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THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE A central concern of many books published this year was the relation between biblical interpretation and the literary forms contained in the Bible, or, to use the technical jargon, between hermeneutics and literary criticism. Bible scholars have long been concerned with what they call literary, or “higher” (in distinction to “lower,” or textual), criticism, but we have in these new studies something different. Here is the application of the principles and techniques of general literary criticism, rather than of narrowly confined “biblical criticism,” to the study of the Old and New Testaments. And the result is, as a rule, a very happy one.

Pride of place goes to The Literature of the Bible by Leland Ryken (Zondervan), a work far superior to any other on the subject with which we are familiar. The author is a professor of English at Wheaton College; what he says shows a degree of theological sophistication rarely present in books of this nature. The categories are not the theologian’s “form criticism,” “redaction criticism,” “traditio-historical criticism,” and the like, but rather such things as “the story of origins” (Genesis), “heroic narrative” (the patriarchs, judges, David, and Daniel), “the lyric poetry of the Psalms,” “biblical satire” (Jonah, Amos, and the parables of Jesus in Luke), and “the gospel as a literary form.” Ryken’s work will doubtless serve as a useful text for college courses on the subject and also as a guide for high school teachers, who now are having increased opportunities to teach in this area. It will also give fresh insight to pastors and theological teachers, who are all too accustomed to looking at the Scriptures in a narrowly professional manner. Rather more loosely connected but also helpful is Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives edited by Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis (Abingdon). Arising out of a series of summer courses for high school teachers of English literature held at Indiana University, this symposium contains articles on “The Rabbinic Method and Literary Criticism,” “Some Fallacies Concerning Literary Criticism of the Bible” (by Ryken), and “The Two Kingdoms in Matthew’s Gospel,” and essays on Genesis, Judges, Ruth, Kings, Jonah, Isaiah, Job, Mark, and the Apocalypse. A third volume in this area is by a theologian, but the point is similar: The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative by Hans W. Frei (Yale). Frei traces the change that took place in biblical hermeneutics during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leading to a loss of the sense of realism in reading the biblical text. Focusing mainly on the creation story and the gospel accounts, Frei writes a very insightful account of the influence of general culture on the theological enterprise. His work will be of interest primarily to the specialist, who cannot afford to ignore Frei’s thesis even if he is unconvinced by all his suggestions.

Of a very different character are two books written from the perspective of modern linguistic principles. Translating the Word of God by John Beekman and John Callow (Zondervan) is the fruit of years of labor and reflection by two missionary linguists with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. They discuss fundamental principles of translation and then give many specific illustrations of how these basic principles are applied to a variety of translation problems. This study will be of supreme service to those who serve the Lord as translators of the Word of God, but it will be of value also to the ordinary Bible student who wishes to understand why various translations differ with one another. Discourse Considerations in Translating the Word of God by Kathleen Callow (Zondervan) is designed to be a companion to Beekman and Callow and deals with a relatively new field in linguistics, one that is concerned with reclothing the meaning of a text in the words and syntax of the new language. How to Understand Your Bible (InterVarsity) is an elementary handbook to Bible study by a veteran student worker in India, T. Norton Sterrett. Though not concerned with the modern science of linguistics, the author is vitally concerned with such basics as words, grammar, context, figures of speech, Hebrew idioms, and other matters that fall into the traditional category of linguistics.

THE BIBLICAL WORLD Certainly the outstanding new volume in this category is Great People of the Bible and How They Lived (Readers Digest), a cooperative venture of journalists, scholars, and artists. Richly illustrated with color photographs, line drawings, and paintings of ancient scenes, this coffee-table book provides a wealth of background to the study of the Bible. The editorial assistance of the Old Testament scholar and biblical archaeologist G. Ernest Wright of Harvard assured a degree of technical accuracy not always received in works of a popular nature. Discovering the World of the Bible by LaMar C. Berrett (Brigham Young University) is a Bible student’s guide to Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. Apart from an occasional betrayal of the author’s religious perspective—Mormon—and the necessarily brief nature of the work, this paperback guide is the ideal companion for a Christian traveler in Bible lands. Biblical references are included in the text where appropriate.

Two major revisions of important geographical tools appeared in 1974. In The Geography of the Bible (Harper & Row), noted author Denis Baly has completely rewritten the standard text in the field. Much new light has been shed by the seventeen years of research since the appearance of the first edition, and we can thank Professor Baly for taking the trouble to thoroughly rework his already fine work. Another standard work, H. G. May’s Oxford Bible Atlas (Oxford), has also appeared in a new edition. The revision is not quite so extensive as Baly’s, but the revised maps, photographs, and texts of archaeological interest will make the new edition even more useful as a textbook. The Oxford Bible Atlas is by far the best, handiest, and most accurate work of its kind and is available in both hard and soft cover.

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY The relation of the two Testaments to one another has been of perennial concern in the Church, if not always in the thought of modern theologians, who have often tended to isolate the two parts of Holy Writ from each other. Henry M. Shires’s Finding the Old Testament in the New (Westminster) offers, at a level that the thoughtful layman as well as pastor can appreciate, a first-rate introduction to the way the New Testament uses the Old. The author does not blaze any new trails in biblical research, but he does lay out the data in a way that is very useful and certainly clarifies many obscurities. It is heartening to read a writer who is not embarrassed by the way the authors of the New Testament handle the Old Testament but who instead forthrightly identifies with their distinctively Christian reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. This book can be commended both for the information it contains and for its theological understanding of the subject. Especially helpful are the eleven appended tables classifying the ways in which the Old Testament is used in the New. Creation and New Creation by John Reumann (Augsburg) and Behold My Servant by Gaetan Bourbonnais (Liturgical) provide the serious Bible student with paradigms of reading the Bible thematically. Both authors—one a Lutheran and the other a Roman Catholic—approach their subjects in a scholarly and devout fashion, as “under the Word of God,” and therefore offer edification and illumination to the believer.

God’s Strategy in Human History by Roger T. Forster and V. Paul Marston (Tyndale) is rather awkwardly written and arranged, and is therefore a little difficult to read; nevertheless, it is a stimulating work that will encourage Arminians, alienate Calvinists, but perhaps instruct ordinary Christians. For the thoughtful person who has been troubled from time to time by the apparent moral difficulties in the Bible—How can a good God condemn sinners to hell? What about the holy wars and cursings in the Old Testament? Why does God allow, sometime even appear to use, moral evil in the world?—John W. Wenham has written a wonderfully helpful little book, The Goodness of God (InterVarsity). No easy answers will be pawned off on the reader, but he will be helped to see reality more in keeping with the focus provided by the biblical perspective. This book will not be of help to believers but could prove to be of real service in the task of evangelism among thoughtful and sensitive non-Christians. Finally, The Gospel and the Land by W. D. Davies (University of California) is a heavyweight monograph dealing with the significance of the land of Palestine in the Old Testament, Judaism, and (principally) the New Testament. This is a very important study for all those who seek to understand the relation of the two Testaments and also of Israel to the Church.

GENERAL Unger’s Guide to the Bible by Merrill F. Unger (Tyndale) combines a book-by-book survey, a dictionary, and a concordance.

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Inflation may have upped book prices last year, but recession certainly did not “down” the number of new titles. Publishers Weekly reports an admittedly incomplete total of 1,458 new American books classified under religion in the Dewey system, an increase of 84 over the 1973 figure. (Many other titles of religious significance would be classified under such topics as biography, history, and sociology.) This means that our surveyors had to be selective, and the editors had to cut even more because of space limitations. (We also added a few titles that appeared very late in the year.) Any praises for the coverage go to the surveyors, but blame for omissions and terseness might belong instead to us.

We have aimed these surveys at the reasonably mature Christian. We do not necessarily identify the books as evangelical (except those in our “choice” list page 45); they are books that evangelicals, among others, can find to be of help.

Thanks go to the publishers who cooperated in sending review copies. Readers who find the number of titles we mention mind-boggling should meet the publishers’ representatives, who cannot understand how we could mention so few of their wares!

Harold B. Kuhn

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In a classic passage in his Psychology (I, 479 f.) William James lamented the existence and persistence of the universal and the structured in the thought of his day, and longed for a world-view that would focus attention upon particulars and concretes. Had he lived until our day, he would doubtless have been more than satisfied with the contemporary emphasis upon the particularistic, the individualistic, and more especially the relational.

Relationalism is without doubt a reaction to the depersonalization and the alienation of our time. But like most reactions, it tends to be extreme. Many feel that we are being caught up in a maze of irrational and irresponsible interpersonalism in which relation and interaction replace all forms of structured thought and behavior.

Many are accepting uncritically the so-called relational theology. One is tempted to wonder whether this acceptance is not too largely the result of reaction—a product of an age of sloganeering, of grasping at any formula that sounds plausible.

It seems to me that the so-called relational theology strikes squarely at the heart of important theological matters, and that its implications for these matters are not often articulated. Space does not permit a discussion of its implications for the biblical view of revelation. But there are also profound issues at stake in relationalism for the Christian understanding of man, the biblical understanding of Christ’s atoning work, and the biblical norm for ethical behavior.

There is constant and studied resistance in our time to any view of “human nature” as a fixed and constant thing. It is frequently asserted that the “image of God” as biblically understood involves nothing structured in man. Rejected is the view that there exists in man a traceable and identifiable pattern of qualities given by God and subsequently perverted and wrongly structured.

More acceptable, it seems, is the view that human evil is a result of a loss of one or more elements in the pattern of “vertical-horizontal” relationships. The identification of fixed elements in human nature is rejected in favor of, for example, Barth’s view that “human nature” consists primarily in the unique relation between God and man by virtue of creation.

In his Man in Revolt (pp. 102 ff.) Emil Brunner holds that the imago dei consists basically of being-in-relation. This cuts squarely across the Old Testament view of human frailty and human perversity—of man as a creature who cannot stand before God’s holiness. True, man does manifest a unique relation to God, one not shared by the rest of creation. But it seems clear that man continues to express a structured dispositional form, even when his relation to his Maker is fractured.

Some have argued that biblical descriptions of man are always functional, never metaphysical. Now it is true that the Christian Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament, have a certain concreteness because of the non-analytical quality of Hebrew thought. But such passages as Jeremiah 17:9 seem to suggest clearly that sin and evil are actual distortions of a patterned humanity. Walther Eichrodt in his Theology of the Old Testament (II, 389, 396, 407) seems to express Christian realism at this point with persuasiveness.

It is to be expected that in grasping for self-understanding some should find it convenient to reject a view of human nature that sees evil as a persistent distortion of the human structure. But to do so in the name of Christian faith is to overlook a major strand in biblical teaching, beginning with the Hebrew assertion of the “evil inclination” or yetzer hara, continuing through the insights of the Prophets, and finding poignant expression in the New Testament, particularly the Pauline writings.

Neglect of the structured and fixed in human nature has led, of course, to views of redemption that vary widely from what historic Christianity has long understood to be God’s offer. If man’s entire moral and spiritual problem is simply one of relation, then what is needed is really a revision of man’s attitudes toward God, toward the self, and toward others.

Some will hold that this is what “having the mind of Christ” is all about, suggesting that this is a phenomenon that springs rather naturally from a change of attitude toward God. But Christian realism seems to suggest that the bent toward self-will and self-assertion is far too strong to permit this.

Implied in the sinful distortion of human nature is the need for something greatly more than a purely relational atonement. It is not surprising that with a rejection of substantiality in humanity there has come a spate of subjectivistic views of Christ’s atoning deed. Abelard’s “moral influence” theory has been revived in terms of “republication” and the “dramatic” theory.

Here the accent has fallen, not upon what our Lord has done in “being made sin for us” and in bearing the curse of sin, but upon Christ’s dying as an expression of what has always been true, that God is always disposed to accept man, to “forgive and forget.” Little is heard of Jesus Christ’s dying a substitutionary death, by which God might consistently be both “just, and the justifier.”

Granted that there are deep mysteries in the dying of our Lord. But it belongs to the very heart of the Evangel that God, in the cross, cleared a path to himself, removing thereby real and formidable obstacles to fellowship, obstacles that are rooted much more deeply than in the attitudes of sinful men and women. It seems much more in keeping with such a statement as “For our sake he [the Father] made him [the Son] to be sin who knew no sin” to say that Christ’s dying had for its purpose the removal of something that stood between men and God, an out-of-jointness in the moral structure of the universe.

Relationalism has permeated the understanding of the moral life of man. In place of strong confidence in the objective and intrinsic quality of the Christian moral imperative, relationalists tend to hold that acts are neither good nor evil in themselves but only in relation to the persons performing them. This means that moral values inhere, not in acts or things, but in the way persons evaluate them. This is, of course, a nominalist view that rejects structure and system. Even love is not regarded as having constant content.

The reductio ad absurdum of the relational “love ethic” expresses itself in the words of Joseph Fletcher in his Situation Ethics (pp. 60 ff.) to the effect that while God is love, the most that can be said concerning persons is that they do love.

Perhaps it is too much to hope that the relational fad in theology will soon run its course. But evangelicals will do well to take seriously the strong hints in Scripture that divinely set structures exist that need to be recognized by those who undertake to “do theology.”

    • More fromHarold B. Kuhn

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This issue has two articles on the charismatic movement, one from inside and the other from outside. J. Rodman Williams, the president of a young, growing charismatic seminary, gives a profile of the movement, describing what he considers to be seven central features. J. Grant Swank offers some friendly counsel to those who speak in tongues, reminding them that tongues without love makes the believer a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Since the next issue (March 14) is our annual book issue and will be given over to surveys of 1974’s religious books, Frank Gaebelein’s Easter article entitled “The Living Christ” appears in this issue, well in advance of Resurrection Sunday.

By all means read Edward Murphy’s “Mass Evangelism Is Not Obsolete.” If the world is to be evangelized, this is one of the ways in which it will be done. But let’s not forget that you and I are called to a ministry of personal evangelism, to mention another way, as well.

Edward E. Plowman

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Should religious broadcasting be allowed to continue in the United States?

That, says Executive Secretary Ben Armstrong of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), is the question proposed in a petition currently before the Federal Communications Commission.

The petition was the main discussion topic at last month’s thirty-second annual convention of the NRB in Washington, D. C. Some broadcasters dismissed the twenty-page document as a nuisance submission, but Armstrong and others feel it constitutes a serious threat to religious broadcasting. They have until March 17 to file their response with the FCC.

Drawn up by Jeremy D. Lansman and Lorenzo W. Milam of Los Gatos, California, the petition requests a freeze on all applications by religious institutions for FM and TV channels allocated to educational broadcasters. It asks for an FCC investigation to determine whether religious licensees in the educational category are living up to the Fairness Doctrine in presenting matters of controversial importance or whether “they are relying solely on music and talk which is tainted with the ennui so characteristic of American Fundamental Religion.” It also asks the FCC to “institute some divestiture process” for religious broadcasters.

In his column in the current issue of Religious Broadcasting magazine, Armstrong warns that the divestiture request affects all religious stations and program producers. In its context, however, the request seems to be aimed at only the educational channels. Armstrong estimates there are about seventy-five religious stations on the educational bands. These include several criticized by name in the petition, among them FM stations operated by Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

Lansman and Milam, who have been in the business of buying and selling radio stations for years, specialize in setting up “free forum” type community stations that serve up plenty of controversial material. They sense a threat from religious broadcasters, who they say “have shown a remarkable cancer-like growth into the educational portions of the FM and TV bands. They control endless monies from ‘free-will’ contributions, thrive on mindless banal programming aimed at some spiritless, oleaginous god, and show the same spirit as MacDonald’s Hamburger Company in their efforts to dominate American radio and television.”

In a sense, says Armstrong, the pair “have done us a favor” by creating an opportunity for self-criticism. The threat, he implies, will help stimulate station operators and program producers to strive for excellence in content. Also, says Armstrong, it gives the NRB an opportunity to state the public-service record of its members for all to see.

It is unlikely that the petition will get too far at the FCC. The NRB has had a good relationship with the FCC over the years, and a number of important people in the FCC, from Chairman Richard Wiley down, are active church members. During an FCC panel presentation at the NRB convention, FCC legal head Ashton R. Hardy told how he had accepted Christ as his personal Savior two years ago. In a speech, Wiley declared his belief in religious broadcasting, and Commissioner Charlotte T. Reid urged the broadcasters to use their “spiritual assets before it is too late.”

On the other hand, the FCC may wish to keep closer tab on the number of stations acquired by religious broadcasters, and not just those stations on the educational band. A more careful scrutiny of content is also a possibility. Armstrong says new Christian stations are being formed at the rate of about one per week in the United States, and overseas growth is burgeoning. The NRB’s membership of 650 embraces an estimated 85 per cent of America’s religious producers and broadcasters. A recent development is the profit-motivated switch to a religious format by a number of commercial stations owned by secular interests.

A new day may be dawning for the NRB. Mission broadcaster Abe Van Der Puy of HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, was elected president, defeating Eugene R. Bertermann, 60, of Far East Broadcasting Company, who served in the post for the past eighteen years. Most persons interviewed said Van Der Puy’s surprise victory was not because of anything personal against Bertermann but rather an indication of a general desire for change. More station owners are members now (148), and they want the NRB to be more aggressive in representing them both in Washington and within the broadcast industry. Newer members want better planning of conventions, with more emphasis on practical help and less on the showy, commercialized sing-and-preach sessions that have often characterized past conventions.

In response to an appeal from black broadcasters for increased minority representation, the NRB board was expanded to allow for three additional members: Evangelist Howard Jones of the Billy Graham organization and broadcaster T. Ernest Wilson, both blacks, and Edna Edwards, manager of a Graham-related station in North Carolina.

Music styles are still a source of disagreement among members, most of whom cling fiercely to their conservative tastes. After a heavy-beat performance by the Sound Generation of John Brown University, disgruntled delegates pushed through a resolution canceling the group’s scheduled appearance at the closing-night banquet. But calmer heads prevailed, and a new vote simply asked the group to be more subdued at the banquet.

A Religious Broadcasting Hall of Fame was established, with two broadcasters entered posthumously: Charles E. Fuller of the “Old Fashioned Revival Hour” and Walter A. Maier of the “Lutheran Hour.” Two others named were John E. Zoller, 85, of “Christ for Everyone” (he’s said to be the oldest gospel radio minister in the world) and Clarence W. Jones, pioneering co-founder of HCJB.

URBAN RENEWAL

Jews and Christians alike have been doing a lot of thinking and talking about the possible rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem some day, but government officials in Iraq meanwhile have been pushing ahead quietly with even more ambitious plans, thanks in part to the infusion of oil money. They intend to restore the entire twenty-one-square-mile ancient city of Babylon. The project will include the rebuilding of the Tower of Babel.

Italian archaeologist Giorgio Gullim has been hired to direct the attempt to dig out the past from beneath more than 5,000 years of civilization. Different parts of the reconstituted city will represent the various periods of Babylonian history.

Gullini says his first big task will be the draining of subsurface water. He hopes then to uncover the ruins of the immense walls that surrounded the city, along with the street network inside.

Praising 75

When the Southern Baptists introduce a new hymnbook they do it in a big way. To herald the release of the denomination’s new Baptist Hymnal (replacing a 1956 edition), church leaders have booked Nashville’s 11,000-seat Municipal Auditorium for four nights and a half-dozen church and college auditoriums for morning and afternoon segments March 10–13.

The event, billed as PraiSing 75, will feature some 10,000 members of choirs and musical groups from across the country, name performers, and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in programs ranging from concerto to country. Concurrently, beginning early the third afternoon, the hymnal will be sung through from cover to cover (512 hymns) in a round-the-clock thirty-hour marathon, with visiting choirs and other groups serving as leads in half-hour shifts at the denomination’s headquarters auditorium.

Officials say they made an interesting discovery in getting ready for PraiSing 75: the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, publisher of the hymnal, is the largest music publisher in the land.

BOB BELL, JR.

Mexico: Property Problems

Evangelicals in Mexico are among those concerned about a new law that would permit confiscation of private property that is used for religious services.

Since the Mexican Revolution, all church property has legally belonged to the government. This measure was aimed primarily at the Roman Catholic Church, which before the revolution owned between one-third and one-half of all the arable land in the country. In practice, government ownership of church property has worked reasonably well. Each church must buy its own property, then donate it to the government. The government in turn permits the church to use the property, including any buildings on it. But the possibility exists for the government to deny use of a building by the group that built or bought it in favor of another or to decree its use for non-religious purposes.

The new law, which could seriously affect new churches that still meet in borrowed or rented facilities, and could even threaten home Bible-study groups, is seen by some observers as an attempt to control religious life. Mexico permits a wide range of religious freedom. Some restrictions do exist in areas like broadcasting, however, and foreigners are prohibited from serving as pastors.

STEPHEN R. SYWULKA

A Proposal

Committees of five Presbyterian and Reformed denominations with a combined membership of some 425,000 have proposed the formation of a cooperative and “advisory” alliance to be known as the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council. The five denominations are the Christian Reformed Church, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in America, the Reformed Presbyterian Church (Evangelical Synod), and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America. Approval of the joint proposal by the major assemblies of the churches could be completed by September. Membership would be based on “full commitment both to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the infallible Word of God and to their teachings as set forth in the [historic Reformed statements of faith].”

On Top

Pastor George Prentice of the First Church of the Nazarene in Joplin, Missouri, promised months ago he would “preach from the roof top” if attendance at Sunday school ever reached 200. It finally happened: attendance hit the 201 mark. On the next Sunday Prentice climbed onto the roof of the church with a microphone and preached to his parishioners, seated on chairs on the parking lot.

Deported

Lazlo Toth, a Hungarian-born geologist from Australia who vandalized Michelangelo’s Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica two years ago, was recently released from a mental institution in Italy and deported to Australia.

Tooling Up

The Good News Movement, an organization of evangelicals within the United Methodist Church, is tooling up for the denomination’s General Conference in Portland, Oregon, next year. The Good News board members at their annual meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida, last month passed a resolution opposing “ordination of those who practice homosexuality and their employment in positions of responsibility in the United Methodist Church. We do not reject persons, but we do reject a lifestyle which is clearly condemned in the Bible.” (Several groups earlier said they intend to lobby for a more liberal attitude toward homosexuals by the denomination, including the right of homosexuals to be ordained.)

The board also voted to publish confirmation-membership materials “in the Wesleyan tradition of Scriptural Christianity” after denominational officials turned down an appeal for an alternative confirmation study book.

Pastor Paul Morell of the 3,400-member Tyler Street United Methodist Church in Dallas was elected to a second term as chairman of the group. Associate Professor Paul A. Mickey of Duke University Divinity School was elected first vice chairman.

The board, made up of twenty-four pastors and laypersons from fifteen states, discussed ways of injecting evangelical influence into the denomination’s 1976 conference. It was reported that work is underway concerning petitions and the development of “a cadre of supporters, both on and off” the floor.

In his keynote address, Chairman Morell observed that “we are still dismissed as fundamentalists—which we are not. Holiness groups are now joined by a beautiful and large group of charismatic United Methodists in receiving uncharitable reception in our church circles. Pluralism, to date, has been further justification for a shift to the left and for radical social agitation, rather than charitable embracing of all who desire to serve Christ earnestly.”

Virginia pastor R. Fletcher Hardy, III, chairman of the group’s Task Force on Evangelical Renewal Groups, reported the existence of fifty Good News-aligned groups, with steady growth.

Lamenting A Misconception

Canadian Protestant leaders of twelve denominations this month publicly demanded in a signed statement that Canadian hospitals adhere strictly to federal abortion legislation. They expressed dismay at the way the law is being distorted to ensure a virtual abortion-on-demand policy. They also lamented “the misconception that the anti-abortion position is merely a sectarian stance of the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestant community also views abortion as a moral issue, not just a medical one.”

In 1969 the government eased the Criminal Code to permit therapeutic abortion at the discretion of three-member hospital committees of doctors “where the continuation of the pregnancy … would be likely to endanger [the woman’s] life or health.” Debate over interpretation of the law has raged ever since. Justice Minister Otto Lang, a Catholic, said he intends to enforce a strict view, evoking criticism from those favoring a liberal policy. Some critics accuse him of bias based on his Catholic faith. That charge sparked the reaction by the Protestant leaders.

Those endorsing the statement acknowledged that they were not officially representing their denominations but rather were speaking for “a growing body of anti-abortion sentiment” within their churches.

The group included Editor A. C. Forrest of the United Church Observer; Editor J. R. Armstrong of the Evangelical Baptist; Christian and Missionary Alliance executive Melvin P. Sylvester; Bishop Donald N. Bastian of the Free Methodist Church in Canada; Executive Secretary John M. Zimmerman of the Lutheran Church in America (Canada Section); General Superintendent Robert W. Taitinger of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada; and President Victor Adrian of the Ontario Bible College (Mennonite Brethren).

Grapes: The Hidden Cost

The consumer boycott of California table grapes and head lettuce organized by the United Farm Workers (UFW), led by Cesar Chavez, has been escalating in Canada. Church and synagogue groups are in the forefront of the campaign. Prayer vigils have been held in a number of supermarkets, several clergy have been charged with petty trespass, and eighteen clergymen and nuns were forcibly evicted during a recent sit-in at the head office of Dominion Stores in Toronto.

Both T. E. Floyd Honey, general secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches, and priest Brad Massman, director of the Toronto Catholic social-action unit, are among the leaders.

Reaction has been building up. Last month Ernest Howse, former moderator of the United Church of Canada’s general council, criticized the campaign as ill-advised, irrational, and likely to do more harm than good. “Nowhere,” said Howse, “was it made clear that the migrant workers of California (among the most highly paid in the world) were so excessively oppressed that their wrongs laid on us a more immediate obligation than those of other such workers elsewhere—including those much nearer home.”

He lamented the “destruction” of perishable food, but Honey argued that grapes were a luxury food and that the boycott in no way added to the world’s hunger problems.

DISORDERLY CONDUCT

During a recent week of “revival” meetings at the seventy-five-member Southwest United Pentecostal Church in the Houston suburb of Missouri City, two policemen entered the church and asked the congregation to be quieter. They said the church’s next-door neighbor, Wayne Cousins, was complaining about loud noise. Legal charges would be filed, they warned, if the singing, shouting, and instrumental music were not muted somewhat.

The warning apparently went unheeded. A complaint was filed the next night, a jury of six found the congregation guilty of disorderly conduct, and municipal judge Richard A. Mayhan levied a $50 fine.

Pastor Edward A. Fruge, claiming the meeting was “a regular Pentecostal service,” says the church will appeal. A new soundproof building will be constructed later this year, he adds.

Union Blues

Union Seminary in New York has fallen on hard times. Faced with a deficit of more than $750,000 for the next academic year, Union’s directors approved cuts of nearly $600,000 in programs, services, and personnel, reducing the budget to $3.8 million.

Alumni, placement, development, and communications offices will be eliminated as separate operations, secretarial and maintenance costs trimmed, the library staff reduced, an audio-visuals library phased out, the Union Quarterly-Review terminated, and funds for faculty research and travel cut. Also, the faculty of the practical field will be reduced by six full-time persons through non-replacement of professors who have recently left or will soon retire.

Some bitterness over the faculty cutbacks surfaced in Union circles following the disclosure of the financial settlement made with Episcopal bishop J. Brook Mosley, whom the directors fired as president last year. The amount, reportedly $103,000, is to be paid over a number of years, and it includes housing, pension, and insurance allowances as well as cash severance.

Tuition is up (about $2,000 per year), but student enrollment is about 400, down from 550 in 1971. Also down is the value of the school’s investment portfolio, estimated to have dropped from $30 million to $22 million last year.

Rated

In a recently published Columbia University survey, eighteen categories of professional schools—including schools of theology—were rated according to reputation and professional accomplishments by deans in each area of study. Admittedly based “merely on the opinions of these experts” (the deans) and on factors difficult to measure, the survey ranked the theological schools in the following order:

1. Harvard Divinity School

2. Yale Divinity School

3. University of Chicago Divinity School

4. Princeton Seminary

5. Union Seminary (New York)

6 School of Theology, Claremont, California; Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta; and Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas

9. Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley

10. Union Seminary (Richmond, Virginia)

11. Vanderbilt Divinity School

12. Duke Divinity School.

Aglow

Growing quietly at the rate of a new chartered chapter a day is Women’s Aglow Fellowship, a charismatic and interdenominational organization for Christian women founded in 1967 and headquartered in Seattle. The fellowship, with more than 300 chapters in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Holland, Nigeria, and New Zealand, is involved in such activities as ministries to prison inmates and their families, home Bible-study groups, evangelistic luncheons, and spiritual-life retreats for women and married couples. Aglow (P.O. Box 55089, Seattle 98155), the fellowship’s quarterly magazine, has a circulation of more than 100,000. President Margaret Moody is a former missionary to Africa and the wife of an ordained Baptist minister in Seattle.

Religion In Transit

Another church has found that the Parable of the Talents works. Pastor Ben Hodder of the Kew Beach United Church in Toronto, which has 700 active members, borrowed $3,000 from a bank and handed out 550 envelopes containing $5 bills to his congregation. The members used the money to finance money-making projects, from concerts and dinners to producing goods for sale. Sixty days later the envelopes were returned, stuffed with nearly $12,000. A chunk of the “profits” will be given to hunger relief. The rest will augment the church budget.

United Methodists gave a record $55.4 million for denominational causes in 1974, a 12 per cent increase over 1973. In addition, more than $900 million was given for local and regional work.

Pastor J. Daniel Joyce of Houston’s Bethany Christian Church, a past president of the world organization of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), says his denomination is becoming more conservative in its theology and is reemphasizing personal dimensions of faith. Between 5 and 10 per cent of all Disciples are now neo-Pentecostals, he estimates.

Mrs. William Matz, wife of the dean of Moravian Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was appointed to a part-time pastoral position at Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem. She is the first woman seminary graduate ordained within the Moravian Church in America (which has 57,000 members in two regional provinces). A Wisconsin church also has a woman on the pastoral staff, but she was ordained by the United Church of Christ.

Eight of the eleven denominations belonging to the Canadian Council of Churches have gone on record against capital punishment for any crime. There have been no executions in Canada since 1962, and the country is in its second five-year moratorium. The Greek Orthodox Church, Armenian Orthodox Church, and Salvation Army have not taken a stand.

President Eugene Carson Blake of Bread for the World, an ecumenical relief organization, appealed to the White House for an immediate commitment of four million additional tons of grain to feed the starving. “Let’s get the wheat that was destined for the Soviet Union and China to Bangladesh or India instead,” urged Blake.

About 900,000 legal abortions were performed in the United States during 1974, according to Planned Parenthood estimates. About 750,000 were reported in 1973.

Prominent Methodist clergyman Franklin H. Littell, a Temple University professor of religion known for his liberal views, is urging the United States to get out of the United Nations, a view liberals condemned as irresponsible when conservatives were advocating it. Littell says the U. N. treatment of Israel prompted his call.

American moviegoers spent a record $1.9 billion at the box office last year, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The Sting brought in $68 million, and The Exorcist accounted for $66 million.

Americans aged 65 and over increased by 486,000 last year (to 21.8 million), and youngsters under 5 dropped by 404,000.

“I think marriage should be on the basis of a renewable contract of three to five years.” The speaker? Charles Templeton, a former Canadian evangelist and Youth for Christ leader who drifted away from orthodoxy. He is separated from his second wife.

Nearly $24,000 for famine relief in Africa has come in as a result of an appeal to teen-agers by Youth for Christ’s Campus Life magazine. Leaders had expected the appeal, made in cooperation with Medical Assistance Programs of Wheaton, Illinois, to net less than $7,000, said Editor Philip Yancey.

Three national religious magazines announced 20 per cent reductions in advertising rates for automobile companies as a means of expressing appreciation to the industry for offering temporary rebates for new-car purchases. Until now, however, the Catholic Digest, the Lutheran (Lutheran Church in America), and A.D. (United Church of Christ-United Presbyterian) have not carried any auto ads at all.

AUTO RECALL

Late in November Rabbi Jacob Katz, 61, an administrative officer of an Orthodox Jewish seminary in Lake-wood, New Jersey, was fatally injured when a car struck him as he and a group of students were walking back from an evening sabbath service at a nearby synagogue. The driver stopped and talked with police but sped away after telling them he was going back to his car to get his registration.

When the officers could not recall what the car looked like or its license number, the police department hired a hypnotist. Under hypnosis, one of the policemen gave a description of the late-model Cadillac and enough of the license number to lead to the arrest recently of local shoe salesman Samuel Cohen.

Personalia

James McCracken, former director of Church World Service (the overseas relief arm of the National Council of Churches), was appointed executive director of Coordination in Development (CODEL), an ecumenical agency providing aid and guidance to people in developing nations.

Controversial Yale University chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr., 51, says he will resign next year to seek new challenges. Coffin, a former Central Intelligence Agency employee who gained national attention in the civil-rights and anti-war movements, has been at Yale for seventeen years.

Navy chaplain Andrew Jensen, the American Baptist clergyman who was court-martialed three years ago in Florida and found not guilty of seducing two officers’ wives in motel rooms, was promoted to captain. Jensen, the first military chaplain in history to be court-martialed, said the promotion was a way of expressing justice. He had waged an unpopular campaign to ban go-go girls from a Florida base when the morals accusations against him, later proven false, were made.

Resigned: A. Ray Stanford, 57, as president of the 1,400-student Florida Bible College, after confessing marital infidelity. Son Lee succeeds him as president and as pastor of the 2,000-member Florida Bible Church in Hollywood, Florida.

New Testament professor Simon J. Kistemaker of Reformed Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, was elected vice-president of the Evangelical Theological Society at its recent national convention in Dallas. The vice-president normally succeeds to the presidency, a post now held by Bruce Waltke of Dallas Seminary.

World Scene

Two recent evangelistic campaigns conducted by the Sudan Interior Mission-related Evangelical Churches of West Africa in predominantly Islamic cities in Nigeria met with “remarkable” response, according to the SIM. In Sokoto, nearly 800 made professions of faith in Christ, and thousands attended meetings in Ilorin. ECWA evangelist Moses Ariye was the main speaker.

Inflation is bringing the Church of England to the “brink of crisis,” according to a London Times story. The report says studies are being made to determine what programs can be shelved in order to cut or eliminate salaries of headquarters personnel. Some parsonages may be sold to bolster sagging investments. Meanwhile, says the story, many pastoral families stay afloat only because of the earnings of the wives.

A proposal to pay a salary of $17,220 to the new appointments secretary to the archbishops of Canterbury and York raised a storm of protest in the Church of England. It was pointed out that the average diocesan bishop’s salary is only $9,350, and that the new secretary will be paid more than the archbishop of York himself (he gets $16,585) and not much less than the archbishop of Canterbury ($20,660).

President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire has threatened to close down all Catholic churches in the country if the clergy persists in “commenting” on Zairean politics and opposing government policies. Of Zaire’s 23.8 million inhabitants, an estimated 9.6 million are Catholics.

The Interior Ministry of Spain has fined four Catholic priests a total of $37,700 for speaking out in their churches about recent labor strife. The priests were being held in a prison hospital.

The 100,000-member Methodist Church in the Ivory Coast, at its annual assembly, referred the issue of missionary moratorium to a study committee, but not before reaffirming the unity and universality of the Church and affirming its ties with its African partners. The denomination has twenty-four pastors and 1,200 lay preachers.

Emmanuel Abraham, 61, president of the 210,000-member Evangelical (Lutheran) Church Mekane Yesus in Ethiopia and minister of mines in the government of deposed emperor Haile Selassie, was released after eight months in prison.

Times and conditions are increasingly difficult in South Viet Nam, but the Christian community continues to grow. Christians in a 100,000-resident refugee settlement in the Da Nang area now number about 4,000, up from 200 a short time ago, say mission workers.

About 1,000 Quechua mountain Indians attended a recent Bible conference in northern Ecuador. The number of persons at the conference, organized by the Quechuas themselves, indicates the scope of the spiritual movement that began among the Indians several years ago, say missionaries.

In a joint conference in Cairo, Islamic and church leaders in the Middle East condemned Israel’s alleged policy of changing the architectural features of Jerusalem, called for Israel’s expulsion from the United Nations, asked the United States to suspend aid to Israel, and denounced the recent conviction and imprisonment of Melkite Catholic archbishop Hilarion Capucci on charges of smuggling weapons.

After fifteen years of work, Wycliffe Bible translators Richard and Aretta Loving have completed and published the New Testament in Awa, a language spoken by 1,500 people in eastern Papua New Guinea. This project is one of the 105 under way in the country; about 400 languages there are still without translations of the Scriptures.

With a record pay rise of 25 per cent for its ministers, the Church of Scotland minimum stipend this year will top the $5,500 mark, a 250 per cent increase since 1965.

Despite opposition by anti-union church members, agreement was reached on the formation of a United Theological College in Sydney, Australia, involving Congregationalists, Methodists, and Presbyterians who will become part of the Uniting Church in Australia when it is launched in June, 1976. A large minority of Presbyterians opposed to the merger plan to form a continuing Presbyterian church.

DEATHS

SHELDON BARD, 64, principal of the French-language Bethel Bible Institute in Lennoxville, Quebec, which trains pastors for work in evangelical Baptist and Plymouth Brethren churches in French Canada; in a Quebec highway accident.

HAROLD A. BOSLEY, 67, prominent United Methodist clergyman, retired pastor of Christ Church in New York, and a founder of Conscience Foundation, an organization formed in 1966 to help Soviet Jews; in Beach Haven Terrace, New Jersey, of a heart attack.

D. WILLIA CAFFRAY, 95, retired United Methodist preacher and evangelist who in 1920 became the first woman to be licensed to preach by the Methodist Church; in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

JOHN T. MCNEILL, 89, ordained Canadian Presbyterian instrumental in the formation of the United Church of Canada, and prominent church historian who taught at Union Seminary in New York and at the University of Chicago Divinity School; in Chicago.

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Soviet Baptist leader Georgi P. Vins, 46, was sentenced last month during a closed trial in Kiev, Ukraine, to five years in prison and five years of exile, He was found guilty of using religion to cloak illegal activities. The charges lodged against him (see December 20, 1974, issue, page 26) were recognized by church leaders around the world to be the kind Soviet authorities have used repeatedly to harass believers.

News of the verdict reached the West through Andrei D. Sakharov, the dissident Soviet physicist who has been speaking out about violations of human rights in his land. Vins was not represented by a lawyer at the five-day trial, said Sakharov. The clergyman reportedly rejected a court-appointed attorney on the grounds that an atheist was not qualified to handle a case involving religious matters.

Earlier, Sakharov and several Soviet Christians had written to the World Council of Churches on Vins’s behalf, requesting a Christian lawyer from the West to represent him. WCC president Philip A. Potter wrote to Soviet authorities, asking for the text of the indictment against Vins and for provision of a Christian attorney to represent him. The Soviets did not reply to Potter’s letter. On January 30 Potter and the WCC’s top officers issued a statement urging the Soviet government to “contribute toward international understanding” by permitting a WCC legal observer to attend the trial. Again, the Soviets did not respond. It was already too late: Vins was convicted and sentenced the next day.

It is believed to be the first time the WCC has publicly confronted the Kremlin in a case involving persecution of Baptist leaders. “We have reason to believe … that the charges against Mr. Vins are made primarily because of his religious convictions and activities,” the statement asserted. The leaders said their appeal was made “in view of the commitment of the World Council of Churches and its member churches to the fundamental right of people to live according to their own chosen religious convictions.”

Six prominent Norwegians, including three members of Parliament and a judge accredited to represent the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, applied for permission to attend the trial. The Soviet embassy, however, returned their visa applications without comment. This drew a stern protest from Bishop Monrad Norderval of the Church of Norway (Lutheran), chairman of the denomination’s mission work in eastern Europe, who vowed to continue to fight for Vins’s freedom.

Appeals came from many other people. Directors of the New York-based Research Center for Religious and Human Rights in Closed Societies, including several denominational heads, asked for Vins’s release. Former U. S. Senator Harold Hughes, who last year explained his faith in Christ to four United Nations ambassadors from the U. S. S. R., asked Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to look into the matter. Church, high school, and college groups engaged in letter-writing campaigns.

The Academy of Parish Clergy, an alliance of 1,100 Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish clergy, condemned the sentencing. The Academy is led by Illinois pastor F. Dean Lueking, a leader of the moderate-liberal forces in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

“Let the entire world know that there is no religious freedom under Communism,” declared the Illinois-based All-Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Fellowship.

“The repression of Baptists in the Soviet Union is no less outrageous than the denial of religious freedom to Jews in the Soviet Union,” said the Synagogue Council of America.

Vins was arrested last March and held incommunicado ever since. Reportedly being held in a hospital in poor health, partly the result of a previous three-year prison term, Vins is executive secretary of the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (CCECB), the ten-year-old breakaway Baptist organization the government refuses to recognize.

The chairman of the CCECB is Genady Kruchkov, father of nine school-age children. He has been in hiding since his release from prison in 1969. His children have not seen him since then, and his wife Lydia sees him only occasionally. Lydia in a recent letter tells how her family discovered a listening device in a newly replaced electric meter inside their home. The transmitter was American-made, she notes. The police warned her not to tell anyone about the bug, and they hassled family members, but she alerted other Christian leaders, who presumably embarked on search missions around their own homes. Lydia says that Vins was arrested after visiting a home where the electric meter had just been changed. He was hiding from authorities at the time.

Kruchkov and Vins were among leaders who in 1961 began working for reform within the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB). The reform movement led to the founding of the CCECB in 1965.

In December, the AUCECB held its forty-first congress in Moscow, a conference that is convened every five years. Nearly 500 delegates attended, along with 150 observers, including sixteen foreign guests (among them American Robert S. Denny, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance). AUCECB head Alexei Bichkov read a sixty-seven-page report. Among subjects discussed were the charismatic movement, the possible service of women as pastors (rejected), excommunication (some 4,000 have been excluded from the churches in the last five years), Bibles and other Christian literature, theological education (200 students completed two-year Bible correspondence courses), and relationships with the CCECB.

Concern was expressed over the bitter attitude of some CCECB leaders toward the AUCECB. It was reported that about 3,500 CCECB members had returned to AUCECB churches in the five-year period, with some drifting back to the CCECB. The AUCECB listed 535,000 members and more than 12,000 baptisms in the five years. (There are no firm estimates of CCECB membership: 100,000 is the figure mentioned most.) There are registered (government-recognized) and unregistered congregations in both bodies.

Clergyman Andre Klimenko was elected president of the AUCECB, succeeding Ilja Ivanov.

Following the congress an international delegation of Baptist leaders (including Denny) met for more than two hours with government leaders. They discussed church-state matters, especially the situation regarding the CCECB. The visitors inquired about believers in jail, and they asked for clemency for Vins and others. A government spokesman said that the AUCECB had made such a request last fall on behalf of 180 imprisoned dissidents and that sixty of these had been released.

Current reports reaching the West, however, indicate that arrests and other harassment of CCECB members are still occurring. The Soviet Union has not changed its policy toward believers, insist critics, and ailing Georgi Vins is Exhibit A.

Moon’S Marriages

More than 1,600 couples were wed this month in a mass ceremony in Seoul, Korea, presided over by Korean cultist Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church. Marriage has special religious significance for members of the sect, and Moon has a necessary role in approving—and even selecting—the partners, who must serve the church for three years before becoming eligible for the rite.

Many of the couples did not know each other before the week of the wedding. As a matter of discipline, they are required to wait for forty days after the ceremony before consumating their marriages. Core workers are expected to work as missionaries for the first three years of their marriage, separated from their mates.

A number of Japanese parents formed a group to protest the mass wedding, but to little avail. An estimated 500 Japanese couples took part. (The Moon followers, who believe a Korean Christ will soon appear on the scene to finish the work of salvation, have made Japan a special target of their evangelistic endeavors this month.)

Meanwhile, Moon’s church has been buying up hundreds of acres—about $5 million worth so far—near Tarrytown, New York, apparently to build a major center or university.

Jungle Jingling

Christians in Liberia’s jungle region recently held their first “faith promise” missionary conference. More than 700 believers gathered in Tournata Village for the eight-day conference. Evangelism minister Elmer McVety of Toronto’s Peoples Church was the main speaker.

The total faith-promise (pledges) offering of $8,721.51 hardly seems comparable to the $711,000 that was pledged by The Peoples Church in Canada at its 1974 missionary conference. But McVety points out that the average yearly income in the jungle is $125.

The Association of Independent Churches of Africa, headed by Liberian Augustus Marwieh, will use the funds for missionary outreach to unevangelized tribes. The Liberian churches plan to make the “faith promise” offering an annual event.

LESLIE K. TARR

Scientology: No Case

The Church of Scientology of Toronto withdrew libel suits against two public library boards in southern Ontario. The cult had charged that the Hamilton and Etobicoke libraries were circulating defamatory books about it. Specifically mentioned were Scientology—The Now Religion by George Malko, The Mind Benders by Cyril Vosper, Inside Scientology by Robert Kaufman, and Scandal of Scientology by Paulette Cooper. In a letter to the executive director of the Canadian Library Association, Philip McAinly, a Scientology minister, wrote: “we have decided that libraries should be free to circulate whatever literature they please, providing all viewpoints on the subject are presented.”

The Canadian Library Association had urged libraries to keep the books on shelves despite threats of legal action by the Scientologists. It had underscored its support by advancing $1,000 to help the libraries with legal fees.

Earlier, a Missouri court threw out a million-dollar Church of Scientology suit against the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a team of reporters for a series of articles on Scientology last year.

Cops And Krishna

Members of the Krishna Consciousness sect, known for their “hare Krishna” chants, orange robes, and shaved heads, are in trouble in West Germany, according to German news sources. Temple president Peter Kaufman, 24, and vice-president Stephen Kress, 27, were arrested at their castle retreat in the Taunus mountain region. They were apprehended along with nearly eighty other members in the castle. Police say they found a number of weapons and about $25,000 in cash.

Kaufman was charged with fraudulent begging and violations of the gun law. Kress was also accused of fraudulent begging and of kidnapping his two-year-old daughter from her legal guardian, possibly smuggling her into a foreign country.

Police officials claim records found in the castle showed the group had an income of some $90,000 per month. Of that, about $2,000 monthly went to sect headquarters in Bombay, India, and more than $1,000 went toward rental of the castle. The average daily income from begging and peddling (books, incense, tape recordings, and the like) was approximately $175 per person, say the police.

WILLIAM SHUSTER

Decline In France

All is not well with the Catholic Church in France. While 90 per cent of the French are baptized Catholics, polls show only 20 per cent or so attend mass weekly (50 per cent of American Catholics do so). The number of priests has declined from 41,000 in 1965 to 37,000 this year, and it is expected to slump below 32,000 next year.

REPORTING FOR DUTY—AS ALWAYS

Retired Salvation Army major John Jay Shearer of suburban Atlanta celebrated his 104th birthday a few weeks ago, and he’s still going strong. He told Atlanta Constitution reporter Alice Murray he “got saved” in a Salvation Army meeting in Chicago in 1894 at the age of 23, joined up two years later, and has been evangelizing for the Army ever since.

“You can’t get into heaven unless you have been born again. [Jesus] is coming again, and he’s coming soon,” the feisty, blue-eyed patriarch tells almost everybody he meets.

At one time Shearer served as aide and barber for General William Booth, who founded the Army in London in 1865. The general had long white hair and “a great white beard,” recalls Shearer.

A typical day for Shearer begins with breakfast at 5 A.M., a half-mile walk around the neighborhood, a long ride on an exercise bicycle, and a period of prayer and Scripture memorization.

White House Welcome

Thirty-five leaders of the National Council of Churches, representing all thirty-one member-denominations of the NCC, met with President Gerald R. Ford for about an hour following the evangelical-oriented National Prayer Breakfast on January 30. It was the first time in more than a decade that NCC leaders were welcomed at the White House, off-limits to main-line church leaders during the Johnson and Nixon administration because of NCC-led criticism of the Viet Nam war.

The meeting was in response to a telegram NCC general secretary Claire Randall sent Ford after his inauguration requesting that he meet with religious leaders, according to NCC press secretary Warren Day. A White House spokesman said other meetings were planned with Catholic leaders, Jewish officials, and heads of religious groups not included in the other gatherings.

Both Ms. Randall, the only woman in the delegation, and NCC president W. Sterling Cary commented favorably on the meeting, which was closed to the press. They and others indicated the meeting’s greatest value lay in the channels of communication it opened. The NCC leaders discussed their concerns in the areas of human rights, the world food crisis, and the economic and energy situations. Questions concerning Southeast Asia were not raised. At one point Ford and the churchmen exchanged views on national priorities. Ford said he would designate aide Ted Marrs to act as his personal liaison with the NCC for ongoing matters. Be specific when raising issues, he urged.

Cary thanked the President for his “openness” and for his “willingness to enter into dialogue with those he didn’t necessarily agree with.” He closed the session with a prayer for guidance for the President, “who does not have the luxury of simplistic solutions,” and for a “day of healing, not only for our land but for the world.”

Leon The Lobbyist

Black Baptist clergyman Leon H. Sullivan of Philadelphia, founder of Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC), a self-help training program, did some public lobbying with President Ford this month. Ford spoke at a luncheon meeting of some 1,500 delegates, dignitaries, and business leaders at the OIC’s annual convention in Atlanta this month, the largest black audience Ford has addressed to date (black mayors and African ambassadors were among those attending). During introductory remarks, Sullivan told the President that OIC, which has 117 chapters in forty-seven states and four African nations, had already trained 200,000 people.

“Strengthen the roots and you strengthen the tree,” boomed Sullivan. “We’re going to help you, Mr. President. Now, you help us get that $75 million.” He was referring to the amount he wants the government to give OIC for expansion to 200 more cities and other countries and to train 75,000 new workers.

Ford good-naturedly acknowledged Sullivan’s pitch and his efforts on behalf of the unemployed and unskilled. Then he launched into a standard speech on energy proposals, which got only a cool reception from the audience.

Still lobbying, Sullivan presented the OIC’s Excellence in Government award to Donald Rumsfeld, Ford’s chief of staff. “We know you as a friend of OIC,” said the smiling Sullivan.

Later in the day Sullivan gave the OIC’s state-government award to Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama. Black mayor John Ford of Tuskegee introduced Wallace, saying, “My governor has been fair and judicious to all Alabamans—rich or poor, black or white.” Wallace in his acceptance speech characterized Sullivan as a modern Booker T. Washington. He described himself as a man “with one foot in the old South and one foot in the new South.” Blacks and whites must work together, he declared.

Allied For Aid

Ontario private schools took a step closer to obtaining government aid by forming an association of “alternative” and independent schools in Toronto. It includes schools run on a religious, linguistic, or private basis for which government funding is not provided.

One of the organizers is John Olthuis, a Toronto lawyer who represents the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools. Some 10,000 of the province’s 90,000 private-school students attend Alliance schools.

An initial goal of the new group, says Olthuis, is to get government approval for parents of private-school students to direct a portion of their taxes to the school of their choice. The government has turned a deaf ear so far.

Catholic schools by virtue of constitutional guarantees get government aid. This arrangement is an outgrowth of Canada’s French (Catholic)-English (Protestant) cultural division. Schools for the latter became the public (secular) system; those of the former retained their link to the Catholic Church. Organizers of the new association hope to convince government officials that the system of private schools is just as valid a recipient of aid as the Catholic system.

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Paul As Villain

The Jesus Party, by Hugh J. Schonfield (Macmillan, 1974, 320 pp., $7.95), and The Jesus Establishment, by Johannes Lehmann (Doubleday, 1974, 212 pp., $5.95), are reviewed by Paul L. Maier, professor of ancient history, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Both of these titles are rewritings of early Christian history based on the now common (but unproven) thesis that Paul and the gospel writers grossly warped Jesus’ message and falsified facts about his life into the caricature of it believed by later Christians. Neither book uncovers any especially new evidence to support such contentions, despite the sensational claim made on the jacket of The Jesus Party: “This revolutionary view overturns nearly two thousand years of Christian tradition.…” No, it doesn’t.

Dr. Hugh Schonfield, the English scholar-popularist, is well known for The Passover Plot and its follow-up, Those Incredible Christians. For all its melodramatic restyling of Holy Week, The Passover Plot is regarded by most scholars, whether Jewish, Christian, or neither, as an embarrassment to the cause of serious scholarship. Short on evidence but long on imagination and the “thesis-becomes-fact-a-chapter-later” ploy, the work is taken seriously today only by extreme biblical revisionists or by the uninformed.

But in The Jesus Party Schonfield has somewhat mended his academic manners, and his position now is not quite so irresponsible as that of a few of his Jewish co-religionists who are justifiably tired of being branded as “deicides” because of Good Friday and have prepared their literary replies in various ways. For example, Schonfield will have nothing of the too drastic rewriting of history attempted in The Trial and Death of Jesus (Harper & Row, 1971) by Israel’s Justice Haim Cohn, who would have Annas and Caiaphas as Jesus’ “dear friends” rather than antagonists. On the contrary, writes Schonfield, “the behavior of the chief priests in the first century A. D. had become a scandal, as all the sources agree, including Josephus and the Talmud.” He correctly points out that Jesus had a great number of Jewish followers who supported him also after Holy Week, though by some magic he tries to make the claque who shouted for Jesus’ death before Pilate into “largely Gentile servants and henchmen of the chief priests.” Henchmen of the priests, certainly, but where is his evidence for “largely Gentile”?

It is the earliest Jewish-Christian group in particular that Schonfield traces in this book. Their chief was Jacob (James), the younger brother of Jesus, and many of these true partisans of his cause remained orthodox Jews, indeed, revolutionary nationalists, Schonfield claims, until some of the moderates moved from Jerusalem to northeastern Palestine. In variously named groups—Nazoreans, Ebionites, Mandaeans—these Jewish followers far more accurately reflected Jesus’ teachings than did that transformer-of-the-message, Paul of Tarsus. The gospel writers followed Paul’s style in relating to the Gentile world, Schonfield asserts, and in order to make their message palatable to a victorious, Gentile Rome, “the Jews” became the ethnic “fall guys” for the death of Jesus and are falsely portrayed as hostile to the early Church.

The last argument, of course, has become something of a standard in all these books, but it can easily be disproven (See my “Who Was Responsible For the Trial and Death of Jesus?,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 12, 1974.) There is, however, no question that large numbers of Jews did indeed support Jesus, also after Holy Week, and so anti-Semitism was a particularly stupid and tragic sin in church history.

Some of Schonfield’s touches are accurate enough. He correctly points out that Jesus was indicted before Pilate at the Palace of Herod in west Jerusalem, not at the Tower Antonia shown to all tourists today. This is demonstrably true. He also seems to accept large sections of the book of Acts as essentially factual.

He errs, however, in whipping several tired hobby horses too furiously in this book. He identifies the Ophel, a mound southeast of today’s Jerusalem, as the place of the Last Supper and headquarters for early Christianity—without any scrap of supporting evidence that I can find in his text, but for the probable purpose of forging a link with the revolutionary Zealot party, quartered on the same hill. His chronology of the life of Jesus founders on an impossibly late dating for the Crucifixion, A.D. 36, which to my knowledge is shared by almost no one else on earth. He claims that John the Baptist was beheaded in A.D. 35, and that Jesus’ crucifixion could not occur until a year later. But this is a mistaken interpretation of the text of Josephus (Antiq., xviii, 5, 2), which introduces the execution of John purely as a flashback in later material.

Schonfield’s use of the sabbatical year to explain periodic Jewish restlessness and rioting, while something of a fresh argument, is simply overdone. From these pages, one would conclude that the Jews rioted only every seventh year, when they had copious free time on their hands. In fact, they always rebelled against specific provocations, whenever they occurred, regardless of any presumed sabbatical cycle.

The reader must also be careful of assumptions given out as general fact—an old Schonfield habit. For example, Luke did not write his gospel until A.D. 90–110, since he clearly read Josephus first, Schonfield argues. This crucial point is by no means proven, and we need not assume, just because Josephus is our only other surviving source on material included also in Luke, that Luke’s information could have come only via Josephus. In fact, there were dozens of other sources at the time, now lost to us (cf. Luke 1:1). Caveat lector!

Finally, Schonfield supplies quite a collection of fanciful, imaginative reconstructions-to-explain-away-the-miracle, a la The Passover Plot. The Pentecost experience was merely a case of the disciples’ getting headaches from a sirocco, a south wind that does weird things to people, while The Paraclete was only their Upper Room host, John. His and Peter’s healing of the victim at the Temple gate was the parading of a “fake cripple.” Peter’s release from prison (Acts 12) was merely the “Jewish underground” doing an effective job, while Paul suffered “a kind of epileptic fit” on the road to Damascus. And so it goes. In most cases the reconstructions are harder to believe than the miracles.

Johannes Lehmann is a news feature editor at one of Munich’s largest radio stations. He has studied much theology and wields a facile pen. Unfortunately, his homework was done with preconceived biases even stronger than Schonfield’s. A look at his bibliography (Allegro, Brandon, Davies, Schonfield, etc.) is sufficient to set the stage for what in the German original is better entitled, Jesus, Incorporated. A fitting subtitle would have been: “How the Church Wrecked Christ’s Message.” The bêtes noires are, again, Paul, and particularly Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who comes through with all the ugly hues first painted by Jacob Burckhardt in the nineteenth century.

Some of Lehmann’s criticisms all Christians can and do agree with, but such strictures were new only in the sixteenth century, when Martin Luther first voiced them. Lehman closes his book epigrammatically: “The man from Nazareth proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God; instead, there came the Church. For the sake of the man from Nazareth, we should bid the Church goodbye. It actually had no use for him.”

But in keelhauling the Christian Church, why is Lehmann so sepulchrally silent about the many areas where the Church, with all its faults, did affirm Jesus’ message in order to deliver hope to people in the adversity of the Dark Ages, where it also singlehandedly kept Western culture alive by millions of monkish man-hours spent in recopying manuscripts to save the classics from extinction? He dares argue, “I cannot recall a single case where the Church called for a boycott … to halt or denounce a war,” quite ignoring the fact that it was the Church that limited medieval warfare by studding the week with truce days, or acting as the Red Cross before the Red Cross where war broke out anyway, and later opening medical mission stations across the world. And where was higher education first fostered and the university born but in the Church? What, in fact, was and is the spiritual alma mater of Western civilization?

Must so many of today’s publications be sensationalizing screeds, aiming for sales, not scholarship? Whatever happened to balance in literature?

Three Looks At The Apocalypse

The Most Revealing Book of the Bible, by Vernard Eller (Eerdmans, 1974, 214 pp., $3.95 pb), A Personal Adventure in Prophecy, by Raymond Kincheloe (Tyndale, 1974, 214 pp., $4.95, $2.95 pb), and There’s a New World Coming, by Hal Lindsey (Vision and Harvest House, 1973, 308 pp., $4.95, $2.95 pb), are reviewed by Robert Mounce, dean of the College of Arts and Huma ities, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green.

Writing a joint review of three commentaries on Revelation is only slightly less difficult than converting a committed chiliast to the amillennial position! Eller, Kincheloe, and Lindsey are all premillennialists, but they by no means approach the Apocalypse in the same manner. Lindsey believes that prophecy, by its very nature, is relatively incomprehensible until the historical period arrives in which it is being fulfilled. For this reason men like Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin “knew little about prophecy,” although the contemporary interpreter finds that the meaning of the book “becomes clear with the unfolding of current world events”. Lindsey discovers such modern-day phenomena as the European Common Market, Red China, helicopters, the cobalt bomb, and Telstar all tucked away in this ancient book apparently addressed to seven first-century congregations in Asia. In fact, the very symbolism of the book results from the necessary skewing of first-century Greek so as to convey twentieth-century socio-political and technological developments. “After all, how could God transmit the thought of a nuclear catastrophe to someone living in the year A.D. 90!”

Eller, on the other hand, insists at the outset that “calendarizing” (fitting the events of John’s visions into the calendar of contemporary world affairs) undermines the very eschatological stance that Jesus and the New Testament intend to teach. He views the many popular attempts to locate the fulfillment of John’s prophecies in a particular point in history as trying to “pull an end run on God and find out what he expressly indicated is not to be found out.” Throughout the commentary Eller takes potshots at calendarizers. After explaining that Armageddon has no relationship to a place called Megiddo (it resulted from a copyist who mistakenly altered the Hebrew “mount of assembly”), he notes that the matter is not a crucial one “except for calendarizers who may want to sell seats and thus need to know just where the scene is to transpire.” In the one place where a temporal historical reference cannot be denied (17:9–17), Eller is forced to the rather bankrupt expediency of creating an interpolator of “calendarizing mentality” who thought he could improve on John’s work by adding a paragraph to show his readers that the beast was none other than the then current emperor Domitian.

It would be difficult to find two commentators further apart in basic approach than Eller and Lindsey. Yet they have one characteristic in common: both have a weakness for “cute” writing. Lindsey likes to call the rapture “the Great Snatch” and labels an excursus on the harlot in chapter 17, “A Short History of ‘Hookers.’” Believers who were fed to the lions in the cruel games of the Coliseum are “one-time guest stars,” and whoever thinks that hell is fun and games needs to reflect on whether he’s ever seen anyone playing poker in a blast furnace. First prize for inappropriate prose, however, goes to Eller. When the lamb appears in chapter five he writes:

So the main bout on the card of history (for the heavyweight championship of the entire created universe) is to be ‘Arnion vs. Therion’! Oh, no, no, no! God wouldn’t send that wee, little slaughtered lambkin up against a monster like that! It isn’t fair! He doesn’t have a chance [p. 79].

Or again, commenting on the slaughter in 14:14–20 he tells us:

Some clever head has figured out the amount of blood that could be squeezed from an average human being and divided that into the volume of a puddle two hundred miles in radius and as deep as a horse’s bridle. His conclusion is that, even if everyone went through the press of wrath, the cumulative population of the world still has not been nearly enough to provide the juice. It’s a bloody shame! [p. 144].

It’s a “bloody shame” that a scholar and writer of Eller’s ability can’t resist the temptation to play to the crowd. I believe that the seriousness of the issues under consideration in this last chapter of God’s written revelation to man demands a far less cavalier treatment.

With the book by Kincheloe we enter into a different atmosphere. His work is a modest although effective attempt to provide both a methodology for individual study of the Apocalypse and his own organized insights into its meaning. Each chapter is introduced by instructions designed to involve the reader in a personal and active relation with the text. The commentary is sprinkled with study projects, exegetical notes, and helpful summaries. Perhaps the only place that may surprise the dispensationally oriented reader is the interpretation of the contemporary period as the Philadelphian age with the Laodicean period arriving during the tribulation. He writes, “Current belief that we are in the Laodicean period is one of the greatest hindrances to revival today.”

One final word about Eller’s “universalism.” While stopping short of claiming that all men will finally be saved, he clearly holds to the possibility of repentance and redemption following their entrance into the lake of fire. This is what he understands as the “second resurrection.” A verse such as 14:11, which says that “the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever,” is explained as one of those places where John has overdone it and misrepresented the character of God.

The Anabaptist Contribution

The Theology of Anabaptism: An Interpretation, by Robert Friedmann (Herald, 183 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by William W. Wells, assistant professor of philosophy and religion, University of Hawaii, Hilo.

The Anabaptists have been variously labeled “the left wing Reformation,” a label that implies a basic continuity with the rest of the Reformation movement; “the radical Reformation,” a label that implies a lack of continuity; and “Schwärmer,” religious enthusiasts, a derisive label that implies that they were actually a deviant form of Christianity. Since the time of Luther, the third phrase has tended to receive the most attention, and, as a result, the history and thought of the Anabaptists have generally received little notice in studies of the Reformation.

But during the twentieth century, scholars have come to a greater appreciation of their contribution to the development of the church, and there has been a corresponding recognition that the attacks on the Anabaptists by the major reformers grew out of their ignorance of Anabaptist theological thought. Also of late, primary sources of the movement in English have become more readily available. (See, for example, The Legacy of Michael Sattler by John H. Yoder, the first in a series entitled “Classics of the Radical Reformation” being published by Herald Press.) As a result there is no longer any reason to remain ignorant of the movement or to continue to treat the Anabaptists as the black sheep of the Reformation.

In 1950 the Mennonite Quarterly Review devoted an issue to the theology of the Anabaptists; the lead article suggested that it would be premature to write a theology of the Anabaptists precisely because many of the primary sources upon which such a theology should be based were just then beginning to appear in English. The author of that article suggested that there had not yet been time to digest those materials. Following this lead article the reader finds three men trying to suggest the general lines along which a theology of the Anabaptists should be developed. The article by Franklin Littell argues that the distinctive contribution of the Anabaptists was their view of the church. (Two years later he published his book The Origins of Sectarian Protestantism, which elaborated and defended this thesis.) Harold Bender, in his article “The Anabaptist Theology of Discipleship,” argues that the idea of the church follows from the more basic Anabaptist concept of discipleship, the personal decision of the believer to follow Christ. The third interpretation presented in that issue of the Review was by Robert Friedmann. His posthumously published The Theology of Anabaptism is an elaboration of that original journal article.

It is generally recognized that the Anabaptists did not write any theological systems, and many have sought to explain that fact. Commonly, writers attribute this lack of interest in “system building” to the intense persecution directed at the Anabaptists or to the fact that theirs was basically a lay movement. Friedmann in his Theology of Anabaptism argues against both of these explanations, suggesting that the explanation must be found in their experience of the Christian faith. Luther suffered through many years of anxiety before discovering that God was willing to forgive his sins. He was asking the theological question: “How may I be forgiven?” The Anabaptists begin their theological reflection after the experience of being forgiven and ask: “How do I live my life now that I have been reconciled with God?” This Anabaptist perspective Friedmann calls “Existential Christianity.” Because of this perspective, the theology of Anabaptism remains an implicit theology, a theology not systematized.

If one examines this implicit theology, says Friedmann, one finds that the core concept is neither the sacramental idea of the Roman Catholic Church of the Reformation period nor Luther’s idea of justification. Rather one finds a “Kingdom Theology,” a theology of two worlds. At the heart of this theology is “the acceptance of a fundamental New Testament dualism, that is, an uncompromising dualism in which Christian values are held in sharp contrast to the values of the ‘World’ in its corrupt state.” The disciple is one who sees this dualism and chooses to follow Christ.

Having described what he sees as the core of the “Existential Theology” of Anabaptism, Friedmann devotes the third section of his book to traditional theological questions. It is, as John Oyer notes in his “Introduction,” the weakest section of the book. It seems significant, too, that 40 per cent of this section is devoted to questions of ecclesiology. This fact suggests that Littell might be right in saying that the core idea of the Anabaptists was their concept of the church.

Having read Friedmann’s book, I find myself unconvinced that it is even possible to write a good book with the title The Theology of Anabaptism, since all writers, including Friedmann, agree that the evangelical Anabaptists were—with only a few individual exceptions—completely othodox in their theology. Hershberger’s The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, a book of essays on distinctive Anabaptist ideas, would seem to be a much more appropriate form for approaching the theological contribution of Anabaptism.

In addition to this general criticism, I note that Friedmann seems to assume that personal, “existential” commitment must somehow exclude rigorous theological thought. Since I find this premise unacceptable, I find his defense of “Existential Christianity” also unconvincing. And I think that the basis of his crucial first and second sections is likely to be unacceptable to most readers.

The Anabaptists of the Reformation articulated many ideas that we now take for granted (e.g., religious tolerance) long before these ideas were generally accepted. Other typically Anabaptist ideas have not yet found general acceptance, though they might if properly presented. If some of these lesser known ideas are to receive general acceptance, they must be clearly set forth and defended. Friedmann’s book is an effort in this direction, but the other books mentioned will be of more value to most readers and remain at present the standards in the area.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

Simple Living, by Edward Ziegler (Brethren Press or Pyramid, 127 pp., $1.25 pb), Christian Asceticism, by J. A. Ziesler (Eerdmans, 118 pp., $2.25 pb), A Serious Call to a Contemplative Life-Style, by Glenn Hinson (Westminster, 125 pp., $2.85 pb), and Finding a Simpler Life, by John Cooper (Pilgrim, 127 pp., $5.25). Timely books for life in a recession! While the roads and reasoning differ, the goal is the same: to call people to a life-style devoid of mechanization and waste. Ziegler’s pattern is in the “plain people” tradition of the “Dunker” Brethren movement. Ziesler charts his course to renunciation with the motivation of God’s love, rather than self-deprivation. Hinson anchors his in a disciplined prayer life, a devotional life, that should lead to a mode of simplicity. Cooper offers an analysis of the trend in terms of disillusionment, his being the least “religious” examination of the life-style swing.

Theology, Physics, and Miracles, by Werner Schaaffs (Canon, 100 pp., $2.95 pb). A German physics professor gives an informative defense of biblical miracles.

Life Essential: The Hope of the Gospel, by George MacDonald (Harold Shaw, 102 pp., $1.95 pb). A stylistically edited collection of theological essays by the nineteenth-century Scot who was greatly admired by C. S. Lewis. Excellent as devotional reading.

The Works of John Fletcher, (four volumes, HSBC Press [Box 1065, Hobe Sound, Fla. 33455], 2,472 pp., $59.95/set). Fletcher (1729–85) was born and raised in French Switzerland but ministered in England. He is widely recognized as the foremost apologist for the burgeoning Methodist movement. This reprinted collection of his works will be especially welcomed by faithful Wesleyans of our time, but non-Wesleyan libraries need to acquire these influential writings as well.

The Roots of American Order, by Russell Kirk (Open Court, 534 pp., $15). In anticipation of the Bicentennial a conservative overview of the various influences and convictions that caused America’s revolution to produce more stability and liberty than other prominent revolutions. Biblical, Greco-Roman, Medieval, Protestant, and Deist influences are among those considered.

Yesterday, Today, and Forever, edited by T. A. Raedeke (Canon, 111 pp., $2.95 pb). Nine essays by some of the Key 73 leaders describing this evangelistic outreach.

O Christian! O Jew!, by Paul Carlson (Cook, 262 pp., $1.95 pb). A popular history of Judaism for the Christian. Good background material on the situation of modern Israel.

Audiovisual Idea Book For Churches, by Mary and Andrew Jensen (Augsburg, 160 pp., $3.95 pb), and You and Communication in the Church: Skills and Techniques, edited by B. F. Jackson (Word, 270 pp., $5.95). Introductions, The first focuses on such “how to’s” as organizing an audiovisual library and field trips (sight and sound experiences!). The second stresses communication—written, visual, and spoken. Chapters on the mechanics of producing and using tapes and slides are excellent.

Behold the Man, by George Cornell (Word, 206 pp., $5.95), and People Around Jesus, by Walter Kortrey (Pilgrim, 128 pp., $5.50). Slight literary liberties have been taken with the events and people surrounding Jesus’ life to embellish the account for more imaginative reading. In the first this brings the events and the people into fuller focus. In the second it provides insights into the lives and motives of Jesus’ followers. Both are stimulating pleasure reading with a biblical basis.

Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Volume One, edited by Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren (Herdmans, 479 pp., $18.50). This volume marks the launching of a major project as the counterpart to the nine volumes of Kittel. Articles on fifty-three key words or word-groups from abh (father) to badhadh (isolation). For all libraries and advanced students.

Christian: Celebrate Your Sexuality, by Dwight Small (Revell, 221 pp., $5.95). A theological approach to the full sexual identity and expression of man that offers a balanced, refreshing understanding of the biblical teaching. Highly recommended.

The Jews of the United States, edited by Priscilla Fishman (Quadrangle, 302 pp., $8.95). Historical and cultural survey of the Jewish people in America, stressing their contribution. Focus is more ethnic than religious.

On the Side of Truth, by George N. Shuster (University of Notre Dame, 351 pp., $9.95). Selections from the numerous writings of a prominent Catholic layman and educator and long-time foe of totalitarianism.

Divorce and Remarriage, by Dennis Doherty (Abbey, 194 pp., $8.50, $4.95 pb), Divorced and Christian, by Alice Stolper Peppier (Concordia, 93 pp., $2.95 pb), and The Risk of Fidelity, by Pierre de Locht (Dimension, 77 pp., $2.45 pb). Widely different and thought-provoking approaches to divorce. Doherty, a Catholic ethicist, presents a case for the acceptance of the practice from a moral and ecumenical perspective. Peppier deals with the emotions involved from a more biblical persuasion. De Locht adheres to the traditional Catholic view in questioning the moral right of any person to renege on a commitment, whether to marriage or to the priesthood.

This Morning With God, edited by Carol Adeney (four volumes, InterVarsity, 120–162 pp. each; vols. 1–3, $1.95 pb each; vol. 4, $2.50 pb). Recently completed, this daily devotional guide cannot replace Bible reading because it consists of questions on the passage for the day. Books from various parts of the Bible are included in each volume. (There is a Gospel in each volume, for example.) The whole Bible is covered in four to five years.

Christian Association for Psychological Studies Proceedings (CAPS [6850 Division Ave. S., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49508], 272 pp., $4 pb). The papers presented at the twenty-third CAPS convention. Good examples of the thinking on a variety of important topics (purposes in life, women’s role, clergy stresses) by evangelical psychologists and psychiatrists.

Startling Trends in Our Generation, by T. Wilson Litzenberger (Gibbs Publishing Co. [Broadview, Ill. 60153], 255 pp., $5.95). For those who want examples of how bad things are (in fifteen categories such as crime and famine) and how it all points to Christ’s return.

The Rhythm of God: A Philosophy of Worship, by Geddes MacGregor (Seabury, 120 pp., $5.95), and The Biblical Doctrine of Worship, edited by Edward Robson et al. (Reformed Presbyterian Church [800 Wood Street, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15221], 395 pp., $8.95 pb). Two quite different views of worship are presented. The first, in a gentle and easy-to-read fashion, relates the changing of high-church liturgy to the shifting needs of the people, but also stresses the natural evolutionary process of worship that comes from being in tune with God’s leading. The second provides a symposium to clarify the classical Reformed position on worship, as well as to offer a scholarly defense for singing only Psalms and those a cappella.

A History of Judaism, by David Silver and Bernard Martin (two volumes, Basic Books, 476 and 527 pp., $30/set). A major, worthwhile addition to the already copious literature. The scope is from Abraham to the present. Bibliography and index enhance the value.

Jacques Maritain: Homage in Words and Pictures, by John Griffin and Yves Simon (64 pp., $12.95), and Raissa’s Journal, by Raissa Maritain (404 pp., $12.95, both by Magi [33 Buckingham Drive, Albany, N.Y. 12208]). A tribute to and pictorial memoir of the late French Catholic philosopher, and his wife’s spiritual journals, which are arresting in their own right.

Religious America, by Philip Garvin and Julia Welch (McGraw Hill, 185 pp., $12.95). The creator of the televised film series of the same name presents photographs and descriptions of numerous examples of worshiping communities such as a Catholic monastery, a black Baptist church, and Hasidic Judaism in Brooklyn.

The Devil, You Say!, by Andrew Greeley (Doubleday, 192 pp., $5.95). A prolific author reflects in readable style upon a variety of vices (e.g., envy, privatism, ethnocentrism) and corresponding virtues. He says, wisely, ‘The evil one is greatly pleased when people think his principal threat is possession and black magic.”

Ethnologue, edited by Barbara Grimes (Wycliff Bible Translators [Huntington Beach, Calif. 92648], 388 pp., $6 pb). A systematic listing, as complete as possible, of the languages and dialects spoken in each country and the status of Bible translations for each. Helpful for linguists and the missions-minded.

Teach Me, Please, Teach Me, by Dorothy Clark et al. (David C. Cook, 142 pp., $2.95 pb). Twelve lessons and follow-up for presenting the Gospel to the retarded.

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Second of Two Parts

In Part One the author discussed two of the categories into which he has divided religious cassettes (1) Dead Men Who Still Speak, and (2) Living Men Worth Listening To.

3. Mini-Packages. These are cassettes designed to be used in groups and come accompanied by one or more aids, usually a leader’s guide. Thesis (P.O. Box 11724, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15228) markets an unusually fine selection covering a wide theological and interest spectrum. The Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation (15 16th St. NE, Atlanta, Ga. 30309) offers many evangelicals of note as well as non-evangelicals. Here you will find the new Archbishop of Canterbury, F. Donald Coggan, and the late C. S. Lewis on the Four Loves. No doubt other denominations have similar ministries. Billy Graham’s Decision Tape Library (1313 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis, Min. 55403) has a very good “Christian Life and Witness Course” taught by one of the Graham team members. The additional aids for studious evangelism are excellent, and many evangelicals can use these to train people to nurture new believers.

Musically, Word (Waco, Texas 76703) innovatively packages cassettes, words, and music all together for children’s musicals of high caliber. One of my former churches did Sam, a folk musical for juniors, and the package encouraged conductor and kids alike.

In the area of prophecy and the Holy Spirit, the Decision Tape Library has the “Four-Fold Miracle of Israel,” and Bethany Fellowship’s Dimension Tapes (6820 Auto Club Rd., Minneapolis, Minn. 55438) prepare for the coming worldwide calamities envisioned by David Wilkerson. Dimension also offers Larry Christenson’s “Fulness of Life in the Holy Spirit”—an album of ten cassettes. Dennis Benson is always provocatively interesting—a resourceful bundle of dynamism under the labels of Word and Audio-Graphics, and in print with the book Electric Love (John Knox, 1973). He is just ambiguous enough that an evangelical can “save” his cassettes for the saving of souls.

4. Maxi-Packages. Some productions are very ambitious and successfully so. Word’s “The Edge of Adventure” by Keith Miller and Bruce Larson has a text, leader’s guide, activities manual, and three cassettes. Winston House (25 Grove Terrace, Minneapolis, Minn. 55403) creatively puts together filmstrips, a leader’s guide chock full of suggestions, and three cassettes for its “Springboards to Awareness” series on personal growth for all ages; however, evangelicals will want to “redeem” some aspects of this fine Roman Catholic production. Step 2 (1921 N. Harlem, Chicago, Ill. 60635) pulls out all stops with slides, manuals, cassettes, and a subscription cassette service.

5. The Pastor as Teacher. Evangelical pastors traditionally have a hand in every department of a church’s educational outreach. Little children will like Bethany Fellowship’s “Stories That Live” series, which comes complete with story book and coloring book. The series is a trifle simplistic and tinny. Augsburg’s “Tell Me a Story” series is outstanding (426 S. 5th St., Minneapolis, Minn. 55415).

Most of the independent publishers of evangelical curricula produce cassettes that complement their Sunday-school materials (David C. Cook, Gospel Light, Standard, and Scripture Press). David C. Cook has two albums: “Eight Successful Youth Workers Tell You How.” However, with sixteen speakers, some are bound to be duds—on tape, anyway. A truly worthy program is that of Success With Youth (P.O. Box 27028, Tempe, Ariz. 85282). Its Whirlybird, Jet Cadet, Alpha and Omega Teen materials are well known to evangelicals. On tape, Success With Youth is superb. “Youth Education Service” is its training album for adults who want to sponsor youth groups. Larry Richards is the consultant. The several albums of Bible-study cassettes are remarkably fine.

6. The Pastor as Counselor. Increasingly, the pastor is called to counsel, and in these days of financial squeeze he will be less able to refer counselees to expensive psychologists, psychiatrists, and marriage and family counselors. The pastor will simply be called on more in the months and perhaps years ahead. All that he can acquire by way of preventive and counseling skills will be to his advantage.

I have successfully used Howard and Charlotte Clinebell’s book and study guide, Intimate Marriage (Harper, 1970), with couples interested in enhancing good marriages. Evangelicals must use Clinebell judiciously; he is theologically vague while humanistically insightful. Abingdon’s Audio-Graphics has several Clinebell albums on such topics as marriage enrichment. Evangelical women’s libbers will not be happy with the conservative “The Christian Family” series by Larry Christenson (Bethany Fellowship). A happy medium, though lacking significant scriptural support, is the “Toward Marriage” series narrated by U. G. Steinmetz (Family Enrichment Bureau, Escanaba, Michigan 49829).

7. The Pastor’s Professional Enrichment. David C. Cook has a series called “Eight Successful Pastors Tell You How,” but two of them have been in the news lately more for “how not” (Charles Blair of Calvary Temple in Denver and Rex Humbard of Cathedral of Tomorrow in Akron). Ministers Life Resources (3100 W. Lake St., Minneapolis, Minn. 55416) has a very fine continuing series of pastoral aids including tapes on “A Better Pay Package” and “The Minister’s Housing Allowance.” A second continuing series by the same company is the excellent “talking magazines” under the name Ministers Cassette Service. Just about everything you would find in a newsy professional magazine is here. The theological range is wide and fair, from CHRISTIANITY TODAY editor Harold Lindsell to left-of-center types with nary a hint of the outrageous right or left. Other companies are doing much the same. Word puts out “Catalyst” with a theological mix much like that of the previously mentioned Ministers Cassette Service. Thesis (P.O. Box 11724, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15228) produces another theological spectrum called “Thesis” accompanied by “Update,” a little prompter for groups of theologically literate laymen or pastors. Two more talking magazines are Lutheran ventures. “Compendium/Concordia” (Concordia Publishing House, 3558 S. Jefferson, St. Louis, Mo. 63118) is a series of first-rate, lengthy, graduate-level albums. Recent topics include the concept of revelation in biblical and contemporary theology, and the art of exegesis. The American Lutheran Church is the creator of “Resource” (Augsburg Publishing House, 426 S. 5th St., Minneapolis, Minn. 55415), which covers a wide territory but focuses on preaching.

Cassettes are coming in big, and as the days grow bleaker and people look to the churches for consolation, the possibilities for a creative pastor grow brighter.—DALE SANDERS, pastor, Riverside United Methodist Church, Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Ideas

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Before the close of the International Congress on World Evangelization last July, the participants agreed that there was a need for an ongoing committee to carry out what was started there at Lausanne. The resultant Continuation Committee met for the first time last month in Mexico City. Its members had been chosen from lists voted on by regional meetings at Lausanne and therefore were representative and selected democratically.

The Lausanne Covenant affirmed that the mission of the Church comprises more than evangelism. There are, moreover, some responsibilities of Christians that are not direct responsibilities of the Church. At Mexico City the mandate of Lausanne was neither ignored nor circumvented. The statement issued by the Continuation Committee said:

“The furtherance of the church’s mission” means the encouragement of all God’s people to go out into the world as Christ was sent into the world, to give themselves for others in a spirit of sacrificial service, and that in this mission evangelism is primary. More than that within our primary task of evangelism, our two particular concerns and burdens must be the 2,700 million unreached peoples and the other millions of people in nominally Christian areas who have not yet heard or responded to the true gospel.

At Mexico City the Continuation Committee said that its primary business is that of evangelization. In this it followed in the tradition of many other para-ecclesial organizations that choose to emphasize some important segment of the Church’s mission and thus become specialists rather than generalists. The Student Volunteer Movement was a specialized ministry. So were the Faith and Order and the Life and Work movements. The London Missionary Society was founded in 1795 “to spread the knowledge of Christ among the heathen.…” The principle is a common one. In medicine there are brain surgeons, chest surgeons, pediatricians, obstetricians, and so on. In seminaries where there are Old Testament and New Testament experts, church historians, systematic and biblical theologians, and the like. The Lausanne Continuation Committee followed the principle of specialization in making world evangelization its primary business.

A second important decision was to create no large, bureaucratic structure that could be construed as competitive to existing structures. Furthermore, the members decided that the committee should not attempt to do other tasks within the mission of the Church that are being done by existing agencies. A large number of relief agencies, many operated by evangelicals, are at work in the world today. The committee intends to encourage and support the relief efforts of other agencies rather than attempt to set up another.

Many people wondered whether Lausanne would produce a counterpart to the World Council of Churches, or to the World Evangelical Fellowship, or to the various evangelical alliances that exist around the globe. It did not, and the Continuation Committee left the matter of structure for further consideration at the next meeting of the committee a year hence. In the meantime it can consider the opinions of Christians from around the world on this matter.

The Continuation Committee (and surely the name itself is a sign of the modesty of purpose) did express the desire to keep its work decentralized, and it adopted a program of regionalism. Each geographic group is free to do what is called for by its own culture, needs, and evangelistic aspirations. Each is free to develop structures or to adopt no structures at all. Each is free to cooperate with existing organizations in line with the purpose to reaching the whole world with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Committee members from North America met as one region. Before the meeting an Evangelization Forum had already been started in North America. The American members of the Continuation Committee plan to meet with this forum to consider cooperative action and to enlist the churches in programs of evangelism designed to reach every North American.

The central concern in all this is the salvation of multiplied millions of people who have never heard the true Gospel. The success or failure of Lausanne will be determined, not by ensuing programs and structures, but by the acid test of whether it enables unreached women and men around the world to hear and respond to the gospel invitation. And this can be accomplished “not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 6:4).

On Balancing The Budget Critics

The President’s budget is under a lot of fire from all directions. We offer a few comments on matters of principle rather than specifics. First, the budget has historically been both an executive and a legislative activity. It is not insubordination for congressmen to disagree with it. With the formation of the new budget committee, Congress is in better shape to coordinate its budgetary activities.

Second, those who criticize should have alternatives to offer. For example, to insist that “we must have a balanced budget” without considering the feasibility and the good and bad side-effects is irresponsible.

Third, those who want to alter the budget need to speak of changes that would affect not only others but also themselves. A tax “loophole” is a benefit that some other person or company receives—one’s own “loopholes,” such as deductions allowed for contributions or for mortgage-interest payments, always seem to be unarguably in the public interest! Similarly, it is easy to talk about reducing payments to the poor and elderly if you are neither, or expenses for the military, or subsidies for regional airlines. But when it comes to subsidies in one’s own interest (such as, to speak of something vitally affecting this magazine, subsidies to the Postal Service so that second-class mailing rates do not go as high as they otherwise would), it is easy to come up with numerous reasons why they should be continued.

The point is, let cost-cutters and revenue-raisers speak primarily about reducing expenses and raising taxes that will affect them directly. The splinter in someone else’s eye is always easier to spot than the log in one’s own. But in budgeting, as in many other activities, the easier way is not the right way.

More Questions Than Answers

Contemporary theology is now in such disarray that one should perhaps be grateful for any countercurrent of consensus that resists the tide of radical deviation. When eighteen ecumenically oriented thinkers from nine or ten denominations can in the Hartford “Appeal for Theological Affirmation” agree on thirteen points, its challenge to the theological arena becomes noteworthy.

The Hartford statement reflects not so much a dramatic agreement on the indispensable content of the Christian revelation as a revolt against certain current theological fashions. It signals no triumph for systematic theology as such nor a clear victory for theology of any kind. If on first reading the declaration looks impressive, it does so because contemporary religious thought is a shambles.

Other than focusing on “the apparent loss of a sense of the transcendent,” the signers identified no real theological enemy; instead, they simply slapped the backside of a wriggling centipede and crippled some of its legs. Specific disclaimers include facets of the secular theology promoted in recent decades by Harvey Cox and Paul van Buren; of the situation ethics of Joseph Fletcher and John A. T. Robinson; of the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutierrez and James Cone; of the process-perspectives of Schubert Ogden and the late Teilhard de Chardin. By eclipsing divine transcendence in whole or in part, such religious theorists had acclimated Christian theology to secular naturalism and humanism. The Hartford theologians—mostly non-evangelical—have now laid down certain limits of tolerance.

While their statement rejects the superiority of modern thought over all past forms of understanding reality, it identifies no alternative norm. While it rejects the total independence of religious statements from rational discourse, it does not stipulate the cognitive significance of such statements. While it rejects referring religious language only to what is finite, it nowhere defines the metaphysical import of that language. The statement denies that Jesus can be understood only through contemporary models of humanity, but ignores Chalcedon. It rejects the equal validity of all religions but makes no claim for the uniqueness and finality of the Christian revelation. Although it refuses to equate salvation with self-fulfillment, it affirms only that salvation “cannot be found apart from God.” It rejects defining good and evil in terms of human potentiality but offers no alternative. It rejects the notion that the world sets the agenda for the Church’s mission but then nebulously derives the norms for activity from the Church’s “own perception of God’s will for the world.”

The “Appeal for Theological Affirmation” is so lacking in the affirmative and so replete with the negative that any comparison of it with Luther’s Ninety-five Theses and with the Barmen Declaration could only embarrass great theologians of the past. The Hartford consensus vindicates church tradition more than it proclaims scriptural authority; the lone reference to the Bible is a verse added just in time to serve as a caboose; and even the passing reference to Christ’s resurrection leaves room for all sorts of objectionable interpretations.

According to the Hartford enclave, recent theology has undermined “the Church’s ability to address with clarity and courage the urgent tasks to which God calls it in the world.” Unfortunately, Hartford too has done more to raise questions than to provide answers. It’s fashionable these days for free-wheeling clusters of conferees to meet unofficially on multitudinous issues. An atmosphere of ecumenism that rejects creeds as “tests” of faith but welcomes divergent “testimony” as enriching can give rise to a quite contrary witness some following week on a parallel circuit. In their 1,150-word declaration the Hartford theologians said nothing whatever about the problem of religious authority, which, after all, is the basic dilemma of ecumenical theology. Their wording, moreover, was technical and not without ambiguity; it hardly carried “good news” intelligible to the man in the street and in search of a viable faith.

The fast-fading twentieth century is still waiting for Christian theologians to say something compelling not simply to themselves and to some of their fellow theologians but to all the world.

The Damper On Détente

When Soviet authorities gave Georgi Vins his latest prison sentence (see News, page 41), they showed that they are afraid of Christians who are willing to stand up for what they believe. Their ideology bares its inherent weakness as a social system when it takes away the rights of religious activists. The Kremlin politicians see Christianity as an enduring threat, and how right they are!

First they canceled the trade agreement with the United States rather than grant concessions to restless Jews. Now in spite of protests they have decided to put away Vins. Not even an expression of concern—long overdue—for persecuted Christians by the World Council of Churches seemed to help him. The WCC appealed unsuccessfully to the Soviets to permit a non-Soviet legal observer to attend the trial.

Christians in the free world must do a great deal more for their brothers and sisters in the faith in the Communist countries. Jews have raised the matter of religious freedom to the level of a major world issue, and Christians should do all they can to keep it there.

Eschatology At The Enthronement

Frederick Donald Coggan was enthroned at Canterbury last month amid the sort of pomp and panoply that only the English can produce. Among the 3,000 or more who thronged the cathedral were the heir-apparent to the throne, the prime minister, and dignitaries lay and clerical whose solemn procession down the aisle took forty minutes. Three cardinals ensured papal representation for the first time since the Reformation. Another first, and almost as impressive, was the security operation launched, including the personal searching of visitors (the cathedral had been closed since the previous Sunday).

The ceremony was essentially the same as that followed in the cases of William Temple the social reformer, Geoffrey Fisher the ecclesiastical statesman, Michael Ramsey the scholar. With the sermon, however, the new primate was identified as Donald Coggan the preacher. His text was John 16:33. He saw in it realism and confidence, suffering and victory, Calvary and Easter. The twentieth century has parallels in the early Church, said Coggan: “tribulation; violence; materialism which shuts its eyes to extremities of wealth and poverty existing side by side; abandonment of the old gods, and a pathetic inability to replace them with anything adequate for the needs of modern man; fear on every side; and, because iniquity abounds, the love of many growing cold.”

It must have fallen strangely on the ears of those who had not realized that here was the first evangelical at Canterbury since J. B. Sumner’s appointment in 1848. More was to follow. The Church, said Coggan, is heading for tribulation, and Christians will have to face it—“no whining when that comes, no complaining when the winds are contrary. No crying to the world, for the sake of popularity, ‘Peace, peace’ when there is no peace!”

But with realism there is also confidence, continued the 101st archbishop, because of the One who has overcome the world. Then the Primate of All-England quoted General Booth: “We must grow till our arms get right around the world.” The sermon ended on a triumphant note: “We are on the victory side of Calvary. We are the children of the Resurrection. We are the sons of the Holy Spirit.”

We rejoice that the seat of St. Augustine is occupied by a pastor who so clearly enunciated biblical principles, including a strong eschatological note, before the most distinguished congregation he is ever likely to have. His opportunities are greater even than the cares of his high office. At this time when the Church of Christ needs wise and courageous leaders, we thank God for Donald Coggan’s witness, and pray that he may be continually strengthened and upheld as he carries out his ministry.

Family Forum

A million children run away from home every year. One out of three marriages ends in divorce. A White House Conference on Children in 1970 concluded that America’s families are in trouble “so deep and pervasive that it threatens the future of our nation.” These are reasons enough for a project called the Continental Congress on the Family, to be held in St. Louis in October. Among its worthy goals are to “clarify and redefine our biblical mission to the family,” “provide a forum for dealing with the hard, real issues affecting today’s family and church,” “awaken Christian conscience to the special family needs of minorities, singles and the aged,” and develop a program “for marriage-strengthening ministries.” This kind of clarifying and awakening and developing is sorely needed, and we wish the congress planners great success.

Charles Colson’S Future

Charles Colson has a problem. Now that he is free from prison, people will be watching him closely. His widely publicized conversion to Christ has been received with doubt or skepticism by many.

He can take comfort in the fact that even the Apostle Paul’s conversion was a matter of skepticism. Only after Barnabas acted as his sponsor would the twelve apostles meet with him.

Colson also has an opportunity. Although living under critical scrutiny is difficult, it provides an unusually great opportunity to witness to Jesus’ life-changing method.

We do not take lightly his offenses against our democratic traditions—but then, we suspect, neither does he now. We assure Colson of our joy in his profession of faith in Christ and commit ourselves to pray for him and his family as they begin to face their problems under the Lordship of Christ.

Morbid Curiosity

The “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” one of American television’s most popular situation comedies, is not usually a source of significant social commentary. But an episode early this year blended entertainment with veiled concern. Mary and her colleagues were determined to produce a documentary news program on a fine, upstanding public official. The media, she argued, had surfaced enough bums, and it was time to accentuate the positive. The show flopped.

This episode was shown, interestingly enough, as former White House lawyer John Dean, fresh out of prison, prepared to go on a campus lecture tour that was to bring him a handsome financial return. Meanwhile former White House press secretary Ron Ziegler also was coming back into the news as a result of college speaking engagements.

Like Mary, we bemoan the public’s apparently great interest in the notorious. But let’s not let it deteriorate into envy of the apparent prosperity of some lawbreakers. “Fret not thyself because of evildoers,” said the Psalmist. Whatever the past misdeeds, God will forgive if Christians through love are able to bring sinners to the point of seeing their need of the Saviour.

G. Richard Hook—In The Romantic Mode

G. Richard Hook, whose head of Christ superseded Warner Sallman’s in popularity, died last month at the age of sixty-two. Hook turned to religious art after the demise of a number of magazines for which he illustrated. He brought to this work considerable technical excellence. His illustrations, which provide a more virile and Jewish Jesus than much religious art, have had a spiritual impact on many Christians. Prints of his paintings are in great demand. Tyndale House’s Children’s Bible Story Book features the illustrations of Richard and his wife Frances.

As long as Christians demand religious art in the romantic mode, it’s better that they have Hook than many others. However, if they will broaden their aesthetic appreciation they will find for their enjoyment a rich store of good and significant art in a variety of techniques by artists ranging from Rembrandt to Rouault.

Two Ways To Get The Word

What is the import of Colossians 3:16? What point was Paul trying to make in admonishing believers to let the Word of Christ dwell in them richly? Commentators differ on whether “Word of Christ” refers to the Saviour’s preaching or to a broader concept such as the whole Gospel. Moreover, adverbs and adjectives don’t count for as much in modern English usage as nouns and verbs, with the result that some of the impact of “richly” may be lost upon us.

These two factors may tend to diminish the meaning of the verse for Bible readers today; that is regrettable, because it is without a doubt a key passage. We are here being urged to soak up Scripture; the obvious analogy is of a sponge absorbing liquid. Perhaps the calendar will help us heed the admonition, now that we are in the Lenten season.

The word “richly” appears in three other places in the Bible. In 1 Timothy 6:17 it refers to the way God gives us things to enjoy. In Titus 3:6 it describes the magnitude with which the Holy Spirit is imparted to believers. In 2 Peter 1:11 it suggests the extent of the welcome into the kingdom awaiting God’s faithful.

Many clergymen and lay church workers bypass Colossians 3:16 because they feel they are already into the Word in sermon or lesson preparation. But it might be advantageous to consider another kind of Bible study beyond the purpose-oriented kind. Traditionally all kinds of research have been divided into basic and applied, and in one sense the distinction carries over well into the matter of searching the Scriptures.

The analogy has its limitations because the theologically orthodox student of the Bible approaches it not as a scientist facing the unknown but as a seeker of that which God has already objectively revealed. At the same time, however, a difference can be made between looking into Scripture for answers to specific questions and studying it fundamentally, in a way not geared to immediate practical value. Isn’t the latter a way of letting God speak to us as he sees fit, and not simply in the context of questions and problems we sense as needing resolution?

Edith Schaeffer

Page 5786 – Christianity Today (19)

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Anyone who has seen an avalanche thunder down a mountainside sweeping strong rocks and trees, chalets and barns along with it as though they were pebbles and matchsticks in a stream, or anyone who has looked at the devastation caused by a cyclone such as the one that destroyed Darwin, Australia, last Christmas eve, knows what insecurity feels like. The sight of normally solid, dependable old landmarks suddenly shifting, sliding, and crumbling brings a reaction accompanied usually by an action! The action would in most cases be one of hurrying to more solid ground, the most dependable, safe area available.

Our news media report to us these days the crumbling of far more than mountainsides, houses, and towns. The “crumbling economy” and shifting value of money fill with dismay any who have looked with satisfaction at bonds and stocks or bank books as something to be counted on for the years ahead.

Security is often defined as a comforting amount of material goods in a house, bank account, land, and so on. The word “security” conjures up a picture of warmth, comfort, settledness, with no “risk” blowing a chill air in to bring a shiver.

Who wouldn’t prefer to be “secure” rather than “insecure,” whether in material things, health, emotions, talents, self-assurance, or human relationships?

Yet there is a danger signal that needs to be given very definite attention. You probably read in the accounts of the Australian hurricane that warnings had been given but had not been heeded because they seemed so impossible. We are warned that if we are secure in this world’s things, we are in danger of being insecure in that which matters most. We can be lulled to sleep by a false sense of security. If we are rich enough, have satisfactory health, have energy and talents, have enough food and shelter to feel protected from the spectre of “want” in its usual forms, then we can be harmed by the sweet drowsiness of warm security. If we have in our hands human security, we are not likely to feel the sensation of insecurity that it is important for us to feel.

“How ridiculous!” you may exclaim. “Who would find insecurity a desirable thing?”

Paul said, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Paul previously spoke of his experiences with shipwrecks, prison, beatings, hunger—things that would make anyone feel insecure. Is he now taking pleasure in further difficulties? What double talk is that—“When I am weak, then am I strong?”

It seems to me that Paul is saying, “When I am insecure in this world’s things, then I have a reality of my security in the Lord.” Paul makes it clear in Second Corinthians 12:7 that it was when he cried out to God in prayer in the midst of the insecurity created by the thorn in the flesh that God’s strength was promised to him in his weakness.

The writer of Psalm 91 speaks of the secure place that is the only completely dependable place to be: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of theLORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”

But wait a minute—a fortress means protection, and there must be an awareness of a need for protection. One runs to find refuge only in a moment of need.

“Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”

Would we run to hide under His wings if the noise of difficulty did not hit our ears with some kind of fearsome insecurity? As we read our newspapers, as we groan over the loss of money or lands, over the unsettled state of affairs in city or nation, are we not alerted to the fact that we may have been expecting a security for our lifetime in earthly things? We need to acknowledge quietly before the Lord the fact that insecurity in earthly things can open the way to our running to him, and finding the actual emotion filling us of the security under “his feathers” in his care.

“Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.”

It is not to be theoretical that in troublous times God’s children will one by one find the reality of his care. His care is to be a part of history. The truth of what God has spoken is to take place literally in life after life.

“He shall call upon me, and l will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him” (Ps. 91:15).

When will we “call”? When will we “run” to seek His security? Only when we are insecure in some portion of this world’s “necessities” of daily life and safety.

How secure a spot was Daniel’s in front of those lions? How secure do you think the three young men felt with their hands and feet bound, on their way to the door of the fiery furnace? How secure do you suppose Elijah felt as he sat by a wilderness brook during a time of famine? What security did these men have from the world’s viewpoint?

It is when earthly security is shaken to its core, when we are without a comfortable bit of “something to fall back on,” that we are ready to cry to God. The reality of trusting God comes when we really feel that our entire security is in him.

These days are troubled ones. Newsweek’s and Time’s reports as they looked back over 1974 may have caused you dismay. Predictions of a variety of brilliant men may strike fear into your heart. But together let us be thankful that we are being made aware of the insecurity, so that we can have the very specific result of security. Thank God for the security of insecurity!

“When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, OLORD, held me up” (Ps. 94:18).

Our action must be to run to more solid ground, the most dependable, safe place available in the universe. All other ground is sinking sand.

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