Page 6087 – Christianity Today (2024)

The hinge of history is turning. A door is opening slowly, and we have the opportunity of peering through to catch glimpses of things to come. To the optimist the future is bright with promise. He foresees incalculable advances in human knowledge, the possible conquest of disease, the end of poverty, the growth of leisure, and material well-being for all mankind. To him the future is a challenge. He stands on the threshold of the last third of the century head high with hope.

The pessimist, on the other hand, fears the threat of uncontrolled population increase. He sees streets littered with the corpses of starvation victims. And he watches in horror a secularized world without the knowledge of God, as he waits for the four horses of the Apocalypse to ride the plain of Esdraelon. Each viewer has his own vision, each will experience his moment of truth. One is excited by the prospects, the other depressed. But even the depressed, if he is a Christian, is encouraged by the thought that though the world is in chaos, it will soon be reordered by the second coming of the Son of Man into history.

In an effort to find out what Christian leaders in America are thinking as they look through this partially opened door, CHRISTIANITY TODAY asked a number of them this question: “Looking ahead to A.D. 2000, what do you think is in store for mankind?” Each was given a special area to speak about in line with his interests and special competence. Here are the responses.

Medical Science And Human Life

Aldous Huxley and H. G. Wells have proved to be the most accurate forecasters of how science affects our way of life. We can anticipate more of what they predicted. The next moral problem to be faced in the affluent societies is the right to die. If it is right for my parents to decide to have me born, why is it not right for me to decide to die? The argument will center first on patients known to have incurable disease, will be extended to include those suffering from senility, and ultimately will include those merely anticipating life as an invalid or in a senile state.—John R. Brobeck, professor of physiology, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

The Church And The Nation

Crime, protected by the atheistic Supreme Court and the lower courts with their criminal sympathies; abolition of the death penalty; riots and looting; destruction of the economy by uncontrolled labor unions and an extravagant government; sex; drug addiction; alcoholism; secularism; Communism; no powerful preacher of the Gospel—of course, some faithful preachers, e.g., Martyn Lloyd-Jones, but none who can shake nations as Luther, Calvin, and Knox did: and the result will be the overthrow of the United States by A.D. 2000 (as predicted by Oswald Spengler), the great apostasy, and the Antichrist in priestly robes sitting in the temple of God with a hammer and sickle in his hand.—Gordon H. Clark, professor of philosophy, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Mass Evangelism

Mass evangelism will play an increasingly vital role. Vocal opposition will probably increase, especially from groups who view evangelism essentially in terms of radical theology and social involvement. But there will also be increasing support from those who see that proclaiming the Gospel to a verdict is essential to biblical evangelism.

Campaigns will be more comprehensive and include witness not only by word but also by fellowship and service. Mass campaigns will more and more become catalysts rather than interludes. Preaching campaigns will be wedded to visitation and home Bible-study efforts.

As for social witness, Billy Graham’s integrated crusades have already been dramatic demonstrations of the Gospel’s relevance in the midst of racial tensions. Ways will be found to bear similar dramatic evangelical witness in the areas of war and poverty.

One great danger is that mass evangelism may be reduced to a technique to be refined. Some may claim that evangelistic effectiveness is due to superb organization, ignoring the spiritual dynamics, forgetting the sovereign power of God in calling evangelists, and forgetting also the power of prayer that has undergirded all great evangelistic movements.

Another danger is that mass evangelism could become extra-church—or anti-church.—Leighton Ford, evangelist, The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

American Education

The use of such aids as television, teaching machines, computers, and other devices not yet developed will doubtless increase markedly. This greater reliance upon technology will tend toward the dehumanization of education and its departure from its basic character as an art. Public education will reflect an even more secularized context than today. The common level of education will doubtless include college training for practically all youth of normal or even mediocre capacity. Yet rising costs will probably force a great expansion of government subsidy.

In line, however, with the present trend to independent education at all levels, an important increase in the number of independent schools and higher institutions may be expected. And here lies the greatest opportunity for Christian education, so long as it holds true to its convictions and maintains high standards.—Frank E. Gaebelein, headmaster emeritus, the Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York.

The Population Explosion

Take just one country—India. Unless the birth rate is drastically reduced, a population that has doubled since 1901 will double again—to one billion people—by 2000. In the next thirty years India’s exploding cities will have to absorb 140 million new immigrants. Throughout the non-Western world, where the Church is weakest and smallest, the multiplication of non-Christians will increase the fastest. By 2000 the world will have moved significantly toward total urbanization. Misery will have increased more than affluence, resentment more than understanding.

The Church will either repudiate its suburbanite captivity and define its priority as identifying with the suffering proletariat, or be swept aside as utterly irrelevant to the harsh realities of human existence. I am confident that the believing Church, under the Christ of the common man, will roll up its sleeves and get its hands dirty serving and witnessing in the hostility of a desperately pagan, one-city world. The Cross will be freely proclaimed, and gladly embraced for his sake.—Arthur Glasser, home director for the United States and Canada, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Missions And The Church

If present currents continue without a great moving of the Holy Spirit in revival among the established denominations, the year 2000 will see most of these churches near the end of any vital missionary ministry. Their institutional life and philanthropy will have been dwarfed or totally subsumed in the activities of governments.

The increasingly high cost of property will make the mission “church” obsolete and impossible. This may force a return to the New Testament pattern of “the church in thy house,” the cell group at worship.

By that time the day of “missions by money” will be almost as passé as the medieval missions by arms. The Pentecostal groups will be at the apex of their influence. In many of the Roman Catholic lands, evangelical work of Pentecostal type will be huge in scope.

Renewal could conceivably come to the old-line denominations. But this turn seems, at the moment, unlikely.—Cal Guy, professor of missions, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

War And Peace

The pressures of ever-increasing populations and of the expectations of the underprivileged peoples will place heavy strain on men’s ability and willingness to share the benefits of society so as to prevent famine, pestilence, and war. The development of new foods from such sources as the oceans and other scientific advances will no doubt increase the world’s productivity, but this will not be enough to assure peace.

These forces may erupt as issues in the struggle between Communism and democracy or in some now unpredictable way unrelated to the present world conflicts. Only if we can manage to restrain our population growth, only if we can help the underprivileged help themselves to achievement, only if we can learn the truth that all men are created by God and are therefore spiritual beings, only if we can experience a spiritual renaissance in which man sees his need for regeneration through Jesus Christ and not mere reformation through human agencies, can we justifiably hope that our plans for peace can be fulfilled.—Mark O. Hatfield, U. S. senator from Oregon.

Scientific Discoveries

Mankind is going to be affected by significant advances in three areas: (1) medicine, (2) communications, and (3) development of natural resources.

In medicine we will see a better understanding of the aging process; of the mind, memory, and consciousness; and of the relation between the physiological and psychological aspects of our nature. Man will arrest the aging process by discovering how life can be preserved indefinitely. Advances in the understanding of the mind will be made to the point where the very definitions of “memory” and “self-consciousness” will be examined.

Communications will advance to the point where great bodies of information stored in one location will be readily available to anyone. If extraterrestrial beings exist, communications will be established with them. Visual communication will be commonplace by the end of the century. It will replace the telephone to a great extent.

The expanding population is going to strain the world’s natural resources, and new products from oceanic exploration will be common. Control of the weather will make possible the utilization of areas of the earth’s surface that are unproductive.—Albert L. Hedrich, head of Communications Research Branch, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Negro

Black and white racists and extremists will find their cause hopeless as the federal government strongly enforces laws to prevent and control outbreaks of racial violence. The majority of Americans will welcome opportunities of working together, using peaceful methods to end segregation and discrimination. Much will depend, however, on whether the Christian Church will completely rid itself of all racism and preach and practice the love of God.

In Africa there will be industrial and economic progress. The apartheid policies of South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and Angola will face stiffer opposition from blacks and whites within the countries and from outside African nations. Africa will continue to present a tremendous spiritual challenge to the Christian Church and evangelical missions. The Communists will continue their efforts to win complete control, but the greatest deterrent to the Christian Church and mission will be the spread of Islam.—Howard O. Jones, evangelist, The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Intra-Protestant Ecumenism

I am sure in my own mind that the year 2000 will see problems facing the Church that we cannot even imagine at this time. It will show that the ecumenical movement is forever valid, but it will cast certain doubts on mergers as a solution to the problems that plague the Christian Church. The organization of the Christian life of any period is of some significance, no doubt, but it is never the essential thing. The Christian spirit within the hearts of men is the reality. The vital relevance of Jesus Christ to man’s predicament is the final experience. The temptation is to believe that some shifting of the organization will release new power from the Holy Spirit, but this is not true.—Gerald Kennedy, bishop, The Methodist Church, the Los Angeles Area.

The God-Is-Dead Movement

In the final third of the twentieth century, the God-is-dead movement may take one or more these directions: It may have its day as a theological fad and see its literature gathering dust on the shelves. It may vanish from the theological scene as a serious competitor for the attention of the Church, having created a good deal of mischief, but having served at least as a solvent to public indifference to spiritual matters, and having lifted into prominence some neglected facets of Christian doctrine. It may conceivably harden into a theology, quite possibly emphasizing some form of esoteric or agnostic Christology. Or it may develop into an atheistic form of religion, possibly resembling Buddhism in some ways and thereby capitalizing upon the attraction Buddhism has for some intellectuals.—Harold B. Kuhn, professor of the philosophy of religion, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

World Revolution And Communism

As we should know from First Corinthians 13:8–10 and as historians have long been aware, prophecies are notoriously fallible. To attempt a forecast for even the year 2000, now less than a generation away, is to risk disproof by the event. We Christians have been warned that at an hour that we know not the Son of Man comes. However, barring that consummation of the age, clearly the world revolution that is affecting all men and all phases of culture will still be mounting. It began at least six centuries ago with the Renaissance and has sprung from Western peoples, what we have been accustomed to call Christendom. It is accelerating and gives no indication of abating. Communism is a phase of that revolution. Although proliferating and giving no evidence of declining, it is not as unified as formerly. Presumably it will become increasingly diverse and less and less centralized either under Moscow or Peking.—Kenneth Scott Latourette, Sterling Professor of Missions and Oriental History, emeritus, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

The Arts

For the modern literary artist, the central question is whether there is relevance between the interior and the exterior world. On one’s belief in this regard hang such questions as whether or not reason is “rational,” or whether meaning has any meaning, or whether subjective awareness relates to objective reality (if any). If the answers are all negative, as for many writers they are, we must plan to live with the anti-novel, the anti-poem, the theater of the absurd, and the universe of the absurd. Nothing may be communicated, for chaos cannot communicate with chaos. Life is a “happening,” without intent, without consequence, and without significance. This is difficult to write “about.” Unless political totalitarianism or social conformism dictates a message and a form, I see little reason to believe that the traditional grounds of literature will re-emerge in the predictable future.—Calvin D. Linton, professor of English literature and dean of arts and sciences, The George Washington University, Washington, D. C.

Situational Ethics

The vaunted “situational ethics” being championed in our age would assign to the present moment and the passing whim greater authority for the individual than the cumulative wisdom of the ages and the authority of Eternal God. It makes the gratification of primal desires more to be sought after than nobility of character. It is man’s arrogant revolt against ethical standards and moral absolutes. Indeed, it bows to no absolutes save personal will and cynical self-interest.

Such a rootless philosophy of life produces anarchic opportunism in personal relationships and threatens our most cherished institutions. It prostitutes liberty into libertinism and hides blatant self-indulgence under the mask of freedom. In short, the exponents of “situational ethics” would deify “situations” which compromise human dignity, and offer the spurious coin of moral individualism for the pure gold of Christian character—the new man on the street, as it were, for the glorious “new man in Christ.” Certainly the domination of a “situational ethics” point of view would be a dire threat to the survival of democracy and to the values that form the warp and woof of the home and all other cherished institutions.—Thomas B. McDormand, president, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Problem Of Leisure

The September, 1966, issue of the sophisticated French magazine Réaltiés informs us that “with a leisure civilization just round the corner a very prominent Parisian social columnist believes that people “will simply be suffocated by uniformity and boredom.” Precisely: for the natural man, increasing leisure will reinforce the “vexation of spirit” that the writer of Ecclesiastes felt as he realized that “there is no new thing under the sun.” Protestant Christianity must respond to this challenge with a theology of leisure as profound as Huizinga’s secular hom*o Ludens. How? By leaving behind Mencken’s definition of Puritanism (“the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy”) and proceeding to the true biblical stress on the enjoyment of God’s creation (Ps. 19), the beauty of childlike play (Matt. 11:16–19), the divine quality of laughter (Voeltzel, Le Rire du Seigneur), and the great gulf between temporary happiness and that true joy which comes only in the light of eternity (C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy).—John Warwick Montgomery, chairman, Division of Church History and History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

The Nuclear Threat

Until the middle of this century, man exclusively dependent on chemical energy (with the minor exception of hydroelectric power) derived from the burning of fossilized fuels, such as coal, oil, and gas with the oxygen of the atmosphere. This form of energy is exceedingly rare, even esoteric, in creation as a whole. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, is extremely common and universally present throughout all creation. Most discussions of nuclear energy today seem to miss completely this natural character of it, and tend to concentrate on its destructive aspects. Hydrogen, lithium, thorium, and uranium are natural, pre-existent fuels just as much as coal and oil are, if not more so. Man can use them either for a blessing or for a curse.

The true role of nuclear energy thus becomes abundantly clear. In the twenty-first century two elements will play an essential role—energy and water. To support more than seven billion people will require an immense consumption of energy. It will also require vast quantities of fresh water, mainly for irrigation. The requirements for both energy and water will be able to be met only with nuclear energy.

Nuclear power and sea-water desalting plants will be common everywhere. Nuclear fuels are bound to be as common as coal is now. In such a world, any country will be able to fabricate these plentiful fuels into nuclear weapons at any time it wishes to. The specter of fast destruction in a nuclear holocaust can only grow more acute as time goes on.—William G. Pollard, executive director, Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Psychology, Psychiatry, Mind Control

Rapid assessment and diagnosis and the prescribing of a complete therapeutic program for each patient will be the domain of the computers. New developments in biochemistry and neurophysiology will result in a precise physiology of the mind giving vast control over thinking and feeling processes. New drugs will have an immediate effect on how one thinks and feels, e.g., in increasing one’s memories so that he can recall all he has read or experienced since birth, or blotting out that memory completely. These drugs will arouse or repress anger, affection, sexual desire, and other feelings within moments.

Prevention of mental illness will be brought about by direct manipulation of the genetic apparatus before a child is born and also by application of new findings in ego-psychology and in the theory and practice of shaping behavior of the young. “Programmed teaching,” “rapid reinforcement,” and other methods will be applied via the computer and improved means of mass communications. The immense constructive and destructive potential of these developments is self-evident. But because human nature will remain basically unchanged, men will need more than ever clear-cut moral and spiritual guidelines.—Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., psychiatrist, Health Services, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Trends In Theology

I predict that within the next decade or two, evangelical biblical scholars and Roman Catholic biblical scholars are going to discover each other and actually form societies for mutual exchange of ideas. In biblical scholarship these are the only two groups that take a high view of the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Therefore they will eventually find their mutual conversation more encouraging than trying to keep up a conversation with a body of Protestant scholarship that has in principle and in fact denied any real binding of Holy Scripture upon their religious thought.—Bernard Ramm, professor of systematic theology, California Baptist Theological Seminary, West Covina, California.

The Movement To The Secular

The last third of the twentieth century will, I believe, present a radical change in regard to secularization of our society. In the recent past, there have been a great many people in the life of the West who are secularists at heart but have been ashamed to admit their true position. The solution for these has been mild religion. They have been afraid to oppose the love and worship of God, even though they have been convinced that the very idea of God is obsolete. Mild religion has seemed to be an innocuous middle ground: one ostensibly is not against the historic Christian faith but also avoids any clear or definite commitment to Christ.

Because this situation is rapidly changing, I expect committed Christians to be, by the end of the century, a conscious minority, surrounded by a militant and arrogant paganism, which is the logical development of our secularist trend.—D. Elton Trueblood, professor at large, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.

Educational Communication Association (P.O. Box 114, Indianapolis) reports almost 150 advance requests for the filmed series “God and Man in the Twentieth Century,” now being released for church and institutional use. At month-end television showings will begin in many parts of the nation.

Under CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S religious news fellowship with the Washington Journalism Center, two men will be staff interns during the semester beginning February 1: William Freeland of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, who holds the M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and James L. Adams, a reporter on the Cincinnati Post and Times-Star, who holds the B.A. from Ohio State University. Mr. Freeland will be assigned to our daily news operation, and Mr. Adams will specialize in investigative projects. In addition, T. E. Koshy of Bombay, India, who also is interested in religious journalism, will consult our staff during his research work. Mr. Koshy, who holds B.A. and LL.B. degrees from Bombay University, is an M.A. candidate in religious journalism at Syracuse University.

Edward H. Pitts, first holder of the CHRISTIANITY TODAY fellowship, completes his assignments this month and then assumes the editorship of two journals in the Advent Christian Church. We have also appreciated our liaison this past semester with another Center scholar, O. Wilson Okite, who plans to be a journalist in his homeland of Kenya.

Applications for the Fall, 1967, semester award of $2,000 are being received from now through April 15 (Religious Journalism Fellowship, 1014 Washington Building, Washington, D. C. 20005).

The death not long ago of Emil Brunner and of Paul Althaus brought to mind the active parts these two theologians had played in the discussions about the revelation of God in the world around us. The long shadow of Karl Barth, who is now eighty years old, stretches out over those same discussions. For it was Barth who rose in protest against Althaus’s view that divine revelation came from creation as well as in Jesus Christ. It was Barth also who spoke his famous Nein back in 1934 against Emil Brunner’s theology of general revelation. As we recall this storm that so stirred the theological sea thirty years and more ago, and realize that two of the participants are now gone and the other is in the glory of his four score years, we would be wrong if we thought that the subject was not as relevant today as then.

The argument about general revelation is still carried on in a heat measured by its importance. Though Barth accepts the existence of a side stream alongside the mainstream of revelation (the side stream being the light that falls on creation from Christ), he is still critical of Article II of the Belgic Confession, which speaks of a knowledge of God that comes from the creation, providence, and government of the world. Barth sees here a shadow of natural theology like that which got a much clearer formulation by the first Vatican Council. God, said the council, can be clearly known through the natural light of reason from the things that are created.

Brunner, at the appearance of Volume IV/3/2 of Barth’s dogmatics, talked about the “new Barth.” For it seemed then as though Barth had swung around a bit in Brunner’s direction—or at least Brunner thought so. Barth did indeed speak in this volume about the true words and true light that existed outside the Church. He did not talk about an extra-biblical revelation, to be sure, but did stress that parables of the kingdom were manifest in the world and that the Church had to take them seriously: one may unexpectedly hear the word of the Good Shepherd in them.

This did not mean that Barth was restoring natural theology to a place of honor. It did mean that he had not forgotten Calvin’s word about the world as a theater of God’s glory. There is a certain “holiness” about the created world, in spite of the darkness of our sin-blinded eyes. Creation and redemption are not enemies. All truths and every light in the world are set there by God. But, splendid as they may be, they cannot take the edge off this truth—that Jesus Christ is the Revelation of God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Barth was occupied with the same problem which kept Abraham Kuyper busy for so long, and from which came Kuyper’s monumental work on Common Grace. Here, he acknowledged that the Church was often disappointing and the world often looked good. Kuyper explained this by means of the goodness and power of the Holy Spirit, not the native goodness of men. The mercy of God was demonstrated, for Kuyper, in the positive virtues of the world. Kuyper resisted pietistic tendencies to avoid the world; he pointed to the world as the way in which men could walk, not in spite of, but because of, Christ.

Since Bonhoeffer, there has been a great deal of talk, not about the glory of God manifest in the theater of the world, but about the weakness of God. That is, the form of the Cross is the form divine revelation takes in the world today. One thinks of the Japanese theologian Kitamori and his work on The Theology of the Pain of God, recently translated into English after seeing several Japanese editions since its publication in 1945. This book, written out of the horror of the war, has impressed Westerners deeply. The cover shows the ruins of Hiroshima. Kitamori talks about the love of God as suffering love, in connection with John 3:16. “Without apprehension of this tragic love of God, all talk of the Word made flesh is empty formalism.” This is a far cry from a fairly simple assertion that the earth sings an anthem to the power and glory of God, an anthem all who have an ear for beauty can hear. We do not find much of Calvin’s “theater of the glory of God” in Kitamori.

We are reminded how strongly the modern feeling for life is tinged with the tragic and how this penetrates theology. Barth would probably not feel at home with Kitamori’s book. It warns us against cheap and simplistic notions of natural theology and the glory of God shining through creation and history. Paul talked about God’s eternal power and divinity manifest in creation (Romans 1), but he also talked about what men have done with it, how they have held the truth down in unrighteousness.

Now, we must also say that one may not talk as though the notion of general revelation is the same thing as a simple natural theology. Paul speaks in Acts 14 of the fact that God has not left us “without some clue to his nature, in the kindness he shows” (Acts 14:17, NEB). This is one of the amazing words of Scripture. The God whom Paul preached (and whom men did not recognize—Acts 17:23) is in love with life, human life, and is always busy making it better and happier. He “sends you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons, and gives you food and good cheer in plenty” (Acts 14:17). He gives men their places to live, so that they might “seek God, and, it might be, touch and find him” (Acts 17:27).

The distinction between special revelation and general revelation is much more than a theological nicety. True, theologians have played with the distinction as though it were an amusing abstraction. But it comes up again and again whenever men come firmly to grips with the terrible question of the presence of God and his revelation in the world. Behind this distinction lies the mystery of the ways of God with men, a mystery that cannot and does not depreciate the fact that Jesus is the Revelation of God. But it is a mystery that forces us to face up to the reality of God’s presence in the world of men and things, and face up to it in a way that honors the true revelation of God in Christ and is in turn illumined by it.

We do not have the natural discernment to recognize the power and the glory, the love and the mercy, in any clear and unambiguous way. How could we clearly distinguish the power and the love of God in all that happens? Sometimes it seems as though they contradict each other—in fact, as though the love and the power of God cancel each other out. Paul speaks of the God of Revelation in all the aspects of his word but admits that we see through a glass darkly.

Yet the riddles that remain for our minds are not tragic in the end. The wonderful part of the Gospel according to Paul is that these riddles do not silence the song of redemption. The song sounds through them. If we can accept this mystery, we will be careful in our talk about God, careful in our language about his revelation—be it the universal or the very special Revelation of God in Christ.

A church-sponsored drive to send abroad more American dollars opens this week in Washington. The United Church of Christ will spearhead the effort to tap existing missionary resources in a battle against world poverty.

“The gravest issue facing the world today is the widening gap between the rich and the poor nations,” says the Rev. L. Maynard Catchings, head of a new “office for international development” financed by the UCC’s Council of Christian Social Action. “This gap is especially intolerable to Christians whose faith compels a special concern for the poor. This gap is also intolerable because technology has made possible a world in which poverty can be eliminated.”

Catchings is setting up shop in Washington with a meager $30,000-a-year budget provided by the UCC. He has ambiguous ties with an “international development committee” formed in September with representatives of six other denominations: the American Baptist Convention, Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), Church of the Brethren, Protestant Episcopal Church, The Methodist Church, and United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Five of the seven communions are full-fledged members of the Consultation on Church Union; the Baptists and Brethren last year rejected anything more than observer status in COCU.

The program is the brainchild of Dr. Ray Gibbons, who feels that the Gospel commands the churches “to seek human welfare and world peace.” Gibbons, 63, has been promoting this view for years in the National Council of Churches, but the NCC has not mustered enough enthusiasm or resources to assign a full-time Washington specialist on international aid. The NCC will, however, provide office space for Catchings in the building it rents across the street from the U. S. Capitol.

Gibbons said the purpose of the new enterprise is (1) to educate church bodies about the problems of world trade, food and agriculture, population, community development, and foreign aid; (2) to interpret international development issues to churches; and (3) to engage churches in international development projects in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

“Revolution is inevitable,” Gibbons declared, “but we can help to make revolution peaceful and creative. Americans are in the unusual position of having their own cake of affluence and being able to share that affluence with the less developed nations. Indeed, if we Americans do not share our technology and productivity wisely and speedily, we may lose them in wasteful wars.”

Gibbons contends that world-wide ecumenical relations of the churches, missionary programs, and relief work provide the churches with resources and communications that can be enlisted in an effective campaign against world poverty. Catchings adds that “the determination of Christians to assist the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America represents a new partnership of the historic social action forces and the world mission forces.”

Protestant Panorama

Between 20,000 and 30,000 Protestants demonstrated in Santiago, Chile, in favor of the church-state separation ordered by the 1925 constitution and against new policies for teaching Roman Catholicism in public schools.

This week a new congregation is forming in Macon, Georgia—dissidents who left Tatnall Square Baptist Church after its pastors were ousted for favoring racially integrated worship.

The Ukrainian-background Mennonite Brethren Church formed a world conference at its recent North American meeting (about one-fourth of the 85,000 members will be in the Soviet Union) but decided not to pursue merger talks with other Mennonite bodies. The denomination merged its welfare and missions boards because “proclamation and welfare ought to be integrated.” Though they warned that political involvement is not the Christian’s primary calling, delegates urged more involvement, particularly in local government.

Church of the Nazarene officials plan civil-court action this month, if necessary, to regain control of a Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, church. The church’s pastor, Earl Huston, Jr., was excommunicated recently for dissociating the congregation from the Nazarenes and for speaking in tongues, which is against the practice (though not the official doctrinal stand) of the denomination.

Miscellany

Father Gommar DePauw, leader of the Roman Catholic traditionalist movement, said the Vatican’s decision that he is still under the control of Baltimore’s Cardinal Shehan is “juridically improper, illegal, and morally unjust.”

A joint mass in the Netherlands recently symbolized unity moves between its Roman Catholics and the 10,000 Jansenist Old Catholics, whose split dates to a 1723 excommunication and led to splits from Rome in several other nations. In unofficial negotiations, Rome has dropped the historic requirement that Old Catholics reject certain Reformation-oriented documents. The Old Catholics have intercommunion with Anglicans and a growing link to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Methodists and Roman Catholics held their second official ecumenical encounter in Chicago the week before Christmas and talked about the nature of faith. In their third meeting, June 28–30, they will discuss the Holy Spirit. Bishop F. Gerald Ensley of Ohio heads the Methodist team; the Catholic leader is Mississippi Monsignor Joseph Brunini.

A survey in advance of the first consultation on theological education in Northeast Asia shows that there are sixty-two seminaries in Japan but that only six offer graduate-level courses, and thirty-seven have fewer than ten students.

Bishops of the Anglican Church of Ireland said in a pastoral letter that Roman Catholic changes on mixed-marriage regulations are only superficial.

Among members of the new West German Cabinet is Justice Minister Gustav Heinemann, former president of the council of the Evangelical Church (EKID). In line to succeed Vice Chancellor Willy Brandt as mayor of West Berlin is a former Protestant pastor, Heinrich Albertz.

While ethnic tensions continue on Cyprus, unofficial talks toward religious understanding have begun among Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Armenians, Maronites, and the Greek Orthodox, who are led by the island’s president, Archbishop Makarios.

Australia’s new Anglican primate, Philip Strong, formally asked Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists to admit the Anglicans to union talks already in progress. His move followed action by an autumn synod meeting. Observers think, however, that the other three groups may press their own merger and invite the Anglicans in later, Ecumenical Press Service reports.

The Anglican diocese of Accra, Ghana, has decided members may receive communion from any of the six other denominations participating in talks toward a merged national church. A similar merger involving four denominations is under discussion in Malawi.

Poland’s Roman Catholic Church reports that the government plans to close six seminaries because they refused to remove their rectors and admit government inspectors. It could be the worst church-state confrontation in Poland since 1956, when an accord was reached between the church and the Communist government.

Bishop Zoltan Kaldy, 45, of the Hungarian Lutheran Church (430,000 members) said a new code adopted at the recent synod meeting—first since the Communist take-over—“reflects the fact that the church has found its place and field of service in the country’s new social order.” He said church and state can at least work together for peace.

This month, Pennsylvania’s education department will try out its new elective high school course in religious literature in the city of State College, in cooperation with Pennsylvania State University. Readings from the Bible and other religious books will be put in historical, philosophical, and literary context. Teacher training for the special course is planned this summer.

Personalia

Senior Bishop Reuben H. Mueller of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, immediate past president of the National Council of Churches, will receive the prestigious Upper Room Citation, given annually to a world Christian leader by the Methodist-sponsored devotional magazine.

A new library building at North Ĉarolina’s Montreat-Anderson College, a Southern Presbyterian school connected with the denominational conference center, will be named for Dr. L. Nelson Bell, executive editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Dr. Bell resides on the conference grounds just east of Asheville.

E. P. Y. Simpson, church history professor who submitted his resignation during current trouble at Berkeley Baptist Divinity School (Dec. 23, 1966, issue, page 35) will return to his native New Zealand this year to teach history at Massey University.

An unscientific survey by Youth (published for teens by the United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church, Anglican Church of Canada, and Church of the Brethren) showed the best-liked personalities as Martin Luther King, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Billy Graham, U Thant, and Lyndon Johnson. But Johnson ranked even higher on the “disliked” list, along with such persons as Charles de Gaulle, George Wallace, Cassius Clay, Mao Tse-tung, and Elizabeth Taylor.

Mirroring the confusion on strategy in the civil-rights movement, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., plans to take two months off from activism to visit the Bahamas and write a book, tentatively titled “Where Do We Go From Here?”

On February 1, Southern Baptist clergyman Bill D. Moyers, 32, leaves his post as President Johnson’s press secretary and general right-hand man to become publisher of Newsday, a Long Island, New York, newspaper.

National Presbyterian Center Director Lowell Ditzen was married to Mrs. Eleanor Davies Tydings, mother of U.S. Senator Joseph Tydings and widow of the late Senator Millard Tydings.

The prospects are dim for construction of new churches during 1967. Church-builders, like home-builders, are caught in the squeeze between inflation in construction costs and the “tight money” market with its scarce loans and high interest rates.

The director of the National Council of Churches building commission, S. Turner Ritenour, says “almost every denomination” finds tight money has slowed its church construction program, although he and other spokesmen think other, non-economic forces such as denominational strategy or lay interest may be factors as well.

Figures now being compiled in denominational offices are almost certain to show a significant drop-off in church building during 1966. Some churches are putting building plans on ice, and fewer loan requests are coming to denominational headquarters. But other officials find “tight money” has sent churches rushing to national funds for help they would normally seek from local banks.

B. P. Murphy of The Methodist Church says that the increase in requests is “tremendous” but that virtually none of the Methodists’ $30 million revolving fund is available. And Richard Kent of the Episcopalians’ American Church Building Fund says, “We are just about at the bottom of the barrel.” He expects all his loan money (a mere $1.7 million, although the Episcopal Church Foundation makes some non-interest loans through bishops) will be “tied up until the middle of 1967.” The Southern Baptists’ Robert Kilgore says he has “little leeway” for loans.

Dale Lechleitner, home missions chief of The American Lutheran Church, reported three weeks ago that tight money has cut sharply the denomination’s program of building new churches. In 1965, sixty-five missions were established, but there were only thirty-eight in 1966. He fears the number will drop below twenty this year.

At least two major denominations, however, are sitting pretty during the current economic doldrums. Astute United Presbyterians floated a $20 million loan a year ago from New York Life Insurance Company at 51/8 per cent interest. If the 1966 loan-request rate holds up, this will tide the Presbyterians over the next two years, says D. Allan Locke, treasurer of the Board of National Missions.

The United Church of Christ is not hit by the current crisis because it needs no bank or insurance-company loans to buttress its $16 million revolving fund. John Morse, church building and finance chairman, says confidently, “We’ll get by all right,” although even with this handsome loan fund, the UCC has had its “share of troubles.”

For one thing, a large number of projects are costing from 20 to 50 per cent more than architects’ estimates a year ago. And a number of banks are reneging on tentative commitments to back congregational plans.

The jitters in the U. S. economy do not affect just big denominations. Even the 48,000-member Wesleyan Methodist Church—which regularly is at the top of the NCC’s listing of per capita giving in U.S. denominations—is feeling the squeeze. Church extension executive C. Wesley Lovin says many churches are delaying building plans because of high costs or lack of available money. At the same time, requests to the national loan fund, which totals $1.1 million, rose one-fourth during 1966. But the fund is geared to handle only the usual flow of business—two or three loans a month—and overflow appeals had to be turned down. Lovin expects 1967 will be worse.

This week, the Wesleyans hiked their interest charge on loans to 6½ per cent, reflecting the higher rates the denomination must pay its own creditors—those who invest in the church fund. The Methodist Church’s rate of 6 per cent is also rather high, reflecting the 5½ per cent interest it must pay to attract investors in today’s market. The Methodists hope they won’t have to borrow from banks, Murphy said.

The Southern Baptist Convention, which has about $20 million on loan to 1,000 congregations, shows the problem of denominations that must depend on bank or insurance loans. The home mission board last month removed the 6 per cent ceiling on what it charges churches for loans, and interest rates may now go as high as 7 per cent.

There is a considerable range in interest charged by denominations, based on such factors as need, strategic location, size, length of loan repayments, and whether the money is for a new congregation or an addition to a building. The United Church charges 4 per cent, with three-fifths of its loans going to new churches. United Presbyterians charge between 2 and 5½ per cent. The Episcopal range is 4½ to 5¼ per cent.

Even the higher church charges, however, are appealing in the current money market. Kent says some Episcopal parishes recently have paid 7 per cent or more to banks. Murphy says that some Methodist churches have been asked as much as 10 per cent in the South and that 7 to 8 per cent is “pretty much of a going rate on the West Coast.” And Morse says a UCC congregation in California is seriously considering a loan at 10 per cent.

Expo 67: Dual Approach

Between April and October of next year, some 12 million people are expected to converge on Montreal for the 600-million-dollar Canadian world’s fair known as “Expo ’67.” The Expo is located on two islands (one man-made) in the middle of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Two pavilions have been built to give a Christian witness. Eight religious groups (Roman Catholic, United Church, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, and Ukrainian Orthodox) have cooperated in building the Christian Pavilion, and the project has been called Canada’s greatest ecumenical achievement. The Sermons from Science Pavilion (Moody), initiated by leading Canadian laymen, has been termed a display of “tragic disunity.” An editorial of the United Church Observer appealed to United Church congregations not to support this “rival pavilion.”

The Christian Pavilion will use photography, light, and sound to convey its message. A news release claims that “it is more likely that the visitor will have more questions upon leaving the Pavilion than when he entered”; “but hopefully,” the release adds, “he will also begin to realize that it is only ‘with Christ, and in Christ, and by Christ’ that life has any purpose.” Sermons from Science will confront visitors directly with the claims of Christ. Inquirers will hear evangelist Leighton Ford on a brief film prior to counseling.

J. BERKLEY REYNOLDS

British Editorial Representative J. D. Douglas spent a week in Cuba during December getting a first-hand look at how churches fare under Castro. Here is his report:

Cuba marks the eighth anniversary of Fidel Castro’s revolution this week. So far is the regime from crumbling that to be anyone else’s man in Havana is to live dangerously indeed. Yet evidences of disillusion are there, too.

In the capital of the Communist island republic, the shops are brightly lit; but of the more essential goods, only sugar is on free sale. The showiest hotel in town cannot provide a cup of coffee some evenings. Strident music to encourage the workers blares from main-street loudspeakers. On December 7, however, it was replaced by quieter selections as Cuba remembered her national heroes, and all places of business and entertainment were closed.

Signs of the revolution are everywhere, from the placarded words of party sages to the gun-toting guards—some of them mere slips of girls—posted outside offices, apartment blocks, and public buildings and at strategic highway points. A Red Chinese exhibition seeks to attract the crowds. Tasteful art displays in the enormous foyer of the Havana Libre (nee Hilton) Hotel draw admiring throngs nightly.

The disillusion is reflected in the estimated 750,000 who have applied to leave the country despite certain forfeiture of nearly all their possessions. Long lines appear every day outside the immigration office.

More sinister signs of the revolution are seen in the regime’s attitude toward the Church. The harassment continues more subtly than in 1965, when fifty-three Baptists were arrested simultaneously. Thirty-four of them were brought to trial and sentenced for a variety of offenses, from espionage to “twisting biblical texts for the purpose of ideological diversionism.” To go about with Bible in hand is still an offense. Informers have infiltrated the churches—a fact not only admitted but boasted about by Dr. Falipe Carneado, director of the government’s department of religious matters. Churches cannot build. Theological students are whisked away to military service or to work camps. Unbelievers have been known to attend a church service, stand up at a given moment and sing the national anthem, then accuse those who do not join in of disrespect.

A common device is the street plan. Both ends of a street where a church is located are roped off; then, an hour before service time the street is designated a recreation area. Youths play ball or ride up and down on bicycles so that churchgoers are jostled and buffeted.

A few pastors have become firm Fidelistas trusted by the regime, and their sermons and other utterances are considered to be political propaganda rather than Christian messages. Visiting churchmen are usually taken in hand by such ministers, who give the visitors such a misleading impression that they go home honestly convinced there is no persecution of Christians in Cuba.

In the Americas access to Cuba is possible only from Mexico City. There, before flying out by Cubana, the traveler is photographed (“for the CIA files,” murmured a sardonic bystander), and as a symbol of Mexico’s disapproval a huge stamp is slammed on his passport: “Salió a Cuba.” This piece of democracy in reverse will make the holder persona non grata in any other Latin America country and stands in ironic contrast to Cuba’s deliberate failure to stamp one’s passport at all.

But behind the courtesy with which the tourist is met on arrival in Havana, the trappings of Communism are soon felt. The first is a compulsory change of all his money. For this purpose the peso is regarded as on a par with the U. S. dollar (the black-market rate is five to one). This rate operates also when the tourist leaves Cuba.

All in all, the picture is dark. One Cuban expressed it this way: “Our experiences are very sour. We breathe an atmosphere of insolence, tyranny, blasphemy, hypocrisy, lies, betrayal, and indignity. Our palm trees are so sad that they seem to be weeping, and our rivers are dry one moment and flooding at the other. This island is a huge prison with international jailers. We have returned to the time of the Vandals. The only thing we can do is raise our eyes to our blue skies, to the shining sun, to the twinkling stars, and to our God.”

At Havana Airport the departing traveler, to reach his plane, passes a big Pan American Airways section sign, its light lit, the counter beneath it swept and garnished. It is evidently a symbol open to different interpretations.

Cuban Church Conclave

Ecumenical Press Service of Geneva, the information arm of the World Council of Churches, reports that the Cuban Council of Evangelical Churches held its twenty-eighth General Assembly November 8–10. On hand were representatives of the twelve member denominations plus a few special guests. Addresses were given on the role of the laity by Mr. C. I. Itty, associate secretary of the WCC Department on the Laity, and on the witness of Christians in a socialist society by Professor Milan Opocensky of the Comenius theological faculty in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The Very Rev. Jose A. Gonzalez, dean of an Episcopal cathedral, was elected president of the council. Dr. Adolfo Ham was reelected to a two-year term as executive secretary.

EPS also reported that the governing board of the Cuban Council of Churches approved the opening of a study center with the Rev. Rafael Cepeda, a Presbyterian, as director. The center is to coordinate council research.

The Confined Baptists

Herbert Caudill, 63, Southern Baptist missionary released a few weeks ago from a Cuban prison, is in good spirits and enjoys good health except for an eye ailment. The malady had grown progressively worse, and Cuban authorities gave him liberty under certain restrictions so that he could obtain regular medical attention.

Though still under virtual house arrest, Caudill is permitted to have a few visitors. He is not allowed to preach or to give lectures at Havana Baptist Seminary, where he and his wife have an apartment.

Caudill’s son-in-law, David Fite, 33, is still in prison. The Swiss ambassador, guardian of American interests in Cuba, has been able to see Fite twice in nineteen months, and his family are allowed a monthly visit. Other foreign visitors would reportedly encounter “difficulties.” About thirty-five other Baptist pastors who are Cubans remain in prison also.

Soup With A Fork?

Due for publication early this year in Holland is a book of at least 200 pages on the authority of the Bible. It has the unanimous approval of the Synod of the Netherlands Reformed Church and is designed to be an aid to Bible reading and study. It marks the first time since the last world war that an old, established European church has come out strongly for the Bible as God’s Word.

The book says harsh things about the liberal biblical criticism of the nineteenth century and espouses in contrast a high esteem for the inherent authority of Scripture. But it bears down equally hard on the rationalism of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century orthodoxy. C. Frederikse, who wrote an original draft, claims that orthodoxy changed the great discovery of the Reformation. The book, revised by the synod prior to final approval, contends that Luther “again experienced the Bible as the book of the speaking God. In the days of the Reformation believers confessed their faith; later they believed their confessions.”

The title of the book translates as “Clear Wine.” It is taken from a Dutch expression that in this case suggests the idea of “honest to the Bible.”

The book’s flat assertion that the Bible is the Word of God takes issue with the well-known maxim of theologian Karl Barth that God’s Word is in the Bible. This is a significant development, for the national church of Holland was greatly influenced by Barth’s theology of neo-orthodoxy in the mid-thirties.

Bible criticism is not viewed as an unlawful form of Bible study, but serious dangers are acknowledged. The book claims there is “no reason to oppose the study of the Bible as a historic work or a literary document.” But Bible criticism is condemned where it mistakes personal views for scientific facts: “Often the Bible critics gave the impression they were eating soup with a fork.”

The book sees no hope in the prevalent word “existential.” It says, “This word may be a sign of good intentions, but there is the danger that the meeting in faith of Christ be diluted into some vague inner and religious experience.”

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Evangelical Editors Ex Animo

Magazine editors who want to belong to the Evangelical Press Association this year are required for the first time to sign a seven-point doctrinal statement with “ex animo acceptance,” that is, without mental reservations.

The statement is part of the association’s original charter, and EPA’s first president J. DeForest Murch recalls that the first members subscribed to it. But in the intervening years, as membership has tripled to more than 150 journals, the statement has been ignored.

The man who took it off the shelf was amiable Paul Fromer, editor of Inter-Varsity’s urbane campus monthly His, who is in line to be EPA’s next president. Young Fromer got EPA’s six-member board to require not only that new members sign, but also that old members sign it over again every year as a reminder of EPA standards.

Eternity’s Russell Hitt thinks the idea smacks of defensiveness. He doesn’t care if EPA “wants to check on my orthodoxy” but thinks the board was presumptuous in making the new requirement without discussing it at the annual convention.

M. A. Henderson of the Gideon scrawled “Amen!” below his signature, but half a dozen editors failed to return the signed statement, perhaps by mistake. (Fromer says they’ll have to sign to retain membership.) Fred Pearson of the Christian Medical Society Journal signed but made his own additions and corrections. He thinks the church, not EPA, should set doctrinal standards.

Murch said the statement was a word-for-word transcription of the doctrinal position of the National Association of Evangelicals. But a comparison with that document shows that somewhere along the line, the assertion of belief in Christ’s miracles and “vicarious and atoning death” has disappeared. “Completely inadvertent,” says current EPA President George Failing of The Wesleyan Methodist.

Other omissions shared by NAE and EPA are justification by faith alone, the sinfulness of all men, and God as the creator of the universe and of man. Pearson thinks modifiers are “mysterious” in the first point, on Scripture: “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.”

Two Times At Once

After years without an interdenominational newsweekly, American Protestants now have two. Both come not from the big denominations or the National Council of Churches orbit but from evangelical independents.

The Sunday Times, which bowed December 3, is a successor to the venerable Sunday School Times. Its news is wrapped around the retained International Uniform Sunday School Lesson.

This week, the second one premieres—the Christian Times. Called a “Sunday School Paper for Adults,” it is a spinoff from Tyndale House of Wheaton, Illinois, publisher of Living Letters and other vernacular Bible translations and of the monthly Christian Reader.

Although the Christian Times uses a newsy front page to attract readers, little more than two of its eight, 8½-by-11-inch, slick pages are devoted to news. The rest goes to columns, interviews, sermonettes, and other relatively timeless features, plus one page apiece on daily devotions and Bible study. But the paper’s two-week gap from printer to consumer contrasts with the months-ahead timetable of its competitors.

Editor of the Christian Times, which has an initial print order of 28,000, is Don Crawford, 37, a University of Missouri journalism graduate who came to Tyndale from David C. Cook, a giant Sunday school house. The paper will be sold and mailed in bulk to individual churches. The first issue features a review of 1966 religious news and a timely column by Republican Congressman John B. Anderson of Illinois.

The Sunday Times is making an adventurous start toward something new in church journalism. With four times as much space as the other new weekly under its expanded tabloid size, it uses about five of its sixteen pulp pages for news and current features.

Editor of the Philadelphia-based newspaper is James Reapsome, 38, who is ordained by an independent congregation and was a reporter on two different dailies while working his way through college and seminary. He also served a stint as public relations director of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

Reapsome says the new format has doubled production costs, and Massachusetts industrialist John Bolten, Sr., who owns the paper, says 20,000 new subscribers are needed to “break even.” The paper’s current paid subscriptions total about 45,000. Bolten is well known as a generous benefactor of Christian organizations.

Despite Bolten’s conservative political views, Sunday Times commentators Donald Barnhouse (CBS-TV newsman in Philadelphia and son of the late Presbyterian preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse) and the anonymous “Urbanus” have already had some interesting, moderate things to say about U. S. policy on Red China and other current issues. Reapsome says that he has never discussed the paper’s politics with Bolten, and that the owner makes “no attempt to get any particular slant except the scriptural position.”

One hindrance for Reapsome and the other five full-time editors is a production schedule that blunts the element of timeliness—an essential for any newspaper. The last news material in an issue goes to the shop at 4:30 P.M. on Wednesdays, but the presses don’t roll until six days later.

Reapsome hopes to attract the “broadest interdenominational audience” he can, but the first issue’s editorial credo says the paper should be “a rallying point for evangelism, Bible conferences, and spiritual life teaching.” This emphasis on independent evangelical effort is reflected in news play.

Why haven’t big denominations or the NCC seized the newspaper idea? Reapsome thinks it’s because their publishers are “heavily academic, and not at the grass-roots level.” Also, he says, they are “wedded to the magazine concept,” while Roman Catholics and Jews have long capitalized on the natural appeal of a weekly newspaper.

Pastor Under Pressure

The Presbytery of Philadelphia held a special closed-door meeting in December to consider a dispute centered on the pastor of a prestigious congregation in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. The pastor, Dr. D. Evor Roberts, has been under pressure to resign.

Out of the meeting came a statement commending both Roberts and the session of the Swarthmore church. It left to the pastor and the session the decision whether to “accept or to reject the advice” of a presbytery counseling subcommittee that earlier had suggested Roberts’ resignation.

The only issue made public in the dispute has been the pastor’s past involvement in civil-rights activities. But the presbytery noted that “there are long-standing and deep-seated issues involved in this situation which are broader than civil rights.”

The counseling subcommittee had been appointed by the chairman of the presbytery’s ministerial relations committee at the request of the session and the pastor. It held fifty-one meetings over a period of nine months before issuing a report. The report was said to have commended Roberts “in large measure” but to have advised that he seek another position.

Turks Jail Preaching Trio

Three Americans landed in a Turkish prison for distributing Christian literature and gospel records. The U. S. State Department identified them as George G. Jacquith of Nampa, Idaho, Gordon K. Magney of Arlington, Virginia, and Geoffery W. Cobb, of Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania.

United States government representatives said the trio admitted that they had engaged in proselytizing activities, in violation of Turkish law. The three were also described as having refused to accept professional legal counsel. All serve under a small American mission board.

Magney was said to have been previously arrested on similar charges.

Abbreviated Defection

Harold M. Koch, 35, a former Chicago Roman Catholic priest who defected to the Soviet Union in September to protest U.S. Viet Nam policy, announced he was returning to America. In Sweden, he said the Reds finally “let me go” because he wants to see his father, who is seriously ill.

Pearl Harbor Revisited

Mitsuo Fuchida led the air armada that attacked Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. He fired the signal flare unleashing the armed might of the Japanese against the American military base in Hawaii. The raid killed 2,409 Americans and smashed eighteen warships and 300 aircraft.

Twenty-five years later, Fuchida was back in Hawaii—as a Christian evangelist. At a prayer breakfast in Honolulu sponsored by International Christian Leadership, he said:

“When I came to Hawaii twenty-five years ago, I was your enemy. Now I am your brother in Christ.”

Fuchida, now 64, told of his conversion as a result of reading the Scriptures and said he believes God spared his life so he could “witness to the Lord’s grace and forgiveness.”

In 1941 he was a commander in the Japanese navy and was in charge of the training for the Pearl Harbor operation. He piloted the lead plane that gave the signals for the attack.

After Pearl Harbor, Fuchida is said to have faced almost certain death in combat at least six times. Of the seventy officers who led the Pearl Harbor bombing, he is the only one still alive, according to a report by Baptist Press.

Fuchida appeared at the breakfast with evangelist Billy Graham, who was en route to Viet Nam to spend Christmas with troops.

On The Road To Saigon

Three top leaders of American Christendom, one from each branch, arranged their year’s-end schedules to make trips to visit soldiers in South Viet Nam.

It was the sixteenth consecutive Christmas with U. S. troops for Francis Cardinal Spellman, 77, who is the Military Vicar of Roman Catholics.

The most prominent Protestant traveler was evangelist Billy Graham, who planned to eat his Christmas dinner in the field. Before he left, Mennonites at the Goshen, Indiana, seminary urged him to “express the divine judgment upon all use of violence” and call soldiers “from the sin of killing,” lest his trip be interpreted as church endorsem*nt of the U. S. war effort there.

But endorsem*nt had already come, in mid-December, from the third traveler, Archbishop Iakovos, primate of Greek Orthodoxy: “In my opinion the United States is the only major power which still upholds and believes in the moral obligations which emanated from [the] international agreements on Viet Nam. This is why it is incomprehensible to call our involvement in the Viet Nam ‘civil war’ as lacking moral foundation. This is a civil war between Communism and democracy. This is the real issue of the fighting in Viet Nam.”

The bearded Iakovos’ reactions to a week in Viet Nam were particularly significant because he is one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches, which has been skeptical of U. S. policy there. Another of the presidents, Germany’s Martin Niemöller, was to set out last week for Communist North Viet Nam to investigate relief needs.

Iakovos supported the National Council of Churches and Pope Paul in calling for an extended truce, rather than the brief holiday cease-fires both sides had agreed upon.

To the archbishop, Viet Nam is “entirely the same” as postwar Greece, where the United States helped fight off Communist infiltration.

In a Saigon press conference during his visit, Iakovos sounded a similar note, saying that his church basically opposes war but that this one is moral and necessary. He had high praise for U. S. servicemen and armed forces chaplains (only two of whom are Greek Orthodox).

Fall Of The House Of Bultmann

Jesus of Nazareth: Saviour and Lord, edited by Carl F. H. Henry (Eerdmans, 1966, 277 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Wayne E. Ward, professor of Christian theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

In a series that has already established itself as the most significant voice of evangelical Christian scholarship comes this fifth volume on the burning issue of the “historical Jesus.” The first volume in the series, Contemporary Evangelical Thought, gave the name to the series; and succeeding volumes have dealt with revelation and the Bible, basic Christian doctrines, and the Christian faith versus modern theology.

Editor Carl F. H. Henry sets the stage for the whole volume by analyzing the breakdown of Karl Barth’s “dialectical theology,” which, for all its power in challenging the liberal theology of the early twentieth century, was itself undermined by the existential and anti-historical onslaught of Bultmann. Now, although many American scholars do not know it, Bultmannian theology has fallen into confusion and disarray. This disintegration of the “house of Bultmann” is carefuly documented by Henry and the other European and American scholars as they take up “the new quest for the historical Jesus” and analyze it.

This book is not a carping criticism of everything written by the form-critical scholars, nor is it a rehashing of the old liberal-fundamentalist controversy of a generation ago. It is an exciting and sympathetic study of the central issue of the Christian faith: “Do we meet the real historical Jesus of Nazareth in the pages of the New Testament, and is he one and the same with the Christ of faith whom we proclaim as Saviour and Lord?” No book has been published in English, German, or French that covers the whole debate on the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith” more thoroughly than this one does. For an understanding of these issues raised by Bultmann and his followers, this is one of the best volumes available. And it cannot be said too clearly that this is no tirade against “critical scholarship.” It is both a sympathetic understanding and an incisive criticism of the New Testament theology of Bultmann that has dominated Europe for two decades and still reigns in many American theological schools.

As in any symposium, the articles are unequal in value and scholarly depth, but the entire volume is delightful reading. Henry’s editing has produced a remarkable unity out of contributions from scholars of more than a dozen denominations in England, Germany, Sweden, and the United States. In my opinion, the chapter by F. F. Bruce on “History and the Gospel” and the brilliant study of the resurrection of Jesus, “On the Third Day,” by Clark H. Pinnock, are worth the price of the book! No Christian can read these two magnificent witnesses to the “Word made flesh” without being moved in mind and in heart to confess again, “Jesus of Nazareth, my Saviour and Lord!”

Reading for Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

• Men of Action in the Book of Acts, by Paul Rees (Revell, $2.95). Lively biographical sketches of six prominent New Testament leaders that provide solid biblical knowledge and inspire Christian commitment and action.

• Pentecostalism, by John Thomas Nichol (Harper & Row, $5.95). A well-documented history of “the tongues movement” that sets forth its genesis, its distinctive character and competing camps, and its growth throughout the world.

• Philippian Studies, by J. A. Motyer (Inter-Varsity, $3.50). This valuable expository work shows the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. Useful as a preaching aid and for study by laymen.

Toynbee And The Super-State

Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Time, by Arnold J. Toynbee (Oxford, 1966, 240 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Clifford M. Drury, professor emeritus of church history, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California.

Even though Dr. Toynbee has been retired for over eleven years, he is still active, traveling around the world, lecturing, and writing. This book contains the main substance of two series of lectures—one at the University of Denver, Colorado, in 1964 and the other at New College, Sarasota, Florida, in 1965.

The first part of this volume moves rather slowly, but the reader is not far into the book before the theme grips his attention. Toynbee reasons that during the million years of man’s existence on earth, a spirit of divisiveness has ruled. This arose out of necessity, especially during the “food-gathering” age. Economic necessity, not instinct, has caused mankind to live in disunity. Even the dividing force of race-feeling, argues Toynbee, is not an instinct but a habit. His main thesis is that habits, even those that are accepted by large groups of people, can be changed.

Toynbee is concerned with the crisis that has been thrust upon the whole world by the discovery of atomic power. He mentions as other revolutionizing phenomena: the population explosion with an ever-increasing demand for food, urbanization, mechanization, affluence, and leisure. Mankind must come to terms with these forces, especially atomic power, or else they will perish.

Toynbee’s answer to the problems created by the Atomic Age is “political unification.” The only way to survive is to abandon the old habits of nationalism and be politically united in some super-state. This is possible, he argues, because habits even on a huge scale within society, can be changed.

Unfortunately, Toynbee gives little consideration to the role that Christianity might play in the creation of this world-state. In his closing paragraph he quotes with approval the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism and concludes: “It is possible … that the human impulse to seek God may be ineradicable.” What a pity that this great authority was unable to continue from this point. We who hold and preach the power of the Gospel believe that Christ alone is the hope of the future. It has always been the proud boast of Christianity that Christ can change the habits not only of individuals but also of races.

A Gift Of Scholarship

The Greek New Testament, edited by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allan Wikgren (American Bible Society, British and Foreign Bible Society, National Bible Society of Scotland, Netherlands Bible Society, and Württemberg Bible Society, 1966, 920 pp. plus introduction, $1.95 [plastic] and $4.40 [morocco]), is reviewed by Everett F. Harrison, professor of New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

This latest in a long series of Greek New Testaments fully meets the expectations created by advance announcements and by the caliber of the scholars who directed the project. Conceived primarily as a tool for Bible translators, theological students, and pastors, it has fewer variant readings (averaging about one and a half to the page) than the widely used Nestle but much fuller evidence supporting those readings. Theological importance was the principal criterion used for including variants. Although the text does not differ substantially from Nestle, it was independently constructed in the light of the evidence. Several score of manuscripts were used that had never been used before in a similar work.

The text is printed in large, easily read type and is broken up into paragraphs with English headings. Besides the critical apparatus below the text, there is a section devoted to punctuation (since this often affects the interpretation of a passage) and another that contains Scripture references related to passages on the page. The most revolutionary feature is the weighting of the readings in the apparatus by use of the letters A, B, C, and D. A indicates a reading of virtual certainty, D one of considerable doubt, and B and C intermediate stages. Wherever feasible, Latin terms have been replaced by English. Everything possible has been done, it seems, to make this volume easy and pleasant to use. Its success was assured from the start.

A companion booklet of thirty pages, “An Introduction to the Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament,” was issued by the American Bible Society. This gives information about criteria used in evaluating variant readings and also indicates the part played by many persons in the production of this distinguished Greek New Testament. Another book is promised that will deal in detail with the method the committee followed in deciding on variant readings.

A Primer On Sex

A Christian View of Sex and Marriage, by Andrew R. Eickhoff (Free Press, 1966, 262 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by E. Mansell Pattison, instructor in psychiatry, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle.

This book is presented as an attempt to combine the most recent findings in sociology and psychology with the Judeo-Christian moral values as they relate to courtship, marriage, and the family.

The author, head of the Department of Religion at Bradley University, asserts that the social sciences hesitate to discuss universal norms and confuse mores and morals. He says that this directly contrasts with the ideal norms of Christianity, including Christian love as the basis of interpersonal relations and the special value and dignity of every man in the sight of God. These ideal norms, he says, are the only true guide to moral values and must be affirmed in the face of the relative values of social science.

Eickhoff then turns to marital topics. This discussion turns out to be an overly simplified, practical-counsel-to-the-young approach to marriage. It is sensible, humane, faithful to a broad Christian perspective, and scientifically acceptable. One could recommend the book as an acceptable primer for the general reader.

But the author laid claim to a much broader goal, one with potential scientific and theological significance. What does he achieve?

Recent findings in sociology and psychology are not found in the text. Nor do they appear in the bibliography, in which the author lists four books on psychology and three on sociology, all between ten and twenty-five years old! Consequently the author makes statements that do not accurately reflect current thought in social science. Anthropologists do not hold to a naïve cultural relativism, and sociologists are well aware of the differences between mores and morals. Many psychologists are greatly concerned about the loss of human values in a strictly scientific approach toward life. In fact, the problem of social and personal values is a central one in current social science.

Eickhoff does quote a few contemporary sources in theology. Curiously, however, he does not even mention the crucial issues posed by the situational ethicists. Traditional approaches to morality have been outmoded by the findings of sociology and psychology, but the author never shows how, where, or why. The situational ethicists are attempting to speak to this problem, even if unsatisfactorily. But the author does not tell us how a social-science view of man and his behavior can be related to the Christian perspective.

What of this book as a whole? We already have many marriage primers, even good ones, in a Christian perspective; we have more up-to-date texts for college courses in marriage and family; and we have more creative help for pastoral counseling on this topic.

We still lack adequate dialogue between social science and theology, except in psychology per se. In my experience, social scientists are more aware of the crucial issues than theologians are. This author, writing in a theological perspective, seems tragically unaware of where these issues lie.

Assault On A Fortress

Old and New in Interpretation: A Study of the Two Testaments, by James Barr (Harper & Row, 1966, 215 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by David P. Scaer, assistant professor of systematic theology, Concordia Seminary, Springfield, Illinois.

Dr. Barr of the University of Manchester has produced a scholarly work that questions some of the basic canons of higher critical “orthodoxy.” The main thrust is against Bultmann and company, who are called “purists” for their attempt to extract the kernel of truth from the shell of culture in their exegetical method. Examples of this dichotomous method are the separation of the Incarnation from Hebrew culture and of the kerygma from the Greek-thought forms. For Paul the real enemies were groups like the Judaizers and not the philosophies or thought-forms of the Greeks.

The chapter “Athens or Jerusalem? The Question of Distinctiveness” will disturb scholars who have long pontificated the infallible dogma that the Greek mind was “abstract, contemplative, static or harmonic, impersonal,” while the Hebrew mind was “active, concrete, dynamic, intensely personal, formed upon wholeness and not upon distinctions.” The distinctions between two cultures cannot be set forth in such a simple antithesis. It is interesting that the Greece of Homer was closer to Moses than to the post-Socratic philosophers, and that the modern insight of the “whole man” that we consider Hebraic in origin was for Calvin “Aristotelian.”

Barth is criticized for his “artificial distinctions” between Sage and Urgeschichte and between Geschichte and Historie. An end is called to treating Scripture as a special kind of a history because it has interpretation, since interpretation is the mark of every history. Barr also suggests that God’s acts should not be considered revelatory. He writes: “We may not say that the acts of God are really and strictly ‘revelatory’ except in the trivial sense in which any act done or anything said may be considered to ‘reveal’ something of the doer.” It is the speech of God accompanying the event that gives it any meaning, and this speech links one incident to another.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all is Barr’s identification of the motives of the “purists”—i.e., Bultmann et al.—with those of the “fundamentalists,” because in both there is an unwillingness to let the Bible speak from the historical situation.

But Barr is inconsistent with his own plan. While taking Barth to task for his distinction between Geschichte and Historie, he applies the same distinction in criticizing the “‘fundamentalism’ of an African or an American Negro village church where Nimrod or Noah can be as real and obvious a historical figure as George Washington.”

Barr’s suggestions are revolutionary because they have loosened some foundation stones in what has appeared to be the impregnable fortress of modern exegetical interpretation. The big question now is just how influential this book will be.

Mormonism’S Warts And Bumps

The Mormon Establishment, by Wallace Turner (Houghton Mifflin, 1966, 343 pp., $6), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, associate editor,CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Devout adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) not only will dislike this book; they will fulminate against it. While it does not really direct itself to the theological issues that mark off Mormonism as a cult (and thus basically non-Christian), it does prick the cult in those exposed areas and sensitive spots where the reflexive response will perhaps be greatest.

Turner sketches the background history of Mormonism and paints fair pictures of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Then he bears down hard on the warts and bumps that stick out all over this cult: the legalistically prescribed tithe; polygamy, which has never really been banished from the church and is shown to have originated more in the carnal proclivities of Joseph Smith than in the revelation of God; the anti-Negro doctrine, which forecloses the possibility that any Negro will attain any real place in the church or in the gloryland to come; the authoritarianism of certain leaders of the church; and the tightly knit organizational framework that leads to a closed Mormon society and a despotism over the individual that is wholly foreign both to the Gospel and to democracy.

In the author’s zeal to controvert the anti-Negro doctrine of the church, he seems to fall into the trap of using highly colored rhetoric and emotive language somewhat unsuited to scholarship. But he has produced a lively volume, thoroughly documented and well written. Anyone interested in viewing Mormonism from the sociological perspective will want to read it.

The Language Of Philosophers

Christian Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy, edited by Ian T. Ramsey (Macmillan, 1966, 399 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by William W. Bass, professor of philosophy and chairman, Division of Humanities, Biola College, La Mirada, California.

The articles assembled in this book move along a single front of theological concern—the application of analytical philosophy to theological ethics. They contain much valuable material. R. F. Holland insists that the whole philosophical tradition, including Plato, Kierkegaard, and Kant, has been woven of the thread of two worlds—the outer and inner, which turn out to be the timeless and the temporal. P. F. Strawson, with his customary ability to isolate crucial issues, adopts Braithwaite’s “stories,” transforms them into “pictures,” and finds the locus of morality in a social morality based on an overlapping of individual idealized pictures.

P. H. Nowell Smith also pierces into an area that is of lasting pertinence. Building upon Jean Piaget’s parallels between the development of an infant and the major areas of philosophy, Smith compares many of the practices and beliefs of the believer to those of early childhood. While the Christian may find these parallels irritating, some of them seem valid. Compulsive rule-observance and a concept of grace that eliminates any significance of human effort may indeed reflect more the childhood quest than the direct teachings of Scripture. But other aspects of the faith that Smith mentions, such as the concept of original sin (which closely approximates the “all flesh” of the Bible) and the emphasis on authority (which is integral to any concept of the Kingdom of God), have basic roots in other than childhood frustration.

Certain ideas in these essays may be of particular worth for evangelicals. Braithwaite’s classic article, “An Empiricist’s View of the Nature of Religious Belief,” is reproduced here. One of his central ideas is the equation of moral assertion with “intention.” A religious assertion becomes to him the expression of an intention based on a “story,” which may or may not be a matter of fact. Several evaluatory articles take him to task for failing to recognize that only stories that are believed to be based on fact have power to motivate.

Helen Oppenheimer’s article commends that of R. W. Hepburn, because he utilizes the “painter model” of the vision or picture that enables a person to make life’s pilgrimage successfully. The thinking of both writers in this matter is quite comparable to John Hutchison’s point of view as he justifies religious language on the basis of its structuring the believer’s way. How similar this type of idiom is to the biblical emphasis on the way, and to the Halachah of the rabbis. Hepburn distinguishes between story, which is factual, and “fable,” which contains more mythical elements. He holds that the Old and New Testament can be construed as the specification of the religious life through fable. They can satisfy many as a moral blueprint regardless of their failure to be factual. Jesus sought to fulfill the Old Testament fable. The evangelical is reminded that Hepburn has retained scarcely anything of the painter model (say as best portrayed in the Book of the Revelation) and is not particularly concerned to regain a significant model (a word often used throughout the book); but he is also reminded of the inherent limitations of analytical concentrations, which can scarcely rise above the world of words with which they begin.

The articles by the editor of the book, Ian T. Ramsey, are welcome relief at this point, since he insists that stories must have a “claim-acknowledging element” in order to be a basis for ethics. The moral claim must rise out of a prior claim (God) to which the moral judgment is a response. He also sees the need to rehabilitate some kind of concept of natural law to counter the current legal positivism. He suggests that Christian morality and natural law are supplementary but that the content and relationship cannot be described until key ideas from both realms are selected and matched.

But even these conservative and eager hopes—which serve as a suitable ending for the book despite their intrinsic impossibility today—are vitiated by a final salute to the problems of form criticism. These problems are thought to compound the difficulty of selecting the most important ideas of the Christian morality.

A significant article on situation ethics and the report of the 1958 Lambeth Conference, which deals with sex and the family, add to the value of this significant work but give little comfort to the biblically oriented Christian.

Ecumenical leaders face a new year of critical decisions

The National Council of Churches enters a new triennium with a new emphasis: evangelism. Official interest in evangelism blossomed during the NCC’s seventh General Assembly in Miami Beach. Protestant Christians from coast to coast now hope that the council will define evangelism. They rightly expect the council to state its evangelistic goals as clearly as it pinpoints the social policy and legislative programs that it continues to promote, to the dismay of many clergymen and lay leaders.

The concern for evangelism was long overdue; until now the NCC has condoned evangelism as an optional diversion from the ecumenical priority of social action and politico-economic pressures. In Miami Beach there was provided, at long last, an ecumenical platform for the evangelical view. Evangelist Billy Graham, in a luncheon address to the General Assembly, swiftly killed the liberal myth that links evangelical Christianity with social indifference; yet he insisted that true biblical social concern must be built upon authoritative proclamation and personal regeneration. Miami Beach was thus an improvement over New Delhi; there, when word was abroad that Graham was an unofficial observer, Kyle Haselden, later named editor of the “ecumenical weekly,” The Christian Century, blurted: “They’re not going to let him speak, are they?”

Some journalists and ecclesiastics hastily took Graham’s combination of personal regeneration and social compassion as a synthesis of ecumenical and evangelical evangelism. But NCC officials knew the difference. Colin Williams, associate secretary of the Division of Christian Life and Mission (his sixty-four-page pre-assembly study book had a favored 100,000-copy press run), urged radical revision of the traditional concept of evangelism and took issue with Graham. The Australian Methodist wants a new evangelism demanding repentance from “social sins”: New Testament evangelism that emphasizes personal conversion is no longer adequate.

“The right-wing alliance in this country with the old evangelism is well known,” charged Williams, who chose not to discuss the left-wing orientation of much that is dignified as new evangelism. He further blurred issues by insisting that the new evangelism “takes just as seriously as the old” the Christian call to a radical change of life and the need for preaching, but differs in “its insistence that evangelism must also take seriously the new situations in which men must be addressed.” Surely New Testament evangelism took seriously the special situation of its hearers; and, moreover, it was explicit about the indispensability of personal regeneration on the ground of Christ’s atoning death, and it was not at all inclined to substitute social activism for spiritual renewal.

Top-level NCC leaders, to whom division secretaries must answer, are striving to repair the movement’s shoddy public image. In this task they will gain the expert help of two professionals who were elected vice-presidents at large: Arthur Larson, former head of the United States Information Agency, and William B. Arthur, editor of Look magazine. The NCC’s continuing intrusion into the political arena, repeated endorsem*nt of legislative bills, espousal of specific positions on military, economic, and social issues, and support of demonstrations to bring about political change, have alienated many dedicated laymen and clergymen. These persons view such activities as a violation of the authority and mandate of the Church and a public misrepresentation of their personal views as well. Official welcome on the ecumenical platform for champions of radical theologies, maverick moralities and secular versions of evangelism has stirred widespread criticism in hundreds of churches, all the more because historic Christian convictions in these areas are routinely ignored.

In some sections of the United States, resentment of National Council activities has deepened inside ecumenically affiliated churches to a point where laymen have banded together and pledged not to give funds to any cause that directly or indirectly supports the council. The council is beginning to feel the financial pinch.

The fact that National Council officials who wanted Graham to address the General Assembly apparently out-voted the devotees of a new evangelism is a sign of some responsiveness to the wide and deep indignation over the NCC stance. There has been a growing flirtation with evangelistic themes. Yet ecumenical pronouncements have tended to justify social engagement as an evangelistic activity, and traditional evangelism has often been criticized publicly while defended privately by NCC spokesmen. In 1966 there was an NCC-oriented colloquium on conversion, a subject now scheduled for further consideration by the WCC at its Fourth Assembly in Uppsala, Sweden, next year. Next June 11–16, at Notre Dame, the NCC Division of Christian Unity will hold a colloquium on evangelism in a pluralistic society. The continuing WCC-NCC “study” of the missionary structure of the congregation, moreover, is expected to make headlines one of these days.

The long-standing suppression of evangelical viewpoints within the National Council may be measured by the fact that in recent memory no major platform has been yielded to a prominent spokesman for this point of view. The appearance of Graham was important because his supporters represent the largest bloc of evangelical critics of ecumenical perspectives in and out of the conciliar movement. There are now reports that Graham will be next invited to address the Uppsala assembly of the World Council of Churches. Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin told delegates attending the World Congress on Evangelism that he had long ago urged the World Council of Churches, of which he is a former president, to anchor its spirit to evangelism, and to consider Graham as its exemplar in seeking to reach the masses for Christ.

But though Graham had ecumenical visibility in Miami Beach, and that is to be welcomed, it is clear that he was given only a hearing for, not an endorsem*nt of, his views. Since the NCC’s Division of Christian Life and Mission is promoting an alternate type of evangelism—different not simply in method but in theological content as well—the champions of the new secular evangelism reacted to Graham’s participation as a threat to their security. Willis E. Elliott, of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, was scheduled for a sectional meeting at Miami and brought a stinging indictment of the World Congress on Evangelism. He described the “scribal mentality” of Billy Graham and of the editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY as demonic.

Elliott, who says Truman B. Douglass of the United Church of Christ considers him theological spokesman for that two-million-member church, describes himself as “in doctrine … an orthodox believer; in attitudes, a liberal; in social, economic, and political matters, a radical.” But, he swiftly adds, he is “orthodox open!” To the National Council he misrepresented the World Congress as an affair of “verbalists … [meeting] independently of existing ecumenical fellowship,” dismissed its presentations as “piles of preachy scribal Bible expositions,” and deplored the magnificent congress Bible teaching of Anglican John R. W. Stott (honorary chaplain to the Queen of England) as being fully as dangerous as “the Red Chinese pollution.” Elliott warned that the NCC’s differences with this evangelical position “may seem small but the chasm is wide.” Then he hailed what he considered the chief ecumenical effect of the World Congress: to further dialogue between “Bible-defenders” and the rest of the Christian world.

Leaders of the National Council have offered an olive branch to evangelical Christians, but it remains to be seen whether the branch is grafted onto a wild tree. The decisive issue is whether the changing stance of the NCC involves a misuse of evangelism for broader conciliar goals, or an evangelical renovation of conciliar ecumenism.

The issue between evangelical Christians and committed ecumenists, is not that of evangelism versus social compassion. It lies rather in these considerations: (1) Evangelicals insist that authentic evangelism centers in the evangel (the good news of forgiveness of sins and personal regeneration on the ground of Christ’s atoning death and bodily resurrection). (2) Evangelicals insist that love becomes mere humanitarianism if social action leaves out the evangel and espouses material gain rather than moral and spiritual betterment. (3) Evangelicals continue to insist that social involvement is a Christian duty, but they repudiate the institutional church’s direct political pressures, endorsem*nt of legislation, and advocacy of specific military positions; and they also repudiate ecumenical efforts to sell socialism as a Christian economic philosophy. (4) Evangelicals champion the authority of the Bible and are critical of pluralism in theology. (5) Evangelicals seek Christian unity but are lukewarm to the promotion of church mergers for the sake of organizational cohesion, rather than for the sake of theological unity and evangelistic momentum.

Conciliar ecumenism, on the other hand, has tolerated a variety of theologies, a variety of evangelisms, a variety of ecumenical dialogues. As Newsweek has noted, the National Council considers rapport with Roman Catholicism no less important than a bridge to evangelicals and evangelism.

What now concerns evangelicals, encouraged as they are that evangelical evangelism has gained at least a measure of platform visibility, is whether the evangel itself will be permitted to renew ecumenism, or whether ecumenism will continue to redefine the evangel.

“There is a real clash, not just a fake war,” emphasized Colin Williams in a news conference discussing key differences that exist in the NCC over evangelism.

The General Assembly meanwhile called for a halt in American bombing in North Viet Nam.

A French Communist theoretician welcomes the new theology for its rejection of absolute truth

The recent American speaking tour of the foremost French Communist theoretician, Roger Garaudy, signals a new effort by leading secularistic theologians to bring about a rapprochement between Christianity and Marxism. Under the sponsorship of his Roman Catholic publisher, Herder and Herder, and at the invitation of such theologians as Harvey Cox, John C. Bennett, and John Courtney Murray, Garaudy addressed audiences at Harvard, Columbia, Temple, St. Louis, and Fairfield Universities, Union Theological Seminary, and the Roman Catholic La Farge Institute. He advanced the thesis of his new book, From Anathema to Dialogue, that genuine intellectual cooperation—not merely an exchange of views—between Christians and Communists is necessary, desirable, and, on the basis of common humanistic concerns, possible at the present time.

Garaudy argued that in view of the thermonuclear threat, dialogue between the two major shaping forces in the world today is a necessity. He was optimistic about the possibility of substantive intellectual cooperation, since, he asserted, a “metamorphosis” has taken place both in Christian theology and in Communism, in which both have abandoned previous claims to “unique, definitive, and absolute truth.”

Showing a firm grasp of contemporary theology, the former senator and vice-president in the French National Assembly pointed out new teachings by theologians that are encouraging to Marxists. He showed particular appreciation for the writings of Rudolf Bultmann, John A. T. Robinson, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He applauded the view of the demythologizers that the Christian message was originally presented “in the inadequate language of ideologies, myths, and philosophies of the ancient world” and should be given an existential interpretation acceptable to modern man. He attributed the supposed success of Honest to God to its stripping away of the mythical and Robinson’s emphasis on the need for a deeper immersion in existence: “No longer is the relationship between God and the world a relationship of alternatives: ‘either God or the world.’ Now it is a dialectical relationship: God in the world.” Garaudy commented that “seen in this perspective, transcendence is no longer an attribute of God but a dimension of our experience and our acts.” He further asserted that the thought of Teilhard de Chardin paves the way for Christian-Marxist dialogue. This was based on the Catholic theologian’s rejection of the historic fall of man and the traditional concept of original sin, his belief that man is saved through the extension of the evolutionary process taking place in the universe, and his emphasis on the value of work and human effort.

Viewing current theological trends optimistically, Garaudy sought to show that Communism is not really anti-religious. Communism’s “former” opposition to the Church, he said, was based on the Church’s support of counter-revolutionaries. But now Christianity and Communism can work together: “If each of us takes stock of what is basic in his convictions, he will discover, the one in his faith in God and the other in his faith in the task of man, a mutual willingness to stretch man’s creative energies to the maximum for the sake of realizing a total man, and he will become aware of the mutual enrichment which will flow from dialogue, cooperation, and rivalry between the Marxists’ Promethean humanism and Christian humanism.” But Garaudy gave no sign of re-examining the Marxist concept of atheism. Rather, he stated, “I think that Marxist atheism deprives man only of the illusion of certainty, and that the Marxist dialectic, when lived in its fullness, is ultimately richer in the infinite and more demanding still than the Christian transcendence.”

Can there be real dialogue between Christians and Marxists? If the Christian is willing to concede that his position has only a subjective basis, that man is not fallen, that salvation is an evolutionary process, that God has performed no miraculous events in history, and that man’s prime concern is to work to create a heaven on earth, he can indeed get along very well with the Marxist. The Marxist is correct in his recognition that the views advanced by secular theologians are not incompatible with his own humanistic outlook. But, as Garaudy admitted in a public forum, no true dialogue can take place between the Marxist, who believes Christianity is a man-made projection, and the biblical Christian, whose view of life rests on God’s revelation and miraculous saving acts in history. Theologians who naïvely believe that substantive dialogue with Communists is possible on a humanistic premise either are deluded or have surrendered their claim to be Christian theologians. They are men blinded by the “god of this world” who are sitting ducks for the deceptive and specious arguments of atheistic revolutionaries.

While it is folly to think that Christianity and Marxism can engage in profitable dialogue, it is crucial that Christians sincerely love Communists as individual men and make known to them the biblical Gospel that can revolutionize their lives and reconcile them to God. Real communication between the Christian and Marxist can take place—but only if the word of God is spoken in the conversation.

The Artistry Of Walt Disney

Walt Disney would not be pleased if the world were to mourn his death for long. For he devoted his entire life to bringing joy to the hearts and smiles to the faces of people of all ages in all parts of the earth.

His consummate artistry gave birth to the motion picture cartoon as a human institution and populated our cultural landscape with such unforgettable characters as Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Snow White, Dopey, Dumbo, and Donald Duck. Whether Disney sought to entertain through comic strips, animated cartoons, full-length motion pictures, nature films, television programs, or his monumental Disneyland, he constantly strived to combine excellence with mass appeal. He ably demonstrated that a film-maker could scale the Matterhorn of entertainment for the millions and yet maintain high moral standards in his productions. The songs he taught us—“Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf,” “Whistle While You Work,” “Zippity Do Da,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and scores of others—brought a note of cheer to gloomy days. His creative genius, perceptive understanding, and warm spirit made him an exceptional man of his time.

The man who built Tomorrowland as a part of his magic kingdom has entered eternity. We pay tribute to Walt Disney for doing so much to brighten life today.

Baptist Indignation Mounts

If Southern Baptists were stunned by the refusal of American Baptist Convention leaders to participate in the 1969 hemisphere-wide evangelistic Crusade of the Americas, a growing number of American Baptist ministers are now expressing similar dismay.

Recent efforts to widen Baptist ecumenical relations have taken two paths. Evangelical Baptists have favored pan-Baptist cooperation, with evangelism as the most hopeful key. Advocates of the Consultation on Church Union seek larger Baptist involvement in organic merger, with eventual dissolution of Baptist seminaries and other institutions into the theologically inclusive ecumenical movement.

Following the advice of its staff aides in evangelism and programming, the ABC General Council recently spurned an invitation to join other Western Hemisphere Baptists in the 1969 crusade. The evangelistic project not only signaled a fresh openness by Southern Baptists to trans-denominational cooperation but also was the first joint effort approved by the new North American committee of the Baptist World Alliance.

Since American Baptist annual baptisms declined more than 30 per cent between 1955 and 1965, many ministers are dismayed. Dr. Lester J. Harnish, former president of the ABC, deplores “the miscarriage of evangelism in my denomination.” Carl W. Tiller, current president, still holds out the hope that there will be ABC cooperation in the 1969 crusade—if not nationally, at least on a state level.

But the temper of indignation is rising among many American Baptists. This week a Pomona, California, minister addressed an open letter to the ABC Crusader in which he bluntly condemned the General Council’s defection from a major evangelistic opportunity. Taking a cue from C. S. Lewis, the ABC-ordained Rev. Robert Wernersbach signed his letter WORMWOOD (the junior devil on earth popularized in The Screwtape Letters) and in choice paragraphs of satire voiced Satan’s delight over the present policy of his convention:

The recent decision of the General Council not to engage in the Crusade for Christ in the Americas has prompted us to prepare this letter which expresses our feelings.

We would like to commend the General Council for this wise move. There is no good theological reason why the American Baptist Convention should engage in such a crusade. Certainly the words of Christ in Matthew 28:18–20 have been badly interpreted through the years. They cannot mean that man is lost without Christ and that the Church should go throughout the world proclaiming salvation through Christ. This type of biblical hermeneutics went out with the flat-earth theory. Of course, there are still some mistaken individuals who accept the idea that man without Christ is going to hell (witness the recent World Congress on Evangelism held in Berlin), but it is refreshing to see the General Council is not taking this narrow road.

You must continue to allow your department of evangelism to convey the idea that all men are already saved and it is not necessary for us to waste so much good time on such a secondary program. You must push civil rights and all other social and political programs in the months and years ahead. The key issue at both Pittsburgh and Boston must be your entrance into the Consultation on Church Union. In short, you must push everything except these evangelistic crusades. After all, isn’t this why Christ came? Isn’t this the meaning of the Christ event? Let us as a convention not miss the real point of Christianity as the delegates to the conference on evangelism did in Berlin.

Crusade for Christ in the Americas. Who needs it? Certainly not our American Baptist Convention. Statistics only support our position. In 1955, you reported baptisms of 63,632 individuals, and in 1965, baptisms were down to 43,759. Excellent! This shows a good trend since everyone is already saved. We no longer need bother about baptism, or salvation, or the Church (except for organic union, of course), or Christ, or God. We can devote all our time to civil rights, COCU, Red China, and so on. Here is Christianity at its best.

In closing, keep up the good work. Try hard at Pittsburgh for COCU, and if you fail always remember these in Boston in 1968. Whatever you do, don’t get yourselves involved in a crusade—unless it is for civil rights! Good luck. We will look forward to seeing you some day.

Within the secular world order there are two kingdoms, concurrent in their present operation but totally different in nature and destiny.

The secular world is neutral. Here men work, eat, and play. Here the necessary activities of existence take place. None can escape this realm.

But spiritual forces work within the secular world and are not neutral. These form two totally diverse kingdoms. Satan captains one and administers it by his agents; the Son of God captains the other and administers it by his Spirit.

Until a man recognizes this difference between these two kingdoms and allows Christ to take charge of his life, there is only chaos, not peace, for him. Men and nations search futilely for the solution to their problems, not admitting that the only solution is Christ. The confusion of today’s world is the confusion of persons who have never accepted the one solution of life (and death): Jesus Christ and his atoning and reconciling work on the Cross.

I recently read of a symposium involving students from three universities. The observations of these young people were pitiful. The only convictions they shared were negative: they were against their parents, against the idea of moral or spiritual disciplines, and against the Church as such. They appeared ignorant of the meaning of life and displayed an agnostic irreverence for God and all things sacred.

An extreme illustration? Hardly. This new generation reflects the hypocrisy, sinfulness, and ignorance of parents who too often have sought material success or pleasure as the ultimate in life and given little thought to their own relationship to God. No man can be neutral to truth; he either accepts it or opposes it.

The kingdoms of God and Satan are not imaginary. God has revealed what they are and also their end. Man must face up to the situation and find out just where he stands.

A simple illustration may help to clarify our thinking. Recently I was on a plane about to depart from a large national airport. While the stewardess was checking the passengers’ tickets, she discovered that one who was ticketed for Buffalo was seated there on that plane—headed for Atlanta. No amount of arguing could have changed the fact that the passenger intended to go one way but was really going in the opposite direction.

Every person in this world is a member of Satan’s kingdom until he becomes a member of God’s kingdom. Philosophical arguments cannot change the situation. But we can thank God who has shown the difference between them and made clear the fact that anyone willing to change need not remain in the domain of Satan.

Satan’s kingdom is counterfeit. It is part of the dying world order. He incites his victims to follow the dictates of natural desire. He knows that the wages paid by sin is death—spiritual death and eternal separation from God. That is Satan’s desire for every man.

God’s kingdom, which is spiritual, consists of those who have changed their citizenship through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “You must be born again,” and made it clear that rebirth is a work of God by which one is translated from the kingdom of death to the kingdom of life.

The two kingdoms will always differ. Satan’s kingdom is one of spiritual darkness, frustration, and hopelessness. God’s kingdom is one of light, joy, and hope. Although its citizens are not spared the vicissitudes of life, they have grace to rise above them.

The Apostle Paul speaks of the grace and peace that come from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, “who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age …” (Gal. 1:4, RSV).

Deliverance from Satan’s kingdom is made by Christ, and life in God’s eternal kingdom is lived with Christ. Without his atoning death and resurrection, there could be no change. Through them, the way to freedom is open to “whosoever will.”

Men are members of either one kingdom or the other and are destined to go either to heaven or to hell. Jesus used these terms, not to frighten people, but to impress upon them the consequence of this choice. Paul states it in these terms: “For many … live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their God is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:18–21).

Indication of the diametrically opposed kingdoms is seen in life’s contrasts: in the opposites of good and evil, of right and wrong, of hope and hopelessness, of peace and turmoil, of joy and sorrow, of meaning and meaninglessness in life.

Transition from one kingdom to the other is at the very heart of the gospel message. This change is supernatural, a work of the Spirit of God. The rule of the one who is the epitome of evil and hatred is exchanged for that of the One who acts righteously and in love, and whose concern is for our eternal welfare.

One’s warfare does not end when he accepts Christ. In fact, up to that time things are often ominously quiet; but the moment one receives Christ as Saviour and Lord, the true war begins. This is war with the “unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil” (Eph. 6:12, Phillips). But the protective armor and the sword of the Spirit are given, and victory is assured.

To fail to recognize the existence of spiritual warfare, of the two kingdoms, is to play directly into the hands of the enemy. But to recognize the situation for what it really is and take a stand on the side of God and his kingdom assures one of ultimate victory.

We live in a supposedly enlightened age; but until we recognize the role of Satan, until we make a decision for Christ and accept God’s plan and will for us, we are living in spiritual darkness.

The evidence is everywhere for us to see. The reasons are clearly stated in the Word of God. The doctrines of man’s need and hope are all part of the gospel message. If we continue in ignorance or reject God’s plan for deliverance, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Man’s conflict began when he disobeyed God. The final outcome of the conflict was determined at Calvary.

Of which kingdom are you a citizen?

Dear Coffee-Sippers:

If you enjoy a hot spot of java on a nippy winter night and are also interested in the latest vogue in evangelism, you should drop in at an avant-garde, church-related coffeehouse. But if no such haven exists nearby, you can learn what’s perking at some of these places by reading The Coffee House Ministry, by NCC consultant John D. Perry, Jr.

Here’s Perry’s formula for becoming a coffeehouse entrepreneur. First, purify your theology of evangelism. Rid yourself of “Billygrahamism” (the superficial, theologically narrow, emotional approach) and church membershipism (which delivers bodies but not souls). Don’t get hung up on the problem: Did Jesus really rise from the dead? “Whatever ‘resurrection’ may mean empirically,” writes Perry, “is quite beside the point. Theologically it means Christ is the one who is ‘out in the field’ directing the church’s mission from the front line, as it were.” Perry’s theological brew has a peculiar aroma, as it were.

Next, remember that the coffeehouse must be religiously neutral: “Let us hope,” he cautions, “that the coffeehouse is not used merely as a ‘front’ to draw unsuspecting sinners in off the street to convert them (unwittingly) to our point of view. Regrettably, this is the conscious purpose of some coffeehouses presently in operation.” That is, make the mocha torrid, but don’t lose your evangelistic cool.

Perry suggests that house intellectual fare be varied: low-key lectures, poetry, music (classical and folk but seldom pop), drama, and graphic arts, followed by profound dialogue. He tops off his book with ten tempting coffee recipes, from instant to coffee alamode. Such knowledge was gathered during a cross-country coffeehouse study financed by a $5,000 grant to the NCC from the National Coffee Association. Honest to Sanka!

The book prompted me to visit his brand of coffeehouse in Gotham City. In a dank cellar I drained my tepid cup (at 50¢ per—enough to arouse a pagan response), heard a risqué folk song by a sockless intellectual, and endured an hour of small talk. What a grind.

I still believe that meeting people on the grounds of a coffeehouse has great evangelistic possibilities. But Perry’s Coffee House Ministry? It ain’t my cup o’ tea.

With sugar and cream, EUTYCHUS III

Ecumenicity At Berlin

The World Congress on Evangelism was a demonstration of truly biblical ecumenism. There are two kinds of ecumenism. One, which is often spurious, grows out of affiliation with the right organization(s). The other, which is satisfying and real and which was exemplified in Berlin, grows out of a common identification with and devotion to Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, as revealed in the Scriptures, the Holy Word of God.… Ecumenism was as much a part of the program as the various sessions themselves.

The experience of the congress was far greater than anything the advance publicity predicted.… I was thrilled and gratified at the privilege of being “among those present.”

WARREN FILKIN

Professor of Christian Education

Northern Baptist Theological Seminary

Oak Brook, Ill.

The World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin was the greatest ecumenical meeting of its kind this century, to my knowledge. Please let this be but a beginning which portends greater things to come.… This was an “ecumenical council” in which Southern Baptists were proud to be seen. The WCC in Amsterdam was one at which few appeared and probably still fewer would like to have been seen.

H. LEO EDDLEMAN

President

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

New Orleans, La.

The congress was eminently worthwhile and was a very substantial blessing to me.

MEDFORD JONES

Professor of Church Ministries

Emmanuel School of Religion

Milligan College, Tenn.

The Congress will always live in my memory as one of the truly significant experiences of my life. Since my return home I have been amazed to see the extent of public interest in the meeting, and I continue to get invitations to report to various groups on what happened in Berlin.

C. DARBY FULTON

Nashville, Tenn.

The congress was a milestone! Only yesterday I received a letter from one of my friends in India, who tells about giving a report on the congress the first Sunday after his return. Describing the effect, he says, “Over thirty people responded to a call for rededication, and the congregation was unwilling to leave even at the close of the benediction.”

PAUL S. REES

Vice-President at Large

World Vision, Inc.

Monrovia, Calif.

Words are inadequate to express the inspiration and uplift the World Congress on Evangelism gave to me.… The messages were biblical in content, scholarly in their presentation, and evangelistic in their approach. The information received as well as the inspiration and fellowship which thrilled my heart will always be remembered.

GARTH L. PYBAS

Secretary, Evangelism Department and Brotherhood Department

Kansas Convention of Southern Baptists

Wichita, Kan.

Unbelievable Charade

John Gerstner performed an admirable service for the cause of Antichrist in his article New Light on the Confession of 1967 (Dec. 9). This beautifully sophisticated deception from the pen of a noted evangelical is perfectly calculated to obscure the basic issues at stake in the proposed adoption of the 1967 Confession. To pretend that the adoption of this document could in any conceivable fashion make the church adopting it “more catholic, evangelical, and reformed than ever before” is an unbelievable charade.

PAUL H. ALEXANDER

Reformed Presbyterian

Huntsville, Ala.

After reasoning his way out of the difficulty, Dr. Gerstner has concluded that whatever is done with the confession, the United Presbyterian Church will be “more catholic, evangelical, and reformed than ever before.” To paraphrase a shopworn saying, he will be delighted if they do and delighted if they don’t.… In some other circles this is what is known as “hedging your bets.”

I do want you to know how much I profit from your magazine. When it arrives at my home, most everything else takes second place. By the way, congratulations to the new Eutychus for a rousing beginning.

JAMES A. DAVEY

Assistant Minister

North Side Church Christian and Missionary Alliance

Pittsburgh, Pa.

More Light On The Middle East

Dwight L. Baker makes it a point to say in his article, “How A Whole Church Vanished” (Nov. 25), “Oversimplified explanations for the failure of Christianity under Islam abound. We must search for deeper internal causes.”

It is surprising therefore that he should make only an offhand reference to the Crusades, which historians generally regard as the deepest cause for the failure of Christianity to maintain a significant foothold in Arab-dominated lands. The effect of the Crusades on the compatibility of the Christian message to Islamic people was so disastrous that they were probably the single most important factor in Christianity’s subsequent inability to permeate the Islamic world. Again, in his paragraph on the church’s failure to become indigenous, the author hints at but fails to develop a second profound historic reason for the Gospel’s non-success in the Arabic world, summarized succinctly by Van Leeuwen:

Christian evangelism had to pay very dearly for its success in the Roman Empire; it meant the Church became heir to that radical antithesis between itself and the Persian Empire, which Greece bequeathed to Rome and to Byzantium; and thereby she spoiled her own chance of entering upon a victorious course in Asia, as she had done in the West [Christianity in World History, Edinburgh, 1964, p. 213].

So it was that Islam came to fill the gap left by the one-sided expansion of Christianity within the Hellenistic world on one hand and the weakness of Jewish Christianity on the other [p. 225].

L. ARDEN ALMQUIST

Executive Secretary

Dept. of World Missions

The Evangelical Covenant Church

Chicago, Ill.

Dr. Baker may be interested in reading an article of mine which appeared in Church History (Dec. 1960) entitled, “The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam.” I feel that Dr. Baker has relied too heavily on cultural factors and too little on theological. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed reading his article.

CHARLES J. SPEEL II

Head, Department of Bible and Religion

Monmouth College

Monmouth, Ill.

His five reasons for the decline and fall of the Church in North Africa skirt the main cause. They conceal more than they reveal and lead readers astray. These five “reasons” emphasize current slogans in mission but do not uncover the basic causes of the vanishing.

DONALD MCGAVRAN

Dean, School of World Mission and Institute of Church Growth

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

What The Doctor Ordered

I cannot resist telling you of the delight with which I have read the first two installments of Eutychus III. His tongue-in-cheek, witty, occasionally irreverent comments are good medicine which should help deflate our tendencies toward pomposity and self-importance.

I fancy that you may hear from some good folks who find Eutychus III a bit too much. So I just wanted you to know that one reader finds him just what the doctor ordered. Long may he occupy his window sill!

KARL E. KEEFER

Assoc. Prof. of Educational Psychology

University of Tennessee—Memphis State University Center for Advanced Graduate Study

Memphis, Tenn.

You have shown poor taste by your inclusion (Dec. 9) of the letter from Eutychus III addressed to Christmas shoppers. Your magazine is highly respected by many, but you have scarcely enhanced its stature by publishing this low cheap sarcasm. Indeed I would call such material sub-Christian, certainly not glorifying to the Lord, nor an exhibition of that love which we are commanded to show to other men, no matter how strongly we may disagree with them or they with us.

HENRY OWEN

Chicago, Ill.

The Congressman’S Choice

I was quite interested in the denominational affiliations of our congressmen (“The Ninetieth Congress: A Religious Census,” Dec. 9), especially your reference to the new congressman who “will miss Saturday roll calls.” Sabbath observers have faced this problem ever since the Seventh Day Baptist governor of Rhode Island, Samuel Ward, became a member of the First Continental Congress.

It is a shame that congressional sessions are still held on the Sabbath, forcing a congressman to make this difficult choice between religious conviction and patriotism.

JOHN A. CONROD

Salemville Seventh Day Baptist Church

New Enterprise, Pa.

It is a most enlightening statistical report. Among the “eye-openers” are these:

1. The general feeling among many people is that the Roman Catholic Church and the Democratic Party are closely allied, each abetting the other. Nine of the 10 Methodist governors are Democrats. Only 4 of the 9 Roman Catholic governors are Democrats.

2. The Roman Catholic leading total of 109 members in Congress is very misleading, unless one sees that of the 109 there are 96 members of the House and only 13 Senators. The Methodists have far more Senators (24). The Episcopalians have 15 Senators with only a total of 68 in Congress. The Baptists have 12 Senators with half the representation of the Roman Catholic Church.

3. The only Latter-Day Saint among the congressmen (9) and governors (2) east of the Mississippi River is George Romney.

DONALD C. LACY

Methodist Church

Hagerstown, Ind.

From The Campus

As Bible school students, we are vitally interested in what goes on in the religious world of today. We must keep informed on all movements and trends in our busy world.… Your magazine has made it possible for us to keep up to date.…

SADIE SCHILSTRA

Secretary

The Senior Class

Reformed Bible Institute

Grand Rapids, Mich.

Plowing Through

The poem “First Frost” (Nov. 25) by E. Margaret Clarkson was … good—and well worth the trouble of plowing through the rest of the “folly, foibles, and phonies” in this issue.

WILLIAM T. JOYNER

Swarthmore, Pa.

Cartoonry

Lawing’s cartoon in the November 25 issue is delightful. My sympathies are with the perplexed lion. Perhaps cartoonist Lawing will do one on “I’ve got a home in gloryland” and present a copy to every youth group’s song leader.

JOSEPH MCDONALD

West Chester, Pa.