Page 6386 – Christianity Today (2024)

Eutychus

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

ZOO, PLEASE!

James Younger, our new Minister of Christian Education, organized our Sunday School pilgrimage to the Metropolitan zoo. Former zoo outings were hectic and exhausting, punctuated with an occasional lost child or lost lunch (before or after the picnic in the grove). But this year Mr. Younger made the whole project a Planned Learning Experience And Social Event (Project Zoo PLEASE).

After three staff conferences, a teacher workshop was set up to discuss correlation with the Sunday School curriculum. Miss Fixture refused to modify the lesson suggestions in her quarterly, but the others decided to prepare their children for shared experience in the zoo. Mr. Burns projected a series of Junior lessons on animals of the Bible: Eve and the serpent, Balaam and the ass, Samson and the lion, Elisha and the bears. No one else followed this lead, and it was found that a flexible lesson plan was important once the zoo trip was mentioned in class.

The Saturday morning departure time was delayed when an exuberant Junior let air out of the bus tires, but our two busses and small fleet of cars left well filled. Another slight delay resulted when one of the boys threw Patsy Miller’s shoe out of a bus window. Fortunately, Mr. Younger was on the bus, and when the loss was discovered, it became a learning experience. The group decided that this was thoughtless behavior, and the bus returned to the Parkway where the loss occurred. Traffic patterns made it difficult to reconnoiter the spot, and when the bus reached the zoo an hour later, it was found that Miss Fixture had already retrieved the missing shoe, which had cracked her windshield.

For more spontaneous learning, the children were not lined up as before in touring the zoo, but were free to investigate in pairs of “buddies.” This method developed many informal learning situations in encounters with zoo fauna and personnel. The zoo superintendent expressed to Mr. Younger appreciation of our visit and offered to provide a fully guided tour if our group should wish to come again after a year or two. He graciously furnished zoo guards to assist in reassembling the students when we were ready to go. The children had responded so actively to the project that it was after closing time before the last two were found in the moat around the elephant yard. The zoo chief himself saw us off with a pleasantry about turning his animals loose in our Sunday School.

A SOCIETY AT BAY

Harold Kuhn (Mar. 2 issue) … criticizes correctly the naive idealism of advocates for U. S. unilateral disarmament and/or surrender to communism. But is it not more naive idealism to hope that U.S. bravado will win us survival? “Christian” courage—to go to a nuclear hell! Is it not even more naive still to think that our TV-and-beer society can rise to Kuhn’s ideal? Suppose these pagan Americans would rather survive and exist a dozen more years, even under communism, than go to a nuclear and spiritual hell, even for Kuhn’s lofty ideal, today? Choice irony! For Christian surrender to communism we are offered the alternative of Christian surrender to Americanism. When will Kuhn offer us the chance to surrender to Christ?

Garrett Biblical Institute

Evanston, III.

One of the best articles on the subject ever written and published. Let’s have more straight thinking like that!… Worth the price of a subscription.…

The Florence Congregational Church

Northampton, Mass.

ON BROTHERHOOD

In the editorial “Brotherhood for a Week” (Feb. 2 issue) … you say “Biblical religion declares that all men by creation are children of the one Creator” (Acts 17:28 f.). That is the only text I can possibly see as support for the original sonship of man, but in actuality Adam was a creature and not a son. Paul is using the pagan metaphor merely to meet the Greeks on their own ground. But it seems that here is where the proponents of “brotherhood” make their false assumption—that all men are children of God. They are all creatures of God (Acts 17:26), but God had only one Son and through Him the new race of Spirit-born sons are adopted. And Jesus never spoke of universal brotherhood, but rather “neighborhood.”

Ridgecrest Methodist

Muskogee, Okla.

On the point of NCWC’s warning Catholics not to attend Billy Graham’s New York Crusade.… NCWC, as an entity, did not officially or unofficially issue any such warning. Nor did any of the various NCWC departments or bureaus.… That the identification for my wholly personal article listed me as belonging to the NCWC, does not warrant the CHRISTIANITY TODAY conclusion.…

Director

National Catholic Welfare Conference

Washington, D. C.

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY regrets the confusion. Since Father Kelly’s warning to Catholics not to attend the New York crusade carried his NCWC identification, the inference seemed natural that he was speaking ex cathedra.—ED.

I’ve spent more time with … Roman Catholics … than with my own family.… If I mention … the Bible, my church, or a good sermon, they start to squirm.… There is only fellowship when we talk about different drinks, good food, or bingo!

Covington, Ky.

FLUCTUATING AUTHORITY

Gordon H. Clark’s excellent review (Jan. 5 issue) … exposes the fallacy of Dr. Ferré’s position. In the summer of 1957 it was my privilege to become personally acquainted with Dr. Ferré and to hear him lecture to young college teachers for a week. I have also read several of his books. He is not only a brilliant thinker but also a humble, sincere, and lovable man. He left the impression, at times, of longing for greater fellowship with adherents of historic Christianity. This goal he seems unable to attain, primarily because he possesses no final authority in matters of faith beyond the fluctuating findings of his own reason. As a result, his writings are often confused and contradictory. Only as men submit to the full authority of the Word of God, as expressed in 1 Corinthians 1:18–25, may they become qualified interpreters of the divine mind.

Minneapolis, Minn.

CHRISTIAN YEAR OPTIONAL

What gives Mr. Shepherd (“Eutychus,” Feb. 16 issue) the idea that in the Lutheran Church it becomes mandatory to follow the Christian Church Year?… What St. Paul condemns is not the observing of times and seasons, as such, but making them a law for Christians.

Hope Lutheran Church

Muskogee, Okla.

The main thing that bothers me about any High-Low church discussion is that each side ordinarily is so rude to the other as to betray a lack of love. As for myself, as a Lutheran, I have learned to love the discipline of the Church Year. I don’t follow it slavishly, nor am I required to.

Mizpah Lutheran

St. Louis, Mo.

OPTICAL DELUSION

If “Billy” Graham … would try an ophthalmologist instead of an opthom*ologist (Feb. 2 issue, p. 28—two of them mentioned), he would probably improve rapidly. God bless him anyway!

St. George’s Church

New York, N. Y.

• Many of our readers have manifested Mr. Davidson’s keen vision. Ours was blurred.—ED.

Not to recognize Red China is like refusing to recognize a change of administration in our own country.

First Christian

Lemoyne, Pa.

CALVINISM AND BAPTISM

Professor John H. Gerstner’s article (Jan. 5 issue) awaked my special interest, since I am an ardent admirer of Calvin … and use his writings more than those of any other in my ministry. As a conservative Baptist, I consider myself also a Calvinist. However, Professor Gerstner seems to classify as neo-orthodox all who reject anything peculiar to Calvin’s original Calvinism. Under his treatment of neo-Calvinism, he asks, “What correspondence can there be between a theology (neo-Calvinism) which … denies infant baptism … (and) the theology of John Calvin?” I … resent the implication of neo-orthodoxy, as would another 20 million Baptists and numerous other anti-pedobaptist groups.…

Calvin devotes a long chapter in the Institutes (book IV, chap. 16) to the question entitled “Pedobaptism Perfectly Consistent with the Institution of Christ and the Nature of the Sign.” Both the wording of the title and the contents of the chapter indicate that pedobaptism is not an essential feature of Calvinistic theology.… It may be that Professor Gerstner was thinking of Presbyterians who have abandoned covenant theology and no longer find good reason or adequate justification for the practice.… But not all Calvinists are Presbyterians.

Mexico, D.F., Mexico

INSULT TAKEN

The CBS network program “The Business of Sex” by Edward R. Murrow should not be taken seriously against business but as an insult to private enterprise.…

Oakland, Calif.

READER FOR READER

V. R. Edman, president of Wheaton (Ill.) College, hit the nail on the head when he said in his letter (Feb. 16 issue) that education is not the province of the federal government. Amen, amen. The need for more clear thinkers like President Edman is great.

Birmingham Post-Herald

Religion Ed.

Birmingham, Ala.

STIMULUS FOR FELLOWSHIP

Thank you for the article, “Barth: A Contemporary Appraisal” (Feb. 2 issue).… I think more good, objective theological debate … could be a stimulating and healthy thing for our ministerial fellowships, as well as in publications such as yours.

Lidgerwood Church

Evangelical United Brethren

Spokane, Wash.

ON IDENTIFYING REBELS

One of the letters … printed in your issue of February 2, would include me among some rebels who should lay down their arms. [These comprise, according to Methodist Superintendent Stanley H. Mullen, Christians who hold the Bible, rather than the church, to be their final authority.] If this is true, I shall do so, but I am far from convinced of the truth of the charge.

Upon taking my first step into the Methodist ministry, it was required that I state publicly my reaction to the following ‘official’ position of the church:

“The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” This sounded to me as though it made the Bible the final authority of the Christian. I still believe it.

When a young man taking his first vows of ordination kneels before the altar, the bishop holds an open Bible before him. The candidate places his hand on the Bible. The bishop places his hand upon the candidate’s head and says: “Take thou authority to read the Holy Scriptures in the Church of God and to preach the Word.” No other authority is recognized.

When a bishop is consecrated, the first question given him is this: “Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all Truth required for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?”

Who are the rebels who should lay down their arms?

Superintendent

Wabash District

The Methodist Church

North Indiana Conf.,

Huntington, Ind.

REPENTANCE

I am … surprised that … John F. Walvoord, in his statement of “What Is the Gospel?” (Jan. 19 issue), left out any mention of repentance. In this he sets aside all the messages of the Old Testament prophets, including John the Baptist, the life ministry of our Lord (Matt. 4:17), and the preaching of the Apostles (e.g. Acts 2:38), including … Paul (Acts 20:21; 26:20).… This is no small matter.

Seattle, Wash.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Your reader Ernest V. Liddle (Jan. 5 issue) gives a misleading impression about the Church of England. By reason of the fact that it is the State Church it has unique opportunities for Christian witness. If it is desired that any form of religious observance shall form part of an official function, be it anything from the coronation of the sovereign down to the appointment of a chaplain, it is the Church of England to which officialdom turns. Rarely do the free churches get any such opportunity. This is regrettable, but true. And these chances of witness are just as available to evangelicals as to those of other traditions.

As a Briton, Mr. Liddle should know that the Church of England is currently experiencing an evangelical revival. At a recent ordination service in St. Paul’s Cathedral two thirds of the ordinands were evangelicals. He should also know that in the Billy Graham crusades in this country in 1954 and 1955 evangelical Anglican clergy and laymen led by the Bishop of Barking formed a high percentage of the sponsoring body.

Redhill, Surrey, Eng.

THE SYNOPTICS

Concerning the article, “More light on the Synoptics” (Mar. 2 issue), why not take the words of Christ found in John 14:26: “But the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you”? That is, each Synoptic wrote independently under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The dependence idea, that of one writer on another, borders on the “Documentary Theory” which is only a figment of man’s imagination.

United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

Sparta, Ill.

Those comments by Dr. Ned B. Stone-house (Feb. 16 issue) … seem to present a massive indictment, but in fact they can be easily answered.…

Indictment No. 1: “I do not believe that he has solid understanding of Form Criticism. He, for example, seems to judge that Form Criticism is rather exclusively concerned with Mark.” … There are two opinions on the subject. The first is before us. The second is that of the entire department at Yale which passed me with honors in seven final oral examinations. One of them was entirely devoted to the subject in question and was designed to bring to light whether or not I was qualified to teach the subject at graduate level. Either opinion may be right, but there are two opinions.

As to the particular fault specified, I did not attempt in my articles to discuss Form Criticism as such other than to mention its method and to raise a question as to its validity.… What I really discuss is its relation to source criticism. Indeed, I thought when I wrote, and I still think, that I was saying in my own words only what Bultmann says (History of the Synoptic Tradition, p. 1). Speaking of the work of Wrede and the conclusion he reached, Bultmann says: “The gospel of Mark is the work of an author who stands inside the pale of the Christian community’s theology. He arranges and edits the tradition transmitted to him in accordance with the viewpoints of the Christian Community’s faith. That was the result. And the task for historical investigation which arose out of that result was to separate and to recognize the layers in Mark which contain the old historical tradition that the author is editing.” And again Bultmann says (same work, p. 3): “The result of comparative study of the Synoptics, the Two-Source-Theory, is pre-supposed in this work.” … the trouble would disappear if Dr. Stonehouse’s sentence were changed to read: “He, for example, seems to judge that Form Criticism is rather exclusively built upon the Mark-hypothesis.” This statement is accurate. My contention, and this conclusion is unavoidable, was that if Source Criticism had concluded that Matthew was the earliest gospel, then Wrede would have exercised his “annihilating criticism” on Matthew.… I think that Bultmann’s understanding of this matter, not mine, has been impugned …

Indictment No. 2: “He also seems to identify the Markan Hypothesis simply with the idea of the priority of Mark.” There are two distinct ideas here. One is primary, the other secondary. The first is the idea that Mark is a more original documentary source, which was used as the foundation of Matthew and Luke. This I called, carefully and consistently, the Mark Theory, or Mark-hypothesis. The second is a distinct question which arises after it has been concluded that Mark came first and was used by the writers of Matthew and Luke: namely, what is a legitimate way to use what we find in the Mark-document in writing a Life of Jesus? There is a theory that we may rely on Mark in writing a “Life” of Jesus. I call this the Marcan Hypothesis. I do so because others call it that. I always apologize for so doing and point out the confusion that easily arises and must be averted. These are two entirely separate matters. I was, as Dr. Stonehouse says, and I meant to be concerned in my articles only and exclusively with the first.…

Indictment No. 3: “He is far from taking account adequately of the arguments which have been presented on behalf of the priority of Mark, seeming to say that it is largely a matter of words used, whereas the argument is based upon many other considerations including especially subject matter and order of materials.” The first part of this statement is correct so far as the articles are concerned, but is not new. The articles themselves say so and give the reasons why I left the matters undiscussed. I quote: “As much as I might like to discuss some of the reasons given by the books, it is not possible to attempt to deal with them in the present short article. There are many different arguments.… It is, however, with great reluctance that I forego such a discussion.… If Dr. Stonehouse will tell me an argument he thinks valid, I will try to show why in my opinion he should not so regard it. What is “the” argument—specifically—of which he writes?… What I “seemed to say” I do not know. I did say I could find no internal evidence of any kind favoring Mark’s priority.

Indictment No. 4: “His contention that the theory is strongly astray in terms of percentages is incorrect since the assertion is not that 90 per cent of the words of Mark are found in Matthew but rather that 90 per cent of the subject matter of Mark is found in Matthew.” The only fair way in my judgment, Mr. Editor, is to interpret my comments in the light of a full statement I have worked out and mentioned in my articles. But let me say one or two things which are important. My contention regarding the percentages is that the 90 per cent statements are misleading. First, they almost always assume that the transfer of material went on in one direction, and, as I think, they pick the wrong direction. Secondly, they obscure the fact that between 40 and 50 per cent of Mark’s contents are not found in Matthew. An accurate and scholarly statement, should, in my judgment, run as follows:

If we eliminate the last verses of Mark, and then compare Mark with Matthew in the roughest way possible, taking sections as wholes and making a verse-count of all the verses in the sections that have something in common, we find that 90 per cent of Mark has, in the loose sense stated, corresponding elements of some kind or degree in Matthew. But if we establish an exact parallel layout and count words, we find that 4,573 words are the same in Matthew and Mark (40.6 per cent of Mark’s total words), 868 more words are nearly the same in Matthew and Mark (7.71 per cent of Mark’s total words), 904 more words in Mark (8.03 per cent of the total) are different but synonymous with some 884 corresponding words in Matthew. So that it is correct to say that the substance of 4,918 words in Mark (43.66 per cent of the whole) is not paralleled in Matthew in any strict sense; but 6,345 words in Mark (or 56.34 per cent of the whole) do have distinct correspondents of some sort in Matthew.

This statement covers both figures, is accurate, and is not misleading. I think, Mr. Editor, with all due respect for everybody’s special involvements and preferences, there is virtue in a clear statement of facts which does not prejudge the question of literary dependence, and which does not obscure the quantity (I will not now mention the extraordinary quality) of material that is peculiar to Mark. The real complaint seems to be that I am unfair to organized theoreticians.

Indictment No. 5: “My impression also is that the appeal to manuscripts of Judges overlooks the fact that we have to do with essentially different situations when, in one case, scribes copy a manuscript or even translate a manuscript and so might use many of the same words and, in the other case, authors are understood as making substantial use of another work.” My use of the texts of Judges rests on the assumption that two men, independently of each other, have translated from Hebrew into Greek. Their independently created translations (in which presumably they were not able to know or borrow each other’s words) are compared and found to contain numerous exact agreements in Greek. You will note that this is distinctly not the situation contemplated in part of Dr. Stonehouse’s first alternative (“when in one case scribes copy a manuscript”). Two things are confused in that statement of the first alternative case. I bring the data from Judges, where copying in Greek is not insisted on as a necessary explanation into a well-defined situation in New Testament studies where a theory of copying in Greek is insisted on as a necessary, and the only possible explanation of the same kind of facts, namely, exact agreements in Greek. The theory has long been current in Gospel study. European writers, who are grounded in a tradition of such studies all know of it. The theory involves and implies copying in Greek. This is clear (and even indisputable) from the fact that in proving it scholars give lists of Greek words that they say could not have been used by two writers independently. My argument was aimed at that theory, an aspect and part of modern criticism of the gospels that has always been understood by the well-grounded scholars of Europe. And I claimed that N.T. scholarship had wrongly asserted the necessity of holding the Benutzungshypothese, that is, a theory of one special kind of literary dependence, namely copying in Greek. The point, therefore, Mr. Editor, is that quantities of exact agreements can arise, and apparently have arisen, in at least two different ways, namely, by independent translation and by copying. Therefore, I have claimed, it is wrong to insist that they can only arise from copying a Greek text. This is my whole point. May I speak my mind freely? I fail to see how any difference in the two (really three) situations which Dr. Stonehouse contrasts has any direct connection … to my point as I argued it in the articles.

Indictment No. 6: “The use of the term ‘plagiarism’ seems to me to be out of place in this situation.” As to this, I think that three or four, perhaps five or six, generations of scholars may be chided, but not me. They invented and used the term Benutzungshypothese. A German engineer, an immigrant to America, suggested that “Plagiarism Hypothesis” was the proper translation of Benutzungshypothese. The only question here, I think, is for the German professors (or better still, for native Germans like my engineer) to decide. If they give an adverse decision, I will be content to stop using the term. There are many who will administer you a severe whipping if you presume to call literary borrowing for the purposes of pseudonymous authorship “plagiarism” in connection with New Testament writings. I personally consider it the precise right word. But … I do not use it in describing what I think happened, as I hope to make abundantly clear when I come to publish my own views. At the same time, I think that it conveys very precisely the exact idea of those who invented and used the term in gospel criticism. Yes, right from the very first, and most clearly and irrefragably of all in the work of Griesbach.…

Community Church on Hudson Avenue

Englewood, N. J.

A LUTHERAN VIEW

West Point … cadets should be given the choice of attending either … [chapel] … services or those of their own denomination.

St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

New York, N. Y.

- More fromEutychus

David V. Benson

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Recently opened in Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, near the U.S.S.R.-Iranian border, is a University of Atheism now offering a six-month course to further the spread of scientific-atheistic knowledge. Graduates are expected to continue “the struggle against religion.”

The teaching content of this university is undoubtedly structured by Marx-Lenin atheistic materialism. The article on “Atheism” in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (second edition, 1950, Vol. III, pp. 347–354) surveys this theory. We summarize it here and evaluate the ideas in its introductory paragraphs.

1. Definition: “Atheism—godlessness, that world-view which denies religion, faith in supernatural powers, in God or gods, in a world beyond, explaining all processes occurring in nature and society by natural regularity [conformity with law—tr.], and leading the struggle against religious outlooks.”

This definition, it will be noted, reveals the basic philosophical assumptions of communism.

The world of reality is equated with nature; beyond matter there is no reality. Therefore, man is a time-bound creature and has no eternal purpose; his soul is meshed to the material world.

All phenomena are to be explained exclusively from data gathered and classified from nature. To explain the processes of matter, no appeal to supernatural forces may be made. (An elemental trustworthiness of sense perception is assumed.)

Explanations of nature are founded on laws inherent in matter and discoverable by man. Phenomena are measured by natural laws. Thus the existence and validity of natural law are avowed. This in turn assumes either that natural laws are immutable, or that, if changing and merely descriptive, no ultimate unchanging principle of explanation exists. If, however, natural laws are immutable, from whence comes their immutability? What guarantees their changelessness? If natural laws are mutable, conditioned by the changing flux of sense data (so that nothing is really changeless), by what right does atheism claim to be the absolute and final explanation of reality? So-called scientific atheism, whether affirming the mutability or immutability of natural law, must assume eternal fixed principles before it can speak confidently about itself. Communism has unconsciously borrowed certain “corrupted” notions of an absolute, despite its denial of dependency on absolutes. Most notable is the very foundational dogma of Marxism: dialectic materialism. In brief, atheism must assume eternal principles in order to disprove them.

Atheism cannot be defined merely abstractly; it always includes active hatred for religion. Thus atheism, to be atheism, must lead “the struggle against religious outlooks.” This discloses the “uneasy conscience” of the atheists. They lack calm confidence that their convictions will ultimately triumph through the sheer power of truth. Rather, atheism is always constrained to propagate its views by the sword. The initial arguments of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans remind us, relevantly, that men in revolt are forced to wage constant warfare against the convicting knowledge of God that burns in their consciences.

2. Atheism and society: “The manifestation and development of atheism is bound with the development of class struggle and with the development of (our) knowledge concerning the laws of nature and society.”

Here again, we note, the atheists make certain assumptions. Atheism is not primarily a theoretical or logical deduction; rather, it is assertedly the product of social needs. This view fits the anti-intellectual atmosphere of Marx’s times. The revolt against Hegelian rationalism led the founding fathers of communism not only into materialism, but into doubt concerning the very reliability and competence of reason to exhibit an all-inclusive world view. Communistic atheism is therefore not based on calculated philosophical speculation (which enters later only to support its conclusions); rather, it is existential: it breathes the air of social reform, hunger, and poverty.

“The laws of nature and society” are incompatible with religion, we are told. As comprehension of the processes of nature and society increases, man assertedly becomes aware that religion contradicts his findings. At very best, religion is seen to be useless as an explanation of life. But these claims call for comment.

We note, first, that any philosophy hammered out in the flames of social upheaval is likely to bear the scars of passionate but careless reasoning. In the writings and actions of the Communists contradictions abound. This is no concern to them, since their revolt against Hegelian confidence in reason brought with it a lack of concern for philosophical consistency. “Social consistency” is considered far more important: what advances the Communist social ideal is the “true.” However, can that which is inconsistent philosophically prove itself consistent socially?

Moreover, communism’s lack of primary concern to prove its atheism philosophically leads us to suspect that this is for them impossible. We have yet to be convinced that atheism is the basis of communism, as they claim, and not one of its many rationalizations.

Furthermore, if the laws of nature are relative and hypothetical, how can communism prove the absolute irrelevance of religion? How can it be shown that studies in natural law necessarily lead to atheism? Should not the atheist at least suspend judgment? Yet communism’s existential social commitment will not allow it to suspend judgment.

3. Atheism—the only road toward social reconstruction. In developing this theme, the Encyclopedia views religion as a “brake” on society, holding back the powers of production, science, and culture by those “foremost social classes, striving to cast off the old, outlived … orders.” “As far as religion justified the existing social order, so for each new class coming into power the battle was an inevitable one against religion as the ideological sanction of the old order. This struggle has been usually carried out under the slogan of a cleansing and a reformation of the old order, but in a more revolutionary manifestation it grew into present-day militant atheism, into the complete disavowal of religion. Although the history of nations gives not a few clear examples of the struggle against the religious narcotic, consistent scientific atheism became possible only with the development of the proletariat, with the emergence of the Marxist-Leninist scientific theory: dialectical materialism.”

Here again the atheists make sweeping assumptions. Religion assertedly justifies most of the ills of society. We must admit that, according to history, many social enormities were sanctioned or condoned in the name of religion.

However, let us note that to commit a crime in the name of a religion does not necessarily make the religion itself guilty of the crime. Many of the crimes performed in the name of religion are actually condemned by religion; this is especially true of Christianity. Those who have sought to glorify the Cross by means of bribery, the sword, economic injustices, the suppression of learning, and the like, all stand condemned by Christ. It is wrong to judge Christ by the disfiguring portraits that have been sketched of him; man must evaluate him as he is and what he can do in society if men will but submit to him. A religion must be evaluated in terms of its first principles, not according to perversions of its teachings in history.

To hold Christianity responsible for social sins of established churches is unjustified. Nowhere in Communist writings do we discover the pure and passionate sense of social justice that is found in the New Testament. Christ never sanctioned what communism calls the “religious narcotic in society.” Who can read the Prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, or the Epistle of James and say this?

Nor are Christ’s methods impotent for our times. He does not seek simply “to reform the old order.” In fact, he is far more revolutionary than communism. Communism seeks to reform man from without, by changing his environment, his economic setting. Christ’s revolution begins within, changing society by transforming the individual.

Christ proposes no mere “cleansing and reformation of the old order”; rather, he requires a rebirth of every man, a sweeping away of those prejudices and egocentric passions from which spring all social injustices, inaugurates a relationship with God that produces love and a new sense of justice and human value.

Should men accuse Christ’s methods of social reconstruction as being too slow, we would remind them that if they are (slow insofar as men fail to apply them), they are as thorough as any that can be utilized in this corrupt world. Christ reconstructs the soul first. Then society’s rebirth is given an immovable foundation. Communism seeks to renovate society superficially, and the individual is left bewildered and unconvinced.

By denying God, communism has fallen prey to the fluctuations of the material world. As such it lacks a well-reasoned and consistent argument against religion. Moreover, because of a denial of God, its definition of man is superficial and unsatisfactory.

Communism’s basic goal is the reconstruction of society. Yet, because of its weaknesses it is unable to rise above the vexing problems it seeks to resolve.

Christians should soberly judge themselves in the light of biblical standards. We have much for which to repent. But the Christian faith does what communism, no matter how hard it may try, can never do: Christ gives life eternal significance and a God-orientated purpose, and Christ alone can revolutionize man in society with a real fitness for eternity.

END

David V. Benson is President of Russia for Christ, Inc., which broadcasts the Gospel weekly to Europe and Russia from Voice of Tangier. He holds the B.A. from University of California, and the B.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary. Translations from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia are by Mr. Benson, who took graduate work in Russian at Harvard.

- More fromDavid V. Benson

Cover Story

Frederick G. Schwarz

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Christianity is the answer to Communism.” Few slogans are more certain to gain an enthusiastic response from any typical gathering in America than this one. It can be used with the widest variety of groups—Catholic or Protestant, evangelical or liberal, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon or Christian Scientist—and the response is always favorable.

Even superficial investigation discloses that the Christianity which is the “alleged” answer to communism is differently conceived by the representatives of these various groups. Each interpret Christianity in the context of its own peculiar creed.

Some Distressing Facts

Using the term Christianity in its widest and loosest connotation, the claim that it is the answer to communism is extremely difficult to substantiate. The following facts are high hurdles to surmount.

1. In little more than a generation the Communists have brought under their control more people than the total world population that today has heard the story of Christ in minimal detail. Approximately one billion people are now under Communist control. It is true that the great majority of them are not Communists. Nevertheless, the entire younger generation of this one billion is being taught the doctrines of communism in schools which are Communist-organized, directed, and controlled. Many of them can articulate the doctrines of communism far more coherently than the majority of youth living in so-called Christian countries can articulate the doctrines of Christianity.

2. The Church has failed in the basic task committed to it by the Lord Jesus. He said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” This we have utterly failed to do. Take India as an example. This nation has an approximate population of 400 million. Of these, 10 million are nominal Christians. This means that 390 million know nothing of the gospel of Christ. We have not obeyed the command of our Lord; many of us are not even conscious of our failure; more are totally unconcerned. Yet we still proclaim that we are faithful and obedient servants of our Lord.

3. In 1957, in the Indian elections, a Communist government was freely chosen in Kerala, the best educated and the most Christian of the Indian states. One third of the population professes to be Christian. It is widely reported that a majority of the Christians voted for a Communist candidate.

Meeting Ignorance And Indulgence

We are impelled to a restatement of two basic propositions we tend to overlook: An ignorant Christianity is the answer to little. “Study to show thyself approved unto God” (2 Tim. 2:15) remains an imperative. A self-indulgent, lukewarm Christianity is an offense to God. “Because you are lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:16).

Before Christianity can meet the Communist challenge, some things are urgently required. Instead of parroting slogans, which are frequently boastful, we need a deep sense of our failure to obey our Lord and to heed his command. This realization of failure should lead to repentance, and this repentance in turn to a deep search for the causes of our failure and a determination to remedy them.

The Great Barrier

Recently, in a meeting in the Los Angeles area, a man rose and asked: “What is the greatest barrier to Communist advance?… The greatest barrier everywhere, in all countries, under all conditions?”

“I think I know what you want me to say,” I replied. “I wish I could say ‘Christianity,’ but the record is against it. For example, the most Christian Indian State has just elected a Communist government by free election.”

“Your brand of Christianity is different from mine.” I realized he was a Roman Catholic.

“I presume you believe the Roman Catholic religion is the great barrier to communism. Again the facts contradict this. Italy, the home of Catholicism, has the largest percentage of Communists in its population of any country in the world: larger than Russia, larger than China.”

“The Communists are the enemies of God and Christ. They are atheists.”

“I know they are; you know they are; the Communists know they are. But Indian Christians don’t.”

“They must know!”

“Why must they? Who told them the truth about the real nature of communism? The democratic governments have not done so; the churches have not done so; the Communists certainly have not done so. All the Communists have told them is the false promise of abundance, happiness, and freedom. This freedom allegedly includes religious freedom. This promise is proclaimed in beautiful and most convincing literature. Consequently they are unconscious of any offense to their Christian conscience when they vote a Communist into power.”

The Need Of Understanding

It is easy to convince evangelicals that Catholicism is not the answer to communism. Many of us, however, are equally convinced that we have the answer, “the pure Gospel.” Preach the Gospel and you have the answer to communism. Recently in a meeting in an Episcopal church, I was warmly supported by a fine Baptist brother. During the question time he rose to ask a question: “When all is said and done, would you not say that a true, born again experience is the real answer to communism?”

I fear I could not have hurt him more had I lashed him across the face. “No, I wouldn’t. A born again experience is the answer to the question of the possession of eternal life. It is not the answer to the question of safety on the highway. You need to know the rules of the road and to obey them. Nor is it the answer to poliomyelitis.”

Ignorance is dangerous, and frequently sinful. The ignorance of leaders, even Christian leaders, of the true nature of communism is appalling. Superficial observation of local Communist behavior is no substitute for a knowledge of the philosophy, motives, morals, and organization of this evil enemy.

Consider this visitor to a tuberculosis sanitarium. He is conducted around beautifully landscaped gardens. Tuberculosis certainly creates an environment of beauty. He is escorted through the marble columns into the reception hall and met by a charming receptionist who takes him on a tour of the institution. He is impressed by the pride of the institution, the kitchen with its most modern cooking equipment and its superb sanitation. Next, the plumbing fixtures impress him. Finally, he is escorted into the wards. In preparation for his coming the patients have all been given a dose of anti-pertussive mixture so that coughing is minimal. The linen is snowy white. The nurses are neat, beautiful, and attentive. Many of the patients have a rather attractive flush—a type of ethereal beauty. Many of them have the optimistic outlook characteristic of the disease, the famous “spes pthysica.”

Duly impressed, he makes his report. “I am impressed by what I have seen. It seems to me there are many features to tuberculosis equal, if not superior, to health. It has created an environment of beauty; the patients have all achieved the goal for which most healthy people strive—economic security. They don’t have to rise from bed early in the morning and undergo the dangers and frustrations of modern peak hour traffic. They are liberated from the competitive aspects of modern life; no hotel provides the intimate personal service the tubercular patient receives from the nurses. I think we ought to allow tuberculosis to go its own way; coexist with it.”

An astonished listener asks, “What about the Tubercle Bacillus?” The reply is prompt. “I did not see one. I looked under the beds and behind the doors and saw no trace of a single one. I think rabble-rousers have invented them for their own selfish purposes.”

In any circ*mstances such a report would be ludicrous; from a medical man it would be insane.

In the spiritual realm, ministers and church leaders are analogous to physicians in the bodily realm. They should appreciate the evil nature of the germ of godlessness. They should see beneath the superficial symptoms to the underlying spiritual pathology.

The record of many leaders of the National and World Council of Churches in relation to communism is reprehensible indeed. Their judgments have been predominantly superficial and symptomatic. Many religious delegations to Russia and China give reports appropriate to second-rate sanitary inspectors. One well-known ecclesiastic visited Russia in 1938. This year climaxed the Stalinist murder orgy during which Stalin soaked the soil of Russia with the blood of the Communist elite. This visitor reported that Russia was fulfilling the kingdom of God on earth.

What Communism Involves

The Christian attitude to communism should be lucidly clear. Communism believes, teaches, and practices the doctrines that:

1. There is no God.

2. Man is a beast, created by evolution and molded by the economic environment.

3. The Communist Party has been historically ordained to conquer the world and environmentally to regenerate mankind.

These doctrines are in fundamental conflict with every fundamental and vital evangelical Christian truth.

God’s Word is lucidly clear concerning the consequences of godlessness. Psalm 14 says, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” The consequences are specific, “They are corrupt; They have done abominable works; There is none that doeth good; They have shamed the council of the poor.” Godlessness and contempt for human life are linked in Romans 3: “Their feet are swift to shed blood” (v. 15), “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (v. 18).

Christian leadership should have proclaimed the truth that all the evils of moral degeneracy and mass murder that have characterized Communist conduct are inherent in Communist doctrine. The trumpet should give a certain sound. To rationalize Communist conduct—to pardon and excuse and justify simply because Christians also have failed—is evidence of spiritual blindness and abdication from Christian leadership. To praise communism because of material achievements is treason to spiritual truth.

The unbridgeable gulf between communism and Christianity, both in theory and practice, is obvious to the average thinking Christian. It takes someone skilled in the mental gymnastics of theological semantics to see in communism merely a “Christian heresy.”

Practical Program

Communism is very largely a triumph of organization. It must be combatted with an organized program. With deep humility and an acute awareness of our failure to obey our Lord, with a clear picture of the godlessness, immorality, bestial*ty, and tactical mobility of our spiritual enemy, we must find a way to work actively against the Communist danger.

The great weapon at our disposal is the Truth. From their ideological base in the dialectic, the Communists can emerge in any guise. They wear the uniforms of their enemies and appear devoted to all manner of contradictory causes. They can assume the contour and color of any environment. They become all things to all men that they may enslave all. A Christian missionary working in a Moslem country could not embrace the Moslem faith, live a life of apparent matchless devotion to all Moslem causes for the sole purpose of opening a door for the Christian Gospel. To the Communist this is normal conduct, righteous and honorable. They assume the mantle of Christian, Moslem, or Jew, worker or business man, traitor or patriot, libertine or puritan, with equal facility.

Since the great majority of people in the unconquered areas of the world meet communism, not in the form of abstract doctrine, but in the form of passionate advocacy of their immediate self-interest, they are very likely to be deceived by it. Vaccination is necessary or they will succumb as the unvaccinated fall prey to the smallpox virus. The effective vaccine is the truth concerning the ultimate reality of communism. As a loving mother warns her child never to accept candy from a stranger and then get into his automobile, so the children of God should be warned never to accept the Communist candy, however sweet and nutritious it may be. Behind it lurks limitless evil, slavery, and death.

Every preacher and missionary should administer this vaccine of truth. The tragedy is that so many simply do not possess the requisite knowledge or even the desire to secure that knowledge. The leadership in the battle against godlessness is the prerogative of the ministers of God. Adequate knowledge of Communist deceitfulness should be the possession of every preacher and Christian teacher and should be woven into the fabric of their entire ministry. When we consider the missionary, the need is unspeakably urgent. To send missionaries to the field today without adequate knowledge of the philosophy, organization and strategy of communism is like sending out an Arctic expedition unequipped to meet ice.

The hour is late. The enemy is gaining on all fronts. Christian civilization appears in its death throes. To confront this danger with pious phrase-mongering is to substitute garrulity for spirituality. To take refuge in prophetic fatalism is escapism. Nevertheless, our confidence is in God who took a boy’s lunch and fed five thousand. He took all the food there was available and then performed the miracle of multiplication. As we give to the limit of our intellectual, spiritual, and material assets, we may yet with the eye of faith see the approaching victory.

END

A Brighter Hellas

Our sun-born schools have reared in Ocean Stream

A snakeless isle where in the quiet glade

On Rousseau and romance graced youths may dream,

On golden joys ere sin made man afraid,

In native honour girt, a gleaming knight,

Our Wilson rode to Versailles’ mirrored hall;

But witchery of Wales and Gallic sleight

His dazzled reason gently did enthrall.

Our Roosevelt at Yalta chinked his glass

Gainst Stalin’s cup with guileless bonhomie;

The charming son of Groton smiled, alas,

And wrought a wastrel’s peace unwittingly.

The north blows grey, and we awake, to find

Dire wars before us, vanity behind.

DAVID S. BERKELEY

Fred C. Schwarz, surgeon and psychiatrist from Sydney, Australia, is Executive Director of the Christian-Communism Crusade with headquarters in Long Beach, California. In his world lecture tours he has addressed the nation’s largest civic, professional, student and industrial management clubs on the menace of communism and the Christian answer.

- More fromFrederick G. Schwarz

Recognition Of Red China

General diplomatic recognition of Communist China and allowing it to shoot its way into the United Nations would have a dramatic psychological effect throughout Asia; it would appear as a major Chinese Communist victory, a sign that we had capitulated before the Communist pressures. This would discourage resistance to communism throughout the area and deal devastating blows to the morale of noncommunist Asian nations. The penetration of Chinese Communist influence throughout the area would be immensely facilitated. The important Chinese of the area would have no choice except to swing to support of Red China.

Economic moves must be continued in order to deter the Peiping regime. Communist China utilizes its manufactured goods for political purposes in trade arrangements in Asia and the Middle East, and any relaxation of our economic controls would facilitate their efforts to establish a heavy industrial base and add to their ability to manufacture armaments. Such relaxation would make it difficult for noncommunist Asia to industrialize at a rate comparable to that of Communist China. A relaxation that permitted Chinese Communists to release goods from controls and to use them in construction of airfields, strategic railways, and other military purposes would contribute to the Peiping regime’s military buildup.

Blocking Communist Aggression

In respect to the noncommunist Asian nations, we must first of all seek to maintain a military counterpoise through strengthening indigenous forces. A system of alliances also is necessary to assure outside support in event of Communist aggression. United States military aid programs and the disposition of United States forces in support of defense commitments are designed to provide this counterpoise.

Furthermore, we and other Western anticommunists must strengthen the free Asian nations’ resistance to the infiltration and subversion of Communist Chinese and also the latter’s blandishments and attractions. A program of economic assistance and various political measures are intended to encourage the growth of strong and healthy noncommunist governments.

The United States resolution in the above respects is a major barrier to the Chinese Communists’ foreign policy objective of destroying the free Asian governments. That is why Peiping attacks the United States so bitterly—domestically in a venomous “hate America” campaign, in propaganda to free Asia branding us as “imperialists,” and in direct efforts to expel our strength and influence from the western Pacific so that the Chinese Communists might seize Taiwan and thus pierce the free world’s Far Eastern line of defense. The Chinese Communists’ attack upon Quemoy and Matsu last summer, proclaimed by them to be only the first phase of an attempt to “liberate Taiwan,” was a manifestation of their attempt to remove the barrier U. S. policy has erected against their expansionism.

About Other Courses

There are some who argue that there are other courses of action for the United States in the Far East that are “more realistic” or “less rigid” or “more imaginative.” On examination, however, these other courses of action prove actually less realistic and naive rather than imaginative, and would lead to compromise and retreat rather than being merely “less rigid.” All Americans would naturally reject as unthinkable the alternative of mustering outside military effort to overcome the regime.

However, two courses of action other than the one we have chosen are sometimes advocated: 1. change the hostile nature of the Chinese Communist regime, and 2. alienate Communist China from the U.S.S.R. Let us examine these alternatives:

1. It is unlikely that a policy aimed at overcoming the basic hostility of the Chinese Communist regime would succeed. This is not a defeatist conclusion; it is based upon several realistic considerations. The Chinese Communists have shown that they are dedicated to the communization of Asia. In February 1950, two months after their take over of the mainland, they called upon all the peoples of Southeast Asia to overthrow their governments because, they proclaimed, their leaders were puppets of the imperialists. Before the year was out they had invaded Tibet and Korea. They have stubbornly refused a political settlement in Korea and are continuing their control of North Korea through a puppet regime. Stepping into the Indochina war, they added North Vietnam to their controlled territory. They are demanding major concessions in Taiwan, on which they reject all compromise. To grant concessions and give respectability to their aggressions would undermine the whole position of the free world in Asia. Lesser concessions of an economic or prestige nature would not alter the Communists’ basic objective. They would only encourage the Communists to step up their demands. Also, unless such minor concessions were balanced by satisfactory quid pro quo, they would create confusion and misunderstanding in much of free Asia that would help the Communists’ cause there. Concessions by the free world without suitable Chinese Communist concessions would be appeasem*nt. Appeasem*nt always brings new demands. The world has learned bitter lessons from attempts to appease a powerful totalitarian foe.

We must not forget there is a vast difference between the intelligent and friendly Chinese people and their Communist masters. The people have no say in their public affairs. Less than two per cent of them are even members of the Communist party, and the party is a highly disciplined organization directed by a very few fanatical international Communists basically knit together by deep ideological convictions. The Chinese Communists believe that the Communist world outlook is the only correct one and they argue that China’s welfare depends upon the advance of Communism. They know the United States opposes that advance. They accept the thesis that their doctrine is infallible, and under this doctrine the United States is the archenemy.

They are closely linked to the Soviet Union by common ideology and military dependence. Even in the unlikely event the Chinese Communists should decide to shift away from a hostile policy, they could not do so without gravely weakening their tie to the U.S.S.R. This alliance is important to both, so there is little likelihood the Chinese Communists will choose any course not espoused by the U.S.S.R.

Expressions of hostility toward the United States are a useful tool of the Peiping regime to divert attention of the Chinese population, particularly of the youth that lacks long association with Americans. This diversion is necessary in view of the regime’s own shortcomings. It provides a rationale for insisting on a sacrifice by the population for the state’s benefit. Other totalitarian systems have employed this device. It is scarcely credible the Chinese Communists would feel able to abandon this tool which has been of such tremendous political value to them.

2. To alienate Communist China from the U.S.S.R. would require pressures or inducements which the free world is in no position to advance. The mortar of ideological affinity would need to be dissolved, as would the shared objectives and the Chinese Communist military and economic dependence on the U.S.S.R. which cements the Sino-Soviet alliance.

The fact that the Soviet Union’s leaders have indicated they once tried and then abandoned the commune experiment while the Chinese Communists seem determined to pursue it does not indicate any rifts in the partnership. On the contrary, there are many events that suggest the opposite. Peiping’s endorsem*nt of Russia’s Hungarian massacres is one example. Its denunciation of Tito is another. There are indeed various signs that the two realize more clearly than ever their mutual interdependence.

Chinese Communists have made it clear that their major domestic aim is the building of a modern industrial system capable of supporting their gigantic war machine. Given the growing complexity of modern weapons, it will be many years before the Chinese Communists can become militarily self-sufficient. Meanwhile, they must depend upon the Soviet Union for modern weapons and replacement parts, and also for machinery and equipment necessary to construct such weapons. Integration of the Chinese Communist forces with those of the U.S.S.R. is essential to preserve the effectiveness of the combined Communist striking power.

Increased trade with the West would not wean the Chinese Communists away from the Soviet Union. It would, rather, permit them to enjoy the best of both worlds. They would still rely upon the U.S.S.R. for highly strategic goods while obtaining from the West a much wider range of commodities than they receive today and at a lower cost. This would help them accelerate their industrialization and militarization programs, and would have no appreciable effect upon their alliance with Russia.

Political inducements would only enhance the Chinese Communists’ international prestige and influence. There is little reason to believe this would interfere with its relationship with the Soviet Union. Instead, it probably would confirm to the Chinese Communists the value of their Soviet alliance. Thus, the partners’ drive to extend Communist influence in Asia would then be immeasurably strengthened.

A Deadly Threat

The essential fact remains that Chinese Communist policies pose deadly threats to the collective security of the free world. It is clear that American interests and those of other free world nations are best served by opposing the advance of Communist power in the Far East, by withholding diplomatic recognition from the Chinese Communists and opposing its seating in the United Nations, by supporting a noncommunist China, and by continuing to help build strong free nations in Asia that are dedicated to improving the way of life of their peoples.

The force that we oppose in the Far East is a materialistic force. It denies the validity of those moral and spiritual principles upon which our own civilization is based. It challenges the philosophical concepts we have written into our basic law. It repudiates the individual as of intrinsic significance. It despises religion. It denies the existence of God.

If this force were to change its character, its meaning to us would change. We do not think this is likely. But we are ready to react to whatever transpires in a way that would protect our interests and those of other freedom-loving people who, as we, are determined to preserve that freedom.

END

Because of recent heavy demands upon the time of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, augmented by hospitalization because of a recurrence of cancer, the subject of the recognition of Communist China is handled for Christianity Today readers by Walter S. Robertson, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, who is intimately acquainted with the position of the United States vis-a-vis Communist China.

- More fromWalter S. Robertson

Cover Story

William K. Harrison

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Christians should be definitely concerned with the peril the world faces in this day of war risks. Nuclear weapons, if used to their full extent, would have a devastating effect upon all mankind and civilization. With such a possibility, is it any wonder that Christians ask themselves what they can do to help prevent such a catastrophe and establish a basis for real peace among nations? Surely Christianity has the answer to this problem. But what is it, and how can it be put into effect?

Specifically, our immediate threat is Soviet Russia. The United States and Russia are the chief military powers today, and in their mutual antagonism and arms race lies the potential of a world war, despite the fact that both peoples fear and would avoid such war. Regardless of the numerous economic and political elements that lead to conflict, war itself results from a decision on the part of the ruler of a state to launch his military forces against a nation which he considers his enemy. The latter has only two choices: to fight or to surrender. Unless the ruler on the aggressive side makes the decision for war, there is no war, except in cases where a subordinate military commander has precipitated action through panic or mistake. In the United States such a risk is slight because of the precautions that have been taken against the danger. Far more likely is the event that extreme difficulty of keeping a defensive force or nation on the alert may some day lead to a relaxation of watchfulness, thereby offering to Russia her opportunity for successful surprise attack.

The Soviet And War

The danger of nuclear war results from the possibility that Soviet leaders will some day launch their armed forces either directly against the United States or against some object which the United States wishes to defend. To these Soviet rulers, war, when favorable to them, is a legitimate and necessary means of action.

The means by which they have gained and maintained their own political positions and control over their own people reveal the nature of these men. They have proven to be ruthless criminals—murderers, thieves, traitors—in spite of the fact that they hold positions of prestige and great power. Khrushchev survived Stalin’s bloody purges only to participate himself in and profit by them. The social amenities and diplomatic phrases of these leaders have been merely a cloak over their real character. They have demonstrated their true disposition in past dealings with other nations, a fact that is known to all who read newspapers. The pages of history are full of tyrants and conquerors. Soviet leaders are no different. Communism is the ideology or propaganda that motivates these men, and by it they justify their actions. Their actions, acceptable by Communist standards, have been violent, deceitful, and ruthless. Any American policy that views Khrushchev and his kind as other than the most treacherous of criminals is endangering not only the United States but the whole noncommunist world.

Strategy For Peace

Undoubtedly the Soviets consider American military power, bases, and alliances to be a threat to themselves. Nevertheless, can we avoid recognizing the fact that the only reason the United States spends billions of dollars on such projects is out of a fear inspired by past Soviet aggressions, subversions, broken promises?

To return to our original question, what can be done to preserve peace, let us consider some of the ideas that have been advanced by men of authority.

One argument holds that nuclear weapons have outmoded war. This statement probably assumes that because war would only result in destruction of both sides, neither will go to war. Such reasoning is hazardous. One nation, prepared to wage nuclear war against an unalert nation, could fully expect to defeat its victim with one massive strike of nuclear weapons, or by the threat of attack compel the latter to surrender. To rest in a belief that war is outmoded would inevitably put the United States in the role of the sacrificial lamb offered on the altar of Soviet tyranny. And who would doubt that rulers, who have so little concern for their own people, would not hesitate to destroy millions of Americans in order to gain their own ends?

As a corollary to the first idea is another that maintains we should unilaterally reduce our armaments in order to demonstrate good will and both lessen Soviet suspicions toward us and reduce our own burdens. The fallacy of such a premise should be obvious when we consider that the Russian rulers care little for our good intentions. They seek their own objectives, and unilateral reduction of American armaments would mean a great reduction of risk to the Communists in their endeavor to strike the United States. By unilateral disarmament we mean a reduction of military strength on our part that is not accompanied by equivalent disarmament in Russia. Were the Russians to agree to disarm without displaying definite and effective means of doing so, it would leave us open for disaster.

A third idea, suggested by Soviet leaders, is that we should transfer our cold war to an economic and social competition which would include aid to backward nations. Aside from the fact that we are already up to the hilt in such competition, this suggestion rather implies that the criminal who has his knife at our throats will be willing to put it away and settle the difference by a game of billiards. If that method worked, wars would have been eliminated long ago. Furthermore, if the United States were to gain a major advantage in the trade war, it might even be an incentive to the Soviet to use force to gain what they could not gain by trade.

Another proposal is that by acquainting the masses of Russian people with our peaceful and friendly intentions we would make them dissatisfied with their status and they in turn would compel their rulers to change their objectives and tactics. That such action has had some effect is seen in the efforts Soviet leaders have exerted in jamming American broadcasts. However, it must be remembered that propaganda is successful only where the actual conditions in a given country spur the people to believe indictments of their own government and arouse in them the desire to rebel against it. There is to this date no indication of any such situation in Russia.

Some persons propose that we rely more on the United Nations for our security. Should the noncommunist states sympathize with the United States in this, could the U.N. accomplish anything worthy in a Security Council where Russia has the veto power, or in an Assembly which proved its impotence a few years ago with regard to Hungary? Even if the veto power were to be eliminated, how would the U.N., without resorting to war, compel Russia to obey its commands? And could the United States be certain of the sincere, effective support, to the point of war, of completely self-interested nationalistic governments? Nothing in years past would indicate an affirmative answer. The question is largely academic anyway, because in case of war some of the many nuclear weapons would probably be aimed at the heart of New York and destroy among other things the U.N. headquarters and all persons in it.

The preceding approaches to world peace are essentially pacifist. Were the United States to reject war and refuse to arm or fight, then we would have to accept passively all the acts of a Communist tyranny. With sincere respect for persons who, for reasons of conscience, believe in pacifism and are willing to suffer the consequences of their belief, their individual convictions would not save our country from war, because the new rulers would not be pacifist. They would be tyrannical, and would employ war whenever they chose. So national pacificism would initiate an overthrow of all that we hold dear, and in the end it would not gain peace.

It is to be noted that many of the pacifist ideas mentioned above appear in some form in the reports and recommendations of the Fifth World Order Study Conference held by the National Council of Churches in Cleveland in November, 1958, as reported in CHRISTIANITY TODAY. That such ideas should be seriously advocated by leaders of this organization is incomprehensible. The best that can be said for these men is that they are incredibly naive. It is to be fervently hoped that pastors and laymen of the NCC who are able and willing to think independently will see the facts realistically, and will repudiate such disastrous proposals.

Contrary to the foregoing pacifist proposals is the thought that we can gain peace only by a powerful military force constantly ready to retaliate with deadly effect. Any force of less strength than this is ineffective. But is not military power only a deterrent against Soviet attack? It possibly has the advantage of putting off war until the time domestic conditions in Russia cause a change in the kind of rulers there. This is faint and not very dependable hope. An armament race causes psychological and financial tensions which cannot endure indefinitely. Eventually explosion occurs. Were the strength of nuclear armaments to give hope for victory, such a victory would be of doubtful value.

Christ The Hope Of Peace

The fact of the matter is there never has been a human way of gaining and maintaining peace. If men who call themselves Christians would believe the plain language of the Bible, which is the sole basis of Christian faith, they would understand the reason for men’s futility. It is sin, the sin of rebellion against God, the determination to live independently of him, and in enmity with their neighbor. Therefore, God has given them up to those moral evils which cause war among men (cf. Rom. 1:18–31). Men cannot undo what God has done. The Bible tells us clearly that our civilization will come to a disastrous end, involving, among other judgments, terrible wars, famines, disease, death, and destruction (cf. Matt. 24; Rev. 6–18). Our Christ-rejecting civilization is doomed (cf. 2 Thess. 1:7–9). The only hope for a peaceful world is in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Any attempts to find other solutions by efforts of human will and action will be futile.

What can Christians do in view of this analysis? First, we can surely use whatever influence we have to see that our country deals honestly and, as far as possible, peacefully with other nations. Second, we ought to warn people of the coming judgment of God which will fall inevitably on wicked humanity, including our United States. Third, we must spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the salvation of individuals from that final and eternal judgment of God, of which earthly sufferings and tribulations are only a vivid warning. Fourth, by God’s grace we should live in a way that proves that we have conviction in our preaching. Finally, we may pray for peace in the hope that God will delay his judgment on it.

The very dangers and fears of our times should convince those who refuse to believe the plain declarations of Scripture that the world is living in sinful and deadly error. If the Bible were not the true Word of God, man would have no divine revelation of truth and would be left to his own speculations. In his guesses, how could he be sure he was getting near to the truth: What is more futile than the blind leading the blind? What is more vain than for a man who denies objective divine revelation to profess that he can perhaps inform us about the things of God and his purposes for mankind? If the current world situation does not convince men who reject Christ and his Word of God’s judgment on unrighteousness, then only one course remains to them: Prepare to meet thy God, for our God is a consuming fire (cf. Amos 5:12; Heb. 12:29).

END

In the long months of the latter part of the Armistice negotiations when peace hung in the balance in Korea, Lt. General William K. Harrison (U.S. Army), now retired, served as senior United Nations delegate at Panmunjom. At that time Chief of Staff of the Far East Command, this distinguished Protestant layman carried the anxieties of a war-weary world. In this article he speaks his heart about the search for peace.

- More fromWilliam K. Harrison

Cover Story

Wilbur M. Smith

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

The basic needs and problems of mankind in this atomic, space-conquering age are no different than they were when our Lord was on earth, or even when the kingdom of Israel was established one thousand years before the Advent. Man first needs food and shelter, and, as men congregate in groups, there must be government and law enforced by that government. The needs of man’s inner life are expressed in the same words now as they were in the days of the Hebrew kingdom and of Greek culture—joy, love, self-control, hope, and peace. While often missing from life, these factors were longed for nevertheless.

Each of these basic needs of mankind, individually and corporately, is discussed repeatedly in the Word of God, and is promised to those who are obedient to His will. God who made man in his image stands ever ready to satisfy man in these areas of deep and constant need. One of the greatest and most persistent longings is for peace, first in the inner life of the individual, then between one nation and another, and ultimately for the world.

Before considering the biblical words for peace, we might look at the three major definitions of this word in the Oxford English Dictionary: 1. “freedom from or cessation of war or hostility; that condition of a nation or community in which it is not at war with one another”; 2. “freedom from civil commotion and disorder; public order and security”; 3. “freedom from disturbance or perturbation (especially as a condition in which an individual person is); quiet tranquility, undisturbed state.” Closely connected is a supplementary definition, “freedom from mental or spiritual disturbance or conflict arising from passion, sins of guilt, etc.;” and finally, 4. “freedom from quarrels or dissensions among individuals, a state of friendliness, concord, amity.” All these definitions contain the elements of conflict, animosity, and enmity that lead to war. Peace, then, prevails when those elements that cause conflict, confusion, and suspicion are eliminated or suppressed, and instead of enmity, we have a state of amity and reconciliation.

This condition of conflict in the human heart, and among nations, did not exist in the original state of creation. The term enmity first appeared at the time of the fall and is really a pronouncement of God, a condemnation on Satan, and an offer of hope to men: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). Related to this idea of enmity is the truth expressed by our Lord that “the enemy is the devil” (Matt. 13:39; Luke 10:19). The great enemy of God, Satan, in leading mankind into sin, which is anarchy, lawlessness, and rebellion against God, has brought us into the condition we find ourselves. As Paul says, we are “enemies in our minds by wicked works” (Col. 1:21).

From the fall of man at the beginning of human history to this very hour, “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be” (Rom. 8:7). This spirit of war against God has its corollary in men at war with each other, in small groups or large, as individuals or nations. And at the root of this spirit is selfishness. Thus we find conflicts interpenetrating human history and the individual experiences of men. Brunner, in contemplating fallen man’s war against God, was led to title one of his larger works Man in Revolt. We view man’s cruelty to man, his spirit of possessiveness and lust for the things of others (termed covetousness in the Decalogue), and we can well ask with James, “Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures” (4:1–3).

In sharp contrast to this state of animosity, conflict, restlessness, and unsatisfied longings stands the great biblical truth that God is a God of peace (cf. Rom. 14:17; 15:33; 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:11; Phil. 4:9; Heb. 13:20). If men are to have any communion with God whatever, some effort must be made for the cessation of this conflict between a holy God and sinful men. Only God himself can provide the means by which such a reconciliation is obtained—a truth that is repeated frequently in the New Testament. Provision for reconciliation is found in Jesus Christ whom Paul refers to as “Christ our peace” (Eph. 2:14, 15; also John 16:33), and it is made available not simply in the person and character of Christ but specifically through his death. We have peace through the blood of his Cross. The Apostle Paul develops this theme with profoundest depth in Colossians 1:19–22: “For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before him.” This reconciliation from God (Rom. 1:7) is what is known as “peace with God” (Rom. 5:1).

The Peace Of God

As a result of being reconciled to God, man begins to experience in his own heart the peace of God (cf. 2 Cor. 13:11; Rom. 12:18). This peace grows within us as one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Peace as thus “the calling and present possession of Christians arbitrating in favor of decisions and actions which produce freedom and love (1 Cor. 7:15; Col. 3:15) is to be pursued in company with fellow Christians (2 Tim. 2:22) and mounts guard over them and preserves them in their inner being until the Parousia (Phil. 4:7)” (Alan Richardson).

Living Peaceably With Men

Inasmuch as the God who reconciles us to himself is the God of peace, those who are his children by regeneration are, as far as possible, to live peaceably with all men (Rom. 12:18). Those who make peace between warring parties reproduce the character of God (Matt. 5:9). This peace of God is to rule in our hearts, and, as a result, Christians are to be of good comfort, to be of one mind, and to live in peace, “and the God of love and peace shall be with you” (2 Cor. 13:11; 1 Thess. 5:13; Phil. 4:9). Even in the Old Testament, the people of God are admonished to “seek peace and pursue it” (Ps. 34:14).

When our Lord had risen from the dead, having dealt a mortal blow to death itself, and obtained eternal redemption for us by his sacrifice, he could say to the disciples, “Peace be unto you”—a peace purchased with his own blood. And he could promise that in the midst of tribulation and persecution they would still have peace (Luke 24:36; John 14:27; 16:33; 20:19, 21, 26).

When the peace of God rules in our hearts, we naturally seek to maintain peaceful relationships with others. The true Christian seeks for peace in the home, with his neighbors, in the organization in which he labors, in his own community, and in the state of which he is a citizen. He shrinks from quarreling and from going to law. The officers of the church are to be free from the spirit of quarrelsomeness (1 Tim. 3:3, margin ARV; Titus 1:7; 3:9). The so-called Wars of Religion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can only be counted as marks of disgrace on the escutcheon of the Christian Church. And if a Christian longs for peace in every relationship of life, he will long for the day when peace shall prevail throughout the world.

The Bible And World Peace

The question must be asked, since the subject of war is on the front page of every major newspaper of our land, what hope does the Word of God give for world peace? In considering this subject, we must take the whole of the Bible for our examination, not some fragment of it. I believe there are two lines of approach to this subject: the peace that was obtained in biblical historical events, and the peace that is prophesied for the world. In the Old Testament, peace between Israel and other nations was generally the result of a military victory, such as that which involved the Amorites (1 Sam. 7:14), or the king of Syria (2 Sam. 10:19). Sometimes it was the result of arbitration, as we see in the peace that was made with the Gibeonites (Josh. 9:15), or the peace which temporarily prevailed between Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and the king of Israel (1 Kings 22:44). God not only commanded Israel to wage war against certain peoples occupying their promised land or threatening their national security, but he himself fought for Israel.

Now, there is nothing like this in the New Testament. At the time of our Lord’s Advent, the earth was enjoying an unusual period of peace. We see no command in the New Testament for Christians to go to war, nor, for that matter, to abstain from war. “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). Our wrestling is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, and the world rulers of this darkness, for which conflict we have a sword, but it is the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:12–17).

It is strange, as Roux has reminded us, that the subject of peace occurs very rarely in the Gospels, and “it is certain that Jesus neither brings nor promises His disciples peace as the world sees it” (“Peace,” in A Companion to the Bible, edited by J. J. Von Allmen, New York, 1958, p. 320). But the statements that our Lord did make on this subject are generally ignored by those who refuse to take their conception of world peace from divine revelation: “Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34; cf. Luke 12:51). The question of defending Christ with weapons of war arose in the Garden of Gethsemane when one of the men with him drew his sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. We observe that our Lord said on that specific occasion, “Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matt. 26:52). There is certainly no promise of world peace in this command, any more than there is a command to use the sword at another time when Christ’s disciples said, “Lord, behold here are two swords,” and he replied, “It is enough” (Luke 22:38). Actually, the only specific reference our Lord makes to world peace is in the Olivet Discourse in which he emphatically says that there will be wars, and talk of war, down to the end of this age. He predicts the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by her enemies (Luke 19:42–44), and warns that nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom down through the ages. We should note that this prophecy is not followed by a promise of cessation of war (Matt. 24:6; Mark 13:7; Luke 21:9).

Righteousness And Peace On Earth

There is a promise of world peace, however, in the Word of God. We find in Isaiah this passage: “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we shall walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. And he will judge the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (2:1–4). Almost the same words are found in Micah 4:1–3. We observe that this condition of world peace will occur when two things have taken place on the earth; the establishment of the kingdom of God, and obedience to the laws of God. God will be recognized as supreme and pre-eminent.

Over and over in the Old Testament, peace is related to righteousness: “Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Ps. 85:10). “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence for ever” (Isa. 32:17). Peace belongs to the upright in heart (cf. Ps. 37:37; 119:165). The writer to the Hebrews concisely expresses this in referring to “the peaceable fruit … of righteousness” (12:11). It is a fundamental of biblical anthropology that “there is no peace … to the wicked” (Isa. 48:22; 57:21).

It is utter folly to talk about the possibility of world peace when such lawlessness as we now see on this earth prevails. How can one talk of world peace when one third of the entire population of the globe has succumbed to the cruel, God-defying system of Marxian communism? President Eisenhower, in his State of the Union address on January 9, used these words: “We can have no confidence in any treaty to which Communists are a party except where such a treaty provides within itself for self-enforcing mechanisms. Indeed, the demonstrated disregard of the Communists of their own pledges is one of the greatest obstacles to success in substituting the rule of law for the rule of force.” There is no more possibility for this earth to have peace when it wars against God, than it is for the human soul to have peace when it is at war with God. While we are not successors to Israel in the particular promises given to her, and have no promised land assigned to us, still there are some fundamental principles in God’s dealings with that nation which abide throughout the ages in his dealings with the peoples of the earth. A good illustration is in the 26th chapter of Leviticus where the Lord says he will give peace in the land “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them.” “But” he warns, “if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments … I will appoint terror over you … and I will set my face against you, and ye shall be smitten before your enemies: they that hate you shall rule over you … and I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant.” Lawlessness on the part of men will lead only to wars of aggression and the terrible things that accompany war as we have seen in our twentieth century.

We must never lose sight of this great vision for world peace which these prophets present to us. At the same time we must not ignore the teaching of other prophets, especially that of the Apocalypse which is directly concerned with the concluding chapter of human history. Revelation 12 describes an actual “war in heaven,” Michael and his angels warring against the dragon and his angels, followed by a loud voice saying, “Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night” (v. 10). In the chapter presenting the final world ruler, a warlike being, we learn that “it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and there was given to him authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation” (13:7). Of the final world federation of 10 kings, to whom the beast gives his power, we read: “These have one mind, and they give their power and authority unto the beast. These shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they also shall overcome that are with him, called the chosen and faithful” (17:13–14). In his familiar description of the battle of Armageddon, John says he saw the beast “and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse, and against his army” (19:19). This portion of the oracles of God, rather than promising world peace, assures us that to the very end of the age, there will be no abiding peace on the earth.

Reign Of The Prince Of Peace

Another elemental prerequisite for world peace is in the glorious title which the prophet Isaiah gives to our Lord—“the Prince of Peace.” How many foolish things have been said about this title in the vain hope that the world is through with wars. The title concludes the assertion that “the government shall be upon his shoulder … of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this” (Isa. 9:6–7). Note that Christ is “the Prince of Peace,” a word having to do with power, sovereignty, and rule (cf. Ezra 7:28; Dan. 12:1; Hosea 3:4). Christ is the Saviour of the world now, but he is not yet exercising his authority as Prince of Peace: this he will do when he establishes himself as Ruler of the kings of this earth (cf. Rev. 1:5). The time is coming when Christ will bring peace to this earth; but, as the Scriptures repeatedly declare, this will only be when he has put all enemies under his feet, and peace is enforced by his omnipotent power (cf. Ps. 110:1; Matt. 22:44; Mark 12:36; Acts 2:35; 1 Cor. 15:25–26; Heb. 1:13; 10:13).

The many terms of struggle, subjection, and antagonism involved in the description in 1 Corinthians 15:24–28, where the establishment of Christ’s reign is set forth, are often overlooked. There is nothing in this paragraph about a universal peace brought about because all men have been redeemed by the Gospel. Peace will come, and when it comes, it will abide; but it will come only through the Messiah, the One who has reconciled us to God.

It would seem that peace on earth will be directly related to that city Salem (the early name of Jerusalem) which means “city of peace.” We are exhorted to pray for the peace of Jerusalem in Psalm 122:6–9, and the Old Testament prophets associated world peace with that city (cf. Jer. 29:7; Isa. 66:12; Hag. 2:9).

The Church has often succumbed to the same delusion that Judah knew as the destruction of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar drew near. The prophets faithfully warned the apostate and idolatrous Israelites that unless they repented and turned to God, their city was doomed. But false prophets assured the inhabitants of the holy city that they were the recipients of special providential care, and this destruction would be impossible. The true prophets warned them about listening to “peace, peace,” when there was no peace (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 12:5, 12; 16:5; 28:9). And the Apostle Paul gave the Church a similar warning: “When they are saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape” (1 Thess. 5:3).

Therefore, while we are not to look for world peace brought about by the efforts of unregenerate men, nevertheless we who believe the Word of God do have grounds for a hope that world peace will someday prevail. We have the Word of God, and in this we hope: those without such divine revelation are without hope in the world. In the last few years, books on world peace have been few in number. We are now witnessing an enormous sale of books on peace of mind, peace of heart, and peace of soul. Around the beginning of the twentieth century literature on world peace was very plentiful. Not os now. Pessimism is settling down upon the human race—and rightly so. We who have the Word of God in our hands are the only people in this world who have a throbbing, living hope in a final and glorious peace to prevail on the earth, for in Jesus Christ we know the Prince of peace, and King of kings who will someday reign in the righteousness that humanity today disregards.

END

We Quote:

DIMITRY E. MANUILSKY

Comments in 1931 by the well-known Communist leader Who Later Headed the Russian Delegation to the United Nations Organizational Conference in San Francisco in 1945:

War to the hilt between communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in 20 or 30 years. To win we shall need the element of surprise. The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard-of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down we shall smash them with our clenched fists.

Wilbur M. Smith is author of many books and a distinguished Bible expositor and conference speaker. He is Professor of English Bible at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.

- More fromWilbur M. Smith

G. C. Berkouwer

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Contemporary theology has raised the question of whether the Christian faith can be defended by reason or whether all a Christian can do is witness to his own faith. The science of apologetics has fallen on bad days in theology. Not only have Protestants been casting doubt on its validity, but Roman Catholic theologians too have been manifesting a growing distrust in the powers of natural reason to offer a defense of the faith. The conclusions of the Vatican Council, to be sure, still stand as a declaration of confidence in the powers of the natural light of human reason. The papal encyclical, Humani Generis, issued in 1950, held the line on the power of reason over against the various forces of irrationalism that had become a popular threat to the traditional conviction concerning rational thought. Still, a reader of Catholic theology can discover here and there doubts within Catholic minds as to the power of human reason to prove effectively the existence of God. Several years ago, Max Scheeler, who at that time was still Roman Catholic, was asking himself earnestly why the proofs for God’s existence, if true, had such little influence on human thought. But, whether in Catholicism or Protestantism, there is a growing consciousness among theologians that God is not a crowning pinnacle in the edifice built by human thought. God is not the terminal of the human pathway, but the beginning.

One may arrive at an idea of a “first cause” or a “prime mover” by way of theoretic proof, but one does not thus arrive at the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is ever more evident that there is a long distance between a “first cause” and the Father of Jesus Christ. I recently heard a discussion in which a certain scholar remarked that in his opinion there was a driving force somewhere behind the entire biological development of life, call that driving force what you will. That illustrates the problem of the first cause. Having proven the existence of a first cause, one may call it what he will. But can he truly call it God? Religion is not the province of rational understanding, but of the whole person, including first of all the heart in its commitment to its Lord.

One comes across the opinion among some people that God does not need defending, any more than does the Bible. Spurgeon’s familiar remark comes to mind. “Defend the Bible?” he said, “I would as soon defend a lion.” Spurgeon meant that we should not forget that the Bible takes care of its own defense through the power of the Holy Spirit. We must not suppose, he is telling us, that the Bible needs our help. There is surely something strikingly true about Spurgeon’s remark. The Bible is not a weak entity that needs our support and defense in order for it to stand. The highest and most influential faith in the truth and authority of the Scriptures is the direct work of the Holy Spirit on our hearts and minds.

Yet, Spurgeon’s saying does not cover the whole truth. Apologetics, to be sure, has sometimes been spurred by fear, and at times has been too quick to sacrifice elements of the truth in order to gain a firm hold on the kernel of truth. But there is another kind of defense that can be carried on to help those who are confused by the impressive sounding arguments of critics. Here, faith and not fear can best defend Christianity against its opponents. That such defense is necessary is apparent from Scripture. We must, says Paul, be ready with weapons in both hands, “By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left” (2 Cor. 6:7). Christ himself countered the Pharisees with more than a warning about the sin against the Holy Spirit. He answered their arguments by exposing them as unreasonable. For instance, the Pharisees said that Christ was casting out devils with the help of the prince of the devils. Christ responded by saying that a house divided against itself cannot stand, an argument to meet a false argument. And when the bystanders at Pentecost said that the apostles were drunk, Peter argued that the critics were without grounds, since it was but the third hour of the day (Acts 2:15). Hence, Peter not only witnessed to Christ, but answered the critics with a reasoned argument.

Defense of the faith against critics is valid or invalid depending on the manner in which it is carried on. We are not the defenders of God’s business on earth in the sense that the kingdom of God depends on our arguments. God himself lets us clearly understand that his program does not hang on our abilities. But an apologetic is possible and useful for our own sakes and for the sake of others. Paul defended himself against those critics who accused him of speaking madness by insisting that he spoke only the sober truth. A boldness, a free courage that dares to respond to critics, even to scholarly critics, is needed. Such courageous resistance to attack is not the same as a presumption that one can offer a reasoned proof for God and a rational argument for redemption through the blood of the Lamb. But it does mean that a person, convicted of the truth and strong in faith, need not wait for history to show that truth is truth and lie is lie. He can act in the confidence that, since the light has begun to shine in the world, the lie has already been exposed and he can show forth that light.

As Christians, we need not fear that every new discovery of science may disprove Christianity. Nor need we, in temptation to be less than honest with the Bible, rush too quickly with the claim that such and such a discovery or new idea is opposed to the Bible. We need not be afraid of critics—surely not of the kind of criticisms that long ago naively assumed that it had already done away with the Word of God. The Word has shown its own power, and it will always do so.

We must not presume that the kingdom of God is borne aloft on our shoulders, nor that it stands or falls with our defense of it. But we must be courageous, nonetheless, in facing the older and the newer critics of the things of God. I do not intend to criticize the remark I quoted from Spurgeon. It contains a powerful element of truth. The Word of God does continue its triumphant journey through the world—through the world of criticism and the world of faith—and wholly apart from our defense of it. But there is still the challenge of the defense of the faith; it remains a challenge just because the truth cannot be defeated. Paul said to Festus that the things of which he spoke could not be unknown to Festus because they were never done in a dark comer (Acts 26:26). So must our defense be—open and clear. There is room for a humble and courageous defense of Christianity. The combination of humility and courage is the combination that Christianity in our day sorely needs.

- More fromG. C. Berkouwer

Bernard Ramm

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

The Battle Of Barth With Bultmann

An important theological debate between Karl Barth and Rudolph Bultmann is evaluated by Bernard Ramm, Professor of Religion in Baylor University Graduate School.

A battle of giants is going on in Europe, and its outcome may well shape the character of European theology for decades to come. The major conflict is between Barth and Bultmann, and the skirmishes are carried on by their respective disciples. Since European theology eventually influences American theology, we do well to survey this battle and to note the disposition of the troops.

Approach To Hermeneutics

The first major difference between Barth and Bultmann is to be found in the area of hermeneutics. In the 1920s Barth and Bultmann found themselves somewhat united in a common theological task which found expression in the journal, Zwischen den Zeiten. They agreed that the older exegetical methods of the religious liberals were inadequate to the Christian Gospel. The Scripture was a unique revelation of God which contained a gospel or a kerygma the liberals had failed to bring to the surface.

The real exegesis was Sache-Exegese. The German word Sache means, in this connection, the essence or the heart of a document. The writer of the document had a certain meaning which he intended to express. The words used were more or less a faithful representation of his meaning. But the interpreter comes the reverse route. The mind of the writer is not accessible to him. He must come to the words first, and by the words penetrate to the Sache.

Having started with a common ground in Sache-Exegese, Barth and Bultmann have now separated and gone their own ways. Bultmann has engaged in the criticisms of the Sache, but Barth has not. Barth believes that once the Sache of Scripture is determined the Christian is bound to it, for the believer is under the authority of the Scripture. To be sure, Barth does not always arrive at the orthodox interpretations but once he has arrived at what he considers the Sache of Scripture he takes it as binding truth.

Bultmann, to the contrary, having determined what the Sache is, subjects it to further critical judgment. Bultmann’s famous essay on demythologizing (“The Task of Demythologizing the New Testament Proclamation”) finds many things taught in the New Testament, but rejects the meanings of the writers. At its face value the New Testament teaches a heaven, an earth, and a hell; it teaches about devils and angels; it has a doctrine of vicarious atonement and the resurrection from the dead. These are subjected to a critical scrutiny by Bultmann and rejected. They do not harmonize with our modern scientific information and mentality.

The issue in hermeneutics is basically this: having found the Sache of Scripture, are we bound to it, or must we interpose an additional hermeneutical procedure before we have the New Testament message in acceptable form? Barth believes the former and Bultmann the latter.

Philosophy And Exegesis

A second major division between Barth and Bultmann is over the role of philosophy in biblical exegesis. Both men were trained in the continental theological tradition which included a heavy philosophical overcast. Barth’s indebtedness to Plato, Kant, and Kierkegaard in his earlier years is well known. But Bultmann has moved in a different philosophical tradition, namely that of Heidegger, and existentialism.

In general, Barth has attempted to purge his theology from the domination of any one philosophical system. He admits that in his early writings he was too much overpowered by one or more philosophical systems. In particular, he has attempted to purge his Church Dogmatics of Kierkegaard and existentialism. He spells out his opinions in this regard in some detail in Church Dogmatics, I/2, section 21, paragraph 4 (pp. 727 f.). It is impossible, he asserts, to engage in biblical exegesis without employing some sort of conceptual scheme, be it very professional or very amateurish. This is not an evil in itself but a necessary methodological procedure. Just as the scientist cannot meaningfully experiment without some sort of working principles and some sort of hypothesis, neither can the exegete work without some sort of guiding framework. Otherwise theology would be copying verses out of the Bible.

But any conceptual scheme brought to the Scripture must be employed with the greatest care. We are, for example, never to canonize any system of philosophy. Nor are we to say that any philosophical framework is any more biblical than any other. Further, we are never to use one of our conceptual schemes in such a way that we force the Scriptures into its forms and patterns. No conceptual scheme may have priority over Scripture. All our conceptual schemes are in turn to be examined by Scripture and discarded, altered, or refashioned in the light of Scripture. Barth takes an unusually wide stance here. Not admitting priority over Scripture to any philosophical scheme, he also refuses to condemn any such system forthright.

Bultmann does not think of his existential philosophy as just another philosophy. Perhaps he would not even like to call it a philosophy as such. It is rather the science of asking questions of human existence. It is a method for framing the correct and relevant questions of the meaning of human existence. It is not some sort of philosophizing or speculating, but the phenomenological analysis of human life. Therefore when Bultmann employs his existentialism in the interpretation of the New Testament, he does not feel that he is importing into exegesis just another philosophy.

But he does bring his existential philosophy to the Scripture, and this in order to yield the secularized version of the New Testament faith. Every document is to be approached by a scientific formulation of the principles of inquiry and investigation, or in philosophical language, by a scheme work of phenomenological analysis. The principles for the investigation of history are not the same as those for the investigation of art. Each separate disciple or cultural division has its own phenomenological calculus. This preliminary scheme Bultmann calls a Vorverstandnis, “pre-understanding.”

The New Testament, as a document, pertains to the area of human existence. Existential philosophy makes the phenomenological analysis of human existence, and provides us with a Vorverstandnis for any understanding of the problem of existence. This Vorverstandnis also applies to the New Testament. We must therefore approach the interpretation of the New Testament with our Vorverstandnis derived from the phenomenological analysis of human existence by existential philosophy. If we do not come to the New Testament with some sort of Vorverstandnis then we can never really understand it. We simply grossly misinterpret it.

Barth has given Bultmann much attention. He has written a small booklet entitled, Rudolph Bultmann. Ein Versuch, ihn zu Verstehen. In this booklet Barth claims that Bultmann has deeded over the priority of Scripture to a philosophical system. The meaning, the limits, the possibilities of a text, cannot be determined beforehand, and independent of the text. Yet this is exactly what the Vorverstandnis of Bultmann calls upon us to do. Before we even pick up the New Testament, Bultmann has imposed its limits and the pattern of meaning it must take. To the contrary, Barth tells us that the text is to pick us up and drag us along. We are to have no scheme of any sort which determines in advance the limits of the text, or the character of its meaning.

Nature Of Salvation

Barth and Bultmann differ over the character of salvation, Bultmann’s philosophy stands in the existential tradition, and he insists that the New Testament can be understood only by approaching it with an existential Vorverstandnis. As already noted, he does not regard his existential philosophy as just another philosophy, but as the product of a phenomenological analysis of the character of human existence. Therefore, Bultmann fixes even the meaning of the Christian Gospel in terms of existential philosophy. Bultmann’s procedural principle invokes the existential philosophy to give us the secular form of New Testament religion.

The old calculus of orthodoxy has no status with Bultmann. One must simply exclude it from his thinking. In its place stands the entire Christian faith (what is left of it) reinterpreted by the existential calculus. Bultmann first employs his method of demythologizing which rather completely purges the supernatural and transcendental from Scripture, replacing these by an existential understanding of the cross and resurrection. What threatens man is no longer God’s wrath or judgment but unauthentic existence. Man without Christ attempts to find his beatitude in the temporal, the finite, or the visible. On the contrary, true self-denying and world-denying authentic existence is found at the cross of Christ. In the decision of faith we renounce our unauthentic existence, and all the creaturely and worldly things we attempted to fix our security upon, and we live completely in the love of God. Here in the decision of the cross we find our existential reality.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly what Bultmann means by the event of Jesus Christ as the revelation of the love of God. This historical event of the revelation of the love of God in Christ, or, as Bultmann calls it elsewhere, the kerygma, is the good news that we need not live our lives unauthentically, but due to the grace of God we may live authentically. When we die with Christ to all our creaturely and finite securities, and live as a new man before God only in the love of God, we enter our real existence.

In Bultmann’s theology, human nature is historical to the core, or characterized by Geschichlichkeit. This means that authentic existence is to be found only in a concrete decision in historical existence. But this decision is not about any matter; it must be about some matter in history. In our case it is a decision about the historical event of the cross of Christ. The “historicity” involved is that a human being makes a decision in his own history, so to speak, about an event in past history. In this decision he comes to his authentic existence.

Barth feels that this is a terrible religious subjectivism. With an emphasis unparalleled in the course of Christian theology, Barth attempts to describe the objective reality of our salvation in Jesus Christ. In the preface of Church Dogmatics, IV/1, he calls this a quiet debate, but in reality it is a loud debate. Barth stresses fervently that the locus of salvation is in the actions of God, and in the cross of Jesus Christ. He belabors the point that our justification is complete, final and settled in the death and resurrection of Christ before we were even born, and completely without our consent, and completely independent of our religious experience. Barth is convinced that Bultmann’s doctrine of Geschichlichkeit makes redemption a purely inward matter of religious experience, and in this case the great salvation of God is as much lost with Bultmann’s existential religious experience as it was with religious liberalism’s idealistic religious experience.

Understanding Of History

Barth and Bultmann differ radically over their understanding of history, as can be gathered from this last section. Let us first look at Barth’s views. Barth believes that anything that happens is an event (Geschehen). Out of events one forms the notion of history (Geschichte). Thus both event and events in their continuity form the data of history; and these events are real in that they occur in space and time. The scientific historian approaches these events with certain rules, certain guiding principles, which, when viewed together, are called historiography, or the science of writing history. In order to differentiate actual events and fictional events, the historian must follow certain criteria. Any event which does not pass these standards cannot become part of written history. This written history is called Historie.

Many real events have not become part of Historie. Insignificant events are not transcribed so as to become fixed for historians. Very significant meetings may be held with such secrecy that no materials are ever made available to the historians. Thus any event which is not reported in such a reliable way as to pass the standards of historiography cannot become a part of scientific history.

Are there other kinds of events which can be granted real status in Geschichte but for some reason or other must be excluded from Historie? Barth claims there are: all those acts of God which are unique and transcendent are part of real Geschichte but not of Historie. They do not satisfy the canons of historiography so cannot become part of Historie but in that they are God’s real acts they are genuine Geschichte. These acts are neither fictional nor mythological, nor, on the other hand, are they commonplace and secular. Barth calls them Sagas or Legends.

Bultmann believes in two kinds of history too. He accepts the validity of Historie as ascertained by the science of history writing. Historians simply settled matters of historical fact. But the kind of history suggested by Saga or Legend is not acceptable to Bultmann. Any event not meeting the standards of the scientific historians is no part of Historie. But human nature is historical (Geschichlichkeit) and expresses itself, as we have been told, in decisions about historical events. We must keep in mind that Bultmann’s notion of the “historicality” of human nature is a statement in the universe of discourse of existential philosophy, and not of history as such. These two views of history come to sharp focus in the doctrine of the resurrection.

Barth thinks that the resurrection is of the same type of act of God as creation. It is a Saga or Legend. It is not myth, for that is to confuse categories. Barth refuses to myth any part in the Geschichte of biblical history. Nor is the resurrection Historie, for out of these reports a history in our meaning of the term cannot be sifted. The resurrection reports assertedly are chronologically inexact, topologically inexact, and it is impossible to harmonize their divergences.

But some of Barth’s critics, insufficiently informed about Barth’s hermeneutics, draw the wrong conclusions from these assertions. This inexactitude, he holds, is but the humanity of the Bible which, as such, is not preserved against error of all kinds. But the exegete is after the Sache of the text, and in this case the resurrection of Jesus Christ shines through the apparent divergences.

The resurrection is not part of Historie, for to be that it must be a secular event and open to scientific historians. Such items as the empty tomb do not establish the resurrection. In such historical particulars we do not have the revelation. “This history can confessedly as all other history also be interpreted as trivial” (KD, 1/1, p. 343). The resurrection is a real event in our space and in our time, but it is not a secular event and therefore not part of Historie. Therefore we must call it a Saga. Any attempted proof of the resurrection as found in traditional works on evidences is disparaged as an improper procedure (KD, IV/1, p. 335).

There is a further aspect of the resurrection which must be followed with great care and that is Barth’s view of time and history. Barth has no philosophy of history as such, as that would plunge us back into the impossibilities of the Heilsgeschichte Schule. In this school the thread of salvation history is intertwined with the threads of secular history and so the history of salvation becomes a part, or a segment, of secular history. Barth, to the contrary, develops an impressive doctrine of time (KD, 1/2) ranked by some scholars as comparable to that of Augustine’s. In understanding Barth’s remarks on the resurrection the interpreter must keep an eye on Barth’s philosophy of time. Some interpreters of Barth have said that Barth does not really believe in the resurrection, basing this on what Barth says about the resurrection and time. But they fail to note that Barth believes that the resurrection took place in two times. It occurs in God’s time and in our time. Only as we realize that Barth believes in the distinction between Geschichte and Historie, and between our time and God’s time, can we harmonize Barth’s assertions about the resurrection.

First, the resurrection took place as an event on the surface of the earth at a given spot and at a given time. Christ is risen “bodily” (KDE, I/2, p. 117). “We must make ourselves clear: the [accounts] speak of a real event in space and time, not of some sort of thoughts and ideas. They speak of an empty grave, and of the anew bodily, visible, hearable, touchable Person of Jesus” (Auslegung Matthaus, p. 6). The resurrection is “actual and objective in space and time” (KDE, IV/1, p. 336). Christ is “corporeally risen” in a real part of human time (KDE, I/2, p. 114). The resurrection “has happened in the same sense as His crucifixion and His death, in the human sphere and human time, as an actual event within the world with an objective content” (KDE, IV/1, p. 333). “Like that of the cross in its concrete objectivity,” is another phrase Barth uses to describe the actuality of the resurrection (KDE, IV/1, p. 352). And he also wrote:

“We therefore presuppose agreement that a sound exegesis cannot idealise, symbolise, or allegorise, but has to reckon with the fact that the New Testament was here speaking of an event which really happened, as it did when it spoke earlier of the life and death of Jesus Christ which preceded it and later of the foundation of the community which followed it” (KDE, IV/1, p. 337).

Secondly, the resurrection took place in God’s time. An event of revelation, according to Barth, takes place at the intersection of two times, God’s time and our time. Hence every event of revelation is in two times and this is true of resurrection. And the assertion that it took place in God’s time in no manner depreciates the fact that it took place in our time. Barth is here combatting historical relativism.

In Bultmann’s essay of 1941 he makes it very clear that he cannot accept the resurrection of Christ as a miracle within nature. We cite Bultmann: “An historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is utterly inconceivable” (p. 39). Later in a famous essay on “The Problem of Hermeneutics,” Bultmann turns on Barth and says that Barth is inconsistent. Barth, claims Bultmann, agrees with him that the resurrection cannot be verified by the canons of scientific historiography. Barth has no right to appeal to a kind of history which does not pass the standards of the scientific historian. In short, a Saga is never any real kind of history. Here we can accept a Saga as historical only by the crucifixion of the intellect. Yet in some sense Bultmann too believes in the resurrection; but it is in final analysis something withinthe minds of the apostles—a noetic event, not a historical event. That is, not something which happened to the body of Jesus, but the disciples’ understanding of the cross opened up their new life in Christ.

The sum of the great struggle can be simply put: is the Gospel to be framed in terms of the existential calculus, and reconstructed from the New Testament by the process of demythologizing; or has the Church been on the right path for two thousand years in seeing the Gospel as a supernatural accomplishment of God prior to and independent of man’s reception of it? Our vote is with the latter.

BERNARD RAMM

Church Isolation

In the Mirror, by J. H. Kromminga (Guardian Publishing Co., Ltd., Hamilton, Ontario, 1957, 176 pp., $2.90), is reviewed by W. Stanford Reid, Professor of history at McGill University.

This small work has been written by the president of Calvin Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, on the occasion of the centennial celebrations of the Christian Reformed Church. Presumably, since it was published in Canada and makes a number of references to the Canadian scene, it has the Canadian primarily in mind, perhaps the Dutch immigrants recently arrived in their new homes.

The book commences with a short explanation of the background of the Christian Reformed Church, particularly in its relation to the arrival of the original Dutch settlers in the United States. This portion of the book is interesting, but for the non-Dutch reader it may be confusing where terms like “Afscheiding,” “Doleantie,” and similar words are introduced without warning or explanation.

The heart of Dr. Kromminga’s argument in his book would seem to be contained in chapter 2 where he attempts to deal with the isolation in which the Christian Reformed Church has tended to live. While recognizing the value of this relative isolation, he points out that the church needs to make contact and communicate with the contemporary American world.

From this point he goes on to discuss the church’s unity and internal conflicts, the church’s activities within its own circle, and finally its Christian outreach in mission work and in relations with other denominations.

In his writing, the author seems to strive hard to manifest an attitude both critical and objective. Obviously trying with all his power to avoid being a partisan of any one church party, he is particularly critical of the church’s failure to communicate its thoughts and its faith more fully to the world at large. He apparently hopes, by his remarks, to stimulate the people to action.

On the whole the reviewer feels that this is a rather courageous book, and realizes that Dr. Kromminga will probably be criticized both from the “left” and from the “right” wings. This, however, will be all to the good. Criticism of one’s self in the light of the Gospel is always a sign of grace. It may well be that Dr. Kromminga’s book will serve to strengthen and encourage his brethren to examine themselves, and, what is even more important, provide an example for other denominations to follow.

W. STANFORD REID

Sovereign Grace

Historic Protestantism and Predestination, by Harry Buis (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1958, 136 pp., $2.75), is reviewed by Loraine Boettner, Author of The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.

This book is written in an irenic rather than in a polemic spirit, and presents an excellent treatment of a subject that has had a remarkable influence in church history. The erroneous view that the doctrine of predestination was originated by John Calvin is effectively refuted. The fact is that it was introduced into the main stream of the theology of the Christian Church by Augustine more than one thousand years before the days of Calvin, and before that it was found in the pages of Holy Scripture, particularly in the writings of the Apostle Paul. From the time of Augustine onward a constant struggle took place between those who emphasized the pre-eminence of divine grace and those who emphasized the importance of human merit. The practical result of the acceptance of synergism was that by the time Luther appeared on the scene, the emphasis in the Roman Catholic church was on human merit and human works, rather than on salvation as a marvelous gift of God’s grace.

But in the theological and ecclesiastical revolution of the sixteenth century the Reformers rebelled against the errors of their age, not with theological novelty but by a return, largely through Augustine, to the Scriptures. And there they found the doctrines of the sovereignty of God, the sinfulness and helplessness of fallen man, salvation by grace, and the other distinctive doctrines that characterized the Protestant Reformation.

Among the Reformers this doctrine was first aggressively set forth by Luther, as is shown by numerous quotations from his books, The Bondage of the Will, and his Commentary on Romans. But it was Calvin who developed the doctrine with its logical implications and set it forth more clearly and convincingly than had ever been done before. Furthermore, it was held by all of the leading Reformers of the period—Zwingli, Knox, Bucer, Bullinger, and in his early writings, Melanchthon, although Melanchthon later retreated toward Arminianism.

The book is written with the conviction that the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination is biblical; and that therefore it ought not to be avoided but rather, as with all biblical doctrines, should be understood and proclaimed. The writer points out, however, that it can be stressed too much as well as too little. It must receive a different emphasis depending on the spiritual condition of the people to whom one is speaking.

The objections that are commonly raised against the doctrine of predestination are dealt with briefly but effectively, and are shown to have no basis in fact.

The writer is the pastor of the Vriesland Reformed Church of Zeeland, Michigan, and is a part-time member of the faculty of Hope College. He is the author of an earlier book, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment.

LORAINE BOETTNER

Setting Of The Bible

Illustrations from Biblical Archaeology, by D. J. Wiseman (Tyndale Press, London, 1958, 112 pp., 12s. 6d.) is reviewed by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Lecturer of Mordake Parish, London.

The Tyndale Press, already noted for fine publishing, has surpassed itself in the beautiful—indeed, one might say luxurious—quality of production by which this volume is distinguished. The price, moreover, is one that will suit every pocket. Text and illustrations (there are 117 of them, mostly photographs) are on art paper, and the whole is admirably conceived and laid out.

Mr. Wiseman, who is assistant keeper in the department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum, is, of course, well-equipped by training and experience as well as present occupation to write on the fascinating subject of biblical archaeology. He performs his part most acceptably by providing a text that is plain and instructive for the ordinary inexpert reader. He states, however, that it is one of his objects “to encourage the reader to turn to more detailed and authoritative works” on this subject, and with this in view an extensive bibliography is provided at the end of the volume. Mr. Wiseman takes into account the whole range of biblical history from the dawn of civilization to New Testament times. All who wish to take an intelligent interest in the circ*mstantial setting of the biblical story will find this book a reliable guide.

PHILIP EDGCUMBE HUGHES

- More fromBernard Ramm

W. Datton Roberts

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

NEWS

Australia And Asia

“It was the Lord’s doing,” said Billy Graham. “I am only his messenger.”

By the “Lord’s doing” the evangelist meant the attendance at the final meeting of his Melbourne crusade March 15.

Estimated between 135,000 and 150,000, the crowd at Melbourne Cricket Ground presumably represented the largest number of people ever to gather for a Christian evangelistic service.

Graham’s own previous crowd record had been the 120,000 who jammed Wembley Stadium in London in 1954. In 1957, the evangelist drew 100,000 at Yankee Stadium in New York.

The Melbourne crowd was the equivalent of nearly 10 per cent of the city’s population or roughly the number of people who live in Charlotte, North Carolina, Graham’s home town.

A phenomenon in its own right, the Melbourne crusade was all the greater in view of adverse circ*mstances under which the meetings were held. First there was Graham’s eye ailment, which for a time threatened to jeopardize the entire evangelistic undertaking. Then there was rain, which discouraged large turnouts a number of times. And finally there was the lack of adequate meeting places—rallies were held at four different locations.

Yet the 25 meetings of the four-week Melbourne crusade drew an aggregate of 719,000. Of these, a total of 26,400 made decisions for Christ, including 4,100 at the last Cricket Ground service.

President Eisenhower sent personal greetings. “I am delighted to learn of the warm reception that you have encountered in Australia,” he told Graham. “I am not at all surprised at the traditional hospitality that the people of that country are showing. Please convey to the citizens of Australia the good wishes of all American citizens including myself and Mrs. Eisenhower.”

For the final rally, crowds began arriving at the stadium (the site of the 1956 Olympic Games) early in the morning. Special trains and hundreds of buses brought thousands from country districts, some from 300 miles away. Although special mobile police squads tried to control the great volume of traffic, cars were jammed for about two miles on streets leading to the five-acre arena.

Graham spoke from a platform in the center of the playing field. It was a perfect autumn day, warm and sunny. A white-clad choir of 2800 voices sang and Governor Sir Dallas Brooks, of Victoria State read the Scripture lesson.

Graham said later that he was “very grateful for the prayers of people all over the world that have made possible the tremendous spiritual demonstration we have seen in Melbourne.”

“I believe this is only the beginning of what we are going to see in Australia,” he added. “I am convinced we can see a genuine religious awakening in Australia that could have an impact on the thinking of the entire world. We appreciate the continued prayers for all people.”

Before he left, Graham even won praise from Roman Catholic priests and journalists. A Jewish journal also lauded him.

As usual, he took no credit. “I am only a spokesman for the churches,” he said. “Without the support of the churches, we would not have drawn a corporal’s guard to our meetings.”

After the record Sunday meeting in Melbourne, Graham flew to Tasmania for two meetings, one in Hobart and the other at Launceston.

At Launceston, some 20,000 people crowded into a park to hear Graham. A total of 925 made decisions for Christ.

The evangelist then flew back to Australia, to Queensland’s Gold Coast for a two-week rest. His ailing eye was reported slightly improved.

This week the Graham team was scheduled to begin a crusade in New Zealand. The campaign in Sydney, the largest city in Australia, starts April 12.

Dr. Leon Morris, CHRISTIANITY TODAYcorrespondent in Melbourne, gives his own personal appraisal of the four weeks of meetings there:

Although responsible opinion in Melbourne was for the most part solidly in favor of what had been done, some opposition remained. Some humanists took exception to Graham’s whole approach. Some who object to mass evangelism as a method were confirmed in their opposition. Some whose theology is to the left of Graham’s took exception to his acceptance of the Bible as authoritative. Some stout protagonists of social reform complained that the evangelist had not uttered pronouncements to reinforce their hand.

But through the churches as a whole there ran a note of thanksgiving. Graham himself made it clear from the beginning that he expected a good deal of follow-up would be needed. He insisted that “inquirers” were no more than “babes in Christ.” Most people were ready to agree that on this level Graham has accomplished much. There are many more people now in the churches than when he came to Melbourne. How long they stay there may depend, at least in some measure, on the vigor of church life in the city. But they are there now. And most people see in this evidence that the crusade is a gigantic effort which has taken place under the hand of God.

“If the follow-up is carried out with as much prayer and zeal as the campaign itself, nothing but good can come of Graham’s campaign,” said the Most Rev. Frank Woods, Archbishop of Melbourne.

“The very great responsibility will rest on the local churches of nurturing and educating in the faith those who have made decisions or reaffirmed their consecration vows,” said the Rev. N. Elliot, Methodist conference president.

The president of the Baptist Union of Victoria, the Rev. A. E. Smith, said, “This crusade is the most wonderful thing that has happened to Melbourne in its history. It will mean a return to the church for very many people.”

From R. Geyer, president-elect of the conference of the Churches of Christ in Victoria and Tasmania, came this comment: “The days of the crusade have been wonderful days for this city of Melbourne. But the most wonderful days lie ahead. Christians have been revived and stimulated for service. The really outstanding results of the crusade will not be seen until all this potential for service becomes factual in the life of men and in the life of the Church.”

Such comments might be multiplied. Church leaders are clear that the crusade has already accomplished much, both in what it has done in the churches, and what it has done in outsiders. They are likewise agreed that the stimulus it has given to church life will be in evidence for a long time to come.

Swindle Sentence

Korea’s most controversial sect leader, Park Tae-sun, was sentenced this month to five years in prison for fraud, medical malpractice and falsification of his academic record. His trial lasted two months.

An excommunicated Presbyterian who claims a following of 100,000 in his faith-healing, millennial sect, the “Olive Tree Church,” Park has been discredited in religious circles for more than two years. He was arrested in December when a disillusioned follower charged that his “praying message” had resulted in the death of seven people. Police claim he has swindled his followers of more than $300,000.

The court ruled that Park’s religious claims were beyond its competence to judge. Park asserts he is the Olive Tree of Revelation 11:4–13, that his veins are filled with the blood of Christ, and that even his bath water can cure the sick who drink it. All who turn over their material possessions to him and enter his “heavenly village” near Seoul, he promises, will live to see the Second Coming.

S. H. M.

Protestant Panorama

• The Soviet Government reportedly has closed down a number of churches and “prayer houses” in the Western Ukraine. An Eastern Orthodox monastery was also said to have been closed.

• Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia will add a course of study leading to the doctor of theology degree. The program will become fully operative in the fall of 1960.

• A high administrative court in Rome ruled this month that the Rev. Graziano Cannito and his Baptist congregation can proceed with their church building program which had been challenged by local authorities (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY News, October 27, 1958).

• The FBI crime index for U. S. cities rose eight per cent last year over 1957. Number of arrests remained steady, although under-18 age arrests showed a 6.5 per cent increase.

• Youth for Christ International officials say they expect 12,000–15,000 delegates for a “Capital Youth Convention” December 28–30 in Washington, D. C.

• Lutherans dedicated New Guinea’s first theological seminary last month. It is located at Logaweng on a hill overlooking the sea.

• The 1960 General Conference of the Methodist Church will be asked to require each of the denomination’s 40,000 churches to establish a commission on Christian social relations. Such local church groups are optional now, although each congregation must have commissions for membership and evangelism, education, missions, and stewardship and finance.

• The independent Union Church of San Juan, Puerto Rico, is hoping to move into a new sanctuary this spring. Workmen are putting finishing touches on a $400,000 physical plant which also includes a parish hall and a two-story church school. Pastor of the English-speaking congregation is the Rev. Alfred J. Penney, a member of the Brooklyn-Nassau Presbytery.

• “Forward Together” is the theme of the 17th annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, meeting in Los Angeles April 6–10.

• A Spanish evangelical quarterly, Certeza (Certainty), begins publication in April. The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, which will underwrite the magazine for the first two years, is the foreign equivalent of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

• Religious News Service says a meeting of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop Makarios in London was welcomed by both as an opportunity of renewing friendly relations between the Church of England and the Church of Cyprus. The meeting followed the signing of an agreement over the future of Cyprus between the governments of Britain, Greece, Turkey, and Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

• Weakened by heavy snows, roofs collapsed on two buildings at “Word of Life” summer camp grounds, Schroon Lake, New York, this month. A $40,000 assembly hall was described as a “total loss.” A dining hall was also damaged.

• Some 250 Christian leaders and workers are expected to attend a CHRISTIANITY TODAY recognition banquet in Los Angeles April 3. Editor Carl F. H. Henry will be special guest. Proceedings will be taped and broadcast over station KPOL on Monday, April 6, from 8:30 to 9 p. m.

• A “Civil Defense Religious Affairs Course (No. 7)” will convene May 18–21 at the Staff College, National Operational Headquarters of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization at Battle Creek, Michigan.

• The Young People’s Church of the Air has been granted an ultra high frequency television license. Facilities purchased from WKDN at Camden, New Jersey, will be utilized to broadcast on Channel 17 nine hours daily.

• The National Council of Churches plans to publish a paperback hymnal for newsstand sale within a year.

United States

Louisville Reconciliation?

Hopes ran high this month for a “reconciliation” at Louisville’s Southern Baptist seminary, where 13 professors were fired last June in a dispute with the administration. Groundwork for a settlement was laid by a special committee of former Southern Baptist Convention presidents, who met with disputants, then called for a showdown meeting March 30 with the seminary’s board of trustees, administrative officers, and its dismissed professors (one of whom was subsequently reinstated).

A Stipulation: Doctrine

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod stands ready to talk merger with other Lutheran bodies provided that “doctrinal discussions are a primary item on the agenda,” President John W. Behnken said last month.

Behnken made the remark in a letter to Dr. Paul C. Empie, executive director of the National Lutheran Council, which expressed “surprise and regret” at its annual February meeting over an earlier message from the Missouri Synod head. (See CHRISTIANITY TODAY News, March 2, 1959.) The NLC had labelled his position as a “roadblock to unity,” whereupon Behnken drafted the new letter to Empie.

Behnken said he regretted the interpretations given his earlier correspondence. “I want to assure you that these interpretations do not express my intentions,” he added. If Empie would express willingness to make doctrinal discussion essential, Behnken went on, the proposal could be referred to a special Missouri Synod committee on doctrinal unity.

Referring to phrases in his previous letter on “state of flux” doctrinal positions, Behnken admitted they “can be and have been interpreted as unwarranted judgement” of other Lutheran bodies. Asserting the statements “were not so intended,” he withdrew them.

The President’S Breakfast

For lack of more accurate yardsticks, the depth of a president’s spiritual experience is invariably measured by his church attendance, his reference in speeches to Christian principles, and his attitudes toward religious functions. The more dedicated U. S. citizenry keeps a continual watch on the chief executive’s personal habits, cherishing signs of his reliance on divine wisdom and strength. Thus there was reason for disappointment this month when the leader of the free world passed up the “Presidential Prayer Breakfast” for the third consecutive year.

The Berlin crisis was blamed for President Eisenhower’s latest absence from the breakfast which annually launches a Washington conference of International Christian Leadership and its world-wide affiliate, the International Council for Christian Leadership. He chose instead to begin his March 5 workday by calling a National Security Council meeting. A year ago he was suffering from a cold. Two years ago a cabinet meeting took priority. He last attended in the election year of 1956.

The 1959 breakfast, which drew 105 Congressmen and 15 foreign diplomats among more than 500 guests, had been put off several weeks on the advice of Eisenhower aides. Why it was finally scheduled for Thursday morning, when the National Security Council normally meets, was not clear. Secret Service men, anticipating that the President would attend the breakfast, made a security check of the Mayflower Hotel and cleared names of expected guests.

In his absence, Eisenhower sent “best wishes and greetings” to the breakfast assembly. Later in the morning he found time to receive at the White House representatives of the United Christian Youth Movement, an agency of the National Council of Churches. In the afternoon, he delivered a political pep talk to a group of Republicans. Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister of the church the President attends, said that in view of the serious international situation, he would have advised Eisenhower to forego the breakfast.

Comments from Dr. Frederic Fox, a Congregational minister who is on the White House staff, suggested the possibility of another factor in Eisenhower’s decision to absent himself from the breakfast. Fox said he took exception to efforts which attempt to “glamorize” functions by tacking on the term “presidential.” Some observers feel the President may likewise resent such strategy, but Fox refused to disclose whether the President shared his view. Fox was not at the breakfast, either.

The “Presidential Prayer Breakfast” is not a prayer meeting in the accepted sense of the term, but it does reflect to the world that men high in echelons of government are seriously interceding in the midst of week-to-week duties. This year’s gathering began with an invocation by Judge Boyd Leedom, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and ICL president. Following the serving of breakfast, Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson read the 46th Psalm and Army Secretary Wilber M. Brucker read Matthew 16:13–27. Democratic Senator A. Willis Robertson and Republican Representative Alvin M. Bentley addressed the assembly as leaders of Congressional breakfast prayer groups. Vice President Richard M. Nixon, who was the closing speaker, paid tribute to soloist fa*gue Springman, who sang “How Great Thou Art,” by relaying a remark from Benson to the effect that Nixon was in a “tough spot to have to follow something like that.” Republican Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, ICCL president, presided.

After Nixon’s address, guests were asked to rise and recite together a prayer prepared by hotel executive Conrad N. Hilton. Dr. Abraham Vereide, founder and executive director of ICL, added a spontaneous benediction.

Worth Quoting

Heard at this month’s International Christian Leadership conference (see also page 22):

“In our great Christian tradition we are interested in others, not because we need others but because of humanitarian reasons.”—Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

“Our generation’s leisure time can be a great blessing. Or it can be a horrendous curse. If it is used in debilitating idleness and ease, it will blast us. If the layman learns to commit leisure time to God and to redeem it, it will be his greatest work.”—Howard E. Butt, Jr., Texas businessman and layman preacher.

“There is a growing recognition among business leaders that techniques are not enough. Logic, science and organization are necessary in complex economic enterprise: but they are not enough. The frustrating problems are in the field of human relations and the remedies for these are spiritual. Techniques are solving their problems. The advance of technology is wonderful, but the headlines scream forth the failure of modern man to bring social peace. This is the realm of religion. The adequate voice in this field is the voice of God in Jesus Christ.”—Dr. Dwayne Orton, educational consultant, I.B.M.

The Trails’ Start

Tourists in Boston need never be concerned about seeing the Hub’s more important points of historical interest. City fathers gladly provide an organized approach. One merely follows the “Freedom Trail,” which starts with a visit to Park Street Church.

For a century and a half now, Park Street Church has meant for thousands the start of another “freedom trail” as well, this one better known as the Way of the Cross.

Says Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Park Street’s Chicago-born pastor since 1936 who was educated at Taylor University, University of Pittsburgh, and Princeton and Westminster seminaries:

“If we computed only 1,000 people attending each week for 150 years, we would have at least 8,000,000 people who have sat in Park Street sanctuary and listened to the Gospel.

“The actual number at the evening services, prayer meetings and special services we hold would be several times that number. All have heard the Gospel.”

Last month Ockenga’s church observed the sesquicentennial of its founding with a banquet at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Boston. Most eye-catching symbol of the commemoration was a half-ton iced fruit cake, an exact-scale, eight-foot replica of the church donated by the Herbert Marshall family of Belmont, Massachusetts. A state police escort and a $3,000 insurance policy brought the cake from Marshall’s Food Shop in Lexington, where two men took three weeks to produce it (with other ingredients) out of 680 eggs, 470 pounds of fruit, 85 pounds of flour, and 68 pounds of sugar.

Among the banquet’s 1600 guests, many of them distinguished personalities (e.g. Republican Senators Frank Carlson of Kansas and Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, President Bob Pierce of World Vision, Editor Edwin D. Canham of The Christian Science Monitor) was Dr. Dana McLean Greeley, president of American Unitarian Association, who said:

“Let us recognize a fact: one of the greatest churches in the land. And let us recognize another fact: one of the greatest religious leaders in the land.”

Greeley’s tribute glowed with irony for it was while a tide of Unitarianism was sweeping Boston that 22 Trinitarian-minded Christians met in a Boston home to found Park Street Church. Construction of the church building was begun soon after and a continuing renovation program has kept the edifice in good repair ever since. The cornerstone was inscribed with the words: “Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. This church formed February 27th and this foundation laid May 1st, 1809.” Housed in this, one of the purest of Colonial structures anywhere, is a foremost congregation of U. S. Protestant evangelicalism.

Organized under doctrinal standards of Congregationalism, the church is still a member of the Association of Congregational Christian Churches. It is refusing to unite with the denomination and the Evangelical and Reformed Church because “to grant authoritarian control to an ecclesiastical organization that has no doctrinal standards as a test of faith of the members who belong to it would be intolerable for an evangelical and biblical church such as Park Street.”

The church’s archives are replete with data significant to American history. Among founders were the fathers of two illustrious Americans, Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, literary artist. Here the hymn “America” was sung for the first time. Here worshipped Ray Palmer, who wrote “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” Here spoke William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, Charles G. Finney, and Dwight L. Moody.

Today, Park Street Church stands with a Christian witness even greater than ever before. Its 2,167 members and countless friends support 120 missionaries with annual gifts totalling some $250,000. Its spiritual influence reaches around the world.

Gordon Loses Prexy

Among speakers at Park Street Church’s 150th anniversary banquet was Dr. T. Leonard Lewis, president of Gordon College. It was one of his last public appearances. The man who piloted Gordon from its Boston campus to a larger suburban location with new buildings and a vastly expanded budget suffered a fatal heart attack after shoveling snow in front of his home.

Lewis, 53, has been president of Gordon since 1944. He was a graduate of Wheaton College, Moody Bible Institute and the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he later became professor of systematic theology.

Funeral services were held at Tremont Temple, Boston, March 15. In lieu of flowers, the family requested contributions be made to the Gordon Memorial Science Building fund. The lack of a science building has been Gordon’s chief barrier to full accreditation.

Latin America

Partnership Programming

Gospel radio is entering seriously into an era of “partnership” on the foreign field. Whereas until now evangelical radio stations overseas have largely been operating on foreign funds and personnel, YNOL in Managua, Nicaragua, represents a move to establish and sustain a broadcasting program owned and operated by national Christians.

YNOL began operation this month with a 500-watt transmitter. Officials hope eventually to step up power to 2,000 watts. The whole project enjoys the support of all of Nicaragua’s evangelical groups.

Technicians from the Latin America Mission are coordinating the effort. A number of other mission boards also are making YNOL a true “partnership” project by offering to channel funds to the fledgling station and to cooperate as they can. The American Baptist Home Mission Society made available a large tract of land and the Central American Mission loaned a program director.

Castro And Evangelism

Cuba under Fidel Castro represents the greatest opportunity for the spread of the Gospel that the country has ever had, according to an on-the-spot evangelical observer.

CHRISTIANITY TODAYasked television cameraman-reporter Keith Leslie, a Presbyterian deacon, to prepare an analysis of the new Cuba in view of his familiarity with recent developments there. Leslie and a fellow cameraman from station WTVJ in Miami were the first U. S. newsmen to land in Cuba after Castro’s rebels got the upper hand.

Leslie herewith explains a plea for immediate evangelistic efforts to meet the challenge of unprecedented receptiveness:

Fidel Castro is a secular evangelist. He is a man on fire with conviction, determined with the tempering of two years of guerrilla warfare to remake Cuba into a new nation. He is a man of tremendous idealism, albeit a man who is well aware of his personal power. Castro is a master at the art of public relations, of swaying public opinion solidly behind him. And he commands a corps of men who would die gladly, if not for Castro himself, for the ideals of clean government he represents.

Cuba has been riding on the crest of an emotional wave which cannot be comprehended by anyone who has not observed it first hand. If you saw a part of the television transmission showing a million Cubans in the Palace Square of Havana, endorsing Castro’s directive that the diabolical killers of brother Cubans should die, you can appreciate a part of that feeling.

Castro is the only man I have seen at close range who is able to speak with the power, authority, and dedication that I have observed in our foremost evangelists. Of course, Castro’s message is not of God, but of man, and therefore incomplete in content.

Because of the events which have taken place, there seems little doubt that the people of Cuba are now, as they have never been before, receptive to the Word of God.

From one end of the island to the other, Castro has preached of the new liberties and freedoms the people were now to enjoy: freedom of speech, assembly, press. But freedom of religion was not mentioned. Primarily, I believe, this was because Castro, as a Roman Catholic in a Roman Catholic nation, gave freedom of religion little thought. But I am certain Castro would be receptive to the inauguration of a nation-wide evangelistic campaign. A number of trusted “Fidelistas” are in a position to be of invaluable service in arranging such a campaign.

While Cuba is emotionally receptive, or perhaps even vulnerable, if the term can be used in such context, there is no time to waste. Unless such a campaign is set up immediately, this emotional receptiveness may fade. And the Cubans who are so desperately searching for a new life of freedom may settle for a materialistic compromise that leaves Christ out in the cold.

Indeed, the country could conceivably drift back into the traditional and historical government by graft which has been its heritage for virtually every year since the Spaniards landed centuries ago.

There have been sporadic attempts to form a government based on honesty and integrity, but they have failed as their dedicated leaders have passed on. The people themselves must be infected with this permanent desire. And what better foundation can freedom and liberty have than Christ himself?

Marking Freedom

Venezuelan evangelicals marked the 125th anniversary of their country’s freedom of worship declaration with a public ceremony last month. Wreaths were placed on Caracas monuments of Simon Bolivar and José Antonio Paez, the nation’s liberators.

Commensurate with the observance was the establishment of the Comité Nacional Evangélico de Cooperacion, a national committee to represent the evangelical community before the government and the public at large. All major Protestant denominational groups in the country are included, as well as those set up by so-called interdenominational “faith” missions.

W. D. R.

Near East

Sea Archaeology

The first underwater exploration in biblical archaeology will begin along Israel’s Mediterranean coast this summer. Sponsor: the America-Israel Society, an inter-faith, non-political organization “dedicated to advancing mutual [U.S.-Israeli] understanding.”

Concentrating in the area of Caesarea Harbor, the expedition will investigate the remains of the port built by Herod the Great in the first century B.C.

Preparations for the venture are being made by Dr. Benjamin Mazar, president of Hebrew University, and Professor Charles Fritsch, an archaeologist from Princeton University. Appointed leader is Edwin A. Link, noted American inventor of the Link Aviation trainer and an underwater enthusiast. Advisory participants include: Dr. Yigal Yadin, archaeology lecturer at Hebrew University; Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion; and Dr. William F. Albright, professor of Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University.

Arab Education

What is the official attitude of the United Arab Republic toward Christian schools? The question has been uppermost in the minds of missionaries to Egypt, particularly since enactment of a new education law last year.

Slowly the interpretation is unfolding. Last month the U. A. R. Ministry of Education rescinded a month-old order which had closed Jesuit schools in Cairo pending elimination of certain texts.

Earlier, the ministry gave various foreign schools and organizations an opportunity to comment on the new law. In acknowledging one comment, officials promised teaching freedom to foreigners as long as basic cultural subjects are presented in Arabic.

Holy Land Campus

Many religious observers feel that Israel’s developing stature is leading up to a fulfillment of prophecy. One Christian editor calls a recent book on the rebirth of Israel an “absolute must for any serious student of Bible prophecy.” If so much can be said of a book, how much more of actually studying the situation firsthand in Israel itself?

But there is more to study: archaeology and historical geography, the problems of integrating people from seventy nations, the developing of Jewish thought because of these events, Near East problems, and others.

On the Street of the Prophets in Jerusalem, the Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies opens its Holy Land campus in August. Here American theological students will see for themselves.

Biblical and exegetical subjects will be taught by American seminary professors (for the first semester Dr. Arnold Schultz of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and Dr. G. Herbert Livingston of Asbury). Israeli specialists will teach Modern Hebrew, historical geography of Palestine, development of Jewish thought, and history of holy places.

Seminarians from Pennsylvania to California are applying for admission. A selected group leaves August 1 via a conference on the Near East in Sweden and a tour of Rome. Classes start late in August. Upon return of this group in January, replacements will be on their way. Each semester a new group will be seeing for themselves, and an instructed group will be back at home interpreting their Near East experiences.

Dr. G. Douglas Young, dean of Trinity Seminary of the Evangelical Free Church of America, is head of the new institute.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. T. Leonard Lewis, 53, president of Gordon College (see page 30) … Dr. Orman L. Shelton, 64, president of Christian Theological Seminary at Butler University, in Indianapolis … Dr. W. Plumer Mills, 75, retired Presbyterian missionary to China, in New York.

Appointments: To the chair of Christian education at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Dr. John Charles Wynn … as editor of The Churchman, quarterly journal of Anglican theology, Dr. Philip E. Hughes.

Election: As Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland, Dr. James McCann.

Inauguration: As president of National Methodist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, Dr. Don W. Holter, scheduled April 7.

Resignation: As president of California Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Don Cole.

Grants: To the following, faculty fellowship awards from the American Association of Theological Schools for study (mostly abroad) under gifts from the Sealantic Fund “to stimulate theological scholarship and teaching”: R. F. Aldwinckle, McMaster Divinity College; A. O. Arnold, Augustana Theological Seminary; J. W. Bachman, Union Theological Seminary, New York; H. H. Barnette, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; I. W. Batdorf, United Theological Seminary; R. M. Bost, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary; R. H. Boyd, Luther Theological Seminary; R. M. Brown, Union Theological Seminary, New York; R. J. Bull, Theological School, Drew University; C. E. Carlston, Theological Seminary of U. of Dubuque; W. A. Clebsch, Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest; W. K. Clymer, Evangelical Theological Seminary; A. B. Come, San Francisco Theological Seminary; W. Fallaw, Andover Newton Theological School; F. B. Gear, Columbia Theological Seminary; R. E. Gilmore, Wesley Theological Seminary; W. K. Grobel, Vanderbilt University Divinity School; J. M. Gustafson, Yale University Divinity School; M. T. Judy, Perkins School of Theology; H. C. Kee, Theological School, Drew University; H. T. Kerr, Princeton Theological Seminary; R. H. Klooster, Calvin Theological Seminary; C. Lacy, Divinity School of Duke University; J. W. MacGorman, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; R. C. Miller, Yale University Divinity School; M. L. Newman, Protestant Episcopal Seminary in Virginia; F. E. Rector, Christian Theological Seminary; J. H. P. Reumann, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Phila.; J. M. Robinson, Southern California School of Theology; L. C. Rudolph, Louisville Presbyterian Seminary; W. P. Schilling, Boston University School of Theology; K. Stendahl, Harvard Divinity School; O. K. Storaasli, Luther Theological Seminary; B. Vassady, Lancaster Theological Seminary; J. A. Wharton, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

- More fromW. Datton Roberts

Eutychus

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

AT EASE IN ZION

No small stir developed in Pilgrim Church when a recent news magazine article appeared on the bulletin board of the Martyr Memorial lounge. It included an attack on recent church architecture, and seemed to describe the new Pilgrim sanctuary, even to the blonde cross motif and the woodsy patio decor of the chancel. Feeling ran high when the clipping was traced to Effie Winters, the dissident minority of the building committee.

Several members of the committee attempted a showdown interview with Miss Winters, but they only provided a target for her barbed tongue. She suggested that never in history had there been so luxurious a rest stop for this earthly pilgrimage. The golden streets, she feared, might prove hard underfoot after the carpeting of this earthly Zion. Pilgrim Church people might come to prefer the celestial city in eternity, but they could hardly be expected to long for the change!

She pounced on another report in her clipping. Here was news of an architect after her heart. Imagine, he had told a congregation that they needed to be prodded and disturbed. That would be an innovation for the Pilgrim congregation, relaxing in the built-in complacency of their cushioned pews!

At this point, the committee chainnan unwisely retaliated by inviting Miss Winters to pilgrimage to India, where she might secure a bed of nails abandoned by a converted fakir, and be prodded to her heart’s content.

Personal relations had deteriorated abysmally, and the discussion ended with an embarrassing rejoinder in which Miss Winters proposed carrying one of the many crosses in the sanctuary instead of importing a bed of nails. She later apologized for this remark, and the minister has mended the rent in the fabric of fellowship. However, his conciliatory sermons on “The Beauty of Holiness” and “Contemporary Cross-Bearing” seemed a little vague after the sharpness of Miss Winters’ irony. His message on “Comfort Ye My People” was in another context, although there were a few puzzling allusions to architecture.

Miss Winters has her followers, but we do not anticipate a movement toward more disturbing church buildings in Deepwell Heights. Unless, of course, you are disturbed by blond crosses and patio chancels.

FURTHER TENSIONS

In … your editorial, “Race Tensions and Social Change” (Jan. 19 issue), you have handled a difficult subject with masterful clarity. Such thinking is essential to a solution which will command and deserve the respect of all men of good will.…

My admiration was also stirred by the excellent book review by E. Earle Ellis. He evaluates the service Dr. King has done without closing his eyes to the pitfalls that appear here and there in his reasoning.

The Franklin Lakes Gospel Church

Franklin Lakes, N. J.

Your editorial … is a very polite and perfectly harmless treatise saying next to nothing at all.

Ogden, Utah

What is “love?” A pantheistic sentiment that submerges individual differences in the social nirvana of a mulatto nation?

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Portland, Ore.

I guess I will have to class myself with those radicals of my own denomination who “have even supported the use of tanks and guns, if necessary,” that our Negro citizens’ civil rights may be protected against Southern governors and legislators. After all, these people have had 100 years since the Civil War to treat their former slaves as American citizens.

Mt. Sterling Presbyterian Church

Mt. Sterling, Ill.

After an adequate presentation of Stride Toward Freedom’s contents, Dr. Ellis suggests that the philosophy underlying racial integration is racial socialism. He believes that Dr. King is attempting to form a raceless and classless society through legal action in which the state is the “major instrument”.… Dr. King specifically rejects the Communist emphasis on a classless society and takes his stand on the words of Christ: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor …” (pp. 93–4).…

The basic motivation of the Montgomery movement was Christian love. The method was nonviolence. To Dr. Ellis, nonviolence is an “irritant.” To Dr. King, it is a way of life based on agape love (pp. 90–107). A Reformed theologian may be as skeptical of love in action as the newspaper reporter who thought it peculiar for a Negro congregation in Montgomery to applaud a reading of 1 Corinthians 13.… Dr. Ellis criticizes the use of agape love by Negroes who seek to enter white schools.… [Separate but] “equal” opportunity is an illusion. Not only does it deny real “equality;” it is built upon spiritual pride.…

The Court has not forced integration, as Dr. Ellis indirectly alleges. It has outlawed compulsory segregation in certain public facilities, such as schools. The reviewer and others can be as socially segregated as their consciences will allow them, but they can no longer use the law to force compulsory segregation.…

Although the Negro is supposed to be “inferior,” the Montgomery story demonstrates his … scrupulous adherence to the law. In glaring contrast, the “superior” whites stooped to threatening phone calls, malicious character assassination and bombing of homes and churches.…

Why are segregationists so concerned about intermarriage? Do they fear that equal status would give a Negro woman legal redress against the sexual attentions of a white man? If white men are as superior to Negro men as some assume, why this sudden panic about Negro men marrying white women? Why does Dr. Ellis ignore the concrete application of New Testament ethics in public schools, courts, transportant and personal relations? What is his “moral right of each race to separate social institutions”? From what portion of the Gospel does it come?

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Louisville, Ky.

Dr. Ellis believes that in race relations when there is opposition and resistance on the part of the whites to a demand of the Negro for what he considers justice—that in the spirit of love he would not use any force at all to bring about this justice, whether it be through the courts or passive resistance.… Parents don’t understand love if they interpret it to mean that firm and loving discipline with their children involving coercion is a violation of the spirit of love.

Hope Presbyterian Church

Portland, Ore.

The book review … is one of the most trenchant and illuminating analyses of the subject of segregation that has appeared lately. That … plus your … “Race Tensions and Social Change” make that … issue a monumental one.

Roanoke, Va.

The attempt to support segregation from Scripture (by reader Carey Daniel, Mar. 2 issue) is always a hazardous one, and Daniel cites some wholly indefensible texts for his case. Old Testament proof texts in support of segregation rest upon several assumptions which just cannot be maintained. For example, to assume that the groups mentioned in Genesis 9 are progenitors of distinct racial groups involves biological, linguistic, historical, and literary considerations of an extremely dubious nature. Everett Tilson’s fine book, Segregation and the Bible (esp. pp. 20–26), utterly destroys any Biblical case for segregation. More relevant passages on race relations would be Matt. 5:44 f.; Luke 10:27–37; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:11–16, and Acts 10.

Daniel also follows most segregationists in stressing personal matters like intermarriage and evading the real issues of rights in the economy, education, housing, hospital care, recreational facilities, civil liberties, etc.

I felt your article “Race Tensions and Social Change” was helpful. Incidentally, I am a native of Birmingham, Ala.

Oregon, Ill.

FOR THANKLESS DISCHARGE

There was no need for you to retract anything you said about the Report of the Joint Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church on alcoholism and social drinking (Feb. 2 issue). I am a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Diocese of Pennsylvania. Like every clergyman of that Church I received a copy of the report before the Convention, as also did every Bishop and lay deputy. This was an official commission and this was its official report. I confine myself to the one question, namely, did the Convention approve the report, though in the light of modern ethics and St. Paul’s position on eating meat offered to idols, the Commission’s claim that social drinking has God’s approval is shocking. Did the Convention approve the report? No, but it [accepted] the report and if there is any difference between approving and accepting that difference can be discerned only by a hairsplitting lawyer.

Mr. Mainwaring said in his letter that the report was only the first step in a series promised by the Joint Commission. I suggest the Convention should have discharged the Commission without thanks before they further affronted the consciences of Christians.

Brattleboro, Vt.

A CASE OF IDENTITY

Mr. Merrill C. Tenney … has listed The New Testament: Its Making and Meaning (Abingdon Press) as written by C. K. Barrett (Feb. 16 issue). Actually this volume is written by Albert Edward Barnett.

First Presbyterian Church

Nunn, Colo.

UNITARIANISM

Lloyd Dean (Jan. 19 issue) has put his finger on what are unquestionably Unitarianism’s most disconcerting anomalies in an otherwise consistant philosophical relativism: (1) the continuation of the “church” and (2) the endorsem*nt of a rather absolute ethical code. It is difficult to understand not only the metaphysical basis but also the emotional incentive behind the perpetuation of these logically obsolete phenomena. If religious values and philosophical realities are only illusory or relative, toward what end does the “church” function and from what source does the ethic derive?

I would, on the other hand, strongly question Professor Dean’s somewhat oversimplified solution to the threat of Unitarian ideology among Protestants today. Can Protestantism solve this problem “only” and simply “by establishing itself on God’s infallibly revealed Word” (ibid., p. 8)? Dr. Dean himself has pointed out that the earliest Unitarians in this country did not consider their views contrary to the teaching of Scripture (ibid., p. 7). And Congregationalism, out of which Unitarianism sprang, did not to any great degree surrender the doctrine of the absolute authority of Scripture until fully 50 years following the emergence of Channing. Can we today trust the same kind of orthodox view of the Bible itself to do for us what it failed to do in the last century?

Marion, Ala.

Judson College

• Regardless of the view of Scripture, there have always been heresies. But when the authority of Scripture is forfeited, the problem is compounded. When one departs from the Bible’s view of itself, and loses this authoritative criterion, it is easy to depart from the Bible’s view of other things. Sometimes this order is reversed and often the transition steps are delayed. But the logic of the matter ultimately prevails.—ED.

The Unitarian takes it as elementary that he may be wrong and probably is in some aspects of his thinking. That is why he is not compelled to convert all others to his way of thought as are fundamentalists and Roman Catholics.

Unitarians are the happiest church people I have ever met. And if all this is inconceivable to you who labor under the curse upon Adam, … my only wish for you is that you may gain some happiness from your prison.…

The Unitarian Church of All Souls

New York, N. Y.

Many of us put the accent of our religion on humanism, but go along with Jesus’ teachings of God as a universal father—and feel that that fits in with humanism-naturalism much better than an orthodox interpretation relying on such a flimsy thing as supernatural revelation.

North St. Paul, Minn.

The author failed to explain why this church, more than any other, has been filtrated by actual and near communists. The Stockholm Peace Petition which was notoriously exposed as propaganda by local newspapers was actively circulated by two different Unitarian Youth clubs and in no other church.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Unitarianism and Universalism have never been large in membership, because both denominations stress the importance of thinking for oneself.… In our culture there are not many … who think for themselves.…

Universalist Church

Swampscott, Mass.

Dr. Gerstner takes liberals apart, or attempts to, on the basis that they dare to declare some statements of the Bible to be myths (Dec. 22 issue).… To a Unitarian-Universalist it is no more humane for God to demand the smell and sight of Jesus’ blood in order that he might be appeased than it is for God to use some bears to devour pesky children. In fact it would seem that the two go hand in hand as making up the character of any monster.

New York State Convention of Dir.

Universalists Auburn, N. Y.

I read with mounting ire Mr. Dean’s article “Withering Unitarianism”.… In 1935 the legal membership of the Unitarian Church was 66,431. Today our legal membership stands at 106,751.… We are not withering.… Mr. Dean accepts … the view that the Unitarian Church came into being because of a controversy over the trinitarian nature of God. My own opinion is that the essential nature of the controversy was about the nature of man.… Most of us are convinced that man is not depraved, fallen, or sinful.… Unitarianism is perhaps the last stronghold of natural religion. We do tend to equate the concept of God with the process that is Nature. We worship Life and Nature but most many of us consider Life and Nature to be the breath and substance of God. Most of us consider the Christ to be absurd. For us Jesus was a man no more, no less.…

Faith for me began with an experience. Looking back on the experience it is possible to talk about it in terms such as rebirth, transformation and so on. From this experience came the trust that the Universe is not hostile to man. From this experience came the conviction that man’s potential far outstrips his performance to date. From this experience came the resolve to become a minister.… Our churches are communities of truth seekers and truth sharers. We have not found The Truth nor do we expect to.…

Canton, Mass.

As to … errors of fact, there are three specific ones over and above the falsity of the implication in the title. The article states that the movement centers in New England. While this was once true, the fact is the center of the Unitarian movement shifted out of New England nearly a generation ago.

The author further states that the movement has made no significant gains except those that can be accounted for by the population growth. The fact of the matter is that the number of Unitarians has all but doubled in the last twenty years. Here in the Washington area, it has doubled and redoubled in the last fifteen years, and in the same time the number of children in our church schools has doubled, redoubled, and doubled yet again.

In the third place the author says that the Unitarians and Universalists are now considering merger for the purpose of self-preservation. The fact of the matter is that as far as the Unitarians are concerned merger would have been effected long ago, but for the widespread belief that tampering with denominational machinery might slow down the accelerating rate of progress we now enjoy.

All Souls Church Unitarian

Washington, D. C.

I used the term ‘withering’ for the reason stated at the outset: “It cannot be denied that Unitarianism has failed to reproduce itself; and, except for participation in the general growth in the population of the country, it has been able to count no significant increase in its constituency.” I believe that this is a fair statement in the light of the facts, even though I was careful to admit that “since the Second World War, there has been somewhat of a ‘revival’ in Unitarian circles.” The statistics are as follows (my original research was done in the Unitarian Library of the American Unitarian Association in Boston):

In 1895 there were in the United States and Canada 455 Unitarian societies with 519 ministers and an approximate membership of 68,500 (Ency. Brit., XXIX, p. 356, ed. of 1901). By 1957 there were in the United States 373 societies, 333 ordained clergy with charges, and a total membership of 101,549. This is to be compared with the growth in church membership of all religious bodies in the United States in relation to total population as follows: 16 per cent of the total population were church members in 1850, 36 per cent in 1900, and 62 per cent of the population were church members by 1956. These percentages are to be correlated with the following population figures for the United States: 23,200,000 in 1850; 75,995,000 in 1900; and 170,000,000 in 1956. This means that in order simply to maintain its relation to the population on the level of growth maintained by all religious bodies together, Unitarianism would now have to have at least 269,500 members. It has been said that from 1945 to 1958 the Unitarian membership has jumped from 67,000 to 100,000. As can be seen, this short-term minor increase (especially in view of the U. S. population upsurge in the same period) does not demonstrate that this is other than “a temporary ebb in the relentless flow of the logic of Unitarianism to a thoroughgoing humanism” and the reduction of adherents attendant thereupon. Note that the percentage rise is somewhat impressive because of the smaller total numbers involved.

Congregationalists, who were early threatened with inundation and dispossession by the Unitarians and who were much blighted with liberalism themselves—in the earlier as well as the later years—counted a membership of 534,159 in 1890. This had grown to a total of 1,379,394 by 1957 (See Ency. Brit., op. cit.; Yearbook of American Churches, Ed. Benson Y. Landis [National Council of Churches] 41, 110, 286).

I stated that the movement centered in New England on the basis of my own impressions from observation and reading of Unitarian literature. If this is no longer strictly true, one must note that as recently as about 15 years ago it could he said that the denomination was “concentrated rather heavily in New England” (The Mind and Faith of A. Powell Davies, p. 19). This is from Justice William O. Douglas’ foreword to the book by the distinguished predecessor to Mr. Howlett.

When I said that the Unitarians and Universalists were considering merger for the purpose of self-preservation, I was of course offering an opinion. But I think there is ground for believing this is at least one reason for their interest in this direction. Flourishing denominations do not usually seek the union that has been sought here for some time. I don’t believe that this is a fruit of the present ecumenical thrust. Not only are the statistics on Unitarianism suggestive of this, but the data on the Universalists also support the conclusion. In 1895, Universalists numbered 47,986 members. By 1933, they had grown only to 55,000. I would not consider their present 70,519 a significant attainment in the light of population growth.

It is suggested that recent Unitarian growth is because of their theology. I conceded this: “A belief in God is returning to certain Unitarian pulpits.… Since the Second World War, there has been somewhat of a ‘revival’ in Unitarian circles.” I think the conclusion is clear: the farther they depart from humanism and the closer they get to orthodoxy the more they will grow.

Gordon College

Beverly Farms, Mass.

- More fromEutychus