Page 6195 – Christianity Today (2024)

On a green hill overlooking the Dnieper River lie the remains of the most celebrated of all Ukrainians, the nineteenth-century poet and reformer Taras Shevchenko. Originally the gravesite was adorned with an ornate iron cross, but Soviet authorities replaced it with a monolithic pillar that supports a statue of Shevchenko. The switch aptly illustrates the tug-of-war now being waged between Communists and the free world for the memory of Shevchenko. In a major bid to preserve what they regard as an accurate image of his religious and social philosophy, thousands of Ukrainians from throughout the Western world streamed into Washington, D. C., for the dedication June 27 of a Shevchenko monument on a park site authorized by Congress.

At stake this year, which marks the 150th anniversary of his birth, are the Ukrainian nationalistic spirit and Christian orientation of Shevchenko’s poetry, generally considered among the greatest in Slavic culture. The Ukraine, although as large as France in both land and population, is seldom thought of as having any importance as an independent nation. Not even the fact that it is a charter member of the United Nations seems to mean much for its national identity. So dominant is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that the Ukraine’s voice is as weak as it was in the thirteenth century, when an invasion by Genghis Khan ended its first four centuries of independent existence.

Today’s 45,000,000 Ukrainians regard Shevchenko as having dealt a crushing blow to Tsarist tyranny and the serfdom of his time. Communists go a long step further and assert that he was a Bolshevik who died before his time. Christians maintain, on the other hand, that he was a devout patriot. Indeed, Ukrainian Protestants credit him with inspiring the first translation of the Bible into the Ukrainian vernacular.

Shevchenko, though a nominal church member, sharply attacked the religious establishment of his day. He regarded Russian Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism as corrupt and hypocritical. He denounced ritualism and reflected in his writings indignation over such things as widespread drunkenness and gluttony during holidays.

Ukrainian Protestants interpret Shevchenko as rejecting accretions and excesses that he considered unbiblical. He had ready praise for creative Christian action, as seen in a poem he wrote about John Hus described by one critic as depicting “a social and religious reformer glorifying the final victory of the spirit over the material existence.” Shevchenko never set forth his own religious convictions systematically, and what reflections he did record were not designed to withstand close theological scrutiny. Nevertheless, his cry for church reform was not unlike that which had broken over Europe three centuries before but had failed to penetrate much beyond the Carpathian Mountains. Shevchenko was in a sense a latter-day amplifier of that cry.

The Rev. Wladimir Borowsky, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Evangelical Alliance of North America, says that Shevchenko’s objectives of church reform represent Protestant principles.

“This approach to religion and to Christianity, a social action concept, differs from the concepts generally accepted by the Ukrainian traditionalists who limit God’s kingdom to heaven,” Borowsky declares. “His concepts are in accord with modern Protestant thought which stresses the spirit of the Gospel, its realistic and practical aplications to daily life, its emphasis on the ecumenical uniting concepts that foster brotherly love.”

Shevchenko was born in 1814 as a serf on an estate near the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. His artistic ability won him formal training, but the feudal master demanded payment of 2,500 rubles in return for freedom (Shevchenko’s parents died before he became a teen-ager). The money was raised through sale of a portrait by a professor in St. Petersburg’s Academy of Arts who recognized the Shevchenko genius. Once he was out of bondage, the young Ukrainian’s key interest shifted from painting to poetry. His first collection of poems was published in 1840 in a book Kobzar (Folk Bard), which in its complete form has had total sales of more than eight million copies. His greatest poem, Haydamaki, an account of the Ukrainian nationalistic struggle, was completed in 1841.

A secret organization, the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius, which sought political and ideological liberation for the Ukraine, captured Shevchenko’s imagination. When authorities clamped down, Shevchenko was arrested and banished to an army post as a private “under the strictest supervision with the prohibition of writing and drawing.” He was pardoned in 1857 but kept under police watch. He resumed writing and secured permission to publish only a few months before his death in 1861 his Primer. Dr. Clarence Manning, a Columbia University scholar and an expert in Slavic literature, says that it “was definitely written for the Sunday Schools which were springing up in Ukraine under the new order.”

Shevchenko was only forty-seven when he died. He had enjoyed only nine years of freedom in his entire lifetime.

Communists began a drive to exploit the memory of Shevchenko in North America shortly after World War II. The “people of the Ukraine” presented to Canada a monument of Shevchenko and promptly turned it into a base for the dissemination of Communist propaganda. Ukrainians in Canada came to Shevchenko’s defense and erected a statue of their own in Winnipeg; it was dedicated in 1961 by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.

The idea of a memorial in Washington has had the support of virtually all Ukrainian groups—Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox. It was inspired by the fact that Shevchenko had considered George Washington a type of hero needed in the Ukraine. One of his poems asks:

“When shall we get ourselves a Washington to promulgate his new and righteous law?”

Located across the street from the famous Church of the Pilgrims (Southern Presbyterian), the U. S. memorial to Shevchenko features a fourteen-foot bronze statue of the bard by the Ukrainian-Canadian sculptor Leo Mol. It is dedicated to “the liberation, freedom, and independence of all captive nations.”

One of Shevchenko’s most interesting associations was with the American Negro actor Ira Aldridge, who was then considered one of the outstanding interpreters of Shakespeare but who was not accepted by the American theater. The two became close friends.

Another intimate acquaintance of Shevchenko’s was Panko Kulish, a literary celebrity, and this friendship is regarded as having been the keystone in planning the translation of the Bible into the Ukrainian vernacular. After Shevchenko’s death Kulish spearheaded the translation work, and the first New Testament was published in 1880. The entire Bible came out in 1903.

SHEVCHENKO SAMPLER

Our soul shall never perish,

Freedom knows no dying,

And the greedy cannot harvest,

Fields where seas are lying;

Cannot bind the living spirit;

Nor the living word,

Cannot smirch the sacred glory

Of th’Almighty Lord.

—From “The Caucasus”

… Beneath your breath a prayer of pride

Asks God to send the worst adversity

And every kind of plague in high degree

Upon your fellow Christians …

May God appoint your condign overthrows,

All ye new pharaohs with your hearts of clay,

Rapacious Caesars of this latter day!

—From “The Neophytes”

My poor, lowly tribute

… To that Czech renowned,

To the martyr great and holy,

Hus the well revered.

Take it father, I will humbly

Pray to God Almighty

That the Slavs may be hereafter

Worthy friends and brothers,

Sons of that same light of Truth,

Heretics forever,

Like that noble heretic,

Who at Constance suffered!

May they give true peace to mortals,

Glory too forever.

—From “John Hus”

Terrible to fall into chains,

Die in captivity,

But worse, far worse, to sleep, to sleep,

To sleep in liberty …

—From “Days Are Passing”

Shevchenko had been an avid reader of the Bible in Russian and drew on its themes for his poetry. His full stature as a religious reformer may not be recognized, however, until his works win wider distribution in translations that do them justice. William Bahrey, associate editor of the Ukrainian Christian Herald, says that to appreciate Shevchenko “the English-speaking people must await the translating genius of an Edward Fitzgerald (whose translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is considered classic).”

Perhaps the most descriptive affirmation of Shevchenko’s personal faith is found in a letter he wrote to a countess in 1857:

“Now and only now, have I come to understand the truth of the words, ‘As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten …’ (Rev. 3:19). Now, I only pray and thank Him for His eternal love for me and for the trial He sent me. He cleansed and healed my poor and suffering heart. He removed from before my eyes the distorting lens I once used in appraising others and myself. He taught me to love my enemies and those who hate us. No school—other than the school of trial by suffering and extensive meditation—can teach this to you. I now feel myself to be, if not perfect, then at least a blameless Christian. Like the purified gold just out of the hearth, like the infant just out of its bath, so do I leave the misty purgatory to see the new and lofty ways of life. This I call my genuine good fortune.… With the certainty of a Christian reborn I have described to you my sorrowful, seemingly dreamlike past.”

Stricken Patriarch

The 78-year-old Athenagoras I, “first among equals” of Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, collapsed while officiating at a lengthy ceremony in Istanbul this month. He was later described as being in “satisfactory” condition, and physicians prescribed a regimen of “complete rest” for at least a month. Reports conflicted on the cause of his collapse, although exhaustion was stressed in all.

The Ecumenical Patriarch was officiating at a ceremony involving the blessing of a sisterhood group engaged in carrying out welfare and philanthropic work. He had been standing for three hours and was about to distribute the “holy bread” (communion). As he fell, he was caught by priests attending him. His scepter crashed to the floor. He was taken immediately to his residence at the patriarchate and placed under “strict” medical attention.

The patriarchate had been reported under considerable pressure in Istanbul since the outbreak of fighting between Turkish and Greek Cypriotes. Although the government has said that the patriarchate, staffed by many Greek Orthodox prelates, would not be affected by the controversy, some severe restrictions were reported.

The Theology Of Healing

What is the purpose of Christian medical ministries?

This was perhaps the key question that held the attention of a special consultation in Tubingen, Germany, last month. The majority of participants were doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel attached to ecclesiastical institutions around the world. After six days of discussion they issued a statement calling upon the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, the two organizations that sponsored the consultation, to take a “new look” at the meaning of healing and particularly at the role of church-sponsored medical institutions.

The statement stressed the need to reexamine the concepts within the Church that view Christian medical work either as primarily for meeting physical needs or as a tool for evangelism.

It recommended that pilot projects be set up within selected hospitals in which teams comprising a physician, a nurse, and a pastoral counselor would seek “to treat the patient in the totality of his sickness.”

It was asserted that “the Christian Church has a specific task in the field of healing” and that it has “insights concerning the nature of health which are available only within the context of the Christian faith.”

The statement affirmed that “all healing is of God.”

Mission In The Mountains

As L’Abri Fellowship begins its tenth year in the Swiss mountains near Aigle, its trickle of inquirers has become a small, steady stream of atheists, existentialists, college and university students, and even young ministers probing Christian answers. They find “The Shelter” an open house for candid discussions, directed reading courses, access to 600 hours of taped lectures, and weekly Saturday-night colloquiums by the founder of the spiritual compound, Francis Schaeffer. A missionary who teaches weekly classes in a coffee shop near Lausanne University and has traveled as far as Cambridge University to engage atheists in group discussion, Schaeffer has one main theme: non-Christians live on incredulity, while Christianity has satisfying intellectual answers.

Schaeffer brushes aside any comparison of his rather inaccessible retreat to a monastic community withdrawn from life and society. “We don’t operate in a cave with a twelve-foot wall,” he says, “and we are in more contact with contemporary life than many of the churches.”

L’Abri’s converts have included many “offbeat” prospects—an English ballet dancer, an American operatic star, an atheistic law student, a Smith College art student studying in Europe, a Swiss “national poster girl,” a former divinity student under Barth and Brunner who turned atheist, and three teachers from a New England girls’ college.

The supply of potentials is hardly exhausted. In recent weeks the floating “student body”—participants need Schaeffer’s written permission to come—has included an existentialist couple and their baby born out of wedlock; a law student steeped in Hindu thought; a graduate of a liberal New York seminary and a graduate of a conservative Midwest college, both convinced that there must be “something more” to historic Christianity. L’Abri has a small working library, including a branch of the Evangelical Library in London, and its inquirers come for a period of a month to a year. Schaeffer and his fellow workers maintain a semi-family relation to guests and aim “to demonstrate the existence of God by living in the midst of answered prayer.” L’Abri’s academic thrust, meanwhile, seeks to relate a strict biblical view to the contemporary philosophical and cultural dilemma.

The existential-dialectical theology Schaeffer sees as one movement in the broad line of modern thought in the period after Hegel. He deplores a tendency even among the “general evangelicals” to deny the real possibility of intellectual answers by stressing a “leap” rather than a “step” of faith. Schaeffer insists that one need not sacrifice any aspect of philosophical truth to become a Christian. He deplores as misguided any regard for the dialectical theology as a “third force” and insists that it is simply a further development of liberalism.

The basic question of the times, as Schaeffer sees it, is “whether absolutes exist, in philosophy as truth and in morals as right.” The Christian solution, he stresses, lies not in the problem of revelation (where contemporary theology locates it) but behind this, in an emphasis on the image of God in man, in view of which man can know things truly and know the right.

L’Abri Fellowship is more a spiritual clinic on an academic basis than a campus. No formal classes are held, no credits given, no diplomas offered. Schaeffer’s program of itinerant lectures frees him from the necessity and opportunity of working out his position in comprehensive written form, although his taped lectures on such subjects as Christianity and science, Christianity and art, Christianity and modern philosophy, Christianity and modern theology are available on a lend-lease basis in several countries. The L’Abri learning center is named after the Protestant Reformer Guillaume Farel. There Schaeffer records one or two new lectures a week, and tape recorders are busy much of the week replaying earlier lectures.

Not all inquirers become converts by any means. One day the Lausanne coffeehouse lecture was attended by a “black Jesus” and “twelve black apostles,” as thirteen mockers named themselves. Schaeffer spent the hour in prodding them to justify, if possible, their faith in honesty and love, and countered that only Christianity provides a satisfactory basis. They never returned to mock. In Cambridge evangelical students arranged for a discussion with twenty atheists, one of whom became a believer some months later. While the total number of converts may be statistically small, L’Abri seems to garner more from the forgotten fringes of modern life than most evangelical efforts.

Schaeffer’s judgments on contemporary life and Christianity are harsher than mainstream appraisals. He sees secular life and thought as an exercise in futility and despair. He criticizes Protestantism—in both its ecumenical and its evangelical expressions—as neglectful of the purity of the Church.

Schaeffer was a student of the late Dr. J. Gresham Machen at Westminster Theological Seminary and graduated from Faith Theological Seminary. His first missionary appointment was under the Independent Board of Presbyterian Missions, but he refused continuing identification with Dr. Carl McIntire’s International Council of Christian Churches, which offered him its secretaryship. His wife, the former Edith Seville, was born in China to missionary parents under the China Inland Mission. The Schaeffers live in Chalet Meleze in Huemoz sur Ollon, where their three grown daughters are active in the work of L’Abri Fellowship. An eleven-year-old son attends school in England, where the movement has a branch work.

Schaeffer is pessimistic about the outcome of the Protestant-Roman Catholic dialogue, although he has an indirect debt to Rome in the establishment of L’Abri Fellowship. When he and his wife first came to Switzerland for missionary effort in 1948, they located in Champery in the canton of Valais, which had been untouched by Protestant effort since before the Reformation. Their evangelistic work grew steadily, and after some years of preaching, converts included an atheist, once baptized in the Roman church, who was active in the city council. He was the city’s first Roman Catholic to become a Protestant. When the Schaeffers returned from furlough, gendarmes presented them with two sheets of paper, one giving them six weeks to remove themselves from Champery for two years, the other ordering them to leave Switzerland. Out of the appeals and counter-appeals came a compromise under which the Schaeffers located in Huemoz sur Ollon, which is remote enough that one can walk eight hours on the foot trails and meet nobody. But the trails have become familiar to scores of borderline souls who have managed to locate L’Abri Fellowship, and a remarkable number of them have become Christian converts.

CARL F. H. HENRY

Uncertain Calvinists

A man once described as one of the few Calvinists not confident that he was among the fortunately predestined died last month at Maidenhead, England. Born Willam Maxwell Aitken in a Presbyterian manse in Ontario eighty-five years ago, he was elected to the British Parliament, became the first Lord Beaverbrook, bought and rejuvenated a struggling national daily, championed Empire Free Trade, fought strenuously against the threat of bishops-in-presbytery for his father’s native Scotland, and fought just as strenuously against Britain’s entry into the Common Market. His Sunday Express noted that he never missed a Gipsy Smith revival meeting if he could help it.

After a visit to Palestine in 1925 his disgust with the commercialism that had sprung up around the Holy Places, coupled with Christianity’s “strange and devastating departure” from the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, provoked him into writing a little book. For personal reasons it was not published until 1962, when it appeared as The Divine Propagandist. In it, he said, “I have searched the Gospels and neglected theology.” One might wonder if he searched the Gospels quite enough, for his conclusion suggests that, thanks to Jesus who showed us perfection, the human race is slowly entering into the Kingdom of God in becoming more humane, more charitable, more enlightened.

Though he referred to his Presbyterianism as too deeply rooted to be other than a dominant influence in him, Lord Beaverbrook gave to his beloved University of New Brunswick a statue of Thomas Aquinas to match one of Calvin. Toward the end of his life he admitted that he no longer prayed or read the Bible. Yet he remained in some sense the son of his Scottish father. Only two weeks before he died, the Scottish edition of the Daily Express (over whose policies he maintained strict control) had been severely attacked in the Kirk’s General Assembly for its criticism of a church report advocating a “brighter” Sunday.

The Rev. John R. Gray, who said that his Church and Nation Committee’s report had been “grossly and persistently misrepresented” by the newspaper, subsequently paid tribute to Lord Beaverbrook as “a great man.” Mr. Gray said he had respected the man because he stood by his convictions even at the expense of his newspaper.

Among Lord Beaverbrook’s charities was the monthly payment of $25 to every retired Presbyterian minister and minister’s widow in the Maritimes.

J. D. DOUGLAS

‘People Who Demonstrate’

On the morning after Nelson Mandela and his seven fellow accused were sentenced to life imprisonment in Pretoria, a cartoon on the front page of a London daily newspaper expressed the reaction of many Britons. It showed a row of Black South Africans arraigned in court, with the simple caption underneath: “Guilty—all 10,000,000.” In the course of his seven-month treason trial, Mandela had outlined his position thus: “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.” He declared his willingness to die for his ideals.

Mandela, though he pleaded not guilty, admitted that he had been one of the chief leaders of organized sabotage against the South African government. It was necessary, he said, “because the government used violence against the Africans on every possible occasion. And government violence can only do one thing and that is to breed counterviolence.”

When it was known in London that judgment was imminent, there was a vigil at St. Paul’s Cathedral, organized by Christian Action. Afterwards there were demonstrations and processions in major British cities. Students at Oxford University rained blows on the South African ambassador. About fifty Members of Parliament marched from Westminster to South Africa House to protest against the conviction. They put through the letter box a message said to contain more than 100 signatures from Members of all parties. Asked by CHRISTIANITY TODAY to comment on British reaction, a spokesman at South Africa House would merely say: “We do not pay attention to people who demonstrate.”

J. D. DOUGLAS

Rebel With A Heart

A rebel leader in the Congo was responsible for leading fourteen Protestant missionaries to safety after their mission at Lemera in central Kivu province had been surrounded by his Communist-backed followers for more than seven weeks.

Moise Marandura, once a servant at the mission, responded to an appeal for aid from the missionaries—twelve Swedes, an American, and a Briton—by saying: “You were very kind to me in the old days. Now I will see that you are unharmed.”

A rebellion against the central government led by the National Liberation Committee, a group of leftist exiles in Bujumbura, capital of neighboring Burundi, broke out in January. Most committee members were followers of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first premier who was slain in 1961.

The missionary group, which included three children, reached Kilibi on the Burundi border after Marandura and about forty of his men had escorted them on a sixty-mile journey through the rebel-held Ruzizi Valley. From Kilibi they proceeded to Bujumbura.

No Idle Pews

Church attendance in Nigeria is on the upswing, according to the newly-elected president of the Nigerian Baptist Convention.

Dr. Emanuel A. Dahunsi, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lagos, noting that “pews are never empty” in his own church, called attention to the growth of the convention since it was organized in 1914.

The convention now has 922 churches and preaching stations with a total membership of 65,000. Baptists totaled 9,000 last year, and some 98,000 students are in Baptist educational institutions.

Introducing Cameo

A blue-ribbon panel of evangelical educators aims to open broad new areas of coordination among some 105 North American foreign mission boards. Organized as the Committee to Assist Missionary Education Overseas, the group has already surveyed mission executives to determine ways in which it might help. It is a joint venture of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association and the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, which together represent a task force of some 13,971 active missionaries.

Missionary News Service reported that a subcommittee of CAMEO will be devoted to coordinating recruitment procedures for short and long-term missionary candidates. Another subcommittee will study educational opportunities for missionaries on furlough and perhaps develop new programs.

Also in view is a plan to provide assistance to missionary boards in working out accreditation policies and procedures.

CAMEO is made up of executives of more than a dozen major evangelical colleges and seminaries in the United States. They hope to encourage American schools to share selected faculty members with overseas institutions and to send administrators as well to aid less sophisticated educational endeavors. New scholarship programs, curricula studies, and textbook coordination are also envisioned.

Students of the reformation will welcome the appearance of Tome I of the Registers of the Company of Pastors of Geneva in the Time of Calvin (Librairie E. Droz, Geneva), which completes the text of the registers for this period. (Somewhat perversely, Tome II covering the years 1553 to 1564 was published first. In both tomes the language used varies between Latin and French.) It was only late in 1546 that the ministers of the Genevan church resolved “that it would henceforth be useful to put into writing the deliberations, decisions, and ordinances, and other matters worthy of mention, concerning the state and government of the church, for use as time and place might require.” But prefixed to the register is a copy of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances that were promulgated by the civic authorities in November, 1541, shortly after Calvin’s return to the city of Geneva.

The Ecclesiastical Ordinances prescribe four official orders for the government of the church: pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. Of these the pastors alone constituted an ordained ministry. Their office was the administration of the Word and sacraments and the oversight of the Christian flock, and they were elected and appointed only after the most thorough examination of their life and doctrine. The function of the teachers was the instruction of the young in an education that was as Christian as it was cultured. The elders were delegated members of the civic authorities whose special responsibility was the maintenance of discipline and who formed an important link between church and state. The province of the deacons was the dispensation of alms and the care of the poor and the sick, and of widows and orphans.

For the rest, the Ecclesiastical Ordinances lay down certain regulations concerning the administration of the sacraments, the conduct of marriages and funerals, the visitation of the sick and prisoners, the catechizing of children, and the enforcement of discipline.

Unfortunately the register does not afford a complete record of the deliberations and transactions of the Company of Pastors. It seems to have been somewhat spasmodically written up. Nonetheless, it is a document of great historic interest and importance. (An English translation by the writer of this review is to be published in a few months’ time.) Space permits the mention of only a few of the more important matters that occupy the pages of the register.

Calvin’s Geneva was a city dedicated to the ideal of the harmonious cooperation of church and state in common subjection to the will and Word of Almighty God. Yet there is ample evidence in the register that relations between church and state were at times strained and near the breaking point; it is evidence, moreover, that dissolves the legend that Calvin was the tyrannous ruler of Geneva, for it shows that the magistracy was jealous of what it regarded as its own prerogatives and did not hesitate to withstand Calvin and his fellow pastors when it wished to do so. This is seen, for example, in the prolonged trouble over Philippe de Ecclesia. The civil power was then largely in the hands of those who were hostile to Calvin because of his policy of welcoming refugees from persecution to Geneva. De Ecclesia was one of the pastors, and despite evidence against him, the magistracy persistently refused the request of the Company of Pastors that he should be deposed from the ministerial office. It was only in 1553, after four years of obduracy, that the council bowed to the intractable facts and at last dismissed De Ecclesia from his office. This could never have happened had Calvin been the absolute dictator that his slanderers have made him out to be.

Another bone of contention concerned the question whether the right of excommunication was a function of the secular or of the spiritual sword. The dispute came to a head in the case of Philibert Berthelier, which is recorded in the register and which dragged on embarrassingly for several years. The obduracy of the council in refusing to sanction his excommunication scandalized the ministers and was taken as an affront to the dignity of their office. At last, in January, 1555, it was conceded by the magistracy that “the Consistory should retain its status and exercise its accustomed authority, in accordance with the Word of God and the Ordinances previously passed.”

Calvin was always particularly careful to preserve in their integrity the respective jurisdictions of church and state. He had no vote in the councils of state and when he was consulted by the secular authorities always gave his opinion in the capacity of a private person. Indeed, it was not until five years before his death that he was accorded the privilege of citizenship in the city to which he gave such unremitting service. It is significant that at the end of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances the proviso was added that their prescriptions were to be observed “in such a way that the ministers have no civil jurisdiction and wield only the spiritual sword of the Word of God … and that there is no derogation by the Consistory from the authority of the state.”

The register also contains a full report of the theological interchange in the case of Jerome Bolsec, an ex-monk and a physician of sorts who, though not resident in Geneva, attacked Calvin and the doctrine of election taught in the Genevan church. The upshot was that Bolsec was banished from the city by the magistracy and subsequently became the most venomous of Calvin’s calumniators. The register reveals that Calvin had besought the council even with tears that the matter might be dropped. This in itself is sufficient to give the lie to the legend that Calvin was a heartless and vindictive monster.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy in the United States may be faced with a major controversy in the wake of a row over the church’s role in battling racial discrimination.

The Rev. William H. DuBay, assistant at St. Albert the Great Church in Compton, California, called for the removal of James Francis Cardinal McIntyre, Archbishop of Los Angeles, and was promptly relieved of his administrative duties at the predominantly Negro parish.

The 29-year-old white priest, who charged in a letter to Pope Paul VI that the cardinal was guilty of “gross malfeasance” in not disseminating more actively the church’s precepts on racial equality, was allowed to continue his priestly duties, at least for the time being.

DuBay made his dramatic announcement about the 700-word letter to Pope Paul at a news conference he called at the Los Angeles Press Club. He said the pastor of his church was in Ireland and unaware of his action.

Responding to a question, DuBay held that his “insult” to Cardinal McIntyre was less than “the insult and injury suffered by the several hundred thousand Los Angeles Negroes at the hands of white Catholics whom the local church refuses to instruct in their specific moral obligations.”

He told reporters he had been “disciplined several times for speaking on the issue” of racial justice and was “threatened a year ago with suspension from priestly duties if I continue to preach that integration is a moral issue.”

It was not immediately apparent whether the incident would develop into a showdown case on Roman Catholic attitudes toward the race question.

Following the announcement of the action against the young priest, a group of white and Negro pickets, local parishioners and members of Catholics United for Racial Equality, formed a line outside the chancery. They carried such signs as “The Church Needs Father DuBay Now.”

Dubay said that “just recently sixty theological students were disciplined for their general commitment to racial justice and for taking part in an informal conversation with John Howard Griffin, noted Catholic author and spokesman for the civil rights movement.” He said that one student was dismissed, another was “recalled from receiving ordination to the subdiaconate,” one left the seminary for reasons of conscience, and others were sent home “for vacation on probation.”

Protestant Panorama

Southern Baptist Radio and Television Commission broke ground for a new headquarters-studio building in Fort Worth by touching off an explosive charge with a signal bounced off the Echo II communications satellite.

Lutheran Church in America’s Board of World Missions will start provisional missions for the first time in Trinidad and Peru.

The Christian Advocate, Methodist fortnightly, called for more frequent sessions of the church’s General Conference. An editorial charged that “the executive branch of Methodism does the work of the legislative branch.”

Deaths

THE RT. REV. ARTHUR BARKSDALE KINSOLVING, 70, retired Episcopal Bishop of Arizona; in Carmel, California.

DR. WILLIAM MCKINLEY BEAHM, 67, dean emeritus of Bethany Theological Seminary; in Chicago.

DR. ANDREW THAKUR DAS, 73, a regional secretary of the United Presbyterian Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations; in New York.

THE REV. AUBREY SHORT, 55, president of the Alaska Baptist Convention; in the crash of a single-engine private plane, near Anchorage.

Personalia

Alabama Governor George C. Wallace was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by Bob Jones University. He was lauded as “a David warring against the giant tyranny.”

The Rev. Hugh A. MacMillan elected moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

The Rev. Gordon Van Oostenburg elected president of the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America.

The Rev. Vincent A. Yzermans named director of the Bureau of Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference.

The Rev. James B. Moellendick appointed executive secretary of the International Union of Gospel Missions.

Bishop Filaret of Brisbane, Australia, elected primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

Miscellany

American Association of Theological Schools granted full accreditation to Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana; Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri; and St. Paul School of Theology (Methodist), also located in Kansas City.

A resolution adopted by the Military Chaplains Association assailing the American Civil Liberties Union was described by the ACLU as having distorted its official position. An ACLU spokesman said the organization “has never attacked the concept of the chaplaincy program.”

The U. S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a federal judge’s order that permitted doctors to give a blood transfusion to a Jehovah’s Witness who was seriously ill but refused such aid on religious grounds.

Maine’s Board of Education issued a policy statement permitting the state’s public schools to use the Bible in literature and history courses.

The New York State Court of Appeals upheld use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

In this Independence Day issue, Dr. S. Richey Kamm gives an incisive analysis of the American Revolution, and the distinguished Princeton historian, Dr. Arthur S. Link, writes movingly about Woodrow Wilson.

A leading Christian layman, J. Howard Pew, discusses the vital question of the jurisdiction of the Church in respect to economic, social, and political affairs. This important principle, about which CHRISTIANITY TODAY is deeply concerned, will also be dealt with editorially in later issues.

A Mississippi minister, Dr. George W. Long, asks American Christians which they consider to be the “higher powers,” those of the individual states or those of the federal government.

Two major editorials speak to aspects of our greatest national holiday.

The General Board of the National Council of Churches at its meeting last month in New York approved a sweeping reorganization of the NCC to go into effect in January. According to council officials, the new bylaws serve both to centralize and coordinate governmental structure and to stress that the council’s authority is derived from its member bodies. They are also said to provide needed organizational flexibility.

Changes include the following:

—The current “confederation of parallel units” (divisions, general departments, and central departments) is regrouped into four divisions: Christian Life and Mission, Christian Education, Overseas Ministries, and Christian Unity.

—Considerable attention was given to the new Division of Christian Life and Mission, which will incorporate the present Division of Christian Life and Work, the Department of Evangelism, the Division of Home Missions, the Department of Worship and the Arts, and the Department of Stewardship and Benevolence.

—Under the heading “Constituent Representation,” a paragraph was added to the bylaws to make it clear that each communion is its own interpreter of the meaning of its membership.

—Membership requirements are spelled out for the first time. The first requirement (which contains the chief theological emphasis) is that, to be eligible, a church body “shall have a basis of association on which the communion exists as a Christian body.”

—Direct voting representation of the communions has been increased from 100 to 216, and a category of thirty-five members of the board nominated from within the council structure has been eliminated.

The list of new bylaws had been prepared two months prior to the meeting, but the board members had not had prior opportunity to read five mimeographed pages of amendments introduced from the floor. This part of the meeting resembled a two-man newscast, with William H. Rhoads of the revision committee taking the board members through the bylaws proper, and Dr. Edwin Tuller, who introduced the amendments for the policy and strategy committee, signing in periodically from a microphone on the floor with late developments.

One or two delegates rose to complain that they did not know the significance of the amendments. During later discussion, another board member noted that in the proposed superstructure the Department of Evangelism would be a commission (a subsidiary unit). Still another suggested that if consolidation was going to go as far as the present plan called for, the council might as well consolidate everything into one division.

In general, however, the bylaws and the amendments were approved with little comment from the floor. The significance of the reorganization had been interpreted earlier by Dr. R. H. Edwin Espy, the general secretary.

In other business, the council approved with little discussion an official “pronouncement” recommending “further experimentation with, and continuing evaluation of, dual school enrollment for classroom instruction.” The plan, also known as “shared time,” would enroll schoolchildren simultaneously in church-related and secular schools. The council’s statement emphasized the benefits of the plan for “those who, for conscience sake, maintain separate schools.”

Some educators look to the plan as a practical approach to the issues accentuated by the Supreme Court rulings on prayer and Bible reading in the schools, though reservations have been expressed about the compartmentalization of the school curriculum into “sacred” and “secular” subjects. Communities in thirty-five states are now trying out some form of dual enrollment.

Also approved at the board meeting was a resolution on “Jewish-Christian Relations” urging further dialogue and stressing that the events surrounding the Crucifixion should not be used to “fasten upon the Jewish people of today responsibilities which belong to our corporate humanity.”

The Division of Home Missions presented a report on the “Delta Ministry,” an antipoverty and social-redevelopment campaign for the Mississippi delta area officially scheduled to begin in September. The “ministry” is to be carried out by the council on a non-discriminatory basis and consequently has already run into some opposition. One aspect questioned in some quarters is the support and aid of the World Council of Churches for the project—already asked for and granted. It is, however, fully endorsed by the General Board. The focal point in each county is to be an indigenous community center for education, training and communication.¹One Southern board member rose to plead that the project leaders “coordinate what is done with the local people.… We don’t want a march of professionals into the Delta.” The Rev. Paul R. Madsen, chairman of the sponsoring Division of Home Missions, replied that Mississippians were on the national advisory committee.

The board adopted a resolution calling for a “special emphasis on peace during the triennium 1963–1966.” It also urged that every effort be made to “realize the full potential of the Church Center for the United Nations,” that priority be given the special emphasis, and that adequate funds be made available for the necessary staffing and program.

The Long Hot Summer

Last May a minister from the Midwest went to Canton, Mississippi, to stand by as a “moral presence” during a voter-registration drive. A policeman asked him to identify himself. “I’m with the National Council of Churches,” he said. The policeman reacted with obscene language and roughed up the minister with the butt of a rifle.

This incident, reported last month at the National Council’s General Board meeting, was a kind of overture to the “long hot summer” the NCC Commission on Religion and Race sees ahead. Its policy is nonviolence, but the chairman, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, believes that tire civil rights movement, in which the commission is wholeheartedly engaged, will bring violence with it, and he is undeterred by its implications.

This summer more than 1,000 students are expected to aid in voter registration in Mississippi. Civil rights groups in the state are doing the recruiting, and the National Council is providing orientation and training. It has also enlisted the aid of lawyers and ministers, who will act in an advisory capacity and serve as a “moral presence” during registration drives.

It would be hard to name a National Council project that has aroused Southern anger as this one has. The Commission on Religion and Race was commended for its work by the General Board this month (Dr. Blake said that he was not aware of any negative votes cast); but many Southerners, among them those who would call themselves moderates on the civil rights issue, regard the voter-recruiting program as an invasion and resent the National Council’s involvement in it and other projects. For example, it was reported at the NCC board meeting this month that some churches were striking from their budget the fund for the council’s Delta Ministry (see “Updating the NCC Superstructure,” p. 33). Some persons wonder why the council is pushing a civil rights program in Mississippi but says nothing about acts of crime and racial violence that have occurred in subways a hundred yards away from its New York headquarters. Dr. Blake says that the council’s activities on behalf of racial justice are pursued in the North just as vigorously as in the South.

The Commission on Religion and Race points out that it did not recruit the students but that it does want to influence the movement for the good. It sponsored a training program for the volunteers to be held during the second half of June at the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. The commission is cooperating with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), which coordinates the work of the major civil rights organizations in Mississippi and is recruiting the students for the voter-registration drive.

The General Board reviewed the commission’s first year of operation last month, commended it, and recommended “no change in the mandate.” It suggested that the commission strive for “effective interpretation” to the public and stress the ministry of reconciliation. It also commended the commission’s “thoughtful” approach to the question of obedience to law and encouraged it to “continue study of the issue.”

The wording of the last item gave the barest hint of a question mark. The commission has on occasion acted in violation of various local ordinances in behalf of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights. And the legal question could very well arise again this ssummer, for it was reported that the Mississippi legislature has prepared laws to deal with the registration drives. “People say, ‘Why are you going to stir things up in Mississippi?’ ” said Dr. Blake. “Things are stirred up. We want to make things possibly peaceful, and possibly successful.”

Dealing With Geography

The 294 delegates to the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America, meeting in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, last month, found that the roughest section of the rocky road to church union was the section within their own borders. Recommendations that had been proposed by a joint committee of the RCA and the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. and had been adopted by the Presbyterian U. S. General Assembly without any discussion precipitated a long and tortuous debate within the General Synod of the 378,000-member RCA.

Although the church sings, “In Christ there is no east or west,” the debate on church union revealed that the Reformed Church in America does have its east and west, at least in the minds of its members, who either constantly affirm it or constantly deny it. Yet on the last full day of its synodical gathering, the RCA inched toward closer association with the so-called Southern Presbyterians. It was a long, tumultuous session, lasting from 9 A.M. until 1 A.M. the next day. The session was marked by theological debate, sharp criticisms, heavy emotionalism, personal confessions of both faith and error, parliamentary snarls, stalling tactics, circumventing motions, and moments of confusion, frustration, and levity. At the call for adjournment, some devout voice cried, “Praise the Lord.”

There were seventeen overtures concerning church union and merger. Three called for a crash program that would move toward speedy union with Southern Presbyterians, and two called for a decision to cease and desist from all church-union conversations. Adjudication of these and the adoption of a theological statement, “The Witness of the Reformed Churches,” elicited a warm debate fired by a sentence in the theological statement that asserted, “We begin with the simple admission that in a real sense we have nothing distinctive to say and we rejoice in this admission.” Intended as an assertion that the RCA is not a sectarian church but one grounded in the universal, catholic, Christian tradition, the sentence challenged delegates to assert the RCA’s distinctiveness, something most delegates found, not in the witness of the church, but in the quality of the piety and service that the tradition nourishes. Only after this matter was clarified to the satisfaction of the delegates did they adopt the eleven recommendations of their joint committee that proposed various united explorative actions with Southern Presbyterians.

The synod also reaffirmed its decision of 1962 “to take steps looking toward merger with the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. and to hold other union possibilities in abeyance.” The last part of this decision was the 1964 synod’s answer to the suggestion of Southern Presbyterians that union discussions be widened to include the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Many delegates expressed fear that union with Southern Presbyterians would soon involve them in possible union with the 3.3 million United Presbyterians.

On that same day—which must have seemed to some delegates “the longest day”—the synod: rejected by a 167–114 vote a proposal that would have permitted women to be ordained to church offices; called for voluntary abstinence from smoking, and for “understanding” toward those caught in the habit; approved a statement that social dancing is good or evil depending upon the participants and the circ*mstances; reaffirmed an earlier endorsem*nt of integrated housing and encouraged its membership to end racial discrimination and “to maintain active contact with Councils on Human Relationships and similar organizations which are active for this purpose in various local situations”; rejected a floor motion to support the Becker amendment and sent it to a committee for study; and reaffirmed its 1962 decision urging its membership to “stubbornly resist” attempts to remove religion from public schools.

If the ecumenical discussions of the 1964 General Synod of the Reformed Church in America revealed something of the church’s own “east and west,” they also revealed that theological vitality, respect for biblical teaching, and deep spiritual concern are the church’s overriding and unitive characteristics. The oldest church in America with continuous service and worship is made up of descendants of some of the first to set foot on American soil as well as latter-day Dutch emigrants. Under its president, Dr. Verne Oggel of Glen Rock, New Jersey, it revealed that it still has enough theological concern to view ecumenical matters from a theological perspective. It refused to go open throttle down the ecumenical road without some assurance about where the road leads. It isn’t at all sure it wants to go north by going south.

JAMES DAANE

Text: O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!… Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and const not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?… I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me.… And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision and make it plain.…

—Habakkuk 1:2, 13; 2:1, 2

1. The Book of Habakkuk reveals the deepest gloom in Judah’s long night of apostasy and peril preceding the Babylonian captivity.

The world outlook was grim and threatening. It was a time of mighty upheavals. The great Assyrian empire was disintegrating; Babylon and Egypt were locked in a titanic struggle for world supremacy. Caught between the two was the tiny kingdom of Judah. Israel had been conquered and her people taken captive, and Judah was on the way. It was a time of ruthless conquest, bloody suppression, and merciless tyranny.

The internal outlook of Judah was hardly less grim and threatening. There was widespread wickedness, violence, injustice, and idolatry. The masses were dulled in conscience and calloused by long exposure to danger. Unmoved by the warnings and pleadings of the prophets, they showed the unconcern of a people living complacently on the slopes of a smoldering volcano.

Habakkuk, agonizing over the delinquencies of his own people and the wicked expansionism of pagan empires, and sensing that disaster is in the offing, cries out, “O God, why don’t you do something!”

2. The prophet, in his perplexity and distress, finds the only way out of the dark, the only true refuge, near to the heart of God. Symbolically, he speaks of ascending the water tower and there waiting on God.

Here he sees, through the deep gloom, light-beams from some of the brightest stars of God’s heaven. God was speaking to him as He spoke to one of our missionaries at her lonely outpost during World War II. A night-time bombing raid by enemy airmen was raining death and destruction from the sky. Helpless natives were trembling in the pitiable shelter of their huts. In the midst of panic and horror, the missionary looked up and saw, by the grace of God, the stars above the bombing planes. To her, in that desperate moment, they were the silent sentinels of the eternal, unchanging sovereignty of God, who never forsakes his own and never forgets a promise. Immediately she became quiet within, and her spirit was fortified for that harrowing ordeal.

Habakkuk, from his vantage point near to the heart of God, gains new insights for the warning of the wicked and the encouragement of the righteous.

I. The Woes Of The Wicked

Five times he hears the voice of God in thunderous denunciation.

1. Woe to the aggressor who, with insatiable greed, “increaseth that which is not his” (v. 6). Here the primary reference is to the Babylonian empire, drunk with power, steadily enlarging itself through conquest, irresistible in its advances and seizures. The descending judgment of God falls in the familiar pattern, “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matt. 26:52). How consistently this has been true the history of kingdoms and empires abundantly demonstrates.

2. Woe to the covetous plunderer, who craftily “sets his nest on high,” to make his spoils secure (v. 9). The primary reference is to the Edomites, who lived among the cliffs in the semi-desert area south of the Dead Sea. From their lofty fastnesses they made raids upon the neighboring lowlands, and they stored their plunder in the almost inaccessible cliffs. To the Edomites, the Lord speaks through the prophet Obadiah: “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord” (Obad. 4). The emphasis of Habakkuk is upon the fact that the plunder will not remain hidden. “The stone shall cry out of the wall,” and the beams and timbers shall echo the accusation. Sooner or later every dishonest dollar will avenge itself, as the prophet Ezekiel points out: “They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord” (Ezek. 7:19a).

3. Woe to the destroyer who builds upon the destruction of others (v. 12). The judgment is of the Lord, and not of man. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it” (Ps. 127:1a), whether it be the tower of ancient Babel (Gen. 11:4–9) or the wall of modern Berlin. The Judge himself has been an eye-witness to every crime, every tear, every drop of blood that has been shed. What he said to Cain, the first murderer, he will say again to every mass murderer or individual killer, “Thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10).

4. Woe to the debaucher “that giveth his neighbor drink” (v. 15). Surely no greater menace threatens the moral and spiritual life of our nation than the rising tide of alcohol that is sweeping across the land. “Drink” has proven itself the archenemy of everything that is essentially Christian and is probably the greatest single destroyer of the souls of men. Recent statistics indicate approximately five million drunkards, both men and women, with all that this means in lives wrecked, homes broken, crimes committed, and souls doomed. And the end is not yet; the frightening increase of drinkers and drunkenness continues. The percentage of drinkers has risen from 33 per cent to 63 per cent in our generation; 50 per cent more men are drinking; 174 per cent more women are drinking; and 74 per cent of all college students are drinking.

Surely no greater outpouring of the wrath of God will take place on the day of judgment than that upon the makers and sellers of alcoholic beverages and upon the false friend “that giveth his neighbor drink,” thus placing the deadly reptile at his neighbor’s bosom.”

One of the saddest aspects of the problem of alcohol is the easy tolerance into which so many otherwise sensible and discerning people have been lulled. Once, the corner saloon was the menace to be feared. Now, with the expenditure of $250 million a year to glamorize social drinking as an element in “gracious living,” the homes are being invaded with this unholy propaganda by every known means of publicity. If all professed Christians became abstainers, with the courage of Daniel of old, this would be a staggering blow to the alcohol traffic and to alcoholism. Drunkards are recruited, not from the ranks of abstainers, but from moderate drinkers.

One of the most devastating arraignments of alcohol is Upton Sinclair’s book, The Cup of Fury. It records the tragic story of seventy-five victims of alcohol whom he has known. All had attained to fame and fortune and were “men of distinction”; but alcohol became their undoing. The book makes clear the wisdom and moral necessity of total abstinence. A comparable book is that of the American Business Men’s Research Foundation entitled, What’s New about Alcohol and Us? Actually, there is nothing new. Alcohol is what it always was and does what it always did, whether served in co*cktails or in some other form, whether one drinks alone or in a group. It is the same whether served in the sacred vessels profaned by King Belshazzar centuries ago, or from dainty goblets in some elegant living room, or from an uncorked bottle passing from one dirty mouth to another in the foulest dive in the underworld. “Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink!”

5. Woe to the idolator (v. 19). The pagan Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians were not the only idolators. Among Habakkuk’s own people, as in the days of Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and Isaiah, there were those who practiced idolatry. This was not because they knew no better, with their long tradition of godly training, but apparently because it seemed the expedient and sophisticated thing to do. Political considerations and status-seeking are not of modern origin.

It would be pleasant to assume that the pronouncement against idolatry is no longer relevant. We do not worship “the golden image” or “the molten image,” but how often profit, pleasure, prestige, or public opinion are placed ahead of God! And perhaps we are closer to ancient Israel than we realize. We do not bother to fashion an image; we just worship our gold without melting it, and our greenbacks without taking them out of the bank.

The prophet Habakkuk was not left in a spirit of depression. Near to the heart of God he gained new insights into the woes of the wicked; and there were further insights into the blessedness of the righteous.

II. The Comfort Of The Righteous

Three stars of hope never cease to shine in the believer’s firmament.

1. The just shall live by faith (v. 4). His reliance is not upon defensive armaments but upon spiritual defenses and resources from Almighty God. “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God” (Ps. 20:7).

Faith is the life of God in the heart of man. “… Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Besides this hope, there is none other. Salvation is not by merit, but by relationship. The household of God is for the children of God. In the Scriptures, the children of God are sharply distinguished from the rest of humanity. To unbelievers Jesus denied the fatherhood of God. “Ye are not of God.… If God were your Father, ye would love me.… Ye are of your father the devil …” (John 8:47, 42, 44). No less clear is that further reference: “the children of God … and the children of the devil” (1 John 3:10). Thus the fatherhood of the devil is no less a scriptural doctrine than the fatherhood of God.

Faith guarantees the survival of the soul through the most perilous night. “… The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim. 2:19a). “He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out” (John 10:3b). He identifies his own even in the largest flock; he finds his own even in the darkest night; he reads the fine print of the soul when all the lights are out.

2. The truth shall prevail. “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (v. 14). Here is an assurance to treasure in the dark days when all the trends and appearances are running to the contrary, as in the days of Habakkuk.

The Satanic zeal with which false religions and philosophies are being propagated fills the thoughtful believer with dismay and seems destined to win the world. With the closing of mission fields, the suppression of the truth, and the persecution of believers in many areas of the world, surely the world does not appear to be in process of being “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.” As a matter of fact, the growth of the non-Christian population of the world is so outstripping the growth of the Christian population as to make Christianity, percentagewise, a steadily dwindling minority. Only the long look can sustain the believer’s faith; without it he might well despair.

The destructive teaching of many educational institutions is producing skeptics and agnostics and is threatening to undo the work of our Christian homes and churches. Religion must not be taught; but religion can be undermined, at will. One minister, telling of his own experience in one of our great universities, recalls that he was one of thirty-three candidates for the ministry in the freshman class with which he entered. At graduation, four years later, thirty-one of the group had “lost their call,” and only two went on to seminary training. But “truth crushed to earth will rise again; error, writhing in pain, will die among its friends.”

3. The Lord is in his holy temple (v. 20), with something to say to every listening heart. However dark the night, he is always accessible, ready to bless, responsive to those who seek him. “Here bring your wounded heart, here tell your anguish; earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal”—no problem that heaven cannot solve. Habakkuk was not the first, nor the last, to cry out in agony of soul, “Why …? O Lord, how long …?” And he was not the only one to find his answer in the holy temple of his Lord.

The Psalmist Asaph, centuries before, had been grieved and perplexed by the prevalence of evil and the prosperity of the wicked. “It was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.” In the holy quietness of the sanctuary, God spake to his heart; there he saw what he had not seen before. As a result, his spirit was revived, his soul was fortified, and he closes that beautiful Psalm on a high note of grateful praise: “It is good for me to draw near to God …” (Ps. 73:3, 16, 17, 28).

Every believer will find, like Habakkuk and like Asaph, that “it is good to draw near to God.” Private devotions are indispensable; likewise, the family altar; but let not the believer forget that “the Lord is in his holy temple,” with further blessings not otherwise to be attained. It is in the Lord’s house, on the Lord’s Day, with the Lord’s people, that a man is most likely to see himself as he is and to hear the call of God to higher ground. In the Lord’s house we are reminded that our problems, perplexities, and distresses are not unlike those of previous generations. The world outlook is filled with forebodings of disaster; and in the homeland, with sickening monotony, the statistics on all forms of evil are rising from year to year. How long will God forbear? “Take courage,” Habakkuk is saying to the believer. “Draw near to the heart of God, and be assured, the just shall live; the truth shall prevail; and God is ready at this very moment to fortify the believer and to save the lost.”

Near to the heart of God, Habakkuk saw the light.

Coming from the presence of God Habakkuk reflected that light, like Moses, who came from prolonged fellowship with his Lord with such a radiance upon his face that people were actually afraid to come near him (Exod. 34:29, 30). Similarly, the mother of John Wesley had learned the secret of spiritual replenishment near to the heart of God. With her large family of children, there were times when the atmosphere of the household became tense and difficult. At such times she would quietly slip away. When she returned, it was with a serenity and poise that the children did not understand until years later. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa. 40:31a).

A traveling man brought his wife a little souvenir—a phosphorescent matchbox that was supposed to glow in the dark. When he turned out the light to demonstrate its use, there was not even the faintest glow. Disgustedly, he concluded that he had been cheated. The next day his wife examined the gift more closely and found an inscription in tiny letters, “If you want me to shine in the night, keep me in the sunlight through the day.” She did as directed, and that night after dinner it was a pleasant surprise for her husband when she turned out the light and the matchbox shone with a brilliant glow. Thus only can believers “shine as lights … in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (Phil. 2:15).—Chapter 9, “Near to the Heart of God,” from Sermons Preached without Notes, by Charles W. Roller (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1964). Used by permission.

We announce with regret the retirement of Dr. Andrew W. Blackwood from his responsibility for The Minister’s Workshop, to which he has made such an outstanding contribution. In his place, Dr. Charles W. Koller, president emeritus of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, will share this department with Dr. Paul S. Rees.

Expository preaching is only one of several types of preaching that have been mightily used and mightily blessed of God. A study of the great sermons in sacred literature reveals so much overlapping among these types as to make strict classification impossible. Nor is it essential for any given sermon to be purely topical or purely textual or purely expository. But in order to be well received, the sermon must have unity, structure, aim, and progression; it must be sustained by biblical authority and intelligently presented. Expository preaching would surely be far more popular than it is if it were more generally well done.

Textual preaching has much to commend it; likewise, topical preaching. No one method should be employed exclusively. But as a prevailing method, for year-round ministering, expository preaching has the greater potential for the blessing and enrichment of both pastor and people.

Expository preaching generally makes use of more scriptural material than textual or topical preaching. Through biblical truth, God gives prompting and direction for Christian living, and expository preaching as a prevailing method is likely to prove more helpful than other methods in developing a people rooted and grounded in the Word of God. Only when the believer has been thoroughly indoctrinated in the Holy Scriptures is he adequately fortified in the hour of temptation and able to say, like Jesus in the wilderness, “It is written” (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10). Too many well-meaning believers are coming to grief in our generation of widespread moral ambiguity because they do not know what is “written.” A perennial emphasis on expository preaching may well be our best answer to the challenge of widespread biblical illiteracy.

In biblical preaching, the minister himself is the first to profit from the riches he discovers. Thus living with the Bible, he is constantly bringing himself and his people under the judgment of the Word of God; and as he extends his range of scriptural truth, this wider coverage makes for a wholesome balance and helps to prevent the disproportionate stressing of certain truths to the neglect of others.

“Problem preaching” and “life situation preaching” are definitely useful and should not be disparaged. But expository preaching, with reasonably broad coverage of the Bible, made alive and relevant to the present age, may help more people by dealing with a wider variety of problems and life situations. Problems that are too delicate to be handled topically may often be handled quite naturally in the course of expository preaching; and thus problems of which the preacher may be unaware may be brought under the light of Scripture.

While there may be a problem in every pew, too much “problem preaching” or “life situation preaching” does not provide the best kind of steady diet. As F. D. White-sell points out, “It tends to make people problem-conscious instead of Bible-conscious and God-conscious.” In a similar vein, W. E. Sangster points out that preaching might become too horizontal, “savoring more of psychology than of religion, more of self-help than of the Bible.” The problem preacher might come to think of people primarily in terms of problems, to the neglect of many areas of truth not so related.

The timeliness that so often is the strength of the “problem” or “life situation” sermon tends to limit its length of life. The expository sermon, on the other hand, may have the advantage of timelessness while lacking nothing from the standpoint of relevance. Along with contemporary application, it carries authority that is often lacking in sermons on contemporary themes with only occasional and perhaps vague references to Scripture.

The resources for expository preaching are inexhaustible. This type demands—and develops—a greater knowledge of Scripture than is necessary for other types. In the same progression, the preacher is challenged by an ever-widening range of possibilities, with endless variety at his disposal. People need and want to hear the Word of God. And the preacher who gives it to them will find his resources growing more abundant with every sermon he prepares.—Adapted from Expository Preaching without Notes, by Charles W. Koller (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1962). Used by permission.

A Book That Meets Its Jacket Claims

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Volume I, A—┌, edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1964, 793 pp., $18.50), is reviewed by James P. Martin, associate professor of New Testament, Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, Richmond.

In its original German, Kittel’s TDNT has long been a standard and indispensable tool for New Testament studies. Its appearance in a complete and unabridged English translation is a theological event of first importance that should greatly assist American theology to rediscover the Greek New Testament and its eschatological realism in terms of a historical approach to the New Testament and its times. The translation is excellent, which is what we have come to expect from Geoffrey Bromiley. The work has also been carefully proofread. As an example of the printer’s art and as a volume rich in content it is worth every penny of its price.

Twenty-five pages of abbreviations of sources, editions, and works consulted, along with rich documentation in quotations and footnotes, reveal that this is a scholarly production of high order. Greek, Latin, and Hebrew quotations are given in the original. At the same time the value and use of Kittel is not limited to those who want the scholarly apparatus. The English text is also considerable! The book can be read and studied in its own right as a guide to historical biblical theology. Nevertheless, it is not a substitute for the exegetical study of the Greek New Testament but an aid to such study. It is not a direct source for sermons but a tool for understanding the theology of the biblical texts that form the heart and content of the sermon.

This first volume treats approximately four hundred words in articles ranging in length from a few lines to forty or fifty pages. Since words are arranged according to Greek roots, not all words beginning with alpha, beta, and gamma are found here, and conversely, words beginning with other letters are found here if they are formed on roots whose letters commence with alpha, beta, or gamma. Cross references within the body of the book indicate this fact. Thus, for example, apolutrosis (redemption) is not found in this volume but appears in Volume VI under luo (to loose); katallage (reconciliation) is found in this volume because its root is allaso. Kephale gonias (head of the corner) appears under gonia (corner), but huios tou anthropou (Son of Man) appears not under anthropos but under huios (son).

The variety of authors, the long period of time during which the articles first appeared, and the differences in historical outlook and presuppositions among the authors preclude uniformity. But the basic orientation and the wealth of objective findings determine the ultimate worth of the Theological Dictionary. Kittel discusses the history and theology of a word in terms of secular Greek usage (including Hellenistic history of religion), the Old Testament, Rabbinic Judaism, the Septuagint, and the New Testament. Constant discussion of these areas along with Gnosticism and Mystery religions provides an understanding of what the biblical concept is not, as well as the knowledge of what it is. Although some may feel that the “negative” frequently outweighs the “positive” quantitatively, it is necessary to understand that Kittel’s approach is a result of taking seriously the idea of a revelation in history. The materials, for all their diversity, reveal a fundamental methodology that respects the unity of Old and New Testaments, utilizes the concept of a Heilsgeschichte (sometimes strong, sometimes weak) that centers in Jesus Christ, and manifests a respect for biblical realism and Hebraic mentality. One or more of these methodological features may be clearly observed, for example, in such diverse articles as ano, anoteron (above) by Büchsel, gnosis (knowledge) by Bultmann, gala (milk) by Schlier, and apostolos (apostle) by Rengstorf.

The method and theological orientation of Kittel may be best observed, within the compass of a review, by illustrative examples. The article on the verb hamartano (to sin) discusses such matters as Old Testament words (richly detailed), the legal and theological content of the Old Testament concept of sin, sin and guilt, the story of the Fall (Gen. 3), theological nuances of sin in the Septuagint, the concept of sin in Judaism, the linguistic usage and history of hamartano, hamartema, hamartia before and in the New Testament ([1] Synoptic Gospels and Acts; [2] John; [3] Paul; [4] the other New Testament writings). The authorship of this article is particularly mixed. With respect to Paul, it is pointed out that “what Paul has to say about sin is oriented to the relation of God in Christ. Hence it is not an empirical doctrine of sin based on pessimism. It is the judgment of God on man without God as this is ascertained from the revelation of Christ and revealed in full seriousness in the cross of Christ” (p. 308).

On the Adam/Christ typology of the New Testament, Jeremias shows that this is found already in the Marcan account of the temptation. Christ ushers in the paradisial state of the last days when there will be peace between man and beast (Isa. 11:6–8; 65:25). The article on paradise (to appear in Vol. V) elaborates this highly suggestive element of biblical realism. The content of the article on anthropos (man) along with the article on Adam provides necessary correlative material for the term Son of Man (to appear later).

A study of the words associated with the Greek root AG such as hagios (holy). hagiasmos (a sanctifying), hagnizein (to sanctify), is essential if one is to recover the difference between holiness and moralism and thus to capture the nuances and depths of the biblical concept of sanctification. The hagiotes (holiness) of Jesus which strikes terror into the demoniac and forces the revelation of his presence is certainly something different from the morality of Jesus as we customarily think of it in terms of popular religion. As the hagios tou Theou (Holy One of God) Jesus is the Firstborn and Inaugurator of the pneumatic age which will destroy the Kingdom of demons (p. 102). Recognition of Jesus as hagios tou Theou (both by the demon and by Peter in the Johannine account of his confession) involves more than the recognition of the popular Messiah. The material on the Holy Spirit provided in the article on hagios (holy) supplements to a degree the later article on Spirit of God by Schweizer in Volume VI. The noun hagiasmos derives from the verb hagnizein as a nomen actionis. Hence it signifies “sanctifying” rather than sanctification and pertains to a process which has as its presupposition the religious process of atonement (p. 113).

In the article on aletheia (truth) Bultmann writes, commenting on John 4:23. that the addition of aletheia (truth) to the statement concerning worship in Spirit and in truth is an indication that “such worship can take place only as determined by the revelation accomplished in Jesus (4:25 f.), and consequently as determined by the Revealer who is the only Way of access to God (John 1:18; 14:6)” (p. 246). Bultmann’s articles in the Theological Dictionary show little trace of demythologizing since in these articles he is concerned to express historically what the New Testament writers thought, not what we have to think for modern life. It is unfair to Bultmann to argue that he does not know this difference.

Oepke, writing on apocatastasis (restitution, restoration) in the text Acts 3:20, argues that grammatically the relative article cannot be related to chronon (times) but only to panton (all things) and that this means further that panton can only be neuter and not masculine. “This also means that apocatastasis cannot denote the conversion of persons but only the reconstitution or re-establishment of things. These are restored, i.e., brought back to the integrity of creation, while the promise itself is established or fulfilled” (p. 391). These thoughts should be compared with the article on palingenesia (regeneration, pp. 686–89), where Büchsel relates this concept to the Jewish faith in the resurrection of the dead and the renewal of the world.

The illustrative quotations from Greek literature in Bultmann’s article on gnosis (knowledge) are especially full and rich, a feature expected in Bultmann’s work. Bultmann writes that in First Corinthians Paul maintains the uniqueness of genuine Christian knowledge but in so doing appropriates to some extent the vocabulary and approach of the Gnostics. Paul concedes that the Christian, too, has a sophia (wisdom) that makes possible for him a ginoskein (knowing) of the divine plan of salvation, a knowledge that penetrates the deep things of God because it rests on the divinely given Spirit. But the knowledge of the one God, in Paul, is not theoretical speculation, and knowing does not arise from within man but is grounded on God’s knowledge of man. This knowledge of God in his election of grace, and “to be known” by God is thus to be understood in terms of the Old Testament concept of knowing (p. 709). In John, ginoskein (knowing) means acceptance of the divine act of love in Jesus and obedience to its demand. Pisteuein (believing) corresponds to the Old Testament knowing in Johannine usage, while ginoskein (knowing) lies beyond. Yet the objects of both actions are the same (pp. 712, 713).

The article on graphe (writing) includes discussion of the question of Scripture, including the Judaistic view, and the belief of the early Christians regarding Scripture. The discussion of the gramma/pneuma (letter/spirit) dualism with respect to Second Corinthians 3 and Romans 2:27 f. emphasizes the activity of the Spirit as the key to understanding (pp. 765 ff.). Forgiveness (aphesis) as an eschatological event renews the whole man, in whom sin was not just something isolated and occasional but the power that determined his whole being, and can be received only when man affirms God’s judgment on himself, the old man, in the confession of sins and penitence. “There is thus avoided the legal understanding of the thought of forgiveness as a remission of punishment related only to past events; the future is included in eschatological forgiveness” (p. 512). The article on gune (woman) is strongly historical and provides invaluable information for the interpretation of Paul’s attitudes and judgments. This article can be supplemented by the material on gameo (to marry) and gamos (marriage).

Perusal of individual articles will reveal a diversity of emphasis. Some stress grammatical matters, others historical background, and still others theological interpretation. In the case of the Theological Dictionary, the comments on the dust jacket are for once accurate and reliable judgments on the worth of the book.

JAMES P. MARTIN

The Church And Social Issues

Aspects of Christian Social Ethics, by Carl F. H. Henry (Eerdmans, 1964, 190 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Harold B. Kuhn, professor of philosophy of religion, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

The Church is still seeking for guidelines that will indicate to her the scope of her proper task; perhaps her quest is more eager because of the evident failure of education, public legislation, and mass compulsive techniques to cope with the growing complexity of modern life. This well-written volume represents the author’s quest to discover where the priorities lie in the thrust of the Church into the area of social duty.

The opening part treats the major types of strategy for social change in our day, with a view to finding which is most compatible with New Testament Christianity. Dr. Henry identifies the types as: revolution, reform, revaluation, and regeneration. The first of these is self-explanatory. The second is primarily concerned with the inculcation of ethical values by techniques of education or projection. The third implies the immanence of moral ideals in human experience and suggests basically that when the Good is recognized, men will accept it as a guide for action.

The fourth type of strategy, regeneration, begins with the Scriptures as the basic source, not only of moral ideals, but also of information concerning the possible embodiment of these ideals in human character. It is at this point that the author sees the first three approaches as deficient; that is, they lack a perspective by which human life as it is ordinarily lived may be estimated. As a result, their advocates fail to perceive the lack of dynamic for high motivation in the natural man.

The weakness of the first three strategic approaches becomes most apparent when the Church adopts them as programs for action. It goes without saying that the Church cannot compete with violent revolutionary movements for social betterment, and it is to be questioned whether both reform and revaluation may not be applied with more effectiveness by secular agencies. But when the Christian Church neglects the fourth, she denies the points at which her contribution might be unique.

The author finds in the analysis of “The Christian View of Work” a laboratory technique for evaluating much of the social theory of our times. His conclusion is that when man’s life is viewed as being totally “under God,” there appears a possibility for a maximum expression of the implications of regeneration for man’s common life.

The relation of the Christian to social reform and social legislation receives careful attention in this book. Dr. Henry seeks to find a middle course between the extravagant hopes of such men as Rauschenbusch in the limitless possibilities for social improvement by legislation, and the attitude of ascetic aloofness toward public social action that has sometimes been evident in Christian pietism.

The problem is shown to be that of maintaining a proper balance between a self-identification by the Church with prevailing cultural forms and movements, and an indifference to culture. Our author is keenly aware of the implications of cultural aloofness and inactivity upon the part of the Church. A warning is sounded against the identification of any party or any specific piece of legislation with the “Christian position.” In an imperfect world, division of issues is seldom possible upon such a neat basis; and thus the Christian, in participating in political and social action, must always recognize that any social order in the here-and-now will contain many provisional and problematic elements.

The final chapter, entitled “The Nature of God and Social Ideals,” bristles with elements of challenge for hard thought. The cornerstone of the author’s analysis is that “God is sovereign justice as well as sovereign love,” so that the loss of the former premise leads to anxiety about the latter. Our age is quite willing, on the surface, to sacrifice justice to love; but when in practice justice is bypassed, the natural man is perplexed.

The concluding words are pungent: “… theology that obscures the distinction between justice and grace soon sponsors alien views of social ethics; and any social theory that confounds justice and benevolence will work against a true understanding both of the nature of God and of the character of the Gospel.”

This does not mean that the derivation of a social ethic from the Christian Scriptures is a simple matter. Dr. Henry takes second place to none in his awareness of the detailed problems that confront the Christian as he seeks to make decisions in a complex world upon the basis of biblical data. But he is powerfully correct in his thesis that in the Christian Scriptures may be found an unmistakable expression of the necessary spiritual foundations for a just world order.

HAROLD B. KUHN

Counseling The Broken Man

Unfragmented Man: A Study in Pastoral Psychology, by Hans-Joachim Thilo (Augsburg, 1964, 224 pp., $5), is reviewed by Gary R. Collins, clinical psychologist, Portland State College, Portland, Oregon.

“This book purports to be a cautious effort at assessing the questions which exercise our minds as we care for souls in our day.” With this as his goal, Dr. Thilo begins with a discussion of the relation between theology and psychology. He develops his argument by dividing the book into four parts. Part I, “The Man to Whom We Proclaim,” deals with human development from infancy to old age and discusses problems related to sickness. Part II, “Nature and Method of Our Proclamation,” considers counseling, confession, liturgy, and other techniques of soul-care. Parts III and IV, “The Place Where We Proclaim” and “The Time at Which We Proclaim,” discuss how church architecture, the time of day, and the season of the year can all have bearing on a soul-care ministry. The book’s rather unusual title, Unfragmented Man, reflects the idea that “the many resources of the church can be used to lead … [man] from a fragmented condition to wholeness in body, mind, and spirit.”

Scattered throughout this book are some valuable facts, a number of thought-provoking observations, and several sound practical suggestions to aid the pastor in the counseling aspects of his ministry. As an example, the chapter on youth provides an informative discussion of the skepticism that characterizes many adolescents. Dr. Thilo suggests that young people today live in a goal-less vacuum where a waning of parental authority and a breakup of moral standards leave the adolescent with nothing to replace the fairyland fantasies of childhood. It is observed that as children grow older they even skeptically cast off the Word of God, because Bible events and fairy tales have both been called “stories” and children cannot differentiate biblical fact from fairytale fiction. Practical suggestions for dealing with these and other members of the congregation include a plea for good counseling technique and several worthwhile ideas about effective counseling rooms.

Unfortunately, these more enlightening portions of the book are hidden in difficult-to-read prose and somewhat rambling, poorly organized chapters. In spite of his counseling experience and obvious Freudian influence, the author shows a lack of psychological sophistication and a tendency to oversimplify complex personal problems. The chapter on theology and psychology, for example, really deals with theology and medicine, since clinical psychology is mistakenly considered to be inseparable from medicine. It is not until we reach a chapter on the unconscious that mention is even made of such common theology-psychology conflicts as the relation of sin, guilt, and responsibility to mental illness, or the tendency of some theologians to think that all personal problems are basically spiritual.

This book deals with pastoral psychology, but can there be a scriptural or psychological rationale for the suggestion that persons “close to mental illness” should not be allowed to confess sin because, they are “not all capable of recognizing or receiving the gift of forgiveness”? Can we agree with the assertion that since pastoral counseling “must go through the stages of mistrust, affection, love, and hatred between therapist and patient … whoever does not want this … ought not to be a practicing pastor”?

Dr. Thilo’s work presents some interesting and helpful information, but his main concern seems to be the presentation of a psychological rationale for established procedures of liturgy and forms of worship. The rationale is esoteric and not very convincing.

GARY R. COLLINS

The Christian Negro

The Negro Church in America, by E. Franklin Frazier (Schocken Books, 1964, 92 pp., $3.50), and The Story of the National Baptists, by Owen D. Pelt and Ralph Lee Smith (Vantage, 1960, 272 pp., $3.75), are reviewed by Jesse Jai McNeil, lecturer in social ethics and church and community, California Baptist Theological Seminary, Covina, California.

At a time when the integrity of white American Christians is being acutely tested by their demonstrated commitment to a racially inclusive church, the appearance of The Negro Church in America will undoubtedly do much to provide historical perspective, clarify thinking, reveal misconceptions, and sober the expectations of both Negro and white Christians who advocate or resist the racially integrated church.

Many Caucasians fear that Negroes will overrun their churches once an open-membership policy is practiced; that large numbers of Negroes are so anxious to join white American churches that they will not hesitate to turn from their own churches and racial religious heritage. Negroes have other ideas about racially integrated churches. While many already feel at home in white churches and find the religious forms and expressions there more compatible with their own education, tastes, and style of life, the basic concern of most Negroes is that they not be denied membership in any church, whether they take advantage of membership privileges or not. On the other hand, an increasing number of Negroes today are rejecting the Negro church—without a full appreciation of how deeply their racial experience is imbedded in their souls.

With this book Dr. Frazier, who until his death in 1962 was a world-renowned sociologist and authority on the Negro in the United States and the Negro family, has broken some new ground in the area of the Negro’s religion and culture. The book makes a valuable contribution to the sociology of religion in America.

Dr. Frazier attempts to show the singular role of the Negro church in the Negro’s struggle for survival, identity, racial solidarity, stable family life, and racial significance (p. 30). He accomplishes this through a profound and acute historical and structural analysis of Negro life in America, beginning with the days of slavery—a method characteristic of the few but scholarly and significant studies that he wrote.

An instance of the author’s insight is his rejection of the idea that the method of non-violence in the Negro’s struggle for freedom and justice can be credited to the influence of “Gandhism.” He sees in this struggle the expression of the Negro’s racial religious experience (p. 75) and implies that Negroes will not easily free themselves from its influence (p. 70 f.).

While admitting that the growing secularization of the Negro church has lessened its influence among Negroes, Frazier also observes that the Negro church is adjusting to the fact of a secularized life through an attempt to achieve secular relevance. This adjustive process is currently symbolized by the rise and the wide popularity of the gospel singer (p. 74).

Secularized though the Negro church may be, the author contends that it still plays an important though diminishing role in the life of the American Negro.

Anyone interested in the historical roots of the current racial revolution should read The Negro Church in America, and it is also important for students of religion and society. The book is permeated with the authoritativeness that marks all Dr. Frazier’s writings.

Unintentionally, the second book in review here illustrates what Frazier’s research reveals—the influence of the Negro church in the life of the Negro in the United States. The Story of the National Baptists is a popular and well-written history of the National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Inc. The vision and aspirations of the pioneers of the original National Baptist Convention are recounted. The author goes on to discuss the growing conflicts in Baptist ranks that resulted in a second national Negro Baptist body, the National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Inc., and to describe the work of this convention’s boards and commissions.

This book, whose story is in some ways seriously fragmented, points up Dr. Frazier’s observation that the Negro church became the one stable institution through which the early Negro could develop his own leadership in religion, business, and group welfare and face the necessity of building his own social and cultural life.

JESSE JAI MCNEIL

Book Briefs

The World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, 2 volumes (Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1963, 2,265 pp., $50.20). Prepared in cooperation with the staff of the World Book Encyclopedia, and geared particularly to the user of that encyclopedia, with graded directions for extending the vocabulary and for writing properly. Beautifully bound, modern syllabication, clear readable print. A fine dictionary for the student.

What Can a Man Do?, by Milton Mayer (University of Chicago, 1964, 310 pp., $5). A brilliant journalist writes with wit and astute observation about many things, including morals and religion.

The Missionary Emphasis of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, by William J. Hopewell (Regular Baptist Press, 1963, 153 pp., $2.75).

The Thunder of Bare Feet, by J. Wallace Hamilton (Revell, 1964, 160 pp., $2.95). A clergyman looks at the revolution occuring among the masses and with a sparkling style counters the Communistic with the Christian answer.

The Quest for Catholicity: The Development of High Church Anglicanism, by George Tavard (Herder and Herder, 1964, 227 pp., $5.95). Roman Catholic Tavard’s historical study of “catholicity” in the Anglican church as it developed from the Reformation to the beginning of the present century.

The Living Word, by Stephen F. Olford (Moody, 1963, 58 pp., $1.75). Three evangelical essays on the pre-existent, the creative, and the incarnate Word.

In Praise of Saint Paul, by St. John Chrysostom (Daughters of St. Paul, 1963, 123 pp., $2). Seven sermons on Paul by Chrysostom.

In the Midst of Plenty: The Poor in America, by Ben H. Bagdikian (Beacon Press, 1964, 207 pp., $4.50). A plea for the needy, sick, young, unemployed, and aged in affluent America.

The Art of Illustrating Sermons, by Ian McPherson (Abingdon, 1964, 219 pp., $3.50). A discussion about sermon illustrations that is as practical as you can get.

The Church, by Giovanni Battista Cardinal Montini, now Pope Paul VI (Helicon, 1964, 232 pp., $5.50). Ten essays that declare what the Roman Catholic Church is and what it is not.

Religion and Social Conflict, edited by Robert Lee and Martin E. Marty (Oxford, 1964, 193 pp., $5). Lectures given at the Institute of Ethics and Society at San Francisco Theological Seminary. For students only.

Doubt’s Boundless Sea: Skepticism and Faith in the Renaissance, by Don Cameron Allen (Johns Hopkins, 1964, 272 pp., $5.95). A discussion of atheism by an author who feels—or fears—that atheism is the deep fear of the orthodox Christian believer.

Variations on a Theme, by Winfred E. Garrison (Bethany Press, 1964, 208 pp., $3.50). A kind of high-caliber cracker-barrel musings on many things by a sharp thinker and good writer who will not be remembered for any great fidelity to the Scriptures.

Who Brought the Word (Wycliffe Bible Translators, 1963, 130 pp., $4.95). The Wycliffe Bible Translators’ own story in picture and word of how they are reaching earth’s remote tribes with the Gospel.

Memorial Messages, by R. Earl Allen (Broadman, 1964, 96 pp., $1.95). Sixteen funeral meditations that are more than poetic recitals about flowers.

Ministers of Christ: A Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, by Joh. P. Meyer (Northwestern Publishing House, 1963, 326 pp., $5). A fine commentary by a professor who has served the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary for forty-three years.

An Introduction to the Apocrypha: Based on the Revised Standard Version, by Bruce M. Metzger (Oxford, 1964, 274 pp., $7). A comprehensive but concise examination of the Apocrypha, their history and their significance.

To Number Our Days: An Autobiographical Memoir, by Pierre van Paassen (Scribners, 1964, 404 pp., $7.50). A famous Dutchman who can’t get all the religion out of his blood looks wide over life and in vigorous language writes what he sees and how he interprets it.

The Open Church: Vatican II, Act II, by Michael Novak (Macmillian, 1964, 370 pp., $6.50). A fascinating report with detailed coverage of the struggle to open up the Roman Catholic Church to the modern world.

Moral Philosophy, by Jacques Maritain (Scribners, 1964, 481 pp., $7.50). Renowned Roman Catholic Maritain turns his years and talent to present and critically evaluate the great moral philosophical systems of the past. A tremendous study for specialists and students.

The Neglected Factor, by Eric Baker (Abingdon, 1963, 112 pp., $2.25). A discussion of the Beatitudes to show that ethics are an integral part of Christian life and thought.

Personalities of the Old Testament, by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker, 1964, 151 pp., $2.50). Thirteen short sermons in the biblical tradition that will ignite ideas for the pastor’s own sermons. They are also good reading for laymen.

William Cowper is known to many only as the author of the words of the hymn “Praise for the Fountain Opened,” based on Zechariah 13:1. But he wrote a significant number of hymns and religious poems, and even his secular poetry frequently reveals his personal faith in Christ’s redemptive power. The gentle piety and humanitarianism of his poetry appealed to many readers among the Anglican evangelicals and the Methodists of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But the quiet warmth of his verse was a marked contrast to the inner turmoil of his life. Obsessed by fears of failure, Cowper suffered a mental breakdown that terminated his preparation for a legal career in London. He was forced to spend the rest of his life in rural retirement.

During the period following his collapse, he was slowly able to gain a sense of inward confidence and hope under the guidance of his Christian physician. In a letter to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, dated July 4, 1765, Cowper describes the peace he experienced after reading the third chapter of Romans:

How naturally does affliction make us Christians! And how impossible it is, when all human help is in vain, and the whole earth too poor and trifling to furnish us with one moment’s peace—how impossible is it then to avoid looking at the Gospel! It gives me some concern, though at the same time it increases my gratitude, to reflect, that a convert made in Bedlam is more likely to be a stumbling-block to others than to advance their faith.

Two main aspects of Cowper’s religious faith are brought out in this quotation. He often felt the peaceful confidence and serenity expressed in the opening two sentences. At other times, however, especially after fits of madness, he was assailed by doubts and fears of being “a stumbling-block,” actually believing he had been cast off by God for committing the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost.

Some critics have felt that Cowper’s strict religious beliefs were the cause of his neuroses; but the happiest years of his life were spent under the influence of his pious friends—the family of the evangelical clergyman, Morely Unwin, with whom he lived, and the fervent converted slave-trader and neighboring clergyman, John Newton. These friends did their best to keep Cowper occupied in order to prevent recurrences of his fits of depression and madness. They encouraged him to write poetry, and this poetry is the best answer to those who blame Cowper’s mental problems on his religious faith. For the poetry gives a clear picture of his religious faith, a picture that is sometimes clouded when one reads the details of his life.

Cowper collaborated with Newton on the Olney Hymns (1779), a collection popular among the Methodists and other Non-conformists. Most of Cowper’s sixty-seven contributions were based upon Bible verses; “Walking with God,” for example, takes its opening line from Genesis 5:24: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” The poet’s periods of religious doubt are reflected in several places, such as stanza two:

Where is the blessedness I knew

When first I saw the Lord?

Where is the soul-refreshing view

Of Jesus and his word?

But the hymn illustrates how Cowper resolves his doubt as he progresses from stanza to stanza until he finally discovers the assurance he seeks:

So shall my walk be close with God,

Calm and serene my frame:

So purer light shall mark the road

That leads me to the Lamb.

His fits of insanity made Cowper realize how much he needed a close relation to the Lord. In a hymn entitled “Dependence” he attacks those who overconfidently boast of their faith:

Beware of Peter’s word,

Nor confidently say,

“I never will deny thee, Lord,”

But, “Grant I never may!”

Cowper had a very real sense of humility and recognized how far his own ways were from those of God. In “Jehovah Our Righteousness” he shatters the bubble of human merit:

Let others in the gaudy dress

Of fancied merit shine;

The Lord shall be my righteousness,

The Lord forever mine.

In writing these hymns, the poet sought the Scriptures for an answer to his religious doubts and mental turmoils. That these lines are forged in the furnace of bitter experience has made them come alive to generations of Christians. Cowper feels he is an unworthy recipient of divine favor and searches for assurance. In “Praise for the Fountain Opened,” Christ’s forgiveness of the crucified repentant thief gives him renewed confidence.

Lord, I believe thou hast prepared

(Unworthy though I be)

For me a blood-bought free reward,

A golden harp for me!

The deep spiritual thirst the poet feels can be compared to that expressed in Psalm 42:1: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” The same sense of urgency can be seen in “My Soul Thirsteth For God.” The poet demands to be flooded because the plant that represents his spiritual life is dying.

Dear fountain of delight unknown!

No longer sing below the brim;

But overflow and pour me down

A living and life-giving stream!

Partial measures will not suffice; this must be a complete cleansing experience. He asks the fountain to “overflow and pour me down” much as in the hymn “Praise for the Fountain Opened” sinners must be “plunged beneath that flood.” Cleansing streams or fountains are frequently used images in Cowper’s hymns. “The Covenant” describes God’s grace as a flowing stream “to wash … filthiness away, and “Dependence” defines grace as “the living stream” supplied by “the Lord’s unsparing hand.”

The Christian faith of Cowper is expressed in his secular poetry as well as in his religious verse. The poem Conversation contains a paraphrase of Luke’s account of Christ and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, which is praised as an illustration of good dialogue.

Now theirs was converse, such as it behooves

Man to maintain, and such as God approves:

Their views indeed were indistinct and dim,

But yet successful, being aim’d at him.

Christ and his character their only scope,

Their object, and their subject, and their hope.…

The Task was written during a period of depression after Cowper had complained to a charming friend, Lady Austen, that he had no subject to write about. She suggested he write a poem about the sofa in his parlor, and he used this as an occasion for a long meditative poem in blank verse. In it are many vivid descriptions of landscape and natural scenery that have led literary critics to label Cowper a preromantic poet. However, Cowper is careful to make it very clear that he is no pantheist—God is not in the mountain, tree, or flower. In Book VI he states that “Nature is but the name for an effect/Whose cause is God.” Cowper talks of many subjects, both religious and secular, in The Task. But his own religious position is clearly stated, especially in Book VI, in which he describes the millennial kingdom and inveighs against the false clergy of his generation.

Cowper’s religious poetry illustrates how he frequently was able to find assurance in periods of doubt and anguish through the words of Scripture. Far from being the cause of his neuroses, his faith was a source of refuge and comfort, and the resolution of many fears can be seen in the poetic movement of his hymns. In his secular poetry, Cowper makes it very clear that he feels Christian faith is necessary in every aspect of life. Many of the problems of his generation are attributed to the sycophantic clergy who deny the Godhead and preach Christ as a man. And it is Book III of The Task that contains the most poignant poetical statement of Cowper’s personal religious experience, his own encounter with Christ:

I was a stricken deer, that left the Herd

Long since; with many an arrow deep infixed

My panting side was charged, when I withdrew

To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.

There was I found by one who had Himself

Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore,

And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.

With gentle force soliciting the darts,

He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live.

The Pennsylvania State University

University Park, Pennsylvania

Freedom is a heritage—a priceless one—but where it is not understood, it may be lost. On the Fourth of July the American people ought not only to celebrate their freedom but also to give some thought to its source and nature.

Freedom is the power of self-determination. This power of self-determination is a dimension of the human spirit. Freedom, therefore, is not the absence of authority but a peculiar form of its exercise. A free man is not one who does whatever his whims dictate but one who determines the character and the direction of his life. He governs himself. The Book of Proverbs describes the free man as one who governs his spirit, and it asserts that such a man is better than he who takes a city. A free society is a people that determines the form and the function of its government and of the structures of its social life.

Since freedom is an aspect of the human spirit, no people on the face of the earth is wholly devoid of freedom. So long as men remain in control of their spirits, they are a threat to every form of totalitarian government. Collectivistic governments are aware of this and therefore attempt to control the spirits of men, to determine the form, direction, and goal of their lives.

Americans ought to know and appreciate the singular glory of their tradition of liberty. They should know and remember with excitement that their experiment in creating a free government and a free society was the first such democratic experiment in the whole of human history. The ancient Greeks experimented with democratic city-states, but even this limited experiment in democracy was built on the foundation of slavery. It is actually true that the experiment in liberty that produced the free American society and its free government had never before been attempted by any people anywhere.

National liberty, however, is not free. It is bought with a price and maintained at the cost of continuous vigilance. We are always in danger of having it taken from us, and wars are the price we have sometimes paid to retain it. It is a sobering thought that our free way of life has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of America’s young men. Even today this price is being paid in Viet Nam. We are free because some men die. Remembering this, a people that is more free than any other people on earth ought to celebrate the Fourth of July thoughtfully and with a measure of sobriety.

The greatest danger to our national freedom, however, is not from the threat that comes from without but from that which arises within. Freedom is that quality of the human spirit that desires to exercise self-determination. The free man wants to take care of himself, make his own decisions, shape his own life, make his own living. Only insofar as he cannot care for himself, his family, his future does he look to his city, his state, his national government for aid. Similarly, he wants his city and his state to rule themselves by their own acts of self-government. To the extent that he surrenders his powers of self-determination to his city, to his state, to his national government, he surrenders his freedom.

An even greater threat to true freedom is that corruption and debilitation of spirit whereby men lose the ability to rule their own spirits. When this happens, men have lost the power to govern themselves. This has come about through human sin, with the result that men have become the victims of their own habits and weaknesses of their lusts and passions; and it constitutes a profound threat to a democratic form of government. Freedom means self-determination, and democratic government is self-government. Democratic governments as free societies can endure only so long as their citizens retain the ability to govern their own spirits. The society that loses self-discipline cannot long retain a form of free self-government. It is of the essence of a democracy that certain areas of life not be covered by laws. When, for example, obscenity in books and movies must be governed by a network of legislation because society has lost the moral power of self-discipline, the democratic society is losing its freedom.

It is at this point that Christianity has made, and must continue to make, its profound contribution to free society. There are forces within and outside the human spirit that bring it into bondage. In biblical thought, these forces making for bondage are sin and its uncontrollable passions. It is the message of Christianity that Jesus Christ alone can set men’s spirits free by delivering them from the power of individual and social sin, and from the ultimate threat of death.

Jesus said, “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” The Christian is the free man in Christ, and he is essentially free within his own spirit—which is the citadel of freedom—even if he lives in external” bondage. Christians in totalitarian societies are essentially free, as Paul was free in a Roman prison and John Bunyan in an English jail. A Christian is free even in a world of sin, as his confession and rejection of sin reveal. He is free even from death, in his liberating assurance of the resurrection and the life eternal. Through justification by faith he is a free man; being justified he is free to live. Because his past is canceled out, he has an authentic future.

Without Christianity, the grand, historic American experiment in democracy would not have been possible. The continuance of democracy in America depends on the degree to which Christianity flourishes in our land. Our liberty as a free society is grounded in religious freedom. As our national hymn asserts, God is the “author of liberty.”

Freedom is a deep and mysterious thing. It belongs to the very essence of the spirit of man. Misused, it turns into bondage. If it is to be understood, it can be understood only in terms of itself. The ground of freedom—by God’s creation and redemption—lies in itself. Freedom, therefore, presupposes itself. In its deepest aspects one cannot obtain it; one can only possess it. To have freedom, one must be free. It is, therefore, a gift from God—one that comes through Christ. For as Paul said, “For freedom did Christ make you free.”

As we celebrate our national freedom, let us think through the depths of the source and nature of our freedom until we see that every form of our freedom is grounded on that freedom which Christ alone can give. Where this is acknowledged, we can sing with confidence, “Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light.”

Peril On The Highways

With the approach of July Fourth, Americans need to think beyond the commemoration of battles and heroes. Recent history presses hard upon the national consciousness a form of blood-letting unforeseen in 1776. On Independence Day we celebrate our liberty and remember those who lived and died for it. In the Revolutionary War some 4,435 gave their lives in battle. But in our weekend celebration the number of traffic fatalities alone will come to between 450 and 550, according to the estimate of the National Safety Council. Thus it takes at the present rate only about nine annual celebrations of our independence to incur fatalities equivalent to the number who died in the war itself.

The gruesome irony does not end there. Last Memorial Day weekend 431 persons were killed on the roads. We were commemorating the fighting men who gave their last full measure. And they were many: since 1917, 53,402 in World War I, 291,557 in World War II, and 33,629 in the Korean War. But in 1963 alone 43,600 of our people were killed in motor vehicle accidents. The total number of such accidents reached a staggering 11,500,000. They resulted in 1,600,000 disabling injuries. They cost $7.7 billion. Experience shows that even now we are enlarging these figures for the statistician who will be giving us a report in 1964.

Twenty-five centuries ago the prophet Habakkuk looked out over his land in the last days of Judah and cried unto God about the violence he saw. Today there is ground for believing that centuries hence our own era will be called “The Violent Age.” Some say that our Western civilization is in its death agonies. If it is, surely one of the signs is our callous unconcern for the carnage on our highways. A calamity taking 43,000 lives would go down in history. But we continue to kill tens of thousands on our roads with comparatively little concern.

A great nineteenth-century hymn voices the prayer:

O hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea.

We need now to pray as well for the many more in peril on the road, as automobiles in statistical effect assume the destructive capability of rockets.

Twenty years ago some 9,000 Allied fighting men died at Normandy for the cause of freedom, which was in the balances. For what did last year’s 43,000 traffic fatalities in this nation die? For a faster society? Must this toll be paid for the affluent society? Do we have to watch silently and helplessly? Are we to rationalize highway casualties into a kind of population control, albeit a heartbreaking and bloody one? And this in contrast to great strides in life-saving through the healing arts!

The social gospel has had surprisingly little to say about the problem. Yet we must ask what implications the Gospel itself has in face of this social evil of increasingly stunning proportions. The Bible says that we hold the gift of life as stewards of God, its giver. A recovery of this truth would bring a needed reformation of Christian responsibility for safety on the highways. Christians are concerned, and rightly so, about civil rights. But what of the basic right to live? Life as God’s gift is precious beyond words. One who regards its extinction with apathy dishonors his Creator.

In recent months CHRISTIANITY TODAY has spoken editorially on the stewardship of life in connection with cigarettes and with alcohol. Concern for this kind of stewardship also points as a signpost to the highways. As we said in a previous editorial, special studies have indicated that as many as half the victims of fatal highway accidents had been drinking. One of the nation’s largest insurers of automobiles reports that over 80 per cent of traffic deaths and injuries can be traced directly to violations of rules of the road. Speeding and failure to yield right of way are also major causes.

Fatalism in the face of such a problem of our society as continuing carnage on the highways is a betrayal of the vigorous spirit which built that society. But there are ameliorating solutions. To see them we have but to look. Perhaps we should do well to look at a country like Norway with its strict regulations against drunken drivers. And why not? Has not a drinking driver turned himself into a potential killer, risking the lives of others for his own convenience—as well as risking his own life?

We need stricter traffic laws and stiffer penalties impartially enforced. Our civic leaders should lead in this area, and they should enjoy the enthusiastic support of their communities. The automobile industry should become involved in programs to awaken public conscience about safety and law enforcement. Additional safety devices must be developed. Seat belts alone, universally used, would save more than 5,000 lives annually.

With their God-given stewardship, Christians should be in the vanguard of such endeavors. The major finding of a test of airmen at the University of Colorado School of Medicine is that those who had suffered accidents were consistently less oriented toward religious values than those who had not. One psychiatrist declares that we drive as we live. Another suggests that speeding may be explained as the desire to recapture the delights of infancy, such as being rocked, tossed, or swung. Speed mania, he says, could be a form of belated revolt resulting from certain childhood problems never resolved.

The Christian is under divine mandate not to kill. But more, his is the priceless heritage of the law of love, which commands not only love for God but also love for neighbor equivalent to love for self. The most basic solution to traffic fatalities is changed men. And it is time for Christians to live like the changed men they profess to be. It seems that the acid test of the law of love in this century may well be located behind the steering wheel of a car. What is it about that wheel which seems to scrape off a code of ethics as one slides behind it? What strange alchemy in the driver’s seat transforms a gentleman into an egocentric menace? Does the traffic intersection negate the Pauline injunction: “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another”?

With traffic in mind, it would be well for Christians periodically to review the biblical teaching about love especially as it relates to the highways. Love is patient at intersections, and not envious of the driver who got through the light while we were left. It does not seek its own right of way, regardless of the other driver who reached the intersection first. It does not behave itself discourteously. It is not easily provoked, but bears even traffic snarls and endures mistakes that the best of drivers make. Even behind the steering wheel … love is kind.

The Kennedy Mementos

The drugstore in our office building sells a night-light for fifty cents. It is an ordinary night-light, about an inch and a half in diameter. What distinguishes it is the picture of John F. Kennedy on its surface. Advertised as an “Eternal Flame,” it will allegedly burn continuously for six years for about three cents per year.

Kennedy mementos are big business, if show windows in Washington are any indication. One person found the following articles on sale (in addition to the many books, magazines, records, and postcards): a demitasse and saucer; an ashtray with a picture of President Kennedy in the middle; a coffee mug; a beer mug; a miniature JFK rocking chair, with and without a figure of the President seated in it; a medallion incorrectly inscribed with the phrase that, in the inaugural speech, ran, “… ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” (on the medallion, the second “ask” was replaced by “but”). There were salt and pepper shakers, pitchers, plates, plaques, playing cards, busts, and picture puzzles. There was a “key to the city” with a representation of Mr. Kennedy and a “guaranteed thermometer.”

The distressing thing about these mementos is that one has to be reminded of something so inexpressibly sad in such vulgar and essentially loveless fashion. Perhaps the whole trend indicates a basic human inability to find suitable expression for feelings about death, especially when it is the death of someone whose life meant so much. Perhaps the customers at the drugstore counters who reach for these things they can hold in their hands arc really seeking something else: a way to gather up the fragments of a shattered image, or a message, a word of some kind.

In Christ, God has offered men the final word: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”