Page 6384 – Christianity Today (2025)

Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise, So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith (Rom. 1:13–17).

During World War II when supplies became scarce in central Europe, German authorities offered the people substitutes of all kinds which went by the name of ersatz. Wives coming to the stores had to buy flour substitutes, meat substitutes and so many other kinds of substitutes that their souls came to loathe the unbearable ersatz.

The time seems to have come when there is a return from the ersatz sermon to the real sermon—the preaching of the gospel of Christ. Many church members realize that any substitute for gospel preaching not only fails to give them abiding spiritual values but also insults their Christian convictions. In the present crisis when hearts are longing for spiritual security, famished multitudes are flocking to pulpits that are consecrated to the message of salvation in Christ Jesus. When Dr. Graham held revival services in New York, a prominent liberal theologian remarked that when Billy Graham tells the people “Thus saith the Lord!,” nothing that the liberal has to say counts. It is always so. God’s saints will listen when he speaks to them; they are interested only in the theology of Jesus Christ and his free and full salvation.

By means of the gospel of Christ, Paul conquered the pagan world of his day and founded the Christian Church. To the self-righteous Jews that Gospel was a stumblingblock, something that incited them to fury and moved them to persecute the Apostle wherever he preached. To the cynical Greeks, the Gospel was stupidity, something so ridiculous that it deserved contempt. Among the Roman graffiti, the ancient pagan drawings or writings scratched on the walls, there is one that shows a donkey nailed to the cross with the added explanation: “Alexander worships his god.” That was the sardonic derision that early Christians had to endure for worshiping Christ.

Paul was not ashamed to preach the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ. He says: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” He preached him as the divine Saviour in Asia and Europe no matter how fiercely he was hated, ridiculed, and persecuted for doing so. He preached the divine Lord in his many glorious letters which to millions are still the richest treasure-trove of profound theology. He preached Christ as soon as he was converted and until he penned his last epistle before being beheaded outside the walls of Rome. The gospel of Christ was his first message as a Christian and it was his last testimony as a Christian martyr.

Today the Christian pulpit again needs dedicated preachers who are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. To be ashamed of Christ means to be ashamed of his undying love, his vicarious atonement, his glorious resurrection, the divine inspiration of the Scriptures which testify of him from beginning to end, and the Church’s Christian creed for which martyrs have died. It means to regard the Word of God less than the deceitful opinions of unbelieving men. It is a subtle form of idolatry that repudiates the sovereign God and in his place substitutes errant, conceited reason. It is a traitorous disposition of the perverted mind that fears God so little because it fears ungodly man so much. It is religious treason which—unless there is sincere repentance—imperils the preacher’s own salvation and that of those who hear him. It is a servile kowtowing to liberal pseudo-theology that blasphemes this gospel of Christ. The truly converted Christian preacher who has experienced the power of the Gospel in his heart is never ashamed of it.

PAUL EXPERIENCED THE GOSPEL’S POWER

It was Paul’s personal experience of the gospel’s divine power in his conversion and sanctification that made him a fearless, unashamed, consecrated gospel preacher. He writes: “For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” Paul’s experience of the power of the triumphant Christ and his Word on the Damascus road is of course well known. We know what Paul was before that supernatural, spiritual experience; and we know what he was after that. The self-righteous Pharisee, hating Christ and his Church, became the greatest Christian missionary among the Gentiles. Loving Christ with all his heart, he suffered cheerfully the greatest afflictions to glorify Him.

And the Apostle saw in others to whom he preached that strange divine power of the Gospel unto salvation to every one that believeth. He was always hated and persecuted for preaching the message of Christ’s salvation; yet no matter where he preached it, among Jews or Gentiles, the elect of God were gathered into God’s kingdom of grace. Soon there was a chain of Christian congregations extending from Jerusalem to Rome, all holding fast to the same Christ and the same Gospel. His preaching always bore fruit, always glorified Christ, always harvested saved souls.

Truly converted and consecrated preachers are still the most needed gifts of God for the pulpit today. The Christian pulpit cannot use any Sauls; it needs Pauls, that is, twice-born believers who first give themselves to Christ and then devote all that they are and have to the proclamation of Christ’s free and full salvation. It is the grievous mistake of many modern theological professors and preachers that they approach the Gospel mysteries from the intellectual point of view and try to search out infinite divine wisdom by their finite, rebellious minds. They want to understand and not believe. Like Thomas, they want to see the risen Lord before they trust him.

But this perverse craving for intellectual comprehension of faith’s mysteries is not only foolish in that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite but condemnable because it amounts to nothing less than crass unbelief. “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” There will never be converted congregations unless first there are converted pastors; and there will never be consecrated congregations unless preachers are consecrated. The preacher, to be abidingly successful in his ministry, must first have experienced in his own heart the paramount truth that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. That must be his starting point. From there he must press forward in pulpit and parish to reach the lost.

There was another experience that Paul had on the Damascus road which taught him that his own righteousness could not avail before God. Paul, so strict a Pharisee, could boast that “touching the righteousness which is in the law (he was) blameless” (Phil. 3:6). But as the divine voice from heaven condemned his hatred of the Christian Church, so also did He condemn Paul’s righteousness which was by the law. From that time on, he proclaimed the worthlessness of man’s own righteousness for salvation both in his pulpit and in his epistles. He writes, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”

NEED OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Gospel offers man the perfect righteousness of the atoning Christ which is apprehended by the believer in faith to Christ. Paul had laid hold of Christ’s perfect righteousness by faith, and ever after he abhorred his own valueless righteousness as he testifies: “And I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:8, 9). That was the inward incentive of the great Apostle for preaching the gospel of Christ: he trusted in Christ’s perfect righteousness for eternal life, and through the preaching of the Gospel he wanted to make many people rejoicing believers having this same divine righteousness.

That is the kind of consecrated preacher the pulpit needs today, the preacher who honestly repudiates his own merits and glories in Christ’s righteousness for salvation; the preacher who says: “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.… Thou must save and Thou alone.” Believing congregations are not created by Pelagians who trust in their own works for salvation. True, there must be preaching of the law for the knowledge of sin, but we know that divine law can only condemn. We must hear, side by side with the law, the saving Gospel of Christ whose righteousness to us is by faith. A code of ethics may be of superficial help to some people in this life, but in the end there is only one Way, one Truth, and one Life—that is Christ, as set forth in the Gospel.

Preachers who preach the gospel of Christ boldly and unashamedly, in dynamic outpouring from their own conviction of its divine truth, will not fail to impart to their hearers the greatest of all spiritual blessings—the assurance of eternal life in Christ Jesus. But first the preacher must have experienced the preciousness of the Gospel before he can convince others of its ineffable preciousness. He must be a Christian before he can win others for Christ. And he must speak of salvation not merely with the mouth but with his heart.

There is in this text mention of a last experience which moved the Apostle to preach the gospel of Christ unfailingly. When he wrote his letter to the Christians at Rome, he was at Corinth where he had more than enough work to do in the ministry of Jesus Christ. But he was eager to preach the Gospel also at Rome in order that he might have some fruit in that great metropolis. What moved him to undertake this mission? He writes: “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.” Paul regarded himself as a debtor to the whole world to repay the great debt which he owed the Lord Jesus for having saved his soul. This feeling of indebtedness; this constant, moving awareness of his responsibility to rescue perishing sinners; this overwhelming sense of gratitude toward Christ drove him to proclaim orally and in writing the precious Gospel of Christ’s salvation. He had experienced the Gospel’s saving power, the Gospel’s justifying righteousness, the Gospel’s holy prompting to pay off the debt he owed to his Lord; and that made him the greatest evangelist of the New Testament.

The kind of preachers the pulpit needs in this crisis are those in whose hearts reside the uppermost thought, “This is what Christ had done for me; what can I do not for money, not for glory, not for applause, not for anything that is of this world, but merely because God has made me a changed man and turned my heart to gratitude?” Such preachers will help revive the modern pulpit, will rejuvenate the Church, and will seek and save that which was lost. May God in mercy grant to the modern pulpit such Pauline preachers!

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.

We can appreciate the significance of Christianity only when we are thoroughly embued with a sense of Christ’s glory. If we should lose this personal sense, our preaching and discussions about the meaning and importance of Christianity in the world would be worthless. Perhaps nowhere more than in the Fourth Gospel is the glory of Christ more wonderfully revealed. This article will suggest ways in which the message of the glory of our Incarnate Lord comes to us in this Gospel.

ILLUMINATED BY GLORY

Students of John’s Gospel have usually agreed that the special quality of John’s message lies in his witness to the doxa, or the glory that shines through the life and work of Jesus Christ. Other Gospel writers, too, present the glory of the Lord, but in John this glory comes to expression in a specially impressive way. John is concerned with the glory of the Word become flesh. He speaks not only of the glory that comes to Christ after the resurrection, but of the glory that is his during his life on earth. John knows with Paul, of course, that Christ was taken up into glory (1 Tim. 3:16). And he speaks of Christ’s life on earth as the time when the Spirit had not yet come because Jesus was not yet glorified. Still, he sees the entire life of Jesus illuminated by beams of glory. The beams are not merely dim reflections of future glory. Our Lord’s glory was manifest in the very humiliation that he suffered while on earth. “We beheld his glory,” John writes. But this is a vision which calls for a special kind of perception. The Jews saw him without seeing his glory, and they were offended in him. But the glory was nonetheless manifest. It was apparent, for instance, in the account of the wedding at Cana where Jesus performed the first of the miracles in which his glory was revealed.

When the Greeks came to see Jesus, our Lord said: “The hour is come that the Son of man must be glorified.” The way in which glory is revealed is the way of the dying grain of wheat. Recall also what Jesus said to the Jews: “When you shall see the Son of man lifted up.” Or, again, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die” (John 12:32, 33). The physical and local elevation of our Lord to the cross is thus associated with his glorification. It is the same with the reference in John 3:14 to the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness. As the serpent was lifted up, so the Son of man must be lifted up in order that everyone who believes may have eternal life. The beams of glory shine through the very death of the Saviour, yea, even in the death of the cross. Of this John was a special witness.

PARADOX BUT NOT CONTRADICTION

We may speak of the paradox of John’s vision of glory in Christ’s humiliation, but we would go wrong if we spoke of a contradiction in it. He is telling us that the life of Christ does not end in a tragic fatality, that his life is not climaxed by disappointment to which the Resurrection is added by way of unexpected happy appendage. The mystery lies in the nature of the humiliation itself; the paradox lies in this life which is so wholly characterized by self-humiliation. The glory that illuminates the humiliation does not remove anything from the profundity of the humiliation; it shines through the deep debasement of Christ and is recognized for what it is only by faith and is confessed only in fellowship with Christ.

Many different and sometimes critical conclusions have been drawn from John’s association of glory with the humiliation of our Lord. Some scholars have said that it is a post-Easter injection, a theology created by the Church and set back into the life of Christ which gives it a color that did not originally belong to it. When this is the interpretation, a sharp contrast is usually drawn between the Synoptic Gospels and John’s Gospel in order to prove the point. We are reminded of the Synoptic account of the transfiguration, or glorification, of Jesus on the Mount. Here the Synoptics present a visible metamorphosis. Our Lord’s face is transfigured before the very eyes of the disciples. His eyes shine as the sun and his clothing becomes as white as light. John, we are told, does not present this kind of story. From John we get no stories of a visible glorification, nor change in Christ’s face or clothing. John relates only one kind of glorification, the glory of a Man of Sorrows on the via dolorosa. The Fourth Gospel portrays nothing spectacular except the glory of which Jesus himself speaks after his warning to Judas: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and now is God glorified in Him.”

I consider it unjust to construe this as a contradiction between the Synoptics (with their visible transfiguration story) and the Gospel of John. It is striking that the glorification visible to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration is directly connected with the message that Jesus receives from Moses and Elijah, the message about his forthcoming journey of suffering to Jerusalem. It is equally striking that John does not mention this physically discernible glorification and that he does on the other hand often speak of the glorification of Jesus in his sacrifice and death. He speaks, in other words, of a glorification discernible only to faith. John is surely aware of a glorification that is to come later. He remembers that the Spirit would come later to bring all things to their remembrance. But John is also impressed with the glory of Christ in the midst of the profound darkness toward which He is persistently heading. He observes that many do not believe, even though many signs were done in their midst. He knows that Christ’s glory is not apparent to all in the same way that street signs are visible to all with open eyes. But when men do not see the glory in the Saviour’s suffering, it is, according to John, because of the hardness of their hearts. Even Isaiah, who prophesied of the Man of Sorrows, saw his glory (Isa. 6:1).

HIS SUFFERING AND HIS GLORY

John sees the same glory, and his vision of the glory does not diminish his awareness of the depths of suffering and sorrow through which the Master went. John includes an account of the Passion of Christ just as do the Synoptics. He has the story of feet washing, the betrayal, the capture, the denial by Peter, the crown of thorns, the robe of mock purple, the crucifixion and burial of our Lord. He describes it all in detail and with moving affection. But in his description he includes both the suffering and the glory, the glory and the suffering. When John says, “We have seen his glory,” he is thinking of more than the disciples’ meeting with the risen Lord. He means the entire life and work of the Master to which he was witness.

No other Gospel has related the meaning of the passio magna with more profundity and richness than John’s. No other Gospel so fully portrayed the meaning of our Lord’s sacrificial death, of his willing sacrifice of life in obedience to the Father, than John’s. John entered into the experience of the Lord’s glory after his death, the glory of the Resurrection when the conflict was over, the terror passed through, the tears dried, and the fear vanquished; but he witnesses especially to the profound glory of the life and death of Jesus. He sees the triumph of the dying grain of wheat, the glory in the horrible elevation to death.

In John’s witness we see the testimony of faith in contrast to the offense of the incarnate, humiliated Lord. John does not try to demonstrate his point logically, and he knows that the majority of viewers did not see the glory. Still he witnessed the glory of the humiliated Son of God. It does not surprise us that Luther, impressed as he was with the theologia crucis, the theology of the Cross, was also profoundly influenced by John’s Gospel. For Luther John’s Gospel was “the truly tender Gospel.” It has been said that Luther had more of a hold on Paul than he did on John; that, in fact, he read John through the spectacles of Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians. He read, it is said, Paul’s doctrine of justification into John. There is perhaps some truth to this, but it does not remove the fact that Luther nonetheless was profoundly influenced by the Fourth Gospel. The Reformer put great emphasis on the humiliation of Christ, and yet was unembarrassed by John’s vision of the weight of glory. He realized that John was not balancing off the elements of glory against the elements of humiliation in Christ’s life. He knew John got at the meaning of our Lord’s humiliation—the significance of the shame of the Cross. That John’s Gospel was one of comfort for Luther is probably the reason he cited it commonly in the decisive phase of his life and struggle in 1618.

WHAT BULTMANN OBSCURES

Rudolph Bultmann has said that the Atonement played no role in John’s thought, and the resurrection of Christ was not a specially significant event for John. In John’s thought, the Cross itself was the victory over the world. This, according to Bultmann, is why we do not find John citing Jesus’ predictions of his own resurrection as we do in the Synoptics. Christ became the Lord of the cosmic powers through the Cross; the rest of the saving events have no really decisive significance after Calvary. Bultmann says that John’s statement about the blood of Jesus cleansing us from all sin is probably a later Christian gloss, an addition to John’s real words. Professor Bultmann would have us face then a reduction of the Gospel that is radically disturbing. In Bultmann’s reasoning, all of the great meaning that John saw in the Cross, the meaning that gave it rays of glory, is gone.

We cannot follow Bultmann without losing the real significance of John’s witness. But, on the other hand, Bultmann’s exaggeration must not cause us to lose sight of the fact that for John the meaning of Christ’s life is not restricted to the Resurrection. John takes us with him to our Lord’s life-long humiliation and helps us to share his own vision of the glory that illuminates all of that humiliation. He knows very well the revelation that the Resurrection gives of the meaning of Christ’s suffering and death. He knows, too, about the cleansing blood. But just because the meaning is thus revealed later, he keeps us awhile looking at the humiliation of our Incarnate Lord and helps us to see the beams of glory there.

We are close to the Passion and Easter phases of the Christian year. In following John, we shall not be tempted to isolate these seasons. The Passion remembrance is not a recollection of a good man’s bitter suffering that fills us with pity and sympathy. The Easter celebration is not a symbolic acceptance of life in which the suffering is overcome and forgotten. The Gospel of John is a judgment on all subjective preaching of the Passion and Easter seasons. For John is a witness of the redemption that took place in Jesus Christ. Someone once said that the origin of John’s Gospel is one of the great mysteries of ancient Christian history. It is then remarkable that this book with its mysteries and unique character has become one of the best loved of all Bible books. It is also remarkable that its message comes through with unusual directness and clarity and points straight to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.

We may be grateful that we need not wait for answers to every question before John’s Gospel speaks to us and in us. For John’s own intent was not that we should understand all things first, but rather that we should find life through him (John 20:31). He achieves his purpose by pointing to the unquenchable light that shines through the awful darkness, to the glory that radiates through the humiliation of our Saviour.

Home Town

From Cana and the miracle of wine

He took the highway to His boyhood home in Nazareth.

The people gave no sign

that they had heard how crippled men and dumb

had been restored beneath His gentle hand.

He was a prophet without honor here—

here, where His boyish feet had flung the sand.

He read the message in the passing leer

and grin—“Who does he think he is, this son

of Joseph?”

Faces stirred with quiet smirks.

He paused beside the home gate, thinking on

the places that had seen His mighty works.

And here in His home town He saw with grief

all miracles stillborn because of unbelief!

LON WOODRUM

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 recent strictures of Professor Niebuhr on Jewish missions have touched off a controversy on both sides of the Atlantic which as yet shows no signs of dying down. This is hardly surprising since the issues involved are even greater than might at first have been supposed. At stake is not only the justification of missions to the Jews but, ultimately, of all Christian missionary activity. It requires only slight adaptation of Niebuhr’s argument to suggest that the missionary approach is unsuitable for Moslems (as has been “proved” by the results, possibly more meager even than in the case of the Jews) and that the Moslem is more likely to find God within the pages of the Koran than in the environment of the Christian Church to which he has inherited a deep-rooted hostility. It would not be difficult to pass on to Buddhism and say that while Buddhism is very different indeed from Christianity, having in fact no doctrine of God at all, its founder was a man of conspicuous holiness whom some have not felt able to compare unfavorably with the Founder of Christianity. Some will claim that Buddhism has produced many saintly characters and that it may well stand for an alternative world view, perhaps contradictory on the surface but actually complementary to that of Christianity and more suited to the mystical temperament of the Oriental.

THE WAY OR A WAY?

The vital question, therefore, is whether the Christian Gospel is fundamental, a message vital to all men which must be passed on at all costs, or whether it is one of a number of alternative methods of approach to God. Briefly, was Jesus Christ “the Way” or “a way” (in which case there might well be others)?

The paramount importance of this question came home to the present writer a few weeks ago as guest speaker at the Sabbath “Kiddush” (Friday evening ceremonial meal) of the Cambridge University Jewish Society. After the meal, as the Sabbath candles burned low and the “Hallel” had been sung, I was allowed to stand and speak of my faith for about half an hour. So far as I knew I was the only Christian in a room filled with 70 to 80 Jews. When the address was over the questions began, and from one after another came the inquiry, “What is it in your Christian faith that we cannot find in Judaism at its best?” A question like that forces a man to think furiously and searches him to the depths of his soul. Yet there is no doubt about the answer. It is Jesus Christ, not “What?” but “Who?” It is he who is all in all to the Christian believer; it is he who cannot be found in any other religion, not even in Judaism, despite its roots in the Old Testament.

THE GREAT CLIMAX

What is true of the Jew is true also of the Moslem, the Buddhist, and all the others, however sincere and earnest they may be in their “search for truth.” They do not know Jesus Christ. Since, however, the Jew has so much—the Old Testament, the Psalter, belief in the one true and living God, and much else in common with the Christian, it is by examining what he lacks that we can best illustrate the point we are making.

It is frequently argued that the need of the Jew is less urgent than that of other men since he has the Bible to guide him. This is a very dangerous half-truth.

He has the Old Testament, that is true; however, it is chiefly the Pentateuch with which he is most familiar. He will sing the Psalms in Hebrew if he attends the Synagogue. He may hear passages from the Prophets, though some of the most significant, Isaiah 53 for example, are seldom if ever read.

But without a knowledge of Christ, he will find the Old Testament a jig-saw puzzle without the clue that gives it any real meaning. Since it is the inspired Word of God the Jew may indeed hear the voice of God in its pages, and the law may still be a “schoolmaster to bring him to Christ.” However as a rule, the veil is upon his eyes “when Moses is read.”

More than this he lacks the fuller revelation of the New Testament. It is true that more Jews are reading this book today than ever before. It is even used as a textbook in some of the secular Israeli schools. But the Jew is all too often blinded by prejudice to its true meaning. To the Christian who has so often heard the voice of the Spirit through its inspired pages, the New Testament has become one of the most treasured possessions. How can he justify a policy which would deny the Jew access to this book, or at least would prevent his having its true meaning explained to him? Yet this is surely what abandonment of the missionary approach would mean.

IGNORANCE OF JESUS CHRIST

The Jew does not know Jesus Christ. True, he may know of Jesus of Nazareth as an historical personage. Nearly every educated Jew has some knowledge of him today and a surprising number have read the New Testament. But he does not know Jesus Christ.

He does not know him as the Supreme Revealer of God. The Old Testament prepared the way for that revelation “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.” But if no more were needed, the Incarnation was surely superfluous and we may well ask with Anselm “Cur Deus homo?” The Christian must ask himself whether he takes seriously such words as “no man cometh unto the Father but by me” and “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” If he does then surely there can be no doubt of the urgency of passing on the knowledge of Christ to all men, whatever their race or creed.

Furthermore the Jew does not know Christ as Redeemer. Before the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, the people of Israel had their priesthood and sacrificial system. For the Christian it is no coincidence that so soon after the offering of the “One true, perfect, and sufficient offering and satisfaction” the symbolic sacrifices ceased to be. “Types and shadows have their ending for the newer rite is here.” For the Jews, however, the disappearance of the Temple and its sacrifices constituted a formidable problem. Even though Judaism is often said to deny original sin, the Jew has never doubted that man is a sinner who cannot lightly approach an all holy God. What then is to be done? First he must seek to keep the divine Law in its entirety. Thus the Decalogue is broken down into the 613 precepts which the pious Jew is required to keep every day. It is of this obligation that he reminds himself every time he binds his phylacteries on his arm and forehead, every time he places “the mezuzah” on his door post or wraps his “talith” around his shoulders. Yet, knowing the frailty of man he can but fail. The experience of Saul of Tarsus, “the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do,” is common to all men and the Jew is no exception. Hence he keeps his annual Day of Atonement after 10 days of heart searching at the start of the New Year, when it is believed, his record is being examined by the all holy God.

Robbed of its sacrificial character (although in some places that is recalled by the ceremonial slaughter of a cock for a man and a hen for a woman), the Day is one of fasting and prayer. After 24 hours of penitence the Jew must go back to the world with all its temptations, trusting that he is “sealed for the New Year” but in the last resort flinging himself upon the mercy of God who, he trusts, will not lay his sin to his charge. There is no clear message of forgiveness such as that heard by the Christian in the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

Yet again the Jew does not know Christ as Risen Lord. For the Jew he is a figure of history, a man who has been dead for nineteen hundred years. He has no knowledge at all of the risen Christ. No Jew can understand what the Christian means when he sings that “warm, sweet, tender even yet a present help is he.” Still less has he any comprehension of the doctrine of the indwelling Christ which lay at the heart of the spiritual experience of St. Paul: “I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Anyone who for years has fought a losing battle against temptation and then at last has discovered the secret of victory contained in this doctrine will realize the parlous state of those to whom the doctrine is entirely foreign.

Finally the Jew does not know Jesus Christ as Returning King. For him the Messiah has not yet come though, in his creed, he still confesses his faith in his coming. “I believe,” says the Creed of Moses Maimonides, “that Messiah shall come and though he tarry yet will I wait for him.” He clings almost pathetically to his belief that Judaism has a future mission to the world and that the Messianic age, whatever form it may take, will yet bring peace and prosperity to mankind. One finds, however, the hope becoming desperately thin—particularly since the awful possibility of nuclear catastrophe has become recognized. True, the Christian has often been unsure of his own ground in this matter. Yet, if he is true to the message of the New Testament, however much room there may be for disagreement over details he cannot doubt that in the end Jesus Christ, the true Messiah will come again to set up his Kingdom. This and this alone is the true ground of hope in the face of the menace of the bomb.

Here then is the unavoidable question: Are these doctrines of Christ as Revealer, Redeemer, Risen Lord and Returning King fundamental or optional? If the latter, then indeed we have no Gospel to preach. But if the former, then faced with Jew, Moslem, Buddhist, or anyone else, the convinced Christian must surely cry, “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!”

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.

We are all aware of the things that make for misery in this world: pain and sickness, vice and wickedness. The urgent and insistent question is this: how can evil be abolished and done away?

To the solution of this problem the great religions of the world address themselves. All the great religions profess to be religions of redemption: they promise deliverance and salvation. They differ, however, in their concept of evil. Is man’s basic problem death, or ignorance, or pain, or sin? It is worth examining the traditional answers.

THE PROBLEM OF DEATH

There is, first of all, the problem of death. In the ancient world there was an oppressive fear of death. Was there life beyond the grave? Was there any guarantee of immortality? Euripides wrote:

If any far-off state there be

Nearer to life than mortality,

The hand of death hath hold thereof

And mists are under and mists above.

(Hippolytus)

The popularity of the mystery religions was due, in large measure, to the fact that they professed to have the secret of immortality. By elaborate initiation ceremonies and baptism in a bath of bull’s blood, their followers were assured of forgiveness and immortality. They promised, however, more than they were able to perform.

The Egyptians were also anxiously concerned about death. The pyramids are a standing reminder of their valiant and unavailing efforts to save the bodies of their dead from decay and dissolution. By skillful process of mummification they sought to defeat death’s dread power. They believed that life in the world to come was dependent upon the preservation of the bodies of the dead. And to this end they dedicated all the resources at their disposal.

Of course, many today are still preoccupied, in like manner, with the problem of death. Christian Scientists, with supreme confidence, declare that death is not real, and Spiritualists, with naive gullibility, claim messages from “the other side.” They deceive no one but themselves.

THE PROBLEM OF IGNORANCE

Secondly, there is the problem of ignorance. Many Greeks believed that ignorance was the cause of all man’s ills. To Socrates and Plato death was not the basic problem: death was the means by which the soul was liberated from its prison in the body. Ignorance was the problem: it was from ignorance that we needed deliverance. He who knows what is right, they held, will do it. Socrates said that no one is willingly evil; a man sins because of his inability to discern truly that which is good. Of course, this is an oversimplification; as Ovid frankly confessed, we know and approve the better and do the worse. That is the depressing testimony of experience.

Nevertheless, there are still those today who regard education as the panacea of all our ills. They believe that education is sufficient, in itself, to cure the bias toward evil that exists within us all.

THE PROBLEM OF PAIN

Thirdly, there is the perplexing problem of human pain. Buddhism is the religion which, above all others, promises deliverance from suffering through the experience of Nirvana. Buddha was morbidly aware that life is a series of tragedies and frustrations, that life itself is suffering. He believed that life is transitory and sorrowful, and that peace is only possible through the eradication and extinction of desire. Only so can a man escape into Nirvana and the experience of oblivion. This philosophy was set out in the Four Noble Truths:

The First Truth is of Sorrow. Be not mocked!

Life which ye prize is long-drawn agony:

Only its pains abide; its pleasures are

As birds which light and fly.

The Second Truth is Sorrow’s Cause. What grief

Springs of itself and springs not of desire?

Senses and things perceived mingle and light

Passion’s quick spark of fire.

The Third is Sorrow’s Ceasing. This is peace,

To conquer love of self and lust of life,

To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast,

To still the inward strife.

The Fourth Truth is the Way. It openeth wide

Plain for all feet to tread, easy and near,

The noble eight-fold path: it goeth straight

To Peace and Refuge. Hear!

(Paraphrase by Sir Edwin Arnold)

The goal, then, was one of escape. There was no wrestling with the intractable problem of moral depravity and the grievous fact of human guilt; the main object of concern was the elimination of desire and the end of suffering.

Of course, there are many who share this view, who give themselves to the alleviation of suffering without troubling themselves about more ultimate questions of right and wrong. So long as men are happy, why trouble them about their sins?

THE FOUNT OF ALL EVIL

With all these views Christianity joins issue: against the view that death is the greatest evil. Christianity points out that what gives to death its terror and its sting is the fact of sin and the reality of coming judgment; against the view that ignorance is the greatest evil, Christianity points out that our basic problems are problems of the will rather than problems of the intellect (our problem is not knowing what is right—our problem is doing it); against the view that pain is the greatest evil, Christianity points out that moral evil is an even more pressing and persistent problem than that of physical pain (Oliver Quick, Doctrines of the Creed, pp. 192 ff.).

Christianity thus asserts that sin is the true fount of all evil, in deliverance from which salvation is achieved even though it sometimes involves the willing acceptance of pain or death. As J. S. Whale once said: “Public Enemy Number One is neither ignorance, nor stupidity, nor the defective social environment, but sin, which is the deep mysterious root of all these evils” (Christian Doctrine, p. 37).

THE FRUITS OF SIN

The Christian faith does not minimize nor deny the fact that death, ignorance, and pain are all evil things; it only affirms that these things cannot be understood wholly apart from, and independently of, the overwhelming fact of sin.

Take the universal and inevitable fact of death. Christianity recognizes at once that there is such a thing as “the fear of death,” and that this fear arises from the certainty of inescapable death and the uncertainty of what is to follow. This, says Dostoevski, is the most dreadful anguish in the world. For the Christian man the fact of death remains: he still must die; but the fear of death is removed, for Jesus, by his resurrection, has stripped death of its terrors. So the Christian man, in the strength of Christ, can shout: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:55–57).

Or take the fact of human ignorance. Christianity recognizes at once the finitude and darkness of our minds, but it affirms that the corruption of our minds is due to sin. It believes that in Christ there is a progressive renewal, and that the mind of regenerate man is enlightened and illuminated by the Spirit of God in understanding and true judgment.

Or finally, take the fact of human suffering. Christianity recognizes at once the reality of pain, and the appalling fact of physical suffering. It is important to remember in this connection that the ministry of Jesus was directed against sickness as well as sin. But Jesus knew that the moral problem is more intractable than the physical, and that often a man needs to be cleansed of his sin before he can be healed of his sickness. To the man sick of the palsy Jesus said: “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” This was his deepest, his most desperate need. Then Jesus said, “Take up thy bed and walk” (Mark 2:1–10).

THE COST OF REDEMPTION

Christianity takes sin seriously. It insists that it is from sin that we need to be delivered. How can we find deliverance? We cannot deliver one another, for we are all involved in a community of sin. In this matter we are all one; here, if nowhere else, we share in a true democracy. We are conscious at this point of our human solidarity. The Apostle Paul wrote: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). How very true!

If Christianity is right in its diagnosis, what is its prescription? How are we to be saved from sin? We cannot save ourselves, for we are held fast by a chain forged by repeated acts of sin, but we can be saved by the virtue and victory of Another. Here is the answer to our need.

Christ “his own self,” said the Apostle Peter, “bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24). On the Cross a battle was fought and a victory won. This was a battle with the forces of sin and death and hell, and of the fruits of that victory we share by faith. So, here and now, we experience deliverance from sin, because an atonement has been made for sin. And the Cross is the measure of its cost.

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.

Twentieth century historiography was heir to all the achievements of the previous era. This legacy, with diverse strains and characteristics, continued to shape as well as to inspire scholarship in the first decades of the new era. Optimism, historicism, and naturalism could all claim their representatives. Not even two world wars and the other cataclysmic events of our day have diminished the faith of some historians in the inevitability of progress and inherent goodness of man. Although natural law is still the frame of reference of historians, many of them derive from it interpretations of history startlingly different from those which it was formerly used to support. For his theory of history, Spengler adapted naturalism along lines quite different from nineteenth century versions.

But twentieth century historiography, perhaps even more than that of the nineteenth century, reflects the influence of contemporary philosophical currents. If philosophy before 1900 displayed greater concern for the meaning of history than many historians showed, it can also be said that historical scholarship has come to its own in this respect: its new awareness of the importance of the problem of meaning in history.

No longer are historians content to “let the facts speak for themselves” for they now see that the facts of history are not able to speak, and that it is the task of scholarship to interpret the data which it discovers. Thus contemporary historians are looking to philosophy with new respect and interest in search of a frame of reference by which they might fix meaning and goals in the historical process. The acquisition of facts is no longer regarded as the sole or the most important function of the historian; it is his solemn obligation to find their meaning as well.

NEW INTEREST IN PHILOSOPHY

This does not mean that contemporary scholars agree on this wider role of responsibility, nor that they agree on the frame of reference. But a great change has overtaken historical thought in the last few decades and with it has come a new interest in philosophy on the historian’s part. Scholars in both fields are now vitally concerned with the problem of meaning and purpose in the historical process. The increase in books and articles dealing with it are testimony to their concern. For some historians this concern takes the form of a return to a metaphysical or even a theological frame of reference. To others existentialism seems to offer a solution or an escape from the dilemma presented by the catastrophic present by making possible their denial that history has any meaning at all, except that which the historian may choose to give it for the moment. In short, for much of contemporary historiography epistemology has become the dominant issue, even as it has for philosophy and theology.

THE PROCESS ITSELF

Oswald Spengler, the first important philosopher of history in the twentieth century, represented the continuing influence of the appeal to natural law as a frame of reference, but from it he derived a view of history in sharp contrast to that of his predecessors. No longer could this resort-to-nature bring forth an evolutionary conception of the inevitability of progress, but rather in Spengler’s view it led to the conclusion that decay and doom are the inescapable fate of all cultures and civilizations. His insistence on spring, summer, autumn, and winter as the cycle through which they all must pass led to a naturalistic determinism which is the very negation of freedom and progress as the goals of history. Spengler believed that history has meaning, but the meaning which he professed to find was quite different from that found by nineteenth century liberalism. His pessimism was quite distasteful to a modern generation reared and nurtured on Hegelian and Darwinian optimism and which, even in 1920, still professed to believe that the recent holocaust through which the West had passed was only a temporary, though unfortunate, detour on humanity’s road to Utopia. Many historians voiced a protest against the thesis of Spengler’s Decline of the West, but events seemed to speak loudly in his defense.

Perhaps the most important answer to Spengler came from the learned Arnold Toynbee in his Study of History. Rejecting the former’s naturalism and determinism, Toynbee looked to the élan vital of Henri Bergson to furnish the clue to the meaning of the historical process, and to provide an answer to the riddle of the rise and fall of civilizations. While he agreed with Spengler that decay seems to be the ultimate destiny of all civilizations, he refused to admit that this must be the case, and that they must all pass through the same natural cycle of the four seasons.

Toynbee’s basic solution to the dilemma is found in his theory of challenge and response, by which he means that civilizations continue to grow and develop as long as they successfully meet the challenges which confront them with adequate responses. Although he presented extensive data in support of his position and an ingenious arrangement of myriads of historical facts, his Study of History leaves many questions unanswered and many historians, philosophers, and social scientists are dissatisfied with it. Historians criticize his tendency to arrange facts conveniently in support of his thesis, and they are convinced that his use of challenge and response was both artificial and forced at many points. His adaptation of Bergson’s élan vital is a facile attempt to explain why civilizations successfully respond to the challenges they meet, but it fails utterly to solve the problem as to why in the history of every culture there seems to be a moment when it no longer is able successfully to meet a challenge and disintegration sets in.

We appreciate Toynbee’s affirmation that history is meaningful, and we respect the breadth and depth of his learning. Likewise we commend him for rejecting Spengler’s unblushing resort to determinism. We stand in his debt for rescuing historiography from a debilitating fatalism into which it seemed to be drifting. But we must reject his attempt to find that meaning in an erroneous philosophy. His attempt to find the meaning and goal of history within the process itself is the serious weakness that mars his position. Yet this weakness characterizes all philosophies of history which look to man or nature for life’s meaning.

SUBJECTIVITY AND MEANING

As the twentieth century approached its mid-point, existentialism found increasing favor with many historians. These historians were in a state of despair, intellectually and spiritually, as a result of the rise of the totalitarian state and the coming of World War II. Existentialism offered them an invitation to retreat into a world of historical illusion devoid of ultimate truth or objective reality. Their acceptance of this philosophy is really their declaration that the time-honored assumption of the rationalists and their allies that the meaning of history can be found within the stream of events is a serious error, and that all attempt to find it there must end in failure. It is also a repudiation of the assumption, emanating from the Renaissance, that human reason is competent for the discovery of truth. In historiography, existentialism leads to the denial of a publicly recognizable body of objective truth, and of historical data, available to historians, and the validity of which they all must recognize. Historical fact, to the extent to which it can be achieved, thus becomes the private possession of the particular historian who is studying history.

Logically and almost inevitably the members of this school are driven to the conclusion that history, in the sense that it is the study of past reality, does not and cannot exist. It has no objective meaning and this can give no evidence of any goal or progress in human affairs. It has no meaning simply because it has so many meanings—as many meanings as historians—for every historian is free to give it his own interpretation.

Herbert Muller stated the case for this view of history in his The Uses of the Past in which he reduces all historical knowledge to thorough-going relativism. The past keeps changing with the present and every age has to rewrite its history. “In every age a different Christ dies on the Cross and is resurrected to a different end.” He concludes: “History has no meaning in the sense of a clear pattern or determinate plot, but it is simply not meaningless or pointless. It has no certain meaning because man is free to give it various possible meanings.”

Thus historiography, like philosophy, threatens in the twentieth century to become an epistemological jungle in which the unwary historian can easily be lost in a maze of meaningless facts. Existentialism logically leads to the conviction that the study of history is a useless and futile activity. It is but a short step from this position to the conclusion that the traditional approach to the teaching of history is likewise in need of drastic revision. Why teach that which cannot be known with certainty?

It was a vague consciousness of this dilemma which led John Dewey and his many disciples in the field of education to minimize the formal study of history as such and to suggest that it should be made to serve other ends in courses vaguely known as integrated experiences in the social sciences. Although the most that could be expected in its study was a “warranted assertability,” history was nevertheless to be called upon to aid in the creation of good social attitudes in the minds of students who, it was argued, lack all sense of historical judgment and all standards by which to judge either the present or the past. It has never seemed to bother the progressives in education that a past which cannot be known with certainty cannot be called on to shape either present or future.

But there is still another school in contemporary historiography which merits our consideration, partly because it has received considerable popular attention in recent years, and partly because of its own intrinsic significance. I refer to the return to a theological conception of history and, on the part of some philosophers and historians, even to a Christian outlook. The plight of modern man in general and that of twentieth century historiography on the other hand has forced scholars in these fields to take the contemporary crisis much more seriously than was the case 30 years ago. Unable to subscribe to a view which underscores the meaninglessness of human existence, they have been forced to look for the key to history outside the historical process. Thus Herbert Butterfield in England and Reinhold Niebuhr in this country have swept aside many of the humanistic assumptions of a previous generation and have assigned new importance to both human evil and divine providence as necessary ingredients of any satisfactory view of history. This is not to say that they have returned to an Augustinian or full evangelical position, since important elements of the biblical view are still absent from their thinking. Their openly expressed dissatisfaction with the Renaissance emphasis on human sufficiency and sovereignty does not of itself constitute a return to the biblical outlook in regard either to the sovereignty of God or to the nature of fallen man. Standing between them and many members of the school which they represent is the influence of neo-orthodoxy.

The neo-orthodox denial of common grace easily leads to the denial of the sovereignty of God in the government of human affairs. The sharp antithesis which this position draws between the sacred and the secular, between redemptive and human history as such, brings not only neo-orthodox theology but its view of history perilously close to an existentialist conception. Also the low view of the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures which characterizes most of the theologians of this school tends to deprive them of that authority and certainty which must underlie all meaningful intellectual activity. In similar fashion in varying degrees they also fail to make the biblical view of the person of Jesus Christ and of redemption a vital element in their systems. To the extent to which such thinkers fall short of the historic orthodox Christian position, to that extent they fail to achieve an Augustinian philosophy or theology of history.

While there are biblical elements in Niebuhr’s treatment of history, I personally question whether Tillich’s system may be regarded as Christian in any sense of the word.

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 history of Israel during the kingship of David is the theme of II Samuel. Originally one with I Samuel (discussed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Jan. 5, 1959), the books were divided in the Hebrew edition of the Venetian printer Daniel Bomberg (1516).

AUTHORSHIP

The books of Samuel (also called “Kingdoms” or “Kings”) are anonymous. They were probably written by a Judean prophet shortly after the division of the kingdom. Memoirs of Samuel, Nathan, Gad, and others were doubtless used.

CONTENT

Second Samuel begins with David at the peak of his career. Saul, who had attempted to kill him, and Jonathan, his best friend, are now dead on the field of battle. David’s lament was genuine. He remembered Saul’s happier days.

The eloquent dirge (1:17–27) is taken from The Book of Jasher, evidently an ancient poetic account of Israel’s early history. The account of Joshua’s long day (Josh. 10:13) is taken from the same source. The Jews appear to have had an epic literature comparable with that of other ancient peoples (cf. the Iliad and the Odyssey). Apart from quotations in the canonical Scriptures, such literature perished long ago.

After the death of Saul, the way was open for David to be publicly crowned at Hebron king over Judah (2:3–4). The north remained loyal to Saul’s son Ishbosheth (“man of shame,” originally Eshbaal, “man of Baal”) who was established east of the Jordan at Mahanaim by Abner, Saul’s military commander (2:9).

A strange battle took place between the forces of Abner and Joab, representing Ishbosheth and David, respectively, at the pool of Gibeon (2:12–17). During the archaeological expedition at Gibeon conducted by James B. Pritchard on behalf of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and the University of Pennsylvania Museum (1956), the pool at Gibeon was excavated. It was cut out of solid rock and had a circular staircase with a handrail to make it easier for the water-carrying women to get at the water supply when it receded during the dry season. The diameter of the pool is 36 feet.

The battle at Gibeon began when, by mutual consent, 12 champions of each army were selected to fight each other. All 24 met their death in the fray, leaving things as unsettled as ever. Asahel, a brother of Joab, chose to pursue Abner. Abner, obviously desiring to avoid a blood feud between the two families, urged him to go after one of the other lads. Asahel would not desist, and Abner killed him (2:23).

Ishbosheth’s reign was very brief. Abner married one of Saul’s concubines, and Ishbosheth rebuked him (3:7). Marrying a king’s widow was tantamount to laying claim to the throne. Abner was angered at the rebuke and determined to turn the kingdom over to David (3:12).

David accepted Abner’s allegiance on condition that Michal, Saul’s daughter, be restored to David as wife. This would strengthen David’s claim to the throne of Israel. Abner agreed, but he was soon killed by Joab (3:27) who was both seeking revenge for his brother Asahel and removing a potential rival. Subsequently Ishbosheth was murdered by two of his own captains (4:2, 5, 6) after which the northern tribes acknowledged David as king (5:3). Through all of these proceedings David had acted in an exemplary way. He was not personally responsible for the death of any of his rivals or potential rivals.

David’s relation to Israel is stated in the words “Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over Israel” (5:2). The king is the shepherd who pastures God’s flock. Theocratic government was always the ideal in Israel.

The Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem had defied Israelite arms from the time of the Judges (cf. Judges 1:21) until the time of David. Joab accomplished the seemingly impossible (5:7–8), whereupon David made Jerusalem his capital. Since Jerusalem had not been occupied by any of the tribes, it was a kind of neutral territory between Judah and Benjamin, somewhat analogous to the District of Columbia which lies between Virginia and Maryland. The royal palace was built on Mount Zion (5:11).

Jerusalem became the spiritual as well as political center of Israel when David had the ark brought from the house of Obed-edom to Zion and placed in a tent or Tabernacle (6:12–17). When David expressed the desire to place it in a Temple (7:1–3), the prophet Nathan was pleased. He subsequently declared that this was not the Lord’s will. David’s son, Solomon, would build the Temple, but God would build “an house” for David (7:11). This “house” would not be a building but a dynasty of lungs who would reign over Israel (11:13). Subsequent Messianic prophecy is based on this promise. David’s descendants reigned over the Southern Kingdom (Judah) until Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem (587 B.C.). Many of the descendants of David were idolatrous (cf. Manasseh, Amon) but the godly remnant in Israel looked for the coming of a righteous king from the line of David. The prophets foretold the captivity, but they also declared that a “shoot” would come from the stock or “stump” of Jesse (Isa. 11:1) who would usher in a period of righteousness (Isa. 11:2–9). The New Testament is linked with this promise to David in its first verse: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). In the annunciation the angel declared to Mary, “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32, 33).

David’s military prowess had been recognized during the lifetime of Saul. As king, however, David was able to carve out a mighty empire in what has been called Israel’s Golden Age. Philistines, Moabites, Aramaeans, Edomites, and Ammonites paid their tribute to David. From Zobah, north of Damascus, to the Gulf of Aqabah, David was recognized as sovereign (8:1–14). A succession of weak rulers both in Egypt and in Mesopotamia produced a power vacuum which, in the providence of God, made possible the Kingdom of David.

From David’s youth to the siege of Rabbath Ammon (11:1 ff.), God’s blessing had rested upon David. David had shown a magnanimous spirit, even toward his enemies. He remembered his vow not to destroy Saul’s family, sought out Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, and supported him at his own expense (9:1–13).

DAVID’S SIN

Rabbath Ammon marks a turning point in David’s life, however. While his troops were besieging the city, David remained behind and made the acquaintance of Bath-sheba, the wife of Uriah, a Hittite soldier in David’s army. David sought to hide his illicit relationship with Uriah’s wife by bringing him home. When Uriah refused to return home, David gave orders to Joab to send Uriah into the thick of the battle where he would be killed (11:14–17). David’s plan was carried out. Uriah died.

Rulers of the ancient world generally exercised absolute power. Abraham took it for granted that the Pharaoh would kill a man to secure his wife (Gen. 12:12). It is noteworthy in the David story that Nathan, a prophet, had access to the king and dared to accuse him of wrongdoing (12:1–14). An absolute monarch would have had Nathan killed. David accepted his rebuke and gave evidence of true repentance (12:13).

DAVID’S DECLINING YEARS

“The enemies of the Lord” had occasion to blaspheme because of David’s sin (12:14). Nathan stated that there were certain consequences of that sin which David must suffer. The child born to Bath-sheba died (12:14–23). The evil example of David had consequences in his own family where rebellion and strife characterized the last years of his reign.

Amnon, David’s first-born, conceived a passion for his half sister Tamar, and seduced her (13:1–22). Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, slew Amnon to avenge his sister’s dishonor (13:23–29). He then fled for protection to the house of his mother’s father, Talmai, king of Geshur (13:36–39). Joab effected a reconciliation between David and Absalom by enlisting the services of the Wise Woman of Tekoa (14:1–11).

Whereas the women had formerly sung in the streets of the exploits of David, now his son Absalom became the popular hero (14:25–27). As political demagogues of all generations do, he promised the impossible in order to court favor with the people. He built up a considerable following and had himself crowned king in Hebron (15:7–12), with the result that David had to flee from Jerusalem with his bodyguard of Cherethites and Pelethites, mercenary troops of Caphtorian origin (15:13–18).

The counselor Ahithophel advised Absalom to take over his father’s harem, gather the army, and pursue David (17:1–14). Hushai, secretly loyal to David, advised delay, which gave David opportunity to force a showdown.

When David organized his troops in Mahanaim, east of the Jordan (17:24–29), he urged them to deal gently with Absalom. When Joab found Absalom accidentally caught in a tree (18:9–18) he slew him. The grief of David over the death of Absalom—at once son and enemy—is one of the most touching scenes in Scripture (18:33–19:8).

Following Absalom’s rebellion, a man named Sheba of the tribe of Benjamin (Saul’s tribe) revolted against David (20:1–2). Amasa, David’s nephew (cf. 1 Chron. 2:13–17) and former commander of Absalom’s army (17:25), was commissioned to put down the revolt (20:4). Joab, however, jealous of his position, slew Amasa (20:9–10), took personal command, and pursued Sheba to Abel of Beth-maachah (20:15) where a wise woman, in order to spare his city from enemy action, decapitated Sheba and cast his head over the wall to Joab (20:22). Thus the rule of the house of David over Israel was preserved.

When a three-year famine plagued the land it was interpreted as a divine judgment (21:1). Since Saul had sought to exterminate the Gibeonites, in violation of the treaty which Joshua had made with them (Joshua 9:15 ff.), David asked them to suggest reparations. At their request, seven sons of the house of Saul were killed (21:6), although David spared Mephibosheth in order to keep his promise not to exterminate the house of Saul (21:7).

In order to estimate military potential, David undertook a census (24:1–9). Since this involved lack of faith, judgment came in the form of a pestilence which David chose rather than a seven-year famine or a three-month period of military defeat (24:10–14). An altar was erected on the threshing floor purchased from Araunah (24:24–25), and the acceptable sacrifices offered there brought the pestilence to an end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Keil and Delitzsch commentary on Samuel is useful, particularly to the reader who can use Hebrew. C. H. Toy and J. A. Broadus edited the English edition of the C. F. D. Erdmann commentary on Samuel in the Lange series. W. G. Blaikie on I and II Samuel in The Expositor’s Bible and the brief treatment by A. M. Renwick in The New Bible Commentary will be appreciated for nontechnical treatment.

CHARLES F. PFEIFFER

Professor of Old Testament

Moody Bible Institute

SOWER, SEED AND HARVEST

Some of the deep truths of God are presented so simply in Scripture that we often fail to appreciate their significance. We read of our Lord’s parable of the sower, how he would use a graphic illustration and also give a detailed explanation to his inquiring disciples.

There are three elements in this parable: the sower, the seed, and the ground. Its importance was marked enough that the first three Gospels included it.

Christ told his disciples that the sower is the preacher, the seed the gospel message, while the types of ground represent four kinds of hearts which hear the gospel message but react to it in different ways.

There are many lessons we can find in this parable.

The first is that man’s eternal destiny is at stake. For this reason the work of the sower is of the greatest importance.

In these days when there is a new philosophy of Christian vocation it is important to remember that while a Christian can serve and honor God in any calling consistent with the Christian faith, the Christian ministry does stand apart by virtue of its primary concern with man’s eternal destiny.

The apostle Paul lays great stress on the importance of preaching. He tells us that “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” And he goes on to say: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

That which he preached he affirmed to be: “… the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

Paul, amplifying the ministry of the preacher, goes on to say: “How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”

It is therefore obvious that the sowing of the seed—the preaching of the Gospel—is the greatest task to which man can be called.

Secondly, with the importance of preaching there runs an equally compelling imperative: the message to be preached.

Our Lord tells us that the seed is the message of God, and the Scripture leaves us no room to speculate as to that message—it is God’s redemptive act in Christ, a redemption necessary for man’s salvation and accomplished in but one way.

Paul compresses this in a few sentences: “… I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you … how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

Unless this message has been given, unless this seed has been sown, the gospel has not been preached, nor is there any substitute which can bring forth fruit to life eternal.

The third lesson in this parable is that men’s hearts vary and because of this you and I who hear the gospel message need to take warning. In fact there are four warnings to be found here.

Beware of Satan. Probably there is no time he is more active than when the Gospel is being preached. Behind those roving thoughts, wandering imaginations, listless minds, dull memories, sleepy eyes, fidgety nerves, weary bodies, and distracted attention, there rests the malignant activity of the enemy of souls—the one who fears and hates the gospel message.

Beware of temporary impressions or emotions. The seed falling on rocky ground had no permanent fruition. So too, when our hearing of the Gospel results solely in fleeting impressions and emotions there will be no deep and abiding work in our hearts and lives.

Let the scorching heat of persecution or temptation come, and the little bit of superficial religion we have withers and vanishes away. We are prone to confuse our delight in the words of some favorite preacher with a work which the Holy Spirit does in our hearts.

Beware of the cares of this world. Our hearts may be like thorny ground. We hear the Gospel and give assent to it—then other things come between us and God.

The “cares of this world” are on every hand—frustrations, disappointments, sorrows, and problems. All conspire to claim our attention and to depress us. Instead of looking upward and outward to God, we look around us and within.

The “deceitfulness of riches” is a danger, even to the many who have little of this world’s goods. All of us can find ourselves putting money and things first and forgetting our Lord’s command to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

The “pleasures of this life” are a challenge to every child of God. Recreation and amusements have their rightful place. But the world has so many allurements, so many things to attract, that when they assume a priority they do not deserve, the soul withers and dies.

Finally, beware of being content with any concept of Christianity that does not bring forth fruit in our lives.

One of the tragedies of every generation is the separation that people make between faith and action in Christian profession.

The “good ground” represents the heart in which the gospel message takes deep root and brings forth fruit for the glory of God. Christianity is not only the salvation of the soul through faith in Christ; it is also the transforming of individuals by the Lord of life.

It is the fruit of a redeemed life that commends the Gospel we profess. Philosophical arguments may be raised against Christianity, but there is little argument against a sinner transformed by the power of the living Christ.

These things being true, how carefully we should value the calling and privilege of preaching the Gospel. How certain we must be that we preach the Gospel and not another gospel, and how carefully we should heed our own hearts as we hear and react to the message of eternal life!

This parable of the sower carries its warnings, but it also carries a glorious hope, for wherever the Gospel is preached there will be results. This will not be due to the eloquence, personality, or brilliance of the sower but the seed which he sows.

We also know that it is the Holy Spirit who prepares the hearts of men for the gospel seed and then waters that seed to bring forth fruit for eternity.

Our Lord—the greatest preacher who ever lived—preached and taught and only a minority believed and followed him.

Our responsibility, therefore, is the sowing of the good seed. We can safely leave the harvest to Him.

L. NELSON BELL

We were in a World Vision pastors’ conference in the Philippines where, first in Baguio and then in Ilo Ilo, national workers gathered by the hundreds in discussion groups to consider “The Relevance of the Bible Today.” Some confessed rather critical views of the Bible, an inheritance from seminary professors whose institutions already disown many of these very theories. A few, infatuated by more recent existential and dialectical speculations, reflected the unfortunate tendency to disjoin Scripture from the Holy Spirit. But the great majority—happily for the missionary outlook—shared (as do most workers at grass roots) the high evangelical confidence in the Bible as the divinely inspired rule of faith and conduct.

What were these Asian workers saying, as they charted the contemporary relevance of the Bible?

Interestingly enough, they shied from any one-sided emphasis on the special significance of the Bible for this generation. The Bible’s relevance is not constituted, they stressed, by something peculiar to our own age. They granted the destructive power of modern science, the awesome threat of international conflict, the emergence of atheism as a world cultural force, and the widening impression of the omnicompetence of medicine in ministering to human need. But to stress these contemporary features to establish the relevance of the Word written, these workers felt, may serve unwittingly to obscure rather than sharpen the deepest message of Scripture.

Would not such an assertion imply that our plight, our wickedness, is somehow a unique consequence of the twentieth century society in which we live, and that, had we been born in some other era, our plight would be far less gloomy? Might there not be a certain self-justification, even self-gratification, in belaboring this miscarriage of modern history? Are we really unique objects of biblical concern, distinguished somehow from sinners in all other ages, simply because our miracle-world proudly sets itself against the miracle of grace? To say so merely reveals and caters to our pride in stating our predicament. The great speculative intellects of our century would indeed like to consider the present world as another world, that is, a world without precedent: the fluid front of the evolutionary advance, the vestibule of the atomic age, the gateway to communism as the final goal of history, the one century poised as none other on the edge of the abyss, and so on. Yet human nature and the human predicament remain ever the same. For all the bluster about modernity, we dare not forget that contemporary culture reflects—even if in a more sophisticated way—an age-old sentiment: “Let us make a tower of Babel reaching to heaven.”

The disposition, therefore, to “make the Bible relevant” to the world today carries some dangers. The sentiment focuses attention so much on man’s “short term” predicament that it threatens to conceal the “long term” relevance of Scripture, namely, its awesome message for the human race, past, present or future in its solidary predicament in sin. Nothing is gained by so forging the Bible’s relevance for the closing decades of the twentieth century if thereby the Scriptures’ verdict of hopelessness in sin upon the whole span of human history is obscured.

But once recognize the Bible as God’s inspired Word to all men in all ages, declaring mankind’s predicament in Adam, and mankind’s prospect of redemption in Christ, and no situation in life can emerge to which Scripture is irrelevant. So long as human beings live in time, the Bible retains this crisp applicability. Therefore, some Philippine leaders pointed first to the fixed character of God; to the fact that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”; to the fact that Scripture’s “Thus saith the Lord” retains its unswerving force in all times and places; to the fact that God’s proclamation that “there is none righteous, no not even one” and that “there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” allows no way of escape even to our generation. Not something peculiar to modern men, but something essential about the eternal God, links the Bible most effectively to our era.

Having emphasized the Bible’s relevance to our time because of its relevance to all ages, Philippine workers stood ready also to ask: What features of our time make the Bible just as vital in our decade as in the past? How is the Scripture’s relevance specially apparent today? Our time of trouble must unmistakably stir the compassionate hearts of Christian workers.

1. Our sensate outlook today, with its idolatry of material things, and its lack of vital sensitivity to the supernatural.

2. The moral decline of our times, revolting against all ideals inherited from the past.

3. The pervasive purposelessness characteristic of our generation, sick at heart as well as in mind and body.

4 The Communist bid for man’s total dedication to state absolutism.

5. The growth of literacy and learning in a generation that deteriorates the popular interest in literature to the level of the obscene.

Nor were the Philippine workers content to link the Bible only to the needs of the unregenerate world. They were concerned also to promote the Church’s rediscovery in Scripture of the evangelical heritage of faith in Christ’s person and work. They voiced confidence that an earnest searching of Scripture alone would contribute a deeper unity of the body of believers in Protestantism today. Christian workers pleaded with each other, moreover, for devotional study of the Bible apart from its merely professional use for sermon preparation. They summoned each other, as ministers of the Word, to deeper familiarity with the sacred writings, by recalling the Pauline injunction to Timothy to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.” A day of easy deviation into worldly things and worldly living demands Christian experience fully informed by the promises of God.

The Bible doubtless remains relevant to a minority today—a dynamic minority which the apostolic age encourages us not to underestimate. But the Christian witness is faced today both by the posture of indifference and by the scorn of hostile movements. In shaping a theological thrust to parry with this situation in modern life, one discerns certain social features evident already in apostolic times, particularly the renaissance of pagan religions. Other phenomena recall the social setting of the Protestant Reformation, which had its struggle with the authority of the institutional church and with rationalism. The pressure for ecclesiastical conformity, the rekindling of interest in metaphysical theology on speculative lines, even the rise of post-positivist philosophy with its concern over the meaning of religious language, are significant in this respect.

The biblical witness faces quite novel features in modern life as well. Outside the orbit of belief, the staggering growth of communism is a primary concern. Inside the ecclesiastical arena, the bolstering of anti-metaphysical approaches to life into theological perspectives, especially evident in the existential revolt against reason and its reliance on subjectivity, is an important turn.

In the midst of these developments the Christian minority is confronted anew by an agonizing awareness that the followers of Jesus Christ are powerless without the Holy Spirit’s enduring. In an age when mankind represents a higher level of education than before, the Christian ministry to the whole man requires that the intellectual needs of men and women be fully met. No “horse and buggy” presentation of any gospel will hold much compulsion for the atomic age. In our time, theological preaching has become urgent; the great doctrines of the Bible must be set forth in a revival of systematic theology relevantly alert to the Christian view of reality and life. But these ultimate issues must also be set forth with majestic simplicity and with power. That is where the teaching of Christ, and the revelation of the Bible, and the renewing ministry of the Holy Spirit gain their awesome point of contact with our confused generation. Our expanding universe seems to deprive modern man more and more of a sense of intellectual and spiritual at-homeness. The Bible speaks forcefully to man’s lostness, in our generation as to every generation, and it holds forth the prospect of a holy dynamism.

Will this century of chaos end before the social pressures of the age again include the compulsive pressure of God’s Word? Modern man’s predicament is not that he is lost; rather, it is that he is lost in so many more ways than his forefathers. But his predicament in sin remains his prime problem. If he is to find light and life in this dark and dying era, he will find it where others in earlier centuries have discovered it, in Jesus Christ and in the holy Book.

THE WORKER HAS TO MAKE A LIVING—DOES HE NOT?

“‘What is truth?’ asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” So Francis Bacon interpreted the words of the procurator of Judea.

On page 36 of a “Strike Publicity Guide for Local Unions,” issued by the AFL-CIO Industrial Union department, appears this job description of a union publicity man: “(He) is to present the union in the best possible light. In simple terms, he must try to convince the public that the union is right and management is wrong.”

But suppose, by some strenuous stretch of the imagination, that the union in a particular case is not “right.” Suppose the objective truth (and truth is objective) indicates otherwise. Suppose, for that matter, that the union is only partly right, and that management is also partly right. The rightness of a situation, as we understand morality, whether in labor-management or any other area, is not necessarily determined by which side one is on.

What then does the union public relations man do? Does he imitate Christ or imitate Pilate? Is he content to face facts, or must he promote the bias that supplies his daily bread? It seems to be fashionable these days to examine manuals; we suggest to AFL-CIO that one more could do with some scrutiny.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA REVISING ITS RELIGIOUS ESSAYS

Encyclopaedia Britannica’s gradual revision of its religious content is a commendable, if long overdue, development.

Alongside the great ninth edition of 1889 (14 years in preparation and co-edited by W. Robertson Smith), the famous eleventh (1910–11), and the worthy fourteenth edition (1929), recent editions of EB seemed to do less justice to many concerns, not least the great biblical themes. EB’s most fruitful years ran from 1892 through the 1920s. The current edition retains some articles two and three generations old, often greatly abridged to accommodate more recent essays. Editorial decline was most evident in the section on the humanities, which often failed to keep pace with modern knowledge. But in biblical matters, EB proved even more disappointing as an authority—weak in recent archaeology (scattered references to the Dead Sea Scrolls), and often prejudiced in handling biblical data. The essays in doctrinal areas frequently reflected a liberal Anglican point of view, a mild sort of Unitarianism blended with ethical idealism. Objections to these essays came from conservative Protestants, Roman Catholics, and even secularists who were sufficiently informed on the history of the Church to detect a one-sided interpretation.

At present EB is being printed annually and “continually revised,” but striking weaknesses continued. During the past three or four years, however, EB has shown some gains, reflecting Jaroslav J. Pelikan’s role as religious editor. Pelikan is broadly evangelical—a Lutheran in modified revolt against his Missouri Synod heritage, and a member of University of Chicago federated theological faculty. Some major articles have gained greater objectivity, reflective of the mainstream of Christian faith, and are now informed primarily by an historical orientation. This is evident in the article on “Mary” in the 1958 printing, and that on “Jesus Christ” in the 1959 printing.

It will be interesting to re-evaluate the religious content of EB three or four years hence. In a general encyclopedia it is presumably impossible for any single theological perspective to claim unanimous authority. This may not prove in all respects gratifying to evangelical Protestants, but the revisions will likely reflect commendable gains over the recent past. Other major reference works, like The American People’s Encyclopedia, have also improved their reflection of the evangelical Christian heritage in recent years, and have replaced essays contributed by liberal Protestant scholars by sounder historical expositions. Moreover, encyclopedia yearbooks now more fully represent the evangelical dynamisms in contemporary Christianity.

THE SOVIET INTEREST IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Soviet writers visiting our country revealed recently that the works of some 235 American authors and playwrights have been translated and published (without royalty) in the U.S.S.R. A press release from the Soviet Embassy adds the information that since 1917, Russia has published 2,717 books by American writers in 50 languages totaling 90,000,000 copies.

What kind of portrait of American spiritual life is presented through these books? Most popular of all American authors in Russia is Jack London, whose books account for 20,000,000 of the above total. Another 20 million is divided between Mark Twain and Theodore Dreiser. Other translated writers are Nathaniel Hawthorne, Erskine Caldwell, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Dorothy Parker, Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, and Arthur Miller.

One would search long and hard to find a single sentence in any of these authors commending Jesus Christ or his Church. Practically all of them depend on parodies and caricatures of Christianity for the building of their plots. By their disparaging pictures of American life, they help confirm the impression the Soviet government wishes to mold in the minds of its people of a degenerate Western culture whose only hope is Kremlin-fabricated socialism.

On the other hand, if a Russian writer dares to criticize life in his own country he gets the Pasternak treatment. Inter-cultural exchanges, like everything else, seem to be going down a one-way street.

THE WHITE CONSCIENCE AND THE NEGRO VOTE

An old, old issue in American history, one that first arose when the African slave trade met the need for cheap labor on the plantations, moves to a new phase in the current Senate debate on civil rights. From the humanitarian standpoint the issue hardly exists. The Negro is one of those endowed by their Creator, as a Southerner put it, with certain “inalienable rights.” He is a human being, and in a land founded on Christian principles he deserves the more to be treated as such.

From the standpoint of national law there is no issue either. Every citizen of the United States who has not forfeited that citizenship is entitled under the federal Constitution to the right to vote for national office, regardless of enactments by the various states. To contend that the Negro will not exercise his franchise if he gets it is beside the point. He may exercise it or he may not; that is his privilege as a free man, although his duty is clear. Many non-Negroes do not exercise their franchise either. The point is that they can do so if they wish, and without facing threats or improper pressure.

There remains the cultural issue, and it is serious enough to affect all the others and to keep the present debate in a turmoil that jeopardizes any healthy settlement. The North is dexterously avoiding this issue by its white flight to the suburbs. The South has lived with it for decades and intends to keep on doing so—in its own way. So what is being debated on the floor of the Senate (the legal and humanitarian question) is really a camouflage for the basic question, which involves the mixing of cultural levels. Compounding the issue is the fact that the badge of culture in the South (and increasingly so in the North) is the color of one’s skin.

The solution seems ultimately to lie not in a civil rights act (although we pray that a workable civil rights act will be forthcoming). It lies not in more expositions of the doctrine of the dignity of man (profoundly true as this is). The solution lies in infusing both cultures with the mind and spirit of Jesus Christ. Lobbying, log-rolling, filibustering, sit-down strikes, all put together, will not do the good that one individual, completely consecrated to Christ, could accomplish in removing cultural blights and establishing genuine community. God needs such leaders, and God does not care from which race they come. That is why eventual solution must come at the personal level, not simply in the halls of Congress.

MINE TRAGEDY EMPHASIZES RISKS IN MAN’S WORK

The honeycomb of tunnels in Holden Coal Mine No. 22 finally yielded the bodies of 18 miners, trapped in gas-filled passages when they fled cave-in and fire.

Before 1952, 100 men perished yearly in U.S. mine disasters, due mostly to improper management. But the Federal Mine Safety Law (James Hyslop of Hanna Coal Company, an evangelical Protestant, headed the drafters) cut casualties 80 per cent. But the same ventilation that thwarts an explosion feeds a fire.

In time of disaster everybody gets religion. The Logan tragedy singled out the workers who had carried their Christian witness daily with their lunch pails. Albert Marcum knelt when entering the mine, committing the day’s uncertainties to Christ. Josh Chafin, father of four, left a note to his wife: “Take care of the kids and raise them to serve the Lord.” A third worshipped regularly with Free Will Baptists, as did Marcum and Chafin.

Huddled in a corner of a gas-filled room, 13 men died in a group. A rescue foreman, asked whether one of the “believers” might have exhorted them, nodded: “It could have been a prayer meeting.”

EASTER CLOTHING

Pastor Peterson submits the following poem on the meaning of Easter from a seventh grade classroom:

Easter is for everyone!

The Easter bunny brings

Baskets full of colored eggs,

And candy chicks and things;

Jelly beans and chocolate eggs,

My name is sugar white—

Must I eat my dinner now?

I just don’t feel quite right.

Easter’s not just eating, though;

It’s so much more than that

Easter means that I dress up

In my new coat and hat

Daddy wears his new gray suit

And Mother her new pearls,

Handbag, hat, and dress, and gloves

And coat and furs (and curls!)

Easter is for more than that—

For music, church, and flowers,

Spring, and buds, and shining clouds,

And splashy April showers.

Easter comes so late this year,

So far past April Fool;

Best of all this Easter means

We’ll soon be out of school!

Knowing Pastor Peterson’s prejudices against our secularized holidays and his penchant for doggerel, I am suspicious about the origin of these verses. He insists they were found in a seventh grade desk, and that this establishes their source as firmly as any Dead Sea scroll. But they fit a little too neatly into his constant warnings as to the Easter we are giving our children.

He has announced for his sermon subject, “Easter Clothing.” I was relieved to learn that he has in mind two main points: the discarded grave clothes (John 20:6, 7), and the garment of resurrection (1 Cor. 15:53; 2 Cor. 5:4). Still, one can never be sure as to the remarks he may make in passing about the vanity of Easter finery!

EUTYCHUS

BIRTH CONTROL TROUBLES

It is with surprise that I read in (Feb. 1 issue) the editorial headed “Exploding Populations and Birth Control” a statement … flatly contradicted by the facts.

You state: “Take the Lambeth conferences. In 1920 contraceptives were declared immoral. A subsequent conference ‘hedged.’ The last conference approved.”

The first of these three statements about Lambeth conferences is correct. The second is a matter of opinion and depends upon what is meant by “hedged.” But the third statement is entirely false. The Lambeth Conference speaks through its resolutions which are formally adopted by the Conference as a whole. Reports of various committees are not authoritative and whatever such committees may declare is of no authority until and unless the same declarations are stated in the resolutions. The Lambeth Conference resolutions simply make no reference to the matter of contraceptives either for or against. You are quite in error in stating that the Lambeth Conference (of 1958) approved.

HARRIS T. HALL

St. Peter’s Church

Ripon, Wisc.

On the part of those who profess to believe in the inspired Scriptures, why do we not seek therein for the answer to such a disturbing question (News, December 21 issue)? There are many portions which directly or indirectly relate to the subject [such as] 1 Cor. 7:27–38.… The Apostle Paul … is here presenting the idea of the single versus the married state, not by mandate but by choice and self-dedication, as giving the individual the greatest freedom and opportunity for the most important matter to any Christian—the matter of serving Christ in a swiftly passing and perishing world. Who rises up in the name of the One who commissioned Paul, to say that the same end or a better one is achieved by means of contraceptives and birth control?

J. W. SHIKE

Chanute, Kans.

The apostle Paul shows that the marriage relationship can have another purpose other than procreation (1 Cor. 7:1–9). When such is its purpose, and not procreation, can it be wrong to implement the purpose when Paul shows that the purpose is right?

JAMES D. BALES

Harding College

Searcy, Ark.

STATE IN WELFARE WORK

May I especially commend the articles “Has Anybody Seen ‘Erape’?” (Jan. 4 and Jan. 18 issues) and “The State in Welfare Work” (Jan. 18 issue). I felt that these discussions were thoughtful and most enlightening.

JAMES W. WOELFEL

Cambridge, Mass.

I cannot praise enough “Has Anybody Seen ‘Erape’?”.… The editor … has portrayed absolutely the terrible welfare aspect of centralized government in federal, state, county, and city—impersonal and cold, as it has now become rather than warmly through the local church.… Why do not more ministers and alert laymen complain to their senators and congressmen against the leftist pressure of Arthur S. Flemming (Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare) who is a graduate of the Federal Council of Churches, which in November, 1950, became the National Council of Churches? Flemming is the man who pushes “life adjustment” in education, “fluoridation” through the Public Health Service and now “socialized” medicine through increased taxes with Social Security.

FRANK P. STELLING

Oakland, Calif.

Congratulations on your excellent editorial in Jan. 18 issue: “The State in Welfare Work.”

LEE DYMOND

United Church of Christ

(Evangelical and Reformed)

Freeburg, Pa.

In your apparent eagerness ultimately to discredit public welfare and its relation to the churches in “The State in Welfare Work,” you conveniently overlook two important points.

The first of these is the possibility that social welfare just might be a right of citizens of a state. Public assistance today is hardly an “undeserved favor.” It is a legal right, one sanctioned by law. This you deny, without any discussion of the pros and cons. Rights may be natural (inherent) or conferred (as, for example, by the State).…

Secondly, you tend to negate the church’s relationship to civic righteousness, and the individual Christian’s responsibility for active support and participation in this secular sphere. (And, in fact, such participation on the part of the believer does not remain civic righteousness but becomes a vital part of his sanctification.) After all, we are members not only of His Kingdom of Grace, but still also members of His Kingdom of Power in which we still have a vital, Christian role. The mistake of the Social Gospel was not in emphasizing the Kingdom and the strong social imperatives of the Gospel, but in doing so to the partial or even total exclusion of the message of the Cross by which the Kingdoms of Grace and Glory are established.

THEODORE ERNST

Trinity Lutheran Church

Bogota, N. J.

Several powerful thrusts were made at the concept of absolute economic equality, which almost no one advocates. Such attacks on straw men cannot divert attention from the fact that unnecessarily extreme economic inequality still exists, even in the United States. For instance, in the week that a great industrial leader spent a quarter of a million dollars on his daughter’s coming-out party, some parents in the county in which I live had difficulty in finding 25 cents to pay for their children’s school lunch. Although individual deeds of love (which usually fall far short of agape) are to be encouraged, there is little hope that this program can meet all the real needs.

Laws will not bring God’s Kingdom on earth; neither will deeds of personal piety. Until Christ comes in the fullness of his power, the power of sin will corrupt even the best of human life. Industry, labor unions, even churches, as well as individuals will cling to vested interests, and support selfish claims with pious arguments. Human laws can restrain the powerful and provide some temporary relief for the weak who might otherwise be exploited or neglected. For a Christian, “Erape” institutions are a compromise, perhaps a compromise necessitated by living “in the world;” but until the new age comes they may be necessary.

HOWARD WALL

Maysville Presbyterian Church

Buckingham, Va.

One of the tragedies of the age is the division of state from Christianity.… The dogmatic opinion that state welfare work destroys the opportunity for church or private charity is nonsense; there is plenty of need for all of all three.…

O. L. WILLSON

Monmouth, Ill.

Cannot our nation be presented to the world in the light of having as its basic concepts … compassion and mercy? Has not the welfare work of our land developed out of Christian concepts? It may be true that other concepts have crept in that are not based upon compassion and mercy but this would not invalidate our basic concept that these things are a necessary and proper activity of government.…

Your editorial opens up this whole region of evolvement in the culture which is now the position of the churches. You would have us extract ourselves of this evolvement but it is not easy and it never will be. But first of all we will have to forge some sort of an “articulate philosophy” and when we do we surely will not be in step with much of the capitalist structure of present day America and Western world.

You have scratched the surface, now let us dig.

IRVIN KELLEY

Jasper, N. Y.

In the light of your discussion of “Erape,” and my current interest in studying the meaning of agape, would you suggest to a New Testament scholar, who is versed in the papyri, to make an up-to-date analysis of the use of agape in pagan circles. Moulton and Milligan and Thayer are very deficient, and Bauer (Arndt and Gingrich) merely gives some literature which I find unavailable. Bauer says the new findings “take on new meaning,” but does not elaborate.

WARD WILSON

Oakland, Calif.

A PROBLEM OF IDENTITY

In your editorial you say “Jungle Rot Comes from the Jungle” (Feb. 1 issue); “We honor the sons and daughters of Israel. We thank God for them.” And it is obvious that you mean the Jews. I cannot understand how any one who has ever read the Bible and professes to believe it can show such gross and woeful ignorance. Apparently, people just refuse to believe what the Bible says.…

The Jews do not belong to the Semitic people; they are not descendants of Shem; and their own Jewish Encyclopedia will bear witness to this truth. The Jews were originally known as Khazars before they came into the land of Palestine about 600 years before Christ and took possession of the land after the Israelites were taken away into captivity.…

When I read your editorial on Jungle Rot, I see the type of mind that is so prevalent today. The vast majority of people today have more respect, more honor, more love for the Christ-hating Jews than they have for the faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

JOHN W. FULTON

Pitman, N. J.

Jazz is making a formal debut on the Protestant church scene amidst burgeoning controversy over its propriety.

“Jazz has no place in the church choir loft,” say conservative Christian musicians, reserving their praise for melodic patterns basically unchanged in hundreds of years.

“It speaks the language of today,” assert the daring, would-be sacred music pioneers whose drums and saxaphones now flank Protestant church altars in fad proportions.

The controversy revolves about a theological axis: Does introduction of jazz signify for churches an effective new witness, or does it indicate a compromise in weakness?

Liturgical jazz got its biggest boost yet when NBC’s “World Wide 60” series relayed to a Saturday night television audience a performance by the nine-piece “Contemporary Jazz Ensemble” of North Texas State College.

The Texas “combo” is currently blazing the liturgical jazz trail in a tour of U. S. churches and colleges. Repertoire: A jazz setting composed by the leader of the ensemble to be played with an order of worship devised by John Wesley (his “Order for Morning Prayer” as it appears in Doctrines and Discipline of The Methodist Church).

Edgar E. Summerlin, 31-year-old music teacher who formerly played with nationally-known dance bands, says he wrote the jazz setting in memory of a nine-month-old daughter whose death a year ago drew him and his wife into the First Methodist Church of Denton, Texas. He was advised by Dr. Roger Ortmayer, professor of Christianity and the arts at Perkins School of Theology.

Would Wesley’s heart be warmed anew to hear the syncopated accompaniment to his service, or would it leave him cold?

“I think he would have liked it,” says the Rev. Charles Boyles, young Methodist minister who has been travelling with the ensemble. “Wesley moved out among the people, something that perhaps Methodists aren’t doing enough of today.”

Summerlin’s composition is of a music type best known as “progressive jazz.” So loud is the combined blare at times of three saxaphones, two trumpets, drums and cymbals, a trombone, a bass, and a piano, that recitations of minister and congregation become unintelligible.

Jazz experts insist there is a distinction, but the average churchgoer will be hard pressed to distinguish Summerlin’s syncopation from the discordant strains which thrive in beatnik night clubs.

As jazz, the Summerlin composition has won its share of acclaim from music critics, some of whom nonetheless question whether it is appropriate for churches. By contrast some religious critics have indicated an acceptance of the principle of liturgical jazz while laying an implicit claim to musical competency in panning the particular score.

Another composition often associated with liturgical jazz is the “Twentieth Century Folk Mass,” written three years ago by the rector of an Anglican parish in South London, the Rev. Geoffrey Beaumont. Beaumont sought “to communicate to today’s teen-agers in language they can understand,” but his work is not jazz in the U. S. sense of the term. As recorded with orchestra and chorus, Beaumont’s mass smacks of the popular light classic and represents a type of music common even to evangelical composers and arrangers in America. The “folk mass” will likely be the target of far more criticism from proponents of contemporary jazz (who consider it “bad music”) than from those accustomed to traditional Gospel songs.

Many promoters of genuinely contemporary jazz plead sincerely that theirs is a pure art form which deserves religious recognition. They dismiss the notorious associations of jazz by alleging that today’s hymnals contain tunes which were derived from drinking songs.

Most serious indictment of jazz is that it has a pagan origin.

“It is basically the tom-tom beat of the jungle,” says the Rev. Paul Kenyon, a dance band performer in the twenties who became a Methodist minister following his conversion.

In studying the development of jazz, he concluded that heathen music came to the United States via Negro slaves who were exported from Africa, that it went through a process of evolution on the Southern plantations, and that it emerged as jazz in New Orleans night clubs after World War I.

Kenyon, now pastor of the Brown St. Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Akron, Ohio, says his conclusions were confirmed during a 1952 trip to Africa where he heard for himself the wailings of devil worshippers.

There appears to be little prospect that jazz will introduce a major innovation in Protestant church music.

Dr. Fred Gealy, professor of Christianity and the arts at Perkins School of Theology, says that liturgical jazz will prove merely to be a passing fancy. Gealy, who feels that music is abstract, that it does not of itself convey ideas, found the Summerlin composition to have produced “a very moving service.” He praised the experimenting spirit of the liturgical jazz promoters, but he stressed that he would not want to hear that type of music every Sunday. He predicted that Protestants will reject it.

Pioneering Pope

Pope John XXIII chalked up three more firsts last month when he elevated to the College of Cardinals a Tanganyikan Negro, a Japanese, and a Filipino. Never before in history have these nationalities been represented in the college. The Pope’s appointment of seven new cardinals brought the total to 85, largest ever.

Moslem Reform

The government of the United Arab Republic is tightening up the 1,300-year-old Moslem marriage code which allows for easy divorces. After October 1, a man may still have four wives, but his first wife will gain the right to divorce him if he takes another. No divorces will be valid without court appearances.

Seeking Caesarea

Deep sea divers plan to explore the ancient, sunken harbor of Caesarea this spring. The expedition will be sponsored jointly by the American-Israel Society and Princeton Theological Seminary and will be directed by Edwin A. Link, known as the inventor of the famous Link aviation trainer.

The Religious Role

“Do we Americans expect the President of our country to give the nation religious leadership, or does our concept of ‘separation’ of church and state relieve him of that responsibility?”

The question is posed by Dr. C. Emanuel Carlson, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, in the current issue of the Southern Baptist Brotherhood Journal.

Carlson asserted that Eisenhower “moved into his role as president with a clearer awareness of the religious elements of leadership than any other recent president.”

Principles to be observed, said Carlson, are (1) that we should have a government that does not involve itself in the religious experiences and programs of the … people (“A government which is religiously active but required to be ‘neutral’ would tend to promote a lowest-common-denominator definition of religion and can handicap rather than help people to genuine religious commitment”); (2) that respect be given the constitutional prohibition of religious tests for public offices; and (3) that selection of presidential candidates be based on “values which transcend the narrow political prospects of party success or economic advantage.”

Protestant Panorama

• A Negro senior was expelled from the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University this month for his part in anti-segregation “sit-in” demonstrations. Fifteen of the school’s sixteen faculty members submitted a formal protest of the dismissal.

• The United Presbyterian Board of Christian Education is establishing a fund for students who stage “sit-ins” to be used “wherever the courts must protect your rights.”

• “One of the most encouraging signs of today is the new allegiance to the Bible,” said Frank H. Woyke, executive secretary of the North American Baptist General Conference, in a keynote address to the Baptist Jubilee Advance Committee.

• A relief agency of the World Council of Churches is supplying money and personnel to aid victims of the earthquake in Agadir, Morocco, where at least 10,000 of the city’s 50,000 population were killed … The National Council of Churches’ Church World Service also is rushing emergency funds and supplies to the stricken area.

• The American Bible Society is distributing 2,000,000 copies of a special Easter booklet titled “He Has Risen.” The society seeks to organize “the largest Easter sunrise service ever held in America” through a reading at dawn of John’s account of Christ’s death and resurrection. The booklet is a reprint of the Revised Standard Version of John 18; 19, and 20.

• Fire destroyed a library-classroom building of the Methodist Theological Seminary in Seoul, Korea, last month. The same building had been badly damaged in a 1918 fire.

• A new YMCA building and a new house of worship for the Church of the Nazarene are being constructed in Nazareth, Israel.

• The United Church of Canada’s Board of Men is sponsoring a trip to Africa this summer for three young women and eight men as part of “an experiment in racial brotherhood and understanding.”

• Seventh-day Adventists are running a series of advertisements in Editor and Publisher and Broadcasting magazines. Adventist Public Relations Director Howard B. Weeks says the advertisements are aimed at creating “a clear concept in the minds of communications people about Seventh-day Adventism in particular and conservative Protestantism in general.”

• World Vision is tentatively planning a month-long evangelistic crusade in Tokyo next year. An invitation to conduct such a crusade came from leaders of the National Christian Council of Japan and the Evangelical Christian Federation. A World Vision pastors’ conference in Tokyo this month drew 1,600 Christian clergymen; this figure represented about half of all Christian ministers in Japan (72 denominations were represented) and indicated that the conferees constituted the largest ministerial group ever to assemble in Japan.

• Two $5,000,000 seminary campuses were dedicated in California this month, the Southern Baptists’ Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary near San Rafael and the Methodists’ Southern California School of Theology at Claremont.

• The merger was announced this month of the John Milton Society for the Blind and the Society for Providing Evangelical Literature for the Blind of Philadelphia. Both groups are engaged in providing the blind with religious literature in Braille and recordings.

• Bob Jones University is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to operate a commercial FM broadcasting station with a power of 840 watts.

• The Philadelphia Council of Churches is withholding official support of Billy Graham’s crusade there next year. A poll taken by the council showed most ministers and church members favoring the crusade, but directors apparently felt that official sanction required a virtually unanimous response. An independent committee will sponsor the crusade. Some 600 ministers have offered to help.

Wichita Withdrawal

The American Baptist Convention lost the financial support of its largest congregation this month when the 4,300-member First Baptist Church of Wichita, Kansas, voted to cut off funds in protest of the convention’s affiliation with the National Council of Churches.

A congregational vote—1,170 to 235—followed by a month the vote of the church’s deacons—32 to 7—to discontinue the convention appropriation.

Major concern of the deacons, a spokesman explained, was that the NCC supports social and economic positions contrary to Baptist belief in separation of church and state.

“The best way to protest (affiliation with the council) is through withdrawal of our supporting funds,” he said.

Brotherly Oversight

Selection of a leading Washington, D. C., liquor distributor for the local 1960 Brotherhood Award prompted a rebuke from the National Temperance League.

The award, sponsored by the Washington branch of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, went to Milton S. Kronheim “for his lifelong contribution to the cause of international understanding.”

“The committee making the award may well take pride in the brotherhood aspects of Mr. Kronheim’s benevolences,” says The American Issue, official monthly journal of the National Temperance League. “But they must certainly have overlooked the fratricides, homicides, and suicides resulting from the use of the merchandise on which he made his fortune. These, we believe, are the disqualifying elements for any brotherhood award to a liquor dealer, wholesale or retail.”

Methodist Media Staff Prods Ncc

A top-level mass media commission of The Methodist Church is asking its counterpart agency in the National Council of Churches for a statement “as soon as possible” that will present “Christian standards of morality in motion pictures, radio, and television.” A resolution by the Methodist Television, Radio and Film Commission in effect expresses concern that a NCC study group has been working on the matter for two years without coming up with definite conclusions.

As a result, the Methodist commission said it would petition the NCC Broadcasting and Film Commission “to secure a statement from the study group as soon as possible.”

The NCC’s General Board established the study group in 1958. It comprises church leaders, theologians, social scientists, educators and representatives of the mass media and the arts. The BFC has withheld comment pending this group’s final report, now scheduled to be released in June.

The Methodists’ resolution did not mention it, but it is known that sharp differences of opinion within the study group have contributed to the delay. The differences revolve about the nature and extent of restrictions which should be placed upon the entertainment industry. Arguments are strong in some quarters for a code to curb emphasis on sex and violence in Hollywood productions. On the other hand, many oppose a strict code because they feel it is a type of undesirable censorship.

Politics and Evolution

Darwin’s theory of evolution touched off a political explosion in the state of Washington this month.

The controversy is said to have grown out of an inquiry by a coed doing research for an English theme. In the course of a reply, Dr. John M. Howell, supervisor of public school curriculum guides, wrote that “if the Darwinian theory is true, then the Bible is untrue, and I prefer to hold by the Old Book.” The reply was reprinted publicly and state Democratic leaders denounced Howell, a Seventh-day Adventist.

Lloyd J. Andrews, state superintendent of public instruction and a Republican gubernatorial aspirant, reassigned Howell, but charged that Democrats “dragged in a religious issue to gain a shameful political advantage.”

“It played into our hands,” commented a Democratic publicist.

Promoting Understanding

A newly-formed “Religion-Labor Council” in Canada seeks to promote understanding between the working man and church organizations. The council was established at a meeting of 57 union officials and 66 clergymen, including high-ranking leaders of the Anglican, Presbyterian and United churches and the Salvation Army.

Missionary Tally

The 1960 census will be the first to count U. S. missionaries abroad. Special census forms will be distributed to all Americans living overseas with the request that they be filled out and returned to appropriate authorities. In the past, the U. S. census has counted members of the armed forces and their families who are abroad, but never civilians.

Church Fire

A $750,000 fire destroyed Bethany Temple, large United Presbyterian church in West Philadelphia, this month. An educational building was spared.

Card Policing

The Greeting Card Association is declaring war on objectionable greeting cards. The directors of the association, a trade group representing America’s leading card publishers, pledged last month their cooperation with law enforcement agencies to remove from the market all cards which do not “conform to the accepted standards of good taste, good morals and good social usage” and to prosecute “under any and all available laws persons convicted of such violations.” The action was taken in recognition “that the continued publication of some highly offensive greeting cards now on display is directly against the public interest,” a spokesman said.

Citizens’ Campaign

A national organization known as Citizens for Decent Literature was established at a conference in Cincinnati last month. Dr. Bernard E. Donovan, assistant superintendent of schools in New York City and a Roman Catholic, was elected president.

The group will seek to enlist citizens in a campaign against obscenity. Basic purposes cited at the organizational meeting: (1) To create public awareness of the nature and scope of the problem of obscene and pornographic literature, (2) to encourage the reading of decent literature, (3) to expect the enforcement of laws pertaining to obscene and pornographic literature, and (4) to serve as a medium for the accumulation and dissemination of information pertinent to the problem.

Patterned after Citizens for Decent Literature, Inc., of Cincinnati, the national group is opposed to “extra-legal” forms of censorship.

Charles H. Keating, Jr., who led the formation of the Cincinnati group was named chief counsel of the national body.

Poling and Kennedy

In the April issue of Christian Herald, Editor Daniel A. Poling gives this resumé of a 1950 incident involving Senator John F. Kennedy, who has cited “inaccurate conclusions” in Poling’s autobiography, Mine Eyes Have Seen.

“1. Mr. Kennedy, then a U. S. Congressman from Massachusetts, was invited to speak at the interfaith victory dinner of the Chapel of Four Chaplains. The dinner was held in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. 2. He accepted the invitation and in the first run of the program was identified as ‘Hon. J. F. Kennedy, Congressman from Massachusetts.’ He was not identified by his faith. U. S. Senator Lehman, who represented President Truman officially, was not identified by his faith. No speaker was identified by his faith. 3. At the request of His Eminence, Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, Mr. Kennedy cancelled and the program was hurriedly reprinted without his name.”

Strong Reservations

Newsweek magazine concluded this month that leading Protestant clergymen have “strong reservations” about electing a Catholic to the White House this year while laymen are less inclined to hold such reservations. The magazine gave the following results of a survey:

East—Clergymen: Moderately against a Catholic President. Laymen: Generally open-minded. Politicians: Think a Catholic could win.

South—Clergymen: Strongly against a Catholic president. Laymen: Mostly against. Politicians: Think Catholicism may hurt.

Midlands—Clergymen: Mostly against a Catholic President. Laymen: Mostly open-minded. Politicians: Sharply divided over a Catholic’s chances.

West—Clergymen: Moderately against a Catholic President. Laymen: Mostly open-minded. Politicians: About evenly split over a Catholic’s chances.

Southwest—Clergymen: Strongly against a Catholic President. Laymen: Tend to be against. Politicians: Think the Catholic issue will hurt.

The Other Cheek

A Roman Catholic priest in Colombia is reported to have slapped the face of a female American missionary who tried to stop him from disrupting a Protestant service last month.

A report from the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia identifies the priest as the Rev. Angelino Isaza. He is said to have led a shouting mob to a home where the service was being conducted by Miss Aimee McQuilkin, a Presbyterian nurse working for the Latin America Mission.

“Father Isaza broke down the front door with his shoulder,” the report says. “Miss McQuilkin blocked his entrance and asked him how a minister of God could behave in a manner so unlike Christ. The priest shouted at her to shut up, and pushed her back into the house. When she refused to let him enter, he slapped her in the face.”

“As Father Isaza raised his hand to strike her again, Miss McQuilkin lifted her arm to protect herself. He said, ‘You aren’t acting like Christ. He said to turn the other cheek!’ She took off her glasses and told him to go ahead. He turned and left.”

Red China’s ‘Theology’

An insight into Communist Chinese “theology” is found in a two-volume work, currently a best-seller in Peru, written by a Roman Catholic professor of logic at Lima’s San Marcos University, Francisco Miro Quesada, after a tour of Red-dominated countries.

Miro relates a conversation he and a fellow Peruvian held in Nanking with a young Chinese who introduced himself as a Protestant professor of theology and “president of the association of theologians.”

The Peruvians asked him for an opinion of Karl Barth. He answered smilingly, “Barth? I do not know him.” They asked about John Henry Newman. Same answer. Says Miro, “My friend and I started a kind of competition as to who could mention more names of theologians. Our Chinese friend kept up with us, calmly declaring his ignorance, and seeming not in the least perturbed.”

Finally he was asked, “Could you explain your idea of theology and what you teach in your classes?” He smiled politely and replied, “Theology as taught in the new China is a science whose mission it is to contribute to the victory of the working classes.” Whereupon the Peruvians, to the surprise of the “theologian,” burst out laughing.

The Baptist Image

What image do Baptists hold of themselves and what image exists in the minds of non-Baptists? Wrestling with such questions, the Southern Baptist Public Relations Association heard an American Baptist projection of some commonly-held images during a meeting last month in Birmingham, Alabama.

According to Dr. R. Dean Goodwin, director of the Division of Communication, American Baptist Convention, some Baptists see Southern Baptists as “a people who worship colossal statistics, who refuse to have conversation with Methodists, Presbyterians, and other denominations in councils of churches, and who march fiercely northward singing ‘On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand.’”

On the other hand, he said, American Baptists feel that Southern Baptists look upon them as “people who love to tell Southern Baptists to integrate the Negro; a people whose church membership is decreasing, whose missionary zeal is declining, and whose theology is ‘modernist’.…”

Disclaiming both portraits as caricatures, Goodwin also presented some non-Baptist views of Baptists: “‘Hardshell’ is one word to describe one idea of us. Informed people have a picture of us as hostile brothers in conflict with each other. Status seekers have a picture of us that they keep in the attic, because they know there is not status in the fellowship of informal, common folk such as the Baptists.”

As for relations between American and Southern Baptists, Goodwin urged doctrinal discussion. Taking a more optimistic view than some observers, he declared, “If you could eliminate the cultural accretions of our two bodies and leave only that which derives from our personal relationship to God through faith in Jesus Christ, you would find it difficult to tell one of us from the other.” More activities together, he added, would improve understanding in the two conventions. He called the Baptist Jubilee Advance “an important beginning.”

The Rev. Arthur Rutledge, of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board, gave assurances that Southern Baptists were not trying to compete with American Baptists. He welcomed action of the latter to accept any churches in the South desiring affiliation with the American Baptist Convention. Said he, “Our Home Mission Board is trying seriously to hold up the idea that unless we are meeting a need that is not being met by another group, we should not be there.”

Safari’s End

His African “Safari for Souls” now history, a tanned and tired Billy Graham planned several weeks’ rest following his scheduled return to the United States March 29.

Deeply etched in the evangelist’s memory were many little dramas such as the one which highlighted his meetings in Nairobi, Kenya. As he closed a simple sermon on man’s sin and God’s love, he invited people to come and receive Christ. For a few minutes nobody moved. Then a gray-bearded Sikh carrying a cane strode purposefully from the bleachers behind the platform. On reaching the platform he looked up and said, “Mr. Graham, I am here. I have come to take Christ.”

Graham leaned over the pulpit and murmured, “God bless you.”

That evening the Sikh’s phone started ringing. His Indian friends wanted to know if he had gone crazy. “Sure I have gone crazy,” he replied, “but I have peace in my heart for the first time in my life.”

The campaign leader said the Sikh had attended worship services for eight months and had been struggling against the conviction that he should receive Christ.

From Nairobi Graham flew to the ancient empire of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to close a missionary-coordinated crusade which had taken him to a dozen countries in Africa in eight weeks.

Soon after arriving at Addis Ababa, Graham called on the patriarchal head of the Ethiopian Coptic Church.

Early in the evening Graham became ill and was attended by two doctors. His illness, a stomach upset and fever, responded to treatment overnight. Meanwhile, scores of Christians gathered in little groups and prayed much of the night for his recovery.

The following morning the evangelist preached to a crowd of 12,000 which included students dismissed from schools to attend. Hundreds of young people joined adults in staying after the meeting to register decisions for Christ.

Graham went to Ethiopia by personal invitation of His Imperial Highness, Haile Selassie. The Addis Ababa crusade drew people from all over the country. Many cheerfully slept on floors of churches and schools. An Ethiopian layman who was chairman of the campaign said that the Graham team members were not invited to come as men but as instruments in God’s hands “that our people shall meet God.”

Graham’s meetings in Addis Ababa and Nairobi (where he preached in an Anglican cathedral) were preceded by a stop in the Belgian protectorate of Ruanda-Urundi. Graham’s appearance in Ruanda’s capital of Usumbura, in turn, was ushered in by a series of rallies with associate evangelist Roy Gustafson. One of Gustafson’s meetings was held in a mission compound where only last fall a group of hapless Watutsis found refuge from the spears of their enemies.

Elsewhere in Ruanda, Gustafson preached to a crowd gathered under a tree. In the audience was an old man who had played the part of a witch doctor in the movie, “King Solomon’s Mines.” His son, a Christian, had been praying for him. After the sermon, the old African was among those who gave their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Graham arrived at Usumbura, he found paratroopers encamped beside the airport. A group of natives were demonstrating with banners and signs. A United Nations commission had arrived a few minutes before and African nationalists had greeted it by parading and displaying signs asking for freedom. Crusade sponsors sensed a tense situation and moved the scheduled services from a city stadium to a mission compound several miles away.

The new king of Ruanda, an intelligent-looking man of 25 who stands five-foot-seven, sat on the platform during the meeting.

The meeting was held in a setting of awe-inspiring beauty. The site was ringed by banana plants. Behind the evangelist was Lake Tanganyika and the distant Congo Mountains. Ahead were the highlands which stretch toward the distant Mountains of the Moon.

Two days earlier Graham had preached several hundred miles away at the head of Lake Victoria, second largest in the world. This service at Kisumu, rail and port center, was relayed to another rally hundreds of miles away. Many Indians and Pakistanis mingled with Africans and Europeans in the crowd. Two interpreters relayed Graham’s message. Signs directed inquirers to areas where counselors could talk with them in any of five languages.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rev. Thomas O. Chisholm, 93, prolific writer of Gospel hymns and songs (“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” and “Living for Jesus” were among some 1,200 compositions he authored), in Ocean Grove, New Jersey … Methodist Bishop D. Stanley Coors, 70, of Minnesota, in St. Paul … Anglican Bishop William George Hilliard, 73, bishop coadjutor of Sydney, Australia, in Sydney … Dr. Ulrich H. van Beyma, 52, a secretary for the World Council of Churches inter-church aid program, near Pontarlier, France (in a traffic accident in which his wife was also killed) … Cameron D. Deans, 45, general manager of the publications division of the Southern Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, in Hot Springs, Virginia.

Appointments: As president of Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Dr. Gene E. Bartlett … as executive secretary of the Christian Life Commission, Dr. Foy D. Valentine … as general secretary of the National Bible Society of Scotland, the Rev. fames M. Alexander … as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, Dr. Luther Joe Thompson, succeeding Dr. Carl J. Giers, now pastor of Tremont Temple, Boston.

Many cripples crawled to the meetings on hands and knees. One of the ushers had great holes in his ears where he used to wear ornaments. Missionaries drove to the meetings from great distances. Graham lunched with some of them at a tent encampment in the highlands. Among them was a college classmate who is now administrator of a large leprosarium.

As Graham flew from Nairobi to Kisumu he passed over an extinct volcano where Mau Mau terrorists once hid. He learned of cases where African Christians had refused to take “the devil’s oath” and had paid with their own blood.

Strategic Kenya, with a population of more than 6,000,000 is a predominantly agricultural colony. Nairobi, the capital, is a city of some 118,000.

On his return flight an informal press conference was turned into a Bible class as Graham answered a newsman’s question by reading and explaining Christ’s story about the four types of hearers to be found wherever the Gospel is preached. The pilot came back to see why the plane had tilted upward and slowed down. He found most of the passengers clustered around Graham in the rear of the plane. Among them were representatives of Life, Time and Associated Press.