Page 6270 – Christianity Today (2024)

Science and religion—Your world will be more of a world of scientism than ours has been. My generation did uncover some amazing scientific data. In fact, much of it became a most disturbing element in the realm of evangelical Christian thought. There developed, therefore, a bitter controversy between science and Christian belief which wrought great havoc in the church. As I look back upon those days, I must confess that those of us who were reared in the fundamentalist tradition did not do a very good job in sincerely and courageously facing up to the scientific data, much of which we must accept today as verified data. By and large, my generation fought and lost many battles with science which not only brought us humiliation, but which have proved detrimental to our Christian testimony. The reasons for this, in my opinion, were several: 1. We maintained an altogether too obscurantist attitude. 2. Oft-times we resorted to ridicule and unwise rebuttal. 3. We fought the battle on too narrow a strip. This was especially true with respect to creation. We grossly oversimplified this complex question so that it was reduced to an either/or matter of instantaneous creationism, or atheistic developmentism. But what is even more regrettable is that we gave the impression that science was an enemy of the Christian faith and that we must do everything in our power to oppose this enemy. What we should have done was to attempt to show that so far from there being ground for any distrust or hostility on the part of the Christian faith toward science, there was actually so close a connection between them that there ought to have been mutual trust, understanding and cooperation between scientists and Christian theologians. We should also have honestly faced and discussed more courageously the real problems and difficulties which arise for our Christian faith in the findings of scientists in their various fields of research. At bottom, the real questions which needed discussion were how any new scientific theories would affect the fundamental doctrines of Christianity about the nature and destiny of man, the fall, and redemption.

But while we are ready to confess that our theology may not embrace everything that we would like to know, we must insist that the scientists do not know everything. More and more I am convinced that one of the main reasons for the view that the relation between religion and science must be envisioned in terms of a conflict is provided by the assumption of the nineteenth century scientist of the virtual finality and immutabilitv of the scientific notions of his day. This was a faulty assumption. I recall having read that the noted philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, said that when he was a student at Cambridge he studied mathematics under the best teachers of his day. He acknowledged every basic presupposition that had been assumed in those days had been either altered or rejected by present-day mathematicians. Scientific views have been altered, and will be altered. Therefore we believe we have a right to confront scientists with the inadequacies of their assumptions and presuppositions as well as the limitations of their methodology. We must insist that they cannot explain the nature of nature itself without a hypothesis which includes God in it. Nor do they have, in fact, an adequate explanation of man as to his origin, his nature and his destiny. Recently some scholars such as Karl Heim, the German theologian, C. E. Raven, the British theologian, and E. L. Mascall, a Catholic theologian who delivered the Bampton Lectures for 1956 (Christian Theology and Natural Science), have made significant contributions in their attempt to relate science and Christian theology. Among evangelical scholars in America we have the work of Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and the Scripture, and also the work edited by Russell L. Mixter, Evolution and Christian Thought Today, which have grappled with this most difficult issue. We are not called upon to subscribe to every position or observation made by any one or all of these authors, but certainly we should be grateful for their having made a long delayed “breakthrough” in the “wall of silence” which has been so long surrounding us evangelicals. But what they have done is only a beginning, and so my generation leaves to you a great unfinished task as a part of your destiny. We sincerely hope you will carry on the dialogue between Christian theology and science and that you will be enabled to demonstrate more and more the harmony which must exist between God’s Word and God’s world to the edification of both the believer and the scientist.—Dr. HOWARD W. FERRIN, President, Barrington College, in remarks to the Senior Banquet in Houghton College.

LET THE BIBLE ALONE—The British scientist who is rewriting Genesis apparently has been demoralized by a peculiarly American admonition: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

The whole idea of Adam and Eve, he says, won’t fit in with evolution, so he’s eliminated the Garden of Eden and his version reads, “In the beginning … God said let matter and energy form atoms and let atoms combine and condense to form solids and liquids and let stars and planets evolve in their millions; and it was so.”

This may be good scientific theory at the moment but it is poor religion and worse literature. We don’t think it will sell. We are not among those who want to fight about whether Adam ate the apple. It may have been a grape, or a pomegranate or a naval orange. But the rich allegory which has come down to us from the nomadic Hebrew poets tells the story of human travail and aspirations accurately enough.

The apparent conflicts between Genesis and scientific fact are minor and probably transient. For the story of Adam’s rib, this humorless scientist substitutes: “So man evolved, male and female, from the higher animals by the spirit of God.” How does he know? Particularly, how does he know the entrancing story of how male and female all began?

The Bible is our richest storehouse of cultural history and tradition. Particularly in the King James version it surpasses in poetry of expression anything else in the language. This scientist should go back to his test tubes and let the Bible alone. Taking with him, if possible, all the other modernizers whose revised and logical versions tend to reduce this inspirational volume to the flat and practical level of a mail order catalog.—Editorial, The Washington Daily News, August 8, 1962.

O Lord, thou hast searched me (Ps. 139: la; read 1–24 as a prayer now).

A psalm we find difficult, because we think of omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, and transcendence. But really a prayer in simple words. Four parts, equal in length, all about you and your God. One part hard to understand.

I. God Knows You, just as you are (1–6). Think of a physician with a fluoroscope, though the Celestial Surgeon sees vastly more. He alone can read the soul that he has made. Whatever is in it of good, he knows. Also, anything evil. How then do you feel under his all-seeing eye?

II. God Goes with You, wherever you go (7–12). On an ocean liner or in an airplane, you are in the presence of the Most High. Hence no region of earth can be God-forsaken. Also at home, in midnight gloom or noontide splendor, the Lord is with you, tender to sympathize, mighty to save. One of the most wondrous facts about God! Learn to welcome his presence!

III. God Has Made You, just as you are (13–18), except for sin, which he permits but does not cause. Body and soul alike come from his hand, perhaps the most wondrous of his created works. You cannot change your stature, or personality. But by his grace you can make the most of yourself as a beloved child of God and, like your Lord, a devoted servant of men. Also, because God has made you a person like himself, you can worship him now in the beauty of holiness, and afterward in heaven live with him to enjoy his presence forevermore, all through Christ.

IV. God Enlists You on his side (19–24). This difficult part we often pass by as though it meant nothing now. But it shows that God is “the Source of the distinction between right and wrong.” Indeed, his only Son “died for the difference between right and wrong.” For that difference he bids you live and, if need be, die. In the world today there is a battle unto death, and God bids you be on his side. What less can it mean to be a Christian today?

How do you feel while under the searchlight of God? Ashamed and sorry for sin and weakness? Yes! But also full of gratitude and zeal because God himself in Christ opened the way to find pardon, cleansing, and peace, as well as joy and endless hope. Meanwhile, if you wish to live with him hereafter, where beyond these warring hosts there is eternal peace, he grants you the privilege of battling for “the crown rights of the Redeemer.” What less does it mean to be a Christian? Are you a Christian? If not, become one now.

… If a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new (2 Cor. 5:17, Phillips; read vv. 1–21).

To be useful for God and the Church a man needs to maintain the freshness of the new life he received when he was born again. As Paul grew older he found such freshness “in Christ.” Through this chapter he points to five sources of spiritual refreshing:

I. Awareness of the Divine Presence (v. 18). The God who has provided a means of reconciliation between the sinner and himself continues to share his grace with the one he has redeemed. With the passing experiences of life a man’s understanding of God is enlarged. He knows that God is directing his life. Through the Spirit he finds a revitalizing mystery that draws him ever forward. For one who daily walks with God, as Paul did, life can never grow stale.

II. A Sense of Man’s Spirituality (v. 16). Paul no longer bases his knowledge of a man on his outward life, but evaluates him according to his inner worth as a child of God with capacity to exist forever. In associating with different persons Paul weighs their potential when transformed by the Lord. So Paul accepts each person as a challenge to attain the highest potential. The Apostle’s alertness increases with spiritual invigoration.

III. A Balance of Spiritual Motives (v. 14). When the love of Christ controls a man, there is no limit to his endurance. To him the Spirit imparts greater stability and spiritual vitality for daily needs. In order through Christ to have vitality for each opportunity of life, he feels that he must go beyond himself.

IV. Active Partnership with God (vv. 18–20). By committing to his partner the ministry of reconciliation, God shows how completely he trusts the Apostle. This trust gives him a new sense of his worth, and a new zeal in the ministry of reconciliation. What an unfailing source of vitality for God’s work!

V. Assurance of Hope for the Future (v. 1). Being “in Christ” means a fellowship not to be broken by death. Then the believer enters the place the Lord has gone before to make ready, and receives the reward for his faithfulness. In every conflict of earth this assurance strengthens Paul, and makes him more than conqueror.

These five sources of freshness lie open for every believer here today. In fellowship with the Lord and in service through his Church, each of you can be increasingly alive and alert for Christ.—President, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Mo.

SERMONS ABRIDGED BY DR. BLACKWOOD

CLARENCE E. MACARTNEY,The Greatest Christian Before Christ;W. A. CRISWELL, JR.,The Church Not Blessed;LEWIS T. CORLETT,Maintaining Spiritual Freshness; and Your Soul Under the Searchlight, by DR. BLACKWOOD.

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would that thou wert cold or hot (Rev. 3:15; read vv. 14–22).

In the district around Laodicea are mineral springs. As long as the water is boiling you can somehow drink it, but if tepid it is of all things most nauseating. Our Lord uses these springs as a background for the only one of the seven churches for which he has no word of commendation or encouragement.

I. Indifferent to God. There is about some churches a “goodishness” that passes for Christianity. A sort of civic betterment program, with “pay your debts, love your mother, and don’t kill anybody,” a maudlin sentimentality supposed to be Christianity. It makes God sick. Indifferent to doctrine about God, to commitment, to devotion. We are enthusiastic about everything else, even a touchdown in the Cotton Bowl. But when it comes to Christ and the Church, there is no zeal. You don’t have religion without zeal. Christianity is a fire in the bones, a moving in the soul, a stirring of the heart, a vast illimitable commitment of life to God.

II. Deceived about Self. They said: “We are rich. We have need of nothing.” Christ said: “You are poor, naked, blind.” In proportion to their lukewarmness they were filled with self-satisfaction. “We don’t need God. We don’t need to pray, or repent.” That is humanism. I don’t know of a commoner attitude in the world today. “All we need is to set our scientists to work, get the energies of our great people hitched up to these great programs, and we can work out these things ourselves!” That is the Laodicean church.

III. Exclusive of Christ. Outside the Laodicean church is Christ, knocking. He has been gone a long time. The centuries have watched the progress and the regress of his Church. Now he comes back. Is the door open to receive him? This is the end of the age. What a tragedy when the Lord came the first time, and his own received him not! How infinitely more sad when our Lord shall come back to earth, and knock at the door, wishing to come in and eat the last supper! Will there be anybody watching in true devotion, waiting for the appearing of Christ Jesus? Not in Laodicea! He is on the outside!

Letters like this one are addressed to the congregation, but the final appeal is always to the individual soul. Even in Laodicea, “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him.” Each person must hear for himself, repent for himself, and be saved. To the believing soul the promise of our Lord is this: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.” In that day we shall reign with him. We are going to have an intense life, and share with Christ in ruling the universe. We don’t know what all this includes and what God has in store for his people. But it will be wonderful beyond compare. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”—Pastor, First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas.

These things said Isaiah, … and spake of him (John 12:41; read 12:37–41).

More than any other man in the Old Testament, Isaiah saw the glory of Christ. When we call this man the greatest Christian before Christ, we refer to his knowledge of the coming Redeemer, and to his presentation of Christ’s work of atoning for sinners. Of all the Old Testament writers, this man is most often quoted in the New. Among all those inspired books we could least afford to lose this one, for here we have the Gospel before Christ came to seal it with his blood.

I. The Greatness of This Man’s Writings. Other men of the Old Testament we consider great because of their actions; this man because of his thought and his writings. Even now the best way to learn the language of heaven and thus fit ourselves for dwelling in the City of God is to know the music of Isaiah. In this book the great verses and promises would in themselves almost make a Bible. About the life of this prophet we know but little in detail, but we know much about the transforming experience at the beginning of his long career as a prophet.

II. The Greatness of This Man’s Vision. While at worship in the temple, young Isaiah beheld a transforming vision of God and his holiness. The first effect of this overwhelming vision was to impress Isaiah with his own sinfulness. Then came the vision of cleansing, as by fire. And after that, the call of opportunity and duty. From that day to this, wherever the Church drifts from the true Gospel, and from Christ as the Redeemer from sin, the reason is that the sense of sin has faded.

III. The Greatness of This Man’s Witness to Christ. The greatest thing about Isaiah was his witness to Christ and his glory on the Cross. That witness appears at its best in one glorious chapter, the fifty-third. There we can listen to the most moving and uplifting music of redemption. There we behold the dying Redeemer, the Sin Bearer. Just why or how all that could be, we cannot tell. But we know that he died for sinners like ourselves, and that he did not die in vain.

In the Church today we need this note of triumph. Everywhere we behold what looks like a revival of paganism. But when I read the pages of Isaiah, who saw Christ’s glory and spake of him, I see the kingdom of Satan overthrown. But I see something more than that. I see Christ as the sinner’s Saviour, my own Redeemer. All my hope is based on what Isaiah wrote of him, when he beheld Christ’s glory: “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as white as snow” (1:18b, c). (From Sermons on Old Testament Heroes, by permission of Abingdon Press.)

“Very quickly, as you listen to a preacher,” writes A. C. Craig of Glasgow University, “you begin to sense whether his words are the flowering of a life or just the frothing of a mind; whether he is a genuine traveller or only a clerk in the office of Thomas Cook & Son.”

Few fallacies are more attractive than that of supposing that “clergy” and “integrity” are synonymous. What sort of professional undertow had St. Paul been feeling when he wrote to his Corinthian friends, “… I hold this ministry by God’s mercy.… I do not go about it craftily …” (2 Cor. 4:1, 2, Moffatt).

Always, authentic pulpit proclamation is more than the preparation and delivery of a sermon: it is the preparation and delivery of a preacher. Some of us were but novices in the ministry when the fire in E. M. Bounds’ writings kindled a flame in our own souls. “The man,” cried Bounds, “the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life.”

What, now, do we mean by integrity in the preacher?

Obviously we do not mean either impeccability or infallibility. The capability to sin and err is as indestructible in the man of the cloth as it is in the man of commerce.

Nor do we mean immunity against all doubts. John the Baptist had his hour of doubt. Joseph Parker, who declares that until he was 68 he never had a doubt, lost his wife and, in the blinding agony of his bereavement, found himself overwhelmed by queries and qualms. “In that hour,” he later confessed, “I became almost an atheist.”

The integrity of the preacher is linked, first of all, with his openness to God. Paul Holmer, in “The Pulpit,” has recently pointed out that when you are reading Augustine, or Luther, or Calvin, you are in touch with minds immersed in the sense of God; that is to say, minds “pervaded by enthusiasm and passion,” which habitually make “God and His righteousness” the frame of reference within which everything else in the world—“one’s future, one’s past, others, objects, and events”—must be approached. It is a complete God-orientation. Here is the piercing, relentless honesty of the 139th Psalm.

The integrity of the preacher is related, in the second place, to the openness with which he regards himself. It is Burnham, I believe, who says that “the first law of mental hygiene is, Be honest with yourself.” Even the minister whose counseling room has given him countless opportunities to observe the incredible deviousness of rationalizing minds, falls easily into his own ill-recognized rationalizations. There may be times indeed when it is the better part both of wisdom and valor for him to keep some of his doubts from his congregation (since they are induced by such accidents of life as a bout with influenza or a disappointing evening with the official board!), but at no time is it healthful for him to be evasive about them in the privacy of his own mind.

The integrity of the preacher is associated, in the third place, with openness towards the congregation he serves, the communion to whom his ordination vows were given, and the holy, apostolic, catholic church whose witness he is.

Is there integrity here if he is slack in the preparation of his sermons?

Or, let his preparation be ever so thorough as a homiletical technician, is there integrity if he has held but scant audience with God and thus comes perfunctorily to his pulpit task? What if the well-turned manuscript, unsteeped in prayer, produces only a “felicitous emptiness?

Or, is there integrity if, knowing full well what the Church of the long centuries has classically and consistently confessed as its faith, he repudiates or, at any rate, “opts out” on, one or more of these basic beliefs—the crux of the question being not his right of dissent but his right to repudiate while still professing to defend the faith of the Church Universal?

Or, is there integrity if persistently he is content to mirror from his pulpit (which in fact is not his but God’s) certain congenial facets of the biblical revelation, while he disinclines to “explore the Book” with all ravenous fidelity, forever reminding himself that he is set where he is to “declare the whole counsel of God”?

The man who preaches must be a craftsman. But the craftsman must have character—else his craftsmanship becomes craftiness.

The Humorous And The Tragic

The Blood of the Lamb, by Peter De Vries (Little, Brown & Company, 1962, 246 pp., $4), is reviewed by George Harper, Associate Professor of English, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The trickle of high-level religious novels has become a runnel in the last few years, and it should surprise no one to find even Peter De Vries, the author of The Mackerel Plaza (surely the finest spoof on fading religious modernism in recent literature), adding to the flow with his latest novel, The Blood of the Lamb. De Vries was reared in a strict religious group, the Christian Reformed community of Chicago’s South Side, and the culture he absorbed through the skin, with the habit of strong responses to great human affairs that distinguishes groups which take their religion seriously (all salvation and grace, or none; if none, none with a vengeance), is dyed deeply in him, will not wear away, can be hidden for a time under a suitable cosmetic, but is ineradicable, and hence, perhaps, his choice of theme in this novel.

Choice of theme, but not of plot. The plot is chaotic, episodic, and thin, but the theme, when it finally settles down to work, is the death of a young girl of eight. Worked in and out among the various medical and social and lyric observations on the death of the child (the only daughter of the widowed hero, Don Wanderhope) are De Vries’ pronouncements on faith, doubt, grace, divine love (and hate), cosmic justice, the bad hands dealt one by fate, God, the genes, and so on. To be fair, it should be added that many of these old chestnuts occupy De Vries’ hero in the years when he is growing up in Chicago among the Dutch garbage-collectors of the area, and arise later from his hero’s recollections of his life with his psychotic father and long-suffering mother and other members, lay and clerical, of the Dutch Reformed community. In fact, for the hero, his daughter’s illness and death merely stir up the dormant bitternesses, and it is only fair also to add that these bitternesses are surely more noble in their display at the end of the book than they were at the beginning, with exceptions: there is a disgraceful episode in which the hero, whose daughter has just died, hurls a soggy cake at a Christus in a Roman church, hits the statue full in the face, and has a fantasy in which the statue’s hands slowly rise to wipe the cake out of its eyes. The effect is hardly commensurate with the cause, and De Vries’ hero is left looking like a mildly repentant Robert Ingersoll with crumby hands.

Ideally a review of De Vries’ book should be written in two separate columns, one trailing the other. The book is really two books—a fairly good farce of the kind that De Vries has spent a lifetime bringing to a very high level of development, and a “serious” book with a great theme, well handled for the most part but shading off into uncontrolled melodrama of a particularly sneaky kind, what might be called ironic melodrama. The difficulty is, that the humor and the seriousness and the melodrama are seldom integrated. The fun is often mordant, destructive of what could have been handled more profitably in another way—overlong and overly detailed family prayers before meals, hypocritical wrestlings with unreal religious doubts, and the like, but it seldom illuminates or relieves the serious themes. And the serious parts, though they are often too melodramatic to have their proper effect, show a very deep and credible feeling, of the kind that must have accompanied the actual experience that surely lies behind the book—one can sense the genuine and heartblasting truth of the death of the little girl. Another thing: the sex bits are out of place in this novel, and are not very well done at that. At one point the hero seduces his future wife in her father’s model home, but the whole episode seems to be merely a setup for the exquisite malapropism hissed by the girl’s mother when she discovers the couple in the model bed: “Prude!” Another sex episode is macabre; it involves the hero with a girl dying of tuberculosis, and owes too much, probably, to a fashionable (in the thirties) reading of Rimbaud or perhaps Huysmans. Sex at the edge of the grave is no longer funny. But perhaps De Vries did not mean it to be.

The title of the novel would seem to indicate that its author is about to take a stance relative to religion. What De Vries’ stance is, however, is very difficult to determine. Now this might not be anything to complain of, except that one feels that his apparent neutrality is not the result of deliberate policy but rather of inadvertency. His hero seems to be intended as a bold and heroic agnostic in the grand manner of the 1890s, for at least part of the book, but the day for that is obviously past—it’s hard, hard, to be a bold and heroic agnostic in the grand manner, and has been ever since galluses and The Police Gazette went down. But then again De Vries seems to be reclaiming, through his hero, some of the material of his youth: his hero is made secretly to like old men praying, and to relish old Honest Doubters. The language in these parts of the book that deal with religion strains to express the essence of genuine religious experience, often of rather weak strength though it may be. But the essence is barely discernible, as if a working lifetime of using words for their decayed senses to bring up laughs, of making language gape and drool and snicker, had cut off the author’s access to the language of genuine emotion. De Vries seems to find it difficult to work back to a position from which his verbal shots can really go straight to the mark of meaning. The language of this novel is imprecise, in that it fails to contain the emotions behind it; is often pedantic in an unexpected way (“Dark-complected [complexioned?] Mr. Italia was indeed, with handle-bar mustaches of a size that might have made him topple forward out of his chair were it not for the posture seemingly aimed at correcting the leverage in his favor”), a hangover, perhaps, of New Yorker preciosity; and is at times awkwardly ambiguous (“What enabled me to bear Stein’s apothegms through the highly bibulous luncheon was the knowledge, serenely hoarded, that I would have my sweet home in a day or two” [Home Sweet Home?]).

The Blood of the Lamb fails. Shorn of the horseplay, it could have been a good serious book, a poignant relation of the death of a fair child, enlightening in a proper way; it might have been, shorn of the seriousness, yet another good farce, another risible patricide in a long line of the same kind; it might even have managed to make the best of both worlds, in the fashion of the unhappily neglected Father and Son of Edmund Gosse, poignant too in its recollection of early religious culture and what can be salvaged from it, in its evocation of old pieties now behold with a skeptical eye, and of old certainties now riddled by the grapeshot of modern thought, etc. As it is, the hook is merely amusing and heartbreaking by turns; its deeper tragedy is not only the death of a child, but also the moribundity of a talent and of the heart behind it.

GEORGE HARPER

Gospel In New Guinea

Cannibal Valley, by Russell T. Hitt (Harper & Row, 1962, 256 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by James M. Boice, Editorial Assistant, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

See Also

Page 6059 – Christianity TodayChildren’s nurse napped with eye mask while patient lay in soiled sheetsPage 6061 – Christianity TodayPage 6088 – Christianity Today

In September, 1959, seven French explorers began a seven-month, 1,000-mile passage across Dutch New Guinea, popularizing their arduous adventure in a film released this year as The Sky Above—The Mud Below. When it was over, five of the seven had dropped out, three of the native bearers were dead and 30 men were sick with dysentery and malaria. Mr. Hitt’s chronicle of the missionary effort in the Grand Baliem Valley of New Guinea illustrates that once again the adventures of the secular world have been preceded by the brave, sacrificial and visionary missionaries of the Christian Gospel.

These missionaries are not idealized in Hitt’s account. Neither are the outstanding successes of the Christian witness overemphasized. Instead, the reader will discover a vivid, personal portrayal of Christian proclamation, beginning with the vision of Robert A. Jaffray in the 1930s and continuing through 25 years of hardship, discouragement, sacrifice and martyrdom to the eventual establishment of an indigenous Christian Church among men who had once been illiterate cannibals and killers.

As one follows the narration one wishes that there were fewer events to cover and fewer individuals to mention. One also regrets that the personalities of the missionaries, their hopes and discouragements, are not more intimately portrayed. But the Christian reader who will overlook these limitations will find the attempts of native Christians to understand the Christian message and to order their lives in accordance with biblical principles profoundly moving. These incidents are the high points of the narration.

This work is not without shortcomings. But the account, sometimes little more than a chronicle of the missionary enterprise in New Guinea, often sweeps the reader up into its greater vision of the transforming power of the Gospel.

JAMES M. BOICE

Trend Index

Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation, edited by William Klassen and Graydon F. Snyder (Harper, 1962, 302 pp., $5), is reviewed by Merrill C. Tenney, Dean of the Graduate School, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

* Man: The Image of God, by G. C. Bcrkouwer (Eerdmans, $6). A leading Christian theologian puts the light of Scripture to man, the image of God who has now become a danger to himself and his neighbor.

* Reformation Studies, edited by Franklin H. Littell (John Knox, $5.50). Essays on both left-wing and classical personalities and movements of the Reformation.

* The Doctrine of Man in Classical Lutheran Theology, edited by Herman A. Preus and Edmund Smith (Augsburg, $3). Disinterment of M. Chemnitz’ and J. Gerhard’s thought on the image of God, free will, and sin. Much of it translated into English for the first time.

The wide influence of Dr. Piper, who is now completing forty years of teaching—twenty-five years at Princeton Seminary—is reflected by the fifteen contemporary scholars who have contributed these essays in his honor. Both American and Continental scholarship are represented by such well known names as Paul Minear, Amos Wilder, Markus Barth, Floyd V. Filson, Rudolph Bultmann, C. K. Barrett, and Johannes Munck. The subject matter covers a wide variety of material: ontology, hermeneutics, the Synoptic problem, the Johannine writings, the Pauline epistles, the nature and development of the early church, and the formation of the canon. Each essay represents some phase of the most recent production in biblical scholarship.

A trend common to all of these essays is the readiness to reexamine the New Testament in the light of its historical and psychological setting and to concede a greater importance to its intrinsic testimony than did the criticism of a generation ago. Irrespective of individual presuppositions, the authors seem to take the biblical text more seriously than did their predecessors. Barth’s essay on “The Old Testament in Hebrews,” Filson’s “The Gospel of Life,” and Barrett’s discussion of “The Theological Vocabulary of the Fourth Gospel and of the Gospel of Truth” contain much useful analysis of textual content.

This work reveals a prevailing unrest in biblical scholarship that has been increasing in the last three decades. Although these writers could not strictly he called conservatives in interpretation, they seem to assume a less cavalier attitude toward the New Testament than prevailed in the older liberalism. They admit that at least some of its history is reliable and that some of its teaching deserves serious consideration. Although not all of their theses will be acceptable to evangelical scholars, and although they do not hold either a high view of inspiration nor a consistent evangelical theology, their thoroughness deserves emulation. Some of their suggestions, like Minear’s argument that the cosmology of the Apocalypse demands a new dimension of thinking, Robinson’s method of analyzing Jesus’ epigrams, and Barrett’s demonstration that the theological vocabularies of John’s Gospel and of the Gnostic “Gospel of Truth” are quite unrelated, can be useful to the student of exegesis and of theology.

In general one may say that these essays are comparatively free from the trivia that occupy many Festschriften, and are a valuable index to the trend of current scholarship. They emphasize interpretation more than speculation. On the other hand, they illustrate by contrast the vast field that is open to evangelical scholars and theologians who will endeavor by patient investigation and by constructive reasoning to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of the Word of God, and to stress its spiritual authority rather than its “problems.”

MERRILL C. TENNEY

Tillich’S Christ

Paul Tillich and the Christian Message, by George H. Tavard (Scribner’s, 1962, 176 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by James Daane, Editorial Associate, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Paul Tavard confronts the theology of Paul Tillich with the question, “What think ye of Christ?” After comprehensive, expert analysis Tavard concludes: the man is Christian, the theology is not.

The first half of this judgment does not mean that Tavard adopts Tillich’s contention that the Protestant principle of justification by faith justifies unbelievers and atheists as well as believing sinners. It rests rather on the faith of the man Tillich as it shines through his sermons.

Tillich takes the religious-ethical Protestant principle that the saint in history is yet a sinner and expands it into the philosophical principle that within history there can be no ontological absolutes, no absolute truth, no infallible Bible or Church, no genuine historical Incarnation.

Since the ground of man’s being is said to be in God the Unconditioned, man’s existence (quite in harmony with this expanded Protestant principle) is never equal to his essence. This disparity of existence and essence is Original Sin. Concern about the disparity (when more than merely psychological) is an ultimate concern since it concerns the very ground of man’s existence. Such ultimate concern is faith. This faith is found in all religions and in all serious art, philosophy, and literature.

On the basis of this same principle the Jesus of history is not the Christ. Jesus as the one in whom the ground of man’s being, God’s Godmanhood, is revealed under the conditions of existence, as the one in whom man’s essence and existence are seen reconciled and free from anxiety, is called the Christ, the New Being, the symbol of the ontological victory over all that threatens man’s being. Jesus appears to be the Christ especially on the Cross where without anxiety he sacrifices himself as Jesus.

In Tavard’s judgment such a Christology is not Christian; it fails to do what Chalcedon did: recognize a point in time and history in which the divine and human are united.

Tavard admits writing as late as 1953 that Tillich’s interpretation of the New Being in Jesus as the Christ was essentially correct. He now confesses that the publication of Tillich’s Systematic Theology II (1957) makes this reading of Tillich impossible. Tillich’s Christology is heterodox, incompatible with Chalcedon.

Tavard then goes on to suggest that Tillich’s Christology could be brought in line with Chalcedon by the idea of “God-manhood” which Tavard sees suggested in the biblical ideas of Christ as the “man from heaven,” the “second Adam.” Tavard suggests that these can be interpreted to mean that Jesus Christ is “the second Person, the Man-God,” “the perfect Image of the Father, of whom he is eternally born.” As such Jesus would be “the pre-existent Man” in whom our manhood participates and is grounded. But says Tavard, “A full elaboration would require a separate volume.”

Tavard provides a sympathetic but competent critique of Tillich’s Christology as symbol, as history (perhaps the finest chapter), as dogma, and as ethics.

This book is one of the finest critiques of Tillich’s thought. Although Tavard is a Roman Catholic, his Catholicism does not limit the value of his critique for a Protestant since the norm by which he evaluates Tillich is the Christology of 4th century Chalcedon and that of Luther and Calvin.

JAMES DAANE

Choose You Must!

On Asia’s Rim, by Andrew T. Roy (Friendship, 1962, 166 pp., $2.95; paperback $1.75), is reviewed by Lewis H. Lancaster, for 41 years a missionary of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., in China.

The Christian mission on the rim of East Asia is the theme of World Mission study for 1962–63. On Asia’s Rim is the basic book for adult study of this theme. The author is a missionary of 30 years experience in China and Hong Kong.

Caught in the maelstrom of world politics are 38 million people crowded on the Korean peninsula and the islands of Okinawa, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In this brief book we are told of the history and culture of these “islands between,” their economic and political conditions and problems, their religions and spiritual needs, and something of the life and work of the Church.

The last chapter is entitled, “You and the Rim of Asia.” “We in the West are deeply involved in East Asia as helping hands and as sources of irritation.” “The issues are drawn, the choices are before us.… We can give our lives in trying to save the peoples of the world in the name of Jesus Christ, or we can try to save our own lives and lose them ingloriously.”

The reading of this book should not only give a new understanding of and an urgent concern for these people, but also stir a more serious determination to meet the responsibilities that we face as followers of Christ.

LEWIS H. LANCASTER

Divine Command?

Death Row Chaplain, by Byron Eshelman with Frank Riley (Prentice-Hall, 1962, 244 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by John A. MacDonald, Minister, First Baptist Church, Mill Valley, California.

Byron Eshelman has been head Protestant Chaplain at San Quentin Prison and Supervising Chaplain for the California State Department of Corrections for more than 11 years. His book, Death Row Chaplain, has been written out of considerable depth of personal experience and for this reason ought to be read by anyone concerned with the issue of capital punishment.

Eshelman states his concern for “a lack of theological perspective and religious depth” in the field of penology and corrections. He also writes with obvious disapproval of capital punishment. But he states that his purpose is more “to analyze what the symptom of capital punishment means in our culture” than to help abolish the death penalty. In the mind of this reviewer the analysis is entirely unsatisfactory. For evangelicals who oppose capital punishment, his argument offers no comfort. He assumes that all administration of the death penalty has always been wrong. He does not in any responsible way consider the theological implications of this assumption. Apparently he classifies the divine commandment of Genesis 9:5, 6 as merely a presumptuous human rationalization of its barbaric custom. Imposition of the death penalty, he claims, has always been a symptom of immaturity in a given culture. Thus Freudian psychology is accorded recognition as authoritative in place of the divinely attested biblical revelation. This is the “theology” of the book.

Unshackled from authoritative revelation, Eshelman is able to scold the self-righteous ones of society who “play God.” He further states his long-held conviction that it is “pharisaism and self-righteousness for Christians to maintain that their religion is superior to all others.”

In following the author through numerous interesting, and in some instances famous, records of criminals, the reviewer was frequently puzzled as to why the parole system was not scrutinized as a possible contributor to the ultimate crimes for which many have been executed.

The familiar problems of injustice, social responsibility, insanity, etc., are handled quite skillfully and no doubt with telling effectiveness upon any sensitive reader. No Christian can be insensitive to the tragic affairs of human life. But the problem must be assessed in terms of the nature of sin and its growing evil effects in human life and society as a whole. Would a “mature” and “responsible” society actually accomplish the “redemptive” effects Eshelman hopes for through his enlightened penology? Or should serious Christian theology humbly assume that the ancient Scriptures reveal God’s infinite wisdom, sufficient to take account of acknowledged problems of human injustice, social responsibility, and insanity, while no sinful society can ever trust itself as truly mature and thus able to reject revelation and law it doesn’t like?

JOHN A. MACDONALD

Something Different

Living Today for God, by Roger Schutz, translated by Stephen McNierney and Louis Evrard (Helicon, 1962, 128 pp., $2.95), is reviewed by Franklin T. Van Halsema, postgraduate student of philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The name Taizé has come during the last 20 years to stand for several things, but perhaps for none so unmistakably as for a unique approach to the problem of Christian unity. The Prior of the Reformed monastic community of that name, situated near the more famous Cluny, France, sketches in this book the view of the world and of Christian life in it which has determined that approach.

An excellence of this book is that it exposes the problem of Christian unity as a radically spiritual, rather than theological or church-political, problem. But is it not an “escapist” spirituality which seeks expression in a monastic form of life? Father Schutz does not think so, and gently points out, with more persuasion than can be reproduced here, that a retreat into the “ghetto” of denominational security is “more ‘cloistered’ than any convent.” His book On the Christian life is not a plea for more monastic vocations, and even less for more correct Christian “behavior,” but for stronger commitments to the mission of authentic Christian living. Taizé stands for fulfilling that mission by replacing denominational allegiance with the allegiances of the three old Benedictine vows.

There are some Reformation Christians who are finding in Taizé and in movements such as the liturgical revival more hopeful signs of real ecumenical progress than can be found in the councils and counter-councils pledged to ecumenisms of various kinds. Even the Roman Catholics have taken notice. It is not often that a book by a Protestant author is published first by a Roman Catholic house, introduced by a Cardinal’s letter, and prefaced by one of the Church’s noted scholars.

FRANKLIN T. VAN HALSEMA

Valuable For Some

Ministries of Mercy, by Fern Babco*ck Grant (Friendship, 1962, 167 pp., $2.95; paperback, $1.95), is reviewed by W. E. Borne, Pastor, Foster Park Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois.

This book will be of greatest value to those almost entirely ignorant of the scope of the social ministries performed by the churches of America. It is uncritical in its assessment of programs and reads as if the folders sent out for special offerings were used as source material. The author does, however, express concern that social service institutions of the churches sometimes fail to meet the standards for membership in the Child Welfare League of America.

As a survey the book is incomplete. In listing the hospitals sponsored by churches, the author makes no mention of the many hospitals and health services supported by Southern Baptists.

I wish that I could be kinder to this book for there is need for a briskly written book on the many “ministries of mercy” performed or supported by the churches of America. To be of maximum usefulness, however, such a book should critically examine the programs and approaches which may have outlived their usefulness. Since churches cannot do everything, they must seek ways and means to best use the monies and energies that are available. In this search, this book will not greatly help.

W. E. BORNE

Book Briefs

Roman Catholicism, by Loraine Boettner (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962, 466 pp., $5.95). A thoroughgoing, conservative, often emotional and never exciting contrast of Catholicism with Protestantism. More apt to propagandize than to convince.

What College Students Think, by Rose K. Golden, Morris Rosenberg, Robin M. Williams, Jr., and Edward A. Suchman (Van Nostrand, 1962, 240 pp., $5.95). What college students think about college, fraternities, sex, dating, religious and political matters, and the interesting conclusions they seem to support.

The United Church of Christ, by Douglas Horton (Thomas Nelson, 1962, 320 pp., $4). Author tells the story of the origins, organization, and role of the UCC by reference to its Constitution, and along the way expresses personal comment on many matters.

Financing Medical Care, edited by Helmut Schoeck (Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1962, 314 pp., $5.50). The story of governmental medical care programs in various European countries.

Pascal’s Pensées, translated by Martin Turnell (Harper, 1962, 447 pp., $6). Pascal’s classic apology for religion with material newly ordered and an introduction by the translator.

You Can Witness with Confidence, by Rosalind Rinker (Zondervan, 1962, 105 pp., $1.95). An unusually sane treatment of how to witness to Jesus Christ.

John Colet and the Platonic Tradition, by Leland Miles (Open Court, 1962, 239 pp., $4.50; paper $1.75). Exploration of the Platonic tradition in Colet, Oxford Reformer.

Don’t Park Here, by Paul Erb (Herald Press, Scottsdale, Pa., 1962, 182 pp., $3). A collection of essays on the Christian life, originally published as editorials in the Christian Herald. Brief and topical.

God Is Where You Are, by Alan Walker (Eerdmans, 1962, 128 pp., $2). This addition to the Preaching for Today series by a distinguished Australian preacher is generally fresh and stimulating. The ghost of Rauschenbush lingers on in several places.

The Handbook of Biblical Personalities, by George M. Alexander (Seabury Press, Greenwich, Conn., 1962, 291 pp., $5.75). An alphabetical listing of biblical characters with biography and references. Undecisive on historical and critical problems.

Whom God Hath Joined Together, by Wesley H. Hager (The Upper Room, Nashville, Tenn., 1962, 96 pp., $.75). Devotional guide for the newly married; readings and prayers for the first forty days.

The Disciplined Life, by Richard Shelley Taylor (Beacon Hill, 1962, 102 pp., $1.75). Author pleads the need and value of discipline before a soft, flabby, pampered, self-indulgent generation. Simple, pointed; recommended.

Your Child’s Religion, by the Rev. Randolph Crump Miller (Doubleday, 1962, 164 pp., $2.95). Author raises and answers 88 questions; some answers are excellent, but some of the questions are better than the answers.

A History of Mission House-Lakeland, by Eugene C. Jaberg, Roland G. Kley, Rein-hard Ulrich, Arthur M. Krueger, Theophilus F. H. Hilgeman (Christian Education Press, 1962, 277 pp., $4.95). A centennial volume celebrating the history of Mission House, seminary of the former German Reformed (then Evangelical and Reformed, now United Church of Christ) Church.

The Story of the Good News, by Arthur H. Voerman (Exposition, 1962, 280 pp., $4.50). Author follows the highly dubious procedure of presenting a translation which is paraphrase in which the interpretations of the author appear to fall from the lips of Jesus. Reader will not be sure whether he hears the words of his Lord or those of Voerman.

From Out of the West, edited by P. J. Baird (Lantern Press, 1962, 156 pp., $3.95). Sixteen sermons from 16 Presbyterian ministers of the West breathing something of its expansive mountains and deserts, its storied coast. With pictures of their churches.

A Guide to Daily Prayer, by William Barclay (Harper & Row, 1962, 160 pp., $3). Prayers which reiterate help me, give me, forgive me, keep me (and those I love, or who love me), but lack the dimension of worship and thanksgiving.

The Priesthood of All Believers, by Cyril Eastwood (Augsburg, 1962, 268 pp., $4.50). The place and role of the laymen in the Church as seen in Luther, Calvin, Anglicanism, Puritanism and Methodism.

Paperbacks

The Dynamics of World History, by Christopher Dawson, edited by John J. Mulloy (New American Library, 1962, 480 pp. $.95). Renowned erudite historian probes the relationship of religion and history and urges Christianity as history’s greatest dynamic. Reprint.

Pacemakers of Christian Thought, by James William McClendon (Broadman, 1962, 68 pp., $1). Brief, incisive essays on nine important modern theologians. Theological appetizers calculated to whet the appetite for the reading of Barth, Tillich, Carnell, Bultmann, etc. Done with sympathy and criticism.

Faith That Makes Sense, by J. Edwin Orr (Judson, 1962, 109 pp., $1.45). By use of analogy and popular language author attempts to make Christian faith convincing. First published in 1960.

hom*o Viator, by Gabriel Marcel, translated by Emma Craufurd (Harper, 1962, 270 pp., $1.45). A religious existentialist’s reflections on man in pilgrimage. First published in 1951.

A Lawyer Examines the Bible (New Revised Edition), by Irwin H. Linton (W. A. Wilde Company, 1962, 318 pp., $1.85). A lawyer considers the evidence for the truth of Christianity and gives personal testimony to its truthfulness. First printed in 1943.

Reprints

If Thou Shalt Confess, by J. K. Van Baalen (Eerdmans, 1962, 65 pp., $1.50). For those who just have confessed or are about to confess faith in Christ. Very fine, very brief. Revised.

Faith and Its Problems, by Paul G. Schrotenboer (Pro Rege Publishing Co., Rexdale, Ontario, 1962, 114 pp., $1.95). Simple, orthodox answers to big questions in simple, uneven English.

A fortnightly report of developments in religion

It was like a summer romance which seemingly flourished during the vacation season only to break off abruptly. Gone, but not forgotten.

The parties to the short-lived affair were the U. S. foreign aid program and religious enterprise abroad, a pair of institutions traditionally kept apart by the American principle of separation of church and state.

The love letter which sparked the romance was a 2,000-word statement officially labeled “Policy Determination No. 10” issued by the Agency for International Development, successor organization to the International Cooperation Administration. AID is the government instrument of technical assistance to underdeveloped countries and it dispenses about three or four billion U. S. dollars abroad each year.

AID’s policy determination, drawn up as a guide for agency personnel, spelled out the means whereby the U. S. foreign aid program could enter into partnership with missionary endeavors. It declared that funds could be channeled to religious organizations abroad for missionary schools and other projects which are compatible with overall objectives of the country concerned and which meet the approval of its government.

Appropriate safeguards were to be required, however, to assure that religious agencies involved “will not proselytize or discriminate or otherwise take advantage of the relationships with A.I.D.”

The implications of the policy aroused the reaction of numerous church-state observers nonetheless.

A spokesman for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs had predicted that it would “cause grave concern to Protestants who feel strongly about church-state separation.”

Dr. Glenn L. Archer, executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and States, had charged that the policy amounted to “a flagrant violation of our long-standing church-state tradition.” “The charge being constantly leveled against our missionaries and against church groups abroad is that they are tools of United States imperialism,” Archer observed. “We know that such charges are false, but substance is given to them if these groups now commence to receive support from the U. S. Government.”

He added that “already these aid programs for churches abroad have inspired the complaint that we are discriminating agains our own churches here because we do not give them the same aid.”

Perhaps the most pointed reaction came from Editor E. S. James of the Baptist Standard of Texas. Within an hour after he had learned of AID’s policy statement, James fired off telegrams to President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson, and several Congressmen. James said he praised the President for keeping his campaign promises on church-state separation, then asserted that the announced AID policy was as clearly a constitutional violation of the Constitution as would be federal aid to parochial schools.

Kennedy replied with a friendly letter dated August 22 which disclosed that AID had withdrawn its statement.

Subsequently, AID Administrator Fowler Hamilton issued a notice to subordinates:

“Policy Determination No. 10 has given rise to misconceptions concerning the policy of the Agency regarding ‘religious organizations and the U. S. aid program.’ Therefore, it is hereby withdrawn and has no further force and effect. Henceforth, the Agency will continue to pursue the same policies that it and predecessor agencies have pursued in this regard during the past period of more than ten years. In view of the confusion that has arisen, I wish to make perfectly clear that the Agency in administrating the funds for which it is responsible will do so in full accord with the traditional constitutional principles that are applicable to this area.”

POAU applauded the withdrawal with a comment by Associate Director C. Stanley Lowell.

Aid’S Controversial Policy Determination

“Appendix A” was probably the most significant portion of the “policy determination” issued and then withdrawn by the Agency for International Development. The policy was designed to set forth guidelines as to how U. S. foreign aid funds could be tied in with missionary work. This portion spelled out the policy as it was to apply to religious educational activity. Here is the complete text of “Appendix A”:

A. I. D. basic policy regarding assistance to or through “religious organizations,” and its specific reference to technical assistance, govern all relevant education programs. Supplementary guidance concerning contracts with “religious organizations” and assistance to religious or religiously affiliated schools is provided best by examining the application of A. I. D. policy to instances which, in terms of past experience, are typical of the problems which arise. The following paragraphs are illustrations.

1.Requests have been received for direct assistance to U. S. religious organizations for their work abroad, e.g., a grant to a missionary group to build a missionary school in Africa.

If the Mission finds the request compatible with the country program, and if the request is submitted by, or with the support of, the host country’s government, favorable consideration is possible.

2.The question has been raised whether it is permissive under A. I. D. policy to enter into a contract with a U. S. or foreign religious organization to assist in carrying out an A. I. D. project, or a project which will help to accomplish A. I. D. aims; e.g., (a) a contract with the American Friends Service Committee for assistance in developing school gardens in Jordan; (b) a contract with the Koinonia Foundation for conducting a literacy program in Yemen.

A. I. D. would first make sure (a) that such a contractor is the best available one, (b) that the contractor is clearly agreeable to the host government and people, and (c) that there are built-in guarantees that the contractor will refrain from any activities which might give the project a religious content. With these three items satisfied, a favorable response would be within established A. I. D. policy.

3.Requests have been received from institutions or organizations which are not classified as religious organizations but the request is for religious purposes, e.g., to build a chapel.

The determining factor is the requirement of conformity of a request with A. I. D.’s objectives and technical assistance aims. Policy regarding religious organizations would not be pertinent.

4.Projects have been submitted which involve assistance to schools maintained by a religious organization, but recognized as part of the national school system; e.g., Catholic normal schools in Peru which are “fiscalized” institutions receiving some support and supervision by the Ministry of Education and recognized by law as adjuncts of the national system.

Provided that the status of the school in the national educational system of the host country has been verified, the situation discussed in illustration I becomes applicable.

5.Requests for assistance have reference to schools or school systems where religious instruction is a required or customary part of the curriculum, e.g., many national school systems in Latin America (Catholic) or in the Near East (Moslem).

The decisive factor is whether the schools meet the criteria indicated in 1 and 4 above. The presence or absence of religious instruction in the curriculum of a national school system is in itself not a determining element.

6.A rather frequent type of request received by the Agency and concerning assistance to a religiously affiliated school in a foreign country is the submission presented directly by a representative of that school.

In such instances the school official or organization representatives should be advised to submit the request as a host government proposal, or at least with host government endorsem*nt, through A. I. D. Mission channels. The status of the school and its relationship to the national education system would be evaluated by the field mission and if the situation thus revealed were analogous to cases 1 and 4 above, the same considerations would apply.

“This is a wise move on the part of AID,” said Lowell. “To assist religious organizations abroad in ways that would be unconstitutional at home would create an intolerable dichotomy in government policy. We cannot have one set of rules for home games and another set for away games.”

The POAU official still had some misgivings, however: “What disturbs us is the lack of any assurance that the policy of AID will be changed to conform to the First Amendment. It is a good thing to change a wrong statement, but it is better to change a wrong practice.”

The Baptist Joint Committee declared:

“We are informed by responsible spokesmen in AID that the policies contained in the recent policy determination are those which have been in use by the U. S. government foreign aid program for more than 10 years. Accordingly, in our estimation, the issuance and withdrawal … opens for church-state analysis the whole policy field as developed in recent administrations.”

The AID policy had reportedly been approved by the agency’s executives on July 16, but there was no public announcement. Subsequently, copies were made available to some religious organizations engaged in overseas work.

The first public notice of the policy statement apparently was disseminated by the National Catholic Welfare Conference news service to diocesan papers. An NCWC newsman said his office first learned of the policy statement when it was distributed at a Chicago meeting of relief agency representatives.

The statement had declared that “where such projects make a vital contribution to economic development, A. I. D. may therefore furnish assistance through a qualified organization, even if such organization has religious affiliations. Our standards and criteria here do not turn on the question of the nature of the organization, but rather on the question of where our assistance can be most effective to economic development and at the same time not to religious activity.”

The statement implicitly recalled the strong public reaction which followed a decision to grant U. S. aid to schools in Colombia, where Roman Catholic influence is felt throughout the educational system. One portion cautioned that “domestic and foreign traditions, views and sensitivities require special consideration and, in some instances, additional guidance.”

An agency official had been quoted as saying that “the important thing is helping people, not arguing over who gets credit for it.”

Protestant Panorama

• A plan is being worked out to coordinate Lutheran pastoral ministries in health, welfare, and correctional institutions. Participating churches of the National Lutheran Council have ratified an agreement with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to establish a “consulting committee” for implementing the plan. Normally, pastors and chaplains will schedule Communion services for members of their own churches.

• Church World Service, relief agency of the National Council of Churches, announced an administrative reorganization effective September 1. New positions are being created and responsibilities reassigned. The CWS overseas staff is being strengthened. Executive Director Hugh D. Farley cited a transition from temporary relief to long-term rehabilitation as reason for the change.

• Fire caused an estimated $315,000 damage to the First Methodist Church of El Centro, California. The Rev. Jesse J. Roberson, pastor, said there was “indisputable evidence of arson.”

• Delegates to the 63rd convention of Gideons International were told that the organization has distributed more than 50,000,000 Bibles since its inception. More than 3,000,000 were passed out last year.

• A Church of Reconciliation built by German volunteers as a symbol of repentance for Nazi crimes was inaugurated on a hilltop near Taizé in Burgundy, headquarters of a Protestant monastic community.

• A controversy over local church autonomy resulted in the ouster of the Rev. Wayne Smith, moderator of the newly-formed North Carolina Association of Free Will Baptists, from his post as pastor of the First Free Will Baptist Church in Smithfield, North Carolina. The association was formed by members of the North Carolina Free Will Baptist Convention who opposed withdrawal from the National Association of Free Will Baptists in a factional dispute.

• Delegates to the 61st General Session of the Missionary Church Association endorsed a proposed merger with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. To become effective, the merger plan must still be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the members in 121 association congregations.

• Eternity magazine and The Sunday School Times called off plans to operate under a joint governing board. Both will continue to publish as separate ventures.

• Gospel musician Thurlow Spurr begins a nation-wide tour of his 30-member instrumental and vocal troupe on September 29 with a concert in Chicago. The Spurr group plans concerts in 100 U. S. cities within the next year.

• A new seminary is being opened in Jacksonville, Florida, this month. A number of Southern Baptist ministers are behind the project, but no official denominational ties have been established.

• The Upper Room, world’s most widely used daily devotional guide apart from the Bible itself, now has a circulation of 3,250,000 with an estimated readership of 10,000,000. It is published bi-monthly in 34 languages and 40 editions and is distributed in 100 countries.

• Some 3,000 Anglicans paraded through the streets of Georgetown, British Guiana, last month, marking the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Bernard Markham as Bishop of Nassau and the Bahamas.

• A $1,000,000 interdenominational Christian high school and junior college will be built in Menifee County, Kentucky. Spearheading the project is newspaper publisher Jerry F. Ringo, a Presbyterian layman.

• A number of Lutheran Free Church pastors and congregations say they will not join the proposed merger with the American Lutheran Church. The Rev. Richard Snipstead of Green-bush, Minnesota, says a conference of dissident congregations is tentatively set for October. Churches from other synods also are expected to become a part of the new association.

Jews Versus Jesuits

It was not only hypocritical. It was also unjust. And the Jews were not the only ones to know it. Noting “disturbing hints of heightened anti-Semitic feeling” in an editorial “To Our Jewish Friends,” the September 1 issue of the weekly Jesuit journal, America, warned of “intense efforts … being made in some Jewish quarters to close ranks and to exploit all the resources of group awareness, purposefulness and expertise that are to be found in the Jewish community.” The object of such an effort, the Jesuits believed, was an “all-out campaign to secularize the public schools and public life from top to bottom.”

The Jesuit editorial came in the wake of the June 25 decision of the Supreme Court which banned the use of the New York Board of Regents prayer in the state’s public schools. A number of Jewish organizations have been active in voicing their support of the court’s decision. “What will have been accomplished,” the editorial demanded, “if our Jewish friends win all the legal immunities they seek, but thereby paint themselves into a corner of social and cultural alienation?”

To Jewish leaders the “friendly warning” was little short of a direct threat of anti-Semitism. Replied the rabbis, in a statement issued jointly by the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, “America is encouraging the very evil it claims to be trying to avert.”

“What would be the Catholic reaction,” the reply queried shrewdly, “if a Jewish publication were to publish an editorial entitled ‘To Our Roman Catholic Friends’ warning Catholics to cease their campaign for public aid to parochial schools … lest a wave of anti-Catholic bigotry descend on the nation?”

At week’s end another Roman Catholic publication took issue with the Jesuit editorial. In a move which may give weight to suspicions of friction between laity and clergy within the Roman church, the lay magazine Commonweal observed, “If there is any real danger of anti-Semitism among Catholics then it is Catholics who ought to be warned.” The approach was termed “very odd.”

Lamenting Indifference

Protestant laymen are more than twice as zealous as Catholics in seeking to win converts, according to a priest who is director of the Bureau of Convert Research at the University of Notre Dame.

Writing in the August 25 issue of America, national Jesuit weekly, the Rev. John A. O’Brien charged that “the overwhelming majority of Catholics have never so much as lifted a finger to share their faith.”

Quoting from a survey compiled by the bureau, O’Brien said Catholics “need to learn effective techniques of sharing their faith, as only 17 per cent of those who tried were successful, as compared with 43 per cent successful Protestants.”

According to the statistics he cites, 59 per cent of all Protestants sought to interest others in membership in their churches, while the Catholic figure came to 28 per cent.

O’Brien says the data came from “the most extensive survey of this subject ever made.” He said the survey was conducted by the Catholic Digest and that a cross section representing 75.9 million people in the United States who attend some church were confronted with two separate questions:

1. “Have you ever tried to get anyone to join?”

2. “Did you ever succeed in getting anyone to join?”

A chart accompanying the article in America showed that 67 per cent of all Baptists try to win converts. The record for other groups was as follows: other small Protestant denominations, 61 per cent; Presbyterian, 59; Methodist, 56; Episcopal, 53; Lutheran, 49; and Congregational, 38.

A second chart involved percentages of members of various faiths who succeeded in winning converts. It showed that Presbyterians were successful 52 per cent of the time. Other group figures were: Baptist, 50 per cent; Episcopal, 45; other small Protestant denominations, 44; Methodist, 39; Lutheran, 28; and Congregational, 19.

O’Brien said religious bodies “particularly active” in recruiting people for instruction include Jehovah’s Witnesses the Churches of Christ, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the Mormons.

“As a consequence,” he said, “they are gaining the largest numbers of adherents in proportion to their membership.”

He stated that Roman Catholics tend to think that “sharing the faith” is a business confined to priests. “The average Catholic feels that he is fulfilling his duty when he attends Sunday Mass and drops a fairly generous offering in the collection box. If, in addition, he acts as an usher or occasionally attends a Holy Name Society meeting, he considers himself a real apostle, with the crown of sainthood weighing heavily on his hallowed head.”

Southbound Evangelist

Evangelist Billy Graham leaves this week for South America where he and his team plan meetings in at least six major cities. The tour is his second in South America this year.

Graham will begin the crusade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Tuesday, September 25. Meetings will be held each night at Pacaembú Stadium with the closing scheduled for Sunday, September 30.

Subsequent crusades will be held in Asunción, Paraguay, Córdoba, Argentina, Rosario, Argentina, Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The tour will close in Buenos Aires With a meeting on Sunday, October 28.

Last month Graham travelled to the Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama, for a Sunday afternoon rally which drew a crowd estimated at 35,000.

Two days later, William F. Graham, the evangelist’s father, died in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the age of 74. The elder Graham had suffered a stroke several weeks earlier.

Arousing Suspicion

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect about the debut of the New English Bible New Testament was that the translation was judged on its own merits. The qualifications of the translators were seldom brought into question. Hopes for an equally objective reception for the NEB Old Testament suffered a severe blow last month when a 70-year-old Oxford professor took it upon himself to emphasize how drastic the new version would be.

Dr. Godfrey R. Driver, professor of Semitic philology and chairman of the panel of Old Testament translators, made the mistake of meeting the press without clearing his remarks with NEB publishers. He compounded the error by giving the virtual impression that his translators would improve upon God’s revelation to man. A London newspaper quoted him as saying that present translations include passages in the Old Testament which amount to “nonsense.” The quotation was picked up by wire services and appeared in headlines around the world.

Serious students of the Bible were satisfied that Driver meant no harm to Old Testament content, but the net effect of his indiscreet remarks was to arouse suspicion among uninitiated readers.

Driver also ventured a prediction that the Old Testament might be completed within two years. The publishers say there is no chance of it appearing before 1966.

The Road To Apostasy?

The leading complainant in the controversial Hick case charges that the United Presbyterian Church, for the first time in history, “has taken a deliberate step down the road that leads to apostasy by permitting, in effect, the word of man to be superior to the Word of God.”

The accusation is contained in a comprehensive 4,500-word statement released last month by the Rev. J. Clyde Henry, minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Lambertville, New Jersey. Henry said the General Assembly had taken an unconstitutional action last spring when it overruled a decision by the Synod of New Jersey which barred a Princeton Theological Seminary professor from membership in the Presbytery of New Brunswick because of his refusal to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth.

“The Church has declared officially that it is hospitable to heresy,” Henry declared, “and that error may stand on an equality with truth.”

Henry was chairman of the committee which initially examined Dr. John Hardwood Hick, who joined the Princeton faculty in 1960 and subsequently sought a membership transfer from a presbytery in England.

The presbytery accepted Hick, but the Judicial Commission of the Synod of New Jersey reversed the presbytery’s decision by sustaining complaints from a group of eight ministers and ten ruling elders led by Henry. The Judicial Commission of the General Assembly then annulled the synod’s decision. Said Henry:

“The Church now appears before the world as one which will censure a minister who makes an error in judgment, but will welcome with open arms a minister who is unable or unwilling to affirm his belief in a doctrine which has been an integral part of the faith of the Holy Catholic Church, and of all its branches, from the beginning.”

Henry protested the General Assembly action which alleged that there were irregularities in synod’s proceedings.

“To reverse a court’s decision on the basis of irregular procedures is to jeopardize the right of the original complainant to a fair hearing and a just decision.”

The Curriculum Problem

The unified curriculum prescribed for military Sunday Schools came under fire last month from the National Association of Evangelicals.

Dr. Robert A. Cook, NAE president, lodged a protest in a stiffly-worded letter to the chairman of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, Air Force Major General Terence P. Finnegan.

Cook complimented the chaplains’ efforts in seeking an acceptable curriculum for Protestant servicemen and their dependents and conceded that a unified Sunday School curriculum “has many points in its favor.”

He declared, however, that “the end does not justify the means when the basic principles of religious freedom in our American heritage are violated.”

“It has come to our attention,” he added, “that the manner in which the Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum for Armed Forces is being made available to the military Sunday Schools does violate the constitutional freedom which our Armed Forces are committed to defend.”

“We must, therefore, respectfully but vigorously protest the fact that the respective Chiefs of Chaplains have recommended that the Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum be used in preference to any other.”

Under the unified curriculum system, a military-civilian committee reviews the materials of denominational publishing houses and selects those deemed most appropriate to the military. (See also CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 13, 1962.)

The Armed Forces Chaplains Board, meanwhile, began a study aimed at possible revamping of the curriculum program. The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention was awarded a contract to determine the feasibility of producing a new type of curriculum. Users of the unified Sunday School material are said to have expressed a desire for a “more static curriculum.”

Guidelines for the “new approach” were set forth by the Protestant Religious Education Advisory Group of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board. The advisory group includes editorial-representatives of denominational publishing boards. Here is a complete text of the group’s document, entitled “Guidelines for Considering Curriculum Materials to be Used in the Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum”:

Theological Principles

1. The curriculum materials should themselves provide specifically Christian content and plans for learning experiences in which the uniquely Christian interpretation is plainly stated or identified. The minimum content presented and experiences proposed by the materials should themselves provide a positive Christian declaration. The experience of the individual pupil and of the class will, of course, be enhanced by whatever depth of Christian experience and clarity of Christian expression the teacher can bring; but the central witness to Christ in the lesson must not be left to the ingenuity of the teacher alone.

2. The curriculum materials should themselves provide for bringing the pupil into direct contact with the Bible and not depend upon the teacher alone to fill it in nor to provide it from his own background or knowledge. It is always important that the learner be led to see himself as over against God—not merely as over against a group of believers who do things a certain way. This aspect of curriculum materials is all the more significant in the Armed Forces since the quality of the Christian community within which the chapel program takes place is so varied and so changing.

3. The curriculum materials should foster belief and confidence in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—according to the Scriptures, and in the church as the communion of believers in Christ.

4. The curriculum materials should emphasize the following major themes:

a.God the Father, and the history of Israel.

b.Jesus Christ

c.The church and the Christian witness.

Educational Principles

1. The spiritual needs of people in military centers are the same as those of persons everywhere. But at military installations there are persons who are on the move every few months or who might be ordered to move any day; persons in an environment far removed from their usual friendships, from the security of home and what might be called a normal life. The curriculum materials should emphasize inner conviction and security, the meaning of Christian faith in relation to situations and cultures in which the learners find themselves.

2. The curriculum materials should themselves provide direct guidance for classroom procedures. The skilled teacher can easily omit, modify, or remake lesson plans, but the unskilled teacher cannot supply what he does not know.

3. The teacher’s guide materials should provide presentations of background reasons, both theological and educational, for what is proposed.

4. The curriculum materials should provide for as many contacts with the home and family as possible.

5. The curriculum materials should contain a minimum of specifically denominational references or emphases.

6. The curriculum materials should present a positive approach to other religions rather than attacking them.

An Official Rebuke

The World Council of Churches needs to face up more boldly to moral issues involved in the East-West conflict, according to Lutheran Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin.

Dibelius, a former president of the WCC, chided the council last month in an interview with Religious News Service.

“Many German churchmen are disturbed,” he said, “over the silence concerning Soviet policies which has emanated from the WCC since the decision was reached last November to receive the Russian Orthodox Church into the world body.”

Some observers saw the rebuke by the 81-year-old Dibelius as an indication that the WCC is experiencing internal strife over its posture toward the Communist bloc. It is the most severe indictment thus far from a churchman within the WCC orbit, and is all the more significant in that it comes from one who has played such a key role in council affairs.

Dibelius, who retired last year as chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKID), said that events since the WCC assembly in New Delhi tend to show that by receiving the Russian church into its membership the council may be committing itself to compromising its Christian witness in world affairs.

A “nefarious but successful” technique of dictators is to silence critics in the free world by threats to hostages, and the Russian churchmen are hostages, he declared.

“If a Christian stand is taken in this ecumenical body on issues of evident international justice,” he said, “the Russian churchmen will be called on the carpet when they return home and asked why they did not counter this anti-communism. So to avoid embarrassing and endangering their Russian delegates, the World Council seems to be heading in the direction of silencing its Christian witness where conscience should take a stand.”

Dibelius cited the report on world affairs presented at the recent meeting in Paris of the WCC’s policy-making Central Committee.

He said Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, chairman of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, reviewed numerous world problems unrelated to the Communist world conspiracy and “then, at the end, as a kind of appendix, he did mention the Soviet threat to Berlin, expressing the hope that negotiation might ease the situation.”

Actually, Dibelius added, “the threat to Berlin is a major issue before the world today. Whether or not World War III breaks out may depend on a just solution to the Berlin harassment. Great issues of historical morality are at stake here. To pass over these issues because of expediency drives the blood to our faces.”

The bishop said that “often in history small minorities have imposed their will on the majority” and “the WCC may become another example.” Declaring that the World Council will have to face the issue in the immediate future, he added:

“Powerful influences in the Central Committee are increasingly concerned. Not only the true Christian effectiveness of the council’s witness but the cause of peace in our time hangs on the courageous facing of social immorality whether in the West or the East.”

Another factor which may still irk German churchmen is that they are represented on the WCC presidium by Dr. Martin Niemöller, whose pacifist views make him a highly controversial figure in West Germany. Niemöller was chosen at New Delhi over Bishop Hanns Lilje, who next to Dibelius is probably Germany’s best known and most respected churchman, but who takes a much stronger line against the Communists than does Niemöller.

Without Fear Or Favor

Even those who know the International Council of Christian Churches as an enterprising body would have been impressed at the first evening meeting of last month’s Fifth Plenary Congress in Amsterdam. The large choir did not confine itself to sacred songs, the magnificent organ of the Concertgebouw was heard to full advantage, a lady soloist rendered a piece by Mozart which is sometimes played in Roman Catholic churches before celebration of the Mass, and a full orchestra flung itself into a lively version of “D’ye ken John Peel?” A stranger might have thought such motley fare a somewhat unorthodox prelude to the president’s address which followed, on “Jesus Christ, the same.…”

“We are in the very hall,” began Dr. Carl McIntire, “in which the World Council of Churches, representing the ecumenical movement, was formally constituted, August 22 to September 4, 1948. Just previous to this our Gideon’s band met in the historic English Reformed Church in this city, August 11 to 19, 1948, and here the Doctrinal Statement was formulated, the Constitution adopted, and the International Council of Christian Churches unfurled its banner ‘For the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ …’.”

The ICCC now claims churches from 83 denominations, and has affiliated bodies and regional councils on five continents. Added Dr. McIntire, ICCC president: “The history of these 14 years is a chronicle of struggle, of vigorously fought battles on all the continents, and of a militant testimony to Jesus Christ.”

Describing an attack made on him at New Delhi by a leading WCC official, Dr. McIntire commented: “We were not fully aware of the increasing effectiveness of the ICCC’s testimony to Jesus Christ.… These ‘love’ arguments vanish when these men face the ICCC.” Up to the present time the ecumenical leaders had not issued a single invitation to an ICCC-affiliated body. “They do not want us,” said Dr. McIntire without evident sorrow, “they for some reason cannot seem even to stand us.” He went on to condemn the Blake-Pike proposal, the “advancing courtship with the Roman Church,” and religious syncretism. On the widely reported views of Dr. A. M. Ramsey he said: “A church leadership which honors an Archbishop of Canterbury who thinks that atheists will get into Heaven is in no position to give counsel to a world that is in confusion as to how it may deliver itself from the conspiracy of godless Communism.”

The secretary of the British Consultative Committee, Mr. George H. Fromow, reported that no British church bodies and no large groups of evangelicals were in the ICCC. In England most of the churches are in the WCC, and those which were not (here he named four evangelical denominations) “seem not to see the issues confronting us clearly enough to join us.” Lamenting that evangelicals would not “take a distinctive stand against the World Council of Churches, or call for separation from it,” Mr. Fromow listed four British objections to ICCC: it was an American institution, had a negative approach, was too political, and was “vicious” in its heresy hunting.

Referring to a recent WCC decision to “woo the evangelicals,” Mr. Bernard N. Bancroft, administrative secretary of ICCC’s Associated Missions, expressed the earnest hope that many of the missions and denominations would now understand the purposes and intentions of the WCC, and would cease to cooperate with the latter’s many agencies.

In a thoughtful and closely-reasoned address on “The Christ of the Scriptures and the Ecumenical Theology,” Professor S. U. Zuidema of Amsterdam’s Free University pointed out the dangers in the ecumenical recommendation of the dialogue as the most suitable means of preaching the Gospel. “The testimony of New Delhi,” he said, “even speaks of new ways for the missionary preaching of the twentieth century. We only get the right view of this matter when we take in account that this emphasis on the dialogue is closely bound up with a teaching about communication and solidarity,” and this in turn with the modern doctrine of identification. (This view says that we must be prepared to identify ourselves with those to whom we preach the gospel of salvation, just as Christ identified himself with men by becoming man and entering into their needs.) Such a doctrine, suggested Dr. Zuidema, which is represented by the testimony of New Delhi, “puts an end to missionary zeal (and) is also in principle the end of missionary fruitfulness, as it neglects the heart of the Gospel, that is, a rich Christ for a poor sinner.”

The Rt. Rev. D. A. Thompson, formerly bishop in the Free Church of England, pointed the need in the twentieth century for a second Reformation, and mentioned what he regarded as encouraging features since the last Plenary Congress. He said that an element of Korean Presbyterianism “which had been swept into the World Council of Churches through the influence of unworthy missionaries, was enlightened of God to see the error and disobedience, and so the sin, of being in such a fellowship, and came out and joined the ICCC. Likewise some 25,000 faithful Indian brethren, including two bishops and a number of ministers and evangelists, left the Mar Thoma Church which was in the World Council of Churches, and at great sacrifice have formed themselves into the St. Thomas Evangelical Church of South India.”

In typically forthright terms the congress made its mind known about the entrance into the WCC of a further group of churches from Soviet Russia. It passed a resolution, saying: “It is only logical to assume that according to the Communist timetable, the time has come when the program of world communism can be best advanced by injecting specially trained churchmen supposedly representing the masses in police states, into a religious United Nations with headquarters in Geneva.”

The congress: received greetings from the Mayor of Amsterdam and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek … denied that the Pope’s “subtle invitation” to his “separated brethren” has any application to true and faithful Protestants … condemned Dr. Leslie Weatherhead for his yen to take a blue pencil to certain parts of the Bible … expressed indignation at Russian blasphemies in exploiting outer space and “tells them that outer space belongs to the Almighty God and not to Mr. K.” … deplored the Ghanaian government’s deportation of two Anglican bishops, adding that “a Jeremiah must be free to speak for righteousness” … arranged its Sixth Plenary Congress for Geneva, August 12 to 21, 1965 … elected Dr. McIntire as president for a further three-year term.

J.D.D.

Convention Circuit

Medicine Lake, Minnesota—The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference voted at its 150th annual session to discontinue support of its School of Theology at Alfred (New York) University.

The conference voted to establish a new center of ministerial training at Plainfield, New Jersey. Ministerial students will take most of their work at other Protestant seminaries in the Plainfield area under supervision of the center’s director, yet to be named.

Rising costs of maintaining an accredited program at the Alfred School of Theology was given as reason for terminating the support, effective July 1, 1963. The school, founded by the denomination in 1857, has trained most of its clergy.

The Rev. Albert Rogers, school dean, said the conference action would undoubtedly close the school. Final action lies with Alfred University trustees.

Mankato, Minnesota—A renewed plea to dissolve the strife-ridden Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America came before the annual convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

A report from the synod’s doctrine committee said the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, largest member of the conference, “did not resolve the issues disturbing the conference” at its recent convention in Cleveland.

“What was disheartening,” the committee said in its report of the Cleveland convention, “was that many who spoke for what one would call the more liberal side were seminary professors and synodical leaders who offset the good testimony given.”

The 13,639-member ELS, smallest of the four bodies making up the Synodical Conference, suspended relations with Missouri Synod several years ago, charging it with unscriptural practices.

Northfield, Minnesota—By a one-vote margin, the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America chose to cling to its historic stand of “dissent from all immoral civil institutions.” An effort to relax the position, which required a two-thirds majority, failed at a meeting of the denomination’s general synod.

A spokesman said that one aspect of the denomination’s “highly complicated theological thesis” involving political dissent demands that the Christian must be “very careful” in taking any kind of oath.

Cape Girardeau, Missouri—Congress was asked to “restudy all U. S. Constitutional amendments, especially the First and Fifth,” in a resolution adopted by The Church of God at its 58th annual General Assembly.

The resolution said the First Amendment had resulted in “controversies” regarding freedom of religion and church-state separation and its interpretation has “sharply limited” religious liberty.

Concerning the Fifth Amendment, which protects witnesses from testifying against themselves, the resolution asserted that it has served to “darken judgment.”

A New Era

A new era began last month for the World’s Christian Endeavor Union. Thousands of delegates attending the concluding service of the World’s Christian Endeavor Convention in Sydney, Australia, stood to their feet in Rushcutter’s Bay Stadium as Dr. Daniel A. Poling passed on the symbol of his leadership to his successor, Bishop Clyde W. Meadows. Poling placed the presidential medallion about the shoulders of the man who becomes the third president of the worldwide youth movement. Poling retired after 35 years as president and was named honorary president for life.

The Sydney convention also saw a reorganization of the World’s Union “to provide for more participation by national unions.”

Meadows, who now also serves as president of the International Society of Christian Endeavor embracing the United States, Canada, and Mexico, is a bishop of the United Brethren in Christ. He said that Christian Endeavor is experiencing an upsurge in interest in the states of Washington, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. He said the program is “a vital display of ecumenicity at a level that makes an impact on people in the various churches.”

Among resolutions adopted was one which challenged Endeavorers “to make the ecumenism which is as natural as breathing to Christian Endeavor, effective in all their contacts with the Christian community.” Another resolution declared that undue emphasis given to material possessions and the crippling expenditure upon the manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction make for suspicion and strife and that Endeavorers pledge themselves to use all available spiritual resources to encourage leaders of all nations to “seek peace and ensue it” (1 Peter 3:11).

Another statement released during the convention emphasized that there “can be no affinity between atheistic communism and Christianity,” and that atheism wherever incorporated into government is an affront to human personality.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Methodist Bishop J. W. E. Bowen, 72; in Atlanta … Moravian Bishop Samuel H. Gapp, 89; in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania … George Pepperdine, 76, founder of Pepperdine College; in Los Angeles … Anglican Archbishop Reginald Charles Halse, 81; in Brisbane, Australia … Dr. William H. Wrighton, 78, former president of Western Baptist Theological Seminary; in Victoria, British Columbia … Dr. Clarence Bouma, 70, emeritus professor of ethics and apologetics at Calvin Seminary; at Grand Rapids, Michigan … the Rev. Martin Erikson, 61, editor of The Standard of the Baptist General Conference; in St. Paul, Minnesota … the Rev. Joel Fridelt, former owner and editor of the Swedish religious weekly Missions-Wännen; in Worcester, Massachusetts … Dr. Samuel Ferdinand Nelson, director of the Penzotti Institute in Mexico City; in Isabela, Puerto Rico … Dr. Paul D. Devanandan, 61, director of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society in Bangalore; at Dehra Dun, North India.

Elections: As president of the World Council of Christian Education, Sir Francis Ibiam … as president of the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Rev. Walter Gering … as president of the National Association of Church Business Administrators, W. Dean Willis … as president-designate of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, the Rev. C. Rex Burdick … as president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Rev. Theodore A. Asberg … as moderator of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, the Rev. Harry R. Butman … as president of the Supreme Council of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, the Rev. Amantino Adorno Vassao.

Appointments: As president of Crozer Theological Seminary, Dr. Ronald V. Wells … as president of Iliff School of Theology, Dr. Lowell Swan … as dean of arts and sciences at Gordon College, Dr. F. Brooks Sanders … as president of Singspiration, Inc., John W. Peterson … as executive vice-president of the American Sunday-School Union, Walter W. Scott … as director of the Chaplain Service of the Veterans Administration, Rabbi Morris A. Sandhaus.

Resignation: As director of the Bureau of Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, Msgr. John E. Kelly.

For centuries man has questioned whether life exists on other worlds. Do intelligent beings exist on Venus with her dense clouds and relatively moderate temperatures? Do the “canals” of Mars witness to human engineering as Percival Lowell maintained? And what of the other planetary systems throughout the universe, and of the other island universes, the spiral nebulae, which are scattered across the inconceivable vastness of space? Has man any right to assume that intelligent life exists solely on his “small and insignificant planet”?

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is making no such assumption. Beginning this fall and continuing at least into 1964, the NASA will launch a series of space probes toward Mars and Venus, the planets of our solar system most likely to yield evidence of life. The first of these experiments, Mariner II, which carries a 450-pound load of instruments, has now been launched on a three-month, 35-million-mile voyage toward Venus. If all goes as anticipated, the unmanned space craft will pass within 10,000 miles of the foggy planet and will radio back valuable information of its environment before going into orbit around the sun. In the months and years ahead subsequent probes will attempt to land instruments on both Mars and Venus, their Lilliputian instruments analyzing the soil and atmosphere and relaying the discovery of living organisms or their by-products to earth. It seems possible, therefore, that man will soon know whether life exists elsewhere within his solar system.

What import will these findings hold for Christian theology? If no life is discovered on either Mars or Venus, man on earth remains in the estimate of some researchers but a small activated speck in the myriads of worlds which occupy space. How can he believe that the compassion and activity of the Creator have been centered on this world for his particular benefit? More bluntly, the German Spencer once asked if we can believe that “the Cause to which we can put no limits in space or time, and of which our entire solar system is a relatively infinitesimal product, took the disguise of a man for the purpose of covenanting with a shepherd-chief in Syria.”

If man should discover life somewhere in the reaches of space, however, this too raises questions for a theology which views the earth as the stage of God’s great drama of creation and redemption. If this life is intelligent, can it be sinful? If it is sinful, does this not detract from the absolute nature of our Lord’s atonement? Or did Christ die for these beings also, thereby leaving us with a missionary imperative for their conversion? Will we one day have a David Livingstone for Mars?

Neither of the dilemmas posed by this alternative is as problematic for Christian theology as many have supposed. It is to be observed first that the Christian Church has never maintained that mankind is the sole species of intelligent created beings in the universe. On the contrary, Scripture speaks frequently of both angels and demons, and of these in such large numbers as to overwhelm imagination. These beings, we may suppose, have access to all parts of the material universe. Secondly, should other worlds possess other sinful beings—which seems improbable—the fact is hardly disruptive of evangelical theology. To suppose that there are other inhabited worlds, even thousands of them, does not detract in the slightest from the value of the soul in this one. “Man is not less great,” said Scotland’s James Orr, “because he is not alone great. If he is a spiritual being,—if he has a soul of infinite worth, which is the Christian assumption,—that fact is not affected though there were a whole universe of other spiritual beings.” In such circ*mstances the atonement of our Lord is not less significant because it occurred in this world for the redemption of mankind. The “good news” would be as welcome on Venus or Mars as upon the farthest reaches of the earth.

If it should be demonstrated that life exists solely on the earth—a demonstration which appears impossible by our present scientific resources—then how significant is this! If this world alone is overcome by sin, then it is worthy of God to redeem it. This is certainly the teaching of Christ’s parable of the lost sheep. Though all the flock but one was safe, the compassion of the shepherd drove him to rescue that one. Certainly among the joys of the Christian life is to know that God’s love extends even to us, regardless of how insignificant we may be by human or by cosmic standards.

But the final reply to the objections which see the existence or non-existence of life on other planets as detrimental to the uniqueness of the biblical revelation is this: the scope of God’s purpose on this small planet is not confined to man alone, but it includes the whole of creation. Christ’s death and resurrection and the living of the Christian life by those who attempt to follow him are eternally significant. Peter tells us that even the angels desire to know these things. Paul reminds us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against “principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.” On a scale of such grandeur man is not reduced to insignificance. Rather he becomes eternally and infinitely important, just as his Creator by the incarnation and death of his Son has revealed that he regards him. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

What will man discover on other planets if God permits him to journey there? It is impossible to say. But one thing is certain. He will export his sin with him. And wherever that takes place, the Gospel of Christ will be forever relevant—on Mars, on Venus or throughout the infinite reaches of space.

Confusion Over Criteria A Sign That Morality Is Declining

A recent Saturday Evening Post editorial confesses, “We do not know how anyone would begin to measure the morality of 185,000,000 people.” But this admitted inability does not restrain the Post even momentarily from an assessment of our national morality. It declares that human morality has not changed since the days of Eve and that public voices decrying a progressive moral decay in America are pessimistically generalizing on moral exceptions.

This emphasis on the lack of assured criteria to judge the morality of the American people is apparently voiced to undercut the disturbing multiplication of publicly voiced judgments about moral decay, and to support more optimistic assessments. Yet the confession is a boomerang, disqualifying any writer from rendering verdict on “‘Moral Decay’ in America.”

There are of course ways of measuring a nation’s morality and means for detecting whether progressive moral decay is present. One legitimate manner is to consider the things of which a nation is ashamed. Of some things decent men and decent societies have always been ashamed. hom*osexuality is one of them. The shame about hom*osexuality is not that the practice today is being faced and dealt with. This is all to the good. The shame is rather that its practice is being increasingly and openly admitted and discussed without shame.

In June the Supreme Court reversed a Post Office decision to ban three male magazines featuring male nudes and designed to appeal to hom*osexuals. The decision seems not to have embarrassed the American public. But even more striking evidence of the fadeout of the earlier shame associated with hom*osexuality is the request for open, public discussions of hom*osexuality on radio and television. And the request comes not from preachers and moralists, but from hom*osexuals themselves. They desire to confront the public with the subject at the corner magazine stands. They also desire to carry their case into the American homes so that they can there plead their claim to be normal people before as vast an audience as possible. Such discussions have already occurred on both West Coast TV and radio. Recently a radio station in the East carried a panel discussion on the subject by eight hom*osexuals. The program, according to The New York Times, was believed to be the first of its kind in the New York area. Who brought this “first” about? The public relations director of the hom*osexual League of America who protested to the station that hom*osexuals were a minority not receiving their share of time on the air!

Is the moral climate in America changing? When the change in climate is great and abrupt, no delicate or as yet unmade instruments are needed to make the detection and to assess the change. A man on the street with a wet finger in the wind is enough.

German Scholars Turning From Bultmann’S Theories

For over a decade Rudolph Bultmann has held theological preeminence on the European continent. Valid and persistent criticism has failed to dislodge his theories in favor of other theological approaches. Now, however, indications are multiplying that previously scattered critiques of Bultmann’s theology are encouraging desertion of Bultmann’s premises and even of the “Form Criticism” on which he builds. It is not so much a primary dissatisfaction with Bultmann’s existential approach to Christian theology, nor even with Formgeschichte itself, that lies at the basis of this revolt, but a growing awareness of his inadequate handling of New Testament data and the resulting instability of his theology.

The revolt against Bultmannism is more and more evident among New Testament scholars. Writing for the June issue of Theologische Literaturzeitung (founded in 1875 by Emil Schurer and Adolf von Harnack), Johannes Schneider, retired professor of New Testament in East Berlin’s Humboldt University, tells the theological world that an influential school of theologians is insistently reviving the question: Does the communication of the Gospel as recorded in the New Testament have its source in the Sitz im Leben of the early Church, as Bultmann has maintained, or is this source to be discovered in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ himself? Among such newly influential theologians Schneider names S. and E. Fascher, Jean de Fraine, H. Risenfeld, W. Manson, H. Schumann and Oscar Cullmann.

The nature of the New Testament Church is crucial for Bultmann’s approach to New Testament theology. Operating under the assumption of the Formgeschichteschool—that a period of oral transmission of the Gospel message intervened between the years of Christ’s ministry and the recording of the traditions in the New Testament Scriptures—Bultmann envisions a creative church, which superimposed its own world picture upon what it had received of the times and teachings of Jesus. Because of the resulting distortion, Bultmann deems it necessary to reject the New Testament “mythology” and to ask again, in contemporary terms, what the life of Christ must mean for us today. On his premises Scripture is in no sense an historically accurate picture of Jesus Christ nor of the content or significance of his teaching.

But is Bultmann’s picture of the early Church correct? Not according to the theologians cited by Schneider. How could a small and insignificant Church, composed largely of simple, lower-class people, create the sublime theology of the New Testament Scriptures? It is surely more accurate to affirm, as does Risenfeld, that the Church was the recipient of the tradition and not the creator of it, a tradition received from eyewitnesses, who had received their teaching from Christ, and preserved with the same attention to detail that was characteristic of the Jewish synagogue.

But Bultmann is vulnerable on other counts as well. If a corrected understanding of the early Church must see in it a recipient of the Gospel traditions and not a creator of them, then Bultmann is overlooking the obvious significance of Jesus Christ as teacher. Rabbilike, Jesus must have impressed his words upon his disciples, to the point of sheer memorization, commanding them to teach what he had taught them in his lifetime. From the very beginning, therefore, the Gospel message consisted of more than a sole proclamation of the Cross and Resurrection. It must have included Christ’s ethics, his parables, and his teachings about the Kingdom. Secondly, Bultmann seems blind in his arbitrary rejection of the Messianic consciousness of Christ. How were unlearned disciples to understand the meaning of the cross if Jesus had not declared the significance of his ministry and his death to them beforehand? There could be a post-Easter confession among the disciples, as Schurmann has maintained, only because there was a pre-Easter confession of Christ as Lord and Saviour.

American theology has always followed puppy-dog-like behind the giants of the European schools. Will American theology be found still imitating Bultmann long after he has lost significance on the European continent? Schneider feels that the new theological trend may in time overthrow the seeming certainties of research, the “ruling” concepts of European theology, and revive an almost dogma-like view of the early Christian transmission. American theologians could yet lead the way in a return to a sound view of Scripture, and in so doing bring to the confused religious scene a more authentic picture of the life and ministry and teaching of the Son of God.

Salute To A Champion Of Constitutional Government

The marble halls of the Supreme Court building now echo an emptiness which reaches to the far corners of the nation. The retirement of Justice Felix Frankfurter after 23 years of distinguished service to his country takes from the bench one of the most influential judges of this generation. His brilliance, his ebullience, his legal precision—these will be sorely missed, for he put them in the service of an ideal which, in global perspective, has come upon hard times: the maintenance of government by law rather than by men. Today this ideal is confronted the world over by men on white horses followed closely by tanks.

Justice Frankfurter’s career reflects a certain irony. His appointment by Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 occasioned fears on the part of conservatives, who would later come to hail him as a bulwark on the court for constitutional government. For though he was, and remained, a liberal in his own social and political views, his elevation to the court produced a champion of the separation of inherent powers of the different branches of government. He would thus vote to uphold laws he personally thought unwise. He called for judicial restraint in deference to federal and state legislators. “It is not easy,” he once wrote, “to stand aloof and allow want of wisdom to prevail.… But it is not the business of this court to pronounce policy.”

Frankfurter is a Jew, and President Kennedy followed political custom in naming as his successor Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg, who is also Jewish. And like Frankfurter, Goldberg is noted as a legal technician and is a liberal. Formerly a labor lawyer, he managed to shed the label of labor spokesman once he assumed his cabinet post. What posture he will take in response to his new duties, may well be decisive in major issues to confront a divided court.

Public Welfare Versus The Welfare State

There is a vast difference between the responsibility of government to promote and to protect the public welfare and the adoption of those measures which create a “welfare state.”

Every government must promulgate and enforce laws to protect its citizens. These laws concern sanitation, the prevention of disease, the rights of business, and of labor, and the general protection which is necessary for the living of a peaceful and normal human life. Such laws promote the public welfare. The government establishes these laws, and it arbitrates them. It lays down the rules of the game and then, like an umpire, insures that they are followed by the players.

The welfare state operates on a different principle. It believes that the government is wiser than the people, that it is better able to provide for them than the people are to provide for themselves. In this situation the “umpire” attempts to play the game himself, not only making the rules but also competing with the players.

Unfortunately, the concept of the welfare state seems to be gaining strength within our country, and we are beset on every side by its effects. We witness the mirage of federal aid, so dear to the politician and so misleading. As emergency measures tend to resolve themselves into continuing programs, federal aid leads more and more to the feeling that the government owes its citizens a living. We note inefficiency and waste in government bureaucracy. This has been startlingly illustrated by the cost of $9,000 per Peace Corpsman as compared to $2,000 for missionaries of the major denominational boards. On many fronts we note the prevailing philosophy that the people can and should turn to the government for things which they, as individuals or states or communities, should be doing for themselves.

When people exchange freedom for security they have taken the first step toward an internal decadance. The next step is taken when the loss of initiative occurs in favor of dependence. The final stage witnesses corruption through stagnation.

The measures of the welfare state do something deep down to character itself. If the Christian does not resist them, who will?

Faith and trust are not synonymous, although in some aspects they may be.

We trust in God because we believe he is faithful. We have confidence in him because we believe he is able to do that which he has promised.

We have confidence in him because of who he is and what he has revealed about himself in word and action.

We depend on him because we believe he is wholly dependable.

One fine distinction that may exist between faith and trust is that which is found between action based on faith and the object of faith itself.

The writer to the Hebrews describes faith as follows: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (RSV); “Now faith means putting our full confidence in the things we hope for, it means being certain of things we cannot see” (Phillips); “But faith forms a solid ground for what is hoped for, a conviction of unseen realities” (Berkeley); “Now faith is the title-deed to things hoped for; the putting to proof of things not seen” (Weymouth); “Now faith means we are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see” (Moffatt).

From these and other translations we get a clear view of the meaning of faith. Therefore, in a very real sense trust is putting faith into practice. The antithesis of faith based on the revelation of God is its rejection in favor of human reason.

We have before us a letter inveighing against both the integrity and authority of the Bible. In it the writer says: “Our judgment on these things we must make for ourselves, and there is no finality, no authority, to which we have recourse other than an honest appraisal of our own experience, and knowledge of our time.”

Here there is stated the difference between faith and reason. Faith steps out and believes things it can neither see nor prove by human standards. Human reason, right and good when exercised under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, stands however on quicksands when it rejects those things which it cannot prove by the measurements of worldly values and concepts.

The Bible tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. It tells us that the just shall live by faith.

Faith is necessary because God cannot be judged by human values, nor can he be brought within the confines of our puny imaginations. The heavens declare the glory of God but the immensity of space, along with many other elements of his creation, must be accepted by faith because they go beyond human comprehension.

Proceeding then from such faith there comes a tranquillity of life which none but the Christian can know. As the Psalmist says: “Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust” (Ps. 40:4a). This blessedness, or happiness, proceeds from confidence in the one trusted. When there is no such object of confidence, or an inadequate faith in him, such blessedness is impossible.

We have heard the story of the wayfarer carrying a heavy burden. When taken up into a cart by a kindly farmer he continued to carry the load on his back. On being questioned he said, “You have been so kind to pick me up, I cannot impose on you by laying down my burden in the cart.” Humorous? Just about as humorous as our failure to avail ourselves of the blessings of perfect trust. Too few of us heed Peter’s admonition: “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you” (1 Pet. 5:7, RSV).

The completeness of God’s provision for his children is an unending marvel; our failure to take advantage of this provision is life’s greatest source of frustration and futility.

The Psalmist exclaims: “O how abundant is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for those who fear thee, and wrought for those who take refuge in thee, in the sight of the sons of men!” (Ps. 31:19, RSV).

What greater evidence of the reality of God can confront nonbelievers than Christians stepping out on the greatness and the promises of God in simple trust and faith?

Life’s problems are legion and God has never promised that the Christian shall be free from them. Rather, he promises grace and wisdom to meet them for our good and for his glory. “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods!” (Ps. 40:4, RSV).

An illustration of the blindness and perversity of human nature is our willingness to trust in things which are transient in their nature.

Unquestionably money gives a sense of security, and Christians are often tempted to measure the degree of God’s blessings in terms of wealth. Once such a temptation is overcome and trust is based on the One to whom all riches belong, a new sense of security is ours.

Other things beckon us to trust: position, power, intellectual abilities and attainments. All of these have their rightful place, but once the center of gravity of our faith shifts from the everlasting God to anything in this world we will find ourselves confronted with the solemn fact that we have sold our birthright of the Eternal for the pottage of the temporal: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever” (1 John 2:16, 17, RSV).

King Hezekiah set us Christians an example, for of him it is said: “He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses” (2 Kings 18:5, 6, RSV).

God intends our trust to be active as well as passive. He expects us to “rest in the Lord,” and he also expects us to be “up and about our Father’s business.”

Faith and trust in God are the anchors to which we cling, the bases from which we act, the certainties on which we carry out our daily tasks.

The apostle Paul passed through almost every vicissitude of life, but his faith sustained him. Writing to the Corinthian Christians he says: “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).

We live in times when unbelievers are deeply disturbed about world trends and events. This is a time for Christians to demonstrate that their faith is immovable—to show to others that our trust is in the eternal, sovereign and loving God.

This is a testimony the world needs to see.

We are not far removed from the time when in theological circles eschatological themes were considered unimportant and irrelevant. An apocalyptic world and a new emphasis on biblical theology have combined to change radically this situation. Theologians have again been brought to consider soberly the great eschatological themes of the New Testament and to ponder carefully their meaning and significance for our age. Two of the most important of these eschatological themes are the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment.

The Resurrection of the Dead. Although belief in the resurrection of the dead has been generally unacceptable to both ancient and modern man, A. M. Ramsey is right when he says that for Christianity to have succumbed to the opponents of this truth would have been disastrous for the Church. “It would have blunted the cutting edge of the Gospel and removed a doctrine which sums up the genius of Christianity in its belief about man and the world” (The Resurrection of Christ, p. 100). Indeed, Reinhold Niebuhr states that “there is no part of the Apostolic Creed which … expresses the whole genius of the Christian faith more neatly than … ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body’” (Beyond Tragedy, p. 290).

The Old Testament is strangely silent about the future life. It has been suggested that this silence may have been a reaction against the Canaanite cults of the dead. Whatever the reason, the Old Testament usually describes the afterlife in terms of a shadowy existence in Sheol, the abode of the dead. When it does speak of resurrection, most often it is the resurrection of the nation, as distinguished from the individual, which is in mind. The well-known “valley of dry bones” passage in Ezekiel 37 and probably the resurrection passage in the Isaiah apocalypse (26:19) fit into this category. The only clear statement of a resurrection for individuals is Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

Significant developments in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body took place during the inter-testament period, particularly during the time of the Maccabees. The intense suffering and persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes provided a stimulus for the further refinement of this doctrine. This is most evident in such apocryphal books as the Wisdom of Solomon and II Maccabees, and the pseudepigraphical Psalms of Solomon and I Enoch.

It is not until we reach the New Testament that the full flower of belief in the resurrection of the dead appears. References to it appear in every stratum of the New Testament, from the words of Jesus as found in the Synoptics to the visions of the seer in the Apocalypse.

The basis of all New Testament belief in the resurrection of the dead is the fact of Christ’s resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15 is the classic passage. Paul’s answer to those who denied a future resurrection was Christ’s resurrection. “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised” (1 Cor. 15:12, 13). But Christ has been raised and has become “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (v. 20).

Dr. Cullmann has underscored the difference between the Greek idea of the immortality of the soul and the biblical concept of the resurrection of the dead (Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?). The Bible does not embrace the Greek dualism of body and soul. The human body, in biblical thought, resulted from the creative activity of God, and as such is good. Thus man is not conceived of as a soul housed in an evil body from which he constantly seeks release. He is a body-soul, and the redemptive process includes his material as well as his immaterial self—a process climaxed by the resurrection of the body.

Very little is said by Jesus about the nature of the resurrection body. His most significant statement arises in answer to the question of the Sadducees as to whose wife the woman would be in the resurrection, who had married seven brothers in succession. Jesus replied that because of an inadequate knowledge of the Scriptures and the power of God they were wrongly limiting the conditions of the future life to those of the present. “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). Resurrection life is of a new and different order of existence.

The Apostle Paul says essentially the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15:35–50 in answer to the questions: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” These were pertinent questions at Corinth since the Greeks denied the resurrection of the body on the ground that corruptibility and bodily existence could not be disassociated. How could the future life have anything to do with a corruptible body? Paul concedes that the earthly body of man is corruptible (“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” v. 50).

But there is more than one kind of body. Although the resurrection body has a certain continuity with the earthly body (Paul likens this continuity to that between the seed which is planted and the ear of grain which springs from it), yet there is a vast difference between the present body and the resurrection body. This difference is emphasized in a series of contrasts in verses 42–44: “… What is sown [our earthly bodies] is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.…” Corruptibility, dishonor, weakness, and a psychical (AV “natural”) nature are all ascribed to our earthly body. In contrast, incorruptibility, glory, power, and spirituality (pneumatikos) are ascribed to the resurrection body.

This last mentioned characteristic has led to much misunderstanding. How can a body be “spiritual”? G. E. Ladd’s answer is to the point: “The ‘spiritual body’ of 1 Corinthians 15:44 is not a body made of spirit, anymore than the ‘natural’ (literally, psychical) body is a body made of psyche.… However, it is a literal, real body, even though it is adapted to the new order of existence which shall be inaugurated at the resurrection for those who experience it” (Crucial Questions Concerning the Kingdom of God, p. 139). “Spiritual” in this context is probably best taken to mean “dominated by the Holy Spirit,” or perhaps as Leon Morris suggests, “adapted to the needs of the spirit” [i. e., the human spirit]. “The spiritual body … is the organ which is intimately related to the spirit of man, just as his present body is intimately related to his earthly life” (The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, p. 228). Whatever “spiritual” means here, Paul is convinced that the future life will be so glorious that our present earthly bodies will have to be radically changed in order for us fully to enjoy what God has prepared for us (cf. Phil. 3:20, 21).

Although all evangelicals believe that the resurrection of the dead will be closely associated with the return of Christ (cf. Phil. 3:20, 21), there are numerous differences in details. Some hold to one general resurrection of all men at Christ’s return. Others, on the basis of Revelation 20 in particular (cf. also John 5:29; Phil. 3:11; 1 Cor. 15:23), see two resurrections, one (of just men) at Christ’s return but before the millennium, the other (of the unjust) at the end of that period. Dispensationalists split the first resurrection into two phases consistent with their theory of a pretribulation “rapture” and a post-tribulation “revelation.” Differences in details there are, but these do not prevent evangelicals from unitedly affirming, “We believe in the resurrection of the body.”

The Final Judgment. Closely associated with the resurrection of the dead is the final judgment. Our Lord declared: “… the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28, 29).

The New Testament idea of the final judgment arises out of the Old Testament concept of the Day of the Lord. That Day is the final crisis (the English word “crisis” is simply the transliterated Greek word for judgment) of history when God will judge all men, with blessing for the faithful and destruction for the wicked.

Judgment is an essential part of biblical religion. In both the Old and New Testaments it inevitably arises out of the nature of God as righteous. A righteous God must judge sin and reward obedience.

The judge is none other than God himself and his agent in judgment is Jesus Christ, the Son. Thus God “has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained” (Acts 17:31), and the Father has given to the Son “authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” (John 5:27).

The judgment effected by God through Christ is universal. All men must stand before God’s judgment bar (Rom. 2:6–10). This includes Christians (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10) as well as non-Christians (Rev. 20:15). Whereas it is true that he who believes in Jesus will not experience condemnation (John 5:24), for “there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1), these statements are not to be taken to mean that for the Christian there is no future judgment at all. Paul specifically states that “we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Rom. 14:10), and “all” in this context means “all Christians.” The Christian, however, can face the judgment with confidence (1 John 4:17). Christ’s redemptive work has already acquitted him. It was Thomas à Kempis who said: “The sign of the cross shall be in heaven when the Lord cometh to judgment.”

Judgment of Christians will be based on works (2 Cor. 5:10). The work of some Christians will prove to be superficial (“wood, hay, stubble”). “The Day will disclose it,” and it will be destroyed, but the believer himself will be saved, but “only as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:12–15). Alan Richardson is right when he says that this “works judgment” for Christians “is no mere relic of Paul’s Pharisaic ideology; it is no unconscious clinging to a doctrine of works. It is an assertion of the seriousness of the moral struggle of the Christian life …” (An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, p. 342). In this judgment Christ’s verdict of blame or praise is itself the punishment or reward (Matt. 25:21, 23; Luke 19:17; cf. 22:61, 62).

The final judgment is the climax to a process of judgment which was actually inaugurated by the entrance of Jesus Christ into human history. “For judgment,” said Jesus, “I am come into the world” (John 9:39). This present aspect of the final judgment is particularly stressed in John’s Gospel. He that does not believe in the Son “is condemned already because he has not believed on the name of the Son of God” (3:18). The final judgment has already begun, and its basis is belief in Jesus. The same teaching is found in the Synoptics: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38; cf. Matt. 10:32, 33; Luke 12:8, 9).

There are some passages (cf. the “Great Assize” passage of Matt. 25:31–46; Rom. 2:6–10) that emphasize works as the basis for the judgment of the unbeliever (as well as the believer). Stauffer understands these passages to refer to those who “have rejected the work of Christ and relied upon their own achievements, and on their achievements they will be judged.… But such a judgment will lead inevitably to condemnation, for even the noblest needs and characteristics are tainted with the poison of self-sufficiency …” (New Testament Theology, pp. 221, 222).

No uncertainty exists about the outcome of the final judgment. Both in the teachings of Jesus and in the writings of the apostles the ultimate fate of those who persist in their rebellion against God is eternal condemnation (Matt. 25:31, 46; 2 Thess. 1:7–10; Rev. 20:14, 15).

Differences, similar to those that exist concerning the resurrection of the dead, are found among evangelicals relative to the precise time and number of judgments. But unanimity exists on the great fact of the final judgment—a judgment that involves the end of history and the ultimate separation of souls.

The biblical doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment have powerful practical implications for the Christian. Although he anticipates with joy the consummation of his redemption at the resurrection, and the revelation of the lordship of Christ at the final judgment, aspects of the latter have sobering elements. He must stand before Christ to be judged on the quality of his Christian life—a potent incentive for holy living! All men must face the same Lord to be judged on the basis of the gospel of God’s grace—an urgent plea for an increased effort in the proclamation of the truth concerning Jesus Christ, in whom there is no condemnation. How true it is that eschatology and ethics can never be disassociated; but neither can eschatology and evangelistic concern!

Bibliography: P. Althaus, Die letzten Dinge; O. Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?; T. A. Kantonen, The Christian Hope; H. A. A. Kennedy, St. Paul’s Conception of the Last Things; W. Milligan, The Resurrection of the Dead; S. D. F. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality; R. Summers, The Life Beyond; G. Vos, The Pauline Eschatology; G. Kittel, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament—relevant articles.

Professor of Biblical Literature

Bethel College

St. Paul, Minnesota