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Golden Pin Award

Eutychus Foundation recorded this interview from its Annual Good Humor Award ceremonies. (Commercials are omitted.)

MC: Delighted to have you here, Eutychus. We know your column is meant to be amusing. Are we entering a period of good humor in church? Are there now more preachers in the red than pulpit pinks?

E: Yes, there is a marked increase in ecclesiastical humor, intentional and unintentional. The standard pulpit jokes are more used than ever.

MC: Standard jokes? Is there an official list?

E: Not exactly. It is a matter of unwritten tradition. Now and then a nonconforming minister will use another, but the last joke to secure universal consent, ab omnibus, is Cal Coolidge’s remark about the preacher who was against sin. It seems that “Silent Cal” was coming home from church, and …

MC: Yes, yes. I see what you mean. These canonical jokes are well known. But wouldn’t a little fresh humor help?

E: Oh, no. You will recall the quatrain:

“All my fathers have been churchmen,

Nineteen hundred years or so,

And to every new suggestion

They have always answered, No!”

This is the rule for humor; untested jokes are very dangerous.

MC: But isn’t the risk worthwhile? I heard no less a preacher than Billy Graham tell an excellent ecclesiastical joke. He said that a preacher had a dream. He dreamed that he was preaching; he woke up—and he was!

E: Heh, heh! That’s very good, and its not in the tradition. But it’s dangerous. After Dr. Graham told it, he had to explain that he wasn’t really sleepy, but was enjoying some kind of euphoria. And when I tried to tell it, and didn’t pause long enough after “he woke up” …

MC: What about situation humor? I’ve enjoyed reports about a Philadelphia rector who billed the British crown several thousand dollars for a church fence confiscated by the Royal Artillery during the Revolutionary War: $18 plus interest! E: Very whimsical, but I couldn’t convince my cab-driver that it was a joke. He thought this church money-raising scheme would divide the West. No, the Old Reliables are better. People recognize them as jokes and know when to laugh.

MC: Well, has the winner of the Golden Pin Award been announced?

E: Yes, it is Joe Bayly, for his charming farce, The Gospel Blimp.

MC: But there isn’t a conventional joke in that book. If standard jokes are …

E: Who needs a book for the Old Reliables? And Joe has a last chapter in which he explains his joke in the best ecclesiastical tradition. I should now like to pin this on him …

EUTYCHUS

We Grope In Darkness

Dr. Wilbur Smith, in his article “The Holy Bible” (Aug. 28 issue), is to be commended for his great Christian fervor in supporting the authority of the Bible.… But, with all due respect … he betrays a weakness in attacking Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of The Methodist Church.

Bishop Oxnam has expressed difficulty in understanding the Virgin Birth. There are many ministers in our land today of the highest personal integrity who feel that it is not absolutely essential to a positive Christian faith. When … an intellectual roadblock, many ministers have very wisely advised their constituents to circumvent the issue and move forward in more positive areas.…

Perhaps one of the most difficult problems to explain to the human mind involves the Resurrection. The school of opinion that insists upon a physical resurrection will not satisfy a scientifically penetrating mind.… On the other hand, the “Metamorphosis Theory” which calls for a mighty act of infinite power … is far more satisfying to the scientific mind.… God’s infinite power was demonstrated in the Resurrection and we still grope in darkness seeking an accurate explanation.…

It becomes difficult to understand why Dr. Wilbur Smith … feels constrained to attack Bishop Oxnam.…

ROBERT ERICSON

Shelton, Conn.

Creeping Liberalism?

I was amazed at your report of the Wisconsin-Missouri break (News, Aug. 28 issue) which began: “Creeping Liberalism within the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod constituency was dealt a dramatic rebuke by a sister synod.”

… It is not “creeping liberalism” in Missouri. It is “creeping Christianity” in Wisconsin that has caused the split.… Wisconsin objects to such things as Boy Scouts, Army chaplains, etc.…

Missouri refuses to “creep” along. The King’s business requires haste.

HERMAN BIELENBERG

Warren, Pa.

This opening sentence reveals an editorial stand on the … controversy which has been the subject of delicate negotiation and long deliberations … not to mention an exceptional amount of forbearance and patience, … rivaled only by the Geneva atom test talks.…

WAYNE SAFFEN

Graham Taylor Chapel

Chicago, Ill.

In your editorial (i.e., news report) … you pontificate. May this Missouri Synod pastor suggest that such a lead sentence dealt a dramatic rebuke to the primary canons of honest journalism (accuracy, fairness, objectivity) as well as two primary Christian virtues (charity and truthfulness).…

CLIFORD L. BRUEGGEMANN

Director

Lutheran House

Detroit, Mich.

I have considered the Missouri Synod members as watchmen on the walls of Zion for the pure doctrine. We (American Lutheran) have never been pure enough for them.

OLAF LYSNES

St. Paul, Minn.

I am still pleased to belong to that church which Time magazine once labeled the “most conservative Protestant denomination in America.” May God always keep it so.

ROBERT J. MARTENS

Messiah Lutheran Church

Beloit, Wisc.

The Messiah

I enjoyed Dr. Henry’s good article in the Aug. 28 issue.… I share with you the truth that both Israeli leaders and Christian missionaries need to re-think their religious outlook.

I am Jewish. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Jewish Messiah 42 years ago … and I have felt that I was a better Jew because I accepted what my Jewish Bible and Jewish prophets predicted, portrayed, and prophesied when I saw in Jesus of Nazareth the fulfillment of my hope and promise for my salvation. I had to change from my rabbinical, traditional, and ceremonial ideas to biblical Judaism.

MEYER TAN-DITTER

Hollywood, Calif.

The incident (“Jewish Mobs Stone New Church in Jerusalem,” News, July 31 issue) has been used by the Arabs … to mock Israeli “democracy” in relation to freedom of religion.… A further harm was antagonism among some ignorant people in this country against Christian missionary activity.…

The people of Israel cannot be reached with the Gospel in the same manner as heathen in Africa, India, China, or other lands.… The Church of Christ missionaries were only asking for trouble when they brazenly opened their doors in an Orthodox Jewish district and offered inducements for Jewish children to attend their meetings.

This is a touchy subject.… Millions of dollars have been raised … to “Save Our Children” from the mission schools. The Jews … have greatly exaggerated the numbers … and “harm” done to these children.…

… In Israel today there is more actual religious freedom … than there was under the Protestant Christian Mandatory Government.…

These things and many more have to be known and understood before a proper evaluation can be made of a minor disturbance …, result of over-zealousness on both sides.

WILLIAM L. HULL

Zion Christian Mission

Jerusalem, Israel

Episcopacy And Ecumenics

Thank you so very much for printing the article “The Apostolic Ministry” by Roland Thorwaldsen (July 17 issue).… This in my experience is the view of Episcopacy believed in by at least 90 per cent of Episcopalians.

THOMAS REGNARY

St. Timothy’s Church

Iola, Kan.

It is significant to note the words of an Anglican, S. L. Greenslade, Canon Residentiary of Durham Cathedral and Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. Evaluating the teaching of Irenaeus and Tertullian concerning heresy he emphasizes three significant points: (1) Their first concern is always for the preservation of true doctrine. “They are only secondarily concerned with the means by which the institutional Church is maintained in being.…” (2) “… the apostolic succession in question consists in the line of bishops in each local church, not a chain of consecrator and consecrated.…” “Apostolic succession always means (this) in the early Church.” (3) There is no particular stress on their being bishops. “The argument does not stand or fall by episcopacy.…” “The essential point,” as Greenslade observes, “is that there should be an orderly succession of responsible ministers in each local church” (Early Latin Theology, ed. by S. L. Greenslade, Library of Christian Classics, Vol. V, Westminster Press, 1956, pp. 28–29).

So far as any hope for a greater unity (not necessarily organic union) among various Protestant communions … is concerned, the view Calvin held of the ministry of the Church is far more helpful.… It may be briefly summed up … as follows: The ministry is Christ’s gift to His Church, of which he is both her foundation and only head. The ministry is validated by the apostolic marks of preaching and teaching the Word (canon), and administering the Sacraments according to the institution of Christ. Christ is the Church’s true Bishop; all ministries derive from his and are corporately held in his. The Church’s unity depends upon union with Christ himself, and not upon a monarchical bishop, though he may be a useful instrument. The apostolic succession of the ministry is dependent upon Christ’s gift to the Church and his secret call to men, and their exercise of their calling (Word and Sacraments). Ranks, administration, are political only, not divinely ordained. Therefore, the Church must employ that polity which will in no way obscure the headship of Christ to his Church. The form, obeying this principle, will vary according to the circ*mstances and by what will best exalt Christ.

Such an understanding of the ministry to the Church would permit mutual recognition of ministries and intercommunion of members … the two great stumbling blocks between Anglicans and Presbyterians.

ROBERT K. GOODWIN

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Burbank, Calif.

All talk of reunion must begin with a common faith in one Redeemer.… What are the God-chosen means of preserving and spreading this faith among men? The Bible is one of these. The effective signs of Baptism and Communion, specifically commanded by our Lord, are another. To the vast majority of those believing in the divinity of Christ (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican Old Catholic, etc.) there is yet another, and this is the apostolic ministry. Long before our present canon of Scripture was fixed the biblical titles of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon were given to those who through the scriptural rite of laying on of hands were set apart to carry on the evangelical and disciplinary work of the Apostles.… As a preliminary to reunion, is it too much to ask the brethren-in-the-minority to receive once again that safeguard which they have lost?

EDWIN C. WEBSTER

Church of St. Margaret, Episcopal

Margarita, Canal Zone

Right And Left

Couldn’t help laughing at the actions of some of the ministers withdrawing from the Louisville Area Council of Churches in protest against its retention of Dr. Magruder as executive director (News, July 17 issue).

Were I a gambler I would wager heavy odds that these righteous Pharisees have never attempted similar action over a leftist member of their holy council.

MORRIS J. REDDOUT

Arkport, N. Y.

For The Record

We are more than ever convinced that “all” is a rather large word in spite of its only having three letters. In the July 17 issue (News) it was stated that “All Evangelical and Reformed congregations became a part of the new church automatically” (United Church of Christ).

For the sake of the record, we … know two of these congregations have remained outside of the union, keeping their property.… Both of these are in Ohio—one at Xenia and the other at Akron.

HAROLD V. KUHN

Presbyterian Church

Spencer, W. Va.

Prayers For The Dead

Professor A. C. M. Ahlen makes the statement that “The Apology to the Augsburg Confession specifically states that prayers for the dead are not forbidden” (July 17 issue). As the sentence stands, it is very misleading. No doubt Prof. Ahlen refers to Article XXIV “Of the Mass,” specifically to section “Of the Mass for the Dead” (De missa pro defunctis). There it says in section 94: “Now, as regards the adversaries’ citing the Fathers concerning the offering for the dead, we know that the ancients speak of prayer for the dead, which we do not prohibit.” However, if he will read the preceding paragraph, he will note what is meant: “It appears therefore that the Greeks made an offering as thanksgiving, and do not apply it as a satisfaction for punishment.” Every time a member in our congregation dies, we have a prayer, thanking God for having brought him to faith in Christ and beseeching Him to comfort the survivors. This is something quite different from what the Roman Catholic church understands under praying for the dead.

L. W. FAULSTICK

Highland Park Lutheran Church

Los Angeles, Calif.

It might be well to note that in the Smalcald Articles Luther is supposed to have made this question of prayers for the dead debatable (II, ii). A thoughtful study of his words in the Smalcald Articles ought to convince anyone that it was not Luther’s intention to make this point debatable any more than it was his intention to make another point in the immediate context debatable—namely, whether Augustine without Scripture could establish articles of faith! Luther merely indicates that if his adversaries abolished “the traffic in masses” he would then discuss these other two points with them, too; but it is an entirely unsupported assumption that he therefore considered these matters debatable. It would, no doubt, require a whole volume such as Dr. H. Martinsen-Larson wrote to defend this practice among Lutherans; but a mere careful reading of the few passages in our Lutheran Confessions which refer to this matter will make it evident at once that prayers for the dead, in the sense in which President Kennedy urged them, find no approval in our Confessional writings.

H. A. HUTH

Holy Cross Lutheran

Minneapolis, Minn.

Modern Assyrians

A report in the March 27 issue (News) states, “After 40 years of wandering in a ‘modem’ wilderness, 48 refugee families who still speak Christ’s native language of Aramaic will be given new, permanent homes this summer by the World Council of Churches.” It continues, “They are a group of refugees from Armenia.…”

While there are large numbers of Aramaic-speaking Armenians, most people whose natural language is that of Christ are Assyrians.… The 195 men, women, and children in the 48 families are … Assyrians.

HERBERT B. QUOYOON

Forest Hills, N. Y.

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Each year, in the anniversary issue ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY,the news section features a panel of the world’s foremost religious scholars asserting their views on a significant, timely question. This year’s question is:

What are the most prevalent false gods of our time and how do you assess their relative significance?

KARL BARTH, professor, University of Basel: “Today, and at all times, precisely the church is the place on which false gods are established and worshipped. For the church has succumbed to the temptation to believe in the goodness and power of her own tradition, morality, and religious activity. So the church has come to believe in images of man, of the world, and of God, which she has fabricated of her own means. She believes in the excellency of the Christian and in the depravity of the indifferent, the atheists, and the Communists. Thus she does exactly the same as those believing in money, in sports, in technics, in sex, or simply in the glory of affluent and comfortable living. It is the church’s high calling to demonstrate that she believes in that God who has redeemed man from all false gods.”

ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD, professor emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary: “In America today false gods abound. They call for perversion of things ideally good. In an order of descending prominence: self, money, pleasure, sex, romance (as in marriage), amusem*nts (commercial), sports (professional), education (secular). Collectively, secularism and humanism. We need a return to the First Commandment, in the light of the Cross.”

F. F. BRUCE, professor, University of Manchester: “The most prevalent false gods of our time are the ‘status symbols’ cherished by Christians and non-Christians alike. On the personal level some of them may seem harmless enough, but their pursuit absorbs much of the energy which should be devoted to the extension of Christ’s kingdom. On the national and international level they are too often the very things that threaten the annihilation of mankind; yet their fatal attraction obscures a proper recognition of the things which belong to our peace.”

EMILE CAILLIET, professor emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary: “The false gods of our time are born of a pride of life that now pervades some of our oldest seminaries, so that the Christian proclamation is poisoned at its source. Our most immediate concern should be for that source, that is, for the kind of seminary a dedicated Christian should support.”

EDWARD JOHN CARNELL, professor, Fuller Theological Seminary: “Power and pleasure, or the vanities of self-sufficiency and self-gratification—just as they have always been. Each assumes that man can complete his life by his own resources. The god of power draws on science’s penetration into the elemental forces of nature, while the god of pleasure thrives on the traditional fruits of material prosperity and a general decay in moral standards.”

GORDON H. CLARK, professor, Butler University: “The phrase ‘false gods’ suggests polytheism; and indeed modern society has many gods. One of the most powerful is the secular, anti-Christian welfare state. No other modern god or demon so nearly controls all of life. Totalitarianism is today’s rival of the sovereign God.”

FRANK E. GAEBELEIN, headmaster, The Stony Brook School: “Speaking of the false gods of our time, I believe that prominent among them are the gods of materialism and self-indulgence set up by advertising, the entertainment world, and the popular press. The present slippage in morals reflects an ominous removal of restraints of good taste and moral standards. Through the stimuli of advertising, films, and the press, the false gods of materialistic glamor and sensual pleasure have invaded all areas of our society. America has already traveled far down the road of secular materialism. Unless there is repentence, judgment may be in store for our nation.”

JOHN H. GERSTNER, professor, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary: “There is and ever has been one and only one I-dol. The things or images which pass for idols are what I have made for Me. The civilized man, unlike the ‘primitive,’ dispenses with the intermediary image and makes himself directly the sole object of his own concern. ‘Deny thyself’ is the first sign of the new man in Christ.”

CARL F. H. HENRY, Editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY: “The false gods of our age are scientism, communism, and political democracy. All trust man’s warped passions to shape a paradise on earth. One thing sure about these gilded idols is that Christ will scatter their broken fragments in judgment and fill the vacuum left by their unkept promises.”

W. BOYD HUNT, Professor, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: “In the West the most influential false gods are a secularized form of education—the delusion of man’s ability to save himself; materialism—the practical atheism which confuses immediate wants with ultimate needs; nationalism—the provincial obsession which denies the oneness of the world; and conservatism—the inordinate worship of what one already has. At the heart of each of these false religions is the effort to achieve a cheap security—the chiefest of the false gods, and the self-destroying refusal to accept the venture of biblical faith.”

W. HARRY JELLEMA, professor, Haverford College: “Detached from the judgment and grace of God, idolatrous reverence for the self in its solitary and hopeless subjectivity. Two major modes of narcissistic worship then present themselves: Either indulgence of the naturalistic drives toward temporal security, power, and pleasure; or the more sophisticated indulgence in the pathos of the self’s aloneness and inability to find life worth living.”

HAROLD B. KUHN, professor, Asbury Theological Seminary: “In today’s world of the West, the most tempting absolute is ‘our Western way of life’ or ‘life in the free world’, or ‘the best standard of living man has ever known,’ or simply ‘our liberties.’ Taken within a theological frame of reference, there is much to be said for these ‘values’—but taken as absolutes, they serve only to further our confusion. Not one of them can stand alone; none can survive, save among a stable core of persons whose lives are lived according to principle. Such a core of persons can be produced only through the dynamic of the Gospel of Christ. Take this away, and within a few generations, even the character-values will disappear.”

ADDISON H. LEITCH, professor, Tarkio College: “There are many gods—money, status, security, health, and even social adjustment. They become objects of idolatry when we confuse the creature with the creator, the gift with the giver. Their falsity lies in their being limited to this world and finite goals. The false god, therefore, is this world as an end in itself. We have lost the dimension of infinity, the hope of eternity. We forget that we are pilgrims and that we have no final place of abode here.”

CALVIN D. LINTON, dean, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University: “From the point of view of one educator, the prevalent false gods are: 1. The cult of automatic human progress. The belief that all environments tend inevitably toward perfection, with consequent search for the novel and the attendant neglect of ancient wisdom. 2. The cult of egalitarianism. The belief that not only are all men equal before God and under the law, but that all are equally deserving of reward, honor, and certificates of achievement 3. The cult of scientism. The belief that all human experience is ultimately reducible to instrumentation and technology.”

CHARLES MALIK, professor, American University, past president, United Nations General Assembly: “I would put them in the following order: Secularism—nature, man and history are self-sufficient, without any reference whatsoever to God as a righteous creator who really cares and who is above all nature, all history, and all men and without whom these things have no meaning and issue in absolute despair. Materialism—the derivation of man from and his reduction to material, economic, social and sensuous conditions with no independence whatsoever and no originality for his mind and spirit. Relativism—no absolute, objective truth valid for all, but each culture, each people, each tradition, each individual his own free judge of what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, what is ultimate and what is evanescent.”

LEON MORRIS, principal, Tyndale House: “Men’s ideals today are various, but a good sermon might be worked out on the three S’s, success, security, and sputniks. Our generation has an almost pathological fear of failure, and success (variously interpreted) is the dominating passion of many. Others set all else aside in a single-minded pursuit of security. The ideal of scientific achievement attracts multitudes to its shrine. And these gods are failing us. No generation ever felt less successful than does ours. No generation ever felt more insecure. No generation had as much to fear from the results of scientific research.”

J. THEODORE MUELLER, professor, Concordia Seminary: “Perverted human nature never changes and so also the false gods of corrupt mankind never change. John describes them briefly but strikingly as the ‘lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.’ These lusts today manifest themselves in the whole world, outside of Christ’s kingdom of grace, in atheism, materialism, voluptuousness, arrogance, rejection of the divine Word and the precious Gospel of Christ, both among liberal theologians and laymen, as also in the gross outbursts of crime and the constant threat of war and tyrannical oppression.”

REINHOLD NIEBUHR, professor, Harvard University: “What can one do but ‘hold the candle light of the obvious to the daylight of common experience’? The false gods are obvious. The primary one is physical power and comfort.”

KENNETH L. PIKE, professor, University of Michigan: “In a system of abstract ideas the intellectual can put his trust; on it base his actions; out of it develop his worldview; through it get his deepest emotional thrust. Secularism (or naturalism, or behaviorism) is such a system. Trust here squeezes out—replaces—trust in God and the worldview which he gives us. Secularism becomes, therefore, the most prevalent false god in our modern academic community—more deeply rooted, perhaps, than is covetousness (or riches? or security?), ‘which is [also] idolatry’ (Colossians 3:5).”

W. STANFORD REID, professor, McGill University: “The principal false god of our time in this land is our standard of living. We are so concerned with material possessions that we forget they are the gift of God and that there are other things more important. We may yet have to lose our standard of living or surrender a large part of it before we become aware that there are much more important values. After all, man’s chief end in life is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, not to have a house with a swimming pool.”

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON, professor, Columbia Theological Seminary: “In considering false gods, may I raise three questions: Are we worshipping visible success instead of holding on with Job, ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him’? Are we insisting on decoding the faith into philosophical systems or mythological symbols rather than admitting mystery and refusing to let the things we do not know upset our confidence in the Christ we do know? Are we bowing to bigness rather than witnessing to the Word and waiting upon God to vindicate his Gospel?”

MERRILL C. TENNEY, dean, Graduate School, Wheaton College: “Prestige, possessions, power, and pleasures are the false gods of modern man. They represent a tragic devotion to material gain rather than to spiritual good, to transient gratification rather than to eternal values. They are as futile and unsatisfying to the spirit as any idol of wood or stone.”

Protestant Panorama

• Merger of the Baptist Missionary Training School of Chicago with Colgate Rochester Divinity School was approved last month by the boards of both. Resources of the two American Baptist institutions will be combined to develop a new graduate program of church vocations for women at Colgate beginning next year.

• The Beaver-Butler (Pennsylvania) Presbytery plans to petition the United Presbyterian General Assembly to take a more deliberate stand on the problem of alcohol. The presbytery has criticized “social drinking” and has asked that abstinence be reiterated as the standard of the church.

• Dr. Oswald C. J. Hoffmann was honored this month for 25 years of service to the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Hoffmann is director of public relations for the church and speaker on “The Lutheran Hour.”

• Four Pentecostalist leaders in the Ural Mountain region of Russia face possible jail terms after being convicted of engaging in activities “of a character hostile to humanity,” according to Moscow radio.

• The American Bible Society is appealing for $250,000 to supply Bibles for Indonesia before an embargo takes effect December 23.

CORNELIUS VAN TIL, professor, Westminister Theological Seminary: “The historian Toynbee thinks that Christianity first observed the comprehensive character of the general cosmic law ‘proclaimed by Aeschylus’ that learning comes through suffering. Toynbee thinks he does justice to the uniqueness of the work of Christ by asserting that He first recognized the universal character of this law. Thus Christ is made to illustrate Truth which is above Him. This is idolatry.”

GUSTAVE WEIGEL, S.J., professor, Woodstock College: “There is only one God. He is always the same. The gods are many, but no matter how they are called, Zeus or atomic power, Venus or Libido, Mars or war, they are natural powers and they are always the same. They cannot save, no matter in what era their aid is sought.”

WARREN C. YOUNG, professor, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary: “The most serious idol of today is the status quo. Our Christian witness is ineffective because we are trying to witness conventionally to an age which is not conventional. Our evangelical churches are failing to meet the challenge of this changing culture because they have idolized the pattern and program of the dead past. Thus our method prevents us from making contact with the message of the Gospel. Christians and churches must learn again the unconventionality of Christ if they are to break the idol of contemporary conventionality.”

Baptist Men In Memphis

More than 7,000 clergymen and laymen gathered at Memphis, Tennessee, for the second National Conference of Southern Baptist Men held September 13–15, heard Charles Malik, past president of the United Nations General Assembly, plead that communism be recognized as “a total challenge.”

Calling the present world situation “in its deepest dimension a spiritual crisis,” he said that “anything less than total response to it is a fraud.”

Malik stressed the futility of the Peace Corps and similar responses against “forty million dedicated people (Communists) working day and night in every nation in the world … using every conceivable means, to attain its ends, world domination.”

He challenged the Church to pursue its particular part of the struggle: To convict of sin by confronting mankind with the Cross; to wield the weapons of the Spirit in the face of all that is spiritually neutral; and to remain absolutely faithful to Christ. “If—God forbid—the world should go up in smoke,” he said, “let the name of Christ remain above every name, and the Cross above every symbol.”

Keynote speaker, the Rev. Roy McClain, pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, spoke on the conference theme “That the World May Know.”

A Vote Of Confidence

Does membership in the John Birch Society disqualify a person from interchurch leadership.

The executive board of the Louisville (Kentucky) Area Council of Churches, which reviewed charges of “weak and ineffective leadership” made against Executive Director N. Burnett Magruder, thinks not.

The board declared last month that it found “no justification” to the charges, brought by a group of United Church of Christ ministers who demanded Magruder’s resignation.

“I don’t see how a person who espouses the ideas of the John Birch Society can be an effective leader,” said the Rev. Robert S. Mathes.

Magruder acknowledges the Birch membership but asserts that there is nothing within the society’s principles that would deter him in his council work.

The Louisville council embraces some 250 churches and is one of the most representative councils in the nation. Its member churches range from the Pentecostal to the high-church Episcopal.

Magruder is a Southern Baptist minister. While studying at Yale Divinity School, he won the top scholarship in his class, which enabled him to go on to Columbia University and earn an M. A. in labor economics. He has served as the Louisville council’s executive director for three years. The controversy over him began some 18 months ago with the appearance of a magazine article in which he contended that some Protestant clergy were tinged with “the Marxist virus.”

Fighters Without A Cause?

Rampant chiliasm was one reason advanced by observers for the September launching of a new “pre-millennial Baptist mission society” by leaders of the Conservative Baptist Fellowship, a group noted for stronger separatist views than those generally held by leaders of the Conservative Baptist Association with which all leaders of the new society are also identified. The two bodies are independent. The permanent form of the society is expected to be effected by the time of the next meeting of the Conservative Baptist Association in May, 1962. Both home and foreign missions are to be combined under a single board.

Already in the field are two independent missionary agencies, the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society and the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, both noted for remarkable vigor of outreach. The former body, for example, has some 380 foreign missionaries on the field after only 18 years of existence. It broke off from the American (then Northern) Baptist Convention in protest against liberalism. With its constituency of some 300,000 Conservative Baptists, its program compares favorably with that of the 1,555,360-member American Baptist Convention which supports some 391 foreign missionaries.

Introduction of a new mission society at this time highlights a division within the Conservative Baptist movement which has outwardly revolved about an eschatological question: the extent to which pre-millennial views shall be required of Conservative Baptist staff and convention “messengers.” Practically all Conservative Baptists are pre-millennial anyway, and those working for reform are generally those of dispensational convictions who believe in a secret rapture of believers before the tribulation.

Enthusiasm for the new society on the part of the two general directors of the existing societies was notably lacking. Said Vincent Brushwyler of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society: “I don’t think a new missionary society is needed. Ours for all practical purposes is a pre-millennial society.”

Said Rufus Jones concerning the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society: “I believe it remains true to the basic doctrine and ideology which brought the movement into being, and it is my opinion that those who are forming the new society would be able to find other missionary agencies already existing which share their ideology.”

Degree of separatism is another point of division among Conservative Baptists. The declaration of purpose of the society now forming reads: “… the impact of Neo-Evangelicalism and its twin evil of ecumenical evangelism has had a divisive and deteriorating effect on the schools, societies and churches of our movement …” Key issue here is whether Billy Graham’s evangelistic campaigns merit support. Also, some are opposed to co-operation with the National Association of Evangelicals.

Some observers both inside and outside the movement sadly read the division in terms of underlying personality clash and power struggle. They speak of “fighters without a cause” and see the doctrines of soul liberty and the priesthood of believers imperiled by factional strife. Said one: “I don’t believe in unbiblical inclusivism, but neither do I believe in an unbiblical exclusivism.”

A Baptist Split

Controversy among North Carolina’s Original Free Will Baptists resulted in a split in the denomination last month when 61 delegates, refusing to accept a “statement of faith and discipline” at the 49th annual convention of the North Carolina State Association of Original Free Will Baptists, walked out and formed another state association.

That organization—to be known as the Conservative Fellowship of the North Carolina State Convention of the Original Free Will Baptists—claims it represents an estimated 18,000 of the 40,000 Original Free Will Baptists in the state. The Rev. Frank Davenport of Goldsboro was elected moderator.

The walkout climaxed a controversy involving the ouster of the Rev. Donald Creech as pastor of a church in Durham over doctrinal differences and against the wishes of what was claimed to be a majority: of his congregation.

The focal point of controversy in North Carolina has been the question of whether a denominational conference has the right to intervene in serious local disturbances.

Subsequently, a history teacher at Mount Olive (North Carolina) Junior College, which is supported by the Free Will Baptist Church, resigned his post, admitting he had “made use of the Fifth Amendment and other constitutional privileges protecting individual rights against governmental encroachment.”

The resignation of William McKee Evans followed an investigation at the college which was made after a protest was voiced on the floor of the state convention.

18-Month Respite

Among the last bills passed by the 87th Congress before its adjournment Sept. 27 were measures extending (1) the school aid program for federally-impacted areas and (2) the National Defense Education Act of 1958. Enactment of the legislation likely means that federal aid to parochial schools, opposed by most Protestants, will not again be a live option for 18 months or more.

The debate over parochial school aid was the most intense to come before the first session of the 87th Congress. President Kennedy stood his ground in opposing such aid, even in the face of intense pressure from Roman Catholic party colleagues, but the price he paid was his own proposal for federal aid to public education, which was defeated along with parochial aid plans.

The extension of the National Defense Education Act for two years did not entail any amendments. Some observers charge that the program violates the principle of church-state separation when appropriated for scholarships for seminarians.

Baptists In Government

Dr. Paul F. Geren, former Baptist missionary and educator, is now second in command of the U. S. Peace Corps operation. His appointment by President Kennedy to the office of deputy director was announced last month.

Geren succeeds Bill D. Moyers, another Baptist clergyman, who now becomes associate director for legislative relations. Moyers is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary who was on the staff of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson when appointed to the Peace Corps earlier this year.

Geren, who was executive vice president of Baylor University, a Southern Baptist institution, from 1956 to 1958, has been serving in the State Department as deputy director of the Office of International Finance and Development. The son of an Arkansas Baptist minister, he attended Baylor as a student and later received a master’s degree at Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

In 1941, Geren went to Judson College in Rangoon, Burma, as a missionary and economics teacher for the American Baptist Convention. His work there was cut short by the Japanese invasion of Burma.

He then joined the staff of Dr. Gordon Seagrave, famous Burma surgeon.

Peace Corps Problem

Peace Corps volunteers were already at work in Ghana and ready to begin in several other countries, but back in Washington the administration was still tussling with a principle: Should the Peace Corps sign contracts to work through sectarian agencies?

As of late September, the Peace Corps had not as yet signed such a contract, but policy makers were known to be toying with the idea.

President Kennedy has already signed into law the bill which establishes the Peace Corps as a permanent agency, but Congress did not specify any safeguards against intrusion upon the principle of separation of church and state.

The Hard Way Home

The only home he ever knew was the Baptist orphanage at Petah Tiqva and Edward Salim Zoumut, now 16, wanted to return. But authorities in Jordan took a dim view of allowing the boy to cross the Jerusalem border to get back into Israel. So, for more than eight months since he came to the Old City to pay his refugee parents a Christmas visit, the young Arab has been stranded. What’s more, he had been placed in a Roman Catholic boarding school, where, according to Religious News Service, “he complained of being unhappy.”

The Israel Baptist Convention, meanwhile, sought desperately to have the boy returned legally, but to no avail. The situation took a strange turn one day last month when Jordanian police picked up two men who had been seriously injured in a land mine explosion in no man’s land. One was Dr. Robert Lindsey, a highly-respected Southern Baptist missionary from Norman, Oklahoma. The other was Edward Salim Zoumut.

Lindsey was arrested on charges that he had tried to smuggle the boy back to Israel. He was placed in the prison ward of a government hospital, where subsequently one of his feet was amputated. The boy suffered an eye injury.

Lindsey, a noted Bible scholar, has served as a missionary to Israel for the past 16 years. He had been translating the New Testament into modern Hebrew and had served as a judge in the international Bible contest held in Jerusalem in 1958. With his wife and six children, Lindsey lived in Tiberias.

Israeli authorities requested officials in Jordan to return Lindsey to Israel. They indicated they would not prosecute him for the illegal crossing in view of “his sincere motives.”

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. Conrad Arthur Moehlman, 82, retired professor of church history at Rochester Theological Seminary (now the Colgate-Rochester Divinity School); in Avon Park, Florida … Herman Fisk Bell, 81, author of three books on religion and theology; in Brooklyn, New York … G. Sidney Phelps, 86, former YMCA executive in the Far East; in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Appointments: As dean of Illinois Wesleyan University, Everette L. Walker … as director of graduate studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, Dr. Ray Summers … as professor of Old Testament literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. James Barr … as faculty members for the initial term of the Near East School of Archaeological and Biblical Studies in Jerusalem, Dr. Bastiaan Van Elderen, Dr. R. Laird Harris, Dr. Stanley Horton, and Dr. Joseph Free … as professor of Christian education, English, and drama at Pacific Bible Seminary, Miss Mary Harding … as editor of the Scripture Union publication, Every Girl’s Magazine, Mrs. J. Hills Cotterill.

Resignation: As executive secretary of the Associated Church Press, the Rev. Alfred P. Klauser, a Reserve Army chaplain whose unit began a tour of extended active duty October 1. Klauser was recently promoted to the rank of full colonel.

Retirement: Dr. Ralph W. Sockman, minister of Christ Church, Methodist, New York, effective December 31. Sockman has served the church for more than 44 years—and thereby holds a record among Methodist ministers.

Election: As president of the House of Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Clifford P. Morehouse, New York publisher of literary materials for the church.

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In a cooperative effort,CHRISTIANITY TODAY, The Sunday School Times, and Eternity sent Alan M. Fletcher, managing editor of the Times, on a fact-finding tour of British Guiana, which many believe offers the Communists a toe-hold on the continent of South America. Fletcher was chosen for the task because of the knowledge he gained of the country in previous visits. Here is his report:

My visit last month to the lush jungle land of British Guiana convinced me anew that it deserves the attention of Christians everywhere. This Idaho-sized colony on the northeast coast of South America abounds in natural beauty, including waterfalls four times taller than Niagara, but its current ideological inclinations are of far greater import. In elections held on August 21, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) gained a substantial majority of legislative seats under a strong new constitution that guarantees absolute control of British Guiana’s internal affairs. The PPP and its premier, 43-year-old Dr. Cheddi Bharatt Jagan, an American-educated dentist, have been widely accused of Communist orientation. The religious implication is that British Guiana could become the first nominally Protestant country to go into the Communist orbit.

The refined-appearing Jagan was scheduled to visit the United States this month in a hid for aid. He is a mahogany-skinned East Indian, a native of British Guiana. (Nearly 50 per cent of the population are East Indians, who were brought in when the British abolished slavery in 1834; another 35 per cent are Negroes.) He is married to the former Janet Rosenberg, a known Communist whom he met in Chicago. His early education in Anglican and Church of Scotland schools apparently had little spiritual effect on him for he took his oath of office on a Hindu holy book.

British Guiana’s first attempt at self-government ended in December, 1953, when the Royal Welsh Fusiliers marched in to enforce Britain’s suspension of the infant constitution after a drift to communism had become all too evident.

Jagan’s PPP was the ruling party at that time. It is the ruling party today, under the new constitution, with complete independence perhaps only a year away.

British Guiana is in the center of an area originally called Guiana, discovered by Columbus and explored by Sir Walter Raleigh. Here was sought El Dorado, the city of gold, now thought to be a fabrication of the Spanish aimed at keeping European powers out of richer territories. The portion of Guiana now known as British Guiana changed hands between the Dutch and the English several times in its early history.

Since 1803 it has been the property of Great Britain.

Four-fifths of British Guiana is forest. About 95 per cent of the population lives in a 10-mile-wide strip of coast line. Most of the interior is inaccessible. Georgetown, the principal city and capital, has a population of 125,000. The colony’s welfare is linked with two agricultural crops: sugar and rice. Chief mineral exports are bauxite and manganese.

In addition to the PPP, there are two other political parties in English-speaking British Guiana, the People’s National Congress (PNC) and the United Force. All are divided very closely along racial lines, the PPP being the party of the East Indians, the PNC drawing its support from Negroes, with minority nationality groups such as American Indians, Europeans, and Chinese backing the United Force. The PPP and the PNC are both socialist, with similar platforms. The United Force is democratic, supporting the free enterprise system.

Members of both the PPP and PNC at times sound suspiciously communistic, but the people of British Guiana are neither Communist or socialist. The working people know little of any ideology, despite a literacy rate which is rather high for an underdeveloped country (one source says 70 per cent).

When a middle-class housewife asked her East Indian maid if she planned to vote for Jagan’s party, the maid replied, “Yes, mistress.”

“But don’t you know that Mrs. Jagan is a Communist?”

“Oh, no, mistress,” said the maid. “She are no common woman.”

The close racial nature of the PPP and the PNC has created an ugly tension between the East Indian and Negro population. A recently-organized “African Society for Racial Equality,” led by two school teachers, sees the future for Negroes one of subjection to the more business-minded East Indians. Rallies under the motto “Equality or Partition” are enjoying enthusiastic support.

The PPP has been the majority party continuously since 1957. Its manifesto calls the plantation system under which sugar is produced “anachronistic and … it should be the subject of reform.”

The PPP plans to allow “importation from any source so that the country can benefit from purchasing in the cheapest market.” “Control of prices is essential.”

I heard Jagan say, “So far as I am concerned, so long as any individual is willing to come and work with us, and live with us, we will welcome him with open arms.”

The government plans to establish industries, apparently in some cases in competition with private enterprise. Jagan’s party has already established its own newspaper, with printing plant, and has announced plans to establish its own radio station.

In international affairs, the PPP says it “will pursue a neutralist policy of friendship with all countries and will not permit our country to be used as a military base by any nation.”

British Guiana has always been free picking for all kinds of religious groups. The net effect has been to make the majority of the citizenry fall somewhere within the Protestant spectrum. The Saturday church directories of Georgetown’s newspapers list several Anglican churches, three Presbyterian, several Congregational, and many Methodist. There are also churches and chapels which are Canadian Presbyterian, Lutheran, Moravian, Salvation Army, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, Pilgrim Holiness, Church of God, Christian Catholic, Christadelphian, Christian Science, Bahai, Seventh-day Adventist, Plymouth Brethren, plus the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Unevangelized Fields Mission has several churches and does extensive work among primitive tribes in the interior. The Christian Literature Crusade sponsors an attractive book store in Georgetown. Gideons also are represented.

In discussions with many Protestant leaders I learned that many churches are nominally orthodox, but I saw little evidence of zeal. Churches are well attended, but the motive seems to be largely status rather than spiritual strength.

Sober estimates indicated that within 10 to 15 years the “Christian” population will become the minority, for three reasons: The sluggish churches are scarcely holding their own, the predominantly pagan East Indian population has a growth rate far greater than the rest of the population, and the rise in racial feeling has caused increased interest in Hinduism and Islam.

Education of the colony’s children has always been the domain of the churches, which operate some 300 schools, but clergy leaders are worried. Through the years the government has subsidized the schools, paid teacher salaries, and often picked up the tab for construction of educational buildings. Shortly before the August elections, the government seized 51 church schools that had been bought and built with government funds. Church leaders have been protesting vigorously, but to no avail.

Education, says the PPP manifesto, is “the greatest liberating force in the struggle against ignorance, reaction, bigotry, superstition, and economic exploitation.… The system of dual control of schools whereby denominational bodies control the appointment and promotion of teachers on a denominational basis, while the government pays the salaries of the teachers and makes large grants to these schools will be eventually abolished.”

One thing is sure: Guiana needs revival. A Billy Graham crusade could kindle the flame. Graham is already well known in British Guiana through his radio broadcast, and nearly all the ministers with whom I spoke are eager to have him pay a visit.

Christian leaders in British Guiana urge that no additional religious groups from the United States establish permanent work. Some observers feel that missionary personnel from India would be the most welcome of any foreigners and would command the greatest audience for the Gospel.

Ideas

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Is evangelical momentum visibly evident today? Some say yes; some say no. Cynics would have us believe that the evangelical movement has reached a permanent plateau, that its promising thrust of a decade ago now hangs limp among other ideologies and philosophies. But CHRISTIANITY TODAY demands new spectacles of evaluation to behold this present period as a strategic time for consolidation and regrouping. Instead of too much evangelical psychoanalysis, let’s take heart and carry forward the work already in process.

Momentum involves far more than motion or activity. Colloquially stated, the word means punch or wallop. To examine evangelical momentum, then, is to investigate its impact on other forces of thought and action.

How indeed shall we gauge the power of evangelical Christianity? Can its dynamic be charged and recharged to some particular standard? Can its vigor be safeguarded and insured against deterioration?

What complicates making an appraisal is that both those who take heart and those who are troubled over the evangelical movement cite similar themes to defend their differing convictions. One prominent topic, for example, is evangelism. Not since the early nineteenth century, we are told, has such concerted campaigning—especially by the Graham crusades—reached so many people in so many places with so much spiritual dynamic. But, counter others, no thoroughgoing national revival, like that in the time of Edwards, or Whiteficld, or Moody, has turned America (nor other countries) upside down for God in our day. While pockets and sectors of communities and religious communions have indeed felt renewal, major cities and vast areas of society remain overwhelmingly pagan and secular. Something seems lacking, therefore, in the momentum of evangelical evangelism.

In education, the Christian day school movement shows continued growth and improved orientation to a Christian perspective in both teaching and learning. An increased number of Bible institutes, soaring enrollments in Christian colleges, together with growing attention to standards of accreditation that seek improvement in all facets of school life, call for enthusiasm. On the other hand, say the wary, are these institutions consciously grappling to define and clearly communicate an integrated Christian philosophy of education that tellingly speaks to our day? Are questions in science, anthropology, sociology, psychology—in fact, in all areas heavily exposed to evolutionary and naturalistic thought, as well as problems in biblical studies—being squarely confronted? Or does such academic concern seem too troublesome? Is it secondary to the observance of prescribed beliefs, practices, and regulations? Are Christian students forced to interract with the secular world of hard thought and hard work with a sense of personal responsibility for glorifying God? Or are they satisfied to strait-jacket the claims of Christ within the isolated and insulated compartments of the private devotional life and of the customary religious organizations and projects of the evangelical community?

Beyond training and education stands the world of creative output. Religious journalism echoes with an explosion—and a booming writers’ market—in all kinds of denominational and nondenominational family-type and Christian education materials. With a nose for sound economics, many secular publishers have now joined the production line with religious books. The audio-visual categories are bulging with religious ventures, too. Does not evangelical participation in these trends supply another evidence of sturdy momentum?

Not necessarily, say the critics. They readily agree that the who-to, when-to, where-to, and how-to materials have their necessary place. But where are the all-encompassing and basic why materials that teach the laity and remind the clergy that being is foundational to doing, that Christian theism must conceive, nurture, and control methodology, if the flood of pragmatic techniques is not to lap erodingly at our Christian enterprises? As to books, Solomon long ago sighed over their abundance. In today’s conflict for cultural meaning and supremacy, where is the evangelical punch and wallop of academically respectable and noteworthy books for the classroom and for research? Is the only alternative to spoon-feeding in our Christian schools—a charge often leveled at evangelicals—an inundation with agnosticism-breeding materials without the stabilizing norm of an adequate Christian apologetic? If the necessary evangelical books are not presently at hand, are students being challenged to train and to mature for meeting this lack? Obviously literary or other intellectual monuments are not created to quickstep tempo, nor in the down-cushioned ease of an extracurricular spirit. Eternity is at stake; the evangelical movement packs a wallop that divides heaven and hell. Where is its flexed iron muscle of scholarship and creativity?

Another measure of vitality is vocational attitude. We hail the growing emphasis that every believer is called to full-time Christian service and that evangelicals must penetrate a multitude of vocations as unto the Lord. Whatever and wherever the vocation, profession, or responsibility, it is to be hallowed as a full-time ministry as God’s entrustment and ordination. No matter how menial or momentous, the daily task bears the dignifying but withal humbling conviction of God’s superintendency.

Has the increased sense of this general kind of God-appointment, however, muffled His call into professional ministries? Why are seminary enrollments dwindling? Why are churches without pastors? Missionary quotas lagging? Are Christians born and bred amid materialistic pressures, less willing to “count the cost” socially and economically as well as spiritually? Has American comfort and ease become the escape hatch from “laying down one’s life” in the arduous journey of self-denying discipleship? Does identifying oneself with our society to live the Christian life somehow muffle the call to transform society by preaching the Christian Gospel?

In the 1950s the evangelical movement registered gains that reached around the world. Fuller Seminary, a bold experiment in interdenominational ecumenism (more than 30 denominations were represented in its student body) graduated classes with a striking interest in foreign missions and graduate study. Billy Graham’s crusades, moving from America to England and Europe, began a circuit that girdled the globe. Bob Pierce’s interest in the Asian orphans and in evangelism along the Communist frontier led to large pastors’ conferences on the other side of the world. The missionary program of individual churches like Park Street, Boston, and People’s Church, Toronto, grew as large as that of some entire denominations. CHRISTIANITY TODAY raised up a fortnightly voice for conservative theology and demonstrated the existence of an international, interdenominational scholarship dedicated to evangelical perspectives. The surge of evangelical literature improved in quality; some conservative theological works attained a gratifying readership; and New York publishing houses began their bid for the Grand Rapids religious market. National Association of Evangelicals reached its peak, sparking a revival of the Sunday school movement as one of its major achievements. The spirit of evangelical missions hushed the world in the face of the Auca martyrdoms, and the seeming tragedy was redressed when the missionary widows related the conversion of the savage killers. Wycliffe translators shared the frontier spirit; with big nations like China behind the Communist curtain, new emphasis fell on the task of reaching the world’s neglected tribes.

As the evangelical movement entered the new decade of the ’60s it showed signs of waning momentum. The surging advances of the ’50s were simply being duplicated and repeated rather than extended; in some respects momentum was actually lost and dynamic dissipated. Abundant “sound and fury” continued about the need for world evangelism as the Church’s supreme task, about the need for Protestant orthodoxy to penetrate dynamically all the areas of life, about the need for bringing all realms of learning and culture captive to Christ. But a “breakthrough” commensurate with these expressed hopes is neither evident nor assured. Token gains there have been already, and for these we thank God. In Manchester Graham’s meetings had a larger hearing from the working class. World Vision reached for the heart of Japan with the Tokyo crusade. In the Philippines—with the special significance that the Filipinos are bi-lingual Asians welcome in the Orient—comes the hint of a possible spiritual harvest in this decade similar to that in Formosa in the past. Gospel broadcasts have extended their penetration of lands barricaded by the Soviets. In some denominations, like the Southern Presbyterian, a stalwart company of middle-aged ministers are preaching the Gospel with new power. These impacts for God are indeed encouraging.

But on the world scene almost every human sign points to narrowing frontiers for the Gospel witness and speaks of evangelical containment. Against the giant pseudo-Christs of the day—scientism, communism, and even political democracy in its secular expressions—evangelicals as yet register little direct influence. While the Hebrew University in Jerusalem plans to double its 5,000 enrollment in the next five tears, evangelicals spend their time debating the propriety of some fundamentalist campus code of negations instead of plotting the philosophy and academic spirit of a needed Christian University. Will the Christian University proposal die in the ’60s—the last decade in which free enterprise may have the necessary resources therefor? In the area of social action there has been growing indignation against secularism as such and against ecclesiastical programming which all too often passes for Christian social ethics. Here and there evangelicals show temper and determination; they raise their voices, marshall their forces, even elect some dedicated and worthy public servant to high office. There have even been conferences on the matter of corporately expressing social convictions and on aggressively articulating evangelical perspectives in the social conflict. Will this thrust strengthen in the ’60s or fall by the wayside? In the realm of ecumenism many evangelicals sense that world conditions demand a new attitude toward unified witness and effort. Because existing ecumenical movements are reactionary adjustments of denominational or interdenominational groups having political as well as spiritual complexes, they have not been able truly to unite evangelicals. Evangelical leaders increasingly sense that while evangelicals are bound together by certain associations, these very identifications (whether in the American Council of Churches, National Association of Evangelicals, or National Council of Churches) actually erect massive barriers between brethren. Will a new evangelical unity emerge in the 1960s that links more and more regenerate believers? Or will the dream of evangelical unity disappear under still further fragmentation of the evangelical witness?

I Believe …

Its decline in the modern world is a sure sign that hope has lost its Christian identification.

World leaders sense the impermanence of scientific and educational achievement. The feverish, seemingly fruitless pursuit of peace and justice strikes fear in the hearts of people everywhere. Pessimism is once again at large.

The present mood is not unlike that of pagan antiquity. At such a time Christianity burst on a despondent, hopeless world with a jubilant message of Christ’s redemptive love and his victory over death. What distinguished the Christian then, no less than today, is confidence. For him the worst that can happen—the judgment of his sins—is already past. To appropriate Calvary means personal assurance of the triumph of righteousness and final doom of the wicked.

Passing centuries with their many Pilates and Herods have already corroborated God’s purpose in the Cross and Resurrection. No less must the Hitlers and Khrushchevs of today and tomorrow, and in fact every man, finally come to terms with the abiding, inevitable reality of the Christian hope.

It is well to remember that the regenerate Church is a lively body whose several members are fitly joined together under the headship of Christ, the risen Lord. If we can grasp the reality of this fact with new insight and devotion, the somber shadows of the present decade will prove the bleak backdrop for a dynamic display of Christian love and power. When Khrushchev sings his daily paeon about the inevitable triumph of communism, let us recall Tennyson’s reminder that “our passing systems have their day.” And let us rejoice that Christ is risen, confident that some day he will pick up the broken pieces of the Marxist kingdom in judgment. But let us not stop there. Our mission is constructive and creative; it holds promise of a new heaven and a new earth. Let us thank God for the loaves and fishes, and for the multitude Christ feeds with them, and let us match our hungry and thirsty world with bread and wine for its weary spirit.

Surely the Gospel has lost none of its dynamic. The multiplying effects of evangelical upsurge in the ’50s may yet yield spectacular manifestations of spiritual dedication and power in the ’60s. If God’s Spirit has not yet written off this decade as an era of “dust and ashes” who are we to quit the fight?

The U.N. Falters In Debate While Dagger Diplomacy Widens

The United Nations now stands in the shadows of doom. Its frequent inability to act with decision and dispatch during 16 years of tense world crisis has weakened it, and Dag Hammarskjöld’s death threatens to plunge it into a forum of debate more than an instrument of justice.

Hammarskjöld’s untimely death called attention to the Assembly’s plight: a divided body lacking a single animating spirit of good will. The reason is obvious. From the outset the U.N. built on compromise, its membership including powers not devoted to its principles. Thus a precedent was provided for universal (geographical) rather than ideological participation. Inclusion of Soviet Russia was the fatal mistake which threatens now to compound itself by carrying Red China also into membership.

Surrender of the last vestiges of a principled membership would mark the U.N. not as the world’s best hope for peace (as some of its early enthusiasts thought), but as another sure candidate for extinction. President Kennedy’s forceful address pleading for unitary leadership was a powerful rebuke to all who would “entrench the cold war in the headquarters of peace.” Its weakness was a blind trust in the U.N. as the great reservoir of human hope: “The problem is not the death of one man—the problem is the life of (the U.N.).… Were we to let it die … we would condemn the future. For in the development of this organization lies the only true alternative to war.” In this sentiment Mr. Kennedy is about as wrong as it is possible to be.

To contain Soviet aggression the United States has put its trust internationally in the U.N., and regionally in treaties such as SEATO, NATO, and RIO. Russia vetoed Free World policies in the U.N. until satellites and neutrals were ready to implement her program. With the U.S. and Russia now struggling over a qualified successor to Hammarskjöld, the U.N. can hardly resolve the tensions between these major powers. In the Far East, Russia has penetrated SEATO lines in Laos. In Europe, Russia is dislodging East Germany from the West under the very eyes of NATO. In Latin America, the Communist beachhead in Cuba thrives inside the RIO perimeter.

How long can discerning diplomacy put its faith in dialogue with desperadoes who plunge a dagger whenever serviceable? Some U.S. diplomats apparently retain grandiose faith in the power of words and dollars. Even this “word war” must often gratify the Communists. For instead of exhibiting moral conviction and spiritual truth as the West’s great armor, it largely moves within the context of economic benefits. We are in danger therefore of dying in our own materialistic sins even before the disease of communism smites us.

Foreign policy too often is one thing in principle, another in practice. The lack of will in handling the problem of East Germany, heartland of the Protestant Reformation, makes this clear. In practice if not in theory the West seems increasingly disposed to acquiesce in the Oder-Neisse line as Germany’s eastern border and to acknowledge the Communist regime in East Germany. A permanently divided Germany was already implicit in Western Europe’s reliance on the Common Market as a buffer against Soviet aggression. Neither Britain nor France would delight in a Common Market dominated by a unified Germany.

When momentary political expedience shapes and reshapes foreign policy in reaction to Communist aggression, and this is dignified as real-politics, and when long-range principles become more a matter of precept than of practice, the inevitable vacillation in foreign affairs will gratify those who seek the decline of the republic, and it will disappoint and discourage allies.

The responsibility devolving on Christian citizens is great. Any fresh spirit to invigorate the American outlook must rise from leaders both convinced that the ultimate dimension is spiritual and moral, and ready to translate this conviction into political as well as personal affairs. Only a victory for spiritual truth and for social righteousness can register a blow to the rampant relativism in political affairs today. If the economic determinists are not to control the hinge of history in our time, the movement of human events must swing on spiritual and moral supports.

Proposes To Observe Sunday On A ‘Round-The-Week’ Basis

In a letter to the New York Herald Tribune, a Monterey, California, reader proposes the abolition of Sunday as the generally accepted rest-stop in the work week. He suggests parceling out the usual Sunday preoccupations over the other six days. Thereby commerce will flow more smoothly, fewer lives will be lost on frenetic week-ends, and recreational facilities will be in continuous use because “days off” will be staggered. Religion, he says, will not be eliminated, but rather strengthened “by removing the convention of Sunday church attendance and making worship a conscious act.… The flow of religion would not be interrupted by our archaic division of the week into spiritual and secular. It would be Sunday, for some, every day.”

No one wants to interrupt the “flow of religion’ (whatever that means). And surely spiritual and secular should not be divorced. But the California scribe overlooked a few details. The ministry might, of course, survive the busy week that would accompany Sunday every day; with a sixth of the people free each day even his “Monday off” would become Monday on. But, more important, the keeping of the Lord’s Day rests not on a mere human convention but on a divine command. Some devout people still feel that God knows his business better than the human planners do. The revision of the calendar may speed the flow of commerce, and it might well loose a flood of religion of the kind from which Christianity will need to offer rescue.

F. F. Bruce

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It there is, among the distinctive articles of the Christian faith, one which is bask to all the others, it is this: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man for our salvation. This is the affirmation that we have in mind when we speak of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

While “incarnation” (a term of Latin origin, meaning “becoming-in-flesh”) is not itself a biblical word, it conveys a biblical truth—the truth which finds classic expression in John 1:14, “the Word became flesh.”

The incarnation of Christ implies his deity and humanity alike. To assert that any of us “became flesh” or “came in the flesh” would be a truism; it is no mere truism that John voices when he insists that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” and makes this confession the crucial test of truth (1 John 4:2). He means rather that one who had His being eternally within the unity of the Godhead became man at a point in time, without relinquishing His oneness with God. And by the word “flesh” he does not mean a physical body only, but a complete human personality.

Nor is John the only New Testament writer so to speak. Paul speaks of God as “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3)—where “likeness” does not suggest that his manhood was less than real, but that his human nature was like our sinful nature except that his nature was unstained by sin. Again, in the early Christian confession reproduced in 1 Timothy 3:16, the “mystery of our religion” (that is, Christ himself, the “mystery of God,” as he is called in Col. 2:2) is said to have been “manifested in the flesh.” The writer to the Hebrews bears the same witness when he says of the Son of God, through whom the worlds were made (Heb. 1:2), that since those whom He came to deliver “are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same”—in order that he might accomplish his saving purpose through death, which he could not otherwise have undergone (Heb. 2:14 ff.).

The doctrine of our Lord’s incarnation, then, is broadly based throughout the New Testament. When John, Paul, and the writer to the Hebrews present such agreement as this, it is usually safe to trace their agreement back to a germinal principle in the life and teaching of Christ.

The Fact of the Incarnation. That Jesus of Nazareth was a real man none of his companions doubted. But sometimes it came home to them with special force that there was something extra-ordinary about him: “Who then is this?” they asked when he stilled the tempest with a word (Mark 4:41). Even when they came to acclaim him as the Messiah, they did not immediately appreciate all that was involved in Messiahship as he accepted and fulfilled it. Fuller apprehension followed his death and exaltation, however, and nothing is more eloquent in this regard than the spontaneous and unself-conscious way in which New Testament writers take Old Testament passages which refer to the God of Israel and apply them to Jesus, whom they all knew to be a real man. In Jesus, they claimed, God had drawn near to man for his redemption; in Him, indeed, God had become man. “The Word became flesh”; in the man Christ Jesus they recognized the crowning revelation of God.

These simple affirmations, however, called for more precise definition. The relation of Christ as Son to God the Father raised questions to which conflicting answers were given; so did the relation of Christ’s divine Sonship to his manhood. Some answers offered to these questions might seem adequate at first blush, but they were quickly seen to create more difficulties than they claimed to solve, if indeed they did not positively undermine the Christian faith. There was the problem of vocabulary, too. Greek and Latin terms had to be used in new and specialized senses to fit a set of data with which these languages had not been called upon to deal before. And one thinker might use a term in a completely adequate sense while another would use it in a sense which did much less than justice to the data of biblical revelation and Christian experience.

In the first three or four centuries the major obstacle in the way of doing full justice to these data was the dualistic presupposition of much contemporary Gentile thought. This dualism involved a complete antinomy between spirit and matter, spirit being essentially good and matter essentially evil. This meant that any direct contact between the spirit world and the material world was impossible. In consequence, people whose thinking was based on this kind of dualism could not accept in its proper sense the biblical doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God, nor yet the biblical account of his death and resurrection. They had to present alternative interpretations of these events. One of these interpretations, which began to emerge as early as the apostolic age (for New Testament writers are at pains to refute it), was Docetism, which considered our Lord’s humanity to be only apparent and not real. A later interpretation was Arianism, which thought of him as neither fully God nor fully man, but as a being of intermediate status. It is a matter of more than historical interest that such knowledge of Christianity as Muhammad had was derived from one of these defective interpretations. This accounts for those statements in the Koran which deny that he was the Son of God and also that he was really crucified.

It was only slowly and painstakingly that the early Church achieved a statement of our Lord’s incarnation which has commended itself ever since as satisfying all the data. Before this happened, we can watch the tripartite baptismal confessions of the first three Christian centuries (tripartite because they affirmed faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) having their central section—that which affirmed faith in the Son—expanded so as to make a fuller statement of the doctrine of Christ. The familiar Apostles’ and Nicene creeds provide sufficient examples of this. But the statement which the historic Church has adopted as definitive is that approved by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. This statement acknowledges “one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin.…”

The wording of this Chalcedonian definition may seem remote from the modes of expression with which we are familiar today. Yet, according to so able a theologian as B. B. Warfield, it has well deserved to remain the authoritative statement of the Church’s Christology (although it does not mitigate the difficulty of the conception to which it gives expression) because it “does justice at once to the data of Scripture, to the implicates of an Incarnation, to the needs of Redemption, to the demands of the religious emotions, and to the logic of a tenable doctrine of our Lord’s Person” (The Person and Work of Christ, p. 189).

We have in our day a vocabulary for expressing the various concepts and problems associated with personality which was not available in the fifth century. It would be an exciting and rewarding task to use this vocabulary to restate the doctrine of the Incarnation in a form which would correct defective views held today as defective views of an earlier age were corrected at Chalcedon. But such a restatement ought to pass the same stringent tests as Warfield applied to the Chalcedonian statement.

The Means of the Incarnation. The Church’s confession, as we trace it back to primitive times, sets alongside the fact of our Lord’s incarnation the claim that he became incarnate through being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

There are those, indeed, who acknowledge our Lord’s incarnation without believing in his virgin birth, just as others (Muslims, for example) believe in his virgin birth but not in his incarnation. But it is undeniable that his incarnation and virgin birth are intimately bound together in the historic faith of the Church. Nor is this surprising. The Incarnation was a supernatural event—an unprecedented and unrepeated act of God. The more we appreciate the uniqueness of the Incarnation, the more may we recognize how fitting—indeed, how inevitable—it is that the means by which it was brought about should also be unique. Our Lord’s virginal conception must certainly be understood as a pure miracle; attempts to explain it by analogies drawn from parthenogenesis in lower forms of life are worse than useless.

Only two New Testament writers, Matthew and Luke, record the virgin birth of Christ; but they are the only two who record his birth at all. Their birth narratives are independent of each other; all the more impressive, therefore, are the features on which they agree: not only that Christ was born in Bethlehem, the son of Mary, who was affianced to Joseph, a descendant of David; but more particularly that Mary conceived him by the Spirit of God while she was still a virgin. One of these two birth narratives, moreover (Luke’s), has claims to be regarded as one of the most archaic elements in the New Testament.

These two narratives do not exhaust the evidence for the Virgin Birth, although they command the special respect due to their canonical status. Ignatius (c. A.D. 115) also bears testimony to the Virgin Birth, which to some extent reflects a distinct tradition—preserved probably in the church of Antioch.

Whether other New Testament writers knew anything about the Virgin Birth or not, they say nothing to contradict it. Indeed, in one or two places some of them seem to betray some acquaintance with it. However, these are not definite enough to have evidential value.

The argument that, if the chief characters in the birth narratives had known about the Virgin Birth, they would not have acted or spoken as they did on certain later occasions, makes insufficient allowance for the changing moods of human beings; besides, how can we make confident generalizations about the psychological effects of a unique event? The argument that our Lord would not have been perfectly man had be been virgin-born is hypothetical and undemonstrable; that he was indeed perfectly man is certain in any case.

The fact that he was publicly known as “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45) is irrelevant to the question of his virgin birth. There are other expressions in the Gospels which have been supposed to be inconsistent with it, but these are commoner in the two Gospels which exclude any misunderstanding by recording his virgin birth at the outset. Thus Luke, towards the end of his infancy narrative, refers to Jesus’ “father and mother” or his “parents” (Luke 2:33, 41), and reports his mother as saying to Him, “thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing” (v. 48). But the earlier part of his narrative shows how these expressions are to be understood. Later he reports the people of Nazareth as saying, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary?” (Matt. 13:55). Whether these Nazarenes knew anything of the circ*mstances of his birth is doubtful; but the reader of Matthew and Luke is already acquainted with the real circ*mstances and is not misled by their question. Mark, on the other hand, who has no nativity narrative, reports them as saving: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mark 6:3).

The conception and birth of Christ could not and cannot be susceptible to the laws of evidence in the same way as his resurrection, for which eyewitnesses were not lacking. But God did a new thing in the earth when his Son became incarnate, and the virginal conception was part and parcel of that new thing. In this way, for once, the entail of sin was broken within the human family. No one will suspect Dr. W. R. Matthews of obscurantism, but there is substance in his statement that, “though we may still believe in the Incarnation without the Virgin Birth, it will not be precisely the same kind of Incarnation, and the conception of God’s act of redemption in Christ will be subtly but definitely changed” (Essays in Construction, pp. 128 f.).

Riches for Poverty. In the light of the further revelation of the New Testament, this Old Testament affirmation acquires a deeper significance. It is because God made man in His own image that He could accurately reveal Himself in a human life. So when, in the fullness of time, “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman,” it was in the form of man that he sent him—the form which he had from the beginning intended man to have. Thus the Son of God became partaker of our nature so that we in Him might become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4).

He deigns in flesh to appear,

Widest extremes to join,

To bring our vileness near,

And make us all divine;

And we the life of God shall know,

Since God is manifest below.

(C. Wesley)

Bibliography: C. Gore, The Incarnation of the Son of God; E. H. Gifford, The Incarnation; W. Sanday, Christologies Ancient and Modern; J. G. Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ; D. M. Baillie, God Was in Christ; H. E. W. Turner, Jesus, Master and Lord; O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament.

Rylands Professor of Biblical

Criticism and Exegesis

University of Manchester

Manchester, England

- More fromF. F. Bruce

L. Nelson Bell

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SEVEN DEVILS

“These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination to him.”

In our relationship with others we go out of our way to do the things our loved ones like and avoid the things which offend them.

How much more sensitive should we be when we are specifically told there are certain things which God “hates.”

Furthermore, we should understand that God hates, not as men hate, but that his is a holy hatred, a reaction to and recoiling against those things which are evil.

We all know that God loves sinners while at the same time he hates their sins. It was this hatred of sin, in its performance and its results, that caused him to send his Son to redeem men.

Christians, of all people, should exemplify the transforming power of Christ and the new life to be found in him. That we live on the right side of justification is not enough, for he has sent the Holy Spirit to continue his work of transformation. This work of sanctification, never perfected in any of us, should have its roots in those things which are pleasing to God and its guard up against the things which displease him.

What then are the seven things which God “hates”? What are these seven devils against which all of us must do battle?

“A proud look,” or “haughty eyes.”

How many are the Christians whose usefulness in the work of God’s kingdom has foundered on pride. That God resists the proud is an ominous fact. That he hates pride should make every one of us go to our knees, asking that we may be divested of every iota of self-esteem and conceit.

And how foolish is pride! We have nothing that we have not received at God’s hand and our only hope is in him. Pride then becomes an interposing of ourselves between us and God. In a sense it is idolatry in its worst form and it is human folly at its peak.

“A lying tongue.”

God is truth. Satan is a liar and the father of lies. The lying tongue is a trademark of unregenerate heart and an offense so serious that the Bible repeatedly warns against its consequences.

Some jokingly refer to “white lies,” but there is no evidence that God regards the perversion of the truth for anything other than what it is—an offense against Him.

“Hands that shed innocent blood.”

We live in a time when violence is rampant and when acts of violence provide much to be seen on TV programs after the supper hour.

But the innocent blood of many a fellow Christian has been figuratively shed by the critical tongue of another Christian. Some seem determined to build up their own positions by tearing down the good reputations of others.

The lying tongue can shed innocent blood where no knife is used nor shot fired.

Undoubtedly the writer of this portion of the Proverbs was speaking against murderers, but we who are Christians should also regard it in the sense that we can slay the reputations of the righteous by an evil and slanderous tongue.

“A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations.”

Not long ago the writer went into one of the nation’s most famous newsstands to buy a book. In the few weeks interval since he had visited that particular store, it had been openly converted into a purvevor of lewd books and magazines, now displayed at the front of the store and shamelessly designed to attract and ensnare any and all.

No one enjoys a good detective story more than the writer. No one has greater enjoyment for an occasional good novel than he does.

But the books and magazines which are now flooding our newsstands and book stores are the products of diseased minds, minds so obsessed by evil and the exploitation of evil for personal profit that the world has never known such flouting of all that is decent and clean.

That God hates such wicked imaginations is a fact. That he will visit judgment on those who produce such filth and those who feed on it is a fearful thing.

The writer to the Hebrews affirms: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and a little later in the book he says: “For our God is a consuming fire.”

If there were not a hell, God would have to make one for those who wilfully engage in traffic with the souls of men!

“Feet that be swift in running to mischief.”

“Mischief” is any evil work; anything which is contrary: to the law, will, and purpose of a holy God. How easy it is to walk the ways of the world—which are the ways of death! How easy it is to follow the crowd to do evil! How often we partake of other men’s sins by joining them in something we know in our hearts to be wrong!

Evil besets us on every hand. That we have security in the whole armour of God should be sufficient. That we adventure out without that armour is one of the great tragedies of life.

“A false witness that speaketh lies.”

Perjury is an offense against the laws of the land hut unknown and unrecorded except at the courts of heaven are those times when we have borne false witness against our neighbor—yes, our own familiar friend!

Gossip can be the bearing of false witness. Backbiting is a form of false witness. Criticism is often little less than a lie couched in terms of outraged piousness.

Many is the Christian who has suffered just such injury from the lying tongue of a self-righteous gossip.

“He that soweth discord among brethren.”

It is natural that there should be discord in the unregenerate world, for these are men vying for advantage and recognition. Attacks on others is as natural as the snarling and fighting of dogs in a pack.

But what is really distressing is that sowing discord among brethren is not unknown in Christian circles, in fact it is a sin so common that many of us engage in it without any regard for its sinfulness or its consequences.

As Christians we stand in need of a searching of our own souls. Who is not guilty of things which God hates? Who can say he has had no part in the things which God hates—which are an abomination to him?

This being true, how great is our need! Too many of us take a very superficial attitude towards Christ’s redemptive work. For too many of us the blood of Calvary has little meaning.

But it was because of the wickedness of our hearts and lives that Christ died. Our sole hope is in his cleansing power.

These seven “devils” which so often manifest themselves in our lives need to be driven out by the One who alone can save. Our need is great but God’s remedy is effective and all-sufficient.

- More fromL. Nelson Bell

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The theological construction of Rudolph Bultmann, the ‘old master’ of a modern group of existentialist theologians within German Protestantism, has exercised a bewitching influence. Bultmann is the champion of “a new way” in theology that would pre-empt such absoluteness for his teaching that all other conceptions should be swept aside as useless. Bultmann’s theology stresses its capacity for a “deeper understanding” and a “more penetrating renewal” of the real import of the Reformation. Many of his followers actually believe that Bultmann gives the “sola fide,” the dominating Reformation principle of “faith alone,” the exclusive significance it deserves.

Currently there are some indications that the radical existentialism of Bultmann is on the wane and that many disciples of Bultmann have decided to strike out on their own in a way which deviates from the course set by the “master.” But the consequential reaction set off by Bultmann’s theological and philosophical construction is still as indisputable now as it was before. Thus the question, “Dare we follow Bultmann?” is certainly justified. We must subject his theses to an exacting examination in order to discern whether the tasks that Bultmann sets for theology are valid and justified.

Background For Bultmann

The disturbance engendered by Bultmann’s thought is healthy in that it has sparked renewed self-reflection in theology and the Church. What we are concerned with here touches the very theological foundation of the Church and its message; it deals with our understanding of the decisive, fundamental questions of Christian theology.

From the standpoint of the history of ideas and in connection with the theological development denoted by the movement proceeding from Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and Herrmann, Bultmann’s teacher, one can trace that tendency of Bultmann’s theology which is bent upon accommodating the Christian truth to modern man in a new conceptualization. In this endeavor three facets of Bultmann’s thinking stand out:

1. It is impossible to harmonize present-day “cosmology” with the so-called “mythical cosmology” of the Bible. The framework, concepts, and images of biblical thought are declared antiquated; to modern man they appear “incredible,” “meaningless,” and “impossible.”

2. Then there is the matter of radical historical-critical research. This approach is consciously affirmed by Bultmann and carried out to its logical conclusions. Bultmann is prepared to surrender the entire New Testament tradition to dissolution and destruction, and to allow its “incineration” in the crematory of criticism.

3. Finally, the acceptance of the existentialist philosophy of Martin Heidegger as an integral part of his theological construction provides Bultmann an escape from the difficulties and negations standing in the way of an effective proclamation of the Christian message. Reflection on “Being,” on modern man’s “self-understanding,” becomes the key for Bultmann in his apprehension of the Christian truth and, in the language of existentialism, for making this truth understandable to modern man.

Critical Counter-Questions

Are these allegedly manifest premises, submitted by Bultmann, tenable and theologically legitimate?

What is the real state of affairs in regard to Bultmann’s conception of “cosmology?” It is quite amazing to discover that Bultmann confuses the term “Weltbild” [cosmology] with “Weltanschauung” [world-view]. “Weltbild” is always in a process of transformation as a result of the ever-advancing scientific knowledge. “Weltbild” is both the object and product of rational knowledge. “Weltanschauung” is a matter of religious or philosophical interpretation. “Weltbild,” which one could say is a phenomenon related to the “horizontal plane,” can never contradict the meaning given to it through religion, philosophy, or faith, which are all related to the “vertical dimension.” All cosmologies, whether primitive, geocentric, or that of modern atomic physics, can be interpreted materialistic-atheistic, idealistic-religious, or in the Christian understanding of creation. Even in the Bible the mythical attachment of faith to space and time is broken. Bultmann thus is involved in a serious error in his treatment of the confrontation of cosmology and faith (cf. Ps. 139; 1 Kings 8:27; Jer. 23:24; Acts 27:28; Heb. 4:14; 7:26). Consequently it is plain nonsense when Bultmann emphasizes that, in view of all the modern technical advances, it is impossible for the man of today, who listens to the radio and uses electricity to uphold “the faith which reckons with angels, demons, and miracles.”

It is impossible to be any less critical of Bultmann’s fundamental historical skepticism. Even Bultmann’s followers have renewed the concern over knowledge about “the historical Jesus.” It is certainly true that the New Testament witness does not present an historical report; but as confession to Jesus Christ it always contains historical statements at the same time and without any doubt also possesses “historic” source value.

Finally, one must also ask the critical question: Is the language of existential philosophy adequate to express the message of biblical revelation? True as it is that the task of translating represents a theoretical obligation, nevertheless the modern way of interpretation dare not becloud and distort the biblical message. The danger with Bultmann is that his philosophical position leads him not to a modern interpretation of the theological substance but rather to a reconstruction or even destruction of it.

What Does Bultmann Teach?

In accordance with his existentialist maxim Bultmann develops the following new interpretations of the Christian tradition. Since the material of the primitive Christian tradition assertedly bears the stamp of “the contemporary mythology of Jewish Apocalyptic,” as well as the mark of “the redemption myths of Gnosticism,” in seeking to uncover the real Christian self-understanding, everything hinges upon “Demythologization.” Through this existentialist “purification-process,” all the miracle accounts, the “Son of Man” words and exalted titles of Jesus, the concept of preexistence, just like “the doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction through the death of Christ,” and the utterances over “the high priestly office” of the exalted Christ are to be discarded. For Bultmann only the “Existentialist Interpretation” of the mythological language of the New Testament, which sets forth the genuine existential connection and thus mediates a new understanding of Being, is decisive. This goal is entirely independent of historical factuality; for, according to Bultmann, one must make a sharp distinction between “historical facts” and “historic encounter.” The Christian kerygma of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, however, has for him nothing to do with facts which may have happened between A.D. 1 and 30, but with the “kerygmatic Christ” who, in “the Word,” calls men “here and now” to the decision of faith. “Revelation is an event which places me in a new situation” so that I can attain salvation, that is, achieve the real purpose of my existence. Only in the word of actual proclamation is Christ manifest. Thus this kerygma “for me” itself represents the event of salvation which justifies me the sinner and leads me from death to life. Faith is not to be understood as faith in the personal Saviour but means “emancipation from the past,” “to be open for the future.”

Here again serious critical questions must be directed to Bultmann. Does not the rejection of every form of ontological thinking lead to a hopeless subjectivism? Isn’t the existentialist thought-scheme far too narrow to present the fullness of saving revelation in an adequate manner? The existentialism of Bultmann is nothing more than a modern variation of that anthropocentrism which, beginning with the Enlightenment, has continued to plague theology, and according to which the standard of validity is seen in existential significance.

The position of Bultmann becomes even more dubious and questionable when attention is focused upon the disorder, evident in his use of concepts, and caused by his new terminology. It is certain that through his contemporaneous, coeval interpretation of history, with utter disregard for historical factuality of the past, Bultmann basically misses the central concern of the Christian kerygma, which specifically proclaims a revealing action of God that is bound to history. Thereby the uniqueness of the biblical witness is reduced to the level of the usual and robbed of its historic basis and specific meaning. This is a repetition of that well-known process of classical idealism represented by Kant, Hegel, and Fichte whereby, indeed, Christian words are used, but through which an entirely different content is offered. Thus Bultmann’s existentialist theology means the opposite of biblical clarity and only serves to add to “the confusion of spirits” in these troubled times.

Why Must We Oppose Bultmann?

In effect, the new direction in theology taken by Bultmann amounts to a total conceptual metamorphosis. This process of transforming or modifying the central concepts of Christianity carries with it some disastrous features. The following examples are cited in confirmation of this contention:

Bultmann’s dreology is a “Kerygma-theology” whereby kerygma, the actual address of the message of Christ, is understood as the formal event of the call to the decision of faith. Only in this moment of proclamation is Christ real; only in this moment does salvation occur. According to the New Testament, however, kerygma is primarily and essentially the report of a completed event of salvation; it is the report of the perfected whole of the revelation of Christ which, indeed, happened “for the world” but which also happened “objectively,” and that means beyond the boundaries of human relationships.

For Bultmann there is no Incarnation. I he eternal “Logos,” “Word,” did not take human flesh, for the “pre-existent Son” becomes a mythological concept. It is impossible to make any statements about the “historical Jesus” of Nazareth. Doubt about his existence is indeed “unfounded,” “but not of essential importance.” Over his life it is impossible to make any biographical assertions or to give any chronological data. Thus the person of the historical Jesus shrivels up to an imaginary point, to an X, for only the formal “that” of his coming is important.

In the same way, under Bultmann’s interpretation, the fundamental importance of the cross of Jesus evaporates to the position of being a mere sign for the fact that it is worthwhile to bear one’s own suffering willingly. The message of a vicarious, sacrificial death is a myth.

The Resurrection, the fundamental event of salvation, is reduced by Bultmann to the mere knowledge of the “meaning of the cross.” The Easter reports are dismissed as legends and, so far as faith is concerned, the appearances of the Resurrected are dispensable and unessential. Here also the only norm is the existentialist understanding of “man’s rising with [Christ] as a present event.” With these theses the very heart is extracted from the original Christian kerygma.

Consistently with this distorted method of interpretation, it is inevitable that Christian eschatology must also be demolished. Bultmann stresses: “Awaiting the coming of the Son of Man is over,” for, as he sees it, the expectation of the parousia of the Early Church has been shown to be an error. But also the Christian hope in a “unique transportation into a heavenly world of Light” is for Bultmann rationally inconceivable” and “insignificant.” The concept of the “final day of judgment” is merely a mythological way of speaking.

In summary, we must conclude that for Bultmann the name “Jesus Christ” represents not a personal living reality of God’s saving revelation in the sphere of history but merely a concept, an ideogram, a symbol or a principle for the event of contemporary preaching. For this purpose, however, no importance is attached to the message of the event of salvation that the historical Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and died for the world and was raised by God and exalted to Lord, since this content merely reflects the language of mythology. Nothing but the formal existentialist claim of the kerygma understood in this way possesses theological validity.

“Dare we follow Bultmann?” This question is clearly answered with the observations of our investigation. The norm for the theologically tenable and necessary “Yes” or “No” to Bultmann’s theology is posited in the original Christian witness itself. Measured by this the following insights become evident:

All the theologically-decisive results of Bultmann’s construction stand in irreconcilable contradiction to the central message of the New Testament and to all ecumenical confessions of the Christian Church. Bultmann’s theological proposal is, in the real sense of the word, no theology at all, but it is rather a philosophical wisdom in Christian garb. In existentialist categories, “revelation” of God becomes a synonymous concept for the attainment of a new self-understanding; but in no way does it mean the reality of an actual intervention of God in the historical world of space and time. The reality of God’s revelation did not take place in Jesus Christ. The “new” is not the fact of world redemption completed in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. It is only existence becoming open for God. Since Christ is not the living Lord, and represents nothing more than a symbol for the kerygma, it is also impossible for faith to represent a personal bond of trust in Jesus Christ. Thus faith is merely to be identified with the actualization of the new understanding of existence. Therefore it appears somewhat absurd to describe Bultmann as an executor of the last will and testament of the Lutheran Reformation on the basis of his philosophical elocution.

Bultmann’s endeavor to accommodate the Christian message to the problems and needs of modern man is doomed to failure because he is able to offer nothing more than anthropological solutions without any real knowledge of revelation. Bultmann’s theology is a pseudo-theology for it lacks the only enduring and all-sufficient foundation, Jesus Christ, who is none other than the historic man and at the same time the resurrected and transcendent Lord. With Bultmann’s kerygma, robber of its substance, it is impossible to preach, to comfort, or to carry on the work of missions. The same very serious question which in sharpest intolerance Paul directed to the congregation in Galatia must also be asked here: Is it a matter of another gospel? (Gal. 1:6).

The pretentious way to which Bultmann directs us shows itself to be a wrong way of dangerous heresy. In solid opposition to the way Bultmann would have us go stands the entirely other, genuine, apostolic kerygma: “that … which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled … that declare we unto you” (1 John 1:1, 3).

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Not long ago Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, former president of the National Council of Churches, made a startling statement: “In view of their favored tax positions, with reasonably prudent management America’s churches ought to be able to control the whole economy of the nation within the predictable future” (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Aug. 3, 1959, issue).

Dr. Blake and many other churchmen—Protestant, Catholic and Jewish—are seriously concerned about the rising number of tax-free church business enterprises that have nothing to do with religion. There is good reason for their concern.

In a nation-wide study I found that many religious denominations and their subordinate agencies have gone into competitive profit-making businesses on a large scale. Churches own radio stations, hotels, office buildings, parking lots, bakeries, warehouses. They do contract printing, invest in stocks and bonds, and speculate in real estate. They have investments in stocks and bonds that for some major denominations run into millions of dollars.

The federal government and all the states specifically exempt places of worship, whatever their name or faith, from taxes of all kinds—33 of the states by their constitutions. Churches pay no property taxes. They pay no federal income taxes, even if they derive profits from unrelated business enterprises. Estate and gift taxes cannot be levied on them.

Tax exemption for churches and their related activities rests upon two historic American principles: complete freedom of conscience and worship, and recognition of the benefits of organized religion to society.

American tradition solidly upholds exemption for all nonprofit religious organizations, and few would ever question that religious worship and teaching add a moral strength to the nation incalculable in money.

But when churches and agencies under their control step over into business enterprises, unrelated to their religious and sacerdotal functions, they raise pressing questions as to the justice of their favored tax position.

Today those questions are acute. Churches and their agencies have increased their business activities tremendously in the last decade, and at the same time all levels of government have been forced to find more and more revenue. Many tax officials have told me during this research: “Something has to give!”

Churches In Unrelated Business

Thirty years ago, about 12 per cent of real property in the United States was tax-exempt; today, about 30 per cent pays no taxes. Biggest exemption goes to government property, such as post offices, parks, military posts, state universities, city halls, and public schools. Next come churches and other religious organizations, accounting for about one third of all exempt properties. While exemption from property taxes for religious organizations is not a great burden on any community, the rub comes when a church with its favored tax status embarks upon business for profit.

“I buy all my gas at a filling station on a lot owned by my church,” a prominent Methodist layman in Washington, D. C., told me. “An oil company leases the lot, with an agreement that the church will receive one cent a gallon on all gas sold.”

“And your church pays no tax on such business income?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he replied.

A realtor in Missouri, prominent in his Presbyterian church, drove me to an expanding residential area. “My church owns that tract adjoining mine,” he said, pointing it out. “When the church sells its tract, it will pay no capital gains tax. When I sell mine, I’ll pay the tax. Thus my church presents unfair competition to every real-estate firm in town.”

Many churches own and operate retail stores, industrial plants, and cattle ranches—all free of taxes on sales and profits. A large farm in Nebraska was recently taken over by a church organization, which meant that it was taken off the tax rolls.

Does your church conduct bingo games for profit? It pays no income or amusem*nt taxes. Does your church organization operate a cafeteria primarily for its employees? Again, no tax. Proceeds of athletic contests, motion pictures and other paid entertainments, given to a church, are exempt from admissions tax.

Does your minister, priest, or rabbi live in a manse owned by your church officials or congregation? In most states, the property is not taxed. A Church of Christ minister informed me that when he purchased his latest automobile the salesman suggested: “Why don’t you buy this car through your church? That would save you the state sales tax.” The minister related further: “I told the agent that would not be right, and he assured me that many preachers do it that way.”

From its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Mormon church operates numerous business enterprises to help support its missionary and welfare activities. These include a newspaper, radio and TV station, apartment houses, hotels, mercantile and banking establishments. In October, 1960, Mormon President David O. McKay announced a large building project for Salt Lake City, to cost more than $40,000,000 and to include construction of a 28-story office building and the addition of 17 stories to the church-owned Hotel Utah. More recently this church purchased 786 acres of land and 14 industrial buildings in an expanding area of the city, to be held for investment and development purposes. Noted for its program of self-help for its members, the Mormon church owns and operates hundreds of “welfare farms.” One of the largest is in Florida, with 740,000 acres and 100,000 cattle.

Some Mormons business enterprises are administered by Zion Securities Corporation, which pays property taxes on all holdings not used for religious purposes, and pays both state and federal corporate income taxes. The church pays no income taxes upon dividends it receives from its vast unrelated profit-making activities.

Three churches of Bloomington, Illinois—First Christian, First Baptist, and Second Presbyterian—own the Biltmore Hotel of Dayton, Ohio, purchased in 1954 for $3,300,000. Eight business men, members of these churches, borrowed $200,000 for the down payment; mortgages took care of the rest. The property was leased to the Hilton hotel chain. An agent corporation assumed liability for the Hilton payments, and also for any damage suits that might arise in the hotel management. One of the laymen in the transaction told me:

“This type of business arrangement is especially profitable for churches. We leased out the hotel for a substantially lower figure than could a company not exempt from federal income taxes. From rentals, we have already paid off the amount we borrowed. Each church is now receiving about $2,500 annually, and will get more when the mortgages are liquidated. It’s a perpetual tax-free endowment.”

Office buildings are sources of business income for many congregations. The First Methodist Church of Chicago owns and worships in the Chicago Temple, a 22-story structure in the downtown area, completed in 1924 and valued today at about $6,000,000. The congregation pays property taxes, amounting to about $155,000 per year, assessed upon the offices rented out for commercial purposes, but pays no income taxes upon its receipts from office rentals, which gross about $250,000. Income from this business enterprise is used to support ministerial aid and other church welfare projects.

In downtown Los Angeles, the Temple Baptist Church owns the entire stock of the Auditorium Company, which owns the Auditorium Office Building and the Philharmonic Auditorium, valued at several million dollars. The company pays property taxes upon the offices and auditorium leased to the city’s philharmonic orchestra, the civic opera, and other commercial enterprises, but pays no state or federal income taxes because as a church it is exempt.

Station WWL in New Orleans, radio and television, is owned and operated by the Jesuits of Loyola University. It takes commercial advertising, yet the Internal Revenue Commission ruled the station tax-exempt as an integral part of a church.

Bread And Wine

In addition to spiritual food, numerous church organizations turn out cheese, bread, cakes, preserves, and packed meat. St. John’s bread is produced under franchises sold by a church organization in Minnesota, and is made by a formula brought to America by monks from Bavaria many years ago. Tax-free profits from this bread are used chiefly for education. The monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Massachusetts derive income from their business in high-grade jellies, distributed through a commercial firm.

Seventh-day Adventist churches have long specialized in the production and sale of vegetarian foods. One of the largest such operations is the Loma Linda Food Company of California, owned by the Pacific Union Conference of this denomination. Sales of the Loma Linda products total several million dollars a year, income-tax exempt. A large part of the profits goes to carry on research in nutrition.

Fastest growing of the profit-making activities for churches is the “sale and lease-back” enterprise. Churches have discovered that they can make up to 20 per cent on their money by this device. It works this way:

A business firm sells its physical properties to a religious organization, then leases them back, keeping the same management, personnel and production as before, and agreeing to pay all taxes, insurance, and other overhead expenses. The firm can write off the rentals and other expenses against its profits in greater amounts than would be permitted through depreciation if it still owned the plant—thus effecting savings in income taxes. The church group can almost always recover the entire cost of the property, plus interest, in 20 years, since it is exempt from the taxes a private business would have to pay. Then it holds what amounts to a tax-free endowment.

Under such an arrangement, the owners of the Yankee Stadium in New York sold this property to a Chicago broker for $6,900,000. This broker sold the land of the stadium to the Knights of Columbus and leased it back at $182,000 annual rent for 24 years. Then he leased the stadium and the land to the original owners. Here was a triple play that knocked Internal Revenue out of a 24-year inning! Is this legitimate tax exemption for religious reasons? Or is it, as it seems, a tax dodge for business purposes?

The Southern Baptist Annuity Board in 1959 purchased a property of Burlington Mills at Cheraw, South Carolina, for $2,900,000, and leased back the property to the firm. In 20 years’ time, rentals from the mills will liquidate the purchase and pay interest on the investment. “Our board has the advantage of paying no corporate taxes on the rentals from the property, while the company has the advantage of using the purchase money for other purposes,” Fred W. Noe, treasurer of this church agency, told me.

A growing variation of the lease-back plan is possible through a federal tax provision that permits nonprofit institutions to take over profit-making industries for five years tax free. Generally the purchase is made with small payments spread out over many years, which permits the business firm to pay capital gains taxes on the amounts each year rather than continue paying the higher income taxes. Of course the institution employs the former owner to keep running the business, and pays him a “salary.” At the end of the five-year period, the tax-exempt institution sells the property to a church group which can own and profit from the business indefinitely—tax free.

In 1954, Methodist-related Wesleyan University in Illinois purchased two California hotels for $10,000,000; it paid only $200,000 cash and carried the rest through mortgages. Five years later the institution had all its cash investment back, plus tax-free profits, and sold the hotels to the St. Andrew Catholic diocese of Chicago, which can carry them indefinitely as sources of tax-exempt income.

Concern By Church Leaders

Under existing laws such transactions are entirely legal. And income from church-owned businesses uniformly goes to support worthy causes, namely, missions, seminaries, colleges, community welfare, and religious programs. Is this not reason enough for exemption?

Most church leaders say no. They are concerned by the frequent charge that tax exemptions are poorly-concealed forms of tax support for organized religion. They reflect that it was the ever-increasing wealth of churches that led to revolutionary expropriations of church property in England in the sixteenth century, in France in the eighteenth century, in Italy in the nineteenth century, and in Mexico as late as 1942. They are aware that when the funds entrusted to them by their churches are invested in profit-making ventures, they enter the field of unfair competition with taxpaying citizens.

“It has been my observation that where churches have been supported by business enterprises there is the loss of the spirit of voluntary giving on the part of church members: this has the effect of deadening the spiritual life of the church,” says Dr. Billy Graham, noted evangelist.

Church leaders seem agreed that the deductions allowed on income taxes for contributions to churches and related organizations should be retained, as proper incentives to support religious causes. Many insist that in any sweeping reform of taxation policies, fairness demands that all nonprofit tax-exempt groups and foundations should be reviewed along with religious groups, and none should receive preferential treatment. “Still, our churches should take the lead in proposing and adopting rules that will be fair to both the churches and to our government,” comments C. Stanton Gallup, Connecticut businessman and former president of the American Baptist Convention.

Several official rulings point the way to a fair solution of the tangled problem. In Nashville, Tennessee, two major denominations, the Southern Baptist Convention and The Methodist Church, have large publishing houses to produce their religious literature. In 1959 for the first time the municipality assessed all the properties of these two church agencies.

Both church groups appealed to the state tax authority. That official agency ruled for the Baptists in striking out the taxes on the ground that their properties are used “either exclusively for religious purposes or for purposes so close thereto as to come within the tax exempt status provided by Tennessee law.” The Baptist position was strengthened by the fact that taxes have always been paid upon property owned by its board not used for religious purposes. The tax authority ruled against the Methodist Publishing House on the ground that a portion of its activities was secular and therefore outside its own denominational needs.

In the Napa Valley of California, Christian Brothers Winery, operating as the De LaSalle Institute, in a modern seven-million-dollar plant, turns out more than a million cases a year of high-grade wines and brandies. For several years the winery has contested assessments of federal income taxes on the ground that its organization is church-related. In August, 1961, a federal court ruled that this business enterprise was not an integral part of a church and therefore taxes must be paid on its profits.

A Pennsylvania court ruled that tax exemption for church property applies only to that used for actual worship, plus whatever land is needed for access. New York courts have held that occasional suppers, bazaars, and entertainments to raise money for church purposes are not taxable, while a cafeteria under church ownership, open to the public, is taxable.

Ending Tax Abuses

These and similar rulings form a pattern for a tax policy that meets the approval of spokesmen for many churches. This is their consensus: churches should not be taxed by any level of government for facilities and services related to their religious functions, and this historic policy should be maintained inviolate; on the other hand, churches should be taxed when they engage in business enterprises for business profit.

What is “related” and what is not? “If it is an integral part of its church organization, essential to the effective pursuit of its religious programs and not a device for financial profit from an outside enterprise, it is related,” says an active layman engaged in government tax affairs.

Following this rule, the use to which church-owned realty is devoted would determine whether it is taxed. Along with sanctuaries of worship, exemption from taxes would apply to auxiliary buildings used exclusively for religious instruction and training, offices for administration of religious activities and parking lots for the convenience of worshipers or church workers. Schools and welfare facilities owned or controlled by churches would be exempt as both religious and nonprofit institutions.

All facilities not used exclusively for church purposes, and particularly those that produce business income, would bear their fair share of taxes. A church-owned office building would be taxed for any proportion rented out commercially. Property owned by churches for future use or speculation, whether vacant or improved, would go on the tax rolls; as soon as the church began using it for church purposes, the property would of course attain tax-free status.

In the matter of income taxes, the source of the income should determine the tax liability. Some state and federal courts dealing with questions of taxation as applied to religious groups have followed the rule that the use to which the income is put is the proper test to determine tax exemption. But widespread support has been given the policy expressed a year ago by the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs: “Earnings from businesses that have no direct connection with the religious purposes of the church should pay income taxes, regardless of how that income is used; the basic criterion should be the source from which the income is derived, rather than the use to which it is put.”

Following that rule, profits from the lease-back and other commercial ventures would pay corporate income taxes. Profits from publishing literature used by the church would not be taxed; profits from outside contracts would be taxed.

Numerous actions and statements by church groups indicate the concern felt over the widespread intrusion of religious organizations into profit-making businesses. The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. on June 2, 1958, requested its foundation “to make no investment in unrelated business where such income tax exemptions are allowable.” The National Association of Evangelicals takes the stand that profit-making by churches and their related organizations constitutes an unlawful subsidy forbidden by the first amendment to the Constitution.

The trustees of many churches, bequeathed income properties such as apartment houses and business blocks, have requested that all taxes be continued as before. Churches of many faiths insist upon collecting and remitting sales taxes on all items from their bookstores open to the public, paying property taxes on parking lots leased out for commercial use during the week, and accepting no subsidies by special interest rates on public loans for their institutions.

Some observers contend that uniform state laws should provide that all tax-exempt real property should be listed on the tax rolls, with a notice as to its value and reason for exemption. D. D. Cameron of Tulsa, a Protestant layman and assistant county attorney, comments that Oklahoma has just such a law—entirely ignored by public officials, presumably for fear of offending the countless members and friends of nonprofit organizations. Most churchmen and tax officials agree that such a provision would create better understanding of the reasons for fair tax exemptions, as well as place under scrutiny some practices that take unfair advantage of exemptions.

The attitude of the vast majority of American churchmen was summarized by the Rev. Robert E. Van Deusen of Washington, D. C., prominent Lutheran: “While we of the churches insist upon tax exemption for our exclusively religious activities, we should willingly pay our share of taxes when we get into profitable businesses, and thus render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Dr. Frank Bateman Stangar

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John 3:3

THE PREACHER:

Born in Cedarville, New Jersey, Frank Bateman Stanger was ordained by The Methodist Church in 1938, and served Methodist churches in his home state until, in 1959, he became executive vice president of Asbury Theological Seminary. Fie holds the B.A. degree from Asbury College, Th.B. from Princeton Theological Seminary, S.T.M. and S.T.D. from Temple University, and the honorary D.D. from Philathea College. He is author of the volume A Workman That Needeth Not To Be Ashamed. In denominational posts he has served as president of the New Jersey Conference Historical Society, Northeastern Judisdictional Methodist Historical Society, and as a member of the executive committee of the American Association of Methodist Historical Societies. He has also been a delegate to four World Methodist conferences.

THE TEXT:

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.

It was a memorable interview between Nicodemus, one of the chief Pharisees, and Jesus Christ. The very circ*mstances surrounding it speak with eloquence. A man stood in the presence of God. A ruler of the Jews was seeking entrance into another kingdom, the kingdom of God. A teacher came seeking information from the Great Teacher. Moreover, it was night—a vivid figure of any soul outside the kingdom of God. But the wind was stirring, a spiritual symbol of the working of the Spirit of God.

Little wonder that this interview between Nicodemus and Jesus continues to be of vital significance. It is representative, on the one hand, of the continuing divine purposefulness in establishing the kingdom of God and, on the other, of man’s persistent quest to enter into that realm of spiritual experience which the Kingdom represents. So men in all centuries, and contemporary man is no exception, have sought the way into the Kingdom.

The kingdom of God is the master thought in the teaching of our Lord. Mark records: “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel.” The teachings of Jesus reveal the Kingdom to be that domain of life, personal or corporate, in which the will of God is done. In the “Lord’s Prayer” the Kingdom is equated with the will of God: “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” In the light of New Testament teaching and experience, the Kingdom is that realm of life in which there is deliverance from sin, power to live righteously, and delight in doing God’s will.

That man has ever sought to gain entrance into this kind of spiritual existence is not difficult to understand. For the kingdom of God is realism. Jesus makes himself and the Kingdom synonymous with life. He declares that living works satisfactorily only in the Kingdom way. “The kingdom of God,” He points out, “is within you.” It is built into the very structure of the self. The Kingdom is our “real” nature. The laws of the Kingdom are actually the laws of our being. Life will work in God’s way and in no other. Only as we co-operate with the nature of the universe do we live in accordance with our true nature. When we default against the Kingdom we default against ourselves. Sin is actually an attempt to live against the laws of one’s own created being and get away with it.

Even unregenerate man, living under the influence of an inherited sinful nature, recognizes his inalienable right, by divine creation, to attain such a level of existence as that expressed by the Kingdom.

For Nicodemus as a person, and as the representative of spiritually concerned individuals, the kingdom of God is tar more than a traditionally nationalistic issue. How often Nicodemus’ forbears and contemporaries had asked: “Wilt Thou restore the Kingdom to Israel?” But for him the issue was intensely personal: “How may I gain entrance into the kingdom of God?” Man in his patriotism may covet the Kingdom in a nationalistic sense. But man in the depths of his created being lias a longing for the Kingdom in a personal, spiritual sense.

Here, then, we discover the essential characteristic of the universal spiritual quest of mankind. Man, realizing that the kingdom of God and life are synonymous for him, knows that in his sinful state he is not a citizen of that Kingdom. So, conscious of the crucial conflict, he becomes desperately intent upon the resolving of this spiritual tension. This universal pursuit is the crux of the story of religion. Man is seeking continually to transform Paradise Lost into Paradise Regained. He is looking persistently for the Gate into the Kingdom.

Because of his sinful nature, man has attempted to follow wrong ways into the Kingdom. Nicodemus was a learned man, deeply religious, sincerely ethical, a leader in spiritual matters. Even so, the longings of his soul remained unsatisfied, and the result was spiritual death. He must find yet another way, the right way.

The kingdom of God is not entered along the way of special privilege. The gospel narrative tells of the mother of James and John seeking for her sons the promise of a place of privilege in the Kingdom. Here is our Lord’s response: “Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?… Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.”

Neither does the way of mere formal orthodoxy lead into the Kingdom. When one of the scribes, a paragon of orthodoxy, commended Jesus for His correct recital of the two great commandments, the Master replied: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” “Not far”—but not in it. To sanctimonius Pharisees Jesus spoke in the same vein: “You shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.”

Nor does he who follows the way of material security gain entrance into the kingdom of God. Because he had great possessions the rich young ruler turned sorrowfully away from Jesus. And Christ’s wistful comment was: “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”

Moreover, the way of good works does not lead into the Kinodom. The words of our Master in this regard were stern and decisive: “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees were religionists of works: they held fast the traditions, they worshiped, they observed the ceremonial enactments, they tithed, they evangelized. But their righteousness was a formal, mechanical, legalistic, lifeless thing. Their works could not save them.

What, then, is the right way, the only way, into the Kingdom? Christ’s own answer to this question leaves us with no doubt: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” A new spiritual mood is demanded. There must be a spiritual transformation as radical as birth. A new birth, through the Spirit of God, is the only way into the Kingdom.

In 1752 Whitefield wrote to Benjamin Franklin: “As I find you growing more and more famous in the world of letters I recommend to your unprejudiced study the mystery of the New Birth. It is a most important study and if mastered will abundantly repay you. I bid you, dear friend, remember that He before whose bar we must both soon appear has solemnly declared that without it we shall in no wise see His Kingdom.”

The New Birth has been described in various, yet suggestive ways. It has been spoken of as “that inward happy crisis by which human life is transformed and an issue opened up toward the ideal life.” Or, to use more theological language, “the New Birth is that great change which God works in the soul, when he brings it into life: when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by the Almighty Spirit of God, when it is created anew in Christ Jesus.”

The Apostle Paul declares: “If anyone is in union with Christ he is a new being; the old state of things has passed away; there is a new state of things” (Goodspeed). Commenting on this Pauline declaration, Paul Tillich says: “The New Being is not something that simply replaces the old. It is a RENEWAL of the old which has been corrupted, distorted, split, almost destroyed—but not wholly destroyed. Salvation does not destroy creation; it transforms the old creation into a new one.”

The spiritual decisiveness of the New Birth can be understood more fully by noting three of its characteristic elements: repentance, regeneration, and conversion. Repentance is a change of mind concerning sin, a changed mind which results in the confession and forsaking of sin. This is man’s responsibility, and is a prerequisite for the exercise of the faith that saves.

Regeneration is a change in nature, solely a divine work. To use the words of E. Stanley Jones, “This New Birth, John (1:13) says, is ‘not of blood’—it cannot be inherited from the bloodstreams of our parents; nor of the will of the flesh’—you cannot get it by the efforts of the will, lifting yourself by the bootstraps; nor of the will of man’—no man can give it to you, neither pastor nor priest nor pope; ‘but of God.’ It is direct from God or not at all.”

Conversion, the inevitable response to both repentance and regeneration, manifests itself in a continuing change of life. This is effected through an active spiritual co-operation between God and man. Such a converted life is the essence of Christian discipleship. Even after we have been initially converted through the divine act of regeneration, we are only “Christians-in-the-making” in relation to the many areas of our lives which must be transformed into the likeness of Christ. Hence, we “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord.” Thus conversion is seen also as the process of spiritual maturity: we become more and more like Christ through his power which works within us.

In his description of Pilgrim after his conversion, John Bunyan makes clear what happens when a person becomes a Christian. Three “shining ones” appeared to Pilgrim. The voice of one spoke: “Thy sins be forgiven.” This is the forgiveness of sins. The second gave him beautiful raiment for the rags of sin. This is the beauty of Christ’s righteousness in one’s life. The third placed a mark on his forehead. This signifies his adoption into the family of God.

The steps along the way into the kingdom of God are well marked and decisive. First, there must be an intense personal desire: “I want to be a Christian.” Second, desire is manifest in confession: “I am sorry for my sins. I confess my sins to God.” Third, there is personal acceptance through faith: “I believe that Jesus Christ died for me. By faith I accept him as my Saviour now.” Then inevitably there results a wholehearted dedication: “I belong to Christ forever—I am his and he is mine.”

Human experience has revealed a paradox in this matter of entering the Kingdom. On the one hand, to those who are spiritually sincere and intensely desirous, who renounce all hope of salvation save in Christ, it is a simple way. But to those who persist in holding on to any self-efforts or who place any confidence in things other than the salvation Christ offers, it continues to be an imposing, foreboding, difficult way. Such individuals experience the probing meaning of Jesus’ words: “How difficult it is for those who trust in riches (or in other things) to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Comment On The Sermon

The sermon “The Way into the Kingdom” was nominated forCHRISTIANITY TODAY’SSelect Sermon Series by Dr. James D. Robertson, Professor of Preaching in Asbury Theological Seminary. Dr. Robertson’s overcomment follows:

This sermon has much to commend it. It deals with a great theme, the New Birth—the foundation and genesis of Christianity. It breathes a bracing evangelical spirit: the Kingdom is real, it is here, it’s for you; life can be meaningful now. This is a redemptive preaching of a high standard. It is grounded in the Word. It speaks with authority—authority, one feels, girded by the preacher’s first-hand knowledge of what he is talking about. It is, moreover, anchored in the stream of life—today’s life. Christ appears not one whit less vocal today than in the long ago; he is our great contemporary. Adaptation of the truth of the text is accomplished with verve and freshness. The preacher does not hesitate to express his orthodoxy in current terms. The oral style of the message has the marks of straightforward speech. Sentences are clear, correct, often forceful. The number and variety of extra-biblical materials suggests breadth of reading interests. Illustrations and quotations are well integrated into the sermon and are a vital source of illumination and power.

Psychologically, the sermon moves from a troubled insecurity, through sober reflection, into joyous hope. Early, the sense of personal involvement is aroused. The problem is aggravated by the exposure of “wrong ways” men follow in their search for the Kingdom. The description of the “right way” helps scatter the gloom which, for the serious seeker, may well be dispelled altogether in the great conversion hymn that concludes the whole.

If a discourse is to be intellectually respectable its content must be structurally clear. In this instance the idea unfolds in the light of the preacher’s aim. The sense of advance and the prospect of arrival significantly fashion the thrust of the message. It gets off to a dynamic start in the terse, suggestive description of the night meeting, in which Nicodemus’ role shadows forth our own restless seeking after the kingdom of God. The aim of the sermon is at once made clear: to help man find the way into the Kingdom. But first it must be made plain just what Everyman, in the person of Nicodemus, is really seeking, and why he is seeking. The Kingdom is explained in terms of life lived in God’s way through Christ possessing us, and man is seen as so constituted that he cannot live his life satisfactorily in any other way. But man, conscious of the gulf between his present sinful state and his attainment of Kingdom status, has ever sought to initiate on his own a way into the Kingdom. Here follows a brief treatment of “wrong ways.” Till now, all has been preparatory to the setting forth of “the right way”—the way of the New Birth. The New Birth is emphasized as a “Divine Must”; it is defined from several standpoints; it is further explained by breaking it down into its elements; then the steps necessary to its attainment are presented. Before his final word, the preacher takes his truth and, setting it squarely in the midst of our times, makes us face up to it. It is the one thing needful in our generation. It bears a message of perpetual relevance. The sermon ends on a high note—a poem in which a greatly beloved Christian describes exultingly his own conversion experience. This is a God-exalting, triumphant, resounding appeal—altogether a forthright and effective sermon.

J. D. R.

The contemporary relevance of the New Birth must ever be kept in mind. What Jesus said to Nicodemus centuries ago he continues to say to “John Smith” and to “Mary Jones.” The words of our Master which filled that moonlight-flooded conference room still constitute the pertinent spiritual message of sanctuary and chapel, of mission hall and private oratory. As Paul Tillich has said, “If I were asked to sum up the Christian message for our times in two words, I would say with Paul, it is the message of a ‘new creation.’”

Modern psychology says that a man must be “born again.” For life is shattered and broken. Life is fragmentary and has gone to pieces. Life needs to be reintegrated into a satisfying unity. But psychology, apart from the reality of Christian experience, cannot provide the means of reintegration. For purposes of scientific experiment Carney Landis of Columbia University once submitted himself to a full psychoanalysis. In the course of the experiment he asked his analyst, “What is normality?”

“I don’t know,” replied the analyst, “I never deal with normal people.”

“But suppose a really normal person came to you?” Landis asked.

“Even though he were normal at the beginning of the analysis the analytical procedure would create a neurosis,” the analyst admitted.

The experience of the New Birth brings spiritual unity to the personality. The soul, previously in conflict because of sinful desires, and disoriented toward God, receives a new nature which manifests itself in a new sense of direction. The life, formerly tied up inwardly and stunted, receives release and incentive through spiritual conversion. A prominent man in India said of E. Stanley Jones, “We always know where Dr. Jones in his messages is coming out. Even if he begins with the binomial theorem he will come out at conversion.” Upon hearing this, Jones commented, “Most assuredly I come out at conversion, for life comes out there.”

“Except a man be born again” he cannot enter the kingdom of God. “Except a man be born again” he cannot enjoy the kingdom of God. “Except a man be born again” he is not in possession of the spiritual power to live as a citizen of that Kingdom. “Except a man be born again” he will not see the kingdom of God in its consummated glory.

How expressively, in his conversion hymn, Charles Wesley has described the experience of the New Birth! The “poet of the Methodist Revival” was ill at the time, in the home of a brazier named Bray, on Little Britain Street in London. Like his brother John, Charles had been seeking earnestly the rest that comes from vital, personal faith. It was on Whitsunday, May 21, 1738, three days before his brother’s Aldersgate experience, that he entered into the kingdom of God and found his spiritual rest. The following morning he penned this moving description of his spiritual conversion:

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Saviour’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

For me, who Him to death pursued

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my Lord, shouldst die for me?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light:

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread,

Jesus, with all in Him, is mine;

Alive in Him, my living Head,

And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach th’ eternal throne,

And claim the crown, thro’ Christ my own.

In the life of every man, the kingdom of God can become a glorious reality when Christ’s words are taken seriously; “Except a man be born again.…”

Jehovah-Jireh

Who set the morning stars to singing

And caused their light-years to commence?

Who packed the atom’s annihilative power

In such minute circumference?

Who gave the earth to its diurnal spinning

With a divinely cosmic shove?

Who brought the moon to bear upon the tides

And ranged the firmament above?

He is the holy just Jehovah

And we His creatures sin-defiled.

Nor can we by finite endeavor

Our ruined souls make reconciled.

But Deity divinely loving

Purposed before the world’s foundation

His Son to be our sin atonement

And reconcile His lost creation.

Now I can face Jehovah-Jireh

When space and time in Him are ending,

And with His universe triumphant sing

Redeemed creation’s song ascending.

JOAN WISE JESURUN

- More fromDr. Frank Bateman Stangar

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THE EDITOR

Third in a Series (Part 1)

Through all the dark hours of Israel’s history the promised and longed-for messianic redemption was “the one prop and stay” of the Hebrew community.

Various expectations concerning the Messiah of Old Testament promise determined acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ. Jewish religious leaders in the first century looked for a supernaturally-endowed ruler who would restore the nation to socio-political greatness. Until his very ascension even Jesus’ disciples harbored this hope of an immediate earthly manifestation of the divine Kingdom (Acts 1:6).

In view of Revelation 20 many Christians still expect an earthly millennium to consummate the divine plan of redemption. And in view of Romans 9–11 they insist that in the crowning days of the Christian era the Jew will play a significant role in relation to the Church.

Except for a small remnant, modern orthodox Israelis regard the return of the Jews to Palestine and the revival of the State as a spiritual event that relates somehow to a coming divine era of justice and peace on earth. In at least one significant respect, however, these Israelis differ from New Testament Jews. First century Hebrews like Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, Paul, and many thousands more (Acts 21:20) believed that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of Old Testament promise. This conviction prevailed even though inquiry about the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel yielded no information about “the ‘times’ or the ‘seasons’” (recall the clue to the mystery of the “end of days” in Daniel, the one canonized apocalyptic tract). These early believers rejoiced in their newfound Messiah. And they recognized the relationship between the unbelief of the Jewish nation and the divine founding of the Church as a primarily spiritual rather than earthly body. By contrast, while modern orthodox Israelis see providence at work in the Jews’ return from dispersion and in restoration of the nation, they are uncertain about the messianic concept.

In New Testament times both believing and unbelieving Jew’s referred the messianic promises to a person (John 1:19 f.; Acts 8:34). Today the Natorei Karta, a small cluster of some 5,000 Orthodox Jew’s in Jerusalem, consider the State of Israel a profane development because it is “Messiahless.” They believe that messianic redemption will accompany the promised return of the dispersed Jew; they therefore dismiss the Zionist movement as an effort of self-redemption. Most strictly Orthodox Jews now look for an ideal messianic leader who is spectacular in his exploits but not supernatural in essence. They are unsure, however, just how to link this expectation to the already inaugurated state. Besides those who await a personal reigning Messiah are 200–300 Messianic Jews or Christian Hebrews who look to the supernatural and glorious return of Jesus of Nazareth to inaugurate the messianic age. For them the recent regathering of the Jews even in their present “preliminary state of unbelief” in the Christian Messiah is a spiritual sign. Most Israelis, however, have no expectation of a personal Messiah.

The Messiah In Judaism

Modern confusion over the messianic concept results from the confluence of biblical and philosophic influences. Already in New Testament times Jewish hope of national socio-political deliverance overshadowed the importance of personal spiritual-moral redemption. And in modern times further deference to religious philosophers, especially to the medieval codifier Moses Maimonides (A.D. 1135–1204), has complicated the messianic hope still more.

In the Old Testament, Messiah (the Anointed) appears first as a designation for the anointed King Saul (at a time when David resists the temptation to kill him). Here Messiah 1. is a man in the flesh and 2. fills a special office in an exalted spirit. At this stage this office does not necessarily uniquely qualify the nature of the exalted one. Appearance of the Messiah in flesh and blood was never realized in Old Testament times. Jewish thinkers recognize that Christianity, by contrast, spread because Christians worshiped Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah who unites humanity to both a divine office and nature.

It is noteworthy that in most statements idealizing King David, the Talmud exonerates David of the very sins which the Bible attributes to him. A distinguished traditional Jew, Professor Ernst Simon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, comments on this fact. He explains David’s exoneration from fault by inability of the Jews of the Diaspora any longer to withstand thorough prophetic self-criticism, and by their widening preoccupation with the ideal David who was to come.

Later tradition, however, dimmed this expectation of a personal Messiah. In the third century A.D. one rabbinic authority, Samuel, declared: “There is no difference between the times of the Messiah and our times today, except that the yoke of the foreign kingdoms on us will be broken.” This view virtually reduces messianic hope to the expectation of an era of peace that Israel will attain in connection with universal freedom.

A third tradition—which combines the vision of an era of national and international justice and peace with the expectation of a personal Messiah—reaches back both to the Old Testament prophets and to the Talmud.

Today’s typical Jew, however, gains spiritual inspiration less from the Old Testament itself than from rabbinical interpretation in respect to messianic expectation. It is significant, therefore, that Maimonides, one of the great rabbinical ‘deciders,’ offered decisions not on practical problems alone but on questions of theology and philosophy as well. Maimonides’ Review of the Torah ends with an exposition of “The Messianic Era” (Yale Library of Judaica recently published this work under the title The Book of Kings). Here Maimonides differentiates between 1. the days of the Messiah and 2. eschatology (the last days). With certain reservations he adopts the “political” interpretation of the former. The Messiah-King who liberates the Jews from their yoke must have moral perfections—unlike Bar Kochba (leader of an ill-fated rebellion in the second century A.D.) who died in the fulness of his sins. For Maimonides the messianic reference has also a second stage: “the last days” in which Isaiah’s prophecy will come true, and God’s word will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

An illuminating treatment of the messianic movements and so-called false messiahs studding Hebrew history is Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver’s book, A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (Macmillan, 1927). Silver indicates that messianic stirring quickens in times of international crisis when the map of the earth is subject to swift change, and that the messianic spokesmen have consistently pledged the restoration of the Jews of Palestine.

What Of Messiah?

During my 11 days in Israel this summer, I spoke with hundreds of Israelis—taxi drivers, tour guides, government leaders, university professors, religious leaders, and many others “at my side.” In these conversations, I invariably posed one question: “And who or what is Messiah, as you see it?” Their answers were remarkably illuminating.

Although here and there the reality of God is energetically rejected, there is little open philosophical atheism in Israel and the number of vocal atheists is small. “Once I believed, but the Jews’ sufferings under Hitler put an end to that,” said one of our drivers. By and large, Western European Jews drifted much farther from Orthodoxy than Yemenite, Iraqi, and other Jewish immigrants. Agnostics may be found in government posts, university faculties, and among the common people. But even Jews who reject supernaturalism as well as “practical atheists” retain overtones of religious idealism through the restoration of the Jewish State which attracts a socio-political content to the messianic-idea. Virtually all Jews are messianists (that is, they expect Messiah) even if they are unsure whether Messiah is a person, an outpouring of the Spirit, or an ideal of political justice. “Messiah is not a person,” said a staff member of the Foreign Office (giving his personal view), but rather “an ideal State, and Israel will lead the nations in establishing it.” But another Foreign Office staff member expressed his view in this way: “Messiah is an ideal of justice, peace, and good will. This ideal holds universal significance; its realization is not suspended on Israel as the bearer of political redemption.”

Unbelief in Messiah as a person leads to a wide diversity of views, but widespread retention of the messianic-idea. Many Hebrew rabbis contend that the messianic concept is “deliberately vague” in Jewish theology, that the element of biblical faith animates people in many ways. Intellectuals may complicate the subject by looking for “dialectical development” of the messianic idea. “The messianic concept,” such spokesmen argue, “doesn’t begin and end with Isaiah, nor the Talmud, nor the medieval mystics.” Rabbi Bernard Casper, dean of students of the Hebrew University, says Messiah is a “forward-looking” concept which links the Hebrews and their ingathering to the Holy Land. Many rabbis therefore refer the messianic concept to an era, not to a person. It includes also the condition of peace and co-operation between all peoples as a national outlook for Israel, and as a universal development that enlists and preserves other nationalities as well. The late Dr. Leo Kohn, political advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented that “there are many, many interpretations,” but recalled especially Maimonides’ view of a coming age of freedom and universal peace. “This age will be not simply another pax Romana when all were subject to the (Roman) emperor. Instead it will fulfill the vision of Isaiah 2: all nations will be equal before God, and all will come to his holy mountain.” But, added Dr. Kohn, there may be more to the messianic concept than an era: Messiah could be an ideal King—a man—who rules the earth.

It is interesting that in Jaffa, where he ministers at a “synagogue” for Bulgarian Jews, “Rabbi” Zion—no longer a ‘recognized’ rabbi among Jews—affirms that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, in fact, he may be the very Son of God. Zion (sometimes misrepresented in the American religious press as a convert to orthodox Christianity) thus represents a mediating view. He personally acknowledges difficulties with the doctrine of the Trinity.

Blocs Of Messianic Opinion

About 200–300 Christian Jews along with many Christian Arabs in Israel worship Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah of the Old Testament promise and look for his return in power to usher in the millennial era.

But the majority of Israelites reflect other lines of thought and speculation. While messianic vision remains, expectation of the Messiah has waned. Ben-Gurion has said, “Whereas two centuries ago a Jew would have described himself as “a descendant of Abraham, who obeys the commandments and hopes for the coming of the Messiah,” this definition no longer satisfies “a large part of our people, perhaps the greater part. Ever since the Emancipation, the Jewish religion has ceased to be the force which joins and unites us. Nor is the bond with the Jewish nation now common to all Jews, and there are not many Jews in our time who hope for the coming of the Messiah.” But he added: “The Messianic vision of redemption … fills the very air of Jewish history … and … in our own day has led to a revolution in the history of our people.”

Some 35 to 40 per cent of the population is reportedly indifferent to the question of Messiah and disinterested in its precise definition and exposition. On the other hand only a small proportion deliberately dismiss the messianic question. Such persons usually assimilate whatever spiritual nourishment the idea of messianic mission provides but insist that because it “produced” the messianic vision Judaism is therefore not ultimately dependent on it. For some, covenant replaces messianism as the central concept. For others neither the Hebrew vision of redemption in our times, nor attachment to the Holy Land or to the Hebrew language rests on devout attachment to Hebrew religious law and tradition.

While the support for differing major positions is difficult to gauge, a long-time Israeli resident on the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem distinguishes them as follows:

1. Messiah is a man (supernatural in office but not in being), an ideal ruler. This is now the Orthodox Jewish view held by 25 to 30 per cent of Israeli Jews (mainly immigrants from Oriental lands and elderly Jews), and taught in the Orthodox religious schools.

2. Messiah is a personal outpouring of the divine Spirit upon individuals. About 10 per cent of the Israeli Jews, mainly liberal intellectuals and some socialist youth and (as our informant put it) some other “nice vague people,” hold this theory.

3. Messiah is the moral ideal of justice and peace wholly transcendent to present history, but to be manifested historically in the “messianic era.” Only a small percentage, mainly “real intellectuals,” believe this interpretation. Its advocates equate messianism with the idea of socio-political-spiritual fulfillment or perfection, a condition as yet completely outside present reality.

4. Messiah is the socio-political ideal of justice and peace gradually being realized in the Israeli State. Perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the people follow this view. Professor Mordecai Kaplan declares that Hebrews live no longer in the age of “the coming” of Messiah, but in the days of the Messiah himself. Dispersed Jews now live in freedom, hence are redeemed, he says, even if this “salvation” is, as it were, a kindness of the Gentiles, while the State of Israel is Messiah for the others. (Kaplan’s view has been criticized because it no longer stresses “the ingathering of the exiles,” one of the chief historic tenets of the messianic concept. Zionists oppose the tendency to equate the experiences of the Diaspora and those of immigrants regathered from exile.)

5. Messiah is the state of Israel in its ideal development. Ten to fifteen per cent of the people follow this concept. They represent many “primitive” citizens as well as Ben-Gurion and others who speak of “the messianic character of the movement of the State.” In Ben-Gurion’s words the prophets of Israel not only preached righteousness, loving-kindness, and mercy, but also foretold “material and political redemption for their people.… After the rise of the State and even after the ingathering of the exiles … we … shall not have reached the end of the vision … a vision that is both Jewish and universal … comprising all man’s supreme aspirations and values. This is possible only in the Messianic vision.… The vision of redemption of the prophets of Israel … was not confined to the Jewish people, although the redemption of Israel was a basic and inseparable part of the vision.

… Together with the redemption of Israel our prophets foretold the redemption of all the nations, the whole world.… The miracle that has taken place in our generation is that there has been established an instrument for the implementation and realization of the vision of redemption—and the instrument is the State of Israel, in other words the sovereign people in Israel.” The messianic vision, Ben-Gurion contends, assumes different forms in different periods. In our time he identifies the “inner kernel” of the messianic vision with the national sovereignty of the Jew. This inner kernel has “germinated in the State of Israel,” an event which signals national redemption of the Jew in the promised land. Ben-Gurion considers the state, however, not just an end in itself, but an instrument for a mission. The renewal of national sovereignty in a moral state assertedly constitutes the Jewish people once more a chosen people whose mission promises human redemption by replacing tyranny and cruelty with international peace, justice, and equality.

Messianism And State Policy

Many Hebrew writers do not hesitate to personify the State as redeemer of the people. One writer, for example, asserts that the new State “redeemed hundreds of thousands of Jews from poverty and degeneration in exile, and transformed them into proud, creative Jews … it poured new hope into the hearts.…” By restoring “as in the days of the Bible, a complete unity of existence and experience, which embraces in a Jewish framework all the contents of the life of man and people …” the State has delivered the Jew in Israel from the Diaspora’s divided allegiance to Gentile rule in political-economic affairs and to Jewish authority in their restricted community of Mosaic faith.

Precisely this tendency to reduce messianism to state policy by elevating the political factor has brought criticism from scholars like Dr. Martin Buber. He agrees that the messianic vision imposes a unique divine demand upon nations to realize Messiah’s Kingdom and thus to participate in the world’s redemption. But he considers today’s tendency to secularize messianism quite unjustifiable. Many, Buber protests, think only in “the narrow naturalistic form which is restricted to the Ingathering of the Exiles,” and thereby eliminate belief in the coming of the kingdom of God. “A Messianic idea without the yearning for the redemption of mankind and without the desire to take part in its realization is no longer identical with the Messianic visions of the prophets of Israel.”

This widespread tendency to merge the biblical vision of an ideal messianic society with the new State of Israel elicits sharp fire from American critics of Ben-Gurion’s Zionism. Hebrews, of course, have long linked the messianic hope of redemption with their national existence and destiny. Zionism, therefore, gives religious significance to the current politico-historical events that established the new state, and regards the new state as the national center of “the whole house of Israel.” Some dispersed Jews, especially in America, criticize the Zionist movement because it seems to advance a nationalistic political thrust behind a façade of Judaism. In this respect American nonorthodox Jews criticize the new state as severely as the orthodox Naturei Karta, although from a different perspective than personal messianic expectation. They argue that since 1900 the Zionist movement has been essentially political, despite some religious elements and motivations. They call it a well-financed national political mechanism that exploits the traditional messianic hope to gain the support of those who profess Judaism. Critics of Zionism note the tendency to identify movements toward independence as modern revival; to designate new social ideals and opportunities as integral to the vision of messianic redemption. These critics trace establishment of the Jewish state not to God but to the Hebrew’s self-confidence in his own ability to shape a new destiny. Nowhere does the newborn state’s Proclamation of Independence mention God’s name except for figurative reference to the “Rock of Israel.” Motivation for establishing the state, it is contended, was not religious (an impulse from the Torah) but rather patriotic—an achievement of Jews weary of persecution, exile, and foreign rule. The new state therefore assertedly rests on secular, and not on messianic foundations, and stems from human organization rather than from divine providence.