism was reflected in other resolutions adopted. Delegates unanimously resolved to “commend our Congressional committees, especially the House Committee on Un-American Activities, for their watchfulness over our national security and their dedication to a thankless but positively necessary task.” The conclave assured committee members of their prayers. It was further resolved to express “distress at the infiltration of communistic ideology in the National Council of Churches and in the World Council of Churches.”

Other social issues resulted in resolutions (1) encouraging the support of a bill (H.R. 11454) sponsored by Representative James Oliver to establish a Commission on Noxious Printed and Pictured Material and (2) declaring approval of Senator J. Strom Thurmond’s bill (S. 1432) to prohibit consumption of alcoholic beverages aboard commercial planes.

Dr. Vernon C. Grounds, president of the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, defended the fellowship against charges of “splinter movement.” Grounds emphasized the divisive character of Jesus. He indicated that it would be impossible never to be divisive, if one desired to remain wholeheartedly loyal to Christ. Later, he warned the Conservative Baptists against veering sharply to the right into an unbiblical exclusivism in areas of eschatology, evangelism, and other associations.

An eschatological debate, however, did wander through the woods of parliamentary briars and tangles. Inclusion of the word “pre-millennial” into the statements of faith of both foreign and home mission societies failed, inasmuch as a unanimous vote was necessary to alter the doctrinal statements. Many delegates felt that fellowship ought not to be denied to those outside the scope of pre-millennialism, although the present constituency is almost totally pre-millennial. Later, legal technicalities served to allow the word “pre-millennial” to be inserted into the statement of purpose of the foreign society, so that only pre-millennial missionaries may be appointed under that board.

At Chicago—Plans for a “Decade of Dedication” were endorsed by delegates to the 75th annual meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church of America. Part of the program calls for a unified budget to inspire “greater devotion to the cause of Christ through a stewardship of means, witnessing, and service.” Another phase includes a goal of $5,000,000 or more for an investment fund for new churches and other denominational construction projects.

The Covenant church owns and operates 10 homes for the aged, two hospitals, two children’s homes and two homes for sailors. North American membership now totals nearly 60,000 in 536 churches.

President Clarence A. Nelson was presented with Sweden’s Royal Order of the North Star, Knights Commander degree for “official services as well as scientific, literary, learned and useful work.” Representing King Gustaf VI Adolf was the Rev. Gösta Nicklasson, president of the Swedish Covenant Church.

The Evangelical Covenant Church of America perpetuates a free church movement within the Swedish state Lutheran church. In early years the group was known as the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant church and later as the Evangelical Mission Covenant Church of America.

At Grand Rapids, Michigan—Matters of world concern occupied the interest of delegates to the annual Synod of the Christian Reformed Church. The body addressed itself to questions of missions, racial tensions, world-wide disaster relief, and the church’s attitude toward war. For the rest, it was a quiet session compared to last year’s gathering, which was stirred by sharp differences on theological and doctrinal questions.

Sensitivity to South African apartheid reflected itself in a communication addressed to Reformed sister church bodies there. The message called to mind and reaffirmed decisions of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod of 1958, held in South Africa, which stressed the church’s duty to avoid attitudes leading to estrangement of races and asserted the essential unity of believers in Christ, as well as the need for public enlightenment through teaching and preaching, and a church alert to biblical evaluation of government policy. The action indicated that Christian Reformed mission efforts were being hampered by identification in the public mind with Reformed churches and the segregation policies in South Africa.

The synod moved to establish a world-wide service committee to administer relief funds in disaster and distress areas. Heretofore, relief funds for flood, earthquake and refugee situations have been collected and distributed by special deacons’ committees, but the synod felt that the time had come for an official committee to give world-wide witness to the church’s expression of Christian mercy.

A study committee to re-evaluate the church position on modern warfare will undertake to examine previous synodical statements on the Christian attitude toward war in the light of a set of resolutions adopted by the Reformed Ecumenical Synod of 1958. The church’s 1939 statement endorsed a “witness against pacifism”; the 1958 resolution, not endorsed, called for an “international judicial system.”

A denominational budget of $3,640,000 was approved, of which $1,798,000 was earmarked for foreign missions. Ten new home mission fields were approved. A Calvin Institute of Missions will expedite missionary training extension at Calvin College. A cultural anthropologist and a missionary linguist will be added to the college staff.

A plan for regional synods, under discussion for some years, was shelved again because of insufficient demonstration of necessity. The church now has 31 classes, or districts, scattered over the United States and Canada, embracing its half-million over-all membership.

Delegates witnessed the laying of the cornerstone for the new Calvin Seminary building, to be ready for the fall semester. The half-million-dollar structure is the first on the new Knollcrest campus of Calvin College and Seminary.

On the ecumenical front, the denominational committee is studying anew the church’s relationship to several interchurch bodies, including the National Association of Evangelicals. A committee was appointed to continue discussions with a faction of the Protestant Reformed Church looking toward reunification with the Christian Reformed denomination.

At Nashville, Tennessee—Commissioners (delegates) to the 130th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church asked Bethel College trustees to admit qualified Negro ministerial students “as soon as feasible.” The request contradicted a report from the Cumberland Presbyterian school in McKenzie, Tennessee, which recommended that no integration of the races be attempted until sometime in the future.

Cumberland Presbyterians, who now number some 88,000, are marking their 150th anniversary. Highlight of this year’s seven-day assembly was a mass pilgrimage to a state park near Dickson, Tennessee, where a pageant was staged in honor of the anniversary. The site marked the place where three clergymen—Samuel McAdow, Samuel King, and Finis Ewing—prominent in the historic revival of 1800 knelt for a night of prayer and subsequently organized the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. A chapel and a replica of McAdow’s log cabin were dedicated on the site.

At Green Lake, Wisconsin—Delegates to the 76th annual sessions of the Evangelical Free Church approved relocation of Trinity College from the northwest side of Chicago to a 79-acre site near Deerfield, Illinois. Also endorsed was the establishment of a “national church” in the Washington, D. C., area. Officials are advancing $44,000 toward its erection on a three-acre plot in suburban Annandale, Virginia. Spearheading the work is the Rev. Olai Urang, district superintendent who was honored at the conference as Trinity’s “Alumnus of the Year.” The Rev. Turner Tallekson has accepted an invitation to become the church’s first pastor.

‘The Story of Ruth’

Yet another in the burgeoning succession of Hollywood films treating biblical stories has appeared: ‘The Story of Ruth.” With a qualified sense of relief, one may report an upgrading in taste and restraint in handling of the biblical materials.

Indeed, by Hollywood standards the film is exceedingly chaste, so much so that some say it is dull. Missing are the usual sex orgies related to Eastern fertility cults.

And it was not as if opportunities for such were lacking. For Ruth is portrayed as a priestess of the Moabite god Chemosh, worshiped like Molech through sacrificing children by fire. Won romantically and religiously by Naomi’s son, Mahlon, Ruth marries him as he is dying, then faithfully cleaves to Naomi as they make their way to Judea, a journey which becomes a military pursuit of Ruth for disloyalty to king and Chemosh.

It becomes evident that what is not recounted in the biblical narrative—such as Ruth’s background—is about as valuable for the moviemakers as what is. For the silences leave so much room for improvisation that relatively little contradiction of Scripture is required by the plot. While filial devotion is not wholly lacking in the twentieth century—“Dear Abby” revelations notwithstanding—it can hardly be expected to shoulder two hours of Cinema Scope-DeLux color. And the prefatory note emphasizes that many legends have grown up about Ruth. As if in quasi vindication, however, they are all said to have originated in Judea.

So the result is considerably beyond the findings of even the imaginative sort of pulpiteer. Boaz turns out to be a rather impulsive young hothead harboring a fair share of national prejudice before Ruth comes into his life. This contributes to a rather stormy romance, updated to meet twentieth century specifications and replete with a triangle involving the “nearer kinsman.” But after a sleepness night over the prospect of a loveless marriage, Ruth is snatched from the altar by Boaz, whom she marries immediately, a frugal move which takes advantage of the other kinsman’s wedding preparations.

Ruth is played by Elana Eden (an Israeli), Naomi by Peggy Wood, and Boaz by Stuart Whitman.

Care is taken not to offend Jewish sensitivities. Example: a prophecy concerning Ruth’s lineage refers to Christ not as Messiah but as a great king “whom many will worship as the Messiah.”

Much of the beauty of the book of Ruth is in its simplicity and natural grace. The widescreen treatment had to be incongruous.

F.F.

‘Africa on the Bridge’

The production of quality Christian films passes another milestone with the release of “Africa on the Bridge,” 80-minute color documentary of the 1960 Billy Graham Africa crusade. Dick Ross and his cameramen have caught Africa in transition, with its television towers and its primitivism, its gleaming apartment houses and its famed wild beasts.

Speaking through two interpreters in many cases, Graham found Africans to be profoundly moved by the Gospel message, and their response is a thrilling thing to watch. The facial studies of men, women and children from Liberia to Egypt are outstanding, and Victoria Falls lives up to its name.

S.E.W.

Crusade Totals

Evangelist Billy Graham’s Washington crusade drew a total attendance of 139,000 for eight services. Inquirers numbered 4,971 (a youth night service drew the largest response, 1,051, most of them teen-agers).

Orthodox Cooperation

Orthodox churches in the United States hope to achieve closer fellowship and better cooperation through a newly-created episcopal conference.

Formation of the conference was unanimously approved at a meeting last month in New York attended by representatives from 11 Orthodox groups.

The conference will normally meet twice a year. The office of presiding hierarch will be rotated annually among ruling bishops of the canonical jurisdictions. Archbishop Iakovos presided over the formative meeting.

Correction

In the June 20, 1960 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Richard Cardinal Cushing is quoted as having said that Knights of Columbus advertisements attracted 3,660,182 inquiries during the first third of 1960.

The statement was incorrect. The figure actually represented the total number of inquiries received since the advertising program was begun in 1948.

The Knights of Columbus reports that inquiries between January 1 and June 17, 1960, totaled 284,387.

People Words And Events

Deaths: Retired Free Methodist Bishop Mark D. Ormston; at Spring Arbor, Michigan … Dr. Dumont Clarke, 75, founder of the Lord’s Acre method of tithing; at Manchester, Vermont … Dean Denier, 32, Navigators evangelist; in Hong Kong.

Elections: As bishops of The Methodist Church (South Central Jurisdiction), Dr. Aubrey G. Walton, pastor of the First Methodist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas; Dr. Paul V. Galloway, pastor of the Boston Avenue church in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Dr. Kenneth W. Copeland, pastor of Travis Park church in San Antonio, Texas; Dr. William Kenneth Pope, pastor of the First church in Houston, Texas; and Dr. Oliver Eugene Slater, pastor of the Polk Street church in Amarillo, Texas … as moderator of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod of Ireland, the Rev. R. J. Mcllmoyle (he had been elected to the same post 50 years ago) … as president of the Conservative Baptist Association of America, the Rev. James Stuart; as president of the Foreign Missions Society, Dr. Lester Thompson; as president of the Home Mission Society, Dr. Charles W. Anderson … as president of the Association of Council Secretaries, Dr. G. Merril Lenox … as president of the National Conference of the Methodist Student movement, Kaneaster Hodges.

Appointments: As dean of Alderson-Broaddus College, Dr. Wilfred T. Packer … as publicity director of the United Church of Canada in its Board of Information and Stewardship, Norman K. Vale … as general manager of the publications division of the Board of Christian Education in the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., Martin E. Brachter … as secretary of literature and evangelism of the Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities, Urie A. Bender.

Resignation: As general secretary of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Dr. C. Stacey Woods.

Retirement: As professor of New Testament and Greek at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Julius R. Mantey.

Any given summer will find a host of seminary professors trading the comfort of an air-conditioned classroom for a stretch of Middle East sand where, clad in Bermuda shorts and clutching a pick under the broiling sun, they seek out ancient treasures.

For the survey of this year’s archaeological projects which follows, CHRISTIANITY TODAYis indebted to Dr. William Sanford La Sor, professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

A Presbyterian minister, La Sor holds both Ph.D. (Dropsie) and Th.D. (University of Southern California) degrees. He is familiar with current archaeological undertakings, having made four trips to the Middle East in recent years. He is a member of the American Oriental Society and the American Schools of Oriental Research, and his writings include Amazing Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Faith, Bibliography of the Dead Sea Scrolls 1948–1957, and Historical Geography of the Bible Lands, to be released by Harper in 1961.

To read about archaeological discoveries is sometimes thrilling. To engage in the work is often prosaic. To visit an excavation is frequently disappointing.

Yet it is highly profitable to observe archaeologists at work, to understand something of the tons of earth that must be moved with delicate care, the exact attention that must be given to every stage of the work, the combination of many sciences and skills that is necessary, and the vast knowledge of antiquity, ancient history, other archaeological digs, artifacts, bones, ancient languages, and traditions that the director and his staff must have at their fingertips.

Visitors learn to appreciate, moreover, that archaeological excavation is destruction. Once the area has been disturbed it can never again be studied in situ. The director therefore must record exactly everything that he does and everything that he finds.

To visit an excavation, the director’s permission, or that of local authority, should be obtained. He may not want a crowd milling around, breaking down baulks, picking up important surface finds, moving tabs or pegs, disturbing workers, and so on. If he has only a few weeks for the work, he may resent losing an hour or more each day for guided tours. Moreover, there may be rules against picture-taking. It is the director’s prerogative to publish—and he has no desire to let someone else “scoop” him. Above all, don’t argue with his conclusions unless you are at least as experienced as he is. He may appear to be an inconsequential figure in his working clothes, but the very fact that he is director is proof that he is a recognized scholar and authority—otherwise he would not be allowed to direct the excavation.

Glossary Of Archaeological Terms

Archaeology: The scientific study of the ancient past, historic or prehistoric, from the evidence of the remains, such as monuments, artifacts, population centers, and written materials.

Artifact: Anything that has been made by human skill.

Baulk: The untouched section of an excavation, usually about a meter (39.37 inches) wide, left at regular intervals to serve to hold steps to the lower levels as excavation progresses. Baulks provide a visible record of the levels in profile while holding tags and pegs necessary for recording the finds and surveying the levels. In a large excavation, baulks may be left at 10-meter intervals as a grid.

Cuneiform: Wedge-shaped writing made by pressing a stylus in soft clay or by chiseling in stone.

Dig: A familiar term for an excavation.

Epigraphic: Writing on a wall, statue, or other surface.

Glossary

Excavation: The scientific uncover op past civilizations at a given site.

Expedition: An organized team of skilled experts and assistants on a specific project.

In situ: In the actual location in which it was found.

Occupational level: A single layer in a tell or the level of the city at any given time during its occupation.

Site: The location of an excavation.

Tell: A hill or mound formed by successive layers of human occupation resulting from garbage and trash disposal, accumulated dust, and ruins of old buildings. The highest level is the most recent and the lowest is the oldest.

Here is a survey of this year’s expeditions:

PALESTINE

One of the most fascinating is an underwater exploration of Caesarea in a vessel built especially for the work by Edwin A. Link (of the company famous for Link aviation trainers). Professor Charles T. Fritsch of Princeton Theological Seminary will be chief archaeologist, assisted by Professor Immanuel Ben-Dor of Emory University, and others. The work is sponsored by Princeton Seminary and the America-Israel Society. It is believed that part of this Roman seaport was covered by the sea in an earthquake A.D. 800.

Another underwater exploration, headed by Dr. Ralph E. Baney, Baptist missionary from Kansas City, Missouri, was conducted in the Dead Sea, using skin-diving methods, in an effort to locate the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Claims of discovery have been challenged by competent authority, and the results of this excavation are difficult to evaluate. Reports seem to indicate that the lack of customary archaeological techniques plus inability to photograph the finds will invalidate most of the work.

Dr. Benjamin Mazar, president of Hebrew University, reports that the Israel Antiquities Department of the university, in cooperation with the Israel Exploration Society, has located the Philistine city of Ekron. The site is Khirbet Muqenna, and the walled ruins, covering 40 acres, establish it as an unusually important city, twice as big as Lachish and three times as big as Megiddo. Professor William F. Albright had formerly identified the site as Eltekeh.

Another site identified by Professor Albright has been challenged, this one by Dr. Shmuel Yeivin, Director of the Israel Department of Antiquities. Yeivin has directed a dig at Tell Gat, supposedly the site of the Philistine city of Gath, since 1956. It gave evidence of having been an Israelite city, but no Philistine evidence was uncovered. Yeivin thinks, on the basis of some stamped jar-handles, that the site may have been Mamshat.

Professor James L. Kelso of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (the union of Pittsburgh-Xenia and Western seminaries) is digging at Beitin, the site of biblical Bethel. The expedition is sponsored by his seminary and the American Schools of Oriental Research. Previous work was done at Beitin in 1934, 1954, and 1957. Dr. Kelso will be assisted by Professor T. M. Taylor of the same seminary and by professors from five other seminaries. The principal objective is to try to find the remains of the temple erected by Jeroboam I. A Reuters report last month quoted the Jordan Antiquities Department as having announced that Kelso’s mission has discovered the ruins of a Canaanite town dating from 1700 years before Christ.

Dr. Yigael Yadin of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, has continued to excavate at Hazor, in Galilee, using such equipment as airborne observation, walkie-talkie communication, aerial photography, etc., in an effort to locate the most significant portions of an extremely large tell (or occupation-mound.) He is attempting to shed light on the date of building this Solomonic fortification and the dates of at least five other occupation levels.

Dr. Yadin was also associated with an expedition searching the caves along the southern shore of the Dead Sea, in the vicinity of Engedi, which found fragments of the book of Exodus, dated by the discoveries at A.D. 132. These explorations are not to be confused with the Dead Sea Scrolls discoveries further north on the shore of the sea.

Work on the Dead Sea Scrolls continues. Tourists may wish to visit Khirbet Qumran, where some of the fragments were discovered and probably where most of the scrolls were produced. This requires special arrangement from the Department of Antiquities in Jordan. No excavation is in progress, but the site is in a military zone. Work on the thousands of fragments continues, by an international team of scholars, in the “scrollery” in the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem (Jordan). Special permission must be obtained for a visit. Also on display are coins, desks from the Qumran Scriptorium, and other items from the great discovery. The original scrolls can be seen at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Israel).

Dr. Joseph Free of Wheaton College completed his sixth season at Dothan, north of Nablus, uncovering successive cities that date from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Of particular significance were the levels from the time of the Assyrian conquest (733–722 B.C.) and from the time of Solomon (c. 950 B.C.).

Professor G. Ernest Wright of Harvard Divinity School is directing a dig at Tell Balatah, the site of ancient Shechem, near Nablus, assisted by Professor Lawrence Toombs of Drew University and Professor Edward F. Campbell, Jr., of McCormick Theological Seminary. Shechem was excavated in 1912–13, 1926–27, 1928–32, 1934, and 1957, but much of the earlier work was not done in accordance with modern techniques and needs to be restudied by excavating the adjoining remains. According to Professor Wright, one of the objectives is “to train younger men in our American biblical archaeological tradition at a time when they are desperately needed to carry on what has been this country’s greatest single contribution to biblical scholarship.”

Père Roland de Vaux, whose name is most frequently associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, is conducting the ninth season of excavation at Tell el-Far‘ah, near Nablus, which he identifies with the biblical site of Tirzah. The work will be done by the Ecole Archéologique Françhise de Jérusalem.

Professor James B. Pritchard of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California, directs the fourth campaign at el-Jib, biblical Gibeon. The work is under the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the American Schools of Oriental Research.

Father Robert North of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Jerusalem, has conducted the eighth campaign at Ghassul, three and a half miles east of the new Hussein Bridge, and about 100 yards south of the new Amman highway at the northeastern end of the Dead Sea. The last excavation was in 1938. This site is of great importance for the Chalcolithic era, about 3500 B.C., and has been widely publicized (see article by G. Ernest Wright in The National Geographic Magazine of December, 1957). One of the significant finds was the skeleton of a giant, well over six feet tall. It is not yet clear whether this was one of the Anakim, or an Englishman from the Crusades.

President Nelson Glueck of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, continues exploration of the Negev under the David W. Klar Foundation. His previous discoveries have been beautifully described by him in Rivers in the Desert (See Dr. La Sor’s review in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 16, 1959, pp. 37–38—ED.).

THE BIBLICAL WORLD

Egypt, faced with the obliteration of all antiquities from Aswan to the Sudanese border by the building of the new dam and the lake it will form, is racing feverishly to explore the many sites in the area. Most of this region is all but inaccessible to tourists, but includes such locations as Abu Simbel with its gigantic statues of Ramses II, and numerous cities of the Ethiopian dynasties of Egypt (one king of which was Tirhakah, 2 Kings 19:9). In an effort to encourage foreign institutions to participate, the United Arab Republic is making extremely liberal grants of the amount of discovery that may be retained by excavators. The Oriental Institute, Chicago, will continue its Epigraphic Survey, or study of the inscriptions, at the mortuary temple of Ramses III, at Medinet Habu near Luxor. Professor George Forsyth of the University of Michigan plans to lead another expedition to Mt. Sinai. He will be assisted by a team including men from Princeton University.

In Syria, Professor André Parrot of the Louvre, Paris, is directing another expedition to Mari, near the Syrian-Iraq border. Mari has already yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from c. 1800 B.C., which have revolutionized our knowledge of the period. Professor Claude Schaeffer of Paris will continue his excavations at Ras Shamra (Ugarit). Both of these sites are of primary importance for biblical studies.

Because of unsettled conditions in Iraq, there is uncertainty about excavations. Donald J. Wiseman of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum spent two months in Baghdad working on cuneiform texts found at Nimrud (biblical Calah). The British School of Archaeology in Iraq, under D. Oates, plans to continue excavations at Nimrud, near Mosul. The Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research, together with the Oriental Institute, hopes to continue excavation at Nippur, in southern Iraq.

In Iran, several expeditions are planned or in process. Dr. Robert Dyson of the University Museum, Philadelphia, assisted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, continues to dig at Hansanlu, near Lake Rezaiyeh. The connection with biblical history is not immediately obvious, but the location is on one of the main routes between the Iranian plateau and Assyria. The Oriental Institute, under Professor Robert J. Braidwood, and cooperating with the National Science Foundation and the American Schools of Oriental Research, will continue the exploration of prehistoric sites in the Kermanshah watershed. This is of great interest for understanding more of the migrations of early man, the interchange of cultures, and other facts that must be deduced from widely separated areas.

In Turkey there are many fascinating sites. The expedition to Sart, the biblical Sardis, is directed by Professor George M. A. Hanfmann of Harvard University. Cornell University is also associated. Sardis was the capital of the wealthy kingdom of Lydia, one of whose kings was the fabulously wealthy Croesus. Later, it became an important administrative center of the Persian Empire, and still later, for the Roman Empire.

This survey omits reference to Greece and Italy, because these are more properly subjects for a classical scholar. The American Schools of Classical Studies at Athens and Rome maintain valuable programs. Inquiries to the schools will yield details.

Archaeological Hogwash?

Dr. Nelson Glueck, world-famous archaeologist says recent reports of the discovery of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are “hogwash.”

Glueck, discoverer of King Solomon’s copper mines, declared in Dallas last month that “No one, no matter his competence, could find the cities.”

He discounted the claims of amateur U. S. divers led by Dr. Ralph Baney that they had found the remnants of the two evil cities described in the Bible.

“Thick salt deposits on the bottom of the Dead Sea would make it impossible to get to the remains,” he said, adding that the ruins of the 4,000-year-old civilization have been razed and that the only remains would be “some rather disreputable bits of pottery.”

Baney claims to have located, among other things, a long dike in the sea.

Protestant Panorama

• Official interpreter for President Eisenhower’s visit to Korea last month was an American missionary. Horace G. Underwood, 43, currently serving as chairman of the United Presbyterian Korea Mission was recalled to active naval duty for the assignment which included interpreting Eisenhower’s historic address to the Korea National Assembly. Underwood had served as a principal interpreter during the Panmunjom truce talks.

• The Fulton Street Noon Prayer Meeting closed its doors June 30 after 103 years of services in downtown Manhattan. Attendance had dropped considerably since the meeting site was moved to 93 Nassau Street seven years ago. Sponsors may decide to reschedule the meeting after a survey of the area.

• A New York City television station is programming two religion courses for college credit this summer. The courses, “Introduction to Biblical Thought” and “Religion and Modern Literature,” are presented in cooperation with Protestant councils of churches in the New York area and are produced by the Radio-TV Department of the New Jersey Council of Churches.

• The Lutheran, official weekly newsmagazine of the United Lutheran Church in America, is marking its 100th anniversary. Its 200,000 subscribers represent a doubling of circulation since 1951. Dr. G. Elston Ruff has been editor since 1945.

• The Rev. Russell H. McConnell, pastor of Greenfield Congregational Church in Dearborn, Michigan, is the first “resident agent” at the newly-organized Religious Center of the Dearborn, Campus, Inc. Purpose of the non-profit group, according to articles of incorporation, is to “further the religious life and enrich the temporal life of the campus community” served by nearby colleges. Dearborn is a suburb of Detroit.

• A Lutheran church now being built in Copenhagen is shaped like a snail’s shell. Designed by Danish architect Holger Jensen, the church will be primarily for school children, who may help decorate the interior by painting their own murals on biblical themes. All worshippers will sit on the floor.

• Baptists in Israel are setting up a youth camp near Pethan Tikvah in the Sharon Plain, with the help of the International Civil Service, an organization which sponsors voluntary youth work camps to promote better understanding between races.

• A new international magazine for Anglicans and Episcopalians made its debut in London last month. The Anglican World, edited by the Rev. Peter Harvey, vicar of a church near London, is a bi-monthly. Patrons include Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Presiding Bishop Arthur Lichtenberger of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. It is not, however, an official church organ.

• Cornerstone-laying and dedication ceremonies for the new national headquarters of the Hauge Lutheran Inner-mission Federation were held near Minneapolis last month during the federation’s annual convention and Bible conference.

• The five-day North American Youth Congress of the Seventh-day Adventist Church drew more than 12,000 delegates from throughout the United States and Canada. The congress, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was climaxed with the launching of a global drive to win converts among youth and to recruit them for full-time church service.

• The Massanetta Springs Summer Bible Conference encampment hopes to raise $600,000 for expansion and improvements following endorsement of the drive by the Presbyterian Synod of Virginia.

• Far East Broadcasting Company began beaming regularly-scheduled Gospel programs to the Chinese mainland from its new 100,000-watt transmitter on Okinawa last month.

• A new Christian day school will open in Silver Spring, Maryland, (Washington suburb) this fall.

As its major book review a recent issue of the Saturday Review carried an analysis of the second novel by a young American, William Styron. The novel, described by critic Granville Hicks as “rich and deep,” is Set This House on Fire, a violent and bloody story of Americans in conflict Its theme, as is so common among contemporary novelists, is the frantic and passionate search for self-satisfying pleasures by a trio of young men “without hope and without God in this world.”

In the course of his novel Styron introduces three characters to typify his view of man. The narrator is commonplace enough, describing himself as being “something of a square.” The villain of the piece is a despicable fop whose tales of his own manly exploits had enthralled his fellow students at prep school, and now as a young-man-about-anywhere he is still using any means to attain the selfish ends he proposes. The hero, as for want of a better term he must be known, is himself something of a villain by accepted Christian standards. But he is saved from general condemnation by the fact that his crimes are all for love, while his antagonist’s sole motivation is his own gratification.

A Window on Corruption

Mr. Hicks reminds his readers that Styron is a disciple of William Faulkner. In certain respects the comparison is obvious: both men reveal the true nature of man to be wildly passionate, innately corrupt; both writers settle upon physical violence as man’s most creative expression of himself—the thing he does best is self-destruction. In Styron’s book he includes most of the popular literary forms of brutality and bestiality: murder, rape, homosexuality, pornography, degraded drunkenness, illicit love, and so on.

To be sure, all of this, and sometimes much more, can be read in Faulkner. One need only recall the actions of Benjy, Joe Christmas, or Wash Jones to substantiate the statement. But there is a quality in Faulkner that is missing in Styron and in so many of his kind. Or shall we reverse the assertion and say there is an element in Styron, in Grace Metalious (Peyton Place and The Return to Peyton Placed, in James Jones (From Here to Eternity and Some Came Running), that is not apparent in the more mature and vastly more gifted expatriate from Yoknapatawpha. That certain something which shows through the writings of these younger, passion-ridden novelists is the flaw that distinguishes gold from pyrites. It is a superficial, self-conscious, ostentatious delight in presenting the sordid and ugly in life, in lifting the lid from the world’s garbage can to revel in its abominable state.

The Lost Power of Good Writing

One could almost judge that sensationalism has carried away any power of good writing these novelists possessed. Note might be made of the extent to which Styron, Metalious, Jones, and the others will go to stimulate and shock their readers. Styron permits gross obscenities among his characters at their Italian resort; Metalious wallows with her sometimes frigid, sometimes nymphomaniac Jennifer in atrocious masochism; Jones in a mildness that is itself dangerous creates a “peeping Tom” of a respected citizen. It seems that a malevolent contest is being waged in current American literature to determine which author can create the most hideous specimen of humanity.

Stripping Sin of Its Penalties

But Faulkner is rarely guilty of presenting “sin for sin’s sake.” Like Hawthorne and Melville before him, and unlike Poe, Faulkner is more concerned with the consequences of sin than he is with its lurid description. Why do his characters often meet a violent end? It is because of the wrong done in the past. Faulkner does not forget the biblical warning of judgment upon the children of the third and fourth generations because of the sins of the fathers.

For these current writers there does not appear to be a consequence to sin. Punishment may be enacted upon the guilty, or not, depending upon how skillful has been his preparation. In Styron’s story the law is represented as being benevolent because of the circumstances. Conversely, in the late Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger, the law, represented by an insensitive theist, is harsh and condemnatory. The French winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize presents a hero who, although he admits to a criminal offense, is not conscious of any sin nor of any need to repent. Metalious allows one of her vixens the distinct pleasure of beating an erstwhile assailant to death with a poker; another counteracts her mother-in-law’s plot to kill her by pushing the older woman down a flight of stairs to her death. Neither killer is subjected to the law’s retribution.

In so representing “life,” these writers affect or infect their readers strongly and divide their audience into three distinct groups: those who are revolted and repelled by the open and matter-of-fact presentation of sex and sin; those for whom the actions of the fictitious characters provide a vicarious thrill; those who find their own course of action and manner of living described and thereby gain justification for their own misdeeds.

The Breakdown of Decorum

The present crop of horror-mongers finds itself championed by the playwright, Tennessee Williams, whose goal seems to be the complete breakdown of all dramatic decorum in choice of topic and theme. With increasing daring Williams has descended the scale of decency from A Streetcar Named Desire to the sodomy and cannibalism of Suddenly Last Summer. The New York Times magazine section recently published an article which questioned the reason for such an outpouring of violence both on the stage and screen and in books.

In a subsequent issue of the Times, Williams defends his point of view and that of his literary fellow travelers, Camus, Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape), Lillian Hellman (Toys in the Attic), and Bertolt Brecht (Mother Courage). His argument in support of the morbid subjects he chooses is simple: his material and characters come not from the sewers of society but from the main stream of life. “No significant area of human experience … should be held inaccessible, provided it is presented with honest intention and taste, to … writers of our desperate time.”

The Exploitation of Decadence

This quotation itself reveals a point of view which lacks a major ingredient to make it acceptable to the Christian mind. Granted that the world is consumed by sin; that violence and injustice are front-page news; that juvenile delinquents vie with each other for top-billing alongside the adult gangsters. Granted that divorce cases attributed to marital infidelity are increasing; that moral standards have lowered immeasurably; that this is, as Tennessee Williams calls it, “our desperate time.” Granted that all this is true, the task of the contemporary writer is not to exploit the decadent condition. He may not be able to correct it, and he certainly cannot ignore it, but he can do one thing which Williams has failed to state: he can provide his reader with conscionable characters. No matter the intention of the author or his careful choice of words, he has failed to present life accurately if he ignores the conscience—both of his characters and of his audience.

What of National Conscience?

Our minds have been directed recently to thoughts of our national purpose. It may well be contended that any national purpose stems from a national conscience. Our generation appears to be lacking even the pin-pricks of conscience. The lack appears most strikingly in the literature of our time, full of protagonists who know no distinction between right and wrong, “having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” It is as a corollary, therefore, to our lack of conscience that we find our lack of purpose. No book, no matter how talented its author may be, can be considered “rich and deep” unless a positive attitude toward good and evil is engendered by the author through his characters to his readers.

Stony Brook, N. Y.

WHEN JUDGEMENT COMES

When the debacle comes, when there suddenly dawns on America a realization that we as a nation have frittered away our place of world leadership, when the judgment of God descends on our land and the reality of our folly becomes apparent to all—then we may be given the sight to view agonizingly our follies and our blindness.

From its inception communism has declared its intentions and mapped its course. It has proceeded to carry out its plans without ever deviating from its avowed purpose and ultimate goal, which is complete domination of the world.

We cannot claim ignorance of the terrible wants which have occurred in recent years. The plans and accomplishments of communism have never really been concealed under the bushel of subterfuge—except to those unwilling to see—and the entire world has watched as nations have succumbed and maps have been changed.

Freedom is a Christian concept, and it is obvious that freedom and communism are antiethical. In such circumstances how obvious it should be that it is the Christian faith alone which has the dynamic to save.

We have willfully chosen to ignore facts and to embark on a course which will spell the doom of America. We have no one but ourselves to blame. In 1933 our government took official action, giving diplomatic recognition to a nation which officially denies and defies God. The supposed advantages of this step are now lost by increasing evidence that the judgment of God is descending upon us for our compromise with evil.

Americans have been wilfully ignorant of communism and its aims. We have thought we might “win” this embodiment of satanic cleverness by developing a spirit of mutual understanding and good will. We have confused the natural friendliness of the Russian people with the implacable evil of their rulers. We have thought that diplomatic relations would make possible cultural and social exchanges which would break down the barrier.

Our grave mistake has been in confusing people with a philosophy of dealing with an evil system as one would deal with wayward friends. Most serious of all, we have ignored communism’s attack on the sovereign God, and have thought that we could do business with his enemies without harm to ourselves.

America is by no means a “Christian nation.” One need only look around to see the devastating effect of sin in our midst. But America does offer freedom to Christianity and to the Church, and she has from the beginning of her existence given official recognition of God and honored him as supreme. The Bible in our court rooms and “In God We Trust” on our currency bears mute testimony to this.

Under the good hand of a beneficient God we have prospered as a people, enjoyed freedom, and been raised to a position of world leadership. But with increasing power and prestige we forget that God holds nations, as well as men, accountable for their actions. For America we believe the fatal turn was taken when we recognized Soviet Russia.

The childish argument that “recognition of a government does not carry with it approval of that government” has no relevance to the things of God. In communism we have the spirit of anti-Christ rampant, and we chose to try to do business with it.

As time has gone on, the inevitable deterioration has set in and gone on apace. There are those who now boldly say that “anti-communism can be worse than communism.” Now open attacks on communism and our own international policies are in turn condemned and ridiculed by a combination of well-meaning but ignorant individuals, the professional one-worlders and those definitely committed to left-wing philosophies, or worse.

But there is no excuse for ignorance, nor is there justification for letting some ill-advised alarmists divert one’s attention from a danger which is both real and evident.

Confused by subversive forces working from within and the agents of infiltration and intrigue to be found everywhere today, many people feel that America is in the gravest danger in her history. Compromised by official recognition of our political enemies, we are also confronted by the softening and degrading influence of immorality and greed run riot Our great educational institutions, once the bulwark of national integrity, have themselves sounded a note of uncertainty; for “academic freedom” is now often interpreted as godless license, and “tenure” has become a wall behind which some hide as they shoot at the spiritual and moral values which once made our nation great.

The Church, wherever she becomes more concerned with social engineering than with proclaiming the Gospel of redemption at the personal level, contributes to the confusion while she neglects her God-given task of preaching to the lost.

The solution to our dilemma does not lie in the realm of partisan politics. There are men who will rise up and join ranks regardless of party affiliations; men who see the cause of our danger and have the courage to call for a reversal of any and all policies that play into the hands of our national and spiritual enemy.

It is our conviction that there can be no permanent relief until we have severed all diplomatic ties with communism, Communist nations, and agencies. This would also require the expulsion of all Communist nations from the United Nations.

“Unthinkable!” is the loud chorus which would rise to such a proposal. “It would be giving up the great advances achieved for international brotherhood.” Within the political and church life of America, the overwhelming majority will arise to denounce even the suggestion that we cut all ties with international communism.

But what is the alternative—politically?

Against the devilishly ingenious and effective spread of communism, there is but one answer: separate from it and trust the Lord to take care of the consequences. We believe our present dilemma is due to a fatal mistake. If this is true, the mistake must be remedied at the place where it was made.

From a spiritual standpoint, what is the answer?

Problems can never be settled aright purely at the secular or political level. The ultimate solution of America’s dilemma has to do with our right relationship with God. The answer then lies in repentance, conversion, and healing.

And that is exactly what the Gospel of Jesus Christ does—it brings repentance for sin, conversion to Christ, and healing to the soul.

The answer to this dire crisis is a revival of true religion, a turning to Christ and a receiving of his blessings.

L. NELSON BELL

There are three important factors concerning the date of Nahum’s prophecy. First, in 3:8–10, the fall of the Egyptian city of No-amon (i.e. Thebes) to the Assyrians is spoken of as a past event, having taken place in 663 B.C. Second, the main subject of the prophecy is the fall of the Assyrian city of Nineveh, but that event has not yet taken place (Nineveh fell in 612 B.C.). Third, Nahum alone, among all the Old Testament prophets, has no strictures to pass upon the religious and moral life of his own people. If that silence is really significant then the only period between 663 and 612 when a prophet of Jahweh might conceivably have been hopeful of Judah would have been 622–621 B.C., when King Josiah’s religious reforms were in full swing (cf. 1:15 with 2 Kings 23:21).

Now, a few years before Nineveh fell, the writing was on the wall so far as Assyria was concerned. As early as 614 B.C., the city of Asshur fell to the Medes; and it might well have been that event, heralding the end of the hated Assyrian hegemony, that marked Nahum’s being seized with divine inspiration to write this triumphant hymn of acclamation.

BACKGROUND

If, then, we place Nahum’s prophecy towards the end of the period 621–612 B.C., he would be a contemporary of Zephaniah (c. 627), Habakkuk (c. 614), and Jeremiah (625–582, or thereabouts). One of the main events in this period was Josiah’s reforms, which took place about 35 years before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Probably Jeremiah was a warm supporter of the Josianic reformation in its early stages, and he may even have undertaken a preaching campaign in the towns of Judah on behalf of the new religious movement (cf. Jer. 11:2–6). However, Jeremiah’s enthusiasm for the new reforms began to wane when it occurred to him that the very reforms he was supporting were only helping to confirm Judah in some of her already long-cherished illusions, in particular, the notion that the externals of religion were sufficient to reinstate her in God’s favor in spite of the fact that no change of heart had taken place.

While, therefore, Josiah’s religious reforms were in progress, Jeremiah felt it necessary to warn Judah of the tragedy that was soon to overtake her (4:4; 8:9–13). But it appears that he was practically the only person who had any real insight into the prevailing situation. The other responsible leaders in Judah’s religious and political life treated Jeremiah’s warnings with an easy optimism which communicated itself to the people. And as long as Josiah ruled in Judah, this state of affairs continued. Indeed, the circumstances that allowed Josiah to initiate and pursue his religious reforms, and through them to extend his political influence, seemed to support those leaders in Judah who argued that Jeremiah was unduly pessimistic, if not completely mistaken, in his reading of the situation. Did not the impending fall of Assyria to the advancing Medes and Babylonians confirm those in Judah who persisted in an optimistic interpretation of the existing international situation?

Now, it was within the context of this mood of easy optimism that Nahum prophesied in terse, vivid language the doom that overtook Nineveh in 612 B.C.

CONTENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS

The prophecy of Nahum consists of two poems which take their place among the most accomplished, and most finished poetry in the sacred literature of the Hebrews. Because it deals with only one event in particular, the prophecy is characterized by a unity and a cohesion which distinguishes it from the writings of the other Old Testament prophets. Chapter one proclaims certain moral attributes of God, and the effects which the moral judgment of God has upon the world of nature, and upon the enemies of Judah. In chapter two Nahum, with vivid strokes, paints in quick succession the seige, the capture, and the final overthrow of Nineveh, and the resulting desolation. In chapter three the prophet, fascinated by the main theme of his work, returns to the fall of Nineveh, and supplies more details of the city’s doom, and dwells on the shame which she will experience in the same lavish measure which she had so cruelly meted out to her foes for so long. Nahum makes special mention of there being none to console her.

There are two points to be made which help us to place Nahum’s cry of exultation over Nineveh’s doom in proper perspective. First, Nineveh was the capital of one of the richest, most powerful, and most flagrantly wicked empires that the world had ever seen. The story of this splendid Assyrian tyranny and social corruption, which has been told and retold, has been culled from the monuments and tablets dug up long after Nineveh was dead and forgotten. And this resurrection of Nineveh only confirms the story of her shame, and proves that Nahum, with all his passion, was not guilty of exaggeration at any point. And his shout of fierce triumph not only expressed the sentiment of the Jews who had suffered so terribly at the hands of the stricken Assyrians, but also that of all the other nations of the Near East upon whose necks the Assyrian yoke had lain for so long. When Nineveh finally plunged to her doom, the minds of men must have been convinced that a great curse was being removed from off the face of the earth.

Second, a few years before Nineveh fell the Near East was divided into two camps; on the one hand Assyria and Egypt, and on the other the Medes and the Babylonians. Each was struggling for the hegemony of the Middle East. In 612 B.C. Nineveh fell to the Medeo-Babylonian alliance, as also did the city of Harran, the new Assyrian capital, two years later. The issue of this life and death struggle remained inconclusive until five years later (605 B.C.) when at the battle of Carchemish the Egypto-Assyrian alliance was effectively crushed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. Babylonian domination was then established throughout the Near East.

Against this background Nahum’s exultant prediction of Nineveh’s (i.e. Assyria’s) downfall suggests that he had high hopes for the future of his native Judah once the Assyrian yoke was struck from her neck. Jeremiah, Nahum’s contemporary, on the other hand, realized that Babylon’s victory over Assyria meant simply that Judah was exchanging masters; and that the pro-Babylonian party in Judaean politics was indulging in idle daydreaming when it assumed that Assyria’s downfall would bring political independence to Judah. Probably, then, Nahum shared these sentiments, whereas Jeremiah, with authentic prophetic insight, realized that Judah’s deliverance could not come about through a shift in the balance of power in international politics, nor through a transference to a new sphere of political influence, but through a change of heart manifesting itself in confession, repentance, contrition, faith, and obedience. That, said Jeremiah, is the highway to true freedom, not faith in this or that concentration of military might, or in this or that political alliance.

TEACHING

It is in chapter one of Nahum’s prophecy that his main teaching is found. What the prophet is preoccupied with there is the character of the God of Israel, and especially with the attribute of ‘jealousy.’ Nahum 1:2 f. might well be taken as the preacher’s text, where Jahweh’s jealousy manifests itself particularly as wrath. But in common with the rest of the Old Testament Nahum speaks of divine wrath in connection with the covenantal name Jahweh; which means that God’s anger must be viewed in the light of his complete sovereignty and omnipotence.

In Nahum’s prophecy divine wrath as God’s jealousy in action is the reaction within the divine nature against sin; but whereas the rest of the Old Testament prophets see God’s jealousy going out in anger against the sins of the covenant people, Nahum sees it in action against only the Gentiles. But that ‘fortuitous’ difference apart, Nahum, in common with the rest of the prophets, relates divine anger to divine holiness, and is therefore free from the taint of sinfulness, and is moral through and through both in its nature and its purpose. And related to his jealousy, God’s wrath is a manifestation of his refusal to give his glory to another.

In such a world as this, therefore, the moral attribute of jealousy makes divine vengeance a necessity. The world, says Nahum, is governed by a righteous God; and his prophetic indignation against tyranny, and his passionate demand for vengeance upon all who outrage the moral principles that operate in the world, is really the voice of divine justice, which will be vindicated in God’s time.

We have already hinted at the main difference between Nahum’s outcry and the preaching of the other Old Testament prophets. The latter constantly affirm that divine jealousy manifested itself as indignation especially against the covenant community of Israel. While they did not fail to apply to Gentile nations the searching standard of God’s demands in terms of righteousness, yet they were concerned most of all to apply that criterion of judgment to the ethics of their own people. This Nahum does not do.

His intent was to judge only the Gentile nations by the yardstick which other prophets had applied to Israel. So far as one may judge from his oracles, Nahum’s preoccupation with Nineveh’s iniquities and impending judgment seems to have made him oblivious to the sins of Judah. In this Nahum is alone among the other prophets. Probably it was his inability to appreciate the real spiritual condition of Judah that enabled Nahum to indulge in such passionate hatred concerning the sins of the doomed Assyrians.

For Nahum the fate of Assyria establishes the fact of the moral government of the world, the eternal principle of the government of God in history, and that, therefore, if a nation is to survive it must exalt righteousness in its system of government, in its legal and educational systems, and in its ethical standards in every department of national life. It is this truth taught by Nahum that makes his prophecy relevant to our own age.

The limitations of Nahum’s outlook must not blind us to his importance. This is a reminder that the teaching of the prophets has to be freed from its limitations before it can be truly interpreted for our day. But the recognition of Nahum’s limitations, for example, does not in any way detract from his message for our generation. In any case, it is possible that Nahum felt so bitterly about Nineveh, not only because she was Judah’s inveterate enemy, but because she was the embodiment of that evil power which is still in deadly conflict with the Church of our Lord today.

Conversely, there may have been in Nahum’s mind the thought that Judah was the earthly representative of that power for good that labors to establish God’s kingly rule among men. Nahum may have viewed Judah as the ideal community elected by God to be his instrument in history. If that is so then he would not be preoccupied with her moral shortcomings but with her ultimate triumph over evil which was personified in Assyria.

It might also explain Nahum’s silence regarding another theme which is so common in the rest of the Old Testament prophetic literature—that an evil world power such as Assyria (or Egypt, or Babylon) was God’s instrument by which he chastises his own people. This Nahum seems to have forgotten; and consequently his exultation over the doom of Assyria far outweighs his condemnation of the sins of Judah.

It was this attitude that produced the absolute contrast between Jew and Gentile in a later age. In Judaism privilege was the portion of the former, and judgment was the fate of the latter. What one has constantly to remember is that truth must be seen steadily and seen as a whole. One aspect of truth must not be divorced from the whole of truth to which it belongs. Nahum “makes particular applications of universal truths, which is to say, he fails to apply to himself and his people the standards by which he measures others” (Abingdon Bible Commentary, p. 799). Nahum does not make clear that the moral ends towards which God is working may be frustrated by the sins of His own people. Far from Judah’s time of deliverance, her time of correction under the stern discipline of divine love was just beginning.

However, as Sir G. A. Smith points out, Assyria, by crushing so ruthlessly all the nations to a common level of despair, and by exciting such universal pity through her cruelties, in fact contributed to the development in Israel of the idea of a common humanity. In a sense Nahum is voicing the outraged conscience of humanity, not merely the national passions of poor, downtrodden Judah.

Nahum is the prophet of universal humanity as well as of Jewish patriotism, because he shows that the laws of God made Nineveh’s downfall inevitable; and through her humiliation she became the most conspicuous example in ancient history of the outworking of those laws of divine righteousness which strike down the proud and exalt the meek. How terribly relevant is Nahum’s message for the twentieth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Of the many excellent commentaries on Nahum, the following will be found to combine sound scholarship with a spirit of devotion: Calvin, Minor Prophets, Vol. 3 (Eerdmans); Keil & Delitzsch, Minor Prophets, Vol. 2 (Eerdmans); Kleinert & Ellicott, Lange’s Commentary (Zondervan).

J. G. S. S. THOMSON

Professor of Old Testament

Columbia Theological Seminary

BEHOLD THE DOLPHIN!

Our vacation plans are reversed. We are not going to the mountains, but to the seashore. Who ever chatted with a dolphin in the mountains? Since a Navy neurophysiologist has announced that dolphins have more brains than men, it is the duty of every patriotic citizen to be a good neighbor to the bottle-nosed dolphin. The Navy doctor has not quite cracked the dolphin language, which seems to be a pattern of whistles, but he assures us that the dolphin must be the smartest mammal afloat. His brain is 40 per cent larger than Navy regulation.

The marine existence of the dolphin indicates to Navy researchers the creature’s superior intelligence. Why mortgage the ranch to build a swimming pool in a world that is three-fourths ocean?

Of course the peril of our situation is evident. What if our researchers discover that the dolphins already speak Russian? Or that Russian linguists have dolphin language records? A network of dolphin intelligence, complete with sonar techniques, may already circle our coastline. Surely, after our experiences with Red eggheads, we cannot assume that dolphins are too intelligent for Communist propaganda. Life underseas may be particularly suited to brainwashing. The strong dolphin social organization noted by the researchers is ominous.

Even if dolphins are politically neutral, the dawn of the dolphin age is upon us. When these bottle-nosed high brows begin to take college entrance exams the Ivy League standards should make a dolphin school of Harvard.

This may be a little premature, since the dolphins are not yet speaking to the Doctor. There is an “if” in his reasoning too—“If brain size and complexity are the criteria of intelligence—and Dr, L. suspects this is the case—then …”

When the riddles of life were too much for Job, God summoned him to examine the animal creation. He marveled at God’s works, the hippopotamus and the crocodile, and his complaints were silenced before his Sovereign. Now we behold the dolphin. Yet we must bow with Job to know what man is. Even T. S. Eliot’s hippopotamus cannot know himself!

EUTYCHUS

THE POST-MODERN MIND

In view of Dr. Jellema’s comments on “New Faiths” (June 6 issue), it would be wise to remember the proverb, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.” Since the so-called “post-modern mind,” which is very ancient indeed, has abandoned the objective reality of God and the universe, it also has abandoned the foundation of rationality; for according to both Aristotle and Leibnitz, the second absolute intuition is that the realities conveyed to the minds of men by their perceptions are as certainly true as the reality of the existence of their own minds. Therefore, to strip the mind of the certainty of its own knowledge is to surrender any certainty of its knowledge of itself; for perception is the basis in any case: that is to annihilate reason.

And to attempt to reason with such, on the basis of their own irrationality, is to become like them; for it accepts their folly as in itself reasonable!

ELBERT D. RIDDICK

Portland, Ore.

I believe the reasons for the revolt against the older “modes of thought” in both theology and Weltanschauungen are legitimate because they were unable to handle either the complexities or the spontaneities of the human and sub-human situation. It must be recognized, however, that none of those who are attempting to wrestle with the problems of the frontier, whether they be beatniks, physicists, depth psychologists or Existenz philosophers have yet come forward with a viewpoint which adequately handles the total range of our experience, including our knowledge.

Many in France and in our Washington-New York and West Coast areas are attempting to find a Weltanschauung in Zen Buddhism which certainly makes a place for spontaneity which the older orthodoxies in science and theology did not permit; but Buddhism merely affirms the Unpattern and denies the Self. Protestant Liberalism is surely even more inadequate than the older Orthodoxies, and Neo-orthodoxy, at least it seems to me, is like Camus, only a way of living with the Absurd.

Although I do not know where the answer is to be found, I am now fairly sure that no purely intellectual answer is possible and that when an answer is found it will involve some other than Western (either Protestant or Catholic) understanding both of the Church and of worship. I am fairly confident that there is an answer somewhere within the tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly Russian Orthodoxy.…

Unless we find an answer to the problem of the Unpattern I feel fairly sure that we will all be involved in the Dance of Shiva.

ROY E. LEMOINE

Columbus, Ga.

Comdr. ChC. USN (ret.)

“Conformity” is agreed by many of the young people I have discussed the matter with to be their taskmaster and their struggle is how to break with it. The Church, I am sure, holds the answer they seek, for only in Christ is one the full, free self God created him to be, and freedom comes only when one is what he is God-intended to be.

FOREST TRAYLOR, JR.

First Presbyterian Church

Bay Minnette, Ala.

THE FUTILE WAIT

Truly enjoyed Fred E. Luchs’ article … “Waiting for Godot” (June 6 issue). It certainly is refreshing to see a religious magazine take up such a thought-provoking subject as Beckett has produced for us. Mr. Luchs’ interpretation is mature and well-founded.

There is one basic difference between the play’s two acts. Several persons I know have failed to catch it. At the opening of the play the tree stands in the stage barren. At the opening of the second act, everything is exactly the same with the exception that anywhere from three to eleven leaves are strung along the still near-naked tree. Strange? Very. It does further Mr. Luchs’ point about futility, however. It reaches into untold stretches of time.

JOHN HUSAR

Church Editor

The Clovis News-Journal

Clovis, N. Mex.

THE CHESSMAN CASE

Your editorial on Chessman (May 23 issue) gave us Britishers a new and authentic slant which was sorely needed in view of our press which failed to bring out fully the man’s criminality.

FREDERICK S. LEAHY

Reformed Presbyterian Manse

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Would you be willing to act as the executioner of condemned men?… Your stand, and the stand of those who agree with you, is all that prevents us from doing away with this medieval, barbarous, and unchristian practice by which we are all made murderers.

JOHN A. BAXTER

Turn of River Church, Presbyterian

Stamford, Conn.

[This] is to congratulate you on the Chessman editorial (May 23 issue)—which came too late to use in my course in criminology. I am going to copy a part of it … and send it to our daily paper.

ROBERT L. WENDT

Salem College

Winston-Salem, N. C.

Those who are advocating abolition of the death penalty on the ground that it is no deterrent to crime need to be reminded that this is not even the main issue. The fact we dare not forget is that “retributive justice” … is divinely vested in human government. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man” (Genesis 9:5–6).

When we here cast aside the revealed will of God as being too “cruel,” we are not only showing more concern for the criminal than for his victim but are also flying in the face of God’s principles of absolute justice without which the universe would be chaos.

P. W. SIMS

First Baptist Church

Helena, Ark.

MISSION NEGLECTED

May I confirm Mr. Conlon’s comments on the present-day importance of reaching African nationals while in this country (News, May 23 issue). However, I must say in addition that at the present time we are also losing out with the African students. They come to the United States with high expectations but are soon disillusioned. In both North and South they feel they are discriminated against. Reacting against actual or imagined affronts they tend to cloister together, brooding with others about their pathetic situation here and the inequalities in their homelands. Most Africans return home quite bitter, far the worse for their experience here. For the most part, this is not their fault. Very few Christians will open their homes and churches to minister in love without prejudice. The Lord Jesus ministered to persons of all backgrounds and nations.

The foreign students in this country, without doubt, represent one of the most significant missionary opportunities of our generation. But only relatively few Christians have thus far responded to this challenge.

R. MAX KERSHAW

Area Director

International Students, Inc.

Chicago, Ill.

PROBABILITIES AND PERILS

The hub of Brunner’s argument (April 25 issue), it appears, is that “the expansion of bolshevist control … is … an absolute certainty” while “the eruption of nuclear war … is pure possibility.” The argument may carry the force of a certain logic. But is it historically and, above all, theologically valid? If we are to argue on the level of historical probability, the evidence points at least as strongly in the opposite direction. Despotisms always come to end, by digging their own graves, or otherwise. Continued expansion is hardly an “absolute certainty.” On the other hand, a race of arms typically leads to a military explosion. Hence the likelihood of nuclear war at the end of the present contest is higher than a mere “pure possibility.” That is, if we are to argue in terms of historical probabilities, one can with more logic advance the conclusion opposite to the one drawn by Prof. Brunner.

The real issue, of course, is theological. Not to raise here the difference, ethically speaking, between “suffering evil” and “inflicting evil”—what I miss throughout the article is the dimension of grace.…

I consider highly injudicious the slogan that has been circulated in some pacifist quarters—better a communist occupation than a nuclear war. But let us keep our bearings when we evaluate historical alternatives. Nuclear holocaust is definitive in a way that communism is not. And if the former comes because of Christian unbelief and disobedience, that finality is infinitely greater.… Might it not be that the form of the antichrist in our time is not the blandishments of Moscow but rather the absolutization of the choice between East and West with which we are all constantly tempted? What would it mean if it suddenly were to become clear that Christianity, rather than being the spiritual rationale which undergirds the “defensive posture” of the West, flows from the redeeming, transforming power of God, accepting yet judging and seeking to redeem East and West alike?… Is it not, in the final analysis, a form of idolatry and unbelief to hold that despite the clear contradiction of all that the Gospel entails by the whole notion of nuclear war or deterrency, God loves the West so much and needs our help so badly to defend it, that we are entitled to destory the East to accomplish it?

PAUL PEACHEY

Mennonite Central Committee

Tokyo, Japan.

I knew Hromadka while he was here at Union Seminary, and on my visit in 1950 to Czechoslovakia I heard nothing but praises by our Congregational ministers about Hromadka and his humanitarian work for peace.…

The progressive pastor Martin Niemoeller is a personal friend of Dr. Hromadka. They both work for the peace and not for war among all nations. Yet when Dr. Niemoeller was in America, the American Presbyterians and other denominations welcomed him, except some of the Augustana Lutherans.

Listen to what the Cleveland capitalist Mr. Eaton says after his visit to Hungary not long ago, namely: “The Hungarian people are grateful that the Red Army is standing close by them because they are in terror of the German army which they feel the U. S. is building up.”

ANDREW J. MONCOL

Cleveland, Ohio.

With the exception of the fundamentalists and a few others, American Protestantism will not lift its hand to … oppose the rapid spread of communism-atheism.

LEE A. SOMERS

Champaign, Ill.

WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE

I spent a week at the White House Youth Conference (Apr. 25 issue) and could not help thinking the results would have been far more substantial if the same effort went into separate state conferences.

GEORGE C. WILSON

The Evening Star

Washington, D. C.

THE CAMPUS NEWSPAPER

Would you pass on to your pastors and Christian leaders the need to encourage able youth who are on secular campuses to try to serve on the staff of the campus newspaper.

This semester at the University of California, Berkeley, the writer submitted three letters on timely issues from the conservative viewpoint which were not published because liberally minded students controlled the editorial staff of The Daily Californian. Upon inquiry, a staff member stated, “One left-winger controls all that goes on the editorial page.”

Most of the letters which are printed are of extremist views, and many of the conservative letters printed are those with anemic arguments, making the conservative position look ridiculous. In one edition (May 16) ten of the seventeen non-sports articles had a strong anti-conservative bias.

WARD WILSON

Oakland, Calif.

WHICH RELIGION?

I was one of the 3,000 who accepted membership in the 5-year-old Academy of Religion and Mental Health, and have been asked to renew my membership. After reading Director George Christian Anderson’s New York City address of January 14, 1960, I see that when he uses the word religion, he does not mean the Christian religion, but something less definable, something sub-Christian.…

We desire to help the individual in need before he is sick mentally, emotionally, physically, and this is the noble aim of this Academy and the alert Church. But my question is this: Can we Christians truly help individuals without recognizing and stating the finality and uniqueness of Jesus as divine Savior and healer, and the Bible as our divine authority when we talk about religion? This may be implicit in Mr. Anderson’s thought, but is this too emotional or divisive to put into language? Is this too spiritual for the behavioral researcher and scientist?

ROBERT W. YOUNG

North Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

THE PAGANS ARE RIGHT

Ever since you turned down and refused to print the article I wrote to you, about the basic, very foundation of Christianity, the Love Commandments that Jesus said were the greatest and first, I have felt you do not practice as you preach, and that the pagan and many people in other nations are right when they call us Americans hypocrites.

EDWIN BRUSH, SR.

San Francisco, Calif.

NEO-SOMETHING

Recently I came across a volume of contemporary theology with the arresting title, “Die Subjektive Wirklichkeitstheorie in der Christlichen Religion.” Its author is Prof. L. A. U. S. Indembart of the University of Entweder an der Oder. The colophon of the volume reads, “Verlag der Gesellschaft der Christlichen Religionskunde, Hameln, 1958.”

Prof. Indembart had hitherto been little known in this country and indeed in his own. His thesis, it may be assumed, will raise him from obscurity and make him the talk of the seminaries for several generations to come. In this book Prof. Indembart propounds an entirely new approach to the verities of the Christian faith, one which amounts to nothing less than a new philosophy.

The subjektive Wirklichkeitstheorie begins with the major premise that whatever is believed is subjectively true. Applying that principle to theology, the truths of the Christian religion have a validity insofar as they are apprehended and received as such by the individual. The Holy Scriptures, says Indembart, have essentially no objective reality. They exist only in the degree to which one is acquainted with them. When a person begins his acquaintance with the Word it is for him in a state which he denominates potentiale Wirklichkeit or seinwerdenmögen (potential reality or possibility of becoming). That state, through a transitional phase which he calls Wahrscheinlichkeit (probability), leads in certain cases to a state where particular doctrines have a subjektive Wirklichkeit (subjective reality) for the student.

So powerful was the impact of the volume that I felt the philosophy it contained deserved to be more widely known. Accordingly, in the summer of 1959 I flew to Germany with the purpose of interviewing its author.

As I sat in Indembart’s study, awaiting his appearance, I glanced at his library. I was somewhat astonished by the absence of the works of Kierkegaard and the existentialist philosophers generally. On his desk, however, lay an unopened volume of Kant; likewise an open copy of Berkeley’s “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,” heavily underscored and much annotated in red ink.

Heavy footfalls in the corridor apprised me of the Professor’s imminent arrival. Restraining further investigation of his reading habits, after mutual salutations and the usual small talk I proceeded to question him concerning his theological views.

My first query was, “Dr. Indembart, do you accept the Scriptures as the inspired Word of God?” Indembart puffed on his pipe, gazed out of the window overlooking the medieval city of Entweder and the placid Oder, coughed and slowly said, “The Bible has a subjective truth for me.”

“Are the Scriptures then in your opinion without error?” was my next question. He scratched his bearded chin reflectively, then said, “I am completely orthodox.”

“But, aside from my own case,” I continued, “don’t you think your theory will militate against evangelical Christianity?” “It needn’t,” said the Professor, peering searchingly at me through his thick glasses. “You see, the Scriptures have a subjective reality. They become true as they are believed.”

“Doesn’t that make man, not God, the ultimate authority?” I wanted to ask, but, thinking better of it, I inquired instead, “Do you believe in the Virgin Birth?” Just then, however, Indembart glanced at his watch. “Ach,” he said, “es ist ja schon beinah halb zehn. Entschuldigen Sie mich, bitte. Ich muss jetzt zum Katheder.”

Indembart departed for his lecture, and I had no opportunity to discuss matters any further with him. Later in the week, however, I picked up a copy of Der Theologische Nebenblick, published by the theological faculty of the University of Pinkeln, lauding Indembart’s thesis as a most significant contribution to the philosophy of conservative Christianity. At this writing, several months later, I have examined the periodical literature of numerous Protestant seminaries and find that, almost without exception, Indembart’s theory has been hailed as indicating the ultimate phase in neo-orthodox thought.

Perhaps the most candid appraisal of “Die Subjektive Wirklichkeitstheorie” comes from the pen of Prof. Esopus Apfelmus, of the department of dogmatics at the University of Trügen, which hitherto has been a stronghold of existentialism. Writing in the Trügenscher Rundschau (Bd. XCI, Heft 9), he says: “Indembart has made an excellent case for removing the neo-orthodoxy from its tottering existential foundations to a much firmer base of subjective idealism. His philosophy will outmode the work of Barth, Brunner and their concomitants and followers. It is the neo-orthodoxy to end all neo-orthodoxies. One need not be a prophet to predict a great future for Indembart.”

I was particularly struck by the last sentence. Knowing the acumen of a large segment of the personnel of today’s theological faculties I am convinced that the presage is true, that the man is right.

E. P. SCHULZE

Peekskill, N. Y.

My notice in the Sunday church bulletin had announced that I would be in my study for counseling every morning from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. I straightened my desk, sat down, leaned back in my swivel chair, and after yawning took another look at my seminary diploma hanging there on the wall. The seminaries of this church have done a great job, I thought; I certainly can be grateful for the Pastoral Counseling I’ve received. Now I can help my people make an adjustment to life and enable them to feel accepted in the fellowship of the Christian Church.

This happened to be a Tuesday. Nobody had come. And because I was still exhausted from yesterday’s grind, I settled back in my chair to ponder over my work, and before I knew it I fell asleep.…

All of a sudden I awoke. I had heard a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I said. To my utter astonishment there stood the Apostle Paul! Now what on earth could he be doing here? Is it possible that he is seeking me out for counseling? I greeted him. Paul was looking exceedingly troubled, so I pointed to a chair opposite my desk and invited him to sit down and relax.

LO, A PERFECTIONIST!

He did not say anything at first. For a few moments I observed him quietly. He kept wringing his hands, I noticed, and rubbing them across his brow. Frequently he would swallow with great difficulty as if his mouth were dry from nervousness. And then I saw that he would grasp occasionally at his stomach. Apparently he was in severe pain—perhaps ulcers.

“May I have some water?” he asked.

“Why yes.” I left the room and came back, handing him a half-filled glass.

Before he drank, he slipped a little yellow pill into his mouth.

“Are you not feeling well?” I asked.

“No,” Paul replied. “I have been under Dr. Luke’s care for my nerves. Lately I’ve been upset, terribly upset. The condition of the Church is by no means what it should be! How the Church is ever going to accomplish her mission without drastic changes in both clerical and lay ministry I do not know. Luke tells me I am a perfectionist; he says I take life too seriously. So I do, but I cannot help it.”

He stopped talking for a moment, which gave me time to think.

Perfectionists are often neurotic, but I never thought Paul, the great Apostle, would become neurotic for this reason. Of course, he would have just cause for disturbance if he expected the Church today to fulfill the demands of his Epistles for faithfulness and obedience to Christ. But then …

THE STORM ABOUT THE CHURCH

“You feel there are gross weaknesses in the Church?” I asked.

No sooner had I said this than he began to talk up a storm.

“It’s this dire lack of clear-cut witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he began. “This is what troubles me.

“You know, as one of the great ‘cloud of witnesses’ I am permitted to ‘attend’ many worship services. Some of the sermons I hear are out of your world. Ministers are preaching a language even I find difficult to understand. Some of those ideas they set forth—frankly, they leave me cold. Many ministers seem to be obsessed with concepts like ‘acceptance,’ ‘love,’ and koinonia. As I remember my Greek, that last word means something about fellowship. Yet I notice that these concepts are not always related to the sacrifice of Christ, that tremendous cost which made this ‘acceptance,’ ‘love,’ and ‘fellowship’ possible. Also, the responsibilities of the committed Christian are not stressed so much as the therapeutic value of Christianity, the attaining of peace of mind or security.”

“You feel, then, that the clergy are letting Christ down?” I asked.

“O yes … but in different ways,” he said quickly.

I was about to ask another question, but remembered that the counselee should do the talking. Paul, however, did not need any drawing out; he began talking immediately.

“There seem to be two types of ministers in the Church,” he said, “if you will permit a broad generalization. On the one hand, you have the ‘uneducated’ ministers who preach the Gospel as they understand it. They preach Christ crucified as the only means of salvation, but they confuse people by demanding abstinence from certain practices in order that they might stay saved. Mind you, I am not giving blanket endorsement to the practices they consider ‘worldly’—many of them are demoralizing—but people are led to believe that they earn or keep their salvation by abstinence from ‘things.’ You see, these ministers fail to bring their people to grips with the doctrine of God’s free grace.

“On the other hand, you have the ‘educated’ ministers. While many of them are faithful to their pastoral responsibility of preaching the Good News and nurturing the flock, there are many who are not positive in their proclamation of the Word. They are not dogmatic, except over the fact they are not dogmatic. There is no authority in their preaching because they do not believe the Bible is the authoritative Word of God to man. They submit to a kind of authority which is the ‘authority’ of the critics. But with the witness of the Word undercut, they are left to flounder among the changing theories of higher criticism. You know, it’s always easier to sit in judgment upon the Word than to let the Word judge us.

“Christians in many churches, therefore, fail to grasp the basic Christian message and, as a consequence, fail to understand their responsibility to God.

SEARCHING FOR FUNDAMENTALS

“The one thing on which this group is solidly convinced is that they are not “fundamentalist.” However, before they can be effective in any kind of ministry, they have to come to grips with the “fundamentals” of the faith. Commitment to Christ must be preached before they can expect their constituency to walk in his way. Before changes can take place, men must submit to the Word of God and its judgment. Christ must become, not an article in a creed, but a living, personal Saviour.”

“All this bothers you?” I asked.

He sighed and put his head in his hands. “Of course; doesn’t it bother you?”

‘Well …,” I began.

“I know times have changed,” he continued. “A long time has elapsed since the First Adam walked on earth, and we’ve made tremendous progress technologically. But spiritually, be assured that men have not changed. They are as rebellious as Adam was. They still turn to covetousness—idolatry. They continue to worship self and the gods it creates. But worse, many no longer acknowledge any kinship to their Creator. Professing Christians call to question God’s authority and reject Christ as their sovereign Lord.”

He paused, and we thought for a while in deep and serious silence.

“You feel, then,” I resumed at last, “that many of the clergy have failed God, and man, made in God’s image, is rebellious and self-willed. Is that correct? And you also feel that ‘Christians’ within the Church have rejected Christ’s lordship in their lives, and the Church herself has not been faithful in her ministry of the Gospel. Is this true?”

“Yes,” he replied, “I believe that to be true.”

GOD’S SUFFERING SERVANT

Paul appeared to be more relaxed now than when he first entered. The pain and much of the distress seemed to have died away. In an effort to enable the Apostle to gain further insight into his anxiety, I asked: “Is there anything else that is giving you undue anxiety?

“There are many things about the Church that cause me anxiety,” he said, “but let me mention this one other matter before I leave.”

“Go right ahead,” I replied.

“You know,” he continued, “theologians have been speaking much lately about the Church as God’s Suffering Servant Community. Their return to the Scriptures for an understanding of the mission of the Church is salutary. They call attention to the fact that Christ saved the world through his vicarious death, and they insist that the Church, the Body of Christ, must sacrifice herself also.

“Now recently I heard a minister speak on the theme ‘The Church as a Suffering Servant Community.’ The occasion was a discussion group, and some of the people there insisted that the Church is serving Christ today, without suffering. The minister justly took exception to the statement and raised the question: ‘Is the Christian Church really serving him, or is she merely creating an organization in which members can find “security in faith and fellowship” while adhering to a kind of heretical, non-biblical Christianity and avoiding any real attempt to do the will of God which leads inevitably to self-denial and sacrifice? If we stopped conforming to the world, and began conforming to the strict ethics of the New Testament, and if we began to practice Christian brotherhood and to demonstrate compassion for a world dying without Christ, then the Church would become a Suffering Servant Community.’ When he said this, a dead silence fell over the group and they turned to consider a more important matter—the relevance of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the idea of the Kingdom of God.

“Why isn’t the hub of the Christian wheel,” Paul continued, “commitment to Christ and his will? Why are so many churches organized according to social-likeness and economic-likeness, and not Christ-likeness? In the early Church it was a reckless abandon to Christ as ‘Lord of all’ that bound us together.

PROGRAM PREDOMINANT

“The American Church is too preoccupied with her ‘program’ and with having ‘fellowship.’ But she has forgotten that fellowship is a by-product of service to Christ. She has not begun to gird the towel and serve sacrificially, after her Lord’s example. She tries to be greater than her Lord, and fails to realize that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Until she sees these things, denies herself, and reckons her vocation in terms of sacrificial service, she will never know the smile of God’s approval.

“The new concept of the Kingdom which Christ brought differed radically from the popular Jewish concept of my day,” he added. “The Jews thought of the Kingdom in terms of peace, prosperity, and privilege.

“Our Lord ushered in a universal, spiritual Kingdom. He called disciples not to be at ease in Zion but to die, rise, and suffer with and for him. It was this new idea of the Kingdom that the Jews found offensive, and which the disciples were slow in grasping. It is this idea which American Christianity also seems to find offensive.

TOO MUCH TO EXPECT

“I could go on,” he said, making a gesture with his hand, “but it would do no good. I have taken too much of your time already.”

“Oh, feel free to talk longer,” I said quickly as he rose to go.

“It is not necessary. You see, as I have been speaking with you, I have been listening too. I think I realize I have been too much of a perfectionist—I have expected too much from the American Church. The Church is still composed of sinful, frail men—men who live in the flesh. I suppose I have to learn how to accept reality, how to stop expecting anything better than the status quo.

“How strange. God has made perfect redemption for sin by the sacrifice of his Son; he has restored his image in those who have committed themselves to him in Christ; and the Holy Spirit indwells all believers to guide them through the Word. Yet it is too much to expect men, even though redeemed, to sacrifice themselves in obedience to God!”

With these words Paul disappeared. Somehow I felt I had succeeded with this counseling situation. Paul had at least accepted a realistic view of the American Church, I thought. I am confident he will have less anxiety now, and feel more at ease.

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.