THE ADDED INGREDIENT

While brushing my teeth this morning I noticed that the family toothpaste was in a bright new tube. Another miracle ingredient, Amalgam-58, has been added. Without my glasses, I couldn’t make out what magical properties the additive possesses. Judging from the plastic adhesiveness of a ribbon of the stuff that had squirted along the wall, I would surmise that Amalgam-58 not only fights decay for 58 hours but also fills cavities.

I sighed contentedly through the foam. The bubbles that drifted off reminded me of the detergent action that had been added a year ago. Before that it had been FL-7, ammoniate, and chlorophyl.

And before that? Years of faithful brushing with plain, unfortified, non-miraculous, ordinary toothpaste, a mere medium for FL-7 and Amalgam-58. It is the additive that counts in any product, as the TV laboratory demonstration invariably proves. “In this beaker we have ordinary eyewash …” Already we view it with contempt. Colorless, insipid, ordinary eyewash that could scarcely float a beam out of a brother’s eye if applied with a fire-hose. But sparkling in the other beaker is eyewash with retinium. Even before the glass eyeball is dropped in, we know that this is the deep-acting ingredient that will penetrate to every rod and cone of the retina.

Madison Avenue agencies have at last convinced us that man does not live by bread alone, but by the added ingredients.

Only as bold a writer as C. S. Lewis would entitle a book Mere Christianity. Leaders of the flourishing isms are all advertising what has been added. The golden tablets dropped from heaven at Palmyra, N.Y., make all the difference. More refined revisions of Christianity have a similar zeal for the insights of some leaders of neo-theological fashion.

Even stout defenders of plain Christianity are not immune to the lure of the added ingredient, as compounded perhaps by a sensational Bible teacher. Worst of all, sometimes the Gospel itself is promoted as something added, a booster shot of happiness, instead of a new life in Christ Jesus. God’s saving power operates not by addition, but by transformation.

REPLY TO AN ADVENTIST

A study of Dr. Yost’s statements concerning Adventist doctrine in CHRISTIANITY TODAY (July 21 issue) raises certain questions both of fact and of interpretation to which some attention must be given. There are, to be sure, some things in this material which are formally correct and which cannot but compel the assent at least of those readers who are quite as zealous as the Adventists to be clear of the charge of “antinomianism.” There are, however, several points at which the position taken by this group must be controverted. Let me mention four, of which the latter two are of the most vital import when Adventism’s evangelical status is the question.

1. “Clean” and “unclean” foods. We take exception to the notion that these primitive distinctions are to be maintained in the New Testament age. To be sure, God has not “changed his mind,” but that certain laws were of only temporary relevance should be abundantly evident both from the teaching of our Lord (Mark 7:14–23), and from the example (Acts 10 and 11:1–18) as well as the express declarations (1 Timothy 4:1–5) of his Apostles. No one denies to the Adventists the right to be vegetarians—the New Testament (Romans 14:1–3) specifically grants this privilege to the weak brother—but they would do well to reflect upon the company in which Paul, in the passage from I Timothy cited above, finds those who make abstinence from certain articles of diet a matter of ecclesiastical ordinance.

2. The Sabbath. There is space here for only one observation anent this topic, viz., that at certain points of crucial importance in their teaching, the Adventists handle the evidence in such cavalier fashion that it becomes difficult to credit them with holding such views in all seriousness. Consider, for example, their frequently made assertion that the Book of Acts records 84 Sabbath services and only one first-day service. Certainly their writers cannot be unaware of the fact that all of these “Sabbath services” were Jewish synagogue meetings at which Christian missionaries appeared in order to preach the Gospel to the Jews, and were not Christian meetings for worship

at all. Nor can it have entirely escaped their attention that the New Testament contains no record whatsoever of a Christian Church service that was held on a Saturday. Over against the stress which Adventism places on this point, we have here a silence that is eloquent indeed.

3. Mrs. White’s ministry. It is of little consequence for the purposes of this debate whether Mrs. White personally was the paragon of Christian virtue that Adventists regard her as having been, or whether, as certain detractors have insisted, she was neurotic and dictatorial. What is of real concern is her followers’ contention that she was “in the stream of those who were entrusted with the prophetic gift.” The Adventists’ insistence that her writings are not for this reason to be considered as being in the category of Holy Scripture is entirely misleading; their contention that these “inspired counsels from the Lord” were “not verbally inspired infallible” must be dismissed as a quibble. When God speaks, he speaks infallibly; the God of truth descends to no such equivocation as that implied in the Adventists’ exposition of the character of Mrs. White’s authority. That is to say, if in her writings “it is God and not an erring mortal who has spoken,” there is no reason whatever for denying to them the qualities—including infallibility—which properly inhere in such material. Hence, while Adventism continues to hold its historical position respecting the works of Mrs. White, it must be adjudged guilty of the sin of adding to Holy Scripture, a sin which the Bible itself condemns as severely as it does the sin of detracting from Holy Scripture.

4. The “Heavenly Sanctuary.” Professor Yost, in observing that “the understanding Seventh-day Adventists have of chapters eight and nine of Daniel has been held by numerous Bible commentators … for many centuries” does not mean, of course, that the “heavenly sanctuary” idea is anything but the exclusive property of his church. What he does mean is that some of the older writers employed a method similar to that of William Miller in the interpretation of the prophecies of Daniel, and on the basis of such a construction expected the middle of the 19th century to mark the end of a distinctive prophetic period. But this proves nothing more than that the study of prophecy is beset with things hard to understand, and that not even the most responsible scholars have always been free from some amount of fantasy in dealing with this subject. Now to be sure, no misinterpretation of Scripture can be regarded as an innocuous thing, but the difficulty here is that Adventism’s view of prophecy has implications in an area much wider than the question of the “last things.” The whole Christian doctrine of salvation is profoundly affected here, for according to Adventism, Christ, since October 22, 1844—the date of his entrance into the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary—has been busy about the work of “investigative judgment,” the purpose of which is to ascertain who, out of the number of those who have believed in him, are finally entitled to the benefits of his atonement. There are many aspects of this teaching which merit attention, but here we mention only the one point at which it seems to us that no amount of explaining will serve to deliver Adventism from the charge of legalism, namely their teaching that the believer’s acquittal in the “investigative judgment” is grounded in his keeping of the Ten Commandments (“A Christian who through faith in Jesus Christ has faithfully kept the law’s requirements will be acquitted; there is no condemnation, for the law finds no fault in him.”—William H. Branson: Drama of the Ages, p. 351).

Seventh-day Adventism protests that it believes in justification by faith (cf. Questions on Doctrine, p. 22 f.). The foregoing citation from a representative writer of this movement should make it clear that far from believing in justification by faith as that term has been historically understood, Adventism is involved in a legalism of the deepest dye, and inculcates an autosoterism scarcely less patent than the Galatian Judaizers’ own.

Bellerose, N. Y.

• With Dr. Yost’s article and this correspondence space limitations require an end to the discussion of Adventist and Evangelical differences.—ED.

DAYS OF CRISES

The current number (June 23 issue) is the finest yet published in my estimation. The articles by Dr. Shoemaker, Congressman Judd, and Governor Price … are most helpful to our troubled minds in these days of multiplied crises.

Highland, Ohio.

The editorial, “A Firm Reliance on Providence,” (June 23 issue) … contains the kind of religious faith combined with clear thinking and cultural awareness we all so desperately need today.

Chevy Chase Baptist Church

Washington, D. C.

TRUTH AND LOVE

Your issue of June 23 contained a news report by me about the San Francisco Billy Graham Crusade. In it I stated that there were dozens of powerful churches in the Bay Area that had ignored the Crusade and “their pastors had been careful not to engage in vocal criticism but had led their congregations to regard the events in the Cow Palace as curious phenomena theologically unrelated to their church’s worship and Christian education program.” Upon reading the words in print I do not believe they were kind or fair to a number of ministers of real Christian courage whom I know. The Lord (nobody else!) has been dealing with me in this matter, and warning me that it is not enough to speak truth; I must speak truth in love. I believe love would say, “Their pastors did not as a rule engage in vocal criticism but regarded the events in the Cow Palace as unrelated to their church’s worship and Christian education program.”

Hillside Presbyterian Church

Oakland, Calif.

ANGLICAN PREACHING

May I protest against Mr. Warrington’s sneer at the “Anglo-Catholics” (Eutychus, July 7 issue). The glory of the ancient English church is that she preaches the Gospel of the Grace of God in its entirety, as no other church in the world does. The various English speaking denominations have derived every scrap of the Christianity they possess from their mother, the Church.

Norwich, England

The brevity of your report of … G. B. Duncan on Anglican preaching in Britain (Apr. 14 issue, p. 29) creates possibly an over-rosy picture. If one may speak for what must be the least articulate Protestant laity in the world, allow me to say that a great deal of “evangelical” preaching is leaving congregations doctrinally illiterate. Much sermon preparation appears to have been spent in the service of alliteration more than plain exegesis, and the years of theological training appear to have left many clergy unable to expound a passage of Scripture. There are convention calls for “surrender,” made sometimes vehemently and with clenched fist, but in a vacuum because the Atonement has not first been preached.

London, England

REACHING THE WORLD

How to evangelize America? One tenth of our Protestant church members could do this within five years. How? By leading one person to faith in Christ each year, and also one person to be a similar personal witness to Christ. One tenth of our Protestant church members would be over five millions of personal witnesses. Annual results? Double that number five times:10 million; 20 million; 40 million; 80 million; 160 million.

How to enlist at least 10 per cent of our church members to be successful personal witnesses? Enlist two or three members of each church to agree to pray together for this result in their own church. See Matthew 18:19, 20. Such groups could be multiplied by this method. It is doubtful whether America can be evangelized in any other way than this, or its equivalent. If this is done here, it will soon be done all over the world. Then the whole world can be reached.

Christ for the World Movement

Monroe, Ohio

IMPACT IN INDIA

I was much interested in your editorial (Feb. 17 issue) about the increasing interest in evangelical publication. I might say that the same is evident here in India. The gospel message through the printed page is now reaching into homes which never before admitted evangelists, and it is leaving its impact.

Mohulpahari Christian Hospital

Bihar, India

THE YOUNG AND ORTHODOX

John Gerstner mentions … [Harvard] Divinity “in the forties” (June 23 issue).… I can tell you about the twenties: it was “a bastion of orthodox liberalism” for sure.… We were all poor and happy liberals, the world was going Christian so fast.… Which reminds me, now the veteran church editor and sermon taster, that young orthodox preachers are just as bad in their delivery, and in the conduct of the whole service, as the liberals; they all fumble and mumble, hang their heads and try to pronounce long words through their teeth. “A parson’s neck should never be hanged.”

Church Editor

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

St. Louis, Mo.

In his preface to “Letters to Young Churches,” J. B. Phillips writes: “We commonly suppose that all roads of the human spirit, however divergent, eventually lead home to the Celestial Benevolence. But if we were seriously to think that they do not, that false roads in fact diverge more and more until they finally lead right away from God, then we can at any rate sympathize with what may seem to us a narrow attitude. For example, an ‘unorthodox’ view of Christ which really means that the ‘Bridge’ is still unbuilt, was anathema to these men [the Apostles] who were sure of the truth, and had in many cases known Christ personally. It is at least possible that our ‘tolerance’ has its root in inner uncertainty or indifference.”

In no generation has uncertainty and indifference to the eternal verities of the Christian faith been more in evidence than in our own. Broadness and tolerance are much coveted labels in our day. To call anyone “narrow minded” is equivalent to placing a stigma on one’s character, particularly when referring to the realm of religion.

But we all know that there are areas of both life and thought where men must be intolerant if they are in the right.

The mathematician who insists on certain fixed formulae is not being intolerant, he is being honest. The referee who insists that the rules of the game be observed is not being intolerant but fair. The pilot who demands accuracy in computing speed, wind velocity, or drift is not being intolerant but is protecting life.

Why is it then that we should want Christianity to adopt a tolerance where matters of eternal truth are concerned? That which has to do with the welfare of the soul cannot be subject to the vagaries and foibles of human concepts. To undermine the absolute involves a tolerance not countenanced by Scripture.

The Bible plainly teaches that Christ is the divine Son of God. This was the claim of our Lord and it was affirmed by his disciples. The Epistles repeat it again and again. And John in Revelation bears witness to the fact in no uncertain terms.

The Church was founded on belief in the deity of Christ, and it has been an essential teaching of our evangelical faith through the centuries.

Anything, therefore, that would question or detract from the deity of our Lord must be resisted even unto death.

But the Bible is specific about a number of other things besides this. Nothing is clearer, for instance, than that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins. It is popular to say that no one aspect of the atonement can explain the magnitude of that doctrine in all of its implications. This can be true, but such an omnibus statement must not then be made the cloak for a denial of certain vital parts of that doctrine.

If we contend that Christ died to set an example, let us be equally vigorous in affirming that he died as our substitute, for this is what the Bible plainly states. If we insist that his gracious act of sacrificial love motivates us to turn to him in faith, then let us be equally insistent that we are cleansed from our sins by the blood shed on Calvary.

If we find ourselves associated with Catholics and Jews in some worthy cause, let us be sure that we do not compromise our faith by making an inter-faith enterprise the excuse for denying the uniqueness of Christ and his redemptive work.

We ought to be intolerant where the things of Christ’s person and work are concerned. Our Lord himself was vigorously intolerant. When he said: “… no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” he was pointing the way to eternal life. And when he said: “… ye must be born again,” he was making clear the necessity for new birth.

When the disciples after Pentecost went out to preach a risen Christ there was no compromise in their message. So far as the events they had seen and experienced were concerned, they were intolerant of any compromise.

When Simon the sorcerer suggested that the power to bestow the Holy Spirit be purchased with money, Peter exclaimed intolerantly, “Thy money perish with thee.” The determining factor for Peter was God’s revealed will. When it was made clear to him in the house of Cornelius that salvation was for all men, he submitted saying: “Who was I that I should resist God?”

When Elymas the sorcerer tried to obstruct the preaching of Paul, the apostle also was intolerant: “O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all unrighteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13:10).

The gentle John showed no tolerance toward Diotrephes who was disturbing the church. “Wherefore, if I come,” he wrote, “I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church” (3 John 10).

In the area of medicine, tolerance of error can be a grave offense. No reputable pharmacist will tolerate substitution of drugs or alteration in prescribed amounts. No reputable surgeon will tolerate unethical operations. But people professing to be Christians put up with unbelievable tolerance in the areas of life that are the most important.

Does not the reason for this lie in the shift from authority of divine revelation as found in the Scripture to authority in man’s ever-changing opinions?

If Christian truth is not absolute, if it is only relative and therefore subject to human interpretation (and misinterpretation), then there should be no limits to tolerance; one man’s opinion would have to be as valid as the next.

But because Christianity is based upon truths which are unalterable, and because the eternal destiny of man is at stake in this matter, there must be intolerance over the injection of either opinions or speculations which are at variance with revealed truth.

But having said all of this, I hasten to acknowledge that some of the most tragic pages of history have to do with the intolerance of those who have never understood the meaning of Christianity and have gone out to force their own beliefs and interpretations either on individuals or the world at large.

There is but one way to keep a proper balance between tolerance and intolerance. Where the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ are concerned—that which we are told of him in Scripture—we should be completely intolerant of any deviation. With Peter we are forced to say: “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” It is because eternal life is involved that we must accept Christ as he is presented in the Scriptures.

Yet, at the same time, where issues have to do with lesser matters, ought not a Christian to be the most tolerant person in all the world?

EDITORIALS

The practice in certain quarters of employing the phrase “fraternal worker,” as a substitute for the time-honored term “missionary,” marks a trend that should awaken the concern of every friend of missions. More is at stake than a mere matter of terminology. The whole philosophy of Christian missions is involved, including the Church’s conception of her primary function, the basic nature of the missionary task, and the place or role of the missionary in it.

Until recently, the full import of the “fraternal worker” idea, as expressing a basic change in missionary outlook and policy, has not been generally understood. Many have accepted the term as simply a convenient synonym, to be used interchangeably with the word “missionary,” long-established by biblical and historical usage. “Fraternal worker” appeared rather unobtrusively at first; but the serious implications of the term have become more clearly reflected every day in certain reactionary trends in missionary emphasis. Missions is being interpreted more as inter-church aid; ecumenism rather than evangelization; fellowship within the Christian community rather than outreach; consolidation rather than pioneering; subsidizing existing churches rather than founding new ones; a church-centered rather than a proclamation-centered program; the Koinonia rather than the Kerygma; hence “fraternal workers” rather than “missionaries.”

Doubtless one of the occasions for this “fraternal worker” philosophy is to be found in the emerging of national churches in many mission fields. This is a new dimension in missions. The missionary no longer stands alone. In many countries he finds himself alongside indigenous Christian organizations with their own ecclesiastical life and their own programs of service. A common problem now confronting the boards is: “What should be the continuing relationship of the missions to the autonomous national church bodies which have been developed as the result of missionary endeavor?”

The response to this question varies, even among those who accept the “fraternal worker” concept, but it tends to express itself in a fairly well-defined pattern. In any given field, the formal organization known as “the mission” is to be dissolved; the missionaries are to be turned over to the indigenous church body to be incorporated into its ecclesiastical structure and to be deployed by it as seems best; new missionaries are to be sent only on invitation of the indigenous churches; the assignments of work for each missionary are to be made by the national church; all funds for evangelistic, educational, medical and other work are to be placed in the hands of the national church, the entire program to be administered and directed by the church through its appropriate boards or committees; the personal support and expenses of the missionaries are to continue to come from abroad; and the boards in the sending countries are to become mainly subsidizing agencies to provide the necessary assistance in personnel and funds.

No one will question the principle that missions and missionaries should maintain the closest fraternal relationship with the churches which, in the providence of God, have come into being as the result of their endeavor. The ties are deep and precious. That increasing recognition must be given to the place and dignity of the national churches in the countries where they are established goes without saying. Every mission should seek the understanding and cooperation of the indigenous body in all of its efforts and in every major decision concerning program and policy. Nevertheless, while acknowledging that partnership must characterize the attitude of the missionary, it is not in itself the goal of missionary endeavor. Nothing should be allowed to obscure the missionary’s essential role as a pioneer. His primary concern is for the unevangelized. Assistance to the national church is an important but secondary function. His first concern must be for those “other sheep” whose spiritual lostness and need called him in the first place from his home and his native land. There are few countries in which Protestant missionaries are at work today where as many as 5 per cent of the people have been won to the Christian faith. Any philosophy of missions which diverts attention from this unfinished task and interprets our continuing role principally in terms of inter-church aid must be classified as a major retreat in missionary strategy. Established work should be turned over as rapidly as possible to the indigenous church while the missions move on to the “regions beyond.” This is the clear meaning of the parable of the one hundred sheep. Our mandate to preach the Gospel to the unbelieving people of the world comes from Christ, not from any national church body. We were “sent” before we were “invited,” and it is inconceivable that the coming into being of a relatively small body of believers in any country should put an end to the initiative of men and women who have been called of God to preach the Gospel to every creature.

It remains to be seen what will be the impact of this “fraternal worker” policy on the missionary himself. To most missionaries the call to service abroad comes primarily in terms of the need of the unevangelized millions. They enter upon their work with a burning passion for the unredeemed. To find upon arrival on the field that they have lost the initiative in pursuing their missionary purpose and must accept an assignment within the ecclesiastical structure of some existing church group comes to them as a bitter and disappointing experience. Not that they are unwilling to occupy a place of humility or subordination, but that they are thwarted in the fulfillment of the visions and aims that led them in the first place to offer themselves for service. Indigenous churches have not always been prepared for the responsibility of deploying fraternal workers in their program, and long periods of frustration have been experienced by some who have waited patiently for an assignment. Others have been given work for which they were not fitted. Some have found themselves serving as assistants to national pastors in local parishes, occupied with the running of errands and with the details of a local program, while all around are the unreached towns and villages to which by every missionary impulse they feel called to minister. It is not surprising that disappointment and heartache have been the lot of many, and that some, in disillusionment, have left the field and returned to their homes. It is a fact that in most instances the “fraternal worker” policy has met with resistance from the missionaries on the field, and in some cases has been imposed by higher authority in the face of the contrary judgment and against the strong objections of the missionary body.

We believe, further, that the policy in question is detrimental to the best interest of the national churches themselves. While it has the appearance of fostering the autonomy of the national church, it is actually a step backward. It introduces missionary personnel and money a second time into the structure of the indigenous organization. It tends to develop an habitual dependence upon outside aid, an expectation of indefinite continued help from abroad. Its effect, we believe, is radically to retard the development of the Church in self-support, self-government, and possibly in self-propagation. Indeed, these specific aims, long recognized in missionary circles as axioms of sound policy, have been formally deleted from their official statements of objectives by one or more missionary boards which have adopted the “fraternal worker” idea. National church bodies which have been operating for years on their own resources, are being placed again on a subsidized basis and, in some cases, are coming to feel that such aid is their right, with consequent weakening of stewardship, sacrifice and responsibility.

The real autonomy of the churches cannot be achieved as long as they are dependent upon outside personnel and money for the maintenance of organizational life. Autonomy is not a gift to be bestowed, like the conferring of a diploma; it is a status into which a church must grow through the development of its own assets, spiritual and material. A church is either autonomous or it is not. Autonomy cannot be given if it does not have it; nor can it be taken away if it does.

At this point the “fraternal worker” philosophy presents two distinct dangers. One is the danger of dominating the church through influential personnel and the material power that money represents. Even where missionaries represent a small minority in the councils of the Church, their training and experience, together with the fact that they have often been the teachers of those beside whom they sit, and represent, in addition, the sources of financial help, would give them an undue influence in directing church policies. Strong as the temptation may be to accept whatever aid is proffered, national churches would do well to ponder the effects upon their own independence and dignity. In one case of record the church, by official action, requested the withdrawal of all missionaries from its councils. The other danger is that of “spoiling” or pampering the church, fostering within it a suppliant attitude, a disposition to lean upon help from abroad instead of growing through struggle into self-reliance and maturity. Untold damage can be done to the character of the Church. The help given may come to be accepted as a matter of course. Even the capacity to be grateful can be lost, with a show of petulance when askings are not met in full.

The national churches can hardly be expected to develop any sense of their own missionary responsibility under such a system. They tend to be confirmed as “receiving churches,” whereas all churches should be “sending churches.” This is important. For missions is not primarily a matter of church to church relations, but, rather, of the relation of the Church to the unbelieving world. Hence, “missionary” rather than “fraternal worker” is the aptly descriptive word.

One further question. In this day of intense nationalism, how can the national churches escape the stigma of religious “colonialism” as long as fraternal workers from abroad sit prominently in their councils, and budgets are replenished from year to year with liberal infusions of aid from abroad. What would happen to such churches, geared to a policy of subsidization, if political changes required the sudden and complete withdrawal of all outside help?

Lastly, what will be the effect of the “fraternal worker” policy on the interest and support of Christian people? Inter-church aid is no substitute for missions. Important as it may be, it hardly serves as a satisfactory answer to the great missionary urge of the church impelling it to pioneering and extension. It hardly fulfills, for example, the aim set forth in a typical statement of purpose adopted by one church as follows: “The great end of missionary life and service is the preaching of Christ and Him crucified to the non-evangelized peoples.” It is questionable whether the Church at large will reveal the same interest in and support of a work which involves chiefly the assistance of other churches rather than the challenging task of planting the Gospel in new fields. We can say “fraternal worker” instead of “missionary,” and “ecumenical mission” instead of “missions” if we like, but let us remember that we are talking about different things. What “ecumenical mission” will accomplish is not yet clear, but let us not forget that it was “missions,” the business of being sent to the unevangelized, that fired the souls of the Apostles and turned the world upside down.

Recently CHRISTIANITY TODAY reported that three out of every four Protestant ministers claim to be conservative rather than neo-orthodox or liberal in their theology. A survey of Protestant clergymen by Opinion Research Corporation also discloses their significant attitudes on economic and social matters.

Among Protestant ministers the great majority believes American businessmen have “a humane regard for their employees” (71 per cent voted “yes”); those asserting that “most businessmen look upon labor as a commodity rather than as human beings” (15 per cent affirmative) are much in the minority (14 per cent had no opinion). The majority likewise affirms that the American business system “achieves a high degree of economic justice in the distribution of wealth” (60 per cent affirmative). A lesser group (15 per cent), however, finds “little economic justice” in our system of distributing wealth (other ministers had no opinion). Approximately one clergyman in five, the survey indicates, is decidedly socialistic in his economic philosophy.

An equally important finding is that only 55 per cent of the ministry—slightly more than one in two—sees a definite connection between economic and religious freedom. Some 13 per cent hesitate to venture an opinion on the subject, and 10 per cent answered a query about the interdependence of economic and religious liberties in a qualified or ambiguous way.

Professional interviewers questioned:

“In the main do you agree or disagree with the statement that economic and religious freedoms are linked … that if the government owns and operates all industry, religious freedom will disappear?”

Approximately 22 per cent of the clergy expressed the highly debatable position that total government suppression of economic liberty implies no essential threat to religious liberty. This obviously discloses a serious lack; no unified comprehension exists of the connection between all forms of liberty and the principle of limited government. More than one in five ministers sees no threat to religious freedom latent in the tolerance of state absolutism in economics.

Denominationally, Baptist ministers sensed the integral interrelationship of human liberties better than their fellow-clergymen; 67 per cent—conspicuously above the 55 per cent average—agreed that full government control in economics would endanger the security of religious freedom. Only 12 per cent of the Baptists answered negatively. No other denomination scored as well.

Episcopalian rectors especially spoofed the idea of an intrinsic connection between economic and religious liberty; 41 per cent of them saw no threat to religious freedom in complete governmental ownership and operation of industry. Next high were Presbyterian ministers with 31 per cent, almost one in three. Then came the Lutherans with 28 per cent.

That socio-political views of ministers tend to lean considerably to the “right” of official pronouncements made by denominational social action committees was dramatized by the response. More than one in two Methodist ministers—52 per cent in fact—linked economic and religious freedoms, and agreed that religious liberty would vanish if economic freedom disappeared. Only 20 per cent of the Methodist clergy disagreed; another 20 per cent had no opinion, while 8 per cent gave a qualified comment.

Another of the survey’s interesting features is that, taken as a whole, ministers serving the larger congregations best sensed the dependence of religious liberty upon the restriction of state controls. In churches with more than 750 members, 59 per cent of the ministers affirmed an unquestionable link between economic and religious freedoms; 53 per cent of the clergy with congregations numbering less than 250, and 57 per cent of those with congregations of 250 to 750, agreed. The largest dissent was in the bracket of 250 to 750 church membership where 23 per cent of the ministers affirmed no intrinsic connection.

Geographically considered, the inner unity of human freedoms was most consistently affirmed by clergymen in the South, least consistently by those in the East (East, 45 per cent; Midwest, 55 per cent; South, 57 per cent; Far West, 56 per cent). The older clergy comprehended the link between freedoms more regularly than their younger colleagues: under 40 years of age: 48 per cent; 40–49 years, 55 per cent; 50 years or more, 58 per cent. The fact of seminary training showed itself not so much in a significant difference of commitment (those attending, 54 per cent affirmative; not attending, 55 per cent affirmative), as in an absence of conviction by non-seminarians (“no opinion,” 20 per cent, as against 11 per cent by seminary graduates) which more than compensated for the larger disagreement of seminary graduates (24 per cent, as against 18 per cent by non-seminarians) with the thesis that absolute economic controls are a prelude to religious restrictions.

The connection between theological and economic principles was most consistently supported by ministers avowedly fundamentalist in their views; those assertedly neo-orthodox rated lowest. Among fundamentalist ministers, 65 per cent agreed while 17 per cent disagreed over the relationship between economic and religious freedoms; 12 per cent had no opinion, 7 per cent gave qualified comments. Of those who preferred to be designated “conservative,” 50 per cent acknowledged the link while 25 per cent did not; 13 per cent had no opinion and 12 per cent gave qualified answers. In the “liberal” bracket, 49 per cent granted a connection while 27 per cent did not; 20 per cent were unsure (the major zone of “no opinion”) and 4 per cent qualified their replies. Among “neo-orthodox” ministers 46 per cent saw a connection while 29 per cent did not; 11 per cent had no opinion and 14 per cent made qualified comments.

Despite the predominant recognition that economic and religious liberties cannot really be isolated, Protestant ministers are much more complacent (if not confused) in the realm of practical affairs than in the realm of theory. Of the ministers surveyed, 61 per cent for example thought the Federal government should provide low rent housing for low income people. Since a program of this kind would compete directly with private enterprise, and perpetuate the government in American business, such approval was strikingly high. Those who opposed government housing numbered 21 per cent, while 18 per cent registered no opinion.

Exposition of economic as well as religious liberty is essential to a complete theory of human liberty. Modern political philosophers are detecting once again that the ideals of limited government and free market economics as a heritage of Western civilization presuppose the spiritual and ethical framework of Judaeo-Christian religion. It is not enough to observe (true as this is) that political liberty and economic freedom are as important to man’s search for spiritual growth and material sufficiency as is religious liberty. Rather than to sanction freedom primarily by the pragmatic results of political and economic liberty, some modern thinkers show a growing readiness to premise the case for freedom in its entirety on religious assumptions.

The Judaeo-Christian tradition insists on the connection between religion and economics by relating revealed religion in a determinative way to economic principles. It defines the link between economic liberty and economic duty in terms of the revealed will of God.

World history is impressing contemporary appraisers with the weaknesses of collectivistic economic theory and with the virtues of free enterprise. Today the emphasis on economic liberty is sustained on many sides. Capitalism is defended not only by Christian Freedom Foundation in the Judaeo-Christian setting of revealed religion, but by Spiritual Mobilization in somewhat less explicit idealistic and theistic terms, and by Foundation for Economic Education whose affirmations have not consistently transcended humanism.

An orthodox theory of economics independent of a covering theological framework cannot withstand deterioration, not even subversion by hostile views. The human mind calls insistently for the integration of all life’s claims. An inner logic has bound the tradition of biblical theology and of free enterprise. As does the whole of life, free enterprise belongs under the living God; whoever loses the Lord of history soon becomes enslaved by false gods and ideologies. The theological left, with its repudiation of the sovereignty of God, became vulnerable to a collectivistic emphasis on human controls as over against individual rights. Today a new awareness of the peril of collectivism exists in some liberal Protestant circles. Even among college students one may detect a growing feeling that socialism is reactionary, that much of the current campus enthusiasm is mostly a case of uncritical conformity. Some leaders nevertheless, while affirming free enterprise retain hostility to biblical theology. It must be emphasized that valid Christian political and economic theory arises from within Christian theology; it is neither an optional appendage nor merely a compatible corollary, but an integral expression of the whole. That is why, in the social order as well as in personal life, biblical theology and ethics are not content to speak only of values and ideals; what they affirm is the will of God.

Especially in times of crisis it becomes clear that an autonomous social ethics is powerless to inspire the masses either to live or to die. Only a given morality, a morality of revelation, can in such times cope with the young, militant and fanatical ideologies that demand total commitment. It is only a morality of revelation that suffices to judge the whole of human thought and life, to call it to repentance and to the highest dedication. Given the reality of revealed religion, it is hazardous to extract from a larger circle of ideas that cohere philosophically and logically simply that segment of thought which seems palatable and functional for a given point in history.

In the Book of Jonah (1:3) there is recorded his trip from Joppa to Tarshish, and we are told “he paid his fare thereof.” This is the first instance we have of a transportation fare being paid by a prophet of the Lord, and the inference is that he paid the regular rate.

Today many religious leaders and clergymen would like to see the airlines make the same concession to them as is made by the railroads. During 1953 Secretary of Commerce recommended that Congress pass the needed authority to make this possible. The Senate bill would have permitted free or reduced fares, but Congress in 1956 amended the Civil Aeronautics Act giving the airlines permission to grant reduced rate transportation to ministers of religion on a “space available” basis.

This permission to date has been accepted by five of the smaller companies who accord fares of one half their first-class fare. The larger companies, with a request pending for a general increase in fares, are not anxious to reduce their revenue and further feel that to accord same on a “space available” basis could incur bad reactions and also encourage a similar request from eleemosynary and government authorities.

In the year 457 B.C., during the reign of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, permission was given the scribe, Ezra, with a company of 1,700 to go from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, and the King (Ezra 7:24) certified “that touching any of the priests and Levites, singers, porters … or ministers of this house of God, it shall not be lawful to impose toll, tribute, or custom, upon them.”

Thus the first clergy passed over the highways of that day without paying toll or the modern fare.

In an old book of by-laws of an English turnpike company we find this: “Toll is not to be demanded or taken of any Rector, Vicar or Curate going to or returning from visiting any sick parishioner or his other parochial duties within his parish.”

This same rule was followed on early American toll roads; and in addition, lay persons going to and from their house of worship on Sundays were exempt.

A contract between the Colonial government of Georgia and an owner of a ferry in 1761 stated that ministers of the Gospel and students of divinity should cross free of toll.

A history of the Erie Railroad states that clergy were first carried free by this company under the following circumstances: Early in the spring of 1843 the Reverend Doctor Robert McCartee, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Goshen, was a passenger of an Erie Railroad train operated by Conductor Ayers. On account of a very heavy rain, the track was in such bad condition that the train was delayed for hours. Some of the passengers drew up a set of resolutions denouncing the company in scathing terms. When these were presented to Dr. McCartee he said he would be glad to add his signature if the phraseology was changed slightly. He wrote the following:

“Whereas, the recent rain has fallen at a time ill-suited to our pleasure and convenience and without consultation with us: and

“Whereas, Jack Frost, who has been imprisoned in the ground several months, having become tired of his bondage, is trying to break loose, therefore be it

“Resolved, that we would be glad to have it otherwise.”

When Dr. McCartee arose and, in his best parliamentary voice, read his proposed amendment, there was a hearty laugh and nothing more was heard about censoring the management. Conductor Ayers was so delighted with this turn of affairs that thereafter he would never accept a fare from Dr. McCartee. Not being a selfish man, the doctor suggested a few weeks later that the courtesy be extended to all ministers. The company thought the idea a good one and for a time no minister paid to ride on the Erie Railroad.

An official of one of the early railroads said that when they gave a pass to a minister they expected to receive their reward in heaven, while a secretary reporting to the president the issue of 18 annual passes to bishops, and other clergy remarked, “The ministers are pretty good advertisers.”

It is apparent that the railroads used the ministers to gain public favor. Special sermons were requested on the “moral effect” of railroads.

A minister wrote to the Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad in 1871 that he proposed to hold semi-monthly services in Brooks and asked that a pass from Burnham be given him. After due consideration, the president of the road replied: “Your favor of yesterday asking for a free pass is at hand. This company is disposed to lend all possible aid toward the advancement of the Gospel. It recognizes specially the need of regenerating influences and a change of heart in the field of your proposed endeavors at Brooks, which has repudiated its subscription to this road. With the hope that your prayers and exhortations may be efficacious to that end, I enclose the pass requested.”

A stockholder of 1878 complained in a letter to Railway Age Magazine about according ministers half fares, to which a railroad official replied through the same columns, in part:

“The clergyman is a public servant to a greater extent even than members of our legislatures. His work especially tends to the improvement of public morals, and the more he moves about sowing the seeds of better social and spiritual life, the more will all commercial interests be advanced. We undertake to say that every step or stage of advancement toward the thorough permeation of the community with church influence and Christian sentiment, the more secure is railroad property and the more prosperous are railroad interests.”

The Iowa Railroad Commissioners in 1882 reported: “Sheriffs are given passes for somewhat the same reason that clergymen get them. The latter are encouraged to raise the standard of character throughout the State and the former to lay hands upon those whose standard of character is so low as to make treatment of a penal nature necessary. The railroads feel that the more the parson and the sheriff can be encouraged to travel the more safe life and property will be on their lines.”

During 1920 the question of permitting reduced clergy fares on the railroads in the state was raised by the railroad commission of the State of Pennsylvania with the result that the question was submitted to popular vote. The answer was their continued sale.

The Western railroads in 1921 increased clergy fares to two-thirds of the regular fare, at which time it was feared the action foretold ultimate abolition. Certain ministers said that such action would be disastrous to the clergy, since they would be denied the benefit of conventions, inspirational retreats, and the like, while others thought that any and all concession should be refused. One said, “From the time of the seminary we have accepted too much graft.”

During 1938 the Long Island Railroad appealed to the clergy along its lines requesting they use their influence with the children to discontinue mischievous and malicious practice such as throwing stones at trains, etc.

Latest development in the long and colorful history came recently when President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill in which Congress authorized airlines to reduce the fare for clergymen—on a standby basis.

The bill means practically nothing, however. Major airlines have not requested such permission from the Civil Aeronautics Board, and the clergy have not applied much pressure for them to do so. Ministers using such a plan would chance missing flights with no vacancies or cancellations. Most ministers, with packed work-schedules, could not travel under such uncertainties.

Clergy fares or no clergy fares, however, ministers are among the busiest travelers around the world.

Clyde H. Freed is author of The Story of Railroad Passenger Fares and has written numerous articles for trade journals. He holds the Bachelor of Laws degree from Georgetown University. In 1956 he retired as ticket agent at Union Station, Washington, D. C., where he had been working since 1910. He is now engaged as an employee of Christianity Today.

We must take into account what it meant for the Christians when they proclaimed: Christ is risen from the dead! Above all we must bear in mind what death meant for them. We are tempted to associate these powerful affirmations with the Greek thought of the immortality of the soul, and in this way to rob them of their content. Christ is risen: that is, we stand in the new era in which death is conquered, in which corruptibility is no more. For if there is really one spiritual body (not an immortal soul, but a spiritual body) which has emerged from a fleshly body, then indeed the power of death is broken. Believers, according to the conviction of the first Christians, shall no more die: this was certainly their expectation in the earliest time. It must have been a problem when they ascertained that Christians continued to die. But even the fact that men continue to die no longer has the same significance after the resurrection of Christ. The fact of death is robbed of its former significance. Dying is no longer an expression of the absolute lordship of Death, but only one of Death’s last contentions for lordship. Death cannot put an end to the great fact that there is one risen body.

We should attempt simply to understand what the Christians meant when they spoke of Christ as being the “first-born from the dead.” However difficult it may be for us to do so, we must above all eliminate the question of whether or not we can accept this belief. We must also at the very start leave to one side the question of whether Socrates or the New Testament is right. Otherwise we shall find ourselves continually mixing alien thought-processes with those of the New Testament. We should for once simply listen to what the New Testament says. Christ the first-born from the dead! His body the first resurrection body, the first spiritual body. Where this conviction is present, the whole of life and the whole of thought must be influenced by it. The whole thought of the New Testament remains for us a book sealed with seven seals when we do not read behind every sentence there this other sentence: Death has already been overcome (but really death: not the body); there is already a new creation (but really a new creation: not an immortality which the soul has always possessed); the resurrection age is already inaugurated.

Granted that it is only inaugurated, but still decisively inaugurated. Only inaugurated: for death is still at work, and Christians still die. The disciples experienced this as the first members of the Christian community died. This necessarily presented them with a difficult problem. In 1 Corinthians 11:30 Paul writes that basically death and sickness should no longer occur. We still die, and still there is sickness and sin. But the Holy Spirit is already effective in our world as the power of new creation; he is already at work visibly in the primitive community in the diverse manifestations of the Spirit. In my book Christ and Time I have spoken of a tension between present and future, the tension between “already fulfilled” and “not yet consummated.” This tension belongs essentially to the New Testament and is not introduced as a secondary solution born of embarrassment, as Albert Schweitzer’s disciples and as Rudolph Bultmann maintain. This tension is already present in and with Jesus. He proclaims the Kingdom of God for the future; but on the other hand he proclaims that the Kingdom of God has already broken in, since he himself with the Holy Spirit is indeed already repulsing death by healing the sick and raising the dead (Matt. 12:28; 11:3 ff.; Luke 10:18) in anticipation of the victory over death which he obtains in his own death. Schweitzer is not right when he sees as the original Christian hope only a hope in the future; nor is C. H. Dodd, when he speaks only of realized eschatology; and Bultmann is even less right when he resolves the original hope of Jesus and the first Christians into existentialism. It belongs constitutively to the New Testament that it thinks in temporal categories, and this is because the belief that the resurrection is achieved in Christ is the starting point of all Christian living and thinking. When one proceeds from this principle, then the chronological tension between “already fulfilled” and “not yet consummated” constitutes the essence of the Christian faith. Then the figure I use in Christ and Time must characterize the whole New Testament situation: the decisive battle has been fought in Christ’s death and resurrection; only V-day is yet to come.

Basically the whole contemporary theological discussion turns upon this question: Is Easier the starting point of the Christian Church, of its existence, life, and thought? If so, we are living in an interim time.

In this case, the resurrection faith of the New Testament becomes the cardinal point of all Christian belief. Accordingly, the fact that there is a resurrection body—Christ’s body—defines the first Christians’ whole interpretation of time. If Christ is the “first-born from the dead,” then this means that the End-time is already present. But it also means that a temporal interval separates the first-born from all other men who are not yet “born from the dead.” This means then that we live in an interim time, between Jesus’ resurrection, which has already taken place, and our own, which will not take place until the End. It also means, moreover, that the quickening Power, the Holy Spirit, is already at work among us. Therefore Paul designates the Holy Spirit by the same term—first-fruits (Rom. 8:23)—which he uses for Jesus himself (1 Cor. 15:23). There is then already a foretaste of the resurrection. And indeed in a twofold way: our inner man is already being renewed from day to day by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16); the body also has already been laid hold of by the Spirit, although the flesh still has its citadel within it. Wherever the Holy Spirit appears, the vanquished power of death recoils, even in the body. Hence miracles of healing occur even in our still mortal body. To the despairing cry in Rom. 7:24, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” the whole New Testament answers: The Holy Spirit!

The foretaste of the End, realized through the Holy Spirit, becomes most clearly visible in the early Christian celebration of the breaking of bread. Visible miracles of the Spirit occur there. There the Spirit tries to break through the limits of imperfect human language in the speaking with tongues. And there the community passes over into direct connection with the Risen One, not only with his soul, but also with his resurrection body. Therefore we hear in 1 Corinthians 10:16: “The bread we break, is it not communion with the body of Christ?” Here in communion with the brethren we come nearest to the resurrection body of Christ; and so Paul writes in the following chapter 11 (a passage which has received far too little consideration): if this Lord’s Supper were partaken of by all members of the community in a completely worthy manner, then the union with Jesus’ resurrection body would be so effective in our own bodies that even now there would be no more sickness or death (1 Cor. 11:28–30)—a singularly bold assertion. Therefore the community is described as the body of Christ, because here the spiritual body of Christ is present, because here we come closest to it; here in the common meal the first disciples at Easter saw Jesus’ resurrection body, his spiritual body.

Yet in spite of the fact that the Holy Spirit is already so powerfully at work, men still die; even after Easter and Pentecost men continue to die as before. Our body remains mortal and subject to sickness. Its transformation into the spiritual body does not take place until the whole creation is formed anew by God. Then only for the first time there will be nothing but Spirit, nothing but the power of life, for then death will be destroyed with finality. Then there will be a new substance for all things visible. Instead of the fleshly matter there appears the spiritual. That is, instead of corruptible matter there appears the incorruptible. The visible and invisible will be spirit. But let us make no mistake: this is certainly not the Greek sense of bodiless Idea! A new heaven and a new earth! That is the Christian hope. And then will our bodies also rise from the dead. Yet not as fleshly bodies, but as spiritual bodies.

The expression which stands in the ancient Greek texts of the Apostles’ Creed is quite certainly not Biblical: “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh!” Paul could not say that. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom. Paul believes in the resurrection of the body, not of the flesh. The flesh is the power of death, which must be destroyed. This error in the Greek creed made its entrance in a time when the Biblical terminology had been misconstrued in the sense of Greek anthropology. Our body, moreover (not merely our soul), will be raised at the End, when the quickening power of the Spirit makes all things new, all things without exception.

An incorruptible body! How are we to conceive this? Or better, how did the first Christians conceive of it? Paul says in Philippians 3:21 that at the End Christ will transform our mean body into the body of his own glory, just as in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “We are being transformed into his own likeness from glory to glory.”

… This glory was conceived by the first Christians as a sort of material-like light; but this is only an imperfect comparison. Our language has no word for it.…

IV

And now we come to the last question. When does this transformation of the body take place? No doubt can remain on this point. The whole New Testament answers:

at the End, and this is to be understood literally, that is, temporally. That raises the question of the “interim condition” of the dead. Death is indeed already conquered according to 2 Timothy 1:10: “Christ has conquered death and has already brought life and incorruptibility to light.” The chronological tension of which I always speak touches precisely this central point: death is conquered; but it will not be abolished until the End. According to 1 Corinthians 15:26, death will be conquered as the last enemy. It is significant that in the Greek the same verb katargeo is used to describe both the already accomplished, decisive victory and the not-yet-consummated victory at the end. John’s Apocalypse 20:14 describes the victory at the end, the annihilation of Death: Death will be cast into a pool of fire; and a few verses further on it is said, Death will be no more.

That means, however, that the transformation of the body does not occur immediately after each individual death. Here too we must once again guard against any accommodation to Greek philosophy, if we wish to understand the New Testament doctrine. This is the point where I cannot accept Karl Barth’s position as a simple restatement of the original Christian view, not even his position in the Church Dogmatics, where it is subtly shaded and comes much nearer to New Testament eschatology than in his first writings. Karl Barth considers it to be the New Testament interpretation that the transformation of the body occurs for everyone immediately after his individual death—as if the dead were no longer in time. Nevertheless, according to the New Testament, they are still in time. Otherwise, the problem in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 ff. would have no meaning. Here in fact Paul is concerned to show that at the moment of Christ’s return “those who are then alive will have no advantage” over those who have died in Christ. Therefore the dead in Christ are still in time; they, too, are waiting. “How long, oh Lord?” cry the martyrs who are sleeping under the altar in John’s Apocalypse (6:10). The saying on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43); the parable of the rich man, where Lazarus is carried directly to Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:22); and Paul’s saying, “I desire to die and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23)—these passages do not prove, as is maintained time and again, that in these passages it is to be considered that the resurrection of the body takes place immediately after the individual death. In none of these texts is there so much as a word about the resurrection of the body. It is rather the case that here in these different images is discussed the condition of those who die in Christ before the End—this interim state in which they also, as well as the living, find themselves. All these images express merely a special proximity to Christ, in which those dying in Christ before the End find themselves. They are “with Christ” or “in paradise” or “in Abraham’s bosom” or, according to Revelation 6:9, “under the altar.” All these are merely various images of the special nearness to God. But the most usual image for Paul is: “they are asleep.” It would be difficult to dispute that the New Testament reckons with such an interim time for the dead, as well as for the living, although any speculation upon the state of the dead in this interim period is lacking here.

The dead in Christ share in the tension of the interim time. But this means not only that they are waiting. It means that for them, too, something decisive happened with Jesus’ death and resurrection. For them, too, Easter is the great turning point (Matt. 27:52). This new situation created by Easter leads us to see at least the possibility of a common bond with Socrates, not with his teaching, but with his own behavior in the face of death. Death has lost its horror, its “sting.” At bottom, though it remains as the last enemy, Death has significance no longer. If the resurrection of Christ were to designate the great turning-point of the ages only for the living and not for the dead also, then the living would surely have an immense advantage over the dead. For as members of Christ’s community the living are indeed even now in possession of the power of the resurrection, the Holy Spirit. It is unthinkable that according to the early Christian point of view nothing should be altered for the dead in the period before the End. It is precisely these images used in the New Testament to describe the condition of the dead in Christ which prove that even now, in this interim-state of the dead, the resurrection of Christ—the anticipation of the End—is already effective. They are “with Christ.”

Particularly in 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 we hear why it is that the dead, although they do not yet have a body and are only “sleeping,” nevertheless are in special proximity to Christ. Paul speaks here of the natural anxiety which even he feels before death, which still maintains its effectiveness. He fears the condition of “nakedness,” as he calls it; that is, the condition of the inner man who has no body. This natural dread of death, therefore, has not disappeared. Paul would like, as he says, to receive a spiritual body in addition, directly (ependusasthai) while still living, without undergoing death. That is, he would like to be still alive at the time of Christ’s return. Here once again we find confirmation of what we said about Jesus’ fear of death. But now we see also something new: in this same text alongside this natural anxiety about the soul’s nakedness stands the great confidence in Christ’s proximity, even in this interim state. What is there to be afraid of in the fact that such an interim condition still exists? The confidence in Christ’s proximity is grounded in the reality that our inner man already is grasped by the Holy Spirit. Since the time of Christ, we the living do indeed have the Holy Spirit. If he is actually within us, he has already transformed our inner man. But, as we have heard, the Holy Spirit is the power of life. Death can do him no harm. Therefore something is changed even for the dead, for those who really die in Christ, in possession of the Holy Spirit. The horrible abandonment in death, the separation from God, of which we have spoken, no longer exists, because the Holy Spirit does exist. Therefore the New Testament emphasizes that the dead are indeed with Christ, and therefore not abandoned. Thus we understand how it is that, just in 2 Corinthians 5:1 ff., where he mentions the fear of disembodiment in the interim-time, Paul describes the Holy Spirit as the “earnest.”

Here we find connected, fear of a bodiless condition and firm confidence that even in this condition no separation from Christ supervenes (among the powers which cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ is death—Rom. 8:38). This fear and this confidence are bound together in 2 Corinthians 5, and this confirms the fact that even the dead share in the present tension. Confidence predominates, however, for the decision has indeed been made. Death is conquered. The inner man, divested of the body, is no longer alone; he does not lead the shadowy existence which the Jews expected and which cannot be described as life. The inner man, divested of the body, has already in his lifetime been transformed by the Holy Spirit, is already grasped by the resurrection (Rom. 6:3 ff.; John 3:3 ff.), if he has already as a living person really been renewed by the Holy Spirit; although he still “sleeps” and still awaits the resurrection of the body, which alone will give him full life. Thus, even in this state, death has lost its terror, although it still exists. And thus the dead who died in the Lord can actually be blessed “from now on,” as the author of the Johannine Apocalypse says (14:13). What is said in 1 Corinthians 15:54b, 55 pertains also to the dead: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” So the apostle in Rom. 14 writes: “Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (v.8). Christ is “Lord of the living and the dead” (v.9).

One could ask whether in this fashion we have not been led back again, in the last analysis, to the Greek teaching of immortality, whether the New Testament does not assume, for the time after Easter, a continuity of the “inner Man” of converted people before and after death, so that here, too, death is presented for all practical purposes only as a natural “transition.” There is a sense in which a kind of approximation to the Greek teaching does actually take place, to the extent that the inner man, who has already been transformed by the Spirit (Rom. 6:3 ff.), and consequently made alive, continues to live with Christ in this transformed state, in the condition of sleep. This continuity is emphasized especially strongly in the Gospel of John (3:36; 4:14; 6:54; and frequently). Here we observe at least a certain analogy to the “immortality of the soul,” but the distinction remains none the less radical. Further, the condition of the dead in Christ is still imperfect, a state of “nakedness,” as Paul says, of “sleep,” of waiting for the resurrection of the whole creation, for the resurrection of the body. On the other hand, death in the New Testament continues to be the enemy, albeit a defeated enemy, who must yet be destroyed. The fact that even in this state the dead are already living with Christ does not correspond to the natural essence of the soul. Rather it is the result of a divine intervention from outside, through the Holy Spirit, who must have already quickened the inner man in earthly life by his miraculous power.

Thus it is still true that the resurrection of the body is awaited even in John’s Gospel—now, of course, with a certainty of victory because the Holy Spirit already dwells in the inner man. Hence no doubt can arise any more: since it already dwells in the inner man, it will certainly transform the body. For the Holy Spirit, this quickening power, penetrates everything and knows no barrier. If he is really within a man, then he will quicken the whole man. So Paul writes in Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit dwells in you, then will he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead call your mortal bodies to life also through the Spirit dwelling in you.” In Philippians 3:21: “We wait for the Lord Jesus Christ, who will conform our mean body to the body of his glory.” Nothing is said in the New Testament about the details of the interim conditions. We only hear: we are nearer to God.

We wait, and the dead wait. Of course the rhythm of time may be different for them than for the living; and in this way the interim-time may be shortened for them. This does not, indeed, go beyond the New Testament texts and their exegesis, because this expression to sleep, which is the customary designation in the New Testament of the “interim condition,” compels us to the view that for the dead another time-consciousness exists, that of the “sleeping.” But that does not mean that the dead are not still in time. Therefore once again we see that the New Testament resurrection hope is different from the Greek belief in immortality.

On his missionary journeys Paul surely met people who were unable to believe in his preaching of the resurrection for the very reason that they believed in the immortality of the soul. Thus in Athens there was no laughter until Paul spoke of the resurrection (Acts 17:32). Both the people of whom Paul says (in 1 Thess. 4:13) that “they have no hope” and those of whom he writes (in 1 Cor. 15:12) that they do not believe there is a resurrection from the dead are probably not Epicureans, as we are inclined to believe. Even those who believe in the immortality of the soul do not have the hope of which Paul speaks, the hope which expresses the belief of a divine miracle of new creation which will embrace everything, every part of the world created by God. Indeed for the Greeks who believed in the immortality of the soul it may have been harder to accept the Christian preaching of the resurrection than it was for others. About the year 150 Justin (in his Dialogue, 80) writes of the sort of people, “who say that there is no resurrection from the dead, but that immediately at death their souls would ascend to heaven.” Here the contrast is indeed clearly perceived.

The emperor Marcus Aurelius, this philosopher who belongs with Socrates among the noblest figures of antiquity, also perceived the contrast. As is well known, he had the deepest contempt for Christianity. One might think that the death of the Christian martyrs would have inspired respect in this great Stoic who regarded death with equanimity. But it was just the martyrs’ death with which he was least sympathetic. The whole alacrity with which the Christians met their death displeased him. The Stoic departed this life dispassionately; the Christian martyr on the other hand died with spirited passion for the cause of Christ, because he knew that by doing so he stood within a powerful redemptive process. The first Christian martyr, Stephen, shows us (Acts 7:55) how death is bested quite otherwise by him who dies in Christ than by the ancient philosopher: he sees, as it is said, “the heavens open and Christ standing at the right hand of God!” He sees Christ, the conqueror of death. With this faith that the death he must undergo is already conquered by him who has himself endured it, Stephen lets himself be stoned.

The answer to the question, “Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead in the New Testament,” is unequivocal.…

Oscar Cullmann is Dean of the Theological Faculty of the University of Basel and Professor of the Sorbonne in Paris. He holds the degrees D.Theol., D.D. (Edin.) and D.D. (Manchester). This two-part article comprises most of Dr. Cullmann’s Ingersoll Lecture for 1954–55 at Harvard University. The complete text (including footnotes), copyrighted 1958 by Dr. Cullmann, has just been published under the title Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? by The Macmillan Company, with whose permission, as well as Dr. Cullmann’s, this excerpt is used. This same material is being published in Great Britain by the Epworth Press of London.

Several meanings are given to Christian vocation. Just as a double standard of holiness arose from the emphasis on the value of virginity, celibacy and poverty from passages of Scripture such as Matthew 19:17–24 and 1 Corinthians 7:20–24, so a double standard of vocation has evolved. The vocation of God has been restricted to the so-called higher way, or sacred profession. This dual standard of holiness perverted the meaning of “saint” from one of the people of God, and the “priesthood of the believer” to one of entering the monastic order and the priestly service. The primary connotation of “vocation” is derived from the purpose of the one who called. In the Bible the term “calling” originally conveyed many implications for men’s occupational duties which now have become obscured. The term “vocation” in the biblical sense refers to the sum total of life’s purposes and has definite implications for secular occupations.

In theology vocation is generally confined to the effectual call to salvation. The external call is the preaching of the Gospel with its attendant command to repent and believe. It is the summons of God to each man and woman to a life of faith and love. The effectual call is internal or “the work of God’s Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills. He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the Gospel.” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 31.) The effectual call is experienced by becoming a Christian whereby the will of God is the supreme factor in life (cf. Eph. 4:4; 1 Cor. 1:26; Eph. 1:18; Phil. 3:14; 2 Tim. 1:9; 2 Pet. 1:10).

Ecclesiastically, the word “vocation” is used to apply to the entrance into the service of the Church of God, namely the exercise of the gifts and callings for God (Rom. 12:3–9; 1 Cor. 12:9–11; Eph. 4:4–12). We may distinguish the calling of a prophet, an apostle, a teacher, a pastor, etc. Too often the meaning of Christian vocation is confined to this, a legitimate use of the term. God does choose each believer for a place in the corporate body of the Church and allots to each believer a gift that equips him for that place of service.

Practically, the word “vocation” refers to employment in a particular occupation, profession or work. It is the earthly station of a Christian allotted to him by the divine will. This vocation must be contrasted with the avocation, hobby or interest which occupies the Christian in his leisure time. His vocation is his life work. It comprises the particular station or state of life as shown by one’s inclination, fitness and conviction in response to the divine invitation. The choice of a vocation is one of the most serious decisions of an individual life. It ranks second only to one’s choice of Christ and holds a higher rank than the choice of one’s spouse or a life mate. The usefulness, fruitfulness and happiness of life depend upon this choice. A wrong choice may sometimes be tragic in a person’s life. Much understanding is shed upon the field of vocation by God’s Word. The Bible is a book for workers, but its teaching is largely indirect illumination cast by principles rather than by direct commands.

God Purposes Work For Every Man

It is a creation ordinance to work, and this work is a blessing, not a curse. Adam was set in the garden to tend and to keep it (Gen. 2:15). The ability to work expresses the image of God in man as a first cause, a creator, a being having dominion over all fish of the sea, all fowl of the air, all beasts of the field. Work brings exhilaration to the spirit of man. The experience of activity, of mastery, of creativity, whether intellectual or physical, of invention, skill and of resultant achievement brings this exhilaration. When the creation narratives say, “And God saw that it was good,” they express this experience.

Work gives employment to the capacities of men. One of the worst things to endure is empty time with no employment. This frustration often is experienced by those who have retired and become spectators in life. Dr. Preston Bradley of the People’s Church in Chicago said at the forty-fifth anniversary of his pastorate, “I have buried many men who thought they could retire.”

Lack of creative work for the purpose of keeping teen-agers occupied and constructively employed is one of the errors of our time. We compel boys and girls to go to school until they are 16 and often until they are 18 when they have no interest in their studies. Delinquency and crime exhibited in beatings, gang wars, wolf packs, rape, knifings and killings on the part of these juvenile delinquents could well be eliminated were we to fill their time and expend their energy with creative work.

The perversion of work through sin has resulted in corrupting circumstances whereby work has become toil, labor and burden. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” The galling circumstances of assembly-line production with its deadly, meaningless, stultifying labor, the intense competition in the labor market rising out of modern industry, and the degrading conditions of human exploitation—all result from sin. Men aspire to be creative in their work, and any other kind of work is frustrating.

The normal activity and expectation of man is work. We are told in the Bible to shun idleness, laziness and time-serving. We are to keep from being a burden on others, whether it be relatives or society. The New Testament standard is to work or not eat. The Pauline exhortation is to work so as to help others and to have something to give in time of human need (Acts 20:35; 1 Thess. 2:9; Eph. 4:28).

The Bible confers dignity upon labor. This is derived from the example in God’s work (Gen. 1:28 f.; John 5:17). Like God, man is to work six days and then rest (Exod. 20:8–11). As the equality of the value of men is derived from God, so is the equality of rights. Certainly one has the right to work where one will. We are witnessing a tendency to deny this right to work in present society. Here a fundamental liberty is being taken away by force. Each man must possess the basic right of selling his labor power which is his own commodity. Once the laborer could be shut out from a shop; today unionized labor demands the closed shop. Tyranny can come from one end of the economic spectrum as well as from another.

It is God who has endowed man with the power to labor, to gain wealth and to win prosperity (Deut. 8:17, 18). In the Old Testament economy there was a union of God’s blessing with material prosperity, and there is no reason why this should not be carried over into Christian thinking. Why should we despise economic stability?

The New Testament exalts work as a calling. Christians are described as “laborers together with God” (1 Cor. 3:9). No distinction is made between spiritual and secular labor. The ministry is work, but it is not higher work than other kinds of labor. If a man is to leave a secular calling for a spiritual calling, it must be the result of a particular call from the Lord. Paul joined both his calling to preach the Gospel and his calling as a tentmaker.

The New Testament teaches that all men are to labor either with their hands or with their heads, with their brains or with their brawn (1 Cor. 4:12; Eph. 4:28; 1 Thess. 4:11; 2 Thess. 3:10–12; Acts 20:35). Every Christian is summoned to a full-time vocation although only a few to an ecclesiastical vocation. God lays hold on the ordinary experience of men and makes it holy. The fact of the babyhood, childhood and manhood of Jesus sanctifies the ordinary experiences of life and this includes labor.

The New Testament elevates service as the standard of greatness in labor. “He that is servant of all is greatest of all.” Whatever position or status a worker may have, he is to fulfill his responsibilities as unto the Lord and not as unto his employer or master or overseer.

The Bible declares that the gifts of the Spirit are given to every man to profit withal (1 Cor. 12:7; Rom. 12:3 f.). If man has faith that he can teach, or minister, or exhort, or preach, or rule, then he is to do it according to the measure of his faith and for the good of all in the Church. The divine plan includes all persons and all things. God made you and he knows where you will fit best in his plan. Hence Paul exhorts these Romans to prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. It is a tragedy to be out of God’s plan, and it is a great assurance to be in God’s plan. When one’s calling is in accordance with God’s plan, it is a source of joy, inspiration, satisfaction and contentment.

The question of many is: Can I know what God’s plan is? I constantly have young people coming from the universities in Boston and asking the question, What shall be my work? What degree shall I seek? What shall be the basis of my choice? How can I tell what is the best vocation?

Unfortunately, many make their choice through chance or through economic necessity or through an early marriage. If a man happened to get a job in a particular line, or it was necessary for him to begin work at an early age, or he was compelled to support a family because of an early and ill-advised marriage, such an individual finds himself bound in a treadmill from which it is difficult to be released. Happy is the one who can make a free choice of his vocation.

When free to make a choice, help is available. When Jeremy Bentham was reading Helvetius, he came across the suggestion that a man should ask himself, “Do I have a genius for anything?” Michelangelo had a genius for sculpture, Leonardo da Vinci for painting, Johann Sebastian Bach for music, Karl Marx for social theory, Winston Churchill for political leadership. A man should ask himself, Do I possess a faculty for literary, scientific, mechanical, economic, artistic or religious affairs? In what direction does my ability point? Here vocational guidance, or vocational engineering, will be of great help. It is never the divine will for a man to go contrary to his native ability and his indigenous interest. Therefore, ask yourself, “Do I personally like or enjoy one thing above another?” It is certain that a happy or contented person will do far better than an unhappy or discontented person. The inner impulsion of personal interest is not to be disregarded in vocations.

The Christian should have courage to choose his vocation or to change his vocation if necessary. Seek God’s will, not yours. Be willing to do the will of God and the secret of guidance is discovered. Ask yourself, How can I get the Gospel to the greatest number, which is the first duty of a Christian? How can I bring the greatest benefit to humanity? How can I seek the well-being of the universe, of my fellow men? What are the greatest dividends to myself in usefulness, satisfaction, happiness and prosperity? Then analyze yourself and act in accordance with the results which you discover.

Courage To Change Vocations

If you are engaged in an occupation which neither brings you the satisfactions of life nor permits you to feel you are in God’s will, have courage to change your occupation. In preparing this message, I jotted down the names of seven friends of mine who in the last few years have made such changes when in middle life. One man had been an auditor and certified public accountant for 25 years, but had no satisfaction in his work. Then, in middle life, with a family and many responsibilities, he made a series of changes until he finally ended up in the printing business in which he is perfectly content.

Another friend spent over 25 years in an East Coast educational institution as an administrative officer. Dissatisfaction was mounting in his mind and heart and he dared to make a change by going to the West Coast and assuming a responsibility in a totally different field. There he obtained release, a sense of creativity, and joy. Another friend had been a surgeon for many years and had won fame and fortune; but he felt God wanted him to be an editor. Therefore, he laid his prosperous profession aside and accepted one-fifth his former income, but he has the satisfaction nevertheless of knowing he is in the will of God.

Someone else, at the age of 49 left a position as an officer in one of the great soap companies of this country, went to theological seminary, graduated, and was ordained a rector in the Episcopal church where he is living out his days of service in great happiness. Another acquaintance of mine had been an osteopath who, after sitting under my own preaching for several years, determined to go into the ministry. He therefore took his family to another state, renewed his college education, went on to theological seminary and today is the pastor of a church where he labors in God’s service.

Still another was the manager of a laundry, but after 10 years of supervising the work of 200 women, he was fed up with it all. He quit his job, looked around for another, found a managerial position of the type he wanted, and now reflects in his face and attitude a new contentment which has come into his life.

This takes courage, courage which the average man does not possess, but it is the courage to act upon what we believe to be the will of God. The result of it is contentment not judged by results, or success, but by faith. God knows the effectiveness of the vocation to which he has called you, and all he requires you to be is faithful. If you know you are in the will of God, that is sufficient.

God’S Challenge Today

Many are the vocations in the church which ought to be considered by men. There are openings in the preaching ministry, in foreign missions, in education, in medicine, in social work, in business, in publication, in advertising, in art, in technical skills and even in farming. The door to church ministry is wide open.

As for the secular vocations, nearly 10,000 are listed in the Vocational Directory. In choosing a vocation, the following criteria might help: Let us ask, is it a man-size occupation; is it a lifetime occupation; are my qualities adapted to it; can I prepare adequately for it; what opportunities are presented; will the vocation be congenial; what type of persons enter it; will the returns be adequate; can I through this vocation help, uplift and benefit society; can I grow in this vocation and thus serve God?

One of the great vocational needs today is for mathematicians, scientists and engineers. Our nation has fallen nearly 10 years behind Russia in the preparation of a generation of vocational scientists. Another great need is for teachers to occupy the thousands of empty classrooms in America. There is need for men of ability, integrity and experience at the top. There is always plenty of room at the top. Competition is keenest on the lower levels of occupation and lightest on the top.

A person’s vocation may change during his lifetime while he passes through several chapters of his career. A good illustration of this is a woman’s life, part of which is spent as a student, part as a housewife and mother in a family, and part in a possible career following the freedom gained through the maturity of her children. Hers can be a creative occupation through life and not for merely a few years.

If, then, we are to be laborers together with God we must meet the prerequisite of being born of God, of partaking of the divine nature. Then we must pursue a vocation which is in accordance with the will of God. The divine Architect expects us to be co-laborers with him in the fulfillment of his plan.

Repentance

Dear God,

I know my life

Is not the history of fine achievement will’d by Thee

When I became one of Thy myriad earthly sons;

I know the promise

And the purpose of my given being

Has never been fulfilled,

But smolders, neglected, ’neath the dead ashes of a life mundane—

Consumed empty forms (and futile end)

Of appetite debased, ambitions vain,

False values in a feverish, groping mind.

I know my heart

Has not been right towards Thee,

My Maker and my Lord;

Too often, insolent and proud,

Have I rebelled against Thy rule and Thy direction—

Have turned my back

Upon Thine altar true, to worship idols

Of my making, figments of my own desire.

And now I know the bitter taste

Of failure and despair and dark confusion—

The empty harvest of a hateful seed.

Somewhere along my path

Thy course, Thy clear perspective have I lost;

Until I wander aimlessly

From joyless pleasures to more wretched cares.

Oh Father of my soul!

I know I cannot claim forgiveness for my wrongs;

I know th’unending torture of a damned soul Is my just quittance for a heedless heart.

And yet I ask again,

From Thy great store of mercy,

One small gift—show me a light!

One tiny ray of hope

Midst all the darkness that surrounds,

One glimpse of Truth that is eternal, ever sure,

To light the way

From everlasting night into the glory of Thy day:

That day in which my soul may find its peace,

My life may find its rightful end and meaning,

Joined to Thy Spirit in the welcome task

Of serving Thee.

Amen.

WILLIAM H. COLBY

Harold John Ockenga has been pastor of historic Park Street (Congregational) Church on the Boston Common for the past 20 years. During that period the church budget has grown from $20,000 to $400,000 annually, and its support of two missionaries has been expanded to the support of 120 missionaries in 50 countries, the largest program of its kind carried on by an individual church in the United States.

Economics is concerned with this world. When Richard Heilbroner chose The Worldly Philosophers as the title of his lives of economists, he described them well. Economists do deal with such worldly matters as food, clothing, shelter and the materialistic wants of man. Nevertheless, those who feel that economics on this account is outside the scope of Christianity, should be reminded that Jesus dealt with these materialistic matters. While he warned against the danger of wealth to the soul of the possessor, he never taught that wealth in itself is evil.

Man And His Money

Professor Lewis H. Haney in History of Economic Thought makes a point not appreciated by many economists themselves, namely, that what one believes about the nature of man and the nature of the universe determines one’s economics.

Haney chooses materialism and idealism as the two philosophical poles by which to separate the sheep from the goats. While admitting that few economists are entirely consistent in their metaphysics, he notes that the classical economists, of whom Adam Smith and Ricardo are representative, were inclined toward materialism and took the physical universe and the “laws of nature” with utmost seriousness. On the other hand, the socialists and welfare economists have been inclined toward idealism, believing that man by the power of his mind can plan a better society than any laws of nature might produce.

The idealist habitually speaks of the “needs of society,” while the materialist thinks in terms of “the demands of the market.” The first point of view leads inevitably to a police state in which the elite, who “know what is best,” make decisions for the masses. The second viewpoint leads to freedom—temporarily.

Idealism eventually becomes tyranny because it makes a god of mind and thus commits the sin of idolatry. In the end, idealistic systems make a god of government.

Materialism is able to do little better. It begins well and defends freedom with enthusiasm on the ground that free men produce more and can thus create a higher standard of living. But eventually, materialism has to face the question: “Why?” Why produce more? Why have a high standard of living? Why be free? At that point, materialism begins to mutter and grumble.

William Graham Sumner, who left the Episcopal ministry to become professor of political economy at Yale in 1872, is still quoted as a defender of private enterprise. Such he was at one time. He was also a disciple of Herbert Spencer and shared Spencer’s hatred of government intervention. Sumner applied the Darwinian laws of the “struggle for existence” and the “survival of the fittest” to society. He rejected the doctrine of natural rights, claiming that rights are not given either by God or by nature. If man gets any rights, he must fight for them. His completely materialistic view of man finally resulted in a denial of moral absolutes. For Sumner, moral values became “folkways,” the product of social evolution. If there were no moral absolutes, there was no reason why the strong should not exploit the weak in Sumner’s Darwinian society. Thus, Sumner was finally driven to the Hobbesian conclusion that might makes right and that freedom is impossible. Materialism always arrives at this conclusion in the end, for it has no moral justification for freedom.

Neither the materialism of classical economics nor the idealism of welfare economics can be described as a “Christian approach” to the subject. Christianity stands midway between materialism and idealism. Christianity does not repudiate matter in Gnostic fashion; it accepts it. It recognizes that man is a body as well as a soul and has very real materialistic needs. However, neither does Christianity repudiate the idealistic insight that man is rational, possessing a mind.

A Christian approach to economics must include both ideas: man is body and man is mind. But what is more important, a Christian approach to economics will not start with man at all. It will start with God.

We shall venture to sketch a few guideposts for a Christian approach to economics.

The Fact Of Providence

First, a Christian approach begins with the fact of the providence of God. This is basic in both the Old and New Testaments. The Ten Commandments were founded upon it, beginning with the sonorous declaration: “I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.” The New Testament rings with the joy of it, and I doubt if a free society can long exist without faith in it.

The problem of inequality is immediately solved then by the fact of divine Providence. Inequality of talent, resulting in inequality of wealth, is in the plan of God. Justice does not demand absolute equality for God does not demand it.

Moreover, equalitarianism is incompatible with freedom. No one has yet been able to blueprint a society in which everyone has equal housing, equal education (can an education ever be given?) and an equal number of shoes or suits of clothing which could at the same time be free.

Not only is equality incompatible with freedom, it is an impossible ideal on any grounds. Even equality of opportunity is impossible. Can there be equality of opportunity so long as some children are born in the mountains and some are born in seaport cities? Geography itself makes equality of opportunity an impossibility.

We either accept inequality of talent, opportunity and wealth as one of the inevitabilities of life, or we play God and pretend that we can construct a better universe. “Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?”

The quest for security, which has become the hallmark of modern youth, springs from a lost faith in the providence of God. There is no security apart from the providence of God and, when men lose that faith, they seek security in pensions and in government. Such people are candidates for a prison state.

The sum of the matter is, man cannot eradicate sin and the consequences of sin from human society without playing God. Frederick Hayek once said: “What has always made the State a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.”

Foresight And Reward

Secondly, a Christian approach to economics must begin with the God of the Garden of Eden, the God who created man and gave him a free choice.

If the Bible is clear about anything, it is clear about this: man is and ought to be free to make his own choices. This is what we have in a profit and loss system. A man takes a risk in the hope of making a profit. If his decision turns out to be right, his profit is the reward for foresight. If his decision turns out to be wrong, his loss is punishment for bad judgment.

Government has the right to limit a man’s choices to protect the rights of other people, but beyond this a man should be free. No labor union has the moral right to deny a man the right to work. This is an infringement upon man’s God-given right to make his own choices.

Christianity at its best has insisted upon this voluntarism and has trusted in persuasion. What it could not do by persuasion, it left undone, believing that man should be free to reject righteousness if man so desired. In its degenerate form, Christianity has called upon government to use coercion. Such a policy is an admission that the church has failed in its prime task, and we have such an admission of failure in American Protestantism in the social gospel. Any Christian approach to economics, if it is to follow the example of the Bible, must insist upon voluntarism and limit government to a police function.

Redemption And The Individual

Thirdly, any Christian approach to economics must begin with the God of redemption and John 3:16. Since God so loved the world, people are valuable as individuals, one by one. It is not necessary to prove that the whole body of Christian doctrine implies individualism. It might be necessary to point out, however, that most contemporary economics moves in the opposite direction.

Since the days of John Maynard Keynes, there has arisen what is known as “macro-economics” which, instead of concentrating upon particulars, deals with large national aggregates which are the sum of multitudes of statistics.

Statistics are a useful tool if used with skepticism, but they must never obscure the fact that they represent people making decisions in the market place. The great danger of macro-economics is that it will forget Joe Doaks and Mary Jane.

It is an odd fact that welfare economics which pretends to concern itself with the welfare of the nation, leaves no stone unturned to avoid the suspicion of humanitarianism. It boasts its scientific objectivity as it recites its statistics and draws its charts. But can anything be objective that is as closely bound up with the hopes and fears of people as economics of necessity must be?

A Christian approach to economics must insist that we never lose sight of the individual “for whom Christ died.” We might develop a shrewder economics too, if we keep in mind that economics is nothing more than a study of human action. No gathering of statistics, nor study of “trends,” can alter the fact that economic forces come down to the choices of countless individuals.

Man’S Chief End

Finally, a Christian approach to economics must begin with a jealous God, a God who refuses to share his glory.

This has more to do with economics than one might suspect at first glance. Economics per se deals with means and not with ends. If a man asks economics how to maximize profit in the liquor business, economics will give an answer. Whether or not the liquor industry is moral or immoral would be a value judgment concerning which economics as such can say nothing.

A Christian approach to economics would have to say something about it, for Christianity is concerned with ends as well as means.

What is the end of life? Is it merely to produce and to consume? According to a familiar catechism, the chief end of man is “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”

A jealous God demands first place in man’s affections as the end of all life. When this principle is followed, everything else falls into its proper place. Any business activity that cannot be done to the “glory of God” is immediately ruled out. Now economics becomes not merely a matter of means, but a means under this overruling end—“to glorify God.”

Freedom becomes not an end in itself, but a means to a greater end—“to glorify God.” With this end in view, it is possible to know freedom without boredom. Ralph Barton Perry once said: “There is no boredom like that which can afflict people who are free and nothing else.”

Replace the “glory of God” by the “welfare of man,” and freedom will soon be lost. Immediately, forces go to work to submerge the individual in society and to create a collectivist state.

Christ made a profound economic statement when he said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.…” “These things” were the basic economic wants of man: food, clothing and shelter. This is a formula for economic prosperity for an individual or a nation. This is sound Christian economics.

It begins with God and ends in a free man.

Irving E. Howard is on the staff of Christian Freedom Foundation and is pursuing doctoral studies in the Graduate School of Business Administration, New York University. He holds the Th.B. degree from Gordon College, B.D. from Gordon Divinity School, S.T.B. from Harvard Divinity School, M.A. from Clark University. He has won four Freedoms Foundation awards. As a clergyman he served North Uxbridge Baptist Church, Massachusetts, from 1941–45, and Hope Congregational Church, Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1945–54.

What’s fun? What do you get a kick out of? What is your pleasure? In a little book, Greater Than Ourselves, Arthur Preston speaks of an incident in the life of Mrs. Fritz Kreisler: “When a New York socialite commented to Mrs. Kreisler that she didn’t seem to get much of a kick out of social life, Mrs. Kreisler answered, ‘No, I get more of a kick out of feeding poor children.… I just get my kicks in a different way, that’s all.’ ”

The Things We Value

Life ought to have a big kick in it; it ought to offer a continual stimulus, a continual challenge, a continual excitement. God never intended life to be drab, dull, and boring. We can put this down as an axiom: The quality of our lives is determined by the things we enjoy; the things that give us pleasure reveal our true nature.

Many people are seeking their kicks by following the paths of least resistance. They are seeking their pleasure in illicit sex, in drinking, in gambling, in nothingness—and finding out too late that these are no pleasure at all. They are on the train and can’t get off; and, because they are not strong enough, they are being rushed through life in the wrong direction.

Charles Crowe writes of a young fellow who attended a party where there was much drinking. Suddenly, realizing that if he didn’t do something quickly he would be the only one not drinking, he spoke out clearly, “Make mine tomato juice.” Eight or ten others followed suit, young men who would not have dared to be different by themselves. It wasn’t that they found pleasure in drinking; it was that they were afraid not to drink. Caught in a pattern, they were no longer strong enough to stand on their own feet and express their own moral judgment.

Eugene O’Neill’s play, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, is a sad commentary on the fact that so many people in seeking pleasure discover only self-destruction. The actor father, played by Fredric March, seeks his pleasure in the acclaim of the audience. In still another pleasure, a mania for buying property, he has robbed his family of the things that could have made for a real home. He gets his final kick by drinking. The mother, who in the years gone by had loved her husband very much, has finally cracked under the strain and has become a drug addict. In drugs she seeks an abnormal pleasure which brings only terror, self-hate, and horror.

The oldest son, having been reared in a home that was no home by a family dedicated to the immediate pleasures with no understanding of the lasting values, gets his kick out of life by pursuing his lowest physical appetites. He sees his own deterioration and, speaking brilliant lines of philosophy, continues his rush toward death. The younger son, caught in the tangle of these circumstances, suffering from tuberculosis, and expecting no pleasure from life, surrenders to a hopeless existence which foretells death. The play moves on with each character caught in his own particular trap and baited with his own particular false idea of pleasure. The long day drags into the dark night. The money-mad father turns out the light bulbs, one by one, to save three cents worth of electricity. The darkness grows deeper and deeper, the blackness more impenetrable as the dark night closes in.

What is your pleasure? What do you get a kick out of? A mother with four small children loves them, makes daily sacrifices to clothe them, feed them, and minister to their bodies and growing souls. She finds unspeakable joy in their growth and development, in their beauty and their character. Stand in the operating room and watch a surgeon, even in the strain and tension of a difficult operation, reveal the joy of a man whose lifetime of investment and discipline is now spelling out the gift of life. Catch something of the exhilaration, the sheer joy of a jet pilot as he puts his ship through its paces, dives and climbs, bursts through the barrier of sound and holds conversation with the stars. Linger in the laboratory with the scientist; watch the artist as he paints; walk with a farmer down the fresh, dark rows of newly turned soil, see his pleasure as the first green shoots break through into the light of the sun and when the harvest is abundant.

A Kind Of Ecstatic Joy

The early Christians discovered a kind of ecstatic joy. They got a kick out of life. They knew the depths of lasting pleasure in serving the living Christ who had redeemed them and who now possessed them. They worked joyfully with God in turning a world upside down and reversing the course of history. Did not Jesus say, “Pleasure is more than food—joy more than clothing!”

What is your pleasure? Poor is the man whose only “pleasure is a summer’s day.” For the day is short, the night draws nigh, the darkness closes in. Fortunate is he who, because of an inner light, finds joy at midnight, and sings from an overflowing heart on a winter’s day.

Principles Of Blessedness

In the Beatitudes, Jesus reveals the basic principles of lasting happiness. You might boil it down into this: Grab and you lose; give and you win! Jesus makes his points clear and simple (Phillips’ translation, Matthew 5):

“Happy are the humble-minded.” They do not take too much for granted. They still have a heart open for the great experiences of life. They do not drive away their fellow men by a spirit of arrogance.

“Happy are those who know what sorrow means.” They discover sympathy and compassion. They enter into a dimension of life that has depth and roots. They have faced up to their own inadequacy and rely upon the lasting reality in God.

“Happy are those who claim nothing.” These are the meek who have surrendered a sense of personal privilege and prejudice. They have a spirit of reverence toward life, toward God.

“Happy are those who are hungry and thirsty for goodness, they shall be fed.” They shall find lasting satisfactions. They shall seek and find. Life will be to them a venture and a quest, never fully accomplished, but with increasing satisfactions all along the way.

“Happy are the kindhearted.” These are the merciful. They are not bound by legalism; they are willing to go beyond the limits of sheer justice in dealing with their fellow men. They have learned to forgive. They love even their enemies. Thus they have no enemies, and live only in a world of people who need their help and their love.

“Happy are the pure in heart.” These are the pure-hearted, the clean-minded, the wholesome-spirited. Their lives are not poisoned by sordidness and shame. Their influence made ineffective by unworthiness of character.

“Happy are those who make peace.” Cursed are those who stir up strife, who set the fires of hate. Miserable are they who damn innocence by repeating unworthy rumor. The peacemakers bind up the wounds, bring about understanding, put out the fires of bitterness.

“Happy are those who have suffered persecution for the cause of goodness.” Happy are they who have made sacrifices for the greater good. Joyful are they who, at great cost to themselves, are lifting the human race to higher levels of sanity and wholesomeness. Fortunate are the pioneers in the kingdom of God.

Foundation Of Pleasure

These qualities are the foundations of joyful, zestful living. Jesus spoke as a specialist when he declared these principles of blessedness. If we are uncertain, we may test in our own lives any one of these axioms. If we face the Beatitudes honestly, we know in our hearts that this is the way of lasting satisfaction. It comes at a great price, but what real joy does not?

Jesus kept speaking of joy. Religion at its best always arises out of the negative into the positive and creative. If you don’t have joy in your religion, you don’t have what Jesus taught. The old Psalm is still true: “His delight is in the law of the Lord.”

Christian joy is a progressive thing. It arises from level to level. When an old and worthy satisfaction loses its charm, it does not mean the end of joy. Other and higher levels of experience beckon to us from above. As Helen Keller expressed it: “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

Jesus revealed the foundation of his own life: “My (pleasure) is to do the will of him that sent me.” With him I discover “the unsearchable riches” of life! At the end of his journey Jesus passed the fulness of his life on to his disciples: “My (pleasure) I give unto you—Not as the world giveth, give I unto you—My (pleasure) I give unto you that your (pleasure) might be full.”

Mention Of God’S Name

The quiet mention of God’s name,

In an hour torn and grey,

Can warm a troubled heart with peace—

Can light the darkest day!

The quiet mention of His name

Can cause new hope to flower,

Can lead the way to paths made bright

By His own love and power!

ELSIE MCKINNON STRACHAN

Robert G. Tuttle has been a Methodist minister in the Western North Carolina Conference since 1933. Previously he had been teacher and track coach at The Tomes School in Maryland from 1928–31. Since 1953 he has been active as Minister of First Methodist Church, High Point, North Carolina. He was appointed an exchange minister to England in 1951, and recently took part in a South American preaching mission.

The mid-twentieth century has been characterized by a good many contemporary thinkers as “the Age of Anxiety.” It is a time when social and political problems, the outgrowth of our advances in technology, are coming upon us thick and fast, indeed so rapidly that we have not had time to analyze them, let alone decide how they should be solved. Scientific advance, industrial and political concentration coupled with social disintegration are all tending to develop what might well be called a world-wide neurosis which manifests itself in a growing sense of insecurity at all levels of society. Hence “the Age of Anxiety.”

It was not always thus, for if one turns back to the early and middle nineteenth century, one will find flowing at that time a strong tide of romantic optimism. In Europe the Industrial Revolution was advancing apace with Britain in the forefront, while in America the westward-moving frontier was opening up new lands which promised to be another Garden of Eden. Moreover, with an ever-growing confidence in science’s beneficence, men believed that by the very process of history they could attain perfection. To this doctrine even many who called themselves Christian gave their adherence, and thereby rejected the doctrines of human depravity, substitutionary atonement and final judgment in the confidence that man by his own character and life could establish the perfect society through which he would attain acceptance from God. Thus a “liberal” Christianity joined in with the Romantics to establish the New Jerusalem in England and all other “green and pleasant lands.”

Optimism Shattered

Down into the twentieth century such was the picture with which men were deeply in love, until suddenly they began to realize that all was not well. There were growing conflicts between classes, between economic interests and these in turn led to conflicts between nations. Although the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War caused some stir which was followed by troubles in the Balkans and in South Africa, men do not seem to have realized how the world of their romantic dreams had disintegrated until they found themselves beset by the holocaust of World War I. Even this, however, did not destroy the old optimism entirely. It took a world-wide depression, the rise of totalitarianism and an even more terrible war, to put the finishing touches to the nineteenth century’s smug confidence in human goodness. With the breakdown of this rationalist-romantic dream, contemporary man has now suddenly awakened to the threat of total destruction without even the hope of a life hereafter.

Social Reform

In the light of the present situation, it would seem that Christians alert to, and conscious of, their responsibilities should be up and doing. When society was disintegrating in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Reformers were vitally interested in solving the social problems of their day, and this attitude was characteristic also of the Evangelicals in the early nineteenth century. The latter group in Britain, represented by men such as William Wilberforce, Zachary Macauley, and the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, were active in movements for social reform, in politics and in endeavors to develop a Christian social conscience. And they were not alone for they had collaborators and imitators in Germany, Holland, United States and elsewhere who wielded an effective Christian influence upon the society of their day. Believing firmly that Christian principles held the answer to the social difficulties of the times, they endeavored in every way to make their faith bear fruit.

By 1860, however, this attitude had begun to disappear from most evangelical circles. Social reform was coming to be regarded as rather dangerous, while science, particularly after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, was held by many to be demonic. To this outlook on life and partially as a result of it, Christian circles added a principle of “separation” based upon the idea that society was absolutely evil, and one should withdraw from it as far as was humanly possible. Politics was something in which Christians should not participate, art and literature were of very dubious moral value, and social reform was useless since it did not accomplish the individual’s regeneration. Increasingly, Christians began to over-stress the fact they were “not of the world,” apparently forgetting that they were still in it, and still had certain social responsibilities.

With this anti-social tendency, there arose an ever-increasing personal emphasis, strengthened by the revivalist preaching of Dwight L. Moody and R. A. Torrey. “Winning souls” became the one interest of the evangelical churches and individuals. Social reform, politics, education and similar matters could all be left to the “social gospelers.” The true Christian was but a pilgrim here, so to him the problems of this world were really unimportant.

The personal emphasis was, of course, very necessary, as all Christians will realize; for it is only as one takes the personal step of placing one’s faith in Christ as Saviour that one receives eternal life. But this can be only the beginning, for one must also manifest God’s grace and righteousness in every part of life (Titus 2:11 f.). Christian concepts of, and interest in, justice, righteousness and truth are to be manifested in the lives of Christians, and this in turn implies responsibility in every sphere of human existence. With a few exceptions, such as the movement headed by Abraham Kuyper in the Netherlands, this was ignored. For the last 35 to 40 years, therefore, evangelical Christians have tended to hide themselves from “the world,” holding that they should not participate in such “worldly” matters as politics or social and economic reform.

The Christian Answer

In our own day, however, even the most optimistic humanists seem to have reached the limit, the end of their tether. Economically, politically and internationally it looks as though Western civilization may disintegrate at any moment, giving rise to the most rigorous totalitarianism ever known to history. To this state of affairs, the Christian can no longer close his eyes. If, as evangelicals so often proclaim, Christianity has the answer to the world’s problems, then they should be prepared to show what it has to offer. Merely a series of round condemnations, or the mouthing of platitudes and principles that applied to the political and economic situation of the 1870s is not enough. One must face the difficulties of the here and the now.

What should be the Christian attitude to the present “welfare” trend? What about international relations? What should be the Western world’s attitude and dealings with Red China, Russia and, closer to home, the U.N.? There has been much fury, much sentimentality and much emotionalism introduced into these questions, but what is the Christian position, based upon biblical principles?

One could even go further to raise the problems posed by unemployment, capital accumulation and numerous other matters in the field of economics. Then too there is the pressing problem of education, racial segregation and the like. Does Christianity have anything to say on these matters? If so, it would be well for Christians to know what it is, in order that they may speak as Christians, and in elections vote as those whose ultimate allegiance is not to any temporal political party but to him who is Lord of lords and King of kings.

This means that Christians who have some knowledge and understanding of such matters as economics, politics, sociology and other such disciplines are responsible to set forth in these fields, as clearly as possible, the implications of the Christian faith. But the experts are not the only ones who have a responsibility. Every Christian is involved, for each one has an obligation to see that the scholar has the opportunity to set forth his views, unrestricted by ancient and antique notions which, though they may be hallowed by age, have little relation to the Christian faith. Moreover, every Christian has the duty of endeavoring to understand, criticize and judge for himself any and all views set forth in order that he know what Christianity’s answer is to contemporary difficulties.

In such studies and discussions, and in the presentation of solutions for the various complexities that beset our civilization, Christians will be bringing Christ to men. True, men will not accept him without the inner working of the Holy Spirit; but they will see that he has the answer to their problems, social as well as personal. In such expositions Christians will also be faced with their responsibilities. They will be thinking of the wider implications of their faith, and in this they will be enabled to perform the important task of “the salt of the earth”—for salt to be effective must be mixed in with that which is to be salted. The Christian must go into the world with a full Christianity that is the salvation of the world.

This is the challenge of “the Age of Anxiety.” The world may well be in a worse condition than it has been since the fifteenth century. For this situation Christians are, in at least some measure, responsible; and this means that they have now, as never before, a duty to show how Christianity can meet modern problems. The question is: Are we ready to meet the challenge?

W. Stanford Reid is Associate Professor of History at McGill University, Montreal. He holds the B.A. degree from McGill and the Ph.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania. His published writings include Economic History of Great Britain and Problems in Western Intellectual History since 1500.