Page 6354 – Christianity Today (2025)

The prophecy of Obadiah bears two unique distinctions. First, it is by far the shortest book in the Old Testament, consisting of one chapter and 21 verses. Secondly, it is the most difficult written prophecy in Scripture to identify as to time of composition. In the case of other prophets there is usually a fair amount of agreement among conservative scholars as to the age when they performed their ministry and committed their inspired utterances to writing, but for this book the conjectures of evangelical authorities (not to mention the liberals) range all the way from the reign of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat (848–841 B.C.), to about 585 B.C., soon after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. Luther preferred this latter date, as does Clarence Benson in the Evangelical Teacher Training manual on Old Testament Prophecy. Liberals also prefer this date, although many of them see in these few verses a combination of two different authors, the later of which wrote during the Exile or some decades after the fall of Babylon (539 B.C.).

A few conservatives, like J. H. Raven and J. D. Davis (followed by H. S. Gehman in the Westminster Dictionary), prefer to date this prophecy in the reign of Ahaz (736–716), who carried on an unsuccessful war with the Edomites and Philistines. Second Chronicles 28:17–18 records how these two nations attacked Judah from the South and West after the northern coalition of Israel and Damascus had inflicted serious reverses on the armies of Ahaz. One difficulty with this view, however, is that no such capture and spoliation of Jerusalem took place during these campaigns as is implied in verse 11 of our text.

Most evangelical scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have inclined towards a still earlier dating of Obadiah, which would make him the very first of the writing prophets! Delitzsch, Keil, Kleinert, Orelli, and Kirkpatrick all feel that the historical allusions and the general political situation presupposed in the text point more definitely to the reign of Jehoram than to any other. In 2 Kings 8:20 we read: “In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves.” The next verses speak of Jehoram’s unsuccessful campaign against them, in which he inflicted much damage upon them but failed to subjugate them again to Judah’s suzerainty. More details of Jehoram’s reign are given in 2 Chronicles 21:16–17: “And Jehovah stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and the spirit of the Arabians that are beside the Ethiopians; and they came up against Judah and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king’s house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him save Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.” Putting these two items of information together, it becomes altogether probable that the Edomites cooperated with the Arabian-Philistine invasion as subordinate allies, and shared in the booty of Jerusalem when that proud capital fell to their combined efforts.

It is of the utmost importance to observe that the text of Obadiah implies just this historical incident in verse 11: “In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.” Here we have the enemies of Judah forcing their way into Jerusalem and plundering its treasures. The city is looted of its valued possessions, and lots are cast upon it by the cooperating marauders, who decide among themselves which quarter of the town each will pillage, that there may be no quarreling as to who shall keep the spoil. This description hardly fits in with the complete and permanent destruction of the city which was inflicted upon it by the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar in 586. Moreover verse 13 (as correctly translated in the ASV) looks forward to yet other occasions when this same Jerusalem may be attacked by invading foes: “Enter not into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity … neither lay ye hands on their substance of their calamity.” Such words would be absurdly inappropriate if Jerusalem was already a desolate heap of ruins, as the 580 date of composition would require. We must therefore look for some military action which involved the storming of the city but stopped short of its complete destruction; an engagement moreover in which the Edomites might well have played a part (as they probably did not do when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem in 587). Only the incident in the reign of Jehoram meets these conditions.

The 580 date is rendered even more precarious by the strong evidence that the pre-exilic Jeremiah had read and adapted for his own purposes Obadiah 1–9 in his forty-ninth chapter, verses 7–22. The passage in Jeremiah is found in a series of oracles based to a large extent on the prophecies of earlier messengers of God (cf. Jer. 48 with Isa. 15–16, and Jer. 49 with Amos 1:13 ff.; 8:1 ff.). In Obadiah the sentiments are expressed more briefly and rapidly than in Jeremiah, in part also more heavily and abruptly. Jeremiah seems to have smoothed down the rugged places in Obadiah’s style of expression and made the whole oracle more lucid and perspicuous. There can be little doubt therefore that Jeremiah borrowed from Obadiah, rather than the other way around. Of course the possibility remains that both may have borrowed from an earlier prophetic utterance otherwise unknown to us, but it seems very dubious, unnecessary, and incapable of proof.

But what shall we say of the expression in verse 20: “… the captives (Heb. gāluth) of Jerusalem, …”? Does it not refer to the carrying off of the total population of Judah into Babylonian exile? That might be a legitimate inference, so far as gāluth is concerned, but the word is also used to refer to the capture of soldiers on the battlefield or of portions of the civilian population who are to be sold on the slave market (Amos 1:6). Amos 1:9 refers to the iniquity of the slave traders of Tyre who delivered over an “entire captivity,” that is, all the men, women, and children captured in a slave raid, to the Edomites (who used to work their prisoners to an early and miserable death in the iron mines). We are not to think of this word as being necessarily equivalent to the Exile of 586 B.C.

Assuming then that Obadiah gave this prophecy in the dark, discouraging days of the ungodly King Jehoram (848–841 B.C.), we may ask what was the burden of his message? The message includes, first of all (vv. 1–9) a prediction of the destruction of Edom. This proud nation, which boasts of the impregnability of its capital city of Sela (v. 3), is going to be cast down from its arrogance by the sovereign power of the Lord God Almighty. It is going to meet with a total and crushing defeat, and a devastation so complete that there will be no survivors in the land, not even the merest gleanings of the grapevine, as it were. The divine judgment will be accomplished by a nation presently in alliance with them, who shall treacherously turn on them and overcome them by strategem. In that coming day neither the proverb-quoting sages of Edom nor their valorous men-at-arms will be able to deliver the nation from its foes, but every native Edomite will be cut off from the mountains of Seir.

The fulfillment of this doom took place many years later, some time after the ministry of Malachi (435 B.C.), when the Arabs of Nebaioth (who probably cooperated in the victorious assault upon Jerusalem in Jehoram’s reign) captured the capital city of Sela and drove all of the surviving Edomites out of their ancestral territories. As a result of this pressure they were forced to migrate into southern Judah (which had never become repopulated after the terrible Chaldean invasions) and set up a new state there, which became known as Idumaea.

The second section, verses 10–14, sets forth the reason for Edom’s destruction. The judgment had been decreed by God not only because of the arrogant pride of the ungodly nation but because of bloody cruelty perpetrated against God’s people Israel. They ought to have showed some degree of kindness, or at least of restraint, in their dealings with the Hebrews, for they were related to Jacob’s descendants through their ancestor Esau. Instead they had shown an implacable hostility to the Israelites from the days of Moses, when they had refused to let the migrating refugees from Egypt pass through their territory on the main highway route, and compelled them to detour through rugged and difficult wilderness. But their recent participation in the sack of Jerusalem, their malicious gloating over the miseries inflicted on the Jews by their heathen foes, amounted to a grievous offense against the Almighty. The Edomites are also warned against participating again (v. 13) in any future despoliation of the holy city or cutting off its hapless fugitives, as they had done on this recent occasion.

The final section (vv. 15–21) foretells the ultimate victory and restoration of the people of God. Jehovah will some day inflict judgment upon all the heathen nations and requite to them the cruel wrongs they have inflicted upon Israel. Edom in particular shall be utterly consumed by other godless nations, and there will be nothing left of her in the latter day. All the God-hating peoples who now oppose Israel shall some day disappear completely from the scene, but a remnant of the Hebrew nation will survive and triumph over Edom and all it stands for. Edom exemplified the self-pride, the ruthlessness and the utter materialism of the world, with its complete rejection of spiritual values and its implacable hatred of the people of God. (Compare the thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, in which the wrath of God is poured out upon the world in general but upon Edom in particular, as the fitting representative of the virulent hatred of the world towards the kingdom of God.) Fiery destruction shall be meted out to the rebellious descendants (both physical and spiritual) of Esau, but the Jewish race shall once again be regathered to their ancestral soil, even to the full extent of territory granted by God to Moses and Joshua—including all of Philistia, and all of the districts inhabited by the Ten Tribes (first lost to the house of David in the days of Rehoboam). Even to Zarephath (parallel with the northern limit of the northernmost tribes of Israel, Asher and Naphtali) shall the restored Jewish commonwealth extend, made up of Hebrews returned from lands as far distant as Sepharad. (The most likely conjecture as to the location of Sepharad is a region in Southwest Media, to which the captives of Samaria were deported by the Assyrians after 722 B.C. But the name itself never occurs in the Bible again, and its identification is by no means certain. Jewish tradition identifies it with Spain.) The ultimate victory shall be the Lord’s, and deliverers sent by him shall inflict judgment upon Edom and all that it stands for, as the kingdom of God is established upon earth and his truth prevails over all the depravity and corruption of fallen, unbelieving mankind.

Professor of Biblical Languages

Fuller Theological Seminary

CHURCH PRONOUNCEMENT

An issue which is causing increased concern within the Church—a concern shared alike by laymen and ministers—is the role which the Church is assuming in the realm of pronouncements on economic, political, and social matters. The issue deserves objective consideration.

Some people feel that the influence of the Church is enhanced by her issuing statements and making pronouncements on almost every secular issue that arises. This is felt to be in keeping with the “prophetic role” of the Church and her ministry.

Others feel that once the Church ventures into the secular field, particularly on matters where men of equal piety and devotion to our Lord disagree, she has exchanged her spiritual role for one in which she can well find herself aligned with forces inimicable to both the Church and society as a whole.

Some ecclesiastical leaders view with strong distaste the opinions of laymen who hold to the historic concept of separation of Church and State. But many of these laymen are deeply concerned that the distinction shall be kept clear, primarily that the spiritual message of the Church shall speak to the basic need of redemption and regeneration, without which there can be no lasting social reform.

With the ecclesiastical organizations of the major denominations largely in the hands of men committed to such Church pronouncements, it is more or less the universal practice of these denominations during the course of their annual meetings to make deliverances which thereby become the “official” position of the Church.

I would like to discuss the matter as objectively as possible.

The matter of the Church, as a corporate group, entering into economics, social problems and politics, will not be solved by raising a false issue, as some have done.

No one wishes to “buy” any church. But thousands of men are apprehensive lest the Church sell her glorious spiritual heritage and obligation for a mess of secular pottage.

The Church (and I speak of all major denominations) has a heritage of a faith firmly planted in the revelation of God in Christ as recorded in the Holy Scriptures. She has a heritage of strong convictions regarding the separation of Church and State. To her alone has been committed the message of salvation from sin. Above all else she is the repository of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is her duty to preach it at home and abroad.

Any emphasis for secular matters without a corresponding conviction of the content of the Gospel message is a deviation which harms the Church and detracts from her influence in the secular world which she has been commissioned by her Lord to reach.

The Church does have a responsibility, but it is not that of secular deliverances; rather, it is the faithful witness of the Gospel which is man’s only hope now and for eternity.

The Church, as a corporate organization, placing her emphasis more on the peripheral, even controversial, areas of personal and national life, may aim to correct the ills of the political, social, and economic world but fail to affect the eternal destiny of one soul out of Christ. Such would prove a triumph of Satan and the world’s greatest tragedy.

Every minister of the Gospel, along with individual Christians, has the right to preach or speak on social and other issues if he is so led by the Spirit. But the Church, as a corporate group, has a spiritual ministry from which her influence emanates, while her basic task is to tell of the One who alone empowers men to righteous living. The message of the Church should lead to the regeneration of the individual through faith in Christ. The Christian, as a citizen should through personal activity as an individual, and corporately with others, help in the reformation of society. But as sure as there is truth to be preached, the social order will never be greatly changed until the hearts of the individuals making up that society have their hearts changed by the living Christ.

Unless the ministry and message of the Church is unique—the Gospel committed to her custody—she will become lost in the plethora of secular and humanitarian movements which look to man to change his own conditions of living and destiny.

Because the Church is the sole custodian of the Gospel of redemption through the atoning work of Calvary, she must put first things first and be faithful to her heritage and her witnessing obligation. The concern for social reforms can become an obsession which overshadows her primary task in the world.

Unless Christian citizens exercise their influence through the ballot box and personal righteousness, the pronouncements of the Church go for nothing. These social concerns can only be implemented by concerned Christians. For the corporate Church to demand reforms “in the name of the Church” is a form of coercion, bringing to bear on the social order the force of law. This is not the spiritual healing to which the Church is committed. Furthermore, such actions of Church courts authenticate positions which may prove to be contrary to Christian ideals.

To illustrate: dedicated Christians disagree with reference to laws which enforce the closed shop, right-to-work laws, birth control, deficit spending, and so on. For the Church to take official action on one or the other side of these issues immediately places the Church in a position our Lord himself would not take when he said: “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” And then he went on to utter these searching words: “Take heed, and beware of covetousness; for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.”

When the Church enters the field of official deliverances on secular matters, she finds herself suspect both within and outside the area where she is supposed to operate. This may seem to some a fine distinction, but it is a very real one. The minute the Church becomes officially involved in secular areas she begins to forfeit her power and witness in the spiritual field.

The Church should be guided by revealed principles which have their basis in divine revelation. But this is very different from claiming divine authority to make pronouncements regarding particular programs, parties and personalities.

We know of no one who wishes to buy any church or denomination. But we know of thousands of concerned Christians who do not wish to see the spiritual mission of the Church sold for a social program which can never save one soul from eternal loss.

L. NELSON BELL

Standing on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo harbor, September 2, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur uttered a profound warning. “We have had our last chance,” he said. “If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our … advance in science, … material and cultural developments. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”

And standing on the beach at Melbourne, in Nevil Shute’s novel On the Beach, one of the last remaining inhabitants of an earth completely saturated by radiation says, “Maybe we’ve been too silly to deserve a world like this.” The other character replies, “That’s absolutely and precisely right.”

There seems to be little doubt that the American malaise is part of the world malaise. We have our own peculiar symptoms, to be sure, but as the Russian Christian philosopher, Berdyaev, has pointed out, man’s problem and his predicament arise from the fact that he has not only lost the way, he has lost the address. Today’s children do not even know that there is an address. They seem unaware that there is a meaning and purpose to life beyond the immediate problem of survival. No Christian expects that the human race will end up “on the beach”; our faith teaches us otherwise. Yet unless we heed the warnings of a greater than General MacArthur; unless we bring men back to God and to an awareness of God’s law; unless the spiritual fiber of character is put back into the structure of our nation in particular, the future of our great nation is in peril.

A patient generally insists upon hearing the diagnosis before swallowing the medicine. And he who would offer a prescription of national purpose for America must first listen to her heart. The heart of America is still as sound as oak, but her blood stream is being invaded by the toxins of secularism. Or to express it in another way, America is like a country boy who grew too fast and was given too much to eat. Provide a situation in which that boy is required to work hard on lean rations, as his father did, and the good stuff in him will soon become evident. But right now he is overfed and dozing in an asparagus patch. He thinks it won’t hurt if he extends his “break” another hour. He does not realize that the sun is low in the heavens.

When a young disc jockey said he felt that the American way of life was, “I’ll do something for you, now what will you do for me?” he did more than simply explain why he accepted “payola.” He illustrated a philosophy and described a condition that in the opinion of many has completely taken over our country. Dr. Robert E. Fitch of the Pacific School of Religion describes it as “the obsolesence of ethics.”

“We live today,” he says (in Christianity and Crisis, Nov. 16, 1959), “in an age when ethics is becoming obsolete. It is superseded by science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive by philosophy; it is drowned in compassion, evaporates into aesthetics and retreats before relativism.… The usual moral distinctions are simply drowned in a maudlin emotion in which we have more feeling for the murderer than for the murdered, for the adulterer than for the betrayed; and in which we gradually begin to believe that the really guilty party, the one who somehow caused it all, is the victim, not the perpetrator, of the crime.”

There seems to be an enormous increase in pure selfishness, without apologies, in our time. A woman out West wrote to a lovelorn column complaining about her husband who had run over the pet of two small children and refused to stop because “I don’t want to miss the first race.” Young men choose their life work with no thought as to the contribution they can make, but simply for the fringe benefits it offers.

Part of the problem is simply a surfeit of material goods in America. It is a well-known fact of human nature that the less one has, the more willing to share he is apt to be. The Good Samaritan had little but he gave it generously. America is the most generous nation on earth, but even her generosity cannot keep pace with her wealth. Someone calculated a few years ago that America has 10 per cent of the world’s population, 52 per cent of its food, 80 per cent of its bathtubs, 75 per cent of its clothes, 95 per cent of its automobiles, 98 per cent of its radios, and 99.4 per cent of its television. In a country so crowded with luxury items, and well indoctrinated by advertising, there is bound to be a demand for more and still more. If the man across the street has a foreign car standing in his driveway, we too must have one.

Furthermore, we are finding ourselves with added leisure time on our hands and are at a loss what to do with it. Even television palls after so many programs. Million of man-hours are idled away in self-indulgence every week end, and our playboy oases in Florida, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii are overrun with people who have nothing to do except look for temptation where they can hardly fail to find it.

The Bible tells us, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” It has a spiritual ring, and that means it has a moral ring. Every citizen of the United States is obligated to work for the moral welfare of the people. Our Constitution’s preamble speaks of “promoting the general welfare” and that means moral welfare too. For example, when we take a stand against the gambling interests that would invade our government and corrupt our people, we are working for the general welfare. When we ask that our local druggist remove copies of Lolita and similar obscene literature from his bookstand, we are not only protecting our children, we are working for the general welfare. And when we demand that the textbooks in our schools be raised above the insulting and “debunking” level in their portrayal of American life, we are working for the welfare of our country.

We need, in fact, a fresh approach to American history if we are going to recreate a sense of American purpose. Patriotism gets a great play during a time of war; why not in a time of peace? We suggest that every lecturer before making a speech, every author before writing a book or article, every movie or television producer before shooting a script, might well take a personal oath along some line as this: “I will not degrade the country I love. I will be fair, but I will not exploit the weakness of her citizenry for my own financial profit. I will not traffic in violence, slaughter or immorality, or glamorize those who commit such things. I will not expose the culture of America to the scorn and ridicule of her enemies. I will uphold the honor of these United States.”

It is not enough, of course, simply to love America. The editors of Life magazine have concluded correctly that most Americans have usually associated their patriotism with goals that transcend the boundaries and seek more than the mere survival of the United States. Christians believe that allegiance to God is the only foundation of national loyalty that he himself will honor. A revival of spiritual values by the turning of our people to the truth as it is in Christ is the one sure, effective, continuing way to stop the deadly attrition of the American malaise.

NATURALISM AT HARVARD AND AMERICAN ‘SUPERSTITIONS’

A Norwegian scientist, Dr. A. E. Wilder Smith, pointedly criticizes an address by Harvard paleontologist Dr. G. G. Simpson to the American Association for the Advancement of Science on “The World into Which Darwin Led Us” (printed in Science, Apr. 1, 1960).

Dr. Simpson spurned belief in the supernatural as a warping superstition. The world and man, he holds, have evolved from the nonliving, and “it is in the highest degree improbable that anything in the world exists specifically for his [man’s] benefit.” The Harvard scientist brushes aside “the world of higher superstition” and reports that, when polled in Chicago, a panel of highly distinguished international experts, considered imminent the experimental production of life in the laboratory, and one panelist contended that this result has already been achieved.

It is remarkable that so few American scientists of stature bother to confute such views. The effort of American Scientific Affiliation, titled Evolution and Christian Thought Today (1960), one of the few works by contemporary scientists espousing Christian theism, grapples with the naturalistic bias.

Dr. Wilder Smith, of the faculty of the Pharmological Institute in Bergen, notes the resemblance of Dr. Simpson’s argument, in tone and substance, to literature on the same subject originating behind the Iron Curtain and “regularly sent gratis from Eastern Berlin for some reason.” He continues:

The interpretation of the Chicago poll is interesting and typical for this type of thought. A highly distinguished international panel considered the experimental production of life in the laboratory as imminent. It is the interpretation of this information which interests me most, namely that, because this is the case, therefore life was not created by a Creator, who therefore can be dismissed from our thoughts as nonexistent.

If the above statement is interpreted with scientific disinterestedness, exactly what does it prove? Surely nothing more than that, with the necessary interference from outside, life may result in a previously lifeless system. That the interference from outside in this case takes the form of changing and controlling the experimental conditions no one doubts. What has, however, been rather overlooked, not only in Dr. Simpson’s article but also generally, is the rather obvious fact that, in scientific experiments of this kind, a scientific mind or intelligence at the back of the experiment is the absolute prerequisite for any hope of achieving success. Otherwise, the highly specific ordering of material and conditions will not occur—at least certainly not quickly enough to outstrip the decomposition processes running counter to life’s synthetic necessities. Even to give the various separate parts of, say, a virus system to an oratorio singer or a plough-boy would scarcely be expected, at least among those skilled in the art, to produce the desired experimental objective, namely life. The requirements to set the reaction off are much too specific—this we do know. It is plain scientific nihilism to attempt to replace the carefully planned scientific experiment by the soup stock pot and to say that billions of years will do what the planned experiment can do but with the greatest difficulty, effort, and planning. The scientist knows that careful hard work (involving complex thought processes, experience, and intelligence, if you wish) and planning represent the basic necessary exogenous interference in a system, if we are to hope to achieve life from lifeless material. Dare we, as scientists, maintain that delicate reactions just ‘happened’ in the past, when we know that in the present, scientific experience has never given the slightest basis for hope of success, unless reaction conditions are meticulously, progressively, and sometimes rapidly adjusted, often in a way chance will not take care of except by undue statistical weighting? And further, the greater the efforts to achieve life synthetically, the greater has the complexity of the problem proved to be. It is just this mounting intellectual effort which has reflected so beautifully and conclusively the mounting refinement in experimental technique required for success, which is just another way of saying that the known intellectually-controlled physical interference from outside necessary to ignite life from the previously lifeless is continually mounting.

Living things are known today to be very much more complex than was thought only a few years ago, to say nothing of thoughts on this subject during Darwin’s lifetime. The mounting complexity brings diminishing possibility for chance ever to have been the Creator. The more laboratory technique is improved and used in the effort to produce life synthetically, the less likelihood is there of this.

All this leads quite simply to something very much approaching the Christian position so much attacked, even though obliquely, in Dr. Simpson’s article. This position simply states that interference from outside took place in matter in the past, resulting in the conferment of order in certain forms of matter to produce life as we know it. In principle, this position corresponds to that which every scientist takes in attempting to attain life in the lifeless in the laboratory; the method is the same in both cases—intellectually exogenously controlled physical interference with matter. Who does the ordering or interfering is immaterial in principle, the main thing is that scientific method has confirmed the mandatory role of exogenous ordering of matter, if life from the lifeless is to be achieved. That this does not occur within our experience endogenously is obvious and as the known complexity of life processes increases so do the statistical possibilities of spontaneous or endogenous ordering to the necessary grade decrease. Man was not there at the start to do the experiment, but why deny that any experimenter did the experiment, when all scientific method demands some sort of an experimenter?

Indeed, the Christian position goes further than this and maintains that the Mind behind Creation endowed his creature with some creative abilities similar to, even though vastly smaller than, his own. It goes even further along this line in calling man a god in some respects. If, however, man succeeds in modern laboratories sometimes, in a small way, in thinking the Creator’s synthetic experiments through again after him, why should this fact be interpreted to prove that, therefore, the Creator does not exist, as indeed Dr. Simpson seems to think? I must confess, I do not follow the logic of this position. If someone succeeds in repeating and confirming my published experiments, who, in the name of Science, would interpret this feat as proof positive that I do not exist, that I never did the experiments and therefore need never be reckoned with?

It seems to me, therefore, that Dr. Simpson’s nomenclature with respect to ‘higher superstitions celebrated weekly in every hamlet in the United States’ is not only rather lacking in Christian grace and tolerance (surely desirable properties cherished by Christians and others) but is without scientific basis—for the word superstition would no longer be correct if these celebrations were soundly founded on fact.

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY DIVIDES OVER NEGRO SIT-IN STRATEGY

German university attacks on Christianity after World War I prompted Rudolf Eucken to predict the Gospel’s declining national power unless it gripped both laboring man and university mind. The subsequent ascendency of naturalism, exalting Hitler as the voice of Germany, is now part of twentieth century history.

Student uprisings are headline news the world over today. Some protest totalitarian oppression. Some are Communist-inspired to champion social revolution. On American campuses, conformity prevails and mass idealism wanes. Student demonstrations are mainly fraternity farces, panty raids, or political circuses.

Now and then, as Christian concern and social radicalism act or interact, some student protests the status quo. Vanderbilt University is a case in point. Faculty resignations have followed administrative refusal to readmit a Negro divinity student expelled for “civil disobedience” after sit-in activity. Administrators held that forced victory over discriminatory ordinances might breed the worse evil of general lawlessness. But national conscience weighed on sectional conscience; the biggest United States social problem turned Vanderbilt into the Gettysburg of the new Civil War. Faculty resignations supported “higher moral law”; in a free land a man ought to be able to patronize a library or restaurant irrespective of his skin. Southern moderates held that spiritual commitment while slower is nevertheless surer than political compulsion. They felt coerced by the academic community, noting that dissenting opinion did not hesitate to rupture an institution. Splintered Vanderbilt thus became a symbol of the South’s forced hand and divided conscience.

‘THE GENERAL WELFARE’ AND THE WELFARE STATE

The American Federationist, official monthly of AFL-CIO, features a full page promotion for a pamphlet titled “Memo to Congress: A Positive Program for America.” The advertisement lifts the noble phrase “to promote the general welfare” from the foreword of the United States Constitution as an umbrella under which the labor lobby propagandizes for government health benefits for the aged, Federal aid to schools, legislative extension and increase of minimal wages, public housing, and other state welfare objectives.

The magazine’s cover jacket provides a religious atmosphere for the thrust. An attractive color plate displays the stained-glass windows in Washington Cathedral recently dedicated to the memory of Samuel Gompers, Philip Murray, and William Green. Each followed one of the three great religious faiths shaping the religious heritage of the West.

The Judeo-Christian heritage has, in fact, very much to say to our times. What it says is, however, often quite distinct from the objectives of organized labor. Not only does the Bible emphasize that wealth is a divine entrustment, but it reenforces personal responsibility and voluntarism, and it refuses to tie the concept of “the good life” to the gross national product, or to government services, or to state security. The confusion about national goals, characteristic of the workers of America (and who is not a worker?) is not wholly unrelated to the tendency of Big Labor as well as of Big Business to set sights upon material objectives and to blur spiritual imperatives out of focus.

Small wonder a concept like “the general welfare” can be twisted out of its historic patriotic sense. The foreword of the United States Constitution affirms indeed that government is to maintain order, administer justice, and promote the general welfare. In context, promotion of the general welfare means the state’s protection of life, liberty, and private property. Today the concept is stretched far off limits by those who would intrude the government into widening support of the masses along quasi-socialist lines. As twisted by twentieth century liberalism, “the general welfare” means government legislation of private property to put a floor under the living standard of all people, as well as other government “welfare” schemes.

A NEW ADVENTURE IN OPEN RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATION

A milestone in public religious discussion in America was passed in David Susskind’s “Open End” TV show the last Sunday night in May. Six Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant leaders, lay and clerical, spent two hours and a half in good-spirited, free-for-all on public and private education, birth control, and other religion-related issues of current interest.

Clashing opinions were frankly stated. There was no debate, and no consensus was reached. Some misunderstandings were cleared up. Viewers were doubtless both enlightened and confused. Regrettably, Roman Catholic clergymen declined to participate. No representative of evangelical Protestantism appeared.

Many American cultural, social and political problems are deeply involved in religious principle. Conflicts are inevitable in a climate of religious pluralism. Prejudice and intolerance build walls and block communication. “Open End” revealed areas of agreement, as well as of disagreement. When intelligent men of varied views meet in an atmosphere of good will, widely-shared values may be discovered as a framework for some unity of action. At any rate David Susskind’s hazardous undertaking may mark the beginning of a new and refreshing turn in American life.

A new Billy Graham came to Washington this week. He had the same transparent dependence on the New Testament message that he had when he conducted a crusade in the nation’s capital in 1952. He also had the same tanned face, lank frame, ebullient lungs, and artless manner. His familiar lieutenants—including song leader Cliff Barrows, soloist George Beverly Shea, and colleague Grady Wilson—were still with him.

Yet somehow many things were different. Instead of a boyish tent-preacher who had recently been “puffed” into a national phenomenon, he was now a mature, recognized national leader, the confidant of statesmen. The voice from the “wilderness” of the Carolina coastal plain had become an interpreter of world events in the light of God’s Word, and in the context of his own conversations with queens and premiers.

Eight years ago Billy Graham preached on the Capitol steps, and in an armory seating 10,000. This week he is speaking in Griffith Stadium, home of the Washington Senators, to perhaps as many as 25,000 or more. President Eisenhower had indicated he would be among those in attendance if he returned from the Far East in time.

Eight years ago Jerry Beavan had to warn Graham and Barrows that Washington would look askance at the brilliant ties and gabardine suits they were accustomed to wearing at their revival services. “This is the national capital,” he reminded them, “buy some button-down shirts.” By contrast, last week several hundred Congressmen, diplomats and government employees sat down at a banquet in the Presidential Ballroom of the Staffer Hilton Hotel, at the invitation of Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield and Crusade Chairman Boyd Leedom, to hear Billy speak. In a corner of the beveled invitation were the succinct words, “Black Tie.”

But most significant, perhaps, was the change in mood in eight years. In 1952 no hydrogen bomb had been exploded, no satellites launched, no summits had collapsed. The armory had attracted many who were gay, bored and frivolous, and who took in a crusade as they would take in a show. Doubtless there would be some such at the stadium this week, but there would also be many thousands of sober Americans who were deeply concerned about the national destiny and their place in it, many who saw in the challenge to moral renewal the only hope for the West.

In a preparatory move, the crusade committee arranged a series of top-level functions last week at which the evangelist spoke. They were of the type that emerged such a significant feature of the crusades in London, New York and San Francisco.

He addressed a breakfast at the House of Representatives, a Senate luncheon, a banquet for military personnel convened by Secretary of the Army Wilbur Brucker in the Mayflower Hotel, a luncheon of combined service clubs in the Mayflower with the Optimist Club acting as host, and a Sheraton Park Hotel banquet sponsored by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of America.

In 1952 the sponsorship of the crusade was limited to a scattered group of churches, many of them small. This week the evangelist was being welcomed by some 300 churches of the metropolitan area, and unofficially by the Council of Churches of the National Capital Area, with solid support from its retiring director, Dr. Frederick E. Reissig and from its chairman of evangelism, Dr. Clarence Cranford. Thus Graham’s first return visit to a major city to hold a crusade resulted in a significant response from the main stream of Protestant churches.

The crusade was scheduled to open at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 19, in the stadium, with meetings each night and the closing rally on Sunday afternoon, June 26. Preparations were made by Crusade Director Walter Smyth, working with a 20-man executive committee headed by Leedom, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, and Pastors G. Dewey Robinson and Edward L. R. Elson. Six members of the committee, including the treasurer, were drawn from Negro churches. Graham told 700 Washington ministers at a breakfast last January, “In my opinion it is going to do us good, psychologically good, to have tens of thousands of people of several races sitting together at Griffith Stadium, an integrated crusade from start to finish, singing the hymns and listening to the Gospel.”

The detailed preparations for which the Graham team is famous have been completed. Nearly 2,000 counselors have been trained by team member Dan Piatt. Specially-trained counselors for the first time are being used for marriage problems, as a result of needs that have arisen in past crusades. A thousand-voice choir will be singing each night. The choir is flanking each side of the rostrum in the playing field.

“Operation Andrew,” the Graham plan for bringing uncommitted persons to the meetings in busloads, will be helping to pack the stadium. There will be reserved sections for Congressmen, Senators and their staffs. Special trainloads are expected from several other states including South Carolina and Indiana.

Nearly two thousand homes in the area have been opened for cottage prayer meetings, according to Dr. George Docherty, prayer chairman. Daily prayer broadcasts began May 30. Hundreds of ushers have been recruited and trained by layman Gratz Dunkum, who held the same post in 1952.

But beyond all the mechanics of the crusade, Billy Graham and his team members, including Associate Evangelists Wilson, Joseph Blinco and Leighton Ford, were seeking spiritual guidance for what will be a most significant test of their ministry. It is one thing to influence important people, it is another to win converts to Jesus Christ who will then give their lives completely into his service. The year 1960 is, like 1952, an election year; yet America’s problems go deeper than a choice between parties. Many believe the issue is moral disaster, and that a genuine spiritual revival is our chief hope. Yet was it really possible for the Holy Spirit to bring revival to sophisticated America in 1960?

Graham faced other problems as well. In a post-graduate thesis submitted to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Rev. George P. Bowers analyzed the four-week Greater Louisville (Kentucky) Crusade conducted by the Graham team in 1956. Elis sampling of 100 persons making decisions at that crusade highlighted the imperative need for a more intensified follow-up on the part of pastors and counselors if the fruits of the meeting are to be conserved.

Graham and his colleagues readily concede that many inquirers fall by the wayside. Each crusade underscores human inadequacies in counseling and follow-up methods. Special problems persist.

Yet it must be said for the Graham team that efforts are continually being made to overcome deficiencies. The system of dealing with those who respond to the invitation is under steady surveillance. Improvements are incorporated as they are developed.

“Every day is a day of school in the crusade,” says Piatt, the alert young Baptist layman who is responsible for conducting the counselor training classes in Washington. “We review our procedures constantly and we try to apply the lessons that we learn.”

Last fall a new type of decision card was introduced, aimed at drawing out more fully the counselor’s initiative (he must now complete a third of the card and mail it in himself). A minister is now immediately assigned to call upon every person who records a decision for Christ, to check that the individual’s need has been met, and to see that he is invited to church the very next Sunday. Subsequently, the inquirer is supplied with an enlarged Bible study program and encouraged to become active in the church of his choice.

Another recent innovation is the plan for a series of breakfasts for ministers prior to the crusade’s start. The ministers are addressed by a team member, who usually gives a detailed briefing of crusade plans and describes how the individual clergyman or layman can cooperate. The pastors are encouraged to ask questions and to offer suggestions.

The evangelist’s health can still be a problem in itself. By the middle of June, Graham had recovered much of the energy lost in the rigors of the African campaign earlier this year. Although he no longer seems to have the stamina necessary for an extended crusade, the evangelist did consider himself “quite ready” for the eight-day Washington thrust. In an effort to conserve his physical resources he has been re-examining commitments to various evangelical enterprises, which, though commendable in themselves, nonetheless sap strength and consume precious time. Graham has been trying to weigh these considerations along with the burdens and priorities inherent in his own evangelistic outreach. As a result, he has recently tendered his resignation to several boards.

Convinced that pressures of the world tend to erode the spiritual powers of twentieth-century Christians, the evangelist and his wife have sought during the spring months to spend at least an hour a day in outdoor meditation—perhaps a walk in the woods near their home in the western North Carolina mountains with prayer and Bible reading.

The National Capital Crusade was but one phase of a four-continent effort by the evangelist during 1960. He has already spent nearly three months in Africa, and several days in South America. He has scheduled a five-week crusade in Germany (Berlin, Hamburg, Essen) and Switzerland (Lausanne, Bern, Basel, Zürich) during July and August. And he plans a unique three-day mission to New York City’s Spanish-speaking population in Madison Square Garden the weekend of October 7–9.

Existentialism … astronaut … Castro … beatnik … these were words unknown to Billy Graham and to most Americans in 1952. The space age and its jargon had not been invented. To a new Billy, moving in a wider orbit with his Gospel of repentance and grace, the city which has become the axle of the whole free world offered an unprecedented challenge.

One autumn day in 1830 Charles G. Finney rode a mule-towed barge along the Erie Canal into the young city of Rochester, New York, where his Gospel preaching spurred one of the most famous revivals of the nineteenth century. This month, 130 years later, both the evangelist and the canal are gone. The canal’s empty ditch is about to become a freeway in downtown Rochester. But as some 8,000 delegates to the 53rd Annual American Baptist Convention gathered in the city’s War Memorial Building, Finney’s voice seemed to be feeding back on the microphone, and Rochester once again felt the stirrings of spiritual awakening.

From the invocation June 2 until the benediction five days later, a spirit of unity prevailed, due in great measure to the gifted congeniality of the presiding officer, Dr. Herbert Gezork, head of Andover-Newton Seminary, and the background work of the young general secretary, Dr. Edwin Tuller. Just enough controversy was present, as one delegate expressed it, “to keep the steam up.” And a French-born woman delegate added, “People don’t understand us Baptists; they think we’re fighting when we’re only expressing ourselves. That’s the Baptist way!”

One crucial issue was quickly settled on the third day as, by an almost unanimous vote, the convention agreed to proceed with erection of its proposed modern $8,500,000 headquarters and publishing plant (Judson Press) on 55 scenic acres along the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Valley Forge.

The other major issue at the convention was a Kansas revolt, led by the 4300-member First Baptist Church of Wichita, against further ABC participation in the National Council of Churches. The NCC was charged with advocating UN recognition of Red China, socialized medicine, federal aid to education, uncontrolled immigration, cooperation with Roman Catholics. It was accused of opposing right-to-work laws, of issuing pacifist pronouncements on UN disarmament, and in general of being “too close to socialism” and “trying to legislate a watered-down Christianity.” Leaders of the Wichita group declared that scores of Baptist churches in the Midwest supported their stand.

Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, Baptist president of the NCC, did not take part in the debate, but expressed the majority view one evening when he said, “the Christians of America are coming together and intend to stay together.” After a substitute motion was defeated, an overwhelming majority approved a General Council recommendation “reaffirming our participation” in the NCC, but preserving the right of local churches to dissent and to withhold NCC financial support. Individual churches disaffiliating from NCC shall have the right to be so listed in the annual ABC yearbook.

Convention Retains Social Stand

The characteristic American Baptist position on social issues was strongly maintained in resolutions adopted by this month’s convention.

Sex and violence in mass media were deplored, along with gambling, alcoholic beverages, and continued nuclear testing. A comprehensive statement on race relations called for “complete integration of all Baptist organizations.”

The attitude toward Roman Catholicism was ambivalent; a pre-convention critique by Paul Blanshard in Rochester had roused ire in the local Romanist press, and the convention itself warned against use of public funds for parochial schools. Further, delegates insisted that candidates for public office clarify the relation of their religious beliefs to “issues of American life.” On the other hand, they said that distinctions of creed, race or gender should not affect one’s right to aspire to such office. A friendly reference to Roman Catholics was made in an “official” address by NCC President Edwin Dahlberg, an American Baptist pastor.

Dahlberg’s message, entitled “The Last Farthing,” contained in mimeographed form an extended defense (not delivered in person to the convention) of the 1958 Cleveland NCC World Order Conference stand on Red China.

The ABC gave thumping support to the South’s sit-down demonstrations.

Sixty hands were raised in opposition; newsmen broke for the telephones; and the convention settled back for the home stretch. One correspondent at the press table recorded the debate on tape: Dr. Carl McIntire of the Christian Beacon.

Delegates unanimously elected as their new president a layman, C. Stanton Gallup, former head of the Baptist Men and a lumber and utility executive in Plainfield, Connecticut.

The real issues facing American Baptists, deeper than any which reached the floor for debate, were nonetheless everywhere evident at Rochester. There was the concern about growth: the ABC membership has stood still in recent years, while other Baptist groups have expanded as much as 34 per cent. Another concern was the drift toward centralization of authority and away from local autonomy; some churches are now being encouraged to place title to their property in the hands of the state conventions.

The basic theological dilemma was aptly expressed in a statement prepared for the delegates by the Baptist Union of Rochester and Monroe County, which read in part: “Our own understanding of who we are as Baptists has become fragmented and confused since the sturdier days of our fathers.… We are reluctant even to raise the question of a common confession, lest such unity as we have be lost.… We have moved to many forms of church government and to little or no discipline. From a clearly understood sense in which Scripture was the final authority for the church, we have come to an implicit recognition of multiple authorities and to serious disagreement concerning any sense in which Scripture is authoritative at all.”

Occasional voices from the rostrum called delegates back to their source of Baptistic strength.

Still a key force in any spiritual awakening that might come to America, still interested in soul-winning and revival, with a lively church conscience, yet evidently increasingly dependent on the techniques of social engineering, American Baptists were uncomfortably aware at Rochester that their early-day thrust was flattening out. So while the leaders preached about discernment, lectured about stewardship, and debated about autonomy, there were Baptists present who prayed for genuine revival in the land, America, and who kept one ear open to heaven, listening for the rustling of the Holy Spirit.

Protestant Panorama

• The Universalist Church of Rhode Island, which reverted to an “affiliate” status with the state council of churches two years ago, plans to apply for readmission to full constituent membership. The council recently adopted a Trinitarian preamble, but did not specify that members must subscribe to it.

• Groundbreaking ceremonies were held in San Antonio May 25 for the Southwest Texas Methodist Hospital, said to be the world’s first which can function under nuclear attack. Two floors of the $20,000,000 hospital will be underground, protected by a 26-inch concrete wall and equipped to accommodate 1,200 people.

• Cameras will begin rolling in Germany next month for a film depicting Christianity’s struggle under communism. Tentatively titled “In My Father’s House,” the film will be produced by Lutheran Film Associates and Louis de Rochemont Associates, which also collaborated on “Martin Luther.”

• Chaplain (Captain) John D. Zimmerman will serve as principal liaison representative between the Jerusalem See and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States following his retirement from the Navy June 30.

• Union Theological Seminary is creating a “Reinhold Niebuhr Professorship of Social Ethics” in honor of Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, retiring vice president and senior faculty member.

• The Foundation for Reformation Research will apply two newly-received grants totalling $20,000 toward a program to film sixteenth-century books and manuscripts. One gift of $10,000 came from the Lilly Foundation and another from Concordia Publishing House, which plans to donate $50,000 over a five-year period.

• The Independent Faith Mission is launching a new Italian-language newspaper with a popular, evangelistic appeal. Vero (True) will use a modern, dressy format and the rotagravure printing process to compete with slick secular papers.

• The $1,750,000 Park Place Church of God in Anderson, Indiana was dedicated this month. It is the largest in the Church of God denomination, which has headquarters in Anderson.

• The Rev. David Koto, Anglican bishop of Tokyo, reports that he is encouraged at the response of U. S. Episcopalians to his plan for a $500,000 cathedral. The cathedral would be located opposite the world’s tallest television tower, which has turned into a tourist mecca.

• Conservative Protestant churches in the South Bend, Indiana, area are spearheading the establishment of a Christian high school. Classes will begin this fall.

• The Rev. William H. Jordan was consecrated as a missionary bishop by the Reformed Episcopal Church at its annual council in Philadelphia last month. The church has some 70 congregations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and in South Carolina. It supports 11 foreign missionaries.

• Concern, news magazine of Methodist Youth, was merged this month with Contact, social action periodical published for three Methodist boards.

• The Lutheran World Federation says its mediators have helped to heal a factional split in the 209,000-member Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church of northeastern India.

• The Congregational Christian home missions board is giving college scholarships to 82 Indian and Spanish-speaking youths in the United States under a program begun in 1954.

• Representatives of the Danish Ministry of Education say they have reached agreement with bishops of the state Lutheran church on a program of released time religious instruction for pupils about to be confirmed.

• The Newcastle synod of the Anglican Church in Australia wants New South Wales school authorities to withdraw a text which allegedly contains passages “repugnant to the truth and to the Church of England.”

Race and Theology

A racial dispute triggered by Negro sit-in demonstrations broke out at Vanderbilt University Divinity School last month. Eleven professors resigned, including Dean J. Robert Nelson, three new graduates said they were returning their degrees, and fourteen students threatened to withdraw. All described their action as a protest of the university’s refusal to readmit the Rev. James M. Lawson, 32-year-old Methodist minister and former missionary to India who was expelled from the Divinity School for his “commitment to a planned program of civil disobedience” in connection with segregated lunch counter demonstrations in Nashville this spring.

Nelson’s resignation is scheduled to take effect in August. The resigning faculty members said they would remain to the close of the next academic year. Were they to leave immediately, the Divinity School would be left with only four professors.

Vanderbilt Chancellor Harvie Branscomb said he would refer the resignations to university trustees.

Lawson was arrested during the rash of sit-in demonstrations and is awaiting trial on a charge of conspiracy to disrupt trade and commerce. Meanwhile, he has enrolled in the Boston University School of Theology and hopes to complete requirements for a bachelor of sacred theology degree during the summer session.

Vanderbilt offered the post left vacant by Dean Nelson’s resignation to Dr. Walter Harrelson, who is now leaving another theological school controversy, having been dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School during its years of tension as part of the soon-to-be-dissolved Federated Theological Faculty. Harrelson not only turned down the offer but resigned a professorship he had already accepted before the controversy began. He was to have begun teaching at the Vanderbilt seminary this summer.

Branscomb, in refusing to readmit Lawson, cited these considerations: “that in this emotionally charged situation, it would be impossible to deal with Mr. Lawson on the same basis that one would deal with any other student; that to readmit him would initiate a conflict as long as he would be on campus; that he had the alternative … of attending Boston University, which … had agreed to give him his degree by the end of the summer term; and that in these circumstances and the best interest of the university I would not approve his readmission.”

The Uneasy Congo

U. S. mission boards maintained a steady alert on the eve of Belgian Congo independence.

Missionary News Service reports that a “pall of uncertainty” surrounded Congolese affairs as the territory moved into its last month under Belgian rule. The first session of the new Congo Parliament opens June 30.

Most missionary agencies apparently have adopted a wait-and-see policy. Some were fearful of what might happen. Others were optimistic. Most agreed that missionary personnel should stay put pending the governmental changeover, and one board flatly decreed that there would be no travel in or out of the Congo after June 15.

A missions official just returned from the Congo said Africans stressed that there was no animosity toward foreign missionaries: “We were assured that (the missionary) is loved and respected among the people, that their earnest desire is for him to remain, and indeed, that more missionaries are needed.”

Still there was anxiety. “Not that the missionary himself would be the target,” the missions official said, “but that he could be caught in the welter of confusion, possibly violence, that might accompany a chaotic period following the elections.”

Informed observers were watching the movements of Congo’s new strong men, including Patrice Emergy Lumumba, Otetela tribesman who once was expelled from a Methodist mission school, and Abako leader Joseph Kasavubu. Lumumba came out of last month’s election with the likely control of about one-third of the seats in the Chamber of Representatives.

There are approximately 2,150 foreign missionaries now serving in the Congo. They represent groups such as the Disciples, Methodists, Presbyterian Church in the U. S., Mennonite Brethren Church of North America, Conservative Baptists, Salvation Army, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and the Evangelical Free Church.

A Judge’s Reversal

In Medellín, Colombia, public indignation is said to have prodded a judge to reverse himself in the case of three children seized from their Protestant father.

Juvenile Court Judge Arturo Tobón originally had issued a warrant for the children to be taken from their father and given over to the care of their Roman Catholic uncle. Nine days later they were returned, again by order of Tobón.

“The abrupt reversal of orders from the judge,” says James Goff of the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia, “resulted from public indignation over the ‘legal kidnapping’ as well as from intervention by the Ministry of Government in Bogotá, the Governor of Antioquia, and the Mayor of Medellín.”

The children had been baptized in the Roman Catholic faith, but the father, a widower, has since been converted.

Losses in Chile

Religious News Service reports that Protestant churches, schools, and parsonages in Chile suffered heavy losses in May’s earthquakes and tidal waves.

Many national church workers were among the 5,000 victims, but no U. S. missionaries are known to be missing or dead.

Among groups which sustained serious church losses were the Methodist, Southern Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Seventh-day Adventist, and Four Square Gospel.

Church Battleground

A German Lutheran church taken over by Roman Catholics following World War II became a battleground in Zielona Gora, Poland, last month. Authorities, who want to use the building for concerts, sent workmen to remove furniture only to have them expelled by angry Catholic women. A riot ensued with thousands of townspeople joining in. Four persons were seriously hurt as police resorted to nightsticks and tear gas to dispel demonstrators.

Tracing ‘Terrorism’

The Christian Century, undenominational weekly, issued a blistering rebuke this month of proposals to arrest liberal trends in the Southern Baptist Convention.

In a June 8 editorial, “Do Southern Baptists Fear Liberty,” the Century took strong issue with SBC President Ramsay Pollard, who urged the convention last month to seek out unbelieving seminary professors.

The editorial sought to identify Pollard’s orthodox stand with anti-intellectualism and oppression.

“It is not an accident that the quality of literature exhibited at a Southern Baptist Convention is lower than that seen at the convention of any other major religious body in America,” the Century said. “The intellectual and spiritual poverty there exhibited is not due to lack of ability of Southern Baptist writers and publishers to enter more creatively into the dialogue of our times. Rather it is traceable to the terrorism which is exerted over writers, publishers and booksellers by self-appointed censors. By demagoguery they inspire a fear which inhibits mental activity, blunts legitimate expression, throttles ideas in their cradles.”

The editorial was viewed as one of the severest criticisms of denominational leadership to appear in the Century in recent years. The 51-year-old journal, chronic critic of theological conservatism, has pursued a softer line of late, presumably in the interests of ecumenicity.

Recent “theological and ecclesiastical earthquakes which threaten the strength and solidity of the Southern Baptist Convention … cannot be ignored,” the Century said.

“Tyranny of this kind is as blinding as it is subtle, cruel and anti-Christian.”

Sticking to the Gospel

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, asserted before a nationwide television audience this month that Christianity has no program to assure survival to an unregenerate world that seeks its solutions outside of Christ.

Henry appeared on a panel discussion with Dr. A. Dudley Ward, general secretary of the Methodist Board of Social and Economic Relations. The discussion was a feature of NBC’s “Frontiers of Faith” and revolved on the question, “Why Don’t the Churches Stick to the Gospel?”

“Some do and some don’t,” Henry observed, “but all the churches ought to.” Ward retorted that to give such an answer is “to beg the question” … of the definition of the Gospel.

Ward maintained that it was necessary for the corporate church to concern itself with social welfare. “We must become involved,” he said, “or we are irrelevant.”

Henry said the pulpit has divine authority to preach revealed doctrines and moral principles, and that the church’s primary task is evangelism and missions. He deplored “lack of social conscience,” but also criticized the manner in which the corporate church propels itself into particular socio-political programs.

Ward disputed the Bible’s final authority, insisting that the church must shape its message also in view of tradition and the social setting.

Commentator Lisa Sergio, a convert from Roman Catholicism to the Episcopal faith, moderated the discussion.

Life and Death

The effects of a disaster are not always disastrous.

“I know of at least three persons who have accepted Jesus as Saviour following the tornado,” said the Rev. R. L. Phillips, pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Wilburton, Oklahoma. The twister hit one evening last month while Phillips and 24 of his parishioners were gathered in the church for a dinner. The church was demolished and five of the guests were killed.

Arguments Forthcoming

The U. S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this fall on the constitutionality of the Connecticut law which prohibits dissemination of birth control information. The resulting decision will mark the first time the nation’s highest tribunal has ever ruled on the question.

Some Protestants say that the birth control laws in Connecticut and Massachusetts favor the Catholic population. Catholics say the laws were enacted by Protestants who long ago were largely opposed to birth control.

Visitor’s Impressions

A noted Salvation Army evangelist, just returned to his native England following a five-month speaking tour of the United States and Canada, says he was impressed with “the freedom given for preaching the Gospel over radio and television.”

“May that freedom be carefully guarded,” declared Major Allister Smith.

He added that although he found Salvationists in America “fundamental and evangelical,” “the Army realizes that, like other churches and missions, it needs a revival and a return to the fire and power of its early days.”

Pilot Project

Six days of discussions about the Bible climaxed a pilot project among ministers and laymen in Buffalo last month. The project, initiated by the American Bible Society, was the first of its type in the United States and drew from both Protestant and Orthodox congregations. It was said to be aimed at determining what “God has to say to the people of today through the Bible.”

The project began several months ago with a clergymen’s seminar conducted by such Bible expositors as Dr. John H. Gerstner, Dr. James Sanders, Dr. John Schmidt, Dr. James R. Branton, Dr. George W. Birtch, and the Very Rev. Alexander Schmeman.

ROME REAFFIRMS POLITICAL ROLE

L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican City daily, called attention last month to the hierarchy’s “duty and right to guide, direct and correct” Catholics in politics.

In a prominently-positioned editorial entitled “Firm Points,” the newspaper spelled out the far-reaching implications of Roman doctrine. It was the most official and definitive Church-State policy statement to come out of the Vatican in many months.

Though ostensibly aimed at the Italian situation wherein many Catholics lean toward communism, the editorial’s principles apply to Catholics everywhere. Vatican sources described the message as “authoritative.”

Some effort was made to temper the effect of the editorial. The day after it appeared a high Vatican source was reported as having said that the writer (unidentified) did not have in mind U. S. Senator John F. Kennedy, Democratic presidential aspirant. Nearly two weeks later L’Osservatore Romano carried another editorial saying that the first one did not “hinder or contradict the autonomy of political action” as long as it was undertaken in keeping with the church’s teaching and with the “refusal to allow any split in conscience between the believer and the citizen.”

Catholic Data

• The newly-released Official Catholic Directory reports a record constituency in the United States of 40,871,302.

• The National Catholic Welfare Conference says enrollment in Roman Catholic elementary and high schools for the 1959–1960 academic year topped five million, also a record.

• Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, says Knights of Columbus advertisements attracted 3,660,182 inquiries during the first third of 1960.

• One of two secretaries established for the forthcoming Ecumenical Council by Pope John XXIII is being assigned the task of enabling non-Catholics to follow the work of the council and to arrive at “unity.”

“The Church’s teaching is directed towards the free conscience of the citizen so that with well-inspired will power he can make a choice which is not contradictory to faith.”

The second editorial was written by the newspaper’s new editor, Raimondo Manzini, and had less of an official character than the first, according to Religious News Service.

Kennedy’s Reply

Roman Catholic Senator John F. Kennedy declined direct personal comment on L’Osservatore Romano’s Church-State editorial, except to say (two weeks later) that he understood the Vatican to have issued a subsequent statement which declared that the editorial “did not apply to the United States.”

Kennedy’s press secretary had issued this statement the day after the original editorial appeared:

“The American office holder is committed by an oath to God to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which includes Article I providing for the separation of church and state.

“Senator Kennedy has repeatedly stated his support of the principle of separation of church and state as provided for in the United States Constitution. He has stated that this support is not subject to change under any condition.”

Editorial Excerpts

Following are excerpts from an editorial which appeared in the Vatican City daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, on May 18:

There is a tendency to separate Catholics from the Church’s hierarchy, restricting the relationship between them to the sphere of a simple sacred ministry and proclaiming the full autonomy of the faithful in the civic sphere.

Thus, an absurd distinction is made between a man’s conscience as a Catholic and his conscience as a citizen, as though the Catholic religion were a special and occasional phase of the life of the spirit and not the driving idea that binds and guides the whole of man’s existence.…

The Church, constituted with its hierarchy by Jesus Christ as a perfect society, has full powers of real jurisdiction over all the faithful and thus has the right and the duty to guide, direct and correct them on the plane of ideas and of action in conformity with the dictates of the Gospel in what is necessary to attain the supreme end of man, which is eternal life.…

A Catholic can never depart from the teachings and directives of the Church. In every sector of his activity, his conduct, both private and public, must be motivated by the laws, orientation and instructions of the hierarchy.

The political-social problem cannot be separated from religion because it is a highly human problem and as such has as its basis an urgent ethical-religious need that cannot be abolished. And, by the same token, conscience and the sense of duty, which have a large role in such a problem, likewise cannot be abolished.

Consequently, the Church cannot remain indifferent, particularly when politics touch the altar, as Pope Pius XI said. The Church has the right and the duty to enter also this field to enlighten and aid consciences to make the best choice according to moral principles and those of Christian sociology.

Outside of these principles and of the dutiful discipline of the laity toward the hierarchy, anyone can see what a vast field of special responsibilities, courageous initiatives and fruitful activity is open to the civic activity of Catholic lay people so that they may offer their contribution of opinions and discussions, experiences and accomplishments, to promote the progress of their country.

The problem of collaboration with those who do not recognize religious principles might arise in the political field. It is then up to the ecclesiastical authorities, and not to the arbitrary decisions of individual Catholics, to judge the moral licitness of such collaboration.…

It is highly deplorable … that some persons, though professing to be Catholics, not only dare to conduct their political and social activities in a way which is at variance with the teachings of the Church, but also take upon themselves the right to submit its norms and precepts to their own judgment, interpretation and evaluation with obvious superficiality and temerity.

475 Riverside Drive

A new chapter in the ecumenical movement unfolded with the May 29 dedication of the Interchurch Center, 19-story office building overlooking the Hudson River from Manhattan’s Morn-ingside Heights.

Built as a home base for U. S. ecumenism at a cost of $21,000,000 (including $2,000,000 working capital), the building houses National Council of Churches headquarters and assorted denominational and church-related agencies. Ownership rests with a tax-exempt, charitable corporation formed in liaison with NCC leaders.

More than 2,000 persons witnessed a solemn dedication service in neighboring Riverside Church. Following the sermon by German Bishop Hans Lilje, they formed a procession to the main entrance of the gray limestone edifice at 475 Riverside Drive for equally solemn ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

Interestingly enough, the interdenominational Riverside Church had been the scene of another ecumenical procession just a few days before. The earlier procession, which had no official tie with the Interchurch Center dedication, was part of a service commemorating the golden anniversary of the first World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. Although originally projected in the interests of missionary cooperation, the Edinburgh conference held 50 years ago this month is now looked upon as having provided stimulus for the ecumenical movement.

How does U. S. Protestantism react to the Interchurch Center as the “tangible symbol of the growing unity of the churches”? Denominational leaders, including avowed ecumenists, have showed surprisingly little interest in a common headquarters building. Some have been openly opposed. Only one denomination—the Reformed Church in America—has located headquarters offices in the Interchurch Center. Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Disciples do not have as much as a desk to represent them.

To be sure, the Interchurch Center’s 461,000 square feet of office space could not begin to accommodate all denominational headquarters. But even this limited opportunity for geographic ecumenicity is being widely ignored, for already the Interchurch Center has been obliged to rent rooms to a number of non-religious groups such as the Association on American Indian Affairs and the College Entrance Examination Board.

Tenants of the Interchurch Center have been moving into their new quarters since last fall, a year after President Eisenhower had laid the cornerstone (a piece of marble from ancient Corinth). NCC offices take up four floors, United Presbyterian and Methodist agencies each occupy three floors. The International Missionary Council and the U. S. Conference of the World Council of Churches have adjoining suites.

The center’s functional motif, most noticeable in its well-appointed interior, contrasts sharply with the flamboyancy of Riverside Church and the more reserved traditional look of nearby Union Theological Seminary. A 500-seat chapel on the ground floor boasts a strikingly backlighted alabaster window said to be the largest in the world. Instead of a cross, an eight-foot gold mosaic Chi Rho (a Greek monogram for Christ which dates back to the Catacombs) will be hung from the ceiling.

Site for the building was donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who also gave $2,650,000 toward construction. Another million dollars was donated by individuals, while church groups contributed $500,000 and invested $4,500,000 in second mortgage bonds. A first mortgage loan of $12,650,000 from the New York Life Insurance Company is to be repaid from rentals over a 30-year period.

NCC Hails ‘New Era’

“Hold to Christ and for the rest, remain uncommitted, or you will cumber the earth with your ‘efficiency,’” the General Board of the National Council of Churches was told at its semiannual meeting June 1–2 by Dr. Leslie E. Cooke, associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches, at the Interchurch Center in New York.

Despite sober reminders that the newly-dedicated skyscraper was merely “servants’ quarters for the churches” and not intended to give its tenants “a false sense of permanence,” the 250-member board found little difficulty adjusting to its impressive new surroundings. And soon it was covering the earth, if not ‘cumbering’ it, with resolutions and recommendations on issues ranging from atomic waste to the Pakistani refugees of Calcutta.

Reverberations of the recent Air Force manual controversy were still echoing. General satisfaction was expressed over the outcome, especially the strong support given NCC in congressional speeches and in American mass media generally. Exulted James Wine, associate general secretary and a key figure in the controversy, “Our principal detractors are in a state of desperation … at last they are now being found out for exactly what they are—purveyors of half truths, perverters of fact, and willing tools.… The apparent conspiracy has been broken, an era is ended.” Public decency and fairness, he predicted, “will drive these people into the black holes of oblivion.”

Speeches by some board members, however, reflected a less sanguine view. It was reported that at grass roots the NCC is subject to continuing criticism and unpopularity in some areas and churches. General Secretary Roy G. Ross took an optimistic view, suggesting that the Air Force manual’s charges of Communist infiltration in NCC churches had actually demonstrated the solidarity of the denominations as they united to resist the accusations.

A change is manifest in the outspoken anti-Communist emphasis of the current utterances of NCC leaders. What is said to have been formerly assumed and taken for granted on the inside—and correspondingly misunderstood on the outside—is now a heartily verbalized policy, and the air is much clearer.

The NCC board handed its faith and order advisory committee a knotty practical problem to unravel during the next two years: the relationship of local, state and national councils of churches to the historic Church. Before it can initiate deep theological discussions on such subjects as the nature of ministry, intercommunion and other doctrinal questions, the NCC has a mandate to clarify the ecclesiological status of the councils.

The board received a study commission report calling upon the FCC to withhold licenses from TV and radio stations which persist in “offending the public interest.” The report spanked mass media for their “pathological preoccupation with sex and violence.” The FCC was asked to set up local boards of review and to hold public hearings to evaluate radio and TV stations’ performances where complaints have been raised. “We recognize that this is symptomatic of a moral disease in our society,” the report said. At the same time it expressed its distaste for censorship and the Roman Catholic “Legion of Decency” approach to films. The report called on religious broadcasters not to “pretend to a false unity, nor conspire to water down the content of the Gospel to a least common denominator.”

Among other actions the board:

• Hailed nuclear energy as a gift from God to the human race, and called for its increased use for peaceful purposes.

• Adopted a six-point proposal of ways in which world peace prospects could be improved, involving disarmament, raising of living standards, inter-communication, and promotion of moral principles and human rights. The proposal called on the United States to be ready to confer with all nations (Communist China was not mentioned by name).

• Adopted after minor changes a resolution applauding sit-in demonstrations by students and others in restaurants and libraries of the South as efforts to bring “laws, customs and traditions into conformity with the law of God which recognizes the dignity and worth of each and every person.”

• Recommended that the Syrian (Orthodox) Church of Antioch (which claims to have been established between 37 and 43 A.D. with Peter as its first Patriarch) be approved as a member communion of NCC at the General Assembly in San Francisco next December.

• Reported that Church World Service had rushed emergency aid to stricken Chile.

• Welcomed a bearded official visitor, His Holiness Vasken I, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, from Etchmiadzin, Armenia, U.S.S.R., who brought “greetings of Christian love” to the Christians of America from hit church.

S.E.W.

Nile Mother

Highlight of an Assemblies of God Sunday School convention, held last month in Minneapolis, was an honor breakfast for Miss Lillian Thrasher, who was instrumental in the establishment of one of the world’s largest orphanages in Assiout, Egypt, 50 years ago.

Miss Thrasher, 73, known as the “Nile Mother,” is one of the most highly regarded missionaries in the Middle East. Among her mementoes is a personal letter from United Arab Republic President Gamal Abdel Nasser expressing appreciation for her work with the orphans. Nasser personally intervened for Miss Thrasher last fall when she encountered difficulty in importing an automobile for the orphanage.

Mission Decisions

A total of 85,543 decisions for Christ were recorded last year by the 272 members of the International Union of Gospel Missions, it was reported at the group’s 47th annual meeting in Charleston, West Virginia, last month.

IUGM members reported they had served 7,366,116 meals and conducted 66,264 religious services which were attended by 3,298,780 persons, Temporary lodging was provided for 2,190,198 persons. In addition, assistance was given 21,628 families in 1959.

The figures were made public by C. E. Gregory, IUGM president and superintendent of the Cleveland City Mission. Gregory was an accountant before he joined the mission 12 years ago.

In addition to 260 U. S. members, the IUGM has missions in Canada, Cuba, Japan, France, and England.

People Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. David Hugh Jones, 98, pastor emeritus of the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, Illinois; in Evanston … Dr. John Z. Hodge, 88, former secretary of the National Christian Council of India, Burma, and Ceylon … Dr. Ida S. Scudder, 90, founder of the Vellore American Medical Mission; in Kodaikanal, Madras, India.

Resignations: As president of Eastern Baptist College and Seminary, Dr. Gilbert L. Guffin (effective May, 1961, to return to Howard College in Alabama as dean of the religious program) … as editor of the Link, National Sunday School Association publication, Dr. Edwin J. Potts.

Elections: As moderator of the American Unitarian Association (to be merged next year with the Universalist Church of America) Dr. James R. Killian, Jr.… as president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Dr. Nathan Bailey … as president of the Christian Medical Society, Dr. William Johnson.

Appointments: As president of Gordon College and Divinity School, Dr. James Forrester … as president of Scarritt College, the Rev. D. D. Holt … as dean of Conwell School of Theology (to open this fall in Philadelphia), Dr. Aaron E. Gast … as professor of systematic theology and Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, Dr. Edward W. Bauman; as professor of pastoral care, Dr. Tabor Chikas; as pastor of Christian worship, retiring Methodist Bishop W. Earl Ledden … as professor of church history and practical theology at San Francisco Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. William J. Sweeting … as pastor of City Temple in London, England, Dr. A. Leonard Griffith of Chalmers United Church in Ottawa, Ontario.

W. E. Sangster

Dr. W. E. Sangster, 60, home mission superintendent of the English Methodist Church and a noted preacher and evangelical leader, died in London last month.

Sangster had been in poor health for many months, having suffered from a muscular illness.

A CHRISTIANITY TODAY Contributing Editor, he was author of more than 10 books and known especially for his writings on the practical outreach of the Church. In 1950 he was president of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain.

Preliminary Study

Steven C. Rockefeller, son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, will enroll this fall for “preliminary study” at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Rockefeller, whose marriage last year to Anne Marie Rasmussen, the family’s Norwegian housemaid, drew world-wide attention, is “anxious to learn more about the faith and the ministry” before making a definite commitment regarding the ministry as a career, according to Union admissions chairman Robert Handy.

Dispensationalism In America

Dispensationalism in America, Its Rise and Development, by C. Norman Kraus (John Knox Press, 1958, 156 pp., $3), is reviewed by Wilbur M. Smith, Professor of English Bible at Fuller Theological Seminary.

This small volume, by a member of the faculty of Goshen College, is an attempt to trace the development of the concept of dispensationalism as an hermeneutical principle used in the interpretation of Scripture. The author presents the various schemes used in dividing the period of biblical revelation from the appearance of our first parents down through the millenium, and gives major emphasis to what he calls the most influential dispensational scheme set forth in this country during the last 80 years—that used in the Scofield Reference Bible. A good deal of attention is given to early Bible conferences, even to those in which Kraus cannot discover much dispensational teaching. (These pages seem rather irrelevant.)

Emphatically opposed to dispensational interpretations, Kraus seems also to reject strongly many of the basic underlying presuppositions of American dispensationalism. He says, “The basic theological affinities of dispensationalism are Calvinistic. The large majority of the men involved in the Bible and prophetic conference movements subscribed to Calvinistic creeds” (p. 59). Multitudes of people in this country will have no objection to that. Then he says of this scheme, “Eschatologically, God’s sovereign predestination is clearly the norm” (p. 62). Again, “The second doctrine which received heavy emphasis in the system was the total depravity of man” (p. 63). Continuing his discussion on this subject, Kraus quotes with disapproval a statement which Dr. Arthur T. Pierson uttered at a conference in 1886 concerning the darker aspects of contemporary civilization, which are more evident today than when Pierson spoke. “Finally,” he says, “the dispensationalists put forward a strict, mechanical theory of verbal inspiration as a bulwark against the inroads of Biblical criticism.… They recognized clearly that revelation was by orthodox definition supernatural. They set an impassable gulf between the inspiration of genius and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” One must ask, what is wrong with that? Throughout the book, the author continues to criticize this concept of the full inspiration of the Scriptures.

What took me by surprise was his critical statement that dispensationalists placed emphasis upon “decisions for Christ,” defined as “accepting the essential concept that Christ forgives the sinner his personal offenses.”

In asserting that dispensationalists were not interested in world affairs, he says of the mission field, “One group strongly influenced by this doctrine established a mission in an area where there were thousands of refugees who were in dire need of food and clothing. They refused, however, to be involved in any ministry? of relief to these people.” Those who follow dispensational teaching have sent out thousands of missionaries into the foreign field within the century, and, for the most part, this accusation would not Ite true of them. Moreover, this particular group should have been named so we might know to whom the author refers. The slurring remarks concerning C. H. Mackintosh do not belong in a careful study of biblical hermeneutics.

Throughout this work on dispensationalism the author takes us as far back as Cocceius of the early seventeenth century. Nowhere, strangely, does he say anything about Augustine’s famous passage on the seven ages of the world, found at the end of his City of God.

In places the book shows carelessness. Although much space is given to William E. Blackstone, and the date of his birth is included, no trouble was taken to ascertain the year of his death (1935)—here indicated with a question mark. The dates for Darby’s visits to America are not complete: the fourteen months from 1862 to 1863 and the visit of 1876 to 1877 are not included. Kraus apparently depended on the article in the Dictionary of National Biography for these dates, and that source is not correct here. It is not accurate to say that “the next four” Bible conferences, following that at Niagara in 1876, were those of 1886, 1895, 1914, and 1918. Nothing is said of the conferences of 1878 and 1890. The list could have been corrected by consulting the last volume of Froom’s epochal work, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, a work not referred to here. Moreover, the most scholarly and exhaustive work ever published in this country in which this dispensational scheme is adopted is Peters’ The Theocratic Kingdom (four volumes), but Kraus seems to be unaware of it. Though he devotes an entire chapter to Dr. Scofield, his biographical material is scanty. Apparently no use was made of the only biography? of Scofield ever written, that by the late Charles G. Trumbull.

When Kraus says that of the seven consulting editors of the Scofield Bible, Gaebelein was perhaps the most influential, he is making a statement that no well-informed person would dare make, though it might be true. Some of us have searched this country for letters and notes from these co-editors that would throw some light upon the work they did for Dr. Scofield. But our efforts have been in vain. No one knows definitely what these different men contributed.

A far more exhaustive and thorough work on this subject has been done by Dr. Daniel P. Fuller in, “The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism,” his dissertation for the Th.D. degree at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

WILBUR M. SMITH

Mauriac’S Faith

The Son of Man, by François Mauriac (World Publishing Company, 1960, 158 pp., $3), is reviewed by Clyde S. Kilby, Chairman of the English Department, Wheaton College (Illinois).

The day before I began reading this book I had read Albert Camus’s The Stranger, a novel which comes to the depressing conclusion that the universe manifests nothing more than a “benign indifference.” The author of The Son of Man, another distinguished Frenchman, while as unhappy as Camus about what man has made of man—or, as M. Mauriac puts it, about “human ferocity”—nevertheless is very sure of the benign purposiveness of life because of a loving Heavenly Father. In particular M. Mauriac, now 75, writes to express his fidelity to Christ, as he says, “in the evening of my life.”

It is a book that reminds one of Saint Augustine, something of an ode of praise mixed with confession, comment upon life, and memories of 64 years as a professing Christian. One comes upon such quietly splendid passages as the following: “There is no encounter in which we do not encounter Him; no solitude in which He does not join us; no silence where His voice is not heard deepening, rather than troubling, that silence.” Though he writes as a pronounced Roman Catholic (the publisher describes him as the world’s most distinguished Roman Catholic writer), he also speaks with modesty and does not gloss over ecclesiastic error and particularly the effort of using spiritual advantage to gain temporal power.

Evangelicals will be interested in M. Mauriac’s objection to the attitude of Christians who complacently resign themselves to the idea that most of the human race is eternally damned. A great anguish, says he, which is transmuted into love for others “liberates us from an obsession with personal salvation, not in respect to what is essential but in respect to what is morbid.” He believes that the correct and fruitful attitude is the vibrant conviction that Christ really did die for all men.

M. Mauriac’s background includes membership in the French Academy, in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his winning of the Nobel Prize in 1952.

CLYDE S. KILBY

Christian Statesman

The Spiritual Legacy of John Foster Dulles, by Henry P. Van Dusen (Westminster, 1960, 232 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Frederick Brown Harris, Chaplain of United States Senate.

America desperately needs this prophetic volume. In the present global battle between liberty and slavery, it is like a clarion call for the side of freedom. When one turns to the last page of its chapters, he is constrained to reverent gratitude. As we approach the first anniversary of the passing of John Foster Dulles, the impact of his legacy as mirrored on these pages will make us hear once more the clear voice of a great Christian statesman.

In all the strategic posts in which he served the nation and the world, as he faced national and international problems, Dulles held steadfastly to the belief so beautifully expressed by Frances Haversall, “Reality, reality! Jesus Christ, I find in thee!”

In the fulfillment of the Master’s formula, “love thy neighbor as thyself,” he saw the healing of humanity’s open sores, as that principle girds the needy earth. He declared that any attempt to fence privilege in, will result in disaster, inside the fence and out.

To him atheistic totalitarianism was malignant because it violates the dignity of individual man as a child of God. In words uttered from his father’s old pulpit in Watertown, New York, he declared, with reference to the spiritual legacy left us by the fathers, “Surely, it is our duty not to squander it, but to leave it replenished so that we, in our generation, may bequeath to those who come after us a tradition as noble as was left us.” Here in a volume that will grip the hearts of thousands of Americans is that noble heritage as he has left it, enriched by his own dedication.

At the end of his notable career, Dulles’ flag-draped casket rested near the altar in Washington Cathedral, surrounded by the sacred symbols of the faith which had mastered him. The reader is moved by perhaps the most impressive part of the memorial service—the moment when a voice from the high point uttered words which the family had requested to be used. The ancient words from the book he revered seemed as new as that afternoon’s sunshine streaming through the jeweled windows. The immortal beatitude of the First Psalm formed a fitting frame for the portrait of this twentieth century statesman: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate day and night.”

FREDERICK BROWN HARRIS

A Catholic President?

A Roman Catholic in the White House, by James A. Pike (Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1960, 143 pp., $2.50) is reviewed by Joseph M. Dawson, former Executive director, Joint Committee on Public Affairs of the United States.

Anything James A. Pike, formerly Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, now Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, has to say is apt to be read with respect. He is not one to avoid discussion of controversial questions, whether the subject is birth control or abolishment of capital punishment. What he has to say on the religious question in current politics, as with everything he has to say on other questions, is well considered and courteously expressed. The judgment just recorded is generally held as proved by the fact that at least two national magazines, Life and Reader’s Digest, have published condensations of this book.

As a former Roman Catholic he should be well informed as to the exact attitude of the Church. If one looks for any resentment or vindictiveness in this book, he will be disappointed. The findings are not presented as personal opinions, but thoroughly documented and reasonably offered.

The gist of Bishop Pike’s discussion is that the official position of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries, and now asserted, is that the Church is above the State, but that many American individual Catholics agree with the American view of Church-State separation. He says it is not bigotry to state the official Church attitude, but the plain duty of the citizen to decide whether any candidate for public office up to that of the presidency will yield to the official directions, or independently act in accord with American principles. Thus he leaves the question of a Roman Catholic in the White House suspended. “It depends,” he says. This means that every voter owes it to himself and to his country to inform himself and decide conscientiously and intelligently.

JOSEPH M. DAWSON

John’S Gospel

The Gospel According to St. John, by R. V. G. Tasker (Eerdmans, 1960, 237 pp., $3), is reviewed by Merrill C. Tenney, Dean of the Graduate School, Wheaton College (Illinois).

Compact yet comprehensive is this new commentary in the Tyndale Bible Commentaries on the Gospel of John. Gauged for the student whose time is limited and who is not interested in technicalities, it affords a satisfying treatment of the major points of interpretation. The comment is contained in a continuous exposition, with italicized quotations woven into it, which is both readable and faithful to the biblical text.

Important textual variants are noted and evaluated in the light of recent manuscript evidence. Although the commentary is not primarily theological, its doctrinal position is eminently satisfactory. Special notes on interpretation of words and phrases clarify the more obscure passages. The general introduction to the Gospel, marked by acute scholarship, tends to the view that John the son of Zebedee was “the ultimate authority behind the Gospel, which was issued with his approval though he may not have been the actual writer of it.” Tasker does not attempt to identify the amanuensis, although he mentions a late tradition that it was Papias. He is convinced that it was published not later than the last decade of the first century, and he champions unequivocally the truthfulness of John in presenting Jesus as the divine Son of God.

For quick reference or for a study help this commentary can be warmly recommended.

MERRILL C. TENNEY

Bonhoeffer Image

The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, by John D. Godsey (Westminster, 1960, 299 pp., $6), is reviewed by J. Theodore Mueller, Professor of Doctrinal and Exegetical Theology, Concordia Seminary.

Besides the painstaking, scholarly work of its author, who at present is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Assistant to the Dean at the Theological School of Drew University, and its excellent make-up by the publishers, this unusual book has three outstanding features recommending it to the reader: (1) A gripping biography of an ardent member of the German Confessing Church who opposed Nazi tyranny during the Hitler regime; (2) many important data and insights into this heroic resistance movement, which cost Bonhoeffer his life shortly before the Americans captured the disreputable Himmler prison camp; and (3) the personal faith and theology of the youthful, yet most promising, theological professor, which is the proper scope of the writer’s exhaustive investigation.

Dr. Godsey is fully capable of a work of this nature since he has studied at the University of Basel, Switzerland, where Karl Barth was one of his teachers. Furthermore, he has mastered the complex modern German theological language as proved, for example, by his idiomatic translation of the titles of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s numerous works. The reviewer has noticed only a minor inadequacy at this point, namely, the translation of Bonhoeffer’s Vergegenwärtigung neutestamentlicher Texte with “The Making Present of New Testament Texts.” The word Vergegenwärtigung in such cases is equivalent to “Study” or “Consideration.” But this is a secondary matter. The author has appended a comprehensive bibliography of “Primary Works,” “Works about Bonhoeffer” and “Related Works,” most of which he had to read in the original. It might not be superfluous to add that the book was approved by the Theological Faculty of the University of Basel upon the recommendation of Karl Barth and another faculty member, which is attested by Professor Oscar Cullmann, Dean of the Faculty.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was only 39 years old when he suffered death. Many of these years were spent in the service of the Christian Youth movement, the ecumenical movement, active resistance to Hitler, pastoral and educational activities in England and America, and finally in Nazi imprisonment. Little time therefore remained for Bonhoeffer leisurely to develop a theological system of his own, though his writings evince an amazing assiduity in theological projection and composition. Emerging from the Ritschlian school of Adolf Hamack, then attracted by the Luther renaissance movement of Karl Holl, and lastly influenced by Barthian existentialism, Bonhoeffer gradually developed an original theology of his own. Under the circumstances much of his writing remained fragmentary, as the author shows, but there is no contradiction between Bonhoeffer’s earlier and later theological fundamentals, though there is a difference of orientation in his later theological thought. The writer describes Bonhoeffer as a believing Christian whose chief interest lay in Christology and who sincerely believed in Christ’s deity and vicarious atonement.

The book is divided into four chapters, three of which present Bonhoeffer’s biographical experiences from 1906–1931, 1932–1939, and 1940–1945, together with his theological responses during these three periods. In the fourth chapter the author presents his own theological evaluation of this eminent German theologian, whose life was cut short by his continued witness to what he regarded as the truth. As the reader lays aside this stirring book he deeply appreciates the author’s conclusion: “The life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is finished, but his influence on the Christian church is steadily extending around the world” (p. 279).

J. THEODORE MUELLER

The Restoration Ideal

The Restoration Principle, by Alfred T. DeGroot (Bethany Press, 1960, 191 pp., $4), is reviewed by James DeForest Murch.

Dr. DeGroot makes a distinguished contribution to the growing literature authored by left-wing Disciples of Christ who are restive under the traditional biblical Restoration idealism of a world-wide movement now some 5 million strong. In this volume he favors a “restoration principle” unlike the formula conceived and promoted by Thomas and Alexander Campbell. The Campbells envisioned a united church to be achieved through “a restoration of the New Testament Church in doctrine, ordinances and life.”

From a well-documented three-chapter study of the Ante-Nicene fathers, the author deduces that these worthies favored no return to apostolic doctrine and practice; saw no uniformity in primitive church organization, polity, order of worship, requirements for church membership, ways of behavior as tests of fellowship; nor any commonly-accepted “way of salvation.” His citations are admirably chosen for his purpose and given authoritative values for modern times.

There is an extensive survey of historic restoration movements (Albigenses, Cathari, Humiliati, Anabaptists) and a critical evaluation of restoration elements in Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Methodism, the latter appraisal reminiscent of the 1951 Charles Clayton Morrison lectures at Disciples Divinity House. Dr. DeGroot agrees with Dr. Morrison that classical “restorationism” is an “illusion” which has hindered rather than aided the ecumenical cause. Then follows a sophisticated analysis of Disciples’ history which exalts the leadership of Barton W. Stone and discredits the restoration idealism of the Campbells. The historic “plea” of the Disciples is eliminated as a serious and valid contribution to current ecumenical conversations.

The restoration principle which Dr. DeGroot ardently espouses is definitely not doctrinal or biblical. It is rather ethical and mystical. He would restore “rapturous identification with the heartbeat of the Creator”; “the ends, aims and purposes rather than the means” of early Christianity; “the optimism and expectancy” of the apostolic church; and the recapture of its “conquering spiritual life.” He believes the Disciples should affirm, cultivate, and enlarge the unity that already exists in the universal church and accept the qualified judgment of sincere Christian leaders in determining essential worship and life in the Coming Great Church.

JAMES DEFOREST MURCH

Defense Of Relativism

Relativism, Knowledge and Faith, by Gordon D. Kaufman (University of Chicago Press, 1960, 153 pp., $5.50), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Butler University.

Courage and competence characterize this brief but vigorous defense of relativism. Very few relativists face the basic objections so squarely as does Dr. Kaufman. But to discuss his answers at all adequately would require a review many times the size of his book.

Relativism, he acknowledges, is supposed to founder on the genetic fallacy. It is accused of moving illicitly from descriptive to normative statements; or, conversely, it introduces nonlogical criteria into the knowledge situation. Finally, relativism cannot account for itself, that is, relativism is always asserted as an absolute truth.

External relativism, which is based on actual discrepancies among different cultures, succumbs to these objections; but, asserts the author, internal relativism, following the lead of Dilthey and Ortega y Gasset, in which the thinker sympathetically accepts the norms of foreign cultures, does not.

As justification, Dr. Kaufman sketches an epistemology. Knowledge exists on several levels. One must therefore, in epistemology as in life, begin with the precognitive and preconscious basis of knowing and give a genetic account. The lowest level is called Erleben, for the German term is much clearer than any English word; “it is almost impossible to describe this level without using language that implies much more than is intended … the best that can be done is to use the words we have and hope that the intended meaning can be apprehended” (p. 31, n. 3). “We ought not to speak of consciousness, or even experience, as present here, for there is no distinction of subject from object … there is only Erleben. We never directly observe this level” (p. 68).

Now, there may be secondary flaws in Dr. Kaufman’s defense of relativism. For example, he assigns an exaggerated role to language. Although words are merely “particular noises” (p. 99), he gives language the function of producing distinctions in thought, instead of allotting to thought the production of distinct words. Universal relationships are made possible by words, and the concept of validity or truth has reference to society and its language system. Apparently relativism is based on the universal principle that people always speak before they think.

But if this is a secondary difficulty, perhaps the basic trouble lies in the genetic account of knowledge. To postulate an unobserved, an indescribable, an unexperienced and unconscious “level”—“the idea of level should not be taken thus literally” (p. 42, n. 1)—a level named by the undefined and therefore meaningless term Erleben, and then to assert that knowledge emerges from it, gradually and somehow, is not an explanation of knowledge, but the lack of one.

On the other hand, where the author is definite, as in his views of language and of the historical conditioning of “truth,” it is hard to see that he has escaped the initial charge that relativism is always asserted absolutely.

GORDON H. CLARK

Obscure Narrative

Dear and Glorious Physician, by Taylor Caldwell (Doubleday, 1959, 574 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Robert Paul Roth, Dean of the Graduate School, Lutheran Southern Seminary.

It would seem that the historical novel would be a most felicitous medium for the propagation of the Gospel. Literary license, however, must be limited by historical integrity. Poetic fantasy must never degenerate into the cheap fantastic. Taylor Caldwell’s Dear and Glorious Physician purports to be a historical novel about Luke. The evangelist is pictured as having a miraculous power to heal which is surprising even to himself and which is climaxed when he brings a girl back from death. Luke is driven by an unremitting power to find meaning in a God who brings death to his own creatures. Grieved over the death of a childhood sweetheart, Luke dedicates his life to defeat this unknown God by cheating Him through the practice of medicine out of the deaths He would claim. Gradually it becomes apparent to him that it is this very God whom he has been fighting who is the God of life and healing.

When he comes to realize this he sets out to compile a record of the events surrounding the revelation of the unknown God who came to the Jews and was crucified under the command, by coincidence, of Luke’s brother. It was from him that Luke gleaned the story of the passion. The author is at her wooden worst when she describes Luke as an enquiring reporter with pencil in hand going to Mary and James and John and collecting information about Jesus.

The book must be critically examined because it purports to show how the Gospel of Luke came to be. Surely a novel about Luke may confront the supernatural, indeed, every great writer from Shakespeare to Melville has mixed history with the mysterious beyond; but the message of the Church should not be clouded with obscurantist superstition. Luke, however, is made to come to the service of Jesus purely by this path, rather than the historically authenticated way of the worshiping community of believing and proclaiming Christians. The one thing we know about Luke historically, that he was associated with Paul on his missionary journeys, is not even mentioned by the author.

It was the preaching of the worshiping Church that transmitted the historical record preserved in all our Gospels. If any reconstruction of history is authentic it is the story of a worshiping community under the guidance of the Spirit transmitting the good news as the risen Christ lived and worked among them and made himself known to them in the breaking of bread. Caldwell’s Luke never meets such a worshipping community. Her book is neither historical nor novel. It is the old bookseller’s formula of banal frippery designed for sentimental readers who love neither art nor the Gospel but rather the mystic might of the obscure.

ROBERT PAUL ROTH

Man’S Search For God

Pictorial History of Philosophy, by Dagobert D. Runes (Philosophical Library, 1959, 406 pp., $15), is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry.

Rune’s Pictorial History of Philosophy is a useful companion volume to his Dictionary of Philosophy, most valuable of his books. This new work contains almost 1,000 portraits, photographs, and illustrations germane to biographies of the great speculative thinkers from ancient to contemporary times. Unfortunately Judeo-Christian religion is sketched simply as a phase of man’s search for God, along with the other world religions, without any grasp of the principle of special divine revelation.

CARL F. H. HENRY

Study In Depth

The Atonement and the Sacraments, by Robert S. Paul (Abingdon, 1960, 396 pp., $6.50), is reviewed by Addison H. Leitch, Professor of Theology, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

For some time now, I have been trying to discipline myself in the number and quality of notations that I drop into my filing system. After years of reading I have stored up entirely too much material ranging from irrelevant to useless. In an attempt to control my note taking, therefore, I have adopted a standard: nothing will be noted unless it absolutely “forces” itself into my files after the most rigid possible screening. I mention my standard to introduce one fact: Professor Paul’s book, “The Atonement and the Sacraments,” has compelled me to record either in my book of quotations, or in my lecture notes, or for my files, more than 60 different items. In short, he has enriched my theological library with this significant and great book.

He discusses exactly what the title says: the Atonement and the Sacraments. One would think that by this time most of us, especially we who are in the ministry or in teaching, would have read just about everything germaine to such subjects. But it is surprising and therefore gratifying to discover that Dr. Paul has something fresh and valuable to say. As theories of the Atonement, he lists the following: Moral Influence (Abelardian or Exemplarist); Mystical; Penal Substitutionary; Ransom (Patristic or Classic); Rectoral; Sacrificial; and Satisfaction (Anselmian or Latin). We may possibly have different titles and listings of our own, but the ones that he uses completely cover the field. His careful analysis of all the views with particular interest to their historical settings plus a keen appreciation of the values of each are to me the great features of the book. I am in complete agreement with the approach he takes, namely, that there are values in every view, but no summation of views can plumb the total possibilities of what took place when Christ died for our sins.

In addition to the excellence of his treatment of the Atonement, there are other values to be discovered. I like the way in which so-called secondary authorities are brought into the account and given their rightful place. One would expect good coverage on Abelard, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and even Aulen. But here is a book in which we pick up the contributions of John Owen, McLeod Campbell, Bushnell, Rashdall, Westcott, Caird Denny, and Vincent Taylor. Professor Paul is enthusiastic about P. T. Forsyth and Donald Baillie, and so am I. Better yet, we are given brief biographical sketches on most of the men. The book will thus serve as excellent reference material and, unlike most reference books, highly readable. One becomes aware as he moves through the volume that as an historical treatment of a whole catalog of material the writer is able to build up interest, excitement, and climax. Just the plain reading of the book apart from any ore one might wish to mine is profitable experience.

The reason the subject of the Atonement leads to the subject of the Sacraments is, of course, part of the thesis and certainly one of the features of the book. In all the theories of atonement the author is trying to make plain to us the necessary ethical implications and applications of the Atonement itself apart from any theories about it. He believes that the content of the act as over against any theoretical discussion of it can be mediated to us most surely and directly not by words but by sacrament. His reasons for establishing such a thesis are sound and serve as the chief interest in the book, although less than a fourth of the volume is actually given over to the two dominical sacraments. In treating the sacraments from the standpoint of his thesis, even in a short treatment of less than 100 pages, he has an amazing number of fresh insights.

It would be hard to classify Professor Paul as orthodox or liberal in his views of the Atonement and Sacraments. I should judge him more liberal than otherwise. On the other hand he has much to say in support of satisfaction, substitution, and the penal characteristics of the atoning act. He apparently agrees that any view of the Atonement which leaves out such terms is superficial. At the same time his criticism that much of popular orthodoxy has so treated penal satisfaction as to create a kind of split in the essence of the Trinity (as if somehow the Father is full of wrath while the Son is full of love) is a valid one. In facing the danger he is correct, I think, in emphasizing Paul’s words, “God was in Christ.…” With such concern and emphasis I am in complete agreement.

I would give one word of criticism at this point. Dr. Paul wants a penal theory without a penalty. He wants to remove any idea of a victim in the process. In so doing his book is only sound as far as it goes. What gives rise in many of our minds is a matter which the author does not touch, namely, the-wrath of God. This is a biblical term, a concept very close to the meaning of “the cry of dereliction” on the Cross. In an otherwise excellent treatment, with clear-cut emphasis on the profundities of the Atonement, the author has missed the point that makes the whole question even more profound.

ADDISON H. LEITCH

In the May 9 ISSUE, the Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY discussed the question, “De We Need a Christian University?” With his vigorously affirmative answer, many though not all of his readers will agree.

Some may argue that evangelical young people by and large must have the experience of a secular education to develop the tough-mindedness needed in times like these. Others, impressed by the magnitude of the modern university, are inclined to throw up their hands at the difficulty of achieving any real measure of Christian integration in this field. Like Elton Trueblood in his thoughtful book, The Idea of a College, they would place the ceiling for Christian education at the liberal arts level and assume with Sir Walter Moberly that a Christian university is an impossibility because it is too large to attain “a general unity of tone.” Still others would doubt that enough competent scholars who are deeply committed to the evangelical position can be found to man a first-rate Christian university. And finally there are those who, realizing how hardly dollars are garnered for religious enterprises, are disposed to ask whether evangelicals will pay the price for the kind of university Dr. Henry described.

Let us look at these objections. To consider them may shed some light upon the nature of a Christian university.

Granting that tough-mindedness in respect to non-Christian points of view is desirable and assuming that the student who stands up to unbelief in a secular university is thereby strengthened, it does not follow that this must be the general pattern. In a wholly Christian university competing and heretical positions must be honestly presented. Indeed there is a question whether facing such positions in the light of Christianity does not develop just as much intellectual muscle as wrestling with them in a secular environment that affords scanty hearing to the faith revealed in Scripture.

What now of the objection that, desirable though it may be, a Christian university is impractical if not impossible because its many departments are not amenable to a single world-view? Surely this is a needless capitulation to what W. H. Fitchett called “the irrelevant logic of size.” Because most American universities resemble an intellectual cafeteria, the development of a Christian university is needed. Consider the word “university” coming from the Latin units and versus, literally, “turned” or “combined into one,” hence the primary meaning of “whole” or “entire.” As Neis Ferré puts it in his book, Christian Faith and Higher Education, “The unity of the universe within which the world can become organically whole is the most important field of study.” But if the size of a university precludes any real attainment of unity, then we are faced with a contradiction in terms. In deepest actuality, however, there need be no such contradiction. If, as the New Testament states, Christ upholds “all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3) and if “by him all things consist [hold together]” (Col. 1:17), who can deny that in him there is the wholeness that must be the heart of a university? To the committed Christian thinker, the realization that all truth in ever) field of knowledge is of God is the major premise of intellectual as well as spiritual integrity. And how to relate it to the manifold fields of knowledge is the life-long task of the Christian scholar who may well say with A. P. Sertillanges, “To me to live is truth,” this being the intellectual rendering of St. Paul’s, “To me to live is Christ.”

Again, the objection is raised that faculty in number and quality adequate to staff a Christian university are not available. Some question whether distinguished excellence in scholarship is compatible with a thorough-going evangelical commitment. The answer is in both cases “Yes.” The upsurge of evangelical scholarship within the last 25 years has been dramatic. Today there is a substantial and growing number of Christian scholars in theology, philosophy, the humanities, and in professional disciplines such as medicine, engineering, and education. As for science, Elton Trueblood quotes a study made by Professors Knapp and Goodrich of Wesleyan which shows that of “the colleges which have, per capita, made the greatest contributions to science, thirty-nine out of the top fifty institutions were those … with a Christian emphasis.” The fact is that in all fields of knowledge there are devoted Christians of high intellectual competence who are serving on faculties throughout the nation as well as abroad. Many of them are bearing a lonely witness in secular institutions; for some of these the opportunity for fellowship with evangelical colleagues would be a godsend. Furthermore, in many Christian colleges there are scholars of proved ability and first-rate training. To be sure, no administrator of a Christian university would think of assembling a faculty through draining the evangelical lifeblood from the colleges and depleting the evangelical remnant in secular universities. But this need not be.

The last objection—that to build de novo a university of high standing will cost more than Christians will contribute—should not be evaded. After all, our Lord warned about buliding a tower without counting the cost. And the price of universities comes high. This page is being written to the rumble of bulldozers at work on a site near the Stony Brook School campus where a new State University College on Long Island, requiring an initial outlay of $25 million, is being built. Yet what Christian would assert that God cannot provide as liberally as the state? The prior question with any Christian enterprise—university or elementary school, church or mission station—is not “How much?” but “Is it God’s will?”

Build a university from scratch? Well, it was done in Baltimore when Johns Hopkins began in 1876, in Palo Alto in 1885 when Stanford was founded, in 1902 when the University of Chicago was opened. And what has been done for the sake of academic distinction can be done again in the name of Christian scholarship dedicated to the glory of God.

Were one to study church statistics and talk with the administrative leaders of Protestant churches today, he might get the impression that everything is well with American Protestantism. Churches have steadily increased in membership and Sunday School enrollment; the percentage of professing Protestants in the total population of the United States has constantly and uninterruptedly risen during the last 180 years. With more than 60 million members, the Protestant churches form the largest religious body in our country, or about 36 per cent of America’s 170 million people. These figures seem to provide ample reason for gratification and gratitude. They are symptoms of a social and spiritual climate which is obviously favorable to religion in general and Protestantism in particular.

Nevertheless, in striking contrast to this development is the fact that our social and political life increasingly shows less traces of Protestant influence. Most remarkable is the trend in jurisdiction. The Constitution was written with the original intent of building up a country on a Protestant Christian foundation, though not granting a privileged position, let alone establishment, to any one denomination. Today the courts show a general tendency to interpret the relation of the United States government to religious bodies in terms of “separation of religion and state.”

Public life, including education, must now repudiate all Christian features, although antireligious thought is at least by implication granted a privileged position. De-Christianization has also made enormous progress in the fields of literature and entertainment. Life as portrayed in the modern novel, with few exceptions, knows no Christian values: the typical author actually presents crime and vice as a normal and inescapable condition of man.

How does one explain the apparent contradiction? It will hardly do to put all the blame on those who are outside the churches. Not a few writers and makers of film and television shows have gone through Sunday School and places of religious instruction. They are unaware of the inconsistency of their outlook because in their eyes what separates them from their parent generation is only a greater willingness to let the truth become articulate. We proceed, therefore, to seek out the cause of contemporary secularization.

THE VANISHING PROTEST

The outstanding characteristic of American Protestantism from the days of the Pilgrims and the first Quakers to the beginning of this century has been its protest against the world. While Protestants did not withdraw from public life and did enjoy the abundant bounties offered by this continent, they nevertheless were aware of the unbridgeable chasm that separates God’s will for man from man’s indulgence of his own desires. It was not a theoretical distinction for them. Although the contribution American Protestantism has made to ethical theory is hardly conspicuous, there was a clear awareness of the limits they had to set to their own wishes and desires, and the courage resolutely to say ‘No’ to rampant manifestations of sin. Of course, there was violence and fraud and drinking and gambling. But the American people would never have succeeded in transforming a semi-continent into the leading nation of the world in three centuries had it not been for their willingness to let the will of God triumph over inordinate desires.

Protestant life did adapt itself to changing historical conditions, and various ideals were espoused throughout the centuries. But its basic pattern always remained the same. The fight for Prohibition was probably the last occasion in which the protest of faith became articulate. Today, the predominant outlook of church people and non-Christians is amazingly similar, not because outsiders have been persuaded to adopt the Christian view but rather because the members of the churches, like their spiritual leaders, prefer conformity with the nonbelieving world to the protesting spirit of their ancestors. The very life of our churches and denominations bears witness to the state of similarity.

With the result of rapid technological growth based on theories of rationalism and positivism, modern life has become dominated by the idea of technological efficiency and high returns. We see congregations and also many ministers looking to outward success, expressed in exact figures, as the goal to be pursued; and thus the belief is implied that the most elaborate organization is the best guarantee of success. Symptomatic is the role assumed by boards of the various denominations in guiding church bodies. Forms of organization and their methods are being patterned after the executive offices of big business corporations; and whereas the policy of the church had formerly resulted from free organizational activities, today all the leagues, associations, and societies in the church are destined to carry out plans and programs which various board departments have prepared for them. The pastor is expected in this system to be primarily an able administrator and financier. Such new perspective will inevitably have its influence upon the sermon. The pastor will more and more be tempted to preach the sermon that will please the majority in his congregation and increase church attendance than proclaim the things men urgently need for their redemption. The vicious trend, however, should not be interpreted as deliberate apostasy. It has come about quietly but steadily through theology and the Protestant press, and often been intensified by the long periods in which pastors held doctrine in contempt because it was not “practical.” That outlook in itself was a sign of secularization.

But the effect which the trend had upon the congregation was fatal. It mattered not whether the pastor was a liberal or a conservative, an evangelical or a social gospeller; his appeal was not made to the hearer’s heart, nor to incite him to fellowship with Christ. Instead it was more a matter of accepting the preacher’s superiority and joining the group that followed him. I am fully aware of the fact that there has been partisan spirit in earlier days of church life. But it seems to me that there has never been the absence of an objective spiritual basis as there is now. Emphasis is on the social effect, the idea that by the pastor’s words the congregation is to be welded together into a homogeneous community.

THE ROOT OF THE EVIL

A purely sociological explanation for the situation will not suffice. The change was caused by two movements in American Protestantism which seemingly were at loggerheads but which in fact stemmed from the same theological failure. Pietism and rationalistic humanitarianism, opposed as they were to each other in respects, had this in common: for all practical purposes they disregarded the Lordship of the risen Christ. The various revival movements of the last 200 years placed strong emphasis on Christ’s atoning work on the Cross, and minimized his ascent to heaven, and his reign in glory as biblical doctrines lacking practical consequences. What resulted was a piety that concentrated all enthusiasm upon the wonderful Gospel of the remission of sins while the gift of new life in the power of the Holy Spirit was either neglected or interpreted egotistically in terms of personal holiness, peace of mind, and the joy of salvation. Consequently, the Christian had no specific task to perform in this world and thus would act like everybody else.

In the rationalist and humanitarian interpretation of the Christian faith, Christ had been demoted from the role of divine Ruler to that of Teacher or Example. Although the ethical impulse had always been strong in that camp of Christianity, people were content with accomplishing something in their own goodness rather than by the power of Christ. Similarly, in accord with the purely this-worldly outlook brand of Protestantism was the objective of one’s religious activities, namely, the improvement of social conditions rather than transformation in the world. The effects of these two developments, which represented the main currents in modern Protestantism, were not immediately noticeable because the old idea of “calling” (that is, of a life in the service of the risen Lord) still lingered on. But the orthodox renaissance in nineteenth and early twentieth century Calvinism and Lutheranism was itself too much indebted to the spirit of the age to counteract the dominant trend. For the theologians at the time, the Holy Spirit was first of all a teacher who guaranteed the infallible truth of the Bible, but who was not considered the giver of new life. In retrospect, one is amazed to discover the reluctance with which these theologians approached the biblical witness to the power of the Holy Spirit, and their strange contention that His work had come to a close at the end of the Apostolic Age.

THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

According to the New Testament, believers are in dire need of the Spirit’s powerful gifts, because they have to live in a world under the sway of the devil. Man would be hopelessly defeated by the powers of evil if the risen Lord did not come to his rescue by imparting to him the charismatic gifts of the Spirit. It is pathetic to see how, except for the Pentecostal movements, so many believers failed to realize this fact in modern Protestantism. By assuming that the work of our Lord had reached its goal in the remission of our sins, people overlooked the danger they were in in this world and also the opportunity offered to them in their calling. The result was a fatal sense of security and complacency. Over against these attitudes, the rationalistic or “liberal” Christians saw rightly that the believer is confronted with a task in this world. They were mistaken, however, in assuming that this world provides the neutral raw materials out of which they can build their own brave new world.

No wonder people of that persuasion have held that John had gone to unnecessary extremes when he stated that the whole world “lies in the power of the Evil One” or “is established upon evil” (1 John 5:19). They prefer to interpret his statement as though it applies only to that portion of mankind with which they disagree, or to non-Christians, or as though the apostle had rather said that you cannot expect perfect goodness in this world. It is no wonder that once the clear meaning of the apostolic urging has been diluted, nothing prevents such Christians from reaching a compromise with this world. Inevitably their ethics fall in line with the goals of their government or with the economic practices of the society in which they live, and they derive their standards of action from what people consider the supreme needs in such spheres of human life. The practical result becomes the same in the two principal groups of modern Protestantism. Christians act in conformity with the standards and goals of their environment.

What then do we find to be the will of the risen Lord? In the power which he enjoys since his Resurrection, he continues on a world-wide basis to perform his messianic work which during his earthly ministry he could do only on an individual basis—namely, the making of all things new. For that work he endows his followers with his Spirit; and having overcome the world, he curbs through his power the forces of evil that assail us from all sides. Thus our ethical task appears in a new light. As redeemed ones we are called not to live for our own sake in this world but rather to contribute our share to the renewing of this world. What we are able to do individually and collectively is but little in comparison to the greatness of the goal; and apart from the fact that in the Parousia the risen Lord would himself take things into his hands, our Christian activity might seem futile.

The task assigned to us, however, is not to try and do what the Saviour alone is capable of doing (namely, to redeem this world from the sway of the devil), but to be witnesses of his ascent to heavenly glory and to his transforming purpose through our own renewed lives. Ever since Pentecost, the Church has not lacked men and women who have clearly manifested his redemptive determination and thus the strength of his power in frail human lives. In view of the conditions prevailing in the world, our witness would lack credibility if it failed to present tangible evidence of the activity of the risen Lord who brings about the eschatological consummation. What a pity that Protestants, by repudiating the Catholic view that the lives of the saints have a meritorious effect, have overlooked the evidential role of the true saints, that is, believers, who are manifestations of the fullness of spiritual life!

Jesus reminded his followers that more important than their actions are their lives, that the remission of sins or justification has to be followed by regeneration, and that the tree had to become good before it was able to bear good fruit.

OUR TASK IN THE WORLD

The new life never starts in one as an explosion of good needs but as a vision of what can be accomplished by a man in Christ. The vision is always implemented by the example of the lives of those who have allowed the Spirit to take full possession of them. Even if we should never be able to imitate their example because we are afraid of the revolution that would incur in our practical life, the light of the vision would nonetheless make a great difference in us. Looking at those who have lived the life of faith, we could be certain that conditions as they prevail in this world are not what they are destined to be, but Jesus has come to transform them. By realizing his purpose and power, we adopt the perspective in which the commandments of Jesus are to be interpreted. With references to economic life, sex, and international relations, what is the Christian perspective in our secularized world?

THE TEST WE FACE

In economic life, Christendom is presently divided between those who advocate modern capitalism as its true Christian form, and a minority which holds that socialism or communism is the method of economic life that Jesus would embrace. But we must examine the situation. It is obvious that Jesus’ voluntary poverty, even if universally accepted, would not be the solution of the economic problems of mankind but rather the end of all economic life. Nevertheless, we cannot simply bypass the fact of our Lord’s lack of earthly possessions and the poverty of so many of his followers. Although it is true that money is not evil by itself, his example makes us realize that living in a money economy tends to make men slaves of money. In outage money has become the supreme goal and is held to provide the solution to most of life’s problems. While Jesus does not object to the exercise of foresight and hard work in economic activities, he reminds us constantly of the danger of covetousness, of depending on our possessions, and worrying about them. We learn from him a detachment from economic goods and a generous, compassionate, and joyful sharing with others that is free from miserliness, calculations of success, and bias toward persons.

In the area of sex, Protestantism has repudiated Roman Catholic belief that voluntary celibacy is the shortest way to heaven; yet unfortunately we have lost sight of the ideal of virginity which is represented in monastic vows. The positive attitude which the Reformers took toward sex has in our day succumbed to a naturalistic view.

It is no exaggeration to say that in American life the satisfaction of sexual desire has become an obsession. Catering to it, publishers, writers, and the makers of movies have filled their own pockets, and the subject is presently dominating the minds of our youth down to the junior high school level. Little will be accomplished by censorship. What we need to foster is a new attitude. If for instance the more than 60 million Protestants would express their indignation of the commercialization and profanation of sex by staying away from movies which exploit it, and if in the home children were brought up with the understanding that sex is a sacred personal relationship which demands maturity and a sense of responsibility, then perhaps we might influence for good the unwholesome climate in which we live.

The third area we would mention is international politics. For many persons, war still seems the most natural means of attaining goals in international life when neither persuasion nor economic pressures have succeeded. But Jesus and many of his followers showed by their lives that men’s killing of each other is contrary to the will of God, no matter what material gains may be derived from it. The question is not whether war can be abolished or outlawed but whether Christians are to accept as natural or normal the fact that followers of the same Lord are killing each other. The waging of war and the praise of war makes manifest more than anything else the sway which the devil has over the world. What disturbs us is not the desire of the statesmen to use the threat of war as their main weapon in international politics but that we as Christians should acquiesce in such mentality. Rather, we ought to ask the Lord so to illumine our hearts that we might discern the occasions which make for the development of the war-like spirit, and to make us willing to practice co-operation and reconciliation.

The problem which confronts Christianity today is not whether we should substitute utopian dreams for common sense. We learn from the apostle Paul that it is with fear and trembling that a Christian’s life is to be lived. We are God’s children in a world which is the devil’s, and we have to make this fact articulate.

Christians are living as sheep among wolves. They may prefer to howl with the wolves and let their voices become undiscernible in the general noise. Or they may speak with the still small voice of a faith that believes in the power of the risen Christ. The Christian’s voice may be a lone voice, but like the majestic silence of the Cross it will sound across the centuries and proclaim the victory of the Lamb.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

Only once have I seen an audience walk out on a dramatic performance. In the second act of Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett (written 1952), there weren’t enough people in Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre to choose sides for a ball game. The question weighing on my mind—“Am I witnessing trash or genius?”—kept me glued to my seat. Alternately sportive and serious, the play keeps faith with our twentieth century feeling of futility over the meaning of life. What do you see?

Your eyes fall upon a bare stage, bare except for a thin leafless tree. As the lights come up, two tramp figures appear—Vladimir and Estragon. They are here to wait for a Mr. Godot. Not being “eggheads,” they spend their time devising ways to fill the passing moments with activity. One removes his shoes with laborious effort. Then the boots are carefully placed at the center of the stage and now strenuously put on again. The other actor removes his hat, examines it carefully, dusts it off, peers inside the hatband, and shakes it. Not finding anything, he replaces the hat on his head.

Desultory conversation goes on amid the action. But the two continually come back to their great aim in life: they’re here to wait for Godot! One suggests this is unfair; they have rights. “Rights?” says the other; “we got rid of them.” One gets an idea. “Suppose we repented?” But nothing affirmative comes of that suggestion. In fact, the line “There’s nothing to be done,” spoken four different times, concludes each thread of conversation. Says one to the other six times, “I’m going,” and he doesn’t move. Says the other five more times, “Let’s go,” but neither man moves off the stage. They are, after all, waiting for someone—Godot!

Suddenly a boy appears and walks over to them. Obviously he wants to say something. The men are hesitant about letting him speak. Finally he blurts out his message: “Mr. Godot can’t come today, but surely tomorrow!” The two derelicts show great distress at the news. Their misery increases when the boy asks, “What shall I tell Mr. Godot?” After a bit of desultory talk, Vladimir instructs him, “Tell him you saw us.”

The two men, remorseful, lament the fact they have no rope with which to hang themselves. The play ends with these lines:

Vladimir: “We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow, unless Godot comes.”

Estragon: “And if he comes?”

Vladimir: “We’ll be saved. Well, shall we go?”

Estragon: “Yes, let’s go.”

And they do not move.

So it’s over. There are few memorable lines, no climactic scenes, only faltering, fruitless, desultory waiting for a person who never comes.

THE MASKED FACE

What does one think about as the play transpires? The presentation reminds one of a modern painting. A theatergoer naturally searches for meaning in a performance. I will say that you get as much in seeing “Waiting for Godot” as you bring to it.

Write your own tragicomedy. Put all you want into it. Take away what you please. Make Godot anyone you choose. He can be a symbol for anything: Kismet, Fate, or what-have-you. It still means all things to all people; to some it is one of the most profound and amusing plays ever written. There is scarcely a metaphysical, political, or social question that can’t be read into ‘Waiting for Godot.” As those two tramps stand there before us, shuffling and sighing and wondering where they are and why, we can easily experience a sense of bleakness. The whole thing is a mystery wrapped in an inexplicable enigma. You hear melancholy truths about the hopeless destiny of the human race. You see Mr. Beckett’s acrid cartoon of the story of mankind.

It has its tantalizing promises that never come. The play is a veil rather than a revelation. It wears a mask rather than a face. But ‘Waiting for Godot” cannot be laughed off. In some elusive fashion it is concerned with the suffering of mankind. But it plays a dirge; it tells us that salvation is not going to come.

Beckett tells us life is a large joke being played on all of us. Reward will arrive on a certain tomorrow which will always be tomorrow. Those who loiter by the withered tree are waiting for salvation, but it never comes. Except for an illusion of faith flickering around the edges of the drama, faith in God has vanished. It is as though Mr. Beckett sees little reason for clutching at that, and yet is unable to relinquish it entirely. The play gropes toward faith but never finds it. Beckett impresses us as being a cynical Saroyan. Whereas the amiable Armenian has genuine affection for people, the sardonic Samuel seems to despise them. His story offers no hope; its central figures want to hang themselves on a semblance of a tree. Is he laughing at us or is he pitying us?

A SPARK OF DIVINITY

What does Godot mean? “Ot” added to God could make the word mean small-sized God. Is this the meaning?—waiting for a small-sized God? Is the author making buffoons of us as we look for a small God when we ought to be looking for a huge God? You name the right interpretation. I played with various ones and finally came up with this. You can find many interpretations.

Samuel Beckett is telling us that man is waiting for a God who isn’t there. Poor gullible man! Man waits for God to save him from his predicament but God won’t do it because God isn’t there. We don’t even have the proof of Kilroy’s footprints. We just wait for God. Having no assurance that he has been here, meeting only with a little boy who comes to tell us that he will be here tomorrow, are we then to base our hope on the message of the little boy? Is the little boy Jesus? Is the author saying that man is a gullible fool waiting for God? Is he telling us that man must sit and wait, rotting in his tracks? Man is just a tramp muttering a plethora of words, basking in indolence, waiting for a God who never will come.

Where have I heard Beckett’s philosophy before?

As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more (Ps. 103:15, 16).

Where have I read this?

All flesh is grass, and all the beauty of life is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades.… Surely the people is grass (Isa. 40:6, 7).

And this?

For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away (Jas. 4:14).

And where did I read these words?

Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and is cut down; he flees also as a shadow and continues not (Job 14:1, 2).

Or where does such pessimism as this come from?

There is one fate for both man and beast, the same fate for them; as the one dies so dies the other. Man has no advantage over the beast. For vanity, vanity, all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all return to the dust (Eccles. 3:19, 20).

Beckett is giving us nothing new. The Bible gave us these meaningless philosophies 2500 years ago. Beckett sings the praises of the folly of life and merely echoes the words of philosophers who have gone before him. Did he need to repeat this sort of nihilism? Yes. In a day when religion is popular, as we find it in 1960, and people accept whatever comes to them blindly, we need such plays to shake us out of our lethargies.

TIME OF FULFILLMENT

What shall we say? Are we convinced that “life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing?”

Here the words of Isaiah. Isaiah, in a pessimistic mood, playing the Beckett role, says “Surely the people is grass.” But this same Isaiah in high moments cries out again tidings that have gladdened the hearts of men for 2500 years:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isa. 55:1, 3, 6, 7).

Now Isaiah tells us why it is difficult for mere man to understand the ways of God.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isa. 55:8, 9).

And to all who follow this way is the promise of God given:

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

For he shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands (Isa. 55:10–12).

Isaiah clarifies and augments our hope; he foretells the coming of the Christ:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6).

And again,

Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young (Isa. 40:10, 11).

Beckett is right in giving us a picture of men waiting for God, because for 500 years after Isaiah men were still waiting for him to come. Finally, “in the fullness of time, Christ was born.”

The trouble with Beckett’s play is that it does not realize Christ was born. He is the God men “waited for.” But men did not believe God would debase himself by appearing as a human so they labeled the story a Jesus-myth. Others believed the story but they manhandled this Jesus and made him fit their patterns of thinking. Still others divided him into sects and denominations until life went out of him.

Multitudes are still waiting for God. Their waiting is fruitless, for some of us know that that waiting period is ended. Godot appeared 20 centuries ago in the form of a child. Is it not written that

… there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.… For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:8–10).

In our day, many will sit idly by, foolishly waiting for Godot to come. We shall not be waiting. The Book hath revealed that he has come. Let us accept him today.

God’s Unlimited Love

The universe trembled

As a celestial sigh of passion

Echoed from the bosom of its Creator.

Then the almighty hand of God reached down

And with finger dipped in the ink

Of the blood of the sacrificed One,

Wrote out in bold, clear script

The plan of the salvation of man.

Man, bruised, sore and miserable,

Was lifted from his squalor

And self-inflicted death

Into the glorious hallway of heaven.

Though unworthy and not deserving

An ounce of compassion from God,

Man was cleansed in a shower-bath of love

And invited into the chambers of eternal life.

MERLE CROUSE

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

The relationship between Canaanite religion and the religion of the Old Testament is discussed in two articles in earlier issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY (Cyrus H. Gordon, “Higher Critics and Forbidden Fruit,” Nov. 23, 1959; Oswald T. Allis, “Israel and the Canaanites,” Feb. 1, 1960). There is another dimension to the discussion of Canaanite and Old Testament religion to which this article seeks to address itself. It is concerned with the value of knowledge of the religion of Canaan in providing a background against which the prophetic protest can best be understood.

Because the Hebrew language and the language of the Canaanites were sister tongues, and because the Hebrew people lived in the cultural setting of Canaan, it is not surprising that similar terminology should appear in the religious literature of both groups. Biblical scholarship, having survived the pan-Egyptian and pan-Babylonian theories, should be hesitant to endorse a pan-Canaanite interpretation of the Old Testament. There can be no doubt that Canaanite culture made a deep imprint upon the Hebrew way of life. The Old Testament makes it quite clear that at certain levels Hebrew religion assimilated characteristics of Ba’alism, but it also indicates that this syncretized religion was not considered to be the religion of Yahweh by the prophets. Amos called for a purified Yahwism. (The personal name for God, written YHWH in Hebrew, is believed by many scholars to have been pronounced “Yahweh.” The religion of the Hebrew people who worshipped Yahweh, therefore, may be termed “Yahwism,” to mark a clear contrast from those who worshipped Ba’al.) The treatment he received at Bethel from the hand of the priest Amaziah indicated that his condemnation of the syncretistic religion was not popular (Amos 7:10 ff.). Hosea’s words reveal that for many Yahweh had become identified with Ba’al (2:16), and he, too, called for a rejection of the Canaanite religion.

What was the nature of this religion against which the prophets protested? At this point the science of archeology and the discovery of the texts of the myth of Ba’al provide us with the information we need.

THE DISCOVERY

In 1929 a peasant plowing a field in northern Syria, near an inlet known as Minet al Beida (“White Harbor”), felt his plowpoint strike a rock. He cleared away the earth to remove the obstruction, and found it to be part of a stairway, which, upon further digging, was found to lead to a tomb. When news of the discovery reached the French authorities in the area, a thorough examination was made which indicated that the site was worthy of detailed investigation. In 1929 excavation was begun under the direction of C. F. A. Schaeffer. The site proved to be the ancient city of Ugarit, destroyed in the fourteenth century B.C.

Many artifacts of great importance were discovered, including Hittite and Egyptian materials, which indicated that the area had been controlled by the two nations at different periods in its history. The most significant discovery for Old Testament scholarship was a library, located between two temples—one dedicated to Dagon, a god generally associated with the Philistines in the Bible (cf. Judges 16:23; 1 Sam. 5:2–7; 1 Chron. 10:10); the other to Ba’al, the Canaanite fertility deity. Hundreds of clay tablets written in cuneiform, representing a language hitherto unknown to scholars, were found. When this language was deciphered, it was found to be related to biblical Hebrew in that it often used similar phrases and exhibited, in the poetic passages, the same parallelism so characteristic of Hebrew poetry. The most significant texts for our purposes were those setting forth the myth of Ba’al. According to the most probable arrangement of the tablets, the story of the loves and wars of Ba’al was somewhat as follows:

THE MYTH OF BA’AL

The myth began with the recounting of a violent battle between Ba’al, the storm god, and Yam, the god of the sea, to determine who should be lord of the land. Ba’al’s victory gave him lordship of the earth, while Yam was confined to his proper sphere, the sea. (See Prov. 8:29; Ps. 89:9; 95:5. Yahweh, as creator of the sea, is in control of it. He establishes its boundaries. There is no rival god of the sea.)

The victory feast which followed not only feted Ba’al’s prowess in battle but signalized his role as lord of the land. He was the god who gave fertility by providing rain to sustain life and promote growth. The fecund powers of Ba’al were central in Canaanite religion.

Later Ba’al encountered Mot, the god of aridity and death, and Ba’al was slain in the battle. With Ba’al dead, rain ceased to fall, the stream beds were dry, and Mot’s deathly power began to encroach upon the fertile lands.

Rites of mourning and mortification performed by El, the benign father-god, included the familiar dust and sackcloth. In addition El gashed (actually “plows”) his face, arms, chest and back, until the blood ran. It is quite clear from the texts that Ba’al was dead, and that the loss of his life-sustaining powers endangered all life.

Meanwhile Anat, Ba’al’s sister and mistress, also mourned his passing. Over hill and mountain (the high places) she conducted her rites of weeping and wailing. Ultimately she discovered that Ba’al had been slain by Mot. She met the god of death in battle, defeated him, and in some manner not explained in the texts in our possession, Ba’al was revived. With his return the rains came, the wadies flowed with water, and El, the father-god, was jubilant. Life power had been given to the parched earth.

It is quite obvious that the Ba’al myth was related to the seasonal cycle in Palestine. During the rainy season Ba’al was believed to be regnant. During the dry periods he was dead. The cultic ritual would naturally reflect and dramatize the myth. Because Ba’al and Anat engage in sexual relations in the myth, so did the worshipers of Ba’al promote fertility by imitating the divine pattern. In one scene Ba’al copulates with a heifer, and it is quite probable that bestiality formed part of the cult ritual. (See Dr. Allis’ comment in his article.)

While there is no guarantee that the religion of Ugarit was identical with the Ba’alism that confronted the Hebrews when they entered Canaan, certain aspects of the prophetic protest indicate that there may have been a close similarity. Therefore knowledge of the content of the myth is important. The prophets argued that Yahweh and Yahweh alone was both creator and sustainer of life, and that the recognition of Ba’al as the god who sustained life by the gift of rain was apostasy.

Perhaps the most dramatic biblical portrayal of the struggle between the religion of Yahweh and the religion of Ba’al is found in 1 Kings 17–19. According to 17:1 and 18:1–6 a severe drought, extending over several years, threatened the nation with starvation. Ba’al worshipers would naturally explain the lack of rain by references to the death of Ba’al. Elijah knew that the lack of rain was punishment resulting from the forsaking of Yahweh by his people (17:1). The contest on Mount Carmel was to determine which deity provided the rain.

The ritual acts of the prophets of Ba’al are similar to those recorded in the myth of Ba’al. As El gashed himself in mourning for the dead Ba’al, so did the prophets of Ba’al gash themselves (1 Kings 18:28). At noon, when the sun was at its zenith and the heat most severe, Elijah taunted the Ba’alists with their own mythology. Perhaps Ba’al was on a journey? According to the myth Elijah was correct, for Ba’al was in the underworld of death with Mot. Perhaps Ba’al was asleep? Again accurate, for according to the myth Ba’al was asleep in death. (The condition of sleep is often used as a parallel for death, cf. 1 Kings 1:21; 2:10; Ps. 13:3; Jer. 51:39, 57; Dan. 12:2, and so on.) In spite of their efforts the prophets of Ba’al failed. Ba’al was still dead.

After Elijah performed his ritual and Yahweh had answered by fire, the rains came (cf. 1 Kings 18:41–46). The point had been made. Yahweh, not Ba’al, sustained life, and gave or withheld the rains. The Life-Creator was also the Life-Sustainer.

The same emphasis on Yahweh’s gift of rain, fertility, and life appears in the writings of the eighth century prophets. For example, Amos 4:6–13 stresses the fact that Yahweh had demonstrated his control over life and death, his power to give and withhold the rains, but the people had not returned to him. Presumably they continued to attribute these powers to Ba’al. The people are warned to seek Yahweh and live (5:4) but not at Bethel, the site of the golden calf. Sacred prostitution is condemned by Amos (2:8).

The same conflict is reflected in Hosea where the people are accused of following the rituals of Ba’al (7:14–16). In addition the sexual motif of Ba’alism is apparent in some of Hosea’s condemnations (2:10–13; 4:14; 5:4). It is possible that the reference to men kissing calves in Hosea 13:2 refers to the ritual commemorating Ba’al’s association with the heifer.

Nor was the conflict resolved in the eighth century. The writings of Jeremiah, coming from the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the sixth make it quite clear that Ba’alism was flourishing in his day. The sexual motifs of Ba’alism are condemned (2:23 f.; 3:6 f.; 23:13 f). Yahweh’s control of the rain is proclaimed (10:12–16; 14:1–10). The ritual weeping for the dead Ba’al was being observed (3:21). Ba’alism was still the religion of the people, and the prophets of Yahweh were still engaged in a struggle with the leaders of Ba’alism.

Some scholars have emphasized the similarity in terminology of certain Psalms to that found in some of the Ugaritic writings. It is possible that in at least one of the Psalms proclaiming faith in Yahweh an implicit rejection of Ba’alism is to be found. Psalm 121 opens with a statement that the speaker is looking toward the hills. The hilltops were the traditional places for the location of Canaanite shrines or high places. The question is asked: “From whence does my help come?” implying “Is it from the high places that my help comes?”

In the proclamation of faith in the creator God which follows, the author makes it plain that Yahweh never slumbers or sleeps, as Ba’al did. He is not a god who is here today and gone tomorrow, a seasonal god, as Ba’al was. He is an ever-present God, who guards his worshipers day and night from all evil, and sustains their life. It is from Yahweh, not from Ba’al of the high places, that help comes.

If, as I suspect, this Psalm is not only a statement of faith but at the same time a tacit rejection of Ba’alism, we are indebted for this insight to the information obtained from the Canaanite texts coming from the excavation of Ugarit.

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.