Page 5959 – Christianity Today (2025)

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The drive to repeal and relax abortion laws is proving remarkably, if not startlingly, successful. Within the last three years, more than a dozen states have “reformed” their legal codes to permit interruption of pregnancy for reasons other than saving the life of the mother. Next year a full-blown campaign for permissive national legislation providing for abortion on demand may be waged in the halls of Congress. The U. S. Supreme Court could overthrow restrictive abortion laws in cases now pending.

Christian denominations are getting into the forefront of the battle. A United Presbyterian committee, in a report to the General Assembly last month, argued that “abortion of a nonviable foetus should be taken out of the realm of the law altogether and be made a matter of the careful ethical decision of a woman, her physician and her pastor or other counselor.” The 1970 United Methodist General Conference adopted a statement that speaks approvingly of laws intending to make “the decision for sterilization and abortion largely or solely the responsibility of the person most concerned” (thus implying that the fetus is not a person).

Currently in the United States there are said to be about one million illegal abortions each year, and many of these are performed under something other than optimum medical conditions. This is often advanced as a reason for easing abortion laws, but such an argument circumvents the ethical question. Some 15,000 persons are murdered in the United States every year. Should we on that account legalize murder?

Abortion on simple demand, when it involves no mitigating circumstances except inconvenience, lack of desire, economic sacrifice, and the like, is to those who believe that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception nothing less than murder. This is true whether the woman alone or with her husband makes the decision. The physician who aborts this fetus is an accessory after the fact.

The fact that abortion may be approved by law is not, for the moment, the question. We are talking here about the rightness or wrongness of the act in the sight of God. What the laws of men sanction is one thing; where they cut across the laws of God, Christian conscience is bound to God’s law, not Caesar’s. It is more than passing strange that some who mobilize to stop killing on the battlefield are among the chief proponents of abortion and that some of the strongest opponents of capital punishment favor unrestricted abortion. And vice versa!

Shall we not boldly face the other crucial issue? Should the Christian impose on society rules that are acceptable to him as a Christian but are abhorrent to those who are not? Shall the people of the world be free to do whatever they please and be governed by their own concepts of morality, however much they flout biblical teaching?

On the matter of abortion, the mainline denominations seem to be doing an about-face. They have been arguing in favor of a vast range of restrictive legislation. But on abortion they suddenly declare that laws ought not to inhibit personal conduct.

We are not asserting that the Church as Church ought to get into this fight, one way or another. We are asking whether individual Christians as members of Caesar’s kingdom as well as God’s kingdom have a responsibility. Here we must argue vehemently that they do! Life is of one piece. The Christian must bear witness to God’s saving grace for salvation, and in society. In this context we cite a cogent argument recently presented to the New Jersey Legislature by Dr. Edwin H. Palmer:

If the unborn baby is a person, then according to biblical ethics and generally accepted American morality, the government must exercise all its power to protect the life and freedom of that person. The unborn baby is then not just a part of the mother’s body to be disposed of at the whim of the mother.

In fact, the very ethic of the pro-abortionists of the privacy of the individual turns against them. They spoke very eloquently about the rights of the mother in her private affairs and the unjustifiable interference by the government into the privacy of her bedroom. They were moving when they pleaded the rights of the minority view, meaning the rights of the mother who wanted an abortion.

But, if—and this is what the whole problem hinges on—if the unborn baby is a person with a separate identity and is not just an appendage of the mother’s body, then all the stirring arguments of the pro-abortionist apply not only to the mother, but also to the child within the mother. Then, he too has rights that the mother may not interfere with. And his prime right is the freedom to live. He is not just a “thing” that a mother may dispose of like a tonsil or a scab. And the state’s duty is to protect him against any unwarranted deprivation of his life and pursuit of happiness.

When does the soul come into being? One evangelical scholar who has studied the abortion issue in depth contends that a strong theological argument can be built for the rights of the nonviable fetus. Dr. John Warwick Montgomery offers this capsule scriptural survey to argue that a new person has been brought into being at the very moment or very soon after the sperm and egg meet:

Man is not man because of what he does or accomplishes. He is man because God made him. Though the little child engages in only a limited range of human activities, Jesus used him as the model for the Kingdom—evidently because, as one of the “weak things of this world that confound the wise,” he illustrates God’s grace rather than human works-righteousness. Even the term brephos “unborn child, embryo, infant,” is employed in one of the parallel passages relating children to God’s Kingdom. The same expression appears in the statement that when Mary visited Elizabeth, the unborn John the Baptist “leaped for joy” in Elizabeth’s womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter parallels the ideal Christian with a brephos, and Paul takes satisfaction that from Timothy’s infancy (apo brephos) he had had contact with God’s revelation. Moreover, the Bible regards personal identity as beginning with conception, and one’s involvement in the sinful human situation as commencing at that very point: “Behold, I [not “it”] was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me [not “it”].” For the biblical writers personhood in the most genuine sense begins no later than conception; subsequent human acts illustrate this personhood, they do not create it. Man does because he is (not the reverse) and he is because God brought about his psycho-physical existence in the miracle of conception.

A study of the ethics of abortion does not end here. Who can fail to exercise compassion for pregnant women suffering mental or physical strain, particularly those in poverty or unmarried? Who can deny that there are times when the taking of life appears to be the only sensible course, prior to birth as well as after (as in self-defense)? The Christian mandate calls for love and forgiveness circumscribed only by the law of God objectified in Scripture.

The unborn child warrants consideration, too. All of us were at one time at the mercy of would-be abortionists. Most of us are glad we’re here, and thankful that the persons “most concerned” did not terminate our existence at an early stage.

Of Fathers: Heavenly, And Not-So

Carl F. Burke, the Baptist jail chaplain who gained a national reputation through his work with delinquent and slum kids in Buffalo, New York, has captured in their own language the prayers and devotions of some of his charges—“God’s bad-tempered angels with busted halos.” Several prayers, reproduced in the little volume Treat Me Cool, Lord (Association Press, 1968), make good reflection for Father’s Day:

“Thanks, God, that we can call you father. Sometimes we don’t know for sure what that means, but just like we think a father should treat you we hope you will treat us. We are thankful that even though parents may walk out on you, you never will … We’re glad we can think you are a father maybe like we wish we got.”

In the spontaneous argot of the asphalt jungle, these troubled youngsters were saying: “God is the way we’d like our fathers (if we have them) to be.” The children, with realistic insight, avoid equating earthly fathers, some of whom have little in common with the heavenly one, with God. They correctly observe that none of us earthly fathers can be “God” (if we ever thought we were) to our children.

The prayers contain good theology, too. When we say “God our father in heaven,” we are implying the ideal. An ideal conception is a priori—first seen in heaven. God alone, the father in heaven, is perfect. Only he can be the flawless model, our pattern, the faultless father figure. God is not simply a human father on a higher plane. He did what no earthly father can: he so loved all his children that he gave his only begotten Son so that all who believe in him may have everlasting life.

But there is more. Human fatherhood takes its meaning from the fatherhood of God (Eph. 3:15). We are enjoined to “be … perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). There is a goal for human fathers to strive for; we have a standard of perfection. The qualities of love, compassion, tenderness, discipline, and judgment can be practiced by earthly fathers because they are evident in the heavenly father.

A sobering thought for fathers and sons: Our knowledge of God, and our children’s, always comes in conjunction with our knowledge of the world and persons about us. That means your child’s experience of God (or lack of it) largely depends on what he sees in you, dad.

How To Make A Marriage

Weddings, like brides and grooms, come in various shapes and sizes. A couple alone or with a dozen elegantly attired attendants may repeat the time-honored vows that bind them together “till death us do part.” Organ and choir or guitar and folk singer may accompany the rite; diamonds and candles may twinkle in already sparkling eyes.

But marriages are not made in cathedrals or church offices, with white gowns and diamonds, by music and ministers. Rather, marriages are made by sharing the dailyness of toothpaste tubes, coffee cups, and moonlight walks, by fulfilling the wedding vows to love, comfort, honor, and keep one another “for better or for worse.”

Marriage, as John Donne described it, welds a man and a woman together like two arms of a compass: because of the bond between them, they are never completely separate and always draw toward one another. For the Christian, marriage is even more; it is a husband loving his wife “just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for it” and a wife submitting to her husband “as the Church submits to Christ.”

Civil Disobedience

In opposition to “civil disobedience,” some Christians have made statements implying that government, since it is instituted by God, is always to be obeyed. But along with his command to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, Jesus also said that some things are God’s directly, and that in these areas we are to render obedience directly to him. As long as government stays within its realm, the Christian is to render his obedience. Even when it transgresses and the Christian has to disobey, his disobedience is to be limited to the area of transgression.

The Apostle Paul likewise taught obedience to the civil government, but in his own life he was repeatedly in conflict with the authorities, often imprisoned, and eventually executed by them. Presumably, Paul could have avoided all this by obeying the government’s demands that he stop preaching his incendiary message. Paul disobeyed the civil authorities, in this regard, in order to be obedient to the clear command of God.

There are many circumstances even today where Christians have to do this kind of thing. A good example is Rhodesia (see News, page 44). The government there has recently enacted legislation that would seem to require Christians to violate the biblical command that they worship together and conduct their activities regardless of racial and other such differences among them. Whenever in apostolic times the Church let the worldly tendency toward segregation affect it, the Holy Spirit decisively rebuked it. In the realm in which God is to have direct dominion “there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11).

Although we deplore it, we do concede that the government of Rhodesia can pass repugnant legislation for the secular realm to which Christians should render obedience (while doing what they can to get the government to change). Secular governments can also establish codes that affect, for example, the buildings or contributions of churches as well as other groups. What they cannot legitimately do is tell the people of God what their doctrines must be, or how or with whom they may or may not worship and minister. The Rhodesian Christians who have publicly declared their intention to disobey the laws that intrude into the internal affairs of the churches are to be commended, as are the Christians in many other lands who take similar stands when placed in the difficult situation of having to disobey the laws of man in order to obey the laws of God.

Stretching Pornography

The right of privacy goes back a long way in history, but its merits are being recognized in new ways in modern times. Many statutes have been enacted in recent years to protect a person’s right to be let alone, a right seen as especially needed in our complicated world.

New legal ground in privacy was broken by the Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967. Under Title III of this law, anyone can ask the post office to order mailers to stop sending material that the addressee considers “erotically arousing or sexually provocative.” The U. S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this statute in a unanimous decision last month.

Some still question the wisdom of this legislation, however, because it lends itself rather readily to abuse. The post office is obliged to honor every request under this law, no matter how unreasonable it may seem, and must issue a prohibitive order to the mailer—even if the addressee himself requested the material in the first place. Already, the post office, in response to complaints, has been obliged to issue such orders against such unlikely sources of pornography as Christian Herald magazine and the P. J. Kenedy and Sons Official Catholic Directory.

To forestall capricious demands and to avert a mountain of complaints that would make enforcement utterly impossible, the law may need some modifications. But the intent of the legislation is defensible. We agree with Chief Justice Warren E. Burger’s perspective: “The ancient concept that ‘a man’s home is his castle’ into which ‘not even the king may enter’ has lost none of its vitality, and none of the recognized exceptions includes any right to communicate offensively with another.”

Moment Of Decision

As this issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY reaches the mails, the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church will be considering a new sex code for the church. The assembly will have before it a document entitled “Sexuality and the Human Community.” Will Oursler, writing in Parade magazine for May 17, pinpoints the issue when he asks: “In this new sex code a liberation for humans or a moral catastrophe?”

The new code repudiates all absolutes regarding sexual behavior. If the Presbyterians adopt it, they will approve: (1) wide-open abortion laws; (2) the churches’ acceptance without stigma of practicing homosexuals; (3) unmarried adults’ living together in a sexual relationship; (4) distribution of birth-control information and materials to unmarried as well as married persons; (5) adultery in “exceptional circumstances” where it “may not be contrary to the interests of a faithful concern for the well-being of the married partner.”

Two things strike us as being especially significant about this report. First, it grossly violates the clear teaching of Scripture, contradicts the words of Jesus Christ and the apostles, and nullifies the standards of the Westminster Confession of Faith as well as its basic presupposition that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and conduct. If the new code is adopted, the implication will be that anyone can deny anything taught in Scripture simply by applying the same rules that undergird this document. The United Presbyterian Church will come close to the days of the judges, when “every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

Second, this document was produced under the direction of the Reverend John C. Wynn. This Presbyterian clergyman is a professor at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, an institution of Baptist background that has seen many of its graduates rise to positions of prominence in the American Baptist Convention. Mr. Wynn is listed in Who’s Who as an adjunct professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary and a member of the summer faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York, and he has served or is serving the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches in a variety of posts directly related to the subject of human sexuality. He is on the board of directors of Presbyterian Life, the official United Presbyterian magazine that goes into thousands of homes. Thus he exercises a pervasive influence in a wide range of important places.

We await with interest the decision of the General Assembly on “Sexuality and the Human Community.” Anything less than a complete rejection will be a betrayal of biblical norms. If it is accepted, the church will be well on its way to committing spiritual suicide. Perhaps there will come a time when those faithful to Scripture will be disciplined for upholding the Bible against the unbiblical pronouncements of their church.

Beleaguered Israel

As Cambodia and Viet Nam continue to capture the headlines, many college students and professors concentrate their energies on Southeast Asia, as do the houses of Congress and even the State Department and the President. As a result, far too little attention is focused on Israel and Egypt. Yet what is happening there is far more serious. The threat to the very existence of the State of Israel and the lives of more than two million Jews cannot be minimized. The commitment of Soviet men and munitions should alert us to the dangers.

History had its beginnings in the Middle East, and history will be consummated by the return of Jesus Christ to the Middle East. He will set his feet upon the Mount of Olives. He will come again in a manner like that in which he was seen going into heaven. More and more, events in the Middle East presage the advent of Armageddon and the return of Christ.

America has consistently aided Israel, and millions of Jews who have found freedom and opportunities in this country have sent funds to Israel to keep it financially afloat. The current campaign against U. S. involvement in Southeast Asia (about which there are legitimate differences of opinion) has been helped by large numbers of Jews, and they have been deeply involved in student uprisings. Yet the day may be coming when, in utter desperation and in the face of possible annihilation, the Jews of Israel will look to the only large nation from which they can get the help they need to survive. The present situation suggests that the antigen by which Americans have been inoculated against involvement in military commitments overseas elsewhere may be an effective deterrent to aid for Israel. If American Jews then call for help for Israel, help may be denied. By that time Americans may prefer to sit by and watch Israel die rather than get involved and help.

There are statements in Scripture that suggest that in Israel’s moment of direst need its people will turn again to God and acknowledge Jesus Christ, and God himself will intervene. Deliverance then will come, not from men and nations, but from a sovereign God whose ways and works are known to him alone, and whose liberating power cannot be defeated by men.

‘No Genuine Nexus’

The United States Supreme Court took a long step last month toward preserving religious freedom in America. Its 7–1 landmark decision in the Walz case merely upheld the constitutionality of a state’s right to grant real-estate tax exemption to churches. More important are the opinions accompanying the ruling. They lay a legal groundwork that will undoubtedly be appealed to for many years.

“There is no genuine nexus between tax exemption and establishment of religion,” wrote Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. He conceded that no absolute separation of church and state is possible, but declared that “the hazards of churches supporting government are hardly less in their potential than the hazards of governments supporting churches.”

Associate Justice John M. Harlan, in a concurring opinion, noted with Burger that “religious groups inevitably represent certain points of view and not infrequently assert them in the political arena.… Yet history cautions that political fragmentation on sectarian lines must be guarded against.”

In a second concurring opinion, Associate Justice William J. Brennan wrote that “rarely if ever has this Court considered the constitutionality of a practice for which the historical support is so overwhelming.” He said that “Thomas Jefferson was President when tax exemption was first given Washington churches, and James Madison sat in sessions of the Virginia General Assembly which voted exemptions for churches in that Commonwealth. I have found no record of their personal views on the respective acts. The absence of such a record is itself significant. It is unlikely that two men so concerned with the separation of church and state would have remained silent had they thought the exemptions established religion.”

It must not be assumed that this court decision guarantees a permanent tax shelter for churches. The ruling said only that New York’s exemption was constitutional. One of these days, states may decide to begin legislating taxes against churches, and that is when these opinions will count the most.

In anticipation of such a development, it might be well to work for more legally precise definitions of religion than the courts now have. No law ever covers every conceivable situation, and Associate Justice William O. Douglas, in a dissenting opinion, makes much of the distinction between believer and unbeliever. This outlook presupposes that the causes espoused by atheists and agnostics enjoy a super kind of neutrality that transcends religious ideas. Such thinking suggests the establishment of irreligion.

Intolerant Dissenters

Last month defending champion Harvard won the team title again in the annual track and field meet for the eight Ivy League schools plus Army and Navy, but it was a hollow victory. Before the meet, representatives of the eight Ivy League schools drafted a statement to be read and publicized in the name of “the athletes assembled before you, members of the Ivy League teams competing here today.…” The statement made the teams from Army and Navy feel most unwelcome as competitors, and so they withdrew. Army had been considered one of the favorites; the team included defending champions in three of the eighteen events.

Ironically, the students’ statement deplored the “spirit of division and intolerance separating us from our national leaders” while displaying considerable intolerance toward the views of fellow students preparing for careers in the armed forces. Arguments can be presented to justify U. S. involvement in Indochina. One does not have to agree with the views of others in order to defend their right to hold these views, and to do so without prejudicing their participation in areas of life in which these views ought not to be the ground of association.

The Ivy Leaguers’ intolerance of dissent from the dominant student position was expressed by the Yale team captain: “We didn’t want to compromise our position solely for their inclusion in the meet.” It is disturbing that they were able to “deplore the growing tolerance for repression directed against political and racial minorities” by issuing a statement that had the effect of repressing the minority of athletes present who held opinions that are highly unpopular on campuses. How can people protest repression in the larger society while they practice it in the segment of society in which they are the majority? The athletes would have done much better to issue the kind of statement that would promote unity where it exists and set an example of toleration and mutual respect where there are differences.

Love, Law And Conduct

Love comes in for lots of attention these days. Signs everywhere advise us to “make love, not war.” Young people hold love-ins. They feel that there is a lack of honest love in the world and that people are not really concerned for one another as persons. Joseph Fletcher, the apostle of situation ethics, has popularized a view of love that requires one to be willing to lie, cheat, steal, and perhaps even murder if necessary to fulfill the demands of “love.” What are we to think about love these days?

Paul the Apostle says, “The commandments … are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:9, 10). This command to love appears on first sight to work to the disadvantage of the one who obeys it. For the unbeliever is constrained by no injunction of neighbor love. The law of the kingdom of sin and of Satan is the law of the jungle. It says, “Look out for yourself. Never mind the other fellow.” Self-interest dictates that you do your neighbor in if it appears desirable and if you can get away with it. It is a matter of survival of the fittest with no holds barred, no mercy extended.

The believer lives in a world that is opposed to the law of love, and he has no way, humanly speaking, of protecting himself, because he is governed and motivated by the rules of God’s kingdom. He cannot fight back by using the tactics of the world. If he has been cheated, he cannot cheat in turn; lied against, he must speak the truth; experiencing prejudice, he cannot pay back in kind. Hated, he must love.

In this kind of topsy-turvy world the Christian seems to have two strikes against him every time. But does he? No! He takes the long view and sees that whatever temporary disadvantages are his, and they may be many, ultimately he gains even as the man who opposes him loses. He experiences the power of God in his life from time to time as evildoers are overruled and their wicked designs frustrated by God. He also has the privilege of being identified with the Cross of Jesus Christ, who himself felt the hatred of sinners. Best of all, his faith and constancy are proved as they are tried, Christian character is developed, and conformity to Jesus Christ becomes a reality.

Because Christians do love, they work no evil against their neighbors, and in this way, they also work good to themselves. Therefore “love is the fulfilling of the law.”

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Even for the Christian, God’s grace is difficult to grasp. We find it hard to apply this concept to our lives and as a result often carry a needless burden.

John Newton, hardened and debauched sinner that he was, came to understand something of the wonder of what God has done for us and as a result wrote the heart-stirring hymn, “Amazing Grace.” In the second verse Newton captured the meaning of this grace in the paradoxical statement: “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” Only the grace of God enables us to see ourselves as lost sinners, and that same grace assures us of God’s remedy.

How often we carry a burden of guilt in our hearts! We have been defeated again and again. We are aware of our weakness where there should have been victory. We have tried, and tried, and tried—and yet we have failed miserably. We become depressed by our defeat because we have overlooked the reality of God’s grace. We have been trying to save ourselves! We have thought of salvation in terms of what we do or do not do. We have, subconsciously or otherwise, felt that in some measure we were earning our own salvation, that we would deserve God’s gift of eternal life. Then the bubble has burst in our faces, leaving us feeling frustrated and lost.

At this point God says to us, “You are saved not by what you do but by what Christ has done for you. You have failed, but he has not, and if you truly believe in him you have eternal life, regardless of how you feel.” That is grace!

The effort to be our own savior is so deeply embedded in our subconscious that we continually think of our relation with God in terms of how good we are. But still God’s grace persists.

Most of our material possessions have come to us in one of three ways: We have inherited them, or we have bought them with money we have earned, or they have been given to us.

Salvation cannot be inherited. God has no grandchildren, only children. Our parents can point us in the right direction, but the time comes when we must decide for ourselves whether we will accept or reject Christ.

Salvation is not earned; it is a gift rather than a wage. It cannot be deserved, for our best is as filthy rags. To be in his presence we must be clothed with a robe of righteousness not to be found in any tailor shop or boutique. This garment is a gift of God’s grace. God gives what we can neither inherit nor earn nor deserve.

How many Christians there are who have never found the peace of mind and spirit that should be theirs! To this need our Lord spoke when he said, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28, 29). That is grace, the rest that is stayed on him rather than on self.

God saves us by his grace and in answer to our faith. It is a matter of our believing what he has done through the person and work of his Son, and not because of any achievement of our own.

Grace may be described as:

These somewhat childish acrostics are useful only if they convey some of the deep implications of God’s grace.

Martin Luther, a monk with deep spiritual longings in his heart, saw all about him men doing penance, and he did the same for his own sins but without receiving peace in his heart. In desperation he turned to the Scriptures. There came a time when the Holy Spirit spoke to his heart through one verse—“The just shall live by his faith” (Rom. 1:17b and Hab. 2:4b). Like a blinding light there came into his soul a realization that his salvation and peace rested solely in what God had done for him through Jesus Christ and not on his own efforts. And out of this glorious truth came the Reformation.

But every generation and each individual Christian must learn this anew. There must be an end to striving for righteousness, and a resting in and an acceptance of the righteousness of our Lord.

At some time there will come the temptation to presume on the grace of God. The Apostle Paul warns of this danger in the sixth chapter of Romans: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” (or, as Phillips translates it, “What a ghastly thought!”).

We must learn to accept the grace of God, to glory in the love and redemption that proceed from it. We must love and worship the One who has done all this for us. But God forbid that we should at any time think we can take advantage of God’s grace for our own sinful ends!

I have known one person who apparently did this. He was prominent in his church and community and active as a Bible teacher. But he was one of those who “pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4b), and he died in disgrace. In life and in death, I fear, he caused many enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

Not only is the grace of God responsible for our conviction as sinners and faith as believers, but this same grace is a continuing blessing from God. The Apostle Paul was confronted with some ailment or handicap so serious that he spoke of it as a “thorn in the flesh.” Three times he asked God to remove it (and one can imagine the intensity of this man’s prayer). But the Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9a). The grace of God was infinitely more precious than any limitation of the flesh.

The grace of God is also a sustaining power in an evil environment. The Apostle Paul wrote to Titus, “The grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world” (Titus 2:11, 12).

Perhaps the greatest blessing to flow from God’s grace is “the peace of God, which passes all understanding” (Phil. 4:7a). This peace floods the hearts of those who believe, rest in, and obey our Lord. The world cannot give such peace, nor take it away. It is the gift of God to those who have turned body, mind, and soul over to him.

Little wonder that John Newton spoke of God’s grace as “amazing grace.” That is exactly what it is!

L. NELSON BELL

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But Not Religious-Good

I must find the time to read less, for during the past weeks the printed word has come up with an immoderate number of Disturbing Thoughts. If you are booked up solid with burdens at present, do not read on, for here are six more, beginning with four quickies.

“Many of the church’s current problems can be traced to the fact that some theologians just do not believe in God.” (Memories and Musings by W. R. Matthews, former dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral). “I don’t wear my collar more than absolutely necessary now, in case I’m taken for an atheist” (Episcopal clergyman). “We did not greatly mind whether the new archbishop would be an African or a European, but we did expect that he would be a Christian” (editorial in African newspaper).

“Unbelief … is about to disappear entirely as a social fact” (Professor Thomas Luckmann of Frankfurt University). Even though the professor was speaking of an increase in subjective belief, one might ask of his statement quoted above, “Unbelief in what?”

I’ve just completed reading Bertrand Russell’s autobiography. This man who made no bones about atheism and amoral views—and was bludgeoned by religious folk, often justly—helped me understand Thomas Hardy’s distinction: “good, but not religious-good.” Listen to this incredible incident involving Russell’s son and daughter-in-law, who, he gravely explains, “were born after 1914, and are therefore incapable of happiness.” At Christmas, 1953, he records, “I was waiting to go into hospital again for a serious operation and my wife and household were all down with flu.” (Note that Russell was by then past eighty.) “My son and his wife decided that, as she said, they were ‘tired of children.’ After Christmas dinner with the children and me, they left, taking the remainder of the food, and did not return.”

Not a word of complaint, though one senses that the loss of the remaining victuals hurt even someone who ought not to have been celebrating the season in the first place. But the elder Russells got down to it, and made themselves responsible, at tremendous inconvenience, for the children’s upbringing and education.

With the wicked it should not be so; what right had they to be irreligiously good? It upsets our scheme of things. Let me give you a final example to confuse you irrevocably. In a reference book the other day I discovered this description of a couple of churchmen: “Although orthodox in theology, they were both examples of intimate personal piety.” We shall not soon see their like again.

EUTYCHUS IV

Mission To Academia

Thank you for the article “The Campus Minister: Rebel or Reconciler?,” by C. Stephen Evans (May 8). I thought he spoke to a situation clearly and concisely.

BILL HAUB

First United Methodist Church

Washington, Mo.

The ministers that I am acquainted with also include in their varied duties the evangelism of the students. This apparently has been overlooked in the recent article in preference to that which is more “modern” and causes the “rebel” or “reconciler” to be in the spotlight. In light of recent developments on the colleges, apparently more evangelism is needed.

JOE H. CONARROE

Cambridge City Christian Church

Cambridge City, Ind.

Hogwashing Business

Mr. Sanford’s “Memo to Commencement Speakers” (May 8) is hogwash. I expect that I have had more experience with ministers than he has had with business.… I am surprised that CHRISTIANITY TODAY would accept such uninformed stuff maligning business.

In my observation, businessmen as a whole have more integrity than many other classifications of people. I expect that less than 5 per cent of businessmen would sacrifice their integrity for the sake of acquiring money. In my observation, I would doubt that 95 per cent of ministers would be clean on integrity. The fact that Sanford writes as he does raises serious questions about his integrity. Does he believe it is honest to make such libelous statements without a wide knowledge of business affairs?

MAXEY JARMAN

Chairman of the Finance Committee Genesco

New York, N. Y.

If Mr. Sanford really wants to tell it like it is, he should consider telling some of these youngsters that laziness, irresponsibility and flaunting of laws and manners will not get the job done in business or religion.

Youth must understand the realities of life so that what is good and constructive in them can be captured and their energy and creativity harnessed. To continuously berate what some contemptuously call “The Establishment” is not the answer to achieving ideals. The Church should speak out, not give in to the woolly thoughts of extremists.

G. O. ROBINSON

Aiken, S. C.

A Lesson On ‘A Lesson’

I think that you are in error in criticizing the governor of Florida (“A Lesson from the Governor,” May 8) because the present governmental regulations are very harmful to the black child as well as the white child.… It is a case of states’ rights when the state official opposes the federal court just as in the case of whether the local Presbyterian Church U. S. opposes something that the General Assembly does.

In fact, the two constitutional amendments were passed illegally without any of the Southern states voting on same. These are the two amendments that were passed without any authority under the constitution.

There is a great difference between the rebel as represented by you and me, and also as represented by the Black Panthers; and the duly constituted government of a state in the “United States.” Or would you advocate another bloody war such as the bloodiest war in history (1861–65)?

W. H. B. SIMPSON

Greenville, S. C.

Contrary to your opinion, the law clearly states as defined in both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1965 that students will not be bused to achieve “racial balance” (whatever that is supposed to mean). This was recently reiterated by the President of the United States. I did not notice any criticism of the judge here who ruled in contradiction to the law. In a similar case in South Carolina the federal judge ruled that it was contrary to the law to bus students to achieve “racial balance.”

GEORGE J. POULOS

Miami, Fla.

Absolute Folly

I was particularly interested in the editorial “Fletcher’s Folly” (May 8). I agree that situation ethics has some very serious shortcomings, such as you outlined, but wonder why we haven’t been concerned to deal with the issue long before it got a special label and an articulate spokesman.

The majority of Christians have long supported murder when it had the sanction of the state in the form of war, and have supported the institutions of racial bias when supported by law, and have often equated systems of economic exploitation with Christian principles.

All of the translations of the Scriptures which I have, including the King James, condemn these just as surely as they condemn adultery, fornication, theft, and lying.

When we as a Christian Church put our own house in order on these issues, we will be heard when we speak and youth will look again to the church for leadership.

I believe in absolutes in the area of moral values, but I want them across the board, not just to cover the other man’s sins.

LAWRENCE H. PEERY

Executive Secretary

Wilmington Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

Wilmington, Ohio

Of Dreams And Hogwash

I am a very new subscriber to your publication, and I want to say that I was incredibly heartened and encouraged by “Another Look at the American Dream” (April 24).

We get so tired of reading the “hog-wash” dished out to us red-blooded Americans these days that it is refreshing to be reminded of our heritage and the courage, stability, and virtues of our forebears.

MARGARET G. KRETSCHMAR

Davenport, Iowa

I find it difficult to reconcile the “American dream,” the state of the country today, and the Christian Gospel in the way Dr. Robert J. Lamont has done. The article speaks disparagingly of the message “We are miserable sinners, the country is undone, there is absolutely no hope,” but I detect a stronger biblical note in that statement than in the thesis of the author. We are miserable sinners. Apart from the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ the country is undone, and there is absolutely no hope. Hope begins when we acknowledge this and turn to the Saviour.

We shall not recapture the “American dream” by self-congratulations or, worse yet, by dreaming.

JAMES M. BOICE

Tenth Presbyterian Church

Philadelphia, Pa.

The very fact that he says “the major responsibility for [the Viet Nam] war rests on the Communist world” means that America has some responsibility for that war. Let us honestly accept that responsibility and the guilt that goes with it, or else we dare never accept any credit for the cessation of war that we hope comes soon.…

Mr. Lamont wrote many good things. However, I would have appreciated it more if he had been consistent and left out the “American dream” and only referred to the Christian’s dream in all the article as he did in the latter part. I cannot equate Christianity with Americanism. The African Christian has the same dream for spiritual reality and wholeness that I do. I happen to be an American Christian.

CARL L. SMELTZER

Kalona, Iowa

Collars And Character

If your cost-cutting collared clergyman (“Collaring Cost-Cutting,” April 24) pays $4.50 for a clerical collar, he may need to cheat on his taxes. Most collars cost between $.75 and $1.00. Is the Wall Street Journal telling a true story, or is it simply making up an illustration for the purpose of pointing up a moral? If so, it is not strange that a clergyman became the chief character.

JAMES C. THOMPSON

St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church

Bishop, Calif.

Beauty Now

My warm thanks to Harold O. J. Brown for “Evolution, Revolution, or Victory” (April 10) and to you for publishing the timely presentation of eternal truth as it applies to now. Beautiful!

CHARLES R. GREGORY

Raleigh, N. C.

Book Of Barbs?

Mr. Lawing is one of the best Christian cartoonists! Isn’t it about time that his “cartoonal barbs” were put into a book so that his admirers can continue to laugh long after the issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY have crumbled?

BEULAH E. WIGGINS

Jamaica, N. Y.

Hymn And ‘I’

I am concerned about your report that the new Presbyterian hymnbook will reveal the loss of so many familiar and well-loved hymns (“Exit 540 Hymns,” Feb. 27), particularly those stressing personal relationship with God. Beneath all the social gospel there must be personal cleansing, personal dedication, personal salvation.

There is the same trend here in Britain. As a Methodist I tremble to think what will happen when our Methodist hymnbook is again revised. When the Sunday-school hymnal was reissued, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was dropped, though it is still in the Methodist Church hymnal. It is rumored that many of the “I” hymns will go, like Henry Lyte’s “Abide with Me” and Francis Havergal’s “I Am Trusting Thee, Lord Jesus.” Why this should be I cannot understand … Many of us I am sure find our hopes and fears, our joys and faith put into prayer through the medium of our hymnbook, which we would otherwise find hard to express. It has ever been such, and the Psalms give us a glorious example. Last year (1969) we had a “Methodist Hymns and Songs” supplement, but so very very few really “get under the skin.” Why, O why must those who profess to lead appear so deaf?

JOHN L. COTTERELL

Finchfield, Wolverhampton, England

Page 5959 – Christianity Today (7)

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“For they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

The blossoms of spring. The warming sun. The gentle breeze. The façade of death. Lives that had been seeking, yearning, pleading—gone. A tense calm. A waiting crowd. The protruding of bayonets. Other lives watching their world of dreams shattered by a curious excitement, a breathless fear. The whirlwind has begun.

For two years I have ministered to the student world of Kent State University, where last month, in the midst of anti-war protests, four students were slain and eleven wounded in the unexpected heat of confrontation with the Ohio National Guard. I have never been in war, but that day as I stood with hundreds of students on the campus commons I knew how ugly war could be. And I shared with them the shock of comic-book fiction coming true. The whirlwind blew as it willed, and there was no one who could hold it back. We knew not where it came from or where it was going. We did realize its presence—deep in the clefts of our souls. We wanted to hide. Too late.

The whirlwind has begun. The unalterable laws of the spiritual dimension are proving their reliability. God is not mocked. What a man plants in his life and in the lives of others will yield back manyfold. And we have sown the wind.

We have sown the wind of permissiveness in the home. “Honor your parents”—true. But what honor is there for a commander who puts a soldier into the battle without training him for war? Young people need (and many genuinely want) some absolutes for their lives, proven in righteousness, demonstrated in honest experience, and taught with love. What are the absolutes we offer? Without the pronouncements of the Infinite-Personal God there can be none, really. Unfortunately, he is increasingly avoided.

What are the young people today to hold in assurance and trust? Dad and mother do not agree on “truth.” Often they are violently opposed, while the child becomes the pawn to win the match. Or the parents seek for their personal success and happiness but have no long-standing definition for either one. No source of direction there. Why not let Johnny do his own thing? Maybe he will do it better.

Actually we are all children at heart. “Mature manhood” is “the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children.” So perennial children threw their rocks at the “bad guys.” Someone lost. Who? By what measure can we really be sure? Which is worse: killing or being killed? Why can’t I hate?

Can National Guard troops firing real bullets be colaborers with the permissive home? Shouldn’t we have expected confrontation sometime? “Honor … that your days may be long in the land.” But the days are growing shorter. We are reaping the whirlwind.

We have sown the wind of egotistic humanism. How prophetic that the first fruits should be located in the same field in which the seed was sown! For years we have believed that man is the center of the universe and that he alone can determine its destiny. Result?

In my daily work with students, one common trait presents itself in the majority (with different manifestations): pride. Young people today have no absolutes for defining “value,” but they are certain they will find it—within themselves. Their minds have become the invaluable tool for discerning reality, and all ideas worthy of serious consideration must be earmarked “Intellectual.”

The egotistic tendencies of many are presently expressed in the cry for peace. We are deeply concerned with the course of Southeast Asia. But when members of one segment of society begin to assume the messiah complex in this course, they may lose sight of the objective and look only at the means—themselves. The seed sown: man is god. The result: one faction alienates itself from the rest of society to become the one indispensable god. This is not just a few. A bulk of the student world participates—vicariously. And the ultimate result on their personalities is the same. “The works of human nature are … enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit …” “To set the mind on the flesh is death.…”

The sound of gunfire draws the eyes of the world more intently to willing champions who rise more boldly to fulfill their destiny, to preach their message of love and make it their experience, to stand alone in their own mirage of hope, to enjoy the deceptive taste of victory, to seek to establish their own righteousness and not submit to God’s righteousness. (“The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.”) God help us; we are reaping the whirlwind.

The Church is not innocent. It too has sown the wind. The Church has offered absolutes but has shown little comprehension of their reasonableness, has provided little appropriate course for implementation, and has given little evidence of their truth.

The greatest commandment is love. Where? For whom? The Church has made God’s priority a relative issue: relative to class, to race, to effort demanded, to time consumed, to personal gratification, to theological hassles, to church organization. “Hereby shall all men know [awareness with certainty] that you are my disciples [those disciplined to obey all that he has commanded] if you love [fully and always] one another [both giving and receiving without distinction.]” The indifference of the world and our young people give evidence: we are reaping the whirlwind.

The Church has sown its own brand of humanism, too. We have “the form of godliness but deny the power of it.” Every moment spent, every effort made, and every doctrine taught without the express intervention of God’s Spirit depends on human nature and tends to spiritual pride. We deny God’s Spirit often in our prayers, our giving, our disciplining, our living. We claim our victories, but we know, and the world knows, that we testify only to our own achievements. We have sown by the flesh. We don’t know how to sow to the Spirit any longer. We are empty. Our strength has been depleted. But we are also proud. We can’t let Christ down? We can’t let ourselves down! In maintaining the form only, however, we have let both down in the end.

Our young people know our “humanist” game. Why should we be surprised if they begin to play it with “secular” rules? It is the same game: man becomes his only practical hope. We inherit the whirlwind. “If we sow to the flesh, we shall from the flesh reap corruption.”

God’s spiritual order is intact. Nothing has gone wrong. Everything is working together as it should. We are the ones who suffer because of God’s own perfection. But God’s spiritual order is our only deliverance. “The Spirit is like the wind … so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The kind of wind we sow—is this not to be reckoned with? Yes, it is!

The past year in my work with Navigator, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Inter-Varsity chapters at Kent State, I saw God doing tremendous things. Christian young people were growing spiritually. Lives were beginning anew with Christ. God’s Son was increasingly becoming an issue on the campus. All things indicated that this was God’s time for K. S. U.

The school newspaper carried a number of articles with the emphasis on the Good News of Christ. In December a Christian basketball team played the Kent State varsity team. During half-time these Christian players presented Christ’s claims to hundreds of student spectators. Bible-study groups began in a number of dorms, as well as among the faculty. Hundreds of students received a personal presentation of the Gospel. Many responded. Then eight weeks ago, after months of planning and prayer, the Navigator, Campus Crusade, and Inter-Varsity groups combined in an all-out evangelistic thrust into the campus, using popular music and outstanding speakers. More than two hundred contacts were made through this strategic move. New discussion groups on Christ sprang up. The month of May seemed essential to the spiritual flow of this school year.

Could it be that the whirlwind viewed that Monday afternoon was a direct result of months of sowing God’s wind? “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion.” Had Satan finally uncoiled? Was this his whirlwind? If so, he obtained a temporary victory: the school was closed for the rest of the quarter. But Satan’s storms die.

The point, however, should be obvious: the question is not whether whirlwinds can be avoided. They can’t. The question is, Why do they appear? Hosea marked the reason for his generation: “They have broken my covenant, and transgressed my law. To me they cry, My God, we Israel know thee. Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him. They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but without my knowledge … For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.… Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning” (8:1–4, 7, 11). Do these words ring our judgment too?

My plea to the Church is to begin sowing the wind—the Spirit. Begin at the most crucial location in the nation: the college campus. Sow genuine love and spiritual power in the lives of students who may someday determine the direction of men and nations. Begin when they are still in your midst. But follow them with your prayers, your encouragement, your tears, your commitment to Christ, your undying devotion to God’s Son. Stand with them by sowing, planting, watering, and praying that God will give them the increase: a whirlwind of eternal victory and life-transforming witness to the student world; a whirlwind that will eventually render all other whirlwinds ineffective. God help us not to hesitate!

The Hypothetical Battle

Pierre Berton in his best seller, The Comfortable Pew, alleges that in every battle between the Scriptures and science since Copernicus, the Bible has lost. This is untrue. What he might have said is that religious zealots construct a superstructure of hypotheses on the alleged foundation of the Scriptures. He might also have pointed out that students of science construct what W. R. S. Thompson, Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, in his introduction to Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species (New York, 1959), calls, “… those fragile towers of hypotheses based on hypotheses, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion.” It is when the highly biased defenders of these two fabricated bastions clash that the sophistries of the latter seem often to prevail intellectually over the frequent ingenuosities of the former.

What is refreshing at a time like this is that perhaps the most charismatic of the astronauts, Colonel Frank Borman—indeed, the most popular American ever to visit the Soviet Union—can say, “I believe now that man can do anything he wants, technically,” and yet introduce from the moon orbit the creation account from Genesis 1. He believes in technology. And he believes in the Bible. Without this combination man cannot survive, let alone thrive.

Britain’s Prince Philip has never been known as an enthusiastic evangelist. But [recently] he has been speaking out.… In Toronto with poignant solemnity he cautioned that unless “the high priests of science” were prepared to subordinate their discoveries to an orientation which would be dominated by faith in God, there would cease to exist a basis of belief that man could long survive on this planet.—JOHN WESLEY WHITE in Re-entry (copyright 1970 by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan; used by permission).

A Student’S Open Letter To God

DEAR GOD,

I know other people have approached you in lines of disgust, anger, disbelief, and sometimes even praise. This personal note comes out of a selfish motive. If I put my feelings down on paper, perhaps I can relieve some of the warfare going on inside me.

Let me be blunt. This turmoil has been festering and growing ever since my faith in you came to be personal rather than borrowed. I’m torn between being a Christian on one hand and a churchman on the other. Ever since I became a personal friend of yours through that long, painful process of growing, I’ve found little more than constant frustration. True, I’ve been at ease when my thoughts and feelings have been dulled by the details of college life, and when I just didn’t care about you or how our friendship was going. But those times when I have really cared and pondered have ended in nothing but frustration. I’m caught in an evangelical schizophrenia.

First of all, I know what life as your friend can be like. I’m starting to learn to trust you, to confide in you, to depend on you, and to enjoy your constant love, which guides, disciplines, and comforts me. At times, your words seem alive and real. I feel you taking my hand, leading me, even just being near. At other times you seem far away, and I’ve had to cry out for you to return. Sometimes you’ve come. Other times you’ve left me alone in a dark sea of profound loneliness. But you’re real, you’re alive, you’re with me. I know that.

The hitch comes in that institution you ordained long ago. I know countless others have complained about the Church and cursed it and shot it full of holes. I don’t know their motives, but I do know that mine is one of loving concern. As I read Acts and the letters of Paul, I can see what you really wanted from the Church, and the ideas were great. I feel exhilarated when I think of what the Church could be if we stuck to your directions. But I feel disgusted when I look and see what has evolved from that first perfect blueprint.

There are times when I want to burn down every cross-topped building in the world and start all over again. But what will I replace it with once it has been torn down? You understand, Lord, I want what you gave, and I can even see some sparks of life in today’s “church.” At the same time, however, I want that beautiful, personal relationship I found so exciting.

Right now I find the Church stifling my friendship with you. Those services three times a week tend to bore me rather than stimulate my thinking. Worst of all, most ideas for change meet with hard-nosed disapproval from the stalwarts who run the institution. So what do I do? I could take the easy way and drop out. But what good would that do? I could go and hope to change things by just being there, but that presents another problem. If I go and don’t get involved, I’m just perpetuating the deadness I hate.

The last alternative would be to really get involved, but that has it’s problems, too. If I put my whole being into it, chances are most of the leaders of the church will turn me off and shove me aside as a radical student bent on destroying the Church. They’d be right from one viewpoint. I would want to destroy their church and replace it with yours, and I am a radical, but I’m a radical for you. They look at my outside covering—longer hair, sideburns, no suit on Sunday—and push me out of serious consideration. If they listen to my ideas at all, they see a young know-it-all trying to disrupt their sacred form of worship, their carefully cultivated isolationism.

I love them, Lord. I really feel some of my “radical” ideas would give more life to the Church and help to turn it into a living, vital, interesting institution. For instance, instead of the traditional Sunday-night gathering for songs and another peaceful sermon, why couldn’t we all meet at the church building, organize into action groups, and hit the streets? Some groups could go to the jails, some to the bars, some to the rest homes. The younger people could go to the local discotheque. We wouldn’t have to have a structured meeting planned for the people to whom we go. We could just sit and talk. Get involved with the people of the world and find out some of their problems. We might even be able to put our Christianity to work. As we are now, Lord, our evangelical sponge is already filled to overflowing with sermons and lessons on what we are supposed to believe and do. If we could just squeeze out a little of our life-giving knowledge about Christ on Sunday night, Sunday morning might become more useful.

Another option would be to break up on Sunday night into small groups and let Christians interact with other Christians. Just talking over our problems, joys, and hopes with one another would add exciting new life to the Church. Eventually our Christian masks, worn so piously on Sunday morning, would disappear, and we could see one another as we really are. We could start treating each other as real brothers and sisters in Christ.

I could change myself to meet their standards, Lord, but I’d be cheating myself. I also don’t want them to have to deny their self-dignity by changing to be like me. All I want is a chance for all of us to meet on an equal plane as your children, as people with a vital common concern.

As you can see, Lord, I’m groping with an idealistic prospect, one that probably won’t be realized until you decide to return. Nevertheless, I needed to get this off my chest. Thank you for listening.

Respectfully,

DAVID R. KNIGHTON

(Editor’s Note: David Knighton is a pre-med student now in his junior year.)

The Convert

Smoke curled gently about Satan’s face as if he were doing a TV cigarette commercial. He fastened a judgment look on Fireball, who stood between two towering guards, and then glanced at papers on his desk. “I have here a strange report concerning you, little brother. In fact, it sounds incredible. It states that you have turned Christian!

Fireball hung his head for a moment, then lifted it bravely. “I can explain, Majesty.”

“By all means do so,” said Satan, unsmiling. “I have asked some of my theologians to sit in on this matter. For ages Christians have been discovered helping our cause—but who ever heard of one of us joining forces with them?”

“Always, great one,” murmured Fireball, “I have considered myself the most loyal of demons. I have hated the Enemy, ridiculed his Book, fought fiercely against the Church. I have despised his chief warriors, especially the Apostle Paul, and I have labored long to overthrow the Galilean’s kingdom.”

Satan shrugged. Fireball continued: “As you are aware, sir, I have not been without success. I was there urging Nero to toss believers to the lions. It was my idea that Karl Marx used when he said, ‘Religion is the opiate of the people.’ I have fought a good fight against the faith from the morning of the Resurrection—in fact, who do you think spread the rumor that his disciples had stolen his body from the tomb? I have long, as they say in America, been doing my thing.”

“Must you lower your dignity with hippie jargon?” demanded Satan. “And never mind your case history! What I want to know is why you have forsaken us for the opposition? How in the name of all that’s unholy did you come to hit the sawdust trail—as quaint Billy Sunday used to say? What happened? Don’t tell me that Billy Graham got to you?”

Fireball wagged his head. “Preachers like Graham never ruffle the fuzz on my neck. What happened is, I think, that any number of clergymen and theologians got me caught in a conspiracy, though unwittingly, perhaps.”

The devil glowered. “I’m listening. This had better be good!”

“They came at me from all quarters—far-out existentialists, demythologizers, dead-God philosophers, universalists, situationists—everybody! They made havoc of the Bible. They joked about the Virgin Birth. The Resurrection became an event born in the apostles’ imagination. The miracles were ridiculed. Morals that Christians had lived by for centuries were shrugged off. The idea of personal salvation was jettisoned. The Church took up the use of political and economic pressure, rang in all sorts of power groups, and dubbed all this ‘evangelism.’ ”

The devil grimaced. “Look. I’m not altogether unaware of the goings-on of clergymen and theologians. What I want to know is what happened to you!”

“I will explain, Majesty. But it’s not easy. The thing is, I got hung up on this business of ‘evangelism.’ All of us know what the word meant originally. It is associated, of course, with that other word, ‘evangelical,’ referring to the Christian Gospel, especially as presented by the four Gospels; or referring to churches that emphasize the authority of Scripture and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual.”

“For the love of Hades!” barked Satan. “I have my own dictionary. Quit quoting Merriam-Webster and answer my question!”

“Bear with me, great one. But allow me one other quote from Merriam-Webster. ‘Evangelism: the winning or revival of personal commitment to Christ.’ But observe how evangelism has been turned into everything other than the making of personal converts to Christ—vast drives for more social activism, legislation, monetary pressure. Modern ‘evangelism’ embraces groups that would have embarrassed the early Church no end!

“Church chiefs today, sir, are suggesting things that would have horrified the apostles. They are talking about being the world! And you know how unanimous the young Church was in its stand against the world, maintaining that the love of the Father was not in him who loved the world. They said the world was doomed. In fact, they said—pardon me, sir!—that their enemies were the world, the flesh, and the devil!”

“Why a history of the early Church?” growled Satan. “Must you forever quote the Bible? Once more I ask you, how did you come to get converted to Christianity?”

“Sir, the Christianity we once knew we all abhor. It was eternally opposed to all we stood for. It was a foe to whom no quarter was to be given, no mercy shown, no invitation to negotiation. The battle was to the death. But all that is changed. The Church is not the same now. No more does the prophet damn what is evil; rather, he seeks to understand evil, to see if it is really as bad as men have believed.

“Christians, great one, in a large sense are no longer at war with us! They swing toward a position we once considered most dangerous to their cause: they seek success in the way of Caesar—and you know what an ally of ours he was!

“They embrace a universally effected redemption that includes everybody—not necessarily excluding us, finally! Hence the evangelism of their Book is approaching a standstill; for personal salvation is meaningless. So what have we left to fight for, Majesty? Has not the Church become our friend rather than our enemy? As long as some men were lost and others saved, our position was certain, our duty clear. But what profit shall we have if we war with those who offer us nothing to attack?”

“Hmmm.” Satan’s look narrowed upon his aide. He cupped his chin in his hand. “You just may have something there. When you don’t need to fight ’em, join ’em, huh? If Christianity has really become as you describe it, we might all become converts!”

Fireball beamed. “Then, Majesty, will not the war be over?”

The devil shook his head. “Not quite. There’s still Graham you know, and others like him. Many of them are hard-headed beyond credibility. They will never be won over, so the war will go on. However, you have shown us something, little brother. Hence I give you the honor of heading the new movement to get our forces into the Christian fold. We will need a slogan.”

“How about ‘Keep the Unbelief, Baby’?” cried Fireball.

“Too obvious. Something better would be, ‘Through Conversion We Shall Overcome.’ ”

“What about ‘Sock It to Me, Mephistopheles’?”

“Sometimes I wonder about you,” grumbled Satan. “Get along now and get them organized for marching.”

Fireball scurried away. Smoke curled about the devil’s crooked grin. But the grin faded into a dark scowl. He said, as if to himself: “I do wish we had Graham, though, and several million others that come to mind. There ought to be some way …”—LON WOODRUM, author and evangelist, Hastings, Michigan.

ONCE ON A BLACK MORNING

Once on a black morning

when sleet like buckshot blasted

the frost on my trembling window,

awakening sleek and nested,

I leapt from my blood-warm bed

avid to grasp the day

but, brushed and breakfasted,

I still heard the pellets play

their rat-a-tat-tat on the pane.

Now I had to open a valve

that makes a turbine spin

that makes the world revolve,

but when I was mittened and muffled

the window shuddered: I saw

beyond it an ice age stir.

With the bound of a buffalo

I made for the bed and once

under the covers I’ve kept

in residence ever since.

Tell me: has everything stopped?

FRANCIS MAGUIRE

Page 5959 – Christianity Today (9)

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Rare is the pastor who is not called upon to counsel troubled teen-agers, anxious spinsters, guilt-ridden servicemen, and fearful parents about sexual problems. Guilt over masturbation, heavy petting after the youth rally, premarital pregnancies, mixed marriages, quiet separations, crushing divorces, unwanted children—these are common problem areas. Also common is the plaintive response: “If only someone had told me before.…” Should the Church engage in family-life education?

Many churches offer little more in this area than a traditional marriage ceremony and a tidy statement of their view of divorce. While membership classes are often the prerequisite for joining the church family, no such requirements precede the establishment of a Christian family. The Roman Catholic Church has been light-years ahead of Protestants with the Pre-Cana instruction classes for engaged couples.

In the spring of 1961, the North American Conference on Church and Family Life took place, attended by 532 administrators, program directors, and editors from thirty-three denominations. Serious study was given to such matters as early marriage, infidelity, divorce, masturbation, homosexuality, abortion, and family planning. (The proceedings of this conference have been helpfully distilled in the paperback Christians and the Crisis in Sex Morality, by Elizabeth and William Genné.) Since then, a number of the major denominations in the United States have drafted serious studies on the Christian family and related problems. The modern sexual revolution has been accompanied, fortunately, with responsible statements on human sexuality in a Christian context by numerous church bodies (though some have shown muddled thinking on some of the issues). Ministerial groups would do well to provide their communities with study papers on contemporary issues such as abortion and homosexuality; such a project might well replace much ecclesiastical clubmanship and Sunday-school contest oneupmanship.

Sex education is inevitable. From peers or paperbacks, magazines or movies, TV or VD, the corner store or the locker room, our children are collecting information and misinformation, conceptions and misconceptions. Who will give them perspective? Many parents hope to; few are successful. Surveys unanimously document the failure of most parents to instruct their children adequately in the facts of life. Breakdown in parent-child communication by the teen-age years, unresolved personal feelings about sexuality, inadequate terminology, uncomfortable feelings about discussing these matters, plus a history of aborted atempts to lecture on the birds and the bees—hindrances like these stymie many parents. However, most Christian parents are looking for guidance and reassurance in assuming their God-ordained role of bringing their children up under the whole counsel of God (note particularly the excellent study, Parents’ Guide to Christian Conversation About Sex, by E. J. Kolb). Encouragement for improvement rather than censure for past mistakes is now imperative.

The schools have recently begun to assume the responsibility of sex education. Some systems are now operating carefully conceived programs with professional personnel. Many others are just getting their programs off the launching pad. Church efforts should supplement and complement local school programs wherever these are doing well.

Unfortunately, relatively few schools are doing well—or doing anything. The major problem with school programs centers in value orientation. Separation of church and state prohibits the teaching of religious values, and most school programs forbid teachers to moralize with students. The American Medical Association, however, in a brochure on sex education called Facts Aren’t Enough, underscores the inadequacy of programs that do not balance fact with faith (or values). From an institutional standpoint, the Church is in the best position to provide this balance. The Church could provide correct biological information along with a sound spiritual orientation for those children entrusted to its care and nurture.

One tragedy the present generation of parents weathered ought not to be repeated. Part of God’s creative activity involved fashioning the human form into two striking silhouettes. Into one he breathed masculinity; femininity graced the other. The two complemented and augmented each other—physically, spiritually, psychologically, and economically. And, reflecting God’s image of love, their relationship proved to be highly fulfilling and mutually sustaining. God saw that it was very good—and so did they. But who explained our budding sexuality in this context? Our parents? Not for 90 per cent of us. Our school? No, the school could not give religious instruction. Our church? No, sex was a taboo subject there. So who introduced most of us to God’s grand scheme of sexuality? Our peers. Slang terms, racy and ribald stories, smutty pictures, girlie magazines, and puzzling bodily changes—these were our sex education.

A few years ago when a psychologist at a Christian college was discussing a problem with a student following spiritual emphasis week, the undergraduate, only half-facetiously, asked: “When are they going to have sexual emphasis week here?” As the young adult repeats the Lord’s Prayer (“lead us not into temptation”) or reads the Beatitudes (“Blessed are the pure in heart”), he may feel his awakened sexual desires are being pitted against spiritual ideals. This is the place for the Church to provide compassionate counsel. Whether the catechism class is studying the Ten Commandments (“Thou shalt not commit adultery.… Thou shalt not covet”), a Sunday-school class is discussing David and Bathsheba, or the evening youth group is viewing A Man for All Seasons, opportunities abound for value orientation in a Christian philosophy of life. Skillful educators and youth sponsors will not ignore the potential for fruitful dialogue here. Since college or the military, an urban office or a vocational school typically follows a high-school education today, adults must realize that if a young person graduates from high school without having formulated a Christian philosophy of sexual behavior, the pressures of an erotically oriented world are likely to overwhelm him. The search for identity in the adolescent years is accompanied by a search for personal values. When they ask for bread, let us not give them a stone.

Not everyone is convinced, however, that the Church should become involved with family-life education. It is time to consider some of the objections commonly raised.

1. Sex education is the task of the parents. Agreed. But since only about 10 per cent of parents manage to educate their children adequately with a sound Christian ethic intertwined with the facts of reproduction, should not the Church augment parental efforts? It is not a matter of either/or; both parents and Church have a mandate to instruct and to nurture the children entrusted to their care.

2. Sex education is the task of the schools. Increasing emphasis is being given to a kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade program of family-life education in our school systems. If competent teachers are found (no small undertaking), Christians should welcome this aspect of biological, sociological, and psychological education. Dr. Mary Calderone, executive director of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), has been very active in encouraging school systems across the nation to include sex education in their curriculums. In a 1965 survey conducted by the National Education Association, eight out of ten teachers in the United States recommended that sex education become a part of secondary-school curriculum. The corner has been turned. Christians should be—and many are—on the committees of educators planning these programs. Two major problems remain: (1) finding or developing qualified teachers, and (2) the serious limitation imposed on schools in discussing value systems.

3. Sex education in the Church is faddish. Some critics feel that efforts to involve the Church in this currently popular realm are a capricious capitulation to the sexual sensationalism so rampant today. The unfortunate element of truth in this objection points to the negligence and the tardiness of the Church in waiting so long to bring puberty into proper focus. For some twenty centuries Scripture has borne witness to the need for basic instruction and value orientation in human sexuality. Regrettably, secular pressures are forcing the Church to rethink and retool its educational program along lines that should have been normative through the generations.

4. Sex education means sexual experimentation. This common allegation is not supported by the facts and is disputed by the leading family-life educators. As observers of adolescent behavior readily note, considerable experimentation takes place anyway. Discussions of human relationships, of ultimate values, of ego needs and misdeeds, and of Christian principles of behavior tend to have a sobering and salutary effect on teen-agers.

5. Sex education isolates the physical aspects of human sexuality from the total context of responsible love. This is a valid objection if the course offered provides little more than the nomenclature of human anatomy and reproduction (what family-life educators refer to as a “plumbing course”). The sex education we advocate is neither reproduction education, which is impersonal, nor moral indoctrination, which is impractical. The former lacks a framework in which “facts” can be organized; the latter reduces moral principles to moral prudery. Open and tactful discussion, in a Christian frame of reference, of the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of human reproduction should characterize sex education in the Church.

6. The Church should “stick to preaching the Gospel.” This common objection finds its roots in a rather simplistic notion of precisely what the Gospel is. The Gospel may be likened to an inverted pyramid. Its tip may well point to the “Good News” of personal salvation. But its total impact includes both kerygma (proclamation) and didache (teaching). The proclamation of God’s love made incarnate in Jesus Christ is the Gospel; the teaching of how this love affects every aspect of the Christian’s life is also the Gospel. Any attempt to separate kerygma from didache is a most unfortunate dichotomy. The Gospel of Jesus Christ includes the striking Good News of a truly relevant sexual ethic.

7. There is a lack of qualified teachers to give sex education within the Church. This objection is far more telling when applied to the school instead of the Church. Course instructors are quick to agree that adolescents raise far more moral questions than anatomical ones. Within Church membership are Christian physicians, psychologists, nurses, educators, lawyers, judges, theologians, ministers, and parents; what one church may lack can be supplied by persons from another. The great values of programs of this kind is that Christian physicians or lawyers or psychologists can ground their lectures in Christian values, so that it is not left to the concluding session for the minister to give the series a “religious” twist.

8. There is little guidance available on how to set up such a program. This criticism, valid a decade ago, has now been sidelined by the introduction of various denominational studies and professional guidebooks.

9. It has never been done before.

Let us look now at the other side. Why should the Church sponsor family-life education?

1. The Christian Gospel is God’s “good news” to man, and young people need to hear the good news Christian commitment and Christian ethics bring to sexual behavior.

2. Scripture has much to say about sexual behavior, whether the Church does or not, and Christian education includes family-life education. The candor of the Bible prohibits prudery; it speaks of such matters as circumcision, sterility, menstruation, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, prostitution. Moreover, such parts of the biblical account as the virgin birth of Christ, the infertility of Abraham and Sarah, the adultery of David, circumcision as the sign of the covenant, and Nicodemus’s puzzlement at the idea of being “born again” need clarification.

3. Family-life education courses help to strengthen marriage and establish Christian homes.

4. Just as health measures taken prior to anticipated exposure can lessen resultant injury, advance information about human sexuality can help to prevent catastrophe.

5. When parents promise, through either Christian baptism or infant dedication, to bring their children up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” sexual behavior lies within the scope of their instruction. The Church has a responsibility to assist parents in their total task of Christian nurture.

6. While other social institutions often feel they must skirt moral issues in their sex-education courses the Church is a natural place for such problems to be discussed.

7. Society is asking the Church to inaugurate family-life courses. Physicians, psychiatrists, sociologists, and family-life educators have repeatedly requested that churches begin to offer counsel to young people.

8. The confusing pressures upon our youth for conformity demand that a Christian orientation to human sexuality be discussed with them. Many contemporary illustrations of sexual anarchy and exploitation underscore this confusion (these should be cited for discussion with young people).

9. The Church needs to give firm support, not to suppression and distortion of sexual matters, but to biblical inquiry and ethical direction. Rather than being silent or negative or wistfully permissive about sex, churchmen should desire to proclaim the whole counsel of God in this area as well as in any other.

Christian family-life education is more than sex education; it is character education. Theologically, it assumes that this aspect of God’s good creation is worthy of investigation, clarification, and orientation. Dynamically, it places the physical, emotional, and social aspects of human sexuality in the context of Christian ethics. The call to discipleship and stewardship under the will of God as it relates to human personality and sexual behavior is highly important for the perfecting of this treasure we have in earthen vessels. The individual is viewed, not in isolation, but as his behavior affects other persons and as it prepares him to establish a Christian family.

When a church plans a series of seminars on sex education, specific goals should be kept in mind.

Recommended goals of sex education for parents are:

1. To promote familiarity with the basic biblical principles that should undergird sexual attitudes, sexual behavior, and the family.

2. To promote familiarity with the vocabulary that correctly identifies body parts and body functions.

3. To promote an understanding of the dynamics of communication between generations.

4. To promote an attitude of both openness and sacredness about human sexuality within the home.

5. To assist in resolving sexual tensions and interpersonal conflicts within the family.

6. To promote an understanding of the roles that members of the family should assume.

For sex education among junior-high students, desirable aims are:

1. To develop an appreciation for the wonder of God’s creative process in which each person is created male or female.

2. To promote an understanding of psychosexual development.

3. To provide an accurate vocabulary for discussing sexual growth.

4. To relieve anxieties and fears about individual sexual maturation.

5. To establish respect for persons of the opposite sex.

6. To establish respect for both the divine and the social laws governing sexual behavior.

7. To promote an atmosphere in which questions on human sexuality may be discussed with candor and grace.

And for senior-high students, these goals of sex education are appropriate:

1. To clarify further the physical, emotional, and mental maturation process in which a young person makes the transition through puberty to adulthood.

2. To foster an appreciation for the wisdom of God’s word on sexual behavior and to encourage the student to develop his own moral code in a Christian context.

3. To discuss the dynamic and biblical factors that contribute to a wholesome, happy, Christian home.

4. To establish respect for persons of the opposite sex, with consideration given to personality development, individual anxieties, and dating ethics.

5. To provide adequate knowledge about both normal and abnormal sexual behavior so that the young person may protect himself from the misuses and aberrations of sex.

6. To encourage freedom of discussion in matters of human sexuality.

Page 5959 – Christianity Today (11)

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When an archaeologist speaks of the Bible as the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice, he is at least somewhat familiar with over 9,000 years of urban civilization. And he has spent a great deal of time reading the thoughts of men as expressed in writing for something like 5,000 years. In all that time there has been only one absolutely unique personality, namely Jesus the Christ, and only one absolutely unique book, the Bible.

While sincere Christians will frankly admit the uniqueness of Jesus the Christ, some of them question the uniqueness of the Bible. This is rather strange scholarship, since the only authentic original information we have on Christ is the Bible. We can have secondary and partially confirming information in our Christian experience, but since one never finds a Christian obeying Christ in all his gospel commands, that secondary information is only scanty and partial, for Christ insisted that only after we had obeyed would we have the knowledge.

The uniqueness of the Bible is above all else due to its being the work of the Holy Spirit. To be sure, he does have collaborators in the persons of Moses, David, Isaiah, John, Paul, and others, but the uniqueness of the Bible is not a product of the human authors. What about the work of Moses that was never canonized and the songs of David that were never preserved? Note also that John insists “there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” The place of human authorship must be dealt with in any good doctrine of inspiration, but it will always be a minor point.

The study of the inspiration of Scripture is one of the most necessary and fascinating fields of theology today. The basis of that study is the fact that in the center of all history stands the Bible—an unbelievably unique book. Archaeology has shown that the last book of the Bible was written before A.D. 100. That leaves almost 1,900 years since that date for human authorship, unaided by the Holy Spirit, to improve on Scripture and to present someone comparable to the unique person of Jesus the Christ. But what has human authorship added to the Bible’s concept of sin, salvation, the resurrection, the Godhead? Despite all our vaunted modern scholarship, the human mind working without divine inspiration has produced absolutely nothing of an improvement on Christ and his Scripture in the same length of time as that which passed between Abraham and the Book of the Revelation. In all the fields of scholarly research, nothing is as unique as Christ and his Bible, with its message to all mankind everywhere.

Unfortunately, most present-day studies on inspiration bypass this basic fact and deal only with minor features. Scholars (1) emphasize the human element rather than the divine, (2) stress only some features from the manuscripts and usually omit translations, (3) accentuate the application of Scripture to the immediate circumstances of an episode to the neglect of its universal message to all men at all times and in all places, (4) apply modern philosophical techniques totally unrelated to the Bible and thereby arrive at false conclusions.

Let us consider first of all the divine element in inspiration. Not only does Scripture state this over and over; it is also seen in Christ’s use of the Old Testament. When Christ was quoting Scripture to Satan at the temptation, he was certainly emphasizing not the human wisdom of a Moses (or a Deuteronomist) but the very word of God itself. At the other end of his ministry, Christ was crucified for identifying himself with the God of Scripture.

Notice also that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are a unit of Scripture with no clue to human authorship (except that which a modern critic invented); yet here are some of the most essential doctrines of Scripture. After these verses we learn nothing more about the Creator until we get to the New Testament, and then it is the doctrine of the Trinity as Creator. The doctrine of the Sabbath is actually further advanced in Genesis than in Exodus. God’s people before Moses had only one holy day—the Sabbath; and in the New Testament, Christ returns to the Sabbath day as the exclusive holy day for the church. Human wisdom does not account for any of these concepts of the Sabbath, though from Genesis to Revelation the Sabbath is a major feature; and ultimately heaven is the Sabbath.

A second factor of the divine element that the experienced historian notices is that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and his revelation of himself is the same. Abraham had the faith to appreciate and appropriate the doctrine of justification by faith about 2,000 years before Paul did. To be sure, Paul understood that doctrine intellectually better than Abraham did, and his writings have made it easier for us to understand the doctrine. But both Abraham and Paul accepted the doctrine as God’s revelation and not their own “creative thinking.” Note also that Paul’s detailed intellectual explanation of this doctrine did not convert all his hearers. Something else beside the human element was entering in, to the salvation of Paul’s converts.

It is significant that the Old Testament is full of data infinitely beyond the knowledge of its human authors or anyone else then alive. Most of the “plans and specifications” for the Messiah scattered throughout the Old Testament were beyond the apprehension of their human authors. To be sure, these men recognized that God and God alone could save a lost world, but they little dreamed that the language they used was often later to have a meaning infinitely beyond their apprehension at the time they wrote. When Paul was evangelizing the world, it was these Messianic “plans and specifications” that constituted his Scripture lesson, and his sermon demonstrated that Christ fulfilled all these requirements as well as the other descriptions of the God of Israel. John 3:16 is the essence of all Scripture. Salvation is the work of the Trinity, and the Bible is God’s autographed handbook of redemption. Remember that when the Abraham story was being written into Scripture, it was not only to benefit his children but also to be of genuine spiritual value to all men living today—almost four millennia afterwards.

Although the Holy Spirit is the author of Scripture, the human element of the men who actually penned the words of Scripture is also seen. The modern liberal is correct in emphasizing the human element in Scripture. He is incorrect in overemphasizing it at the expense of the Holy Spirit. Now the next natural question is: How can man’s part in Scripture be truly human in view of the work of the Holy Spirit on that same text? I have never seen an answer to this problem that will satisfy the rationalists; but the scholar who believes in the use of analogies may be helped, for Christ has set the precedent for the use of the analogy in the deeper things of the spirit.

Let us take the field of music and think of God as a composer of music. Let us then take the human author of Scripture as a conductor of God’s music. Each conductor moved by the Spirit instinctively picks out that particular work of God’s grace which he wishes to stress and imprints upon it his own personality as he presents it for his immediate audience and as the Holy Spirit “tapes it” in Scripture for future audiences. This is well seen in the four Gospels: the overall theme of Christ is identical in each, but the author or conductor may choose to bring out a particular melodic line and at times may even compress the music by omitting parts of it that other conductors prefer to use. Since we have the “tapes” of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, however, we not only have the totality of the music that God intended men to have, but the music takes on added harmony when parts of it are presented by each of the four evangelists.

Another analogy is found in science, in the human brain. The brain of man is very similar to the brains of the higher forms of animal life, and the physician can do biological research on animal brains and then relate his findings to the human brain. This has led to phenomenal advances in medicine and surgery for all mankind. But at the same time the human brain is also uniquely different from animal brains, for the human mind can think “God” as truly as it thinks “animal.” Thus the human brain, like the Bible, handles both the human and the divine.

Or to use another example from physiology: not all the doctors in the world put together know all the details of the process by which we digest food and assimilate it into the various organs of the body. Nevertheless the doctors go on eating every day, knowing that nature can do its work whether they know how it occurs or not. The Christian who sincerely studies and practices God’s word knows that it “works,” even if he cannot solve the problem of the relation of human and divine authorship.

While we are dealing with science, it is well to emphasize that the skeptic who seeks to eliminate all mystery from Scripture is ignorant of science, which is the greatest field of thinking in this century. Mystery is as much a part of science as it is of Scripture. Indeed, it is the unknown that keeps science alive. When mystery dies, science will die, and the same is true of theology.

Now let us take another analogy, this time in the field of philosophy—temporal and eternal truth. The temporal truth of Scripture is what the human authors understand and write about; but God knows eternal truth, and this is what he imparts to the human author, who may be totally unaware of the uniqueness of this later truth. Just as the seed planted in the ground may have no apparent characteristics of the plant that grows from it, so the “seed truth” grasped by the human author of Scripture may soon be infinitely beyond his apprehension. Such were the Messianic passages—human to the human author, divine to God.

The second major problem in the doctrine of inspiration is textual criticism and translation. There is a wealth of new material in New Testament criticism that was never available to the older theologians, and it is constantly being increased. In Old Testament criticism, the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls has revolutionized study. But with all these thousands of thousands of variants, not a single major doctrine of Scripture has been jeopardized. Nevertheless, these many variants do compel us to take a new look at this problem. And there is also the related problem of translating the Bible, which is culminating now in the magnificent work of the world Bible societies.

Indeed, the translation problem of the New Testament is earlier than the variant readings of the copyists. The Gospels we have were written in Greek, but Christ’s preaching was done in Aramaic and Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that Hebrew was a more common language in Christ’s time than formerly thought. Truth, therefore, must leap the linguistic barrier even before the gospel story is given in written form. Furthermore, the New Testament itself sometimes quotes the Old Testament from a Hebrew text and sometimes from a Greek text. This shows that the New Testament writers did not use or need an infallibly standardized text. Both the writer and the Christian reader have the Holy Spirit to handle all these problems.

The theological problem of a variant text, however, is both augmented and illuminated by the Church’s problem of translating our Hebrew and Greek manuscripts into other tongues, which now number about 3,000. The difficulties involved in translating into these languages with their hundreds of differing and contradictory linguistic phenomena are greater than those of the Hebrew and Greek variants. Remember also that the number of people brought to a saving knowledge of Christ through a Hebrew or Greek Bible is infinitely smaller than the number brought in by the translations. I even know of one African translation of the Old Testament that was made from the King James Version! And yet these translations (good or bad) save souls.

The only really efficient textual critic and translator is no human scholar of any kind but only the Holy Spirit himself, and he is not handicapped by textual variants or translation problems. The Author of Scripture is also the Interpreter of Scripture. The God who personally opened up the doctrine of justification by faith to Abraham and Paul also opens it up to each of us. And the same Holy Spirit stands by all of us to open up all Scripture! Paul phrased it well in First Thessalonians 1:5 when he said that the Gospel came not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. The saintly Ethiopian eunuch had an inspired text before him, but he frankly stated that he could not understand it until the Holy Spirit sent Philip to interpret it. The Revised Standard Version phrases this idea excellently when it says in Second Peter 1:20, “No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.”

Strange as it may seem, no one comes to God in his own wisdom. This is demonstrated by the fact that a Jewish theological seminary can have a chair of New Testament (and Jewish scholars are among the most brilliant in the world). But that New Testament department does not win souls to Christ. Both conservatives and liberals have a tendency to treat the Bible text as a mechanical thing—get the original text and all your problems are solved. But even such an infallible Bible would still not be a self-illuminating book, as would an excellent treatise in science. The Bible can be seen only in the “invisible light” of the Holy Spirit and with him as a personal teacher.

Remember also that some of the most successful soul-winners in the world are Bible-school teachers who have never read the Bible in its original languages. It is also interesting that the first version of the Bible that was put into a “barbarian tongue” omitted the books of Samuel and Kings. Ulfilas, missionary to the Goths, omitted these books lest they stir up the fighting spirit of the Goths. This abridged Bible, however, converted the Goths. Remember also that the Catholics use a Bible that includes the Apocrypha, which Protestants reject. And yet with differing Bibles, both Protestants and Catholics bring unsaved men to Jesus Christ. Nevertheless it behooves every Christian minister to use the best critical text of the Bible that he can find! This is both the ideal and the practice of the American Bible Society, which is constantly working on such a critical text as the basis for its world wide translations.

A third common mistake of modern writers on inspiration is that they overemphasize the application of Scripture to the immediate circumstances of the writing and omit the Bible’s universal message to all men at all times and in all places. The Bible is actually the only timeless book in the world’s history!

I am as interested as anyone else in the immediate circumstances of the writing of Scripture. For forty years a very heavy portion of my salary has gone into archaeological digs, and I read everything I can about the archaeology and the historical background of Scripture. But these researches have shown me that human nature is the same in all ages. Nathan said to David, “Behold, thou art the man,” and Scripture from Genesis to Revelation has been constantly echoing that theme to sinful man. The Fifty-first Psalm is the penitential prayer of most Christians, but the background that occasioned David’s song is seldom related to the personal experiences of the Christians who use it. No Palestinian shepherd would risk his flock with an American city Christian, but when that American Christian lies down to die, the Twenty-third Psalm is the funeral song of hallelujah he wants as he crosses over into the promised land.

Archaeology has laid a new emphasis upon the immediate circumstances of the Bible, for, like the microscope, archaeology opens up a new world. But this new world is simply the old world seen in minute detail. Therefore archaeology only opens up a world in which God is more wonderful than before. But in addition it lends a vivid color to the picture that was not there before. One sees it as it were in Kodachrome. The true believer thus sees thousands of new features of Scripture that fit perfectly into the present problems of the Church around the world.

But God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now if you are interested in looking at the men of Scripture (be they such giants as Abraham, Moses, John, and Paul) only through your own eyes rather than through God’s eyes, then your judgment of these men will be as accurate as Satan’s estimate of Job and the evaluation Judas put on Jesus. The timeless eyes of an omniscient loving God alone will enable us to see the totality of Scripture.

A fourth mistake made by many writers on inspiration is to use modern theological techniques. One of the problems of the Church today is that too many of its seminary professors and preachers are lineal descendants of the Greeks whom Paul addressed in Athens—men who spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. When I read these modern theological-philosophical hybrids, I am reminded of the remark of one of my former theological professors. He said, “Gentlemen, if you didn’t learn enough in college, we will try to help you learn more. If you don’t know enough Bible we will help you get it here. But if you don’t have common sense, neither we nor God can be of any help to you.” This new esoteric phase of the doctrine of inspiration was so excellently refuted by C. S. Lewis in an essay printed in the June 9, 1967, issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY that one need not add anything to his comments.

The glory of science is its emphasis on common sense. The scientific scholar must make his researches so plain that any other scholar in the world can reproduce them. And not until his findings have been confirmed are his conclusions a valid part of science. Unfortunately, liberal theologians do not think after this pattern. It is the esoteric that they are interested in. They are modern gnostics.

The saintly man you meet in Scripture is always a man of common sense. He was not such a man before God changed his life. He, too, had many esoteric ideas. But when the Holy Spirit converts a man he gives him a unique kind of Common Sense. This term is now capitalized because it now has a new meaning. It is Common Sense because it is now a sense common to Jesus and Christians. It is this that makes possible a valid doctrine of inspiration—an infallible rule of faith and practice.

Page 5959 – Christianity Today (13)

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Can Christianity survive and thrive in large cities? This is an urgent question for evangelicals as they enter the 1970s for four reasons:

First, the city is now our largest mission field. In the last fifty years the human race has engaged in a worldwide mass migration to cities. Between 1900 and 1950 the population of our planet increased 49 per cent, but the population of cities rose 200 per cent. The United States, which was 90 per cent rural in 1790, will be 90 per cent urban in 1990. The urbanization of our planet means that we live, as Lewis Mumford has written, in “a world that has become, in many practical aspects, a city.” If successful mass evangelism is going to occur in the future, it will happen in cosmopolis, the “world city.” In the face of this vast opportunity, do evangelicals have enough spiritual momentum to pioneer the greatest missionary frontier in church history?

Second, the city poses a communication barrier for the churches. If effective witnessing is going to occur in 2001, it will have to be in language that city-dwellers can understand. The language of the evangelical churches, however, has often been rural. The minister is a “pastor” or “shepherd” who serves people called “the flock” or “the sheep.” The message is of a “Good Shepherd” named Jesus who drew his symbols from the countryside—the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, the foxes in their lairs. His parables speak of seedtime and harvest, laborers in the vineyard, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the barren fig tree, the vine and the branches, the shepherd and the sheep, the lost lamb, the mustard seed, and the young leaves of the fig tree. Can evangelicals effectively employ the rural vocabulary of the Bible in megalopolis? Do we also possess a persuasive urban style?

Third, the city challenges the Church with the need to preach a meaningful message to metropolitan man. Yet historically the evangelical churches in the United States have been rural in orientation. American Protestantism was the faith that followed the frontier. Baptists, Methodists, Disciples, and Presbyterians won converts by ministering to restless men on the westward movement; Lutherans, Reformed, and Moravians retained the loyalty of farm folk from the Continent; Congregationalism was the religion of the Yankee township; and the Episcopal Church was strong among tidewater settlers in the South. When America was predominantly rural, the evangelicals had a message that was eminently relevant. Do they have an equally valid and vital word for an urbanized America?

Fourth, the city is in need of redemption. This is the witness of the daily news report. It is also the testimony of the Scriptures. The Bible portrays the evil potential of a city organized apart from God. The murderer, Cain, fleeing from the presence of God, founded the first city (Gen. 4:17). These “tainted origins” often bore bitter fruit. A secular, urban society existed before the Flood, but “the earth was filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11) and invited divine destruction. After the Deluge, the sons of Noah forgot the judgment and said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves …” (Gen. 11:4). The lesson of Babel was lost by the age of Abraham, as the devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah reveals (Gen. 19). Throughout the Old Testament there is the theme of God’s wrath against the secular city, as is illustrated in the histories of Jericho, Nineveh, Babylon, and even Jerusalem. One of the most moving episodes in the New Testament is that of the Saviour weeping over David’s City for “killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!” (Matt. 23:37). Within seventy years it would be destroyed by Roman legions. These events prove the truth of the words of the psalmist, that “unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Ps. 127:1). They also pose this question: Can evangelicals confront cosmopolis with Christ so that there can be opportunity for repentance and redemption?

It is good that evangelicals are concerned about the city. This concern can become hope if we discover that while much of the biblical-evangelical tradition is indeed rural, it is not exclusively so. We also possess a rich but neglected urban heritage. The pathfinders and pioneers of our faith have blazed a path into the city for us. The Lord has led the prophets, apostles, and reformers into metropolis. Christ is already at home in cosmopolis. Our task is not to invent an urban theology or a secular, suburban gospel, but instead to make our Saviour’s presence known. We can plan for our future in the city, then, by rediscovering four aspects of our past:

1. The Bible may begin by placing man in a rural setting, the Garden of Eden, but it ends with St. John’s vision of a bright urban vista, “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband …” (Rev. 21:2). A central theme of the Scriptures, therefore, is the movement of the Word of God from the country to the city. This evangelistic momentum is revealed in the history of Israel, the career of Christ, and the life of the apostolic church.

A forgotten aspect of the history of Israel is the repeated pilgrimage of God’s people from “the desert to the town.” The patriarchal period, which began with the wilderness wanderings of Abraham, ended in the urbanization of the Hebrews under Joseph in Egypt. A second turning point of Hebrew history was the migration of the Israelites from the deserts of Sinai into the cities of Canaan. The Book of Judges reports the process by which a nation of nomads became a settled community. The tribal confederation was converted into a kingdom and the tent-tabernacle became an urban temple. Later the exile was a further step in the urbanization of God’s people. An elite from the Southern Kingdom was taken to the “city of cities,” Babylon, a name that is still a synonym for megalopolis. This was the beginning of the dispersion. By the time of Jesus, only one-fourth of the world’s Jews lived on the land in Palestine. Most of them resided in large cities, like Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome. This infusion of Israel into the mainstreams of pagan society gave the Hebrews the opportunity to be “a light to lighten the Gentiles.” These islands of biblical faith served as bridges for the Christian Gospel from rural Palestine to the urbanized Roman world.

As the people of God left the land for the city, the prophets of the Lord followed with the Word. We have often associated the prophetic tradition with the desert, but this is only partially true. Didn’t Moses leave the wilderness home of Jethro to appear in the courts of Pharaoh? After this the messengers of God went into the urban world with the Word, as Nathan to the court of David, Elijah to the house of Ahab, Elisha throughout Israel to protest the worship of the Phoenician god Baal, Jeremiah to an endangered Jerusalem, and Jonah to distant Nineveh. Metropolitan prophets also made their advent, as Isaiah, the “Paul of the Old Testament,” who had his beatific vision not in the silence of the desert but within the walls of the urban temple.

In many respects the life of Christ recapitulates the history of Israel. In his career, therefore, there is a movement from the country to the city. Though born in rural Bethlehem and raised in agrarian Galilee, Jesus took the Word to the cities. Unlike his predecessor, John the Baptist, who was a country preacher, Jesus deliberately ventured forth into the urban society of his time. We find him centering much of his ministry in Capernaum, an important military center in Galilee and the location of the customs station from which the Master called Matthew to be an apostle. Christ, however, did not confine his labors to one community, for when the people “would have kept him from leaving them … he said to them, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose’” (Luke 4:42, 43). The Gospel was proclaimed in the Gentile cities of the Decapolis and in the region of Tyre, Sidon, and Syrophoenicia. The climax of our Saviour’s career came when he pointed the way southward from Galilee toward Jerusalem.

Christ’s childhood was spent in the country, hidden from the eyes of men, but his ministry was fulfilled in the city, before the eyes of the world. It was outside a city, Jerusalem, that Jesus was crucified. While one sacrament, baptism, has a rural origin by the banks of the Jordan, the other, the Lord’s Supper, was instituted in an urban apartment. The passion history, which occupies almost half of each of the four Gospels, is entirely urban in its setting. It was in the city that Jesus was betrayed, arrested, tried, and mocked. As he had ridden into the city on Palm Sunday to inaugurate the passion, so on Good Friday he walked its streets to the suburb of Golgotha where he offered his life as the sacrifice for sin. Three days later, in a graveyard outside the walls, he arose. Thus both of the central mysteries of the Christian religion, the crucifixion and the resurrection, occurred in the vicinity of a city. This is God’s most eloquent witness to urban man! The life of Jesus—from birth in the basement of a crowded highway motel to death and resurrection outside a city filled with holiday visitors—is one of witness to urban man.

The same dynamic is discovered in the New Testament Church. The twelve apostles, except for Judas, were all from the country. They realized, however, that Christianity was “good news for all people” and that the Church must be where the people are. The world of the apostles was an urban one. Professor Lynn Thorndike characterized the Roman Empire as “essentially a league of cities.” Furthermore, the Holy Spirit left no doubt in the minds of the apostles as to where their mission was, for the Church was born in a townhouse in the heart of Jerusalem. The first Christian sermon was delivered on the city’s streets. Koiné, the tongue of the towns, not Aramaic, the language of field and farm, soon became the speech of sermon and Scripture. The name Christian was first received in a city, Antioch, often called the second home of Christianity. The expansion of the new faith was to be in the urban areas of the Roman Empire.

The best illustration of the urbanization of the early Church is Paul. If the apostles Christ called when he was in the flesh were country folk, the first to be called by the ascended Lord was a city-dweller, Paul. He was born and raised in the city of Tarsus and educated from the age of thirteen in the theological seminary at Jerusalem; a citizen of Rome, he was converted outside Damascus, which according to tradition is the world’s oldest city. Paul started his ministry by serving a polyglot congregation in Antioch. He followed this with missionary tours and letters in the heavily populated urban centers of the empire. This apostle’s life can be outlined by a roster of cities—Colosse, Philippi, Corinth, Athens Antioch, Ephesus, Jerusalem, Rome. The poet’s words surely apply to Paul:

The man of many shifts, who wandered far and wide,

And towns of many saw and learned their mind;

And suffered much in heart by land and sea,

Passing through wars of men and grievous waves.

New Testament Christianity, therefore, though rural in inception, has within it a mighty spiritual momentum that has enabled it to convert men of cities.

2. As evangelicals face the crisis of cosmopolis, it is essential to recover the powerful language of the Bible.

To win cosmopolis, we must begin by rediscovering our biblical symbols. Certainly many of them are rural in origin, but this has never prevented the Church from succeeding in cities. The Roman world was urban, yet the earliest and most popular and wide-spread image of Christ was that of the Good Shepherd. Furthermore, we must remember that the very Gospels that abound in rural language were pretested as preaching on urban audiences by Peter, Paul, John, Luke, and Matthew. Indeed, the Gospels were written at the prompting of the Spirit to be used as urban missionary literature. The Gospel of Matthew may have been originally employed as a catechism or convert manual in the cities. Mark’s Gospel is believed to be an anthology of Peter’s sermons delivered in Rome. Luke’s Gospel and History preserve the witness of the Spirit through Paul—a ministry that was predominantly metropolitan. John has given us the theology of Christ in Gospel, Letter, and Prophecy cast in the language of the urban church and academy—so simple as to move even the illiterate and yet so profound as to amaze the philosopher.

Surely the apostolic writers realized the difficulties inherent in using rural language before an urban audience. But they were even more aware of a greater reality. Christ, in his parables and sayings drawn from rural life, had opened up the basic experiences of sin and grace. The Word, though incarnate in the language of the country, is a saving message from God addressed to the human predicament. It is therefore so basic and universal that it transcends the urban-rural dichotomy. Because the words of Christ speak directly to our human condition, they cannot be limited merely by language to any time or locality. Our task, therefore, is neither to abandon nor to recast the Word of God—even when it is spoken in the rich imagery of farm, field, and village. Such an effort to separate “kernel” from “husk” would be a very denial of the Incarnation, that God did become flesh in a specific era and area and used the language of that time and place. Our Christ is not some ethereal discarnate ghost, as in the heresy of ancient Docetism; he is a Lord who “became incarnate” and who can be located in history and geography as well as in eternity. Our primary mission is to return to the Word and preach the simple but profound message that speaks to the hearts of men in all manner of environments.

As we recover the biblical message we will soon discover that the critics have exaggerated the rural flavor of the New Testament. Beside the language of the land there also stands much urban imagery. Jesus spoke of the city set on a hill and told of a prodigal son who left the farm to waste his inheritance on fast women and good times in the big town in the far country. The Master discussed the idle unemployed in the urban marketplace waiting for work in his parable of the laborers in the vineyard. His lips report the contrast between urban opulence and poverty in the parable of Lazarus and Dives. The Saviour was aware of such urban problems as the unpredictable conduct of kings, the presence of unjust judges, the dilemma posed by Caesar’s taxation, the cunning of crooked but clever stewards, the nuisance of a noisy neighbor at midnight seeking provisions, and the desperate plight of the widows. And lest we forget, the Saviour’s craft was that of carpenter—an urban occupation. He spoke equally well the language of town and of country. So must we.

Paul certainly put the Gospel in urban language. Aware of city man’s fascination with spectator sports, he referred to the foot race, the winner’s crown, wrestling, shadow-boxing, and other athletic events. Realizing the importance of the military in urban life, Paul described the spiritual warfare of Christians and spoke of the virtues by comparing them to pieces of a soldier’s equipment. A tentmaker by trade, Paul employed the images of market and shop to describe the Gospel, writing of slaves, the potter and the clay, the teacher, and “God’s handiwork.” As one reads the letters of Paul, he is impressed with the fact that hardly any aspect of urban life escaped the observant eye of the apostle.

Twenty centuries later as we venture into the city we need not, like Moses, grope for words. The Gospel has already been “urbanized.” This occurred in its very inception. If our preaching is true to the Word, Christ will be able to reach the man of the modern cosmopolis.

3. As we face the crisis of cosmopolis, we must recall that evangelical theology is the relevant Word modern man needs to hear.

The tragedy of our cities is that of a loss of community. The earthly Babylon is fast becoming a chaotic Babel. Our cities, like our sprawling suburbs, have no real center left. But to have community, with appropriate communication, we must have something or somebody “in common.” The quality of a community depends on who or what is at its heart—for that determines its nature, purpose, direction, and destiny. Divided by ethnic, racial, social, cultural, educational, religious, and economic forces, our polyglot urban populations have no shared characteristics except frustration, alienation, and a haunting sense of meaninglessness. To lost and lonely individuals, striving to arrive at some kind of coexistence or collective life, the evangelical faith offers hope. This is one of a new community that has at its heart a person, Jesus Christ. He alone has the power to reconcile Jew and Gentile, black and white, male and female, affluent and deprived—because he alone can overcome the curse of Cain, the father of the city. Christ restores us to fellowship with God. Just outside the city wall he shed his blood to absorb in his body both God’s judgment on man’s sin and humanity’s deep sense of frustration. Jesus, the second Abel, has offered his life as a perfect sacrifice so that his urban brothers may be saved. There is no more meaningful message for modern metropolitan man than this.

4. This is the Word that is powerful enough to redeem man’s cosmopolis and make it into “the city of God.” Though the city was founded by Cain as a place for refuge from God, the destiny of cosmopolis is to be cleansed and to become the abiding place of Christ and his saints. The tragedy of Genesis will be transformed into the eternal metropolitan joy envisioned by St. John the Divine in the Revelation:

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” [Rev. 21:2–4].

This is our ultimate destiny. Let us boldly witness so that cosmopolis becomes neither Babylon nor Babel but an anticipation of the New Jerusalem.

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We welcome to our pages Sherwood Wirt, the distinguished editor of Decision magazine. As outgoing president of the Evangelical Press Association he recently delivered the address which we here share with our readers in the hope that it will stimulate them to take an active part in spreading the Gospel through the printed page.

A reader sent a check asking us to reprint and make available the lead editorial entitled “Confronting the Drug Peril,” which appeared in the April 24 issue. We will be happy to fill requests for copies of this in tract form as long as the supply lasts. Normally we do not reprint editorials, but when a subscriber sends a gift for that purpose we cannot resist!

I am deeply troubled by the rising anarchy in America and around the world. It almost seems as though God may be visiting divine judgment upon our nation. If so, the prayers of God’s people are not in themselves enough. Prayer must be accompanied by deep and genuine repentance, as well as a mending of our ways and any restitution that our situation requires. There is no better place for this to start than in the churches, but they do not seem to be ready for an awakening or concerned enough to give it number-one priority. It’s about time we did!

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Christianity TodayMay 22, 1970

The right understanding of the Scriptures has always been a challenge to the Church. Accepting the challenge poses a constant risk, because any human attempt to understand the Bible also opens the door to possible misunderstanding.

The Scriptures themselves suggest this to us. One need only recall the critique that the Old Testament prophets delivered against the misunderstanding that Israel maintained of its own election by God. Then there was the Pharisees’ distortion of divine law.

The right understanding of the Bible was in crisis in the Christological controversy of the ancient Church, and in the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius, to say nothing of the conflict with Rome in the sixteenth century. The Reformation can be explained only if we keep in mind the new insights that Luther and Calvin gained of the message of Scripture; both these great men kept themselves busy for their mature lifetimes with the exegesis of Scripture. And it was because they were opened by the Spirit to new light from God’s Word that the enormous work of the Reformation was done.

In our time we are obliged to give ourselves anew to intensive concentration on what is called the hermeneutical problem, that of the interpretation of Scripture. And with this, the Church finds many believers hesitant and even fearful. This is understandable. Has not everything been shaken up by what seems like an exegetical earthquake? What can believers be certain about? This question is very much alive in almost every denomination of Christ’s Church today—not merely in the closed studies of scholars but in the daily life of the congregations.

As people are involved with hermeneutics, they are of course very much involved with the Bible. And this can only be good. We are not to be satisfied with standing still and repeating traditional interpretations; we are to test the traditions with the Word. Despite all the hard and nettlesome questions now on the agenda, we must be thankful for the renewed attention being riveted on the Holy Scriptures.

If the men of the sixteenth century had been content to go along with tradition, we would never have known the blessing of the Reformation. Rome accused the Reformers of breaking with tradition, and with this, there came the strong judgment that the Reformers acted as ingrates in the face of the Holy Spirit’s guidance of the Church.

The Reformers rejected this judgment. They had no intention of despising tradition, their own bond with the past, but they did want to test the tradition with the touchstone of the Word. This critical stance over against tradition was only a matter of establishing proper priorities. They could not let the authority of the Church have the last word. They came to the conclusion that many traditions could not stand up under the light of revelation and that some traditions had put a veil of misunderstanding over crucial portions of the Word.

Thus a new openness was created for the renewal of the Gospel’s power in the light of the Church. Many discoveries of new meanings were made as the men of God re-mined the Word of God. Scripture became increasingly a source of new surprises. Daily, the Reformers were at their Bibles, like the people of Berea (Acts 17:11).

Jesus too displayed a zeal for getting at the message of the Scriptures. Recall his meeting with the men on the road to Emmaus, and his explanation to them of the meaning of the Scriptures. (In Luke 24:27 we find the word that forms the background to our “hermeneutics.”) And recall how their hearts burned within them as the Scriptures were reopened to them.

The mistake of traditionalism is not its admiration and respect for tradition. Its mistake is its underestimation of the power of the Word as the sword of the Spirit (cf. Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12). The Reformation itself actually obliges us to take the hermeneutical question seriously. For the Reformation taught us that neither infallible tradition nor an infallible Church can ever have the last word; it taught us that only the Word itself has the last word for us. The Word has to be free to remake and reform the Church over and over again.

We are not, then, allowed the sad luxury of complaining about the appearance of new thoughts from and about the Bible. We certainly should not panic in the face of them. Surely, the mining of the Scriptures by fallible men opens the door to all sorts of new dangers. Indeed, those who search the Scriptures are tempted to listen to the voices of the world even while they read. A serious misunderstanding of the Scriptures is always a live possibility. But we may not be content to protest and complain about the new problems that hermeneutics raises. Rather, we shall have to be seriously, honestly, and intensely preoccupied with the Scriptures ourselves.

Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would lead the Church into the truth. But the Spirit does not lead us apart from the Word. He leads us through the understanding we gain of the Word itself. Peter, for instance, on the day the Holy Spirit fell strong on the Church, was very busy exegeting the Word of the Old Testament. The moment the Church loses interest in working the mines of the Word because it thinks it has seen all there is to see, that moment the Church also loses its power and its credibility in the world. When the Church thinks it knows all there is to know, the opportunity for surprising discovery is closed. The Church then becomes old, without perspective, and without light and labor of fruitfulness. Everything depends on whether the Church keeps on being the listening Church, whether it can find itself in the image of the young Samuel, who said: “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.”

We may not sidestep the difficulties that listening to the Word puts in our path. We have received the Word of God in human words, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic words. These words demand study and translation. They demand hard effort if they are to be understood in the way of the Spirit.

Those people who rest uneasy unless they can receive everything the way they have always received it are little aware of their real demands. If we want the Scriptures but refuse to deal with the problem of hermeneutics, which is nothing else than the question of how to understand the Scriptures aright, we are asking for the impossible.

If we demand that our reading of the Scriptures never bring us anything new, never raise up new problems, we are actually trying to be wiser than God, and more understanding than the Spirit. For it is the Spirit who summons us to build with him. And he who would build the Church must, through constant attention, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

G. C. BERKOUWER

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A year ago leaders of the American Association of Evangelical Students (AAES) feared the organization was on the verge of giving up the ghost. But the AAES is alive and well and was recently seen in Spring Arbor, Michigan, flexing its muscles in preparation for an all-out assault on the spiritual and social evils of the day.

The AAES joined with an independent board of student-body leaders to sponsor the first Evangelical Student Congress, held on the Spring Arbor College campus. The purposes of the congress, which brought together 150–200 student representatives from approximately forty evangelical colleges, were: (1) to provide a forum for evangelical students to speak with an authentic, national voice; (2) to unite students in reaffirming their commitment to Christ; and (3) to demonstrate how the Gospel applies to human problems.

The students, wrestling with the issues at hand, determined to make their voice heard on a wide range of issues. Delegates were “all business”; committee meetings and informal rap sessions continued into the wee hours as students discussed problems and prepared reports. Although debate was vigorous at times, a sense of Christian unity prevailed throughout the congress. There was never any doubt about the students’ commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ or their submission to the authority of Scripture. Differences arose over how to relate scriptural teachings to problems facing the campus, the Church, and the nation.1A strong statement of faith committed the delegates to belief in the Bible as “the unique, divinely inspired and authoritative revelation of God to man,” the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Christ, and the need for personal belief in Christ for salvation. The statement also committed the congress to “the necessity for Christians to be responsible for a Christ-centered, social, and totally integrated application of the Gospel of Christ.”

Five committees provided the framework for discussion: campus governance, Christian witness, domestic concerns, education directions, and foreign affairs. The congress recorded its feelings through position papers, resolutions, and mandates for action that came before the entire gathering.

Though delegates represented many parts of the country, different kinds of institutions (liberal-arts and Bible colleges), and a variety of church backgrounds, there was strong agreement in several areas.

The congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning all prejudice and racism and calling for broader exposure to minority cultures on the campus, active recruitment of minority students and faculty members, attitudetesting during freshman orientation to reveal racism, and formation of a speakers’ board to make minority speakers available for colleges. The congress enthusiastically endorsed a statement from the black delegates to the U. S. Congress on Evangelism calling the Church to eliminate prejudice from its own ranks.

Despite the strong anti-racist sentiment, the delegates soundly defeated a resolution endorsing the principle of reparations presented in James Forman’s Black Manifesto.

A large majority of the delegates committed themselves, “as part of a community committed to the Creator,” to become more aware of the problems of population control and to support the use of contraceptives, dissemination of birth-control information through Christian medical missions, and legislation furthering birth control. (They also adopted the goal of limiting their families to two natural-born children and called on those desiring large families to adopt disenfranchised children.)

In the area of campus governance, the congress called for student evaluation of teachers and administrators, and student representation on boards of trustees.

Although only one mandate dealt specifically with the Church, many students expressed frustration with the institutional church. Some felt it is fast becoming irrelevant; others felt rejected by local churches because of their views on social issues or, in some cases, because of their physical appearance (“off-beat” dress, long hair, and beards).

The mandate on the Church asked pastors to evaluate their ministry in terms of flexibility of worship experience, involvement with non-Christians, leadership training, contact with the underprivileged and mentally unstable, and rapport with the high-school and college-age generation.

President Nixon’s decision to send ground troops into Cambodia generated the most heated debate of the congress. In an early session the delegates narrowly defeated a statement strongly protesting Nixon’s action, condemning the expansion of the conflict, and saying that the war must be concluded by nonmilitary methods. But they adopted a later statement that questioned U. S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, stated that they couldn’t presently condone the action in Cambodia, and called for more information about it.

The same statement condemned the methods of the North Vietnamese army and Viet Cong and proposed the seventh day of every month as a nationwide day of prayer for evangelical students to ask God’s guidance for U. S. leaders.

The first Evangelical Student Congress provided an opportunity for students to speak out. They were reminded by David L. McKenna, president of Seattle Pacific College, that having spoken out “you are now committed to become involved.” As the congress drew to a close there was a mood of determination to do just that. And, as AAES president Steve Honett of Taylor University noted, “this is only the beginning.”

RICHARD L. LOVE

Open Issues, Closed Doors

How much longer will the National Council of Catholic Bishops be able to keep its door closed to the clamor outside?

At the heavily guarded semi-annual NCCB meeting in San Francisco last month (see also May 8 issue, page 37), the bishops in a position paper viewed “with grave concern” the “dissension, controversy, and turmoil” in the church. They appealed for quiet allegiance from the faithful, but they did little to quell the growing unrest.

Taking note of liberal trends in state laws, they hardened their stand against abortion, calling it an “unspeakable crime” (while a women’s liberation group picketed outside in protest).

The Padres, a group of Mexican-American priests, complained of too little brown power in the hierarchy. One-fourth of the 47.5 million United States Catholics are Spanish-speaking, they declared. The bishops voted to finance a $15,000 study proposal for a special mobile ministry to Spanish-speaking Catholics.

The National Association of Laymen, a liberal organization of 13,000 members, served notice that a projected National Pastoral Council under study by the prelates must be a legislative body with full policy-making powers, not merely an advisory group. This issue promises to be the major storm center when an NPC progress report is made at the Washington, D. C., meeting of the NCCB in November.

The conservative National Federation of Laymen, claiming 15,000 members, accused the bishops of negligence in Catholic education. The NFL announced it would withhold all parish offerings in order to establish an independent NFL-styled parochial school system. NFL leaders also planned a national financial boycott of Catholic parishes and schools unless the bishops ban the use next fall of a dozen or more “unorthodox religion textbook series,” considered “more sociology than religion” by the NFL. The boycott would extend to the national offering at Thanksgiving to implement the church’s $50 million anti-poverty program.

The bishops turned down (the vote was one short of the needed two-thirds) a request originating from the Religion Newswriters Association that NCCB deliberations be open to reporters. NCCB president John Cardinal Dearden of Detroit said this would ensure “complete candor” and prevent reporters from lifting “catchy phrases” out of context. But the issue will surface again at the November meeting.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Christian Broadcasters Tune Toward Future

It was spring in Tokyo—cherry blossoms, azaleas, and children in the parks. But to hear speakers at the third congress of International Christian Broadcasters (ICB) tell it, evangelical broadcasting was still in the grip of a winter long past: hardsell preaching, traditional propagation of a “Christian ghetto mentality,” and a timidity to use new methods.

Said “Mennonite Hour” speaker David Augsburger on the first day: “If we do not change our methods, we change our message, because we only reach those who understand old words and techniques.… A good share of Christian communication techniques are still in the 1930s.”

If the congress was any indication, though, traditional broadcasters have decided it is time for change. Some 250 evangelicals from fifteen countries devoted the bulk of their April 13–18 sessions to futuristic thinking. One of the papers provoking the most discussion was by Northwestern University professor Martin J. Maloney (a nominal Catholic) on the communications revolution in the next decade. “If evangelicals try to compete as a small group, to arrogantly say ‘I know something you don’t,’ they may look a bit foolish,” he said. And the conventioners reacted with apparent soul-searching when Maloney accused evangelicals of being among the most “dangerous users of mass media” because many are “committed so absolutely to their cause that they will do anything, even suppress truth, to espouse it.”

India’s Gollapalli John (Far Eastern Broadcasting Company) and Liberia’s Edwin Kayea (station ELWA) won sympathy when they criticized the insensitivity of missionary radio preachers who have “blasted their way with pompous oratory into the privacy of their listener” without regard for his culture. FEBC’s Carl Lawrence attacked methodological rigidity, suggesting, among other things, that broadcasters be flexible enough to ask themselves: “At what point is it theological to say we’ve been broadcasting to this people without response long enough—let’s … turn the transmitter in other directions?”

Sessions went far beyond self-flagellation, however. Four of five final-day speakers discussed evangelical use of satellites. Pioneer broadcaster Clarence Jones (founder of Ecuador’s HCJB) suggested that evangelicals put up their own satellite for broadcasting. ICB executive secretary Abe Thiessen noted in an interview that ICB is now represented on an international commission studying the legal ramifications of religious programming over satellites.

Perhaps the most exciting concrete proposal of the conference, also from Jones, was that Christians around the world jointly stage a three-year TV-centered campaign to saturate Japan with the Gospel. This would be followed by similar mass-media campaigns in Latin America and in Africa.

Some at the conference complained that too little time was given to the role of the Holy Spirit in effective broadcasting. Congress members—with only a handful of non-Western delegates, including just one native African—reflected the failure of many mission groups to turn leadership to non-Americans. Microphone breakdowns and unkept schedules inspired numerous quips about the “communication of professional communicators.”

The over-all mood, however, was one of challenge. “My only fear,” said local vice-chairman Arthur Seely, “is that we evangelicals will do as we so often have—hear without obeying.”

JAMES HUFFMAN

African Challenge: Christian Literature

One factor controlling the future of Africa, a recent Africa Christian Press newsletter observes, is the type of literature that will capture the minds of the continent’s huge and increasingly literate population in the next decade.

But, while literature has gained top priority in the programs of Africa’s churches, it is still difficult to find a book in which an African writer forcefully affirms that Christ is sufficient for his personal problems in contemporary Africa. To find and train African Christian writers is therefore, according to a recent survey, the most urgent need in the field of Christian literature for Africa.

The survey, sponsored by Evangelical Literature Overseas in Wheaton, Illinois, was conducted by the Reverend C. Richard Shumaker, who has now become the director of the new Africa Evangelical Literature Office (AELO) in Nairobi.

The AELO this year launched the Christian Writers Club to stimulate Christian writing. In the past, the only writer-training programs were conducted by a few enterprising Christian publishers and editors. The club seeks to gather writers and writer-trainees into a single force and fellowship; it will accept and appraise African manuscripts and help get worthy ones published. The club will also conduct a writers’ correspondence course and an annual writing contest.

The AELO, literature arm of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, helps train evangelical literature personnel by providing workshops, seminars, on-the-job training, and scholarships for study at home and abroad.

The other continent-wide organization promoting Christian literature is the Africa Literature Center in Kitwe, Zambia. It was established in 1958 “to help develop … a vigorous African Christian voice speaking through the printed pages of the continent on issues relevant to the African people in politics, economics, health, national development, education and religion.” The center, sponsored by the Committee of World Literacy and Christian Literature in New York and the All Africa Conference of Churches, is run by an international staff of Christian communication experts.

Its nerve center is the Literature Clearing House, which keeps an up-to-date record of publications useful to the churches of Africa and circulates information on publications available and books being planned and commissioned.

The center’s founder-director, Swedish Methodist missionary Bengt Simonsson, travels to all corners of Africa conducting writers’ workshops and counseling.

Ironically, the Africa Literature Center, which in theology and orientation tends toward the ecumenical movement, works mainly through individual denominations, while the AELO works through interdenominational literature fellowships. There are national evangelical literature fellowships in Ethiopia, Burundi, Zambia, Rhodesia, South Africa, the Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Upper Volta, and Rwanda; there is a regional fellowship for Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

The new Centre de Publications Evangelique in Abidjan, the swinging capital of the Ivory Coast, will also pull together literature associations in the French-speaking African states.

Regular journalism courses have been slow to take root in Africa. Only the University of Lagos has a department of mass communications offering degrees in writing and journalism. The University of East Africa this spring starts a two-year diploma course in journalism; it will admit only twenty students a year. Probably the only other formal journalism training in Black Africa is the six-month public-affairs reporting course offered by the International Press Institute in Nairobi.

“The biggest single need,” according to a Ghana market research report on Christian literature published last year, “is to produce books which see Christ, the Christian faith, and the practical implications of the Christian life through African eyes.”

ODHIAMBO OKITE

Gordon-Conwell Urban Center Future In Doubt

Increasing financial problems and stiffening requirements by the American Association of Theological Schools are forcing officials at Gordon-Conwell Seminary to consider closing the school’s Philadelphia Urban Center, an inner-city facility for the study of urban and Negro problems.

Students there, sensing a fold-up, last month sent a petition to Gordon-Conwell president Dr. Harold J. Ockenga protesting the alleged irrelevance of the center’s program for blacks and the “emasculation” of the Philadelphia campus in favor of the major facility in Boston. The Gordon Divinity School merged with Conwell School of Theology last fall (see June 20, 1969, issue, page 32).

Dr. Robert Ives, a part-time faculty member at the Urban Center and a minister at Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church told CHRISTIANITY TODAY it was his impression that the center will be closed next year, with the possible exception of a part-time urban-study program. “No full-time students there now plan to return, because they understand it won’t be continued,” Ives said.

Ives, two other faculty members, and twenty-two of the center’s thirty-five to forty students signed the petition. Among problems cited by Ives was the fact that two courses in black studies offered at the center the first term of the current year were not offered during the spring term. There were about sixty students attending the center last fall, according to Ives, of whom about twenty were black. This spring there were only five or six blacks, he noted.

Ockenga, asked about the rumored shut-down, said there was “no intention of closing unless we’re up a blind alley.… But he and others close to the situation said the cost of the Philadelphia operation is all but prohibitive for such a small student body. Among other requirements, the AATS insists on certain library standards and a minimum number of full-time faculty for accreditation. About $300,000 is needed annually to maintain the center’s present program according to these standards. And at least $125,000 is needed just to keep afloat a program in Philadelphia for third-year Gordon-Conwell students, informed sources say.

Ives and several students dismissed as unrealistic an idea that the center might be spun off as a separate seminary for blacks, with local funding alone. Ives doubts there would be enough local evangelical support for such funding. A student said in an interview that restricting the center to blacks would vitiate its potential as an evangelical, interdenominational seminary serving the whole urban community of Philadelphia.

Ockenga, meanwhile, said a committee was studying the matter and that guidelines would be issued soon.

Student signers of the petition, not intended to be made public, were reportedly unhappy that a copy was leaked to CHRISTIANITY TODAY. “We do not want to hinder any of the communication going on,” explained student spokesman William Spencer. He said the petition was “a mere concern, not an SDS kind of thing.… The Lord’s love is apparent here.… We want everything to be considered in that spirit.”

Meanwhile, the stock-market decline and shrinking gift income caused another Philadelphia seminary to consider consolidation. Crozer Seminary in Chester is negotiating with Colgate Rochester/Bexley Hall and the Rochester (New York) Center of Theological Studies over a possible merger by September. The action would mean sale of the Chester property and a move to Rochester.

Black Manifesto’s Birthday: Frosting On The Cake?

The Black Manifesto was one year old last month, and its “legal guardians” are $300,000 richer than they were April 29, 1969, when James Forman first blazoned the document in Detroit.

The first anniversary of the radical document, which originally asked $500 million (later escalated to the neighborhood of $3 billion) in reparations from white churches and synagogues, was marked by a worship service at the Interchurch Center in New York City. About 150 persons, including Forman and the Reverend Calvin Marshall, chairman of the manifesto-related Black Economic Development Conference, attended. Executives of Protestant and ecumenical agencies having offices in the center were also present.

At a press conference following, Religious News Service reported, Marshall said the BEDC had received about $300,000 in the past year; $200,000 came from the Episcopal Church (channeled through the National Committee of Black Churchmen). Marshall said the BEDC is working in community organization and communications through its national New York office and chapters in Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. The BEDC’s Black Star Press in Detroit, plus a printing arm in Philadelphia, are turning out black newspapers for the four cities.

The BEDC has about thirty staff members, most of whom, Marshall told newsmen, receive $50 to $75 a week. Only three or four make as much as $100 a week, he said.

Again calling for church reparations, Forman gave a memorial tribute to Che Robinson, a BEDC staff member who was one of two Negroes killed in an automobile explosion in Maryland this March. The blast was apparently connected with the much postponed H. Rap Brown arson trial. Forman identified Robinson as the one who directed office takeovers last spring in the Interchurch Center.

Meanwhile, the Board of Christian Education of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., followed the lead of the denomination’s Board of National Ministries by dropping out of the controversial Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (see March 13 issue, page 54). IFCO is the agency that called for and financed the 1969 Detroit meeting from which the Black Manifesto emerged.

The Presbyterian education board said in a statement it had “reluctantly concluded that the value of the [IFCO] membership is outweighed by its cost in terms of misunderstanding and unrest in the church.…”

Although financial contributions to IFCO from the Southern Presbyterian Church have been small, other denominations have contributed more than $2 million since 1968. The Episcopal Church has been the largest giver; other denominations giving more than $100,000 include the American Baptists, United Presbyterians, United Methodists, and the United Church of Christ (see also March 27 issue, page 34).

United Church Observer: No Trees For Forrest

Dr. A. C. Forrest, editor of the 300,000-circulation United Church Observer (organ of the United Church of Canada) is willing to go out on a limb for an unpopular cause. Since 1967 he has found himself in the center of controversy over his alleged pro-Arab coverage of Middle East developments.

The United Church minister is the subject of an Anti-Defamation League (B’nai B’rith) document, “The United Church Observer and the State of Israel.” The author of the document, Dr. Arnold Ages of the classics department of Waterloo Lutheran University, presents selected documentation to show that Forrest is “clearly partisan” and “unfriendly to Zionism and Israel.” A committee of concerned churchmen has joined the attack.

Dr. Douglas Young, an evangelical who heads the American Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem and a staunch defender of the Israeli position, charged in an open letter that Forrest was an irresponsible critic of Israel and biased apologist for the Arabs. He wrote:

“If war comes to us in the Middle East again, historians will record that your pen, which could have been a contributory to peace, was like a sword of war.… [it] will drip with the blood of the wounded and dead of both sides.…”

Such emotional accusations have been directed against Forrest since 1967, when he made his third and fourth trips to the Middle East. He then said the displaced Arab refugees were the key to any solution of troubles there.

An editorial by Forrest in September, 1967, described “the grave injustice Palestinian Arabs have suffered at Israeli hands.” At the same time, he three times in that editorial mentioned the folly of Arab failure to recognize Israel as a national entity.

Similar articles by Forrest have appeared in his magazine and in church papers in Canada and the United States. The result: a chorus of anti-Semitic charges from Jewish and Christian sources.

“I deeply resent the old Zionist and Israeli technique of discrediting critics of Israeli policies or Zionist philosophy by calling them anti-Semitic,” Forrest says in rebuttal. “Anti-Semitism is evil. Its awful fruits were harvested in agony in Germany in Hitler’s time. The treatment of other people as lesser persons, whether they be Jew, Negro, Arab or something else, is dehumanizing.”

Another Canadian editor, Hugh McCullum of the Canadian Churchman, (Anglican Church), has come to his colleague’s defense. He wrote that Forrest was “the victim of slanderous accusations of anti-Semitism and has had his reputation as an editor and a Christian impugned.”

As charges fly, the soft-spoken Forrest, who maintains he is merely trying to present a side of the Middle East story that is neglected in the Western press, shows no signs of being easily treed.

LESLIE K. TARR

Theology For College Grads

A unique venture in theological education will begin in Canada this fall. Recognizing the need for all Christians—not just potential ministers—to study the Bible and theology seriously, evangelicals from several denominations have started Regent College next to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

The all-Ph.D. faculty of eight will feature cross-disciplinary and tutorial studies. College graduates who complete an intensive one-year program will get a diploma in Christian studies.

The new school also plans at least one theological degree program in the future and facilities where outstanding Christian scholars can engage in research leading to publication of scholarly works.

The Disciples’ New Symbol

The recently restructured (1968) Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has a new symbol. To be used on a trial basis to identify the one million-member denomination is a Communion cup bearing the X-shaped Cross of St. Andrew.

The chalice long has been associated with the Disciples; they celebrate Communion each Sunday. The Cross of St. Andrew is the national cross of Scotland, homeland of Thomas and Alexander Campbell, key figures in the founding of the movement. The chalice is red, to symbolize vitality, spirit, and sacrifice.

Degree Or Not Degree?

The vice-president and academic dean of Carl McIntire’s embattled Shelton College was suspended last month on charges that he doesn’t have a legitimate college degree. The catalogue of the small, fundamentalist school at Cape May, New Jersey, lists Richard E. Coulter as holding a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia through Union Seminary in Richmond, an M.A. from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and a B.S. from Temple University in Philadelphia, and says he “completed work” at Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia.

Union Seminary’s registrar curtly told CHRISTIANITY TODAY that Coulter did not receive a degree there, nor was he ever a student at the school. Coulter declined to comment on his background.

The action was taken by the chairman of Shelton’s board of trustees. The school, of which McIntire is president, was put on the griddle last summer by Chancellor Ralph Dungan of the New Jersey higher-education department (see September 12 issue, page 56).

Religion In Transit

The UCLA isotope laboratory has dated an L-shaped beam found at the 13,500 foot level of Mt. Ararat in 1955 at 1,230 years, plus or minus 60. This coincides closely with dates set earlier by laboratories in England and Massachusetts. It would make the wood several thousand years too young to be part of the biblical ark, whose remains are being sought by an expedition party on the slopes of Ararat this summer (see February 13 issue, page 39).

If you earn a thousand points, you go to heaven, but if you lose your points, you go to hell, according to rules of a new Confraternity of Christian Doctrine game invented by an eschatology-minded Catholic priest in Kittery, Maine. Players proceed around a board with descriptions of pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II approaches to religious education in each square. The game resembles Monopoly and has purgatory, confessional, and “just in church praying” squares at the corners.

Nearly 2,000 Catholic nuns, meeting in Cleveland last month, formed the National Assembly of Women Religious as a possible voice and forum for the nation’s 160,000 nuns. Its organizers said they hope the group will develop “political clout” in the church.

Congregations of the 20,500-member Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches last month ratified merger with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a move approved by the SELC general convention last fall.

A new program to help missionaries and Christian workers overcome emotional and other problems has been set up in Fresno, California, through the Link-Care Foundation.

Deaths

F. SCOTT MACKENZIE, 86, former moderator (1950) of the Presbyterian Church in Canada; in Houston, Texas.

HUGH A. MACMILLAN, 77, former moderator (1964) of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, long-time missionary and seminary president in Formosa; in Toronto, Canada.

Personalia

James Cash Penney of the well-known department store received the American Bible Society’s 20 millionth copy of “Good News for Modern Man” this month in New York.

Apollo 13 astronaut John L. Swigert on the subject of prayer for the aborted moon mission: “It really united the world of all faiths and all colors, even if for a brief moment.… I don’t think I’d want to do it that way again, however.”

While Catholic priest Philip R. Berrigan and another fugitive were arrested, brother Daniel Berrigan (S.J.) and several others convicted of burning draft records in 1968 were still at large and evading jail terms early this month.

The U. S. government dropped draft-conspiracy charges against Yale University chaplain William Sloane Coffin last month.

A Navajo Indian, Kenneth Nabahe, 27, a Ph.D. candidate at Brigham Young University, has been ordained a bishop of the Mormon church.

John Edwin Johns, business manager and vice-president of finance and planning at Stetson University, has been named president of the Florida Baptist school.

The Reverend Edmond Perret, 45, a pastor of the National Protestant Church of Geneva, has been named general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

United States Supreme Court nominee Judge Harry A. Blackmun of Rochester, Minnesota, is a member of the United Methodist Board of Publication.

Moody Press has honored Bernard Palmer, author of 165 books, with the Outstanding Author of the Year award. Seven million copies of Palmer’s books have been sold; 130 titles are still in print.

Senator Robert Kennedy’s northern California campaign director in 1968, Josiah Beeman V, has been appointed as a lobbyist in Washington, D. C., for the United Presbyterian Church.

The brother of Eugene Carson Blake of the World Council of Churches will be the chief leader of the Pan Presbyterian Congress on Evangelism to be held in Cincinnati in 1971. He is Dr. Howard C. Blake, a Presbyterian, U. S., minister and general presbyter and stated clerk of South Texas Presbytery.

World Scene

In the first official recognition granted by the Israel government to a Christian community, the cabinet last month recognized the Anglican Church under the name Evangelical Episcopal Church in Israel. The existing nine recognized Christian communities in Israel were all approved in British mandate times. The newly designated church has about 2,000 members, most of whom are Arabs.

For the first time since its founding twenty years ago, Christian News from Israel, a Ministry of Religious Affairs periodical, is being sold on newsstands in Israel. The magazine, designed to describe Christian life in Israel to 20,000 foreign subscribers, has a new editor and a new format.

Wales will get a new translation of the Bible in its own native tongue, replacing the existing 400-year-old standard version.

The Baptist newspaperRozsievac (the Sower) resumed publication after a seventeen-year suspension by the Czech government. There are 4,200 Baptists in the country, with twenty-six churches and 100 preaching stations.

Disagreement over the Salvation Army’s approach to a hippie musical in Paris resulted in some hair-pulling in the army’s unit in France. After Commander Gilbert Abadie led a protest at the theater where Hair was being performed, six officers opposed the tactic. Three of these rejected transfer orders and resigned.

The United Methodist Church of Pakistan (41,000 members) voted to join Anglicans and Presbyterians in a new Church of Pakistan, to be inaugurated in November at Lahore.

Laos will be a new field (and the seventy-second country) of service for the Southern Baptists, the denominational foreign-missions board decided recently.

Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Castaner, Puerto Rico, is believed to be the first church in the world-wide Anglican communion to install an immersion tank. Baptism by immersion is approved but seldom used in Anglicanism.

Cambodia has nine universities and colleges but at present no student witness in the country, according to the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. The state religion is Buddhism, and Christians, a minority group, can’t even buy land for their churches.

Page 5959 – Christianity Today (2025)

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