Page 5825 – Christianity Today (2024)

Harold O. J. Brown

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Change And Providence

“Creation, Evolution, and Molecular Biology” was the theme of the twenty-eighth annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation held at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. The ASA, founded in 1941 as a fellowship of scientists (a master’s or higher degree in a scientific field is required for full membership), has twin objectives: (1) “to investigate any area relating Christian faith and science,” and (2) “to make known the results of such investigations for comment and criticism by the Christian community and by the scientific community.” It has grown from five founding members in 1941 to nearly 2,000 today. Its magazine, the Journal of the ASA, has a circulation of 3,500.

The 1973 meeting was devoted largely to the implications of molecular biology, especially the work on the genetic code pioneered by Watson and Crick in 1953. Molecular biology appears to some scientists—for example, French Nobel-prize-winning biologist Jacques Monod, author of Chance and Necessity—to offer the key to a completely materialistic understanding of the universe.

Professor Robert L. Herrmann of the Boston University School of Medicine theorized that “with the date on the universality of the code and a theoretical framework for its origin, the description of life’s origins in a purely mechanistic sense would appear to lie within the grasp of modern molecular biology,” but insisted that the mechanistic explanation by no means excludes God’s creative and controlling activity: “The true picture is that God acts in all of Reality.… Science gives us the view of how life may have come about. Its view is descriptive, and does not in any ultimate way account for what it describes.”

In the discussions following the various lectures, a number of scientists objected to any suggestion that a mechanistic explanation now appears possible, to say nothing of probable. Professor Wayne Friar of the King’s College offered evidence from protein study indicating that despite evident similarities between life forms at the molecular level there are also irreducible differences, suggesting that there must be limits to the possibility of using evolutionary theory to explain the existing variety of living organisms.

ASA speakers and members seemed concerned to defend the legitimacy of theistic evolution as the process whereby God may well have carried out some of his Creation work, and many barbs were cast at the “creationist” or “fiat creationist” view maintained by, among others, members of the Creation Research Society. Most of the speakers on the program were concerned that Christians not read things into the Bible that in their view are not there, such as a six-(short) day Creation.

But when the Reverend Herman J. Eckelmann, pastor in Ithaca and engineer at the Cornell University Space Center, argued that “the Word of God never said God made the universe out of nothing,” he ran into vigorous opposition. Eckelmann’s position on creation ex nihilo, out of nothing, appears to be that while the doctrine is logically persuasive, Genesis does not explicitly teach it. A number of scholars contradicted him and argued that Genesis 1:1, in its context, can refer only to creation ex nihilo. Eckelmann contends that the Genesis report refers to God’s “causing the earth to bring forth” the various types of plant and animal life, a statement consistent with an evolutionary origin, but that it explicitly teaches the unique, special creation of Adam and Eve.

Several of the speakers made a point of testifying of their own conversion and personal faith and of their confidence in the Scripture as the infallible rule of faith and practice. The consensus appears to be that while all the members of the ASA repudiate a mechanistic or naturalistic interpretation of the origin of life, a majority of them argue that a theory of God-directed, theistic evolution is consistent with biblical teaching and fits scientific observations much better than the view that God created the various existing major life forms by instantaneous fiat.

Although several lecturers agreed with assertions from the floor that modern scientific evidence seems to call for a divine creative intelligence directing the evolutionary process in order to permit it to work, there was no suggestion that the battle should be carried to the materialists’ own camp on those grounds. Materialists should not be allowed to impose their views on others, but may preserve their own tranquility without being challenged by theists.

HAROLD O. J. BROWN

Assemblies Assemble

While maintaining their traditional objection to divorce, the Assemblies of God (AOG) have agreed to open their doors to divorced and remarried persons under a set of new proposals accepted by the denomination’s General Council in Miami last month.

The changes allow persons to join local assemblies even though their marriage relations may be “entangled.” Divorced and remarried persons will be allowed to serve in all functions of the church except pastor and deacon. Remarriage of divorced persons, while frowned on, may be permitted “under exceptional Circ*mstances,” said delegates, though a local pastor will not be required to perform such a ceremony if it would trouble his conscience.

In related matters, the nearly 3,000 delegates also approved leniency for ministers who have moral, spiritual, or monetary problems that embarrass the church. The thirty-fifth biennial council approved a program of rehabilitation rather than ouster when a minister shows a repentant attitude. An AOG clergyman who commits adultery or hom*osexual acts will now be placed on two-year suspension with counseling provided by his district presbytery. Those who habitually get into debt or who openly declare a change in doctrinal views will get a one-year suspension with an accompanying rehabilitation program.

In other actions, the council adopted resolutions objecting to sex-oriented radio talk shows and to “growing permissiveness” in television. Reelected general superintendent of the AOG was Thomas Zimmerman, superintendent since 1960. Delegates were told that the AOG had a growth rate of 9.9 per cent over the past two years—the largest increase since the 1950s—with a jump of 64,180. (The AOG now has a total membership of 710,000.) Additionally, overseas membership in ninety-one countries doubled over the past six years to nearly four million; officials predict it will top five million by 1975. Delegates were also told that 415 new churches were opened in the past two years, bringing the total to 8,871.

Crumbling Kingdom

He had tendered his resignation earlier this year, but Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader Ralph Abernathy emerged from the group’s Indianapolis convention still in charge of the faltering civil-rights movement.

The SCLC board of directors refused to accept his resignation last month, to the applause of some 1,000 delegates—and suggestions by opponents that Abernathy had never intended to step down but instead had lobbied hard for a new mandate as SCLC president.

Whatever Abernathy’s intentions, he is faced with a crumbling organization far removed from the heyday of Martin Luther King and the burgeoning civil-rights movement. Where once King commanded an organization that received more than $1 million in donations annually, Abernathy is faced with a $65,000 debt and few signs that immediate financial aid is forthcoming.

Support from both blacks and whites has dropped, and splits (Jesse Jackson left after a spat and formed his own group, People United to Save Humanity, and at the last minute King’s widow, Coretta, decided not to attend the convention) further trouble the 16-year-old group.

Despite its mounting problems, however, the SCLC voted its top honor—the Martin Luther King, Jr., Award—to a white United Methodist minister, John P. Adams. He is the first white to receive the award. Adams, director of law, justice, and community relations for his church’s board of church and society, was described as a “middle man” in racial, campus, and political crises. (He was a liaison between police and protesters in Newark, Detroit, and Milwaukee in 1967 and between the church and the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968, during which he and Abernathy were arrested for blocking sidewalks. Adams was also an intermediary during the recent Indian takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.)

In other actions, the convention approved its first major reorganization since King’s death by appointing five regional vice-presidents and regional directors plus a full-time executive director for the Atlanta headquarters.

The Good News Is Gaining

The Good News Movement seems to be here to stay. Although a number of evangelical lobbies in the liberally dominated mainline denominations are struggling, the “Forum for Scriptural Christianity within the United Methodist Church” showed growing vitality at its fourth annual convocation, held last month at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. A record number of more than 2,000 persons attended. Strategists and theoreticians unveiled the first of a series of articulate position papers that observers understood as a repudiation of sheer polemic in favor of constructive input. Good News leaders are calling a special consortium to discuss the declining number of United Methodist missionaries and the substitution of social programs for overseas evangelism.

Perpetuating Presbyterianism

Depending on your point of view, either a new denomination will come into being or an old one will be revived when the first or constituting General Assembly of the Continuing Presbyterian Church (CPC) meets December 4 in Birmingham, Alabama.

The call for the assembly came from churchmen who attended a three-day “advisory convention” in Asheville, North Carolina, last month. They came mostly from congregations that have voted to sever ties with the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. because of theologically liberal trends in that denomination.

The Continuing Presbyterian Church movement was credited with a following of more than 200 congregations with a combined membership of 40,000.

Those who attended the Asheville meeting acted in effect as a committee making recommendations to the forthcoming assembly. The proposals include adoption of doctrinal standards (certain versions of the Westminster Confession of Faith with Larger and Shorter Catechisms and the 1933 PCUS Book of Church Order).

- More fromHarold O. J. Brown

Barrie Doyle

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Long before Bible prophecy books hit the bookstands with dire predictions about coming famines, a major drought and famine was in the making in central west Africa. This year, after five years without appreciable rain and repeated crop failures, a famine of immense proportions has struck at the agriculture-based economies of eight sub-Sahara nations. A death toll of some six million people may result by November, according to one United Nations estimate.

Church and missionary relief agencies have already begun gearing up for what no doubt will be one of the longest emergency relief operations in recent years.

Abandoned villages, children with bloated bellies, and the rotting carcases of millions of head of cattle are mute testimony to the extent of the famine, which affects the nations of Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger Republic, Senegal, Sudan and Upper Volta. The emergency area spreads across 2,600 miles of parched, dust-laden land south of the Sahara desert, stretching across the African continent from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA), the World Relief Commission (WRC) of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Assemblies of God, Food for the Hungry (FFH), and Church World Service (CWS) of the National Council of Churches are among the groups engaged in relief work in the affected area.

Said WRC administrative vice-president George Doud: “This is probably the worst disaster we’ve faced. Certainly it’s the most widespread.” He called the current drought and famine “a creeping giant” that rose up through many years of meager rainfall, cattle overgrazing, and poor agricultural planning. Although the area has a long history of drought cycles, authorities on the spot say the current one is the worst ever.

Water holes and rivers have dried up. Dust storms and insects provide what little movement there is on the landscape. Millions of sheep, cattle, and goats—a mainstay of the national economies and the only source of livelihood for many of the nomadic tribesmen of the area—have already died. A South African bush pilot, after flying over parts of Niger and Mali, told Food for the Hungry president Larry Ward that dead cattle dotted the landscape “in multiplied thousands.” Ward, who spent two weeks in Senegal, Mali, and Upper Volta, is now scouring North America for food donations from manufacturers.

More than 25 million people—mostly nomads—are affected by the famine and related diseases. Sanitation facilities are strained to the limit in the few cities in the area as hordes of refugees flee the villages for government food-distribution centers. The number of people who have died is virtually impossible to estimate because of the nomadic way of life of many of the victims.

In fabled Timbuktu, thousands of nomads are pouring into a Malian government refugee camp. But some authorities say they may have waited too long. Malnutrition and disease have gripped many to the point that food now available may not save them. The camp is one of several government centers located in Mali’s Sixth Region—a desert area twice the size of France. Refugees are entering the camp at a rate of 100 per day, with the current camp population set at over 7,500—all totally dependent on government hand-outs. To date, Mali categorizes some 250,000 as refugees.

The drought also brought a further problem—the Sahara. As formerly productive areas burn up in the searing heat, the desert moves in. In some places, said Doud, the Sahara is moving south and claiming land at a rate of fourteen miles per year. This makes prospects for rehabilitating the land extremely poor, he pointed out. (The affected nations are listed by the U. N. as among the poorest in the world. Money to fight the Sahara will be hard to come by.)

As a result, said Doud, emergency relief—the job of providing food, medicine, and water to keep people alive—may continue for several years and then be followed by long-term redevelopment aid. “There is little or no hope for the 1973 crop,” he said, “so that even a year from now there will be no significant differences in the problem.” Even with normal rainfall, he added, it will take three to five years to get the area back on an even keel. “The evangelical community must be prepared for years of appeals for funds.”

Hitherto, evangelicals have been slow getting behind the agency. By late August, after six weeks of appeals, the agency had netted only $2,000 to send to Africa. It has budgeted, and expects to receive, up to $23,000 more in the immediate future. CWS, meanwhile, has already shipped nearly 250,000 tons of food and medical supplies valued at close to $100,000. Evangelist Billy Graham donated the offering from the final service of his Minneapolis crusade—more than $71,000 (see August 10 issue, page 29). And associate evangelist Howard O. Jones is making an assessment visit to the region.

Even if agencies can provide immediate relief, however, the conditions for future famines will remain unless the agencies start long-term redevelopment relief. Among proposed projects are livestock feeding stations, breeding programs for livestock, reforestation programs to reclaim overgrazed land, and rehabilitation of Sahara-claimed land.

“We’re just beginning,” Doud said of WRC’s relief work. “We’ve got to help host nations develop new techniques to break the drought cycle.”

Despite the widespread hunger, mission boards and denominations say their staffs are little affected materially. “Their biggest problem is empathy with those around them,” said Kerry Lovering, editor of SIM’s Africa Now. “They have so much while others have so little. They’re giving away everything they have.”

SIM, which has fifty-three missionaries in Niger, twenty-nine in Upper Volta, and more than 300 in Ethiopia, is operating food-distribution centers in cooperation with the various governments.

At Tahoua and Maradi, in Niger, the mission put several staff members on full-time famine relief. Also, at Maradi, staffers at the mission-run agricultural school are cooperating with government officials on long-range plans to break the drought cycle. Included are new irrigation methods, deep-well digging, and reforestation projects. The mission also opened food centers at Alamata and Mai Chau in the heart of the worst hit areas of Ethiopia. Every day at Alamata, says Lovering, about ten people die from starvation and related causes.

CMA missionaries on the scene appealed to denominational headquarters to supply food rather than money. And, says a CMA spokesman, the denomination is negotiating with American farmers for the food. (However, food shortages in the United States and elsewhere in the world are hampering efforts by all agencies. Several officials whose agencies depend on the availability of government food resources say the situation is “calamitous.”) Cash for CMA grain purchases will come from the more than $5,000 raised by the Alliance Witness in an appeal to denominational supporters.

CMA staff, who operate in Mali and Upper Volta, report too that seed crops failed twice this year, and hopes for a third crop of millet and rice rest on the slender hope that sparse July rains provided enough water. In addition, they report that all available seed grain in the two countries was used up in the aborted plantings and by starving farmers who ate the seed instead of sowing it.

There are evangelistic overtones to the crisis. Muslims and missionaries are working together on relief projects, and missionaries are finding that many of the area’s inhabitants are now more curious about Christianity. Ward reports that national Christians are carrying sacks of food to the neediest families in several villages, telling recipients that the food comes “in the name of Jesus.”

Not even 5 per cent of the people profess any form of Christianity in the Muslim-dominated region. According to figures compiled by various evangelical agencies, fewer than 5 per cent of Chad’s 3.5 million people are Christians. With eighty-two missionaries in the land-locked country that means one missionary for every 42,000 people. Similar figures hold true for the other affected nations. Mali has forty-five Protestant missionaries serving a Protestant population of 8–10,000 in a nation of more than five million. Catholic followers number roughly 20,000 in this former French colony. Few figures are available on Mauritania, although estimates suggest that less than 0.5 per cent of the population is Christian.

While mission boards and relief agencies rush food to government staging areas (primarily Dakar, the Atlantic seaport capital of Senegal) they are running into severe problems in trying to get supplies to the interior. Poor roads, a lack of trucks, and too few railroads have caused some congestion of supplies in Dakar. And what little rain has fallen recently has fouled up the dirt roads more than it has alleviated the water shortage, one glum missionary told a Western newspaper reporter. On top of this, political complications have caused log jams.

Food airlifts began earlier this year when the U. S. and Belgian air forces started flying supplies from Dakar to devastated areas of Mali and Niger. The U. S. Agency for International Development (AID) supplied 150,000 metric tons of food grains and said another 100,000 tons were on the way. (AID predicted the famine in July, 1972, and began stockpiling supplies, said Doud.)

Meanwhile, agencies are faced with the tough job of financing their relief efforts. Already strained appeal channels may be hard to keep open in the face of the long-term money need ahead. In the five years since the drought began, relief agencies pumped up aid for Biafra, Bangladesh, the Peruvian and Nicaraguan earthquakes, and continuing famine in India.

And those prophecy books say the worst is yet to come.

- More fromBarrie Doyle

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This column by the late Executive Editor ofCHRISTIANITY TODAYis reprinted from the October 25, 1963, issue.

We usually associate Abraham with faith, and rightly so. He is spoken of as the “father of the faithful,” and three different religions claim him as such.

The Apostle Paul argued justification by faith on the basis of Abraham’s imputed righteousness, the result of his unquestioning belief in God and His promises.

Martin Luther stood immovable on the affirmation, “The just shall live by faith,” and this sublime truth became a cornerstone of the Reformation.

We Christians rejoice in the fact that we are saved by faith, not works; that it is the pure grace of God through faith on our part which makes us whole.

But strange to say we often overlook the necessity for obedience. Obedience is faith in action. What validity can there be in a profession of faith that is not confirmed by obedience to the will of God? Are there not many Christians who are living in a state of suspended spiritual animation, truly accepting Christ as Saviour, but living without obedience to his revealed will and therefore never having him as the active Lord of life?

Years ago, Saul, king of Israel, disobeyed God, saving some of the spoils of a victory even though he had been commanded to destroy all. His excuse: he had preserved the best of the flocks to be used for a sacrifice to God.

But we read: “And Samuel said [to Saul], Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to harken than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. 15:22).

Many a Christian is covering up disobedience under the false front of supposedly Christian activity. We fool ourselves by deliberately disobeying God and engaging in frantic work for the Church or some other Christian cause, thinking our duplicity is unnoticed by God.

The Bible is full of references to obedience, of the importance of man’s recognizing God’s authority and submitting to it. But there is entirely too little said nowadays about obedience as an integral part of the Christian faith. The confession of the lips and belief in the heart must be validated by obedience of the will.

God is sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Such attributes should in themselves elicit obedience. For where he is sovereign, we are dependent; where he is omniscient, we are ignorant; where he is omnipotent, we are powerless; where he is omnipresent, we are limited by time, space, and circ*mstance. Furthermore, despite the grandeur of his Person as Creator, he deals with us, his creatures, with infinite love and patience. Certainly at no point are we more foolish than in our disobedience.

Little wonder that we Christians repeatedly find ourselves in difficult situations! Living in rebellion to God’s perfect will, we bypass him and go our own ways—only to meet frustration and defeat. Even animals can be taught obedience to commands or gentle pressures. But we stubbornly take the bit in our own teeth and then complain because of difficulties that are the natural result of our own disobedience.

Obedience has its reward, now and for eternity. Disobedience is deadly, its effect going on forever. We live in an age of disobedience. Delinquency, adult and juvenile, stems from a willful rejection of the laws of God in favor of one’s own way.

Obedience requires knowledge of God’s will, faith in his goodness, and confidence in his promises. The Bible is wonderfully explicit in many areas and in others lays down principles that are to guide our lives. Obedience therefore requires knowledge of and faith in the written Word.

Our problem is not so much to know what the will of God for us may be as to be willing to obey that will. God has not left himself without a witness; by clear and direct leading of the Holy Spirit, in Bible study, during prayer, through contacts with others, by combinations of circ*mstances, God makes his will known. But knowing his will, what are we doing about it?

We started this discussion with Abraham as an example of faith. From his faith there proceded an obedience that in turn led to a promise and a covenant, “because thou hast obeyed my voice.” Who can fully imagine the anguish of Abraham’s heart when he was told to offer his son as a sacrifice? But the writer of Hebrews describes his faith in these words: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure” (Heb. 11:17–19).

Here faith and obedience are so intermingled no one can say where the one began and the other ended. Abraham’s confidence, his assurance, his faith acted to effect an obedience which God honored, both for Abraham’s good and for His own glory.

We should search our own hearts to find out whether we are holding back something we should be yielding to God in obedience. God is never unreasonable, nor does he ever make a mistake. Although we readily acknowledge this fact as a concept of God, we often deny it in practice.

Obedience is a matter of outward action and of inward discipline. There are many things we should do or not do in the realm of personal habits and interpersonal relations, but obedience also involves something more. Paul writes: “Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defense that men erect against the true knowledge of God. We even fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4, 5, Phillips).

Authority! Authority demands obedience, and that is where we fail. We confess Christ as Saviour, but we deny his authority to command our obedience to his will.

For Christians this should be a matter of deep concern, for peace of heart and mind, along with usefulness in the work of God’s kingdom, is at stake. We cannot prosper in our spiritual lives so long as we are disobedient to God’s revealed will. Nor can he use us for his glory while we knowingly live in a state of rebellion.

Obedience is a matter of sanctification, of growing in our knowledge and performance of God’s will. At times it involves taking a step in the dark; but that matters little, for the One who commands is also the One who will guide and strengthen, and out of obedience there surely comes the outpouring of God’s blessings—blessings reserved for the obedient heart and will. L. NELSON BELL

Carl F. H. Henry

Be A Christian

“It’s sorta hokey—but interesting,” I said ambiguously, as I put the record on the stereo. I’m always ambiguous when I’m not sure of my judgment.

As the record ended my wife said, “I like it.” Self-doubt and ambivalence are not her problems.

The subject of our comments was a record received in response to my lament about the lack of singable contemporary Christian music that appeared in this space some months ago.

The album, “Be a Christian,” is the work of Mrs. Barbara Sowell, a black folk singer and wife of a Mennonite pastor. (Are there black Mennonites?)

The songs are certainly singable. One reason is that well-known tunes are used for much of the album.

In Mrs. Sowell’s hands the theme for television’s “Petticoat Junction” becomes:

There’s a mansion in the sky

In the sweet by-and-by

For the Christian.

In the Bible it is told

Heaven’s streets are made of gold

For the Christian.

It’s a land so bright and fair,

If you want to meet me there

Be a Christian.

The pop blues song “Gonna Get Along Without You Now” becomes a rebuke to the devil:

So from Adam the curse of death came to me

All because you tempted Eve

With that forbidden tree.

You’re the beginning of lies

and you’re the author of hate

And for the lust of the eyes

You use the world as bait.

I got along without you before I met you

Gonna get along without you now. (Tell the Devil) …

The old jazz standard “Sweet Georgia Brown” is baptized into “Globetrotter’s Theme”:

Let’s by the power of the Holy Ghost

Go tell Jesus saves,

Let’s get the Holy Ghost, run and tell

The world Jesus saves.

Tell them that he died for sinful men

He’ll give you vict’ry from the power of sin.

Let’s get the Holy Ghost, run and tell

The world that Jesus saves.

But my favorite among the collection is a long song based on Jesus’ healing of the Gadarene demoniac (Mark 5). Contrasting the Gadarenes’ love for ham with their disregard for humanity Mrs. Sowell has them lament:

I want my hogs, Lord. I do believe

Since you killed my hogs, Lord, that’s my pet peeve;

I like my chitlin barbecue cooked nice and brown,

Give back my hogs or leave this place before sundown.

The words of the songs alone do not carry the engaging charm with which Mrs. Sowell records them. Backup on the numbers is competently handled by The Rebirth.

The album was recorded by the Mennonite Broadcasts Studio, but the studio doesn’t seem to know where it’s available. If you’re interested, try Mrs. Sowell at 811 S. 15th Avenue, Maywood, Illinois.

EUTYCHUS V

WHAT IS ‘SPIRITUAL’

In “The Only Hope For World Evangelization” (July 20) David A. Womack overlooks an important task the Church must fulfill to be effective.… In Latin America at least, the cry today is that the Church lacks proper social concern and is developing a middle-class mentality similar to that in the United States. Is it really better that money which could be used to provide for orphans be used to preach the Gospel? To do so would leave time to be brought up without the Gospel. In many countries secular agencies are not meeting people’s needs, and orphans must beg on the streets. The Catholics in Colombia have a “City of the Children” where orphans live with couples who try to create a family atmosphere. Basic education and vocational training is provided, and the children tend gardens to help with their own food. This is the sort of thing which evangelicals should be doing.

According to Womack, the Church must prepare for a struggle with other philosophies. For that it will need an educated membership. Its actions will have had to demonstrate its right to speak. Good evangelism will not accompany religion that is less than pure (as defined in James 1:27). Furthermore, it is hypocritical to preach to people when we are unwilling to show concern in other ways. Of course, balance is needed, but it is not less spiritual to give for people’s physical needs than to fund preaching activities.

Bemidji, Minn.

TIMOTHY E. WILDER

THE LAST TO GO

After going carefully through Dr. Donald Macleod’s “A Bibliography For Christians: Preaching” in your August 10 issue, I could hardly believe one omission. That was the first edition of the Yale Lectures on Preaching by Henry Ward Beecher. Comprising the lectures of the first three years of the famous series, it is surely the most exhaustive and enlightening of all the Yale editions. Nor do I see Beecher’s name mentioned anywhere—incredible in view of the fact that not only has he been pronounced the greatest of all American preachers, but by many as the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul. If I had to part with every book in my library, the last to go would be Beecher’s Yale Lectures.

Manotick, Ontario

GERVIS BLACK

A resounding “thank you” for printing the bibliography on preaching by Donald Macleod. As one soon to graduate from seminary and as one who already loves the preaching task, I appreciate your saving me long hours in the card catalogues. At the risk of appearing presumptuous may I add one more title to Dr. Macleod’s bibliography: The Preacher’s Portrait (Eerdmans, 1961), by John R. W. Stott. By one who is known for his gifted preaching, the book “is a fresh look at some of the words employed by the New Testament to describe the preacher and his task.” The terms describing the preacher are a steward, a herald, a witness, a father, and a servant. Paul told Timothy, “Keep a critical eye both upon your own life and on the teaching you give …” (1 Tim. 4:16, Phillips). John Stott provides today’s preacher with God’s own critical eye of the person and content of preaching.

DARRELL W. JOHNSON

Pasadena, Calif.

TO MARKET

It’s time for more qualified Christians in the psychological market place. Andre Bustanoby’s article (The Minister’s Workshop, “Without These, Don’t Start,” July 20) indicates a step in the right direction—legitimate and practical psychology with an appropriate biblical emphasis.

Buena Park, Calif.

EVELYN GIBSON

CLARIFIES THE C.R.C.

James Daane’s account of the happenings at the Christian Reformed Church’s annual synod (News, August 10) contains an item which erroneously states that Dr. Leonard Greenway was elected “as president of the denomination.”

The Christian Reformed Church, unlike the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, does not elect someone to serve as president of the denomination. In the CRC the term “synod” denotes “major assembly” rather than “denomination” (as it does in the LCMS). Dr. Greenway was elected as president (presiding officer) of the CRC’s major assembly, which meets each year for ten days during the month of June. When the 1973 meetings of our synod were adjourned, Dr. Greenway returned to his vocation as pastor of the Riverside CRC of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In the CRC’s governmental structure there is no provision that allows for one elected to preside over its major assembly to exercise power and determine policy for the denomination (as Dr. Jacob A. O. Preus does in the LCMS). As a member of the CRC I appreciate the kind of polity we have, because it prevents the president of our synod from “throwing his weight around” in an autocratical, despotic manner.

Berwyn, Ill.

MARTIN LAMAIRE

• Apologies. The distinction was lost in the editing process.—ED.

A COMMENDATION

Your excellent report on the recently concluded convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (News, “Missouri Lutheran Showdown: The Battle of New Orleans,” August 10) contains one statement that may further agitate our troubled church body if it is not clarified. Your article states that “perhaps unknown to the presidents” our Commission on Theology and Church Relations and the Seminary Issues Committee “were at work as early as February drafting the devastating statements that emerged in New Orleans.”

The Commission on Theology and Church Relations (which, as a standing board of the church, is to be distinguished from the convention committee on theology and church relations) was not at work in February or at any other time drafting statements for the convention. All resolutions presented to the convention were prepared by convention committees. Moreover, while the convention committees on theology and church relations and on seminary issues both held preliminary meetings several weeks prior to the convention, as our major convention committees frequently do, these meetings were not “unknown” nor were they held “as early as February.”

CHRISTIANITY TODAY and Ed Plowman are to be commended for the very fair and perceptive coverage of our convention actions.

RALPH A. BOHLMANN

Executive Secretary

Commission on Theology and Church

Relations

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod St. Louis, Mo.

Unfreedom Of Speech In The U. S. S. R.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn could teach us a thing or two about responsible dissent. In a recent interview with Associated Press and Le Monde of Paris, the celebrated author said he feels the cause of individual freedom in the Soviet Union is at a low ebb. He told of threats on his life and continued harassment. He denounced the tactics used by the government to silence criticism. Yet he has continued to persevere within the system. He has been prophetic in the best contemporary sense of that term without returning evil for evil.

Solzhenitsyn also helped Americans put their current domestic problems into better perspective: “It is strange to hear that in some places arguments take place about whether the President has a right to order electronic bugging equipment installed for the defense of military secrets of his country. And a man who has leaked such secrets even gets vindication in court. But in our country, any person who once loudly voices an opinion contrary to the official one is considered guilty even without trial.”

Anxiety Among The Lascivious?

In a recent issue, Der Spiegel, the most influential publication in West Germany, devoted several columns to what it calls a worldwide “Revolt of the Prudes.” Of course the landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court permitting the restriction of p*rnographic publications and films was cited, but Der Spiegel’s ferret-like researchers did not overlook even the fulminations of the sheriff of rural Albermarle County, Virginia, against Playboy magazine in chronicling what they consider a mass movement of “prudes” the world over to suppress certain of the grosser forms of p*rnography. Against these “prudes,” Spiegel “reports” in favor of p*rnography, that it “macht Spass” (provides fun) and, even more significantly, brings in money by the barrel.

We are not entirely surprised that Der Spiegel, like many other profit-hungry mass-communications enterprises, vehemently opposes this particular example of “legislating morality” (although it endorses many others). After all, p*rnography and its trappings make not only Spass but a great deal of money for the media. But it is a bit surprising that Der Spiegel can see nothing but prudishness behind what it admits is a growing, worldwide feeling of disgust. Can religion, ethics, psychology, and criminal law provide no arguments worth mentioning in a news magazine? It is certainly not absurd to suggest that p*rnography may have contributed to the recently discovered hom*osexual torture murders in Texas, as it evidently did to the celebrated Moor murders in Britain a few years ago.

It might be thought less than fair if we characterized the near-hysteria of communications czars and certain intellectuals over the Supreme Court decision as “anxiety among the lascivious.” We are willing to recognize that opposition to censorship of p*rnography is not necessarily motivated by lasciviousness or greed. And we would like to see the pro-p*rnographers admit that some people may in fact support restrictions for reasons more substantial than mere “prudery.”

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Grain shortages, high prices, prolonged famine in West Africa—Christians are vividly reminded of one of the principal petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. All men are dependent upon God for their daily bread. Many do not acknowledge it. Many do so only perfunctorily. But we dare not take it lightly. At any time the planet is only a season away from famine. Up to now blights and pestilence, flooding and drought have never been simultaneously universal. But the number of food-exporting countries, never large, is shrinking. Countries that were formerly self-sufficient are now heavy importers. Government policies, meant to help, seem to end up harming more often than not. We cannot take for granted that we will always have an adequate supply of food. Like the rain that falls beneficially on both the just and unjust, so when famine strikes, the just as well as the unjust suffer.

An Experience To Pass Up

Pan American World Airways, which likes to bill itself as “the world’s most experienced airline,” has begun giving evidence that not all its “experience” is pertinent to its business of transporting people safely and comfortably. According to an Associated Press report, the airline now offers “a new service for passengers—printed cards telling how and where to meet prostitutes in New York, London, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam.” If PanAm ever goes bankrupt, we imagine that the epitaph John wrote for whorish Babylon might aptly be uttered for the great corporation: “The merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls … horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls” (Rev. 18:11–13). That kind of “experience” we don’t consider a recommendation.

Lord, When Did We See Thee Hungry?

Addressing a luncheon group in Washington, ex-Communist author Nathaniel Weyl (Red Star Over Cuba, The Jew in American Politics) predicted that the United States would continue its present policy of supplying foodstuffs to the Soviet Union, because the U. S. S. R. is an immensely powerful nation and we have some interest in keeping it tranquil. But Africa, he lamented, has little to offer us and will probably be allowed to starve.

At the present time, millions of Africans are starving, and—with a few laudable exceptions—very little is being done about it by affluent Americans. The Africans, unlike West Europeans and Japanese, have no hard money with which to pay for our food; unlike the Russians, they do not have the power that makes us deem it prudent to supply them with government subsidized grain. And—also unlike the Europeans, Japanese, and Russians—without generous help they will not merely go a bit hungry. They will starve to death by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.

Most Christians in America today—like most other Americans—are concerned about the rapidly rising cost of quality, convenience, and gourmet foods, as well as of staples. But very few of us are in serious danger of having to do without the basics. There is a lot of fat in most Americans’ food budget, which could be trimmed and the savings spent for food for Africans on the brink of starvation. Christians will do well to remember the wrath of the Lord against those who see people hungering and do not feed them.

Agencies that will rapidly channel contributions to famine relief in Africa include the following:

Sudan Interior Mission

Cedar Grove, New Jersey 07009

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

1300 Harmon Place

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55400

World Relief Commission

National Association of Evangelicals

P.O. Box 28

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

C. A. R. E.

660 First Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Church World Service

475 Riverside Drive

New York, New York 10027

Designate contributions for famine relief in Africa.

If Only Stalin Could See Them Now!

The outspokenly Hindu monthly Mother India (Bombay), in its August issue, attacks the arming of Middle East nations by both the United States and the U.S.S.R. That the policy is questionable, we may well agree. The motivation that Mother India sees behind the Middle East arms race, however, comes as a surprise to us, and would certainly cause the late Joseph Stalin to turn over in his grave: “The Muslims of this area will first unite to finish Israel and India—the Kaffir countries—and then start killing each other.…” By these tactics, according to Mother India, Soviet and American Christians will destroy the Islamic Arabs and obtain all the oil in the world for themselves.

We have often been embarrassed when Christians and non-Christians overseas have blamed actions by the United States government on Christianity, because “America is a Christian nation.” But if Christianity has to take the blame for Soviet actions as well, that’s a bit too much.

Christian Drunks

When Paul arrived in Ephesus, he challenged the disciples of John there with this question: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They obviously had not, for Paul had to tell them about Jesus Christ, after which they were baptized in water and, after the laying on of hands, received the Holy Spirit.

Later, in a letter to the believers in Ephesus, Paul gives a theological interpretation of those events (Eph. 1:13, 14): “In him [Christ the condition] you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation [=the message], and have believed in him [=faith], were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit [=indwelling of the Holy Spirit], which is the down payment [=evidence] of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory [=end].” These Christians have received the Holy Spirit promised in the Old Testament, and experienced since Pentecost. The Spirit’s agency affords a foretaste of bliss, for his presence in the believer partakes of the quality of that in heaven.

Paul as usual is not content for his hearers to live in clouds of doctrine, and in Ephesians 5:18 he drives his message home. “Do not get drunk, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit.” This text addressed to Christians does not contemplate the once-and-for-all reception of the Spirit but Christians’ continuing responsibility and privilege of being (passive) filled with the Spirit. They are to be like the disciples at Pentecost, so filled with the Spirit that people thought them drunk.

The hot climate of Asiatic Greece, prolific in the fruit of the vine, fostered the mercurial temper of its inhabitants. Excessive indulgence in wine had hastened the death of Alexander the Great. As the Corinthian believers so recently won from paganism needed to separate the food offered to an idol from its pagan connotation, so the Ephesians must not confuse being under the influence of drink with life in the Spirit. The pagan tended to see his drunkenness as the state of being under the influence of the god Bacchus.

The contrast is not directly between wine and Spirit, as the order of the words shows, but between the two states. Paul is not here attacking the use of alcohol but describing two life styles, one Christian, one pagan (4:17–24). The life style the Spirit manifests in us will lead away from drunken singsongs; instead, we will want to praise God with all our hearts in spiritual songs (vs. 19). Furthermore, it will foster an attitude of thankfulness (vs. 20). It will express itself in humility as we subject ourselves to one another in the Church, family, and society (4:21–5:9).

Finally, followers of this style of life will not be wholly absorbed in the material world but will be able to recognize the demonic influence behind the actions of men. In response Christian “drunks” will not grab for the nearest weapon like a drunk in a bar but will put on the whole armor of God and stand up and fight (6:10 ff.).

Ideas

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According to Anglican educator Harry Blamires, Christians may differ from secular men and women in their ethics, their life style, and their spirituality. But when it comes to their thinking, they are almost indistinguishable.

Having lost or forgotten the basis on which a distinctively Christian way of thinking can be built, the modern Christian almost always thinks as a secularist, giving secularized—and therefore often ineffective—reasons for his spiritual convictions.

Blamires writes,

One may sum up the clash between the Christian mind and the secular mind thus. Secularism asserts the opinionated self as the only judge of truth. Christianity imposes the given divine revelation as the final touchstone of truth.… One may say without exaggeration that failure to distinguish clearly between the Christian conception of truth and the conception of truth popularly cherished in the secular mind has been one of the most unfortunate neglects of our age. This failure has done more than anything else to sap the Church’s intellectual morale [The Christian Mind, SPCK, 1963, pp. 107, 106].

“The marks of truth as christianly conceived,” Blamires continues, “are: that it is supernaturally grounded, not developed within nature; that it is objective and not subjective; that it is a revelation and not a construction; that it is discovered by inquiry and not elected by a majority vote; that it is authoritative and not a matter of personal choice” (p. 107). Of course, all biblical Christians will agree that this is so, but unfortunately many of us go no farther than this theoretical agreement; when we are called upon to use our minds, we think in the same relativistic way as other moderns. “As a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization” (p. 3).

That this is so is glaringly evident in liberal “Christian” circles. For example, the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.’s “resource” magazine Trends recently entitled a whole issue “hom*osexuality: Neither Sin Nor Sickness” (July/August, 1973). The biblical position—unrelenting condemnation of hom*osexual practices—was briefly presented, and then the contributors concentrated on showing why it ought to be disregarded today.

Even on the more conservative side, the prevalence of relativistic thought-patterns is evident. Thus a well-known spokesman for a major conservative church, speaking of abortion, could pronounce, “Whatever is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”

What is most alarming in such a slide into situation ethics is not the fact of a disagreement on what the scriptural teaching may mean; it is that Scripture and biblical doctrine take a back seat to the Zeitgeist, the mind of the present age. We see this too in the Christian approach to war and violence; where previous generations of American Christians followed, sheep-like, the jingoistic popular mind in thinking that uncritical patriotism is a theological virtue, our contemporaries equally uncritically condemn all use of force (except, of course, for certain appropriately “revolutionary” goals). But what is significant is not that all resort to war is condemned but rather that the reasons for which it is allowed or repudiated by Christians so often merely reflect secular opinions and slogans, just as did the patriotism of the past.

Biblical Christianity is a religion of authority; it is based on an authoritative revelation. This means that Christian teaching and practice will frequently run counter to the wisdom and the ways of the world. Christians rather intuitively recognize this, but they often fail to see that biblical teaching on faith and life cannot be effectively defended with the tools of the secular mind alone.

That there is a distinctively Christian mind is underscored by Paul when he speaks of the Christian’s transformation “by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). This renewal depends on two essential factors: (1) being informed by the Word of God (in the sense not merely of receiving information but of being formed by it, given a distinctive character or forma) (see Second Timothy 3:15); (2) the illumination and guidance of the Holy Spirit, who can “bring all things to … remembrance” (John 14:26), opening the teaching of Scripture to us in a creative way so that we can experience it as liberating truth, never as a mental strait-jacket.

Without the harmony of propositional revelation in Scripture and spiritual discernment through the power of the Holy Spirit, there can be no truly Christian mind, but only a secular mind with Christian decorations. And the secular mind is not sufficient for the Christian calling to know, love, and serve the Triune God, who made us—including our ability to think—for himself.

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Dorothy L. Sayers belongs to that loose association of writers known as the “Oxford Christians,” along with men like C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J. R. R. Tolkien. The four are variously similar: all were Christians, all medievalists, and all wrote popular fiction. But while the fantasies of Lewis, Williams, and especially Tolkien have caught both popular and scholarly attention, Sayers’s fiction seems to have generated less excitement.

This may be explained in part by the kind of fiction it is. Beside the ambrosia of fantasy, detective stories may seem as prosaic as porridge. Instead of cosmic voyages or wars in (and over) heaven, Sayers wrote witty, blood-and-logic murder mysteries; instead of Frodo Baggins or the Pendragon, she chose as hero a British nobleman named Peter Wimsey. The novels are classics of their type, disarming, swiftly plotted, and ingenious. But some of the magic of the “spiritual shocker” is plainly lacking.

Nevertheless, a sensitive reader may feel there is a deeper and less predictable dimension in these novels. As Roderick Jellema has shown with his anthology of her work, Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World, Sayers was a blunt and literate champion of Christian orthodoxy. Now, the detective novels are not in any explicit sense religious. Neither Wimsey nor his closest associates are Christians. But Wimsey’s experiences with guilt and innocence, with malice and love, lead him in the direction of profound personal change; this change, as it develops in successive novels, recalls the psychological pattern of Christian conversion.

In an essay on Dante entitled “… And Telling You a Story” (1947), Sayers described Dante’s conversion in these terms:

One has only to compare the Dante of the Convivio with the Dante of the Vita and the Commedia to see what it was that had happened to him and then unhappened. The Dante of the Convivio has everything that the other Dante has—the great intellect, the great curiosity, the great poetry, the great piety, even—but without humility and without charity. The sin is not primarily girls or anybody’s system of philosophy; it is simply the thing known as hardness of heart … not “a” sin, but simply sin.

Dante’s conversion produces a radical self-revaluation:

He stopped justifying himself and admitted that he was a fool and a miserable sinner. He took down the defensive barrier with which he had shut the “blessed and glorious” Beatrice out of the Convivio. He … accepted [a] dreaming, enthusiastic, gawky, and slightly absurd young man as his inalienable self.

Now plainly this is no theological definition; it is more a description of how conversion feels. It does not answer “What must I do to be saved?” but rather “What would happen to me if I were?” The thawing of the frost in his heart, the sudden access of charity, humility, and self-knowledge, could only follow Dante’s recognizing his own guilt, pride, and vulnerability. He learns to accept himself; and he learns properly to love Beatrice—which is to say, he stops defending himself from her love and the truth she offers him.

Christian or not, Peter Wimsey faces a similar change. He too recognizes his inadequacy and guilt, and finds refuge, finally, in love freely accepted. How Sayers arranges for this “conversion” within the formulas of a detective novel is both surprising and instructive.

First, Sayers clearly perceived the opportunities for ethical investigation built into her genre. Every mystery concerns itself with the effort to detect guilty realities beneath innocent appearances. Hence the criminal’s recurrent “perfect alibi.” Hence the detective’s encounter with guilt and its practical and spiritual consequences: Who did it, how, and why? Can he prosecute, punish, or absolve with justice? How is he to judge the criminal he tracks down?

Sayers heightens these ethical overtones by placing her crimes in retired or sheltered settings: a country village, a resort, an exclusive London club, or even Oxford, the haven of intellect and decorum. “Stir up the mud of the village pond,” says Peter bitterly, “and the stink will surprise you.” However intensely the inhabitants of these artificial Edens may want to hush it up—murder and suicide are only “unpleasantnesses” at the Bellona Club—the obsessive violence of human nature may surface anywhere.

Some of the Wimsey stories end on an upswing of triumph or relief. Less predictably, others end in desolation, weariness, or disgust, with Wimsey facing the grim consequences of crime both for its victims and for himself. “On paper,” a mystery may seem intricate, intriguing, like a picture puzzle. In reality, an unsolved crime only initiates a grinding round of work, doubt, emotional shock, and frustration. Neither wit nor wealth nor professional “security” can exempt the sleuth from sharing the guilt and tragedy of the people around him.

Enter Wimsey of Balliol and Picadilly. Rich, single, cultivated, clever, he “owns the kingdoms of this world.” Comfort and security are given: he takes to crime-solving for excitement, mental stimulation, to escape routine. His betters and relations disapprove: they think his hobby a dilettante’s game, unworthy of a peer—bad form as well as bad press. But Peter’s vacillation between the roles of dilettante and detective helps to define the lesson he must learn.

For Peter to enjoy his hobby, he must try to minimize the ugly or tragic aspects of a detective’s work. His worldly sophistication is therefore bent toward maintaining a sort of innocence, like the apparent innocence of a country village. His nonchalance, his dandified wardrobe and flippant charm, hide a basic fear of human involvement.

The Christian convert must “open up” and let the knowledge of himself and of God invade his self-righteousness. Wimsey must open up and allow the ugly reality of human motives to destroy his witty detachment. The murders will not stay “on paper”; they pull him into involvement, into knowledge of others and of himself.

Twice, for example, he becomes the cause of crime. In Unnatural Death, he advertises for information on the guess that a murder has been committed. The ad’s only result is the immediate death of a girl who could have answered it. But this theme is most completely realized in The Nine Tailors. The venerable art of bell-ringing, practiced in English churches for centuries, provides this book with a wonderful esoteric vocabulary and a brilliant gimmick for murder. But the book is actually “about” innocence and guilt.

For Sayers turns the typical detective plot inside out. All suspects turn out to be—technically—innocent; the true murderers are a group of innocent bystanders who sincerely try to put the blame on someone else—Wimsey is one of these. By novel’s end, all characters involved are either physically innocent and guilty by motive, or physically guilty and innocent by ignorance. All are innocent, all are guilty. And the “change,” as Sayers would say, “is taken out of” Peter Wimsey, the stirrer-up of mud, the passerby who finds he is a death-herald as well. Not only does he solve the crime—he also shares the guilt.

This accounts for half the conversion archetype with which we began, the half about guilt and self-knowledge. But both Dante and Peter Wimsey go on from here. In four of the eleven Wimsey novels, Peter defends, woos, and finally marries Harriet Vane. The courtship is a long one—six years of repeated proposals and patient good will—but Peter and Harriet are complex, reticent people. The painful growth by which they come to understand each other, to accept their mutual dependence and become open to the consequences of love, parallels the second step of conversion—the thawing of the hard heart by which Dante came to self-acceptance and self-surrender.

In Strong Poison, Peter meets Harriet and collapses at once—love at first sight. But Harriet, severely hurt by one traumatic affair, wants to be left alone, free of emotional obligations. She offers Peter gratitude, in reasonable proportion, but not love.

To say that Harriet has suffered, however, does not fully account for her unwillingness to give in. Nor is this simply shyness. There is in her independence something of what Thomas Merton calls the “pattern and prototype of all sin: the deliberate … will to reject disinterested love for us [as it seems] to imply some obscure kind of humiliation.” What Harriet resists is the implication that she needs Peter. She is desperately anxious to have no debts, to prove she can “make it on her own,” with pride intact. She can’t, of course; neither can Peter; nor can anyone else.

In Gaudy Night Harriet must come to grips with her dilemma. The “artificial Eden” here is Oxford: Harriet, an alumna of a women’s college, returns for a reunion and finds herself the object of a campaign of threats and obscenity. With Harriet’s help, Peter traps the poltergeist; but as the detective plot unfolds against a background of leisurely conversation, Oxford becomes a metaphor for Harriet’s own stubborn self-possessiveness. In essence, Peter offers her a choice between Oxford and himself: between proud independence and love, between an easy escape and a difficult involvement, between the kingdom of this world and a bet on the next.

To offer such a choice, Peter must lay aside his own possessiveness and become vulnerable; but it is only when Harriet chooses in his favor that his action can be completed. Like Dante, the couple must learn to be loved as well as to love. Their self-erected barriers against fallibility—the armor of wit and material security with which they try to defend themselves—must be abandoned. They must accept the awkward humility of being fully human.

This self-surrender is completed by their discovery of the strength and confidence of love—human love, not divine. For the grace in these stories is strictly terrestrial. One of the favorite ideas of the Oxford Christians was that human love is a reflection, at least, of divine love. But Wimsey does not become a Christian; he becomes, rather, a more complete human being, by a conversion whose terms recall, though they do not duplicate, those of a religious conversion.

Nevertheless, one might say that the novels close with an eucatastrophe, the experience of loss and gain in which a man who risks everything may have that everything restored, with the added light of joy. Peter Wimsey plays the delicate games of detection with flair and success; but the lessons he learns are the Christian ones of guilt, self-surrender, and redemption by love. Lionel Basney is associate professor of English, Houghton College, Houghton, New York.

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He Is There and He Is Not Silent, by Francis A. Schaeffer (Tyndale, 1972, 100 pp., $3.95, $1.95 pb), and The Openness of Being: Natural Theology Today, by Eric L. Mascall (Westminster, 1972, 278 pp., $9.95), are reviewed by Harold O. J. Brown, associate editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

If philosophy was once called the handmaiden of theology, since Immanuel Kant at least it has been a treacherous one. Traditional theology and apologetics before Kant made much of the so-called proofs of God’s existence; Kant claimed to have refuted them, and post-Kantian Christians learned to look for God only in the realm of subjective experience and of moral values. The movement of so-called neo-orthodoxy initiated by Karl Barth launched a massive attack on the use of philosophy, denying that there is any way in which it can help us to know or acknowledge God. Natural theology, i.e., the approach to God apart from special revelation, has been branded a contradiction in terms.

There is certainly some validity in this skepticism concerning the ability of the human reason, with its innate tendencies to self-worship, to find God. Yet if this world is God’s creation, it would be surprising indeed if it bore no traces of his handiwork.

In an earlier book, Escape From Reason (1968), Schaeffer warned against accepting a two-story view of reality, dividing it into the natural and the supernatural, and granting autonomy and self-sufficiency to human reason on the natural level. In this sense, he has to stand against the traditional scholastic opinion that reason alone can establish the reality of God. But once this conceit has been overcome, he maintains, reason can tell us something.

In the present volume, Schaeffer warns against reading the three books in his now completed series in their order of publication. One ought rather to begin with The God Who Is There (1968), go on to Escape From Reason, and then read He Is There … But perhaps Schaeffer’s chronological order was also the psychologically correct one: particularly for the intellectually and academically inclined, whether Christian or not, it is important to destroy the illusion of the autonomy of human reason before proceeding to show that God does present himself, in a limited but imposing way, in the external world of objective reality.

In He is There … Schaeffer argues the metaphysical, moral, and epistemological necessity first that God is, in order to make objective reality intelligible, and then that he speaks in historical and propositional revelation, in order to give us a place as children rather than strangers in the world of created reality. The arguments are simple, straightforward, and in my opinion very persuasive. Although they resemble the traditional cosmological and moral arguments, they do not repeat them but rather seek to help the reader gain the insight that God’s answer is indeed the only answer to questions that man cannot entirely suppress within himself. Non-technical, Schaeffer’s writing appeals strongly to the cultural and existential experience of modern man, to his awareness of estrangement, meaninglessness, and anxiety, and it does this in lucid language that virtually everyone can understand.

Mascall, by contrast, is an academic theologian, an Anglican strongly rooted in the Thomist tradition. The Openness of Being is a rather technical book, with frequent references to the works of other scholars. Mascall is unwilling to abdicate the exercise of human reason to the atheist and agnostic, and of faith to what he somewhere calls the “extreme revelationist,” i.e., the Barthian for whom God is always “totally other.” He defends the ontological argument of Anselm of Canterbury—without altogether adopting it himself—against the common charge that it is mere meaningless verbal sleight of hand. With skill and precision he puts down the linguistic analysis that tries to stamp not merely Anselm but all “God-talk” as meaningless, and defends some of the traditional theological categories (such as Creator/creation) against the rhetoric of modernists such as the Roman Catholic Leslie Dewart, who would dismiss them all as useless Hellenistic baggage and opt for “fluid” truth. There are useful chapters on “Being and Truth” and “God and Time” in which Mascall deals with Dewart and with process theology.

Originally delivered as the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1970–1971, the book is loosely structured and contains such disparate but interesting material as appendices on Boyce Gibson and sociologist Peter Berger, grace and nature in East and West, and body, soul, and creation. The breadth of Mascall’s knowledge and the rigorous but fair way in which he defends his Thomistic brand of Christian orthodoxy are, as usual, impressive.

Misleading Title

History of Israelite Religion, by Georg Fohrer, translated by David E. Green (Abingdon, 1972, 416 pp., $10.95), is reviewed by R. K. Harrison, professor of Old Testament, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Ontario.

This book, written by a German scholar, boasts its own lengthy history of transmission, being based on Hölscher’s Geschichte der israelitischen und jüdischen Religion, first published in 1922 and finally revised by Fohrer after Horst and Hempel had died while undertaking that task. The work is a synthesis of liberal views about facets of Hebrew history and religion, and there are very few references to conservative authors.

Fohrer takes for granted the existence of such unproved entities as J, E, D, and P; limits the work of Isaiah ben Amoz to the first thirty-nine chapters of the prophecy; regards the legal code presented to Josiah as an early form of Deuteronomy; and with great precision and assurance places Daniel in the Maccabean period. The uncritical acceptance of these positions, combined with only one passing reference to Qumran, places the literary-critical views of the author at the turn of the present century.

Following Gunkel, Gressmann, and others, he has little regard for the historicity of the patriarchal narratives, appearing to think of the persons described therein as highly idealized figures who in some manner are recipients of revelation. If he knows anything of a theory that the patriarchal narratives were transmitted in tablet form to constitute accredited ancient Near Eastern historiography, he studiously ignores it.

The book contains a useful survey of Canaanite religion, but the author does not seem to grasp the appalling depravity of the worship, nor the crisis it brought about in Israelite life generally. In discussing the religion of the monarchy, he quite rightly criticizes the “amphictyony” concept, makes it clear that the Old Testament traditions know nothing of a “New Year Festival” of the Babylonian akitu variety, and shows that the prophets did not think of Israel’s history as Heilsgeschichte. He does not seem to know Albright’s study of Samuel in relation to the start of the prophetic movement, and actually makes relatively little reference to Albright throughout.

While the book is not extreme, it is not distinctive either, and when contrasted with Kaufmann’s masterly Religion of Israel (1960) it appears for what it is, namely, a cautious balancing of one liberal position against another. Despite the title, it is not so much a history of Israelite religion as a study of what liberals have had to say about the supposed “evolutionary” development of Hebrew religion, which for Fohrer reached its height between 800 and 500 B.C. For the reviewer the chief value of this book lies in its footnotes.

For Scholars Only

The Pastoral Epistles, by Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann (Fortress, 1972, 175 pp., $10), is reviewed by D. Edmond Hiebert, professor of New Testament, Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, Fresno, California.

This attractive volume makes effective use of the printer’s craft. The pages, nearly square, present the material in double columns with only the left edges of the lines aligned. Numerous footnotes, generally on sources, appear in smaller type at the bottom of each page. A fresh translation of the Pastorals is printed in paragraphs, only one column to the page, leaving considerable blank space for the reader’s own jottings. The translation reflects the exegetical views of the authors; it has its strong and weak points. A bibliography lists twenty-eight commentaries, twelve in English and the others in German or French, and four columns of monographs and articles.

Twenty-two excursuses of varying length deal with such subjects as “Myths and Genealogies,” “The ‘False Teachers’ of the Pastoral Epistles,” and “The Situation of 2 Timothy.” The comments, given verse by verse, are strong in tracing the origin and usage of terms and expressions in non-biblical literature. The wealth of references to various scholarly works cited in the footnotes forms a valuable feature of the commentary. But there is generally little attempt to give a systematic exposition of the biblical text as it stands.

In the introductory section on the authenticity of the Pastorals, all three letters are stamped pseudonymous. This judgment is said to be based “less on a single argument than on the convergence of a whole series of arguments.” The external evidence is dismissed in the simple remark “it is not very strong,” and only points of silence in the external evidence are mentioned. The arguments employed are all based on internal evidence. The authors recognize that the personal element in these letters forms the strongest argument for authenticity; they simply assert, however, that these references need not be accepted as real history but are rather literary devices employed to clothe the letters with Pauline authority. Since the view of two imprisonments by Paul is rejected, no place for these historical references in Paul’s life can be found; therefore they are unauthentic, the fictional invention of the unknown author to give his work apostolic authority.

The student looking for a treatment of the Pastorals that sees them as pseudonymous and provides scholarly views in support of that position will find this a stimulating work. But the ordinary Bible-believing reader will find it confusing, and the conservative pastor looking for a thorough, sympathetic exposition of these epistles to help him provide spiritual nourishment for his flock will probably think that this volume was not worth its price. The editorial observation concerning the “Hermeneia” series to which this volume belongs, “the rewards … will accrue chiefly to the field of biblical scholarship,” is fully applicable to this work on the Pastoral Epistles.

Specific Answers

Answers to Questions, by F. F. Bruce (Zondervan, 1973, 264 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Russell Chandler, journalist, pastor, and teacher, Columbia, California.

In this compendium, the noted British evangelical scholar distills answers to questions that appeared over a twenty-year span in the Harvester, a British magazine. The book is well classified and indexed; half covers questions on biblical texts, the other half pertains to Christian doctrine and biblical subjects. The book was first published in Britain, and the American version retains a number of British idioms and spellings.

In the biblical-text portion, the reader will find specific answers to specific questions rather than a verse-by-verse exegesis or exposition. There are, therefore, gaps in continuity.

The topical section mirrors the background and interests of Harvester readers. Therefore many matters current in American Christianity are not treated. On the subject of speaking in tongues, for example, there is only one direct question-answer, though even at that Bruce’s remarks are helpful. There are five entries on justification; one answers an ambiguous question, but several would be helpful to a minister preparing a sermon or Bible study on the subject.

Answers to Questions is a useful reference book, not a volume to be read through systematically. Bruce’s insistence on the authority of Scripture as an underlying premise stamps integrity on his strong exegetical ability.

The weakness is the specificness of the content. If your question or the text for which you seek enlightenment isn’t included, you must seek help elsewhere.

New Looks At Inspiration And Revelation

Biblical Inspiration, by Bruce Vawter (Westminster, 1972, 195 pp., $9.95), and Unfolding Revelation, by Jan Walgrave (Westminster, 1972, 418 pp., $9.95), are reviewed by Thomas H. Olbricht, professor of biblical theology, Abilene Christian College, Abilene, Texas.

The authors of these books are both Roman Catholic professors, Bruce Vawter at De Paul, Chicago, and Jan Walgrave at Louvain, Belgium.

Vawter in Biblical Inspiration surveys the history of the doctrine of inspiration in both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions and ends with his own formulation of the doctrine. He gives attention to the highlights of the biblical concept, patristic thinking, the scholarship synthesis, scholastic and post-scholastic Protestant thinking, and contemporary positions. He moves through the history offering critiques along the way but withholding his constructive position until the final chapter, hence forcing the reader to struggle on his own with the various positions on inspiration offered at various times in the history of the Church. Notes to each chapter are found in the back along with a bibliography and several indexes.

A basic thesis of Vawter is that only scholasticism has offered a theology of inspiration. The result, in his view, is that certain biblical perspectives have been ignored and theologians have been unable to cope with the nature of biblical materials as discovered through biblical criticism. The presentation of Vawter’s critique, which he bases upon his objections to the scholastic doctrine of inspiration, will indicate why he proposes a synthesis at the end that moves beyond scholastic theology.

As Vawter sees it, a crucial biblical vision of its own inspiration is that in these documents “the spirit of God has spoken through men.” Although this is true, the employment of the Old Testament in the New indicates that early Christians refused to be governed by the letter of any text, so that the product of inspiration was never conceived to be “the oracular utterance of a delphic spirit, a word voiced from heaven fixed and immutable, once for all.” Even in the New Testament a recognition shines through of the variety of biblical materials and different senses of inspiration. Furthermore, the scholastic concept of inspiration failed to recognize that some biblical documents went through various stages of development and incorporated materials from scattered sources. A doctrine of inspiration that presupposes single authorship is thus defective. The fathers of the church viewed the Scriptures as oracular, and though the scholastics were more flexible, they centered upon God as the instrumental cause of the Scriptures. The result is that scholars take positions along a spectrum from maximal cause, in which God dictates specific words, to minimal cause, in which God only supplies the basic thoughts.

Because of these weaknesses in the scholastic instrumental cause, Vawter proposes that inspiration needs to be viewed from the context of the living community in which God is at work. He proposes this as a definite theology of inspiration. Through this means, human participation in Scripture is given full recognition. This is the case first of all since no claim is made for inerrancy, inasmuch as “a human literature containing no error would indeed be a contradiction in terms, since nothing is more human than to err.” Second, multiple sources and authorship is viewed from the standpoint of the community, not from that of individual authors.

Evangelicals should read this work. From it they will learn how current views of inspiration emerged in historical settings so as to fulfill certain apologetic needs. They will also come upon explanations of inspiration that they have not entertained before. But most significant they will discover that most affirmations on inspiration are a priori and fail to take into account the actual manner in which biblical documents came about. Unfortunately, despite attention given to Protestant views, Vawter formulates his conclusions to answer chiefly Roman Catholic objections.

The book supplies more questions than systematic answers. It is not clear, for example, why some documents produced by the living community in which the Spirit of God is at work are inspired while others are not. Nor is any answer forthcoming as to the manner in which materials cited from secular documents become the Word of God.

A certain systematic rigor pervades Walgrave’s Unfolding Revelation. By his methodology it is obvious that he is a theologian rather than a biblical scholar. In the first chapter he poses the problem of the manner in which revelation is to be viewed. In the second chapter he sets out a number of definitions. If one is unfamiliar with the delineations of Newman, the importance of these definitions does not become clear until later.

In the second part of the book Walgrave sets out concepts of doctrinal development in patristic and medieval theology. He has to struggle to discover the idea in this period, and though he admits that the evidence is meager, he concludes with a strong affirmation. He is obviously more at home in the last two centuries of Christian history than in the earlier ones.

In Part III Walgrave discusses logical, transformistic and theological theories of development. In each chapter he traces the theories historically. The logical theories are pin-pointed in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and his followers. The transformistic theories are found for the most part in Protestant liberalism. The theological theory is identified with J. H. Newman and his intellectual heirs. It is this section, making up about three-fourths of the whole, that is the most impressive. Walgrave decisively pinpoints the manner in which various philosophical traditions have contributed to the idea of doctrinal development in modern theology. In a final chapter he presents his own position on doctrinal development. Notes, bibliography, and an index of proper names appear at the end.

Walgrave characterizes the biblical notion of revelation as “a living comprehensive view of God’s dealing with man insofar as it is a gradual manifestation of His hidden nature and of the mystery of His saving condescension.” This definition is significant, for Walgrave modifies traditional views by arguing that doctrinal development is more than conceptual or propositional. He admits that “Protestant theology has not occupied itself intensively with the problem of development of doctrine.” One of the difficulties with the book emerges at this point, since it appears that Walgrave hopes to formulate conclusions for both Protestants and Roman Catholics. He admits that Protestants who emphasize doctrinal development have a different goal in mind. Roman Catholics are interested, as is Walgrave, in explaining how later developments in Christendom are from God and compatible with Scriptures. Protestants emphasize the evolution of higher forms of Christianity and devaluate the authority of the Scriptures.

Anyone who reads this book will invest a large amount of time, but it will be time well spent. At minimum, he will discover how numerous thinkers in the history of Christendom have justified doctrinal development. As a Protestant he will be confronted by the fact that his theology has been tinctured by two thousand years of biblical interpretation. One need not agree with Walgrave that “a contemporary theology cannot go back; it can only go onward, consciously prolonging the ongoing impetus of tradition.” But he cannot ignore the fact that he understands the Scripture as he does because of his current position in Christian history. He must in some manner account for this development in his theology.

One final problem cannot go unnoticed. If God is involved in the ongoing development of Christian doctrine, is he responsible for all the varieties? If not, does he provide a means for identifying mutant strains? Welgrave answers this problem by positing a living church permeated by the Spirit of God that delineates true doctrine from aberrant forms. Walgrave thus fails to account for varieties of theology that Vawter locates in the Scriptures. But some of us are suspicious of a means of delineating correct doctrine that to us appears to have generated new species.

Newly Published

Without Guilt and Justice: From Decidophobia to Autonomy, by Walter Kaufmann (Wyden, 274 pp., $7.95). The author is one of the few professors of philosophy who seem capable of generating truly new and radical ideas, and is certainly among the most gifted stylists treating serious subjects today. He here continues his epic struggle against religion, especially the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and any authority superior to man. He is often very incisive in his analysis of human evasions and abdications of responsibility, and in attacking religion he makes it clear that not only guilt but justice depend on it. He calls for a heroic kind of human autonomy and ruthlessly exposes the immorality of both right- and left-wing political enthusiasm. Beautifully done, but overlooks the reality of God. Therefore his fundamental theory is false despite the brilliance of many of his points.

The Unpredictable Wind, by C. Brandon Rimmer and Bill Brown (Aragorn [212 N. Orange St., Glendale, Calif. 91203], 69 pp., $1.25 pb). The gentle manner of the authors and sound biblical exposition make this a very valuable book on the filling of the Spirit, especially with reference to speaking in tongues. (The authors espouse neither a requirement of speaking in tongues nor the ceasing of tongues as a valid spiritual gift for our age.) Highly recommended.

Introduction to Theology, by Owen Thomas (Greeno, Hadden [168 Brattle St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138], 218 pp., $7.50 pb). A beginner’s survey by an Episcopal theology professor. A well-organized presentation of key doctrines, though a little weak on biblical authority. Provocative discussion questions follow each chapter.

Forbid Them Not, by Louis Cassels (Independence [P.O. Box 1019, Independence, Mo. 64051], 94 pp., $2.95). A senior editor of United Press provides eight suggestions for the Church on how to attract and hold young people. Perceptive and brief.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke; and James and Jude, by John Calvin (3 vols., Eerdmans, 326, 306, and 345 pp., $7.95 each). Calvin is one of the very few commentators whose work is still quite useful after generations. The first three Gospels are treated in one sequence. Commentaries on two short letters are appended to the third volume. These volumes bring to completion the twelve-volume, up-to-date Torrance edition entitled “Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries.” (A century-old translation remains in print.)

Philosophical Issues in Religious Thought, by Geddes MacGregor (Houghton Mifflin, 500 pp., $10.95). An impressive textbook in the philosophy of religion, concentrating on general problems of religious sensitivity and belief rather than on specific issues that distinguish revealed, biblical religion. MacGregor deals with the subjects he discusses very fairly, but he slights historic biblical Christianity and many of its representatives (ten references to Bertrand Russell and nine to Teilhard, but none to Machen, Mascall, or Dooye-weerd).

Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, by J. Barton Payne (Harper & Row, 754 pp., $19.95). A comprehensive synthesis of predictive Scriptures and fulfillments. Includes verse-by-verse discussions, topical summaries, statistical appendices, five indexes, and a bibliography. The methodology is specified and the biblical chronology is of conservative scholarship. An excellent reference tool for those of all eschatological perspectives.

The Phenomenon of Religion, by Ninian Smart (Seabury, 157 pp., $6.95). A study of religion by a philosopher. He presents a complex methodology followed by discussions of religious phenomenology, myths, and concludes with a proposal to accept a neutral phenomenological view of religion as opposed to commitment-oriented “theology.” He seems to want to “save” religion from the ravages of scientific study.

What the Church Needs Now, by B. J. Chitwood (Revell, 160 pp., $4.95), and Share the Word Now, by Albert McClellan (Broadman, 128 pp., $1.50). Chitwood sees church renewal as the product of a “recovery” of distinctive biblical approaches to all segments of the ministry from evangelism and discipline to “culture contact.” McClellan emphasizes vigorous instruction in the Scriptures linked with lay evangelism as the means for renewal. Both authors are practical and persuasive.

The Religious and Philosophical Foundations in the Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Ernest Lyght (Vantage, 96 pp., $3.75). A master’s thesis tracing the growth of King’s philosophy of nonviolence. Develops and discusses King’s key purpose as the linking of Christian love and Gandhian methods of nonviolent disruption in an attempt to stir the American “conscience.” A useful companion to biographical presentations of King.

Violence: Right or Wrong, by Peter Macky (Word, 210 pp., $5.95). Argues that violence breeds violence in a never-ending cycle unless it is “absorbed” in nonviolence as exemplified in the Beatitudes or in Christ’s death. Stresses education and organized Gandhian-type resistance to violence as solutions. Draws heavily on biblical material but does “violence” to a proper understanding of God’s use of armies and the like in the Old Testament.

To Live and to Die, edited by Robert Williams (Springer-Verlag [175 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y. 10010], 346 pp., $12.95). Provocative essays by twenty-one specialists who reevaluate life and death in light of technical advances and population pressures. Topics include genetic engineering, euthanasia, and birth control. The editor and largest contributor (seven essays) provides a philosophical context that discards the soul as a product of the mind, hence precluding any afterlife. Some disturbing conclusions that deserve careful evaluation.