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Andre Lamorte
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In a short article it is difficult to present more than basic thoughts on so vast a problem as “prophetic time.” This subject has been our major study at the National Center of Scientific Research for several years.
One’s concept of “time” in turn determines his concept of the world, of existence, of destiny. Like revelation, it has a natural meaning (the Greek rational and humanist) or the supernatural, gained from divine inspiration.
The Hellenistic Concept
Greek humanism is historically responsible for the man-centered thinking that governs all civilization. Most authoritatively represented by Plato and Aristotle, it is devoid of revelation in the supernatural biblical sense, and is basically speculative. By metaphysical research the realities of “time” and of “eternity” are resolved as problems of being. Since in this speculative system God is the object and man the central subject, the knowledge of God, the relation of time to eternity, the nature of time, everything, in fact, becomes an ontological problem.
In Platonic thought time is simply a mirror of eternity. It reflects the eternal, though itself not eternal. It is only an abstraction that breaks into the operation of the non-eternal cosmos, to call to mind periodically the eternal of which the temporal is the moving image. The circle is another Greek picture of time. Unrelated to a non-temporal eternity, and inserted into the cycle of ceaseless cosmic repetitions, the soul is a slave not only to its body and to the cosmos, but to time.
Greek thought, therefore, associates the time cycle with spatial limitation, as well as with corruption and destruction. The soul’s longing for eternity is simply an unreflective intuition; since the soul is situated beyond time, any insertion into time is ontologically contradictory. The Greek notion thus invalidates all thought of divine appearance and incarnation in time. It spoils any Christian possibility of salvation and of eternal life.
Professor Oscar Cullmann has convincingly shown the essential conflict between the Greek and biblical time concepts (Christ et le temps, Delachaux et Niestle, 1947). Other writers such as Holscher, G. Schrenk, Jean Guitton, M. Doerne, G. Delling, likewise indicate that biblical time can be translated diagramatically only as a line (and not as a closed circle) which begins at creation and whose end is in God. The center of this line is Christ. The end points, whether historically determined or not, are moments chosen by God (kairoi), and fixed in the history of revelation (e.g., creation and parousia), as major landmarks in the time expanse called aeon in the New Testament. These prescribed points relate to infinity in two ways: from the point of view of the other world they are located in terms of creation; from that of this world, they are located in terms of the parousia. Without this no idea of time would be possible.
The straight and ascending characteristic of time (whose crucial point is Jesus Christ) is significant, Cullmann asserts, for both prophetic time and New Testament time specifically. But we must reject his assertion that Christianity and Judaism locate the imaginary center of the time-line in two radically different positions (p. 58). If we consider the situation not from the view of mere history but from the customary view of revelation (that is to say, prophetically), it is impossible to speak of different positions. We must speak rather of different perspectives.
For the prophet whose message is essentially “Christo-centric,” the imaginary center of the time line was future. For the Christian, the center is in the past. One is the perspective of anticipation, the other, the perspective of fulfillment. But Christ yet remains for both the center point of time.
The harmony of biblical revelation demands the same time center for both Old and New Testament economies. It must be located in the future (prophetic perspective) and in the past (Christian perspective).
Thereby we show that the great moments set forth by prophetic history are none other than the “times” that Jesus was to fulfill (Gal. 4:4). What are these times? They are the incidents, the acts, the circumstances sprung from a divine decree, generally associated with men chosen by God, whose purpose (either plainly or typologically expressed) is always the fulfillment of the plan of salvation of the world.
The prophetic time line—in the past, in the future, as in the present—is always the line of Christ. He who was predestined before the foundation of the world for his role of mediator, as the divine Logos ushered in at creation the line that he carried forward through the prophetic mystery of the old covenant, and through his incarnation and glorification. This line will terminate at the end of the present world with the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth, where God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).
Unity of revelation is assured in Jesus Christ, “the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13). It is in this train of thought that Calvin wrote: “The covenant made with the ancient fathers in its substance and truth, is so like ours that one can say it is one with it. It differs only in the mode of administration.… So that nothing will hinder the promise made in the Old and in the New Testaments from remaining always the same, and Jesus Christ from being the unique foundation of one and of the other” (Institutes II, ch. 10, 2, and 11, 1). We can, indeed, speak of Christ as the crucial Center and the sovereign norm for the history of revelation.
Prophecy And Time
Contrary to the Greek cycle theory, the linear concept of time would say in relation to prophetic thought:
Time is not an abstraction. It is not a question of a spatially conceived here-below and next world ontologically irreconcilable. It is rather the past, the present and the future at whose center revelation is accomplished without breaking continuity.
Time is not opposed to God. It has its source in God. God is the originator of time. He is the beginning of it (Gen. 1:1). He is master of it (cf. Ps. 75:3; 102:14; Hab. 2:3; Deut. 2:21; Exod. 13:10; 18:26, etc.). He is the end of it (Rev. 22:13).
Time is not opposed to eternity. Revelation summons the insertion of eternity into time. The message of salvation implies the mystery of the incarnation. Between eternity and time there is no absolutely qualitative difference.
The expression eternity (olam) traverses all prophetic literature; it reveals the relationship of unbroken time (God’s unlimited time) to portions of time brought about by this very unbroken, unlimited time. (Concerning this concept of olam, see H. Sasse, Theologischen Worterbuch, Zum N.T., T.I-).
Prophecy does not know a God outside of time. Because it inserts God into time, it calls man to participate in the eternity which is the prerogative of God’s time.
Whatever may be the aspects common to our time and to eternity, God alone can comprehend the full extent and know the measure of time. For he alone reigns over time. In his infinite and eternal being he does not permit man to reign over time. Ability to live only moment by moment with no power to embrace the totality of times that comprise the stages of sanctification, the stages toward completeness, toward perfect access to God, this is the trial and enigma of time.
Although God enters our time (for he is Spirit and he is God), man (for he is carnal) cannot yet enter into the time of God. While God has placed eternity (olam) into the heart of man (the original Hebrew says expressly: “God has placed eternity [olam] in their heart” [Eccl. 3:11]), the problem is that of its realization by faith. Notwithstanding certain joys of eternity already experienced, man is for the present withheld from fullest realization of promised blessings (salvation, justice, happiness).
Certainly this ordeal is of an entirely different nature from that which may haunt Platonic minds. For the Bible believer, the trial is of a purely spiritual and moral nature. It is a thirst to possess, a longing of the soul created in God’s image and regenerated, destined to live in his presence and to partake of his glory (cf. Deut. 14:2; 1 Pet. 2:9–10). The believer knows that after death he will attain to his glorious calling. He can already live it mysteriously by faith. But the impossibility of living it presently in its absolute meaning is distressing to him. The circumstances of time, the moments imposed by limitations of space and corporeality account for man’s longing after God.
“Oh, if you would rend the skies and descend!” (Isa. 64:1). This is the cry of the prophet who knows that God surmounts the limitations of our time, that he consents “to descend” from above into our hereness, and that the “rending” of the heavens will be actually consummated in Christ (cf. Isa. 53).
“My soul within me languishes in waiting” (Job 19:27). This is Job’s confession, who seemingly unjustly tested physically and materially knows, nevertheless, that his God is accessible to him, that he will see him with his eyes when liberated from the flesh, that this “redemptor” God (Goel) will be gracious to him (cf. Job 19:25–28).
Between the sighing of Job or of Isaiah, who interpret the believer’s longing for the destiny to which God invites him, and the Greek philosophers’ unanswered plea for liberation from an eternal time cycle empty of God, looms the gulf separating followers of the biblical God offered in Jesus Christ from the followers of human reason which expires in its impossible quest of a God in its image. Here below, under restrictions of the flesh and of temporality, the believer may suffer and weep. But he does not grieve as those without hope (1 Thess. 4:13). He knows that eternity will transcend the limitations of time.
Dr. Andre Lamorte served for 15 years as Dean of the Faculty and as Professor of Theology at Aix-en-Provence in France. He holds the Th.D. degree from Montpellier and in 1954 was named attache to the National Center of Scientific Research.
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Cover Story
Richard C. Halverson
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Man’s misuse of the best that technology and science have produced is nowhere more appalling than in the field of motion pictures. Misuse of atomic power may destroy man’s body, but misuse of the motion picture destroys man’s soul. As the “pen is mightier than the sword,” the camera is mightier than the H-bomb.
In the light of the peaceful potential of the atom, it is ironical to contemplate the horrible threat of thermonuclear warfare. But the incalculable moral and spiritual devastation wrought by the modern film is infinitely more ironical in view of the evangelistic possibility latent in the art and science of pictures. (One of Hollywood’s leading producers, at the suggestion of his clergyman father, dedicated his life to the camera as his “pulpit” and his films have been seen by many millions of the world’s population.)
Surrender By Default
It is sad that the most effective instrument of modern mass communication has contributed so much to the disintegration of the moral and spiritual foundations of our culture. But what makes it tragic is that Christians allow it to happen, having surrendered this immeasurably powerful weapon by default to forces so materialistic that profit became their god regardless of the degenerative effect on society.
Historically it would appear that evangelical Christians had decided the technology which produced the motion picture industry was diabolical and the science of motion pictures and the art of drama inherently evil. Whatever the cause, the effect has been that an entire industry has been largely “scuttled” rather than made to serve Christ.
In recent years this fabulously effective tool has been “discovered” by the church, but there persists a characteristic disinclination toward the industry, one evidence of which is the stubborn “nothing-good-can-come-from-Hollywood” attitude. By renouncing the industry per se, right of guidance was repudiated. Taking the position everything Hollywood does is wrong has been at the sacrifice of any appreciable Christian influence. This does not justify the production of whatever makes money regardless of its effect on society, nor excuse the industry’s failure to take the leadership incumbent upon it to use its powerful influence constructively. But it does mean that the criticism that indicts Hollywood in toto fails to have any force whatever. Obviously Hollywood will not heed the voice that would abolish Hollywood!
When occasionally Hollywood produces a picture with moral or spiritual thrust, those who should applaud refuse patronage and the result is box office failure. Hollywood may choose to produce what the public will buy or stop producing. They have little encouragement from a Christian public that should be in a position to demand the highest and best. (Even Christian producers struggle to survive, and too often collapse under economic pressure.)
A vivid illustration of this (in a related field) is the fact that one Elvis Presley record sold more copies in 1956 than all sacred records made by all sacred artists combined. Evidently those who purchase “Houn’ Dog” are more committed to their “music.” Incidentally, where does this put the sacred artist? He cannot depend on music for a livelihood. Must he forfeit his gift in order to make a living following his dedication to Christ? In a group of a thousand disc jockeys, only three indicated that they had had any requests for a sacred program.
Must We Be Jonahs?
One might think God loves the world—except Hollywood; as though some strange inflexible destiny precludes redemption to this industry. Assuming that Hollywood is all darkness—totally evil as some are prone to think—is it to be forsaken? Need we to learn with Jonah that pagan cities are candidates for salvation? Or is Hollywood with its strategic propaganda weapon to be abandoned to sub-Christian if not altogether Godless, degenerate forces?
There are those within the industry whose answer is a resounding NO! Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, they will not surrender so easily. They do not blindly disregard the “evils of Hollywood”; nevertheless, aware of its overwhelming potential influence for good, they see it as their mission field. At the risk of censure by those without, they labor and pray for a spiritual awakening that will capture its talents, in part at least, to evangelize the world. Not only do they bear the antagonism of some they are trying to reach, as well as the indescribable secular pressures within the industry, but they feel the opposition of Christians on the outside whose prayers and encouragement they desperately need. Let me introduce some of them:
Three men sat with bowed heads at a table in the restaurant of one of the largest studios. The one who led in prayer was a top executive. As they lunched, the conversation centered in Jesus Christ. Declared the studio executive, “To me Christianity is absolutely relevant. In this business Jesus Christ is my daily strength. I do not see how men get along without him.…”
More than two hundred fifty, among them some leading stars, gathered in the grand ballroom of a Beverly Hills hotel to preview a Christian film. One was a star who had resigned at the peak of her career to teach Sunday school. Consistently she has declined tempting offers, including several from Las Vegas night clubs involving a weekly salary running into five figures. “Because,” she insists, “I do not want the children in my Sunday School class to have a teacher who dances in a night club.”
Also present were two other stars who told of their conversion to Christ and the satisfaction of life committed to him. One has entered full time Christian service, the other remains in pictures. A third sang her testimony. Won to Christ during a Hollywood Christian Group meeting, she will soon begin the role of a pastor’s wife as her husband, also in pictures until won to Christ in the Hollywood Group, graduates from seminary and enters the ministry.…
Hollywood Christian Group
Visit another Hollywood Group meeting. Except for an occasional reference to entertainment business, it could be testimony time with any group of evangelical Christians. Actually it is the service concluding the annual Bible conference of the Hollywood Christian Group at Forest Home in the mountains of Southern California. One who spoke was an attractive woman who had attended her first meeting of the group during an engagement in a Los Angeles night club. Yielding to the persistence of a friend, she rushed over to the meeting between shows at the club. Though she had had a Christian background, she had grown indifferent. Her promising vocal career seemed destined for stardom. The new Christian fellowship awakened in her an interest in Christ and made her aware of a loneliness and frustration she had not dared to admit even to herself. She accepted Christ and subsequently dedicated her life for his service. Now she uses her talented voice in sacred concert and evangelism.
An older man, a veteran of the industry holding a high position in the technical end testified, “I think the greatest thrill of my life came when I was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar … That is, it was the greatest thrill until I began to take Christ seriously and committed my life to him. Nothing compares with that!”
Among the more than seventy-five who spoke was a young man. Obviously nervous, he stood on one foot and the other waiting his opportunity. It was not difficult to recognize him as the popular lead in a TV feature film series. So at home before a camera and under hot lights, the young star seemed anything but a professional as he waited impatiently, thumbs hooked in the hind pockets of his levis.
Finally his turn came. With an awkward gesture he beckoned a lovely young woman sitting at the edge of the crowd. A wave of polite laughter swept through the group as she took her place self-consciously beside her husband. Putting his arm around her he began, “We wouldn’t be together if it were not for Jesus Christ! A year ago our marriage was on the rocks. Nothing seemed to work for us—until somebody on the set invited me to the Monday night meeting. That was the beginning of a new life for us.”
He went on to describe their first group meeting, the misgiving with which they went, the unusual warmth of the friendships, the message. They raised their hands for prayer at the close. During coffee time a member took them aside, explained how one began the Christian life, and prayed with them. “This last year has been the greatest of our lives!” he exclaimed.
Something else he said is important, though some will misunderstand, because it affords an insight into a phase of the problem. “Jesus Christ must want me in this business because I couldn’t do it otherwise. Every time I go before a camera I pray my life will be a witness to the others working on the picture.” This raises the inevitable question: “Should these people quit Hollywood when they make a stand for Christ?” It would be unrealistic to pretend there are not those who, lured by prospects of popularity and riches, remain in pictures at the expense of their witness, but it is unjust to assume that all in the business are thus motivated.
As a matter of fact, at least a dozen members of the Hollywood Group have discontinued their careers to obey what they considered a call to Christian service. There are some (as in other professions) who have publicly identified themselves with the Church whose lives have been a reproach. But there are a large number of genuine Christians who have prayerfully considered their responsibility in light of the criticism they know to be forthcoming and their decision has been to remain in the profession believing it to be God’s leading, hoping to win their colleagues, many of whom do not have the slightest idea what authentic Christianity is.
Most of those won to Christ in Hollywood have been reached by the witness of local personalities. Whether they might have been reached otherwise is highly speculative. Christians in Hollywood represent a beachhead through which the Church has an opportunity to infiltrate the entire industry. This frontline witness demands hardy warriors and they desperately need sustained contact and a constant flow of prayer support. This problem in spiritual logistics ought to be borne largely by the Church outside.
The issue is easily over-simplified. One who knows and loves Hollywood is tempted to whitewash it. Those uninformed or misinformed are apt to consign it entirely to the devil. Be that as it may, Hollywood is here to stay, part of the world for whom Christ died and to which he commissioned the Church to take the Gospel of divine love and judgment. Take an average run-of-the-mill cross section of humanity anywhere in America and you will find its counterpart in Hollywood. Excluding the minority who make headlines, the people are disarmingly normal. Picture making is serious business and there is as little (or much) commercialism and secularism among them as in any other industry. Generally they are misinformed about Christianity like the average secular American. They are not familiar with the Gospel, or if they are, do not associate it with personal need. For the most part Christianity is thought to be an ethic, nothing more, and comparing themselves with the world outside, Hollywood people are inclined to feel their average is rather high. They are aware of the reputation Hollywood has and are ashamed of the incidents that justify it. But they feel, and rightly so, that most Hollywood folk are respectable and undeserving of the disparagement so readily directed at everyone in the colony.
Stars That Twinkle
In the matter of virtue, Hollywood is outstanding in one respect. Show people as a whole are unusually charitable with a concern for the down-and-outer, a willingness to go the second mile that is peculiar to their kind. Unfortunately this charity is equated with genuine Christianity and inclines them to think they are as “religious” as most, and more so than many. This common caricature challenges Christians in the industry to bear faithful witness to the Gospel. No group in the writer’s experience is more insistent for the Gospel or less willing to compromise. Believing no one can reach people in Hollywood like people in Hollywood, they accept as a divine mandate the responsibility to begin where they are to make disciples.
It would be naive to assume that Hollywood will ever be wholly, or even mostly, Christian, any more than any other category of society. But in the darkness that is Hollywood there are stars that twinkle. In the motion picture capital there abides a dynamic fellowship of Christians demonstrating that Christ is contemporary and relevant, that the purpose of his incarnation was redemption. God has not left himself without a witness … not even in Hollywood!
Richard C. Halverson was born and raised in North Dakota. From the age of 10 he was on the stage, and at 19 he went to Hollywood for a career in motion pictures. There he was converted to Christ, and answered God’s call to the ministry. He received the B.A. from Wheaton College and B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He served nine years as Minister of Leadership and Education in Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Since 1957 he has been Associate Executive Director of International Christian Leadership in Washington, D. C.
Preacher In The Red
THE GLORIOUS PROFESSION
Last year I needed new insurance on my car. In an insurance office a friendly lady pulled out a long application form and started asking questions.
“What is your occupation?” I answered, “Pastor.” Shy as I am sometimes, I may have said this just not loud enough. Anyway, she wrote down what she understood me to say. The following interview was the result.
“Do you use your car for your work or just for pleasure?” The question puzzled me somewhat but, after some soul-searching, I answered, “For both.” “Well, I mean,” she explained, “do you carry your tools in your car?” That made me wonder whether you can call a pocket Bible a tool. But she went on to the next question. “Who is your employer?” “The Christian Reformed Church of Brooks.” She looked at me, as if that was an unheard of precedent and finally brought out, “Are you employed full time by that church?” to which I could with conviction answer, “Yes.” This clear answer only seemed to add to the confusion. Now she tried to come down to my level of understanding and asked, “Well, you probably have a contract with that church, but eh—let me say—when you are through with that job, who will be your employer then?” Answer, “I won’t get through with this job.” That proved almost too much for her. Although still smiling, there was that now-let’s-get-this-straight resolution in her voice as she said with emphasis on the last word, “Do you really mean to say that the Christian Reformed church provides steady employment for a plasterer!”—The Rev. WILLIAM L. VANDER BEEK, Brooks, Alberta, Canada.
For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Suite 1014 Washington Building, Washington, D.C.
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Philip Edgcumbe Hughes
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It is half-a-century since Peter Taylor Forsyth gave the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale in 1907 and three dozen years since his death in 1921 at the age of seventy-three. Of the forty-five years of his ministerial life twenty-five were spent as pastor of Congregational churches in Bradford, London, Manchester, Leicester, and Cambridge respectively and twenty as principal of Hackney College, Hampstead. Like many another man of genius, his influence has been greater since his death than it was during his lifetime. Indeed, if he was a prophet to his own generation, he may be said to be even more so to us in our mid-century situation. His mind and his message are preserved for us in his numerous writings, and it is impossible not to be stimulated and challenged by a personality of such intellectual energy and vision who gloried so wholeheartedly in the Cross of Christ.
His literary style is, as his daughter has remarked, a vexed question (Memoir prefixed to The Work of Christ, London, 1938, p. xxvi). His contemporary, James Denney, for instance, felt that the peculiarity of his style was such “that only people who agree with him strongly are likely to read him through” (Letters of Principal James Denney to W. Robertson Nicoll, London, n.d., p. 97), though he also expressed the judgment (in 1908) that Forsyth “has more true and important things to say … than any one at present writing on theology” [op. cit., p. 118]. It is not that his style is clumsy or slipshod; indeed, there is no theologian more quotable than P. T. Forsyth. Words, however, fascinated and enthralled his mind to such an extent that it seems to have become almost second nature for him when taking up his pen to express himself in epigrams. Of course, a good epigram in itself is an excellent thing: it adds distinction to a theme and may serve to clarify a whole argument; and at the same time it cries out for quotation. But when arguments and even complete books are composed very largely of epigrams piled one on top of another it is hardly surprising if the reader, however willing, finds the fare offered him excessively rich and sweet, with the result that after a while his zest for the feast diminishes. Let him persevere, however, and he will be edified and enriched; for he would be much mistaken to conclude that Forsyth’s style had the effect, like a rich sauce, of covering over an impoverishment or superficiality of thought.
Not Always Evangelical
Forsyth did not hold the evangelical faith from the beginning. “With a great price have I procured its freedom,” he wrote [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (London, 1909), p. 255]. And in his Lyman Beecher Lectures he spoke as follows: “There was a time when I was interested in the first degree with purely scientific criticism.… It also pleased God by the revelation of His holiness and grace, which the great theologians taught me to find in the Bible, to bring home to me my sin in a way that submerged all the school questions in weight, urgency, and poignancy. I was turned from a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace. And so, whereas I first thought that what the Churches needed was enlightened instruction and liberal theology, I came to be sure that what they needed was evangelization” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, London, 1907, pp. 282f.]. While Forsyth’s theory of Scripture continued to be somewhat liberal, his use of it was strongly evangelical. He realized that criticism “is a good servant but a deadly master” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p. 49].
The Gospel of grace he emphasized as “God’s act of redemption before it is man’s message of it.… Only as a Gospel done by God is it a Gospel spoken by man. It is a revelation only because it was first of all a reconciliation.… It is an objective power, a historic act and perennial energy of the holy love of God in Christ; decisive for humanity in time and eternity; and altering for ever the whole relation of the soul to God, as it may be rejected or believed” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 6]. He discerned that “every great revival in the Church has gone with a new sense of Christ’s vicarious redemption” and that the Reformation was “the greatest of evangelical revivals” [Ibid., pp. 195, 37]. “I am afraid we must part with the idea that there is no narrowness in Christianity,” he declared on another occasion. “… The Gospel is as narrow as Christ, and Christ is as narrow as the Cross” [Missions in State and Church, London, 1908, pp. 201f.].
The Key To The Saviour
The Cross of Christ, as the focal and finishing point of redemption, was very rightly his major theme. Thus he wrote: “Only the redeemed Church, the Church that knows the forgiveness, has the key to the Saviour. His blessings are the key to His nature; they do not wait till the nature is first defined. No philosopher, as such, has the key, no theologian, no scholar, no critic; only the believer, only the true Church. And we have it where the evangelical experience has always found its forgiveness—in the Cross. Our faith begins with the historic Christ.… We begin, in principle if not in method, with Christ the crucified.… The prime doer in Christ’s Cross was God. Christ was God reconciling. He was God doing the very best for man, not man doing his very best before God. The former is evangelical Christianity, the latter is humanist Christianity” [The Cruciality of the Cross, London, 1948, p. 17]. Again: “You do not understand Christ till you understand His Cross.… It is only by understanding it that we escape from religion with no mind, and from religion which is all mind, from pietism with its lack of critical judgment, and from rationalism with its lack of everything else” (Ibid., p. 26). “Most of the failure to recognize the divine greatness of Christ,” he declared, “arises in the end from a moral failure to appreciate Him as personal Saviour; and that failure rises from a defect in the estimate of the sin from which He saves. A lofty ideal is not mighty to save.… The theology of such a Gospel opens only to a Church of broken and converted men. Only the saved have the real secret of the Saviour” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, pp. 73, 219].
Grace And Judgment
Forsyth had a clear recognition of the truth that the grace of God has full significance only in association with the judgment of God. “Do preach a Gospel where salvation is in real rapport with deep guilt and redemption with holy judgment,” he urged [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 154]. Indeed, he boldly proclaimed the Cross to be the seat of final judgment: “It does not avert the great last judgment, it is the action of that judgment.… The justified have the last judgment behind them” [Ibid., p. 347]. This dynamic evangelical perspective could do much to revitalize our prosecution of the Gospel task today. Let him expound the subject further: “The judgment at the end of history is only the corollary of the judgment at the centre of history.… The mainspring of missions is not the judgment that will fall, but the judgment that has fallen in the Cross.… The absolute ultimate judgment of the world took place in Christ’s death. There God spoke His last word—His last endless word. The last moral reality is there, the last standard, the last judgment. The last judgment is behind us. The true judgment-seat of Christ, where we must all appear, is the Cross.… There, too, the judgment of our sins fell once for all on the Holy One and the Just. The judgment Christ exercises stands on the judgment He endured. He assumes judgment because He absorbed it. Salvation and judgment are intertwined; they are not consecutive” [Missions in State and Church, pp. 16, 61f., 73].
Forsyth was an outspoken, though charitable, antagonist of the theology of liberalism, which he himself had once espoused. To it he opposed what he termed “positive” theology. Thus he affirmed: “The first feature of a positive Gospel is that it is a Gospel of pure, free grace to human sin. (And you will find that liberalism either begins or ends with ignoring sin or minimizing it.) The initiative rests entirely with God, and with a holy and injured God. On this article of grace the whole of Christianity turns.… A liberal theology has most to say of God’s love, a positive of God’s mercy. The one views God’s love chiefly in relation to human love, the other chiefly in relation to human sin. In relation to sin chiefly—because a positive Gospel is a revelation of holy love.… The liberal theology, as I am describing it, is fatal to the old faith.… It reduces mercy to a form of pity by abolishing the claim of holiness, the gravity of sin, and the action of an Atonement.… It makes the Cross not necessary but valuable; not central but supplemental; not creative but exhibitive; a demonstration but not a revelation; a reconciliation but not a redemption” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, pp. 211ff.]. Again: “The final tendency of ‘advanced theology’ is backwards. Like Moliere’s ghost, it has improved very much for the worse.… We cannot take the resurrection Gospel and leave the resurrection fact. So also with the Cross; and so with the Person of Christ.… We reduce the New Testament to a piece of tradition; and in so doing we surrender the protestant position to the catholic” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, pp. 133, 182, 103f.].
And in these days when it is theologically fashionable, not to say respectable (though meaningless in terms of scriptural reality), to distinguish between “the historic Jesus” and “the risen Christ,” designers of religious thought may with advantage be reminded of Forsyth’s pungent comment that “to divide up the personality, and detach the heavenly Christ from the earthly Jesus, is not a feat of criticism so much as a failure of religion, or an intellectual freak and a confession of unfaith” [ibid., p. 177].
A Plea For Theology
How relevant to our present theological climate also are his remarks on the prevalent depreciation of so-called “propositional” or “dogmatic” religion. “The prime need of religion today,” retaliated Forsyth, “is a theology. No religion can survive which does not know where it is. And current religion does not know where it is, and it hates to be made to ask. It hates theology.… When preachers denounce theology, or a Church despises it for literary or social charm, that is to sell the Cross to be a pendant at the neck of the handsome world. It is spiritual poverty and baldness, it is not the simplicity in Christ, to be sick of grace, judgment, atonement, and redemption” [The Cruciality of the Cross, pp. 27f.]. He referred incisively to “mere theological liberalism, which, in the effort to discard dogma, only substitutes philosophic dogma for theological” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 248], and to “laborious scholars living at a date so remote as our own, working often with more psychological acumen than personal faith, and working under a bias against apostolic interpretation” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p. 127].
The Church And Missions
Finally, Forsyth has important things to say about the missionary activity of the Christian Church. The quotations that follow are from his neglected but notable volume entitled Missions in State and Church: “What goes deepest to the conscience goes widest to the world. The more completely we feel sin to be condemned in the Cross the more power and commandment we have to carry the absolution to the ends of the earth.… You may always measure the value to yourselves of Christ’s Cross by your interest in missions. And it is a safe test of the Spirit’s presence in a Church.… One reason why the Church is too little missionary abroad is that it is not a missionary Church at home. It is established on good terms with its world instead of being a foreign mission from another.… The missionless Church betrays that it is a crossless Church; and it becomes a faithless Church, an unblest Church, a mere religious society, and finally, perhaps a mere cultured clique.… Missions are a debt on every Christian individual.… It is not optional to pay our debts.… The man who repudiates his debts is bankrupt; the Church that disavows missionary sympathy is bankrupt in evangelical grace and universal faith. The decay of evangelical faith is fatal to missions” [pp. 18, 19, 251, 254f.]. And I cannot forbear to quote from a delightfully satirical passage in the same book on “globe-trotter” creeds. “Have you not met that class of people called ‘globe-trotters?’ he asks. They have time and means, health, curiosity, and interest, easily excited. They travel much, some incessantly. Their world is a plexus of hotels connected by rails.… They have seen the outside of many lands, and cities, and men. Their creed has a certain breadth which they parade. It is as easy as it is broad.… As it is with these grievous people, so I say it is with the creeds that sacrifice everything to breadth, and are interested in all faiths alike. They do not send missions, they do not help missions. They are globe-trotter creeds, cosmopolitan but not universal. They are, in the world of mind and belief, what these rich tramps, these returned empties, are in the world of movement …” [pp. 209ff.].
Some Other Works
Of other works from Forsyth’s pen not referred to above mention may be made of The Church and the Sacraments, The Soul of Prayer, The Justification of God, Theology in Church and State, Faith, Freedom, and the Future, Socialism, the Church, and the Poor, and Rome, Reform, and Reaction. Had space permitted, much more might have been said about various aspects of his thought and activity. But sufficient has, I hope, been said and quoted to demonstrate something of the power, the penetration, and the originality of Forsyth’s mind, the depth of his faith, firmly anchored to the Cross of Christ, and the profit and stimulation which may be expected from the reading of his works. Through their writings it is always possible for us to sit at the feet of the great ones of the past, and that is a privilege to be highly prized.
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes is former secretary of the Church Society of the Church of England and former vice-president of Tyndale Hall in Bristol. He holds the B.D., M.A. and D.Litt. degrees. He is a frequent contributor to religious periodicals.
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Henlee H. Barnette
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The Church of Christ has survived and even flourished under all kinds of governments. It was born in a totalitarian Roman world and survived the persecution of Nero, Diocletian, and other dictators. All the powers of the underworld, the agnostics, the atheists, principalities, powers in high places, have not been able to destroy this fellowship of the redeemed. Civilizations rise and fall, kingdoms crumble, ideologies have their day and cease to be, but the Church endures. The gates of hell cannot prevail against it.
The invincible nature of the Church is dramatically demonstrated in Communist Russia today. The powers in the Kremlin have not succeeded in stamping out Christian faith. Not only is the Church surviving in Communist dominated countries, it is growing in strength. In the summer of 1957, for example, I discovered that the Church in Russia is surrounded by anti-God forces, Christians are persecuted, and Soviet officials inveigh against God. Even under these circumstances the Church endures. Here are reasons why.
The Gospel Is Preached
On the stained glass window of the Kharkov Baptist Church in the Ukraine are the following words, “We preach Christ crucified.” This is the message of the Russian Baptists to the Communist world. They preach “Christ crucified” as the revelation of the sinfulness of man, the manifestation of the Grace of God, and the disclosure of the meaning of discipleship. When asked what the preachers did to combat Communism, the pastor of the Kharkov Church pointed to the scripture verse in the glass stained window and quoted, “We preach Christ crucified.”
From 1917 to 1935, the number of Russian Orthodox Churches fell from 46,000 to 5,000, the number of priests from 50,000 to 5,000. Today there are more than 35,000 Orthodox priests and 20,000 churches with approximately 40 million members.
Lutherans are growing in both Latvia and Estonia. In Latvia Lutherans are organized into 15 districts and 300 parishes with more than 300 churches. There are 110 Lutheran pastors who are, in most instances, required to serve more than one parish. In Estonia, the population is overwhelmingly Lutheran. Parishes are large with an average of from 6,000 to 10,000 people in each parish. Churches destroyed during World War II are being restored, courses are offered for such church vocations as the priesthood and ministers of music. All told there are approximately 150 Lutheran pastors in Estonia and 100 churches with a total adult membership of 350,000.
This year Russian Baptists are celebrating their ninetieth anniversary. In 1867 Nikita Voronin was the first Russian to be baptized into the Baptist faith. Today there are more than 550,000 Russian Baptist church members. There are approximately four million people over whom the Baptist Churches have an influence. Today these churches are baptizing annually from 12,000 to 15,000 converts. When I bragged to a pastor in Kharkov that I represented eight and one-half million Southern Baptists, he chided me by saying that Russian Baptists would soon catch up with us! Russian people are deeply religious and, if they could throw off the Communists who dominate them, there would be one of the greatest revivals of religion in the history of the Church.
In addition to Greek Orthodox, Evangelical Baptists and Lutherans, there are in Russia small groups of Roman Catholics, Methodists, Reformed, Mennonites, Friends, and Adventists.
Article 124 in the Constitution of the USSR declares that Church and State are separated and the school from the Church. There is “freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda.” Christians can gather in State owned churches or small private buildings licensed by the government for worship purposes. No form of religious education is permitted. There are no Sunday Schools, Training Unions, libraries, handcraft clubs, or organized groups. The churches sponsor no hospitals, orphan’s homes, or any sort of welfare program. Such would be an offense to the government which claims to care for everyone’s social needs from the cradle to the grave. Preachers are not allowed to criticize the government. Those who have challenged the Communists have suffered persecution. Some have been shot, others sent to Siberia and to slave labor camps.
But in spite of a limited religious freedom, the churches are growing. Recently, the Communist press printed 15,000 hymn books for Baptists along with a few Bibles. This is the same Communist press which has turned out tons of anti-God literature. Today it is turning out Bibles for domestic use and for export. The Ambassador of Sweden to Russia told a group of us that the Russian government has been more considerate of the Church due to the fact that during World War II it needed the aid of the Church. Hence, the Communists became less hostile to religion in Russia purely for political purposes. Another reason for the so-called “soft policy” toward the churches is due to the fact that so many of the letters came from Russian soldiers on the battlefields and in the hospitals begging their Christian parents to pray for them. Indeed so many of these letters were written that the government officials began to discourage any serious attacks upon the churches and Christian people.
Young People And Faith
With the exception of the Baptist Church in Russia, the churches are filled with adults. About twenty percent of those who attend Baptist Churches are young people. A number of these youths are preparing themselves for leadership in churches in the offices of pastors, choir directors, deacons, deaconesses and lay preachers. Another evidence of the strong appeal of the Christian faith to the youth of Russia is seen in the fact that during the summer of 1957, 400,000 young people were expelled from the Komsomols (Young Communist League). They were guilty of “immorality” and attendance at religious services. This is happening in spite of the fact that all their lives these young people have been taught by their public school teachers that God is a myth and that religion is a superstition. Recently the Kremlin has become alarmed at this rising interest of youth in religion. School teachers are given slogans to pass along to the children. They read, “Religion is poison.” “Food comes from collective farms, not Christ.” “When God is forgotten life is better.” Teachers are urged to use every means available to combat the Christian faith.
In July, 1957, two communist guides accompanied a group of Americans, of which I was a member, to the Baptist Church in Moscow. It was the guides’ first time to be in a church service. The Holy Spirit worked so mightily upon their hearts that one of them went out of the church in the middle of the worship service. During the singing of the closing hymn I turned to see tears upon the other one’s cheeks. God’s spirit had moved upon their hearts. Thereafter they became more tolerant and concerned about the Christian way of life. Perhaps someday these young people will make a clean break with the godless Communists.
God’S “Rod Of Anger”
Communism could be God’s judgment upon the Church of Russia. The Greek Orthodox Church had become political and worldly. Today the magnificent church buildings of Russia have been made into museums. A church can become a museum, passing on embalmed traditions, if it loses a concern for the needs of the people. I talked with Metropolitan Nicolai of Moscow who also holds the position of Vice-Patriarch of all the Greek Orthodox Churches of Russia. He admitted that the Communist revolution made at least one positive contribution to the Greek Orthodox Church. He explained by saying that prior to the revolution the church forced everyone, atheists and believers, to belong to the church and to attend the services, and to support the churches financially. Now, he observed, that the church and State are separate and that only those who really want to attend church are present at the services.
Another reason the Church in Russia can take heart is the presence of the living Christ. Professor Emil Brunner, attending a conference of Christian workers from all countries, met a young Russian who as an officer of the Russian army was taken prisoner for five years and had been doing Christian work among fellow prisoners. His father, who was once a diplomat and later turned to the priesthood, was so persecuted by the Communist party that his wife, the mother of the young man, collapsed and died in terror. One night his father was taken away and disappeared in the mines of Siberia. The young man told how he had been present at an Easter service in the region of Odessa back in 1940. Forty thousand Christians came to this Eastertide celebration in order to worship. The Communists organized a counterblast assembly to disturb the Christian worship in every way possible. Later they compelled the 40,000 people to listen to their godless Communist propaganda for hours. Then one of the Christians got up and announced his desire to speak. He was at first refused, but when he promised to say only four words they allowed him to come to the platform. These were his words: “Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen.” The whole 40,000 responded with the Easter greeting: “Yes, he has risen indeed.” After 40 years of suffering at the hands of the Communists the people held fast to their convictions that they were serving a living Christ. Today more than 50 million Russians profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Soviet dominated Poland the Church is manifesting new life and strength. Recently I visited Warsaw of which seventy per cent was destroyed during the last war. On the facade of a rebuilt church were these challenging words: Sursum Corda. In the midst of rubble, ruin, and a Communist State, here is a church with a message of hope—Lift up your heart!
The Church will triumph. During the racial movements in the fifth century the Roman Empire fell but the Church endured. The renaissance of the fifteenth century uprooted the medieval way of life, but the Church survived. The Church was divided in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, but all branches became stronger. The Church suffers under the Red regime in contemporary Russia. She will never be at peace while the Communists rule, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Sursum Corda!
Henlee H. Barnette is Acting Dean of the School of Theology and Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, from which he holds the Th.M. and Th.D. degrees. He was Assistant Professor of Sociology at Howard College, Birmingham, Alabama, from 1946–47, and Professor of Religion and Sociology at the John B. Stetson University in Florida from 1947–51.
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W. Stanford Reid
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Christmas is a very ancient feast in the history of the Christian Church. Although it does not go back to the New Testament, it does go a long way, and in most Christian communions it has become one of the strongest and most popular of traditions. There are no doubt many things about its celebration to which one may take exception—the commercialism, the drinking, the prevailing paganism—but it still possesses an inescapable basic Christian element, in that it keeps pointing men to the Incarnation of the Son of God for man’s redemption.
Even the old school liberals, like Scrooge, could hardly escape its influence. They had denatured Christ, historicized him, humanized and even liberalized him to such an extent that his picture in the New Testament was hardly recognizable, but still they celebrated Christmas. How they could stand up and sing:
Hark the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new horn king.…
or any of the other carols is difficult to understand, but they did, inconsistent though they may have been. Since Christ was only an example, a teacher, a great religious genius, Christmas really could mean very little that was truly spiritual. All they could do, therefore, was sentimentalize the manger, depriving it of its true meaning and preparing the way for our modern irrelevant festivities.
There has been a change in theological thinking during the last few decades, however, which seems to alter the picture somewhat. The world having been shaken by two world wars, having felt the searing hunger of the Depression ’30s, has taken a second look at itself—and at the Christ. Not quite so sure of its progress, its climb upwards and its eventual perfection, it has begun to ask itself if perhaps it has not made a mistake. Perhaps it does need a Saviour—not a human but a divine Saviour who can lift it out of the miry clay.
This was the note sounded by Karl Barth in the early ’20s and by many others since. Once again in theological circles it has become respectable to speak of God’s Revelation to man. Indeed, Christ is now accepted as the bearer of that Revelation, the Word of redemption and forgiveness. God has entered into history in the person of Christ, the Word of God. This is a very different point of view from that of the old school of liberals.
Indeed the advocates of this point of view—and they are now very numerous—go further, even talking of Christ as the Redeemer. His death and Resurrection come into the picture and are said to be the core of the new theologies. Indeed, one might think that the old idea of Christmas is tending to come back. Once more men can sing the carols which speak of the Son of God who has come to earth for man’s salvation. This should indeed be great cause for rejoicing.
And yet one should not rejoice too easily or too naively, for one finds that frequently Christmas really has not returned. As one examines the new views one often finds that there are certain things which are missing. The doctrine of the Virgin Birth is either silently omitted or denied, the historical reality of the Incarnation is clothed in an avalanche of words, making it difficult to know what is meant by the term, and only too frequently universalism is the end-product of this thinking, leaving one wondering at the need for Christ’s coming at all.
The fact of the matter is that while there is much said about Christ by the various brands of neo-orthodox theologians, Christmas really does not seem to mean very much more to them than it did to the old line liberals. Once again social reform and redemption are beginning to take the place of the gracious work of Christ in the individual, redemption again becoming something which relates primarily to this life. Christmas has not really risen out of the old liberal ashes.
It would seem that the only way to preserve the true meaning of Christmas is to take into account the whole Christ as presented in the New Testament. One cannot separate him into bits and pieces. One must realize that if he is indeed the Word of God, he is a totality which cannot be reduced to some human schematization but must be allowed to reveal himself and his work as he has to men.
Thus Christmas cannot be merely a sentimentalization of the manger of Bethlehem. It must involve all that Christ is and does, even the Cross itself, and his eventual return. When one grasps this fact, only then will one be able to have a “merry Christmas” in the word’s deepest sense.
This review of live spiritual and moral issues debated in the secular and religious press of the day is prepared successively for CHRISTIANITY TODAY by four evangelical scholars: Professor W. Stanford Reid of Canada, Professor G. C. Berkouwer of the Netherlands, Professor John H. Gerstner of the United States and Dr. Philip E. Hughes of England.
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Stereotyped Pretence
Small Giant, by Phyllis Woodruff Sapp. Zondervan, Grand Rapids. $3.00.
This novel is one grand contrivance without adequate characterization, genuine emotion, or artistic merit. In fact, it is not a novel at all, just a stereotyped pretence. As an evangelical Christian I deplore the supposition that such stuff is intended for me and others like me. Yet this novel is the winner of a big prize offered by a Christian publisher!
It is hard to know where to begin a review, for the sleaziness starts with the first page of the book. As a sample of the totally trite style let me quote a few sentences from page 14: “A hush settled over the room and his heart seemed to stop beating. Wouldn’t these people applaud even for politeness’ sake? Then a spontaneous burst of applause echoed and re-echoed around the room and Phil sank back in his chair, swallowing his heart out of his throat.” It would be hard to discover in the same number of words anywhere in print (unless in a parody on triteness) an equal spate of cliches.
Among many bad things the very worst is the hand-me-down emotions throughout the book. They are here in melodramatic abundance but in unbelievable paucity of expression. Although the novel is under three hundred pages in length, such phrases as “dark pounding in his heart,” “heart began to hammer against his ribs,” “his heart thudded heavily” occur over seventy times. Expressions such as “he clenched his hands,” “smacking his fist into his palm,” and “beat his fist into his open palm” occur at least sixty times. Another set of cliches such as “she moistened her lips,” “licked his lips,” “wet his lips” is repeated at least thirty-five times, and about twenty-five times we have the hero or somebody else gritting his teeth or chewing his lips. Most objectionable of all is a set of phrases such as “pleased flush crawling up his neck,” “angry flush came crawling up his neck,” and “a hot, aggravating flush crawling up his neck,” which make it sound as if the hero is a sort of human thermometer. These five stereotypes of pounding heart, clenching fists, moistening lips, gritting teeth, and flushing neck and face occur, believe it or not, over one hundred and fifty times. Were they sporadic they would be bad enough, but in this book they are chronic. Sometimes, indeed, they fall thick and fast. On page 147, for instance, we find Jane’s heart “thudding against her ribs.” Then in the next sentence she “clenched her hands together,” and before the end of the page she has “moistened her lips.” On page 128 Jane “bit her lip,” Phil’s heart was “thudding against his ribs,” Jane had “clenched fingers,” and twice Phil “pounded his fist into his palm.” All on one page. Toward the end of the book we note that Jane’s heart “started a strange, insistent pounding” and, a few pages later, Phil’s heart “began a strange, uneasy pounding.” No reasonable person could ever believe that either of their hearts could have a strange pound by this time, for their hearts have been thumping since page one in every way conceivable to the human mind, even flipping clear over on occasion.
Beyond these trite expressions is the equally serious psychological fallacy that to say a character has an emotion is the same as causing the reader to feel an emotion. When the lack of artistic talent and vision is total, a writer has no recourse but to fall back on described rather than portrayed emotions. It is something to note when the evil of described emotions has added to it the superabundance of pathetic cliches found here.
Even though this novel has been published almost solely on the basis of its plot, that also will not suffer close examination. Phil Sanders, a young lawyer, discovers that if he breaks up a liquor and dope ring in his town he will at the same time ruin his prospective father-in-law, the District Attorney. Phil has to decide his course of action in this matter and also to discover legal cause for his intuited suspicion of Mel Morrison, one of the other assistants to the D.A. who turns out to be the brains of the dope racket. Mel Morrison happens also to be in love with Jane Lawson, daughter of the D.A., who comes to love Phil and fear Mel. Apart from its traditional detective slant, there is nothing wrong with, such a plot. But because the complications become simply too much for the author, characters and action are shoved around with relatively little regard for logic and the nature of things. There is space for only an illustration or two. Early in Phil’s career he goes out and inspects a flimsily constructed honky tonk called Sam’s Shanty and becomes suspicious that it is peddling liquor and dope to minors. Then one night the building eatches fire. Conveniently, Phil happens to be at the police station talking about the matter when the fire alarm goes off, so he and the police hurry to the scene. He stops one hundred yards from the flaming structure, and even at this distance the heat is strong. Shortly a big black Cadillac just like the one owned by Mel Morrison tears up and the door is flung open so quickly that Phil is knocked to his knees. That’s how close he was. Next we learn that several suspicious looking men jump out of this car and feverishly fill the seats, not with burned boys and girls but with “large wooden containers.” Where did these villains—for that is what the reader knows them to be—get the boxes? The building was in total flames and surrounded by police and firemen. The heat was intense at one hundred yards. We are told that the whole sky was lighted by the flames. Did Phil, the shrewd young attorney in charge of dope and liquor peddling, get suspicious that at arm’s length he has the racketeers if he will only nab them while they are stacking their car full of these big boxes? The author says naively: “He supposed it really wasn’t important.” Later—sixty pages later—since it suits the strained plot of the novel—Phil discovers what the reader knew all the time. There are other episodes equally awry. The final resolution of the plot hangs pretty largely upon the fact that the D.A., who turns out to be a user of dope, keeps his heroin and paraphernalia for its use in his desk drawer and is careless enough to leave the drawer open to passing gaze.
Space prevents further discussion of the plot, the shallowness of character depiction, the flimsy contriving of motives and movements and the total lack of artistic touch and symbolic imagination. It can be said that the Christian element is introduced with moderation and some sense of propriety, but that aspect is hard to evaluate in the unstable perspective of the book as a whole.
In offering prizes it is doubtless the aim of Christian publishers to improve the quality of their publication. This is laudable. At the same time, it appears doubly bad to be placed in the position of having to advertise a book like this as the winner of a prize. Would it not be better to stipulate that no prize will be given if disinterested judges think all entries unworthy?
CLYDE S. KILBY
Why Did Christ Die?
A Critique of the Theory of Vital Atonement, by James A. Nichols, Jr. Vantage Press, New York, 1955. $2.50.
Dr. Nichols is Professor of Theology at the New England School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts. The purpose of this book is to examine and refute the view of the atonement held by the late Clarence H. Hewitt, and expounded in his book, Vital Atonement (Warren Press, Boston, 1946). After an initial statement of Hewitt’s views, there follow five chapters which show the inadequacy of this interpretation of the atonement from various points of view: doctrinal, biblical, and historical.
All evangelical Christians will welcome this spirited defense of the vicarious-substitutionary view of the atonement over against Hewitt’s conception, which seems to this reviewer to be a rather novel combination of the mystical and moral influence theories. Dr. Nichols quite rightly opposes Hewitt’s contention that Christ shared the inborn corruption of our nature. The book under review is a strong refutation of the notion that there is no punitive wrath in God which needs satisfaction. The point is very well taken that the one great question which Hewitt’s interpretation of the atonement leaves unanswered is, “Why did Christ have to die?” (p. 36). The reader is impressed anew with the fact that the only adequate answer to that question is: He died as our substitute, to bear for us the wrath of God against sin.
Despite the merits of this book, however, there are certain unfavorable features. Its chief weakness is its excessive use of quotations from other theological writers. All in all, the 91 pages of text contain 115 quotations, a number of them being longer than half a page in length. The author, it seems to me, leans too heavily upon other men; he could often much more effectively have stated his views in his own words. In some instances mere quotations from other theologians are used to settle theological issues, when careful Scriptural exegesis would have been far more compelling. The book would have been greatly strengthened if the chapter dealing with the biblical evidence had been placed at the beginning instead of near the end.
It also appears to this reviewer that Chapter VI, in which the historical background of the “Vital Atonement” is discussed, could have been strengthened. A more thorough survey of Irenaeus’s Recapitulation Theory, and of the general emphasis of the Eastern theologians of the early church on “atonement by incarnation” would have been very helpful in understanding Dr. Hewitt’s views. A brief exposition of Abelard’s Moral Influence theory of the atonement and of the Example Theory advanced by the Socinians would have made clear the affinities of Hewitt’s views to these erroneous doctrines. A good deal more could have been made of Schleiermacher, with whose mystical conception of the atonement the so-called “Vital Atonement” has much in common. And Ritschl’s aversion to the idea that there is a punitive wrath in God which needs to be satisfied ought to have been cited as part of the historical background.
Furthermore, the author should have shown that the idea “that men’s depravity disposes them to sin but is not actually sinful in itself” had its origin, not just in New England theology (see p. 89), but in the Semi-Pelagianism of the 5th and 6th centuries; that it was an essential aspect of the scholastic anthropology of the Middle Ages; and that it was held by Remonstrant Arminianism in the 17th century.
A theological weakness of the book, it seems to me, is the absence of the covenant concept. On page 17, for example, the author defines the uniqueness of our Lord’s relation to the human race only in terms of his Creatorship. He adds, “This relation shows how he might rightfully share our guilt and suffer penalty for us, although it did not obligate him to do so.” An explication of Christ’s covenant relationship to his people, as their head, their federal representative, their second Adam, would have greatly clarified and illumined the doctrine of the atonement at this point.
ANTHONY A. HOEKEMA
Glorifying God
The Psalter in the Temple and the Church, by Marie Pierik. Catholic University of America Press, 1957. 101 pages. $3.00.
It is very much to be regretted that this excellent little book was not written by a Protestant and published by a Protestant publishing house.
I say this, not because even the greater part of its contents represent the Protestant point of view, or is agreeable to it (though I am sure it does and is), but because the sort of interest in the truly inspired songs of the Bible and biblical music which the appearance of such a book would indicate, would be a wholesome sign of a much needed change in some things associated with Protestant religious music of which we are not proud.
One has but to listen to one or two programs on the radio of so-called “popular religious music,” presenting silly, sob-sentimental torch songs and jazz in the trappings of sanctity, but vocalized by the familiar throaty effects of the nightclub and accompanied by the sensuous rhythmic beat of a dance band, to long for a return to a usage by Christians of the inspired songs of Zion, and a rendition and accompaniment which lift the spirit upward. So much of popular religious jazz (and some of it appears in some very good song books, and is heard in some amazingly respectable churches), conveys the subtle, subconscious impression that there is very little difference between religious sentiment, which is supposed to be elevated and ennobling, and the sentiments of the flesh (and unregenerate, sinful flesh, at that).
Miss Marie Pierik is a long-time student and teacher of music, and an authority on the Gregorian Chant who has been recognized by the Vatican as well as by other important critical circles in Europe and America.
Included in her book are chapters on: The Psalter, The Titles of the Psalms, The Contents of the Psalms, The Music of the Temple, The Modes of Semetic Music, and Forms and Rhythm in Temple Music and Psalter.
She quotes freely from well-known authorities, and even includes a quotation from Prothero, and one from Rabbi Akiba (executed in 135 A.D.), “who, either as a little boy witnessed the Temple service before its destruction in 70 A.D., or heard from some of the survivors a description” of the types of re-sponsorial public singing found there.
The latter part of the book is devoted to a study of Psalmody in the Chant of the Church and presents chapters on: How Gregorian Chant Developed, Roman Psalmody, and Preliminary Breathing and Vocal Exercises for the Practice of Gregorian Chant.
The second half of the book, being somewhat technical, will appeal mostly to musicians and music directors. The first half will interest any serious Bible student. That such an excellent study has appeared is a challenge to us all, not only to produce one as scholarly and informative, and simpler, if possible, but especially to return whole-heartedly to a much greater use of the inspired Psalms in the worship of God.
DAVID W. BAKER
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Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is, God with us (Matt. 1:22, 23).
Who would have thought that the prophecy contained in Isaiah 7:14 could have referred to our Lord? One of these days we shall discover a great deal more in the inspired Word than we can see today. Perhaps it is needful to our understanding a prophecy that we should see it actually fulfilled. What blind eyes we have!
No one can doubt that the Christianity of the New Testament is supernaturalistic through and through. Whether we have regard to the person of Jesus or to the salvation he brought to men, the primary note of this Christianity certainly is supernaturalism. He who walked the earth as its Lord, and whom the very winds and waves obeyed; who could not be holden of the grave, but burst the bonds of death and ascended into the heavens in the sight of man; he who now sits at the right hand of God and sheds down his gift of salvation through his Spirit upon the men of his choice—it were impossible that such an one should have entered the world undistinguished among common men. His supernatural birth is given already, in a word, in his supernatural life and his supernatural work, and forms an indispensable element in the supernatural religion which he founded.
God-With-Us
Emmanuel—One of the forms of the principal Hebrew word for God is el; and emmanu signifies “with us.” While this was to be the actual name of the child born in the time of Ahaz (Isa. 7:14), it was for Jesus not a name actually borne, but only a description of his character and position.
J. A. BROADUS
The Christian world could derive but little comfort in one part of this title, were it unconnected with the other. As the Almighty El, or Diety, he would be rather an object of terror and confusion to guilty and offending creatures; but as the El, in covenant, as God with us, he is the inexhaustible source of hope and joy to those who believe.
HORAE SOLITARIAE
The pure nature of God, and the base nature of man, that were strangers ever since the fall, are knit together in Christ. What can be in a greater degree of strangeness than men’s unholiness and God’s pure nature? Yet the nature of man and of God being so severed before, are met together in Christ; so that in this one word “Emmanuel” there is heaven and earth, God and man, infinite and finite; therefore we may well prefix Behold.
RICHARD SIBBES
Emmanuel—This name they are directed by God to give him; and there could be no reason with God to select this name but because its meaning denoted a reality. The person bears the name because he is what the name signifies. As the Lord was called Jesus, saviour, because he is Saviour; and as he is called Christ, anointed, because he is the Anointed, so is he called Emmanuel, God-with-us, because he is God with us. He is God with man; he is Divinity with humanity. And he is called God with us because he is virgin-born, for the prophet conjoins these two facts as antecedent and result. That is, because he has only a human mother, and so a divine Father, therefore he is in name, and thereby in reality, God with us. No Jewish or Unitarian gloss can evade this. It demonstrates that Messiah is by birth, God with us; and therefore that he is so by person, by nature, and by substance.
D. D. WHEDON
One Person
By a wonderful and unsearchable union; the manner whereof is to be believed, not discussed; admired, not pried into; personal it is, yet not of persons; of natures, and yet not natural. As a soul and body are one man; so God and man are one person, saith Athanasius. And as every believer that is born of God, saith another, remains the same entire person that he was before, receiving nevertheless into him a divine nature which before he had not: so Emmanuel, continuing the same perfect person which he had been from eternity, assumeth nevertheless a human nature which before he had not, to be born within his person for ever.
JOHN TRAPP
What constituted the extraordinary character of the fact here announced (Isa. 7:14)? It consisted in the fact that, according to chapter 9:6, Emmanuel himself was to be a wonder or wonderful. He would be God incorporeal self-manifestation, and therefore a “wonder” as being a superhuman person. We should not venture to assert this if it went beyond the line of Old Testament revelation, but the prophet asserts it himself in chapter 9:6: his words are as clear as possible; and we must not make them obscure, to favour any preconceived notions as to the development of history. The incarnation of Deity was unquestionably a secret that was not clearly unveiled in the Old Testament, but the veil was not so thick but that some rays could pass through. Such a ray, directed by the spirit of prophecy into the mind of the prophet, was the prediction of Emmanuel. But if the Messiah was to be Emmanuel in this sense, that He would Himself be El (God), as the prophet expressly affirms, His birth must also of necessity be a wonderful or miraculous one.
F. DELITZSCH
Reconciliation
Christ hath his name Emmanuel, not only because he is God and man too, both natures meeting in one person, but because being God in our nature, he hath undertook this office to bring God and us together. The main end of Christ’s coming and suffering was to reconcile, and to gather together in one; and, as Peter expresseth it, “to bring man again to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). Emmanuel is the bond of this happy agreement, and appears for ever in heaven to make it good.
RICHARD SIBBES
From the day of the Nativity God was with man, not simply as heretofore, as the Omnipresent, but under new and more intimate conditions. From the day of the Nativity there was a change in the relations between earth and heaven. To be one with Christ was to be one with God; and this union with God through Christ is the secret and basis of the new kingdom of souls which Christ has founded, and in which he reigns. Who shall describe the wealth of spiritual and moral power which dates from the appearance of the Incarnate Son in our human world, as our “Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption?” Here and there we see through the clouds, as though by glimpses, some streaks of the glory of this Invisible Kingdom of souls; but only in another life shall we understand at all approximately what it has meant for millions of our race.
H. P. LIDDON
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Christianity in the World Today
The Literacy-Literature Movement
This special article is written forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby James W. Carty, Jr., Religious News Editor of The Nashville Tennesseean, one of the South’s outstanding newspapers. Mr. Carty has taken part in literacy-literature and adult education projects in Egypt and Tanganyika. He taught religious journalism for two years at Scarritt College, and has contributed book reviews and articles to 35 journalistic, educational and religious journals.
Christian literacy and literature represent the most promising—but probably the most underdeveloped—channels of missionary work in a period of rapid social change. In many Asian and African countries, between 70 and 90 per cent of the adults cannot read. In South America, several nations have illiteracy rates of 20 to 50 per cent and in Bolivia it reaches 80 per cent.
It is a tragic paradox that Protestant followers of Calvin and Luther have lagged in teaching millions of adults overseas to read, the main prerequisite for gaining direct access to the Bible.
Christian leaders now realize that literature is one of the main hopes of the church at this time when doors are closing to western missionaries in the non-Christian countries. Many nations are denying visas for new missionaries and they have placed restrictions on traditional mission methods of education, preaching and personal evangelism.
Moreover, new life is surging in the old faiths of the Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, and animists. Communism is spreading—and largely on the wings of attractive and appealing literature, widely distributed.
American mission boards and younger churches abroad are awakening to their mutual responsibilities to provide the written word of God for converting pagans and nurturing Christians. Christian leaders finally are accepting in their hearts what they paid lip service to in the past—the belief that Scripture, when read by each individual and not the preacher alone, has power to transform lives.
An overview of the world-wide literacy-literature movement will indicate the trends, weaknesses and suggested future development for this type of Christ-centered, adult education program.
Frank C. Laubach, the noted apostle of literacy, has stimulated great interest in literacy as evangelism. With his literacy charts and his “Each-one-teach-one” slogan, he has championed the cause of the world’s millions of non-literates. He has called them the “silent billion”—those who lack the knowledge and the voice for determining their own affairs.
On many mission fields throughout the world, Laubach has helped church leaders organize programs to teach individuals to read and to provide them simply-written reading materials. These brief, attractive booklets have been of a self-help nature—about health, farm life, family relations, economic affairs, and moral problems that arise in all of life. These have been graded so that they are a stepping stone to reading the Scriptures.
For many years, Laubach was field representative and special counselor for the Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature—popularly referred to as “Lit-Lit.” He retired from that program in 1956, but the committee is carrying on the work he inspired.
Laubach-led and other teams sponsored by the Lit-Lit committee have done work in approximately 250 languages in more than 60 countries. These efforts have initiated campaigns in which several million people have learned to read and have been provided Christ-centered reading materials.
This committee, a unit of the foreign missions division of the National Council of Churches, is spearheading the most comprehensive literacy-literature program of any of the church-related organizations. It works with NCC members and non-members alike and so gets more cooperation, more spirit of unity, around the central theme of the Word of God than many other religious organizations. It is interesting denominational leaders in stepping up literacy-literature programs. It helps some of the mission groups get on their feet by subsidizing their printing efforts in part. And to recruit volunteers to do this highly specialized work, Lit-Lit is providing approved missions candidates with scholarships at American schools.
More foreign and American candidates are trained in Christian literacy writing at Syracuse University than any other institution in the United States. Work there is under the direction of Robert Laubach, son of Frank C. Laubach. The staff of the school also includes the outstanding religious journalism teacher, Dr. Roland E. Wolseley, and he helps students acquire a knowledge of the social significance of their work and of their role as creative writers and interpreters. Another education center doing solid work of training workers in literacy techniques is Hartford Theological seminary.
The Lit-Lit committee also sends teams to start campaigns and to train missionaries and nationals in follow-up techniques. These efforts help develop indigenous writers and illustrators especially appropriate for each nation.
The committee is conducting continual research as to the effectiveness of the literacy-literature approach for different peoples. The result, these experiments invariably show, is that literacy-literature is a valuable evangelistic method, because it is both a mass and an individual movement. Thousands learn to read simultaneously—but in pairs. One individual is taught to read by a friend and then reinforces his learning and shares his knowledge by teaching another.
One of the most significant, long-time pieces of work has been done by Dr. Wesley Sadler, linguist-missionary for the United Lutheran Church of America. He has done 16 years of pioneer work among the Loma people of Liberia. In that period he has put the Loma language into written form, produced a grammar and a dictionary, written 62 Christ-centered social-education booklets, translated Scripture and started a newspaper, the Loma Weekly. This periodical is the only non-English language newspaper among 26 tribes in Liberia.
The value of editorial specialists on the mission field is evident in the results obtained by Sadler. The Loma Weekly solidifies social cohesion among the Loma tribesmen of 32 villages, and gives them a wider vision of kinship with other people in Liberia and the rest of the world. Papers like this are essential to prevent the new literates from lapsing back into illiteracy.
Sadler and his wife, Roslyn Sadler, an artist, headed the first interracial, international and interdenominational field team sponsored by Lit-Lit in developing an overseas progarm. That team of six members was sent to Tanganyika in the summer of 1956 and took part in a project co-sponsored by the interdenominational Christian Council of Tanganyika. Forty missionaries from six missions, including Lutherans and such evangelical groups as Assemblies of God and Baptists, took part.
The other specialists on the team with the Sadlers included Mrs. Elizabeth Chesley Baity, American novelist living in Geneva; Artist Phil Gray, who worked eight years with Frank Laubach; Horace Mason, British senior social development officer for the Tanganyikan government; Enoch Mulira, African community development officer who is the brother of the president of one of the two political parties in Uganda, and this writer.
This team taught missionaries and national church workers how to organize and conduct literacy campaigns. The visiting members also produced literacy charts, and a primer in Swahili, the lingua franca or trade language of East Africa; and some simply written follow-up leaflets on how to improve agriculture, economics, health, spiritual and family life. Writing courses were offered to teach the nationals or missionaries how to write additional booklets. Over a period of months, materials were tested to see that they were valid, and then were revised and refined. The long-range project, designed to teach millions to read, is scheduled to begin in 1958.
Lit-Lit plans to establish a regional center in the near future in Africa. Dr. and Mrs. Sadler will be among the workers. Teams of specialists on loan from various denominations will train visiting personnel, who come there for short-term, intensive courses. Such literature houses will need to be established by many denominations, sometimes working separately and sometimes pooling their employes and plans cooperatively. These houses are needed for sections of Asia, Africa, and South America.
Literature centers have grown out of local needs and are varied. An outstanding one is Literacy House, at Minia, some 180 miles south of Cairo. Staff personnel include Egyptians of the Evangelical church, such as Miss Halana Makhiel, trained at Berea College, and the Rev. Sam Habib, trained at Syracuse School of Journalism on a Lit-Lit scholarship.
Literacy House has started programs in 16 Egyptian communities. One of the most successful has been at Deir Abu Hinnis, a city of refuge established when the Arabs drove Coptic Christians across the Nile in the fifth century. The town was tom by a bitter feud at the time the literacy campaign began in 1955. The disagreement started seven years previously over a boundary dispute between elders of the two churches, the Coptic and Evangelical, and spread to political, conomic and social affairs. But an 18-month literacy campaign increased adult literates from 362 to 2000; reconciled man to man and men to God; turned the village from one of hate to one of love. The group organized a democratic village planning committee, started a farmers’ cooperative, a health clinic, a school, two library-recreation rooms, and 18 Bible study groups.
The late Margaret Runbeck, noted American author, went to Egypt and helped nationals prepare the booklets. She taught pastors of the Evangelical church (established by missionaries of the United Presbyterian Church) to write social-education materials, directly in Arabic.
Lit-Lit’s purpose is not to publish books, but to get them published. An ideal book cannot be written in London or New York, but has to be prepared on the field, to suit the thought and cultural patterns and needs of the people. Field work must be a training experience for those who will become the literature leaders of the younger churches.
In India, mission presses have set up a service council so that members can share in technical equipment and skills. The Board of Christian Literature of the National Christian Council of India published 87 books in 11 languages in 1956. Fourteen theological textbooks were done, one book on Billy Graham in Tamil and Telegu vernacular languages, and a biography of Graham in the Malayalam vernacular. Trunks are used to pass collections of books from village to village.
Support of organizations like Lit-Lit is needed, because the younger churches cannot always afford the printing expenses. Christian churches do not have the financial support of the governments; in Ceylon, for example, much Buddhist literature is published with government support.
In Hong Kong, a great amount of Christian literature is published by the Council for Christian Literature for Overseas Chinese. It is sold widely outside Red China in countries where Chinese now live.
Japan is the literacy exception in the East, since 98 per cent of adults are literate. Christian books are published by 14 different presses. Stress in 1956 was on Luther and the great Christian classics, as it can be where the people have literacy and a traditional culture. Many Japanese—sometimes 9,000 a year, and all literate—are moving to Latin America. Their habits of reading may influence Latin Americans.
The evangelical groups are a major hope for building Christian democracies in South America. Catholics hunger for direct possession of the Bible. The Wycliffe translators have done outstanding work in translating Scriptures into Indian languages. Spanish literacy work is ready to move forward in churches and seminaries. A forward push in this area is needed because a new generation of illiterates has come into being. In Honduras, for example, an estimated 200,000 children are not in school because of lack of teachers and buildings. The school program of the evangelical missions and churches are important to the culture, economic and spiritual welfare of that country.
In an effort to help the churches coordinate their efforts, Dr. F. J. Rex, education secretary for Lit-Lit, recently held several meetings with church leaders in Latin America. In Mexico, for example, he met with 22 representatives of evangelical churches, missions and other agencies. That session was arranged through the help of Dr. Gonzalo Baez-Camargo, literature secretary for the committee on cooperation in Latin America, and Dr. William Wonderley, American Bible society representative in Mexico.
Lit-Lit officials have headquarters in New York City, but supplement team trips to the field by going themselves to advise personnel on the spot. Dr. Floyd Shacklock, executive secretary, went to Africa in 1956 and 1957 to help missionaries and nationals plan work. Both Dr. Shacklock and Dr. Rex are able men who have had long backgrounds of actual work experience in the field.
Some 39 denominational boards share in supporting Lit-Lit’s financial program. Even more communions take part in the work on the field. In 1943, when Lit-Lit was formed, there were 19 member denominations. It was made up of the Committee on Christian Literature of the International Missionary Council and the World Literacy Committee of the Foreign Missions Conference. Later that year, the American Christian Literature Society for Muslims merged with Lit-Lit.
Through encouragement of Lit-Lit, there is a trend toward use of specialists by the denominations. In the past, literacy-literature was only a part-time added duty for missionaries with other responsibilities. Now there is an increasing number of full-time people working on problems of writing materials, some trained before their missionary work began, others trained on furlough.
The goal of each denomination should be a literature secretary for each country where it has missions work.
Jesus asked, “Have ye not read?” (Luke 6:3). His own stress on the centrality of Scripture demands that Christians take a new look to see if they themselves are giving priority to the written Word of God.
Sixth Elo Conference
Sixth annual conference of Evangelical Literature Overseas is being held this week (Dec. 9–12) in Lincoln, Nebraska, with daily sessions and workshops on editorial, publishing and distribution problems. Among the speakers are Harold J. Kregel, missionary recently returned from Spain, David B. Woodward and J. Oswald Sanders of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, and R. M. Searing, recently of Colombia. Experts in several branches of mission literature work will appear in panel discussions to deal with practical problems aired by the delegates.
ELO is an independent organization designed to implement mission literature in many areas of the world, has its headquarters in Wheaton, Illinois. Executive Secretary Harold B. Street has spent several months this past year setting up literature councils in Africa and the Middle East, and Director Kenneth N. Taylor recently returned from a three-month trip around the world in the same cause.
People: Words And Events
Matter of Age—Dr. James Thomas Blackwood, Monteagle, Tenn., who may be the oldest Methodist minister in the world, was honored in absentia recently on his 100th birthday by the Church’s Tennessee Conference. He was too ill to attend the celebration.… The Rev. Newell J. Matthews, a Baptist minister, celebrated his 104th birthday at Pilot Mountain, N. C. He was spry enough to pose for a birthday photo.
City Churches—Gov. Theodore R. McKeldin of Maryland says “urban renewal” must include a reinvigoration of city churches. In an address at Baltimore, he asserted: “It is not the function of the church to serve either property values or the convenience of its members. Its function is to provide spiritual strength and comfort to those who need it, and to discharge that function it should take its stand where the need is greatest, not where it is the least.”
United Church Leader—John V. Matthews, Fayetteville, Tenn., has been elected president of United Church Men—the laymen’s unit of the National Council of Churches. Matthews, a lawyer, is a layman of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. He succeeds J. Clinton Hawkins of St. Louis, a Methodist.
Honors—Miss Mary Cermak, a missionary nurse of the Bolivian Indian Mission, has received the Florence Nightingale Medal from the International Red Cross for her self-denial on behalf of the sick and the needy. The medal was awarded in a ceremony at the National University by the Bolivian Minister of Health.… Mrs. Aogot Baeza, primary teacher at the David Trumbull School sponsored by the Presbyterian Church in Valparaiso, Chile, has received popular tribute for the part she played in teaching first grade lessons to presidential candidate Luis Bossay Leiva.
Annuity Plan—Protestant readers across the nation are being offered a Roman Catholic-sponsored annuity plan which has been available to Catholics for the last 25 years. The offer, addressed to “all men and women of good will without regard to religious affiliation,” was made in advertisements appearing on the financial pages of such publications as the Chicago Tribune, Journal of Commerce, New York Times, U. S. News and World Report and the Wall Street Journal.
Space Patron Saint—Selection of a patron saint for space travelers is being informally considered by authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, a Vatican official said recently. The most likely patron, it is believed, will be St. Joseph of Copertino, a 17th-century Italian Franciscan friar. According to tradition, he floated in the air during religious ecstasies on more than 70 occasions.
Dancing Banned—A ban on all campus dances at its colleges has been voted by the North Carolina Baptist Convention. The action overruled trustees of Wake Forest and Meredith Colleges who recently permitted on-campus dancing after a lapse of 20 years. In addition, the Convention named a committee to “study attitudes or organizations on any campus which might be hindering the development of a genuine spiritual atmosphere. This action indicated the Convention intends to look into fraternities and other campus groups, as requested by its retiring president, Dr. J. C. Canipe of Hendersonville. Wake Forest students retaliated by burning Dr. Canipe in effigy.
Hall of Fame—Allen Wright, an Indian chief and Presbyterian minister in Oklahoma during the 19th century, was honored by the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians in ceremonies recently at Oklahoma City. His statue was unveiled in the rotunda of the state capitol. Wright, who died in 1885, was chief of the Choctaws from 1866 to 1880. He was a pastor, scholar, military leader, philosopher and statesman.
King James Version—The King James Version outsells the Revised Standard Version by about 8 to 1, a NCC check revealed.
Edwards Catches Up
Millions of Americans peeked into the so-called private life of Dr. Billy Graham recently when the television cameras of “This Is Your Life” made an excellent effort to accomplish an impossibility—packing the story into 30 minutes, with commercials.
Ralph Edwards, noted TV personality, had been trying to catch up with the fast-moving evangelist for several years and finally made it when the temporarily-crippled Dr. Graham limped into the Beverly Hilton Hotel to address several hundred members of the Hollywood film colony.
Memorable events and people appeared briefly on the screen, depicting the unprecedented rise of a North Carolina farm boy, who had more talent for milking cows than influencing people, to a position of world spiritual leadership.
To keep the record straight, Dr. Graham had to interrupt Edwards near the end. He said: “This is God’s doing. The praise, honor and glory must go to him.”
It is impossible to gauge the total effect of such a program. As is so often the case, however, God seemed to begin his greatest work after the cameras had stopped turning.
Top actors and actresses, who themselves have held audiences spellbound, gave rapt attention as the evangelist began his scheduled address on Bible answers to the problems of the world. Almost an hour later they were still sitting on the mental edge of their seats.
Dr. Graham mentioned the great importance of sputniks and muttniks now circling the globe. He quoted Prime Minister Nehru of India as saying, “the world is now living on the brink of disaster.” He quoted a German scientist as saying it is now possible to depopulate the earth in 24 hours.
He warned that it is now impossible for anyone to live with any sense of security, outside of Jesus Christ.
“America and the world have no hope,” he said, “unless they repent of sin and return to God.”
Then, concentrating his thrust on the individual, Dr. Graham told his listeners about their great need of God and of the force for good they might be in a world that looked to them for entertainment.
He urged them to take a stand for Christ, no matter how unpopular it might be. He explained the Bible’s conditions—upon which the stand might be made—personal repentance, faith in Christ as the Son of God, surrender of will to God’s will, daily Bible reading and prayer, witnessing for Christ and active participation in a church where the Bible is preached.
The address in many respects was similar to those he had given throughout America, Great Britain, Europe and Asia. The Hollywood locale didn’t make any difference.
Dr. Graham has stated on many occasions: “People basically are the same. All have sinned. All need God.”
The evangelist and members of his team were in California primarily to meet with ministers of the San Francisco area, where a six-week crusade will begin April 27 in the Cow Palace. An estimated 1,400 ministers turned out for for the meeting to hear a discussion of plans for the mammoth undertaking.
Observers described the occasion as one of the largest and most significant gathering of ministers ever held in the San Francisco area.
‘Breather’ Asked
Rep. Brooks Hays (D.-Ark.) has proposed that a “breather period” be given the South in the matter of school integration. He said this would “permit a re-evaluation of the U. S. Supreme Court’s school integration order.”
The Congressman, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention, made his proposal in an address to the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce-Associates Industries.
Mr. Hays, in another talk, told the annual meeting of the Arkansas Baptist Convention that the solution to the Little Rock integration crisis will come as a result of “God’s law.”
“We will not be disturbed by the great conflicts between state and federal laws,” he said. “We will seek a solution in the realm of spiritual values because it is God’s law that will bring peace.”
In his address to the business group, Mr. Hays said the “breather” plan is to “invite our northern friends to consider a suspension of judicial procedures for a while to give us an opportunity to re-evaluate and re-examine this most difficult question.”
He admitted it would be a difficult problem to obtain a suspension of procedures but said this was necessary to prevent a repetition of the Little Rock integration controversy and preserve the nation’s morale and unity.
Mr. Hays said he would seek such a suspension by using “friendly persuasion” on his northern colleagues in Congress.
The Arkansas lawmaker said he respected the Supreme Court and warned that “we lose something precious” by flouting its decisions. But he said the court can be wrong, and in areas of national policy it is the duty of Congress to correct the tribunal’s mistakes. He intimated that he considered the racial question a matter of national policy.
Mr. Hays referred to the Little Rock situation when he discussed the growing interdependence of the world.
“What happens in America is known in the heart of Africa tomorrow,” he said. “The recent experience in our city makes that truth known to us.”
He expressed the hope that Baptists would be able to exert a moral influence throughout the world to insure peace.
“We disappoint God when we allow national loyalties to involve us in war,” he asserted.
Jeroboam’S Temple
A biblical archaeologist has announced that he knows the location of the ancient Temple of Jeroboam but can’t reach it.
Dr. James L. Kelso said the temple is buried under the southern edge of Bethel, 12 miles from Jerusalem, but “homes are so close together there that any excavation work is impossible.”
Dr. Kelso is professor of Biblical Archeology and Semitics at Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary. He left last June on his third attempt to uncover the temple that Jeroboam I built as a rival place of worship to Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem.
Bethel was the chief sanctuary of the Northern Kingdom of Judea following the secession of 10 tribes under Jeroboam, the rebel leader. Jerusalem was the capital of the Southern Kingdom of Judea after the breakup of the original 12-tribe nation.
In previous explorations Dr. Kelso unearthed a giant stone wall surrounding Bethel. He also discovered portions of the winter palace of King Herod the Great near Jericho. Herod was the ruler of Judea when Christ was born and ordered the infamous Slaughter of the Innocents.
His next expeditions will be to Herodium, a few miles from Bethlehem, and Pella, near the Sea of Galilee.
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13 SHOPPING DAYS
Plunging into a parking space at the Grand Plaza shopping center, I brushed fenders with a faded sedan and recognized Pastor Peterson inside. He was waiting for his wife, and cleared the front seat of packages so that I could join him.
“Christmas shopping?”
He winced and suddenly thrust an envelope in my hand. In the growing dusk I read the penciled lines:
Hark, the tinsel fairies sing,
Santa Claus will come to bring
Lighted trees with presents piled,
Rocket ships for every child.
Gleeful all the space kids rise,
Join the sputniks in the skies
With the missile men exclaim,
‘Christmas sure was getting tame!’”
It was my turn to wince. Pastor Peterson not only admitted to writing it, but insisted that he was about to prepare a “realistic” Christmas program, including a litany to Santa Claus, and with Jingle Bells for an offertory.
Why was he so bitter? It began when his children wanted to miss the Thanksgiving service to see Santa arrive at the Plaza in a space satellite. He was further depressed by the mixture of syrupy “White Christmas” music and syncopated carols blaring from the Plaza audio system. Then he had passed a bargain table crowded with plastic figurines: Santa Claus, Bambi, Flower, Rudolf, the Holy Family, and a few shepherds.
“What good will it do to put Christ back into Christmas?” he demanded. “That’s precisely the trouble. Christ is buried in Christmas. The nativity is only a Christmas fable, the least interesting one, since it is Santa who pays off. We need to get Christ out of Christmas. We need Christ to save us from our Christmas Christianity!”
The parking lot speakers boomed,
“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the Incarnate Deity …”
Perhaps somewhere in the crowd someone heard the words, Pastor!
MOODY ORIGINALS
We are gathering and organizing historical material on D. L. Moody, especially in view of the coming 75th anniversary of Moody Bible Institute in 1961. If any of your readers have original letters, photographs, clippings, or similar material concerning Moody or the early days of the Institute … we are especially interested in … information on Moody’s activities in the U. S. Christian Commission during the Civil War, and also in YMCA work during the Spanish-American War; photographs, admission tickets, etc., of Moody’s campaign in the tabernacle at Monroe and Franklin Streets, Chicago, in 1876, and an illustration of the huge Forepaugh circus tent at Madison Street and the lake front during the Chicago World’s Fair campaign of 1893; any definite information on voice recordings of Dr. R. A. Torrey and Dr. James M. Gray …
Moody Bible Institute
Chicago, Ill.
PROTESTANT PRECEDENT
The article on “What is Christian Separation” (Nov. 11 issue) argues that Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians did not justify them, and presumably does not justify us, in being “come-outers.”
If this is true without qualification, and the author does not add qualifications, then the Protestant Reformation was a mistake.
May we then expect the ecumenical movement to restore us to Rome?
Indianapolis, Ind.
Spurgeon and Morgan may have smoked but they did not smoke to the glory of God … Great men of God could become much greater if they were to separate themselves from the world … Conscience is not to be man’s guide, but conviction should be based on the word of God.
First Baptist Church
Berwick, La.
David Cowie’s article on Christian separation should be challenged by every Protestant. He argues that … “Paul nowhere urges the Christians of Corinth to be ‘come-outers.’” While I do not prize the expression ‘come-outer,’ I do prize the Reformation. Cowie’s argument would be an argument against leaving Rome, if pressed to its proper end.
A Christian should never leave a church until he has to. And when does he have to? When that church would compel him to sin … To tolerate and support the agents of Satan, in order to support the agents of Christ, is forbidden as doing evil that good may come.
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Garden Grove, Calif.
In 1910, at Nan Tungchow, China, I was a medical missionary, employed by the Foreign Christian Missionary Society, the missionary arm of Disciples of Christ. The mission employed a Chinese teacher for me, and he was an opium-smoker.
After I had admonished this teacher for several months to stop using opium, he told me he had quit. Experience with opium-smokers whom I had treated, to help them overcome the opium habit, caused me to fear this man was not telling the truth, which is the usual way out of a dilemma, for an opium addict.
So I asked this teacher how he quit so easily. His reply caused an investigation that resulted in my return to America, to invest my life. I was a graduate of two American medical colleges and did not know that tobacco is a narcotic!
Here is the reply of this Chinese to my question: “I did not find it so hard to stop using opium: I just began using your American tobacco.”
Delta, Ala.
CHRIST’S COMINGS
Biblical interpretation has missed one of the most significant truths in the New Testament. It is that of Christ’s reign, his comings, and his climactic coming.
Evidently Christ was already reigning when he announced: “All authority is given unto me in heaven, and in earth.” I like to render that announcement, “above history, and within history.” Christ, then, is already reigning unseen, above the changing episodes of history: and just as he disciplined Israel through the conquering power of Babylon, so he is disciplining the Christian world today, through the disturbing restless ambitions of a lying communism. But despite communism, Christ has all authority both above history and within history; and the release of the atom bomb was by his timing, and so also the other revolutionizing scientific inventions of our age. Christ has all authority; and he has released all these creative and threatening forces.
As such forces are released, the purpose of God within history necessarily makes advances. Jesus called these “comings”; and he said (Matt. 26:64) that his comings would be manifest in history continuously from that time forward. Our confusing English word “hereafter” has obscured his meaning, but the Greek is perfectly definite. He said (ap arti) “From now on ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” The parallel passage in Mark has no time clause, but in Luke it is equally vivid. He said (apo tou nun) “From the now shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God” (Luke 22:69).
Evidently Jesus is using the vivid imaginative apocalyptic language, and, “sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds,” refers to manifestations of his increasing influence within history. Jesus calls these manifestations, “comings,” and he specified one “coming” that was very near at hand. It would take place within the then living generation (Matt. 10:23; 24:30–34). Neither of these statements refer to the Saviour’s Climactic Coming, but to intermediate comings that mark off the progress of his Kingdom’s increase within history. His Climactic Coming will be the crown of all his comings, and it will be as objective as his Ascension. New Testament interpretation, however, is confused when the Saviour’s multiple comings are dropped out of emphasis, and his Climactic Coming is called his Second Coming, just as if these other “comings” were not equally real and equally essential to the unfolding of his purpose. It is interesting to study the successive crises of history from this point of view; and not since the Ascension has there been such a tremendous release of creative new forces into history as at the present time.
Browns Mills, N. J.
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Kenneth L. Miles
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“I’ve resigned my pastorate,” said a minister recently, “and have signed a contract to teach school this year so I can get something done for God.” This may seem an astonishing statement coming from a pastor, but I for one understand what he meant by it. As he later explained, he had become something of an office manager, a master of detail, an architect and a committee maneuverer; whereas originally, he had been trained and commissioned to give himself to the Word, to prayer, to soul-winning, to Bible teaching and to visiting the sick and the lost.
“Sure,” he admitted, “they let me preach on Sunday, but the real emphasis was usually on how I could organize, engineer, create publicity, and so forth.” By returning to high school to teach in the chemistry labs, he believed now that he would have more time actually to witness and win souls to Christ. Surely, this is a sad commentary on twentieth-century evangelical church life, but it is representative of the feeling of many earnest ministers today.
It is high time spirit-filled pastors took the position affirmed by the twelve disciples who, tom by increasing demands, said, “It is not fit that we should forsake the word of God and minister to tables.… But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word” (Acts 6). Others were appointed to attend to material matters. Did God vindicate and approve the stand taken by those disciples? The answer is found in verse 7: “And the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.…”
Shall we pursue the matter a bit further and ask ourselves candidly what has contributed this sad condition? Here are a few possible answers:
The pressures and material demands of twentieth-century living have brought mothers as well as fathers into full-time business. The result has been that fewer people are free to do church work. Hence, the minister must take over lay peoples’ duties or face serious losses in the work of the church.
A second possible answer is that churches have relied too heavily upon machinery, committees and organizational wheels, and not upon the efficacy of the Holy Spirit. This indicts clergy and laity alike.
By way of a third consideration, if the truth be frankly faced, it must be said that some of us preachers have lost our intense love for Jesus and for the simplicity of the gospel message. The result of this, of course, has been that we would rather manage an office, blueprint an educational unit or duplicate church bulletins than go from door to door compelling men and women to seek the Saviour. Were we to get back to our first love (Rev. 2:4), we would set aside everything for the Lord Jesus’ sake, and we would allow ourselves to be driven by the Spirit into the wilderness of sinners to claim them for the Kingdom.
Kenneth L. Miles is pastor of the Ballard Baptist Church of Seatde, Washington.
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