Page 6375 – Christianity Today (2024)

IFD

Our neighbors in Cloverleaf Vista are back from vacation. They were having a post-mortem at our barbecue. Everything went wrong again this year: it rained, the fish didn’t bite, the flies did, the twins had the mumps, the car side-swiped a frozen custard truck when the trailer hitch broke.

Peter Peiper, who will be a junior at Mortarford College, ventured to explain that this was just a case of IFD. General semantics, he said, shows that we escape from reality by symbolic thinking. The American vacation is an example of idealization. All winter we dream of vacation bliss. Comes the vacation reality and the discrepancy fills us with frustration. The cycle is Idealization, Frustration, Disintegration. Unrealistic ideals always end in despair.

About half way through these observations it began to rain; in the regrouping on the porch, only Mrs. Peiper, Pastor Peterson, and I remained in Peter’s seminar.

The pastor remarked that we suffer from a bankruptcy of ideals rather than an overstock. He took issue with the view that ideals were only carrots to be dangled at a calculated distance from the donkey’s nose. The cynical philosophy that makes all ideals adjustable is disillusionment made permanent. If the way out of despair were the reduction of our hopes, Buddhism would hold the key to mental health; kill off desire and find bliss in unconsciousness!

Peter protested that semantics recognizes the usefulness of realistic ideals, but Pastor Peterson was now in full sermonic form. “Usefulness of ideals!” he snorted. “An ideal isn’t a technique, it’s a standard. We need to know that we must be holy, in the image of God. That drives us to total despair, but there is the gate of repentance and faith.”

It developed that the pastor had heard of IFD before, when a university lecturer had charged Billy Graham with offering escape from reality in religious symbols. The pastor promptly began to crusade for DRF: Despair, Repentance, Faith. The Gospel begins with real despair and leads to real bliss. Instead of counseling adjustment to a scaled down reduction of the broken hopes of a sinner, it lifts up his eyes to the heights of Zion, and then lifts him there too, in Christ’s triumph.

VACUUM ONLY APPARENT

John H. Gerstner’s June 8 column reflects a degree of appreciation and understanding of pacifist thought which is rare for your journal. If Mr. Gerstner is interested, he will find that the vacuum of pacifist literature is only apparent. The Church Peace Mission at 1133 Broadway, Room 1601, New York 10, can furnish bibliography and study papers.

I must comment on the uncritical assumption of so many conservative Christians that Christian pacifism means “peace at any price” or, in present-day terms, selling out to the Russians. We pacifists underline Gerstner’s words: “If Christianity be true and God be a fact, then obedience to His truth at the cost of extinction is a cheap price to pay.” This is the testimony of pre-Constantinian Christians and of the Anabaptist martyrs, among others.

But does obedience to God’s truth mean that we exterminate our national enemies? The irony of our international situation is that, barring divine intervention or an unparalleled movement of genuine faith, both East and West will be equipped for automatic mutual annihilation in just a few years, thus forcing a choice between co-existence or extinction. Pacifists agree that survival may not be the ultimate good, but by what twist can the Christian gospel be made to support the vengeful assertion that “if we’ve got to die, they’ll all die, too”?

Second Mennonite

Philadelphia, Pa.

While I would expect … popular, sensational magazines to glorify war and the god of American nationalism, I thought that CHRISTIANITY TODAY would extol the pacifism exemplified by Christ more than it has.

Mt. Union, Pa.

I am continuing to read and enjoy CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I am glad to see that logic has not been thrown to the winds or left to die in a philosophy class. Just as in his classroom, Dr. Gerstner’s logic and keen perception makes pacifism look sick with only untried emotionalism to undergird its precepts.

My disgust with the church’s over-emphasis on the diplomatic problem concerning Red China and the forgetfulness concerning the spiritual needs of the Chinese of the Orient and our lands led me to “scratch out” the following lines:

Old Fourth Church did not sit at ease

Concerning the fate of the Red Chinese,

For at its socials and frequent teas

The congregation lamented the diplomatic squeeze.

“It isn’t fair,” boomed Deacon Brown,

Wearing that usual committee frown,

“To keep away official recognition

From such a large significant nation,

For it has grown from the wreck

Left by dictatorial Chiang Kai-shek.”

Yet strange as life itself can be

A block away lived poor Chun Lee,

But he never heard anyone tell

The story of Jesus and the gospel.

His boys, hungry and unusually small,

Played at war along Old Fourth’s wall:

But no one ever was heard to say,

“What would be Jesus’ main interest today?”

London, Ont.

I see no choice but to recognize a government that is ruling the lives of over 500 million people, no matter what our opinions be on the philosophy and the aims under which this government operates.… Let me ask of the bitter critics of such a move, “Where were you when the government leaders of Iraq were killed and dragged in the streets, and within 48 hours our government recognized the rebel government?” It would appear to me that the big difference in this case is that Iraq has many oil wells involving substantial American interests while no such comparable economic tie exists in Red China.

Associate Pastor

First Presbyterian Church

San Fernando, Calif.

My summer holiday has afforded me time to reread one of the significant books by the late Secretary Dulles who was a friend and colleague of mine.… I would respectfully suggest that you publish the following from Mr. Dulles’ book War or Peace (page 190):

I have now come to believe that the United Nations will best serve the cause of peace if its Assembly is representative of what the world actually is, and not merely representative of the parts we like. Therefore, we ought to be willing that all nations should be members without attempting to appraise closely those which are ‘good’ and those which are ‘bad.’ Already that distinction is obliterated by the present membership of the United Nations.

He added:

If the Communist government of China in fact proves its ability to govern China without serious domestic resistance, then it, too, should be admitted to the United Nations. However, a regime that claims to have become the government of a country through civil war should not be recognized until it has been tested over a reasonable period of time”.…

Why assume that those who continue to think now what he thought nine years ago (even though he changed his mind about it afterwards when Secretary of State) are “leftish”?

South Strafford, Vt.

In the April 13 issue (Eutychus), Paul A. Remick states: “Not to recognize Red China is like refusing to recognize a change of administration in our own country.” … Diplomatic recognition is far more than calling a spade a spade.… If my memory serves me well, there was but one time in the history of our nation that a change of administration was not recognized—namely the secession of the Confederacy. The Union did not recognize it, did not approve. Rather, it fought what is often termed the bloodiest war in history to force the “rebels” back into the Union. We today are faced with the same issue: “Can any person be allowed to trample another underfoot?” Communist brand slavery is a far worse terror than that seen in our country so many years ago. It cannot, it must not be recognized by those who name the Name of Christ!

Reformed Episcopal

Ventnor, N. J.

THE OLD AND THE NEW BARTH

What possibly could be of less importance than whether or not the old Barth is a ‘New Barth,’ or the differences between Barthianism vs. Bultmannism? I read, and re-read, Prof. Van Til’s article (June 8 issue) and couldn’t make sense of it.… This type of contribution … is hard for the ordinary layman to digest and also … 99.44 per cent of the clergy. The world is steeped in sin and there is a simple remedy, which needs neither a Barth nor a Bultmann to explain or explain away.

Toronto, Ont.

Van Til’s critique of “the New Barth” … is typical of a certain ultra-Calvinistic crowd who think that they are doing God a favour by trampling on his ‘enemies.’ What a shock it will be to them when they discover who the enemies of God really are!

United Church of Canada

Cedar Springs, Ont.

Writing of Karl Barth, Dr. Van Til touches the two important points that Barth still maintains biblical errancy and seems not to relate the Resurrection adequately to the objective accomplishment of Atonement. Development of these could have given a valuable article. But instead we then move on to several misconceptions.… Thus, no serious student would find a new Barth in 1952, but none could dispute the critical change culminating in 1931–2. As regards the useful German distinction between history as what happens (Geschichte) and as the record of what happens (Historie), Barth emphatically and rightly will not say what he is virtually made to say, namely, that because an event is not or cannot be recorded, it did not really happen. In miracles, he sees an element which is historisch, i.e., can be recorded in scientific terms, but for him the real happening, e.g., God’s actual raising of Jesus, is beyond the terms of reference of scientific depiction. Yet this neither negates nor reduces its factuality. Why should it? Only subjective rationalism could think so. The context of most of Dr. Van Til’s quotations (in IV, 1) demands notice, namely, Barth’s relating of the Resurrection to the prophetic work of Christ, Himself present to proclaim and apply the message of Atonement by the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt. 28:20; John 14:16–18; Heb. 13:8 and Rev. 1:18). In this setting, the statements presume a factual Resurrection and bear no conceivable relation to the subjectivizing of Bultmann. The final tour de force which makes Barth the exact opposite of his own intention … hampers the serious and fruitful criticism demanded of evangelicals by the Dogmatics.

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

I have read your article on the United Church of Christ and think that you have correctly analyzed the situation. Communications from all over the United States come to my desk revealing an uneasiness with the merger, or definite hostility to it. Many are determined to maintain a truly Congregational association of churches.

I think you are right in surmising that the framework of the United Church of Christ has been set up contrary to the desires of a large segment of the Congregational churches in order to make the framework for the merger of many Protestant denominations. You are doing a great service in thus analyzing these aspects of the ecumenical movement.

Park Street Church

Boston, Mass.

DISAPPEARING DILEMMA

Pastor McCrae’s dilemma (Eutychus, May 25 issue) resolves itself in his fine expression: “entire relinquishment of the sick one to God.” If he will do so and teach others, he will be in no danger of turning about and telling God precisely what He should do, which seems to be implied by those “positive and expectant prayers.” In sickness I look to Him who is powerful to heal me, who loves me as His own dear child in Christ, and I ask Him to heal me (and others) “if it be Thy will.” My prayer is both positive and expectant. I know He hears and will answer in His own way and at His own time. What more could His child want than this? If we but let God be God and refrain from every temptation to instruct Him, the dilemma disappears.

The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer

Sheboygan, Wisc.

My faith in the love and rightness of God’s will in every matter gives me all the confidence I need to ask him for his highest and best gifts for both myself and others. Then I serenely and eagerly trust his holy, healing will to reveal himself in the yielded human mind, body and spirit.

… How I am comforted by the adoring thought, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; Blessed be the Name of the Lord!”

North Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

FAILURE OF MISSIONS

Carlsen’s article on missions should be put into the hands—and hearts—of every evangelical missionary and mission board executive in our country. He has pointed up the basic reason for the obvious failure of Christian missions to evangelize effectively the world. And, as a former missionary, I know that what he describes is all too true.

Clymer, N. Y.

BACK INTO SERVICE

May I ask your readers in many parts of the world … if there is any person who could assist one who is struggling to master a new language. There are no doubt many amongst your readers who were missionaries in China and who used the Hokkien Dialect. My wife and I want to obtain a copy of “Chinese-English Dictionary of the vernacular or spoken language of Amoy” by the Reverend Carstairs Douglas and the supplement by the Reverend Thomas Barclay. These have been out of print for many years but there are doubtless many copies still extant and these could be brought back into service for the Lord and could also make our study considerably simpler. If several copies are thus found it will also assist several friends who are also searching for these dictionaries.

Overseas Missionary Fellowship

B 100, Tapah Road

Perak, Malaya

A FLAME AND A BRIDGEHEAD

We here have just had the privilege of a “Billy Graham” Crusade, and it has unquestionably lit a very real “spiritual flame” in this land, such as could finally transform the face of the whole nation. I witnessed the “London Crusade” also, but Sydney has far surpassed it. Whilst “decisions” are an indication, they do not really measure the magnitude of the impact, in changed attitudes and the many unseen conversions. I feel a real bridgehead has been made, and it will be our own fault if it is not secured and expanded.

Royal Australian Air Force

Richmond, N.S.W., Australia

PREACHING THE BIBLE

The answer to Maurice Mahler (Eutychus, May 25 issue) and his hosts of friends who find that many of our seminaries do not instruct young seminarians how to preach the Bible and its passages to our people with emphasis upon what the real meaning of the text is, I believe, is found in the Bible Institute.

The three years, thought by many of my friends to be “wasted,” were the most fruitful of my theological training from the standpoint of preaching the Word with emphasis upon the context.

Baptist Missionary Church

La Porte, Ind.

MAJESTIC VIEW

“Relativity” (L. Nelson Bell, Sept. 15 issue) … brings out a … majestic … viewpoint! It should be particularly useful in college and Unitarian communities.

Boston, Mass.

Too long I have thought of Jesus the Christ as having begun with his birth by the Virgin Mary. You made it clear to me that creation was in the hands of Christ, the eternal Son of God.…

Boston, Mass.

THE WIDE GULF

Thanks for your brief news report (April 13 issue, p. 30) about the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.… Many of the new logia are obviously late or of little interest to any but specialists in Gnosticism. But those sayings that parallel synoptic sayings may throw real light upon the working of oral tradition. Perhaps one of the greatest values of the discovery of the Gnostic library is that it clearly demonstrates the wide gulf between the thought of the New Testament and that of the Gnostics. These writings show that although some of the terminology may have coincided, Gnostic influence could never have found any place in the minds of the New Testament writers.

St. Mary’s College

St. Andrews, Scotland

PRE-PUBLICATION NOTICE

The writer wishes to announce the imminent appearance of the Reviled-Slandered Perversion of the Bible, a boon to that clergyman who rejoices in the progress of Christianity from its Humble Beginnings to its Present-Role-and-Status.

Embarrassed for years by claims of authority benighted dodderers have advanced on behalf of the Bible, yet a bit timid about replacing the old tome with a culling from Rousseau, Paine, Hegel, the Tübingen School, Schweitzer, Fosdick, and Wieman, the modern Marcion has felt somewhat sheepish about marching under a cellophane banner. Yet a real moral issue is involved. It would be a sacrifice of honor to expediency if one claimed to have faith in the Scriptures when one did not—something no honest liberal would do; therefore the happy solution suggests itself that the Scripture can be changed, in such a way that they may become a Manifesto of the Liberal Faith. After all, “if the patient isn’t doing well, change the medicine” seems considerably more sensible than “if the medicine isn’t doing well, change the patient.” Our experience is that such patients seldom can be changed.

One example may suggest our approach. Where RSV has for John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” R-SP reads the same verse (PPE 1:1—PPE—Probably Presbyter of Ephesus), “The archetypal logos originates from and participates in the summum bonum.” This is especially nice for showing the harmony between or, on a sunny day, the identity of Jungian analysis and Christian theology.

Other features of our Bible include these: 1. all miracles printed in italics to signify they are “faith events” rather than historical happenings; 2. all dogmatic statements introduced by the phrase, “It seems to me that …,” except when made by Christ: in such cases introduced by the phrase, “The second and third generation of the early Church thought that Christ said that …”; 3. all attributions of authorship followed by a question mark, sic: The Book of Hosea (?); 4. all statements reflecting mercy printed in red and all statements reflecting judgment printed in light grey.

Your cooperation is requested concerning one factor before the final galley proofs are sent to the printer. We are conducting a public opinion survey to see which three books of the Bible we should leave out altogether. Please send in your suggestions.

We are hoping for a big sale of R-SP. It should do even better than some of our earlier publications, such as Where Liberal Protestants Stand (a study of the architecture of a Unitarian Church with no pews); Building a Vital Theology (a do-it-yourself kit); and Authority in Liberalism Today (an exposition of non-directive counselling techniques).

If you wish to place an advance order for R-SP, just make out a check for ten dollars and send it on to us. Our address can be found in any standard study of witchcraft.

Lake Forest, Ill.

For the first time in many decades, evangelism has become respectable. While some still view it with suspicion and even with disdain, many now regard evangelism with enthusiasm because of its popularity among large segments of the visible church. Renewed interest in biblical theology, success of the Billy Graham crusades, extensive coverage by the secular press, and the upsurge of evangelical publications have all created a favorable climate for evangelism. Surely this is the opportune time for evangelicals in the twentieth century to pass from rearguard defensive action to an aggressive leadership. By bold action and strategic planning, the evangelical Church may penetrate and conquer territory lost in past years. The revival and increasing acceptance of historic Christianity gives hope and encouragement for the future.

These many evidences of resurgent evangelism in our day are heartening. Nonetheless, we must candidly acknowledge that the movement appears strong only in comparison to its recent weakness. When the foundation of the second temple was laid, according to the prophet Ezra, the people shouted with a great shout and praised the Lord. But those who had seen the first temple wept with a loud voice, for the glory of Zerubbabel’s temple could not compare with the glory of Solomon’s. One need not be a tottering octogenarian to remember the time when many more churches, colleges and seminaries, institutions, and missions were under the sway of a vital and strong evangelism. In light of the corruption and secularism of this generation, no one can claim that resurgent evangelism has as yet made an appreciable impact for righteousness upon American life and society.

Source Of Vital Evangelism

Although its former glory and strength has not been fully restored, evangelism has manifested sufficient power to merit a grudging respect. Impressed with the awakened and resilient strength of historic Christianity, inclusive ecumenism has indicated a willingness to be even more inclusive in order to embrace it. Ecclesiastical activists have volunteered to give direction to it. Alluring Delilahs assure evangelicals that they will not shave all seven locks of hair as they did in previous years. Some may concede to retain the six locks that formerly were objectionable: the Lord’s virgin birth, deity, bodily resurrection, second coming, judgment, and vicarious atonement. But almost in unison they insist that the seventh lock—the doctrine of the infallible and verbally inspired Word of God—be shorn. Signs are not lacking that this has attracted people within the evangelistic camp who feel that the strength and glory of evangelism can be retained with the omission of that particular “obnoxious” doctrine. And to wield that one lock of hair, they feel, is a small price to pay for the prestige of having ecclesiastical acceptance. Church history, however, gives evidence that all strong revival and reformation movements in the past have been associated with emphasis on the Scriptures as the authoritative Word. Luther, Calvin, Knox, Wesley, and Spurgeon were not ashamed to acknowledge the Bible as the infallible Word. From there they drew forth the vital doctrines of the sovereignty of God, the Trinity, the divine and human natures of Christ, the priesthood of all believers, justification by faith, vicarious atonement, and others. Through the Written Word they came to a knowledge and acceptance of the Living Word. If resurgent evangelism is going to have authority, permanence, and an impact in our day for righteousness, it must grasp and view productively the same fundamental doctrines that come out of the same authoritative source.

The Pulpit

Our greatest concern has been over the matter of denominational spiritual life which often rises no higher than denominational theological seminaries. As ministers are trained and taught, so will the people be instructed. Knowing of the confusion that exists in many theological schools, one cannot but become frustrated and pessimistic over a desperate situation. Seminaries may be the last to become sensitive to resurgent evangelism. They are now extremely sensitive to neo-orthodoxy in its various forms, and so continually adjust their sails to the changing winds of theology that a Roman Catholic writer stated recently, and with some justice: “Protestantism is in a constant flux, so that a polemic of 20 years ago is today no longer to the point.” If, therefore, evangelism finds a closed door to many theological schools, where will the dynamic doctrines of the Word of God find entrance? The answer is in the preaching of consecrated men.

Evangelicals, while having little influence over ecclesiastical machinery and denominational seminaries, and being scarcely heard in ecumenical counsels, do have access to the pulpits across the nation. God has ordained the medium of preaching to the salvation of souls, and to the sustaining of the salt of the community and the light of the world. In the first chapter of I Corinthians Paul announces the amazing fact that “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” The preaching of Christ crucified is as foolish in the twentieth century as it was in the first, but “the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Not many wise, mighty, and noble are among the evangelicals; nevertheless, as Paul states: “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” Preaching takes precedence over all other means to reaching the nation with the gospel of the Saviour. The strengthening and spiritual reinvigoration that can issue from the pulpit should cause evangelicals to give priority to preaching for strategic planning. We must confess that the evangelical pulpit is by no means as distinguished as it should be; it leaves much to be desired.

Lack Of Depth In The Pulpit

A candid and realistic appraisal of the preaching of those who stand behind the sacred desk reveals distressing weaknesses that explain why evangelism has failed to make an impact for righteousness upon the nation. Perhaps the most glaring is that of shallowness, or lack of scriptural depth in so many sermons. The sheep within evangelical churches remain hungry and thirsty because the Bread of Life is not imparted nor the Fountain of Life opened. The task of the preacher is to set the Word before the people. He is to expound it, interpret it, and bear witness to its power. He is to sow the seed with the heartening knowledge that under the providence of God that Word shall not return unto him void. To preach the Word is an exacting, painstaking, and time-consuming task. And he who regards his responsibility lightly, regards the Word lightly.

Many feel that inclusion and repetition of certain biblical phrases automatically constitutes an evangelical and scriptural message. Frequently they will repeat, “Ye must be born again,” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and “Be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.” But a mere reiteration of biblical phrases is not expounding and interpreting the Word. Jesus spent an evening with Nicodemus in order to explain the nature and necessity of the New Birth; and he who would expound the doctrine of regeneration must master much of the third chapter of the Gospel of John. Paul and Silas took considerable time to expound the meaning of faith in Christ to the family of the Philippian jailer. Is it not reasonable that he, who would explain the phrase “cleansed by the blood of the Lamb,” should know the structure of the Temple, the significance of its sacrifices, and have a mastery over the epistle to the Hebrews? In other words, an effective preacher ought to be a theologian. James Denny said: “If evangelists were our theologians or theologians our evangelists, we should at least be nearer the ideal Church.”

Evangelical ministers are apt to forget that the saints’ edification, sanctification, and consolation, and not only the conversion of sinners, are God-given tasks. It is true that many congregations seek only a milk diet and abhor strong meat, but this immature condition can be overcome if there is consistent preaching of the whole Counsel of God. A systematic instruction in the great doctrines of the Word of God cannot be overstressed nor carried on at a superficial level. This naturally requires intense study and sermon preparation on the part of the preacher—a painful procedure most likely, to the activist minister. Yet this quality of conscientiousness is necessary for establishing a powerful pulpit. It means the elimination of dozens of church organizational meetings and semi-social functions. It means that the minister will not become occupied with church routine at the expense of study in the Scriptures. Only as he grows in the knowledge and wisdom of the Lord will there be a richer infusion of His Word in the messages from the pulpit.

Salvation Of Souls

One of the major tasks of the pulpit is to bring men and women into a saving relationship with Christ. Keen observers of church life have noted that in spite of the signal success of the Graham crusades, the trend is away from great mass evangelistic campaigns. There is a wholesome movement toward mobilizing all forces of the local church in consistent evangelism as over against the sporadic effort of special campaigns. Here the pulpit must take leadership by stressing the primacy of the Word as over against methodology, and by inculcating a deep and lasting passion rather than temporary zeal for lost souls. Some preachers and churches are only impressed by numbers and are unwilling or impatient to labor for weeks and months in order to lead one soul to Christ. They forget that God sent an earthquake to cause just one soul to cry out for salvation, and that all heaven rejoices over the repentance of one soul. We can learn something from the scribes and Pharisees who compassed sea and land to make proselytes. Of course, the pulpit must reach out for numbers, but, at the same time, the salvation of one individual is worth the effort of an entire ministry.

There is a poverty reflected in many of the messages intended to reach for lost souls. A minimum of the Word and a maximum of entertaining anecdotes are often regarded as the most effective way to encourage “decisions.” But superficial sermons produce superficial results. Wesley, Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Christmas Evans (the Welsh revivalist), and Spurgeon all steeped and saturated their sermons with Scripture. They not only made the text possess their message, but used other parts of Scripture to shed light about it. They were ministers of the Word in the true sense, and God honored his Word by sending times of revival and refreshing. It is the foolishness of preaching Christ and him crucified that God blesses in the salvation of souls, and not the foolish preaching of personal experiences or human wisdom.

Social Problems And Culture

Constant criticism is heard from numerous sources that the evangelical pulpit lacks proper concern for the social problems that confront the world. Some of that criticism is justified. Actually that situation could be corrected were preachers to expound all of the Word of God. Six of the Ten Commandments concern themselves with social relationships. The Fifth Commandment concerns itself with care for the aged; the Sixth, with race hatred, murder, and wars; the Seventh, with sexual perversion, lusts, and divorce; the Eighth, with gambling, communism, dishonest capitalism, and labor rackets; the Ninth, with truth in all phases of life; and the Tenth with materialism and secularism. The Sermon on the Mount is deeply concerned with social problems. Every Epistle has its practical application to the situation in which a Christian finds himself. If voices from the evangelical pulpit are mute on the pressing social problems of this generation, it is that evangelism has suppressed a goodly portion of the Word. Evangelicals have a great responsibility for the calloused and indifferent conscience of contemporary society, and they have failed to lash the public’s conscience with the Word of God. Men must not forget that it is by creating a sensitive and tender conscience that the proper climate is provided to call sinners to repentance and salvation.

Another woeful weakness on the part of evangelism, so it is claimed, is its negligence of culture. This may be true, but it should not be the major concern of the pulpit. Eventually regenerated men, if there are sufficient number, will influence culture. Great periods in the history of the evangelical church have produced great art, architecture, music, and the inauguration of educational institutions. A dominant and persuasive religion will create a new and more enjoyable way of life. But the first task is to extend the boundaries of the kingdom of God. Then culture will be cleansed and uplifted.

The Strength Of The Pulpit

Some of the weaknesses of the evangelical pulpit have been reviewed and undoubtedly more could be said, but we must never forget that its strength is as mighty and powerful as the promises of God. When Joshua went forth to drive the seven pagan tribes out of the Land of Promise, God said to him, “Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written herein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shall have good success, … for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua was successful in his mission because he did not turn to the left or to the right from the law of God. The same God gave a similar command to his Church to make disciples of all nations and reinforced this command with an identical promise given to Joshua: “And, lo, I am with thee alway, even unto the end of the world.” As the strength of Joshua was the presence of the Lord, so the strength of the evangelical pulpit is the Lord who has all power in heaven and upon earth. As the Lord was present with Joshua in the conquering of Canaan so the Lord is present with the Church in the fulfillment of her mission.

Until the end of time the evangelical pulpit will remain the great means for the sinner’s conversion and the saint’s edification. In this particular period of tension, uncertainty, and theological transition it can stand as a rock of strength and a source of inspiration to the entire Church and nation. From the tenth chapter of Romans this may be paraphrased: “Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, who shall descend into the existential theological chaos? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead). But what saith it? The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thine heart, and in thy pulpit: that is, the Word of faith, which we preach.” It is only as the preacher behind the sacred desk preaches the whole Counsel and remains in communion with Christ himself that the pulpit will manifest a mighty power and influence to the glory of the Triune God.

END

Associate Editor J. Marcellus Kik’s address was delivered at the Ministers’ Workshop on Evangelism of the Fellowship of Conservative Congregational Christians of New England.

Few questions continue to perplex the thoughtful believer of present-day Christendom as much as the age-old inquiry into the relationship between faith and works. This perplexity seems to be augmented by the tendency of one segment of Christendom to divorce the Christian life from the “fundamentals” of salvation, and by the inclination of another to become so preoccupied in the search for the ethical implications of the Christian faith that its proclamation of the Gospel has often degenerated to the extreme minimum of a bland humanitarianism. Both tendencies are highly unfortunate departures from the historic Christian faith and both betray a misconception of the relationship between the divine and human aspects of the Christian life. The former position does not sufficiently take into account the spiritual character of the horizontal Christian fellowship and the value of Christian actions in witnessing to divine truth. The latter tends to lose sight of the vertical divine fellowship and the foundational truths upon which ethical experience is based.

A theological study and interpretation of the biblical Greek term koinonia offers a corrective for the erroneous tendencies already cited; for this word, by definition and usage, has both divine and human implications. The term koinonia in the various New Testament versions and translations is rendered primarily as fellowship, communion, and participation. A brief review of the koinonia concept will help us gain greater clarity on the issues involved in the relationship between the divine and human aspects of the life in Christ.

The Divine Aspect

Koinonia is the God-initiated and God-effected participation of the Christian believer in the divine nature, through his sharing in Christ’s life, death, and resurrecton by the power of the Holy Spirit. The koinonia concept assumes a highly significant role in New Testament doctrine because it is one of the ways used by the Spirit of God to express the relationship between the believer and God. This interrelationship is possible because of the historical participation of the divine in the human: God sent his Son to earth to take part in all things human, sin excepted.

The koinonia concept includes a certain unique emphasis upon the identification of the participant with the object of participation. The Christian believes, trusts, and obeys God from “without,” from a sphere external to God, as it were. However, when the Christian experiences koinonia with God, or participates in God, the relationship takes place “within” the divine sphere itself. In the koinonia concept, the divine is both the object and the sphere of the Christian’s koinonia. The Christian participates in the divine nature only because, and only when he is located “in” God, “in” the Son, and “in” the Spirit.

This emphasis upon identification is seen most clearly where the koinonia terminology is associated with the doctrines of the suffering and death of Christ, and where the believer actually shares his suffering and death. In apostolic teaching such topics as the Body of Christ, baptism, and the Lord’s supper are relevant to the koinonia concept because of their “identification” symbolism. However, let us not conclude that the koinonia idea is purely symbolic. The Christian’s participation in the divine nature is a fact of experience; it is not an unenlightened mystical adventure. Koinonia is the result of an act of God, introducing man to the realm of spiritual truth and reality. This fellowship is personalistic, because only God’s attitude toward the individual person can make possible the koinonia experience. True Christian fellowship is of God’s creation and not of man’s initiation.

The Human Aspect

In 1 John 1:3 the human aspect of koinonia is expressed in the terms “fellowship with us”—fellowship with the apostolic witnesses, represented by John. Notice however that the human aspect of koinonia is significant only when the Christian takes into account its divine aspect, which the remainer of 1 John 1:3 proceeds to explain: “and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Albert Schweitzer believes that koinonia is based upon a work of divine energy which man has within himself. Human beings already have something in common. They learn about this common possession, respond to it, and thus create koinonia. Aristotle taught that two persons naturally have some things in common; therefore, friendship is based on those things held in common. Such friendship might be thought of as koinonia. L. S. Thornton, however, interprets differently the koinonia experience among Christians:

All human forms of partnership presuppose in the first place the sharing of a common human nature. This, in turn, provides a basis for the sharing of other things, material or spiritual, or both together. But what differentiates the common life of the Church is neither human nature as such, nor things ordinarily shared on the basis of our common humanity. Christians are specifically united neither by material goods, nor by cultural interest nor even by rational ideas. All of these forms of sharing enter into the common life of the Church. But none of them determines its special character.

We have to consider, therefore, what are the objects shared in the common life of the Church, the objects which make that life to be distinctively what it is (The Common Life In the Body of Christ, Dacre Press, 1942, p. 31).

These objects of participation are the divine life of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. We dare not lose sight of the fact that the fellowship of men with one another is based upon their individual fellowship with the divine.

In the opening chapters of Acts we note that something new has come to pass, something which has affected even the external order of things: “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need” (Acts 2:44, 45, ASV). This community of goods (a voluntary movement, cf. Acts 4:34–5:11), which was probably practiced for a time, is represented as the result of the experience of “one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32). A new unity pervaded the community, and of this new unity community of goods was but a symbol. In the Christian Body, the outward order of life always indicates the inner unity (or lack of it). A sharing of earthly goods may or may not symbolize a sharing in divine things. It may be prompted only by human sympathy or by studied reasoning. In such instances, sharing of earthly goods loses its symbolic character and becomes no more than a social gesture.

Koinonia in the divine always results in a transformation of the whole of life, including our relationship with those about us who are in need. Menno Simons wrote:

The whole Scripture speaks of mercifulness and love, and it is the only sign whereby a true Christian may be known. As the Lord says, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples [that is, that ye are Christians], if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).

Beloved reader, it is not customary that an intelligent person clothes and cares for one part of his body and leaves the rest destitute and naked. Oh, no. The intelligent person is solicitous for all his members. Thus it should be with those who are the Lord’s church and body. All those who are born of God, who are gifted with the Spirit of the Lord, who are, according to the Scriptures, called into one body and love in Christ Jesus, are prepared by such love to serve their neighbors, not only with money and goods, but also after the example of their Lord and Head, Jesus Christ, in an evangelical manner, with life and blood (The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, translated from the Dutch by Leonard Verduin and edited by John Christian Wenger, Herald Press, 1956, p. 558).

The great needs of the hour are Christian faith and expression which are relevant to practical life situations—faith-and-life harmony. Would not part of the answer lie in a renewed and vigorous application of the koinonia concept—the human-divine participation and the resulting human-human interaction? Would not this add depth and meaning both to the Christian’s inner experience and his outward expression of the new life in Christ, and would it not provide the new dimension which modern Christians need—real fellowship with God and with one another?

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After serving from 1953–59 as President of Hesston College, Kansas, Roy D. Roth has gone to the pastorate of Logsden Mennonite Church, a rural mission in an Oregon community where many are Siletz Indians. He holds the B.A. and B.D. from Goshen College, and Th.M. from Princeton Seminary. He has been Secretary of the Mennonite Board of Education.

One of the problems constantly confronting the Christian Church is how it ought to defend its true faith in the presence of heresy and false interpretations. The problem is as keen and sharp today as it has ever been in history. The theological confusion of the twentieth century is beyond description. Many old divisions of Christendom are still with us, but so are the many cults that have subsequently emerged and grown into sizable memberships. The inroads that religious liberalism has made into the very heart of the great denominations is still a grim fact. Existential philosophies are being taught by some clever and learned men who have been making an impact upon Christendom. And neo-orthodoxy, no longer a single movement, has divided into a cluster of related theologies. In view of such confusion and interplay in church and denominational life, the question of strategy faces every Christian who wishes to maintain the orthodox interpretation of the Christian faith.

Among orthodox people themselves there is no common agreement as to what this strategy should be. Views vary from those who think evangelism and an evangelistic emphasis is the solution to those who demand a rigorous doctrinal or ecclesiastical purism. However, in view of the present doctrinal and ecclesiastical distress, it would be good to remind ourselves that in the final analysis it is God himself who maintains his people in faith and not they themselves. “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Mal. 3:6). If any nation should have perished (spiritually, politically, or physically) it should have been Israel. Yet Israel survived through centuries and through impossible conditions. The reason she survived is that the eternal God was her stay and her support. Equally instructive are Christ’s words to Peter (Matt. 16:18) that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church. Whatever is the meaning of the expression “the gates of hell” the intent is the same: The Christian Church shall prevail in spite of the strongest opposition. The Lord of the Church defends her and maintains her. Not for a minute must Christians believe that the existence of the Church and her orthodoxy rests solely upon Christians; it is the responsibility of the God of the sons of Jacob, and the Lord of the Church. No anxious neurotic behavior over protecting the Church and her orthodoxy is in keeping with a sound view of the Church and her destiny in the care of God.

But in its creaturely existence, the Church is called upon to speak to the issue of strategy. As a matter of common Christian concern and discussion we suggest that the center point in rallying Christian people, the point of offense and defense, and the point of leverage and assault is the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Christ And Scripture

In the days of Calvin the religious fanatics were claiming revelations independent of sacred Scripture. Calvin replied to these men that there was an image of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, and any claim to the work of the Spirit must correspond to this image (Institutes, Book I, Chap. 9). In that the revelations of the fanatics did not conform to the image of the Spirit, they were not prompted by the Holy Spirit but by a devilish spirit.

The same relationship holds between Jesus Christ and sacred Scripture. In fact, there is a unique relationship between Scripture and Jesus Christ for Scripture is the summation of revelation as word and Jesus Christ is the summation of revelation as person. But these are not two revelations. The sum of the revelation as person is the subject matter supreme of the sum of revelation as word; and the sum of revelation as word is the divine instrument for introducing men to the revelation as person.

Therefore, we draw two important conclusions. The cultist who has a formal faith in Scripture as the Word of God does not hold this faith in orthodoxy for he holds it without its supreme content, Jesus Christ. And conversely, Churches and Councils that believe in Jesus Christ as divine Lord and Savior and who are not bound to the Scriptural picture of Jesus Christ also have no claim to orthodoxy for they allow men to have a doctrine of Christ not bound to sacred Scripture.

The Faith And The Lord

A most important passage in this connection is Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.” Most exegetes believe that in this verse “Jesus Christ” stands for the entire Christian faith. Thus the auctor of Hebrews is affirming the finality of the Christian faith. Its truth is the same in the past, present, and future. And how remarkable it is that he sums up the content of the Christian religion with these two words: Jesus Christ! As the mutual combination of the person and work of Christ is understood in this verse, let Jesus then be the hallmark of orthodoxy, its center, its essence, the point where all Christians converge and all heresies diverge. This Christ is not of men’s speculation but the One who corresponds to the image painted of him in the New Testament.

The hallmark was the official stamp of the Goldsmith’s Company of London. Its mark upon silver and gold wares attested to their purity. By the same manner, the eternal Father has stamped upon the Christian faith, according to Hebrews 13:8, the sign of divine purity: Jesus Christ.

It is very clear that the piety of the New Testament is a Christ-centered piety. Galatians 2:20 (“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith [fulness] of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”), and Philippians 3:10 (“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death”) are at the very center of New Testament personal piety. And there is that remarkable verse at the end of I Corinthians: “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha” (16:22). These verses call for a complete personal dedication to Jesus Christ by every Christian. No faithfulness to a moral code or dedication to a Christian institution can substitute for personal, loyal devotion to Jesus Christ. To defend the person and work of Christ, without a genuine personal dedication to him, is an evil thing. Theology without personal religion is devilish; and therefore, he who would be a defender of the faith must first be in daily personal communion with his Lord.

It is not a difficult matter to show that the biblical revelation finds its center in Jesus Christ. Our Lord, speaking of Moses said, “he wrote of me” (John 5:46); and when He gave his marvelous postresurrection lesson in the Scriptures he began with Moses and all the prophets and “expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Peter states that the Holy Spirit which inspired the apostles is the same Spirit of Christ which inspired the prophets (1 Pet. 1:11–12). The auctor of Hebrews sums up the content of the New Testament as God speaking by his Son (Heb. 1:2). He who reads Scripture without coming to Jesus Christ has not stepped into the inner side of sacred Scripture (2 Tim. 3:15).

The Pneumatology of the New Testament is a Christ-centered doctrine. The Holy Spirit is readily called the Spirit of Christ, the other helper (John 14:16) who thus stands side by side with Jesus Christ. He shall not speak of himself, but he shall speak of Christ and glorify the Savior (John 16:13–14). And when the Holy Spirit prompts the human heart with a profound inspiration, the heart says, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12:3).

When we turn to the doctrine of God in the New Testament we discover it too is centered in Christ our Lord. No man knows the Father unless he is introduced to Him by the Son (Matt. 11:27). When the Father illumines the human heart, it is with a knowledge of Jesus as the Son of God (Matt. 16:17; Gal. 1:16). He who sees Christ sees the Father (John 12:45) for He is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4), and in Jesus Christ are hid all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God (Col. 2:2–3). He is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of his person (Heb. 1:3). Therefore, we have the remarkable expression in the New Testament—the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. No belief-in-God-in-general is tolerable within the boundaries of the New Testament doctrine of God.

The doctrine of the Church is equally a Christ-centered doctrine. Christ is the founder and builder of the Church (Matt. 16:16 f.). He is the Good Shepherd who gathers the flock of God and leads it (John 10:1 ff.); he is the Rock upon which the Church is built (1 Pet. 2:6), the head of the body which is the Church (Col. 1:18), and the husband and head of the Church (Eph. 5:23). The Church is not a religious society, nor ethical society, nor simply the moral conscience of the state. It is a supernatural society summoned into existence by the call of God and in the name of Jesus Christ.

Paradoxical as it may appear, the New Testament doctrine of sin has a Christological orientation (John 16:7–11). The Divine Barrister (as it is permissible to translate parakletos; in Kittel’s Wörterbuch we have Fürsprecher) shall convict (another legal term) the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The cardinal sin is not to believe in the Saviour. Proof of the lack of human righteousness as contrasted with the perfection of Christ’s righteousness is that Christ could go directly to the presence of God; and the prince of this world, who rules the unregenerate, is judged and condemned in the cross of Christ.

The Great Divide

It is highly instructive to note that when the apostle wishes to set out the final dividing line between the spirit of God and the spirit of antichrist, between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error (plane, wandering), he locates it in the Incarnation (1 John 4:1–7). The prophet who affirms that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh speaks from the Spirit of God; and the prophet who denies the Incarnation speaks from the spirit of error and antichrist. This is a remarkable passage for it is one of those places in Scripture where a line is decisively drawn, and we do well to note carefully when Scripture does draw such a line.

Jesus Christ, of the prophetic anticipation of the prophets and their Old Testament, and of the direct witness of the apostles and their New Testament, is the essence of the Christian faith, and therefore the hallmark of orthodoxy. The basic test for purity of theological metal is whether there is devotion to his wonderful Person, loyalty to the apostolic doctrines summed up by his Name, spiritual and heartfelt desire to “follow his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21), and constancy in the doctrine of Christ (2 John 9).

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Bernard Ramm is Director of Graduate Studies in Religion at Baylor University. He holds the A.B. from University of Washington, B.D. from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Ph.D. from University of Southern California, and has studied at University of Basel. This fall he moves to his new position at California Baptist Theological Seminary.

Those who are interested in Church-State relations in the United States dare not take for granted as good and permanent the religious tax exemptions presently in effect in the nation and in the several states and municipalities. The subject needs to be discussed despite the hesitancy caused by the fears of churchmen that merely to raise any question opens the churches to the possibility of crippling taxation and the hesitancy of government officials caused by their fears of appearing to be antireligious if they even speak of taxing churches. The already complex Church-State question is further complicated by competitive concerns of churches with each other, especially typical Protestant fears of increasing Roman Catholic power, and typical Roman Catholic interpretation of all Protestant political action as being primarily anti-Roman Catholic.

Writing for an American audience one may take for granted (except possibly among some Roman Catholics) the universal acceptance of the assumption that the Bill of Rights is here to stay, preventing the establishment of religion, which at the least means that no single church shall have preferential financial or other support by the state and, as usually more broadly interpreted, means further that churches in general must depend upon the voluntary gifts of their adherents for their support and not upon the taxing power of federal, state, or municipal governments. Most Americans, in contrast to many Europeans, believe that this is a good arrangement for both Church and State. They point to the vigor of these competitive American churches and the freedom in the United States of the nonreligious to be nonreligious as values more than counterbalancing any possible national advantages put forward as the result of church establishment. The chief arguments for church establishment are national unity (one church, one people), securing a place for religion in public education, protection against the ultimate secularization of the state, and sect proliferation. In any case American churchmen need seriously to grapple with the charge made by the antireligious that church tax exemption in the United States is but a slightly concealed form of tax support of the churches. The writer remembers vividly the keen interest in this subject shown by Soviet churchmen in discussions three years ago in which they asked whether our separation of Church and State in the United States was really as complete as we advertised it to be and whether their Church-State separation in the Soviet Union was not in fact more nearly honest and complete. Church taxation and exemption from taxation equally imply some kind of philosophy of Church-State relationship that is definitely not absolute separation of Church and State.

I here assume, then, some relationship between Church and State, believing that absolute separation, “a wall of partition,” is an unrealized myth and I assume further that we wish to preserve the freedom and autonomy provided for the churches under the Constitution of the United States. The clear implication of these two assumptions is that we should discuss tax exemption of churches reasonably and rationally without being subject to emotional tirades from those on the one hand who believe churches should be supported by taxes or from those on the other hand who say, “the power to tax is the power to destroy” and that, therefore, churches for their life and freedom must resist any and all taxation. I assume rather that it is our problem to assess the amount of taxation or tax exemption which would best serve the interests of both the churches and the several organs of government which have the tax power. I reject the notion apparently held by some churchmen that the less taxation there is upon the churches the better off they will be and the equally materialistic notion apparently held by some officials that the more taxes that can be levied the better off will be the government and community.

Tax exemption for churches and religious institutions must be examined in the light of the whole practice of government’s granting exemption to various bodies for various purposes. William H. Anderson writes: “The theory behind property tax exemption is that some properties have special characteristics which make it socially advantageous to exclude them from taxation.… Among the most common purposes may be found the following: 1. To prevent intergovernmental taxation; 2. To encourage activities which would otherwise be supported by government; 3. To promote desirable social undertakings; 4. To influence the location of industries; 5. To improve property tax administration and compliance; 6. To avoid double taxation; and 7. To record services rendered such as veteran’s property exemptions.” (William H. Anderson, “Taxation and the American Economy,” Prentice Hall, New York, 1951, p. 158.)

Although Anderson is here concerned with property tax exemption only, the seven purposes listed may be applied as well to the wider question of tax exemption with which this paper is concerned. My point is that any tax exemption that is allowed to churches or church organizations must be seen from the point of view of government as justified by one or more of these seven or like purposes. Tax exemption for churches would be chiefly based upon reason three—“to promote desirable social undertakings” and to a much less extent, at least from Protestant theory, reason two—“to encourage activities which would otherwise be supported by government.”

The thesis of this paper is that while all of us would doubtless hold that churches and their activities are “desirable social undertakings” and, therefore, may properly be encouraged and aided by government tax policy; nevertheless, tax exemptions which are proper when churches are small, poor and weak may have highly unfortunate results to the churches and to the society when the churches have grown large and rich.

Invitation To Expropriation?

I need not labor the point that too much tax exemption, for whatever reason, becomes a serious problem to government. The growing urban centers of our country are all struggling to find a broad tax base able to support the growing demands for police and fire protection, for education services, and for social welfare requirements of the citizens. Since, however, the biggest tax exemption problem in most cities and states is intergovernmental tax exemption, it is clear that this problem would not be solved even if all religious tax exemption were eliminated. While this is true now, I suggest that 100 years from now the present pattern of religious tax exemption by federal, state and municipal authorities, if continued, may present the state with problems of such magnitude that their only solution will be revolutionary expropriation of church properties. When one remembers that churches pay no inheritance tax (churches do not die), that churches may own and operate business and be exempt from the 52 percent corporate income tax, and that real property used for church purposes (which in some states are most generously construed) is tax exempt, it is not unreasonable to prophesy that with reasonably prudent management, the churches ought to be able to control the whole economy of the nation within the predictable future. That the growing wealth and property of the churches was partially responsible for revolutionary expropriations of church property in England in the sixteenth century, in France in the eighteenth century, in Italy in the nineteenth century, and in Mexico, Russia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary (to name a few examples) in the twentieth century, seems self-evident. A government with mounting tax problems cannot be expected to keep its hands off the wealth of a rich church forever. That such a revolution is always accompanied by anticlericalism and atheism should not be surprising. This leads me to examine the negative effects of tax exemption upon the life and purposes of the churches themselves which ought to be the primary concern of churchmen.

Are The Churches In Jeopardy?

I suggest that already in the United States there are discernible signs of a growing antichurch feeling, not yet developed into full blown anticlericalism which will increase rather than decrease as the years go on. It may be that one of the reasons for the greater growth of the store-front sects is the unconscious self-identification of the common man with the “have-not” poor and his perhaps unconscious identification of the “old line” churches, Protestant and Roman Catholic, with the rich managers of society. History makes it clear that social welfare and educational enterprises by the churches, however much appreciated, are not sufficient of themselves to make a poor man love a rich church.

While I have myself argued that to build a beautiful church can have results both culturally and religiously good, I am quite sure that overly rich and overly ornate structures have a negative effect on evangelism and distort the people’s understanding of the Gospel. At a time when Americans think nothing of putting 30 to 40 thousand dollars into their suburban homes, and small communities vote several millions of bonds for the public schools, and the local savings banks and department stores house themselves in artistic contemporary monumental homes, it is clear that it would be embarrassing if these same people did not want to build beautiful and expensive churches. (I have used this argument to encourage reluctant givers to church building funds.) Our culture would be proved less Christian than it is if there were no great churches and church institutions being built. Yet admitting all this, the fact remains that the effect of an expensive church upon those outside its membership is ambiguous.

But this is the outside and visible part of the problem. The economic power that will increasingly be wielded by ever richer churches threatens to produce not only envy, hatred, or resentment of nonmembers, but also to distort the purposes of the church members and leaders themselves. The higly endowed Protestant central city church, with its able and articulate and dominating trustees, does not usually carry on a Christian program to which denominational leaders or others point wtih pride. That denominational leaders themselves will behave in a very much more Christian manner when their financial concerns are the investment and management of increasing endowments rather than the scraping of the bottom of the financial barrel to find support of their overextended operations in an inflationary time, I am not at all sure. I am sure that great concentration of wealth and economic power in the hands of the American churches will in the long run frustrate the very ends which they proclaim and profess.

In case it appears to any that the dangers in this area are all in the future and that they are overdrawn, I would merely remind you that under present tax laws rich people are being encouraged to give to churches since big gifts can be made which cost the giver little or (in some odd cases) nothing. I remind you that deals are being offered to church trustees by which they can buy businesses and pay a management fee to the present owners which puts both the managers and the church in an advantageous position with reference to their business competitors.

Perhaps the above is enough to establish my main point, namely, that to continue the present church tax exemptions indefinitely into the future will jeopardize not only the stability of government but the program and effectiveness of the churches themselves.

Some Pointed Questions

Although I do not propose here to outline a new policy, I should like to isolate a few questions, partly rhetorical, on which I believe we can well spend some time and thought. Changes in tax structure are admittedly very complex, and very often the “side effects” of a tax law are in the long run more important than its obvious end. That is one reason for raising questions rather than suggesting answers.

1. Should not all of the churches attempt at once to secure the repeal of the section of the Internal Revenue Code which allows “churches and church organizations” exemption from the corporate tax (generally 52 percent) on income from business organizations unrelated to the purpose or activity of the Church or its organizations? Although relatively little use has so far been made of this provision by the churches, it is clear that over 20 percent could be safely earned on church investments in place of the three, four, or five percent now being earned. It works this way. Buy a business that earns six percent, now after taxes, a not unusual return. Buy it for one million dollars. Put up cash (church endowment) of 400,000. Borrow 600,000 at four per cent. Result: income on 400,000 dollars invested equals 96,000 per annum. The safety of such an investment is enhanced by the fact that the pricing policy of the company could be handled to make certain that no competitor could steal away the business.

2. Should the churches take the initiative in approaching local tax authorities to the end of developing a system whereby the churches would begin to make contributions to the municipal governments of one per cent of the real estate tax that would be due if this property were taxable, increasing the contribution by one per cent a year to a ceiling of ten per cent?

3. Should the churches examine their related business enterprises to assure themselves that their practices in these fields are not unfairly competitive with other businesses operating in the same area?

4. Should the churches support a department in the National Council of Churches which would study this field to ask more pertinent questions and to implement their answer?

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Preacher In The Red

YOU REMINDED ME

My grandfather, a preacher, told me this story:

“Fifty years ago, preachers used to express their zeal and enthusiasm by preaching in a loud voice, hitting the pulpit with their fists, and running on the platform to and fro.

One Sunday I was invited to preach in a village church. It was a rainy day, and the congregation was made up of three men and one woman. As I warmed up in my preaching, the woman started to weep. The more enthusiastic I became, the more tears poured from her eyes. I felt that a soul was coming to God in penitence.

When the meeting was over, I went to see her.

‘I was deeply moved,’ I said, ‘to see your response to the message.’

‘Yes preacher,’ she answered, ‘your voice reminded me of my ox which died last week.’”—The Rev. MENIS ABDUL NOOR, Herz via Etlidim, Egypt, U.A.R.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1014 Washington Building, Washington 5, D. C.

Eugene Carson Blake is Stated Clerk of The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Member of the central and executive committees of the World Council of Churches, he has served in the capacity of president and is currently on the General Board of the National Council of Churches. He holds the A.B. from Princeton University, Th.B. from Princeton Seminary, and honorary doctorates from nine colleges. He is trustee of Princeton and San Anselmo seminaries.

A few years ago I was in Dallas, Texas, and we had a crowd of 30,000 to 40,000 people. I preached and gave an invitation and practically no one came forward. I left the platform a little bit perplexed and wondering what had happened. A saint from Germany put his arm around me and said, “Billy, could I say a word to you?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Son, you didn’t preach the Cross tonight. Your message was good, but you didn’t preach the Cross.” I went to my room and wept. I said, “Oh, God, so help me, there will never be a sermon that I preach unless the Cross is central.” Now, there are many mysteries to the Atonement, and I don’t understand all the light that comes from that Cross. But to lift it up is the secret of evangelistic preaching.

Response To The Cross

Evangelism must seek the response of the individual. A lady said to me sometime ago, “You know, Mr. Graham, our minister is a wonderful person, but for the life of me, I don’t know what he wants us to do.” There are many people like that. Are we failing to explain those things that to us are elementary? What is repentance? How long has it been since you preached a sermon on repentance just as you would explain it to a group of children? Dr. Louis Evans, one of our great Presbyterian ministers, said that in his preaching he found that the religious intelligence of the average American congregation is that of a 12-year-old. “I always talk to the people now as if they were children,” he added. Dr. James Denney once said, “If you shoot over the head of your congregation, you don’t prove anything except that you don’t know how to shoot.”

I’ve found that there is something powerful about using the language God used. And I go back to words like repentance and faith and the blood. Somehow the Holy Spirit makes it plain in simple terminology. That is what Christ did. When Christ preached, William Barclay says, he took his illustrations on the spur of the moment. He did not sit in a study and think them out. One day he saw a fig tree and used it as an illustration. We make it so complicated. Jesus explained things so simply that the common people heard him gladly. Of course, the Pharisees missed it. The intellectuals failed to grasp what he was talking about. Many times the condition of our hearts governs the receiving of the message, as much as does the explanation.

I think that the evangelist must recognize that many factors lead to a person’s commitment to Christ. I would go so far as to say I do not think I have ever led a soul to Christ. A pastor’s sermon, a mother’s prayer, an incident in battle—all these contribute to a process toward conversion. And those who will be converted in these meetings will be people who were not converted by the preaching of Billy Graham. I never claim that I lead anybody to Christ. I am just one in a series of many factors that bring people to this giving of themselves to the Saviour.

People come in different ways. Lydia was led by her emotions, the Philippian jailer by his will, Paul by his conscience, and Cornelius by his intellect. I certainly do not say that all come the same way.

It seems to me that evangelism must avoid over-emotion. Years ago I found that I could work on the emotions of the congregation and get people to respond, but without tears of repentance. They were tears of a superficial emotion. People come to Christ by hearing the Word of God. However, emotion does have its place. You cannot imagine two young people in love kissing each other out of a cold sense of duty. And the evangelist cannot offer free pardon for sinners and forbid any reaction of joy. The dread of emotion in religious experience has gone to extreme lengths. Dr. Sangster says: “Some critics appear to suspect any conversion which does not take place in a refrigerator.” In his little book Let Me Commend he goes on to say that “the man who screams at a football or baseball game, but is distressed when he hears of a sinner weeping at the Cross and murmurs something about the dangers of emotionalism hardly merits intelligent respect.” Folks can sit in front of a television set and watch “Gunsmoke,” or “I Love Lucy,” and laugh and bite their fingernails off. But if there is any joy or tear or smile over religion—then we are to watch out for emotion. That is one of the devil’s biggest laughs.

Extending The Invitation

Many people ask, why give a public invitation? This was a stumbling block to me for awhile, I must confess. And I would like to acknowledge in passing that so-called “mass evangelism” has deficits and assets. One deficit is this: People go to the meetings, they hear the beautiful singing, they are wonderfully lifted up in spirit, the preacher stands up and shouts and pounds the pulpit—and then they go back to church and wonder why church service is not the same.

I explain carefully in my preaching that the worship service is more important than the evangelistic service. The holiest moment is when we come to the Communion Table, for that is worship of God; it is his Church at worship. Ours is an evangelistic service to reach those outside the Church as well as those on the fringe of the Church. These are two different things, and the worship service is most important.

Nonetheless, it might do the people good if ministers started pounding the pulpit a bit. A lady said to me in San Francisco: “Mr. Graham, you know my preacher is preaching new sermons since you came. You really helped him.” I said, “Madam, did you come forward?” She said, “Oh, yes.” I said, “Could it be that you are listening with different ears, and that he’s preaching the same sermons?” She said, “I hadn’t thought about that. That may be.”

Moses gave an invitation in Exodus 32:26 when he said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me.” That was public invitation. Joshua gave an invitation: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” King Josiah gave a public invitation when he called on the assembly of the people, after the Book of the Law had been found and read to them, to stand in assent to the keeping of the Law. Ezra called upon the people to swear publicly to carry out his reformation.

Jesus gave many public invitations. He said to Peter and Andrew, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” He said to Matthew, “Follow me,” and the latter rose and followed him. Jesus invited Zaccheus publicly to come down out of the tree. “Zaccheus make haste, come down for today I will abide in your house.” Jesus told the parable of the slighted dinner invitation where the lord said to his servant: “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be full.” The Apostles gave invitations.

The Inquiry Room

The method of invitation we use is of comparatively recent origin, but the spirit and principle of the evangelistic invitation is, in my opinion, as old as the Bible itself. George Whitefield and John Wesley used to give public invitations, as did most of the evangelists.

However, the modern inquiry room that we use with personal counseling (we coined the term ‘counseling’ instead of personal workers) was not used so far as I can discover until 1817 when Ashland Middleton began using it. D. L. Moody made it popular and used it continually in his meetings; and when he would give an invitation, he would ask people to make their way not to the front but straight to a room. There he would go and speak to them all.

Now we found that the weakest aspect of mass evangelism was at this point. How to overcome it was the problem. How could we get people to make a profession or indicate their spiritual need and do it properly so that each one would be dealt with personally? In other words, mass evangelism was only a stage for personal evangelism.

And so we began to teach and train counselors to talk to each individual. These people who come forward are not all finders. Most of them are still seekers. They are inquiring; they are seeking help. They need someone to guide them, lead them, and direct them. You say that only the minister can do that. The early Church was made up of laymen, and I believe that too long we have had a gap between the laity and the clergy. Laymen ought to be in the work of evangelism. That makes for the most successful church.

Dean Barton Babbage told me that in the cathedral in Melbourne he has started what he calls “desk” night once a month. Members of the congregation go out and bring in unchurched people. On the first “desk” night, Sunday a week ago, he gave a public invitation and over 300 people in the cathedral came forward! These people who were trained in the counseling classes cannot stop, he said. They are bringing evangelism back into the churches. Ministers ought to be prepared for this, for it will be one of the results.

I remember the first time I went to Lambeth Palace to see the Archbishop of Canterbury, he told me a little story. He said, “You know, we have a little chapel here at Lambeth, and two cards came (from the Harringay meetings) and somehow they were sent to me (and this was about half-way through the Crusade). I took them immediately, because if you don’t, the Graham Organization is going to send those cards to a Baptist church!”

The Loss Of Babes

Suppose we treated newborn babies as carelessly as we treat new Christians. The infant mortality rate would be appalling. Here is a little baby coming into my home, and I would say: “Son, we’re so glad to have you in our home. Now, we hope you come around next Sunday, we’re going to give you a good dinner. It won’t last but an hour—but do come. See you next Sunday.” He would die! And yet here are persons who come to Christ as spiritual babes, and we expect them to come to church all by themselves on Sunday mornings and get enough food to last them until the next Sunday when they can come back for more. That is not God’s way at all! These people need help, guidance, leadership, and training in the study of the Word of God. I cannot possibly instruct all of them. I have them for one evening, and somehow the minister feels that the evangelist is to work miracles—that a new convert comes into the church a mature Christian, and if he should make one false move—in ignorance or in weakness—the church points the finger and says, “Uh, huh, a convert that didn’t last!” How pharisaical can we get? A beachhead has been established in their lives. Now it is up to us to follow through with an infantry attack. The Crusades can establish beachheads in thousands of lives. But it is up to the laymen of the church to follow through with the people. They need our help. They are spiritual babies. The obstetrician must be followed by the pediatrician.

Some have asked me how to approach these meetings? I might ask that you approach them with a concern for New South Wales. Secondly, may I ask that you intensify your prayers? We have one Achilles heel, one great danger, and that is overconfidence, complacency, and a feeling that the crusade is off to such a good start we can relax. Satan is going to attack from some direction, I don’t know where. Let’s build a wall of prayer. Thirdly, I hope you will come with humility and an open mind. I know that a lot of the methods used are foreign to many of you, and I feel for some of you ministers.

Fourthly, I trust that as you preach, you will make your sermons heart-warming and evangelistic. Take some of the old subjects like the new birth, repentance, faith, and justification, and see what happens. You say—but my people are already far beyond that! I do not believe that your Christian people are going to bring the unconverted into the church unless they think a simple gospel will be presented.

Fifthly, a word must be said about tolerance to theology and methods. Just after the Evanston Assembly of the World Council of Churches, I was invited by a Bishop and 18 of his clergymen to a city in Europe. The Dean of the Cathedral there opposed me until he had split the town, the Bishop being on one side with 18 clergymen, the Dean on the other with sixteen. And I wrote the Bishop and said it might be better if I don’t come because of the press headlines. He answered me, “No, you can’t let us down now. You must come.” So I went. I said, “Isn’t this particular man the man at Evanston that made such a wonderful statement in the committee about the need of unity when he expressed himself on the ecumenial movement?” He said, “Yes.” I replied, “then why isn’t he tolerant enough to go along with you now?” I shall never forget the Bishop’s smile when he said, “You see, Evanston is nearly six thousand miles from here.” In other words, in the top echelons we talk about an ecumenical attitude, but on the parish level when it comes down to something personal, when the chips are down, we’re not quite as ecumenical as we thought.

Perhaps when we get through, it will be like it was in Scotland when a Presbyterian came to me and said: “You know, I never had any use for those P.B.’s, but I met some of them who would make wonderful Presbyterians.” A Plymouth Brother has already told me that he has to change his whole attitude about the Church. He commented, “I have found men of God in the Anglican Church.” And he looked surprised! That happened down in Melbourne.

May I emphasize this important fact, however: a church’s spiritual life will never rise any higher than the personal life of its people. I am praying that to all of us will come a new spirit for Christ, a new consecration and dedication. One of the great Anglican leaders in Australia called me to his home, closed the door and locked it. He said to me, “I’ve been an Anglican priest for many years,” and then he started weeping: “I need a new experience of God.” We got on our knees and we prayed together.

Do you need a new experience with God, a new encounter with the living Christ? I pray that you will not be like Samson when he got up and wist not the Lord had departed from him. Have you done it the same old way until you are almost a perfectionist, but have lost the compassion, love, burden, and vision of the living Christ? Pray that it might return, and with a double portion of His Spirit.

END

Pottery

We are the pottery

of Him who once

inscribed His signature

in circling suns,

who blew His breath

and left eternally

in dust the stuff

of immortality.

We are His work,

and though the vessel be

defiled and marred

by evil elements

still through the ruin

gleams Omnipotence.

LON WOODRUM

Comments on the care of converts by Evangelist Billy Graham to the ministers of Sydney, Australia, April 16, 1959.

When, in 1906, Ernst Troeltsch wrote about the place of missions in the changed and changing world of his day, he came to the conclusion that “sympathy and salvation” should no longer be motivations for Christian missions. This, he concluded, was a natural outcome of his denial of the absoluteness of Christianity in the orthodox sense of the word. Still, he did not suggest that missions be abandoned. A moral and religious conviction, he said, must always seek to make propaganda for itself; furthermore, missions are necessary for Christianity’s own development. It was evident even then that Troeltsch’s motion created a crisis in the Church’s mission consciousness, a crisis in the relationship between its confession of Christ and its calling to proclaim the one Name in all the world. For the motivation for missions never was a pharisaical superiority of morals, but a motivation that arose from the power of the kingdom of God and the conviction that Christ was the way and the truth and the life. Where this conviction was watered down, it was inevitable that the flame of missionary zeal would also die.

Today, more than fifty years after Troeltsch troubled the missionary conscience of the Church, the world is undergoing far more radical changes than those in his day. It is natural that we should be hearing questions about the Church’s strenuous efforts to plant the banner of the Cross in all the world. But the question is now not so much about the motivations of missions as it is about the possibility of missions. World religions are experiencing a revival of self-consciousness and are becoming less and less hospitable to Christian missions. Shall the doors remain open to us? We read in the New Testament that God opens doors for the Word. At present this promise has become a very pressing and actual historical problem. Voices from the fields are often pessimistic these days. From the East we hear that missions from the West can scarcely be tolerated any longer, and that the West is being looked upon as mission territory for the Eastern religions.

It is surely unwarranted to prognosticate the future of missions from the perspective of human historical factors. I am reminded in this connection of William Carey’s motto: “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” The two parts of this motto are inseparable. He who no longer expects great things from God and falls into a kind of historical fatalism will not likely be the man who throws himself intensely into the service of God. A fatalism that refuses to reckon with the future acts of God leads to defeatism and indolence. The element of anticipation is gone; the surprising works of God are no longer expected; the aspect of hope in God is changed for the hopelessness of history. Defeatism and fatalism no longer look for unexpected turns in history because they no longer count on the God of whom the Old Testament speaks as the God who alone does marvelous things. One wants to be realistic, one wants to take the reality of the situation seriously. One wants to believe in the laws of history in which prayer and in which God himself have no influence.

This historical pessimism kills the Old Testament faith that looked expectantly to the future, that counted on the works of God, that trusted in the might of God that went far above all that man could ask or think. It is possible for man to live without expectation of great things from God, to live in obeisance to what seems to be the fatalistic course of history. One can be fatalistic about the division of the Church and about the future of missions. But the Word of God denounces this kind of fatalism. Carey’s motto is an arrow from the quiver of the Word: attempt great things for God because you expect great things from God. This is not to say that we should despise the days of small events. Small things that happen in God’s work look very large when seen in their total perspective. But the point is that we must live in expectation of surprising works of God, the works that God will yet do. When we live in this expectation, we shall rise to great deeds, great sacrifices, great consecration.

Fatalism is without doubt one of the most subtle dangers in the Christian life. In the last century fatalism arose from an exaggerated and distorted view of natural science. In our time fatalism rises more often from the inexorable course of history which nothing seems able to change. We shall personally have to withstand the temptation to suppose that we live in a world in which things will go on, one thing after another, closed to the influence of faith and prayer. We shall have to understand and live into the meaning of Israel’s most precious name for God: the Hearer of Prayer. If we understand and live into this ruling theme of the Bible, we shall be expecting great things from God. We shall not fall into pessimism. Neither shall we fall into the defeatism that accompanies pessimism. Living in the consciousness of who God is, we shall expect great things from him and be ready to attempt great things for him. This is, of course, not to say we are called on to give God a hand in the government of his world, nor that we must think that the future of the kingdom of God lies in our hands. We should overestimate our powers if we thought this. What is demanded of us is the faith that overcomes the world. God is able to do more than we ask or think, is able, that is, to do exceedingly more than we ask or think. Let the Church of our time look forward into history with this expectation. Let our expectation in God be a witness to future generations that we did not fall prey to fatalism, but believed in the Hearer of Prayer.

Life And Destiny

Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak (Pantheon, New York, 1958, 559 pp., $5), is reviewed by G. H. Todd, Pastor of Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1903 there appeared in America a book from the pen of John Fox, Jr., which was destined to enjoy great popularity. It was titled The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. The novel opened in a graveyard of the Kentucky mountains. A lad named Chad, accompanied by his dog, watches as neighbors gently lower into a shallow trench the encoffined body of his mother. Nearby are three mounds evincing the tombs of a gaunt mountaineer father, his son, and daughter, victims of a recent plague. As was the case at the burial of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, no funeral service was read, no songs of faith were sung, inasmuch as no circuit rider was in the region at the moment.

It is a far cry indeed from The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come to Pasternak’s vast and intricate novel of recent Russian history, Doctor Zhivago. Both novels have one feature in common. They open with the lugubrious scene of a boy at the open grave of his mother. Amid the chanting of Eastern Orthodox rites, the boy, who is to be known in his maturity as Dr. Zhivago, stands amid the bare autumn landscape as his mother’s coffin is closed, nailed, and lowered into the ground. Beside him stands his maternal uncle, a former Eastern Orthodox priest, who on the morrow will speak to the sorrowing boy of Christ.

Doctor Zhivago is the story of a physician who also indulged in the creation of literature and poetry. Lord Moynihan, the British surgeon, in his Truants has given us an amazing catalogue of medical doctors who have achieved fame in the realm of letters. That high company ranges from “The Beloved Physician Luke” to S. Weir Mitchell, the elder Holmes, Schiller, Rabelais, and A. J. Cronin.

We note other literary works featuring physicians as principal characters. Marlowe and Goethe have immortalized the history of Doctor Faustus. Stevenson has given us his depiction of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In a lighter vein and in our own time, Lloyd Douglas has given us “Dr. Hudson.” Other novelists have portrayed notable physicians, though not casting them as the principal characters. One thinks of Hawthorne’s Dr. Roger Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter and George Eliot’s Doctor Tertius Lydgate in Middlemarch.

When the late Dr. John A. Hutton, Scottish editor of The British Weekly, was in charge of that journal, he wrote with frequency of the masterful Russian novelists of another generation. He had come to regard Dostoevski as the greatest spiritual genius of recent centuries. Joseph Fort Newton, who cherished the hope that Hutton’s observations on Russian literature could find permanent literary expression, told how he wrote of the great Russians, “who know everything and who know so much about the soul of man indeed that our most subtle minds, minds like George Meredith’s even, seem heavy and half awake.”

There are now available two fascinating autobiographies of Pasternak, one appearing in 1931 and titled Safe Conduct, the other, I Remember, appearing in Italian and English in 1959. The son of a celebrated portrait painter and a mother, who was a gifted pianist, a one time child prodigy in music, known as “Little Mozart in Skirts,” he was of Jewish descent and faith. In 1936 he embraced the Christianity of the Eastern Orthodox church. Jewish commentators, on his Nobel prize winning novel, have censured his attitude towards those who hold the Jewish faith as altogether unjust and fraught with the violence and intensity of a recent convert of the Eastern Orthodox faith. Among his earliest memories are those of a Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary and the seminarians, located opposite the residence of his childhood. An avid botanist as a boy, he turned later to music, then to law. Then in Marburg, he studied philosophy under the neo-Kantian, Herman Cohen. In student days, a visit to Italy made a profound impact upon him. His Italian journeys are of peculiar interest as we read his account of them in the light of VanWyck Brooks’ recent and prodigious The Dream of Arcadia, which deals with the influence of Italy on American writers and artists from 1750 to 1915.

Pasternak, who in the 1940s was to have his abject habitat under a stairway in a dingy tenement and receive alms after the fashion of a Hindu holy man, in his youth enjoyed exceptional cultural privileges. Because his father illustrated Tolstoi’s books, he was to know from close range and from the age of four the amazing author of War and Peace. At 13 he began taking long walks with his father and the composer Scriabin and listening eagerly to their highly intellectual conversations. At a later date, he was to know with admiration the German poet, Rilke, and to dedicate to him his initial autobiographical volume.

The plot of Doctor Zhivago embraces some four decades in the career of the principal character, which begins in the early twentieth century period of unrest, culminating in the Russian Revolution. After the death by suicide of his affluent industrialist father and also his mother, he became the ward in the household of a professor of chemistry, whose wife was the daughter of an immensely wealthy father and whose daughter Antonina was one day to become his bride. In those days he also met Larissa Guishar, whose widowed mother of French background had taken up residence in Russia. With Lara he was later to live in adulterous union. Among other characters in the book are the corrupt lawyer and teacher Komarovsky, the seducer of Lara; Evgraf, the doctor’s half brother who ever and again enters the story in a mysterious, Melchizedekan fashion; and Marina, the daughter of a former porter in the home where he spent his later boyhood, and who became the wife of his last years.

World War I marks the beginning of his sorrows. Wrenched from his wife and son, he is wounded and cared for by his old love, Lara. Later in Moscow, after suffering the ravages of the famine and typhus, he took his family to the Ural Mountains. There he is reunited with the ineluctable Lara and, returning from one of his indiscreet calls on her, he is abducted and taken to Siberia as a captive physician. After some years, he returns home to discover that his family have found refuge in Western Europe. From this juncture ensues the melancholy disintegration of his personality. The former professional man ekes out an impecunious existence as a handyman, performing odd chores, until that sorrowful morning when he collapses on a trolley car with a heart attack, and dies among strangers on the street.

The book, though unquestionably powerful, is difficult. Confusion results from the frequent changes in name of the same characters. The style is typically Russian in that it is episodic. A series of pictures is flashed on the screen for the reader’s view.

The book is supposed by many reviewers (Edmund Wilson being chief among them) to be fraught with symbolism in the mode of Melville’s Moby Dick and The Confidence Man, and also of Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce. Edmund Wilson believes that the motif of the book is death and resurrection. After the literary device of the prophet Amos, Pasternak also uses significant puns. The name Zhivago suggests life or living. The legend of St. George is played upon, also the image of the sea, suggesting life and destiny and what Matthew Arnold calls “murmurs and scents of the infinite sea” of immortality.

That the coincidental is one of the thrilling and intriguing features of our life in this world, and indeed of the Bible story, cannot be denied. There are times when one wonders, however, if Pasternak may not Lave overworked it.

The book is worthy of careful observation for its surpassing, poetic descriptions of nature. There are innumerable passages describing snows and snowstorms, so familiar on the Russian scene. The author gives a remarkable description of a thaw, for instance, and of the spell which forest scenes cast over him. There is his marked predilection for the shade of lilac, reminiscent of Amy Lowell and Alfred Noyes in our English poetry. “It was,” says Pasternak, “the color of Russia in her pre-Revolutionary virginity.”

This novel, appearing at a most auspicious moment on the international scene and dealing with the vast figure of Russia bursting into flames, is held by many perceptive critics to be a portrayal of Russia itself in its struggle for freedom, for a recognition of the rights and dignity of the individual, and all the frustrations suffered by those who behind the iron curtain crave for the dawn of liberty and a new day for human rights. The tragic thwarting of the aspirations for freedom are believed to be emblematized by the suffocation which the deteriorated physician suffers as he meets his end on the street car.

Never was there a more incisive indictment of the ruthless, godless, inhuman, and cruelly impersonal system of communism than the sentence which epitomizes Lara’s fate. “One day Larissa went out and did not come back. She must have been arrested in the street at that time. She vanished without a trace and probably died somewhere, forgotten as a nameless number on a list that afterward got mislaid, in one of the innumerable mixed or women’s concentration camps in the north.”

The book contains a number of biblical references, especially to the Gospels, the Resurrection story, and Christ and Mary Magdalene. There are marked traces of the influence of the Eastern Orthodox church. Also, one sees vestiges of the liberal approach of Tolstoi. Pervading the book is an emotional mysticism scarcely consonant with orthodox Christianity but of the true variety that Pasternak tells us charmed him from childhood. He does make many references to Christianity, and reveals a sense of reverence for life as well as an epic lament for all that destroys life.

Unfortunately there is wanting a satisfactory grasp of the sublime and deep truths that mark the heart of orthodox Christian faith, nonetheless there is a vastness about Pasternak and his book which intimates greatness. Certainly it is too early to arrive at any final opinion as to the position this so difficult, yet popular and poetic book will occupy in the future annals of comparative literature.

G. H. TODD

Understanding Barth

Karl Barth, Vol. I, Genèse et Evolution de la Théologie Dialectique, by Henri Bouillard (Aubier, Paris, 1957), is reviewed by Bernard Ramm, Professor of Religion at Baylor University Graduate School.

This work, by a French Jesuit, is the most thorough study of Karl Barth yet made and replaces the work of another Catholic scholar (von Balthasar, Karl Barth: Darstellung und Deutung seiner Theologie) which was supposed to be the fairest summary of Barth’s theology available. There is no question that Barth’s complaint that American Christianity knows him only through the misleading reports of religious journalism is justified. Next to reading Barth himself the finest summary of his work is now before us in the three volumes of Bouillard. With the rapid translation of Barth’s works into English, and with a growing body of reliable interpretations of Barth, there is no longer any excuse for the continued interpretations of Barth in America based upon half-truths or inadequate Barthian materials.

Bouillard traces for us the history of Barth’s own thought. This alone is worthy of a doctor’s degree! This is an invaluable service to the theological world, and should supply any person who wishes to know the judgment of Barth upon his older works especially the Epistle to the Romans. But here we have the most remarkable theological trek of our century—from the religious liberalism of Hermann to the theology of the Word of God (Jesus Christ) of the Church Dogmatics. Bouillard shows that the basic movement of Barth’s thought has been from a theology of religious liberalism dominated by philosophical presuppositions to a theology freed as far as possible from any dominating philosophy and loyal to the early Church creeds, the basic theses of the Reformers, and centered in Jesus Christ.

The second great contribution of Bouillard is to show Barth’s relationship to those who formed the original neo-orthodox circle (Bultmann, Thurneysen, Brunner, and Gogarten); what they had in common; and how they all parted ways, with the exception of Thurneysen. This too, to my knowledge, has never been traced out in detail by any other scholar.

Finally, there is a concluding section on Barth’s political thought and action which does much to clarify many of the statements of Barth which have been so controversial. Barth had a choice of returning to Germany after the war and helping to rebuild the nation, or to continue his theological writing. He chose the latter.

There are a thousand interesting items brought out in this book. A few of them might be mentioned. Barth’s father was conservative in his theology and attempted to guide his son in like paths. There was always a great admiration on the part of Barth for the views of his father. Barth was cured of his noneschatological spirit by a study of premillennial theologians!

In a study that is essentially historical, the learned Catholic offers little criticism. However he does affirm certain things. With reference to the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the Incarnation, and the Virgin Birth, Bouillard believes that Barth is in full agreement with the ancient creeds of the Church. In other matters, such as natural theology, Barth is at opposite pole with Catholicism. And in other matters he rewrites theology so as to be neither Catholic nor traditionally Protestant. In short, the theology of Barth is so radically complex that any simple judgment, any simple rule of classification, would be very inaccurate.

Bouillard can teach us an important lesson in Barth scholarship. The first step is accurate, fair, honest interpretation. Prior to a “hard stand” or a “soft stand” on Barth is a competent, fair, scholarly interpretation of Barth. After we have done this then we are free to bring all the force of our critical judgment to bear. Bouillard, a Jesuit, has given us a classic example of the first step.

BERNARD RAMM

Fascinating And Cozy

20 Centuries of Christianity, by Paul Hutchinson and Winfred E. Garrison (Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1959, 306 pp., $6), is reviewed by Paul Woolley, Professor of Church History, Westminster Theological Seminary.

There is at last a buyers’ market in general church histories. Within this year there has been a revised edition of Walker, a new paper-back by Martin E. Marty, and the volume here under review. They are not duplicates of one another in any sense. Rather, they are three different types of history for three different interests, tastes, and stages of knowledge.

The present book is a fascinating story for the amateur, the tyro, who has little or no background in this field. It is best that the reader be one who likes to have his conclusions presented to him by the author. He should be a man who does not want to think too hard or face too many puzzling problems. Here he will find the answers without having to hunt for them.

The present book is really two in one. The first eight chapters, written by Paul Hutchinson, late editor of The Christian Century, have a warm, rather diffuse style that reads easily. One learns many things, does not get particularly excited about anything, and feels very cozy about the whole business. Big issues are neatly sidestepped. “Human nature is a pretty constant quality, and those who deplore the divisions among Christians today should at least remember that there have been disagreements within the Christian community from the beginning” (p 24). A life of Jesus cannot be written (p. 5). “His followers believed that he rose from the dead” (p. 6). One is not invited to pause and discover whether he actually did or not.

The other 18 chapters (covering the ground from the fourth century to the present) are by Winfred E. Garrison, Professor Emeritus of Church History at the University of Chicago. Here the outlines become sharper, the pulse quickens, and the air is not so warm and sticky. The author knows what he thinks about a subject and lets the reader in on his opinions. Garrison has the ability to contrast a fact with a legend and still give you the privilege of hearing the latter and enjoying any incidental instruction there may be in it.

He has certain opinions about the course of history that are stimulating. The modern world springs largely from the influence of the Renaissance. There were a great many critics of the church beside the Reformers, but the latter thought they should do something about it instead of being armchair critics. The Reformation was not a movement which divided; it was four separate movements which never united. The Reformers believed in biblical infallibility, but we are beyond that stage. There is a warm appreciation of pietism and its contributions to the modern development of the church.

The book is a bit careless about facts in spots. For instance, Servetus was condemned by a Roman Catholic court in France, not Spain. But there is nothing extremely important in these few errors.

Most useful is the clarity with which the dangers that stem from the political claims of the Roman church are outlined.

The chief disappointment of the book is the nebulous character of the Christianity that is summed up in the concluding chapter. The reader is assured that Christianity will survive because it is the only sufficient answer to man’s spiritual need. For that and other reasons it will assuredly survive. But what survives must have much more content, must provide a lot more meat and backbone than can be discovered in this last chapter or indeed in the thrust of the book as a whole. If there were not more to Christianity than the authors tell us about, it would not even be surviving now.

PAUL WOOLLEY

One Aspect Of God

Spirit, Son and Father, by Henry P. Van Dusen (Scribners, 1958, 180 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Edwin H. Palmer, author of The Holy Spirit.

In this book Dr. Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary, sets forth clearly his interpretation of the term Holy Spirit. Whether one agrees with his concepts or not, at least one must recognize that he has performed a service in presenting in lucid fashion this school of thought that reinterprets the classical, historical Christian position on the Holy Spirit.

This is a reinterpretation. According to the author, the Holy Spirit is not the third Person of the Trinity, as the historic Christian Church has always held, but he is an “it.” The “it” is not to be identified with the “Ultimate Divine Being” (pp. 18–19, 25), but is “an aspect or function of God Himself” (p. 116). God has many “aspects” and three of these are symbolized by the terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since God is many-sided, Van Dusen feels that the doctrine of the Trinity has limited God because it expresses only three sides of God (p. 18). In any case, the term Holy Spirit does express one aspect of God. It is a symbol for his “intimacy and potency,” i.e., “God-near and God-mighty” or “God-at-hand and God-at-work” (pp. 18–19).

Having thus emptied the term Holy Spirit of all biblical and Christian content, the author is consistent in asserting that “the concept of Divine Spirit is not an exclusively or even distinctively Christian conviction” (p. 89). Just as the “belief in a triune God is not a distinctively Christian conviction” (p. 153) (the three-fold distinction within the Divine Being is to be found in the religions of Egypt, Neo-Platonism and Hinduism [pp. 151–152]), so also the concept of the Holy Spirit “appears in many religions, both of the ancient and of the modern worlds” (p. 89). On his premise that the term Spirit designates “God Present and God Active,” President Van Dusen is accurate. But it must be remembered that this has nothing to do with the biblical concept of the Holy Spirit.

Because he does not take his starting point in the Bible, he subjects the Bible to a critical process by which he accepts only those references in the Bible that conform to his concept of what the Spirit should be. Thus he considers many of the biblical characterizations of the Spirit as “sub-moral,” “sub-Christian,” and “crudely animistic” (pp. 38–39).

Whether one believes Van Dusen’s reinterpretation is right or wrong depends upon whether one has the Bible or man’s reason as his ultimate authority.

EDWIN H. PALMER

Theology For Evangelism

The Broken Wall, by Markus Barth (Judson Press, Philadelphia, 1959, 227 pp., cloth $3.50, paper $2), is reviewed by Warren C. Young, Professor of Christian Philosophy, Northern Baptist Theol. Seminary.

This volume was written at the request of the department of evangelism of the American Baptist Convention. It is recommended by this department as a basic study book in preparation for the Baptist Jubilee Advance, a united Baptist evangelistic endeavor to extend into the next five years.

Professor Barth has produced a valuable commentary on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Its content is fresh and stimulating. Not everyone will agree with what is said at all times. But likely there will be as much general agreement as there would be with most other commentaries.

The book is divided into four main sections. Part one is a shock treatment. Here Barth presents in condensed form some of the main points raised by critical scholarship. He by no means accepts these criticisms as is evidenced throughout the other three sections of the volume. Nevertheless, this first part is bound to leave a wrong impression in the minds of those who do not quickly grasp his purpose and style.

In the second part Barth elaborates on the central theological themes of Ephesians—the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Holy Spirit. In Paul’s presentation of the work of Christ on the cross he finds the title for his work. Christ, by his death, has broken the wall of partition and has made peace with God for us. The “Broken Wall” then becomes the symbol by which the author seeks to present our Christian obligation and activity today. This symbolism is overdone at times, yet it is often used in a highly stimulating fashion. The idea of the “Broken Wall” must be translated into action in the practical situations of our everyday experience, if Christ is really Lord of all.

Part three is devoted to a discussion of the nature of the Church. Barth rejects quite strongly both sacramentalism and sacrodotalism in his discussion of the Church and its ordinances. Such ideas, he believes, are not to be found in Ephesians, nor in other Pauline writings despite the teachings of many branches of the church today. Baptists will have little difficulty in agreeing with this presentation of the doctrine of the Church.

In the last part Barth comes to a consideration of evangelism or the work of the Church. The Church is a community of people with ethics. Our greatest evangelistic thrust will be evident when we are willing to live the Gospel we claim to believe. Be ethical, walk worthily of your calling; this is the central and basic evangelistic challenge. Christians can hardly doubt the truth emphasized here. However, the question must be raised as to what constitutes the whole function of evangelism. In the last section, “The Gospel for All,” he discusses the matter of eternal judgment versus universalism. At times he hints in the direction of universalism only to retreat from it again. He believes that Christ overcame hell by his death and resurrection, that hell is the departing empire of a lost cause, and a judgment upon Christians because of disobedience (pp. 262–263). We are sent to announce in word and deed to non-Christians their reconciliation by God and with God (p. 265). While we cannot be particularists “neither can we be universalists” (p. 265). In this paradoxical fashion Professor Barth leaves the question.

This volume does not offer a program for evangelism in the traditional sense. Barth is not interested in such a program but rather in presenting the theology and ethics which should motivate all true Christian evangelism. Will this work be a success? Probably not, but this may be in part our fault rather than Barth’s. In our modern church program we have not been strong in teaching the theology undergirding our faith. Hence, lay people studying this book may lack the perspective that is needed to appreciate the effort.

Moreover, the style of writing does not lend itself well to the purpose of the book, and the work is much too long for the study that it is intended to be. Had the author devoted himself more rigidly to his main task, leaving side excursions for another more technical study, he could have accomplished more. If pastors and other leaders are willing to study Ephesians itself and interpret to lay people the main emphases of the author, much can be gained. It will have achieved a major victory if it merely stimulates us to study Ephesians itself.

WARREN C. YOUNG

“Go Ye Therefore …”

Missionary Service in a Changing World, by A. Pulleng (Paternoster Press, 7s.6d), is reviewed by Frank Houghton, Bishop, St. Marks, Warwicks.

The first chapter of this book is entitled “The History of Missionary Work Associated with Assemblies.” And what is an assembly? It is a local ecclesia of what the world calls Plymouth Brethren (or, more specifically, Open Brethren), though its members prefer to be called simply “Christians,” and deny that they are a sect or denomination. The book is of value, however, not only to Christians of the “assemblies,” but to a wider circle. First in interest, if not in importance, is the revelation of the vast scope of the work in non-Christian lands carried on by missionaries from these “assemblies.” Their monthly magazine, Echoes of Service, published at Bath, England, has the names of no fewer than 1,155 missionaries entered in its Prayer List. They are working in 64 distinct areas, and while their emphasis is always on evangelism and the building up of believers into “assemblies” or churches, their methods include most of those used by the denominational missions, such as education, medical work, orphanages, and so forth. Nor do they neglect the more modern media of communication such as radio. Their annual missionary conference in London draws thousands of people to hear, for three nights in succession, the straightforward but thrilling stories of workers who have come direct from their fields overseas. Their organization is of the simplest. They are amongst the purest of the “faith” missions. Every missionary is sponsored as to his fitness by the “assembly” from which he comes, but there is no guarantee of financial support, though the “assembly” recognizes a responsibility to be behind him in gift as well as in prayer. “Missionary enterprise is the projection abroad of the assembly at home” (p. 13). Mr. Pulleng interprets this dictum—to which all who are concerned for world evangelization would assent—both as a challenge to the church at home to give high priority to overseas work, and a warning that the spiritual effectiveness of that work largely depends on the spiritual state of churches in the sending countries.

The second reason for recommending this book is that Mr. Pulleng lays down timeless scriptural principles for the conduct of missionary work, while giving fair recognition to the changes of the past half-century which affect their detailed application. Thus there is value for us all in “Go ye therefore …” as well as a particular interest for those who are not well-informed concerning the world-wide activities of the Brethren assemblies.

FRANK HOUGHTON

Elias Or Jeremias?

Who Do You Say That I Am, by A. J. Ebbutt (Westminster, 1959, 170 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Frank A. Lawrence, Pastor, Graystone United Presbyterian Church, Indiana, Pensylvania.

Westminster Press advertises this book as something that will “clarify basic Christian thought.” Starting with an appeal to keep an open mind and be ready to discard traditional ideas as we approach the Bible, this churchman from the Canadian Maritimes ends up with a Jesus who, though he actually lived, is known only through a collection of error-ridden reminiscences written by nonprimary apostles, and as known, proves to be not virgin born but with moral imperfections. Though he claimed to be the Messiah, the main thrust of his public ministry was to proclaim that man was basically good and needed only to be taught to be human. The Transfiguration is said to be a vision in the mind of Peter caused by his psychological confusion about Jesus.

The author suggests we get rid of such terms as “blood,” “sacrifice,” “substitution,” “satisfaction,” and “propitiation” and bring forth a new framing addition to the Moral Influence theory which will show that “by dying on the Cross, God in Jesus dedicated Himself to the human race.” The post resurrection appearances of the Lord are explained as spiritual appearances in the form of visions objectively conditioned by the immortal spirit of Jesus who had no visible body. He terms the traditional view of hell as “a bad guess at the mystery of the future” and instructs us not to look for a literal, physical Second Coming, since the second advent has already happened many times in a spiritual sense.

The fundamental error of the Dean of the Arts Faculty at Mount Allison University in Canada is that having embraced a fallible Book he ends up with a fallible Jesus who had nothing authoritative to reveal and about whose references to eternal life we must say, “What the nature of that eternal life will be must remain a mystery. Physical research has not given any unequivocal answer to date.”

He seems unable to recognize any view of inspiration between the fundamentalist and liberal position. With the fundamentalist, he says, every word of the Bible must have been given by actual dictation of the Holy Spirit; or, in his position, the Book must be recognized as having its repetitions, inconsistencies, low ethics, and sub-Christian standards. One would expect a Canadian theologian to have passed from the old charges of bibliolatry and dictation long ago in the light of British Theologian J. I. Packer’s evidence that evangelical Protestants never held it. Carl Henry, lecturing at Union Seminary (New York), outlined the conservative position when he said, “Revelation is dynamically broader than the Bible, but epistemologically Scripture gives us more of the revelation of the Logos than we would have without the Bible. This special revelation is communicated in a restricted canon of trustworthy writings, deeding fallen man an authentic exposition of God and his purposes. Scripture itself therefore is an integral part of God’s redemptive activity … unifying the whole series of redemptive acts.”

The author has obviously read widely in the Fosdick-Anderson school, but shows a blind spot (in his material and bibliography) for conservative apologists like Berkouwer, Henry, Kenyon, and Bruce, for textual scholars like Dom B. C. Butler who turns the Markan hypothesis (which the author accepts) on its head, and for Manson of Manchester who insists there is an Aramaic document behind the Greek Q. He seems to reject what Otto has termed “mere sorry empirical knowledge” without hearkening to Craig’s observation that “such empirical facts are integral to Christianity, and if it be cut loose from them, it ceases to be Christianity and becomes a … sorry speculative gnosticism.”

The result of all this critical-historical approach is an emergency of a mild, winsome Jesus who appears out of the speculations and interpretations of buried facts and asks us, “Who do you say that I am?” To which Dr. Ebbutt would have us answer, “The philosophers, theologians, textual critics and I have given no unequivocal reply as yet.”

FRANK A. LAWRENCE

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of “The Declaration and Address” of Thomas Campbell, more than 3,000 members of Christian Churches and Churches of Christ assembled in Atlanta June 24–28.

This annual gathering was unique in many ways. It was made up of ministers and laymen who are generally considered to be a part of the International Convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) and are so reported in its Year Book. But because of the congregational polity of this communion they are free to associate themselves in this testimony for “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” In fact, this North American Christian Convention, which is considered “non-denominational, non-official and non-delegate,” has been meeting for 32 years.

“Christian Unity: Our Unchanging Plea” was the Atlanta theme, consonant with the thrust of the famous document of Thomas Campbell’s written in 1809. More than 4 million church members in America and another million overseas acknowledge this religious heritage, although they are now of three schools of thought as to how “the plea” should be implemented.

Olin W. Hay, convention president, opened the sessions with a definitive address in which he held that true ecumenicity can be achieved in our modern world only if there is a recognition of the authority of Christ, conformity to the New Testament pattern, diversity in matters of human opinion and charity toward all men. Other speakers dealt with Christian unity in church history, in theological terms, with respect to current ecumenical movements, and in its practical aspects among the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. Louis Cochran, author of The Fool of God, an historical novel based on the life of Alexander Campbell, was a special guest of the convention.

Extra-session activities were as colorful and important as the convention proper. Some 60 exhibits represented various publishing, educational, missionary, benevolent and evangelistic agencies supported by “the brethren.”

Over 20 colleges and seminaries (not listed in the Disciples’ Year Book) were represented. When theological liberals took over the major schools of the communion and the means of training a ministry, a “crash program” of education began which has produced amazing results. These rapidly developing schools now enroll over 3,000 students annually, most of which are training for the ministry or mission field. Two schools represented at Atlanta—Milligan College and Johnson Bible College—antedate this new movement and have long been noted for their loyalty to the biblical faith. Among newer schools the largest are Cincinnati Bible Seminary, Lincoln Bible Institute, Kentucky Christian College, Manhattan Bible College, Pacific Bible Seminary, Midwest Christian College, Minnesota Bible College, Atlanta Christian College, and San Jose Bible College.

The missions exhibits told a thrilling story of work on 15 foreign fields by more than 500 missionaries largely trained in the above-mentioned schools. These evangelical agencies are characterized as “direct-support missions” and operate independently of the International Convention’s United Christian Missionary Society. The Philippine Mission is a good example of the work being done by the missions represented in Atlanta. It was established by Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Wolfe and now has 286 churches with 40,000 members in five language districts. Each district has its own training school for workers. Native leadership is in full control of all operations. Within recent months a beautiful six-acre site near the new capital of the Islands has been purchased for Manila Bible Seminary. Last year the Philippine Mission reported 1,428 baptisms at the annual convention where over 4,000 delegates registered.

The youthful mein of the ministers in attendance at Atlanta was noticed by visitors. Despite their conservative Bible-based theological views, these leaders exuded the modern spirit, talked not of the past but optimistically of the future. An exhibit devoted to the Christian Service Camps for youth of the churches gave out information that 36,000 registered in these camps last year. It is quite evident that the “Conservative Disciples” are on the march and that their best days are ahead.

The Atlanta convention was unique in another respect. It passed no resolutions. On this account the local press was hard put to devise newsworthy headlines. The lobbies were the scene of many a hot discussion over integration, Red China, pacifism, a possible steel strike, nuclear fallout, and West Berlin, but no one dared to bring any of these controversial matters to a vote on the floor of the convention. There is an unwritten law that matters of opinion, especially in social and political realms, are not pertinent to a Christian convention. Full individual freedom must be recognized in the application of Christian principles to daily living.

A mass Communion service in the Municipal Auditorium on Sunday climaxed the convention. This traditional observance, in a spirit of deep devotion and commitment to Christ, is characteristic of all national gatherings of the Disciples.

Next year’s convention will be held in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Columbus, Ohio, July 12–15. All arrangements will be in the hands of a Continuation Committee of 100, which is the convention’s only “official” organizational device. Edwin Crouch, an attorney from Columbus, Indiana, was elected president of the committee; Oren Whitten, minister, Largo, Florida, vice president; Hugh D. Morgan, minister, Inglewood, California, secretary; and Judge Gerald A. Fugit, Odessa, Texas, treasurer. T. K. Smith, who resigned as secretary after 25 years of service, was appropriately honored.

Affirming Conservatism

Questions of biblical infallibility and ecumenical cooperation on the foreign mission field brought forth decidedly conservative decisions at last month’s annual synod of the Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Some were inclined to view the decisions as reflecting an increased “fundamentalist” or separatist trend in the staunchly Calvinistic, 500-congregation, quarter-million-member denomination. Others regarded the actions as stemming a “trend to modernism.” The moves seemed to reflect clearly the growing power of an ultra-conservative wing that has been critical in recent years of the younger, sometimes called more progressive, leadership of the denomination and its educational and missionary outreach.

The synod adopted six statements on inspiration and infallibility of Scripture as formulated by the Reformed Ecumenical Synod held in South Africa last year and a resolution of its own which read:

“It is inconsonant with the Creeds to declare or suggest that there is an area of Scripture in which it is allowable to posit the possibility of actual historical inaccuracies” (cf. Art 5 Belgic Confessions, “believing without doubt all things contained therein”).

A study committee was appointed to: (1) study the matters of inspiration and infallibility in the light of Scripture and the creedal standards; and (2) examine further whether views of Dr. John Kromminga, president of the church’s seminary in Grand Rapids, are consistent with the creeds.

The controversy had involved a 1959 Calvin seminary graduate John Hoogland, author of articles in Stromata, seminary student paper. Kromminga and several members of the faculty had defended Hoogland’s right to express himself. However, a senior member of the faculty, Dr. Martin J. Wyngaarden, charged before the synod that the young (41) seminary president had compromised the seminary in his handling of the matter, that he had “committed the seminary in its policies to a drastic reinterpretation” of historic creedal statements concerning infallibility of the Bible.

The synod was subsequently assured that Hoogland agreed with the creedal resolution and, by a near-unanimous vote, he was admitted to the ministry. He plans to enter the Army chaplaincy.

The synod frowned on cooperative training of pastors in the Nigerian mission field as embodied in the Theological College of Northern Nigeria, a united seminary project sponsored by several indigenous African denominations, the Sudan United Mission and the African General Conference. After a full day of debate, it was decided to limit Christian Reformed participation to the continued loan of Dr. Harry Boer as teacher of Reformed theology, a status he has held since 1955. At the same time the synod instructed its Board of Missions and its staff of 40 missionaries in Nigeria to develop its own pastors’ training program with a view to future establishment of a distinctively Reformed theological seminary for training African pastors.

A protest was authorized to be sent to Defense Secretary Neil H. McElroy against the “unnecessary use of the Sabbath for regular training of the National Guard and reserves,” an issue that has been brought to a head in some localities recently and especially by the request for a National Guard officer’s resignation in the Michigan area.

The synod rejected a proposal to establish a special department of religious education within the denomination at this time. It also rejected another of its committee’s recommendations to appoint one of its clergy to a special mission promotion post.

Construction of a half-million dollar Calvin seminary building on the new Knollcrest campus site outside Grand Rapids was given the immediate go-ahead signal. The synod authorized Calvin’s board of trustees to sell the present crowded campus in Grand Rapids. It covers 20 acres with 6 buildings, as compared to the 166 acres of the new Knollcrest campus.

P. D.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Retired Methodist Bishop William Walter Peele, 77, in Laurinburg, North Carolina … Dr. A. Roland Elliott, 64, director of immigration services of Church World Service in Marlboro, New Hampshire … Dr. J. L. McElhany, one-time president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, in Glendale, California … Dr. O. G. Wilson, 67, general superintendent of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, in Houghton, New York.

Appointments: To the newly-created office of executive vice-president (chief administrative officer) of Baylor University, Judge Abner V. McCall … as professor of Christian philosophy and theology at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Thorwald W. Bender … to the Rylands Professorship of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis in the University of Manchester, England, Dr. F. F. Bruce … as professor of journalism at Bethany College, James W. Carty Jr.

Elections: As first woman moderator of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, Miss Frances Kapitzky …

as moderator of the Church of the Brethren, Dr. Edward K. Ziegler … as president of the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop George W. Baber … as moderator of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Virgil T. Weeks … as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Dr. Bernard J. Bamberger … as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hamburg (Germany) Pastor Karl Witte … as president of the Association of Council Secretaries, the Rev. H. W. Hollis.

Resignations: As pastor of Druid Hills Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Thomas Albert Fry Jr. (to accept the pastorate of First Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas) … as executive secretary of the American Bible Society, the Rev. Richard H. Ellingson … as president of Scarritt College, Dr. Foye G. Gibson.

Grant: (Fulbright) to Dr. Ned B. Stonehouse, dean of faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, as lecturer in New Testament at the Free University of Amsterdam.

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

To assess the magnitude of Billy Graham’s Australasian campaign, CHRISTIANITY TODAYwent to pastors and church officials who worked within the organization of the meetings and thus were in the best position to determine what really happened. Here are their comments, which represent views from ministers of various denominations and shades of theology:

THE VERY REV. S. BARTON BABBAGE, Anglican Dean of Melbourne: “The crusade has given to the churches a fresh understanding of the place and purpose of evangelism. Evangelism is no longer suspect. It is now seen to be the primary function of the church. And the consequence is a determination to continue the work of evangelism. The churches are again on the job.”

DR. IRVING C. BENSON, minister of Wesley Methodist Church, Melbourne: “The crusade has been a spiritual phenomenon challenging compromise and complacency, pleading for full personal committal to Christian living. Whatever losses there will be, the fruit will abide to the enrichment of churches and the strengthening of the moral character of the community. To me the outstanding lesson of the crusade has been the revelation of the spiritual hunger in the hearts of people whom one would never suspect of it. What emerges from this crusade is that evangelism must be the central and constant purpose of the church.”

THE REV. E. C. BURLEIGH, president of the South Australian Baptist Union and principal of the South Australian Theological College: “Beyond the wonderful response in attendances and decisions during the crusade was the supreme experience of the manifestation of God’s Spirit. Theological students were reminded of the importance of the Scriptures, of the necessity of personal commitment to Christ, and of the minister’s constant task of seeking men for Him. Our faith is stronger through the crusade.”

THE REV. GORDON S. FREEMAN, immediate past president of the Baptist Union of West Australia: “The reality far surpassed the expectations. It had to be seen to be believed. Perth was never like this—West Australians crowding to hear the Gospel. The anticipation, the action, the inspiration was soon over and gone, but the Christian Church in Western Australia carries on the work with deep and abiding gratitude to God for his visitation in this, our time.”

A Place In Perspective

Billy Graham returned home this month to his rustic mountain dwelling at Montreat, North Carolina, hopeful of a summer’s rest. He had been away for six months, during which he experienced possibly the greatest trials but certainly the greatest victories of his already illustrious ministry.

Clearly the Australasian campaign stirred more religious interest than was ever before generated “down under.” A more precise cataloguing of the crusade in historical perspective must await the outcome of follow-up, but a place among the major religious phenomena of the twentieth century seems assured. Here’s why:

—Grass roots penetration of the Gospel was so extensive that even the most optimistic of Australian churchmen were amazed. With overwhelmingly favorable press, radio, and television coverage, virtually the entire population became keenly aware that an evangelistic message was being proclaimed.

—Scope of cooperation between churches and denominations was on a scale few thought possible in this day. The land saw true ecumenism at work. The unity was a unity of purpose: evangelism.

—Public response was likewise unprecedented for a Graham campaign, as a popular topic of conversation, in enthusiastic crusade participation, and—most important—in number of inquirers.

—Depth of social effect was also in evidence in unusual measure even for the most ideally-planned of evangelistic endeavors. Conspicuous aspects: the reports of reduced crime and increased Bible sales.

Graham’s Australasian crusade reached an aggregate attendance of more than 3,250,000. The number of inquirers topped 142,000. The crusade was comprised of 114 separate meetings, plus 3,000 “land-line relay services.”

Did Graham detect among ministers any increased respect for the authority of the Bible as the Word of God?

“I most certainly did,” said the evangelist. “There are a number of new books on the authority of the Bible which are making a great impact. Ministers working with us in the crusade confirmed this new interest.”

The spiritual triumphs of the crusade take on still more meaning when considered against the adverse circ*mstances encountered. A month before the scheduled start of the meetings, Graham was stricken with an eye ailment. Doctors prescribed extended rest, and there was doubt whether it was advisable for the patient to begin another strenuous campaign. Fears increased when the eye failed to respond immediately to treatment, but Graham went ahead with only a week’s delay. Slowly his vision improved until, as of early July, the affected eye was about “90 per cent normal.” With winter approaching, weather posed as an obstacle, too. Turnouts were so great that, for the most part, only large outdoor arenas would suffice, and the meetings were at the mercy of the elements. But rain did not prove to be greatly detrimental.

Then there was the geographic problem—how to effectively cover so vast an area (Perth is 3,350 miles from Auckland, as far as New York is from Algiers). Cooperation from radio and television stations helped to bridge the gaps.

To be aware of what really happened in Australia is to see how contrary to fact are published accounts which assert that the demand for Graham’s message is declining. Such error, one observer noted, is quite possibly wishful thinking of those who refuse to recognize Graham’s successes as the blessing of God, who cannot explain his popularity otherwise, and thus hope that he will soon pass from the religious spotlight.

One of the most heartening aspects of the crusade was the prospect of excellent follow-up in each place where meetings were held. Graham indicated that he was satisfied the system could efficiently assure subsequent spiritual counsel for inquirers. Knowing of the follow-up, he said, the team left with “peace at heart.” The story of Australasian evangelism, 1959, is necessarily well-punctuated with superlatives. Considering that what transpired was the manifestation of an omnipotent God, Graham and his team could only be grateful that it was so.

THE REV. D. M. HIMBURY, principal of the Baptist College of Victoria: “The greatest problem which confronts the ministerial candidate is to resolve the tension between his consciousness of the divine call to active service and the necessity for academic study which the churches rightly lay upon him. The Graham crusade has done much to resolve this tension in the minds of our students. In the counselling classes and the work they did following the meetings they have discovered their own inadequacies and need of training. They have come back to us with a deep longing for a well-integrated theology that will enable them, by God’s grace, to meet the great spiritual hunger of the Australian people which the crusade has brought vividly to our attention. Petty doctrinal differences, so characteristic of a theological college, have been transcended by the new urgency which has been brought to our work.”

THE REV. A. W. R. MILLIGAN, secretary of the Methodist Conference of Victoria and Tasmania: “Thousands have come to know Christ as Lord, but even more important is the fact that Christians in general now have a new concern for others. There is a buoyancy in my church, and within the whole community of Methodism. There is a new sense of expectation and a new hope that was not there before the crusade.”

THE REV. DAVID LIVINGSTONE, Anglican rector from Kingsford, Sydney: “While there is some evidence that some inquirers have had no genuine spiritual experience, nothing has ever hit the ordinary person so hard as this crusade has done. Congregations, Bible classes, and study groups have greatly increased attendances. In almost every house visited the people themselves now introduce spiritual topics, something very rarely seen before the crusade. Many workmen tell me that there is now more honesty and better work being done in factories and offices.”

THE RIGHT REV. MARCUS LOANE, Bishop Coadjutor, Anglican Diocese of Sydney: “Sydney has never been so widely or deeply stirred as it has been during this crusade. The many thousands who have crowded the meetings at the showground throughout the month and who have responded to the invitation at every meeting have revealed a spiritual hunger which was scarcely suspected. There is perhaps hardly a church in the metropolitan area which is not now rejoicing in those who have declared themselves willing to put their trust in Christ and receive him as their Lord and Saviour. The crusade has unified all the churches in a fellowship which has proved more real and effective than we have ever known.”

THE REV. K. A. MCNAUGHTON, pastor of the Swanston Street Church of Christ, Melbourne: “Ours is what Americans call a downtown city church. We gave all cooperation in the crusade. Now we have counsellors who speak of the wonderful training they received and who are looking for further opportunities of service. We have new members in the church. People testify to the spiritual awakening God has given them. Our work has been uplifted and helped.”

THE REV. GEORGE NASH, minister of Albert Street Methodist Church, Brisbane: “Australia has never experienced a nationwide religious revival such as many older countries have known. There are many signs that under the ministry of Dr. Billy Graham such a nationwide revival of religion has begun amongst us. In Queensland we have seen the largest crowds that have ever gathered for a religious service.”

THE REV. GORDON POWELL, minister of St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church, Sydney: “Sydney is a pleasure-loving city. Its people have been described as amiable pagans. Its church people have always had a struggle and too often been weak and defeated. What a difference there is now! There is a spirit of gaiety and confidence amongst the church people. Morale is at an all-time high and all the city is talking religion and the churches, working joyfully together, feel a new strength. We believe it is the beginning of the first big revival in our history. God has done great things whereof we are glad.”

Where Now?

Billy Graham’s next engagement is a week-end evangelistic series in Little Rock, Arkansas, scheduled to coincide with the opening of integrated public schools there.

From the Little Rock meetings September 12–13 Graham plans to travel to Wheaton (Ill.) College, his alma mater, where a centenary year observance is to be launched.

Much of the remainder of the evangelist’s fall schedule will be taken up by a month-long crusade in Indianapolis starting October 6.

Other definite plans include a tour of Africa next year and an eight-week crusade in Philadelphia in the summer and fall of 1961.

Graham also hopes to conduct additional campaigns in Europe within the next several years. In addition, he and his aides are studying the possibility of meetings in Chicago and Washington.

THE REV. LANCE SHILTON, Anglican rector of Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide: “The Christian community in Adelaide was strong, but small, prior to the crusade. Now it has been greatly strengthened so that the message of the Gospel has become an everyday topic. The Bible has again become the supreme authority, and the evangelical has become evangelistic. Church members have become trained personal counsellors. Hundreds are still asking, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ The churches are now equipped to give the answer!”

THE VERY REV. MARTIN SULLIVAN, Anglican Dean of Christchurch: “The clear evidence is available that thousands of people in New Zealand were touched by the Spirit of God in the Billy Graham crusade and responded to the challenge. I write out of direct personal experience of what happened in one city, but we know that the whole country was affected in the same way. In the first place, many men and women made a direct commitment to Jesus Christ. Secondly, there are thousands who have made an act of dedication. Above all, every single person who has made a commitment has been brought into a Christ-led flock.”

THE REV. ALAN WALKER, minister of Central Methodist Mission, Sydney: “We have come … to the end of the greatest series of religious meetings in the history of Australia. Only the Spirit of God, the Christian gospel and a Christian preacher could have produced this miracle … Life for many of us will never be the same again. Lives have been changed, homes reunited, churches quickened. Humbly, gratefully, we acknowledge the goodness of God.”

DR. E. H. WATSON, director, department of evangelism, Baptist Union of New South Wales: “Church life in Sydney has been revolutionized. Baptists report greatly increased attendances and many added to membership. The city has been jolted into an awareness of God’s power to change lives.”

DR. A. H. WOOD, president-general of the Methodist Church in Australasia: “The Graham crusade has been the most remarkable religious event of this generation in Australia. The numbers attending the meetings night after night have been one amazing evidence of success. The many thousands who have responded in each city have given the churches an opportunity which they have not known before. The Methodist Church has wholeheartedly cooperated and as its official head I pay the heartiest tribute for what we have seen and experienced. To God be the glory!”

Team Thoughts

Here are observations of Billy Graham’s team members who made the trip to Australasia with him:

CLIFF BARROWS, song leader: “The enthusiasm for the music of the crusade was wonderful. Many thousands registered to sing in the choirs and I heard numerous testimonies of tremendous blessing experienced by these volunteers.”

DR. PAUL MADDOX, personal assistant to Graham: “The manner in which ‘Operation Andrew’ was utilized impressed me particularly. Delegations were rounded up each night by interested Christians who had as their goal that 80 per cent of their group be un-churched people. And they met that goal consistently!”

GRADY WILSON, associate evangelist: “We had the greatest church support and the greatest harmony that we have experienced anywhere. There was sincere heart cooperation and you could sense it. The enthusiasm was also tremendous. When we left Australia, for example, some 6,000 people stood in the rain at the airport as we boarded our plane.”

GEORGE BEVERLY SHEA, soloist: “What do I remember about Australia? God’s presence in the services—the Holy Spirit’s convicting power and his guidance. I shall never forget, moreover, the people so friendly and so hungry to know God and learn again of his love and provision for their personal redemption through the gift of his Son, our Lord.”

TEDD SMITH, pianist: “From the first day of our arrival in Australia we were all made aware of the urgency of this Mission. Christian people had prayed for years for a spiritual awakening. Now the time had come and God couldn’t fail.

“What thrilling meetings these were. They have enriched all of our lives in an unprecedented way and given each of us a new dedication to God and His service.”

Thank You

Back in the United States, Billy Graham expressed his personal thanks to Christians who have been remembering him in prayer during the months of his Australasian campaign.

Graham said he was deeply grateful for the intercession in his behalf when he was ailing and in behalf of the meetings.

Ganis And Losses

Korean Threat

A controversy between two Presbyterian groups in the National Christian Council of Korea last month threatened the existence of the 13-year-old interdenominational organization, according to informed sources in Seoul.

Crux of the situation was that since the Korean War, Presbyterians, who make up half of this country’s Christians and three-fourths of its Protestants, have been split several ways.

Largest of these branches is the Presbyterian Church in Korea which has about 75 per cent of all Presbyterians. It has been locked in a bitter struggle with the second-ranking Presbyterian Church of the Republic of Korea over the latter’s claim to being the original Korean Presbyterian Church. The ROK body, which represents about 15 per cent of the Presbyterians, is linked with the United Church of Canada.

Key point was the majority General Assembly’s demand that the ROK Church give up its claim and number its General Assembly meetings from 1953, the year of the split. Otherwise, the majority body said, it cannot continue membership in the NCCK alongside “a competitive group which claims to be us.”

NCCK delegates from the larger body have been ordered by their own General Assembly to withdraw from the council if the ROK group refuses to yield its claim and adopt the new numbering.

Outsiders, however, saw little chance that the ROK Assembly would comply, since a number of court cases over disputed property have hinged on the question of which group is the true parent body.

The Holiness Church of Korea, third largest co-operating body in the NCCK, also threatened to withdraw if the main Presbyterian group ended its council membership.

Meanwhile, major American missionary groups in Korea were also involved, because the NCCK constitution grants them council membership only so long as they are associated with a national church which is itself a member. Withdrawal of the Presbyterian Church in Korea would automatically put half the Protestant mission force outside the only overall co-operative body for Protestant organizations in Korea.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Korea is scheduled to meet in September

Protestant Panorama

• The Department of Defense is joining the Foundation for Religious and Social Action in the Civil Order (FRASCO) in compiling a “bookshelf” on democracy versus communism. The inter-faith foundation, dedicated to mobilizing religious forces more effectively against communism, hopes to select 20 books as a nucleus.

• A $1,750,000 damage suit has named the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago as a defendant. The suit charges the archdiocese with negligence in a parochial school fire which claimed 97 lives last December.

• Eighty holiness movement churches in Egypt, with more than 5,000 members, are uniting with the U. S. Free Methodist Church.

• A series of ads in nationally circulated magazines implying that beer is “good for you” violates federal regulations, Clayton M. Wallace, executive director of the National Temperance League, declared in a protest last month to the Federal Trade Commission.

• The Church of Scotland is closing two of its mission hospitals in Northern Rhodesia because of financial and staff problems. Racial strife is said to have been responsible for the personnel difficulties.

• Mennonites are operating their first mental hospital in South America, located at West Filadelfia, Paraguay.

• North Carolina Methodists will seek to win 100,000 converts in an evangelistic campaign to be launched this fall. “We have been playing with evangelism too long,” said Walter F. Anderson, state Methodist official.

• Hope College in Holland, Michigan, plans a large expansion program, beginning with a new dormitory to accommodate 160 women students.

• Pope John XXIII is studying English and hopes to become fluent in the language within a year, according to Rome Radio. His teacher, it was reported, is Msgr. Thomas Ryan, a Vatican official and a native of Ireland.

• An early summer session of the General Assembly of the Hungarian Lutheran Church marked the group’s first meeting since 1956, when an attempt was made to weed out pro-Communist leaders. The latest assembly was held in Budapest for the announced purpose of “restoring legal status to the church.”

• An estimated 2,055 nuns and priests teaching in U. S. public schools form the backdrop of a 16 mm. sound film being premiered this month in key cities across the country. “Captured,” a semi-documentary, is being released by Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

• Among latest recipients of Federal Communications Commission FM broadcasting permits: New York’s Riverside Church and the Great Commission Gospel Association of Atlanta. The Selby Avenue Gospel Mission of St. Paul, Minnesota, has submitted an application for a similar permit. Moody Bible Institute hopes to have a new AM station on the air by next January, this one to serve western Illinois and eastern Iowa.

• Work is expected to begin in 1962 on a $2,800,000 university in western Nigeria. U. S. Southern Baptists hope to raise about 90 per cent of the cost.

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY is one of 250 publications on display at this summer’s American exhibition in Moscow.

• Bishop Arthur J. Moore observed the 50th anniversary of his conversion this spring by holding a week-long series of evangelistic meetings in the Waycross, Georgia, Methodist church where he made that commitment.

• South African Prime Minister H. F. Verwoerd, in a speech to the national senate at Capetown, demanded last month “strong action” against Dr. Joost de Blank, Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, for “libelous” attack on the government’s apartheid.

• Oklahoma, which voted repeal in April, now has its first liquor control law which levies a stiff whiskey tax and bans public drinking.

Religious Assemblages

Public Or Private?

Delegates to the Augustana Lutheran Church’s 100th annual convention recorded opposition to establishment of parochial schools for secondary education. They expressed preference for tax-supported public schools in approving a report which called on the church’s 600,000 members to “share as fully as possible in strengthening and improving them.” But the report also stated that the church “recognizes the right to establish in certain areas such privately-financed, high-quality Christian schools as will not destroy the effectiveness of the public schools of any community.”

The convention, held in Hartford, Connecticut, last month, also: adopted a policy of granting complete autonomy to mission churches; authorized a faith healing study; and urged congregations to support laws aimed at alleviating mental health problems.

Delegates heard an address in behalf of the ecumenical movement by Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, president of the National Council of Churches and pastor of an American Baptist Church in St. Louis.

The Augustana Lutheran Church was founded by Swedish Lutheran immigrants who settled in the Mississippi Valley during the mid-nineteenth century. The church plans to merge with three other Lutheran bodies to form a denomination representing some 3,000,000 communicants.

Here are reports of other church conventions held last month:

At Plymouth, Massachusetts—“Stepping Stones in the Second Century Crusade” was the theme of the 80th meeting of the Baptist General Conference of America, with the text taken from Joshua 4:6: “What mean ye by these stones?”

More than 1,100 delegates and visitors were welcomed by Carl Holmberg, pastor of the host church (Trinity Baptist of nearby Brockton) who later was elected moderator, succeeding Dr. Virgil Olson. Based on the conference text, themes of sermons included: “Stone of Foundation” (1 Cor. 3:11); “Stone of Testimony” (1 Sam. 7:12); “Stone of Advance” (1 Pet. 2:4,5) and “Stone of Dedication” (Joshua 24:26). The “second century” referred to in the theme takes note of the 100 years of Baptist General Conference fellowship.

Reports of advance and informative programs were presented by boards of Bible school and youth, publication, education, men’s and women’s work, and missions.

Twenty-eight new churches were welcomed, and two new district conferences, Alaska and Rocky Mountain, recognized.

Significant changes were voted into the constitution: The words “of America” are to be deleted from the name of the church in view of its increasing international scope. (Some years ago the word “Swedish” was deleted as the group experienced transition from a strongly Scandinavian influence to a new Americanized church.)

A new office, that of general secretary of the conference, was instituted to replace the office of executive secretary of the board of trustees. The Rev. Lloyd Dahlquist of the Northwest Church of Chicago was named to fill the position.

At Ocean Grove, New Jersey—Some 5,000 delegates were on hand for the annual conference of the Church of the Brethren, which numbers approximately 200,000 communicants. A statement was issued in behalf of the denomination urging Christians to bring the “full power of the Gospel” to bear on national and international situations. The message deplored the “widespread lostness of men in every community and class” and recognized their need for “radical healing.”

Delegates adopted another statement which asserted that there can be no stable peace in Europe as long as “unnatural, illogical and unjust” provisions of World War II treaties prevail. They urged abolition of capital punishment and an end to nuclear weapons testing. They said that clergymen should not be required to reveal confidences in court.

At Anderson, Indiana—A special observance marking the 50th anniversary of overseas missionary work by the Church of God (with headquarters at Anderson) highlighted its annual General Ministerial Assembly. A special fund was established to aid missionary expansion.

The assembly voted to change the name of Pacific Bible College to Warner Pacific College in honor of Daniel S. Warner, first editor of the Gospel Trumpet, national Church of God weekly founded in 1881.

At Kingston, Ontario—Opposition to the liquor trade and a demand that the Ontario government give “a larger share” of its liquor taxes to the Alcoholism Research Foundation were voiced in a resolution adopted by the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. The resolution “wasn’t worth the paper it was written on,” retorted the Rev. Emlyn Davies, who declared that the government should not be asked to legislate what the churches had failed to achieve.

At Rochester, Minnesota—In a resolution which noted that “the cause of orthodox Christianity and democratic government have both flourished in the climate of religious liberty,” delegates to the 28th annual meeting of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches urged church members to resist all efforts “to blur the lines” of church-state separation. Another action put delegates of the 950-congregation association on record as being “unequivocally and unalterably” against U. S. or U. N. recognition of Red China.

At Rockford, Illinois—Retiring President Theodore W. Anderson told nearly 1,500 delegates and visitors to the 74th annual meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church of America that “we should seek better contact and possibly an ultimate merger with churches similar to our own in convictions and activities.” The church has some 58,000 members in 529 congregations.

At Berkeley, California—An informal vote taken at the 70th annual convention of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church showed preference for complete unity in a proposed merger with three other Lutheran bodies, rather than retention of identity as a separate synod.

At Denver, Colorado—The 75th anniversary conference of the Evangelical Free Church of America adopted a resolution supporting Congressional legislation which would ban the serving of liquor on commercial flights. A record number of 760 voting delegates also approved establishment of a junior college in British Columbia and authorized possible relocation of Trinity Seminary and Bible College in Chicago.

At Boston—Some 7,500 delegates, representing all major continents, attended the annual meeting of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist. The Christian Science Board of Directors issued a message citing the need for a deeper understanding of spiritual resources.