Page 6371 – Christianity Today (2024)

The principal character in this small prophecy is Jonah, son of Amittai. We read of him in 2 Kings 14:25, in which the additional information is given that he was from Gath-hepher, in the territory of Zebulon, known today as Khirbet Ez-Zurra. We learn also that Jonah was a servant of the Lord.

The following will serve as a working analysis of the book.

I. Chapter 1:1–3. Jonah receives a commission from the Lord to go to the great Assyrian city of Nineveh and preach against it. Its wickedness, that is, its idolatry and the practical manifestation of that idolatry in sins moral and social, was well known to God.

Jonah refuses to obey God and thinks that he can escape responsibility by taking a ship bound for Tarshish, a city which was probably located on the North African Coast near modern Tunis.

Chapter 1:4–6. In seeking to flee from the presence of the Lord, Jonah does not hold a view of God as a localized deity. Rather, he acts foolishly and unwisely as does every sinner who seeks to flee responsibility. No man can flee from God. The Lord hurls a great wind into the Mediterranean sea, and causes so great a storm that the ship is at the point of breaking. The sailors do not know the origin of the storm, and in their fear, each cries to his god. Although the ship is Phoenician, the sailors are of different backgrounds. Seeking practical means to remedy the situation, they cast overboard the ship’s rigging and cargo. By prayer and by action they seek for an alleviation of their condition. Jonah is lying in deep sleep in the lower deck. The captain cannot bear such indifference, rebukes Jonah, and commands him to call upon his god in the hope that Jonah’s God might keep them from perishing.

Chapter 1:7–16. The sailors believe that such a great storm has arisen only because someone on the ship has done something wicked. To discover who this is, they cast lots and Jonah is indicated. They question Jonah, and he frankly tells them that he is running away from the Lord, “the God of heaven which made the sea and the dry land.” What a tragic witness Jonah is to superstitious sailors! He claims that he believes in God, the Creator, but says that he is running away from that God.

What should the sailors do? Jonah knows that he cannot escape God. Because of him the storm has come, and if the sea is to be calm upon them, they must cast Jonah into the sea. This they seek to avoid, even to the point of calling upon the Lord, the God of Jonah, and rowing hard to bring the ship to shore. It is all in vain, however. When they cast Jonah overboard the storm is abated, and the sailors, deeply impressed by what has transpired, offer a sacrifice to the Lord who can do such wondrous things.

II. Chapter 2:1. Having been thrown into the sea, Jonah could look forward only to drowning, but the Lord, from whom he had sought to flee, has appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and in that fish he remains alive three days.

Chapter 2:2–10. From inside the fish Jonah prays in gratitude for the deliverance of his life. He remembers how close an escape he has had. He nearly drowned, but God has rescued him, and hence he would sacrifice with thanksgiving. His heart bursts forth in a triumphant cry, “Salvation is of the Lord.” Then the great fish, under God’s control, spues Jonah out upon the dry land.

III. Chapter 3:1–4. Again the command comes to Jonah to go to Nineveh and this time he obeys. Nineveh was an extremely large city, a fact that is emphasized by the words, “of three days’ journey.” The precise significance of this phrase is difficult to determine; possibly it implies that three days would be required to visit the principal places in the different quarters of the city. The actual ruins of Nineveh have a circumference of about seven and a half miles. But the description most likely includes not only Nineveh proper but the whole complex mentioned in Genesis 10:12, which would have had a far greater circumference. Entering the city, Jonah begins his message of doom.

Chapter3:5–10. Jonah’s mission is crowned with success. The men who hear believe God, and to show their sincerity, they proclaim a fast and wear sackcloth, rough cloth of goat’s hair. Even the king joins in repentance and proclaims that both man and beast must give the outward sign of repentance by wearing sackcloth. God sees the repentance and so repents of his decision to destroy Nineveh.

IV. Chapter 4:1–4. Instead of rejoicing at Nineveh’s repentance Jonah is displeased. Indeed, he is willing to die and prays to God to take away his life.

Chapter 4:5–11. Jonah, having preached, builds for himself east of the city a small cover of foliage for protection against the hot sun. God then seeks to teach him a lesson. A gourd, prepared by God, grows so that it becomes a shadow of protection. But a worm attacks the gourd so that it withers and Jonah is deprived of its shadow. Exposed to the elements he is again ready to die. Then God teaches his prophet the lesson. If Jonah can have pity on the gourd, which has cost him nothing, should not God have pity on Nineveh in which dwelt so many people that were as helpless as children, as well as cattle?

The Unity Of The Book

There are a number of questions which must be considered if one is to understand properly this remarkable work. Some scholars believe that the song of deliverance contained in the second chapter is not an integral part of the book but that it was added later. The contents of the psalm, so it is alleged, do not fit the context.

In reply it should be noted that if the contents really do not fit the context, it is strange that an editor should have inserted the psalm at this point. On closer examination, however, we note that the psalm does agree with its context. It is not a psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from the belly of the fish but of deliverance from drowning. What a wealth of terms Jonah employs to describe the deep; he speaks of the belly of Sheol, the deep, in the midst of the seas, the floods, the billows, the waves, the waters, the depth, the weeds, the bottoms of the mountains, and the earth with her bars.

If we remove this beautiful psalm, the symmetry of the book is destroyed. As it stands, the psalm, when properly interpreted, yields a good sense and joins together the two halves of the book. As it stands Jonah is a literary unity.

How Shall We Interpret Jonah?

If the book is a literary unity, we are faced with a further question: what kind of book is Jonah? Are we dealing with fiction or with fact? Does the book record events which actually took place or are we dealing with a work of legend or fiction designed to teach a lesson?

As we read the book we note that it does not bear the remarks of a parable. The parables of Scripture are usually rather short and to the point, whereas such is not the case here. When Scripture presents a parable it does so for the purpose of teaching a particular truth. An application or lesson is usually drawn from the parable. To take but one example, when Nathan had told David the story of the ewe-lamb (2 Sam. 12:1–6) he immediately applied the story to David and preached to him. Nothing similar is found in the book of Jonah. No moral is given; no application is made. The whole is told as a straightforward narrative and we are left to draw our own conclusions.

The book purports to tell us of something that actually happened, and were it not for the miracle recorded, it is not likely that anyone would question whether the book recorded historical fact. The earmarks of straightforward narrative are at hand, and the presence of the book in Holy Scripture rules out the view that it is mere romance. What settles the question, however, is the usage which Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, makes of Jonah. Our Lord referred to the miracle of Jonah’s being in the fish, to the preaching of Jonah, and to the repentance of the Ninevites as historical facts (cf. Matt. 12:39–41; Luke 11:32). Here is the voice of infallible authority speaking. Jesus Christ says that the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah, and for a Christian there can be no greater authority.

But may we thus appeal to the New Testament for information on Old Testament questions? There are those today who say that such a procedure does not represent true scholarship. If, however, the New Testament is the Word of God, we must turn to it and listen to it whenever it speaks.

The Miracle Of The Fish

There may be readers who will acknowledge readily that Jonah is a literary unit and that it has the earmarks of straightforward history, but who will refuse to believe that Jonah could have been swallowed by a great fish and kept alive therein for three days. There are extant accounts of sailors who have been swallowed by fish and have survived the ordeal. Hence, we are told that the happening with Jonah was physically possible.

But if we have no stronger argument than that, our case is weak indeed. We are told that the Lord had appointed the great fish to swallow Jonah. Within the fish Jonah is not unconscious, but prays in language of beauty, largely derived from the Psalms. And when he is spued out, he is not affected by the fish’s gastric juices so that he no longer resembles a normal man, but is ready to receive a second commission to go to Nineveh and undertake that commission.

All of this points to the fact that we have here the account of a miracle. But can we today believe in miracles? Has not science showed us that miracles are impossible? Or has science told us that in this world where anything can happen there may be a place for miracles? It will be well to ask what a miracle is.

First of all we may note that a miracle is wrought by the supernatural power of God. Much of our difficulties with miracles would vanish if we thought of God as we should. He has all power, even to command the fish of the sea to do his bidding. If God could not perform the miracle of the fish, recorded in Jonah, he would not be omnipotent and hence not worthy of our trust. Satan cannot perform a true miracle, but only lying wonders.

A miracle is not just a display of power, but is intended as a sign or attestation of God’s redemptive plan. In the miracle recorded in Jonah, there was didactic purpose which we shall discuss later. Miracles themselves were a part of redemptive revelation. Through them, the true God of heaven and earth manifested his superiority over the gods of the nations and his full control over his creation.

Repentance

The word repentance occurs in Jonah in two different contexts. In one instance (3:10) it is said that God repented over the evil he had purposed against Nineveh. One who studies the Scriptures will realize that this description does not suggest that God actually changed his mind. We may call to mind Numbers 23:19: “God is no man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent.” We have rather to do with a strong, anthropomorphic expression which, spoken as men speak of one another, makes clear that God withheld judgment from Nineveh.

What, however, should be said about Nineveh’s repentance? Was it genuine? It is probably safe to say that Nineveh’s repentance was not real in the sense of that true repentance given by the Holy Spirit. Nineveh’s repentance is said to have extended even to the beasts. What is meant is probably that there was to an extent a determination to cease from evil ways, such as those recorded of Ahab (1 Kings 21:27–29). Whatever it was, at least Nineveh’s repentance was evidence that God was restraining the power of sin to such an extent that he withheld judgment.

The Purpose Of The Book

If the book is not a parable nor an allegory, but history, what is its purpose? To answer this question, we must consider its place in the history of redemptive revelation. Jonah was a type of Jesus Christ, and was sent to a great nation to preach repentance. He must first learn that he must be in the belly of the fish for three days. If Nineveh is to have life, Jonah must have “death,” represented by his experience. Our Lord thus applied the passage to himself. “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40).

The book of Jonah fits in well with Israel’s history. Because of her sin Israel must be punished, and that punishment God would bring about through an enemy. In order that the enemy may be preserved to carry out its divinely given task, it too must repent. Jonah’s preaching, while it was a rebuke to Israel, also caused the enemy to repent and thus the enemy was preserved. How powerful too was the Word of God among the heathen, and how good God is seen to be in his attitude toward them.

There are secondary lessons. The truth of God is not narrow and nationalistic, but must be preached to those who deserve it not wherever they are. But if men are to be saved, there must be death, even the death of the Son of God. The typical experience of Jonah could not save Nineveh, but the actual death of the eternal Son of God could and does save sinners. God is a God of mercy and extends his mercy widely. He desires not that any should perish, but his saving grace he extends only to those for whom Christ has died.

Literature

Of particular usefulness is a small pamphlet by G. Ch. Aalders: The Problem of the Book of Jonah, 1948, Tyndale Press, London. Another article of great value is that by Robert Dick Wilson: The Authenticity of Jonah, Princeton Theological Review, 1918, pp. 280–298; 430–456. The commentaries of Pusey and Keil are very helpful. In the Introduction to the Old Testament, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1949, the present writer has listed some of the recent literature.

EDWARD J. YOUNG

Professor of Old Testament

Westminster Theological Seminary

Now we must ask: Is it possible to accept the Mark-hypothesis and maintain nonetheless that Matthew is to be considered a genuine and authentic work of the Apostle Matthew? The writer of the essay, “More Light on the Synoptics,” thinks so. He holds that it is not necessary to regard Matthew as unauthentic, even if we accept the theory of Mark’s priority. We heartily sympathize with his desire to defend the genuineness of our first Gospel. But to take his position is not so easy as he seems to think.

He accepts the Mark-theory. He asks, then, if that theory forces him to abandon belief in the authenticity of Matthew. He sees no compelling reason for doing so. And so he affirms both that the Mark-theory is true and also that Matthew is genuine. He thinks this position is unassailable, and implies that to hold that Matthew is unauthentic would be to draw an illogical and unnecessary conclusion.

But when we study the history of the development and triumph of the Mark-theory, we find that leading advocates originally proved it by assuming, as already proved, and as part of their proof of it, that Matthew was unauthentic and unapostolic. And even their opponents, who assumed Matthew had been written first, regarded it as unauthentic and non-apostolic. So that it is, ordinarily, not a question of whether now we are willing to abandon ship. The ship was abandoned long ago. In fact, it was abandoned before the grandfather of the writer of “More Light” was born. And therefore, unless someone comes up with a new and convincing proof of the Mark-hypothesis, a proof differing from the ordinary and the historical one, has he a right to presume that the Mark-theory does not compel him to deny the genuineness of Matthew? For the fact of the matter is that accepting the Mark-hypothesis means, ordinarily, that one accepts the common versions of the proof for it, including the preproved unauthenticity of Matthew. And this may, or it may not, apply to the writer of “More Light,” but one thing I know: many scholars, in this matter, are managing with consummate adroitness and amazing finesse not to let their left hand know what their right hand has done.

But we must recall an additional factor in answering the writer of “More Light.” The critical view today in vogue is not simply the Mark-theory. It consists of that theory plus the “Q”-theory, and perhaps plus a few other theories as well. This means that our canonical Matthew is thought to have been put together out of several documents. Most of its narratives came from Mark on the modern view. If the modern view is held to be right, then we are committed to belief in a process of mangling, chopping, and random supplementing involved in the belief that Mark’s narratives have been reworked so as to produce an impoverished version of them in Matthew. As to the second document (“Q”), we do not even know that it was a document, nor do we know its contents, its arrangement, its purpose, its original language, its author, and so on. As to this second source (and any others), all is guesswork. And hence it is at least intelligible that critical opinion should, under such conditions as these, drop any contention for Matthew’s genuineness and authenticity. In the present writer’s opinion, it is distinctly a credit to their intelligence that they do so.

While, on the other hand, to face facts of this kind of redaction in Matthew and the anonymity and fog-shrouded indefiniteness of “Q” and other sources, and then to try to reaffirm Matthew’s genuineness with a mere array of “may-have-beens” and “could-have-beens” in an unevidenced and purely imaginary reconstruction of “history,” however plausible—this is to take up a very weak and unenviable position. What is required is a vindication of Matthew’s genuineness and authenticity. The greatest single step towards a real rehabilitation and vindication of Matthew would be to get it reinstated in its rightful place as the earliest Gospel. And this can be done without pushing Mark (with its rich supplements) or Luke into the background, and without in any way impugning their genuineness, authenticity, and semi-apostolic authority. But “may-have-beens” and “could-have-beens” are in their very nature weak. They show nothing. They do but cover the absence of evidence and the dearth of probability with a spider’s web of special pleading.

There is, moreover, a further weakness in the special instance of the “may-have-been” apologetic we meet in “More Light.” I may be wrong, and if so, I will cheerfully furnish suitable public retractions, but I have never seen or heard of any external evidence connecting Matthew with Antioch. Everything I have been able to collect on the subject says Matthew (was first written and) was written in Palestine, or in Judea, or in Jerusalem for Jewish converts to Christianity. Until I am better informed, it helps me little to be simply told that Antioch was the place where Matthew wrote the first Gospel. Imaginary scenery is not the same thing as historical truth. It is most doubtful that the defense of Matthew given in “More Light” will be able to gain any followers except those who wish to defend the fame of the Mark-theory more than they wish to see Matthew vindicated and restored to its ancient place of honor in the canon of Holy Writ.

Independent Attestation

One final word. We know that some at least who read the two previous articles by the present writer (“New Light on the Synoptic Gospels”) drew the conclusion that he was contending for totally independent origination of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Not so. Independent origination is one thing. Independent attestation, authentication, validation, is a very different thing. The wording in “New Light” was carefully designed to assert independent validation and not to rule out literary dependence:

Moreover, a way seemed clearly to be opening up, and that a genuinely scholarly and scientific way, whereby the Gospels might be reinstated as authentic compositions of Matthew (the publican), Mark (Peter’s interpreter), and Luke (Paul’s companion): reliable, primary, historical sources; three independently attested accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds.

And again:

Why rule out the possibility of kinds and degrees of interdependence [Note: “interdependence” not “independence”] which would not require a denial of the authenticity of the Gospels—that is, which would acknowledge the Gospels as three sufficiently independent, and therefore independently attested and authenticated accounts of Jesus’ works and words by the real Matthew, Mark, and Luke?

The stress is not on literary independence; indeed, literary dependence is acknowledged by implication. The stress is on independence in attestation. And therefore, the present writer can agree in principle (but not in detail) with most of what is asserted in “More Light” about a common core of tradition, and about a common selection of materials. There was such a core. “New Light” implies that it could easily have come from an Aramaic Matthew in the first instance. But this common core of tradition and common selection of materials only show some kind of literary dependence. They have no force at all, in themselves, for showing whether Matthew or Mark came first. The articles entitled “New Light” did not aim to gun down all forms of literary dependence. They did aim to gun down one special kind of literary dependence in the case of two specified books, namely, Matthew and Mark. The present writer has no intention of giving up these facts of literary connection. For they are dynamite and in a very simple way (which everyone should have thought of, but apparently no one has thought of) they may be used, God willing, to reinstate the first three Gospels in positions the critics would think it no longer possible for them to occupy. And in all this, let the reader be advised, the present writer’s views have not come to light. In “New Light” and in the present reply to “More Light” we have stated propositions which we think cannot be overthrown, but which we think overthrow views in vogue today. In other words, our aim has been to clear the ground. Laying a new foundation is another business. It must wait for another day.

END

Preacher In The Red

WHO IS WHO?

PASTORS SMITH, JONES, HAUGEN, AND I lived in different cities. Each of them knew me, but I falsely assumed they knew one another. When Smith called me and invited me to go with him in his car to a state ministerial conference, I consented gladly. Shortly thereafter, I invited Jones to go with us, but did not think it necessary to notify Smith. Smith meantime telephoned Haugen, whom he knew only by name, and they decided that Haugen would drive his car instead of Smith. Smith, of course, did not think it necessary to notify me of this change.

On the day appointed, Jones and I “bummed” a ride to Seattle for our rendezvous with Smith at the Greyhound depot. When Smith arrived, he assumed that Jones must be Haugen, and said, “Well, we’re all here.” (Addressing Jones) “Where’s your car?” Jones looked startled and replied, “Nobody told me to bring my car.” Smith answered, “But it was our understanding that you would drive your car.” I interrupted, “Smith, you joker, you’re kidding, aren’t you! You told me YOU were going to drive.” Smith replied with earnest sincerity, “No, I’m not kidding.” (Nodding at Jones), “I really expected him to bring his car!” I stared at Smith. Smith looked at his toes. Jones looked first at Smith and then at me as if trying to decide whether we had snapped a mental cable. Just then Haugen breezed in, spotted me, and said, “Hi fellows. Sorry I’m late. Get your bags and let’s go!”—The Rev. WILLIAM C. HUNTER, First Baptist Church, Puyallup, Washington.

John H. Ludlum, Jr., here continues his examination of the critical view that Mark is first of our canonical Gospels.

“… creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:19, RSV).

These are cosmic terms that St. Paul uses in the eighth chapter of the book of Romans. He sees manifold aspects of a cosmic disorder and then rejoices in the certainty of a glorious cosmic hope. Central to his whole thought is the key position of man in relation both to the disorder in the cosmos and to the hope which is set before us; for men are organically related to the whole natural order.

The cosmic disorder is a compound of frustration, corruption, and pain, and it penetrates to every branch of creation. In the human part of creation, there are “the sufferings of this present time”; in the animal and inanimate creation there is subjection to “futility” or frustration and “the bondage of corruption,” and there is “groaning and travailing in pain” everywhere in the physical world, not excluding that part of it represented by the bodies of Christians. Everywhere there is need of redemption.

This revelational light on creation’s insecurities has its counterpart in the scientifically observable facts of the physical universe and in the recurring element of decay in the story of men and nations. Physicists have given us the term “entropy” for the running down of the cosmic clock or “the measure of the unavailable energy in a thermodynamic system” (Webster’s dictionary). According to the second law of thermodynamics the random element in the physical universe has a constant tendency to increase. Then too there is instability in the atomic structure of some elements; and the principle of indeterminacy has been shown to be an integral aspect of the microscopic universe.

Just how much of the knowledge derived from scientific investigation of the physical universe is indicative of an element of disorder in the cosmos, and how much is a discovery of a fraction of the mystery behind the creation, man cannot determine. But concerning man’s everyday experiences in his contacts with animate and inanimate nature there is no doubt in our minds as to the actual mixture existing of a basically good creation with a certain degree of unhappy irregularity. The gardener can be frustrated by pests, the traveller can be discouraged by poisonous plants, mosquitoes, or wild animals, and in the ordinary business of living we are subject to tiredness, decay, and eventually death.

Effect Of The Fall

St. Paul is quite clear as to his own belief that the original germ of disorder and loss in the cosmos is to be traced to the fall of man and to the course which God permitted nature to develop as the aftermath of that fall: “cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you.… In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread …” (Gen. 3:17–19, RSV). The apostle sees man, with all his high potentialities and destiny, as having a solidarity with the rest of the created universe. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Clearly something tragic has happened to the highest or spiritual part of creation. With the rebellion of man against God, there has entered into the story of the universe not only the fact of sin and the tendency to sin in the human race, but also as a consequence of man’s spiritual and moral declension, a corresponding and, as it were, a sympathetic disorder in the whole physical and material universe—man’s environment. As St. Paul puts it: “creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope” (RSV).

In the loving wisdom of our Creator, man was made a free spirit “in the image of God.” God took the risk of leaving the way open for man to take the irrational line of using freedom to rebel against Him and bringing disorder into the warp and woof of the cosmic situation. But only by taking this risk could the highest blessings of creation be made possible. In order to produce a fellowship of men and women who would gladly and freely use their God-like capacities in love and service to God and to one another in God, it was necessary that these same human ‘lords of creation’ be free to experiment with a line of behavior rebellious toward God, inimical toward the rest of creation, or destructive of man’s true self. Love that is not freely, given is not love. Goodness is not goodness that is automatic. So in order to experience the gracious gift of God’s highest and best, the road had to be left open for descent to the lowest and worst. The story of human sin and misery is the story of man’s taking that road despite the clear warning posted at its entrance: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

The lower orders of creation are involved unwillingly in this sad tale. The animal kingdom has suffered and in many parts of the world still suffers because of the unregenerate hardness of man’s heart. Animals have been treated as if they had no feelings, and as if their suffering pain by careless or cruel handling was of no account. Being dumb creatures they have had no recourse but to endure what man appoints. When man behaves as one made “in the image of God,” then the lot of animals is a happy one. But where man’s fallenness is in the ascendant, then animals “groan and travail in pain” waiting for the promised new day when Paradise shall be restored, when man, converted in the spirit of his mind and fully redeemed, shall make possible again the enjoyment by creation of its raison d’être in the whole divine scheme of things.

The Restoration Of Man

So it is that St. Paul shows us how the restoration of man to his proper dignity of a God-like leadership in the created universe is the sine-qua-non of the experience of fulfillment in creation as a whole. Creation therefore is pictured as “straining its neck,” as eager spectators do at an exciting and dramatic competition on the race track, and waiting for the final success of the human experiment, “the manifestation of the sons of God” who, having found and responded to Christ their Redeemer, have also gladly accepted their saving role within their whole creaturely environment and have permitted the blessed answer of God to creation’s cry of pain in a complete remaking of heaven and earth, and the beginning of those promised blessings which “pass man’s understanding.”

The preredemption plight of creation is a temporary one. Hope for the cosmos is here already because the redemptive process is on. The appearance has already begun to be manifested of “the sons of God.” The crucial event has taken place which made both that and the cosmic hope possible. The divine initiative for man’s salvation has happened at a definite and strategic point of human history. The fulfillment of the purpose behind creation now begins to take shape. Now we can begin to expect to see the dissolution of the forces of corruption to which creation has been in bondage on account of man’s fallen condition. New and unheard-of potentialities of things created can be seen on the horizon, in proportion as the corrupted and corrupting element in man is dealt with redemptively. A lost world can become a paradise beyond man’s highest imaginations through the miracle of his spiritual remaking. This miracle takes place in the central citadel of a man’s personality through the application there of the saving grace in the cosmically redemptive victory won by Christ on the Cross and by his Resurrection.

The Key To The Cosmic

So it is again that the human situation is the key to the cosmic. St. Paul speaks of a group of people having the “firstfruits of the Spirit”—as the redemptive nucleus for the whole cosmos. These people share in “the sufferings of this present time.” But they are not submerged by them. Indeed they not only enjoy for themselves the grace of buoyancy, but they serve as distributors to the world of the one optimism which never deludes—the optimism that is based solidly on the cosmic redemption already accomplished at history’s crucial center by the one Person completely qualified for that mighty act. Within Christians there is enough dynamism of hope to spread by chain-reaction to the whole cosmos. Because of “the glory that shall be revealed” in Christians, the whole creation reaches out in eager anticipation of its own redemption and of the blessed fulfillment of a destiny undiscoverable by telescope, microscope, or mathematics but already assigned to it by the omniscient and omnipotent God of all grace.

The presence of Christians in the world therefore acts as a perpetual witness that eternity is an abiding reality which stands over against the changes of time and is not merely the consummation at the end of time. By the mercy of God, Christians are enabled to transmute things temporal so that they serve as the main material for them of things eternal. They can do this because they already “have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” and thus things eternal are already in a measure part of their temporal experience.

At the same time Christians are not exempt from “the sufferings of this present time.” St. Paul says that “we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The sufferings of Christians, patiently borne, have healthy repercussions on the world, for the world catches therefrom a flash of insight into the hope that lies before us. While external decay is a reminder of the internal corruption which was responsible for it, so spiritual triumph reminds those who see it of the redemption that is ahead for the body itself. The redemption of the body is the final victory over sin and its fruits and the glorious achievement of true destiny: it is the final consummation beyond history of Christ’s saving work by the Cross, and in some sense we may anticipate the whole cosmos, transformed and transfigured, to have a share in this expected “glory.”

The Great Consummation

The redemptive conclusion is in sight. The key to the situation on its human side is the attitude of the redemptive nucleus—the “glorious liberty” among Christian people to yield a free and happy self-surrender to God’s service, and to reproduce Christ’s character and love in every segment of their environment.

While then we wait with confidence for the ultimate consummation to come in God’s time and way, the faithful use of our stewardship as having “the firstfruits of the Spirit” already has universe-wide repercussions. One of the miracles of Christian “other-worldliness” is that it is the strongest factor in improving the statistics of the world’s hope—even in that part of the world which tends to limit its horizons to material and temporal values. By making our time serve the constructive purposes of eternity, that is, by so passing through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal, we are far from being spiritually selfish, for we are choosing a course which is as beneficial to the world now and in this time as it is preparatory to a final redemption of cosmic proportions.

END

Teach Us to Pray

By the waters of Babylon we sat down to weep;

Why should our unstrung hearts their measure keep?

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

Drop, slow tears, till the swollen river rise

Spewing sand of Babylon out of my eyes,

And the faith-distressing image of its town

From the smooth surface slip, dissolve and drown.

Undertow of memory plucks me, saying, “Come,

See through salt dimness the wavering shore of home;

(Rest for thy weary limbs, peace after war,

Now a fair tide can carry thee far);

Or seek no landfall, where quiet lies deep,

Breasting the long-limbed swells in sleep.”

Drop, slow tears: such courses are

Still deviation from the pure soul of prayer.

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in our own land?

JOHN TERRY

John W. Duddington is Episcopal chaplain at Stanford University. From 1928–48 he was an Anglican missionary to China. He came to America in 1950, serving Episcopal parishes in California and Manila before going to Stanford University.

At the beginning of World War II, it was often said in this country that the recurrence of a cosmic catastrophe of global dimensions had seriously shaken American belief in inevitable progress and that the days of naive optimism were gone for good. But since we of this nation had to bear far less of the brunt of the bloody holocaust than our European allies, we emerged from the terrible conflagration as the most prosperous of all peoples and experienced such an increase in political and military power that with the exception of Russia all the other nations have been reduced to second or third rank in international affairs. All these developments condition personal life in the States to such an extent that the horrors, losses, and privations of war have been almost forgotten.

The Mood Of Our Age

Our nation indulges in a mood of complacency and is obsessed by a passion to do things more quickly every day, to make them bigger every year, and to double one’s income every 10 years. Consequently, while belief in progress has subsided and people are rather skeptical about the perfectability of life in this world, we feel at least pretty secure in our position. We take for granted that in competition with Russia we will never lose our superiority; and in spite of what scientists say about the fatal consequences of the fall-out of atomic particles, we are certain that our country will escape any such serious harm should there be atomic war.

Sure enough, there is some discontent with our government as well as with some politicians, but such feeling is confined to relatively small areas of life. There is no general indignation—only griping and sniping. And the churches are in no way different. They, too, reflect the invigorating influence which the war effort has had on the life of the nation. A great deal has been done to increase church membership; new sanctuaries and Sunday School buildings have sprung up everywhere, the output of religious literature has reached an all-time high, and there are signs that the movement has lost momentum.

It was to people in a similar condition and mood that Paul wrote his letter to Ephesus. With patience he first points out to them the great love God has shown in delivering them from their former life. Then he reminds them of the riches they possess in Christ. Furthermore he admonishes them to live in unity together and in mutual regard. But as he reaches the end of his communication he can no longer refrain from warning them of the critical situation in which they find themselves. Far from being delivered of all dangers, they ought to be aware of terrific conflict, of being assailed from all sides by dangerous powers of a supranatural kind which can be overcome only when fought by the weapons of faith. Christians may, in spite of all the fine things of this world they enjoy, find themselves defeated in life because they fail to take up their spiritual arms and fight those powers.

Our first reaction to such a passage as this in Ephesians is to shrug it off. We tell ourselves that Paul not only spoke the language of his age but shared its ideas, and modern science has long overcome such supranaturalism. But is that not dodging the real problem? For it is obvious that in this passage Paul does not theoretically describe his world view. He speaks of practical things which require human action. No matter what kind of terminology he used, Paul was aware of powerful realities that threaten man’s life and which, if left unheeded, are apt to destroy not only his faith but undo his redemption. The complacency and sentiment of security characterizing our age are indicative of our spiritual outlook—our conviction that there is nothing seriously wrong with the world. Whatever evils may befall us in any sphere of life, we are confident that they will not affect us too deeply. With the abundance of resources at our disposal, plus scientific knowledge, we believe every evil in this world can be brought under human control. To many people self-assurance on the part of modern man is evidence of the great progress he has made since primitive days when fear haunted him all the time. To us, however, this development is disquieting, for it associates itself with ease in biblical faith as well as sheer unbelief. We are so capable of deluding ourselves that we fail to recognize the cleavage between our attitude and the biblical formulations to which we pay lip service. Except for rare instances, as in foxholes, we do not need God because things in modern life take care of themselves.

This entire attitude is reflected in theology. What makes religious existentialism so attractive to our generation is the notion that man is capable, by act of existential self-assertion, to straighten out his life. Yet this same attitude underlies “beggar Protestantism” in which God is considered the never failing, inexhaustible source of good gifts. In that attitude man both underrates the power of evil and overrates his own significance. In either type God is thought of as being at man’s disposal. The sway scientific thought holds over our lives is undoubtedly one reason for this transformation of Christian religion into humanism. The Bible does not give an explanation of the origin of evil in this world. Rather it leaves us with a few hints and points to the experience of the various evils. But our age has become distrustful of experience, which on account of its subjective character seems to be unreliable, whereas explanations sound like logical facts deserving full acceptance. The amazing results of modern science rest upon the basic axiom that this is a world of order, regularity, and balance. Since this axiom works so successfully, it would seem to claim our unreserved recognition. But the fallacy of such reasoning is obvious when we realize that human life is the will to work according to purpose, whereas a purely casual view of science ignores completely the teleological character of life.

What makes life confusing despite the general rule of natural laws is the fact that every living creature pursues ends, but no general harmony of ends in this world exists. There is, for example, nothing wrong with the presence of certain germs. But when they settle or operate in the wrong place—my respiratory system or my stomach, for instance—then my body resents them. Similarly it is a wonderful thing that I can use nature’s energies for moving my car and bringing me to certain places. This movement depends on the cooperation of kinetic energy laws, combustion, and gravitation. But in the teleological process of driving a car, so many factors are coordinated that failure of even a small part may result in my car’s moving in the wrong direction. It is from such general considerations of the teleological nature of life that we must understand what the Bible has to say about evil and its operation.

In turning to the Scriptures, one is struck first of all by the soberness with which they judge human life. Ruthlessly they unmask the illusion that the value of life depends on how we feel about it. The rich man or the powerful ruler may enjoy the superiority of their status but that does not make their life meaningful. At the same time the person who has obeyed God’s commandments all along may be despondent because he sees the powers of wickedness or unbelief triumph. Nevertheless he is told not to become dejected; God will take care of his people.

Our Predicament

Two things are particularly emphasized in the Bible with reference to man’s predicament. First, this is a world in which man is lost apart from God. Secondly, man is confronted by antiteleological forces against which he is impotent. None of us as modern men are inclined to admit our lostness in this world. But the frantic way in which we express our belief in the natural or intrinsic meaning of life is clear indication of the insecurity that gnaws at our hearts. If life were indeed so positively valuable, as we tell ourselves it is, why do we not simply enjoy it? We know in the depths of our hearts that life falls far short of giving true satisfaction. See, for instance, how much our age is willing to pay for ways and means of killing time. We carry our money to the movie or the theater, we spend hours each day reading newspapers and magazines, we sit before a TV set and accept a lot of nonsense and trash that comes to us, or we go to a stadium to watch others play.

Take our sense of futility. While it may be an exaggeration to say that anxiety is the disease of modern mankind, it can hardly be denied that modern man thinks his life is empty. If proof were needed for this, our country’s consumption of alcoholic beverages would furnish it. People need this stimulus because their daily lives have dulled their minds. Many feel unable to start a conversation without a co*cktail. But one has only to read liquor advertisem*nts in our magazines to realize that alcohol is not fit to give content to life. It only serves to make people forget that they do not have what is worth sharing.

The trying emptiness of human life is not a modern discovery. Man’s situation has not really changed since the days of the Old Testament prophets. But the biblical writers were men who could not be deluded by the activism and apparent happiness of their contemporaries. We, on the other hand, are so uncertain of ourselves that we refrain from questioning even the meaning of pastime.

No matter how capable we are of forcing nature to subservience to our purposes, we are not able to impart meaning to our lives. Modern man who worships success surmises that the successful man can subject the forces of nature and fate to himself. But the Bible reminds us that even in the most favorable cases success lasts only for a few decades. In death we lose complete control of all the things that were ours.

Whenever people realize that this is the normal course of human affairs—and very few are entirely blind to this fact—they try to comfort themselves in the notion that things will eventually be better or easier for their children. But why should that be the case? Jesus reminds us that every generation has its own evilness or burden, and that the years have not improved so far as basic conditions of human life are concerned. While the nature of many problems may change from age to age and place to place, the heavy weight of them remains the same. Life requires less manual work than it did a generation ago, but our machines and appliances have proven to be exacting tyrants. Is it not paradoxical that modern man, who saves so much time because he has a telephone, a car, an airplane, and duplicating machinery at his disposal, has in fact less time than his grandfather and probably worries as much? Behind this sense of emptiness and anxiety there lurks the feeling that our many activities do not make life meaningful either. We desire to work because we want to forget and because work seems to offer the evidence of accomplishing something. But the Geneva conference on atomic disarmament revealed to us the enslavement man has brought upon himself by his own works.

Our Impotence

The Bible does not leave us in doubt as to why human life is ultimately futile and hopeless. It tells us that the world, the devil, and sin are the causes of our unsatisfactory predicament. The world in which we live is a rather intriguing place to live in. Usually we act as though its things were the neutral raw material which man could use at his own discretion. And modern technology has seemed to be the most flattering to man’s ingenuity. But as accidents and modern diseases show, the works of our hands are rebellious servants, and for every movement forward there is a price. Foolish it would be to think that man’s inventions could eventually render him happier. The law of equalization is one of the basic laws of this world, and every human invention will be used for evil as well as good purposes. To confine the use of atomic energy to peaceful purposes, or prevent wicked people from using cars and airplanes for criminal ends, or to preclude the dissemination of falsehood through the media of mass communication would be impossible.

However, the worst feature about this world is its relative harmony, the fact that great things can be accomplished in it, and that man is offered an abundance of things to enjoy. Because of this very condition, one gets the impression that the world is an end in itself, sufficient to produce all that man needs or wants. Herein is man fatally deceived. Satisfied with the world’s resources and opportunities, man overlooks or denies completely the work of the Creator, and accordingly considers himself the master of this world. Is it not he who in his wisdom has succeeded in discovering all its secrets and by the power of his will has transformed the raw materials of nature into the work of his hands? It is on account of this deceptiveness of the world that we are told in the New Testament to make use of the world as God created it, but not to love it.

Experience in the world shows how right the Bible is in its estimate of the powers of evil. Things are not evil in themselves, yet in spite of intrinsic goodness they can be made to bring about baneful results. The Old Testament gives expression to the experience of the world’s unreliability and insufficiency, while the New Testament points out in many places why it is that the world, originally good, should be so uncooperative with man in his aspirations for a meaningful life. This world is not truly itself because it is controlled by the devil. Such a belief, of course, appears repulsive to our age. Yet Jesus himself spoke of it without reservation and without giving the slightest hint that this was an accommodation to popular belief or a façon de parler. One cannot dismiss the powers of evil as antiquated superstitions. The question is not how we should therefore represent the devil and the forces of evil, but rather, how we are to react to their activity in this world.

The answer to the problem lies in accepting first the fact of evil in this world. It is not on account of wrong ideas of reality, as Christian Science says, that we think we encounter evils. Rather, the very fact that we are capable of illusions and delusions is itself an indication that were we to make every effort possible we would not be able to escape the evils in this world. Secondly, belief in evil implies that evils in nature have to be taken no less seriously than those in man’s mental life. All through this world we find the clash of teleologies and conflict. Thirdly, the full gravity of the operation of evil is to be found in the spiritual realm. It is not by chance that our aspirations and desires are so frequently obstructed. Behind experience we note a deliberate will in us by which we are tempted to turn away from God. This experience compels us to enlarge our notion of evil. In our naivete, we are prone to call evil that which obviates our desire for happiness and health or that which is contrary to moral commandments. But Jesus pointed out that everything in this world—health, happiness, beauty, wealth, peaceful conditions, even goodness and religion—may be used against us. None of these things are evil in themselves; but all of them, useful and pleasing as they may be in some respects, can be used to our spiritual detriment through the forces of evil. We can therefore say that everything endangering our divine destination is evil, and accordingly we must admit that we do not have the spiritual strength to resist it permanently and effectively. Forces of evil are actually in control of our lives.

Our Redemption

If we take seriously all that the Bible says about the human predicament, we shall hardly be inclined to cling to the optimistic view of life that comes so naturally to us. Yet it would be unfortunate to interpret the biblical view of evil in terms of thoroughgoing pessimism. While these facts, once they are shown to us, cannot be denied, it is understandable that man is by nature unprepared to embrace such a gloomy view. Only in the light of Christ’s redemptive work can we become fully aware of the dark features of this world and their power, for it is from them that he brings redemption to us. Through him the world and the devil have been overcome.

While the remission of sins is not due to man’s moral or religious efforts but is rather a gift of divine grace, justification and redemption are not mere legal fictions as some theologians have held. On account of our sins we live in a world of evils; and so in consequence to the remission of our sins (as evidence of their reality) we are delivered from them. Right therefore is the proclamation ‘Good News,’ of which the work of Jesus is called. Though those who follow Jesus will not be spared calamities in this world, their lives no longer share the futility of the rest of human lives. For with Jesus the power of God (the ‘Kingdom’) has become an active factor in history. We live already in a sphere where the antiteleological forces are counteracted. What this means Paul makes plain in the concluding section of Romans 8. While one could hardly ask for a more exhaustive list than Paul’s of the evils to which we are exposed, the Apostle nevertheless exclaims confidently that in all these afflictions we win an overwhelming victory on account of Him who loved us! Conquest of the forces of evil commenced with Jesus’ victory over temptation, sin, and death, and it continues until all of God’s foes have been overcome in the Lord’s Return. This is the glory and depth of the Christian life as contrasted with what our contemporaries call ‘having a good life.’ We take the evils of this world seriously, as evidences of God’s anger, but we place all weight upon the fact that Christ’s love transforms them into opportunities for patient acceptance of our divine education and for compassion on our fellow men.

END

Otto A. Piper was formerly Professor of Systematic Theology in University of Muenster, Germany. Ousted by Hitler, he served from 1934–37 as guest professor in the University of Wales, Swansea, and Bangor. Since 1937 he has been Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis, Princeton Theological Seminary. In addition to a number of German books, he is author of Recent Developments in German Protestantism, God in History, and Christian Interpretation of Sex.

It is exciting to speculate what new insights will be brought to light by the peoples of Asia when their riches are laid at the feet of Christ. “God has yet more light to break forth from His Word” said John Owen, and we must believe that our apprehension of the truth and our understanding of the faith will be deepened, not only by the peoples of Europe and America, but also by the peoples of Africa and Asia.

Already there are signs of reflective activity on the part of Christian thinkers in the East. A month ago the first issue of The South East Asia Journal of Theology was published. This project was first mooted at the Bangkok Conference in 1956, and was then finally approved and launched at a Singapore Conference of Theological Principals in 1957.

The sponsors record their desire to promote “An Indigenous Asian Theology.” They are anxious to avoid being derivative and imitative, and they quote with approval Richard Neibuhr’s dictum, “Wherever and whenever there has been intense intellectual activity in the Church a theological school has arisen, while institutions possessing the external appearance of such schools but devoid of reflective life have quickly revealed themselves as training establishments for the habituations of apprentices in the skills of a clerical trade rather than as theological schools.” These Asian Christians have no desire to train “apprentices in the skills of a clerical trade”; on the contrary, they desire to engage in serious and responsible theological study. Boris Anderson of Tainan warns against the danger of “imitating the stereotypes of classical Western Protestantism” without further reflection, and thereby perpetuating ecclesiastical and national divisions which are meaningless in the context of Asia.

Editor of the Journal, John Fleming, says “we exist to serve the crown rights of the crucified and risen Lord in South East Asia in the vital area of theological education, and we invite all concerned to share in that service.” The Journal is subsidized by the Nanking Board of Founders, New York, whose help and guidance are acknowledged “gladly and gratefully.”

It is of interest to note that Christoph Barth, a son of the renowned Swiss theologian Karl Barth, is the contributor of a lengthy monograph on “Recent trends in Old Testament Interpretation.” This quarterly promises to be both stimulating and scholarly.

Plans are well advanced for a National Theological Convention to be held in Melbourne, Australia, in February 1960 under the auspices of the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches. The importance of the occasion lies in the fact that some 400 delegates will be in residence at the University of Melbourne. These are delegates drawn from the best theologians from the Protestant churches of Australia.

Five commissions have been set up, the first and major topic being “The Authority of the Word of God.” The material for this session is being prepared by Gabriel Hebert, whose work on Fundamentalism and the Church of God initiated the original debate on “fundamentalism” which has continued with unabated fervor ever since. Representatives of the conservative school of thought will be well represented at the convention (they do not describe themselves as “fundamentalists,” which, with its emotive overtones, has become a disreputable theological swear word) and the debate should be vigorous and animated. It remains to be seen whether, in these theological conversations, more heat is generated than light!

The other commissions will concern themselves with the following subjects: the common evangelistic task in Asia and Australia; ethical problems of economic aid and technical assistance, and the implications for strategies of Australian churches working in partnership with Asian churches; the life of the church in an industrial community; and the life of the church in a rural community.

The presence of overseas scholars will add to the interest and importance of the occasion. The visitors will include Bishop Leslie Newbigin, Miss Renake Mukerji, Mr. M. M. Thomas, Professor K. Takenaka, Bishop E. Sobrepena, Doctor Hans-Reudi Weber, and U. Kyaw Than.

It is not unkind to say that the Australian church has never taken with sufficient seriousness the task of theological training, and that the generality of the Australian clergy and ministers are deficient in theological equipment. For this situation a number of factors are responsible: most parishes are grossly understaffed and books are prohibitively expensive. It may be that this theological convention will serve both to stimulate theological thinking and to stress the timeliness and importance of deeper theological study.

This year is the anniversary of the publication of Calvin’s definitive Latin edition, Christiani Religionis Institutio. The quarto-centenary has not been allowed to pass without public reference to the event. In Victoria the Graduates Fellowship of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship arranged a public conference at which important papers were read by the Reverend Robert Swanton, minister of the Hawthorn Presbyterian Church, on “The Reformation in Switzerland”; by the Reverend Professor K. Runia (a distinguished pupil of Professor Berkouwer) on “The Reformation in Holland”; and, by the Reverend A. Barclay, Professor of the Reformed Theological College, on “The Reformation in France.” The Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, who presided at the sessions, reminded the audience that since the days of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, a Huguenot church has continued to worship in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, England, thus symbolizing the fellowship which unites members of the Reformed faith. The papers delivered at this conference are in the process of publication.

Christ’S Birth, Life, And Death

The Gospel of the Incarnation, by George S. Hendry (Westminster Press, 1958, 174 pp., $3.75), is reviewed by J. Marcellus Kik, Associate Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Because he feels that orthodox Protestantism has placed undue emphasis on the Christ of Calvary and the benefits that accrue from his atoning work, Dr. George S. Hendry has taken as his task the reintegration of incarnation and atonement. According to the Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, Protestantism has severed the incarnation from the atonement to the neglect of the link that connects them, viz., the historical life of the incarnate Christ which is attested in the evangelical records. He maintains that “the vicarious nature of the work of Christ is best understood if its ground is sought in the evangelical record of his incarnate life; in other words, that neither his death for us nor his birth for us can be separated from his whole being for us” (p. 115).

Before he enters into a positive exposition of his position, Professor Hendry attempts to clear the ground by criticizing the emphasis of Paul, Calvin, Barth and others. He finds a relationship between his position and what he describes as the classical Christology of the Greek Fathers.

The major emphasis on the Christ of Calvary has led many of Luther’s followers to believe that justification by faith in Christ means faith in justification, the writer claims. He continues, “The same tendency is apparent in the Reformed branch of Protestantism, where faith often came to mean faith in the Bible. In both, faith was a doctrinaire, propositional affair rather than a living personal relationship; and the piety, which was regulated by this faith, tended to become a cold, hard, formal thing” (p. 18). There is a small measure of truth in this accusation, but readers of seventeenth century religious literature know the warmth and devotion of the Puritans, and whatever criticism their writings may deserve, they certainly were Christocentric and concerned with experimental Christianity. Dr. Hendry asserts, “But the Western Church has always held that the Gospel avails primarily to remove the guilt of sin and it has been relatively unconcerned with its application to the consequence of sin” (p. 25). But has not the Western Church shown primary concern for the removal of the guilt of sin because it was the first step towards sanctification?

Issue is taken with both the Apostle Paul’s and Calvin’s evaluation of the incarnation. He points out, “The most striking fact is the absence from the Pauline kerygma of any explicit references to the ministry of Jesus in his incarnate life” (p. 39), and “The absence of reference to the life of Jesus in his epistles, especially those passages in which he rehearses the main elements of his gospel, points to the conclusion that it was not important. The evidence makes it impossible to agree with those who declare it is ‘reckless,’ or ‘idle’ to say that Paul has no interest in the historical Jesus” (p. 40). Hendry’s chief fault is that he does not behold the glorious unity of the Scriptures as inspired by the Holy Spirit and that there was no need for Paul to write a life of Christ such as that written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The formulas of Calvin, “obedience and suffering,” were not completely successful, the author maintains, in integrating the historical life of Jesus with the main theme of the Gospel, and these two concepts do not give an essential place to the historical life of Jesus. However, the active obedience of Christ as witnessed in his historical life is absolutely essential to the Gospel as Calvin interprets it and as Paul teaches it. Further, Professor Hendry quarrels with the fact that the perspective of Paul and Calvin is upon the Christ of Calvary and that the Christ of Galilee tends to be reduced to relative insignificance. But the biblical perspective is that the incarnation was the beginning of a life of obedience which could be imputed to the believer and the preparation for the reconciling and redeeming death of the Saviour. That is the position of Paul and Calvin.

In his third chapter, Dr. Hendry asserts that patristic thought gave prominence to an ontological relation of Christ with the whole race of men. He declares that the Council of Chalcedon defined Christ’s relation to man in the same term in which the Council of Nicaea had defined his relation to God: “hom*o-ousios with the father as to his godhead, and the same hom*o-ousios with us as to his manhood” (p. 44). This ontological relation with mankind forms the presupposition or precondition of his atoning work. It is here that students of the early Church fathers would strongly disagree with Dr. Hendry’s interpretation of the Chalcedon Creed. What the Chalcedon symbol indicated concerning hom*o-ousios was that the persons of the Godhead have one identical substance. Originally the term signified the relationship between beings compounded of kindred substance. This is understandable enough where creatures are concerned, for while finite beings can be of the same kind of substance, they cannot actually be the same identical substance. The human nature they share is necessarily apportioned among many individuals, so that they cannot possess one and the same identical substance. The divine nature is indivisible. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not three separate individuals in the same way as three human beings who belong to the one genus.

While a few Church fathers did link the redemption with the incarnation by which human nature was sanctified, transformed, and elevated by the very act of Christ becoming man, that cannot be described as a characteristically Greek doctrine. Even the Church fathers who taught it did not allow the emphasis on the incarnation to exclude the saving value of Christ’s death. In his recent book (Early Christian Doctrines, Harpers) J. N. D. Kelly, a leading patristic scholar, maintains “Neither the physical theory, however, nor the mythology of man’s deliverance from the devil represent the main stream of Greek soteriology in the fourth century. For this we have to look to the doctrines which interpreted Christ’s work in terms of a sacrifice offered to the Father” (p. 384).

Both Anselm and Calvin are scored for not providing a bridge, as the Greek fathers sought to do, between the work of Christ for us and its appropriation by us with the doctrine of Christ incarnate in us. Calvin maintained that all that Christ suffered and achieved for the salvation of the human race is of no avail until Christ becomes ours and dwells in us. This union between Christ and believers comes through the gift of the Holy Spirit and not a relationship with Christ established through his incarnation. Dr. Hendry takes issue with Calvin’s teaching that the beneficiaries of Christ’s saving work are determined not by community of nature but by the inscrutible divine decree and that what Christ accomplished for us becomes ours only by imputation rather than the transformation of our nature in consequence of its having been worn by Christ (p. 70). He does not accept the solution of the problem that was made by federal theology which sought to base the vicarious nature of the work of Christ in his relation to man as their federal head. This conception, he asserts, is now rejected because the minds of men are no more responsive to the legal concepts and categories with which it operated. These legal concepts and categories, however, were not the product of a particular legally minded age but rather the teaching of Scripture.

The author asks “Can the truth that classical Christology sought to express in terms of abstract essence be more adequately expressed in terms of a history of the incarnate life? Can we perhaps say that the ‘universal manhood’ is the real meaning of ‘the Jesus of history’?” (pp. 99, 100). Barth is criticized because he ascribes the substitution of Christ ultimately to his divinity: “It is because he was the Son of God and himself God that he had the competence and the power to suffer in our place.” This appeal of Barth to the divinity of Christ, Hendry claims, savors “of deus ex machina and accords the humanity a subordinate and instrumental role” (p. 106). He maintains “and if the mission of the Son of man is vicarious, it would seem that his vicarious relation to others is to be established humanly, through human action and interaction, rather than by some unaccountable exercise of divine power” (p. 109). However, Reformed theology has always maintained that the whole work of Christ is to be referred to his person and not to be attributed to one or the other nature exclusively. In all that Christ did, and suffered, in all that he continues to do for us, it is not to be considered as the act and work of this or that nature in him alone but it is the act and work of the whole person: God and man in one person.

A rather startling claim is made by Dr. Hendry that “There is no firm support in the recorded words of Jesus himself for the view that he took upon himself the responsibility for the sins of men.… There is no word of his to suggest … that he deliberately submitted himself to the judgment of God on sin” (p. 113). Is this a modern theologian asking for a proof text? Who can escape the import of the words of Christ at the passover supper? “For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28). But Professor Hendry will not allow the Lord’s declaration of the purpose of his death as procuring forgiveness: “Now this view of the sacrament presupposes that the original act of Christ, which it ‘repeats’ or ‘represents,’ was itself of the nature of a sacrifice that he offered to God. But if, as we have contended, the work of Christ is to be regarded, not as a work of man directed toward God in order to procure his forgiveness, but God’s free gift of forgiveness extended to men in the man in whom he enters into personal relation with them at the human level, then the sacrament too must be regarded as a renewal or extension of the gift” (p. 167). But Christ states emphatically that his shed blood procured forgiveness!

The great function of Christ, according to the author, comes as a bearer of forgiveness. “He comes to dispense it to men by relating himself to them, by being ‘the man for other men.’ And it is theirs as they receive it at his hand, by becoming related to him.” In other words, the function of Christ was not to bring about an atonement by his death but rather to herald the fact of God’s forgiveness. This would make Jesus a mere herald of salvation but not a Saviour in the full sense of the term. He did not come to give his life a ransom for many as he himself declared (Matt. 20:28).

The usual socinian arguments are brought forth that if God’s forgiveness is based upon satisfaction then it is not really forgiveness at all and that there is no genuine mercy if Christ died for guilty sinners. This socinian view overlooks the fact that it is the mercy of God that supplies the atonement. God himself satisfies the claims of justice for the sinner. Mercy and justice meet at the Cross of the incarnate Son of God. There is the very height of love and the demonstration of justice.

Salvation is to be found in the relationship of man to the incarnate life of Christ. “By his life among men and for men he wrought salvation for them; salvation was not a result of something he did in entering humanity or of something he did in dying a human death; it was the work of his life and his death to relate himself freely to man and them to himself: and this relation is the core and foundation of their salvation” (p. 134). The only problem for man was to find God and receive forgiveness from his hand through a personal relationship with him. But why could not the sovereign God announce this forgiveness through the medium of angels? Why was it necessary for the Son to suffer the humiliation of an earthly birth and a shameful death? Why do men have to enter into a personal relationship with the incarnate life of Christ before experiencing forgiveness that already exists in the heart of God? No satisfactory answers are advanced.

“The Gospel of the Incarnation” is not the Gospel of Paul who determined not to know anything within the Church save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And, if this book represents the present teaching of the Charles Hodge Chair of Systematic Theology it is a far cry from the teaching of that great stalwart of the faith who declared: “It is the language and spirit of the whole Bible, and of every believing heart in relation to Christ that his ‘blood alone has power sufficient to atone.’”

J. MARCELLUS KIK

Understanding Romanism

The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, by Jaroslav Pelikan (Abingdon, 1959, 272 pp., $4), is reviewed by G. W. Bromiley, Visiting Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary.

From many angles the problem of the interrelationship of the Protestant churches and Roman Catholicism is being posed afresh, and perhaps a little more hopefully, in this generation. The general ecumenical interest provides a starting point. Biblical and patristic studies afford obvious fields of encounter. Revived dogmatic concern in the evangelical churches gives new relevance to basic questions. External pressures, for example, communism and secularism, emphasize points of agreement and the perils of division. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there should be a fresh consideration at least of the most deep problems of disunity.

Dr. Pelikan, in his illuminating and informative book, gives a simple exposition of the development and constitution of Roman Catholicism with a view to better understanding. This leads to some suggestions which may make possible a more fruitful interchange of views.

In his lucid and balanced presentation, Dr. Pelikan performs a useful service. Roman Catholicism is often depicted in the strong colors either of total hostility or naive partisanship. Many Protestants cannot meet it properly because they do not really understand its growth, nor perceive the true nature of its teaching, nor appreciate the reality of its finer achievements. This is balanced, of course, by an equal lack of discernment on the part of Roman Catholics. But two wrongs do not make a right. We may thus be grateful that, without concessions, Dr. Pelikan has given us in such short compass so helpful and authoritative a survey which conceals neither the more engaging nor the more reprehensible aspects of Romanism.

Yet it is not enough to understand. Romanism does not dissolve on analysis. It is a solid reality which is here to stay. It has to be faced. The contention of Dr. Pelikan is that neither the old defensiveness nor the old aggressiveness is adequate in relation to it, but that there is demanded a constructive attitude characterized by realism and faithfulness. He sees little hope of any easy solution to the problem of interrelationship, but he believes that by acceptance of mutual responsibility, by firm and gentle testimony, by an assessment of debts and needs, and by the attainment of genuinely biblical teaching and practice instead of mere reactions to Romanist errors, something may be done towards possible future reconciliation.

Our first comment is that Dr. Pelikan is surely right in spirit. He shows no evidence of the shallow optimism or the naive subservience to Rome which unfortunately mark some of those who venture to speak and write on this issue. He realizes that there are almost insuperable doctrinal and practical obstacles to real progress. But he does not merely deplore this. He does not give away to anger or despair. Even though he recognizes that the way of reconciliation must be hard and costly, he commends it in a way which leaves us little option when so many million confessing Christians are divided from us, and the majority can never be reached either by our polemical or evangelistic ventures.

Yet it must be emphasized that concessions to Rome must be no part of the programme of reconciliation. At no point and in no sense can the principle of sola scriptura be abandoned or adulterated. Dr. Pelikan himself realizes this, yet there are obvious dangers at this point for a Protestantism which is itself weakened by liberalism. For instance, Dr. Pelikan feels that in a revision of the system of Schleiennacher, Protestantism might provide an alternative to, and a point of contact with, the Thomistic system of Roman Catholicism. This is true, of course, but only in virtue of the fact that the distinctive biblical and evangelical tenets are abandoned in this kind of liberal Protestantism. Again, the suggestion of a parallel between Mary on one side and Enoch and Elijah on the other, or of a possible acceptance of the assumption because it is not antiscriptural, is obviously impossible to those who realize what was at issue in the Reformation. A better understanding of justification and sanctification, or Scripture and tradition, is ruled out; but in no circ*mstances can there be acceptance of a dogma of the assumption as necessary to salvation. Dr. Pelikan himself does not advocate this doctrine, but even the suggestions in this field illustrate the dangers and difficulties involved. A final point is that relationship are two-sided, and a matching attitude is thus required from Romanists if progress is to be made. In some respects, this is the most hopeful aspect, for in the biblical, patristic and historical spheres many Roman Catholic scholars display a new openness and penetration which bode well for the future. Yet it must be recognized that thus far this theological movement has had little discernible influence on everyday Romanism. A work analogous to that of Dr. Pelikan is thus needed on the Romanist side, but even more urgently is there needed a general reassertation of the true catholic and apostolic norm in Holy Scripture. This kind of radical reorientation is not to be expected in a moment. But it is not to be ruled out a limine as impossible. For in spite of its apparent vulnerability, theology can often in the long run exercise the decisive and determinative influence.

Is there anything that Evangelicals can do in face of this possibility of reformation within Romanism and therefore of the reconciliation which otherwise is surely impossible? At root, the problem is one which Romanism itself must solve. But along the lines suggested by Dr. Pelikan three negative and three positive points may be made. Negatively, the evangelical should avoid a supercilious, theological self-righteousness. He should forswear bigoted hostility and suspicion. He should also refrain from attempts to create false peace by ill-judged concessions. Positively, he can help first and supremely by sympathetic prayer. He can then engage in frank but humble cooperation in biblical and historical study, with a willingness to be taught as well as to teach. Finally, he can seek to attain, in practice as well as theology, a deepened and strengthened Protestantism more conformable to the biblical pattern. Beyond this, there can be little but hopeful expectation that the work of the Word and Spirit will indeed open up a new, exciting age of interchange and genuine fellowship with those from whom we now seem to be irremediably separated. And who of us is to say that this is not possible with God?

G. W. BROMILEY

Doctrine Of The Church

The Glorious Body of Christ, by R. B. Kuiper (Eerdmans, 1958, 383 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Robert D. Knudsen, Instructor in Apologetics, Westminster Theological Seminary.

The doctrine of the Church is not treated enough in evangelical circles. This volume by the President-emeritus of Calvin Seminary should be warmly welcomed, therefore, by all evangelicals. The volume is largely a reproduction of monthly articles which were contributed to the Presbyterian Guardian. These studies were undertaken in the first place with the needs of a specific church in mind; nevertheless they are designed to serve the Church in general. They are intended to be pre-eminently scriptural, and abound with references to the Bible. The writing is simple, forcible, and in terms which are easy to grasp. Yet, the book is not narrow; it includes within its sweep the entire panorama of the doctrine of the Church.

Kuiper deals at considerable length with such important themes as the unity of the Church, the marks of the Church, the head of the Church, the offices in the Church, and a large number of its practical functions. The treatments are all in short form, especially suitable for the adult Sunday School class or the advanced doctrine class. Each chapter is carefully outlined, and for the convenience of the reader the complete outline is reproduced at the end of the book.

ROBERT D. KNUDSEN

After 150 years, the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) stand at the crossroads of the future and frankly face a “Decade of Decision.” More than 9,000 delegates gathered at Denver August 28-September 2 to hear their leaders report, appraise and forecast and to vote on recommendations which may well change the course of Disciples’ history.

The 110th assembly of the International Convention was recognizing the 150th anniversary of Thomas Campbell’s historic “Declaration and Address”—a document which said that “the Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one.” It proposed the New Testament, apart from human creeds, as a “perfect constitution for the worship, discipline and government of the New Testament Church, and as a perfect rule for the particular duties of its members.” Thus the Disciples of Christ became the earliest ecumenical movement in America, calling upon all Christians to unite on the Bible alone as a rule of faith and practice.

Much of the program at Denver was concerned with some 25 agencies which report to the International Convention. So dominant are the affairs of these corporations that it is often facetiously remarked that “the tail wags the dog.” The mammoth United Christian Missionary Society presented a 17,000-page report at Denver, dealing with a wide scope of services—world missions, religious education, social welfare, home missions and evangelism. At one time it was proposed that the society be inclusive of all the interests of the churches, but that goal has not yet been realized. For more than 30 years the program of the society has been dominated by liberal leadership. It receives little or no support from Bible-centered churches. President A. Dale Fiers made it clear that the UCMS Division of World Mission “faces a revolutionary situation … in many areas” and that it is wholeheartedly committed to the ecumenical world mission program. In a number of fields the society is merging its work with “younger union churches.”

Social issues received much attention in resolutions perfunctorily adopted by the convention. Nuclear testing was opposed, racial integration approved, restrictions on use of alcoholic beverages urged, and marriage counselling was strongly advised as a church duty. The action of the Cleveland World Order Study Conference relative to recognition of Communist China did not come before the assembly, but delegates did voice support of National Council of Churches policy that churches have a right to speak up on such issues.

As convention agencies face the ensuing 10 years they share in development of a new cooperative program labelled the “Decade of Decision.” It is pitched at a high spiritual level and moves away “from pre-occupation with selfish concerns to a firmer theology concerned with the idea of God and what He is doing—a quest to discover the ways of God and follow in them.” It has little to say of the historic plea for “the restoration of the New Testament Church” and much to say about the ecumenical world mission of the church. The “Decade of Decision” provides a planning program in building new churches, educating more ministers, expanding the missionary enterprise, entering new fields of social service, enlarging publication services, enhancing men’s work, intensifying religious education and raising the level of giving in the churches. Each agency has been asked to suggest major undertakings for the 10-year period and budget askings. These will be compiled into a unified program. Churches will be asked to increase annual contributions from 33 to 87 millions and to spend 100 millions in new church construction. As Dr. Wayne Bell put it, “The destiny of the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) will be decided during the 1960s.”

While Disciples at Denver thought of their “Decade of Decision” largely in terms of program and promotion, there is a far deeper significance. Within these 10 years they must face such issues as (1) brotherhood restructure, (2) cooperative strategy, (3) internal unity and congregational freedom, (4) merger with the United Church of Christ, (5) missionary and educational policy, and (6) the nature of their continuing mission.

Resolution No. 34 passed by the convention provides for a committee to produce a plan of organizational restructure. Hitherto the International Convention has offered its services to any worthy agency engaged in missionary, educational or benevolent work. Current proposals would eliminate all agencies that do not accept centralized control. Disciples must decide whether they wish to continue a free people or accept domination of a centralized ecclesiasticism.

Resolution No. 52 faces the issue of cooperative strategy. A committee of 15 is to decide what should be done with “recalcitrant brethren”—ministers listed in the convention Year Book who do not give full support to “official agencies.”

There are encouraging voluntary movements toward greater internal unity among Disciples. Scores of conversations between ministers and laymen cooperating with the convention and independent enterprises are taking place across America. These could heal wounds of old controversies and could unite forces long alienated.

The Disciples’ Council on Christian Unity is maintaining discussions which could eventually lead to merger with the United Church of Christ. This calls for another major decision during the decade. Disciples sat in on the United Church synod in Oberlin in July, but little was said about merger proceedings in Denver. There is strong opposition in a majority of churches and even in some “official agencies.”

Missionary and education policies of convention agencies are undergoing radical changes. The traditional Scriptural ground of evangelistic missions is slowly being abandoned for the newly-conceived “ecumenical world mission” program. Disciples are encouraging the merger of the International Missionary Council with the World Council of Churches and are now little concerned in maintaining the distinctive Christian Church testimony on foreign fields. Disciples must decide whether this policy is acceptable and whether adherence to it will be made a test of fellowship. Almost all the older institutions of higher education have accepted the terms of liberal scholarship and are enjoying material prosperity but some 3,000 ministerial students are now being trained in independent orthodox schools not reporting to the convention.

Finally, what will Disciples decide about the nature of their continuing mission? Will they consider their function as an ecumenical movement to be one of a “disappearing brotherhood” in the WCC and the “Coming Great Church,” or will they continue to insist that the only true united church must be a restoration of the Church of the New Testament in doctrine, ordinances and life?

A summary of events at Denver would not be complete without reference to the breath of evangelical fresh air which came in pre-convention sessions of the National Evangelistic Association. Here there was a real emphasis on the Gospel and the seeking and saving of the lost. Addresses of Dr. Lin Cartwright, former editor of the Christian Evangelist, on the content and intent of the Gospel were especially refreshing and inspiring. What the future of the NEA may be under the new constitution adopted at Denver is problematical. Its old-time freedom may be limited as it becomes more closely related to the UCMS.

Chapel Contract

A $3,237,298 contract was awarded last month for construction of the controversial Air Force Academy chapel at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Work is scheduled to begin immediately.

Design of the chapel is essentially the same as that unveiled more than three years ago (for architect’s sketch, see September 15, 1958 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY). Since that time its contemporary style has been the topic of widespread debate. Start of construction has been delayed repeatedly.

The chapel may take as long as two years to complete.

Missionary Enterprise

‘The Door’

For new missionaries planning service in Latin America, the Orientation Center and Language School at San Jose, Costa Rica, is a common introduction to Spanish culture. Some 34 boards and agencies use the school, operated by the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. For 13 of its 15 years, the school has had as directors Dr. and Mrs. Otho LaPorte, who flew back to their native United States this month upon retirement from a lifetime of missionary service.

The LaPortes, who labored in the Philippines prior to World War II, say they had a vision for a Latin American language-orientation center while interned by the Japanese. They had even decided that Medellin, Colombia, would be the ideal location, and, returning home after liberation, learned that their board had already established such a school in Medellin and wanted them to take over!

Approximately 1500 missionaries have been initiated under the LaPortes, whose name translated from French connotes “the door.” Their duties in San Jose, where the school moved in 1950, will be assumed by the Rev. and Mrs. A. D. Coble, also Presbyterian missionaries.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Haldor Lillenas, 74, noted Gospel song writer, at Aspen, Colorado … Dr. William Lindsay Young, 66, former moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., in Los Angeles … Dr. William S. Abernethy, 86, former president of the American Baptist Convention and pastor to President Harding, in Washington, D. C.… Bishop John L. Stauffer, 70, former president of Eastern Mennonite College, in Harrisonburg, Virginia … Elizabeth A. Smart, 70, national legislative director of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, in Washington, D. C.

Appointments: As president of Grand Rapids Baptist Theological Seminary and Bible Institute, Dr. W. Wilbert Welch … as executive administrator at Gordon College, pending appointment of a president, Hudson T. Armerding … as Swedish Lutheran Bishop of Linköping, Dean K. F. Askmark … as professor of church administration and director of field work for Golden Gate Baptist Seminary, Dr. Elmer L. Gray.

Elections: As sixth copresident of the World Council of Churches (after the WCC Central Committee changed rules to permit a presidential election between assemblies), Archbishop lakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America … to the WCC Executive Committee, Archbishop Gunnar Hultgren, Primate of the State Lutheran Church of Sweden … as national chaplain of the American Legion, Rabbi Robert 1. Kahn … as president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Otto Graham … as general foreign secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, Rev. E. G. T. Madge … as general secretary of the Baptist Union of Sweden, the Rev. Simon Oberg … as president of the Dutch Lutheran Church, Dr. C. Riemers.

Special Report

Remarkable interest in World Vision’s first Thailand conference, hosted by the Church of Christ in Thailand, shaped a historic meeting of 352 Christian workers July 20–24 in Bangkok’s Wittana Wittaya Academy. Unregistered observers lifted daily attendance above 500.

In a land where organized Protestantism claims only a dozen full-time pastors in 117 churches, and where Protestant membership totals only one-third the 60,000 Roman Catholic constituency, a “pastors’ conference” seemed to some leaders an unexciting prospect. But it drew the Christian task force in record numbers for Thailand’s most representative gathering geographically and denominationally. Many Christian workers had never before experienced spiritual fellowship across denominational lines. But even from Thailand’s borders 600 miles distant, traveling 30 hours over rugged highways, came missionaries and workers, their belongings stuffed into old suitcases, cardboard boxes or wicker baskets, in such numbers that Bangkok area delegates were urged to lodge at home rather than at conference grounds. Some workers came from distant Laos. Besides delegates from the United Church (Presbyterian, American Baptist, Methodist, Reformed) there were 30 Christian and Missionary Alliance, 30 Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 20 Southern Baptist, as well as displaced China Inland Mission workers, New Tribes Mission, Pentecostal, and Seventh-day Adventist. Delegates included 72 pastors and evangelists, 38 missionaries, and 86 elders who preside over churches organized somewhat along Old Testament authoritarian lines in consequence of long missionary effort based on geographic divisions rather than church-centered activity, and relying heavily on visiting speakers.

In many respects missionary achievement seems meager in this land of 19 million Thais and 3 million Chinese—a major Chinese community outside Red China. Bangkok’s Baptist church is the oldest Protestant church in Asia. Yet early missionaries worked 30 years for their first Thai convert. Main mission centers are scattered over a thousand miles, some being more than a hundred miles apart, and their work is often uncoordinated. Most congregations are so small that a resident pastor would be an extravagance. City churches are supplied in spare time by teachers, and rural churches by elders aided by itinerants. Theological training has been tapered to the laity. Missionaries long have been more interested in “staking out the field” than in planting churches and even mission boards have looked for regional stations more than for new congregations. Missionaries have concentrated on lepers and hill tribes. Some local efforts have relied on transfers of Christians and baptism of children rather than upon evangelization of the lost as the main source of strength, and city parish evangelism waned. Some liberalism is rampant, and the preaching of regeneration neglected for an emphasis on Christian culture. Some workers have been preoccupied with agricultural advances. But reliance on the “social gospel” has been gradually countered by Buddhist programs, including a “Y.M.B.A.” and “Y.W.B.A.” Mature ministers are needed to offset an acute lack of leadership. Even the 10,000 persons who have completed the C. and M.A. correspondence course on Christianity have had little or no follow-up. Some work still reflects the cutback of the 1930 depression and the isolation, dislocation and destruction wrought by World War II.

Another obstacle springs from the structure and temper of Thai life. Its predominantly rural society of small scattered villages, edging very slowly toward the cities, lack any marked urge for modernization and industrialization. Almost 9 in 10 farmers are landowners and land and food supplies are adequate. The local Buddhist wat (temple complex) stands everywhere as the center of community life. Buddhism dominates the religious, educational and social activities, and has integrated itself with Thai government, which is officially Buddhist. Monks set moral patterns, and support of these is said to gain spiritual merit. Two in three Christian churches in Thailand are located in rural villages, and Christian chapels seem inferior in size and dignity to Buddhist temples—one reason some Protestant leaders are promoting a “Protestant cathedral” in Bangkok through enlargement of Second Church to seat 400 persons. The only big city, Bangkok has one-tenth of Thailand’s population, half its 1,500,000 persons being Chinese. It is the residence of royalty, seat of government power, intellectual center, international crossroads and tourist haven. Its American colony, numbering 3,000, shows a rising rate of venereal disease and cirrhosis of the liver, a by-product of alcoholism. The vital center of Christian missions is hundreds of miles to the north in Chiengmai, where a 1960 crusade is proposed.

But the Church of Christ in Thailand now is assessing its opportunities afresh in a nation strategically important in the world political situation. Thailand’s fertile fields stretch across the only land routes from Red China and North VietNam to strategic Singapore. Rich in forests, rubber, rice and tin, Thailand (Siam) has never been a colony of any foreign power and is determined now to resist Communist infiltration and subversion. Recognition by Thai royalty has lent a prestige to Christian schools and hospitals for many decades, but not to the churches. Spreading interest in world religions is now leading to courses on Christianity even in state schools. Young people are turning from Buddhist traditions, eager to learn English. During Religious Emphasis Week at Bangkok Christian College, where 100 of the 2600 students are believers, 27 converts were won and baptized last year. Contrasted with the scarcity of Buddhist converts in some other lands, four of five Thailand Christians—20,000 in all—are converts from Buddhism. Some are former priests. The evangelistic outreach has accelerated as much in the past five years as in the previous fifty. Some churches have doubled their membership in this recent period.

World Vision speakers brought new confidence to pastors lacking prestige by reflecting to them the glory of the calling to the Christian ministry. They strengthened local leaders by deepening the dedication of elders and emphasizing the requirements of a virile lay witness. They pleaded for new theological depth and Bible study. They quickened interest in visitation evangelism. They stressed the importance of stewardship to Christians in a land faced neither by poverty nor overpopulation.

Thailand’s Christian workers opened their hearts to the visiting team. They scheduled seven sessions a day, with the rising bell at 5 a.m. and an hour of prayer before breakfast. With some 40 per cent of the delegates at home in English, the conference heard Thai and Chinese translations of messages by Dr. Richard Halverson, Dr. Paul Rees, Bishop Enrique C. Sobrepena, Dr. K. C. Han, and Dr. Carl F. H. Henry with untiring interest. And they returned to their lonely posts with new awareness that they are not as much alone in their Christian labors and concerns as they had long surmised.

C.F.H.H.

Religious Assemblages

Jazz For Devotions

The 6,000 delegates to the National Convocation of Methodist Youth, held at Purdue University August 24–28, had the option of attending daily 6:30 a.m. services in which John Wesley’s “Order for Morning Prayer” was presented in a jazz setting. Some ministers who attended weren’t as enthusiastic, Religious News Service reported, as youth delegates who said of the nine-man combo accompaniment, “It really gets you,” and, “It was strange enough to be interesting.”

Missouri Vs. Wisconsin

Delegates to the 35th biennial convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Wisconsin and Other States voted to change the name of their 350,000-member body to the “Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.”

Meeting at Saginaw, Michigan, last month, the Wisconsin synod voted to continue in a “vigorously protesting fellowship” with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. A resolution was passed “to continue and accelerate with the help of God” negotiations with the Missouri Synod in an effort to restore peace.

Within the Wisconsin synod there have been repeated demands that relations with the Missouri Synod be severed on the grounds that the latter has engaged in certain “unionistic” practices (including sponsorship of boy scout troops, military chaplains, as well as fellowship activities with other churches). Both synods belong to the Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America.

In another resolution, the Wisconsin synod asserted its intent “to testify strongly against the offenses which are still prevalent” in the Missouri Synod.

Support For Ncc

At its 82nd annual convention, held last month in Detroit, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church endorsed stands taken by the General Board of the National Council of Churches which (1) declare that churches have a “right and duty” to study and comment on social issues and (2) oppose adoption of a “Christian Amendment” to the Constitution.

Conclave At Essen

Some 175 delegates from 16 nations were on hand July 12–19 for the first World Convention of the Church of God, held at Essen, Germany. Sunday evangelistic services drew audiences of 2,000.

Protestant Panorama

• No liquor is to be served at any official Canadian government entertaining, according to a report from Ottawa, which added that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, a Baptist, set the policy.

• Nashville Teamsters Local 327, cited by the McClellan committee for corrupt leadership, was defeated in its efforts to organize for collective bargaining 88 services employes of the Methodist Publishing House by a vote of 44 to 36, with eight votes challenged by the union and not counted, in an election held last month by the National Labor Relations Board.

• All three representatives to Congress from the new state of Hawaii are affiliated with Christian churches. Hawaii’s admission to the Union made it the first state in which non-Christion faiths are in the majority (Buddhists make up the islands’ biggest religious group and together with Shintoists, Taoists, and Confucianists, they claim a majority of the 600,000 population).

• Claire Cox, New York correspondent for United Press International, told a Catholic information seminar last month that the Catholic church has not been getting the publicity “it deserves” as a major religious group because “we do not receive much material from Catholic sources.”

• Christianity’s influence in Japan is much greater than statistics might indicate, according to the Rev. Sekikazu Nishimura, first Christian minister ever elected to the Japanese Diet … Evangelist David Morken planned an evangelistic campaign in f*ckuoka September 17-October 4.

• Dr. Thomas A. Dooley, noted 32-year-old Roman Catholic medical missionary to Laos, was reported in good condition at New York’s Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Institute this month, where he underwent surgery for a malignant chest tumor.

• A World Conference of Pentecostal Churches will be held in Jerusalem in May, 1961, by special invitation from the government of Isarel. The climax of the conference will be held on Pentecost Sunday in commemoration of the coming of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the second chapter of Acts.

• The Yankee network, an association of New England radio stations, cited youth leader Jack Wyrtzen last month in recognition of his “outstanding contributions to God, to America, and to humanity.” Wyrtzen’s weekly “Word of Life” broadcast originates from a Times Square auditorium.

• Democratic Senator Olin Johnson of South Carolina said on the floor of the Senate last month that the United States missed “a tremendous opportunity to teach the Russian people that we Americans depend on God in our daily living” when Vice President Nixon and his wife failed to attend church during their Russian visit.

• The Scripture Union, noted for its Bible reading plans, announced last month it has opened a “North American Division” in Havertown, Pennsylvania. The Scripture Union began in England in 1879.

• Nine students formed the first class of the Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies in Jerusalem which began study August 31. All are graduates of U. S. colleges and seminaries. Their course lasts six months, whereupon a new group is scheduled to arrive from the United States.

• Several West German religious organizations are mapping plans to help find jobs for illegitimate children of German mothers and Negro fathers from U. S. occupation forces in Germany. There are some 72,000 West German children fathered illegitimately by foreign occupation troops, including 6,000 fathered by Negroes. Of the 6,000 about 1,500 will reach working age next spring.

• At a meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the National Youth Council of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. voted to change its name to “United Presbyterian Youth.”

• Dr. Albert Schweitzer is in Europe for a three-month rest.

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY NEWS

To leaf through yellowed pages of old college catalogs is to realize that the Bible was once the priority text on many a U. S. campus. Scores of today’s big name universities were founded on Christian precepts. One of the tragedies of American history, say evangelical observers, is the repudiation of religious roots by so many educational institutions.

Just 25 miles west of Chicago’s loop is the 40-acre grassy campus of Wheaton College, whose 100-year history challenges the notion that academic prosperity means spiritual decay. For Wheaton continues to be an evangelical stronghold while building a reputation as one of the nation’s leading small colleges (“small” meaning that facilities limit enrollment to 1700).

Doubtless a factor in Wheaton’s high spiritual plane is the tradition which begins each academic year with a week long evangelistic campaign. For the fall 1959 term the school, in launching its centennial observance, has called as guest evangelist its most distinguished alumnus, an anthropology major who upon graduation in 1943 went on to become the most famous spokesman for evangelical Christianity? of our time: Billy Graham.

Considering Wheaton’s premium on evangelism, which out of 12,000 graduates has produced nearly 1,200 who are serving on 84 mission fields, officials felt it appropriate to begin the centenary year with a crusade in which even the surrounding community could participate. Graham’s team was called in and agreed to set up a full-fledged campaign with such big city complements as choir, counselor, and follow-up programs. Dr. Evan W. Welsh, college chaplain, heads an executive committee which includes ministers in and around the town of Wheaton.

The crusade is scheduled to begin Sunday afternoon, September 27, at McCully Field, college athletic stadium named after alumnus Edward McCully who with four other missionaries (including two former Wheaton classmates) was slain while seeking to bring the Gospel to the savage Aucas of Ecuador. Nightly public services will be held Monday through Friday in a newly-constructed gymnasium which accommodates 5,000. The crusade will close on Sunday, October 4 with another afternoon rally at McCully Field. Graham’s weekly radio broadcast, “The Hour of Decision,” is scheduled to originate from Wheaton on both Sundays.

The centennial program commemorates the transition of Illinois Institute, founded by a group of Wesleyan Methodists in 1852 but closed less than eight years later because of financial pressures, into Wheaton College. The college was opened shortly after Wheaton was incorporated as a village, taking its name from a settler in that area, Warren L. Wheaton, who granted land to the college and became a trustee.

The destiny of the interdenominational, coeducational liberal arts college has been guided by only four presidents. The first, Jonathan Blanchard, a Congregationalist who helped establish Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, was succeeded by his son, Charles. Their leadership steered the college through 65 years.

In 1925, Dr. James O. Buswell, Jr., took the helm and was succeeded in 1940 by the current president, Dr. V. Raymond Edman, who has spent the past summer recuperating from an operation for a detached retina.

Wheaton’s actual founding will be observed January? 9–10, but a number of events throughout the school year are planned in remembrance of the occasion. These include: Symposia in archaeology, theology, writing, philosophy, fine arts, general science, and social science; a “Spiritual Life Conference” in midwinter; and a dedication festival, “The Abundant Century,” scheduled for May 27–28. Several books are being published in connection with the centennial as well as a record album featuring Wheaton student musicians.

Wheaton’s resources are valued at approximately $16,000,000. The main campus has 16 major buildings, and the college owns two extension facilities: a 20-acre plot in the Black Hills of South Dakota where a science laboratory is located and where two terms of summer school in the field sciences are held each year, and a 160-acre site in Wisconsin which serves as a camping ground and provides students with counselor experience in the summer.

Wheaton maintains strictest admission procedures. Each applicant (he must be in the upper third of his high school graduating class) is required to sign an agreement that he will abstain from (1) use of alcohol and tobacco, (2) gambling and card-playing, (3) dancing, (3) meetings of secret societies, and (4) theater attendance.

“While as an individual the student may not be convinced of the necessity of these requirements,” says the catalog, “he is expected to be in harmony with their goal, and to observe them, whether at the College or away, as long as he is enrolled.”

Degrees offered by the college are bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, bachelor of science in professional chemistry, bachelor of science in nursing, bachelor of music, and bachelor of music in education. The Graduate School offers master’s degrees in biblical studies, theology and Christian education, plus a bachelor of divinity degree.

Wheaton’s “number one centennial project,” and its “most urgent need,” is a chapel-auditorium for which ground has already been broken. Alumni are spearheading a drive to raise $1,500,000 so that the building may be completed in time for centennial commencement exercises next June.

Whither Orthodoxy?

Is Orthodoxy moving toward a tie with Roman Catholicism? If so, what will it mean to Orthodox membership in the World Council of Churches?

The questions were set in new focus last month when ecumenical brass gathered on the Greek island of Rhodes for a meeting of the policy-making, 90-member Central Committee of the WCC.

“Observers” at the meeting, who attracted more attention than did delegates, included two representatives from the Moscow Patriarchate and two Roman Catholic priests. Newsmen probed for significant developments when the priests went into a huddle with Orthodox officials, but all insisted that the session was “absolutely informal.”

Russian Orthodox representatives sat in on Central Committee proceedings for the first time in history, the move being a part of a “get acquainted” program now going on with the WCC, leaders of which plan a trip to Moscow in December.

Whatever the future holds, it was obvious that Orthodoxy had the lion’s share of attention at Rhodes. This was the first time that the committee had ever convened in a predominantly Orthodox country. Dr. W. A. Visser’t Hooft, WCC general secretary, paid Eastern Orthodoxy a glowing tribute, noting in an opening address that back in 1919 it was the Ecumenical Patriarchate at Constantinople which became the first church to propose a permanent world council.

Perhaps ironically, however, Orthodox leaders have been less than enthusiastic about their participation in the ecumenical movement. Last month, for instance, Orthodox delegates reaffirmed their opposition to the WCC plan of merger with the International Missionary Council. The committee nevertheless moved ahead with the proposal by receiving a draft constitution and referring it to constituent churches for study, hopeful of culminating the merger at the 1961 WCC assembly (the site of which was shifted from Ceylon to New Delhi).

Eastern Orthodoxy opposes WCC-IMC on the grounds of fear of “antagonistic missionary activities” and the “radical nature of the change proposed in the structure of the World Council.” The IMC includes members which are not churches (national Christian councils, for example). “Can there be any witness apart from a church or confession?” asked one Greek Orthodox bishop.

Even as the council’s Faith and Order Commission was asking for more theological discussions between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church, Visser’t Hooft promised a full airing on problems of religious liberty when the committee meets again next summer in Scotland. The debate presumably will take in discussion of freedom both in Roman Catholic and Communist countries.

Church Membership

The latest version of the Yearbook of American Churches, most authoritative compilation of U. S. religious statistics, shows a record high ratio of church membership to population.

Nearly two-thirds of the 5,368,063 membership “gain,” however, is drawn from new Roman Catholic statistics which for the first time listed 2,000,000 communicants in the “Military Ordinariate.” Thus the 2,000,000 Roman Catholic statistical addition alone accounts for more than two-fifths of the total U. S. church and synagogue membership increase. Protestant church members in the United States (an estimated 90–95 per cent of whom are over 13) totalled 61,504,669 compared with 39,509,508 Roman Catholics (including all baptized children).

Figures for the yearbook, edited by Benson Y. Landis and published by the National Council of Churches, were supplied by 251 church bodies as of the end of 1958.

The new U. S. church membership total, 109,557,741, represents 63 per cent of the nation’s estimated population.

Sunday and Sabbath (Saturday) school enrollment totalled 41,197,313 for 1958, a 2.1 per cent increase over 1957, according to figures from 229 church bodies (230 reported for 1957).

For the year covered, there was but one change in the “standings” of the top 10 U. S. denominations. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod became the eighth largest, displacing the still merging United Church of Christ (only major Protestant body whose membership fell).

Here are organizational totals:

According to “family” groupings:

FOR THE KIDDIES

Pastor Peterson saw my cartoon, and after mustering a chuckle remarked on the seriousness of immaturity in the church. The apostle, he said, complained about having to feed the Corinthians milk instead of meat, but now even milk won’t do. It has to be candy, or candy-coated tranquilizers.

Fearing that he had missed my point, I suggested that all this concern about immaturity could be a clear sign of it.

“Exactly,” he agreed. “But it is difficult to preach with child-like simplicity to people who are looking for childish gratification. Once children were treated as miniature adults. Now adults expect to be treated as children. Everyone relies on the paternalism of the government, school, employer, and the church too. It’s a child’s world, where all your thinking is done for you, and every story must have a happy ending. All religions lead to the end of the rainbow, and the best church is the one where you find most reassurance. The hymn of the century is ‘Dear Lord, Hold My Hand!’”

I tried to interrupt this sermon by asking if he disapproved of the figure of the Shepherd, too. I only deflected the discourse. The pastor is outraged by the sentimentality with which that biblical figure is draped. If Christians today understood it, they would live more like David or Peter and walk in the steps of the Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep.

When he left, he was fervently calling for the church militant to replace the church juvenescent.

THE PROBLEMS OF YOUTH

Your July 6 issue is an excellent … study on the problems of youth today. Thank you for the reservoir of material that so many capable leaders have compiled for us.

First Baptist Church

Damascus, Va.

The July 6 issue of your magazine has … reached me. I have read four articles, among them the first, by Pitirim A. Sorokin, and the one by your Associate Editor, J. Marcellus Kik, and I must say that for sheer pessimism I do not know their equal. Perhaps everything they say is true; but there isn’t a ray of hope in either of these articles. If I preached in that fashion every Sunday morning, either my Church would soon be empty, or folks would die from sheer despondency.…

If some of your writers could get the idea that a little good is more powerful than a great evil, they might at least express a hopeful thought in regard to the future.… My people leave the sanctuary happy on Sunday morning, as much as to say: “I believe I can meet the temptations and trials of the world for another week.”

The Methodist Church

Trinidad, Colo.

Each of the writers shot straight from the shoulder in describing our present day problems that are affecting our youth.

Town and Country Church of Christ

Carmichael, Calif.

I hereby confer an “Oscar.” These articles show us plainly what we’re getting into.

Princeton, N. J.

I was impressed, quite favorably, with the total impact of this particular issue. If I might mention the four items that “made” the issue: 1. The stimulating article by Dr. Sorokin set forth with quietly authoritative force a major problem of our time. The high quality of this article, even if we happen to believe that Dr. Sorokin’s suggested solutions are not ultimately realistic, was enough to carry over the motley array of inferior “traditio-homiletico” materials which followed his article directly.

2. The head-on grappling of L. Nelson Bell in his fortnightly column, with the question of “bibliolatry.” If this article proves nothing else, it proves that Dr. Bell is a courageous layman. But it does prove something else, and that is that in spite of the fact that Dr. Bell does not travel too far from opening question to concluding answer, nevertheless he reveals in this particular column … that his spirit is akin to the spirit which evangelical Christianity has long needed in both its irenics and its polemics. 3. The editorial headed “The Delinquent Church,” in its frank admission that the blame for some contemporary ills must be shared by all branches of the Church, reveals an intellectual depth and a spiritual humility and frankness that, if continuing in this magazine, may well persuade many of us that CHRISTIANITY TODAY is, indeed, the church magazine of our time. 4. But I was overjoyed to find Edward John Carnell’s positive review of Paul Tillich’s most recent book, Theology of Culture. This is one of your more honest and fair appraisals of Tillich.… I would have only one major question for Dr. Carnell, and that is in regard to his statement that Tillich’s theology cannot be considered to be consistently biblical. Perhaps Dr. Carnell would also be willing to say this of every exegete, theologian, evangelist, and parish minister. For surely complete consistency is not one of the realized goals of men in this life.

Simpson Church, Methodist

Paterson, N. J.

May I thank you indeed for publishing Dr. Pitirim A. Sorokin’s article “The Demoralization of Youth—Open Germs and Hidden Viruses”.… I thought he was absolutely correct in pointing to the cultural component surrounding the p*rnographic and obscene sexual literature which has been lately produced and increasingly distributed among our young people. He correctly indicates that the solution to this problem calls not for some overwhelming effort to arrive at a definition of words but rather for the disinfection of our entire life and culture from the cheap and sordid.

Acts of commitment in reconstructing our life through a personal witness in terms of our own reading, T. V. listening, movie attendance and behavior in general represents the most constructive form of censorship. The aroused conscience of the American people will more effectively than any machination serve as a weapon in cleansing the culture of America from the viruses that today infect youth and adults. This was a most constructive article and you are to be complimented for publishing it.

National Director

Dept, of Interreligious Cooperation

Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith

New York, N. Y.

At the risk of appearing unappreciative of the excellent article by Professor Sorokin, may I point out one important omission among the factors contributing to juvenile delinquency, namely: the glamorized sex “education” offered by many teachers in his own field of sociology both at the school and college levels. Sex, as Dr. Sorokin pointed out, is glamorized by TV, movies, advertisem*nts and novels. It need not, however, be so glamorized in the classroom. The writer has taught college biology for over four decades and believes he knows whereof he speaks.

Please accept my sincere thanks for your most excellent periodical. As an Anglican priest, I appreciate what you are doing for true Christian evangelism—the only defense against the forces of evil that would destroy the world. Waukesha, Wise.

“Will Alcohol Destroy our Youth?” … is one of the most challenging articles that I have seen in 40 years in the ministry. It confirms many of the things that the church has been stressing, in principle, for some years.

Forked River, N. J.

Mr. Kik’s article on juvenile delinquency in the July 6 issue carries knock-out impact. So comprehensive, well documented, and scriptural in tone, it makes one fear for the future of our land. In fact, the main articles in this issue expose the moral conditions in our nation so unmercifully that it is hard to see how God can any longer withhold judgment. That we are sinking fast is evident, and that against the most moral and spiritual light any nation has ever had. God have mercy on us!

Professor of Practical Theology

Northern Baptist Theol. Sem.

Chicago, Ill.

Mr. Kik states that Christian churches have neglected this … juvenile delinquency [problem].… I want to reproduce this article and place it in the hands of headquarters of each denomination.…

St. Louis, Mo.

For a long time now I have been enjoying CHRISTIANITY TODAY as a magazine which is dedicated to the truth and glorifies our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour of the world.… The July 6 issue was especially interesting and revealing. One major thought stands out after reading the various articles on juvenile delinquency.… The only thing that can help to solve the problems of youth as well as the problems facing all of us, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This must be taught and preached constantly in churches and schools. It must also be taught in the light of the fact that all men are sinners and subject to the wrath of God unless they have a faith in Jesus Christ their Saviour. The problem is how to get this message to the children and keep it before them. The Christian education of the children is the task and dutv of the church for our Saviour said: “Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” And what God said to Moses in Deuteronomy 6 is still in force today: “These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.”

Many Protestant churches have taken these words to mean that they should establish parish schools in which Christ is the center, and in which all subjects are taught, not just in an atmosphere of God’s presence, but in an atmosphere of the love of Christ the Saviour.

Establishing such a school is one of the most expensive things a congregation can do, and at the same time it is one of the most worthwhile activities that a church can utilize to “train up a child in the way that he should go.” Naturally such a school must be one where Christianity and all it implies permeates and affects every class and every subject, so that the children grow up to know and believe that Christ is all-important in their lives and the life of the world.

The parish school should be followed by a Christian High School in which Christ continues to be the solution to all of life’s problems. Since it seems that the state can do no more than just mention God and his law in the schools (in some places not even that much), it becomes the urgent responsibility of the Christian Church to provide an education for citizenship here and hereafter by establishing and maintaining more and more Christian schools both on the elementary and high school level, so that the children now growing up don’t become delinquents.…

The idea of establishing and maintaining Christian elementary and high schools is not merely wishful thinking because it is being done, however to a very limited degree in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, as your news story in [the same] issue points out. You report that this body has 1,418 elementary schools and 16 high schools. In spite of the cost of maintaining these schools you report in the next paragraph: “The Missouri Synod has more foreign missionaries than any of the world’s Lutheran bodies.” This is cited to point out that you can educate thoroughly as well as evangelize thoroughly. A great percentage of pastors, teachers and missionaries are products of Christian elementary and high schools in this denomination.

Thank you … for a fine report of the convention as well as the excellent and enlightening articles in this issue.

Board for Parish Education Chairman

The Southeastern District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Hickory, N. C.

ANGLICANS AND OTHERS

In regard to the recent article in your issue of June 22 by Mr. P. E. Hughes: It is rather absurd for Anglicans to be subject to ridicule continuously for their insistence upon episcopacy when this insistence is at least in keeping with the opinion and practice of the great majority of Christians. Surely one cannot overlook Rome and Orthodoxy today or the history of the Church before 1519. Do these detractors of the Anglican position think that they are going to aid the cause of reunion by removing Anglicanism from this relationship with the East and with Rome? Or, one may ask, are these persons really concerned with the reunion of all of Christendom, East and West, Catholic and Protestant?

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

New Orleans, La.

Please allow me to invite your readers to examine for themselves the preface to the Anglican ordinal. (It will be found after the Psalter in the American Book of Common Prayer.) And then let them examine Mr. Edgcumbe Hughes’ edited version of the first paragraph and his deduction that this means no more than to “… define and justify the threefold Orders of Anglicanism.”

Hudson, Wise.

Anglicans do not … hold that denominational ministries are null and void in the sense that they have no spiritual efficacy, and in the early days of the Church, other “minor orders” functioned. Our only claim is that for us, within the Faith and Order of the Church Catholic, the threefold Orders of Ministers are necessary. Other ministries have limited themselves principally to the Preaching of the Word, which is only one facet, to us, of the work of Christ, however important.

St. John’s Episcopal Church

Mount Prospect, Ill.

The Anglican Church claims today that it has the Apostolic Ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons for several reasons: (1) It is the visible and concrete link with the Church of the past and with the historic life of Christ on earth. (2) It is the ministry not of the local church but of the whole Catholic Church of Christ. The three-fold ministry acts for the whole, not just a part of the church or a specific local congregation. When a bishop or priest gives absolution he readmits the recipient to the fellowship of the Body of Christ; therefore, one who bestows it must possess the authority of the whole of Christ’s Mystical Body. An Anglican bishop is a bishop of the whole Catholic and Apostolic Church, not just a district superintendent or administrative officer. (3) We believe that the Succession is the guarantee of valid ministrations. Whatever gifts God may bestow outside it, we are assured that His grace is to be found within it. On the side of doctrine, it is the pledge of Catholicity.

… The Canons of 1604 (9 and 10) … speak of non-conformist ministers “as schismatics … who separate themselves from the Communion of Saints as it is approved by the Apostles’ Rule, in the Church of England.” And, if such was not thought of until the Tractarian Movement, why the Anglican ethos of the Caroline Divines such as Bishop Jeremy Taylor? Also, what about Archbishop Laud? If it was disapproved of, it certainly was an act of Puritan government and happenings which led to such government, and not of the true English Church.

All Saints’ Parish

Nevada, Mo.

It is hoped that the Archbishop of Canterbury will answer the last half of this one-page report so ably presented by Mr. Hughes, i.e., answer in your pages.

It is interesting that “bishops-in-presbytery have been ‘utterly rejected.’” This is in contrast to the United Church of Canada’s admission that bishops must be accepted in the talks with the Anglican Church of Canada about union. Would a United Churchman care to comment?

St. David’s Presbyterian Church

Campbellville, Ont.

THE FICKLE WIND

“Spit not at your neighbor, lest the wind change directions, etc.” This was my major thought when I read the letter written by Mr.… Rowland (May 25 issue). Shame on you, Mr. Rowland! You have done a bit of spitting, too.

Immanuel Mission Covenant Church

Chicago, Ill.