Page 5732 – Christianity Today (2024)

Cleaver, Charlie, And Chuck

Last month the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page story on the spiritual revival supposedly sweeping the prisons of our land. According to reporter Russ Chandler, Eldridge Cleaver “accepted Christ,” three former members of the Manson gang professed their faith in Jesus, and Charlie Manson himself asked a chaplain for a Bible. In his front-page story Chandler also recounted the conversion experience of ex-Watergater and ex-con Chuck Colson.

Personally, I’m all for conversions And I’m not trying to be like the self-righteous crowd in Luke 19 who scoffed at tax collector Zacchaeus’s newfound interest in Christ. But I am concerned with what the media and the Christian community will do with these new converts.

I hope we’ll let them alone long enough for them to mature in their faith. But if we do, it will be unusual. I can’t read through a month’s worth of Christian periodicals without coming across an interview with Charles Colson or an excerpt from his new book. Charles Colson is hot stuff in the Christian world.

Why? Is it because he’s an extremely knowledgeable Christian? Probably not. Is it because he has walked with God for many years and has insights to share with us who are relative rookies in the faith? No. Is it because he’s new to the scene and has a great deal of fresh enthusiasm to share with some of us who have lost the initial glow? That’s partially true. But there are lots of other new Christians we could listen to if that was our prime motive.

I think we’ve made Colson our latest Christian celebrity because he was a former hatchet man for Richard Nixon. He was a celebrity before he even knew us. Colson was infamous. A bad dude. And because of his infamy and former badness, we want him to come to our meetings, appear in our magazines, and speak to our people.

I call that spiritual abuse on our part. We’re so excited about having our ears titillated by “pre-Christian exploits” that we never stop to consider what it means to “bring along a brother too fast.” What does it do to a new Christian to thrust him suddenly into the limelight? I contend it does very little good. Colson may survive; I certainly hope he does. But if he does it will be in spite of, not because of, us.

And I hope in our excitement for Eldridge Cleaver’s new birth and our desire for Charlie Manson’s conversion that we analyze why we’re excited and why we’re desirous. I hope it isn’t because we’re looking forward to having a new celebrity when we’ve exhausted Colson. That wouldn’t be good for us. And it certainly wouldn’t be good for Cleaver, Charlie, and Chuck.

EUTYCHUS VII

Good News

Harold Lindsell’s column “Egalitarianism and Scripture Infallibility” (Current Religions Thought, March 26) contains some very good news for Christian women. He makes the declaration that even within the church most people generally agree “that women should have the same rights as men: equal pay for the same jobs; equal opportunity for positions generally limited to men; the right and freedom to pursue any career, to own and control property, to obtain credit cards, and the like.” Nor does he exclude married women from this list of freedoms—a significant advance in the evangelical position.

Furthermore, Lindsell is willing to grant full equality to the single woman without any reference to “coming under the umbrella of a man’s protection”—whether it be her father, the elders in the church, or some other “guardian.” This, too, is a considerable concession for the evangelical church. Apparently, so long as a woman does not marry, she is fully equal with all men. That is good news indeed.

MARGARET HANNAY

Westerlo, N. Y.

Praise God for the likes of Harold Lindsell and Elisabeth Elliot, who are willing to question the new wave of “biblical feminism.” Lindsell rightly points out the deeper issue of biblical authority which is at stake in the demand for egalitarianism in the family and church. Somehow the Scanzoni and Mollenkott crowd have seemingly polarized the issue between those who are pro-women and those who have chauvinized the Bible. Lindsell speaks for many of us whose desire is to love our wives and sisters as Christ loves his church, without giving up Jesus’ hierarchical view of the universe.

Mrs. Elliot rightly points out (Eutychus and His Kin, Feb. 13) the “cultural” origins of the feminist position as the liberation movement which finds its liberty not in biblical submission but in the power-plays demands for self-rights. Certainly women and all others towards the bottom of the social totem pole have had their civil rights ripped off, and these inequities should be corrected; but as evangelicals we must refuse to give the feminists a “carte blanche” to decimate the body of Christ and the Christian home with their demands.

MARK PETTERSEN

Twelfth Avenue Baptist Church

Emporia, Kans.

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations just recently issued a “Report on the Equal Rights Amendment” which addresses some of the same issues raised in Dr. Lindsell’s article.… While encouraging efforts to give women equal rights before the law, our commission expressed major reservations regarding the Equal Rights Amendment. The assumption that equality in its absolute sense will promote the general welfare, an assumption on which the ERA appears to be based, conflicts with the Scriptures’ insistence that unity in and under God is the intended goal of God’s redemptive activity (Gal. 3:28, “… for you are all one in Christ Jesus”). Equal rights for women is a commendable goal, but not at the cost of the denigration of what the infallible Scriptures have to say about the roles and relationships inherent in God’s creation of the two sexes.

SAMUEL H. NAFZGER

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Commission on Theology and Church Relations

St. Louis, Mo.

I appreciated Dr. Lindsell’s discussion of egalitarian versus hierarchical views of the marriage relation. Two items, however, cause me some concern. One is Lindsell’s equation of Paul’s witness to the resurrection of Christ with his views of the marriage relationship, which later Paul himself plainly says are peculiarly his own (1 Cor. 7:6, 25). Does this mean that one cannot accept the inerrancy of Paul’s view of the Resurrection without also insisting that Christian women wear veils in worship (1 Cor. 11:4–13) and maintain absolute silence in church (1 Cor. 14:34)?

I am also disturbed by the implication that those who do not share Lindsell’s particular interpretation of inerrancy are therefore “not evangelical.” The Bible itself puts the distinction between “evangelical” and non-evangelical in quite another place, namely, affirmation of the deity and lordship of Jesus (1 John 4:2–3).

W. T. PURKISER

San Diego, Calif.

Not ‘Best’ But Worthy

With respect to Eutychus VII’s unhappy communion experience in a Midwest church (Feb. 13), be assured that Decision magazine did not vote it or any other church into a category of “ten best churches.” Over a period of several years we studied eighteen churches around the world, and carried the results in a series called “Great Churches of Today.” We did not presume to consider these churches better than others, but we did find them worthy of treatment.

SHERWOOD E. WIRT

Editor

Decision

Minneapolis, Minn.

Wonderful ‘Truth’

God bless Edith Schaeffer for her wonderful contribution to your splendid magazine! Currently, her wonderfully illuminating article “Truth Translated” (The Witness Stand, Feb. 27) especially blessed my soul!

MRS. IDA GRAHAM

McPherson, Kans.

Whose Responsibility?

In a recent editorial (“Clear Away the Cloud,” March 12) you strongly urged government action at the executive or legislative level that would make missionaries “off limits” to the CIA. You have tacitly endorsed Senator Mark Hatfield’s bill (S-2784), which states in part, “… no person shall solicit or accept the services of any member of the clergy or any employee, or affiliate of a religious organization, association, or society, to gather intelligence for the Agency (CIA) or to participate in any Agency operation.” The laudable intent of this proposed legislation, as well as the motivation for your editorials, is widely recognized. However, I have some rather serious reservations about the methodology being advocated to solve this knotty problem. I don’t believe Senator Hatfield’s bill would be found constitutional in the courts, and you may be encouraging the missionary community to look in the wrong direction for a solution.

One of the sensational news stories of 1964 was the murder in Mississippi of civil-rights activists Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney. The case was broken by the dedicated efforts of a Methodist minister, Delmar Dennis, who was a principal FBI underground operative in the Ku Klux Klan. A current news story is that of a United Methodist laywoman, Adelle Noren, who told a U. S. Senate subcommittee that she reported on activities of clergy and lay persons to the Chicago police department as an undercover agent between 1972 and 1975. Mrs. Noren was concerned about certain Methodist lay groups which had been cited as “Communist fronts.”

Some people may argue that the roles assumed by the Rev. Mr. Dennis and Mrs. Noren in those instances were highly inappropriate for church leaders. However, I think our constitution guarantees them and others the right to assist the FBI at home, or the CIA abroad, if they elect to do so

Missionary boards are at liberty to adopt whatever policy they determine best for their own missionaries, and missionaries are bound by those policies. This is where the integrity of the missionary must be established and maintained. It is not the responsibility of the government to do it for them. The nonrecruitment policy announced by the director of the CIA is in order and helpful, but the missionary community should take it from there.

FLOYD ROBERTSON

Secretary of Public Affairs

National Association of Evangelicals

Washington, D. C.

Both Sides Of Inerrancy

Francis Schaeffer does not speak for a very responsible or historically defined evangelicalism when he seeks to make his own understanding of biblical inspiration the watershed issue which determines whether true evangelical commitment is present in a group or an individual. Regeneration is the only valid such watershed issue, and it is disturbing to find CHRISTIANITY TODAY supporting Schaeffer’s stance (“Are Evangelicals Outward Bound?”, March 26), and thus fostering division among evangelicals. There are many fine evangelicals who hold to a high view of Scripture without the demand for strict inerrancy which Schaeffer feels is necessary, and there is at present a great deal of concern among many evangelical scholars to define this area in a way which specifically does not compromise the heart issues of evangelical belief and practice. CHRISTIANITY TODAY would be playing a more constructive role for all evangelicals if it were open to both sides of the current debate.

JAMES A. HEDSTROM

Madison, Tenn.

Would Augustine Have Enjoyed Picasso?

Beware the local movie house! Satan lurks there! At least my mother thought so. As a child she was careful not to walk near the neighborhood theater for fear the Devil would snatch her right off the street.

Many Christians, when confronted with “modern” abstract painting, remind me of my mother. Afraid of being caught in the clutches of some obscene philosophy, they refuse their senses the rich feast of a painting by a master like Picasso. His philosophy may be lost and despairing, but his paintings as paintings—their colors, their lines—are simply magnificent. And praise God I can enjoy them!

Many of the great artists of the twentieth century, while being slaves to godless philosophies, were masters of composition. Reject their philosophies, yes, but only after savoring their achievements as painters.

Just what is meant by “modern art”? Actually “modern” is misleading. What is usually referred to as modern art is abstract art as it evolved in the twentieth century, beginning with the impressionists at the turn of the century and culminating with the abstract expressionists in the 1950s. Usually it is distinguished from “contemporary art,” that is, what is happening in the art world now.

More generally, most people label any abstract painting “modern.” I will use the term in this broader sense while not forgetting the historical context.

As we stopped before a painting by Paul Klee at the Denver Art Museum recently, a friend asked me, “What do you think he was trying to say with that?” The question is a good one in its place, but to ask it before one examines the painting as a painting is the quickest way to become puzzled and bored at an art museum. We should encounter a painting as a message only after we have encountered it as a painting.

Anna Pavlova, asked to explain her dancing, snapped at her interviewer, “If I could say it I wouldn’t have danced it!” Painters are painters first, philosophers second. Don’t rob the artist of his distinctive function by reversing his roles.

But if the message of a painting reflects an unchristian world view, does the believer have any business enjoying it at all? St. Augustine suggests some answers to this question.

Augustine was a poet before his conversion. He had tasted the sweet wine of sensuous pleasures in the various arts. Yet he struggled to find something deeper. Could sensory enjoyment be the only goal of art? Augustine recalls this inner tension in his Confessions: “My mind carefully examined the different qualities of the sensory impressions that were dinning at the ears of my heart; and all the while I was straining to catch your inner melody, beloved Truth.”

Augustine answered his own question with a resounding no: art is not merely sensuous pleasure. The eternal God was the “inner melody” he begged to hear, the sound he finally captured when he became a Christian. After his conversion, though, Augustine did not shut off his senses. Nor did he wish to. Instead he discovered in God a reason for enjoying the sensuous pleasures of art.

To begin with, Augustine placed the Creator-God at the center of aesthetics. All of creation bears the marks of His hand. And since God is not chaos, an underlying harmony characterizes nature. This harmony, manifested in the art object, is what appeals to man’s senses.

Possibly drawing from Paul’s remarks in the first chapter of Romans, especially verse 20, Augustine realized that this fundamental harmony could be perceived by Christian and non-Christian alike. Of course, if this is true, the unconverted artist can pay homage to the principle of harmony in his paintings while not recognizing the source of this beauty.

The tragedy of twentieth-century art is that it forgot its source. For Augustine, the work of art must aid the Christian in his ascent to God, or else it has failed. Yet he does not repudiate the first level of art, the sensuous. Great art is both sensuously satisfying and intellectually edifying.

To demonstrate his point, Augustine tells us of a dancer whose graceful movements afforded his senses the greatest pleasure but whose message, conveyed through the senses, was less than Christian. He enjoyed the sensuous level while rejecting the suggested message.

A certain painting in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, evokes a similar tension in me whenever I see it. The painting is Picasso’s “Girl Before a Mirror.” I often spend a great deal of time before it, enthralled by Picasso’s masterly use of line and color. When I search for the underlying meaning I am disappointed, just as Augustine was with his dancer. Yet I have thoroughly enjoyed—and, as an artist, learned a great deal from—this painting.

Given this two-pronged concept of art, how should a Christian approach a painting?

Before a painting can be enjoyed as a painting its components must be observed. Basically a painting is nothing more than a stretched piece of canvas cloth covered with paint. This simple observation is one of the most profound discoveries of twentieth-century art. Artists began to take an interest in the materials they were using. They began to study the elements of composition apart from their purely pictorial functions. In short, many artists became more concerned with how they painted than with what they painted. As a result, the subjects of “modern art” changed from recognizable objects to the actual compositional elements themselves.

Francis Schaeffer thinks that the inherent difficulty with abstract art is in this shift in subject matter. “The viewer,” he claims, “is completely alienated from the painter.” Certainly many people do throw up their hands in confusion or alarm at the first sight of an abstract painting. Al Capp, creator of “Li’l Abner,” recently complained that abstract art is “produced by the talentless, sold by the unscrupulous, and bought by the bewildered.”

But is this really fair? In surveying God’s creation do we not find the abstract? I have often been tempted to photograph a sunset, cut off the horizon, frame the picture, hang it in a gallery—and then listen to the ridicule it receives because it is abstract. People enjoy sunsets because of the brilliant colors. Drawing on this sensuous pleasure sparked by God’s good creation, might not the artist make color the subject of his painting?

Or look at one of the pinnacles of God’s creation, the tree. The beauty of branches cutting sharp patterns against the autumn sky of a brisk October morning is always satisfying. What evokes this response in the observer? The rhythm of the branches, of lines. Line is a legitimate subject for a painting.

Abstract art is not always destructive of nature. Rather, it often looks more deeply into the building blocks of God’s harmonious creation. Observing line and color in nature is the best way to begin to enjoy abstract painting.

In a painting of mine called “La Raza,” my intention was simple: to convey an appreciation for the Mexican culture I had encountered in Denver. Using lines and shapes suggested by designs I had seen repeatedly in Mexican art, I composed a painting in which the lines gaily play off each other to suggest the Mexican spirit.

The “message” is not at all profound. The painting is simply an attempt to convey the feelings and pleasures I have had through an encounter with a different culture. It has no recognizable subject matter. The message is conveyed through the use of line, color, and form.

Next time you are in an art gallery or museum, take the time to look at those modern paintings. See them as an occasion for sensuous enrichment as well as an exercise in philosophy. Don’t ignore the message, but do enjoy the painting as a painting. You are likely to find a whole new realm of pleasure waiting for you.

MARK MARCHAK

Mark Marchak is an urban minister with the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society in New York City.

Recording Reflections

Jesus music buffs have been treated to several good record releases in the last few months. Myrrh heads the list with two double, live concert albums plus several good singles. Barry McGuire, always a rousing pleasure to hear, has a new live concert album, To the Bride (MSX-6548). The 2nd Chapter of Acts and “a band called David” are featured in the album. They sing one of the best songs on the two records, “Denomination Blues.” For me part of an album’s appeal lies in its variety, and “To the Bride” has that. At times the 2nd Chapter succumbs to sentimentality, particularly in “Jimmy’s Song” and “Prince Song.” Both songs lack strong melody, harmony, and rhythmic structure, which perhaps accounts for the sentimental effect they produce.

Early Randy Matthews, too, tended to sameness and sentimentality. But his latest release, Eyes to the Sky, (MSA-6547), shows a deepening musical maturity and a less simplistic spiritual outlook. Some of this is anticipated in the slightly earlier double album Now Do You Understand? (MSZ-6546).

Andrae Crouch also has released a new double album, The Best of Andrae (Light, LS 5678). And it is. For those who don’t know Andrae Crouch and the Disciples or who own few of the group’s records, here is a good one to buy. No recording can produce the impact of a live performance, but Andrae’s come close.

Honeytree’s latest release, Evergreen (MSA-6553), bubbles with happy enthusiasm for life. Unfortunately, that attitude results in musical repetition. As in her last album, her sense of humor shows in some of the songs, and this raises the album above the ordinary pop religious recording.

“Denomination Blues” appears again, with a country flavor, on Shamble-jam by Parchment (Myrrh England, MSA-6551). The group is easy to listen to, rather like The Lovin’ Spoonful, and its songs have catchy tunes with slow-swelling rhythms. Made up of two men and a woman, Parchment hits its stride in “Speakers Corner.”

For those more classically minded, Westminster Gold has re-released some fine religious choral music at a reasonable price. “Sacred Service for the Sabbath Morning” is a fine example of twentieth-century religious music by Darius Milhaud (1892–1974). Westminster’s album, In Memoriam (WGS-8281), features Milhaud conducting the Orchestre du Theatre National de L’Opera in that work, first performed in 1949. The baritone soloist, choir, and orchestra are all superb; the music is hauntingly rich, uplifting the spirit.

CHERYL FORBES

Perils of Permissiveness

There are words that I could wish had never been invented. They can corrupt thought, disguise reality, bewilder the simple, and subvert the truth. One of them is “permissiveness.” It is too recent a word to command a place in the Oxford English Dictionary. But to insist on definition is sometimes to expose. Let us therefore try.

Permissiveness seems to be that condition of society which permits the open practice, without shame, rebuke, or chastisem*nt, of what was once regarded as wrong. That seems to be what the new term means. Improve on the definition if you can.

Permissiveness has certain well defined spheres of application. It refers commonly to promiscuous sex and fornication. And a fine illustration the latter word provides. Fornix is Latin for arch, and the heavy architecture of ancient Rome provided many arches. They may still be seen round the oval of the Colosseum, numbered in Roman numerals; the great crowds dispersed from their cruel sports by the gateways corresponding to their ticket numbers. These arches were the haunts of prostitutes, who plied their trade with the minimum of concealment. “It’s the archway and the greasy pie-shop,” says the poet Horace to his discontented farm-manager, “which make you yearn for the city.” Disgusting doings under the archways were at least more poorly lighted than similar doings in the modern film.

“Permissiveness” generally extends to cover adultery and marital unfaithfulness, sexual perversion, the destruction of the unborn, and the promotion of alcohol among the young and the inexperienced.

There is real substance to a fear, expressed of late, that compassion could prove a major casualty in a world inured to violence. Any week’s news might show reason for such apprehension. The crumpled dead, the hapless refugees, the murdered hostages, the work of the ruthless bomber, crowd newspaper and screen.

To be sure, there is the other side to give good hope—the work of those who heal and serve the disabled, who battle against hunger and degradation, and who with endless patience and small encouragement lift the suffering and the defeated.

There is evil abroad, nonetheless, and we do well to be shocked by it. “Supped full of horrors,” Macbeth confessed that he grew insensitive to that which one had daunted him. Such hardening can take place at other levels in the mind than that of fear. Television should take note.

In her somber book On Iniquity, Pamela Hansford Johnson showed that those guilty of the grim Moors Murders had numbed their minds by the depravity in which they soaked themselves, depravity that once shocked and now meets permissiveness, eludes the censor, and finds the shop counter. The author tells of a young Englishman who was in Germany when the Nazis degraded Jews in the streets. At first he was sick at the sight and rushed down a side street. The next time he felt he should look, and stopped for a full minute. The third time he watched. The fourth time, as he stood with the jeering crowd, the sight seemed less revolting. He was becoming, he told himself, “objective.” And with this came realization of his peril. This was not a part of life, a social phenomenon for study. It was the breath of hell. He packed and made for home.

He was becoming permissive. Thus it begins. And if the advocates of permissiveness reply that they did not mean such crimes at all, the challenge still stands. Begin to pull moral standards down and there is no dividing line.

It is a crowded world, and the crowd can dominate a lesser mind. Isolated, a man may be a cultivated person. In a crowd he descends the ladder of his civilization and can become barbaric. The finer qualities of man are things of delicate growth and are easily withered by fear. A panic over food supplies and population growth spawns a “lifeboat policy.” The atomic weapons of great nations, devices of unimaginable horror, are the children of fear.

In a pessimistic moment R. L. Stevenson defined man as “a devil, weakly fettered by some generous beliefs.” If that is true, the sooner a permissive world returns to imperatives and convictions that restrain, the brighter will be the hope for humankind.

The crumbling of old moralities, I have observed with consternation, seeps lower and lower down the age scale. When I was small, rough little boys who might steal apples nevertheless looked on cheating with contempt. To own up and take the consequences was considered the proper thing to do. Is it quite the same? Or can we feel the groping of the soft fingers of permissiveness round this and other strong, hard realities—loyalty, truthfulness, courtesy, compassion? I think we can.

I am now going to be positive. As a historian, I assure you that Toynbee was right in this: all human cultures grow round a central core of moral ideas and ideals that command obedience, respect, and general observance. There is right and there is wrong, both unquestioned. This is what is called the “ethos” of a people, of a culture.

Early Rome had something called pietas. We have borrowed the word twice, as “piety” and “pity,” neither of which represents the old Roman virtue and mainstay of society: a loyalty to family and state, a courageous sense of duty, trustiness. Try the truth of this in all societies. Some central core holds all together.

Israel had its Decalogue, its Ten Commandments and all that framed and applied them. The commandments were stern, brief, and authoritive: Thou shalt not.… Israel also envisaged a “covenant,” a promise of God conditioned by man’s obedience. Historian and prophet were full of the theme: hold to the covenant and a nation stands; break it and a nation dies. Hear the somber poetry of the great Isaiah from his twenty-fourth chapter:

The earth dries up and withers,

The whole world withers and grows sick,

And the earth itself is desecrated by the feet of those who live it it,

Because they have broken the laws, disobeyed the statutes and violated the eternal covenant.

For this a curse has devoured the earth

And its inhabitants stand aghast.

For this, those that inhabit the earth dwindle.

But this anticipates. The “ethos” of Western civilization, once called Christendom, is the Christian faith, its central beliefs, its ethics. Hence the love of liberty of which we boast, the reverance for human life, the old stabilities of marriage, honor, care for the weak. They derive from the deep truth that Christ died to save lost human beings. This moral core, the heart of it all, the strength by which it stands, is embedded in the Bible, the book that transformed Britain when it was let loose upon the people in the days of the first Elizabeth. All this is history. It is thus that Britain, indeed the English-speaking peoples, rose to stature, leadership, and strength. It is thus that nations rise and serve their era, and make their contribution to mankind.

And thus they pass away, for commonly in the story of a nation’s rise and fall comes the time when the authority of the ideal is questioned. There comes a moment when, in the phrase of the great and mordant historian, the Roman, Tacitus, a group discovers that “what authority had kept hidden” can be challenged and outfaced. There comes “permissiveness.” It is the beginning of the end, unless, intelligent enough, frightened enough, dowed sufficiently with courageous leadership, or swept by a revival of faith, a people rallies and returns to strength.

Unless that happens, “as surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,” that people dies. There is always another race, disciplined, moral, rigid in its attitudes, waiting to apply its strong thrust to the crumbling structure.

I heard a youth say pathetically once: “No one tells us now what we should do.” The boy was miserable. Young people find security in discipline. They are unhappy to be without direction, plagued by disorder, and left to ruin life in the effort to learn that which they should be taught. Permissiveness has its victims as well as its exploiters, and the victims are commonly the young. It is they who are denied the rich joys of life that they might enjoy with discipline, self-control, and patience.

I have spoken as a historian, but it requires no deep knowledge of history to see that permissive morality leads to misery and bondage. Literature is full of examples. The tragic story of Samson, which ends the record of the judges of Israel, was put into poetry by Milton. Samson Agonistes is full of moving lines of self-reproach. “Thou art become a dungeon of thyself” the stricken creature groans. Matthew Arnold echoed what Horace had said of Rome eighteen centuries before, writing of the “secret loathing” that fell on “sated lust.” And Oscar Wilde, in “Reading Gaol”: “You cannot win, who play with sin, in the gaming house of shame.” It is old truth.

The self-disciplined and the upright must share with the wreckers the same beautiful globe, marred by the evil of those who have splashed, stained, and scarred it by their sin, and their sabotage of that which keeps it habitable and healthy. But let it be remembered that God has the last word. As Proverbs 21:2 puts it, “man’s ways are always right in his own eyes, but the Lord has the verdict on his life.”

The revolt against authority, which is the beginning of death, begins in each one of us. The permissive society grows out of undisciplined individual lives. Any human community is the total of the units that compose it, give it tone and character, and, for good or for evil, color it. We all know that we need a Master, that we need rules and discipline to live by, and that we cannot rail against the evils of society at large unless we have declared war against the evil that lies in our own lives. No one can shift the burden of that responsibility from his own shoulders.

Professor H. Butterfield, the well-known Cambridge historian, wrote in Christianity and History in 1948:

A civilization may be wrecked without any spectacular crimes or criminals, but by constant petty breaches of faith and minor complicities on the part of men generally considered to be nice people. If we were to imagine a great war taking place, say, in 1960, we who too often measure guilt by its consequence might well be wrong in imagining that a tragedy so stupendous could only be the work of some special monster of wickedness. If all men had only a reasonable degree of cupidity, politics would still be driven into predicaments and dilemmas which the intellect has never mastered. If there were no more wilfulness throughout the whole of human nature than exists in this room at the present moment, it would be sufficient to tie events into knots and to produce those deadlocks which all of us know in our own little world, while on the scale of the nation state it would be enough, with its ramifications and congealings, to bring about the greatest war in history.

The war did not come in 1960. Civilization and peoples can die with a whimper as well as with a bang, as T.S. Eliot put it. The world limps on, and none of us can do more than keep the battle rolling, combat evil where we find it. And is not the first confrontation in ourselves? Butterfield said in the same remarkable book:

It happens to be a fact that I can recognize responsibility in myself—I can feel more sure about the fact that it was possible for me to have helped doing this or that, than I can about the matters that belong to scholarship.

No honest person will deny the personal application of that remark. We are all, in our more candid moments, too conscious of the fact that we bend more easily to ill than to good, that we seek with greater ease the good of self than the good of others, that our very virtues are too often based more on fear of punishment than on love of good, and that pride, self-assertion, arrogance, the very essentials of all sin, mingles like a pervading poison with all our practice of good.

Does this then lead us to another definition of permissiveness? Is it also to be described as “that state of the spirit in which that which once stirred shame and revulsion is first tolerated, than accepted and finally embraced”? Thus men die. And the way back is to retrace the abandoned path and recover the old standards, faith, and loyalty.

A greater man than the Cambridge professor had something to say about this. In conclusion, listen to him:

Please, my brothers, considering all that God in his mercy has done, offer him your persons, no dead sacrifice, but alive, holy, something God can accept, and the only service you can really render. Stop trying to adapt yourselves to the society you live in, but carry on the transformation which began with the new life in your minds, so that you can try out for yourselves how good, satisfying, perfect God’s will for you is.

In the United States today Sunday observance is virtually dead. There are some places where it may still be kept, but these are few, and shortly we may expect Sunday to be completely secularized. The death of Sabbath-day observance has come about for a number of reasons. The first is world secularization, and nowhere is this more true than in the Communist world. For multiplied millions of people who have been dragged into the Communist net, any possibility for keeping the Lord’s Day has evaporated. This is quite understandable, considering the Communist world and life view, and should not come as a shock to anyone.

A second reason for the decline of Sabbath keeping lies deep within the Christian Church itself. It has been secularized to a degree not fully appreciated by many of its own people. This process of secularization derives from the changing attitude of so many in the Church about the written Word of God. In earlier days Sabbath keeping was based squarely upon the belief that it is an unbreakable command of God. It is an obligation resting on the bald notion of divine authority. It is God’s ordinance, not man’s. Man indeed needs it, but God has commanded it.

The advent of theological liberalism has changed all that. The present-day commitment of so many of the Church’s theologians has nullified the earlier view that Scripture is authoritative and normative. At a time when even the cardinal salvatory doctrines of the Christian faith have been vitiated, and when syncretism and universalism plus a commitment to revolution and a move toward a Marxist form of socialism have gripped the Church, the idea of a binding Sabbath commandment seems anachronistic.

But the slide away from keeping the Lord’s day has not come solely among those in the liberal tradition. Evangelicals who claim to take the Scriptures with utmost seriousness are also among those who no longer support Sabbath keeping with any real enthusiasm. Evangelicals have been deeply affected by the times in which they live. The dominant philosophy is hedonistic and has led to the denial of any absolutes. Taken within the context of evangelical theology, which stresses the doctrine of grace and denies that man can be saved by works of any kind, freedom and liberty, which indeed are biblical, have been misconstrued. The whole idea of taboos, of “thou shalt nots,” of legalism of any kind, is almost passe. The swing of the pendulum away from nineteenth-century pietism, or eighteenth-century Puritanism, which has such a bad image in the popular mind, has made license of liberty. Situation ethics, denied in principle by evangelicals, has become operative in their life style so that what they do does not match up with what they say.

This trend among evangelicals with regard to Sabbath keeping is related to the broader spectrum of evangelical life. Once the taboos on movies, alcohol, card playing, dancing, and other activities were lifted, it was not unexpected that the taboo with respect to the Sabbath should be discarded too. This is not to say that Sabbath observance fits into the same category with these other pastimes. But evangelically minded people have fallen into the trap of assuming there is a dynamic relationship, so that when these other taboos were lifted the Sabbath taboo went along with them.

The Sabbath is God’s Day. But Jesus said that man was not made for the Sabbath; the Sabbath was made for man. This suggests the two prongs of the attack I wish to recommend: the first has to do with man in a right relationship to God and the second with man in a right relationship to nature. Christians must learn of this twofold meaning of the Sabbath and come to a place where they practice Sabbath observance and also use their energies as members of Caesar’s kingdom to get secular nations to do the same, albeit for different reasons. Primarily Christians celebrate the Lord’s Day because it belongs to God and in it they can worship him suitably and with reverential trust and fear. But the Sabbath has in it more than the religious, or man’s relationship to God in worship and commitment. It was and is part of God’s natural revelation for man in nature itself. Men, converted or unconverted, are part of nature and need the Sabbath as earthy people who in their bodies are inextricably dependent on water, air, and soil.

It is important even for Christians to know that they are tied to the Sabbath because it was made for man’s physical well-being. And it is this aspect of the Sabbath that can be used to bring unredeemed men to the place where they will keep it also—but for different reasons that may be devoid of the primary function of the Sabbath, which is the worship of God. The reason Christians should advance to convince unregenerate men to keep the Sabbath is that they need it, that it will work for their good, and that their failure to keep it is devastating for men and assures them of disaster. In this sense one could argue that outward Sabbath observance for unbelievers may be a form of pre-evangelism and could open the door to the propagation of the Gospel.

Evangelicals believe in both natural and special revelation. Both bear testimony to God, although in different ways. Nature has something to teach man, and special revelation has given the Christian a tool by which to understand natural revelation. Unregenerate man in his unfolding understanding of nature has learned some things about the divine operations that have benefited him. He knows that man is inextricably related to nature itself and is part of it.

The cultural mandate of Genesis tells man that he is to harness nature and use it for man’s good. Whether saved or lost, man is in bondage to nature, and his physical well-being depends upon nature to a large extent. This can be illustrated in a number of ways.

First, man is related to nature for food. Without food man cannot survive. But without man’s help there is insufficient food in nature itself to feed the world. Therefore man must use land to produce wheat, corn, potatoes, and the like. The land is the gift of God. But land is not unlimited. We already know of land that has been exhausted by improper use, sometimes through lack of knowledge and at other times because man has exploited it. The same thing is true about trees, some of which give fruit that man can eat, some of which supply timber that man can use for erecting houses, some of which can be used for firewood in wintertime.

Second, God has put minerals in the ground for man’s use. But whereas land can be used indefinitely, minerals cannot. There is only so much gold, so much iron, so much oil, so much potash, so much coal. Once they have been consumed no more is available. Right now the most liberal estimates indicate that man is rapidly approaching the point where many of the minerals he needs desperately will be exhausted. We cannot suppose that man with his inventive genius will not be able to find substitutes for some or even all of these minerals. Nor can we suppose that he will not find other sources of energy of which we have no present knowledge or at least no way of tapping. A few decades ago atomic energy was simply a dream. Now it has become a reality, albeit a dangerous one. Solar energy is being used in a small way, but its vast potential cannot be overlooked.

Third, man himself is a natural resource. Man differs from minerals in that nature has been profligate with respect to his reproduction. The staggering fact is that the population of the world did not reach one billion until around 1850. Today, a century and a quarter later, the population has almost quadrupled. It is conservatively estimated that it will double again in another thirty-five to fifty years at the most. It is man who has affected nature more than any other animal, plant, or mineral. None of these has the power to direct and control the use of the natural resources that man has. He is the master, they are the servants. At the same time man as master can do as he pleases only within certain limitations.

Nature, apart from man, has a way of balancing itself so that it can continue indefinitely. When one species of life overruns the land, counter-balances begin to operate to offset the imbalance. If certain forms of animal life overpopulate the land so that the food supply is exhausted, the animals die of starvation. The strong stay alive to continue the species. Some animals prey on other animals for food. This helps to keep the forces of nature in balance. It is man who has produced nature’s great dislocations. It is man who is consuming the earth’s natural resources and in the process threatens not only all of nature’s gifts but himself as well. This has come about both through the use of land for good purposes and the use of land for bad purposes.

Everybody knows now that tobacco and alcohol are two of man’s greatest enemies. Yet in order to produce them vast quantities of land, labor, and minerals are used for hurtful ends. And man stubbornly resists every effort to change matters even though he knows he should. Not only does the person who consumes these commodities hurt himself; he also hurts others. Tobacco smoke is a pollutant that takes a toll on those who do not smoke but who are subjected to its noxious fumes by inconsiderate smokers. Grains that could help feed starving millions are made into alcoholic beverages whose consumption causes industrial and highway accidents and exacts a physical toll in cirrhosis of the liver and a multitude of physical ills that beset those who use it to excess.

This brings us now to a consideration of the Sabbath principle in relation to the greatest of all crises that man has faced: the energy shortage. It is only one part of man’s interrelatedness to nature, and even the solution of the energy problem would be no guarantee that man can at last avert a final depletion of natural resources or that he can prevent what I have called elsewhere the ultimate suicide of man. In the short run, however, man can and ought to do something about the energy problem. And it is tied into the Sabbath mandate, whether looked at from the vantage point of devotion to God and obedience to is special revelation or devotion to the Creator through natural revelation and man’s interrelatedness to nature.

Neither men nor machines can continue indefinitely without rest. Studies show that man’s productive capacities vary depending on the length of time he labors. He requires rest and relaxation from production so that he can recover his natural potential. During World War II it became clear that a seven-day week did not increase production. People actually produced less in seven days over the long haul than they did when working six days and resting one day. Part of it was physiological; part of it was psychological; all of it was part of the divine plan for nature, which is abrogated at man’s expense. If man from his study of nature and himself, wholly apart from Scripture, refuses to follow the laws of nature, he is in trouble. And whether man likes it or not, God has put the universe together so that when man breaks the physical laws of God, he always ends up by breaking himself. Man should obey the laws of nature for his own good.

This is true today in a particular way because of the energy crisis. One can easily paint a true picture of the benefits the people of any nation would gain if they obeyed God’s natural law of one day of rest in seven. This would involve closing down all businesses including gasoline stations and restaurants every Lord’s Day. Since the five-day work week is common, there is nothing that a person must do that cannot be done in six days. No one needs to buy food, dine at restaurants, or purchase goods on the seventh. Obviously there will always be works of mercy and necessity that require Sabbath-day attention.

If the people of North America stayed off the highways on Sunday alone, except for church attendance or genuine necessities, the energy crisis would be solved or almost solved. There is nothing to show that people buy fewer goods when they can not buy on Sunday. If all stores and factories were closed one day, nobody would lose anything since none of their competitors would be open either. There would be an immediate 15 per cent saving of fuel, electricity, and the like. People would be able to spend time with their families, rest and relax in a less troubled environment, and allow the air of the great cities to recover from the pollution largely caused by automobile exhaust and factory smoke. At the height of the last energy crunch Japan laid down a rule that prohibited the use of gasoline on Sunday and it helped the nation greatly.

It might even be that this kind of a Sunday would give man time to reflect on his relation to nature and in turn on his relation to the author of nature and bring him to a knowledge of God. The busyness of life with a secular Sunday, a frantic search for pleasure, and an uncontrolled hedonism can do man no good.

The proper use of the Lord’s Day, wholly apart from any religious implications, can come about by free choice or it can be legislated. It is highly unlikely that it will be accomplished by voluntary action by the citizenry generally. Therefore the only way to accomplish the objective is by force of legislative fiat through the duly elected officials of the people.

One could wish that Sabbath closing could be brought about on the best of all bases—the recognition that it is the will of God for all men and that they follow this pattern because they wish to worship him. But short of that, it is still better that it be accomplished even though the reason for doing it is secular and has in mind only the general welfare of man and the benefits that will accrue to him. This might be called enlightened humanism and effective humanization.

Our faith commits us to the proposition that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. There could be no better way for us to fulfill the second table of the law than to press for social legislation that would benefit our neighbors, and by our efforts show that we love them as we love ourselves. This would be one of the highest forms of social action to spring from our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. It would mark our concern for our fellow man and identify us with common and lost humanity in an area of great need.

The bad news is that if something is not done and done shortly, the plight of mankind must get worse. The good news is that God has given us wisdom and ability by which the worst of conditions can be bettered and approaching disaster can be ameliorated. Surely we have been sent into the kingdom for such a time as this. Let us do something to show that we see the need, sense the opportunity, and are willing to spend ourselves on behalf of mankind in an hour of desperation.

THE NEXT MORNING: TWENTY SONGS FOR TWENTY VOICES

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature;

old things are passed away; behold,

all things are become new.

—2 Corinthians 5:17

i

The scales say I’m still

Precisely 142 pounds.

I’d have guessed 102, this morning.

ii

As though I had put my brain and all my nerves

Through the laundromat.

The fragrance:

The dean, dean washday fragrance.

iii

Like having a bulldozer

push away ten tons of accumulated

Scrap iron—

And now they’re planting grass seed.

iv

His words were the jackhammers

Breaking up cracked old concrete

In a ruined pavement.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

Interminable.

The new street surface is open today,

And smooth.

v

Loving you, Mom.

I couldn’t, before.

You always seemed to have a beak and claws.

Last night I saw my own three-inch daws;

I watched them change

To clean pink fingernails,

Manicured.

Now I can see that you have hands to grip

And lips to kiss.

vi

I finally found a city map

Right here in the glove compartment

After all those wrong turns

On wrong streets.

vii

Like having livid scar tissue

All over my face

For years.

(No ears, seamed cheeks, bent nose.)

And now it’s gone.

viii

Same job, same house, same family.

Same cracked ceiling,

Same wrinkled draperies,

Same lumpy mattress.

But feeling as though

I’d been a guest last night

At a suite in the Hilton,

And knowing I’ll always live there.

ix

I’d been like a bashed-in car

With a cracked windshield

And rust-creased fenders.

Last night

The Factory repossessed

And reconditioned

Me.

x

In living color, now.

And the picture in focus!

xi

Geraniums are being transplanted

Into a back yard

Where dented garbage cans have always stood

Patrolled by rats.

xii

Yesterday,

Eczema and acne,

Scalp to toe.

Look: pink and firm

And clear.

xiii

Well, like a surprise visit

(By special invitation)

To Buckingham Palace.

Only more so.

xiv

Handcuffed by hymns.

Now, though, to find

The prison is no prison

But a gracious, spacious villa

That I have just inherited.

xv

Major surgery

On my motives

And values.

xvi

From a bunk among attic trunks and cobwebs

To picture windows

Facing the surf.

xvii

Growing in a weed-littered lot;

Wispy, withering,

With crackling brown leaves

On every twig.

Transplanted, now,

To moist dark humus.

Irrigated.

xviii

The boys will twirl and twirl and twirl

But they will find

That all the combinations

Have been changed on this safe.

xix

A scummy lake

Full of old tires and dead fish.

Now,

Sparkles and ripples

Over white pebbles.

xx

Bushels of rusty tin cans

Recycled

Into sculptured fawns

And seagulls.

ELVA Mc ALLASTER

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of God there was a Mother. She was an ordinary, middle-aged mother of two children. There was nothing notable about her. She was, in fact, anonymous; she had no name. And she never attempted to erase her anonymity. She was simply a Mother.

On Sunday, the Mother went to church with her family: her son Peter, who was ten years old; her daughter Susan, who was sixteen; and her husband Edgar, who went but thought it all nonsense.

On Sunday, the Sunday-school superintendent approached the Mother.

“Would you please help us in the primary department? We are very short of teachers. You have been with us for six years now, and I’m sure that you could cope nicely with the first graders. Please, for the sake of the Lord’s work?”

But the Mother said, “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I have no talents. I’ve never been to college or had any Bible courses. I am just a poor soul who needs the teaching of the Pastor. I just couldn’t teach anyone else.”

On Sunday also, the Pastor talked with the Mother. “Would you be willing to have your home used for a Bible-study group? We are forming some groups that meet in homes so that neighbors can be invited. There would be a regular teacher, and people would take turns bringing refreshments. All we need is your living room. Would you consider it?”

The Mother said, “I would like to do it. But you see, I do not make decisions about our home. That is my husband’s job. Since he is not very keen on religion, I don’t think that he would like me to do that sort of thing. I’m sorry.”

The sermon that Sunday was about the parable of the talents and the three servants. It was especially about the unprofitable servant who buried the one talent.

On Monday, Peter went to school. When he was ready to leave the house Peter yelled to the Mother, “Hey, where is my lunch money? Can’t you ever get it out ahead of time? I’ll miss the bus.”

The Mother said, “Oh dear. I can never seem to remember. Here it is. Don’t be angry with me, darling.” She kissed Peter good-bye. He said, “Aw, Mom, cut it out.”

When Peter came home from a school he had a great deal of homework to do. But he wanted to go to his friend’s house until dinner time. He ignored his Mother’s lecture about getting his work done. “Mom, quit bothering me. All you do is nag. I’m going over to Harry’s. I’ll be home at six. I can do my homework after supper.”

But after supper he wanted to watch television. He finally went to bed about ten. His homework was not done.

When Peter grew up he could never finish his work on time. He did not know that one did not speak to one’s superiors the way he spoke to the Mother. And so they fired him for being insubordinate and unable to produce.

On Tuesday, Edgar left for the gas station that he owned. He worked hard at the station and usually stayed there till late at night. But he cheated people who had more money than he had because he was jealous of them and thought they deserved to be cheated. He was mean to the young man who worked for him. It made him feel powerful and important to have his employee afraid of him.

The Mother kept the accounts for Edgar because it saved him money.

“Edgar, are you going to tell the tax people that you made only that much profit?”

“Edgar, you charged the Van Heinzes much more than you charged George for the same job.”

“Edgar, you seem to be selling more gas than you are receiving from the company. Where are you getting it from?”

Edgar laughed and told the Mother how clever he was to cheat the government, and the rich, and the corporation. She did not say anything more to him about it. She knew how mean he was to the young man who worked for him, and she was afraid he might be mean to her, too.

One day, some men came to the gas station and gave Edgar a summons to appear in court. He could not understand why he should be caught doing something everybody did. The Mother thought she knew why, but she didn’t want to say anything just now, when Edgar was in such trouble.

On Wednesday, the mail came. There was a magazine for Susan. It was called Proved Tales, and the cover picture was of a man and a woman kissing each other very hard.

On Wednesday, the Mother watched television most of the day, because she felt depressed. But after seeing all those people with the same kind of troubles she had, she felt even more depressed. Sometimes she wondered if she could think as clearly after watching television. All she could remember were the songs about soap and collars and toothpaste. She did laugh at the funny programs. It was clever how they all managed to trick one another and never get caught for lying.

On Wednesday evening, some neighbors dropped in. They talked about the terrible things that were going on in the world. They talked a great deal about a woman down the street and all the men who visited her. They laughed about that. The Mother just sat there. She didn’t want to take part in that kind of talk, but she dared not offend her guests.

On Thursday, Susan came home from school. She looked worried.

“Susan dearest, is anything wrong? Did you get a bad mark in school? Was someone mean to you? I couldn’t stand that, dear. You’re such a sweet girl … and you work so hard …”

Susan looked disgustedly at her mother and said nothing. But she went on looking worried. She talked on the telephone a long time. The Mother didn’t know whom she was talking to, and she didn’t want to disturb Susan’s privacy by asking her later. She felt that a mother shouldn’t meddle.

After supper, Susan said, “I’m going out with Roger. My homework is done.”

The Mother said, “Oh, I wish you would stay home with me just one evening. Roger always seems to come first. Don’t stay out too late.” And the Mother smiled a wistful smile at Susan.

The Mother could never understand why Susan had an abortion.

On Friday, the Mother was taking out the garbage when she saw the woman next door looking out a window. She looked sad, or perhaps sick. The Mother pretended she hadn’t seen her. Then she began to feel a little guilty. The woman had lived next door for a long time. Sometimes she invited the Mother in for coffee. But the Mother had never invited the woman to her house. She liked her very much, but she thought that the woman was too busy. She also knew that this neighbor did not believe in God, or go to church. The Mother was very afraid of offending her. So she never mentioned anything to do with religion.

A few days later an ambulance came to the house next door. The woman was brought out on a stretcher. She was dead. She had been extremely lonely and depressed, and she had taken a bottle of sleeping pills with a large glass of whiskey.

On Saturday, while the Mother was working, she remembered a little about the sermon on the previous Sunday. She didn’t know why the master had been so angry at the servant who buried the money in the ground. It was a natural mistake to make, she thought. God was a God of love. If she was sincere, and she was sure that she was sincere, He would make everything come right in the end.

But she still felt a little guilty about the woman next door. It bothered her that Edgar was doing the things he was doing. It didn’t seem fair that Peter should talk back and be so disobedient, or that Susan should turn sullen. But what could she do? She was a good Mother. She obeyed her husband and did everything for her children. She went to church almost every week. And she never swore.

That night, the Mother stood face to face before the Great Lion of Judah. He was not at all as she had pictured Him to be. For an instant, she thought those sweet Christmas stories must have been mistaken.

“Have you been my faithful servant?” His voice was like the thunder of a great organ, and his blazing eyes … She could not look into them, but she could look nowhere else, either. She thought that she had never been so uncomfortable.

“Why yes, Lord, I think so. I have always done my best …”

She saw His eyes become more and more stern.

“I will have the truth from you.”

“Yes, Lord …” and she tried to start again but couldn’t. There was just nothing to say.

Then His voice began to say what her own lips could not.

“You have let your husband become a petty crook. You never once rebuked him or counseled him. Your submission was perverted. Your son will fail throughout his life because he was taught neither to work nor to obey. Your daughter is disgraced because she was never forbidden to do anything. Your neighbor is lost for all eternity for want of the friend that you could have been to her. You permitted evil in your home through cheap communications, immoral entertainment, and gossip. Your church, which asked for your services, is poorer because you never entered into its life. You took but you would not give.”

The voice rolled over her in heavy, inescapable sound. There was no argument. There could be no argument. His voice spoke only truth.

Then she saw His eyes become warm and loving.

“It’s all right. He will forgive me.” Indeed, those magnificent eyes filled with tears.

“Child, I died on the cross so that you might become great in the Kingdom of God.”

And the Mother seemed to see a Great Woman, beautiful to look upon, surrounded by loving friends. There was a man just behind her, strong and straight and even a bit noble in appearance, though he was dressed in coveralls. There was a young man beside the Great Woman, smiling and speaking gently to her. A young mother stood on the other side of the Great Woman, tenderly whispering to her baby while her husband smiled lovingly at them both.

“That is only the beginning of the good that you could have done, had you come to me for one thing.”

“O Lord, what was that one thing?”

“You feared all things more than me and so you failed in all things. The fear of me has come too late. If you had feared me soon enough, you would not have feared your family and your place in the Kingdom. So you have betrayed me. You were a coward and wanted to stay that way. You would not let me make you strong. I cannot change my Word, and it is now your judge: “Whoever wins the victory will receive this from me: I will be his God, and he will be my son. But the cowards … the place for them is the lake burning with fire … the second death.”

His face was very sad. For the first time she was stricken for another instead of herself. She was just beginning to understand that she was the cause of His sorrow.

“O Lord, Lord …”

The end had come. The end of all things had come. He turned away and it became very dark. It was very, very cold. There was no time. There was nothing.

The Mother was absolutely alone.

Analogous to the question that the Christian American must face of how far scriptural values are to be pushed in a secular America is the general question of how far American values are to be pushed in the world at large. And just as American evangelicals appear passive about expressing their convictions in the domestic marketplace of ideas, so the country in general seems more and more reticent to export its national values beyond its own boundaries.

True, with our Promised Land mythology, we have had a history of “carrying the big stick,” and if we have seldom engaged in political imperialism we have more than once made up for it by extending our economic tentacles around the globe. We have exported Coca Cola, cheap jazz, and jeans until it is small wonder that countries with a modicum of taste and culture have not established aesthetic tariff barriers to keep us out! The universal appreciation for Puccini’s Madame Butterfly quite clearly shows that our worldwide adventures have left a trail of broken hearts, whatever else they may have accomplished.

Moreover, a special danger is now seen in crusades in behalf of “Western values”: the danger of letting the end justify the means. Hochhuth’s drama The Deputy and Carlo Falconi’s Silence of Pius XII tell the sobering story of a pope who, because of his crusade against Russian Communism as the greatest of all evils, compromised his spiritual authority by not speaking forthrightly against the genocidic activities of the Third Reich, in the vain expectation that Hitler would at least save Europe from Marxism. Such a fundamental blunder easily leads to a reconsideration of whether ideological crusades do not often do more harm than good.

But again the drunken man staggers to the opposite wall. Just as we petulantly fell into an irresponsible isolationism after our World War I disenchantment, so today we run every danger of abrogating our responsibilities as bearer of the torch of freedom, now that our enemies have castigated us and our friends misunderstood us for our tragic involvement in Viet Nam. William Lederer, in a book published as long ago as 1961, characterized us as A Nation of Sheep for our irresponsiveness in foreign policy.

OnOn the day before Christmas, 1975, Religious News Service reported that “the number of people in the world living in a democratic society reportedly dropped by 40 per cent in 1975—the sharpest dip recorded by Freedom House since it began assessing the trend 24 years ago.” This is horrifying. What responsibility do we have as a nation to prevent or to reverse such trends?

Our current foreign policy of détente, as expressed most eloquently by Secretary of State Kissinger, would appear to offer little response to this question beyond maintaining defensive strength in our own right and continuing to voice our historic beliefs in the value of free society. This seems hardly enough when, as Kissinger’s even more eloquent adversary Solzhenitsyn has rightly maintained, the free world has a holy responsibility to relieve the miseries of the millions of people suffering under totalitarian governments with neither the possibility of legal redress of grievances in their own homeland nor the possibility of emigrating to a life of dignity elsewhere.

We grant that full-scale offensive war against totalitarian powers could be suicidal in a nuclear age, but was there sufficient excuse for not responding to the Czechoslovakians when, like Paul’s Macedonians, they pleaded, “Come over and help us”? And is there any way to justify our not attaching rigorous conditions (release of those jailed or confined to “psychiatric hospitals” because they exercised freedom of speech, permission for Jews and others desiring to emigrate to do so and so on) when we agree to supply totalitarian countries with the raw materials, products, or food supplies they request of us?

Novelist Jean Dutourd, in his Taxis of the Marne, reminded his own people of the contrast between the France of 1914, which had the dynamism to use taxis to get its reinforcements to the front to save the country, and the France of June, 1940, when “the Generals were stupid, the soldiers did not want to die,” and the country, by trying to save its life with no higher purpose, lost it. Bruckberger, another Frenchman, observes:

What ill luck, how great a misfortune it is for us all, that it should be the ideology of the Communist Manifesto, and not that of your Declaration of Independence, which is now conquering so large a part of the world and firing the imagination of the colored races. Americans, for this you may well be to blame, just as undoubtedly all Christians are to blame for the fact that today the name of Lenin is held in greater veneration in the world than the name of Jesus. We Christians have failed in missionary spirit. And you, Americans, have been too ready to look upon the Declaration of Independence as a document designed for yourselves alone and not for other nations. How fatal an error.

Americans, it is time to admit that you have erred; it is time to recognize that the Declaration of Independence is not yours alone. That solemn Declaration was made not just for you, but for everyone; not just for the men of one time, the eighteenth century, and one place, America—but for the whole world and for all the generations of mankind.

At a time when the idea of detente has such a positive connotation and so much stress is placed on not interfering with the internal affairs of other nations, it is worth emphasizing that the National State is not the be-all and end-all of human life. The National State is a relatively modern development, and the notion of its absoluteness comes from such doubtful sources as realpolitiker Machiavelli (Il Principe) and atheist Thomas Hobbes (The Leviathan). Scripture insists that states, no less than individuals, are subordinate to God’s laws. When Christian apologist Hugo Grotius became the “father of international law” by creating that discipline through his great work De jure belli et pacis, his fundamental principle was that nations are subject to higher laws than the ones they themselves deign to create.

If we have any reason for existence as a nation, it is surely our historic stand for freedom—freedom without which living becomes mere existence, that freedom which is a necessary condition for the meaningful proclamation of the eternal riches of Christ. In Lincoln’s most famous evocation of freedom, he did not limit himself to his own country but declared: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” And Julia Ward Howe, a year earlier, made the essential connection between God’s redemptive work in Christ and the national purpose to which we are (or should be) committed: “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” When we no longer are willing to die for the freedom of others, we shall no longer merit freedom for ourselves.

JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY

I had never written a controversial book until I penned The Battle For the Bible. It is now off the press, and it will be an interesting spring and summer.

The book gets to people where they itch, and it will stir up the deepest passions among those who respond with a definite yes or no to the question: Is the Bible wholly trustworthy?

Zondervan’s first print order was for 10,000 copies. Before the book was released they went back to press with an order for 10,000 more. This suggests that people are interested in the subject.

As the world population clock ticked to four billion inhabitants (see editorial, page 36), some eighty evangelical leaders from thirty-four mission organizations and fifteen theological schools gathered last month in suburban Chicago to discuss worldwide Christian witness and biblical guidelines to undergird it. The occasion was a four-day Consultation on Theology and Mission sponsored by the School of World Missions and Evangelism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.

Overall, the consultation projected as ideal a church-related evangelism focusing on discipleship and growth. It saw two internal perils for the Church: theology without evangelism, and evangelism without theology. It did not settle for mere criticism of the World Council of Churches (WCC); it pressed for the formulation of constructive alternatives. A new openness toward dialogue with Catholics in the post-Vatican II age was acknowledged, though caution was urged because, as one spokesman put it, “the fact that the nature of the Roman Catholic Church in our time is not wholly clear implies long-term risks in over-identification.”

Caution was also expressed in evaluation of the charismatic movement. While the conferees did not voice doubt of the New Testament validity of tongues, many questioned the permanence of the gift, and most resisted prizing glossolalia above all other gifts. Yet all confessed the need of a deep moving work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.

There were three major evening addresses, and Trinity faculty members presented twelve papers. The papers dealt with Catholicism, the charismatic movement, contextualization (the relation of church to culture), inter-religious dialogue, and changing political situations. Panels of mission leaders and theologians responded to each topic.

Speaking on issues concerning Israel, President Arnold T. Olson of the Evangelical Free Church of America in the event’s keynote address declared that the only friends Israel has left are evangelicals. He recognized the legitimacy of Jewish evangelism but protested any singling out of Jewry as a special evangelistic target. He said many reports of a moratorium in Israel on Jewish evangelism have been exaggerated.

In an analysis of the WCC’s 1975 assembly in Nairobi, mission professor Arthur P. Johnston of Trinity said that the political impact of the ecumenical movement tends to stigmatize Western missionaries unfairly as aligned with the forces of racism and economic injustice. Panelist Robert Thompson, for twelve years a member of the Canadian parliament and now associated with several Christian organizations, asked how ecumenical churchmen can in good conscience appeal to their own capitalist constituency for funds for revolutionary activities aimed not simply at economic betterment but at the destruction of the capitalistic system, especially when the WCC receives the major portion of its funds from American and West German churches.

The liveliest debate centered on how to preach the Gospel in light of the political changes going on around the world. Papers were presented by theologian Carl F. H. Henry and J. Herbert Kane, chairman of Trinity’s Division of World Mission and Evangelism.

Kane called on American mission leaders to remember that “the American missionary is an ambassador for Jesus Christ, not for Uncle Sam.” He emphasized that the missionary must not equate the kingdom of God with any political, economic, or social system. He contended that a missionary serving where the ruling system is dictatorial has two choices, either to stick to his work or to speak out against the regime and be expelled.

Henry insisted that there are other options. “The missionary is a member of a church on the field he serves, and he or she can encourage the church as the new society to elaborate a conscious social alternative to an objectionable national milieu and thus exemplify to the world what the justice of God requires,” he asserted. “And the missionary can go to jail, which is not the worst of all pulpits in the twentieth-century mass-media world.” He urged Christians to learn to press for truth and right publicly, “rather than let Christian prisoners like Georgi Vins suffer in Russian silence.” (Vins is a Soviet Baptist minister serving time in a Siberian prison for alleged “crimes” related to the practice of his faith.)

Participants had little sympathy for the ecumenical funding of revolutionary movements aimed at the overthrow of unjust regimes by violence. “There’s not a hint in the Gospels that Jesus secretly instructed Judas to use the money-bag to fund the Zealots,” said Henry. The regenerate church, he pointed out, “is herself the new society called to proclaim and exemplify to the world the standards of the coming King.” The missionary, he added, should support not the status quo but “the divine status to come.”

In another evening address. President Ingulf Diesen of the Mission Covenant Church of Norway expressed appreciation on behalf of European Christians for Anglo-Saxon missionary effort, but he also mentioned some problems. In Europe there are currently 2,450 British and North American missionaries, 750 from Britain and 1,700 from North America, from eighty agencies or organizations. He spoke of inter-agency rivalry, of competition with local evangelical agencies, and of some cases of inflated success statistics.

Diesen indicated, however, that 18 per cent of all Norwegians now consider themselves “born-again Christians” (the figure for young people is 27 per cent), and he spoke glowingly of spiritual renewal in his land. On the other hand, he described the dire spiritual need of other European countries, notably Albania in the east and France in the west. He conceded that even in Norway in some sections there is less evangelistic fruit than in some African countries. Europe has been recognized as a bona fide mission field only since World War II, it was noted, and then only hesitantly so by mainline denominations. Conferees were also reminded that despite sixty years of unrelenting persecution, Communist authorities have been unable to stamp out Christianity in the Soviet Union.

The conference papers will be published later this year in book form by Baker Book House, according to Trinity professor David Hesselgrave.

HANDLED WITH CARE

Country Church at George Air Force Base in California “is a unique and satisfying experience for all those who attend,” says a release issued by the base’s office of information. Captain John Ward, the Assemblies of God chaplain who started the church last fall, often preaches in bib-overalls. One Sunday night a month is designated “country night”; everyone comes in his cleanest Levis or bib-overalls and newest shirt. Nearly 150 attend services.

In the church’s short history, says the release, “a number of persons have accepted Christ into their lives and have desired to be baptized in water by immersion.” None of the post chapels, however, is equipped with a baptistry. So the Thirty-Fifth Munitions Maintenance Squadron donated a lightweight bomb shipping-and-storage container known affectionately as “the coffin.” And mem bers of the Field Maintenance Squadron did some cutting and welding. The result: a portable baptistry, complete with handles. Teen-ager Kim Raines, a master sergeant’s daughter, was the first of seven persons baptized in it last month by Chaplain Ward.

The Wcc: Slim Figures

With more than one-third of its income generated in the United States, the World Council of Churches is resisting the temptation to give up that generator. Its New York office, which maintains liaison with North American member denominations and other supporters, was given a new lease on life at the first meeting of the WCC Executive Committee since the Nairobi assembly.

Like most other WCC agencies, the New York office will be working on a reduced budget during 1976. At a Geneva meeting late last month the nineteen members of the Executive Committee learned that the council closed 1975 in the black only by dipping into reserves. While the audited figures are not yet available, insiders estimate that $320,000 came from reserves.

The Executive Committee authorized the secretariat to operate through the rest of this year on a budget of $2.5 million, about $700,000 less than planned at the time of the assembly last year. One of the possibilities that had been considered prior to the Nairobi meeting was reducing the appropriation for the New York office. The action of the Geneva meeting, in effect, ratified a new formula for support of the North American operation. Instead of getting half of its budget from the general funds of the council, it will hereafter get only one-fourth. The remaining three-fourths is expected to be raised from private American sources. The whole question of function and financing of the New York office will be reviewed again in August when the WCC Central Committee meets.

A separate office in New York City, that of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (a United Nations liaison), was also authorized by the hard-pressed executive committee to stay in business but with less financial help. There is no money in the budget for its operation, and the executive who ran it has retired. The commission was authorized to solicit special funds to keep it going, however, and a part-time secretary has continued on the payroll. If a suitable executive can be found, funds to support the U. N. operation are expected to be available.

Member denominations and other World Council friends in Europe have come forward with extra money to keep another agency going during the budget squeeze. The Ecumenical Institute near Geneva, a conference center and a graduate school offering short-term courses, has received enough designated funds from Germany, France, and Switzerland to cover its anticipated 1976 deficit, the Executive Committee heard. Like the New York office, it will be getting less of its budget this year from general funds of the council (its 1976 budget is $390,000).

The new general budget (one of seven in the WCC) was adopted with the understanding that it will mean reductions in travel and meetings for all agencies, as well as forgoing of salary increases by staff members. Several staff positions in Geneva are being left unfilled.

In another action the executive group took a first cautious step toward following up the Nairobi assembly’s directive on the status of Eastern European Christians. A consultation was scheduled for July to consider responses from the member churches to letters sent by the general secretary. The denominations in countries that signed last year’s Helsinki Declaration on European security were asked four questions: How were they studying the declaration? How could they help to implement it? What could international ecumenical organizations do to help the process? What practices in their country contradicted the “spirit or letter” of the statement? A report on the initial fundings is to be presented to the Central Committee in August.

Consulting In Jerusalem

A dialogue has been going on for several years between representatives of the World Council of Churches and of the International Jewish Committee. Their latest consultation was held recently in Jerusalem. Present were six members of the WCC’s Liaison Committee and members representing the World Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith, the Synagogue Council of America, and the Jewish Council in Israel for Interreligious Consultations.

Part of their discussion focused on two topics for possible future study: “Relations between churches and the Jewish people in the wider context of the human community” and “Christian and Jewish traditions about creation, in relation to science and technology.”

The conferees agreed that encounter should proceed on several levels. These include exchanging information regularly on political and social issues, with special emphasis on human rights (including religious liberty), and interpreting to each other the religious views of each community on fundamental issues, according to a WCC report on the meeting.

The report says the Liaison Committee may set up task forces to deal with specific long-term issues, and it may develop procedures “for common action in times of crisis.” Specific proposals will be presented for approval by the appropriate WCC committees later this year.

Jesus ’76: Love In A Pasture

More than 20,000 persons, many of them in family groups, gathered in a pasture two miles from Disney World near Orlando, Florida, last month for the first of four three-day rallies billed as Jesus ’76. On hand were such top gospel recording artists as Andrae Crouch and The Disciples, the Rambos, Pat Boone, and Phil Keaggy and Ted Sandquist. Food for mind and soul was served up by founder-president Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, prophecy author Hal Lindsey, charismatic teacher Bob Mumford, Arizona congressman John Conlan, and others.

Participants could choose from a variety of seminars, and there were special sessions for children and for pastors (150 met in a nearby hotel). A 200-foot-long striped tent housed display booths for Christian colleges and mission organizations as well as shops selling records, Bibles, books, and other Christian literature.

Bright seemed to sum up the prevailing attitude when he said: “We are all here because we love the most important person in the whole world.” He called for Christians to unite in prayer and fasting and to show love, compassion, and concern.

The event was organized by youth minister Alex Clattenburg, Jr., of Calvary Assembly of God Church in Winter Park, Florida, in conjunction with Jesus Ministries of Ephrata, Pennsylvania. Three other Jesus ’76 rallies are scheduled this year: Brantford, Ontario, June 17–19; Carlotte, North Carolina, July 1–3; and Mercer, Pennsylvania, August 19–21.

Jesus Ministries announced last month that it has purchased a large tract of land in central Pennsylvania for a permanent camp site.

Religion In Transit

Plagued by a pending divorce, by desertion from the cause by her son William, and by infiltration of Methodists and Catholics in state chapters, atheism promoter Madalyn Murray O’Hair last month threatened to give up her leadership role in the movement to keep God out of government. But, said she, many atheists “came out of the closet” and rallied to her support, lending a hand with secretarial chores and other work. Thus encouraged, she went off to a convention of atheists in New York this month to seek money to keep going another year.

A number of leaders of the National Council of Churches have registered their opposition to proposed changes that will close loopholes and limit eligibility for food-stamp purchases. They called for an “improved” program that would be even more liberal (elimination of the cash purchase requirement, for example).

Under pressure from residents and government jurisdictions, the Hare (pronounced hah-ree) Krishna movement has moved its school for its members’ children age 8 and older from Dallas, Texas, to Vrindabin, India. Spokesmen said it would be better spiritually for the children to be brought up “in the place where our supreme Lord Krishna walked” than in an environment of supermarkets, p*rnography, and “other mundane things.” The school, nearly five years old, had about 125 pupils.

Thomas Eugene Creech, 25, was sentenced to be hanged May 21 at the Idaho State Penitentiary. On the witness stand he claimed he took part in slaying forty-two persons in thirteen states. Some were slain as human sacrifices during Satan worship rites, he said. Police discounted most of his claims, but bodies were found in Wyoming and Nevada on the basis of his directions. Ironically, he was convicted for two murders he insisted he did not commit. Some Idaho farmers meanwhile charge that Satan worshipers have been slaying their animals for sacrificial rites.

The family of the late Bertram E. Williams, a retired naval officer, had his cremated remains shipped from Florida to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia for burial. The box arrived damaged and minus the urn containing the ashes. After a fruitless search, the U. S. Postal Service listed the remains as lost in the mails. It will pay $15 to Williams’s family, the minimum amount of insurance placed on the package by the crematorium.

Two southern Maine school boards okayed daily “silent” periods for students in public schools. Their actions followed an opinion from state attorney general Joseph E. Brennan. It stated that a silent period doesn’t violate the U. S. Constitution if it is “not intended and not identified in any way as a religious exercise.” At the same time, he said there is no constitutional objection to prayer before legislative sessions, cabinet meetings, and other government functions. The state of Virginia meanwhile has authorized “one minute of silence” for prayer or meditation in its schools.

Bible Presbyterian leader Carl McIntire has fallen out with many of his separatist-fundamentalist colleagues. Leaders of Bob Jones University and other fundamentalist camps have scheduled a big World Congress of Fundamentalists for Edinburgh later this year. But McIntire feels such a gathering should have been under the sponsorship of his International Council of Christian Churches. He also objects to the participation of certain persons because of their friendliness toward Billy Graham-type evangelicals, and to a lack of militancy in the program. He describes it all as “New Fundamentalism.”

The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs staff will look into Transcendental Meditation and Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. The committee’s members, representatives of nine Baptist bodies cooperating in the agency, want to know whether the TM movement “is a religion within the meaning of the First Amendment.” They also want to know if church-state issues are involved in allegations that parents of some Unification Church members have harassed and kidnapped their children.

Pollster Louis Harris asked a cross-section of adults what institutions they have “a great deal of confidence” in. “Organized religion” ranked fourth (24 per cent) in a list of eleven, behind medicine, higher education, and television news. All lost ground since a similar poll last year (religion fell eight percentage points), and they are much below the 1966 level (when religion ranked eighth with 41 per cent). Medicine, in first place, fell from 73 per cent in 1966 to 42 per cent this year. Congress is in last place with 9 per cent.

Paul L. Logsdon, a student at Evangel College in Springfield, Missouri, was named national president of Intercollegiate Religious Broadcasters. He succeeds the recently elected Bruce Sago of Anderson (Indiana) College, who withdrew for personal reasons. The IRB is the campus division of the National Religious Broadcasters.

Anglican clergyman Donald Anderson, a missionary educator, was named general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches. He replaces T. B. Floyd Honey, a United Church of Canada minister, who quit because he felt that support of the council by member churches was diminishing.

Twenty-seven religious leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds issued an appeal urging Congress to pass a resolution declaring the “right of food” to be a basic element of U. S. policy. The measure was introduced last fall by Republican senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Democratic representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota. The signers include evangelist Billy Graham, Catholic archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin, Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, President Robert P Dugan, Jr., of the Conservative Baptist Association of America, General Secretary Claire Randall of the National Council of Churches, President Jaroy Weber of the Southern Baptist Convention, Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York, and Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Leaders of the United Presbyterian Church have sounded the alarm: the budget of $31.6 million may be in trouble. Of this amount, $23.3 million was expected from congregations, but current figures indicate that total may reach only $20.8 million unless giving is increased.

Bible colleges have gained an average of 7 per cent in total enrollment during the past year, according to researcher Garland G. Parker of the University of Cincinnati. (The fifty-three schools surveyed averaged about 350 students each; some have more, others less.) Theological schools also showed growth—5.5 per cent, said Parker.

More than 40 per cent of all Catholic children in America—6.6 million of them—are not receiving any formal religious instruction, according to a study released by the nation’s Catholic bishops. The number has more than doubled in the last ten years. Secularization, the breakup of Catholic neighborhoods, and parochial-school closing are among the causes cited.

Baptist evangelist Hans Mullikin, 37, of Marshall, Texas, is en route to Washington, D. C., more than 1,000 miles away—on his knees. The idea, he explains, is to challenge Americans to get on their knees and turn to God. Equipped with knee pads and traveling at about one-half mile per hour, he hopes to reach Lynchburg, Virginia, by July 4. Pastor Jerry Falwell of the Thomas Road Baptist Church and his Liberty Baptist College people are planning a big Bicentennial celebration in Lynchburg on that day. They’re expecting a crowd of 100,000.

DEATHS

JOHN COGLEY, 60, major proponent for reform in the Catholic Church, former editor of the influential independent Catholic weekly Commonweal, and former religion editor of the New York Times; in Santa Barbara, California, of a heart attack.

FERN G. OLSON, 60, Assemblies of God evangelist and pastor known to many thousands as “Sister Fern”; in Minneapolis.

Personalia

William Carey Moore, for more than three years director of Wycliffe Bible Translators’ editorial department, has been appointed managing editor of Logos Journal.

World Scene

Wycliffe Bible translator Eunice Diment, 37, of Dorset, England, was released in good health last month after being held captive for three weeks by Muslim dissidents in the southern Philippines. Conditions of her release were not immediately known. The captors had wanted $26,000 ransom and the release of two Muslim political prisoners.

Catholic archbishop Alexandre Jose Maria dos Santos of Mozambique denied reports that his country’s Marxist-oriented government has prohibited infant baptism or eliminated freedom of worship. Of the country’s 9.2 million population, an estimated 1.5 million are Catholics.

Poland’s premier Piotr Jaroszewicz gave formal assurances in parliament that his government intends to “continue its policy” of supporting “freedom of conscience and religion.” Last December the government proposed constitutional changes curtailing religious practices and making civil rights dependent on compliance with duties to the state. The proposals were scrapped after protests by church leaders and intellectuals.

Project CLAIM (Christian Literature for Asians in Ministry) has been launched in the Philippines. Its goal is to provide suitable theological textbooks and Bible-study aids to pastors and Bible-school and seminary students at prices they can afford. A New Testament survey and a concordance are among the first offerings. The project is a joint venture of the Philippine Association of Bible and Theological Schools and Overseas Missionary Fellowship Publishers.

Under construction in the ancient Islamic city of Kano, Nigeria, is a 2,000-seat church building for Evangelical Churches of West Africa, a denomination related to the Sudan Interior Mission. SIM opened the widely heralded Kano Eye Hospital in the city in 1943. There are now seven ECWA congregations in Kano.

Jehovah’s Witnesses report that 5,000 of their members are still in prison labor camps in the African country of Malawi despite an international campaign aimed at pressuring the government to stop the persecution. The sect was banned in 1967 because of its aloofness toward involvement in affairs of state (politics, patriotic rites, military service, and the like). The Witnesses also claim that thousands who fled Malawi are now being harassed in Mozambique.

The Christian Pentecostal Church of Cuba has asked for establishment of fraternal relationships with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The church split with its parent body, the Assemblies of God, in 1956 over differences of viewpoint concerning ecumenism and other topics. Overseas mission executive William J. Nottingham of the Disciples described the Cuban church as a group of “Christians who are standing by their faith and at the same time are fully committed to the revolution in Cuba.” The Disciples and other church groups are lobbying for an end to the U. S. trade embargo on the Caribbean nation.

Britain’s free churches collectively lost more than 53,000 members last year. The thirteen denominations have a total membership of 1.28 million members, according to the latest statistics. Methodists led the loss list with a decline of 44,000.

Approximately fifty Protestant clergymen moved from East Germany to West Germany last year, and others want to follow. The exodus prompted Lutheran bishop Albrecht Schonherr of East Germany to urge the pastors to stay at their posts despite the painful experiences they sometimes have. The church, he said, lacks trained personnel in many key social ministries, and although there are 860 pastors, seventy parishes are without ministers.

The French Evangelical Alliance and the Evangelical Federation of France have agreed to call for a nationwide evangelistic program in the fall of 1977 (rather than this spring, as reported earlier). Leaders hope to involve most of the estimated 40,000 evangelicals among France’s 52 million population. A theological congress is scheduled earlier in 1977 for French lay leaders, pastors, and teachers. An outgrowth of the 1974 Lausanne congress on evangelization, it will center on the theology of evangelism.

A contemporary Arabic translation of the New Testament will soon be published, according to an American Bible Society announcement. Known as Today’s Arabic Version, it was begun in 1969. Work on the Old Testament is under way. The Arabic translation most widely used today was completed by American missionary Cornelius Van Dyck and published by the ABS in the 1860s. An estimated 100 million people speak Arabic.

There were no jokes on April Fools’ Day at the headquarters of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) in St. Louis. It was a day that amounted to a high-noon showdown between four district presidents of the LCMS and LCMS president Jacob A. O. “Jack” Preus, along with the denomination’s board of directors. Preus and the board wanted the four to state their willingness to comply with synodical regulations governing the ordination and placement of ministerial candidates. The four men refused to budge and instead countered with proposals that in effect called for the undoing of actions taken at last year’s convention of the 2.8 million-member church in Anaheim, California (see August 8, 1975, issue, page 31).

His patience at an end after months of haggling and pleading, Preus the next day announced the removal of the four district presidents from office. They are: Harold Hecht of the 136,000-member English district, Robert Riedel of the 38,500-member New England district, Rudolph Ressmeyer of the 74,000-member Atlantic district, and Herman R. Frincke of the 72,000-member Eastern district.

Preus was acting under the mandate of a resolution known as 5-02A passed at last year’s convention. It stated that if, after pastoral care and admonition, the district presidents persisted in disobeying Synod regulations, Preus should then declare their offices vacant at least sixty days before the next district convention. The measure was aimed at stopping the unauthorized ordination and placement of graduates from Seminex (Seminary in Exile), a rebel school organized by dissidents in 1974 after the suspension of John Tietjen as president of Concordia Seminary. (Tietjen later became president of Seminex.)

The deadline passed without disciplinary action being taken against four other district presidents aligned with the four ousted ones. They are: Paul Jacobs of the 73,000-member California-Nevada district, Herman Neunaber of the 45,000 Southern Illinois district, Waldemar Meyer of the 59,000-member Colorado district, and Emil Jaech of the 90,500-member Northwest district. (The LCMS has a total of nearly forty district presidents.)

All eight repeatedly vowed after the Anaheim convention that they would keep on accepting qualified Seminex graduates as approved candidates for the ministry in their districts. They branded as unconstitutional the Anaheim resolutions aimed at muzzling the so-called moderate movement in the LCMS.

In attempting to avert upheaval, Preus chose to interpret resolution 5-02A rather broadly and not evict a district president from office unless the official personally authorized or ordained an unqualified candidate. A number of Preus’s conservative backers felt this approach was too charitable and they demanded that he take a tougher position. Nevertheless, Preus declined to move against Jacobs, Neunaber, Meyer, and Jaech on grounds they had not personally approved or ordained anyone since Anaheim. Jaech had participated in an ordination service but was not the principal involved in the actual ordination. Only later, after the deadline, did Preus learn that Jacobs had authorized the ordination of a Seminex graduate.

In explaining his lenient action at the time, Preus reasoned: “Even though the district presidents involved have not given the stated compliance requested of them, nevertheless I am willing to accept [their not having] authorized such objectionable ordinations as a willingness to comply in fact with the wishes of the Synod.”

The district presidents retorted that no such willingness was intended by them.

Afterward, the eight voiced their solidarity, declaring, “Attempts to divide us or to disrupt our united response by approving some of us and threatening others will not succeed.” They again stated they would not comply with the Anaheim resolutions, and they rejected efforts to achieve only “a superficial conciliation which turns its back on the real issues that are troubling the Synod.”

In a last-ditch attempt to avoid the showdown, Preus late last month offered a proposal to Hecht, Riedel, Ressmeyer, and Frincke, all of whom had ordained unendorsed Seminex graduates. He said he would not vacate their offices if they would agree to a moratorium on further placement of Seminex graduates until the next convention of the LCMS, at which time changes could be considered in ordination regulations.

The offer was turned down, and the ousters ensued.

Reaction came immediately. The four who were evicted said they regard the ouster action invalid “because only the congregations of our districts, who have called us, have a right to remove us,” and they said they would remain on the job pending district meetings despite Preus’s appointment of acting presidents. The other four warned that “such removals from office undoubtedly will result in congregations and ministries in our districts and throughout the Synod being separated from the Synod.” They called on the congregations in their districts to prepare for “new parallel associations” that might be needed soon.

Preus’s action, said John Tietjen, “has set in motion an unstoppable, irretrievable series of events that will lead to the eventual breakup of the synod.”

Preus said he was “very anguished” over the situation but added, “I don’t anticipate there will be as much furor over this as some would have expected or hoped.”

The moderates already have a number of “alternate” structures set up. More than 200 participants met in suburban Chicago in February to organize a “Coordinating Council for the Moderate Movement.” They represented Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), the main moderate group whose primary purpose originally was to back Seminex but whose activities now are considerably broader; small “cluster” groups of dissidents throughout the districts; and the fledgling Lutheran Church in Mission (LCM), an “interim” body not yet “activated” for congregations and individuals wishing to leave the Synod.

The group at the Chicago meeting commended the English district for its stated opposition to some of the conservative policies of the Missouri Synod and for opening the way earlier this year to reestablish itself as a separate synod “if this seems necessary” by the time of the district convention in June. (The Detroit-based English district is a non-geographical entity of the LCMS with congregations in many states.)

In their consultation, the moderates encouraged dissident congregations to consider transfer to the English district or to apply for membership in the LCM rather than to break away from the Synod on their own. A spokesman at the meeting said implementation of resolution 5-02A might lead to the activation of the LCM.

That move was under discussion early this month, and battle lines were being drawn in the districts affected by the ousters.

PASTOR WHO?

God is the new pastor of Congaree Baptist Church in Gadsden, South Carolina. James R. God, that is. Another recent arrival in the area is the Reverend John Wesley, who has joined the staff of Trinity Episcopal Church in nearby Columbia (the famous eighteenth-century Methodist for whom he was named served for a time as pastor of an Anglican church 150 miles away in Savannah, Georgia). At about the same time, the Ridge Hill Baptist Church in Ridge Spring, South Carolina, was celebrating its 106th anniversary. In sermons, it’s a winner: its pastor is J. E. Preacher, Jr.

Catholic Decline: Vatican Induced?

Serious erosion in belief and practice is occurring among American Catholics, according to a study released by noted priest-sociologist Andrew Greeley, 48, and his colleagues at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. In the study, nearly 1,000 Catholics were surveyed in 1963 and again in 1974. The percentage of those who attend weekly mass declined from 71 to 50; those who go to confession monthly dropped from 38 to 17 per cent; and those who agree that the Pope holds his authority “in direct line from Jesus” fell from 70 to 42 per cent.

On other topics, the percentage of those who approve of artificial birth control rose from 45 to 83, while 43 per cent approve of sexual relations between engaged persons, up from 12 per cent, and 36 per cent feel abortion should be legal (although only 8 per cent say they themselves would abort an unwanted pregnancy). Seventy-three per cent approve of remarriage after divorce.

Greeley attributed the downward shift largely to Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical condemning artificial birth control.

Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati, leader of America’s Catholic bishops, responded cooly to the conclusion, noting that “Catholic truth is not determined by sociological data” and reaffirming the encyclical as “the authentic teaching of the church.”

Sentence Suspended

Wendell Nance, former financial officer of the 2,000-member bankrupt Calvary Temple in Denver, was fined $5,500, given a suspended eighteen-month prison sentence, and placed on probation for five years. He had been convicted last year in a felony case involving illegal sales of securities. Some 3,400 investors purchased $11 million worth of securities; many have not had their money returned. Calvary’s pastor Charles Blair, indicted with Nance in 1974, has had his trial continued five times. He has vowed to repay “every cent,” and observers say they believe the court is giving him time to attempt to fulfill his pledge.

Church Growth In Ethiopia

Church-growth specialists are taking a long look at something that is happening among the Darassa people of southern Ethiopia. In a four-month period beginning last September, the 240 Darassa churches related to the Sudan Interior Mission gained more than 24,000 converts, and the action is continuing, according to a report in the SIM publication Africa Now.

The professions of faith came during a concentrated evangelistic outreach known as New Life for All. Under the program, which SIM has used elsewhere in Africa also, the churches set aside one Sunday a month for evangelism. Members meet for prayer, but instead of having morning worship services on that day they fan out in teams throughout the countryside. The day’s converts are brought back to the church, introduced to other members, and enrolled in a follow-up plan that emphasizes spiritual growth and Christian fellowship.

By the end of the year the churches had an average of nearly 100 converts each, and some congregations had doubled or tripled in size. All are busy with new converts’ classes and home Bible-study groups, says SIM’s Albert Brant, who introduced the New Life idea to the area.

Reversal In Denmark

Last year the Danish Film Institute, an independent but publicly financed organization, voted to authorize a $170,000 “production guarantee” to producer Jen Jorgen Thorsen for a film entitled The Many Faces of Jesus. Thorsen billed it as a p*rn film that would depict Jesus in nude and love-making scenes. The five board members quit after awarding the grant on a 3-2 vote, two to protest the guarantee, three to protest “political pressures” against it. Thorsen had trouble finding a country that would permit him a location to make the film, and production lagged. Criticism of the project meanwhile poured into Copenhagen from around the world.

The new institute members last month unanimously decided to withdraw the appropriation after government lawyers concluded that the manuscript (on which the film was to be based) violates moral provisions of law. Thorsen will have to get his money elsewhere.

Probate

Evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman has bequeathed $267,500 of her estate to three family members and twenty employees, according to court records. (Miss Kuhlman died February 20 in a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma.)

The largest bequest, $50,000, went to Myrtle Parrott, Miss Kuhlman’s sister. Marguerite “Maggie” Hartner, the evangelist’s longtime secretary and administrative aide, was bequeathed $40,000. Nineteen other employees, another sister, and a sister-in-law received smaller amounts.

The dollar value of Miss Kuhlman’s estate—including stocks, antiques, art objects, her suburban Pittsburgh home, and other property—will not be known until an inventory is completed. Former Kuhlman employees say the total exceeds $1 million, but some of this may represent property actually owned by the Kuhlman Foundation (cars, some clothing, and the like).

Miss Kuhlman named Tulsa auto dealer Dana Barton “Tank” Wilkerson, Jr., and his wife Sue as residuary legatees—the ones who are to receive all property not already bequeathed. Miss Kuhlman and the Wilkersons had been acquaintances for some years, but within the last year their friendship deepened, and the Wilkersons helped out as her health deteriorated.

Sources inside the Kuhlman organization say they were dismayed that Miss Kuhlman did not bequeath more of her estate to the foundation. In the final months of her life, they say, there were bitter feelings toward Wilkerson on the part of Miss Kuhlman’s headquarters staff. “We felt he stole her from us,” says one of those persons. The will, dated last December 17, supersedes one drawn up in 1974 that left the bulk of the estate to the foundation.

Foundation representatives initially filed the 1974 will for probate, and a legal hassle ensued. The foundation decided against contesting the later document. It was drawn up in Los Angeles by Irvine Ungerman, Wilkerson’s Tulsa attorney, who had earlier achieved an out-of-court settlement between Miss Kuhlman and her former business manager Paul Bartholomew and pianist Dino Kartsonakis in a financial dispute.

Wilkerson, 44, denies suggestions by foundation forces that he was out to win Miss Kuhlman’s favor for financial gain. “I have given, not taken,” he asserts. He says he spent more than $20,000 in posting security guards at Miss Kuhlman’s West Coast and Pittsburgh area residences following her death. In the last year, he states, he furnished the evangelist with a Mercedes 450SL for her California use free of charge, and he acquired a $750,000 private jet mainly to transport her to her various engagements. Miss Kuhlman spent $20,000 customizing the interior but put no other money into the plane, he says, adding that the foundation has refused to pay the expenses he billed for her trips. He also says rumors that the evangelist entered into private business dealings with him simply are not true.

Claiming he is already a successful businessman, Wilkerson says he “could have made more out of business in the year we spent helping Miss Kuhlman than we will get out of her estate.” He added a challenge: “If all the beneficiaries except the blood relatives will make a contribution to Oral Roberts University, I will donate the entire residue of the estate to ORU.” Wilkerson is an ORU board member.

As to why Miss Kuhlman decided to change her will, Wilkerson says he is baffled too but explains that it was in accord with the evangelist’s unpredictable nature.

Part of the dismay can be traced to an apparent sense of betrayal. It is an open secret that Miss Kuhlman, who served as president, chairman, and chief executive officer of her organization, paid her longtime key employees relatively low salaries (well under $10,000 a year). Some had to moonlight to make ends meet. The evangelist did present occasional gifts to her people, but many of them stayed on out of sheer dedication.

For the time being, Miss Kuhlman’s voice will continue to be heard on radio programs sponsored by the foundation, but TV programs have been withdrawn. Certain overseas mission programs will still receive support. Sunday morning services will be maintained at the Youngstown, Ohio, municipal auditorium. Attended by more than 2,000 each week, these are conducted by David Verzilli, 44, who has been Miss Kuhlman’s preaching mainstay for twenty-two years. He also presides at weekly prayer meetings and Bible-study sessions in Youngstown, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Miss Kuhlman is gone, says Verzilli, “but the same sense of anointing still exists here among the congregation.”

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

The Politics Of Abortion

Anti-abortion lobbyists in Washington, disappointed over the failure of the presidential candidates to come clean on the issue, still are hoping to get it to the floor of the U. S. Senate prior to the political conventions this summer.

There is far less chance of debating abortion in the House, where all seats are up for grabs this year and incumbents are trying to avoid taking a stand on highly divisive questions.

The specific issue is a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the 1973 Supreme Court decision that in the eyes of many anti-abortionists is tantamount to a legalization of abortion on demand. Some are pressing for a constitutional provision granting legal protection for the unborn. Others, following the lead of President Ford, would be satisfied for the time being with an amendment that would leave the matter up to the states.

Alabama governor George Wallace is the only major candidate pressing for an amendment banning abortions. Ellen McCormack, the Long Island housewife whose candidacy was based almost entirely on promoting such an amendment, has faltered in the primaries.

Senator Henry Jackson agrees with Ford’s proposal of a states’ rights amendment. All the other Democratic candidates state some personal moral reservations about abortions but oppose any kind of constitutional amendment. Former California governor Ronald Reagan, who has been moving toward a less permissive view, is reported now to favor an amendment as a last resort.

Earlier this year, the issue was joined in a debate between the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR) and a group known as American Citizens Concerned for Life (ACCL). United Methodist bishop James Armstrong, an RCAR spokesman, attacked Roman Catholic bishops for sponsoring a drive to overturn the Supreme Court decision. Armstrong said the efforts “threaten First Amendment guarantees of the freedom of religion” and jeopardize “ecumenical accords that have been achieved after many years.”

ACCL and another anti-abortion group, Baptists for Life, criticized the RCAR for making the issue appear as though it pitted Catholics against Protestants.

An official of the National Conference of Christians and Jews subsequently warned that it would be a major “social tragedy” if the abortion debate is allowed to deteriorate into an “inter-religious conflict.” Donald W. McEvoy, national program director and a vice president of the NCCJ, called for reasoned debate by pro-abortion and anti-abortion advocates. He stressed his conviction that “persons of good will and deep conviction” stand on both sides of the question. He acknowledged that Catholic bishops are working for anti-abortion legislation but said they are joined by “significant numbers” of Protestants and Jews. McEvoy said the NCCJ takes no institutional stand on the matter but simply urged “that the debate be conducted within the confines of civilized dialogue.”

McEvoy’s contention that Catholics are split on the issue was corroborated some days later when thousands of women marched through the streets of Rome denouncing the Pope and calling for an end to legal sanctions against abortion.

Revised Version

Bible paraphraser Kenneth Taylor says a “thorough revision” of The Living Bible will be published next year. At a recent Methodist men’s dinner in Cincinnati he outlined three problem areas that have led to the revision: literary style, possible inaccuracies, and the “frankness [of] the original” Hebrew that he tried to reflect in his work (in First Samuel 20:30 and First Kings 18:27, for example).

In defense, he noted that some of the more traditional Bible translations also used what was considered strong language for their time, and that biblical curses were intended to sound crude.

Taylor for years has had an open-door policy toward Bible scholars and others, inviting them to offer constructive criticism and to suggest changes. The revision will incorporate many of these suggestions.

A lot of the criticism, he said, has come from people who do not understand what a paraphrase is. He explained that it is a translation “thought for thought, not word for word.”

Taylor revealed that The Living Bible has sold some 18 million copies and returned more than $15 million in royalties in the past five years to the Tyndale House Foundation for use in mission work. Part of the money has been used to produce counterparts of The Living Bible in 100 languages.

Tyndale House, a firm founded in 1963 primarily to publish The Living Bible, now has 150 employees, 250 titles in its catalogue, and a production schedule of fifty books a year, says Taylor.

Tax Reform

Many churches, long spared the headache of preparing income-tax returns, had better become acquaintec with Internal Revenue Service Form 990-T. The IRS issued a reminder that the five-year grace period provided by Congress under the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which greatly broadened the scope of the unrelated-business income tax to be paid by the churches, has now expired. Beginning this year churches must keep records and pay taxes on income from any enterprise not directly related to their religious or educational mission.

The IRS doesn’t feel that sponsorship of bingo games is part of the religious mission of a church, so proceeds from weekly bingo games and other such programs will be taxable. Likewise, taxes must be paid on income from the operation of bakeries, restaurants, wineries, gift and craft shops, and the like, and from such sources as the sale of herbs from cathedral gardens. Sales of religious books and pictures, however, will be exempt. Single events like annual church bazaars will not be taxed, but any such fund-raising ventures conducted on a regular or frequent basis will come under the law.

Income from rental of church-owned property (houses, space in office buildings, parking areas) will be considered “unrelated income.”

The IRS says it will be happy to provide the necessary forms and instructions.

GLENN EVERETT

Presbyterians: A Call To Persevere

Advocates of union of the nation’s two largest Presbyterian bodies are asking for another vote of confidence from the denominations’ general assemblies. When the top governing body of the 890,000-member Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) meets in June, it will be urged to approve an invitation to the assembly of the 2.7 million-member United Presbyterian Church “to enter into a covenant of union.” A joint committee representing both bodies has been at work since 1969 to forge a merger, but it is not expected to present its formal proposals before next year.

Meanwhile, the PCUS General Executive Board wants the general assembly of the church to reaffirm its desire for union and to throw its resources behind the union drive. The proposed covenant would commit both assemblies to “persevere in devising acceptable means” to achieve union. Numerous assemblies have gone on record in favor of merger, but no plan has yet been submitted to the PCUS presbyteries (regional units) for the required approval.

Last Words

Pity poor Sally Lord. She had the misfortune to have her early American tombstone carved by a hard-put poet:

Underneath this pile of stones,

Lies all that’s left of Sally Jones.

Her name was Lord, it was not Jones.

But Jones was used to rhyme with stones.

The stone is located in Skaneateles, New York. The poem is one of the whimsical epitaphs in a photographic exhibit of “American Grave Stone Art, 1647–1903” put together by Francis Duval and Ivan Rigby of Brooklyn. An Associated Press story took note of the Sally Lord epitaph along with others. It quoted from a stone in Kittery, Maine, that offered a glimpse of family relationships:

We can but mourn his loss,

Though wretched was his life.

Death took him from the cross

Erected by his wife.

Social comment appeared on a New Haven, Connecticut, stone:

God works a wonder

Now and then.

He, though a lawyer,

Was an honest man.

A certain assurance was reflected on an Ithaca, New York, marker:

While on earth, my knee was lame,

I had to nurse and heed it.

But now I’m at a better place

Where I don’t even need it.

And a philosophical question was posed on another Connecticut gravestone:

Since I so very soon

Was done for,

I wonder why

I was begun for.

By the turn of the century the light, folksy touch on American tombstones had all but disappeared in favor of sobriety and simplicity.

Death For Youth

Mr. Death: Four Stories, by Anne Moody (Harper & Row, 1975, 102 pp., $5.95), May I Cross Your Golden River?, by Paige Dixon (Atheneum, 1975, 262 pp., $7.95), and The Garden Is Doing Fine, by Carol Farley (Atheneum, 1975, 185 pp., $6.95), are reviewed by Cheryl Forbes, assistant editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

There are various ways to treat death in books for children. In the well-known Anne Shirley series by L. M. Montgomery, death and birth and sickness occur because they occur in real life. As I mentioned in my article on C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series (see page 6), Lewis included the possibility of death in his stories to show courage in action. But the subject of death is not the pivot on which the plot turns in those two examples as it is in these three new books for children. Stylistically and philosophically each book has its strengths and weaknesses. But Moody’s is the best example of how not to write a children’s book about death.

The foreword by John Donovan presumably tries to convince the prospective young reader—though I think it was really written for nervous parents—that these stories aren’t as bad as they seem, that the book is really about love, not death. I agree with his comments about catharsis, which is a valid term for how certain stories strike certain readers. But Donovan’s defense of Moody is unconvincing. If these stories “will make your life richer than it was” we don’t need an outsider to tell us so; we will know it by the reading.

I would never give this book to any sensitive person under sixteen (the dust jacket claims the stories are written for those ten and up). In the first tale the child, disturbed by the death of his mother, shoots himself in the head. When his father finds him, he kills himself the same way. In another story a small girl’s German shepherd dog eats her when he smells blood from a scratch on her arm. There is nothing bright or heroic or joyful about Moody’s vision of life; she sees sorrow without hope. The last tale is the one exception, but it alone is not worth the price of the book. Moody is a talented writer; the tales are skillfully told. But her skill is no compensation for the content.

The other two books are written for teen-agers. Dixon’s is better written than Farley’s, and is the best of the three. Eighteen-year-old Jordan discovers he is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”). Dixon narrates how the boy and his family handle the news realistically and sympathetically, without any cloying sentimentality. The story is not as one-diminsional as such books often are; there is more to the plot than Jordan’s plight.

Although the tale is not told from a Christian perspective, there are good passages discussing heaven, faith, prayer, and the existence of pain in relation to the existence of God. Certainly a thoughtful, mature Christian teen-ager would find the book interesting.

Jordan changes in Dixon’s tale, as does the main character in Farley’s novel. Although Farley’s plot is less diversified, her theme is more complex. Corrie, a high school freshman, faces her father’s death at the end of the book. Along the way she learns much about prayer and faith and love. Several chapters concentrate on the problem of unanswered prayer. The story raises questions that each Christian faces at some point.

The title—The Garden Is Doing Fine—symbolizes both the real garden her father plants each spring and the garden that is living in her.

These are not great books, but the last two are better than the average fare found on junior library shelves.

Doctrines Of The Apostles

A Theology of the New Testament, by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans, 1974, 661 pp., $12.50), is reviewed by Robert Guelich, associate professor of New Testament, Bethel Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

After many years of creative scholarship and numerous articles and books in the area of New Testament theology, Professor George Ladd of Fuller Theological Seminary has put it all together in what might be called his magnum opus, A Theology of the New Testament. Beginning with the introduction, which briefly sketches the history of the discipline and introduces some of the major issues involved in the discipline, Ladd develops his theology of the New Testament according to the following divisions: the Synoptic Gospels, the Fourth Gospel, the Primitive Church, Paul, the General Epistles and the Apocalypse. His stated intent is “to introduce seminary students to the discipline of New Testament theology … to give a survey of the discipline, to state its problems and to offer positive solutions as the author sees them.”

The section on the Synoptic Gospels offers a valuable, concise summary of Ladd’s previous work on Jesus and the Kingdom of God. His work on Pauline theology, while not as familiar to his readers, is equally as rewarding. It comes as a fresh statement of Paul’s thought based on the author’s interaction with the vast contemporary literature on this subject. By setting off the Fourth Gospel as a section in itself, Ladd does justice to the frequently overlooked uniqueness of that work’s contribution to New Testament theology. The highlight of the section on the primitive church is his discussion of the Resurrection, and he concludes with a relatively brief statement on the theology of each of the General Epistles and the Apocalypse.

The one weakness I found in this work is its failure to take into account the theology of each Synoptic evangelist. Whereas it is important to have a composite portrait of Jesus and his ministry from the Synoptics in contrast to John, we must be careful not to overlook the theological distinctives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Granted that one might be frustrated by the rather speculative and sometimes fanciful work that has been done in Synoptic studies, the work of evangelicals such as Marshall, Martin, and Meye encourages us to treat each of the Gospels with individual care.

Ladd’s Theology makes one very significant contribution to New Testament theology that comes almost as a byproduct. Ladd consciously develops the theological distinctives of the authors and traditions of the New Testament without denying any of its unity. This is welcome at a time when many critical studies are focusing on the diversity of the New Testament theologies and are thus skeptical about the possibility of a given New Testament theology. The theology of the New Testament is polychromatic, not monochromatic. Yet the full spectrum of colors is a compatible blend and not a clash.

The strengths of Ladd’s writings have been their comprehensive scope, fair interaction with others, and very readable style. This book is no exception. The literature is vast, the viewpoints innumerable, the issues complex. Yet Ladd singles out the significant literature, presenting both his and others’ views with objectivity and fairness. He confronts the issues directly, posing the crucial questions. And he has a gift of saying something profound in an interesting and clear way.

Although Ladd explicitly writes for the seminarian, any serious student of the Scriptures will find this to be profitable, intelligibly laid out and clearly written. I unreservedly recommend it for a reading audience larger than the “textbook” audience.

Paul’S Magnum Opus

The Epistle to the Romans, Volume I, by C. E. B. Cranfield (T. & T. Clark, 1975, 462 pp., £7.00), is reviewed by W. Ward Gasque, associate professor of New Testament, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia.

The world renowned International Critical Commentary on the Bible was initiated more than eighty years ago by the well known theological publishing firm T. & T. Clark of Edinburgh, Scotland. The goal was a very ambitious one: to produce a major scholarly commentary series after the pattern of the great German multi-volume commentaries edited by H. A. W. Meyer, C. F. Keil and F Delitzsch, J. P. Lange, and H. J. Holzmann—a task never before attempted in English. According to the preface to the first volume to appear, Deuteronomy (1895) by S. R. Driver (who also served as general editor for the Old Testament), the series was to be primarily critical (i.e., scholarly) and exegetical, rather than homiletical. It was also to be international and inter-confessional in character, as well as (it was hoped) “free from polemical and ecclesiastical bias.” Emphasis would be laid on “Historical and Archaeological questions, as well as questions of Biblical [though presumably not systematic] Theology.”

As it actually turned out, the Old Testament volumes leaned very heavily upon philology and literary criticism and scarcely entered the field of biblical theology, while the New commentaries (with one exception) tended to have a more theological emphasis and were also generally more conservative in their critical conclusions, perhaps reflecting the differing outlooks of Driver and Alfred Plummer, who was the New Testament editor. Although the names of intended authors were listed in the first volume to appear, the names changed considerably over the years and many commentaries failed to appear. When the latest volume of the old series (James A. Montgomery, 1 and 2 Kings) appeared in 1951, only about two-thirds of the Bible had been covered. But by then the three original editors (C. A. Briggs was the third) were long since dead, and it seemed that the publishers and potential authors either were exhausted or had lost interest in the project.

The ICC, though very dated and in places uneven in quality, still remains an indispensable tool for the contemporary theological student or pastor, since it is the only commentary series of this style in English. (By contrast, German scholars and publishers have never tired of producing and revising numerous scholarly commentary series and other technical works of biblical study!) The new Hermeneia series, which is being published by Fortress Press, is similar to the ICC though not quite so technical and thus far is limited to translations from German. There are also commentaries on individual books, not a part of any series, that fill a gap for the serious student and surpass or update numerous ICC volumes.

However, many volumes of the old ICC remain of special value. Here one thinks of Skinner on Genesis (1925), Driver on Deuteronomy (1895), Montgomery on Daniel (1927), the multi-author volumes on the Minor Prophets (1905, 1911, 1912), Plummer on Luke (1896) and 2 Corinthians (1915), Burton on Galatians (1921), Charles’s two volumes on Revelation (1920), and, until the appearance last year of the replacement by Cranfield, Sanday and Headlam on Romans (1895).

The scholarly world pricked up its ears when it began to be rumored that the ICC was being revised under the editorship of J. A. Emerton of Cambridge and C. E. B. Cranfield of Durham. As it turns out, there are plans not for a complete revision of the series but rather for the replacement of some volumes and the filling in of significant gaps (for example, no commentary on Acts was ever published in the old series: the responsibility for this is now in the capable hands of C. K. Barrett). And now we have the first volume of what is certainly the most significant commentary on Romans written in English in more than three-quarters of a century.

Cranfield’s work is in every way a worthy successor to its well-known predecessor. If the authors who follow him in the next few years keep to the same high standard, students and teachers of the New Testament will owe them a very great debt indeed. As I read page after page of Cranfield on Romans 1–8, I could not but think of Lightfoot and Westcott, for the author seems to have that same blend of careful scholarship and sympathy for the thought of the biblical writers that one finds in these two greatest of English commentators but in few other modern (or ancient, for that matter) commentators. Volume one begins with a forty-four-page introduction, dealing with questions of authenticity and integrity, date and place of writing, the church in Rome, occasion and purpose, language and style, structure, and the history of the exegesis of the epistle. This section is a model of lucid brevity. The author deals with the major alternatives suggested in regard to each problem of introduction without overwhelming the reader with detail or turning his comments into bibliographical essays (as is the tendency of recent German commentators). His conclusions are uniformly conservative and traditional, though they are by no means merely assumed:

1. Paul is the true author of the whole epistle, including chapters 15 and 16; Tertius (Rom. 16:22) served only as secretary, taking down in longhand and shorthand the actual words of Paul.

2. The letter was written either during the period of the final days of A D. 55 and the early weeks of A.D. 56 or during the corresponding period A.D. 56–57.

3. The Roman church contained both Jewish and Gentile members, neither group, probably, having an overwhelming predominance.

4. Although the general occasion of the epistle is clear—Paul proposes to stop by Rome on his way to further missionary labors in Spain (1:8–15 and 15:14–33)—it is not altogether clear, at least at first, why he took the occasion to write a detailed exposition of the Gospel as he preached it. Cranfield promises to return to this subject at the end of his commentary.

5. Paul’s use of language shows a certain degree of culture and general refinement: his style is fluent and accurate Greek without any hint that (as is sometimes suggested) he is thinking in Aramaic.

6. A point worth noting is the use of connectives (i.e., conjunctions and other linking words), which indicates the logical development of Paul’s thought; Cranfield takes pains to point out the significance of these and the orderly mind of the author of Romans.

7. The theme of the epistle as a whole (and not just chapters 1–8 or 1–11) is found in 1:16b, 17: God’s righteousness which is by faith.

A valuable feature of Cranfield’s commentary is his warm appreciation of the work of all biblical commentators, especially the early Fathers, and not just modern scholars. Far from being largely irrelevant for the contemporary understanding of Paul’s magnum opus, the Fathers are seen to have often come to grips with the heart of an exegetical problem; and even the Middle Ages are not without light (particularly the work of Aquinas). However, it is John Calvin (rather than Luther!) with whom the author finds greatest sympathy, a fact that should warm all good Presbyterian and Reformed hearts!

Although many North American evangelicals may not be familiar with the author and his earlier work, they will doubtless embrace him as a brother, since his commentary is consistently evangelical and reformed (without being doctrinaire). Here are a few samples of his thought on key theological issues. On the concept of God’s wrath, which is so troublesome to the mind of modern man, he writes (against Dodd):

That Paul would attribute to God a capricious, irrational rage is more than improbable. But a consideration of what Dodd calls “the highest human ideas of personality” might well lead us to question whether God could be the good and loving God, if He did not react to our evil with wrath. For indignation against wickedness is surely an essential element of human goodness in a world in which moral evil is always present.…

In view of the parallelism between [chapter 1] vv. 17 and 18, the most natural way of taking v. 18 is to understand Paul to mean that orge theou [God’s wrath] also is being revealed in the gospel, that is, in the on-going proclamation of the gospel, and to recognize that behind, and basic to, this revelation of the wrath of God in the preaching, is the prior revelation of the wrath of God in the gospel events.…

The reality of the wrath of God is only truly known when it is seen in its revelation in Gethsemane and on Golgotha [pp. 109, 110].

After arguing for the translation of hilasterion in 3:25 by “a propitiatory sacrifice,” he comments:

We take it that what Paul’s statement that God purposed Christ as a propitiatory victim means is that God, because in His mercy He willed to forgive sinful men and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against His own very Self in the person of His Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved [p. 217],

And on Romans 5:1:

What did Paul understand to be the relation between reconciliation and justification? The correct answer would seem to be … that God’s justification involves reconciliation because God is what He is. Where it is God’s justification that is concerned, justification and reconciliation, though distinguishable, are inseparable. Whereas between a human judge and the person who appears before him there may be no personal meeting at all, no personal hostility if the accused is found guilty, no establishment of friendship if the accused is acquitted, between God and the sinner there is a personal relationship, and God’s justification involves a real self-engagement to the sinner on His part. He does not confer the status of righteousness upon us without at the same time giving Himself to us in friendship and establishing peace between Himself and us … [p. 258].

These three quotations give a sample of the theological flavor of Cranfield’s commentary, but they give no indication of the exegetical and philological detail with which the work abounds, nor of the author’s mastery of literature ranging from biblical and extra-biblical Greek and Hebrew texts through the rabbis and the early Fathers to modem commentators in a multitude of languages. Each page is packed with helpful information that will be appreciated by all serious students of the New Testament. The work will be of value primarily to those who have studied Greek, but I am sure that many who have no knowledge of this language but who have the patience to work their way through the material will also find their reward.

The only two, rather minor, negative comments I would offer are these. First, the printing job could have been more carefully done. In view of the technicality of the text, which contains reams of Greek and some Hebrew (untransliterated!), and also other foreign-language material, it is surprising that there are so few typographical errors. But in such an expensive volume one would think that the printers would be careful to make the margins uniform and to see that the type always prints evenly. However, this in no way spoils the content.

My second criticism concerns the too-frequent use of Latin and Greek (not only in the case of the New Testament and Septuagint) and, to a lesser degree, German and French. In my experience, it would be asking too much to expect all contemporary professors of New Testament to have the language mastery required to make full use of these references, and certainly few if any British or North American theological students or pastors possess the necessary linguistic skills. Although some of the author’s university colleagues might look askance at the idea of translating quotes into English, that practice would surely have enhanced the usefulness of the commentary for many.

There is no list of scholars who are working on subsequent volumes contained in this first volume of the new ICC series, but I happen to know that a distinguished group is hard at work, including E. Earle Ellis (First Corinthians), Margaret Thrall (Second Corinthians), W. D. Davies (Matthew), Bruce M. Metzger (Galatians), and Ernest Best (Ephesians). Any one of these could be published within the next two to four years, but I predict that the next to appear will be Cranfield’s second volume on Romans. Whether my prediction is right or not, I am certain that we will all be the debtors of whoever is the next to reach the press. May the Lord strengthen their hands.

BRIEFLY NOTED

Studies in Words, by C. S. Lewis (Cambridge, 343 pp., $15.50, $5.95 pb). The second edition was first issued in 1967 and is now available in paperback. Lewis discusses the meanings of various words such as nature, wit, and sense, words that students and other readers of older literature often misunderstand, sometimes with comical results. Lewis says the book is an “aide to more accurate reading,” and it is just that. Although not specifically religious, it makes us sensitive to the exact meanings of words and how they change, important in studying Scripture or theology. Those who write can benefit not only from Lewis’s ideas but also from the example of his graceful prose.

Objections to Astrology, by Bart Bok and Lawrence Jerome (Prometheus, 62 pp., $2.95 pb). Though largely from a humanist perspective, nevertheless this is a useful rebuttal to what is perhaps the most widespread non-Christian religious practice.

Evangelical feminists claim to be faithful to God as revealed in Christ and the Scriptures. Many Bible-believers have changed their minds over the years about church and state, slavery, and racial discrimination; a better understanding of the Bible can similarly lead to a change in views about men and women. Others dispute, sometimes strongly, the evangelical feminist claim. One of the best ways is to see for oneself what is—and is not—said in the Christian feminists’ leading periodical, Daughters of Sarah, a bi-monthly. A year’s subscription is $2.50 (5104 N. Christiana, Chicago, Ill. 60625).

Libraries serving theological students who read French should welcome the appearance of Hokhma (a Hebrew word for “wisdom”), a theological journal to be published three times per year. For subscription information write Case postale 242, 1000 Lausanne 22, Switzerland. Meanwhile, the somewhat less academic Ichthus is now in its sixth year of monthly publication. For information write Librairie Robert-Estienne, 5 route des Acacias, 1227 Carouge-Geneve, Switzerland.

Compulsory Education and the Amish: The Right Not to Be Modern, edited by Albert N. Keim (Beacon, 211 pp., $8.95). Even as Jehovah’s Witnesses have won for all kinds of believers rights to proselytize, so the Amish may be leading the way to winning rights to educate one’s children as one pleases. Thorough documentation, focusing on a Wisconsin supreme court decision.

Get Me a Tambourine!, by Mary Jane Chambers (Hawthorn, 164 pp., $3.95 pb). A young teenager is converted and joins the “Jesus movement.” His mother, active in a “mainstream” church, records the resulting family conflict over the next few years, which bring some modifications on both sides. Interspersed are brief but illuminating comments by the boy on what his mother has written.

Christians who like poetry will welcome the appearance in October, 1975, of Gates, a quarterly of “poetry and art that exalts Jesus Christ and strengthens the Body of Christ” ($4 for 4 issues/year; Box 67, Grand Rapids, Mich 55744).

Sojourners made its appearance in January as a new, more constructive name for The Post American. The sponsoring Peoples Christian Coalition has moved from the Chicago area to the nation’s capital. It stresses both individual conversion and living in community not as a means of withdrawal from the world but to promote social reform in keeping with what are believed to be divinely revealed biblical precepts ($5 for 10 issues/year; 1029 Vermont Avenue N.W., Washington, D. C. 20005). Somewhat different perspectives on what the Bible teaches are presented by some younger evangelicals in the Boston area in The Cambridge Fish ($2 for 4 issues/year; Box 607, Cambridge, Mass. 02139). Consideration of differing viewpoints is helpful, if not essential, for mature disciples of Christ.

Basic Principles of Biblical Counseling, by Lawrence Crabb, Jr. (Zondervan, 111 pp., $4.95). Crabb is a clinical psychologist engaged in private practice who feels that the local congregation needs to be much more involved in counseling than is customary. He feels that many evangelical psychologists are too congenial to humanistic theories, but he obviously avoids the extreme of denying any validity to psychology.

The Church Cyclopedia: A Dictionary of Church Doctrine, History, Organization and Ritual, edited by Angelo Benton (Gale Research Co., 810 pp., $28) Reprint of an 1883 reference work especially prepared by American Episcopalians and therefore of special interest to libraries serving them and to major seminary libraries generally.

Evangelization And Morality

Evangelization Today, by Bernard Häring (Fides, 1975, 182 pp., $4.95 pb), is reviewed by Dale Sanders, pastor, Evangelical Covenant Church, Essex, Iowa.

Häring, a noted Catholic moral theologian, helps us appreciate that there is still a deposit of sound teaching on grace that can be found in the Roman communion. In Thomistic outline style, with footnotes, he probes the significance of Pope Paul’s designation of 1975 as a Holy Year with two great themes, world evangelization and reconciliation.

Häring is a leading member of the progressive faction in Catholicism and was an early proponent of enlightened interpretations on indulgences and marriage. But he has been reacting lately to the excesses of Marxism, humanism, and the various liberation theologies. While defending his beloved church, he also criticizes her.

His book provides fascinating reading. He expounds on the “solidarity of the race” in a manner reminiscent of vintage Rauschenbusch. In a reflective section in which he claims “I do not intend to suggest to priests and faithful immediate applications …” (p. 144), he takes a position on polygamous African converts and their baptism virtually identical with the church-growth philosophy of Fuller Seminary’s School of World Mission. He rails against one of the least-known madnesses of recent years, the massacre of some 250,000 inhabitants of Burundi, Africa, a country with little more than three million population. He is an admirer of conservative United Methodist ethicist, Paul Ramsey.

Critics of Catholicism fault it for a “theology of glory” as opposed to a “theology of grace.” H’aring appears to be adequately aware of this classic Protestant criticism and comes off an earnest explicator of grace:

Christ is not the servant of the Mosaic law, but Liberator and Saviour of all men. He came to destroy all man-made barriers, those also between Jews and Gentiles. What redeems us is grace and not morals, especially if our morals is not evangelical morals (p. 49).

He restates the “theology of glory and creates a thoughtful tension (p. 104). Nevertheless evangelicals will heavily discount large sections of Häring’s thought that are distinctively Roman Catholic: sacramental, hierarchical, and fanciful.

Those who are also concerned about the transformation of morals as part of an overall evangelical witness would do well to consider Häring’s quest for “evangelical morals” (p. 142) and “evangelical beatitudes” (p. 181). He affirms that:

Morality should never proceed according to schemes of law and grace or of law and gospel, but rather always in a vision of responsibility to the gospel and gratitude for grace, which process alone becomes a total and grateful response (p. 106).

Jesuses All Around Us

The Alleluia Affair, by Malcolm Boyd (Word, 1975, 130 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Edward Higgins, professor of English, George Fox College, Newberg, Oregon.

Malcolm Boyd has given us a moving and much needed parable for our own time. One day all the Jesuses on the crosses and in stained glass windows throughout the world suddenly come to life. They descend from their crosses and leap out of their windows. Jesuses all over the world rent rooms at YMCA’s and work as laborers, migrant farm workers, and in other lowly jobs. People confront Jesus in the streets and on the job, and at the lunch counter talk to him face to face. Naturally this is a widely discussed phenomenon all over the world. Religious leaders, in particular, are puzzled and show consternation. As one old priest observes, “The church preached resurrection; now it is confronted by it.”

And confronting the day-to-day moral, social, and political meaning of the Resurrection in a modern, secular world is precisely what Boyd wants us to do. What does the Resurrection mean to me as I confront a world of hunger, pain, injustice, rejection, meaningless lives, and all the other hurts, spiritual and physical, that human flesh is heir to?

With all the Jesuses off their crosses, another strange thing happens. All the empty crosses that once bore Christ’s likeness now bear likenesses of suffering human beings: a young black man who is a convict, a brown woman who is an untouchable, a white youth beaten by drunken parents, a tortured political prisoner, a woman who has lost the meaning of life, and many others. So people begin to see that they crucify one another just as they placed Jesus on the cross originally.

Through these and other devices of the parable-sermon, Boyd dramatizes anew Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, showing them as functioning and potent symbols for our own crucified and suffering world. The Alleluia Affair is compelling in the urgency of its message and beautiful in the simple truth of its vision. It deserves to be read widely. Photographs throughout the text are mostly crucifixes or empty crosses; several are of people going about their daily business. Juxtaposed with the text, all are moving.