Page 5997 – Christianity Today (2024)

June is always an extra-busy season for an editor, and it generally includes, as it does this year, baccalaureate and commencement addresses. Graduations remind us, amid the clamor of pressing problems, that life goes on. Babies are born, young people complete their education, marriages are contracted, jobs are filled, and the cycle of life repeats itself. And it will do so until time ends.

The Christian, a magazine in England, has ceased publication, and CHRISTIANITY TODAY will take over many of the unexpired subscriptions. We welcome these British readers to the family and trust they will find helpful material in our pages.

We are pleased to announce the coming of Donald George Tinder to our editorial staff at the beginning of July. Mr. Tinder is completing his work for the doctorate at Yale, where he has served as a teaching assistant in the college and the divinity school. He has an M.A. and a M.Phil. from Yale as well as a B.A.; in addition he holds a B.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary. His wife, the former Edith Johnson, has a Wheaton B.A. and a Yale Divinity School M.A. in religion.

Mr. Tinder was born in Florida, an only child; his parents live in Miami. He brings to our magazine family the richness of his Brethren background, a deep commitment to Jesus Christ, and a writing skill already demonstrated by published material.

Few contemporary paradoxes are more poignant than that of a generation that regards itself as most sophisticated in other areas and yet involves itself to the tune of millions of dollars in the occult. The proliferation of mystic systems in an era of electronic circuitry, and the fascination astrology holds for the avant-garde, causes one to look for deeper reasons for this curious contradiction in modern life.

Since the announcement that the cast of the rock musical Hair included an astrologer, it seems to have become a status symbol for rock troupes to have an astrologer-psychic in their retinue. More significant, Hair features a song hailing the advent of the Aquarian Age. It seems that this craze may supplant Scientology in its fascination for the psychic community. Certainly it reflects emerging frames of mind.

Let no one think that to its cult the motif of the Aquarian Age is merely whimsical or eccentric. There is solid evidence that many among the architects of our pop culture take with extreme seriousness the division of history into segments ruled over by zodiacal signs. The philosophy of history projected here is about as follows: The 2,000-year period ending with the opening of the Christian era was the Age of Aries, symbolized by a ram, thought to suggest God the Creator. The following 2,000 years, symbolized by the fish and called the Age of Pisces, are considered a sorrowful age, represented by the death of Christ and marked by dissolution, water (tears) being its solvent.

Now, so the theory goes, we are at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which has been variously estimated to have begun in 1904 or 1933 or more recently. The Aquarian Age has air as its symbol, and is held to be a sort of new spiritual beginning, marked by promise of universal brotherhood, wide learning, and the shedding of hurtful inhibitions.

The forces behind this revolutionary life style of the mind are varied and complex. Some of them are without doubt psychological, others cultural; but there are evidences of deeper and more basic spiritual causes. It is to these that the Christian Church needs to give attention, to see whether there are indicated areas of spiritual or theological lack.

It seems clear that some significant part of the current “cultic occultism” stems from a growing distrust of the rational in our time. Thus, we are seeing here a part of a larger revolt against reason that surfaces also in the rigid and unstructured demands of “far out” groups upon various units of the Establishment.

Perhaps also the resort to astrology is a rationalization of a revolt against the inflexibilities of a mechanistic age, as objectivized by the computer and other depersonalized forms in technology. Someone may respond here that little is to be gained by exchanging one determinism for another. But it must be remembered that today’s astrology is not regarded as a rigid form of celestial determinism.

A comparison of today’s horoscopes with those of, say, the medieval period reveals that the contemporary form of astrology is in general genial and bland. Gone are the warnings and strictures imposed by the medieval star-gazers upon those who failed to respond to their signs. Today’s predicted Age of Aquarius is hopeful. The older restrictions and galling rigidities of the Age of Pisces, being at length the victims of the inexorable process of dissolving-dissolved emotion, are now lost in cultural-historical chaos. This leaves the field wide open for a promised golden era, in which newer integrative forces will lead to cooperation, brotherhood, and pushed-out horizons.

It is this mentality that also rationalizes the revolt of the avant-garde against such stabilities as marriage, structured societies, and cultural norms. Certainly if man is held in the grip of newly operative celestial powers, he cannot be blamed if he responds to the impulses of a new era. And certainly the proffered hope of a new age of enlarged dimensions for the human spirit, and a new freedom for man to be human, appeals to those of humanistic orientation.

Whatever the motivation for the newer astrological interest, it is evident that the movement is already the victim of exploiters who have moved in for the financial kill. No one can know with accuracy how many persons derive their livelihood from the arts of the occult. Time for March 21, 1969, estimates that there are some 10,000 full-time astrologers in the United States, and 175,000 practicing the art part-time. Over 1,200 of the nation’s daily papers carry horoscopes. Rock music groups grind out albums dealing with astrology, while paperback writers seek to capitalize upon the public interest in the subject.

More revealing still, courses in astrology and witchcraft are offered, not only in offbeat Mid-Peninsula Free University and Heliotrope Free University, both in California, but also in sedate state universities. Such studies can, it may realistically be feared, “reach dangerously into the mind,” and may even produce public psychosis. While some may enroll in such courses for reasons of social pressure or status seeking, many others of those deeply involved in these psychic forms are operating with deep seriousness. This is especially true of those who avoid the redundant forms of popular horoscopes and move into the area of computerized “readings” based upon the hour (or even the minute) of the client’s birth.

To return to the question raised at the beginning of this article: For what Christian understanding is the newer occultism a substitute, or to what biblical insight is it a surrogate? It occurs at once that astrology, and particularly the newer cultic form with its Aquarian Age, is seeking for a philosophy of history. May it not be that whenever one rejects a rational and structured frame for history, he inevitably turns to a non-reflective one?

Again, may it be that when the mind turns its back upon the prophetic understanding of history, in which God is Lord of history, of life, and of death, then it is shut up to philosophies of history that proceed from the creature? And if scientific interpretations of history (such as that of Marx) fail man, may he not turn to the irrational and the cultic? And is it not but a step from the cyclical view of history to that of the astrologer?

We venture that the loss of the providential view of history, which in its biblical sense is linear and eschatological, lies at the root of modern man’s confusion, a confusion that seems to border on the absurd in the new cult of the Aquarian Age. Perhaps the Church needs to be challenged by this bizarre form to a renewal of its stress upon the role of the Living God in the affairs of men.

HAROLD B. KUHN

Many christian educators are enthusiastic about summer opportunities for church education. According to Wayne Buchanan, executive director of the National Sunday School Association, “summer is one of the brightest prospects we have for Christian education. Children and youth have more time than during the school year. Their availability for longer and more frequent periods of time in church educational activities greatly enhances the potential of their Christian learning experiences.”

“Innovative” is the adjective that best describes many church programs in the summer months. Among the areas of experimentation are vacation Bible school, service projects for youth, camping, and evangelistic efforts.

Some churches hold vacation Bible school in the evenings, others have it in the mornings and afternoons, and still others have morning sessions for children and evening sessions for youth and adults. In many churches, evening programs for young people include recreation, Bible study, films, discussions, and refreshments—often under a name other than “vacation Bible school.” Mothers’ classes with special appeal to non-Christians have been an effective evangelistic tool in VBS. Some schools have been conducted much like a daycamping program, with daily field trips to points of interest, along with Bible study and crafts.

Another novel and fruitful idea is having the school in neighborhood backyards. Last summer, workers from the Racine, Wisconsin, Bible Church held VBS in twenty-one backyards throughout the city. Attendance soared from the traditional 300 in the former at-church VBS to 840, most of whom were unchurched. Harvey Martin, director of Christian education, reported 125 conversions compared with 12 the previous year.

The traditional two-week VBS is giving way to one-week schools, according to a recent nationwide survey (reported in the Research Report on Vacation Bible School Trends, Scripture Press Foundation, 1969). In this study, 48.0 per cent of the 5,076 schools in 1966 lasted ten days and 40.9 per cent lasted five. But in 1968 the five-day school led the ten-day by more than 11 per cent (49.7 per cent compared with 38.1 per cent). The percentage of schools of other lengths (such as six days, eight days, or one day a week for ten weeks) increased slightly from 10.3 in 1966 to 13.9 in 1968.

These experiments have led to an overall increase in VBS attendance, according to the Scripture Press Foundation study. However, many summer educational activities are suffering from a shortage of workers, and in most churches summer brings a decrease in Sunday-school attendance and a disbanding of children’s church. This is caused in part by the longer vacations and longer weekends now available to many American workers. Also, increased affluence has enabled many Americans to purchase cottages for weekend and summer use. The problem is heightened by the popularity of community summer programs (such as sports, scouting, camping) and increased summer-school offerings.

But these difficulties may be a blessing in disguise. Robert Marquardt, a Christian-education executive of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, believes they are forcing churches to break the “edifice complex” and to find ways to reach out from the church building to the lost during the summer.

Summertime provides special opportunities for young people to participate in service projects. More and more churches are encouraging their youth to conduct children’s Bible clubs and vacation Bible schools in rural communities, the inner city, and other out-of-the-way areas. Other young people are holding gospel services and distributing literature, and witnessing in convalescent homes, jails, hospitals, trailer parks, and migrant workers’ camps. Many local churches and several denominations have developed programs for sending their young people to visit foreign and home mission fields such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Appalachia, Alaska, and Indian reservations in Arizona.

In many larger churches church-sponsored social gatherings for teen-agers are more frequent during June, July, and August, and regular weekly youth meetings often give way to more informal after-church singspirations on Sunday evenings, many of them held in homes.

Realizing that people welcome the refreshing and relaxing outdoor atmosphere of camps, many denominations and individual churches have developed extensive camping programs. The work of Christian Camping International has done much to stimulate interest in church-related camping. Many Christian educators think that camping is one of the best things evangelicals are doing in Christian education. Speaking of the camping ministry of the Evangelical Free Church of America, Kenneth Meyer, Christian-education executive of that denomination, observes, “It is just amazing to note what churches will commit themselves to financially and in labor in order to build a camping program for their district or region.”

Camps are said by one camp expert to be “one of the best places for winning people to Christ and helping them grow spiritually,” and are the scene of many life-changing spiritual decisions by children, youth, and adults. In 1967 the Baptist General Conference of America, for example, reported that 863 conversions and 1,736 other spiritual decisions were made at their camps.

Another exciting trend is day camping—camping from approximately 9:30 to 3:30 on one or more days each week for several weeks. Trips to nearby farms, parks, beaches, museums, and other spots of interest, combined with sports, nature hikes, Bible studies, and crafts, have high appeal to young people in the primary through junior-high age levels. Many churches are discovering that day camping is an excellent means of reaching unchurched children and youth in the community for Christ.

Some summer evangelistic efforts have been unusually successful. Chicago’s Bellevue Baptist Church showed gospel films in its parking lot on Wednesday evenings after prayer meeting, and other churches have shown them on Sunday evenings. “Films have been shown at shopping-center parking lots, at fairs, and in homes to invited guests,” reports the Rev. Lawrence Swanson, Baptist General Conference Sunday-school secretary. Some families have shown films in their front yards—an excellent way for them to take the Gospel right to their own neighborhood.

With the use of these and many other innovative ideas, summer is becoming one of the most fruitful seasons of the year for church education. Increasing numbers of churches are finding that “he that gathereth in the summer is a wise son” (Prov. 10:5)—Dr. ROY B. ZUCK, executive director, Scripture Press Foundation, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

Another Billy Graham Crusade … so professional … so polished … so much like Madison Avenue.… At least that’s the way it should look to the 200,000 persons expected to attend his current crusade in New York’s Madison Square Garden, June 13–22.

Beneath the surface and behind the Garden’s show window, however, Graham team workers have spent twenty months scurrying about, raising money, soliciting personnel, driving business bargains, writing news releases, organizing prayer groups, and training counselors—in a frenzy that bespeaks continual inventory time.

Witness, for example, crusade director Bill Brown’s New York offices two weeks before opening night: A half-empty cup of cold coffee on a sloppy desk. Overflowing wire baskets. Empty boxes in one corner. Filled boxes in another. A worn map of the city on one wall. A score of letters, awaiting signatures, in disarray on a folding chair. A dirty, threadbare couch where visitors wait for interviews. And witness the sidewalks at rush hour, twenty-seven stories below. All this points up the spirit of hurry, confusion, yet definite destination, that has caught up the Graham team this spring.

Why all the commotion? For a partial answer, look at the more typical facets of crusade preparation: Organizing prayer groups, training counselors, raising money …

The money matter, supervised by a local committee that invited Graham to New York four years ago, called for meeting most of the $825,000 budget by June 13—a goal that by late May local crusade chairman Elmer Engstrom felt fairly confident about reaching.

The prayer backing was handled by organization of more than 40,000 area churchmen into some 5,000 prayer groups; each began weekly meetings early in May.

Preparation of counselors has been the most extensive of any crusade. Since last fall, Graham’s associates have taught nearly 6,000 persons how to counsel with the men and women who respond to the evangelist’s invitations. Significantly, about 10 per cent of the counselors are persons who first accepted Christ in Graham’s 1957 New York campaign, while more than 1,000 persons have made “decisions” (many for conversion) during the training sessions themselves.

A second cause of the frantic activity lies in the unique problems posed by this particular crusade. The most obvious is New York City itself—its immensity, its immorality, its seething qualities. Billy, after a recent walk down Times Square with his son, told staff members he was “absolutely overwhelmed” with the openness and depth of the sin he saw.

There also is the problem of church apathy. Despite the hectic pace at crusade headquarters, several members expressed concern that local churches may not be working as hard for the success of this crusade as they did in 1957, even though more than 1,000 of them have indicated support.

“I sometimes wonder if some churches are becoming blasé about evangelism,” said Brown. “Most of them don’t set everything aside for the crusade anymore. They seem to take for granted that Billy Graham will bring automatic revival. But we know, of course, that he won’t.” Added an associate: “Strange, but in some ways it’s harder than ever before. I wonder if it’s a trend of the times. Evangelicals seem to be even more of a minority here than in the past.”

Added to these difficulties is the pervasive problem of race. Though the crusade committee includes blacks and Spanish-Americans, efforts to enlist broad support from non-white communities have been frustrating. More immediately worrisome were constant rumors that militant blacks might attempt to disrupt or hinder at least one of the services.

“We know nothing concrete, and have no plans to cope with such problems,” said Brown. But one of his colleagues noted: “Many black people have said they can’t see us getting through the crusade without trouble. All we can do is commit the problem to God.”

A third cause of the bustle is that new techniques have been devised to meet New York’s unique problems. “This city seems like a restless bull,” says team member Gil Stricklin, “almost as if possessed by demons. We have to try everything we can.”

Thus the decision to set up a gigantic coffeehouse. In Manhattan Center, near the Garden, tables are being provided each night for some 1,500 youths expected after the service for an informal hour or two of youth-oriented music (folk rock, hard rock, and “Jesus songs”)—and talk. “It’s a brand new approach,” says the Rev. Forrest Layman, the man behind the coffeehouse. “We want to reach youth in their media, and music is their life. It will be an experiment … a soft-sell approach … the most exciting departure for me in ten years of crusades.”

Thus, also, the decision to set up a crusade TV network, sending each of the rallies into a potential of 30 million Eastern homes each night.

And thus the return to a kind of daytime “soap box” evangelism. Each day, vans will move into areas like Central Park, the shipping docks, and Times Square, with associate evangelists aboard to preach to open-air crowds. This approach may take some adjusting by more traditional preachers, Brown admits. “But people who have done this sort of thing say you can pull 1,500 listeners just like that. It’s exciting.”

Despite the intense activity, team members are not starry-eyed while discussing their hopes. Graham himself has said the man on the street would probably not notice great changes in the city. “The important thing,” said Engstrom, “is that we confront a substantial number of people with the call of Christ. Maybe those who respond will have a leavening effect on the city.”

… Like the Puerto Rican child confronted by a layman on his way to a crusade committee meeting. Noticing the lad scribbling on a subway poster, the man walked over intending to scold him—only to find the boy writing the words, “Jesus saves.”

“Do you know what that means?” he asked. The youngster replied: “Sure do! The preacher Billy Graham came to San Juan in 1967 when I still lived there—and I became a Christian.”

Korean Congress: ‘Christ For 30 Million’

Korea’s two million Protestants followed up the Berlin and Singapore Congresses on Evangelism with one of their own. A four-day Korean Congress last month drew more than 1,000 Christian leaders from all denominations to lay plans for national evangelism.

Then, putting their plans into action, they climaxed the congress with a five-day United Evangelism Crusade that on its first night alone packed Seoul Stadium with more than 40,000 Koreans to listen to a Chinese evangelist from Hong Kong, the Rev. Timothy Dzao. Though Asia-planned and Asia-directed, the congress did not exclude the West. Other speakers included Dr. Kermit Long, former evangelism secretary of the United Methodist Church in the United States. Daily Bible conferences in the municipal stadium added depth to the rallies.

Planning for the congress was directed by three prominent Korean Christian leaders: Dr. Simeon Kang, pastor of Saemoonan Presbyterian Church, the oldest Korean Protestant Church: Dr. Helen Kim, president emeritus of Ewha Women’s University (Methodist), the largest women’s college in the world; and Dr. Kyung-Chik Han, pastor of what may well be Asia’s largest single Christian congregation—the 9,000-member Yungnak Presbyterian Church of Seoul.

Both the congress and the rallies were challenging reminders to Korea’s Christians that although their church is the largest organized religion in Korea—now outnumbering both Buddhists and Confucianists—there are nevertheless more non-Christians in Korea today than when Protestant work began eighty-five years ago. Ninety to 93 per cent of Korea’s expanding population still does not acknowledge Christ as Lord.

The congress chose as its motto: “Let us put Christ in the heart of every one of our 30 million Koreans” (in South Korea).

SAMUEL H. MOFFETT

Religion In Transit

Twelve of the “Milwaukee 14”—including six clergymen—were found guilty of theft, burglary, and arson in the burning of draft records last summer.… Two days earlier last month, a group known as the “Chicago 15,” including two Catholic priests and a seminarian, were arrested on similar charges.

A Bronx district attorney is investigating the reported referral by New York clergymen of pregnant girls to illegally operating abortionists, four of whom were recently arrested in a raid on a lavish Bronx apartment. Twenty-one prominent clerics of New York two years ago formed the Clergymen’s Consultation on Abortion, but its spokesman won’t admit it’s illegal, the New York Times said.

Commencement at United Presbyterian Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, took on an avant-garde look this year, with students planning the exercises. The 420 graduates wore no caps or gowns, one of them refused her diploma, and a speakerless program included slides of atrocities in Viet Nam and Biafra. Loud protest music drew boos from many adults.

Already, reparations demands presented in different church groups total more than $1 billion, plus another $1.5 billion for black colleges, far more than the original $500 million asked in militant James Forman’s “Black Manifesto” (see June 6 issue, page 42). Demands made this month included $100 million asked of metropolitan Boston’s churches and synagogues, particularly the Christian Science “mother” church. Rejecting Forman’s demands were the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church and the General Board of the Christian Church (Disciples).

Personalia

Westmont College (Santa Barbara, California) will have a new president July 1: Dr. John William Snyder, 45, acting chancellor of Indiana University.

Now engaged is Ruth Bell Graham, 19, youngest daughter of evangelist and Mrs. Billy Graham. Her fiancé, Ted Dienert, 24, of Rydal, Pennsylvania, attended Taylor University in Indiana and works in Philadelphia. Miss Graham is a sophom*ore at Gordon College. No wedding date was set.

Convicted draft-subversion conspirator William Sloane Coffin, Yale chaplain, will marry Mrs. Harriet H. Gibney of Boston, former wife of an encyclopedia-company executive, this summer. The controversial United Presbyterian clergyman was divorced last year.

Although trustees did not act on his resignation, Stetson University president Paul F. Geren said he plans to leave the Baptist-associated school by fall (see June 6 issue, page 46). The faculty voted 93–0 “no confidence” in Geren’s administrative leadership.

Dr. John H. Tietjen, 40, public-relations secretary of the Lutheran Council in the U. S. A., has accepted the presidency of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

A United Presbyterian will be in charge of the world’s most powerful court if President Nixon’s choice for the next Chief Justice of the United States is confirmed. Warren Earl Burger and his wife belong to National Presbyterian Church, where Dr. Edward L. R. Elson (the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s pastor and chaplain of the U. S. Senate) is senior minister. The nominee was raised a Methodist, attended House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul. Burger’s churchgoing is spotty, but intimates consider him “a witnessing and working Christian.”

Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York became the sixth clergyman—and the first Roman Catholic—to preach to the President at last month’s White House church service.

DEATHS

ROBERT G. LETOURNEAU, 80, pioneer developer of earth-moving machinery, college founder, and internationally known church layman; in Longview, Texas.

TRUMAN B. DOUGLASS, 67, vice-president of the National Council of Churches and head of the United Church of Christ’s Board for Homeland Ministries; in New York.

World Parish

In a stately mansion by the River Seine northwest of Paris, the four-year-old French Evangelical Theological Seminary closed the current academic year with thirty-four students from eleven countries. The seminary—said to be the only “thoroughly evangelical” graduate theological school for 210 million people where French is officially spoken—started with five students.

To the beat of African tom-toms booming through St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Paul VI and twenty-four newly ordained priests from different countries concelebrated a Pentecost mass.

Evangelical leaders of Argentina have founded the Evangelical Theological Society. Its creed is like that of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. Latin America IVCF director Dr. Rene Padilla is president of the new group.

Conversions to the Christian faith have reached “staggering proportions” in some parts of India, a militant Hindu leader reported at an all-India Hindu conclave. A massive drive was planned to win back the converts.

Racial militants won a major hearing from the World Council of Churches last month. They persuaded the thirty-eight churchmen attending a WCC consultation on racism to recommend that member churches encourage “reparations” and “all else failing … support resistance movements, including revolutions.”

The five-day consultation, held in London, had been called in an effort to update the World Council’s race policies. World Council spokesmen issued the usual disclaimers, saying that the consultation spoke only for itself and that the recommendations were merely for the consideration of the Central Committee, which meets in August.

Meanwhile, black-power radicals reveled in the publicity the World Council managed to attract for them. A number were outspokenly critical of the white Christian community as a whole, causing the meeting to have more than its share of tense moments.

Following a closed plenary session, U. S. Senator George McGovern, who chaired the consultation, told reporters what had been decided. The adopted statement suggested seven steps (see text following). Besides endorsing revolutions and reparations, the consultation sought to have the World Council and its member churches begin applying economic sanctions “against corporations and institutions which practice blatant racism.”

McGovern, a Methodist layman, had no qualms about the statement. “I am not a pacifist,” he said. “I participated in World War II as a combat pilot and I endorse the concept as stated in the recommendation.”

The Rev. Channing Phillips of Washington, D. C., a United Church of Christ pastor, was one of several blacks at the consultation who exchanged strong words with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Michael Ramsey. The titular head of the world Anglican community had provoked ire by refusing to allow a question to be directed to a speaker representing the British government.

Phillips, a delegate to last summer’s Democratic National Convention and the first black ever nominated for the U. S. Presidency, referred to Ramsey’s approach as “platitudinous drivel.” Ramsey later apologized to the consultation, after the would-be questioner, a Guyanese, told him: “The trouble with you bloody English is you always do things your own way.” McGovern said the incident had resulted from a misunderstanding.

The London meeting was disrupted at one point à la James Forman when five of his American supporters seized the floor to present demands for something like $144 million reparations from the wealth of the churches. WCC General Secretary Eugene Carson Blake later said he wondered whether they might also be willing to assume the churches’ debts.

Here is the complete text of the consultation’s statement on racism:

The World Council of Churches’ Consultation on Racism, meeting from the 19th to 24th May in London, was a result of a recommendation by the Fourth Assembly of the World Council in Uppsala, Sweden, last July. The Consultation clearly revealed that the Church and the world are filled with the insidious and blatant institutional racism that is producing increased polarization and threatening an escalation of the struggle for power between white and coloured races into violent conflict. More than once the Consultation itself was exposed to the pervasiveness of stereotypes, paternalism and, in the final result, attitudes of racial superiority that have developed over centuries. And the churches reflect the world.

The identification of the churches with the status quo means today, as before, that it has remained, in effect, part of the racial problem and not a means of eliminating it.

If the churches are to have any relevance in these critical times, it is imperative that they no longer concentrate their attention on the individual actions of individual Christians who are fighting racism. To the majority of Christians, the Church is a community, a group—perhaps even a movement—and it is therefore necessary that issues of racism be addressed by a group. Individual commitment is commendable—but not enough.

The patterns of racism have a universality that is frightening. UNESCO has found out even where there were laws to discourage racism the concentration of power, wealth and status in the hands of one racial group are working in favour of de facto discrimination. The situation is tragio when racism is manifested by well-intentioned, but uncritical persons and dangerous when it is practized by institutions.

It has become clear in the week’s study and dialogue that racism is in large part an outgrowth of the struggle for power that afflicts all men. Racist ideologies and propaganda are developed and disseminated as tools in economic, political and military struggles for power. Once developed they have a life of their own, finding a place in the traditions and culture of a people, unless stringent and continuous effort is made to exorcize them. The problem has been well documented in the UNESCO Report.

A second fact that has become clear is that the Church is not using the weapons it possesses to eradicate racism itself—even within its own institution. But the Church is charged with a ministry of reconciliation. And if it is to take that ministry seriously, then it must attack racism significantly—at its origins, as well as in its symptoms. Therefore, the Church must be willing to be not only an institution of love, but also an institution of action, making inputs into societies to help effect a new balance of power that render racism impotent. The Church must come to realize that in our institutionalized world, the closest approximation to love possible, is justice.

To that end, the Consultation calls upon the World Council of Churches to take the following steps:

(1)that the World Council of Churches and its member churches begin applying economic sanctions against corporations and institutions which practice blatant racism;

(2)that the World Council of Churches and its member churches use every means available to influence governments in following a similar practice of economic sanctions to promote justice;

(3)that the World Council of Churches and its member churches do support and encourage the principle of “reparations” to exploited peoples and countries (recognizing the churches’ own involvement in such exploitation and hence, reparation) to the end of producing a more favourable balance of economic power throughout the world;

(4)that the World Council of Churches should establish a unit with adequate resources to deal with the eradication of racism;

(5)to circulate among member churches the UNESCO Report as background material to enable Christians to understand why the Church and church-related institutions must enter into the struggle against racism in areas of power;

(6)that the World Council of Churches, through the initiative of its reorganized Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, serves as the co-ordinating centre for the implementation of multiple strategies for the struggle against racism in Southern Africa by the churches;

(7)that all else failing, the Church and churches support resistance movements, including revolutions, which are aimed at the elimination of political or economic tyranny which makes racism possible.

Colorful Convention Capers: ‘A Man Named Paisley’

“I’m looking for a man called Paisley,” said the policeman, as he apologetically entered the press room during the Church of Scotland General Assembly sessions in Edinburgh last month. That supporters of the militant Protestant leader were in town had become evident the previous evening when round and round went a little car with the now familiar slogan: “Jesus saves, Rome enslaves.” This was supplemented with banners next day that did not wish the Pope well. The immediate target was sitting inside the Assembly Hall with visitors from other churches as each was welcomed by name.

Things were moving doucely along till the announcement: “From the Roman Catholic Church.…” Bedlam broke loose in the public gallery as about fifty Protestants expressed their dissent in fifty different ways. There were extraordinary scenes as the menacing fist-waving coterie shouted abusive comments at the first official Roman Catholic visitor to the assembly since the Reformation.

Sir Bernard Ferguson, former governor-general of New Zealand, could be seen making his way to speak comfortable words to Father John Dalrymple. Sir Bernard was later to address the assembly as “Ladies and gentlemen—and vipers,” the latter culled from one of the more biblical epithets hurled at Father Dalrymple. Meanwhile, the moderator had suspended the sitting and left the chair while the demonstrators were persuaded to leave peacefully. Since Ian Paisley and a colleague had been permitted to hand a petition to the moderator earlier, and had professed themselves “satisfied” with this arrangement, the uproar was regarded by many as demonstrating the folly of doing a deal with the protesters.

A deal had been done because the Queen had made history by coming herself to a regular assembly meeting—the first time the sovereign had done so since the 1603 Union of the Crowns (normally she sends a representative). The business committee had wanted to avoid anything that would embarrass Her Majesty, who as it happened had left the assembly two hours before trouble started.

In addressing the 1,360 fathers and brethren, with Prince Philip on one side and the Secretary of State for Scotland on the other, the Queen had renewed her annual pledge “to preserve and uphold the rights and privileges of the Church of Scotland.” During the eight days’ business that followed, the Queen paid a number of visits to the assembly, the business of which proceeded normally in her presence, as befits a land jealous of the rights of a kirk which owns no head but Jesus Christ.

Another moment of history took place when Her Majesty, head of the Church of England, took communion in the High Kirk of St. Giles’—and in doing so received the cup from a woman elder (there were five such in the assembly this year). The latter fact did not meet with the approval of the controversial minister of St. Giles’, Dr. Harry Whitley, whose eighty-eight-man kirk session lacks female representation.

In its report to the assembly, the Panel on Doctrine took the first cautious steps toward disposing of the Westminster Confession, convinced that “the whole conception of a subordinate standard is one which the church may now feel it wise to abandon” as an anachronism. The confession was regarded by the panel as one of a number of post-Reformation statements “which led the men who drafted them to be dogmatic about mysteries which are beyond the comprehension of finite and sinful creatures.” The assembly agreed that the panel should take preliminary soundings from presbyteries before it reports again on the subject next year.

The assembly condemned the use of all forms of chemical and biological warfare but declined to make similar condemnation of all weapons of war. Similarly, it would not “deplore the action of the United States in using such weapons in Viet Nam.” The assembly also resolved to ask the government to cease the supply of arms to Nigeria.

A Gaelic scholar, Dr. T. M. Murchison, 61, was elected moderator in succession to Dr. J. B. Longmuir. In his closing address, Murchison said: “To be a church to match this hour we must be convinced of the relevance and adequacy of the Good News we profess … ‘To whom can we go but unto Thee?’ said Peter long ago.” Nobody, concluded the moderator, had ever satisfactorily answered Peter’s question.

Meanwhile, two dissident sources had directed rumblings toward the assembly. Dr. Whitley said that if the assembly did not check its ecumenical enthusiasts, the kirk would become “an unhappy province of the Anglican Communion” or be confronted with another secession. The Roman Catholic Church is quietly waiting to exploit the dismemberment of the Kirk, and the creation of a Roman Catholic cardinal in Scotland (the first since the Reformation) and the arrival of a relic of St. Andrew in Edinburgh “may be more than straws in the wind,” warned this present-day occupant of John Knox’s pulpit.

A mile away in St. George’s West church hall, a group of theological college lecturers and students had formed what they called a “Dissembly.” They felt the General Assembly was not representative of the people of Scotland, and they wanted to free the Gospel from pious religiosity and conventional morality.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Bishop Bucks Encyclical

A Roman Catholic bishop has joined the ranks of those unable to accept the official church teaching forbidding artificial contraception. The Most Rev. James P. Shannon, one of the nation’s best-known liberal prelates, is the highest official of the U. S. hierarchy to dissent publicly from the controversial birth-control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, issued last July by Pope Paul VI.

Minneapolis Star religion editor Willmar Thorkelson, in a copyrighted article, said Shannon submitted his resignation as auxiliary bishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis after an exchange of correspondence with the pontiff that began last September and “weeks of anguish, days of prayer, and hours of fear.” Shannon refused a papal proposal that would have banished him to an overseas assignment without status.

Meanwhile, the Vatican spiked persistent rumors circulating particularly in Spain, Italy, and France that the Pope would soon amend the encyclical.

While they were being urged at some of the official sessions to become more “prophetic,” religious editors at the Associated Church Press/Catholic Press Association convention were wondering how to cope with the results of previous prophetic advice. The story many editors were quietly telling was one of declining circulation and falling advertising revenue. Alfred P. Klausler, executive secretary of the ACP, reported a decline over the past year of 1,401,490 in the group’s total circulation, dropping it to 21.6 million. Commenting on the troubles experienced by some of the member publications, Klausler said, “It is always something of a paradox that subscribers to church journals will tolerate and renew subscriptions to secular publications which irritate them but will not by the same token exercise the same toleration in their church journal. There must be greater religious maturity on the part of church people.”

Little that could be called real ecumenism was achieved by this first joint meeting of the two associations. Each side seemed to be operating on its own frequency. The problem was accentuated because many of the Catholic editors represented local diocesan papers published under hierarchical supervision while most Protestant editors represented publications with less geographical limitation and less immediate control. Catholic editors seemed most fearful of hierarchical oppression, while Protestant editors—especially those from denominational journals—were concerned about lay backlash.

One evidence of lay dissatisfaction is the appearance of conservative dissenting journals within the United Methodist, Episcopal, and Presbyterian folds. At least one, the Presbyterian Journal, has apparently prospered at the expense of the more liberal denominational magazine, Presbyterian Survey. In the past five years the Journal has gained about 22,000 subscribers while the Survey lost more than 50,000.

The Atlanta meeting produced no surprises. Race is still “the issue” in the minds of the religious editors of America, an almost exclusively white group. Meeting in the home town of Martin Luther King, Jr., delegates obviously felt his shadow over their meetings.

The widow of the slain civil-rights leader, Coretta King, who was one of the featured speakers, told the convention the Church is in danger of becoming “a moribund guardian to its ritual as it declines into irrelevance.” She characterized the reparations called for in the “Black Manifesto” as “meaningful symbolism,” adding that the churches should do something more significant by using the influence of their 80 million members to back legislation in Congress.

“If programs which would end poverty and abolish discrimination were enacted, all society would benefit and all society would pay the cost rather than one part of it,” she said.

In commenting on student unrest, Mrs. King said: “The young people most hostile to the Church are by no means morally degenerate.… Their appeal for racial and economic justice, for peace and for humanism, is the essence of morality.”

W. C. Fields, president of the ACP, and Monsignor Terrence P. McMahon, president of the CPA, had earlier joined in placing a wreath on Dr. King’s grave.

The hit of the three-day program was Dr. Albert Outler of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. In his quip-laden address (Pope John XXIII became Johnny Unite-Us), Dr. Outler pointed out that the locus of authority for Protestants had once been Scripture, “but we’re not working that side of the street anymore. We’ve left that to the Catholics.” He concluded that there is indeed a crisis of authority and that authority must now be found in a convergence of un-self-righteous love and critical insight in an atmosphere of freedom—persuasive insights rather than force.

Clarence Jordan, founder of the Koinonia Farm (an integrated cooperative community near Americus, Georgia) and author of the Cotton Patch Version of Paul’s Epistles, told the 400 editors: “Churches should stop accepting tax exemption on their property.” Until they do, they should pay an equivalent amount into a “fund for humanity,” he said, explaining: “We ought to spend at least as much to put a roof over the heads of our brothers whom we have seen, as to put a roof over the head of God whom we have not seen.”

ACP awards of general excellence went to the Canadian Churchman of Toronto, official monthly of the Anglican Church of Canada; Youth, a joint publication of the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, Church of the Brethren, and the Anglican Church of Canada; Colloquy, Christian-education magazine of the United Church of Christ and the United Presbyterian Church; Presbyterian Survey, official publication of the Presbyterian Church U. S.; United Church Herald, United Church of Christ monthly; These Times, Seventh-day Adventist monthly; and the Christian Century.

The top magazine winners of the twenty awards presented by the Catholic Press Association were the St. Anthony Messenger, a Franciscan monthly, and Thought magazine, a quarterly published by Fordham University. Top awards for Catholic newspapers went to the Long Island Catholic, Rockville Centre, New York, and the now defunct Oklahoma Courier, Oklahoma City.

Newly elected officers of the ACP are Kenneth Wilson, editor of the Christian Herald, president; Ben R. Hartley, editor of the Presbyterian Survey, first vice-president; DeCourcy H. Rayner, editor of the Presbyterian Record, Toronto, second vice-president.

Joseph A. Gelin, managing editor of the Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, was named president of the CPA.

PERIODICAL CHANGES AND MOTIVE’S FOUR-LETTER HANGUP

“Clearly obscene,” said the publisher of motive magazine, referring to language in the intended May issue of the controversial student-oriented publication. And Dr. Myron F. Wicke, secretary of the United Methodist Division of Higher Education, “postponed” the issue, asserting, “There is enough obscenity in the world without our adding to it.”

Motive, launched in 1941 by the Methodist Student Movement, has been published by the Methodist board for the now defunct University Christian Movement at a cost of $40,000 to $63,000 a year. The faltering campus monthly has been on the ragged edge for some time (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, October 25, 1968, page 43).

A special issue for March–April on the “liberation of women” also sparked fire for its liberal sprinkling of four-letter words. The “postponed” issue was edited by B. J. Stiles, now a staffer of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation in Washington, D. C.

Three other senior editorial staffers have either quit or given notice. A committee to study the future of the magazine named a non-Methodist, Robert Maurer, as editor-designate, subject to final approval late this month. United Church of Christ member Maurer, a Union Theological Seminary grad of 1968, chaired the youth delegation at last summer’s World Council of Churches’ Uppsala assembly.

Meanwhile, Good News: A Forum for Scriptural Christianity within the Methodist Church, announced formation of a board of thirty directors for the new and growing publication, edited by Charles W. Keysor in Elgin, Illinois.

Emerging from a board meeting in Tulsa are Good News evangelical renewal groups across the denomination, and a projected nation-wide Dallas convocation for Methodist evangelicals in the fall of 1970.

The magazine (circulation 9,000) espouses “deep commitment to our Wesleyan heritage of scriptural Christianity,” Keysor says.

After a long (110-year) and illustrious career, The Christian and Christianity Today, British newsweekly of evangelical thought and action, ceased publication this month because of slipping circulation (see Editor’s Note, page 2).

Another magazine being phased out is the forty-year-old Pulpit, a companion periodical of the Christian Century. Replacing Pulpit this fall will be a new journal, Christian Ministry, to be edited by Robert Graham Kemper, a Montclair, New Jersey, United Church of Christ clergyman. The change reflects the swing in ecumenical circles away from the centrality of preaching to the action context of current ministry.

Regular participation will include the National Council of Churches, the newly formed Academy of Parish Clergy (see June 6 issue, page 47), and seminaries. “We are affirming the recovery, for the contemporary church, of one of the richest treasures of the Christian heritage,” said Century spokesmen in announcing the conversion of the Pulpit. “We are affirming ministry.”

Circulation (264,000 peak in 1965, 200,000 now), and financial ($30,000 increase in underwriting during the same period) problems have dogged the Presbyterian Survey, official magazine of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. The monthly’s board of directors was to act June 12 on a proposal to change its frequency and format.

Essentially, the magazine would be changed from a forty-eight-page feature slick to a more news-oriented sixteen-page biweekly. The Survey might also get its name changed in the overhaul.

Another magazine undergoing major visual face-lifting is His, monthly student publication of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

Plumbing The Educators

Until H. Norman Wright surveyed 270 Christian-education directors recently, almost no statistical information about them and their work was available.

The assistant professor of religious education at Talbot Theological Seminary found:

• More than 60 per cent have seminary or other graduate training, and churches increasingly look for this.

• Their training was weakest in counseling, group dynamics, organization, and administration.

• Smaller churches often employ youth directors.

• Churches rarely provide comprehensive job descriptions for new staff.

• Salaries still lag behind those of secular jobs requiring comparable education; and women’s salaries average nearly $1,650 less than men’s.

• Inadequate knowledge of the opportunities and unrealistic salaries account for the low number of recruits.

• Bible schools and Christian colleges, plus individual pastors, are most likely to influence young people toward Christian education careers.

Soft Answers At Lookout Mountain

An unexpectedly large number of commissioners to the 147th synod filled the scenic, mountain-top campus of Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, for the annual meeting of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod last month.

“Soft answers” characterized most denominational deliberations. A middle course was steered on whether Freemasons may be church officers, on the place of dispensationalism in the church, on possible union with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and on Covenant College’s acceptance of federal funds for buildings.

The church refused to establish additional requirements for local church officers, though it restated its strong disapproval of the Freemasons and other secret societies as “organized pagan religions.” A request from the Southern Presbytery to declare dispensationalist doctrine “antithetical to the system of the Westminster Confession” and to disqualify dispensationalists from holding office was referred to a study committee.

While there was considerable discussion of federal aid to Covenant College, the overture to forbid Covenant from seeking federal aid lost by a substantial margin. The school recently received $1.7 in government money for three new buildings, and such aid is essential for more contemplated expansion.

Perhaps the most significant issue was ecumenicity; it certainly was the one that most seriously divided the commissioners. Since the Reformed and Evangelical Presbyterian Churches merged four years ago, there has been considerable pressure for the RPCES to join with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a group similar in theology and outlook.

Three of the twelve presbyteries overtured synod to resist the merger but the effort was substantially voted down. The disclaimer of Fraternal Relations Committee chairman Robert Rayburn that the committee was “railroading” a merger with the Orthodox Church was refreshing in light of highhanded tactics of some large-denomination hierarchy in forcing ecumenical interests. Rayburn said the committee saw its duties as merely implementing the wishes of synod.

A “Basis of Union” with the OPC was sent to presbyteries and local churches for study during the coming year. The committee plans to ask next year’s synod, as well as the OPC General Assembly, to approve a preliminary plan of union.

Many RPCES’s consider the Orthodox Presbyterian Church to be somewhat worldly in its attitude toward Christian liberty and hyper-Calvinistic toward evangelism. As is typical of most proposed merger discussions, reports indicated a number of RPCES congregations will withdraw if the union goes through.

RPCES minister and mission executive Arthur Glasser urged the synod to fulfill both its cultural and evangelistic mandates in an age when, he said, ecumenical churches are fulfilling only the cultural mandate and the evangelicals tend to fulfill only the evangelistic one.

Genial Wilbur B. Wallis, New Testament professor at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, was elected moderator of this year’s synod.

Gordon And Conwell Announce Betrothal

Two of America’s leading interdenominational theological schools will join forces this fall to form what the new president predicts will be “one of the outstanding divinity schools in the world.” Gordon Divinity School of Wenham, Massachusetts, and Conwell School of Theology, Philadelphia, will merge to form the Gordon-Conwell Divinity School. Dr. Harold J. Ockenga, now head of Gordon, will be president, while Dr. Stuart Barton Babbage of Conwell will be vice-president.

A new 800-acre campus on Boston’s north shore is expected to house a student body of 750 within a few years, while a new Conwell property in Philadelphia will serve as the school’s urban-training center.

Asked why the schools were merging, Gordon Vice-president Daniel Weiss answered with his own question: “Why maintain two separate schools, so similar in nature and yet so close to each other geographically? By combining our total resources, we should both be able to do what we have wanted.” Namely: develop an urban-studies center, establish (eventually) an institute for advanced theological studies, and bring together an outstanding faculty.

Conwell, technically just nine years old, sports a long, rather proud history as successor of the Temple University School of Theology—founded by Russell H. Conwell of “Acres of Diamonds” fame. Conwell gained stature through Dr. Billy Graham, who initially was asked to appoint its entire board (he is now a board member at both schools), and through its heavy emphasis on urban-ministries training. One-third of Conwell’s fifty-five students are black.

Gordon, much larger, dates back nearly eighty years. Once a division of Gordon College, it now has 255 students and twenty-six faculty members.

The new school will be evangelical theologically, with faculty representing the Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches.

Many merger details are yet to be worked out. School officials have not decided just how the Philadelphia property will be used, nor has the governing structure been finally developed. And housing must be arranged for all students at Gordon this fall, since buildings on the new campus have not yet been started.

Despite these problems, Weiss is optimistic: “When you’re on your way to being something new, there are a lot of ambiguities on the way. But we think we have something pretty exciting going.”

BIBLE-READERS’ BEAGLE: ANOTHER GO-ROUND

Neither the Bible nor Snoopy, the ubiquitous pooch of cartoon fame, is a stranger to the space circuit. They made the scene again last month in the epic Apollo 10 lunar landing rehearsal.

Astronaut commander Tom Stafford followed the lead of the Christmas Eve moon-circling Apollo 8 crew by including Bible reading (his favorite passages: Psalms 8; 122; 148, and Isaiah 2:4, KJV). But instead of reading it live from out there, Stafford had the Scripture intoned from the pulpit of his church down here (Seabrook Methodist, near Houston) by the lunar module project manager, Brigadier General Carrol H. Bolender.

“We’re kinda out of town for church today,” Stafford told astronaut Joe Engle at the spacecraft center offhandedly, “so I just copied down a couple of things I thought might be appropriate for him to read.”

But the three space-going churchgoers (Eugene A. Cernan is Catholic, John W. Young attends St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in League City, Texas) spiked any notions of a world-wide TV audience watching their spaceploits that the three are all that heavenly minded. Besides some incredible grammar, the astronauts’ language was spiced with earthy terms and several obscenities.

“Blasphemous!” exclaimed Dr. Larry W. Poland of Miami Bible College in telegrams fired off to President Nixon and the space agency. “A disgrace to the nation.” Poland asked Nixon to hold up all decorations honoring the astronauts until they made public apology for the offending expletives.

As for that rambunctious beagle. Snoopy, he became a masco(nau)t two years ago when officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration started a safety and moralebuilding campaign and chose him as its symbol. The Stafford crew used “Snoopy” and “Charlie Brown” as code names for the lunar and command modules, but the comic strip’s creator, Charles Schulz (a Church of God member), had already had Snoopy make his own moon journey last year, beating “the Americans, the Russians, and that stupid cat next door.”

Another Texas Methodist, Robert L. Short (catapulted to fame and fortune through his The Gospel According to Peanuts and The Parables of Peanuts), sees “theological implications” in practically every frame of the Peanuts strip and considers Snoopy “a little Christ.” After Stafford and Cernan crawled back into the command module and sealed the hatch, “Snoopy” was jettisoned and blasted into orbit around the sun. What Short will make of that absolutely boggles the imagination.

Church Income: A Taxing Business

Growing demand for taxes upon unrelated business income of churches showed up in a progress report issued last month by the influential House Ways and Means Committee. The congressional tax-law drafters said they had tentatively agreed to impose levies upon churches and other groups that operate businesses having nothing to do with their exempt purpose. However, income derived from dividends, interest, rents, and royalties would still be tax free.

The committee’s agreement on exemption curtailment reflects increasing sentiment for its inclusion in the tax-reform bill the legislators currently are drafting. The National Council of Churches and the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops have urged an end to church tax exemptions on unrelated business income (see May 23 issue, page 31).

Committee chairman Wilbur D. Mills has voiced hopes that new tax measures could be enacted by the House by early August. But Senate passage might not come until late fall or early 1970.

Among the committee’s tentative decisions was one to close the so-called Clay-Brown loophole wherein a church can borrow money to buy a business, then pay back the money from tax-exempt profits. The change would discourage such transactions by removing the incentive of tax exemption on the profits.

The committee also announced tentative agreement on some changes in income-tax deductions for charitable contributions. The general limit would be raised from 30 to 50 per cent. However, the base to which this percentage would be applied (adjusted gross income) would be reduced by any non-business interest deductions claimed in excess of $5,000.

The unlimited charitable-contribution deduction would be phased out by 1975. Under the present provision, if a person’s contributions plus income-tax payments equal 90 per cent or more of taxable income in eight of the ten preceding years, he is able to deduct contributions in full.

Taking Core Of Its Own

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) may have found a new way to get around restrictive local zoning laws: establish a church.

That, at least, is the way the Long Island chapter of CORE responded recently when zoning officials in Roosevelt, New York, refused to approve an application for a youth center and black library, which they feared might draw disrupters. “Our only alternative,” said local CORE chairman Lamar Cox, “was to set it up as a church.”

And so they bought a Christian Science edifice, named it the Shrine of the Black Madonna, and hired 24-year-old Baptist minister Frank Robinson as pastor. Some 100 persons turned out for an opening service that included African chants and steel drums.

Asked how an organization so often critical of Christianity justified establishing its own church, Cox replied: “There’s nothing wrong with Christianity; white men just don’t follow it.” He said national CORE officials were “enthusiastic” about the move—perhaps as a technique to be copied elsewhere.

Clergy Vs. Laity?

The Gathering Storm in the Churches, by Jeffrey K. Hadden (Doubleday, 1969, 257 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Addison H. Leitch, professor of theology, Gordon Divinity School, Wenham, Massachusetts.

What is in the realm of general awareness for most is given point and support by this serious and sympathetic study by Dr. Jeffrey K. Hadden, professor of sociology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. With great concern and yet with disciplined detachment he has attempted an analysis of what is happening as the clergy drift away from the laity, the clergy drift away from one another, and the laity drift away from the Church, or at least from commitment and involvement. The threat, as he sees it, is of a “gathering storm” that may well bring destruction to the Church not too many years hence.

One may approach the book in either of two ways: as a general reader or as a scholar who is able to handle the deeper sociological issues involved and to accept the implements and date of the trained sociologist. Hadden enlists the support of both types by an early recognition of the limitations of his study and of the possibilities and impossibilities in sociological findings, a constant and careful concern for what he aims to do and what he finds, and a clear understanding of what constitutes scientific fact, speculation, or inference. Despite his very evident enthusiasm for his subject he does not mislead; he does not try to say more than the evidence permits. And along the way are fed in topics of great interest, as for example the shift of more radical thinkers away from the pulpits of the local parishes to the non-parish duties of boards and agencies—and control centers!—of every denomination.

For the general reader the value of the book is found in the introductions and summaries, what in another type of book would be thought of as the narrative element. Great understanding is evident in chapter 1 (and the questions there raised are kept in view throughout), where he deals with three crises: meaning and purpose, belief, and authority, any one of which would be enough to account for the “gathering storm.” Then at the end of the book a chapter entitled “Collision with Reality” is in itself an excellent essay offering some suggestions for a solution. It is in this last chapter also that one gets closest to the mind and heart of the author.

Those engaged in other disciplines on university campuses still wonder about the aspirations of psychology and sociology to become sciences. The question is, of course, Why should they want to be? Since they treat the subject of man, are they not limiting the whole idea of man by treating him in such a fashion that his doings can be reduced to charts, statistics, and numbers? (It was refreshing to note that a recent article in Time gave white rats their comeuppance as clues to human beings.) So the question with this book and books like it: Just what do we know when the figures are all in? The questions asked are very penetrating, but whether the answers tell us anything is the bigger question. One gets the impression of general trends—but one had that impression before he saw the statistics. And if a Martin Luther or a John Wesley should turn up in the minority percentages, then where are we?

Christian Or Not?

Post-Christianity in Africa, by G. C. Oosthuizen (Eerdmans, 1968, 271 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Donald McGavran, dean. School of Missions, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

As the Gospel has spread through sub-Saharan Africa, six thousand denominations have arisen. Several kinds may be distinguished: (a) those greatly assisted by the founding missions and patterned after them, (b) those not assisted from abroad and shaped by the Bible understood as the only rule of faith and practice, and (c) those not assisted from abroad and shaped by former religions, idiosyncrasies of their leaders, and snippets from the Bible. The great question is, How many of the six thousand denominations are (a) and (b) and how many are (c)? How many are churches and how many nativistic movements?

Oosthuizen writes after extensive study. He has read widely in the voluminous literature on the subject. He brings to his task anthropological insight and a good understanding of traditional African religion. He deals with all parts of sub-Saharan Africa and even goes back to the ancient Africa of Tertullian and Donatus.

His merit is that he applies theological criteria as he distinguishes between churches and syncretistic movements. One does well to read him before deciding how to consider these denominations variously called independent churches, indigenous churches, separatist sects, heresies, new religions, and African enthusiasms. He presents a much more critical view than Barrett’s Schism and Renewal. Of particular value is his insistence that to be truly Christian a denomination must elevate the authority of the Word over that of the Spirit.

Oosthuizen’s weakness is that, despite repeated affirmations that African churches be African, he measures them on a European scale. He depends heavily on theology formulated by Europeans—Bultmann, Kraemer, Barth, Tillich, Margull, Troeltsch, and others. The shadow of the state churches of Europe lies over his mind. He takes current Geneva formulations very seriously and judges African denominations according to them. He flatly applies Western theological definitions of a high order to movements struggling toward Christian faith and sternly rules them “no church.”

Instead of believing that, as animism dies out and light from the many Christian churches of the world increases, African denominations now murkily “Christian” will become more and more biblical, he labels them new religions of the post-Christian era. (Note the heavy European pessimism in the very title of the book.) To him, they are not Christian churches in process of formation but worse than heresies departing from the faith.

As nations are brought to faith and obedience (Rom. 1:5, NEB) and Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans come to understand Christ through their rich and divergent cultural heritages, many forms of church and formulations of doctrine are certain to arise. Which are plainly and which vaguely Christian, which are plainly and which vaguely pagan, is a debate that will agitate the churches for many decades. Oosthuizen is rightly applying his theology to the problem. Each Christian should do the same. This book should be assiduously read by all dedicated to the great discipling of the nations that will occupy the decades immediately ahead.

Valuable Ministerial Tool

The Minister’s Desk Book, by Lowell R. Ditzen (Parker, 1969, 351 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Ralph G. Turnbull, pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington.

As a pastor of long experience I came to this book with some reservations, wondering what new things could be said in a work of this kind. I was surprised to find myself reading sections through to the end for the stimulus and thrust they contained. The author, Lowell Ditzen, writes from a rich pastoral background and is well informed of what others have done in this field.

Leadership today forces a minister to equip himself for a variety of services, such as counseling and visitation, hospital work, social service, finance and administration, education, and often the building of new facilities. He cannot be a specialist in all these spheres—the like has not been born—but he should be familiar with general requirements so he can guide and appoint others in the work of the church.

In this well-organized and outlined volume, just about every role of the pastor is thoroughly discussed. There is wise counsel about his association with officers, boards, and staff. Fellowship and joy in working together are the key to achievement.

Especially valuable are the chapters on new building projects and finance—both the annual budget and fund-raising for special needs. From my viewing point near the end of a large building project (sanctuary, chapel, and education building), Ditzen’s views on these matters seemed down to earth, experienced, and balanced. Public worship is given fine treatment also, with attention to music and choirs, publicity, and the standards for church members. Here is the goal and the spirit of this handbook: it ends where the pastor begins, with the care and nurture of people. Evangelism and outreach are matched by Christian nurture and pastoral oversight.

This book can be a good investment, for its regular use will return dividends in improved relations, better cooperation, and more dedicated service in the life and work of the congregation.

Insight Into The Prophets

An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets by Hobart E. Freeman (Moody, 1969, 384 pp. $6.95), is reviewed by J. Barton Payne, professor of Old Testament, Wheaton Graduate School of Theology, Wheaton, Illinois.

This introduction to the prophets is well written, neatly documented (but not cluttered) with those sources one most needs to know about, and consistently sound in Bible-believing scholarship.

In Part I, Freeman describes the prophetic movement. He sees prophetism as founded upon Deuteronomy 18; he recognizes a threefold prophetic function: ethical, predictive, and doctrinal; and his sections on ecstasy and the false prophets are particularly perceptive. His excursus on philosophy and science as “a sinner’s search for God” is hardly complimentary; and he wobbles over whether or not Daniel “belongs … as found in the LXX … among the prophets.”

Part II consists of a special introduction to the sixteen biblical prophets, arranged in (Freeman’s) chronological order; it is strange that he does not mention Second Chronicles 28:16–18 and the 735 date for Obadiah, preferred by Davis, Raven, and Young. He effectively summarizes each book’s date, authorship, and contents, and also its historical background and interpretation. Freeman is abreast of critical problems, e.g., watersheds like Isaiah 7:14, the authenticity of Habakkuk 3, and the identity of Daniel’s four empires. One misses mention of Jeremiah’s Scythian problem and the relation of Amos 9 to Acts 15. One may also wonder about “the futility of attempting to recover an acrostic poem” in Nahum 1, the ranking of Zephaniah as “apocalyptic,” the interpretation of Haggai’s “desire of all nations” as meaning the Messiah, and the assertion of double fulfillment for Malachi’s predicted Elijah; but these in themselves indicate Freeman’s comprehensive grasp of crucial issues.

Some evangelicals may find too many references to a millennium. Certain pre-mils, in fact, would hesitate over finding Antichrist in Daniel 8, and would wonder whether millennialism really has much to do with Daniel, outside of 2:44b and 7:12, 27. But though Freeman entertains dispensational tendencies, his stance also suggests his own surname; e.g., an openness to question an atoning millennial altar, and to question the assertion that “the Old Testament kingdom prophecies never speak of the blessings of the present age of the gospel.”

All in all, the author and Moody Press are to be complimented on an excellent production.

Studies Eucharistic Liturgy

Eucharist, by Louis Bouyer (University of Notre Dame, 1968, 484 pp., $14), is reviewed by Robert H. Gundry, chairman, Division of Biblical Studies and Philosophy, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

This large and expensive book is devoted to the development of Christian Eucharistic liturgy from ancient times to the present. Interaction with opposing scholarly views plays a large part in the discussion. Although one may disagree, he has to admire the verve with which the author consigns to his “own private little hell” those liturgists who are “merely scholars, not to say common pedants or commonplace hobbyists,” and “liturgical archeologists” who “soil the whole tablecloth with their grimy hands” because “they undoubtedly came to the Lamb’s banquet without much of an appetite”!

Bouyer traces the beginnings back to the berakoth in the Old Testament and in the pre-Christian liturgy of the synagogue. Consisting of praises to God in the form “Blessed [be Yahweh] …,” the berakoth proclaimed his mighty deeds and expressed human gratitude. But these proclamations were more than mere recollections; they had the character of objective re-presentations to God of his past actions in order to guarantee the continuance of his salvific activity. Compare the vitality of the prophetic word to effect its own fulfillment. Then, with an appeal to J. Jeremias’s view (generally rejected) that “Do this in remembrance of me” means “Do this so that God will remember me when he brings the Messianic kingdom,” Bouyer concludes that the Lord’s Supper possessed in similarly objective reality. As Gentile Christians failed to understand the Semitic notion of memorial objectivity, it became necessary to stress the sacrificial character of the Eucharist.

The rest of the book consists of a form-critical exercise in the evolution of Eucharistic liturgy. With varying degrees of convincingness, Bouyer stresses the Christianization of Jewish models. His chief criteria for evaluating the liturgies that evolved are correspondence to early liturgical forms and fidelity to the doctrine of real presence or objective reality. Thus Cranmer, to say nothing of Zwingli et al., fares none too well.

Despite a pervading tone of anti-Protestantism (“The misfortunes of the Protestant Reformation on this point as on many others …”), Bouyer magnanimously gives his nihil obstat to the Eucharistic liturgies of Taizé, the Church of South India, and the American Lutheran Church: “If the Christian communities that use these formulas are to take their original place one day within Catholic unity, we see no reason that would prevent them from continuing their use.” Indeed, liturgical renewal is seen as a means for reuniting the Church, Eastern as well as Protestant, under the Roman umbrella.

Bouyer’s control of the literature on his subject is impressive. Though weak in philosophico-theological aspects of the Eucharistic debate, the book is a mine of information on the liturgy as such. Not the least virtue are extensive quotations of the historic liturgies in English translation. The book should prove exciting to those who are liturgically minded, tedious to those who are not.

Establishing Communication

The Family in Dialogue, by A. Donald Bell (Zondervan, 1968, 168 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Leonard O. McDowell, pastor, Weeden Heights United Methodist Church, Florence, Alabama.

After twenty-one years of experience in the field of marriage and family counseling, Dr. Bell says, “I still find communication the basic problem.” For example, when a marriage breaks down because of unfaithfulness it is not just the unfaithfulness that is the problem, he says, it is the lack of communication in trying to work out difficult situations. Bell cites Dr. Viktor Frankl, who says our basic sin today is “God-shyness.” We are afraid to talk about spiritual things, even within family relationships.

The author believes that dialogue can help bring solutions in the major problem areas of poor preparation for marriage, lack of goals, and missing spiritual emphases. Family experiences that show how the dialogical approach can be used are presented in developmental order: friendship, courtship, romance, engagement, marriage, the child, the teen-ager, the family as a group, and the adult as he matures. To complete the picture there is some discussion of the single adult. In all these settings Bell emphasizes the need for dialogue between family members, as well as conversation between home and church.

The minister and Christian-education worker will find in the appendix many practical helps for developing a local church ministry to families. Among these are outlines of special family programs and suggestions for incorporating good principles of Christian family living into the regular curriculum.

Book Briefs

The Centrality of Preaching in the Total Task of the Ministry, by John Killinger (Word, 1969, 123 pp., $3.95). Affirms the centrality of preaching in the minister’s task and explores its relation to the other activities of a minister and his church.

God’s World Through Young Eyes, by Roy G. Gesch (Concordia, 1969, 160 pp., $3.95). Devotions for nine-to-thirteen-year-olds.

Faith and Understanding, by Rudolf Bultmann (Harper & Row, 1969, 348 pp., $7.50). English translation of a work that has already made an impact upon the theological world.

Up From Grief, by B. Kreis and A. Pattie (Seabury, 1969, 146 pp., $3.95). Explores the phenomenon of grief resulting from the death of a loved one, and suggests ways of dealing with one’s own grief or the grief of others.

Contemporary Catholicism in the United States, edited by Philip Gleason (Notre Dame, 1969, 385 pp., $10). Essays describing and evaluating American Catholicism in a period of upheaval and transition.

The Catholic Case for Contraception, edited by Daniel Callahan (Macmillan, 1969, 240 pp., paperback, $1.45). Articles and documents by prominent Catholic theologians and laymen affirm the right of Catholic couples to make a conscientious decision in favor of using contraceptives.

Discovery in Film, by Robert Heyer and Anthony Meyer (Paulist, 1969, 219 pp., paperback, $4.50). This addition to the “Discovery” series examines human needs and values as expressed in contemporary short, non-feature films that are available for purchase or rental.

Goforth of China, by Rosalind Goforth (Dimension Books, 1937, 364 pp., paperback, $1.75). A reprint of the 1937 biography of this spiritual giant.

Pot Is Rot, by Jean C. Vermes (Association, 1969, 127 pp., paperback, $1.75). In a style designed to speak to youth this book offers factual data revealing the psychological, moral, and physical dangers of smoking, drinking, drug addiction, and promiscuous sex relations.

The Church Business Meeting, by R. Dale Merrill (Judson, 1968, 126 pp., paperback, $1.95). A guide to parliamentary procedure in the church.

Eastern Orthodox World Directory, edited by Joe Kuzmission (Branden, 1969, 305 pp., $25). Includes in one volume statistics covering all branches of the Eastern Orthodox movement.

Brain, Mind and Computers, by Stanley L. Jaki (Herder and Herder, 1969, 266 pp., $7.50). A thoroughly documented rebuttal of contemporary claims regarding the existence or possibility of man-made minds.

Contraception: Authority and Dissent, edited by Charles E. Curran (Herder and Herder, 1969, 237 pp., $5.95). Takes the position that Catholics can be loyal church members and still dissent from the papal encyclical that views artificial contraception as illicit.

The Problem of Eschatology, edited by Edward Schillebeeckx and Boniface Willems (Paulist, 1969, 167 pp., $4.50). Catholic theologians investigate the doctrine of eschatology.

New Ways in Theology, by J. Sperna Weiland (Newman, 1968, 222 pp. $5.95). A useful introduction to contemporary theological discussion.

Kindlings, by Ian Macpherson (Revell, 1969, 159 pp., $3.95). A collection of more than one hundred useful “sermonstarters.

Is it still important for every Christian to set aside regular hours for private Bible reading, meditation, and prayer?

The rise of this practice among laymen came after the advent of the printing press and the Reformation. Each believer could at last read God’s Word for himself. What a thrilling experience this must have been initially. Now some Christians seem ready to discard the whole idea. Why?

At first glance, the decline of private devotions appears to be a product of our harried age. Although machines increasingly do our work, we have fewer spare moments than ever. Demands for action crowd in, and we tend to yield at the point of forsaking cultivation of the inner spiritual life. Real meditation becomes rare, and fasting is forgotten. Many whose profession it is to proclaim God’s Word readily concede that they spend precious little time feeding their own souls.

Mere lack of time, however, may not be major cause for rejection of the devotional tradition. There is increasing skepticism over its value. Indeed, to some the word “devotional” connotes superficiality. They regard it as antithetical to intelligent consideration of Scripture.

Although this complaint may be used as a rationalization to cover up sheer neglect, there is a measure of truth in it. Devotional material by the carload descends upon the Christian public each year and most of it suffers from shallowness. Much of such literature takes a lazy approach to important questions, appealing to the emotions rather than the intellect. As a result, many serious-minded Christians have been “turned off.”

But before devotions per se are dismissed as a waste of time, we should examine their role in the lives of great Christians. In our activist age, influential leaders are invariably pictured as people always on the go. We are not often privileged to peek into their private lives. If we were, we might be amazed to see how much time they devote to periods of solitude from which they draw physical, mental, and spiritual strength.

Dag Hammarskjöld was one of the great activists of our time, and many were surprised to learn when his Markings was published posthumously that the U. N. Secretary General was a very contemplative man who obviously spent much time alone in thought. He was thoroughly familiar with Scripture.

But how could a man in his position ever find time to read the Bible? Answer: He took the time. Moreover, he chided those who had no time to hear God through his Word. “How can you expect to keep your powers of hearing when you never want to listen?” he asked.

We can only speculate upon the effects of neglecting personal devotions. But it is perhaps one reason why so many of us have blind spots in the moral, theological, and ecclesiastical spectrum. It may also account for the personality quirks, contentiousness, and coldness on the part of some whose orthodoxy no one can dispute. It could be that lack of regular two-way communication with God is preventing many a promising Christian thinker from having more of an impact upon contemporary culture.

The record shows that Christians with outstanding minds guard their time with God. The late Kenneth Scott Latourette of Yale, leading church historian of our century, started a “morning watch” while he was in college. “It meant fifteen minutes to an hour of private Bible reading and prayer,” he said. At first it didn’t seem to mean much, but when Latourette wrote his autobiography in his eighties he recalled that “I have maintained the custom over the more than sixty years which have followed, and during much of the time God has become increasingly real as a faithful companion and guide.”

Some feel that only detached, objective, critical study of the Bible is desirable. But J. Gresham Machen, who may someday be considered the most profound apologist of the evangelical cause in the twentieth century, once said that one needs a devout spirit if he is to get anything out of Scripture. He declared there is “no adequate motive to most people to study the Bible as literature only. If we are to obtain the literary knowledge even, we must study devoutly.”

We are more familiar with the devotional lives of men of more remote history, though we seem reluctant to benefit from their practices. A biographer of the great Puritan intellect Jonathan Edwards says that he rose at four in the morning and spent thirteen hours a day studying, always with pen in hand making notes. John Wesley was said to have resolved in his childhood “to dedicate an hour each morning and evening … to prayer,” and to have kept this vow throughout his life. Bunyan seems to have had similar inclinations, for he wrote that “he who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day.” Luther said that “to be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”

Christ himself spent time in meditation and prayer. How much more do we finite human beings need to recharge our spiritual batteries. Time spent alone with God enables him to become incarnate through us. There are valid public means of grace, but there are also private ones that can never be supplanted. How often we need restoration and cleansing! How often we fail because we are not quite on the right wave length. The more importunate and sacrificial our devotions (even to the point of fasting), the more effective our actions will tend to become. The release of spiritual power is contingent upon our meeting divine requirements, and if we do not commune with God we can hardly expect to know what those requirements are.

Sometimes we are tempted to try to outrun God. Our inclination is to blurt out that “time’s a-wastin’” and to get on with the task. But Jesus stressed adequate spiritual preparation; he told his disciples to tarry until they were endued with power from on high. Upon receiving the power they did go out, and never have men accomplished more in so short a time than they did then.

One who carries on a regular devotional life need not be superficial. In fact, true piety comes when we practice our faith at the deepest level of which we are capable. Publishers of devotional material need to recognize the responsibility of challenging the mind, and Christian consumers should voice their demands. But the Bible itself should be the primary devotional source. No one should expect to get much out of his devotions if he chooses to read only a commentary. Intensive examination of Scripture is a must. Continuity and regularity are very helpful, and some form of question-and-answer technique and note-taking will also prove profitable.

To retire to the “closet” for private devotions is not essential. We don’t even have to sit down. We should be free from distractions, however, and will probably need to develop new ways to achieve this in our modern situation. Although it’s pretty hard to read while jogging, we might be able to meditate then.

Christians whose lives need to be revitalized might well find that summer is a good time to start. It’s the season in which there is at least a bit more leisure, and the inspiration of the outdoors is a further incentive. So is vacation time. But whenever the time, the sooner the better. God needs men and women to stand in the gap in these crucial days, and he is more likely to use effectively those who live close to him.

Capital Consistency

Consistent obedience to God’s laws is a rare jewel; what glitters on most of us is merely a paste facsimile. Many churchmen, for example, declare thou surely shalt not execute murderers or kill the Viet Cong, while they campaign for loose abortion laws that allow extinction of human life on more tenuous grounds. At least that seems to be the result of Maryland’s liberalized law; in six months 45 abortions were denied and 743 were performed, nearly 80 per cent of them because of a supposed threat to the mother’s mental health.

No doubt most state abortion laws need revision. But when new laws are passed, physicians and clergymen must use them carefully. Surely we should resist the taking of innocent lives of unborn infants merely on demand or for convenience. There must be substantial medical and other grounds that are biblically licit. Otherwise abortion becomes murder even though the victim can neither walk nor talk.

R. G. Letourneau

R. G. LeTourneau, whose earthmoving equipment and other inventions have changed the landscape of the world, is dead. He was an energetic self-starter who packed a real wallop. For years he traveled to the great cities and to the boondocks to tell about what Jesus Christ had done for him. He established a school of technology, organized a foundation to which he contributed large sums of money, and involved himself deeply in missionary endeavors overseas. In an age when evangelicals have often been accused of lacking social concern, LeTourneau provided evidence to the contrary in his efforts in Africa and Latin America that led to the clearing of land for agriculture and the improvement of crops and livestock. The world will miss him.

Obscenity Under A Methodist Imprint?

The ax finally fell on motive last month. Dr. Myron F. Wicke, publisher of the avant-garde Methodist monthly, said printing of the May issue had been “postponed” because it contained language “which appears to be clearly obscene” (see News, page 30).

It was a courageous step for Dr. Wicke, and he is being subjected to abuse for taking it. But motive has been doing its own thing for years, and it was obviously past time to draw the line. Many readers felt that the March–April issue also had been undeserving of the imprint of the United Methodist Church. It was sprinkled with suggestive illustrations and four-letter words (with an introductory glossary for the naïve). The articles in it espoused morally permissive ideology. Since the publication of motive has been made possible by the offerings of Christians who want their money used to promote righteousness, such content wanders perilously close to a misappropriation of funds.

For those of us personally acquainted with B. J. Stiles, motive’s retiring editor, it is hard to reconcile the vulgarity with his Christian personality. Mr. Stiles is the epitome of the Southern gentleman, friendly, courteous, clean-cut, soft-spoken, and humble. He is a talented young man with a sincere spirit. He of all people doesn’t need to be crude to be heard.

Why, with half a million words to choose from in the dictionary, does motive magazine turn to obscene terminology? The problem may well be symbolized by its name: “motive” with a small m. One wonders whether motive has really had a motive. A help-wanted ad in the March–April issue said that the magazine needed two new associate editors and that “both positions require a person who is politically radical, knowledgeable, and an excellent writer—and some knowledge of hustling funds wouldn’t hurt, either.” Commitments of a non-political variety apparently are not needed—or not wanted.

There may be considerable sentiment to punish motive severely. Surely the irresponsibility of the editors needs to be reckoned with. But Methodist officialdom should resist any temptation to make motive a scapegoat for the serious problems that have overtaken the church. Methodist leaders owe their constituency a deeper explanation. Is not this obscenity in the name of the church due to an overt frustration over failure to convert the mind of man? Is it not the natural fruition of the new theology, the new evangelism, and the new morality that have penetrated Christianity? Has not motive been a victim of the relativistic metaphysics of our time? Can we really expect anything else while seminaries launch students into the sea of subjectivism with neither sail nor compass nor rudder?

What motive needs is a capital M. Only an objective, truly Christian rationale can provide it.

Decision Time On Viet Nam

The organization Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam recently distributed a paper written by Richard J. Barnet. In it he declares that the United States is faced with two options: either the National Liberation Front must be included in a coalition government (with “a communist-dominated South Vietnam a distinct possibility”), or the United States can make the NLF accept less by a decisive military victory. He favors a coalition government and does not run away from the possibility that South Vietnam would be in Communist hands because, he says, they constitute the majority of the people anyway.

It is clear that if the United States buys the notion of a coalition government, then its own war aims will have been nullified. This cannot be disguised as anything other than defeat. Barnet says that talks with the North Vietnamese and the NLF people have convinced him that they understand the “loss of face” problem and that if the United States capitulates they “would go to great lengths to make extrication as easy as possible for the United States.”

If this is true, President Nixon faces some tough choices. And he needs our prayers.

The New Chief Justice

Recently many Americans have been increasingly alarmed and frustrated because persons who are clearly guilty of serious crimes are being released on the basis of trivial technicalities. And when a conviction does come, it is often after an absurdly long delay.

It is good to know that President Nixon’s choice of a new Supreme Court Chief Justice, Warren Earl Burger, shares these same concerns. Repeatedly he has expressed opposition to expanding the rights of accused criminals.

Burger’s reputation as a “law and order” man is in the finest juridical sense of the term. His zeal to protect the rights of the accused is tempered by common sense and by a persuasion that the public too must be protected. His determination that the guilty shall be punished is balanced by a desire that prisons should be corrective, not simply penal.

Burger’s commitment to law and order, as well as his consistent example of personal integrity, may help to bring about a much needed restoration of confidence in and respect for the highest court in our land.

Prostitutes For Prisoners?

They’ve got to be kidding. Recently a bill was introduced in the Wisconsin State Assembly to allow prison inmates to engage in sexual relations with members of the opposite sex. And the privileges would not be restricted to married couples!

One of the most serious problems confronting prison officials is the rather high incidence of hom*osexuality and other sexual perversions among those who find themselves in the unnatural situation of being separated from members of the opposite sex. The resulting passions and frustrations have repeatedly led to serious disciplinary problems.

But the proposed legislation is certainly not the solution. This is another example of the elevation of sex far above its rightful place in the development of personality. Advocates of the plan wrongly assume that an individual cannot be a complete personality apart from sexual relations and that allowing this privilege will eliminate many prison discipline problems.

To what extent even a married inmate should be provided all the comforts of home is open to question; the criminal has forfeited rights and privileges that would normally be his. But to provide for sexual relations between unmarried persons in clear violation of God’s law and in violation of some civil laws is outrageous. And for a state legislature to provide for prison inmates what is rightly forbidden the average citizen is absurd. The would-be criminal will surely be encouraged to know that every effort is being made to promote his happiness and pleasure while a resident in prison.

Church And The Single Person

Now is the time for all single people to come to the aid of one another. This month, incoming wedding invitations and outgoing wedding gifts will tear names from black books, add pressed bouquets to scrapbooks, and elicit concern over why a nice girl/man like you isn’t married.

The reasons are as varied as the nice people without rings on their fingers. Some of these people genuinely enjoy the financial and social independence of singlehood; others want some fun before they settle down in suburbia. Unhappy romances, death, divorce, and personal and family problems leave still others living alone whether they like it or not.

Actually, there’s a lot to like about the single person’s life. His paycheck has to feed and clothe only one person. His newspaper is always intact. He doesn’t have to wait in line for the shower. He can impulsively spend a weekend at the beach. He doesn’t have to tolerate childish interruptions when he’s discussing politics or art—assuming, of course, that he has someone to talk to. The price tag on independence is companionship, the sense of personal worth that comes from “belonging” to another person, security, someone to carry one end of life’s responsibilities.

Single Christians who look for the sustenance of friendship in their churches frequently find instead a stone of frustration. Some “single young adults” groups pile party upon party, but conversation—if it ever gets started—rarely goes anywhere. Other groups slip into Sunday-evening sermonettes that have scant significance for Monday morning—or Saturday night. No one mentions what is uppermost in nearly every mind: marriage and how to achieve it. Everyone appears to take chastity for granted: unmarried people don’t admit their virtue can be tempted, and married leaders fear a what-to-do-when-it-is discussion might create rather than solve problems. But single people’s hang-ups already span a broad spectrum that, unshared, only broadens.

The single Christian needs the church community to love him, not because he is single (and therefore free to teach the junior-high Sunday-school class), but because he is a person. He needs other single people to complain to about domineering parents and overbearing bosses, to spend dateless Saturday evenings with, to confide in about life and love and Christian faith. He needs encouragement from intelligent, fun-loving leaders who have made realistically genuine Christian commitments, people who are young (at heart) enough to bridge generation gaps, mature enough to let him make his own mistakes, honest enough to speak the truth in love. In that aura of security, single people can learn to love others because they are people, not because they are single. And a group founded on respect for one another and united in Christian love may even begin dividing—into twos.

Drinking And Driving

In 1968 more than 55,000 Americans died as a result of automobile accidents. Almost four and one-half million were injured. And these grim statistics can only suggest what the total cost of these accidents was—in dollars and cents, in mental anguish and physical suffering, and in lifelong disabilities.

Young people who are greatly concerned over the tragedy of Viet Nam and the lengthening list of casualties there need to be reminded that traffic safety is a cause in which they could render much useful service to humanity. And it is a particularly appropriate cause for them to adopt, because one-third of the drivers involved in fatal accidents were under twenty-five, though only one-fifth of the nation’s drivers are below that age.

What really hurts is the staggering statistic that more than half of all the accidents and deaths involved drivers who had been drinking. If the Church wants to launch a campaign, it might well turn its attention to the ugly business of mixing alcohol and gasoline which often produces a horrible holocaust.

We do not suggest a return to prohibition, if for no other reason than that it seems impossible to rally enough Americans to support it. But we do say, and encourage every other American to say, that we cannot tolerate the idea that men can drink and drive. Let the rule of the highway be: “If you drink, don’t drive.

Temptation

Temptation is the common lot of all believers. No one reaches a point where he is immune from it and no one is delivered from the possibility of succumbing to it.

Basically man wants to be something, to do something, to have something. These desires are not in themselves sinful. They become sinful only when they cut across the will of God. It was always God’s intention that man enjoy to the fullest all he has given to him in creation. The psalmist declares: “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Ps. 84:11).

Temptation comes, but its source is not God. “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (Jas. 1:13, 14). Ultimately temptation comes from Satan, who makes it his business to bring about the ruin of God’s children. He incites man to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. David and Samson are examples of men who fell prey to Satan.

In his providence God permits his children to be tempted. The trials a believer undergoes have therapeutic value. In them he can learn patience; in them God can correct misunderstanding and remove the dross; in them God can show his delivering mercies. Therefore they are to be received in humility and accepted with grace.

In the midst of temptation the Christian is promised that God “will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). Indeed, the Lord knows how “to deliver the godly out of temptations” (2 Pet. 2:9).

Scripture tells us that each believer is responsible for himself and suggests what he can do when faced with temptation. He is to resist by faith; indeed he is to resist “unto blood, striving against sin” (Heb. 12:4). He is to be watchful, vigilant, alert. He is to use all the resources of prayer to endure the assaults. And is not to become a source of temptation to others by what he says or does.

Of all Scriptural injunctions, none is more demanding or more lofty in spirit than the one that says, “If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1). All of us need to do a lot of forgiving and restoring of others even as we need to be forgiven and restored ourselves.

The following article appeared in the September 16, 1957, issue and is reprinted by reader request.

“If it works it is obsolete,” is a common saying at the Pentagon. This is but a facetious recognition of the rapidity of change in an era of unprecedented discovery and development.

We see the mansions of one generation become the boarding houses of the next and the slums of the third. That which is the acme of modernity becomes, in time, its very antithesis.

Thoughtful people in every generation, aware of the kaleidoscopic changes which seem to come with ever mounting tempo, long for something that endures and is not subject to revision. Henry Lyte expressed the thought in his immortal hymn:

Change and decay, in all around I see,

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Centuries earlier, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul wrote: “We look not at the things which are seen, but at tire things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal [temporary], but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:8).

Paul was no pessimist; he was a realist. To anticipate the night while it is still day is based on sound reasoning. We live in a time of unprecedented discoveries, many of which tend to make life longer and living more comfortable and enjoyable. But with change and progress the inexorable law of change and decay also operates. Strange that so few in this world prepare for the inevitable!

The glory of Christ’s redemptive work is that full provision for time and eternity has been made for man’s salvation. This truth, when grasped and acted upon, can solve every problem. While the complexities of modern civilization, dominated by revolutionary industrial change and development and accelerated by the atomic era, have brought with them problems that require new approaches and solutions, the basic need of the human heart is the same from one generation to the next.

Whether in the time of Abraham, Isaiah, Paul, Luther, or Moody and Graham, whether in a Fifth Avenue mansion or the jungles of the Amazon, men are prone to lust and murder, to pride and jealousy, to sickness and death. Man has never, of himself, escaped from the dilemmas inherent within himself.

True, social complexities, corporate sins, and cultural deficiencies exist that are the reflections of ignorance, indifference, or deliberate perversions of truth and right. But scratch the surface and one invariably finds underlying all these the manifestations of inherent evil within the individual. We are all prone to think of sin only in limited terms and then only as it is manifested in others. We forget that the sins of the spirit are as vile in God’s sight as the sins of the flesh; that pride and envy are cancers as much as lust and dishonesty. And a third category—that of indifference to our brother’s spiritual and material needs—is even less frequently recognized as evil and sinful.

Change and decay within ourselves and on every hand are but the inevitable results of man’s separation from God through sin. For that reason the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only message that is completely relevant for our times. Once the perspective of eternity to time, of the Creator to the creature, is restored, then life itself falls into clear focus.

Nearly two millenniums ago John the Baptist exclaimed: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In the twentieth century, just as truly as then, Christ remains the answer to the sin problem of the world. Degenerative processes of the physical body and of the society to which we belong will inevitably take their course, but Christians are united with the One who changes not—who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

This is being written on the fortieth floor of a midtown hotel as I look down on lower Manhattan. The Woolworth Building—the pride and wonder of a former generation—is now dwarfed by scores of larger and more modern structures. People occupying them are no different from the occupants of the older building. The carriages and trams of yesterday have given way to the cars and buses of today. But the same kinds of people drive them. Sleek liners now dock where windjammers once tied up; giant planes and an occasional helicopter cross the sky. But the man traveling at six hundred miles an hour has the same heart as the one driving an oxcart.

Tomorrow will see even greater changes. We are on the eve of the greatest technological advances in all history, and our imaginations are staggered by that which science may produce. But none of these things can alter the human heart one whit. Change? Yes. Decay? Certain.

In the midst of the storm there stands a Rock. Confronted by chaos, we are offered Certainty. Lost in the maze of conflicting roads, we can find the Way. Perplexed by multiplied philosophies, we have access to the Truth. Facing inevitable death, we are offered Life. In the midst of spurious messiahs there stands the living Christ, man’s only access to the Father.

Change and decay man can see, and their inevitability should cause all to ponder. But the god of this world has blinded man’s eyes lest he see the truth and turn to the light. The lost horizon in contemporary teaching and preaching is the future life. Concerned with the social ills about us, we forget that their solution rests primarily in regeneration, not reformation: in new men with new hearts.

Some have accepted Christ as Saviour but failed to make him Lord. This is a perversion of truth, not an invalidation of it. An unending emphasis on taking Christ into every area of our daily lives is needed, but it is also a compelling truth that no one can have Christ as Lord of life unless he has Him also as Saviour from sin.

To neglect the fact of change and decay is folly. To look at time and forget eternity is to be utterly blind. There is turmoil and uncertainty—admit it. We are transients in a dying world—act accordingly. Christians are each generation’s link with eternity. That some give little evidence of this relationship in no way contravenes the fact. The imperfections of the most saintly are added evidence of the love and grace of God.

Facing the inevitability of death, only the Christian has the answer. He alone knows who he is, why he is here, and where he is going. And all that he is and all that he knows centers in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.

We do not fully know what the future holds. But we do know the One who holds the future—and in his keeping it is safe.

L. NELSON BELL

Blandly Absorbed At The Last

These are lean days for sacred cows. By papal decree sundry saints have been demoted (travelers must go more warily), red hats banished. The papacy itself took a clobbering for some brave and brutal words on birth control.

Foundation-shaking has been felt also among Anglicans. A publication from that stable carries three letters to the editor under the heading “Respect Due To Bishops.” Now, let me say at once that I am ill equipped to comment on this theme. The only bishop I knew really well won my respect immediately because he’d been to Tierra del Fuego, and wanted me to join him on a safari to Samarkand (I know that sounds unlikely, but it’s true). Negotiations broke down when it turned out he was thinking in terms of Flecker’s golden journey while I, with no poetry in my soul, became obsessed with the difficulties of getting a Russian visa.

But about those Anglican letters. The first pointed out, referring to a Lambeth Conference decision, that giving respect to bishops was “hardly likely to result in a mass return to church worship.” The second writer, perhaps shackled by an English upbringing, proved to be a self-confessed “My Lord”-er in addressing a prelate, though he added seriously, “whatever I may call him in the privacy of my own home.” But it was the third scribe who hit a note rare in the episcopal context. He told of the bishop who asked a class of children if they knew who he was. Came the answer from one: “Yes, sir—a miserable sinner.”

That bishops as a breed have not always had a good press might be adduced from a pronouncement of that nineteenth-century enfant terrible Sydney Smith. Let those in denominations currently under pressure to take episcopacy into their systems ponder his solemn words. “I am quite ready to be swept away when the time comes,” remarked the irrepressible canon. “Everybody has his favorite death; some delight in apoplexy, and others prefer miasmus. I would infinitely rather be crushed by democrats than, under the plea of the public good, be mildly and blandly absorbed by bishops.” (Dear printer, do not capitalize a word in that last sentence or I’m in trouble with the DAR.)

Lest I be accused of colossal prejudice against bishops, let me quote approvingly from Bengt Sundkler’s recent biography of Nathan Söderblom—who, incidentally, deserves better than to be canonized by the WCC. To his clergy, that former Archbishop of Uppsala gave the counsel: “You must work yourselves to death—but slowly, please.” That’s the kind of episcopal sagacity we want more of.

Constructive Contrast

Thank you for “Christian Answers to Immaturity” and the “Appeal to Conscience” in your May 23 issue. Such excellent presentations of constructive contemporary thought regarding maturity and conscience encourage the development of more relevant expressions of personal faith. [They are] a refreshing contrast to daily news of campus revolt and abuses of “conscience” as some feel it relates to war and social unrest!

Danville, Ill.

I just completed reading the article “Christian Answers to Immaturity” and came away from it with a sense that here is something down to earth, applicable in the parish ministry. Thank you for printing the article, and I pray God that I will find more men like Dr. Walters.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church

Union Grove, Wis.

Dr. Walters held our hand and took us for a walk to look at immaturity.… He showed us that growing up in families produces deep effects upon our personalities. Unhesitatingly he points to our egocentricity as a frustration to man’s highest aspirations.

Isn’t it a matter of much gladness and praise to our Heavenly Father that we have had graciously created for us a new family in which to grow up, the family of the Body of Christ?…

Much of our Christian immaturity is caused by the frustration of trying to adhere “enabling grace, human effort, and sustained process” to our egocentricity in isolation. Surely we do not grow up into maturity in Christ out of the context, for example, of Ephesians chapter four.

Would you invite Dr. Walters to take us for a more strenuous walk to show us further Christian answers to immaturity in the Church?

Ulpha Vicarage

Lancashire, England

Salt For Tensions

Charles C. Ryrie’s article “Perspective on Palestine” (May 23) makes sense. Having visited Palestine three times and talked with many Arabs and Jews, I have been disturbed by the premillennialists’ disregard for justice toward the Arabs. While I am not in total agreement with Dr. Ryrie, it is encouraging to see a premillennialist with an intelligent sense of concern for the Arabs, who are also God’s people.

There is much more that needs to be said on the subject. A Christian witness is needed in the Middle East. Without offending the religious loyalties of Muslims or Jews and without an immediate goal of making them Christians, we need the kind of witness where the ethical teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are brought to bear as a solution to the conflict. The key insight to this approach to such a witness may be Jesus’ symbols of salt and light and leaven. Surely if Christianity is valid, the Christian Gospel can shed enough light and provide enough leaven and salt to save the situation.

The United Methodist Temple

Russellville, Ky.

The Christian Arabs in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Jordan are daily harassed along with their brother Muslim Arabs. Examples are rounding up the men in a truck to leave them in the desert for twenty-four hours with only a juicy onion for sustenance; another harassment has been for Israeli troops to come into a home when the family is away and cart off a piano and a TV set; another harassment has been bulldozing a row of homes.

We have had many serious discussions here with American and Arab friends about the United States’ ever regaining any Arab country’s trust. Most thoughtful people are quite pessimistic. Thoughts we have had to mend relations are as follows:

1. Have each of the fifty states open its doors to two families from some of the worst refugee camps. This would show our good faith and let individual Americans share in getting the families settled.

2. Send Peace Corps teams to each refugee camp to teach skills that will make the men and boys and young women employable. Or churches could send capable teams.

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Gnawing Termites

Thanks for the editorial “Termites in the House of God” (May 23).

Some of us have seen for thirty-five years what was coming.

Victor Federated Church

Florence-Carlton Community Church

Victor, Mont.

Thank you for your editorial. I appreciated your … forthrightness.

You did leave one central question unanswered, though, in your presentation of solutions to the problem. What can be done when the termites are in control of the denominations? The Bible does have considerable to say about not having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and about turning away from those who have forsaken the truth. Your emphasis upon the supernatural and the resurrection of Christ, as the central features of salvation, is certainly biblical and commendable. Adherence even to this minimal doctrinal standard would spell the doom of much of what is labeled “cooperative evangelism” today.

Asst. Prof. of Systematic Theology

Dallas Theological Seminary

Dallas, Tex.

The editorial literally sent a scare through my evangelical bones. For the author conveyed to me the impression that a theological witch-hunt was a necessity in the future, if the Church was ever to see revival.…

True, we need a return to biblical truths which in turn will show the “angel of light” for what he really is, but who is to be the interpreter of those basic truths? Who will determine the biblical base which is “broad enough to include all true believers and narrow enough to exclude those who are not”? The author fails to mention and therefore seems to have forgotten that the Holy Spirit was sent to give us insight and wisdom to deal with such a problem. It is only in looking to him for guidance that we can bring a solidarity of truth back to the Christian faith.

Associate Pastor

Oakhurst United Methodist Church

Oakhurst, N. J.

Exemption Distinction

Thank you for your kind words regarding the National Council of Churches’ recent policy statement on “Tax Exemption of Churches” (May 23). I was not sure there was anything the NCC could do which would win commendation from CHRISTIANITY TODAY, but there it was—“A commendable policy statement.…”!

In the last sentence, however, the editorial questions whether there is any “substantial difference between direct ownership of a business [which the NCC statement considers should result in taxation of the income therefrom] and ownership of its common stock [which the NCC does not suggest should be taxed].”

There is at least one substantial distinction. In the latter case, the church is merely participating in the ownership of a business, along with many other owners of stock, individual and corporate. If the latter stockholders are also tax exempt (colleges, hospitals, etc.), they do not pay taxes on income from their investments; why should the church be singled out for taxation of this type? If other (secular) non-profit tax-exempt associations are to be taxed on their investments, then churches should be also.

This type of investment is clearly distinguishable from the situation in which a church uses its investment funds to buy up a business and thus competes in the marketplace with taxpaying competitors, using its tax exemption as an advantage to underprice its competitors.…

In the former case, the business in which a church may own some stock does not acquire the church’s tax exemption; in the latter case, it does. That is the difference. The NCC statement observes, “Churches should not be in a position where they are tempted to ‘sell’ their exemptions to businesses seeking a tax advantage over taxpaying competitors.”

Dir. for Civil and Religious Liberties National Council of the

Churches of Christ

New York, N. Y.

What’S In A Name

I was intrigued by your “Editor’s Note” (May 23). It must have been a shock … to finally discover that you are “first of all … Christian.” A study of Acts 11:18–26, in light of Isaiah 56:5; 62:1, 2, and 65:15, would have shown you that this is the name that God intended for his children. The conversion of the Gentiles was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy and signaled the birth of the new name. Why can’t we all just be Christians?

Sullivan Road Christian Church

Knoxville, Tenn.

Forty Days From Easter

I greatly appreciated the article “A Day to Remember” (May 9) by Dr. Fry.

Even in liturgical churches, there is a tendency to overlook the fortieth day after Easter. In the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, for instance, Ascension Day has been moved to the Sunday following, and is no longer observed on its proper day.

Let’s keep “Ascension theology” alive and begin by starting to celebrate this great coronation day of Our Lord on the day in which it falls.

Christ Lutheran Church

Kipling, Saskatchewan

Reality Of The Left

I have found most all recent editorials refreshingly immediate, yet grounded in Scripture, insightful, and truthful. It was with some dismay, therefore, that I read “The Death-Wish Psychosis of the New Left” (May 9).

You are asking the question, Why: why do they want to topple the system? why, when they have had so much freedom? why, when they have enjoyed the affluent society? So you settle on Muggeridge’s somewhat myopic answer: The New Left suffers from an inward death-wish which has been directed outward to society at large.…

As I view (and try to love) the New Left, I see a much simpler reason.… True, these kids have great freedom, and they are participants in an affluent society, but this is precisely why they raise their voices; they are experiencing existentially the “reality” that freedom (so-called) and affluence do not bring peace, joy, and love.

Christians should be aware of this “reality” more than anyone, for they know that only Christ sets one free. If any segment of our society is openly asking ultimate questions, it is the kids of the New Left. The Christian has something very crucial for them to hear: that their unrest merely confirms something Jesus Christ came 2,000 years ago to proclaim, and that he died that we might have it.

It is frustrating to me, therefore, that more Christians are not in the midst of these kids saying this, rather than at the sidelines condemning them …

In light of all this, I find your attempt to “explain away” the New Left distressing. Perhaps they may suffer a “death-wish,” but this is because they are living out what the Church should have told them (as well as itself) long ago: materialism is no substitute for Calvary. Let us tell them that today, and then live this answer to prove the truth of our words.

Asst. Prof. of Economics

Gordon College

Wenham, Mass