Page 5910 – Christianity Today (2024)

NEWS

The seeds of a new church fell on fertile ground last month as commissioners (delegates) to the 183rd General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., meeting in Rochester, New York, received for study a new plan of union and reaffirmed interest in an old one.

The new plan was a study draft to unite the northern church (UPCUSA) with the southern, the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.; the draft will be presented to the southern church next month. The old plan was the ten-year-old Consultation on Church Union, which is to be studied at the same time despite several sharp challenges. (A motion from the Presbytery of Pittsburgh “on discontinuing participation in the Consultation on Church Union” failed.)

The road to reunion is apparently a rocky one; even the more limited plan to unite the northern and southern churches met with opposition, led by the largely black Synod of Catawba. Several motions were made to delay by four years final presentation of the plan to the two Presbyterian churches. The result was a compromise: a one-year delay. This means the Committee of Twenty-four on reunion will present its final recommendations to the 1973, rather than 1972, General Assembly.

The assembly of the 3.1-million-member United Presbyterian Church also authorized conversations on the possibility of organic union with four largely black denominations: the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Second Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The first three already participate in the Consultation on Church Union.

As currently worded, the plan for reunion of the two Presbyterian bodies permits congregations to remain outside, retaining their property. It also exempts congregations and ministers deciding not to enter the new church from disciplinary action should they “seek to establish relations with others of like mind.”

In some ways this year at the General Assembly was the year of the underdogs—not blacks (they seem to have had their day) but young persons and women. Early in the week commissioners elected Mrs. Lois H. Stair as the first woman moderator in Presbyterian history. The Special Committee on Women later proposed that half the elected lay representation on church boards and agencies be women. After debate the assembly granted “fair representation” for women instead of the equal participation the committee had sought.

To many observers the highlight of the ten days of meetings came in the youth contribution, particularly that of the United Presbyterian Liberation Front. This is a group of “Jesus people” led by Dennis Rydberg, pastor to youth of the First Presbyterian Church of San Diego, California. The group gave old-fashioned testimonies—“I never heard the Gospel in my church; I only heard that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but Christ found me.… I am a new creature.… Jesus has made my hate disappear.… Social change is needed, but before you can get it you must be changed yourself”—and challenged the delegates to make new efforts toward “personal evangelism and leadership training.”

As a final gesture the Liberation Front handed out pennies under the banner “Evangelism ’70—A Penny per Year per Member,” calling attention to the annual allocation to the denomination’s Committee on Evangelism. The young people wished to double the efforts for evangelism. The commissioners gave their presentation a standing ovation.

Many observers also felt a new wave of enthusiasm for evangelism at the assembly, prompted in part by the interest of the young in conversions and in part by the denomination’s declining membership (77,000 last year). At times this mood seemed to contrast sharply with the interests of the major mission agencies, whose efforts have been largely in the social arena in recent years.

During the week the 183rd General Assembly also:

• Voted to raise $70 million for the self-development of impoverished persons during the next nine years.

•Approved an extensive fund-raising plan that will attempt to persuade 500,000 families to pledge 5 per cent or more of their income “to God through the church.”

• Asked its Committee on Ministerial Relations to study the possibility of (1) having pastors serve churches for terms of a previously specified length and (2) requiring ministers to retire at age 65.

• Endorsed a proposal for extensive restructuring—the first since 1923—of the denomination’s national and international agencies.

• Requested a halt to all United States military involvement in Indochina no later than the end of 1971.

• Called for general and complete disarmament, repeal of the Selective Service Act, environmental renewal, and far-reaching innovations in the nation’s health-care system plus a single national health agency.

A normally routine motion to continue an Emergency Fund for Legal Aid to the poor, established by last year’s assembly, was severely contested because of a grant last year of $10,000 to the Angela Davis Defense Fund. The Fund for Legal Aid was continued at a suggested rate of $100,000 per year as in the past, though the commissioners adopted by majority vote a statement questioning “the propiety” of the Angela Davis grant.

A preliminary enquiry into the activities of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, Incorporated, was dropped after the editor of the Presbyterian Layman acknowledged an error in judgment in publishing two articles highly critical of some aspects of the denomination’s work (see also editorial, page 21). In related action the assembly approved a set of principles for review of the Lay Committee and other organizations, noting that: (1) variety of opinion, expression, and activity is to be encouraged; (2) the right to dissent is inalienable; (3) judicatories do, however, have the right to insist that dissent and its method of expression be responsible; (4) responsible dissent does not include the right to attack the motives, character, or integrity of individuals or groups within the church; and (5) publications shall conform to the canons and ethics of responsible journalism.

The action to investigate the Lay Committee was initiated by the stated clerk of the denomination, William P. Thompson. In separate action Thompson was elected to serve a second five-year term in the church’s highest administrative office.

The War And The Kirk

“Why we get hoity-toity about Lieutenant Calley and My Lai I cannot conceive,” Lord George MacLeod told the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh last month. “At Holy Loch,” continued the militant pacifist spellbinder, “we are living beside missiles each of which can simultaneously destroy five towns of 500,000 people.” This reference to the American Polaris base in west Scotland (a favorite target of his) came when Lord MacLeod called for definition of the Church’s attitude toward the doctrine of the just war.

Just or not, there were more warlike mutterings when the assembly agreed by a narrow majority to send down to presbyteries a form of words that would demote the Westminster Confession from “subordinate standard” to mere “historic statement.” The theological right had feared that the kirk was disowning its heritage; the left wanted a completely new statement of faith; while four demonstrators in the public gallery rose at different times during the debate to testify that the pope was antichrist (for which enormity they were speedily consigned to the civil magistrate). Earlier in the week two others who penetrated the police cordon were arrested for expressing similar sentiments when the antichrist’s invited observer, Bishop James Monaghan, was welcomed by the new moderator, Dr. Andrew Herron.

Another specter considered laid long since reappeared to depress protesters further when Professor J. K. S. Reid, leader of the kirk’s panel in discussions with the Episcopalians, said there was no reason why Anglican bishops should not take part in the assembly. The alarmed were hastily assured that nothing could happen behind the assembly’s back.

The establishment got a hefty kick in the teeth when the assembly overwhelmingly decided that its publicity and publications committee had no right last December to fire the Reverend Leonard Bell, editor of the kirk’s 200,000-circulation monthly Life and Work. He pleaded that as the assembly had given him his job only the assembly could take it away. Bell was reinstated; the committee’s convener resigned.

The assembly also: expressed readiness to reconsider union plans with Scottish Congregationalists rejected in 1969 … agreed that the kirk should act as the trade union for thousands of unemployed who had no voice and for old people hard pressed by the inflation currently hitting Britain … appointed the Reverend A. G. McGillivray, 47, as deputy clerk and successor to Dr. J. B. Longmuir, who resigns next year as assembly clerk … heard that kirk membership over the year had fallen by more than 24,000 and now stood at 1,154,211 … supported the WCC grants to anti-racist groups but refused to open a special account to further the program … warned the Heath government against entry into the European Common Market (which threatened “the biggest surrender of British sovereignty since Charles II”) in defiance of the wishes of the people … declined to dispose of kirk shareholdings in South Africa.

Meanwhile across the street was meeting the eighty-three-minister Free Church of Scotland, which has no diplomatic relations with its big sister. Its moderator, Professor G. N. M. Collins, said the Free Church took no pleasure in the fragmented condition of the Church of Scotland today with its preaching “pitifully inadequate and so destitute of the message of salvation as to be an affront to the Gospel and an insult to the intellect.” The ecumenical movement was also castigated, as “one of the most controversial and influential sideshows of the present time.”

J. D. DOUGLAS

Baptist Convention Opens Quietly

When the Southern Baptist Convention met in Denver last year, resolutions and motions were occasionally greeted by catcalls and boos from the floor. The most incandescent issue was the recalling of a Bible commentary on Genesis and Exodus prepared by the 11.6-million-member denomination’s Sunday School Board (see June 19, 1970, issue, page 32).

There were no such acrimonious exchanges this year—at least not during the first half of the SBC’s 114th annual session, held June 1–3 in St. Louis. In fact, during discussion of a resolution praising the American Bible Society, SBC president Carl E. Bates, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina (he was re-elected for a second one-year term as expected), asked messenger (delegate) William Barner of Indiana, “Are you at the mike?” Barner, misunderstanding Bates, replied; “No, I’m not mad.” After sustained laughter quieted, the affable Bates quipped: “God bless you; may your tribe increase!” Such was the irenic spirit of the early hours of the convention, attended by more than 14,500 messengers and visitors.

At the half-way mark, the most enthusiastically received presentation was a twenty-minute Students Speak Up program by five Southern Baptist collegians and The Bridge, a folk-rock group from the University of Alabama.

“We believe in the Church and we want you to believe in us. Rather than talking to us, put us to work—please,” pleaded pretty Lois Weaver of Roanoke, Virginia. Against a multi-media backdrop, students testified to the power of the Jesus revolution now sweeping the world—in and out of the organized church. Scattered “amens” from approving adults coursed through the auditorium.

In early business sessions, the SBC completed a separation process started in 1970 that makes two formerly convention-related hospitals—one in Jacksonville, Florida, the other in New Orleans—private institutions, effective September 1. A $24.6 million Cooperative Program for the first nine months of 1972 was approved; it does not represent an increase in operating funds.

In related action, messengers accepted a goal of a dramatically expanded stewardship program that would channel a whopping billion dollars annually through their 34,500 local churches by 1975.

An important resolution on abortion, the first the SBC has taken at a national meeting, urged Baptists to work for legislation permitting abortion under certain conditions. These include: “rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” Attempts to amend the resolution by deleting the last clause failed.

At the same time, the convention said that “society has the responsibility to affirm … a high view of the sanctity of human life, including fetal life, in order to protect those who cannot protect themselves.”

In the annual convention sermon, John R. Claypool, pastor of Crescent Hills Baptist Church in Louisville, urged Southern Baptists to steer a middle road between the extremes of right and left.

The United States, Claypool said, must be like the Prodigal Son, who in his progress from adolescence to maturity, recognized his limits as well as his power in responsible freedom. And the Christian community must “act out the role of the father in this parable and lead our nation in maturing.”

“It would be suicidal if we tried to ignore our limits and go on trying to police the whole world,” he continued. At the same time, it would be tragic indeed for us to retreat into a neo-isolationism and deprive the world of the role we have been gifted by God to play.”

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Missions Today

Missionary, Come Back!, by Arden Almquist (World, 1970, 201 pp., $5.95), Call to Mission, by Stephen Neill (Fortress, 1970, 113 pp., $3.95), The Third World and Mission, by Dennis E. Clark (Word, 1971, 129 pp., $3.95), Student Power in World Evangelism, by David M. Howard (Inter-Varsity, 1970, 129 pp., paperback, $1.25), and World Mission and World Communism; edited by Gerhard Hoffmann and Wilhelm Wille (John Knox, 1968, 142 pp., paperback, $2.45), are reviewed by Samuel F. Rowen, coordinator of program development, Missionary Internship, Farmington, Michigan.

Publishers are investing many pages in the subject of world missions. This means there must be a good market for such books. That this outpouring of comment on world missions should come at a time when the Western Church is experiencing an identity crisis is perplexing. Some see the great interest in “over there” as merely a cop-out for failure at home; others view it as a necessary by-product of an affluent church, or as a sign of inevitable involvement in the global village; still others think it reflects an intense commitment to the truth of the Gospel.

Three of the authors whose books we consider here—Almquist, Neill, and Clark—deal essentially with the theme of the place or role of the missionary. The one great reality that faces the contemporary missionary is that the Church is. The truly pioneering missionary is a vanishing species. Therefore, the role of the missionary in relation to the existing church is of crucial importance. This topic determines the structure of Almquist’s Missionary, Come Back! and Neill’s Call to Mission. Both begin by discussing what the missionary did right, and conclude by building a case for a continuing role for the missionary.

Almquist is a medical doctor who served in the Congo and is now world-missions secretary for the Evangelical Covenant Church. In his first three chapters he so vividly describes the failures of missionaries that I began to feel the situation was beyond redemption. But then he shows their positive contributions effectively enough to make his plea for a continuing missionary involvement seem plausible.

Almquist’s passionate approach is both the strength and the weakness of the book. Those who are doing missionary work wrongly are, he says, the ones who preach an “Edwardian Gospel,” a name he derives from Jonathan Edwards. In his attack on the Edwardian Gospel he quotes approvingly Arthur Glasser; one wonders what he would say if Glasser turned out to be an advocate of that Gospel.

Almquist accepts Zabriskie’s exegesis of Acts 10:9–16, and this allows him to accept the secular world as the starting point for missions. He says:

By Christian secularity I mean the attitude of mind and style of life of the Christian who finds in secularization not only no threat to the Gospel, but a legitimate and even necessary explication of the Gospel regarding the relationship of the Church and the world, the Kingdom of God and the city of man.

Such a conclusion is rather determinative for the understanding of the Christian mission. However, there are more convincing foundations than the inadequate handling of Acts 10:9–16. The other great burden Almquist bears is that the majority of those pursuing the missionary vocation are of the fundamentalist commitment—the kind, he says, who are not needed.

A contrast to Almquist’s book is found in Bishop Neill’s balanced, scholarly work, Call to Mission. Neill calmly examines the reasons why some feel that missions is dead. He quickly gets to the heart of the matter: the reason for involvement in missions is that the Gospel is true.

Almquist finds as the main justification for missions the fact that the missionary is still needed in the life of the developing nations. I have an uneasy feeling that even though he pleads for an end to Western imperialism, there remains in his argument a subtle form of imperialism (i.e., “We have what you need”). Neill shows that the basic consideration is not whether the missionary is wanted or not but that the Gospel is true.

Neill is an outstanding historian of missions and calls upon his broad knowledge to illustrate his points. One point deserves careful attention, especially by those going through the tensions of transition in mission-church relationships. He says that the under-thirty Christians in India have all grown up knowing nothing but independence, both politically and ecclesiastically. These younger Christians are the ones asking for missionaries, he says, but missionaries of a special kind. He recommends that relationships with the younger Christians be cultivated as the working base of the future. Their elders who went through the pangs of independence have slow-healing wounds that make it hard for them to think positively about the role of the missionary. However, those who haven’t experienced these tensions offer the possibility of a meaningful relationship with the national church.

In The Third World and Mission, Clark offers a disturbing analysis of evangelical missions. He defines the third world as “the independent nations of Asia, Africa, and South America who increasingly want to determine their destinies apart from the influences and pressures of the so-called great powers.” The seventies will see two major factors influence the course of the third world, he says—the communications revolution and education. Other important influences will be “the conflict between affluence and poverty, industrialization and its shattering of the family, and technological developments with their depersonalizing effect.”

Clark does not question the validity of the missionary role but rather tries to determine what the role should be in the present decade. His most far-reaching proposal is related to the missionary compound: “… to dismantle all foreign mission compounds as well as to break up concentrations of foreign personnel.… At the latest, 1975 could be set as the target date to implement this action. Concentrations of foreigners and the old type mission compound would be an anachronism by the end of the 70’s.”

While this is a book that all evangelicals would do well to read, it carries with it the prevalent messianic optimism about the use of modern means of communication. To the author our great advance in technological gadgetry means that “great numbers can be reached through communications for far less money.…” But such optimism fails to take into account the sufficient data showing that the mass media are ineffective in bringing people to the place of decision. It is still the personal encounter that is decisive in communications. We must understand the role of the technological revolution in communications without forgetting that the key matter is the personal communication of an understandable and true message.

In Student Power in World Evangelism David Howard gives a readable account of how students have been a formative force in world missions. The book is built around what he feels are the two points that will motivate Christian young people to involve themselves in world evangelization: the biblical basis for world missions and the historical fact that God has significantly used students in world evangelism.

Howard sees the basis of world mission in the doctrine of creation. (It is interesting that in the footnote to this conclusion he cites Johannes Blauw and J. H. Bavinck, saying they began with Genesis 1:1. The reader could easily assume that these authors agreed about the mission of the Church. But Bavinck’s critique of Hendrik Kraemer would equally apply to Blauw.) This focus upon the essential biblical starting point for world missions is important. Evangelicals have devoted much energy to understanding the doctrine of creation as over against evolution. In so doing they have failed to grasp its foundational significance for the Church’s social and evangelistic responsibility.

World Mission and World Communism is a collection of papers given at the Academy of Missions at Hamburg University. The book analyzes the relation of the Church to Communism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. As is true of most compilations, the chapters are of unequal value. But the first two, dealing with revolution, are worth the price of the book.

Heinz-Dietrich Wendland says the Church has failed to develop a proper understanding of revolution. He sees the doctrine of creation as the cause for what he decries as the conservative reaction against revolution. He quotes Tillich in denouncing the “Creation Myth” and calls instead for an eschatological ethic. A creation ethic says that society is responsible to remain within the boundaries or spheres established by God’s creative purposes. An eschatological ethic looks to the future and views things as “not yet” (even God himself). So creation again becomes a foundational issue in understanding the mission of the Church.

There is a great similarity here with Richard Shaull’s view of history as the starting point for understanding the mission of the Church. But to make history or eschatology the norm for ethics or the mission of the Church has consequences. Only a determinative word from God holds the prospect of a satisfying solution, not only for what the Church ought to be doing, but also for the real needs of men.

The other important doctrine that emerges in the book has to do with the Kingdom of God. Historically, the way one views the Kingdom of God determines how he understands the relation between church and state. Wendland, with the Lutheran view of the separation of kingdom and church, maintains the goal is not the founding of Christian societies and institutions but the “‘humanization’ of society, the improvement of law, of social and international peace.” Ludwig Rutt, a Roman Catholic, in discussing the Catholic attitude toward Communism underscores the place the Kingdom of God has in determining what the church-state relationship should be.

Not all these books are worth the same amount of time and cost, though each has value. I prefer Call to Mission, probably because of a bias to read whatever Bishop Neill writes. But The Third World and Mission is significant for the missionary, missions executive, and layman who are concerned about evangelical missions. Student Power and World Evangelism should receive a broad reading and will have particular value for students. The book that will have probably the smallest reading public (it may necessitate rereading), World Mission and World Communism, is possibly the most significant. Here is a good introduction to the rationale for the development of a “political theology,” which is sometimes difficult to distinguish from Marxism. To understand how the Church can become the vanguard of revolution, one would do well to start here.

Undressing White Christians

Your God Is Too White, by Columbus Salley and Ronald Behm (Inter-Varsity, 1970, 114 pp., paperback, $1.95), is reviewed by James S. Tinney, who teaches black studies at a high school in Kansas City, Missouri.

This book is the first on Christianity and racism to be co-authored by a black and a white. The fact that both are evangelicals is a bonus and places the volume alongside those by Pannell, Skinner, and Howard Jones. Skinner’s Black and Free and Pannell are autobiographical, Jones is analytical of Negro religion, and Skinner’s How Black Is the Gospel? is sermonic. Your God Is Too White is none of these. Instead it is the biography of a WASP, it analyzes the crooked line of white religion, and it is polemical.

Although some readers will criticize it for being mostly negative in attitude, they cannot say it is a diatribe. It is reasoned, logical, and supported by a body of footnotes. Only the person trained in black history will find the early chapters, which give a basic orientation to the black-white situation in America, redundant and slow reading.

That the book is primarily sociological in approach is no weakness either. Its biblical treatment of every situation is adequate enough to enlist the support of the wary as well as to defrock the super-righteous.

Substantially, Salley and Behm fulfill our expectations by their general indictment of organized Christianity (“a monolithic whole in the broad, popular sense”) and their defense of the non-discriminating, true Christian faith (“an independent religious reality”). On the whole, the book appeals to the black man on the thesis that “the white American who has perverted history to exclude his own atrocities and the black man’s achievements also may have perverted Christianity.” What is surprising, but nonetheless true, is that some unsuspecting persons are called to trial.

Mr. Citizen of the North, will you please take the stand? You are charged with refusing to admit the presence of the Negro, “insensibly fitting blacks for a continued subordinate role” by emphasizing industrial skills, and closely accepting the South’s solution to the problem.

How about you, Mr. Quaker—will you tell us the whole truth? The whole truth is that you neglected to encourage the freedmen to join your own churches, so that as a result you are today a part of a white church.

And where is the anti-slavery Protestant? You too are hereby indicted for limiting your concern to education and evangelism as solutions.

Oh, yes. Will Mr. Social Gospeler please submit to questioning? Let the world know that you too “neglected the racial problem and either adopted notions of racial superiority or refused to rebuke those who did.” Witness Munger, Gladden, Rauschenbusch, Abbott, Herron, and your unashamed colleague, Josiah Strong.

That broad sweep of guilt does not exonerate the evangelical. It is well known and often admitted that he has generally neglected social reform. (Although Timothy Smith’s book Revivalism and Social Reform betrays this pattern, it deals only with the era preceding the Civil War.) What comes as a novel idea is that the evangelical interest in foreign missionary work went hand in hand with social Darwinism to take religious and secular minds off racial injustice. (Moody and Sunday also were guilty of holding segregated campaigns.)

Other positions taken by the authors will probably raise more ire, because they deal with interpretation more than historical fact. Salley and Behm see inter-racial sex as the root of white fears. (Eldridge Cleaver and Kovel’s White Racism: A Psychohistory agree.) They call for structural change to precede attitudinal change (which goes a step beyond the liberal’s both/and proposition, and two steps past the evangelical’s change-of-heart Gospel). They call the Nordic Jesus a phony. (The foreword says, “The white Jesus is dead.”) And they say that Christ’s turn-the-other-cheek admonition applies only to persecution for the sake of Christian testimony, not to secular, civil-political, or national battles. (This subtle justification of violence will surely offend not only the peace churches but many other exegetes as well.)

Although the thesis of the book enlists my full support, I question some isolated statements. The NAACP is cited as the first protest organization; this is incorrect. DuBois’s Niagara Movement preceded that organization by three years and was a separate entity, although DuBois also helped found the NAACP. I doubt whether the authors’ rigid demarcation of eras—(1) slavery, (2) segregation, and (3) ghettoization—can be sustained; the last two terms overlap in meaning and may even be said to be identical.

Likewise, there is growing evidence that their charge, “the black church doesn’t attract the young,” is false. Baldwin at one time said this (the authors quote him), but his last book reverses his preoccupation with the failures of the black church, at least to some degree. Anyway, it must be remembered that Baldwin is representative of the disillusioned intellectual who himself “tried” Christianity—a highly emotionalized version at that—as a youth. He is hardly representative of the average teen-ager. (A Scripture Press survey in 1969 showed that black churches have more teen-age vacation-Bible-school classes than do white churches.)

Weak treatment of the Book of Philemon is also apparent. The authors devote enough space to the letter, but they seem on the defensive (the only place in the book where this happens) and leave the reader feeling that Paul did not adequately destroy the slave-master relationship. A much better treatment may be found in, for instance, Tilson’s Segregation and the Bible.

Finally, the book is short on answers. Several times it quotes Richard Wright, “We all know exactly what to do, though most of us would rather die than do it.” Now, for the majority of persons that is undoubtedly truth in the raw. But there are others, even if a slim minority, for whom specific directives would be a welcome addition to the book. A book that so accurately undresses white Christians should, it seems, leave them defenseless even on the last stand.

Newly Published

New Testament History, by F. F. Bruce (Doubleday, 462 pp., $8.95). The first third of the book recounts the Roman and Jewish context, then fifty pages survey the lives of John and Jesus, and the last half is a history of the first two generations of the Church. The best available treatment by an evangelical.

Esther, by Carey A. Moore (Doubleday, 117 pp., $6). Latest addition to the Anchor Bible.

Popular Song and Youth Today, by Louis M. Savary (Association, 160 pp., paperback, $2.95), Contemporary Film and the New Generation, by Louis M. Savary and J. Paul Carrico (Association, 160 pp., paperback, $2.95), and Peace, War, and Youth, by Louis M. Savary and Maureen P. Collins (Association, 191 pp., paperback, $3.50). A valuable informative series for those who do not listen to popular music, see popular films, or read popular peace-war literature. Each medium reflects the conflicting philosophies current among the young.

The Ethical Demand, by Knud E. Løgstrup (Fortress, 237 pp., $8.95). The book, now in its eighth edition in Denmark, is here translated into English for the first time. An important book, drawing examples from such novelists as E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence, in the continuing drama of situation ethics.

This Dramatic World: Using Contemporary Drama in the Church, by Alfred R. Edyvean (Friendship, 96 pp., paperback, $1.50). A good introduction to several major modern playwrights. Each playwright’s most famous play is discussed. The author contends that, while not necessarily Christians themselves, such men as Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Arthur Miller write from a Christian world view.

Moral Issues and Christian Response, edited by Paul T. Jersild and Dale A. Johnson (Holt, 467 pp., paperback, no price given). Fifty well chosen readings representing diverse viewpoints on abortion, church pronouncements, civil disobedience, genetic manipulation, hom*osexuality, p*rnography, premarital sex, racism, violence, war, and other topics. An excellent way to enhance serious reflection on the issues on which evangelicals should write more adequately.

Reformers in the Wings, by David C. Steinmetz (Fortress, 240 pp., $8.50). A very welcome study of twenty of the sixteenth-century reformers other than the best known.

The Shattered Self: The Religious and Psychological Search for Self-Hood, by Theodore A. McConnell (Pilgrim, 109 pp., $5.95). An introduction to six definitions of adulthood. The author summarizes the ideas of Erikson, Allport, Fromm, Frankl, May, and Maslow. A good book for those who have neither time nor inclination to read first hand the works of these men, but who want an overview of modern psychological thought.

Does Science Confront the Bible?, by James W. Reid (Zondervan, 160 pp., $3.95). Discusses such witless questions as “Does the Bible speak of cars?” or “Does the Bible also refer to modern road buildings?,” finding affirmative answers in such passages as Nahum 2:4 and Isaiah 40:3–5. The only things of worth in this book are the interesting photographs.

The Gay Militants, by Donn Teal (Stein and Day, 355 pp., $7.95). One who is “gay and proud” gives a journalistic account of the two-year-old activist movement of his minority group.

Authority and Rebellion, by Charles E. Rice (Doubleday, 253 pp., $5.95), and The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism, by James Hitchco*ck (Herder and Herder, 228 pp., $6.50). Two lay Catholic professors criticize the radical movement in the church, but the former argues instead for the maintenance of orthodoxy and the latter for more moderate and achievable reform.

Russians Observed, by John Lawrence (Nebraska, 192 pp., $5). Personal impressions and observations from trips spanning 1934 to the late sixties act as a street barometer of social, economic, and religious attitudes and progress. Sir John’s admitted love for Russia, his journalistic experience there, and his fluency in the language combine in fair and often positive descriptions of a reputedly oppressive reality. His adventures in tracking down churches and monasteries reveal much about Orthodox and Baptist activities in Russia, and the religious “revival” within the working classes despite the continual closing of churches. From Lawrence’s contacts with Russian citizens the reader gets a rare, intimate look at their daily life.

Dimensions for Happening, by Lois Horton Young (Judson, 96 pp., paperback, $2.50). A handbook of creative Bible study through art and music for church leaders of teen-age groups. Interesting and valuable for those who are oriented toward the visual, rather than the verbal.

Set Forth Your Case, by Clark H. Pinnock (Moody, 144 pp., paperback, $1.50). A new publisher and appendix for a well received apologetic work first issued in 1967.

Signs of the Times, by A. Skevington Wood (Baker, 126 pp., paperback, $1.25). A readable, reasoned approach to biblical prophecy and current events.

GUEST EDITORIAL

Reinhold Niebuhr, who died June 1 at the age of seventy-eight, placed within his debt evangelicals, no less than Christian thinkers of broader persuasion. His legacy may be viewed under a wide range of rubrics; we here restrict ourselves to five.

As a thinker, Niebuhr gave us a valuable example of searching self-criticism and rigorous self-evaluation, leading at times to a frank reversal of position. His convictions were shaped during the crisis of Western capitalism—the period leading up to the Great Depression. Niebuhr was confronted by the utopianism of communism as well as by the strident claims of fascism.

He was at first tempted to accept the view that violence was the only means to social justice. He shortly saw, however, that violence from the left was impelled by the same quality of hate that inspired violence from the right. His fearless honesty led him to reject the view that the gigantic butcheries of the Lenin-Stalin era were mere peccadilloes of “idealists striving toward the light,” and to assert, “We believe that not only fascism but communism has the perils of barbarism.”

We are indebted to Niebuhr, second, for his realistic view of human reason. It was his contention that reason is as largely affected by sin as are the appetites. Seeing the fearsome contrast between the “moral” individual and the “immoral society” of men in collective life, he affirmed strict limitations upon the ability of reason to curb the power of egoism.

To him reason appeared to be ambivalent, able at the same time to “check egoism” in one sense and to “justify the egoism of the individual” in another. Thus reason became an instrument for producing results as diverse as imperialism and proletarian resistance.

A third enduring contribution to Christian theology is his understanding of sin as pride rather than as sensuality. He shifted the locus of sin from the visible misuse of natural impulses to the more subtle assertion of human autonomy—to the attempt to deny finite limitation. This expresses itself, Niebuhr said, in both individual and collective egoism. Not only did he discern that the “sin of pride” needs greater analysis because of its relative freedom from social inspection; he also saw that collective pride asserts itself in ways transcending the capacities of the individual wills that compose it. It is scarcely possible to overestimate the value of Niebuhr’s thought here.

Permanent, too, is the contribution embodied in his protest against any theory or hope for the too-easy sanctification of society. His genius here lay in his ability to see the complexity of the factors in human behavior, and the demonic possibilities built into the structures of society, notably those of political and economic power. Certainly our century will not outlive the necessity for hearing his verdict upon the prevalence of pride as an ingredient in modern civilization.

Niebuhr saw, more clearly than most, that each age, while imagining that it approached the Kingdom of God at its most impressive moments, was in reality likely to be near the point of death at those times. Since death and mortality underlie all human endeavor, all empirical institutions are under God’s judgment. Niebuhr thus saw that the corrupting effects of human pride ruled out any and all mundane utopias.

Finally, Reinhold Niebuhr left to the world of Christian thought a theological model. His constant objective was to relate the Christian tradition (and primarily the Reformed tradition) to life. He sought the larger bearings of such doctrines as sin and grace on man and his history. Even the doctrine of judgment was seen by him to work toward hope, for as God judges man, he strips him of his pride and opens the way to a rebirth.

Evangelicals cannot claim agreement with all Niebuhr’s theological positions. They regret his lack of a high view of biblical authority, and his denial of the sinlessness of our Lord. They may at times feel perplexed by the ambiguities of his view of the eschaton. But the presence of these problem-areas does not cancel his great contribution to Christian understanding.

Niebuhr’s earlier (and profound) insights into the great questions of sin, freedom, and grace were brought to bear upon the entire range of man’s historical process. If as a revolutionary prophet he pronounced judgment upon society, he himself stood voluntarily under the same judgment. More important still, he will never let us forget that we are two-dimensional entities, living in tension between the relativities of our historical order and the absolutes of the future.

EDITORIALS

A church signboard in Manhattan lists under pastor the man’s name and under ministers “all members of the congregation.” If 1971 Christian graduates could catch the import of that, they could really do some commencing. Whatever a Christian’s station in life, his chief concern should be to make Christ known. A special challenge in our day is to surface evangelical truth in all areas of human endeavor. One of the Church’s crippling weaknesses is the failure of so many believers to work for Christ in ways directly related to their own life situations.

For many laymen, such involvement is not easy. But as Thomas Huxley said, “perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.” The Christian graduate who has learned that, and who is willing to tackle adversity for the sake of God’s revelation, is on his way to changing the world.

“Cultural confrontation” is a high-sounding term that may suggest sophisticated effort beyond the reach of all but a super-intelligent few. But as the task of the Christian it is nothing more than an expansion of biblical witness in ways appropriate to our day. It is no longer enough to speak an occasional word for the Lord to the friend or passerby (some believers, regrettably, have not even come that far). We have the means for much wider influence—upon whole communities and even upon society itself. To let this potential slip is to disobey God and to offend our fellow men, because we thus keep to ourselves something of supreme value.

For example: in the political milieu, cultural confrontation can mean speaking up for Christian principles in an election campaign. In medicine, Christian witness can be expressed in conscientious, biblically based efforts to develop ethics for the handling of new problems. In the arts and communications, a Christian sure of his ground has unparalleled chances to give visibility to evangelical truth, and everyone can write letters to editors and react to TV and radio programs. In community life, the believer can win respect by volunteering to do unpleasant tasks, as Mennonites recently did in cleaning up after the Washington demonstrators.

Such activity runs against the grain of the current philosophy of doing your own thing. A student in a Christian college recently lamented that a distressingly large number of her peers prefer handcrafts to homework. Effective cultural confrontation depends upon adequate preparation—academic as well as experiential. There is no short cut.

What barriers hinder cultural confrontation?

One is simply ignorance of what the dimensions of our witness should be. It is not enough to be honest and diligent. In many vocations, the nature of a Christian posture has yet to be explored, and we’d rather not bother. We prefer to leave proclamation of the Gospel to preachers and evangelists. But our support of these workers, however admirable, does not get us off that unyielding hook called the Great Commission. Christ’s “Go … and preach” must be obeyed in all the little worlds in which we live and work and play. Perhaps the new graduates will see this more clearly.

Cultural confrontation is crippled if we try to do it all from inside the institutional church and equate spiritual advance with bulging pews. Today’s most promising spiritual opportunities may lie in the path of alert laymen who look for them in the context of professional, business, and community life. Although the Church is as crucial as ever, its primary role is not to involve itself in secular affairs but rather to equip believers to step out into the world and minister (Eph. 4:12). Churches ought to send saints out as well as bring sinners in. Much preaching from the pulpit as well as from the printed page is wasted today because it is not reaching the intended audience.

A quip currently moving along the ecclesiastical banquet trail tells of a brochure-writer’s naïve description of a conference speaker: “He was a pastor before he went into communications.” Actually, pastors today may indeed be more restricted in gospel proclamation than laymen, for the laymen may have much more ready access to spiritually needy people.

Another barrier to cultural confrontation is fatalism. Many Christians think the world we live in is hopelessly corrupt. Evil, anti-Christian forces have so firm a grip, they feel, that opposition is futile; one must either join them or withdraw. This attitude shows ignorance, and probably laziness as well. True, tares are all about; but the wheat is growing too. For the Christian who cares, opportunities are limitless. He will respond with a willingness to become “all things to all men,” so that he can “by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).

The cornerstone of evangelical reticence may very well be personal pride. We shrink at the thought of erring, of embarrassing ourselves before the world. While secular culture exudes confidence, we cower in a corner, hiding our light.

Whatever New Testament “separation” means, it does not mean an isolationism that keeps us from presenting the Gospel to sinners where they are, in the setting in which it is most likely to get through to them. The salt we are to be is pervasive and penetrating!

Many signs point to a great spiritual awakening just around the corner. We have the means and the message to turn that corner. Can this year’s Christian graduates supply the push we need—and perhaps usher in the Christian generation?

What a commencing that would be!

Ecclesiastical Mccarthyism

In what Newsweek called “an unexpected show of pique” before the United Presbyterian General Assembly, the stated clerk, William Thompson, “lashed out at the straightest group in the church—the evangelically-minded Lay Committee …” (see also News, page 29). Thompson accused the group of “calculated attacks upon the theological position taken by one of the agencies of the General Assembly and upon the integrity of the General Assembly itself.” He wanted the Standing Committee on Minutes and Reports to examine the material he thought objectionable and decide whether to recommend that the General Assembly appoint a committee to investigate the Lay Committee, which he said is operating “in a manner designed to divide and destroy the church.”

Fortunately for Thompson, the church, and the decadent liberal establishment, the Standing Committee on Minutes and Reports did not press matters further. But still we must ask, Why pick on the Lay Committee, whose purpose is to maintain the purity of the church and the integrity of the General Assembly’s own approved Book of Confessions?

If the stated clerk is really interested in the integrity and the peace of the church, he has drawn a bead on the wrong target. He should aim at some of the seminary professors, clergymen, and ordinands who openly deny major teachings of the Book of Confessions to which they are supposed to be committed.

He might also take a hard look at the Presbyterian publishing house that published and promoted J. A. T. Robinson’s Honest to God and Thomas J. J. Altizer’s Gospel of Christian Atheism, both of which contravene clear teachings of the Book of Confessions, and the Larger Catechism of the church.

And then, turning his sights on himself, Thompson might ask: Why is it wrong for the Lay Committee to criticize what it feels is the wrong course of the church if it was right for Thompson himself to stand in front of the White House for a week recently to protest what he sees as the government’s wrong course in Viet Nam? Could not this action be construed as no less “divisive and destructive”? What’s sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander, apparently.

Elusive Liberties

The conviction of four Jews in Latvia suggests once again that the world is still a long way from recognizing freedom of speech and religious liberty as basic human rights. The four were found formally guilty of slander against the Soviet state (see News, p. 34) and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to three years. Their real “crime,” we fear, is that they were devout Jews and that they campaigned hard to be able to go to Israel.

Jewish leaders have done a service to freedom-loving people everywhere by calling attention not only to the repression of their own brethren in the Soviet Union but also to the harassment there of Catholics, Orthodox, Protestant, and Muslims. In this last case, unfortunately, world opinion was not sufficiently aroused to pressure the Soviets to release the four Jews.

The need to speak up for freedom will undoubtedly continue. Nine Jews are awaiting trial in Kishinev, the capital of Soviet Moldavia. The charges are believed to be similar to those brought against the Jews in Latvia.

Making The Rod Count

What has happened to the “rod,” that Solomonic symbol of discipline? At one time the mere sight of a leather strap or birch switch or mother’s poised hand created instant catharsis. But the permissive society has changed all that. In the classroom as well as in the home, the discipline of the rod seems to be a thing of the past.

One school system is trying—too hard—to compensate for the lack of home-administered corporal punishment. Whippings and beatings are standard treatment in Dallas, Texas. One eleven-year-old student, new in class, was whipped repeatedly for such sins as “misspelling, tardiness, and inattentiveness.” Another child was beaten until his buttocks hemorrhaged, and in one elementary school the principal wields a twenty-two-inch baseball bat as a paddle. Although some parents have complained, the policy remains unchanged.

The use of extreme, indiscriminate disciplinary measures is not the way to reverse the permissive trend. We need to make discipline count. Solomon, a firm believer in discipline, knew that “the rod and reproof give wisdom” when wisely administered (Prov. 29:15). Solomon’s old advice is worth heeding today.

Portfolio Power

The more liberal church bodies are frustrated by the silence that has met their numerous social pronouncements, says Fletcher Coates, information director for the National Council of Churches. They have therefore been enlarging their strategy to take in direct economic clout. Coates notes that the churches “have begun to examine their investment portfolios with a view to applying financial pressures to secure the social goals they seek.”

There is plenty to examine. Church wealth in this country has been estimated at $160 billion, of which about $20 billion is thought to be invested in corporate securities. Churches are second only to the federal government in monies received and distributed annually. Social activists who see the Church’s role as making the world a better place in which to live are now very eager to channel the power of that money into the promotion of certain causes. The NCC recently published a seventy-eight-page primer for economic involvement and is opening a “Corporate Information Center” to keep an eye on the “social profiles” of major American corporations.

Proponents of the movement cite divestiture of securities in offending companies as one option (selling all investments is not considered). But the preferable course, they say, is to keep the stock and take part in voting campaigns at annual stockholders’ meetings to pressure management to adopt “social criteria.” Hence churches have been actively involved in movements such as Campaign GM. (They have not, however, expressed any regret for their acceptance and use of dividend checks garnered through “immoral” corporate policies, past or future.)

At one time, the churches’ only major moral concern about investments was whether the liquor and tobacco industries should be shunned. That’s admittedly narrow, though legitimate as far as it goes. Now the focus has shifted to whether the firms make armaments, pollute the environment, exploit people and resources, and abet racial discrimination.

There are some immoral men in corporate structures, as in every other human endeavor. Some corporate attitudes can be challenged on ethical and theological grounds, and when business and industry leaders have not moved rapidly to eliminate inequities, they should not be surprised when churches that are socio-economically oriented enter the fray. For the Christian, it should be obvious, profit can never be the sole criterion. But the big question is which particular policies are to be challenged and how.

The issues on which the churches have centered their investment attention are matters of valid moral concern. But they certainly do not exhaust the range of important moral issues that crop up in business and industry, and one wonders why these alone are the targets of the campaigners.

We do not deny the churches’ right to vote their stock as they please. We do question the implied assumption that in complex situations fallible churches can sort out the moral issues so efficiently as to determine what is the Christian way to vote. Christians—indeed Christian ethicists—conscientiously differ on which means will achieve a particular good end. Church leaders may claim a superior moral outlook because they do not measure “profit” solely by the size of dividends. But many exhibit a leftist or socialistic political bent that reduces the objectivity of their moral views. And they tend to discount the Christian businessman’s practical insights based on experience in how ethical principles are best implemented.

Who is to say that ceasing to do business in countries whose governments condone racism (which we agree is wrong) will remove that evil or improve the lot of those who are discriminated against? And why do the current campaigners seek on the one hand to boycott these countries and on the other to increase trade with governments that promote religious persecution? And why is no word of concern uttered about inflation, which creates the most hardship among poor people, or about the moral factors in unwarranted consumer demands? These are some of the hard questions for which the campaigners give no answer.

The outworking of biblical principles is best achieved when individual Christians apply these principles in their multitudinous spheres of influence, not when tenuous propositions are put forth at stockholders’ meetings as Christian solutions. If church leaders feel that Christian laymen are insensitive to moral issues, then the churches have failed. And that failure is not going to be corrected by creation of pressure groups. If the churches cannot by preaching and teaching convince their laymen to act in accord with Christian principles, it is hard to believe that they will convince them with speeches at annual meetings. It may well be that moral insensitivity in business today is a result of many churches’ neglect of biblical precepts.

A strange twist in this whole movement is that the integrity-questioning scrutiny of companies proposed by church leaders is the same kind of thing they deplore when critics bring it to bear on them.

G, Gp, R, X: Rated Unreliable

Can the movie industry police itself? The rating system set up in 1968 seemed like a conscientious attempt at self-regulation. But the standards have deteriorated very noticeably, and many people think the rating system is now quite unreliable. The Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches and the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures have withdrawn their support of the system, and we applaud their forthright action.

We do not want government censorship of films. The public may demand this alternative, however, unless the members of the Motion Picture Association of America agree among themselves and provide some decent fare.

Explosive love relationships develop rather readily in our society with its warped concept of love. Some extramarital relationships stay hidden for a long time, but sooner or later the marriage partner begins to sense that something is going on. Eventually the problem is exposed and major decisions have to be made. At that point a couple wanting to save their marriage may turn to an understanding pastor.

The offended partner will, naturally, be deeply hurt. He or she may at first think divorce is the only solution. Though Christ permitted divorce in cases of adultery, he did so only because of the hardness of men’s hearts. A better solution is to forgive the offender and rebuild the marriage.

To begin the restoration, the hurt partner needs time to express his pain, bitterness, anger, hostility, or sorrow. Eventually, however, he must face the hard but necessary question, “What have I done that contributed to this situation?” Because the extramarital relationship often supplies what the marriage lacks, the answer is frequently one or more sins of omission, such as taking the other for granted, neglect, failing to provide reassurance, negligence in expressing appreciation, or failure to be attractive, accessible, approachable. Sometimes a spouse with a busy scheduled life appears disinterested or cold. Children, clubs, business, and church activities, important as they are, need to be kept in perspective.

When the offended partner realizes his own shortcomings and their contribution to the breakdown, he can, with God’s help, begin to forgive the offender and rebuild trust. Although man’s forgiveness is—like all else that he does—imperfect, both partners must be willing to forgive as totally as they can. As divine forgiveness depends not on man’s feeling forgiven but on God’s declaration of forgiveness, to be accepted on the basis of his Word, so each of the partners must declare forgiveness of the other and then accept the other’s forgiveness on the basis of his word. He must also learn to forgive himself, something that is often harder than forgiving the other person. The wise counselor will spend further time with the offended one exploring what he has learned from the past.

The offending partner must break a deep emotional attachment in order to rebuild his marriage. He has learned to depend—wrongly so, to be sure—upon someone else to fulfill various important needs, and the required break will probably bring extreme pain and turmoil. The offended partner can help by trying—despite his own anguish—to understand the painful “withdrawal” that accompanies his spouse’s redirection of loyalty and dependence. More than anything else, both partners need someone with whom to share their burdens, and there is no better way to rebuild a marriage relationship than to begin again to lean on each other. Sharing the heavy burden helps redirect attachment to its proper object. To remove the illegitimate relationship without replacing it could lead to the fate of the man who was cleansed but not refilled: seven worse demons came in and took over. The offended one may need help to resume his place as the needed one.

Both partners will need to renew their spiritual commitment. They must cultivate their love for Christ. For the offended one, that love will salve the wounds and help cleanse away the anger. The offender needs it to cleanse away the sin and guilt. Both must appropriate the Holy Spirit’s power: one will need it to stay mind and tongue in forgetfulness; the other will need it to maintain faithfulness. Both need the fruit of His presence: love.

The partners will need to renew their commitment to each other, not only in an emotional way but with a declaration—and deeds to fit the words. They will have to say to each other what, if they are Christians, they have already said to God: “I belong to you heart, soul, mind, and strength. I will do all I can to be faithful to you.” Then they must pactice loving each other. They must give as much of themselves as they are able to give—and want and work to give much more.

If a strong desire to give can be established, the marriage can be rebuilt, even from a very painful past. And the new relationship can be stronger than husband and wife have ever experienced before. Such a happy ending requires of both the strong desire to save the marriage and the maturity and flexibility to face their individual contributions to the breakdown. A minister’s wise counsel, pointing them to God’s example of love and forgiveness, may be the cornerstone of their new life together.—HENRY WILDEBOER, pastor, First Christian Reformed Church, Calgary, Alberta.

Coming out of a restaurant where I had had lunch I met a young couple I have known for a long time. They have been married six years, and I knew they were childless. But in his arms there was one of these “punkin’ seats” and in it a precious baby, sleeping quietly with a cherubic smile on its face.

These young people told me about their search for a baby and how this one had come to them through an adoption agency when he was only twelve days old. He is now in a home where the warmth of love surrounds him, and he has brought to that home great joy.

As we talked they told of another couple, also known to me, living in one of our large Northern cities. They too have been searching for a child to adopt but have been frustrated again and again.

As I walked away there swept over me the feeling that here is the answer to the problem of unwanted babies, the alternative to the burgeoning abortion mills of our land! Tens of thousands of couples would gladly welcome these babies into their hearts and homes.

Not in years have I been as shaken as now, as I realize the widespread indifference to the implications of abortion on demand and the commercialization of this destruction of life.

Although I have retired from the practice of medicine, I am still on the active rolls of some medical societies, and as a result I receive solicitations from organizations that have sprung up like mushrooms in New York State, where abortion on demand is legal. So far I have received letters from six apparently unrelated groups that say they are prepared to handle the whole matter safely and conveniently for those who are referred to them.

That we have embarked on this new approach to the termination of pregnancies bodes ill for America as well as for those churches that have become active in this. It evidences a callous disregard for the realities of the unwarranted termination of life, which sears the souls of all concerned.

There are, obviously, two groups of women who ask for abortions, married and unmarried. The married woman may feel she already has as many children as she wants, or may cite poverty or any one of a number of other reasons, while the unmarried woman may ask for an abortion because she wishes to rid herself of her guilt.

In both cases, how much better to accept the consequences of pregnancy and then permit the babies to be welcomed into the hearts and homes of the childless! This may be “inconvenient,” but I believe it is the “Christian” way out of a difficult situation.

I write from neither ignorance nor inexperience, for I have performed abortions in cases where, after full consultation, it was decided that termination of pregnancy was necessary. But I find the brazenness and coldness of approach among some ministers and politicians—and now the “abortion expediters”—unbelievable.

Some of the same people who are urging the abolition of capital punishment are taking the lead in advocating abortion on demand. Has the willful murderer more rights than the unwanted child?

The current movement toward abortion on demand can have disastrous results, for not infrequently abortion leads to a psychological trauma. The feeling of guilt can rise up again and again to plague those who have compounded one grave mistake with another.

Another effect of abortion on demand is to give added impetus to the growing trend toward sexual laxity. Young people—confused by the modern interpretations of “love,” distracted by church and college leaders who have fallen for either the pagan philosophy of free love or situation ethics, hooked on the assurances of “the pill,” and lacking biblically based moral and spiritual values—are highly susceptible to the abortionist’s promise of temporary release from the problem of biological cause and effect. The fact that some official church departments have become agents of abortion on demand, and have assigned persons to carry out this program, adds greatly to the confusion.

What is the “Christian” solution to an unwanted pregnancy? I do not believe that it is abortion. Those who seek counsel should be pointed to a better way out. They should be told that the life of the unborn is at stake, that it too has “rights” that must be preserved. If the woman is unmarried, the second step should be to recommend a Christian home for unwed mothers, of which there are many, where she will find love, compassion, and sorely needed spiritual help. Finally, those involved in the decision should be led to face up to the rightness of releasing the child for adoption.

I admit that “trouble” and “waiting” are involved, but I insist that this course of action is infinitely better and, I believe, more in accordance with God’s will than the wanton destruction of life, which is what abortion on demand really is.

As a physician I well know that there are times when an abortion is necessary, but the reasons then are basically medical, and it is physicians in consultation who alone are competent to determine this matter.

The Christian minister increasingly finds himself called upon for counsel by pregnant unmarried girls. It is a responsibility he cannot shirk. But it is disturbing to see that many ministers are meeting this situation by referring the girls to the various abortion services now available through church agencies.

As a physician and a Christian, one who can well understand the emotional agonies involved for parents and daughters, I urge all concerned not to accept what seems to be the easy way out but to face up to the fact that a human life is involved—a life that cannot defend itself and is in no way responsible for its plight.

Confronted with what is, sad to say, a growing problem in the life of America, where Christian convictions and moral standards are on the wane, Christian parents and ministers must look for the solution that most clearly conforms to God’s will for us sinners.

The consequences of sin cannot be avoided, but they must not be compounded by a further step in the wrong direction. I urge that parents and ministers encourage the unmarried mother-to-be to let the pregnancy continue, while she spends the waiting period in one of the available homes for unwed mothers where an atmosphere of Christian love and care can bring healing to the spirit. Then do whatever possible to pave the way for the child’s adoption into a loving home. That baby who is unwanted by some is yearned for by others.

This can be the “Christian” way out of a tragic predicament.

FROM THE DESK OF …

DEAR ELIJAH,

As chairman of the board of Jordan Divinity School, let me take this opportunity to express to you the appreciation of all of us on the board for your courageous, prophetic stand on current issues.

As Jordan’s founding president you have exercised a dynamic leadership and have exerted a great influence on the young sons of the prophets which will undoubtedly continue to be felt in years to come.

It is your steadfast leadership that has enabled the school to weather all of those organizational difficulties that beset any new endeavor.

And now the school is entering into a new phase of its existence. The enthusiastic support of the 880s has given way to the ennui of the 870s. Current giving is at its lowest point in the past ten years, and the income from endowments is off by about 40 per cent. We have been forced to dip into our reserves for the first time in our history.

Several factors seem to be involved. To begin with we are feeling the backlash of Middle Israel to the continued political pronouncements and anti-administration statements of both yourself and graduates of the divinity school. Don’t misunderstand me, I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that anyone connected with the divinity school should have done anything other than express himself honestly. I am simply setting forth the facts as they appear to those of us on the executive committee—who are, after all, responsible for the continuation of the school.

In addition we are faced with a depressed economy, brought on in part by the continued difficulties with Syria. These political problems have had a debilitating influence on the nation.

We must also face the fact that our big givers are by and large a conservative lot. Elijah, I think we must ask ourselves the question: Have we gotten too far ahead of our constituency? After all, what good is prophetic leadership with no one to lead?

Perhaps it is time to pause a bit and let the rest of Israel catch up with us. It might be well if we were to be a little less prophetic for a time.

I know you will understand that I am not suggesting that anyone compromise his conscience in these matters. I would be as distressed as anyone to see these young men become captives of the establishment.

However, we must learn to understand and adjust to the times we live in. Perhaps this is the time for us to remember that “he who restrains his lips is prudent.”

I leave this matter completely in your hands knowing that you will give full weight to the deep concern felt by the trustees over the continuation of quality theological education.

Yours for the greater glory of God,

SACRIFICE FOR STUDENT AFFLUENCE?

Having attended a prominent Christian liberal-arts college (and having, I feel, greatly benefited from it), I particularly enjoyed the May 21 issue with the articles concerning Christian education. Specifically, Frank E. Gaebelein’s “Crisis in Christian Education” draws appropriate attention to the need to support such education; and I heartily agree with his point in the latter paragraphs: Christian stewardship, even to the extent of giving sacrificially, is a must if Christian education is to survive and/or grow.

My question is this: Why should the middle-class Christian give sacrificially (as the article implies, to the point of giving up some of his affluence) just so the Christian college student may live in affluence? Although I know from experience that this is by no means universally true, in some cases little or no practical, disciplined frugality has been applied in the planning of new facilities. Yes—buy books for the library; buy excellent scientific equipment; spend for all those things necessary for a solid Christian education. But must those men and women—being trained to face our secular world with sound, integrated Christian answers—live in dormitories that are laid out, furnished, and equipped more like plush motels than home? Is this necessary to the formation of their Christ-like characters? Quality is essential; but where lie our values?

Dallas, Texas

ENCOURAGING REFRESHMENT

Thank you for your very fine “Evangelical College Students: An Opinion Sampler” (May 21). It is indeed encouraging to see such fresh, penetrating, and balanced thinking when so many students are hugging the left lane of nihilism and so many of the silent majority have made a sharp right turn into stodgy traditionalism.

Your magazine is like taking a two-hour refresher course in Christian thought every couple of weeks.

Memorial Presbyterian Church

West Palm Beach, Fla.

BLIND TO BEAUTY

Carl F. H. Henry’s excellent article on “The Rationale for the Christian College” (May 21) lists truth, justice, grace, and righteousness as the essential concerns of Christian education today. I wonder why beauty is omitted from the list. Its omission reflects not only a blind spot in present-day Christianity but a general malady in our pragmatic and scientifically oriented society. Our culture’s inability to regard beauty as a value has produced a world which is increasingly unfit for human life. I submit that education which neglects to educate and enliven our artistic faculty is not a complete Christian education.

Asst. Prof. of English

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

NO DUPLICATIONS NEEDED

We appreciate the report of the twenty-ninth Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, “The New Evangelical Surge” (May 21). However, the concluding paragraphs commenting on Dr. Billy Graham’s reference to “a new international evangelical fellowship” were understood by your reporter to mean that Dr. Graham was calling for something to replace the NAE. Actually this was not the case, as a transcript of the speech indicates.

Dr. Graham was talking about an international organization (not a national one) that would pull evangelicals together in a worldwide non-structured fellowship, regardless of other affiliations. Of course, there cannot be a fellowship without some structure to call it together. Such a loosely structured fellowship already exists in the World Evangelical Fellowship. It is composed of national alliances or fellowships of evangelicals. The oldest ecumenical evangelical alliances, such as the Evangelical Alliance of England (1846), France, Germany, and others are part of the WEF.

Dr. Graham’s concern is that the WEF only has members from some eighteen countries so it is quite inadequate because it does not account for the one hundred countries not represented. However, the WEF is at least a start.

General Director

Office of Public Affairs

National Association of Evangelicals

Washington, D. C.

THE MISUNDERSTOOD N.A.E.

Your correspondent’s interpretation (“The NAE: New Marching Orders,” May 7) of what NAE’s response might be to Dr. Graham’s address at the closing session of its convention disclosed an apparent lack of understanding of the association’s historic stand on fellowship. He alleged that it would be a major problem for those in the National Association of Evangelicals to establish contact with evangelicals in churches affiliated with the National and World Councils of Churches. This suggests that he is ignorant of the fact that throughout the twenty-nine years of its history NAE has included within its membership individuals and churches that are thoroughly evangelical and thus able to subscribe to its seven-point Statement of Faith, and yet are part of denominations that hold membership in the National and World Councils of Churches.…

It should be pointed out, also, that the proposals to which your correspondent referred were presented at the closing session of the convention. There was no possible opportunity for the association to consider these. Hence, any assessment of the reaction of NAE to the proposals is wholly speculative and premature.

President

National Association of Evangelicals

Wheaton, Ill.

IT TAKES TWO

Mary Bouma still misses the point in “Liberated Mothers” (May 7) by continuing to assume that women are the homemakers. The point of the liberation movement—which, properly conceived, includes men as well as women—is that it not only takes two to make a baby, but two to make a home. No matter how much creativity and skill goes into cooking, decorating, and gardening, some women are going to prefer writing or teaching or administration or selling; and some men—left to their own inclinations, and with cultural approval—would love to be working around the house more.

Both are needed in and responsible for the nurture of their children. There is no necessary reason why the need for intensive interaction with an adult (as shown by current research by Margaret Mead and others) should always be supplied by the mother, after nursing days are over. The father is another good choice.

Chicago, Ill.

The cover of the May 7 issue was clever but insulting to liberated mothers and to all women.

While I understand and appreciate Mary Bouma’s efforts to present “a conception of homemaking much broader than the usual one,” I find her conception quite narrow. She envisions the man as the money-earner and the woman as the homemaker. I find this strict division of roles to be quite harmful both to the man and to the woman.…

Mrs. Bouma consistently states that the man should go to work and the woman should stay at home, except in cases of economic necessity. Some couples may choose this pattern as being most in line with their personalities and preferences. Others may choose the opposite pattern. However, the pattern which is healthiest for the man and woman and their children is one in which the family is integrated. The father works and yet orients his life around the home; perhaps he takes a job with a lower salary and less prestige in order to be with his family more hours per week or during certain parts of the day.

The mother likewise works and orients her life around her family. Both people are deeply involved in the physical and spiritual care of their children. Both have the stimulation and fulfillment of a useful role in the larger community. In Mrs. Bouma’s pattern the emotional capacity of the man is restricted; he is too busy and too tired to interact meaningfully with his children. In her pattern, the mental capacity of the woman is restricted; she is advised to sacrifice this for her family and for the Lord. In a healthy, happy home, each need of each family member should be fulfilled.…

Finally, and most grievously, Mrs. Bouma calls Christian mothers to selfdenial and sacrifice. No woman should sacrifice her self to be a homemaker or money-earner or anything else. She should choose a pattern of activities that fulfills her self, the self given her by God to be used in his service. Her true nature may call her to homemaking, to a career, or to a combination of the two. But in no event should she suppress her self and think thus to gain God’s approval. Jesus Christ calls each human being to the fullest use and development of himself.

Berkeley, Calif.

‘JESUS’ VIGOR

I was extremely blessed by [reading in “Wave of Witness,” May 7, of] this renewed approach by the youth of our nation. You and others may call them Jesus freaks, but it may take this simple “hallelujah chorus group,” to bring the high and mighty in this present system to understanding that we as born-again Christians must “go ye …” to be witnesses to the uttermost nations and people, even at home. Thank God for young people that will cry aloud the name of Jesus.… It is good to hear that fresh vigor still abounds in the United States.

Springfield, Ohio

Thanks so much for the May 7 issue. Boy, what a thrill to get a panoramic view of what Jesus is doing! People keep asking me, “What is the Jesus Movement?” And I always say, “It’s Jesus moving!”

Los Angeles, Calif.

Seventh-day Adventists take some pride in being called a “peculiar people,” which indeed they are. They are among the few remaining church groups that believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. They hold fast to a personal second coming of Christ—soon—and envision their task as preparing the earth for his return. Their health practices, rather strictly observed, were once considered foolish and quaint. Now ample scientific support is found for a large share of them.

As Christians all over view with alarm the churches’ slipping hold on their members, Adventists maintain a steady increase in numbers. Their evangelistic programs flourish in many countries, and their hospitals are financially sound and well operated. A measure of the commitment of a Seventh-day Adventist is his faithfulness in contributing a full 10 per cent of his net income to the church as well as his liberality in supporting church-related projects, including an extensive parochial school system. Adventist giving for 1969 was $350.96 per member, the highest of forty-eight churches reporting in a recent study published by the National Council of Churches.

How does a church with these strict practices survive in a day of permissiveness? The answer lies chiefly in the guidance given the church by its prophetess, Mrs. Ellen G. White. But herein lies a problem.

Adventists believe that the writings of Mrs. White have the same authority as the Bible. The justification usually given is that she has never written anything not in keeping with conservative theology; her messages explain and amplify biblical truth. But this is missing the point. Adventists are told by church leaders to regard her publications as having the same degree of inspiration as the Bible.

The Seventh-day Adventist church emerged out of the intense interest in the advent of Christ predicted for 1844. It was formally organized as a body in 1863 with John Byington as the first General Conference president. During its early years the church benefited greatly from the genius of Mrs. White’s leadership and counsel. She had an uncanny business sense, and she was capable of inspiring men to commit themselves to a life of service. A word from her could alter the attitudes of church brethren as they deliberated over critical issues in the General Conference.

Many of her counsels and visions dealt with specific issues of the day. An example is her attitude toward the widespread medical misuse of harmful drugs. In those days it was common practice for physicians to use liberal quantities of strychnine, arsenic, mercury, purges, and emetics in dealing with an already weakened patient. Mrs. White stated that drugs had no part in the treatment of disease and recommended hydrotherapy and the healing qualities of fresh air, sunlight, and simple foods.

However, losing sight of the historical situation to which Mrs. White addressed herself—the drug abuse that was common practice among physicians of her day—ultra-conservative Adventists of today still oppose the use of drugs. They bemoan the fact that Adventist hospitals are like other hospitals. In other words, they believe that what Mrs. White said in a particular situation a century ago applies with equal force today, no matter how much times have changed.

To cite another example: in Mrs. White’s day the country was rife with stage hypnotists, phrenologists, and self-styled psychologists, and so she warned her followers against being conned by these charlatans, using language and thought current in her time. The conservative Adventist now reads her writings and concludes that all hypnotism is a work of the devil.

New currents of understanding may bring some changes in the rigid stance of the Adventist Church. Two publications, Spectrum (sponsored by the church) and Perspective (an Adventist laymen’s publication), are raising questions and self-criticisms. But the main issue of reorienting the church to a more rational attitude toward Mrs. White is evaded; it’s too loaded a topic.

In the minds of many Adventists, to disagree with one of her messages or visions opens the floodgates to a rejection of her counsel on all matters, including theology. For reassurance, such members read where Mrs. White anticipated such a movement and clearly labeled it a manifestation of the evil one. In other words, any serious study of Mrs. White’s theological writings that is more than a literal interpretation is considered by the rank and file of Adventists to be a hostile attack by “liberal elements.”

Consider where this puts anyone wishing to search in depth on doctrinal matters. He may study the Bible carefully, but the final word rests with Mrs. White. Her opinions are considered untouchable if she prefaces her remarks with “I was shown …” or “In a vision I saw.…”

This doesn’t stop thinkers in the church from weighing carefully the age of the earth, a new mission of the laity, the remnant-church concept, attitudes toward the Catholic Church, and a host of other matters. Yet they discuss these topics without comfort and with a sense of guilt. Unfortunately, personal feelings work their way into such discussions, and what is said may indeed become a hostile attack, as church leaders label it.

On the other hand, free-thinking Adventists may be wanting to have their cake and eat it too. They cherish conservative habits and practices; they are pleased that their children are growing up removed from the atmosphere of protest and drug abuse. Yet they long for the opportunity to speak out on issues that might ultimately destroy the very thing they cherish! Some are satisfied to read and stay abreast of current Christian thought, turning off this part of their knowledge when they go to church and hear enshrined doctrines. Church means primarily a fellowship, a clinging to the conservative past. Others sit in discomfort and mentally disagree with what is going on. They fear to make their opinions known because of the social ostracism they would suffer. Still others carry on a vendetta severely critical of everything Mrs. White ever wrote or did. As the conservatives hang on Mrs. White’s every word to support their dogmas, so these critics tear her writings apart sentence by sentence in an attempt to prove her inconsistent, cantankerous, and mentally ill.

Both attitudes do her a grave injustice. By her creative leading the Adventist church became a stable organization. It is too bad that Adventists can’t pay her the respect she deserves and then continue where she left off. But this would mean seeking answers to difficult questions. It is easier to go on with the task of reconciling her statements to the present and finding out that after all she did have the answer; all that was needed was the research to ferret it out.

A current trend in the church is to compile from Mrs. White’s voluminous writings her statements on a certain topic and then set this compilation forth as the guide. What she said on the mind can be a guide to psychiatric practice. A compilation of her statements on child-rearing take the place of Dr. Spock in the Adventist home. Computers open up all sorts of possibilities for books like these on what Adventists should believe and do. Currently series of meetings called “Testimony Countdown” are held in the churches to encourage church members to read and meditate on what Mrs. White has said.

Adventist literature displays the slavish use of her comments to support almost any point the writer wishes to make. The method is like that of the dogmatist who artfully manipulates Bible texts to support his own views. The church paper, the Review and Herald, is filled with sentences and paragraphs from the pen of Mrs. White. Adventists are to accept all such statements as being a product of inspiration; thus they must go unchallenged.

The Adventists face the challenge of accepting the fallibility of Mrs. White while at the same time preserving the church’s commendable characteristics. This predicament simmers in the minds of many and threatens to erupt in a rift-creating encounter. Let us hope that extremes can be avoided and Mrs. White’s contributions can find their rightful place as a historical guide to the church and a source of inspiration to its members.

Genius Afire

Who am I? What am I like? Of what evil am I not capable, in either deed or word or will? But you are good and merciful, Lord. Your right hand reached to the bottom of my heart and emptied out its dregs of death and corruption. All you asked was that I cease to want what I willed, and begin to want what you willed. But where had my free will been hiding during all those years? From what secret cranny did you summon it at a moment’s notice, so I might bend my neck to your easy yoke and my shoulders to your light burden. Christ Jesus, my strength and my redeemer? How good it felt to be done with the delectable trifles of life! Those things 1 had been afraid to let go, it now became a joy to dispense with. You drove them away from me, you who are the true and highest joy. You drove them away and came in yourself with a sweetness beyond all pleasure (though not to flesh and blood), brighter than every light (though the most hidden of all lights), and higher than every honor (but not to those who build up their own). My mind was free at last from the corroding anxiety of running around trying to get somewhere, and continually scratching the itch of lust. I talked to you freely as a child talks to its father, Lord my God, my light, my treasure, and my salvation.—From St. Augustine’s Confessions as translated by Sherwood Eliot Wirt in Love Song (Harper & Row; © 1971). Reprinted by permission.

Stanley G. Sturges is a medical doctor with a practice in Dayton, Ohio, and a psychiatry instructor at the Cincinnati University School of Medicine. He formerly was a Seventh-day Adventist medical missionary in Nepal.

During my time in a prisoner-of-war camp I came to realize the importance of hope. Hope was what sustained us; we expected little from the present but a great deal from the future. Because of the hope we shared there were few suicides in our camp.

But this dimension of hope has been neglected in the free world with its emphasis on physical well-being and economic security. Even in churches, relatively little has been said about Christian hope. Now a painful sense of the meaninglessness of existence, portrayed in much contemporary literature and drama, again brings the concept of hope to our attention. So it was not really surprising that Jurgen Moltmann’s A Theology of Hope (1967) was picked up eagerly and reviewed quickly—and favorably—in popular magazines like Time and Newsweek, even though it was a theological work. With the thoroughness characteristic of many European theologians, Moltmann reinterpreted the whole Bible from the viewpoint of hope, reworking just about every major Christian doctrine around the promise motif.

To theologians and philosophers who question the resurrection of Christ on scientific and philosophical grounds, and to men who assume that they and their fellows have an almost God-like control over the future, Moltmann’s book offers a straightforward challenge to focus again on Christ. Such affirmations as “Jesus meant what he said” and “the resurrection is the key to the understanding of the Bible” seem a clarion call.

Moltmann explains that the hope element is what distinguished Judaism from other religions that also claimed epiphanies. While other religions were preoccupied with the presence of the eternal, the Old Testament is primarily interested in the future and what is promised. Thus Moltmann says the calling of Moses from the burning bush can be properly understood only in the future tense: God reveals himself in the form of promise and in the history that is marked by promise. With this new interpretation, faith once again becomes something dynamic because it is born out of promises and can be defined essentially as hope, confidence, and trust in God, who will remain faithful to his promises.

Moltmann’s hope motif also sheds light on man’s self-understanding. Self-knowledge came for Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah as they faced a future opened before them by God. They realized the discrepancy between the divine mission and their own mediocrity and discovered that only as God pointed them to a future could men rise above their mediocrity. Thus, says Moltmann, man learns his human nature not from himself but from the future to which God leads him. As man adjusts to the universal rectifying future of God, he is gripped by the needs around him and in him and may anticipate the redeeming future of being; in the light of the coming justice of God, man becomes open for loving, expending himself to humanize inhuman conditions.

Here is a way to relate the Scriptures to modern society. If hope was the key to what motivated Old Testament people, then it should be the key to our motivation. Theology based on hope is free from all kinds of world views and utopian schemes, for now world history can be experienced in the light of the future of truth. Christians are called upon to point out the difference between a scientific and technical millenarianism, which seeks the end of history in history, and an eschatology of history, which arises from the event of promise in the resurrection. This, to me, seems to be the important and clear message of Moltmann’s hope, as he expressed it in his first book. The world can be changed by Christ, in whom we anchor our hope. This does not mean that the Christian message sanctions the present. Rather, it calls for a break away from the present toward the future. God is not “pie in the sky” or totally removed in the beyond but the One who is coming, and as the coming One he is present.

However, there are some questions that careful readers cannot escape asking—especially since the appearance of Moltmann’s second book, Religion, Revolution and the Future (1969). Is Moltmann overemphasizing hope to the exclusion of other elements, such as fear, that help account for the apostles’ zeal and success? Is not God the God of the past and the present as well as the future? We must not become blind to the fulfilled messianic presence and already fulfilled promises. The church of the future, which Moltmann describes so well by the term Exodus, is also described as the temple of God and as the body of Christ. As we attempt to make the Scriptures speak to our day, the temptation looms to remove more obstacles than necessary and thereby falsify the message. Is this Moltmann’s pitfall?

Is it true that the resurrection is historical only because of its effects, that is, because it produces a history in which one can live and move and opens up an eschatological future? Can one talk about the historicity of the resurrection without mentioning the empty tomb and the bodily resurrection? Moltmann writes: “Only when our own consciousness of history takes the form of a consciousness of mission can the raising of Jesus from the dead be called historic” (p. 202). For centuries the Church may have stressed the historic event of the resurrection without emphasizing adequately the resultant changes in human lives, but disregarding the historical event altogether will make of the resurrection something different from what it was intended to be. Scripture and theology cannot be harmonized in this manner.

Little is gained by sidestepping the issue of historicity. As important as hope is, we dare not attach it to less than the historic data of an empty tomb and eyewitnesses. Moltmann’s refusal to take seriously the question of historicity suggests an attempt to build a socio-ethical structure by capitalizing on the ready-formed sympathies implicit in the name Christian. Under that structure Moltmann seems to give support to radical students at Tübingen, the university where he teaches. Student activist groups there have openly attacked the professors and denounced the New Testament, particularly the death of Christ. Everything in the Bible that is not in line with improving society or outright revolution is, they have said, meaningless and irrelevant. During homiletics seminars they have been known to take over when sermons do not advocate revolution.

Moltmann’s views lend support to these radical students by reviving Hegelianism. Moltmann is guided by an optimistic faith in the future as the standard by which Christianity is to be understood and guided. In his first book this was covered up, but in the second it comes out clearly. God is subject to the process of time. “The God of history is changing into the God of the future” (Religion, Revolution, and the Future, p. 7). Out of this new creation will arise a new being that will put an end to the ambivalence of all created beings between being and non-being. In such a new being God himself will come to his rest (p. 36).

Evangelical Christians are concerned with how the Gospel can bring about needed changes in society. By and large they have felt that, however slow the process may be, society can be changed through individual repentance and conversion. Moltmann, however, advocates revolutionary change. He reasons that, since struggling factions have become tired of appeals to conscience and verbose sermons on morality, totally new ways of producing change have become necessary. He sees new paths to change in a church that demolishes all the barriers men erect between one another. And the way toward this new humane community, he says, is a revolutionary way.

What this reasoning amounts to is an application of the future principle to ethics. If God and Christ have their basic significance in the future, then men’s actions should also be judged by the future. Thus any action that produces the desired result is justified, and the criterion for deciding between violent and non-violent action is the measure of possible transformation. “Any means may be appropriate, but they must be different and better than those of the opposition, if they are to bewilder the opposition,” Moltmann says (p. 145), in language reminiscent of Karl Marx. But the important question is this: If the theology of hope removes all finality from everything present or past and becomes the final word explaining reality, then on what is that final word based? If that final word is a word of God spoken in the past, then the future gets its meaning from the past. But this line of thought reverses Moltmann’s sequence; for him, the past gets its meaning from the future.

Moltmann’s theological program seems to provide a system for a restless generation for whom the state rather than the church provides the key to the future. But, as David Scaer notes (review of Religion, Revolution, and the Future, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Dec. 19, 1969), “belief in this program demands a naïve, unwarranted, and untested faith in man and his future that completely avoids the ideas of the fall and original sin.” Radical behavior like that of some Tübingen students is quite alarming. But when professors like Moltmann give them theological support, we may expect increasing disruption and even attempts at restructuring the whole theological curriculum along Marxist lines.

Moltmann’s treatment of hope offers many good points. In this light the Bible can be interpreted dynamically and, often, more fully. However, without the historical event of the resurrection as an objective basis for it, hope is betrayed and becomes something less than Christian hope. When the credibility of the written Word of God is undermined, when the Scriptures cease to be considered the revelation of God, and as such normative, then the espousal of highly questionable revolution-oriented solutions may be the next step. As prisoners of war know, any hope will make a difference. Those who embrace revolutionary doctrines may be carried a long way and even be induced to offer their lives for their hope.

What does Christian hope look like? It needs to be in harmony with the Word of Scripture and with the life and death and resurrection of Christ. Only this twofold anchor will safeguard our hope from impatience, unfounded optimism, and recklessness in using unchristlike methods. Positively, such hope will rely fully upon Christ’s victory and his overcoming resurrection life.

Herbert R. Dymale is associate professor of religion at Malone College, Canton, Ohio. He received the Th.M. (Princeton Seminary) and Ph.D. (State University of Iowa). During World War II he was a medic in the German air force and was captured in the Normandy invasion.

Despite what Marshall McLuhan has said—and it is uncommonly difficult to determine precisely what he has said—the major traffic between minds still travels the roadway of the written and the spoken word, and is likely to do so indefinitely. Even without appealing to the basic text, “In the beginning was the Word,” one can confidently say that man was created with a verbal faculty and that this faculty not only provides the best tool for communication but constitutes in some subtle way a definition, in part, of man’s rational nature. To express it quite simply, man and God are word-using beings, and there is nothing in Scripture or in human semantic or linguistic study to suggest that any better basis of communion is inherently possible, at least so long as man is a terrestrial creature. Pictures are useful, as are gestures, diagrams, and examples; but one clear sentence is better than a thousand pictures in transferring an idea from one mind to another.

It may even be true, as some have maintained, that words are not merely the counters by which we reckon ideational quantities but are themselves the things we know. Nonsense, some would say. It makes no difference whether we use a word of Scandinavian derivation and say “sky” or one of French origin and say “ciel.” It is the same object. Precisely: the same object. But is it possible for us to possess an idea—an abstraction—in any container save that of words? The limit of our intellectual activity, the very horizon of our mental habitation, is our vocabulary. We may feel an emotion, point to an object, or smell a smell without words; but we cannot think a thought unless we have the words to think it with.

We do not communicate with words alone, of course. Words without syntax, that is, without organization, convey meanings, but they do not ordinarily make statements. The difference is the ancient one between content and form. Every one of us has just about what Shakespeare had, so far as content (that is, vocabulary) is concerned. Every pianist has the same content Rachmaninoff had—eighty-eight keys. Marble from the quarry Michelangelo used is still available to those who have the urge to carve a statue. Tubes of the same colors Rembrandt used may be bought at any artist’s supply store. But as Browning has Andrea del Sarto say, as he despairingly and enviously looks at a painting by Raphael: “All the play, the insight and the stretch—out of me, out of me!”

The breath of life is breathed into language when the form is created. Literally, this is inspiration.

But what is form? We know that our sense of form lies within, or at least is inseparable from, that mysterious capacity we call the aesthetic sense. We know—I think we know—that an inherent element of that sense is an awareness of the difference between order and disorder, and a built-in preference for the former. No matter how widely separated by space or time, concepts of form (or beauty) possess certain common characteristics, common at least to the degree that order is an element in all. This must be so, for disorder is a non-thing in itself, and exists only as the absence of something that we know. The seeming appeal of disorder in language or thought or art depends entirely upon the shock of violating a remembered kind of order.

Furthermore, at least so far as the form of language is concerned, we know that while our aesthetic sense seems inherently to desire the beauty of order, the precise nature of the order appropriate to language must be learned. Perhaps certain basic features of the form of language, notably rhythm, are not so much learned as possessed innately, and then refined by art: but the pleasure we derive from fine writing is directly related to the quality and quantity of our reading.

So perhaps we may say of literary form—as of all other kinds—that form is that which gratifies an anticipated fulfillment, and that the variety and richness of the anticipation is dependent, in its degree, on the right kind of preparation. We all know how this works in actual experience. We hear a certain piece of music for the first time, and perhaps are pleased by it. If we listen to it again, and if it has sufficient depth of form to merit the term art, we enjoy it more, not because we do not know “how it comes out,” but because we do. We do not avoid the symphony concert that lists our favorite music, on the grounds that we have heard it before. Rather we seek it out, our anticipation keen, explicit, complex, and ready for the satisfaction that form will produce. The same principle applies to great writing. We constantly reread the things we like best because our educated anticipation is bound to be gratified. Hence, the unlearned, the unsophisticated, can gain little gratification from great music, art, or literature, for he anticipates nothing; he is not sufficiently “educated” to be able to anticipate intelligently.

In passing, note that while the gratification of form is the only lasting attraction of writing, it is not the only one. We enjoy it also because it gives us information through content. But information is simply that which gratifies curiosity, as does a detective story. Granted, many “whodunits” are well enough written to provide aesthetic pleasure as well, that is, the enjoyment of form. Normally, however, it would never occur to us to reread a mystery story unless we have forgotten how it comes out.

Also in passing, note that the pleasure of many jokes is that they rely precisely upon not satisfying the anticipated gratification. Hence it is that jokes of one culture are not funny in another, for the frame of reference within which one person comes to anticipate a certain kind of gratification is not familiar to the uninitiated.

That bewildering and much misused word culture cannot be neatly pinned down, but surely we can measure a sizable segment of it by asking: “In how many areas, dimensions, art types, literary traditions, historical periods, bodies of knowledge, emotional experiences, aesthetic patterns is this people immersed, and, as a consequence, in how many ways is this people capable of holding highly educated anticipations to be gratified by the forms of its culture—by its architecture, music, art, literature?”

Once two great traditions, providing the richest possible heritage within which to build educated anticipation, were common to the culture of Western man: the classics and the Bible. Each now has practically disappeared as standard equipment, and there is, so to speak, no orchestra within the sensibility of the modern generation with which to play the great melodies of our traditional culture. Nor is it yet clear whether any adequate substitute has been, or can be, found. Even the delight one can take in the sheer precision of language, the ability of a great writer to provide a form (chiefly a syntactical form) by which it may be said that an idea has oft been thought but ne’er so well expressed, has been eroded by anti-intellectualism and by a deficiency of practice in the art of thinking clearly. Even the least sensuous of the lines of Alexander Pope can give intense pleasure, simply by saying things with supreme economy and precision—but I find that very few of my students are able to experience it.

It is, therefore, small wonder that in these days we are buried beneath tons of words put together in such a way as to provide no slightest aesthetic enjoyment, and with no other purpose than to communicate, by the millions, those bits of information necessary to get through our complex but unbeautiful lives. Small wonder that the power of words is almost a forgotten heritage, and that the instant appeal of pictures—an appeal largely to our curiosity, not to our aesthetic sense—has captured our exclusive attention. Our journalistic age reduces pictures almost entirely to content without form, and most modern novels are popular entirely because of the events they describe, not the way they describe them. Even pop music is enjoyed as much for its pelvic gyrations as its melodic form.

It may seem we have strayed a long way from the topic—the urgent need to enhance the excellence of religious writing in our day. What I have tried to do, however, is to stress, first, the centrality of words as part of our nature, not just as a tool society has in the past found fairly useful; second, to suggest that only the truly literate person can write effectively, for his effectiveness is dependent more on form than on content; and third, to note some of the reasons why writing, not only in religious areas but as a whole, is so enfeebled in our generation.

Let me turn now to a more focused view of the nature and history of the style of religious writing.

As to its nature, I have only to say that religious writing has need, if any kind of writing does, to make use of every possible grace, every aesthetic device, every sinew of rationality, every principle of structure—in short, of every dimension of literary art. This is owing to the nature of the subject. Man needs not only to be informed about religious matters—he needs to be moved; and to be well moved, the mind, the heart, and the spirit must be touched. Surely those of us who believe that the Bible is more than a human book can see how God’s servants who wrote that Book made use of every grace of form in order to force their words not only into the ears but also into the hearts and minds of their readers and hearers. Furthermore, it is in those areas of aesthetic anticipation least esoteric and susceptible to particular and varying cultures that the formal elements are most apparent, notably two: rhythm and image. The vaunted beauty of the King James Version is no mere coloration added by the master verbal painters of the early seventeenth century. The literary qualities of the ancient Hebrew are the kind that may be literally translated without losing the grace and power to move. To say, not that “The divine power maintains benign supervision over my life,” but that “The Lord is my shepherd,” is not to add a grace note to the original but simply to translate literally what David wrote.

In sum, then, my point is that religious literature by its nature must do more than inform. It is not simply exposition. It must, by every means available to the devoted writer, make its entry into the heart through form.

As to the history of religious writing in English, my point is equally simple, though somewhat more extensive. My purpose is obviously not to trace even cursorily the lone and rich heritage of religious writing in our tongue, for many books have not exhausted the topic, but only to suggest a few features of the past as they may be relevant to the present condition of religious writing.

First off, let us remember that despite the wisely held notion of great gaps in understanding between the generations, there has been and is a clear continuity in religious writing, largely, I suppose, because our religious needs do not change. Man was a sinner, and he still is; man fled from God, and he still does; man needed to hear God’s word, and he still does. From Bede to Barth, the problem is the same; the inherent aesthetic and moral potential of man is the same; the spiritual need is the same; the role of language is (with superficial differences) the same. There has been no revolution of sensibility to separate us from Maurice de Sully in the 1190s, or from Latimer, or Hooker, or Donne, or Fuller, or Baxter or Bunyan, or Wesley, or Lewis. What separates us from them is our ignorance of them, and ignorance is a disabling but curable ailment.

Listen first to Bede, in Book II, Chapter xiii of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. This is a famous passage, describing how the English kingdom of Northumbria was presented for the first time with the Gospel by a missionary named Paulinus. King Edwin called a council of his advisers to decide whether to hear the strange new doctrine, and a pagan priest named Corfi speaks:

O King … I verily declare to you … that the religion we have hitherto held has no virtue or utility in it. For none of your people has applied himself more diligently to the worship of our gods than I; and yet there are many who … obtain greater dignities than I, and are more prosperous in all their undertakings. Now if our gods were good for anything, they would rather assist me, who have been more careful to serve them.

Rarely has the utilitarian view of religion been more sharply expressed. Another adviser then spoke,

The present life of man, O King, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and retainers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.

The two speeches were remarkably successful, for (Bede tells us) Edwin immediately gave his decision in favor of the new religion, and Corfi, the priest, with his followers, went straightway to their temple and demolished it.

Note the two characteristics of the style: rhythm (which is strikingly apparent in the original Old English; faintly perceptible even in translation) and imagery. There is another feature, too, and that is simplicity—reminding us of Milton’s dictum that the essential elements of style are simplicity and sensuousness. Note, too, that the appeal of form through imagery is based, as form must always be, on anticipated gratification. In this case the anticipation is grounded in the hearers, familiarity with the natural world about them—the sense of the comfort of the mead hall in winter; the forlornness of the sparrow outside, momentarily flying in at one open end of the hall; the dark mystery of the world outside the door, and even the greater mystery of the dark universe beyond the dimly lighted door of this earth.

It is precisely these ingredients that pervade and quicken the style of the Old Testament as supremely revealed in the King James Version, a translation, remember, notable for its literal rendering of the images of the Hebrew original. How penetrating are the physical images that permeate the ancient Hebrew—“the sweat of the brow,” “a broken reed,” “weighed and found wanting,” to smite “hip and thigh,” “the skin of the teeth.” And, transcendently, images drawn from the life and work of the shepherd.

Note that this endless array of images is not needed in order to communicate, rationally, the content of the message. The thought that God protects does not rationally need the parallelism, “the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night,” but the power of form does. Consider the poignance of the message of Ecclesiastes: “And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low …,” and “… the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened.”

But this, you may say, is poetry, and we expect a heavy load of formal paraphernalia there. Consider, then, a mere narrative—the killing of Sisera by Jael: “At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead.” The expository content is simple: he died. But the writer skilled in giving life to words (so that they bleed when cut, in Luther’s phrase) is as concerned with how he writes as with what he says. It is not enough to condemn idleness abstractly, much more powerful to say, “yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep,” and destruction comes upon us. “We walk in darkness, we grope for the wall like the blind.” “Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.”

When religious writers ceased from being steeped in the King James Version, their writing grew pale and thin.

Calvin D. Linton is professor of English literature and dean of Columbian College, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. He holds the A.B. from George Washington and the A.M. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins.